Mt. Rushmore – That’s Mr. Rushmore to You

Canadians do like their beef. They do. Yeah. I've never had a beef with Canadians. Hello and welcome to the podcast. Danno, you are an expert in Mount Rushmore. Spelled wrong? All right. I think we got it. You're listening to Expertise, spelled wrong. The podcast where the world's most expert experts discuss their areas of expertise expertly. Expert comedy writer Clare Sera and expert comedy writer Danno Sullivan bring their expertise to other unrelated expertises. Okay, Danno, truly, I am excited to delve into this area of your expertise because I have heard you go on ad nauseum.

Yes, I do tend to run off a bit at the very large stone mouth. Clare, I'm excited and thrilled to share with you my mountainous knowledge, my momentous amounts of information on Mount Rushmore. You know, I'm old enough to remember when it was just Mount Rush. And things have really changed a lot since then. Believe me, postcard sales have skyrocketed since the olden days when it was nothing more than an empty mountain. Back to the four men of Rushmore. Can you name those presidents for us? Of course I can name them. In fact, I have one postcard per president in my collection of Mount Rushmore memorabilia, which is available over at the website.

I'd love to get those in show notes if I can. Absolutely. Sure, I know who the presidents are, Clare. It was the four presidents who were assassinated. When the monument was built, we felt like the assassinated presidents had been sort of overlooked. They'd been murdered and the presidency brought to an inappropriate and abrupt halt. So by building this beautiful monument to the four assassinated presidents, we felt like we were bringing a dignity and a respect to the memory of these great leaders of America. That's beautiful. I didn't realize that. And also probably a hope for current presidents to be assassinated.

Yeah, there's a big motivation factor there. I had heard a rumor that the face of Washington, which I believe was the first one carved. Is that right? That's right. He was our first president, of course, and our first assassinated president. And we decided we would carve them in presidential order. Interestingly, I don't know if you know this little historical tidbit or not, but they were not assassinated in the order that they were president. Oh, that is interesting. And isn't that the order of their faces on the mountain? Yes. So they were carved in the order of the presidency, not in the order of their murders.

Everyone's first question, of course, I hope you don't find it too pedantic, are Washington's teeth made of stone or of wood in that carving? In my postcard book series, there's a collection of 15 picture postcards just on the Washington carving alone. You will find that the teeth are in fact separate carvings that are taken out each night, put in a giant glass of water for cleaning and reinserted in the morning before any of the tourists arrive. Was that something that Washington himself insisted on in the case of this perhaps happening in the future? Because he was quite a vain man.

You're being a little facetious Claire, joking that Washington foresaw this. Washington foresaw this. He was a man with vision. He had two eyes and two teeth. Fortunately, all the empty spaces were filled in, as described previously. But isn't every president an ambitious and vain man? Not necessarily saying that makes them a poor president, but it makes them a great face on a mountain. Yeah, the more vain, the more attractive you are and the more attractive you are, the better you look on a mountain enlarged hundreds of times over your normal good looking self. I mean, Teddy Roosevelt, am I right?

Bull, moose, baby. And talking about a vein, there's an interesting little tidbit in your notes that they struck a vein. There was a vein of gold discovered in the very rock in the exact spot where we were carving a vein of blood in Roosevelt's forehead. Oh my gosh. There is a superstition that any of the gold that was taken from that and spent is considered blood money. And that's a good thing. It's considered good luck. Anybody who was lucky enough to have a piece of gold from Teddy Roosevelt's vein was considered unassassinatable and therefore unlikely to appear himself or herself on Mount Rushmore. But it's a tradeoff.

Do you want to be on a mountainside or do you want to live a long, natural life? Do you think when the committee that came together to create this stone mountain carving. Yeah, there was a committee of there were four, one for each president, each had an advocate. Each president had an advocate. Right. So we've had 96 presidents through our history. There were originally a squad of 96, each advocating for their own president. Ninety six presidents. Yes. We're also considering Canadian presidents because we're so close to the border there. So close. Do you feel that the controversy of adding a face, where do you stand on those faces being the final faces?

There's nothing carved in stone that says we can only have four faces. So sure, why not? We've got we've got new presidents coming in. It feels like every day of the week. True. I think all we have to do is assassinate one or two and get them up there. What do you think about recalling any of the presidents that are currently carved into that mountain? Would you recall any of those? Personally, I would not. But I wouldn't be against it. And as a committee member, I feel like the amount of work would not be impossible. For example, if you just got up there with a couple of rat-a-tat-tat jackhammers and chiseled that mustache off of Teddy Roosevelt, you wind up with Franklin Roosevelt.

And might I suggest, Dana, keep that mustache on, but add a twinkle in the eye. And it's Groucho Marx. It's Groucho Marx. And perhaps the in the carve, maybe that maybe Lincoln. Bit of a long face, but just adjust that jaw. There was a lot of surprise that Lincoln didn't make the cut. But of course, he hadn't been assassinated at the time. Oh, I pardon me, but I thought Lincoln's face was on Mount Rushmore. You might be thinking of the Lincoln Monument, Claire. That's in Washington. Oh, right, right, right. Yeah. And for that, you don't have to be assassinated.

You just have to be Lincoln. Oh, but you do have to be Lincoln. It's rather narrow in its scope. Yeah. It's like the Washington Monument, you know. McKinley tried to get in there. So did Garfield. Yeah. Garfield tried to get in twice. But that's just, that's not the way these things work. You got to play by the rules in Washington. You know, that's really, you just caused me to think about the work that went into the echo-friendly carving of Mount Rushmore and how today we have these 3D printers and we could just, we could erect a giant face of anyone at any time, anywhere, and it almost cheapens it in a sense.

It does. But it is also something that can bring us together, Claire. I'm working with a group of school children in schools across the south of the United States where they have no mountains. Right, right. God bless them. And through a grant from our foundation, our postcard foundation, we've provided each of these schools with a 3D printer. Well, let me take that back. We've provided one of the schools with a 3D printer, and that school is printing other 3D printers for the other schools. Eventually, we hope to have this network of 3D printers spinning out monuments so each state can have their own.

But doesn't, in a sense, Daniel, doesn't that cause a monument to lose its unique sense of worth? Time Magazine called it a monument glut. Monument glut. I take umbrage with that, I'll tell you. The thing is, Claire, everybody needs a monument. And I don't mean everyone needs a monument to look up to. I mean, every single person needs a monument of themselves. Where do you think self-worth comes from? From inside? No. It is a physical structure formed outside that you can gaze upon to observe the glory in the thing itself. I cannot argue that. I can see the children of today growing up strong, confident, brave, unstoppable because they have a giant statue of themselves in their room.

Yeah. Or outside the room, better yet, because that means other people can see it and admire them. And it creates a cycle of admiration. In an ideal world, Claire, the kids can stay at home and the monuments are out doing all the work. Moving monuments. Now, you're talking about AI infused monuments going about with a thud, thud, thud through the town, to the school, to the job, to the work, while the person behind the monument stays home and gets assassinated. That's a future I want to be a part of. Claire, when we make a flip book of postcards, this is the story I want to tell.

Well, this has really been interesting to me. I mean, I I've always been fascinated. I've never actually been to South Dakota where this. Oh, Claire, I'm sorry. I think we've been talking about completely different monuments. Mine's in North Dakota. Oh, oh, I see. I did not mean to be wasting your time. I, I guess I just was excited to be asked on a podcast. Well, I, I'm happy to have spoken with an expert on any monument. For your listeners who have not visited the other Mount Rushmore of North Dakota, it really is something. I've got the postcards to prove it.

Well, Dano, this has really been a fascinating excursion into the granite mines. It's been very exciting for me to get to talk about my little monument on a podcast. Yeah. Could I interest you in a collection of postcards? Well, I believe that we'll have the postcards available in the show notes. That would be just lovely. But could I interest you personally? I'd be happy to offer maybe a 20 percent discount or. I'm absolutely. I would love to take a look at your book of postcards. I. It's really a pretty low commitment. I don't understand why you would hesitate for something like if you're interested, then I don't see why you wouldn't just say yes.

And I could send them to you. Look, I am. I am open to the fact that you have postcards. I am. I am not against. Right. Postcards per se. So let's just maybe leave it at that and talk further at another time. Well, OK, let me rephrase the question. If you're open to the idea of buying a packet of postcards at a future time, what would it take to get you to say yes now? Is it the expense? Is that what's bothering you? I, I'm, you know, Dano, postcards give me the creeps. Oh, have you had a bad experience with postcards in the past? I had a very bad experience with postcards as a child.

Oh, I don't know that I can overcome that objection. I can only tell you that our postcards are not objectionable and that whatever bad experience you had with postcards, I think our postcards showing the assassinated monuments of dead presidents is really going to help you change your opinions. Look, I told you 20%. How about 30% off just for right now? But you have to, you have to decide now. Dano, I'm sorry. I got so worked up. It sounds like you had a rough experience and I understand you're reliving that through this discussion. Look, if you can give me 34% off, I'll take them.

I'll go 34%. Sold. Well, Dano, this has really been a fascinating excursion into the granite mines of four presidents. I'm still not sure which four, but four great presidents. I'm going to say you have blooded the rock and made it real. And gosh, I just thank you for sharing all that you know with our listeners today. The Expertise Spelled Wrong podcast is free and like the Amish, all are welcome. Be sure to sign up for our email announcements at funnypodcast.com and follow us in your favorite podcast app, like the expert podcast listener we know you are.

Any suggested snacks for people to take in our viewing of Mount? We've got a little fried chip sort of thing. It's called a Presaditos. They're very delicious. Each one is shaped like an egg. They're very delicious. Each one is shaped like a different president. You can get a bag of just Kennedy's, for example, or a bag of just Hoover's, or you can get the variety pack with all the presidents, including the Canadians thrown in the Canadians are the nuts, which is fun.