The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 134 - Count Dante

Episode Date: November 25, 2015

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds discuss Chicago martial arts legend Count Dante and the Chicago dojo war. SOURCES TOUR DATES REDBUBBLE MERCH

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I read a story from American history to my friend. Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic is gonna be about. Good job. You too. No that was really good. For you it was good because it's fucking good at this. What is going on right now? I'm sad. Why? Don't take it out on me. God, do you want to look who to do? I'll do one bottle. People say this is funny. Not Gary Gareth. Stay okay. Someone or something is tickling people. Is it for fun? And this is not going to come to tickling podcasts. Okay. You are queen fakie of Hade uptown. All hail Queen shit of Liesville. A bunch of religious virgins

go to mingle and do what? Pray. Hi, Gary. No, I've miss you done my friend. February 2nd 1939. Okay. John Keyhan was born in Beverly Chicago. Beverly's on the south side on the southwestern side of the city. His parents were well off. Okay. His dad Jack was a doctor and director of the Ashland State Bank. Okay. He was a doctor and in charge of a bank? Yeah, I think he was probably on the board. Okay. I mean still. And his mom was sometimes seen in the Chicago Tribune Society pages. Which basically means she just hung out? Yep. Cool. John had one older sister. He went to Mount Carmel High School and while there he

fell into boxing. Okay. So a boxing at 13. And he boxed all the way through high school at Johnny Coloon's 63rd Street Gym. Okay. After high school he joined the Marine Reserves and then went into the Army. It was in the Army that he was first introduced to martial arts. Dave, how long till this dude's fighting a polar bear? This could just be a normal story. But we've got a bad trek record with boxing. He learned hand-to-hand combat and jujitsu. Okay. See, you know, if you tell me this and we're just talking about like a guy that, you know, your wife is friends with, I'm like, oh, this dude sounds like a badass. Yeah. In

this situation, I'm worried. You shouldn't be. This guy's great. No. Maybe he's an American hero. True. In the Army, John returned, after the Army, John returned to Chicago and got a job teaching at Gene Oaxaca's Judo and Karate Center in Brighton Park. A man named Robert Trius had opened up the first karate school in the U.S. and he made, John made trips to Phoenix, Arizona to study there. Okay. Robert Trius was head of the United States Karate Alliance. Okay. It's such a great name. Yeah. Not an association. A fucking alliance. We are an alliance. John was training full time. If you want to get on the board, you must break it

with your foot. Join the alliance. Alliance. John was training full time and he earned his second degree black belt and was then appointed the USKA's Midwest Representative. Sounds sort of like a salesman. Yep. But he didn't study just one martial art. He pretty much studied them all. He'd go from school to school learning what he could of each form. He would later say, quote, I wanted to get a complete in-depth study of all the fighting arts. I wanted to know as much about the arts as I possibly could. Okay. But he did get a black belt in a keto and another one from Gene Walker in Chicago and he got one in a jute from

Woodrow Engel. So he was picking up some shit. Many Jews. In the early 60s, dojos were far from what they are today. They were very basic, simple places, mostly attended by cops, ex-soldiers, bouncers, and other tough guy types. Okay. So it's kind of like the first scene in any police academy movie. Yeah. That's pretty much exactly what it is. John Keyhan wanted more. He was looking for the masses to enjoy his art. So John started putting together tournaments that showed off the more exciting acts aspects of martial arts. Now we're starting to slip. On the cover of one program, he put a picture of him

smelt himself smashing bricks with his elbow. John was also quite good at marketing and the first tournament he put together on July 28th, 1963, found its way into the Chicago Chabrines in the wake of the news column. John Keyhan's early tournaments brought in martial arts celebrities like Ed Parker, Jehoon Ri, and Bruce Lee. Well, that list is basically two guys and Bruce Lee. John wasn't too bad himself. He could sidekick or punch a brick and a half. Although it wasn't always easy. At one event, it took him three strikes to break a brick and he ended up with five broken bones in his hand. That's what I always

think when you watch those things is that like the like it's a spotlight and these people will not, they will break. They have to do. They will break the thing in front of them or they will die trying to do it. Right. Right. Totally. Like because it's like and by the time someone's on try three, they're gassed. Yeah, and like you're like stop. Yeah, just we get it. You wanted to do. Have you ever seen the dude trying to chop the coconuts? Yeah. Okay. Let's make it sure. The next day he was at his dojo with his hand in a cast. This kind of stuff was also good at attracting new students and the students like John. One set of him

quote John was a person who focused on basics and fundamentals. He had excellent form and techniques. Okay. One of John's big job acts was that he wanted attention. He wanted to be in the limelight. He seemed to put himself ahead of the art and his ideas for tournaments seemed to cause friction with other karate schools. John wanted tournaments to be full contact with no safety equipment. He didn't want anyone pulling punches just going full at it. So he invented the UFC essentially. This may have had to do with his size. John was about six foot well built and looked like a bodybuilder. So he just wanted

these tournaments just to ruin people. His events were more brutal than others. A tournament in 1964 was described as taking place on cement floors with teeth flying everywhere. Oh my gosh. Wow. Fights would have to be stopped so someone could go look for their teeth. That's interesting. Those are interesting timeouts. Timeout! Yeah I gotta get the teeth. I think that's mine. Oh that's yours. Yeah. Wait. I don't think either of these are mine. There's seven here. Oh gosh. I'm putting a molar in my front tooth. This isn't even making sense anymore. That's how Mike Tyson started his talk. I'm looking for my teeth

somewhere around the floor. I lost my teeth on the floor somewhere. If someone finds some teeth they got a big gap in the middle of them. There's two teeth with a separation. John also charged quite a bit to learn his dojo. 20 bucks a month which was a lot at the time and he was one of the first white senseis in the US to allow non-white students. White sensei would be a great 70s karate fighter. Tonight on White Sensei. Followed by Black Belt Jones. Oh Black Belt Jones. Race was never a consideration when it came to his teaching. He just wanted people to get into martial arts. His dojo looked like a United Nations school,

not a martial arts school. There were all kinds of people there. No one liked it. The cops didn't like it. Cops didn't want martial arts schools to exist period because they didn't want young kids, especially black kids, learning how to fight and disarm someone. How much has changed? I think I would live in such a different world. Yeah, thank God. Ken Knudsen, a white martial arts guy from Chicago, said, quote, John loved the martial arts. He loved it. He ate it. He breathed it. He was blind to race. It didn't matter. But it's also like racism is terrible to begin with but there's

something really fucking weird about adapting like an Asian art form and being told that it's for whites only. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. You're double not allowed to do that. No, we invented this. Yeah. This is white Kwon Do. White? White Kwon Do. And by the way, when you're taking this class, you started black and earn your way to white. So John was the USK's Midwest representative, but his training of black guys in the martial arts apparently caused friction with Robert Treas. John told Black Belt magazine. Nothing. Hey, the new Black Belt to you. I'm guessing it did as well as

Players Club. You know, Green Belt magazine is gonna fault. Yeah, those guys are nothing. I can't believe we... Why do we name it Green Belt magazine? Legal stuff. Don't worry. Halfway there, we thought. This month, every cover is like, yeah, halfway there. It's like men's health with abs. Almost the best. Optimism. The way to look at your belt. This week in Green Belt magazine, Jerry frack-earsie. Who's that? He's got a Green Belt. Just some guy. John told Black Belt magazine that the USKA didn't have any black people in the entire organization except for him and that Treas wasn't happy about it. Now, Treas

denied this, but other people believe there was a silent ban on minorities in the early days of the organization. In the end, the fight led to Treas kicking John out of the USKA in December 1964. I hope it was a crane kick. Get out! Others said the fight between the two was over control of the Alliance and it just started overtraining minorities. Sounds like Star Trek. It totally does. The Alliance. It's... You've got your different belt associations. Treas thought John quote was given too much power too young and too fast. John was a bit out of control. On July 2nd, 1965, John and other martial arts instructor, Doug

Dwyer, were arrested. Okay. They were caught by police as they attempted to blow up the window of a rival Dojo school with dynamite caps. Whoa, whoa, whoa, okay. All right, so we're sitting at the big boy table now, huh? What? Well, I just thought this was gonna be a little cute, breaking some cinder blocks and some boards. We're talking fight club dynamite. Well, why don't you just use a hammer blowing up a window with dynamite caps. Come on. We're really gonna blow up this fucking window. We'll make sure it's really over. This goddamn window's gotta go. What about a rock? No, we gotta blow it up with some explosives. No, no. Anyone can do rocks.

We're dojos. Dojos. I don't even know what a dojo is. I guess a dojo is like a what it is. A nest. A dojo? Yeah, the place where you. Yeah, the dojo is like where you, you know, with the mats where you practice the martial arts, right? And sometimes the way it was used when I was reading about it was it wasn't just that. It was what else was it? Mystery. What? I mean, I guess I've never been in the back of a dojo. I've been buying into this premise the whole time. Okay, Dwyer was only charged with four traffic violations. So I don't know what's happening in Chicago, but two guys tried to blow up the window of a dojo and one guy. I mean,

did the cops even know about like it's one of those situations? You. Okay, step away from the window. I'm gonna get you with no stop at a stop sign, driving at a 45 and a 35. Sir, sir. Hold on, sir. If I may turn at the stop, sir. There's something we just noticed upon looking through their stuff. What's that? Their tags are also expired. Boom. That's four. All right. Welcome to Chicago, you motherfuckers. We don't play games. It's a no fucking joke town. All right, now get your road flares and get out of here. John was arrested and charged with attempted arson, possession of explosives and resisting arrest. But they both got

off light. John was given just two years probation. Wow, that's great. Those are the days when you could put explosives on a window and just get a little. And now we've just swung so far in the other direction. Now you're in. Now you got a nickel bag of weed. Yeah, and you're in fucking Guantanamo with a bag over your head getting barked at by dogs. At this time, John also decided to buy a lion cub. So he bought a lion. That is correct. At this point, it was legal in Illinois to buy one. At this point, do you mean it had never been made illegal or it had been overturned and legalized? Later it becomes illegal, but right now it's perfectly

legal to have a lion in your dojo. Dude, by the way, though, which dojo do you sign up for the fucking lion? Right? Yes, but we also have a lion. Well, obviously I'll be here. Oh, so there's there's four dojos. One is Gary Wonky's. One is Mon Lise. And then there's the Black Society. And then the fourth one. I don't know the name, but they have a lion. That's the one. The last one, please. I didn't. I don't think I heard anything until then. He kept the lion at his Rush Street dojo. He would walk it around Chicago like it was a dog. Whoa, what? What? That was okay, too. What were the lion laws? There were no laws. So it was

just like there. So not only could you have house and own a lion, but it was okay to just take him to the streets for a walk. It's like sniffing a dude's crotch. He's like, I have a lion at home. He must smell my lion. The lion was said to have urinated all over the dojo. That's always fun. I mean, cat piss is not good. I can't only imagine what lion piss is like. And the litter, the litter situation. Fuck. I don't know. He's just the lion's just not taking to the litter. Boy, it's a good dojo, but the smell is fucking horrific. You could smell it, huh? We put some plug glade plugins in the walls, but I guess

it's terrible. It smells like lion piss. It's exact. Yeah, the lion has been pissing everywhere. Wait, the lion? Yeah. Oh, sign me up. Oh, yeah, great, obviously. Sensei Bob Brown said the lion once jumped out of the window of the dojo, which is on the second floor, and landed on a horse pulling a Suri. What? You somebody got to see that shit? What? Imagine if you saw that. Oh, fuck. I would pay so much money to see that. People would be like, sit down. Sit down, Ted. I don't think you're making sense right now. You're like, no, no, no. I just saw a lion jump out of a window and then rode a horse. So my question to you is,

what did you guys do since lunch? Because I saw a lion ride a goddamn horse. Okay, that's good. And then an owner of the lion come and get it. I don't think any of this is true. Well, been taking a little bit of acid, sure. The lion was later sold to the Lions Club of Quincy. What is that? Well, the Lions Club is like a country club for lions. I think the Lions Club is like a vet, a vets organization or something like that. It's like an old people gathering place, like one of those things. So just another animal who just ended up in a perfectly fine situation for itself based on human behavior. It soon bit the

mayor of Quincy during a Lions Club event. Fucking, it was all worth it. When lions are biting mayors. Being a master of promotion in the summer of 1967, John bought a bull from the Chicago Stockyards. In his latest exhibition, he said the bull would be killed with a single blow. He's going to fight the bull? Right. Well, not he, but the bull is gonna be killed with a single blow. Karate. Take me where we're headed, Davis. He would drive the bull around Chicago on the back of a flatbed truck with signs hanging off that shouted the event. Dave. But John what? Can I guess the bull gets loose? It doesn't. Damn it. Okay. But John wasn't

gonna do the bullkilling himself. Of course not. Outsource it. He in hand picked one of his best students to do it. Dude, that's the best. Because he's probably promoting like he's gonna do it for a while that he's just like, hey Jeremy, I stick around after class. Yeah. So great stuff today. Awesome sparring. I really think you're coming along. Thank you, Sensei. Are you noticing the difference when you're fighting some of the guys? Now you're seeing those technique shifts. You've really come into your own, which is why I think I have great news. I want you to fight the bull. I said what's that? I want you to be the

one who knocks the bull out with one blow. I think you want to go with maybe some sort of forward punch, right, to his chest. I don't know. I'm not the guy doing it, but I love your instincts and I think you're really gonna take to this well. You will fight the bull. So yeah, I get excited. I don't know if you paid for the last quarter, but if you haven't, that's okay. But get it to me before the bull punch, obviously. I just want to make sure we're all settled up before that. Yeah, I'm gonna get out of here. So I guess those were the headlines. Pay me for the last quarter. You've come along, your technique's

great, and you'll be fighting a bull, and you'll knock it out with a single blow. Thanks, Jeremy. His name was Arthur Rapkin, and he was a 17-year-old kid. John psyched Arthur into really believing he could kill the bull. A single blow. Wow, what a bull. You fucking got this, dude. You got this, Arthur. Who's the real animal? John had Arthur training for his bull moment. What? A dude in a bull costume? I think you're ready. In a Chicago Tribune article, Arthur said that if the cops stopped him from striking the bull in the building, he'd, quote, kill it in the truck on State Street, if necessary.

That's not as... So Arthur's down. Arthur wants to kill the bull. Arthur's ready to fight the bull. Fight the bull? Fight a bull with your hands. Yeah, I mean, come on. In the end, it turned out to be a gimmick. When all the seats were full, John told the audience that the Chicago SPCA had shut down the bull kill. It's just a bullshit thing to get people in the seats. Or just the shit thing. But Arthur the whole time thought it was real. Oh, wow. So he was in the locker room like putting his... getting his hands taped, stretching out, looking in the mirror. He never told Arthur that he wasn't going to fight a bull. Wow. That's amazing. Some real

head games. 1967 was a big year for John. First, he changed his name, legally. Two. John Keyhan to Juan Rafael Dante or Count Dante. Oh, Jackpot. We have a winner. Count Dante? He said he was reclaiming the royal title of his parents that they had lost when they immigrated to the U.S. during the Spanish Civil War. Well, I mean, that's just always kind of like a junior or something. That'll just drop over the years. You just stop being royalty because you forget to call yourself it. This is especially weird because he was Irish. Yeah, I don't think it's fine. I don't think there should be any

questions right now. No one knows exactly why he picked the name Count Dante. It might have been because his high school was on Dante Avenue. Well, it's kind of like how you come up with your porn star name, right? Exactly. Yeah. Okay, who was your favorite Sesame Street character? Count Chocula. Okay, and then what was... I already fucked that up because it wasn't Count Chocula. What was he? Just the count? Count Dante. Okay. Oh, the count who counted? Yeah. I think he was just the count. All right, there we go. Fuck that up. You did. Thank you. But it didn't matter because the new name was much more exciting than John Keyhan. He also

boosted his stage presence at matches. He held a tournament that year at Lane Tech and came in wearing a cape and holding a cane that had a lion's head on top. Whoa, that's a heavy cane. Very karate. Not a real lion's head. Okay. I guess it's over. Okay. Well, I don't know. He's got access to lions. His hair was now curly. Oh, dude. And jet black and he had a neatly trimmed beard. Was he auditioning to be like the bad guy in the Superman? So what, he's just kind of evil Jesus? His face was also red. From what? According to Black Belt magazine, quote, the face was what held your attention because it was bright red. It gave the

impression of a devil's mask. He, okay. I mean, he is trying to be the devil. People who knew him always casually wondered about the color of his face. Was it face paint or was he, well, he just had a red head? What was he? Some thought it was because of burns. Because he had a car battery explode his face, but most thought he used makeup. Which also means the only way a car battery explodes in your face is if you're like, all right, negative to positive and positive to one of his friends called him the master of makeup. But so it was, he either had horrible burning or he had some sort of

makeup on. He was right. Okay. I mean, come on. Okay. So he painted his face red. Yeah. He had long hair and a beard. He started to wear a cape. His name was Count Drake. Dante. Dante. Count Dante. And he had a cane with a lion's head on it. And he had a lion. And he had a lion also. And he almost had a student fight a bull. Correct. Alrighty. He was also into hair. 1967 was the year he opened a hair salon. I mean, of course. Count Dante was now also a licensed cosmetologist. Sure. Come down to Count Clips. The salon was called the House of Dante. I don't know if you want to go in there. Count Dante also told young Arthur Rappkin that he

should get into hairdressing because of the hours because they're flexible and he could meet a lot of chicks. Okay. I mean, he's not wrong. Count Dante was shooting. It's strange to me that Arthur's hanging around still. Why not? He was picked to fight the bull. He doesn't know that it was a gimmick. He still doesn't? No, I don't think he did. Oh, poor guy. Man, fucking ASPCA, huh? Yeah. Nightmares, huh? I was gonna kick the shit out of that bull. I know. Yeah, you had its number for sure. Anyway, you should be a hairdresser. Count Dante was shooting for a national recognition with his new persona. And he

had ways to make it work. He created the world's deadliest fighting secrets pamphlet. This pamphlet was based... Pamphlet. This pamphlet was based on one art existence called the Kung Fu Dim Mac, also known as the Poison Hand Strike. The Poison Hand Strike would take out eyes, flay skin, fish hook lips, so many things. In Count Dante's pamphlet, he declared he could teach people the dance of death. This was a quick combination of attacks that would leave an enemy in a bloody heap. He advertised in comic books to focus on kids. Smart. Here's from the ad. Yes, this is the deadliest and most terrifying fighting

art known to man. And without equal, its maiming, mutilating, disfiguring, paralyzing, and crippling techniques are known by only a few people in the world. An expert at Dim Mac could easily kill many judo karate, Kung Fu, Akido, and Kung Fu experts at one time with only fingertip pressure using his murderous poison hand weapons, instructing you step-by-step through each move in this manual is none other than Count Dante, the deadliest man who ever lived. Count Dante. Also known as the Crown Prince of Death. And I mean kids obviously respond to this. Oh yeah. But basically he's just putting out a pamphlet that

says he's got special finger techniques. He's putting an ad in comic books and then asking people to buy the pamphlet. Right, okay. His first couple of pages of the pamphlet just described how awesome Count Dante was. It said what martial arts... Pamphlets aren't that long so you really... Wow. A few pages. You're eating up some pamphlet. You already have a lot of pamphlet. Yeah. It said what martial arts he'd mastered, how he was quote strikingly handsome, and that he was a classical singer. Sure. Sure, sure, sure. Yep. Just keep buffing that resume. There were photos of Count Dante in his black silk G demonstrating moves such as the

quote groin slap or grab and tear off. Is that part of the groin move? Which was also called the quote monkey stealing a peach. Oh, I've heard a monkey steals the peach. That's amazing. Yeah, and you know what? I mean, it's very graphic but it's just so clearly it's just where you rip a dude's nuts off and shake it like a peach. Oh, God. Monkey steals the peach. Crazy as it all sounded, there were legitimate things one could learn from the pamphlet. Like not to buy pamphlets. What? It did teach that his single blow attack might not work. Oh, as long as it's got a disclaimer. And that the student should also continue fighting until he

is victorious. The pamphlet cost five bucks. Okay. A lot of money back then. And he's probably sold a shitload. No one knows how many pamphlets Count Dante sold, but it was enough to open three new imperial academies of fighting arts in Chicago in 1969. Wow. So he's the dojo master the Midwest. He certainly is. And there were more full contact tournaments and the friction grew between the martial arts community and Count Dante. He was rubbing everyone the wrong way. They did not like his bad boy persona. And the letters to the editor page of Black Belt magazine. Probably the best page in the fucking thing. A kid asked

about Count Dante's background. And the editor wrote that Dante had once been a promising Karataka. Karataka. That must be. Sure. Who was now a charlatan. A few months later, Black Belt sent a writer to do a story on him. When Dante met the writer from Black Belt magazine, this was the exchange. He got a good grip. You want to go out on the floor? I'll get to pictures later. I don't mean that. Do you want to go out on the floor and fight? No, to tell you the truth. I didn't think so. Cool guy. Cool guy. Yeah. After the writer asked one of Count Dante's friends, if he always came on like that, the friend told him no. The count was just

getting fed up with the martial arts community and quote, if you'd gone out on the floor with him, he would have crippled you just to prove his point. Yeah. Well, this dude is a report like, okay, well, why doesn't Dante do a story on the reporter and see who can do it the fastest? Oh God. And if the writer had been affiliated with any particular style of martial arts, Count Dante wouldn't have even spoken to him in the first place. Count Dante didn't believe in the established styles. The writer asked Dante how many instructors he had studied under. None. Because I don't think any of them were any good. So he's just become

a huge prick. He's a giant douchebag. Right. He's one of these, right. None. He considered his greatest instructor to be himself. He sounds like Will Smith's children. Donald Trump? Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Count Dante liked to say the toughest people he fought were pro football players and pro wrestlers, not martial arts guys. So he's just an asshole. Count Dante didn't think much of Bruce Lee, wondering what he had actually done. So much. He had won no championships. He didn't accept challenges. Dante had never challenged Bruce Lee himself because he didn't consider him competition. Bruce Lee was just a movie

started, Dante. Come on. Dante was also Catholic. Oh, cool. And Catholic Catholicism was like, Dante, we're good. He planned to go to Moody Bible School in Chicago to become a minister. Oh, please. For the devil. Unfortunately, his application was rejected. Now, that might have been because he claimed to have killed over 50 men in the military and in death matches. I mean, you know, you're either going to win someone with that or lose someone. So fair point. Fair play. He figured he'd killed 20 to 25 in the military. Some of them POWs. Oh. Yeah. He said he killed POWs. How have everything else is punched up in bullshit?

How are you sticking with POWs? I don't know. And the rest of the people he'd killed in street fights or closed sessions, barring. He always, or death matches. He always killed with his hands in those fights, never with a weapon. I mean, that's just a lot of those numbers are bullshit. Dante taught his students everything he could to train a student to kill. But he didn't just kill. Dante also claimed to have maimed about 25 people. He either blinded them or took out an eye. He took out both eyes or he had taken the testicles off, quote, maybe with a grind slap and twist and tear. Maybe. But he would only take

the testicles if there was a dire threat. There's a bomb in those balls. Look, he has morals. He's not gonna take the testicles if it's like really serious. Man, serious testicle time is what it's called. I mean, it is a power move. It's super power move. Now you know. He said he traveled all over the world taking part in death matches. A lot of this happened when he was in the military. His first death match took place in Canton and there were around 700 spectators and 12 competitors. He fought an older man and killed him with a closed hand technique, a strike to the back of the head. In the next match, he tore a guy's throat out.

That happens. Have you seen Bloodsport? Yeah. A lot of Count Dante's legend came from the death matches. The governments of Thailand and China say that no such events ever existed. But even Black Belt Magazine believed they had been real. Well, that's not the best sentence to read. Well, yeah. I mean, how much vetting do you expect from Black Belt Magazine? Like, what are they gonna do? They're Black Belt Magazine. Several credible Far East martial arts experts said death matches did exist and they were still going on in the mid 1900s, but they weren't something you just enter as if you were like Patrick Swayze. One, please. Hello, I'm here to fight. I'm here for the death

match. It's actually a revenge situation as you killed my cousin. So I'm not telling you that. Fuck I am, but I would like to fight you. And I'm gonna be the only white guy. Let him in. It sounds reasonable. Let him in. So the death matches were secret and done as a matter of honor between Sensei. The Sensei would choose their best student to fight. The Far East martial arts experts said an American would never have been able to enter. But Dante said he bought his way in. Sure. Yeah. There was also the issue of time when Dante said he was fighting people through the death. He was often training in Chicago, according to many in the Chicago martial arts community. I'm sorry. So he's super fast. Do you know who you're dealing with?

This is Count Dante. You heard of a plane? Yeah. You heard of a plane? I'm on planes. I'm faster than planes. I fly to Thailand. Bruce Lee flies. How long has he taken me to kill a guy in Thailand? A few minutes? I don't know. So it's just basically the flight. It's your delusion. How long? Especially the flight there, a few minutes, and then a flight on the way back to Chicago. Right. Sure. Altogether, it's about two hours. Man, we're gonna let you have that, but... At the end of the Black Belt magazine article, the writers said the people who knew him in Chicago didn't think he would have fought in death tournaments because he had mediocre skills, and his best talent was lying about his accomplishments. He was a Black Belt in that.

Definitely. He was, quote, a once promising Karataka who went the PT Barnum route. That's great. But it can't be denied that Count Dante rose in the ranks of USKA until he was tossed out, and then he established full contact karate tournaments in the USA. But Black Belt magazines stopped covering his full contact tournaments. Then in 1969, the magazine published a roundtable discussion with several Chicago instructors titled Storm Clouds Over Chicago. They torn to count Dante's tactics and his declarations. About his claim that he had taught 60% of Chicago's karate instructors, the Black Belt editor said, quote, that is one reason why Black Belt doesn't cover Chicago. Because everyone's garbage. Another instructor called

a Dante tournament an amateur boxing match. He had judged one and said he'd never do it again. They said people just came to the tournaments to see fighters bleed, and they usually got their money's worth. So things are heating up between Dante and the other martial arts experts around town. Oh boy. Then came April 24, 1970. I bet Dante handled this well. Count Dante called up his friend Jim Konsevic. Konsevic was one of Count Dante's oldest friends and ran his own dojo in Chicago called the Taijitsu School of Judo and Karate. Dante told Konsevic that he wanted to go to a rival dojo called the Green Dragon Society Black Cobra Hall of Kung Fu. I mean, crying for an acronym. Spegging for an acronym. Hey, what if we get rid of the Black Cobra Hall? We just

call it the Green Dragon Society of Kung Fu. It's not wordy enough. What about we say the Black Cobra Hall of Kung Fu? Again, I feel like we're missing a huge part. So you want to keep Black Dragon Society, Black Cobra Hall of Kung Fu? Okay. I see no condensing that can be done there. Okay. I just thought that maybe we'd get rid of a dragon or cobra. I think it's nothing without those. Okay. If anything, I'm proposing we add some words. I'll back off, but I'm just saying we're on different sides of the fence on this. You want to add more? I think maybe if we add another 10 to 15 words, we're really going to have a title that hums. Yeah, I was thinking we go with Green Dragon Society, Black Cobra Hall, Monkey, Fightin' Kung Fu. I mean,

am I the only one who thinks that Ricky just nailed that? John apparently had, oh, sorry. Count Dante apparently had an issue with someone there and wanted to settle it. He told Conchovich to get some guys together. They didn't exactly know what it was. Conchovich said, quote, it's over abroad or something. Cool. Jim Conchovich was known in the martial arts world as a badass. Friend Ken Knudson described him as a battler. He was notorious. He was legendary for getting into street fights and just mauling people. It turns out that Count Dante said he and his students had gotten death threats from the Green Dragons. His plan was to, quote, level their entire instructor force. Who really is the karate kid? It really is. He also brought

along Michael Felkoff, whom he described as, quote, an animal as a fighter with a killer instinct. Okay. Count Dante first went to Conchovich's dojo to pick him up. He was more than disappointed when he found out that Conchovich had only gotten three of his younger students to join in. He said of them, quote, two were only skinny kids who worked a whippy, snappy and ineffective karate, and the third was a short, pudgy clawed. Wow. That sounds great. But he still took them over to the Black Cobra Hall. Sure. Get them in there. What? Get them in there. Yeah, girl. At the Black Cobra Hall, they received a warning call from an anonymous tipper who said a bunch of guys are on the way to bust your join up. Okay. Chicago Tribune said Count Dante entered with his men, pulled out a

deputy's sheriff's badge and said, we're from the sheriff's police. You're all under arrest. Wow. The sheriff's police. Yeah, no questions there. You didn't know the sheriff's had their own police force? Hey, we're from the two different branches of law enforcement. We're the doctor ambulance. Hey, we're from the FBI CIA. We're loyal firemen. Inside, there were six green dragons. The fighting started quickly. A Black Belt Times article said Count Dante struck first. He hit a green dragon, Jose Gonzalez in the eye with nun chucks. Oh, so he's the eye was so fucked up that it would need surgery and he lost some sight in the eye. Meanwhile, bad ass Conchevich was ready to go. He hit a green dragon named

Jerome Greenwald from behind and then started wailing on them. They all started brawling, although Phil Koff, who he referred to as an animal, just ran away. Well, I will be honest, if you put an animal in that situation, they might run off. Not that tiny animal, not like a squirrel. He just jumped on a horse's back. He is an animal. The wall was lined with weapons and Greenwald pulled a sword off the wall and stabbed Conchevich in the abdomen. Holy shit. To block a blow. Then, Phil Koff ran back in. I forgot my keys. Goodbye. I realized I was being a pussy. Phil Koff said all I saw was Jim in a big pool of blood. He was using his judo trying to grab them and he ended up getting stabbed. At that point, Count Dante yelled for everyone to

stop fighting. Time out! Hold on, bloody guy! Conchevich screamed for everyone to get the fuck out. He ran out the door, bleeding profusely, and made it about 20 feet down the sidewalk before collapsing and dying. Wow. The cops were already on their way. When they arrived, Count Dante was standing over his friend's body. Greenwald, who was 20, was arrested and charged with murder. He would be released on $250 bail. Well, I mean, it was murder. Hey, Chicago, you know what I'm talking about? Come on. Count Dante was arrested and charged with aggravated burgh battery and impersonating a police officer. And account. And his account. And no, impersonating account. Well, no, he changed his name. Okay. All right. I'm going to change my

name to King Garrett. I also don't think that's a legal, I don't think that's a crime. Well, it's not a crime. I mean, he's... All right, that's fair. He was held on $15,000 bond. Russell Berkman... Wait, so the dude who murdered got out for $250? Chicago's got weird lots. Do they have upside down laws? Yes. Okay. Russell Berkman, Patrick Garrison, and Gary Bennett were arrested for disorderly conduct. Conchevich was dead. He was 26. Count Dante would always blame Falkoff for running away. A friend of Count Dante's recommended a Chicago attorney named Bob Cooley. Cooley said when they met that Count Dante was, quote, as a tall, wild bearded man wearing a yellow fishnet leotard and a purple cape. Wow. That's different. That's how he went to see

his lawyer. He's dressed like Prince in purple rain. That's good. But the lawyer wasn't concerned about the trial because they had all been fighting. The state of Illinois said Count Dante was responsible because of the accountability statute. He had brought all of the parties together to fight. But Cooley was going to counter that they were martial arts guys fighting and no one expected a sword to come into the event. I mean, everybody's got a point. Once on the stand, Count Dante went into his usual routine saying that no one would ever get away with attacking him. Good. The Black Cobra Hall members were also macho tough guys and the judge couldn't take it. He declared them all a pack of lunatics and dismissed the charges because all parties were responsible for the fight.

Wow. He said, quote, you're as guilty as the other. Count Dante was ecstatic. He held a lavish celebration and told everyone that, quote, Bob Cooley is a mechanic. He can fix anything. Wow. Jesus. Even though he walked away without a conviction, Count Dante's reputation suffered more. Now people in Chicago were saying that he was a coward and he let other people fight his battles for him. There are plenty. I bet he handled that well. I bet. Yeah, there's no problem. No, no, no issues. There were plenty of rivalries between dojos that led to fights in the city. But this was the first time anyone had died trying to smooth things over. Count Dante wrote an article in official karate magazine. Okay. And they're obviously in competition. Both are great titles.

Unofficial karate magazine. Actually, my favorite one. Quote, I blame myself to a great extent for being responsible for us going over to the Black Cobra Hall in the first place and have gone through living hell because of it. Yeah. My days of fighting at the drop of a hat have come to an end and challenges I will accept no more unless first attacked. That's basically just saying anyone come attack me. But that didn't last long. A couple of months later, I beat up two guys in a liquor store parking lot because they laughed at the Spanish coat of arms on the door of his brown Cadillac. Wow, those two dudes are so right. Spec Spanish code. I mean, if you see that dude get out of a Spanish coat of arms jacket, like, are you Irish? How do you not laugh at that? I mean,

you have every right to the amount of people you had to beat up. Yeah, this is extraordinary. Oh, yeah. I mean, everybody. He also attacked another man who called him a fruit in a bar. And Count Dante also even hit his lawyer, Cooley, in the jaw one night. Cooley said he was in such pain he felt like his skin was ripped off. Count Dante immediately apologized and tried to make up for it. I'm sorry, punch me. He told Cooley to go get his gun and to shoot at the count and that he'd catch the bullet. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Cooley did not go for it. Oh, dear, you got to go for that. Clearly, you're just like, will you sign this and then sign this and then sign this and now he all right, catch the bullet and he's dead. After being punched, Cooley tried to

stay away from Count Dante, but he couldn't avoid him completely because the count was always getting into shit. In 1974, Count Dante became an investor in adult bookstores and a car dealership. Sound investments. Now, this caused him to have a problem with Southside boss Jimmy the Bomber Kutara. Okay. Cooley was brought into mediate. Count Dante ended up paying $25,000 to Kutara and he wasn't hurt. But even worse, Count Dante now had a connection to the mob, which he apparently had wanted for a long time. Oh, boy. On October 1st, 1974, firefighters answered an alarm triggered by a fire in the vault at the Pearl Lader Armored Car Company just after 1am. The fireman opened the vaults and found heat and smoke. Gasoline bombs had been used with time delayed fuses. The bombs

were supposed to set fires to cover for a crime, but they did not all go off. 4.3 million of the vaults, 25 million was missing. What? It was the largest theft of cash in the world at the time. Several members of the Chicago outfit were arrested. That's the mob. Yeah. Count Dante was subpoenaed by the state's attorney about being involved in the crime. The Chicago Tribune wrote that, quote, a former hairdresser who wears a cloak and calls himself Count Dante was said to appear before the grand jury. And everybody wanted to see. You're not even involved in this. I just want to get you in and ask you some questions. Yeah, I just want to see you. So what's going on with the cave? So what is your deal? You're Irish, but crazy? Where's your lion? Did you have a lion?

He was given a lie detector test, but she apparently passed. He would fail a lion detector test. Dante was for what appears to be the first time ever in over his head. He was completely freaked out and his health began to falter. He started mixing booze and painkillers. Well, that's not faltering health. That's partying. It was said he spent the trial locked in his apartment holding a shotgun. Good. He then made an attempt to get his martial arts career going again by hosting a tournament in Massachusetts on March 16th, 1975. But the karate world was still against him. Of course. In an article in official karate magazine titled Sunday Bloody Sunday, it said Count Dante was looking bored and that the tournament was, quote, trash. Okay. By trash, it just meant that

is not what official karate wanted. The event was actually successful. It was sold out. They were full contact matches. They were said to have been more spirited and less professional than most tournaments ever witnessed. It was a slug out, blood spraying spectacle. There was hair pulling and groin snatching. Oh boy. Groin snatching sounds. Sounds like monkeys trying to steal peaches. Yeah. The audience loved the display. Someone looked back at this event and say it was the birthing of UFC. The more martial arts community marginalized Count Dante, the more he pushed the boundaries of full contact tournaments. The referee of the event would fight in a full contact event a few months later in front of an estimated 50 million people worldwide

on the undercard of the thriller in Manila. It was the first professional martial arts card seen by such a large audience. It was clearly not going as Dante had hoped. In an interview in the Adelborough Sun Chronicle, Count Dante sounded like it was over, quote, I want people to forget me. Black Belt magazine reported that Count Dante died in a death match in Mexico. What? But that was not true. Okay. He had bad fish. People believed he had made it up for attention. He didn't even go to Mexico. Well, no Mexico. After the tournament, he had stayed in Massachusetts and helped a protege named William Acquiar set up a martial arts school in Fall River. He then appointed Acquiar and his successor, he then appointed Acquiar as his successor as

Supreme Grand Master of the Black Dragon Fighting Society. Jesus Christ, these are titles. Two months later on May 25, 1975, Count Dante or John Kim, as he was known, was found dead in his apartment. The corner word conclude he died of a bleeding ulcer. Acquiar died in January 2005. He left his son William Acquiar the third in charge. In San Francisco, a man who knew of Count Dante just from comic books started a band called Count Dante and the Black Dragon Fighting Society. Oh, wow. The man's name was Bob Calhoun. The show was part punk, part karateist, part motivational speaker, and he wore a leopard print kimono on stage. Wow. The Acquiar sent him a cease and desist order. Wow.

I don't know how that played out. The lion was sold. Okay. The lion was still around? By the Quincy Lions Club. Well, this is, I'm just going over. Oh, okay. Sold by the Quincy Lions Club convention to the owner of a Buick dealership. Of course, the lion lived at the Buick owner's home. Sure. The first night he came home, he tied the lion's leash to the kitchen door and went to bed. The next morning his mother woke up and discovered a lion in the kitchen and freaked out. He didn't even give her that. Oh, right. There's a lion. But that didn't put an end to it. The Buick dealer used to drive the lion around in a Buick Opal station wagon. What? Eventually, the lion was sold to another Buick

dealer this time in St. Louis. Another Buick? Okay. After that awesome time for the lion, he was sent to a zoo in Texas where he lived out his final days. In 1968, lawyer Bob Cooley was given a contract to kill a Chicago police officer by the Chicago outfit. At that point, he was done. He approached the Department of Justice and turned witness. He worked undercover for the FBI, which led to the conviction of 24 members of the Chicago outfit. This included criminals, politicians, and judges, which led to many reforms in the city of Chicago. Bob Cooley also wrote a book about his time in the outfit. In that book, he said that Count Dante was indeed part of the pure, pure-later armored car company heist.

Rumors still persist that John Keyhand, Count Dante, faked his death. But in 2009, an ex-student who was making a documentary on Count Dante pulled the death certificate, and there was the proof. Count Dante, his legal name, had died in his Edgewater condo from a bleeding ulcer. Jesus. Wow. That's a lot. That's a lot to love. I mean, Count Dante, you know what I'm talking about? Oh, good now I do. Holy shit. He had mad game. Yeah. Yeah, and mad brain. Yeah. Well, just another normal chapter in American history, David. That's totally, totally normal. Everything's fine. Any questions or should we just get to the Patreon stuff? If you enjoy our podcast and you like to donate for all the hard work we put in, you can go to

the Patreon, the dollop Patreon, and there are different donation levels. I am, a lot of the awards, rewards went out and then we're doing the next batch of rewards. So if you haven't gotten yours yet, they will be coming in the second batch. Hopefully, if you did provide me with your information, such as your address and your shirt size or what a poster you want and stuff like that. Kickstarter stuff is still going out one by one. We are doing a live walking the room on January 24th at SketchFest, me and Greg Barrett in San Francisco. January 30th will be the new diehard. You can check us out at the dollop on Twitter. We are, we have a Facebook page of the dollop. We have an email address to send suggestions, topics for the podcast, the dollop

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