A Geek History of Time - Episode 52 - Twilight Zone and Existential Terror Through the Years Part I

Episode Date: April 25, 2020

And we begin with good day, sir. Geeks come in all shapes and sizes, and that they come into all kinds of things. I was thinking more about the satanic panic. Buy the scholar Gary Guy-Gak's. Well, wait, hold on. I said good day, sir. Not defending Roman slavery by any stretch. No, but that's bad.

Let him vote. Fuck off. When historians, and especially British historians, want to get cute, it's in there. OK. It is not worth the journey. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. is a geek history of time. Where we connect nor the re-to the real world, I'm Ed Laylock. I'm a 45-year-old now because I've had a birthday, father and history teacher in Northern California. My son has discovered while we've been in quarantine that his very favorite thing to do is kick a ball around the living room, which he thinks is historically funny and gives daddy a near heart attack at least two or three

times an afternoon. How about you? I am Damien Harmony. I am a Latin teacher up here in Northern California, as well as a history teacher up here in Northern California, as well as one half of a very successful pun competition. I have a seven-year-old and a ten-year-old. The seven-year-old thinks it's hilarious if I talk like a valley girl, and the ten-year-old tells me to stop being ridiculous. So I'm living my best life up here in quarantine.

That sounds so much like both of your kids. That's amazing. It really does. I can so clearly hear your son saying, stop being ridiculous. Oh yeah, and he just, he scrunches up his face like, stop being ridiculous. It's really cute.

So like, oh my God. And Julia loves that. It's pretty funny. I'm sure William just thinks I'm being ridiculous. So, you know, because you kind of are, which is kind of the point. Yeah. That's dad life, you know.

So, how's quarantine treating you? Well, aside from the cardiac issues being brought on by my son's discovery of indoor soccer, while surrounded by my, you know, liquor cabinet and a whole lot of fragile collectibles. We're doing, we're doing pretty well. Good. We're all holding together. You know, it's been today, we just had to have the conversation with my mother in law who lives in Reno about the family get together for Easter being

canceled. Yes. And that was unanimous between both of her children. My wife and my brother-in-law both said, yeah, no, we just, we can't, we've talked about it and we can't do it and She she was very disappointed and that's in a way that is the first time This has really come home, I think for

Some members of the extended family on that side. Sure, sure. You know, in my own case, like I mentioned a minute ago, I had a birthday just, you know, what day is it today? Today is Friday. Not quite, yeah. Not quite, not quite two weeks ago was my birthday. So it was a long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, and so normally my plan for my birthday is something like, all right, we're going to invite, you know, like everybody in our circle of friends are going to

get together, you know, go out to dinner, go have sushi, go do something. And of course, that was, you know, not doable. So we wound up having a teleconference dinner party, which wound up being massively chaotic and way. It's a lot easier to get 20 people together and hang out in a restaurant than it is to get 20 people together and hang out on multiple electronic devices for teleconference because it's too many conversations going on at once and each device is basically holding one conversation at a time between, you know, six people. And so yeah, it was, that was that was a point at which I think it came home for me. Okay. Because it's my birthday. Sure. And this was, I think, my mother-in-law's moment.

Gotcha. That's fair. So, that's kind of the big news on our end. How about with you guys? I might be the only person who's thriving under quarantine. I have my kids full-time because they're moms and nurse. And so we've been really, I mean, I'm getting them full time again. It's nice. And she gets to come by and ride bikes with them to keep social distance.

So we're fortunate that we are amicable enough that that works. And we make that work. I have left the house once in about two weeks in order to get stuff from my classroom. I'm going to head back to my classroom next week for a couple extra things because all of California is shut down all of its schools for the rest of the school year. So as far as the... Not? Yeah.

Not technically and entirely correct. The district is still indicating that we plan on going weird. We still officially will be going back on May for it. Oh good. I'm sure the governor can be overridden by a school district. Well he he recommend he he he said he said and the his his officer superintendent public instruction made a recommendation. Yeah. But the Salado County, it's still up to the County Office of Education and individual districts. And my, the County Office of Education for the county that I am working in and my particular

district are both trying to find a way to thread a needle on describing this, because the language I want to use is stronger than might be entirely appropriate in this forum. They're both low to commit to closing anything down. And I think there are a variety of motives at work and I think essentially it's going to it's going to take the county public health office Officially saying no no seriously shut it the fuck down right before the office of education or my district actually do it and

For whatever reason that county is one of the ones that has been graded And for whatever reason, that county is one of the ones that has been graded lowest in maintaining social distance and staying inside. I bet. Well, so yes, to answer your question, how I'm doing during quarantine, I'm rather enjoying my company being my children. That works. Yeah. Yeah, and I don't know that I've had like a real moment necessarily in terms of like oh my god It's really hit me because I've just been kind of reveling in my time with the kids It's not like there aren't difficulties, but that's true of kids no matter if there's quarantine or not. So Yeah, I will say this though. I Just had a death in the family and I know full well that I won't be able to attend any kind of funerals

for the next I don't know till the fall We'll see yeah, so so that's that that's probably the real is that it's or the the saddest that it's gotten for me No real existential terror yet, but. Okay, so here's a question. I'm pretty sure I already know the answer, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. On personality tests, like the Myers-Briggs and that kind of stuff,

do you rate as leaning toward introvert or extrovert? Extrovert. Very much so. Oh yeah, like I... And this isn't, and this isn't, because I beg the needle on extrovert. Oh yeah. And if I didn't get, if I didn't get the fuck out of the house daily, I would be, I would have turned into the mom at the end of, was it inheritance?

The possession movie. Oh, where did she climb her editor? Oh, I wanted to see. Yeah, hereditary, I'd be climbing the ceiling like some kind of possessed spider thing. Like, it would go completely by the way. I think it's because I have so many irons in the fire creatively right now.

I'm dealing with so many different disparate groups of people that I'm getting my interaction on. Don't get me wrong. I'm also calling people and texting people a lot more. But I am getting to interact with folks. Just before this recording, actually, we had our inaugural capital punishment on Twitch. So we had an audience of folks watching and that was kind of fun getting to perform for them.

It's nowhere near as cool as being in person and feeling that energy, but it's still something. So maybe I'm getting by on the diet version, but like I said, you know. I call it junk food extra version. Yeah, that's probably it. So I just, I probably am getting by on junk food right now. But there's no existential terror for me yet

and on a personal level. Speaking of existential terror. Yeah. Yeah, do you know what's really popular at times of tremendous uncertainty and frankly existential terror? A cult sex cult? Oh, probably. I don't know.

I let my membership lapse, so I don't know. Powerful stimulant. The odds are high on that one. Yeah, actually now that I think about it, yes. Yes, all of those things actually are absolutely part of the zeitgeist when that's going on. Also works right. Yeah, but that might be other things happening at the same time.

Okay. A loosening of restrictions on a woman's ability to decide for her own fate might be coinciding with those things. Okay. But also the twilight zone. Oh, shit. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so this episode is called twilight zoning through the terror.

So for those you who So for those you who like to skip the introduction, uh, we're at 10 minutes and you found the title. There you go. So yeah, uh, we're gonna Did you grow up watching it? I? Did yeah, the black and white or the color? Yeah, we're gonna. Ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne- when I got older, the black and white showed up on like movie marathons and stuff like that. And I fell in love with all of the above. It was pretty cool. So yeah. I, the black and white series was on in syndication on off the top of my head,

I wanna say channel six in San Diego, which back then was, you know, an independent station. Yeah. Now, I don't know if it's even still in business anymore, I might have been absorbed by somebody else. But, and yeah, the black and white ones were, like for seven-year-old me, the closest thing to horror that I could watch without it completely ruining my ability fall asleep. Because I've talked about it on prior episodes.

I've talked about the fact that I'm a complete wimp for horror movies because I have a massively overactive imagination. And the dark parts of my subconscious will latch onto stuff and mess me up. Sure. And so the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, original Twilight Dunno episodes was creepy enough that it, that it gave me that free song of, the pizza, the normal people get out of a horror movie

when it just like completely sends me into finer flight, but it was not serious enough to give me nightmares, keep me awake, whatever. So yeah, no, there's a big deal, yeah. Yeah, I remember the isolation of the music for the intro, for the color version, having a bit of an impact on me. Although I'm prone to like that very thing, isolation of certain chords or isolation of music

where it's not just an orchestral thing and suddenly it's stripped down to just one thing. That usually messes with me. I think I've told you the story of how Ruby Tuesday the song really messed me up for sleep. And if not, I'll get into some other time. But... Yeah, you've... Yeah, kind of tangential.

Yeah. Yeah, the Twilight Zone very much had an impact on me and it was, you know, family television for me. So it was, you know, family television for me. So it was nice. Christmas day, 1924, Rod Serling, full name Rodman, was born as the second son to a Jewish family in Syracuse, New York. His dad was previously an inventor of sorts, not a successful one per se,

but he also knew enough that when he had two kids that he needed to switch over to something more lucrative. So he became a grocer to provide for his family in a more steady way. And then- Okay, that's 26. Certainly was born in 24. 24.

Yeah, but then, I mean, you're kind of predicting what's coming up, the depression hit. So his father then switched over to being a butcher. And I'm not sure if he was a kosher butcher, I couldn't track that down. But I do know that typically minority ethnic and religious groups tend to be shut out of standard paths first during economic downturns. And as a result, those communities do tend to cloister up a little bit more. And interestingly, they suffer less overall.

Because of that, it's a weird rubber band effect. Well, yeah, and it's part of, you know, with any kind of, you know, religious organization in the United States, religious community in the United States. You know, the same kind of thing happened with Catholics. Most especially that was built into the culture of the Mormon church. Sure. Church of Latter-day Saints.

Yes. It's the beginning of the organization. Yeah. Do Mormons do business with other Mormons? Right. I had a student who actually was, he was one of seven kids. Now the first three were born in Afghanistan, the other four were born in America, and the first three grew up very close

with me because they were some of my first students. And I had each of them for one more year than the next. You know, I had one kid for, well, I had one kid for three years, then his brother, I had for three years, and then their brother, I had for four years. And they explained to me that during the beginning of the housing bubble collapse in 2007, they explained this.

They said that I should look into the Muslims in our area because they were Muslim and see how they weren't actually suffering that much the way the rest of us were because they weren't allowed in in the first place. And as a result, they also had to mostly just deal with each other and charging interest wasn't really a thing. Oh yeah, no, it's not. It's right. I'm off the top of my head. I'm trying to remember whether it's outright forbidden or if it's just heavily discouraged.

Yeah. Yeah. And there's different branches and different religious schools of thought and different groups. Yeah. And secondly, they were used to dealing mostly with each other, like I said. Now, the dad was the sole breadwinner in that family, and it was a family of nine,

and they were doing just fine. I mean, their house was smallish. They had me over for lunch once. Their house was smallish, but like, they were all doing fine. So, their dad, Rod Serling's dad, built a stage in their basement for the boys to perform on when they were young. And Rod himself was a percocious child. His teachers often called him a lost cause.

They called him a class clown, they called him a dreamer. Yeah. Yeah. He was that kid. I was afraid he was a neo Confederate. No, nobody loved wrestling. No, I'm kidding. I would love to know his thoughts on wrestling

because there was one episode where a guy wanted to watch wrestling. That was kind of the mcguffin of why the TV had to get repaired tonight. He ended up having an English teacher around seventh grade who saw what he had to offer actually and she steered him Was it she I forget But this teacher steered him probably because my seventh grade English teacher was a woman But they steered him wisely toward performing And he ended up on the debate team and he wrote for the school's newspaper in high school

Now growing up, Rod loved pulp novels, which I I never really got into pulp novels. I know several people who really like pulp as its own kind of genre, but he got into it and he also had a really strong justice from a very young age in social justice. Sorry, a strong interest in social justice. I was gonna say, yeah, okay. Yeah, and so he wrote stories. Oh, now Jewish kid, you know, in the 1920s, 1930s,

it makes sense that he would. Yeah, that's true, that's very true. So he wrote stories that blended these two loves. So social justice pulp. Yeah. stories that blended these two loves. So social justice pulp. Okay, and there we kind of have the formula for at least 40 something percent of twilight zone. Exactly, certainly the ones who wrote. Yeah, all right.

Now while he was in high school, he was actively encouraging people to support the war. This was 1943. That was his senior year. He's in New York. He's a Jew. I'm just saying this so that we can note that Rod Serling himself was Antifa. Yes, sir.

So much so that the day after he graduated from high school, he enlisted. And he had to be talked into waiting to graduate before enlisting. No kidding. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I had known previously that he had served, but I hadn't realized he was that gung ho. Oh, very much so. Oh, wow. And then he was a little dude, too, by the way. He was like, well, I

mean, he boxed. And I think he was a flyweight. And by the way, you know, you look at him on the screen and he's positively elfin looking. That's, you know, I guess so. I just, I always, I never really had an idea for how tall he was, but he was only like five four. Yeah. Well, you know, the camera, the way the way they handled the camera was, was I think, done in a way to make him not look like a short guy. Right. Well, they put it on his eye line so that you could see from his perspective. Standard trick.

Well, yeah, but, but kind of what I wore, what I meant by what I was talking about and being Elfin is, you know, you look at the shape of his face and you look at just his his build yeah he was he was a very he was a very very slender his his and I mean part of it was was the way he he affected everything when when he was when he was on camera he was trying to go for kind of that fay. Yeah, you know Yeah, you're outside of you know picture if you will often kind of picture if you will Submit it for your approval. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my god and that voice Like how much how much did he have to practice? I don't know, I think he just smoked a lot. That particular, well, okay.

Because he was smoking. Is that true? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, everybody was back then. But, you know, it's not just the gravel in his tone. It's the intonation that he got. The way he manipulated his tone on those on those syllables picture if you will, you know,

that, it's a masterclass in that kind of acting. Yeah, well, and he was, and I'll get to this later, he was kind of in that first wave of television, you know. Perfect timing. So he in many ways set the genre and set the tone as far as that voice. Now interesting, he got his nose broken both in his first and his last fight in the army. He, because he was a boxer. Oh really?

Yeah. So I still have 18 more than he does, but whatever. But I broke my nose last over the Atlantic Ocean last summer. 18 more than he does, but whatever. I broke my nose last over the Atlantic Ocean last summer. So in May of 19th, you're looking at me funny. I'm well, how could I not? Yeah, drop. What did you do? I did nothing.

I was, um, how to put, um, I was sleeping, but I'm such a big guy that I can't put my head down on the tray table. So, tray table was up and I was leaning forward on the, uh, on the, uh, the, the seat in front of me. And so the, the weight of my head just held the tension there. Well, we hit turbulence. And so I smashed the front of my nose on the tray table. And I was so damn tired because I was on duty the whole time I was there, taking care of kids and stuff. That I kind of it was a waking dream. And I was like, oh, whatever, okay. And then I went back to sleep. And I got home, like 12, 14 hours later, and went to bed, and the person who was next to me,

I woke up, I guess, I fell asleep on my stomach, which I never do. They're giving me kind of a light touch massage, which was really nice, helped me calm down. And I fell asleep on my stomach, and then I rolled over, and I guess I paintbrushed my nose. And I hit the broken part and I shot up like oh my God and my eyes were watering and my nose just felt like a gusher of just warm fluid just rushing down my face.

And I shot up out of bed and I was like oh my God and she woke up and she was like what what? I said I broke my nose and she's like just now And I ran to the bathroom and turned on the light. The problem is, when you turn on the light, when you've been sleeping, you're blind. So I couldn't see, but I could feel on my face all this wet. And I was like, well, I guess I'm just going to go back to sleep and clean the blood off later. And then I went back to bed and she's like, are you okay? I'm like, yeah, I'm fine. I'm just going to sleep it to sleep and clean the blood off later. And then I went back to bed and she's like, are you okay? I'm like, yeah, I'm fine. I'm just going to sleep it off because that's logic.

And then the next morning I woke up and she's like, so you broke your nose and I looked around. I'm like, where's the blood? And it wasn't. It was an inflammation response where all your mucus just floods. So I just, oh, it was gross. And so, and that day later on Because she she asked me via via phone And she like so did you break your nose? I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about and she's like last night

You shot up like you you know, you woke up and blah blah blah. I was like oh Oh, yeah, and then I touched my nose. I'm like, oh god that hurts Yes, I must have broken it and it was I was moving it and I was like, oh, okay, it's disjointed right there That's gonna be a couple. Yeah, it's but it was the 20th time I've broken this damn thing So I'm like pretty ennured to the pain and it bothers me that I hit number 20 because like nobody believes you broke Your nose 20 times, but if you say 19 they're like well, that's an oddly specific number Yeah, yeah, but 20, you're like, oh, you're rounded up. Next time we're actually face to face,

just hand me a table leg and I'll fix that for you. Thank you. Yes, and solve that problem. I have four table legs in my closet now, so it's good, because the revolution's coming. But yeah, he broke his nose twice, amateur. And in May of 1944, he got sent into combat, which is great, except that he got sent to the Pacific Theater instead of the European Theater, which was a bummer. Now his NCO,

yeah. Different brand of fascist, is all I'm saying. True, but he specifically had skin in the game. Like, these are people trying to kill my people, you know? You're okay. Well, yeah. It would be like sending Filipino Americans over to Europe. All right. You know, but it's not like you get to choose where to go. It's the army. No.

But he wasn't by accounts by his NCO. He wasn't a very good soldier. He was part of a group that was liberating Manila, block by block. And one time out, under fire, he ran out to rescue someone who had been performing on stage just before the firefight started. Oh really? So yeah, he's got some impulse control issues. I would

put him in Gryffindor. He spends a lot of the war in the Philippines and after the war and for the fact the rest of his life, he would have massive flashbacks and a lot of bitterness about the war. Now, I found an interesting story and I could not verify it, but I've heard it in a couple interviews, but I haven't been able to find the source. So take this as a illustrative, but not necessarily true. Okay. But this tells us something about his work experience.

One day in the Pacific theater, he was watching a fellow soldier who was entertaining everyone else by goofing around. And everybody was enjoying the break in the goofing around. And everybody was enjoying the break in the action, right? And morale was benefiting. And then a cargo container from their own army with the supplies that they needed fell on that man and crushed him to death in front of everybody. Yeah, I remember hearing that story. Yeah, and you might have heard it from me. Yeah. Because it's one I like telling. Yeah, well, I've heard it a couple places.

Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah, and that is like a textbook kind of thing that you'd see in Heller, you know, Fetch 22. Oh, yeah. That's precisely the kind of, you know, when Heller writes it, it's satire, but when it really actually happens, it's, you know, war is fucked up. Yes. Basically. Yes. So, yeah, so the absurdity of being crushed by the thing while you're trying to uplift people's morale, being crushed by the thing that will uplift

people's morale, the contradiction of it all, the severity of it all, inspired the kinds of stories that he would write there after. Okay, so after the war, he goes to college, he gets a degree and he starts writing, and according to his wife later on, he wrote 12 hours a day, seven days a week. He just had so much he had to get off his chest. And frankly, his timing could not have been more perfect for the advent of television.

I mean, you'd think about like him getting out of the war. It's 46 probably when he gets into college, right? And he's going to be graduating probably by 49 or 50. 50? Yeah. Yeah. Maybe 51 depending. Yeah.

And he writes for a number of shows right away. And he lives in New York. It racks up three Emmys by 1959. That's before he starts the Twilight Zone. He's got three Emmys to his side. What did he win them for? There were other, so there were these anthology shows and he would regularly write for them. And he was writing stuff that had to do with serious issues and stuff like that. I don't remember the actual specifics about what he won them for, but I know that he kept getting

frustrated by the amount of censorship he ran into prior to being in the Twilight Zone. And in fact, it was the, you know, what do we call it, the instigating event of him wanting to do the Twilight Zone was that he kept seeing his stuff. Like, for instance, he, because corporations were sponsoring this stuff, right? So, yeah, it does a story about... Paul Williams. Yeah, you know, he does a story about, yeah, you know, it does a story about

something in the Chrysler building and Ford is telling him to write it out because they don't want Chrysler mentioned and to show that they're subsidizing. So yeah, they're sponsoring, right? So the real problem for them, those he's trying to take on political issues and a lot of people were, you know, not wanting to touch that. It was the late 1950s, right? So he took on the Emmett Till murder. And it was about how a town could be so cold and nonchalant about somebody being murdered. He changed some things around, but pretty soon it got changed around so much by corporate, by the network that it was essentially,

I don't even know if they mentioned the word murder, and it was an old man and he was on the outskirts of town, and nobody in town knew who the old man was. So I mean, it was like, based on a true story kind of thing. And that was hugely frustrating. Yeah, that sucks. Yeah. Well, yeah.

So he got sick and tired of corporate censorship. He got really tired of sanitizing his own shows. And so he finally ended up with his own creative realm that he created with his own show. This was the Twilight Zone in 1959. OK. He owned the production of it. He hired the writers that he respected for about a third of the shows and he wrote the other two thirds and he was always sneaking in all kinds of

social justice stuff because it was sci-fi and as we've said before there's a ghettoization that happens to certain genres. Sci-fi on television was one of them. Well, sci-fi in general is, yeah. You know, at some point when we get around to talking about Cyberpunk, you know, William Gibson wrote a, I don't know if you'd call it an essay

or if he would somebody said in an interview, but actually, no, it was an essay. It was in the introduction to, I wanna say an anthology, my zone of work, short stories that he stated that science fiction writers are the court gestures of literature that they bring up truths and they bring up ideas that nobody else can get away with bringing them up because they're not taken seriously. Because Willie now he's the joker

that's what he does. The mockery he's doing is, you know, it's what he's supposed to do. That's his role. And so when a science fiction writer talks about a dystopian corporate health placement of limbs with prosthetics lost in wartime. And cyber crime, since I'm talking about Gibson, that's all the stuff that I'm thinking of as I'm using these examples. But back in the early 80s, when Gibson was starting to write this stuff, it was like Jules Verne talking about a submarine.

It was fantasy. And now we're living in a world where we have a frequent enough, it's no longer entirely worthy of note to see somebody with a pretty advanced prosthetic limb out in public because we've been at war for 20 years. And the technologies come around for those maimed in those conflicts to be able to have cybernetics. I mean, they're not as advanced as the ones described in those stories, but still, you know, and we're living in a political environment where we have, you know, corporate interests that are running their host. Yeah, that are, that are, you know, they're running academia too. It meant, yeah. Well, yeah, they're running, they're running an awful lot of stuff.

And it's almost gotten to the snow crash kind of level, you know, within, if things don't change within 20 years, we're going to see, you know, corporate sovereignty. Sure. As a thing, you know, and, and when all of this stuff was initially published, it was like, oh, yeah, man, this is all far out. And now, well, that's last Tuesday. Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, I'm gonna use my smartphone to order my dinner.

Yeah, you know. And not ever see the person, they can just leave it and I can send them digital money. Yeah, God, I kinda want order a pizza now. Oh well. So, man, you and me both. Yeah, what? So, but yeah, you know, and so, yeah, so, so,

do you know, since we're talking about that, do you know, was surling, interested in science fiction for its own sake when he was younger or was science fiction kind of the mechanism for him to get away with doing what he wanted to do. It seems like given his interest in pulp and pulp does have some of the fantastical in it, very often you have like wild wacky stuff, seems like he just kind of had an interest in it. I didn't see anything where where specifically said, oh yeah, he jumped into that so he could get away with it. It just was that sponsors were a lot less likely and able, frankly, to point to things that

they found distasteful because it was sci-fi. Specifically, he was taking on the problems that he saw on society on his show and he was getting away with it. And again, it's because people, including Mike Wallace, thought sci-fi was unimportant. Mike Wallace even asked him in an interview like, so what are you gonna do important work? Okay, wait, hold on. Yeah, I'm sorry, you're baking my noodle here. Mike Wallace is in 60 minutes, Mike Wallace. That's the one.

Okay, and that interview with Mike Wallace. That's the one. Okay. And that interview with Mike Wallace took place in what year? That was 59, because it was like as the show was getting started. So Mike Wallace was like a junior in high school, asking this question for his newspaper. No, he was a very serious journalist. Journalist. I'm sorry, I'm gonna have a very serious journalist. I'm sorry. I'm going to have a very hard time getting over the fact that Michael Wallace is

actually that fucking old. Yeah, like, I mean, I never thought he was young, but that's, that's a decade or two older than I had been thinking he was. He was born, Mike Wallace was born about six years before Rod Surling. Yeah. Seric, okay. Yeah. Okay. Yep. I'm, I'm, I need to go to the fridge to get another beer.

Well, why don't you do that? Because speaking of sponsors, we are still chasing down the sweet, sweet dollars. So here's a word. $1 bill, y'all. Jesus Christ. And now a word from our sponsor. Hello, Geek Timers. This is producer George, interrupting this podcast to let you know that we have space available.

This space could be used to promote your product, book, event, group, even wish a special someone happy birthday. If you're interested in using this space, please contact us on Twitter via private message at Geek History Time. Alright, so Colgate, thank you. Keeping with the 1950s theme. Texaco, we appreciate you. What are there like 1950s? Thanks for being there. Thank you, Marlboro.

Chesterfield. I'm getting you Chesterfield. It's for your next birthday. Chesterfield, yeah. Speaking of Reagan. Yeah. All right, so when we left off, Mike Wallace was shitting on sci-fi.

So October 1959. Twilight Zone debuse. Okay. And this document that I've written up for this thing is, is many, many pages long, but partly because I decided to essentially do a timeline of what's up for each one. So that's probably four of the pages. So in 1959, here's what it happened. And I didn't go back too far into 58, although some of this does stretch back. Alaska and Hawaii become United States. Okay. 4950. There you go. The big bopper, Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, Diana Plankrash. Interesting side note about that Plain Crash, that air craft, if I remember correctly,

was being flown by Wiley Post, who in aviation circles, he was remarkably famous for a whole bunch of stuff he did. And to everybody who's not an airplane nerd, that's what he's known for. Mm-hmm. Wasn't he one-eyed? Yes, he was. By all accounts he was a fitting character for a picker-esque novel. Yeah. I know him because... Wait the adventurer. I know him because in

virtual world where I worked one of the pods was named after him. And that's awesome. Yeah, so. That's okay. Fitting absolutely. The first Titan ICBM was successfully launched, intercontinental ballistic missile. The first Vanguard weather satellite was launched. The Mercury 7 are named. The first American primates get launched into space. The first submarine with a missile gets launched.

We lose our first casualty in the Vietnam War. The kitchen debates happen. We launch, explores 6 and 7. A whole bunch of really well-known folks die. So, have you noticed a theme so far? It's 1959. a whole lot of Shit is getting Yeah, a whole lot a whole lot of stuff going into space a whole lot of the march of technology

Which we've talked about talking about fantastic for previously. Yes, yes, that this was the era of you know all of this rapid scientific technological advancement and the space race was a huge big deal. I find the juxtaposition of the conflict map on the planet at the time. Absolutely. You know, and that, you know, exchange, that memorable exchange between the Vice President Richard Nixon. Yes.

And, uh, Chris Jeff. Yes. Do you remember what they're specifically arguing about at the kitchen? Because it was a kitchen of the new tomorrow, right? Yeah. And, I mean, the broader themes were about, you know, prosperity and the comfort of the average individual under the system. The way that they were proving it though was how their women were treated. So the Soviets, yeah, the Soviets are showing off like all this stuff and they're like, this is helping, because this is in Russia,

as I recall, because Nixon's over there finger on the chest, right? Or is that the world's fair in America I forget? I want to say, I want to talk to my head. I remember it being the world's fair in the United States. I think you're right. Okay. But, but, but,

Nixon was talking about how this new kitchen of tomorrow is going to make it so that women, their jobs at home are going to be easier. And it's, you know, all this technology is helping the women to take care of the homes. And Khrushchev was talking about how our women work because there are equals. And so it's just real interesting,

essentially a war over women. So in terms of, it's just fascinating. Well, what I find interesting about that is that, you know, Khrushchev arguing that, you know, well, you know, women are equals while, you know, we're talking about, you know, this being July 24th, 1959, because, you know, while you were talking about it, I looked up on Wikipedia. And you were corrected, did happen in the Soviet Union. Yes.

Give me a second here while I get back into. Okay. A series of impromptu exchanges through interpreters between US Vice President Richard Nixon, Soviet First Secretary Nikita Krishchev at the opening of the American National Exhibition at Sokol Nikiki Park in Moscow. And what's interesting to me about Christchew of making that argument is that, you know, the, just like in the West, during the war, everybody had been mobilized, and women had been,

it was sent into factories and all that stuff. And just like in the West, after it was over, at least under Stalin, women were then at the end of the work, expected to go back into the house and look after the kids and pump out more babies. Oh, they gave a Soviet cross to women who bore more than eight children. Like, they had to fill their ranks again. Like, it was no joke, because they lost a third of the people who died in the war. Oh yeah. Like their baby boom was like by necessity.

Like, yeah. So yes, but. You must make, you must make Wootey for Mother Russia. Exactly, but also the Soviet Union allowed their women to shoot Nazis and whatnot and to fly planes. And just all kinds of badassery as you will. And the O'Tanks. Yeah.

That's right. She bought her own tank. Two own tanks. Yes. But yes. So yeah, you have during this kitchen debate, you have that argument going. Another thing you have is a whole bunch of well-known people dying in 1959. And I bring that up not because it's morbid,

but because there is an aspect to a lot of the Twilight Zone. And I'm bringing a lot of these things because they feed into the Twilight Zone quite a bit of washed up has beens on their last legs and how they're experiencing a rejuvenation of their career or what deal they have to make with the devil or what not. So, you know, I, okay, that is a recurring theme. I hadn't thought of that before, but yeah.

Here's who died. Cecil B. Demel. And good. Um. Um. He was an asshole. He literally killed extras and filmed it. Like, oh yeah. Yeah. If there's anybody, if there's anybody from the film industry who we can

say with near certainty is in hell. Yeah. It's Cecil B. Demille. And I only say near certainty because I'm a Catholic and church doctrine says we cannot know who's in hell. But if I were a betting man, I would lay money on that one. Because yes, filmed film dexterous dying was responsible for God knows how many animal death. Oh, yeah. So he is he is part of the reason that nowadays there's that that you know, notice at the end of the credits and in any kind of any kind of film about you know, no animals were harmed. Right. This this production monitor by the by the SPCA, you know, they refer to that as the demil clause in, in, you know, the regulations.

I didn't know that. No, that they don't. Oh, I'm being flip with that, but they should. Yeah. Carl Switzer died. Okay. Um, you may not know him. He played out Falfa.

And he dies in this weird ass violent attack. He gets shot in the groin and bleeds to death as a result of, because he was going to collect a bill. I went down to D-Rabbit Hall on his death. Lucas Stello died. Oh man. John Sailing died. Now he's interesting,

because he's the last living civil war vet. In 1959, yeah. Speaking of right, Frank Lloyd, right. Oh, shit. Oh, yeah, speaking of other Hollywood elite who die in weird ways that are violent, George Reeves gets shot to death or he killed himself. It's one of those weird things. Yeah. Ethel Barrymore. he was involved. Yeah. Yeah, there was a, a spree killer. Um, and I, I didn't give his name because I don't like to give the names of murderers. Um, even though I

named Cecil B. Demel, uh, but there was a guy who was a spree killer. He got electrocuted and his adolescent girlfriend that he took hostage, she was given a life prison sentence. They had a rampage across the Midwest as I recall. And if it's, yeah, well, yeah, yeah, she was along for the ride. But he had, as you say, a spree across the Midwest and he is referenced in, we didn't start the fire.

Oh my God, you're right. To give everybody a number one, there's a location of what a big deal this was to the baby boom generation and to give you an idea of who we're talking about, even though we're not gonna give his name because jerks like that don't as there's a notoriety. Yeah, but it's 1959, he gets electrocuted.

Billy Holiday dies, bull haulsie dies. The admiral from Midway, Errol Flynn dies, George Marshall of the Marshall Plan, him he died, and Max Bayer died, who was a Jewish boxer who TKO'd Schmelling, and lost Jim Bratic in the Cinderella man, you know, that whole story? Yeah, Max Bayer. And Max Bayer had led to the death of two different boxers,

felt terrible for it, by the way. So a lot of important people died. A lot of important things happen. I want to go back and I just want to say, you know, so George Reeves, the original Superman, the original on screen, Superman, yeah. Yeah, the original, yes, you're right. They were radio, radio actors before, but the original visual Superman, George Reeves, and Errol Flynn. And what I find intriguing is, you know, the whole situation with George Reeves' death is shrouded in some mystery to this day.

You know, did he commit suicide or was he done in because he was having some kind of affair with a married woman or something was going on there. What I find interesting is he's the one that we know that his death is shrouded in. Was he done in or was it to suicide? Whereas, Errol Flynn, of all people who would have been voted most likely to be shot by a jealous husband. Yeah, that's a good point. Or an angry father. Right. It doesn't matter. Yeah.

You know, uh-huh. Errol Flynn, not that guy. Yeah. Like, wait. Yeah. So, so, I mean, just off hand, that was over a dozen names. Mm-hmm. that you handed out. Yeah.

So that was, there was something going on in the karma that's here. There's a couple of things going on there. I mean, it's 1959. It's alcohol and smoking are a big deal. So that's shortening a lot of lives And Fedamines are also there. Yeah And also But also you what you're seeing is kind of the death of the first wave of movie stars

Which makes sense if you know you you switch over to talkies in 29 here. We are 30 years later, which means a lot of these old stars, they're getting close to the average age of death anyway. Well, yeah, at about time, yeah, so when you say the first wave of movie stars, we're talking about the first wave of talkie movie stars. Yeah, well, you're seeing the transition. Like, yeah. Now, like I said, a lot of important things were happening. Also, Eisenhower was president. Cuban revolution took place, led by Che Guevara and later Fidel Castro. The United States then recognized Castro's Cuba

ahead of the USSR, actually. In Leopoldville. Yeah, in Leopoldville in the Belgian Congo, Cuba ahead of the USSR actually. In Leopoldville in the Belgian Congo, which would soon be named the DRC, riots started up when the Belgian government didn't let a political party assemble. And it was a abaco. This was a critical set of riots that led to the next year's Independence Now it's known as the day of the martyrs Charles DeGal becomes president for the first time

Vatican II gets announced to to bet rises up against China when China tries to arrest the Dalai Lama Dalai Lama becomes an exile They find the skull of Australopithecus. Mal, yeah, Mal and Khrushchev meet in China. Space race is kicking up. The missile race is kicking up. A whole lot of soon to be foreign former colonies are starting the ground swell to rise up against the colonizers. So if you just think about what's growing in the ground is a lot of uncertainty, a lot of old guard dying, a lot of the old way is no longer sustaining itself. It's a generation shift. Well, shift. Yeah, and what you know, you talk about leopold milk

and Belgian Congo. And then, and then then gaining their independence from Belgium, the next year, there's a great photograph in a, in a, in a book that I've got sitting in my classroom right now, or I can't get to it. But it's, but it's photographs of events of the 20th century. And one of them is of a Belgian official in full colonial uniform, standing in a car waving to a crowd

at the recognition of Belgium's independent and not Belgium of of Congo's independence and the photograph is of his back and he is a European white guy in a in a in an immaculate white uniform was thewen the second era? Was it actually the King's hangabai or no? I don't think so. I think it was some vice-require or something. But the photograph is not actually of him. In the foreground of the photo, the cars pulling away as part of this essentially parade. And there is an African man in, he looks like a middle class kind of guy in a suit in an acti, but he has stolen the vice Roy sword off of his belt. And he is running the opposite way, holding it up over his head,

brandishing it as like as a trophy. Wow. Um, and, and it's an amazing representation of just how much, uh, the Belgians were hated. Oh, it's, I, by the people of By the people of DRC. I've done a lot of study on the DRC It's before during and after and it's yeah, you are not understanding it by you're not overstating it by a long shot So 59. Oh, yeah, very scary time for Americans the Russians had already Denonated the hydrogen bomb just a few years before.

The world is in a state of flux, and it's spinning in a direction away from American control and away from the status quo, which means I need to go back a little bit even before we go forward from there to discuss the Truman doctrine. And I will probably end this episode with the Truman doctrine, and then we might get to Rod Surler, so as is normal. So the Truman doctrine was the president's attempt to contain communist expansion in 1947.

It was specifically a reaction to the battle between fascists and commun communist in Greece and Turkey. Essentially, Harry Truman argued that the US government had to give aid, or the fascists would fall to the communists. Because just north of Greece and Turkey was the eastern block communist countries. And if the fascist lost, then the communists in the USSR against whom Truman was dead set would have two more regional allies. Now, why does Greece and Turkey matter? Because it's the cornerstone to Truman's foreign policy post-World War II. And frankly, during World War II as well. Essentially, the Truman Doctrine makes two very false assumptions right away, begging the question for the next 40 years. The first one, the Truman Doctrine, oversimplifies

the world into two ways of life only. That's a big error. India proved that, but also in doing this, you essentially set up this idea that any government, no matter how awful, as long as it's anti-communist, is eminently preferred to a communist government, no matter how good. Well, yeah, because to anybody who was a cold warrior, and I'm going to say anybody who had had to deal directly or indirectly with Joseph Stalin, the struggle between the West and the Soviet Union was Manikian. It was because we had been forced to ally with Stalin against Hitler and the

Axis powers. And I think for a generation and a half of American policy makers. That was a really traumatic experience. Because we did what we had to do to defeat the really like, no seriously, they're murdering millions and millions of people over their religion, over their ethnicity, over doing developmentally disabled, whatever.

And then find out or know while you're doing it, the guy you're having to ally with is himself busy starving millions of his own people to death for political purposes. And I think- Which you really have to play the game, which is more evil. And the answer is it's more evil to kill people for ethnic and religious and handicapped reasons because politics can change. Well, yeah. That's the gross part, is that, yeah.

Yeah, but I think the deal is guys like, guys like and then hike after him and then and then Kennedy after him sure I think they Really carried the there there cannot be any deal making with these people because we did that before And we kind of and we have this blood on our hands because of it for and we kind of and we have this blood on our hands because of it. Yeah. You know what I mean? And I'm not and I'm trying to say that as as like an excuse. Right. But that is an explanation as as kind of the psychological explanation for where it is the Truman who by all accounts was a pretty level headed guy. He was who'd wind up. I was gonna say, all of these guys, developing a doctor like that. All of these guys, they'll made their bones

in the age of the pulma rates, in the age of anti-anarchism and the age of anti-red stuff. So, keep in mind that the soup that they were cooking in was also, virantly and irrational anti-communist. So, that's also a thing, but you're not wrong. I think that, you know, it's kind of like,

when I think one of the worst things for the second red scare was that they found Alger his, when you found actual spies, then all your paranoia is retroactively justified. Yeah, and you can get away with whatever the fuck else you want to do after that because well, we found one. Right. Like, they're really doing it.

You know, and I mean, it is true. We do know now, long after the Cold War is over, you know that the Soviets were, you know, had had sleeper agents in the United States that they were paying people here to do, you know, to do dirty tricks kind of stuff. And so for anybody who's still, you know, a diehard, anti-anti-communist, anti-whatever, they have that amine, the problem is they have that amine issue. Right. And that that kernel of truth makes it a lot easier for them to try to get away with then spinning shit around that Because they can always much harder to refute. That's why I stole a murdering so many millions of people becomes the justification for why we can't ever do this and therefore

once communism is defeated, these fascists can be reformed. So bigger picture is what the Truman doctrine is saying to look at. That's what they were saying. That was their argument in the Truman doctrine. We have to side with these fascists because they'll help us defeat the communist.

And once we defeat the communist, then we can turn around and deal with them. And that's... So it's World War II in reverse. Yeah, it really is. And further, any time Communism pops up anywhere, squash it. And that'll contain it, and then you can squash it where it already exists. And then the reforms can come.

And so it's this tiered system of responses. Now that's the first assumption that it makes that doesn't work. The second one that it makes that doesn't work is that it assumes the Truman doctrine assumes that the natural state of the world is an orderly state. Therefore, any threat to order in the world is a threat to American security everywhere in the world. Therefore, every threat becomes an existential threat. And there's no tear of concern. There's no like rainbow of doom, even.

It's just. And so by enacting this, enacting this. So by enacting this doctrine, the US government under Truman, a Democrat, assumed that America had the power and the means to maintain that alleged order. So those are the assumptions that it goes into. And that's, that's, that's the Truman doctrine. And then you get into NSC 68, which is a national security memo, number 68, that got handed to Truman in 1950. And it was because China had stepped in on the Korean conflict, because MacArthur went too far. He fired MacArthur, but China was involved. And then we had Alan Alda, which I think it was worth it. But I'll allow that.

Yeah, that makes sense. I'll buy it. So the NSC68 further entrenched the fear of disorder in the world, because local could happen. And now disorder not only is a threat, existentially, but it also invites subversion, which means now if there's disorder anywhere in the world, we have to look out at home because America's interest

are now anti-subversion interests, and anti-disorder interests, and the result is that every interest is now a vital interest. So it's no longer about geography and politics and alliances. It's about disorder. Now all of that is the Truman doctrine and it leads to an overreach, as we've just seen, which then leads to institutional paranoia as the norm and common sense becomes subversive. Well, and beyond that, the moment we start acting that way, you know, because we were being paranoid in the way you just described, like, you know, disorder anywhere

is a threat to us everywhere. The Russians, I mean, in the time period where we're talking about the Soviets, but let's get real, let's the Russians. Since the Russian Empire, they've been, they've been, perhaps rightly, paranoid that everybody's out to get them because, you know, they've been invaded. God knows how many times. Right. And so their whole take on, I mean, since Stalin, since right in the Ridley, but especially since Stalin. Yes, Stalin really pushed us.

And then into, yeah, and then into Khrushchev and into, you know, everybody up up through the Cold War, their stance was we have to push this subversion. We have to get as many nation states as we can to join the international to become Soviet, to join us on our side of the ideological divide because the more of them we have, they're our buffer. Now I would, it was, go ahead. I was going to say, I would agree with you when it comes to places near their land, but

Stalin actually canceled the international. He flat out told me, he's like, we're not gonna support you anymore. But Soviet security was viewed in terms of territory because they'd been invaded twice in two wars. American idea of security was institutional. Oh, and then long before that. Well, yes, before that. Yeah, that's a good point.

But modern Soviet security was based on land. And if you have all these buffer states, the Eastern block, then the Soviets have time to mobilize. American security was. Which is where we're talking about Turkey and Greece. Right, right. And there are any other states around the Baltic and that area. Yeah, whereas American security is much more about institutional agreements and treaties

and stuff like that, because we were lucky enough to have two oceans on either side of us, so it's much more about alliances. Well, yeah. But then you look at Soviet involvement in Vietnam, you look at Soviet involvement in other insurgencies that we were one way or another, either fighting a proxy or through somebody else against, or that we talk about Vietnam, obviously. And their take on it was, well, if we... It keeps the Americans busy.

Yes, got precisely. The Truman, the Truman doctor, in a a situation where the Soviets had a really easy way to go, well, you know, all we have to do is climb over here and we have to run over there. Yeah, oh yeah. We hemmed these guys a pack of matches and they're going to send their entire fire brigade. There is something to that. Yeah. It's just this fucking clown shoes.

We could do this all day. Like, you know. Yeah, and it was relatively cheap too, because while at the same time that's happening, they're also shoring up their borders and strengthening the buffer states around them and just being like, you know, that's enough. I mean, in the process of reinforcing the iron curtain, and when we're talking about 59. Yeah.

So, um, yeah, uh, this institutional paranoia gets into every facet of life, um, and the government that previously had either been laissez-faire or taking pretty decent care of people, especially the creatives. Um, now it's looking into every association you ever had, every rally you've ever been to, every donation to every cause you've ever made, and your life could be in ruin for the fact that you supported a group once, or went to a meeting once, and got kicked out for arguing with them, but it doesn't matter, or you organized a canned food drive to help the USSR fight against Nazi Germany. Like, that all happened to people people and the government was doing it. So there's this institutional paranoia where common sense doesn't stand a chance. Oh

yeah well and and that was 50 to 54. So that's it. The height of is the height of McCarthyism and H.U.A.C. and all that stuff. So by the time Sirling is setting up his playground, that is over and in the recent past, but it's still... It's in recent memory and... Still very much in recent memory. And actually it goes through 56. I know that McCarthy gets shut down, but that doesn't mean H-A-C stopped.

That's true. So, you know, artists are always on the front line of culture wars, and when they are, they find creative ways to push back. So in 53, the crucible comes out, makes its stage debut. I'm going to use broad brushes here. Arthur Miller looked at what was going on with the government and the institutional paranoia throughout the world, and not just in America but in Western Europe as well. And he decided I need to make an allegory here. And there had actually been a

similar play that played in West Germany in 1949 about the Salem Witch Trials as well. It's playwright, I'm going to fuck up his name, Leon Fugtwanger. It looks like fucked wanger. Well, you know, it's German. Right. Everything looks like fucked something. That's true. But he had been similarly harassed. And in 1956, HUAC brought in Arthur Miller to testify before the committee. And they held him in contempt of Congress for refusing the name the names of people that he attended meetings with because life imitates art and none of them had read the definition of irony. Now that's that's not I mean really they brought him before a court and told him to name names

and he didn't he Giles corried the fuck out of them. More, yeah. You know, that was 56. Now by that point, also going on in America, plenty of civil rights, protests, and activity had been underway. And sterling was really big on this, but it is part of the background of what's going on. So I'm not going to spend too much time on it. I'll just say that, again, broad brush, a lot of activists are being arrested, jailed,

beaten, and accused of communism on billboards in the South. And the idea was that American strength against communism necessitated creating a consensus. And if you point out systemic racism and abuse, then that runs counter to the consensus that we need to defeat communism. Therefore, pointing out the places where we're not living up to our ideals is unpatriotic all of a sudden

and you become a traitor for it. And that's where I'm going to leave it. Next episode, I'll actually talk about Rod Serling, is career on the Twilight Zone. So, keeping in brand, here's the thing that I'm gonna talk about in the next episode. So, so far, is there anything to Gleaner? Is this just kind of a lot of background information

for, I don't wanna to say just because I think this is good research. Well, it is good research. I think it is. It is a lot of background stuff, but I think I do have a takeaway from it all. Do it. And it's kind of a big picture emotional kind of takeaway, that I had not thought of the extent to which American society and popular culture was separately from the specter of nuclear armageddon, which we've talked about previously.

But just the sudden shift in the entire world is changing and it's happening really fast. You know, on a technological level, all of that's there. Oh, it's there, yeah. But on the level of the bedrock of, this is what we all grew up seeing the world looking like, you know, the pink, the amount of pink on a map of the world is suddenly shrinking rapidly, which is a bigger deal in the UK, but even to us anyway, it's like, well, you know, but that's the British Empire, not anymore, any. Right. You know, and European powers who are to middle-class white Americans who were the dominant cultural force, you know, the people who look like us are Suddenly seeing this this rapid reduction in their

Influence and their power worldwide yes you know and and the ways in which that Could subconsciously create kind of a siege mentality You kind of start to understand obliquely why people have the voting patterns that the way they do. Yeah. Because if you've been baked in a world of dominance as your group being dominant as the norm, as soon as another group like pushes back against that, you're like,

whoa, why are you upsetting the natural order of things? And yeah, that's and and you know, and then talking about that, you know, within the context of our own lifetimes, I'm reminded of, you know, the rebud of Battlestar Galactica. All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again, which could be a subtitle for a show along with authorial intent. Don't mean shit. All of this was unintended before and all of this will be unintended again. Except Rod Surling actually meant this shit.

Rod Surling never met an animal. He didn't like true that. So this particular pattern on the wallpaper repeats. Yeah. So where can people find you on the social media? On the social media, I can be found on Twitter at eHBlayLock and on Instagram, I believe I'm there as MR as a Mr. BlayLock. And they can find both of us on at Geek History time on the Twitter and where can they find

you, sir? Well, there's a couple places you can find me nowadays. First of all, you can find me at Da Harmony. That's two H's in the middle, on the Twitter and on the Insta. You can also find me twitching, which sounds weird. But I'm now twitching with my capital punishment group. If you go to twitch.tv, forward slash capital puns, you'll be able to find our channel

there and see us slinging puns every Friday night. Yeah, at 8.30 every time. And I think that, hopefully, by the time this episode airs, we will have done probably six weeks worth. So, uh... Fingers crossed. Yeah, fingers crossed. So, yeah, that's where you can find us. Yeah, fingers crossed. So yeah, that's where you can find us. Well, for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock, and until next time, keep rolling 20s.