Episode 19- Emperor Norton

[00:00:00] Josh: What's up. We Khamenei X. Welcome back to read it on Wiki. My name is Josh shell and I am your host for today with me of course are my comedic duo, John and Sean, John, tell the people how you're doing, which one, John. Oh, I know it sounds the

[00:00:18] John: same P Diddy, Sean, John, I'm doing all right.

[00:00:23] You know, it's a, it's a fine Thursday evening. Shout out to X what's going on.

[00:00:29] Josh: I hear you're bringing back the found dead next year. Super excited for that. Do you want to tell the wicked maniacs about.

[00:00:37] John: Yeah, so dumb found dead is now dumbfound resurrected. So we will be back to life January 20, 22. So if you're all about everything, I say a lot of puns in this episode, that show is a lot worse.

[00:00:52] So if you don't know, if you haven't heard yet, it's about two dudes. One of my good friends and my brother, Patrick, actually people think we're actually [00:01:00] related, but we're not racist. We find the funny ways that people. You know, that's strange and borderline comical. It'll leave you dumbfounded. Goddamn. I still remember the hook, but we're bringing it back January 20, 22.

[00:01:15] It's not going to be a weekly episode anymore. It's going to be once a month, but we're still going to give you some

[00:01:19] Sean: content.

[00:01:20] Josh: Oh yeah, dude. That's exciting. Good to be good to hear Patrick again and your dynamic. And so I'm excited for that side. Well, you guys come up with and wish you luck for that.

[00:01:35] John: The formula is working

[00:01:37] Josh: to sell it.

[00:01:40] Sean: It sells

[00:01:40] Josh: itself. That's true. That's true. Unlike us, we've got to promote everywhere. We've got to work real hard. And Sean, I think the week after this episode comes out, you'll be saying I do how was, how are the plans for that coming along? And if you want to share anyway[00:02:00]

[00:02:00] Sean: bank accounts, empty credit cards, maxed stress.

[00:02:04] Anxiety all time, high levels feeding 200 people insane. But my heart is full and I'm happy to be getting married for the second time to the same person we did not get divorced. We just had a COVID wedding last year, and now we're doing it again. And yeah, real exciting. Hopefully

[00:02:22] Josh: it goes off smooth.

[00:02:24] Hell. Yeah, dude. Is there a live stream that John and I can pop into and talk shit, but

[00:02:32] Sean: definitely not now.

[00:02:33] Josh: Not damn. There's anyone that opposes. Ah, we're just screaming at

[00:02:40] Sean: our screens,

[00:02:41] John: but it's too late. They're already married. Is, is your wife hiding behind you right now? You have to say those positive. Oh

[00:02:47] Sean: no.

[00:02:47] This time. No.

[00:02:50] Josh: Oh, he met. Oh my goodness. Well, that's lovely. I'm happy for you guys. And you'll, you'll have a few weeks off from this podcast anyway, so it might just be John and I for a [00:03:00] bit. Yeah, but that's exciting. That's exciting. Well, we can maniacs, if you would like to help pay for Sean's wedding or just help us with the podcast

[00:03:10] Sean: for the love of God,

[00:03:13] Josh: you can help support us on patrion.com/read it on Wiki.

[00:03:17] On there, we have episodes a week early and ad-free if we get enough patrons, we're going to do some cool stuff. Some more cool stuff as well. So definitely sign up and Help a brother pay for 200 meals.

[00:03:30] Sean: Also, Martin Shaun's by registry is Zola doc

[00:03:38] orange Sean's

[00:03:38] John: case. When it comes to early episodes, it's not seven days. It's six

[00:03:42] Josh: days. It is early. It's just not on time. This is doing a lot better. Okay. Wicked maniacs. We never

[00:03:50] Sean: talked about. When exactly what early means. All right. I thought we were just posting it a week

[00:03:58] Josh: early. So to beef [00:04:00] to be fair, Sean, John's the other way around.

[00:04:02] If he gets an episode done, he just posts it. Like, it'll be like 12 days beforehand and I'm like, oh my God, I'm supposed to make them wait, John. I thought this

[00:04:10] Sean: was like a, like a scheduled Patrion, like every Monday, boom, a drop. I

[00:04:15] Josh: didn't know, edging. You got to tease it out.

[00:04:18] John: I put out right away.

[00:04:19] Sean: Okay.

[00:04:20] Josh: First date out there.

[00:04:21] John's too easy. I'm easy. So yeah, so you can, you can go to patrion.com/reddit on Wiki, get those ad free episodes. So if you hate John yelling at. To buy stamps. Definitely go check those out. If you're strapped for cash like Sean cause you're getting married as well and want to help out, you always share the podcast or just giving us a rating on apple podcasts, pod chaser, a good pods.

[00:04:47] And we might read your review out on the show like this review from L falconer who gave us a five star rating titled recommend. She says, or he said, I enjoyed the discussion [00:05:00] on Salem witch trials. Plus they got to the real heart of the debate on what is the best candy, fun podcast recommend end quote.

[00:05:09] So the odds are, she didn't vote for her or she, he or she didn't vote for my candy. So not, no one

[00:05:15] Sean: voted for your shit.

[00:05:18] Josh: So I, I appreciate the review, but I can tell you have a bad taste in candy.

[00:05:26] Sean: Did you have jelly beans, jelly, beans,

[00:05:29] John: black and blue, black

[00:05:31] Josh: and purple actually. Yeah, actually it's funny.

[00:05:34] My, my girlfriend bought one of those full containers with four quarters of different candies. One was black and orange jelly beans. And she told me not to eat them, but I, I did

[00:05:45] Sean: wait. So is your girlfriend a big jelly

[00:05:48] Josh: bean fan to know? Cause we were having a party and she wanted to use it as decoration on like the Shukui board.

[00:05:54] She was making. And a sharp[00:06:00]

[00:06:00] I ate it first day.

[00:06:05] Now now that all the housekeeping is out of the way, I'd like to start this episode, as I usually do by putting you two on the spot and asking a question that you were definitely not prepared for. So John and Sean, I have to ask you, do you know who emperor Norton the first is? And do you know where he ruled?

[00:06:26] We're

[00:06:26] Sean: not doing Egyptian resurrections.

[00:06:29] Josh: We're not. I told them I switched it up on John.

[00:06:33] John: Fucker's making me work

[00:06:34] Josh: more. I say this one was more fun. Say that name again. Emperor Norton. The first Norton, I'm

[00:06:42] Sean: going to say some emperor. What did they have? Fucking hampers

[00:06:49] John: China. No

[00:06:50] Sean: Norton is

[00:06:51] Josh: Chinese is not.

[00:06:54] Could you imagine the Ming dynasty Norton dynasty [00:07:00] shut the noise? This dude shot yet?

[00:07:04] John: I have no idea, no idea, but it sounds maybe in a, I was going to say like a Scandinavian country, but I don't really know where a fucking scan Navy is, but Finland. Sure. Yeah. Shout out to Finland.

[00:07:18] Sean: Is it, is it, is it been Lynn a Scandinavian?

[00:07:21] Josh: They are, yeah.

[00:07:27] John: fucking kilometers. Two miles got down

[00:07:31] Josh: there, buddy. So sorry.

[00:07:35] Sean: Who cares about. I'm in their hearts. You know what I'm saying? I'm close

[00:07:39] Josh: by already get that's true.

[00:07:42] Sean: So big, nothing

[00:07:44] Josh: got nothing. All right. All right. And then Sean saying, Finland? No, no, no.

[00:07:50] Sean: John John just said Scandinavian country. So I gave a shout out to the best fans in the world.

[00:07:55] Shout out Finland, baby. You know, the vibes, patrion.com/reddit [00:08:00] on Wiki. But I'm gonna say this cause this is where Ryan is right now. And I miss the HMI Croatia regarding Croatia.

[00:08:08] Josh: Okay. Okay. He is not emperor of Croatia. There is no way you would have guessed where he is the emperor. Because it may come as a shock to you, but emperor Norton, the first was the first and only emperor of the United States of America from September 17th, 1859 until his death on January 8th, 1880, nearly 21 years.

[00:08:34] 18.

[00:08:35] Sean: This is after while we have a president.

[00:08:38] Josh: That is correct, sir.

[00:08:40] John: Wait, is this a legal

[00:08:42] Josh: title? Probably not, yo fuck it.

[00:08:46] Sean: The second United States emperor. It's your boy. Sean y'all know the box.

[00:08:52] John: I don't know why, but have you guys seen that one person that runs usually in a presidency it's like a wizard?[00:09:00]

[00:09:01] Josh: What are you talking about? The grand wizard.

[00:09:04] John: There's like a wizard that runs for president all the time. , I don't know.

[00:09:08] Josh: No it's in Germany, I think it's the black night. No, there's one in the U S oh, okay. Yeah. That's the grand wizard, John and he is racist.

[00:09:20] John: Not for all. Is that it's called the grand wizard.

[00:09:22] No, no,

[00:09:23] Josh: no. That's the grand I'm

[00:09:24] Sean: talking

[00:09:24] Josh: about. The grand wizard is KKK. Oh

[00:09:29] John: shit.

[00:09:31] Sean: Definitely not that definitely not.

[00:09:34] Josh: Oh, my God. Well, that's not, that's funny that I convinced you that that sort of,

[00:09:38] John: well, I'm very gullible guys. I just

[00:09:41] Sean: Googled it. United States, wizard, president, and nothing came up. John, I don't trip.

[00:09:47] You are fucking thinking of probably the German guy.

[00:09:51] Josh: What hallucination have you been having know? But anyway many of you may [00:10:00] be screaming.

[00:10:01] Sean: I'm not tripping. His name

[00:10:02] John: is vermin Supreme,

[00:10:04] Josh: vermin Supreme. Oh yeah. That came up. What a name?

[00:10:09] John: See, he looks like a fucking wizard. Oh,

[00:10:12] Josh: wait. It's got a boot on his head.

[00:10:14] See an

[00:10:14] Sean: actual wizard. I

[00:10:16] John: don't know. It's just a boot. Had it had had its.

[00:10:21] Josh: Vermin Supreme part of the libertarian party. So I already don't like him. Oh,

[00:10:27] Sean: he wears a wizard hat. Oh no, that's just a fucking

[00:10:29] Josh: boots, bro. It's a boot. It's not even a wizard. Well, I thought it was,

[00:10:33] John: he looked like double door to me.

[00:10:34] Okay. Shit. This may be a long beard and a hat I'm like that's Dumbledore. This man has

[00:10:39] Sean: only 60 years of.

[00:10:41] Josh: That's insane. Oh my God. He looks like he's 80. He's

[00:10:44] Sean: aged poorly.

[00:10:47] Josh: That's what you get when you wear a boot on your head, I guess, and rename your guy, Vernon, vermin hugs. This guy looks like he'd get along with emperor Norton, to be honest.

[00:10:58] But yeah, so many of [00:11:00] you may be screaming into your radio or phone, you know, Josh America never and will never have a, an emperor. Donald J. Trump takes his rightful place on the throne. Oh God. To that I say, please go back to listening to Fox news. But no emperor Norton is a true story.

[00:11:19] At least kind of you see Joshua, Abraham Norton was born in the town of Deptford, England, which is now. On February 4th, 18, 18 to Sarah and John Norton when he was exactly two years old John and Sarah decided to relocate their family from London to South Africa, where John had established a successful ship shot Shandel, Shaundra jewelry, which sounds like chandelier, but it's basically a business that provides supplies to ships.

[00:11:49] And so like, you know, Cape town being a big. Place, they moved to Cape town and South Africa. This was also part of a larger migration of, , white Europeans to [00:12:00] South Africa because, , racism and colonization. Yeah, they're not great people. Just, they move in, they get cheap or free land because they steal it and give it to the white people.

[00:12:14] Yeah, fun stuff. We won't get into that too much, but for, for nearly 20 years, John ran a successful business and was busy in the sheets having a total of 12 children with Joshua being the second oldest.

[00:12:30] Sean: My

[00:12:30] John: son, Josh.

[00:12:35] Josh: Oh, God, I just realized. Yeah. I'm your daddy, John. Oh, God, you die. So Andrew racist again in this story. Yeah, I don't know if they had a kid named Sean that actually might be one of their kids' names. God, I hope about it. I don't want to be a part of this. I think it was spelled differently though. I think it was S a U N.

[00:12:59] Oh, so there [00:13:00] actually was. I think so. I think both of my children, it started with an S I, I could look it up for you if you give me two seconds. No,

[00:13:11] Sean: St St.

[00:13:12] Josh: Call me daddy. Oh God. I don't like this now. I don't like the tone. I do want someone else to

[00:13:20] John: go to your room son.

[00:13:24] Josh: Anyway, they, they might've had another kid named Sean, but they definitely had 12 kids. So we'll go with that. So so yeah, so it was a successful business for nearly 20 years. But all things good things come to an end and John's business began to decline in the 1840s.

[00:13:44] Eight years later, John died, followed shortly by his wife and two of them. Which is just, I don't know what happened, but Joshua didn't really give a shit because he was out of there by 18 45, 3 years before his dad's death or any of his siblings or mom died.[00:14:00] It's unclear why he left or where he actually went for four years, but he ended up appearing in north America and specifically San Francisco, the city of dreams.

[00:14:12] Yeah. That's that's what people say. Right? I don't know. What do they say about San Francisco is fuck over there. So, all right, well area the foggy, but the bay area is how you said. Yeah, we'll call it caught that. The main reason people believed he moved to San Francisco was the gold rush. Cause it was popping off.

[00:14:32] Back in the day, people were getting rich, people were getting pulled. The city almost burned down a bunch of times. It was great fun time. And with so many people moving into the city, Joshua saw a need for a real estate company. So in 1849, Joshua established the Joshua Norton and company real estate company, which as a matter of full that's what she

[00:14:54] Sean: said, a dominant.

[00:14:56] Josh: And in three short years he had amassed a quarter of a [00:15:00] million dollar. Or about $5.5 million in today's money. So he was hitting it big with the real estate, because if you think about it, like the gold rush, people would move into the city. And then they would either go bankrupt and have to sell their house, or they do well.

[00:15:17] And then upgrade, you know? So it's like, it's constantly, there's constant real estate. It's a very big growing market in San Francisco. So he profits off of that does very well for himself. But in late to 1852, a famine hit China, creating a shortage of rice that drove up the price 900%. Thanks Obama.

[00:15:37] John: I'd be fucking dead if rice was that expensive, because boy, I need that shit

[00:15:41] Sean: fun, fun fact that did not eat rice. Until my now wife made me eat rice regularly. Oh

[00:15:49] Josh: my God.

[00:15:50] Sean: Yeah. My sister, my older sister, when I was younger, told me they were checks and then I never ate it from like age five to like eight.

[00:15:58] [00:16:00] 2015 years of no rice. Oh my God. But anyway, San Francisco, right. And

[00:16:08] Josh: you were traumatized. Yes.

[00:16:10] Sean: I knew they were, by the time I was older, I knew they were not road checks, but in my mind, I was emotionally scarred.

[00:16:17] Josh: Now, how do you feel about it now?

[00:16:21] Sean: I eat it a lot. My wife, when we first started dating was like we're going to be eating sushi, whether you like it or not, so you better start liking it.

[00:16:27] And I was , okay. And then yeah, now I fuck with sushi. I fuck with . I fuck. With Filipino garlic fried rice. Yes, the best.

[00:16:35] Josh: Oh yeah. So yeah, just, just

[00:16:37] Sean: a fun fact.

[00:16:41] Josh: I don't know, John, just to look so disappointed at you. I am very disappointed.

[00:16:45] Sean: I eat it now. I eat it now. It's fine. It's probably , it's probably why I'm morbidly obese.

[00:16:50] Now.

[00:16:51] John: You too. Shit, dude. I fucking beat everything. Right. It's like sometimes eat hot Cheetos and rice. Just how much

[00:16:58] Sean: it's fucking weight. [00:17:00] Nothing else. Just hot Cheeto and rice, hot

[00:17:02] John: Cheetos and rice.

[00:17:05] Josh: Where's your protein.

[00:17:07] John: No goddamn protein of hot Cheetos and

[00:17:09] Sean: rise.

[00:17:12] Josh: I guess that's that's fair. You don't need it.

[00:17:15] I guess,

[00:17:16] John: racist.

[00:17:18] Josh: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it was life for San Francisco. You know, they loved their rice over there. What a God damn segway. Beautiful. Go ahead. Go

[00:17:26] Sean: ahead. Sorry

[00:17:27] Josh: that got

[00:17:28] Sean: a rice out of me.

[00:17:31] Josh: I think that was, that was bad. I'll go shit. God damn it. Go back to the

[00:17:37] Sean: Dumbfoundead

[00:17:41] Josh: 2022, January,

[00:17:43] Sean: 2022.

[00:17:46] Josh: So anyway, so the price of rice 900%, which is crazy huge spike in in, in, in rice price.

[00:17:53] And Joshua was presented with a quote-unquote opportunity to buy a shipload of Peruvian rice [00:18:00] that was sitting on a boat in the San Fran Harbor at 12 and a half cents per pound, as opposed to the 36 cents per pound, Chinese rice. So on the surface, it looks like a good deal, you know, He's paying for about a third of the price of Chinese rice, however many he, so he puts down his order.

[00:18:19] He, he gets that ship and he's ordered a bunch more, basically all of his money, all the way in on this, this, this a roulette he's he's, which is dumb. But so he puts it in and then more shiploads of rice begin to arrive from. Which are all much better quality than the ship Joshua bought and rice he bought.

[00:18:41] So so many ships began arriving. In fact that it drove the price down. Two 3 cents a pound of what Joshua paid originally. So massive L yeah. Not, not a good look for your boy. It sounds like me and GameStop a couple months ago.

[00:18:59] John: It was [00:19:00] not good for you.

[00:19:01] Sean: Some would say the fact that I'm still in

[00:19:03] Josh: it is fool's gold, but oh God, carry on. Okay. I didn't never bought in, but yeah, that's my unfortunate, my bad financial

[00:19:13] Sean: decision should not be mentioned to you again. I'll go back on his Patriot back.

[00:19:22] Josh: Oh so Joshua ended up trying to fight the current. And for three years he was in a legal battle with the courts to try and get out of the contract. But the courts ruled against him and he was forced to pay which all, but financially ruined Joshua. And he kind of went off the grid for a little while.

[00:19:40] It's it's, it's unknown where he went for the next four years. Like he just, he, he moved out of his house his very nice house, some speculated. He might've left San Fran for. But it is more likely that he just kind of lived in like a depression in the city somewhere that he could afford. However, when he did pop up [00:20:00] again he wasn't quite the same, you know, he's maybe a little off his rocker.

[00:20:04] If someone say, you know, I think, I think the the fall from grace did a number on his psyche. But he began handing out flyers to local newspapers. That began by saying quote at the preempt Tory request of a large majority of the citizens of these United States. I Joshua Norton, formerly of Algoa bay, Cape of good hope.

[00:20:27] And now for the last nine years and 10 months past of San Fran, California, declare and proclaim myself emperor of these United States. And quote,

[00:20:40] Sean: bro, this is big. This is big. Michael Scott. I declared bankruptcy.

[00:20:53] Holy shit. He just wrote a letter that said I am emperor now.

[00:20:58] Josh: Yeah. And just handed them [00:21:00] out to a bunch of newspapers and we will get to where that. After we ourselves declare bankruptcy and get some ads to help us out again. So so poor help. Maybe, maybe we can get a sponsor to sponsor your wedding or something.

[00:21:20] Please we'll live, stream it to all the Wikipedia. Just tell all

[00:21:25] John: the Reddit people to rise up the stocks again for game stops. So you can sell,

[00:21:29] Sean: buy a fuck ton of game stuff,

[00:21:31] Josh: stock buy stocks to the moon.

[00:21:36] So we are back. I hope you bought some of our products from our sponsors or whatever, or game stop stock or game stops to help Sean out or, or Patrion to help Sean out again. I bought at the absolute peak. Listen, this entire podcast is just to help show

[00:21:55] So when we left things off emperor Norton had declared himself emperor Norton [00:22:00] of the United States and handed out flyers, declaring this to a bunch of newspapers. In San Francisco, this would have amounted to nothing but one newspaper. The bulletin actually published his flyer and this took off and became, and the trends and began a transition of the newspaper printing emperor Norton's proclamations.

[00:22:24] Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. So they took it even further and, and began reporting on what he was doing on his day to day. And the citizens absolutely adored him. They loved Ember Norton.

[00:22:39] Sean: So we're the intentions of this newspaper, like, hell yeah. We believe in the emperor where they like, this is the funniest fucking shit I've ever seen.

[00:22:48] Josh: Ah, you know what? I was definitely not the first one. I think it was more of a comedic element. They're like this guy is. Absolutely crazy. I love it. Let's [00:23:00] you know, pump them up. Let's see. Let's let's, let's make this a thing. I dunno. It's like a, you know, an asked Shirley column. It was kind of like the emperor Norton column in the newspaper and yeah, the, the residents, they, they took to it.

[00:23:13] They love loved his weird quirks, his proclamations, which we'll get into. And and yeah, he wore a crazy get up. So he, he wore an old military coat. Never, never fought in the military. He never fought, I don't know where he got this, but he never was in the military. But once, once he started becoming well-known in the city, old military men actually began giving him , What are those things called?

[00:23:37] The EPL lets or whatever they are and metals just to put on his uniforms so that we could walk around with it. Is that not

[00:23:45] Sean: illegal as fuck? Yeah.

[00:23:46] Josh: Stolen. Yeah. I mean, yeah, he's an emperor.

[00:23:52] Sean: It

[00:23:52] Josh: doesn't matter. What are you going to tell them? Yeah.

[00:23:55] John: Gotcha. Kind of jealous that this guy has the, he had a cult following, like, are you kind of jealous

[00:23:59] Josh: a little bit?

[00:23:59] [00:24:00] Is this guy is where I get most of my my ideas from actually

[00:24:03] Sean: he's. Y your name is Josh.

[00:24:05] Josh: Yes. Yeah. I named my name. Wasn't Josh before the pod. Wow. Okay.

[00:24:12] Sean: It was Fred.

[00:24:13] Josh: Yeah, it was Fred Fred,

[00:24:19] Sean: because I'm in pro Josh.

[00:24:20] Josh: So he, he also wore a hat with a peacock feather, and he owned a few dogs. The claim that he owned the dogs , is disputed.

[00:24:29] He is seen with these dogs a lot. But these dogs they're, they're just stray dogs, you know what I mean? And they actually got their own. Pieces of newspapers in San Francisco, these dogs, they were so famous. There was a story, I believe it was on them. They took a bone from another dog and that was a story in the newspaper.

[00:24:51] Yeah, they're, they're a whole other story. It's wild. Sanford and newspapers were just grasping at straws. But I love it. So [00:25:00] in 1861, If you guys, do you guys, did you guys know that a Napoleon actually invaded Mexico?

[00:25:10] John: I did not know that. Huh? I did

[00:25:11] Sean: not know

[00:25:12] Josh: that. No. Yeah. So the French invaded Mexico in 1861, I don't know what they got from it or if it really did anything in the long run.

[00:25:23] Yeah, I, I honestly, I don't, I'm not sure. They're definitely not French now. So they definitely didn't win no idea what it really did. But emperor Norton decided to add to his title of emperor of the United States. And he also added the protector of Mexico to that title.

[00:25:41] Well, wait, Josh

[00:25:44] Sean: is now the emperor

[00:25:45] Josh: of Mexico. That's emperor Norton. Oh, sorry. Sorry.

[00:25:49] Sean: Emperor first of

[00:25:51] Josh: his name. Yeah. So he's

[00:25:53] John: the United States and

[00:25:54] Josh: protector of Mexico. There we go. Thank you, John. You could have been his right-hand [00:26:00] man squad

[00:26:02] John: squad

[00:26:03] Josh: jester.

[00:26:07] Yeah. I don't know why he does this. He is not French. He has no connection to Mexico. Just declares it as. Everyone's okay with it. They're like yep. Protector of Mexico. Absolutely. To be

[00:26:19] Sean: fair, if, if I declared myself emperor and everybody was just like, yeah, I'd be like, I just be declaring other random shit.

[00:26:27] Cause people are just going to say, yeah, yeah. I'm guess I'm the protector of Mexico now I declare

[00:26:32] Josh: it. I'm so glad you said that, Sean, because that's exactly what he fucking does. He begins making wild proclamations and it gets posted in the newspapers all over San Fran because he's their local celebrity.

[00:26:48] So to me, once over the, over the course of his reign, he once called for Congress to be abolished. Oh, fair enough. You know, Congress kind of [00:27:00] sucks sometimes. He also abolished the Republican and democratic party. You just said yep. No more, you know, again, not a bad idea. . But the wildest thing of all was he also announced that the United States was dissolved in its entirety.

[00:27:17] Which brings more questions because it's like, how are you the emperor of the United States? If it doesn't exist, He took, he took the protector part of Mexico and he's like, I can do way more with Mexico. I'm just going to go with that. How selfless of him?

[00:27:32] John: Yeah. I was like Brexit before Brexit in huh?

[00:27:36] Josh: Texas, Texas,

[00:27:39] John: man. He's a man. He's a fucking visionary. That's what he is a man ahead

[00:27:44] Josh: of his time. As some people would say. So he, for some reason they would just. Like the town or city would ask him to do stuff. So he was, for some weird reason, asked to find a way to connect Oakland and San Francisco which he did a lot of work that became very [00:28:00] relevant because he thought a suspension bridge would actually be the best way to do this.

[00:28:04] This may, which as many people know the golden gate damn bridge. That's that one, right? That's

[00:28:10] Sean: his idea. Yes.

[00:28:12] Josh: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't know if it was his original idea, but he definitely was like pushing for that in his proclamations. So so that's a fun one. Now they don't, I don't think they started until well after he's dead, but the idea might've started there.

[00:28:27] On top of this, you know, he had small chores, like inspecting roads and sidewalks to ensure they were up to standards. If he didn't think so, he would proclaim it and the roads would be fixed. He also created a wild law, which, you know, law I put in quotes because it wasn't actually a law, but that if you were caught calling San Francisco frisked, It was a high misdemeanor and you could be charged with $25, which is if we're just $500 in today's money.[00:29:00]

[00:29:01] Sean: Wild, you got some respect on the name, bro. Say the whole thing.

[00:29:06] Josh: Absolutely. Now the, like I said, the citizens loved him and his perks. Crazy. Being emperor meant that he ate at any restaurant for free in the city. Oh,

[00:29:18] John: okay. I want that fucking fat. I need to declare that bitch.

[00:29:20] Din Tai Fung every day.

[00:29:22] God,

[00:29:23] Josh: whatever you

[00:29:24] Sean: want.

[00:29:24] Josh: So that was in it, he, he also at the opening of every show throughout the city they would always save a seat for him. He didn't always show up, but they would always have one open for him at opening night.

[00:29:34] And one time he got arrested and there was a, such a huge outcry from the city demanding. That they were forced to let him go. That's some white privilege. Shit, emperor, emperor, white privilege. Sorry. The other funny thing is he ended up creating his own currency and it w it was accepted widely in the San Francisco area.

[00:29:58] So he basically [00:30:00] lived white Truett's dream because he made troop bucks. And yeah, he had a ton of wild wild claims, wild proclamations, wild laws. He lived quite a life. I'm not gonna get into any it, all of it because he made proclamations almost every day. And there's way too many again, too.

[00:30:20] But we're actually going to get into how he passed away. So although he was, you know, emperor, I feel he didn't, he didn't let it get to his head. You know what I mean? Like he could have definitely taken advantage of it way more than he did.

[00:30:34] Sean: Really kinda, he dissolved the United States of America.

[00:30:39] Josh: Yeah. But I mean, you know what I mean? Right. Like, it's not like he took up arms against the town. That's fair. That's a council or anything like that. He made wild proclamations that everyone was like, that's funny. Ha ha. You know, it wasn't violent. Exactly. Like it w with his power, he probably could have just.

[00:30:59] [00:31:00] I like caused a coup or something like that, you know what I mean? And he could have Donald Trump did

[00:31:06] Sean: true.

[00:31:06] Josh: So he, he lived a pretty like he got by basically on the rainy evening of Thursday, eighth January 8th, 1880, the emperor headed out to attend the regular monthly debate of the Hasting society.

[00:31:21] At the academic of natural academia of natural sciences as he finished climbing the last block and reached the Southeast corner of California and DuPont. Now grand avenue, just across the street from the academy, the emperor collapsed and died. No. The next day on January 9th, Ben says San Francisco Chronicle ran on on page two, top of the third column and obituary with the headline Imperial ashes.

[00:31:49] It is often claimed that the Chronicle included this passage quote on the wreaking pavement in the darkness of the moonless night, under the dripping rain and surrounded by a [00:32:00] hastily gathering crowd of wondering strange. Norton the first by the grace of God, emperor of the United States and protect her of Mexico departed this life.

[00:32:11] Other sovereigns have died with no more of a kindly care. Other sovereigns have died as they have lived with all the pomp of earthly majesty, but death of having touched. Norton the first rises up the exact pier of the hottest king or Kaiser that ever wore a crown.

[00:32:29] Perhaps he will rise more than the pier of most of them. He had better claim to kindly consideration than that, of his lot forbade to Wade through slaughter to the throne that shut the gate of mercy on mankind, through his harmlessness proclamation can always be traced to an. Gentleness of heart, a desire to affect uses and courteous, the possession of which material improv and [00:33:00] bitter full living princes, whose name will naturally suggest themselves.

[00:33:04] End quote. I have no idea what that last part, but I should have ended. It sounded good. Yeah, so they wrote a very heartwarming goodbye . To their emperor of the United States. And I believe if I'm not mistaken mark Twain, who actually, so he was in the San Fran area and he wrote the adventures of huckleberry Finn and which the character, the king is actually modeled on emperor Norton.

[00:33:32] So if anyone has read that that is where that inspiration comes. So his resting places is in in the cities, Mason, Nick cemetery

[00:33:42] John: is the Illuminati,

[00:33:43] Josh: He's buried in Denver?

[00:33:46] No, but it is said that it was attended by Many hundreds of, of people when he was, when they did the ceremony.

[00:33:54] Emperor Norton may not have been the real emperor of the United States or the protector of [00:34:00] Mexico. But in the eyes of San Francisco, he was their king and they loved him and he loved them by the sounds of it. So I thought this was a fun, weird story that we could do, you know, a little lighthearted one and yeah, that is emperor Norton.

[00:34:16] The first. What are your guys' thoughts? Is it, is it what you expected coming into this episode?

[00:34:22] John: Abs I did not know shit about it. Anytime I hear that. The name Norton. All I could think about as the fucking antivirus, that's it.

[00:34:30] Sean: Oh, oh, oh.

[00:34:34] Josh: That's that's what he was. He was the antivirus for the United States.

[00:34:39] John: He was actually virus for like getting rid and abolishing political parties. I,

[00:34:44] Josh: I like that. I dunno when slavery was abolished, but he might've proclaimed that. Maybe.

[00:34:52] Sean: The whole time, I was just thinking, like, if we run out of fucking ideas and read it on Wiki dies, I already have our next podcast dude, [00:35:00] proclamations of an American emperor. And we just read that shit, bro.

[00:35:04] John: There you go.

[00:35:05] Sean: Beautiful. If he still this idea, w we now have the IP for it, it's too late.

[00:35:09] Yes. We own everything. Sue. We will Sue the shit out of. Proclamations coming 20, 25. You better believe it, baby

[00:35:21] John: bird. What's the name of Josh? Josh north,

[00:35:24] Josh: north Norton, Joshua Abraham Norton, the most religious name Graham Norton emperor of the United States of America and protector of Mexico. Ooh, that was like a good old eighties cartoon or something eighties.

[00:35:41] Sean: Nineties that's I don't even know what I was doing.

[00:35:43] Sounded like a, like a 1950s radio voice.

[00:35:46] Josh: Or am I traveling then? Maybe that's what it was. I don't know anything before the nineties is old.

[00:35:52] John: Jesus. Wow. We were all born in the nineties. All right. Shit. I'm not that old.

[00:35:57] Josh: Barely. We were very like you. [00:36:00] Fuck. But yeah, that's, that's a great idea, Sean. Cause I could be emperor of Canada.

[00:36:06] You guys can fight over whether you want to be emperor of America. I don't want him. Okay, you can be the Philippines then I can be, I'll take

[00:36:12] John: Philippines. I'll take

[00:36:13] Sean: America. We'll we'll I'll be Texas and we'll, we'll get away from America. We'll be our own sovereign state.

[00:36:21] Josh: You have to fight Ted Cruz in the ring for it.

[00:36:24] Oh,

[00:36:25] Sean: I will do that for free. Right now. I'll find tech, I'll buy Ted Cruz any day, throwing Greg Abbott handicap match handicap in one

[00:36:34] Josh: home in more than one

[00:36:35] Sean: way. And I can say that because Greg Abbott is a demon. All right. So that's fine.

[00:36:44] Josh: Anytime I can bring up Ted Cruz around Sean. I take my shots.

[00:36:48] John: The following contest is a handicap match schedule. One fall.

[00:36:53] Sean: It's a double entendre because handicap match and wrestling is two on one and half in life. [00:37:00] Just look at a picture of Greg Abbott. Fuck that guy.

[00:37:04] Josh: So that was kind of a pun. Would you say Sean,

[00:37:08] Sean: this, you will not get me to admit.

[00:37:12] John: Eh, just, just a full disclosure. We're not, we're not like abelist oh, a hundred percent fucking Greg Abbott,

[00:37:20] Josh: a hundred putters, Greg Abbott, always in a wheelchair. Yeah.

[00:37:24] Sean: Yeah, a lot of people make wheelchair jokes at Greg Abbott and it's mostly, you know, cause Greg Abbott is a piece of shit. Not really that people feel a certain way about handicap.

[00:37:35] Of course I like John said, I'm not able to S but is fuck Greg Abbott all day

[00:37:39] Josh: 24, 7. That's fair. That's like how people make fun of Christy, whatever his name is because he's fat, but no one hates we don't hate fat people. We just hate body shame people.

[00:37:48] John: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Chris,

[00:37:50] Josh: just as a horrible, just demon people, we just make fun of deep in people.

[00:37:54] Sean: It's just the fear of politics. Yeah, you're just open to get it. And that's your job. Your job is [00:38:00] to fucking take the criticism. So

[00:38:02] Josh: yeah, I mean, part of the job you're not wrong,

[00:38:05] Sean: so

[00:38:06] John: unless, unless you're emperor Norton, we all. Yeah.

[00:38:09] Josh: Well, he doesn't have any criticism. He's perfect. He's perfect. He's fucking perfect.

[00:38:12] Yeah. So that is it for the emperor Norton episode. Let us know what you think of emperor Norton. The first. Emperor of United States of America. Did you love him? Did you hate him? What, what proclamations would you make if you were emperor of the United States? So let's, let's do that. That'll be fun.

[00:38:27] Proclamations.

[00:38:28] Sean: Okay. I got one. Yeah, I'm eating everywhere for free too.

[00:38:31] Josh: God damn. You didn't even make that proclamation. They just offered it to them. That's even better. Yeah. You know what? I w I would proclaim everyone gets Four day week. That's what I'd go four day work

[00:38:42] Sean: week. I'm going to Canada.

[00:38:44] I proclaim, I proclaimed the legalization of marijuana. I don't smoke weed, but it's kind of ridiculous that it's illegal

[00:38:53] Josh: up here.

[00:38:54] Sean: Yeah, it must be nice. Not in Texas and Texas had changed a lot of things. There's a lot of fucking [00:39:00] shit in Texas that needs

[00:39:00] Josh: to be changed. What about.

[00:39:04] John: Yeah. Like I said, I fucking purple who planned that

[00:39:06] Josh: I can't eat anywhere.

[00:39:08] You wouldn't wait for people to offer you just be like, I get to eat every day. I get to eat

[00:39:12] John: everywhere. Yeah. I also like the normalizing a 24 hour work week, two day, two,

[00:39:20] Sean: three days, a 24 hour work week, not even

[00:39:24] John: 30, right? Like you only need to be anonymous for like two, three goddamn days. You don't need no damn four or five.

[00:39:29] No, that shit people are more productive when they're. Focused on a task instead of spreading it five days a week. That's some bullshit.

[00:39:36] Sean: I would proclaim that. You can once a month for the highest bidder to, to fight a politician every month, the highest bidder gets to fight a politician.

[00:39:49] It is what it is. You have CU rules. Of course, of course you gotta have some structure, but yeah. What I would pay to fight politicians in general, not even just

[00:39:59] Josh: a [00:40:00] cruise. I think a lot of women would pay to fight tight crews.

[00:40:04] John: I also proclaimed that you subscribe to our podcast. You can find us wherever you

[00:40:09] Josh: hell yeah.

[00:40:10] I was going to do that. Let's see your, your pro proclamations. We can maniacs, let us know on Twitter Instagram, wherever you want. Just proclaim stuff at us and we'll do we'll do our best to make it come true. Or John? Well, he's in charge of our Twitter. We don't have to deal with it then

[00:40:22] if you enjoyed this episode and want and want more consider subscribing and rating us on apple podcast, pod chaser, or good. And finally, like I said, in the beginning, if you want to support us and get ad free episodes and get episodes a week ish early, go to patrion.com/read it on Wiki and become one of our amazing patrons.

[00:40:43] And there's always links to everything I just mentioned are in the show notes. Thank you, Wiki maniacs. We will see you next week and it

[00:40:50] will

[00:40:50] Sean: be real. I don't like the shade at the end there. Josh. I don't really wait a second

[00:40:57] Josh: now we're signed off already. Sean,[00:41:00]