Stuff You Should Know - A Podcast on Zoot Suits? Yes

Episode Date: October 11, 2011

Few riots can be attributed to passing fashions, but zoot suits are top among them. After originating among the Harlem Renaissance crowd, the zoot suit came to symbolize political defiance. Find out why it's still illegal to wear a zoot suit in L.A. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Flooring contractors agree. When looking for the best to care for hardwood floors, use Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner, the residue-free, fast drying solution, especially designed for hardwood floors, delivering the safe and effective clean you trust. Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner is available at most retailers where floor cleaning products are sold and on Amazon. Also available for your other hard surface floors like stone, tile, laminate, vinyl, and LVT. For cleaning tips and exclusive offers, visit Bona.com slash Bona Clean. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff, stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging?

They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jackmove or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuckers Bryant. And since two of us are sitting together again, and it's not lunchtime,

it's not leg wrestling time. It's true. This means it's stuff you should know. Right. Yeah. What's up, dude? How are you, Josh? I'm good. We just got something in today that I want to give a shout out of thanks for. Oh yeah? To our friend, Martin Van Nostrand. Did that come in today? Today? Okay. He kept emailing us, pestering me like it hasn't not come yet. Like I'm the postmaster general or something like that. Right. But anyway, he sent us each a t-shirt and the new CD of his band, The Bangalores. Yeah. In vitro meat is the name of the album. And it's pretty awesome. I haven't listened to it yet. I just got it. Can't wait. He sent us some songs off of it already.

Oh, some previous cuts. Yeah. He was the first person to record a stuff you should know song like in 2008. You remember? Well, yeah. And I think he has a Toxoplasmosis song on the new one, right? He does. Yeah. We've inspired a lot. I think he released a whole album of stuff you should know songs. Really? Yeah. And like quick little punk songs to like a minute and a half. So there's like 50 of them. Yeah. But anyway, thanks a lot to Van Nostrand. We won't say his real name, but we know it. We do. Finally. We didn't for a long time. But anyway, if you feel like checking that out, it's The Bangalores, like the city in India and the album is in vitro meat. And we'll probably get in trouble for endorsing this. Probably so. So Chuck, you want to get to it?

Yes. Have you ever heard of some dumb laws? Yeah, man. There are some dumb laws in this great land of ours. For example, if I may, I've prepared a short list. Awesome. In Alabama, bare wrestling matches are prohibited. It's illegal to sell peanuts in Lee County after sundown on Wednesday. It would be Lee County, Alabama. Did he give a reason for that one? No, there are some. This is from, I think, dumblaws.com. And they have like just international laws, state laws, local laws. And then under some of them, they have like full text of the law or why this law exists. Gotcha. It's a pretty comprehensive site. In Hawaii, coins are not allowed to be placed in one's ears for spending only. Okay. All residents may be fined as a result of not owning a boat.

You're going to Hawaii tomorrow, right? Or the next couple of days. I dare you to put a coin in your ear and walk around eating out of a can of spam. It'd be like, I don't own a boat. I don't own a boat. Right. Chumps. Back in our fair state of Georgia, it's illegal to use profanity in front of a dead body, which lies in a funeral home or in a coroner's office. That's respectful. That's a good law. Okay. In Acworth, which is close to Kennesaw, where I grew up, where you had to own a gun. I didn't know this. In Acworth, all citizens must own a rake. Really? Yeah. Not a blower. A rake. Okay. I think a blower. That's kind of like asking a lot of some of the lower income classes, you know. In Athens, on Mondays, it's illegal for one to whistle very loudly after

11 p.m. What? But on Mondays. Okay. And then California, of course, is going to have some zany laws. They have tons and tons of wacky dumb laws. Animals are banned from mating publicly within 1,500 feet of a tavern school or place of worship. I agree. Women may not drive in a house coat. I agree with that, too. In Fresno, getting drunk in a playground is against the law. That is sound. I don't agree with that one. It's sensible. And then in Los Angeles, it's illegal to wear a zoot suit. Yeah. Still? Still. Wow. So I bring that up and I knew Chuck would like that last one because I'm sure there's stories behind almost all of those zany laws, or at least there's some reasoning. People don't just make up crazy laws, like bear

wrestling. I'm sure it got out of hand once, and now they're just like, that's it. It's illegal. So Chuck and I actually know the reason why zoot suits are illegal in Los Angeles County, California. And we're going to tell you about it today. It's pretty neat. This little article started off as a bit of a lark. I don't know. Well, we thought zoot suits. Those are interesting and cool, but it's more than a suit as it turns out. It really is. It was, at least. You should probably mention, like, what is a zoot suit, Chuck? I think everybody's seen them before. Yeah. Back in the 1930s, they were very much in fashion, especially in Latino communities and African American communities. Coast to coast, though, seems like. Cesar Chavez, Malcolm X, Cab Calloway,

big band leaders, the jazz scene in New York, all very much associated with zoot suits. Tom Kat from Tom and Jerry, who was going after a girl, and she said he was a square and was corny, and he goes out and gets him a zoot suit and becomes a cool cat. Cool cat. Yeah. So you'll know a zoot suit. They were originally made of wool and then later rayon, but you'll know it because they're very distinct. They have very broad, padded shoulders, very long-waisted coats. The suit pants were worn really, really high, like, up over the belly, and were very tight at the top, then ballooned out like MC Hammer style, and then tapered back down again at the ankle. Or were pegged. Oh, of course. Yeah. That's how you achieve that look. And the jackets

exaggerated contours and colors. A lot of times they would wear the big pocket watch chain that went down to their knee and the hat with the feather, and it was just like pointed shoes. Sure. If it sounds a lot like pimp's, 70s pimp's, wear to you. Not too far off, I guess. I think you could make an argument that it was a predecessor of that. And in fact, you mentioned Malcolm X favorite zoot suits. I didn't realize this today, but in researching zoot suits, Malcolm X used to be called Detroit Red, who was in fact a pimp. Yeah. And he apparently got his education in Harlem and became Malcolm X. Did you not see the movie? No. It was good. From what I remember from the awesome Spike Lee movie was that he was into the zoot scene earlier. And then once he became Malcolm X,

and not what was his original name, Shabazz. Yes, I believe so. Malcolm Shabazz. Yeah. So once he became Malcolm X and got serious about the civil rights, he ditched the zoot suit and stuff and was a little more traditionally garbed. Right. Another way, so the zoot suit, you just nailed it on the head. You said the zoot suit scene. It was very much part of a scene, part of the Harlem Renaissance. It was part of the Pacho scene out in Los Angeles, which we'll talk about. Pacho? Pacho. Pachuco? Pachuco. I like slang on top of slang. Yeah. Exactly. So it was kind of the uniform of the certain kind of scene. Apparently the upscale black nightclubs of Harlem. Like if you saw an African American man walking around wearing a zoot suit, you're like, that guy is a

high roller and he knows how to get into the good clubs. I thought you were going to bust out some Cab Callaway slang. Well, you mentioned Cab Callaway. It was one of the people who love zoot suits. And he wrote a dictionary of slang. A jive. A jive slang. Thank you. I could not be square if I tried. And one of the words that he put down was zoot, which he says means exaggerated. It turns out that there's a whole lot of mystery surrounding the origins of zoot suit. But if I may, in Cab Callaway's jive slang, describe what a zoot suit looks like. You did a great job in normal square corny terms. But if you want to talk like a hip cat from the jive jump zoot suit era, you would describe it as a killer diller coat with a drape shape, real pleats and shoulders

padded like a lunatic cell. Well, it's interesting that he said drape because originally they were known as drapesuits and even advertised as extreme quote extreme drapes. Right. In newspapers. Yeah. Pretty cool. Yeah. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute a 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah. And they can do that without any drugs on the table without any drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that. And on the prime example, the war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The

property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. People who don't know Bruce have to understand two things. One is he's built like something Michelangelo is carved out of a piece of marble. Truth. This is true. And number two, he's the first person to show you that at every party at every dinner. Maybe take a shirt off. Shirt comes up like before dessert. I'm Bruce Bozzi. You may not know me yet, but you already

know most of my launch dates by their first names and voices alone. That was George and Julia. But believe it or not, my podcast guests see me as more than just a piece of meat like my thoughtful friend Scarlett. Bruce Bozzi, I love you so much and I love meeting minds with you. What we do on my new podcast, Table for Two, is what everyone does when they're at lunch with an old friend. We tell stories. We definitely gossip. James Corden wound up kind of ripping off your set. There you go. And we always go deep. Listen to Table for Two on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. So, Zeus is hanging out there. It's kind of weird, Ralph Ellison wrote about it and is an invisible man. His novel, The Narrator, encounters three

young and extravagantly dressed blacks in their suit suits. And he says that they were the stewards of something uncomfortable. So, he's saying like, it's almost like it's the same as if you saw a bunch of rave kids wearing like the stupid pants. Yes, in the 90s or whatever, you know, or hip-hop kids today. It was the same thing except this was much more upscale than that. But it was basically like pants today that people have trouble walking in, but they're still got to have that look, you know, right? Because that's what the cool kids do. Exactly. So, this was, you could argue the original American version of counter culture dress. Right. Agreed. And it grew out of Harlem and was later adopted by Mexican Americans or Latino Americans in Los Angeles. Yeah, what's

this one bit that it could have originated in Gainesville, Georgia? How about that? So, yeah, there's a lot of, there's some origin stories, right? And yeah, and they're none of them are the same, right? And they're all very different. No, but I do like that one you're talking about from Gainesville. What is it? Yeah, they, a man, a bus driver, I'm sorry, a bus worker named Clyde Duncan from New York, came back to New York with one and said he bought it in Gainesville, Georgia. And allegedly, he had been inspired by Gone with the Wind and wanted to look like Rhett Butler. Right. And so got a tailor in Gainesville to make him this thing. I'd like to go with that story. Well, the New York Times put that story forth and they said it basically unequivocally.

They did. In 1943. And that was the story for many, many years until historians actually started to put real effort and thought into the Zoot suits. And they found that they're, it's possibly true, but most likely it came out of either guys like Cab Calloway wearing them. Sure. Or guys like Cab Calloway copying people in the jazz scene. Right. And then, you know, it basically going forth like that. And ultimately, it seems that it did come out of this era, whether it was this Clyde Duncan fella, right, who had the idea originally or whatever, you can basically say the Harlem Renaissance Zoot suits came out of that. Gotcha. And, you know, I knew that I did not know of its association within the Latino and largely Mexican community. No,

but that's where it like really started to, it switched when it hit the Latino American community. Before it was just like, I'm wealthy. I can get into good clubs. I'm part of this club scene right in Harlem. When it hit Los Angeles and was taken up by the Pachos, but you go right square. It changed. It transformed. It turned into something political and became ultimately a sign of defiance. Yeah. In World War II, you know, everyone knows that there was, there was rationing going on, everything from food to metals and ultimately wool and cloth. So, wearing a Zoot suit, which required an abundance of cloth was deemed not patriotic. Right. Because you're basically flaunting, Hey, I don't care about the war effort. I'm going to wear my

Zoot suit. That's more important to me. Right. Exactly. So in the forties, the war production board basically said, we need to cut back all fabric use in the States by 26%. And to help you, here is the new American suit. It's streamlined. It uses less fabric. As long as you're making stuff according to these sketches, you're patriotic, you're American, you're within the law. Right. Uncle Sam wanted you to wear tight clothes. Pretty much. And if you think about it, if you look at the suits in the fifties and sixties and after the forties, that the American, the classic American suit is narrow, narrow cut, the cuffs are high. Skinny ties. Yeah. So I wonder if that came out. I'm sure it did. But you can take what they were

saying a different way and that Uncle Sam's telling you to dress like this and everybody dressed like that. So Zoot suits immediately became a symbol of defiance. Anybody who wore them was saying, you know, up yours, Uncle Sam. And it was ultimately illegal to manufacture or advertise a Zoot suit or anything that fell outside of those American suits. So incredibly, bootleg and underground tailors grew up to make and sell Zoot suits. That's true. Yeah. And at the same time, especially in Los Angeles, it had an association with gang activity, criminal activity and thuggery largely because of newspapers that would call them, you know, Zoot suitors committing crimes. They would label people in a particular clothing as being criminals,

essentially. Yeah. Well, racism is definitely nothing new in this country. And it was hot and heavy in the late thirties, early forties in Los Angeles among. It was mainly targeted, I think, toward Latino Americans, but it's not like African Americans didn't get the brunt of it as well. Sure. But basically, it was white people in California were like, Hey, there's a lot of you these days. So you're making us a little nervous. And you wearing the Zoot suit is easy to target. It just so happened that the group that they were targeting was actually kind of homogeneous. People who wore Zoot suits kind of wore them in defiance, but also identified themselves with them, right? The Pachos. Yeah, it was a statement of independence, not necessarily thumbing your

nose at the United States. But just, Hey, I'm independent. I'm Latino. I'm living in Los Angeles since 1940s. And this is our look. So the Pachos, the Pachucos, the Pachos, I'm seeing Pachos right here. Octavio Paz said Pachos, Pachos. Yeah. Okay. So the Pachos were it's they weren't an import from Mexico. They were a real American hybrid. They were second generation Latino American kids who ironically because of the war effort were latchkey kids. Their parents were off working the night shift for war production. And they were basically left to them their own devices. They called themselves 24 hour orphans, the first latchkey kids. And they were also arguably the first rebels. And out of their emergence in America came that the whole concept of juvenile

delinquency. Yeah, I love that one quote from Octavio Paz. Can I read that? Yeah, he said the Zoot suit was a symbol of love and joy, or horror and loathing and embodiment of liberty of disorder of the forbidden. So it was the single fashion item was at the same time, asserting your independence and individuality as well as what white folks saw as thumb in their nose at the white man basically. Yeah. And I guess that's exactly what they were doing because as you said, like they weren't necessarily wearing the Zoot suit as a statement. They weren't anti war protesters. Right. But it was more like, you know what, I'm sick of you racist white people. And I'm not going to hide my identity. I'm not going to try to blend in. Right. I'm not going to go back to my

traditional roots from Mexico because I wasn't born here. But I'm not going to, you know, join the service and wear an American suit. Like, so this was the compromise. And it ticked white people off like crazy. Yeah. And especially in Los Angeles. Yeah. Well, at the time in Southern California, there was an enormous presence of servicemen who were waiting to ship out to the Pacific Theater from California. Yeah. And they were, you know, rubbing elbows with these guys that a lot of people thought were gang members and Zoot suitors. And they rubbed elbows not in a very good way either, which, you know, ultimately led to the Zoot suit riots. But there were some pretty striking events that led up to that 1943 summer. So one of the things you said you mentioned

was that they were getting negative press, right? So people in Zoot suits were associated with things like, oh, let me see quote. The record already reveals killing stabbings in cases of innocent women having been molested by Zoot suit gangsters. That's from the Los Angeles Examiner. And the article was titled police must clean up LA hoodlumism, which is not a word hoodlumism. Right. So there's this joint effort of just general racism among whites in the general public. And servicemen waiting to be deployed specifically. And the Los Angeles media kind of fanning the flames. That's right. And then the sleepy lagoon murder happened. The sleepy lagoon case sleepy lagoon. Josh was a reservoir by the LA River. And it's not there anymore. Isn't that fascinating?

Not there at all. It's like a plastics plant there now. There's no reservoir. Yeah. So don't go looking for it. Even though they said it's roughly it was at 5500 Slosson Boulevard in Maywood. I know where that is actually. I think it's on the way to the airport. The war on drugs impacts everyone whether or not you take America's public enemy. Number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. And they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that. And now I'm the prime example of a tax. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with

absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. People who don't know Bruce have to understand two things. One is he's built like something Michelangelo is carved out of a piece of marble. This is true. And number two, he's the first person to show you that at every party at every dinner. Maybe take a shirt off.

Shirt comes off like before dessert. I'm Bruce Bozzi. You may not know me yet, but you already know most of my launch dates by their first names and voices alone. That was George and Julia. But believe it or not, my podcast guests see me as more than just a piece of meat like my thoughtful friend Scarlett. Bruce Bozzi, I love you so much. And I love meeting minds with you. What we do on my new podcast table for two is what everyone does when they're at lunch with an old friend. We tell stories. We definitely gossip. James Corden wound up kind of ripping off your set. There you go. And we always go deep. Listen to table for two on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. So the sleepy lagoon case. At the time, Mexican Americans were denied access to

public pools and swimming holes and stuff like that. So they used sleepy lagoon as a big hangout where they would go and listen to music and swim and have a good time. In August 2, 1942, the body of Jose Diaz was found at this reservoir. And when I gather there was a big party, like a big house party where a fight broke out. And one guy ended up getting killed. And as a result, they rounded up three to 400 Mexican American youths had a corrupt trial where they basically denied the many civil rights, cooked up evidence, had no evidence, had no physical evidence, had no witnesses, nothing of the sort. And they basically pinned that murder on 12 guys. Is that right? Nine kids, nine kids, total 300. Yeah. But they railroaded nine with no evidence

that the guy had even been murdered. And eventually the sleepy lagoon defense committee and the U.S. District Court of Appeals overturned that as a miscarriage of justice. Right. But the damage was already done. Yeah. And his killer, incidentally, was never found. They never singled anyone out, which is sad. That's kind of lost a lot of times, I think. But at the same time, you can't just cook up a case against dudes that were there and say that they did it. Exactly. So the press attention that the sleepy lagoon case received just fan the flames further and further. And then in June, no, May of 1943, that's when things really started to take a turn for the worse. That's right. I guess about a dozen servicemen, I think Navy boys, were down

in East LA. And a few of them approached some girls. One of them kept walking. And the one that kept walking passed a group of pouches who were wearing suits. And when he passed, one of them apparently raised his hand in what the guy took as a threatening manner. So the servicemen grabbed his arm. And right after that, everything went black because somebody knocked him over the back of his head with something. And he fell and broke his jaw in two places. Okay. The other guys see this. The other guys see it. But before they even react, the pouches jumped them. And these 11 other servicemen fight their way out and fight their way over to where the guy is laying, the guy who's knocked out with the broken jaw. And get him out

of there. So this is not this is not bode well for Mexican American white relations in Los Angeles in 1943. Few days after that, like revenge is on the mind of everybody after news of this gets out. Yeah, big time, especially in the military community. And basically sort of the same thing happened. Main Street East LA on June 3rd. 11 sailors got off a bus. And there were words with a gang of young Mexicans. And when I say gang, I should say group. And we shouldn't say necessarily Mexicans. The likelihood was that they were Mexicans in the 40s, but they were Latino Americans. Okay. I tried to get to the whole bottom of the word Chicano as well. I know Hispanic is from Ronald Reagan. Is it? And it's basically insinuates that everybody

from Central or Latin America or South America comes from Hispaniola. Well, and what I found from Chicano was that it was a derogatory term early on very negative. But it meant specifically Mexican American. And then later, I believe they some, some of them chose to embrace that word. Yeah. And the 70s or 60s. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. I don't know where it stands today. So let's just leave that one alone. I'm just not going to say it. So they ran into this group of young Latinos dressed in zoot suits, gotten an argument. The sailors, of course, claimed that they were jumped, although it's unclear exactly how it started. And the LAPD responded. And with a group of off duty officers and on duty officers, officers calling themselves the Vengeance Squad.

And they basically took it upon themselves to clean up the streets of East LA. The cops. Rough house style. The cops, including off duty cops took on the name the Vengeance Squad. And went down to the Latin American quarters, Latino American quarters and just started beating people up. Yeah. And this really, really set off what would be known as the zoot suit riots. The next day on June 4th, about 200 US Navy servicemen jumped in a bunch of taxis, went to East LA and started in a caravan, like a mob, essentially, and started beating up Mexican kids, 12 and 13 year old boys, clubbing them, stripping them of their clothes, burning their clothes. Those are, that was the first group they encountered. And a bunch of adults tried to

intervene. They got clubbed too. Then after that, it wasn't just people wearing zoot suits. It was any Latino American that they saw. They stormed movie theaters. They stormed bars. They stormed like any. Yeah, they pulled them off the street cars. Yeah. And black guys got caught up in it, too. There was an African American guy on the street car. And I think it wasn't Watts, who was pulled off and beaten to a pulp by servicemen just because he happened to be sitting there and was black. It was literally a riot. And it was perpetrated by white servicemen. For several days, it was known as a zoot suit riots. Cops were there, but they had orders to not arrest any of the servicemen. Right. So they were kind of given carte blanche for a few days.

So for a few days, finally, the Los Angeles City Council comes to its senses and bans the presence of any servicemen in that area of Los Angeles and issues in ordinance whereby zoot suits are prohibited. And in the end, 150 people were injured in the riots. Police arrested more than 500 Latinos on charges ranging from rioting to vagrancy. Yeah. And I don't know if any servicemen were arrested. I think a bagel number of servicemen is probably a good guess. I couldn't find any. It's not say it didn't happen, but my feelings, it was probably zero. Yeah. And they, you know, the local press got ahold of this and called it a quote cleansing effect and said it was a pretty great thing going on in the city when in fact it was one of the darkest, some of the darkest days of

Los Angeles in their history. Pretty sad. It is. It's pretty sad and strange story. Yeah. Do you, I mean, is there anything else to this? No, I don't. The aftermath is. Oh, I tell you one interesting thing from the article was that years later, young Russian Soviet teenagers would wear zoot suits as an act of defiance. Against communism. Against communism. Yeah. So this article of clothing, this fashion statement was a lot more than that. It's pretty interesting. Yeah. And this is one of those weird moments in history where it's not just like, did you know the zoot suit caused this riot? And then you find out that it didn't really. Right. This genuinely started it. Yeah. This was part of this made these, the pouches easily identified targets. The whole

reason they were wearing it was out of defiance and it just irked the establishment like the zoot suit caused these riots. It's crazy. It is crazy. And it had another lasting legacy, if I may. Sure. Juvenile delinquency, the whole concept of that coming out of this area and this era, I believe gave rise to like a slew of great movies, Rebel Without a Cause, The Wild Ones. Oh, yeah. And, if I may, I was a teenage werewolf starring Michael Landon, who was a character saddled with a terrible affliction of throwing milk. So there's this little clip I would like to say. Okay. I put you out of fight three times myself in the last month. You're just lucky to want any formal complaints. The time before this in the

supermarket, it was the checkers mistake. Yeah, but you didn't even give him a chance to rectify it. Boom, you throw a cart in the milk right at him. It contained bovine growth hormone and he turned into a giant cow. So that was the Mr. Science Theater 3000 take of Michael Landon. Of course. And his milk throwing problem. Awesome. Which probably wouldn't have existed had zoot suits not come about. I'd never heard of that movie. I was a teenage werewolf. Yeah. I wonder if they picked him because of his huge mound of hair. Maybe. Because he did look kind of werewolf-y right out of the gate. It's close. Yeah. Even without the Mr. Science Theater 3000 guys discussing it, I guess. It's just fun to watch. It is. It's kind of a cool movie.

Yeah. Look for a podcast on the Stonewall riots. We're going to cover that soon too. That's another overlooked blight of American history. Yes. We'd like to point these out. If you want to learn more about all the stuff we talked about like Cab Calloway's Jive Dictionary, you should search for that on your favorite search engine. It's pretty cool. Yeah. You could also search for zoot suits Smithsonian. That'll bring up a pretty cool article from I think like 1984. It's pretty comprehensive. And of course, the article on our own beloved site is excellent as well. You can type in zoot suits, Z-O-O-T, space, S-U-I-T-S. If you haven't known what we've been talking about this entire time, you want to type that into the search bar at howstuffworks.com.

And since I said search bar, friends, neighbors, it is time for listener mail. You know some of that Jive, Cab Calloway Jazz Jive is still like a few of those words I recognize is still being used. It's kind of cool. Oh yeah. He established a lot of them. Like I'm not nearly cool enough to speak like this on a regular basis, but that's all I want in life really. Like Corny came from this era. Really? Groovy. Okay. I say groovy a lot. Mood juice for milk. Never heard that. You've not heard that? No. There's Buddy G as a guy, like thanks Buddy G. I've heard that. But it's G-H-E-E. Okay. Crumb crushers for Keith. Nice. Freebie, no charge. Really? Brottis, free. That came from there. Give me some skin. Yeah.

Shake hands. It all came out of this era. Pretty cool. Yeah. And we would not have one of the better parts of the movie airplane if Cab Calloway and his cronies hadn't come up with this. And I wish I had one cell of my body that was as cool as Cab Calloway was. He was a cool dude. You know Minnie the Mooture like has a lot of drug references in it. Oh really? Yes, Smokey is cokey. He liked cocaine and they talk about kicking the gong around which apparently smoking opium and Minnie actually in the extended version is taken to an asylum where she dies. And that's why the song ends with poor men. Poor men. Poor men. All right Josh, I'm going to call this polygraph inside scoop. Oh yeah. It's a pretty good one.

Did anybody ever offer you a polygraph test? No. Okay. That's right. I just listened to podcast. Oh he said dear Josh Chuck and Gary. I just listened to your podcast on polygraphs. Thought my personal experience might add a little to the discussion. I was asked at one point in my life to submit to polygraph exams as a witness and a crime. I was interviewed by two different polygraphers at different times. One piece of equipment I did not hear you describe was a pad that you sit on which registered whether or not you fidgeted during questions. I'm glad you said fidgeted instead of what? Okay. This may not be standard though because only the first examiner used one. I was not given a pretest like you described in either case however they did tell

me all six of the questions in advance and which is sort of like a pretest I guess. He just didn't have to answer them. And the polygrapher asked him to make sure he understood all of the six questions. The first was something like are there lights on in the room and in both cases there were questions like are you worried I will ask a question we did not go over. Then I got different versions of the same question. For example did you see a man in a blue jacket or was a man wearing a blue jacket at the scene? After the questions were done I got a break from the machine. Then I got all the questions again in a different order followed by another break and then another round of the same questions. Asking each question in a different way multiple times was apparently to

reduce the possibility of reporting a false reading. But I did notice a couple of hinky things guys. For example the first examiner had me close my eyes so that the readings would be guaranteed to be in response to his questions. The second guy did not ask me to do so and when I asked him if I should he said it didn't matter. Pretty interesting. You also mentioned techniques for fooling a polygraph. According to a sign in the waiting room these techniques can actually cause false positives more than false negatives though it's probably a biased source. Although also they ask you to keep your feet flat on the ground through the test so the tack trick wouldn't be possible. That is from Matthew and Matthew says I by the way am one of

the few listeners who would be thrilled if you included tribal drums in the background of your episodes. Oh yeah with you reading listener mail throughout the whole time. Yeah those combined with the track of us just doing our thing right. So is that why we're hearing this right now? Weird. I had noticed it. Interesting. When did that start? I don't know. Weird. Here it is. Well okay well thank you Matthew. Also we want to thank our house band of tribal drummers and we want to thank our producer Jerry for bending to our every whim. At a moment's notice. Yeah if you have any info about a cool little piece of history that maybe overlooked we want to hear about it and we may even podcast about it and we may even be courteous

enough to give you credit for bringing it up. Yeah you can tweet it to us although it would have to be pretty short as far as history goes but if you want to it's syskpodcast or on facebook at facebook.com slash stuff you should know. We also have a couple of spoken word albums up on iTunes under stuff you should know super stuff guide. They'll cost you but they're worth it and you can reach us by email. Chuck. That's right. At stuffpodcastathowstuffworks.com Be sure to check out our new video podcast Stuff from the Future. Join House of Work staff as we explore them as promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to

get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. On the podcast, Howler Back Now with Holland Rodin. Take a trip back to Beacon Hills for the ultimate Teen Wolf rewatch with the cast and crew. Because as if a hundred episodes wasn't enough, I am bringing you all the behind the scenes. There's gonna be so much more from each episode. Nothing is off limits. And oh, that's right.

Well, we talked about Teen Wolf, the movie. Listen to Howler Back Now with Holland Rodin on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.