October 1, 2024 • 43 mins
Today, Mark Twain is widely thought of as one of America's greatest authors -- but he was also, get this, a terrible investor. Inspired by his father's unfailing (and unsuccessful) efforts to become a business tycoon, Twain spent loads of time and money backing inventions that either didn't work... or were outright scams. In part one of this special two-part series, Ben, Noel and Max explore how Twain's early life experiences set him on this path -- and how he originally had a different pen name. Also, this is our Connecticut series.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. Let's give it up for our
super producer, mister Max Williams, who is.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Back alive again. Woo hoo, I'm here y'all.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Oh wait, it said barely a live a minute ago.
You've updated. You've updated your non de de zoom. Ah,
that should be a thing.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
I'm gonna zoom. That's a good one.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
I'm sorry that hasn't already been coined. I take credit
fully right now.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
No, that's a great one. Yeah, it's on record now.
We call that the poor Man's patent or the poor
man's trademark. We said it publicly. That's Noel Brown.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
That Library of Congress, Patent Office whatever.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yeah, that's Noel Brown right there, coming in with the
hot trademarks. I am Ben Bollen, and today, folks, we
are back on our completely self inflicted mission to make
at least one episode about every state in these United States.
And I looked at the I looked at the files. NOL,
(01:27):
we're doing pretty well.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Oh yeah, guys, how far how deep are we into
these United States?
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Well, luckily, our pal Max has made a handy spreadsheet
which is no offense classic Max it is.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
It's called States breadsheets.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
And I'm a nerd, and I.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Thought these are the formulas and everything. One time I
accidentally copied over one and I immediately got an aggressive text.
Speaker 5 (01:51):
Aggressive the risk modeling class in college, and I thought
I knew how to use Excel until I took a
risk modeling class.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
I also learned that risk modeling is not yeah, easy subject.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Also, I've been I've been risky with models in the past.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
We're gonna take that. We're gonna just sit with that one.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
But Max is risk modeling something that might be helpful
in predicting the path of Hurricane Helene.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
More.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yes, yeah, yeah, I guess yeah, risk modeling. Risk modeling
is weaponized statistics.
Speaker 5 (02:26):
Yeah, okay, yeah, it's very good at guessing how long
you will live.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
Nol okay cool.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Yeah, well, yeah, hopefully we will all live through this storm.
We had some nasty rains yesterday. It looks like today
might not be quite as bad. But then starting tomorrow morning,
us being here in the metro Atlanta area, we might
see some catastrophic weather events.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
So luck yeah, This is being recorded on Thursday, September
twenty sixth, just in case we don't make it through. Friday,
September twenty seventh is when the storm will hit Atlanta.
Our thoughts are, of course, with the people who are
more directly in the path are our good friends in
(03:05):
the southeast part of the United States, most particularly in Florida,
also all points below. So everybody, if you're hearing this,
congratulations you have survived the hurricane. We actually have been
backstage doing some horse trading to figure out the best
times to record because we often record remotely. So we
(03:28):
are very much and this is not to do with
Mark Twain. We are very much the equivalent of early
deep sea divers. When we record remotely. We have tubes,
just like deep sea divers had tubes connecting them to oxygen,
and our tubes are the Internet.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
This is the most wonderful ask to get to elbow
analogy I could possibly imagine.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
And I am here for a my friends, no bathospheres?
Well we could get some bath We'll check the budget.
How y'all have tubes?
Speaker 2 (04:00):
I have a bathosphere?
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Yeah? Was that?
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Like?
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Is that?
Speaker 1 (04:02):
What?
Speaker 4 (04:02):
Was that the same as a diving bell?
Speaker 5 (04:05):
It's it's like the next step after a diving bell.
It's like a perfect circle when because of its shape,
the pressure of the sea.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
Has a heart. Oh, it's the spaceman helmet, the underwater
space man.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
No, no, like no, no, no, it's it's it's like
a it's like a tiny it's like the submarine version
of a capsule hotel.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Right.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
And the diving bell was even more technologically simple than that.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
It's just a bell.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
It dropped down and it had oxygen in it, so
you could swim and.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
It would just create a seal with the water, just
by the way science works, capillary action or some such.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
You know who's a big fan of diving bells, Mark Twain.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Well, what we're saying is the bathosphere works because Mark
Twain did not invest in it. And and we're also
saying again just to show that analogy up, we want
to get this done as long as we have power here.
(05:02):
We have quite a few states uh still left to cover. Uh,
but we're actually on the other side of it, folks.
This is our Connecticut episode. Oh when I said quite
a few guys, incorrect, guys, we only have one, two, three, four, five.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Hey, can this also be a Missouri episode. We talk
about Missouri in this episode.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
Let's double up on Missouri. Yeah, because yeah, well we'll
double up we actually episode Yeah at least three Yes.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Missouri, if you please, yes when we do, no, and
we'll we'll make this the fourth Wood as well as
our Connecticut episode. Connecticut known as the Constitution state where
our pal, our old alum, Trace Domingas from our discovery days.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
He recently moved to Connecticut, and he confirmed that a
Connecticut style pizza is a thing and be he said,
it's pretty great.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
What may I ask? Is Connecticut style? Oh, I'm so
glad you asked.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Okay, so Connecticut style pizza is not the kind it's
not like, uh, you know, like deep dish Chicago pizza.
It's quite the opposite. It's a it's known for being
very thin crust and coal fired. Uh.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
Sometimes I'll put clams on it. Okay, I'm here for that.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Is that a white pizza with like a creamy base
with clams or where clams on a red sauce base.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
The the one that, uh, the one that Trace told
me about he had, well, we'll actually had to he
said one was just a plain sort of Neapolitan style pizza,
and then I think Trace or someone else had one
that was just olive oil, oregano, cheese, garlic, and clams.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
So it's pretty good. Yeah, no tomato. I like that
really quickly. Not to derail too deep. But while we're
talking about pizza, have you guys heard of Pittsburgh style pizza. Yes,
it's hot, crispy pizza with cold toppings.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
I have not tried it, you know, I was in
Pittsburgh a few years back. I haven't tried it, but
I wonder if it's like that. I wonder if it's
a normalization thing, like in Pittsburgh. Did they just call
it pizza? Did they not know about hot pepperoni and
stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
I imagine they do just call it pizza. But yeah,
it's my buddy Theo, who's a burger.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
He mentioned it.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
He posted something up or maybe I saw a meme
about it that was implying that it was awful, and
I said it to him and he said, no, it's
actually great because the hotness of the crust kind of
slowly starts to melt the toppings.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
But there's something.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
About the combinations of textures and temperatures. That makes it
kind of pleasant. So I don't know who am I
to say, I'll try it. Yeah, we'll try I'll lot
of you.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Who else would try stuff? Mark Twain and Trace to
me is ed. Also, just to finish this part up,
if you like our show, you'll love Tracey's show. That's absurd.
Please elaborate available everywhere, give him a review. Televivie senta.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
We should have Trace on the show. I haven't talked
to him in years. That'd be super cool.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Yeah. Yeah, and you should go at his show too, man,
I'd love to.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Our exploration tonight, as you can tell, is about a
guy named Samuel Langhorne Clemens. His street name is Mark Twain,
and we'll get to that in a second.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Yeah, I thought it was fog Horn Langhorn, that's what
I know. Langhorn's curious, isn't it. It's definitely a choice.
And wait till you hear his brother's name. Years back,
one of us took a trip to the Hartford, Connecticut
home of the Clemens clan for a time and it's
a very beautiful house. It's for the time in which
(08:57):
it was occupied by Mark Twain, it's kind of like
a Tony starkhouse, like as one of the first telephones.
It has cool gadgets in it, it's opulent. Uh, probably
a few hidden doors or secret passages. Maybe one of
those rollaway library cases that reveals some sort of secret
(09:19):
sex Dungeon.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
I want that so bad.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
And you I know what you're I know that why
that's on your mind because you and I are currently
lobbying pretty hard for one of our friends to just
do the right thing.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
He's got the perfect space for it. He's got to
complete the secret pass It's not going to blow up
a spot. But no, no, you know who you are.
You know who you are. He doesn't listen to the show.
Cool guy, mansion, cool guy. Oh that's a joke for us.
It's for you. You will.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Yeah, millions of people tell us about your secret passages.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
We'll tell you this.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Our buddy Sam was many things, right, Noel, He's uh,
what do you think of when you think of Mark Twain?
Speaker 3 (10:02):
I think of books that kids were forced to read
that maybe had some things in it that were not great. Yeah, yeah,
I mean listen, I think obviously Mark Twain was a
great satirist. I mean, hew, there's a comedy award given
out in his name that is one of the most
prestigious awards in that particular business.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
He was very funny, very prescient.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
He obviously also was a product of his time, and
the way he depicted certain individuals in certain of his
books was not always great. But also, I don't know, man,
what is your take on the Huck Finn you know, conundrum, like,
do you think he actively was hostile towards black people
in his depiction or was he just depicting a time
(10:50):
and place and the language that was used in that
time and place.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Yeah, it's a you know, I studied. I was privileged
enough to study with Mark Twain's scholars back in the day,
and even they are divided on this, uh, but.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
It was maybe a little divisive, yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Because you know, you see things like Putt inhead Wilson,
But then you also see his clear I would say,
clear social battles for equality, yes.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
And I for justice, one would argue.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
I mean then the way the characters interact and the
way the plots kind of you know, progress.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Right, But part of his mother's dowry was three enslaved people.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
No, yeah, I didn't know that one. Yeah, that's his mother.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Though he didn't inherit these enslaved people, did he he did,
he probably would have freed them.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yeah, it's look. I love that you're pointing out. This
is a problematic thing. One of my favorite scholarly conspiracies
or interpretations of Huckleberry Finn in particular, is the idea
that huck was black. When we talked about that, I've
heard that take. Yeah, yeah, And.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Is there anything specifically in the language that indicates that
or is it kind of like why would he be
so vague about it, considering the way he described other black.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Characters, Right, Yeah, that's that's a big part of the discourse.
You know, what would be the motivation to sort of
disguise I guess, or to make it subtextual, sort of
like how JK. Rowling came out years later and said
Dumbledore is gay or whatever.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
Okay, okay, right, it seems a little self serving.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
No, I don't know, though, She's she's like kind of
nothing so far right with her turf stuff that I
can't imagine you really need a pr win in that respect.
But maybe she came out with that information before she
kind of went down the rabbit hole.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
I don't know who knows man? Anyway, this is great,
right right? Right?
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Doesn't not our not our favorite person. Our favorite person
is obviously Jonathan Strickland, our number one. But so look,
Mark Twain, amazing author, pivotal figure in literature, an American
success story for many. He should have edited his autobiography.
(13:14):
I read it. I'm gonna save everybody some time. It
needed revision. But for our purposes today, Noel Mark Twain.
Samuel Clemens is a dude who really really wanted at
his heart to be a venture capitalist, and he just
got beat me here, Max. He just got shit wrong
(13:36):
nearly every single time.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Well, it just goes to show there are different kinds
of smarts, you know, there are different sets of skill.
Just because you're a wildly successful author and sadder as
does not necessarily mean you have the chops or the
acumen to make smart business decisions.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
We see this throughout history.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Agreed and well said in the Origin story, So our
pal Sam begins his life in a town called and
get this and know all this confused me Florida, Missouri.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
That's not real. I mean it's yeah, okay, it's real.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
It's a weird choice though, right, does that mean we
can make this our Florida episode?
Speaker 4 (14:19):
Ye Have we done a Florida episode? YEA, surely yeah.
I'm not looking at the spreadsheet.
Speaker 5 (14:24):
I'm just gonna jump in here. Is like one of
the most done states we have ever done.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
Because of the sunshine laws. Probably lots of info about
in Florida.
Speaker 5 (14:32):
Florida and kick him right now, they're gonna hit it
with a hurricane. So everyone Florida, hope you're safe. But
also Florida there's a lot of ridiculous history topics.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
Oh yeah, they know, they know.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Floridians know, yes, and the ones that don't know are
probably part of the problem.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
So for when we save Floridians, we mean both people
in the state of Florida and in the town of Florida, Missouri,
where Sam was born as Samuel Clemens. This is the thirtieth,
eighteen thirty five, but he ends his life in Connecticut
on April twenty first, nineteen ten, and he is known
(15:10):
as Mark Twain at this point. People often call him
Mark in his real life, and there's a poetry to
it because when he's born November thirtieth, eighteen thirty five,
do you remember another heavenly event that I heard.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
It's wild man.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
It happens the beginning and the end of this man's life,
the passage of Haley's comment.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Heralding the literary genius that is it was Mark Twain.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
It's so nuts, just the timing on it.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
I mean, it's a coincidence.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
I'm sure statistically there were a lot of other people
who were born and passed away around the same time.
I don't know, man, it freaks me out a little
bit because I like, you know, back back in ancient times,
children born during eclipses or other heavenly events like the
(16:05):
passage of a comet were considered somehow different demonic.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Sometimes yeah, yeah, you say different, I say demonic potato patade.
But I mean sometimes they work like, you know, literally
abandoned in the woods or something because people were scared
that they were possessed or something.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Or they were considered holy. It was also an option. Yes, yes,
I thought you was like this. I was looking back
through notes on Mark Twain, and he is often described
as a sickly mischievous child.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Well, when you're sickly, you're not out there, you know,
playing the stickball with the other boys. You got to
get up to some Tom Tom Sawyer foolish you know,
like tricking people to paint your fence and whatnot, getting
out of your chores because you're so sickly you can
barely lift the paint brush with your little weedy arm.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
But you'll feed somewhere in an apple to paint it
for you. Yeah. Oh wait, I gotta I flipped that
the guy gives his apple away to paint the defense.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
It's very weird. It's a weird one.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
It's a it's a cool insult though for the future,
right for the present day. Can you imagine calling an
adult like like you're disagreeing with someone over what pizza
do'll order Pittsburgh or Connecticut? And then when you get
in the disagreement, you.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
Go you are a sickly mischievous child. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Indeed, anytime you call an adulted child, that's them fighting words.
But he, you know, I would argue that he based
some of the the Shenanigans of Tom Sawyer on himself.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
He would often, you know, kind.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Of a Dennis the Menace character, probably carried a sling
shot around and is in the back pocket of his
overalls with his shirt on underneath you know, totally one
of those kids to goy bary Bart Simpson ask could
probably shred on the skate on a skateboard too.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
No, that wasn't a thing then. But his parents were.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
They were tested, Ben, they were really tested by young
Samuel l so.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
Sickly, so mischievous.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
It's strange because his father is Petrophamilius, was in many
ways a polar opposite, at least on the surface of
what his son would become. Sam was known for his
rapacious wit and humor later in life became a famous
author based off that. But his dad, John Clemens, was
(18:35):
kind of a hard case. Yeah, he wasn't the most
humorous of fellows. Pretty serious cat, very dour. For being honest,
he was probably a little bit underwater, not to use
more nautical terms, but like with finances and with just
the overwhelming pressure of raising a family amidst some problems
(19:00):
admittedly of his own making, involving poor investments and failing businesses,
which may have been where sold Sam got his investment
shops or lack thereof. Right, how far does the apple
fall from the tree, How far does the page fall
from the printing press? It's eighteen thirty nine, and our
(19:22):
buddy Sam is not quite around three years old. And
because of his father's failed business ventures, they moved to
a port town called Hannibal, which is along the Mississippi River.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
The Mighty Mississippi. Yeah, and this.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Is where our pal Sam sees the highs and lows
of American business. And this also, I think forges the
experiences that inform a lot of his fiction. Like you
were saying earlier that Tom saw your stuff Huckleberry Finn
and even his his name, And I love the point
(20:02):
you make that later in life Sam Sam agrees with
what we're saying. He says his father's unending ambition gave
him this fundamental, if incorrect belief in one day making
it through business.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
He he talked about it. It's what we would call
either the American dream or a pipe dream.
Speaker 5 (20:27):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
His dad always told them, even unto his father, John's death,
he told them, I bought this land in Tennessee, and
this is going to make our family dynasty. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
Oh, let's say they're kind of rhymed, Ben not about
to make a family.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
I can imagine that as a little ditty Tom Sawyer
might have saying walking down the road, with his bendle
and a stick and bendle or whatever he had one
of those. Surely he was sort of a roguish hobo.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
Kid, wasn't he. Well, I guess that was more hug Finn.
But they went on adventures.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
What are the Disney Live Action Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
starring Elijah Wood? Yes, I do, very young Elijah as
Tom Sawyer and brad Renfro who as as Huck Finn.
Brad Renfrow who would go on to play the titular
bully character in the Larry Clark very upsetting film Bully
(21:25):
about a bully that's brad Renfro and brad Renfrow sadly
real bad struggles with drugs and alcohol, and I believe
he ended up overdosing and passing away. Sorry, didn't mean
to bring the mood down. That movie sticks in my
in my mind. There was even another one, I think
with Jonathan Taylor Thomas of of of Home Improvement Fame
(21:48):
playing Tom Sawyer. Anyway, Sorry, all this missmash of pop
culture kind of it haunts me, Ben, which.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Shows us, which shows us the impact that Mark Twain
had American zeitgeist.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Percent and you know I'll tell you what my you know,
have Tom Sawyer. That whole mythos is probably what he's
most known for. But I always really enjoyed a Connecticut
Yankee in King Arthur's Court. It was kind of an
early sort of like butterfly effect time travel back to
the future. I mean, there would be no back to
the future were it not for Connecticut Yankee in King
(22:20):
Arthur's Court.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Hot take. But I like it. I like it. I
like I like when your takes are fresh baked like that. Yeah,
this is Yeah, I'm nothing fresh baked.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
This is pipe it hot because yeah, we reference I
reference it. I think you do as well. Connecticut yanking
King Arthur's Court to do many times. Yeah, film, it's
a and it's a great read. Uh, it holds up. Uh,
it's it is satirical, but I reference it often with
(22:55):
critical thinking and blissfully short and yes, and not near
as overlong as his multi volume autobiography.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
But Ben, you were setting up a quote that I
think is very pertinent here about his sort of mentality
going into what will ultimately be his business undoing.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Yeah, as we're setting this up again, we're talking about
this pipe dream mentality here is something he wrote?
Speaker 4 (23:24):
Could you could you give it to us in a voice?
Oh gosh, that's the or you know your own voice
is fine? Do we have record we have?
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Surely there were recordings of Samuel Clements reading his own work.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
Right, he kicked it with Tesla pretty hard.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
I mean it would have been early days of like,
I'm sorry, I'm getting the timeline twisted in my head.
But is there footage? And is there is there audio
of Mark Twain speaking?
Speaker 4 (23:52):
There are no.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
There are no audio recordings that have been discovered. I
think there is a There is a piece of silent
film that was made by Thomas Edison.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
Okay, Oh, well.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Edison would have been the one who would have done
the audio recording too, So I guess we're kind of
right on the cusp there of like early wax cylinder
type recording technology here Twain tried to make audio books
and jumping ahead a little bit.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
In eighteen ninety one, he tried to record one of
his novellas on the wax cylinders used in phonographs, but
he just kept messing up, and.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
So okay, so it wasn't outside of the realm of possibility.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
This would have happened. It just didn't come to fruition.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Yeah, he did record, if I recall correctly, he recorded
something in nineteen oh nine in Thomas Edison's lab. But
then there was a fire in nineteen fourteen. And as
we said previously, you know a lot of that stuff
is notoriously flammable.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
So how about that not for lack of the technology.
He literally just was the victim of some bad luck. Yeah,
in the eighteen this was almost nineteen hundred, he did
record with Thomas Edison, You're dead right, and they burned
up in a fire. So we'll just have to go
with the popular, I guess depiction of Mark Twain's voice,
(25:20):
which is sort of something like this. I say, I say,
I say, I put our energies to sleep and made
visionaries of us dreamers and indolent.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
It is good to begin laugh poor, It is good
to begin laugh rich.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
These are wholesome, But to begin it prospectively rich.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
The man who has not experienced it cannot imagine the
curse of it. I say, I say, I say, I
think that Langhorn got to you. I think it did.
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
I really he is sort of characterized as having you know,
a southern drawl.
Speaker 4 (25:51):
Yeah, a little right, I tell yeah, Mark Twang, there
it is there, it is. Can we unpact this? Though?
This is a little dense. Honestly, the language here, well,
the idea is this.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
It kind of echoes the poetry of Robert Browning, right,
like a man's reach should exceed his grasp? Or what's
a heaven for?
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Dream big? Right? Dream big? Very American?
Speaker 1 (26:16):
He said, Look, if you begin life poor, okay, that's
part of America. If you begin life wealthy, awesome, you
won the lottery. But if you begin it addicted to
the dream that you will one day be successful, then
you are cursed. That's what he's saying. He's saying he's
(26:37):
always chasing this dragon of financial success.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
Dude. We've had this conversation before too.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
I mean, it's sort of I think maybe a modern
equivalent of this is more money, more problems, where if
you are constantly striving for the next thing, you will
never truly be happy with what you have. And one
could argue that therein lies the nature of ambition and
it's not inherently a bad thing, but not necessarily the
(27:05):
makings of a happy life.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Yeah, and this is a feeling familiar to almost anyone
in the world these days who's grown up in less
than ideal circumstances. It's a fundamental and at times dangerous
mix of ambition and insecurity, and this mix followed him
like a shadow all the days of his life. He
(27:28):
did get into he did get into technology from early days.
He started as an apprentice to a printer, which meant
he worked as a type setter, and we talked about
printing presses before. A type setter's job was kind of
like tetris. I think it suited to a certain type
(27:50):
of type organization of the personality.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
Yeah. Yeah, everything in its right place.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
People who are good at packing vans, you know, like
moving devices and such.
Speaker 4 (28:02):
Is that a radiohead quote everything and it's right.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Everything in it's everything in its right place is definitely
a radio So it's also again, I think we mentioned
it on our recent episode on Robot Servants on stuff
they don't want you to know. Something Rosy, the robot
in the Jetsons universe said when she went totally bananas,
and so you just go up place for everything and
everything in its place, a place for everything and everything
in its place, and then proceeded to like psychotically organize
(28:27):
the Jetsons home.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
And as we know, all Radiohead songs are ultimately fan
fiction about the Jetsons or interpretations thereof. You'll have to
take our word for it, folks, just read the lyrics
and watch the Jetsons. This is where we introduce the
older brother. I know you'll love this name. After apprenticing
(28:49):
as a type setter, he Sam gets one of his
first writing gigs, working for his older brother's newspaper. His
brother's name a riot Clement's. Ryan is such.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
A cool name. Okay, oh Ryan? Yeah, like the constellation.
Do you think people were lazy and just called him Ryan?
For sure?
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Just getting getting rid of the O, which is such
a helpful shortening.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Or is kind of cool or he's cool?
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Yeah, I think orion has a gravitas to it though,
Oh it does.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
Yeah, it's dare we say, Heavenly? There we go.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
So let's go to Uh there's a mystery about his
name too. While we're While we're here at this moment
in Sam's life. Later he becomes a riverboat pilot, right
we're still in the Mississippi. Uh. This informs the numb
de plume he's known by today. Mark Twain was a
phrase that Mississippi riverboat folks yelled out when their ships
(29:50):
hit two fathoms of water.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Kind of like timber when a tree is about to fall,
Does it make a sound?
Speaker 4 (29:59):
I don't know where you there? You tell me? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (30:02):
And now, Sam, it's kind of like some of our
own relatives. Never the type of guy to let a
good story get in the way of the facts.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
I think I've said that of my mother. So yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
So later scholars would look into his claims about how
he got its name, how he got this name, this
street name, and it didn't measure up to the banger
mythology he created for himself. And when people asked him
about it in his lifetime and said, hey, you've told
several different stories about how you got this name, you
(30:40):
know what, he called him dude. He called these narratives
improved facts.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
Gosh, Donald Trump, would I love this cat? Oh? Gosh,
that disturbs me. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
It isn't that funny though, where like exaggerating a story
is one thing, it's not considered like egregious or like deceptive,
but just a little pushing a little further and depending
on the type of story, it does kind of become
propagandistic fake news. And again not being political here at all,
just talking about the nature of discourse and like the
(31:14):
idea of changing the facts to suit your narrative. If
it's something innocuous, it's a story about the time that I,
you know, fought a shark in the ocean that hasn't
hurt anybody. But if it then becomes about others and
cultural stuff and different things that can have impacts on,
you know, the way people behave socially and voted stuff,
it can really be dangerous.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
So I don't know. Mark Twain seems to have been
aware of that. He does.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
And let's let's get into how he got this name,
because we kid you not. Mark Twain's first pseudonym was
not Mark Twain.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
Wasn't it like Steve or something? So okay, here's the
real sort.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
His elder brother O'Ryan was a big campaigner for an
amateur wrestler, real up and comer, Abraham Lincoln.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
Yeah you're joking. Oh sorry, sorry, I never mind. Okay,
you're doing the thing, you're doing the bit I got it.
I was picturing him being like an early MMA promoter.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
You know that's amazing, like a early Oh gosh, there's
a Netflix documentary out on Vince McMahon.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
You know what, that guy's just batshit enough to warrant
me watching a documentary about him.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
The interview, I mean, the meme alone that he gave
the world as a guest the Galaxy Brain.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Yeah, money, Yeah, and also that's a McMahon's different thing.
We are very aware of everything you're thinking about as well.
Speaker 4 (32:45):
Folks.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
When you hear us reference that person, check out the documentary.
He disowned it, which makes it interesting to watch.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
Boy does it ever? I mean, but let's just say
at the very least, also.
Speaker 4 (32:57):
Probably not the greatest of guys.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Yeah, A hot takes a plenty. I'm gonna say, I
don't want to hang out with Actually, we know people
who worked with him in some capacity, and they also
had things to say.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
So all right.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
So Abraham Lincoln, amateur wrestler, another American success story, goes
on to succeed in politics a bit and as as
a result.
Speaker 4 (33:27):
Failed upward kind of you know, great, So as.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
A result of Lincoln's success, this is still very much
the spoils of war kind of approach to politics. Sure,
So Orion Clemens becomes the Secretary of the Nevada Territory
as just a gift bag, a swag bag for supporting Lincoln.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
And the largest town in the Nevada Territory was another
interestingly named for.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
The city, So in the Nevada taris exactly. Yeah, Florida, Missouri,
Virginia City.
Speaker 4 (34:05):
Virginia City. Makes you wonder if.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Mark Twain actually knew where he was going.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
So, having a bit of an in with his brother Orion. Sorry,
whatever I think Orion. I think of two things. I
think of the classic film company Orion that I'll like,
you see the logo with like the classic font. And also,
I don't know, in my head, I'm going oh oh
oh Orian, like the O'Reilly thing. Sorry, I just had
(34:31):
to say that out loud so it would stop haunting me.
But yeah, So Sam's got a bit of an in
with his brother. He heads out west, tagging along with Orion,
and he gives mining a shot. These were the days
where people were lighting out for the territories. As they say,
was it wouldn't this have been? This is gold rush time, right,
(34:52):
This is a little different. Maybe this is more like
a run on resources or trying to like, you know,
get mineral rights and things like that.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Right, yeah, yeah, just like his dad bought that land
in Tennessee partially for mineral rights.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
This is a same rush of sorts, though not the
historic gold rush that I was referring to.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
He has the he has the idea that he's going
to get in on this silver mining industry. He was
terrible at it. He was unsuccessful. He did it was
not a smart move on his part, or he was
just unlucky.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
Again.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
But while Sam Clemens is here, he gets this reputation
as almost a local celebrity because he's known as a
lively storyteller, a great conversationalist, which is all tracks, which
really just means you're good at listening, and he is.
He is a local humor columnist. He's a humorist and
(35:56):
some of the things he writes are eventually published in
the main newspaper of Virginia City, the Territorial Enterprise. He
did not use his real name. He did not use
his famous fake name beat me again, Max, we should
be not. His first pseudonym in print was Josh Okay.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
I was close. What did I say? Steve Josh Josh
oh Man. Why is that? I think it's just because he.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Looms so large, you know, in our cultural kind of
collective memories, Josh just seems so diminutive compared to the
larger than life persona that is Mark Twain.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
I've just said pictory, like a pictory, like a Connecticut
yankee in King Arthur's Court by Josh.
Speaker 4 (36:42):
It was just Josh like like Madonna. Yeah, it was.
It was a single name because columns. That's hilarious. I
have a quick question for you, Ben, I put it
to you.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Is it appropriate for someone to call themselves a humorist
or is that a title that needs to be bestowed
by others. I think it needs to be bestowed by others,
if I'm being completely honest, I.
Speaker 4 (37:07):
Like, you don't get to say that you're funny.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
I think it requires input from a third party to
decide whether someone is funny or not.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
That's the reason there's a Mark Twain Award. Right, If
you call yourself a humorist, it feels like a dick
move a little bit. Yeah, I think so too. Okay, cool,
So we got that out of the way. Josh. Back
to Josh. Yeah, in his defense, been.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
You pointed this out in your excellent research brief for
this episode, these episodes, I don't know. Josh is also
a kind of a bit of a du blontolder, right, Josh,
I'm just Josh and ya you know, so he knew,
he knew. So he was already kind of in the
(37:54):
persona building game.
Speaker 4 (37:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah, because Josh in English, a special American English, is
both a proper name and like you said, no, it's
a verb for joking.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
I'm just joshing. You just joshing around, buddy.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
So this his onion level, cracked article level things, got
him a gig writing for twenty five dollars a week.
Speaker 4 (38:19):
This was massive. This was a lot of money. Old yeah, yeah,
and he was.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
He had a spidy sense for humor and satire, and he, unapologetically,
with no reservation, clowned everyone. He became a lampooner, yeah,
real lampooner. Yes, yeah, just so he became a local celebrity,
sort of like you or me or Max at our
favorite David Busters or.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
You know, we get voice clocked every now and again
at the local or some of our favorite Atlanta haunts
or the airport.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Oh, I got it, I forgot to tell you I
got made at the TSA wow bia csa worker.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
Yeah, and he.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
Lets you smuggle all that.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
That hashish through. No gave you a pass, no comedy.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
I told you I got voice checked in line at
the museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
And it felt so cool because I'm like, smart people
listen to us. That's awesome. That made me feel great,
specifically about ridiculous history.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
And we know the we know the real story what
seems to be the true story behind the origin of
the name Mark Twain, because he was known as a
Mississippi riverboat guy who was trying, without success to become
a silver miner. He hung out in a lot of
the public houses of Virginia City, and the barkeepers in
(39:51):
the area used to yell out Mark Twayne whenever he
walked in because he was a regular. And when they
yelled out Mark Twain, it meant they needed to bring
two shots of whiskey to Sam and then make two
marks of chalk on the board where they kept a
record of their standing tabs. And I want to give
(40:13):
a shout out to our pal Gregory Crouch over a
Time magazine who pointed out that that little piece of
hidden history to us.
Speaker 4 (40:23):
So it was a bar nickname.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
It wasn't pretty cool, so it was I mean it
was again with the double entendres. I mean is it
does reference the nautical you know, call out, but it
was sort of co opted into this kind of I
guess en joke. Is this like a thing that was
like his regular order, right, so he basically had a
(40:46):
cocktail named after him or named himself after a cocktail.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
It's like if we went to waffle house more often
and we were there every week and they stopped calling
us by our first names and just started calling us
by what we.
Speaker 4 (41:00):
Are, Like, Oh it's Patty Belt.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Oh it's All Star Breakfast right right, Oh it's Grand
Slam yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 4 (41:08):
And also isn't so Mark? What was the order again?
The order was the whiskey.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Yeah. They would give him two shots of whiskey, and
then they would go ahead and assume he wasn't paying
that night, so they would make two chalk marks on
the board.
Speaker 4 (41:22):
Mark Twain, Yeah, no, I got it.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
It's also it just makes me think of like at
some bars, you know, how they have clever nicknames for
like a beer and a shot combo.
Speaker 4 (41:30):
Oh we're saying. Yeah, I thought maybe that was part
of it too, but no, it's much more. Oh that'd
be interesting.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
So that's kind of what I was thinking with the
name after a cocktail thing. But yeah, the guy, you know,
contained multitudes for sure.
Speaker 4 (41:42):
Yeah, and he wanted.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
He wasn't super into his street name and authorial career
just yet. It was paying the bills to write these
joke columns.
Speaker 4 (41:53):
In his mind.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Still, he's kind of smoking that American pipe dream of success.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
Yeah, he and that in your American pipe dream and
smoke it.
Speaker 4 (42:05):
Hold the bell telephone, folks.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
This is this is a two parter for us. So
a hoy a hoy as isn't that I said? Hello?
Speaker 4 (42:17):
You leave out the second right right? Uh?
Speaker 1 (42:20):
Look at me being one of those hello fellow kids
guys in the back.
Speaker 4 (42:24):
Back of the eighteen high about.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Uh uh so a hoy hoy And big thanks to
our super producer mister Max Williams.
Speaker 4 (42:36):
Who else who else?
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Oh, indeed, all the thank you, Christopher Rociotis and he
was Jeff Cots here in spirit, Jonathan Strickland, the quiz
dra A, Jay Bahamas Jacobs, the Puzzler.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
Alex Williams, who composed our Our Bang and Bop here
join us in just a few days. We're going to
get to more stories about Mark Twain's cartoonishly bad investment
journey at the same time that he became one of
the world's most beloved authors.
Speaker 4 (43:06):
Can't wait to see you on the other side. We'll
see you next time, folks.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. Let's give it up for our
super producer, mister Max Williams, who is.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Back alive again. Woo hoo, I'm here y'all.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Oh wait, it said barely a live a minute ago.
You've updated. You've updated your non de de zoom. Ah,
that should be a thing.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
I'm gonna zoom. That's a good one.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
I'm sorry that hasn't already been coined. I take credit
fully right now.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
No, that's a great one. Yeah, it's on record now.
We call that the poor Man's patent or the poor
man's trademark. We said it publicly. That's Noel Brown.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
That Library of Congress, Patent Office whatever.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yeah, that's Noel Brown right there, coming in with the
hot trademarks. I am Ben Bollen, and today, folks, we
are back on our completely self inflicted mission to make
at least one episode about every state in these United States.
And I looked at the I looked at the files. NOL,
(01:27):
we're doing pretty well.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Oh yeah, guys, how far how deep are we into
these United States?
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Well, luckily, our pal Max has made a handy spreadsheet
which is no offense classic Max it is.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
It's called States breadsheets.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
And I'm a nerd, and I.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Thought these are the formulas and everything. One time I
accidentally copied over one and I immediately got an aggressive text.
Speaker 5 (01:51):
Aggressive the risk modeling class in college, and I thought
I knew how to use Excel until I took a
risk modeling class.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
I also learned that risk modeling is not yeah, easy subject.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Also, I've been I've been risky with models in the past.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
We're gonna take that. We're gonna just sit with that one.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
But Max is risk modeling something that might be helpful
in predicting the path of Hurricane Helene.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
More.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yes, yeah, yeah, I guess yeah, risk modeling. Risk modeling
is weaponized statistics.
Speaker 5 (02:26):
Yeah, okay, yeah, it's very good at guessing how long
you will live.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
Nol okay cool.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Yeah, well, yeah, hopefully we will all live through this storm.
We had some nasty rains yesterday. It looks like today
might not be quite as bad. But then starting tomorrow morning,
us being here in the metro Atlanta area, we might
see some catastrophic weather events.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
So luck yeah, This is being recorded on Thursday, September
twenty sixth, just in case we don't make it through. Friday,
September twenty seventh is when the storm will hit Atlanta.
Our thoughts are, of course, with the people who are
more directly in the path are our good friends in
(03:05):
the southeast part of the United States, most particularly in Florida,
also all points below. So everybody, if you're hearing this,
congratulations you have survived the hurricane. We actually have been
backstage doing some horse trading to figure out the best
times to record because we often record remotely. So we
(03:28):
are very much and this is not to do with
Mark Twain. We are very much the equivalent of early
deep sea divers. When we record remotely. We have tubes,
just like deep sea divers had tubes connecting them to oxygen,
and our tubes are the Internet.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
This is the most wonderful ask to get to elbow
analogy I could possibly imagine.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
And I am here for a my friends, no bathospheres?
Well we could get some bath We'll check the budget.
How y'all have tubes?
Speaker 2 (04:00):
I have a bathosphere?
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Yeah? Was that?
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Like?
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Is that?
Speaker 1 (04:02):
What?
Speaker 4 (04:02):
Was that the same as a diving bell?
Speaker 5 (04:05):
It's it's like the next step after a diving bell.
It's like a perfect circle when because of its shape,
the pressure of the sea.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
Has a heart. Oh, it's the spaceman helmet, the underwater
space man.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
No, no, like no, no, no, it's it's it's like
a it's like a tiny it's like the submarine version
of a capsule hotel.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Right.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
And the diving bell was even more technologically simple than that.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
It's just a bell.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
It dropped down and it had oxygen in it, so
you could swim and.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
It would just create a seal with the water, just
by the way science works, capillary action or some such.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
You know who's a big fan of diving bells, Mark Twain.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Well, what we're saying is the bathosphere works because Mark
Twain did not invest in it. And and we're also
saying again just to show that analogy up, we want
to get this done as long as we have power here.
(05:02):
We have quite a few states uh still left to cover. Uh,
but we're actually on the other side of it, folks.
This is our Connecticut episode. Oh when I said quite
a few guys, incorrect, guys, we only have one, two, three, four, five.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Hey, can this also be a Missouri episode. We talk
about Missouri in this episode.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
Let's double up on Missouri. Yeah, because yeah, well we'll
double up we actually episode Yeah at least three Yes.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Missouri, if you please, yes when we do, no, and
we'll we'll make this the fourth Wood as well as
our Connecticut episode. Connecticut known as the Constitution state where
our pal, our old alum, Trace Domingas from our discovery days.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
He recently moved to Connecticut, and he confirmed that a
Connecticut style pizza is a thing and be he said,
it's pretty great.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
What may I ask? Is Connecticut style? Oh, I'm so
glad you asked.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Okay, so Connecticut style pizza is not the kind it's
not like, uh, you know, like deep dish Chicago pizza.
It's quite the opposite. It's a it's known for being
very thin crust and coal fired. Uh.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
Sometimes I'll put clams on it. Okay, I'm here for that.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Is that a white pizza with like a creamy base
with clams or where clams on a red sauce base.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
The the one that, uh, the one that Trace told
me about he had, well, we'll actually had to he
said one was just a plain sort of Neapolitan style pizza,
and then I think Trace or someone else had one
that was just olive oil, oregano, cheese, garlic, and clams.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
So it's pretty good. Yeah, no tomato. I like that
really quickly. Not to derail too deep. But while we're
talking about pizza, have you guys heard of Pittsburgh style pizza. Yes,
it's hot, crispy pizza with cold toppings.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
I have not tried it, you know, I was in
Pittsburgh a few years back. I haven't tried it, but
I wonder if it's like that. I wonder if it's
a normalization thing, like in Pittsburgh. Did they just call
it pizza? Did they not know about hot pepperoni and
stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
I imagine they do just call it pizza. But yeah,
it's my buddy Theo, who's a burger.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
He mentioned it.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
He posted something up or maybe I saw a meme
about it that was implying that it was awful, and
I said it to him and he said, no, it's
actually great because the hotness of the crust kind of
slowly starts to melt the toppings.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
But there's something.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
About the combinations of textures and temperatures. That makes it
kind of pleasant. So I don't know who am I
to say, I'll try it. Yeah, we'll try I'll lot
of you.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Who else would try stuff? Mark Twain and Trace to
me is ed. Also, just to finish this part up,
if you like our show, you'll love Tracey's show. That's absurd.
Please elaborate available everywhere, give him a review. Televivie senta.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
We should have Trace on the show. I haven't talked
to him in years. That'd be super cool.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Yeah. Yeah, and you should go at his show too, man,
I'd love to.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Our exploration tonight, as you can tell, is about a
guy named Samuel Langhorne Clemens. His street name is Mark Twain,
and we'll get to that in a second.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Yeah, I thought it was fog Horn Langhorn, that's what
I know. Langhorn's curious, isn't it. It's definitely a choice.
And wait till you hear his brother's name. Years back,
one of us took a trip to the Hartford, Connecticut
home of the Clemens clan for a time and it's
a very beautiful house. It's for the time in which
(08:57):
it was occupied by Mark Twain, it's kind of like
a Tony starkhouse, like as one of the first telephones.
It has cool gadgets in it, it's opulent. Uh, probably
a few hidden doors or secret passages. Maybe one of
those rollaway library cases that reveals some sort of secret
(09:19):
sex Dungeon.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
I want that so bad.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
And you I know what you're I know that why
that's on your mind because you and I are currently
lobbying pretty hard for one of our friends to just
do the right thing.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
He's got the perfect space for it. He's got to
complete the secret pass It's not going to blow up
a spot. But no, no, you know who you are.
You know who you are. He doesn't listen to the show.
Cool guy, mansion, cool guy. Oh that's a joke for us.
It's for you. You will.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Yeah, millions of people tell us about your secret passages.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
We'll tell you this.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Our buddy Sam was many things, right, Noel, He's uh,
what do you think of when you think of Mark Twain?
Speaker 3 (10:02):
I think of books that kids were forced to read
that maybe had some things in it that were not great. Yeah, yeah,
I mean listen, I think obviously Mark Twain was a
great satirist. I mean, hew, there's a comedy award given
out in his name that is one of the most
prestigious awards in that particular business.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
He was very funny, very prescient.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
He obviously also was a product of his time, and
the way he depicted certain individuals in certain of his
books was not always great. But also, I don't know, man,
what is your take on the Huck Finn you know, conundrum, like,
do you think he actively was hostile towards black people
in his depiction or was he just depicting a time
(10:50):
and place and the language that was used in that
time and place.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Yeah, it's a you know, I studied. I was privileged
enough to study with Mark Twain's scholars back in the day,
and even they are divided on this, uh, but.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
It was maybe a little divisive, yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Because you know, you see things like Putt inhead Wilson,
But then you also see his clear I would say,
clear social battles for equality, yes.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
And I for justice, one would argue.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
I mean then the way the characters interact and the
way the plots kind of you know, progress.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Right, But part of his mother's dowry was three enslaved people.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
No, yeah, I didn't know that one. Yeah, that's his mother.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Though he didn't inherit these enslaved people, did he he did,
he probably would have freed them.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yeah, it's look. I love that you're pointing out. This
is a problematic thing. One of my favorite scholarly conspiracies
or interpretations of Huckleberry Finn in particular, is the idea
that huck was black. When we talked about that, I've
heard that take. Yeah, yeah, And.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Is there anything specifically in the language that indicates that
or is it kind of like why would he be
so vague about it, considering the way he described other black.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Characters, Right, Yeah, that's that's a big part of the discourse.
You know, what would be the motivation to sort of
disguise I guess, or to make it subtextual, sort of
like how JK. Rowling came out years later and said
Dumbledore is gay or whatever.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
Okay, okay, right, it seems a little self serving.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
No, I don't know, though, She's she's like kind of
nothing so far right with her turf stuff that I
can't imagine you really need a pr win in that respect.
But maybe she came out with that information before she
kind of went down the rabbit hole.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
I don't know who knows man? Anyway, this is great,
right right? Right?
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Doesn't not our not our favorite person. Our favorite person
is obviously Jonathan Strickland, our number one. But so look,
Mark Twain, amazing author, pivotal figure in literature, an American
success story for many. He should have edited his autobiography.
(13:14):
I read it. I'm gonna save everybody some time. It
needed revision. But for our purposes today, Noel Mark Twain.
Samuel Clemens is a dude who really really wanted at
his heart to be a venture capitalist, and he just
got beat me here, Max. He just got shit wrong
(13:36):
nearly every single time.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Well, it just goes to show there are different kinds
of smarts, you know, there are different sets of skill.
Just because you're a wildly successful author and sadder as
does not necessarily mean you have the chops or the
acumen to make smart business decisions.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
We see this throughout history.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Agreed and well said in the Origin story, So our
pal Sam begins his life in a town called and
get this and know all this confused me Florida, Missouri.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
That's not real. I mean it's yeah, okay, it's real.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
It's a weird choice though, right, does that mean we
can make this our Florida episode?
Speaker 4 (14:19):
Ye Have we done a Florida episode? YEA, surely yeah.
I'm not looking at the spreadsheet.
Speaker 5 (14:24):
I'm just gonna jump in here. Is like one of
the most done states we have ever done.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
Because of the sunshine laws. Probably lots of info about
in Florida.
Speaker 5 (14:32):
Florida and kick him right now, they're gonna hit it
with a hurricane. So everyone Florida, hope you're safe. But
also Florida there's a lot of ridiculous history topics.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
Oh yeah, they know, they know.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Floridians know, yes, and the ones that don't know are
probably part of the problem.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
So for when we save Floridians, we mean both people
in the state of Florida and in the town of Florida, Missouri,
where Sam was born as Samuel Clemens. This is the thirtieth,
eighteen thirty five, but he ends his life in Connecticut
on April twenty first, nineteen ten, and he is known
(15:10):
as Mark Twain at this point. People often call him
Mark in his real life, and there's a poetry to
it because when he's born November thirtieth, eighteen thirty five,
do you remember another heavenly event that I heard.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
It's wild man.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
It happens the beginning and the end of this man's life,
the passage of Haley's comment.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Heralding the literary genius that is it was Mark Twain.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
It's so nuts, just the timing on it.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
I mean, it's a coincidence.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
I'm sure statistically there were a lot of other people
who were born and passed away around the same time.
I don't know, man, it freaks me out a little
bit because I like, you know, back back in ancient times,
children born during eclipses or other heavenly events like the
(16:05):
passage of a comet were considered somehow different demonic.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Sometimes yeah, yeah, you say different, I say demonic potato patade.
But I mean sometimes they work like, you know, literally
abandoned in the woods or something because people were scared
that they were possessed or something.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Or they were considered holy. It was also an option. Yes, yes,
I thought you was like this. I was looking back
through notes on Mark Twain, and he is often described
as a sickly mischievous child.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Well, when you're sickly, you're not out there, you know,
playing the stickball with the other boys. You got to
get up to some Tom Tom Sawyer foolish you know,
like tricking people to paint your fence and whatnot, getting
out of your chores because you're so sickly you can
barely lift the paint brush with your little weedy arm.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
But you'll feed somewhere in an apple to paint it
for you. Yeah. Oh wait, I gotta I flipped that
the guy gives his apple away to paint the defense.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
It's very weird. It's a weird one.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
It's a it's a cool insult though for the future,
right for the present day. Can you imagine calling an
adult like like you're disagreeing with someone over what pizza
do'll order Pittsburgh or Connecticut? And then when you get
in the disagreement, you.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
Go you are a sickly mischievous child. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Indeed, anytime you call an adulted child, that's them fighting words.
But he, you know, I would argue that he based
some of the the Shenanigans of Tom Sawyer on himself.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
He would often, you know, kind.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Of a Dennis the Menace character, probably carried a sling
shot around and is in the back pocket of his
overalls with his shirt on underneath you know, totally one
of those kids to goy bary Bart Simpson ask could
probably shred on the skate on a skateboard too.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
No, that wasn't a thing then. But his parents were.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
They were tested, Ben, they were really tested by young
Samuel l so.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
Sickly, so mischievous.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
It's strange because his father is Petrophamilius, was in many
ways a polar opposite, at least on the surface of
what his son would become. Sam was known for his
rapacious wit and humor later in life became a famous
author based off that. But his dad, John Clemens, was
(18:35):
kind of a hard case. Yeah, he wasn't the most
humorous of fellows. Pretty serious cat, very dour. For being honest,
he was probably a little bit underwater, not to use
more nautical terms, but like with finances and with just
the overwhelming pressure of raising a family amidst some problems
(19:00):
admittedly of his own making, involving poor investments and failing businesses,
which may have been where sold Sam got his investment
shops or lack thereof. Right, how far does the apple
fall from the tree, How far does the page fall
from the printing press? It's eighteen thirty nine, and our
(19:22):
buddy Sam is not quite around three years old. And
because of his father's failed business ventures, they moved to
a port town called Hannibal, which is along the Mississippi River.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
The Mighty Mississippi. Yeah, and this.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Is where our pal Sam sees the highs and lows
of American business. And this also, I think forges the
experiences that inform a lot of his fiction. Like you
were saying earlier that Tom saw your stuff Huckleberry Finn
and even his his name, And I love the point
(20:02):
you make that later in life Sam Sam agrees with
what we're saying. He says his father's unending ambition gave
him this fundamental, if incorrect belief in one day making
it through business.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
He he talked about it. It's what we would call
either the American dream or a pipe dream.
Speaker 5 (20:27):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
His dad always told them, even unto his father, John's death,
he told them, I bought this land in Tennessee, and
this is going to make our family dynasty. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
Oh, let's say they're kind of rhymed, Ben not about
to make a family.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
I can imagine that as a little ditty Tom Sawyer
might have saying walking down the road, with his bendle
and a stick and bendle or whatever he had one
of those. Surely he was sort of a roguish hobo.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
Kid, wasn't he. Well, I guess that was more hug Finn.
But they went on adventures.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
What are the Disney Live Action Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
starring Elijah Wood? Yes, I do, very young Elijah as
Tom Sawyer and brad Renfro who as as Huck Finn.
Brad Renfrow who would go on to play the titular
bully character in the Larry Clark very upsetting film Bully
(21:25):
about a bully that's brad Renfro and brad Renfrow sadly
real bad struggles with drugs and alcohol, and I believe
he ended up overdosing and passing away. Sorry, didn't mean
to bring the mood down. That movie sticks in my
in my mind. There was even another one, I think
with Jonathan Taylor Thomas of of of Home Improvement Fame
(21:48):
playing Tom Sawyer. Anyway, Sorry, all this missmash of pop
culture kind of it haunts me, Ben, which.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Shows us, which shows us the impact that Mark Twain
had American zeitgeist.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Percent and you know I'll tell you what my you know,
have Tom Sawyer. That whole mythos is probably what he's
most known for. But I always really enjoyed a Connecticut
Yankee in King Arthur's Court. It was kind of an
early sort of like butterfly effect time travel back to
the future. I mean, there would be no back to
the future were it not for Connecticut Yankee in King
(22:20):
Arthur's Court.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Hot take. But I like it. I like it. I
like I like when your takes are fresh baked like that. Yeah,
this is Yeah, I'm nothing fresh baked.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
This is pipe it hot because yeah, we reference I
reference it. I think you do as well. Connecticut yanking
King Arthur's Court to do many times. Yeah, film, it's
a and it's a great read. Uh, it holds up. Uh,
it's it is satirical, but I reference it often with
(22:55):
critical thinking and blissfully short and yes, and not near
as overlong as his multi volume autobiography.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
But Ben, you were setting up a quote that I
think is very pertinent here about his sort of mentality
going into what will ultimately be his business undoing.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Yeah, as we're setting this up again, we're talking about
this pipe dream mentality here is something he wrote?
Speaker 4 (23:24):
Could you could you give it to us in a voice?
Oh gosh, that's the or you know your own voice
is fine? Do we have record we have?
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Surely there were recordings of Samuel Clements reading his own work.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
Right, he kicked it with Tesla pretty hard.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
I mean it would have been early days of like,
I'm sorry, I'm getting the timeline twisted in my head.
But is there footage? And is there is there audio
of Mark Twain speaking?
Speaker 4 (23:52):
There are no.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
There are no audio recordings that have been discovered. I
think there is a There is a piece of silent
film that was made by Thomas Edison.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
Okay, Oh, well.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Edison would have been the one who would have done
the audio recording too, So I guess we're kind of
right on the cusp there of like early wax cylinder
type recording technology here Twain tried to make audio books
and jumping ahead a little bit.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
In eighteen ninety one, he tried to record one of
his novellas on the wax cylinders used in phonographs, but
he just kept messing up, and.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
So okay, so it wasn't outside of the realm of possibility.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
This would have happened. It just didn't come to fruition.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Yeah, he did record, if I recall correctly, he recorded
something in nineteen oh nine in Thomas Edison's lab. But
then there was a fire in nineteen fourteen. And as
we said previously, you know a lot of that stuff
is notoriously flammable.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
So how about that not for lack of the technology.
He literally just was the victim of some bad luck. Yeah,
in the eighteen this was almost nineteen hundred, he did
record with Thomas Edison, You're dead right, and they burned
up in a fire. So we'll just have to go
with the popular, I guess depiction of Mark Twain's voice,
(25:20):
which is sort of something like this. I say, I say,
I say, I put our energies to sleep and made
visionaries of us dreamers and indolent.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
It is good to begin laugh poor, It is good
to begin laugh rich.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
These are wholesome, But to begin it prospectively rich.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
The man who has not experienced it cannot imagine the
curse of it. I say, I say, I say, I
think that Langhorn got to you. I think it did.
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
I really he is sort of characterized as having you know,
a southern drawl.
Speaker 4 (25:51):
Yeah, a little right, I tell yeah, Mark Twang, there
it is there, it is. Can we unpact this? Though?
This is a little dense. Honestly, the language here, well,
the idea is this.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
It kind of echoes the poetry of Robert Browning, right,
like a man's reach should exceed his grasp? Or what's
a heaven for?
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Dream big? Right? Dream big? Very American?
Speaker 1 (26:16):
He said, Look, if you begin life poor, okay, that's
part of America. If you begin life wealthy, awesome, you
won the lottery. But if you begin it addicted to
the dream that you will one day be successful, then
you are cursed. That's what he's saying. He's saying he's
(26:37):
always chasing this dragon of financial success.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
Dude. We've had this conversation before too.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
I mean, it's sort of I think maybe a modern
equivalent of this is more money, more problems, where if
you are constantly striving for the next thing, you will
never truly be happy with what you have. And one
could argue that therein lies the nature of ambition and
it's not inherently a bad thing, but not necessarily the
(27:05):
makings of a happy life.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Yeah, and this is a feeling familiar to almost anyone
in the world these days who's grown up in less
than ideal circumstances. It's a fundamental and at times dangerous
mix of ambition and insecurity, and this mix followed him
like a shadow all the days of his life. He
(27:28):
did get into he did get into technology from early days.
He started as an apprentice to a printer, which meant
he worked as a type setter, and we talked about
printing presses before. A type setter's job was kind of
like tetris. I think it suited to a certain type
(27:50):
of type organization of the personality.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
Yeah. Yeah, everything in its right place.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
People who are good at packing vans, you know, like
moving devices and such.
Speaker 4 (28:02):
Is that a radiohead quote everything and it's right.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Everything in it's everything in its right place is definitely
a radio So it's also again, I think we mentioned
it on our recent episode on Robot Servants on stuff
they don't want you to know. Something Rosy, the robot
in the Jetsons universe said when she went totally bananas,
and so you just go up place for everything and
everything in its place, a place for everything and everything
in its place, and then proceeded to like psychotically organize
(28:27):
the Jetsons home.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
And as we know, all Radiohead songs are ultimately fan
fiction about the Jetsons or interpretations thereof. You'll have to
take our word for it, folks, just read the lyrics
and watch the Jetsons. This is where we introduce the
older brother. I know you'll love this name. After apprenticing
(28:49):
as a type setter, he Sam gets one of his
first writing gigs, working for his older brother's newspaper. His
brother's name a riot Clement's. Ryan is such.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
A cool name. Okay, oh Ryan? Yeah, like the constellation.
Do you think people were lazy and just called him Ryan?
For sure?
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Just getting getting rid of the O, which is such
a helpful shortening.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Or is kind of cool or he's cool?
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Yeah, I think orion has a gravitas to it though,
Oh it does.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
Yeah, it's dare we say, Heavenly? There we go.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
So let's go to Uh there's a mystery about his
name too. While we're While we're here at this moment
in Sam's life. Later he becomes a riverboat pilot, right
we're still in the Mississippi. Uh. This informs the numb
de plume he's known by today. Mark Twain was a
phrase that Mississippi riverboat folks yelled out when their ships
(29:50):
hit two fathoms of water.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Kind of like timber when a tree is about to fall,
Does it make a sound?
Speaker 4 (29:59):
I don't know where you there? You tell me? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (30:02):
And now, Sam, it's kind of like some of our
own relatives. Never the type of guy to let a
good story get in the way of the facts.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
I think I've said that of my mother. So yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
So later scholars would look into his claims about how
he got its name, how he got this name, this
street name, and it didn't measure up to the banger
mythology he created for himself. And when people asked him
about it in his lifetime and said, hey, you've told
several different stories about how you got this name, you
(30:40):
know what, he called him dude. He called these narratives
improved facts.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
Gosh, Donald Trump, would I love this cat? Oh? Gosh,
that disturbs me. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
It isn't that funny though, where like exaggerating a story
is one thing, it's not considered like egregious or like deceptive,
but just a little pushing a little further and depending
on the type of story, it does kind of become
propagandistic fake news. And again not being political here at all,
just talking about the nature of discourse and like the
(31:14):
idea of changing the facts to suit your narrative. If
it's something innocuous, it's a story about the time that I,
you know, fought a shark in the ocean that hasn't
hurt anybody. But if it then becomes about others and
cultural stuff and different things that can have impacts on,
you know, the way people behave socially and voted stuff,
it can really be dangerous.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
So I don't know. Mark Twain seems to have been
aware of that. He does.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
And let's let's get into how he got this name,
because we kid you not. Mark Twain's first pseudonym was
not Mark Twain.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
Wasn't it like Steve or something? So okay, here's the
real sort.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
His elder brother O'Ryan was a big campaigner for an
amateur wrestler, real up and comer, Abraham Lincoln.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
Yeah you're joking. Oh sorry, sorry, I never mind. Okay,
you're doing the thing, you're doing the bit I got it.
I was picturing him being like an early MMA promoter.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
You know that's amazing, like a early Oh gosh, there's
a Netflix documentary out on Vince McMahon.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
You know what, that guy's just batshit enough to warrant
me watching a documentary about him.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
The interview, I mean, the meme alone that he gave
the world as a guest the Galaxy Brain.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Yeah, money, Yeah, and also that's a McMahon's different thing.
We are very aware of everything you're thinking about as well.
Speaker 4 (32:45):
Folks.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
When you hear us reference that person, check out the documentary.
He disowned it, which makes it interesting to watch.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
Boy does it ever? I mean, but let's just say
at the very least, also.
Speaker 4 (32:57):
Probably not the greatest of guys.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Yeah, A hot takes a plenty. I'm gonna say, I
don't want to hang out with Actually, we know people
who worked with him in some capacity, and they also
had things to say.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
So all right.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
So Abraham Lincoln, amateur wrestler, another American success story, goes
on to succeed in politics a bit and as as
a result.
Speaker 4 (33:27):
Failed upward kind of you know, great, So as.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
A result of Lincoln's success, this is still very much
the spoils of war kind of approach to politics. Sure,
So Orion Clemens becomes the Secretary of the Nevada Territory
as just a gift bag, a swag bag for supporting Lincoln.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
And the largest town in the Nevada Territory was another
interestingly named for.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
The city, So in the Nevada taris exactly. Yeah, Florida, Missouri,
Virginia City.
Speaker 4 (34:05):
Virginia City. Makes you wonder if.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Mark Twain actually knew where he was going.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
So, having a bit of an in with his brother Orion. Sorry,
whatever I think Orion. I think of two things. I
think of the classic film company Orion that I'll like,
you see the logo with like the classic font. And also,
I don't know, in my head, I'm going oh oh
oh Orian, like the O'Reilly thing. Sorry, I just had
(34:31):
to say that out loud so it would stop haunting me.
But yeah, So Sam's got a bit of an in
with his brother. He heads out west, tagging along with Orion,
and he gives mining a shot. These were the days
where people were lighting out for the territories. As they say,
was it wouldn't this have been? This is gold rush time, right,
(34:52):
This is a little different. Maybe this is more like
a run on resources or trying to like, you know,
get mineral rights and things like that.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Right, yeah, yeah, just like his dad bought that land
in Tennessee partially for mineral rights.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
This is a same rush of sorts, though not the
historic gold rush that I was referring to.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
He has the he has the idea that he's going
to get in on this silver mining industry. He was
terrible at it. He was unsuccessful. He did it was
not a smart move on his part, or he was
just unlucky.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
Again.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
But while Sam Clemens is here, he gets this reputation
as almost a local celebrity because he's known as a
lively storyteller, a great conversationalist, which is all tracks, which
really just means you're good at listening, and he is.
He is a local humor columnist. He's a humorist and
(35:56):
some of the things he writes are eventually published in
the main newspaper of Virginia City, the Territorial Enterprise. He
did not use his real name. He did not use
his famous fake name beat me again, Max, we should
be not. His first pseudonym in print was Josh Okay.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
I was close. What did I say? Steve Josh Josh
oh Man. Why is that? I think it's just because he.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Looms so large, you know, in our cultural kind of
collective memories, Josh just seems so diminutive compared to the
larger than life persona that is Mark Twain.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
I've just said pictory, like a pictory, like a Connecticut
yankee in King Arthur's Court by Josh.
Speaker 4 (36:42):
It was just Josh like like Madonna. Yeah, it was.
It was a single name because columns. That's hilarious. I
have a quick question for you, Ben, I put it
to you.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Is it appropriate for someone to call themselves a humorist
or is that a title that needs to be bestowed
by others. I think it needs to be bestowed by others,
if I'm being completely honest, I.
Speaker 4 (37:07):
Like, you don't get to say that you're funny.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
I think it requires input from a third party to
decide whether someone is funny or not.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
That's the reason there's a Mark Twain Award. Right, If
you call yourself a humorist, it feels like a dick
move a little bit. Yeah, I think so too. Okay, cool,
So we got that out of the way. Josh. Back
to Josh. Yeah, in his defense, been.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
You pointed this out in your excellent research brief for
this episode, these episodes, I don't know. Josh is also
a kind of a bit of a du blontolder, right, Josh,
I'm just Josh and ya you know, so he knew,
he knew. So he was already kind of in the
(37:54):
persona building game.
Speaker 4 (37:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah, because Josh in English, a special American English, is
both a proper name and like you said, no, it's
a verb for joking.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
I'm just joshing. You just joshing around, buddy.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
So this his onion level, cracked article level things, got
him a gig writing for twenty five dollars a week.
Speaker 4 (38:19):
This was massive. This was a lot of money. Old yeah, yeah,
and he was.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
He had a spidy sense for humor and satire, and he, unapologetically,
with no reservation, clowned everyone. He became a lampooner, yeah,
real lampooner. Yes, yeah, just so he became a local celebrity,
sort of like you or me or Max at our
favorite David Busters or.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
You know, we get voice clocked every now and again
at the local or some of our favorite Atlanta haunts
or the airport.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Oh, I got it, I forgot to tell you I
got made at the TSA wow bia csa worker.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
Yeah, and he.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
Lets you smuggle all that.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
That hashish through. No gave you a pass, no comedy.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
I told you I got voice checked in line at
the museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
And it felt so cool because I'm like, smart people
listen to us. That's awesome. That made me feel great,
specifically about ridiculous history.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
And we know the we know the real story what
seems to be the true story behind the origin of
the name Mark Twain, because he was known as a
Mississippi riverboat guy who was trying, without success to become
a silver miner. He hung out in a lot of
the public houses of Virginia City, and the barkeepers in
(39:51):
the area used to yell out Mark Twayne whenever he
walked in because he was a regular. And when they
yelled out Mark Twain, it meant they needed to bring
two shots of whiskey to Sam and then make two
marks of chalk on the board where they kept a
record of their standing tabs. And I want to give
(40:13):
a shout out to our pal Gregory Crouch over a
Time magazine who pointed out that that little piece of
hidden history to us.
Speaker 4 (40:23):
So it was a bar nickname.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
It wasn't pretty cool, so it was I mean it
was again with the double entendres. I mean is it
does reference the nautical you know, call out, but it
was sort of co opted into this kind of I
guess en joke. Is this like a thing that was
like his regular order, right, so he basically had a
(40:46):
cocktail named after him or named himself after a cocktail.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
It's like if we went to waffle house more often
and we were there every week and they stopped calling
us by our first names and just started calling us
by what we.
Speaker 4 (41:00):
Are, Like, Oh it's Patty Belt.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Oh it's All Star Breakfast right right, Oh it's Grand
Slam yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 4 (41:08):
And also isn't so Mark? What was the order again?
The order was the whiskey.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Yeah. They would give him two shots of whiskey, and
then they would go ahead and assume he wasn't paying
that night, so they would make two chalk marks on
the board.
Speaker 4 (41:22):
Mark Twain, Yeah, no, I got it.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
It's also it just makes me think of like at
some bars, you know, how they have clever nicknames for
like a beer and a shot combo.
Speaker 4 (41:30):
Oh we're saying. Yeah, I thought maybe that was part
of it too, but no, it's much more. Oh that'd
be interesting.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
So that's kind of what I was thinking with the
name after a cocktail thing. But yeah, the guy, you know,
contained multitudes for sure.
Speaker 4 (41:42):
Yeah, and he wanted.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
He wasn't super into his street name and authorial career
just yet. It was paying the bills to write these
joke columns.
Speaker 4 (41:53):
In his mind.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Still, he's kind of smoking that American pipe dream of success.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
Yeah, he and that in your American pipe dream and
smoke it.
Speaker 4 (42:05):
Hold the bell telephone, folks.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
This is this is a two parter for us. So
a hoy a hoy as isn't that I said? Hello?
Speaker 4 (42:17):
You leave out the second right right? Uh?
Speaker 1 (42:20):
Look at me being one of those hello fellow kids
guys in the back.
Speaker 4 (42:24):
Back of the eighteen high about.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Uh uh so a hoy hoy And big thanks to
our super producer mister Max Williams.
Speaker 4 (42:36):
Who else who else?
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Oh, indeed, all the thank you, Christopher Rociotis and he
was Jeff Cots here in spirit, Jonathan Strickland, the quiz
dra A, Jay Bahamas Jacobs, the Puzzler.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
Alex Williams, who composed our Our Bang and Bop here
join us in just a few days. We're going to
get to more stories about Mark Twain's cartoonishly bad investment
journey at the same time that he became one of
the world's most beloved authors.
Speaker 4 (43:06):
Can't wait to see you on the other side. We'll
see you next time, folks.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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