How Your Environment Affects Your Behavior & Curiously Strange Moments In History - SYSK Choice

“Your call is very important to us.” Companies say things like this all the time in an effort to sound customer-focused and trustworthy. But do phrases like that actually reassure people—or do they quietly create the opposite reaction? Source: Michael Maslansky author of The Language of Trust (https://amzn.to/3Wz2IQP). You already know certain places make you feel different—you just may not realize how powerful the effect really is. Walking into a church, a courtroom, a stadium, or even a grocery store can subtly change your mood, your behavior, and even the way you think. Kevin Ervin Kelley, award-winning architect and author of Irreplaceable: How to Create Extraordinary Places that Bring People Together (https://amzn.to/3UALlwE), explains how spaces are intentionally designed to influence human behavior and why the environments around you shape far more of your experience than you probably realize. History class usually focuses on wars, presidents, and major events. But some of the most fascinating stories are the ones you rarely hear about. Stories like the chaotic and nearly disastrous opening day of Disneyland, the multiple assassination plots unfolding the night Abraham Lincoln was killed, and the bizarre corporate marriage between AOL and Time Warner. Michael Farquhar, former writer and editor at The Washington Post and author of Bad Days in History (https://amzn.to/3wjKCrF) and More Bad Days in History (https://amzn.to/3QE5q3V), shares some of history’s strangest, most surprising, and often unbelievable true stories. “You have the right to remain silent…” Those famous words are instantly recognizable. But who exactly was “Miranda”? And how did one man’s legal troubles end up permanently changing the American justice system? https://www.thoughtco.com/miranda-v-arizona-104966 PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS AQUA TRU: Take the guesswork out of pure, great-tasting water. Head to ⁠⁠https://AquaTru.com⁠⁠ now and get 20% off your purifier using promo code SYSK. AquaTru even comes with a 30-day best-tasting water guarantee or your money back. RULA: This Mental Health Awareness Month, don’t just think about your mental health - actually take the step to take care of it. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Rula.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to get started. QUINCE: Refresh your everyday with luxury you will actual use! Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Quince.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too! SHOPIFY: It's time to turn those "what ifs" into CHA CHING with Shopify Today! Sign up for your $1 per month trail and start selling today at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Shopify.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Mike Carruthers?

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• 0:45Mike Carruthers?

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• 1:28Mike Carruthers?

  by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need the right hire fast? Then this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs.

• 1:44Mike Carruthers?

  Today on Something You Should Know, phrases businesses use to keep customers happy that do exactly the opposite. Then, how environments like stores and restaurants affect your behavior. As some retailers know, the effects are substantial.

• 2:00Speaker 01

  We can almost always increase sales at minimum 18%, but we can increase sales up to 86% without changing the product, the price, the service, anything other than the environment.

• 2:13Mike Carruthers?

  Also, you've heard of your Miranda rights, but who was Miranda? And weird but significant moments in history like who else died the night Lincoln got shot? And the opening day at Disneyland?

• 2:25Speaker 02

  Walt Disney called it Black Friday. Everything that could have gone wrong did. There were counterfeit tickets, so the place was packed. It was over 100 degrees. The Fantasyland had a gas leak. They had to close that down.

• 2:39Mike Carruthers?

  All this today on Something You Should Know. Now here's something that might be worth a minute of your time. How would you like $1,000 to spend on shopping? Especially with the holidays coming? Well, the people behind Shopify have a shopping site called shop.com. And to celebrate the new shop.com, they're giving away $1 million in Shop Cash. But not to one person. A thousand people will each win $1,000 in Shop Cash. And shop.com is actually a really clever idea. It brings lots of different stores together in one place.

• 3:22Mike Carruthers?

  So instead of bouncing around from website to website, you can search across stores, find what you're looking for, and track your orders all in one place. Clothes, electronics, gifts, things for the house, all kinds of stuff. And whether you win or not, it's worth knowing, but with 1,000 chances to win $1,000, I'd certainly take a look. Enter to win the $1 million Shop Cash giveaway from now until November 1st. Just go to shop.com. There are so many ways to win. That's shop.com. Shopping designed around you. No purchase necessary. Restrictions apply. Official rules available at shop.com.

• 4:09Speaker 03

  Something You Should Know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today. Something You Should Know. With Mike Carruthers.

• 4:22Mike Carruthers?

  Hi, welcome. If you're a new listener to Something You Should Know, or even if you've been listening a while and just weren't aware, we publish three episodes a week. Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. And we also have a back catalog of shows that are just as interesting today as they were the day they were published. I mean, we're on episode 1,048. So there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of episodes if you ever want to binge and go back and listen. First up today, most businesses want their customers to trust them. The funny thing is that the way a lot of businesses communicate with their customers does nothing but destroy that trust.

• 5:04Mike Carruthers?

  Here are some commonly used phrases that businesses use with you, the customer, that research has shown are either meaningless phrases or actually erode customer confidence. And of course, you know the first one. "Your call is very important to us." Well, if that's true, why am I still on hold? Businesses who force customers to wade through a lengthy automated maze of telephone choices do so in part to discourage customers from talking to a real person. They hope you'll just give up. If businesses think that they can just say, "Your call is important to us," that that's going to make consumers believe it, they're wrong. It would just be better to answer the phone.

• 5:49Mike Carruthers?

  "We speak your language." Really? Well, if you really spoke my language, would you really have to tell me that? "We care about our customers." Well, again, do you have to tell me? Why not just show me? And you so often hear this one. "You must call now." As if we're supposed to believe that if we call later or tomorrow, we can't get the same deal. People just aren't that stupid. And fine print, every customer hates fine print. We all assume that fine print is just an attempt to hide something. Fine print kills credibility.

• 6:29Mike Carruthers?

  If a business must use fine print, they should explain why in very big print and tell people where they can go to read the fine print in big print. This is all in a book by Michael Maslansky called "The Language of Trust", and that is something you should know.

• 6:51Mike Carruthers?

  There's a really interesting topic that I know you have some experience with and some knowledge about, yet it's a topic you probably never discuss with people. And that is how the place you are in, the room, the space, the environment, how that affects your mood, your behavior, and your perceptions. And when you hear me say that, you know what I mean. When you walk into an empty church, you feel different than when you walk into, say, a crowded movie theater, which is different than walking into a fancy restaurant or a grocery store. You may not know it, but this is a serious area of study. And one of the people at the forefront of this is Kevin Irvin Kelly.

• 7:35Mike Carruthers?

  He is an award-winning architect with real expertise in designing spaces and places that bring people together. He's author of a book called Irreplaceable: How to Create Extraordinary Places That Bring People Together. Hi Kevin, welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  Hi, Michael. Thank you for having me.

• 7:55Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I've always found it interesting, and I've talked to people about this, about how when you walk into a certain place, whether it's a movie theater or a hotel lobby or something happens to you that, and I don't know what that is, but you change. Something that that room affects you in a pretty profound way that it adjusts your behavior, it adjusts the volume of your speech, it adjusts what you, it's, there's something that that place does to you.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  Well said. Yeah, we're affected by our environments. Really, environment is my whole thesis in life. Purpose has been around studying how environment affects our behavior, which ultimately affects your perceptions of an entity and your decision making about whether to engage with a place or disengage. But we're not really aware of these things. It all happens on a subconscious level.

• 8:49Mike Carruthers?

  So talk about some specific ways different places affect different people. And just so, because we've been talking in generalities here, but like, for example, like how?

• 9:00Speaker 01

  Well, probably the most noticeable thing that you'll see is some places create an environment where you feel safe, not only physically, which is at our primal core, but also socially safe and emotionally safe. And so you mentioned a movie theater, which is a great example. Most of us walk around suppressing our emotions and trying to appear like we have things in control. We generally don't just start crying or laughing or screaming in front of people. But once we go inside a black box room, we have an experience with a bunch of strangers we've never met. And we may scream or yell or say, run for us, run. And these kind of moments are very important to us. They feel good.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  They create a synchronicity among strangers. So when you go to a lot of great places that feel good, you'll feel that social bliss and that social synchronicity. But when you're in harsh environments, you feel defensive, antisocial. You'll see people flipping birds at each other, yelling at each other because the environment is telling them this is not a safe place.

• 10:07Mike Carruthers?

  And what are those environments? What are the environments that make us feel unsafe?

• 10:12Speaker 01

  We generally don't like alleys. We don't like dark corridors. We don't like dead end streets. And we're constantly picking up signals from our environment. Everything in an environment communicates chain link fence, barbed wire, even yellow hazard signs start telling us danger ahead. And so when we get in those types of environments, we start to get more nervous and more protective. If you went down an alley and somebody walked down the other end of the alley, you start making a lot of rapid decisions about what to do. Now, as we kind of go up from that, that kind of harsh reality, you can go to some schools. They're very harsh. Some restaurants even feel harsh. Some people complain department motor

• 10:57Speaker 01

  vehicles, or even the checkout line at a grocery store feels very stressful and antisocial.

• 11:03Mike Carruthers?

  When places are designed, shopping centers, restaurants, stores, coffee shops, when we go into those places that make you feel good, like, you know, there's certain restaurants and you've got the piano in the background, the lighting's great, there's white tablecloths on the, is that kind of more by accident, do you think, that it, that's just feels like a warm place to be, or, and that's just what a lot of restaurants do, or did someone say, this is what people like, and so we're gonna do this?

• 11:39Speaker 01

  There are definitely designers that understand that, and understand that sensuality of place. But to be honest, I find most of my best inspiration by studying a lot of old world merchants who weren't necessarily educated in design, but understood what makes, what helps attract people's eyes, what makes them feel convivial and wanting to talk to others. Restaurants certainly understand that. And, you know, you pick up off a very interesting issue that we focused a lot on restaurant design. And when I first started in the profession, my first boss told me, you know, it was all about the columns and the steps and the, and

• 12:19Speaker 01

  the big sweeping architectural gestures. But later on, when I started my own firm with my business partner Terry, we started really studying, what do people remember? We started asking men and women, what did they remember from the experience? And what kind of broke our heart initially was, they don't remember the big architectural gestures. They remember the tiny details. They remember the tablecloth, the salt and pepper shaker, the type of lighting in the bathroom, or even the flowers in the bathroom. And it really taught us a lot about what people notice. We tend to judge a restaurant by its napkins and its forks and its centerpieces. Even the waiter, what they wear, because our brains are wired to make those decisions

• 13:02Speaker 01

  and aren't always looking at the big, giant architectural elements.

• 13:07Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I bet everyone has had that experience of going into a nice restaurant or a pretty nice restaurant, a fairly medium upscale restaurant. And then you go in the bathroom and the paper towels are all over the floor and it's a mess. And it just changes your whole impression of the entire place. You just, and someone once said, you know, you want to know how clean a restaurant's kitchen is, go look at their bathroom.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  You hit it right on it.

• 13:35Mike Carruthers?

  I remember that and I, when I see that bathroom like that, I think, oh, man.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, the question is, is why does that happen over and over? We can all think of, of, you know, famous restaurants that have horribly designed bathrooms. And part of that has to do with, like a lot of things, it's still a heavily male-focused industry and men tend to design bathrooms like they're frat houses and they don't pay attention to those details. And this isn't my personal opinion, this is us surveying customers to find out what they remember. And when we get the lighting right, when we get a sensualness in the bathroom such as flowers or the right smells, we increase our perception of our food quality and our food cleanliness. There's a direct linkage to that.

• 14:23Speaker 01

  You know, the goal you want to do in any place is you want to make people feel beautiful. And that is, to me, the test. It's not a test of abstract design or composition or scale. It's really about do people feel beautiful in this space? And when people feel beautiful, they feel confident, they feel comfortable to talk to others. And the work we've done for Harley-Davidson, I learned so much by studying those customers. And one of, one of the customers I interviewed way back when, his name was Ernie and he was a 52-year-old tow truck driver. And he said some fascinating things to me. He said his wife had figured her life out, his kids were gone. He wasn't sure what he was going to do with his life, so he kept hanging out at

• 15:06Speaker 01

  different Harley-Davidson dealerships. And when I asked him, you know, why do you like this place? And he goes, you know, I feel like a hero when I'm in here. He goes, but when I try to go to a Starbucks or a blue bottle coffee shop or SoulCycle, he's like, it's just not me. I need a laptop and graphic design skills. He was patting his belly and he said, this place makes me feel like a hero. That's kind of our job. And any place we go to is to make people feel beautiful and make them feel like they're the hero of that place.

• 15:38Mike Carruthers?

  We're talking about how environment, how the place you're in affects your behavior, your thinking, how you socialize with other people. And my guest is Kevin Early, author of the book Irreplaceable: How to Create Extraordinary Places That Bring People Together.

• 15:56Speaker 04

  Pink Pantheress here. Coach and Spotify are teaming up to bring music and style together, and they want you to be part of it. Grab your friends and head to the Tabby Tour, hitting cities around the country with live performances from special artists, exclusive experiences, and personalized products. And discover custom playlists on Spotify, booked just for you based on who you are and how you listen. Live your story with Coach. Learn more at coach.com.

• 16:23Speaker 05

  Whenever fall comes back around, it always feels like a fresh start. This year, I've been layering in some styles from the new Lululemon fall drop because the weather is shifting and I find I have to be ready for the entire day and not just one part of it. Lululemon's fall line has some really versatile transitional pieces, so I can just wake up, throw on a matching set, add a jacket or a fleece, and head out, knowing that I'll feel comfortable enough to go wherever the day takes me. Check out the new fall arrivals in store and online now at lululemon.com.

• 16:53Mike Carruthers?

  So Kevin, one area of this topic we're discussing that I think is really interesting is retail, you know, shopping malls, for example. I mean, that's a tough business, it seems. People may like the experience of going to a shopping mall or going to a retail place, but they don't have to go. They can buy stuff online, have it delivered tomorrow. So yes, they're missing the experience of this perhaps wonderfully designed shopping mall, but then there is the convenience of ordering online and getting it tomorrow. So it, you know, people keep saying retail is dead and that shopping malls are dying and never coming back. What do you think?

• 17:36Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, it's interesting. I work heavily with retailers who are actually doing great. I work with a lot of restaurateurs and a lot of grocery stores who in this kind of hyper-efficient ruthless kind of a price war strategy that's out there, these brands are doing great. We just finished a new grocery store concept down in Costa Mesa, California for a Mexican grocery store chain called Mercado. Well, the grocery store chain is called Northgate Markets, but the store we developed the prototype is called Mercado. It has 20 stalls or puertas inside. It has a direct pipeline of food from Mexico, like churros

• 18:19Speaker 01

  and tortillas and just fascinating products that all come together. We're quadrupling sales than what we would do in a normal store. We have to have security turn away people because too many people coming to the place. And what it shows you is the power of when a place is done right and creates that kind of social and emotional payoff, people are willing to pay for that. That's a better business model to be in than the race to the bottom, lowest price game. Typically, there is only room in a market in our country, say in grocery. There's going to be a market for about three or four players to focus on price, which is a bit dangerous when you think about only having three or four places

• 19:03Speaker 01

  to buy your food. And that is happening in this country. We're consolidating and acquiring and getting to a point where a local grocery store can't make it unless they start looking at other dimensions. They run a different race than the price race.

• 19:20Mike Carruthers?

  But even if they run a different race than the price race, there's still the battle of people who just don't want to go to any store. I don't have to go to the store. I can, I can order pretty much anything I want online. And if I go to the store, well, I gotta put on my shoes. I've gotta drive there. I gotta find a place to park. I mean, there's, there's the convenience versus the experience.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  A perfect thing that you're hitting on is what we call work versus payoff. And this is where we find a lot of physical places, not only retailers, but institutions make a big mistake. And that is, how much work is it going to take me to go to that orchestra? Or that live theater? Or that retail shopping center? Or that restaurant? And what I mean by work and consumers define work in their head, not consciously, but subconsciously, I gotta put on clothes. I gotta drive. I gotta park. I gotta navigate crowds. To the second part of this equation is what's the payoff? What do I get for that? And those payoffs generally aren't literal transactions because you can get cheaper things on Amazon or at Walmart.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  Those payoffs, again, go back to the social emotional payoff. Those people who wait in clubs, which we've done a lot in our career, designed a lot of those venues, is that the social payoff they get for being around others is tremendous, particularly for a certain demographic, if we were to skew it to clubs, which is younger and single. And we, we have another problem in society, which is the ability to meet others in more natural, authentic ways. Many people wait in a club to get inside because that is where the dating pool is. But just getting into a club like that, that payoff is tremendous. They'll crawl through barbed wire to get to that. And those are exactly the type of dynamics we're generally trying to create is,

• 21:15Speaker 01

  what will people crawl through mud to get?

• 21:19Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I think of the Super Bowl as exactly what you're talking about. I mean, people will

• 21:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 21:24Mike Carruthers?

  go pay thousands of dollars for a seat, have to go find a place to park. I mean, all the effort to get into the Super Bowl, and you can actually see the game better at home on TV, but there's still no seats available at the Super Bowl.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  Or think of Coachella, or these other outdoor festivals, right, where people are driving out in the desert and don't have bathrooms and don't have enough food, and the sun is baking them. And I mean, it's a tremendous amount of work. But there's also, on the flip side of that, a tremendous social currency for being there. And what you're seeing, what's becoming at a premium now, is actually experiences. We are lacking experiences, and younger generations are kind of over the materialistic acquisitions. They no longer find that. They watch their parents kill themselves to acquire bigger homes, bigger cars, bigger boats. And that's not really floating their boat. And so, a

• 22:22Speaker 01

  lot of younger people no longer want a car, which is amazing. They don't want a house. What they really want are experiences. And so, they're seeking out entities that can provide a memorable experience. And they're collecting and cataloging those experiences. And if you're in the business of creating authentic, meaningful experiences, you're in high demand.

• 22:44Mike Carruthers?

  But I can't imagine that if you sit down with any relatively sophisticated businessperson, retailer, whatever, and explain this to them, and explain the importance of design and this experience thing, they're not going to go, gee, I never thought of that. I mean, people get, people kind of know this, so why aren't more people doing this?

• 23:08Speaker 01

  I spend all my days for the last 32 years in front of executives, in front of management boards. Who are generally comprised of lawyers and accountants. And I'm trying to help quantify the economic value of emotions and and social kind of aspects. Now, fortunately, we have thirty two years of case studies of game changing concepts where we can show here's what it did before and here's what it does after. We can almost always increase sales and I'm only focusing on sales. There's also visitor counts, engagement, experimentation, a variety of other factors. But we can, we can increase sales at minimum eighteen percent, but we can increase sales

• 23:48Speaker 01

  up to eighty six percent without changing the product, the price, the service, anything other than the environment. So it's a pretty compelling case study that you can see over and over. And so business people do understand it. I think the challenge they have is letting go of this, this old idea of business and this new idea of things becoming much more commoditized. And they're trying to figure out how to play in this new reality. An example I'd give you, you know, in the nineteen eighties and nineties, you could have the mattress warehouse and you could be the biggest mattress supplier in the community or the biggest leather couch supplier. That was great until Google came along.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  Now there's eight hundred million websites for mattresses, literally. And so you can no longer be the biggest mattress warehouse anymore. But a lot of people haven't let go of that model.

• 24:42Mike Carruthers?

  What about in a workplace? And I'm thinking more like in industrial, like in a warehouse. Do we really need to go for the experience? Or should we just be efficient? This is where this is, this is where this is, and this is an efficient place to work, rather than this is a great experience to work?

• 25:04Speaker 01

  Well, the most important thing is to to create an environment where they want to be, first of all, because they'll tend to be there more often and they will show up there with their full game on. And so we work a lot in the office market and the warehousing of employees is really a big turnoff and we've almost seen a employee revolt where they won't be going back to the office. But there are ways to bring people to the office and to warehouses by creating an environment they want to be in. Part of that environment has to do with opportunities to socialize with others, to be around their peers. And so we're really kind of shifting the mindset from warehouses of workers to really forts and clubhouses of community minded peers.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  And so we're constantly looking at how can we create that? And even though we were kind of mushroomed and blew up for a long time, it did a great job of bringing people together around their peers, something they could have done at home, but they felt better by being around a bunch of other people. Work makes so much of our identity and so much of our lives are committed to work that we need places that express that.

• 26:11Mike Carruthers?

  But how would you do that? How would you do that? Give me like a specific example of how you make this happen?

• 26:18Speaker 01

  Well, I'm, we go to go to different sectors, but in say in the office world, the cubicle farm is not working. Most people don't want a cubicle farm. They're really looking at it at a way to go, well, what, who do I become if I come to this place? What will happen to me? And what we're trying to, in those areas, we're trying to create war rooms and developmental things that say you will be a much better equipped individual if you come to this environment. So we might have, you know, the cliche playrooms and socializing rooms, but we also are trying to show them how they will socially develop and even develop their knowledge through a place. So our building becomes a tour of what will happen to people.

• 26:59Mike Carruthers?

  But the, the idea of the cubicle, I get that that sucks, but, but then there's been this like open office, just take whatever computers available and people seem to hate that too.

• 27:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the hot seat idea, which doesn't allow individuals to individualize their space. And it is very important as humans that we like to personalize our space. You know, we need that. If we go to a restaurant out on a patio or plaza, we'll move a chair just to move it to make us feel good. And so we definitely have to allow people to personalize their space, which again is part of expressing their identity. So I'm speaking more than just open space. A lot of the offices we're involved with now aren't going to be meeting every day. There are places that you come together once or twice a week, and we are designing them around allowing people to brainstorm together, to have creative discussions. I use the word war room, but allow them to collaborate with others because we have

• 27:55Speaker 01

  to give them something they can't do at home. And most homes aren't designed for collaboration.

• 28:01Mike Carruthers?

  Well, this is great to bring this whole topic out in the open because I think everyone has experienced that feeling of going into different environments and having those environments affect you in different ways and affect your behavior, affect what you think. I just, I like talking about it. I've been speaking with Kevin Irvin Kelly. He is an award winning architect, and he is author of the book Irreplaceable: How to Create Extraordinary Places That Bring People Together. And there is a link to his book at Amazon in the show notes. Appreciate you coming on. Thanks, Kevin.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  Thanks, Mike. It's been a pleasure being on your show. I think the world of it. Thank you for having me.

• 28:42Speaker 04

  Pink Pantheress here. Coach and Spotify are teaming up to bring music and style together, and they want you to be part of it. Grab your friends and head to the Tabby Tour, hitting cities around the country with live performances from special artists, exclusive experiences, and personalized products. And discover custom playlists on Spotify, booked just for you based on who you are and how you listen. Live your story with Coach. Learn more at coach.com.

• 29:09Speaker 05

  Whenever fall comes back around, it always feels like a fresh start. This year, I've been layering in some styles from the new Lululemon fall drop because the weather is shifting and I find I have to be ready for the entire day and not just one part of it. Lululemon's fall line has some really versatile transitional pieces, so I can just wake up, throw on a matching set, add a jacket or a fleece, and head out, knowing that I'll feel comfortable enough to go wherever the day takes me. Check out the new fall arrivals in store and online now at lululemon.com.

• 29:42Mike Carruthers?

  There are certainly famous moments in history. You learned about them in school. There are also some not-so-famous moments in history. Still interesting, still important, some very recent and contemporary, just maybe not as monumental. And that's what Michael Farquhar talks about and writes about. Michael is former writer and editor at The Washington Post and the bestselling author of numerous books, including Bad Days in History: A Gleefully Grim Chronicle of Misfortune, Mayhem, and Misery for Every Day of the Year, and More Bad Days in History. Hi, Michael. Welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 30:23Speaker 02

  Mike, thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate it. This is a great show, and I'm honored to be on.

• 30:30Mike Carruthers?

  So where do you find these things? Where do you come up with all these kind of tragic, horrible, little-known historical stories?

• 30:40Speaker 02

  So I go in the musty old files and find the great stories that you never learned about in history class, the ones that are weird, offbeat. That's kind of my gig, reporter of history.

• 30:52Mike Carruthers?

  So let's start with something fairly current in historical terms, and that's the history of the Best New Artist Grammy that's given each year to some promising and seemingly successful new singer or group. But the history of the award itself is interesting.

• 31:11Speaker 02

  Well, the winner in 1977 was that band, Starland Vocal Band. Remember them?

• 31:19Mike Carruthers?

  Sure. Sky rockets in flight, afternoon delight.

• 31:23Speaker 02

  One of the foursome called winning that Grammy "The Kiss of Death," and it really has been for a lot of people. They won it in 1977. They were followed the next year by Debbie Boone.

• 31:39Speaker 02

  Remember her, you light up my life?

• 31:41Mike Carruthers?

  Yep.

• 31:42Speaker 02

  Year after that, A Taste of Honey, Remember Them? It's all one-hit wonders. And then there was what the Washington Post called the Curse of Christopher Cross, who won in, who won in quotes in 1981. The Post said something like, he released more than a dozen albums after his win, yet his own parents could probably not pick him out of a lineup. And then there was the most infamous one of all, which was Milli Vanilli, who won the Best New Artist in 1990. And as it turns out, they had, they hadn't even sung on it, as, as people probably remember. So there's nothing glorious about this, this award, this honor to be the Best New Artist.

• 32:25Speaker 02

  It really ends up in failure most of the time.

• 32:30Mike Carruthers?

  Let's go back a little further in history and, and talk about, and I do remember hearing about this, I think in, in high school history, about the molasses in Boston.

• 32:42Speaker 02

  That's an incredible event. And it is something that, you know, you may have heard something about it. So that was back in 1919 in January. It was a very warm day for January, especially in Boston. And this alcohol company on the North End had the, this massive, huge storage tank for molasses, which, raw molasses, which I guess is the raw material for alcohol. And people could, started hearing something like a train rumbling. And then all of a sudden, like machine gun rat-a-tat-tats, which turned out to be the rivets from the tank popping. And the tank exploded.

• 33:28Speaker 02

  Two million gallons of raw molasses created a wave about eight to 15 feet high.

• 33:35Speaker 02

  Smashing everything in its way, people knocking houses off their foundations, horses struggling in the muck. And it became one of the most infamous events in Boston history. And the death count was about 123 people. The tidal wave or the tsunami of molasses was about eight to 15 feet high. With molasses being 10 times heavier than water, the destruction was just incalculable. The interesting thing is, is that on a hot day,

• 34:15Speaker 02

  people swear still to this day that they can still smell molasses in that area, which is now a park.

• 34:23Mike Carruthers?

  Was there any discovery of why that thing blew up?

• 34:28Speaker 02

  Shawty construction. The company kind of claimed that it had been sabotaged by anarchists. But it was eventually proven that they had just done a really lousy job of building and maintaining this huge storage tank. So they were found liable, but it took a long time, actually. It was just, you know, one of those examples of wasn't built right.

• 34:51Mike Carruthers?

  Let's go back to the night because I found this really interesting, the night that Lincoln was shot. Because I think most people believe it was a sole event that John Wilkes Booth plotted and shot Lincoln. But it was part of a bigger plot that I don't recall hearing about before. So you tell the story.

• 35:16Speaker 02

  Well, it's really interesting. Booth was the mastermind of this plot. And you're right, it wasn't just to kill Lincoln. It was to decapitate the entire government. So they were going to kill Vice President Johnson. They were going to kill Secretary of State Seward. Looked like Ulysses Grant was in line to be killed. This was all Booth and his cohorts. So the night that Booth went to Ford Theater and did his dirty deed, another of his accomplices, a guy named Louis Payne, also known as Louis Powell, big hulking monster of a guy, went to the home, nearby home of Seward, Secretary of State Seward.

• 36:01Speaker 02

  And kind of knocked on the door posing as a messenger, but it was like 10 at night. So the servant wouldn't let him in. So he barges his way in, doesn't care. Just, I mean, he was 6'2", 6'3", huge, huge guy. And he just battered the servant. Seward's son sees him and starts to try to stop him. And Payne just pummeled him with the gun butt, smashed his skull, literally almost killed him. He was the one most grievously injured, other than his dad, who was in his sick bed at the time from a carriage accident several weeks earlier.

• 36:46Speaker 02

  So the assassin Payne leaps on the bed of Seward and starts stabbing him. Fortunately, he practically tore his cheek off with the knife. But fortunately, there was a metal brace around his neck to stabilize his jaw from the accident, which probably saved his life. Before he was finished with Seward, though, a guard in the room was stabbed. Another son of Seward's was stabbed. The only person that died, however, ironically, after this bloodbath of bludgeoning and stabbing, was Mrs. Seward. She died of, they really truly believed stress of the event.

• 37:29Speaker 02

  Two months later, she was the sole casualty. As for killing Johnson that night, the assassin assigned to that guy named George Atzerot, he chickened out, got drunk instead and missed his quarry. Nevertheless, he and Louis Payne, Mary Sarat, and another guy that was with Booth on the night of the assassin were hung that July.

• 37:56Mike Carruthers?

  I think in contemporary histories, anybody who listens to music knows that Pete Best used to be, was the original drummer of the Beatles and was replaced by Ringo. And everybody feels bad for poor Pete Best, but what happened?

• 38:12Speaker 02

  There's several stories that happened. He got canned in 1962, just as they were about to break. I mean, they had all paid their dues at Hamburg, as is well-known, and worked really hard to get where they were going. As it turns out, the three, George, Paul, John, were really good buddies. They hung out, they partied. Pete Best was kind of aloof from the rest of them, so they weren't really good friends. The first step towards his elimination was the famous engineer, George Martin, who orchestrated

• 38:54Speaker 02

  all the Beatles music, used another drummer, because he didn't think Pete Best had the chops. And then what happened was, the other guys were like, "Well, he's not a pro, we don't need him anymore." And they didn't really like it. It wasn't like they were firing their buddy, they were just firing somebody that wasn't working out. John Lennon did say, "We were really cowardly. We had our manager, Brian Epstein, do the firing. We went about it wrong." But that's what happened. And for years, Pete Best said he was just devastated and near suicidal over the whole thing. And then, he got, as he aged, pretty philosophical. He just said, "Look, you know, these guys, they became a public commodity.

• 39:39Speaker 02

  Fame destroyed them." I mean, it took John Lennon's life. So, he achieved a certain level of peace in the end, but it wasn't easy. It wasn't easy to get there.

• 39:50Mike Carruthers?

  Let's talk about the opening of Disneyland, because I think, anybody who's been to Disney World or Disneyland, usually the experience is fairly pleasant. I mean, there's a lot of people there, but it seems to go fairly flawlessly, but opening day was quite another story.

• 40:11Speaker 02

  Geez, it was a fiasco. I mean, Walt Disney called it Black Friday, and this was in 1955. So this is their first major foray into the theme park world. And everything that could have gone wrong did. They, there were counterfeit tickets, so the place was packed. It was over 100 degrees. The tar on Main Street was, was turning to goo, sucking off people's shoes. All the crowds were, the enormous crowds, holding the counterfeit tickets, all tried to get on the, you know, Mark Twain's riverboat, tipped it over, no water fountains. The Fantasyland had a gas leak, they had to close that down.

• 40:57Speaker 02

  And some reporter just said Walter's dream became a nightmare that day. And the worst part of it was, it was all, it was on live TV in front of like 90 million viewers. Everything that could have gone wrong that day did.

• 41:14Mike Carruthers?

  Francis Scott Keyes, as everybody knows, he wrote the Star Spangled Banner, but his son, his son had a different path, so talk about that.

• 41:25Speaker 02

  His son was this guy Philip Barton Key, and he made the mistake of fooling around with the wife of Representative Daniel Sickles, who was a kind of an Henry Cuss. And somebody gave, and this, this, these rendezvous would happen right in front of the White House at Lafayette Park. There were, there are houses that surround it, and that's where Sickles lived, the congressman, with his wife, Teresa. And Key would show up across the park waving a red handkerchief to show that he was ready for action, and she would either open the shutter or close the shutter. Anyway, long story short, he got busted.

• 42:09Speaker 02

  And the one day, in 1859, when he waved his flag, handkerchief, it was Sickles who came running out of the house, wielding a, you know, a revolver, started shooting at him, broad daylight, chasing him all around the park, shooting him, hitting him, and then finally, you know, the fatal blow. Right in front of the White House. And President Buchanan was a pretty good friend of Sickles and tried to cover it up. But Sickles was was unashamed. He was like, ah, I did it. He, you know, he violated my bed and that's that. As a matter of fact, when he went to trial for murder, he was the first to ever use the

• 42:51Speaker 02

  temporary insanity defense and it worked. He got off and the the crowds, the public were completely with him until he reconciled with the adulterous wife. That was unacceptable to people and they turned on them both as a couple. The kicker to that story is that in the civil, in the subsequent Civil War, Sickles got his leg shot off and that now resides not too far away from where he killed Key in the National Museum of Health and Medicine.

• 43:24Mike Carruthers?

  Let's talk about what happened to the creators of Superman, Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster. Because, you know, I remember Superman. Well, I, you know, I still like Superman. I like the movies. I was always a reader of the comic books. These guys started Superman as a superhero and started a whole superhero thing, but they got the short end of the stick.

• 43:47Speaker 02

  They had worked for years and years. They're both outcasts, but they had created this incredible hero, superhero, and conjured the whole story, the backstory, but nobody was buying it. No comic books would publish them. So finally, DC Comics agreed to publish it, but wanted to own the rights. So in desperation, Siegel and Schuster sold all rights to Superman for $130 in 1938. And that was to be split between them. And on the check, their names were spelt wrong. The hundred and thirty dollar check, which ironically

• 44:31Speaker 02

  later sold at auction for a hundred and sixty thousand dollars. So these guys, they were kind of lived in obscurity, semi-poverty for the rest of their lives. The Warner Company that took took over DC Comics at one point, took some measure of pity on them and gave them a stipend for the remainder of their life, took care of their healthcare, et cetera. Just to think what they what they settled for and the fact that that very first comic, Superman comic, was sold for two million dollars in two thousand and eleven. Sad story, actually.

• 45:10Mike Carruthers?

  The story of Melvin Purvis of the FBI. He was an FBI agent. The kind of an FBI agent superstar. And I think a lot of people have heard of him. And I think he's been, you know, portrayed in in the movies and whatnot. Explain his story.

• 45:28Speaker 02

  Well, this is back in nineteen thirty four. There's gang wars and one of the most famous was Dillinger, as everybody probably remembers. And it was Melvin Purvis, FBI guy in Chicago, who took him out finally. The only problem with that was that he became a he became a hero as a result of killing Dillinger. But his boss, J. Edgar Hoover, did not appreciate the acclaim that he was receiving because Hoover believed all FBI honors should be bestowed on him.

• 46:10Speaker 02

  And he had really always liked Melvin Purvis. So he had taken him under his wing. He had advanced his career. But when this happened, he turned on him like a cobra and did everything in his power. And he had a lot of power to ruin him. So Purvis left the FBI within a year. And Hoover never relented in trying to darken his legacy and prevent and prevent him from getting any kind of reasonable job. And in nineteen sixty.

• 46:44Speaker 02

  Whether it was deliberate or an accident, Hervish shot himself and killed himself. And there was kind of a gloating memo from Hoover. No mention of his accomplishments, no mention of his stellar career with the FBI. Just kind of more of a, yeah, a weakling. He definitively called it suicide when there was no reason to believe that. Just to darken his legacy. All because he stole Hoover's thunder. Not even deliberately, he just did his job, but Hoover didn't like it. It was just raw jealousy.

• 47:19Mike Carruthers?

  Lastly, and this is one I think a lot of people will remember. And that is the AOL Time Warner merger. Because here you've got AOL, which is just basically like a startup. And then you've got Time Warner. And then the company becomes AOL Time Warner. Just seemed weird.

• 47:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, that's one of the greatest of the legion of corporate blunders of history. You know, New Coke and Enron's Code of Ethics. This one was, this one probably topped them all. AOL was just kind of a startup. And even though it looked like it was beginning to dominate new technology, hidden behind it were a lot of weaknesses. Dial-up was already going out, the tech bubble was bursting. And this is when, this is when Time Warner decides to allow themselves to be taken over by AOL. The biggest sap in this whole thing was Ted Turner. Ted Turner had 100 million shares in Time Warner, which he was happy to have AOL take over.

• 48:24Speaker 02

  And he actually was quoted as saying, you know, "I did this with as much enthusiasm as I did on the first night I made love 42 years ago." He lost $8 billion. This thing just was a, this merger was a fiasco. And looking back on it, it's one of the biggest disasters that have occurred in our country, which is a little bit dramatic, but for him personal, it was a fiasco and it died a overdue death.

• 48:53Mike Carruthers?

  And what happened? AOL still exists, but it's not part of-

• 48:58Speaker 02

  AOL didn't have any of the revenue that they claimed to. I mean, there was all sorts of SCC, Security Exchange Commission investigations and these, The Washington Post did most of the reporting on this and it was just, there was lots of smoke and mirrors and very little, very little profit from advertising that that they had said that there was, that they had. And plus, you know, dial up as dial up internet was on the way out and then the tech bubble burst and it all kind of happened at once. The two sides AOL and Time Warner, even when they were still together, just hated each other.

• 49:39Speaker 02

  Lots of people at Time Warner lost their jobs, their pensions, and it was just a, it was a nasty marriage from the get-go. And so they split, you know, they, they split back into separate entities and AOL is now look at them.

• 49:54Mike Carruthers?

  Well, of course, we could go on and on and on with all of these little-known and fascinating historical stories, but I'm afraid we're gonna have to stop here. I've been speaking with Michael Farquhar, who is a former writer and editor at The Washington Post and author of a lot of books, including Bad Days in History and More Bad Days in History. And there's links to those books in the show notes. This was, this was really interesting and a lot of fun. Thank you, Michael.

• 50:22Speaker 02

  Mike, thank you. I really appreciate again you having me on. This is very generous of you.

• 50:27Mike Carruthers?

  There's something I know you know about. You may even know it word for word, and it is the Miranda warning that describes your Miranda rights. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney and to have an attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided to you at government expense. What you may not know about your Miranda warning is Miranda was a real guy. Ernesto Miranda, he was arrested in 1963 for armed robbery of a bank worker.

• 51:08Mike Carruthers?

  Ernesto was no angel, and he liked to talk, a lot. He not only confessed to the bank robbery, but to a long list of evil deeds, including kidnapping and rape. Although Ernesto was convicted, his lawyers contested the ruling, claiming he didn't understand that he could have stopped talking. The case was overturned, and it changed the way law enforcement handled those arrested for crimes. Ernesto Miranda's case was eventually retried. He was ultimately convicted and served 11 years in prison. He got out in 1972 and was stabbed to death in a bar fight in 1976 at the age of 34. And that is something you should know.

• 51:52Mike Carruthers?

  I got a great email the other day from someone who said, "I hear you ask us to tell our friends about something you should know." He said, "I have 10 friends. I've told every single one of them and gotten them to listen. I'm out of friends. I can't do any more for you." I love that. But if you still have friends that have not heard of something you should know, I invite you to tell them, share a link, ask them to listen to an episode, so they too will become a listener. Something You Should Know is, well, it's hosted by me, but we also have some great people behind the scenes who you never hear, but I would like to tell you their names. Jeff Havison and Jennifer Brennan are our producers. Ken Williams is the executive producer. And I am Mike Carruthers.

• 52:37Mike Carruthers?

  Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

• 52:39Speaker 04

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• 53:09Speaker 06

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