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This is Later with Lee Matthews the
Lee Matthews Podcast. More of what you

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here Weekday Afternoon is on the Drive. You may have seen some of his

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books before James Dean died Here Roadside
Baseball, Bingo, A Change of Seasons

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of John Oates Memoir. His name
is Chris Epting. His newest creation is

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It Happened Right Here, taking a
journey across North America to the exact locations

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where the most significant events in pop
culture took place. Welcome Chris Epting,

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Olle, thank you for having me. This must have been difficult to narrow

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down and to qualify what is and
is not American pop culture. Yeah,

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you know, there's always that kind
of challenge of what matters to me?

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Is a reader going to care about
that? And at that point you just

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kind of go on instinct. I
mean, the American pop culture experience is

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so broad and diverse and varied.
I decided with this book to really throw

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everything in there. The book is
almost five hundred pages that it's an exhausted

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tour around the country, whether we're
talking crime, food, rock and roll,

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sports, or whatever it happens to
be. Give us an example of

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what you considered one of America's top
landmarks for pop culture. Well, I

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mean starting with you know, where
James Dean was killed in nineteen fifty five,

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That to me kind of started a
lot of pop culture fascination in this

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country because he only had one film
out at that time, and Revel Without

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a Cause came out a week after
he was killed, which really kind of

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solidified his you know, legacy as
a pop culture icon. And so from

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there that's always been a big one. I mean, of course, fifty

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second and Lex in New York City, where Marly Marilyn Monroe's dress famously billowed

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up at the seven year It's you
know where Babe Ruth in his first home

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run. You know, all kinds
of things like that. I liked first.

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I like where things kind of first
happened, where things were invented.

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So there's a lot of that.
There's a lot of classic film sites and

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television sites, whether we're talking Hitchcock
films, whatever happens to be. So

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I really just tried to come at
this with, you know, something for

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everybody in there, where no matter
wherever you open up this book, there's

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something on the page. Maybe it's
where were the Rolling Stones played? Their

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first American show, or where the
Beatles played their last show, and everything

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in between. So what is present
where James Dean died? Is there?

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I know there's a marker out in
the middle of an Iowa cornfield that commemorates

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the day the music died. But
is there any kind of monument out in

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the desert where James Dean was opening
up his portia? You know, there

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was, Actually there is a sign
there that I was part of placing a

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number of years ago. It's now
referred to as the not the crash site,

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but the James Dean Memorial Junction,
and at Highways forty six and forty

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three right there, which they actually
just regraded about a month ago because it's

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still a dangerous intersection. And so
so that's what's there today, and it's

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you know again, it's one of
those places where you can go reflect.

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I wanted every place in this book, whether you go visit or not,

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just kind of imagine being there so
readers can get a sense of what it

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was like when pop culture history was
made. And it doesn't matter what pop

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culture. I mean, James Dean
is fairly older pop culture. But then

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you've got a lot of contemporary stuff
too, like where Facebook was created.

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Absolutely. You know, it's funny. When I first started writing these books,

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there was no Facebook, and so
I thought it would be fun to

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put that dorm room where it happened. And to your point, more modern

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sights, you know, with streaming
television shows like Missus Masal and Stranger Things,

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I've got locations from all of those
shows, as well as going back

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to things like The Brady Bunch and
the Andy Griffiths shows. So I wanted

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to really touch upon all generations with
that. It's used it as an opportunity

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to help people celebrate the past but
also kind of look at the present as

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well and realize we're living. It's
still you know, there's still pop culture

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landmarks being created as we speak today. It happened right here America's pop Cultural

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Landmarks. Chris Epting is the author, and it's an exhaustive look and fascinating

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of the history of over a thousand
landmarks and their exact locations. Do you

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have anybody getting your books and then
making pilgrimages to these o these sites?

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You know, I have to say, that's a great question, and I

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hear from people literally almost every day. If people who will send me pictures

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of themselves with the book in the
in a location, and it's become a

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really fun road trip thing for people
to kind of check a lot of these

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places off their list. So yeah, people, I think a book like

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this, whether you want to hit
the road or not, it can be

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very motivational because it makes you realize
these road trips are not that hard to

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put together, and they're often things
within driving distance to go out and enjoy

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and have a fun you know,
a fun day out or a couple of

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days out. Say yeah, I
am from people all the time. And

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that's the most fun of having written
this book is the fact that people take

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it with them and they go out
there and they experience the places first day

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and find their own landmarks. People
will then write me and say, hey,

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did you know you know, like
this scene from that film, and

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I I won't know it. I
didn't know it before. It's a great

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way to kind of expand the next
edition. I've had that happen to me

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before. I'll be somewhere and wait
a minute, I've seen this before,

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and then all of a sudden it'll
dawn on me that it was in some

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movie or where I just still happen
to be. Okay, they might,

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they must have had the camera right
over there and so on. That's when

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you do that and you realize that
whatever the film happens to be here,

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whatever it is, you never looked
at it the same way again because you

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were in that space, you know. And I think a lot of this

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is random history. You know,
History brushes up against places, whether it's

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an accident or a movie location or
whatever. But then that place is kind

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of forever change. I remember finding
the cornfield in north By, Northwest,

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the same Hitchcock film, and it
looks like a million other open spaces in

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central California, but it's different.
It's special because that's where Carrie Grant was

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chased by a crop sector, you
know, and that's what makes it special.

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And so those are the places I've
always in search of, those places

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that have their their little moment in
the sun, just for a fleeting second,

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that makes them special. We're talking
to Chris Epps. His book Is

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It Happened Right Here? Taking you
on a journey across North America to see

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exact locations where the most significant events
in American pop culture took place. What

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would you say as one of the
more dubious locations you point out, Well,

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dubious, that's a big question.
I mean, for me, what's

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interesting is sometimes the battles that wage
over actual locations. For instance, in

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the book, I detail three places
that claim birthplace of the cheeseburger, and

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you realize they could all be right. What was happening one hundred years ago

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was that people were experimenting, you
know, and just because it hadn't happened

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before, people got the same idea
in the same general point of time,

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so they could all claim it.
But it is pretty funny when places dig

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in him and sometimes go to war
over their own claim over what's theirs?

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You know what I mean? Oh, I know it all too well.

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We had a battle with Yo over
who was going to have the cowboy logo

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for their football team, the you
know, University of Wyogaming or Oklahoma State

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University. That's just like that.
So this day I pull into a Wyoming

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gas station. Oh you're from Oklahoma, Yeah, you stole our cowboy fun

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Well, but again that's that's pop
culture too. I mean again, these

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locations to me are all about those
those little mini wars that can take place

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the debates that you can have at
homebor or work and over you know who

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was really first and all that,
And so there's a lot of mythology attached

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to some of these places as well. Any of these places, like I

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know, the we've read so much
about where the home alone set was and

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the houses of a museum and so
on. It's overth have any of these

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places as a result of your books
and your attention become more marbleized, if

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you will, or more of an
event than they were prior to the book.

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I have heard that one in particular
location in Hot Springs, Arkansas,

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it's an allegation farm where in nineteen
eighteen Babe Ruth hit a home run from

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across the street. The boat landed
in one of the pools where the alligator

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was about five hundred and forty foot
home run allegedly, And I wrote about

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that and that the people that still
owned the alligator farms. You know,

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we're getting people wandering in wanting to
know more about this story. So yeah,

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it's always fun where you can shine
a light on things and unpack a

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story on a deeper level and have
it helped the business or whatever happens is

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to be and encouraged people to go
out and check it out. Well,

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there's still some summer left for you
to go and see some of these sites.

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Maybe they're closer to your home than
you know. It happened right here.

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A journey across North America and the
exact locations where significant events and pop

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culture happened. Chris Epting as the
author, And thank you for this exhaustive

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research. And you must have had
fun going to all these places. I

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love it, you know what.
I'm a wanderer by nature, and so

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to go out and look for these
stories across this amazing country far As really

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has always been a nice opportunity at
least, So thank you. I'll regy

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nine. Then thanks for listening to
Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews

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Podcast, and remember to listen to
The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to

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seven and iHeartMedia presentation