Three Announcements

I’m thrilled about three things coming up and I’d love to share the news with you. Ready? Let’s go.

A NEW PODCAST SERIES

I recently hinted that a new podcast series running parallel to History on Fire was in the works, but I left the details nebulous. I changed my mind about keeping it a surprise and decided to share my plans before the official release.

A few months back, Arizona State University asked me to teach for them a course I had never taught before: ancient Rome from origins to the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Even though I have read an ungodly number of books on the topic, and have studied it all my life, I spent somewhere between 300 and 400 hours preparing it. But the thing is, a survey course covering over a thousand years of history in 16 weeks is by definition superficial. There’s simply no time to explore the topic with any degree of depth. Introductory courses are great for what they are designed to do, but after working so hard, I wanted more. That’s when the proverbial light bulb turned on, and I decided to create a whole podcast series about ancient Roman history.

As soon as the idea popped into my mind, the first thing I did was contact Mike Duncan, the creator of The History of Rome podcast, which aired from 2007 to 2012. Mike is one of the early pioneers of historical podcasting, and a very nice guy. We podcasted a couple of times together in the past, so it felt rude not to discuss my plans with him. While it’s true that no one has a monopoly on any historical topic, I still thought it’d be disrespectful to tread on the same subject he covered without having the decency to check in with him. Being the gentleman that he is, Mike was very supportive and encouraging about me crafting my own podcasting version of Roman history.

Despite Mike’s very sweet attitude, for a moment I second-guessed myself. Just about every historian and their grandmother have already covered Roman history. Could I really bring something new to the table? Only one way to find out. I started writing the notes for a few episodes to test things out. It didn’t take long to find out that, for better or worse, my brain works in odd ways and my take on Roman history would be unlike what anyone else had done. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing, that will be for you to decide. But what I can guarantee is that it’s different.

The plan is to tell the whole story of Rome from its mythological founding to the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Mostly, it’ll be in chronological fashion, but every now and then I’ll also release episodes about Roman culture (from religion to cuisine, from literature to gladiators). The show will have a very different format from History on Fire. Instead of long episodes once a month, we’ll have episodes with a running time of about half hour, four times a month. My guess is that the whole thing will be easily over 200 episodes. Probably closer to 300, or possibly even more. That’s easily 4 to 6 years of work, with a new episode nearly every week.

So, when is this new podcast coming out? No idea, and here’s why. Realistically, I’ll need a huge back catalog before I can release the first one. Creating a new History on Fire episode once a month is brutal enough. Adding four Roman history episodes is not a testament to my intelligence, since I’ll seriously be pushing the limits of what’s possible. The only way to have a chance to stick to the schedule is if I have plenty of them pre-recorded before I ever release episode 1. For a while, I thought 15 to 20 episodes would be enough. But I now realize that’s not the case. In order to avoid miserably failing on the deadlines, I want a year of material ready before I officially begin. If I do 4 episodes a month, that means 48 episodes. Right now, I have 20. Not bad, but a lot more to go. So, this podcast will happen, but I don’t exactly know when yet.

MY DAUGHTER STARTING A MUSICAL CAREER

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of sitting down for a meeting with Mr. Randy Jackson. Besides being a judge on American Idol for over a decade, he is a great musician and producer. The point of the meeting was to discuss my daughter’s music. Her producer had sent Randy some of her work, and he immediately replied that he wanted to chat with us. By the end of the conversation, he offered to distribute her first single, which will be released in a few days (here’s a link where you can pre-save it—for free, of course—and find all her social media links. It’d be sweet if you gave her a follow). Interestingly enough, Randy asked for a good song but not her best, since his strategy is for each release to be better than the one before.

Since she was very young, my daughter has been an incredible writer. At 11 years old, they tested her language skills in school and it was suggested that she take college courses because her writing was already beyond the high school level. I fault myself for not giving her more props, but I grew up around writing. Both of my parents are writers, and I’m a writer, so I’m culturally conditioned to think that being a good writer is the most normal thing in the world. Of course, that’s stupid, but my brain sometimes forgets to shake hands with intelligence. But if I failed to be as impressed with her writing as I should have been, even stupid me couldn’t help but take notice of her musical talent.

I recall once, when she was 14, she was invited to perform a song during a concert. No one there knew her. Within a minute of her starting to sing, I saw multiple people in the front rows with tears in their eyes. I have no idea where the ability to inject emotion into one’s singing comes from but, apparently, she has it (here’s a cover of Back to Black). And the songs she writes have a tendency to get stuck in people’s heads hours after they’ve heard them.

The first time she recorded anything, it was when she was 12: a cover of the classic Italian song Bella Ciao, with a haunting arrangement by two-time Grammy winner Ulises Bella (of Ozomatli fame). Here’s another version of Bella Ciao recorded a couple of years later.

For the past year, she has been working in the studio with my long-time friend, musician and producer extraordinaire Saverio Principini (Saverio, btw, also makes some incredibly good wine) to record her creations. The experience of sitting down to record with musicians who have played with Miles Davis has been slightly surreal for someone as young as she is. Since Saverio shared the private links to the songs with the people he knows in the industry, the feedback has been insane. Artists with more Grammy wins than I have digits have reached out to express support. The list of people who responded enthusiastically reads like a Who’s Who of the music world.

The first song about to be released has an interesting genesis. When my daughter was in middle school, a boy there liked her but, being a middle-school boy, he felt awkward and didn’t like the other kids making fun of him. So, he went for the good ol’ sour-grapes tactic and called her ‘immoral.’ When pressed by her to explain himself, he couldn’t. This didn’t stop my daughter from getting mad and eventually writing a song about it. Here’s Iz telling the story.

Anticipated thanks if you choose to support her work by following her on whatever platform you listen to music!

A HISTORICAL TRIP TO JAPAN

Last but definitely not least in today’s announcements: a trip to Japan!
A couple of years ago, I had the chance to help lead a historical tour of Japan organized by Geek Nation Tours. We had a great time experiencing incredible sights, eating some of the best food imaginable, and immersing ourselves in breathtaking natural beauty. The subject of that particular tour was the Genpei War (1180-1185)—a topic to which I have dedicated two episodes of History on Fire: Part 1 and Part 2.

This year, we are going back for a completely different tour. The subject this time will be the latter stages of the Sengoku period, which culminated in the battle of Sekigahara in the year 1600. If you have watched the TV series Shogun, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. You can check out what the tour will look like here.

Teras Cassidy, the man behind Geek Nation Tours, is a master of his craft. It also helps that he has both a deep love for and extensive knowledge of Japan. The first tour I joined with him exceeded even my most optimistic expectations, and I strongly believe this one will be just as memorable.

We are currently wrapping up enrollment for the tour. So, if you are interested, please reach out to Teras and let him know. I’m very much looking forward to returning to Japan.