October 11, 2011 • 33 mins
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.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know?
From House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuckers Bryant.
(00:20):
And since two of us are sitting together again and
it's not lunchtime, um leg wrestling time, that's true. This
means it's a stuff you should know? Right? Yeah, what's
up to? How are you, Josh? I'm good. We just
got something in today that I want to give a
shout out of thanks for to our friend Martin van Nostri.
(00:42):
Did that come in today today? Okay? He kept emailing
us pestering me has it not come yet? Like I like,
I'm the postmaster general or something like that. But anyway,
he sent us each a T shirt and the new
CD of his band, The Bangalore's in Vitro Meat is
the name of the album, and it's pretty awesome. I
(01:03):
haven't listened to it yet. I just got it. Can't wait.
He sent us some some songs off of it already,
some previous cuts. Yeah. He was the first person to
record the Stuff you Should Know song like in two
thousand eight, 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
(01:26):
like quick little punk songs to like a minute and
a half. So there's like fifty of them. But anyway,
thanks a lot to Van Nostrin. 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 um the Bangalore's like the
city in India, and the album is in vitro meat
and we'll probably get in trouble for endorsing this, so Chuck,
(01:49):
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 to a shortlist. In Alabama,
bear wrestling matches are prohibited. It's illegal to sell peanuts
in Lee County after sundown on Wednesday. It would be
(02:12):
Lee County, Alabama. Did you give a reason for that one? No,
there are some This is from I think dumb laws
Dot com and um. 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. It's pretty comprehensive site. UM. In Hawaii,
coins are not allowed to be placed in one's ears
(02:34):
for spending only. Um. All residents may be fined as
a result of not owning a boat. You're going to
Hawaii tomorrow right or a couple of days. I dare
you to put a coin in your ear and walk
around and be like, I don't own a boat. I
don't own a boat. Chumps um back in our fair
state of Georgia, to legally use profanity in front of
(02:56):
a dead body which lies in a funeral home or
in a corner's all us that's respectful law, okay Um.
In Ackworth, which is close to Keennessaw where I grew up,
where you had to own a gun, I didn't know this.
In Ackworth, all citizens must own a rake. Really yeah,
not a blower? A rake? I think a blower. That's
(03:17):
kind of like asking a lot of some some of
the lower income classes, you know. UM. In Athens on Mondays,
it's illegal for one to whistle very loudly after eleven pm.
What but on Monday's 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
(03:40):
publicly within fift feet of a tavern, school or place
of worship. Women may not drive in a housecoat in Fresno.
Getting drunk in a playground is against the law. That
is sound. I don't agree with that one. That's sensible. Uh.
And then in Los Angeles it's illegal to wear a
(04:01):
zoot suit. Yeah still still so I bring that up,
and I knew Chuck with like that last time, 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 wrestlings. I'm sure it got
out of hand once and now they're just like, that's it.
(04:21):
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 a lark. I don't know, but we thought
zoot suits. Those are interesting and cool, but it's more
than a suit, as it turns out, it really is.
(04:43):
It was at least you should probably mention, like, what
is a zoot suit, Chuck. Everybody's seen them before. Yeah,
back in the nineteen thirties. Uh, they were very much
in fashion, especially in UH in uh Latino communities, in
African American communities coast to coast. Though it seems like uh,
Caesar Chavez, Malcolm X, Cab calloway, big band leaders, the
(05:05):
jazz scene in New York all very much associated with
zoot suit. Tomcat from Tom and Jerry, Yeah, who was
going after a girl and she said she was a
square and was corny and he goes out and gets
some a zoot suit and becomes a cool cat. Cool cat.
So you'll know a zoot suit. They were originally worn
made of wool and then later rayon, but you'll know
(05:27):
it because they're very distinct. They have very broad, padded shoulders,
very long waisted coats. Uh. Suit pants were worn really
really high, like up over the belly and uh, we're
very tight at the top, then ballooned out like mc
hammer style and then tapered back down again at the
ankle or we're pegged. Oh of course, yeah, that's not
(05:49):
you achieved that look. And um, the jackets exaggerated contours
and colors. A lot of times they would wear the
big pocket chain that went down to their knee and
the hat with a feather and it was pointy shoes. Sure,
um so they If it sounds a lot like, um, pimps,
(06:10):
seventies pimps, where 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 zoo 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
(06:32):
Malcolm X. Did you not see the movie? Yeah, 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 you know, became Malcolm X
and uh not, what was his original name, Shabaz? Yes,
I believe so, Malcolm Shabaz. So once he became Malcolm
(06:52):
X and got serious about the civil rights, he ditched
the zoot suit and stuff, and was a little more
traditionally garbed right. Um another way, So the zoot suit
you you just nailed it on the head. You said,
the zoos suit scene, it was very much part of
a scene, part of the Harlem renaissance. Um. It was
part of the pacho scene out in Los Angeles, which
we'll talk about, Pacho, pachuco, pachuko. I used, I like
(07:18):
slang on top of slang, so I call it pacho. Um.
And so it was kind of the uniform of a
certain kind of scene, apparently, the upscale black nightclubs of Harlem.
Like if 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
(07:39):
the good clubs. I thought you were gonna bust out
some cab callaway slang. Well, you mentioned cab Callaway was
one of the the people who love zoos suits. And
he wrote a dictionary of slang, of jive slang. Thank you.
I could not be square if I tried, um, And
one of the one of the words that he put
(08:00):
down was zoo, 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 his zoots suit looks like,
you did a great job in normal, square, corny terms.
But if you want to talk like a hepcat from
(08:21):
the jive jump zoot suit era, you would describe it
as a killer dealer 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 drape suits and even advertised as extreme quote extreme
drapes in newspapers. Yeah, pretty cool. Yeah, so the zoos
(08:45):
is hanging out there. It's kind of weird. Ralph Ellison
wrote about Um wrote about it in As an Invisible Man.
His novel The Narrator encounters Um three young and extravagantly
dressed blacks in their zoot suits, and he says that
they were the stewards of something uncomfortable. So he's saying, like,
(09:07):
there's just it's almost like it was. It's the same
as if you're if you saw a bunch of rave
kids wearing like the stupid pants, yes in the nineties
or whatever you know, or or hip hop kids today.
It was this. It was the same thing, except this
was much more upscale than that. But it was basically,
people have trouble walking in but they're still gotta have
(09:30):
that look, you know, because that's what the cool kids
do exactly. So this was you could argue, the original
American version of counter culture dress, and it grew out
of Harlem and was later adopted by um Mexican Americans
or Latino Americans in Los Angeles. Yeah, what's this one
(09:51):
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 and they're all very different. No,
but I do like that when you're talking about from Gainesville,
what isn't Yeah, they a man, a bus driver, I'm sorry,
bust worker named Clyde Duncan from New York um came
(10:11):
back to New York with one and said he bought
it in Gainesville, Georgia and allegedly, uh, he had been
inspired by Gone with the Wind and wanted to look
like rhet Butler and so got a Taylor in Gainesville
to make him this thing. I'd like to go with
that story. And well, the New York Times put that
story forth and they said it basically on it quickically
in and um that was the story for many many
(10:34):
years until historians actually started to put real effort and
thought it into the zoot suits, um, and they found
that there it's possibly true, but most likely, uh, it
came out of either guys like Cab Callaway wearing them
or guys like Cab Callaway copying people in the jazz scene.
(10:54):
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 uh this Clyde Duncan fella
who had the idea originally or whatever, you can basically
say the Harlem Renaissance zoos suits came out of that.
And you know, I knew that. I did not know
(11:15):
of its association within the Latino and largely Mexican community. No,
but that's where 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 in Harlem. Um, when it
hit Los Angeles and was taken up by the Pacos, right,
(11:40):
um square, Uh, it changed, it transformed, it turned into
something political and became ultimately a sign of defiance. Yeah.
In the World War Two, you know, everyone knows that
there was there was rationing going on everything from food
to metals and ultimately wool and cloth. So where in
a zoot suit which required an abundance of cloth was
(12:05):
deemed not patriotic because you're basically flaunting, Hey, I don't
care about the war effort. I'm gonna wear my zoot suit.
That's more important to me, right exactly. So, um. In
in the forties, the war production board basically said we
need to cut back all fabric used in the States
by and to help you, here is the new American suit.
(12:26):
It's streamline, it uses less fabric. As long as you're
making stuff, according to these, um, these sketches, you're patriotic,
you're American, You're within the law. Right. Uncle Sam wanted
to squear tight clothes pretty much. And if you think
about if you look at the suits in the fifties
and sixties and after the forties, Um, the American the
(12:47):
classic American suit is narrow, narrow cut, the cuffs are high. Yeah. Um,
so I wonder if that came out. I'm sure, but
you can take what they were saying a different way,
and that Uncle Sam's telling you would dressed like this
and everybody dressed like that. So zoot suits immediately became,
um a symbol of defiance. Anybody who wore him was saying,
(13:10):
you know, up yours, Uncle Sam. Uh. And it was
ultimately illegal to manufacture or advertise as 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, and at the same time, especially in Los Angeles,
(13:33):
it had an association with UH gang activity, criminal activity,
and thuggery, largely because of newspapers that would call them,
you know, zoot suitors committing crimes. They would you know,
label people in its particular clothing as being criminals. Essentially. Yeah. Well,
racism is definitely nothing new in this country, and it
(13:55):
was hot and heavy in the late thirties early forties
in Los Angeles among um 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, but basically
it was white people in California were like, hey, there's
a lot of you these days, so you're making us
(14:15):
a little nervous, and um, you wearing the zoos suit
is easy to target. It just so happened that the
group that they were targeting was actually kind of homogeneous
people who wore zoos suits, kind of wore them in defiance,
but also identified themselves with them. Right, the pachos. It
was a statement of independence, not necessarily thumbing your nose
(14:38):
at the United States, but just hey, I'm independent, I'm Latino,
I'm living in Los Angeles nineties and this is our look.
So the pachos, Yeah, the pachucos, the pachos. I'm seeing
pachos right here. Octavio pa said, pachoss Yeah, okay, Um,
So the pachos were it's They weren't an import from Mexico.
(15:01):
They were a real American hybrid. They were second generation
um Latino American kids who, ironically, because of the war effort,
were latch key kids. Their parents were off working the
night shift um for war production, and they were basically
left to them. Their own devices. They called themselves twenty
four hour orphans, the first latch key kids, and um,
(15:24):
they were also arguably the first rebels, and out of
their emergence in America, UM came the whole concept of
juvenile delinquency. Yeah, I love that one quote from Octavio
pass And I read that he said the zoot suit
was a symbol of love and joy or horror and loathing,
an embodiment of liberty, of disorder, of the forbidden. So
(15:47):
it was this single fashion item was at the same
time asserting your independence and individuality as well as what
white folk saw as thumb in their nose, the white
man basically, Um, and I guess that's exactly what they
were doing, because, as you said, like, they weren't necessarily
(16:10):
wearing the zoos suit as a statement, and they weren't
anti war protesters, but it was more like, you know what,
I'm sick of you racist white people, and I'm I'm
not going to hide my identity. I'm not going to
try to blend in. I'm not going to go back
to my traditional roots from Mexico because I wasn't born here.
But I'm not gonna, you know, join the service and
(16:32):
wearing American suit like like, so this is this was
the compromise, and it kicked white people off like crazy,
especially in Los Angeles. Yeah. Well, at the time, in
southern California, there was an enormous presence of UM service
men who were waiting to ship out to the Pacific
(16:53):
Theater from California. Yeah, and they were, you know, rubbing
elbows with these guys that a lot of people thought
were 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 summer. So
(17:15):
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 um, uh, let me
see quote, um, 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 uh. The article
(17:37):
was titled police must clean up l a hoodlumism, which
is not a word, right, But so so there's this
joint effort of UM just general racism among whites in
the in the general public um and servicemen waiting to
be deployed specifically, and the Los Angeles media kind of
fanning the flames, that's right, and then this Sleepy Lagoon
(18:00):
murder happened. The Sleepy Lagoon case. Sleepy Lagoon, Josh was
a reservoir by the l A River. It's not there
anymore in that pastag not at all, like a plastics
plant there now there's no reservoir. Yes, so don't go
looking for it, even though they said it's uh, roughly
it was atlass And Boulevard in Maywood. I know where
(18:21):
that is actually. I think it's on the way to
the airport. Uh so the Sleepy Lagoon case. UM. 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 hang out where they would
go and listen to music and swim and have a
good time. Um. In August to uh, the body of
(18:46):
Jose Diaz was found at this reservoir. And what I
gathered 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 read
four hundred Mexican American youths had a corrupt trial where
they basically denied the many civil rights, cooked up evidence,
(19:08):
had no evidence, had no physical evidence, had no witnesses,
nothing of the sort. And they basically pinned that murder
on twelve guys. Is that right? Nine kids? Nine kids,
but they railroaded nine with no evidence that the guy
had even been murdered. And eventually the Sleepy Lagoon Defense
(19:28):
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 Um. The press attention that the Sleepy
(19:52):
Lagoon case received just fan the flames further and further. Um.
And then uh, in June, know May of that's when
things really started to take a term for the worst. Um.
I guess about a dozen servicemen I think Navy boys
were um down in East l A. And uh, a
(20:15):
few of them approached some girls. One of them kept walking,
and the one that kept walking past a group of
pouchos who were wearing zoot suits, and when when he
passed um one of them apparently raised his hand and
what the guy took as a threatening manner, so the
serviceman grabbed his arm, and right after that everything went
black because somebody knocked him over the back of his
(20:36):
head with something and he fell and broke his jawn
in two places. Okay, they gotta see it, but before
they even react, the the pouchos jump them, and these
eleven 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 him and
(20:58):
get him out of there. So this is not This
is not bode well for UM Mexican American white relations
in Los Angeles in ninety A 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
(21:19):
East l A on June three. Eleven 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 and authorities, but there they were Latino Americans.
(21:40):
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 it 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 of but it
(22:01):
meant specifically Mexican American. And then later I believe they
some some of them chose to embrace that word pride.
Yeah there's sixties. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. I don't know
where it stands today, so say it. Uh So they
ran into this group of young Latinos dressed in zoot suits,
gotten an argument. The sailors, of course, claimed that they
(22:24):
were jumped, although it's unclear exactly how it started, and
the l a p D 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 l A
to the cops rough house style. The cops, including off
(22:45):
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.
Right the next day, on June four, about two hundred U. S.
Navy servicemen jumped in a bunch of taxis, went to
(23:07):
East l A. And a caravan, yeah, and a caravan
like a mob essentially, and started beating up Mexican kids,
twelve and thirteen 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 Club two. Then after that
it wasn't just people wearing zutsus, it was any Latino
(23:29):
American that they saw. They stormed movie theaters, they stormed bars,
they stormed like and yeah, they pulled them off the
street cars. Yeah. They and black guys got caught up
in it too. African American guy on on the street car.
And I think it wasn't watts Um who was pulled
off and beat into a pulp by servicemen just because
(23:50):
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 the Zutsu riots.
Ops were there, but they had orders to not arrest
any of the servicemen, 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 it since
(24:13):
its in bans the presence of any servicemen um in
that area of Los Angeles and issues in ordinance whereby
zoos suits are prohibited. And in the end, a hundred
and fifty people were injured in the riots. Police arrested
more than five hundred Latinos on charges ranging from riding
(24:35):
to vagrancy. And I don't know if any servicemen were arrested.
I think a bagel number is probably a good guess.
I couldn't find any. Let's not say it didn't happen,
but my feelings it was probably a hero 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
(24:57):
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 do this? Um? No,
I don't. The aftermath is I'll sell you. One interesting
thing from the article was that years later, young Russian
(25:22):
Soviet UH teenagers would wear zoot suits as an act
of defiance against communist against communism, So this article of clothing,
this fashion statement, was a lot more than that. It's
pretty interesting, 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, this genuinely started it. This
(25:45):
was part of this made um these the pouchos 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,
um and had another lasting legacy, if I may it,
um it juvenile delinquency. The whole concept of that coming
(26:08):
out of this area in this era, um I believe
gave rise to the like a slew of great movies,
Rebel without a Cause, The Wild Ones and If I May.
I was a teenage Werewolf starring Michael Landon, who was
a character settled with a terrible affliction of throwing milk.
(26:31):
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 and the supermarket it was
the checker's mistake, but you didn't even give him a
chance to rectify. At Boom, you throw a cart in
the milk right at him contained bowline growth hormone, and
he turned into a giant cow. So that was the
(26:54):
Mystery Science Theater three thousand take of Michael Landon and
his milk throwing problem awesome, which probably wouldn't have existed
had zoot suits not coming about. I've 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. He right
out of the kids close. Yeah, even without the Mr
(27:16):
Science Theater three thousand guys um discussing it. I guess
just fun to watch it is. It's it's kind of
a cool movie. Yeah. I look forward podcast on the
Stonewall Riots. We're gonna cover that soon too. That's another
overlooked blight of American history. Yes, we like to point
these out. Um. If you want to learn more about
all the stuff we talked about, like Cab Callaway's job dictionary,
(27:37):
you should search for that on your favorite search engine.
It's pretty cool. Yeah, you could also search for zoot
suits Smithsonian. Um then'll bring up a pretty cool article
from I think like four it's pretty comprehensive. And then
of course the article on our own beloved side is
excellent as well. You can type in zoot suits, zoot
space s U I T S. If you haven't known
(27:59):
what we've been talking about this entire time, you want
to type that into the search bart how stuff works
dot com. And since I said search bar friends neighbors,
it is time for a listener mail. You know some
of that drive Cab Callaway, jazz drive is still like
a few of those words I recognize it's still being used.
It's kind of cool. Oh yeah, he established a lot
(28:21):
of them. Um 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 came from
this era really groovy okay, Um, i'd say groovy a lot.
Moo juice for milk. I've never heard that. You've not
heard that. Um, there's Buddy G as a guy like, thanks,
(28:42):
Buddy G. I've heard that. Um, but it's g h
e okay, Um, crumb crushers for Keith Night, freebie, no charge,
broadest free that that came in there, give me some skin.
It all came out of this era pretty yeah, And
we would not have one of the better parts of
(29:03):
the movie Airplane if if Cab Callaway and his cronies
head and to come up with this. And I wish
I had one cell of my body that was as
cool as Cab Callowe loves he was a cool dude,
you know. Miny the moocher like has a lot of
drug references in it. Yes, Smokey is cokey, He's like cocaine.
And they talked about kicking the gong around, which apparently
(29:23):
smoking opium and many actually. In the extended version, Um
is taken to an asylum where she dies, and that's
why the song ends with poor men play or man,
poor man? All right, Josh, I'm gonna call this, uh
(29:45):
polygraph inside scoop. Oh yeah, that's a pretty good one.
Did anybody ever offer you a polygraph test? That's right now?
Just listen to podcast, oh, he said, Dear Josh, Chuck
and Gary, I just listen to your podcast on polygraphs.
I 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
(30:07):
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 and used one.
(30:28):
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 uh, which is sort of
like a pretest. I guess yeah, he just didn't have
to answer them, and the polygrapher asked him to make
sure he understood all of the six questions. Uh. The
first was something like are their lights on in the room?
And in both cases there were questions like are you worried?
(30:50):
I will ask a question we did not go over. Uh.
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
(31:12):
different way multiple times was apparently to reduce the possibility
of reporting the false reading. But I did notice a
couple of hinky things guys. For example, the first examiner
had me closed 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
(31:36):
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 yeah, also they
ask you to keep your feet flat on the ground
through the tests of the tack trick. Wouldn't be possible,
that is for Matthew, and Matthew says I, by the way,
(31:58):
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,
all those combined with the track of us just doing
our thing right. So is that why we're hearing this
right now? Weird? I hadn't noticed it. Interesting. When did
(32:18):
that start? I don't know where it is? Well, okay, well,
thank you Matthew. Um. 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. Yeah,
if you have any info about a cool little piece
of history that may be overlooked, we want to hear
(32:40):
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. Uh. 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 s y Ska podcast um or on Facebook at
facebook dot com slash stuff You Should Know. We also
(33:02):
have a couple of spoken word albums up on iTunes
and there Stuff you Should Know, super Stuff Guide. They'll
cost you, but they're worth it, and you can reach
us by email. Chalk That's Right at Stuff Podcast at
how stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out
(33:25):
our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how
Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising and
perplexing possibilities of tomorrow, brought to you by the reinvented
two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know?
From House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuckers Bryant.
(00:20):
And since two of us are sitting together again and
it's not lunchtime, um leg wrestling time, that's true. This
means it's a stuff you should know? Right? Yeah, what's
up to? How are you, Josh? I'm good. We just
got something in today that I want to give a
shout out of thanks for to our friend Martin van Nostri.
(00:42):
Did that come in today today? Okay? He kept emailing
us pestering me has it not come yet? Like I like,
I'm the postmaster general or something like that. But anyway,
he sent us each a T shirt and the new
CD of his band, The Bangalore's in Vitro Meat is
the name of the album, and it's pretty awesome. I
(01:03):
haven't listened to it yet. I just got it. Can't wait.
He sent us some some songs off of it already,
some previous cuts. Yeah. He was the first person to
record the Stuff you Should Know song like in two
thousand eight, 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
(01:26):
like quick little punk songs to like a minute and
a half. So there's like fifty of them. But anyway,
thanks a lot to Van Nostrin. 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 um the Bangalore's like the
city in India, and the album is in vitro meat
and we'll probably get in trouble for endorsing this, so Chuck,
(01:49):
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 to a shortlist. In Alabama,
bear wrestling matches are prohibited. It's illegal to sell peanuts
in Lee County after sundown on Wednesday. It would be
(02:12):
Lee County, Alabama. Did you give a reason for that one? No,
there are some This is from I think dumb laws
Dot com and um. 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. It's pretty comprehensive site. UM. In Hawaii,
coins are not allowed to be placed in one's ears
(02:34):
for spending only. Um. All residents may be fined as
a result of not owning a boat. You're going to
Hawaii tomorrow right or a couple of days. I dare
you to put a coin in your ear and walk
around and be like, I don't own a boat. I
don't own a boat. Chumps um back in our fair
state of Georgia, to legally use profanity in front of
(02:56):
a dead body which lies in a funeral home or
in a corner's all us that's respectful law, okay Um.
In Ackworth, which is close to Keennessaw where I grew up,
where you had to own a gun, I didn't know this.
In Ackworth, all citizens must own a rake. Really yeah,
not a blower? A rake? I think a blower. That's
(03:17):
kind of like asking a lot of some some of
the lower income classes, you know. UM. In Athens on Mondays,
it's illegal for one to whistle very loudly after eleven pm.
What but on Monday's 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
(03:40):
publicly within fift feet of a tavern, school or place
of worship. Women may not drive in a housecoat in Fresno.
Getting drunk in a playground is against the law. That
is sound. I don't agree with that one. That's sensible. Uh.
And then in Los Angeles it's illegal to wear a
(04:01):
zoot suit. Yeah still still so I bring that up,
and I knew Chuck with like that last time, 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 wrestlings. I'm sure it got
out of hand once and now they're just like, that's it.
(04:21):
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 a lark. I don't know, but we thought
zoot suits. Those are interesting and cool, but it's more
than a suit, as it turns out, it really is.
(04:43):
It was at least you should probably mention, like, what
is a zoot suit, Chuck. Everybody's seen them before. Yeah,
back in the nineteen thirties. Uh, they were very much
in fashion, especially in UH in uh Latino communities, in
African American communities coast to coast. Though it seems like uh,
Caesar Chavez, Malcolm X, Cab calloway, big band leaders, the
(05:05):
jazz scene in New York all very much associated with
zoot suit. Tomcat from Tom and Jerry, Yeah, who was
going after a girl and she said she was a
square and was corny and he goes out and gets
some a zoot suit and becomes a cool cat. Cool cat.
So you'll know a zoot suit. They were originally worn
made of wool and then later rayon, but you'll know
(05:27):
it because they're very distinct. They have very broad, padded shoulders,
very long waisted coats. Uh. Suit pants were worn really
really high, like up over the belly and uh, we're
very tight at the top, then ballooned out like mc
hammer style and then tapered back down again at the
ankle or we're pegged. Oh of course, yeah, that's not
(05:49):
you achieved that look. And um, the jackets exaggerated contours
and colors. A lot of times they would wear the
big pocket chain that went down to their knee and
the hat with a feather and it was pointy shoes. Sure,
um so they If it sounds a lot like, um, pimps,
(06:10):
seventies pimps, where 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 zoo 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
(06:32):
Malcolm X. Did you not see the movie? Yeah, 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 you know, became Malcolm X
and uh not, what was his original name, Shabaz? Yes,
I believe so, Malcolm Shabaz. So once he became Malcolm
(06:52):
X and got serious about the civil rights, he ditched
the zoot suit and stuff, and was a little more
traditionally garbed right. Um another way, So the zoot suit
you you just nailed it on the head. You said,
the zoos suit scene, it was very much part of
a scene, part of the Harlem renaissance. Um. It was
part of the pacho scene out in Los Angeles, which
we'll talk about, Pacho, pachuco, pachuko. I used, I like
(07:18):
slang on top of slang, so I call it pacho. Um.
And so it was kind of the uniform of a
certain kind of scene, apparently, the upscale black nightclubs of Harlem.
Like if 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
(07:39):
the good clubs. I thought you were gonna bust out
some cab callaway slang. Well, you mentioned cab Callaway was
one of the the people who love zoos suits. And
he wrote a dictionary of slang, of jive slang. Thank you.
I could not be square if I tried, um, And
one of the one of the words that he put
(08:00):
down was zoo, 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 his zoots suit looks like,
you did a great job in normal, square, corny terms.
But if you want to talk like a hepcat from
(08:21):
the jive jump zoot suit era, you would describe it
as a killer dealer 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 drape suits and even advertised as extreme quote extreme
drapes in newspapers. Yeah, pretty cool. Yeah, so the zoos
(08:45):
is hanging out there. It's kind of weird. Ralph Ellison
wrote about Um wrote about it in As an Invisible Man.
His novel The Narrator encounters Um three young and extravagantly
dressed blacks in their zoot suits, and he says that
they were the stewards of something uncomfortable. So he's saying, like,
(09:07):
there's just it's almost like it was. It's the same
as if you're if you saw a bunch of rave
kids wearing like the stupid pants, yes in the nineties
or whatever you know, or or hip hop kids today.
It was this. It was the same thing, except this
was much more upscale than that. But it was basically,
people have trouble walking in but they're still gotta have
(09:30):
that look, you know, because that's what the cool kids
do exactly. So this was you could argue, the original
American version of counter culture dress, and it grew out
of Harlem and was later adopted by um Mexican Americans
or Latino Americans in Los Angeles. Yeah, what's this one
(09:51):
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 and they're all very different. No,
but I do like that when you're talking about from Gainesville,
what isn't Yeah, they a man, a bus driver, I'm sorry,
bust worker named Clyde Duncan from New York um came
(10:11):
back to New York with one and said he bought
it in Gainesville, Georgia and allegedly, uh, he had been
inspired by Gone with the Wind and wanted to look
like rhet Butler and so got a Taylor in Gainesville
to make him this thing. I'd like to go with
that story. And well, the New York Times put that
story forth and they said it basically on it quickically
in and um that was the story for many many
(10:34):
years until historians actually started to put real effort and
thought it into the zoot suits, um, and they found
that there it's possibly true, but most likely, uh, it
came out of either guys like Cab Callaway wearing them
or guys like Cab Callaway copying people in the jazz scene.
(10:54):
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 uh this Clyde Duncan fella
who had the idea originally or whatever, you can basically
say the Harlem Renaissance zoos suits came out of that.
And you know, I knew that. I did not know
(11:15):
of its association within the Latino and largely Mexican community. No,
but that's where 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 in Harlem. Um, when it
hit Los Angeles and was taken up by the Pacos, right,
(11:40):
um square, Uh, it changed, it transformed, it turned into
something political and became ultimately a sign of defiance. Yeah.
In the World War Two, you know, everyone knows that
there was there was rationing going on everything from food
to metals and ultimately wool and cloth. So where in
a zoot suit which required an abundance of cloth was
(12:05):
deemed not patriotic because you're basically flaunting, Hey, I don't
care about the war effort. I'm gonna wear my zoot suit.
That's more important to me, right exactly. So, um. In
in the forties, the war production board basically said we
need to cut back all fabric used in the States
by and to help you, here is the new American suit.
(12:26):
It's streamline, it uses less fabric. As long as you're
making stuff, according to these, um, these sketches, you're patriotic,
you're American, You're within the law. Right. Uncle Sam wanted
to squear tight clothes pretty much. And if you think
about if you look at the suits in the fifties
and sixties and after the forties, Um, the American the
(12:47):
classic American suit is narrow, narrow cut, the cuffs are high. Yeah. Um,
so I wonder if that came out. I'm sure, but
you can take what they were saying a different way,
and that Uncle Sam's telling you would dressed like this
and everybody dressed like that. So zoot suits immediately became,
um a symbol of defiance. Anybody who wore him was saying,
(13:10):
you know, up yours, Uncle Sam. Uh. And it was
ultimately illegal to manufacture or advertise as 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, and at the same time, especially in Los Angeles,
(13:33):
it had an association with UH gang activity, criminal activity,
and thuggery, largely because of newspapers that would call them,
you know, zoot suitors committing crimes. They would you know,
label people in its particular clothing as being criminals. Essentially. Yeah. Well,
racism is definitely nothing new in this country, and it
(13:55):
was hot and heavy in the late thirties early forties
in Los Angeles among um 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, but basically
it was white people in California were like, hey, there's
a lot of you these days, so you're making us
(14:15):
a little nervous, and um, you wearing the zoos suit
is easy to target. It just so happened that the
group that they were targeting was actually kind of homogeneous
people who wore zoos suits, kind of wore them in defiance,
but also identified themselves with them. Right, the pachos. It
was a statement of independence, not necessarily thumbing your nose
(14:38):
at the United States, but just hey, I'm independent, I'm Latino,
I'm living in Los Angeles nineties and this is our look.
So the pachos, Yeah, the pachucos, the pachos. I'm seeing
pachos right here. Octavio pa said, pachoss Yeah, okay, Um,
So the pachos were it's They weren't an import from Mexico.
(15:01):
They were a real American hybrid. They were second generation
um Latino American kids who, ironically, because of the war effort,
were latch key kids. Their parents were off working the
night shift um for war production, and they were basically
left to them. Their own devices. They called themselves twenty
four hour orphans, the first latch key kids, and um,
(15:24):
they were also arguably the first rebels, and out of
their emergence in America, UM came the whole concept of
juvenile delinquency. Yeah, I love that one quote from Octavio
pass And I read that he said the zoot suit
was a symbol of love and joy or horror and loathing,
an embodiment of liberty, of disorder, of the forbidden. So
(15:47):
it was this single fashion item was at the same
time asserting your independence and individuality as well as what
white folk saw as thumb in their nose, the white
man basically, Um, and I guess that's exactly what they
were doing, because, as you said, like, they weren't necessarily
(16:10):
wearing the zoos suit as a statement, and they weren't
anti war protesters, but it was more like, you know what,
I'm sick of you racist white people, and I'm I'm
not going to hide my identity. I'm not going to
try to blend in. I'm not going to go back
to my traditional roots from Mexico because I wasn't born here.
But I'm not gonna, you know, join the service and
(16:32):
wearing American suit like like, so this is this was
the compromise, and it kicked white people off like crazy,
especially in Los Angeles. Yeah. Well, at the time, in
southern California, there was an enormous presence of UM service
men who were waiting to ship out to the Pacific
(16:53):
Theater from California. Yeah, and they were, you know, rubbing
elbows with these guys that a lot of people thought
were 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 summer. So
(17:15):
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 um, uh, let me
see quote, um, 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 uh. The article
(17:37):
was titled police must clean up l a hoodlumism, which
is not a word, right, But so so there's this
joint effort of UM just general racism among whites in
the in the general public um and servicemen waiting to
be deployed specifically, and the Los Angeles media kind of
fanning the flames, that's right, and then this Sleepy Lagoon
(18:00):
murder happened. The Sleepy Lagoon case. Sleepy Lagoon, Josh was
a reservoir by the l A River. It's not there
anymore in that pastag not at all, like a plastics
plant there now there's no reservoir. Yes, so don't go
looking for it, even though they said it's uh, roughly
it was atlass And Boulevard in Maywood. I know where
(18:21):
that is actually. I think it's on the way to
the airport. Uh so the Sleepy Lagoon case. UM. 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 hang out where they would
go and listen to music and swim and have a
good time. Um. In August to uh, the body of
(18:46):
Jose Diaz was found at this reservoir. And what I
gathered 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 read
four hundred Mexican American youths had a corrupt trial where
they basically denied the many civil rights, cooked up evidence,
(19:08):
had no evidence, had no physical evidence, had no witnesses,
nothing of the sort. And they basically pinned that murder
on twelve guys. Is that right? Nine kids? Nine kids,
but they railroaded nine with no evidence that the guy
had even been murdered. And eventually the Sleepy Lagoon Defense
(19:28):
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 Um. The press attention that the Sleepy
(19:52):
Lagoon case received just fan the flames further and further. Um.
And then uh, in June, know May of that's when
things really started to take a term for the worst. Um.
I guess about a dozen servicemen I think Navy boys
were um down in East l A. And uh, a
(20:15):
few of them approached some girls. One of them kept walking,
and the one that kept walking past a group of
pouchos who were wearing zoot suits, and when when he
passed um one of them apparently raised his hand and
what the guy took as a threatening manner, so the
serviceman grabbed his arm, and right after that everything went
black because somebody knocked him over the back of his
(20:36):
head with something and he fell and broke his jawn
in two places. Okay, they gotta see it, but before
they even react, the the pouchos jump them, and these
eleven 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 him and
(20:58):
get him out of there. So this is not This
is not bode well for UM Mexican American white relations
in Los Angeles in ninety A 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
(21:19):
East l A on June three. Eleven 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 and authorities, but there they were Latino Americans.
(21:40):
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 it 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 of but it
(22:01):
meant specifically Mexican American. And then later I believe they
some some of them chose to embrace that word pride.
Yeah there's sixties. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. I don't know
where it stands today, so say it. Uh So they
ran into this group of young Latinos dressed in zoot suits,
gotten an argument. The sailors, of course, claimed that they
(22:24):
were jumped, although it's unclear exactly how it started, and
the l a p D 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 l A
to the cops rough house style. The cops, including off
(22:45):
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.
Right the next day, on June four, about two hundred U. S.
Navy servicemen jumped in a bunch of taxis, went to
(23:07):
East l A. And a caravan, yeah, and a caravan
like a mob essentially, and started beating up Mexican kids,
twelve and thirteen 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 Club two. Then after that
it wasn't just people wearing zutsus, it was any Latino
(23:29):
American that they saw. They stormed movie theaters, they stormed bars,
they stormed like and yeah, they pulled them off the
street cars. Yeah. They and black guys got caught up
in it too. African American guy on on the street car.
And I think it wasn't watts Um who was pulled
off and beat into a pulp by servicemen just because
(23:50):
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 the Zutsu riots.
Ops were there, but they had orders to not arrest
any of the servicemen, 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 it since
(24:13):
its in bans the presence of any servicemen um in
that area of Los Angeles and issues in ordinance whereby
zoos suits are prohibited. And in the end, a hundred
and fifty people were injured in the riots. Police arrested
more than five hundred Latinos on charges ranging from riding
(24:35):
to vagrancy. And I don't know if any servicemen were arrested.
I think a bagel number is probably a good guess.
I couldn't find any. Let's not say it didn't happen,
but my feelings it was probably a hero 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
(24:57):
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 do this? Um? No,
I don't. The aftermath is I'll sell you. One interesting
thing from the article was that years later, young Russian
(25:22):
Soviet UH teenagers would wear zoot suits as an act
of defiance against communist against communism, So this article of clothing,
this fashion statement, was a lot more than that. It's
pretty interesting, 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, this genuinely started it. This
(25:45):
was part of this made um these the pouchos 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,
um and had another lasting legacy, if I may it,
um it juvenile delinquency. The whole concept of that coming
(26:08):
out of this area in this era, um I believe
gave rise to the like a slew of great movies,
Rebel without a Cause, The Wild Ones and If I May.
I was a teenage Werewolf starring Michael Landon, who was
a character settled with a terrible affliction of throwing milk.
(26:31):
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 and the supermarket it was
the checker's mistake, but you didn't even give him a
chance to rectify. At Boom, you throw a cart in
the milk right at him contained bowline growth hormone, and
he turned into a giant cow. So that was the
(26:54):
Mystery Science Theater three thousand take of Michael Landon and
his milk throwing problem awesome, which probably wouldn't have existed
had zoot suits not coming about. I've 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. He right
out of the kids close. Yeah, even without the Mr
(27:16):
Science Theater three thousand guys um discussing it. I guess
just fun to watch it is. It's it's kind of
a cool movie. Yeah. I look forward podcast on the
Stonewall Riots. We're gonna cover that soon too. That's another
overlooked blight of American history. Yes, we like to point
these out. Um. If you want to learn more about
all the stuff we talked about, like Cab Callaway's job dictionary,
(27:37):
you should search for that on your favorite search engine.
It's pretty cool. Yeah, you could also search for zoot
suits Smithsonian. Um then'll bring up a pretty cool article
from I think like four it's pretty comprehensive. And then
of course the article on our own beloved side is
excellent as well. You can type in zoot suits, zoot
space s U I T S. If you haven't known
(27:59):
what we've been talking about this entire time, you want
to type that into the search bart how stuff works
dot com. And since I said search bar friends neighbors,
it is time for a listener mail. You know some
of that drive Cab Callaway, jazz drive is still like
a few of those words I recognize it's still being used.
It's kind of cool. Oh yeah, he established a lot
(28:21):
of them. Um 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 came from
this era really groovy okay, Um, i'd say groovy a lot.
Moo juice for milk. I've never heard that. You've not
heard that. Um, there's Buddy G as a guy like, thanks,
(28:42):
Buddy G. I've heard that. Um, but it's g h
e okay, Um, crumb crushers for Keith Night, freebie, no charge,
broadest free that that came in there, give me some skin.
It all came out of this era pretty yeah, And
we would not have one of the better parts of
(29:03):
the movie Airplane if if Cab Callaway and his cronies
head and to come up with this. And I wish
I had one cell of my body that was as
cool as Cab Callowe loves he was a cool dude,
you know. Miny the moocher like has a lot of
drug references in it. Yes, Smokey is cokey, He's like cocaine.
And they talked about kicking the gong around, which apparently
(29:23):
smoking opium and many actually. In the extended version, Um
is taken to an asylum where she dies, and that's
why the song ends with poor men play or man,
poor man? All right, Josh, I'm gonna call this, uh
(29:45):
polygraph inside scoop. Oh yeah, that's a pretty good one.
Did anybody ever offer you a polygraph test? That's right now?
Just listen to podcast, oh, he said, Dear Josh, Chuck
and Gary, I just listen to your podcast on polygraphs.
I 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
(30:07):
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 and used one.
(30:28):
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 uh, which is sort of
like a pretest. I guess yeah, he just didn't have
to answer them, and the polygrapher asked him to make
sure he understood all of the six questions. Uh. The
first was something like are their lights on in the room?
And in both cases there were questions like are you worried?
(30:50):
I will ask a question we did not go over. Uh.
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
(31:12):
different way multiple times was apparently to reduce the possibility
of reporting the false reading. But I did notice a
couple of hinky things guys. For example, the first examiner
had me closed 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
(31:36):
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 yeah, also they
ask you to keep your feet flat on the ground
through the tests of the tack trick. Wouldn't be possible,
that is for Matthew, and Matthew says I, by the way,
(31:58):
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,
all those combined with the track of us just doing
our thing right. So is that why we're hearing this
right now? Weird? I hadn't noticed it. Interesting. When did
(32:18):
that start? I don't know where it is? Well, okay, well,
thank you Matthew. Um. 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. Yeah,
if you have any info about a cool little piece
of history that may be overlooked, we want to hear
(32:40):
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. Uh. 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 s y Ska podcast um or on Facebook at
facebook dot com slash stuff You Should Know. We also
(33:02):
have a couple of spoken word albums up on iTunes
and there Stuff you Should Know, super Stuff Guide. They'll
cost you, but they're worth it, and you can reach
us by email. Chalk That's Right at Stuff Podcast at
how stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out
(33:25):
our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how
Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising and
perplexing possibilities of tomorrow, brought to you by the reinvented
two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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