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“- Carry Brownstein and Fred Armison here.”
- The dream of the 90s is alive in podcast form.
- We're launching Podlandia, A.O.R. Watch. Our brand new podcast where we revisit every episode of Portlandia together. Breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made.
- And we'll also be joined by the people who helped to bring it all to life. guest stars, collaborators and friends, including director Jonathan Christle, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin,
legendary musician, Amy Mann, and many more. - Kyle is going for it here. - You fully improvise not just words, but a song about it. - I thought you were all going to write a song.
- I remember you thinking about it. Listen to Podlandia, A.O.R. Watch. On the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. - Hey, this is Hayes Davenport.
- And Sean Clemens. - We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook. - Every episode we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers.
- The show's famously super accessible, so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on. - We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller, Danny McBride, Riz Ahmed, and Mary steambergen.
- Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. (upbeat music) - Hey, welcome to the short stuff, Josh, Chuck. - Jerry, sitting in for Dave,
and that makes this an official short stuff. We have the quorum, let's go. - That's right, do you recognize this article? - No, who wrote it, did I write it? - Did you write it?
- Yeah, you wrote it. - Did I really? - Wow, I was like, this is pretty good. - It took your name off of it,
“'cause I was hoping you wouldn't remember this one.”
- That's awesome, yeah, this is not a bad article at all. That's great, thank you for that, 'cause, yeah, I like this. I was like, I like the cut of this writer's gym. - Yeah, yeah, so this is from the oldhouseofworks.com days, and this is about the, and I was surprised
we hadn't done a shorty on this. I was like, surely we have the story of Nero fiddling while Rome burned, and when I looked it up, there you were, buddy. - Yeah, I actually searched for an episode too,
'cause it just sounds like we've definitely talked about it at some point, but it just had to have been a part of a larger episode. So let's dig in, because I feel like everybody, thanks to my article, has heard that Nero fiddled
while Rome burned, and it turns out that that is probably a piece of ancient propaganda that survived almost 2,000 years at this point. - I feel like you have a little extra wind beneath your wings now. - I know, this is yours.
- I've never felt more alive than I do right now.
- Yeah, we're talking, obviously, about the great fire from, for six days and seven nights,
“that's when Rome saw, and this was AD64,”
saw 70% of its city destroyed, and only four of its 14 districts intact afterward. - Well. - And the Roman historian Tassatus wrote that out of the, about half the people of the million people,
which would be by my count, 500,000, were rendered without a home, because of discreet fire. - I knew that. (laughing) - So, this being a massive tragedy,
which 2000 years, I feel like we can add a joke or two at this point, but it was such a huge tragedy, and it was just so out of nowhere. That of course, people just have an innate need to blame, to find cause, assign blame.
People love doing that, even back in the day. And also, people back in the day were as susceptible to rumors and urban legends, as we are today. And those things started up really quickly. One of the main ones was that somehow the government
was involved in this. - Yeah, for sure, like, hey, we saw people, we saw men fanning the flames, and when confronted, they said that they were under orders to do so, or maybe somebody actually started this fire on purpose,
and Nero, the Emperor Nero was kind of the prime suspect that seems like. - Yeah, that he ordered it, that he said the fire, or some people, he had to rebuild Rome. I mean, he had to rebuild it after so many of the districts
were just totally leveled, and he was like, let's build this in a Nero style, which is surprisingly close to the craftsmen style of the 1920s. - Oh, really?
- No. (laughing) It's like, that's very surprising. But they're gonna say Art Deco.
- I was going to have first known as like,
now, let me come up with something else. - Right. - That should have just said Art Deco. - What have gotten better last? - But he rebuilt it in a manner that he liked.
I mean, he was in charge at the time. And people were like, that's why Rome burnt,
'cause this guy wanted to rebuild it more in his image.
- Yeah, exactly.
“So that rumor was going around, and through that rumor,”
it came the story that while the Great Fire was burning,
Nero played his fiddle and just sort of watched it happen. Should we take a break right there? - We should, because, I mean, what's coming up next is just eye popping. - That's right, more goodness from Josh Clarke of 15 years ago,
right after this. (upbeat music) - Hey, Portlandia fans? - Carry Brown scene in front of our mission here. - You know what, so rather, you know them.
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- How did any of this get made? Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it.
“- And we'll also be joined by the people”
who helped bring it all to life. guest stars, collaborators and friends, including director Jonathan Chrysel, the mayor himself, Kyle McGlockland, legendary musician, Amy Mann, and many more.
- Kyle is going right here. - Are you fully improvised, not just words, but a song about it. - I thought he was gonna write. - I thought you were all gonna write a song.
- I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia, AO rewatch on the I Heart Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. - Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. - And Sean Clements.
- We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook. Every episode we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers. - The show's famously super accessible
so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on. - We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller. - The definition of what is a movie is kind of changed
and it went to, right? What do you think it is now? - It's images and words being spoken captured by some sort of technology. - Danny McBride, who I'm hoping.
- Oh, that's fantastic. Can you make it on, you make your own? That's great. I call 'em 'Tero Read'. (laughing)
- It's a good name. - They're all named after cast members of American Pie. - Yeah, I call it, I don't.
- I never looked up if she was in this,
but I call 'em Lee Chisobi Eski. - Yeah, I don't think she was an American Pie, but I still haven't looked it up. - She's probably not a limit. - Yeah, yeah.
- Then Mary's Dean Burgent. - Why are you guys talking to me? - I'm worried. - Why are you talking to me? - So down to me, that you think I don't understand
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(upbeat music) - So, Nero's like, wait a minute, wait, wait, wait. I wasn't fiddling, we'll find out why
“that's definitive in a second, why are you blaming me?”
And they're like, we're just blaming you, you got to accept it. He's like, I don't, I'm going to find a scapegoat myself. I'll trot them out publicly. And then you can just stop blaming me.
And he looked around, he's like, these Christians are new. I'm going to prosecute them.
And this actually became the first persecution
of Christians in history. This was 64 CE. And I mean, Christianity was so new that there were still original apostles around who ended up being executed in this persecution.
- Yeah, Paul, who was the other one? Paul and Peter. Paul was, Paul was beheaded and Peter was crucified upside down. - Yeah, so like torturous brutal executions are happening, because an era was looking for a scapegoat
because he was blamed for the spire. You know, when you said before, we're going to talk about why it's definitive that he definitely didn't fiddle, is because there was no fiddle at the time.
Music historians basically agreed that the vial class of instruments, which is like a violin, didn't come around to the 11th century. So about 1,500 years later. So there literally were no fiddles at the time.
- No, but he did play something called the Sithara. Which is like a laptop heart. The top is like for strumming. The bottom is for plucking. You probably seen something like it before,
but he was really into it. So much though that when Rome conquered some new land, he would schedule music festivals in these new lands. And he would schedule them at times that he could go and compete.
He would compete. And the Senate was not happy about this.
They're like, you're competing against commoners.
You're the emperor.
And apparently, Neuro actually was more like than we think he was
today, especially among the lower classes of Rome. Because he didn't behave nearly as superior toward them as other elites in Rome had and did. - Okay, well, you know, one thing he definitely did was in the immediate aftermath of the fire.
He did a lot actually. He took a lot of measures to provide for the citizenry. He was at his place in anti-M on the outskirts of Rome when it broke out. And he immediately rushed back to the fire.
Tastatus that historian that I mentioned was a boy at the time during the blaze. And he provided accounts of like, hey, Neuro helped coordinate the firefighting himself on the first night.
He opened up public buildings for housing. He opened up his own gardens for temporary shelter. - Yeah. - He imported grain from other cities close by. That I guess he sold, but sold like super cheap.
- Yeah, he still sold it though. I thought that was a little hinky. - Yeah, for sure. - But yeah, so he was a lot of the residents of Rome like to, and Tastatus tells us like he did actually swing
into action. And yet he still managed to bear the blame throughout this like his persecution of Christians did not work. And apparently like we said that the fiddling thing was not, it's not possible that he fiddled.
It is possible he was playing the Sithara, but because of his responsiveness, it seems like that's probably not the case. So because this was probably largely created by the Senate like the, I think they were working hard
to keep the blame on Neuro, right? - But there's a 1940s historian from University of North Carolina named Mary Francis Giles. - Go Tar Hills. - Yeah.
And yes, if you're a Tar Hill, you can be proud of Mary Francis Giles because she was one of those rare people who managed to see something that everybody knows in a different light at a different angle.
And she's like you know, fiddling doesn't just mean playing a violin, it can also mean just kind of doing something like with your fingers like ineffectually, like your wasting time and energy. You just fiddling around.
“Maybe that's what they originally meant.”
- I don't know why I never thought of that.
- I definitely had neither. Even after writing this, I didn't even look familiar. (laughing) - Yeah, she was like, you know,
maybe he's just fiddling as in like doing something sort of useless at the time. It sounds like that didn't happen either. But yeah, maybe they viewed it as inadequate at the time, like what he was doing.
Maybe the truth wasn't getting around that he was actually kind of helping. - Right. - And that actually fits with the idea that this was propaganda, that the Senate
was basically saying nearo's responses were not nearly enough. He was just basically messing around. - Yeah, for sure. But you know, if you're like, man, Neuro got a bad rap.
There's a brilliant writer who took that into consideration. But probably, I don't know, 15 years ago, Ish. And said, hey, don't feel so bad for Neuro, because Neuro ascended to the throne, because his mom killed his uncle,
and then Neuro had his mom killed. - Yeah. - And then of course the persecution of the Christians, you know, hanging people by their feet and to capitating them, like, don't feel bad for this guy.
- No, there was also Dom Nassio ad bestiest, which is sticking wild animals on people for executions. - Yeah, no good. So Neuro essentially was on his heels after that, great fire.
“Again, remember the Senate didn't like him,”
like him, I can't stress that enough. And so the army, which he had been on really good terms with for a while, was like, we're not going to work for you any longer. So there's a potential coup brewing,
the Senate declared him a public enemy, which is not something you want levied against to as an emperor, to meant that he was probably gonna be executed. So he pushed a dagger into his throat about four years after the fire came and went.
- Yeah, he said, "I sense a coup brew." No, is it? (laughing) I don't know if he'd talk like that. You know, I'm watching this show right now,
and it's, oh, Star City, have you heard of this? - No. - Star City is a show that is,
I can't remember the name of the first show,
but there was a show about the space race, and there was an American version for all mankind, is what that was called, from the American perspective. And Star City is the space race from the Soviet perspective.
- No.
“- And it's really good, I think you would like it,”
but they cast all British actors, and are doing British accents,
Sort of like they used to just do for all movies back in the day.
And it's just, I gotta wrap my head around
“every single episode when all these brits are talking.”
I try to hear it with a Russian accent in my head,
and it just kind of drives me nuts.
- Yeah, yeah, I can get used to that kind of thing, but I think it's also something
that if you once you focus in on it,
you just can't get past. - I don't know why in 2026, they did say, like, you know, do a Russian accent. - I know, it's appropriate. - These are Russians, it's very strange.
“- But I guess that's it for the short stuff, right?”
- That's right. - Okay, well everybody, short stuff is out. (dramatic music)
“- Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio.”
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