Latest / Ridiculous History / Mark Twain Was a Terrible Investor, Part Two: Typesetters, Steam Pulleys and Tesla

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Mark Twain Was a Terrible Investor, Part Two: Typesetters, Steam Pulleys and Tesla · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the
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Speaker 1: show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for
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Speaker 1: tuning in. That's our super producer and venture capitalist partner,
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Speaker 1: mister Max Williams.
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Speaker 2: Hip hop heay ho it is I Noel Brown?
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Speaker 1: Oh and I am going by Ben Bolan as of
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Speaker 1: late and Noel we are. We are in the middle
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Speaker 1: of a story that I think has just tickled us
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Speaker 1: but also.
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Speaker 2: To a degree captured us, no question, the story of
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Speaker 2: Samuel horn Clemens aka Josh Mark Twain and his absolutely
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Speaker 2: abysmal sense of business documen.
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Speaker 1: So in his mind at this point, business is the
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Speaker 1: definition of success. And let's keep in mind. Mark Twain
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Speaker 1: is the guy who later goes on to coin the
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Speaker 1: term gilded age, so he he could this is such
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Speaker 1: a weird thing. He goes to a friend of his,
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Speaker 1: totally not funny guy named John McKay, who is the
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Speaker 1: superintendent of a local mind, and he pitches him and
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Speaker 1: he goes I say, I say, I say, hey, Joe,
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Speaker 1: why don't.
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Speaker 3: You and I switch places? You could have my job
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Speaker 3: but to the enterprise and how run the mind. John
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Speaker 3: is by all accounts a good friend of Samuel Clemens,
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Speaker 3: and he says, well, how much do you make, you know,
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Speaker 3: writing the funnies at this paper?
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Speaker 2: Your little stories?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, your little stories, and Sam immediately improve the facts.
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Speaker 1: We say he was making twenty five dollars a week.
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Speaker 1: He told his buddy John, he's making forty dollars a week.
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Speaker 1: And John is not. You know, John is like one
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Speaker 1: of those guys at a comedy show who smiles and
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Speaker 1: nods along, but a lot of stuff goes over his
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Speaker 1: head because he's so honest. And he says, well, this
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Speaker 1: business is not worth forty dollars a week, and he
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Speaker 1: sounds concerned. He says, you stay where you are and
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Speaker 1: I will try to get a living out of this.
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Speaker 2: Okay, okay. So later Samuel Clemens, our buddy Mark Twain
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Speaker 2: would tell this tale, you know again varying degrees of consistency,
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Speaker 2: shall we say the man was a yarn spinner and
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Speaker 2: his buddy and in it is buddy John always agreed.
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Speaker 2: John was a hard another bit of a hard case,
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Speaker 2: kind of like his father, a bit imperfect, had his flaws,
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Speaker 2: but they did stay close friends all the way up
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Speaker 2: until nineteen oh two, when John sadly passed away, and
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Speaker 2: he was often asked to justify his friendship with sam
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Speaker 2: who kind of became a bit of a notorious crank
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Speaker 2: in his old age, which I could see. That's the
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Speaker 2: thing that often happens with Comediansudgeon, Yeah, curmudgeony, I mean, honestly,
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Speaker 2: I was referenced, guys, I just love him. Jason Parkin
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Speaker 2: the writer, and he's does a lot of TikTok. Yeah,
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Speaker 2: he's been on Daily Zeitgey's great channel to follow. He
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Speaker 2: pointed out that in general, oftentimes comedians aren't nice people
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Speaker 2: because comedy is sort of a stand in for being
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Speaker 2: nice in social situations. And I just thought that was
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Speaker 2: so well said and inaccurate. And oftentimes they're they're tortured,
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Speaker 2: you know, they do the whole thing because they are
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Speaker 2: struggling with demons. In its sort of a way of
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Speaker 2: finding light in the darkness.
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Speaker 1: Right, there's a crack in everything. That's how the light
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Speaker 1: gets in. Shout out. So I'm gonna change voices for
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Speaker 1: John when he let's make him a little more western, uh,
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Speaker 1: Like you said, as Mark Twain, Samuel Clemens becomes more
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Speaker 1: contankerous over time, and people ask John McKay about him.
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Speaker 1: He would inevitably go to the matt to defend his
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Speaker 1: pal Sam, and he would say, I'll addict you to
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Speaker 1: the Society of Literary Meal.
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Speaker 2: Oh that's a tough that's a tough one to kick man.
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Speaker 2: That's society considerary man. He's had a real monkey on
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Speaker 2: your back. They don't make methadone for that. There we go.
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Speaker 1: It's like tricky soda. So uh, Sam, like we said,
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Speaker 1: goes on to become Mark Twain. John goes on to
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Speaker 1: become John McKay, the mining tycoon. You have to wonder, though, nol,
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Speaker 1: what would history be like today if those been had
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Speaker 1: switched places. Samuel Clemens was a terrible minor John McKay,
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Speaker 1: not funny, right, very dry to say the least. And honestly,
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Speaker 1: it sounds like the plot of a Buddy comedy. You
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Speaker 1: know what it really does? I would watch it.
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Speaker 2: I would too. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: So okay, So again we see this is a failed
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Speaker 1: business venture. This is one of the first things in
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Speaker 1: the world of business that Sam Clemens gets wrong. He
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Speaker 1: loves being an author, he's a real cracker jack at it,
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Speaker 1: but he defined success as success in business and capitalism.
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Speaker 1: Again smoking that pipe of the American dream. We got
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Speaker 1: to say it though. We do have to give the
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Speaker 1: man his flowers, right, Noel, because he is you know,
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Speaker 1: oh yeah successful.
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Speaker 2: No, he certainly was successful. And again we have I
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Speaker 2: think we set this up from the top. It's just
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Speaker 2: a different set of skills. I mean, comedy takes a
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Speaker 2: certain kind of intuition. Satire takes a certain kind of observational,
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Speaker 2: you know, intuition, and so does business. It's not something
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Speaker 2: that you can necessarily just learn on paper. You can
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Speaker 2: learn the nuts and bolts of it and kind of,
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Speaker 2: you know, go to business school or whatever. But some
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Speaker 2: people just don't have the acumen that it takes, you know,
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Speaker 2: to kind of like read the room and figure out
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Speaker 2: which way the wind is blowing.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and Mark Twain is an exception. In the world
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Speaker 1: of writing. He gets national and then international fame with
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Speaker 1: his works in nineteenth century America. He is one of
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Speaker 1: the highest paid authors. His breakout to Be is a
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Speaker 1: story about betting on frogs. He is always at the
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Speaker 1: frog hop or it's like a Calamitus, County Calamachus, something
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Speaker 1: like that. It's a really crazy name for the calaveras,
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Speaker 1: the celebrated jumping frog of Calaveras County. And this is
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Speaker 1: a short story, right, yeah, yeah, it's published. It's published.
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Speaker 1: It gets him more and more attention. He's building his career,
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Speaker 1: kind of like an author for Cracked builds their career.
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Speaker 1: Shout out to our pal Jason. They mentioned earlier and
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Speaker 1: his and I say that with great affection. Jason Parkin
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Speaker 1: is an awesome writer. By the way, Yeah what do
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Speaker 1: you re? The John Dies in the End series, that's
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Speaker 1: his most famous work.
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Speaker 2: But I really just love him as Like, again, this
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Speaker 2: is something I don't think you're allowed to call yourself,
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Speaker 2: but I would call him a media critic. The way
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Speaker 2: he makes these takes you on certain pop cultural things
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Speaker 2: and the Internet, And I think it's the kind of
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Speaker 2: thing where you earn your stripes by doing and by
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Speaker 2: saying and by being correct, not necessarily something you would say.
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Speaker 2: I am a humorist. You earn that title by being
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Speaker 2: humorous and putting stuff out into the world and creating
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Speaker 2: a body of work.
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Speaker 1: If anyone describes themself as a humorist and they don't
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Speaker 1: have a Mark Twain Award, I would question their credibility.
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Speaker 1: It's like how you check the health score of a restaurant.
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Speaker 2: That's right, what's the lowest health score that you will die?
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Speaker 1: And I don't remember on a stuff they don't want
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Speaker 1: you to know. I think, okay, eighties good is acceptable.
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Speaker 1: It's an eighty is not going to be like rats
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Speaker 1: crawling out of the woodwork. I would like to see
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Speaker 1: what led to that demotion, but typically you know that's
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Speaker 1: usually written on the card which here comes back.
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Speaker 4: So as a manager of restaurants in the city Atlanta
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Speaker 4: for five years, I will tell you that the health
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Speaker 4: score and the health checks are I hate to say
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Speaker 4: there's They really depend on how on the person grading
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Speaker 4: you and how they feel that day because and they
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Speaker 4: I'm not saying this in a way of like inflame,
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Speaker 4: there are.
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Speaker 2: No no, I'm not saying that.
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Speaker 4: I'm saying there are things that restaurants should really get
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Speaker 4: dinged for that sometimes don't get dinged for. And another
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Speaker 4: big thing is the score you see at a restaurant.
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Speaker 4: Usually it can be the first score. But also if
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Speaker 4: you get a bad score at a restaurant, they will
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Speaker 4: come back in like a certain amount of time offhat
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Speaker 4: exactly right, and they'll regrade you ye, and they'll get
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Speaker 4: rid of the original score. And there's just like weird things.
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Speaker 4: So like I know, like basically an insta fail which
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Speaker 4: makes total sense is if you have eggs placed above
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Speaker 4: anything else in the h it's just there. It's one
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Speaker 4: of these things that unfortunately is not accurate enough. Like
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Speaker 4: there's too many places that have good scores that should
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Speaker 4: not have good scores in my opinion.
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Speaker 1: Right right, and there are too many places that probably
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Speaker 1: got dinged when they shouldn't get dinged.
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Speaker 2: This segment brought to you by Max with the facts
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Speaker 2: that seeming inn and peace fallen knowledge. It's just for
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Speaker 2: you right now with the fact Wait, no, that is
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Speaker 2: the segment Max with the facts. I love that.
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Speaker 1: I like that.
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Speaker 2: I can't believe we do an episode about Mark Twain,
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Speaker 2: we learn about restaurant health scores. It's just a cornucopia
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Speaker 2: of knowledge here on ridiculous sistory.
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Speaker 1: Right, Like I almost said Vittman, my Germans coming out,
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Speaker 1: like Whitman said, we are vast, We've malton we can take.
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Speaker 1: We are vast, we contain multitudes, as Walt Whitman said,
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Speaker 1: uh in Twain. Going back to Mark Twain, his debut novel,
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Speaker 1: His Real Breakout, is a work called innocence abroad. This
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Speaker 1: paves the way for things like Tom Sawyer, Adventures of
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Speaker 1: Huckleberry Finn and so on. But at the same time,
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Speaker 1: concurrently he is patenting and inventing things. He patents a
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Speaker 1: scrap book that he doesn't ever manufacture. He comes up
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Speaker 1: with the idea of a baby bed clamp, which is
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Speaker 1: where does the clamp go?
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Speaker 2: What is its purpose?
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Speaker 1: Supposed to keep kids from kicking off their sheets. He
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Speaker 1: makes a spiral pin that helps women keep their hats
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Speaker 1: on when the winds are high.
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Speaker 2: Uh.
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Speaker 1: He also this is so dumb. In eighteen eighty three,
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Speaker 1: he makes his own board game because he's trying to
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Speaker 1: dodge work on Huckleberry Finn. He calls it, in a
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Speaker 1: burst of humility, mark Twain's Fact and Date game and
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Speaker 1: endure historical diversion. And he does manufacture this. This gets
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Speaker 1: to the shelves and people don't like it. In eighteen
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Speaker 1: ninety one, one person who bought it called it a
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Speaker 1: quote cross between an income tax form and a table
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Speaker 1: of logarithms.
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Speaker 2: Now, I would argue that today this game would kill
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Speaker 2: There's so many niche, pedantic, weird, little mathy board games
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Speaker 2: like Catan and stuff and some of them I love,
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Speaker 2: but some of them. Of them are way over my head.
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Speaker 1: But I like the ones where you have to spend
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Speaker 1: the first night just learning the rules.
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Speaker 2: Man, I gotta tell you, Ben, I know that you're
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Speaker 2: a bit of a D and D er. My buddy Peyton,
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Speaker 2: friend of the show and friend of both of us,
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Speaker 2: is visiting and he convinced me to download Balder's Gate. Yes,
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Speaker 2: Balder's Gates, Yeah, exactly for the PS five. I actually
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Speaker 2: quite enjoy watching other people play games, and apparently this
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Speaker 2: game is a great entry into the rules set and
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Speaker 2: character building of D and D. Yes, so I much
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Speaker 2: got it. So I can watch Peyton play it and
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Speaker 2: sort of get my head around with a little bit.
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Speaker 2: Then I'll make my own character.
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Speaker 1: You know what's going to crack you up, man, M
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Speaker 1: boulders Gate three is super horny. I heard it was
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Speaker 1: really horny. I heard there was like lots of like passionate,
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Speaker 1: not like a wholesome way, it'll some affirming way, but
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Speaker 1: accent on the holes.
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Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry everybody. I apologize to everybody.
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Speaker 1: No, no, that's that's the asshole of the picture. Right.
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Speaker 1: So he also Mark Twayne going back to Mark Twayne,
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Speaker 1: he also makes a lot of friends. He's a gregarious dude,
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Speaker 1: and he marries well, he marries a cole heiress named
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Speaker 1: Olivia Langdon, and when they jumped the broom, his new
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Speaker 1: father in law as like a wedding gift, get this.
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Speaker 1: They give him a mansion with a retinue of household
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Speaker 1: servants including a butler and a carriage and a full
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Speaker 1: time carriage driver. That's pretty okay as a wedding gift.
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Speaker 2: Not bad, not bad Mark Twain. And he of course
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Speaker 2: was wealthy in his own right, so now he's super wealthy.
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Speaker 2: So in eighteen seventy three, the family moved to Hartford, Connecticut,
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Speaker 2: which was a really big deal kind of plays at
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Speaker 2: the time like a real seat of culture and influence.
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Speaker 2: They stayed there for seventeen years, while summering in their
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Speaker 2: summer home in Elmira. During this time, Twain wrote some
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Speaker 2: of his most well known and by many beloved works.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and he still wasn't done because again he coins
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Speaker 1: the term gilded age. She's existing in this time and
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Speaker 1: so he is a first hand witness to wealth that
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Speaker 1: most of America can only imagine. And he would later
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Speaker 1: write something invisive but entirely troublingly correct, And I feel
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Speaker 1: like I've accidentally parallel thought myself into this. He says, man,
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Speaker 1: we'll do many things to get himself loved. He will
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Speaker 1: do all things to get himself envied. So the idea
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Speaker 1: like the idea that people will do things to be admired,
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Speaker 1: but really they want to do things to seem better
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Speaker 1: than other folks. He had some complex thoughts about altruism.
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Speaker 2: I guess, so, yeah, that is very interesting. And so
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Speaker 2: for all of his talents and his many gifts as
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Speaker 2: a student and observer of the human condition, for all
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Speaker 2: his absolutely wizard like, godlike talents with the written word
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Speaker 2: and the spoken word, he was also a fantastic deliverer
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Speaker 2: of fine speeches. He was, however, as we have indicated already,
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Speaker 2: really awful at picking winners when it came to business.
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Speaker 2: So bad, it's so bad.
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Speaker 1: It was like a classic tech bros. Stereotype or just
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Speaker 1: you know, to me, there's something a vunkiler about Twaying, obviously,
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Speaker 1: but I also picture him as the neighbor that you
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Speaker 1: have that's just unreasonably positive with you, Like they'll say
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Speaker 1: terrible things about the world. But they're like, but you, buddy,
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Speaker 1: come on, man, I love your ideas. Remember that time
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Speaker 1: you were telling me that thing about shoelaces. I have
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Speaker 1: a million dollars. I think we should do it. Like
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Speaker 1: if a friend of his gave him even the lightest
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Speaker 1: of elevator pitches, Sam Clemens was it. He was light
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Speaker 1: on details, He didn't do a lot of research. He
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Speaker 1: bet heavy on crazy ideas that were bad.
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Speaker 2: And that comes from a certain or belies, I guess,
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Speaker 2: a certain kind of confidence, unshakable confidence and bravado. You
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Speaker 2: know where it's like I am the sh and I
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Speaker 2: inherently know what's right. And usually the difference between people
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Speaker 2: that kind of like make a couple of bad choices
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Speaker 2: and neither stop or move on and the people that
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Speaker 2: continuously make bad choices, one of them has a bit
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Speaker 2: more self awareness than the other. It would seem for
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Speaker 2: all of his observations of the human's condition, he maybe
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Speaker 2: did not observe himself as much as he should have. Ah.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's I think that's an insightful point. I mean,
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Speaker 1: if we go back to type setting, we see that
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Speaker 1: his history as an up and coming type setter as
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Speaker 1: a printer's apprentice, which is just a wonderful phrase when
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Speaker 1: that is combined with his addiction to this American dream ideology.
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Speaker 1: He knows a typewriter is coming or something like it,
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Speaker 1: but he backs the wrong horse. He throws so much
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Speaker 1: money in a thing called the page compositor or page typesetter.
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Speaker 1: It weighs almost four tons, and it is able to.
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Speaker 1: It is able to, I think, do the labor six
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Speaker 1: times faster than early manual type setting.
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Speaker 2: It works. It's like the guy that's investing in a fancier,
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Speaker 2: more upgraded saddle when the car is right around the corner,
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Speaker 2: you know what I mean.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because he could have, you know, he could
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Speaker 1: have maybe put some money into the later, more successful
17:46
Speaker 1: version of the same idea or the multiple versions of that.
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Speaker 1: But yeah, he backed the wrong typewriter. And let's go
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Speaker 1: back to Time Magazine, a different article by Richard Zachs
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Speaker 1: thought we'd all enjoy this quotation. I don't know what
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Speaker 1: Richard Zax's voice sounds like.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna do it just in if we can
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Speaker 2: only split it up. It's a little bit long one.
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Speaker 2: I just do it in my own voice because I
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Speaker 2: think this is very insightful. When the machine worked, it
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Speaker 2: ran much faster than its rival. When it worked. Twain
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Speaker 2: was unfortunate enough to witness a successful trial on January fifth,
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Speaker 2: eighteen eighty nine, and sank his money into the company.
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Speaker 1: At first, Twain it called Page. That's the inventor who
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Speaker 1: would run through four different sets of backers. He called
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Speaker 1: Page the Shakespeare of mechanical invention.
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Speaker 2: Kind of funny that the guy's name was Page, the
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Speaker 2: page compositor nomin I mean, I just said, like, the
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Speaker 2: page compositor just sounds like kind of a dry name
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Speaker 2: for a typesetting machine. These are things that are composited
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Speaker 2: onto pages. Let mean to say it, it goes on
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Speaker 2: by the end. He fantasized about catching a certain part
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Speaker 2: of Page's anatomy in a steel trap and watching him
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Speaker 2: slowly bleed to death. Wow. I wonder how Twain himself
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Speaker 2: put it, because been one thing, I bet you in
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Speaker 2: his private time, Twain's had some very colorful language. Swore
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Speaker 2: like a sailor. I bet you, if he got mad,
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Speaker 2: he could rip you apart and say some pretty filthy stuff.
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Speaker 1: I've read so many of his statements with invention and
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Speaker 1: business deals gone wrong that I am persuaded. You can
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Speaker 1: make a pretty short but healthy compilation, like a book
19:33
Speaker 1: of just quotations of Mark Twain talking trash when things
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Speaker 1: went wrong. This is a writer, a guy who came
19:40
Speaker 1: up in print technology. He understood the vast horizon of
19:44
Speaker 1: democratizing the ability to write and distribute information, and yet
19:49
Speaker 1: still he fumbled the bag. He continued, He made a
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Speaker 1: publishing company speaking of bad decisions in eighteen eighty four.
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Speaker 1: He makes his own company kind of similar to you.
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Speaker 1: Remember how back in the day and even now a
20:04
Speaker 1: lot of musicians will get a record deal and then
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Speaker 1: attempt to form their own record label to get a
20:10
Speaker 1: bigger piece of the pie.
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Speaker 2: Well sure, I mean after I think a famous example,
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Speaker 2: whether it's that model exactly, would be Prince. He didn't
20:19
Speaker 2: exactly form his own record label, but he formed his
20:21
Speaker 2: own recording studio and demanded to own like the masters
20:25
Speaker 2: of his work. Yeah, it was smartin absolutelyis right, and
20:28
Speaker 2: also has led to the potential of a lot of
20:32
Speaker 2: amazing unheard Prince material that hopefully the world will get
20:36
Speaker 2: to here one day.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, And and Twain is making this publishing company partly
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Speaker 1: out of inspiration and wants to be a big businessman,
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Speaker 1: but partially I think because of Spike. He hires his
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Speaker 1: completely unqualified thirty three year old nephew, Charles L. Webster
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Speaker 1: and basically says, hey, you're in charge. We're naming this
20:59
Speaker 1: after you, so five the figurehead. Yeah. Charles L. Webster
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Speaker 1: and Twain does this entirely because he was convinced that
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Speaker 1: he had been screwed over by publishers for years. Like
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Speaker 1: he only got a five percent royalty on Innocence Abroad,
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Speaker 1: which was a breakout success. He was told that he
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Speaker 1: would be given half of all the profits on future books.
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Speaker 1: Never got it. Charles L. Webster and co. Started off
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Speaker 1: with two publications. They were The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S.
21:37
Speaker 1: Grant Max You'll Love This and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
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Speaker 1: One was a modest success, the other was a huge success.
21:46
Speaker 1: Can we guess which one was the huge success? Ridiculously
21:51
Speaker 1: the question who's buried in Grant's tomb? You are correct?
21:57
Speaker 1: You are You're correct? Nolan max NaNs memoirs racked up
22:02
Speaker 1: phenomenal sales because a lot of what they did to
22:06
Speaker 1: sell this, a lot of war veterans would go door
22:09
Speaker 1: to door and sell it on commission.
22:11
Speaker 2: So you're saying that Huck Finn in its day wasn't
22:15
Speaker 2: as successful and legendary as it went on to be.
22:19
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I mean also, I'm gonna walk out to
22:24
Speaker 1: the territories for this one. But you can see similar
22:28
Speaker 1: things happening with a lot of political publications, right, because
22:33
Speaker 1: a politician in the in the Western world almost always
22:38
Speaker 1: needs to have a book that appears to be written
22:41
Speaker 1: by them, and then their campaigns by it, or they
22:44
Speaker 1: mobilize a base to gin up the sales numbers. Anyway,
22:49
Speaker 1: Twain is happy with this. Yeah, so that seems like
22:52
Speaker 1: a pretty smart bet. I thought we were talking about
22:55
Speaker 1: business fails. Oh gosh, yeah, Okay, here's what happened. So
23:00
Speaker 1: gives the at the time the largest royalty check in
23:05
Speaker 1: all of American publishing history to Grant's widow, Julia Dent Grant,
23:11
Speaker 1: and then in the months to come they also write
23:14
Speaker 1: more checks to Grant's family, which breaks more publishing records.
23:20
Speaker 1: If we're looking at if we're looking at the money
23:24
Speaker 1: that Twain gets, he gets about two hundred grand for
23:28
Speaker 1: his work with Grant's Memoirs in Our Time. The way
23:34
Speaker 1: the math works out, is eleven million dollars for Grant's widow, Julia,
23:39
Speaker 1: and something like four point eight million for Mark Twain.
23:42
Speaker 1: And this is so much money. Like back around this time,
23:46
Speaker 1: if you're a coal miner, you make a dollar fifty
23:49
Speaker 1: a day.
23:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we were talking about forty bucks a week
23:52
Speaker 2: feeling like a decent wage, right, this is yeah, this
23:55
Speaker 2: is like Bill Gates's money.
23:57
Speaker 1: Here's why the company goes wrong. To your question, The
23:59
Speaker 1: publishing company has a floppity dop on a lot of
24:04
Speaker 1: their other books. They had a book by Pope Leo
24:08
Speaker 1: the thirteenth and they thought that was a surefire hit,
24:14
Speaker 1: and then later internally they said, and don't get mad
24:17
Speaker 1: at as folks we're quoting here. Later internally they said,
24:21
Speaker 1: we forgot how many Catholics can't read Wow, which outs
24:27
Speaker 1: kind of anti papist to me.
24:28
Speaker 2: It does, but it does seem to have been a
24:31
Speaker 2: gross miscalculation on their part. Twain also, don't get mad
24:35
Speaker 2: us for this. Twain's words, He referred to the company
24:37
Speaker 2: as a lingering suicide, not particularly confident words there. It
24:43
Speaker 2: does not bode well for this publishing venture, yeah, and
24:47
Speaker 2: it doesn't bode well for his other adventures.
24:49
Speaker 1: Noel, could you tell us a little bit about the
24:53
Speaker 1: other stuff that he unwisely invested in.
24:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's just a real a set writing and losing money.
25:01
Speaker 2: He lost money on an engraving process, not a business,
25:05
Speaker 2: but once again betting on the wrong horse, on a
25:09
Speaker 2: magnetic telegraph, on a something called a steam pulley, which
25:14
Speaker 2: I didn't know we needed that, I guess. So it
25:16
Speaker 2: seems like the pulley is one thing, and then a
25:18
Speaker 2: steam like a motor or an engine, is another thing.
25:21
Speaker 2: But he wanted to combine them. So don't guess it
25:23
Speaker 2: didn't take because I've never heard of such a thing.
25:25
Speaker 2: Also the Fredonio watch company, once again not a household
25:31
Speaker 2: name in this day. And also on railroad stocks, the
25:37
Speaker 2: railroad being such a how could you lose on the
25:38
Speaker 2: rail betting on the railroad? That seems like that would
25:42
Speaker 2: take some skill to lose at that, right, I ate
25:45
Speaker 2: the wrong bets, the wrong companies. I guess he just
25:48
Speaker 2: backed the wrong Maybe he must have put money into
25:50
Speaker 2: a railroad company that folded because there was so much competition.
25:53
Speaker 1: He also had an opportunity to buy early stock and
25:57
Speaker 1: Bell Telephone, which would go on to become you know.
26:01
Speaker 2: The Everything Company, I mean, right, yeah.
26:03
Speaker 1: Right, and he didn't buy it to it. But he's
26:06
Speaker 1: super into telephones. I didn't know this until visiting the
26:10
Speaker 1: Mark Twain house in Hartford, but he had one of
26:13
Speaker 1: the nation's first home telephones. How could you be that yeah,
26:18
Speaker 1: a hoy hoy, indeed, how could you be that aware
26:20
Speaker 1: of the technology? And also miss on Bell anyway, So,
26:25
Speaker 1: as a result of all these unfortuitous investments, it becomes
26:31
Speaker 1: untenable for the Clemens family to live in their fancy
26:35
Speaker 1: Hartford home. And just like when his parents moved from Florida,
26:40
Speaker 1: Missouri to Hannibal in eighteen ninety one, the Twain family moves,
26:46
Speaker 1: or the Clemens family moves in. Twain sells the house
26:49
Speaker 1: at a loss, just.
26:51
Speaker 2: For a fraction of what he paid for, so Mega
26:54
Speaker 2: lost there as well. Then in eighteen ninety four, surprise, surprise,
26:59
Speaker 2: Mark Twain follows in the path his father trod and
27:04
Speaker 2: declares bankruptcy. I don't think I don't know that this
27:07
Speaker 2: father declared bankruptcy, but it certainly feels like he forged
27:10
Speaker 2: a path that was like a ten x version of
27:13
Speaker 2: what his father did, simply because of how much means
27:16
Speaker 2: he had that he It's hard to say squandered, because
27:19
Speaker 2: it's not like he was like drinking it away or
27:22
Speaker 2: gambling exactly. But investment after a certain point, if you're
27:26
Speaker 2: really bad at it, is about as bad as gambling.
27:29
Speaker 2: It's that addiction that you referred to. Ben.
27:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe you're right there. I do see a thematic parallel,
27:38
Speaker 1: like we're saying with the father and the son. He
27:41
Speaker 1: has a lot of friends, of course, and one of
27:44
Speaker 1: his friends is a guy who's really good at money,
27:47
Speaker 1: Henry H. Rogers of Standard Oil. They stuck around her
27:51
Speaker 1: to them, so Henry is okay. Back in this time,
27:55
Speaker 1: filing for bankruptcy was called assignment. A month before Mark Twain,
28:02
Speaker 1: Samuel Clemens files for bankruptcy, Henry H. Rogers, his buddy,
28:08
Speaker 1: who's a really good money guy, says, here's what you
28:11
Speaker 1: gotta do. You got to shift all of your assets
28:15
Speaker 1: to your wife's name, Okay, and then we're going to
28:20
Speaker 1: figure out our next plan, because you sam owe eighty
28:25
Speaker 1: thousand dollars to a bunch of people, and if we
28:29
Speaker 1: get inflation, Yeah, eighty thousand dollars in.
28:32
Speaker 2: Debt today is not great. It's quite bad, in fact,
28:38
Speaker 2: but yeah, shall we inflation calculator.
28:40
Speaker 1: It guys, boop boop boop. Yeah, so eighty thousand dollars
28:47
Speaker 1: in eighteen ninety four money is equal to a dude
28:53
Speaker 1: two million, nine hundred and twenty eight, three hundred and
28:56
Speaker 1: thirty four dollars and eighty eight cents in twenty twenty four.
29:00
Speaker 2: Okay, it's still not quite at the bank has a
29:03
Speaker 2: problem levels Yeah, but still this st this ain't good. Yeah,
29:08
Speaker 2: it's definitely Twain's problem. And of course referring to the
29:10
Speaker 2: idea that if you owe the bank a million dollars,
29:13
Speaker 2: it's your problem. If you owe the bank a billion dollars,
29:16
Speaker 2: it's the bank's.
29:17
Speaker 1: Problem, and the public opinion turns against them. They're headlines
29:28
Speaker 1: saying Mack Twade is ruined and failure of Marck Twage.
29:33
Speaker 1: He gets called a boy boy. What was that thing
29:37
Speaker 1: from mischievous? You're sickly, mischievous.
29:40
Speaker 2: Overgrown boy. Yeah, he is in business. When lawyer snipes
29:46
Speaker 2: just a big overgrown boy, he gracefully left out the
29:50
Speaker 2: sickly and mischievous bit, but frankly those are sort of
29:54
Speaker 2: irrelevant in this context. Isn't that weird? Though?
29:56
Speaker 1: Because we see this pattern again with modern American celebrities.
30:02
Speaker 1: The public wants someone raised high and then laid low
30:08
Speaker 1: and worshiped only.
30:10
Speaker 2: A million percent in their time. You know, so many
30:13
Speaker 2: great artists, painters, writers, composers, they do not. They're grinding
30:18
Speaker 2: it out man, you know, like to get by, to
30:21
Speaker 2: scrape a living, and then only after their death and
30:25
Speaker 2: reassessments of their work are they revered.
30:28
Speaker 1: But what do you what do you I agree? What
30:30
Speaker 1: do you think though about this idea that the American
30:35
Speaker 1: public wants to see a celebrity fall?
30:38
Speaker 2: Oh a million percent? Dude, We're trained for it. I
30:41
Speaker 2: mean with all these reality shows, and I mean honestly,
30:43
Speaker 2: the reality shows and that whole thing is really just
30:46
Speaker 2: giving the people what they want. You know, Historically, before
30:50
Speaker 2: any of that stuff, we've seen just the idea of
30:53
Speaker 2: even like things like gladiator battles. You know, like people
30:57
Speaker 2: want blood, they have a thirst for it, and they
31:00
Speaker 2: want to see great men, great individuals, figures fall from
31:06
Speaker 2: grace because it makes them feel better about their lot
31:09
Speaker 2: in life. A lot of times.
31:10
Speaker 1: Uh, okay, I think you've added That's what I was
31:14
Speaker 1: looking for. You added the missing piece of the puzzle there,
31:17
Speaker 1: because for me, like I understand the pattern and the trend.
31:21
Speaker 1: I didn't understand the motivation, but I think that does
31:25
Speaker 1: make sense. Nol and Twayne is taking this on the chin.
31:29
Speaker 1: He is well aware how it must have stung. This
31:32
Speaker 1: probably contributes a lot to his contankerous, curmudgeonly nature later on.
31:38
Speaker 1: But his buddy Henry, that's why you get by with
31:40
Speaker 1: a little help from your friends. His buddy Henry has
31:43
Speaker 1: a pitch for him, and he says, Sam Clemens.
31:47
Speaker 2: I got you man.
31:48
Speaker 1: You want to make some money fast. You don't need
31:51
Speaker 1: to waste your time on inventions and silver mines and
31:55
Speaker 1: newspaper gigs. We got to get you on the road.
31:58
Speaker 1: Let's do a live show. And so, despite health problems,
32:01
Speaker 1: on Henry's advice, Samuel Clements, Mark Twain does one hundred
32:06
Speaker 1: and twenty two shows in a world tour across seventy
32:10
Speaker 1: one cities Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa. He uses
32:15
Speaker 1: the money to pay his debts, his public opinion tied,
32:19
Speaker 1: his turns, his former critics are praising him.
32:23
Speaker 2: I do love that, honestly, because I mean I'm a
32:26
Speaker 2: fan of the guy, you know, and obviously his legacy,
32:30
Speaker 2: whatever checkered you know, parts of his body of work,
32:33
Speaker 2: you know, might exist is really really important. And then
32:36
Speaker 2: he definitely set the tone for a lot of very
32:39
Speaker 2: very important pop culture and incredible comedians and just the idea.
32:43
Speaker 2: And he sort of in a lot of ways invented
32:47
Speaker 2: modern satire in many ways.
32:49
Speaker 1: I would argue, yeah, heh here's the thing though. No,
32:53
Speaker 1: he went back to the casino. Of course he did.
32:57
Speaker 2: He can't keep him away this guy, especially after a
33:01
Speaker 2: win like that, and a guy who seems to get
33:04
Speaker 2: high on his own supply a little bit in terms
33:06
Speaker 2: of ego, kind of pushing him to maybe have a
33:09
Speaker 2: little bit of delusions of grandeur. Yeah, it would make
33:13
Speaker 2: sense that he would hit back at that dopamine casino.
33:15
Speaker 1: Yeah. He poured a lot of money into a protein
33:20
Speaker 1: powder called plasmon, and he said, this gives you. He believed,
33:27
Speaker 1: based on the pitches that have formed his investment, that plasmon,
33:32
Speaker 1: derived from dairy products could deliver sixteen times the nutritional
33:36
Speaker 1: value of a steak at a cost of a penny
33:39
Speaker 1: a day. And he is quoted as saying, you know,
33:42
Speaker 1: when he was excited about it, that this could end
33:45
Speaker 1: the famine in India.
33:47
Speaker 2: Okay, heart in the right place. And one could also
33:50
Speaker 2: argue a little ahead of his time. Protein powders are huge,
33:53
Speaker 2: It's some billion dollar industry. Things like soy lns even,
33:57
Speaker 2: or like the kind of stuff that folks drink when
33:59
Speaker 2: they go to the gym, you know, like protein shirts
34:01
Speaker 2: or whatever. So I don't think that was a booming
34:04
Speaker 2: industry at this time. So one could argue he was
34:06
Speaker 2: just maybe a little early to the game in this case.
34:09
Speaker 2: And there's a couple in this list that you made
34:12
Speaker 2: then of inventions and kind of rackets that he attempted
34:16
Speaker 2: to get into that I could also fit into that
34:18
Speaker 2: category of being maybe a little ahead of its time. Yeah.
34:22
Speaker 1: The thing is Mark Twain. He put about thirty grand
34:27
Speaker 1: in his day or north of seven hundred and fifty
34:31
Speaker 1: thousand today into plasma and they became so they were fraudulent.
34:36
Speaker 1: They became the subject of a fraud trial in nineteen
34:39
Speaker 1: o seven, and Twain said the company president should be
34:44
Speaker 1: paid three dollars a century. And Twain called him, you'll
34:48
Speaker 1: love this stallion in intention a unuch in action?
34:55
Speaker 2: What yeah, oh yeah, yeah, I packed out a stallion
34:59
Speaker 2: And okay, so he's just saying it's neutered or whatever.
35:02
Speaker 1: He's like, Yeah, this guy talks big and he he's
35:06
Speaker 1: gotten old dick. And so the judge asked Twayne if
35:12
Speaker 1: this is the first time he's been swindled in business,
35:15
Speaker 1: and he says, no, my first rodeo. He literally says,
35:19
Speaker 1: I've been swindled out of more money than that is.
35:22
Speaker 2: Hold the planet yard. Oh I see, I say, I say,
35:25
Speaker 2: I say he does.
35:28
Speaker 1: So, you know, this is a two part series for us.
35:32
Speaker 1: But there are a couple of things, like you were saying,
35:34
Speaker 1: we've got this list that we wanted to talk about,
35:38
Speaker 1: just to give you a sense of all the stuff, uh,
35:42
Speaker 1: all the stuff that he took a swing and a
35:44
Speaker 1: miss on.
35:45
Speaker 2: Yeah. Man, when I was kind of half joking when
35:47
Speaker 2: I said that a couple of these other ones were
35:49
Speaker 2: ahead of their time, because the one that popped to
35:51
Speaker 2: me immediately is called the vaporizer, and I'm like, he
35:54
Speaker 2: would have been huge. Vapes are everywhere, you know, that's
35:57
Speaker 2: not what this is. Much more of an old timing
36:00
Speaker 2: kind of vaporizer essentially designed to I think, like absorb
36:07
Speaker 2: steam from a furnace. Okay, so it was an engine
36:11
Speaker 2: or a furnace or something of that. Kind which would
36:14
Speaker 2: get out ninety nine percent of all the steam that
36:16
Speaker 2: was in a pound of coal, but.
36:19
Speaker 1: A better process for burning coal.
36:21
Speaker 2: For burning coal okay, but apparently much like the type
36:25
Speaker 2: setting machine that he invested in, on a good day
36:28
Speaker 2: it would work, but most of the time it just didn't.
36:31
Speaker 2: So this one didn't do. Y, yeah, promise. We talked
36:35
Speaker 2: about the steam pulley, whatever the frick that is. I
36:38
Speaker 2: believe we mentioned the engraving process, but here's some more
36:41
Speaker 2: info on that. The Koala type. You know, I like
36:45
Speaker 2: that better. I this is COOLO type, COWLO type.
36:49
Speaker 1: And it doesn't matter really because it didn't work. Right.
36:52
Speaker 2: What was the idea though? We talked about it being
36:54
Speaker 2: like a way of revolutionizing or removing some of the
36:58
Speaker 2: hard labor parts of type setting.
37:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, the issue and that's like the similar to the
37:03
Speaker 1: page page compositor. Twain believed this would annihilate and sweep
37:10
Speaker 1: out of existence one of the minor industries of civilization
37:13
Speaker 1: and take its place. Turns out he.
37:17
Speaker 2: Got got it was literally a scam. It was literally
37:21
Speaker 2: a scam. That's the thing, man. Some of these it's like,
37:23
Speaker 2: you know, you bet on the wrong horse. Things don't
37:25
Speaker 2: pan out, but bro definitely got taken. He's got full
37:29
Speaker 2: of times.
37:30
Speaker 1: So solar Bridge. He also tried to market coca leaves
37:36
Speaker 1: as a kind of predecessor to an energy drinker, and
37:40
Speaker 1: once again, it's huge.
37:42
Speaker 2: But today everyone loves cocaine. It's really popular. It's really
37:46
Speaker 2: popular stuff.
37:47
Speaker 1: So his plan fizzled when there were no ships that
37:51
Speaker 1: would sail to South America for Oh there would be soon, right,
37:57
Speaker 1: and homemade submarines. We mentioned plasma, but we haven't mentioned Oh,
38:01
Speaker 1: maybe this is a nice way to end. No, did
38:04
Speaker 1: you know one of Twain's close friends was Nikola Tesla.
38:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, you had mentioned that to me off Mike. He
38:11
Speaker 2: also was buddies with Thomas Edison, so definitely, you know,
38:15
Speaker 2: he was that level of luminary that he was keeping
38:18
Speaker 2: company with some pretty important people. But there's a great
38:21
Speaker 2: Tesla story that I think is wonderful for us to
38:24
Speaker 2: end on today.
38:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, agreed. So we know you and I have
38:31
Speaker 1: you and I have laid out the broad strokes of
38:33
Speaker 1: Twain's fascination with big ideas and innovation. He's visiting New
38:39
Speaker 1: York in the eighteen nineties and this is where he
38:41
Speaker 1: befriends Nicola Tesla because Nikola Tesla, also a sickly mischievous child,
38:49
Speaker 1: was recoll Yeah, was on death's door back in the
38:53
Speaker 1: eighteen seventies before he came over to the United States,
38:58
Speaker 1: And while he was calm, blessing, he read a lot
39:01
Speaker 1: of books by Mark Twain and he loved them. And
39:04
Speaker 1: he said, the stories, the stuff that you write, it's
39:08
Speaker 1: so captivating. It made me quote utterly forget my hopeless state.
39:14
Speaker 2: Bro. Can I just say that is at his heart
39:18
Speaker 2: the goal of great writing, wouldn't you say, Or of
39:21
Speaker 2: entertainment in general.
39:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, to be in another world, if only for a time.
39:26
Speaker 1: And so Tesla and Twain get together. They hang out
39:31
Speaker 1: on the regular. You can see photographs of Twain in
39:34
Speaker 1: Tesla's lab, even participating in experiments because we are full
39:40
Speaker 1: grown adults. This story that Nola and I are talking
39:44
Speaker 1: about here, the one they captured us, is, according to
39:49
Speaker 1: a couple of anecdotes, Tesla used his technology to cure
39:54
Speaker 1: Twain of constipation.
39:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, he just vibrated that stuff right out of him, right,
40:00
Speaker 2: didn't He hang out on an electro mechanical oscillator, which
40:03
Speaker 2: is essentially like generates high frequency vibrations or whatever. No, yeah,
40:10
Speaker 2: it was. It was generated high frequency AC current that's redundant.
40:15
Speaker 2: That's like saying ATM machine alternating current, and it would
40:19
Speaker 2: cause a plate to vibrate. It was known as an
40:22
Speaker 2: earthquake machine, and it shook, rattled and rolled the poops
40:25
Speaker 2: right out of Old Samuel Clemens's But.
40:28
Speaker 1: Which is what better basis for friendship? Because god, they
40:37
Speaker 1: they uh he got Tesla got invited to go to
40:41
Speaker 1: Twain's daughter's wedding and stuff. They were they were.
40:44
Speaker 2: Definitely bring the earthquake machine, like like let let the
40:47
Speaker 2: let the wedding get s try.
40:49
Speaker 1: There we go. We first we're doing carry okay, then
40:52
Speaker 1: we're doing the earthquake machine.
40:54
Speaker 2: It was that era's form of gooning.
40:56
Speaker 1: Oh god, I still man, you keep freaking up. I
41:00
Speaker 1: still don't fully want to understand it.
41:02
Speaker 2: It's like edging. Great, We're a family show the next Yeah,
41:08
Speaker 2: y'all don't google any of this stuff.
41:11
Speaker 1: Also, uh, this is the end of our two part
41:14
Speaker 1: series on Mark Twain and how he's cartoonishly bad at investing.
41:19
Speaker 1: We have other stuff we'd love to explore about Mark
41:22
Speaker 1: Twain in the future. As we know. I gotta tell
41:25
Speaker 1: you I found and I'm gonna bug folks on stuff
41:29
Speaker 1: they once you know about this. I found the best
41:31
Speaker 1: palindrome I learned recently, and I thought of you, would
41:35
Speaker 1: you like to hear it?
41:36
Speaker 2: Yeah?
41:36
Speaker 1: Please satan oscillate my metallic sonatas. How did that not
41:42
Speaker 1: make it into long legs?
41:44
Speaker 2: How did satan magnetics?
41:50
Speaker 1: And yes itallics? But I love these? Yeah, but that's
41:57
Speaker 1: just goes to show we have adventures ahead?
42:00
Speaker 2: Do we have?
42:00
Speaker 1: What a right big big thanks for our super producer,
42:04
Speaker 1: mister Max Williams.
42:05
Speaker 2: Who else will oh, Alex wallashose this bang in bop
42:09
Speaker 2: of a theme that you're bopping to right this very second.
42:13
Speaker 2: We just know it's true. Jonathan Strickland, the quiztor, aj Bahamas,
42:18
Speaker 2: Jacobs the Puzzler.
42:20
Speaker 1: Christopher rossiotis Eves Jeffcoat who is on the road I
42:25
Speaker 1: think pretty soon and here in spirit and here in
42:28
Speaker 1: spirit of course, so say we all, as well as
42:32
Speaker 1: our pal Matt Frederick who made a cameo in Max
42:34
Speaker 1: with the Facts, and Rachel Big Spinach, Lance and Noel.
42:39
Speaker 1: Thanks to you, we can visit the Mark Twain House
42:42
Speaker 1: a museum any old time you want.
42:44
Speaker 2: Bro, I would love to. And thanks to you for
42:46
Speaker 2: assembling such a thoughtful and educational research dossier on mister
42:52
Speaker 2: Samuel Clements aka Josh aka Mark twentieth.
42:57
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, shout out to josh.
43:00
Speaker 2: See you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
43:10
Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
43:14
Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.