WEBVTT - SYSK Selects: What Is a Shotgun House? 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:05.360 Hi, everybody. It's May tenth, two twelve. What No, that 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:08.639 just means it's me Chuck picking out a select episode 0:00:08.720 --> 0:00:11.879 from May tenth, two thousand twelve. What's a Shotgun House? 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:18.759 It's cool because I like houses. Welcome to Stuff You 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:27.800 Should Know, a production of Five Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:31.040 Welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:35.360 Chuck Bryant with me as always, UM, which makes this 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:42.440 stuff you should know? The stuff you should Yeah, that's 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:46.000 our themes on it. Nice time, Thank you. Um. How 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:47.880 are you doing. I'm doing great. I feel like we 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:51.440 just did this. I'm looking forward to the show, are you? Yeah? 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:54.160 Because it touches on parts of Atlanta in their in 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:57.000 its history, which I always loved. And that's as Atlanta 0:00:57.040 --> 0:01:01.960 man all over the States, all over the States. As uh, 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:06.800 the immortal David Byrne put it, you may find yourself 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:10.880 living in a shotgun check, you may find yourself in 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:15.280 another part of the world. I think even David Byrne 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:18.800 didn't realize what he was saying when he put those 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:22.600 two lines together. I think he meant them to contrast 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:26.560 with one another. But really, if you found yourself in 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:30.760 a shotgun check and say the beginning of the nineteenth century, 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:36.640 you probably were experiencing both. Yeah. Yeah, but he doesn't 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:41.400 tip so now he doesn't care what he said. That's crazy. Um, 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:46.080 So Chuck, you remember her, Kane, Katrina Um I killed 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:51.800 I believe people. There is a lot of people. Um. 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:53.640 And one of the things in addition to all the 0:01:53.720 --> 0:01:56.880 loss of life and property was a real worry about 0:01:57.120 --> 0:02:02.960 loss of very um specific type of architecture, the shotgun house. 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:05.920 And the reason even though you can find it everywhere 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:09.160 from Key West to Chicago to San Francisco, all over 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:13.440 the place, you can find shotgun houses Atlanta. UM. The 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:15.400 reason why people were worried about losing it in New 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:18.799 Orleans because as far as the United States goes, that 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:22.360 is where it was born. That's right. And the whole 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:25.960 reason anybody would even worry about a shotgun house, if 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:28.560 you've ever seen one, you might think, why would anyone 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:32.240 care about losing old chotgun houses is because they are 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:39.000 routinely cited as the great, possibly greatest contribution by African 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:45.040 Americans to American specific architecture and design, and not only that, 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:50.160 responsible for the bringing together in many ways of the 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:55.040 African American communities due to their things that we're going 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:57.400 to talk about. I was going to ruin it. I'm 0:02:57.400 --> 0:03:01.280 thank you for saving it. That was good man. Okay, Um, 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:04.480 you've surely seen a shotgun house. Yeah, let's talk about 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:07.160 to some of the features people. We should. Yeah, because 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:09.880 there's probably plenty of people out there and people who 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:11.560 have seen him and don't know what we're talking about. 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:14.919 You're about to go. Oh, if you haven't seen him, 0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:17.919 then go onto how stuff works dot com and type 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:20.280 in what's a shotgun house and you will find some 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:23.000 images of shotgun houses in this article that I wrote. 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:25.200 That's true. You wrote this years and years ago. I 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:28.960 don't think I knew that. Nice job. Shotgun house is 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:32.000 long and narrow. Yeah, a lot of times they won't 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:34.280 have windows on the side of the house, although in 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:37.520 researching this, I saw plenty that do, so it's almost 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:40.200 like a throwaway. Sometimes they do, don't, Yes, And the 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:44.760 reason why it's because they're often really close together, like 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:47.480 I mean, like a foot, a couple of feet. You 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:51.560 can maybe walk without turning between two houses. But that's 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:55.560 it exactly. Um, they well, you just said they were 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:59.560 close to one another. Um, they have high ceilings. They 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:03.240 very few of them had indoor plumbing at first. UM. 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:06.960 That was usually brought on later um and tacked onto 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:10.800 the rear of the house, sometimes crudely. Uh. Typically what 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:14.520 you have is a living room, bedroom, bedroom, kitchen, all 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:17.440 in a row, all in a straight line, all the 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:20.880 doors lining up, interior doors lining up right. So when 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:22.760 the front and back door is open, you can see 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:25.520 clear through the house, which is one of the reasons 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:27.760 why a lot of people think it got its name. 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:30.960 You could shoot a gun or a shotgun through the 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:33.159 front door and it would exit out the back door 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:36.120 without hitting a single wall, and that would hit the 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:39.400 house behind it or some poor staff who's coming in 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:42.560 and like you point out, Josh, it's a cute story, 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:44.920 and it's all over the place. A bet you there 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:47.159 are many many tours of New Orleans. I'd say that 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:53.200 story is true. May or may not be. It probably isn't. Um. 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:57.440 What else is? What else is specific about shotgun houses, chuck? Uh? 0:04:57.480 --> 0:05:02.960 They aside from being a mada homes, they have certain 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:08.800 architectural flourishes that make them distinctive. UM. I think the 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:11.839 idea was kind of like, you know, we may be 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:14.240 poor and not have the biggest house, but we can 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:20.760 certainly adorn the the vent venting greats and what the 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:23.279 the arbor that held up the not the arbor brackets, 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:26.839 brackets that held up the roof. They would be intricately carved, 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:30.080 usually in a gingerbread design, um, which a lot of 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:34.400 people kind of criticize or pooh pooed that addition, um 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:40.240 as h poor blacks or even before that, slaves just 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:43.960 trying to emulate whites. Um, which is not the case 0:05:44.080 --> 0:05:47.440 because if you trace so, the shotgun house finds its 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:50.000 origins in the US and New Orleans, but if you 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:53.120 go even further back, you'll find older ones on Haiti, 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:55.880 and then even further back you will find something that 0:05:55.920 --> 0:06:01.000 looks started startlingly similar. Um. In West Africa and in 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:05.839 the Yoruba tongue, these houses are called to gun, which 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:09.239 means house in Yoruba, or showgun, which means God's house. 0:06:09.800 --> 0:06:12.359 So probably that's where the name comes from. By the ways, 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:15.599 to gun or showgun from the Yoruba dialect, right, which 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:18.920 I love. UM. But in these houses they also had 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:21.719 like intricate details, but they were more of an African motif. 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:25.200 Over time here in the United States, they adopted gingerbreadin 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:29.919 or Um Victorian. Yeah, different kinds of carvings, but it 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:31.960 is very cool. It's kind of like, this is a 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:36.400 very modest, straightforward house, but there's also pretty neat little 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:41.360 details we can still have like great pride in it exactly. Um, 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:43.160 they were usually in New Orleans. They were typically a 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:46.880 few feed off the ground because of the obvious flooding 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:51.760 problems there. Um. And this I found and it seems 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:54.719 believable to me, but I didn't have time to triple 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:57.920 check it. Um. At the time, property taxes were based 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:02.360 on frontage, still aren't in are they in New Orleans? 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:06.400 If you have a house, you're paying by the um 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:09.080 the frontage, which is the width of your house. Yes, 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:11.480 and if you are looking at a shotgun house is 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:15.040 very narrow, but it's long. Um. And the number of 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:18.240 rooms okay, and in New Orleans though they changed it 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:20.480 to the number of rooms, they added that on. Yeah, 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:25.320 it's both okay, uh. And in New Orleans rooms include 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:28.200 hallways and closets, and you're not going to find a 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:31.000 hallway or a closet in a shotgun house. So it's 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:34.800 also another way to um, I guess keep your property 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:38.200 taxes low as well well, And I found that they 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:40.920 originally it was just frontage and then so they started 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:44.760 building the camelbacks, which is a shotgun house with a 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:47.400 second story on the rear of the house only. And 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:50.119 then that's when the city said, oh, well we should 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:53.360 tack rooms onto this as well, because these smart people 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:56.240 have found a way around paying, as you know, property 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:59.840 tax pretty smart. Yeah, it does, it makes it makes sense. 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:04.040 And also found that the first mentioned in print calling 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:06.840 them shotgun houses was in our very own Atlanta Journal 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:10.920 Constitution in nine three a classified ad may have been 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:13.920 the first time that it was actually named that in print, 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:18.640 and it was like shotgun house twelve dollars a month rent. Yeah, 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:21.480 twelve bucks. That's not too bad. But you could get 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:23.960 a shotgun house about that time a kit for a 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:27.280 hundred bucks um. They also allowed for good air flow too, 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:29.720 I want to mention, yeah, because you can open up 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:31.840 the front and back doors and you got a straight shot. Well, 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:34.280 that's one of the reasons why they were adopted in Haiti. 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:37.040 Not everybody in Haiti was from West Africa, but that 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:41.760 became the predominant style, this West African design house because 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:45.480 it fit in really well with the tropics, all right. 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:47.360 So well, it made its way from Haiti to New 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:52.280 Orleans because of the well in indirectly because of the 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:57.400 French Revolution. Right, So French Revolution takes place and you've 0:08:57.400 --> 0:09:03.800 got UM, liberty, gality, fraternity to all people. That put 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:07.839 French planners in Haiti in kind of a pickle because 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:12.480 they couldn't grant liberty to their slaves because they wouldn't 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:15.719 have any profits any longer. So as they're figuring this out, 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:17.480 they're trying to figure out what to do, a guy 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:21.080 named Toussaint low Mature makes the decision for him and 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:24.560 leads a slave uprising that lasts for many years and 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:28.760 basically drives all of the white plantation owners from the 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:31.520 island of Haiti, one of the places that they went. 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:36.959 And then Haiti became the first UM recognized sovereign maroon 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:43.520 nation of freed slaves revolting slaves UM, which is pretty cool. 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:46.200 But that also led to, if you go back and 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:50.040 listen to our voodoo podcast, a deep and abiding suspicion 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:53.560 by whites of Haiti all things Haiti from that point 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:58.440 on UM. But so that this slave uprising that led 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:02.240 to the UM the freeing of Haiti also led to 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:06.240 the white populating of New Orleans. So about that time, 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:08.360 if you went to New Orleans, there were about twelve 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:11.160 thousand people and a third of them were slaves, the 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:13.120 third of them were white, and then a third of 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:16.160 them were free blacks. So it's it's real melting pot 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:18.760 um And one of the place one of the things 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:22.000 that came about from that was people fleeing Haiti bringing 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:24.800 the shotgun houses with them, and then it just kind 0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:28.600 of it was always African American um and it was 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:31.200 always associated with African Americans, and it just kind of 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:35.400 spread from there to where if you if you came 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:39.240 across the working class African American neighborhood like in Chicago 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:41.280 or something like that, you're going to see shotgun of 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:45.560 houses or Atlanta, like I've mentioned many times. Uh, if 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:49.000 if you are local, then you can see these kinds 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:52.160 of houses in like the Sweet Auburn district, Cabbage Down 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:54.880 and I think Cabbage Town where they were houses for 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:59.600 factory workers for the nearby cotton mill offten uh factories. Yeah, 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:02.920 it changed hands um. Also, you're gonna find them directly 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:06.480 across the street from Martin Luther King's birthplace UM in 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:10.320 the King Memorial area. The whole park is UM. There's 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:12.200 still people that live in them. Yeah, and they've been 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:14.520 pretty well preserved over the Yeah. Yeah, it's very cool. 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:17.320 But those were like late nineteenth century built. But it 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:22.480 did kind of transition from African American only to working 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:25.760 class of all colors. The shotgun house became kind of 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:30.160 an emblem of the working class as much as African 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:32.959 Americans now. Is a is a row house the same thing? 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:35.360 Or is a row house? Just know those are side 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:39.439 by side, like touching, sometimes all forming one large building, 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:44.760 but then maybe different gables differentiating them. So a shotgun 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:48.280 a shotgun house could be a row house, but a 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:51.080 row house can't be a shotgun house because den row 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:54.480 house indicate like the proximity to one another more than 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:57.240 the style of the house. Or no, I think it's both. 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:01.600 And then the shotgun house is not supposed to be 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:05.720 confused with the railroad house either, yea, which is you 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:08.120 enter and there's a long hallway from front to back, 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:12.360 and then off of the hallway our rooms apartments. My 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:14.120 friend Meredith in New York, in Brooklyn, lives in a 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:17.760 railroad department which was always a little weird because like 0:12:18.559 --> 0:12:20.400 in order for like when I would stay there, I 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:22.280 would stay in the living room, and when someone had 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:23.760 to go to the bathroom, they would have to walk 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:26.440 through the you know, living room to tend to get 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:29.439 to the Bathroom's always awkward. Or she could go outside 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:31.840 through the hallway and then come back in because she 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:37.000 had two doors to her apartment. Got it still does, hi, Meredith, 0:12:56.000 --> 0:12:58.640 So Chuck, we're talking about where else they spread. There's 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:03.520 UM also a lot of in Oklahoma, especially southern Oklahoma. Yeah. 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:06.280 And one of the reasons why is because southern Oklahoma, 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:09.840 the Oklahoma territory Um before it became a state, was 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:14.440 a free black area and a lot of blacks traveled 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:17.720 to Oklahoma, moved to Oklahoma to be free, and a 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:21.640 lot of runaway slaves maroons is what they are called, 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:27.240 formed and integrated with um Native American tribes like the Seminoles. 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:31.120 And when these five civilized tribes and making air quotes 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:36.720 like furiously um were moved to the Oklahoma territory Um, 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:39.319 a lot of blacks went with them, and shockun houses 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:43.000 showed up alongside the whole thing, and there's like all 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:46.520 black towns are formerly all black towns in southern Oklahoma 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:51.160 where it's like shocking houses everywhere. Yeah, so, Chuck, if 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:53.920 you ask me, I feel like, now we've reached the 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:57.880 point where this is the fact of the show, and 0:13:57.960 --> 0:14:02.359 I know you're excited about this. Well, it's cool. They um. 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:04.360 It's one of the reasons I talked about why the 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:06.600 cultural legacy of the shotgun Home had a lot to 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:10.240 do with bringing together the African American community is because 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:13.080 of a little something called the front porch. Yeah, they 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:16.040 didn't exist in the United States before the shotgun House 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:18.599 brought it along. So the shotgun houses are typically I 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:22.160 mean a lot of them actually were so far forward 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:24.600 that they were on the sidewalk, But the ones that 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:27.400 weren't had a few feet of grass and then a 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:31.320 front porch to hang out on. And in a small house, 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:33.040 you're going to congregate on the front porch. And in 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:36.240 the evenings, if your neighbors on our front porch five 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:39.280 feet from you and they're five feet from another one, 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.280 then what you have is a big, old, friendly cultural 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:46.960 block party going on every evening, and the porch is made. 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:51.400 It's a spandrel I guess of the um overhanging roof. 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:54.600 And then if you add the fact that in New Orleans, 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:56.480 like you said, they were built off of the ground. 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:58.560 Some yeah, you have to build steps to go up 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:01.360 to it. And then you have a just buy you 0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:03.240 have a de facto porch. And then yeah, you add 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:05.280 a bunch of them together and there you go. So 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:08.760 we didn't have porch. So like these huge wraparound porches 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:13.480 on old like plantation mansions stoops in New York, like, 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:15.480 all of this stuff can be traced back to the 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:19.560 shotgun house. Really, yeah, that's crazy, and thank you for that, 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:24.080 shotgun house builders. So because one of my favorite things 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:27.000 is the front porch or the back porch. Good good porches. 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:31.800 It's very important. Yeah, you know, shotgun houses started to 0:15:31.880 --> 0:15:35.840 wane in the twenties, and it wasn't It wasn't until 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:39.600 fairly recently that we knew the history of shotgun houses. 0:15:40.040 --> 0:15:43.800 That architects um went back and and art historians went 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:46.600 back and figured out where this all came from and 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:48.880 traced it step by step. I mean it was within 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:52.640 the last like a couple of decades um. And they 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:54.920 were like, okay, we found some shotgun houses and these 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:58.240 are really old, and they date them and they'd be like, Okay, 0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:00.160 New Orleans is the birthplace. And then somebody be like, 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:02.080 have you been to Port of Prince Like they got 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:04.200 some they're really really old there, and then they traced 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:06.760 them back and then somebody figured out that they were 0:16:06.760 --> 0:16:11.480 from West Africa. But the new construction in the United 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:14.080 States waned in the twenties, and like I said about 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:16.280 the turn of the last century, you could get a 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:19.240 kit for about a hundred bucks, which also made them 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:23.440 really good cheap housing for labor um if you had 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:29.320 like a work camp, you exactly um. And they were 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:32.800 also really good for disaster relief. Specifically, they made a 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:36.960 big appearance in the San Francisco earthquake of nineteen o six. Well, yeah, 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:40.440 they needed to put up displaced people. And when you 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:43.000 can build a house for a hundred bucks, then you 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:46.320 do so exactly. And when it can be pre fabricated 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:51.280 and then taking apart in like six large parts, put 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:53.640 on a train and sent somewhere and then put back 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:57.680 together within like a couple hours, like a waffle house. Yeah, 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:00.480 it's exactly like a waffle house. As matter of fact, 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:01.680 I think you can go out on a limb and 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:04.359 say we wouldn't have the waffle house without the shotgun house. 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:08.119 I think you're right, uh little pop culture. Yeah, you 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:13.040 already mentioned David Byrne. Uh Coogs, John Mellencamp, My boy 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:16.720 Coogs Pink Houses was about a shotgun house. Apparently, his 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:20.080 legend has it, he was driving on a busy main 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:22.520 road and he saw this little black guy sitting on 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:25.679 the front porch of his little pink shotgun house, gave him, 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:27.400 gave him a wave, and he said he just looked 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:29.080 like he was as happy as could be sitting out 0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:32.000 on his porch. And uh, I wrote a song about it, 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:34.280 that's nice, and and that the album that I was 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:38.320 on too, Yeah, I think so great song. Elvis Presley 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:42.840 was born in the shotgun house. Oh yeah, in uh yeah, Mississippi, 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:46.280 which is where I have family actually, And Aaron Neville 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:50.280 grew up in a shotgun house. The incomparable and muscly 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:58.160 and Moley. But boy man like I can sing yeah 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:04.440 like a bird? Okay, face pretty good, Aaron Neville ask me, 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:30.240 it's um shock. Gun houses are making a resurgence too, 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:32.600 by the way, are they building them again? Yes, there's 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:35.040 this thing called the tiny house movement. Oh yeah, that 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:37.720 and the whole idea of living modestly in the house 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:42.200 you can afford that UM grants a very small carbon footprint. 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:45.480 Shotgun houses fit that bill. I like the tiny house thing. 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:48.320 I think. I think actually Emily might have written an 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:50.720 article about that. Is that right? If I'm not mistaken, 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:53.919 or maybe it was me. Somebody did, somebody in our 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:56.919 family did, because I remember I remember it happening. Was 0:18:56.960 --> 0:19:00.000 it Buckley a few years ago? Yeah? Buckley wrote it. Um, 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:03.400 you got anything else, no go, you know, seek out 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:07.840 local historic landmarks that might be easily overlooked when you're 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:10.800 angry in traffic. Yeah. And when next time you pass 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:12.919 a shotgun house, like, stop and look at it, and 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:15.480 you'll see some pretty cool little details to it. Ask 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:16.879 him to open the door so you can shoot a 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:20.240 gun through it. Don't do that. Don't do that. Man, 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:23.320 that was a reversal. I was like, no, don't do it, 0:19:23.440 --> 0:19:26.359 Chuck said, Normally it's the other way around. Uh. And 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:29.200 if you're ever in Atlanta, Chuck and I always recommend 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:34.000 going to the King Memorial Center, the place where he's buried, 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:36.719 where the eternal flame is in all the surrounding area. 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:40.919 UM is like a Living Museum Preserved House is just awesome. 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:43.679 One of my favorite parts of Atlanta for sure. Um So, 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:45.600 if you want to learn more about shotgun houses and 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:48.640 see pictures of shotgun houses, you can type the words 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:52.520 shotgun house two words into the search bar at how 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:54.960 stuff works dot com and that'll bring up this article 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:58.520 that I wrote. And I said search bar, which means 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:03.120 it's time for a listener now, Josh, I'm gonna call 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:07.160 this beast email. Hey, guys, did you did you read 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:10.359 this one? Um? I just listened to the Music Sampling Podcast. 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:12.239 We got a lot of good feedback on that by man, 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:15.800 everybody loved that was and a lot of people offered 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:18.480 up like people don't know way more than us, offered 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:20.679 up a lot of cool insight. Yeah, we kept getting 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:23.080 called out for not mentioning girl talk. I've never heard 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:25.639 girl talk, so I don't feel bad. Yeah, but everyone 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:29.280 we know about girl talk. Now, Okay, guys that just 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:31.520 listened to the Music Sampling Podcast wanted to say how 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:34.040 great it was that you featured the Beastie Boys so 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:36.280 prominently in the show. I thought i'd share a little 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:39.080 story when I met them during the nineteen seven licensed 0:20:39.080 --> 0:20:41.680 to Ild tour in Las Vegas when I was fifteen. 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:43.720 So this girl must be my age because I saw 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:47.159 that tour and I was about fifteen. Wow. All right. 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:50.119 They performed in a concert hall on the un l 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:52.359 V campus, so it was easy to get to the 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:54.520 area where their tour bus was because I lived in 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:57.480 the bleachers. They were inviting every female they saw back 0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:01.520 to their hotel for a party, including teen year olds. 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:05.840 Well they were only like eighteen nineteen. Still, Well, I know, 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:09.080 but you get to be forty and you're like, what's 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:11.960 the big difference of five years? Man? That's back then. 0:21:14.400 --> 0:21:17.560 I'm just saying, it's not like they were like years older. 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:24.200 All right, I'm defending their pedophilia. Uh. By the time 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:26.200 we got there, the party had taken over the ninth 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:28.600 floor and had already been shut down. We got to 0:21:28.600 --> 0:21:31.160 say hi to m c A before being escorted away 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:34.639 by security for curfew violation. But I was determined. I 0:21:34.680 --> 0:21:36.760 skipped school the next day went back to the hotel, 0:21:37.080 --> 0:21:39.760 basically casing the joint. I ended up finding m c A, 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:41.840 who remembered me from the night before. I said, how 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:46.680 do He said, Hi, very nice? What you heard waiting 0:21:46.680 --> 0:21:49.320 on that one? I ended up spending the whole day 0:21:49.359 --> 0:21:52.480 with the guys, chatting, playing arcade games, walking over to 0:21:52.480 --> 0:21:55.159 a seven eleven with a very hungover ad Rock, and 0:21:55.240 --> 0:21:58.160 even helping load their bags onto the tour bus. They're 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:00.440 only nineteen twenty and twenty one at the time. I'm 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:03.840 very unassuming, so they weren't getting much attention. I felt 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:06.320 like a little sister tagging along with their super cool 0:22:06.359 --> 0:22:09.199 older brothers. That is very cool. At one point m 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:11.080 c a offered me a tour of the bus. We 0:22:11.160 --> 0:22:13.960 got on and he closed the door and said, now 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:16.199 we cannot do all sorts of things that you're going 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:18.680 to tell all your friends. We did anyway, he was 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:23.680 really hysterical, so he was like he was still a gentleman, unfortunately, 0:22:23.720 --> 0:22:26.840 and he's like a Buddhist now and he oh yeah. Unfortunately. 0:22:26.840 --> 0:22:28.720 I had not thought to bring a camera with me, 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:31.240 so I have no picks. I did get the auto 0:22:31.359 --> 0:22:34.800 documentation any of this happened, now, she does, um. I 0:22:34.840 --> 0:22:36.919 did get their autographs, but the only paper I had 0:22:36.920 --> 0:22:40.520 in my jacket was old school snoopy valentines I had 0:22:40.560 --> 0:22:43.440 bought to give up friends. I still treasure my three 0:22:43.480 --> 0:22:46.600 snoopy valentines each one with their autographs, and she sent 0:22:46.640 --> 0:22:49.600 pictures of them. That's cool. I stayed until they left 0:22:49.800 --> 0:22:52.720 around six at night. I naively asked m c a 0:22:52.800 --> 0:22:54.879 if he would write to me. He answered with an 0:22:54.880 --> 0:22:57.200 honest no and gave me a very sweet kiss on 0:22:57.240 --> 0:23:00.160 the cheek. I loved it that they have conceid need 0:23:00.200 --> 0:23:02.320 to rise in popularity and her given the respect of 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:05.399 being true innovators in the field. First. Sure that is 0:23:05.440 --> 0:23:08.440 Ali Smith and she got kissed on the cheek by 0:23:08.440 --> 0:23:11.240 a very sweet sounding m c And all of your 0:23:11.240 --> 0:23:15.520 fifteen year olds out there, you'd better be at home sleeping. Yeah, 0:23:15.600 --> 0:23:17.560 don't be hanging out with twenty one year old dudes, 0:23:17.680 --> 0:23:21.879