I Tell Stories
I Tell Stories Podcast covers a wide range of topics discussed by Colt Draine and Owen "The Mic" McMichael. From the scourge on humanity of violent business hippies and Scott Baio to peculiar Serbian Mother's Day traditions,the boys offer their unique perspective. Revolutionary artists,legends of folklore and bizzare following of fast food items are just a few of the subjects touched on. I Tell Stories aims to bring attention to individuals and occerrences that are too interesting to be forgotten. Two long time friends who keep each other laughing give listeners their take on the world. Everyone has a story, these are ours and those of many others.
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I Tell Stories
Baffling America: Agloe New York
Join us on a quest through the hidden realm of fictional towns and trap streets inspired by the cunning of cartographers like Ernest Alpins and Otto Lindbergh. Learn how the fictitious town of Aglo, originally created to catch plagiarists, unexpectedly blossomed into a real-life tourist destination. Listen to Darlene Beers as she unravels her family's storied history with the land, debunks myths, and shares the charming, albeit fictitious, tales of the area. We'll also uncover the clever moves by Rand McNally to outwit a lawsuit and how Aglo made its way onto Google Maps and into the hearts of curious travelers, marked by a mysterious sign perched high on a telephone pole.
Our adventure doesn't stop there! We'll reminisce about Hammond, Montana, a ghost town rich with its own stories, drawing connections to the whimsical nature of fictional town creation. Plus, get ready for some laughs as we recall the infamous anti-marijuana ad featuring a melting girl, its hilarious parody in "Super High Me," and our own high-spirited escapades in Bozeman. And for a fun twist, we're brainstorming a new film idea where we get stoned and embark on a culinary tour of Portland's fanciest restaurants. This episode blends historical intrigue, personal anecdotes, and plenty of humor that will leave you both entertained and enlightened.
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Uh, hoi, hoi.
Speaker 2:Hey, what's up, bro? Hello, you know what do you think? Okay, so we have the shantyplex right and it's like our origin story, and so, like looking into this, it makes me wonder if we should try to create some sort of shanty paper town, because there's no longer an actual physical location for it, like some sort of random street. I don't know how we do that. How would we go about doing it? We obviously can't just pretend and make a map, or can we?
Speaker 1:I don't know. I mean decades before the terror and convenience of Google Earth, map making was actually a thriving industry. Yeah, and as we know, with industry there in the universe of business, there's where there's industry, there's also fraud and imitation. Yeah, and so it was quite common for map makers to plagiarize other map makers' work Cartographers, I guess they're called. Yeah, and so when, in the 1920s, general Drafting, represented by Ernest Alpins and Otto Lindbergh, suspected that other mapmakers, such as Rand McNally, were in fact plagiarizing their maps, so when commissioned to make a map of the state of New York, the two of them used an anagram of their names to create the fictional town of Aglo Right, which was placed at an intersection Catskill Mountains, new York, 206. And they hoped to catch McNally and others. You know, by copying it, that they were. You know they made this town up by themselves. It was not. There's nothing there.
Speaker 2:Feels like fraud, man, but I get it too. At the same time, you know it feels like doing something like that would be like federal fraud. I guess it's not, maybe it is now, I don't know, dang, but go ahead. Sorry, I really like this is. This small little story is quite large actually in a lot of ways I think Pretty is quite large, actually, in a lot of ways, I think, pretty interesting.
Speaker 1:Well, it's just funny because they're referred to as trap streets. I guess this is not an isolated incident, it's just one of the most well-known. And they in fact did see that McNally published Aglo and when threatened with a lawsuit, she retorted with the fact that a shop owner had seen Aglo on the map or didn't say he didn't. You know, this is what happened was saw Agla on the map, didn't take note of the fact that there were no buildings or houses in this, at this intersection, and so opened a general store oh my God. And by doing so then basically made it exist when it in fact did not.
Speaker 2:Correct because they put a structure there. Hey, side note, the original town I'm from technically is called Hammond Montana and you can look it up and it's a ghost town now and when I was growing up there it was literally just the post office in a school and the school was like a little trailer and the reasoning behind this people is because it was a ranch community, so like our nearest neighbors were half hour away, kind of shit, and my school had six kids in it. So you know, I guess I could kind of see in relation to how this happened. You know what I'm saying, because think about all the little towns in Montana this is Montana, by the way people Hammond Montana, this is Montana, by the way People have it in Montana. So anyway, but there's like two dots, what?
Speaker 1:is it? My question is where is the bar? Was it in the school or the post office? Because you can't have a town in Montana without a bar.
Speaker 2:I think it's a regulation, oh my god, do you want to hear the funniest part about that? It burned down. There was a bar there. It was a bar in a post office in the school. Yeah, yeah, and I don't remember it, but the building, it was an old wood building and it stood there forever. I do remember playing around it when I was a kid, but yeah, there was a burned-down bar there too. Yep, things happen. Very interesting life. Hopefully someday there'll just be a town, a town pump. Oh my God, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes, they can just have the school, the bar, the post office, the bowling alley, a heli-landing pad, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, hey, and you can get your hair did.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, well, all the fun stuff in life. My friend Owen's a fan of getting his hair did. Sorry, dog. Hey, so nonetheless, when looking into this, yeah, it was very interesting that they basically busted the people who were counterfeiting Jeez, we can't speak today Marijuana, so like, at the end of the day, here they were counterfeiting their map, so they came up with a solution to catch them. They caught them, them, and since this guy came up with a pretty good defense basically to counteract that lawsuit that they had filed against the fraudulent map makers right, so like. And that was to say that there was a general store there at one point in time that went out of business, like what the fuck?
Speaker 1:and it's debatable. It said that landowners oh, I have a quote said that landowners are.
Speaker 2:Oh, I have a quote from the landowners. My friend, okay, yeah, yeah, no, no, for real, no, that's good man, darlene Beers, 65 now. She said my great-grandfather John, he'd owned that property and when he passed. This is actually going to add a little more information to this lawsuit and how they got around it. John Need owned that property and when he passed, my grandfather, frank Need, sold it to an organization called Aglo Associates. There was a fishing lodge already there and they renamed it Aglo Lodge. So probably just like a little shack, you know, like on his land. It was for private use.
Speaker 2:Over the years the Need family came to the conclusion that Eglo Associates was actually a front for the Rand McNally Company, the fraudulent map makers, which had decided that buying the property it sold for only $1, and renaming the lodge was much cheaper than defending a lawsuit. Dang, just saying that's pretty clever. So they paid $1 for the land. What the fuck? When was this again? Because I don't even know when. The 20th, yeah, okay, well, maybe I guess. Yeah, right, fine, whatever, so anyway, nonetheless, yeah, apparently she basically maintains that there was never a general store there, but also she didn't live there the whole time.
Speaker 2:This comes from her great-grandfather. You know, and she's At the end of all that she does. Say it's a sweet story, says Darlene, and it reminds me of my dad, john E Jr, whenever I hear it. He must have had a great childhood because he told wonderful stories about living here. Says Darlene again, but the Al Glo general store never existed. So basically she's saying her dad always told her stories about growing up in this area his whole life and said that that store never existed. But nonetheless, did you look into the aftermath of what's going on with this city or this what-the-fuck-ever township?
Speaker 1:I thought it appeared as recently as the 90s on Google Maps and then that there's still a thriving tourism.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did see that. Yeah, that it's still a thriving tourism. Yeah, I did see that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that it's still a tourist destination, which makes me feel better about, you know, my vacation plans. Not like, hey, honey, kids want to load up and we'll go to this town. That kind of existed, but not really, and we can see where there may or may not have been a general store. Yeah, then we can watch reruns of Family Ties and Scott Baio auditions. I didn't mean to throw Family Ties under the bus, I'm sorry. It was a great program of the 80s, but, yeah, I should not have associated with Scott Baio in any way, shape or form. I apologize deeply. Alex T Keaton, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:Hey, the devil comes in many forms. My friend, some of them. So anyway, nonetheless, though, I do feel like the one thing I read about it also and I didn't see who put the sign up and I don't know if they know, but somebody made an Eglo New York sign and they put it pretty far up on a telephone pole so just like way far up there. So it's hard to like, for nobody's gonna be able to steal it very easily at all, and uh, uh, also like it's very you can see it pretty clearly as well. So that's kind of neat. I don't know the whole story's fun.
Speaker 2:Hey, you know people out there, my friends in podcast land. Yeah, I think we're friends, I don't know, maybe maybe acquaintances, getting to know each other, friends, you know that kind of thing. We could hang out and have a hot water at Owen's shop or something you know, cold Smoke Billings, montana. Okay, right. So nonetheless, if you have anything like this, just, you know there is like a text thing on our below our episodes where you could just drop us a line. We can't answer you back, but like, nonetheless, you can drop us a line. We can't answer you back, but like, nonetheless you can drop us a line. I feel so and that'd be cool. I would love to hear if you know of any like little ding shit towns that have a cool story in your neck of the woods, all right and you could also.
Speaker 1:There may not exist correct, fair enough.
Speaker 2:And also you could uh visit pitlock supplycom uh and pick you up uh, I tell a story shirt because I hear they make you a bit more intelligent and a good storyteller and you may be approached by a new room beat. And if you don't know what that is, go back and check out the Little People episode. Anyway, nonetheless, this is pretty cool. Hey, I did see a thing. Do you have more on this beyond just that, the tourism kind of picked up there?
Speaker 1:And I just thought it was a rather popular novel by Paper Towns by John Green, yeah, and then in 2008,. And then a film adaptation in 2015. And one of the main characters, margo, runs away from home and leaves clues and, yeah, discovers she's hiding in Aglo. Oh and yeah, that's awesome. And then there's also it's mentioned prominently, apparently in the 2022 novel, the Cartographers by Tang Shepard. Huh, I haven't read or seen. I just don't even remember, honestly, how. I saw something in an article or on the TV that they mentioned this town and I was like we have to look into this a little bit. Even if there's not much information, it's still pretty interesting.
Speaker 2:I don't think we should go there or anything, but like just saying Do the non-existent general store, get some non-existent general store.
Speaker 1:Yeah, get some non-existent prosciutto and Valencia almonds.
Speaker 2:Correct. Just like at Cold Smoked Boogie's Bodega in Billings, Montana. All right guys, Anyway, moving on.
Speaker 1:We're actually here, people. I promise you yeah, or at least in my mind we are Enough of the shameless plugging.
Speaker 2:Okay, so Aglo though. Hey, so it kind of sounds like agro, Aglo, agro, I don't know. Hopefully we're pronouncing this right, Nonetheless, that Paper Towns book. Fun fact the book has been banned from schools in Florida.
Speaker 1:All right, moving on, aren't books just banned in Florida.
Speaker 2:That shouldn't be any news. I was trying to get past that. Yes, yes, I know, right, yeah, I know what are they. I don't even know.
Speaker 1:Not just that book, probably Something tell me.
Speaker 2:Read these tourist pamphlets, alright, yeah, that's what they want. Required reading. Yeah, who knows? Anyway, pretty cool story. All these things considered, I do enjoy this. I wouldn't bring it to my attention. I do have a fun little thing on the other end, and Paper Towns is what these are called. You know there is a term for these and there's like streets and such and all sorts of things. I guess Trap streets, yeah, trap streets, and not like the ones in Oakland and or Billings, montana. All right, guys. Nonetheless, you hope not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the Burnside's and Billings may disagree. So is there a fake mayor too? Dude, can we be the mayor? Maybe McWonderpants or something is a fake mayor of Aglo.
Speaker 2:I don't know. Let's hold an election. I say you're mayor, no, you're mayor of Aglo. Bro, I voted for you. There's only one voter. You can vote for yourself. Don't vote for me, because then we'll have to do a runoff and I don't know what to say. I don't have any stances, okay, so anyway, not to get all political on the show, guys. Fuck. I know it's that kind of year. We don't want any, any trouble. No, don't.
Speaker 1:No, it's okay you have your own store there in billings montana, located on first avenue, not very general either.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's all over the place. Boogie's bodega got a track coming out, I feel, one day. Um, so yeah, but apparently, though, to also, this wasn't like a total like uh, these guys who created this paper town on this old school map? This wasn't like a thing that they even invented, because it was a thing that people had done in the past for map making. Did you touch on that? Okay, I just want to make sure.
Speaker 2:Also, in 2008, argleton Village in West Lancashire, which I believe is in the UK I didn't see if it was or not, but that sounds right, guys. So anyway appeared on Google, complete with weather reports, a job site and an estate agent advertising houses for sale. Argleton vanished two years later, while its site was, and still is, a damp field in the middle of nowhere. It's worth noting that Argleton is an anagram of G, not real, although Google never admitted to having created it. So, basically, google created this town it doesn't explain how, but it was a real thing and Argleton was a phantom settlement planted as a trap. So, however, they went about it though there was an instance of this in 2008, and they had, like, a job site and everything, but it has since been gone, whereas Aglo is in our hearts and memories and sometimes on Google Maps still.
Speaker 1:So I wonder if you can buy fake Sealand passports in Aglo Fuck they need to team up.
Speaker 2:Okay, who owns this?
Speaker 1:Where is?
Speaker 2:this. I think they do passports in Aglo. Fuck, they need to team up, okay. Who owns this? That woman I wish her people would have never sold that shit. We need to figure out who owns this property and get a hold of them and see if we can't kind of, like you know, bargain some things Because we need a shantyplex, you know area, even though we've never even been to. I've never been to New York. You've stopped at the airport.
Speaker 1:I think, yeah, I've been at the airport, I think as a little kid, like an infant, I was through there. But Okay, yeah, then that's just the Counts.
Speaker 2:It counts Just.
Speaker 1:JFK Airport which.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, still counts, still counts. Okay, guys, nonetheless, all right, I don't have anything else. Fake towns, fake whatever, who knows, I don't know, it's fun. Lots of fake stuff out there in this world. People Beware, be scared. It's Halloween season, almost right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, don't be scared, guys, just don't be stupid. That's a pretty good one Common sense. We all make mistakes, but you know, I don't know where I'm going with this Must be the reefer people Speaking of which. I was reading some news and they did a throwback and they were talking about. It was like a nostalgia one. So it wasn't really news, guys, it was like an article or something. But they had that thing. They showed a picture of the ad against marijuana where the girls melted into the couch. You remember that growing up? Oh, definitely they don't do marijuana and it's so dramatic it's going to fucking. It was like they did a shot of fucking heroin or something.
Speaker 1:Which also I remember some comedian on I think it was on Super High Me. I don't believe it was Doug Benson who was responsible for that, but it was somebody else that referenced that and was like whoa, I've been smoking the when my Keys weed. I want some of that shit.
Speaker 2:I remember that Did we watch that shit together? I must have seen that too.
Speaker 1:I saw it in Bozeman Pre-Shantyplex.
Speaker 2:Maybe you were. Either you told me about that or I have seen that as well. Where are my keys? Quality film, yeah, it is Fine, fine art Guys. You know we should make a movie of us just smoking weed, like a lot of it, and then going to fancy restaurants, hey. So if there's any patrons out there, get a hold of us. If you want to make a movie, a feature film, of me and Owen getting really high and going to a lot of fancy restaurants in the Portland area, just let me know. All right, reach out, guys, cool. Anyway, on that note, owen, what do you think?
Speaker 1:Much love everybody All right. Even non-existent people of Aglo.
Speaker 2:Aw, that's cute, bro Peace.
