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Last time it was truffles.

This time… it’s fish eggs.

Caviar, one of the most expensive foods in the world, didn’t start as luxury.

It started as leftovers.

In this episode of Out of My Budget Origins, Rab Greeson dives into the strange history of caviar, from struggling fishermen in ancient Persia… to Russian tsars… to French aristocrats… to billionaires today.

Why does it cost so much?

Why do people eat it with...

The taco wasn’t invented for flavor, it was invented for survival and it did end up surviving 9,000 years as a comfort food

In this episode of One Up the Annals, join Rab and Victoria as we trace how a simple folded tortilla became one of the most brilliant pieces of edible engineering in human history, from ancient civilizations to street vendors, Taco Bell, and even space.

Most times the shortest distance between hunger and happiness… is a folded carb.

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Let’s gooooo

Truffles started as dirt-covered fungi hunted by pigs… and somehow became one of the most expensive foods on Earth. In this short Annals episode, we dig into how a lumpy underground mushroom turned into a luxury flex, why the rich made it fancy, and the strange science behind why it smells like attraction. From mud to Michelin,  this is the story of the world’s most expensive fungus.

I’m your host Rab Greeson and now it’s in the Annals!

Goodnight

...

We’ve all heard the quotes. “Confucius say…” this and that. But here’s the problem, most of them? He never said them. In this episode of One Up the Annals, Rab Greeson digs into the real story behind Master Kong, the Chinese teacher whose practical philosophy helped shape an empire… two centuries after he died thinking he failed. Along the way we sort real Confucius wisdom from absurd fortune-cookie jokes, uncover how the Han Dynasty turned his ideas into government policy, and answer the question: how did a serious philosopher become the punchline of a meme?

S...

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Twice a year we move the clocks and pretend we’ve solved a problem with the sun.

Let’s goooooo

In Episode 27, Rab Greeson dives into the bizarre history of Daylight Saving Time — from a bug collector who wanted more daylight to chase insects, to wartime energy experiments, confused farmers, angry commuters, and the strange modern tradition of resetting your microwave while questioning your life choices.

Humanity has mapped the genome, split the atom, and sent spacecraft beyond the solar system.

A...

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In this episode, host Rab Greeson narrates his creative nonfiction and explores the evolution of fitness influence, from survival necessity to modern spectacle.

Long before gyms, supplements, and social media, the human body existed to endure, adapt, and survive. But over time, fitness transformed into something else: performance, identity, and eventually, monetized influence.

From ancient Olympians and gladiators… to Jane Fonda and Arnold Schwarzenegger… to the algorithm-driven world of modern influencers, Rab traces how the body became both symbol and product.

This episode examines the psychological, cultural, and...

Hollywood is built on illusion. 

Lights. Soundstages. Carefully controlled darkness. 

But what happens when the darkness doesn’t follow directions? 

 In this episode of One Up the Annals, host Rab Greeson sits down at the séance table to explore the most infamous cursed and haunted movie sets in film history. From early silent cinema to modern horror, where coincidence piled up, accidents felt intentional, and rumors refused to die. 

Guided by special guest Victoria co-hosting  as the medium “the spirits agreed to speak through,” this episode unfolds like a séance disguised...

Episode 24 — Seasoning the Season: When Holiday Traditions Get Cooked

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This December, we’re not talking about the holidays you planned. We’re talking about the ones that happened anyway. When something slips. A turkey gets dropped. A gift detonates a relationship. Kids are kids. Someone discovers the punch wasn’t “lightly spiked,” it was weaponized.

And just like that, the holiday now has a name.

In this episode, we collect the true stories of December disasters that didn’t ruin Christmas… They became Christmas memories.

Because tra...

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December is supposed to be warm, joyful, and magical.

So why does it also feel loud, expensive, exhausting, and emotionally charged?

I’m Rab Greeson and in this episode of One Up the Annals, we take a Dickens-style journey through the traditions of December guided by three ghosts who know exactly why this season hits the way it does.

We explore:

Why Christmas trees were once fire hazards and survival symbolsHow lights went from “don’t die in the dark” to neigh...

This is the final chapter of The Season of Obsession.

Across this series, we followed some of the brightest minds in modern history. Howard Hughes, Heath Ledger, Robin Williams and then descended into the Madness itself. We traced the same atomic question through every story:

Where does genius end… and collapse begin?

In this season finale, we step back from the individual lives and examine the core that connected them all. Control. Creation. Motion. Brilliance. Awareness. And the moment that barrier fails.

Howard Hughes tried to master the world th...

Season Of Obsession The Madness Arc

What do a conman, a cannibal, a campus stalker, a towering intellect, and a boy-next-door have in common?

They weren’t just killers. They were obsessed with control, legacy, and the illusion of genius.

In this dark descent of the Madness Arc, we ride the elevator to the lowest levels of the human psyche… and meet five men whose atoms split without warning:

 H.H. Holmes – The blueprint of murder Ted Bundy – The killer who rehearsed his charm Ed Kemper – The intellect...

Robin Williams lived like a spark that refused to sit still a one-of-one supernova built from motion, empathy, and a restless drive to make the world feel seen. In this episode of One Up the Annals: Season of Obsession, we follow the lonely child from the quiet mansion, to the comic hurricane who rewrote stand-up, to the actor who healed millions, to the heartbreaking final battle no one saw coming.

This isn’t the simplified story the world told after he died.

This is the truth through the lens of genius, madness, and the fragile ba...

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If the Annals moved you, cracked you up, or kept you company today, you can toss a little love on Venmo: @RabGreesy

Heath Ledger

He wasn’t chasing fame, he was chasing perfection and damned near found it. But the cost of brilliant obsession can blend genius and madness to something else.

From restless Perth kid to Hollywood icon, Heath Ledger lived like a spark looking for fuel.

This episode dives deep into the mind and motion of a man who built brilliance from obsession, wh...

Before Elon Musk built rockets, Howard Hughes tried to sterilize the sky.

He was a visionary who conquered Hollywood, rewrote the rules of flight, and then vanished into a fortress of milk bottles and Kleenex.

From the Spruce Goose that flew only once to the Vegas empire he bought just to be left alone, this is the true story of the man who turned genius into isolation and obsession into legend.

Where shame becomes legend.

 Listen now on One Up the Annals Episode 18: Howard Hughes The Man Who Tried to Sterilize t...

In this introduction, Rab Greeson your Archivist of Obsession lays out the roadmap for the Season of Obsession: where creation meets collapse, and brilliance flirts with chaos and sometimes, crosses.

From Howard Hughes to Heath Ledger, Robin Williams to the monsters Bundy, Holmes, Dahmer, who perfected the art of madness, this season traces the same current running through them all.

Five minutes of foreplay before the full descent. Let’s gooooo

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Help keep the scrolls rolling! Slide a tip into the Annals it tickles the algorithm and my ego

Before the neon, before the mob, before the Elvis impersonators and bad decisions Vegas was nothing but dust, dynamite, and desperation.

When the Hoover Dam brought twenty-thousand men to the desert in the 1930s, Boulder City stayed “dry”… so they crossed the sand to Vegas, where nothing was illegal if you didn’t get caught.

Brothels, bootleggers, and backroom bribes built the foundation of America’s most shameless city  and...

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Noblewoman. Educated. Unchecked.In this dark chapter of early modern Europe we uncover the truth behind Elizabeth Báthory the so-called ‘Blood Countess’ of Hungary. With hundreds of testimonies, grisly torture devices, and a royal debt that rewrote justice, this is the story of how power protects monsters.We’ll dive into:
 • Her aristocratic rise and empire of silence
 • The chilling apparatus of cruelty she allegedly built
 • The 1610 inquiry, confessions, and what the records really show
 • The political cover-up that traded justice for assets
 • How legend overtook fact and why it still matters If y...

Before the circus. Before the birthday parties.
 Laughter was survival and death wore a painted smile.

In this mini Halloween edition of One Up the Annals, we drag the truth through the greasepaint to uncover where clown fear was really born. From Rome’s enslaved mimus who danced for their lives, to England’s broken legend Joseph Grimaldi, to America’s nightmare smile that never fades, the clown has always carried the souls of the performers who died behind the mask.

And tonight, they want to make you laugh… or get their revenge.

Written...

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I’m your host Rab Greeson and tonight we continue the October month long Annals Of Darkness. He murdered, ate, and photographed a woman in 1981  then became a celebrity. In this episode of One Up the Annals: Annals of Darkness, host Rab Greeson unravels the chilling true story of Issei Sagawa the Japanese literature student who turned cannibalism into content and fame into absolution.

Inside this episode:

 Sagawa’s lifelong fantasies of flesh

The calculated murder of Renée Hartevelt in Paris

The two day canniba...

“Every masquerade ends with a corpse.”

In Part II of our Edgar Allan Poe series, the chandeliers blaze, the clock tolls midnight — and the man behind The Raven unravels for good.

This chapter dives into the masquerade of Poe’s final years:
 the scandals, the drinking, the feuds that earned him the name “The Tomahawk Man,”
and the mysterious death that turned his legend into a ghost story.

🎭 Inside this episode:

The real plague behind The Masque of the Red DeathPoe’s self-destruction, obsession, and “Imp of the Pe...

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Fantasy Fest Mini Scroll #1: a Key West true crime of love, death, and obsession. 

In tonight’s midnight scroll, we drift into the humid, haunted romance of Key West, 1931. Radiologist Carl Tanzler fell for Elena de Hoyos, even after death. He snatched her from her tomb, reassembled her body in his home, and lived out a twisted fairy-tale with a corpse bride in the Keys.

This is true crime, dark romance, and Florida’s weirdest love story all rolled into one.

Expect: macabre details, a twist you won’t...

Welcome, sinners and scholars… to the Annals of Darkness.”

This Halloween, Rab Greeson exhumes the man who made death desirable. Edgar Allan Poe- the poet who turned grief into beauty, lust into legend, and madness into melody.

From the mother who coughed herself to death before his eyes, to the cousin-bride who wasted away over time on a deathbed, Poe’s life wasn’t gothic fiction… it was prophecy.

Tonight, the Annals open the coffin on the man behind The Raven, The Tell-Tale Heart, and The Fall of the House of Usher. The lust, the...

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Episode 9  Vlad the Impaler: The Real Dracula (Part II)

Vlad’s head was cut off, but his legend refused to die.
 In this After Dark descent, the Annals exhume the man who became the monster: how a blood-soaked warlord from 15th-century Wallachia rose from the grave to become Dracula, the immortal symbol of fear, lust, and power.

From betrayal and beheading to Bram Stoker and beyond, this episode traces Vlad’s transformation into the world’s most seductive nightmare. You’ll hear how folklore birthed the vampire, h...

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Episode 8— From Vlad the Impaler to Immortal: The Legend of Dracula (Part 1)

This October, the scrolls drip with shadows… and tonight we exhume one of history’s darkest names.

Before Dracula wore velvet and whispered seduction, there was Vlad the Impaler prince of Wallachia, child hostage turned tyrant, a man who turned execution into performance art and forests into graveyards. Part One of this two-part legend takes you inside his rise to power, his obsession with revenge, and the blood-soaked theater that made his name echo in terror for centur...

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Alfred Hitchcock wasn’t just the “Master of Suspense”  he was the original Hollywood voyeur, a director obsessed with control, fear, and yes… sex. Behind the camera, Hitchcock turned cinema into a peepshow of obsession and scandal. From Rear Window to Psycho, his films reflected not only terror, but his own twisted fascinations.

In this episode of One Up the Annals, host Rab Greeson (aka The Original Un-fluencer) pulls back the shower curtain on Hitchcock’s hidden obsessions, his scandalous on-set behavior, and the darker truths that shaped his genius.

...

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Before Tinder, before Cosmo quizzes, before “sex ed” was even a phrase, there was Alfred Kinsey. A mild-mannered professor who decided to catalogue America’s lust like it was a zoology project. With a clipboard in hand and eyebrow permanently raised, Kinsey asked the questions no one else dared, and the answers blew the lid off 1950s America.

From secret interviews to scandalous tables, from conservative outrage to underground applause, this is the story of the man who tried to turn desire into data. Was he a pioneer of sexual science, a perv...

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The Borgias didn’t just write history, they roasted it, poisoned it, and rolled it across a marble floor. In this episode, we dive into the scandal that turned chestnuts into sin, power into foreplay, and papal dinners into crime scenes.

From Alexander VI’s infamous banquets to whispered orgies and deadly plots, we unscroll one of history’s most decadent disasters. Was it lust? Was it politics? Or was it just too many chestnuts at once?

 Where shame becomes legend…...

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The Norse didn’t need mushrooms to get freaky, though some of them definitely helped. The sagas tell of warriors who shed their humanity like a shirt, frothing at the mouth, gnawing on shields, and charging naked into battle as if orgasm and annihilation were the same thing. These were the berserkers: battle-drunk, lust-mad, and terrifying enough to make kings outlaw them when the party went too far.

In this episode, I dive into the frenzy,  the drugs, the rituals, the ecstasy of the berserkergang. Fro...

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 Andy Warhol  From Soup to Nuts

Behind the sunglasses and soup cans was an artist who turned fame, lust, and obsession into his real medium. Andy Warhol’s life was a gallery of contradictions, glamorous and grimy, iconic and indecent, sacred and smutty.

This episode peels back the pop-art sheen to explore the strange appetites, scandalous experiments, and hidden archives that made Warhol more than just a man of Marilyns and Campbell’s.

Because in the Annals, art isn’t...

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Welcome back to One Up the Annals where shame becomes legend, barley only grows if you spank a king, and history’s dirtiest truths never stay buried.

Episode 2 dives deep into Mesopotamia’s wildest scroll: the story of Inanna, Queen of Heaven, Goddess of Lust and War, and possibly history’s first domme. From ritual sex and public humiliation to cosmic power plays, Inanna’s worship was less “Sunday sermon” and more “temple kink-fest.”

We’ll peel back the layers of myth and ritual to reveal why her cult was part religion, par...