AP Strange: 00:22

Pardon me while I have a strange interlude. But there is nothing else. Life is an obscure oboe bumming a ride on the omnibus of art. Among the misty corridors of pine, and in those corridors I see figures, strange figures. Welcome back, my friends, to the AP Strange Show.

AP Strange: 01:08

I am your host, AP Strange. This is my show and today's show is brought to you by Raditasking Insult Delivery Services because it's sometimes difficult to deliver insults and slander and rumors the way you'd want to without being found out. So if you employ the Ratatosk services, you can have a little squirrel guy do it for you and stir up all kinds of shit. So contact Raditask for your shit stirring needs today. And today on the show, this is gonna be a really fun one that I can already tell.

AP Strange: 01:46

I have Rowdy Geirsson on the show. He is somebody that's been promoting Leaf Erickson awareness for years and writing for publications such as McSweeney's and tor.com, Viking World, I think, Viking, Scandinavian Review, Medieval World, Culture and Conflict, and the author of several books including Scandinavian Aggression, Norse Mythology for Bostonians, and the one I just finished reading, The Impudent Edda, the third version of the Edda that was translated from its original Bostonian to give us Norse myths in a new light shining new light on the old Norse gods. So welcome to the show, Rowdy. This is a is a lot of fun.

Rowdy Geirsson: 02:41

You know, thanks so much for having me. It's a I'm honored to be here and that was a yeah. A great intro. I'm I'm I'm gonna definitely look up the Raditasking service myself. I could certainly use some of some of their

AP Strange: 02:55

handy words. Yeah. The trouble is nowadays, it's like if you insult somebody online, they could dox you. It's just too troublesome. So just employ a squirrel to do it for you.

Rowdy Geirsson: 03:06

Yeah. No one better. Right.

AP Strange: 03:12

I did notice that I think Raditosk only got like a little mention in the impudent head. He doesn't play a very big role.

Rowdy Geirsson: 03:20

Yeah. That's yeah. True, actually. Yeah. Yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 03:24

Gosh. I I'm trying to blink of when and where he might have even been in there other than just kinda, like, in passing, but

AP Strange: 03:31

Yeah. It was a passing mention, I think.

Rowdy Geirsson: 03:35

Pretty much focused on the daily lives of the gods and goddesses and their, you know, on goings more than the creatures.

AP Strange: 03:49

Yeah well as a lifelong asshole I very much appreciated hearing the Etta told from the point of view of presumably somebody that's very drunk in South Boston, swears a lot using Boston locations. Where did the Bostonian Viking idea originate?

Rowdy Geirsson: 04:15

Good question. Does kind of feel, I suppose, a little random at first to look, but it came you know, this goes back a ways. I think it was like 2010 or something, thereabouts that I became aware of the weird Leaf Erickson obsession with nineteenth century Boston or, you know, in nineteenth century Boston and the, you know, the desire to claim the Charles River as the settlement of Vinland for whatever expeditions the Norse had sent out of Greenland a thousand years ago. Okay. Yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 05:02

So, yeah, there's, you know, various old incorrect monuments in Boston and or Greater Boston area. About that, I became aware of that around that time, and I decided to go, you know, admire one of them, which is this, you know, forlorn concrete plaque. It looks sort of like a cheap gravestone, but it's laid on its side instead of vertical, like a proper runestone. Had a very busy intersection right outside Mount Auburn Hospital, and it's, like, completely neglected and disregarded at this point. You know?

Rowdy Geirsson: 05:38

Every someone went there, know, empty beer cans and dead leaves on it and everything, some snow and ice because it was wintertime, but it hadn't, you know, really accumulated yet. I don't I don't know why, but like, I was there looking at this thing and for some reason also the stereotypical Boston accent started going through my head. Yeah. You know, which I don't have one myself, but you know, you live in the area, you become aware of it. There's also all the movies that glorify it, The Departed, and all of them.

Rowdy Geirsson: 06:11

And so they started doing like, oh, fucking leave Arxen, you're like, goes and finds fucking villain. Right. But whatever, you know, and my lousy enunciated approximation of the accent there, it starts going through my head and I can't really shake it. The time I was trying to get my writing out, the choice had to deal with Vikings and one way or another little humor online magazine submissions and stuff like that hadn't had a whole lot of success. I sat down and kind of banged out this, you know, really quick, like, 700 or 800 word overview of the North settlement of Greenland, but as written with, you know, as if a drunk guy from Southie was telling it to you and send it send it into McSweeney's and, you know, which is a, you know, humor website that's only grown since then.

Rowdy Geirsson: 07:18

It was a little more offbeat back in those days, nowadays it's more tied to current events and politics, but they had a really strange smorgasbord of all sorts of different types of things they published, and to some degree still do, but back then that was really kind of more their calling card, and you know the guy who runs the website is from Arlington, Mass, and so he understood it right away and he was like, yeah, you know this is accepted, and I was like pretty surprised because, you know, I guess I didn't expect it to be. Kind of going expecting rejection. And so it was and they're like, okay, well, was fun. I'll do another one, and that ended up being about the kind of establishment of the north city of Dublin, Ireland that coincided with St. Patrick's Day that year, and the guy ran that as well.

Rowdy Geirsson: 08:19

And then he said, Hey, you wanna just keep doing this? It can become a column if you want. And so, it's sort of off to the races at that point. So that's really how the the early days of the convergence of drunk Boston guy who talks to you at the bar when you're just not wanting to be bothered by him meets medieval Scandinavian history. You know, it went from there into mythology as as well, which is, you know, the book is.

Rowdy Geirsson: 08:51

But, yeah, that was the, yeah, that was the origin point, just staring at a forlorn incorrect monument on the banks of the Charles River.

AP Strange: 09:02

Well, it's really fitting because with the ice and snow, you know, they come from the land of the ice and snow. So

Rowdy Geirsson: 09:10

Hammer of the ships, Remember the guys that drove their ships? Right. And their face, Robert Plant, poorly.

AP Strange: 09:19

Yeah. The great skull, Robert Plant, or the bard Robert Plant, I

Rowdy Geirsson: 09:23

think. Exactly.

AP Strange: 09:28

Yeah. Well, is great because I mentioned it before recording, but I find myself in Boston frequently now and it's very tiresome. I hate driving there. I have to drive a truck around in Boston. Oh, okay.

AP Strange: 09:45

Terrible. But having read this, now I have like a new magical lens for Boston and I think it's great. Like people that aren't from here don't it's really impossible to describe just how bad it is to drive in Boston. But in particular, 93 is miserable getting on and off of that over in Dorchester. Yeah.

AP Strange: 10:08

Yep. Yep. And but I 93 is the bifrost, the Rainbow Bridge according to your book. So now I have a whole different look at I'm like, this is wonderful.

Rowdy Geirsson: 10:21

Yeah. It's taking you to the lands or to the gods or the dwarves or or something. You know? It's like you have to have some sort of, you know, sort of tunnel that could cross time and time and space to some other totally different feeling realm. Right.

Rowdy Geirsson: 10:39

You know, we have mass dot for that. Right. Freeway system.

AP Strange: 10:46

Yeah. Well, and you have, like, a whole mythology in here related to the tea as well, which I think is great.

Rowdy Geirsson: 10:53

Yeah. Yeah. The the comes up strongest, I think, in the chapter called the only foolish gods ride the green line.

AP Strange: 11:06

Right. Yeah. Thor and Lucky go over to Riverside and take the green line.

Rowdy Geirsson: 11:11

Yeah. Yeah. Out there. But I think it always felt like the it's slow going in because I've done that through it a number of times, but it's it's when you're trying to head back out from the downtown and you are at you know, no. In my case, it's always been, like, government center or Park Street and really government center.

AP Strange: 11:36

Yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 11:36

But, like, you you know, they're just you're all just lined up there and, you know, they're, you know, you're looking for the d line or whatever it is. And he's like, oh, there's, the c line, then the b line, then the c line again, then the b line again. And, you know, you're just like, we're we're we're like, why? What's the rationale to this? It's Yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 11:54

Easy to see a hot tempered guy just, you know, blowing a fuse Right. In that scenario. Yeah.

AP Strange: 12:06

I have to admit, I'm not enough I'm not familiar enough with Boston to trust myself to ride the subway without help. Like, my wife lived lived there for a while. So, like, if I we go to Boston and we take the we take the tea, I I have her help because I don't know where any of the lines go. I don't know how you connect trains to other trains.

Rowdy Geirsson: 12:28

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's not something you really wanna need to know, but it's useful if you're there often enough.

AP Strange: 12:37

Right. Yeah. Well, is great. I mean, lived in Salem for a short period of time and I had to take the train down from there and then it was it was a good way to get around. But Yeah.

AP Strange: 12:49

I really needed to carefully and ahead of time to make sure I knew where I was going. Yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 12:56

Yeah. And get the right train back. Yeah. I lived in Salem for a brief period as well. I I really liked that town.

AP Strange: 13:02

Yeah. Yeah. Salem's cool. Yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 13:08

Witches. Yeah.

AP Strange: 13:10

Yeah. Well, it's a very witchy town. Yeah. Not not a fun place to live in in October, but Yeah,

Rowdy Geirsson: 13:20

I know what you're getting at.

AP Strange: 13:22

Yeah because that very train stop would just you know at one point during the night there would always be like a huge mob of tourists coming from the train station and all going back to it for the last train out. They're all drunk people falling over each other and crowding the streets.

Rowdy Geirsson: 13:43

Yeah, yeah. I remember the it's like try not to drive anywhere that month. It's like

AP Strange: 13:50

Yeah. When I lived there, I worked second shift, I'd be coming to back into town at like midnight. Oh, okay. Trying to avoid all the drunk people on my way home. It's terrible.

AP Strange: 14:01

Yeah

Rowdy Geirsson: 14:04

but Halloween happens and it kind of tapers off pretty quickly

AP Strange: 14:09

yeah yeah well it's gotten more popular I still have occasion to go there sometimes and it seems like there's tourism pretty much year round now.

Rowdy Geirsson: 14:18

Oh, is it okay?

AP Strange: 14:20

Yeah. I was there the other day and saw a couple of people going by with witch hats on.

Rowdy Geirsson: 14:28

I guess, yeah, I'll, know make it Halloween every day of the year if you want it to be.

AP Strange: 14:33

Yeah, well it's so impossible to get there in the Halloween season. Think people are spreading it out more but yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 14:40

Probably not bad idea. So

AP Strange: 14:47

where did your love of Norse mythology and Viking culture begin? What got you into it originally?

Rowdy Geirsson: 14:54

Oh, yeah. It is sort of a multi step thing, I suppose. Going way back to earlier stages of childhood, which a couple couple key things were we did do a, you know, as a kid, a family vacation to Disney World, and Epcot had some sort of world tour ride or something where you're going through different ancient civilizations from all over the world. I don't remember what all they had. I I think that ancient Chinese dynasty and the Mayans and the Incans and the Romans and whatever, and then you get to Scandinavia and it was the Vikings and a little more recent maybe than some of those others, but that's what they had.

Rowdy Geirsson: 15:50

I just, you know, I made an impression. I don't remember it very well, but it was kind of like, this is, you know, I like these wooden houses in the mountains, in the backdrop behind him, the guys with the big weapons and all of that. That was cool. Yeah. But with the dragon head on it, you know, that's neat.

Rowdy Geirsson: 16:07

So that kinda stood out at an early age as did on a totally different level. My dad's parents are from the Midwest and totally into their Lutheran church, which is huge in Scandinavia. Know, it's like they were not of Scandinavian descent themselves, but they were in an area that had a lot of Germans and some Scandinavians as well, and their church arranged a trip to go see all three Scandinavian countries when I was little. So they did that, you know, and then they come back and they're giving me the and my sister also, the little souvenirs they brought us. And so, you know, that kind of being impressionable Viking doll that I use as my profile photo for pretty much everything online.

AP Strange: 16:58

Right.

Rowdy Geirsson: 16:59

It's it's that that's what what it is. Like, that is what I was given Mhmm. From them. You know, as a little kid, I photoshopped the the Bruins logo onto it,

AP Strange: 17:10

but it

Rowdy Geirsson: 17:12

didn't come with that. But otherwise, you know, that's what that is. So that was sort of early on and then, know, Viking in general since sort of became my go to subject in school whenever we were actually allowed to choose a subject of our own

AP Strange: 17:30

Mhmm.

Rowdy Geirsson: 17:30

And not have it assigned to us. I always picked something related to Viking. You know, made some, like, sloppy clay sculpture, fifth or sixth grade or something, like a little Viking ship that you try to do whatever age that is. You know? So it was just kind of a recurring thing.

Rowdy Geirsson: 17:48

And you eventually get to college, and that's still the level that it's at. It's like, oh, this is neat, but I haven't really gotten into it that much more. Took an introductory archeology class that in the end I didn't really like that much, but I could say that about like, I think every introductory class I took. And we were given a choice of subject matter at one point, and the teacher would assign us a book, and then we had to read the whole thing, like over Thanksgiving break and do some sort of report about it or whatever. So, you know, I was like, oh, Vikings, of course, you know, that's my go to thing.

Rowdy Geirsson: 18:28

So she assigned me this, like, massive 400 page thing, The North Atlantic Saga was called. Pretty it's a really nice book, a lot of good information in it, illustrations and everything released by the, I don't know, the printing arm of the Smithsonian because it coincided with an exhibition they had around when it was released. And so that was kind of like, you know, kind of blew the gates open, so to speak, just learning more about like, oh, know, there was like these accomplishments and these things that you don't know about, you know, most likely that they did or you know, whatever. And so that just kind of, you know, sort of snowballed from there and started reading more and more about them in my free time, know, when I could and was able to. So yeah, that's, know, since then, that's kind of the trajectory, you know, I still do.

Rowdy Geirsson: 19:31

Read about them when I can.

AP Strange: 19:34

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's great. You know, it's always good to follow your follow your bliss, as I like to say, and just the things that make you happy and things you're curious about. Just keep digging.

AP Strange: 19:47

You know? Yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 19:48

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like it's interesting to you, so you have the spare time to do it. Yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 19:57

Then it's a good use of time, I think.

AP Strange: 19:59

Yeah. For sure. So my introduction to the the gods of the Eddas is Wolfencher's mythology I think I read that right around the time I graduated high school just for fun.

Rowdy Geirsson: 20:14

Okay cool.

AP Strange: 20:16

The Norse gods that was kind of my introduction to them aside from like Marvel comics which I know that your your unnamed poet is is a little bit that seems to grind his gears the way that Thor is portrayed but

Rowdy Geirsson: 20:34

yeah He's a very opinionated poet. Right. Had a he's had a few in him at that point, so he's really letting the opinions fly. Right.

AP Strange: 20:50

But yeah, the way you write about him in Bostonian, I should mention the Impudent Edda is translated from Bostonian. I'm fluent enough in Bostonian that I can read the original and probably be okay. But Yeah. For for the listeners out there that aren't from from here, just know that you can get this book and and not have

Rowdy Geirsson: 21:11

to decipher it. But Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. There's there's sorry, go ahead.

AP Strange: 21:19

Well, I was gonna say just like it gives me a whole kind of new perspective on on a lot of these characters because it's it's really fun to think of. I think it was Freya and Frig buying their Falcon seats at Vilene's basement. Like, that that cracks me up because I hadn't thought of that place in years. I was like, okay.

Rowdy Geirsson: 21:38

Yeah. Yeah. It's been gone for a while. Like yeah. I don't know.

Rowdy Geirsson: 21:44

It's just there's so many details in the myths themselves already that, like, you can kinda it's I find it's not that hard to just kinda extrapolate a bit. You know? You're not having to really invent com complete new narratives or anything like that. I mean, I think some people do that, and that's fun too. But it is to kinda try try to tack on a little, like, to the narrative that's already there, and it it fits together in a way that I think makes sense.

Rowdy Geirsson: 22:19

Depending on the perspective that you're taking, which in this case is the drunk guy at a bar in Boston. Right. Know, but no

AP Strange: 22:30

it actually it makes total sense to me because I wasn't really sure how it pulled together and I mean you mentioned making up entirely new stories because there are nine tales in here that aren't represented in the prose Edda or the poetic Edda but It's true.

Rowdy Geirsson: 22:48

There are a few but yeah.

AP Strange: 22:52

Yeah mapping New England locations onto the Norse myths is just such a wonderful idea because they do, like, weirdly fit, you know?

Rowdy Geirsson: 23:02

Yeah. Yeah. Does make sense. There's certain yeah. There's certain things about it that just kinda like, oh, you know, it's this and then this, it could be this.

Rowdy Geirsson: 23:11

And, you know, I have to admit I'm not the really the first to do it. I mean, I go, you know, going back to the I mean, it's a totally different thing, guess, going back to the nineteenth century guys who really wanted to have Viking history around here are kind of making up stuff and trying to make it fit in a different way for a long time. And then the other the other thing that's sort of interesting is I don't know if you've come across Rick Riordan's books. Yeah. He's the guy that wrote Percy Jackson, Greek mythological stories for like young adults, I think they made a movie or two out of them.

Rowdy Geirsson: 23:48

He had a he has another series called Magnus Chase that far as I understand, it kinda does the same thing, but it puts, you know, going with Norse mythology instead of Greek and it takes place in Boston and it was interesting because these, know, they happened around the same time I was writing these. I mean, I'm pretty sure that Mike Sweeney's articles were released first, but his book predates mine by quite, you know, five years or something like that. But and I've never talked to him or anything, but I'm aware of what he's doing. Someone else had brought to my attention at one point, was like, I haven't heard of that. I go and look at it.

Rowdy Geirsson: 24:31

I like, oh, this is interesting. It's like completely different tone and, you know, premise and everything, but still it's like he's got I think he I think his also had I don't know, like, know, there are certain significance to Boston Common, and I don't know if it was the same as what I came up with it for. I can't remember that, but it was like, oh, this is, you know, interesting that independently those two things were kinda happening at the same time. I mean, has a Yeah. He's a major figure, his books are out there everywhere and turning into movies and stuff, but mine's kinda like lurking in the dark spaces of the internet.

AP Strange: 25:14

Yeah. Well, know that I guess there's something about it that just makes enough sense that you would have both independently come to the same idea because, you know, your website is called Scandinavian Aggression and I feel like assholes are famously known for their aggression. So I think there's a bit of Viking attitude.

Rowdy Geirsson: 25:35

Yeah. Yeah. I was like, you know, sorry to layer. I really enjoy when kind of like things can be layered up a little if there's possibility to do that then.

AP Strange: 25:45

Right.

Rowdy Geirsson: 25:46

And it's definitely happening.

AP Strange: 25:49

Yeah, yeah for sure Then as we kind of mentioned like it spreads out throughout New England like the Bifrost can take you up to the White Mountains Of New Hampshire so which is accurate and maps it out really well And and I was happy to see my hometown of Worcester, Mass represented.

Rowdy Geirsson: 26:12

Yeah. Yep. Yep. Worcester has is honored with one of the original narratives.

AP Strange: 26:21

Yeah. The the the one where a tear goes to a metal concert.

Rowdy Geirsson: 26:26

Yep. Yep. That one. Tear tear gets tossed out of a tier concert, band tier. Right.

AP Strange: 26:38

Yeah. Well, see that's funny because my brother worked at the Palladium for years as a security guy. So he might have been one

Rowdy Geirsson: 26:47

of the

AP Strange: 26:47

ones that bounced to TIER from the TIER concert, you know.

Rowdy Geirsson: 26:51

I hope I hope he was. Just gonna And

AP Strange: 26:54

he he has kind of a Viking look too, but Yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 26:58

Forcibly removing the, you know, one handed god of war from the palladium.

AP Strange: 27:04

I'll have to ask him, you know. I'll have to ask my brother about it, but

Rowdy Geirsson: 27:10

Yes. Maybe probably he's encountered certain scenarios that are not too too dissimilar. Yeah.

AP Strange: 27:19

I think it's probably a very well, I know it's a very common occurrence on Main Street downtown in Worcester, outside the the Palladium for for drunk guys that just got booted from the show to be throwing up and realizing they're too drunk to drive back trying to call somebody to come pick them up. Yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 27:41

Palladium is it's a special place.

AP Strange: 27:47

Yeah. Legendary Worcester spot. Yeah. And allegedly haunted too.

Rowdy Geirsson: 27:53

Yeah. I don't I don't recall the story, but I feel like I have heard that. Like, let's

AP Strange: 27:58

I think I think the ghost hunters went there at one point. It was one of the ghost shows. Tried to. Yeah my brothers told me some stories but I don't remember them too well and they're not my stories but yeah yeah

Rowdy Geirsson: 28:17

it's a fitting venue at any rate Yeah,

AP Strange: 28:21

yeah. So for listeners that again, I feel like we have to give context for some of these things that this is a venue and that used to be an old theater. It's a very old building like an old theater for shows, the plays and things like that. Yeah. And it pretty much almost exclusively metal shows.

AP Strange: 28:41

Yeah. Turned

Rowdy Geirsson: 28:43

it really turned into that at some point in time anyway. It's just like, you know, I'm surprised like all these bands that I like, it's, you know, they're always there at least for certain years, I don't know. I think some of them have sort of gotten a little bit bigger and they're now like doing, you know, exotic things like House of Blues in Boston, but there's definitely, it's definitely sort of like the main sort of venue for, well, if you're not big enough to do the House of Blues in Boston, you know, you're probably at the stadium. That doesn't mean you're a small band, but Right. You know, it's just sort of like that's kind of where it is.

Rowdy Geirsson: 29:28

Yeah.

AP Strange: 29:28

It's become like this weird central location for working metal bands that are really trying to make it you know. Yeah yeah and people come from all around to go there.

Rowdy Geirsson: 29:40

Yeah it is like the you know it's the sort of like the the hub. Right. In a sense a certain sort of hub.

AP Strange: 29:50

Yeah and it's fitting it's like an old industrial town and that's that's kind of where some of the original metal came from. I like to think of it as kind of like well like Birmingham and England where Black Sabbath came from and stuff like that, you know.

Rowdy Geirsson: 30:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah it's a it definitely like kind of feels more in tune to, you know the bands and the music and everything than like, I don't know.

AP Strange: 30:16

Right.

Rowdy Geirsson: 30:17

House of Blues which is like right there in by Fenway and like all these kind of trendy bars and stuff like it's cool and everything, but you know you walk out of there and it's different. We're going to a concert, I think it was like ten years ago about yeah, was like I think it was Amana Marth and an offshoot of a band called Entombed, Entombed AD. There's

AP Strange: 30:47

a

Rowdy Geirsson: 30:48

couple friends of mine, Matt and Chris, and they're like, the show's over and they're like ushering us all out. It's like ten in the evening or something like that, not real late. And we come out and there's like this really long line of like everybody who's dressed to go clubbing right after the show ends in the House Of Blues. And it's gonna be, you know, a very different sort of scene that, you know, the girls are all in their, you know, fancy skin tight dresses, and then dudes all got their, like, best suit song and gelled hair and whatever. And, you know, out come all these people wearing, like, all black shirts and jeans, something, you know, a lot of tattoos on some of the people and, you know, there are Yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 31:36

In comments in the line of people waiting to get in for this club dance, whatever event of, like, just ended? Who are these people?

AP Strange: 31:46

Yeah. Why do they look like that?

Rowdy Geirsson: 31:49

Yeah. I was like, well, like, like, oh, what was in there before us? You know? Yeah. And I felt, you know, you wouldn't get that coming out of the Palladium.

AP Strange: 31:58

Right. No. You wouldn't because nobody else would be downtown. Yeah. But it

Rowdy Geirsson: 32:05

would probably end, you know, after midnight because they wouldn't be forced to, you know, end sooner so they could have this other trendy event going on.

AP Strange: 32:14

Well, had a similar thing happen once at the Palladium because there was a show upstairs as well as downstairs and

Rowdy Geirsson: 32:21

Oh, okay.

AP Strange: 32:22

I was this was before it was exclusively metal bands but George Clinton and the P Funk All Stars were playing in the main room. I was going to see that and there was like some weird kind of little local punk show happening in the upstairs room so there's this line of people with like starched mohawks next to like all these people that are in like tie dye and shit.

Rowdy Geirsson: 32:47

That's a funny mix.

AP Strange: 32:49

Yeah, it was there was definitely contrast there.

Rowdy Geirsson: 32:52

Yeah, yeah. And when I kind of like I don't know that I ever was there for anything where they had like two shows going at the same time, but I I don't remember the acoustics being so great like I kind of wonder if the sound of one would be like bleeding through to the other's space or yeah I don't think they do it that often but

AP Strange: 33:15

I have seen shows upstairs it's kind of a much smaller room.

Rowdy Geirsson: 33:19

Yeah.

AP Strange: 33:21

But I saw like Mastodon up there once.

Rowdy Geirsson: 33:24

Oh yeah, no that's cool. Yeah, I've seen a few up there and it's like you know, yeah, I guess they kinda know how to plan it.

AP Strange: 33:37

So do you like a lot of Scandinavian metal?

Rowdy Geirsson: 33:41

Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So big yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 33:45

Some some that are pretty big fans of, you know, the aforementioned aforementioned Mon Amarth was a big big one for me. Well, there others at the top echelon would be dark tranquility and insomnium. You know, they've all got names clearly indicating, like, darkness or coldness and sleep deprivation and, you know something evil in Lord of the Rings or whatever. Yeah.

AP Strange: 34:19

Yeah. Well, I I mean, Lord of the Rings is kind of funny because you do note it throughout the book and you know it's kind of generally known that Tolkien took a hell of a lot from Norse myths for his books, right?

Rowdy Geirsson: 34:35

Yeah. Yeah.

AP Strange: 34:38

How do you feel about that being kind co opted by tech bros that seem to want to identify with the bad guys all the time these days?

Rowdy Geirsson: 34:46

By who who didn't catch you.

AP Strange: 34:49

Just kinda like tech bros like Peter Thiel Oh. Elon Musk. They always seem to wanna, like, grab a name from Lord of the Rings to use, like Palantir and things like that, you know.

Rowdy Geirsson: 35:01

Yeah. Yeah. It's like, you know, sort of unfortunate. Think there's a long history of that kind of thing happening more with factual Norse mythology than Lord of the Rings. But yeah, like, I mean, since you're kind of related, I guess, same sort of mindset of like, kind of someone like that, and just taking a taking something that really has no, you know, bearing or position on, you know, any of thing in today's world at all, and like kind of using it in a way that then, like they're trying to like him, you know, it's like they're putting some sort of external value on it that's not right.

Rowdy Geirsson: 35:57

And, you know, the kind of hope is that, you know, it'd be nice if they didn't do that, but also, you you don't want to see that kind of take off and then become like the standard meaning of something.

AP Strange: 36:09

Right, yeah, yeah. Well, because it does get dicey. Mean, I'll admit when I see somebody with like a Thor's hammer like necklace or something, I'm a little, you know, squinty eyed at them for a second because I'm like, do you just really like North Dakota or are you a white supremacist? Sometimes they can go either way.

Rowdy Geirsson: 36:30

Yeah. Yeah. I mean I mean, they're known to use it. I mean, I well, my interactions, it's definitely in the minority at least, fortunately, but, you know, it's known to be out there that there are going to be these sorts of white supremacist type people that take that symbol or some sort of like rune symbol or something and just kind of start trying to use it in a certain way that's, you know, never intended and does it ruin it for everyone else? Like one of the more interesting ones I came across lines was the Vinland flag.

Rowdy Geirsson: 37:10

I don't know if you ever heard about this or came across that. Mean, looks like an Arctic flag with that sort of a same sort of cross, but sort of off centered. And instead of blue and yellow for Sweden or red and white for Denmark, etcetera, was green and black. And at some point in the 2010s, it got labeled as a hate symbol by some organization or multiple organizations that watch these kinds of things because there's like neo Nazis somewhere marching around with it. And the flag was an invention, if I'm not mistaken, I'm like, you know, this is like a 99% certainty sort of thing.

Rowdy Geirsson: 37:49

It was invented by Peter Steele, who's a musician in a band called Typo Negative. I mean, he just kind of came up with it, it was like nothing, it was just like some weird little experiment of his. He's dead now, so he can't even defend it.

AP Strange: 38:03

Right. Yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 38:03

You know, it's like they use it on their albums as like a little thing in the corner on the back, and, you know, it was like, it was just this little like artistic production now that these people have gone and like, you know, kind of ruined it in certain contexts anyway. Right. You know, this just this guy's just doing music. He's just doing like weird, quirky, humorous, depressive metal stuff, know. Right.

Rowdy Geirsson: 38:30

Songs like I don't wanna be me and just Yeah. Know.

AP Strange: 38:36

So Yeah. Yeah. It's been years since I've listened to or thought of typo negative, but yeah. I remember that.

Rowdy Geirsson: 38:43

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it was like, you know, it's like, come on. Like, you know, you have somebody going and, like, doing this and, like yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 38:50

It's, you know, it's unfortunate.

AP Strange: 38:53

Well, is tough because, I mean, your book and your writing in general is is hilarious and it's also very true to the Norse myths as I know them or as far as I know. I'm not an expert on Norse mythology, but so so it's it's one of those things where it's just like you know fascists and white supremacists ruin everything for everybody because yeah yeah you know you're just you're just trying to have fun with Odin or stories about Loki or something and I'm not saying that you you've you know I'm not saying anybody's directly accused you of anything I don't know if that's happened but but it's just it's dicey these days if you see somebody that's really into the biking stuff, you have to wonder at first at least, you know. So yeah,

Rowdy Geirsson: 39:48

I've never been accused of anything and know, the vast majority of people I come across that are into stuff are totally fine. Right. It's sort of like a minority that have a tendency to possibly ruin it for everyone else, but they are out there. Mean, the closest example I came I wasn't, know, accused, but the kinda closest run-in I had was I had a history of going around. I haven't been doing it as much as I used to, but I go around and put up flyers and stickers for my website.

AP Strange: 40:23

Yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 40:24

Telephone polls and light polls and stuff like that. And at one point over ten years ago, that was probably more like fifteen years ago, I had to put one up on a on a it was probably a light pole in Lowell, and, you know, it has, like, my little website's logo on it, which is like the three Viking helmets, which is really just a parody of the Swedish national symbol, like the three crowns. And so this is just sort of making, you know, not not in a derogatory, but it's just kind of playing off that. It's like

AP Strange: 41:02

Yeah, yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 41:03

And a little bit of text that was God, I can't erase, you know, was just hinting at things that's in my other book and it's also on the website. Like I used to have a directory of beer that you know, used a label that was derived from something related to Norse history or mythology. I took that down a while ago because it got to a point where it's like I couldn't keep up with it and know about all of them. Shoot the microbrewery explosion. But, you know, it was like, was a beer directory and there's like, you know, one of my my other book has a, you know, a scene where some Vikings enslaved some leprechauns, you know, and that's, you know, I was like, oh, so there's, you know, leprechaun enslavement and The Little Mermaid gets beheaded because there's a statue of the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen that has historically on multiple occasions been beheaded.

Rowdy Geirsson: 41:55

So, you know, this is all this is all meant to be like, you know, humorous is kind of cartoon violence, but nothing like making nothing like what we're talking about with these types of people. But somebody saw that sticker in Lowell and within a few days I got an email from the I don't remember what they called themselves. It was like the Nazi Organization of Massachusetts was their, like, email address.

AP Strange: 42:22

Oh, wow.

Rowdy Geirsson: 42:22

And and it was like, hey. Do you wanna do you wanna collaborate? We could we could really help each other out. And I was like, yeah. You know, that one that went straight into the trash can.

Rowdy Geirsson: 42:33

Like, like, I was like, so so they got the wrong attention, you know, like, that's not what I'm looking for, you know, and, you know, it's rare, you know, like, I have like this one story that I just told you that that was it. Right. You know, it was one time in, like, nearly twenty years of screwing around with this stuff Yeah. That I had sort of this sort of direct thing, you know.

AP Strange: 42:59

Well, yeah, that is good to hear. Because mean and it's not just Norse mythology there's all kinds of world traditions and myths and things that are just co opted by just complete bastards you know. Yeah yeah The kinds of people that Thor would smash and kick out the door. You know?

Rowdy Geirsson: 43:19

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Know what I mean. They you know, it would be so, like, confounded that it their symbols are being used in such ways.

Rowdy Geirsson: 43:28

Right.

AP Strange: 43:33

Yeah. Do you have a favorite Norse story, either one that you've you've written up as a Bostonian one or just in general?

Rowdy Geirsson: 43:45

Yeah. Yeah. I guess I'd say as, like, kind of a general, like, probably, like, Tyr losing his hand to the wolf. Right. I just that one's just I don't know.

Rowdy Geirsson: 44:03

Like, it's kinda stuck with me and memorable and, you know, the over overview for anyone who doesn't know is that there's a prophecy that the wolf is gonna be, you know, an evil villain in the future. So the gods try to, you know, get him captured, he doesn't trust them. So he makes tears stick his hand in his mouth while performing these tricks that test his strength. And, you know, when he realizes that the gods have tricked him and it's not a test of strength, they're just trying to trap him, he bites Tirs hand off. And so Yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 44:38

I always liked that one. And then say like, as far as out of the nine Bostonians that I came up with, had a special fondness for the one in which Odin sends Freya a dick pic. It set the tone for other instances in which Odin it's mentioned Odin couldn't show up because he was busy you know, pestering Freddy with his dick pics again. Right. On his phone in the cave or whatever.

Rowdy Geirsson: 45:13

And

AP Strange: 45:14

He just can't help himself. He can't

Rowdy Geirsson: 45:15

stop doing it. He doesn't know what else to do. He's like, this is the most fun he's ever had. But I I was really happy with how that one kinda worked, the sort of known myths and characteristics of the gods into the nonsense that I made up. Know, you know, Odin Odin is not necessarily a really gentle, kind old man.

Rowdy Geirsson: 45:40

He's kind of a gnarly, you know, he's, you know, so this sort of keeps in with his character and the fact that he and Mirmer, the, you know, head of wisdom, you know, that Odin is always consulting with to learn about exoteric knowledge, of concoct this plan to pester Freya. And in the actual myths, the gods are always like bartering Freya off to the giants anyway. So it's like it all kinda

AP Strange: 46:06

Right.

Rowdy Geirsson: 46:07

Came together. And I so I had I had fun with that one, I guess, like, more than the others. Yeah. No. It's I should say.

AP Strange: 46:17

Yeah. Well, it is a lot of fun. Oh, man. I was gonna pivot to something. What was it?

AP Strange: 46:29

Just off of what you just said prior to I think we got carried away with the dick pics, and then I forgot what I was gonna say.

Rowdy Geirsson: 46:38

I mean, yeah. Yeah. Dick pics an exciting subject.

AP Strange: 46:45

Right. Yeah. Oh, I know what it was. Was see, that's interesting, like, because so the all the Norse gods have our current technology and all those other stuff. It's, like, anachronistic as far as the old Eddos go.

AP Strange: 47:05

This is a brand, you know, but it doesn't actually deviate from them really. Feels it has the feeling of being in the same tradition and I love the various explanations that are supposed to be like a scientific explanation for how

Rowdy Geirsson: 47:20

this works. Yeah. I'm fun I with that. And that's I get occasional questions of like, why is this not an ebook format? And that's pretty much the reason why is I don't think it can really separate the footnotes from the main body of the text without losing something.

Rowdy Geirsson: 47:48

Because ebook, normally read paper books myself, but as I understand ebooks tend to put everything into like an end note and I just it is Yeah.

AP Strange: 48:00

Would be really inconvenient because the footnotes are some of the funny, like, really good stuff in there, really good information and knowledge in there, but also really funny stuff in there.

Rowdy Geirsson: 48:10

So yeah, it's like it's, you know, kind of, you know, bits and bits and pieces, some of it and, you know, explains like what the actual, you know, in whatever of the, you know, real medieval Eddas, what what the deal actually was, and other times just trying to explain, you know, the the transmogrifier the crowds keep using, you know, and relying on basically back to the future and Calvin and Hobbes for the advanced technology that the gods had in ancient Scandinavia without really coming out saying it, but, you

AP Strange: 48:50

know. Right. Okay. Yeah. Transmogrifier that does that comes from Calvin and Hobbs.

AP Strange: 48:56

Okay. That makes sense.

Rowdy Geirsson: 48:57

It does. Yeah. Yeah.

AP Strange: 48:58

Well, you know, Watterson, that sounds like a Scandinavian name. So It

Rowdy Geirsson: 49:02

kinda does. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. I mean, you know, you you you know, it's all it's all connected in a thread.

Rowdy Geirsson: 49:11

Right.

AP Strange: 49:12

You're just tapped into something. Yeah. But I I like this idea because because of my own magical weird beliefs is that like these gods exist outside of time anyway. So that means they're always existing at every time. So like Yeah.

AP Strange: 49:33

So you can have a creation story about, you know, that occurs on on Riviera Beach. Riviera. But you know, you can have that and it's accurate. It's still accurate. You could have, you know, one of the the world serpent at Casco Bay up in Maine.

AP Strange: 49:56

Sure. Why not? Know?

Rowdy Geirsson: 50:00

Yeah, it's all kind of relative in a way. I mean, there isn't any reason why is the stories can't kind of be transported that way or time and space. So though, you have to work up some sort of framework to get the audience into it, I suppose. But, you know, there's like, you know, it's very amorphous in the in those poetic and prosettas, you know, it's just they're walking

AP Strange: 50:33

along.

Rowdy Geirsson: 50:33

Well, where are they walking along? We don't know where they're walking along. They're just walking along, you know. Yeah. You You found some driftwood and, you know, of course, what of do you do with driftwood?

Rowdy Geirsson: 50:45

We turn it into people. Right. Create life. Yeah. So, there's a, you know, you can stay pretty true to the I'm gonna just say plot line for lack of a better word, but, know, just like the action the actions that happen in them, stay pretty true to them and kinda fill in the blanks otherwise without having to change them too much because there's enough of a blank slate for the setting and certain other details that can do that.

Rowdy Geirsson: 51:20

So to me, that was probably the funnest part of it because hey. There's a lot of really formal retellings these days that are just taking it exactly as the stories have come down to us and just turning into a novel format or, you know, kind of focusing on a single god or goddess or whoever is a character and, you know, coming up with a story around them. There's a, you know, a couple that there's a Gospel of Loki that Joanne Harris wrote in Witch's Heart by Tania Gornachek that both do that with characters that are characters gods, goddesses, whatever that are kind of peripheral or kind of considered on the bad guy side in Loki's case generally and sort of, you know, still follow what's going on, but it I don't know, it's a totally different way he's doing it. It's almost like a subversion in a way where he's like, don't really think mine is. Like, you know, it's pretty, you know, doing something sort of similar, but it isn't really subverting the myths, know, it's not turning It's like, it's not, you know, Loki's the hero and Odin's the villain.

Rowdy Geirsson: 52:41

It's, you know, Odin's kind of a jerk, but he's still on the side of good opposed to flipping that.

AP Strange: 52:50

Right, yeah well yeah like I said they're faithful renditions and where they deviate from the prior ed as is always noted in the footnotes, which is great.

Rowdy Geirsson: 53:03

Yeah, yeah. Well, mean, that is kind of important to do that to maintain that sort of pseudo scholarly tone. Then also it allows kind of people, you know, anyone picks it, you know, I think if you already kind of have a basic familiarity with the miss, you'll get a little more out of it than if you don't. But if you don't, the footnotes would steer you right in terms of knowing what's been made up and what hasn't been.

AP Strange: 53:33

Yeah, and they are extensive and every bit as entertaining as the main text.

Rowdy Geirsson: 53:40

Thanks. Yeah, yeah it's

AP Strange: 53:44

And I learned things about yeah, I learned things about Boston that I didn't know in there like you have the character of Charlie in the book and I you know I went to Boston plenty of times, rode the tea, got a Charlie card and I never knew why it was called the Charlie card and then you kind of have the origin of Charlie in a footnote.

Rowdy Geirsson: 54:06

Yeah. He's the man who never I forget the it's in this, like, a song, but the man who who never escaped or never whatever. Like, he wasn't allowed

AP Strange: 54:18

to his fare. Yeah. He could pay his fare to get on the train, but he didn't have enough to get back off, so he stuck

Rowdy Geirsson: 54:23

on the train forever yeah beneath the streets of Boston

AP Strange: 54:28

right

Rowdy Geirsson: 54:31

yeah so go ahead

AP Strange: 54:36

I was gonna say in this became a song that was made famous by the Kingston Trio so I had to look that up and I'm just like I'm like this is amazing I never knew about any of this I never knew why it was called the Charlie card.

Rowdy Geirsson: 54:49

Yeah exactly Charlie Cod based to write forever beneath the streets of Boston

AP Strange: 54:56

right so you see people you get the Boston lore and the Norse the Norse mythology as well so

Rowdy Geirsson: 55:07

yeah it's a it's a mishmash but

AP Strange: 55:12

yeah not to mention the sports illusions because all these you know because I mean athletes in a lot of people's minds kind of are are the the gods or the heroes of our our modern mythology right? Yep.

Rowdy Geirsson: 55:27

It's one in particular that comes to mind in relation to that comment. For those of us who live in New England. Right. Greatest of all time and all that. Yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 55:41

So, yeah, he's not act he's not playing anymore, but Tom Brady and. Right. He gets a he gets a lot of attention in the book.

AP Strange: 55:51

He sure does. Yep. It's really really great the way he did it. But I mean, know, we have statues of these people. You have a picture of the statue of Bobby Orr in there, you know, like because there's a appendice in here, the the lay of the bees, where he's just listing Bruins players.

AP Strange: 56:17

Yep.

Rowdy Geirsson: 56:19

Was one that like, it's not very fun to read. It's, you know, fortunately only half a page, but I got I had a lot of fun with the idea. And then in the original book being the Norse mythology for Bostonians copy, which came out before the Impudent Edda, but they're basically the two sides of the same coin. It's the earlier one that was written with, you know, mean, like, every word in the book is misspelled because it's trying to capture the Boston accent, you know.

AP Strange: 56:51

Right.

Rowdy Geirsson: 56:52

The r's, it's all, you know, Charlie Cod instead of Charlie Card.

AP Strange: 56:57

So but

Rowdy Geirsson: 56:58

that one, I had introduced this lay of the bees thing as a just through the book because that happens in some of these old Viking, you know, Norse whatever sources, and the most famous one is the Tally of the Dwarves they call it, which is in the first poem in the Poetic Edda, which is kind of about creation, kind of proceeds through some events, and then you know the end with Ragnarok. But like, you know, and you get like not not quite halfway through, then all of a sudden it's just listing dwarves, like the names of all the dwarves. Yeah. It's like, it totally interrupts, like, you know, we have the creation and, you know, like, what, you know, who are the monsters and what like, now we're just gonna list a bunch of dwarves. So I put it in the middle of the book originally because, you know, to create an interruption.

Rowdy Geirsson: 57:54

Yeah. I was like, that's you move it to independence for the updated one and people can look at it if they want. Plus then it allowed me to technically say there were nine new myths in the main body and they, you they kinda kick that tenth thing to the back. Yeah.

AP Strange: 58:16

There you go.

Rowdy Geirsson: 58:17

Stick with the number nine. But but yeah. Yeah. It's just Bruin the the Bruins who won the Stanley Cup in 2011, you know, just like our anonymous narrator reaches a point where he just can't hold back and he has to list every every player on the team. It's a good idea.

Rowdy Geirsson: 58:39

Right?

AP Strange: 58:40

Yeah. Oh, man. I remember that night. Like, people went nuts on that.

Rowdy Geirsson: 58:45

Yeah. Yeah.

AP Strange: 58:46

It's basically riots of the streets because people were celebrating so hard. You know?

Rowdy Geirsson: 58:52

Yeah. It was kind of unexpected that season. I was in Providence at the time and was actually at the sister restaurant of McGreevey's, which was owned by one of the dropkick Murphy's guys. They don't they'd opened this other one in in Providence called the Whiskey Republic. I don't know if it's still there.

Rowdy Geirsson: 59:17

I I think McGravy's didn't survive the pandemic. I don't know if the one in Providence did, but it was there. My parents were visiting me for a week or or something and like, oh, we'll just go have, you know, dinner and beer or whatever. And, like, we decided to go there and, like, it didn't get all that busy, but, like, when they won the game, like, like, it was crazy. You know?

Rowdy Geirsson: 59:42

Was, all the all the wait staff got on the counters, you know, popping the champagne bottles and

AP Strange: 59:48

stuff. Right.

Rowdy Geirsson: 59:50

Yeah. Like, yeah, that's that's that was memorable.

AP Strange: 59:54

Yeah. I mean, was in Worcester and Worcester blew up that night. Oh, yeah? You you could hear people cheering when you're outside, like,

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:00:01

in the streets and stuff.

AP Strange: 01:00:03

The only the only thing that topped it was when the Boston when the Boston Red Sox won the World Series.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:00:10

Yeah. Yeah. I remember that one. In two Old

AP Strange: 01:00:12

Town went nuts.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:00:13

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. People driving around honking and everything.

AP Strange: 01:00:18

Yep. Oh, yeah. And then speaking of the red sox, have a kind of a origin story of the green monster in here, which is great.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:00:26

Oh, yeah. Wally the green. Yeah. Course, he was begat by a Norse god. Right.

AP Strange: 01:00:42

It would have to be that way for sure.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:00:44

Yep. Yeah. I was like, you never can think about the, like, mechanics of these things. There's always, like, all sorts of weird procreation going on in the mist. Like, how that actually happened?

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:00:54

They were like, you know, it was like, you know, some someone and, like, another person is, like, 10 times the height or whatever. I don't know. You know?

AP Strange: 01:01:05

Yeah. You

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:01:07

know? So

AP Strange: 01:01:09

Well, there's a trans transmogrifier is involved somehow.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:01:14

Clearly, yeah, transmogrifier, maybe a Falcon outfit thrown into the mix for good measure. Right.

AP Strange: 01:01:25

Good stuff. Yeah. So I mean, in addition to all of this stuff, did wanna get to this as well because I think we probably first became connected years ago due to weird Wednesday and that's weird with a y. Did wanna talk to you a little bit about this because it's, know, this weird Wednesday was at least partially your baby, right?

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:01:49

So Babies and babies. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:01:54

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, I guess, like, you know, maybe give a little I should probably explain, like, what it is. Right.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:02:04

Yeah. Yeah. But

AP Strange: 01:02:06

This was on Twitter from my perspective. I I I became aware of, like, hashtag weird Wednesday on Twitter and loved it. I used to try to contribute a tweet at least one for everyone's day, you know?

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:02:18

Yeah, yeah, I know and I remember that. I mean, think that is how like, you know, yeah, we first were connected and I think we'd maybe made some comments and stuff to each other at the time too, Twitter has had a different history since then. But it was initially just every Wednesday on Twitter, there there is a theme and there's a of a rotating group of us that have posted it over the years, but, you know, we'd come up with a theme and if you posted something related to the theme and tagged it with the hashtag Word Wednesday, you know, we we retweet it as the terminology still was at the time, and it was just kind of a fun thing, know. It was like, yeah, you get a little bit of a kind of a community thing, a little bit of an exposure thing, and you kind of meet new people online that you hadn't met before, and it's all just kind of fun. You learn about something maybe you didn't know about related to the theme that you think is cool and, you know, you can follow-up on.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:03:15

And it followed a model created by Folklore Thursday,

AP Strange: 01:03:20

or at least

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:03:21

I believe they created it, maybe something else did sooner than them, but for the stuff that, you know, we're talking about there, the kind of originator and is the same model as, you know, folklore related and, you know, on a Thursday they'd have a theme and same thing, you know. There were a couple others existing at the time, mythology Monday and fairy tale Tuesday. And so, you know, what happened was it was March 2020, Derik Peuil, who's a Wunderkammer on his social media

AP Strange: 01:03:57

Mhmm.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:03:58

Tags. Posed, you know, posted, tweeted, you know, we've got Pathology Monday, Fairy Tale Tuesday, and Folklore Thursday, but we don't have a Wednesday. There's like this gap there. And I replied and I said, yeah, it is weird, isn't it? There ought to be a weird Wednesday.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:04:14

And so this whole conversation started and, you know, I if I remember right, I initially said it with the why because I'm thinking like fate and Norns and Norse stuff and all that, and a couple other people got involved in the conversation. Like, we get the guy's name, Scott, Folkgoth was his handle and someone Badger. You know, four of us were chatting about it, and we're like, well, okay, let's create it. And well, it turns out the weird with well, we decided that the thematic thing would be just kind of bizarreness and anything goes. So the traditional English word weird would work better than with the y.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:04:54

Somebody already had that on Twitter at the time, so we ended up going with the y anyway Yeah. In the spelling, but we're gonna kinda have sort of a, you know, sort of oddball, whatever sort of thing. And so Dirk and I and Scott were the first hosts since Scott dropped off fairly quickly. So Dirk and I have been the only ones on it the whole whole time now, and we've had a little bit of a rotating mix in the in the, you know, hosting along with us. Had Sydney Monney might have come across her in your days on Twitter was with Shannon Sin, who was with Folklore Thursday.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:05:39

And now we have it's still Dirk and I, and we've got C. W. Reeve, who's out of England and Samantha L, I think she just uses her last initial for her last name and Haley, who goes by Prairie Bones. And so it's the five of us and we've moved off Twitter earlier this year and the four of them are running the Blue Sky Show and I'm attempting to get the Instagram one ball going a little bit more. Okay, yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:06:14

It's a for it's a little different format, so it's growing gradually, but you know, it's an interesting thing that, you know, despite having more similarities than not, I think in terms of its format, people just interact with it differently. Right. So

AP Strange: 01:06:34

Yeah. Think you get kind of a wider, wider range of things with Weird Wednesday because I like, Folklore Thursday could be a little intimidating. It It was for me because I'm like, I don't I don't know. I don't consider myself a folklorist per se, you know. Yeah.

AP Strange: 01:06:51

And all kinds of weird stuff, but, like, Weird Wednesday, I always felt a little bit more comfortable trying to share some tidbit on on theme. You know? Yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:07:00

Yeah. And I think, like, over at some point in time, you know, we kinda moved away from what had originally been, like, just let's just do bizarre, odd stuff to Yeah. Oh, whatever the theme is, let's just come up with a theme, and as long as it's fun. Yeah. You know, it can be any, you know, it can be anything, you know, kind of no boundaries as long, you know, I say no boundaries, know, as long as it's not like, you know, like a swastika or pornography or something, you know.

AP Strange: 01:07:25

Right. Yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:07:25

Stuff like that, which, you know, everybody that participates in it for the most part is pretty good. Like we have very rarely had instances of people post anything that, you know, along those lines. I mean, the worst behaviorisms have been like, we don't really want to be, you know, promoting AI generated art, and a few people have been really big into that, and then sort of a spamming sort of behavior, so and that's really that was kind of part of what got us to stop Twitter finally. I mean, still have the account, but we're not managing it or hosting it, but you know, was like that platform changed as it was. We were like, well, there's still people on it that are participating, maybe we'll keep it going, you know, with the unless you're wanting to line Musk's pockets, then that algorithm clamps down on your reach.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:08:30

Yeah. So, you know, we went from having like, yeah, you know, if this was a popular weird Wednesday post, it'd get, know, hundreds of likes, which is really easy to do because all you have to do is tap the heart symbol, you

AP Strange: 01:08:40

know. Right.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:08:41

And that same thing would be like down to a dozen or whatever, and we're getting, you know, the same handful of people are kind of spamming us, and there's a lot of AI, just like, just no more of that, let's just focus on the other two and see what happens, and blue sky is really kind of taking off.

AP Strange: 01:08:58

Yeah. I really cannot wrap my head around the mindset that goes into using AI for such a thing because it's such a fun kind of exercise to share and talk about myths and folklore and weird stories and stuff.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:09:14

Yeah, it's such a there's so many cool old works of art that are out there in the public domain and a lot of people use those. And so like, I don't know, mean, I'm thinking of one individual and particularly if I won't name, and she's always seemed to be like a pretty good person to play along with. It's like she just like switched over to just, you know, usually in the past had posted, you know, stuff that you could tell like she, you know, she wrote the text for you know, found it out about it somehow, wrote some text, and found a little piece of art to go along with it or whatever to just kinda, like, AI generated animations. And it was just that wasn't the wasn't the same and but, you know, most people have been pretty good and, you know, give a little credit, you know, it's like, okay, you know, this little artwork was by, someone you who died one hundred years ago, but you know, still credit where credit's due. Yeah, yep.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:10:26

You know, so you know, it's fun, so we're still doing it, it's just the it's kind of like a re reconstruction practically because of the platform change and Blue Sky seems to be the one kind of leading the pack, although.

AP Strange: 01:10:45

Yeah. Well, it's the one that's most functionally like the old Twitter. Yeah. But it's it's yeah. Yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:10:52

And a lot of people migrated to that one too, I think. I don't know if as many people went over to Instagram or I mean, we I think Dirk was playing around with threads for bit too, but I don't think that really had the same Yeah. Impact as

AP Strange: 01:11:12

Yeah. It's tough. I mean, I I don't really know how it could be done, but I feel like there must be a way to abandon the platforms altogether and, you know, kinda like return to what people used to do, like, just a blogging or forums and and and stuff like decentralized from the from these platforms that that are just designed to waste all our time. Like, literally, that's what they're there for. They don't care that you get any value out of it.

AP Strange: 01:11:43

They just want you hooked on your phone. You know?

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:11:45

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's all, like, Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk and Yeah. You know, Jack Dorsey or whatever his name is, got got the new one, but it's a lot smaller and Yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:11:57

But, yeah, they are like little thinners. They've more fun than I thought they would be, I guess. Like, it's it's a time waster, but it's also like it's a good connection sort of builder thing like I mean we came across each Yeah

AP Strange: 01:12:13

well that's what I mean though is that I used to be able to use it in a way that I found meaningful and that I found useful. Nowadays they're they're in shitified to the point that they're no longer than that.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:12:25

Yeah I think they've been.

AP Strange: 01:12:27

That and should ification is done purposely sometimes just to make you frustrated and keep you on the site trying to mess with settings and stuff because the longer you're there that's either way that's in that screen time, that's that's time that you're wasting on it. It still helps them ultimately.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:12:47

Yeah. Yeah. Well, they'll get more of your data and they'll show you more ads that, you know, they can charge per click or

AP Strange: 01:12:55

Yeah. Whatever. Twitter used to be something you could curate and you could, you know, only follow the people you wanna see and that's what you'll see most of the time, you know.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:13:06

Yeah. Yeah. It was a it was a it was a well functioning platform. I mean, they had this tweet deck thing that we used for Weird Wednesday that made it so much easier that, you know, was demolished several years ago with us changing ownership. Yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:13:28

But, yeah, it's I don't know. This is I was surprised when I first joined it at actually I was convinced to join it in Salem, which we were talking about before is Yeah. When there was I think it was 2018, we went with couple of my friends, the same guys I saw the concert with that I I mentioned when we had the clubbers waiting to go in after us, and Yeah. There was a replica Viking ship that sailed into Salem, the Herald something Drakkar. I don't remember what they called it.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:14:06

Think it was like a play on like dragon and Herald Fairhair or something or other anyway. But, you know, so we were like, okay. Well, of course, we have to go see this. You know, we see the Viking ship sail into the Witch City. That's cool.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:14:15

Like, I mean, who doesn't want to have a Viking ship in the Witch City? But yeah, we had to yeah, so we saw like we went over to Notch Brewing over there if you're familiar with it.

AP Strange: 01:14:29

Yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:14:29

And yeah, we're having a, you know, we're having a beer and you know both of them are like, you really need to join Twitter. The fact that you're not on social media is like probably hindering you at this point, and like, you know, was like, okay, well they made a convention case, so I tried it and I was surprised that I did have fun with it and like made so many good connections, you know. And you know that was the side of it I never really saw coming myself. Was just kind of stuck in the like, why do I want to get on social media?

AP Strange: 01:15:06

Right.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:15:06

Mode. You know, it's like, oh, I'm a deeply embedded in social media. Role reversal. Yeah.

AP Strange: 01:15:16

Well, and as a writer, it's like, it's kinda tough. You have to try to get your writing out there and sometimes social media is the only thing that that that'll help you with that but

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:15:26

Yeah.

AP Strange: 01:15:27

I'm afraid it's come to a point where where everything is so the algorithms are so gamed and owned and they're cutting off access to to a lot of this stuff that you can't organically grow an audience with with social media like you once could. So there has to be something to fill that void and replace it, I think.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:15:49

Yeah. Yeah. Just the next

AP Strange: 01:15:53

What if there's a way to set up just like an RSS receiver and you I'll just send things via RSS to one place. That would be pretty good. Yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:16:03

I don't know. And I mean, I don't know if you ever did you ever try Mastodon? Because I was kinda like all the rage for a couple years ago, and I never did. I I I don't know if it I I never really got a clear idea of how it worked but I didn't try it either so.

AP Strange: 01:16:17

I tried it and really didn't have a clear idea of how it worked and then I guess like the domain that I chose went away so I somebody meaning very well tried to talk me through it. They're like, it's super simple to switch your your username over to a different server. You just follow this step and then do this thing and then put the, you know, like, the what's a who's it on the thing and, like, you know Yeah. I believe that there's a list of steps that I had to take, and I'm like, yeah. No.

AP Strange: 01:16:48

I'm not using that app.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:16:49

Like Yeah. That and that's probably too. There is, like, a ease of use and then also like just kind of how how far can you spread yourself out? That's the trouble.

AP Strange: 01:17:03

I deeply I deeply reason I'm having to be like on every platform to promote just, even just this podcast. Yeah. I'm like, you know what? I didn't sign up for promoting everywhere. I don't make money off of anything I do.

AP Strange: 01:17:19

I don't intend to make money off of anything I do. I just do it for fun. So hopefully it finds the right people because I'm not gonna spend all my time on social media, like, pumping everything I do, you know, like, just can't, you know.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:17:32

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's gotta be a limit somewhere and I mean, think that's kinda where Yeah. You know, of us are not looking to be like influencers somehow monetizing social media posts and getting kickbacks from posing with certain brand items, whatever goes on with that

AP Strange: 01:17:57

line. I hate talking about it because I don't really wanna talk shit about anybody either. So, like, you know, like, you if that's what you do, more power to you. Like, good. Yeah.

AP Strange: 01:18:07

You can make money off this stuff, fine. Like, I'm not shitting on the idea of it. It's just that's not what I'm doing. So like, I really resent the idea that I have to be on every social media platform. It just bugs me.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:18:18

Yeah, just to get the word out and Yeah. Which is, yeah, hard as it's so so kind of fragmented now. Yeah. It's just like, it's a different goal than trying trying to make a living out of it.

AP Strange: 01:18:37

Yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:18:39

But it yeah. I don't know. I hear you on that. I have, like, the kind of little bit that I sort of tend to do each day and then like, that's it. It's like, you know, I've heard about Acidone, I've heard about Discord, I've heard about all these other things.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:18:55

It's just like, you know, unless I hear a compelling case from somebody that uses one of those, was like, yeah, this is like great, this is really like, you know, stop spending your time on whatever and, you know, check this or not, then that would be okay, that'd be interesting to look up, that's, I'm not really seeking it out myself and it hasn't really come to me either. I think everybody is most, you know, most people are kind of all in the same boat of like these are the ones that there are, so.

AP Strange: 01:19:30

Yeah. Yeah. I think yeah. And they all kinda suck in one way or another. There's no real good place to go.

AP Strange: 01:19:36

So it's just you know, we all just gotta do what we can do. But I appreciate you. I appreciate the work that you put in and the writing that

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:19:46

I do.

AP Strange: 01:19:46

I'm glad you're out there. And I mean, I think I'm just gonna have to do with with your website. What I feel like I need to do with a lot more people's is just check-in, like, And I'm going to encourage my listeners to do this. Listeners get off the socials so much, but then just go check out blogs and websites that people actually put time into peruse them. There's lots of

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:20:12

old places

AP Strange: 01:20:13

on these things that you can go read that you haven't seen before, so they're new to you.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:20:18

Yeah. It is a good point. Like, I mean, the old blog thing, like, I enjoy it. Like, I mean, and I there's a period of time where I basically just kind of stopped updating my website, but I'm trying to update it once a month again now. You know, it's not exactly like super frequent or, you know, and if you're not into, don't know, quirky Viking stuff, you might not find a whole lot to interest you, but like, you know, it was a realization I had about eighteen months ago, maybe.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:20:47

It's like, you know, why, like social media is getting increasingly annoying and dysfunctional and whatever. And, you know, so kind of, you know, what you're saying, your point, like, you know, people have their own websites or sometimes just newsletters Mhmm. You know, that you can sign up for and, you know, know, you get it in your inbox and if you wanna read it, you can. You don't have to, but

AP Strange: 01:21:19

Yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:21:21

You know, it's not like it's not like being on a, oh god. I missed the whatever post on social media thing. Right.

AP Strange: 01:21:35

Or somebody going live with something and you feel like you need to be there for it and stuff. Yeah. But I mean, there there's a lot on your website. There's a whole wealth of of posts on there. So people can check-in, you know, every day and not run out of stuff for a while.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:21:52

So There's a lot at this point. I mean, I have, like, next, yeah, next year is gonna be technically the twentieth anniversary for it. Like

AP Strange: 01:22:01

Awesome. Been

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:22:03

around so I'm thinking of a thinking of a slogan that I'm gonna try and maybe put in the upper left when that happens. Like, thousand and seven to 2027, I think I'm gonna have, like, you know, those are the numbers and then, instead of just, you know, like twenty years or whatever, like, you know, really lay into like what the website is kind of humor is and be like, know, twenty twenty years of wallowing in obscurity or twenty years of languishing on the web or something something like that. Just kinda like, you know, because I don't know. There's something there's something about that sort of self deprecating negative humor that I find very I

AP Strange: 01:22:48

have a

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:22:49

very fond, you know, opinion towards. Right. It's like

AP Strange: 01:22:56

It's the it's the website equivalent of hanging out in government center waiting for the right train to come and bring it back to Riverside.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:23:06

Yeah. Exactly. Yes. The no. You have to find some humor in these, like, you know it's not a it's not a it's not a fun experience at government center, but, you know, make make fun of it later on when you're after you've had a moment to extricate yourself from the situation.

AP Strange: 01:23:30

Yeah. Oh, I just had a memory. I just had a memory pop up at Government Center, actually. Was waiting forever and then the train finally showed up and I guess there had been a Red Sox game and for some reason the train car was completely full of Japanese people that were coming from Fenway. I don't know why it was just like a full train car of Japanese people.

AP Strange: 01:23:53

None of them got off at Government Center. So, like Yeah. They had to get in there and squeeze in with It was, like, crazy.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:24:00

Yeah. But, you know, the thing is, like, if you could have gotten a photo of that and posted it on Twitter or whatever as a would have gone viral.

AP Strange: 01:24:08

Right. Yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:24:10

Bring it back to social media. Right. It's like, you know, some snarky commentary to get along with it, but I have a feeling it would've been like, it would've it would've made the rounds. Yeah.

AP Strange: 01:24:25

Well, there was no way I was gonna pass because they you know? Right? Yeah. Yeah. Who knows when the next one's coming?

AP Strange: 01:24:32

So Yeah. Yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:24:34

Force your way in. Hope for the best.

AP Strange: 01:24:37

Yep. Nothing like being packed in like a sardine on one of those trains, man.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:24:43

Yeah. Yeah. Especially in the summertime. Yeah.

AP Strange: 01:24:45

Right.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:24:48

Warm down there.

AP Strange: 01:24:50

Yeah. Gets uncomfortably moist and it just feels wrong. Yeah. Well, I think we're gonna wind things down here. This this has been wicked fun just like I thought it would be

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:25:11

yeah piss her so

AP Strange: 01:25:15

just so my listeners know where where people can find you and Weird Wednesday. You mentioned that you run the Instagram one, so that's at mothers of weird Wednesday, I think you said. Right?

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:25:31

Yeah. I believe that's what we're using there.

AP Strange: 01:25:33

Yep.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:25:35

That's the yeah. Weird Wednesday itself, I think, on blue sky.

AP Strange: 01:25:42

Yep. Mothers at mothers of weird Wednesday weird with a y on Instagram, so that that's cool. But if you wanna follow follow your work

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:25:56

Yeah. I'm I've been inconsistent with my profile name. So Rowdy on Instagram, and blue sky is r Geirsson. So Okay. Yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:26:13

It's don't know why I was inconsistent like that. I probably shouldn't have been, but

AP Strange: 01:26:20

Right. And the website is scandinavianaggression.com. Right? Yeah. And people could find all your books and your writings and the links to McSweeney's and all the other great stuff.

AP Strange: 01:26:32

So

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:26:32

Yep. Yep. All that stuff. The the book links have PDF excerpts if anybody's curious. Since the looked in site isn't active on the book site that most people buy books at.

AP Strange: 01:26:52

Right.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:26:53

Yep.

AP Strange: 01:26:54

Okay. Cool. Alright. Well, great. Thanks so much for coming on, man.

AP Strange: 01:26:59

This was a lot

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:26:59

of fun. Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah. This was a lot of fun.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:27:01

It's really cool to, know, have a chance to, you know, kind of get to, you know, talk to you a bit as well after this kind of, you know, interactions in the past and then sort of a blip and then kind of finding each other again. So that's really, really cool. So Oh,

AP Strange: 01:27:23

right. Yeah. I mean Yeah. I feel like it's been a ragnarok of sorts.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:27:31

Yeah. I like to I like to say that each each year, this decade just gets worse than the one before it. Yeah. Right.

AP Strange: 01:27:41

Yeah. Sounds about right.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:27:42

Yeah. So we we have a few we have a few more to really look forward to.

AP Strange: 01:27:48

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, hang in there, man.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:27:54

Oh, yeah. Thank you as well. Yeah. Yeah. Go go see some metal shows at the Palladium.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:27:58

Take your mind off things.

AP Strange: 01:27:59

Yeah. Yeah. Throw throw some people around. Yeah.

Rowdy Geirsson: 01:28:02

Yeah.

AP Strange: 01:28:04

Alright. Cool.