0:02

Could you tell our audience who you are?

Okay, my name is Peggy McKee.

And Simone is a former student of mine.

Peggy.

McKee was my high school history teacher.

I hope you got an A.

I think I did pretty well in your class.

0:17

Yeah, if I remember.

So, I’m talking with Miss McKee because today we’re revisiting a year a whole year of making not past it.

And in some ways.

Mrs. McKee and I have similar jobs getting people to care about history.

0:37

Her style was all about commanding, the classroom.

I was not until very late in my career, a big fan of what’s the word for it?

Now, project-based learning.

I wanted to be the sage on the stage Sage on the stage as in, she stood at the front of the class and just spoke at felt like story time.

1:01

Time and a one-woman play all rolled into one.

I’d plant my ass in my seat, pull out my spiral notebook.

And my hand wouldn’t leave the paper until the end of class.

Somehow Miss McKee, got a hormonal, a charged group of teens to fall in love with history lectures.

1:19

Oh, yeah.

She had this way of making history seem relevant to us.

Take this one project.

We’ve been learning about World War 2 and Peggy wanted us to step into that world with Movie.

Oh, that’s right.

The movie Project.

1:35

Yeah.

The movie Project.

Yes, and I think I was struggling to choose one and I came to you for a suggestion and you recommended that I watch a whole wall is on Fall.

Goodbye.

Children.

Yes, quite an amazing movie.

1:59

I think it was interesting to see this history that I had been learning about in class.

But from the perspective of kids that were much closer to my age.

Where’s the two little boys.

It was a perspective.

I felt much more clothes, you know, closer to than, you know, thinking about the war in the abstract.

2:21

I was like, okay, confirmed.

Miss McKee is a genius.

Mrs. McKee knew how to make events.

From decades even centuries ago, feel, up-close, relatable, and truthfully.

It was a huge inspiration for making this very podcast.

2:44

From gimlet media.

This is not past it a show about the stories.

We can’t quite leave behind every episode.

We take a moment from that very same week in history and tell you the story of how it shaped our world.

I’m Simone plannin on June 2nd 2021.

3:02

We dropped the First episodes of not past it one year ago this week.

Well, not quite but pretty close.

Hey, we’re a history show.

Not a math show.

Okay, today, we’re looking back at some of my favorite episodes playing some never before are tape and diving into the lessons.

3:24

I’ve learned, and trying to make sense of History’s.

Tangled web, can’t promise.

I’ll live up to mrs.

Mckee.

I mean, few of us can but I’ve got my own little nuggets of wisdom to share class is in session after the break and attendance is mandatory.

3:50

One of my main goals on this show is to make history.

Personal taking a story.

You’d never find in a textbook and showing that it has historical significance, that it can tell us about today.

So when we start on a story, one of the first things I ask myself is what do I relate to hear?

4:12

What’s the human moment?

I connect to.

So that’s less than 1, find something to relate to take the episode about Pittsburgh Pirates.

Pitcher Dock.

Ellis.

Remember him?

My name is Dr. Philip Ellis jr.

Better known as the first militant of professional.

4:29

Baseball, dog found himself written into history in 1970.

For pitching and especially unique, no-hitter, no-hitter is when a pitcher pitches a complete game, all nine innings without giving up a hit.

4:45

It’s basically one of the greatest career achievements for a pitcher but doc managed to pitch this no-hitter, while tripping on LSD.

Excuse me, what’s wrong with you?

Awesome high as a Georgia Pine.

Doc later said that he usually pitched games while high on some kind of substance.

5:04

He said it was because the pressure of the major leagues was overwhelming Major League Baseball, not so relatable, but pressure drugs.

Oh we are intimately acquainted.

We ended up cutting this next clip out.

5:21

The episode was just too long.

But in an early draft, I shared a story of my own early experimentation with drugs.

Listen.

I have no plans to run for president.

What have I got to lose?

Let’s roll a clip.

I’ll tell you the story.

5:37

But before I do a disclaimer, for two specific people, mom, dad feel free to turn the podcast off, anytime between now or now, or even now.

All right, so I was a junior in high school around 16 just totally burnt out on sats and College Prep.

5:59

I was basically looking for any opportunity to stop using my brain and just leave my body drugs were a Egg?

No, and my house, you know, you’ll fry your brain.

You’ll ruin your life very much that.

So I was like, cool, but I will only do drugs and secret my friends.

6:17

And I spent like weeks trying to cop, we didn’t know what we were doing.

We were the kind of suburban kids who pestered adults outside of convenience stores, to please buy us a handle of Malibu or whatever.

But then one day we heard that this one girl’s boyfriend knew a guy who knew a guy who knew how to get Get us some weed.

6:37

Perfect.

I told my mom.

I was sleeping over at my friend’s house, the old classic move, and we headed straight for this guy’s house.

When we showed up.

He was telling us all about how you can tell.

We got the good stuff because of the little red threads and whatnot.

And he was like, you know what, since it’s your first time.

6:54

I think, the best way to do this is to go out and HotBox the car.

So five of us piled into this little sedan, and I smoked my first weed.

It was underwhelming.

7:10

I just ended up eating a bunch of Wheat Thins.

We ended up cutting this, but the exercise was helpful and encouraged me to keep attuned to these opportunities for empathy for connection and to start approaching stories of the past from a much more intimate place.

7:28

And that led me to this other Story another moment.

When the past felt personal, And it touched on, I’d argue a deeply important.

Truly fundamental piece of History.

Everyone’s talking about the Paris, Hilton, sex tape.

7:46

That’s what really I have seen it.

You did.

Would you do you do?

It was just, yeah.

Just how did you see the film and her poor parents?

Can you imagine how they must have?

8:03

Felt that?

She did a porno film and I Marriott Hotel.

I mean it is.

The sex tape One Night in Paris featuring Paris Hilton, and her.

Then boyfriend, Rick Salomon was released commercially on June 15, 2004 by an adult film, distributor, some accused Paris of leaking, the tape herself for publicity.

8:26

She’s denied it to this day.

When she said, it’s released was traumatic.

She sued an internet company for 30 million dollars for illegally.

Obtaining and distributing the video her suit was Unsuccessful, I was a tween at the time, all that was happening, seeing news, anchors, and TV personalities.

8:46

Shame this young woman for being sexual breaking her down for sport.

The frenzy centered on Paris, but the coverage communicated.

Something about the value of all women.

I didn’t understand why, but I knew that what they were saying, made me feel bad about myself my own body, my own sexuality feelings.

9:07

I drew on to make this.

Good and I realized the deeper.

I got into my experience of this time.

The more I was able to draw out.

Universal themes beams around, shame abuse power, our long history of devaluing and discarding young women and that’s my big.

9:27

Takeaway personal stories, help tell Universal ones.

Oh, darn, there’s the Bell.

Well, class, it seems, we need to take a break when we come back.

I want butts in seats pencils and hand.

9:45

We’ve got more lessons to learn.

Welcome back class to lessons.

I’ve learned after one year of making a History Podcast.

The world’s most specific Ted Talk.

10:02

There’s a second, big lesson.

I learned this year, as I worked my way through the past.

If lesson, one was to find a Common Thread to relate to lesson, to find the people to connect with some of my favorite interactions are.

10:18

When I get to really nerd out.

Folks on really Niche things.

One of the most memorable examples was my chat with dr.

Robin means Coleman, we dove into the black horror Cinema, Cannon, focusing on the 1992 cult.

Classic Candyman.

10:48

Dr. Coleman is a Communications professor at Northwestern University.

And I might add.

She is also an avid Candy Man Fan.

Here’s a moment from our conversation.

That didn’t make it in the episode.

Well, we can start off with a bit of a fun question.

11:10

Will you say Candyman?

Five times with me?

Shall we do?

Let’s do it.

Let’s do it.

Let’s do it, right?

Yes.

All right.

Candyman.

Candyman.

Candyman.

Candyman.

Candyman.

11:25

Candyman.

Candyman, candyman candyman.

Oh, man.

I walked right into that one.

Wow.

11:43

Well, pray for available.

Candyman hasn’t come for me yet.

Thankfully.

My angels have been working overtime, but I’m still keeping an eye out for Saline.

ER if you will I loved talking with dr.

11:59

Coleman her enthusiasm got me excited and I realized it’s all about finding the right person to take you into the rabbit hole.

That helped a lot when we got into stories that were especially dense and few stories are more dense with Dale than the downfall of Enron and Ron was one of the biggest energy companies in the u.s.

12:23

Until it collapsed after its Shady accounting was revealed in 2001.

I got to connect with someone from the center of the story that someone was Sharon Watkins.

For better or worse?

I’m known as the Enron whistleblower.

12:40

So it’s been 20 years since Enron collapsed and and 20 years since I’ve had that label, but I’ve been really going around the globe.

Speaking on leadership, ethics leadership failures signs of a culture that might be going rotten, Sharon was a vice president at Enron when back in 2001.

13:02

She stumbled on Massive, Internal accounting irregularities.

Clarity’s.

She eventually testified about what she found to Congress?

I was highly alarmed by the information.

I was receiving my understanding as an accountant.

Is that a company could never use its own stock to generate a gain or avoid a loss on its talking with Sharon helped reframe, this huge story of white-collar crime and failure of corporate ethics and to a personal story and I wanted to share with you some pieces of my conversation with Sharon that we cut for time.

13:35

I asked her why she chose to speak up and Sharon brought me back to her childhood, small town life and Tomball Texas where people kept an eye on each other.

I mean, it’s the silliest story, but I wanted my mother to buy ice cream sandwiches at the store.

13:51

And I was little, you know, and she just know, you know, we don’t have ice cream sandwich money, you know, it’s not going to happen and I took one out of the box from the freezer compartment eight, a couple bites and stuck it back and a neighbour.

Mommy do that, you know told my mother which means she had to buy the Box, you know, it was an embarrassing thing that you know, I was old enough to know you shouldn’t have done that, you know, but still still young and that’s sickening feeling of doing something wrong and then getting caught.

14:21

It’s stuck.

So, you know, are we really more ethical than others?

Or did we just learn early on that?

We don’t like how I’m comfortable.

It feels to do something wrong Sharon.

I showed me how a person’s own history can shape their decisions and in turn shape our world.

14:42

She showed me that big moments in history aren’t divorced.

From the smaller moments that make up our lives.

They’re intertwined.

There was one time when I felt my own life.

Intersect with a historic moment.

14:57

We understand that a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center.

We don’t know anything more than that.

We were putting together an episode for the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and I had a hard time reconciling the tragedy of the lives, lost that day with my own feelings about the intense, islamophobia, and xenophobia that ripped through the us, so, I went back to that lesson.

15:21

Find people to connect with and I reached out to dr.

Jacob Homme.

He’s director of the Centre for child trauma and resilience at the Icahn school of medicine at Mount Sinai.

And a clinical psychologist.

I talked with him about how jarring it was to feel.

15:37

Like I wasn’t having the correct response to 9/11.

Any patriotism.

I could have mustard was so far outweighed by the disgust.

I felt at the growing xenophobia.

I was afraid.

Paid for all my family who had immigrated to the US for my parents.

15:56

When I talked to dr.

Hum.

These feelings were still painfully fresh.

I was pretty quick to start crying.

I’m upset.

I’m a subset that America doesn’t love my parents as much as I love them.

I guess, in a way, which feels, you know, saying it out loud, it feels a little naive to say that.

16:13

But like, I was upset, I was upset by that.

And so to, then feel like Like I’m being called to unite as sort of hard and scary as it is to say like there’s a part of me.

That’s like no, fuck you.

16:28

Like I don’t want to unite.

And so I think this call this call for Unity.

I think that’s why it feels like such a slap in the face.

I didn’t get it either.

16:46

Maybe it is because I’m an immigrant too.

And I grew up always feeling like this is like I’m not welcomed here.

That’s really obvious.

And so, I think your anger is actually an incredibly wise and important part of your response.

17:03

It has a pulse on a reality and a truth.

That’s more important and maybe that’s what your anger saying.

Like.

Don’t let this one event crowd out all the other things that you and your family have been through.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that’s probably right.

17:21

Like there’s a feels like there’s some kind of Erasure.

Embedded within, never forget.

Ironically enough.

It didn’t include us.

Honestly didn’t include us, right.

I honestly feel the same way you do.

Exactly.

17:36

My.

Dr. Hum told me that hearing about one group, Spain, the victims of 9/11 and their families didn’t invalidate my own.

And that alone gave me the space to feel my feelings.

My real honest feelings, so I could better share the truth of my experience and y’all responded.

17:59

I got so many texts, emails.

Tweets diems across social media.

From so many of you, some of you shared that you related.

That you had felt a lot of the same things but never felt comfortable expressing them.

Some of you wrote from abroad, saying you appreciated, hearing this kind of perspective, coming out of the u.s., Some of you even shared that the episode prompted conversation between you and members of the military and your family here.

18:27

I was sharing my tears and pain and there you were meeting me with your own stories, your own openness and made me feel connected to you.

So, thank you, truly.

And this brings me to my big.

18:47

Takeaway history is a mess.

It’s a tangle of facts and events and perspectives.

Our job is to make meaning of it.

Or as my teacher Peggy McKee, says, untangle, its significance.

19:05

The event may be finite, but it’s significance is not, it’s not a straight line.

It’s not a to be.

We’ll see but it’s a circuitous line, but that’s what history is the stream.

19:21

Doesn’t run straight.

It runs all around trying to make sense of History.

Can sometimes feel like when you’re trying to untangle your jewelry, like when you have a really bad jumble of necklaces and your painstakingly trying to separate each finicky little chain.

19:39

I know that with history, I’ll never unravel it all but today.

I can understand the world a little more than I did yesterday and that works for me.

So join me next season and let’s untangle it together.

20:10

Not past.

It is a Spotify original produced by gimlet and zsp media.

Next week.

We’re looking back at 100 year old battle over what to teach in public schools.

When you create that false equivalency that you’re either for us or you’re against us, right.

20:29

It’s either the Bible or science, you know that tends to bring people together.

And on this very special not pasta.

I got to make some very Special shoutouts.

This episode was produced by Nick Delle Rose.

20:45

He hustled to make this episode deadline King.

The rest of our team is producer, Sarah Craig, our resident environmentalist and animal lover.

Our associate producers are Julie, Carly master of jokes stuns with the puns and remotely Philip with his velvety voice and passion for the WNBA.

21:04

Laura Newcombe is our production Assistant / Fountain of fun and fresh ideas, the Revising producer is Erica Morrison.

She keeps our train running, and the Bravo references coming and thank you to all the folks who’ve helped us.

Make this show over the last year.

21:20

Jake Maya are low Matthew Bowl.

Tom.

Carroll can see Clark, Katie feather, Bobby Lord, Amy Padula and more, a waltz editing by Annie Gilbertson Zach Stewart Ponte and Andrea be Scott fact-checking by Jane, Ackerman sound design and mixing by Hans Dale.

21:36

She original music by Sachs kicks, Ave.

Willie, Green Jay bless.

Bobby Lord, our theme song is Toko, Liana by cocoa with music supervision by Liz Fulton, technical Direction by Zach Schmidt show art by Elysee Harvin and Talia Rahman, the executive producer at CSP media is Zach Stewart Ponte.

21:54

The executive producer from gimlet is Matt schulze, special.

Thanks to cast last school and to Lydia Pole, Green Abbie.

Ruzicka Dan Behar Jen hon.

Emily wiedemann list Styles and Joshua Bianchi, follow not past it.

Now to listen for free exclusively on Spotify.

22:10

If I click the little bell next to the follow button to get notifications for new episodes.

And while you’re there, why don’t you write the show 5 Stars?

Come on, don’t be shy.

You can follow me on Twitter at Simone palana in.

Thanks for hanging.

We’ll see you next week.

Well, what do you remember of me?

22:27

As a student?

What I was like as a student?

What I remember most about you.

What was the musical?

Oh, yeah.

Amazing was that?

Kiss Me Kate, you were fantastic.

22:43

Oh man.

I remember that.

You it student and you were in a class of good students also, but you were incandescent on the stage.

Wow.

Wow, I was not expecting that.

Thank you and you still sing.

23:00

I don’t well you in private, I think plenty around my house.