American Esoterica

06/19/2025

Even though the Civil War had informally ended through Lee's surrender to Grant in April of 1865, pockets of Confederate states dug in and responded by moving enslaved folks further and further out. Ever since the Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863, Union troops had been delivering the news to enslaved folks in captured territory, so keeping their enslaved away from emancipation - or even the idea of it - was a high priority for Confederate slaveholders. On June 19, 1865, two thousand Union troops rode into Galveston Bay, Texas, to deliver the news of emancipation to some 250,000 people still in bo***ge.

The 13th Amendment would be ratified that December, officially ending slavery throughout the entire nation, but to many, June 19th, 1865, marks an Independence Day for those who weren't guaranteed their freedom on July 4th, 1776. It's a day when the country came just a hair closer to living its ideals, and it has been celebrated on its anniversary every year since.

For more information on Juneteenth, visit https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/historical-legacy-juneteenth.

Juneteenth is an often overlooked event in our nation’s history. On June 19, 1865, Union troops freed enslaved African Americans in Galveston Bay and across Texas some two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

06/19/2025

The tip of Lake Michigan is just the tip of the iceberg that spins out into a war between the states. Two states, that is. Out now - Episode 77 - Holy Toledo, available on all streamers and a website in disputed territory, http://www.americanesoterica.com.

06/19/2025

Just a note that Definitely Not Just A Closet Studios got a slight upgrade finalized-ish last weekend. Management is still chasing a few frequencies down, but this week's episode is the first done with everything mostly in place.

06/16/2025

BIZARRE QUESTION, but a serious one - I've been contacted by an agent for someone looking to get booked on podcasts. That someone is alleging that the failure to release more JFK documents is part of a CIA coverup and that the agency is trying to hide covert sabotage and surveillance programs and wants to be interviewed about it. By...uhh, me. For some reason. This person has appeared on ABC, CBS, and Tucker Carlson.

So I don't think my last attempt to interview a live human went particularly well, and I'm not interested in this show becoming a platform for conspiracy theories. I AM interested in odd and obscure bits of American history, however, and despite a literal personal struggle to NOT just do Lincoln episodes, the show has yet to even mention the Kennedy assassination.

So - let's put it to the three people who will actually see this post - what do YOU think? Yes, book him? No, stick to what works?

06/13/2025

In a world overflowing with Artificial Intelligence, come here to get your fill of Natural Stupidity.

06/06/2025

THIS ONE'S GOT IT ALL, FOLKS - hucksters, country music, goat testicles, pirate radio, patent medicines, wire fraud, William Jennings Bryan...you name it! This is the bizarre story of how rural America fell in love with country music. Out now - Episode 76 - How We Went Nuts for Country, streaming all over the place and also at www.americanesoterica.com.

06/05/2025

Just...siiiigh. Sorry, everybody. It wasn't the computer's fault this time - it was the idiot recording engineer who selected the wrong mic input for recording so that the entire session for tomorrow's episode didn't actually record. That guy is so fired...or would be, were he not also the writer, editor, composer, social media manager, and host. It's unfortunately too late to do another session tonight - this is an unusually long episode (for this show, anyway), which makes losing the session audio even more hilariously tragic.

Rest assured, it's worth waiting for - it's been a few episodes since the story has been this big of a corker, and you're gonna love it. But Management is old, and it's almost bedtime.

05/29/2025

A sad note: Episode 22 - Grandpa Tenth President is officially incorrect with the news this morning that Harrison Ruffin Tyler has passed away at the age of 96.

The Richmond resident, preservationist and chemical engineer, for whom William & Mary’s history department is named, also had the distinction of being the grandson of a man who became U.S. president in 1841.

05/22/2025

Meet Herman Hollerith - the founder of your digital world and archnemesis to The Count on Sesame Street. Out Now - Episode 75 - Counter Proposal, available on the things that send ones and zeroes to your airpods in streaming fashion, and also at www.americanesoterica.com.

05/22/2025

An Irrelevant Podcast Yells Into the Void

Just real quick, because Management thinks it needs to be said - this show will never use generative AI to create content. Everything is moving to that, but we're bombarded daily with data and content and more data and content, and all the new AI content joining the cultural fray is just creating more noise that drowns out the signal.

AI is a damn good mimic and it has its moments of creativity, but it will never be able to fully replicate those basic human touches that give life to art. It can design a wholly new painting in the style of Vincent Van Gogh, but it can't passionately slap huge globs of paint on a canvas to give it richness and depth. We can hear new tunes in the style of Mozart, but an AI can never find those individual heartstrings and pluck them simply because it has no heart to stir.

So this show is about as far away from Van Gogh and Mozart as it gets, but the idea is still there - it begins with a singular human doing singularly human research for the out-of-bounds stuff. The good stuff. The stuff that comes with a texture you won't get with ChatGPT.

Every word is then lovingly handcrafted without the use of generative AI, which could only mimic but never truly reproduce this show's Full Dad voice.

The voice is real, too, and wildly, beautifully inconsistent from one episode to the next. It's the voice of an amateur delivering a labor of love with gusto more than professional speech, and sometimes that's okay.

Each note of music is composed, performed, programmed, recorded, and mixed by the same set of human hands.

Every goofy episode graphic emerges from a combination of public domain images and wild hairs facilitated through Photoshop. Despite RedBubble thinking that my graphics are AI-generated, they are not, have never been, and will never be.

At some point, the deluge of AI content will require us all to use AI to clear out the clutter, and at that point, it's just machines talking to machines. This show is intended as, and will always strive to be, a break from that.

This isn't content - this is a manifestation of love at the bizarre intersection of semi-creative skillsets. This is my macaroni necklace, and although I hope you enjoy it and keep listening, I make it for me. This is the show that I would want to listen to if I weren't holed up in a closet making it every two weeks, and every bit of it will always be 100% human-made, usually by the same human.

Anyway, new episode out tomorrow - I hope you like it.

- Management

05/11/2025

Happy Mother's Day to all who celebrate. We're celebrating by cranking out a Hot Nugget of History concerning America's Mom™, Mary Ball Washington, or rather, more about how her son was a massive stinking disappointment from an early age. HOT NUGGET OF HISTORY - Sorry, Mom is available on all the streaming services and at www.americanesoterica.com.

Tell your mom we said hey. But don't make it weird.

05/10/2025

It's almost two days late, so we're not gonna keep it from you anymore. Go listen to it right now or whatever. OUT NOW - Episode 74 - Book Nook, on the streamer thingy and also at our Geocities page: www.americanesoterica.com