Family Plot

Have you heard of 'Tail-Gunner Joe' McCarthy and the Red Scare?  What about Roy Cohn?  These two not only kicked off the Red Scare where they pursued supposed communists in Government and later the military, but also went aafter gays under the theory that they were 'moral perverts susceptible to blackmail.'.  Despite no evidence appearing that even one of these people were blackmailed outside the movie Clue (which is complete fiction), thousands of employees were fired between 1953 and the 90's when gay employees were forced out of government positions or fotced to live lives undercover simply because of who the...

We have a heck of an episode for you.  Arthur is turning 17 and our episode is inspired by the right wing pushback against Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey'.  We dig into the origin of the work, what we know of it's 'author' Homer, the real, the mythical, the things that are somewhere in between.  We say goodbye to a family friend and gget downright hostile about people judging movies based on trailers in this deep dive into the origins of the Odyssey and all it's attendant mythology in this little bit of history, whole lotta weird imagined horrors episode of the Fam...

Such An Episode!  On Deck we have Jane Stanford, born Jane Lathrop out of Albany New York, she married her lawyer husband who lost everything in a fire, went west to seek his fortune in the Gold Rush and found it selling supplies to miners and settlers.  When his wife joined him in San Francisco, he had become a railroad baron.  Eventually they had a child and Jane doted on the boy.  We won't tell you more here, but there's a death, a poisoning, a university being founded and not necessarily in that order in this powerful episode of the Fami...

This episode, we go deep into the life, heroism and spectacle that was Audie Murphy.  Audie Murphy was a sharecropper's son from Hunt County Texas, small, skinny, barely fed and full of work.  When his dad would disappear, he worked, when his mom died, he worked.  When his family came apart, he tried military service.  He was rejected by the marines, the paratroopers, only the Army would eventually accept the skinny kid from Texas because in the 1940's they needed manpower.  We discuss Audie's training and how he went from being an unlikely soldier to the most decorated Combat Infantryman of Wo...

Well, in this episode we dig into our Kansas City Roots.  We go to Kansas City in the 1920's where under 'Boss' Pendergast the city was a machine that kept clubs open all night and the liquor flowing.  It was a town famous for being a little naive, jazz, good barbecue and something called the Kansas City Stomp.  Kansas City had heard rumors of Prohibition and wanted no truck with it.  It was into this world that a young man named Charlie Parker, a man who would be nicknamed 'Bird' began to play an alto sax and he would get humi...

This episode has so much.  We cover the Jewel Box Revue, the drag show that originated in the thirties and toured through the seventies creating a space for drag, female impersonators and gender bent comics in a show that advertised itself as 25 men and 1 girl.  We also cover anti-crossdressing laws, the police's informal three article rule and how newspapers at the time published the names  of those arrested for cross dressing, performing drag, or even just being openly gay.    We talk about how drag shows came up from French cabarets like the Moulin Rouge and the Folies Bergere and morphed into...

Here we go!  Another little bit of history that really matters.  In 1942, following Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt signed executive order 9066 which allowed  the military designated Military zones and control who lived in them in the United States.  The order did not mention Japanese American citizens or concentration camps by name, but effectively that'w who was targeted and what was created in this executive order.  Japanese Citizens were rounded up, sent to camps and forced to live in old horse stalls or worse before being transferred to some of the worst hellholes in the country.  This is after many were blocked from c...

We do a deep dive into the Brazilian Lead Masks Case, a Case that takes us back to 1966 where two dead men are found laying down wearing suits on a hill in Niteroi, they appear to have laid down, put on homemade masks made of lead and simply...died.  We look into Brazil at that time, a nation only recently taken over by a brutal military regime,and where burgeoning scientific beliefs intersected with spiritual and metaphyisical ideas leaving a Fortean mystery that echose to this day.  They're instructions were simple:
1)  16:30 be at the agreed place.
2)  18:30 swallow capsules,

We have quite the episode for you here.  This time we head back to 1942 to meet a small Jewish family, the Frank family.  They are a mom a dad and two daughters living in Germany watching the country become a nightmare for Jews like themselves.  Otto, the father, led them over to the Netherlands where he had business contacts.  However, soon the Nazis  occupied and controlled the Netherlands and the Franks were facing the same persecution they had before.  So with great reluctance, they and another Jewish family went into hiding in a secret annex hidden behind a bookcase in Otto's...

In this episode we set the Elevator of History back to 1835 where we witness the ;'penny paperss' papers sold for one cent instead of six that featured stories people WANTED to read, rather than news by and for a political party.  These papers brought us separate sections on news, finance, sports and featured on the scene reporting and lurid true crime details.  But it was the New York Sun that launched into a six day report of what a famous mathematician, chemist and learned individual was looking at the moon through a legendary telescope and reporting the discovery of the mo...

This episode is so full of weird tasty historical goodness you'll want a second course.  Arthur talks an afternoon with Dean and a vist from his girlfriend and we discuss Toronto and Canada in the 20's and 30's and the introduction of a millionaire with no heirs and a wicked sense of humor who died on October 31st 1936 and for the next ten years set off a fertility contest that became talked about all over the world.  All while Toronto desperately tried to hold onto it's Toronto the Good identity in this too much money, a will can be binding an...

What a show!  WWe dive deep into the life of Shirley Temple Black, from her young life as a precocious little girl with a smile, to her mother's enrolling her in the Meglin Kiddies Dance School at the age of three, to her subsequent discovery a few months later, hiding behind the piano when Educational Pictures director Charles Lamont came to the school looking for talent.  She at first joined the Baby Burlesks, a somewhat uncomfortable series in which toddlers, clad in costumes above the waist and diapers below recreated onscreen moments from more famous pictures...this led to many un...

In this episode , we look into the life of Emma aka Grandma Gatewood.  Born in rural Ohio at the tail end of the 19th Century, she was the 7th of 15 children raised in a one room cabin, sleeping four to a bed, her only moments of peace were walks from her family home.  At 19, she met PC 
Gatewood, an Elementary school teacher who also treated her with unkindness and violence.  Her only escape was to get away, talking walks to escape the violence.  She had 11 children with Gatewood until she was divorced from him.    Then she raised them as best sh...

In this episode, we set the Elevator of History to the Kentucky portion of the Appalachians where we check out the Packhorse Librarians.  Women, funded by the WPA, who brought books into the hoots and hollers of Kentucky, providing reading and kinship in rural communities who otherwise would have no access to books.  They traveled on mules and horses carrying books in saddlebags and pillowcases to needy communities and while they only lasted a short time, they helped change rural Kentucky and make it part of the modern world and helped raise the rate of illiteracy from 31 percent to just 5 pe...

Jump on the Elevator of History with us and ride it back to America's involvement in World War I.  When the US brought over a segregated unit of Black Men that were mostly a labor batallion, then they were loaned to the French Infantry who gave them French helmets, equipment, weapons and rations and put them on the front lines.  For 191 days, the longest of any unit in the war they stayed on the front lines, never giving up ground, always pushing forward and cementing their legacy and their strengths forcing the US Army to reconsider it's segregation and the id...

TW - This episode we drop a few 'f' bombs, and a few other words we would not normally use.  But we are dealing with an act of domestic terrorism that has been concealed by polite history.  We discuss the rRise of Black Wall Street in the Greenwood District of Oklahoma.  How discovering oil in the early twenties brought people of all colors to to the young state of Oklahoma unintentionally creating a community of Black entrepreneurs, lawyers, doctors and other professionals,,This created a segregation and suspicion drove them into the community of Greenwood where they built black schools, bla...

This week, we step away from doom, gloom and reminders of the fact that we are currently under an authoritarian administration thaat does not value human life and only serves to protect the billionaire class to talk about a magical event that happens every February in the tiny city of  Montpelier, Vermont.  It seems that, since 2002 when people in Montpelier on Valentine's day morning, they find their town covered in hearts, celebrating love, community and kindness.  More than one person has served the role of the Phantom, like the Dread Pirate Roberts, it's a title that gets passed on from tim...

Such an episode.  One of three episodes for Black History Month this Month, we cover the amazing life of Frederick Douglass, born a slave, he managed to sneak an education which propelled him to Freedom and so much more.  He learned letters and managed to improve his education by challenging white school children and allowing them to correct him, watching men in lumberyards and shipyards mark words on boxes and objects until he could copy their strokes perfectly.  We discuss hiss first attempt to escape which got him arrested and his second which earned him Freedom.  We discuss his life as a...

Man this week is a powerful episode.  Arthur talks dating, mental health, and art and we share our reasons for supporting the families of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and why we support #AbolishIce and #FreeMinnesota.  Then we dig into the story of teenager Grace Darling and how she, with a little help from her father, rowed out in a tiny rowboat (specifically a coble) to help 8 people who had survived a shipwreck in the Farne Islands!  She was made into a hero by the London press but she never saw the point, after all she had only done what she...

2026 has been an interesting year for us and so far, all the episodes, we've done have had a real world echo to something happening in our world right now.  This was unplanned and this week continues that trend as we discuss the Pruitt-Igoe Housing Project.  An attempt in Saint Louis to create a new type of housing for the urban poor was met with removal of any communal or public space, to maximize efficiency, segregation, patrols to keep 'able bodied men' from getting free rent by living with their families, and no funding for maintenance which instead of lifting up th...

Wow do we have an episode for you!  First we are joined by Courtney from Book of the Dead Podcast who is an amazing podcaster with an amazing show!  We also take a moment to comment on the murder of Renee Good and while we don't do a deep dive because it is political, we do make it clear that a) it was, in fact, a murder and b) we make it clear that it wasn't right and we are here for those listeners who may be lost, hurt or confused in these dark times.  Then we dig into the Yub...

Our latest episode goes hog wild as we talk about the heroic Ida B. Wells.  From taking care of her brothers and sisters at the age of 16 after her parents and brother died of yellow fever to teaching in black schools to writing for local papers and taking on lynchings in the South.  And this wasn't even forty years after the Brooks Sumner Affair where South Virginia's Senator Preston Brooks attacked Massachussets Senator Charles Sumner hitting him over the head many times after he gave a powerful Anti-Slavery speech.  And this was a black woman born into slavery who told the...

Our annual year-in-review show where we cover things past, things present and things future.  We discuss the year as a whole, what we've learned and how we managed to cope as well as discovering the fact that we are all about Found Family and we enjoy our listeners who reach out to ask if they can join us for dinner!  A feel good end of year wrap up with thanks to a lot of good people.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/family-plot--4670465/support.

A bit shorter episode this week, the perfect size for that jaunt over the river and through the woods to see grandma...or to run to the store and fight Tobey Macguire for that last dented can of jellied cranberry sauce.  This week we ask the question is Santa a cryptid?  We tell a brief tale of his origin, mention that Saint Nicholas is somehow both the patron saint of children and sex workers and every year on december 25th goes on the world's largest buisiness trip.  We discuss supposed real sightings of the big man (Does he drive a pri...

We are joined this episode by Kansas City Comedian Dale Hilton to discuss the London Beer Flood of 1814 and the Gorbals Hot Whiskey Disaster of 1906.  We do cover these two strangely historical events and also discuss Beer and how it lead to both the formation of society as well as the invention of refrigeration because people wanted to keep their beer cold.  We also discuss 'Generic' Beer, trashcan punch parties, a store similar to Wal-mart and Target named Venture's , Purple Passion (available in cans and two liter-bottles) and so much more in this end of year but we're still learning in...

A shorter episode this week but that makes it the perfect length to listen to on your way to Holiday Shopping.  This week we go uplifting as we dig into the life of Beatrice 'Tillie' Shilling.  The child of a master butcher and one of thre girls born and raised in the South of England, she spent her pocket money on tools and penknives, deconstructed devices to see how they fit together and worked and played with Meccano sets, early construction toys allowing children to build working models of cars and cranes.  She would even win a competition for building fro...

We begin with a trigger warning, this week we talk about the results of people apparently catching fire spontaneously and the gruesome remains that sometimes leaves behind.  We attempt to go easy but still if you find yourself challenged by some of these descriptions, feel free to skip the episode.  You matter.  What a week!  This week we tackle the burning subject (quite literally( of spontaneous human combustion.  We dig into historic cases both fairly mundane and incredibly strange.  We discuss cases and theories from ancient to modern, including the wick effect and how it literally demands the person sit in one...

Boy, do we have a show for you.  It's Thanksgiving and Arthur is feeling rowdy and wants to fist fight at the back of a Denny's. plus he's hyper fixating on the new LPS!  We dig into the mysterious death of Ohio immigrant and businessman Mitchell Siegel and how that unsolved death led to the creation of the character of Superman.  We also find that Superman has a lot in common with a character named Doc Savage and how Superman, and other costumed superheroes grew out of the pulps.  We talk modern takes on the character, and all the pop cult...

We have so much to tell you about!  In this episode, we dig into the life of Storme DeLarverie, a man who was born to a black mother and white father.  Mom was a servant and Dad was wealthy.  Because he was a child of black and white parents he was never issued a birth certificate and chose to celebrate his birthday on December 24th.  His dad paid for his education but he was raised mostly by his grandfather.  He joined the Ringling Brothers Circus as a show rider and began to get on stage at Jazz Clubs at only 15.  He wou...

So many things in this episode.  Arthur discusses his new mask, Poppi Playtime, and hanging out with his brother who visited from college in this corner and then we dig into the tragedy that was the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, what happened, how it happened and the people who lived through it.  We cover their response and the hope for humanity when this city, founded as part of Mexico in 1776, was 80 percent destroyed and built back up just four years later.  We learn about how the American Red Cross partnered with the US Army to help create refugee camps and distrubute sup...

This week we look into the life of Norah Emily Editha Fornario, better known as Netta.  Her body was discovered wearing no more than a black cloak and a blackened silver cross lying atop a mound with a dagger shape carved into it.  The mound was what locals called a fairy hill and to this day, no one knows how her death came about.  We study her life, her fascination with psychic research and how she eventually became a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.  We dig into what little is known about her life and what stra...

In this, the last spooky season episode for the year, we go into the mind of HP Lovecraft and the shared universe he created.  A man touched by his family's brushes with both greatness and madness, he was never a huge success in his lifetime and held horrible, racist views that he supported with pseudoscience like eugenics.  But as troubled and troubling as he was and is, the Mythos is one of the larger shared universes in fiction.  A place where humanity is just a short sad blip on existence and the universe at large just does not care and wil...

Man this was a fun and intense spooky season episode.  First, we are joined by CJ from the Rainbow Crimes podcast and then Arthur covers a few things ranging from recent mental health struggles and to his gaming addiction to Dandy's World.  All four of us dig into the case of Herb Baumeister.  Herb is a possibly (and likely) gay man himself who hunted other gay men whom he brought back to his home to murder.  In addition, authorities in Indiana and Ohio believe him to also be the I-70 Strangler and victims of both series of murders were found on h...

Well, this episode is a doozy, we cover the history of the Whaley House Haunted Museum, covering it's time as a public gallows for San Diego, to it's purchase by Thomas Whaley and how it became part theater, part courthouse, part general store and part home.  The family suffered fires, deaths and public humiliations among other setbacks as they continued to live in this home.  We cover it's delapidation and it's rebuilding into an exact replica of the home it was and it's place in San Diego that showcases the past in an up close and personal way, but also th...

This episode is a doozy.  For spooky season we dig into the life and crimes of the infamous duo, William Burke and William Hare.  During a time when resurrectionists ran rampant, Burke and Hare cchanged the game.  Instead of digging up fresh corpses for the medical establishment to practice upon, they killed people (through a method called burking) and sold their bodies as fresh corpses.  We cover the history of medical science at the time and why fresh cadavers were necessary.  
We discuss the lifes of Burke and Hare, what led to selling their first body and how they made s...

Well, we cram a whole lotta information into not so much time this epsiode.  This episode takes us to New York City to visit The Basilica of St. Patrick's Old Cathedral and to Boston to visit the Old North Church.  We cover the history of these Crypts, find out when they were built, why they were built and what led to their underground storage spaces for the dearly departed.  We cover their hauntings and appearances in popular culture as well so join us for this special spooky season episode as we dive deep into the spectral shenanigans and living history of...

TW:  We do at one point briefly discuss suicide, so if this is a problem for you, feel free to skip the part about the spooklight's origins, which is where the discussion happens.  This week, Arthur talks school ande grandma, Laura talks her recent birthday (other Virgos holla!) and then we talk the Hornet Spooklight.  Seen over E 50 Road better known as spooklight road to the locals.  The area is also called the Devil's Promenade and the Spooklight is often seen over this cursed stretch of ground.  It lets viewers chase it, often dodging out of the way or going behin...

In this episode, we jump to our second campaign, a Call of Cthulhu based campaign called Lore for the Pages.  In this episode, our heroes inherit both a bookstore and a home from KH Hillman, a bookseller who for years has been selling Cthulhu Mythos and occult books and objets d'arts by mail to unscrupulous buyers.  Now, our heroes have to reclaim these lost objects before they are used to cause more problems.  The first adventure is set in the fictional town of Sargasso Springs Alabama, a coastal town that is suffering from a strange infestation of bugs and some unu...

This week, we head back to the 1800's to meet the man who would become known as 
Billy the Kid!  Born Henry McCarty in New York City, he eventually went west with his Mother and brother with stops in Indiana and Wichita before landing in Silver City New Mexico.  His mom died when he was just 14 and his stepdad abandoned him to head to California to start mining.  Henry's first criminal act was to steal food for which he served ten days in jail.  Later he went on to become a horse thief and a Regulator and fought in a con...

We have such an episode for you today!  We are staying true to both our Missouri and nerdy roots to bring you the life of Samuel Langhorne Clemens better known as Mark Twain, America's Favorite Humorist.  We learn of his many jobs including Riverboat Pilot, Prospector, Newspaper man, journalist, printer's devil, and of course, writer extraordinaire!  We talk his rivalry with Bret Harte and the flop that was Ah Sin.  We discuss his similarities to Ambrose Bierce and other modern writers that loved him or were influenced by his work.  We reference a lot of past episodes including:  
Ambrose Bierce...