Comcastrodors, please welcome Jacopo della Quercia. An educator and history writer featured on CNN Money, BBC America, The Huffington Post, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!, Jacopo has authored over 100 articles for the website Cracked.com, specializing in the weirder and more amazing parts of world history. He’s also a history professor and writer of speculative, comedic, historical fiction.
This conversation becomes a thought experiment walking through the more unlikely points of American history, starting with the super villain life of Andrew Jackson leading to the ultimate question of how Donald Trump could win the 2016 election. He also teases his upcoming License to Quill, a James Bondesque thriller starring William Shakespeare during the Gunpowder Conspiracy.
Jacopo’s present book, The Great Abraham Lincoln Pocket Watch Conspiracy, dramatizes the lives and rivalries of the Taft and Roosevelt families and is available on Amazon.
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And they’re so hey are welcome to come Castro. Thank you very much pleasure to be here. Yeah so. You know I do have to say Do you recall that episode of the some sons where they go to New York and park it’s a glimpse inside of Mad magazine studios. Yes it is hysterical. Yeah. Like all through college and before and since I was a Spanish Cracked dot com is very much had the sort of allure as if that would be sort of the place. Well the funny thing is if crack had a New York City headquarters I think it just consisted of Jack O’Brien but the closest I got to peeking inside it was about four years ago when you got to be over to Manhattan very snowy day just for drinks and and I said look you can bark so although it didn’t have all the bells and whistles and crazy cartoon characters it wasn’t joyful. You know honestly just between you and me and whoever’s listening I thought my jokes were funny man. Well Numidia right we all get to tune in from everywhere to contribute was one of the great things about cracked the door for so many people of different backgrounds which is how I got there in the first place. Yeah it would be fair to call you a bit of an antiquated. I was asking it would be fair to call you a bit of an antiquarian. Honestly you guys that you guys like people can call me whatever they want. I mean you know some people think that I am I got people of thought that I’m a time traveler from the fourteenth century from people of said machine that cracks just turned on the history article like a search engine. I mean it’s the kind of thing where I. I am what I you know I go over there with one another and talking to Brian one time and I’m just a little baffled when he very politely referred to me as a stranger and I’m like you know I mean it’s not that nerdy this is all really cool stuff I just find that an article about having an interest that goes beyond traps where people are normally aware but that is not exactly what some guy like painting for gold is like you know you’re going to think he’s a real nerd until you like the gold making itself a good dozen gold rings and he had been if you can really call any You Tube channel I like to pick up what I like to think of myself as more the latter. I’ve been the guy who’s heading for gold long enough that he can start thinking OK yeah you know that there was type of allergy I can think of to describe. That’s good as an example would be like writing the article about the War Of The Roses but only with Game of Thrones characters. Exactly and by the way I think goes without saying that at some point within the last four years watching You Tube video about a guy who can’t recall coming up to me like that but that’s just the stuff that I come across not even to research just like my own leisure. It’s just I have a very good memory my few something I’m able to just you know permanently have it somewhere in the back of my mind which is just a time traveler you can take all of history and keep it right in the back your mind well not only that when it comes to writing for cracked it really helps and compartmentalizing them for an article I have been able to just all the information that I come across that think I find interesting but I search for people to filter through them in a way were able to overcome the challenge of how can I put this into an article with the twist that the entire internet has uncovered and just an example of that one article that I wrote several years ago it was about disturbing origins to board games and. Then why I wrote that article was simply because I wanted to write something that I thought did not anywhere on the Internet and there’s got to be some weird story to a clue or to Trivial Pursuit or to Chutes and Ladders that was the darkest out of all. OK Alan my thought that and I was able to create an article out which for me was like pay to research. I wouldn’t do it for free. Yeah not that that is a secure dream though right like the thing that you would do it for free otherwise. Honestly doesn’t think that’s it’s really was pulling me away from not getting more towards writing and fortunately I have very close friends who are professors and they’ll tell you do not get it for your research and I was teaching college courses at the time that I started writing for cracked I was just an opportunity for me to make money and at the same time start testing my abilities as a writer through my research. Almost all the stuff I cracked articles I would have already come to it just out of my own interest just Fortunately I was able to kill several birds with one stone by writing cracked articles about them and at the same time building a writing career which really came out of nowhere I’m really not expecting you know I did think that the crack sort of pioneer like the top ten list as a journalism platform but then backed that up with the most material possible and I remember hearing walking the line about it somebody commented but for that I cracked and doing it for academia. What the Daily Show did for journalism and the very smart about it they wanted to get the idea of having their material backed up through the fact that it is like one of those simple lists that uses a lot of rumors but to actually go through a rigorous editorial process. And I approached them with the idea of saying like you know like I’m teaching college course. Right now what if I could offer things from the sky our really love war on the left and that’s why I sent my first articles deal with run funds are going to fund history military history. I was teaching classes on that material so a lot of the descriptions I used in the class I just use it in my article and return to work as well. The public at the did with my life and just became about fun and amazing bullet point right that just delivers it honestly not even just about a board point it’s just using what works. I mean I was out my god I was talking to Ripley’s Believe It Or Not one time and we were talking about introjects and cheese party how to interject got this piece of cheese that we had like two thousand pounds a week I wore was two thousand pounds what’s an interesting way a memorable way that you can illustrate how heavy it was and so I did some searching on what weighs two thousand two thousand pounds. OK so it was given a piece of cheese the size of a baby elephant. An image that people are not going to forget and it does not surprise me at all about the Andrew Jackson his doing it he seems to bring me the most notorious for we’re missing parts of the presidency. Andrew Jackson here is why he was not the original superhero movie you know. It is ridiculous what that guy’s life was I mean first of all it without saying that with a lot of people like Jack and Betty Roosevelt the truth is the more you learn about that and by that the what if you like them because you know how racist they were you realize what jerks they were and everything but at the same time there comes this moment we were sort of leaping across the uncanny valley. When you’re reading about these guys. Oh wait a minute he actually did like have like a bunch of bullets and body he actually did kill people in cold blood he actually did just conquered the state of Florida. If you’re reading that and it sounds like it sounds like a man and his typewriter was just taking up this cage of American history. It sounds like a sure thing a villain in a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or something actually holy crap that would have been such a better movie than the one they made serious I’d listen. Someone’s listening right now. All right I want to keep I’m going to put out an all points bulletin. I mean somebody’s right right now a treatment were injured supervillain. It won’t be too hard and only one of those US films like you know that’s about what the Trail of Tears. So try to write that has its own scholarship. I’m talking about the crazy bolts of the wall story where and Jackson is I don’t know trying to trying to sink the city of Venice or something like Tory that I want to read and write a story where Andrew Jackson is trying to steal the Mississippi River find a way to do that. OK I would be very soon as you can throw that in some of the controls that he controls the country and he’s going to take it for as a private meetings or something. I just realized with a fork in there Diane I don’t know not that much of it I’m a history nerd Come on I’m just a normal kind of guy that will then I mean I just realized I have an errand person to try to do that do you think we do you ever consider you know the powdered what exists. So I was literally the entire duel between the two of them I was it was a battle for the Mississippian who shall prevail and own heartland the Nile of America Are You Kidding Me. Andrew Jackson will corral and error and bird like I don’t know what I’m not in a duel. It wasn’t a penalty with a child or. OK yeah yeah yeah. If he had to do all of each other. Yeah well first. I think I think the first shot that bullet would balance off each other star at that point I’m going to hand to hand combat I just think Jack in the SO MUCH larger you know the tall guy I think it would end with interjecting drowning Aaron Burr in Mobile. OK I think what I think I think we’ve just perfected the reboot of wild wild west out you know this is I mean that’s a film that so that you can’t go anywhere but up. Yeah interjected in there we didn’t like I don’t know we’re going to try like an atomic tonic arm. Well man look this is history so rife with opportunity for just insanity to be bring on it because they were the crazy ones right. You’re going to listen to it on the crazy the last five minutes. This is serious we will learn tired it’s like every day every day little by my train of thought goes through you know I don’t I don’t you have an audience. I usually say that I am in the front row of every stupid thing I do every crazy thing that I say whenever I say something really weighing on the first person like oh OK so we’re not into like Madonna muscling really we’re really crazy I mean the reason why I said I just realized what a nerd I am I need to be my opening gallery I don’t know what’ll happen. Hey man it’s like some people say owning it but that’s not good enough you know it’s as being is fearlessly and like it’s a struct avoid nerdy as possible is what makes a hero for this time. Well well first of all very very flattering very that’s very honorable mention that would make an awesome T. shirt like that entire afraid to be on the teacher if they put it in like an antique typeface so that actually letter sent it on to your letter present on to the shirts and that you have to confess and and then a hundred years from now it will cure an Antiques Roadshow that this T. shirt that old. I don’t know solve the college prices are or become so much of a legend of the American national treasure twelve with and with the ghost of Nicholas Cage and Nicolas Cage still somehow out there. Oh my God I don’t know if you like I can only be like a single like strand holding on right in this entire is kind of tired at that point I think you would have a receding hairline that would closely resemble like a bald eagle with its wings. Oh my God that would be the perfect image of like his Sean Connery period as an elder right. She doesn’t the only Sean Connery I mean he was actually he’s still very very handsome like all of them actually has a very good skull and the neck cage it’s such a shame I don’t know if it’s because his eyes are so close like you know you know is playing movies where his mouth is open really wide and I was thinking of vampires kiss right now the crazy eyes. You know I will say this though I want to say this right out there who’s cage is a very very talented actor. I mean he isn’t right. He’s terrible belt you’re on the record right now Jock about to say you know Nicolas Cage talented actor very talented actor. Yes he’s not he is a very talented actor he doesn’t write these films. Person who you know is convincing movie studios hey like you know let’s put him in a bear suit and have a punch someone out. I mean he’s always been making these weird ass like the ninety’s going you know to do a search for Nicolas Cage supercut and you see all these ridiculous don’t you know we’ve been making but at the same time you know isn’t making films or instructing making Raising Arizona. Like it’s still been living I think it was an adaptation fantastic film so I really think that it’s really just a matter of like what builds and per whatever. That’s so much of the property like right before the housing tank. Yeah I mean it’s like like I mean I really I really know very little about how it all I know is they know I only know Anderson made movies that’s what I know because it’s ancient history enough for me to actually have researched that a little that’s I mean that’s kind of I mean that’s one of the thing that really is such a curse with my research I don’t know or about how Thomas Edison made his films and how you produce them and how movies that made today I mean like if you’re doing a life that I was being just a few days ago about the room my timing was yes they were talking about how that film was so produced and everything like instead of us and we set it up father and the Son and the Holy Spirit of that movie writer and director all talking was out there talking about how strange it is that that film for some reason caused a million dollars to make and oh my god the cars I mean I phone cords had a larger budget of the room. But we are this is the Tommy ones I was independently wealthy before he made that movie and how the hell did you become independently wealthy and they said he was importing some weird stuff. I realize just how it is the real story is we don’t know but this is the majority of that money was limited out even though I’m talking about going and I don’t know how some of those I would like to hear about it. OK well you just need someone isn’t independently wealthy. Weirdly a business ambitious as Tommy was just hopefully not to the point of needing to be in charge of everything. Actually listen I’m not joking about this when I was reading that article about how he was out of myself. Would I be down for him producing a Louis based on a book that I wrote and directed it like he wanted to make the grade. In parking lot into a film I need a heart. Yeah calling now like it all cannot claim that you know this influenced captive empire. Yeah that would be like fifteen minutes of football throwing make whatever they would throw a football back and forth like the conch shell from bore the flies are coming like I wanted to do that I would be down because I’m for people taking the role in depends on what I was actually one of the group rewards of being a writer when you write something you put it out there. It now belongs to the masses and people will start playing it people are making an art they’ll be putting their own twist on it and it’s like and when that happens it’s like that artwork the grandchild of your work. So it’s like your vision it’s less about your vision which you can inspire it to others to do but let me just give you an example as a very good friend of mine actually and went to the book signing up in Albany when the grid is bearing the can park what you know she came to do a book signing and she was she didn’t have to account for an artist magnificent and she was dressed in costume and as you know a town that’s inspired from the sort of old timey Terminators. I don’t have the book and what was so interesting about that is all the atomic thought like so into it. I went on in the book but they’re both men and seeing her as a woman getting this idea that it is and reversing the gender on it. It blew my mind it was something that I never thought about when I was writing a book by seeing it. I was realizing wow that’s a book that I wrote is now taking its own shape and it’s now being adapted and added to by its audience and it was just one less flattering moments of my entire life. That is incredible that is really cool if it does remind me of them. When Bender the robot gets a sex change and he was saying Um yes or he’s making a switch between the already ill defined robot sexes. Yeah that was interesting. So it’s not one of the funnier drama but it’s one of the episodes that does tackle an interesting subject. Every now and then they would that on the show by the way somebody very Futurama back on the air that was my favorite favorite one called a sitcom because it comes by definition are like you know your garbage bin and one of the most intelligent programs ever on television. I loved it and I would have given anything to have written up to YOU I LOVE THAT SHOW. I mean anything’s possible these days right. The fact that even came back on television the fact that Dan Harmon to be fired and then rehired a show runner like second chances all over the place right. Well listen we don’t know what happened. I mean one of the interested graining David X. Cohen I think there should be a future on the episode with the boat in the Pacific Garbage Patch the North Pacific Garbage Patch is island of garbage floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean North Pacific Geier huge current in the north Pacific Ocean and it’s accumulated like half a century of garbage into an artificial island the size of the United States not just that it could be almost like an ark for the mutants who used to live in the garbage that was underground. I don’t know I can tell you right now I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this I know how do you have to start with you like an overhead flyby shot of the planet Express building and that’s good news everyone. Today we’re going to the northwest on a patch as well employed Texaco she had occurrence. Why don’t we go in there. I’m not like you want to fall single woman doctors oil is a lot of places to good old are we. The order is Dr Zornberg off the furnace. Just take there. But then you get so much allusion to existing things are all right for the giant ball garbage that’s flying down as a comet that they blocked with another one. It was if you can believe it that was based on a true story that garbage is about to come down and tear a whole new earth. So they threw that earlier when they show that little footage from month at the turn of the twentieth century when they were showing that aware that you with all of the garbage came from. When they were sending that huge raft across the ocean like no country would take the garbage out even that really built the country you know what I’m about to actually happen in real life there is this like huge huge garbage barge that was just transporting garbage on international borders back and forth and no one except it. He’s afraid someone is really pours and I throw some get some cash from the rest of the world maybe. Yeah and then they brought that barge over some New York City and in that huge piece of garbage is now called Staten Island. I made that part up. But my whole family is from Brooklyn that like I spent like every weekend there are the kids and of course that there is not a Narrows bridge over a thousand times like my father probably created a toll that he owns one of the suspension cables. Every single time we were going to Brooklyn it always come a point where it started snowing a little punk because it was because we were driving through Staten Island we’re almost there. I’m just so excited you can smell it in the air. Well I mean the weird thing I mean it would have a pavlov effect on us because it made us know that you know soon we’ll be seeing grandma our cousins and everything will be fine but you know I mean it’s still pretty revolt against a very strong smell doing this from memory trigger and so. It sounds once again just like the mutants in Futurama just getting that real sense of. Actually we did have one guest who was saying that the smell of burning plastic for meth use and Covington Georgia really makes him feel like he’s back at home. Wow. Yeah not surprising then that well I mean you know I mean everybody does have like a little on the factions to look I grew up with Ulysses S. Grant His father was that he was a tanner and they said that you always grew up snowing in horrible weather and now and you know a blueprint of all your identity folks you know very interesting you’ll get a kick out of this. Now you know how money as an art you know almost thirty minutes you know but nevertheless we associated it to welcome good snow. But check this out book I just finished actually kind of in the script. Well but police experience anyone in Shakespearean England like people actually thought that the bow of sewage was it because it’s now the reason why is because if you were in the city and you just know this species and there was a lot of people around people meant there was a lot of customers customers means a lot of money. So the way that we would have a positive association to the smell billfold people back then had the same that’s usually one of the some of them did merchants were farmers to the snow or to the snow but it’s a real shitty to part of town that better back up a bunch of it as a thing to go about that here in the piece of shit. Man that’s six experience times shit like that. This was a lot more to the boat. Getting into a cracked articles if you like the Great of Abraham Lincoln Park watching Verity pre-order licence to quell life while liking to quell it’s a James Bond spider or story William Shakespeare based on real events during the Gunpowder Plot as he was writing it. Wow that’s a good one so what was it. OK I’m going to pitch to my Shakespeare parody. All right I think it’s a real quick thing these days now. Rosenkranz killed Stern that might have peaked it this might get to that level. OK OK All right. So it only has the dead characters on stage right. Opening with the ghost of dead King Hamlet and the Zombie of your work as the zombies trying to convince him not to go back into the real world saying only bad things can happen from this. Evan periodically it just brings on more dead people the whole way through with the title being rotting in the state of Denmark. Honestly that would work for real love from the classical point of view. I mean what you’re basically doing is you’re having a symposium with people who are already dead and people don’t know. So long time to this is where I become a total total herd I mean like you did that with the inferno and you have to meet with all these very famous people who are really as the Mourinho and Shakespeare if you could totally do something like that and it would’ve made a very interesting play what you are saying right now could have been one of the greatest plays are written just now I spoiled on the pod cast somebody else was going to write it and that’s going to have to say wherever. Well well listen you’re going to like this I mean but I don’t yet have the play I’m not joking that is actually very well in line but the titles that Shakespeare plays like you know much ado about nothing. Yeah yeah that’s got to sound like it was like Plan words right. Yeah it’s originally a pun on much ado about not. And nodding at the time it was like he the cheek given equivalent of shagging noughts was actually a very very well because it was really you know I’m never much ado about nothing. Also read and sounded as much ado about no thing or over things that you know or specifically but actual letter O. resembles that the male genitalia. I’m not joking. It is documented this event has the book in fact I have it right over here. I met this very kind soul in that universe involving women of will by Tina Packer in there she talks about much ado about nothing it also means much ado about nothing. Basically the vagina. No I didn’t do as you say. Now what we’ve got damnit you know to make the Avengers what was its name of empires or I’ll pull it out again just when I said we’ll not instead of just when but if you see him. No idea who you’re talking about a first I was just being polite. If he’d been a Shakespeare play he just he made noting immediately after the Avengers one black and white have a low budget. Yeah yeah and I just remember his rationale saying that he only sees the plot working if everyone is drunk the entire way through. So everyone is always got either a glass of wine or something in their hands they’re like half drunk delivering their lines. Yeah I’ve done we got to see that film in the exact we’re talking about those never seeing the trailer and everyone there I think there was a lot of drinking in there I don’t mean anything to the much ado about nothing I mean Shakespeare was a very very very funny guy place and what is it much ado about. I mean the one way that the most money right now in our audience and this one and I mean I mean he just launched with his jokes I mean Christ has done articles on it. He has really really dirty jokes and although very you know considered the greatest writer that are the master English language I mean you have to have you murderers like John Waters I mean it’s a circle that this guy has you know like climb to the top of the pantheon of energy or even though a lot of his humor is really vulgar stuff. Yeah I heard I heard that I heard a story this one had grown up with a censored version of Romeo and Juliet and they didn’t quite understand like where the such that came from until it was like the opening where they’re like talking about casual rape of just people hanging out thinking that it would be somebody somebody should do this is well I mean jesus thing of like the Shakespearean Star Wars thing. Shakespeare How terrible would it be if they just had like Romeo and Juliet. But up front perjury do it while looking like a girl I want to have sex with her and I want to have sex with that isn’t it. I wish someone would have sex with me. Look at that guy. But sex. Oh my God I’m terrible I apologize to all my all the female listeners right now to be suggesting just because I have an idea does not mean it’s a good idea. No No judgment here are right you’re only just making a public statement to the rest of the world that isn’t going to hang on your neck for the rest of times we’re not taking this down. That’s all you know probably more about presidential candidates. Yeah well you know what people want people to connect with a president who you know will step forward and say what he thinks and kill a guy in cold blood because that’s what he felt like doing. That’s right. We’re trying to Jackson like two words on that subject. Donald Trump Donald Trump you think you’d be our next Andrew Jackson if you made it all the way or I seriously like academically. Like what would happen if you became president. Yeah. Let’s OK thought Express. I actually had assembled a few thought experiments of this interview from historical point of views but please start with Donald Trump. Winning the two thousand and sixteen presidential election All right well first he would have to win the problem most likely he would have to win the primary because it was to create an account when elephant balloting like nuclear war like an independent states an area where aliens come in to destroy both parties. Realistic. He doesn’t want to third party campaign. Oh you don’t want it. All right so anyway so you probably have to win the Republican nomination. Honestly that is the kind of thing that could get very interesting. There’s an article on Salon dot com right now how conservative media has created a Frankenstein’s monster with their babies and this is Fox News talk radio you know like Red State dot com and all that kind of a comb a fixation of time exactly that they’ve created and also that’s skewed polls thing and twenty twelve if you remember that people were believing scientifically tested polls let out on their own people thought he actually rigged the election because he flips out on the air about what the results were believing the poll would be exactly wrong. I know but what I’m saying is that Fox News is incredibly incredibly popular. And they’re saying that just because Fox created and that market does not mean they’re going to be in control of it. People invented things all the time in Seattle the comfort of children and that was back in the running away with the entire. Like read taking reins of it. Not exactly in this article the song of how Donald Trump might actually do like he might be like a virtuoso violinist that fit only for this audience and if he does that I mean oh my God I mean he would have enough of the Republican Party in his pocket and left the base in his pocket that he could win the nomination and you know what the truth is that almost worked for Herman Cain and I mean I worked for the Obama presidential campaign in two thousand and eight and friends who worked with the campaign in two thousand and sixteen they said that in twenty eleven the Obama campaign was realistically developing a strategy making with a Republican nomination Republican. So anyway so Donald Trump gets the Republican nomination. All right so let’s let’s say you know like Jeb Bush has evoked movement like Scott Walker but basically the way that Donald Trump could realistically get the nomination is just if all those other candidates implode it could have to approach like right now and just like creates full employment by bringing all this manufacturing in within the country. Honestly not you know if he would do that would get more attention. This is honestly what I believe would be a birth certificate. OK. As he took to to pay off their kids and would be there with a microphone holding it or not is not is I guarantee you that would be the turning point of the twenty sixteen Republican moment Donald Trump reveals that he actually is human too and he wants to talk. Does that and I’m not joking I’m talking to you politically. If you did something like that it would cause a sea change. We can no longer see the same Donald Trump. Yeah you’re not out of them or you would be humans finally. Such with like what his entire competition to life is right. Letting go on change and using you could become the physical body in one of change in the white ball and it would be like Lex Luthor or do not just be the new image that would be all photographed and details and thinkers. He could become president dude I could so see at the opening of the speeches be like we Americans have been we’ve been pretending that we’re something we’re not for so long and I finally realize and I personally need to just accept the position I’m in as well as US the country and in order to get forward and right then the here today. Listen if there’s any so any listeners serving a lot of writers listening it was the guys that would make a great called opening and Pardo as a cold opening giving a talk to you soon it’s very important to change you have to have a visible transition from the present ministration. So I will conclude the brush spectacles. This is this is my face This is my face and this is the face of America a face is not. It would get a bump in the polls. He personally killed Osama Bin Ladin or listen listen I’m telling you right now. Presidential elections have been decided for even stupider reasons. Please listen historical background. I like you have what is that. There’s a fantastic book called presidential campaign by John Paul or from Oxford University Press great book read it all the time I use it a lot of my article and the president President have been decided by brain farts been decided but nobody writing here just people being trapped in the White House is actually. Now the United States won the Rugby Olympics the Olympic Games are rugby there was only three teams in it and now they haven’t played in like a hundred years since. And after that when you when you’re doing the things that are centuries old I mean I mean it’s like this. We have over two hundred years of American history to work where somebody was the biggest jackass who ever ran for president. I don’t mean that the complimentary way but the Jackson of the word like don’t call him a jackass and he said you know what that’s going to be my son ball and now the donkey isn’t the symbol of the Democrat. That’s called winning. Well losing on the other hand that Gerald Ford went out of nowhere he said there’s no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe which literally is as out there and as stupid as that somebody during the presidential debates there’s such a thing at the Pacific Ocean. People are just what I want to be talking about and then some cracked reader will go into the Pacific Ocean is a real good work. It’s a garbage patch. They’re both Arkle. Oh my goodness. So I did. Like I said earlier we did have it rethought experience what with the world today be like. Yes just let’s just say Teddy Roosevelt prevails of the bombers candidate. So if you want to as the Bull Moose candidate yes I Will Taft would have definitely become even more history and various artists realistically. Well actually the entire twentieth century could have been different because this mean to tell you Roosevelt would have been the president during the opening events of what eventually became World War one. Right. If that’s the case now does this mean to you know this would have been involved little bit early possibly does this mean the war could have been avoided. That’s where it starts getting the. Very interesting. He has to just blow I mean this kind of thing that sounds nice until you start going through the paperwork but not for real when the Americans landed in Sicily during World War two the Sicilian they were so pissed off at that just the way that the Africa where was it written somewhere that there was some sort of underground movement for Sicily to become a United States territory possibly even a United States of America and I don’t even think that’s a proper noun but I’m going to think that’s become a staple of America and there are guys that sounds interesting but didn’t really happen. What was it. William McKinley you came as we said put to looking on the map of the United States. Why didn’t it work in the Philippines. But your question how would the world be different it would probably be unrecognizable and I really am saying that it’s somebody who has researched the subject read several articles on the possibilities of a great so many books on the margins of elections for a book that I wrote and for them I have read some scholars of the articles on what were the possibilities for war or one how could it account differently and one of the options was the war could have been curtailed or even just flat out avoided. Teddy Roosevelt had been President I’m guessing the war probably still would have been fought. It’s just the role that we would have played could have been very different. I mean you could have had different heroes. Oh I just thought of one what probably would have happened is one of the characters in the creative a cautious person Charlie on it and we would become the first African American general in the United States Army because he was given all those general responsibilities and the reason why he wasn’t promoted. Both colonels unfortunately because of racism within the U.S. military. But Teddy Roosevelt was a huge supporter. They they did they did have a good relationship each other and little thing like that. I’m telling you right now one extra hero in the war that would have in the control of your own. Well there are several heroes possibly with several senators as a result I would say yes maybe some more members of the House of Representatives. One of them for President. Then you start seeing the ripples of this one change what one person won the election or not you get from like alternate history comic books. Well a lot me out of it this is the reason why you can only speculate history so far. Like short term history. I mean what is that. Speculative story is a term used by scholars to realistically tried to figure out what would have happened if some small changes and you can only go so far the four becomes fiction and the truth is if Teddy Roosevelt and President Obama’s ticket had won it could have caused such a profound change in the twentieth century that we’re two may not even happen because they would have been no weight off him or that he would have died or maybe would have never even seen combat or what if he were kept up both of his testicles would have been so upset the rest of his life. Well I mean I don’t know somebody could say that Teddy Roosevelt did win the election and that he was the one who personally ripped out one of a large testicle and that it caused some sort of Terminator Genesis whatever alternate timeline and by the way we’re going to spoil them. It’s impossible to spoil Terminator Genesis one is already spoiled. Dude I am glad we are able to go from talking about talking about it. What would it be like to see Roosevelt had a third term to comment how bad. But I to answer a question what would it have been like they could potentially have been as bad as Terminator Genesis. That’s right. Michelin. Well imagine if I had a picture imagine a Teddy Roosevelt. Rips off both of Hitler’s testicles and then he still rise to power but has the mental focus of a human instead of having his own personal breakdown that he actually prevails you know at this point we’re really narrowing the option to publishers. OK OK very kind of you know there are things we don’t want to make a trauma film here and you know you where it’s going wrong it’s going from something model comics would publish to something good to something image would like the kind of thing that if you’re lucky you might be able to pass it as being that bad I mean the only other option is what comic. Well this is a challenge you go through and creating historical fiction. Well Boral I mean when it came to the great Abraham Lincoln Park last Thursday. Let’s just say some time for the interview will just call it the Taft book Taft Now when it came to that yet the top dog when it came to that really I mean I really just wanted to have something that would have an old timey sound to the Jules Verne book at Pentasa cuddles very long right. And I’m now going to break my own rule. The great Abraham Lincoln pocket watch conspiracy. It really seemed like something that you would see like on a marquee or you if you don’t like that and it will be poster and it was really just that title that ring to it that really keep me going and sort of like Chris in the story with the spirit of going there would be adventurous it would be larger than life. And it depends of course what I am working on but for me I mean I can’t even write a chapter in a book unless I settle upon a title. Here’s how it works. Deferral and succumbing is the closest thing I have to writer’s block as a writer and I mean I don’t know I’m sure there is. I don’t imagine it’s very common. I’ve never heard of other writers and you hung up on it but it’s just how I work and when it comes to what I am looking for the story that I do I really think that addressing him in the title of the first part of the book you write and in my opinion a little bit like what you were talking about with Teddy Roosevelt in the future. I mean it really comes down to what kind of work do you want to write and how close to that this you can really make it and you know I mean you have crazy ideas. A woman next books will be and all but all bunch of them stored in my head I would like to write them all. But as I said just because I have an idea doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea. It sounds like what you’re saying is like having the focus of what your point is like going forward. Well the Senate will not only that I mean I mean it’s just very important to know what it is if you have an idea for a stupid book it’s going to be a stupid book. It could still be this for you to make a fortune off it if you like the next great but you know what it is something. Don’t you know don’t get some piece of fish together and try to pass it like it’s going to be you know like it’s going to be the next Moby Dick. It’s just very important to be true to yourself through your own writing because the Iranians are phoning everyone is going to know that you’re a phony bullets I do want to know if you do have a very stupid idea for a book you could write that book without reading the entire story you just have that book be something nasty little tiny paperback that some character in another book that you’re writing is reading. OK so it’s the. What was it. Invitation to love on the on the inside of Twin Peaks. Yes something like that. I just the kind of thing that when you know some character is flipping through you can read a few chapters were going wild in the really really terrible book. Oh yeah they also did the same thing for there was a video game called Alan Wake and the hero is sort of like a Stephen King guy who was a writing for a fake twilight zone so they wrote ten thirty second long twilight zone episode that you explore and find in the game now. Well I mean look at Futurama the scary door of course exact example you are now entering a place that is close to the city of a location with a lot of monsters and you’re of course is you just examples. It could be something much better prepared to enter this is a serial killer. Of course you know I mean doesn’t go away. Anybody could pinch that anybody could but even as you know an animated cartoon. But having that idea and actually having that be a show them shouted brilliant with this terrible idea terrible parody of The Twilight Zone and there’s a perfect Waikiki argument for highlighting. Yeah yeah and what was the one where they said a get to monsters could not stand up to two Earths gentlest of those potato Renaissance Shrek’s. Absolutely love that show please somebody money bring that show back another time. I think they think that they can have a future all of us shall know part of that will still be fun as the stuff on T.V. they can have an absolute they go back in time in order to get it not canceled for the second time but then see a ripple effect that our stores or our society. But that aside because we saw a few trauma we’re better off by Chanel and genuinely trying to imagine what future on what would be like as a shadow puppet theater. White we have to go on the opposite side of the paper and all I know all of those. My God. Benedict Arnold has actually promoted what he’s supposed to be as opposed to feeling a chap inside the U.S. military. Just a little bit of that Benedict Arnold always felt that he was not promoted like he deserved against his piano in a matter of matching is the recognition inside the American military they felt like he deserved honestly he might have the president if if he was given his team that he deserved I mean Benedict Arnold. I mean other than upstate New York I mean right. You know why not a hard drug exert toga and I’m surrounded by the fact that Benedict Arnold is the reason why there is United States because I was a credible hero the guy was like he was one of the few competent generals during the revolution and if you didn’t become a traitor. Oh my God I mean this guy had faith would have been on so many I mean if he could have ended up on currency it could have been so many schools named after you would have dealt with I mean nothing to be seen in the you know I don’t know commercials on President’s Day because he couldn’t become president you know what he has been the type to set up down after two terms. Well I mean I you have to realize I mean if he was willing to sell out colonist then you know you could have been another Arab or you didn’t like a loaded gun. I’m just ready to go off on some point would have been a disastrous president. I don’t know I mean when you look at who did become president Washington Adams Jefferson and there are sort of the top of the yes along at the very least it probably would have been one of the only part of that would have been featured prominently in aspect of the U.S. government could have been Treasury could have been chief of staff in the military. We definitely would have seen a lot more history or at least in the musical seven hundred seventy six. But now this is how it would have it interesting type of alternate history that you Cambridge writes If you know this is this is how he writes moon an alternate history where Benedict Arnold did not join the British he would have Benedict Arnold the superintendent of the U.S. Academy at West Point. That’s what it is a little ironic I don’t know what do you think of that. Yeah and and I could actually see him saying that during the time but I will not apologize to any listeners that was such a bad thing Richard crushing only tell us that that can barely register as like a child. Cowan pressure from Santa Claus. A terrible I do remember his in character recitation of nuking which is speech he had written four years ago. Oh yeah that was brilliant. Oh my God I was so so everybody. Yeah that little spoken word this is the way it has always worked. We have a fan theory about them could answer by Stallone one of my favorite action of these is another film that is so so adorable because now at the moment of the visa’s screenplay both of us are stolen. You’re in for a treat. Anyway I have a faint theory that John Lithgow character and cliffhanger is actually a grown up Stewie. It’s stupid from Family Guy and he’s just getting started at world domination and you know and everything that’s happening now you’ve busted so instantly and growing up I’m falling. They didn’t do it when he was a time traveler fans don’t self right. Yeah when I’m not much in the Pentagon for us movie cliffhanger with imperfect. I’m a huge sympathizer. It’s like that for some reason it’s a birthday ritual every now and then watch the movie and they find some other shareable terrible blooper or just some weird flaw in the film of so to do it will. Do you feel like you’re accidentally teaching people writing these articles and books knocking on all not accidentally and deliberately trying to deliberately. This is more fun than not my articles of those that don’t the Brit attend to people don’t mean to be otherwise would have never come across and the kind of thing I mean you know I mean I do have a whole lot of fun presented by challenging myself to find unique ways in paying it but as I said I was teaching when I started doing MacWrite writing for cracked writing started as an experiment in my teaching method though. I want people to learn from what I’m writing about and I want them to be intrigued that look to the to do more research is Allan work up and it’s the reason why in the Taft work I have so many footnotes I want people to put the book down and read the books that I read in order to put that work together if you will make them not only the book that I wrote a lot more but it will give them access to the huge catalog of information that I contact and that should be honored that I reached out to and that I sold the use of their own work. I mean you have you have you heard of like cracked articles becoming like secondary sources to research material. I like to think that I’m trying to pioneer that subject now I have googled something that we cannot see who signed it. I’m in everything and I do know that my writing has been featured by George Mason University several other universities and has and I don’t think any crack article has been used in this. Terry or I would like that to happen though. I actually that is Ph D. dissertation could be written just on the comments to my article about misconceptions about Islam. So if there was a twenty thousand comments and there in response to that and I was just going through and it’s just an education and just it’s interesting when you get over this and if it isn’t like this can actually save education some people actually engaging standards. Well I mean the truth is like I don’t have a joke. It has come back a little nudge nudge that never got picked up. I always joke that over some of the others are cracker the hey you know because you can crack university I could be the resident historian. We could cover this cover that I think was the only person listening I just I mean it’s very simple. I have written scholarly articles I wasn’t. Not long ago I wrote an article published by Princeton University. Or it was translated in several languages. Dante and general talking and I have had more trouble getting articles featured on cracked and then took me to write that. That is how vigorous the rotatory of processes. I’ve had a whole lot of articles rightfully cut even though I thought that with research I was wrong. They do a very good job of stuttering out what you do on the Web site and what is incorrect. And as a result I think that it is. I mean depending on what they’re covering. It’s the kind of thing that I would like to see at least experimented on in the classroom. So I said it all began for me as an exercise in my teaching method and in my articles help people with their nostrils. He says if it helps them in the classroom it would help them better understand you can use condoms or that little aspect of American history. Maybe you could help the academic community understand a part of the scholarship they’re covering in their research. That is fast peer review for satirists is more rigorous than for academia. One way or another if someone in the group is a joker. How much interaction with universities these days to see where is it going as a system or do you not have a comment. Well I mean it’s partially my own fault. Rethink them moved to New York I haven’t really gotten on the ball when it comes to applying for teaching opportunity to teaching in Pennsylvania. Loved it very much really enjoyed it but I didn’t have a lot more of a relationship which I’m really enjoying. Last year invited to talk and sort of had control of a writer’s workshop. They have their children thank you very much. I like sure that the more twenty year and also the Albany Institute of Art History. I really enjoyed all of that and I also told an online class for the International Space Station. The truth is just I’m doing more things than it was before where I was before I was working specifically but I wanted to universities. Now I am still writing what I’ve always offered people historical cinema literature still covering those subjects in my own way which is going to you know colleges and to other fields. Well actually point I would be very interested in possibly putting something together. Which I’m a big I watch the news all the time. I’m exercising just trying to go on for an hour. It’s so funny. Just with his small car on a sinking ship. Because that would be an unfocused shipbuilders or like a lot I look at it this way. We just went through an economic collapse and there were certain aspects of academia that I was hoping would collapse with the great recession. Certain practices that I didn’t like and I have too many friends who are professors I know too many academics who have been completely taken advantage of because of their love for their fields and it’s a kind of thing that I’m waiting for that to go away but it hasn’t academia has just become more cutthroat and a friend of mine twenty five years experience teaching philosophy at the University of Chicago University of Colorado endeavor and he said publish or perish does not exist anymore. It’s just perish and as a result it’s forced a lot of professors into more desperate corners and sort of diminished the camaraderie and that goes on behind closed doors of course it’s going to be affecting their students of course it’s going to be affecting their opinion back and we might even steer some people away from getting the higher degrees but really tired and so I don’t know what it’s going to take a minute. I am glad that you know there’s been more of a public outcry over some for profit universities. I do very much like that. President Obama in the office there is more focus on community colleges which I have talked on. I have taught that big supporter that I just think that. At some point college is going to be too expensive in order to survive. It’s going to be the bubble burst and going to come quickly so I think it’s a matter of can it be a gentle evolution or it would be an intelligent transition from what it is now to something better. Or is it going to be a mass of people out of work and ultimately shake the foundations of what is higher education. I don’t know what it’s going to be all we know is a lie correct my material I like offering people alternatives to what they’re getting in the classroom and I also like the idea that just about anybody can go online and have access to so much information that can help them beyond the classroom. It’s a kind of thing that reminds me of some immigrant coming across my research on Dante. The purpose of the teacher should be to make themselves obsolete. And as long as we’re sharing information there is less ignorance in the world. So as long as people are getting informed then I consider that a good part of society and a boon for the future of humanity and the truth is we do not need colleges in order to get that information and more so the colleges why not that. That sounds like the tipping point you could need for a cracked you to find its way audiences that see you crack university I left out the idea around before they hit somebody and you have to go off in classes on history. Well spent about an hour spent a lot of fun from a man. Thank you it’s been delightful. Thank you very much. So I kind of sketch a list but we had we have just done a relaunch of our show. Try to better reach an audience and so we could be a little while I’ll get you a date soon we’ll be able to publicize the service whenever you’re ready just shooting e-mail and however I can help Twitter or Facebook anything with that I’m happy to be there or just you know if you have like a generation which meet with everybody. Absolutely. I do have one more question. You often are doing multiple choice and caption contest on your Twitter feed. Any any great examples you know the pop quiz hot shots and morning captions. I mean actually you mean like like my favorite parts of doing that are things I thought were very funny. Well sure your favorite part as well as the real winners. Well I mean well first of all I mean I absolutely love those and it’s a kind of thing where I mean Twitter is well it’s like a wheel like it’s an invention what are we going to use it for and I just loved interacting with my readers so much and I loved hearing the material so much them you know it was gonna be a way that we can almost have like an online classroom where you know like like and all life is like open mike night and just like to see some of the crazy things that collectively we can come up with I love it and the one thing that I do do a lot because I enjoy it so much and my brother and my sister in law there was a big recall preach on bakery and my sister in law is just it’s incredible incredible. Cohen area artist the things that you table to come up but so one of my favorite things to do is to get some of the cakes that she makes some pastries and fiction on there and the comments are hysterical. She did a very realistic and they showed the picture and somebody’s minute comment about Jesus Christ and I I don’t know like soy. No No longer you know I think there will be two of that the faces. That lets the network here. Now thank you because I’m a big fan of those and it’s a kind of thing where you know I mean I really I love learning from the people around us. I actually feel that interacting with my readers and really finding out just how many of them there are out there that I believe it sharpens me as a writer because I see faces behind the people who are more than a longer anonymous and half of the members that are upright. It’s like the more engaged you are the more that they are reaching out for more. Right. It’s like this and that’s an audience of some of the thousand people and you actually know every single one of their faces. You’ve actually read the writings you’ve actually seen the profiles. For me I believe it makes me a better writer because it forces me to higher standards because I now know who the people are. I don’t to them there’s a lot with the best possible material again. So to all of them some of them on those and the what we’ve heard about it on Twitter and I post really I wouldn’t be doing this right now. It wasn’t for the opportunity to interact with a larger audience. I thank you very much to the Twitter sphere into the podcasting universe we both extend all of our gratitude. Thank you very much. I actually like that word Twitter sphere. Something else I learned today. Yeah they adapted blogosphere when that was popular. Yeah I remember when that started. Anyway really. I really do appreciate you bringing me on here is wonderful to talk to you know it’s very interesting and thank you so much. Like I said we’ll be in touch. And until next time a bit like last ticket.
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