I Don't Know About That - The Post Office with Professor Richard John

Episode Date: June 9, 2020

In this episode, the team covers the Post Office with the help of Professor Richard John.   Thanks to our sponsors Manscaped (code IDon'tKnow), Mack Weldon (code IDon'tKnow), Babbel (code Jim), and Policy Genius.   Follow Us:   Jim Jefferies Website: www.jimjefferies.com Jim Jefferies Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jimjefferies/?hl=en Jim Jefferies Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JimJefferies/ Jim Jefferies Twitter: https://twitter.com/jimjefferies Forrest Shaw Website: www.forrestshaw.net Forrest Shaw Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/forrestshaw/ Forrest Shaw Twitter: https://twitter.com/forrestshaw Kelly Blackheart Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kellyblackheart/   Jack Hackett Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Jack_hackett/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hi, I'm Jim Jefferies. Welcome to I Don't Know About That with Jim Jefferies. We've changed the order of our podcast a little bit this week. Jack is not with us. Jack's not with us at the moment because he's quarantining again because he's been out on the marches, the Black Lives Matter marches, which I'm very proud of him for doing, but I don't want to be near him. Right. We use that as an excuse.

Yeah, so I've given him a couple of weeks off. I think maybe he just didn't want to work this week and he's just like, oh, I've been out. No, he's been a very good lad he has. He went out to Melrose after the riots and he helped clean up. I think that was very good. And we took the week off from the podcast. And we took the week off out of respect for the podcast as well

because we didn't think it was our place to be. Out of respect for the podcast? out of respect for the podcast as well because we didn't think it was our place to be out of respect for the podcast out of out of respect for the movement yeah we didn't think it was our place to be doing a podcast about silly things that week so so uh we thought we'd give it a give it a miss yeah it happened to fall on on the um on that tuesday too yeah blackout tuesday yeah um well look a lot of people have been asking me what my opinion on the whole thing is. My opinion is this. I was appalled by the death of George Floyd and I do believe that there is a problem with the police force and there's a problem with racism in this country

that goes back a very, very long way. What I am encouraged by is I've seen a lot of beauty in these protests. I've seen cops taking a kneel. I've seen people coming together to clean up. I've seen people on social media who previously I wouldn't think would be a, um, what's the word, ally in this movement who have changed their stance a little bit. So, so change is happening, whether it be very slowly or not, it is happening.

And it is for the good. Um, what I have been frustrated by is, is okay. So the black lives matter movement mean you for us now, now two specials ago when I did, I think I know the last special before the new special that's about to come out.

I did in London. I had a routine about black lives matter. And I spoke to you this week i said i've got to find that routine and put it back up because it sums up what i wanted to say very easily and the problem with that routine is i didn't record it and the reason i didn't record it because i thought that would be old news yeah so that racism would be solved yeah because this was way better trayvon martin this is the guy you know there was a whole lot going on then and then i thought that'll seem a bit dated right because that and then how silly of me to even even

think that would be something that wouldn't be relevant though i saw on one of your posts on instagram you know somebody said all lives matter and you had a very eloquent response to them and it changed a lot of people's minds like i can i can read it for you if you like i had a lot of people going i was an all lives matter type of person before now. And I read this and I get it. And I was very impressed by what you said. Did you write that? I did write that.

I had my girlfriend spell check it. That's where I was like, there's no way. I think that's very clear that she spelled check it. And she, yeah, okay. So I wrote back, someone wrote, why can't all lives matter? We're all one people, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right? And I said, okay, I'm only going to respond to this

because I don't want to write all day. You know? And I'm not trying to pick a fight. Of course, all life matters. Most rational people would think that. But not all lives are having problems right now. Black people have been persecuted against for a very long time

and their fight continues to this day. So that's why we all need to say that all lives matter right now. People saying all lives matter minimalizes black people's fight. Understand their problems aren't an attack on your life and they just want equality. Joining their fight will only bring us closer together, not further apart. When aliens come down and try to kill us all, I'd agree that we need an all lives matter movement. But until then, let's listen and change. Now, what I mean from that is, of course, all lives matter. Of course, that's not in doubt. Well, that's the hope that all lives will matter.

Saying black lives matter is saying all lives matter. It's asking for their lives to be equal to our lives. And you saying all lives matter is a form of racism, whether you know it or not. So if you're one of these people that, okay, I'm not talking to you right now trying to change a person's mind who's just against this movement, who's angry and in my mind is a racist, but, you know, that's not for me to say, right?

Someone who's like, I'm not going to change your mind. But if you're one of these people that's like, I don't get it it i don't understand what saying black lives matter doesn't my life matter or whatever you still support black people and you want them to live and you want them not to be disproportionately being killed by police and whatnot in our society the best thing you can do right now is just listen and just shut up and know that this isn't your fight right now and just keep listening keep listening and there might be some know that this isn't your fight right now and just keep listening keep listening and there might be some things that you don't agree with and there might be some things you do agree with but be open to hearing them right now because that's what protests are all

about getting people to hear yeah and so if you can change a few minds through these protests they're not gone to waste and for people who who are um fighting alongside black people right now for equality, the approach to people who don't get it, don't be screaming at them. This is not the way to get people to learn and to adjust and to come over to your side. Like people double down on their shitty opinions when they feel like they have to be defensive. Then they feel like they're being attacked. So let's all have these conversations. Let's listen to each other and then fuck all the people that just are completely racist.

Now I also want to say that I am in no way qualified to be talking about the black lives matter situation in a sense that I don't know what it's like to be racially persecuted against. I can try and try and try and I can try to empathize and I can try to understand, but I'll never ever truly get it. And so my experience with police has been a positive one throughout my life. I'm a fan of the police.

My brother's a cop. The police, we interviewed the cops overseas. We've been on ride-alongs with them and stuff like that. I've been pulled up a few times. Nothing bad's happened to me. For the most part, my relationship with the police has been a positive one. But I can't say that and then see a guy getting his head kneeled on, his neck kneeled on for eight minutes and go that they're experiencing

the same experience as me. So I have to sit back and listen. And if all the black people are telling me that they get racially profiled all the time they get mistreatment from the cops i have to believe them right i have to believe i can't understand it because i haven't experienced it myself but i do believe you if you say that's what's going on because there wouldn't be all this kerfuffle if it hasn't gone on it's not it's not a bunch of people trying to get attention i'll tell you that much well right now when you see all of the videos of the police brutality at the protests

it's like the cops all know they're on camera right now yeah and they're still acting like this you have to wonder what's going on when they know that they're not being watched by anybody can you imagine the shit that happened before we all had cameras on our phones just here's the other thing too is like anybody that sometimes you see people on social media or online or you hear it and they'll say i i don't think that you know black people or people of color are you know discriminated against more than white people they're like white people are too and they don't see it if you think that if you actually think that that that they're that people are treated equally, that are black or brown or anything besides white, then that just tells me you don't really have any friends

that are black or brown or anything other than white. Or the people that are around you don't feel safe telling their stories. My black friends all have the same story. My ex dates a black man and, you know, and he has similar type of stories. And it's very obvious that this is going on. Now, another thing is if you're one of these people who keeps going, all lives matter, all lives matter, and you're getting angry,

or you do the whataboutism. There was a guy, a white guy who got killed by the cops. It was like a mental page, a schizophrenic and all that type of stuff, and they left him for too long. And they go, what about ism? There was a white guy who got killed by the cops who was like a mental page, a schizophrenic and all that type of stuff, and they left him for too long. And they go, what about this guy? We're not saying that nothing happens to you, that you've got nothing wrong in your life either. We're just saying it's a disproportionate thing.

And, you know, how can it hurt to bring in new laws, to bring in new consequences, to bring in a new panel of people that say this is much better. This guy who kneeled on the neck, he's had about 11 complaints, two of which involved guns, and he still was on the job, right? So they must have been able to see this guy a little bit earlier. You wouldn't do it with terrorists. You wouldn't go, oh, yeah, but this is just a bad egg out of all the ones. You have a thing, why didn't we catch these people people earlier so that's what we have to work and we have

to work on better relationships between everyone that's not just the cops and black people that's all of us the whole world we all got to get along a lot better and then we got to figure out how do we fix this problem with the police that's going on right now yeah now if you're one of these people that say all lives matter all that that type of stuff, think back, and I know you don't have to think, but watch something in the documentary like the 13th or something. Watch anyone who fought during the civil rights movement and all the people that were angry at a black student coming

onto the campus and all that type of stuff. Those people all thought they were right. They all thought they were right. But now history has proven they were wrong and it's undeniable. And you don't want to be on the wrong side of history. So if you're not going to be constructive at the moment, just shut up and listen. Listen as much as you can. And if you're still at the end of listening to everyone's argument, you still have this, I don't believe you argument, fine, whatever. We can't

change. We can't be't change we can't be reached yeah we can't be reached but until then stop just shouting over the top going all lives matter because that means you're not listening when you're talking you're not listening yeah and if you watch any of those videos that of you know that we've seen recently of black men being killed uh and you feel nothing then fuck off yeah honestly get fucked um yeah all right let's start the show okay look we have to read some adverts now i know that was very serious subject we were just talking about but this is also serious who has hairy balls i have hairy ass balls and how would i fix them for us how would I fix them, Forrest? How would I fix them?

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Please welcome to the I Don't Know About That podcast, Richard John. Hi, Richard. Hi. Now I've got to figure out who Richard is. How many questions have I got today? Yeah, this is Judging a Book by Its Cover. Richard, Jim's going to ask you yes or no questions to determine what your field of expertise is.

And he's going to ask you yes or no questions. You can just answer yes or no. Just ask as many as you want, Jim. I can already tell by looking at richard he has he's an intellectual he has books behind him he has a filing cabinet he's either an intellectual or yeah like people who keep records i haven't got a receipt my my my my my tax accountant my tax guy my accountant goes you got receipts? No. No.

Every single important document I've ever had in my life, no idea where it is. I can't find my birth certificate. Like, why would I be able to find a receipt? I can't find the deeds to my house. That's a big one. Yeah, they're around somewhere. That means you've got to give Jack some more work. I think they're all on emails or something like that um okay so so you're you're an intellectual you keep books

you've got your receipts in your files i'm gonna say that you work in yes or no question do you work we've done this so many do you work at a university yes yes okay so are you you're either because of all the books everything i'm looking, you're either an historian or a philosophy type guy. Are you a philosophy type guy? No. No. Are you an historian? Yes.

All right. Okay, so you're an historian. You would have something to do with God I don't know maybe we thought we were just talking. Are you an historian of the civil rights movement? No. Do you want me to give you a hint? Yes please.

I'm just going to say an actor's name to help you. Kevin Costner. Oh you're an historian of the Wild West. You like Wyatt Earp and all that type of stuff you're a baseball historian he's shaking his head no he did he did a lot of baseball movies you're bait you're sports historian uh do you want to get another yes please okay um do you have a no i'm still kevin costner did you give Whitney Houston drugs?

That's a rumor I'm putting out there. The bodyguard always helps you out like that. Here's another one. See if this is the only one. Because I'm trying to make it hard still. The Wright Brothers. The Wright Brothers. Oh, you're a historian of aviation.

And Kevin Costner. And Kevin Costner. No, no, Wright Brothers And Kevin Costner. And Kevin Costner. No, no, Wright Brothers again. This is quite a riddle. Okay, so Kelly can't even get it. I'm just going to tell him what it is. I mean, I know what it is, but yeah. Yeah, okay, so the Wright Brothers and...

I'm going to introduce Richard John properly. Richard John is a professor of history and communications at Columbia Journalism School of Columbia University, and he has a book called Spreading the News, The American Postal System from Franklin to Morris. Why is Kevin Costner going to do with the postal system? He had a movie where it was called The Postman. Oh, yeah, yeah.

And then the Wright Brothers, isn't that the most expensive stamp? I was trying to make it hard. That's the most expensive. An upside down Wright Brothers. Did people see The Postman? I don't know. But I'm trying to make it hard. I don't want to just give it away.

I know a little bit about the post system. Do you? Okay. I've used it. Pretty much an expert. Ask me anything. Stamps. So was that...

So Richard John, thank you for being here, by the way. So you can talk about anything U.S. Postal Service related now. Okay. We try to tell them off. So you asked me some questions. So what we're going to do now, Richard, is we're going to ask Jim, we're going to ask him to tell us everything he knows about the U.S. Postal Service and anything related to that.

And then at the end, I'm going to prod him with some questions too. And at the end of that, we're going to grade him. And you're going to grade him on accuracy from one to ten, ten being the best, 1 being the worst. Be fair. Be harsh if you need to be. Kelly's going to grade him on confidence from 1 to 10, and I'm going to grade Jim on how he smells today.

I know a couple of things, man. Okay. He's already confident. Well, hopefully you smell well because it's going to be a low score. All right. I'm going to smell all right. Go ahead, Jim. I'm just working out.

First of all, tell us what you know first. So the U. I'm just all right. Go ahead, Jim. I'm just waking up. First of all, tell us, yeah, just tell us what you know first. So the U.S. Postal Service. So the Postal Service, what it does is it delivers letters to people across America. So if you're sitting in your car right now going, I'd like to learn something, fact one. Okay. And probably some parcels.

And parcels. And the bigger the parcel, the more stamps you need. You can't just go with one stamp a stamp is for a regular letter and then a parcel will need several stamps or one big block stamp that covers them all now is this really what you know about that actually drop some knowledge now stamps okay so the first postmaster general okay was benjamin franklin nice benjamin franklin was the first postmaster general Now it's a little known fact. It's a little known fact there, Normie.

That the, because he was a postman. Cliff Clavin was a postman on Cheers. Also, the Postmaster General is like sixth in line for the presidency. There's like, you go the Vice President and you go the Speaker of the House and then it's like, it might be the Postmaster General like next. Like he's, you go the vice president, you go the speaker of the house, and then it's like, it might be the postmaster general next. He's really high up the postmaster general. He's like four, five, or six to be president, right?

So it's a cool job. I don't know who the postmaster general is right now. And what do they do? They're in charge of the post office, and they've got to be like a neutral sort of thing where they're like, I'm neither a Republican or Democrat. I just help out with the post service because this is for the people. I'm passionate about mail.

Jerry Seinfeld has a routine he's been telling for 40 years about the post office that he's repeated on his last special. He loves the post service. He does the whole thing about the stamps. They go up by one cent. What are people going to do? Oh, no. Oh. And it's like

now with emails and people in the mail why do we need the post service he's obsessed he's crazy obsessed with the person that and pop tarts really get his goat he wakes up and goes fucking stamps right now the stamp this is what i don't get The stamp is one of those things that in our society, I've never understood how long it took for it to transfer over to stickers. How long were we licking toxic glue on our tongue and sticking something on a corner of a fucking envelope? And the shops, the post office, were selling stickers. They were selling stickers to kids, and yet they went with stamps. We'll stick with the lick. But for the people who who work there they can't be licking them all day give them a wet sponge

give them a wet sponge and a little tiny cup and that's how they'll do it and then no one thought make it a sticker now you know what i think that was that was who thought of that that was the corrupt fucking stamp collectors who wanted them original and they went, stickers, I can't put them in my little book. I can't put them in my little book. So they kept the glue companies. They were corrupt as fuck as well. And the glue companies were going, keep them sticky. We want these people's tongues tasting awful for the rest of the day

just because they wanted to write a letter. I like the way they taste. Do you? Yeah, I used to like licking stamps. Also with envelopes. Now they have the peel off bit on the envelope. You just stick it down. Yeah, I used to like licking stamps. Also with envelopes. That explains things. Now they have the peel-off bit on the envelope. You just stick it down.

You used to have to lick the whole thing. Yeah. Getting paper cuts on your tongue. Yeah, I've had so many paper cuts on my tongue. It was the Wild West. Speaking of stamps, when were stamps introduced? They were introduced pretty much when it first happened. So let's say the post office was introduced. That's a bigger question.

Yeah, yeah. The post office. So Benjamin Franklin. They were talking about the That's a bigger question. Yeah, yeah. The post office of Benjamin Franklin. They were talking about the United States Postal Service. Yeah, yeah. The United States Postal Service, I'm going to say, was 1782. That's when it was introduced. 1782.

And then when did stamps come in? Right at the same time? They came in July of 1795. Wow. Before that, people were just right in the corner, two bits, or whatever the currency was. I'll mail this for two bits, right? And then they'd send them.

It was the 4th of July. It was a thing they brought in to make everyone happy on the 4th of July so we could all have a celebration. Everyone was very happy with it. And the first stamp was just a picture of Washington. Okay. Yeah, that was the first stamp. That was probably right, you know.

I probably got that right. You might be right. I'm not sure about that. Or it was a cherry tree. Just some wooden false teeth. You know those funny ones they bring out every now and again where you go, I'll buy some of them. Get some with Dolly Parton on it.

Were we the first, was this country the first to have the Postal Service? No, I don't believe, I believe the Postal Service was already up and running in the United States and you guys stole the idea. United States. Great Britain. UK. United Kingdom. United Kingdom was the place.

What do you mean we stole the idea? It's not like music or something. Oh, they have a really good idea. They send mail. No, no, no, but you didn't invent it. You didn't invent it. It was invented by the British people, and the British people had, they had to have the postal service, but it was a lot easier

because it was a smaller country. So here the postal service was really limited to you could only post letters in states that were around you that could be carried on horseback or whatnot. Then with the invention of the plane in the early 19th century, 20th century, in the early 20th century, the invention of the plane, right? 1908 or something it was, right? When that was invented, then by the 1930s, they started going,

we can bring posts across the country like that. Now, how did they get mail out to people during World War I? Good question, Kelly. It took a very long time and it was brought by boat. Brought by boat. Wow. And then you'd have to write in the letter. I never understood this.

I got a letter from my love. Like in the Civil War they were going, I have received a letter from my love. And it's like, how did you find these cuts? Like every war movie, I'm like, someone's just sleeping in a muddy trench. It's like, do you go third trench to the left, fourth pocket, Joe with trench foot. I found you.

Like how much, my mail gets lost all the time. All of the time. All the time. How did you write a letter to your loved ones back home or them more importantly, write a letter to your loved ones back home or them more importantly write a letter to you and it still got there is beyond me. I'm just saying it was a better time back then where people took pride in their work.

Okay. When did they, you mentioned parcels. When did they start delivering packages, parcels? They started, that was very close. That was 1900 they started doing parcels. 1900. And did anybody oppose this? Was anybody upset?

Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Of course, I'm going to ask the question. The people against terrorism were worried that the parcels. Against terrorism? Yeah, because there's been terrorists for a long time. It's not a new thing for us. But who are the people against terrorism? Not a new thing.

There was arguments that the people who built this country were terrorists, that were trying to overtake a government, right? So there was people who were opposed to putting in the parcels, bombs or whatnot, or small proxy blankets that could be delivered to the Indian folk or whatever. People said, don't do that. That goes against human rights. And then someone was like, I'm just trying to send some fucking cookies and they were like all right go

on then go on all right hang on let me ask you a few quick questions here and a couple more and then we'll we'll get to see see how well you did um how is the united states postal service funded uh it's government funded um by tax dollars but it also is self-efficient because it runs through the selling of stamps and so the stamp money tries to cover what we've got but it also it does things you can still deliver both taxes and taxes and revenue okay um and then how many posts i don't believe a stamp would cover the delivery of an actual letter. I believe it's subsidized by the government. Okay.

And then how many post offices are there currently? And then how many pieces of mail? There would be thousands of post offices, thousands of them. I'm going to say, okay, per capita, 330 million people. I think there has to be a post office for every 10 000 people so would that be right me saying 30 000 post offices do you want me to tell you if you're right no no no i'm happy with 30 000 okay and then how much mail is delivered each year like how many pieces like everything 31 000 okay no no no no i believe that pieces of mail there would be in

america there would be everybody gets 10 um four billion pieces of mail four billion not not i do love when you do not including a math equation not including junk mail junk mail and count but like addressed like this letter has to get to a person okay um and i get about half of that what's going on what's happening currently with them i mean there there's been some problem there's been some problems with the united states postal service problems they've faced over the years i don't know if you know one of the problems is i don't know if you know any of that. One of the problems is- I don't know if you know any of this historically, but what's happening with them right now? There's a lot of drugs that get transferred

during the U.S. Post. And what happens is the postman, I've read a thing on this, a lot of the postmen think that because it's an arrestable offense to send drugs or whatever, they just take them for themselves. So there's a lot of embezzling of drugs where the postal workers are collecting

and keeping the drugs for themselves. Okay, besides drugs, is there anything else you know currently that's going on drugs where the postal workers are collecting and keeping the drugs for themselves okay besides drugs right is there anything else you know currently that's going on that might be threatening the post office um ups is not good for the for the post office or fedex and i'll tell you i'll tell you what's really fucking with the post office ship station because we ship station you get the best possible rates at the best possible time to get your parcels out fast and free to the people who need them. ShipStation, make ship happen.

That's free, ShipStation. It's one of our sponsors. Okay. So, all right. I think that we are good. I think you've exhausted your knowledge of the postal service. I don't think there's much more to say. Well, we'll see, you know.

All right. Professor Richard John, thank you for sitting through that. How did Jim do on a scale of 1 to 10 on accuracy? And we'll go over all the answers after. How about a 4? All right. 4. Thank you, Professor.

All right. That's not you, Professor. All right. That's not bad. That's not a passing grade. You should have seen the last course. It's my first day in the course. If this is day one, I'm already up to four. I can finish this bastard in a week.

Oh, by the way, I didn't even tell you our categories. We're going to add these all up, all three categories of accuracy, confidence, and how Jim smells. If he grades 26 through 30, you'll be a postmaster general. With a four, I don't think you're going to get there. 20 through 25, priority male, like M-A-L-E, though.

Yeah. You get it? Yeah, okay. That's Kelly's. 13 through 19, friendly neighborhood mailman. 7 through 12, you're a used stamp. It's not good. Used stamp, they're the most expensiveman. 7 through 12, you're a used stamp. It's not good. Used stamp?

They're the most expensive ones. Okay. Well, depends. You don't want a new stamp. It's only worth 46 cents. I don't know how much a stamp costs. I should add that in. Oh, yeah.

How much does a stamp cost? How much is a stamp? 40, 46 cents? 46 cents. Would that be right? No. It sounds like in the ballpark. No, it's not.

It's in the ballpark. It's in the ballpark, but you can't be that far out of the ballpark. I bought like five stamps three years ago of the ballpark with me alive. I bought like five stamps three years ago was the last time I bought five. Yeah, I think I bought like I used three at the post office. I have another five. Rounded up to eight. If you grade zero through six, you're a lost package.

All right. So you've got four points so far. Kelly on confidence. How did Jim do? This might be the most confident he's been so far. I'm going to give him a nine. Confidence minus knowledge. Fake it till you make it um jim i can't smell you from here so that's a good thing yeah so that means that's pretty good i don't want to get too close social distancing i can't get a bad score i'm gonna give you a five a five just because i have to go in the middle somewhere

like that you know and also he smelt me before. I have smelt you before. Just the history of Jim's smell. You got a total score of 18. You're the friendly neighborhood mailman. All right. Thank you, Professor Richard John, for being patient. Now, let's just start with the beginning, where Jim was.

Jim says the Postal Service delivers letters and parcels. Is that true? Jim says the Postal Service delivers letters and parcels. Is that true? It delivers letters and parcels for much of its history. It's also delivered newspapers and magazines. Letters and parcels is pretty good. Pretty good. That's where I got one of your points.

Okay. And then let's just start with this. Why does the United States have a United States Postal Service? What happened to – and when did that start? Jim said it was – I think it was 1779 – 1795, he said. 1782. 1795. You're pretty damn close.

Oh, he took notes. Thank you. Well, the post office goes back to 1775. We took over post office under British crown. He was right about that. Benjamin Franklin was the first postmaster general. Big changes. Right about that.

Big changes occurred 1792. So not much happened in 82. Do you want to know why I know that question? It's one of the things on your citizenship test. Is it really? Yeah. One of the questions is, name me three things that Benjamin Franklin got up to to and i can't remember the other two but that one stuck

with me yeah i didn't know that until i looked it up yesterday and did that go on your test i didn't get that question but i studied for the test that was one of the questions that i studied but that wasn't one of the five questions that i received or maybe i get 10 questions one of the five questions that I received. Or maybe I get 10 questions. One of the 10 questions I received. I got all my questions right. I was very good. Nice. Yeah. And so... We could do that one day.

We could test me on that. I reckon I've still got it all. Jim said that there's six in line for the presidency. Is that true? The Postmaster General is no longer in the cabinet. Hasn't been since 1971. So no longer in line for the presidency. But when he was but when he was when

he was what what rank it was at the bottom of the cabinet so there were more than six cabinet offices uh maybe 12 13 at the bottom but he was in line but not he or she uh not in line anymore say so you're saying there's a chance no wow. Wow. So they were 12 in line, though. That's still pretty impressive. If there was a King Ralph situation, they could have become the president. Now, for anyone who doesn't know what King Ralph is, it's a movie with John Goodman where the royal family of Britain all get together for a family photo.

They're in a puddle. There's an electric cord. They all get electrocuted. They all die. And so all the British family's dead. So they go, oh, what are we going to do now and they find out that second cousin third cousin is a blues singer john goodman in new orleans who becomes king ralph that sounds incredible it's a good film king ralph all right a lot of history in there and how does a postmaster general become

the postmaster general who appointed by the board Commissioners, the governors of the post office. Before 1971, the Postmaster General would have been appointed by the president. But since the USPS was established, we have a board of governors that make that call. Wouldn't you love to see Trump appoint someone Postmaster General? See that day? This guy's fantastic. He knows stamps. He knows envelopes. He delivers the best mail. You that day? This guy's fantastic. He knows stamps. He knows envelopes.

He delivers the best mail. You're going to get things on time. That's my impersonation of Trump. It's not an impersonation of Trump. It's actually impersonation of Trevor Noah doing Trump. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Oh. Speaking of stamps, Jim said that right now they are currently 46 cents i believe that's wrong

and then stamps to stickers do you was there a reason for that yeah why do we keep the glue for so long you know that's one of the reasons i i i gave you such a high grade you might just be right about that uh postage stamps are collected by philatelists and uh they don't like stickers no i don't like stickers it was the bloody the stamp collectors who's who are making my tongue all hairy and the glue companies you said are corrupt the glue companies they wanted a piece of the big glue big big glue yeah they're not good now we just have horses running around willy-nilly. Jim said that stamps were introduced in July of 1795. July 4th.

July 4th of 1795. Well, they were in England before because the Queen had to be on the stamp. The Queen had to be on the stamp before. And so they would have had the Queen. They would have got rid of the Queen. I'm going to change my answer. They brought it in straight away. Okay.

Unfortunately, that's not correct great britain queen victoria poster stamp 1840 first poster stamp united states benjamin franklin and george washington you got a point there 1847 1847 there you go and what did i say originally 1795 so you know okay well i'm telling you, I'm in a 50-year range. 50-year range? No, no, I'm not. I'm a 50, 53 years. But still.

I've still got that wrong. How am I going to give you credit for 53 years? In the big scheme of things. And then Jim didn't mention this, but the Post Office Act of 1792, but I guess that is like that's when it started? Well, with the Post Office Act of 1792, the institution got its current civic mandate to bind the nation, to circulate newspapers and magazines at low cost, to expand rapidly into the hinterland in advance of demand, and to guarantee privacy. That is to say, no peeking at your letters.

That's 1792. Before that, they could have a look, could they? They could have a little look-see. And they could have a look-see in Britain and France and in the continent. The founders, a couple of them had been diplomats, and they didn't like that. And so we legislated you cannot open a letter are you allowed to read what's inside are you allowed to read a postcard that's right in front of you

it's impossible not to postcards were different so were newspapers but letters were special okay no if it's sealed up that seems fair enough before that you had that wax oh yeah yeah the wax and you have your little marker stick that you put in there. There you go. But then if it was broken, what could you do? Just be like, yeah, somebody read this. Oh, my mother would just open my mail.

She wouldn't give a stuff. Okay. And then how did they find people to deliver mail in the war? I know that Jim said they just threw a trench in the lift. How does a letter get to a person in a trench in the First World War? And even the Civil War, I've watched the Ken Burns Civil War documentary, and there's

always letters, oh my dearest Beatrice, the war is coming to an end, but my lust for you is never going to end. You know, that type of stuff, right? So how did they get their letters the post office had a very effective uh wartime mail service and the military supported it because it was critically important for morale and you're absolutely right the civil war is our memory of

it is all kind of mediated through soldiers letters sent through the post office post office given his history i never really even thought about that like yeah it was just in a field yeah so how did they so so when you say that the military did it so they had to go because everyone had to hang out in their platoons yeah right a platoon is what a hundred people or something i'm not sure i just know yeah it was around that around i couldn't tell you platoons, all the different breakdowns. I don't know how that works. But they have the names where Foxtrot, blah, blah, blah, platoon or whatever, and platoon number four or whatever we want to call ourselves, right?

And so they have those hundred guys. I assume the general of that area or the officer or commander of that platoon would have a list of all the people. And so you have to mail the letter to the platoon, and then the guy would have to find the letter to the platoon and then the guy would have to find the the person within the platoon right and then if if mash is anything to go by uh it'd be like a radar like character that would come around once a week you wouldn't get him every day and he'd go oh the post is in and everyone would come in and it's a platoon consists of three to four uh three to four squads or sections and a company contains three to five platoons,

and a platoon is usually 16 to 44 soldiers. So a hundred is sort of the right thing. You've got a squad, platoon, and then company. Yeah. I always thought in war I'd be one of the good guys with a drum. We're coming. You don't get a gun. Well, this is the thing about war.

Okay, back to the stamp thing. I go on tangents. I'm sorry, Richard. But with the war, how long did it take them to go, hey, we can make these outfits less noticeable? Like the red coats. The British were wearing red. And then, like, who was the first person to go,

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We're here with Professor Richard John who's a professor of history and communications at Columbia Journalism School at Columbia University. We're talking about the United States Postal Service. All right, let's get back to the questions that Jim answered, and then we'll find out some other interesting stuff that we didn't talk about. Jim said that parcels started around 1900, they started delivering it. Is that correct? That was pretty close. Yeah, about 1914. 1914. Okay. And not quite right on the opposition, though. There wasn't terrorists? Did it have something to do with the First World War and people wanting parcels?

Was that an impetus for it? Well, yeah, it was an impetus, sure. But there were a lot of merchants and the storekeepers who didn't want parcel posts because they feared that it would undermine their local business. You'd no longer go to your local clerk to ask about what you needed to buy. You'd instead just buy it right through the mail. See, this is the thing.

It proves over time that they were right. Shopping centers are going bust now. No one wants to go because everyone gets everything through the internet. Everything gets everything delivered. Why would you leave your house? That's i get my blue chew straight to my house i really hope these are our sponsors today so um okay so uh jim funding of it jim said the united states postal service is funded by government tax dollars but subsidized by revenues. Right. Yeah, that's wrong. It's important we understand that. Since 1971, the Postal Service has been self-supporting. When it runs a deficit, it borrows money.

Now, before 1971, you're right. The Post Office did often run a deficit. In fact, it ran an annual deficit almost every year between 1851 and 1971. But since 1971, and that's a long time, it hasn't been a line item in the federal budget. And why has it been running so efficiently? Because I feel like people are sending less letters now. So how does it survive? I feel like it would get worse and worse. Is it just putting up stamps? Or is it the drugs? putting up stamps or is it uh the drugs well that's a good question post office today delivers about half of the world's mail it's one of the largest uh organizations of its kind uh really

in the history of the planet uh and they make money on parcels they still make money on first class mail though they make less every year and they they work closely with UPS, Federal Express, Amazon, in order to facilitate the movement of these parcels that is a growing sector of the business. Now, I've heard something, and I've said this to people as a fact, and I may be wrong about this. So the post office has its own planes, but also when you're on a commercial flight, am I correct in saying that there's many parcels underneath us that they rent out space on commercial flights? Yeah, that's very perceptive. And it's really kind of interesting.

The commercial airlines in the United States started up because they had mail contracts. In other words, it was a subsidy from the government that made it possible to start up all those routes in the 1920s 1930s so the post office and the commercial airlines have been very closely connected right from the beginning still closely connected today right so when they weigh my bag and they go oh it's two pounds over and they're delivering fucking dumbbells to a meathead over the other side of the country what do i why am i in trouble i know you don't have an answer that richard i'm i'm i'm shooting the messenger hey you'll be emailing jet blue later does the term shooting the messenger come from an incident

i don't think so i think it's kill the messenger kill the messenger yeah kill the messenger going postal that's that comes from what is the what what is the stats on that because postal workers go crazy and start shooting people up or whatever is is it is it just that that industry attracts these type of people or is it a stressful job that brings this on very stressful uh large workforce and the demands vary from time to time uh so that's that's you had a couple of incidents things 20 years ago and that's where going postal comes from yeah you think about the volume of mail and the number of pieces that clerks have to handle every day it's really quite remarkable now the term whether it's snow or rain or hail or sleep, we're coming.

That's the saying, right? Where does that originate from? Is that just one guy said it or is there an incident of that? It was put on the New York Post Office. I think it goes back to Herodotus referring to ancient Persian courier service. So it wasn't even really a post office that was the inspiration for that. But the post office administrators liked that in the early 20th century. When did they get snow and sleet in Persia? You know, you're right.

They're just going, it's like me going, me living out in Arizona, whether it's a tsunami. Just somebody making themselves sound like a hero found a big plot hole in this story so jim said there was 30 000 jim said there was 30 000 post offices was he correct get that one almost right on the head yeah about 31 000 today man you got to give me a better mark than four dude i'm telling you this is the most right i've ever been and other people have dropped dates on me it is true i do like that you graded them hard um and then i want to ask you how much mail is delivered by the post office each year

you said four billion pieces probably in pieces that was pretty low uh the post office let me see i got it don't have it on the top of my head. You wrote to me. There was 143 billion pieces of mail to 160 million addresses every year. Wow. That's how every address gets it. We all get it. It's about half of all the mail in the world.

So there's 143. Half of all the mail in the world is done here in America. Half. That's insane. Yep. That's insane. I noticed that moving here from britain and australia we get more junk mail here yeah we get more stuff just constantly sent to us and what i don't like is the envelopes that say important important you must read and then it's like you've been pre-approved for a credit card that should be fucking illegal i don't even open

my mail anymore like having mail gives me so much anxiety. Everything I do, like bill pay is online, but they keep sending paper mail. I just can't do it. I get Jack to do it, and then Jack tells me how it's going. Once I have money to have an assistant. You need to get a Jack. I do. Jack doesn't help me with anything. So Jim said that one of the controversies is a lot of drugs are being delivered to the mail.

I don't think that's correct. Yeah, people deliver drugs to the mail i knew had a her friend who once was living in sydney and then moved to perth and wanted to have some ecstasy tablets so my friend lined this a strip of a cd that little spine yeah with pills and delivered them to himself i just sent somebody xanax recently. He was an idiot. That fucking loser. Well, other than drugs, has anything interesting been sent in the mail that we'd be surprised by? You have something here that was interesting, I thought, about the Hope Diamond. Oh, I put that in there? Oh, you put that in there.

Yeah. Well, the Hope, it's an interesting problem. How do you send something that's really, really valuable? So you make a big fuss about it, and you send it insured through a private courier. The fear was it was worth hundreds of millions of dollars and it would disappear. In fact, there was a package sent that way that disappeared within the hour.

You just sent the Hope Diamond through the post office, regular rates, and it got there. All right, because they didn't tell him because the people wouldn't have seen that it was registered so they wouldn't have thought it was special no no no but they insured it this was it says here they insured it for a million dollars so and but how much was it worth though i can't remember it was like something either way okay yeah okay so i'll tell you i'm saying when you're insuring it for a million they're not going to be like well i guess there's nothing valuable in here i'll tell you a book i'll tell you a little- I'm saying when you're insuring it for a million, they're not going to be like, well, I guess there's nothing valuable in here.

It's just a book. I'll tell you a personal story about me in the post office that blew my mind when it happened. And I've gone online to look and a lot of people have similar stories to me that happened to them. But what happened was, okay, so I had to spend many, many years. I was here for 10 years, got my citizenship,

went and got sworn in. You get your certificate. It is a very emotional day. You're like, you got the certificates. Like they can't kick me out. I'm one of them. I'm in, you know, and it's a wonderful feeling to become a new citizen of any country, not just America.

If you've been trying to become a citizen of the country, it's a wonderful thing to feel acceptance. And they give you this certificate and it looks like something that you'll frame. It's got a little gold lilty thing on it. It's picture on it it's all like you've won a degree it's a fantastic thing right most official thing i've ever had and then i go all right now i gotta get my american passport so they go you go down to the post office right and you uh you uh you give them your certificate and they'll give you the passport. You go down there. There was a girl working there who fared income, right? She was on training, right?

And she's just like, what do I do with these? And they go, I just put it in this envelope, send it to blah, blah, blah. She took my receipt for the thing. She stapled it to the corner of my certificate. I was like, oh, no. My most prized possession. My most prized possession. And then I said, can I register that or something?

They go, no, you're not allowed to for these citizenship things, going up to the passport people, right, because they don't want to be responsible for it or whatever. And so they sent it off and then they go, you should have it back in a few weeks, maybe, right? And I'm like, it was just there. I had no copy of it. I didn't even photocopy it. I had no, it had just there. I had no copy of it. I didn't even photocopy.

I had no, it had just been sent out to the universe. Anyway, my passport came and then my citizenship certificate never came back. And I was just like, and then like five weeks later, there it is, rolled up and shoved into the slot of my mailbox, just hanging out. I was on a weekend of gigs. It had been sticking out of my mailbox at the front of my mailbox just hanging out. I was on a weekend of gigs and it had been sticking out of my mailbox at the front of my house for about four days.

We can Photoshop you a new one. I've got it. No, I've got it. It's got staple marks in it. It's all crinkled up but I have the bloody thing back. It got there though. Thank you, post office. Nailed it again. How many lost letters can we

tangibly say that because i feel like one in 20 of my letters get lost or am i just exaggerating is it very rare or you know what i mean the post office regularly does studies through the post office inspection service and it's very very rare uh much less than one in 20. Isn't that why people love the USPS so much is because like UPS and FedEx, if somebody's like in a really isolated destination or something like that, they won't go like the extra mile. And that's why USPS is considered like the heroes of mail because they'll deliver it no matter where you are. Dog sled, 19th century camels. It's so crazy. Post office goes everywhere. many more places than any other delivery service uh in the country now how do okay so i'm going to say something sweeping

something every country in the world has a post office every country in the world about yeah every country okay um so out of all how do they all work together so the australian post office and the american post office they're friends or do they or do they ever or do they all work together? So the Australian post office and the American post office, they're friends or do they ever not get along? No, but are they all mates or do they go, oh, fuck, we have to deliver something to Guam. They're the worst. One of the first international organizations,

the Universal Postal Union, still in existence today, goes back to 1874, coordinated the delivery of mail across national borders, figuring out who gets paid for what and what you can send in the mail. They sent parcels in the European countries, which dominated the UPU, long before the United States did. Long list of things you cannot send

over international borders and very complicated protocols for figuring out who gets paid for what to deliver from one place to another. The French, for a long time, they were right in the middle of Europe, and they figured we're right in the middle of Europe, we're going to charge all those countries a lot of money to send their letters over France or through France. And the other countries didn't like it. So the United States didn't like that.

So they had to hash it out. I mean, that's not surprising that the French did that. The French were difficult, you say. How did this not make the news? The French have been bashed on every one of these podcasts so far. I'm surprised Jim didn't do that. My new special coming out, I believe, July 7th, which is called Intolerant, the French get a big bashing.

That special. I'll tell you what, if society ever becomes woke about French bashing, oh, man, I'm cancelled. I'm cancelled. I've bashed the French. Okay, so it would be safe to say that I can't think of anything else, maybe the Olympics, but the post office is the only thing that unites us all on a world scale.

Can we deliver letters to North Korea? That's a good question. There are protocols. It depends from where to where. I don't think you can do it directly from the United States, but I'm not certain about that. During the Second World War, could an American mail something to a German? There were protocols there, too.

A lot of the soldiers' mail was censored, and any mail from Germany would be censored. And whether or not it was stopped is a good question. Right. They should have just texted. Yeah, they'd probably definitely read that. Yeah. North Korea definitely reads your mail. I don't think they're just giving it seal to that.

Oh, no, I would start it off like, you know, when someone writes a nasty comment to you, what they do is put in the headline, I'm your biggest fan. See, I open it up and then it's like, you're a piece of shit. So I would do that. Like, Kim Jong-un, he's all right, isn't he? At the top of the letter. They're like, this checks out, all good, send it along.

Dennis Rodman rocks. All right, this guy seems rodman rocks all right this guy seems like he's all right all right so how is the united states postal service doing financially right now well the post office is in trouble uh covid19 has hit it pretty hard and it has been required under a 2006 law to prepay pensions if If it didn't have to prepay those pensions, it would be pretty much breaking even. But with the pensions plus COVID-19, it's a couple, you know, tens of billions of dollars in the hole.

So that's a question for the future. Now, will we bail it out? We should bail it out. It feels like it's a thing we still should use. It seems to me we should bail it out. It's part of essential infrastructure like water. President Trump has raised questions about whether or not you should bail the post office out. So has his secretary of treasury. So it remains to be decided what Congress will do.

We're giving money to golf courses right now, but not post office. Hasn't he been saying that USPS doesn't charge UPS and FedEx and Amazon enough, and they need to be charging four times more. So it's just like the cost for anybody sending mail would be astronomically higher. Yeah. The specialists who've looked into that think that the post office has a pretty good arrangement with Amazon and the other carriers. And they all work together, because the post office has the last mile. Many, many places the post office goes at FedEx or UPS don't go and then Amazon wants to deliver. So the experts have said the president's wrong.

Maybe not. Shocking. Yeah. Yeah. So that's that's the controversy right now that's been in the news, Jim, is that the White House is rejecting a bailout for the Postal Service. Trump says he's going to block aid for it. And that that's the question is like so like if if the united states postal service was eliminated you know like what what are some of

the problems with that i mean that's i mean that's what do you think jim like if there was do you think we need it we have to have it because it's you know it's the last line of defense we still have to be able to send letters and stuff like that there's a lot of old people who rely on it rely on it as well um like for drugs that's like when you got to send drugs no actual legal drugs like stuff like my mom used to get drugs milter in the mail like for yeah but your mom was a hippie oh no at the end at the end well i mean honestly i mean i don't know if i can get in trouble for this now but i I used to, I don't know. Let's just know this about Forrest's mom. She called him Forrest. You want to think that this woman didn't take drugs at some stage?

Previous, previous to, um, to medical marijuana being legal in Florida. It was very helpful to my mom. I would mail it to her and she was really, that was her old hippie thing. She got, we're going to get busted in this. Now I'm like, mom, I really hope they take us to court for me mailing medical marijuana to a cancer patient then they eventually legalize it but i would i send it to her all the time and there's i guess that's illegal well i guess i'm going to jail yeah forrest brings out he's he's special guilty with him in handcuffs he's dying mother and he'd be ready to send marijuana the career would boom what uh so i guess i should get

a rest um can I say something very quickly I'm thinking that Correct me if I'm wrong, statistically The post office has the least amount of hot chicks Working for it out of any industry I've never seen a female Postman Come by

Statistically From the eye check Like they've never brought out a calendar Have they Statistically. Oh, there are studies statistically speaking. Yeah, from the eye check, right? Like, they've never brought out a calendar, have they? There's never been a calendar called Go Postal. And here's Cindy, and she delivers things in Delaware. Just two, like, envelopes over her nipple. Two envelopes.

Well, speaking of that, okay, I have a list here of some famous postal workers. Okay. I mean, I'm not saying that they're hot, but I'm just saying because... Okay, I know some famous ones. Okay, name as many as you can. Let's see if... Son of Sam. I don't know.

I don't know if that's on the list. What's his name? What's his actual name? Son of Sam. He was a postal worker. He used to hear the dogs all barking and stuff like that. Is that true? Yeah, yeah.

He thought the dogs were talking to him. It was a Seinfeld episode of when Newman had the Son of Sam bag. I can look it up, but I don't know. Oh, you lost us? We got you. Can you hear us? No. No.

Sorry. This is funny. Yeah. I'm right about the hot poster workers. We should make a calendar. That should be our first piece of merch. Hey, I will put this out there. People are still listening while we're trying to fix this.

If you are a hot poster worker, send us a picture. Prove me wrong. Just like they said, statistically. Male or female. I'm not sexist. Per capita. If you're a hot poster worker, if you're hot, send us a photo. Yeah, we'll rank everybody next everybody yeah and if i'm wrong

i'll come back on the show and go wrong we've found some hot postal workers yeah that's not even a halloween costume you ever seen yeah they don't even make they don't even make a sexy halloween costume they make they make a sexy chewbacca but just to put it in context there's a sexy chewbacca you can get out there right you can't get yourself a sexy postal worker it's it's never been a fantasy women have been fucking milkmen and they don't even exist anymore and we still reference them we still go oh the milkman's come over has he you know you wouldn't like if uh if your girlfriend was like hey mr jeffries i've got your mail yeah i have something that needs to be put in my slot and then a dog bites her yeah it's like it's i think it's great for no i'm saying

that send us any if you're a good looking poster worker send us pics male or female male or fema okay male or fema uh richard do we or any of the other genders do we have you back richard you got me back okay great yeah you didn't miss much much, Richard. I did look it up. Son of Sam was a postal employee. David Berkowitz. David Berkowitz was a postal worker. Anybody that didn't kill people? No, I believe Brad Pitt was a postal worker for a while.

Too good looking. They got rid of him. If Brad texts you a picture of him as a postal worker, that's going to be a win. If Brad Pitt texts me a picture of him as a postal worker, that's going to be a win. If Brad Pitt texts me a picture of him as a postal worker, then I'll, look, I won't be in it for a week. Here's a couple. Bing Crosby and Walt Disney.

Bing Crosby was one. Yeah, and Walt Disney. You reckon Bing Crosby, when he was delivering his letters, was just walking down the street going, ba-da-da-boom, ba-da-da-doom, ba-da-boom, boom-boom, rather speak door snail or hook. That's how he did it. And Walt Disney was like, he was just drawing little cartoons. If you got one of those letters.

Here you go. Here's a hot one. Rock Hudson. He was a sex symbol. Rock Hudson. Says Rock Hudson with a letter carrier in Winnetka, Illinois. Winnetka. Winnetka.

Rock Hudson. That's what it says here. And then Richard is shaking his head yes. So yes. And then Charles Lindbergh. Winneka. Rock Hudson. That's what it says here. And then Richard is shaking his head yes. And then Charles Lindbergh. He was hot. Lindbergh? The Lindbergh baby? Yeah.

I don't know if he was hot or not. But there you go. Rock Hudson. You get a picture of him. My father wanted to be a post worker for a while. When he had his last few years of, like, because he liked going for walks. Yeah. And he thought, oh, that would be good.

And he likes delivering his opinion on things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I'll tell you what, my dad would pull away a bit of your mail. If it said, vote Hillary, my dad, that letter would be lost. All these ballots went missing. What happened, Gary? Yeah, yeah, my dad wouldn't be the best person. But in Australia, he couldn't go for a walk.

They put him on motorcycles because their houses are further apart. Now, in Britain, it's a great walking postman thing because all your houses are next door to each other and it's all very flat. In Britain, they walk all day. But in Australia, they ride around on motorcycles. My guy, I think, is in a truck, comes around in a truck. I'm like, just do the suburb

here you mean yeah yeah the mail truck so that's common yeah do it with a bag i guess he's got passes they get to drive in the wrong on the wrong side of the car here for the post office because they want to be on the side where the mailbox is they drive on the right side no really no i didn't even notice that yeah because you're used to like seeing people driving that side of the car but when i was little i used to be like and then then no doors. You're like, no, danger. I thought they were just British. Speaking of ballots and stuff, you mentioned that. So just to go back to, if the postal service is eliminated,

no postal, there won't be any ballots. You can deliver those. No legal drugs for people living in isolated locations that were unable to go to pharmacies. And then it would also increase the cost of everything else, like Fed else like fedex ups and then small businesses and rural locations and stuff like that plus the jobs it says there's so many jobs i don't almost 500 000 is that correct yes it's about 500 000 disproportionate number of veterans and minorities work for the post office good union jobs right so it's good it's and they've got a pension and it's a good geek i sometimes find with the post sometimes i put a letter in

a mailbox and i'm like no one's coming to come and get this it's like it's like the one on the side of the road that's like a proper one i'm like that one they're gonna come by and get that one but when it's when are you in a fancy five-star hotel it's like a hundred years old and they have that old like gold slot that says mail yeah and i just give it i just give it a go yeah i never expect that letter to do much this is clearly for decoration but i do it i shove it in there i wonder if anyone's laughing at me um that's you know what i still get mail from two to three of the previous owners and you can't stop that like you can go to the post office yeah there's got to be there should be a way to stop that yeah redirecting doesn't seem like it's the the i've scratched it out and i put is not at this address anymore return to

sender and you got to scratch out the barcode too and then you try to send it back and sometimes it just comes back again i'll just throw it away my girlfriend believes and i think this is bullshit she believes if you leave mail on top of your letterbox, they'll take it and post it for you. What do you mean? Put the stamp on it? Yeah, she goes, put a stamp on it. She leaves it on the top thinking the mailman will take it

and post it for her. And I think that's madness. No, no, yeah, you can do that. Yeah. I wouldn't trust that. What do you mean? You have a little flag on the side of your box, right? Yeah.

You put the flag up to let them know there's a letter to take i thought the flag they put the flag up to tell me we put it in so i could sit in my house and go oh they've been the flags up is that what that's for i i think this is just for as a kid this is what i've known right richard you put the flag up when you have mail for them to take yeah i know i never knew that i didn't know that. They've never put the flag up, though, for you, right? I think I've put it up. Oh, hey, my son puts it up.

I love the idea that Jim's been sitting in the window in front of his house waiting for the flag to go up. It just never does. I thought the flag went up. You got mail. You get mail every day. Yeah, but I thought the flag went up every day i didn't collect it my girlfriend gets it i thought she put the flag down or i thought i thought maybe that i forgot

to put the flag down and just left it no the flag is if you have that's so you're gonna have to go tell tell tell her that she's right you put the flag up if you put letters in there that you want the post officer the postman the postman to take because sometimes if you don't have mail they'll see the flag and they'll be like i gotta stop there and grab it right but isn't isn't their option to try to empty their bag yeah well they gotta they gotta deliver it too yeah they're delivering from their bag like at the end of the walk they're like you know when you're going for a hike and you go now it's downhill right i'm in the downhill bit of the hike this is the easy bit right you deliver all your stuff your bag's getting lighter and lighter.

Your bag starts at like 40 pounds. You get it down to five pounds. You're all right. And then bloody Kelly wants to deliver some drugs. And they're left in the thing. This is heavy. Yeah. This is kilos of weight.

Okay. Richard John, Professor Richard John, we're coming to the part where we call dinner party facts. And this is where we want to give our listeners a fact or two or three. I know a couple here that I see that you've offered up to us. So that if someone happens to be talking about this subject at a bar or a restaurant or a dinner party, something like that, they can say something and sound really smart, like they really know what they're talking about. So you can give us more than one.

I see there's a couple here. Tell us what you you think or well half the mail in the world is something i don't know yeah that's good say that again yes yeah half the half the mail in the world is delivered for usbs postmaster general is the second highest paid government official wow jim guess the salary. If it's second highest, I'm going to say a million dollars a year. Actually, no. It can't be that much because the president gets 400,000, so I'm going to say 250,000.

Something like that. I think it was like 342. 340, something like that. Around there. So the second highest behind the president in the government. It's a huge operation. You want some more yeah yeah sure uh if you go to the postal museum in washington dc next to union station you can see the beloved post office dog owney which was uh stuffed in 1897 beloved by railway mail clerks who delivered the mail, sorted it on moving railroad cars for about 100 years.

Cornerstone of postal delivery were these railroad cars. We had to sort so many hundred pieces of mail every hour. And there was a dog that was a beloved kind of companion in the Albany post office. And then they put him on a train and eventually went around the world. I don't know how you want that. You want to, I can give you a, I can give you another kind of odd fact. Yeah. Let's do one more. Yeah. Zip codes mean nothing.

Yeah. What's that zip code on the end for? Yeah. What's all that about? Yeah. We'll take one more. There was an anarchist named lysander spooner in 1844 who set up a company to compete with the post office he believed that it was the monopoly was unconstitutional called the american letter mail company he wanted to have a great supreme court case to test the constitutionality but the post office lowered the rates improved service and spooner never got his

day in court yeah thank you thank you spooner though for lowering the rates man so he did do something then yeah yeah so we need competition yeah okay that was that was the biggest crisis the post office has confronted until today in the 1840s when uh about nine tenths of the mail on certain routes went with private rivals undercutting it. But Congress came through, lowered the rates, said you don't have to break even anymore, and that ended the crisis by 1851. Now, is this a course that you teach, Professor, or is this something you're passionate about?

How did you get into the Postal? He wrote a book. I was interested not in the Post Office, but I was interested in bureaucracy. What do Americans think about bureaucracy? And one of my professors said that the first bureaucracy in the United States was the post office. And I said, aha, I could write a book about that because I bet a lot of people had opinions. And they did. Do you want to say the name of the book and how people can get it?

Yeah, I said it at the beginning. It's too postal. I said it at the beginning. Oh, sorry. You can get it mailed to you said it at the beginning. It's too postal. I said it at the beginning. Oh, sorry. You can get it mailed to your issue. You can say the name again. I said it at the beginning, but please tell us the name of your book.

The book's called Spreading the News, the American Postal System from Franklin to Morse. It's about the critical 50 years from the adoption of the Constitution up to the coming of the electric telegraph. When the post office was a wellspring of democracy, American politics grew out of the circulation of information that the post office made possible.

So Morse, I assume, came up with the Morse code. Is Morse code, is that part of the postal service? Was that sending a telegram? Was that you go down to the post office and did, did, did, did, did, did? Wow. That's the question. Samuel Morse wanted to sell his patent rights to the post office and da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Wow. That's the question. Samuel Morris wanted to sell his patent rights to the post office, to put the post office and the telegraph under the same administration.

And, in fact, that's what happened in Britain and France and Japan and most of the rest of the world. 1870s, there was a popular movement. It didn't happen with Morris. It stayed private. But in the 1870s, there was a popular movement for the government to take over telegraph because the corporate corporation was running the telegraph was pretty unpopular and the post office was pretty popular and the post office ran better than the corporation ulysses s grant wanted the government to take

over the telegraph and set up a postal telegraph that was morris's idea too but didn't happen that's this is how old i am when i was a kid i remember going to weddings and then the best man would read out all the telegraphs that people had sent around the world that was part of the that was part of the job as the best man you'd go and jenny in paris who says she can't be here with us today she wants to say wish you the best of luck in your marriage right and so jenny would go down to a post office send a telegraph because you couldn't have emails and that type of stuff so she could send it right away as a message rather than send a letter and that's oh what am i a hundred i don't remember that are you sure you just didn't see that in a movie or

no no no no that was it that was still that was still going on in the 80s i'm telling you that was still going on in the 80s because we didn't have email. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense. Well, thank you, Professor Richard John, for being here. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Professor. We really appreciate it.

It's very informative. Now everyone knows about the post office. Yeah, and we have one more segment. You're welcome to stick around, Professor, if you want, but it's not related to the Postal Service, but it's very short and you can hang on. And if you have an opinion, you can throw it out there. This is called I Do Know About That.

This is where we have a topic that Jim says that he knows about or talks about and he thinks he knows a lot about it. And we ask him three questions to see if, in fact, he does know about it. And today's topic, very specific, West Side Story. All right. Now tell people you love musicals i love musicals i really love west side story but i might fall up on a few things but i i think i think i know enough we've made them kind of hard yeah these are really obscure because i know that you know about them so leonard bernstein stephen sonheim was the first is the

first thing that step Sondheim ever did and he was only the lyricist on it before he became Stephen Sondheim that we know today and he was like a teenager

or he was like 20 or something he was very very young and Maria is this is I'm going to throw out things first Maria

Maria is for is the one piece of music that has the one word repeated over and over and over again one name more than any other song okay are you a west side story fan professor richard john yeah who doesn't like it you're a general you're a general shark it happened just down the street okay so steven

spielberg's remaking the film this is he yeah and now because you look like natalie wood i just watched natalie wood documentary natalie wood was playing a puerto rican and it was uh it was brown face it was puerto rican face and so now if you're a young puerto rican girl get an audition unless it's been cast already because uh it's a big role i can't wait to see the cg it's gonna be awesome yeah all right so this was the first film to win an Oscar for. Well, it was the first film to win a specific an Oscar for. I don't even know how to ask the fucking question. I'm asking it wrong.

It got it got a Best Director Oscar, but there was something notable about the award. The way I wrote the question was wrong. Oh, I'm the first of its kind I wrote the question was wrong. First of its kind. For the director. Female? No, two directors. Two directors.

Robert Wise and Jerome Roberts. What was I thinking? Idiot. Idiot. All right, so Robert Wise is one of the directors and his original choice to play Tony was who? Elvis Presley.

Did you know that? Or did you just guess? Just guessed. That's right. Yeah, that's right. It seems like it would be. Because it sounded like you guessed. I was like, you know. Yeah, no, I think Elvis Presley did you know that or did you just guess just guessed that's right that seems like it sounded like you guessed I was like you know I think Elvis Presley

would have been a good casting however Presley's manager Colonel Tom Parker refused since Elvis would only sing in six of the twelve songs and because he would not

have exclusive rights to the soundtrack and the soundtrack was the biggest selling album of the year and still to this day it's the biggest selling movie soundtrack apart from saturday night fever bgs i i've never seen west side story just it's fantastic i couldn't even

tell you a song you have it no it's a fantastic movie what's a song in west side story maria um i want to be in america i looked it up after your dad sang that. Could be, who knows, there's something due any day. I will know right away as soon as it shows. It may come counting bowling down through the sky, gleaming inside,

bright as a rose. Are we going to have to pay for this? Or Elvis would have done it. Who knows, there's something due any day. I will know right away as soon as it shows.

Okay, Riff and Tony repeat an oath of loyalty to each other. Riff says, womb to tomb, and Tony answers, birth to earth. Right? On stage, Tony's original answer, instead of birth to, I'm sorry,

womb to tomb. I'm fucking up these guys' answers. I can see the comments already. Forest has had a stroke. Riff says, womb to tomb, and Tony answers, birth to earth. On stage, says womb to tomb and Tony answers birth to earth. On stage, Tony's original answer instead of birth to earth was what? Cradle to grave.

Sperm to worm. Sperm to worm. Yeah, man. Censorship fucked that one up. Yeah, this was changed because of censorship. Let's see if I can get one more question out. That was a very salacious song because Crump You was like, fuck you. And it was like head swinging. Oh, Officer Crump You was like, fuck you. And it was like head-swinging.

Oh, officer Crump You, you're really a bum. We can take Crump You now. Okay, I promise I'll ask the last question correctly. During the prologue, the Jets take a basketball from two kids and play with it. Do you remember that? Yes, I do. Okay. Before they walk away, Riff throws it back to one of the kids.

This kid that caught the basketball is the father of famous actors who was it um father of famous actors i'm gonna i'm gonna say a very young martin sheen yeah i kind of threw you off by saying actors because but but but one of them is that's kit colkin father of thekin. Yeah, that was their father that got the basketball in Culkin Brothers, the movie of the 90s and 2000s. All right, that was a really good job by me asking questions today. I love West Side Story. I need to watch it again.

It's been a really long time. Somewhere there's a place for us. Is there anything you want to promote,im before we leave with you all right july 7th it's coming new netflix special intolerant it's it's uh it's coming out july 7th july 7th on july 7th on netflix and it's a good one it's i recorded it in november so it's a little dated there's a few things in there that don't uh i'll tell you yeah yeah it's a little dated okay i have uh something coming out um uh on june 26 i have a ep called the belly ep bella ep name there for my cat and there's gonna be an exclusive preview of the belly ep on sirius xm thursday june 24th at 2 p.m and 10 p.m

on the raw dog channel 99 uh i'll post a link for a free preview of that as well too so shout out to paul of charsky at raw dog for setting that up and my birthday is june 30th june 30th is your birthday yeah yeah well we better get geared up for that mo me at kelly blackheart okay and again thank you to our guest professor richard john again you can get his book um on amazon right and it'll be delivered in the mail. And it's called Spreading the News, The American Postal System from Franklin to Morris. Thanks, mate.

Thank you. Thank you, everyone. And that was I Don't Know About That. Remember, if you're at a party and someone says something that you don't know about, just say, I don't know about that and walk away. You'll still win the argument. Good night, Australia. downloadable, where all podcasts are available. Come see my friends, Michael and Kevin, as we talk to you about what's awesome, what sucks,

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