SPEAKER_02 0:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Okay. This is Hero or Dick Episode three.

SPEAKER_02 0:09

Three. And the date, we should say, is uh May 4th.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

May 4th.

SPEAKER_02 0:13

2023.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

This is KJ.

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Hey Kate. And today we're talking about Edgar Allan Poe. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

I always do this.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

But a good lead-in for this, which we need to leave that one in.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Is Brooke and I were on a walk just a little while ago. And it wasn't necessarily a raven. But we're looking, and there's this black bird, pretty decent size, flopping and flopping next to this bush by this house, and a piece of wood is stuck to it.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

How?

SPEAKER_00 0:52

So that's what we're like, what the heck? And so she takes the dogs, and I go over there, and the bird is caught in a rat trap.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Oh, it's foot was caught in a rat trap. Oh.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

And I was like, God dang it, you know, it's bleeding a little bit. So I picked it up. It didn't bite me. I think it was welcoming the help. I took it over to Brooke and she because I was holding the bird in the trap and she opened the trap and the bird flew off.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

But I thought of the raven.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Um, maybe that's a good omen. And I want you to know too that in England, when uh many, many pigeons there, man, there's lots of pigeons there.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

A lot of them had club feet. Like they were injured, like more than one.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Club feet.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Well, yeah, you know, like a you know, or or injured foot.

unknown 1:38

Why?

SPEAKER_02 1:39

They're city birds.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Think they were in rat traps?

SPEAKER_02 1:42

Maybe.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Maybe.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

Maybe you didn't see one rat, though.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

See, the reason that we're finally doing an episode for the one person that's gonna listen to it, and that'll probably be me later today, is uh Kate was in England.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

I was, I was, and so we got behind.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Yeah, yeah. And now look at us.

SPEAKER_02 2:01

I know. All right, all right, so what can you tell me about uh what can you tell me about him? Um he was a USA guy, was born in the USA. Yep. In Boston? True? Is that right?

SPEAKER_00 2:18

I think that was right.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

Um so he's born in 1809.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

And he died. I'm skipping ahead.

SPEAKER_02 2:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

He was only 40.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

Yeah, and then very young.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Circumstances were mysterious.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

Yes, they were. Um many theories on it. Um I don't think it was alcoholism or drugs, because he was kind of uh he kind of stayed away from those, from what uh what I read about him.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Did he really? I thought he was nuts with the alcohol.

SPEAKER_02 2:53

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Maybe he had his day with it, but um says uh he struggled supposedly with alcoholism throughout his life and his behavior became erratic.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Okay, no, I uh challenge your source because I have he was not an alcoholic because he was allergic to it.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

What? Well, this is fascinating.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

Yeah, because most and and rumors could have been started by his quote unquote enemy, Rufus Griswold, which doesn't he sound like an enemy? He does kind of sound like a wussy enemy. Oh god. Rufus Rufus, come on. Um, so he was some kind of uh literary critic.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Rufus? Rufus. I like that, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:45

And he um, yeah, so that's what I read that he he was he was slamming Poe after he died, too. You know, I really gotta write down my um where I'm getting this info.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Yeah, I mean, it could be, you never know. Um I do know that it seemed like he had a lot of trag tragedy um associated with the females in his life.

SPEAKER_02 4:14

Um his mom and dad.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

And then there was a caregiver too, right? After his mom kicked it. Um I believe there was.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

He died from tuberculosis, which was probably not unheard of then. So he went to an orphanage and found a wife.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_02 4:34

Well, that's what you do then in the 1800s.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

Yeah, didn't he marry a cousin?

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Yeah, she was 13.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

You know, if you're an orphan though, how do you know it's your cousin?

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Good point. Well, maybe I don't know. I don't know either. But she was 13. That's just and he I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 4:53

And it then not that we're condoning it, but it probably was not an uncommon thing then.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Right. Well, what I noticed too is he um he kind of so I watched the documentary and I read some stuff, and he kind of reeked of desperation. Like he, while he was courting one, um would be writing love letters and promises of marriage to another one. And he did that to like three or four different ones simultaneously. Kind of like he's just casting a net. He really desperately wanted to be a relationship.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

Anybody?

SPEAKER_00 5:31

Anybody sounded like it, you know?

SPEAKER_02 5:33

Um well, and as tragic as his life was, maybe that made him a better writer because he certainly you I mean, you cannot take that away from him, even if you don't like that type of writing. He wrote a lot of different things and he practically invented um genres, whole genres of um you know, uh short stories. He was the like the father of horror, yep, and science fiction and uh the modern detective story.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 6:10

So but maybe his his tragic life helped that too.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

Oh, I would think so. I mean, writers often write for survival, you know, and to deal with complex feelings and emotions, and I'm sure that's what a lot of that was.

SPEAKER_02 6:28

And so who who has a anybody who has a nice, happy, normal childhood, whatever that is, do can they not be a good writer?

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Oh, for sure, yeah. He's definitely very good writer. I'm trying to see here, there was actually something too about they say he was a master of cryptopic cryptography.

SPEAKER_02 6:49

What is that?

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Um codes, ciphers, and he actually published an essay, a few secret word, a few words on secret writing. Um, and he would challenge people in the Philadelphia newspaper to send him encrypted messages, and then he'd decipher them and publish them in the papers.

SPEAKER_02 7:07

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

He was always chasing.

SPEAKER_02 7:09

So he has that kind of brain.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Yeah. Oh, yeah, he was pretty smart. And you know, again, I wonder if that's part of the reason he they say that, you know, he was erratic behavior and crazy thoughts and some of the stuff he did. Well, he probably had one of the a brilliant mind, you know, when he was just consumed by thoughts. And if he was drinking, I can see why he would drink, maybe to calm some of that. Um, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:36

And what um some of the other uh mysterious uh his death had some mysterious aspects to it, and so people said maybe he was diseased, you know, with uh cholera, syphilis, influenza, which any one of those plus a you know, a hundred more, because you can't, you know, you don't go to the doctor and have them diagnose you, you know, in three days. Um, so he could have had any of that. And the alcoholism, like I said, I already had an allergy, but if he had so it so was. So if he did have an allergy, then that even more so you know, could could affect him.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Yeah, that there was some speculation that possibly he was murdered. I mean, I don't know who would murder him, maybe one of the many men of the women that he was maybe and then um and how about suicide?

SPEAKER_02 8:31

I don't think it was suicide, but no, but that's pretty good. But some people have guessed not a far reach. And then the weirdest one I read, did you read this one? Was uh cooping?

SPEAKER_00 8:44

What's cooping?

SPEAKER_02 8:45

That's what I said. I think this is the most interesting theory. In that people at that time would kidnap you off the street and force you to vote so sometimes like numerous times for the same candidate, and so that's how they got votes for their candidate. Couping. C-O-O-P-I-I-I didn't even know that was a thing, but now I I read and uh it is a thing.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

I actually have heard of that, but I didn't know it was called cooping, and I don't think I read that it was associated with him, but that would make sense. Why not?

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Because well, somebody said that. I thought that was the most interesting, probably not really what happened, but I don't know. I also read that we may never know what actually happened to him.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Maybe his pet raccoon killed him. He had a pet raccoon.

SPEAKER_02 9:43

I did not know that. Oh, yeah, they would do that.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

His name was Mungo.

SPEAKER_02 9:47

Mungo.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

No, no shit.

SPEAKER_02 9:49

And one time Is there a story about it?

SPEAKER_00 9:52

He wrote he wrote a letter to his friend John P. Kennedy. Not to be confused with the other Kennedys. And he uh he described Mungo as a fine fellow who was very fond of oysters.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

Okay, well, right.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Who doesn't like a good oyster?

SPEAKER_02 10:08

Uh not Mungo. He'll do it.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

And uh yeah, he was an animal lover. He also had a cat named uh Katrina. And guess what his dog was named? And this will make you wonder. Pluto.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

Oh, he was ahead of his time.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Pluto, Disney, for the Disney purpose only.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

Um, the other interesting fact that I I took away from it was that you know, you think of him and you think of the picture or pictures of him with that smarter little mustache. Yeah. You know? He only had that in the last four years of his life.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

People love that image then.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

They do love that image because that is every image, and they say that that when you think of him, that's the picture you think of, and because he looks so desperate and kind of you know, woeful. And he's got that tired madman, that little mustache. Um kind of makes him look sketchy.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

He kind of was a poker, wasn't he? He uh he was a critic, a literary critic. And I like he liked to poke at other writers and um critique their work. He um wrote controversial reviews, and he once wrote a review of Wadsworth Longfellow's poem Poetry, not just one, and he called him a plagiarist. And so I can't imagine that other writers were very fond of him at the time.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

Oh, probably not. I wonder, do you think he wrote that in retaliation of what was written about him?

SPEAKER_00 11:52

It could be, or it could be I just the stuff that I read and watched, he was so fucking desperate. And you gotta wonder sometimes people have a tendency to put others down to try to make themselves look better.

SPEAKER_02 12:05

Yeah, they do, you know, and writer writers or human trait, but it happens.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Writers, especially, can be dicks. I know. We just there's something about it, you know. Kind of selfish. We want to be the one the writer. Yeah, the writer. And then unless you get through all the stuff like alcoholism and debauchery, and then you get old and think, oh god, that was stupid.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

And so was he famous in his lifetime? I guess he sold stuff and he certainly printed a lot of things.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

The raven, but you know, he made nothing on that?

SPEAKER_02 12:38

On the Raven? Did you know the Baltimore Ravens are actually named after that?

SPEAKER_00 12:43

No shit. No, I didn't know that. That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 12:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

See, he lives on and on through baseball. Baseball. I wonder if he liked baseball. I didn't see anything about that.

SPEAKER_02 12:53

Uh, I don't know. But Baltimore, they they're like, I don't know, what do we got going on?

SPEAKER_00 12:57

I thought he was athletic. I do remember something saying that when he was younger, he was quite athletic. Uh running and maybe football, but then again, I'm spitballing here. Um, he was a practical jokester, apparently. Um something about hoaxes. He used to write a series of letters to papers, and he claimed to witness a balloon going across the Atlantic, but that was a hoax. I don't know how that would be funny, but he thought it was. Again, I think he was trying to get attention, you know what I mean? Um I don't know. I'm looking at my sheet here cheating. I think that uh he was my favorite writer growing up, though.

SPEAKER_02 13:46

I remember reading his stuff and because of the morbidness or darkness?

SPEAKER_00 13:51

Darkness, because it was something as a kid growing up, you're not exposed to the darkness as much, you know. Right. And especially when I was growing up, you're supposed to look away, look away.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

You got the Disney version of everything, although those can be dark too.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

Man, this stuff was. I remember watching a movie in class one time, I think it was the Telltale Heart, and I was just like, wow, you know, that is pretty dark.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

Yeah, and the although he didn't just write dark, but I mean that's what he's known for dark.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

But I loved I loved his poetry, but now I'm not got my own darkness to deal with. I don't need to deal with this. Uh but obviously, you know, think of all the people he's influenced.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

And 40 years, 40 years. And I mean, it you know, you think of not just writers, but then films and then, you know, everything. I think uh The Simpsons, you know, that's one of my favorite episodes, is where the the they uh recite the Raven on one of their Halloween treehouse of horrors episodes. So to touch that so many things in only 40 years of life, that's pretty amazing.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

And it was interesting, the more I think about his writing. He did deal with not directly perhaps, but mental illness in his writing, you know, um, that darkness. A lot of that stuff, it it's a pretty dark place that he's at when he's writing it.

SPEAKER_02 15:23

Um right, and how can you not, if you've lost both your parents, and even though you have a kind of a surrogate who adopts you and takes care of you, you still, you know, the loss of both your parents has gotta be when you're you're so young.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

He was he was under 10, I'm gonna say, I think it was.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

And that's the too. There is some writing about how he talked about dual personality or doppelganger, or how everybody has a duplicate self, but they're the dark self, you know. And so, I don't know. I guess the more I think about maybe he was struggling with a lot more than any of us would ever know, and it was pretty amazing that he produced the volume of literature that he did. And even though he was marrying a middle school girl and writing letters to other ladies wanting to marry 10 different women and died in an alley, supposedly incoherent, that he, you know, he had his shit. You know, it's pretty sad.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

So what's your conclusion, hero or dick?

SPEAKER_00 16:23

I don't know. I have to think of it as do I think of it as the writer part, or do I think of him as the human part?

SPEAKER_02 16:31

Well, if you had to give him, say, the writer part, hero or dick.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

I'd say hero, and you know what? I guess I would say hero overall because he did overcome a lot. And he was never rich, he never made the living he wanted to make, he never had the relationships he wanted to have, and he just kept on plugging along. Yeah, was it terrible and kind of pathetic the way he carried carried on about stuff and ended up? Yep, but I mean, he's a right heroic.

SPEAKER_02 17:03

I I agree with you. I say hero if for nothing else, for his writing skills and descriptions, and that he helped develop a short story, science fiction, detective stories. Yeah, you know, that we wouldn't have the modern versions of those today if he hadn't done what he did.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

We wouldn't have Stephen King tweeting now. Do you ever read Stephen King's tweets?

SPEAKER_02 17:30

No, I'm not a tweeter.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Oh my god. Talk about a guy that doesn't give a shit. Go ahead and do it.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

Yeah, he he I do love.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

And I was just picturing uh Poe tweeting and King tweeting. You think they'd get along?

SPEAKER_02 17:43

Um I think so, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

They'd either they'd either be BFFs or you know, arch enemies. No in between. And I think Stephen King is very generous towards most writers. I think he is very generous in his critique to people who deserve it.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

No, I think you're right.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

But that's a different, that's a different episode.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Yeah. And I do think that maybe Poe the reason he was harder on other writers because maybe he thought there were posers, you know what I mean? And he was the real deal. Like he he just wrote. He fucking wrote. He didn't care.

SPEAKER_02 18:26

No, he didn't.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

So, but anyway.

SPEAKER_02 18:29

Alright, so we say hero for Hero it is. Hero it is.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Are we gonna give any hints about the next?

SPEAKER_02 18:35

Well, I have a fast five. Do you have a fast five?

SPEAKER_00 18:38

I'll make one.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

Oh okay. Now, because I was on holiday in London, you can guess what my fast five might be. And I'm gonna give them to you all in a row, and you can just tell me hero or dick.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 18:50

Okay. Number one is Charles the Third.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Hero.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

How about Elizabeth the second?

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Hero?

SPEAKER_02 19:03

Uh how about William and or Harry? Both how about Camilla and Diana?

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Hero.

unknown 19:20

Hero.

SPEAKER_02 19:21

Hero, hero?

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

Okay, and the best one, Winston Churchill.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

Oh shit. Hero.

SPEAKER_02 19:31

Hero overall.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

You know, and I don't know if I'm gonna have a fast five. Now I'm gonna feel like a dick here. I go to I go to easy ones.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

Um Bert one.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

Oh god, yeah, yeah, definitely. Burt Reynolds.

SPEAKER_02 19:49

Burt Reynolds. Oh, okay. Um wow, I forgot about him. I'm gonna say his toupee was a dick, but he was a hero because he employed a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

I like that. Um how about Margaret Atwood?

SPEAKER_02 20:05

Um, I love her, so I think she's a hero. I think she brought a lot of light to um to certain circumstances in a very interesting way.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

Okay. And I'm just doing this one because we both recently were able to see him.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

To see him David Sederis. Oh my god, he's such a hero in my book. I will love him always because I made him a hat and he wrote me a thank you note. Right there. Boom, you're a hero. You write a thank you note to me, and you're a hero.

SPEAKER_00 20:43

Um, you're gonna like this one. Robert, play it. Oh, you I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 20:49

Did we talk about him? I think.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

I know your feelings about him.

SPEAKER_02 20:53

And you know, I recently watched the song Remains the Same, which is a bizarro movie that only people at drugs could have made. And their music, there is no taking away that their music is monumental. Led Zeppelin is a band that changed music and has such a unique voice, but man, now I can't get past. I should have never listened to that interview because the guy was a fucking dick.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

Maybe you need to listen to another interview. Maybe. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:23

I'm just not gonna listen to interviews about well, maybe you won't have to, you know why?

SPEAKER_00 21:27

Because AI can do it for you.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

So what do you think?

SPEAKER_00 21:31

A AI.

SPEAKER_02 21:32

AI. Um, sometimes it's a hero and sometimes it's a dick. It can go either way. And I guess time will tell.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

It depends on how it learns, right?

SPEAKER_02 21:40

It depends on how it learns, it depends on how it spews it back out, too. I think it's really interesting, though.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

You know what I'm gonna do? What I'm gonna ask ChatGTP if these people are heroes or dicks.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

Okay, and then report back and let us know. Write down AI that you did that too.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Sweet.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

Okay, all right.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

So but then we'll pick one.

SPEAKER_02 21:59

And then we'll pick one of yours or mine. And yeah, and then we will uh be back for episode five.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

Right on. Well, thanks. Bye bye.