Last Podcast On The Left - Relaxed Fit: The Cardiff Giant

Episode Date: May 9, 2020

On this week's Relaxed Fit episode, we talk about the trickster mastermind behind one of the 19th century’s most sensational hoaxes: the discovery of a 10-foot-tall giant.

There's no place to escape to this is the last time on the left That's when the cannibalism started You know what was a really fun side effect of the Jeff the talking mongoose episodes I mean I talked about a little bit on the show was like watching mongoose like battles. Yeah, oh, of course. Yeah I'm enriched, but I started thinking about like how much more fun Tiny animal fights are Then big animal fights sure like I like seeing like I was watching this video of a hippo rip apart a bunch of antelopes Yeah, right now. It's cool. Yeah, but I kind of imagine I feel like they get tuckered out

Well, I love I am such a fan of the hippo because I think they only kill when they're sad Sad though because they kill more people in Africa than any other animal. They are very depressed Well, I tell you what you got to get the Dabesh mode out of the safari. That's They have to stop being saddened by my music But think about how much more fun a hippo fight would be if they would decide the dogs and they could fight for ours That's very true. Normally because them hippos, you know, like it's like watching kissle like struggle With like if I got a big fucking great day to fight kissle Sure

It's only lasts a couple of minutes until kissle fucking smacks its head against the ground so its brains are a bunch of just like That's like a puddle in his hands. Well, that could go either way It might it might but think about if kissle was the size of a toddler, but still with all his attributes Versus a chicken That's a fun fight Well, now that I think about it, that is a fun fight. Hey, what's up everyone? How you doing? Welcome to last podcast on the left relaxed fit. I am Ben with Marcus Hi, and then we have the ideas man Henry Zabrowski a chicken-sized kissle versus a normal-sized chicken

Whoa Man, what do we have going on here? You're like dusty roads. You're booking the hell out of this match I just feel like you know because they say oh Everybody's so sad because we can't go anywhere. Sure. Do you know that your imagination can take you anywhere? Book is like a magic carpet. Yeah, kind of that you can Maybe tear a page out of a smoke a joint with that would be very nice Or if you're in solitary confinement, you can make friends out of your own poop I don't know the rules then. I'm sure you've been catching up on your reading during this time

Oh, I love looking at the covers of all my books. I was I know I actually did thumb through my Hunter s Thompson book recently which one the it's very large He don't remember the title. He dies at the end Oh, is it a book of his letters his books of letters are really really interesting I love hearing his inner workings as a writer him and pkd have a very good like collection of their Correspondence have you ever heard an interview with hunter s Thompson's now widowed with his with his ex I guess ex-wife widowed wife It sounded like he got real boring Because all he did was take acid, but he did it alone and then he constantly was like I'm working on my memoirs

I'm working on my next big book And then it was worse than the shining because he didn't even write a sentence He just stare out the window and licked his own guns. He was felled by constant pain He was in constant pain and he could not like get his shit together towards the end and he did self-medicate quite a bit That's one way of saying it. That's for sure. Yeah, he self-medicated. He went in there. Yeah, he did it shows it Unfortunately, I knew a lot of kids like that in high school. Yeah, when they started really getting into acid and and Mushrooms and then they just did the life's worth in a semester, right? And at first they're super interesting right at first they sound like they really got shit together and stuff now one of them works at a

Gas station and he came and I'm fine with the gas station worker if he was a philosophical gas station Sure, he is essentially a pump. I actually if you're a gas station worker I think you're the front lines of your town. You're the hello Yeah, you're the hot you're you are technically like the the town not crier ambassador ambassador You look out for people you're like up of you're like the front the area where you can go and see people a lot of times Especially when you do a lot of highway driving there's a first gas station before you get into a town That's the guy who's seeing who's the new strangers coming to town And then he can ring the troubadour bell and the guy comes in writes a quick song about the fucking I know how little towns work

He writes this little song about the new guy that's in town Then he goes and he tells the police and they go and they fucking kill that guy Well, it depends on the person and be fantastic if every small town had its own Marty Robbins Oh, come in and sing its own big iron. Everyone's got a big iron. Yeah, unfortunately. He got me, too. So Henry you say that people get more creative in this quarantine But I had a dream last night where we just all hung out at a bar It was the most mundane evening that I could ever imagine and I woke up and I was like that was so frickin exciting I ordered a draft beer and then we were just we were all together

But it was like any other random Tuesday 2019. That's where my brain is now I feel like I'm getting less creative. I had a dream that I was in the doom patrol. It was fucking great I woke up. Yeah, I woke up in a fantastic mood Marcus has good interesting dreams. Yeah, you're telling me last night about how cuz we were we did a little like we We played games next to each other on the couch, but almost silently It's kind of nice. Yeah via zoom and Marcus was telling me that he talks about like the gray Cities and the red cities of his mind that he travels through all the time deep within his dreamscapes Yeah, see this is why I think all three of us. Well, maybe not you Henry, but I think Marcus you would do the best in a coma

Just go places in your head. I'm trying to learn because you never know what it's gonna happen Yeah, you can get comatose. You can get shy vote. She just fell in the shower. It can end any time And you have to be able to make the world in your own mind. Mm-hmm Well, we need to I feel like Terry shy vote She just had like what a little megaphone put up in your ellipse. You might have heard of like But the fact that she we don't know we don't have a technology yet. Yeah, we didn't then it was early 2000s We don't know so but now we could do now we hear corpses screaming all the time I really want to say thank you to our scientists our first responder scientists

Make sure we can hear the cries of the dead as much as possible. Thank you so much for your service I just wrote an article as a matter of fact in what was it American Scientific and They were saying that they could almost tell the emotion of the person in a coma just by their brainwaves Sometimes they're happy. Sometimes they're sad. Oh, they never like to have their feet tickled though Oh, they're supposed to wake up that makes me want to scream. I know the idea of being trapped inside my own body I was joking about this with the honestly Wouldn't that like last night I was doing because you ever do the thing with your loved one I think we've talked about this before we like pretend to be dead. Yeah

Yeah, or so you have talked about this before because you have some bizarre sexual fetish that you have you guys do corpse play There's a whole weird thing going on called drills That's what we run is drills, but last night I was lying in bed I was doing the Stephen Hawking where it's like my eyes are open just like and she was like Henry Henry stop it stop it But then I was trying to blink and I was trying to say this is a dryer run for if I'm in a coma It's fucking one blink for yes two blinks for no three blinks show me your breasts Well, I don't know if you're ever gonna get to three blinks when she tapes your eyeballs open

Why would she ever want to know what you're thinking? Well, there's always just you know, who knows what kind of thoughts in there. I wish I could dream I wonder if it's my weed ingestation. You can't dream. Yeah, it's definitely your weed ingestation The more weed you smoke the less dreams you have I know that was always when I was smoking a lot of weed I'd never dreamed but you know now that I don't smoke weed anymore like I fucking man I got some fucking dreams I could go into the fucking gray town and the red city and the tunnel of briars and all the places that I visit in my Dreams, I have some blood on my hands. If you're just judging me by my dreams

Oh, I know you have said you've dreamed horrible things. Yeah closest. I've ever had I had a dream recently that I was with a Panel of scientists and the panel of scientists were doing like a kiss study where they're making people that don't want to kiss kiss Oh and see what it does are their brainwaves Was it just the the dude who works at MSG Madison Square Garden who runs the kiss cam and he gets off on what? Obvious friends kiss on camera. I mean, you know, who knows what it takes to spark that little bit You never know sometimes you never know how much you're gonna love your best friend to your kiss Which is why I'm glad we've never kissed not yet. I don't want I don't ever I just don't want it to ever just find out that it just makes us hard as fuck

You know what I just found out if I was an undercover detective Mm-hmm. I'm sent to bust the biggest pedophile ring in the history of pedophile rings. Gotcha. I'm doing kiss camps Uh-huh nothing, but dudes and children Yes, if he goes He's guilty In the game the reaction of a stadium right kiss cam, you know like, you know, you got like, you know normal couples They all roll man little boy, and he sees it. He points up. He's like, oh look reach it leans over French kisses this little boy. Just the silence

Just going dead I Dude up in the fucking telecom office going like yes Yes, go on got one. Yes. I knew they were gonna kiss There's a hell of a way to bust these pedophiles also a small documentary recommendation after truth very good speaking of pedophiles They talk about the dude who broke into comet pizza and that story is very sad because he really thought there was gonna be a pedophile ring He found nothing what so ever obviously and he was a bit disillusioned so be careful what you fall into out there folks Don't yeah, dude YouTube holes. Yeah, remember the YouTube algorithm is being given to you

Yeah, all right every single time you watch a video and you see all these requested videos You're not researching no no that is YouTube's decades of research into figuring out how to manipulate your brain It is right and trying to give you technically what you want, which is they're just gonna keep leading you down the hole I watched a chunk of pandemic Pandemic is wrong It is entirely wrong. It is thoroughly debunked But I could see if you've been watching for several hours and you've been up all night You're like this random woman has finally cracked the fucking case here. I I've been I've been with you

Yeah, I mean never know it's like we talked about on the the Flat Earth series You know the guy that had the guy that was of course, you know, he was a an Iraq war veteran You know, he'd seen the lies behind that whole war He'd gotten into YouTube one day and just start watching one Flat Earth video and then another and then another and then another And since he'd been lied to by his government so many times He thought what the fuck else are they lying to me about sure and he fell Fully into the Flat Earth conspiracy and he is now a full-on Flat Earther. Well, you tell me why isn't puffing rolling right now? Do I trust the books or do I trust my eyes?

I sometimes eyes, man The only Flat Earther that I will ever have respect for is the dude who made the rocket. Yes, he does. Yeah But he did it incident unrelated and it was he did it. He made the rocket I'm like, all right, bro. You go you do you he put his money where his mouth Yes, he did saying I don't believe in a curve. I want to see it for myself. He saw it once Okay, he refused to believe that he did see it once he said though that he wants to go back up there again That he has to double check. I mean, I get it. I've been there. How many times now that I've lost my belt from fucking gremlins I fucking check for my belt three or five six seven eight nine ten times waste of time

That is a perfect perfect segue here speaking of myths misconceptions Perhaps lies Marcus has put together a hell of a story here now We're talking more giants. Is that right? We are this is a continuation of our giant humanoid series But this is the tale of one of those giant humanoids that ended up being a full-on hoax I refuse to believe it's hoax. I've seen the pictures. I've seen the documents That's all you got to do now. It's not a hoax anymore. You see that's what's called That's called the beginning of pandemic Throughout the decades and centuries entertainment mediums have gone through many different bizarre iterations and back in the 1800s

One of the most popular forms of entertainment was the circus side show. Yeah, why isn't it still? They have all these workers rights No, it really was television in movies. That was it. That was it It wasn't the concern for the fat man or the little person or the woman with the beard Absolutely. No, it was actually mostly movies most that movies mostly killed like the side shows in the circus and all that type of shit There was just more money in the entertainment of movies. Thanks Charlie Chaplin Now all of that shit moved to friggin TLC TLC is now a circus side show where they just do the the the drama of the

Everly unfortunate everybody on that channel needs all reach out. Yeah, I know it I love I love looking at my six hundred pound life. It is a beautiful beautiful show in its own way Mm-hmm. It's really just that story of a bunch of feeder gainers. Yeah. Yeah And it's it kind of gives me hives when I watch because I have dreams I have one reoccurring nightmare. I have had so I wake up with a big orangutan face Like your luck I love I love it my face falling well Just like cop dramas superheroes and fantasy stories go in and out of vogue in the TV and movie realm the different acts in the

Sideshows of yore were also subject to the ebb and flow of popularity Back then singing conjoined twins might have top billing one year While the biggest acts the next season would be people with no arms play in musical instruments with their feet and Then those acts would lose the top spot to the sideshow geek You see kind sideshow geeks or are a lot of fun, but honestly, why can't they all just be together in one big old man? I'd love to see you geek being backed up by a guy playing fucking drums to this feet. That's a great afternoon That's a wonderful Friday night. All right. Well, what's a sideshow geek? It's not just screech from Saved by the Bell It's not just someone who likes to read all the square all the square movies that are words aka books

Well geeks were among the most bizarre of sideshow acts and usually involved either a vagrant man or woman Wandering a dark pit dressed in rags waiting for the Barker to throw down live chickens or snakes Which the geek would hungrily devour raw and alive in the most vicious and cruel ways possible And if you want to read about the spiritual evolution of a geek read the book nightmare alley Which is the book that Anton LeVe essentially stole his entire life story from and it's also going to be a new Guillermo del Toro Movie, which I would say I I want to see it's gonna be very Intelligent nightmare alley is a very very important book to esoteria. Well interesting Well, usually the the circus side shows we just kind of sweep the back alleys of major cities looking for vagrants mostly drunks dudes who would

Essentially debase themselves in exchange for a court of booze. All right much like they like the great doc you series bum fights Except this was just a guy in a pit biting the heads off of chickens. See now. I miss Coney Island I like to play that game shoot the freak although. I found that the gun It ain't aimed right The gun ain't aimed right shoot the damn guy I those poor it's 17 year olds That were made to be the freaks and shoot the freak I mean how many times you'd go in there like they'd have like a cup on yeah, because you know naturally We're all shooting for the dick. Oh, no shoot the freak used to be an old sideshow thing that you spent Coney Island

If you don't know where a 16 or 17 year old in body armor used to run with a shield from like coverage point to coverage point Well, you got a paintball gun and you could just shoot at him. It was great. It was great It was 2015. I played it. Yeah, and he'd yell shit at you. He did like yell insults the technical name for that sideshow act is the bozo. Oh Yeah, yeah, the guy that would because that is kind of a continuation of like the dunking booth type thing where you'd have You'd have the clown sitting on the Duncan booth and he'd roast whoever came by and he'd try to dunk him into the booth It's known as a bozo bozo the clown. No, if you notice Not a pedophile, but if you noticed Um that that fucking crotch armor was just plaster

But for a brief period in the late 1800s The hottest commodity in the sideshow game wasn't a human act at all Rather the public's attention was drawn towards the cold stillness of the giant petrified man Oh, and no petrified man drew bigger crowds than the Cardiff giant cool Building off our giant humanoid's episode the Cardiff giant was an admitted hoax from the late 19th century Involving a 10-foot tall man made out of stone that was billed as the ancient petrified remains of an Entodiluvian giant. I tell you what they didn't skimp on the dick on that thing It was really I wonder if the guy who put it all together was like and it's modeled after me

And you're like, I don't know I don't know just wondering why his wife keeps on slowly backing up into it Over and over and over again as she screams in orgasm Well hailing from Cardiff, New York The eponymous giant was the creation of a tobacconist and militant atheist named George Hall And Hall initially cooked up this entire scheme with no other motivation than pure spite Oh, it's so powerful the power of spite in the world of hoaxes is absolutely fascinating Yeah, a little bit of research that I'm gonna say you for an episode about the what so-called

Surgeons photograph from the Loch Ness monster the famous photo of the Loch Ness monster popping its head out of the lake, right? That was created by a man named Marmaduke weather else We're gonna get into this whole story best name in the world Yes, I've ever heard but you there's a whole story about how he did that shirt just specifically to give the daily mail a fucking finger Yeah, and of course if you're watching the docu series the last dance on the Chicago bowls Yes, they still beat the New York Knicks and I'm still very upset about it But spite is a great motivator spite is the whole reason why I'm sitting in this seat right now spite is my biggest motivator always has been you always need a Jerry Krause to hate

You always need one and if it's not if you don't have a Jerry Krause make one up You can just do that and get angry and then you can win. Well, here's this story of spite Okay, George Hall had been visiting his brother in Iowa and had found himself in an argument with a Methodist Revivalist who had been quoting the verse from the book of Genesis that claimed that giants once roamed the earth You got to put butts in seats. Yeah, that's how you do. You got to give him a hook. Absolutely Well, Hall naturally thought this claim was ridiculous So ridiculous in fact that he stewed on his argument with the Methodist Reverend for days finding himself Entirely unable to let it go

You think there's somebody bigger than me? You may tell me there's somebody bigger than me. There's nothing bigger than tobacco Chewing on his own hat I got this hat made out of tobacco leaves. I honestly find it's very interesting that he we learned early on In developing the cigarette industry that there is no god absolutely not Well, eventually Hall decided that the only way out of his frustrating predicament was to publicly humid human Was to publicly humiliate all those who believed in literal interpretations of the bible

So he vowed to create his own human giant and pass it off as a genuine fossil dug out of the earth I love it. But then what began was an again began was an incredible art project. Yeah, of course In order to achieve this goal Hall devoted an Unreasonable amount of time energy and patience to building this man-made monument to spite overall Hall would spend three years of his life just preparing the hoax everyone always wonders like What's in the mind of an artist and it is just this sentence and this will show him This will show him. Yeah, this will show him. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you tell her. I fucking giant

Fucking giants. I'll give him a fucking giant. Nice. This fucking giant's legs Look how detailed this giant's fucking hands are That's just fucking this is beautiful gorgeous See hall needed the giant to be quote-unquote discovered in new york state where he lived But he knew that using local craftsmen to construct the giant would most likely result in the secret Disseminating itself before hall even got the hoax in the ground. Hmm. Yeah, man. Fucking hh homes it Yep, also fucking wall facers it you can't let anybody know you have to be the only person to hold the entire plan in your mind

Which is what i'm preparing for My what i call my end plans. Yeah, what's the what's the number three step in your end plan? Get people to trust mailboxes again Well hole went back to iowa where the initial argument had taken place because he has He went from iowa back to new york state. This is like 1868 Oh, my god, so he's taken a train all the way back to new york state thinking about this shit stewing on this shit And then finding the size I can't fucking make a fucking giant i'll make a giant with a shirt on i'll make a giant with a fucking hat on

So he traveled all the way back to iowa where the initial argument had taken place We're talking days of travel here. Oh my god and hired a team of men to quarry out an 11 foot long Block of gypsum telling the workers that the stone was for a new abraham lincoln monument going up in new york state Yeah, needing a fucking room for a stupid fucking pipe hat big old stove pipe hat. All right. Yes quit asking questions Or i'm gonna smack your neck. All right. Give me that gypsum I was just looking at his death mask recently abraham linkens. It's cool. All right very thin. Yeah. Yeah, you're preparing for yours No, they don't do death death masks anymore. I don't think oh come on go on etsy. Yeah Well hall then had the stone shipped by train to chicago

Where a german stone cutter sworn to secrecy was commissioned to sculpt hall's giant cool After carving it the craftsman then artificially aged it with acid and even used a special tool to give the giant the appearance of having pores That's so fucking. She's look how fucking detailed it is. Yeah, look at the little fucking sleepy smile on his face I love this fucking giant. I love his attitude. I love what he's doing. Cool ass giant After it was done hall then shipped the finished project by rail to binghamton binghamton Upstate new york. So think of your track it again. He went from new york to iowa back to new york He went to chicago chicago now to binghamton. So he is chris cross the country three times It's all because of a revivalist preacher and he ended at the probably lasted 30 minutes. Wow

He then lugged the three thousand pound statue Upstate to cardiff and buried it on a farm owned by his cousin stub newell who is in on the whole scheme Oh stub. He always is in on the scheme, but he never has any idea what's happening And I tell you what? I'm so glad to bury another tall man. They wouldn't let me on the first ever basketball team I said, yeah, yeah, you might all be some tall whites, but how about me? I'm shaped like a ball Oh, stop. You're doing good bud Hull then waited an entire year To let the statue settle into the ground because it had to look real. So this is what now

We're at five years in this master plan. We're at about uh, it took him about two years to get the whole thing made And get the gypsum out get the fucking thing sculpted get it shipped back to binghamton And then he buried it and waited another year. I love this guy. It's the power of patience I think that we don't have it as much. I think that people when they talk about the their amazement But the giant ancient like sculptures and structures that we find like a black a tepi Like I was listening to a coast-to-coast on architectural hoaxes Stuff about like the lost tribes of israel about how somebody had just buried a fucking tablet with hebrew on it

New mexico and say like this shows that new mexico actually belongs to the jews I mean like I mean they can have it if they want it They gotta show up because turns out that's a hoax. I don't know. I'm not quite certain But you have to have patience I don't think we have the patience anymore to do architectural hoaxes anymore or even giant architectural things It takes thousands of years and artists to build something like the pyramids Well when the giant was deemed ripe for discovery Hull's cousin stub instructed two unwitting workers to dig a well right on the spot where the giant was buried

Sure enough three feet down the men discovered something in the shape of a foot And once a little more dirt was cleared away one of the workers exclaimed Not a clap some old indian has been buried here Whoa And upon further inspection these men uncovered the 10 foot tall statue And of course stub newell made sure to nudge the men in the direction that this was not a statue at all But could quite possibly be the remains of an ancient lost race Yeah, take a look at the fucking pores take a look at the fucking arms right so go detail the shit is right

Look at this. Look at this fucking giant, huh? This is wild, huh? Yeah, I got one, huh? Yeah, there's the proof right there Stub is also doing a great job being the narrator for ancient aliens or could it be Very fun. If you are these guys, yes, you're sent out to dig a well. What's more boring than that I mean other than you love to dig your holes It'd be fun to look at the architecture of digging it and how to keep it from collapsing and all that See look at this guys. That's a gift for those guys. How excited would we all be even if it's fake? Yeah, you get to believe that it's real for a little while

They think that they just found me the biggest archaeological thing since the ark. Yeah No, I always feel bad for those. I always feel bad for the recently fooled because I get it I wanted all to be real too. I want the giants to be real We got you just like a little toddler compared to the real fucking giants kiss. Oh, I want a real one I want one protecting my home I want one going to the grocery store for me and I want one destroying my enemies for me And it makes me mad that I can't get one So I understand what these where these people are come from that kind of heartbreak

See if you would have just said that in your audition for dr. Robotnik You would have beat out Jim Carrey who was too thin to play the role way too thin Well considering how giant bones were being discovered all over the country during this time Remember we talked all about in our giant humanoids episode and since the general public didn't really understand science All of that. Well, it wasn't much of a stretch to think that a giant could have quite possibly found itself Petrified hole, you know, I mean if they're already if giants are already real Then what's the extra step of believe and and they also turned into Perfectly stone replicas of their own bodies when they die. Yeah

Well, you had petrified wood everyone knew that petrified wood existed by this time So it's like it's one of those things where you can make the logical just like well If an organic material such as wood can be turned to stone then possibly organic material such as flesh Could possibly also be turned into stone sounds reasonable to me and I'm just I absolutely love this discussion and Brenda. Will you bend over forth to show us your nether's once more? Ah, what a wonderful day Yeah, you want to see my petrified butthole? Brenda, do you have change since the war?

Yeah, I uh lost my butthole in the war I got shot off by a sniper about 400 miles away 400 yards away Now by the time the workers suitably spread the word amongst the locals Stubb Newell had already set up a tent and was soon charging 50 cents per person to view the so-called ancient humanoid Damn pricey ticket 1869. That's a pretty pricey ticket Well, he started off charging 25 cents But so many people came on the first two days that he doubled the price Damn. Now the scientific community immediately recognized it as a statue and not a very good one at that

Oh, who's listening to these so-called scientists? But george hall didn't care about fooling the scientific community. He could give less of a fuck His only goal was fooling the clergy and in this goal george hall was Absolutely successful The pastor of the largest church in syracuse visited the cart of giant and fell for the scam completely And wondered aloud if perhaps this was one of the giants mentioned in scripture And you could see that moment right where he's sitting there and he's just like this is Walden of the giants. Yes, finally proof. There's hall like

Is it Like so ready. He's like, what is he gonna finally be in like for you? Like from space balls. So it's just a long It's just a long episode of punked With ashton kutcher. What do you think? But by this point Hall spite have been overtaken by the vast amount of coin earned from the attraction Hey, all right. So instead of revealing it all as a hoax. He just sort of let it ride for as long as he could

It's not up to him to make people He can't decide what people are gonna think. Yeah, he just buried a statue called an a giant But it also shows how like something just because just out of spite His side hustle a whole other sort of thing. It turned into his main gig. Yeah, just by fucking You know he built the special he didn't understand at the time I just joined the tourism industry. He did until then he was trying to do some big art thing But that's what happens. Sometimes you just make money on accident You put it right by the world's largest ball of yarn. You put it right by the huge cheese wheel

I mean you people love big things There's that big needle and then thread over there in in downtown Manhattan that people like to take pictures by it Or in the fashion district sure, but this is also one of those precarious things where like well is george hall a sellout Is he a shill for big giant? Maybe maybe I mean that you know there will be some people who think that that because george hall strayed from his original path of poning the clergy Because he decided to make money and said yes, there will be some in the atheist community that will call him a sellout

And I'd say fucking go for it george. Yeah, this is like fucking green. They made that musical Oh, so I'm about selling out. It's about buying in okay. I've been watching a lot of shark tags Now stub nul was not as good at keeping a secret at george as george hall was yeah, that'll happen Yep, and it wasn't long before stub started letting the story slip to friends and neighbors He just he was just too good of a secret But the thing is the joy the joy is in the secret Yeah, this is what he stub didn't realize how much how much leverage He just gave away with that information

That's why sometimes as a business owner like nowadays we have fucking nda's But at the time they used to fucking get degree shoots going Remember h.h. Holmes sometimes you gotta x out some of these loose ends if you want to have a good old fashion petrified giant Fuckin industry cornered if you want that shit you gotta lock up So you're saying he should have shot stub the way that uh the the the cousin of uh, what was the tall guy from of mison men Lenny Lenny was shot Those bastards he deserved it. He did not deserve it. No, he was giving free massages. He did not kill that woman He killed that poor girl

He did not kill that woman the massage killed that woman it happened to be attached to his hands Interesting you're you could have been a defensive attorney if you could learn You would be an incredible defense attorney. I took I know I took law classes in college Not guilty I would say I'm not saying he should have killed stub, but he definitely Could have killed push him over he can't get up All my belly's big Oh my god, I'm gonna starve here. Oh, no Before the cat was completely out of the bag

Hull cashed out and sold the giant to a syndicate of businessman This is back when like buying a sideshow attraction was a legitimate investment cool I honestly, I wish it I if it was if you got an act Senate design stories LP otl and gmail.com. We'll try to figure out like how do we bring it on the road with us The closest thing that we had in our lifetime because of star We will never see charles manson Stuffed and paraded around the streets as he should have been She broke his heart. She broke his heart for the last time and all she had to do was touch it once

Yeah, whatever. She just Reach under the table and give a little touch to the end of the tip charles manson been like, all right. Just take my body Like he could have just that would have been incredible It would have been great And if you had any doubt that sideshows were legitimate sources of revenue back in the late 19th century Hull was able to negotiate $23,000 from the business syndicate Which in today's money, it's half a million dollars. Dude this guy faked it till he made it made it big

Damn, is there any saying how much he invested? I don't know how much he invested, but I would imagine I maybe two or three thousand So it would have to be some it must be a pricey ticket at that point But I mean you had to buy the big block of gypsum. Yeah travel. Yeah, yeah, and the and the man hours Yeah, I mean he definitely He definitely sunk a lot of money into this into a thing that was not going to make a profit at all I mean he had to hire the guys who drew who had to dig the well, but they were just paid in soup Because that was also how you would pay people in the 1800s

Well the syndicate brought the cardiff giant up out of its hole and started touring it around towns big and small around upstate new york Cool But as the cardiff giant started making waves closer to new york city The greatest american flim flam man and tell el ron hubbard caught wind of this new type of attraction And before the syndicate knew it pt barnum was getting into the petrified giant game Got you got you man. You can't be the only ones out of the fucking game You gotta get your fucking get your skin in there, bro

So pt barnum is the amazon in this situation. Is he gonna be crushing this small guy pt barnum? Pt barnum well, yeah pt barnum when it comes to sideshow attractions and just when it comes to entertainment in general like pt Barnum was the top guy in new york city and pretty much the top guy in the east coast like pt barnum had the fucking market cornered He knew exactly what the fuck he was doing at all times when it came to sideshow attractions He was the man that was such a visionary that he took a monkey and a fish He cut the top off of the fish The bottom off of the monkey. Yeah, so the monkey onto the fish and displayed it as fiji the mermaid Take my money because I am seeing that right now. Do you remember we saw one?

We saw one of the fake mermaids. I believe that was in the british museum. Yeah. Yeah, we went Yeah, that was cool as hell, but they they look fun. I would pay money to go see him even now I would pay money to go see I went to the one I went to the one in coney island. It did the smell I love it. I love the smell. I love the it's just disgusting now first barnum Just tried buying the giant outright offering the syndicate the modern equivalent of one million dollars For the right to exclusively exhibit the attraction in his so-called american museum Located in what is now the financial district of manhattan. Okay, it's like, you know that park where city hall is Yes, sir, right at the bottom of that park. That's where

Barnum's american museum was and it was that battery park Uh, no, it's not it's a little bit west of batter. It's a little bit east of battery park Let's get into more locations of manhattan, shall we? I miss it. I miss going to manhattan Yeah, you get down there on the r-train right you could take the l over to union square You take the r down right you could do one of those you could take a q down I guess you're gonna want to do the fourth one. That's your express. Don't get stuck on the sixth. That's your local But no best way to do it take the l to 14th street

Take the five down to brooklyn bridge and you get a nice walk right past city. Oh, it's a nice real view So you think she's gonna come back to me or do you think like I don't know Anyway, dude, she's dead, dude Oh All right Well, the american museum was a fucking wonderful place It's if you it's one of those places where if I could time travel and go to like one location The american museum would be on the list

It was like just a complex of entertainment for the time awesome But when the syndicate declined the offer from barnum the one million dollar offer that meant that they thought We're gonna be able to tour this fucking thing across the country and make make well over a million dollars Like I mean it would be like I think it was the equivalent of fifty thousand dollars But like yeah, we're gonna make fifty thousand dollars fifty cents at a time I just sell the damn thing. But when they didn't sell it Barnum outflim flammed the flim flammers by sending an undercover agent to the cardiff giant exhibition To model the giant's exact shape and appearance using a lump of wax

Then copied the exact measurements of the giant which were clearly stated in the attractions newspaper ads They said exactly how wide it was exactly how tall it was. Oh my god It's like putting the fucking kfc secret ingredient in the newspaper turns out. It's chicken And barnum made an exact replica out of plaster Which was much cheaper and more quickly made than stone But he was able to make it look exactly the same And even though it was not as quite as impressive as the original Before the syndicate knew it barnum had put his version on display at the american museum

And build it as the real cardiff giant drawing even bigger crowds than the genuine article Man that fast dude. Yep. I mean that makes sense. They should have just taken the offer And of course the syndicate sued but once the whole kerfuffle made its way to the court The cardiff giant's originator george hall was brought to the stand to testify on the giant's provenance If you're a flim flamin, if you are a flim flamin, the last thing you want to do is be under oath That is like not gonna be good for you ever because I almost want to say a flim flamin It's never under oath. It's like they are kind of like submerged in oath And they will just sort of rise to the surface above oath as much as they can they they're looking for air

Yeah, I can see that sure, but can you met george hall right the ultimate Stick up his ass fucking nerd. He spent three years building this giant just to tell a priest to go fuck himself So now he gets to go into a court like big fucking feather in his hat. You know what I mean being like like Friends of unfriend of unfriend it's time to really get into the story of the cardiff giant. It's so excited, right? It's it's time to shine. Yeah, he's the star and he'd already gotten paid You know, he'd got his $23,000 for the fucking cardiff giant. He'd gotten paid. He didn't give a fuck No, so he laid out the entire thing in court and eventually they ruled for bar them, you know, like well

It's a fucking it's a hoax if it's a hoax if it's just an invention and you didn't trademark it You didn't copyright or anything like that and yeah, he can do it Ah pt, but that's a bastard move by mr. Barton Well, it's sort of like, you know, what will eventually happen when like Like kristin bell makes a true crime podcast and says like the only true crime podcast the oldest and longest running true crime And I'm like, oh man kristin bell leave our industry alone. I didn't know kristin bell at a podcast. I definitely listened to that. She's very No, don't Yeah, I'm sorry guys. I gotta

Oh, she needs a co-host. Isn't that exciting? I'm gonna audition. No, cancel stop. No But george hall had learned an important lesson in flim flammery Instead of returning to the tobacco business Hall traveled out west to find a whole new group of rubes who hadn't heard about the whole cardiff giant hoax This is when you could just move And you could leave all your problems. You could actually do that at some point in this in this world I mean, we could do it now, but we're only places we can go to I mean jakarta the dakarta

Hady, you know maybe we go down we go to madagascar you could go to like I mean, there's not a lot of people asking a heck of a lot of questions in iran right now if you can get over there Like you can just kind of get over there and be like hey guys. I'm here names ronald mcdonald Wow Out in colorado Hall worked with a former employee of pt barnum to create another giant that he called the solid moldoon Do you not ever go to the doctor and say that you have that?

They will make you take a dump in front of them I'm always looking for a solid moldoon, but I was just stuck with a real runny moldoon. Yeah This morning that was pretty upset about Named after a famous strongman named bill moldoon The solid moldoon was made of rock dust clay plaster ground bones Blood and meat that had all been mixed together Sculpted and fired in a kiln by horror movie logic. This would come to life. Yes That's cool. They get a fucking golem. That's awesome. It's the golem right all you need

I think it's like it's like blood and cum and a rabbi and now you have a rock slave. That's pretty awesome Then probably going off the advice of the former barnum employee hull added a small bit of flair and gave the solid moldoon a tail Oh That's an interesting you don't really think of giants with tails too often, but all right Well, apparently hull was like a big reader of charles darwin So he was getting into the whole evolution thing at the time So he was thinking like ah, perhaps yet using some scientific flammary like perhaps the men in the olden times

Had evolved from a different beast Which had a tail and was a giant stature in size and with any luck They could just pretend as if it's tucked its penis between its legs And it's making itself a vagina in the front and giving itself a dick tail I'm a pretty lady. You are pretty lady. Oh my god. You giant moldoon Then my wife has asked me to stop building giants because I keep falling desperately in love with them I actually well, that's creative thinking though. Yeah, it really is like that Would that be cheating?

Do you think it would be cheating a bit of a side note? But if someone fell in love with like the real sex doll Uh-huh like do you think that that that might break up a marriage? I guess could you fall in love with a statue? This is becoming a thing. This is we We better we should discover we should like look into that because there obviously people have relationships with objects I mean there's we covered remember the story we covered about the guy that uh Was posting with his real doll wife. That's right He was on side stories we covered the story but he was with his real doll wife

And he stayed pregnancy where he did all these facebook pictures of a baby coming out of her pussy and all this kind of stuff And then she disappeared and then facebook flipped out about the disappearance of his real doll wife and created a where is Stephanie like looking for her like a crime style You know, let's let's let's dig up the location of this woman like shelly miskovich Not to be too producer of mori povich here, but if you are or you know someone who has left their husband or wife Because of a real doll or statue side stories lpotl at gmail.com. Let us know We've had this conversation in our household. We I am not allowed to have sex with a robot or a real doll of it What about the flashlight the flashlight's fine?

Well, this is a thing in my mind Is it better to have something that has no body right because that's I think that's where marcus is angling towards Right, no no breasts and no butt and no legs, right? So you're not having sex with a full-on fake woman, but if you're just have a machine that sucks your dick That's not cheating. It sounds like that's off the table for the park's household Yeah, because it's a sex robot if the machinda is long as I'm doing most of the work here And as long as it doesn't have a face totally on board. Well, what is carolina? Is she amish or something? Well the whole thing about the solid moldoon all came crashing down after a disgruntled insider blew the whistle on hall

And hall got out of the petrified giant business forever However, perhaps but perhaps not so surprisingly the success of the cart of giant and of the solid moldoon Inspired nearly a dozen more petrified giant Discoveries they're everywhere I'm going to say the word hookers in the in the trunk of There's hookers in every one of these Whoa look at all these giants who would have not loved dirty work that movie is so funny classic And this is even after a hall publicly admitted that both of them were hoaxes

But a year after the solid moldoon a hotel owner at Lake Cuyahoga back in new york Was able to pull the same scam until one of the guys who helped bury it Let the secret slip while he was drunk at the bar one night. God Gotta have your guys keep quiet man. They have to keep quiet I just don't understand how they don't realize the money is in the secret You blow the secret you just cost yourself your entire living I wonder if there's just a way to like I mean you can't trust anybody. You don't know what anybody's gonna do But I mean, you know, ha

You gotta get information on them There is a way Henry three men can share a secret if two of them are dead Why is just one that's just one man And then you that one guy go gets he gets hammered at the bar and tells everyone Well, you just never tell anybody the secret. I really do believe that I think that if you're the head of the scam You hold the burden of being the only one with the full line of knowledge And you keep everybody in your life at arm's length until the scam is over You don't let any fucking person know you have to have the strength

To keep a lockdown on your own mind and hire each person separately. I've been thinking about this for a long time Yeah, but you know, I think it's just not inhuman nature. They want the reaction They do people need to feel as if they've pulled something over on someone You're only gonna know that if you tell a few people Yeah, a cold teachings show us how people are always thirsty for that Which is behind the veil the idea that there is and like the esoteric schools They talk about how there is one layer of learning which is taking information You get a space value

But then there's always deeper and deeper levels where you look at it And you're like, what is it? How is it? Symbolically? How is it culturally? What does it mean to me? Astrologically and if you want any greater example than that put a bra on your male friend And you tell me you tell me you don't want to see his titties Guarantee you that you will Guarantee if you put my tits. I will look at them. I would want to see them. Yeah. Oh weird, right? Yeah, it's weird No, I agree Amazingly the scam then had another resurgence back in colorado. It's just colorado in new york state trading off

I love it. It's like a fucking coven. Yep in colorado a con man named soapy smith Commissioned and buried a concrete giant that he nicknamed McGinty in a town called creed Yeah, I will never see the dry really like my McGinty McGinty is only four feet tall That's a pretty small giant. They called me soapy, which is funny. They called me soapy, which is funny because I'm covered with dirt Uh soapy, I mean he was the guy in creed when it came to cons. He had a whole army. Yeah, you need a giant? You need a giant? You want an eagle? How you getting you an eagle two seconds? I could just you know what I do is I just take wings to a rat I got your eagle right there

Well, he had pretty much had a stranglehold over all the vice in town like he controlled all the pickpockets He controlled all the card games all the numbers and then figured I'm gonna get into the giant game here Wow, he's like shredder But by the time the scientific community showed up to verify soapy's claim Both he and McGinty had skipped town and so literally skipped out of town I guess I just slipped through their fingers again Oh, soapy can't get a grip. It must have been weird traveling with all those banjo players And soapy unfortunately met his end six years later when he was gunned down in the streets of

Skagway, Alaska. What what did he do in Skagway, Alaska to get gunned down? Something he definitely deserved to get gunned down for I'd tell you what I thought I was safe when I moved out of horsefield But I guess I found my death in Skagway Sounds like it's out of borderlands But soapy was among the last to make a solid dollar from the petrified giant game Where East Barnum had supposedly offered $20,000 for the solid Muldoon Petrified men were going for no more than a thousand bucks by the 1890s Still a fucking good sum of money, but a large drop from $20,000 just from just a few years earlier

Market fell out saturated the market too many giants As far as the fate of the Cardiff giant went it ended up in a barn in Fitchburg, Massachusetts And did make an appearance at a state fair in Buffalo in 1901 Okay, but gained little attention compared to the crowds the petrified giant had once drawn Oh, but you know, I'm sure there was still amazement in the eyes of children. Yeah, which is true I would look at it. I'd be like, damn that's even if it is just rock and I know it'd be rock I'd be like, it's a lot of rock 10 feet tall. It's a 10 feet. That's a lot of rock I'm interested in seeing it now. I wanted I want to see it more

Because of the story. Absolutely dude next time you come to New York, you can see it Okay, where is it? Well a newspaper publisher in Des Moines owned the giant throughout most of the first half of the 20th century But it eventually made its way back to New York state when it was bought in 1947 by the Farmers Museum in Cooperstown Where you can still go see it in the main barn to this day, dude I didn't know that there was a farmers museum. I am going. Yeah, dude. That's cool. They got cows and shit That's a fun idea man. That is a really really fun idea. I feel like we should go up there man When next time I'm in town, we should go up to Cooperstown. Isn't that also where the baseball shit is? Yeah, that's where the Hall of Fame is. But it's Cooperstown. No, Cooperstown, right?

Where's the baseball Hall of Fame? Cooperstown. They're both in Cooperstown. You got the baseball Hall of Fame Where's the one in Colombe? What Cleveland has the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? The basketball Hall of Fame is in Massachusetts It's upstate. Oh, huh. Yeah. All right. I think you want to take the four train. That's going to take your right down to Bowling Green You're going to want to take the 185 up and you're going to want to go up to take the metro up to Westchester Yep, yep And if in case you're wondering, uh, the sugaring off Sunday's pancake breakfast usually held at the Farmers Museum Canceled until further notice, but they promise to return. They better return. Yeah, I want that pancake breakfast Yes. Oh, because you know they have sausages too. It's not just pancakes. They get you in the door with the pancakes

But they get you out in the door when you got the sausage shits We've already talked about my obsession with pancakes and I just I gotta start making some good old-fashioned big fluffy pancakes in my home We've been eating a lot of protein pancakes because those are the ones Natalie eats because she's trying to stay tram Henry, were you the one that got pissed off when you found out what when you finally figured out why they're called pan cakes? No, was that you Ben? No, uh, I would assume they're called pancakes because they're cooked on a pan. Yeah, and they're kind of cakey Yeah, yeah, yeah That's exactly what I expected when I hear the team pancake when I get a pancake. That's what I expect Yeah, no, you tell me you tell me waffle. You give me the waffle word

I couldn't tell you why the fuck they call that goddamn thing a waffle. I'd call it. Yeah a fucking bunch of goddamn carb holes I love my carb holes, but I think you know the first thing is being like are you gonna give me waffle? What are you gonna give me some kind of democrat? Oh, you you got a good man. I love that. That's a good flip-flop joke flip flam Swift boating 2004 16 year old reference and we are speaking to an audience right now some of which are under the age of 48

John Kerry the only man I've ever believed in I said, you know, he's the only one he's the he if only he could save us right now Oh, that long-faced fucking Oh god, what an ugly piece of shit. Did that horseman get me excited in 2004? I feel the same excitement now Wow, I really do one excitement. I am trembling to go to the polls Trembo and that's the that's the story of the card of the card of giant and all the the giant hoaxes that came afterward So what did we learn number one? You can never trust pt. Barnum. He's gonna undercut you if he gives you a million bucks Take the goddamn money never always take the bar just take the money Just take the money pt. Barnum's trying to get in your business to let him have your business

We know we now know this but it's too late now if a person that you're speaking with that You want to keep a secret even looks at alcohol that person cannot keep a secret. No, definitely no And no anybody anybody named After a person who's gotten amputee shit done to you. Yeah, can't be called stubs No, no and be trusted with a fucking secret I think the most important lesson here is that spite is the best motivator in the universe That's entirely possible. Very true. I miss love time I miss this time though in where this time period where the imagination

Really was going wild in america. Yeah, you know, they were like people were entered The only reason this worked is because people were right there thinking giants might be real And all they needed was just a rock monster to prove it. Yeah, it's our imagination is going wild But it's getting people outside of cell phone tire It's getting people outside of cell phone towers shot because they think the 5g bullshit It's giving us all the superflip. Yeah, that's where the imagination is going where I much rather it go back into Building giant fake giants. I agree. Let's stage some mothman sightings. Let's stage some giant Terasaurus sightings. I think that would be a lot of fun

These are the type of things that gets the creative juices of our country going and you know inspires people to look to the sky You know what I'm going to say right now Put chicken feathers on a pig. You got a chicken pig Now if you tell me if you tell me behind this curtain is a chicken pig Five dollars five dollars chicken pig. You have 15 dollars coming my friend because I'm going three fucking times What a sweet and simple world we'd be in if kissle was our creator god Yep, it would just be women would have beer in their breasts and in their uteruses Uh men would have beer in their goxes. I don't know. I don't know if I would want a baby

Marinated in beer well in the womb. It might not create the greatest Nick nolte's doing great. Yeah, that's true All right. Well, there it is the giant the cardiff giant Uh a good extension from our giant humanoid series. Thank you, mr. Park Of course for bringing that story to all of our attention And it gives us all hope if you're a small business person out there and you have no idea what do you want to do Make something up people will pay for it. Mm-hmm. Yep. That's what we did. That's what we're Howard That's what just happens. These two guys go out there and speaking of that. Check out last podcast live.com. Check out our live show

It is it's a fun romp. I god. I miss performing life I can't fucking wait to do it again. You guys have been sending all these pictures of kissle Yes performing on stage. It's been so nice to see them again. I'm just I'm missing so bad But check out last podcast live.com. Check out last podcast merch.com. We got all new merch We're we're fielding your requests. Have you got any ideas for more merch? We're trying to get more grinders in there I heard that already. Yep. Check it out 6.66 percent of all proceeds goes to one fair wage We're just giving our first low. I think we just gave them 15k. I think we're gonna be they were steep. You're still doing it So yeah, absolutely

Absolutely keep on supporting all the shows here, too We got no dogs in space for all your music inquiries. Yeah, miss fits coming next week. Very cool Abling it's top at politics page 7 entertainment kind of fun wrestling nerdy stuff whiz brew We can we're filling out the whole trivial pursuit pie here And hopefully we have a some kind of football show coming up in the very near future That's hope so um if you're as a matter of fact if you if you're a former football player and you're listening to this right now I know we have a huge former football player contingency Mostly because of the cte. They think we're very funny. Yes. Um, hey hit me up. Hit me up

I'm looking for a host land for a co-host. Yeah, if you guys we got any XFL players out there. Oh, I love XFL I love XFL. It was so much fun to watch it for that brief period speaking of flim flam man Vince McMahon is the uh pt barnum of our time. Yeah, he really is I would put him in there. Yes. Yeah, but he really delivers a product though. Yes. He does They have giants as well and they're real live giants. I mean they can barely move and they die young But they are giants. Yeah pt barnum. He produced products What mirth mirth mirth and merriment, but is mirth Is anything more valuable than a smile? Yeah money

Just everything right silver. I would say even breakfast cereal Anything that gives you anything else. I've been proved wrong. I've been proved wrong soundly All right, everyone and also don't forget to uh, yeah, if you haven't got the last book on the left. Yeah Yes, yeah, you go go to indybound and order it and a lot of a lot of local bookstores are doing a curbside pickup right now So be sure to support your local bookstores and thank you everyone so much for the support We're we've done a full fucking month now on the york times bestseller list They don't so much for supporting us throughout it. It's very it's overwhelming It means a lot for you guys to support us like this

They do not want us there and it's just really awesome to be there glenn we beat glenn back He stopped buying his own books. Yep. Yep. So we have beat him. He fell off after three weeks of bulk buying A whole fucking tree is now sitting in glenn beck's fucking garage. You can also buy his jeans for 200 dollars So you can have a mom but I want to be him. There's nothing I want to be as closer than to glenn beck's ass All right, everyone. Thank you all so much for listening. Hope everyone is doing all right out there. Hail yourselves. Hail satan Hail gain. Let's throw him a goose to lesions. Yeah, okay. You can do one of those. Yeah, you do. Make goose to lesions. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Yeah Yeah, I mean, yeah, sure. We have no reason to not. What if we just go bury me? I know. I mean, we might as well Well, we can't right? We should go bury me tell people there's a buried giant

But I'll have a little breathing hole like moses did with the reed and then I'll kill them This is yeah, fuck. Yeah, dude. It's just not like your sexual fantasies, but I'll be part of it This show is made possible by listeners like you Thanks to our ad sponsors You can support our shows by supporting them for more shows like the one you just listened to go to last podcast network.com