I Don't Know About That - Greek Mythology

Episode Date: November 10, 2020

In this episode, the team discusses Greek Mythology with Antony and Isabelle Raubitschek Professor of Classics at Stanford University and author of "Mythologizing Performance", Richard P. Martin.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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on the same day but you may find out and I don't know about that with Jim Jefferies seamless seamless seamless why'd you rush at the end I thought I was running out of time I haven't got that song figured out yet.

I think you've already done socks. Did I do socks and shoes? No, I don't think you did socks and shoes. Yeah, but I didn't ask when they were invented. Socks, you could be a puppet or on your feet. Yeah, yeah. That's a good question, though. Do you reckon the shoe was invented and someone was like,

this doesn't feel good, get a sock involved? Or do you reckon the shoe was invented and someone was like, this doesn't feel good, get a sock involved. Or do you reckon someone was knitting socks and they were like, oh, you know what would be good on this? A harder type of thing to protect your feet. I think shoes first. I'm guessing shoes first. Sandals that evolved into shoes. Sandals were invented and then the sock came along.

I don't know. I don't know. We'll have to do an episode now to find out yeah we have to do an episode i'm not going to research anything on it i want to cheat i'll never know i'll never know i would like to say we don't have to do an episode on that oh okay all right suit yourself you're gonna miss out whatever suits you know i'm sorry suits yeah all right suits yeah the tv show or the clubs yeah i could do like. I want to do an episode on if you can find anyone who's an expert on the A-Team, you could do that for me.

We'll get right on that. We'll get Mr. T. Yeah, Mr. T would do it. Anyone who can get me. Maybe we can get Mr. T. He's not dead. I could definitely do an episode on Star Wars if you've got a Star Wars expert on

I could do pretty good on the Star Wars my nephews could be the expert or your son yeah but I know more than him I'm teaching him all the time he doesn't even know about Caravan of Fucking Courage idiot what is that?

bloody hell Jack I had to explain it to Hank all last night it's just an Ewok based movie What is that? Bloody hell, Jack. I had to explain it to Hank all last night. It's just an Ewok-based movie. Oh, okay, okay. They also did Return to Endor, just Ewok movies. Okay, yeah, I haven't seen any Ewok movies. He's still alive, Mr. T.

Yeah, I bet we could get him. Of course he's still alive. He does adverts. Of course he's still alive. He's 68. He's on TV, he does adverts and stuff. What advertisements? He does like a Snickers commercial where it's like, you get angry when you're hangry.

You know, have a Snickers and then like an old bloke has a Snickers and then he's Mr. T. He had a reality show in 2006 called I Pity the Fool. Yeah, I Pity the Fool. That sounds great. I would like to watch that. I used to own a Mr. T soap on a rope. I had it in a box because I thought it would become a collector's item.

Wait. Mr. T soap on a rope. I had it in a box because I thought it would become a collector's item. Wait. You thought you were going to get rich by Mr. T soap? Yeah, it was a Mr. T soap on a rope with a thing, and I kept it in its original box, and it was from the era. I know, but you thought like one day it was thousands. I found it in Britain somewhere, and I thought I'll keep that.

Do you still have it? No, I don't know where it is. I want to hang that on the wall so badly what happened was i had like a storage unit in britain that i kept on thinking i wasn't going to move over here forever so i stored all my stuff in in britain and then i just stayed in america and i never went back to england and i my friend andrew maxwell i just said you can have it all so he might have the soap on the rope. I'm going to have to reach out to him. I just gave him my speakers and stuff.

I think he gave me a bit of money, but Andrew Maxwell took the stuff. So he might have the soap on the rope. We'll find it. What do you got for us today, Jack? I have a new segment. I call it the name game, which is I have a list of names, and I'll read them off, and then you guys have to determine whether or not today if this is a NASCAR driver from the nineties or a current sheriff in

Alabama. Why does it have to be from the nineties? Why can't you get me an eighties NASCAR driver? Why have you limited yourself so much to one decade of NASCAR? I know the ones from the nineties and I know they're funny. You, you follow NASCAR. Yeah.

Only in the nineties. Only in the nineties. I did NASCAR 1999 video game. My brother and I played all the time. So we knew all the drivers, all the cars, all the numbers, all the brands. It was the 90s. Only in the 90s. I had a NASCAR 1999 video game my brother and I played all the time. So we knew all the drivers, all the cars, all the numbers, all the brands. It was just turn and left. Yeah, it was an easy game. For a video game, that's a bit...

It was hard. You get carpal tunnel. What? So this is the name game, it's called. This is the name game. Okay. And what are the options? 90s NASCAR and what?

A current sheriff in Alabama. And a current sheriff in Alabama. You ready, kids? It's harder than you think. All right. This is the debut of this segment. There's no reason I'd know either of these ones. Well, you just have to feel it out.

Yeah. Okay. Go with your heart. It's all confidence. All right. Name number one. Hutt Strickland. Hutt Strickland down the straight.

Hutt Strickland. Hutt Strickland. Hutt Strickland. Hutt Strickland. Oh, Hutt Strickland. Spun out. Oh, why did you shoot me, Hutt Strickland. Hot Strickland down the street. Hot Strickland. Hot Strickland. Hot Strickland. Oh, Hot Strickland. Spot out. Oh, why did you shoot me, Hot Strickland? I'm going to say he was a sheriff in Alabama.

Do you guys want to join in too? Wait, currently is a sheriff? Currently a sheriff. I'm going to go NASCAR just to make it interesting. Sheriff Strickland. He's a NASCAR driver. He drove for the mcdonald's car and the circuit city car wow yeah that's why i know i'm big fan of circuit city yeah i miss

circuit city isn't it gone yeah that's 90s uh next jd mcduffle all right that's a nascar driver all time all day all day mcduffle mcduffle yeah i think he What the fuck is McDuffel? He must have driven for the McDonald's car as well. I think he's a sheriff who takes people's drugs and puts them in his McDuffel bag and they go to jail. He is a NASCAR driver

and he drove the Rumpel car. I don't remember what Rumpel is. What's Rumpel? I think it might be a furniture store. I don't remember what Rumpel is. I'm looking it up right now jd mcduffle in the rumple car jesus is he a winner jd mcduffle i doubt it he doesn't sound like a winner what how hateful i can't even google rumple how do you spell it it's not even coming out the way it sounds rumple i'm sure we'll get comments on it jd mcduffling and then you can see the ruffle car and then you'll know how to do it. It's not R-U-M-P-L?

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Rumpel. Like still skin. They have Rumpel spelled with an E, though. How else would you pronounce that? Rumpel Incorporated. Be warm and comfortable everywhere. Rumpel Blankets. Oh, nice. It's a blanket car. I admire my nature in outdoors and craft. So you basically, like, what's the one that you

put over your head? The koozie or whatever. What's it called? A koozie you put on your beer. Yeah, a snuggie. It was the snuggie of its day. Yeah, yeah. It's still around. It had a car. He just took naps in his car.

They're making masks. Does anyone own a snuggie? They reckon that they sold like hotcakes for a while and now they can't. Yeah, yeah. Of course, Luis has one. It's very unbranded for him. The rumble has been- Let me guess the color of your-

I'm not going to say green because you're Mexican or anything like that. I think- I don't really see you in blue. I think you have a red Snuggie. It is blue, but I should add it's a knockoff brand. Oh. It's called- It's called the Snuggie.

It's the S-Snuggie. S-Snuggie. S- the snuggie is it really no i think it was like a snuggle or something it was something like something that's slightly creepier than snuggie slinky i want to say that's what it was i don't like that let me tell you oh slank it probably do you ever do you ever use your snuggie oh yeah still to this day i've got it i got it in like or 10 years ago probably still do it and on the couch you snuggie up and you to this day i've got it i got it in like or 10 years ago probably still do it and on the couch you snuggie up and you go all right that's me done for the night usually don't tell anyone about it so glad it's out there now do you have a snuggie in front of women do you ever like hey no that's that's where i draw the line first he has to be in front of women no but

like like like when someone becomes like a girlfriend you're like i think i can show this to you now um i'm a snuggie guy i did have it in the trunk of my car for a while and what your girlfriend no i i went through a phase where i played the guitar a lot like thinking girls would like it so i had a guitar in my my slinky i don't know if there's i don't know if there's a worse outfit than a snuggie for playing guitar. It's basically just a poncho, isn't it? Or does it have sleeves? No, it's got sleeves, yeah. Oh, I thought it was just like you were a ghost. I thought it was a blanket just with a hole in the top.

I gotta tell you, the Rumpel blankets look good. It's basically just a sleeping... We've been having a fun time over here forest has been predisposed shopping he just added something to cart i did a joke about louise killing his girlfriend it's it's like a puffy blank it's like a sleeping bag but just the blanket they just they took away the zipper and they just made it into a blanket outside magazine calls it the cadillac of blankets. Wow. Outdoor blankets. Cadillac of outdoor blankets. Why don't everyone say the Cadillac of? Cadillacs are shit.

I know back in the day they must have been good, but it's like Cadillacs aren't good. Old Cadillacs, the Elvis type ones, but now you... No, they're nice. Cadillacs are nice. You have the Cadillac Escalade. Everybody likes that. The Escalade's very good, but you like... It's the Escalade of blankets.

You can basically go like the Mercedes whatever is the Cadillac of cars. That's not patriotic. Okay. It's the Ford of blankets. Yeah, have you owned a Cadillac? No, but I enjoy... Don't you drive around the Honda? I'll tell you this.

Maybe this is what they're... They are very comfortable. Even if you get into a Cadillac town car, that's what you usually get picked up in. Yeah, but you've driven in the time I've known you a Honda and now you drive an Audi. I used to have a- So patriarchal. I drive a Dodge Challenger and just go brum, brum, brum down the street like a real American.

First of all, I own a Ford F-250. Oh, yeah, you do. And I used to have a Ford F-150 crew cab. Okay. Shove it. I take it all back. I take it all back. Who knew this game would take such a turn?

Yeah, I know. Another name, Thomas Boatwright. He's a sheriff because you've already given us three NASCAR drivers and I'm not a moron. Yeah, and he's a sheriff too because I could think of the logo. He's like, if you don't want to be wrong, vote for Boatwright. That's what I would say. What about Byron Yerby?

Wait, was it a sheriff? Yeah, sheriff. Byron Yerby. Byron Yerby? Yerby. He's got that late night show where you tell the jokes. Yerby tonight. Sheriff unleashed.

Wait, is he a sheriff? Is that the clue? Alright, we got all of them. How many are there, Jack? There's a lot, but I'll just do like a few more. How many did you do, like 30? We've already done five. Do one more. How long is this going for?

Dick Trickle. Dick Trickle. He's a NASCAR driver. Like my friend Smelly Snatch. Dick Trickle. I know this one. He'd have to be a NASCAR driver. Yeah.

I'll just run through the rest of the names in here just because they're ridiculous. So for the rest of the NASCAR names, we have Bobby Hillen Jr., Ricky Rudd, Ernie Irvin, Dale Jarrett, Rusty wallace sterling marlin and then for sheriffs we got huey nickname hoss mac we got buck rogers that's awesome the space comic buck rogers is a sheriff uh sid lockhart we have hal all red and then the last one is horace moore i feel like they do names in alabama the same way jim does the intro which is justace Moore. I feel like they do names in Alabama the same way Jim does the intro, which is just like looking at things in the room and then naming their children.

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And we thank Hello Tushy for sponsoring this show. All right, now it's time to introduce our guest. Please welcome to the show Richard Martin. Richard Martin, Richard Martin. I know that name. Do you? Or is it just two common names? Yeah.

I think I went to school with a Richard Martin. Are you the guy I went to school with? Probably not. I wouldn't remember. Actually, I might be Richard Martin, the famous Canadian hockey player. Are you Canadian? No, he's just throwing you off. Richard Martin was like a comedian, a hockey player?

Yeah. There was a Richard Martin, the Montreal Canadian. He was one of the French Canadians. You know how I feel about them. Yeah. So here's what we're going to do, Richard. This is the part of the show. Oh, we have the music thing.

How are we supposed to even do this? This is our part of the show called Judging a Book by Its Cover. Play it, Jack. Yes, no. Yes, no. Yes, no. Yes, no. Judging a book by its cover.

All right. That is a real intro song. That's one of those songs that you wouldn't listen to otherwise. It's not going to be a hit. I've been replaying that on Spotify all week. There you go. It's a bit catchy. Alexa, play that one again.

So Jim is going to try and guess what you're here to talk about, what you're an expert in. You can ask yes or no questions. A lot of times he tries to go in the background. There's not a lot there for you. No, I can't. So go ahead, Jim. Ask him some yes or no questions. A lot of times he just tries to go in the background. There's not a lot there for you. No, I can't. I can't. So go ahead, Jim, ask him some yes or no questions.

Well, you've got a beard. That means you're probably an intellectual, like a professor or something like that. You have a beard. Yeah, but I've got a different, but he looks like he, I've got a quarantine beard. He looks like he's having a beard on the regular. Okay. So are you a professor? Yes.

Yeah. There you go. There you go. Okay. Uh, do a professor? Yes. Yeah, there you go. There you go. Do you deal in history? No. No. Okay. A professor.

A professor. Do you specialize in politics? No. No. All right. Now I'm out. But I got professor. I'm pretty good at that.

You always get professor after professor because you ask them that every time. That was, I got it first and I got it because of the beard. You usually ask them if they wrote a book. Have you written a book? Yes. All right.

He's a professor who wrote a book. Yeah, okay. I love that you think that that's, the likelihood of us having a professor is very high on a podcast where we need experts. I thought that was pretty good. Okay. Is the thing that you're a professor is very high on a podcast where we need experts. I thought that was pretty good. Is the thing that you're a professor in, is it something that is in popular culture? Does everyone

have an opinion on it? I'm afraid so. I'll give you a hint. What we're going to talk about, we visited recently an area where this is what we're going to talk about, where he this this is what we're gonna talk about where this all where he's an expert that we're talking about takes place so he's got something to do with Mecca or something like that not that we go to Mecca you remember your pilgrimage we went to Israel that's not where Mecca is I know but it is a lot of religious stuff going on no it's

not Israel there's a lot of religious stuff going on. No, it's not Israel. There's a lot of people with different hats, I remember. Just before Israel, where were we? Just before Israel, we were in Prague. Nope, we flew from this country to Israel. We were in Germany. No, you don't even remember where we flew from to Israel? He does travel a lot.

I know, but I was there too. Three days. We were there in three days. Greece. Yeah. Ah, Greece. I had Greek food the other day. Yeah.

This guy's a professor in dry roast. In what? Oh, dry roast. I thought he said dry roast. Also dry rub roasts. Richard P. Martin is the Anthony and Isabel Raubechek Professor of Classics at Stanford University. His book on archaic Greek poetry Poetry, Culture, and Myth, is a mythologizing performance.

It just came out. It's available everywhere. He's going to be here to talk to us today about Greek mythology. Greek mythology. Well, I don't know about that. I had a school teacher who was always bringing up Greek mythology. Okay, give me a go. Well, hold on.

Your intro, I just wanted to make sure I pronounced that right because it's like your professor, it's Antony and Isabel Rabachek, is that right? Yeah, yeah. That was his name. He taught at Sanford for a long time, and then he died, and then his friends gave money to create the chair.

Oh, okay. And so then you become the professor of that. Okay, I got that. He has other books out too as well. Healing, Sacrifice, and Battle, The Language of Heroes, Myths of the Ancient Greeks, and Classical Mythology. But yeah, and I just, I'd look, Mythologizing Performance. Just came out, what, a couple weeks ago, right?

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. About a month ago. So go out there. You can look on Google Books. I saw it on there. Write a review. Write a nice review for him on there.

And I like your other interests too. Greek religion, comedy, ethnopoetics, medieval Irish literature, and modern Greek verbal art. Noah taking long walks on the beach or anything like that in there? You know, the beach in San Francisco is freezing cold. Okay. Fair enough. So I just learned that Stanford is in San Francisco.

I thought that was on the other side of the country. Off to a good start. I did. I thought that was an East Coast one. I'm an American citizen. Very clever man. I think Stanford's just outside of San Francisco, right? To be fair.

It's like 40 miles away, so we have to deal with Route 280 every time we're going on there. Palo Alto, I think. The property prices are quite reasonably up there no problem buying a house no no that's where my brother goes yeah right well uh you just add a couple zeros to your usual american house price a couple i was watching the office the other day and i thought i wonder how much it is to buy a house in scranton so i checked on zillow i could buy like 10 of them today but that would that would not be a good investment the landlord of scranton um all right so here's what we're gonna do um we're gonna ask jim everything he thinks he knows about greek mythology i'm gonna prod him along with some questions.

At the end of that, we're going to grade him. You're going to grade him on accuracy, Richard, and 0 through 10, 10 being the best. Kelly's going to grade him on confidence. I'm going to grade him on et cetera. 0 through 10, mere mortal. 11 through 20, God in training. 21 through 30, Dr. Zeus.

Yeah, I'm not going to do well on this one. Okay, mere mortal. This is something that i uh have actively avoided all my life well good um so keeping in mind we're talking about greek mythology so well first of all what are myths uh myths uh things that are that are folklore that are untruths but they might be based in truth somewhere along the line so you, you know, there is a myth that this or the other happens. You know what I mean? And how are they created?

Like, why are they created? I'm sorry. Why? They're normally created as cautionary tales or things to haunt people with or something. They're sold in folklore to bring a message to the people. That's what happens there. All right. How are they created?

Because people bullshit. That's why. That's what our podcast is about, right? Okay. When was Greek mythology developed? It would have been 4,000 years ago. What was that? 4,000 years ago. What was that? 4,000 years ago?

Yeah, 2,000 BC. Okay, 4,000 years ago. The only reason I say that is because I've just been watching a documentary on Netflix about the new Egyptian tomb that they've just opened up, and that was 4,100 years old, so I'm going to say it's 100 years after that. So Egyptians opened the tomb, there was a tomb, and then Greek got it. Well, yeah, the pyramids, then the Greek gods, then Jesus.

That's my order of stuff. Deductive reasoning. I like it. Okay. And then in Greek mythology, how is the universe laid out? What do you mean, how is it laid out? Like, you know, there's a universe. There's a bunch of gods. Where do the gods live has it laid out? Like, you know, there's a universe. There's a bunch of gods.

Where do the gods live? How about that? It's laid out on a Plato. Oh! Thank you, everyone. Luis, edit that out. What do you mean, how's it laid out? How about, where do the gods live?

They live up in Hades. Up in Hades? Yeah, in Hades. Hades? On a Hades where Yeah, in Hades. Hades? No, Hades is where the Vikings go when they're doing. No, that's Valhalla. Valhalla, they've got nothing to do with it. That's the Swedish people.

That was in 4200 BC, right? So they live in Mount Olympus. Mount Olympus. I used to live on Mount Olympus. They have different streets. Zeus Drive. There you go. I lived on Mount Olympus. You lived in a neighborhood called Mount Olympus. Mount Olympus. I used to live on Mount Olympus, and they have different streets. Zeus Drive. There you go. I lived on Mount Olympus.

You lived in a neighborhood called Mount Olympus. You just remember the street name. I lived on a hill called Mount Olympus. I lived on Mount Olympus Drive, and it was Hercules and Zeus. There you go. You're off to a good start. Killing it. Is there a heaven and a hell in Greek mythology?

Yeah, there'd be. Yeah, I reckon there would be. So I'm going to go yes. You want to expound upon that? Heaven would be utopia. That would be where we got that word. And hell would be dystopia. That's where we got that word?

Yeah, as well. We got those two words. In general, Greek gods were divided into three categories. What were they? Hetero, straight, and other. Okay. No, it's questioning him. There's about 12 categories now, but they're all more simpler back then.

Oh, yeah, okay. Male, female, other is the original ones. Those are the gods. Now, it's them, they, there. I'm cool with all of it, people, in case you're typing right now and you're angry. Okay. How were the gods created? There was a bloke called Mykonos who started the comic books.

It was a bloke. Yeah, and he wrote. He started the comic books? Well, he started. The 2000 BC comic books. He would a bloke. Yeah, and he wrote... He started the comic books? Well, he started... The 2000 BC comic books. He would have been writing something on a tablet. Don't be silly, Forrest. They weren't comic books back then,

but he had a tablet that he brought out every week. Yeah, they were graphic novels. Yeah. I love on this podcast when you say, don't be silly, Forrest, when you don't know what you're talking about. Don't be silly. You're doing great. We're probably going to cut

this question short because you clearly know nothing. We'll just re-ask the questions to Richard. I know a few of the stories. What stories do you know? There's the one with Darth Vader. No, no, no. There's the one where he gets told not to fly too close to the sun

and then he burns his wings. What was it? What was it? That was... Is there Pegasuses involved? Could be. That was... And then Pegasus is...

But the one that he flies too close to the sun and that teach... Yeah, you're close. That fable teaches you to just be happy with what you got. Don't try to get the hot chick. You'll get your wings burnt. All right, let's just ask a few more questions. Stick with uglies. That's the premise though.

How did Zeus come to be the most powerful god? Zeus is Thor's thunder. Zeus come to be the most powerful god? Zeus? Thor's thunder. Is Thor a real one or is Thor a made up one? Is that so excited? Okay, so Zeus is the god of thunder. And so he would have done it with a storm or something. Okay, let's just speed around here.

I'm going to say some things. If you know anything, just something. Okay, let's just speed around here. I'm going to say some things. If you know anything, just start. Otherwise, we're just going to go. You know anything about Kronos? Kronos? It's a disease where you shit yourself. Pandora? Pandora, she had a box.

And if you open it up, bad stuff. Aphrodite? Yeah, you don't want to see it Aphrodite was really good looking yeah and she was mighty what about Pan Pan not as good looking

Dionysus is it ringing a bell no alright let's stop we're just gonna stop well what about is it Nike or Nike but you say nike was

the greek goddess of what running just do it all right richard martin uh thanks for thanks for hanging on there um sorry mate that was the worst i've ever done well we're gonna learn about it you know i've taught myth for i don't know like 30 years and uh nobody ever flunk smith um but you would come close i know a little bit about the australian dream time that's the one that we're not talking about that today what the hell is that oh that's the aboriginals' religion, how things were made. All their stories is how were the rivers made? A frog drank too much water and then he vomited, and now we've got rivers.

Seems a bit simplistic. We're not talking about that today. So on zero to ten, what would you give them? Zero is the worst. It sounds pretty bad. I mean, it depends how much detail you expect so pandora has a box that's right yeah what can i say it's not wrong uh and there's more there's more to the story um aphrodite beautiful sexy goddess yeah so there you know we're at like what

15 out of 30 or 20 out of 30? No, no, no. You're zero through 10. You only do 10. We add them all together. So yeah. Oh, okay. And it sounds like you're grading way too high. You just said you were going to flunk them. I was at Stanford. So, uh, uh, okay. So let me think. You want to start from the beginning? Sure. No, no, just give us a number and then we'll go through it. Oh, we just did the overall thing.

Yeah, zero through ten. Ten's the best. I would say like three. All right. Very generous. Wait, what's the best? Ten? Ten, yeah.

Yeah, three. Yeah, I was very strong in one round like Hercules. Well, we didn't get to Hercules. Yeah, Hercules, he was the strong bike. He'd lift things. Yeah, got it. I'm going to give him a zero. Zero on confidence.

I just told you about Hercules. Yeah, but you weren't confident. I'm going to give you negative 4,000 on Etc. Because you said 4,000 BC and negative. That one was pretty close, I think. Okay, negative 3,000. Yeah, 4,000 was pretty close. See, I told you.

All right, let's start here. I asked Jim, what are myths? And this one you might have gone right. And he said folklore based in truth. What are myths and why are they created? Let's answer that. So, you know i think you're halfway there they're wildly widely believed stories uh that have some importance to

more than one person right so you can't have like an individual myth and they overlap with folklore but they're much more specific so myth says you know hercules lived at a certain place in a certain time whereas folklore is more like well there's this jack and the beanstalk character um so they overlap to some extent and to some extent they are used to warn people like uh the icarus story that you got into that's the one that you know that's not totally the problem is that myths exist for all kinds of purposes. So some of them are political. Some of them are kind of propaganda.

Some of them explain, like, the frog vomiting, you know, while you have a river. So there's no good answer to where do they come from or what are they for, but you get a piece of it. All right. Are myths still created? I don't even think. Oh, yeah, they're still created. Yeah, look at politics.

Yeah. I know stand-up comedians who tell me they have careers, and they really don't. They spread that rumor. Yeah. Okay, so when was Greek mythology developed? You said it was close on that one. So, you know, it has to do with where do the Greeks come from and what do they bring with them?

And so some of the stories we know must be older than 2000 B.C. They seem to have come into the area that they're in now around 2000 B.C. But they brought stories with them from their kind of mother culture. We can tell linguistically that Greek and Latin and Sanskrit and the Germanic languages were all one big happy family at one point, maybe around 4000 BC. And then they split off and they went to different places from India to Ireland. And so the Greeks get down to the Balkans around 2000 BC. But the thing is that myths keep developing.

And so I would say between 2000 and say 500 BC, they're still turning out myths. And the beautiful thing about myths is you can just make up another version, as long as it's kind of in the ballpark, and you can get people to believe you, then you're good. And yet another complicating factor is writing. So they don't really have writing until around 800 BC. And you can convince anybody of anything if they can't run out and double check you in a library, right? So before you get writing, it's an oral culture, pretty much anything goes. So myth is this continual process. So it's basically like Hollywood, where somebody comes up with a story, and then people just change it slightly and brand it as a new story. And it's so much like Hollywood that if one story does well, they just clone it right to the next story.

So Trump's saying you should put bleach into your veins. Is that a myth or could that become folklore or is that just an out-and-out lie? Well, there's a great story, too, because, you know, even in ancient Greece, this word that gives us myth, it's a Greek word. Mythos is the Greek word. In fact, if you were in Greece a few weeks ago, you'd probably suffer a beer, mythos beer, same word.

So one person's myth is another person's lie. Right. You get a lie out there that's believable and helps people kind of deal with their lives now the bleach in the veins thing might not help you deal with your life that myth might not go very far so where if my if me and my wife are fighting and she yells at me you're a liar i can go i'm more of a myth teller. The man, the myth, the legend. I would say I'm a mythologue. Mythologue?

Mythologue. Mythologue. Oh, yeah. Mythologue. There you go. Remember that one. I know some words in Greek. Spanakopita and Biko's collar.

I know them all. Oh, yeah, Biko's collar i know i'm all oh yeah because yeah um and do people still like does anybody worship these gods anymore no this is well actually yeah there is um how should i say i don't want to say wacko but there's an interesting culture in greece uh and every year they petition the minister of culture to let them into the Acropolis so they can do their little rites. So there are kind of neo-pagans who are still into it. And how, was it really set up as a religion to begin with and then it just became folklore? Or was it like, how long did people take this seriously for? Well, you know, they took it seriously at least 300, 400 years after Christ.

So Christianity is around in the Mediterranean for a couple of centuries before the old myths start dying out. And we know that people were worshipping Zeus and so forth up until 300 AD. It was, you know, we can't really say how it was set up. The interesting thing about it is that myth and religion are kind of indistinguishable for the Greeks. And that we just can't wrap our heads around that. Because for us, you have religion, very serious, and entertainment. But for them, they're all one package, right? So I can make up a story about Zeus, and you can make up a more convincing story, and we don't have to believe it.

It's not like dogma. It's not something you're going to get ejected from a church because there's no church, but you still believe in Zeus. And we know that because they bought and killed and sacrificed lots of animals to Zeus and other gods, and that cost money. So they put their money where their myths were. How many gods did they have? Mostly they settled down to 12,

but the group of 12 might vary from one city-state to another. There are 800 different city-states. Basically every town is its own country. And you'd have a different set of gods slightly. Now, all the other little gods, if you add them in, plus the kind of demigods like heroes, you're up to about 1,000. Is the main core group like the Justice League, where there's the Superman of the group,

and then there's Aquaman, who's fucking useless yeah you know that's not an accident that's like i think it's a narrative thing that just works for everybody for hollywood for ancient greeks so you have the team uh but there's always squabbling in the team and there are a couple of useless members of the team too uh and some of them have superpowers and some of them just you know their powers that they uh swallowed other people and that therefore they are a threat to the community like zeus is there just one shitty god that can bend spoons yeah what's his name you're regaler i think well yeah who's the who's the worst who's the god with the the worst power so everybody is that a question that's a good question he's a god who can tell whoever fought it in the room they all hate aries all right aries doesn't really he's a he goes berserk in war

but he doesn't really have like he's not a warrior type like athena athena has strategic tactical skills in war but aries just kind of uh goes nuts oh so so his his talent is a temper yeah yeah it's really highly cultivated yeah that's a good one he's like ben stiller's character out of mystery men i don't know it's a good movie mystery man fun film um so where do the gods live um and is there a heaven or hell jim said in hades valhalla mount olympus then he said mount olympus yes there's a heaven to hell heaven topia and dystopia is hell well there's definitely mount olympus and even in the early sources is kind of confusion is it the big mountain or do they live up in the heavens above the mountain

but um mount olympus is where most of the gods hang out then poseidon lives in the sea and hades lives in hades hades is always on the internet, just spreading nastiness. He's a troll. And Persephone lives with Hades two-thirds of the year. But then she comes up for another third of the year. She's a vacation home in Mount Olympus. Persephone's that female friend that your wife has, but doesn't like you.

Oh, Per Stephanie again. And you're like, why did you involve her in our lives? She says that you should do better. Oh, God, Per Stephanie. How were the gods created and who ruled before the gods of Mount Olympus? Jim said a bloke called Mykonos. The maker of the cards. Is he Italian?

It sounds like a great idea for a video game, but Mykonos is actually the name of an island, but you know, come to think of it, I think the island was named after somebody called Mykonos, about whom we know nothing else. Well, I do.

You know about him, Jim? Why do you think he got a fucking island named after him? Because he was a moron? Yeah, probably. Because he wrote great tablet stories. I think the story is actually he somehow held underneath the island because a giant threw an island at him and it kind of pinned him. But I'll have to check on that one.

Yeah, and people believe this. It sounds believable. What but I'll have to check on that one. Yeah, and people believe this. Sounds believable. What else do they have to do? They don't have TV, radio, telegrams. They sit around at night around the hearth. There's also a goddess, by the way, Hestia, and they just make stuff up. So, yeah, anything could become a story.

Was the original Olympics, because we do only Olympics, was that something to please the gods? Yeah. It's not just to please the gods, but it's a kind of funeral games that develop into compensating the dead hero. So there was a hero called Pelops, and he's buried at the running course in Olympia. Even today, they show the place where he's buried. the running course in Olympia.

Even today, they show the place where he's buried. And then they developed the games as a way of kind of, you know, you suffer because he suffered. But you suffer by running around and he suffered by getting killed. So how were they created, though, the gods? Who wrote it? Who wrote the gods? Well, they were just there before anybody wrote anything. But the gods we're talking about are really the third generation.

So in the one long poem we have from around 700 BC, which tells the whole story, the gods start with this big gap called chaos. Chaos just means the gap. That's where the word chaos came from. Yeah. Very good. You got it.

And out of chaos came Earth and Sky. What about wind and fire? Sorry. Yeah. And Earth created her husband, Sky, and then he lay on top of her. I don't know how X-rated we can get. Oh, yeah. Go into detail.

The sky fucked the Earth. Hang me on. But so Sky lay on top of Earth. Oh, yeah. And he kept procreating. Put some porn music on, Jack. He wouldn't get off of Earth. She couldn't push him off off so he's a rapist

so the kids could not come out of of earth because he was on top of her are you me tooing the sky yeah basically so it gets even better it's even better than better than Harvey Weinstein at this point because Earth recruits one of her sons, Kronos, and gives him a sickle. You know, the thing you cut wheat with? Oh, yeah. Like the Grim Reaper. Well, it was pretty grim. He cut the penis off of his father. Ooh.

Sky dick. Separating. Yeah. I thought this was common knowledge. But anyways. If we knew about this, we'd be talking about it all the time you could be lying right now we're like okay cut the dick off the sky it is a myth he takes the phallus of the father and they throw it into the uh sea and uh the blood drops develop into rats full vengeful goddesses on the land. But in the sea, what comes out of the penis of the father?

What comes out? Yeah. Oh, I would say a sperm. Well, a rhetorical question. A sperm. Close because there's this kind of frothy, spermy scum, and Aphrodite emerges from that. That's the birth of Aphrodite is from the severed penis of her father.

I'm sure she doesn't like to tell that story. That's how it happens. That's how you get a hot chick. You've got to get yourself a bit of sky dick. You have to sacrifice your penis. Yeah, throw the sky dick in the water, and then you get a hot chick what's so complicated take notes jack yeah well that's just the first generation and the second generation chronos who who handled the sickle and castrated his father um he marries his sister in those, you could only marry your sisters, right?

Right. Totally. Then he learns that his children will overthrow him, and having seen what he did to his father, he decides to eat his children. As one does. Checkmate. So he eats them all until Zeus is about to to be eaten and the mother instead had enough of that

so she gives her husband a rock to eat like a big burrito right and he swallows it and spits up all the other kids and then zeus who has been rescued zeus was not swallowed he's out there in crete he becomes king of the gods. And so what were the other siblings called? Bitcoin? Well, the other siblings are the Olympian gods you know and love. So his wife Hera and Hephaestus and Ares and Aphrodite and Hermes and Hestia and Dionysus and the whole gang. Is Cyclops, having a Cyclops, is that from Greek mythology,

or is that from movies? That's Greek myth. Yeah, okay. Cyclops were there right from the beginning, pretty much. Is Medusa your one, Medusa? Medusa's one of ours, yes. I mean, she's not a Cyclops, but she's the snaky-haired, formerly beautiful, but then cursed and turned into a snaky-haired woman.

There used to be a strip club I went to in Birmingham, England, called Medusa's, and I always thought, geez, that's not a good name. A woman that when you see, you turn to rock. Well, part of me did. Actually, the title's pretty good. Now it does make sense. Second thought, yeah.

There's lots of snakes in the room yeah yeah checks out um have you been to greece because i we went to greece jim jim has some opinions on greece but i like i like greece but you're eating food way too late it's 10 11 o'clock you've been to greece nothing you should go to buenos aires so they they just start rolling out at 10 you know they start rolling out at 10. They start having cocktails at 10 at night, and then they eat around midnight. I don't know when they work.

So Greece is tame compared to Argentina. But, yeah, I go to Greece at least once a year. Also, retirement age is 45 in Greece. Well, they're trying to change that, yes. In Greece. Yeah, well, they're trying to change that, yes. But, and work itself can be, you know, not that burdensome. It's a very laid back place.

Yeah, I like that. You know, they did a lot better than we did with COVID. So they were on it from the beginning. Must be all the cigarettes. They're all puffing away there. Well, it is funny that you say they're laid back because that was like we did we went to um like the acropolis and stuff and like that james you've said on other podcasts like they they said they were supposed to be working on it but nobody was working on it like they were just like yeah we'll get to it yeah there was scaffolding everywhere

it was the middle of a tuesday and there was no one working on the bloody thing it's like when are you going to fix it and then there's they don't even give you a little pamphlet when you go to the acropolis to go walk around they just got to go ah it's up there take a picture they don't like well there's a reason for that because there are guides uh official guides no unofficial guides are allowed and the guides line up right near the entrance there and you're supposed to uh pay them if you really want the deal or else you know you use your phone or something but uh yeah you know you're gonna get a pamphlet free we must have looked very unfriendly they didn't even approach us the guys no one wanted our business you knew everything already no because we went down to plato's prison i like that was it socrates prison

yeah that was all right. That's where he would have sat there going, life's a lot like a box of chocolate. No, that wasn't him. That wasn't his one? I'm pretty sure that was Socrates. Yeah, he did that one. He's like, you want to have some sunshine?

You got to do whatever, you know, things like that. That was Dolly Parton. Oh, no, that was like, if you want the rainbow, you have to put up with the rain that oh no that was like if you want the rainbow you have to put up with the rain there there's a lot of cats there's a lot of cats yeah there was cats everywhere there's cats wandering around everywhere and you could pat them they were pretty approachable they didn't claw you because i went to i went to spain and the fucking cats attack you you see the cats in spain and you go oh you can't scratch it but the greece the greece cats were very approachable no well they're very photogenic and they're very useful because they keep down

the rodent population and so people well it's kind of circuited because people leave out dishes of food for the cats which i'm sure attract rats and then the cats get the rats but they're yeah they're laid back also yeah they're all laid back yeah yeah um all right so let's uh let's go through some of the gods jim zeus zeus yeah he's near number one i'll say it again what is zeus a god of he's a god of thunder am i right yeah yeah there we go okay it's not really why he well he rules because he's way up on top of everything and you can conveniently hit stuff with your thunderbolt from up there but also um he was threatened that one of his children would overthrow him and having learned from his father and grandfather he

swallowed uh the wife that was going to produce that child right Right? And the wife's name was, the English equivalent is cunning intelligence. Matis is her name. So she's like all of the intelligence you ever need, and she's inside him. Oh, so he's smart. But she was pregnant when he swallowed her, and therefore, you know, energy is never lost. Athena was born out of the head of Zeus

because Athena was the child who was in the womb of cunning intelligence when Zeus swallowed his wife. Wait a minute. So who was born from the cut-off dick in the water? Aphrodite. Aphrodite. Does everybody in Greece have daddy issues? Because this is all very fucked up.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And why hasn't any car company ever called one of their cars a Zeus? What do you mean? My father used to drive a Holden Apollo. You know what I mean? Apollo, yeah, like that was one of the cars in Australia. I always feel like Greek gods are good names for cars.

We never brought out the Honda Zeus. Isn't there like a Thunderbolt? Maybe that's a nod to him. I used to poke around for my PowerPoint slides. There are all kinds of generators out there you can get for your house called Zeus Generator. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But car, that would be a good one.

Yeah, yeah. All right, Hercules, Jim. Who's that? Hercules is the god of strength. Well, he's not really a god, but it's another complicated story. He gets to Olympus finally after a lifetime battling Hera, and so he finally is commemorated, and he's like one of the few heroes who makes it to god land,

but he's not technically a god. They have problems placing him. Is he a person? Is he a god? He's definitely the strongest one, but he's also the most berserk one. He goes nuts at least three times and kills either wives or families,

and then he has to go places and, like, dress in women's clothing. What? As part of his penance. Yeah, he has to. There's one episode where he has to dress up like a woman. One episode, season five, and they change writers. When they started running out of women.

They really jumped a shark on that one. You easily could be someone just making stuff up right now. This is all for real. You can find it on the internet. Hercules was a hero that occasionally would kill families they'd go oh fuck off hercules go wear a dress you'd be like all right shouldn't have killed that family what captures this brilliantly god of war too i think it is i i once got involved in a case as an expert witness when somebody sued god of war

said he sued Sony Corporation. What, the video game? Yeah, the video game. The video game is actually quite accurate for the story of Hercules. They just call the guy Kratos or Kratos. But he kills his family too in the video game. So they were on it. Have you ever seen Hercules in New York?

Oh, yeah, I love that. It's Arnold Schwarzenegger's first movie. Have you ever seen Hercules in New York? Oh, yeah, I love that. Is that a movie? It's Arnold Schwarzenegger's first movie. And he was so unknown that in the credits they called him Arnold Strong. They figured, what a stupid name. He has an American voice dubbed over the top, and he's like, hey, I'm really happy to be here. Oh, I'm Hercules.

And all that type of stuff. It was before the Terminator, and he could hardly speak English. He was like Mr. Universe at that stage. It's terrific and it has the, you know, video quality is like a security camera from the 1970s. It's amazing. He's riding a chariot down Wall Street. Oh, my God, I have to watch this. Or Broadway.

It's a real thing. It was on TV the other day. What? It was? Yeah, it was channel flicking. What do you watch there, though? I saw it on TV the other day. I saw it once like 20 years ago, and I saw it once again recently.

Wow. Wonderful movie. You just mentioned Hera, and then she's known for repeatedly turning herself back into something famous. Do you know what it is, Jim? Well, yeah. She's an Insta-ho. Ask him, and then I'll see. He said he's an Insta-ho.

She turns herself back into something constantly. It's a she, Hera. Yeah. Once a month, she loses her mind and starts killing everyone. Just when she's on her period? Yeah, I didn't say it, Kelly. I didn't say it. Close.

Once a year she can turn herself back into a virgin. Oh. And that's just called lying to people. Yeah, I'm a virgin too. It's like when she gets pregnant and the baby comes out, she goes, when you come out, put the wall back up with you. I don't even know why that'd be a benefit. Why would you want to tell people you're a virgin still?

Yeah, people hold that in esteem. Well, yeah, in that time, it was a good thing to be a virgin. Yeah, it's bad. And you could sell your virginity on the internet now, so that's cool. Look at sad Jack. that's bad and you could sell your virginity on the internet now so that's cool look at sad jack um okay and then uh i mentioned pan yeah pain what about pan he was uh he had a flute oh yeah the pan flute he's the bloody half horse half um half man centaur yeah he's like a centaur anything Anything special about the flute? It's a pan flute.

It's like one of those ones that go... Asians like them. Every episode we have to have Jim say a questionable Asian comment. It may or may not be cut. The pan flute is very big when you're getting a massage. 50% of all pan music is massage-based. You've never sat at home just to relax and go, put on a bit of the pan flute.

Wait, wait. Pan music is massage-based? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They say, time to calm down. Just relax and sit back. That's what happens. Your flute impression's terrible. It's like a little Irish fella.

Like, no, you do a pan flute. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is a pan flute. Yeah. Right? Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is a pan flute. Yeah. Right? The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Pan pipe, I think I would call it. You're a pan pipe. Because they are obsessed with flutes and pipes,

and they all involve sex of some sort. I mean, there are innumerable jokes where when you're playing a pipe, you're really... Well, I reckon with a pan pipe, you could wank off maybe eight small dick men at once. That's pretty good. If they all stood next to each other, you could really go for it. And it helps that his name, Pan, means all.

All the dicks. Well, that's kind of what it is it's not in the odyssey but you know the story of odysseus and penelope and odysseus 20 years and penelope has been beset by 108 suitors uh but of course she hasn't gone with any of them and everything is hunky-dory. But there is another story that was not told in the Odyssey, but we know was around in the 5th century BC, that she actually slept with all the suitors. And the result was the god Pan, whose name means all.

That's good. Pan means all. So why does he have a flute? Because he's a sort of shepherd. He's actually part goat. He's a girl. Pan means all. So why does he have a flute? Because he's a sort of shepherd. He's actually part goat. He's part goat. He's half and half, isn't he? Do you think that's where the euphemism skin flute came from for penis?

That's ridiculous. Exactly the same. No, believe me, they have exactly the same analogy going on. There are lots of kind of X-rated ancient Greek vases you can see illustrating this stuff. Is the... I don't know much about this, but in the

prostitute arena, Greek style means anal. It means anal. The prostitute arena? Is that where the Lakers play? If you ask for Greek style, it means anal. Why is that? Is that because they're trying to keep their virginities?

Is that a known thing to you that's called Greek style? I can believe it because there was, in the 19th century, Greek love meant basically pederastic anal sex. meant basically pederastic anal sex. So, and the Greeks, especially upper class Athenian Greeks of the 6th, 5th century BC, it's hard to say that they were, you know, homosexual or something like that.

They didn't have those categories, but there was a period of time in the life of a young boy from say the age of 14 to 16, when it was expected that he would hang out with an older male lover. That's why I'm with Forrest. They didn't always do it Greek style. There's something called intercruel intercourse was the preferred mode

with like, I don't want to get into details, but you can look it up. But yeah, so there was an association of Greek love with male on male activity. It was called Shavitimaiosalos. That was in some context. Yeah. So that I forgot to ask that question. In general, I said the Greek gods were divided into three categories.

Jim said male, female, other, because you just mentioned. What are the categories um so usually it's a gods of the uh upper air like mon Olympus gods of the sea like Poseidon and all these other minor sea gods and then the underground god types oh you didn't mention okay i just want to make sure the underground ones the wormy do we find out about heaven and hell was the ones that you're into but you don't want other people to be into them so you're still cool oh yeah the underground ones so the heaven there's no real like reward for being good and you go to heaven uh but then again there's no real punishment for being bad you go to hell but they they were well aware of the fact that you die and you get put in the ground. So Hades for them, the realm of Hades is this kind of dank underground holding

chamber where you can talk and talk to other people down there, but you're never going to get out. And so that's the worst thing about it. You're not punished. There's no devil, but you're just dead. And on the other hand, there's no real reason to be super good because there's no devil but you're just dead um and on the other hand there's no real reason to be super good because there's no like reward in heaven all of that stuff comes from the dirt prison you're just under the ground like a mole for the rest of your life yeah but your descendants are still winning prizes at the olympics and shedding glory on the family so you kind of get this reflected glory. And you get to look up at them.

Yeah, that was good. Upskirting. This is important because Jim, okay, how do you pronounce Nike? Nike. Most people now say Nike, like the sneaker. Nike is what I would say in ancient terms. Jim just says Nike, and we've been telling him that's wrong. No, I'll tell you why it's right.

Do you ride around on a bikey? No, but that's not that. There are plenty of examples of words that are spelled. All right, so we call it Adidas. Adidas. But that's an Australian thing, the Adidas thing. Adidas. I was going to say it's because it's a dude's name.

But so you're saying it's Nike was originally the name. Nike, yeah. So it would be closer to Nike than Nike. I don't know how it's because it's a dude's name. But you're saying it's Nike was originally the name. Nike, yeah. So it would be closer to Nike than Nike. I don't know how it became Nike, frankly. But there's Mikey, right? Remember the old cereal commercial? Mikey. Yeah, but that has a Y on the end.

You say Mike. You don't say Mike. That's true, yeah. But I'm going to say, how do we say Nike? Nike? Nike? Nike. Nike.

How about we start saying that? Everyone who listens to this podcast go, oh, you got the Nike Jordans. They do sound fancier when you say that. Nike. You got the Nike shoes. Yeah, I like it. I likey. I likey it.

Leaky. Leaky. Leaky. Leaky, leaky, leaky. Jim said he's the god of running. Well, it's a goddess, first of all. And remarkably... Not one on you, Wim.

That other category. But there's a lot of depictions of her running because she was the goddess who would sort of bring you the wreath when you won the Olympics and or when the Greeks won a victory you know she was thought to be there um there's a statue of Athena holding a little Nikkei in her hand and and when you went to the Acropolis the first little temple you see before you look up at the big one that's the temple of Nikkei oh yeah i remember that now so she's always in the vicinity sorry i just had a yawn and nothing nothing

personal i just didn't sleep well last night um jim asked if thor was part of greek mythology is thor real well i mean is zeus real he's as real as uh zeus is but it's a scandinavian thing thor oh yes that means bloody bloody thor um why is everything so sexual greek mythology just seems it's like a lot of sex well uh you know i i think this was just the way the world was and is in societies that have first of all polytheistic religions with a whole bunch of gods, and societies that often track their genealogy back to gods, right? So if you're going to say, well, we have 5,000 families in this town, but we all come from gods, well, how's that possible? Well, the gods were just doing it with everything in sight. So there are reasons for it. And,

site. So there are reasons for it. And, you know, they had a healthy interest in sex. I think they also use myth as a sort of way, almost a handbook of thinking through all the problems in their life. And clearly one of the problems of people generally is sex. So it's like more realistic than other religions. Yeah, sex was super prevalent and having orgies and all that stuff basically until Christianity was introduced, right? They ruined it. Is that why a general... No, I got that wrong. I was going to say papilloma.

What's that? Oh, the human papilloma virus? Yeah, papilloma virus. Does that come from Greek? Oh, I have no idea. It sounds like a Greek word, but uh did you get it from somebody greek i gave it to some greeks um all right so this is the uh the part of the show where we ask you to share a dinner party fact with us this is um a fact or facts that the expert gives to us

that people can share when i just got one question okay did the did the greek gods ever travel to other countries was there like ever travel to other countries? Was there like, or did other countries steal them? Like, you know how Mexico's got like their type of characters that they've got the, you know. I know what you're saying. They have different gods. They have different gods.

The Roman gods were different, yeah. Yeah, the Roman gods and all that sort of stuff. Did they ever just nick the Greek gods and rename them Macho Libre or whatever? It looks like the Romans were heavily into recycling Greek gods. And they did have, as you say, they had the Roman names for gods. But then they very carefully, because Greek was the more prestigious culture, they sort of took over all the Greek stories.

And we don't have a whole lot of authentic indigenous Roman stories about Roman gods. And some people thought even in the fifth century BC that Greek gods came from Egypt. One of the historians, Herodotus, has a whole shtick about how actually these gods were imported. And then in the stories themselves, like the Odyssey, the gods go off and visit Ethiopia. It wasn't a country, of course, at that point, but there were people called the Ethiopians, Egypt. So they travel widely, and there's much less emphasis

on sort of national boundaries in the ancient Mediterranean world. Do Greece have a – do they have a claim to being the beginning of civilization? Because Israel is very big on this, where everything started. Then Egypt's sort of like, where everything started. Did Greece have a claim on this as well? You know, it wasn't so nationalist and universal. They had stories about various Greeks who invented things like writing or dice games

or various pieces of machinery. But I don't think they ever took credit for civilization, you know, full stop. So they were pretty clever at not making claims they couldn't support in that way, at least. And I think that goes with the polytheism too because you know you could say well zeus did this and i could say yeah but here i did that and so polytheism gives you a whole lot of uh wiggle room all right dinner party facts sorry i just want to ask those two things okay yeah so time for the dinner party facts there's something that we can tell our listeners our viewers uh that other people might not know

and they can sound smart if they're at a party or a bar. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of that stuff. But, you know, one I thought of, apart from the fact that Penelope gives birth to Pan in one story, there's another story connected with the Odyssey. So a lot of people have read the Odyssey or heard about it or saw the NBC miniseries or something. But they don't know the story of what happens after Odysseus gets home. And I'll try to make it as short as possible. So Odysseus gets home, sees Penelope after 20 years,

and then after a while, he heads out again. And he goes to the mainland mainland and he gets involved with another queen and marries her and has a son and then he comes home to Ithaca again and then he goes off again. Finally he's home in Ithaca and a young guy comes attacking the island and he goes down to defend his island of Ithaca in the far west and gets killed by the young guy who is bearing a javelin who is the son of Circe, with whom Odysseus spent a year having sex in the Odyssey. So Odysseus is finally killed by his bastard son, but it's not over. Telegonus takes the body back to Circe's home island, the witch Circe, and then Telegonus marries Penelope, they bury Odysseus, and Telemachus, the son of Odysseus, marries Circe.

So it's just like... I don't know if anyone's going to be able to remember that at all. Tell a novella. That's a lot to remember. The problem with the myth is that it's all, you know... So complicated. I was hoping you just said, yes, two dicks. Well, you know, you can can say that and who's going to disprove it

alright I went to Ithaca College not a fun fact but it's a fact Richard Martin thank you very much for being with us we learned a lot today thanks for being on the show mate I appreciate it thank you again his new book is called myth mythologizing performance it's available everywhere you can

google mythologizing performance or richard martin and you can find it and uh jim take us out all right mate if you're ever at a party right someone starts harping on about greek mythology you can go to him i don't know about that and you can walk away good night australia hey everybody jason ellis here from the jason ellis show podcast reminding you that my podcast new episodes every wednesday downloadable where all podcasts are available come see my friends Michael and Kevin as we talk to you about what's awesome what sucks fitness fighting parenting life spin kicks lgbtq community how to defend yourself against the shock if it attacks you out of nowhere and much much more so come join us