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160. Josephine Baker - Part I · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

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Speaker 1: Hello, delicious friends, and welcome to Who Did What Now?
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Speaker 1: The history podcast That's not your history class with me
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Speaker 1: your host Katie Charlwood, History Harlotte and reader of books.
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Speaker 1: Who has hurt their back again? Well, it is adum
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Speaker 1: and you know what they say, it's time to fall.
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Speaker 1: I regret nothing. I regret nothing. It was a bad
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Speaker 1: pun and I own it. No, I didn't even fall.
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Speaker 1: I just turned too sharply. And what do you know,
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Speaker 1: my back just went an because I'm not only emotionally broken,
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Speaker 1: but physically broken. Because you know, the joy of being
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Speaker 1: a millennial time weeds for no man or women. Like
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Speaker 1: the ego item amongst you who are watching the socials
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Speaker 1: around the same time of the data release of this
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Speaker 1: podcast is you'll notice that I'm not quite the same
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Speaker 1: awkward goose that I usually am. Instead, I'm like an awkward,
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Speaker 1: robotic goose who needs to oil their joints. And You're like, wow,
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Speaker 1: she's so incredibly stiff. Why is that? And it would
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Speaker 1: be the pain most likely and the fact that my
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Speaker 1: muscles have gone no, no, we're not doing that today.
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Speaker 1: So yeah, that's that's what that is. So like my
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Speaker 1: plan is I get I got to rejoin the gym
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Speaker 1: because I think I just need to build up muscle
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Speaker 1: strength really and hope for the best, like that's that's
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Speaker 1: my goal. The worst part is as I still put
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Speaker 1: on platform like Stiletto's for a video just to be
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Speaker 1: just to make a whole thing about legs. It was
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Speaker 1: not the most gracious of things. And I know what
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Speaker 1: you're thinking. You're thinking, Katie, quite your Jebbel Jabba in
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Speaker 1: fact me, In fact you, I will, But first we've
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Speaker 1: got to get our source on. Our sources are for
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Speaker 1: Leye Berger by Paul Derval, Josephine by Josephine Baker, Josephine
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Speaker 1: Baker by Patrick Hammond O'Connor, The Josephine Baker Story by
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Speaker 1: Ian Wood Jazz Cleopatra, Josephine Baker in Her Time, Scandalous Women,
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Speaker 1: The Lives and Loves of History's most Notorious Women by
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Speaker 1: Elizabeth Carey Mann. Agent Josephine American Beauty, French Hero, British
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Speaker 1: Spy by Damian Lewis. Naked at the Feast, a biography
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Speaker 1: of Josephine Baker by Lynn Heney Levere Dabler. Josephine Baker
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Speaker 1: by Emmanuel Bernini, Remembering Josephine by Stephen by Peach. Underneath
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Speaker 1: a Harlem Moon, The Harlem to Powis Hears of Adelaide
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Speaker 1: Hall by Ian Cameron Williams. Women Heroes of World War
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Speaker 1: Two by Katherine Attwood. Never Been a Time The nineteen
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Speaker 1: seventeen Race Right that sparked the Civil Rights Movement by
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Speaker 1: Harper Barnes. We also have articles from Le Pantheon, The
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Speaker 1: New York Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph, and of course
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Speaker 1: we have our old friends Biography dot com and History
3:26
Speaker 1: dot Com. Io was aging comfortably good? Then let's begin,
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Speaker 1: actually before we do, begin on the big stuff, to
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Speaker 1: the brim full story of Josephine Baker and icon, an idol,
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Speaker 1: a trailblazer, a trendsetter, and one of the most stunningly
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Speaker 1: beautiful women to ever grace this earth. Before we get
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Speaker 1: into all that like I loved, she did so much.
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Speaker 1: She did so much stuff in her life that when
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Speaker 1: I first talked about her, I did a live show
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Speaker 1: at the Prohibition Cabaret Bar, which no longer exists spite
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Speaker 1: the way, and unbeknownst to me, they had an original
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Speaker 1: Josephine Baker poster downstairs in sort of the jazz part
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Speaker 1: of the bar, and so there's a photo of me
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Speaker 1: with it at the end of the night because I'm
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Speaker 1: just opposing because I was so excited and so I
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Speaker 1: covered her. But it's a live show, it's a short
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Speaker 1: period of time, and so I had to condense a
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Speaker 1: lot of stuff down, and so when I was doing
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Speaker 1: the story for the patren I just used the same
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Speaker 1: story and so it's much shorter. And now I decided,
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Speaker 1: you know what, let's give Josephine Baker her dus and
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Speaker 1: let's tell her story as much as we can. So
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Speaker 1: this is the first and I think it's two. It
4:48
Speaker 1: could be three, but I think it's two series two
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Speaker 1: series two episodes on Josephine Baker. We'll see how far
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Speaker 1: I get because I'm still writing the next section. But
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Speaker 1: without further ado, let me tell you about Josephine Baker.
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Speaker 1: Josephine Baker was born Frieda Josephine McDonald on the third
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Speaker 1: of June nineteen oh six. To Carry McDonald and someone
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Speaker 1: else now, okay, So Carry would go on to say
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Speaker 1: that Josephine's biological father was vaudeville drummer and performer Eddie Carson,
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Speaker 1: but here's the thing, he's sort of well, he never
5:34
Speaker 1: confirms it really, and he just kind of plays along
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Speaker 1: with it for a while. Like his name isn't even
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Speaker 1: on the birth certificate. The only thing that's there are
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Speaker 1: the initials E, d W. And like he wasn't really
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Speaker 1: in Josephine's life either, So it's not as if it's like, oh,
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Speaker 1: well he raised her. He did not. But we'll get
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Speaker 1: back to that. Here's the When Carrie McDonald was very pregnant,
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Speaker 1: she was admitted to the women's hospital also known as
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Speaker 1: the Social Evil Hospital. Listen, people give places weird names.
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Speaker 1: It's just a thing they do for why hymns to say,
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Speaker 1: but they did it was probably very reasonable and rational
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Speaker 1: for the time period. AnyWho. This women's hospital Social Evil
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Speaker 1: Hospital was an exclusively white hospital in Saint Louis, Missouri.
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Speaker 1: So Carrie was admitted in May and discharged six weeks
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Speaker 1: later when Josephine was two weeks old. Now, Carrie McDonald
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Speaker 1: was a black woman in nineteen hundred Missouri, and she
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Speaker 1: spent four weeks in an exclusively white hospital before giving birth,
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Speaker 1: and another two weeks in the hospital recovering from birth,
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Speaker 1: which is weird. Enough because typically black mothers would have
7:04
Speaker 1: given birth at home with midwives, right, they wouldn't have
7:09
Speaker 1: been in hospitals, let alone an exclusively white hospital. Now,
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Speaker 1: Carrie had been working for a white, well off German
7:21
Speaker 1: family when she became pregnant, and at the time it
7:26
Speaker 1: was illegal for black and white people to have children
7:29
Speaker 1: together because of anti misagenation lots. The US was serious
7:35
Speaker 1: about segregation. They went from slavery to segregation, ensuring that
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Speaker 1: black people would continue to be oppressed, right, and they
7:43
Speaker 1: wanted to ensure there was no mixing of the races.
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Speaker 1: It was illegal for it was illegal for mixed race
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Speaker 1: couples to marry and procreate. Like it didn't stop these
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Speaker 1: children from appearing in the world. And yet and like,
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Speaker 1: even when it comes to Carrie McDonald, we don't know
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Speaker 1: her biological heritage either, Like we don't have that family tree,
8:08
Speaker 1: not biologically anyway, because she herself was actually adopted by
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Speaker 1: a couple in Little Rock, Arkansas, Richard and Elvira MacDonald.
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Speaker 1: They were former slaves of African and Native American descent,
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Speaker 1: and so she was raised by this couple. And again
8:27
Speaker 1: they were former slaves. So this is not it's not
8:30
Speaker 1: a huge period of time right between that and then,
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Speaker 1: and as Carrie grew up, she wanted to be a dancer.
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Speaker 1: Performing was something that she loved, and in nineteen oh
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Speaker 1: four she moved to Saint Louis for the nineteen oh
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Speaker 1: four World Fair. She was like on the circuit and
8:54
Speaker 1: she was a partner in a dance called the Cakewalk,
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Speaker 1: and it was done at the end of a minstrel
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Speaker 1: show as part of the big finale, and she had
9:02
Speaker 1: this bit where she would strut with a glass of
9:05
Speaker 1: water on her head, and allegedly she was so good
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Speaker 1: that she never spilled a drop even when she was pregnant.
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Speaker 1: So she had worked with Eddie Carson on the vaudeville circus,
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Speaker 1: like he choreographed all the routines, which is why he's
9:24
Speaker 1: like a convenient name drop. And she continued dancing with
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Speaker 1: Eddie like and they're working together up until Josephine was
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Speaker 1: like one one and a half when her brother Richard
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Speaker 1: was born, and she named Eddie Carson as the father
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Speaker 1: of Richard. So Eddie Carson just sort of claims Josephine
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Speaker 1: because he's like around and that's where his name comes
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Speaker 1: into it. Now, after she gave birth. Again, Carrie couldn't
10:00
Speaker 1: continue dancing because Eddie, like he left, he left, and
10:07
Speaker 1: he was the one who choreographed all the routines so
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Speaker 1: she could dance, but she couldn't make it up, I guess.
10:16
Speaker 1: And so in order to support the three of them,
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Speaker 1: she gets work as a lawn dress and because of this,
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Speaker 1: she has to give up her dream, which is something
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Speaker 1: that she resented Josephine for, which is like, you've got
10:31
Speaker 1: two kids, why is she the one that you're blaming?
10:35
Speaker 1: But yeah, don't worry. It gets worse. She gives Josephine
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Speaker 1: the nickname Tumpty, as in like Humpty dumpty. She is
10:48
Speaker 1: calling her fat. And here's the thing, like Josephine probably
10:53
Speaker 1: just had like puppy fat, you know, the appropriate amount
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Speaker 1: of pudge that children should have. And like again, she
11:01
Speaker 1: has two children, not just one. But it was Josephine
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Speaker 1: who gets the brunt of it. It's hard that she
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Speaker 1: resents like her mother would straight up tell her that
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Speaker 1: she hated her and wished she was dead, right when
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Speaker 1: like when she was little, like she remembers like this
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Speaker 1: being yelled at her. And now this could be postpardum.
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Speaker 1: It could have been because well, it's over a century
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Speaker 1: ago and the options for single black women were limited,
11:33
Speaker 1: to say the least. It's a racist, patriarchal society which
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Speaker 1: demeans women, single women, single mothers, and black women. So
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Speaker 1: no matter what she does, carries buggered in this situation
11:48
Speaker 1: because it's an uphill battle from where she is. So
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Speaker 1: they live on two one two Target Street and Chestnut
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Speaker 1: Valley in Saint Louis. This was a racially mixed, low
12:03
Speaker 1: income area near Union Station. It's poor as fuck effectively,
12:11
Speaker 1: but everybody's poor as fuck, so you're all in the
12:14
Speaker 1: same boat together. It's full of boarding houses, brothels, cramped apartments,
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Speaker 1: which of course had no indoor plumbing because it's the
12:24
Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds. And so Josephine she grew up without a
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Speaker 1: mother's love. She wore dirty clothes and was often hungry,
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Speaker 1: and like she even wore like for a while. She
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Speaker 1: tells a story of how she wore these secondhand heels,
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Speaker 1: but in order for Josephine to wear them, they just
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Speaker 1: sawed the heels off to make them flat, and so
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Speaker 1: she would wear these. But she's growing up in this
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Speaker 1: impoverished area, and I'm not saying that everybody's in the
12:55
Speaker 1: same boat, but everybody's struggling here. Like this is not
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Speaker 1: affluent in any way. And so, like she would play
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Speaker 1: and dance around Union Station. She do like shows on
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Speaker 1: street corners, and like there was one boy who wanted
13:12
Speaker 1: like chorus girls to dance with him, and so she
13:14
Speaker 1: would learn a routine and do some dancing, and like,
13:18
Speaker 1: so she would do this bit right where she would
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Speaker 1: do gestures and funny faces and be a bit goofy
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Speaker 1: when she danced because like probably because people were more
13:28
Speaker 1: likely to tip her, you know. And so she did
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Speaker 1: this and this was just something, it was just a
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Speaker 1: part of her growing up, part of her childhood. Now,
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Speaker 1: Carrie remarries Arthur Martin, a mostly kind but perpetually unemployed man,
13:48
Speaker 1: and they end up having two daughters together. Now Arthur
13:53
Speaker 1: being perpetually unemployed. The reason for this was he didn't
13:56
Speaker 1: have a trade. He was an unskilled worker. And so
14:00
Speaker 1: a time in which white and black people were fighting
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Speaker 1: for jobs, chances are it's gonna be the white dude
14:08
Speaker 1: that gets the job. You know. Privilege. Now it's one
14:14
Speaker 1: of those things where it's like check your privilege, because
14:17
Speaker 1: white people, even if they are in the same sort
14:20
Speaker 1: of tax bracket as a black person, as an Asian person,
14:26
Speaker 1: so on and so forth. Right, they're always going to
14:29
Speaker 1: have the upper hand, especially in the Western world, because
14:34
Speaker 1: it's built for the mayonnaise skin, like myself. And just
14:40
Speaker 1: because you have it bad, chances are any any I
14:45
Speaker 1: say minority, but like anyone of the global majority has
14:50
Speaker 1: it worse than you. Okay, so how do you wished
14:54
Speaker 1: pal So anyway, if Karen McDonald married Arthur Martin for
14:59
Speaker 1: so security, well that's that's not exactly that's not exactly
15:05
Speaker 1: what he brings to the table. And so they end
15:10
Speaker 1: up actually sharing one bed growing up, like you know,
15:15
Speaker 1: because there being not of means and Josephine she was
15:20
Speaker 1: really disgusted by the smell of her stepfather's feet, like
15:25
Speaker 1: they're rancid to her, and because they would probably like
15:28
Speaker 1: top and tail in bed like the bucket grandparents in
15:34
Speaker 1: Charlie the Chocolate Factory, like in that one. Yeah, like that.
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Speaker 1: So she would end up sleeping on the floor wrapped
15:42
Speaker 1: in newspaper because she found the stench so repugnant, Like
15:48
Speaker 1: it was so bad. She was like, I can't be
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Speaker 1: in the same quarter as this. I need to be
15:53
Speaker 1: down here, away from the vapors, all right. Josephine already
15:59
Speaker 1: had a tough time growing up, but as she grew
16:03
Speaker 1: it was very apparent that she was different to her siblings,
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Speaker 1: something that she noticed because she had fully functioning eyes,
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Speaker 1: and also because her mother felt the need to bring
16:14
Speaker 1: it up constantly. Something that made her different to her
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Speaker 1: siblings was her skin color. Josephine was light skinned and
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Speaker 1: her siblings they were darker, and so this othered her.
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Speaker 1: And so there's all these tensions happening at home and
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Speaker 1: Arthur Martin he does manage to get a job at
16:39
Speaker 1: some point, but he loses it. And after losing a
16:44
Speaker 1: job that he actually managed to get, Arthur became violent
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Speaker 1: and he would have these depressive states. And then Carrie
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Speaker 1: she would get violent as well, and like for a while,
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Speaker 1: like Josephine ends up living with her grandmother, who's like
17:04
Speaker 1: one of the only people like in her formative years
17:07
Speaker 1: that really shows her love. But she can't stay with
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Speaker 1: her grandmother forever. And when Josephine is eight years old,
17:15
Speaker 1: she's pushed out of the family unit. So her mother
17:20
Speaker 1: is like, we need to earn more money. You are
17:23
Speaker 1: the oldest being eight years old, and so she forces
17:27
Speaker 1: her to get a job and she is sent to
17:29
Speaker 1: do domestic work for white families. An eight year old
17:35
Speaker 1: child is the domestic servant for a white family and
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Speaker 1: she works for the absolutely horrific missus Kaiser, who was
17:46
Speaker 1: not only racist but a purveyor of cruelty. Now Josephine
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Speaker 1: is eight years old. She doesn't know who her father is.
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Speaker 1: Her mother has abandoned her, and she's already love in
18:00
Speaker 1: poverty and like someone even goes as far as to
18:05
Speaker 1: call her a street urchin. But she's working now, doing
18:09
Speaker 1: domestic work. She's up at five am to do her chores,
18:13
Speaker 1: and then she has to go to school because it's
18:15
Speaker 1: illegal for her not to go to school, like they
18:18
Speaker 1: do have education laws, you know, And so she's up
18:22
Speaker 1: at five am to do her chores. She goes to
18:24
Speaker 1: school and then she comes back to the house and
18:28
Speaker 1: continues choring until eight pm at night. So she's all
18:33
Speaker 1: go all day and she ends up sleeping in a
18:37
Speaker 1: box in the basement, like that is where missus Kaiser
18:40
Speaker 1: puts her. She puts her in the basement with the
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Speaker 1: family dog. And surprise, surprise, because that's where she's sleeping,
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Speaker 1: she gets fleas like she gets flea bitten from staying
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Speaker 1: in the basement with the family doll and Missus Kayser
19:02
Speaker 1: she is, she's just an abusive shit. Right, I'm gonna
19:04
Speaker 1: talk about abuse for a minute, so you're gonna want
19:08
Speaker 1: to skip forward like thirty seconds. She burns Josephine's hands
19:14
Speaker 1: for using too much soap in the laundry, and Josephine
19:20
Speaker 1: like they called her trumpty, but she loses so much weightier,
19:24
Speaker 1: either for malnutrition or stress, and so she moves in
19:29
Speaker 1: and she ends up caring for this chicken. Right, there's
19:31
Speaker 1: this one chicken and she's like feeding it scraps and stuff,
19:36
Speaker 1: and it's like her friend and she treats it like
19:40
Speaker 1: a friend. And missus Kaiser notices, and so she goes, well,
19:44
Speaker 1: that chicken's nice and plump, and has Josephine kill it
19:49
Speaker 1: after a month after she sees the joy in connection
19:53
Speaker 1: that Josephine has. Now Josephine doesn't stay in this job.
19:59
Speaker 1: The reason is she had let a pot boil over,
20:05
Speaker 1: and missus Kaiser, after seeing you know, the boiling pot,
20:10
Speaker 1: you know boil over, grabs Josephine's hands. This eight year
20:15
Speaker 1: old child and forces her hands into the boiling water
20:21
Speaker 1: is punishment. She boiled her skin, it was peeling off,
20:26
Speaker 1: and Josephine she runs out of the house screaming, but
20:29
Speaker 1: the pain is so severe that she collapses and she
20:34
Speaker 1: wakes up in the hospital with her mother by her side.
20:38
Speaker 1: How she got to the hospital, who's to say, I
20:41
Speaker 1: do not know. And she's there. She goes home, she rests,
20:47
Speaker 1: but when her hands are healed, she's sent right back
20:51
Speaker 1: out to work. And so she ends up working for
20:55
Speaker 1: this other family. They're like a neighbor family. They're not
20:58
Speaker 1: too far. And she's in a room with a bed
21:02
Speaker 1: this time, so she's already moving up in the world
21:05
Speaker 1: and she's like in a bed, in a bed that
21:09
Speaker 1: she sleeps in by herself, which is like luxury for her,
21:12
Speaker 1: you know. But the thing is, she wakes up at night.
21:19
Speaker 1: She keeps waking up at night because she's convinced there's
21:23
Speaker 1: a ghost in the room. Why does she think there
21:27
Speaker 1: was a ghost? Well, I'm glad you asked, because I'll
21:30
Speaker 1: tell you. Because she would wake up to the sound
21:34
Speaker 1: of heavy breathing and this freaks her out so much.
21:37
Speaker 1: Like she's eight nine years old at this point, she's nine.
21:42
Speaker 1: She goes to the lady of the house and she's like,
21:46
Speaker 1: I'm hearing spooky ghost noises. There's a spooky ghost breathing
21:51
Speaker 1: in the room, because as we know, all ghosts require oxygen.
21:55
Speaker 1: And so the mistress of the house storms into the
21:59
Speaker 1: room one night and finds her husband hiding in the corner.
22:06
Speaker 1: Needless to say, Josephine does not stay in her position,
22:09
Speaker 1: and she sent back to her parents' house, well, her
22:12
Speaker 1: mum and stepdad's house, who make fun of the nine
22:16
Speaker 1: year old, right, they make fun of nine year old
22:21
Speaker 1: Josephine because she didn't understand why she was sent home.
22:26
Speaker 1: Like she's nine, she didn't get that this was dangerous.
22:32
Speaker 1: She had no idea what that man wanted to do.
22:36
Speaker 1: She didn't understand this was predatory behavior. Like she didn't
22:39
Speaker 1: get it because she's nine, right, she's nine, and she
22:44
Speaker 1: doesn't know because she's a child, right. So, ah, they
22:49
Speaker 1: need work, they need to earn it, and so they
22:52
Speaker 1: start moving around like just sort of following where the
22:56
Speaker 1: work is, right, and she ends up in box Cartown
23:02
Speaker 1: in East Saint Louis. So these homes were like they're
23:09
Speaker 1: like the box cars from old railroads and they've just
23:12
Speaker 1: sort of turned them into houses. Although now we'd be like,
23:16
Speaker 1: lock tiny home, isn't it fancy? These were not fancy.
23:22
Speaker 1: They they were not fancy. So it's here, at eleven
23:27
Speaker 1: years old, that she lives through something that marks her
23:31
Speaker 1: for the rest of her life. The East Saint Louis Massacre.
23:47
Speaker 1: The East Saint Louis massacre occurred in July nineteen seventeen,
23:52
Speaker 1: and I'm going to try and cliff notes this as
23:54
Speaker 1: much as possible. In East Saint Louis, Illinois, there's a
23:59
Speaker 1: labor dispute. These white union workers went on strike at
24:03
Speaker 1: major industries all over the city, and black workers were
24:07
Speaker 1: brought in to replace the white workers who were striking.
24:11
Speaker 1: So black workers were hired as strike breakers. And you know,
24:16
Speaker 1: as they were hungry, living in poverty, needing work, you know,
24:22
Speaker 1: got it, had to live, got to work to eat.
24:24
Speaker 1: To tell you more about it when I got the time,
24:26
Speaker 1: you know. So this sparked more racial tension in an
24:32
Speaker 1: already racist city. And then a move that surprises absolutely
24:36
Speaker 1: no one. White people took it upon themselves to begin assaulting, attacking,
24:42
Speaker 1: and beating the shit out of any and all African
24:45
Speaker 1: American people that they came across, like somewhere between one
24:50
Speaker 1: thousand to three thousand white men. They marched into downtown
24:55
Speaker 1: East Saint Louis and they let her rip. They openly
24:59
Speaker 1: attacked Black Americans like there's one guy. I mean, it's
25:03
Speaker 1: like like the Tulsa race masker. This one guy, he
25:06
Speaker 1: just drives in and just starts shooting in black people indiscriminately,
25:11
Speaker 1: and the National Guard are brought in to basically watch
25:15
Speaker 1: over the city until the Kenneths calm the fuck down.
25:19
Speaker 1: That being said, they're not actually doing anything. They basically
25:23
Speaker 1: just stood around and watched. Now you might hear this
25:26
Speaker 1: called the East Saint Louis riot. It was not a riot.
25:31
Speaker 1: It was a massacre. And to call it a riot,
25:34
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, Zootsuit and Tulsa race Masker. They
25:39
Speaker 1: are renamed in order to downplay when actually happened, Like
25:44
Speaker 1: they call it that to make it seem like it
25:47
Speaker 1: was something else, when really it was far more horrific.
25:54
Speaker 1: This was called a riot, but it was just an
25:58
Speaker 1: excuse to be violent racist. They attacked men, women, and children. Sorry,
26:06
Speaker 1: they attacked black men, black women, and black children. People
26:12
Speaker 1: were being lynched. Homes were being burned to the ground,
26:17
Speaker 1: and what Josephine witnessed stayed with her all her life.
26:21
Speaker 1: She saw what was happening, and she fucking ran. She
26:25
Speaker 1: go go gadget leg out of there. Right, She's running
26:29
Speaker 1: through the streets, the screams of families behind her. Houses
26:33
Speaker 1: are burning, Pregnant women are being attacked, and a father
26:36
Speaker 1: of her friend had been shot in the face. And
26:40
Speaker 1: so she's running in her home. Her home is gone,
26:44
Speaker 1: it's ashes, and she's so scared that she just keeps
26:49
Speaker 1: running and she runs until she's until she's far away,
26:55
Speaker 1: and she ends up sleeping in a cardboard box, scavenging
26:59
Speaker 1: for food, until later when she finds her family. And
27:04
Speaker 1: this is a turning point for her, like she's a
27:09
Speaker 1: lessing when this happened. And when she's twelve, she leaves
27:11
Speaker 1: school and at thirteen, to get away from what little
27:15
Speaker 1: home life she has, she gets a job at the
27:18
Speaker 1: old Chaffeur's Club, and this is where she meets Willie Wells,
27:24
Speaker 1: who is either nineteen or twenty five. Every time I
27:29
Speaker 1: look him up, his age changes. So she's thirteen, though,
27:33
Speaker 1: And I think this is something regardless of whether he's
27:36
Speaker 1: nineteen or twenty five. The age gap is still too big, okay.
27:43
Speaker 1: So Willie he plays with the Jones house band, and
27:46
Speaker 1: he is smitten with Josephine and asks her to marry him,
27:51
Speaker 1: and she says yes in thirteen. Because she's thirteen, she
27:58
Speaker 1: requires her mother's a approval and her mother says, yes,
28:03
Speaker 1: marry this man, my child, and she has a church
28:10
Speaker 1: wedding like white dress and ale and and then well
28:17
Speaker 1: WILLI like Arthur can't get or will he cannot keep
28:23
Speaker 1: a stable job, and so Josephine goes from one stressful
28:28
Speaker 1: financially struggling family situation to another stressful financially struggling family situation.
28:37
Speaker 1: Also like he wants her to be a thirteen year
28:40
Speaker 1: old housewife, but she's a child, and also it's not
28:44
Speaker 1: really her thing, you know, like a man from the past.
28:49
Speaker 1: Willie Wells gets into another argument about money worries and
28:52
Speaker 1: he hits her, and so she hits him back with
28:57
Speaker 1: a bottle to the face. He had it coming, he
29:02
Speaker 1: had it coming, whip sorry, I mean. She goes back
29:05
Speaker 1: to waitressing, and in her spare time, she goes to
29:09
Speaker 1: all of these Dixie Stepper shows at the Booker T
29:12
Speaker 1: Washington Theater. So the Booker T Washington Theater, it was
29:16
Speaker 1: one of the first, if not the first theaters, which
29:22
Speaker 1: was four African Americans by African Americans, and it's in
29:27
Speaker 1: Saint Louis, Missouri. And she manages to get an addition
29:31
Speaker 1: at the theater and she just about gets in the
29:34
Speaker 1: show because she's so slim that it's unusual. Right, There
29:39
Speaker 1: is often talk about people assume she's not eating enough,
29:42
Speaker 1: but I think it's probably a malnutrition thing and she's
29:45
Speaker 1: just kind of ended up skinny, or she could just
29:48
Speaker 1: have skinny jeans. You know, she's always dancing, so you know,
29:53
Speaker 1: So she ends up doing a favor for performer Clara Smith,
29:57
Speaker 1: something laundry based, right, So she did learn some lawn
30:00
Speaker 1: dressing stuff from her mother, you know. So Clara Smith
30:05
Speaker 1: is a blues singer and she hires her to be
30:08
Speaker 1: her dresser. And so all of Josephine's travel has covered
30:12
Speaker 1: her trained faars and the like. And she also earns
30:16
Speaker 1: ten dollars a week and in today's money, that is
30:21
Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty one dollars and thirty two cents.
30:26
Speaker 1: That's that's what the Internet told me. So not only
30:31
Speaker 1: was this like consistent money, but this was also her
30:34
Speaker 1: way out of Saint Louis. And so she leaves without
30:39
Speaker 1: saying goodbye to her family, Like she just scarvers because
30:44
Speaker 1: you know, she's like, fuck this for a game of soldiers,
30:48
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go live my life. And so she's traveling
30:52
Speaker 1: with Clara Smith. She's acting as her dresser, like that's
30:55
Speaker 1: her job. And then as she's traveling with her, one
30:59
Speaker 1: of the chorus girls in the Dixie Steppers hurts her knee,
31:04
Speaker 1: and Josephine she knows the routine, so she convinces the
31:08
Speaker 1: director to let her perform. Now she ends up, you know,
31:12
Speaker 1: doing it because she knows all the steps. But because
31:15
Speaker 1: she's so skinny, right, I mean she's only like fourteen
31:19
Speaker 1: at this point there or thereabouts. She's skinny, and she's
31:23
Speaker 1: small because she's still young, right, The costume is too
31:27
Speaker 1: big for her. It's baggy, and it sort of looks
31:31
Speaker 1: off and it becomes sort of comedic to see her perform.
31:37
Speaker 1: But like she's in Philly, she's working, she's dancing, and like,
31:42
Speaker 1: I don't want to say that she's having an affair
31:45
Speaker 1: with Clara Smith because she's like fourteen fifteen, and Clara
31:49
Speaker 1: Smith is much older than her and her boss, so
31:53
Speaker 1: there was like a power dynamic there. And anyway, they're
31:58
Speaker 1: in some sort of tryst, which I'm not entirely comfortable with,
32:03
Speaker 1: but AnyWho, when Josephine is fifteen, she elopes with her
32:08
Speaker 1: second Willie Willie Baker, a man whose name she keeps
32:14
Speaker 1: for the rest of her life, and she goes to
32:18
Speaker 1: No doc Citaire to be a chorus girl on Broadway,
32:23
Speaker 1: like the thing is. Back home with her family and community,
32:28
Speaker 1: they would always comment on like how light skinned she was.
32:32
Speaker 1: And on Broadway, however, she's seen us too dark. So
32:37
Speaker 1: she's at like the opposite end of the spectrum here.
32:41
Speaker 1: But like she studies the routine, she learns the dances,
32:44
Speaker 1: and she just keeps an eye like hoping that she'll
32:47
Speaker 1: get a chance, which she does. So like one of
32:51
Speaker 1: the other dancers, like she does a bunk, like she
32:54
Speaker 1: doesn't show up one day, and so Josephine like she
32:59
Speaker 1: knows the routine. She knows the routine, and so she's like,
33:03
Speaker 1: gimme ago, and they're like, well, it couldn't hurt, right,
33:07
Speaker 1: And so she ends up as part of the chorus
33:11
Speaker 1: and she does this bit, like she creates this bit
33:14
Speaker 1: where she acts like she doesn't know the routine like
33:18
Speaker 1: you see it nowadays, you'll see it in like viral videos,
33:22
Speaker 1: but this wasn't a thing back then, and she would
33:26
Speaker 1: just sort of like it just kind of shows you
33:28
Speaker 1: how skilled she was, because she would make it seem
33:31
Speaker 1: like she didn't know the routine. She's still in time,
33:33
Speaker 1: she's still following the basics of it, but it's like
33:36
Speaker 1: she doesn't know the moves. It's like she's bucked up
33:40
Speaker 1: the steps, and she's acting like she's messing up, and
33:43
Speaker 1: she's pulling faces and like it's a whole thing. She's
33:46
Speaker 1: acting really goofy, and slowly but surely, as the dance progresses,
33:51
Speaker 1: she gets better until she's perfect, like she's perfectly in
33:55
Speaker 1: time with every other dancer, doing all the moves at
33:58
Speaker 1: the right point, and she's so good that they say
34:02
Speaker 1: that she stands out in the chorus line like an
34:05
Speaker 1: exclamation mark, and like she's in these shows, which are
34:10
Speaker 1: some of the first shows with black performers. Right, and
34:15
Speaker 1: this is.
34:16
Speaker 2: All too much for Willie, Right, Willie number two, like
34:21
Speaker 2: she ends up leaving him because he also wanted her
34:24
Speaker 2: to be a little housewife, and her.
34:28
Speaker 1: Mum is pissed. Carrie is so angry that Josephine isn't
34:33
Speaker 1: taking care of her husband. And like Josephine's like, I
34:37
Speaker 1: can't hear you. I'm dancing right, you know. But Josephine,
34:44
Speaker 1: she's in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance. Musicals
34:50
Speaker 1: and shows are incorporating jazz music. And there are shows
34:53
Speaker 1: that are the stepping stones to desegregation in theaters. Stepping
34:59
Speaker 1: stone like not yeah, not brudges, you know. So there
35:06
Speaker 1: are shows with black performers. And here's the weird part.
35:13
Speaker 1: They're performing in blackface. Like and you may be thinking
35:18
Speaker 1: that's racist and bad, but it gets worse or weirder
35:24
Speaker 1: because it's African Americans and blackface. It's like they're trying
35:29
Speaker 1: to ease white audiences into black performers existing is to
35:35
Speaker 1: like not scale them away. It's like we'll paint them
35:39
Speaker 1: like minstrels. It won't be weird. So obviously racists aren't
35:45
Speaker 1: super into Josephine. And yet well some of them do
35:49
Speaker 1: that creepy thing where they call her both horrible and ravishing,
35:56
Speaker 1: like they're fetishizing this teenage girl, and they can't see
36:01
Speaker 1: past their privilege to see how talented she is.
36:05
Speaker 3: Her dancing is playful, fun.
36:08
Speaker 1: And it radiates energy. She had auditioned for Shuffle Along
36:14
Speaker 1: when she first came to the city, but she didn't
36:16
Speaker 1: get it because she was too young and like she
36:19
Speaker 1: also looked young, you know. But when she tries out again,
36:25
Speaker 1: she gets hired for the traveling production, and she became
36:29
Speaker 1: so popular that she got invited to perform with the
36:32
Speaker 1: OJ Troupe, and this is what launched her career. She's
36:37
Speaker 1: nineteen in the Roaring twenties and she is hot stuff.
36:43
Speaker 1: But the more popular Josephine became, the more successful she was,
36:49
Speaker 1: the worse her relationship with her mum gets and Josephine
36:54
Speaker 1: she's trying to win affection with gifts and money to
36:58
Speaker 1: her mum and her younger siblings, but it doesn't work
37:03
Speaker 1: because all it is is showing just how successful and
37:09
Speaker 1: talented Josephine is, and Carrie pushes her so far away
37:15
Speaker 1: that she ends up in Paris, France. Like, imagine being
37:20
Speaker 1: so shitty to someone that they travel five thousand miles
37:24
Speaker 1: to get away from you, which is like so Casanova
37:29
Speaker 1: of her right. So there's this American socialite, Caroline Dudley Reagan,
37:36
Speaker 1: and she's putting together a review at the the Atare
37:40
Speaker 1: de chanso Lize and it is La Levue Nickle, an
37:44
Speaker 1: all black review because segregation was not an issue in Paris.
37:50
Speaker 1: Caroline Dudley Reagan wants to introduce jazz and black culture
37:54
Speaker 1: to gay Paris. And Josephine was one of the twenty
37:58
Speaker 1: five cast members shipped off to France in September nineteen
38:02
Speaker 1: twenty five. That is a century ago at time of recording.
38:10
Speaker 1: That's a century ago, so she's only nineteen. She's heading
38:16
Speaker 1: to Paris, to the middle of the Roaring twenties, and
38:19
Speaker 1: she is terrified, like she's scared, like she's so scared.
38:24
Speaker 1: She's going across the Atlantic Ocean in steerage, segregated of course,
38:31
Speaker 1: and it's not a quick journey. It's still like five
38:33
Speaker 1: to seven days, like if everything's with you, and it
38:38
Speaker 1: can be up to two weeks if the weather was
38:41
Speaker 1: against you in any way. And when they arrive in France,
38:45
Speaker 1: she and the other twenty four black performers, they get
38:49
Speaker 1: on a train and they're confused, like they're trying to
38:53
Speaker 1: figure out where they can sit because they're looking around
38:57
Speaker 1: for the colored section, right, that's what they're looking for.
39:01
Speaker 1: They're waiting for like a sign, a notice as something right,
39:07
Speaker 1: and their flabbells are gusted, like they are shocked when
39:11
Speaker 1: they are informed that they can just sit wherever they
39:14
Speaker 1: want or like wherever their tickets is. They are, you know,
39:18
Speaker 1: because there's no segregation in France. However, at the time
39:24
Speaker 1: there was fetishization, so I mean fascination with African art
39:30
Speaker 1: and culture. Colonialism. Yeah, it's all because of colonialism. Like
39:37
Speaker 1: we can say it's not, but I mean, France is
39:40
Speaker 1: one of those empires that colonized well quite a lot
39:43
Speaker 1: of Africa actually, Ah, Italy, Germany, Britain, other places, Spain, Portugal,
39:53
Speaker 1: I forgot, well, I forgot, I've forgot empires there for
39:55
Speaker 1: a second, I'm like, what are all the empires the
39:58
Speaker 1: ones that went out and were like, ah, you have
40:01
Speaker 1: to follow our rules in our language now. And also
40:04
Speaker 1: we're taking all your cool stuff. We don't care if
40:07
Speaker 1: it has emotional, religious, or sentimental value. We think it's
40:12
Speaker 1: pretty and we want it for us because it's shiny. Anyway,
40:18
Speaker 1: it's all from this colonial perspective and there's this obsession
40:22
Speaker 1: with primitivism. So like primitivism is when black culture and
40:27
Speaker 1: black bodies were seen as connected to a primitive and
40:31
Speaker 1: pure past untouched by white people. Like primitivism is eugenics
40:38
Speaker 1: and a different font. It's like the other end of
40:42
Speaker 1: the scale, and it's it's weird. There's this juxtaposition because
40:46
Speaker 1: it's like it's lesser because it's uncivilized, but it's also
40:51
Speaker 1: seen as better because it's closer to like the primitive
40:56
Speaker 1: natural state, right, and it's admired, and it's it's like oriolentialism,
41:04
Speaker 1: you know, it's in that same sort of bag. Josephine
41:09
Speaker 1: does have better career prospects in Paris, and she's celebrated,
41:14
Speaker 1: but it is through a white perspective. I mean, it's
41:18
Speaker 1: still better than the aggressive racism in the USA, but
41:21
Speaker 1: it's more like microaggressions really for her. And in Paris
41:27
Speaker 1: she saw freedom and so she shot her shot and
41:31
Speaker 1: she took it. And she's a smart cookie, you know,
41:36
Speaker 1: she is aware of what's expected of her and how
41:40
Speaker 1: she is perceived, and she uses this to her advantage. Right,
41:46
Speaker 1: she explodes onto the scene with her erotic dances, her comedy,
41:50
Speaker 1: her burlesque and Josephine. She would talk about practicing routines
41:55
Speaker 1: on the roof of the theater, her naked body bathed
41:59
Speaker 1: in light, and how free she felt. Josephine Baker used
42:16
Speaker 1: the concept of primitivism to her advantage, Like she dialed
42:21
Speaker 1: it all the way up to eleven. She would be comedic,
42:25
Speaker 1: she would be goofy, she would clown about, and then
42:28
Speaker 1: she would be wild. Right, her dance savage was the
42:33
Speaker 1: epitome of this. So she's wearing some jewelry, some chunky bracelets,
42:38
Speaker 1: she's topless, but she is wearing a banana skirt. So
42:43
Speaker 1: it's a skirt with these like fake bananas all around it.
42:47
Speaker 1: I think it was like eleven twelve on it all together.
42:51
Speaker 1: And okay, sidebar. I've heard this before and I'll say
42:55
Speaker 1: it again. I would love a draguaen to do a
42:59
Speaker 1: their know savage dance, but instead of bananas, it's dildos.
43:05
Speaker 1: Like I think we could make it happen, And I
43:07
Speaker 1: think Josephine Baker would love that idea, Like I think
43:12
Speaker 1: she'd think it's funny. But this savage dance, right, she
43:17
Speaker 1: is shaking her bum, she's moving her stomach, and she
43:21
Speaker 1: is like writhing her hips in a way that no
43:24
Speaker 1: one had seen before, like this was the talk of
43:29
Speaker 1: twentieth century Paris. Right, and one critic, this is my favorite.
43:36
Speaker 1: One critic called it lamentable transatlantic exhibitionism, or should I
43:41
Speaker 1: say limitable transalentig exhibitionism. But she was so comfortable with
43:49
Speaker 1: who she was, with her body, her style, her sexuality,
43:54
Speaker 1: Like she knows who she is and she loves it. Right,
44:00
Speaker 1: She's so popular that she starts these trends, like white
44:04
Speaker 1: women are rubbing almond oil onto their skin, like well,
44:09
Speaker 1: almond oil and walnut oil, like they tried a variety
44:13
Speaker 1: of the nuts because they wear so they are rubbing
44:16
Speaker 1: this onto their skin to try and tan. They're putting
44:20
Speaker 1: egg whites into their hair to try and style it
44:23
Speaker 1: like hers. And she is endorsing all over the shop.
44:28
Speaker 1: She's got like hairjell well, it's pamad. She's got banana
44:32
Speaker 1: skirts and there's even a doll of her, and the
44:36
Speaker 1: doll is in a banana skirt. Right, she learns French.
44:43
Speaker 1: She learns French so that she could read her reviews,
44:48
Speaker 1: which I get it, but I love like that was
44:50
Speaker 1: the reasoning She's like, I can't read these reviews, they're
44:54
Speaker 1: all in French. So she learns it, and she creates
45:00
Speaker 1: this image of herself, right, this eccentric chic fashion icon
45:07
Speaker 1: and and I mean eccentric. Right. She starts collecting animals,
45:13
Speaker 1: like she would often go out with her snake Kiki,
45:16
Speaker 1: like around her neck, like, don't mind herds. It's Josephine
45:20
Speaker 1: Baker going for lunch with a snake on her neck.
45:24
Speaker 1: And of course, oh my god, Chikita. She also had
45:29
Speaker 1: a pet cheetah named Chikita. Now I did my research, okay,
45:35
Speaker 1: I was like, is she named after the banana or
45:39
Speaker 1: like the banana company? That was my theory. I was like,
45:42
Speaker 1: is she named after the banana company because the banana skirt?
45:45
Speaker 1: I was like, what, No, No, the answer to that
45:49
Speaker 1: question is no. The man from del Monte says no.
45:55
Speaker 1: The banana company, the Jaquita Banana Company, was established in
45:59
Speaker 1: nineteen eight four. So yeah, the cheta came first. So Chikita,
46:06
Speaker 1: the cheetah would often escape and leap into the orchestra
46:11
Speaker 1: pit and moll musicians during performances. Now, the audience thought
46:18
Speaker 1: this was like all part of the show. They thought
46:21
Speaker 1: it was wild and exciting, not that a man was
46:25
Speaker 1: being mauled by a cheetah during a theatrical production. Right,
46:33
Speaker 1: Oh my god, So Josephine Baker would take Chikita the
46:38
Speaker 1: cheetah to the Maulsion pictures right, like there's there's a
46:43
Speaker 1: tale from a journalist and she's like she's sitting there
46:46
Speaker 1: and she's in in the pictures. Right, She's at the
46:49
Speaker 1: cinema and she's watching this film about cheetahs. And she
46:57
Speaker 1: turns her head and what did she see but Josephine
47:01
Speaker 1: Baker and her cheetah watching the movie about cheetahs. Like yeah,
47:12
Speaker 1: And like Josephine loves Paris. She loves it. She doesn't
47:16
Speaker 1: want to leave. And when the revue Niclay ends up
47:20
Speaker 1: going on tour, Josephine doesn't want to go. She doesn't
47:24
Speaker 1: want to leave Paris, and so she ends up sending
47:27
Speaker 1: a contract with the Folly Dougeur and she does go
47:30
Speaker 1: on like a short like tour we trip, and she
47:34
Speaker 1: performs it for like the King of Belgium and a
47:37
Speaker 1: few other people. But she does a short stint and
47:40
Speaker 1: then comes back for the full of doueur and like
47:46
Speaker 1: the photo was designed around her there was like a
47:51
Speaker 1: whole host of performers acrobats, singers, dancers, comedy, et cetera.
47:58
Speaker 1: And like, I love this because it's pure diva behavior. Right,
48:04
Speaker 1: So she was late all the time. She was late
48:06
Speaker 1: for everything. She was late for her own show, right like,
48:11
Speaker 1: and I mean her own show. Her name is on
48:13
Speaker 1: the marquee, Like she ends up working at the Folly
48:16
Speaker 1: Belgette as well. But like these stories they continue through
48:21
Speaker 1: all of this, like she'd be so late for her
48:24
Speaker 1: performance that she would be running through the theater just
48:27
Speaker 1: like dropping like items of clothing, so like jewelry, dresses, shoes,
48:33
Speaker 1: just all behind her, just a trail, right, So like
48:37
Speaker 1: by the time she gets on stage, like there is
48:40
Speaker 1: a trail of clothes behind her. And like my favorite
48:44
Speaker 1: story actually about this is like she's supposed to be
48:47
Speaker 1: on stage, like her numbers on and she's meant to
48:51
Speaker 1: be on it. And instead of her being there, right,
48:55
Speaker 1: she's found in her dressing room. Right. No, even better,
49:00
Speaker 1: she's found naked in her dressing room, eating lobster with
49:06
Speaker 1: her fingers. Right, So she's just like holding I like
49:12
Speaker 1: to think of her as holding lobster like a sandwich
49:15
Speaker 1: and just taking a bite out the side of it.
49:18
Speaker 1: But she's just like breaking apart lobster and eating it
49:22
Speaker 1: completely naked, right. I mean, that's how you don't get
49:25
Speaker 1: lobster justice on your clothes and fairness. But such a deva.
49:31
Speaker 1: But like I love that this is just a consistent thing.
49:37
Speaker 1: And you know what's interesting, actually sidebar sort of because
49:41
Speaker 1: I was chatting with someone about Josephine Baker like a
49:44
Speaker 1: while back, and they were talking about how terrible it
49:46
Speaker 1: was that she was forced in an's topless and how
49:49
Speaker 1: this was like a career she didn't want to be in.
49:52
Speaker 1: And like anything I've ever read, like from the Horse's mouth,
49:56
Speaker 1: anything that's from Josephine Baker herself, because there's always been
50:01
Speaker 1: a love of her body and she didn't feel forced,
50:06
Speaker 1: she felt free, right, And Like there's this weird sort
50:10
Speaker 1: of morality projection we know, where there's this assumption that
50:16
Speaker 1: any woman who performs burlesque or strips or is a
50:20
Speaker 1: sex worker, that they are you know, forced into that situation,
50:26
Speaker 1: or they don't respect themselves, or they you know, lack
50:31
Speaker 1: worth in some way or another. And I think that's
50:35
Speaker 1: really fucking shitty. That's a very disrespectful and very misogynistic
50:40
Speaker 1: view to take. Right, Some people loved their bodies, some
50:45
Speaker 1: people love to perform, and some people love to perform,
50:48
Speaker 1: you know, with their tits out. Okay, let people perform
50:52
Speaker 1: with their tits out if they want, you know. I
50:55
Speaker 1: love burlesque and I love the ownership of it and
50:58
Speaker 1: how it was art in politics and satire and humor
51:03
Speaker 1: and just amazing, all this stuff wrapped up in one.
51:08
Speaker 1: But of course people want to simplify anything, and of
51:11
Speaker 1: course come in. Sexuality in any way is often demonized,
51:14
Speaker 1: and heirway are again right, the internalized misogyny is real.
51:21
Speaker 1: But again, Josephine Baker anything I've ever heard of her
51:24
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, her performance, like the primitivism not super,
51:30
Speaker 1: not great, you know, but she used it to her
51:33
Speaker 1: advantage and it's what boosted her career and good for her,
51:38
Speaker 1: you know, she did what she did. But anyway, Josephine
51:43
Speaker 1: Baker is so popular, like she makes an impact on
51:47
Speaker 1: men of the era. Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso, Aaron's hemingway, right,
51:53
Speaker 1: she has a big deal and also a big spender. Right.
52:00
Speaker 1: The key to the Cheetah had a diamond collar, you know,
52:03
Speaker 1: so she's got that, she's got a Rose Royce and
52:06
Speaker 1: she even buys Marie Antlyinnitt's bid, right, like I mean
52:13
Speaker 1: you would if you could. Though you would if you could, though, right,
52:17
Speaker 1: And in her spare time, like she ends up taking
52:19
Speaker 1: like singing lessons to help with that part of her performance, right,
52:24
Speaker 1: and eventually records her first record after surviving bronchial pneumonia
52:31
Speaker 1: like in the nineteen twenties. That's a death sentence, right,
52:37
Speaker 1: broncho pneumonia could kill you, you know, but she survived
52:42
Speaker 1: and she ends up like singing, like she she has
52:47
Speaker 1: a record, and like she's so popular, she's doing so
52:52
Speaker 1: well that she's one of the highest paid performers in
52:57
Speaker 1: Paris at the time because Riske it's serves her well,
53:02
Speaker 1: and like she's living her life. She's having love affair
53:05
Speaker 1: after love affair, like they don't stick, but she's having them.
53:09
Speaker 1: The woman does not know what resting is, I swear,
53:12
Speaker 1: because she's got love affairs. And then she's got business dealings, properties, hotels,
53:17
Speaker 1: and then a whole menagerie draped in diamonds. When I
53:22
Speaker 1: say she collected animals, she collected animals. There's Kiki the snake,
53:29
Speaker 1: Chiquita the cheetah, Ethel the chimpanzee, Tomato the horse, although
53:35
Speaker 1: she probably called it dommeado tomato or would she be
53:40
Speaker 1: dombato if she was doing it the French way told me,
53:43
Speaker 1: because it would be dumbat, wouldn't it? Anyway, I'm not
53:47
Speaker 1: here to give you French vegetables. It's a fruit. Shut up.
53:52
Speaker 1: So there's too to the goat. There's a parakeet whose
53:57
Speaker 1: name I could not find. My favorite, a peg called Albert,
54:04
Speaker 1: who were perfume, Albert mont Sandwich Albert Oh sorry, anyway,
54:15
Speaker 1: she's in her fuck you era, and she meets a
54:19
Speaker 1: Sicilian former Stonemason masquerading as a count. Why is this
54:27
Speaker 1: not a limited series? Okay, so Count Giuseppe Pepita Albertina.
54:33
Speaker 1: That is what he tells everyone his name is, which honestly,
54:37
Speaker 1: you're an Italian count. If you're in any way, noble,
54:42
Speaker 1: you need at least three more names, man, Like, that's
54:44
Speaker 1: not enough names, because you know they're fuddling as many
54:48
Speaker 1: as they can. You need at least five names. Man,
54:51
Speaker 1: that's that's four, even four, Giuseppe pepa Albertina, that's three.
54:56
Speaker 1: That's not enough. He wears a monocle and has a cane,
55:03
Speaker 1: because of course he does. He's just like, I'm a
55:07
Speaker 1: count and as such I will have a monocle and
55:11
Speaker 1: a cane. I swear. He probably has a cloak that
55:15
Speaker 1: he wears everywhere, well to the opera at least, so
55:20
Speaker 1: Count Giuseppe Pepita Albertina. He becomes her manager and lover. Like.
55:28
Speaker 1: They can't get married even if they wanted to, because
55:31
Speaker 1: she's still married to Willy right Willie Baker, and so
55:36
Speaker 1: they're in a non monogamous relationship anyway, which you know,
55:40
Speaker 1: she's smart enough not to put all her eggs in
55:42
Speaker 1: one basket. Now, I know. I mentioned this at the
55:45
Speaker 1: start of the show and I kind of touched on
55:48
Speaker 1: it with Clara Smith. But Josephine Baker was bisexual. Now
55:54
Speaker 1: she just says that she's not immoral, only natural right.
56:01
Speaker 1: Good for her, right, good for her. This is who
56:05
Speaker 1: she is. It's normal. She loves who she loves, she's
56:07
Speaker 1: attracted to who she's attracted to, and yes, do it, lady.
56:13
Speaker 1: She is out there living her best life. She's shagging
56:16
Speaker 1: who she wants to shag. And the Count is there now,
56:21
Speaker 1: he's even there to set stuff up for her and
56:23
Speaker 1: helps her, like open a restaurant called Shay Josephine. She Josephine,
56:30
Speaker 1: not like sche Rennie. I'm assuming there were less rats.
56:35
Speaker 1: That being said, it's Paris in the twenties, who's to say.
56:40
Speaker 1: And at this point, Josephine is twenty one years old.
56:45
Speaker 1: Who else feels like they haven't done enough with their life? Right,
56:50
Speaker 1: She's twenty one years old and is writing her first
56:53
Speaker 1: memoirs because yeah, she's loved a life. She's performing, she's handsing,
57:00
Speaker 1: she's singing, she's having cocaine field orgies with director MaTx
57:04
Speaker 1: Grinhad and having liaisons with Collette and Eda bricktop Smith.
57:10
Speaker 1: Like she even got caught boinking an English stage manager
57:15
Speaker 1: behind the curtain between numbers at the Casino de Paris,
57:21
Speaker 1: Like how much energy do you have, Josephine when they
57:25
Speaker 1: tell you to warm up for the show? That's not
57:28
Speaker 1: what they mean. Okay, that's not what they mean. Oh
57:31
Speaker 1: my god. And it only gets wilder from here, and
57:36
Speaker 1: that feels like a good time to end the first
57:39
Speaker 1: part of this Josephine Baker series. Next up, Nazis. But yes,
57:46
Speaker 1: this is the first part of the Josephine Baker series.
57:51
Speaker 1: If you like the first part of the story, I
57:53
Speaker 1: feel free to writ interview five stars. Part two will
57:56
Speaker 1: be coming in the next couple of days. You will
57:59
Speaker 1: not be waiting too long for part two. And oh,
58:02
Speaker 1: my goodness, Josephine Baker is is. Oh she's amazing. She's amazing.
58:08
Speaker 1: I love her so much. But yeah, I feel like
58:09
Speaker 1: this story. Rate and review five stars. If you didn't like,
58:12
Speaker 1: keep it to yourself.
58:14
Speaker 3: And oh, Paris, what if we kiss? Said the fuly
58:18
Speaker 3: belgier h what.
58:22
Speaker 1: Mean? The next part is coming soon? And I suppose
58:28
Speaker 1: recommendation time for reading. For reading, I am gonna recommend
58:34
Speaker 1: Queen of the Skies, The inspiring story of Bessie Coleman
58:38
Speaker 1: by Beth Powell and Gg Coleman. I've talked about Bessie
58:43
Speaker 1: Coleman before and she's amazing, and I thought, well, let's
58:45
Speaker 1: celebrate cruel women. So yes, read that. It's amazing, go
58:50
Speaker 1: get it. For listening, I'm gonna recommend the podcast Scam Goddess. Listen.
58:57
Speaker 1: I'm obsessed with fraud in cons and scams and all
59:02
Speaker 1: that jazz, so it's it's a good one. It keeps
59:04
Speaker 1: me very interested. And for watching. I'm gonna give like
59:10
Speaker 1: two actually because one's like a tiny short clip and
59:13
Speaker 1: one's an actual an actual video, because one's French and
59:18
Speaker 1: one's not French. Okay, so Abbott Elementary Like it's a
59:23
Speaker 1: wonderful I mean, I found it as a comfort show.
59:27
Speaker 1: It doesn't like shy away from topics. But it's just
59:30
Speaker 1: got so many great performers in it. It's so good.
59:34
Speaker 1: So you can watch that. And also there's a clip
59:40
Speaker 1: of a French guy having his souandwood utterly destroyed by
59:44
Speaker 1: a pug named Albert Albert most all these oh you're
59:50
Speaker 1: the most by the most ba. It's so funny. I
59:56
Speaker 1: cried laughing watching it. So those are your recommendations this month,
1:00:02
Speaker 1: this month, this episode. So without further ado, I shall
1:00:09
Speaker 1: bid you good evening.
1:00:11
Speaker 3: Adios Olivoi of What Is My Friends, Bye bye