The best- or worst- part of the American road trip is the fascination some people have with the sites they encounter on or off the beaten path that have historical or pop culture significance. Author Chris Epting has collected such minutiae in the past for books like Roadside Baseball and James Dean Died Here. Now, he has released a new compendium of sites called It Happened Right Here: American Pop Culture Landmarks (Santa Monica Press). The book focuses on dozens of landmark people, places and things connected to the first two decades of 21st Century pop culture, as well as other blasts from the past. Epting appeared on 710 WOR’s Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning program to promote the book.
“To me, America never quite gets credit, in my opinion, for the cultural footprint we’ve left,” Epting explained to Berman and Riedel, “whether we’re talking jazz, rock and roll, chicken wings, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, whatever. I wanted to really kind of celebrate our country. That’s what really drove the process of the book, was just how weird, wonderful and amazing the United States is and what we’ve given the world.”
Epting even included a chapter focusing on famous crime scenes to satisfy our grim obsession with America’s seamy underbelly. “People are fascinated by those things, and so I decided to go all things. Not just the celebration of good things, but those challenging moments, too… where, say, the St. Valentine’s Day massacre took place, or where Dillinger got it, or things like that, so the crime chapter is substantial.”
With a variety of places like the dorm room where Facebook was created, the seat at Wrigley Field occupied by Steve Bartman, or the street where the first cell phone call was placed, It Happened Right Here is a complete guide to the places that add definition to the American experience.
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