Let's Go to Camp... David!

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“Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.”

Hey, I'm welcome to the podcast, I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, and

this is stuff you should know about Camp David.

That's right, it's about Camp David, but we're going to quickly mention that we are going on a cruise, everybody, a virgin cruise, the voyage is the big apple to bermuda, and it is an adult's only cruise wherein you can cruise with us. Here are live podcasts, here stuff they don't want you to know, and some of our other colleagues live podcasts, and hang out with us and do there's like other events on board.

It's going to be a lot of fun. Yeah, it's going to be a huge amount of fun. I think you just go to virginvoyages.com or you search stuff at sea, and it will take you where you need to go to register for this cruise. That's right.

That's right. This is correct, and I'm already working on my tan and trying to drop a couple of pounds. Mm-hmm. To make sure I'm see where that is. That's about it.

“Are you practicing shuffle board, practicing shuffle board, and cards?”

How many hats will you be bringing? In all seriousness, I will definitely bring my smaller kind of cool straw hat, and probably my big, big sunshade straw hat. Okay. Good.

It may be a baseball cap. Nice. Yeah. That big, that big floppy sunshade hat that says, "Do not disturb on it?" No, no, no.

It says bikini inspector. Federal bikini inspector? Yeah, that's it. I couldn't remember what it was. Oh man.

Well, it's funny that you mentioned federal anything, because we're talking about the federal government, and this is the best segue we could come up with. Don't David is this rustic retreat that the president of the United States is able to use to get away, ride horses, spend Christmas, try to broker peace in the Middle East to the usual stuff.

Yeah.

“I recquisitioned this from, I think this is Libya, oh, it's got to be because of the title.”

Yep. The way camp for various serious grownups, and I really love what she came up with, and I love this episode already because I am a person that is, I don't know where it came from, but I am really interested in operations, and like operations, like how things operate.

Like if I go to, like, Cirque de Soleil, I'm well by the thing, or Broadway show, but half of my brain is obsessed with how it all works. And how they do what they do. And now I feel like I really understand not only the history of Camp David, but kind of a little behind the scenes of how it all goes down, and I just for some reason I love

that stuff. Yeah. No, I know that about you. Although just now I thought you were talking about operations, like swapping an arm in a leg or something, because that is interesting.

Or the game operation. Yeah. Uh, so Chuck, these operations that you're fascinated by take place in Kettockton Mountain Park, it's in the Blue Ridge Mountains, it's in Western Maryland, and we're not supposed

sure you could find Camp David, but at least initially, when the first president Franklin

“Delano Roosevelt took over, it was meant to be like a top secret place.”

Yeah.

But it wasn't always a presidential retreat, it started out, um, I guess under FDR is a

New Deal project, initially, that's right. In the 1930s, um, we kind of were able to look around at things like the Dust Bowl and say, hey, um, we've done a pretty bad job with a lot of our agricultural practices, and there's been, you know, I haven't treated our land as well as we should. So the federal government said, let's buy up some, uh, what they called sub marginal

lands around the country, and see if we can rehabilitate them, see if we can do other stuff with them. And this was one of those areas. It was in 1936 when they purchased about 10,000 acres, uh, in the, uh, Katatkin mountains, it's about 55 miles from DC, and the soil was pretty ruined there, just like I said,

from bad agricultural practices and industrial purposes over the years, but it was in a nice area. It was like, lovely countryside, lovely forest, you know, creeks and streams and ponds, and all kinds of like great stuff to recreate around. Yeah, as long as you didn't look too close at the three-eyed fishes and stuff like that,

you're like, this place is amazing.

Exactly. So the government took over, they renamed the area, the recry, the Katatkin recreational demonstration area, which is a great name. Yeah. It almost, like this early part of it sounds almost Soviet.

Yeah, it does. The, um, the work's progress administration in civilian conservation core built camps there, some of the original, um, idea of, uh, was that it was going to be a recreation area for federal workers and their families.

“The only way it could have got more soviet is if, like, it did use brutalist architecture.”

Yeah, which didn't really fit in those lovely green woods. No. But, uh, FDR, he was like, that's great. I'm glad you guys are doing that. I'm going to be out here cruising on the presidential yacht, the USS Potomac, and it was

known as the Floating White House. There's another one still today called the Sikomore that I think is JFK's presidential yacht. You mean I looked into, you can rent it for events and we were going to, um, have our wedding on it.

Oh, wow.

It holds like a limited number of people and we could never get the guest list down.

So we're like, oh, we're just going to go a loop. Yeah. That's a good idea, uh, to a loop that is. Thanks. Uh, yeah.

I don't have things like that anymore because by the time the second World War rolled around, they're like, maybe having all these important people, like floating out in the middle of the ocean is in a great idea. Um, and FDR was looking also to get away to some place that was a little cooler in the summer.

Sure. Uh, because he had bad sign as problems. And I don't think we mentioned the name of this one particular camp inside this larger area that would become Camp David was originally, um, finished in 1938. It was called Camp High, Katatkin, uh, HIV- Katatkin.

And so by the time FDR is like, all right, I can't be on that boat. I got to go somewhere that's good for my sign.

“It's, uh, he said, you know, let me see what what do you got within 100 miles of DC?”

Mm-hmm. And in April of 1942, they can't took him to camp high, Katatkin. And he was like, hey, this, this seems okay. He says this is fine. Yeah.

What's funny about that is apparently it was also a secret site. Around the same time for the OSS, the predecessor of the CIA for training spies in like, close quarter pistol combat. There was something called the House of Horses. There's a cool little, um, uh, Atlas Obscure article about it.

Wow. Where you would go into this, like, haunted house and they, like, instead of ghosts, they were pop up cardboard Nazis and scary sounds and conversation being played. And like, the, the hallways were angled in weird ways and it was dark. So it was very disorienting and, uh, you had to kill every Nazi in the place.

Or else they would kill you because you knew too much by that time probably. That's right. So that's just a weird coincidence. Um, or so. So the, obviously the presidential yacht was, um, was run by the Navy.

And so they said, all right, why don't we just let the Navy run this new retreat since they're in the sort of retreat business, uh, even though has nothing to do with being on the water. And it was, um, launched as an installation called the Naval Support Facility Thermont. And Thermont is the, the, the name of the area.

When they hatched the idea for, like, Roosevelt to start going there, they wouldn't say, all right, well, we're going to place a hundred Marines there, uh, we're going to put up a security fence with an alarm on it. And he said, we also got to change this name.

Right. So I read this book, uh, lost horizon by James Hilton, and he talked about the Himalayan Utopia of Shangri-La, and that sounds really cool. So, um, let's rename it Shangri-La, and they said, well, you're the president. I guess we have to.

They're like, we think that's terrible, but okay. Yeah. Yeah. Apparently that book is where the, like, the name Shangri-La came from. It was like super popular book.

Have you read it? I have not. Neither of I.

“So, um, it wasn't until, I think, 1942, that FDR started using the camp.”

Uh, of course he, uh, very frequently used the wheelchair, so they, uh, basically made

it ADA compliant before there was such a thing as ADA. Yeah. And, um, he was like, all right, I can't remember the Shangri-La. Let's keep this role I'm on going. I'm going to call the presidential cabin, the bears den, and everyone's like, you're

president again, and they call it the bears den. That's right. They initially spent about, uh, close to 19 grandfix in the place up. And, uh, they had a little doghouse, uh, next door for his dogfala, which is really cute. And so he would go there and, and chill out at Shangri-La, I can't wait till they

change that name, by the way. And, um, also started the practice of what would become a thing of hosting foreign leaders there, and kind of like, you know, getting away from the rat race in DC, um, legend has it that he and Winston Churchill, uh, planned, I don't know if it's legend. I think that part is fact planned.

Some of the D-Day invasion, from one of the cabin porches there, yeah. And, like, would sit around and drink bourbon and smoke cigars, do a little fishing.

“Uh, I think this is the legend, apparently, on one of the trips, um, they were driving”

back to DC, and they made a stop at a restaurant in Thermont called the Kozi restaurant,

because Churchill had heard of these, uh, jukeboxes, and he'd never seen a jukebox.

So, apparently, they stopped there, Churchill went in and got a beer, and just marveled at the jukebox. You're right. Yeah, and the Kozi restaurant was around till 2014, it was legendary because, I mean, if you were, you know, not quite, um, of high enough status to actually stay at Camp David,

you stayed in Thermont, and you probably ate at the Kozi restaurant. So, it was around for years. You could see Churchill there, apparently. You could. Yeah, can you just see him like, to standing over the jukebox, you know, as a marise?

Just like laughing. Look at these things. It's flipping records. Um, so, uh, you want to take a break, and then come back and talk about, uh, Camp David? Sure.

Let's do it. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged, it's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque, others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcasts superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games, and with

the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to superhuman on the iHard radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

“Do you remember when Diana Ross, double tap little Kim's boobs at the VMAs?”

Oh, when Kyle Hay said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do a little Kim? Well, you can find out on the look back at a podcast. I'm Sam J.

And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill, waxing all about crack in the eights.

To be clear, 84 was big to me, not just 'cause of crack. I'm down to talk about crack all day, but yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, no. Just so you all know, I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line.

We also have eights on the table. So, you're fishing as sensitive and yes, I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah.

For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history.

Listen to look back at it on the Ihard radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Robert from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind Podcasts. Joe and I are both lifelong Star Wars fans. So we're celebrating May the 4th with a brand new week of fun, thought provoking Star

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you get your podcasts.

Rustic keeps getting battered around as a word to describe camp David, and today it's still

used, but apparently back in FDR's time at the beginning of all this, it was rustic. And then when FDR died in 1945, Harry Truman, who's tasted not run to the rustic, instead

“he like to hang out at the little White House on Key West, rather than in the woods outside”

of DC, he was a good custodian of it, I guess. He ordered like the brush to be cleared back, and he ordered heating system to be put in so it could be used year round before it had only been used during the nice, nice months out of the year, but he didn't use it very much. Now, you know, it seems reading through the history that how you view camp David, if you

are president, kind of goes back to like what you're into. And the people that enjoyed it seem like people that were like, yeah, I love going, like people that are probably like being in the woods and that kind of scene.

And if you're not into that kind of scene, like you said Truman, I guess he was a beach guy

because he liked Key West and our current president very famously kind of hates camp David, because we see his taste, and it's certainly not rustic cabin in the woods kind of thing. And you've seen other presidents that go there and like seem like they have a really, really great time. And we're going to get into some of that, but it's just interesting, like it's sort of foisted upon you as president.

It's like, all right, here's your camp and half of them seem very like, I'm not really into this kind of thing.

“Yeah, I think a significant number just keeps their mouth shut about it, but don't really”

enjoy it very much, but yes, it is expected of you to visit Camp David at some point in time during your presidency. But yeah, some of them definitely appreciated it more than others. Ike Eisenhower, Dwight D. Eisenhower, when he took over in 1953, he was like, this is a needless luxury, let's get rid of it.

Yeah, he seemed like he didn't maybe love it, but his attorney general Herbert Brownwell, he went there for an inspection and he's a guy who loves that kind of thing. He loved it and he came back and he sent sort of a joke that seems like it was like, but I'm kind of serious, a petition for executive clemency, and so Eisenhower's like, how are you trying to keep Camp David?

We should mention that it's a part of a almost 5,900 acre area that Katatkin Mountain Park, but it's only about 150 acres of that, Libby found other, and I did two, some other sizes, potentially for the size of Camp David, like 143, 180, 125, 200.

“She said it was oddly inconsistent, but I have a feeling that made just be part of the sort”

of subterfuge of not given away too much. Sure, sure, maybe not, but, you know, it's somewhere between, let's say, 140 and 200 acres. All right, I'll go along with that. All right, you're in for that? Have you referenced that Eisenhower-related and didn't get rid of what was still called

Shangri-La at the time? Yeah. He said that the name Shangri-La was, quote, just a little fancy for Kansas Farm Boy, so he renamed it Camp David, and we can stop saying Shangri-La now, Chuck. Yeah.

And he named it Camp David after his five-year-old grandson, who scholars now realize was the one calling the shots during the Eisenhower administration. Interesting, that's very funny, by the way, but interestingly, that guy, the grandson, David, now runs the Institute for Public Service at University of Pennsylvania School for Communications, and teaches, of course, called "communication in the presidency."

So that's kind of cool, and I bet you, at the first day of class, he was like, "Yes,

I'm that David." I'm that David, yes. Yeah. One other thing about Eisenhower, the president, he was the one that wore in the country and his farewell address about the growing threat of a military industrial complex.

He was actually a pretty sharp dude who had the shot taken. The country at heart. Yeah. I mean, he was sharp enough to not wanted to drive there to 55 miles, because he had a helicopter pad built on the site.

So now it's just a half an hour to get there on, I guess, the Marine one. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. And he said, "We should also have some more fun stuff to do here." So let's put in a screening room, a little movie theater, let's put it in a bowling alley.

Let's put in a golf course, and they're like, "We can't put a whole golf course." He was like, "Just one hole." And they said, "Sure, we'll put in a golf hole. It'll have some different T-boxes to give it a little variation." And he said, "Well, while on name and rename and things, this presidential cabin, I don't

And he changed it to Aspen and honor of Colorado, where his wife, Mimi grew up, and then

that started the tradition of naming all the camps, cabins after trees. Yes. Which still goes on today. It's a long-standing tradition, yeah, it goes back to the 50s, apparently. One of the other things that I don't know if Eisenhower ordered it, or if they were just

like this needs to happen, there was a construction of a bomb shelter in case of nuclear war. Because again, this is the 50s, and the Cold War was really heating up, I guess. It could accommodate 50 presidential employees. I saw as much as 150 defense staffers.

Oh, wow. The war broke out, and it was a bomb shelter's underselling it. It was a call the presidential relocation spot, and I don't remember the last word, but spot will do, where you could run the country out of underground, essentially. And it's still there today, and we'll talk a little bit more about it later, but one

of the things that I found interesting is that when Richard Nixon came along, he ordered a heated swimming pool to be built right next to the presidential cabin, and I guess the only place to put it was right smack dab on top of the bomb shelter. And it cost like 260 grand in early 1970s money to reinforce the bomb shelter, so the pool could put on top of it.

That's just so Nixon. Yeah, it's kind of cool, though. It's a cool looking pool. It's a little figure eight, and as we'll learn, I guess we're going to learn it right now.

There aren't a ton of pictures of Camp David. I wouldn't say it's veiled in secrecy, but they don't put a ton of stuff out there.

The press has never really been allowed there.

It's like a true retreat, so the only pictures that have ever been put out are when it administration, and it's like Obama, I was like, hey, put out this picture of me doing a water gun fight at the pool with my daughters, because it's super cool. And I look awesome. And he was looking over the photographer's shoulders, as they were sitting through, and he's

like that one. That one, that one. I look pretty cool.

“Yeah, he's like, can you do something that about my 11s in my crow seat?”

He said, you need this port. So Nixon put in the swimming pool, and then he also is responsible for building the laurel lodge, which is the biggest building there. That's where a lot of the meetings are held, a lot of the bigger dinners are there. And it replaced the previous laurel lodge, which is smaller, obviously.

And that one was renamed Holly, the Holly lodge, and then Reagan came along as a religious guy. It was like, we need a chapel here. We need a non-denominational chapel. Really?

Well, what, really did he ask for that, or that they needed one? That you're not going to say it like Ronald Reagan. Well, okay. That's all I'm going to say. All right, that's good.

So that he got that going, but it didn't actually open until HW Bush's administration. And it's called the Evergreen Chapel, previous to that, if you were a religious president, like George Zone-Jimmy Carter, very famously religious, he would hold sunny services in Hickory Lodge. Yeah, apparently there was only one wedding, which kind of surprised me, and that was,

yes. HW Bush's daughter, Doro, and you guys looked into it. You couldn't get the guest list down. We couldn't find the place. Yeah, that was a problem.

“Maybe a George HW Bush's son, he spent a lot of time, I think, both HW and W Bush,”

both spent Christmas's at Camp David. Yeah, they loved it. Yeah. And as W's term was coming to an end, he had the basketball court refurbished for his successor Barack Obama, because Barack Obama famously loved basketball.

Man, what a class act, right? What a different time, you know? It's crazy. Yeah, all right, moving on. So we mentioned earlier, like, you know, it's a retreat for sure, but it's also where some

very famous diplomatic meetings have taken place. And that started in 1959 when Ike is Josh Calsham, because you're so friendly to each other. He invited Krushchev there, so be it from your Krushchev, to, you know, do what you do there, which is like get a little more informal setting, get people out of the rat race

of DC and try and connect a little more personally.

And that's always sort of in the reason why they take people there.

And so Krushchev sort of like, Churchill was just sat around and got to the jukebox at the cozy restaurant, apparently Krushchev was just marveled at the bowling alley's automatic pinceter. Yeah. I call Krushchev Nikki.

“I think he just, yeah, well, he says, call me Nikki, when he's bowling.”

But he just kept saying, he says on his bowling shirt, that's the jukebox, he keeps saying,

Very nice.

“Did I send this to you that little, the little extra stuff about the bomb shelter?”

No.

So well, on top of the pool, or under the pool, it wouldn't, on top of the pool be a very

bad place for a boxer. That's right. They, they were building this when Krushchev came and visited the shelter in 59. Yeah. What's that over there?

They didn't want to be doing that. So they built a deck over it back was temporary, but didn't look temporary, over the big hole that they'd excavate that, they hid all the excavated dirt and there's pictures of Krushchev on the deck waving clearly doesn't know what he's standing on top of. He said, the someone here, echo, every time I speak, in Soviet Russia, echo here's you.

Oh, man, that's a good back to like that. The echo thing, hearing, no building this building the deck, it seems like something out of like a zany comedy or something. It totally does. I could see Peter Seller's like rushing around.

Yeah, I had a strange little vibe too. And then on the opposite end of the spectrum, though, some foreign dignitaries and leaders

“did not enjoy going to Camp David, Harold McMillan, who was prime minister of the UK during”

Ike's term, he did not like going because apparently I could make you watch Westerns during the United States. Yeah. And McMillan, I also called Harold McMillan Mack, called them inconceivably banal movie nights.

And I can imagine that like, what, you got to be kind of in the Westerns to enjoy like a Western anytime, you know? Yeah. Yeah, Emily doesn't like Westerns. I like that all.

Like, like, weird Westerns, like the remake of true grit or dead man or, you know, stuff like that. Yeah.

Like the classics I've never gotten into, although I do like the wild bunch, that's a great

movie. No. She's, yeah. Sam Peck and Paul. But I've never, I don't think I've ever seen all of the magnificent seven.

I'm, like, I've just never really gotten into good Westerns, although I do love Sam Ramees of the Quick and the Dead, too. See, I like weird Westerns. Yeah. There's a name for that.

It's not revisionist. It's, uh, weird Westerns. Yeah. But it's a different word. We'll discover weird Westerns.

But I know what you mean. Okay.

Like, I'll straightly put out some cool Westerns like that.

Oh, yeah. Like Nick Cave's one? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

“I think he'd like Magnificent Seven, by the way.”

That's, that's one that you probably would dig. It seems like you'd be right. I maybe I just need to give him another shot. Yeah. That's one.

After the Bay of Pigs, uh, JFK invited, would you call him? Jifk. Jifk. He invited, I back to the camp to consult a little bit. I think, you know, he just trusted his foreign policy experience.

And there was a very famous photograph taken on that trip, a AP photographer, Paul Vathas. I want to pull it surprise in 1962 for his pictured, a serious steps. Uh, it's this great black and white of JFK and Eisenhower kind of from the rear walking up a wooded path. It's very cool picture.

Right. With JFK saying, we are screwed and I think you are screwed. That's right. I'm not president. Probably the most famous thing that happened at Camp David was the Camp David Accords.

Yeah. That was between Menaccombegan, who was the prime minister of Israel at the time and the president of Egypt at the time, onward, set out. And it was presided over by Jimmy Carter and Carter and his aides really did about the best job you could possibly do in trying to get Israel and any Arab country in this case

Egypt to strike some sort of peace agreement. But it's still, like it's revered, especially in the United States as like this great success. But if you look at it further down the, down the pike, it didn't work out all that well. But still, this was about as good as you could expect. It's certainly the best it's ever been done at Camp David.

Yeah. I mean, at the time it was remarkable to even get those guys in the same room. Much less go to camp for almost two weeks. I think they're there for 13 days. And again, you know, the reason they do this is to get away from the media to have some real privacy

to to connect as humans. You know, they watch, yeah. Little footsie into the tables here. They watch movies together, apparently onward Sedott hike the trails each morning. Carter very purposefully didn't even use the larger room.

He went to that initial meeting room, which was renamed Holly because he thought it was more intimate. And he loved it there, you know, Carter loved it. But the guys found it kind of, you know, they were used to the wide open desert.

But, you know, one of the, the pluses of being isolated like that is if things start going south,

they just, they can't run in like jumping their car and be at the airport in 10 minutes. Yeah. And the press isn't there to provoke hostility in order to like get a great quota to stir things up for better, better press or whatever. Yeah. I also saw that Jimmy Carter watched Star Wars with Onward Sedott and that is not a joke.

Oh, wow. That's okay. Watch it. Can't David. That's amazing.

“So Ronald Reagan, I think aside from the camp David Accords, I associate camp David with Ronald Reagan more than anybody.”

He loved it, man. He loved going and playing cowboy when he was during, when he was president. Yeah. He loved it. Very famously, love riding horses.

Nancy loved it. They would go there like a lot on the weekends, like they're a little weekend retreat. Because again, it's a 30 minute helicopter ride and all of a sudden you're at this, you're, I think being away from the press is a really big deal. Yeah.

I think that's a huge part of it. Yeah. Just to go check out. So he would host world leaders there. He recorded his weekly radio addresses there.

The bushes loved it too. He said they spent Christmas is there, both father and son. And apparently W used it for some post 9/11 strategy sessions. And Obama liked it a lot too. Yeah.

No word on what Biden did with it. He's apparently being erased from history. Well, Obama moved the G8 summit there.

“I think it was supposed to be in Chicago.”

And, you know, he gave the reasons that usually gave us to get away from everyone and kind of have a more free-flowing discussion. But other people are like, I think you're probably also trying to avoid protesters. Right. Because if the press can't get there, I can tell you protesters can't. Yeah.

And I mentioned Donald Trump not really liking it very much. I think in 2017 he said it was quote very rustic. And then said, you know how long he'd like it for about 30 minutes. So it's not his scene. And I think no one has surprised about that.

But he had used it. I think kind of when he has to. I think last year he used it for a retreat regarding Middle East strategy. So more Middle East strategy taking place that can't date it. Yeah.

Okay.

Chuck, I say that we take a second break.

And when we come back, we're going to really get into your favorite part. How this plays operates. My love it. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games.

Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcasts superhuman documented it all. Embedded in the games. And with the athletes for a full year.

Within probably 10 days, I put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to superhuman on the iHard radio app. Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

“Do you remember when Diana Ross, double tap little Kim's boobs at the VMA?”

Oh, when Kyle Hay said the George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do a little Kim? Well, you can find out on the look back at the podcast. I'm Sam J.

And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick you here and pack what went down and try to make sense of how he survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill waxing all about cracking the eighties. To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack all day, but yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have eggs on the table right now. So. Why do you mention that sentiment?

Yes. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really, yeah.

For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history.

Listen to look back at it on the iHard radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Robert from the stuff to blow your mind podcasts. Joe and I are both lifelong Star Wars fans. So we're celebrating May the 4th with a brand new week of fun. Thought provoking Star Wars related episodes.

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All right.

I'm so excited.

“It's official name is a naval support facility thermant.”

I'm obviously still operated by the Navy. Like I said, and most of the work there are members of the civil engineer core, who are known as the CBs. Sure. And if you're a sailor in your station to camp, David.

First of all, congratulations.

I imagine that's pretty awesome. As an assignment, but it's a 36 month tour. So you're there for about three years. And you may be a cook or you may be able to maybe a hairdresser. Or you may be able to like ride horses and teach people to ride horses.

Or you may be a licensed lifeguard. Yeah, you're not a guard though. A guard guard though. That's the Marines as we'll see. That's right.

There are other organizations or other departments that handle different parts of it. The public works department. They handle maintenance. The building, the grounds, the electrical systems, the vehicles. Anything that starts to break down.

Public works is probably on top of it. The operations department. They handle arrivals and departures of aircraft. That would include Marine One Chuck. That's aircraft too. That's right.

They handle electronics. They handle firefighting. Yeah. Which means they think about that. They're in charge of the VCRs and VCR fires.

They can't do that. That's right. Oh, man. You know that VCRs got some hours long too. So it's a fire waiting to happen. It's got a big trouble and little China stuck in it right now.

I love that movie. That might be my favorite movie, man. That is such a good movie. Oh, it's classic. I keep trying to get Ruby to watch it.

And she hasn't yet, but I know she's going to love it. She will love it. Yeah. That's good. Supply department deals with finances, accommodations, and food service.

It's a big part of it there, obviously. And that is an extension of the Navy's presidential food service department. This is the stuff I love.

Like you never think about like,

Yeah, somebody buys groceries for these meals for the White House and elsewhere. But it's got to be like a rigorous thing as far as the chain of command, and like as far as poisoning and stuff goes. Like it's not just somebody shopping for food. So they handle all that stuff and all the catering and all the dining services.

I've got something for you since you like how all this. Oh, yeah. I read about that when they buy groceries. The first family pays for their own groceries. Did you know that?

Oh, wow. Everything else is essentially free. They have to pay for the food they eat. Aside from like state dinners and stuff like that. But the family eats groceries that they pay for. They get a monthly bill every month.

“And I think it was Michelle Obama who said that they learned the hard way that you should ask.”

How much different things that you're putting on your grocery list cost because. Oh, yeah. You can get sticker shock from the monthly bill. Yeah. I guess that's how Trump was well versed on the price of eggs.

I guess so. You probably went over that bill at the end of every month. It was like, this is how much eggs are. I wonder if they jack the prices up or if they're fair or they get a discount or something. But I would like to know that. But yes, I'm fascinated by that too.

Somebody buying groceries in that situation. Yeah. And I bet how it goes down is either it's a very specific. Like place that they shop or it's like just totally secret. And no one has any idea that it's that's what they're shopping for. Good point. Yeah, it could definitely maybe there's two.

There's like a decoy shop or two. All right. They have a shirt on that says, you know, presidential grocery list. Federal body inspector. It's like when, well, on that note, it's like when Michael Keaton wore the FBI shirt and.

Oh, what was it? I can't think of it. The out of sight.

“I don't remember that. The great Steven Sotoberg movie with JLo and George Clooney.”

I think I think he wore like an FBI T shirt like while doing FBI raids and stuff. I didn't even know he was in that movie. I haven't seen that one either. He's got. Oh, boy, out of sight is good. I know you've told me that. A great great one.

All right. I'll take it out. That and magnificent seven.

Basically the same movie I'm sure.

Yeah. Chuck, I also said that if you were on a hitch in the Navy assigned the camp David, you probably weren't a guard and that's because the Marines guard it. Specifically the Marines from the eighth and I street barracks, which is a barracks in DC. They've pretty much from the outset been responsible for guarding the camp.

Yeah, for sure. I think when it was first built in 1957, they only went there when the president was there, but then I Josh's buddy said, you know what, we should probably just have people there all the time guarding the place. And I think 71 72 is when the Marines form Marine security company as a permanent company.

Right. And everyone there has Yankee white clearance, which is very frequently referred to as security clearance level.

It's not. It's a specific type of background check.

“I think it's the deepest background check that they perform and everyone who works near the president has that kind of background check done.”

Yeah. It involves a surgical glove if you know what I mean. There was one other thing too that Olivia pointed out that I hadn't thought about, but I'm sure it's quite true for the people who just work there. Like during times in the president's not there, there's probably not that much to do.

And then all of a sudden there's everything in the world to do right now when the president does come and there's like a summit or something like that. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, they're feeding themselves in the staff and they're keeping up with the grounds and all that,

keeping the grass mode and everything clean. Sure. But yeah, when the dignitaries come around and the president comes around, it's imagine a high stress situation because a lot of these people that come like we mentioned with, you know, these leaders in the Middle East are coming to a completely different scene that they're used to.

And a lot of them are a very specific religious accommodations that need to be made and meal accommodations that need to be made, whether it's like kosher food or like getting alcohol removed from a cabin or putting prayer rugs in the proper spot. So yeah, there's a lot of hoops you got to jump through to make sure everyone feels good about being there and also like that the accommodations are kind of on par with one another and like he got he got the better room. Right. Well, you don't want that happening.

I mean, some of the cabins are nicer. There's obviously ones that are closer to ask been the presidential cabin than others. So figuring out who stays where is like a huge, hugely important part of all this. I mean, like we're talking about some of the most fragile egos in the entire world. Yeah, if you're a foreign leader, you want to be close to the president's cabin.

So you don't have to go far for the middle of the night sneak out, make out session. Skinny dipping in the pond behind Aspen. That's right. So if you are a hiker in this area, you can actually get accidentally close to camp David. And the way that you will find out that you accidentally got close to camp David is because a marine's going to suddenly emerge from the woods until you return around right now.

It's like a rainbow pretty much. He's like hiding at the ground as a pile of leaves. Right. Yeah, or like he's covered in mud and he suddenly opens his eyes.

“Oh, God, I remember that one. That was a good one.”

So yes, and the reason why you could accidentally stumble into this chuck is because intentionally there's no sign. It's saying like welcome to camp David or stay away from camp David.

Like it's still meant to be semi secret and it's those marines on patrol that are essentially the first line of defense perimeter wise.

Yeah, like you know you're getting close if you're on your lovely hike and you see a sign that maybe says no photography. Out here in the middle of the woods are no loitering and then you're like, oh, I bet you're getting close to camp David. Right. And then you know, the eye and the mud comes out and you know you're done for. Also, if you're a plane and you get too close, you're probably going to have a fighter jet suddenly come out of nowhere and say, hey, follow me to Reagan National Airport.

Yeah, I think airspace is restricted to 5,000 feet above sea level and a three miles zone when the president isn't there when the president is there. It's 10 miles. And what else we got? Well, should we talk just a little bit about some of the lodgings?

“Sure. I think we'd be remiss if we didn't.”

Well, there's about 20 cabins in the obviously other buildings. You got that presidential cabin, which is four bedroom with a kitchen and an office in a patio. And that swimming pool is right there. So if you see that picture of Obama playing with this kids at the pool, the cabin in the background, that is the one. That's aspen, baby. The format bears then. Yep. There's lower lodge. We talked about that. It's a huge conference rooms, dining room, all.

It's like the official, it's the most official probably of all the congregational areas, right? Pickery lodge. When you want to blow off some steam and just watch the pin setters in action, that's where you're going to hang out. There's also a bar there. So you can get sourced. And maybe a hookah pipe? Sure. Oh, yeah. There's definitely a hookah lounge in to cover bar as well. Okay. There's a gift shop in Hickery Lodge. Like, do they actually charge four and leaders for like a postcard or something? And are the four and leaders buying a postcard at Camp David?

Oh, well, I know that crew chief very famously bought a shot glass.

And on the shot glass, it said, I got a new kit camp David. Oh, man. I want to go there so bad. It does as did see a side picture of the actual camp David sign. And it looks like a like, you know,

a teenager like camp in the woods camp sign. It's awesome. Right. Like it's it. Yeah. I can imagine exactly what it looks like. Yeah, it's kind of chisel in the yellow line exactly. That's the one.

“What else you got horseshoes, skit shooting? Oh, there. Here's the last thing I think we should put in there. Chuck is that they all ride golf carts there. Apparently it's”

Oh, yeah, one of the finest aspects of camp David, which I think says a lot about camp David is that there's a fleet of golf carts. And the president is called golf cart one. Yeah, that was George W. Bush who came up with that. That's right. And they called it that ever since. So you can, you know, shoot the skit. Yeah, I think there's the second swimming pool for the staff and play a little tennis if you want. Do you ever shot skit? Oh, yeah. It's funny. I was driving from Chicago to Akron and I was passing by fields at my dad used to take my sister and I out to to shoot skit.

Oh, did you have one of the flingers? Yeah. Yeah. I have only done it once and it's a it was at a skit shooting facility in wine country in California.

And I was I loved it and I was pretty good at it. Oh, yeah, I had never shot shotguns like that before and like I was I was hitting pull. Yeah, it was fun.

Yeah, it is fun. Like we go out with the big old box of those clay pigeons and shoot them up. I don't remember whether I was good or not, but I mean, I was probably 10 years old holding a 12 gauge shotgun. Yeah, I mean, I loved it so much. I was like, oh, man, I found online. There's like a club south of Atlanta. And I'm going to buy shotgun and like become a member and the course I never did any of that, but I am looking forward to going to one day. Somebody is Christmas coming out. That's right.

“Okay. Well, I think we're done with camp David for now, right? Yeah, that's that's a good one until you go there and you can report back. That's right.”

Well, since Chuck said that's right about going to camp David and reporting back, it's time of course for listener mail.

This one is a follow-up on roar. Hey guys, just wanted to write in about a brief thing Josh said in the roar episode. I'm summarizing, but he mentioned at one point that a movie shouldn't have the same writer director and star because they needed to keep one another in check. Yeah, sort of like the branches of government. Sure. This really isn't a thing Josh. Chuck was on the spot, came up with a good example in Clint Eastwood, but couldn't think of any others. So I will mention Spike Lee Woody Allen, John Casabetti's Mill Brooks Kevin Costner, a guy named Orson Wells, more modern examples include Ben Affleck Bradley Cooper and Billy Bob Thornton.

Some even act as editors and camera operators, sometimes under fake names, for reasons I think have to do with unions, but I'm not sure. Anyway, I hope young filmmakers hear this because encouraging students to write direct and star in their own short films is a great way to learn the craft and get things done. And that is Sylvie, not Sylvie. I appreciate that. Thank you for setting me straight eight ways to Sunday.

“If you want to be like Sylvie and set me straight and give all sorts of great examples to back your point up, that's fantastic.”

You can put it in email and send it off to stuffpodcast at iheartradio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iheart radio. For more podcasts, my heart radio visit the iheart radio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guide. Not quite on humor me with Robert's Michael and friends me and hilarious guests from Bob Odin Kirk to David Letterman. Help make you funnier this week. My guess SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter side L helped an Occupella band with their between songs banter.

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert's Michael and friends on the iheart radio app. Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. On the look back at a podcast. The next seminar that was big moment for me. 84's big to me. I'm Sam J. and I'm Alex E. Grish. Each episode we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it.

With our friends, federal comedians and favorite authors like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the iheart radio app. Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential.

“Either way, the podcasts superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year.”

Within probably 10 days, I put on 10 pounds.

I was having troubles stopping the muscle growth.

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