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Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Happy Saturday. This is your co host of

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Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know here, Chuck Bryant, and I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: recommend that you listen to this week's select episode live

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Speaker 1: from San Francisco, colin How Malls Work. This was in

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Speaker 1: February of twenty seventeen, February nineteenth specifically, and this was

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Speaker 1: our Sketch Fest performance for that year. And I'm not

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Speaker 1: sure how many times we did this topic live that year,

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Speaker 1: but I just wanted to kind of put this in

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Speaker 1: as a Saturday Select as a way of saying, hey,

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Speaker 1: here's what our live shows sound like, and they are

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Speaker 1: a lot of fun, and there's even a lot more

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Speaker 1: fun that gets edited out of these. So we're going

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Speaker 1: on the road this year, as you know, and we're

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Speaker 1: gonna hit probably six or seven more cities before it's

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Speaker 1: all said and done in twenty twenty three. So I

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Speaker 1: wanted to throw a live show in there to show

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Speaker 1: you what was all about. So please to enjoy this

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Speaker 1: week's Select live episode How Malls Work. Welcome to Stuff

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Speaker 1: you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, and welcome

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Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Brian,

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Speaker 1: We're in beautiful San Francisco, California, at the Castro Theater.

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Speaker 1: You should thank you. It's wonderful, our biggest, our biggest

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Speaker 1: show to date. Seriously today, yep, on a Sunday afternoon.

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Speaker 1: Ye who knew San Francisco sketch Fest. All right, So

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Speaker 1: we're talking today everybody about a little something called the

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Speaker 1: Mall And I'm not joking. Yeah, that's what I have.

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Speaker 1: So that's good. So we've been wanting to do something

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Speaker 1: on the mall for years now and years and years,

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Speaker 1: and we thought, well, what does San Francisco if not

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Speaker 1: the Mall? Right, they're gonna love this one, and I

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Speaker 1: guess we were wrong. Now, you guys will love it.

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Speaker 1: I promise it's just like um, like the Grass episode.

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Speaker 1: You may have been like, I'm not listening to that,

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Speaker 1: and then you finally ran out of episodes. Listen to

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Speaker 1: the Grass episode and you're like, that wasn't as bad

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Speaker 1: as I thought it was gonna be. This will be

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Speaker 1: similar to that experience, okay, except the Grass episode was free.

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Speaker 1: I promise we will give it our all. I don't

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Speaker 1: know why we're selling it like this is going downhill

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Speaker 1: so fast. That's great, okay, so uphill, shall we get

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Speaker 1: in the way back machine? Ooh, which is imaginary? Oo.

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Speaker 1: So when you think of shopping mall, you think of

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Speaker 1: the mall. Right, everybody knows what the mall is. If

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Speaker 1: there's somebody who doesn't know what the mall is, raise

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Speaker 1: your hand, and whoever sitting next to that person, punch

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Speaker 1: him in the arm really hard, be like, come on,

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Speaker 1: you know what the mall is. I assume San Francisco

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Speaker 1: has malls somewhere. Oh yeah, they've got mall. I've never

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Speaker 1: seen one. They're probably out a bit. It's not like

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Speaker 1: a mall in the middle of the mission, or is there.

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Speaker 1: I don't think so. Right, Okay, there's a few. Oh

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Speaker 1: you did, I did a little They pop up here

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Speaker 1: or there. You guys will know, because I'll be like,

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Speaker 1: so if we're we're all in the way back machine,

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Speaker 1: and we're going all the way back back back back

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Speaker 1: to ancient Rome where the actual the first what you

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Speaker 1: could consider a shopping center appears, and it was called

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Speaker 1: Trajan's Market. And Trajan's Market was built in something like

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Speaker 1: one oh seven. I think, yeah, that's early. I think

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Speaker 1: its anchor store was Trajan's Horse that was okay. Sorry.

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Speaker 1: If I had a store back there, that would have

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Speaker 1: totally called it Trajan's Horse. Yeah yeah, And it's known

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Speaker 1: as the world's oldest shopping center for good reason. Again.

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Speaker 1: It was built in one oh seven and right now

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Speaker 1: it's in ruins. There's some guy who sells those little

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Speaker 1: balls with the raccoon tails on the end of them

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Speaker 1: on a tray, but he's technically outside of the mall

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Speaker 1: so it doesn't really count to the mall's closed. It

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Speaker 1: has been for several millennia now, but the oldest continually

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Speaker 1: operated what you would might call an outdoor market or mall,

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Speaker 1: is the Grand Bazaar with an A three. A's actually two,

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Speaker 1: now there's three. You've been drinking, Yeah, just not together

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Speaker 1: be a z a r oh oh gotcha, yeah, I

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Speaker 1: guess if I'm not gonna checking his math checks out,

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Speaker 1: that's a joke from Fletch. If I'm not mistaken, I

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Speaker 1: don't like all right, deep cut the Grand Bizarre Istanbul.

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Speaker 1: Between fourteen fifty five and fourteen sixty one is when

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Speaker 1: that was built, and it is still an operation today.

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Speaker 1: About five thousand coboard shops still gets about a quarter

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Speaker 1: million visitors a day. So it's still rocking day. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: a lot of folks. So you've got what medieval market

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Speaker 1: towns kind of started to come later, seaports, all these things,

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Speaker 1: these commercial districts where people went to shop. They all

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Speaker 1: had to kind of be centered in an area together

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Speaker 1: because people rode horses, or they walked, or they were

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Speaker 1: chased by their people, whatever. But you had to go

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Speaker 1: and get all your shopping done at one place. Right,

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Speaker 1: And that's just kind of a very ancient idea, and right,

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Speaker 1: it's wonderful. By the turn of the twentieth century here

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Speaker 1: in the US, we had something we still do. It

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Speaker 1: hasn't gone away. Pre mall. We had the department store.

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Speaker 1: And I think I even mentioned this on another show.

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Speaker 1: It didn't dawn on me, you know how, like the

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Speaker 1: simplest words dawn on you late in life, like what

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Speaker 1: it really means. I just always said, Hey, a department store.

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Speaker 1: It really just occurred to me a couple of years ago, like, oh,

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Speaker 1: it's a store full of many departments. Right, never really

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Speaker 1: thought about it. Do you ever have those? It's kind

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Speaker 1: of nice department stores thirteen stories high in Chicago, the

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Speaker 1: Marshall end Field Company and Marshall Field, Marshall Field and Company.

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Speaker 1: And then in Detroit there was one called J. L.

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Speaker 1: Hudson's that was twenty five floors of department store, twenty

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Speaker 1: five floors of retail space. And this thing took up

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Speaker 1: like a whole block. Yeah, and there's nineteen eleven, so

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff. It is a lot of stuff.

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Speaker 1: In eighteen twenty eight, though, if you back up a

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Speaker 1: little bit, the first sort of enclosed shopping center that

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Speaker 1: you might kind of consider a mall mall even though

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Speaker 1: we really don't, as you'll see, because it didn't have

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Speaker 1: an arcade, even though it is it's called the Westminster Arcade,

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Speaker 1: fun ironically didn't have an arcade. And Providence, Rhode Island.

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Speaker 1: Has anyone ever been to this place? Yeah? I've been?

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Speaker 1: Have you really? Yes? I didn't know that. Yeah, you

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Speaker 1: didn't type in here I've been there. Yeah, all right,

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Speaker 1: I didn't know I needed to say that. Well, it

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Speaker 1: was assumed. It's a pretty cool place. So if you

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Speaker 1: look it up online, it doesn't look like the mall

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Speaker 1: that you would consider a mall. Looks like sort of

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Speaker 1: like a Greek revival building and it's like a big

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Speaker 1: ceiling Yeah, it's really nice. It's got three it sort

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Speaker 1: of looks like a train station. It's kind of three floors.

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Speaker 1: And recently they were going to demolish it, but someone

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Speaker 1: swooped in and built micro apartments. Now you can live

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Speaker 1: in there and they're really kind of cool. And I

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Speaker 1: was gonna explain again what a micro apartment was, but

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Speaker 1: I forgot where I am. Yeah, so you all know,

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Speaker 1: isn't that like a dresser drawer? Yes, and you walk

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Speaker 1: through the little thing that's like, oh my god, I

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Speaker 1: love living in thirty square feet and it's just some

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Speaker 1: guy standing in a broom cloth pretty much. Uh, screw

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Speaker 1: this up, herbs. Wait even well, even back further than this,

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Speaker 1: Russia should get its due right, even even before them,

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Speaker 1: even before the the the Westminster Arcade, there is this

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Speaker 1: thing called the ghost veted Voor. And I looked at

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Speaker 1: the pronunciation, but I should qualify that I looked up

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Speaker 1: the pronunciation on the same site that I looked up

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Speaker 1: the pronunciation on Disha chain, which I called dixiea chain

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Speaker 1: throughout the entire Underground City episode. So so take that

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Speaker 1: for what it. I was about to say, all our

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Speaker 1: Asian friends, let us know that was wrong, but really

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Speaker 1: everyone of every race let us know that was wrong,

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Speaker 1: Thank you dummies. After World War two, things really kind

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Speaker 1: of evolved with the shopping center though. That's when things

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Speaker 1: kind of started going in In nineteen fifty Seattle's Northgate

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Speaker 1: Center was But I feel like we say several times,

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Speaker 1: the first thing we think of a zamal. I guess

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Speaker 1: it was just part of the evolution, right. Southdale was

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Speaker 1: the first real mall. All right, so Southdale we're gonna

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Speaker 1: pick up with Southdale. Southdale was in Edina, Minnesota. A dinah,

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Speaker 1: thank you live corrections very nice? Where were you? And

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Speaker 1: I was saying Dixie a chance over and over and over. Deal. Well,

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Speaker 1: previous to that, boy, we're jumping all around this designer

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Speaker 1: and really the man who were gonna either thank for

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Speaker 1: the mall or blame for the mall, depending on how

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Speaker 1: you feel about malls is a gentleman named Victor Gruen.

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Speaker 1: Anyone want to correct me on that. He's an Austrian

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Speaker 1: architect and he designed Northland Center in Michigan. Is that correct? Yes?

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Speaker 1: And it was. Northland Center is in Southland, Michigan. Now

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Speaker 1: it's so confusing, it's terrible. It had a what was known,

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Speaker 1: and I said anchor store earlier, and this is what

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Speaker 1: malls have. They have these anchor stores which are still

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Speaker 1: to this day, mainly department stores. And that anchor store

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Speaker 1: was Hudson's Department Store, had about one hundred and ten

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Speaker 1: other stores. But it still wasn't a real mall mall

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Speaker 1: because it wasn't as you'll see, introverted, correct, and it

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Speaker 1: wasn't enclosed. It was open air. Yeah, like you know

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Speaker 1: when you go to those outlet malls today where it's

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Speaker 1: just all you're walking around outside like an idiot. You know,

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Speaker 1: this is kind of like what Southfield was like get

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Speaker 1: and that's what all shopping malls were like up to

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Speaker 1: that point. They weren't enclosed. It was nineteen fifty six

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Speaker 1: in a Dina, Minnesota when the first enclosed mall like

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Speaker 1: we think of it today came about. Yeah, and I

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Speaker 1: actually looked up the previous Northland. They did close that

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Speaker 1: in in the seventies and it finally shuddered for good

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Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, and I found this website

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Speaker 1: that said twelve weirdest things left behind in the Northland

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Speaker 1: Center And it wasn't that exciting, but there was one

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Speaker 1: the group to tension room and I started thinking, holy crap,

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Speaker 1: malls had jails. Yeah, And I looked it up and

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Speaker 1: someone said I went to Yahoo. Answers like, where else

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Speaker 1: do you go to get the real truth? And the

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Speaker 1: number one voted up answer said, it's not a real cell.

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Speaker 1: It's just a small dark room with no windows, in

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Speaker 1: a chair and a camera in it that you're not

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Speaker 1: allowed to leave. It's like and this one I took

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Speaker 1: micro department basically, this one had changed on the benches

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Speaker 1: and I was like, nah, that's a jail cell. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So I saw that too. There was like a target

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Speaker 1: cart under a spotlight. I think. I thought that was beautiful. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was very arty, haunting. I'm with you, lady, all right.

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Speaker 1: So jumping back forward again to Minneapolis. Outside of Minneapolis

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Speaker 1: is it Adena, Diana, Thank you, nineteen fifty six Southdale,

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Speaker 1: twenty million bucks. The anchor store was Donaldson's and Dayton's, right,

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Speaker 1: who can forget Donaldson's? I did, okay, And Dayton's actually

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Speaker 1: commissioned this mall to be built because they were building

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Speaker 1: a new outpost in the suburbs of Minneapolis. And it

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Speaker 1: wasn't just by coincidence that a Diana was ten miles

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Speaker 1: away from downtown Minneapolis, because again this is nineteen fifty six,

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Speaker 1: so it's during the Cold War, and that's actually right

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Speaker 1: outside the eight mile blast radius of atomic bomb were

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Speaker 1: it to be dropped on Minneapolis. Because of course that's

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Speaker 1: what the Ruskies were thinking, We're going from Minneapolis first.

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Speaker 1: But they've built a mall outside of the blast radius,

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Speaker 1: so I guess we'll just give up. So the original

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Speaker 1: idea for them all from Victor Gruin, was too he

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Speaker 1: wanted to kind of, you know how they have these

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Speaker 1: mixed use centers. Now, he had this idea way back

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Speaker 1: then and he wanted people to live there and kind

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Speaker 1: of congregate there. And we'll get a little more to

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Speaker 1: this later, but it sort of ended up just being

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Speaker 1: a shopping mall, to his disappointment. But he modeled it

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Speaker 1: on Northgate in Seattle, and sort of the big idea

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Speaker 1: was that you go to these department stores because that's

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Speaker 1: where people were used to. But how do you get

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Speaker 1: them to these other stores? Was the big question, right,

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Speaker 1: how do you get them chopping? Oh at the mall? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: like they're there because people went to department store. So

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Speaker 1: if you put a department store out in the suburbs.

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Speaker 1: They'll go to the department store. They're like, oh, I

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Speaker 1: thought I was supposed to take a left, Now I'm

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Speaker 1: taking a right. I'm at the department store. Who cares. Right.

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Speaker 1: The problem is is if you put one hundred and

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Speaker 1: ten other stores coming off of that department store, they

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Speaker 1: just go to the department store and leave. Not good,

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Speaker 1: right if you're one of these other stores. So what

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Speaker 1: Northgate figured out, and what is mind numbingly obvious but

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Speaker 1: really works, is you just take this department store, put

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Speaker 1: another department store, and then put the shops in between them,

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Speaker 1: and then the people take a rite. But they should

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Speaker 1: take a left. But they're fine, they're going to the

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Speaker 1: department store. Oh, if there's another department store, well, I'll

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Speaker 1: just walk past this. Maybe i'll buy that, I'll buy

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Speaker 1: a little bit of this. Sure, i'll take a feather

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Speaker 1: boa And then they walk into the other department store

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Speaker 1: and consumerism is saved. That's right. It was revolutionary at

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Speaker 1: the time. So he built he was commissioned at least

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Speaker 1: by Dayton's department store to build this kind of advanced

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Speaker 1: shopping center. They didn't call them malls at the time.

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Speaker 1: They called them advanced shopping centers, and that's so high tech.

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Speaker 1: He actually added space for a competitor at the other end,

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Speaker 1: because you had this idea like how to keep people there,

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Speaker 1: And I don't know how he talked Dayton's into it.

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Speaker 1: Were like wait, wait, yeah, like hold on a second, no, no,

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Speaker 1: we're paying you to do this, and you want to

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Speaker 1: put a competitor's store in there. He's like, yeah, it'll work,

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Speaker 1: trust me. So a few minutes ago I mentioned that

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Speaker 1: it was introverted. My uncle's still texting me, still looking

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Speaker 1: for parking, just circling the castro at this point. So

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Speaker 1: we mentioned introverted and extroverted. Malls previous to this were outdoor,

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Speaker 1: and like we said, they were extroverted. So in other words,

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Speaker 1: you walk the perimeter and the stores faced the outside

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Speaker 1: and they had doors on them that you would walk

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Speaker 1: into if you wanted to shop. So he had this

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Speaker 1: idea like, wait, let's reverse all that. Let's turn it

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Speaker 1: all inside. Where you walk into this huge building. You

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Speaker 1: got these two stores on both ends, and there are

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Speaker 1: no doors. They might have a gate they lower it night,

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Speaker 1: but it's just open. Like people will just walk through

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Speaker 1: this little concourse and all the stores are wide open

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Speaker 1: for everyone. It's air conditioned, it's heated, not at the

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Speaker 1: same time, at appropriate times, especially in a place like Minneapolis,

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Speaker 1: it's probably a nice place to go in the wintertime. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was a big deal. He introverted them is what

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Speaker 1: they're called, right where they look in on themselves, and

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Speaker 1: they're enclosed as well. So for the first time ever,

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Speaker 1: you could just walk around this beautiful place with trees,

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Speaker 1: and he put like a twenty foot bird cage, and

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Speaker 1: there were goldfish ponds and all of this stuff. And

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Speaker 1: it'd be the middle of winter and you could walk

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Speaker 1: around in short sleeves and be like, I live in

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Speaker 1: a Dinah, not a dina. The other thing he kind

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Speaker 1: of nailed right out of the gate was previous to this,

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Speaker 1: shopping malls were usually or shopping centers are on one floor,

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Speaker 1: and they were spread out over this big, broad area

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Speaker 1: and you had to enter from the outside and walk

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Speaker 1: around the cold and it was all this one big,

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Speaker 1: single level. And he said, how about this, how about

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Speaker 1: we stack it, because this is a genius. Everyone put

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Speaker 1: a store on one end, put a store on the

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Speaker 1: other end. You stack him on top of each other.

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Speaker 1: You put escalators on both sides. You park in this side,

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Speaker 1: you go into your department store, you walk down on

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Speaker 1: the first level to get to the other department store,

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Speaker 1: you get down the escalator, and then you walk back

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Speaker 1: on the other level to get to your car. And

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Speaker 1: you've seen every store, right, and it was genius. It

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Speaker 1: was retail genius, exactly pretty amazing. And again we take

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Speaker 1: this for granted now, but at the time everyone's like, hum,

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Speaker 1: I never thought of that. Well, the point that we

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Speaker 1: take this for granted, like all of this sounds brain dead.

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Speaker 1: All of this came essentially from this one guy, this

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Speaker 1: dude named Victor Grewitt, who was kind of like a

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Speaker 1: high artsy Fartsia society type from Austria who fled the

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Speaker 1: Nazis in nineteen thirty eight and was a self taught

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Speaker 1: architect right who just started designing them all and he

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Speaker 1: invented the mall, and he got basically everything right out

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Speaker 1: of the gate, actually amazing. The Economist has a really

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Speaker 1: great quote about him. They say that he it was

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Speaker 1: as if Orville and Wilbur Wright invented not just manned

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Speaker 1: flight but also tray tables and duty free service. Not bad.

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Speaker 1: The other thing he got right right out of the

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Speaker 1: gate was these low balconies. You know, if you'd ever

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Speaker 1: go into them all. You know, if you're on that

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Speaker 1: top floor, you can look down and say, I gotta

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Speaker 1: go into Chess King and get some parachute pants. Or

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Speaker 1: if you're down on that bottom floor, you can look

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Speaker 1: up and you can see I gotta go to Marry

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Speaker 1: Go Around and check out the ladies. Merry Go Around. Man.

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Speaker 1: That takes me back right. There will be a bit

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Speaker 1: of nostalgia peppered in here and there. Actually, I don't

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Speaker 1: even think I put Marry Go Around. I put Camelot

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Speaker 1: music is what I have in my Camelot music everyone.

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Speaker 1: And the joke I have was the Duran Duran kissingle.

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Speaker 1: Oh my god, the kissingle. It's like I just ate

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Speaker 1: a whole bunch of member berries or something of what

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Speaker 1: member berries. I don't know. It's a whole South Park thing. Okay, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Well three other people love that joke. So more than

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Speaker 1: seventy five thousand people. Seventy five thousand people turned out

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Speaker 1: on the grand opening day of Southdale Mall, and not

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Speaker 1: just local press, Life Magazine, Time Magazine, New York Times,

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Speaker 1: Business Week, Newsweek, They all came out and said things

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Speaker 1: like it's the splashiest center in the US, as a

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Speaker 1: goldfish pond, birds art, ten acres of stores, and all

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Speaker 1: under one Minnesota roof. It's a pleasure dome with parking,

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Speaker 1: said Time magazine. But one guy got it right. One

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Speaker 1: guy said Southdale has become an integral part of the

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Speaker 1: American Way, and this is the first mall. And some

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Speaker 1: journalist points to it and says, this is how things

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Speaker 1: are from now on. And this is the page that

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Speaker 1: is very hard for me to read because, as you

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Speaker 1: can see, I crumpled it up. Well, hold on, so

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Speaker 1: if we're going to release this, we should probably take

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Speaker 1: an ab break. Huh oh yeah, sure, Okay, you're ready,

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00:20:09,280 --> 00:20:34,760
Speaker 1: so we'll be right back, and we're back, all right.

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Speaker 1: I'm glad you thought of that. You guys get to

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Speaker 1: see how the sausage. So, as I was saying before

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Speaker 1: the break, I don't know if you can see it there,

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Speaker 1: but this is crumpled up and very hard to read.

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Speaker 1: Because Josh sent a new version and I in the

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Speaker 1: hotel room, I said great, I printed it out, rumpled

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Speaker 1: up the wrong one and threw it away, and right

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Speaker 1: before I came I was searching through the trash and

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Speaker 1: here it is. It's not that bad actually, So we're

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Speaker 1: gonna entitle this next section the golden age of the

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Speaker 1: mall was you have to go like this one. It

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Speaker 1: wouldn't be a live show if we didn't have a

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Speaker 1: golden age of skyjacking, Golden age of pr golden age

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Speaker 1: of grave robbing, and now the golden age of them

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Speaker 1: all right. I was about to say golden age of

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Speaker 1: Rodney Dangerfield, but it was all golden age for that guy.

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Speaker 1: So the mall had its golden age. Between nineteen fifty

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Speaker 1: six and two thousand and five, fifteen hundred malls or

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Speaker 1: America were built, possibly two thousand, possibly three thousand, what

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Speaker 1: no one knows. They just stopped counting pretty much. They're like,

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Speaker 1: forget it. We'll say seven thousand. Who cares. Million. A

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Speaker 1: million malls were built between that time in the US.

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Speaker 1: So there's a woman named Lisa Sharon who wrote a

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Speaker 1: book called America at the Mall Colon, because every book

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Speaker 1: has to have a colon if you're smart. The cultural

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Speaker 1: role of retail utopia. And she said, for the children seventies, eighties,

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Speaker 1: and nineties, the shopping mall was the place to be,

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Speaker 1: a space where we defined as our own. The mall

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Speaker 1: taught us how to fit in, how to be a consumer,

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Speaker 1: ultimately how to be an American. So who I mean,

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Speaker 1: we don't. You don't have to say how old you are.

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Speaker 1: But if you grew up in sort of the seventies

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Speaker 1: and the eighties, you know that the mall and into

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Speaker 1: the nineties. Of course, sure, the shopping mall was like

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Speaker 1: it's different than it is today. Like families used to

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Speaker 1: go to the mall for the day. You'd pick a Saturday,

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Speaker 1: and you'd all pile in the car. You go to

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Speaker 1: the mall. You maybe go see a movie, the kids

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Speaker 1: would go to the arcade. Mom and dad would do

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Speaker 1: some shopping, and you would literally spend like six and

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Speaker 1: eight hours as a family outing at a mall. Right,

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Speaker 1: pretty unbelievable to think about that. Now you gather around

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Speaker 1: the laptop and go on the Amazon dot com. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I'll sit around and stare at your phones and

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Speaker 1: ignore you. Just say, yes, I would like to get

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Speaker 1: into fermenting pickles. I could use some fermentation weights. Thanks

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00:23:05,760 --> 00:23:09,840
Speaker 1: for suggesting that Amazon. Interesting. You just changed my life.

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Speaker 1: But it was a big deal. You would spend family

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Speaker 1: Day at the mall. And in the eighties it was

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Speaker 1: just it was a part of America as anything else.

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Speaker 1: There were restaurants in the food court at the mall

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Speaker 1: that didn't exist outside of them all. They were born

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Speaker 1: in the mall, like Cinnabon. Someone gasped, that's it, we

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Speaker 1: can go home now, we're ever working toward as a

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00:23:37,040 --> 00:23:41,159
Speaker 1: gasp from somebody. Orange Julius that was another one. And

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Speaker 1: Express was only in malls for a long time. And

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Speaker 1: apparently Sbarrow. Everyone knows of Sbarrow, right. It was so

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Speaker 1: tied to malls that when Sabarrow filed for bankruptcy in

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Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, they cited unprecedented decline in mall traffic in

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Speaker 1: their filing. There's like, no one likes the mall anymore.

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Speaker 1: We're borrow, We're dead. Yeah, word good Chick fil A too.

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Speaker 1: You guys don't have Chick fil A here, do you? Oh?

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Speaker 1: You do you do well? Long before we knew the chicken,

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Speaker 1: it was back when everyone just thought it was delicious

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00:24:18,640 --> 00:24:25,040
Speaker 1: and juicy and crispy, not filled with homophobia. Yeah, but no, no,

401
00:24:25,200 --> 00:24:29,680
Speaker 1: they've they've since walked it back. So it's all fine. Yeah,

402
00:24:30,080 --> 00:24:34,359
Speaker 1: we're just not open on Sundays. Uh. Chick fil A

403
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Speaker 1: would used to only be in the mall. I think

404
00:24:35,720 --> 00:24:38,520
Speaker 1: there was one original Chick fil A store in Georgia.

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Speaker 1: I think that's where it was born. But aside from that,

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Speaker 1: it was only in the mall. And I remember going

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Speaker 1: to the mall. Remember when malls used and they may

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Speaker 1: still do this. I don't go to malls. There's a

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00:24:48,359 --> 00:24:52,040
Speaker 1: shop on Amazon dot com. Um. Malls used to have

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Speaker 1: events like a world record Sunday ice cream Sunday or

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Speaker 1: something to get people there. I went to Chick fil

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Speaker 1: A when I was about ten at Northlake Mall, which

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00:24:59,640 --> 00:25:03,280
Speaker 1: was my them all because they had the world's largest

414
00:25:03,359 --> 00:25:08,160
Speaker 1: cup of lemonade on a Saturday afternoon. My mom took

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Speaker 1: me and I drank from that spigot among the thousands

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Speaker 1: of other people, and it was not even that impressive,

417
00:25:16,520 --> 00:25:18,320
Speaker 1: Like I thought it was giant, but now that I'm adult,

418
00:25:18,359 --> 00:25:20,439
Speaker 1: it was probably like eight feet high. Right now it

419
00:25:20,480 --> 00:25:22,520
Speaker 1: was sixty four ounces. But they were just the first

420
00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:25,480
Speaker 1: ones to try, so whatever they did was the world's

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Speaker 1: biggest cup of lemonte. That was a mall event that

422
00:25:29,400 --> 00:25:31,760
Speaker 1: I went to. What was your mall? I had two

423
00:25:32,240 --> 00:25:34,960
Speaker 1: because we moved a very formative time in my life.

424
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:41,560
Speaker 1: I had Southwick Mall untiledo. Yeah, and then over a clause, Okay,

425
00:25:41,640 --> 00:25:46,600
Speaker 1: I had a town center mall in Atlanta. No, okay,

426
00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:49,720
Speaker 1: you guys haven't been a town center mall. Believe me,

427
00:25:49,760 --> 00:25:56,080
Speaker 1: I would recognize you. Were you a mall rat. No, no,

428
00:25:56,359 --> 00:25:59,160
Speaker 1: not necessarily. No, I would not call myself a mall

429
00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:02,919
Speaker 1: rat because I wasn't. I didn't like sell or consume

430
00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:05,159
Speaker 1: drugs at the mall, so I wasn't a mall rat.

431
00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:07,840
Speaker 1: I was like there legitimately, like I was there to

432
00:26:07,960 --> 00:26:11,520
Speaker 1: visit the led Zeppelin box set on cassette that I

433
00:26:11,520 --> 00:26:13,280
Speaker 1: was saving up to buy, just to make sure it

434
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:16,119
Speaker 1: was still there, you know, Or like I would go

435
00:26:16,160 --> 00:26:19,240
Speaker 1: to Spencers and like put my hand on the plasma ball.

436
00:26:19,520 --> 00:26:22,280
Speaker 1: Let's be like, oh, you guys have Spencer Gifts. Well

437
00:26:22,800 --> 00:26:24,439
Speaker 1: I say that like you're from here. I know that,

438
00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:27,320
Speaker 1: like eight people are from San Francisco in this room.

439
00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:31,720
Speaker 1: You know, Spencer Gifts. Okay, okay, very titillating place for

440
00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:35,080
Speaker 1: a young Baptist is because after because the one section

441
00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:38,840
Speaker 1: you know what I'm talking about, plus the posters too. Yeah.

442
00:26:38,880 --> 00:26:41,280
Speaker 1: But it's funny now as an adult, the one section

443
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:44,280
Speaker 1: I just thought it was like, oh man, and then

444
00:26:44,320 --> 00:26:46,240
Speaker 1: there are some children here just you don't know what

445
00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:50,040
Speaker 1: I'm talking about. Maybe may maybe she's used to pick lad.

446
00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:53,399
Speaker 1: I don't know how to do that. It was, but

447
00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:55,600
Speaker 1: for a young Baptist kid, I was just like I would.

448
00:26:55,600 --> 00:26:57,560
Speaker 1: I would. I would walk by it and I would

449
00:26:57,560 --> 00:26:59,800
Speaker 1: pretend like I'm looking at other things and just look

450
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:01,679
Speaker 1: in that section to see what I was in it.

451
00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:04,399
Speaker 1: I remember, and now it was so dumb the stuff

452
00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:06,639
Speaker 1: that was in that secure Yeah. Yeah, it's like a

453
00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:09,720
Speaker 1: stud collar. I was like, who cares. By the time

454
00:27:09,760 --> 00:27:11,600
Speaker 1: you're like, oh cool, I got it checking me out

455
00:27:11,680 --> 00:27:15,720
Speaker 1: yesterday was wearing one and nothing else. Yeah, maybe a

456
00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:20,359
Speaker 1: condom with bells and that's it. So silly. I remember

457
00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:23,399
Speaker 1: walking past Victoria's Secret like I was not doing that

458
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:26,240
Speaker 1: on purpose, but just kind of like like I could

459
00:27:26,280 --> 00:27:31,520
Speaker 1: actually I trained my right eye to go like I

460
00:27:31,640 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 1: took a lot of exercise, a lot of work, a

461
00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:37,200
Speaker 1: lot of muscle relaxers, but I got it down path.

462
00:27:40,280 --> 00:27:43,919
Speaker 1: Oh that's good. And that was pret cell phone when

463
00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:46,040
Speaker 1: you couldn't fake like you were doing something else. Right,

464
00:27:47,800 --> 00:27:51,800
Speaker 1: good work, that's very impressive. You trained it back and

465
00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:54,159
Speaker 1: everything I did now I can't do it anymore, or

466
00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:57,200
Speaker 1: else I show you guys, I don't know where I was.

467
00:27:57,240 --> 00:27:59,159
Speaker 1: I got so sidetracked by North Lake Mall. Oh and

468
00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:02,120
Speaker 1: the gold mine was my arcade at the mall. Sure wonderful.

469
00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:04,320
Speaker 1: You can get like twenty tokens for a dollar on

470
00:28:04,320 --> 00:28:07,680
Speaker 1: a Wednesday, and now games cost like a dollar fifty

471
00:28:07,800 --> 00:28:15,720
Speaker 1: to play one game. Yeah, a progress. That's what else

472
00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:17,520
Speaker 1: said they have back in those days? You made a

473
00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:19,800
Speaker 1: list Chess king. Of course, Mary go Around, I mentioned

474
00:28:19,840 --> 00:28:24,720
Speaker 1: contempo casuals, ladies, deb knew. This section was all into

475
00:28:24,760 --> 00:28:32,280
Speaker 1: that county seat. Remember county seat. Oh, that's that is

476
00:28:32,280 --> 00:28:34,120
Speaker 1: a deep cut where you could go get gene blue.

477
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:35,800
Speaker 1: But it was like when the gap used to be

478
00:28:35,840 --> 00:28:39,400
Speaker 1: like sweatsirts and blue jeans before they rebranded. Right, you

479
00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:42,840
Speaker 1: should go back to that, Mary go Around. Can want music?

480
00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:45,680
Speaker 1: What else? Oh? Well, bookstores? You could just say bookstore

481
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:48,480
Speaker 1: and that would be novel be Dalton, Yeah, Waldon books,

482
00:28:48,480 --> 00:28:51,480
Speaker 1: Walden Books. I think I consumed every single volume of

483
00:28:51,560 --> 00:28:54,760
Speaker 1: truly tasteless jokes and those without buying a single one. Man,

484
00:28:54,800 --> 00:28:59,400
Speaker 1: I remember those, God, those are great, Yeah, Pet Doctor,

485
00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:03,040
Speaker 1: the cruel List, cutest store of all the time, Remember

486
00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:05,440
Speaker 1: like the mall pet Store. It was like this, hamps

487
00:29:05,440 --> 00:29:07,080
Speaker 1: are so cute and then it died like an hour

488
00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:11,880
Speaker 1: later from Nigglay. They just shuffle it out and put

489
00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:19,560
Speaker 1: a new one in. There's a trap door. Nice John

490
00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:24,120
Speaker 1: Hodgeman want to hate this show dripping with nostalgia. He's

491
00:29:24,160 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 1: here in this town. He refused to come because he

492
00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:32,440
Speaker 1: knew or are you kidding? He'd already be up here, like, Oh,

493
00:29:34,280 --> 00:29:39,600
Speaker 1: Nostalgia's toxic. The mall became a prominent fixture in movies

494
00:29:39,640 --> 00:29:43,320
Speaker 1: of the day, of course, the Sherman Oaks Galleria and California,

495
00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:47,120
Speaker 1: which is where we are, Yeah, California here. That was

496
00:29:47,240 --> 00:29:49,200
Speaker 1: the mall in Fast Times at Ridge Mount High, one

497
00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:51,720
Speaker 1: of the great mall movies, and full Mall movie, but

498
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:54,960
Speaker 1: you can tell it's short. It also appeared prominently in Commando,

499
00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:58,400
Speaker 1: where Arnold Schwarzenegger beats up like a ton of guys

500
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:02,880
Speaker 1: at the mall, same mall. Nine of the comment you

501
00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:09,240
Speaker 1: mentioned anyone, I remember seeing that as a kid and thinking,

502
00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:11,640
Speaker 1: because you know the here if you haven't seen the movie,

503
00:30:11,680 --> 00:30:16,200
Speaker 1: this comment comes and destroys like everyone at night. Yeah,

504
00:30:16,640 --> 00:30:18,920
Speaker 1: and everyone has these comment parties to watch the comment

505
00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:22,280
Speaker 1: but it kills everybody except for the two really hot

506
00:30:22,840 --> 00:30:26,080
Speaker 1: teenage girls that didn't watch the comment and then a

507
00:30:26,120 --> 00:30:28,200
Speaker 1: few other people. And what do they do. They go

508
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:31,040
Speaker 1: to the mall shop because it's abandoned. And I remember

509
00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:33,040
Speaker 1: being a kid and thinking that would be the dopest

510
00:30:33,080 --> 00:30:36,760
Speaker 1: thing ever to just go in an empty mall and

511
00:30:36,840 --> 00:30:40,280
Speaker 1: it's all yours, or to order to live at Restoration Hardware.

512
00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:44,440
Speaker 1: I wore to run into Spencer Gifts into that section. Yeah,

513
00:30:46,480 --> 00:30:52,560
Speaker 1: collar just like pass out from pleasure. That's what a

514
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:55,840
Speaker 1: wayed you and you missed your chance. You could be

515
00:30:55,880 --> 00:30:58,360
Speaker 1: walking around the castro right right kind of look out

516
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:00,719
Speaker 1: and there's this creepy guy with a wandering staring at

517
00:31:00,760 --> 00:31:08,680
Speaker 1: me and who knew? Who knew? What else? The Blues

518
00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:10,840
Speaker 1: Brothers had a very famous mall scene. Yeah, they went

519
00:31:10,960 --> 00:31:14,640
Speaker 1: through the Dixie Square mall, sorry, the Decius Square mall

520
00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:20,560
Speaker 1: that where they were like, this place has got everything.

521
00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:24,920
Speaker 1: And maybe one of the most famous mall parking lots

522
00:31:24,960 --> 00:31:27,680
Speaker 1: of all time the Twin Pines Mall from Back to

523
00:31:27,720 --> 00:31:31,960
Speaker 1: the Future, which was actually the Quinte Heels Mall. Heels

524
00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:37,520
Speaker 1: that was possibly appropriate maybe, which I don't even know

525
00:31:37,560 --> 00:31:39,120
Speaker 1: where that is. I mean it's in LA obviously, but

526
00:31:39,200 --> 00:31:42,400
Speaker 1: I'm not sure it's a it's in City of Industry,

527
00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:46,720
Speaker 1: which is that the name for a town? Everybody, No,

528
00:31:47,600 --> 00:31:51,880
Speaker 1: it's outside of LA. I looked it up. And of

529
00:31:51,960 --> 00:31:53,800
Speaker 1: course mall Rats, which we don't need to talk about

530
00:31:53,840 --> 00:31:57,360
Speaker 1: too much because it was a little Really that was

531
00:31:57,520 --> 00:32:01,600
Speaker 1: Kevin Smith. Here's a really high voice. No, I'm Vin Smith.

532
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:06,040
Speaker 1: You can't leave out Moon Unit. Zappa dude, Oh well, yeah,

533
00:32:06,040 --> 00:32:08,400
Speaker 1: of course. Valley Girl. Yeah, she had a hit single,

534
00:32:08,520 --> 00:32:13,040
Speaker 1: Valley Girl, and her father, Frank Zappa hated the Valley Girls, right,

535
00:32:13,520 --> 00:32:15,080
Speaker 1: and while it kind of blew up in his face

536
00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:17,800
Speaker 1: when he released a song with his daughter about how

537
00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:22,040
Speaker 1: stupid valley Girls were, that it actually popularized Valley Girls

538
00:32:22,080 --> 00:32:25,480
Speaker 1: and made him cool in America. Yeah, so eat that,

539
00:32:25,680 --> 00:32:38,440
Speaker 1: Frank Zappa. He's past eat that. In musical heaven, so um.

540
00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:41,400
Speaker 1: Alls started to really grow, not only in popularity but

541
00:32:41,560 --> 00:32:44,360
Speaker 1: in size, to the point, as Josh says, of sheer

542
00:32:44,400 --> 00:32:50,320
Speaker 1: absurdity in Canada because they have malls too, I should say, yeah, yeah,

543
00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:54,560
Speaker 1: we have some Canadians here, and yet no one from Toledo.

544
00:32:58,160 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 1: The West Edmonton mall really all right opened and no

545
00:33:02,440 --> 00:33:06,520
Speaker 1: one from Toledo, anyone from Elm Street in Edmonton. Yeah,

546
00:33:06,520 --> 00:33:11,400
Speaker 1: that's what I thought. It was open in nineteen eighty two,

547
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:14,200
Speaker 1: had an ice skating rink, It had sea lions in

548
00:33:14,280 --> 00:33:20,080
Speaker 1: a pool boo, and an indoor bungee jumps to tempt

549
00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:23,240
Speaker 1: fate for shoppers right over the sea lions. It's just

550
00:33:23,320 --> 00:33:27,680
Speaker 1: scared than Oh my god, sea lions hate being jumped over.

551
00:33:29,640 --> 00:33:33,880
Speaker 1: And the developers knew it too. And of course the

552
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:37,800
Speaker 1: Mall of America, perhaps the most famous mall in Minnesota.

553
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:42,560
Speaker 1: They were going to build a roller coaster there. They

554
00:33:42,640 --> 00:33:45,080
Speaker 1: did when they decided to build three roller coasters there.

555
00:33:46,840 --> 00:33:48,080
Speaker 1: I've never been there. Have you been there in the

556
00:33:48,120 --> 00:33:51,680
Speaker 1: Mall of America? No? I haven't anyone been there? Oh wow,

557
00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:57,560
Speaker 1: all right, huge? Right, it's outside of a dinah, so actually,

558
00:33:57,600 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 1: you know, really it's like seven miles from a dinah.

559
00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:03,440
Speaker 1: That's true. Should we go to the mall walkers, Yeah,

560
00:34:03,480 --> 00:34:05,800
Speaker 1: I think so. This may be one of my favorite

561
00:34:05,960 --> 00:34:09,640
Speaker 1: sections of any show we've ever done, because I love

562
00:34:10,160 --> 00:34:14,399
Speaker 1: mall Walkers. Didn't know it existed until I worked at them. All.

563
00:34:14,480 --> 00:34:16,080
Speaker 1: I worked. I think I mentioned on the show I

564
00:34:16,120 --> 00:34:19,759
Speaker 1: worked at the Gap for a month in college over

565
00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:22,360
Speaker 1: Christmas break and I was a champion folder and I

566
00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:25,640
Speaker 1: still have those skills today. Were you really you know

567
00:34:25,719 --> 00:34:27,640
Speaker 1: I actually quit working in the Gap is because they

568
00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:32,919
Speaker 1: got mad that I wouldn't recommend socks and belts as

569
00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:35,080
Speaker 1: they checked out, And I said, I think if they

570
00:34:35,120 --> 00:34:37,360
Speaker 1: wanted socks and belts, they would get socks and belts.

571
00:34:37,760 --> 00:34:39,879
Speaker 1: And my manager said, you know, I don't know if

572
00:34:39,920 --> 00:34:43,640
Speaker 1: the Gap is right for you. I think you might

573
00:34:43,719 --> 00:34:46,800
Speaker 1: be right. I took off my little pen and I

574
00:34:46,920 --> 00:34:49,240
Speaker 1: handed it to him, and me and my mock turtlenecks

575
00:34:49,280 --> 00:34:53,520
Speaker 1: strolled right on at it and that was it. That's

576
00:34:53,520 --> 00:34:57,600
Speaker 1: the only retail job I've ever I did. But anyway,

577
00:34:57,600 --> 00:34:59,920
Speaker 1: a long way of getting to mall walkers. I remember

578
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:03,080
Speaker 1: showing up for work one morning to open and there

579
00:35:03,120 --> 00:35:06,799
Speaker 1: were these old people walking around and I thought, does

580
00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:10,719
Speaker 1: anyone know that they're in here because the mall's not

581
00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:14,239
Speaker 1: open yet, And someone said they live here. Yeah, they yeah,

582
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:17,000
Speaker 1: they live in and merry go round and come out

583
00:35:17,040 --> 00:35:20,719
Speaker 1: at night from the giant pants they just sprouted out

584
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:24,920
Speaker 1: of the legs. But they explained to me what a

585
00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:27,160
Speaker 1: mall walker was, and even at a young age, I

586
00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:30,560
Speaker 1: was like, that's wonderful. It wore my heart and it

587
00:35:30,640 --> 00:35:33,880
Speaker 1: became a legit, real American thing. It did. Apparently the

588
00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:36,319
Speaker 1: CDC did a report on this, because if you can't

589
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:39,399
Speaker 1: study gun violence, might as well study mall walking out

590
00:35:42,120 --> 00:35:50,799
Speaker 1: sing And in twenty fifteen they said malls are right

591
00:35:50,880 --> 00:35:56,040
Speaker 1: behind neighborhoods for popularity of walking. They just went to

592
00:35:56,120 --> 00:36:00,920
Speaker 1: bed after that, but they did a little more digging

593
00:36:01,120 --> 00:36:03,359
Speaker 1: and they said the reason people love malls is because

594
00:36:03,440 --> 00:36:09,200
Speaker 1: there's restrooms, water fountains, benches, and level surfaces. And this

595
00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:12,680
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite quotes from any CDC rapport ever.

596
00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:16,880
Speaker 1: They said that quote, the latest fashionable workout attire is

597
00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:19,960
Speaker 1: not a requisite for malwalking, And no truer words have

598
00:36:20,040 --> 00:36:25,520
Speaker 1: ever been spoken. You won't find any yoga pants on

599
00:36:25,600 --> 00:36:28,240
Speaker 1: the mallwalkers. As a matter of fact, I would imagine

600
00:36:28,239 --> 00:36:30,440
Speaker 1: you would be ostracized if you did just kind of

601
00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:32,960
Speaker 1: gussy up, like you're putting on airs or something new.

602
00:36:33,280 --> 00:36:37,080
Speaker 1: They don't play that in a dinah. Yeah. Actually, you

603
00:36:37,120 --> 00:36:41,480
Speaker 1: know what malwalkers were, those those workout pants that look

604
00:36:41,560 --> 00:36:44,080
Speaker 1: like waded up paper. You know, what I'm talking about.

605
00:36:44,440 --> 00:36:46,560
Speaker 1: It's like this wrinkly, weird material. I don't even know

606
00:36:46,600 --> 00:36:51,239
Speaker 1: what it's made of. Fish skin? What, Yes, all right,

607
00:36:51,280 --> 00:36:53,120
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about all right, we'll talk about it later.

608
00:36:53,719 --> 00:36:55,960
Speaker 1: Let's hang on to this page to remind us to

609
00:36:56,080 --> 00:36:59,600
Speaker 1: talk about it. Well, that's fish skin, but you mean clothing.

610
00:37:00,520 --> 00:37:03,160
Speaker 1: That's totally weird, but it makes sense in a way.

611
00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:08,320
Speaker 1: Uh So, these these generally elderly folks are walking around malls,

612
00:37:08,400 --> 00:37:11,240
Speaker 1: and at the Mall of America, they have a PR

613
00:37:11,320 --> 00:37:14,399
Speaker 1: coordinator there named Tara Neebling, and she says, we love

614
00:37:14,880 --> 00:37:20,480
Speaker 1: our wall markers, mall walkers. They're very special to us.

615
00:37:20,520 --> 00:37:22,600
Speaker 1: And they even have a program there is so adorable

616
00:37:22,840 --> 00:37:25,680
Speaker 1: where they give them little swipe cards. It keeps track.

617
00:37:25,760 --> 00:37:27,799
Speaker 1: It's sort of like a fitbit, but they can't wear

618
00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:30,319
Speaker 1: a fitbit, I guess because I don't even know why

619
00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:32,799
Speaker 1: they can't figure it out or something. That's a very

620
00:37:32,840 --> 00:37:36,120
Speaker 1: agist and is going to be against the wall for

621
00:37:36,239 --> 00:37:38,799
Speaker 1: that joke later on. But they give them these little

622
00:37:38,800 --> 00:37:40,800
Speaker 1: swipe cards that lets them track how much they're walking

623
00:37:41,120 --> 00:37:44,760
Speaker 1: and how much exercise they're getting. They have monthly breakfast

624
00:37:44,800 --> 00:37:47,640
Speaker 1: meetings where they have health experts come in and talk

625
00:37:47,680 --> 00:37:52,480
Speaker 1: about stuff. We should all go there right now. And

626
00:37:53,000 --> 00:37:55,440
Speaker 1: all this is in exchange for a fifteen dollars annual

627
00:37:55,560 --> 00:37:58,840
Speaker 1: fee if you want to officially be a member. But

628
00:37:58,960 --> 00:38:01,600
Speaker 1: don't feel bad, sir, because like I was, like, what

629
00:38:01,760 --> 00:38:06,880
Speaker 1: a rip. They said they welcome unofficial mall walkers aka

630
00:38:07,880 --> 00:38:10,440
Speaker 1: the old dudes who refused to pay the fifteen dollars

631
00:38:11,640 --> 00:38:18,160
Speaker 1: aka Society's leeches. That would be me. I'm not paying

632
00:38:18,280 --> 00:38:23,960
Speaker 1: fifteen dollars. That's me and about oh ten or fifteen years. Anyway,

633
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:26,440
Speaker 1: I think it's adorable. And the whole thing about mall

634
00:38:26,480 --> 00:38:29,200
Speaker 1: walkers is they it was a problem at first because

635
00:38:29,280 --> 00:38:31,960
Speaker 1: they didn't used to open malls to allow this. They

636
00:38:32,400 --> 00:38:33,759
Speaker 1: just came to the mall when it was open and

637
00:38:33,800 --> 00:38:36,120
Speaker 1: they would walk around and they said that there was

638
00:38:36,120 --> 00:38:37,600
Speaker 1: a quote in here they said they thought it would

639
00:38:37,640 --> 00:38:41,480
Speaker 1: upset the regular shoppers to have them just exercising among them.

640
00:38:42,200 --> 00:38:44,680
Speaker 1: And they're like, you know what do we do? We

641
00:38:44,760 --> 00:38:47,839
Speaker 1: can't kill them. They got our they have our arms

642
00:38:48,520 --> 00:38:51,400
Speaker 1: behind our backs, like they really have us over a barrel.

643
00:38:51,480 --> 00:38:54,680
Speaker 1: We can't kill them, can we? We could wait for

644
00:38:54,760 --> 00:38:57,200
Speaker 1: them to die, And I guess this is that they're

645
00:38:57,280 --> 00:39:01,319
Speaker 1: really healthy because all mall owners gets together year. Yeah. Yeah,

646
00:39:02,280 --> 00:39:06,719
Speaker 1: like CAP's red satin inside black on the own. So

647
00:39:06,840 --> 00:39:08,680
Speaker 1: they decided to open them all just for them to

648
00:39:08,760 --> 00:39:12,520
Speaker 1: walk around before the store is open, which is just adorable,

649
00:39:12,560 --> 00:39:17,560
Speaker 1: I think. And speaking of the Mall of America, Douglas Copeland,

650
00:39:17,600 --> 00:39:19,880
Speaker 1: I don't know if any of you have read Generation X.

651
00:39:20,080 --> 00:39:23,520
Speaker 1: It's a really great book, but he basically coined the name.

652
00:39:23,560 --> 00:39:28,839
Speaker 1: Apparently no one's read it. Douglas Copeland, Wow, this really

653
00:39:28,880 --> 00:39:31,000
Speaker 1: would work so much better if you guys knew what

654
00:39:31,440 --> 00:39:35,479
Speaker 1: Generation X was. Yeah, we wrote it. So he wrote

655
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:38,279
Speaker 1: the book literally Generation X, and like just set the

656
00:39:38,400 --> 00:39:40,759
Speaker 1: tone for the whole thing. And he was actually at

657
00:39:40,840 --> 00:39:44,320
Speaker 1: the opening of Mall of America on August eleven, nineteen

658
00:39:44,440 --> 00:39:47,160
Speaker 1: ninety two, and he was up there on stage with

659
00:39:47,239 --> 00:39:50,160
Speaker 1: the local radio affiliate, and he said that everybody was

660
00:39:50,239 --> 00:39:53,080
Speaker 1: walking by with what he called country fair face, where

661
00:39:53,080 --> 00:39:55,960
Speaker 1: they were like google eyed and eating ice cream, couldn't

662
00:39:56,000 --> 00:39:58,279
Speaker 1: believe this mall. It was the most amazing thing they'd

663
00:39:58,320 --> 00:40:00,680
Speaker 1: ever seen. And he said that the inner viewer just

664
00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:03,400
Speaker 1: assumed he was going to be like a slacker, ironic

665
00:40:03,520 --> 00:40:06,120
Speaker 1: wise ass and said, you know, I bet you think

666
00:40:06,160 --> 00:40:09,120
Speaker 1: this whole mall is very hokey and trashy, and Douglas

667
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:13,440
Speaker 1: Copeland said, actually not at all, Chuck. Where should I

668
00:40:13,480 --> 00:40:16,879
Speaker 1: start here? Oh? Oh, sorry, I can't finish my part.

669
00:40:17,200 --> 00:40:23,000
Speaker 1: Then the radio guy was like, what, Chuck, and he said, quote,

670
00:40:23,520 --> 00:40:25,520
Speaker 1: I mean that. I feel like, I mean another era

671
00:40:25,760 --> 00:40:28,359
Speaker 1: that we thought had vanished, but it really hasn't, not yet.

672
00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:31,040
Speaker 1: I think we might one day look back on photos

673
00:40:31,080 --> 00:40:34,120
Speaker 1: of today and think to ourselves, you know, those people

674
00:40:34,160 --> 00:40:36,719
Speaker 1: were living in golden times and they didn't even know it.

675
00:40:37,160 --> 00:40:40,720
Speaker 1: Communism was dead, the economy was good, and the future,

676
00:40:40,840 --> 00:40:44,920
Speaker 1: with all of its accompanying technologies, hadn't crush society's mojo

677
00:40:45,120 --> 00:40:50,719
Speaker 1: like a bug drop the mica and they said, well,

678
00:40:50,880 --> 00:40:54,200
Speaker 1: that's really not good for the mic, and we're please, please,

679
00:40:54,200 --> 00:40:56,440
Speaker 1: don't do that anymore. And he goes on to say

680
00:40:56,520 --> 00:40:58,880
Speaker 1: it's true. He says that technology hadn't hallowed up the

681
00:40:58,920 --> 00:41:02,560
Speaker 1: middle class and turned to all into like laptop click chunkies.

682
00:41:03,120 --> 00:41:05,160
Speaker 1: He didn't say that there were no He said there

683
00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:07,799
Speaker 1: were no new boogeymen hiding in the closet. He said,

684
00:41:07,800 --> 00:41:10,480
Speaker 1: we may look at the nineties as the last good

685
00:41:10,600 --> 00:41:13,680
Speaker 1: decade and all of this came to him at the mall,

686
00:41:16,040 --> 00:41:19,200
Speaker 1: so they didn't get their snarky quote after all, which

687
00:41:19,280 --> 00:41:22,399
Speaker 1: is kind of ironic in a way. So he really

688
00:41:22,440 --> 00:41:26,840
Speaker 1: did zing them, but it was a meta zinc So

689
00:41:26,960 --> 00:41:28,720
Speaker 1: if you want to talk to the psychology of malls,

690
00:41:28,920 --> 00:41:31,759
Speaker 1: we need to go back to Victor Gruen, and he

691
00:41:31,840 --> 00:41:33,560
Speaker 1: has a quote where he said shoppers will be so

692
00:41:33,680 --> 00:41:38,000
Speaker 1: bedazzled by the store surroundings they'll be drawn unconsciously continually

693
00:41:38,480 --> 00:41:43,160
Speaker 1: to shop. And this kind of goes against his ethos.

694
00:41:43,280 --> 00:41:47,319
Speaker 1: He wasn't some big He wasn't like the pr guy.

695
00:41:48,280 --> 00:41:49,759
Speaker 1: I can't think of his name. We did that like

696
00:41:49,920 --> 00:41:53,000
Speaker 1: twelve times. He wasn't like Ed Burney's. He didn't have

697
00:41:53,080 --> 00:41:54,320
Speaker 1: this thing where he was like, yes, we need to

698
00:41:54,360 --> 00:41:56,520
Speaker 1: get people to shop, but he was commissioned to do

699
00:41:56,600 --> 00:41:58,960
Speaker 1: so and he did a good job. He thought the

700
00:41:59,040 --> 00:42:01,600
Speaker 1: mall would be a little bit more like a sort

701
00:42:01,600 --> 00:42:03,719
Speaker 1: of like they had in Europe, like a public meeting space,

702
00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:05,879
Speaker 1: and that's why you build these atriums in the middle

703
00:42:05,920 --> 00:42:08,200
Speaker 1: of the skylights in the fountain, and he thought people

704
00:42:08,200 --> 00:42:10,600
Speaker 1: would go there and hang out and talk politics and

705
00:42:10,680 --> 00:42:14,440
Speaker 1: maybe even stand up and like speak about things publicly.

706
00:42:14,480 --> 00:42:18,440
Speaker 1: To people, because that's what happens at the mall. Right, Instead,

707
00:42:18,560 --> 00:42:21,520
Speaker 1: the developers are like, you go over there, you're done,

708
00:42:21,760 --> 00:42:24,239
Speaker 1: you did your damage. Right. We're actually going to go

709
00:42:24,360 --> 00:42:27,960
Speaker 1: so far as to name a psychological effect after you,

710
00:42:28,320 --> 00:42:30,880
Speaker 1: something called the grew In transfer, which is where you

711
00:42:31,000 --> 00:42:33,400
Speaker 1: walk into the mall and you're like, I'm going to

712
00:42:33,560 --> 00:42:36,719
Speaker 1: buy a Hello Kitty pen and that is it. And

713
00:42:36,880 --> 00:42:38,719
Speaker 1: you get through the mall and you're like, oh my god,

714
00:42:38,800 --> 00:42:41,000
Speaker 1: there's a water fountain. Oh my god, there's old people

715
00:42:41,080 --> 00:42:44,319
Speaker 1: walking around. There's just amazing stuff going on here at

716
00:42:44,360 --> 00:42:46,040
Speaker 1: the mall. I forgot what I was going to get,

717
00:42:46,200 --> 00:42:48,960
Speaker 1: and now I have a compulsion to get an Orange

718
00:42:49,040 --> 00:42:53,359
Speaker 1: Julius with drugs in it. And you forget what you're doing,

719
00:42:53,440 --> 00:42:55,960
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden you're shopping in general rather

720
00:42:56,040 --> 00:42:59,879
Speaker 1: than purposefully shopping. That is called the grew In trans

721
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:03,120
Speaker 1: for the grew In effect, and Victor Grewhim probably would

722
00:43:03,160 --> 00:43:05,560
Speaker 1: not be very happy to know that that was the case. No,

723
00:43:05,840 --> 00:43:07,480
Speaker 1: And as we'll see later, he in fact was not

724
00:43:07,600 --> 00:43:15,680
Speaker 1: happy about that. So Malcolm Gladwell, Josh's mortal enemy. He

725
00:43:15,800 --> 00:43:18,640
Speaker 1: did an interview with a Alfred Taubman and he said

726
00:43:18,760 --> 00:43:21,560
Speaker 1: it's called threshold resistance, he said. People assume that we

727
00:43:21,719 --> 00:43:24,240
Speaker 1: enclose the space because of air conditioning and climate control.

728
00:43:24,560 --> 00:43:26,400
Speaker 1: He said, what it really did was allow us to

729
00:43:26,480 --> 00:43:28,959
Speaker 1: open the store to the customer. Just what we talked about,

730
00:43:29,239 --> 00:43:31,560
Speaker 1: that introverted thing. All of a sudden, you're in this

731
00:43:31,760 --> 00:43:35,439
Speaker 1: huge retail utopia. All the doors are open at all time,

732
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:37,680
Speaker 1: and you're just strolling through the mall, and you walk

733
00:43:37,760 --> 00:43:40,320
Speaker 1: by Niketown and they have like looks like a nightclub

734
00:43:40,360 --> 00:43:43,640
Speaker 1: in there, so you're just sort of unconsciously drawn inside there,

735
00:43:43,960 --> 00:43:47,520
Speaker 1: like I'd like to make some new friends, all right, truly,

736
00:43:47,600 --> 00:43:52,560
Speaker 1: I can't Niketown. Back in the day in shopping centers,

737
00:43:52,600 --> 00:43:55,240
Speaker 1: they used to have live bands, and that was replaced,

738
00:43:55,280 --> 00:43:57,759
Speaker 1: of course, with muzak later on, which is you know,

739
00:43:57,880 --> 00:44:01,879
Speaker 1: you'd take like a normal song like breads, I want

740
00:44:01,920 --> 00:44:04,600
Speaker 1: to make it with you, and then you remove the lyrics,

741
00:44:05,160 --> 00:44:07,960
Speaker 1: the percussion or place it all with strings, and all

742
00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:12,320
Speaker 1: of a sudden people are just walking around like bye bye.

743
00:44:13,640 --> 00:44:16,120
Speaker 1: It works really well, so much so that the people

744
00:44:16,200 --> 00:44:19,360
Speaker 1: at malls who are typically in charge of the music

745
00:44:19,760 --> 00:44:21,840
Speaker 1: were the same people who were in charge of the

746
00:44:21,920 --> 00:44:25,120
Speaker 1: heat and the lighting. The facilities manager that's how much

747
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:27,480
Speaker 1: music meant to It was like part of the building.

748
00:44:27,880 --> 00:44:30,640
Speaker 1: But at the same time, you can't really call it music,

749
00:44:30,880 --> 00:44:34,000
Speaker 1: you know. In fact, you'd probably call it something weird

750
00:44:34,120 --> 00:44:39,480
Speaker 1: like muzac. Yeah, you think about the coolest DJ. I'm

751
00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:44,480
Speaker 1: not hip on that scene. Steve Ioki. Okay, the facilities

752
00:44:44,520 --> 00:44:49,120
Speaker 1: manager is the opposite of Steve Ioki. But they're sitting

753
00:44:49,160 --> 00:44:51,440
Speaker 1: in their room and and they're controlling the music and

754
00:44:51,520 --> 00:44:53,960
Speaker 1: the lights and the sounds of the mall all in

755
00:44:54,040 --> 00:44:59,840
Speaker 1: that little room. Dead mouse, Oh, I know what that is.

756
00:45:00,600 --> 00:45:04,120
Speaker 1: But the s is a number five? Right, Yeah, so hip,

757
00:45:04,360 --> 00:45:09,040
Speaker 1: so hip, I'm not old scrilling scrillis. I know that

758
00:45:09,120 --> 00:45:15,560
Speaker 1: guy too. So we talked a little bit earlier about

759
00:45:15,640 --> 00:45:20,760
Speaker 1: the the cycle of the mall, the two story layout.

760
00:45:20,920 --> 00:45:23,120
Speaker 1: And while you can go to malls where there are

761
00:45:23,239 --> 00:45:26,759
Speaker 1: three stories, most of the malls i've been to that

762
00:45:26,840 --> 00:45:29,520
Speaker 1: have a third story. It's not the entire mall. There'll

763
00:45:29,520 --> 00:45:32,000
Speaker 1: be like a section with a third story. I don't

764
00:45:32,000 --> 00:45:33,840
Speaker 1: know if they built it on or what, but generally

765
00:45:34,200 --> 00:45:36,600
Speaker 1: you see a two story mall because you had that

766
00:45:36,719 --> 00:45:40,520
Speaker 1: cycle the across, down, across, up back to your car, right,

767
00:45:40,560 --> 00:45:42,120
Speaker 1: and you've seen all the stores, right, But if you

768
00:45:42,160 --> 00:45:45,560
Speaker 1: had a third level, you go across, down, across. My

769
00:45:45,680 --> 00:45:47,319
Speaker 1: car should be here. But now I have a third

770
00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:49,960
Speaker 1: level and I'm stuck. I'm just gonna wander around in

771
00:45:50,000 --> 00:45:53,960
Speaker 1: this corner until some people come get me. And as

772
00:45:53,960 --> 00:45:56,879
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, Valco Mall had three levels. Look

773
00:45:56,920 --> 00:46:01,279
Speaker 1: what happened to it? What mall? It's a local mall.

774
00:46:01,480 --> 00:46:06,000
Speaker 1: Oh and the fourteen people from San Francisco applied, right, yeah,

775
00:46:08,480 --> 00:46:13,200
Speaker 1: Oh it's in San Jose. It's like the same place.

776
00:46:13,320 --> 00:46:17,280
Speaker 1: Come on, I think you could default to Bay Area

777
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:20,479
Speaker 1: and you do yourself a lot of favors. You're hearing

778
00:46:20,520 --> 00:46:22,440
Speaker 1: this from like the guy who took off an Infinity

779
00:46:22,520 --> 00:46:24,759
Speaker 1: scarf right before he came on stage because he was

780
00:46:24,840 --> 00:46:28,120
Speaker 1: told like, it's not cool anymore. I don't even know

781
00:46:28,200 --> 00:46:31,080
Speaker 1: what that is. So your burn does not work? No, no,

782
00:46:31,160 --> 00:46:34,359
Speaker 1: I was talking about myself burning you, buddy. I wasn't

783
00:46:34,400 --> 00:46:38,400
Speaker 1: burning you, all right, burn? Yeah, it's an Infinity scarf.

784
00:46:38,640 --> 00:46:45,279
Speaker 1: It's a stupid What else did they figure any when

785
00:46:45,520 --> 00:46:48,680
Speaker 1: you're fine? Lady? Your Infinity scarf is fine? Is that

786
00:46:48,719 --> 00:46:52,279
Speaker 1: a that's lovely? Can you come up here and show

787
00:46:52,320 --> 00:46:55,400
Speaker 1: everyone when an Infinity scarf I'm kidding. No, everyone stopped

788
00:46:55,480 --> 00:47:00,520
Speaker 1: now because we thought about adding runway modeling to our shows.

789
00:47:00,760 --> 00:47:05,239
Speaker 1: Sure that would be a great time. Sorry about the

790
00:47:05,360 --> 00:47:11,960
Speaker 1: infanty scarf joke. Now I feel terrible. Is anyone drinking

791
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:14,400
Speaker 1: nothing but soilent right now? I should have made that

792
00:47:14,560 --> 00:47:17,720
Speaker 1: joke Instead, I'm looking over my glasses for more clothes.

793
00:47:17,760 --> 00:47:21,279
Speaker 1: I can make fun of Tyler Murphy. That beard is

794
00:47:21,320 --> 00:47:27,920
Speaker 1: something else. He died of blue. Everybody, all right, this

795
00:47:28,120 --> 00:47:31,520
Speaker 1: is another part that's gonna be edited out later, So

796
00:47:31,680 --> 00:47:38,520
Speaker 1: Tyler say whatever you want. So the other thing they

797
00:47:38,560 --> 00:47:40,520
Speaker 1: figured out with keeping people in the mall, which is

798
00:47:40,520 --> 00:47:43,200
Speaker 1: a big goal, is that people like to shop with

799
00:47:43,280 --> 00:47:45,680
Speaker 1: other people, but sometimes the people that you bring to

800
00:47:45,800 --> 00:47:49,200
Speaker 1: shop with you, namely husbands, don't like to be at

801
00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:52,120
Speaker 1: the mall. So they said, well, let's put comfy areas

802
00:47:52,200 --> 00:47:54,440
Speaker 1: in the mall, like chairs. And in fact, there was

803
00:47:54,440 --> 00:47:56,680
Speaker 1: a quote that said a chair says we care, Yeah,

804
00:47:56,920 --> 00:47:59,600
Speaker 1: a famous mall designer. But it really means is a

805
00:47:59,719 --> 00:48:02,040
Speaker 1: chair says we can keep your wife here longer than

806
00:48:02,080 --> 00:48:06,160
Speaker 1: you would like to be here. Right. The husband's like, Oh,

807
00:48:06,200 --> 00:48:07,960
Speaker 1: I just want to lay down and die on my

808
00:48:08,120 --> 00:48:10,719
Speaker 1: floor at home. Can I just go home. You can

809
00:48:10,800 --> 00:48:14,920
Speaker 1: lay down and die here, sir, right lay there, shut up.

810
00:48:19,440 --> 00:48:22,000
Speaker 1: So the ironies are grewing. We said earlier. I don't

811
00:48:22,000 --> 00:48:27,279
Speaker 1: think we specifically said he was a socialist now, so

812
00:48:27,360 --> 00:48:29,439
Speaker 1: it's really weird for a socialist to be the father

813
00:48:29,520 --> 00:48:32,160
Speaker 1: of the shopping mall, wouldn't you think. And his original

814
00:48:32,239 --> 00:48:34,839
Speaker 1: idea was that people could go there and espouse their views,

815
00:48:34,920 --> 00:48:39,120
Speaker 1: and that maybe happened once in nineteen seventy six, until

816
00:48:39,160 --> 00:48:41,960
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court came in and said, in the case

817
00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:47,440
Speaker 1: of Hudgins versus Natural Relations Labor Relations Board, basically, these

818
00:48:47,600 --> 00:48:50,080
Speaker 1: union dudes wanted to pick it inside the mall and

819
00:48:50,080 --> 00:48:52,600
Speaker 1: they did so they got kicked out. They sued, and

820
00:48:52,680 --> 00:48:56,360
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court said, actually, his private property, and you

821
00:48:56,520 --> 00:49:00,319
Speaker 1: can't bring your picket signs in here. And the picks

822
00:49:00,320 --> 00:49:02,759
Speaker 1: who are like, wait, wait, wait, the mall is the

823
00:49:02,960 --> 00:49:06,680
Speaker 1: new heart, the new civic center of American life, and

824
00:49:06,760 --> 00:49:10,359
Speaker 1: the Supreme courtment, don't be an idiot, it's a place

825
00:49:10,440 --> 00:49:14,239
Speaker 1: to shop, dummy, and everyone when I didn't hear what

826
00:49:14,360 --> 00:49:16,800
Speaker 1: you just said, we're gonna just keep pretending like the

827
00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:19,640
Speaker 1: mall is the hardest civic life. So it was a

828
00:49:19,680 --> 00:49:24,400
Speaker 1: big problem for grew and actually he also hated cars.

829
00:49:24,560 --> 00:49:28,440
Speaker 1: He was big into walking. He was in favor of pedestrianism,

830
00:49:28,960 --> 00:49:31,319
Speaker 1: and yet you have to drive a car to get

831
00:49:31,360 --> 00:49:34,440
Speaker 1: to the mall. And not only that, you have to park,

832
00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:37,920
Speaker 1: like some of his creations. I think Southdale had like

833
00:49:38,000 --> 00:49:41,239
Speaker 1: two point eight million square feet of parking, and he

834
00:49:41,320 --> 00:49:45,360
Speaker 1: called these things like land wasting seas of parking lots.

835
00:49:45,840 --> 00:49:48,000
Speaker 1: So as he's as he's designing these things, he's like,

836
00:49:48,280 --> 00:49:50,160
Speaker 1: I'm not very happy about this, and they would go

837
00:49:50,280 --> 00:49:52,800
Speaker 1: do it anyway, even the stuff he scratched out. They're like, no,

838
00:49:52,920 --> 00:49:54,800
Speaker 1: this is a good idea. We're gonna go with this.

839
00:49:55,200 --> 00:49:58,360
Speaker 1: And he had like, no, say whatsoever. After a while, no,

840
00:49:58,560 --> 00:50:00,560
Speaker 1: and he got a pretty disc a gusted, and he

841
00:50:00,680 --> 00:50:04,000
Speaker 1: left the United States forever. In the nineteen sixties, went

842
00:50:04,040 --> 00:50:07,239
Speaker 1: back to Europe and said in nineteen seventy eight, a

843
00:50:07,280 --> 00:50:09,200
Speaker 1: couple of years before his death, he gave a speech

844
00:50:09,200 --> 00:50:11,640
Speaker 1: in London and said, I am often called the father

845
00:50:11,719 --> 00:50:13,880
Speaker 1: of the shopping mall. I would like to take this

846
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:18,400
Speaker 1: opportunity to disclaim paternity once and for all. I refuse

847
00:50:18,480 --> 00:50:23,400
Speaker 1: to pay alimony to those bastard developments. They destroyed our cities.

848
00:50:24,000 --> 00:50:26,000
Speaker 1: And they said, sir, we have the paternity tests and

849
00:50:26,080 --> 00:50:30,040
Speaker 1: you are the father, right He said, no, I'm not, No,

850
00:50:30,640 --> 00:50:39,000
Speaker 1: you really are. Yeah, we used luminal and everything. Maybe

851
00:50:39,000 --> 00:50:41,839
Speaker 1: we should take another ad break. Yeah, let's take another

852
00:50:41,840 --> 00:51:07,239
Speaker 1: ad break. We'll be back right after this. And we're back.

853
00:51:11,000 --> 00:51:13,040
Speaker 1: We should, I guess move on to the death of

854
00:51:13,120 --> 00:51:14,879
Speaker 1: the mall. Yeah, because I don't know if you guys

855
00:51:15,360 --> 00:51:17,399
Speaker 1: know this or not, but malls are not doing very

856
00:51:17,440 --> 00:51:22,080
Speaker 1: well these days. I know some couple of all clap well,

857
00:51:22,080 --> 00:51:25,960
Speaker 1: you'll probably like the rest of this episode. The mall

858
00:51:26,000 --> 00:51:29,759
Speaker 1: actually peaked in nineteen ninety at sixteen million square feet

859
00:51:30,160 --> 00:51:32,520
Speaker 1: of new space opened in that year, and it's been

860
00:51:32,560 --> 00:51:36,520
Speaker 1: tapering off ever since. And here's a little staggering statistic

861
00:51:36,600 --> 00:51:39,120
Speaker 1: for you. Since in nineteen fifties, when the first mall

862
00:51:39,239 --> 00:51:41,960
Speaker 1: was built, there was at least one mall built every

863
00:51:42,120 --> 00:51:46,279
Speaker 1: single year until two thousand and seven, usually many, many mall,

864
00:51:46,520 --> 00:51:50,640
Speaker 1: well up to a million from what I hear, I

865
00:51:50,719 --> 00:51:53,240
Speaker 1: mean that's an estimate, but yeah, yeah, So two thousand

866
00:51:53,239 --> 00:51:55,560
Speaker 1: and seven marked the first year that a new mall

867
00:51:55,640 --> 00:51:58,279
Speaker 1: wasn't built, and I think there were no new malls

868
00:51:58,280 --> 00:52:03,240
Speaker 1: built until two twelve. In the United States two thousand

869
00:52:03,280 --> 00:52:06,680
Speaker 1: and eight recession, the Great Recession had a really big

870
00:52:06,760 --> 00:52:09,320
Speaker 1: impact on retail. Yeah, that's there's like a bunch of

871
00:52:09,400 --> 00:52:12,239
Speaker 1: different reasons people put for what killed the mall. Right,

872
00:52:12,360 --> 00:52:17,560
Speaker 1: the mall has long been known for killing the American downtown. Right,

873
00:52:18,320 --> 00:52:20,640
Speaker 1: the mall moved out to the suburbs and the downtown

874
00:52:21,200 --> 00:52:23,680
Speaker 1: just kind of went away. Right, So reason number one

875
00:52:24,200 --> 00:52:26,640
Speaker 1: is that the Great Recession killed the mall. And this

876
00:52:26,800 --> 00:52:31,160
Speaker 1: is true to a pretty large extent actually, Like from

877
00:52:31,480 --> 00:52:34,319
Speaker 1: World War Two until I think two thousand and nine,

878
00:52:34,880 --> 00:52:39,440
Speaker 1: every single year Americans spent more money than they had

879
00:52:39,480 --> 00:52:42,920
Speaker 1: the year before, which is nuts. Right. Then two thousand

880
00:52:42,920 --> 00:52:45,239
Speaker 1: and nine comes and we stopped, and not only did

881
00:52:45,320 --> 00:52:48,759
Speaker 1: we stop, we actually declined tremendously. We stopped spending by

882
00:52:48,840 --> 00:52:51,440
Speaker 1: something like ten percent. And then the money that we

883
00:52:51,560 --> 00:52:55,320
Speaker 1: did spend, we started spending at Target in Walmart, not

884
00:52:55,480 --> 00:52:58,840
Speaker 1: at the mall, or at places like J. C. Pennies

885
00:52:58,960 --> 00:53:01,759
Speaker 1: or Sears who tried to keep these malls propped up

886
00:53:01,760 --> 00:53:04,719
Speaker 1: and who malls depended on. Because again, remember if you

887
00:53:04,800 --> 00:53:07,080
Speaker 1: go to a mall, the whole reason the mall exists

888
00:53:07,200 --> 00:53:09,560
Speaker 1: is for the department stores to spread their traffic out

889
00:53:09,600 --> 00:53:12,600
Speaker 1: to the smaller stores. And if the department stores are hurting,

890
00:53:12,760 --> 00:53:15,439
Speaker 1: which they were, then the smaller stores hurt as well.

891
00:53:15,719 --> 00:53:19,120
Speaker 1: So as these big, large anchor stores started to go under,

892
00:53:19,440 --> 00:53:22,359
Speaker 1: the malls did as well. But people said, the Great

893
00:53:22,360 --> 00:53:25,040
Speaker 1: Recession was pretty bad. It's probably not the only reason

894
00:53:25,120 --> 00:53:28,359
Speaker 1: that the mall is dying. Yeah, we mentioned Amazon dot

895
00:53:28,400 --> 00:53:30,719
Speaker 1: Com earlier, and they're not the only online retailer, of course.

896
00:53:30,800 --> 00:53:32,720
Speaker 1: And you can tell we're not from the area because

897
00:53:32,719 --> 00:53:36,520
Speaker 1: we say dot com after it. We just want to

898
00:53:36,560 --> 00:53:40,319
Speaker 1: make sure you guys know what we're talking about. We're

899
00:53:40,360 --> 00:53:45,160
Speaker 1: trying to communicate with you. I can't believe I said that.

900
00:53:45,440 --> 00:53:49,040
Speaker 1: How nerdy we would both of us have said it

901
00:53:49,120 --> 00:53:52,840
Speaker 1: like five or six times. Yes, stuff, you should know

902
00:53:52,920 --> 00:53:58,720
Speaker 1: dot com. Well, there's dot orgs and dot nets do yeah, Amazon,

903
00:54:00,280 --> 00:54:05,680
Speaker 1: dot EDUS, dot UK's specificity is a soul of narrative.

904
00:54:06,600 --> 00:54:11,880
Speaker 1: Oh good one, thank you. Take that, everybody, thank you.

905
00:54:12,719 --> 00:54:16,600
Speaker 1: In twenty fourteen, traditional retailers for the very first time

906
00:54:16,760 --> 00:54:19,920
Speaker 1: generated about half their sales from the web. But you

907
00:54:20,040 --> 00:54:23,080
Speaker 1: can't like I do all my shopping online now, I

908
00:54:23,480 --> 00:54:25,839
Speaker 1: literally haven't been. I think I went to the mall

909
00:54:25,920 --> 00:54:28,440
Speaker 1: last year for something and asked my wife. She's out there.

910
00:54:28,480 --> 00:54:31,480
Speaker 1: I was miserable. I hated it, but we had to

911
00:54:31,520 --> 00:54:33,279
Speaker 1: go for some reason or another I can't remember, probably

912
00:54:33,320 --> 00:54:36,480
Speaker 1: to stay in line for our stupid phone. I'm just

913
00:54:36,520 --> 00:54:38,120
Speaker 1: kidding out and do that either, thank you. But I

914
00:54:38,160 --> 00:54:41,120
Speaker 1: almost stood in line for breakfast this morning right here

915
00:54:41,160 --> 00:54:48,719
Speaker 1: in San Francisco, because that's the thing. Jeez. Yeah, but

916
00:54:49,480 --> 00:54:53,319
Speaker 1: online retailing isn't that big of a thing yet. Even

917
00:54:53,440 --> 00:54:56,560
Speaker 1: if it hits the fifteen percent annual growth over the

918
00:54:56,640 --> 00:54:59,600
Speaker 1: next three years that they project by twenty nineteen, it'll

919
00:54:59,640 --> 00:55:02,239
Speaker 1: still will only be about two point four I'm sorry,

920
00:55:02,280 --> 00:55:05,719
Speaker 1: twelve point four percent of retail, which is not enough

921
00:55:05,760 --> 00:55:08,200
Speaker 1: to kill them all. No, but it's a factor. No.

922
00:55:08,400 --> 00:55:11,120
Speaker 1: And plus, you can kind of find this weird confidence

923
00:55:11,200 --> 00:55:14,279
Speaker 1: in the idea that malls may continue limping along if

924
00:55:14,280 --> 00:55:16,520
Speaker 1: you're into that kind of thing, by the fact that

925
00:55:16,920 --> 00:55:21,279
Speaker 1: Amazon dot Com open a brick and mortar store a

926
00:55:21,400 --> 00:55:25,960
Speaker 1: bookstore to help boost their online sales, which is mind boggling,

927
00:55:26,760 --> 00:55:30,320
Speaker 1: but they did it in Seattle. But more than anything,

928
00:55:30,480 --> 00:55:32,759
Speaker 1: perhaps the reason the malls died, it's because they were

929
00:55:32,840 --> 00:55:37,120
Speaker 1: never meant to live forever. And this next part is

930
00:55:37,160 --> 00:55:41,920
Speaker 1: about the economics of malls, and specifically it sounds so

931
00:55:42,080 --> 00:55:48,719
Speaker 1: boring tax loopholes concerning malls, and Josh is going to

932
00:55:48,960 --> 00:55:57,280
Speaker 1: explain it. Okay, So if you build a building somewhere,

933
00:55:57,440 --> 00:56:00,400
Speaker 1: and I should say, hats off to Gladwell for planning

934
00:56:00,480 --> 00:56:02,719
Speaker 1: this too. This comes largely from him. But if you

935
00:56:02,760 --> 00:56:07,239
Speaker 1: build a building somewhere and say, like nineteen fifty, the

936
00:56:07,760 --> 00:56:09,880
Speaker 1: government said, you know what, your building's not going to

937
00:56:09,920 --> 00:56:13,560
Speaker 1: hold up forever, so you can deduct a certain percentage

938
00:56:13,840 --> 00:56:16,920
Speaker 1: of your building's value every year and put it aside

939
00:56:17,120 --> 00:56:21,080
Speaker 1: tax free to replace that building eventually. And at the

940
00:56:21,160 --> 00:56:23,800
Speaker 1: time when shopping malls first started to come about in

941
00:56:23,840 --> 00:56:29,239
Speaker 1: the early fifties, the deduction for this wear and tear

942
00:56:29,840 --> 00:56:33,840
Speaker 1: was one fortieth, right, Like, you had a forty years

943
00:56:33,920 --> 00:56:37,680
Speaker 1: to deduct this value of your building. Yeah, this is

944
00:56:37,719 --> 00:56:40,160
Speaker 1: not going well. No, that's perfect so far. I'm checking

945
00:56:40,280 --> 00:56:43,719
Speaker 1: him for accuracy. Okay, all right, I feel like like

946
00:56:43,840 --> 00:56:48,719
Speaker 1: my fingernails are bleeding. So every year, right, if you

947
00:56:48,840 --> 00:56:51,440
Speaker 1: went and built a shopping mall, you could deduct one

948
00:56:51,560 --> 00:56:54,560
Speaker 1: fortieth of the value of the shopping mall. Not a

949
00:56:54,680 --> 00:56:57,880
Speaker 1: huge deduction, but it was something it's called depreciation. The

950
00:56:58,040 --> 00:57:02,200
Speaker 1: problem is is this depreciation deduction was? It was something,

951
00:57:02,280 --> 00:57:04,919
Speaker 1: but it wasn't enough. If you built a shopping mall

952
00:57:05,080 --> 00:57:07,880
Speaker 1: in the early fifties, you were really asking for trouble

953
00:57:08,160 --> 00:57:11,840
Speaker 1: because they were hugely expensive. They cost like twenty million

954
00:57:11,960 --> 00:57:14,120
Speaker 1: or thirty million, which are on par to one hundred

955
00:57:14,120 --> 00:57:17,520
Speaker 1: and eighty or two hundred million dollars today, right, and

956
00:57:18,080 --> 00:57:20,640
Speaker 1: you were going to make your money back very very slowly.

957
00:57:20,920 --> 00:57:24,080
Speaker 1: But then, and I think nineteen fifty four, yes, the

958
00:57:24,560 --> 00:57:26,760
Speaker 1: US government said, you know what, we really want to

959
00:57:26,800 --> 00:57:30,240
Speaker 1: kind of get things going on building and construction. We

960
00:57:30,360 --> 00:57:32,520
Speaker 1: want to make sure Josh and Chuck have something interesting

961
00:57:32,560 --> 00:57:34,520
Speaker 1: to talk about at the end of their Malls episode

962
00:57:34,600 --> 00:57:37,840
Speaker 1: years from now. So we're going to change the tax code.

963
00:57:37,880 --> 00:57:40,919
Speaker 1: And they did, and they created or allowed for something

964
00:57:41,000 --> 00:57:48,560
Speaker 1: called accelerated depreciation, and this changed everything, Chuck. So I'm

965
00:57:48,560 --> 00:57:50,640
Speaker 1: going to go back to nineteen sixty one. The Wall

966
00:57:50,680 --> 00:57:53,920
Speaker 1: Street Journal wrote a little article trying to describe this

967
00:57:54,120 --> 00:57:58,840
Speaker 1: financial situation for a real estate company named Krader Coorp.

968
00:57:59,680 --> 00:58:03,720
Speaker 1: Sound totally made up like an evil villain's business that

969
00:58:03,800 --> 00:58:11,800
Speaker 1: you would run or an std I abbreviated what does

970
00:58:11,840 --> 00:58:18,400
Speaker 1: that stand for? Cratter Corp? It won't go away, doc,

971
00:58:18,720 --> 00:58:26,000
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna gona million to one, I tell you.

972
00:58:27,760 --> 00:58:30,440
Speaker 1: So this was a nineteen sixty young and around the

973
00:58:30,560 --> 00:58:32,960
Speaker 1: numbers just to make it easier. So let's say Cratter Corp.

974
00:58:33,040 --> 00:58:36,760
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty made about ten million bucks overall. Is

975
00:58:36,840 --> 00:58:39,000
Speaker 1: everyone writing this down as we're saying that you don't

976
00:58:39,040 --> 00:58:44,040
Speaker 1: need to? So deductions from operating expenses and mortgage interest

977
00:58:44,200 --> 00:58:47,080
Speaker 1: is about five million bucks. So they still make about

978
00:58:47,120 --> 00:58:50,280
Speaker 1: five million bucks. Not a bad income, but not good enough.

979
00:58:50,840 --> 00:58:54,960
Speaker 1: Then came the depreciation, accelerated depreciation to the tune of

980
00:58:55,000 --> 00:58:58,440
Speaker 1: about seven million dollars. So all of a sudden, Cradder,

981
00:58:58,720 --> 00:59:01,040
Speaker 1: instead of having a profit of five million dollars on

982
00:59:01,080 --> 00:59:03,800
Speaker 1: the books, has a loss of a couple of million

983
00:59:03,840 --> 00:59:07,680
Speaker 1: dollars on the books. And everyone has these huge tax

984
00:59:07,760 --> 00:59:11,680
Speaker 1: write offs. And now you fully understand, if you didn't before,

985
00:59:12,240 --> 00:59:16,640
Speaker 1: why our next president doesn't pay income tax. Right. It's

986
00:59:16,680 --> 00:59:20,840
Speaker 1: basically this accelerated depreciation on real estate that allows you

987
00:59:20,920 --> 00:59:23,480
Speaker 1: to write off these massive amounts of money to show

988
00:59:23,520 --> 00:59:26,600
Speaker 1: big losses where you're in fact making gains. Right, And

989
00:59:26,680 --> 00:59:29,520
Speaker 1: the big change of the tax code was to the irs.

990
00:59:29,880 --> 00:59:32,280
Speaker 1: They're still getting the same amount of taxes over the

991
00:59:32,360 --> 00:59:34,640
Speaker 1: life of the building. They just said, if you want

992
00:59:34,680 --> 00:59:38,600
Speaker 1: to deduct this depreciation at the beginning of the life

993
00:59:38,640 --> 00:59:40,960
Speaker 1: of the building, that's fine with us. It's all the

994
00:59:41,080 --> 00:59:43,280
Speaker 1: same to us. Well, if you were a developer, you

995
00:59:43,320 --> 00:59:46,280
Speaker 1: would build this building, deduct as much as you could

996
00:59:46,360 --> 00:59:50,600
Speaker 1: over say three four five years, maybe even break even

997
00:59:50,760 --> 00:59:53,959
Speaker 1: just from the tax deductions, and then sell that mall

998
00:59:54,360 --> 00:59:57,520
Speaker 1: for pure profit of fifty or one hundred or one

999
00:59:57,600 --> 01:00:01,240
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty million dollars and talk away laughing and

1000
01:00:01,400 --> 01:00:08,360
Speaker 1: laughing and laughing and exactly wearing your cape. But here's

1001
01:00:08,400 --> 01:00:10,360
Speaker 1: the thing. They wouldn't like put that money back into

1002
01:00:10,440 --> 01:00:12,520
Speaker 1: the mall to make it better. They would sell it

1003
01:00:12,600 --> 01:00:14,600
Speaker 1: off like you said, and just go build a bigger

1004
01:00:14,640 --> 01:00:18,200
Speaker 1: mall further out. And now we'll call these excerbs. They're

1005
01:00:18,240 --> 01:00:20,960
Speaker 1: not even suburbs. Because they were all about going where

1006
01:00:20,960 --> 01:00:23,520
Speaker 1: the land was cheapest. Right, the mall stopped being a

1007
01:00:23,600 --> 01:00:26,840
Speaker 1: place to actually service people. They would just build malls

1008
01:00:26,960 --> 01:00:29,080
Speaker 1: where they could get the best deals on land and

1009
01:00:29,360 --> 01:00:31,720
Speaker 1: found that people would drive to them and sometimes even

1010
01:00:31,760 --> 01:00:34,560
Speaker 1: build entire towns around them. Right, yeah, let's move to

1011
01:00:34,680 --> 01:00:40,120
Speaker 1: the mall. And it's true, and so under this view

1012
01:00:40,240 --> 01:00:43,040
Speaker 1: when you really understand why there were two thousand or

1013
01:00:43,080 --> 01:00:47,360
Speaker 1: three thousand or a million malls built in the United States, huge,

1014
01:00:47,480 --> 01:00:51,400
Speaker 1: huge mall. Some cities had multiple malls. When you realize

1015
01:00:51,400 --> 01:00:53,640
Speaker 1: that they were built for text breaks and not to

1016
01:00:53,960 --> 01:00:57,360
Speaker 1: fulfill some consumer demand, then of course they were destined

1017
01:00:57,360 --> 01:00:59,720
Speaker 1: to shrivel and die because they were part of an

1018
01:01:00,120 --> 01:01:03,439
Speaker 1: official supply. And once that became exposed and the text

1019
01:01:03,480 --> 01:01:08,280
Speaker 1: bricks went away, mall started going down. And it's sad

1020
01:01:08,720 --> 01:01:11,080
Speaker 1: in a way when a mall goes under. People have

1021
01:01:11,400 --> 01:01:14,160
Speaker 1: associations of memories with the mall, you know, like you

1022
01:01:14,560 --> 01:01:16,680
Speaker 1: you think about all the mall walkers you've seen and

1023
01:01:16,800 --> 01:01:20,480
Speaker 1: loved walking around the mall, and when it dies, it's

1024
01:01:20,560 --> 01:01:23,240
Speaker 1: it's sad. But even more than that, it can actually,

1025
01:01:23,520 --> 01:01:26,439
Speaker 1: depending on the town, can take an entire city down

1026
01:01:26,560 --> 01:01:32,400
Speaker 1: with it. Yeah, there was a place north Randall, Ohio. No,

1027
01:01:33,320 --> 01:01:36,360
Speaker 1: I'm satisfied. What do you mean really, I mean it's

1028
01:01:36,400 --> 01:01:38,760
Speaker 1: outside of Cleveland. I figured half of Cleveland probably tried

1029
01:01:38,800 --> 01:01:41,720
Speaker 1: to move to some Even Emily didn't cheer for that one. No, No,

1030
01:01:41,880 --> 01:01:45,040
Speaker 1: she's from Ohio. Yeah. So they had the Randall Park

1031
01:01:45,160 --> 01:01:48,320
Speaker 1: mall and it costs about one hundred and seventy five

1032
01:01:48,360 --> 01:01:51,680
Speaker 1: million bucks to build in nineteen seventy five. And get this,

1033
01:01:52,200 --> 01:01:57,640
Speaker 1: the grand opening, five thousand guests had champagne, twelve hundred

1034
01:01:57,680 --> 01:02:01,720
Speaker 1: pounds of fresh shrimp, crab, cold roast turkey, hot corned

1035
01:02:01,760 --> 01:02:05,080
Speaker 1: beef and ham, melan and cheese, small crapes filled with

1036
01:02:05,200 --> 01:02:09,360
Speaker 1: chicken and spinach, coffee and dessert. It was like a

1037
01:02:09,440 --> 01:02:13,400
Speaker 1: Roman orgy basically and disguise of the opening of a mall.

1038
01:02:13,880 --> 01:02:16,360
Speaker 1: You got you got the world's largest cup of lemonade.

1039
01:02:17,080 --> 01:02:19,640
Speaker 1: That wasn't too bad. I just hate that I put

1040
01:02:19,720 --> 01:02:21,640
Speaker 1: my mouth on that thing along with the other people.

1041
01:02:22,680 --> 01:02:25,919
Speaker 1: He should have at least had smaller cups or maybe

1042
01:02:26,000 --> 01:02:32,720
Speaker 1: not professional swimmers inside the cup. No there were seahorses. No, no, no,

1043
01:02:35,040 --> 01:02:37,360
Speaker 1: those are fine. You just they passed right through your

1044
01:02:37,400 --> 01:02:45,920
Speaker 1: digestive chap. You don't metabolize this so gross. Tommy Dorsey

1045
01:02:45,960 --> 01:02:47,640
Speaker 1: showed up at the grand opening of this mall with

1046
01:02:47,720 --> 01:02:50,240
Speaker 1: his orchestra to play. It was a big event. But

1047
01:02:50,440 --> 01:02:53,240
Speaker 1: Randall Mall has since fallen on hard times and those

1048
01:02:53,320 --> 01:02:56,640
Speaker 1: two point two million square feet of retail space have

1049
01:02:56,800 --> 01:03:01,280
Speaker 1: been shuttered and um almost along with it. North Randall,

1050
01:03:01,360 --> 01:03:03,880
Speaker 1: Ohio as a whole. That whole town is sort of

1051
01:03:04,440 --> 01:03:07,400
Speaker 1: on life support basically because of closing up the shopping malls.

1052
01:03:07,440 --> 01:03:10,160
Speaker 1: Really sad. Yeah, but there are some malls that are

1053
01:03:10,200 --> 01:03:14,240
Speaker 1: still doing well. Outlet malls are thriving. High end malls

1054
01:03:14,280 --> 01:03:16,520
Speaker 1: in case you're wondering how they're really wealthy, are doing

1055
01:03:16,760 --> 01:03:20,520
Speaker 1: pretty good. High end malls are thriving like you would

1056
01:03:20,560 --> 01:03:24,240
Speaker 1: not believe. They're up by fourteen point six percent since

1057
01:03:24,360 --> 01:03:29,080
Speaker 1: the economic crisis. And there's this dude. His name's Rick Caruso.

1058
01:03:29,240 --> 01:03:33,280
Speaker 1: He pretended the death of the mall. Malls are dead,

1059
01:03:33,320 --> 01:03:36,520
Speaker 1: They're gone unless they reinvent themselves. And it just so

1060
01:03:36,720 --> 01:03:39,960
Speaker 1: happens that I build the type of mall that malls

1061
01:03:39,960 --> 01:03:42,920
Speaker 1: should reinvent themselves into. So he basically is trying to

1062
01:03:43,160 --> 01:03:48,760
Speaker 1: recreate downtown, but a nice, happy Disney esque downtown where

1063
01:03:48,880 --> 01:03:52,560
Speaker 1: nothing ever goes wrong and everything is great, and by

1064
01:03:52,600 --> 01:03:55,640
Speaker 1: the way, it's also a mall and it's outdoors. And

1065
01:03:55,800 --> 01:03:59,320
Speaker 1: to follow this trend, malls are doing the exact opposite

1066
01:03:59,360 --> 01:04:02,880
Speaker 1: of what they did when Gruen started designing and closed malls.

1067
01:04:03,120 --> 01:04:06,680
Speaker 1: They're tearing the roofs off and following this new trend

1068
01:04:07,000 --> 01:04:10,000
Speaker 1: to try to survive. Yeah, he calls them lifestyle centers.

1069
01:04:10,680 --> 01:04:12,120
Speaker 1: I don't know if there's one here. There's one in

1070
01:04:12,120 --> 01:04:16,040
Speaker 1: Atlanta called Atlantic Station. I hate them more than anything

1071
01:04:17,360 --> 01:04:21,040
Speaker 1: has really strong opinions. At least a mall is a mall.

1072
01:04:21,400 --> 01:04:24,640
Speaker 1: It's not pretending to be a small town. Yeah, that's true.

1073
01:04:24,800 --> 01:04:26,959
Speaker 1: You know it's true. It's like, look, we just built

1074
01:04:27,000 --> 01:04:29,840
Speaker 1: these streets and there's it looks like a stoplight, but

1075
01:04:30,200 --> 01:04:33,320
Speaker 1: your your child can control it fully and no cars

1076
01:04:33,360 --> 01:04:35,360
Speaker 1: are allowed. Then there's no cars with a button. So

1077
01:04:35,680 --> 01:04:39,960
Speaker 1: it's like downtown USA. There's no crime anywhere, security guards everywhere,

1078
01:04:40,840 --> 01:04:42,880
Speaker 1: and I'll you do a shop, shop shop. So to me,

1079
01:04:43,000 --> 01:04:45,840
Speaker 1: there's like there's a certain sadness over the death of

1080
01:04:45,920 --> 01:04:48,360
Speaker 1: the mall. Like for me personally, I think even for

1081
01:04:48,560 --> 01:04:51,720
Speaker 1: some of the booers in here. You spent time at

1082
01:04:51,760 --> 01:04:55,520
Speaker 1: the mall. The mall represented something to America. But if

1083
01:04:55,560 --> 01:05:01,280
Speaker 1: you step back and look about exactly what the mall represents,

1084
01:05:01,360 --> 01:05:03,080
Speaker 1: and even more to the point, with the death of

1085
01:05:03,120 --> 01:05:05,600
Speaker 1: the mall represents, is it really the death of a

1086
01:05:06,160 --> 01:05:08,880
Speaker 1: golden age or a golden era when things were great?

1087
01:05:08,960 --> 01:05:11,720
Speaker 1: Because if you look at the mall, it's an outpost

1088
01:05:11,800 --> 01:05:15,040
Speaker 1: of consumerism. It's like a church of consumption, right, So

1089
01:05:15,240 --> 01:05:18,440
Speaker 1: if we've lost that, then maybe out of the ashes,

1090
01:05:18,800 --> 01:05:21,120
Speaker 1: out of the things that are so broken right now,

1091
01:05:21,480 --> 01:05:24,360
Speaker 1: you can find some kind of weird hope that maybe

1092
01:05:24,800 --> 01:05:28,439
Speaker 1: we can rebuild in a new, better way to where

1093
01:05:28,520 --> 01:05:35,720
Speaker 1: the most important part of civic life isn't the mall. Wow,

1094
01:05:36,400 --> 01:05:42,880
Speaker 1: and that is mall. That's malls. Thank you everybody, you

1095
01:05:42,920 --> 01:05:51,040
Speaker 1: can do that stuff you should know is a production

1096
01:05:51,120 --> 01:05:54,600
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts to my Heartradio, visit the

1097
01:05:54,680 --> 01:05:57,960
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

1098
01:05:57,960 --> 01:05:58,680
Speaker 1: favorite shows.