Ohio v. the World

Tim Fulton 0:11Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. We are a weekly Columbus-centric podcast focusing on the civics, lifestyle, entertainment, and people of our city. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. This week I sat down with local attorney Alex Hasty to talk about his podcast Ohio Versus The World, the world's only Ohio history podcast. We talk about how it got started, how he puts it together, and what he'll be covering in upcoming seasons. You can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Also, the Confluence Cast is on Patreon. Find out how to support this podcast on our website, theconfluencecast.com, or at patreon.com/confluence. The Confluence Cast is sponsored this week by Little Rock Bar. Little Rock Bar is located at 944 North Fourth Street in Italian Village. With 30 beers on tap, Little Rock Bar has happy hour from 4:00 to 8:00 PM every day. Every Tuesday, get $3 draft beers all night while you enjoy Rock Your Cock Off Karaoke. Wednesdays is Everybody's a Comedian hosted by Travis Haywisher. It's like trivia, but you prove your snark instead of smarts. Info, hours, and upcoming events at littlerockbar.net. Everyone's night should have a little rock. Enjoy the interview. Sitting down here with Alex Hasty, attorney at law.

Alex Hasty 1:49Yes.

Tim Fulton 1:49Also the host of Ohio Versus The World, an Ohio history podcast. Alex, how are you?

Alex Hasty 1:56Doing good, Timmy.

Tim Fulton 1:57Good.

Alex Hasty 1:57Good to see you.

Tim Fulton 1:58You're the first in my 60 some odd episodes that has called me Timmy. Uh, tell us about, first of all, Ohio Versus The World.

Alex Hasty 2:06It's the world's only Ohio history podcast, so we interview authors, historians, uh, journalists, uh, you know, anyone who's, who's written, uh, historical pieces about events, people, places, and things in Ohio. So we are on our third season-

Tim Fulton 2:23Did you think that somebody in like Washington State was gonna put together an Ohio history podcast?

Alex Hasty 2:28I was just... I was filling a void. There's nothing out there like that, so.

Tim Fulton 2:32Gotcha.

Alex Hasty 2:32I just wanted to... We're still the only Ohio history podcast, so.

Tim Fulton 2:37The world's only.

Alex Hasty 2:38The world's only. Um, and we're hoping to get a rival at some point, but we just don't have one yet.

Tim Fulton 2:44That's good. Now, how did you... Do you consider yourself a history buff? Is that why you sort of got into it?

Alex Hasty 2:51Yeah, I th- I think so. Uh, my father was a big history buff. Um, and I majored in history at-

Tim Fulton 2:59Okay

Alex Hasty 2:59... the College of Wooster i- in Northeast Ohio.

Tim Fulton 3:01Is that where your law degree is from?

Alex Hasty 3:03Um, my law degree's from Cleveland Marshall.

Tim Fulton 3:05Got it. Okay.

Alex Hasty 3:06Uh, yeah, Wooster doesn't r- have any graduate programs.

Tim Fulton 3:08Okay.

Alex Hasty 3:09Um, and I just, you know, I always like to, I always liked to read, and I, I was always a big fan of Ohio, and it just kinda came to me, hey. It really happened, I was searching for something, uh, about Ohio history on, you know, iTunes and podcasts, and just couldn't find anything.

Tim Fulton 3:26Oh, no kidding.

Alex Hasty 3:27And so I decided, uh, that I was gonna do this. But my original plan, and I told some friends at a, a bonfire one night, that I was gonna do a podcast all about the Ohio presidents, and it was gonna be super, you know- ... three or four-hour episodes.

Tim Fulton 3:43Oh, my.

Alex Hasty 3:43And really in-depth. And they were all like, "That is a horrible snooze fest of an idea." So they said, "You can do that, but maybe do it about something, you know, not quite as boring, at least at the beginning."

Tim Fulton 3:54Right.

Alex Hasty 3:55So we are still gonna do our, uh, Ohio presidents season, uh, but we're gonna do it during 2020 during the presidential election. We'll do an actual-

Tim Fulton 4:04Cool, and there's-

Alex Hasty 4:04... uh, season about presidents.

Tim Fulton 4:05What is it, five of them? Seven of them?

Alex Hasty 4:07There's, uh, seven that we'll be doing.

Tim Fulton 4:09Okay.

Alex Hasty 4:10Technically Benjamin Harrison-

Tim Fulton 4:11Yes

Alex Hasty 4:12... is counted, but he's really more of an Indiana president. He went to Miami University.

Tim Fulton 4:15Okay.

Alex Hasty 4:16Um, and he grew up, spent some of his youth in Ohio, but I'm not... First of all, he's a really boring president. One termer.

Tim Fulton 4:24Uh-huh.

Alex Hasty 4:25Um, and I just don't consider... He's, he's Indiana's president.

Tim Fulton 4:28Okay.

Alex Hasty 4:28And I wanna say Indiana's only president.

Tim Fulton 4:31Okay. And so you talked sort of about the subject matter that you cover. You guys are what? Three... You're coming up on your third season, is that right?

Alex Hasty 4:40We are in the... We're a little, about two-thirds of the way through our third season.

Tim Fulton 4:43Okay, got it. And so the subject matter, the title of every episode is something like Ohio Versus Discrimination, Ohio Versus Prohibition, Ohio Versus, uh, Disasters.

Alex Hasty 4:55Right.

Tim Fulton 4:55Like, what... Is that sort of how you come up with the subject ma- Walk me through the process from inception to-

Alex Hasty 5:02Right

Tim Fulton 5:03... execution of it.

Alex Hasty 5:04I think our, our first episode was about Kent State.

Tim Fulton 5:06Okay.

Alex Hasty 5:07Um, and that's kind of a, a really, you know, a very well-known event. We've started, even in the first season, getting into more mundane events. So through, you know, I'll be reading a book and, and it'll mention something and I'll find out that person was from Ohio.

Tim Fulton 5:21Okay.

Alex Hasty 5:22Um, we try to do a little more off-beat topics. Uh, I'd say about a third of our podcasts, we're the only podcast out there about this person, this event.

Tim Fulton 5:32Okay.

Alex Hasty 5:32Um, and, and we like to be able to do that. But we also, you know, we also did one about Neil Armstrong when we went up to Wapakoneta, the museum, and timed that up with the release of The First Man movie.

Tim Fulton 5:44Uh-huh.

Alex Hasty 5:44Um, so we do some of the broader stuff, but really, you know, we try to find a little bit of off-beat stu- uh, off-beat events.

Tim Fulton 5:52Okay. And then do you- So you come up with the idea for the episode, and then are you looking for basically someone to interview about it?

Alex Hasty 6:00Yeah.

Tim Fulton 6:00Okay.

Alex Hasty 6:00So we really build the episodes around the, the interviews. And, and sometimes we'll have more than one guest. Um, and a lot of times we just find an author, um, you know, who's written something in the last five or 10 years. You gotta make sure they're alive.

Tim Fulton 6:13Right.

Alex Hasty 6:13Um, sometimes y- sometimes with some of these topics we'll talk about, you know, no one's written about them since, you know, the '70s or the '80s and the author's passed away.

Tim Fulton 6:20Right.

Alex Hasty 6:21Um, but we've really come up with a, with a pretty big list, and we get a lot of suggestions, just like I'm sure you do, suggestions for, for the show.

Tim Fulton 6:29Yeah.

Alex Hasty 6:29So, "Hey, have you ever heard about this?" And I'll go look, you know, and I'll look into it. Um, our season four topics are, you know, we do 15 episodes a season. Episodes are about an hour long. Um, and we probably still have four or five spots that we haven't claimed because things will just come up.

Tim Fulton 6:45Okay.

Alex Hasty 6:45An author will reach out to us or an event. You know, we did an episode recently, uh, Ohio Versus the Patriarchy, about what I consider to be, like, the first Me Too movement moment in American history-

Tim Fulton 6:57Okay

Alex Hasty 6:57... back in the 1890s. It was this woman who, um, had, had an affair with a congressman, a very powerful congressman, and he promised to marry her and he never did, and she sued him. Um-

Tim Fulton 7:09Okay

Alex Hasty 7:09... and it became a huge story. Uh, the story of Madeline Pollard is her name. You can go back, it's an episode from last month. But that book just came out in November, uh, by Patty Miller, and we reached out to her and n- you know, it's on the bestseller list on a bunch of different, uh, websites, Smithsonian, and it's got, you know, a great review in Wall Street Journal, New York Times. Um, just saw her on C-SPAN this week. And so episodes like that'll just pop up.

Tim Fulton 7:34That's awesome.

Alex Hasty 7:34Um-

Tim Fulton 7:34And so, uh, is she an Ohio person?

Alex Hasty 7:37She's, uh, Madeline Pollard was a Cincinnati college student.

Tim Fulton 7:41So did you-

Alex Hasty 7:41And the author, she's-

Tim Fulton 7:42Oh, I'm sorry, the author, yeah

Alex Hasty 7:43... the author's a, just a DC-based, uh-

Tim Fulton 7:45Okay

Alex Hasty 7:45... author.

Tim Fulton 7:46So did you-

Alex Hasty 7:47Patricia Miller

Tim Fulton 7:48... logistics-wise, how do you arrange those interviews? Are you doing Skype or-

Alex Hasty 7:51We, yeah, we do a lot of Sk- we've gotten so many more guests that are in California and New York and, and DC. So I'd say about half our interviews are Skyped and half are in person.

Tim Fulton 8:00Okay.

Alex Hasty 8:01So a lot of times we'll try, you know, I'll drive to Cincinnati, Cleveland, um, but-

Tim Fulton 8:06But you're not gonna fly to DC just for an interview.

Alex Hasty 8:07But I'm not gonna fly-

Tim Fulton 8:08Right

Alex Hasty 8:08... to DC for, for the interview. Um-

Tim Fulton 8:10Are you just r- and this is, sorry, just nerd recording questions.

Alex Hasty 8:13No, yeah, pod-

Tim Fulton 8:14Are you-

Alex Hasty 8:14... podcasters talking podcasting-

Tim Fulton 8:16Okay

Alex Hasty 8:16... while we're, while we're podcasting.

Tim Fulton 8:17Exactly. It's very meta. Are you just rec- using, like, a, a Skype recorder or are you having them record separate or how do you do that?

Alex Hasty 8:26I'm having them, a lot of times these people are not equipped to really record on their own, so-

Tim Fulton 8:32Right

Alex Hasty 8:32... um, and when you're dealing with an author and you're going through their publisher or whatever, you want to make it as easy on them as you can. So-

Tim Fulton 8:39Absolutely

Alex Hasty 8:39... really what I ask for them is I'm able to record two tracks through my mixer-

Tim Fulton 8:44Mm-hmm

Alex Hasty 8:44... um, with one track being a normal microphone to mixer track.

Tim Fulton 8:48Right.

Alex Hasty 8:49And then a mix minus track where I'm using the Skype audio, which usually comes through pretty well.

Tim Fulton 8:54Yeah, it's, I mean, NPR uses it, so.

Alex Hasty 8:56Yeah, so I mean a lot of times what I just ask the, the person on the other end to do, if you're doing some podcasting via Skype in the future, um, I just have them use white Apple earbuds that have the little microphone on them.

Tim Fulton 9:07And that's good enough.

Alex Hasty 9:08It blocks the sound on their end from me-

Tim Fulton 9:11Mm-hmm

Alex Hasty 9:11... and it has at least a mic pickup that's better than your, you know, your computer mic.

Tim Fulton 9:15Yeah.

Alex Hasty 9:16Um, and usually it's good enough.

Tim Fulton 9:18Yeah, absolutely. And so how much, so you find out about the subject matter, how much are you doing background? Are you making sure that you read these folks' books?

Alex Hasty 9:26Yeah, you got, I- I've, I've got to write, I write all the questions before, so-

Tim Fulton 9:30Mm-hmm

Alex Hasty 9:30... a- and especially when you're dealing with, you know, again, authors who are giving you their time, you want them to have nowhere to go.

Tim Fulton 9:36'Cause it's not just, like, a five-minute-

Alex Hasty 9:39No, these are-

Tim Fulton 9:40... for a blurb. Like, you're doing an hour

Alex Hasty 9:41... yeah, these are 30 to 60 minute interviews normally. So I'm reading their book, I'm reading any, uh, internet articles, other books about the subject, a- and that's really where it's time-consuming for me. It's really not the putting together the episodes, doing the narrations.

Tim Fulton 9:55Right.

Alex Hasty 9:56It's really the research. So I'm going on vacation tomorrow, uh, and I'll be on the beach with, with my wife for five or six days, and I will be reading, like, the entire time I'll be reading about General Custer. I'm reading about the Cleveland River catching on fire, and it's all Ohio books that I'll be pretty much putting down, um, while I'm having a few beers on the beach.

Tim Fulton 10:18That's good. Are you worried at all about, uh, I hope I know the answer to this question, about running out of subject matter?

Alex Hasty 10:24I was-

Tim Fulton 10:25Okay

Alex Hasty 10:25... for sure. I definitely was when I first started. Um-

Tim Fulton 10:28Well, originally the concept was I'm gonna cover the seven Ohio presidents. So there you go.

Alex Hasty 10:32Well, I, even when I-

Tim Fulton 10:33Seven episodes

Alex Hasty 10:33... even when I abandoned that idea, um, you know, because you get through John Glenn and, and, you know, Edison and, a- and some of these people that we know, but the listeners have been so good about reaching out, and there's at least one or two episodes a season that I never thought of-

Tim Fulton 10:51Mm-hmm

Alex Hasty 10:51... heard of, um, and it comes from a listener email or multiple listener emails. Um, ohioviewtheworld@gmail.com if you have s- show ideas. And then-

Tim Fulton 11:00And we'll link that in the show notes as well.

Alex Hasty 11:02Yeah, and then we, uh, and then we can go from there and, and that's really been a great way. So I've got a list right now of at least an a- additional 30 or 40 episodes that I may never get to.

Tim Fulton 11:12That's awesome.

Alex Hasty 11:13Yeah.

Tim Fulton 11:13And I know that somewhat you're reaching out, you know, Dino Trapotis is a mutual friend. You've had him on, right?

Alex Hasty 11:19Whiskey Business, oh yeah.

Tim Fulton 11:20Yeah. Um, and so sometimes it ends up being a casual conversation about this history, right?

Alex Hasty 11:26Especially, yeah, well, and, and any time, we did the Columbus Podcast Fest, um, soon to be, uh, coming back in, in August. Um, we're supposed to have Dino for that, but we'll probably have him again this time.

Tim Fulton 11:38Mm-hmm.

Alex Hasty 11:38So we had a comedian, it's Mark Lucas, you know, our friend Mark, who's-

Tim Fulton 11:41Yeah

Alex Hasty 11:41... w- just walking the, the Earth right now.

Tim Fulton 11:42He is now traveling the, the world.

Alex Hasty 11:44Yeah.

Tim Fulton 11:45Shout out to Mark.

Alex Hasty 11:46Um, so a- and sometimes I'll just have a friend, I, I just had a buddy of mine who's an attorney, um, actually a really good friend with, with, it's one of my wife's friend's, uh, husbands.

Tim Fulton 11:56Mm-hmm.

Alex Hasty 11:56And I just said, "Hey, I need you to learn as much as you can about this little thing about John Rockefeller."

Tim Fulton 12:02Okay.

Alex Hasty 12:02Uh, the world's richest man. And so I went up to Cleveland and, and he's one of three people on the episode, but- We interviewed, we interviewed Ben. Uh, my friend Eric knew a lot about geography.

Tim Fulton 12:13Okay.

Alex Hasty 12:13And so we had him on an episode about the Bosnian War. Um-

Tim Fulton 12:17How much are you getting... So, uh, and this is not a plug, but I have a much less listened to podcast just about time travel.

Alex Hasty 12:25I'm, I'm familiar with it, yeah.

Tim Fulton 12:26Um

Alex Hasty 12:26What's it called again?

Tim Fulton 12:27Uh, Outta Tim.

Alex Hasty 12:28Outta Tim, yeah.

Tim Fulton 12:29Uh, uh, it's, whatever. It's, it's been on-

Alex Hasty 12:32I love the c- the, the photo or the logo or whatever-

Tim Fulton 12:35Yeah

Alex Hasty 12:35... the picture is from Back to the Future.

Tim Fulton 12:37Yes.

Alex Hasty 12:37It's really solid. Yeah.

Tim Fulton 12:38Yes. Uh, so it is not very well listened to, but we get almo- I'd say probably a fifth of the audience will email us and say like, "Hey, I think you've totally misinterpreted this timeline incorrectly." And I'm like, "Oh, I guess you're right." And that's great to get that feedback because even though it's not as listened to, there's a lot of feedback. Um, how much do you get from-

Alex Hasty 13:03Great question

Tim Fulton 13:04... do you get from folks sort of reaching out?

Alex Hasty 13:05I'm gonna read you... I, I just got this email on Monday. So we, I really do have to do the research because first of all, I'm talking to someone who's written a book about it, and I do not wanna sound like an idiot.

Tim Fulton 13:15Well, it's, well, it's f- so what I th- when you said, "I have my friends on, they happen to know a lot about this," I think immediately of things like Drunk History-

Alex Hasty 13:22Sure

Tim Fulton 13:22... where it's like, yeah, they know-

Alex Hasty 13:24And we are drinking during these episodes a lot.

Tim Fulton 13:26Okay.

Alex Hasty 13:27I mean, we have beer for every episode, but-

Tim Fulton 13:28Gotcha

Alex Hasty 13:28... especially when you have the friends on. But we, some of these are some pretty complex top- like, you know, when we did the one about the Bosnian War, I didn't know anything about the Bosnian peace process or anything, you know? And then I-

Tim Fulton 13:38And I, uh, I f- forgive me, what is the Ohio connection there?

Alex Hasty 13:41The peace treaty was, it's called the Dayton Peace Accord. So-

Tim Fulton 13:45Ah, yes. Okay

Alex Hasty 13:46... so those three countries that were warring o- over, over Bosnia, including Bosnia-

Tim Fulton 13:50They were at Wright Patt, right?

Alex Hasty 13:51They hashed it out at Wright Patt in 1895.

Tim Fulton 13:53Yeah. Okay.

Alex Hasty 13:54Um, so the, but some of these things, again, I, I come in knowing nothing. I gotta do the research. So I did one, uh, episode, two episodes ago, about Coxey's Army. It's the first march on Washington. It's this guy from Massillon, Ohio, in the 1890s, and he leads this army-

Tim Fulton 14:08Go Tigers

Alex Hasty 14:08... that, yeah, go Tigers. And it's, it's a, it's an ar- it's a, for joblessness basically. It's called Ohio Versus Unemployment is the episode.

Tim Fulton 14:17Okay.

Alex Hasty 14:17But a very obscure event, very big at its time. Anyways, this guy sent me this, a- and I haven't responded yet because it's wa- he's way over my head. "Have you ever considered that Coxey's plan was road building, was a form of proto-Keynesian economics?"

Tim Fulton 14:31Oh, my.

Alex Hasty 14:32Well, then he goes on, "Monetary po- policy is highly political, which is, which is now obvious. See the European Central Bank. Coxey and the populists were right, and their vision seems to live on in the new idea by Bernie Sanders for national job guarantees. But Coxey predated Sir Ki- Keynes by decades. What are your thoughts?" My thoughts are af- now I've gotta go back and not sound like an idiot to this listener and-

Tim Fulton 14:54Well, you know that he's just, so, so Keynesian economics is from Keynes. You know that?

Alex Hasty 14:58Key- uh, yeah.

Tim Fulton 14:59Okay.

Alex Hasty 14:59I guess.

Tim Fulton 15:00Okay. Sorry. The, there's your help there.

Alex Hasty 15:03Yeah.

Tim Fulton 15:03You don't have to Google two different things.

Alex Hasty 15:04I already, I already Googled that, so there you go.

Tim Fulton 15:06Okay.

Alex Hasty 15:07So, but that, I mean, it's awesome to get emails like that in, in Outta Tim, that's, I'd like to read some of these Outta Tim emails that you're getting.

Tim Fulton 15:15Yeah.

Alex Hasty 15:15Um-

Tim Fulton 15:15Well, it's primarily like, "Hey, I don't think Doc's makeup was really meant to mislead people." "It was really an internal joke because Christopher Lloyd already looked old." Like, it's stuff like that that we get emails about. Where-

Alex Hasty 15:29Sure. If you need me to fact check any of this stuff as a historian, you let me know. I'll, I'll, I'll waste some time.

Tim Fulton 15:33I appreciate alternate timelines within the Back to the Future canon. Yeah. I appreciate that.

Alex Hasty 15:38But it's, I can't be mad at this guy. A, he's probably making some really good points.

Tim Fulton 15:43Yeah.

Alex Hasty 15:44And B, uh, you know, it just goes to show that I, I've gotta know my stuff. So I don't get a ton of those emails where people are like, "Hey, good try, but you are way off base on this." And a lot of times there's a lot of ways to interpret, you know, these historical events and, and-

Tim Fulton 15:59Well, and what impact they had and yeah.

Alex Hasty 16:01Right, or-

Tim Fulton 16:01Even, I mean, that's what, as a guy who probably watches too much news, like it's infecting my brain-

Alex Hasty 16:08Yeah, same here

Tim Fulton 16:09... I can follow a talk track from the beginning, and when I hear a new idea, I'm like, I guarantee you I'm gonna hear that three times in the next 24 hours.

Alex Hasty 16:17Right, the talking points email that must go out in DC-

Tim Fulton 16:19Yeah

Alex Hasty 16:20... at 6:00 in the morning every morning.

Tim Fulton 16:21Absolutely. Or just someone having a truly new idea about how to interpret something that like then everybody else is like, "That's a really good point, and so I should," you know.

Alex Hasty 16:32Yeah.

Tim Fulton 16:32They follow it through basically. Um, t- uh, by the total just a Ohio history nerd question.

Alex Hasty 16:39Yeah.

Tim Fulton 16:39Have you done Billy Milligan yet?

Alex Hasty 16:41We have not, but we are really... A couple people have mentioned it, and now we got the movie's-

Tim Fulton 16:45Yeah

Alex Hasty 16:45... coming out, right?

Tim Fulton 16:46Yeah. Well, it's been optioned.

Alex Hasty 16:48It's been, yeah. So it's, but we've gotta find, what we're looking at right, when, right now when it comes to Billy Milligan is who can we talk to?

Tim Fulton 16:55Yeah.

Alex Hasty 16:56Do we wait till the movie gets closer to coming out and people actually know what you and I are talking about right now? Um, and-

Tim Fulton 17:04I will link, uh, Billy Milligan and the book

Alex Hasty 17:04... and do we, and do we try and, do we try and work, uh, you know, at a, an angle through the movie or do we look at, you know, previous books? A lot of the books that written about him are, were from the '80s-

Tim Fulton 17:14Right

Alex Hasty 17:15... a- a- and earlier, so, um-

Tim Fulton 17:17Well, the only good one is the first person account that, was it Daniel Keyes? No.

Alex Hasty 17:21Yeah, it's, it's something just like, he wrote the, another book about it.

Tim Fulton 17:24He wrote Flowers for Algernon.

Alex Hasty 17:26Yeah.

Tim Fulton 17:26Yeah. Uh-

Alex Hasty 17:28No, he's definitely on the list. Um, and we do one murder episode every season, so we try and do one like true crime.

Tim Fulton 17:36Okay.

Alex Hasty 17:36Um-

Tim Fulton 17:36That's actually what's, I put in my notes to talk about today, like what do you think the appeal of this is? And it seems to me it's similar to the appeal of true crime podcasts, that it's, you don't necessarily need to know about this thing ahead of time.

Alex Hasty 17:52Right.

Tim Fulton 17:52But isn't it so interesting that this happened-

Alex Hasty 17:54Sure

Tim Fulton 17:55... and here's how it played out? Um, sadly you don't get the virtue of like it's unsolved or like-

Alex Hasty 18:01Right

Tim Fulton 18:02... people are waiting to hear what happened 'cause you can, you know, sort of-

Alex Hasty 18:05Usually it's wrapped up by now, but-

Tim Fulton 18:07Hopefully

Alex Hasty 18:07... you know, some of these murder c- the murder episodes we do, uh, one of them actually was solved. We talked to the author who did end up solving it by writing the book. And some of the other ones are open to interpretation. Our next episode, uh-

Tim Fulton 18:18What was that one, the one where the author...

Alex Hasty 18:20Uh, Christie Mullins. It c- it was a Clintonville murder from the '70s.

Tim Fulton 18:24Okay.

Alex Hasty 18:24Um-

Tim Fulton 18:25I just wanna make sure I link it in the show notes.

Alex Hasty 18:27Yeah. It's, uh, it's a two-part episode. Um, and that was our one from last year. Our next, we're doing one about the Cleveland Torso Murders, uh-

Tim Fulton 18:36Okay

Alex Hasty 18:36... it's, like, one of the first real serial killers in America in Cleveland in the 1930s. Um, and we're coupling that also about Eliot Ness-

Tim Fulton 18:44Yeah

Alex Hasty 18:44... who's the one who's investigating that, so the, from The Untouchables.

Tim Fulton 18:48Yeah.

Alex Hasty 18:48So that'll be our next murder episode out, uh, probably in about three weeks.

Tim Fulton 18:52So do you... Talk to me through the, the season timeline, 'cause I sort of, while I take, like, time off in the, you know-

Alex Hasty 18:59You guys do a lot

Tim Fulton 18:59... around the holidays-

Alex Hasty 19:00Right

Tim Fulton 19:01... I don't really, like, think of it in terms of seasons. In my head I'm like, "Okay, this, we're on year three now."

Alex Hasty 19:06Right.

Tim Fulton 19:07Um, how do you... I imagine you sort of time it out.

Alex Hasty 19:11As, as best we can. We don't-

Tim Fulton 19:12You don't do it like Netflix, where you release all the episodes-

Alex Hasty 19:14No

Tim Fulton 19:14... at the same time?

Alex Hasty 19:15We don't. Well, sometimes at the beginning of a season we'll release two or three episodes at the start of the season just to get, you know-

Tim Fulton 19:20Folks listening

Alex Hasty 19:21... for those binge, the people who like to binge a little.

Tim Fulton 19:23Right.

Alex Hasty 19:23Um, we do a podcast every other Sunday.

Tim Fulton 19:27Okay.

Alex Hasty 19:28Um, we release them Sunday morning. I don't know why I picked Sunday. I should've talked to somebody. I don't feel like Sunday's a great day to release podcasts-

Tim Fulton 19:35Mm-hmm

Alex Hasty 19:35... but that's our day.

Tim Fulton 19:36Right.

Alex Hasty 19:36It's a good day for me to release-

Tim Fulton 19:38Yeah

Alex Hasty 19:38... podcasts.

Tim Fulton 19:39Well, I feel like everybody, there isn't, it's not like email marketing where people are like, "You gotta do it Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday."

Alex Hasty 19:46Right.

Tim Fulton 19:46And like, "Don't ever do email marketing on a Monday or Friday."

Alex Hasty 19:49Right.

Tim Fulton 19:50Uh, whereas some people are like s- "Do it on Sunday morning." I know at least with the podcasts that I listen to, I've g- like, I've got my daily ones, literally The Daily.

Alex Hasty 19:59Mm-hmm.

Tim Fulton 19:59And then the other ones I listen to, it's sort of, you know, all over the map. Like, I've got-

Alex Hasty 20:03Right

Tim Fulton 20:03... two to listen to every Friday.

Alex Hasty 20:05Sure, they just pop up or they don't.

Tim Fulton 20:06But in my head I'm like, "That's my Sunday shower podcast."

Alex Hasty 20:09Right.

Tim Fulton 20:09Yeah. So I don't think it really-

Alex Hasty 20:10Well, I'd love to be your n- your new Sunday shower podcast, every other Sunday.

Tim Fulton 20:14That's... Thank you very... Well- ... the problem is, is you're, you know, it's only during what then, half the year, or a little more than half?

Alex Hasty 20:21Yeah, it's about th- yeah, a little more than a half a year. So, and something, you know, if it falls near Christmas maybe we'll do three weeks. Um, basically we're doing 15 episode seasons. Um, we may cut that back to 12 or 13.

Tim Fulton 20:34Mm-hmm.

Alex Hasty 20:34There's no real reason for that, it's just how many we did our first season.

Tim Fulton 20:38And are you bu- like, when your season, the season starts, have you... You've at least mapped it out, but have you done-

Alex Hasty 20:44I've banked-

Tim Fulton 20:45... all the interviews?

Alex Hasty 20:45So l- let's talk about this season. Normally, I think my last episode last season was at the Podcast Festival, so that was-

Tim Fulton 20:51Okay

Alex Hasty 20:51... probably in April of 2018.

Tim Fulton 20:53Mm-hmm.

Alex Hasty 20:54And then we did not come back on the air until October.

Tim Fulton 20:57Okay.

Alex Hasty 20:57So I had five months there, and that's pretty much the timeline. A l- we don't really record or, uh, put out episodes in the summer.

Tim Fulton 21:05Right.

Alex Hasty 21:05Um, A-

Tim Fulton 21:06That's your timeline

Alex Hasty 21:06... I'm way more busy and i- I'm reading, I'm learning, and I'm also just doing other things. So-

Tim Fulton 21:12Right

Alex Hasty 21:12... I think moving forward it'll stay the same. Um, we'll probably start in August next year, um, because w- we need to time out our president's season-

Tim Fulton 21:22Right

Alex Hasty 21:22... with the election. So, um, other than that, that's pretty much how we do it. We take our summers off.

Tim Fulton 21:26Are you editing it yourself?

Alex Hasty 21:28I do everything myself. I u- I use the word we a lot. Um-

Tim Fulton 21:32And wife-

Alex Hasty 21:32My wife always makes fun of me for that. She's like, "Who is this we?"

Tim Fulton 21:36Right.

Alex Hasty 21:36Like-

Tim Fulton 21:36It's the royal we

Alex Hasty 21:37... it's the royal we.

Tim Fulton 21:38Uh-

Alex Hasty 21:39But yeah, it's just me. I'd love to get, like, an unpaid, uh, intern if you're out there, um, if that's still a thing.

Tim Fulton 21:44Yeah, it's a thing. Well, and I was gonna note, the, any funds that you raise associated with the podcast, it's donated to a scholarship fund that y- you put together, right?

Alex Hasty 21:54It is, yeah. It's a non-profit that, that we put together and we, it's a scholarship program. This year we gave 2,500 bucks to the Ohio History Connection. So-

Tim Fulton 22:03Okay

Alex Hasty 22:04... just because I, I'm on the board with the Ohio History Connection. Um-

Tim Fulton 22:08Well, and you're on the board as a result of the podcast.

Alex Hasty 22:10I'm on the board, yeah. Well, I mean, mostly I'd say because of the podcast, and they're looking to get younger.

Tim Fulton 22:15Okay.

Alex Hasty 22:16Um, but we were looking at our mission statement. I think someone on, on, uh, a friend of mine who works there, you know, has asked me about the... And I sent him some documents, and he's like, "This, we fill your exact mission statement." I never really thought about it. So-

Tim Fulton 22:29Okay

Alex Hasty 22:29... I think we will be making an annual pretty, you know, hefty donation to the History Connection, 'cause A, they help us out so much, and B, they spread Ohio history to people all over the g- you know-

Tim Fulton 22:39Right

Alex Hasty 22:39... country better than we ever could. So they really do do a great job for our mission.

Tim Fulton 22:44That's great. So yeah, they really fulfill your mission. And are, are, do you feel like you're probably gonna divert the, the scholarship plan that you had before, or-

Alex Hasty 22:54Uh, I think we wanna try and see if we can do both. I-

Tim Fulton 22:56Okay

Alex Hasty 22:56... 'cause I think they're both great. I mean, the OHC, you know, I'm on the board with them. It's a three-year term. Um-

Tim Fulton 23:03And this is in Ohi- to be clear for folks that don't know about it, it is a, um, it's a state institution. It's part, uh, you know, the board is-

Alex Hasty 23:13It's, it's really a nonpro- it used to be. It's a non-profit, but basically it's basically through the state. It gets a lot of its funding from the state.

Tim Fulton 23:20Mm-hmm.

Alex Hasty 23:20Uh, and their job is to perform the history activities of the state.

Tim Fulton 23:25Okay.

Alex Hasty 23:25So to preserve, you know, s- the state archives, to, um, you know, promote and share Ohio's, you know, stories and all that kind of stuff. So-

Tim Fulton 23:33Now, is, like, the Ohio Historical Society a part of-

Alex Hasty 23:36It, the Ohio Historical Society is the Ohio History Connection. So-

Tim Fulton 23:40Got it

Alex Hasty 23:40... they basically changed their name to be... They wanted to sound less elitist, I think in, like, 2013, 2014.

Tim Fulton 23:46Yeah.

Alex Hasty 23:46Now I miss them changing their name, I'll be honest.

Tim Fulton 23:48Yeah.

Alex Hasty 23:48Uh, c- and whenever I, you meet somebody and, and they don't know anything about it, I always say, "Oh, yeah, I'm from the Ohio History Connection, formerly the Ohio Historical Society."

Tim Fulton 23:56Right.

Alex Hasty 23:57Um, and, and that's, you know, they are trying to, to get younger, and I think that's one of the reasons they, they invited me on the board. Um, but they do so much good work. I mean, they manage not just the History Center and Ohio Village and all that stuff by-

Tim Fulton 24:10Mm-hmm

Alex Hasty 24:11... the former stadium. Um, but we have about 60 sites around the state also-

Tim Fulton 24:14Right

Alex Hasty 24:15... that we manage.

Tim Fulton 24:15Yeah, any non-federal site, that's-

Alex Hasty 24:17Exactly

Tim Fulton 24:17... you guys.

Alex Hasty 24:18Exactly. So they've been great to work with. Um- And, you know, we have a lot of goals, and the main goal, I still think our eye is on the prize to, to put a museum downtown.

Tim Fulton 24:30Really?

Alex Hasty 24:30A modern, you know, 21st century, um, we would call it the Museum of Ohio.

Tim Fulton 24:35Okay.

Alex Hasty 24:35Um, that's taken a lot of different forms and ideas. Maybe it's a traveling museum.

Tim Fulton 24:41Right.

Alex Hasty 24:42But really I think their... what they wanna do is build something downtown and make it a, a destination for, for tourists and for residents.

Tim Fulton 24:49Now, is that something they'd have to obviously put together like a capital campaign for-

Alex Hasty 24:53Absolutely, yeah

Tim Fulton 24:54... you know, buy some land.

Alex Hasty 24:56Get some land. Um- And I think, you know, I think the peninsula really would be probably a, a good-

Tim Fulton 25:01Yeah

Alex Hasty 25:01... spot for them. Um, they're starting a new exhibit to kind of show this idea of, you know, an interactive, more modern museum, uh, called Ohio Champion of Sports, which comes out in March.

Tim Fulton 25:14Okay.

Alex Hasty 25:14I wanna say mid-March, March 15th, March 17th, something like that. Um, and so it's going to be basically a history of Ohio sports, but also all kinds of interactive exhibits where you can tell your sports glory story and it can-

Tim Fulton 25:27Okay

Alex Hasty 25:27... be added to the, you know, to the narrative and, and a lot of different, um, events around town. And, and again, the exhibit's gonna be up for a year and a half or two, so, so it's mostly a video, um, exhibit.

Tim Fulton 25:40Got it.

Alex Hasty 25:40It's not just old baseball jerseys. Um, a lot of it is gonna be rotating, but it's gonna be different interviews and videos from these famous Ohio events.

Tim Fulton 25:50Cool. And that'll be at the Ohio Historical Society.

Alex Hasty 25:52That'll be at the Ohio History Center, um, again starting in mid-March, so.

Tim Fulton 25:57Cool.

Alex Hasty 25:57You should see a big push for that coming out shortly.

Tim Fulton 26:00That's great. What else do you have planned? You're gonna do, you know, the president's season. What sort of growth opportunities do you see for, for, uh, Ohio Versus the World?

Alex Hasty 26:12I think our biggest thing, and we, we get listeners all over the world, and you always want more listeners. I think our biggest thing is we really need to just get the word out, whether it's through media, you know, whether even, even through newspaper articles, radio interviews, really in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo.

Tim Fulton 26:28Mm-hmm.

Alex Hasty 26:28Um-

Tim Fulton 26:29'Cause you can promote it here, but-

Alex Hasty 26:30We, we can promote it here and, and, and a good part of our listenership is from here, but we get, you know, almost as many listeners from Detroit and Chicago as we get from-

Tim Fulton 26:40Really?

Alex Hasty 26:40... Dayton.

Tim Fulton 26:40Hmm.

Alex Hasty 26:41Uh, San Francisco we get a ton of listeners compared to like Toledo. So for me it's we don't do Columbus centric episodes. I mean, if we do 15 episodes, I'd say two or three of them are, are based out of Columbus or have a Columbus person.

Tim Fulton 26:54Well, and that's just by default.

Alex Hasty 26:56Exactly.

Tim Fulton 26:56Like that would happen if you were based in Cleveland or Cincinnati.

Alex Hasty 26:59Right.

Tim Fulton 26:59Right.

Alex Hasty 26:59So, you know, we do... I'm sure we've done more episodes about Cincinnati and Cleveland than, than we've done about Columbus. Um, that's really what my plan, my growth plan would be. You know, I, I do a lot of podcasts with some national history podcast guys that I really like and respect.

Tim Fulton 27:14Mm-hmm.

Alex Hasty 27:14And they're like, "Dude, you're doing... This show is amazing. Like you're doing such an awesome job, but don't you feel like you're kinda capped?" Like I can't go into Indianapolis or New York and be like, "You gotta li- you know, you guys gotta listen to this podcast." I'm kinda capped by our 11 million residents that we have here.

Tim Fulton 27:31I don't think that's that bad though.

Alex Hasty 27:33No, it's great.

Tim Fulton 27:34Right.

Alex Hasty 27:34It's huge. But it's... If I'm gonna be, quote unquote, "capped" to an Ohio based audience, I need to, I need to do a better job of reaching those major urban centers.

Tim Fulton 27:44Yeah. It may even be time for some sort of like... 'Cause you do a great job of doing like a little launch party at the beginning of every season.

Alex Hasty 27:50Yeah.

Tim Fulton 27:51It's time for, uh, some, you know, a Cincinnati ambassador, a Cleveland ambassador.

Alex Hasty 27:55Right. And do some events down there.

Tim Fulton 27:56Yeah. Well, and also having folks, um, feel some ownership a little bit and, you know, even contributing-

Alex Hasty 28:04Right

Tim Fulton 28:04... to the podcast is something that I've found that I don't really do it that much because it's hard, it's like pulling teeth to actually get the content. But getting, uh, other folks to feel ownership and buy-in-

Alex Hasty 28:16Yeah, I like that

Tim Fulton 28:16... is, is the way to do it, so.

Alex Hasty 28:18Well, we should have another lunch. You're always full of ideas.

Tim Fulton 28:20I'm trying. I'm trying. Listen, Alex, thank you so much for your time.

Alex Hasty 28:25Thank you. It was great.

Tim Fulton 28:36Thank you for listening to the Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. Again, you can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Please rate, subscribe, share this episode of the Confluence Cast with your friends, family, contacts, enemies, your favorite podcaster. If you're interested in sponsoring the Confluence Cast, get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info@theconfluencecast.com. Our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson. Our producer is Philip Cogley. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. Have a great week.