Discovering California's Untold History with Foo Howser: Javier Servin
Diving into the fascinating cultural and sporting landscape that is California
Javier Servin, aka Foo Howser, is the host and creator of Californiography, a YouTube series and podcast diving into the untold history of what makes California worth preserving and celebrating. Javier stopped by to talk about how Huell Howser helped inspire a fascination about the state, how the LA Galaxy’s history can inform their future, and how soccer ties into the story of California.
*Programming note: Interview conducted just before President Chris Klein was fired by the LA Galaxy.
Full audio:
Selected text edited for length and clarity:
Joie Galactique: What is the most surprising thing you’ve learned about California’s history after embarking on this journey?
Foo Howser: Just how little of it we know. In the 4th grade we all learn California history here in California, and it’s usually the mission project - you pick a mission, you make a little replica. So I learned about the Chumash people, up near Mission Santa Barabara, and that was the first time I even knew we had indigenous people here in California. Because when you learn it in school, you learn about the pilgrims, the Mayflower, the Trail of Tears - but you sort of gloss over that. You don’t really learn about the indigenous people here.
I’ve sort of scratched the surface in one video, where I talked about the Aliso, the tree that’s in Downtown near the 101 freeway, but I definitely want to highlight more of that history. But you have to make sure you’re presenting it in the correct way, because for a long time that history has been one sided.
Just here in Southern California - the Tongva, the Shoshoni, the Chumash, you have the Cahuilla, the Serrano - and that’s just here in this area. There’s so much of that history that we don’t know, and it’s unfortunate because a lot of that stuff was destroyed when they were put into the mission system. But that’s one of the things that’s been surprising - how little we know about our history, especially our indigenous history.
How did you initially become fascinated about the history of California to the extent that you’ve made a series about it?
Foo Howser: For me, it sparked in the 4th grade with that mission project, and I’ve always had really awesome history teachers that encouraged that curiosity. For a long time I was obsessed with World War II, so I learned all I could about that. I took a History of California class in college, and that was a little more focused on learning this history that goes untold, and how California is a microcosm of all the stuff that happened throughout the period from Spanish to Mexican rule to then American rule.
And then just growing up watching Huell Howser. That was another thing that’s a really big part of my childhood, watching Huell Howser with my dad. And then when I went off to college - I went to UC Merced in the Central Valley - my major was history with an emphasis in world history but my thesis was on California history under Mexican rule. My thesis was on a rebellion at Mission San José by this indigenous leader named Estanislao - that was the name he was baptized with. There’s a county named Stanislaus County and that’s named after this indigenous leader.
Anywhere I go, I wonder about the name of a place, or why this is that way, or this building is pretty interesting looking. I’ve always been a person that loves going to the library, so if I can research stuff I’m all over it.
What inspired you about Huell Howser, and do you have a favorite episode?
Foo Howser: My dad spoke very little English, but he loved watching PBS, so I used to watch Huell Howser, Yan Can Cook, Rick Steves with my dad. And just watching Huell Howser go different places - what I love about Huell is his ability to make anything fascinating. I remember this one episode where he interviews this lady that makes artwork out of dryer lint, and it was the most fascinating 30 minutes just talking about dryer lint.
That’s one of the things in my videos that I do - I know I can talk in front of a green screen and I could cover a whole lot of stuff, but Huell went to these places. And so for me, I feel like I can’t talk about a place if I haven’t been there. I can just stand in front of a green screen and talk about something and I can grab an article and paraphrase and present it - but I like to do the research. I want to go to those places. When you go there, people are really appreciative not only that you took the time to talk about their history, but that you visited them, and you can actually speak about a place because you’ve been there. So that’s what I took from Huell.
My favorite episode is probably the Newberry Springs episode - I’ve actually watched all his episodes. Chapman University has an archive of all his work - you can watch everything online. Back in 2021, I watched every single episode of Huell Howser. And the Newberry Springs one, everything was just a disaster. Everywhere he went was closed or the place wasn’t there. He goes to the Baghdad Cafe, that five-minute clip - it’s just chaos.
You can see he’s trying to salvage the thing, but it’s like he walked into Central Casting. That’s Huell at his best, because he’s chucking water out of the canoe as it's sinking in that episode.
I love your series on programmatic architecture. What’s your favorite example of that in California?
Foo Howser: My favorite building is the tamale building in East LA - or tamal, because people get weird about the pronunciation. If you want to get technical, the Nahuatl word is tamalli and the Aztecs pronounce it “tam-ah-LEE” so who am I to argue with them? That’s where the word comes from. But definitely the tamale building just because it’s so random. It’s sandwiched in between two other business, but back when it was first built there was nothing there.
I also love the Cabazon dinosaurs out in Riverside. Every time I’m out there I always have to stop there. I also really love the Donut Hole in La Puente. There’s a giant shoe that has a shoe repair shop in it in Bakersfield that I haven’t been to yet that I want to go visit.
You’re a supporter of the original MLS team in Los Angeles, the Galaxy. How did that come to be?
Foo Howser: My dad was a big soccer fan growing up, his team was Cruz Azul in Liga MX. When we found out that we were going to get a team, it was exciting because Jorge Campos was on the team. I remember watching the first Galaxy game on TV with my Dad. Even as a kid, I knew it was a big deal because that team was so diverse and reflected the city.
I never got a chance to go to the Rose Bowl and see them play, but I always followed them on TV and I would read the LA Times and keep up with them that way. My first actual game was the 2010 Western Conference final, when we lost to Dallas. That was my first time going in person, and I remember I saw the supporters’ groups and I was like, ‘wow, this is amazing.’
I started going to the home openers after that, every year, and then it was 2017 or 2018 I started going to more games. I started trying to find my group - I sat one time with LARS and one time in Victoria Block, and I’ve been a paying member of LARS since 2019. I sit in 137. I love when they chant “138” - I love to yell “137.”
What do you think about the current state of the Galaxy?
Foo Howser: There are so many good fans who are passionate and support the club. Everybody that I know that follows the Galaxy loves them, they love going to the games - it’s community, the camaraderie, you make a lot of friends - it’s just unfortunate that love isn’t reciprocated. I remember, when you used to be a season ticket member, you got benefits from that. And now, it’s like your seat is your benefit. These are the people that are hardcore fans, they support the team through thick and thin. The least you can do is throw them that $5 bobblehead. There’s no incentive to buy season tickets if you can get a ticket for 25 bucks with a free beer. What is the incentive to be a season ticket holder?
You’re losing a generation of fans because you have kids that are growing up that have no idea how good the Galaxy was - you’ve lost those kids. I know how great this team was and this team can be, but the mismanagement, the bloated contracts - like [Jorgen] Skjelvik, I feel like that dude was on our payroll for 3, 4 years after he was gone. When you don’t have proper scouting and analytics, it’s like what are we doing here?
In the Klein era, the Galaxy has solely ridden on their history. As someone who loves history, how would you fix the Galaxy for the future?
Foo Howser: You can’t rest on your laurels. I’m a history person, and I love history, but you can’t keep looking back like ‘We’re the LA Galaxy.’ We’re coming up on ten years since the last championship. Will Kuntz - who’s there now - let him take over and put things in place, because obviously he’s demonstrated that he’s somebody that can do that. He did that across town [at LAFC]. Give him a clean slate to put in the analytics department, the scouting department. I can’t believe we didn’t have a place for the players to watch tape - that’s insane to me.
We’re still stuck in MLS 1.0 when it comes to this kind of stuff. You look at a team like St. Louis, who has one of the lowest five payrolls in MLS, but look at how they’re doing it. We’re the second highest salary and we’re in last place in the entire league. We can’t keep doing this. We’re trending in the correct direction with the younger players that we have - like Aude and Calegari and Jalen Neal - but we need to continue to do that, instead of trying to find people just for the sake of selling jerseys.
How does soccer tie into the story of California?
Foo Howser: People don’t realize how far back soccer goes here in Los Angeles. The NASL, we had the LA Aztecs here, we had people like Johan Cruyff and George Best play for us. Before that, it was the LA Toros of the NPSL. We had the LA Wolves - it was literally the Wolverhampton Wolves that came over and played in this league and represented LA. They were the first and only champion of the United Soccer Association back in the 60s.
Even some of these smaller teams, like the LA Kickers - the first LA team to win the Open Cup. It was basically an amateur Sunday league kind of team. And that was in a league that used to have teams like the San Pedro Croats - teams made up of these ethnic communities.
And then, of course - this is how I test people if they know about soccer or just Galaxy and LAFC - but Maccabee Los Angeles, one of the most successful clubs in US Open Cup history. They made the final 7 times, won it 5 times - they existed for 11 years.
I’m trying to find a way to work my way backwards from talking about the LA Galaxy and LAFC, the history of those teams, and then going back to the roots. We wouldn’t have LAFC without the Galaxy, we wouldn’t have the Galaxy without the LA Aztecs, and just working back to that.
There’s so much great history. Recently, for Christmas, I got a replica LA Aztecs Johan Cruyff jersey. Right now I’m on the hunt for a Maccabee LA jersey - I would love to get my hands on one of those. Anybody that doesn’t know about that - Kevin Baxter wrote an excellent article about the history of Maccabee LA, so if you haven’t checked that out I recommend that. We have so much great history in LA and in California with soccer, and a lot of people just don’t know about it.
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