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Harry Houdini: A Ghost Story · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is the
0:21
Speaker 1: story about a ghost, a ghost story, a ghost who
0:25
Speaker 1: was full of shit, a ghost, too many say represented
0:29
Speaker 1: the greatest illusionist of all time, escape artist Harry Houdini.
0:35
Speaker 1: But it's also a story about the occult, about magic,
0:40
Speaker 1: about fame and grief, and about a mansion where great
0:44
Speaker 1: music was made. Unlike that music I played for you
0:48
Speaker 1: at the top of the show. That wasn't great music.
0:53
Speaker 1: That was a preset loop for my melotron called Laurels
0:57
Speaker 1: Blues MK. Two. I played you that loop because I
1:02
Speaker 1: can't afford the rights to I Adore Mia Moore by
1:06
Speaker 1: Color Me Bad? And why would I play you that
1:09
Speaker 1: specific slice of heart shaped creola cheese? Could I afford it?
1:15
Speaker 1: Because that was the number one song in America. On
1:18
Speaker 1: September twenty fourth, nineteen ninety one, and that was the
1:22
Speaker 1: day of the Red Hot Chili Peppers released the album Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magic,
1:27
Speaker 1: further stoking the myth of Harry Hoddin's ghost. On this episode,
1:33
Speaker 1: the Occult, Fame, Grief, the Chili Peppers, and the Ghost
1:38
Speaker 1: of Harry Houdini. I'm Jake Brennan. In this his disgraceland.
2:04
Speaker 1: John Fruchante, guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, felt
2:08
Speaker 1: the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
2:11
Speaker 1: He was staring at a missing panel on the ceiling,
2:15
Speaker 1: watching the darkness inside stare back at him. He heard
2:19
Speaker 1: the sounds again, strange noises, voices, and then a disembodied
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Speaker 1: scream somewhere between pleasure and pain. John thought about what
2:33
Speaker 1: his friend and bandmate, Chili Peppers bass player Flee had
2:37
Speaker 1: told him the other day. That he saw a lady
2:40
Speaker 1: dressed in black walking around this place, but not just
2:45
Speaker 1: any lady. She was there, and also she wasn't there.
2:51
Speaker 1: She was translucent, a ghost. John Fruchante wasn't sure what
2:58
Speaker 1: he expected from this rehab mansion in the Laurel Canyon
3:02
Speaker 1: neighborhood of Los Angeles, but it wasn't this. For decades,
3:07
Speaker 1: Laurel Canyon, nestled up in the hills between Hollywood and
3:10
Speaker 1: the San Fernando Valley, have been a creative sanctuary for
3:14
Speaker 1: artists and musicians. In the nineteen sixties, it was ground
3:18
Speaker 1: zero for the counterculture movement. Home to Mama Cass, Frank Zappa,
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Speaker 1: the Birds in Buffalo, Springfield It's where Graham Nash and
3:27
Speaker 1: Joni Mitchell fell in love and then dropped out of love.
3:31
Speaker 1: It's where John Lennon dropped acid for the first time
3:34
Speaker 1: while the actor Peter Fonda told him what it was
3:37
Speaker 1: like to be dead. Okay, that last one technically happened
3:42
Speaker 1: in Bennett at Canyon, I think, but it's like right
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Speaker 1: next door, so you know, close enough. And now, in
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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one, roughly a quarter century after the Summer
3:52
Speaker 1: of Love, John Fruchianta and the Red Hot Chili Peppers
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Speaker 1: found themselves carrying on that rich tradition, living in a
3:59
Speaker 1: four bedroom house and Laurel Canyon, specifically on Laurel Canyon Boulevard,
4:04
Speaker 1: which was referred to aptly and quite simply as the Mansion.
4:10
Speaker 1: Along with their producer Rick Rubin an engineer Brendan O'Brien,
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Speaker 1: the band had installed a makeshift studio inside the mansion
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Speaker 1: so that they could record their fifth studio album there.
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Speaker 1: That album, Blood Sugar Sex Magic, would transform the group
4:25
Speaker 1: from freaky stylely La Seinsters into one of the biggest
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Speaker 1: rock bands on the planet. But more on that in
4:32
Speaker 1: a minute. The idea was that the Chili Peppers would
4:35
Speaker 1: live and work in the same space for the duration
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Speaker 1: of the album's recording, thus isolating themselves from the influence
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Speaker 1: of the outside world while also tapping into their deep
4:46
Speaker 1: musical brotherhood. Or, as the band's lead singer Anthony Keita
4:50
Speaker 1: so poetically put it, by not recording in a traditional studio,
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Speaker 1: they avoided the quote anal retentive vibrations of the sterilicity
4:58
Speaker 1: involved with that sort of courting environment unquote. But drummer
5:04
Speaker 1: Chad Smith, the odd man out in the Chili Peppers
5:07
Speaker 1: in more ways than one, didn't want to spend every
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Speaker 1: night in the mansion with the other guys. He just
5:12
Speaker 1: met the girl that he was pretty sure he was
5:15
Speaker 1: going to marry one day at after hours hanging with
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Speaker 1: these dudes. The last thing he wanted to do was
5:20
Speaker 1: hang out with them some more, go put socks on
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Speaker 1: their dicks or whatever it was they were doing, and
5:25
Speaker 1: not when he had a lady waiting for him back home. Plus,
5:29
Speaker 1: the mansion was creepy as fuck. Weird shit happened there
5:34
Speaker 1: all the time. But this being the Red Hot Chili Peppers,
5:39
Speaker 1: the same band that was currently laying down new tunes
5:41
Speaker 1: with titles like Suck My Kiss, and Sir Psycho sexy.
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Speaker 1: The supernatural vibe of the place quickly took a turn
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Speaker 1: from creepy to horny. John was the first one to
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Speaker 1: hear it, the sounds of a woman getting laid in
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Speaker 1: one of the other rooms. It sounded so real, but
6:00
Speaker 1: just like the trapdoor in the ceiling, John couldn't see anything.
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Speaker 1: It didn't matter. The moaning, the panting, the shrieking climaxes,
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Speaker 1: they couldn't be ignored. Up to that point, John had
6:14
Speaker 1: focused solely on the music he was making with the band,
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Speaker 1: and they had a tight deadline, a deadline that Warner
6:20
Speaker 1: Brothers Records was holding firm. But he just couldn't hold
6:24
Speaker 1: out any longer. He spent the next night in that room,
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Speaker 1: turned on by all that weird ghost sex, a room
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Speaker 1: in which, as he later told Interview Magazine, he furiously masturbated. Still,
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Speaker 1: John and the others were curious as to who or
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Speaker 1: what these spirits were, so they called in a team
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Speaker 1: of paranormal experts to investigate, or should I say so
6:49
Speaker 1: called paranormal experts, Because after a few visits in which
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Speaker 1: the investigators seemed to become possessed by whatever was in
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Speaker 1: the house, it became apparent that they were simply trying
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Speaker 1: to scare the band in order to make a quick buck.
7:05
Speaker 1: Cut to a few months later, and the Red Hot
7:07
Speaker 1: Chili Peppers were the ones making the Bucks. Big Bucks,
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Speaker 1: released in September of nineteen ninety one, and led by
7:14
Speaker 1: the tremendous success of the ballad Under the Bridge, Blood Sugar,
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Speaker 1: Sex Magic made the band megastars. And while that album
7:23
Speaker 1: was making its way up the charts, and John, Anthony, Flee,
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Speaker 1: and Chad all returned to their respective homes in the
7:29
Speaker 1: Greater Los Angeles area. Back on Laurel Canyon Boulevard, ghosts
7:34
Speaker 1: continued to haunt the living, and just because a team
7:37
Speaker 1: paranormal investigators tried to take the Chili Peppers for a ride,
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Speaker 1: it didn't mean that the spirits inside the place weren't real.
7:46
Speaker 1: Years later, after Rick Rubin purchased the mansion at two
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Speaker 1: four five one Laurel Cannon Boulevard and continued to use
7:52
Speaker 1: it as an unorthodox studio, the band Slip Knot had
7:56
Speaker 1: their own creepy encounter with an apparition while recording there,
8:00
Speaker 1: this time the ghost of a Man in the tuxedo.
8:04
Speaker 1: The legend of Rick Rubin's Haunted Mansion grew partly because
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Speaker 1: it was commonly being referred to as the Houdini Mansion,
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Speaker 1: named for the iconic illusionist and escape artist Harry Houdini,
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Speaker 1: who died back in nineteen twenty six. While calling Rick's
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Speaker 1: Place the Houdini Mansion is something of a misnomer because
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Speaker 1: there is no evidence that Houdini ever lived at two
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Speaker 1: four five one Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Now just down the
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Speaker 1: road Apiece, there's another mansion, this one at two four
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Speaker 1: zero zero Laurel Canyon Boulevard, as well as its smaller
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Speaker 1: guesthouse across the street, number two four three five, and
8:46
Speaker 1: there is some evidence that Harry Houdini and his wife
8:50
Speaker 1: Bess may in fact have resided at one or both
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Speaker 1: of these addresses when Houdini was in town to shoot
8:56
Speaker 1: a couple of movies near the end of the silent
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Speaker 1: film era, and it was in this exact area, the
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Speaker 1: twenty four hundred block of Laurel Canyon, that a small
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Speaker 1: but devoted group of people gathered every year On Halloween night,
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Speaker 1: October thirty first, the anniversary of Harry Houdini's death, They
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Speaker 1: gathered to perform an annual ritual, and they performed this
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Speaker 1: ritual in nineteen thirty six and nineteen fifty six, even
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Speaker 1: as late as nineteen ninety one, at the moment that blood, sugar,
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Speaker 1: sex magic was being blasted from car windows cruising down
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Speaker 1: nearby Hollywood Boulevard. This ritual was conducted under the belief
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Speaker 1: that Harry Houdini, the greatest escape artist of all time,
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Speaker 1: had saved his best trick for last, that he was
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Speaker 1: going to find a way to escape from the great beyond,
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Speaker 1: to tear the fabric between this world and the next,
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Speaker 1: and furthermore, that this group of true believers would be
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Speaker 1: his guide as he made his unprecedented exit from the
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Speaker 1: suite hereafter carrying out the ritual, did so hidden amongst
10:02
Speaker 1: laurel canyons, flora and fauna, lit only by candlelight, emboldened
10:07
Speaker 1: not by blood or sugar or sex, but by magic,
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Speaker 1: black magic, reaching into the dust of the past, peering
10:16
Speaker 1: through the veils of time, reality, and reason to do
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Speaker 1: the impossible, to wake up a dead man and bring.
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Speaker 2: Him back to life.
10:54
Speaker 1: What is magic? The Mirriam Webster Dictionary describes it as
10:58
Speaker 1: quote the use of means such as charms or spells
11:02
Speaker 1: believed to have supernatural power over natural forces. That's the quote.
11:08
Speaker 1: Jimmy Page and David Bowie's favorite occultist, Alistair Crowley, define
11:13
Speaker 1: magic as the science and art of causing change to
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Speaker 1: occur in conformity with will. While the yacht rock band
11:20
Speaker 1: America once insisted in the top ten single that you
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Speaker 1: can do magic, many of you out there probably think
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Speaker 1: that in reality, magic is a bunch of bullshit, And
11:30
Speaker 1: you know what, you're not wrong. Stage magic, magic for entertainment,
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Speaker 1: all that pick a card, any card, rabit out of
11:38
Speaker 1: a hat. Stuff. Yeah, that's total bullshit, bullshit by design.
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Speaker 1: It's not magic. I'm putting air quotes around that word,
11:47
Speaker 1: by the way, so much as it is sleight of hand,
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Speaker 1: smoke and mirrors, misdirection. You know this though, but seeing
11:55
Speaker 1: as you also know, is believing and getting you to
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Speaker 1: believe in something um believable is the whole game when
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Speaker 1: it comes to being a magician. Harry Houdini, for one,
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Speaker 1: understood this better than most. This is why he took
12:09
Speaker 1: the breaking out of handcuffs. Not only was his mouth
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Speaker 1: tape shut, but completely naked, so that he theoretically had
12:15
Speaker 1: nowhere to hide a key, and if you were alive
12:18
Speaker 1: way back at the turn of the twentieth century and
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Speaker 1: saw Houdini do the impossible and only his birthday suit.
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Speaker 1: He did so knowing the old story about how when
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Speaker 1: he was barely old enough to walk, he was already
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Speaker 1: picking the locks of his mother's treat box where she
12:31
Speaker 1: kept her homemade apple cake. My point, you went into
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Speaker 1: the experience already believing that there was something special about
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Speaker 1: the guy, the Harry Houdini we all think of now
12:44
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four, the illusionists who slipped out of
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Speaker 1: straight jackets, who cheated death while submerged upside down in
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Speaker 1: what he called the water torture chamber. That was a
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Speaker 1: persona created in a large part by Houdini's very real limitations.
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Speaker 1: Ask any magician then and now, and they'll tell you
13:02
Speaker 1: Harry Houdini was a shitty magic man. What he was
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Speaker 1: good at was escaping from situations that John Q. Public
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Speaker 1: could never manage to escape from. That's how Houdini's legend
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Speaker 1: was made. He was the world's first escape artist. And
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Speaker 1: not only was he the first, more importantly, he was
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Speaker 1: the best. At least that's how he promoted himself Houdini
13:25
Speaker 1: was aggressive when it came to self promotion, and he
13:27
Speaker 1: took no prisoners. You get in his way, you steal
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Speaker 1: his thunder, you attempt to rewrite his story, you should
13:34
Speaker 1: prepare to be destroyed. Even the great magician from whom
13:37
Speaker 1: Houdini took a stage name, Jean Eugene Robert Houdin, eventually
13:42
Speaker 1: found himself and his disciples crosshairs at five five and
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Speaker 1: all muscle. The man formerly known as Eric Weiss, a
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Speaker 1: native of Budapest, even though he'd have you believe he
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Speaker 1: was born in Appleton, Wisconsin. Harry Houdini like the greatest
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Speaker 1: of showmen and the toughest of bullies. Anyone who listened
14:01
Speaker 1: to prove him wrong. Bring him us at a cuffs
14:04
Speaker 1: and he'd break free. Lock him in a prison cell
14:07
Speaker 1: and he'd bust out. But Houdini was no superman. He
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Speaker 1: wasn't an alien from another planet. He was only human.
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Speaker 1: The means and methods of his particular brand of illusion
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Speaker 1: were real, and thus the one thing that really got
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Speaker 1: Houdini's goat was when someone tried to undermine all his
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Speaker 1: hard work, his real work, by giving credit to magic.
14:31
Speaker 1: Spiritualists were having their moment at this time in history,
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Speaker 1: the early nineteen hundreds. Now, I'll think of a spiritualist
14:38
Speaker 1: like a medium, someone who claims they can communicate with
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Speaker 1: the dead. In Houdini's eyes, spiritualists were like those guys
14:45
Speaker 1: hired to investigate the ghosts who convinced John Fruchiante to
14:48
Speaker 1: rub one out in a haunted mansion, and they were
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Speaker 1: a cheap parlor trick, a hoax. Houdini had more respect
14:55
Speaker 1: for the common criminal, the person who was openly cheating you.
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Speaker 1: We know because he wrote and published a book called
15:02
Speaker 1: The Right Way to Do Wrong, which, besides being a
15:05
Speaker 1: great title, was all about how to commit crimes and
15:08
Speaker 1: actually get away with them. But again, Harry Houdini was
15:12
Speaker 1: only human, and even he could be convinced to give
15:15
Speaker 1: the whole spiritualism thing a try, especially when his beloved mother,
15:19
Speaker 1: Cecilia died of a stroke in nineteen thirteen at the
15:23
Speaker 1: age of seventy two. Cecilia was Houdini's rock. Some even
15:28
Speaker 1: said she was the motivation behind his career, that the
15:31
Speaker 1: reason he worked as hard as he did was because
15:33
Speaker 1: he once promised his father that he Houdini would take
15:36
Speaker 1: care of his mother till her dying day, and now
15:39
Speaker 1: that day had arrived, and Houdini, pained and grieving, would
15:43
Speaker 1: do anything to speak with her again. So years later,
15:48
Speaker 1: when his good friend, the writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
15:51
Speaker 1: creator of Sherlock Holmes, along with Doyle's wife Lady, invited
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Speaker 1: Houdini and his wife Bess to a seance. Houdini took
15:58
Speaker 1: the bait the Doyles, like many at the time bodily
16:03
Speaker 1: stock and spiritualism. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle hoped that by
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Speaker 1: performing the seance, by contacting Houdini's dead mother, he could
16:11
Speaker 1: bring some solace to his friend in the time of
16:13
Speaker 1: great need. Let's set the scene. The room is dark,
16:18
Speaker 1: the blinds are drawn. The faint sound of ocean waves
16:22
Speaker 1: gently lapping a nearby beach here carried on the wind
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Speaker 1: through an open window. Candle flames flicker on a table
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Speaker 1: in the center of the room, and they toss shadows
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Speaker 1: on the wall at one end of the table, the
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Speaker 1: Houdinis at the other end, The Doyles. Sir Arthur Conan
16:39
Speaker 1: Doyle hung his head and Harry Houdini followed his friend's
16:43
Speaker 1: lead and did the same. The Lady Doyle began to speak, Cecilia,
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Speaker 1: Cecilia Weiss, are you here? This was the same question
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Speaker 1: Houdini himself had been asking for years now, Mama, Mama,
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Speaker 1: are you here? He sought out his dead mother in dreams.
17:03
Speaker 1: He often startled awake in a cold sweat, reaching out
17:06
Speaker 1: for her, but she was never there when he called.
17:09
Speaker 1: She was always just out of reach. Tonight, however, when
17:15
Speaker 1: Lady Doyle asked that question, Cecilia, are you here tonight?
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Speaker 1: The question was answered by three loud knocks on the table.
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Speaker 1: Every muscle in Houdini's body tensed up, his throat clenched,
17:30
Speaker 1: The flames of the candles on the table flapped wildly,
17:32
Speaker 1: as if something had just passed through them. Was his
17:35
Speaker 1: mother really here in this room with him? Right now?
17:39
Speaker 1: Harry Houdini, the world's greatest skeptic, could feel the impossible happening.
17:45
Speaker 1: He was starting to believe. Suddenly, Lady Doyle picked up
17:48
Speaker 1: a pen from the table in front of her and
17:50
Speaker 1: began writing on sheets of paper. She wrote fast, and
17:53
Speaker 1: seeing that she wasn't even looking at what she was writing,
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Speaker 1: auto writing they called it psychography, allowing a spirit to
17:59
Speaker 1: miss manipulate your hand and write for you. Houdini knew
18:02
Speaker 1: this to be one of the buzzwords around spiritualism, and
18:05
Speaker 1: now he was watching it happen in the flesh. And
18:08
Speaker 1: by the time Lady Doyle had finished, she had written
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Speaker 1: on fifteen pieces of paper, all of it a long,
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Speaker 1: loving message to Houdini from his deceased mother, or so
18:20
Speaker 1: the Doyle said. The papers were handed over to Houdini
18:23
Speaker 1: and he began to read, but not before he noticed
18:26
Speaker 1: what Lady Doyle had drawn at the top of the
18:28
Speaker 1: first page across odd, he thought, seeing as his family
18:34
Speaker 1: was not Christian but Jewish. And then as he began
18:37
Speaker 1: to read in earnest he was struck by how the
18:40
Speaker 1: words were written in English, not in German, which was
18:43
Speaker 1: the only language his mother spoke. That was all the
18:46
Speaker 1: proof he needed. He didn't even need to know that
18:49
Speaker 1: the three knocks on the table at the start of
18:51
Speaker 1: the seance had actually been made by Lady Doyle herself,
18:53
Speaker 1: not by a spirit. Harry Houdini had been hoodwinked by
18:57
Speaker 1: a friend. No less, he'd been made to look like
18:59
Speaker 1: a do and Houdini would not be made to look
19:03
Speaker 1: like a doe. The seance ruined Houdini and Doyle's friendship forever.
19:07
Speaker 1: It also sent Houdini on a crusade against spiritualism. He
19:11
Speaker 1: publicly took on bogus mediums who were conning people out
19:14
Speaker 1: of their money. He testified before Congress and hopes that
19:17
Speaker 1: he could single handedly outlaw seances altogether. They were bad
19:21
Speaker 1: for Houdini's image. They were bad for business, and around
19:25
Speaker 1: this time, the nineteen tents the nineteen twenties, business was
19:30
Speaker 1: very good for the world's pre eminent escape artist. Harry
19:35
Speaker 1: Houdini was one of the most famous people on the planet,
19:38
Speaker 1: as big as Babe Ruth or Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin was
19:41
Speaker 1: a master of the moving picture. Movies dazzled American audiences,
19:46
Speaker 1: and they were their own kind of magic. For Harry Houdini.
19:49
Speaker 1: Cinema was another illusion, another conduit from which to saturate
19:53
Speaker 1: the market with his brand, which is why in nineteen nineteen,
19:58
Speaker 1: Harry Houdini and his wife Bess pulled up stakes from
20:00
Speaker 1: their home in New York City and went out west
20:03
Speaker 1: to Los Angeles, so that the world's greatest escape artists
20:06
Speaker 1: could become a big movie star. Instead, he became something else, immortal.
20:16
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this We're, We're, We're. Contrary
20:25
Speaker 1: to popular belief, Harry and Bess Houdini never owned the
20:28
Speaker 1: mansion at twenty four hundred Laurel Canyon Boulevard, the one
20:32
Speaker 1: just down the road from Rick Rubin's mansion, nor did
20:35
Speaker 1: they own the guest house across the street. Those were
20:38
Speaker 1: the property of Ralph M. Walker, a department store executive
20:41
Speaker 1: who happened to be friends with the couple. Hard evidence
20:45
Speaker 1: is scarce, but let's just say it is very likely
20:48
Speaker 1: that Ralph Walker let the Houdinis crash in his guesthouse
20:51
Speaker 1: while they were in town for Harry to shoot two movies,
20:54
Speaker 1: The Grim Game and Terror Island. Rumor had it that
20:58
Speaker 1: the guesthouse had an elevator that dropped you underground, where
21:02
Speaker 1: you could make your way through a dark tunnel passing
21:04
Speaker 1: beneath Laurel Canyon Boulevard and find yourself surfacing over at
21:08
Speaker 1: the Big House, a three story, eleven bedroom, nine bathroom
21:12
Speaker 1: Mediterranean style villa with a ballet room and a big
21:15
Speaker 1: stage for musicians. The whole underground tunnel business fits perfectly
21:20
Speaker 1: with Houdini's image a master escape artist who could secretly
21:23
Speaker 1: escape from his own home and you never saw exactly
21:26
Speaker 1: how he did it, how he got out of a
21:28
Speaker 1: coffin six feet underground, or how he pulled off the
21:31
Speaker 1: metamorphosis act, the one where he was bound with rope
21:34
Speaker 1: and locked inside a trunk, only for the trunk to
21:37
Speaker 1: be opened and revealed that he was no longer there
21:40
Speaker 1: and instead his wife Bess was in his place, bound
21:43
Speaker 1: in the very same way. Maybe fake rivets, fake screws,
21:47
Speaker 1: or fake welds, and the construction of the apparatusus. Maybe
21:51
Speaker 1: real handcuffs were swapped of for trick handcuffs. He kept
21:55
Speaker 1: audiences guessing, is the point, and he also made sure
21:58
Speaker 1: they had some skin in the game by welling their challenges.
22:01
Speaker 1: There was no problem he couldn't solve, and no outside
22:04
Speaker 1: force he couldn't beat. You could even punch him in
22:07
Speaker 1: the stomach if you wanted. He would easily absorb the
22:10
Speaker 1: blow with what appeared to be prodigious strengths. Houdini couldn't
22:14
Speaker 1: remember if he had actually issued that last challenge publicly
22:18
Speaker 1: to be punched in the stomach, but in nineteen twenty six,
22:21
Speaker 1: a student at McGill University in Montreal was telling him that, yes,
22:25
Speaker 1: indeed he had and Furthermore, the student wanted HOODII to
22:29
Speaker 1: prove it now. Hoodini was tired. His career as a
22:36
Speaker 1: movie star never took off like he expected it would,
22:39
Speaker 1: and one of the two movies he made, The Grim Game,
22:42
Speaker 1: didn't even get released. He was fifty two years old
22:45
Speaker 1: and these days increasingly worn out by the physical demands
22:49
Speaker 1: that his job as an illusionist required. His fight against
22:53
Speaker 1: the spiritualist movement was a losing battle, not as great
22:56
Speaker 1: of a loss as that of his mother, whose death
22:58
Speaker 1: thirteen years earlier still weighed heavily on his mind. This
23:02
Speaker 1: is all to say he wasn't operating at one hundred percent.
23:06
Speaker 1: And I haven't even mentioned the incredible pain happening in
23:09
Speaker 1: his stomach, pain that he'd been experiencing for weeks but
23:13
Speaker 1: had not told anyone about, not even best. But here
23:17
Speaker 1: in Montreal at McGill, he was still a god, still
23:21
Speaker 1: revered by an adoring public that was humbled to have
23:24
Speaker 1: the world's greatest escape artist in their presence, or so
23:27
Speaker 1: thought the two students currently interviewing Houdini for the school paper.
23:31
Speaker 1: That interview was on hold for a moment, however, as
23:34
Speaker 1: a third student entered the room and brazenly asked if
23:37
Speaker 1: he could test one of Houdini's standing challenges. He wanted
23:40
Speaker 1: to punch Houdini as hard as he could. Pudini paused
23:44
Speaker 1: for a moment. Again, he couldn't remember actually making that
23:47
Speaker 1: challenge to the public, but it didn't matter. He was
23:51
Speaker 1: motivated not only by a promise he once made to
23:54
Speaker 1: his father, but by his own iconic status, by his
23:57
Speaker 1: dominance as the most incredible entertainer of the day. He
24:01
Speaker 1: would defend that status and that dominance by any means necessary,
24:05
Speaker 1: even if the crowd was small, like it was today.
24:09
Speaker 1: So Houdini accepted the student's challenge. He began to stand
24:13
Speaker 1: from where he was seated, but before he could straighten
24:16
Speaker 1: his back, tense up the right muscles, and get his
24:18
Speaker 1: athletic body in the proper stance for such an attack,
24:21
Speaker 1: the kid came in hot with a clenched fist. Three
24:24
Speaker 1: punches in quick succession to Houdini's ribs and stomach. Houdini
24:28
Speaker 1: doubled over Jesus Christ. That hurt, and he could hardly
24:32
Speaker 1: get his bearings before the kid swung again. He landed
24:35
Speaker 1: another punch as Houdini was going down, and another, and
24:38
Speaker 1: another about seven in total. Houdini's insides were in turmoil.
24:43
Speaker 1: He thought his stomach hurt before, but now it was
24:45
Speaker 1: on fire. Still, he couldn't actually show that he was
24:50
Speaker 1: in pain, so he simply offered a tense smile to
24:53
Speaker 1: the three kids in the room and politely said that'll do.
24:58
Speaker 1: He wanted to put the whole ord ill behind him,
25:01
Speaker 1: the pain, the humiliation. But later that night, while performing
25:04
Speaker 1: on stage in Montreal, Houdini began to sweat. His heart
25:08
Speaker 1: was pounding in his ears, and the pain in his
25:11
Speaker 1: stomach was getting unbearable. After the show, he collapsed. He
25:16
Speaker 1: was hot and then cold. His temperature spiked to one
25:19
Speaker 1: hundred and two. He took a train to Detroit for
25:22
Speaker 1: his next show, and there a doctor made the diagnosis
25:25
Speaker 1: the Houdini was suffering from appendicitis. He was instructed to
25:29
Speaker 1: go to a hospital for immediate surgery. Houdini declined treatment.
25:34
Speaker 1: The show must go on and all that. So he
25:37
Speaker 1: took the stage in Detroit without one hundred and four
25:40
Speaker 1: degree fever. He collapsed twice. His eyes burned, his lips quivered.
25:47
Speaker 1: He slipped in and out of consciousness. His dreams began
25:50
Speaker 1: to mix with reality. He saw faces, not only the
25:54
Speaker 1: faces of those standing by his bed like best, but
25:57
Speaker 1: faces from his past traveling medicine shows. Sideshow freaks, a
26:03
Speaker 1: Japanese acrobat who once taught him how to swallow a
26:06
Speaker 1: ball and cough it back up, the barker who gave
26:08
Speaker 1: him a crash course and how to slip free from ropes.
26:11
Speaker 1: The ghosts of his own mind haunting him or welcoming him.
26:15
Speaker 1: He wasn't quite sure. He just wanted it all to stop,
26:19
Speaker 1: so he finally relented and agreed to allow the doctors
26:22
Speaker 1: in Detroit to remove his appendix. In the end, it
26:27
Speaker 1: didn't matter, the damage was already done, whether the punch
26:32
Speaker 1: from that McGill student caused the appendicitis, had just made
26:35
Speaker 1: it worse, or whether it even had nothing to do
26:37
Speaker 1: with the appendicitis at all. Six days after that punch
26:41
Speaker 1: and five days after surgery, Harry Houdini died on Halloween,
26:45
Speaker 1: October thirty first, nineteen twenty six, but not before he'd
26:50
Speaker 1: spoken to the attending surgeon from his hospital bed. The surgeon,
26:55
Speaker 1: doctor Charles Kennedy, was glad that Houdini was recovering. Hodini's
26:59
Speaker 1: fever had gone down, and he was once again thinking clearly,
27:03
Speaker 1: and that clarity led to some reflection. He told the
27:06
Speaker 1: surgeon that he'd always wanted to be a doctor and
27:09
Speaker 1: that he regretted not doing so, and the surgeon couldn't
27:12
Speaker 1: believe what he was hearing. Houdini was the greatest illusionist
27:15
Speaker 1: on the planet. He was rich, he was famous, and
27:19
Speaker 1: he brought people great joy. Wudini responded, not like he
27:23
Speaker 1: was speaking to a surgeon, but like he was speaking
27:26
Speaker 1: to a priest. The difference between you and me, Hudini said,
27:31
Speaker 1: is that you actually do things for people. I, in
27:35
Speaker 1: almost every respect, am a fake.
28:05
Speaker 3: Oh thou disembodied spirits. Those of you that have grown
28:10
Speaker 3: old in the mysterious laws of spirit Land, we greek dee.
28:16
Speaker 3: We have gathered here at the appointed time. We have
28:19
Speaker 3: complied with all the requirements to enable all of you
28:23
Speaker 3: to make your presence known. All is in readiness. It
28:28
Speaker 3: is the spirit of Houdini. We wish to contact Houdini.
28:33
Speaker 3: Are you here? Are you here, Houdini, Harry, We are
28:39
Speaker 3: all seekers after truth. Please manifest yourself in any way
28:44
Speaker 3: possible to LEVI. Take the table, move it, lift the table,
28:50
Speaker 3: move it, wrap on it.
28:51
Speaker 1: Spell out a.
28:53
Speaker 3: Cold Henry please please, Bugini, we are awaiting speak Heady.
28:59
Speaker 1: What you've just heard is recording of a seance that
29:01
Speaker 1: was conducted on the roof of the Knickerbocker Hotel in
29:03
Speaker 1: Hollywood almost ninety years ago on Halloween night, October thirty first,
29:08
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty six. The goal of the seance was to
29:12
Speaker 1: make contact with Harry Houdini on the tenth anniversary of
29:15
Speaker 1: his death. It was the brainchild of Houdini's widow, Bess,
29:19
Speaker 1: and a man named Edward Saint, the guy you just
29:22
Speaker 1: heard in that recording. Edward Saint was a former Carnival
29:26
Speaker 1: barker who became professionally and romantically involved with Bess a
29:29
Speaker 1: few years after Houdini died, when she was depressed, drinking
29:33
Speaker 1: and smoking way too much and throwing parties in seances
29:36
Speaker 1: back at what came to be known as the Houdini Mansion.
29:40
Speaker 1: Not Rick Rubin's mansion on Laurel Canyon Boulevard, but Ralph
29:43
Speaker 1: Walker's three story Mediterranean style villa just down the road,
29:47
Speaker 1: the one with the guest house connected by an underground tunnel.
29:51
Speaker 1: Like those parties, best, Houdini's rooftop seance was strictly invitation only.
29:57
Speaker 1: Three hundred people total, the CNB scene of Hollywood, captains
30:01
Speaker 1: of industry, the true heads of spiritualism, all of them
30:04
Speaker 1: craning their necks to get a glimpse of the dimly
30:06
Speaker 1: lit table where Bess and Edward Saint went through the motions.
30:10
Speaker 1: Bess claimed that she and her late husband had made
30:13
Speaker 1: a pact that the first one to die would attempt
30:15
Speaker 1: to contact the other from the afterlife. She further claimed
30:19
Speaker 1: that they had developed an intricate code, a string of
30:21
Speaker 1: words that her dead husband would communicate to her in
30:24
Speaker 1: order to prove that it was really him. And in
30:26
Speaker 1: addition to the code, Harry Houdini's ghosts would then unlocked
30:30
Speaker 1: the pair of handcuffs resting on a table. In so
30:33
Speaker 1: many words, Bess Houdini claimed that she was attempting the
30:37
Speaker 1: greatest magic trick ever, bringing back the dead. Of course,
30:43
Speaker 1: it was total bullshit, as much bullshit as a card trick.
30:48
Speaker 1: Her dead husband could have told you that it was
30:50
Speaker 1: nothing more than spiritualist hoke entertainment. You could even call
30:54
Speaker 1: it insurance to make sure that Harry Houdini's name and
30:57
Speaker 1: legend stayed relevant in the annals of time, even as
31:00
Speaker 1: time marched on. It was also the last time Best
31:04
Speaker 1: led a public seance, but it wasn't the last time
31:07
Speaker 1: the living tried to make contact with the ghost of
31:09
Speaker 1: Harry Houdini. A few miles northwest of the Knickerbocker on
31:14
Speaker 1: Laurel Canyon Boulevard, among the willow trees, sycamore, and cottonwood.
31:18
Speaker 1: Year after year, on Halloween night, they gathered those who
31:22
Speaker 1: believed in those who wanted to believe. They gathered when
31:26
Speaker 1: Ralph Walker's mansion and guesthouse were still standing, and they
31:30
Speaker 1: gathered when both properties burned to the ground in the
31:32
Speaker 1: Great Fire of nineteen fifty nine. They gathered as ivy
31:36
Speaker 1: began to consume the ruins, and they drew pentagrams on
31:40
Speaker 1: crumbling pillars and burned candles on the remains of staircases.
31:44
Speaker 1: They planted a wooden cross in the yard and draped
31:46
Speaker 1: it with ceremonial beads. They sang out archaic incantations, hymns
31:52
Speaker 1: to the underworld, designed to summon forth the greatest escape
31:55
Speaker 1: artists who ever lived. And then there in the moonlight,
32:01
Speaker 1: someone saw it. A figure, a man. He was walking
32:06
Speaker 1: the grounds, dressed in a suit and a bow tie.
32:10
Speaker 1: He was there and he wasn't as translucent as a
32:14
Speaker 1: sliver of thinly sliced garlic. They followed closely behind, and
32:19
Speaker 1: the man made no sound. It was like he was
32:21
Speaker 1: walking on air. Seconds later, he disappeared into the mist.
32:27
Speaker 1: He reappeared months later in Chicago, walking right into someone's bedroom.
32:33
Speaker 1: Then in Long Beach, took possession of a medium and
32:37
Speaker 1: spoke through her mouth. Soon after that, he was seen
32:41
Speaker 1: in Kansas City, in Detroit, in Montreal, and the people
32:46
Speaker 1: who saw Houdini's ghost all over the country swore that
32:49
Speaker 1: what they saw was real, that he really had come
32:53
Speaker 1: back from the dead. But how was his sleight of
32:56
Speaker 1: hand misdirection? Old fashioned bullshit? As they say, a magician
33:03
Speaker 1: never reveals his tricks. To do that will be a disgrace.
33:10
Speaker 1: I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created
33:27
Speaker 1: by Yours Truly. It is produced in partnership with Double Elvis.
33:31
Speaker 1: Credits for this episode can be found on the show
33:33
Speaker 1: notes page at disgracelandpod dot com. Subscribe, follow, like, rate,
33:37
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34:02
Speaker 1: pop Rockabroll. He's a bad, bad man.