Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Well well, well,
Speaker 1: looks like it's time for another con job. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History. I'm Ben. He's in a long conn or
Speaker 1: a short con. It's a big con. It's a you know.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, I didn't bring this up
Speaker 1: with you guys yet, but I have a question for you,
Speaker 1: super producer, Casey Pegrum. I'm listening. Do you guys think
Speaker 1: that we do stories about con artists often enough that
Speaker 1: we should get a sound cue for like a con job?
Speaker 1: And if so, what would it be? Well, there's the
Speaker 1: there's the class sick done done done, which seems like
Speaker 1: a dastardly kind of sound effect, you know, like a
Speaker 1: snidely whiplash type figure. There's a money sound to, like
Speaker 1: a change register or something, you know, a stack these
Speaker 1: sound effects. Baby, sure, uh yeah. Cons Today's episodes about
Speaker 1: particularly uh dastardly um and effective con artist who went
Speaker 1: by the nickname Big Bertha. You know, it comes to
Speaker 1: my mind when I think of Big Bertha. I don't
Speaker 1: know circuses, well, circuses, but I don't know case if
Speaker 1: you remember this, but arcades of my youth, there was
Speaker 1: a machine called Big Bertha, or you throw like a
Speaker 1: ball into this like puppety large woman's mouth, kind of
Speaker 1: a cob and very bizarre. And I never played it
Speaker 1: because it just didn't seem like much fun. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: all coming back to me. It was always in the
Speaker 1: back of the arcade, actually the ski ball machines, because
Speaker 1: it was one of those big, you know, robotic type machines.
Speaker 1: You guys have messed up childhood. Well that's accurate, but yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I think of. And I was not aware
Speaker 1: of the legacy of Bertha Hayman. Yes, So nowadays the
Speaker 1: term big Bertha is used to describe an example of
Speaker 1: a piece of equipment. Right. In World War One, there
Speaker 1: was this huge cannon that the German forces used, Uh,
Speaker 1: this would destroy otherwise invincible forts, and it was called
Speaker 1: big Bertha. And now there are some other things named
Speaker 1: big Bertha. Right, the world's largest earth moving machine is
Speaker 1: called big Bertha, like a back ho uh times a million, yeah,
Speaker 1: a mega dozer. And in the eighteen hundreds, big Bertha
Speaker 1: specifically described this woman who is known as the Confidence
Speaker 1: Queen or Bertha Hayman. She was born Bertha Schlessinger in
Speaker 1: Prussia and She came to the US in eighteen seventy eight.
Speaker 1: We're getting a lot of the US from a interesting
Speaker 1: book by a guy named Thomas Byrne, Professional Criminals of America.
Speaker 1: She married twice, once in New York and then again
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin, and her name Hayman comes from her second husband,
Speaker 1: John Hayman. According to all the reports of the time,
Speaker 1: she was not you know, your stereotypical beauty queen or supermodel,
Speaker 1: but she was incredibly intensely charismatic. Yeah, it's true, ben Um.
Speaker 1: She played on people's uh baser, you know, qualities like
Speaker 1: hubris and greed and just general awfulness kinda. So it's
Speaker 1: interesting she almost becomes something of like a folk hero
Speaker 1: in my mind anyway, where she kind of gives people
Speaker 1: their come upance, because if you're exhibiting those behaviors and
Speaker 1: maybe you deserve to have your your pocket lightened a
Speaker 1: little bit. Yeah, there's this, there's this very American romanticization
Speaker 1: of con artists, you know what I mean. We like
Speaker 1: the mav Rick. We like the idea of somebody living
Speaker 1: by their wits, and then especially we liked the idea
Speaker 1: of people getting their come up. It's for following their
Speaker 1: baser instincts. Right, being greedy gets somebody built, or you know,
Speaker 1: being covetous gets someone swindled. So there's this, there's this
Speaker 1: interesting victim blaming thing. We're like, wow, yeah, and I
Speaker 1: lost a hundred bucks. But they deserved it, you know,
Speaker 1: Uh so shame on them. Bertha Hayman was no exception
Speaker 1: because people did romanticize her a little bit. And her
Speaker 1: story is very interesting. We're not gonna spoil it yet,
Speaker 1: but we want you to know this takes a weird
Speaker 1: turn towards the end. So she first got the attention
Speaker 1: of NYPD in the eighteen seventies. Newspapers instantly recognized that
Speaker 1: she would be She would make for good headlines, right,
Speaker 1: she would move some copies, and the newspapers began calling
Speaker 1: her Big Bertha, and they had some unkind descriptions of her.
Speaker 1: It is not age well, the paper was quoted and
Speaker 1: describing her as forty years of age, decidedly ugly and
Speaker 1: weighing two hundred and fifty pounds uh and and was
Speaker 1: constantly taking cheap pot shots at her her weight, describing
Speaker 1: her at times as elephantine, which I think is a
Speaker 1: cute word. It makes me think of a small elephant,
Speaker 1: you know, an elephantine, like a teeny elephant. But no,
Speaker 1: that is not what that means. It means large, like
Speaker 1: an elephant. Or um. They would compare her to a battleship,
Speaker 1: and I really love this description from Alice Obscia. They
Speaker 1: say that she was built like a tank. But what
Speaker 1: she lacked in society approved feminine wiles, she more than
Speaker 1: made up within charisma, and she had an m o
Speaker 1: an emo that she was quite proud of. She would
Speaker 1: claim to be a fabulously wealthy woman who was just
Speaker 1: for one reason or another, having trouble getting to her
Speaker 1: funds in the held up in court, held up in
Speaker 1: a bank, et cetera. And all she would need is
Speaker 1: a kind male stranger to lend her a little bit
Speaker 1: of money, and she would use that to access her
Speaker 1: state and then pay them back handsomely. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like a Nigerian prince scheme or a predecessor thereof that's right.
Speaker 1: There's one account on criminals Revised dot blog that's pretty great. Um.
Speaker 1: In one situation, she was on the way from New
Speaker 1: York Chicago and she struck up a conversation with the
Speaker 1: train conductor and you know, sticking to this that this
Speaker 1: ruse her go to Ruse. She convinced him that she
Speaker 1: had lots of assets that needed management. This is kind
Speaker 1: of a little bit of a variation on on the
Speaker 1: basic con um but that she had assets that were
Speaker 1: in need of management, and she literally convinced him to
Speaker 1: quit his job and take over managing her estate. But first,
Speaker 1: before you know, she could give him this amazing opportunity,
Speaker 1: she was in need of a little bit of cash
Speaker 1: to float her to settle some legal matters. So it's
Speaker 1: the bait and switch, right, I mean, it's literally like, hey,
Speaker 1: look over here, here's this great thing. And then while
Speaker 1: you're looking over here and thinking about all the great
Speaker 1: things that can happen to you, you're not thinking about
Speaker 1: the fact that it's odd that this supposedly rich person
Speaker 1: is asking you for a thousand dollar loane in cash
Speaker 1: to settle some matters. I'm doing hard quote fingers right now. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And furthermore, for her, this wasn't just a job. We
Speaker 1: get the sense that conning people was a craft to her,
Speaker 1: a work of art. She told a police chief in
Speaker 1: Jersey City in eight three that she preferred to target
Speaker 1: men who should know better. The moment I discover a
Speaker 1: man's a fool, I let him drop, she said. But
Speaker 1: I delight in getting into the confidence and pockets of
Speaker 1: men who think they can't be skinned. It ministers to
Speaker 1: my intellectual pride. We should also know she got arrested
Speaker 1: tons of times, and and that's that that train conductor
Speaker 1: story just just to wrap that up, and it gets
Speaker 1: us to where we're going. The guy's name was Mr
Speaker 1: parrin and he totally did the thing, gave her the money,
Speaker 1: and then when they got to New York, she just
Speaker 1: camped out in all these like luxury hotels and spent
Speaker 1: all the money running up the bills, and then hired
Speaker 1: a lawyer to to you know, to take her case
Speaker 1: because she knew what was coming. But even the lawyer
Speaker 1: like she, she didn't pay him either. So her own
Speaker 1: lawyer ended up like teaming up essentially with Mr parrin
Speaker 1: Um who was the conductor, and they took legal action
Speaker 1: against her to recover the money that she had borrowed
Speaker 1: and also for the unpaid uh legal fees. This arrest
Speaker 1: um is what led her husband, John Hayman to fly
Speaker 1: the coop because he was he'd had enough and what
Speaker 1: year was that? That was eight? Yeah, perfect, because we're
Speaker 1: building this timeline of a master criminals career because um,
Speaker 1: this this occurred while she had been drifting around New York, right,
Speaker 1: she was stealing watches, she was forging checks. Uh, and
Speaker 1: then she was in and out of the penitentiary in
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty one, she was leaving court because she had
Speaker 1: been acquitted on a charge of theft when she was
Speaker 1: arrested by New York detectives and charged with scamming New
Speaker 1: York businessman. And then she went to prison for two years.
Speaker 1: So she almost got away, almost got acquitted of one crime,
Speaker 1: but was locked away for two years due to an
Speaker 1: unrelated con And even when she was in jail, she
Speaker 1: was conning people. In the early eighteen eighties, while she
Speaker 1: was locked up on black Wells Island, Bertha befriended and
Speaker 1: conned the guy out of his life savings about nine
Speaker 1: hundred dollars worth. That's that's the equivalent of over twenty
Speaker 1: thou dollars today. And then when she got out of jail,
Speaker 1: she did not turn over new leaf, She did not
Speaker 1: learn anything. She just went back to conning people and
Speaker 1: she expands her her sphere of operations, maybe the too
Speaker 1: much heat in New York. Our next Bertha escapade takes
Speaker 1: place in San Francisco, so she basically was like on
Speaker 1: the lamb, she had to flee the scene, she was
Speaker 1: persona non gratto, any other numbers of hyperbolic things that
Speaker 1: I could call her right now, but it's sure she
Speaker 1: did turn up in San Francisco in um. And in
Speaker 1: this particular story she actually cons a man of God,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, I don't know, maybe he maybe
Speaker 1: he did something bad, maybe he deserved this come up,
Speaker 1: And I don't know. I think it's possible that that
Speaker 1: is less important than it is to her, just to
Speaker 1: you know, get paid. So when she gets to San
Speaker 1: Francisco in eight she finds this rabbi of the Beth
Speaker 1: Israel Congregation and introduces herself as Bertha Stanley and says
Speaker 1: that she, you know, he starts with the same kind
Speaker 1: of gimmick. I'm a widow of wealth and uh as
Speaker 1: looking for a nice Jewish husband. Um. The rabbi's name,
Speaker 1: by the way, was Dr aj Messing, and he and
Speaker 1: Bertha had been acquainted from from Prussia from back in
Speaker 1: the Old Country during her childhood Yeah, so she is
Speaker 1: buttering up this guy, and she tells this rabbi that
Speaker 1: she's inherited three grand, which is around six million dollars
Speaker 1: more in today's cash. Uh. And she got this from
Speaker 1: her husband, and her husband was Christian. But she told
Speaker 1: the rabbi she wanted her next marriage to be with
Speaker 1: someone of the Jewish faith. So she decided she was
Speaker 1: going to offer one thousand dollars to anyone who could
Speaker 1: help her find an acceptable Jewish husband. And so the
Speaker 1: rabbi steps in and he introduces her to a fellow
Speaker 1: named Abraham Grun And you know, again back to the charisma,
Speaker 1: which she had copious amounts. I was just using with
Speaker 1: charisma despite her Uh is what we say homely is
Speaker 1: that is that unkind? It's better than elephantine. Oh and
Speaker 1: Elephantina wanted to add Elephantine is not just being large,
Speaker 1: it's also being awkward and clumsy. Someone a klutz, Yeah,
Speaker 1: a big clutz. Well, she clearly wasn't a klutz at
Speaker 1: least in terms of the way she orchestrated these uh,
Speaker 1: balletic feats of swindle ry swindle real word it is
Speaker 1: now um So yeah, this guy grew gruin grunman. What's
Speaker 1: his name? Grun grunt just adding syllables to everything today. Uh,
Speaker 1: falls madly in love with Bertha. She works her magic
Speaker 1: on him and he is eating out of her hand,
Speaker 1: in the palm of her hand wrapped around her finger
Speaker 1: and such. Yeah. So he proposes marriage shortly after, very quickly,
Speaker 1: very quickly, like Vegas style, quickly red flag. And he
Speaker 1: also says, I'm gonna adopt this young man accompanying you,
Speaker 1: your stepson, Willie Stanley. Wait, who she had another guy
Speaker 1: with her? The news is a new character, is a
Speaker 1: new audition. Yeah, will tell me about Willie. Willie Stanley
Speaker 1: was not in fact her stepside. Okay, just put that
Speaker 1: out there. Grind grind is you know he's head over heels,
Speaker 1: he's over the moon. Have you mentioned that he's he's
Speaker 1: pretty wealthy in his own right, and he's he's loaded.
Speaker 1: He's a you know, even back then San Francisco. You
Speaker 1: may remember in Deadwood that's where all the fancy men
Speaker 1: lived within the San Francisco and Woo called them San
Speaker 1: Francisco sea word. Uh, you check it out yourself. It's
Speaker 1: it's a it's a delightful show. San Francisco characters characters exactly.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you know, so he had quite a bit
Speaker 1: of wealth himself. And she, of course I knew this,
Speaker 1: I I I imagine how do you think she worked it?
Speaker 1: You know, because she couldn't determine who the rabbi would
Speaker 1: set her up with. Well, this is this is interesting
Speaker 1: because she can have more influence than maybe the rabbi
Speaker 1: would perceive. You know, there's always some valid reason, And
Speaker 1: if you're manipulating people's emotions, then you can always set
Speaker 1: up these emotional boundaries where no, I'm not okay with
Speaker 1: this guy because of a tragedy that happened, and it
Speaker 1: would be ungentlemanly and unseemly for you to ask me
Speaker 1: anymore about it. Not only that, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're asking a rabbi who you know from Childhoo
Speaker 1: to set you up with a um, a gentleman suitor,
Speaker 1: you know he the understanding would be would be someone
Speaker 1: who could take care of you, someone who could provide
Speaker 1: you know, who would be a candidate for marriage. Right. Also,
Speaker 1: Abraham Grunn, I don't know if we mentioned this part,
Speaker 1: was the brother in law of the rabbi. He was
Speaker 1: the brother in law of a j. Messing. Oh, the
Speaker 1: plot thickens, so as you say, man, as we've said,
Speaker 1: Bertha has absolutely charmed the pants off of Sam Francisco
Speaker 1: society through her her boy Grunt, and finds herself at
Speaker 1: the very top of the heap there in the Beth
Speaker 1: Israel congregation and she does something that he's key in
Speaker 1: a lot of confidence scams. She gives some money to
Speaker 1: the congregation as a gift, and I'm a I'm a dummy.
Speaker 1: She was posing as a very wealthy woman, so of
Speaker 1: course she would be set up with a very wealthy man,
Speaker 1: one of one of her station, right. And then so
Speaker 1: she gives him a check for one dollars and she
Speaker 1: says there's much much more to come. So people love
Speaker 1: this new mysterious widow Stanley, right. She also this this
Speaker 1: is where he gets interesting. She also tells her fiance Grun,
Speaker 1: you know, my stepson Willie is just kind of against
Speaker 1: this marriage. Um, could you do something? Could you talk
Speaker 1: to him? And so Grunt gives Willie five bucks, essentially
Speaker 1: pays them off, and then Willie says, okay, also, Mr Grun,
Speaker 1: let me see all those jewels that you have that
Speaker 1: you're going to give to my mom. I'd like to
Speaker 1: reset them in a way that she would appreciate. It
Speaker 1: will be a surprise from you and I and so.
Speaker 1: Abraham Grunn says, Okay, yeah, sounds good. It sounds nice.
Speaker 1: You know, it sounds like she's thoughtful thinking of others.
Speaker 1: You know, it sounds like Willie and Grunn have buried
Speaker 1: the hatchet. You're you're making a surprise for mom, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: She's really presenting that like doting wife kind of image
Speaker 1: very successfully. Then, of course, William Bertha take off, they
Speaker 1: fly the coope. Do we know much more about Willie?
Speaker 1: It was she She was just like her new partner,
Speaker 1: kind of in crime. But yeah, young enough to to
Speaker 1: appear to be her nephew. It's interesting because we don't
Speaker 1: know a ton about the guy called Willie Stanley. We
Speaker 1: do know that he may have been the same person
Speaker 1: as Dr je Combs. You may have assumed differ and
Speaker 1: identities depending on the con you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So maybe they had a working relationship, maybe they were related. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the record isn't entirely clear on that, but we do
Speaker 1: know that he was himself a confidence man. I guess
Speaker 1: they leaked up. Yeah, absolutely, and they absolutely leaked up
Speaker 1: together when they flew the coup from San Francisco to
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, only after lightning Mr Grunn's load of precious jewels.
Speaker 1: And then, of course that check bounced right As reported
Speaker 1: by the San Francisco Examiner, Abraham Grun becomes suspicious when
Speaker 1: that check, that one dollar Checkbirtha wrote to the congregation bounces.
Speaker 1: He visits Isaiah Le's Isaiah Lees at the time in
Speaker 1: San Francisco's Captain of Detectives Le's Here's grunt out listens
Speaker 1: to the story, notes important details, and something about this
Speaker 1: con seems familiar to him. So he reaches for a book,
Speaker 1: and in this book he turns to photograph number one
Speaker 1: two and he shows it to Abraham Grun. Is this
Speaker 1: the woman you're describing, he asked. Grunt is dumbfounded. He
Speaker 1: is in shock, and he slowly nods something to the
Speaker 1: tune of yes, that's that's my fiance. The book you
Speaker 1: see was Professional Criminals of America, the book we mentioned
Speaker 1: earlier by Thomas F. Burns, who was, by the way,
Speaker 1: the chief of detectives in New York City. The description
Speaker 1: that Grun found read Bertha Hayman, alias Big Bertha confidence queen.
Speaker 1: And can you imagine you're about to get married to
Speaker 1: this person, right, You've you've adopted their step son, and
Speaker 1: now you're learning that she has a rap sheet longer
Speaker 1: than the Mississippi, that she has been in and out
Speaker 1: of jail, and that you have been completely played. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not a good day. Now, what would why would
Speaker 1: what would you do? Ben? How would you feel? Would
Speaker 1: you have? Like? What what do you think would be
Speaker 1: going through your head in that situation? What revenge? Oh?
Speaker 1: If I'm one of those people, gosh, you know, I
Speaker 1: guess you'd have to be It's embarrassing. Sure, it's humiliating, right,
Speaker 1: but you would have to be happy that you did
Speaker 1: not actually lose your entire four just lost bucks and
Speaker 1: some jewels and some jewels. Yeah, no, it's true. And
Speaker 1: the embarrassing part is is key, I think because uh,
Speaker 1: not only this was a con that his whole friend
Speaker 1: group and upper echelon of the community that he was
Speaker 1: a member of would have been aware of. Probably not
Speaker 1: a good look. Everyone's gonna think he's a sucker now,
Speaker 1: right right. Yeah, it's a shame. And of course, uh
Speaker 1: grunt follows up with the police and the San Francisco
Speaker 1: police issue a warrant for Bertha's arrest. The heat gets
Speaker 1: to her and Willie. They leave l A, but they
Speaker 1: get captured in Texas. Right, that's right? And she uh this.
Speaker 1: This San Francisco Examiner piece describes her reaction as being outraged, innocence,
Speaker 1: righteous indignation is of what I like to say, um,
Speaker 1: And she really became kind of a darling in the
Speaker 1: public eye because of you know, kind of like Bonnie
Speaker 1: and Clyde. You know again that that whole idea of
Speaker 1: that victim blaming they were talking about where people worship
Speaker 1: batties because they they looked at as like Robin Hood
Speaker 1: esque figures, even though they're really kind of just center
Speaker 1: from themselves. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So this is where we
Speaker 1: see a very interesting twist. Bertha becomes a celebrity of
Speaker 1: sorts when they are arrested in Texas. Bertha is acquitted
Speaker 1: and Willie is found guilty in a trial that is
Speaker 1: surrounded by the paparazzi and lookye lose and so on.
Speaker 1: The judge apparently had a tough time forcing his way
Speaker 1: through the crowd to reach the bench. Willie goes up
Speaker 1: to San Quentin for a bit, and Bertha's story spreads
Speaker 1: across Sam Francisco, which leads a men named Ned Foster
Speaker 1: to make an introduction. You see, Ned Foster saw an
Speaker 1: opportunity in Bertha's strange celebrity or strange moment they would
Speaker 1: call it in the pr bizs and he said, Hey,
Speaker 1: you're great at you know, uh Connery or whatever, but
Speaker 1: why not check out show biz? And so Bertha ends
Speaker 1: up doing this is a true story, a one woman
Speaker 1: show for this with this guy. He bailed her out
Speaker 1: of jail in Texas. Yeah, he's basically like a promoter
Speaker 1: of sorts, like a showman. Um. And they launched a
Speaker 1: booking at the Woodwards Garden and eighteen thousand people came
Speaker 1: to see her her story um where she kind of
Speaker 1: presented herself as the victim. And uh, it's kind of
Speaker 1: like an epic poem I guess called the Confidence Queen.
Speaker 1: Would you like to would you bless us with a
Speaker 1: reading man? Oh? Shell? We okay. So when vain grasping
Speaker 1: men pants for glittering gold and find their bonanza in me,
Speaker 1: is it wicked to show up how badly they're sold?
Speaker 1: And the rogues that men can sometimes be. I think
Speaker 1: they lost a little bit of the meter at the end.
Speaker 1: But you see what they're doing. It's kind of romanticizing.
Speaker 1: They're they're doing exactly what we described at the very
Speaker 1: top of the show. Uh is selling that image even further,
Speaker 1: which I think is almost another act of con artistry
Speaker 1: in itself. Yes, a Creed agreed, and she gets booked
Speaker 1: at the Bellow Union. So now instead of getting booked
Speaker 1: by police, she's getting booked by promoters. And this is
Speaker 1: a big deal because at the time that Bellow Union
Speaker 1: is the most popular venue for music in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: There's a great way that the San Francisco Examiner puts this.
Speaker 1: She discovered her lack of talent was no barrier to popularity.
Speaker 1: We can relate to that a little too, a little
Speaker 1: too easily. She was paired with the of course, the
Speaker 1: world famous UFF personal favorite. Yeah, I'm sure we're all
Speaker 1: familiar with UFT. But just in case someone's been living
Speaker 1: under a rock all these years, No, who could you
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about Utah? He was like, uh,
Speaker 1: what Barbary Coast, which would be like a pirate situation, right, yeah? Uh?
Speaker 1: And he his his stick was that he was a
Speaker 1: human punching bag. Um, and they would do these boxing
Speaker 1: matches that were staged and Um, she would knock him out,
Speaker 1: you know, Mike Tyson punch out style. And then decided
Speaker 1: to take it a step further and add a little humor.
Speaker 1: Um and Foster thought it'd be really cute to cast
Speaker 1: them in a in a version of Romeo and Juliet. Oh,
Speaker 1: I should amend this real quick. The Barbary Coast that
Speaker 1: they're referring to is a red light district in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: Oh snap, Okay, so they they're pirates of a sort.
Speaker 1: But the main thing we need to know about this
Speaker 1: guy is that sexy pirates. Uh, you know, it depends
Speaker 1: on what you're into. There's something out there for everyone.
Speaker 1: In San Francisco is a big town. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: all on the table in San Francisco. That's in the
Speaker 1: red light district. That's what they say. What they say.
Speaker 1: It's But the most important thing to know about this
Speaker 1: this guy, this Barbary Coast character Ufti Goofti, is that
Speaker 1: he literally made a living by letting people beat the
Speaker 1: snot out of him for money. That's a weird. That's
Speaker 1: a weird gig to meet you know what? That feels like.
Speaker 1: That feels like an occupation someone would have in a
Speaker 1: French arthouse film. Sure does. Yeah you've seen that film, Casey.
Speaker 1: You know, I can't think of any French art house
Speaker 1: films off the top of my head. However, there's an
Speaker 1: unrealized harmony Korean project called Fight harm where he went
Speaker 1: out on the street with like a hidden camera and
Speaker 1: just try to go people into beating the crap out
Speaker 1: of him. Wow. Yeah, okay, and he filmed like two
Speaker 1: or three fights. I think he ended up in jail
Speaker 1: one time and and then decided the film was like
Speaker 1: impossible to complete because he was gonna be dead by
Speaker 1: the time he finished it. Casey on the Case Always Today,
Speaker 1: I learned something. Yeah, So it turns out this show
Speaker 1: is a hit, and soon Bertha is going on tour
Speaker 1: across the West coast, and she also has an open
Speaker 1: invitation to any men in the audience to try to
Speaker 1: wrestle her, and she generally knocks them out. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean she's the heavy no pun intended, and the heel.
Speaker 1: The heel. The heel is a bad guy in wrestling. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. She's you know, she's the big ticket,
Speaker 1: so she's a little beyond. She's in a very Nietzschean way.
Speaker 1: She is beyond the good and evil of wrestling. Oh,
Speaker 1: you had to stop with these nietzsche references. Anyhow, There's
Speaker 1: one more twist. It's not even really a twist, is it,
Speaker 1: because it's what we kind of expected her to do.
Speaker 1: She tells her manager that her suitcase has a false bottom,
Speaker 1: so it's got a hidden compartment. And that compartment, she says,
Speaker 1: contains ten thousand dollars worth of Canadian bonds and thousands
Speaker 1: of dollars in jewelry. She says, will you handle the
Speaker 1: sale for me? And they negotiate over the next few
Speaker 1: days how to move these bonds in this jewelry. And
Speaker 1: while they're doing that, Bertha is repeatedly borrowing just small
Speaker 1: sums of money from her manager. From Foster. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: the guy that gave her a new lease on life,
Speaker 1: the ability to kind of go straight, she ultimately totally
Speaker 1: betrayed him. Yeah yeah, uh con sound cue time. So uh.
Speaker 1: He agrees that he'll pay her six dollars US for
Speaker 1: the trunk, but before doing so, he sneaks into her
Speaker 1: room and their Foster discovers that the false bottom was
Speaker 1: itself false. It was a fake, fake bottom. So she
Speaker 1: burned that bridge. Looks like she burned a lot of bridges.
Speaker 1: But to her, she said that she didn't care about
Speaker 1: the money she made from the con jobs. She said
Speaker 1: she gave it away to needy people. But the record
Speaker 1: show that was also a lie. Like many card artists,
Speaker 1: she just robbed everyone she could and she kept as
Speaker 1: much as she could. And uh, you know, all through
Speaker 1: this research, I was like, gosh, I want to see
Speaker 1: this as a movie, and it's uh, it could well
Speaker 1: be a possibility. One of my favorite comedians and from
Speaker 1: one of the only podcasts that I listened to, how
Speaker 1: did this get made? Paul sheer Um has been seriously
Speaker 1: considering turning this into a film. Um He refers to
Speaker 1: her as a badass Khan woman who was not conventionally attractive,
Speaker 1: and then he sites The New York Times referring to
Speaker 1: her as Bertha is a stout, gross looking woman and
Speaker 1: it's difficult to imagine how she succeeded in ensnaring so
Speaker 1: many victims by appear us to their confidence. Um, I
Speaker 1: for a one would love to see Paul sheer tackle
Speaker 1: tackle this film, agreed, and I know that we are
Speaker 1: all collectively on the edge of our seats here wondering
Speaker 1: if we can hear more about OOFTI goof who I
Speaker 1: would like to see played by Willem Dafoe in this
Speaker 1: in this film. Uh. He was born in Berlin. His
Speaker 1: name was bord Art. Yeah, born in Berlin as Leonard
Speaker 1: or leon boord Charts, that's right, and really became a
Speaker 1: part of the San Francisco vaudeville scene, starting a four
Speaker 1: where he did a freak show where he played a
Speaker 1: kind of a stock character that you'd see in a
Speaker 1: lot of dime museums on market streets, some of which
Speaker 1: are still I think there actually is a coin music
Speaker 1: a coin operated arcade machine museum in San Francisco. You
Speaker 1: can go seet So. I don't know I'm geting the
Speaker 1: name right, but he played this wild man of borneo character,
Speaker 1: which is kind of like racist kind of Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a yeah, it's a great doably. Uh. They they painted
Speaker 1: him in glue, covered him in horse hair, and then
Speaker 1: he would grunt. After three weeks though he had to
Speaker 1: be hospitalized to get the fur and the glue off.
Speaker 1: That in this process, probably took some skin with it.
Speaker 1: That's how he got the name Oofti Goofty. He would
Speaker 1: regularly appear in local papers for his various antics. He
Speaker 1: drank six bottles of beer in six minutes with a
Speaker 1: teaspoon that he shipped himself to Sacramento in a box. Uh.
Speaker 1: He was in a bunch of weird contests and then
Speaker 1: you know, eventually he let people beat him blind for money,
Speaker 1: and then by nine he settled in Houston, where he disappears.
Speaker 1: It's true, um, but you know he left us with
Speaker 1: a with a pretty fantastic story. Um, as was the
Speaker 1: story of of Big Bertha. Yep, and this concludes our episode.
Speaker 1: But not real? Is this? Are you serious? We kind
Speaker 1: of asked for it, but no, but this happened in
Speaker 1: the last episode. Whatever, it's time, gentlemen, whoa, whoa, whoa?
Speaker 1: No fair? I did I did say that. Jonathan Strickland
Speaker 1: a k a. The Quister two episodes in a row,
Speaker 1: Lightning dust trick twice. How dare you welcome to ridiculous quisterry? Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm taking it all over. Every episode will have a
Speaker 1: quiz this segment. I can't back that up. I have
Speaker 1: to go out of town, but I thought perhaps I
Speaker 1: could at least join you for this subsequent episode since
Speaker 1: you were so very very confident at the end of
Speaker 1: our last meeting. Well you know, I mean, it was
Speaker 1: nice to have a little wine. And also it turns
Speaker 1: out the tally isn't that far off at this point.
Speaker 1: Two down to down fntin eleven, quister, and we know
Speaker 1: that thanks to you, Matthew. Now in a few Matthew,
Speaker 1: with one that happened, Casey found that for us. So
Speaker 1: we wanted to give you a specific shout out there, Matthew,
Speaker 1: thank you for tallying the score. We'll try to keep
Speaker 1: track of it, but we could only get to that
Speaker 1: point with your help. Speaking of uh, the opposite of help,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland a k the quister, Are we doing the
Speaker 1: thing again? We are? We are. I'm going to present
Speaker 1: to you a historical scenario, whereupon at the end you
Speaker 1: will have three minutes to decide whether I am giving
Speaker 1: a real moment in history or if I made it up.
Speaker 1: Seats and you will be able to ask me questions
Speaker 1: to clarify things, following a rule of our betray nature,
Speaker 1: which I will reveal to you after I do the scenario.
Speaker 1: Now we talked, I have a lawful in my throat.
Speaker 1: By the ways, it was really good for lawful, but
Speaker 1: it's a little dry. It's a good look for you. Yeah. Anyway,
Speaker 1: so you were talking about something of a scam artist,
Speaker 1: a con artist. So I thought I would follow that
Speaker 1: trend with a scenario about a pretender. Ready, I am uh,
Speaker 1: let me hang on. I was sitting on the whole seat.
Speaker 1: It's like, I'll just sit on the edge. Okay, I'm ready.
Speaker 1: Wallachia is best known to us as the principality that
Speaker 1: Vlad the Impaler, the inspiration for Dracula, ruled over in
Speaker 1: the mid fifteenth century, but it also has the distinction
Speaker 1: of being a region with the shortest rule on record.
Speaker 1: Petru the Third has that distinction of ruling Wallachia for
Speaker 1: only twelve minutes, leading Minute to say that he never
Speaker 1: really was the ruler of Wallachia at all, making him
Speaker 1: a pretender. At the time, Wallachia was in a state
Speaker 1: of civil war as numerous families vied for leadership, plus
Speaker 1: it was fending off attacks from the Ottoman Empire, and
Speaker 1: poor Petru the Third, who was both great grandson and you,
Speaker 1: great great nephew to Vlad the Impala inherited the position
Speaker 1: from his father Manea the Third, who was too ill
Speaker 1: to lead, But under tremendous pressure from numerous forces, Petrow
Speaker 1: the Third abdicated the position as soon as he could
Speaker 1: sign the document to do so. Later, loyalists would support
Speaker 1: Petrow the Third as rightful ruler, even though Petrow showed
Speaker 1: no signs of interest in ruling and was in fact
Speaker 1: locked safely away in another powerful family's prison. Now, your
Speaker 1: arbitrary rule is that if you wish to ask me
Speaker 1: a question, you must preface it with blood. Begin the timer.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, hey on, let me get a running start,
Speaker 1: all right, I forgot it's in the other room. You
Speaker 1: guys really need to get back into the other studio.
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure what happened, so alright, go go.
Speaker 1: Uh yes, Mr Berlin, but excuse me, what what time
Speaker 1: period this would be seven when this happened fifteen twenties seven?
Speaker 1: So I wonder this is just uh, this is to
Speaker 1: you guys. And also, Casey, I noticed that you never
Speaker 1: back us up there in this segment. This is uh,
Speaker 1: I mean to be fair, we we don't pull him in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't want to make him suffer the ignomy of defeat.
Speaker 1: We also discovered last episode that he's semi in league
Speaker 1: with Jonathan. That's his alter ego, plays both sides. So
Speaker 1: the thing that's interesting here is fifteen twenty seven. Makes
Speaker 1: me wonder how they could have as precise and estimate
Speaker 1: is twelve minutes. You know what I mean? Jonathan made
Speaker 1: a face, just amazed that you've never heard of things
Speaker 1: like an hour glass. It's called an hour glass on
Speaker 1: a minute glass. Bro fair enough, you know. I I'm
Speaker 1: just I'm just posing that as an interesting thing. Perhaps
Speaker 1: will learn about horology and the out of time on
Speaker 1: the way here. But what do you what do you think?
Speaker 1: I I kind of I don't know, man, I've been
Speaker 1: going through this optimistic face. It was such a dull one.
Speaker 1: I've kind of forgotten what it was about. Honestly, at
Speaker 1: this point, it's about the It was about the pretender
Speaker 1: to the throne, who was thought to have been technically
Speaker 1: the ruler of Vallachia for twelve minutes, signed the checker
Speaker 1: the twelve minutes before he signed the paper and said
Speaker 1: he didn't want to be uh, he abdicated, but he
Speaker 1: had a mob of people who still wanted him to
Speaker 1: be the ruler. Jonathan by this this this is an
Speaker 1: audio podcast. I want you all to know the the
Speaker 1: just the level, the offensive level of glee on this
Speaker 1: guy's face as he looks back and forth from us.
Speaker 1: I know, uh it sounds m Do you want to
Speaker 1: just say true? It's probably wrong? I don't know. Probably
Speaker 1: you know what we should just do. Let's just rock
Speaker 1: paper scissor and just go with you know who's true
Speaker 1: and who's false. I'll be true again, it doesn't matter,
Speaker 1: all right, one to three shooting, alright, we're going false.
Speaker 1: Then this takes all the fun out of it. When
Speaker 1: you're literally leaving it up to chats. I mean, why
Speaker 1: am I even coming in here? All right? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: give us what's what's the Well, you're technically correct, which correct.
Speaker 1: That's why you're mad because it's twelve and you're not
Speaker 1: even using your freaking faculties. So Ben, you gotta get
Speaker 1: better at rock paper scissors, because you're always wrong, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: to be fair, unless we knew this story specifically, what
Speaker 1: are we mean? It is up to I don't know,
Speaker 1: like how you have to use you have to use
Speaker 1: you we did. No, no, no, you're too good at this, sir,
Speaker 1: flip a coin. All right, well, let me let me
Speaker 1: give you. Let me give you some some real history,
Speaker 1: because I like to. So there is no Petro the third.
Speaker 1: There was a Petru the second, but there was no
Speaker 1: Petro the third. There was no Mania the third. There
Speaker 1: was a Mania the second, but there was no Mania
Speaker 1: the third. None of that was real. However, there is
Speaker 1: the story of a dauphin in France who technically was
Speaker 1: the regent of France for all of twenty minutes before
Speaker 1: he abdicated the throne. So that was what I based
Speaker 1: it off of. He has uh the record of the
Speaker 1: shortest reign, and that's only assuming that you count it
Speaker 1: as being a legitimate reign, and a lot of people don't,
Speaker 1: because he essentially abdicated shortly after his father had also
Speaker 1: abdicated the throne. So it was the Revolution of eighteen thirty,
Speaker 1: as I recall. But that was that was the basis
Speaker 1: from which I drew inspiration. And yes, who, So why
Speaker 1: did you add the vampire bidden? Because that was I
Speaker 1: was trying to think of a kingdom that you probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't know anything about. Oh well, so I went with Wallachia,
Speaker 1: which and then said the one thing that anybody knows
Speaker 1: about exactly because you know it's a real place and
Speaker 1: you know it's a real person, so that that anchors
Speaker 1: it in reality. Yeah, and you know, there were an
Speaker 1: awful If you look at the list of people who
Speaker 1: ruled that principality, it goes back and forth fifty times
Speaker 1: in a twenty years span among two or three different families,
Speaker 1: most of whom are related to one another through blood
Speaker 1: or marriage at least once or twice. So yeah, that
Speaker 1: was why bloodlines, uh, which is weird because even during
Speaker 1: these periods of just robust and ferocious incests, people knew
Speaker 1: without being geneticist, people knew that there were disadvantages to that. Right.
Speaker 1: It certainly manifested itself quite clearly in a few very
Speaker 1: notable historic cases, the Habsburgs in particular. Yeah, the last
Speaker 1: of the Habsburgs was Wow, what a jaw? I what
Speaker 1: was it? He's like, I am the king and I
Speaker 1: want putting or something like that. Uh. So that there
Speaker 1: was a character on A thirty Rock that was based
Speaker 1: off of that, yes, played by Paul Rubens a k Ape,
Speaker 1: the little kind of weedy guy was based off of
Speaker 1: the actual historical Habsburgs, although that was obviously centuries earlier.
Speaker 1: You're no fun, We're We're a lot of yeah, one
Speaker 1: one down. Also, it occurs to me that in setting
Speaker 1: out this this strange what you call the most cringe
Speaker 1: worthy segment and podcasting uh and setting on the strange endeavor,
Speaker 1: we never had a milestone to play toward. It's just
Speaker 1: this game that will continue, not entirely consensually, because I like,
Speaker 1: this is the first time you showed up in consecutive episodes.
Speaker 1: I do love the idea of being able to vanquish
Speaker 1: you by exceeding your number by one, and then perhaps
Speaker 1: you'll just vanish in a puff of smoke, perhaps or
Speaker 1: come back with a new segment. First, I refuse to
Speaker 1: be vanquished by people who are effectively drunken, blindfolded and
Speaker 1: firing arrows blindly and just happening to hit the target. Okay, look,
Speaker 1: it's just like your opinion, man, Maybe maybe we didn't. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll be honest. Maybe I don't seem as a hundred
Speaker 1: percent committed to the idea of competition. I might be
Speaker 1: phoning it in a little with the rock paper scissors,
Speaker 1: with that, but that's just because you know, the competition
Speaker 1: is just an excuse to hang out and learn more history.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, to be fair, Rock Paper Sister has
Speaker 1: been part of the equation since the beginning. So no,
Speaker 1: I remember once in a while you too both agree
Speaker 1: on something, which is much more fun for me because
Speaker 1: either it means that you you you arrived at the
Speaker 1: right answer, which case oh I lose boo, or you
Speaker 1: more amusingly choose the wrong answer and then I get
Speaker 1: to do my little dance. Yeah I know, man, I've
Speaker 1: seen your blog. I know about the dance. Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: got this whole gift thing on Facebook now called the
Speaker 1: Orange Injustice. Well, thank you so much for coming on
Speaker 1: the show again. Jonathan Strickland a k a. The quiz Jerch,
Speaker 1: see you next week. Come on, man, I mean I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be on a boat. You guys are safe. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: but are you well that that really isn't up to me,
Speaker 1: is it. No? I'll tell you something, man, You need
Speaker 1: to be careful with La Bush. Like the hand that
Speaker 1: one hand heels and the other harms. This guy is
Speaker 1: no joke. Is he a pirate on the side? We
Speaker 1: don't really know. And the other hook hurts really well.
Speaker 1: Our friendship with Casey pegramyk La Bush is based primarily
Speaker 1: on us not asking questions about his double or trebled lives.
Speaker 1: But thanks to Casey, thanks to you, Thanks to Gabe Louzier,
Speaker 1: research assistant, Thanks to Alex Williams, who composed our theme.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Christopher Hasciotas here in Spirit, thanks to Eve's
Speaker 1: Jeff Code, and uh all of the ridiculous historians out
Speaker 1: there in podcast land, and it most importantly Ben, thanks
Speaker 1: to you, Bud. Thanks to you Pal. Also thanks to
Speaker 1: people who have the last name Hayman. I think it's
Speaker 1: just such a cool last name. Hey Man. Agreed, See
Speaker 1: you next time. Books Blessed For more podcasts for my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.