1
00:00:01,440 --> 00:00:04,240
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I

2
00:00:04,360 --> 00:00:13,120
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,

3
00:00:13,160 --> 00:00:15,320
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is

4
00:00:15,360 --> 00:00:19,720
Speaker 1: the podcast Stuff you should Know. That's right before we

5
00:00:19,760 --> 00:00:22,759
Speaker 1: get going, we want to pretty quickly going a little

6
00:00:22,800 --> 00:00:25,959
Speaker 1: fundraising drive that we're helping out. Our friends from co

7
00:00:26,200 --> 00:00:29,479
Speaker 1: ED are our friends that took us to Guatemala so

8
00:00:29,480 --> 00:00:32,280
Speaker 1: many years ago who helped break the cycle of poverty

9
00:00:32,320 --> 00:00:35,920
Speaker 1: through education. They're a great organization, they do great work

10
00:00:36,240 --> 00:00:38,279
Speaker 1: and we learned that the stuff you should Know Army

11
00:00:38,360 --> 00:00:43,080
Speaker 1: since we went to Guatemala has raised just shy of

12
00:00:43,159 --> 00:00:45,440
Speaker 1: one million dollars and we really want to hit that

13
00:00:45,479 --> 00:00:49,640
Speaker 1: one million dollar mark. Yep. We're basically trying to drum

14
00:00:49,720 --> 00:00:52,080
Speaker 1: up a hundred thousand dollars in donations, which is a

15
00:00:52,120 --> 00:00:55,160
Speaker 1: lot unless you break it up and divide it among

16
00:00:55,280 --> 00:00:57,600
Speaker 1: this stuff you should know Army. So if you want

17
00:00:57,640 --> 00:01:00,400
Speaker 1: to go chip in a dollar five dollars and knowledge

18
00:01:00,440 --> 00:01:04,319
Speaker 1: whatever your heart desires, you can go to Cooperative for

19
00:01:04,560 --> 00:01:07,800
Speaker 1: Education dot org slash s y s K and they

20
00:01:07,800 --> 00:01:10,400
Speaker 1: will put your money to really good use. And uh

21
00:01:10,800 --> 00:01:15,600
Speaker 1: we are chipping into so okay, so let's start talking,

22
00:01:15,680 --> 00:01:18,840
Speaker 1: chuck about roller skating, because there's worse things that you

23
00:01:18,840 --> 00:01:22,240
Speaker 1: could talk about. Yeah, maybe let's start out with our

24
00:01:22,280 --> 00:01:27,840
Speaker 1: own personal experience. UM. As a sort of semi sheltered

25
00:01:28,000 --> 00:01:31,720
Speaker 1: Baptist boy, my parents did not drop me off at

26
00:01:31,760 --> 00:01:34,760
Speaker 1: the roller rink on a Friday night to go roller

27
00:01:34,840 --> 00:01:37,840
Speaker 1: skating like all the other kids were doing, because it

28
00:01:37,880 --> 00:01:42,360
Speaker 1: was unsupervised boys and girls together and that's where dirty

29
00:01:42,400 --> 00:01:46,720
Speaker 1: things and naughty things happened sometimes. So the only time

30
00:01:46,760 --> 00:01:48,680
Speaker 1: I got to go roller skating was when I went

31
00:01:48,800 --> 00:01:52,600
Speaker 1: on youth group outings to the roller rink, which we

32
00:01:52,640 --> 00:01:55,280
Speaker 1: did some long and short of it is, I was

33
00:01:55,360 --> 00:01:59,840
Speaker 1: never a great roller skater. I don't remember if I

34
00:01:59,920 --> 00:02:02,000
Speaker 1: was a good roller skater and not. I certainly was

35
00:02:02,040 --> 00:02:05,280
Speaker 1: never like a good roller skater. But I didn't fall

36
00:02:05,280 --> 00:02:07,040
Speaker 1: that much, and I certainly didn't have to like hold

37
00:02:07,080 --> 00:02:09,720
Speaker 1: onto the wall. Did you go? Did your parents drop

38
00:02:09,720 --> 00:02:11,359
Speaker 1: you off and you got to go like try and

39
00:02:11,440 --> 00:02:14,560
Speaker 1: kiss girls and stuff? Yes, and your parents weren't too

40
00:02:14,560 --> 00:02:17,480
Speaker 1: far off. The first condom I ever saw in person

41
00:02:17,560 --> 00:02:20,120
Speaker 1: was at the rollers probably totally right to keep me

42
00:02:20,120 --> 00:02:24,760
Speaker 1: out of there in some dude's wallet. Um, Yes, but

43
00:02:24,919 --> 00:02:27,440
Speaker 1: it was it was much more. That was like literally

44
00:02:27,480 --> 00:02:29,520
Speaker 1: the worst thing I ever saw at the roller ring.

45
00:02:29,960 --> 00:02:36,360
Speaker 1: I can understand where that left a ring in a wallet? Right, Um,

46
00:02:36,440 --> 00:02:39,520
Speaker 1: but no, it was like a like a Friday night

47
00:02:39,600 --> 00:02:42,960
Speaker 1: thing usually. Um it was a school sponsored thing, so

48
00:02:43,120 --> 00:02:47,000
Speaker 1: you know, like everybody there, which was pretty cool. Um.

49
00:02:47,160 --> 00:02:52,639
Speaker 1: The slow skate like Arrowsmith Angel was always amazing. Um. Yeah,

50
00:02:52,720 --> 00:02:54,760
Speaker 1: it was a really fun experience. I went to Ohio

51
00:02:54,840 --> 00:02:57,880
Speaker 1: skate was the name of my roller rink. The one

52
00:02:57,919 --> 00:03:01,120
Speaker 1: we went to was called stones Gate because it was

53
00:03:01,160 --> 00:03:05,200
Speaker 1: near Stone Mountain. Yeah that makes sense. But again I

54
00:03:05,200 --> 00:03:07,880
Speaker 1: didn't get to go enough. I was okay, it wasn't

55
00:03:07,919 --> 00:03:10,200
Speaker 1: so much where when I went, people are like, you know,

56
00:03:10,680 --> 00:03:16,120
Speaker 1: who's the Mennonite over there? He still it looks really nervous.

57
00:03:16,480 --> 00:03:18,519
Speaker 1: But you know, I did okay, but I wanted to

58
00:03:18,560 --> 00:03:20,320
Speaker 1: go dry and kiss girls and I wasn't allowed to.

59
00:03:20,840 --> 00:03:23,280
Speaker 1: I don't recall kissing a girl at the roller rink ever,

60
00:03:23,360 --> 00:03:26,040
Speaker 1: So you know you kissed the girl eventually, right, You're

61
00:03:26,080 --> 00:03:29,040
Speaker 1: you're fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm married. You didn't miss

62
00:03:29,080 --> 00:03:31,720
Speaker 1: that much. But it was fun. It was a fun time.

63
00:03:31,800 --> 00:03:34,359
Speaker 1: I I all of my memories from the roller rink

64
00:03:34,360 --> 00:03:36,680
Speaker 1: are very fond ones. I wanted to kiss a girl

65
00:03:36,720 --> 00:03:41,560
Speaker 1: in the seventh grade, and I just that did not happen. Okay, yeah,

66
00:03:41,880 --> 00:03:44,280
Speaker 1: I think I had my first kiss in second grade.

67
00:03:44,440 --> 00:03:47,960
Speaker 1: Of course you did, because your boss there and your

68
00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:52,800
Speaker 1: boss now, thanks a lot man. All right, so let's

69
00:03:52,800 --> 00:03:55,160
Speaker 1: talk roller skates. They have actually been around a lot

70
00:03:55,200 --> 00:03:57,880
Speaker 1: longer than I thought. You put this together, right, Dave

71
00:03:57,880 --> 00:03:59,800
Speaker 1: helped us with this one. Oh all right, I didn't

72
00:03:59,800 --> 00:04:01,680
Speaker 1: know that I forgot about this one, I guess. Yeah,

73
00:04:01,960 --> 00:04:03,720
Speaker 1: but they've been around a lot longer. They've been around

74
00:04:03,760 --> 00:04:08,200
Speaker 1: since the seventeen hundreds. I did not know that the

75
00:04:08,360 --> 00:04:10,880
Speaker 1: Dutch are Dutch friends were the ones who first started

76
00:04:11,680 --> 00:04:15,480
Speaker 1: thinking of ways to put wooden spools into a line

77
00:04:15,520 --> 00:04:19,960
Speaker 1: and rolling around on them. But it's our English friends

78
00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:23,600
Speaker 1: that get credit for being the first to have documented

79
00:04:23,960 --> 00:04:27,479
Speaker 1: use of roller skates. There was a production in London

80
00:04:27,720 --> 00:04:30,240
Speaker 1: on stage in seventeen forty three, not sure what it

81
00:04:30,279 --> 00:04:33,360
Speaker 1: was called, but they were supposed to be pretending to

82
00:04:33,400 --> 00:04:36,799
Speaker 1: be ice skating, So the actors on stage used roller skates.

83
00:04:37,320 --> 00:04:40,680
Speaker 1: And if that doesn't bring up thoughts of like delighted

84
00:04:40,720 --> 00:04:43,520
Speaker 1: gasps that the audience is the curtain rises and there's

85
00:04:43,560 --> 00:04:46,560
Speaker 1: people magically ice skating on stage. I don't know what

86
00:04:46,680 --> 00:04:50,679
Speaker 1: does Yeah, absolutely uh. Not too long after, in seventeen sixty,

87
00:04:51,200 --> 00:04:54,560
Speaker 1: there was an inventor from Belgium named John Joseph Merlin

88
00:04:55,600 --> 00:05:00,719
Speaker 1: who debuted these roller skates that he made at Masquerade Ball.

89
00:05:00,720 --> 00:05:03,880
Speaker 1: When he rolled in playing the violin, was like, hey, everybody,

90
00:05:03,920 --> 00:05:08,080
Speaker 1: look at me, I'm playing the violin. I'm rolling. Oh no,

91
00:05:08,240 --> 00:05:11,120
Speaker 1: a mirror and like just sort of sounds like skated

92
00:05:11,200 --> 00:05:14,000
Speaker 1: right into this mirror and broke it and broke his

93
00:05:14,120 --> 00:05:18,120
Speaker 1: violin because at the time there were no toad stops

94
00:05:18,600 --> 00:05:21,440
Speaker 1: and there were no trucks on the bottom of your skate,

95
00:05:21,480 --> 00:05:23,760
Speaker 1: which we'll get to, but that's what allows you to

96
00:05:23,760 --> 00:05:26,160
Speaker 1: to kind of lean and steer a skate a little

97
00:05:26,200 --> 00:05:29,520
Speaker 1: bit right. For some reason, I think of Merlin like

98
00:05:29,880 --> 00:05:32,080
Speaker 1: as he as he gets more and more out of control,

99
00:05:32,480 --> 00:05:36,839
Speaker 1: his his violins playing speeds up too. Rather than the

100
00:05:36,880 --> 00:05:41,360
Speaker 1: opposite natural things just stopped playing violin, he keeps he's

101
00:05:41,400 --> 00:05:44,280
Speaker 1: playing like his own demise that I keep imagining it

102
00:05:44,360 --> 00:05:46,000
Speaker 1: like that. Oh, I love it. I wonder why the

103
00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:48,560
Speaker 1: guy just didn't see it coming and like decided to

104
00:05:48,640 --> 00:05:51,640
Speaker 1: just fall on purpose rather than crash into a mirror.

105
00:05:51,880 --> 00:05:53,839
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. Maybe it's because he was so you know,

106
00:05:53,920 --> 00:05:56,240
Speaker 1: playing so fast. He was doing the Devil went down

107
00:05:56,279 --> 00:06:00,720
Speaker 1: to Georgia. So there's a guy named Jay mzel Plimpton

108
00:06:00,839 --> 00:06:03,960
Speaker 1: and he's considered um pretty much all around. Is the

109
00:06:04,520 --> 00:06:07,599
Speaker 1: first inventor of the real roller skate back in eighteen

110
00:06:07,680 --> 00:06:11,240
Speaker 1: sixty three. And in super nineteenth century fashion, he wasn't

111
00:06:11,240 --> 00:06:13,800
Speaker 1: an inventor. He was a furniture store owner in New

112
00:06:13,880 --> 00:06:17,279
Speaker 1: York because that's who invented stuff back in the nineteenth century. Yeah,

113
00:06:17,320 --> 00:06:21,599
Speaker 1: it's pretty cool. They were called the rocking skates, and

114
00:06:21,800 --> 00:06:24,360
Speaker 1: they were the first quad skates. They were the first

115
00:06:24,360 --> 00:06:26,200
Speaker 1: ones that have you know, the two wheels in the

116
00:06:26,200 --> 00:06:28,320
Speaker 1: front and the two wheels in the back next to

117
00:06:28,320 --> 00:06:31,360
Speaker 1: each other. And I mentioned those trucks, the first one

118
00:06:31,400 --> 00:06:33,560
Speaker 1: that had a truck, and that is, instead of the

119
00:06:33,600 --> 00:06:36,560
Speaker 1: skate just being fixed in position on the bottom of

120
00:06:36,600 --> 00:06:43,239
Speaker 1: a wood shoe in in Amsterdam, the wheels are secured

121
00:06:43,279 --> 00:06:46,279
Speaker 1: to a truck and the truck is secured to the

122
00:06:46,360 --> 00:06:49,200
Speaker 1: shoe or the boot, and those trucks. You know, if

123
00:06:49,200 --> 00:06:51,560
Speaker 1: you ever skateboarded, you know you loosen and tighten the trucks.

124
00:06:52,240 --> 00:06:54,320
Speaker 1: You can do the same thing on skates, and it's

125
00:06:54,360 --> 00:06:58,800
Speaker 1: not quite like a skateboard. Like the trucks give just

126
00:06:58,800 --> 00:07:00,880
Speaker 1: just a little bit on a roll or skate such

127
00:07:00,920 --> 00:07:03,640
Speaker 1: that like most of your turning and stuff is done

128
00:07:03,640 --> 00:07:06,240
Speaker 1: by picking up your feet. Uh, and not just like

129
00:07:06,360 --> 00:07:08,719
Speaker 1: leaning really hard to the left and doing a circle.

130
00:07:09,480 --> 00:07:13,280
Speaker 1: But they but they really helped. Yeah. Um. So not

131
00:07:13,360 --> 00:07:16,679
Speaker 1: only did Plimpton invent the modern rolling skate, he also

132
00:07:16,840 --> 00:07:21,160
Speaker 1: basically introduced the pastime of roller skating to the world. Um,

133
00:07:21,160 --> 00:07:24,120
Speaker 1: He's like, I'm definitely onto something here. He rented a

134
00:07:24,160 --> 00:07:26,720
Speaker 1: ballroom in a hotel in Providence, couldn't find out what

135
00:07:26,760 --> 00:07:29,520
Speaker 1: hotel it was, um, and set up a roller rink.

136
00:07:29,560 --> 00:07:31,800
Speaker 1: There is basically a proof of concept. And then he

137
00:07:31,840 --> 00:07:35,120
Speaker 1: started touring the country and I think the world, showing

138
00:07:35,160 --> 00:07:40,000
Speaker 1: people how great skating was, giving demonstrations, giving lessons, throwing

139
00:07:40,040 --> 00:07:44,000
Speaker 1: skate parties, I guess, and um, in a very short time,

140
00:07:44,040 --> 00:07:46,880
Speaker 1: the Victorians were like, this is a really great thing

141
00:07:46,960 --> 00:07:51,040
Speaker 1: that we're into. He invented the skate in eighteen sixty three.

142
00:07:51,360 --> 00:07:55,080
Speaker 1: By the eighties, there were three thousand roller rinks in

143
00:07:55,120 --> 00:07:58,880
Speaker 1: the United States, England, Europe in Australia. Yeah. I was

144
00:07:58,920 --> 00:08:01,160
Speaker 1: about to say this would make a movie, but now

145
00:08:01,240 --> 00:08:02,640
Speaker 1: that I think about it, it it would make a great

146
00:08:02,680 --> 00:08:07,200
Speaker 1: drunk History episode, especially the John Joseph Merlin park. Yes,

147
00:08:07,400 --> 00:08:10,640
Speaker 1: and so just why haven't we been on yet? Derek Waters,

148
00:08:11,360 --> 00:08:13,440
Speaker 1: get Josh and I on junk History and let us

149
00:08:13,440 --> 00:08:16,560
Speaker 1: tell the story of roller skating. I think that we

150
00:08:16,600 --> 00:08:18,360
Speaker 1: need to get in the way back machine and ask

151
00:08:18,440 --> 00:08:21,360
Speaker 1: him because that do not on anymore. I thought it

152
00:08:21,360 --> 00:08:25,400
Speaker 1: was still going. No, we missed our chance. I'm totally

153
00:08:25,440 --> 00:08:27,200
Speaker 1: down to get in the way back machinery. I know,

154
00:08:27,320 --> 00:08:29,240
Speaker 1: but I don't know. I'm really sad now I didn't

155
00:08:29,240 --> 00:08:35,240
Speaker 1: know that it has completed. It's run. Okay, Well, never mind,

156
00:08:35,320 --> 00:08:36,880
Speaker 1: Derek Waters. Put us in the next thing you do.

157
00:08:37,280 --> 00:08:39,679
Speaker 1: Why don't you guys have me on? I'll have you one.

158
00:08:39,720 --> 00:08:44,640
Speaker 1: I'll Derek Waters on anytime. Uh, roller ranks became all

159
00:08:44,679 --> 00:08:47,600
Speaker 1: the rage and young Victorians were out there. There's time

160
00:08:47,640 --> 00:08:49,280
Speaker 1: before you could like go on a date and stuff

161
00:08:49,320 --> 00:08:52,040
Speaker 1: like that, so it was kind of like young Chuck.

162
00:08:52,360 --> 00:08:54,960
Speaker 1: It would have been a time for me to talk

163
00:08:55,000 --> 00:08:57,040
Speaker 1: to girls and stuff, and that's what it was back then,

164
00:08:57,080 --> 00:09:01,560
Speaker 1: in the eighties and nineties. Yeah, but I guess unlike

165
00:09:01,600 --> 00:09:05,079
Speaker 1: your parents, the Victorians were like, this is okay, We're

166
00:09:05,120 --> 00:09:09,280
Speaker 1: gonna let them hang out by themselves chaperone. But the

167
00:09:09,280 --> 00:09:13,559
Speaker 1: thing is, if you went skating back in the nineteenth century, UM,

168
00:09:13,800 --> 00:09:16,480
Speaker 1: they would have like a full orchestra or an organist

169
00:09:16,559 --> 00:09:19,920
Speaker 1: playing um, like a carousel basically, I think is what

170
00:09:20,000 --> 00:09:22,520
Speaker 1: it was a lot like um because if you're just

171
00:09:22,520 --> 00:09:27,280
Speaker 1: skating around silently in like with like no music, that

172
00:09:27,360 --> 00:09:30,000
Speaker 1: seems really unwholesome and weird. So I think they figured

173
00:09:30,040 --> 00:09:33,360
Speaker 1: out really quickly that you kind of need music to skate. Uh.

174
00:09:33,360 --> 00:09:36,199
Speaker 1: This is a pretty cool fact that was in though.

175
00:09:36,280 --> 00:09:40,199
Speaker 1: Was at the Grand Hall Olympia in London, a sixty

176
00:09:40,280 --> 00:09:43,520
Speaker 1: eight thousand square foot roller rink was built, which is

177
00:09:43,559 --> 00:09:45,960
Speaker 1: about the size of a soccer field, So that just

178
00:09:46,000 --> 00:09:48,480
Speaker 1: kind of goes to show like how much people were

179
00:09:48,520 --> 00:09:51,600
Speaker 1: into skating it. It worked his way into vaudeville. It

180
00:09:51,679 --> 00:09:55,520
Speaker 1: worked this way into the pictures. In the nineteen thirties,

181
00:09:55,600 --> 00:10:00,520
Speaker 1: Charlie Chaplin, very famously in modern times, skated blindfolded. Just

182
00:10:00,760 --> 00:10:03,000
Speaker 1: if you've never watched any Chaplain, go just check this

183
00:10:03,040 --> 00:10:05,960
Speaker 1: out at least and get a slight appreciation of his genius.

184
00:10:06,880 --> 00:10:08,680
Speaker 1: But there was a he was on the fourth floor

185
00:10:08,800 --> 00:10:11,040
Speaker 1: and there was no railing because it was under construction,

186
00:10:11,480 --> 00:10:14,680
Speaker 1: and so he's skating around blindfold and of course they

187
00:10:15,520 --> 00:10:19,520
Speaker 1: is so scary. Yeah. Um, and also that Vaudeville act.

188
00:10:19,520 --> 00:10:22,240
Speaker 1: I just have to shout out Charles Professor Frank, the

189
00:10:22,240 --> 00:10:24,679
Speaker 1: dean of roller skating, and in particular I want to

190
00:10:24,679 --> 00:10:27,040
Speaker 1: shout out his five year old daughter, Lily, who could

191
00:10:27,120 --> 00:10:30,360
Speaker 1: roller skate on stilts. I've never heard of anybody doing

192
00:10:30,360 --> 00:10:33,559
Speaker 1: that before or since. I feel like I've seen that

193
00:10:33,600 --> 00:10:36,839
Speaker 1: at a circus. Okay, well, you can thank Lily Frank

194
00:10:37,000 --> 00:10:40,400
Speaker 1: for for innovating that one. I wonder if she invented

195
00:10:40,440 --> 00:10:45,079
Speaker 1: the stilt. Probably not so in the fifties. Um, the

196
00:10:45,679 --> 00:10:50,559
Speaker 1: peak of popularity of roller skating happened starting around ninety seven,

197
00:10:50,559 --> 00:10:53,520
Speaker 1: I believe the late fifties, and apparently Chicago was the

198
00:10:53,559 --> 00:10:57,559
Speaker 1: epicenter of this roller skating revival, because in between the

199
00:10:57,679 --> 00:11:01,920
Speaker 1: Victorians and the fifties, roller skating actually developed a really

200
00:11:01,960 --> 00:11:06,800
Speaker 1: seedy reputation. UM. I saw like an article from the

201
00:11:06,920 --> 00:11:10,560
Speaker 1: seventies where a roller rink operator said that back then

202
00:11:11,320 --> 00:11:13,080
Speaker 1: roller rink was the kind of place you wouldn't let

203
00:11:13,120 --> 00:11:16,280
Speaker 1: your daughter go hang out, like they're just not good places.

204
00:11:16,520 --> 00:11:18,680
Speaker 1: But all of the roller rink operators that had hung

205
00:11:18,720 --> 00:11:21,640
Speaker 1: on kind of banded together and like really worked to

206
00:11:21,760 --> 00:11:26,120
Speaker 1: revive roller skating's image. And we're successful, so successful that

207
00:11:26,160 --> 00:11:29,600
Speaker 1: the late fifties saw the greatest number of roller skating

208
00:11:29,640 --> 00:11:32,760
Speaker 1: and roller rinks and in history. Yeah, my parents didn't

209
00:11:32,760 --> 00:11:34,760
Speaker 1: get that memo. I guess they were still working off

210
00:11:34,760 --> 00:11:39,040
Speaker 1: the h code. But yeah, more than five thousand ranks

211
00:11:39,040 --> 00:11:42,600
Speaker 1: were operating in the nineteen fifties. And if you think

212
00:11:42,679 --> 00:11:44,599
Speaker 1: you grew up in the like seventies and eighties and

213
00:11:44,600 --> 00:11:46,840
Speaker 1: you're like, no, that was the heyday there only well

214
00:11:46,920 --> 00:11:48,720
Speaker 1: only there were a lot back then too, but about

215
00:11:48,760 --> 00:11:53,800
Speaker 1: thirty hundred fewer ranks than the nineteen fifties. Yeah, and

216
00:11:53,840 --> 00:11:56,640
Speaker 1: I definitely think of the late seventies is like the pinnacle.

217
00:11:56,720 --> 00:12:01,240
Speaker 1: But that was wrong. My eyes are open now, Uh,

218
00:12:01,280 --> 00:12:03,600
Speaker 1: shall we take a break. Yeah, let's take a break

219
00:12:03,720 --> 00:12:32,000
Speaker 1: and come back because there's some really unexpected coolness coming up. Okay, Chuck.

220
00:12:32,080 --> 00:12:36,280
Speaker 1: So I don't typically, or I didn't before, associate roller

221
00:12:36,320 --> 00:12:40,800
Speaker 1: skating with civil rights, but they really went hand in hand.

222
00:12:41,400 --> 00:12:44,280
Speaker 1: Um early on. I think one of the earliest sit

223
00:12:44,440 --> 00:12:48,640
Speaker 1: ins was in nine outside of the White City roller

224
00:12:48,679 --> 00:12:52,679
Speaker 1: Skating Rink in Chicago. This early, like I equate sit

225
00:12:52,760 --> 00:12:56,319
Speaker 1: ins with like maybe the fifties, definitely the sixties. Um.

226
00:12:56,360 --> 00:12:58,959
Speaker 1: But one of the reasons why they targeted roller skating

227
00:12:59,040 --> 00:13:02,439
Speaker 1: rinks for sittings and civil rights protests because some historians

228
00:13:02,440 --> 00:13:06,679
Speaker 1: said that everywhere in the country segregation, whether like on

229
00:13:06,800 --> 00:13:12,000
Speaker 1: paper or in practice, was a real problem. But in particular,

230
00:13:12,280 --> 00:13:17,160
Speaker 1: Black Americans found that, um, public pools, amusement parks, and

231
00:13:17,240 --> 00:13:20,400
Speaker 1: roller skating rinks where the three hardest places to integrate.

232
00:13:20,800 --> 00:13:24,680
Speaker 1: And um, everybody likes skating, but not everybody had access

233
00:13:24,720 --> 00:13:27,440
Speaker 1: to it, And so Black Americans were like, no, that

234
00:13:27,720 --> 00:13:29,880
Speaker 1: doesn't sit very well with us. We're going to do

235
00:13:29,960 --> 00:13:32,480
Speaker 1: something about that. Yeah, Like, they may show up at

236
00:13:32,480 --> 00:13:35,160
Speaker 1: a roller skating rink and even if it was not,

237
00:13:35,280 --> 00:13:37,559
Speaker 1: you know, legal to do so, they would say that

238
00:13:37,840 --> 00:13:39,679
Speaker 1: we have a private party tonight, you can't come in.

239
00:13:40,120 --> 00:13:42,720
Speaker 1: So stuff like that was going on. Uh. In the

240
00:13:42,800 --> 00:13:45,440
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three there was a man seven year old

241
00:13:45,679 --> 00:13:50,160
Speaker 1: from Chicago named Ledger Smith who very famously roller skated

242
00:13:50,559 --> 00:13:54,520
Speaker 1: almost seven hundred miles to attend the March on Washington

243
00:13:55,000 --> 00:13:57,040
Speaker 1: for jobs and freedom, which is the very famous I

244
00:13:57,080 --> 00:14:00,280
Speaker 1: have a Dream speech where that took place, and he

245
00:14:00,320 --> 00:14:03,160
Speaker 1: was called roller Man. He had a sash that said freedom.

246
00:14:03,160 --> 00:14:04,679
Speaker 1: He was backed by the N double A C P.

247
00:14:05,400 --> 00:14:08,320
Speaker 1: And roller skated six and eighty five miles to attend

248
00:14:08,360 --> 00:14:11,360
Speaker 1: it and to a lot of uh, you know, media

249
00:14:11,400 --> 00:14:14,959
Speaker 1: fan fair and like obviously it was um for the time.

250
00:14:14,960 --> 00:14:18,680
Speaker 1: It wasn't like widespread media, but it got attention right

251
00:14:18,760 --> 00:14:22,040
Speaker 1: for sure. UM. So, after the Civil Rights Act was

252
00:14:22,080 --> 00:14:24,600
Speaker 1: passed the nineteen sixty four and there was again on

253
00:14:24,640 --> 00:14:29,320
Speaker 1: paper no such thing as um segregation or racism in America, UM,

254
00:14:29,440 --> 00:14:32,200
Speaker 1: black Americans going to roller rinks still were faced with, like,

255
00:14:32,520 --> 00:14:36,000
Speaker 1: you know, just being shut out. But to kind of

256
00:14:36,040 --> 00:14:41,680
Speaker 1: follow the law in the least way possible, roller rink

257
00:14:41,720 --> 00:14:44,560
Speaker 1: operators would set aside like one night a week for

258
00:14:44,680 --> 00:14:48,320
Speaker 1: black patrons, um. And they would call them things like

259
00:14:48,560 --> 00:14:52,640
Speaker 1: Soul Nights or Martin Luther King Junior Night. And it

260
00:14:52,760 --> 00:14:55,040
Speaker 1: was what black Americans had to work with in the

261
00:14:55,080 --> 00:14:58,200
Speaker 1: sixties if they wanted to go roller skating in some places,

262
00:14:58,880 --> 00:15:00,920
Speaker 1: that's right, but it was it end up being something

263
00:15:00,960 --> 00:15:05,040
Speaker 1: that really changed roller skating because on Soul Nights or

264
00:15:05,160 --> 00:15:07,600
Speaker 1: on Martin Luther King Jr. Night at the roller Rink

265
00:15:08,400 --> 00:15:14,000
Speaker 1: is where things got super cool and where they said, hey, um,

266
00:15:14,040 --> 00:15:16,720
Speaker 1: you know, white people aren't here. We can do what

267
00:15:16,760 --> 00:15:20,080
Speaker 1: we want. We can get our dance on on these

268
00:15:20,200 --> 00:15:22,440
Speaker 1: roller skates, and we can get that organist out of

269
00:15:22,480 --> 00:15:25,480
Speaker 1: the room and play some good music. And that's what

270
00:15:25,560 --> 00:15:29,160
Speaker 1: they did. They got uh, you know, like fifties and

271
00:15:29,200 --> 00:15:32,280
Speaker 1: sixties soul and R and B and then eventually like

272
00:15:32,320 --> 00:15:36,200
Speaker 1: funk music playing on the turntable and all of a sudden,

273
00:15:36,360 --> 00:15:41,880
Speaker 1: skating got one thousand percent more awesome. Yeah, because up

274
00:15:41,880 --> 00:15:44,640
Speaker 1: to that point, everybody was like, no, you don't do that.

275
00:15:44,680 --> 00:15:46,920
Speaker 1: You you skate around in a circle with a smile

276
00:15:46,960 --> 00:15:52,000
Speaker 1: on your face, than the than the little like baseball

277
00:15:52,000 --> 00:15:56,200
Speaker 1: game organist. But right exactly. But every but everything that

278
00:15:56,280 --> 00:15:58,160
Speaker 1: you think of with roller skating, if you think it's

279
00:15:58,160 --> 00:16:02,320
Speaker 1: even passingly cool, you can thank mid century black Americans

280
00:16:02,360 --> 00:16:04,640
Speaker 1: for basically saying like, there's a much better way to

281
00:16:04,680 --> 00:16:07,800
Speaker 1: do this, and integrating dancing and roller skating was a

282
00:16:07,840 --> 00:16:10,800
Speaker 1: big part of that. And um so that really laid

283
00:16:10,840 --> 00:16:13,560
Speaker 1: the groundwork for that skating revival that you and I

284
00:16:13,600 --> 00:16:16,280
Speaker 1: talked about. That seems like to us like the peak

285
00:16:16,280 --> 00:16:19,880
Speaker 1: of roller skating, even though it wasn't. Um. And there

286
00:16:19,960 --> 00:16:22,080
Speaker 1: was one guy in particular that was kind of the

287
00:16:22,160 --> 00:16:25,160
Speaker 1: conduit for the whole thing. His name was Bill Butler,

288
00:16:25,720 --> 00:16:27,600
Speaker 1: and he was an Air Force sergeant and all the

289
00:16:27,640 --> 00:16:30,160
Speaker 1: way back in the late fifties he was trying to

290
00:16:30,200 --> 00:16:33,200
Speaker 1: convince rink owners. He traveled around a lot um as

291
00:16:33,240 --> 00:16:35,720
Speaker 1: part of his Air Force service. UM, so he would

292
00:16:35,720 --> 00:16:38,760
Speaker 1: go to different rinks by himself, I guess, and um

293
00:16:38,800 --> 00:16:40,600
Speaker 1: he would try to convince the owners to like play

294
00:16:40,640 --> 00:16:44,000
Speaker 1: some records instead of this organist you know. Um. And

295
00:16:44,080 --> 00:16:45,880
Speaker 1: every once in a while he was successful. And when

296
00:16:45,880 --> 00:16:48,120
Speaker 1: he was he really showed people like how great it was.

297
00:16:48,680 --> 00:16:50,720
Speaker 1: But Um, as much as he was laying the groundwork

298
00:16:50,720 --> 00:16:54,360
Speaker 1: in the fifties, in the late seventies he was basically

299
00:16:54,400 --> 00:16:59,200
Speaker 1: the place where disco shot through into roller skating. He

300
00:16:59,280 --> 00:17:03,400
Speaker 1: was like the prism that disco came through and spread

301
00:17:03,440 --> 00:17:06,960
Speaker 1: into roller disco. Yeah. And that was in New York,

302
00:17:07,000 --> 00:17:10,560
Speaker 1: of course, sort of the the apex of disco. Uh

303
00:17:10,600 --> 00:17:13,680
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn actually at Empire Roller Disco is where Bill

304
00:17:13,760 --> 00:17:17,200
Speaker 1: hung out and disco happening. It all, like you said,

305
00:17:17,200 --> 00:17:20,240
Speaker 1: to sort of coalesced at this moment in time where

306
00:17:20,400 --> 00:17:24,280
Speaker 1: skating was sort of retaking off, and then all of

307
00:17:24,359 --> 00:17:27,440
Speaker 1: a sudden you had this great music to dance too,

308
00:17:28,119 --> 00:17:31,760
Speaker 1: and dancing on roller skates is even cooler. Uh if

309
00:17:31,800 --> 00:17:34,080
Speaker 1: you could pull it off. Um, it's very hard. I've

310
00:17:34,080 --> 00:17:36,560
Speaker 1: tried to do that stuff. I'm that's not very good

311
00:17:36,760 --> 00:17:40,120
Speaker 1: disco roller skater, but rollers they kind of like dip

312
00:17:40,160 --> 00:17:41,600
Speaker 1: their toe in it. As far as the rinks go.

313
00:17:41,640 --> 00:17:44,320
Speaker 1: They would have like a club night where they would

314
00:17:44,320 --> 00:17:47,080
Speaker 1: play those records and stuff. And then eventually, when disco

315
00:17:47,160 --> 00:17:49,800
Speaker 1: really really hit, the riding was on the wall and

316
00:17:49,880 --> 00:17:54,680
Speaker 1: they started fully converting roller rinks into what we think

317
00:17:54,720 --> 00:17:57,600
Speaker 1: of roller rinks now. Like before this, they didn't have

318
00:17:57,680 --> 00:18:00,359
Speaker 1: like all the amazing sort of dance lie It's and

319
00:18:01,119 --> 00:18:04,400
Speaker 1: mirror balls and like disco is is what brought all

320
00:18:04,400 --> 00:18:06,359
Speaker 1: that stuff in. So all of a sudden you have

321
00:18:06,480 --> 00:18:09,879
Speaker 1: like neon and like cool carpet and like a killer

322
00:18:09,960 --> 00:18:14,760
Speaker 1: sound system and it was like a disco on wheels exactly.

323
00:18:15,040 --> 00:18:16,800
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons why it got so big

324
00:18:16,920 --> 00:18:21,199
Speaker 1: is because disco really brought um, Americans of all races

325
00:18:21,240 --> 00:18:25,399
Speaker 1: together for like the first time, more than ever before.

326
00:18:26,119 --> 00:18:27,679
Speaker 1: I don't want to say the first time, but definitely

327
00:18:27,680 --> 00:18:31,199
Speaker 1: more than ever before. It was a really integrative I

328
00:18:31,240 --> 00:18:34,160
Speaker 1: think that's a word, sure, um kind of cultural movement,

329
00:18:34,280 --> 00:18:37,639
Speaker 1: right so um. Basically, another way to put it is

330
00:18:37,960 --> 00:18:41,199
Speaker 1: white people who already like disco, we're like, oh, you

331
00:18:41,200 --> 00:18:43,720
Speaker 1: guys are roller skating to disco would show up at

332
00:18:43,760 --> 00:18:47,040
Speaker 1: the roller rinks and learn from the Black Americans who'd

333
00:18:47,080 --> 00:18:49,160
Speaker 1: been dancing all this time and we're now like had

334
00:18:49,200 --> 00:18:52,040
Speaker 1: basically laid the foundation for roller disco to show them

335
00:18:52,200 --> 00:18:54,440
Speaker 1: that there's more to roller skating than just going around

336
00:18:54,440 --> 00:18:57,040
Speaker 1: in a circle with a smile on your face. That's right,

337
00:18:57,119 --> 00:18:59,639
Speaker 1: and Bill Butler leading the way in Brooklyn, like anyone

338
00:18:59,680 --> 00:19:04,199
Speaker 1: who is anyone in the disco scene would like they

339
00:19:04,200 --> 00:19:06,480
Speaker 1: would go to Studio fifty four or one night and

340
00:19:06,520 --> 00:19:09,040
Speaker 1: then they would go to Empire roller Disco. If you

341
00:19:09,080 --> 00:19:12,040
Speaker 1: weren't Share or Linda Ronstat or you know, god knows

342
00:19:12,080 --> 00:19:16,160
Speaker 1: who else, so you could skate with Bill Butler and

343
00:19:16,359 --> 00:19:19,199
Speaker 1: it was like a genuine movement was happening. There was

344
00:19:19,400 --> 00:19:22,359
Speaker 1: very little barrier to entry, you know, um, because you

345
00:19:22,400 --> 00:19:24,520
Speaker 1: rent the skates generally, like of course a lot of

346
00:19:24,520 --> 00:19:26,360
Speaker 1: people bought there, like super cool skates. If they could

347
00:19:26,359 --> 00:19:28,720
Speaker 1: afford them, but you know, a couple of bucks to

348
00:19:28,720 --> 00:19:32,720
Speaker 1: get in, like seventy cents to rent skates and all

349
00:19:32,760 --> 00:19:34,960
Speaker 1: of you know, there weren't like the velvet rope wasn't

350
00:19:34,960 --> 00:19:37,520
Speaker 1: happening like at disco clubs where they wouldn't let you

351
00:19:37,560 --> 00:19:39,359
Speaker 1: in if you didn't have the right look. And it

352
00:19:39,400 --> 00:19:42,280
Speaker 1: was sort of democratized in a way. Yeah, it was

353
00:19:42,320 --> 00:19:46,080
Speaker 1: really inclusive, which is cool. Um. There was one other

354
00:19:46,119 --> 00:19:49,080
Speaker 1: thing that happened in the seventies too that that changed

355
00:19:49,320 --> 00:19:52,440
Speaker 1: roller skating forever and basically made it what we think

356
00:19:52,480 --> 00:19:56,040
Speaker 1: of today, and that was the introduction of the polyurethane wheel,

357
00:19:57,000 --> 00:19:59,840
Speaker 1: and that um did a couple of things. One, you

358
00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:04,119
Speaker 1: could go outside now um to roller skate. Obviously you

359
00:20:04,160 --> 00:20:08,199
Speaker 1: could before because Ledger Smith roller skated seven miles. But

360
00:20:08,359 --> 00:20:10,600
Speaker 1: one thing you don't realize is that Ledger Smith probably

361
00:20:10,640 --> 00:20:14,280
Speaker 1: did that on metal wheels. And a description of roller

362
00:20:14,320 --> 00:20:16,520
Speaker 1: skating outside of metal wheels I saw was that the

363
00:20:16,520 --> 00:20:19,400
Speaker 1: whole point is to just keep your teeth from rattling

364
00:20:19,440 --> 00:20:23,199
Speaker 1: out of your head. So Paul euthane wheels are softer

365
00:20:23,440 --> 00:20:26,280
Speaker 1: and they're much more forgiving outdoors. So people were now

366
00:20:26,320 --> 00:20:29,560
Speaker 1: allowed to go outdoors and roller skate and particularly roller

367
00:20:29,600 --> 00:20:33,840
Speaker 1: disco outside and then indoors. It allowed for much greater

368
00:20:33,920 --> 00:20:37,960
Speaker 1: control and movement in precise movement uh in the roller

369
00:20:38,040 --> 00:20:41,159
Speaker 1: rink than the older wheels had as well. Yeah, I

370
00:20:41,160 --> 00:20:43,800
Speaker 1: mean we talked about this in the skateboarding up. The

371
00:20:44,040 --> 00:20:46,920
Speaker 1: same thing happened there. They were already being made for skateboards,

372
00:20:46,920 --> 00:20:49,119
Speaker 1: but there was a little bit of a dip in

373
00:20:49,240 --> 00:20:52,919
Speaker 1: popularity for skateboarding at one point in the seventies, and

374
00:20:52,960 --> 00:20:55,080
Speaker 1: then the wheel manufacturer said, hey, let's put them on

375
00:20:55,160 --> 00:20:58,239
Speaker 1: roller skates. Everything changed all of a sudden. You can

376
00:20:58,240 --> 00:21:00,720
Speaker 1: go to Central Park in New York and see some

377
00:21:00,840 --> 00:21:03,960
Speaker 1: really super cool roller disco happening on the sidewalks and

378
00:21:04,080 --> 00:21:09,880
Speaker 1: uh and pathways. It's essentially the definition of seventies groovy,

379
00:21:10,440 --> 00:21:12,639
Speaker 1: you know. Oh yeah, like all of a sudden, like

380
00:21:12,640 --> 00:21:15,600
Speaker 1: any like, it felt like every other movie or TV

381
00:21:15,680 --> 00:21:17,920
Speaker 1: show you saw I had some sort of roller skating

382
00:21:18,600 --> 00:21:22,040
Speaker 1: either scene or like part of the plot. Yeah, Like Skatetown,

383
00:21:22,160 --> 00:21:24,760
Speaker 1: USA was a big one. Um. Patrick Swayzy was in

384
00:21:24,760 --> 00:21:28,399
Speaker 1: that roller Boogie. There's another one starring Linda Blair, Zanna

385
00:21:28,440 --> 00:21:32,960
Speaker 1: Do great movie starring Olivia Newton, John Um and then

386
00:21:33,240 --> 00:21:35,320
Speaker 1: like you said, like even randomly to like, if you

387
00:21:35,320 --> 00:21:38,359
Speaker 1: watch The Warriors, the leaders of one of the rival

388
00:21:38,400 --> 00:21:41,000
Speaker 1: gangs like gets around on roller skates, like it was

389
00:21:41,080 --> 00:21:44,880
Speaker 1: just part of the part of the zeitgeist. Basically, Yeah,

390
00:21:44,960 --> 00:21:48,600
Speaker 1: not a tough look for a gang leader, no, but

391
00:21:48,640 --> 00:21:51,000
Speaker 1: that's any the great things of the Warriors. He looks

392
00:21:51,000 --> 00:21:53,840
Speaker 1: like a troglodyte though, so he is really scary, but

393
00:21:53,880 --> 00:21:58,399
Speaker 1: he's also on roller skates. It's a weird juxtaposition. Before,

394
00:21:58,400 --> 00:22:02,000
Speaker 1: while I was a checking out Dave's original uh PEC

395
00:22:02,119 --> 00:22:05,639
Speaker 1: put together for us, I stopped there before turning the

396
00:22:05,640 --> 00:22:08,040
Speaker 1: page and was thinking, wait a minute, I remember a

397
00:22:08,160 --> 00:22:12,879
Speaker 1: Chips episode very distinctly where they were bank robbers that

398
00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:15,920
Speaker 1: had those big platform wooden shoes and would like click

399
00:22:15,960 --> 00:22:18,880
Speaker 1: a button and wheels would come out and they would

400
00:22:18,920 --> 00:22:21,600
Speaker 1: rollers that was their getaway car, was their roller skates.

401
00:22:21,840 --> 00:22:24,520
Speaker 1: They would leave an oil slick trail from their heel,

402
00:22:24,720 --> 00:22:26,800
Speaker 1: and it was Chips. It was a two parter um.

403
00:22:26,880 --> 00:22:29,399
Speaker 1: And I went and looked it up, and uh, I

404
00:22:29,400 --> 00:22:32,040
Speaker 1: didn't see that part. But there's there's a very fun

405
00:22:32,880 --> 00:22:35,720
Speaker 1: YouTube video. Um I think it's called like the most

406
00:22:35,760 --> 00:22:38,840
Speaker 1: seventies TV scene ever or something like that. We just

407
00:22:38,840 --> 00:22:41,080
Speaker 1: look up Chips roller skating, bank robbery or whatever and

408
00:22:41,080 --> 00:22:45,120
Speaker 1: it will come up and it is a huge fundraiser

409
00:22:45,240 --> 00:22:48,280
Speaker 1: for the HP on the show. And they're at a

410
00:22:48,400 --> 00:22:54,240
Speaker 1: roller disco place and almost every seventies person you can

411
00:22:54,280 --> 00:22:57,119
Speaker 1: think of was in this scene. And they were just

412
00:22:57,160 --> 00:22:59,240
Speaker 1: announcing that it was really long. It's like three minutes,

413
00:22:59,240 --> 00:23:02,399
Speaker 1: and they're like, and there comes Ruth Buzzy and he coughs,

414
00:23:02,600 --> 00:23:05,920
Speaker 1: like I can't remember all the guys, but they were

415
00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:10,520
Speaker 1: just it was just like a h murderers row of

416
00:23:10,960 --> 00:23:14,800
Speaker 1: seventies icon like TV and movie stars out there, roller

417
00:23:14,880 --> 00:23:17,800
Speaker 1: disc going some poorly and then some if you look closely,

418
00:23:18,119 --> 00:23:20,200
Speaker 1: that a little disc line going like the disco line

419
00:23:20,200 --> 00:23:22,440
Speaker 1: where you go through the middle. I saw one guy

420
00:23:22,480 --> 00:23:24,520
Speaker 1: doing a move. He didn't even have roller skates on.

421
00:23:25,520 --> 00:23:27,280
Speaker 1: He just kind of walked out in these loafers and

422
00:23:29,200 --> 00:23:32,040
Speaker 1: it's hilarious. It's a very great video. I feel like

423
00:23:32,119 --> 00:23:34,720
Speaker 1: Chips doing a two parter on roller disco really lets

424
00:23:34,800 --> 00:23:36,640
Speaker 1: us off the hook for our two part on Evil

425
00:23:36,680 --> 00:23:40,679
Speaker 1: kinevil Um. There was another thing that came out to like.

426
00:23:40,800 --> 00:23:45,720
Speaker 1: Um Share had a single called Hell on Wheels and

427
00:23:45,840 --> 00:23:48,240
Speaker 1: Um she actually created a music video for the song,

428
00:23:48,280 --> 00:23:50,680
Speaker 1: which was weird because it was released two years before

429
00:23:50,840 --> 00:23:53,360
Speaker 1: MTV came out, so that was a really unusual thing

430
00:23:53,400 --> 00:23:56,679
Speaker 1: to do. But if you watch it, she combines the

431
00:23:56,800 --> 00:24:00,920
Speaker 1: roller disco craze and the trucker she craze by rollers

432
00:24:01,080 --> 00:24:03,480
Speaker 1: roller disc going in front of a tractor trailer on

433
00:24:03,520 --> 00:24:07,439
Speaker 1: a road. Yeah. It's a really unusual video and an

434
00:24:07,560 --> 00:24:10,159
Speaker 1: unusual song too, but it's got I mean, a disco

435
00:24:10,240 --> 00:24:12,840
Speaker 1: beat for sure. Yeah. I remember the trucker thing. We

436
00:24:12,880 --> 00:24:16,280
Speaker 1: had a CV. It was oh so funny. That was

437
00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:20,280
Speaker 1: the Convoy that movie. Yeah, but she but Share made

438
00:24:20,280 --> 00:24:22,920
Speaker 1: it okay for truckers to like roller disco now, yeah,

439
00:24:23,440 --> 00:24:26,399
Speaker 1: I guess. Uh. L A had their own version of

440
00:24:26,760 --> 00:24:30,840
Speaker 1: Empire in Brooklyn. It was called Flippers and I looked

441
00:24:30,840 --> 00:24:32,920
Speaker 1: it up. I think it was at La Sienega in

442
00:24:33,160 --> 00:24:36,480
Speaker 1: Santa Monica, kind of right there in central Hollywood. And

443
00:24:36,480 --> 00:24:40,000
Speaker 1: it is now a CBS, aren't they all? I think?

444
00:24:40,080 --> 00:24:43,040
Speaker 1: So every old cool thing is a CDs. Now there's

445
00:24:43,040 --> 00:24:46,280
Speaker 1: a CVS in I think it's in green Point in

446
00:24:46,359 --> 00:24:50,159
Speaker 1: Brooklyn and it has an old disco ball still in

447
00:24:50,200 --> 00:24:53,040
Speaker 1: the ceiling, Like what was this place? And I've never

448
00:24:53,080 --> 00:24:55,840
Speaker 1: found out. But I don't think CVS installed it. I

449
00:24:55,920 --> 00:24:58,240
Speaker 1: think it kind of came with the location. Yet I

450
00:24:58,240 --> 00:25:01,840
Speaker 1: don't have a CBS can Menia to my home. Somehow,

451
00:25:02,280 --> 00:25:05,000
Speaker 1: it's funny, I know, I mean if they're not that far,

452
00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:07,560
Speaker 1: because all the Intel neighborhoods Atlanta are fairly close. But

453
00:25:08,359 --> 00:25:10,840
Speaker 1: I don't know. You want to CVS like within five

454
00:25:10,840 --> 00:25:14,439
Speaker 1: minutes drive and I guess you don't live near a

455
00:25:14,480 --> 00:25:17,560
Speaker 1: defunct roller just go. No, they took the Ecker Drugs

456
00:25:17,600 --> 00:25:21,040
Speaker 1: near me that was convenient and changed it into a

457
00:25:21,160 --> 00:25:25,239
Speaker 1: kidney dialysis place, which is useful, but like, you know,

458
00:25:25,400 --> 00:25:28,760
Speaker 1: where am I gonna get my goodies headache powder? For sure?

459
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:33,600
Speaker 1: But Flippers was big in the late seventies, and it

460
00:25:33,640 --> 00:25:35,960
Speaker 1: was you know, the the West Coast version where like

461
00:25:36,040 --> 00:25:38,160
Speaker 1: David Lee Roth would hang out and Rod Stewart would

462
00:25:38,200 --> 00:25:42,480
Speaker 1: hang out, and Jacqueline Bassett through her thirty fifth birthday party. Yeah,

463
00:25:42,520 --> 00:25:44,800
Speaker 1: and Ted Kennedy held a fundraiser there for his nineteen

464
00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:49,800
Speaker 1: eight presidential campaign. It's very, uh, very nineteen eighties. Yeah.

465
00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:53,639
Speaker 1: And between Flippers, in between um Empire all throughout the

466
00:25:53,720 --> 00:25:57,120
Speaker 1: United States there was like seriously a thousand new roller

467
00:25:57,200 --> 00:26:00,399
Speaker 1: rinks that came online in the seventies, um, and it

468
00:26:00,440 --> 00:26:03,720
Speaker 1: was pretty cool, but then it went out, um very quickly.

469
00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:08,440
Speaker 1: I mean was the peak of roller disco. And there

470
00:26:08,480 --> 00:26:13,000
Speaker 1: was almost not like um a crest Or trough. It

471
00:26:13,080 --> 00:26:17,119
Speaker 1: was almost like an inverted V. It just came around,

472
00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:20,879
Speaker 1: peaked and just dropped off really quickly. Right, people started

473
00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:23,320
Speaker 1: getting into like jazz or size and then break dancing

474
00:26:23,359 --> 00:26:25,080
Speaker 1: and all that. It just went on to other stuff,

475
00:26:25,600 --> 00:26:30,560
Speaker 1: but it never actually went away. Yeah, Like I feel

476
00:26:30,560 --> 00:26:32,719
Speaker 1: like it didn't go away in a couple of sectors.

477
00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:35,880
Speaker 1: I think adults like my parents looking for the next

478
00:26:35,920 --> 00:26:39,399
Speaker 1: cool thing, Like they took disco dancing lessons, which is

479
00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:43,600
Speaker 1: not like them at all, but that's how ubiquitous disco was, right,

480
00:26:43,720 --> 00:26:45,600
Speaker 1: I feel like adults kind of moved away. I think

481
00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:48,960
Speaker 1: kids still went to the roller skating rink as evidenced

482
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:52,560
Speaker 1: by US and Black Americans did. It was still a

483
00:26:52,680 --> 00:26:57,520
Speaker 1: very popular activity like up through the early nineties for

484
00:26:57,600 --> 00:27:00,760
Speaker 1: African Americans in the US. Yeah, and it's it's just

485
00:27:00,840 --> 00:27:04,720
Speaker 1: so like typical. But you think of like, oh, the

486
00:27:04,760 --> 00:27:07,520
Speaker 1: peak of the peak of roller skating happened in seventy

487
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:11,440
Speaker 1: nine eighty, and then it just went out when really, um,

488
00:27:11,440 --> 00:27:16,280
Speaker 1: Black America had been basically creating like a roller dancing

489
00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:19,680
Speaker 1: and then roller disco White America came around, was interested

490
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:22,400
Speaker 1: for a while, became disinterested and moved on, and then

491
00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:25,240
Speaker 1: just assumed that it just evaporated and went out of

492
00:27:25,240 --> 00:27:28,440
Speaker 1: existence because White America stopped paying attention to it. But yeah,

493
00:27:28,520 --> 00:27:32,119
Speaker 1: there are a whole subcultures of of Black America that said, no,

494
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:34,400
Speaker 1: we really like doing this and we're going to keep

495
00:27:34,400 --> 00:27:37,520
Speaker 1: on doing it. And over time, from that roller disco era,

496
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:40,240
Speaker 1: which really was like a just a bomb drop that

497
00:27:40,359 --> 00:27:44,080
Speaker 1: really changed roller skating forever. Um, it went on and

498
00:27:44,119 --> 00:27:47,880
Speaker 1: became refined and new like styles were created, and uh,

499
00:27:48,040 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 1: that's pretty cool how it kept going. I love it.

500
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:53,639
Speaker 1: Should we take a break. Let's take a break, all right,

501
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:56,800
Speaker 1: we'll talk about skating styles and just kind of how

502
00:27:56,840 --> 00:28:22,960
Speaker 1: these skates were put together right after this, all right,

503
00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:27,840
Speaker 1: shall we talk skating styles? We shall? This is when

504
00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:30,480
Speaker 1: it's a little bit like when you talk about hip

505
00:28:30,520 --> 00:28:35,399
Speaker 1: hop culture and breakdancing and that they're like substyles within

506
00:28:35,560 --> 00:28:38,840
Speaker 1: the larger culture, which is kind of a cool thing.

507
00:28:38,840 --> 00:28:41,280
Speaker 1: I love it when a culture has a subculture where

508
00:28:41,520 --> 00:28:44,160
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, if you like to rhythm skate, rhythm

509
00:28:44,240 --> 00:28:47,080
Speaker 1: skate if you like to jam skate, jam skate, and

510
00:28:47,160 --> 00:28:50,640
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of overlap, but uh, and some

511
00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:52,320
Speaker 1: of this, like all this stuff you can you kind

512
00:28:52,320 --> 00:28:55,840
Speaker 1: of look up examples to really get the nuance. But

513
00:28:55,920 --> 00:29:00,160
Speaker 1: what is jam skating? Jam skating at its base is

514
00:29:00,280 --> 00:29:06,479
Speaker 1: a incredibly difficult combination of breakdancing and roller skating. If

515
00:29:06,520 --> 00:29:10,840
Speaker 1: you watch a breakdancer, like a good breakdancer, it's what

516
00:29:10,880 --> 00:29:15,040
Speaker 1: they're doing is impossibly hard and incredibly it takes an

517
00:29:15,040 --> 00:29:18,400
Speaker 1: incredible amount of like talent and skill and stamina and

518
00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:23,719
Speaker 1: creativity just to break dance someone like, for instance, exactly

519
00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:27,239
Speaker 1: me and in third grade for sure. Um, now take that,

520
00:29:27,400 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 1: take that person who's able to do that, and put

521
00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:33,840
Speaker 1: them on roller skates, and then what you have is

522
00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:36,600
Speaker 1: jam skating. And if you watch a video of it,

523
00:29:36,600 --> 00:29:39,680
Speaker 1: it is beyond impressive, like to see people who are

524
00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:42,120
Speaker 1: really good and proficient at it, because it is breakdance

525
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:44,520
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of floor work. There's shoulder spins,

526
00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:48,120
Speaker 1: like there's like you know, like that whole jumping in thing,

527
00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:49,560
Speaker 1: I can't remember what you call it, where you kind

528
00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:51,960
Speaker 1: of like skip back forward, I can't remember what's called,

529
00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:54,520
Speaker 1: but it's super cool. Again, people do that on roller skates.

530
00:29:54,560 --> 00:29:57,160
Speaker 1: And then there's also like b boy battles where there's like,

531
00:29:57,400 --> 00:30:00,440
Speaker 1: you know, one cruise battling another. One person's bad ling another.

532
00:30:00,520 --> 00:30:02,400
Speaker 1: So they just go back and forth with a little

533
00:30:02,640 --> 00:30:06,200
Speaker 1: like with the dances um until somebody wins or I

534
00:30:06,240 --> 00:30:08,720
Speaker 1: don't remember how they ever figure out who wins. I

535
00:30:08,720 --> 00:30:12,800
Speaker 1: think it's clear, but okay, yeah, probably, But that's jam skating,

536
00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:16,200
Speaker 1: and it's really really impressive to see. All right, all

537
00:30:16,200 --> 00:30:19,880
Speaker 1: this stuff is impressive, but certainly jam skating. Rhythm skating

538
00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:23,880
Speaker 1: was from about the mid seventies. I had a lot

539
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:27,760
Speaker 1: of roller disco influence there obviously, and this is you know,

540
00:30:27,840 --> 00:30:30,840
Speaker 1: this is dancing. It's kind of like disco dancing while

541
00:30:30,840 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 1: you're roller skating. Uh, very precise and choreograph like you

542
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:39,120
Speaker 1: would see a lot of people do like routines. But

543
00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:41,760
Speaker 1: it is not quite artistic skating, which is a little

544
00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:45,000
Speaker 1: more akin to figure skating. But you can still rhythm

545
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:46,840
Speaker 1: skate with someone and come up with your own like

546
00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:49,320
Speaker 1: you would at the disco if you had like Saturday

547
00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:51,160
Speaker 1: night fever, like if you had your dance partner and

548
00:30:51,160 --> 00:30:53,440
Speaker 1: you would do your thing rather than just sort of

549
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:57,720
Speaker 1: freestyle dancing with someone exactly. That's exactly rhythm skating. And

550
00:30:57,760 --> 00:31:00,960
Speaker 1: then UM, rhythm skating. I suspect even goes further back

551
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:03,600
Speaker 1: to probably the fifties when people started playing R and

552
00:31:03,600 --> 00:31:06,320
Speaker 1: B music at the roller rink on like soul night

553
00:31:06,440 --> 00:31:10,080
Speaker 1: or whatever. UM. And but today it's still around today,

554
00:31:10,160 --> 00:31:13,080
Speaker 1: and it it kind of spread out UM to like

555
00:31:13,200 --> 00:31:17,400
Speaker 1: local areas, so that regional style started to develop. UM

556
00:31:17,400 --> 00:31:19,440
Speaker 1: in Atlanta has its own style. If you've seen the

557
00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:21,960
Speaker 1: movie A t L and I think two thousand six,

558
00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:24,040
Speaker 1: you know, part of the thing that's going on there

559
00:31:24,080 --> 00:31:26,960
Speaker 1: is a backdrop is like the roller rink UM, and

560
00:31:27,040 --> 00:31:29,280
Speaker 1: that's a lot of what you would see in A

561
00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:31,760
Speaker 1: t L. You would see at an actual roller rink

562
00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:34,880
Speaker 1: today in Atlanta, UM, where there's a lot of like

563
00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:37,280
Speaker 1: it's rhythm skating. So like you said, it's like dancing

564
00:31:37,280 --> 00:31:41,000
Speaker 1: but on roller skates. UM. But they kind of it's

565
00:31:41,560 --> 00:31:43,960
Speaker 1: it's connected to break dancing and that there's like crew

566
00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:46,800
Speaker 1: battles and that kind of thing. UM, but it's still

567
00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:49,560
Speaker 1: it's it's not break dancing necessarily, it's just like dancing

568
00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:53,520
Speaker 1: on skates. Yeah, Cleveland apparently has their own style, which

569
00:31:53,560 --> 00:31:57,680
Speaker 1: is a little more figure skating style apparently like axles

570
00:31:57,680 --> 00:32:00,880
Speaker 1: and jumping and stuff like that. Detroit, of course is

571
00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:03,720
Speaker 1: going to have their own style, Chicago style too. There's

572
00:32:03,760 --> 00:32:08,360
Speaker 1: got to be it has a pickle on it. He

573
00:32:08,480 --> 00:32:11,880
Speaker 1: put a pickle. It's deep dish. Uh. Well, I just

574
00:32:11,920 --> 00:32:15,080
Speaker 1: figured since it was the center, then they probably have

575
00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:16,800
Speaker 1: the Earn style, but who knows. Detroit had their own

576
00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:21,200
Speaker 1: style though. Um, and this was this is what I

577
00:32:21,240 --> 00:32:25,800
Speaker 1: didn't quite get. What is sliding sliding to the side,

578
00:32:26,360 --> 00:32:28,840
Speaker 1: like not going forward or backward, going to the side,

579
00:32:29,040 --> 00:32:31,000
Speaker 1: sliding on your skate, All right, that makes sense. A

580
00:32:31,040 --> 00:32:33,600
Speaker 1: lot of sliding in Detroit style apparently, right, which is

581
00:32:33,640 --> 00:32:35,840
Speaker 1: really cool because there's also a lot of precise foot

582
00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:39,000
Speaker 1: movement too. And those two things required two different hardnesses

583
00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:42,560
Speaker 1: of wheels, but they managed to to, you know, figure

584
00:32:42,560 --> 00:32:44,640
Speaker 1: it out in Detroit. It's really cool to see people slide.

585
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:47,280
Speaker 1: I saw one clip of a dude and he was

586
00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:49,280
Speaker 1: in the middle of the rink and just slid all

587
00:32:49,440 --> 00:32:52,600
Speaker 1: the way to the edge and then onto the carpet. Um.

588
00:32:52,760 --> 00:32:54,520
Speaker 1: It was really cool looking because it's just such a

589
00:32:54,600 --> 00:32:57,560
Speaker 1: smooth like move you know. Uh. The one that I

590
00:32:57,600 --> 00:33:01,080
Speaker 1: think I liked the best when as a kid was

591
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:05,880
Speaker 1: I believe it would be the freestyle dance skating, Unless

592
00:33:05,880 --> 00:33:08,240
Speaker 1: I'm wrong. I think that was the lady or the

593
00:33:08,280 --> 00:33:11,000
Speaker 1: guy at the rank. That was just they were going

594
00:33:11,040 --> 00:33:14,920
Speaker 1: in the circle and they were they were skating forward

595
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:17,480
Speaker 1: the whole time, but the whole time they were also

596
00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:20,400
Speaker 1: just sort of dancing and they were lifting the skates

597
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:23,719
Speaker 1: up and knees up and legs forward and backward and

598
00:33:23,720 --> 00:33:26,360
Speaker 1: crossing over here and there, and it was just very

599
00:33:26,400 --> 00:33:30,040
Speaker 1: smooth and fluid and just look super cool. Like you

600
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:32,800
Speaker 1: wouldn't stop and do a split or do like a

601
00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:35,920
Speaker 1: break dance move. You were just sort of grooving around

602
00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:39,000
Speaker 1: the rink right, and you could tell that they probably

603
00:33:39,120 --> 00:33:42,040
Speaker 1: hadn't like come up with the moves necessarily ahead of time.

604
00:33:42,080 --> 00:33:44,880
Speaker 1: They were just feeling the music, feeling the music. It's

605
00:33:44,920 --> 00:33:48,080
Speaker 1: the kind of roller skate dancing that like somebody would

606
00:33:48,120 --> 00:33:49,920
Speaker 1: probably do in a bathing suit, you know what I mean.

607
00:33:51,560 --> 00:33:54,480
Speaker 1: That's freestyle dance skating, And like what's cool about is

608
00:33:54,520 --> 00:33:57,440
Speaker 1: anybody can do it like you can. You just have again,

609
00:33:57,600 --> 00:33:59,400
Speaker 1: I have to be able to roller skate and feel

610
00:33:59,520 --> 00:34:02,120
Speaker 1: feel the roof. Um. But there's people who can do

611
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:05,360
Speaker 1: it better than others. All right, Because I did that stuff,

612
00:34:05,400 --> 00:34:08,200
Speaker 1: I could, you know, at my apex of roller skating,

613
00:34:08,760 --> 00:34:11,440
Speaker 1: I could like stay up and look pretty good and

614
00:34:11,480 --> 00:34:14,319
Speaker 1: do a good crossover on the corners. But that was

615
00:34:14,360 --> 00:34:17,160
Speaker 1: about it. That's that's I think that's better than me.

616
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:19,239
Speaker 1: I don't remember being able to do anything like that.

617
00:34:19,320 --> 00:34:21,440
Speaker 1: I was just would you do a rink skater? I

618
00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:23,239
Speaker 1: go in a circle with a smile on my face.

619
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:25,120
Speaker 1: No, no no, no, that's what I'm saying. I mean crossover

620
00:34:25,239 --> 00:34:27,799
Speaker 1: like when you're on the turns you cross one your

621
00:34:27,880 --> 00:34:30,560
Speaker 1: right foot over your left foot. Yeah. I would just

622
00:34:30,680 --> 00:34:36,359
Speaker 1: not do that. You would lean exactly. Yeah, I would

623
00:34:36,440 --> 00:34:39,520
Speaker 1: prepare for the turn in advance, not do that crossover thing.

624
00:34:39,560 --> 00:34:41,840
Speaker 1: I think I probably did once or twice, but it

625
00:34:41,920 --> 00:34:45,160
Speaker 1: wasn't something that I was utterly confident. I wasn't going

626
00:34:45,239 --> 00:34:48,719
Speaker 1: to like totally biff um when I tried it. You

627
00:34:48,800 --> 00:34:52,640
Speaker 1: did you do the snoopy? What do you remember that? Huh?

628
00:34:53,160 --> 00:34:54,960
Speaker 1: I say, I mean, I'm just pulling this off the dome,

629
00:34:55,000 --> 00:34:58,560
Speaker 1: but I'm pretty sure the snoopy was when you uh

630
00:34:59,000 --> 00:35:01,600
Speaker 1: went all the way down out on one skate and

631
00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:06,000
Speaker 1: then held your foot held the toe stop off the

632
00:35:06,040 --> 00:35:09,480
Speaker 1: floor with your hand. I think that's called the snoopy.

633
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:11,600
Speaker 1: At least maybe this a regional or something. I don't know,

634
00:35:11,880 --> 00:35:14,759
Speaker 1: it sounds really familiar. I think you might be right

635
00:35:14,800 --> 00:35:16,680
Speaker 1: about that. I know that I know the move you're

636
00:35:16,680 --> 00:35:18,720
Speaker 1: talking about, and I think it might be called the snoopy.

637
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:20,759
Speaker 1: What a cute name for a move? Could I do that?

638
00:35:21,200 --> 00:35:26,839
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I hadn't been drinking, and then

639
00:35:26,400 --> 00:35:29,759
Speaker 1: I never got backwards skating down super well, which is

640
00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:32,880
Speaker 1: a really key component. If you wanted a couple of skate,

641
00:35:34,719 --> 00:35:38,160
Speaker 1: you're just holding hands and going forward together. Right. If

642
00:35:38,160 --> 00:35:41,120
Speaker 1: you were boss, you would turn around and you know,

643
00:35:41,680 --> 00:35:47,000
Speaker 1: take that girl by the hips. Oh man, you were advanced. No,

644
00:35:47,120 --> 00:35:49,920
Speaker 1: I'm not like the dirty. It's like, you know, slow dancing.

645
00:35:49,920 --> 00:35:51,319
Speaker 1: You put your hands on her hips, she puts her

646
00:35:51,320 --> 00:35:54,120
Speaker 1: hands on like around your neck, and then you gotta

647
00:35:54,120 --> 00:35:56,920
Speaker 1: be able to but you got but you gotta be

648
00:35:56,920 --> 00:35:59,680
Speaker 1: able to skate backward really fluidly to do that chuck.

649
00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:03,600
Speaker 1: That is I don't recall even seeing that. What what

650
00:36:03,719 --> 00:36:06,520
Speaker 1: kind of couple skating were you seeing? Again? We were

651
00:36:06,520 --> 00:36:10,680
Speaker 1: going around in a circle like skates right next to

652
00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:14,520
Speaker 1: each other at all times, holding hands, you know, maybe

653
00:36:14,520 --> 00:36:17,680
Speaker 1: speeding up. That's it. And then you split some money

654
00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:21,680
Speaker 1: and rings and I can't remember what I like. They're

655
00:36:21,680 --> 00:36:27,160
Speaker 1: probably like square pizza. That's probably what I would get pizza. Um.

656
00:36:27,480 --> 00:36:32,799
Speaker 1: There's also there's also, um, there's inline skating, which after that, Um,

657
00:36:32,920 --> 00:36:37,440
Speaker 1: the peak in the seventies and eighties of roller skating

658
00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:41,400
Speaker 1: and just general popularity. Roller blades came out right after that,

659
00:36:41,440 --> 00:36:43,680
Speaker 1: apparently like an eighty three or something like that. I

660
00:36:43,760 --> 00:36:46,280
Speaker 1: didn't realize that because I was associate them with the nineties,

661
00:36:46,680 --> 00:36:48,359
Speaker 1: but I think that's when they kind of blew up.

662
00:36:48,719 --> 00:36:51,839
Speaker 1: Did you ever get into that? No, I never did. Um.

663
00:36:52,520 --> 00:36:54,879
Speaker 1: I was skateboarding at the time, so I wasn't doing

664
00:36:54,920 --> 00:36:57,680
Speaker 1: inline skating. I had one pair of roller blades in

665
00:36:57,680 --> 00:36:59,719
Speaker 1: my life, but I didn't use them very much. In

666
00:36:59,800 --> 00:37:01,879
Speaker 1: our we're thinking like, all right, I should just get

667
00:37:01,960 --> 00:37:04,040
Speaker 1: rid of these, but I mean people can get like

668
00:37:04,239 --> 00:37:07,040
Speaker 1: nuts on those. There's a type of inline skating called

669
00:37:07,080 --> 00:37:10,560
Speaker 1: aggressive skating, and it is it's like skateboarding, but you're

670
00:37:10,600 --> 00:37:14,280
Speaker 1: doing it on rollerblades, which seems to me like way

671
00:37:14,320 --> 00:37:17,800
Speaker 1: harder actually. Um. And then there's one other thing I

672
00:37:17,960 --> 00:37:20,640
Speaker 1: learned about inline skating, chuck that we just have to share.

673
00:37:21,040 --> 00:37:27,640
Speaker 1: What's that? So in the early nineties, Amish teenagers found

674
00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:30,040
Speaker 1: out about roller blades and they're like, we're going to

675
00:37:30,160 --> 00:37:34,600
Speaker 1: use these, despite their elders protests, they said, nope, nay.

676
00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:36,880
Speaker 1: I think it's probably what they said we are we

677
00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:40,000
Speaker 1: are going to um adopt these, and they don't. I

678
00:37:40,040 --> 00:37:42,080
Speaker 1: don't think they do any aggressive skating or anything like that,

679
00:37:42,080 --> 00:37:43,680
Speaker 1: but they use them to get around and still to

680
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:47,000
Speaker 1: this day you can see Amish teenagers rolling around on

681
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:51,239
Speaker 1: on rollerblades and Amish country. Good for them. Yep, that's

682
00:37:51,239 --> 00:37:54,640
Speaker 1: what I say. What else you got? Well, I guess

683
00:37:54,640 --> 00:37:56,160
Speaker 1: we should talk about I mean, we have a whole

684
00:37:56,160 --> 00:37:58,200
Speaker 1: episode on roller Derby which you should go listen to,

685
00:37:59,760 --> 00:38:03,319
Speaker 1: but maybe we should finish out with the least interesting part,

686
00:38:04,680 --> 00:38:09,000
Speaker 1: which is the anatomy of a roller skate. Uh gotta

687
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:11,080
Speaker 1: cover it because that's what we do. If you want

688
00:38:11,080 --> 00:38:13,840
Speaker 1: to buy some skates today, you can spend a hundred

689
00:38:13,840 --> 00:38:16,120
Speaker 1: and fifty dollars on average. You can spend a thousand

690
00:38:16,120 --> 00:38:19,799
Speaker 1: dollars if you want. I remember, do you remember when

691
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:21,759
Speaker 1: they came out with like the Tennessee skate When we

692
00:38:21,760 --> 00:38:24,520
Speaker 1: were kids and how cool that was. That was a

693
00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:26,759
Speaker 1: little before my time. Yeah, but yes, when I look

694
00:38:26,760 --> 00:38:29,000
Speaker 1: at pictures of them now, I'm like, those are really cool,

695
00:38:29,040 --> 00:38:33,719
Speaker 1: like blue blue Adidas with yellow stripes, really cool, like

696
00:38:33,760 --> 00:38:37,040
Speaker 1: a full fully functioning not fully functioning, but like a

697
00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:40,600
Speaker 1: full tennis shoe. Didn't have any upper ankle support or anything,

698
00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:43,440
Speaker 1: and then it had the well, I guess we'll talk

699
00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:47,120
Speaker 1: about the parts here. I mentioned the boot, and the

700
00:38:47,120 --> 00:38:51,200
Speaker 1: boot upper is anything above the soul, and of course

701
00:38:51,200 --> 00:38:53,400
Speaker 1: you got the lining on the inside and the laces

702
00:38:53,400 --> 00:38:56,319
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. But the plate is what I

703
00:38:56,360 --> 00:38:59,560
Speaker 1: was talking about. You've had a regular old Adidas, maybe

704
00:38:59,560 --> 00:39:02,440
Speaker 1: modified slightly, but it was mounted to a plate mounted

705
00:39:02,480 --> 00:39:05,399
Speaker 1: to the trucks, and the skates are the wheels, right,

706
00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:08,879
Speaker 1: and they still have that today, But it's just the

707
00:39:08,960 --> 00:39:12,720
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody's making Adida's boots for roller skates,

708
00:39:13,440 --> 00:39:16,279
Speaker 1: but usually they divide the boots into two types, high

709
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:18,840
Speaker 1: top and low top. And depending on the type of

710
00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:21,839
Speaker 1: skating you're gonna do, you want to choose wisely. So

711
00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:25,640
Speaker 1: freestyle um rink skating, which again is just going around

712
00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:28,360
Speaker 1: in the circle with a smile on your face. Artistic

713
00:39:28,400 --> 00:39:31,000
Speaker 1: which is like figure skating, and then rhythm skating they

714
00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:33,480
Speaker 1: all use high tops, and then low top is more

715
00:39:33,560 --> 00:39:37,399
Speaker 1: useful for jam skating and speed skating. UM. So that's

716
00:39:37,400 --> 00:39:41,799
Speaker 1: pretty much the only it's not really looks necessarily, it's

717
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:43,880
Speaker 1: you know what kind of skating you're doing, whether you

718
00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:46,680
Speaker 1: go high top or low. Yeah, you've got you know,

719
00:39:46,719 --> 00:39:48,560
Speaker 1: we talked about poly ere thing. But you can also

720
00:39:48,600 --> 00:39:52,520
Speaker 1: get different size wheels and different hardness of wheels depending

721
00:39:52,560 --> 00:39:56,440
Speaker 1: on what you're looking to do. And your outdoor wheels

722
00:39:56,480 --> 00:39:58,960
Speaker 1: are gonna be a little softer than the indoors. You're

723
00:39:58,960 --> 00:40:01,480
Speaker 1: gonna have more traction with a larger wheel obviously, and

724
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:04,799
Speaker 1: a little more agility with a smaller wheel. You could

725
00:40:04,800 --> 00:40:06,600
Speaker 1: be super cool and get those light up wheels if

726
00:40:06,640 --> 00:40:10,359
Speaker 1: you want. They're so awesome. They're very cool. Yeah, they

727
00:40:10,360 --> 00:40:13,200
Speaker 1: have an actual like dynamo in them. They use magnetic

728
00:40:13,239 --> 00:40:18,720
Speaker 1: spacers inside um copper wiring and so when the wheel spins,

729
00:40:18,719 --> 00:40:22,279
Speaker 1: it generates electricity that powers an LED. So let's talk

730
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:27,839
Speaker 1: toe stops. So remember our friend John Joseph Merlin who

731
00:40:27,840 --> 00:40:30,200
Speaker 1: broke the mirror when he was playing violin at the

732
00:40:30,200 --> 00:40:33,560
Speaker 1: Masquerade Ball. He didn't have a toe stop he wishes

733
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:36,359
Speaker 1: he had, but it was like a hundred years later.

734
00:40:36,480 --> 00:40:39,120
Speaker 1: I think. I think he was in the eighteenth century,

735
00:40:39,160 --> 00:40:43,360
Speaker 1: wasn't old John Joseph Um. It wasn't until eighteen seventies

736
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:46,239
Speaker 1: six that toast stops were finally invented and people had

737
00:40:46,239 --> 00:40:49,240
Speaker 1: a way to break um. Yeah, a hundred and sixteen

738
00:40:49,280 --> 00:40:51,920
Speaker 1: years after John Joseph Merlin. And all that is is

739
00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:55,320
Speaker 1: like a big hunk of rubber that's um screwed into

740
00:40:55,360 --> 00:41:00,000
Speaker 1: the toe underside of the toe of the boot um.

741
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:02,839
Speaker 1: And all you do is just push down on your

742
00:41:02,840 --> 00:41:06,120
Speaker 1: toe and the toe stop makes contact with the ground

743
00:41:06,160 --> 00:41:09,280
Speaker 1: and it slows you down, depending on how much pressure

744
00:41:09,440 --> 00:41:12,799
Speaker 1: really quickly or you know, kind of slowly and gradually. Yeah,

745
00:41:12,800 --> 00:41:16,520
Speaker 1: I'd never have been able to stop really quickly without

746
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:19,480
Speaker 1: busting my butt. So maybe it didn't know how to

747
00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:21,800
Speaker 1: use a toe stop. I kind of drug it behind

748
00:41:21,840 --> 00:41:24,400
Speaker 1: me to gradually slow down. But I don't know that's

749
00:41:24,440 --> 00:41:27,879
Speaker 1: a great technique. I didn't know if there were other methods. Um.

750
00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:32,360
Speaker 1: That's what's called the snoopy. Now. I think other methods

751
00:41:32,400 --> 00:41:35,920
Speaker 1: are if you're really good, you just like like um,

752
00:41:36,160 --> 00:41:38,320
Speaker 1: peel out to the side like you would on skis

753
00:41:38,360 --> 00:41:40,960
Speaker 1: to stop quickly on skis, I think people do that

754
00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:45,240
Speaker 1: on roller skates to stop suddenly. Well, that's way beyond

755
00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:49,000
Speaker 1: me for sure. Um. There's also something called jam plugs chuck,

756
00:41:49,120 --> 00:41:53,120
Speaker 1: which are um the same thing, but they're much closer

757
00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:56,160
Speaker 1: to the toe um than a a toe stop is,

758
00:41:56,200 --> 00:42:00,600
Speaker 1: which means that you have way more clearance for the wheel. Um.

759
00:42:00,640 --> 00:42:03,480
Speaker 1: If you're like, say, standing up on on your toes

760
00:42:03,640 --> 00:42:06,120
Speaker 1: and rolling, you could do that with jam plugs. You

761
00:42:06,120 --> 00:42:08,239
Speaker 1: couldn't do that with the toe stop. So things like

762
00:42:08,320 --> 00:42:11,560
Speaker 1: jam skating would use jam plugs instead. Yeah, and I

763
00:42:11,600 --> 00:42:13,719
Speaker 1: think they can. You know, you can have you can

764
00:42:13,760 --> 00:42:15,279
Speaker 1: be like heart shaped and you can get a little

765
00:42:15,320 --> 00:42:18,640
Speaker 1: more creative with the jam plugs, little little faces and

766
00:42:18,680 --> 00:42:22,120
Speaker 1: stuff emogens. You put all those together, you got yourself

767
00:42:22,160 --> 00:42:25,360
Speaker 1: a roller skate. You put it together twice, you have

768
00:42:25,400 --> 00:42:29,399
Speaker 1: a pair of roller skates. Uh. And apparently a roller

769
00:42:29,480 --> 00:42:31,279
Speaker 1: skating and this is something I wasn't fully aware of,

770
00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:35,120
Speaker 1: became a really big deal during the pandemic. Again, the

771
00:42:35,200 --> 00:42:37,680
Speaker 1: only way I knew this was sort of happening was

772
00:42:37,960 --> 00:42:44,240
Speaker 1: um our former colleague, the wonderful Miranda Hawkins UH started

773
00:42:44,320 --> 00:42:46,600
Speaker 1: roller skating during the pandemic, and I would just see

774
00:42:46,640 --> 00:42:50,400
Speaker 1: her Instagram stuff of her, like her videos of her

775
00:42:50,480 --> 00:42:54,280
Speaker 1: learning how to roller skate and do like these moves

776
00:42:54,280 --> 00:42:56,400
Speaker 1: and tricks and stuff, and like, I saw Miranda make

777
00:42:56,440 --> 00:42:59,719
Speaker 1: great strides over the course of the pandemic, but I

778
00:42:59,840 --> 00:43:02,799
Speaker 1: just thought she was like super cool, because Miranda is

779
00:43:02,840 --> 00:43:06,160
Speaker 1: super cool. Well apparently, well she's still super cool, but

780
00:43:06,239 --> 00:43:07,800
Speaker 1: apparently a lot of people were doing I didn't know

781
00:43:07,840 --> 00:43:09,160
Speaker 1: it was a thing. I thought it was just her thing.

782
00:43:09,560 --> 00:43:11,520
Speaker 1: It was a thing. And what's interesting is you can

783
00:43:11,520 --> 00:43:15,560
Speaker 1: actually trace back to the person who started it. Um

784
00:43:15,640 --> 00:43:18,680
Speaker 1: as an actress named on a Koto. She was in

785
00:43:18,719 --> 00:43:22,120
Speaker 1: a movie called Wigi or Wigia from two thousand fourteen.

786
00:43:22,160 --> 00:43:25,120
Speaker 1: It's pretty good movie actually, Um but she also is

787
00:43:25,160 --> 00:43:28,560
Speaker 1: a really talented like freestyle dance roller skater, and she

788
00:43:28,600 --> 00:43:32,120
Speaker 1: started posting videos and the on TikTok of her roller

789
00:43:32,160 --> 00:43:35,200
Speaker 1: skating and they hit just right, and at the beginning

790
00:43:35,200 --> 00:43:37,879
Speaker 1: of the pandemic, everybody was like, oh, yeah, we can

791
00:43:37,920 --> 00:43:40,399
Speaker 1: go roller skating. You can do that outside, you can

792
00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:43,720
Speaker 1: social distance and still have fun. And like she kicked

793
00:43:43,760 --> 00:43:47,239
Speaker 1: off this roller skating revival, especially among gen z. I

794
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:53,040
Speaker 1: love it. It's a perfect pandemic sports slash it is.

795
00:43:53,120 --> 00:43:56,080
Speaker 1: It's really cool, and you know, I think it's already

796
00:43:56,080 --> 00:43:59,160
Speaker 1: gone out again. Although the thing about roller skating is

797
00:43:59,200 --> 00:44:01,080
Speaker 1: this is what it always so, it's like peaks and

798
00:44:01,120 --> 00:44:03,680
Speaker 1: popularity and then declines of popularity, but it always hangs

799
00:44:03,719 --> 00:44:06,000
Speaker 1: on and just kind of goes its own way. And

800
00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:08,759
Speaker 1: every time it becomes popular, it attracts a few more

801
00:44:08,800 --> 00:44:11,440
Speaker 1: people who are now roller skaters when otherwise they never

802
00:44:11,480 --> 00:44:13,480
Speaker 1: would have been. And then the next peak comes and

803
00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:15,520
Speaker 1: even more people are into it, and then it just

804
00:44:15,520 --> 00:44:18,480
Speaker 1: seems to be this this process as immutable as the

805
00:44:18,520 --> 00:44:21,759
Speaker 1: wind across the dune. Yeah. And the differences these days

806
00:44:21,880 --> 00:44:24,560
Speaker 1: is it's, uh, you just don't have as many options

807
00:44:25,200 --> 00:44:27,560
Speaker 1: for roller rinks if you if you live in a

808
00:44:28,360 --> 00:44:31,560
Speaker 1: in a major city, you might have a few. Uh,

809
00:44:31,719 --> 00:44:33,359
Speaker 1: if you live in a small town, you might even

810
00:44:33,400 --> 00:44:35,239
Speaker 1: have one. Because that's you know, that's kind of the

811
00:44:35,239 --> 00:44:37,080
Speaker 1: great things about small towns, as you may still have

812
00:44:37,120 --> 00:44:39,480
Speaker 1: a drive in or a roller rink, but you're not

813
00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:41,920
Speaker 1: gonna have like, hey, which one of these like twelve

814
00:44:41,920 --> 00:44:45,560
Speaker 1: places should we go to? Right? Uh? And as we

815
00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:47,759
Speaker 1: always like to point out a good trivia question when

816
00:44:47,760 --> 00:44:50,280
Speaker 1: we come upon it, It turns out that n w

817
00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:54,080
Speaker 1: A held their first concert at a roller rink called

818
00:44:54,160 --> 00:44:57,800
Speaker 1: skate Land in Compton. That's where Dr Dre and Easy

819
00:44:57,960 --> 00:45:01,160
Speaker 1: and Ice Cube met. I love it. Ah, you got

820
00:45:01,160 --> 00:45:04,839
Speaker 1: anything else about roller skating? Negative? I took this one

821
00:45:04,920 --> 00:45:08,120
Speaker 1: was an eye opening episode for me because I realized

822
00:45:08,120 --> 00:45:11,360
Speaker 1: in retrospect that I was not a particularly good roller skater.

823
00:45:11,600 --> 00:45:14,160
Speaker 1: So thank you for opening my eyes to that. I

824
00:45:14,200 --> 00:45:16,479
Speaker 1: feel like I know myself a little better now. Yeah,

825
00:45:16,560 --> 00:45:18,239
Speaker 1: I was not either, and you were worse than me.

826
00:45:18,320 --> 00:45:21,839
Speaker 1: So right. Uh So, if you want to know more

827
00:45:21,840 --> 00:45:24,839
Speaker 1: about roller skating, go do it. There's nothing stopping you. Really,

828
00:45:24,880 --> 00:45:27,000
Speaker 1: just go have some fun skating. It's a lot of fun.

829
00:45:27,480 --> 00:45:29,280
Speaker 1: And since I said it's a lot of fun, of course,

830
00:45:29,320 --> 00:45:34,640
Speaker 1: that means it's time for a listener. Megan, I'm gonna

831
00:45:34,640 --> 00:45:36,960
Speaker 1: call this gentle correction. We've gotten it from quite a

832
00:45:36,960 --> 00:45:41,480
Speaker 1: few people. We cooped up in our paper towns up. Hey, guys,

833
00:45:41,560 --> 00:45:44,800
Speaker 1: just finished the Fake Towns episode. I was hoping you

834
00:45:44,840 --> 00:45:46,800
Speaker 1: would talk about paper Towns and bring up the book.

835
00:45:47,200 --> 00:45:49,479
Speaker 1: I can't always tell if you're joking or not say

836
00:45:49,480 --> 00:45:52,400
Speaker 1: things wrong on purpose, which we do, or if it

837
00:45:52,440 --> 00:45:54,920
Speaker 1: was an honest mistake. So when Josh said he'd never

838
00:45:54,960 --> 00:45:57,239
Speaker 1: heard of author of Paper Towns, I wasn't sure if

839
00:45:57,239 --> 00:46:00,279
Speaker 1: it was a joke. The author is John Green, not

840
00:46:00,680 --> 00:46:05,400
Speaker 1: Tom Green. I was thinking of the hilarious Canadian comedian. Also,

841
00:46:05,440 --> 00:46:07,680
Speaker 1: you almost certainly have heard of him. He is the

842
00:46:07,719 --> 00:46:13,000
Speaker 1: co founder of vid Con, which we've been to. Yeah,

843
00:46:13,040 --> 00:46:15,279
Speaker 1: that was our I'm sure vicon is great, but we were.

844
00:46:15,360 --> 00:46:18,520
Speaker 1: That's where we met Tjon day of Chocolate Rain famous. Yeah,

845
00:46:18,520 --> 00:46:20,560
Speaker 1: I got a picture with Chocolate Rain. But it was

846
00:46:20,600 --> 00:46:24,520
Speaker 1: also where we very famously did our worst attended live

847
00:46:24,560 --> 00:46:28,439
Speaker 1: performance of fourteen people. Yeah, and we worked with half

848
00:46:28,440 --> 00:46:30,919
Speaker 1: of them easily. Yeah, it was not a good match

849
00:46:30,920 --> 00:46:33,359
Speaker 1: for us. But bit Kuna true is wonderful. But John

850
00:46:33,400 --> 00:46:36,600
Speaker 1: Green apparently co founded bit con, co hosted the podcast

851
00:46:36,680 --> 00:46:40,120
Speaker 1: Deer Hank and John and host of the podcast The

852
00:46:40,400 --> 00:46:45,800
Speaker 1: an Throw poss Sine reviewed by the Way. That podcast

853
00:46:45,840 --> 00:46:48,520
Speaker 1: is also now a book and the y a novel

854
00:46:48,600 --> 00:46:52,840
Speaker 1: Paper Towns was actually turned into a movie. So Connie says,

855
00:46:52,840 --> 00:46:56,400
Speaker 1: thanks for always making Connie smile. Connie was dropping a

856
00:46:56,440 --> 00:46:59,360
Speaker 1: lot of extra information here, so we always appreciate that.

857
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:02,920
Speaker 1: Thinks a lot, Connie. Yeah, that definitely wasn't honest mistake.

858
00:47:03,000 --> 00:47:05,600
Speaker 1: I wasn't clever enough to be joking about that, and

859
00:47:05,600 --> 00:47:08,000
Speaker 1: I didn't catch it. So anytime one of us mispeaks,

860
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:11,239
Speaker 1: it's always on both of us, right. Uh. Well, if

861
00:47:11,239 --> 00:47:13,040
Speaker 1: you want to get in touch with us like Connie

862
00:47:13,040 --> 00:47:15,919
Speaker 1: did and drop a knowledge bomb on us like she did,

863
00:47:16,239 --> 00:47:18,280
Speaker 1: you can do it as gently as she did, because

864
00:47:18,360 --> 00:47:20,359
Speaker 1: we like those. It's more like a bath bomb than

865
00:47:20,400 --> 00:47:22,200
Speaker 1: a knowledge bomb. You know what I mean, I know

866
00:47:22,239 --> 00:47:24,600
Speaker 1: what you mean. Uh. You can send it to us

867
00:47:24,680 --> 00:47:31,240
Speaker 1: via email to stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com.

868
00:47:31,360 --> 00:47:33,640
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio.

869
00:47:34,160 --> 00:47:37,279
Speaker 1: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,

870
00:47:37,480 --> 00:47:40,400
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,