Suburban Marauder

Hey!  History Bros is back after yet another long, but well-warranted, hiatus.  Fumigation.  The worst.  We had an outbreak of lavender in our offices, which can apparently be deadly if not checked.  This assertion was verified when we found yet another dead intern at History Bros headquarters – death by lavender inhalation and extreme relaxation.  Intern Casey was found in a bubble bath, unconscious.  Sad news aside, we have famed explorer Leif Ericson with us today to share some of his more famous exploits, including the first known landing in North American by a European.  And we’ll dig a little deeper into his Viking heritage and unpack what that means for…

HB: And the offices are now on fire.  Tar…yep, tar is seeping through our flimsy ceiling, only adding fodder to this blaze.  Oh, Jesus.  Mikey, our FedEx guy for the past 12 years (super nice guy) was just impaled and then eviscerated.  His murderer is now wearing his large intestine as a boa.  Leif and his bros seem to be here.

Leif: Plunder!

HB: Leif, we talked over the phone and, contrary to all this, you seemed extremely polite.  The interview?  No?

Leif: Berserker!                                                         

HB: Ok, it appears that Leif and his ZZ Top buddies are now in berserker mode… OK… Todd the intern’s head is now rolling across my feet.  Over some sweet Pumas I might add.  Leif?  You were so articulate over the phone, I don’t…  And they’re leaving.  Carl, get the van.

HB: We followed Leif and company in their “scooped out” Chevy Suburban, which topped out at about 2 mph since they seem to be adamant about using oars and wind power.  We are now in front of a Jewel Osco, and…oh, ok…the battering ram has come out.

Leif: You want to live, boy!?  Join!

HB: Leif, seriously.  You said you graduated from Vassar with a minor in English Lit.  We talked 

about how we’d love to buy “real” furniture once we settle down, rather than the IKEA crap that’s more of a holdover.  You were really into that conversation.  …And they’ve broken into the Jewel.

Leif:  Pearls!

HB:  Leif has just grabbed about four boxes of Tampax Pearl brand tampons.

Leif: Onward to Schaumburg!

HB: I can only guess that Leif and friends are going to maraud the IKEA in Schaumburg due to some deep-seated resentment toward a nomadic life, continually relying on furniture that lasts about 2 years with no real value or sentiment

HB: Oh hey, Mikey left a Pottery Barn catalog.  Carl, Jamba Juice?  Alright!

Terrible

We have a very special episode today, as History Bros returns after St. Patrick’s Day break.  Ironically, we tried to book St. Patrick himself, but he is STILL getting his stomach pumped down at St. Jude’s.  Yes, it is a week after the fact and defies all medical odds, but he is a fucking saint – and apparently a terrible human being.

Anyway, today’s guest is an infamous one: Ivan the Terrible, ruler of all the Russias!  But, before we sit down with our guest, I need to plgs our new sponsor, Red Bull.  Red Bull: may induce a panic attack.  Red Bull: tastes like liquefied SweeTARTS; not as tempting as it sounds.  Red Bull.

HB: Ivan, nice to have you today! Nice hat!

ITT: Thank you.  It’s made from flesh of nobility.

HB: (pause)

ITT: (pause)

ITT:  I kid!

HB:  Oh!  Oh ho!  Ok.  Ivan, don’t do that.

ITT: I kid!

HB: I know.

HB: Now, the term terrible, in your time, can better be translated as “formidable” or the like.  So, the moniker today doesn’t necessarily do you justice.

ITT: I united all the Russias!  But, Ivan suffer from depression and bouts of craziness!

HB: So, yeah, that does sound terrible…in the modern sense.  I’m…sorry?

ITT: I have Red Bull!

HB: Go ahead, it tastes like shi..  Oh.  Ok, I’m getting a signal from my producer, Brett, that this shouldn’t be happening.  Ivan…

ITT: Four shots in four seconds!  Ivan!  Mad!

(technical difficulties)

HB: I’m whispering now, in the janitorial closet down the hall.  I can still hear Ivan thrashing about.  Brett, our producer, has been impaled with a mic stand.  I don’t know if he’s dead or not; I hope not.  But, I am terrified of Ivan on Red Bull.  Red Bull:  you pee yellow, which has to be healthy.  Red Bull.

(shuffling)

HB: I think he may be crashing.  It’s happening.  I think he’s in the men’s room right next to the closet I’ve sequestered myself in.  Oh.  Ok.  His mic is still hooked up and…and he’s singing Firework.

ITT:  Do you ever feel like a paper bag (weeping).  I killed them all.  I killed my son.

HB:  Holy shit!

***The airing of this episode resulted in the arrest of Ivan the Terrible for the murder of his son, and possibly, the entire Russian nobility.  Brett died.

Lost in Circumnavigation

History Bros is glad to be back after a brief stint at an elite MBA program.  Long story short, I ended up in tears during the 2^nd day of my Negotiations 101 course, I lost $145 Million in fake money because I blindly invested in a pager/smart phone venture that I THOUGHT would take off, and my professor called me a weak dipweed.  It hasn’t affected me one bit.  Not at all.  I can confront others without crying.  Speaking of non-confrontation, we have an elusive special guest today: the Mrs. Amelia Earhart!  She is alive and well, Bros fan.  I catch up with her and ask poignant questions like, “Where the fuck did you go?”

HB: Amelia, great to have you on the program.  Great tan.

AE: Thank you, glad to be here.

HB: Amelia, I think we’re all wondering, “Where the fuck have you been?”  If you had one of these smartphone/pagers – a Phager, if you will – you could’ve called, OR paged!

AE: I’m sorry, are you selling something?

HB:  No.

AE: Are, are you crying?

HB:  NO!  Quick bathroom break for History Bros.  Stay tuned!

(Music from Phager)

HB:  Alright, so, before we get down to your decades-long whereabouts, let’s talk about the early you?  You were born and raised in Kansas, reared by a mother who flouted the norm of the times and rejected the idea of raising dutiful, subservient girls.

AE: Yeah, mother was a real inspiration into my and Pidge’s life.  She…

HB:  I’m sorry, I have to cut you off.  Pidge?

AE:  Yes, Pidge.  My little sister.

HB: Was, um…there something “wrong” with her?

AE:  No, why?

HB:  I just, I dunno.  Nevermind.  Did she bag groceries at the local general store?

AE: That seems oddly specific.

HB:  Hey!  So, you were, for all intents and purposes, a leader of proto-feminism during your day.  Kudos!

AE:  Yeah, yeah.  Again, my mother instilled a sense of wonder and adventure in us girls.  She advocated a drive to go beyond the cramped confines of women those days – to upend the establishment.

HB:  And Pidge was there!  Hey, I get it. I have a cousin who counts utilizing color schemes.  It’s really cool. (Wink).

AE:  Yeah, I guess.  Anyway, I started an all-female aviation organization, the Ninety-Nines.  Even managed to break into the faculty at Purdue’s aviation department.

HB:  Go Boilmakers!

AE:  Meh.

HB: Ha, yeah I don’t really care either.  Alright, let’s get down to brass tacks.  Where the fuck have you been?  After your disappearance over the central Pacific Ocean during an attempted circumnavigation flight, a years-long search ensued.  Most popularly, the “Where The Fuck Is Amelia Earhart” posters appeared all over the world.

AE: I see they’re selling t-shirts and all sorts of novelties now with that phrase emblazoned on each product.

HB:  Yeah, I don’t own one.  Jimmy!  Can you take down the poster in the bathroom!  Jimmy!

Jimmy:  Yeah, but you just told me to get it framed at Michael’s…

HB:  Jimmy!

HB: Sorry about that.  Amelia, where the fuck have you been?

AE: [Sigh] I grew tired of the limelight…  I wanted to disappear.  I emasculated my husband, I angered a lot of people, and all the while, I also garnered an ever-growing fanbase of girls and women who looked to me for answers.  For everything. I…I…just wanted one day, a single day, to be a princess.  Are you crying again?

HB: No, continue…

AE: I landed on a remote island somewhere in the central Pacific with all of these thoughts muddying my cognition, muddying me.  It just so happened that the island was a man-made one, secretly built by Walt Disney.  I had met a cruise ship performer, Stephi – fantastic baton-twirler by the way – and she turned me on to the Disney performance program.

HB:  You worked on a cruise ship?

AE:  I put in thirty years.  25 of those as Cinderella, an outlet I so longed for.  And 5 as Mulan.

HB:  Wait…

AE:  We ran into some hiring issues that later resulted in a lot of people being fired for profiling.

HB: And now, you’re back?

AE: I guess.  Yeah.  Now I just need to apologize to all of those I hurt, those I left behind.

HB:  Amelia, you do realize they’re all dead, right?

AE:  Even lil’ Pidge?

HB:  Definitely lil’ Pidge.

HB:  Let’s go watch Castaway AND Vanilla Sky to gain some perspective on reintroducing yourself to society.

M is for Millard

Apologies for the long delay, but History Bros is back with a brand new set right around the corner from a DIY cupcake shop.  I would be in heaven, but there’s so many fixed-gear bikes scraping up against our windows that I could just throw the covers off.  One of “them” just flicked me off…Todd, hold down the fort.

Todd, please grab my Tuesday steak from the refrigerator so I don’t swell.  Well, lesson learned: mustaches are out and “hot” Krava Maga classes are in.  Ugh, alright, alright.  Who do we have lined up for today?  Who?  Millard Fillmore?  That’s who we could get?  Damnit, Todd, this is also a children’s show, and we all know that the space between Jackson and Lincoln is a fat blur of plain white men.  Look, my presidential timeline literally has cut outs from Dilbert pasted across the spaces from 8^th to 15^th president  - though, with deepest apologies to my Little Magician, Martin Van Buren. 

Is he here?  No, that’s Clyde the janitor.  He’s out today?

HB: Hey, Hey!  Dillard’s!  Wait, Millard! Hey…

MF: I heard everything.

HB:  You know what, you’re lucky you’re even here.  I don’t feel a need to apologize.

Alright, geez.  Ummm.  We’ll start off on the most exciting note of your illustrious life: You were the LAST Whig president!  How does that feel? Or, whatever.

MF: I brought bugles for everyone.

HB:  Gee, thanks, Millard.

MF:  Please, dig in.  Well, I would say at the time it was anticlimactic.

HB:  I bet.

MF: ….

HB: ….

MF: ….

HB: ….

HB:  Ok!  Umm, tell me where you were born?  What was your childhood like?

MF: I was born and raised around the Buffalo, New York area…

HB:  Ok, I’m going to stop you right there.  Seriously.

HB: (aside)  Milly, we’ll edit that out.  Just, uh, say you grew up on the frontier and you killed a man when you were ten.  A man assaulting your father, and you saved him by burying a hatchet into the assailant’s backside.  And then, you, uh, cut down a peach tree.  But, you could never tell a lie.  I dunno.  Improvise.

MF:  But, none of that happened.

HB:  I know, but we’re running on fumes here.  Unless you want to have our listener’s donate to Doug Flutie’s autism foundation or talk about how Patrick Kane punched a cabbie in your glorious hometown, I can’t work with what we have.

MF:  Who’s Patrick Kane?

HB:  He’s one of the Lollipop Kids from The Wizard of Oz.

MF:  Where’s this?

HB:  Wait, wait.  Holy shit!  YOU signed the Fugitive Slave Act?!

MF:  Yes, indeed.

HB:  A momentous turn!  That’s sick, Milly!

MF:  Well, I had to with pressure from Southern Democracts and Whigs, but I did endorse other measures that constrained the institution of slavery with…

HB: Nope!  We’re staying on the Fugitive Slave Ac….

MF:  NO! NO! NO! NO! No one understands me, or even knows me for that matter, but once they find out about this one little piece of legislation I am demonized!  I am M!ssundaztood!

HB:  What?  Like…Pink?  Oh my God, he’s got a gun!  Or a, long musket-looking revolver.  OH NO!  He’s pouring powder into it!  Todd, let’s jet!  Hurry, he’s packing the flint lock!  Now, he’s retying the bag of gunpowder.

HB:  Maybe Millard is M!ssundaztood, but we’re on the road now as he presumably continues to prepare a shot.  Word of advice, learn ALL of your presidents.  History Bros promises to have a less demented, more popular guest next time.  Until then, we’ll be at Hot Krav Magra, ripping someone’s nuts off in a room turned up to 120 degrees.  Holy Shit!  Fillmore just shot Todd!  That has to be five miles behind us!  Applications for a new intern are now being accepted.  Goodbye.

It's Always Greener on the Other Side

Welcome back to a titillating episode of History Bros brought to you by the all-new Pontiac Aztek - Pontiac still makes me these things, no joke.  Is it a truck or jeep?  Doesn't matter because it's not relevant.  Pontiac Aztek, spelled with a k.  And speaking of unnecessary spelling changes, we have the distinguished General Nathaneal Greene of Revolutionary War fame as our guest today.  A private militiaman who catapulted himself up the ranks to the role of Commander of the South, only to become one of Washington's closest confidants.  If General Greene changes his name to the correct "Nathaniel," History Bros will give him a burnt orange 2014 Pontiac Aztek.

HB: General Greene, first off, we can't give you a new Pontiac Aztek; that was a lie.  We do, however, have this Metlife pen, but again, you have to change your name.

NG: No deal.  It'd be a dishonor to my father.

HB: No pen.  Good call though because it's completely out of ink, and as I'm suffering from strep throat and tend to chew on my pens, you probably would've died days later.

HB: Nathanael.  Odd spelling.  Were your parents new-age and, follow-up, do you have a brother named Aydan?

NG: My father was a farmer, smith and devout Quaker.

HB: So, yes, they were new-age.  Oatmeal?

NG: What?

HB: Ok.  Hey, did your father craft tables out of used fixed-gear bicycle wheels?  Or, even better, manufacture stools with inlaid tops of a Quaker Steel Cut Oatmeal cartons as faux-cushions?

NG: (Sigh).  Yes.

HB: Oh, holy shit.  I was joking.  Really?

NG: Yeah.  My parents were insufferable douches.  I ate seitan every morning, day and night. Their lofty, misplaced ideals overshadowed my chronic anemia.  I smelled at school, and the headmaster even resorted to calling me Nookie Nathan.  It was an awful childhood.

HB: Oh my god, I'm so sorry.  Wait, Nookie Nathan?

NG: He had just heard Limp Bizkit at the time; he was an idiot.  For some reason all the other kids went with it.

HB: Why not change the name then?  Release yourself from that period.

NG: Because fuck them, right?

HB:  General Greene has just channeled Good Will Hunting.  He went with the wrench.

NG: As soon as I was of age, I picked up and joined the Continental Army as a militia private.  It was the only way out of that hellhole.

HB:  Yes, I have some papers here detailing your time in basic training.  68 demerits.  15 fights.  You fired your musket at pointblank range at your bunkmate's care package from his mother .  And, last but not least, you British teabagged all of your bunkmates' faces at least once.  What is a British teabagging anyway?

NG: You put your balls in black pudding and marmite, and then slap someone's face with them.

HB: That's pretty sick, Nookie.

NG: I was an angry kid, but I slowly evolved.  I learned to channel the hatred from my childhood and unleash it on the battlefield.

HB: How many British teabags did British regulars receive during the revolution?

NG: 58.

HB: That is impressive, sir.

HB: A lot of place names in America are derived from your name.  That's quite an honor.

NG: They drop the e most of the time, so it's basically a backhanded compliment.

HB: It'd be like going to "New Orlns" for Mardi Gras.

NG: Sounds Slovak.

HB: I think it is.

HB:  General, since we're running a little behind, do you mind if I eat my lunch during the rest of the interview?

NG: Not an issue.  Wait, what is that?  What the hell is that?!

HB: Um, red pepper hummus.

NG: You are not my father!  Get out of my way, man!

HB: Mmm.  It seems my hummus has sent Nookie wildly running through the halls, and now outside, past the parking lot, and...  Oh shit.  He was just hit by, what seems to be a car...  Hey!  It's a Pontiac Aztek!  That's definitely a jeep.  Oh, I can't tell.

HB: Well, it seems that General Greene is still harboring child terrors after all of these years.  Thankfully, the driver of the Aztek was able to fold the back into a makeshift bed of a truck and haul the General to St. Mary's.  He'll be fine.  Thanks all for joining, and remember that we are all products of our childhood.  See you in Greensboro.

Et Tu, Caesar?

As promised, we've left the sepsis-soaked and amputation-crazed era of the Civil War for a more cosmopolitan setup here on the newly minted set of History Bros.  A chaise lounge was generously provided by Rooms To Go.  Are they still in business?  Yes?  I haven't seen a commercial in, like, over a decade.  Alright, well, it is a white pleather chaise lounge, so they can't be doing that well.  But, we're not complaining, because currently sitting on that eyesore of a couch is none other than Gaius Julius Caesar.  The famed general, statesmen, writer and eventual dictator was one of the main catalysts for the fall of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire.  He is, ironically, eating a caesar salad.

HB: OK, you're just begging for it.  Why the caesar salad?

JC: Diet.  Turns out drinking 8 Michelob Ultras every night will create a classic case of beer belly.

HB: You are the ancient version of a frat boy.

JC: I had my days, trying to sustain that lifestyle way after my prime.  I was that guy who used to be an athletic general, but was completely oblivious to the aging process and inevitable weight gain.  Michelob!  I still have a few friends I can't get through to.  The response is always the same: "I played D1 in Roman Legion, I still deserve respect.  No, I'm not balding.  I'm also not taking off my helmet."

HB: I get it.  I hate to break it to you, but just like the Michelob myth, that salad is absolutely terrible for you.  It's all in the dressing.

JC: Damnit!

JC: But, it's salad.  It was on the healthy starters menu at John Barleycorn.

HB:  John Barleycorn?

JC: I didn't say I was fully over my phase!  Did you even know that I played D1 Legion...  Ok, I here myself.  I'm trying.

HB: I bet it's tough, man.  But, still, toga parties?

JC: I wear one every day, so it's not something novel.

HB: That was less fun than I expected.  Jeep Wrangler named a model after the river you famously crossed - a point of no return.  Jeep Wrangler Rubicon!  Hot or not?

JC: Not.  It's an embarrassing.

HB: You can...totally...unzip the top.  Get a breeze.

JC: It's an awful, awful car.  I'd rather have a Geo Tracker.

HB: Good point, Julie.  At least you could play the hipster irony card with that one.  The Rubicon, there's no way around that stigma.  You're the guy who owns a Wrangler.  And guess what?  It rained last night and you forgot to put the top back on.  Your fuzzy dice smell like wet dog and your copy of Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill is ruined.

HB: Alright, serious question.  Did you really utter the words "Et Tu, Brute," or is this just Shakespeare taking artistic liberties?

JC: All honesty, I didn't even say a word.  I passed out in about a minute, then bled out a minute later.  I vomited because it hurt so f'ing much.  That was the closest I cam to speaking.

HB: Grudge against Brutus?

JC: No, I'm actually happy for him.  Well, I knew he was becoming "different" after he started talking about social justice, volunteering, blah blah.  The real sign was his choice to focus on non-profit management in business school.  All the legionnaires and senators went into finance, but this was, like, different different.  Ya know?  But, he's got three kids now and has a decent job as an educational administrator.  He has happiness.  Most of us never saw that.  I have an Infiniti and an empty heart I feel with caesar dressing.  God, is that really narcissistic?

HB: It is.  Stop eating yourself.  But, that's very noble of you to say.  Still, the stabbing?

JC: Yes!  They all could've easily shot me.  That's just a surprise.  Sure, it hurts, but you don't see it coming over and over again.  Holy shit I'm about to get stabbed!  Oh my god, this other senator has a knife too!  Where's he going to put that one?!  Oh, Jesus, my hip?!  C'mon! A clean shot to the head would've been appreciated.

HB: Who wore the Caesar cut better - you or ER Clooney?

JC:  Clooney.

HB:  Julie, I want to sincerely thank you for coming on the show.  Go eat some quinoa.