Latest / Ridiculous History / Mark Twain Was a Terrible Investor, Part One: The Legend of "Josh"

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Mark Twain Was a Terrible Investor, Part One: The Legend of "Josh" · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Let's give it up for our
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  Speaker 1: super producer, mister Max Williams, who is.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Back alive again. Woo hoo, I'm here y'all.
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  Speaker 3: Oh wait, it said barely a live a minute ago.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: You've updated. You've updated your non de de zoom. Ah,
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  Speaker 3: that should be a thing.
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  Speaker 4: I'm gonna zoom. That's a good one.
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  Speaker 3: I'm sorry that hasn't already been coined. I take credit
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  Speaker 3: fully right now.
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  Speaker 1: No, that's a great one. Yeah, it's on record now.
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  Speaker 1: We call that the poor Man's patent or the poor
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  Speaker 1: man's trademark. We said it publicly. That's Noel Brown.
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  Speaker 4: That Library of Congress, Patent Office whatever.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's Noel Brown right there, coming in with the
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  Speaker 1: hot trademarks. I am Ben Bollen, and today, folks, we
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  Speaker 1: are back on our completely self inflicted mission to make
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  Speaker 1: at least one episode about every state in these United States.
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  Speaker 1: And I looked at the I looked at the files. NOL,
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  Speaker 1: we're doing pretty well.
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  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, guys, how far how deep are we into
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  Speaker 3: these United States?
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  Speaker 1: Well, luckily, our pal Max has made a handy spreadsheet
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  Speaker 1: which is no offense classic Max it is.
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  Speaker 4: It's called States breadsheets.
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  Speaker 2: And I'm a nerd, and I.
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  Speaker 3: Thought these are the formulas and everything. One time I
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  Speaker 3: accidentally copied over one and I immediately got an aggressive text.
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  Speaker 5: Aggressive the risk modeling class in college, and I thought
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  Speaker 5: I knew how to use Excel until I took a
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  Speaker 5: risk modeling class.
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  Speaker 2: I also learned that risk modeling is not yeah, easy subject.
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  Speaker 1: Also, I've been I've been risky with models in the past.
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  Speaker 4: We're gonna take that. We're gonna just sit with that one.
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  Speaker 3: But Max is risk modeling something that might be helpful
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  Speaker 3: in predicting the path of Hurricane Helene.
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  Speaker 4: More.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah, I guess yeah, risk modeling. Risk modeling
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  Speaker 1: is weaponized statistics.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, yeah, it's very good at guessing how long
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  Speaker 5: you will live.
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  Speaker 4: Nol okay cool.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, yeah, hopefully we will all live through this storm.
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  Speaker 3: We had some nasty rains yesterday. It looks like today
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  Speaker 3: might not be quite as bad. But then starting tomorrow morning,
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  Speaker 3: us being here in the metro Atlanta area, we might
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  Speaker 3: see some catastrophic weather events.
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  Speaker 1: So luck yeah, This is being recorded on Thursday, September
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  Speaker 1: twenty sixth, just in case we don't make it through. Friday,
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  Speaker 1: September twenty seventh is when the storm will hit Atlanta.
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  Speaker 1: Our thoughts are, of course, with the people who are
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  Speaker 1: more directly in the path are our good friends in
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  Speaker 1: the southeast part of the United States, most particularly in Florida,
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  Speaker 1: also all points below. So everybody, if you're hearing this,
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  Speaker 1: congratulations you have survived the hurricane. We actually have been
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  Speaker 1: backstage doing some horse trading to figure out the best
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  Speaker 1: times to record because we often record remotely. So we
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  Speaker 1: are very much and this is not to do with
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  Speaker 1: Mark Twain. We are very much the equivalent of early
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  Speaker 1: deep sea divers. When we record remotely. We have tubes,
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  Speaker 1: just like deep sea divers had tubes connecting them to oxygen,
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  Speaker 1: and our tubes are the Internet.
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  Speaker 3: This is the most wonderful ask to get to elbow
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  Speaker 3: analogy I could possibly imagine.
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  Speaker 4: And I am here for a my friends, no bathospheres?
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  Speaker 4: Well we could get some bath We'll check the budget.
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  Speaker 4: How y'all have tubes?
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  Speaker 2: I have a bathosphere?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah? Was that?
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  Speaker 1: Like?
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  Speaker 2: Is that?
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  Speaker 1: What?
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  Speaker 4: Was that the same as a diving bell?
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  Speaker 5: It's it's like the next step after a diving bell.
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  Speaker 5: It's like a perfect circle when because of its shape,
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  Speaker 5: the pressure of the sea.
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  Speaker 4: Has a heart. Oh, it's the spaceman helmet, the underwater
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  Speaker 4: space man.
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  Speaker 1: No, no, like no, no, no, it's it's it's like
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  Speaker 1: a it's like a tiny it's like the submarine version
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  Speaker 1: of a capsule hotel.
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  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 3: And the diving bell was even more technologically simple than that.
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  Speaker 4: It's just a bell.
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  Speaker 5: It dropped down and it had oxygen in it, so
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  Speaker 5: you could swim and.
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  Speaker 3: It would just create a seal with the water, just
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  Speaker 3: by the way science works, capillary action or some such.
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  Speaker 2: You know who's a big fan of diving bells, Mark Twain.
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  Speaker 1: Well, what we're saying is the bathosphere works because Mark
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  Speaker 1: Twain did not invest in it. And and we're also
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  Speaker 1: saying again just to show that analogy up, we want
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  Speaker 1: to get this done as long as we have power here.
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  Speaker 1: We have quite a few states uh still left to cover. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: but we're actually on the other side of it, folks.
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  Speaker 1: This is our Connecticut episode. Oh when I said quite
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  Speaker 1: a few guys, incorrect, guys, we only have one, two, three, four, five.
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  Speaker 3: Hey, can this also be a Missouri episode. We talk
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  Speaker 3: about Missouri in this episode.
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  Speaker 4: Let's double up on Missouri. Yeah, because yeah, well we'll
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  Speaker 4: double up we actually episode Yeah at least three Yes.
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  Speaker 1: Missouri, if you please, yes when we do, no, and
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  Speaker 1: we'll we'll make this the fourth Wood as well as
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  Speaker 1: our Connecticut episode. Connecticut known as the Constitution state where
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  Speaker 1: our pal, our old alum, Trace Domingas from our discovery days.
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  Speaker 4: Uh.
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  Speaker 1: He recently moved to Connecticut, and he confirmed that a
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  Speaker 1: Connecticut style pizza is a thing and be he said,
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  Speaker 1: it's pretty great.
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  Speaker 4: What may I ask? Is Connecticut style? Oh, I'm so
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  Speaker 4: glad you asked.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so Connecticut style pizza is not the kind it's
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  Speaker 1: not like, uh, you know, like deep dish Chicago pizza.
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  Speaker 1: It's quite the opposite. It's a it's known for being
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  Speaker 1: very thin crust and coal fired. Uh.
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  Speaker 4: Sometimes I'll put clams on it. Okay, I'm here for that.
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  Speaker 3: Is that a white pizza with like a creamy base
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  Speaker 3: with clams or where clams on a red sauce base.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: The the one that, uh, the one that Trace told
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  Speaker 1: me about he had, well, we'll actually had to he
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  Speaker 1: said one was just a plain sort of Neapolitan style pizza,
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  Speaker 1: and then I think Trace or someone else had one
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  Speaker 1: that was just olive oil, oregano, cheese, garlic, and clams.
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  Speaker 3: So it's pretty good. Yeah, no tomato. I like that
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  Speaker 3: really quickly. Not to derail too deep. But while we're
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  Speaker 3: talking about pizza, have you guys heard of Pittsburgh style pizza. Yes,
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  Speaker 3: it's hot, crispy pizza with cold toppings.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I have not tried it, you know, I was in
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  Speaker 1: Pittsburgh a few years back. I haven't tried it, but
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  Speaker 1: I wonder if it's like that. I wonder if it's
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  Speaker 1: a normalization thing, like in Pittsburgh. Did they just call
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  Speaker 1: it pizza? Did they not know about hot pepperoni and
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  Speaker 1: stuff like that.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know.
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  Speaker 3: I imagine they do just call it pizza. But yeah,
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  Speaker 3: it's my buddy Theo, who's a burger.
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  Speaker 4: He mentioned it.
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  Speaker 3: He posted something up or maybe I saw a meme
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  Speaker 3: about it that was implying that it was awful, and
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  Speaker 3: I said it to him and he said, no, it's
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  Speaker 3: actually great because the hotness of the crust kind of
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  Speaker 3: slowly starts to melt the toppings.
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  Speaker 4: But there's something.
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  Speaker 3: About the combinations of textures and temperatures. That makes it
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  Speaker 3: kind of pleasant. So I don't know who am I
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  Speaker 3: to say, I'll try it. Yeah, we'll try I'll lot
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  Speaker 3: of you.
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  Speaker 1: Who else would try stuff? Mark Twain and Trace to
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  Speaker 1: me is ed. Also, just to finish this part up,
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  Speaker 1: if you like our show, you'll love Tracey's show. That's absurd.
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  Speaker 1: Please elaborate available everywhere, give him a review. Televivie senta.
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  Speaker 3: We should have Trace on the show. I haven't talked
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  Speaker 3: to him in years. That'd be super cool.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, and you should go at his show too, man,
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  Speaker 4: I'd love to.
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  Speaker 1: Our exploration tonight, as you can tell, is about a
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  Speaker 1: guy named Samuel Langhorne Clemens. His street name is Mark Twain,
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  Speaker 1: and we'll get to that in a second.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought it was fog Horn Langhorn, that's what
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  Speaker 3: I know. Langhorn's curious, isn't it. It's definitely a choice.
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  Speaker 3: And wait till you hear his brother's name. Years back,
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  Speaker 3: one of us took a trip to the Hartford, Connecticut
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  Speaker 3: home of the Clemens clan for a time and it's
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  Speaker 3: a very beautiful house. It's for the time in which
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  Speaker 3: it was occupied by Mark Twain, it's kind of like
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  Speaker 3: a Tony starkhouse, like as one of the first telephones.
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  Speaker 3: It has cool gadgets in it, it's opulent. Uh, probably
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  Speaker 3: a few hidden doors or secret passages. Maybe one of
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  Speaker 3: those rollaway library cases that reveals some sort of secret
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  Speaker 3: sex Dungeon.
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  Speaker 4: I want that so bad.
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  Speaker 1: And you I know what you're I know that why
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  Speaker 1: that's on your mind because you and I are currently
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  Speaker 1: lobbying pretty hard for one of our friends to just
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  Speaker 1: do the right thing.
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  Speaker 4: He's got the perfect space for it. He's got to
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  Speaker 4: complete the secret pass It's not going to blow up
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  Speaker 4: a spot. But no, no, you know who you are.
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  Speaker 4: You know who you are. He doesn't listen to the show.
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  Speaker 4: Cool guy, mansion, cool guy. Oh that's a joke for us.
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  Speaker 4: It's for you. You will.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, millions of people tell us about your secret passages.
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  Speaker 4: We'll tell you this.
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  Speaker 1: Our buddy Sam was many things, right, Noel, He's uh,
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  Speaker 1: what do you think of when you think of Mark Twain?
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  Speaker 3: I think of books that kids were forced to read
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  Speaker 3: that maybe had some things in it that were not great. Yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 3: I mean listen, I think obviously Mark Twain was a
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  Speaker 3: great satirist. I mean, hew, there's a comedy award given
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  Speaker 3: out in his name that is one of the most
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  Speaker 3: prestigious awards in that particular business.
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  Speaker 4: He was very funny, very prescient.
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  Speaker 3: He obviously also was a product of his time, and
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  Speaker 3: the way he depicted certain individuals in certain of his
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  Speaker 3: books was not always great. But also, I don't know, man,
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  Speaker 3: what is your take on the Huck Finn you know, conundrum, like,
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  Speaker 3: do you think he actively was hostile towards black people
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  Speaker 3: in his depiction or was he just depicting a time
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  Speaker 3: and place and the language that was used in that
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  Speaker 3: time and place.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a you know, I studied. I was privileged
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  Speaker 1: enough to study with Mark Twain's scholars back in the day,
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  Speaker 1: and even they are divided on this, uh, but.
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  Speaker 4: It was maybe a little divisive, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Because you know, you see things like Putt inhead Wilson,
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  Speaker 1: But then you also see his clear I would say,
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  Speaker 1: clear social battles for equality, yes.
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  Speaker 4: And I for justice, one would argue.
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  Speaker 3: I mean then the way the characters interact and the
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  Speaker 3: way the plots kind of you know, progress.
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  Speaker 1: Right, But part of his mother's dowry was three enslaved people.
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  Speaker 4: No, yeah, I didn't know that one. Yeah, that's his mother.
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  Speaker 3: Though he didn't inherit these enslaved people, did he he did,
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  Speaker 3: he probably would have freed them.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's look. I love that you're pointing out. This
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  Speaker 1: is a problematic thing. One of my favorite scholarly conspiracies
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  Speaker 1: or interpretations of Huckleberry Finn in particular, is the idea
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  Speaker 1: that huck was black. When we talked about that, I've
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  Speaker 1: heard that take. Yeah, yeah, And.
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  Speaker 3: Is there anything specifically in the language that indicates that
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  Speaker 3: or is it kind of like why would he be
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  Speaker 3: so vague about it, considering the way he described other black.
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  Speaker 1: Characters, Right, Yeah, that's that's a big part of the discourse.
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  Speaker 1: You know, what would be the motivation to sort of
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  Speaker 1: disguise I guess, or to make it subtextual, sort of
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  Speaker 1: like how JK. Rowling came out years later and said
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  Speaker 1: Dumbledore is gay or whatever.
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  Speaker 4: Okay, okay, right, it seems a little self serving.
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  Speaker 3: No, I don't know, though, She's she's like kind of
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  Speaker 3: nothing so far right with her turf stuff that I
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: can't imagine you really need a pr win in that respect.
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  Speaker 3: But maybe she came out with that information before she
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  Speaker 3: kind of went down the rabbit hole.
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  Speaker 4: I don't know who knows man? Anyway, this is great,
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  Speaker 4: right right? Right?
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  Speaker 1: Doesn't not our not our favorite person. Our favorite person
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  Speaker 1: is obviously Jonathan Strickland, our number one. But so look,
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  Speaker 1: Mark Twain, amazing author, pivotal figure in literature, an American
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  Speaker 1: success story for many. He should have edited his autobiography.
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  Speaker 1: I read it. I'm gonna save everybody some time. It
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  Speaker 1: needed revision. But for our purposes today, Noel Mark Twain.
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  Speaker 1: Samuel Clemens is a dude who really really wanted at
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  Speaker 1: his heart to be a venture capitalist, and he just
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  Speaker 1: got beat me here, Max. He just got shit wrong
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  Speaker 1: nearly every single time.
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  Speaker 3: Well, it just goes to show there are different kinds
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  Speaker 3: of smarts, you know, there are different sets of skill.
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  Speaker 3: Just because you're a wildly successful author and sadder as
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  Speaker 3: does not necessarily mean you have the chops or the
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  Speaker 3: acumen to make smart business decisions.
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  Speaker 4: We see this throughout history.
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  Speaker 1: Agreed and well said in the Origin story, So our
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  Speaker 1: pal Sam begins his life in a town called and
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  Speaker 1: get this and know all this confused me Florida, Missouri.
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  Speaker 4: That's not real. I mean it's yeah, okay, it's real.
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  Speaker 3: It's a weird choice though, right, does that mean we
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  Speaker 3: can make this our Florida episode?
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  Speaker 4: Ye Have we done a Florida episode? YEA, surely yeah.
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  Speaker 4: I'm not looking at the spreadsheet.
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  Speaker 5: I'm just gonna jump in here. Is like one of
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  Speaker 5: the most done states we have ever done.
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  Speaker 4: Because of the sunshine laws. Probably lots of info about
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  Speaker 4: in Florida.
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  Speaker 5: Florida and kick him right now, they're gonna hit it
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  Speaker 5: with a hurricane. So everyone Florida, hope you're safe. But
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  Speaker 5: also Florida there's a lot of ridiculous history topics.
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  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, they know, they know.
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  Speaker 3: Floridians know, yes, and the ones that don't know are
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: probably part of the problem.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: So for when we save Floridians, we mean both people
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  Speaker 1: in the state of Florida and in the town of Florida, Missouri,
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  Speaker 1: where Sam was born as Samuel Clemens. This is the thirtieth,
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  Speaker 1: eighteen thirty five, but he ends his life in Connecticut
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  Speaker 1: on April twenty first, nineteen ten, and he is known
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  Speaker 1: as Mark Twain at this point. People often call him
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  Speaker 1: Mark in his real life, and there's a poetry to
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: it because when he's born November thirtieth, eighteen thirty five,
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  Speaker 1: do you remember another heavenly event that I heard.
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  Speaker 4: It's wild man.
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  Speaker 3: It happens the beginning and the end of this man's life,
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  Speaker 3: the passage of Haley's comment.
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  Speaker 4: Heralding the literary genius that is it was Mark Twain.
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  Speaker 1: It's so nuts, just the timing on it.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, it's a coincidence.
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  Speaker 1: I'm sure statistically there were a lot of other people
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  Speaker 1: who were born and passed away around the same time.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know, man, it freaks me out a little
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  Speaker 1: bit because I like, you know, back back in ancient times,
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  Speaker 1: children born during eclipses or other heavenly events like the
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  Speaker 1: passage of a comet were considered somehow different demonic.
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  Speaker 3: Sometimes yeah, yeah, you say different, I say demonic potato patade.
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  Speaker 3: But I mean sometimes they work like, you know, literally
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  Speaker 3: abandoned in the woods or something because people were scared
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  Speaker 3: that they were possessed or something.
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  Speaker 1: Or they were considered holy. It was also an option. Yes, yes,
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  Speaker 1: I thought you was like this. I was looking back
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  Speaker 1: through notes on Mark Twain, and he is often described
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  Speaker 1: as a sickly mischievous child.
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  Speaker 3: Well, when you're sickly, you're not out there, you know,
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  Speaker 3: playing the stickball with the other boys. You got to
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: get up to some Tom Tom Sawyer foolish you know,
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  Speaker 3: like tricking people to paint your fence and whatnot, getting
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  Speaker 3: out of your chores because you're so sickly you can
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  Speaker 3: barely lift the paint brush with your little weedy arm.
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  Speaker 1: But you'll feed somewhere in an apple to paint it
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  Speaker 1: for you. Yeah. Oh wait, I gotta I flipped that
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  Speaker 1: the guy gives his apple away to paint the defense.
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  Speaker 4: It's very weird. It's a weird one.
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  Speaker 1: It's a it's a cool insult though for the future,
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  Speaker 1: right for the present day. Can you imagine calling an
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  Speaker 1: adult like like you're disagreeing with someone over what pizza
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  Speaker 1: do'll order Pittsburgh or Connecticut? And then when you get
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  Speaker 1: in the disagreement, you.
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  Speaker 4: Go you are a sickly mischievous child. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Indeed, anytime you call an adulted child, that's them fighting words.
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  Speaker 3: But he, you know, I would argue that he based
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  Speaker 3: some of the the Shenanigans of Tom Sawyer on himself.
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  Speaker 4: He would often, you know, kind.
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  Speaker 3: Of a Dennis the Menace character, probably carried a sling
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  Speaker 3: shot around and is in the back pocket of his
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  Speaker 3: overalls with his shirt on underneath you know, totally one
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  Speaker 3: of those kids to goy bary Bart Simpson ask could
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  Speaker 3: probably shred on the skate on a skateboard too.
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  Speaker 4: No, that wasn't a thing then. But his parents were.
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  Speaker 3: They were tested, Ben, they were really tested by young
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  Speaker 3: Samuel l so.
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  Speaker 4: Sickly, so mischievous.
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  Speaker 1: It's strange because his father is Petrophamilius, was in many
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  Speaker 1: ways a polar opposite, at least on the surface of
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  Speaker 1: what his son would become. Sam was known for his
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  Speaker 1: rapacious wit and humor later in life became a famous
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  Speaker 1: author based off that. But his dad, John Clemens, was
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: kind of a hard case. Yeah, he wasn't the most
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: humorous of fellows. Pretty serious cat, very dour. For being honest,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: he was probably a little bit underwater, not to use
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: more nautical terms, but like with finances and with just
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: the overwhelming pressure of raising a family amidst some problems
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: admittedly of his own making, involving poor investments and failing businesses,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: which may have been where sold Sam got his investment
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: shops or lack thereof. Right, how far does the apple
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: fall from the tree, How far does the page fall
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: from the printing press? It's eighteen thirty nine, and our
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: buddy Sam is not quite around three years old. And
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: because of his father's failed business ventures, they moved to
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: a port town called Hannibal, which is along the Mississippi River.
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: The Mighty Mississippi. Yeah, and this.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Is where our pal Sam sees the highs and lows
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: of American business. And this also, I think forges the
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: experiences that inform a lot of his fiction. Like you
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: were saying earlier that Tom saw your stuff Huckleberry Finn
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: and even his his name, And I love the point
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: you make that later in life Sam Sam agrees with
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: what we're saying. He says his father's unending ambition gave
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: him this fundamental, if incorrect belief in one day making
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: it through business.
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: Uh.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: He he talked about it. It's what we would call
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: either the American dream or a pipe dream.
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: Uh.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: His dad always told them, even unto his father, John's death,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: he told them, I bought this land in Tennessee, and
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: this is going to make our family dynasty. Yeah.
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: Oh, let's say they're kind of rhymed, Ben not about
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: to make a family.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: I can imagine that as a little ditty Tom Sawyer
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: might have saying walking down the road, with his bendle
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: and a stick and bendle or whatever he had one
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: of those. Surely he was sort of a roguish hobo.
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: Kid, wasn't he. Well, I guess that was more hug Finn.
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: But they went on adventures.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: What are the Disney Live Action Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: starring Elijah Wood? Yes, I do, very young Elijah as
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: Tom Sawyer and brad Renfro who as as Huck Finn.
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: Brad Renfrow who would go on to play the titular
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: bully character in the Larry Clark very upsetting film Bully
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: about a bully that's brad Renfro and brad Renfrow sadly
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: real bad struggles with drugs and alcohol, and I believe
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: he ended up overdosing and passing away. Sorry, didn't mean
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: to bring the mood down. That movie sticks in my
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: in my mind. There was even another one, I think
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: with Jonathan Taylor Thomas of of of Home Improvement Fame
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: playing Tom Sawyer. Anyway, Sorry, all this missmash of pop
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: culture kind of it haunts me, Ben, which.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Shows us, which shows us the impact that Mark Twain
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: had American zeitgeist.
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: Percent and you know I'll tell you what my you know,
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: have Tom Sawyer. That whole mythos is probably what he's
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: most known for. But I always really enjoyed a Connecticut
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: Yankee in King Arthur's Court. It was kind of an
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: early sort of like butterfly effect time travel back to
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: the future. I mean, there would be no back to
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: the future were it not for Connecticut Yankee in King
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: Arthur's Court.
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: Hot take. But I like it. I like it. I
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: like I like when your takes are fresh baked like that. Yeah,
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: this is Yeah, I'm nothing fresh baked.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: This is pipe it hot because yeah, we reference I
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: reference it. I think you do as well. Connecticut yanking
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: King Arthur's Court to do many times. Yeah, film, it's
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: a and it's a great read. Uh, it holds up. Uh,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: it's it is satirical, but I reference it often with
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: critical thinking and blissfully short and yes, and not near
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: as overlong as his multi volume autobiography.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: But Ben, you were setting up a quote that I
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: think is very pertinent here about his sort of mentality
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: going into what will ultimately be his business undoing.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, as we're setting this up again, we're talking about
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: this pipe dream mentality here is something he wrote?
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: Could you could you give it to us in a voice?
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: Oh gosh, that's the or you know your own voice
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: is fine? Do we have record we have?
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: Surely there were recordings of Samuel Clements reading his own work.
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: Right, he kicked it with Tesla pretty hard.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: I mean it would have been early days of like,
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry, I'm getting the timeline twisted in my head.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: But is there footage? And is there is there audio
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: of Mark Twain speaking?
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: There are no.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: There are no audio recordings that have been discovered. I
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: think there is a There is a piece of silent
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: film that was made by Thomas Edison.
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: Okay, Oh, well.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: Edison would have been the one who would have done
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: the audio recording too, So I guess we're kind of
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: right on the cusp there of like early wax cylinder
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: type recording technology here Twain tried to make audio books
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: and jumping ahead a little bit.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: In eighteen ninety one, he tried to record one of
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: his novellas on the wax cylinders used in phonographs, but
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: he just kept messing up, and.
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: So okay, so it wasn't outside of the realm of possibility.
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: This would have happened. It just didn't come to fruition.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he did record, if I recall correctly, he recorded
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: something in nineteen oh nine in Thomas Edison's lab. But
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: then there was a fire in nineteen fourteen. And as
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: we said previously, you know a lot of that stuff
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: is notoriously flammable.
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: So how about that not for lack of the technology.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: He literally just was the victim of some bad luck. Yeah,
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: in the eighteen this was almost nineteen hundred, he did
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: record with Thomas Edison, You're dead right, and they burned
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: up in a fire. So we'll just have to go
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: with the popular, I guess depiction of Mark Twain's voice,
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: which is sort of something like this. I say, I say,
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: I say, I put our energies to sleep and made
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: visionaries of us dreamers and indolent.
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: It is good to begin laugh poor, It is good
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: to begin laugh rich.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: These are wholesome, But to begin it prospectively rich.
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: The man who has not experienced it cannot imagine the
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: curse of it. I say, I say, I say, I
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: think that Langhorn got to you. I think it did.
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: I really he is sort of characterized as having you know,
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: a southern drawl.
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, a little right, I tell yeah, Mark Twang, there
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: it is there, it is. Can we unpact this? Though?
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: This is a little dense. Honestly, the language here, well,
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: the idea is this.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: It kind of echoes the poetry of Robert Browning, right,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: like a man's reach should exceed his grasp? Or what's
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: a heaven for?
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: Dream big? Right? Dream big? Very American?
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: He said, Look, if you begin life poor, okay, that's
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: part of America. If you begin life wealthy, awesome, you
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: won the lottery. But if you begin it addicted to
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: the dream that you will one day be successful, then
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: you are cursed. That's what he's saying. He's saying he's
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: always chasing this dragon of financial success.
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: Dude. We've had this conversation before too.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's sort of I think maybe a modern
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: equivalent of this is more money, more problems, where if
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: you are constantly striving for the next thing, you will
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: never truly be happy with what you have. And one
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: could argue that therein lies the nature of ambition and
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: it's not inherently a bad thing, but not necessarily the
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: makings of a happy life.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is a feeling familiar to almost anyone
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: in the world these days who's grown up in less
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: than ideal circumstances. It's a fundamental and at times dangerous
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: mix of ambition and insecurity, and this mix followed him
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: like a shadow all the days of his life. He
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: did get into he did get into technology from early days.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: He started as an apprentice to a printer, which meant
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: he worked as a type setter, and we talked about
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: printing presses before. A type setter's job was kind of
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: like tetris. I think it suited to a certain type
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: of type organization of the personality.
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, everything in its right place.
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: People who are good at packing vans, you know, like
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: moving devices and such.
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: Is that a radiohead quote everything and it's right.
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: Everything in it's everything in its right place is definitely
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: a radio So it's also again, I think we mentioned
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: it on our recent episode on Robot Servants on stuff
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: they don't want you to know. Something Rosy, the robot
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: in the Jetsons universe said when she went totally bananas,
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: and so you just go up place for everything and
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: everything in its place, a place for everything and everything
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: in its place, and then proceeded to like psychotically organize
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: the Jetsons home.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: And as we know, all Radiohead songs are ultimately fan
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: fiction about the Jetsons or interpretations thereof. You'll have to
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: take our word for it, folks, just read the lyrics
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: and watch the Jetsons. This is where we introduce the
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: older brother. I know you'll love this name. After apprenticing
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: as a type setter, he Sam gets one of his
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: first writing gigs, working for his older brother's newspaper. His
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: brother's name a riot Clement's. Ryan is such.
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: A cool name. Okay, oh Ryan? Yeah, like the constellation.
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: Do you think people were lazy and just called him Ryan?
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: For sure?
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: Just getting getting rid of the O, which is such
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: a helpful shortening.
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: Or is kind of cool or he's cool?
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think orion has a gravitas to it though,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Oh it does.
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's dare we say, Heavenly? There we go.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: So let's go to Uh there's a mystery about his
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: name too. While we're While we're here at this moment
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: in Sam's life. Later he becomes a riverboat pilot, right
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: we're still in the Mississippi. Uh. This informs the numb
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: de plume he's known by today. Mark Twain was a
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: phrase that Mississippi riverboat folks yelled out when their ships
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: hit two fathoms of water.
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: Kind of like timber when a tree is about to fall,
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: Does it make a sound?
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: I don't know where you there? You tell me? Yeah?
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: And now, Sam, it's kind of like some of our
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: own relatives. Never the type of guy to let a
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: good story get in the way of the facts.
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: I think I've said that of my mother. So yeah.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: So later scholars would look into his claims about how
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: he got its name, how he got this name, this
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: street name, and it didn't measure up to the banger
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: mythology he created for himself. And when people asked him
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: about it in his lifetime and said, hey, you've told
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: several different stories about how you got this name, you
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: know what, he called him dude. He called these narratives
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: improved facts.
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: Gosh, Donald Trump, would I love this cat? Oh? Gosh,
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: that disturbs me. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: It isn't that funny though, where like exaggerating a story
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: is one thing, it's not considered like egregious or like deceptive,
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: but just a little pushing a little further and depending
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: on the type of story, it does kind of become
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: propagandistic fake news. And again not being political here at all,
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: just talking about the nature of discourse and like the
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: idea of changing the facts to suit your narrative. If
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: it's something innocuous, it's a story about the time that I,
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: you know, fought a shark in the ocean that hasn't
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: hurt anybody. But if it then becomes about others and
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: cultural stuff and different things that can have impacts on,
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: you know, the way people behave socially and voted stuff,
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: it can really be dangerous.
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: So I don't know. Mark Twain seems to have been
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: aware of that. He does.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: And let's let's get into how he got this name,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: because we kid you not. Mark Twain's first pseudonym was
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: not Mark Twain.
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: Wasn't it like Steve or something? So okay, here's the
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: real sort.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: His elder brother O'Ryan was a big campaigner for an
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: amateur wrestler, real up and comer, Abraham Lincoln.
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah you're joking. Oh sorry, sorry, I never mind. Okay,
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: you're doing the thing, you're doing the bit I got it.
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: I was picturing him being like an early MMA promoter.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: You know that's amazing, like a early Oh gosh, there's
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: a Netflix documentary out on Vince McMahon.
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: You know what, that guy's just batshit enough to warrant
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: me watching a documentary about him.
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: The interview, I mean, the meme alone that he gave
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: the world as a guest the Galaxy Brain.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, money, Yeah, and also that's a McMahon's different thing.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: We are very aware of everything you're thinking about as well.
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: Folks.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: When you hear us reference that person, check out the documentary.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: He disowned it, which makes it interesting to watch.
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: Boy does it ever? I mean, but let's just say
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: at the very least, also.
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: Probably not the greatest of guys.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, A hot takes a plenty. I'm gonna say, I
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: don't want to hang out with Actually, we know people
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: who worked with him in some capacity, and they also
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: had things to say.
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: So all right.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: So Abraham Lincoln, amateur wrestler, another American success story, goes
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: on to succeed in politics a bit and as as
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: a result.
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: Failed upward kind of you know, great, So as.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: A result of Lincoln's success, this is still very much
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: the spoils of war kind of approach to politics. Sure,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: So Orion Clemens becomes the Secretary of the Nevada Territory
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: as just a gift bag, a swag bag for supporting Lincoln.
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: And the largest town in the Nevada Territory was another
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: interestingly named for.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: The city, So in the Nevada taris exactly. Yeah, Florida, Missouri,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Virginia City.
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: Virginia City. Makes you wonder if.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: Mark Twain actually knew where he was going.
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: So, having a bit of an in with his brother Orion. Sorry,
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: whatever I think Orion. I think of two things. I
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: think of the classic film company Orion that I'll like,
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: you see the logo with like the classic font. And also,
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: I don't know, in my head, I'm going oh oh
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: oh Orian, like the O'Reilly thing. Sorry, I just had
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: to say that out loud so it would stop haunting me.
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: But yeah, So Sam's got a bit of an in
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: with his brother. He heads out west, tagging along with Orion,
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: and he gives mining a shot. These were the days
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: where people were lighting out for the territories. As they say,
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: was it wouldn't this have been? This is gold rush time, right,
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: This is a little different. Maybe this is more like
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: a run on resources or trying to like, you know,
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: get mineral rights and things like that.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah, yeah, just like his dad bought that land
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: in Tennessee partially for mineral rights.
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: This is a same rush of sorts, though not the
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: historic gold rush that I was referring to.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: He has the he has the idea that he's going
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: to get in on this silver mining industry. He was
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: terrible at it. He was unsuccessful. He did it was
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: not a smart move on his part, or he was
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: just unlucky.
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: Again.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: But while Sam Clemens is here, he gets this reputation
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: as almost a local celebrity because he's known as a
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: lively storyteller, a great conversationalist, which is all tracks, which
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: really just means you're good at listening, and he is.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: He is a local humor columnist. He's a humorist and
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: some of the things he writes are eventually published in
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: the main newspaper of Virginia City, the Territorial Enterprise. He
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: did not use his real name. He did not use
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: his famous fake name beat me again, Max, we should
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: be not. His first pseudonym in print was Josh Okay.
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: I was close. What did I say? Steve Josh Josh
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: oh Man. Why is that? I think it's just because he.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: Looms so large, you know, in our cultural kind of
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: collective memories, Josh just seems so diminutive compared to the
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: larger than life persona that is Mark Twain.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: I've just said pictory, like a pictory, like a Connecticut
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: yankee in King Arthur's Court by Josh.
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: It was just Josh like like Madonna. Yeah, it was.
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: It was a single name because columns. That's hilarious. I
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: have a quick question for you, Ben, I put it
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: to you.
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: Is it appropriate for someone to call themselves a humorist
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: or is that a title that needs to be bestowed
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: by others. I think it needs to be bestowed by others,
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: if I'm being completely honest, I.
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: Like, you don't get to say that you're funny.
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: I think it requires input from a third party to
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: decide whether someone is funny or not.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: That's the reason there's a Mark Twain Award. Right, If
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: you call yourself a humorist, it feels like a dick
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: move a little bit. Yeah, I think so too. Okay, cool,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: So we got that out of the way. Josh. Back
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: to Josh. Yeah, in his defense, been.
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: You pointed this out in your excellent research brief for
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: this episode, these episodes, I don't know. Josh is also
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: a kind of a bit of a du blontolder, right, Josh,
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: I'm just Josh and ya you know, so he knew,
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: he knew. So he was already kind of in the
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: persona building game.
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because Josh in English, a special American English, is
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: both a proper name and like you said, no, it's
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: a verb for joking.
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: I'm just joshing. You just joshing around, buddy.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: So this his onion level, cracked article level things, got
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: him a gig writing for twenty five dollars a week.
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: This was massive. This was a lot of money. Old yeah, yeah,
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: and he was.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: He had a spidy sense for humor and satire, and he, unapologetically,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: with no reservation, clowned everyone. He became a lampooner, yeah,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: real lampooner. Yes, yeah, just so he became a local celebrity,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: sort of like you or me or Max at our
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: favorite David Busters or.
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: You know, we get voice clocked every now and again
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: at the local or some of our favorite Atlanta haunts
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: or the airport.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, I got it, I forgot to tell you I
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: got made at the TSA wow bia csa worker.
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and he.
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: Lets you smuggle all that.
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: That hashish through. No gave you a pass, no comedy.
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: I told you I got voice checked in line at
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: the museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: And it felt so cool because I'm like, smart people
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: listen to us. That's awesome. That made me feel great,
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: specifically about ridiculous history.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: And we know the we know the real story what
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: seems to be the true story behind the origin of
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: the name Mark Twain, because he was known as a
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: Mississippi riverboat guy who was trying, without success to become
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: a silver miner. He hung out in a lot of
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: the public houses of Virginia City, and the barkeepers in
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: the area used to yell out Mark Twayne whenever he
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: walked in because he was a regular. And when they
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: yelled out Mark Twain, it meant they needed to bring
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: two shots of whiskey to Sam and then make two
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: marks of chalk on the board where they kept a
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: record of their standing tabs. And I want to give
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: a shout out to our pal Gregory Crouch over a
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: Time magazine who pointed out that that little piece of
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: hidden history to us.
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: So it was a bar nickname.
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: It wasn't pretty cool, so it was I mean it
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: was again with the double entendres. I mean is it
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: does reference the nautical you know, call out, but it
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: was sort of co opted into this kind of I
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: guess en joke. Is this like a thing that was
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: like his regular order, right, so he basically had a
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: cocktail named after him or named himself after a cocktail.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: It's like if we went to waffle house more often
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: and we were there every week and they stopped calling
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: us by our first names and just started calling us
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: by what we.
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: Are, Like, Oh it's Patty Belt.
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: Oh it's All Star Breakfast right right, Oh it's Grand
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: Slam yeah yeah yeah.
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: And also isn't so Mark? What was the order again?
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: The order was the whiskey.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah. They would give him two shots of whiskey, and
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: then they would go ahead and assume he wasn't paying
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: that night, so they would make two chalk marks on
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: the board.
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: Mark Twain, Yeah, no, I got it.
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: It's also it just makes me think of like at
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: some bars, you know, how they have clever nicknames for
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: like a beer and a shot combo.
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: Oh we're saying. Yeah, I thought maybe that was part
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: of it too, but no, it's much more. Oh that'd
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: be interesting.
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: So that's kind of what I was thinking with the
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: name after a cocktail thing. But yeah, the guy, you know,
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: contained multitudes for sure.
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and he wanted.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: He wasn't super into his street name and authorial career
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: just yet. It was paying the bills to write these
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: joke columns.
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: In his mind.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: Still, he's kind of smoking that American pipe dream of success.
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he and that in your American pipe dream and
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: smoke it.
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: Hold the bell telephone, folks.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: This is this is a two parter for us. So
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: a hoy a hoy as isn't that I said? Hello?
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: You leave out the second right right? Uh?
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: Look at me being one of those hello fellow kids
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: guys in the back.
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: Back of the eighteen high about.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: Uh uh so a hoy hoy And big thanks to
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: our super producer mister Max Williams.
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: Who else who else?
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: Oh, indeed, all the thank you, Christopher Rociotis and he
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: was Jeff Cots here in spirit, Jonathan Strickland, the quiz
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: dra A, Jay Bahamas Jacobs, the Puzzler.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: Alex Williams, who composed our Our Bang and Bop here
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: join us in just a few days. We're going to
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: get to more stories about Mark Twain's cartoonishly bad investment
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: journey at the same time that he became one of
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: the world's most beloved authors.
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: Can't wait to see you on the other side. We'll
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: see you next time, folks.
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.