A Geek History of Time - Episode 380 - Interview with Common Knowledge Lectures Creators Mike & Zac

Episode Date: July 31, 2026

You know, the thing is, you have reached farther for less good. To be blunt, the money in tabletop games isn't great. We have to wind up with the Church of England because Opvi, I'll start. Shrek at my own, whatever. Yeah, well, I mean, you're here to be the expert, but that doesn't stop at. That one oddly doesn't make me angry. Because you know who's the boss. You know what? I'm going to keep my head down and be as inoffensive as I can.

to everybody possible. And that's it. You want to fight? I'm going to dry hump your leg until we're friends. Of course, reminded me of that one woman that I went on a single date with who said, you know, the downside about my job is that we don't show kids drowning anymore. Where we can. Back to nerder into the real world.

My name is Ed Laylock. I'm a world history teacher here in Northern California. And last night, my son. son had a baseball game scheduled. It was a rescheduled game that had been postponed from earlier in the week. It was supposed to happen on Wednesday, but we had rain.

And so last night we went out, and the other team didn't show up. And we were casting about trying to figure out, what are we going to do with the kids? And the coaches decided, hey, we're going to have a parents versus kids scrimmage. And so I wound up stepping out onto a baseball field for the first time. in almost 40 years. And it was a blast. The kids got so amped. And, you know, my son managed to score a couple of runs and managed to get past his old man going around the bases, which he was very happy about.

I managed to make contact with the ball, which, you know, was better than when I was, you know, playing little league myself. And so, yeah, we had a great time. And then got home, went to bed last night. And I got up this morning. And my body said, I'm sorry, you thought you were going to do anything today? You're 51 years old. No, sir. No, you can just lie down and stay there like the beaten up old man you are.

So there's been some Tylenol today. And there will be more Tylenol probably tomorrow. but I would say worth it. So how about you? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I am a U.S. history and government teacher up here in Northern California. And today, this very day, and we've already dated it because we know your age now, but this very day, a milestone has been reached in Shay Harmony.

Yeah. I am no longer the tallest person in the house. No shit, really? Yeah, my son has grown past me by half an inch. We measure on this date every year. He's grown past me by half an inch. He is now officially Harvey tall. Okay.

Six feet and one half inch. There you go. And I just, I was stunned. And then my daughter had a stand next to each other and took a picture. And sure enough, dude is definitely, it's hilarious because it looks like you've got like that drawing of Captain America next to like an early drawing of Spider-Man. where it's just like you've got one person whose chest is out to here and the other person where it's just, you know, so I definitely still, I'm still bigger than him in total volume. Yeah.

So water displacement, I've got him beat, but he is six feet and one half inch. Nice. I reached up and touched the ceiling because I can do that. He reached up and touched the ceiling and his fingers were bent. And I'm like, you are going to get all the things from the top shelf from now on. There you go. It was cool. My daughter is also officially an eighth of an inch under five-five.

Okay. She's rounding up. She's like, five-five. There you go. Like, sure, honey, sure. Whatever helps you get to sleep at night, kid out. But yeah, it's, it is a cool, cool day in January. Nice.

I'm very proud. So. Very cool. Not that either of us had anything that we could have done with or to affect that outcome. Like, it's pure, like, luck of the draw genetically. and then also what do you call? Nutritionally?

Nutritionally, yeah. I was going to say my mom did smoke specifically to have a low birth weight because it was the 70s. So who knows how much taller I could have been. But I'm not, and my son's mother did not smoke.

There you go. And I was wrong. Everyone else was right. Everyone thought he would be taller than me. I said no, because we measured him at two years old and you're supposed to double that height. And he was going to come in at 5.11.

and like three eights or something. And I was wrong. There you go. Yeah. Anyway, exciting as that is, we actually have guests with us tonight. To my lower right, your lower left, is Zach Miller. And then to my lower left, your lower right is Mike Cligerman. And these are the guys who have started Common Knowledge, which is a lecture series in

Sacramento. It's a 45-minute lectures with experts, scientists, and storytellers at Sacramento's best bars, which explains why I haven't seen them because I do comedy, and those never happen at the best bars. So, gentlemen, welcome, and thank you for joining us. Hey, thanks for having us. We're excited to be here. Yeah, absolutely. So you guys started, this thing launched in January of 26. How long had you been thinking about it prior to that? That's a good question. About six months or so that we were thinking about it. I think, Mike, when did we start talking about doing it? It started, yeah, probably the end of 2025. We really started talking about it as we had been working on a previous project. And as it became clear that that was winding down, we started thinking about,

okay, what's our next thing? And we started kicking around this idea. Zach was the first one that came up with it and had the idea and started saying like, this is something I'm thinking of. And it started early on, it started as maybe something different. And we sort of like worked it a little bit. So it depends on when you want to say when it became this idea. It had a couple of different iterations as we worked through it.

It started maybe as a podcast actually. Maybe that's where it, you know, so. But then you were like, we want to actually. make money at this. Right. Have it be sustainable. Turns out it's a little bit hard to make money at podcasting as you guys probably. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, we've noticed that. Yeah. We came up monetizing within like 50 plus episodes or so. Yeah, probably. I've been listening to the archives just to kind of quality control them. And we used to have ad space that we would like give commercials being like, your ad could go here. And no ads ever went to any.

Yeah, nothing ever came of that. No ads ever go in there? Yeah, no. That's right. I like that aspirational idea, though, that you could be in here. Yeah, nice. It's right where you'd be. We could make money off of this, but no.

No. I mean, look, you know, let's do some common knowledge ads right now. Yeah, there's important. This whole episode is a common knowledge ad. There you go. There you go. Give it away for free. See, this is a problem.

See, that's if you want to sponsor us. Yeah, yeah, no. That's the thing. Like with business, it turns out you can't give it away for free, guys. That's important. Yeah. Well, this adds to the pile of how I'm a bad businessman because in my comedy career, the money that I pull in and the money that I pay out to the talent is almost a complete circle in a Venn diagram. Like, there's a small sliver for me where I'm like, oh, that's all I took home? Oh, okay. So now, how did you guys hook up? I mean, Mike, I don't want to tell Tales out of school, but I can tell by your background that you,

You are not in Sacramento right now. That's true. I am not in Sacramento. I don't know if there's anything about my background that's giving it away. You're wearing too much. You're wearing a hoodie. Oh, yeah. This is clearly not a Sacramento attire.

This is not. There's no pollen. Late April. Yes. So I'm actually in the Boston area. I'm just north of Boston. So Zach and I met many, many years ago. I don't remember how many years ago, but well over 15 at least.

Yeah. or so. We were both working at a production company together. He was a producer and I was an editor there. And then since then he has moved around and ended up in Sacramento, but we've stayed friends and worked on a series of projects. You know, as I'm sure you guys are aware, when you find someone fun to work with, it's nice to do whatever you end up doing with them.

It's like, yeah, we should do this together because it's fun to do things together. So, yeah, we've worked together for a long time. but always remotely on a variety of projects, including this one as we're getting it going. So it's been interesting. Obviously, it means that Zach is doing a lot more of the work on the ground in Sacramento since I'm not there. Glad you're admitting that.

So that brings up a question for me. Is common knowledge right now kind of your, both of your day job in scare quotes? Is this is this what you're what you're doing full time or do you have other other jobs other stuff that you're working? Yeah to some extent. So it is it is 100% my day job. So I quit my other job. You know, as of January 1, I was like full time all in on this. Mike still has some other clients and does some other stuff, which works well, actually.

That's I I love the idea of betting on yourself. and I never will. So it's really cool to see that other people do. You know, it's funny. It's not even a bet on myself. It's more like I just have realized from working for myself for the last, you know, eight or nine years. It's like if I want to do something well, I just have to go all in on it.

Like if I'm, if I'm distracted, if I'm trying to do too many things at once, I just don't do any of those things that well. And I so, yeah, I mean, it was a bet to some extent. But it's, you know, it's more like, hey, like, I actually just want to try to do this the right way, you know? Yeah. That's pretty cool.

Very cool. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay, so you've been working together for 15 years. You mentioned there were other projects. Are you able to disclose what those are, or did you sign each other's NDAs? Oh, yeah. Mike signed a lot of NDAs.

Yeah, my life is NDAs. No, I have, so Zach and I met as I was an editor. And so I continue a lot of that kind of work. So I have a number of different clients where I do editing work or video production work for them. So that's sort of how we got to know each other. And what I continue to do, I have a small production company that I run. And this was started as an idea of that this is something that we could do together. And the idea was that Zach would go all in at the beginning and really give it a go.

And I could support for a while. And with the hope that if it grows and it turns into a bigger and bigger thing, that maybe I would slowly, do less and less and maybe even eventually someday do none of that other stuff and just go all in on this. But it's sort of a way for us both to go all in and hedge our bets at the same time, where Zach is all in and he can go and focus. And I can still be like, okay, I am mostly in, but still have some things that I can keep going and maintain and have some other income coming in so that we can support this if we need to. Sure. Yeah, but what we were doing before, to actually answer the question, Mike.

Oh, sorry. As an editor, you're used to having all the footage and then cutting it down to which. That's right. You'll find it in the edit somewhere. Mike and edit. If you had Mike at the show, it's going to be four minutes long and it's going to be all him talking. That's right.

No, we actually, we worked in a podcast together. So we had a video podcast that we did for five years together for a client that was actually in Atlanta. So she was in Atlanta. I was in New York and then Sacramento and Mike's been in Boston. So it's been all totally remote. And it was great. It was called The Kim Gravel show.

You could check it out. I think there is, if there was a Venn diagram of what I imagine your audience is and the audience for that show, it would be two circles. So that's really nailing it. But yeah, we had a lot of fun doing that show and it was a good gig. That's cool. That's cool. Do you guys get to hang out at all ever?

I mean, like, do you visit each other at all? Or when's the last time you saw each other? It's better like that. I think the last time, so we set up a studio for the Kim Gravel show. And so we actually flew to Atlanta to set that up. And so that was the last time that we actually were in person. A couple years ago. Wow.

Yeah, it's been a while. So we don't get to see each other much. Although we pretty much speak pretty much every day. Right. Yep. It's almost always I'll pull up my phone. and like the last nine things. Like there's been a few times

and I've almost screenshot it to share Zach that everything like the call, you know, calls going out and calls coming in, you've almost filled the entire lineup of all Zach calls both ways. You've had a couple of times where it's pretty close to that. Now I'm going to try for that, Mike.

I'm going to just like... I mean, you haven't been trying and you're pretty close most days. So I think if you put in the effort, it's really not going to be asking. Well, maybe you should pick up the phone more often. I mean, that could be a bad. I love the idea that you just head your best.

It's a sign of my phone etiquette than how often we're chatting. Sorry. And another thing. Yeah. There's a lot of that, actually. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay, so question about, I have a couple of questions I want to ask you off air just, you know, for my own edification.

But on air, I went to your website last night because I was showing my partner. I was like, yeah, check out these guys that I'm interviewing. They started this whole thing. And it's hard for her and I to find time to go out on dates because we're both teachers and we're both single parents. And we live in different counties. She's right across the river from me. But and then she's like, oh, that does look fun. Are there any dates where like we would have free time together?

And I was like, well, there's some Wednesdays. And she's like, oh, let's pull up one of those. And I do. All of them are sold out. That's our biggest problem. Yeah, it's a big one because I'm like, okay, well, I have to wait until the first of the next month maybe to see the next month's schedule. But like, how, why are you sold out so fast? That's a really good question.

We have found almost immediate success with people being into what we are doing, you know, into this concept of bar lectures. and I mean like literally so we put our first like we put two lectures on sale to start and that was in our first couple lectures were in March so you guys are like this is just the beginning of this journey for us and I literally like we put them on sale we posted a few things online you know a few videos and social media and stuff and a video just went like and not even a good video but just like a video of me talking about it just went viral on TikTok. Yeah. And all of a sudden, we just started selling tickets like crazy. Like I, you know, I get an email every time we sell a ticket. So like my whole like inbox was just like ticket sales. And I was like, holy crap, we're going to sell out in like we're going to sell out of this lecture tonight.

Like I better take some tickets off of sale because like the lecturer hasn't even gotten a ticket for like his wife and stuff. So that was sort of the blockbuster. start that we had, which is like a great way to start. And it hasn't really slowed down. You know, we put tickets on sale, those tickets you're saying that sold out, we put them on sale on Monday. They were pretty much, they were very close being sold up by Wednesday afternoon. That's good so. So 48 hours, you know, or so. Wow. Which is awesome. But it's also three lectures, three lectures that all went up and they were sold out within three days. So the idea of like this,

I don't think I've ever seen a more immediate proof of concept clear demand for a thing. Yeah. Of just like as soon as people hear about it, they're into it. And like, you know, it's a pretty specific sliver of people who are into a bar lecture on a weeknight, right? But the people who are in that sliver are way into it. Yes. And it has just been a matter of like finding those people and being like, hey, this thing exists. And as soon as they know it exists, you know,

it's we kind of can't can't keep tickets on you know can't keep tickets on sale because they go so quickly which is great and then it's just a matter of all right we also have a sort of a standard of who we're going to book and you know the lecturers we're going to get so there so it's only so many that we can book and get in there so it's a matter of keeping up with that demand and so so in the in the venues that you guys are in in the in the bars that you're going to what what is the kind of crowd size generally like number of tickets for one of these lectures that you're sold out means how many tickets sold. Yeah.

So our first partner, which I'll totally plug because they're awesome, is tandem, which is a they're a bar and coffee shop right in ESAC, like right near the freeway in the line of like Isak in Midtown. And so, you know, I literally went in there and, you know, once we sort of made the deal, I was like, great, how many chairs are in this, in this bar? And so count of the chairs There were 40 chairs We sell 40 tickets

You know it's not More complicated than that Because to us It's really about The bar lecture thing Is so cool Because it's like we are just in the bar space Like we're not recreating a classroom

In a bar We're not bringing in a bunch of chairs We're not making rows We're not doing any of that Like we want to sort of honor Like the vibe that the bar has created You know And just feel like you're

You're in there you're having the experience of like hey I'm hanging out of a bar this is this is awesome and other than like kind of making room for like a projector screen and sort of the av needs we don't move any chairs you know we sort of let it be you know we let the lecturer kind of like sometimes they wander between the seats and stuff like it's it feels very intimate in a way that I think is really cool yeah um so like that venue has 40 we're we're at bike dog uh Broadway that has more like 50 60 We did a huge event at Garden at the Line, which is also at ESAC, and that's a huge outdoor venue. We sold 200 tickets to a Tuesday night ecology lecture, which is wild.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. There was a local ecology lecture, too. It was, I forget the exact term, but it was like pests and plants in the Sacramento area. It was. Yeah. Yeah.

And we had a great podcaster, Michelle Fulner, who did that talk, and she's awesome. She has the Golden State Naturalist podcast. Nice. So that actually might, some of your audience might be interested in that show. So if you're into that kind of thing, you should check it out. She does a great job. It's already sold it. Oh, you mean the podcast.

Yeah. Podcast is. Yeah. Yeah. Well, if you have a time machine, this is, you know, you know, history of time, right? Yeah. So you guys just jump in your time machine. Yeah.

I only jump in it to go relive the exact same decisions that I've already made. I'm not a perfectionist, but I am a, what's the word, a suffusionist. Okay, I was going to say a nostalgicist, but there you go. That too, but nostalgia is just not what it used to be. But oh. Time check. Oh, I don't know. We've been talking.

Yeah, I know. Yeah, I know. Okay, so you guys are selling out. It's like hotcakes. You talked about there's a certain quality of guests that you have. what what do you look for in a guest yeah we're we're looking for I think three things and I'm saying three and I'm hoping I actually have three where we're looking for I mean look first and foremost we're looking for someone who's a really good presenter so someone who has given a lot

of talks given a lot of lectures who really knows their stuff and can speak you know deeply about a topic but also have fun with it right so who sort of has the right personality Um, we're looking for subject matter experts. So, you know, a lot of times, I mean, we're really leaning heavily into at this point, academics, you know, university professors, researchers, researchers, scientists. Um, you know, we have folks coming up, like, uh, who are like a water scientist who works for the state, right? And is doing like, we're going to talk about water modeling and, and, you know, what's going to happen to or what they think is going to happen to the state of water in California in 20 years. Um, those kinds of things. Um, and, uh, you know, we also have community members who really know something and have something to share, right? Um, and those are a little bit tougher and we, we do fewer

of that kind of thing. Um, but for instance, like, I was pitched to talk about the Donner party. Um, and maybe I'll just sneak preview it now because it's going to be such a fun event. And, uh, I think it will be right up your alley, Damien, too, as a comedian. Oh, sure. We're partnering with the Sacramento Comedy Spot for that. Oh, wonderful. Say how to Brian. And so, and she's not an academic.

She is just someone who, she's actually like a therapist by day and is just kind of obsessed with the Donner Party and knows everything there is to know about it and has all of these firsthand sort of accounts. So she's going to really like walk through the story of that. First hand, because they're cannibals. I need my sound effects, man I need your board there Yeah, we need our board

I have the board, I just don't know, yeah But You think they were telling jokes while they were doing that Like do you think they found the humor in it While it was going on? Well, they found the humor there's a lot there The rest That's right

Yeah I hope that somebody asked if you wanted Any lady finger sandwiches or something Right, there's a lot There, do you want a hand? Can I give you a hand with that? Exactly. There's a lot there. A lot of stuff.

Oh, God. It's a target-rich environment in there. Boy, howdy. Yeah. I honestly, regarding the Donner Party, I always talk to my students about how, you know, sometimes once you've had the best, you never want to go back. So one of the guys who survived the Donner Party famously became a vegetarian. Because why bother that? Wow.

Yeah. Because human meat was so delicious. Right. I feel like that's... Because we're so well marbled. So... By the time they were eaten, I don't know if they were. I'm just, you know, going to throw that one out there.

Pretty lean. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ooh, that's rough. But yeah, so anyway, so we're doing that and we're going to break every 15 minutes. So if you think of it as like, you know, three, like a beginning, middle, and end. And for each of those chunks, we're going to have the improv comedians do a couple

improv acts about the Donner Party, like about the talk. Do you know who? During the talk. Like what improv company is doing that with you guys? It's all the comedy spot. So Sacramento Comedy Spot is awesome. And they're a nonprofit actually. So they do really cool programming.

They talk in a lot of the high schools. They're really community oriented. So it was a cool partnership. That's very different than most of what we're doing. We're not doing improv for any other talks. But yeah, we're, you know, we're trying to have fun with it. You know what I mean? Like, we're just trying to, we're trying to do serious stuff and not take it too seriously.

You might want to hit up a modern dance studio for the water modeling, though. Like, just like bring back the abyss, you know, that kind of thing and just have, you know, some folks do that. I do like that idea. We actually, we had someone, someone emailed me and was like, I draw, like, I'm an artist and I draw people doing stuff. And so she's actually come to a couple of talks and drawn the speaker. Oh, cool. Which is pretty cool. Yeah.

So full disclosure, the comedy that I do, I do a show called Capital Punishment. It's going on 10 years. By the time this releases, it'll be 10 years. We're housed out of the comedy spot. And one of the people who teaches the classes over there is my partner in punning, Justine. So that's why I was wondering, I'm like, oh, is there a specific. civic team that's working with you guys oh yeah i don't know yeah that's that's up to uh you know those guys over there so i yeah brian is uh will let me know wonderful oh that's so great and and

do you have a date on that one i know it's okay tentatively and this is not on sale yet but tentatively i think it's uh june 7th okay cool which is a sunday it's going to be an early it's going to be like a matinee yeah oh cool very neat all right Yeah. Okay. Please tell us in advance when sales are because I'll bring my kids. Yeah. They're going to love it. No, actually all our events are 21 plus, so don't bring your kid. Oh, fine. Wow, that's going to be cool. Okay. So what, what, how to put this. So you go for subject matter experts. Obviously, we have multiple. colleges in the area so you're not going to run out of people with letters after their names but i really like that you also are going with like oh you happen to know this stuff really well

is there like an audition process that people go through do they submit like some sort of a prospectus to you like yeah at this point i mean it's pretty um it's pretty open so if you're interested in speaking and doing a talk we have a form on our website it's a very basic form just like hey get in touch um it's kind of a catch-all and then based on that we kind of go back and forth by email a little bit make sure sort of

do a standard amount of vetting like hey is this person who they say they are right does this person really seem to know their stuff and you know assuming you kind of get through that and the big thing for us is a lot of the pitches that get

that get rejected and most of the cold pitches do get rejected and we have a lot of people emailing us which is great I love that Most of them are folks who have something to sell or are, you know, in some way just sort of trying to, you know, drum up their own sort of marketing for whatever thing. Sure. So it's like, you know, it's like the relationship, in the matchmaker who wants to come and give a talk on relationships or the, you know, finance person who wants to come and give a talk on like how to get the most out of your tax refund or whatever. And it's like we're not really interested in that.

We're not really into like the, hey, this is how you do the practical thing. And we've had people pitch like, hey, I want to do, you know, I am this kind of artist. And I want to do a talk about like, you know, making clay pots or whatever. And it's like we're, you know, we're more about the theory than we are about the practical. There's plenty of places. There's other places you can go to learn how to do different kinds of art or things. like that. Like we're more interested in like, hey, tell me about the history of clay pots, you know, in Mesopotamia or whatever. Like, I'd be more interested in that than, you know.

Right. So that's really like what we're rejecting. You know, I don't want to. Yeah, go ahead. No, I was just going to say, sort of jumping on that too is a lot of, a big part of this is not only the lectures themselves, but was this idea of creating a community and creating like a space where people can come together and chat about this stuff. So I think there's also part of it of, is this, is this topic something that's going to spark discussion and get people to talk about it afterwards, right? So that's a big part of it as well, is like making it so that in the room after the talk, people hang out and have another drink and then chat with, you know, strangers who become friends about this thing or chat with the lecturer and learn more about it and sort of pick

their brain. So that, so those things that are like they're trying to sell a thing or whatever, right, there's not necessarily that element then of, okay, now I understand how to manage my taxes better. I'm going to sit and chat with people. The idea is to like then grow and expand, right? And so part of the thought that Zach and I had right out of the gates was this idea of like creating this space for people to get off their phones and be in a place with people and having conversations, having real conversations about information about stuff like that. So that's also part of that. sort of rubric that we're thinking of is, is this going to spark an interesting conversation,

either in the room or even when you go home and you talk to your friends the next day or you go back to work, you're like, you got to, we got to hear this thing I talked about, you know, we're hoping to create those sorts of encounters. That's cool. Yeah. Well said, Mike.

Thank you. I was just rambling on and on. Yeah. As someone who has edited at Zach for a long time, I'm pretty good at realizing when I, need to cut him off and be like, okay, that's the end of it. Now we've gotten all the good stuff out of him. We're going to. Let me jump in here and shut this down. I cast this thing where he,

you know, he interviews me for content and then he'll give me a hard time about like I just, I like to list out things. Like I like to just, I like to give a lot of examples and, you know, whatever. And he's just like, you're just stop listing stuff. Just stop listing. Yeah. We're making a 30 second thing for social media. I don't need four minutes of a. listed items. We can't use that. I need you to stop and move on. For a long time, I would just let him do it. And now I'm like, I, just stop. Just stop.

Just stop. I'm going to stop the list, mid-list. We're not moving through. This is going to turn into like a couples counseling session. I was going to say, do we either. Yeah, I really, yeah, good luck. We're not, we're not equipped for that. We'll do our best. I mean, we will try.

That's how we're here for. That's how I got on this podcast. I thought we were going to work. Either way, I'm going to cry at some point. I'll get it out of the way now. You always do that. Yeah. As the person in the room who's successfully completed two marriages,

I can speak on. I really like that reframing. Yeah, successfully completely. Yeah, I was going to call on that as well. Oh, yeah, okay. Yours doesn't even count, Ed, your first one. I'm sorry. How does my first one not count?

It was an old. It literally was erased from the rest. Oh, yeah. So that's like an unsuccessfully completed then? Is that the, that's the line that's a different? I guess that's, if you get a molligan. If you get a mulligan, yeah, okay.

All right, I hadn't thought of it as being a mulligan. I love that framing. Yeah. Yeah, look, it's like quitting. It's like quitting. It's like, you know, you're quitting. It's like you keep trying. It's like, look, I'm great at quitting.

It's great at quitting smoking. I do it all the time. All the time. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, my therapist would argue with you about whether my first one counts or not. I'll just say. Um, so, uh, do, is there a process also in your selection about like, I almost feel like this is like wine pairing.

Like what, what kind of lecture pairs well with? this kind of venue like what comes first yeah there is do you reach out to a venue first and then you know what kind of lecture you're going to bring in or do you get the lecture first and then shop it around uh there's a few different so just to sort of put a pin in so like once we once we vetted you know pre-vetted someone then we just get on a call with them then we just jump on a zoom and and talk to them and and it's it's really not that much more complicated than am i am i interested or do I think folks would be interested about this topic? So for instance, like, we did one that was a Shakespeare lecture a few weeks ago. I'm not a big Shakespeare guy,

but I, but I knew like the speaker was great. She was super into it. She would give a great talk and there's plenty of people who love Shakespeare. So we booked it. Um, but, uh, yeah, we, we try to as much as possible, like each venue sort of has its own vibe. And I try to think about that as I'm programming. I think that that's a really important part of programming. But also the speaker and sort of who they are, you know, do I think this topic will fill, you know, a bigger space or a smaller space or, you know, is this more niche? So that comes into play, like, how big is it? You know, I have to be careful about who I put, for instance, in a venue with 150 or 200 seats versus a venue with 40 or 50, right? So we're really just trying to partner with venues that are. super into what we're doing and about the entire idea and sort of build that trust where you know they're not necessarily asking you know who is coming they just want you know they're more interested in just the fact that we're doing it at all right yeah and there's some trust there

but we have some venues that are like a little more niche that we will be have to be a little more thoughtful about who we bring in and some of those deals aren't sort of done yet so I'm not going to say which venues but there's some there's a number of like sacramento institutions that we're potentially going to work with that we need to bring the right speaker into so that'll be that'll make it a little more complicated all right cool so what when you're when you're looking at venues I mean I assume that you kind of take the layout into account because I can think of you know a couple of places that my wife and I like to go to on date nights like I think of a couple of places that would be really good for that potentially because of,

you know, kind of open kind of layout. Yep. And like one of our favorite places probably will never work just because it's all, you know, booth seating and, you know, a gigantic right angle in the middle of, in the middle of the serving area. So like, what are you, what are you looking for when you scout out a venue? What are the things that are most important there? Well, at first I want to know what your favorite venue is.

because I'm just curious. Well, the place that I don't think, the place that I don't think would ever work for what you guys are doing is the jungle bird. Okay. Just because, just because the layout, it's,

and the decor would be immensely distracting. It's a tiki bar. So like, you know, whatever, whatever you have going on. And I, I'm just,

you know, trying to picture anybody trying to talk in that, because it's, it's kind of, it's, dim and enclosed and like there's two very separate kind of rooms and and so it'd just be hard for for to have that kind of flow in a presentation and so like I'm thinking of that I'm like yeah from a planning standpoint I don't think that would be great so what what are you like when you're

when you're looking at places what what what are the things that immediately jump out at you when you're seeing that yeah I think I think the, I mean, vibes matter a lot, right? I think that that's one thing. I think it can't be a weird geography, right? I'm thinking in my head like, hey, where am I going to put a screen, right? Because, you know, every lecture so far has had a visual presentation aspect. Okay.

And, you know, would everyone in here be able to see it? Because, you know, for the most part, when we're in a space, we've taken over the space. Like, it's closed otherwise, right? So I need to be able to fill every seat and make it, you know, a good return on investment for the bar also who's, who's, you know, interested in selling drinks. And that's sort of how it works. You know, we're like, we're taking the bar's slowest night, you know, on Monday or Tuesday or whatever and turning it into a great night, right? Where it's packed. So, you know, some of these places are great, but if 30, 40, 50 percent of the chairs are down that weird hallway or in a second room or something, then it's not as big of an impact.

You know, it won't kind of work, right? It's not as good of a pitch to the bar. And it's not a great experience potentially for the guests, too. I want to make sure everyone that comes has a great time and can see and can hear and it works. So, yeah, I think the geography matters a lot. I also think just the like the partners wanting to be a part of it and kind of getting what we're doing is is a big one, right? I can't sort of overstate that. But, you know, we're open and we're open to different things and different ideas.

And, you know, we're doing bar lectures, but, you know, maybe could be a coffee bar. Maybe it could be a bookstore. You know, there are sort of other things that we're open to. But for the most part, especially since we're just starting and we're new, we're really leading into, you know, bar lectures. And I think that's, you know, that creates a certain type of feeling that that just works. Like it's, they're just really fun events. Like every single event. Like people are just so sort of happy to be there and, and enjoying themselves. And it's great. So. Cool. Yeah. Um, so I, I got so interested in what you're saying that that this next question is

only a fragment so I'm going to come back to it. What has been no okay here it is. Have you had people following your show? Like have you noticed the same people at multiple venues? Yeah, yeah. We we do. There's a few folks who, there's a handful of people who have come to a bunch of talks, which is awesome, which obviously we encourage, you know, given how different each one is. That was the thing. I was like, because, you know, that's the thing about having such different lectures each time is like you're, in some ways, you're spreading your wings very far and grabbing all kinds of different folks, but also you're, you're diffusing a bit. Right. Right. Well, we're trying to do something for everyone. And it's like, it's so freeing because, you know, before this,

we're doing a podcast and a podcast has a certain audience, right? And I'm sure you guys talk about this and deal with this. Oh, yeah. You know, you have to be sort of. You know, very specific. Yeah.

Yeah. All, a dozen that we know of. Yeah. Yeah. Look, both of the people that listen are. Yeah.

Each one that you can name. Yeah. But, um, you know, we, we get to branch out a lot. You know,

we get to have fun with it and, and fun with, you know, finding sort of interesting, you know, following interesting threads. and yeah, I mean, it is really cool. A lot of people just want to do it.

You know, there's a lot of folks who I think like, like our second lecture, the lecturer was telling me, he was like, hey, everyone here, like a bunch of people here are like aren't necessarily here for this topic. They're just here because they really like the idea of a bar lecture and they want to check it out. And I think that's pretty cool too. And the hope is obviously we do, you know, they love it and they want to come back, right? Yeah, I think we do a survey at the end of each one and we ask people, you know, would you be willing to do this again? And some of the options for the answers are yes, absolutely no matter what. And then yes, if it's a, you know, if it's a topic I like. And almost always the majority of the answers we get back are yes, I just want to do one again. Like the people are less concerned about what the topic is and so much more interested in this was such a fun experience and a cool thing. And the way that we, Zach and I have talked. about this a bunch is that what we hope to eventually get to is, right? I always talk about my favorite podcasts are ones that it pops up on my feed and I read the thing and I'm like, I have no interesting. Why are they talking to this person or what is it? But you know those people or you know

their sensibility. You go, all right, I'm going to trust us. I'm going to give this a couple minutes and I'll listen. And then before I know it, I'm hooked and it's something I never would have sought out. I never would have been interested in. But because it's sort of been vetted by people who have taste similar to mine, I'm like, oh, I wouldn't have looked for this, but now that I'm listening to it, I'm totally into it. And the hope is to be that kind of a thing

in that we can get people, and people seem to be interested in that, that they like these ideas and you can bring different topics and different ideas to them. They're like, maybe you never thought deeply about Shakespeare, but now we're giving you the opportunity to

and you suddenly go, oh yeah, I never thought about that, or the ecology of Sacramento and why you would have, you know, wouldn't have dug deep into what Beaver's impact is on the area. But as soon as you start to learn about it, you go, oh, that's really cool. And, you know, it's just sort of fun. And it makes it people who are interested in information and interested in learning kind of dig it.

So that makes sense. You know, I will confess when I was looking for tickets to buy for your show, the topic was secondary to, well, what's the Wednesday show going to be? Yeah. Right. And that's my own particular need in my own particular niche because, you know, on the days where I have my kids versus when I don't, you know, and that kind of thing. But like it didn't, it didn't occur to me until later that like I wasn't even looking for a topic. I was just looking for available nights. So you're right.

Like, you know, obviously you're right. You guys are very successful at this. But I validate what you're saying. You know, yeah, we're working on it. Actually, I do, I will give you a heads up then. there's a Wednesday coming up at the end of May that's going to go on sale I think next week something like that I don't know when this well you know next week from when we're taping I don't know when this episode's going to actually come out they'll be out they'll be sold out before if everything goes to plan sorry everyone in the audience yeah yeah we're doing on the scientific funding crisis so I think that's going to be a really interesting topic yeah yeah all right maybe interested in that yeah so So what do you guys attribute the, you said that, you know, the majority of people who respond, say, whatever it is, I'll be there, you know, aside from, you know, just the people that you've had lecturing being awesome. What do you think it is about, about this that leads people to have that response?

What is it about this experience that you think makes people be like, this is just so great that I just want to do this again, like, no matter what it's about? That's a good question. I have a theory, but I want to hear your guys's answer. Oh, all right. What do you want to hear my theory first so you can buy yourself some time? Either way it works. We can cut that out in post. Nothing will remember.

I'm curious what your theory is. Yeah, let's hear the theory. We'll tell you if you're right or wrong. One of the reasons that I, as soon as this came across my 4U page, I dove deep into all three of your videos by that point on TikTok. And I was like, I got it. And then I reached out like immediately, right? And one of the reasons why was because I used to be a Bay Area Brad.

I lived in the Bay Area. And in the Bay Area, there's like seven different intellectual hubs that you can tap into and go and listen to free shit on pretty much any night, you know? You got to be looking for it. But if you're in that network, and this is Bay Area 20, 27, 28 years ago. Right? So the internet is nascent.

You're still using Netscape 3.0, right? So it's a long time ago. Like, you could go and listen to Leon Litwack still lecturing in Berkeley, you know, that kind of stuff. In the Bay Area, there was tons of that. I moved up here, even though Davis is just down the causeway, even though Sack State is right there in the middle, even though Sacks State is right there in the middle, even though SAC City and River City and ARC, or Cosuminous rather, even though all of those were there,

there was no established hub for going and listening to lectures on the cheap. You could go out to the Moldavi Center and pay good money. You could go, you could go take classes at SAC State. And if you, again, if you were part of the student body of places, you were a little bit more dialed in. But for a layperson, there was not those nodes to just be able to tap into. And I used to say that one of the reasons that I moved up here a long time ago and I've never been able to escape. And the reason I talked about it that was because I missed being able to go and do that on a night. And so as soon as this thing opened up, I was like, ah, water in a desert.

So I think that one of the reasons people are willing to do that is because they've been starving for it for so long on the cheap. And I don't even know what your guys' ticket prices are, but it's probably a price point where people are like, yeah, I could spend that. I was going to spend that on drinks there anyway on Friday, so I'll just move it to a Wednesday. Whereas there are like price points and there are scheduling things and you have to be part of the Mondavi Center group for and blah, blah, blah, and go to the whatever center for the arts and be dialed in to those specific.

places, whereas this is much more the, it's a much more flattened topography. So that, that's my theory. That's a great theory. And I, and I, and I, and I, we do see that a lot, right? We, I am hearing from so many people who are just coming and saying, hey, thank you for doing this in Sacramento. You know, we are so glad that this is here. I think that the bigger cities, you know, and we're not the first to do this either.

There were other groups that sort of showed us this was possible, and they were in the bigger cities, right? They're in New York. They're in L.A. They're in San Francisco. They're in Chicago. And I feel like there's a lot of intellectually stimulating stuff you can do in all of those big cities. And the mid-size, you know, smaller, it's not that Sacramento is that small, but it's smaller city, right? And I think that having some sort of like intellectually stimulating programming that is actually, that is reliably fun, right?

That is reliably like, hey, you never know what you're going to get. You know, you could go to Davis and go to talks, you know, and some of them are just going to be snooze fest. You know, some of them are just not going to be. They're not going to be aimed at the Vulgate. They're going to be aimed at specialists. Right. They're aimed at specialists. They're not.

And we are very clear, like, these talks are designed for a general audience, right? And it's a self-selecting general audience that if you're the kind of person who's going to go to a bar lecture on a Tuesday night, you know, you probably have a degree. You're not, you didn't drop out of high school probably, right? Or you're an autodidact, you know, but either way. Either way, you're there because you're a lifelong learner and you're interested in the topic or you're interested in just, you know, whatever, you're a smart person, a smart adult. And that's really cool and that's really freeing too. I've actually heard from the lecturers too. This is a lot lower stakes in a lot of ways than giving a talk to a bunch of colleagues who are there to sort of tear the work apart, right?

Who are there to like critique and who are thinking about it super critically. It's like the people who are coming to this lecture are just psyched to hear, you know, some really interesting science. Right. And it's just fun. Yeah. So we have totally found that I think Sacramento is just such a good city because we have so many people that A can can give the lectures and B want that as, you know, that product, if you will. And that's that's super fun. It makes it really fun.

That's cool. Yeah. I think the nights we've also really focused on it's not it. The draw is the lecture. but that's not the entire evening, right? Like we have little games that we play, we have little things. And some of that is like, I totally get that there are, you know, like I said earlier, the sliver of people who are interested in coming to this,

there's probably a pretty good section of that are very introverted people who are like, don't make me play a game, don't make me do a thing. Don't make me do something. And so for anybody who is like that, it's like, absolutely, we get you, go sit in the back and that's fine, get your drink and that's cool. But for people who are out to meet people and are interested, we are really thinking through, like, how do we make the entire evening a great time, where from the moment you walk in the door, there are things that are surprising and things

that are interesting and things that are cool that you can keep talking about, you know, afterwards. And so I think that's part of it is it's not just the lecture. It's like the entire evening is a fun night out that happens to also be intellectually stimulating and really cool and a place where you can meet people. Like, there's just sort of hitting on all of these levels. and what we found is that people that go to that have a good time. And they're like, yeah, I want to do that again.

Like, I'm into it. Me and Mike are producers, right? Like, you know, so we, we like to take every, we see everything as an opportunity, right? Like, so every single part of the night, it's not like you're going to show up and you're just going to hang out and there's nothing to do until the lecture starts and the lecture happens. And then it's like, okay, cool. All right, you could get another drink or just go home or whatever. It's like we're trying to actually. create opportunities for people to just like enjoy themselves, meet each other.

Like, so I just pulled out, you know, we do name tags, but they're not actually name tags. They are, you know, this one says, you know, most likely to blank, right? And as on the name tag. And we do some that's like, you know, I am a blank nerd, right? So, you know, you could put in whatever you want. And it gets people just, again, like talking. It's like, I don't care what your name is. Like, what are you into?

What can I like what do I want to what do you want to strike up a conversation about? And if you're just kind of there by yourself or you know with other people like it's like I've seen people strike up conversations. Oh, you're super into whatever, you know. And then, you know, there are two people at our first event who like became best friends and actually went to, you know, have come back to other events. And like that's super cool. And that was because of the dumb name tag. So we're doing that. we're doing, we do a little

side quest game in every event so and again, it's totally optional but it's like we just had one that's basically like just tell us your favorite quote like pick a favorite quote right and put it in the you know put in a jar write it on a note card

put in a jar you know we'll pick three that are just you know we think are fun or funny or interesting or great and those people will win a free drink you know and it's just a fun way to again get people talking about ideas get people sort of outside of themselves and like oh yeah what do I know what can I say what oh yeah who said that thing and it's like it's a way to get people

talking you know that's cool very cool yeah yeah without being like hey look to the person to your left and introduce yourself and you know tell them something you know it's like that kind of stuff I'm I'm so I like does anyone actually like that no uh well Well, what I can, as Damien and I both work in education, and those things are the bane of professional development. Like, we, and the thing is, in every one of those I've gone to, there's always been like one or two who really like them and get into them. And you immediately hate that person. Yeah. Like, this is so forced.

It lights them up like crazy and everything. Yeah, like, oh my God. I don't like you. Just to make everyone else. Just to be just to be contrarian. Yeah. Well, no, just to be like, like throw it back in the face of the person who clearly did not prepare to do anything besides read the keynote. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for reading me the slides that I can see. Yeah. This all could have been a long-winded email. Thank you so much.

This is great. I've ignored that too. Yeah. We've been doing this a while. The best, honestly, the best first version. of that is my partner works for the state and they did one of these like

you know day long whatever you're going to go and do a team building thing and they had one of those like you have to find people that like you have to find a lefty and you have to find like a person that's this but but it was super specific it was like someone who used to drive

like a snow plow or something but it was an old version so like there was no one there that used to drive a snow plow but it was like very specific and on the thing and there were a few of those and everyone was just really frustrated like it just you can't piss like a group of people off more than giving them something to do that is impossible yeah someone who was part of the wig party you know yeah yeah exactly yeah yeah yeah yeah uh do you have a favorite lecture that you've heard so far or is that is that

bad cricket that's like um yeah what's your favorite favorite child. What is the likelihood of those lecturers listening to this podcast? Yeah, good, good question. Hit me where it hurts, I guess. That's fine. Yeah. Not in any way you dig on this podcast at all. It's okay. You're from Boston. I understand. This is your love language. I'm pretty far away. I'm comfortably away. Yeah. Yeah. Boston's going to tell like it is. How we go. Mike feels insulated from this because, you know, you can't find him easily. Yeah. I think the first one I think for me

because it was such a sort of like relief that it was an amazing feeling that like you know going from zero to one right that like that feeling and it's still pretty new I keep reminding myself I'm like we've only done five of you know it's still so new

but yeah it was a good it's my neighbor and a good friend who teaches actually at UC Merced who gave a talk on the human brain. It was called the human brain society and parasites. And it was great and he was really funny and it was a really fun talk. And it was just awesome.

And it was sort of that moment where I was like, oh, this is going to work. Right. Like there's been many of those moments, but like that was a big one where I was like, oh, this is totally going to work. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I can remember those kinds of moments with capital punishment. where it's just like, oh my God, we've caught lightning in a bottle here. Yeah. And then there's other times you're like, where'd it go? And then, you know, it comes back. And you're like, okay, cool, cool. What happened? Yeah, I mean, 10 years of doing our show, there's going to be some upsie downsies.

You know, you're going to have people shouting from a balcony because the bottom floor is completely full. And so they're up on the balcony shearing for you. And then there's others where you're like, I'm going to lose money on this show because I'm going to still pay the comics, but there's literally nobody who showed up. up like yeah yeah yeah you guys do it that's like it's really a fun show i've heard really really good things oh wonderful yeah yeah um you do it every month right yeah every month first friday of the month you'll hear that plug at the end uh but um but yeah we got each you come out to it um so

yeah gonna have do you have plans to i mean obviously this is still in its nascency um if it gets wildly successful enough, do you guys have plans to expand it? Are you planning to keep it as is? We're going to expand, Mike. Talk about, you go. That's the plan. So those phase two is we're thinking of expanding it out to Boston. So that's, uh, or so Mike can actually do some work.

Yeah. Yeah, then I'll actually have to do stuff though. Right now I guess you just hide here and be like, oh yeah, I'm slaving away here. Oh, there's so many things that I'm doing. I just got so much on my plate. I'm getting done. it's amazing. Look at all I've gotten done. So I'll actually have some things that I have to have some accountability for. But yeah, that is the plan. So the hope is as we actually in this

year coming up soon, I'm already lining up venues and lining up people and the plan is to move out here. And I think it'll be an interesting expansion. There are some groups in Boston already doing something similar. Sure. And so it'll be interesting to sort of test the model in that way to see like is this, does this stand up when there is other competition, when there's other people around doing it? Or is it that we're finding success in Sacramento because there aren't many people doing it? Sure. We'll see. But I'm pretty confident, especially in this area, that there is a lot of people who would be

really interested in that, right? That narrow sliver of people, I think is a lot wider in this particular area too. So we'll see. So that's the hope. And then if that goes well, then the plan is to continue to expand it and make it into a thing that goes into other cities. And I think seeing what we've seen in Sacramento is a really been eye opening that we may not go to like New York, Chicago, but go to some of those slightly smaller places that also

would be interested, but would be missing this kind of stuff, you know? And so that was going to be. We'll see. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking like looking at like what basketball teams are in what are called secondary markets.

Like what are basketball teams where you go and get your injury and then you trade up to one of the big five? That's right. Like those kinds of, yeah. Yeah, and it's been fascinating early on, you know, a lot of our, you know, word of mouth and things were all through social media and a lot through TikTok stuff. And there were so many people that were just so psyched that this was coming to Sacramento. And it was kind of amazing that it really felt like this overlooked community, right? Like, all these people, they were like, I've been driving so, you know, three hours to go find one of these things.

I'm so glad it's here. And so there's a really interesting thing that it feels like we found of like going, that there were. are people all over that do this. It's not just in big, big cities, but lots of places are interested in this kind of stuff. Well, especially like towns where there's a college nearby, not necessarily college towns, because very often you have the townie, and then you've got the college student thing, and so that sometimes will create a bit of a vacuum. But towns where colleges are nearby, and they're still medium-sized cities, I bet you, you know, I remember Mark Marin talking about when he started getting more successful at his comedy again.

It was after his podcast had really taken off. And he said, I figured out that I'm about a 1,500 person per city guy. And that's not bad. You know, three shows, 500 each in a room, you know. Yeah. That's great. I mean, and that's totally the thing. It's like, you know, we don't need to sell at a stadium.

You know, we need to sell out. We need to sell, you know, 60 seats in a bar every, you know, week or two. So it's just about identifying and sort of finding the community that that is into it and then serving that community and being really responsive to that community. I mean, I think, you know, our shorter term plans too is like, you know, Sacramento, then Boston, of course, because Mike's there. And then, you know, expanding in Sacramento, right? I want to see, you know, I want to get into Roseville and Folsom. Like how many lectures can we do in a month in Folsom? How many lectures can we do in Davis?

How many lectures, you know, so. Right. I think sort of treating that local expansion, too, as sort of a way to test the waters and, you know, expand locally where we can still have a lot of sort of control and then figure out how to do it in a way that works because, you know, you expand too fast, especially if you're in other places like, you know, other cities where we physically aren't. I want to make sure the experience and the quality stays really high, right? So that's a big part of the challenge of expanding.

But yeah, totally. I mean, because to be honest with you, like, you know, doing one lecture a week in Sacramento is not going to pay the bills long term per year. You know, we're not in this to get rich necessarily. But you're not in it to starve either. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. There's got to be a happy medium there.

You can't pay the rent with drink tickets. Right. Right. Right. Yeah, which I'm sure you know. But yeah, I mean, that's that's a good insight. It's like, yeah, I'm a 1500 person, a city guy. Like, that's, that's a really good insight. And yeah, you could do great if you, as long as you sort of play into that, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, I guess that that was, I was going to focus more on, on the town question. But honestly, you guys, you know, you're already thinking about those things. I'm just, I keep thinking about the places where, um, there are people who feel underrepresented who would feel validated by, oh, I'm going to go listen to a smart person and say smart stuff. Yep. And yeah, I'm just, I'm thinking of like those medium sized towns, especially in the south, like the, you know, the places that people think are flyover states or think that, oh, well, that's just completely a this color state. And it's like, no, there's going to be pockets for you.

Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, it's like where I'm really curious to see sort of, you know, how that, how that grows and how it goes.

I mean, I think it will become clear to us as we keep going, you know, making this and doing this where we should sort of go next. But, yeah, I think serving an underserved community, you know, I lived in a small town in upstate New York for a few years. My partner is a real academic. she, you know, she's got the PhD and was tenure track professor for a while. And it's amazing when you're in a smaller town, you know, one new restaurant comes in and like, it changes your life, right? Like, like, like, a good Indian food restaurant came into town and we were like, this is amazing, right?

Like, this is actually great. Like, there was literally nowhere to get a decent taco, right? Like, it was like, it's those kinds of things. that you realize like, oh, we actually can serve a community in a meaningful way. And in a way that like if you live in a New York, like, you know, we're one of many and I'm sure there's opportunity there. But it's it just hits different, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Do you do, you did an outdoors one. Yes. Now, obviously doing bars as your primary venue, you don't have to contend with weather that much. but has weather been a I don't want to say a concern but like has it been a kind of you got to keep your eye on that in terms of when and where for sure I mean for the outdoor one I was definitely keeping an eye on the weather that was also our biggest it was our third event and we had 200 people and it was a lot but yeah definitely was worried about that and it's and it's a concern I mean less so you know in Sacramento obviously pretty pretty temperate place but um you know also you know worried about the heat in the summer i can only yeah we can only you know we can only push these so late in the evening on a week night right right so you know as much as it would be great to do it like after sundown in the

summer that's way too late to start you know so yeah that is definitely going to be an issue and I think for the most part indoor venues are going to be our jam yeah that makes that makes a lot of sense um now are you aware of sacramento's unique history with trying stuff out uh tell tell tell me we are we are a very very diverse city to the point where and we're a we we tend to demographically be a fairly young city because this is a state capital um and therefore you have you know young interns and what have you um as a result food companies will often try out their products here and in a couple other places, but here specifically. So we're almost always on the bleeding edge of like, you ever wanted to try a chocolate

pringle, you should have moved to Sacramento. The good news is you get to taste really cool shit. The bad news is sometimes they were like, eh, it's not worth it. And you're like, oh, but it's like flowers for Algernon at that point. It was so amazing and now it's gone. Yeah. But so I find it interesting that you're like you guys are starting it here in this place where you have that same that same we test everything for people kind of atmosphere. I know back in like 2001 or 2002 we were like the the nation's most diverse city according to some metric.

And so I just I think that and and maybe some of that is because we're a city or a state capital because that's going to deal people for temporary work. but also permanent living and so on. Well, it's funny. It's like, you know, working, I worked in TV and movies for a long time and lived in L.A. for like a decade. And there was always sort of this thing where, you know, they would want to do like testing and whatever, audience testing. But they wouldn't want to do it in L.A. They were like, we don't want the L.A. people. We want to get outside of L.A.

So, yeah, you would end up in like a Sacramento or like, you know, somewhere that was close, easy to get to. but, you know, not too far. And so, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That's really interesting. Yeah. Oh, I thought Ed was, sorry. I was queered off you. All right.

So your, what do you call it? Your logo is clearly a beer coaster. What got you guys thinking for, what got you guys thinking as far as the logo goes? I mean, you can see our logo. It's clearly a D20, but there's a clock there. There's Roman numerals because it's historical.

The name itself is a play on Stephen Hawking book. What got you what got you guys thinking in terms of logos? Good question. There was a lot of back and forth on my clip. Yeah, we went through a lot of rounds. We went through ranges of how clever can we be, like really trying to be super clever with it. and I went down way down certain rabbit holes.

And the problem is like being an editor, I have just enough tools that I could go down this rabbit hole and be like, oh, then I can make it look like this. And at one point, Zach finally had the best idea, which was just to go, it doesn't matter. We just need to make a thing and move on because we, right? Like whenever you're creating a thing, it's easy to get into the world of like,

oh, if I just come up with the perfect name, if I just come up with the perfect logo, if I just, and the thing that we've realized that I think is the best thing that we've done is just, it doesn't matter. Just make something and do it and move on and start making a thing, right? Like, like Zach said, when you get from that zero to one to make the first event, maybe then we can iterate, but we could easily have spent another six months iterating on a design and a thing. We had a whole thing with like a wine glass and a beer thing and like, are we wine kind of people or are we going to bring beer kind of people? I remember that. Endlessly.

Endless conversations. These were the days when my entire phone was filled up with Zach on my thing of like, maybe it'll be this. Maybe it's this. Oh, it's got to have something with the brain. It's got to have that. And then we realized, you know what? It doesn't matter.

Just make a thing and move on and we'll do it. And like, we're just going to start creating a thing. And I think that was the best actual insight to it is like just make something that works. And it's good enough that it's recognizable. So people will know that it's us. And someday if we want to, we can do it. But it actually doesn't matter. And I'm sure people in marketing would lose their minds and flip out about that.

And no, it has to be whatever. But I think so much more just doing the thing that we could have gotten caught in the hamster wheel forever of iterating a million tiny versions of this thing. And what was way more important was just to do the first event and be like, yeah, look, people want this. And they don't care what it's called. And they don't care what the logo looks like. They just want to show up and do the thing. which which is totally true and it's wild because like even our website at this point is still pretty bare bones like i was just thinking i have on my list like next week like oh we should probably do an about us section like that's sort of where we're at and uh it was literally like we were going me mike and i were going back and forth and like texting and talking and uh then i i just literally think i you know got frustrated and went on canva for like six hours

and was like, this is the logo, we're just going to do this. And like, I just can this be over now? We just have to move forward. The name, too, coming up with the name was, was even harder. That's a stroke of genius. Like, I mean, because it has so many applications to it. Like, you know, I, yeah, thanks. As a person who revels in the fact that I am an average mediocre person,

I love the use of the word common being that way because it's aspiration. It's also very matter of fact, and it's also like this, like I said, it's aspirational. We hope that these things become common knowledge, but also this is for everybody, for the commons, you know? And so I think, yeah, I have, I can show you like, I have this giant, like thing on my phone of just like lots and lots and lots of name ideas, you know, that we went through. Oh, wow. And some are pretty bad. What's the first one? There's a couple that we went through.

Oh, my gosh. There was something for a while. It was called like mayonnaise something just because it was a weird name We were like oh you could definitely get that website And we're like that's not a good way to pick a name Let's not do that Yeah no no it was it was a reference

It was back when we were still thinking It might be like some kind of a media thing Like a podcast and I think we're just gonna call it like Mayanase commercial or something Like I was like something really dumb It went through some iterations Let's let's try to find like Oh, I have, I have thesis and chill

Is, uh, okay. I could, you know, I could get behind that. Okay. Turns out we, be careful throwing these out. We're going to end up with a name change. I know. We're going to end up with competition. Yeah.

Mind meld. Mind meld. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Uh, I just have.

I actually kind of like the public record. Stop. Stop. Stop helping our competition find names to beat us. please stop because that's one thing this is the Zach version of a let I got really

I got really into smarty party at one point that's I'll leave it at that yeah I think common knowledge way better than smarty party yeah I'm gonna go with that and and I find it an interesting look into the differences

of partner dynamic because I think we we came out with like four ideas yeah it's like three or four and we both went Yeah, geek history of time rolls off the tongue best. I think, yeah, okay, all right, cool, whatever.

We played around with it a little bit. Yeah. No, this is, this is, yeah, this is it. This is, this is as much as we need to do. We're good. I'm curious. I'm curious now, so why the D20? Well, the first several episodes that we had,

so the first episodes that we had were the Comic Code Authority, and we both did it. And then Ed decided to cover Warhammer 40,000, which is a tabletop game. And then I did the Enterprise in 9-11, and then he did Battletech, which is another tabletop miniatures game. And then I went back to like pro wrestling for five episodes. And then eventually we got to him doing the Jacksonian frontiersmanness of being a ninth level fighter in first edition D&D. and we just kept keep coming back to gaming type stuff.

Yeah. And it was like everybody recognizes a detour. Or the type of, there's a phrase that I've borrowed from Jim Cornett. If you're the type of person who likes that sort of thing, that's the sort of thing that type of person would like. Yeah, totally. And so the kind of people that we would draw. Oh, God, Jim Cornett's fantastic.

He still has one of my favorite quotes, which is, I want to know who's fucking the dog and who's just holding its head. And I'm like, I don't know what this means, but I love it. That's, that's, that's, that's a vivid image. Whether that's one we really want to hold on to or not is another question. Well, it's kind of like the chicken tied to the head. I immediately think how is somebody holding the head? Like, that's what I'm thinking of. Yeah. But, but yeah, so that for the type of person who likes this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing that type of person would like, right? So our audience, such as it is, would appreciate a D20.

Yeah. And also the genesis of us doing this was we wound up playing in a D&D campaign together. And we drove our DM nuts because we'd start talking about other geek shit. Yeah. And we were having just a great time having our conversation talking about, you know, whatever thing the other one was teaching the other one about, you know, whatever they didn't know. Because we found very quickly we're both huge nerds, but the areas of. our interest only overlap in a very very narrow kind of field and so yeah so that's how this whole thing got started yeah yeah I'm actually I pulled up the notes on the original uh I do not see I think I must have erased the other topic ideas or the other ideas

of the name of the name yeah yeah because yeah it's it is lost to the wheels of time, unfortunately. Yeah. But I think it was your idea, though. I think ultimately you came up with. I think so, yeah. I think, yeah, I think because we're going to try to take nerd stuff and apply it too. And look at how it ties in with, you know, historical events.

That took more than 20 episodes to come up with, too. Is our tag time? Yeah. The intro that I have at the beginning is like completely different. Yeah. Yeah. Ed takes up where I left off and all that. It just,

yeah. So many complicated, like ideas and then we just kind of, you know, settled in like you do. Yeah. No, it's so smart. I mean, that's the thing.

It's like you just got to, you just got to start and then we'll figure out, you know, if something's not working, we'll fix it. You know, that's sort of where we're at and where we're going to keep being at. Ed's thinking about hitting the table, isn't he?

God damn it. You knew exactly what it was I was thinking about. Our early episodes. I'm just going to do this on the mic. Our early episodes are just constantly just like banging the shit out of the table and it's just killing everybody's base in their car and I would just get email after email from people

who listen to the show and they're like, tell him to stop hitting the table and I'm like, we recorded 20 episodes. I've told him already. He has stopped. Yeah, he stopped and you're going to have to wait until we get past pinball. What I had to tell all of my friends was like,

I have stopped. Thank you. You can stop telling me every goddamn week. I fixed that. I got it. Thank you. Yes. So I have, I have kind of a question that kind of brings our two projects together for the two of you.

If you, each of you, were to give a lecture about a niche interest. God, damn, this is why you're my partner. Yeah, well. What would your, what do you think your topic would be? and and like why why why is that how does that light you up bachelor number one it is that kind of question if i were a lollipop likes literally muted his mic because he's yeah is that a sign that i'm not ready for that one that i just love that if you was i'm going to go ahead and i just love that it was well-timed if you mute your mic you're literally muting mike and that's all right

That works on so many levels. Mike, you want to be the brave soul? Oddly, I would not, the thing that I could go on is not really, wouldn't actually be picked up as a common knowledge lecture because it's not really an academic thing. But I could go down the rabbit hole as someone who has been an editor for a long time. Like I can geek out and really dive into a workflow of how to manage like a complicated project and how you like that kind of stuff of like specifically in an editing software how you

should set it up how you should arrange it how you're going to organize all this up like i will play that game and go down that rabbit hole with people who are up for it like way way down that rabbit hole and i will love it and come to life and talk to you about specific workflows and ways to manage that and nobody will be interested in a much smaller venue if you're going to try and do that you need a way smaller venue because no one is following me through this whole thing. But I will love it. And I will be so excited to go way down that rabbit hole and explain to you why you should set it up this way. Why doing it the way that other people do it is absolutely wrong.

I will happily go down that rabbit hole. Yeah. That's great. And I will never be invited back to a common knowledge lecture again. Yeah. Seriously. See, the part of that that I would be in the audience like needling you with is no, no, Tell me about why they're wrong.

Tell me. I want to know why is that, why is that horse shit? I want you to like dig deep and find, find that rage. I want to know why. I don't have to dig deep at all. It's right there. It's simmering on the service. You don't know about my, the rage is there.

See, you got me. That's the thing. Like, I work with a lot of clients that like will share projects. So like I will inherit projects from somebody else and seeing the way that they've set it up. and oh my God, it's vital that my kids are not home when I'm working on those projects because the number of swears per minute coming out of like, why would you do it this way is, it's concerning for all people. When I met Mike, when I met Mike, one of the things that immediately endeared me to him was that in his edit suite, so we were both working for this production company and mostly making like educational video productions for like PBS. but he they had done an interview with should I say this publicly

they had done an interview with Al Gore and Mike had this clip of Al Gore swearing at his assistant and like on you know he's miced and and so that anytime there was any time there was like an error in right message of the computer so if it like boop you know it laid a little boop it was Al Gore screaming at this guy I did that after I got let go from a place we we recorded all of us screaming the word Argyle into a microphone and then that became the error message on every

computer in the entire place and that place was running on older software so the error message would come up regularly oh it's beautiful that's hilarious that's so funny you know stuff like that like you gotta have fun with it you know but okay if I'm gonna go then probably so I worked in reality TV for a long time and so

I could give a pretty good talk about you know what it's like to actually live through a reality TV show I love I love it now I mean yeah well yeah I know I love the way the tone of your voice shifted

to indicate. There was some deep trauma being scraped right at the top there as he's... I have seen shit. You would not believe. Yeah. The worst part, look, the worst part about doing reality TV,

like traveled reality TV, and I traveled like 200 days a year for a few years back there in my 20s. You don't go to the glorious, like the glamorous places in the U.S. for the most part. Right. You go to like the worst places that like those are that's where you're going so it's like yeah i'm in the middle of nowhere

in arkansas and the only you know we land at eight o'clock and the only place that's open to eat dinner this late is walmart you know that's where we're going right like literally the amount of times where it was like we're we get to a hotel and we're like so where can we eat and they're like uh walmart you know it's like a lot yeah yeah yeah that that okay that sucks Jesus yeah all right cool well uh so I think we're we're coming to the end of this um I actually it was funny

given what you guys are saying I have a couple recommendations for you guys as far as episodes of ours to enjoy which is a dumb way to plug because we're plugging to our guests but uh Mike I think you would enjoy our episode 137 which is my analysis of the Wilhelm scream and why we don't hear it that much anymore. And I go deep into the history of it because I'm me. Also, because you have a thing for rabbit holes,

episode 307 to 309 are all about watership down. So, yeah. Nice. Yeah. All right. Watership down. Oh, that. I'd be interested in that.

Yeah. Zach, for you, I've got one on the Madgeberg Fossil. I don't even know what that is. It's weird. It is comedy gold. Oh my God. It's what it is. It's,

yeah. Yeah, it's 32 to 32323. We interviewed a professor down in Southern California about it and had him join along. And oh my God, it was cool. But basically somebody reconstructed a fossil, they thought. And it was, they thought it was. was a unicorn. And if you drew this thing based on where the bones were,

it's the weirdest fucking unicorn you will have ever seen. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's a, it's a severely malformed unicorn. Boy, howdy, like, just like, and the thing is, like, it is, uh, Leibnitz, uh, drew it, it, uh, having seen this other guy who had constructed it. And he, like, brought it to the, so anyway, it's, it's, it's, just all kinds of all kinds of weird fun so yeah i love that that's great but uh okay so coming to the end uh what what lectures are you looking forward to and it's okay if you don't want to spoil um and uh yeah uh what what what are you looking forward to and and then i'll have you

guys uh we'll go through our round of plugs and recommendations well um yeah i'm i'm really looking forward to we have one called from witchcraft to Walgreens which is a history of poison and that's going to be really a fun one and the speaker

she's great she's going to there's going to be a lot of audience participation in that one which I think is going to be really fun the scientific funding crisis I think is going to be really good we got one coming up a guy who I

saw him give a lecture during design week a couple years ago in Sacramento. And it was just, it was one of the best talks I've been to in a long time. And he's going to do a lecture about like the power of how does, he's a design professor and like how our spaces are designed and how they affect just us as people and as a community. And I think that's really cool. And he, you know, we love like audience participation. and we love anything that is like going to make it feel really special and different and be memorable.

And he's like, oh, yeah, we're going to bring. I'm going to bring a bunch of stuff and people are going to feel stuff and, you know, like, eat things. And I'm like, this is awesome. That's so cool. Like, let's do it. So, yeah, like, there's so much, you know, the best part of the job, honestly, is just hearing all the really interesting work that that folks are doing and that, that's happening around that, like, you would never know about, you know. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So that's my plug. Cool. All right. Very cool. I like it. Yeah. Yeah.

Those are TBD. Yeah. All right. Well, let's see. Ed, what are you going to recommend for people to read or take in or what have you? Well, my recommendation for reading is going to be a manga series, Tower Dungeon by Tutomuneehei. and if you're a manga nerd, you recognize his name. If you're not, he's responsible for a couple of very big amongst anime nerd or manga and anime nerd series, Blame and Knights of Sidonia.

Tower Dungeon, I am in love with and I've only read the first two volumes. It starts out as a pretty typical princess has been kidnapped by a dragon and Hero is a farm boy. who gets drafted into the effort to go rescue the princess. But then there are layers upon layers upon layers of world building. And you start to see that there are wheels within wheels within the different factions and the different groups that are operating in the world. And the mechanics of the dungeon are not straightforward. And so it's it's playing wonderfully with all of the tropes that are associated. It's much fun.

Character is kind of a well-meaning, adorable idiot, which helps to. There are moments of real genuine, funny comedy, and then there are moments of real high-stakes, you know, peril, almost borderline horror. It's an amazingly complex kind of story. I'm having a whole lot of fun with it, and I highly recommend it. Nice. Very cool. How about you?

Ah, I'm going to recommend two things. I'm going to recommend a book. It's 370 episodes and he still forgets after he's done. Whatever. Pick, pick, pick, pick, pick. The first one I'm going to recommend is a book called A Resistance History of the United States by Tad Stormer, S-T-O-E-R-M-E-R, wherever you can find good books. You should go support a local.

but pick that up. He's also pretty active on the TikTok lately too. And the other thing I'm going to recommend you go to is klectures.com where you can find common knowledge lectures and you can find, because I guarantee you,

this will end up dropping long after the cool episodes you just mentioned or the lectures you just mentioned. And because you guys are so pro-social, there's not a streaming version of these that I can imagine. Am I right? No, yeah, no, we're not doing any streaming.

Right. You know, maybe in the future. No, we want people to get out off their screens and be in real life. Yeah, IRL. On klectures.com, you can get to the bottom of the page and find get tickets and get them quick because they do sell out. So those are the two places. The two things I'm going to plug. Mike and Zach, I did forget to tell you guys this off mic, but no offense.

but I did forget to tell you all this. Are there any books or anything that you would like to recommend for people? I totally have a plug. I have a really, I have a plug that I've been telling people to watch this show. And, and no one ever does, but it's just,

it's incredible. Have you guys watched Scavengers Rain on HBO Max? I have not. Which came out, I just looked at it up. It came out in 2023. It came out in that really awkward time when HBO Max decided to become just Max or whatever and ever because they just like you know they were making a

whole lot of really dumb decisions yes um and the show got just totally buried like it never got promoted it never came out it's an animated like a 2d animated tv show that takes place it's basically the plot is these uh you know a ship a spaceship crashes on an alien planet and it's just different groups of people trying to survive And the cool thing about it is just that it is, like, there is not, there is terrifying things that happen. It is, this is not a show for kids, for, to be sure. This is the stuff of nightmares. Um, but it is just because, like, everything there is just trying to survive.

So, like, everything there is just trying to eat these people. They're just, like, you know, it is, it's really interesting and really well made and deeply sort of moving and beautiful in its own way. Um, the animation takes a little getting. used to. It's not really my style, but I just, I cannot recommend that show highly enough. And so many people missed it.

And it's a great sort of, you know, nerd show, if you will. That is the nice thing about streaming, isn't it? Yeah. I have seen clips of that. And now that you've mentioned it, I'm going to have to go seek it out and watch the whole thing. Because, yeah. You should watch it. It's, it is,

it's a masterpiece. Like, really, it's like eight episodes and it, and it's one story. It has a beginning, an end and it's it's really great very cool yeah mike how about you uh are you are you looking for specifically nerd kind of things or uh whatever whatever whatever you think folks would enjoy uh taking in uh interesting uh i read a book not long ago that uh has sort of stuck with me and was sort of interesting called same as ever by morgan howsel and it was just sort of interesting takes on things that sort of keep repeating and things that come back sort of cyclically in the world. And just really interesting

takes on sort of a new view on lots of things that we take for granted, views on money, views on ways that we interact with people. And it's just one of those books that kind of stuck with me and pointed out some things that I really have been digging. So if you're the kind of person that likes the book that will sort of hang with you for a while, that one definitely got me. Nice. Thank you. Very cool. Let's see. Ed, work in we be found. We collectively can be found on our website at wauwbubbawoba.gookhistorytime.com. We can also be found on the Apple podcast app, on the Amazon podcast app on Spotify, and now our ever-expanding archive can be found on YouTube as well. Any of those places where you have found us or go to

seek us out, please take the time to subscribe and give us the five-star review that you know, our awesome guests deserve. And Mr. Harmony, where can you be found? In these streets. No, you could find me and my comedy partner, Justine Lopez, with capital punishment on the first Friday of every month, down at the Comedy Spot in Sacramento. 9 p.m. $15 tickets.

Go to sackcomitb.com and pick up your tickets. By the time this releases, I'm going to say you have probably missed, you've most definitely missed the July show. I'm going to assume that you missed the August 7th show. So make sure you get your tickets now for the September 4th show and for the October 2nd show. That one is going to be a bilingual pun show. So that's going to be especially fun. But make sure you get tickets for both. This is our 11th year now. And just we keep getting better. I don't know what you want. Why are you waiting? Definitely you should come back. So

that's sackcomedy spot.com. Go to the calendar section and find your tickets. So yeah, me, Justine, Emily. If you pick the right month, you might come back on a month where Mark makes a guest appearance again. So just kind of depends. So Mike and Zach, where can they find y'all? Oh, good question.

Follow common knowledge at CK lectures across the social medias. do I know what my own social media handle is? No, I really tell it. I think it's all at at CK Lectures. If you search for CK Lectures, check it out. And if you, as we talked about, tickets sell out fast, but the best thing you can do,

my advice is join our mailing list. So if you go to CK Lectures.com, join the mailing list. That's the first place that we let people know that tickets are for sale. So people who are on the mailing list have the best chance of actually getting tickets because as soon as they drop, we send out an email to everybody and let them know,

and then they usually start to disappear. Yeah. The social media has been good to us, but we like, you know, we don't want to rely on it. So it's like we'll give the mailing list folks like a 24-hour hit start on tickets before we posted on Instagram or TikTok or whatever. So yeah, so hit us up there. That's the spot. All right. Nice.

Awesome. Well, Mike and Zach of common knowledge. lectures. Thank you guys so much for for joining us tonight. It's been it's been a really easy fun interview. So thank you both for that. And I can't wait to actually get to see at least one of you in person. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. You know, go to Boston and kick my glasses. There's a lot of first Boston event. There you go. Yeah. Great. So all right. Well, for a geek history of time. I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock. And until next time, keep rolling 20s.