High Daddies, Hot Tents, and Suckers: Circus Crimes

Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages! Step right up! Witness the amazing circus con, promising a menagerie that will never appear! Be amazed by the daring moves of the corporate scoundrel, stealing from a non-profit show! Stare in awe as a low down fraudster tries to pull a fast one on a small town, only to have the tables magically turned! Behold! The ridiculous and criminal side of the big top!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous crime is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Zaren, Elizabeth, are you serving over there? Don't get me started.
What I'm serving? I can't say over the air.

Speaker 3 (00:11):
I know I'm serving soft serves in my mind. You
know it's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Oh brother, do I spill it? So in this two
thousand book, a year two thousand, there was a book,
and that that's not wasn't called the two thousand book,
but it was a book that came out in two
thousand by authors Anthony Summers and Robin Swan robb Y
n Robin. Now in that book they described how close

(00:38):
we once got to World War three and how get this, Elizabeth,
Henry Kissinger prevented a nuclear war? What I know, I
was surprised too.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
But according to uh and you killed him?

Speaker 2 (00:51):
I did? You did with my mind? And so according
to George Carver, this is like Vietnam Specialist. In nineteen
sixty nine, the North Koreans they shot down like a
U two spyplane, and it made uh Dick Nixon all angry.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
Right on.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Richard Nixon was known to UH get a little tossed
late at night in the White House, right he would get.

Speaker 4 (01:12):
Heated and I'd be like, I want to bomb them, right. So,
according to Carver quote, Nixon became incensed and ordered a
tactical nuclear strike. The Joint chiefs were alerted and asked
to recommend targets, but Kissinger got on the phone to them.
They agreed not to do anything until Nixon sobered up
in the morning.

Speaker 5 (01:32):
Oh my god.

Speaker 4 (01:32):
So Nixon was trying to call a nuclear strike on
North Korea in the middle of the Cold War, which
would have caused a nuclear exchange for me though the
Russians were the Chinese, and then.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
We wouldn't even be here. Yes, never would have been born.

Speaker 4 (01:44):
All because Nixon like we got heated and was like
we should bomb them. And even Kissinger was like that's
just not a good idea or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Big.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
You know, what the problem is is that men are
too emotional in hormonal.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
I say this all the time. I love it.

Speaker 4 (02:00):
Told the Joint use of Staff ignore the president's order,
and they did. They waited till the morning. They're like,
he'll sober up, and this wasn't the only time he did.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah, that's why they're like, okay, fine, you there you go.
That is ridiculous. Do you want to know what else
is ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
I'm sorry, Elizabeth.

Speaker 4 (02:18):
He literally had to say, Henry, we got to nuke them.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
He knew what he was, he knew it. Where it
came out of this is.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
How crazyly close we've gotten.

Speaker 3 (02:28):
How much does that mess up a mind to be
able to say, like, we've got to nuke them. I
have it. I think it's like it's this coin toss
right of humanity, so that like, if you have the
power to say, let's nuke them, which is just in
that abstract kind of language, is disgusting. But aside from that,
either to hold it as the most like incredible, you know,

(02:52):
fragile weight that you that you carry for humanity, or
as like, you know, I've got a a pipe swinging
thing on this one, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Like I'm five high balls.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
It feels like two sides to the coin, and which
one are you? You know what I mean?

Speaker 4 (03:10):
Like, Yeah, I'm just saying It's basically my point is
we've avoided World War three in the past, and so.

Speaker 3 (03:15):
Again it can be avoided again. Yes, even though you
killed Henry Kissinger, we can avoid this. We can do it.
You guys, thank you for the credit for that yeah,
you're welcome always. Okay. You know what else is ridiculous? No,
I do not trying to do a good town dirty
Oh this is ridiculous crime A podcast about absurd and

(03:55):
outrageous capers his cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder
free and one hundred percent ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
You damn right, Saren.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
Close as I'm kidding, Zaren, I have run up on me.
I'm not of sound mind. I have allergies.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Oh, in my eyes.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
In my nose and my throat, and my teeth and
my toes. It's in my face. I always ask my dogs,
are you hungry? In your face and your body? They
answer me anyway. Allergies. It's we had that heat wave
and just boom.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Everything the air.

Speaker 4 (04:33):
I got very lucky that everyone in my family has allergies. No,
I don't have them.

Speaker 3 (04:37):
Okay, so we're not keeping our eyes open right now.
I want to read to you from the Tuesday, May thirteenth,
eighteen seventy nine edition of the San Francisco Chronicle. Hell yeah,
and I don't want you to worry. This is not
a California centric day, just happens to be. From the
Chronicle headline, a circus fraud, a man who subsists by

(04:57):
using other men's names. Yeah, here's the text. About five
o'clock last evening, a chronicle reporter, while standing upon the
northwest corner of Bush and Kearney Streets, overheard the somewhat
unintelligible remark he's the high daddy of the whole of them.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
What the high daddy?

Speaker 3 (05:18):
It evidently referred to a short, thick set, dark complexioned
individual with full face which was ornamented with a heavy,
dark mustache, and who was leaning carelessly against a building
on the opposite side of the street. There was nothing
about the man to indicate why he should possess the
high sounding title as high Daddy, and yet the strange

(05:39):
appearance of his ever moving black eye, the constant tapping
of his long slender fingers upon the window glass behind him,
coupled with a certain undefinable something in his dress and manner,
stamped him at once as a peculiar personage. Inquiry revealed
the fact that he was the proprietor of a circus,

(06:00):
or at least he had been overheard a short time
before to represent himself as such. Upon further inquiry, however,
it was ascertained that the man whose name is George
Diavolis represents himself as an attache of almost every circus
that exists.

Speaker 4 (06:22):
By the way, from now on, can you introduce me
as as the high Daddy?

Speaker 3 (06:27):
Is my friend the lady host the high Daddy? Okay,
that's that works. It works so beautifully. He's the high
Daddy of the whole of them. So much happened in
that param God. Yeah, like my eyes spun around like
slot machines, and then I was like.

Speaker 4 (06:41):
You're seeing those rooms where they have like ping pong
balls sitting on mouse traps and you throw in one
ping pong.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
That was my brain.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
That's how it worked. It was beautiful, and I became
hungry for it in my face and my body. So
all right, who are you? I'm the representative of every
circus on the plane. Where'd you go to school for that?
All right?

Speaker 2 (07:01):
So this guy that technical college, apparently.

Speaker 3 (07:05):
He'd been at the circus con for some time, like, hey, Elizabeth,
what's the circus con?

Speaker 2 (07:11):
Trying to keep on?

Speaker 3 (07:12):
Saren?

Speaker 2 (07:12):
What is the circus con? Keep up Zaren? Look behind
you there.

Speaker 3 (07:16):
I am Essentially someone comes to town and hypes up
a circus. They sell tickets, they sell sponsorship, advanced space. Yeah,
and then the circus never materialized. Oh that comes to town,
and no one ever sends in the clowns because they're
already here in the dupes who bought the tickets.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
So surprise, you're the clowns.

Speaker 3 (07:38):
So this guy on the San Francisco Street corner in
eighteen seventy nine was well known for this, a high
daddy of the craft. And according to the article, in
the past he'd passed himself off as an advanced agent
of Rens's German circus and said he was in town
looking for talent, and like he's doing this talent search
and oh, can I also borrow thirty bucks because I'm

(08:00):
waiting for a wire transfer to come in from London.
There's no wire transfer, of course, Luckily the mark figured
that out and got the money back. This same guy, Diabolos.
He once impersonated Harry Cordonna, the famous stilt performer Harry.
Another time he told folks that he was Hernandez, the writer,

(08:24):
like the Hernandez the writer, the writer rid like ride
them cowboy Hernandez. There was once a real circus in
town Montgomery Queen's circus. The money man for that circus
got a bill one day from a hotel five days

(08:46):
board seven dollars borrowed money, and the legit circus guys like,
I don't what is this about. I don't any think
about it. The innkeepers like, it's for Romeo Sebastian. You know,
Romeo Sebastian, your circus star.

Speaker 2 (08:58):
Was that one of Lenny Kravitz's early names. Yes, that
was Romeo Blue.

Speaker 3 (09:03):
He was Romeo Blue and then he was Romeo Sebastian
and then he became lennyra In Europe, That's what the
posters will translate to Romeo Sebastian, the circus star. The
guy's like, I've never heard of him. Diabolis so diabolis.
He gets a free he got a free hotel room
in San Francisco once by telling the place.

Speaker 2 (09:23):
That he was p. T.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
Barnum. Oh did he look like Pete Barney? Probably not,
not in the least was the circus in town.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
No, I would claim that I was Bailey from Barnum
and Bay. Yeah, no one knows what Bailey looks like.
I'm one of the rings, one of the brothers.

Speaker 3 (09:37):
I'm the forgotten Ringling Brothers.

Speaker 4 (09:39):
Crazy how bad circus hit bad times where they had
to combine were like Ringling Brothers was its own circus,
its own circles.

Speaker 3 (09:47):
Used to be that they had like what seven it's
like media monopoly. There's seven owners of media. Now we
get Now we're down.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
To like two circus exactly.

Speaker 3 (09:57):
So Diabolos told the hotel that he was I'm Pete Barnum. Hi.
I don't know if you know me. I'm in town
to scout out locations and such, but like keep it
quiet because like I don't like the attention. I'm Pete Barnes,
I'm business, I'm a private. He went up to Sacramento
and told him that he was the advance man for
an Australian circus. All good night, right, and they're like,

(10:20):
what even is that? It's not Australian. He's like, oh, Barbie.
So he managed to borrow a couple hundred bucks, which
was a lot, yeah, and then he skipped town. The
point of the article was to let the public know
that although Diabolis had done eighteen months in San Quentin
for his scams, he was back at it and while

(10:42):
a good number of people felt bad for him, and
thought his cons were actually the work of a mentally
unwell compulsive liar. The public needed to know that this
criminal was out there and should be avoided.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
You guys like a public service.

Speaker 3 (10:55):
So circuses they really started back in ancient Rome. Let's
go back to.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
It started with me the second Then I.

Speaker 3 (11:05):
Want you to forget all that the modern circus attention
it did. I was like, let me say, Rome Vikings Memet,
get his attention right now, you're listening.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
Great, totally.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
The modern circus, Oh I lost him again, came around
in like the seventeen hundreds in England. It was mostly
like trick riding on horses.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
I was wondering what the attractions are, But then.

Speaker 3 (11:24):
They added in acrobats and like tight rope walkers and
clowns and.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
Jugglers and people from far away places.

Speaker 3 (11:30):
Yeah, selling far away spices. So circuses have always kind
of freaked me out.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
The type.

Speaker 3 (11:37):
I'm not a fan.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
Yeah, some people are afraid of clowns, but you're not
in circ Like.

Speaker 3 (11:42):
I don't like when they exploit animals, but just like, oh,
that's what it is. That's a big thing. Like when
I was a camp counselor during the summer, like in college.
In college, that's what I did. And we took the
kids to the circus at the Oakland Arena once because
it was like a city of Oakland, sure, and it
was so depressing and the elephants and the lions looked
so sad, and then the kids were bummed out by
it too.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
Oh yeah, like a threadbare lion. Not Obama kid out?

Speaker 3 (12:04):
Are you like, do you have clown issues?

Speaker 2 (12:06):
Do you have?

Speaker 3 (12:07):
No? No?

Speaker 2 (12:07):
But I've known people like, like, my sister wants scared
somebody by putting a clown, a clown doll in the closet,
and when they opened the closet, we could hear that
person shrieking.

Speaker 3 (12:16):
Did you know your sister loved us?

Speaker 2 (12:19):
You could hear this guy shrieking from like, I don't know,
a block away. It was insane.

Speaker 3 (12:23):
I'm not scared of him. They they just also bummed
me out.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
I've known a few people off.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
Yeah, I knew someone who did clowning as a political statement.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
There you go. I knew protest as a career protest.
They went to clown college and everything, and they called
it clowning.

Speaker 3 (12:39):
Oh really, I don't even want to get into it.
I don't want you to either yea and something off
and I don't like it circus anyway.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
But wait a minute, do you not like like the
harlequin clowns? No, none of them to not like?

Speaker 3 (12:53):
What about not afraid of?

Speaker 2 (12:54):
What about the sad bum clowns?

Speaker 3 (12:56):
You know, like I kind of want one of those
oil paintings. Yeah, that clown but for the kitsch factor.
But they don't scare me. They just kind of bummed
me out. Or there's just something off, something's not right,
and I don't know what that is.

Speaker 4 (13:09):
Clowns because they're chaotic, bucket of confettiant children love that
chef Harlem globe trotterers, They're they're clowns.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
They're kind of clowns. Yeah, see what I'm saying, broad,
got a broad?

Speaker 3 (13:22):
Yeah, I do. I need to know. I don't. I'm
stuck in my ways. So in the beginning modern circuses,
they took place in big arenas. In eighteen twenty five
in the US, Joshua Perdy Brown was the first circus
owner to use a large canvas tent for the circus.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
The Big Top.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
Yeah, moobile circus action right totally. P. T. Barnum then
got in on the action revolutionized the whole thing. He
added the freak show or the side show. The exploitation
of that is very upsetting, and I went, I was
going to do this whole side thing, and I was like,
why do I do this to myself?

Speaker 4 (13:53):
Like the Lizard boy, the stay Happy, Stay Happy. He
also brought in like Jumbo the elephant. Yeah, like the
crazy sized animals.

Speaker 3 (14:02):
Everything was outsized and weird and either enough exactly. The
thing about circuses is that there's always like a thin
halo of crime around it.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
That's why I like like a fuzzy show.

Speaker 3 (14:17):
Fuzzy aura in the air, like a thin cluster of
gnats erratically buzzing above and around them crime bats. Did
you like that show, the old HBO show that.

Speaker 2 (14:31):
Stuff? Did you like those clowns?

Speaker 3 (14:32):
Yeah, they don't have clowns.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
They don't just freaks, just like the strong Man Bearded Lady,
and like.

Speaker 3 (14:40):
Yeah, I love that show. The most prevalent in the
olden days took place in the side show area, the
freak show area, and stuff like that, things like three card,
Monty Bunco, total stuff. And I would imagine that the
circuses of today have to contend with like drug use
and drug dealer as their kind of side crimes.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
Okay, don't you think how do we even contend? Like
from the performers, keep them away from.

Speaker 3 (15:07):
The math some time about like the crime that buzzes
around it.

Speaker 2 (15:11):
Yeah, they're selling drugs like they travel around sure, or
like you've been.

Speaker 3 (15:14):
To a carnival and like you see who runs the carnival.

Speaker 4 (15:18):
I've been involved in supplying drugs people inside. Just I
used to know a bunch of people are involved. Who
did the car like they would get all excited summer
was coming coming, Right, there's definitely.

Speaker 3 (15:30):
A low level crime going There was and remains another
flavor of circus crime, the advance con like I was
telling you, yes.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
The advance mancus is.

Speaker 3 (15:40):
Coming saw the stuff?

Speaker 2 (15:41):
No it's not.

Speaker 3 (15:43):
And then there's the crime inside legit circuses in the
form of embezzlement. Oh right, I have a bunch of
these for you today. But the kicker, the final one
is a serious chef's kiss. We're going to be going
out with a bang today. I love banks so but
running up to it, there are tons of stories and
papers from the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds

(16:03):
about circus scamps, one I particularly enjoyed was a nineteen
oh nine article in the Saturday Evening Post entitled the
Confessions of the con Man Life with the Old Time Circus.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
Oh I bet that was good.

Speaker 3 (16:16):
Oh yeah, it was great. It starts off this circus
was a little nine car concern which had some territory
in Indiana and Michigan. We cut a zig zag course
all the season. We showed a few poor trapees and
bareback turns, a small menagerie and some clowns.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
Can you imagine having a circus train like giraft that
top and like you got bars totally in the juggler again,
sitting there with the conductor or whatever zerin. Close your eyes,
get out of town.

Speaker 3 (16:46):
I'm kidding. So the article of the article reminded me
so much of what you said Carnival, the HBO show
that I love anyway.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
Really, I mean, that's such a great period it is.

Speaker 3 (16:58):
It's fantastic. So the article gives readers this like rare
first person explanation of circus related fraud from the perspective
of a working con man. There's this explanation of the
inner divisions in the circus quote. A circus is always
divided into two camps, the performers we call them kinkers,
and the gamblers. The kinkers are the most retiring and

(17:20):
exclusive people in the world. Half of them can't tell
you the name of the town they're playing. They don't
seem to have any interest in anything but their acts.
They go to their bunks when their performance is over,
get up the next morning, gets stop practice, do their turns, eat,
and then back to the bunks again. They hate the
grafters on principle because the gambling games make so much
noise and trouble. The canvas men as a rule side

(17:43):
with the grafters. So those are just the rightnecks who
put the all the tents up.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
Well, I like the kinkers because it's like, you know,
that's like the lady who's got the snakes in and
you like whatever a basket in the training car, and
she's like, she's got to ten dollar of her snake.
Like the mentalist, right, he's gonna go on clean his
turbans or whatever, like tend to his jewels.

Speaker 3 (18:07):
So, according to his account, the fraudsters in his group,
they targeted circus audiences because of like these unique social conditions.
You know when they'd come to a rural area, they
get a huge crowd, a lot of farm families who
didn't have a lot of exposure to professional entertainment totally,
and people who had traveled long distances and like came
to the circus and were ready to spend some money.

Speaker 2 (18:29):
Before there was like TV, you know, like you're talking
like before it basically nineteen forty eight. You have this
just desire, set the money aside, and like I'm gonna
know spring is common, to summer's common.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
You're gonna get treats.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
We're gonna you know, like the freak show.

Speaker 3 (18:44):
Will be here to see the freak show. And then
also the kids can look at the nice lady's got
three legs.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
That kind of but I mean to imagine like it
would open your eyes.

Speaker 4 (18:52):
You're just this farm boy, Oh yeah, your farm girl,
and you're just going out to see like whatever you
name a freak.

Speaker 3 (18:58):
But that also made them the perfect marks for the bunk,
of course, and so these con artists, they knew the
visitors were vulnerable, not necessarily because they lacked intelligence, but
just like the festive atmosphere just encouraged impulsive behavior and
kind of lowered their their skeptic. Yes, So he tells
the story of a working circus uh in rural Michigan

(19:20):
that he was on in logging country and they duped
a bunch of French Canadian lumbermen who then came after them.
And he claims that two hundred lumberjacks came came calling
to the tents at the end of the night looking
a rumble and they wanted to take on the twenty
five grafters, which is like, okay, I know who's embellishing

(19:41):
their story.

Speaker 5 (19:42):
And there was.

Speaker 3 (19:44):
There was a punch in, there was a kicking, and
the conment one and quote quote we carted off seven
frenchmen to the hospital. I don't know that any of
them were disabled for life, but some looked to be
pretty badly hurt. Besides a few bruises and cut heads,
the only injury we had was one broken arm.

Speaker 2 (20:04):
Were they like shooting them?

Speaker 3 (20:08):
These are ruffians, to be sure of that. Let's take
a break and we come back some more contemporary circus crime.

(20:36):
Zaren Elizabeth arn Okay, so I've talked a lot about
circus crimes.

Speaker 2 (20:41):
Of the past. Yes, you always are going on a
short amount of.

Speaker 3 (20:44):
Time, but we have some that happened today, just today,
like right now outside. The Better Business Bureau website has
all sorts of complaints against circuses sold tickets to shows
that never happened. I found a bunch of complaints about
Garden Brothers Circus and they're mostly from twenty twenty four.

(21:05):
Garden Brothers looks totally unhinged based on their website.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
It's called Garden Brothers.

Speaker 3 (21:11):
Garden Brothers. They advertise as Garden Brosden Brothers Nuclear Circus.
What human's gone wild?

Speaker 2 (21:19):
Oh my god, this sounds like it sounds like it's
Juggal related.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
It's one hundred minutes of NonStop entertainment there timed it. Yeah,
and then they kick you out immediately. There's a lot
of acrobatics and dance clowns, dog tricks.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
Oh, I can get with that.

Speaker 3 (21:36):
And then but there's too many people. I don't do
crowd anyway. And then there's both the Globe of Death
and the Wheel of Death, oh.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
With the motorcycles inside.

Speaker 3 (21:44):
So the globe is for the motorcycles and the wheel
is for acrobats.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
Okay, but there's death involved. They have two wheels they
go around each other.

Speaker 3 (21:52):
Yeah, yeah, right now it looks like they're traveling up
and down the Eastern Seaboard with forays into like Indiana, Illinois, Missouri.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
Oh, I'm so taking you a circus this summer.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
Here when you read, okay, maybe not. Here's what they
say about themselves on their website. This is interesting. Garden
Brothers Circus has been entertaining families for more than a century.
Founded in the nineteen thirties, which is not more than
a century, but okay, they're getting close more than a century.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
Okay, they're writing from the future.

Speaker 3 (22:24):
Founded in the nineteen thirties by Scottish immigrants William and
Robertson Garden, it began as a small vaudeville act in Canada.
Today it stands as the largest circus on Earth, touring
across the United States and bringing unforgettable live entertainment to
cities of every size.

Speaker 2 (22:40):
How can I be just on earth? And I've never
heard of that?

Speaker 3 (22:42):
That's a good question. And also when I just read
the line, I almost said uncomfortable instead of unforgetable, unforgettable
or unforgivable. I don't know. I'm not worrying. I don't
wear my glasses anymore because to hell with it. In
nineteen sixteen, William and Robertson Gardens settled in Canada. William
pursued a career in vaudeville, forming the act Garden and

(23:03):
Shaw with his wife Jean. They later established the Canadian
Vaudeville Exchange, which evolved into Garden Amusements Limited. In nineteen
thirty two, William was contracted to produce a circus at
the Coliseum in Toronto. By nineteen forty nine, his brother
Robertson joined as a partner, and together they relocated to California.
During its early years, the circus was North America's sole

(23:26):
full time indoor circus. After William's passing in the nineteen fifties,
his sons Bill, George and Ian launched smaller circuses, eventually
adopting the name Garden Brothers Circus. In nineteen fifty nine.
They transitioned to indoor performances and introduced a circus tent
in nineteen sixty. In nineteen sixty seven, Ian and Dick

(23:46):
Garden took over, with Ian continuing the indoor Garden Brothers
tour throughout eastern Canada. In nineteen ninety, Ian passed the
reins to his sons Richard and Ian Junior, who carried
on the tradition until around twenty ten. The Garden Brothers'
circus title remained dormant until Nile's Garden revived it in
March of twenty fifteen. So it really is a family circus.

(24:08):
It truly is, and they get their shriff complaints.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
So here's a good one from Garden Bros.

Speaker 3 (24:14):
Here. This is a good one from July of twenty
twenty four. This company is the biggest scam. On Sunday,
July seventh and twenty twenty four, I had the so
called quote free tickets to attend the circus. These tickets
are nothing more than a bait and switch scam. I
had already paid twenty dollars to park my car, and
when I got to the gate to give my tickets,

(24:35):
they showed me in small print which was not worded
properly to fully understand that you need to purchase an
adult ticket to use the quote free ticket. The ticket
says free in big bold letters, but the rules are
in small fine print that you can't really understand. When
I went over to the window to purchase a ticket,
the price was sixty three dollars per adult. Then I

(24:58):
was told they were sold out general admission tickets and
I would have to purchase a VIP ticket, which was
twenty dollars extra, and a child's VIP ticket, which was
an additional ten dollars. So the free ticket wasn't free
at all. I most certainly was not paying eighty dollars
to sit in a tent. Then the ticket also said

(25:18):
at the bottom that the first one hundred people to
pay online would only be charged fourteen dollars. So I
went to the parking lot and attempted to buy tickets online.
Of course, the fourteen dollar tickets were sold out and
the online price was fifty dollars. That's four different prices listed.
So are they just charging what they feel like? At
this point, I just wanted to leave, so I asked

(25:40):
the man working in the ticket booth if I could
get my twenty dollars back for the parking since I
did not attend the show. The man in the ticket
booth told me that I could get a refund if
I gave the parking attendant my red ticket that I
was given when I paid. When I approached the parking attendant,
he told me that there were no refunds. I explained
to him that the man working in the ticket booths
to me, I could get my money back since I

(26:01):
did not attend the show, but he then rudely told me,
I'm sorry, no refunds. This whole operation is a scam,
and I wonder why they're still even in business.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
So did you find a chalk mark on your back?
Hundred percent pure? Carni moves, Oh god, yeah, directing them all.

Speaker 3 (26:19):
Yeah, there's a classic one. There are other complaints about
the tent being too hot, uh huh, like a yeah,
diabetics who said that they had to go to the
hospital for heat exhaustion due to the conditions in the tent.
And then there's this one, this complaint. We bought tickets
for our visiting family on October fifth, twenty twenty four,
five adult tickets at three hundred and fifteen dollars, and

(26:40):
our young child. They drove three hours to see us
and attend the circus. The tickets said the tent would
be climate controlled. It was so hot inside the tent
that we couldn't stay inside and see the event due
to the excessive heat and concern for our young child
and elderly family. It was eighty degrees outside and it
was easily ninety plus degree inside the tent. We wish

(27:01):
to be refunded for our tickets three hundred and fifteen
dollars as we were unable to stay in attend the
event in the extreme temperatures inside. We submitted a refund
request to the box office and was handed a flyer
with an email address. We emailed the company and have
not received any communication from them.

Speaker 2 (27:17):
If they're charging with like sixty sixty one bucks a
ticket for adults, how much do you think they're making
per night?

Speaker 3 (27:24):
It's got to be And then the concessions. How many
inflatable alien balloons do you think they sell?

Speaker 2 (27:31):
Oh? I got in big bags of stale popcorn.

Speaker 3 (27:33):
Yes, and like hard cotton candy, Oh.

Speaker 2 (27:35):
The hardest cotton candy.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
There's so much going on, huge sodas.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
You could brain a man with that cotton candy.

Speaker 3 (27:41):
Well, my favorite was someone who threatened to report them
to the state Attorney General. You're selling waters and sodas
from Sam's Club marked not for resale at a huge markup,
So it looks like circuses are still sort of skirting
the edges of the law in their operations.

Speaker 2 (27:59):
Ever done that's on the ground.

Speaker 3 (28:01):
There's also white collar circus crime. Oh and that's got
to be a heck of a reveal when you go
to prison, What are you in for defrauding my circus? Okay?
So that's the story of George Pace. George Pace was
the board president of Circus Flora and Circus Flora is

(28:22):
a nonprofit, one ring theatrical circus and that like a
total Saint Louis cultural institution.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
Okaylay which yeah, clothes.

Speaker 3 (28:32):
So the circus was commissioned by this Italian composer, gian
Carlo Menotti for the Spiletto Festival USA in nineteen eighty six.
Spoletto USA is this huge annual performing arts festival in Charleston,
South Carolina.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
Really have you heard of that?

Speaker 3 (28:48):
I had vague I've heard, Yeah, it does. It's a nodi. See.
He wanted to have like festivals like that he had
back in Europe, specifically Spoletto, Italy had these credible festivals,
and so he wanted a place as charming as Spiletto.
So he picked Charleston and the next year, you know,

(29:09):
so he does this, this festival has this Circus Flora.
The next year, the circus found a permanent home in
Saint Louis and so, but they travel around. It has
elements of like traditional European circus mixed in with modern theater,
and the performances are all originals, so Circus Flora doesn't
just perform in Saint Louis. In nineteen ninety seven they

(29:31):
were their big top was the first to ever be
put up at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and
then two thousand and two they put the tent up
at Lincoln Center, New York City at the Big Festival there.
They've done six appearances at the Spiletto Festival talking about yeah,
and they've done five different appearances on the island of Nantucket,

(29:54):
like these kind of vacations. But it so by the
early twenty twenties, it wasn't just like some entertainment brand.
It was a donor supported local nonprofit with board governance,
bank relationships, credit facilities.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Legit, legit yeah yeah, not like a fly by night
loaded up in the van.

Speaker 3 (30:11):
We got go, not taking the profits and putting it
into a cigar box. The Lumberjacks are run, run, The
Lumberjacks are coming and their French Canadian, so he pays.
He joined the board of Circus Flora in twenty twenty
and then later became the board president, and that put
him in this position of like authority over the organization's finances,

(30:33):
their banking transactions. Up the known fraud, the fraud that
we know of ran from December of twenty twenty two
through at least like September of twenty twenty three, and
he used that period to exploit the circus a bunch
of different ways. It was rather than like one single
theft or like bookkeeping maneuver. And so in those nine

(30:56):
months he embezzled more than one hundred and twenty three
thousand dollars from a nonprofits.

Speaker 2 (31:03):
Not traveling a lot.

Speaker 3 (31:04):
You know what that is. That's ridiculous. So one part
of the one part of the scheme was credit cards.
So he was supposed to help close a circus floor
a line of credit at Enterprise Bank and open a
new one at umb Bank, and instead he kept the

(31:24):
Enterprise account alive, and he got a card in his
own name tied to the circus and he used it
for his personal spending. And so he then also got
like a second card for additional unapproved personal spending. This
is stuff like fancy restaurants, nail salon membership, yeah, skin
care treatment, horseback riding related expenses.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
He was like, you know, I just charged the circus
put the horses on the car.

Speaker 3 (31:55):
The scheme wasn't just unauthorized spending. He had to conceal
it too. And so another circus official reviewed the expenses
on one of the cards, and Pace didn't admit to like, oh, yeah, no,
those are my I got acrylics on my hands. Yeah, no,
that was my skin treatment. He said the card was stolen,

(32:16):
and then he presented forged account statements to make it
look like the disputed charges had been resolved.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (32:23):
Yeah, Like straight up deliberate deception on that one.

Speaker 4 (32:26):
I mean if you just said like, oh, yeah, the
car got stolen and like, you know, dispute the charges.

Speaker 3 (32:30):
That he's and guys car, guys, I'm ahead of you.
I already disputed the charges. And when you have an
old statement, this is the new statement. Yeah. A second
part of the fraud involved checks and debt payments. So
Pace diverted checks that were drawn on Circus Flora's bank
account to himself instead of using them to pay down

(32:51):
a line of credit. And then at first that was
like around fifty grand, but then interest racks up who knows,
and that tacked on thousands of dollars compounds it does,
it does a third part of the fraud really like
hit at donor confidence because oh.

Speaker 2 (33:09):
Right, he's a nonprofit. They're counting on donor.

Speaker 3 (33:12):
He deposited thousands of dollars in donor checks made payable
to circus Flora into his personal bank account, and like
for a nonprofit.

Speaker 2 (33:23):
That's real bad. That's serious and really easy to track.

Speaker 3 (33:26):
It's super easy to track. But like, okay, so that's
not just their revenue, but these people have trusted a donation.
This happens like you're out of lot and.

Speaker 4 (33:35):
You're like you're a circus relying on donors, and if
you lose and burn your donors.

Speaker 3 (33:39):
You're a circus full stop. Like right there, it's an
uphill battle, right.

Speaker 2 (33:45):
Okay, you're not relying on like the fake tickets.

Speaker 3 (33:50):
Exactly. So Saint Louis Magazine reported that executive director Jack
Marsh had a lot of damage control to do before
criminal charges became public, so he had to like quietly
inform donors of the problem and like hope they'd be
understandings and the organization. Like they hoped that the money
could be recovered with out law enforcement, but then they

(34:12):
had to go to authorities when they saw like the
scope of it.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
I'm sure once you tried to see five figure.

Speaker 3 (34:18):
Yeah and so, and it was. Everything came to light internally.
It wasn't because of a public audit or like a whistleblower.
They just started noticing these things in the books and
then you know, put it together. Marsh told Saint Louis
magazine that the circus became alarmed when the bank records
didn't match up. There's basically two books, and he said that,

(34:38):
you know, something seemed to be missing. They start digging.
He said, it was like unpeeling in the onion. And
eventually they figured, Okay, this isn't some hacker, this isn't
a clerical error. It's coming from our board president, the
king of the circus. So September twenty twenty three, according
to Marsh, circus Flora confronted Pace like there was a

(35:00):
clown with like a bowling pin, like slapping it on
the sand.

Speaker 2 (35:04):
He resigned to hold him.

Speaker 3 (35:09):
Pace resigned, and even then it didn't become public knowledge,
and they kept operating and like privately dealing with the fallout,
but that you know, there's such a beloved institution in
Saint Louis, and people really were just like, if you
can get rid of him, although there were like rumors
online of people like, well, if he got away with it,
what else are they doing? Anyway, so marsh said, Circus Flora,

(35:30):
they put on their twenty twenty four season and they
tried to fulfill their mission, but it was a low point.
So the fraud, it did not collapse the circus, but
it left this like huge financial hole that they had
to address preserving the donor confidence, having like stability to
the public. So the criminal case became public on November twentieth,

(35:53):
twenty twenty four, and the US Attorney's Office for the
Eastern District of Missouri announced a six count federal wire
fraud indictment. And so at that stage the government was like, look,
these are allegations. He's presumed innocent.

Speaker 6 (36:08):
Wink.

Speaker 3 (36:09):
Then, but they lay out those three principal avenues of fraud,
right the credit cards, the checks, the depositing donor checks,
diverting you know, paydown debt. And then it also alleged
a separate strand of misconduct involving applications to the Small
Business Administration. So, like the circus thought it was just

(36:32):
credit cards payments, they get the FEDS involved, and the
FEDS are like, oh wait, there's no more. Yeah, so
the Small Business Administration broadened everything out. He applied on
August ninth, twenty twenty two, for an eighteen two ndred
dollars SBA Disaster Assistance loan by misrepresenting his income and

(36:53):
bank balance.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
Are they doing like covid era loon, Yeah, twenty twenty
That's what I'm thinking.

Speaker 3 (36:57):
It's like PPPs and stuff like that. He applies again,
like eleven days later for another eleven grand, while hiding
the fact that he already received two PPP loans that
totaled more than thirty eight thousand. He's like, no, no, no,
that wasn't me. That was another guy. That was another clown.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
It was Flora's circus Flora.

Speaker 3 (37:21):
It's easily confused. So by the time he pleaded guilty,
he admitted to making two fraudulent SBA disaster loan applications
totaling almost thirty grand, although the government denied both. But
he got in trouble for just trying.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
Going there I thought that that low amount would be
like here.

Speaker 3 (37:37):
You go, and that it wasn't the same base. It
wasn't like the direct loss of Circus Flora. But it's
just like, Okay, this guy is a creep at the sun.
How did he become a board member at the circus?

Speaker 2 (37:48):
Little curious about that.

Speaker 3 (37:49):
He was a local executive, so he'd been high up
in digital marketing and was a chief executive officer of
the US office of the London based advertising firm Partner
andrews Aldridge. Yeah right, I don't know. Before that gig,
he was a senior VP and client partnership director at
a marketing firm called Ancira. Sounds he did like adjunct

(38:11):
professor work at Washington University. Sounds impressive enough. Business guy
well connected, but not like the wise guy connected where
obviously like they would not and they would not steal
from an Italian inspired circus exactly like they have standards.

Speaker 2 (38:26):
He's connected, like I've had a job before.

Speaker 3 (38:28):
Yes, he's like, I have a business cards, connections, papers,
it's a card, It's a card. According to Saint Louis
magazine quote. In two thousand and seven, the Business Journal
reported that Drive Agency was one of the fastest growing
privately held companies in Saint Louis, and that Pace, who
had recently purchased the agency, had added two million dollars

(38:51):
to its billing. By two thousand and eight, that's one
year later, however, the company had ceased operations and Pace
listed its value as zero in a twenty thirteen bankruptcy filing.
The filing showed more than a million dollars debt, much
of it credit card debt, and few assets other than
the family home in LaDue, a nineteen eighty nine jeep Cherokee,

(39:13):
and two dogs and two chickens.

Speaker 2 (39:15):
His assets were a chicken and an eighty nine jeep
chair and.

Speaker 3 (39:18):
Eighty nine jep Cherokee, two dogs and two chickens. He
puts that on his assets. He said he had one
hundred and seventy five dollars in the bank. Like sometimes
I'm like, you know what I'm doing? All right? I'm
doing all right.

Speaker 2 (39:30):
I see this, I'm like, you know what, not a chicken?
I've got two chicken two and a dog in the cakes.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
And he stole from the circuit.

Speaker 2 (39:37):
So they make pets assets.

Speaker 3 (39:40):
So the case shifted decisively own them twenty eight twenty
twenty six. So just a few months ago, he pleaded
guilty in federal court to four council wire fraud. He
admitted the core fax and he also admitted that the
he got specific with the loss amount they were giving ballpark.

(40:01):
He's like, no, actually, let me tell you I do
fraud of them one hundred and twenty three thy fifteen
dollars in ninety four cents?

Speaker 2 (40:10):
Was he like an accountant or is he going for
like a circus rerecord?

Speaker 3 (40:12):
They were like, get out of here, nerd. He's scheduled
to be sentenced May fourth, twenty twenty six.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
So we could go, oh, he's still sentence.

Speaker 3 (40:20):
Yeah, yeah, he's just in limbo. The DOJ said. Each
wirefrog count carries a potential maximum penalty of twenty years
in prison and a two hundred and fifty thousand dollars fine.

Speaker 2 (40:31):
Each charged wire Frog. Yeah not why any circus.

Speaker 3 (40:35):
Flora is like, can we talk restitution?

Speaker 2 (40:37):
Yeah? Please, we'll see. Can we sell the chicken?

Speaker 3 (40:39):
I hope they get it, but I feel like a
dude like that might be judgment proof at this point.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
Yeah, I think so, let's.

Speaker 3 (40:45):
Take a break and upon our return, the star of
the show Oh that's right, Zaren.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
By the way, can I just say how much I
love Carnie Crime and Circus Crime. You know, I have like,
I have a book, a picture book of like.

Speaker 4 (41:23):
Side I think it's called Sideshow, And it's just all
photographs from like this, mostly the South, but a little
bit of the Midwest, like Missouri and stuff, which is
like kind of south, kind of Midwest. And I so
want to show it to you, but I think it
would scare you because it's like nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties
black and white photography, and it's just like the you
know whatever, like the snake charmer lady. Yeah, behind the

(41:46):
scenes and she's just sitting there smoking with it really.

Speaker 2 (41:49):
Interesting to me.

Speaker 3 (41:49):
And there's a when I was reading, there's a big
debate about you know, people with disabilities who were exploited,
but at the same time, you know, their families couldn't
afford to feed them or they would never have at.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
The time of steady employment.

Speaker 3 (42:03):
Yeah, they wouldn't have employment, and so there in some
cases they actually could could make money.

Speaker 2 (42:08):
And like have some fame and find a community. Like
but you're still being exploded.

Speaker 3 (42:12):
You're being completely exploited and that's like those rare cases
for the most part, in these small circuses. You know,
you're you're stripping people of their humanity and you're making
you're setting back disability rights issues so far because you're
saying like you're not part of the community. And so
what really decimated that were the advances and disability rights

(42:34):
and so yeah, like I it's it's a fascinating thing.
It fascinates me, like those kind of weird fringe people
like a snake charmer, like how did you wind up there?

Speaker 2 (42:44):
And also there's a lot of places they create a
little community amongst themselves, like you know, and they also
it's like, you know, people would have pointed at me
at least now I'm getting money.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
You know, yeah, exactly at that time before we had
disability exactly exactly. So yeah, it's like the the atmosphere
of it, Like you said, HBO's Carnival, if you haven't
seen it, it's fantastic. I love it anyway. So I
have a story to share with you that I love
the whole lot.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
I love stories. I love when you love a story.

Speaker 3 (43:14):
It's about a guy named f. Bam Morrison.

Speaker 2 (43:19):
Great name, Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (43:21):
Now this guy he doesn't have enough to get his
own whole episode, which is a shame. And I think
that maybe with months or years of research, like more
of the story could be discovered. But I have a
busy on the go lifestyle, so I can't. I just can't, Saren,
I want to tell this story, can get this much
time from you? Right? So I had to build in.
I had to build it into something else. And originally

(43:43):
I was going to try and find a ridiculous crime
involving the singer Van Morrison and make this the Van
and Bam Morrison show. But I couldn't find anything that
worked for old Van the Man other than being like
anti vaccin, cranky and yet my mother's favorite singer, go figure.
So oh yeah, So I found other circus crimes, all

(44:06):
in the service of telling you this story. Oh yeah,
we had fun.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
We've had fun totally.

Speaker 3 (44:11):
We're about to have more. Nineteen fifty, a man named
f Bam Bam Morrison, at least that's what he said.
His name was F Bam rolled into town Watumka, Oklahoma,
Oh heck, population twenty five hundred. The town got his
name from the Muscogee Creek people driven out of their

(44:33):
ancestral homeland in with Tempka, Alabama. So they made it
to what is now Watumka. They dropped the p in Watumka, Oklahoma.
They gave it the name they knew best. That's the
Muscogee word for rumbling waters. In Watunka, everybody knows everybody.
When the ranchers come into town. They visit with Rgie
Taylor at the farmers exchange. Yeah, they go see Logan

(44:57):
Walker at the filling station, and they may say hello
to Mayor Herman Darks and Armand Gibson and his father
Harley who's better known as Hoot Gibson.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
Gibson's Oklahoma's.

Speaker 3 (45:12):
He did like, can we start a sign with like
all of our favorite names? Right?

Speaker 2 (45:16):
We come across so many great names on here.

Speaker 3 (45:17):
Yeah, there's Julian Pashoto, the grocery guy, Pashoto, p E
I x O T T O.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
I did not expect that.

Speaker 3 (45:28):
You didn't see that coming, did you not?

Speaker 2 (45:30):
At all?

Speaker 3 (45:31):
Right on top of me, you think you're so smart
at all. Bill Tankers, the Baker Tankers and the good
people who keep the town running, all of them, And
so then then there's f Bam and no one could
really remember how it was that he turned up, but
in short time he had the town just like eating

(45:51):
out of his grubby little hand.

Speaker 4 (45:53):
I would like to believe that the F is his name.
It's not like short for Francis, it's just F. His
family just called him F Yeah, f bam so f bam.

Speaker 3 (46:03):
As Pashoto recalls him, was a man past middle age
with like sandy hair. He had like rugged red, honest
looking face, good clothes, but like not not a dandy,
and had one of those voices. But in other accounts
it was much different. Time magazine called him a tall,
talented gentleman. Another source that he wore a checkered vest

(46:27):
and a large gold chain. Grant Herring, who worked at
Herring Hardware, quote describe the stranger as kind of a
short man, dressed real flashy, probably in his forties.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
We have tall and short, we have tall and short.

Speaker 3 (46:40):
He's every man. It's all in him, like we.

Speaker 4 (46:44):
Have red and white checker. And someone said flashy clothes.
I assume those are talking about the same thing.

Speaker 3 (46:49):
And then they said, but he's not flashy. He's well dressed,
but he's not a dandy. Julian Pashotto's son, David was
a boy scout at the time. He remembers f Bam
as kind of little and on the heavy side, and
to me older, maybe in his fifties, and he dressed nice.
He was nice and mannerly. Jerry Herring, grandson said, we

(47:13):
didn't know if that was his real name, and he
didn't even know how the guy came in by automobile,
rode the bus or what he feels like.

Speaker 2 (47:20):
He came in like on his own wagon, like a
snaked ug.

Speaker 3 (47:24):
Yes, exactly, a creek parked on the edge of town.
So f BAM's voice had a lot to do with
his magnetic personality, like he had this tone of voice
that would conjure up like the sound of a calliope,
because that kind of like the peaks, and his excitement
made adults feel like there were kids again. And so,

(47:47):
according to reporting from the Saint Louis Post Dispatch, quote,
when f Bam talked of the beautiful gymnasts, every man
in town saw pink tights. When he talked of the
elephants and camels, people smelled the hay and the sawdust,
and there was a lingering taste like roasted peanuts in

(48:08):
their mouths, like isn't this great? So he was the
kind of person in verbiage you may recognize from treaky
Southern obituaries that never met a stranger, never met a stranger, so.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
He could talk. That boy got to get to gab.

Speaker 3 (48:24):
He seemed oddly familiar to people, so he worked that angle.
Has anyone ever told you like, do I know you?

Speaker 2 (48:31):
People?

Speaker 3 (48:33):
I know, they don't. I just thought i'd swing in
the midst. That happens to me every now and that
people like do I know you? Like? And it's like
we have absolutely nothing in common, and I'm always tempted
to be like, oh my god, yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:45):
What's that?

Speaker 3 (48:45):
Like? Where would where would where do we go to
school together? Oh? Yes?

Speaker 2 (48:49):
Do you do? Like a whole thing?

Speaker 3 (48:50):
Like?

Speaker 2 (48:50):
Is that like, let's let's spend five minutes.

Speaker 3 (48:53):
Well, who else? Who's my good doppelgang around?

Speaker 2 (48:56):
A people? Who we know?

Speaker 3 (48:58):
Who's the good twin out there?

Speaker 2 (49:01):
Someone?

Speaker 4 (49:01):
It's just not a vibe thing. It's that you look Okay. Yeah,
I think I don't even know how this plays.

Speaker 3 (49:06):
I don't even know either. Maybe people aren't really talking
and I'm imagining they say these things to me. Maybe
I'm standing I'm good talking to a mirror. I don't know,
you do you know? I don't know. Okay. So he
worked this angle of seeming oddly familiar to people by
telling the people of a Tunka that they'd met him before,

(49:28):
and he was like, I was here twenty five years
prior and I brought a carnival to town to benefit
the volunteer fire department. And people were like, yeah, I
think there wasn't there a carnival while, but yeah, I
remember you. And then like they'd talk some more and
he'd have this like gregarious, charming guy persona and they're

(49:49):
like remembering him and then remembering how great they thought
he was at the time.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
This works, It totally works.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
And then they were like, I really liked him back then,
and I always wanted him to come back, and here
he is. Huh, So I don't need to tell you
that he'd never been to town before.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
I'm guessing that.

Speaker 3 (50:05):
Yeah, there's just prime con man behavior, like top shelf
work on that. He told everyone that he was the
advance man for the Bonds United circus shows Bond bo
h n apostrophs, Oh, you know the Bonds United forty
Rides forty shows. Even a guy named tex Walker, the

(50:28):
text Walker. So in all of my investigations, all of
my diggins, I only saw that name connected to this story.
Bonds United Circus shows nowhere else anyway, So Oklahoma, f bam.
He came through town because he remembered the fine folks,

(50:49):
and he's like, you know what, you deserve to have
a circus here, not some other RinkyDink town. This place,
what Tonka's special? You deserve nice things.

Speaker 2 (50:58):
Like music, man everything.

Speaker 3 (51:00):
Yeah, so he told them how the circus is gonna.
You know, when a circus comes to town, it can
attract thousands of people from all over the countryside, and
you know they spend money at these things food, lodging, gas,
you know, and then sales just to the circus itself
you throw in the visitors. Boy howdie, it is a
moon for a town that gets a circus. But he

(51:21):
didn't run it as a hard cell right. No, it
wasn't an outright pitch. He was just like sharing fun facts.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
Yeah, talked about what.

Speaker 3 (51:28):
Life was like on the road with a circus. I
just want to share time was crazy. This town got
this like all these cool stories, tales of stops in
other towns. He just let it like, you know, permeate
sink into him. Julian Pashoto, the grocer, He told the
Post Dispatch quote, I remember noticing him around town with

(51:49):
a bunch of placards under his arm, and I thought
maybe he was a traveling photographer. I saw him with
the Chief of police and they were very friendly, and
then someone told me he was promoting a show for
the benefit of the round Up Club.

Speaker 2 (52:00):
He feels like a guy who would have a cigar
ready to give out to, like a chief of police.

Speaker 3 (52:04):
Yes, yes, So the round Up Club was an organization
of people who were interested in horses and riding.

Speaker 2 (52:10):
Yeah. I caught that, ye roundup the show.

Speaker 3 (52:13):
Doo got a call from someone who was like, no,
it's not the round Up Club. It's going to benefit
the Boy Scouts. And don't forget his son was in
the Boy Scouts. And so here's how he describes their
meeting quote. They sent him over to see me. He
was very friendly, very warm, and very convincing. He didn't
try to high pressure me. I asked him where the
circus was and he said it was over in Arkansas.

(52:35):
He started explaining that when they came, they would buy
a lot of groceries about fifteen hundred dollars worth. I
knew they couldn't eat fifteen hundred dollars worth of groceries
in a day, but he had a quick answer for that.
He said they put up bags of groceries as prizes
in the game of chance. Well, I wound up buying
the science space above the main entrance cost me thirty bucks.

(52:56):
I also bought one hundred pounds of hot dogs, which
he said the hot dog stands would be kneeding.

Speaker 5 (53:01):
No.

Speaker 3 (53:03):
So now that the grocer's in for thirty bucks and
one hundred pounds of hot dogs, f Bam goes to
see Bill the baker. According to Bill quote, he told
me they were gonna need buns for all these hot dogs.
So a couple of days before the circus day, I
started baking buns. Baked four hundred of them. I talked
to f. Bam for quite a while, but I didn't

(53:24):
get to say much. When he first approached me, I
turned him down that sort of insulted him. He really
started talking there, and the first thing I knew I
had agreed to everything he wanted, including money for an
ad on the soundtruck. So from this he goes on
from anyone else, I'd have required a deposit for four

(53:45):
hundred buns, but somehow he made me believe he was
an exception. Then there was all those loaves of bread
to go into those bags of groceries he was gonna
buy from Julian. All I could see was hundreds of
loaves of out of town bread in those bags, and
I couldn't stay that.

Speaker 2 (54:01):
What an era of America? Right?

Speaker 3 (54:04):
So f Bam he ran up tabs and paid for
them with VIP tickets. He went to see Floyd Franklin
over at the Meter's hotel. He told Floyd that they're
going to need like thirty rooms. Yeah, Floyd blocked him off,
and that's not going to cost him anything like unless
he has to turn people away. But see, Floyd was

(54:26):
too nice. He wanted the best for these visiting performers.
So he went out and bought a new mattress for
each of the thirty rooms.

Speaker 2 (54:33):
Are you kidding?

Speaker 3 (54:34):
No, I'm not kidding.

Speaker 2 (54:35):
Thirty mattresses like one for the juggler, one for an acrobat. Yes.

Speaker 3 (54:38):
Floyd f Bam told Logan Walker at the filling station
that the circus was going to buy oil and gas
from him exclusively, and so he was like, oh great,
can I buy an ad thirty dollars f bam rolling
in cash. People were like comping him for everything. And
then he said he had to leave town for a
few days, but the circus would be there on schedule. Zaren,

(55:01):
close your eyes. Oh yes, I want you to picture it.
It's June twenty fourth, nineteen fifty. You are a six
year old boy who drove all day yesterday with his
family to come stay with your aunt here in with
Tunka and see the circus. It's all you've been thinking

(55:22):
about since you heard about it a week ago. You
begged and begged come see your aunt Sadie and go
to the circus. You've never been to the circus before.
They don't come out your way. You live far south
of here, in Choctaw Nationland, almost at the Texas border. Wa.
Tunka is about ninety miles east of Oklahoma City, but
it feels like light years away. You spent six long, hot,

(55:45):
dusty hours in the car with your ma and Pa
and little sister and grandma just to give here, and
today is the big day. You woke up early, far
before everyone else. Strands of puffy clouds are lit from
below by the right sun as it kisses the horizon.
Good morning. Your aunt lives a few blocks off of
Main Street. The whole house is still asleep. As you

(56:07):
slip down the hallway. You tiptoe away from the twin
bed you shared with your sister last night. Her gentle
breathing matched beat for beat by the snoring of your
aunt's old bloodhound Buddy as he lays puddled at the
foot of the bed. Ever vigilan, you quietly open the
back door and slip out into the yard. You know Watumka.

(56:27):
You come here every summer and stay with your aunt
for almost a month. It's your favorite time of year.
She dotes on you and tells you what a special
boy you are. She cuddles your sister. She is love
and all of her friends in town are just as
kind and warm. It's a special place. You walk down
the driveway to the road. Turn right, you'd head to

(56:48):
the railroad tracks left takes you to Main Street. You
turn on your heel to your left and begin to skip.
You wonder what kind of animals they'll have at the circus,
and will there be a cowboy doing tricks? Maybe an
acrobat flipping high into the air. You are buzzing with anticipation.
There's supposed to be a parade in a few hours,
coming right down main Street. You're determined to get a

(57:11):
prime spot. You don't want to miss a thing. As
you get closer to Main Street, you remind yourself to
be a good boy, to not get underfoot, to not
annoy any of the adults. A good boy, not some baby,
a grown boy. You get to Main Street and it's
suspiciously silent. You look both ways up and down the road,
and you don't see any sign of a parade. Just

(57:32):
some men walking up and down the street. One stops
right near you, places his hands on his hips and exhales.
You look up at him, and he lifts the cowboy
hat from his head and fans himself with it. Hey there, mister,
are you excited for the parade. I'm going to get
the best spot for watching it. You gesture at the
next block, maybe over there. The man looks at you,
his eyes tender. He makes a little frown that just

(57:54):
accentuates the briskly white mustache that runs in a thick
line from one side of the chin up across his
upper lip, and then back down to the other side
of his chin. He shuffles his feet on the pavement.
He smells of tobacco and boot polish. Son, I don't
know if we're going to have a parade today. You
stare at him in disbelief, unsure you've heard what he

(58:16):
just said. A door slams shut on a storefront down
the street, and the sound causes a mass of tiny,
delicate flapping from a tree behind you. The sky above
you now crowds with starlings and a murmuration. They undulate
as one mask, twisting and contorting in the sky, headed
for the fields outside of town. You'd love to fly
away with them right now. Are you Sadie's kin? The

(58:39):
man asks you, yes, sir. You reply, I'm Clifton. He
tells you, Sadie's late husband was one of my cousins.
You can call me Hawk. You think on that for
a moment. You tell him your name is Hugh, and
what should you call me? You ask, Let's call you Tiger.
You love that tiger. Hawk asks if you want to

(59:01):
hop in his truck and look and see if there's
anyone at all from the circus around You agree, you're
Tiger now, and that's the sort of thing Tiger would
do with Hawk. Hawk shouts down the block to another
man that he's gonna go check out the rodeo grounds.
The man nods you and Hawk get into his old
bookout it roars to life. The engine sputters a little,
and then reliably chugs you both down the road to

(59:22):
the rodeo grounds. Hawk whistles a lonesome tune. You stare
out the window, tracking the starlings on their dance across
the fields. You get to the rodeo grounds and it's empty,
save a man in a plaid shirt. Argie. Hawk calls
it to him. He walks over to the truck, Hawk
cuts the engine. They quietly discuss the situation at hand.

(59:43):
No parade, no circus. You gather that some guy named
f Bam Morrison's skipped town. He took everybody's money. Half
the folks are spitting mad, and the other feel half
like fools suckers. Argie looks into the cab at the
truck and sees you. Who's this? He asks, It's Sadie's nephew,
names Tiger. Howdy Tiger, Argie says, for all the disappointment

(01:00:08):
of missing the parade and the circus and the balloons
and the feats of daring. Do you are filled with
a new pride. You really are a grown boy. You're
not underfoot, you're not annoying, You're just a good boy.

Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
By the new nickname, I want to be called Hawk.

Speaker 3 (01:00:27):
Now, Hawk, you can be hawk. That's a good name, right, Totally.
I have to confess, I, you know, was going through
like current and past, uh, like social media posts from
people from the town and news reports, newspapers, names so hard,
so great, the people of the town, they went back

(01:00:50):
to their days. The visitors dispersed, and I had to
have to have something there, and so all the merchants
they're left holding the bag, right of course, but this
is a plucky town. I can't tell you what a
soft spot I have for this place that I've developed
in researching them. Like of course, you know, I go
to Google street View. It looks so much now like

(01:01:14):
a lot of small towns that I've visited or known
well or lived in like this rich agricultural past, a
lot of industry that boomed and then left, and they
suffer all the ills that we can throw at them.
But they hang on. They have like a main street,
and they have a main street that's like you know
a lot of stop empty storefronts and like yeah, and

(01:01:35):
it's and especially there they're also dealing with like you know,
native populations and having to you know, Surger, you mentioned
that definitely totally. And so they're plucky, right, they hang on.
And that's what they did in the wake of f BAM.
They had all the fixings for a party. Why not

(01:01:57):
go ahead and have one. McWilliams, the publisher of the
Watunka Gazette, decided that they didn't have to hang their
heads in shame. They could celebrate this whole fiasco and
have a good laugh. Once we decided to laugh about
it and chalk it up to experience, we all felt better,
said Argie Taylor. So the boy Scouts they served up

(01:02:18):
the one hundred pounds of hot dogs for free from
booths in the middle of main street businesses, hid little
bits of money and all that hay that was ordered
for the circus animals, and they let the kids dig
around and find treasure. It turned into this huge party,
and then they wanted to have one every year. And
that's when Sucker's.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
Day was born Suckers Day.

Speaker 3 (01:02:38):
They created a holiday from it called Sucker's Day.

Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
I have loved you know, they talk about city mouse
and country mouse. I love country It's so pure every time.

Speaker 3 (01:02:49):
So they're like, you know, he got away with some cash, right,
but Sucker's Day is worth way more than that. This
one kid in Watunka was asked about it, and he said,
we couldn't have put him in jail. We'd come unsuckered
if we did that. So the nineteen fifty one, like
the next year, had a small parade. So there was

(01:03:09):
a float that had this mock grave of the advanced
man who'd fooled the town's dam, and it said died
from laughing. Ten thousand people from fifteen different states came
to this one the next year.

Speaker 4 (01:03:23):
Not fifteen different cities, fifteen different states states.

Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
So they told their family, their cousins.

Speaker 3 (01:03:28):
Yes, everybhere, it gets surrounded, probably runs in papers at
this story. Each year. The celebration got bigger. Soon it
was starting at noon the day before with his giant
free barbecue. On the eve of Sucker's Day, Creek Indians
in their native costumed dances, they played a game of
Indian stickball at the school stadium. The next day there

(01:03:48):
was the parade. Bands played, they had drill teams from
the town, and like all these surrounding towns.

Speaker 4 (01:03:54):
I Michael imagining, like Midwest syndicated columnists like Mike Reiko.

Speaker 2 (01:03:57):
Writing about this.

Speaker 3 (01:03:59):
There was hog call pie, eating pop drinking, catching a
greased pig. They had a softball game the fact, and
then they would have like this, gather around and we're
gonna tell the tale of Succer Day, like how it
came about.

Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
I can't believe this isn't like a play or a movie.

Speaker 3 (01:04:16):
There was a greased pole climbing contests, a can can
dance done by quote beautiful Hollywood dancers who turned out
to be local businessmen in costumes, and then at night,
to top it all off, a big square dance up
and down main streams like it sounds dreamy, it sounds amazing,
and it fills me with joy and hope and I

(01:04:37):
love it. So. A couple of years after the very
first Suckers Day, people jammed the sidewalks overflowed into the
street because they were looking for f. Bam Morrison. He
promised to come to Sucker's Day that year.

Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
Get out.

Speaker 3 (01:04:50):
Yeah, no, one thought they'd ever hear from him again,
But then Rgie Taylor got a long distance call from
authorities in Warrensburg, Missouri. They had f. Bam Morrison in
jail there. According to the Post dispatch quote, it seems
that f. Bam in nineteen fifty one had gone to
the little town of Holden near Warrensburg, where he had

(01:05:11):
painted a glowing picture of the circus he was bringing
to town. He collected money from the merchants and departed,
but he made the mistake of going back to hold
In this spring, and they recognized him. They called the
sheriff at Warrensburg and f. Bam was arrested, charged with
obtaining money under false pretenses. He pleaded guilty, was fined
fifty dollars and give him thirty days in jail.

Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
I figured he had a blown tire or something to
leave town.

Speaker 3 (01:05:34):
The jail sentence was suspended, however, on condition that he
pay the fine and leave town. F Bam succeeded after
a few long distance calls in raising the money, so
he was released after having spent about ten days in jail.
Warrensburg authorities wanted to know if we still wanted f.
Bam Ourgie Taylor related we had sent out an arrest

(01:05:56):
order for him back in nineteen fifty. I told him
that we still wanted them all all right, but not
for the same reasons. I asked to talk to him.
They brought him to the telephone and it was f
bam all right. I told him we don't want to
prosecute him, but we did want him as our guest
for Suckers Day. Offered to pay his expenses and give
him one hundred dollars. He promised he would be here.
A couple of weeks later, he called me from Saint Louis.

(01:06:18):
Collect Of course, he said he needed twenty five dollars.
I didn't send it to him, and we've never heard
from him since. He said when he called he had
a job with a show over in Kansas and he
needed twenty five bucks to tide him over until his
check came through from his last job. You know, said Argie.
He sounded so convincing. I came within an ace of

(01:06:40):
sending him that money. So Sucker's Day continued through the fifties,
then it fell off, then it was revived in the
late seventies, and I think they still celebrate it today. Really,
and I would love to attend. Yes, grand trip, Let's
do it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:56):
I'm so down.

Speaker 3 (01:06:58):
Sucker's Day, and I just want to tell these people
how much I love them. Even though I don't know them,
I love them absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:07:04):
This is like the best of America.

Speaker 3 (01:07:06):
It is is there, And what's your ridiculous takeaway?

Speaker 4 (01:07:09):
I cannot believe this is real. I can't wait for
you to be like a sucker, you know at the
very end, this is incredible.

Speaker 2 (01:07:18):
So I keep repeating myself with this, but this is
like the America that I think we all can agree
that the innocence, and then like let's make the best
of this and come together as a community, and the
boy Scouts will sell the hot dogs. I mean, like
you just gotta love.

Speaker 3 (01:07:31):
I think that's what like my takeaway, That's what resonates
with me too with this particular story, is that it's
like we talk about like this is what the America
that we know and we love. So we have these
people who have been crapped on, yeah, and they're not
bitter about it and they're not embarrassed like they were
ashamed at first and then they realized, wait a second,

(01:07:52):
I have nothing to be ashamed. Of yeah, and they're
willing to admit Yeah, you know what, I fell for it.
So if you could admit your mistake and you can
admit your failings and then turn around and turn it
into this really beautiful event to celebrate this community that
loves and cares for each other.

Speaker 2 (01:08:09):
Yeah, come up with a reason to get together.

Speaker 3 (01:08:11):
Idea that if this attraction was coming to town, how
awesome they were going to make it for everybody who attended.
They weren't looking out for their own interests. I mean
they were, but it was like the overarching theme was like,
let's have something really great here. Yeah, and it's going
to benefit all of us. So it was like a
collective of them all working together and to turn that
into this like collective action of just the best party

(01:08:34):
ever that just keeps growing and growing.

Speaker 4 (01:08:36):
And also not getting mad at the guy who condom
because he didn't take him for too much.

Speaker 2 (01:08:41):
You know. It's like just at the level they're like, okay,
but you have to hear.

Speaker 3 (01:08:45):
You can take money, but he couldn't take who they are, Yeah, exactly,
and so these are good, good people and you can't
take that, And like we need to remember that, like
when we feel like and we have had things taken
from us. They're so they're affables that can't be taken
from us, and that's who makes us who we are. Yeah,
And so it's just like we can feel bitter and

(01:09:06):
we can feel irritated or you know, damaged and wounded
by things, but the truth of the matter is like
who we are doesn't change, and we need to like
recognize that, celebrate that in ourselves and in each other,
like when we see it in each other too. And
sometimes you got to take the hit in order for
the greater good. You know, they didn't pay him for
the hundred hot dogs, but we're talking about it and

(01:09:29):
how much joy did that give people, like in the
face of that. So anyway, God, I love that story.

Speaker 6 (01:09:36):
So we need to talk back now too, God, I let.

Speaker 5 (01:09:52):
He's Aaron and Elizabeth. I just had a funny story
for you. The first time I ever listened to you guys,
I was on a four hour flight and it was
the Disney World Theft Guy, Fiery pcp Man and Frank
Sinatra Junior episodes, and you guys had me laughing so
hard I was crying, which made the guy sitting next

(01:10:14):
to me very uncomfortable throughout the flight. So awesome job
and keep up the good work.

Speaker 3 (01:10:20):
That's we've won. That's all I got, isn't that the
It's like the best and worst feeling when you're listening
to something or reading something and you're just dying laughing
and no one knows what it is.

Speaker 2 (01:10:32):
What do you get?

Speaker 3 (01:10:34):
And it's it feels so good, but it's also like
you want it to just stop, like hold on, I
gotta focus. And now everyone's looking at me because I'm
got well. I am so happy that A we got
you through a four hour flight, yeah for real, and
uh B that we made you chuckle. That's my life's goal.

Speaker 2 (01:10:50):
Same make this person laugh.

Speaker 3 (01:10:52):
I did it. I can die no, all right, So
that's it for today. You can find us online at
ridiculous Crime dot com. We're at ridiculous Crime on blueski
and in stogram YouTube, Ridiculous Crime, podebe otube, utube. Sorry,
I'm just learning. Email us at ridiculous Crime at gmail

(01:11:14):
dot com. Leave a talkback on the iHeart app. Please
please please, I love those reach out. Ridiculous Crime is
hosted by Elicath Dutton and Saren Burnett, produced and edited
by Circusman to the Stars Dave Kusten, starring Amilie Rutger

(01:11:35):
as Judas. Research is by contortionist Mursa Brown and happy
clown Jabbari Davis. The theme song is by Thomas Lee
and Travis Dutton, two men who were recently eaten by
a lion. Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred
guest Haron, makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers
are Ben Ringling Brothers Bowlin and Noel Garden Brothers Brown.

(01:12:03):
Ridicous Crime, Say It One More Time Pridiquious Crime.

Speaker 1 (01:12:09):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
from my heart Radio. Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.