Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: No Shirt, No Shoes, WTF

Episode Date: February 8, 2023

You can thank your parents and grandparents for the longstanding ban against dining shirtless and shoeless. While the concept was around, it mushroomed when hippies came along.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What would you do if a secret cabal of the most powerful folks in the United States told you, hey, let's start a coup? Back in the 1930s, a Marine named Smedley Butler was all that stood between the U.S. and fascism. I'm Ben Bullitt. I'm Alex French. And I'm Smedley Butler. Join us for this sordid tale of ambition, treason, and what happens when evil tycoons have too much time on their hands. Listen to Let's Start a Coup on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you find your favorite shows. Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and there's Jerry and this is short stuff in the house. Let's talk. You know what song I've been singing all day. I do know and I really hope you won't sing it because I've been trying to

get it out of my head. Really? Do you think it's the same one? It's gotta be because it's basically about this. Well, it's gotta be. Did it, was it from the, I think, 60s and then an 80s metal band covered it? Let's just not talk about it any further. All right, we won't. Because that is what this is about, exactly. That's right. And we're talking about, and this is a shorter article from our old buddy Dave Ruse from the House of Works.com website. That's right. And it's about, I don't even want to say the word now, but it's about when you enter an establishment and there may be words printed on poster board that say, no shirt, no shoes, no service. Yeah. Yeah. Written by Vinny, apparently. Yeah. Get out of my pizzeria. On the other hand, it might say shirt and shoes

are required, but the upshot is this. And do you know what inspired me to pick this one? I have no idea. This is the exception that proves the rule. Ah, right. So the exception is that there are places where you can't enter without shoes or a shirt. They won't give you service, meaning that it implies other places you could be without a shirt or shoes. Okay, at any rate, ipso facto, there is a strange backstory to the no shirt, no shoes, no service placard. And that is that apparently it was created, not, okay, so it wasn't created, but it exploded in popularity in response to dirty hippies in the late 60s and early 70s. Yeah. And I love the research behind this because there's two things at work in this House of Works article. Dave got

in touch with the, well, he didn't get in touch with the first one, but there's something called the Society of Barefoot Living, no surprise. Society for Barefoot Living. Oh, what'd I say of? Yeah, they're not even just of, they're actually actively trying to promote it. There's like, we're of it, but you should be for it. Right. So he went to their blog and he found that these placards, they say, didn't exist until 1970. And that's when they really sort of took off because of hippies. So Dave, researcher that he is, reached out to an author named William Rohrbaugh, author of something called a book, I guess, called American hippies. He's from the University of Washington and said, hey, is it true that these placards started sprouting up

because of hippies? And it sounds like his answer was basically, yeah, sure. He's like, yes, it's true. Leave me alone. He wasn't very emphatic about it. He was just like, kind of like, yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah, he was, and he basically made the point. He was like, this is not, like they didn't create these to put out hippies. It just so happens that Rohrbaugh came from, or grew up in a coastal Florida town. And he was like, we had these signs long before hippies, but they were pretty much relegated to coastal Florida towns with beaches because it was a lot more formal back then. That's not usually the case now. If you could walk into a beach bar in Florida, they don't care what you're wearing or not wearing. But in the 50s,

he said people were more formal. So these things did exist, but it wasn't until the hippies came along that they really started popping up all over the country in businesses that wanted to keep hippies out. And this was a really easy way to do it. I thought we had sort of a nod and a wink agreement to not say the S word and you already said it. Oh, did I? Yeah. What did I say? You said the S word. I know, but where did I say it? Can we crop it out? Just in the middle of that sentence. Oh man. So which sentence? I'll redo the sentence. I really didn't want to say it. No, that's okay. That's okay. We just won't sing it. Okay. I can't believe I screwed things up this badly, Chuck. I'm sorry. That's okay. But the same author, I think, points out that even though

he was seeing these placards up in Florida in the 1950s when things are more formal that you go to Florida today, something that you may see occasionally even, which is the attitude is and sometimes they'll even have this posted. No shirt, no shoes, no problem. Welcome to my pizzeria. Yeah, Vinnie moved to Florida. Yeah, with your toes. Bring them in. Yeah. So, right, because he was saying that the culture was more formal back then in the 50s, which is why they would have a mini billboard in their window that said no shoes, no service. Yeah, but now it's Margaritaville. It's Jimmy Buffett style. Right. You can go in there with your flip-flops on, no problem. Right. So if you looked at some of these squares of cardboard that were in a window,

it just doesn't matter anymore now. If you looked at some of these signs, especially back in the 50s or in the 60s or 70s, they would say something probably like by order of the health department. Right. And it turns out that this was a bald-faced lie, as dirty a lie as the hippies' feet were dirty. And I think we'll talk about that right after a break. Can I check? It sounds like a great cliffy. I'm Dr. Romany, and I am back with season two of my podcast, Navigating Narcissism. Narcissists are everywhere, and their toxic behavior and words can cause serious harm to your mental health. In our first season, we heard from Eileen Charlotte, who was love-bombed by the tinder swindler. The worst part is that he can only be guilty for stealing the money from me, but he cannot be guilty

for the mental part he did. And that's even way worse than the money you took. But I am here to help. As a licensed psychologist and survivor of narcissistic abuse myself, I know how to identify the narcissist in your life. Each week, you will hear stories from survivors who have navigated through toxic relationships, gaslighting, love-bombing, and the process of their healing from these relationships. Listen to Navigating Narcissism on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, y'all? This is Questlove, and, you know, at QLS, I get to hang out with my friends. Sugar Steve, Laia Fontigolo, Unpaid Bill, and we, you know, at Questlove Supreme,

like the nerd out and do deep dives with musicians and actors and politicians and journalists. We give you the stories behind all your favorite artists and creatives that you have never heard. I'm talking about stories behind their life journeys and their works of art. I love QLS because of the QLS Team Supreme. They're like a second family to me. You're a fan of deep diving into music, everything, all monacking your musical history, and learning things about hip-hop artists and things you never thought. Then you're a lot like me, but you're also a fan of Questlove Supreme. One of the things I love the most about this show is that we get to learn from the masters.

I look at being on this show as my graduate program in music. Like I'm never going to live this down in my own mind. I'm so disappointed in myself. That's okay. And just you saying it's okay doesn't make it okay. It's not okay. You didn't say long-haired freaky people need not apply. Yeah, we might as well just let it all hang out now. I actually like that song. Do you? Well, sure, I do. I think it's kind of fun.

Do you like the original or the Tesla version more? Well, I was into Tesla for a little while because as a just learning guitar player in high school, Tesla had some really great guitar songs, good licks. I wouldn't, I never saw Tesla in concert anything. I wasn't that deep, but I like to the music videos that they aired, but the five-man electrical band, the original version, has this really great intro before it slows down into the song that I really, really like. And they're still around and they're Canadian. Okay. I'll bet they like Gordon Lightfoot.

I hope this makes up for my Gordon Lightfoot comments. I don't know if it's going to, but it's a good start. I'll bet Canada says. I love Rush too. Sure. Who doesn't love Rush? I mean, you'd have to be crazy not to like Rush. Absolutely. So I said something about the health department in saying that, no, you can't come in without a shirt or shoes. It's just dirty and we're the health department.

So we don't, we don't truck to that kind of thing. And apparently it's not the case because the Society for Barefoot Living. Of course they did. They went to the trouble of writing to every health department in the country, every state health department. So 50 different health departments. They wrote a letter to probably a form letter. I'm sure they didn't personalize each one from scratch, but they got responses from them and they posted them on their site that says

to a health department, no, there's no law whatsoever saying that a customer can or can't enter an establishment with or without shoes or a shirt. That's just not a law anywhere in the United States. Yeah. They're like, if you work there, you got to wear shoes and a shirt. I think it's just called proper attire. Yeah. No one wants a chest hair in their pizza. No, as much less Vinny's. That's not what you want, especially Vinny in Florida because then it smells like cocoa butter.

And it's muggy. But the health department doesn't care what the people that dine there are doing. They're concerned about the people running the business. Who does care about ensuring rights is the US federal government, depending on who you are in this country and when this was. But the 1964 Federal Civil Rights Act basically said, hey, if you got a business, you got a hotel, you got a store, a restaurant, you can't say someone's got to leave because of their religion or their race or color or their national origin.

What about their shoes? And then the Americans with Disabilities Act then extended that, of course, to people with disabilities and certain states have gotten on board with extending those rights to all Americans. But the federal government has still not gotten on board with extending those rights to all Americans. Right. Again, though, what about the shoes? And the upshot of it is this.

You can, as a business owner, require certain forms of attire and be well within your legal rights to tell people they can't come in as long as you're not just applying it to one protected group and not all people. Right. That's the key. So if you're just like, you know, Irish have to wear shoes, everybody else is fine, you're going to get in trouble if you do that. At the very least, the Irish are going to be mad at you because they'll be like, what?

What did we do? But that's pretty much the key to the whole thing. Yeah, exactly. Oh, that's it. That's the end, huh? I have got nothing else. I've got, I'm wearing slippers right now. Yeah, me too. Are you wearing socks with your slippers?

No. What kind of slippers you wear in these days, though? Sasawashi slippers. Okay. They're Japanese. Sounds Japanese. They're very, but they're really nice and comfortable cloth slippers. I have gotten into these olakai products in general. This is going to make me seem aged now, but I have my olakai spring and summer slippers

that aren't super hot, but then I was also, we went to, or took our first trip to the Bahamas over the holidays, and I found myself in a predicament when it comes to, and this kind of dovetails with this episode, as far as beachwear and how you got a dress at a restaurant when you're at a beach place or a beach resort. Closed toad, usually. Yeah, usually, but there's like, it's still pretty casual. Like what I found is there's like, and this sounds so terrible, but there's like resort wear. Right.

That you can wear to a nice place at a resort, but it's not like a nice place in New York City. Yeah, like you don't want to wear Tommy Bahama to, you know, I can't even think of a nice place in New York, but you could as resort wear. Yeah, but what it basically was, I had a predicament in that, I never feel like I have the right shoes down there. I have my flip flops for the pool, and then I have my, you know, my new balance, my walking shoes or whatever. And neither one of those feel right at a restaurant like that.

So I got some olacai, like sort of resort wear shoes. Okay, nice. Are they like woven and kind of like dock ciders, or are they like top ciders? They, these are sort of, sort of top cider-esque, not woven, but then I also got a pair of those like woven sandals that are kind of nice that you could wear into a restaurant. I am not going to a resort any time in the planned future, but I was at Nordstrom and saw that they had spary top ciders on sale, and I was like, I'm getting those because they're a bargain, and I'm going to put them to use someday.

So I'm ready to go with the resort wear shoes. I love it. We should meet up in the Bahamas. It's very nice down there. Let's, and I'll be like, nice shoes, and you'll say nice shoes. Let's go get some Amaro. Oh, no, not down there. No?

No, no, you could drink, drink some rum or something. Okay, we'll do that instead. Okay. That's it, right, Chuck? Yeah, we successfully padded this one out to 12 minutes. Well, since Chuck said we padded, that means short stuff is out. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app.

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