Doomed to Fail - Ep 144 - The Ultimate Escape Artist: Harry Houdini

Episode Date: October 9, 2024

How much do you know about Harry Houdini?? We start off October with the story of the most famous magician of all time; we feel very lucky that he was working at the beginning of cinema and at a time when we can have photos of him and his stunts. The choppy silent footage and the stage makeup add just the perfect touch of mystery to his already impressive mystique.Learn how this Hungarian Immigrant to the US toured the world and amazed kings, queens, tzars, and presidents with his illusions! Before tragically passing away on Halloween! Sources:Houdini: The Elusive American (Jewish Lives) - https://www.amazon.com/Houdini-Elusive-American-Jewish-Lives/dp/0300230796 https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/278-W-113th-St-New-York-NY-10026/31547703_zpid/?https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/a62391454/menendez-brothers-beverley-hills-mansion-history-explained/ Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

In a matter of the people of the state of California versus Hortenthall James Simpson, case number B.A.019. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. And we are back, Taylor. Happy Wednesday. How are you doing? I'm good. How are you? I'm doing very, very well. Excited to be here.

Excited for another exciting day, an episode. I know last week we recorded late and we released on Tuesday and Thursday, and when we do that, it confuses me the entire week. On like Wednesdays, I have a heart attack that I haven't posted anything yet. And then I'm like, oh, wait, it's going to be Thursday. And like, it just like, this is such a, such a thing that I do every week that when I don't do it, I'm like, what's happening? Has it always been me who's messed up our schedule? It has, hasn't it? No, I've definitely done it as well.

Okay. That's not the only one. Don't worry. Well, hello. We are doomed to fail. Welcome. We bring you history's most notorious disasters and epic failures twice a week, every week. Today is Wednesday probably. And I'm Taylor, joined by far. Yes, I'm here. It is probably Wednesday. Hopefully it is Wednesday. If not, it is next week. Who cares? We definitely got feedback that was like, no one gives a shit what day it is. I'm like, I know. Did someone really say that? Juan said that. My husband said that. he's right he's right it's good because it's an accountability metric for ourselves but nobody else cares and you can listen to this any day of the week it's on the it's it's it's it's wherever wherever you listen to podcast whatever whatever you want you do

you're free um and today is a you story day right okay um okay ready yes I have to scroll to the of my Google Doc. Hello. Okay. I'm going to try to do spooky things because it's October. We've been watching scary movies, and that's been very fun.

And I did put out a TikTok and ask if anyone had any spooky stories that we should cover. And someone suggested the Kansas City Skywalk thing that you already did, which is... Nice. Thanks for suggestion. Yeah, definitely crazy.

And then also the Bell Witch, which I know that one was super fun too, so many people. So, yeah, we talked about the Bell Witch for us. second because Andrew Jackson went to visit her for some reason. And so yeah, that's a good one. So let's think of, I know. I'm just trying to think of scary things. If there's one that you have, let me know. But I want to talk about one that is like a little bit spooky, but mostly

just really, really fun. And I'm glad that I read a book and learned a little bit about this person. So today I'm going to tell you about the most famous magician of all time. Do you tell me who it is? It's got to be Houdini because it's playing in the Copperfield. It's Houdini. We do mention Copperfield, but it is Houdini. Nice. I watched a YouTube video and I read a book. So Houdini feels like, to me, a person that can't really place in time.

Can you guess, like, when he was famous? It had to be like the 1890s or something? Yeah, he was born in the, he was born in 1874. So it's like 1890s, early 1900s. And I feel like, I feel there were like magicians and illusionists before him that we'll talk about. And they're also, you know, obviously there's stuff now. But I feel like he was just like at the perfect time when like the media was starting. Like we have like great photographs of him.

We have video of him doing shit like jumping off a bridge and like getting out of handcuffs underwater. And it was just like the very beginning of all that stuff, which I think is really cool. And I think that may be why. Part of the reason why he's so famous is because he was the first one you could see like really excessively. You know, like he'd be in like a newsreel, that kind of thing. Yeah, it makes sense. You know what I mean? So, yeah, and this kind of illusion is something you have to like really, you have to be there in person and like see it to believe it, which is like fun because you have to get the or get the sense that it's done live.

You know what I mean? Like a magic trick in a movie, you're like, oh, well, they can use movies. things but like you have to get the sense that it's happening live otherwise you don't believe it you know yeah yeah i mean i've been to magic shows in bagas and i mean when you see it on tv actually now it's probably just as fine but like back then they didn't have the production value that we have now in like in person well yeah so like i mean Houdini you record what he's doing i don't think you get the sense the grandiosity of it what if it's been recorded because their cameras were basically someone drawing it by hand.

I assume. Yes. And, you know, yeah, and there's no sound. And, like, it's all kind of choppy, you know, like, like a silent film. You know, it's kind of like a weird thing. Yeah, that reminds me. Was it Deva Copperfield where someone sued him because they broke their ankle running underneath the stage or something?

I don't remember that. There was, like, a thing where, like, he moves an entire section of the audience during a bit and it's like they're on the stage and then they're behind the rest of the audience and what they do is they like go underneath the stage and they run and then they're at the other side

but one guy like fell and hurt himself and so he sued but then they had to tell everybody how they did it oh that sucks that must have been the Statue of Liberty one it wasn't a statue of Liberty because it was in Vegas but I know the century Liberty one it was just because like they moved the camera a tiny bit

or like the island or whatever So anyway, Harry Houdini would say he was born in Wisconsin, but he very much was not. He was born in Budapest on March 24th, 1874, which makes him in Ares. I've never looked that up before, but I feel like I wanted to know his sign. I don't know anything about signs, so I'll just go with... Me either, but I feel like I really wanted to know. And so he's in Ares. Obviously, his mother didn't name him Harry Houdini, but his name was Eric Weiss, and he came to America.

following his father, who was a rabbi. His dad came to America first, and then the rest of the family came after they would end up in Wisconsin in 1878 when Houdini was four. They changed his name from Eric Weiss to Eric Weiss. It's just spelled very differently, but it's pronounced pretty much the same, to try to Americanize it a little bit. His dad was sort of a, he would be a rabbi for a little bit,

he would have other sort of odd jobs he never was like super successful but one thing that houdini does throughout his life is he makes his own myth he's building it as he's living so he would call his father um you know a PhD and a doctor and an author and all these things that he wasn't but he really wanted to like give him dad accolades that he didn't earn does that make sense just like he talked him up a lot it's the immigrant story yeah exactly So he lived in Appleton, Wisconsin, and he's one of seven children. One of his siblings lived until 1962, which I still think this is just wild. It's wild when, like, history catches up, you know?

That's like the weirdest time because you're like, you were born, like, right after the Civil War, then you witness World War I, witness World War II. It's like, you're part of, like, everything. I know. What a time to be alive. Totally. so he's a child obviously during a crazy time to be a child and when he was 12 he he left his family to find a job he became a trapeze artist kind of on his own so imagine like a little street kid being like hey I'm going to do some magic tricks and do some tricks and stuff so he was doing that like trying he you know had the personality of a performer he always wanted to do that he ended up coming back to his family and they all moved to new york city I was going to say, when you were telling me that, I was like, I just kept seeing the little rascals in New York City.

Exactly. It's exactly like that. Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And he lived in a tenement in the Upper East Side with his family. And there is a great book that I read a while ago called How the Other Half Lives Studies Among the Tenements of New York by Jacob Rees. He wrote it in 1890. And it's a good description. of what it was like to live in these tenements where like you are living in a small room and everyone is rolling cigars and that's your job you know like and i mean everyone i mean like the two-year-old is doing that as well um just these like really really deplorable conditions that entire families were living in in a lot of these places um just as an aside teddy roosevelt read that book and when he became police commissioner he would go and visit the tenements and like kind of see how he could help um it's just like an interesting aside of what life was like in new york city like just kind of a wild time.

It's mentioned early and often when you read about Houdini how fit he was. He did a lot of his tricks like either naked or mostly naked because like the clothes would have been like impeding to like jumping in a river, you know, and trying to get handcuffs off. He had to be really physical fit. Like he could hold his breath for, you know, over three minutes. He was a short, he was short. He was five. six but he was like a little guy with a hot bod he's definitely early 1900s handsome so people

were like you know they would go to see him partially because he was good looking um i think the thing that is jarring looking at photos of him from our side is the grandpa monster hair you know i'm not looking at a picture of him i'm trying to picture that i do remember it's like a it's like a side part and then like down and like but his like face is handsome not that matters but i'm just saying oh yeah no i do remember seeing pictures of him and was like this guy is like jacked for like 2024 he's jacked yeah like he's he looks like he would be on steroids today but they had no steroids so he literally literally just did this himself yeah and a lot of it i'll tell you kind of why he needed to have because like they didn't they don't have bench presses then they

don't have hacks hacks squats back then they don't have power racks like they had no none of the stuff that we have right now they had back then so what was he doing just lifting elephants like they're like rocky in Russia like chopping wood you know um yeah I don't know that kind of reminds me this is about the Titanic time I've ever seen the pictures

of like the gym on the Titanic? Yeah it looks like shit that's what I mean that's you know maybe he's doing stuff like that I don't know he's jacked he's a strong little guy so now the White's family is in New York City and Harry starts to get into magic this is

vaudeville time so you can like be a vaudeville performer you just kind of have to show up like little rascals and he learns about magic or illusions and a lot of it is from a man that you maybe have never heard of i think it's because he's a little bit older and but there is a man named jean eugene robert houdine who was born in 1805 in france um and huedine robert houdine was one of the first stage magicians. So he was a clockmaker and could and learn how to do fun things where like this is a trick that Houdini will do as well where like he has his son on stage blindfolded and then he like takes something from an audience member and his son guesses what it is. But it's like a,

you know, he'll be holding a watch and be like, oh, what is this? And the kid will be like at the watch. And it's like speech patterns and things that they're telling each other that lets the kid know what he is looking at. But he's like one of the first people to do that. Also, Robert Houdin was one of the first people to take advantage of, like, electrical magnetism. So he could do things, like have a box, like an iron box that, like, a kid could lift up and then magnetize it to the ground and, like, a man couldn't lift it up. And like, that was magic. You know what I mean? Because we do, like, stuff like that.

Obviously, Houdini heard about this dude and was like, that's a cool, creepy name. So I love it. So he changed his name to Harry Houdini in, like, reference of Robert Houdine. who was French. And then later, for no reason at all, really, Houdini wrote a book about how much Robert Houdin was a hack and how much he doesn't like him, even though he never met him and got a lot of inspiration from him.

But he wrote a book about, like, exposing his tricks, which people think is a little weird and mean. Yes. Why would you do that after? But now Houdini is still young, trying to be magician inside shows. He has that personality. People really, you know, like him.

He's okay at card tricks. But he's not the best. So he's trying to think of something else to do. He works with his brother, Theodore Hardine, whose name is actually Friedrich Weiss. His name is, they call him Dash. So him and Dash are magicians together. His brother looks just like him, but bigger. He's like a bigger version of him.

And they would also do things in the future that was going to be like the Houdini brother's rivalry, blah, blah, blah. But they never were really rivals. It was just for the show. Right. know so dash his brother went on a date with a young woman named best best renner and she ended up marrying harry which you know sometimes you go on the date with the wrong brother wrong brother um and uh best would become his assistant immediately and she would be his assistant for the rest

of his life um she was also very small she was four eleven which is very helpful like i think it'd be a lot harder to do these things if you were seven feet tall but it's like back than everybody was kind of that small yeah so she's very little bit rich with like rickety bone and exactly they never have kids and there's like you know people always want to speculate why you know but one of the speculations is that she was so small and never fully matured like maybe she didn't have her period and couldn't have kids you know so she's like she's very little we didn't want kids maybe they just didn't want kids definitely so they would do things the same thing that that robert houdine did they would do all the time where best would be on

the stage and Houdini would go into the audience and he would talk to the person and everything he was saying the words that he said matched the letter of the alphabet to her so she would know what he was holding you know so it was like a complicated thing where he was like hello ma'am I love your hat and if he said hat that meant that there was like a cue you know or whatever so that would like that's how she would figure out what he was trying to like psychically say to her okay you know but it was just like a speech pattern or he'd be like, hello, pause, pause, da-da, and the pause pause

meant a certain thing, you know? Interesting. He wouldn't say pause, but you know what I mean? It was like a code back to her. So they would do that a lot. And then he started to find out that like he was really good at escaping from things. Like, and people loved to see that in person.

They'd love to see the escapism. They loved to see escape artist. So that's where he became like really, really good. And he started to travel and he went to Europe with best to try to try to, you know, make a name for themselves there. He was called the Handcuff King for a while because he could get out of handcuffs. And it was like, not like his own handcuffs either. There would be like the chief of police of the town he was at would put him in handcuffs

and he'd get out of them. He traveled all over Europe and to Russia. Unfortunately, he did not meet Resputein. I was like, oh my God, didn't he assume. But he met Tsar Nicholas and Alexander two years before they met Rasputin. if he had met Rasputin, Rasputin would have, like, stolen all of his tricks and just, like, made them his own.

I just, like, I wish that that would have happened. I'm bummed. They never met. He would do things, like, when he went to a town, he would go first, like, to announce himself. He would go to the jail and then have himself locked in a cell with his clothes in a different cell. So, like, maybe naked, maybe in his undies.

Like, he had, like, you know, boxers on. And then the police officers were, lock him in the cell, lock his clothes in a different cell, they'd handcuff him in the cell, and then they'd go back to, like, the, I don't know, whatever, the lobby of the police station. And by the time they get back, sometimes he'd be there fully dressed already. Can you just walk into a jail and say, put me in the jail and put my clothes in the other cell? Maybe not anymore. Maybe they'd be like, maybe they'd be like, well, you can definitely come in a cell, but like, I don't think you're going to get out.

Right, right. And it's not going to be voluntary. Yeah, no. Once you block you in there, you're in there. You're in there. but the first time he did it they only knew he escaped he escaped without his clothes the first time and they only knew he escaped because someone from the hotel that he was staying at called the police station to have his clothes sent over which was hilarious and they were like what we can't believe it sometimes he would just be like knocked out of the window and be like what's up sometimes he'd come out handcuffed to another prisoner that he escaped so he'd be like oh i got this guy out too and they'd be like ta-da and that guy was there a trick involved or he just like would slip through the bars. I think he just

had, we'll talk a little bit about what he did, but I think he just had, like, hidden lock picks around, you know? Yeah. I was, like, really good at picking locks really fast. It's also, like, speed. A lot of it is speed, and a lot of it is, like, hidden things. This is also where he learned about straight jackets, so he was, like, in a jail, trying to figure out how to get out of it, and then saw someone in a straight jacket for the first time and was, like, give me one of those, and would

start to practice to do that. But the straight jacket thing is, part of his being like really physically fit is what he would do is he would like fill his lungs and like stretch out all of his muscles and stretch out his arms when they were putting in the straight jacket so that he could relax a little bit and have a little bit of room you know so like part of that is like he made himself as big as possible so they can make the straight jacket as tight as possible and then he could make himself a little smaller yeah and then like be able to like wiggle out a little bit better um so now people start to love it they this is like a huge thing all for Europe. His salary goes from like um not a lot to in our money like half a million dollars a year. He's taking $11,000 a week in our money. So it's making a ton of money. Um, he's also starting to collect things and start to like build his own, his own myth. So he will, he writes in a diary. He sends things back home like playbills and posters. Um, he also sends himself postcards from the places he goes to, which is a cute idea to send yourself a postcard from somewhere if you're traveling.

And a lot of it was exaggeration, but this is, again, part of his myth-making. So he and best are doing well, but mostly Harry Houdini is obsessed with his mother. Like he loves his mom so much, and he takes really, really good care of her. His dad dies and Houdini builds a massive grave site in a cemetery on Long Island.

It's still there. You can go visit it. It's where he is buried, members of his family are buried um it's like a big marble monument it says houdini weiss on it there's a bust of houdini on it which is like not what you're supposed to do if you're jewish it's supposed to be like very simple you're not supposed to have any images in the cemetery of people was he religiously jewish or just culturally Jewish I think just culturally I mean his dad was a rabbi so he wasn't like he knew he knew about it you know but I think more of it was like wanting to be remembered on like a grand a grander scale and that was

more like that was kind of eclipsing it um he would say things to best like oh best like you're my wife i love you so much so you are the number two lady in my life because he loved his mom so much you know he's like a mom guy um at one point he bought a dress that was a maid for queen victoria and um gave it to his mom at a big party in cologne in germany and that was like he was like this is the best day of my life he just like wanted his mom to be like super praised and all these things. It's also, I think, worth noting that, like, he did, at one point, Best

was not Jewish, and they did travel as, like, a Christian couple, because you way to, like, say your religion, because this is kind of a dangerous time, kind of always is, but a dangerous time to be traveling around Europe, because it's right before World War I. And, you know, so he was doing all of that.

As he's traveling in Europe, he does buy a house in Harlem. It's like three blocks north of Central Park, 278, West, 113th Street. It is a 6,000 square feet house. You can see the plans on Zillow. So he bought it for $25,000, which is $847,000 in today's money. And right now on Zillow, the estimate is $3.5 million. So it's like worth that much more than it would was then. Does that make sense? But also like that seems fair for an entire building in New York City.

6,000 square feet in New York is, I mean, I could ever afford it. Yeah, like, I'm not buying a $3 million, $300 million house in New York City, but like, that seems fair. And then also when I was looking at this at his house online on town and country magazine, I saw that the Menendez Brothers House is 9,000 square feet in Beverly Hills. That's how much of that house sold for last year? wait 17 million yeah 17 oh wow was it really yeah but that feels wild like that you can buy Houdini's house for 3.5 million dollars and again I have zero million dollars but like a 17 billion dollar house in Beverly Hills that people were murdered in

why would you want that it has to be is it cheaper because people were murdered in or is it more expensive because it was a famous murderer that's a really good question, and I don't know the answer to it. I don't think the people that live there are, like, giving tours, but it feels weird. Yeah, but I don't think they are, you know. They just wanted that big house in Beverly Hills. You got to build, like, get like some wax figures of, like, the corpses and, you have been a really fun haunted house, Taylor.

I would be, I would put, like, silhouettes of people in the windows and stuff, blood splatter. I know. Yeah. Are you watching the new men and Desper? other show? No, I think I know too much about that to find anything new. Yeah, it's not going to be interesting. Yeah.

We'll see what happens. To their case. Anyway, so, we'll ask House in Harlem. It's huge. His whole family gets to live there. He also starts to build a library because he has a bunch of stuff there. So he continues to travel. He would do things like jump off bridges and straight jackets,

jump off bridges inside crates. And all of this is like taking a toll on his body, obviously. you know like that's really hard to do over and over again um a lot some of the stuff is on on video which is cool like his first one of his jumps off of a bridge is on video um and it's fun because he'll like pop his head up and be like hello people would be like oh my god you know you're kind of waiting for him to die and then he never does and all that um so some of his big tricks just to to walk through them um there's the chinese water torture cell so he was upside down in a glass tank of water and this is sort of what I like picture from like the

those like magician movies remember that year when like nine magician movies came out and David Boyle was the illusionist and then oh god I came on another one but like upside down in the water and his ankles were shackled and the tank was closed and then a curtain would be drawn and he would escape so what he was

probably doing was unlocking it with like a little hidden key or like a hidden little lock pick and also he probably was able to get out of the tank really easily with just like a button. But he still had to like hold his breath for a long time to be able to do that. But he did it kind of behind a curtain. So it would happen like really fast.

And then he'd come out and it would be it would be locked and closed and he would be soaking wet. You know? He did one that was called metamorphosis where he would be locked inside of a trunk and his wife best. She would stand outside the trunk and then a curtain was drawn around them. And then the curtain would drop and they would be switched. She would be in the trunk and he would be standing there. And they would do that like.

really fast just with like they would kind of be I feel like you see these on like things there's like a turning platform and then like the box probably has like a thing in the middle of it so like you think someone's in it but they're not that doesn't make sense at all

it happened real fast. We saw that didn't you come with us when we did the Magic Castle in LA? I didn't I went a different time okay yeah but but it's like the same idea like just what if they're doing is it really fast and there's like hidden lovers and stuff that make it easier.

He had one where he was sealed inside a milk can filled with water, and the milk can is like maybe three feet high, and he would get in it, and he would, again, like the, the can would be rigged and he would be able to, like, pop out of it really easy. He did one where he would be nailed into a wooden crate and thrown, like, off of a bridge, and the same thing, he would have it. The sides of the crate are probably really easy for him to remove underwater, but, still it's hard to do and he would have to you know still swim to the surface after he had done all of that is he the one that went off niagara falls he didn't barrel somebody else

i don't think he did but a lot of people have and actually um we did get an instagram message about crazy things happen on Niagara Falls that something else we could talk about at some point because a lot of people died coming out of barrels like yeah of course like very dangerous that's a very dangerous stunt yeah like Like, don't expect to be perfectly healthy after that. Fine. So he had the straight jacket, like I said, he was a lot of practice, but a lot of like making himself bigger when he was in.

He and then at the New York's Hippodrome Theater, which I think we've talked about before. So the hippodrome was like Madison Square Garden kind of before P.T. Barnum was down there. And in 1918, he made an elephant disappear, which is very exciting. And it was probably like mirrors and lighting, but it was like a really big box and then there was an elephant in it and then there wasn't and people were really excited about that he would walk through a brick wall um which was probably like a trap door that would get him to the other side um and then he would also do a couple things where he'd be like buried

alive and even though he had tricks that were like he had a lock pick he maybe had a hidden key maybe there were some things like he was still buried and had to like climb out um and a couple times like almost died because that's still very hard to do right you know right um but a lot of it happened in you know in person big audiences you know who's coming to your town you know you get to see all these things and they're like isn't a bridge in america he didn't jump off of in the early 1900s like really it's a ton of it um there were also a ton of fakes people who would do like obviously him and his brother had like a fake feud but other people would like just like he did Like he stole the name Houdini from Robert Houdine and people then would be like,

oh, I'm the great boo Dini or I'm the great Lou Dini, you know, like whatever, just like trying to be the same. He is also the other time, I think it feels like he couldn't calm down. Like he was just like super like I have to be remembered. I have to write all this down. I have to do all these things. Like he was writing books and he might not have actually written them. He had like Ghost Raiders write them, but he had books. he had a magazine called Conjurers Monthly.

He also was in movies. So he started to do some things in movies. And some of them were okay. Some of them were not that great. So he wasn't like a movie star, but he like knew a lot of movie stars. He said in his own mythmaking, he said that he gave Buster Key in the nickname Buster.

I don't know if he did or not, but he said he did. And so people didn't love the magic movies because again, they were like, oh, we realize that you can fake that in a movie. you know even then um so they like the um they liked you know seeing it in person and i think you also need that reaction like if you ever watched like that like david blaine shows like you believe it because you see the person who's doing it live in their reaction you know david blaine's not a magician he just hurts himself on purpose like i don't but did but did you see

that one where he was in harrison for his kitchen with the orange i forgot what he did i know what you're talking about, because I remember Harrison's voice reaction to your point. Anybody knows how you do that trick where you put a card inside a piece of fruit? I think I saw that as Magic Castle. I don't know how you do that. Okay, yeah, yeah, okay. So, fine, fine. That's magic. But, like, when he's like, I'm just going to eat a glass cup. Like, that's not magic. Oh, no. I know. I

hate when he does stuff where he's like, oh, I got water and, like, my second stomach and I'm throwing it up. You're like, what? He, like, stabbed himself on one show. And, like, he was like, no, I just stabbed myself. I just know what part of like where the bones aren't in my hand and I just stab through that's like that's like you're like congratulations yeah we're flex yeah but either way Houdini really worked the best in person he spent more time in Europe when his mother passes away he's in Europe and he has them have her body they don't bury her for like five days so he can come back which again is not something

you're supposed to do if you're Jewish he's supposed to be buried right away but he's waited until he could see here one more time and he was obviously devastated um and he also was going to meet a bunch of famous people so at one point he meets teddy roosevelt and he's able to be like oh i know that like you're going to go on these trips and do these things and he like was amazed to t r and he was like is that real you really were you really able to do that and allegedly houdini said no sir it was just a bunch of hocus pocus because he had like he knew what it was you know it wasn't magic obviously um he met jack london um so we spent time with with him and his wife houdini had a little affair with jack london's wife charmine after

jack london passed away um we saw both of them jack london and sharmine during the 1904 san francisco earthquake they were sent there to write about it if you remember i don't tie things together um and he also met sir arthur conan doyle who you know from sherlock homes yep so sir arthur conan doyle is a big spiritualist which is like a huge deal during this time like people want to talk to the dead they have all these tricks where there's like you know knocking on doors and like candles being out and tables moving and all that stuff people love going to seances they just like love that shit i think we talked about this before i can't remember when or like when i was thinking about this but like a lot of people thought it was a logical next step after like all of this industrial stuff and science and just like things are changing so rapidly at the turn of the century that like a lot of it is like well wouldn't the next thing be to figure out why we're here and if we can talk to the next plane you know like it felt like science could get us there yeah if it could and so um Houdini was pissed at this because he was like my shit is illusions like there is no magic like I want these people being like there's like no magic so he set off to like debunk a lot of the spiritualists Mrs. Conan Doyle did a

seance where she said that she had, and Houdini was there, where she said that she had talked to Houdini's mom and Houdini was pissed because he was like, first of all, my mom didn't speak English. So like, bar would she be communicating through you in English, you know, and he was like, it's his fake and he would like go to the papers and be

like, it's all a ruse and like this is how they do it. And him and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle were friends and then they were absolutely not friends after this. There was also a thing where scientific American was like, we will offer $2,000 to anyone who can prove that they're actually like a psychic and actually able to communicate with the dead. And one woman got really, really close. And people were like, this is it. Like we think this is the one.

We have to call on Houdini because he's the biggest skeptic. And he was like, no. He's like she has her foot does this thing. You know, like little tricks where she would like make a bell ring and things like that. But it was all, um, just like illusions. Yeah. I love when they have. had this, like, personal amendment. One of my favorite, like, old videos on YouTube is this video of,

like, there was a show where it was kind of like, um, America's got talent where you get like three real magicians and then somebody has to do like magic tricks in front of them. And there's one clip of this guy who's like, I'm talking to the dead kind of a guy. And Chris Angels on the panel. And he's like, hey, listen, like, I just wrote out. a $1 million check to your name. You can have it if you can tell me what what is in this like thing. Like you just helped me up like an envelope.

And the guy just loses this shit. He like rushes at Chris Angel. He's like, you just destroyed my entire bit. And like it's on Nashville television. It's really funny. He gets so angry. Yeah. Because like it takes a lot of prep to do that stuff because you're,

it's all an illusion. And it's not not fun. It's super fun. You know. well i think the offensive part of it is that like you're giving people a false hope yes absolutely i think that like the say on stuff like i feel like i would be very scared in a seance like it could make it dark in a room and like there's a noise i'm gonna be like yeah i don't want to do it i want to i want to touch a wiji board like for a million dollars like yeah no i mean i think that and that's so funny like i know

that like it's a lot of it is like bunk but also i don't want to don't want to test it but yeah i see like the the false hope part is is really sad you know i think i've seen other shows where they like debunk a person you're like why just like so sad to like give people that hope that they can talk to their their relatives and all of that um so he's you know very very against spiritualism um he's just like i'm a traditional illusionist magician um but he's getting older and he's in his he's 50 he's um 52 years old and he's still traveling and still doing things and he's getting tired um again like his job is a thousand percent more physical than our jobs so I'd agree with that um like I'm probably going to die because I sit so much and he's you know this is like very fit man um and he is in Montreal on

October 22nd 1912 he's 52 years old and a young man named jocelyn Gordon whitehead is like backstage for some reason and he's like Houdini I hear that you're very strong and that you can take punches. Houdini says, yes, I can. So Whitehead punches him like several times in the stomach. And there's a couple of stories that are like, he wasn't ready. He wasn't like, you can punch you right now. He's like, he has to brace himself, you know, and like get ready. Also, Houdini's ankle was broken. He had broken his ankle in another thing. So another trick like a couple days before. So he wasn't like ready to be punched in the stomach. And he got punched a couple times. And then that like, he was like, okay, stop. And he was at a bunch of pain. So he went and continued. He did

his um he did the his show the next couple days he's in a lot of pain and he finally goes to see a doctor and what it sounds like happens is that the punches from whitehead didn't kill him but they map they he thought the pain he was feeling in his abdomen was from the punches but it was really his appendix right really tying this all together huh i know i didn't even know this but now I know this. So on October 24th, two days later, oh, wait, it's not 1912. It's 1926. I'm sorry. So October 24th, 1926, his last performance is in a Garrick theater in Detroit. And he had a fever of 104. He took the stage anyway, but he passed out during the show. And then, like, I think he ended up leaving the show as well and tried to do it. But who knows? So then he was like, had to go to the hospital.

he got an appendectomy but he was too far too sick he was his body was like fighting the infection and he died on Halloween in 1926 so October 31st which is pretty pretty freaking cool there is so obviously he had a lot of stuff his stuff is in museums kind of all over the country all over the world he had some of his tricks were in Niagara Falls in a museum that burned down but some of it was able to escape. Allegedly, there's a pair of his handcuffs at McSorley's pub in New York City. I don't believe that because McSorley's is gross. I don't think that they do their own mythmaking. Some of the stuff is in the Library of Congress. And actually, a lot of his stuff is in Austin at the Harry Ransom Center at UT. So you could go see it anytime.

And then a lot of his things are obviously in a warehouse that David Copperfield owns in Las Vegas. So his stuff kind of, it's all over. When he died, he told Bess that if he, If he could come back and if he could talk to her, he would come back in 10 years and she should do a seance 10 years after his death. So on October 31st, 1936, Bess had a seance trying to contact him. And unfortunately, he didn't make it. Of course.

Yep. They had like a secret code that he would have said, but that did not happen. I can't believe there's a museum here that has his stuff. Yeah. I should go see it. It seems fun. It's just such a fun time to be like, I can go see a show and like, you know, you just have a little bit of like belief and you never seen anything like it before and you don't have any like, you know, you just get to see it. And that just sounds so fun. I'd still watch a guy jump off a bridge handcuffed. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, who offered? Who wouldn't? Yeah. No, there's a, I did, I did go and see, uh, Chris. Angel in Vegas and I didn't think it was that great.

No, boo. It's because of his vibe. It's like, it's like you're watching a man who at that point is like 50 years old acting like he's still 20. And like it's just like what are we doing here? Like this is like it or like even David Copperfield like his like later stuff. It's like you're so rickety.

I don't know. it's a weird it's weird but when it like first happens it's so exciting you know mind freak a mind freak was awesome I love yeah when that when it was on yeah like there's um I watched this movie uh with Jamie Lee Carter as like an old horror movie on a train um um it might be just called oh it's called terror train is exactly what you think it would be but it's like this like group of kids like high school kids who are on a train and like some people start getting murdered and like the train's moving the whole time but for some reason David Copperfield is there and he's just like magician so he's like playing a magician on this train for a bunch of kids and like so just like several

times in the movie he does a trick it's delightful he's super young and like it's just like what is he doing here do you remember when we were kids and he had like a live show on like one of the major networks ABC or whatever and that was the one where that was statue liberty right it might have been Statue of Liberty, but the one I remember was there was a building that was just like rigged with explosive or an implosion and he was like chained inside of it. Oh yeah.

But then he did this other trick right before commercial where he like held some cards up or something and was like I forgot how he did it but it was somewhere like he guessed the number you were thinking like through the TV

and I was just like this is insane. Yeah, it was really cool. I mean, we saw a magician for like at Girl Scouts like last year who was great. I don't know how he did the stuff he did, you know? And you're like, he's just like a, I'm sure that if I knew it would be like, whatever, but I was like, whoa. I love that. That's that. That's fun.

Yeah. Why not? Yeah. Um. Fun. Yeah. Harry Houdini, the Houdini box was like the first book that I like asked my parents to buy me. They like read read it to us and like third grade.

And I was like, we had to get this book. It's the best book I've ever read. And so I bought, that was like the first book they ever got me. Oh, I want to look at that. We just had the book fair. I bought a lot of books. I'm buying a lot of graphic novels these days for the kiddos. That's cool.

It looks fun. Yeah. That was a good one. Sweet. Well, thank you for sharing. Is this also in, and we didn't start the fire? It isn't. No, unfortunately.

it's just a little yeah no um but we'll probably get back to some of those but i have a couple creepy things that i want to do but let's um you have other ones that you want to hear like i i like this i'm not not that this was creepy but i feel like it's marketed as being creepy you know like who do you need himself and it's like a fun it's a fun i don't know it's just fun i like it's fun i like it i like him i like his vibe yeah yeah and at that time like they didn't really you know they probably didn't understand that it was not real you know yeah like how cool that just seems so fun like i like um do you ever um do you ever um do you ever watch the IT crowd no so funny and there's one episode where the woman jen and i'm sure that someone in listening this has seen it

where she's dating a guy and they're like, oh, he looks like a magician. And she's like, what? And they're like, yeah, and then she can't unsee it. And so like they're at dinner and he's like giving her like salt and pepper and he just looks like he's a magician. And then she tells him and he like doesn't want to break up with her. So he tries to learn magic tricks, but he's so nervous. And he's like holding the cards like this, like shaking.

And he's like, is this your card? And she's like, no, because he's like trying to be a magician because it looks like a magician. It was just so stupid and so funny. That reminds me of him about arrested development. and Job when he was trying to be a magician that was one of the best storylines ever. It's the best and I love everything about

Job in there. He goes out of a check and an illusion. Well, thank you for sharing. You're welcome. Brought back some fun old memories and yeah, I'm looking forward to this month. You're going to have some good stories this month, I think. Yeah, I just

thought of something else that I thought of and then forgot so I need to think about it again. something spooky but there's lots of fun stuff sweet anything to read us out on um nope just please remember to find us on

social media at doomed to fail pod and let us know what you want to hear we'll go ahead and cut it off there