Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hello, Hello everyone, Malcolm Glabwey here, I'm back in
Speaker 1: the feet a bit early with a little amused boush
Speaker 1: before we come to the finale of our Gun series
Speaker 1: on Thursday, Airbnb, one of our loyal sponsors, asked if
Speaker 1: we could do an episode about travel, because, of course
Speaker 1: arabbnb is all about travel, and as you may or
Speaker 1: may not know, I do a lot of travel. I
Speaker 1: am well over a million frequent flyer miles on United
Speaker 1: at this point. I've been to Manila, Hong Kong, Las Vegas, Washington,
Speaker 1: d C, Detroit, and Grand Rapids in just the last month.
Speaker 1: And if you're wondering, my favorite of all those places,
Speaker 1: not even close, Grand Rapids. Love Grand Rabbits. Why doesn't
Speaker 1: everyone live in Grand Rapids. I don't get it anyway,
Speaker 1: Airbnb travel me it all seemed like an actual fit.
Speaker 1: But before we hit the road about the Gun series,
Speaker 1: your responses so far have been phenomenal. Please keep sending
Speaker 1: in your thoughts. There's a contact form at revisionististory dot
Speaker 1: com and next month Maria Konokoba and I will talk
Speaker 1: about some of the feedback, but for now, a little
Speaker 1: side trip a revisionist history Getaway. Five burning travel questions
Speaker 1: with Malcolm Glapa. First question, which I've been asking myself
Speaker 1: for at least thirty years. Given the choice, should you
Speaker 1: ever go to Las Vegas? I'm asking this question because
Speaker 1: I'm in Las Vegas right now, not by choice for work.
Speaker 1: And instead of trying to answer this question rationally with
Speaker 1: the benefit of reasoned argument and academic scholarship, as is
Speaker 1: our standard practice on revisionist history, I'm just going to
Speaker 1: play you some short clips of the music that has
Speaker 1: been played for my enjoyment as I sit by the
Speaker 1: hotel pool. Oh my god, this is My brain is
Speaker 1: killing me right now. It's nuts. Everywhere you go in
Speaker 1: Las Vegas. This is what you hear everywhere. First question,
Speaker 1: who would willingly listen to this music? Do you know
Speaker 1: anyone who does? Have you ever been over to someone's
Speaker 1: house for dinner or just to hang out and they say, oh,
Speaker 1: let me put on a little house music while we chat. No,
Speaker 1: you have it. But clearly, at some point early in
Speaker 1: the history of Las Vegas, all of the city fathers
Speaker 1: must have gotten together in a room. I'm guessing it
Speaker 1: was convened by Bugsy Seagull, the mobster who founded Las Vegas,
Speaker 1: and Bugsy was like, gentlemen, We're going to create a
Speaker 1: great city in the desert. People from all over the world,
Speaker 1: of every creed and religion, of every shape and size,
Speaker 1: rich and poor, great and small will come here to
Speaker 1: this glamorous oasis to gamble away their life savings. What
Speaker 1: music shall we play them? And all the guys said,
Speaker 1: And then the little old guy who wanted to open
Speaker 1: a high and jewelry store maybe with mister Harry Winston
Speaker 1: raises his hand and said, but mister Bugsy, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to attract a sophisticated clientele. Is it okay if I
Speaker 1: play Schubert? And Bugsy gets all scary and angry and
Speaker 1: bangs his fist on the table and says, no, Harry,
Speaker 1: you schmuck, that goes against everything I'm trying to do
Speaker 1: with this oasis in the desert. You must play. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is like the craziest thing ever. Maybe there are
Speaker 1: some sixteen year olds out there who like music like this,
Speaker 1: but I'm looking around the pool. There are no sixteen
Speaker 1: year olds here. It's all cranky old people like me.
Speaker 1: You know how, in hostage situations sometimes they try and
Speaker 1: force the bad guy to give up by playing like
Speaker 1: heavy metal really loudly all night long. I should be
Speaker 1: so lucky to be a hostage taker hearing heavy metal
Speaker 1: right now. So short answer to question number one, No,
Speaker 1: don't do it. Don't go to Las Vegas ever unless
Speaker 1: you absolutely have to. All right, Question number two, what
Speaker 1: was the greatest road trip of my life? I think
Speaker 1: it was my first road trip summer I believe of
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two. My friend Terry and I were at
Speaker 1: that moment obsessed with Alger Hiss, the State Department official
Speaker 1: who in nineteen forty eight was famously accused of being
Speaker 1: a Soviet spy. Biggest story of the day. Huge drama ensues.
Speaker 1: It goes on for years, with one side saying he's
Speaker 1: innocent and the other side saying he's guilty.
Speaker 2: Were you ever a Communist spy, mister Hiss?
Speaker 1: No, I was not either a communist nor a spy.
Speaker 1: That's him, and Terry and I were firmly of the
Speaker 1: he's guilty camp. So early one August morning, before dawn
Speaker 1: we wake up, Terry won't tell me beforehand what time
Speaker 1: we're leaving because he says he doesn't want and this
Speaker 1: is his exact phrase to pierce the cloud of unknowing.
Speaker 1: We get into his mom's Pontiac. We drive from our
Speaker 1: little town in rural southern Ontario straight to Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: Ten hours, and we visit every house Algerhiss lived in
Speaker 1: during his long career of treachery, up to and including
Speaker 1: the famous town house in Georgetown on p Street where
Speaker 1: so much of his skull duggery allegedly went down. We
Speaker 1: pull up, We knock in the door, two scruffy teenagers
Speaker 1: from rural Canada who haven't shaved or showered, or slept
Speaker 1: or really even eaten for several days. Because we had
Speaker 1: no money. All we had was our youthful, mocksy and enthusiasm.
Speaker 1: So the door opens and we say, are you aware
Speaker 1: that you're living in the house of the notorious American
Speaker 1: Cold War trader Alger Hiss. They look at us blankly
Speaker 1: and we're off. Our job is done. Then afterwards we
Speaker 1: write up findings in a little essay called The Many
Speaker 1: Houses of Alger Hiss, which opened with a long, florid,
Speaker 1: damning summary of the facts of the case ending of
Speaker 1: the line, all of which leads to the one overwhelming question,
Speaker 1: who was this man? They called alter hiss and where
Speaker 1: did he live? I mean, how do you top that? Later?
Speaker 1: Terry and I did a modified ballpark tour Toronto, Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore,
Speaker 1: Yankee Stadium. But everyone does one of those who does
Speaker 1: the many houses of outer your hiss. Now you might
Speaker 1: think that this was just some youthful fancy, a teenage lark.
Speaker 1: But take out your phone. Google George F. Baker, the
Speaker 1: third Harvard University. You'll see a picture of a handsome
Speaker 1: guy right around my age. The first name Terry, professor
Speaker 1: of what Russian studies? Baby? How many road trips set
Speaker 1: in motion a lifetime of scholarship? Okay? Question number three?
Speaker 1: Do some parts of the United States pose particular problems
Speaker 1: for travelers? Are there states the novice traveler should avoid? Answer? Yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: North Carolina. No one talks about this, but it's a
Speaker 1: long standing pet peeve of mine. I was actually chatting
Speaker 1: with my friends Michael Specter and Dye Zoc recently about
Speaker 1: my travel theories, and it came up and acdotally there's
Speaker 1: a I did a talk in at wake Forest University
Speaker 1: and which is not weirdly in wake Forest, which I
Speaker 1: would point out because I nearly went to Wake Forest,
Speaker 1: which is like two hundred miles away. And when I
Speaker 1: told my host that, I I got so I finally
Speaker 1: I self corrected, like half nur in go to Winston Salem,
Speaker 1: which is where Wake Forest is. And then I was
Speaker 1: sort of outraged, goes like, what kind of trick is
Speaker 1: North Carolina playing on people? Where they put in Wake
Speaker 1: Forest University hundreds of miles from Wake Forest. And then
Speaker 1: when I told my host, oh, I nearly went to
Speaker 1: Wake Forest, They're like, oh yeah, people do that all time.
Speaker 1: It's like, I'm something, it's weird. Fix the problem, change
Speaker 1: the name. How hard is this? It's like it's been
Speaker 1: going on for hundreds of years. People have been going
Speaker 1: to Wake Forest in search of Wake Forest University. Like
Speaker 1: I said, no one talks about this, but it's kind
Speaker 1: of nuts. You land in Charlotte and you punch in
Speaker 1: Wake Forest on Ways and Ways says two hours forty
Speaker 1: two minutes, and you say, huh, that's weird. That's the
Speaker 1: other side of the state, right outside Raleigh. Why didn't
Speaker 1: I just fly to Raleigh? And you get halfway there
Speaker 1: and you think, oh, maybe I should double check, and
Speaker 1: you realize that North Carolina has devised a nefarious scheme
Speaker 1: to frustrate unsuspecting carpetbaggers arriving from the north. One hundred percent.
Speaker 1: This has something to do with the Civil War. Roberty
Speaker 1: Lee says, let's let it leak out that we're setting
Speaker 1: up for a last stand at wake Forest, and the
Speaker 1: Union Army spies hear this and say aha, and they
Speaker 1: muster everyone and they march up. What is now I
Speaker 1: eighty five only Lee, that old trickster. It means wake Forest,
Speaker 1: a school, not wake Forest, of town and somewhere around Lexington,
Speaker 1: he pounces, surprising the unsuspecting Union Army. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: the only explanation that makes sense. Wait, there's more, do
Speaker 1: I I have some travel faux past stories, like when
Speaker 1: I went to the wrong Columbia, the wrong.
Speaker 2: The country, No, no, the.
Speaker 1: University columb yesh was the Washington Post. Washington Post was
Speaker 1: obsessed with covering hurricanes Columbia, Maryland, and I was told
Speaker 1: there was a hurricane fast approaching the outer banks of
Speaker 1: North Carolina, and I was dispatched to Columbia just cover
Speaker 1: the hurricane. I landed Columbia, North Carolina, and there was
Speaker 1: no hurricane, and I called it and said, it's no hurricane.
Speaker 1: What are you guys talking about? Know this is hurricane No, No,
Speaker 1: I'm here, I'm here and there's no hurricane. Like, no,
Speaker 1: you can't be in Columbia, North Carolina because there's a
Speaker 1: hurricane going on there right now. And I looked around
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, I'm in Columbia, South Carolina.
Speaker 1: To Columbia's in adjoining Carolinas. This is another This is
Speaker 1: like the this is like the Wake Forest thing all
Speaker 1: over again. This country is set up to fool the
Speaker 1: unsuspecting outsider. What kind of colossal failure of imagination is this?
Speaker 1: Someone in one of the Carolinas goes first and says, oh,
Speaker 1: I have a good idea, let's call our town Columbia.
Speaker 1: And then someone else a few years later says, oh,
Speaker 1: I have an even better idea, let's call our town
Speaker 1: Columbia as well, Because one of these days some dumb
Speaker 1: yankee is not going to realize that Columbia is like
Speaker 1: a generic Southern term for medium sized city with big
Speaker 1: city aspirations, and he's going to go to one Columbia
Speaker 1: well meaning to go to the other Columbia. And so
Speaker 1: for hundreds of years thereafter, countless well meaning people from
Speaker 1: the North go to the wrong Columbia. I mean, what
Speaker 1: happens if I had been a legendary brain surgeon flying
Speaker 1: down for a prestigious hospital in the Northeast to save
Speaker 1: the life of an adorable Southern toddler, and I go
Speaker 1: to the wrong Columbia. Did they think about that? No,
Speaker 1: they didn't. They were too busy chortling over their stupid
Speaker 1: little practical joke. Stay away from North Carolina, and while
Speaker 1: you're at it, stay away from reporting on the weather. Well. No,
Speaker 1: the horror story was there was Remember that terrible hurricane
Speaker 1: that hit Miami in the nineties, I forgot much work, the.
Speaker 2: One that flattened southern Florida.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Bill, my colleague Bill Booth, we didn't realize was
Speaker 1: as serious as it was. He went down there to
Speaker 1: cover it, and he returned home like two months later,
Speaker 1: And when I saw that, I realized that the mistake
Speaker 1: he made was doing a good job of covering. So
Speaker 1: that was when I decided that, I mean, actually, the
Speaker 1: Columbia thing happened. Just after that, I realized that there
Speaker 1: was no upside to being a good hurricane reporter, because
Speaker 1: the worst the hurricane is the longer you'll be away
Speaker 1: from home. You got to screw up early and often,
Speaker 1: so they turn elsewhere. So then I followed that up
Speaker 1: with a there was a hurricane in New Orleans, and
Speaker 1: I suggested that the best way to cover it was
Speaker 1: to approach it from the west. So I flew, I flew?
Speaker 1: Did I fly to Dallas? The whole thing was so preposterous.
Speaker 1: I spent like a day and a half in the
Speaker 1: car before I even got there, and then just said,
Speaker 1: I don't see it. I don't see it. I don't
Speaker 1: see it. Finally they gave up and let someone else
Speaker 1: take over. But there are there are certain tricks of
Speaker 1: self preservation in the journalism business, and one of them
Speaker 1: is to always do a bad job of something you
Speaker 1: don't want to do. Okay, coming up the big question,
Speaker 1: what do you do about traveling when you have a dog?
Speaker 1: So here's the big question. Why I gather my friends
Speaker 1: Michael Specter and Dyezarc for counsel. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: pressure right now in the global household for us to
Speaker 1: get a dog. If you do like an Internet history
Speaker 1: search on any laptop in the global household, it's just dogs.
Speaker 1: You type in B and Google autocompletes Burmese Labrador mix.
Speaker 1: That's where we're at right now now. I love dogs,
Speaker 1: but like I said, I travel a lot, and it's
Speaker 1: hard enough without having to factor in another needy living creature.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to ask Michael and I how they
Speaker 1: deal with the have dog, will travel problem. And I
Speaker 1: would like to start out just by having each of
Speaker 1: you please give us the name and type of dog
Speaker 1: you own, and also a brief word about your dog's temperament.
Speaker 2: My dog's name is Linus. He's five years old. He's
Speaker 2: a Woodle, which is a cross between a wheaten Terrier
Speaker 2: and a poodle, and his temperament is he is by
Speaker 2: far the mellowest person in the history of the Specter family.
Speaker 1: And Die I have.
Speaker 3: A black lab named Junebug. She's my third lab. She's
Speaker 3: like all my other labs, ambassador of love.
Speaker 1: She is.
Speaker 3: When I had to choose between two labs in a litter,
Speaker 3: they said, okay, we have two girls. One is ball
Speaker 3: obsessed and one is a snuggler. Which one do you want?
Speaker 1: And I was like, yes, you went with the snapler.
Speaker 1: So the obvious travel question, can you just put the
Speaker 1: dog on a plane.
Speaker 3: I have flown dogs before, and I have found it
Speaker 3: slightly traumatizing. Yeah, just a two thousand yards stare when
Speaker 3: they get off the I.
Speaker 1: Just just I mean, the dog just wants to be
Speaker 1: with you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Linus really didn't care. He just is fairly mellow.
Speaker 2: I was traumatized. In fact, I flew Air Alaska that
Speaker 2: time because they're said to have the best dog flying program.
Speaker 2: When I got to my seat, there was a stewardess
Speaker 2: standing there with a piece of paper which said relax,
Speaker 2: Linus is already on board, which was really nice. Of
Speaker 2: course I knew that because I put a tracker on
Speaker 2: his collar because he was freaking out.
Speaker 1: So flying is problematic. But both Michael and I have
Speaker 1: driven cross country with their dog. How does that work?
Speaker 1: I started with Michael. Where does Linus sit? Is he
Speaker 1: in the front seat of the backseat?
Speaker 2: Back seat? He tries to go in the front, In fact,
Speaker 2: he tried it again last week. But the the problem
Speaker 2: is like, if you have some sort of accident and
Speaker 2: your airbag goes, your dog goes too. Oh yeah, so
Speaker 2: I've made a little shelf out of the back seat
Speaker 2: for him.
Speaker 1: My best This is a good time for me to
Speaker 1: interject with my favorite dog in the animal in the
Speaker 1: front seat story. I was talking to a wildlife veterinarian
Speaker 1: recently and she had raised two cheetahs from from when
Speaker 1: they were from when they were kittens, and they were
Speaker 1: they adored her, and she would they stayed at her
Speaker 1: house and she worked at this kind of wildlife sanctuary
Speaker 1: and every morning she would drive them to work. And
Speaker 1: it was the seventies, and she had one of those
Speaker 1: bench seats in the front and the two cheetahs would
Speaker 1: sit on the seat in front of and she said,
Speaker 1: because you know, they have really long necks, so you
Speaker 1: would just see her and then these two adorable cheetahs,
Speaker 1: she said. She said, uh, the like the looks she
Speaker 1: got from other people on the freeway were priceless. I
Speaker 1: think it is the word she used. And I was
Speaker 1: curious about where where'd you put jumpbug thunner back?
Speaker 3: I have one of those slings, so she would hang
Speaker 3: out in the back with her giant carrot stuffed animal
Speaker 3: and giant frog stuffed animal.
Speaker 1: Would you say a giant I've seen his carrot. It's
Speaker 1: a good four feet.
Speaker 3: And it's a pillow and a security blanket.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I always gave him his bed, his pillow and
Speaker 2: security blanket and he would curl up in the back.
Speaker 2: But the best part of it was going to dog parks.
Speaker 2: I mean I went to some crazy dog parks. I
Speaker 2: went to one in Amarillo where this guy had an
Speaker 2: Australian Shepherd and he was so into the dog and
Speaker 2: I said, wow, what do you do? Are you a
Speaker 2: dog trainer? He said no, I just got out of
Speaker 2: a federal penitentiary for dealing meth. I said, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: he said, but now I'm totally focused on my dog.
Speaker 2: And we talked dogs and then he told me where
Speaker 2: to eat. You didn't Amarillo, And you know, you can't
Speaker 2: get that kind of experience if you don't remember.
Speaker 1: Dog dogs are the great leveling dog parks the great
Speaker 1: leveling ground you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a great icebreaker having a dog anywhere.
Speaker 1: So to recap, the reason to have a dog with
Speaker 1: you on a road trip is that you get to
Speaker 1: acquire giant, fluffy carrots. It allows you to explore one
Speaker 1: of the great undiscovered American treasures, the dog park, and
Speaker 1: it greatly expands your social circle to include meth dealers.
Speaker 1: These are not compelling arguments.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, when I was ready to head home back
Speaker 3: to Los Angeles from the Hudson Valley. Junebug maybe from
Speaker 3: drinking pond water, got some kind of bacterial infection and
Speaker 3: basically an explosive digestive track. And it was like three
Speaker 3: days before I had to head across country, and so
Speaker 3: that was very clearly something that I did not want
Speaker 3: to drive a past country with a dog who has
Speaker 3: explosive diarrhea.
Speaker 1: See my point, My life isn't complicated enough already. I've
Speaker 1: never traveled with a dog, but I had traveled with
Speaker 1: a cat, and I had the experience recently of well
Speaker 1: it was just from here to New York City, but
Speaker 1: there was bad traffic, so we were out for about
Speaker 1: four hours in total. In hour four I had one child,
Speaker 1: the six month six week old, who's just over it
Speaker 1: and just crying NonStop. I had Edie who sang without
Speaker 1: stopping for three hours, so she's singing the top for lungs.
Speaker 1: And then the cat decided to start serenading us at
Speaker 1: the same time, so I had I had the singing, yowling,
Speaker 1: crying combination, which has never happened to me before. It
Speaker 1: was I'd say quite some I don't know whether I
Speaker 1: because you know, if you were to go across country,
Speaker 1: that could considerably go on for hours. Luckily we hit
Speaker 1: an endpoint. But there you The more people you, the
Speaker 1: more strange creatures you put in your car, the greater
Speaker 1: the upside risk of you some now I repeat, the
Speaker 1: more strange creatures you put in your car, the greater
Speaker 1: the upside risk. Are you nuts? Don't do it? Don't
Speaker 1: go to Vegas. Don't cover the weather, don't set foot
Speaker 1: in North Carolina. Don't buy a house in Georgetown without
Speaker 1: checking to see if the previous owner betrayed crucial American secrets.
Speaker 1: Don't travel with a dog unless absolutely necessary, and do
Speaker 1: not ever please listen to music. It sounds like this,
Speaker 1: all right? Everyone, that's travel advice from Revision's History. We'll
Speaker 1: be back on Thursday with conclusion to our six part
Speaker 1: Gun series on Revision's History. You won't want to miss
Speaker 1: the final episode. This episode was produced by Nina Lawrence,
Speaker 1: Bendadapt Haffrey, and Jacob Smith. It was edited by Sarah Nix,
Speaker 1: engineering by Nina Lawrence. Special thanks to my guests and
Speaker 1: old friends Michael Specter and Dazac. I'm Malcolm Godwin. Oh
Speaker 1: you're still waiting for question number five, aren't you here?
Speaker 1: It is? What about treats? Do we have agreement on treats?
Speaker 2: You gotta have some particular This is a dog owner
Speaker 2: term high value treats, like not just like the kind
Speaker 2: of food he eats, but cheese and smelly fish and
Speaker 2: things that you may find repulsive, but that that dog
Speaker 2: will do anything for, because there are times when you
Speaker 2: want to reward him, and there are also times when
Speaker 2: you want him to pay attention, and if you produce
Speaker 2: the right kind of cheese, he'll walk through fire for it.
Speaker 3: There's also those keep them busy for a long time treats,
Speaker 3: Like there's those Himalayan she sticks that will take forever,
Speaker 3: and I think that's kind of good.
Speaker 2: Actually, my big thing on that these days are collagen chees.
Speaker 2: You can get these long college and chees and they
Speaker 2: last a pretty long time and they're not terribly unhealthy.
Speaker 2: As opposed to you.
Speaker 1: Say a long time, you mean hours.
Speaker 2: It can be a couple hours of hardcore chewing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you could get a college and chew could get
Speaker 1: you across the state of Kansas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. The thing is my dog. You know, I
Speaker 2: have spent five years trying to buy things for my
Speaker 2: dog that say, under no circumstance, can your dog rip
Speaker 2: this toy apart? It's impossible. He's never lasted twenty four
Speaker 2: hours with those. He's like taking it down.
Speaker 1: This is this is like Alcatraz. You know when they
Speaker 1: say you no, no, no no, you can never get
Speaker 1: to als. Someone else gets out of Alcatraz.