The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 242 - The Monkey Whisperer

Episode Date: February 13, 2017

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine RL Garner and the language of monkeys. SOURCESTOUR DATES REDBUBBLE MERCH

When you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? You could be sitting on an Airbnb and not even know it. That in-law sweet guest house where your parents stay only part-time Airbnb it and make some money the rest of the year whether you could use a little extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.ca slash host. You're listening to the dollop this is a bi-weekly American history podcast. Each

week I Dave Anthony. My god Dave. Read a story from American history to my friend. Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic is going to be about. That's how you do it. Fair. No. Okay. Look at that cat. He's doing abs. He's core. Seriously doing abs. That's core. That was core work. He does core. How's he so fat? He does eight minute he does eight minute cats. Okay now this is the saddest, laziest play with a toy I've ever seen. Well that's the horn that I bought for him and he's rebelled against it now. Oh that was the thing you put on his head. Yeah so now he's now it's weird the cats don't like to be unicorns. I know. I thought unicorns

the same with cats. What kind of topsy-turvy world we live in and sometimes I say to myself it's just like what is it. Oh yeah we like to laugh here at the dollop we like to get together share a laugh. So it's just a matter of two guys talking and laughing and that's we like to oh I just I relish these. Alright okay whenever you want to. Do you want to look who to do? I'll do one bottle. People say this is funny. Not Gary Gera. Stay okay. Someone or something is tickling people. Is it for fun? And this is not going to come to tickling quite good. Okay. You are queen fakie of made up town. All hell queen shit of Liesville. A bunch of religious virgins go to mingle and do a frame. Hi Gary. No. Has he done my friend? No. Oh here comes a helicopter we're in Los Angeles. Yeah if you could hear that that is normal that's why I don't live here anymore. Yep. February 19th, 1848. We're

coming up on the anniversary. That is true. What are we gonna do to celebrate whatever the hell this is? Well you'll see. Oh boy. Richard Lynch Garner was born in Abingdon, Tennessee. Okay. He was raised in a large middle-class family and during the Civil War enlisted as a Confederate soldier at the age of 14. Okay well you know there was a time Dave when I hearing something like that would make me feel weird but you know why the late start I guess is the question. What was he a pussy? Yeah I mean you know that's that's pretty late in the game. So he was assigned to several different prisoner of war camps during the war and when the

war was over he went to the Jefferson Institute in Tennessee for two years and they got a job as a school teacher. Okay yeah. He married Margaret Gross in 1872. Just not not not take that low hanging fruit. It's terrible last name. That's why you're looking to get married if your last name is Gross. Get married fast. She's a gross. You'd hate her. He continued to work as a school teacher from 1876 to 1890 drifted into real estate and other ventures. Okay. He's had a lot of stuff. And even though he didn't make a lot of money as a school teacher, RL managed to keep him keep up to date with many of the hot scientific debates going on at the

time. So he's in on he's in on the science. Sure. Sure. You know. Yeah. Sure. One of those debates was the theory of evolution which was introduced by Charles Darwin's book on the origin of species in 1859. When Darwin's theory was first introduced to the public people thought it was ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. Still do. Yeah. Evolution theories. I mean to be fair they both sound wacky. The one obvious. Yeah. The one where everything just happened like. No. No. No. He didn't make us in a pot in the sky. We came from those things that are throwing their shit and eating bananas. All right. I mean, if you put it like that, it's not

great. So what people thought was ridiculous. Evolution theories were all the rage at the time. Newspapers and magazines would hypothesize about primitive eight men who could still be living in unexplored parts of the earth. That's so great. Fucking awesome. If you could do that. Like if you can just make shit up about there's no great would it be in the world now to be able to go to any time in the world. Like you could just travel to go watch cavemen. Oh. You know. Be spectacular. Yeah. Just go watch them. Like look at these fools. I'm going to post this on Instagram where they're like. And then.

The quote missing link was found. Okay. She was known as Krayo the monkey girl. Oh boy. Krayo was born in Siam in 1876. Wait. Sorry. Okay. Remember. Yeah. No. We've experienced other people from this area. Yeah. But okay. So when they say the missing link, they're calling her the missing link. They're calling her the missing link between man and monkey. This is what she's. This is what they're calling her. Well, it makes you feel better if your last name is gross. I mean could be worse. You could be the monkey girl from birth. Krayo is completely covered in hair, which included a main like track of hair flowing down her back from

between her shoulder blades. Fortunately for her, she was found by a sideshow promoter named the great Farini. What? It's such a weird way to introduce yourself. The great Farini. Hello. I'm the great Farini. I'm average Dustin. Hi average. Hello. Oh, I messed that up. I'm not great Bob. Hi. I'm suicidal Ken. I shouldn't be out. We should have to actually do this. We should actually have to have this in front of all our names. Yeah. I'm too angry, Dave. I'm affected, Gareth. So he took her on a tour of Europe before they headed to the U.S. She was mostly called the ape woman, but she was advertised

as Darwin's missing link. People who saw her thought she was proof of Darwin's ideas. So my god, he's right. There's one that's in between. So the right idea is validated by the wrong example. Yep. Thanks history. The claim was that cryo was from a race of tree dwelling ape-like people. Sweet God. And everyone just thought that sounded right. Yeah, of course. How could it not be? Yeah. Look at her. Yeah. Now as far as like she's a she's a regular person. Yeah, she's lady. She's a hairy lady. So she's kind of bummed out like, well, your words hurt. And no, I'm not. I mean, who knows why? I mean, look, your life's not gonna be great

if you're covering hair. So why not make the best of it? I guess. I mean, yeah. Right. Well, I mean, look, you know, you are you're at the whim and mercy of this era, which is like nobody's gonna be like, you've been abused. Let's shave you and get you in a dress. I mean, they're gonna be like, throw fruit at her. I bet. But I bet. I mean, the if the internet was around, she could have found that she could have found a guy who was super into hairy ladies, right? Oh, if they oh, there'd be. Oh, my God. Yeah. Look, the way we've gone with what is like you are allowed to view now. I mean, the perfect example is quicksand porn the other day.

Like they're not only is there a guy who's gonna be into it. There's a guy. There's many guys who are gonna be dying for it. Yeah. You could have a show. The bachelor hair. Oh, my God. We now have a show. The bachelor hairette. So in the eight, sorry, David, but I'm sending you home without a banana tonight. In the book, anomalies and curiosities of medicine, the authors noted her many ape qualities, including her prehensile feet, which means she had like a monkey monkey, so you can grab stuff. Is that true? No, she just had feet. And there was hair on it. Yeah, exactly. She's a man, Gigi. Like you can move your toes. Like you could

probably pick up a pencil with those things. I mean, if you want to pause it, we can give it a whirl. What do you want me to write? Pick it up and write with it. I'm ready a little letter. Now, of course, she was actually not the missing link, if we're being really honest. Okay. She was actually a very intelligent woman who was well read and can speak many different languages, just like a monkey who just happened to suffer from an advanced form of hyper trichosis. Right. So now, unlike other stories referred on the doll, she was not exploited. Okay, she performed and displayed herself on her own terms for most of her life. She's free to do as

she please. So there was sort of this blurred line between animals and humans at this point, right? So she's able to do whatever she wants, kind of? Yeah, no, she's not. She's not like the other people we've heard on dollops where they are like owned almost. Where you tar and hair a man and leave him to dry out on a roof. Right. She is like, all right, let's do this. Let's make some cash. Right. So at this point, there's this blurred line between humans and animals. And our life changed when he visited the Cincinnati Zoological Garden in 1884. Okay. Arle was instantly inspired when he saw the monkeys jumping around in

their cages, like you. I think we're gonna find different inspiration. He then began to concentrate on an entirely different focus in his life studying the language and habits of apes. Oh boy, I these planning these two seeds. I'm just curious. It's like he came back to the zoo again and again and became convinced that their sounds were speech. Okay. Which now it's like you. Yeah. Wait, what do you mean it's like me? Well, you probably look at monkeys and go, they're talking to each other. They are talking to each other. Being a self like there's an identification. Yeah, there are. Yeah. But being a self

taught science man, he read books by Darwin, Max Mueller, Alfred Russell, Wallace and Thomas Huxley. Now, he was then allowed to go places where monkeys and apes were held like zoos and whatnot and study them. And he then came up with his own theory that monkeys as well as other quote dumb animals could have a language of their own. Okay. His theory was not well received and he was often ridiculed when he would try to introduce it at different scientific conferences. So he would go to a scientific conference and be like, monkeys can talk to each other and so can dogs. And I would be like, all right. All right,

pal. But he was not deterred. He became more and more convinced that he was right. And think of the stuff that they're like, now that's interesting at that convention. Oh, yeah. The earth is hollow. Now there's a good point. Here's an idea, gentlemen. Monkeys could communicate with each other just as dogs. Hit him with bricks. Our all began to try to put a letter form to the sounds being made by chimps and apes. Oh, God, he's trying to actually like phonetically spell out. Yep.

That's a arduous task. My God, especially not being able to rewind it. No, it's not. It's not great. It's not a great. So he thought that what they were saying were ideas that usually involve anger, fear, pleasure or discomfort. Quote, the gamut a monkey has is limited. The expressions he uses indicate of his wants and emotions are but a few. And the more he was working with the monkeys, the more he thought that they definitely had a language. But he really started to get lost and he felt like

he was running out of ideas. The latter thing wasn't working. And then Thomas Edison invented the wax cylinder phonograph. And R. L. Garner realized that this new technology could be the perfect tool for him to prove his theory. Wait, he can record monkeys now. OK. Once he recorded monkeys at one zoo who were screeching because they were hungry. And his neighbors are pretty cool. Oh, cool. You just get to go over the monkey screams again tonight. Awesome.

They're not screams. They're asking for bacon. Yeah, we're asking you to shut up. Would you like some bacon? The monkeys are going to have bacon. So he records these monkeys at one zoo because the monkeys it's feeding time and they're screeching. And then he takes the recording. He takes the photograph or two or a different zoo and plays it for different monkeys who all freaked the fuck out. Yeah. Now, he thought it meant that they were that they were also hungry as opposed to them just being like, where the fucking other monkeys coming from?

Like the other monkeys were right. But in his mind, it was like, well, they can hear them and they're talking about food. But in reality, the other monkeys like, what the fuck is happening? I'm hearing other monkeys. Man, I remember my roommate in college and I used to we would play like this record of cat sounds and our cat would just be like, where are the others? I'm hearing I'm going crazy. I don't want you guys to freak out, but there's more cats. I think they're nine deep.

What's that seal doing? Dave, come on. He's in fantastic shape. Well, can feel his ribs doesn't have a big belly. This is a big cat. No, he's a big boy. So while RL pursued try to talk to animals, he kept his family fed by working as a freelance writer. A lot of his articles just happened to support his ideas and establish himself as a researcher to explore. He's writing articles to make money, but he just keeps writing about his own ideas and then also throwing in there how awesome he is. Okay. Sounds like propaganda.

Yeah. His writing brought him to the attention of Samuel McClure of McClure's magazine. McClure's magazine was a monthly magazine that was very popular. A monkey magazine? A monthly magazine. Oh, different. Oh, God, why aren't there more monkey magazines? You're preaching to the choir. Have you heard monkey monthly? Oh, monthly. Monkey monthly. Monkly's the other one. Oh, I love monthly. Yeah. Monkly's great. That's all I got.

Good banana times. Oh, I love good banana times. Yeah. Life on the branch. So it's very popular for its muck-wracking style of journalism and original fiction. Arles' personal PR campaign had been successful and now he's in one of the top periodicals in the country. Okay. He became sort of an overnight sensation for his writing in McClure's. And McClure didn't just put him in the magazine, he launched a huge campaign getting Arles' story to tons of newspapers.

And then his crazy theories about talking to monkeys became mainstream. What? Okay. Fake news is real. Fake news just started this election cycle. Wait. What? So it went mainstream? Yeah. Basically, because this guy McClure had a bunch of power. So now every, when you say it went mainstream. So now people are like, monkeys can talk to people and we're going to be able to talk to monkeys soon.

Talk to people? Yeah. Okay. In 1892, he published, Arles published his first book called The Speech of Monkeys. His claims had absolutely no basis in science, but they were suddenly taken seriously by many people who were not scientists. Do you imagine how excited the editor must be? Like, my God, your mind works amazingly fast with all these facts. You're like, yeah, for sure.

But literally you're just like, and then what else do they do different? Yeah. If they go back to back with it, one of them is having a birthday. Yeah. It's all in the book. Heavily researched book. Birthday monkeys? Yeah. Some of them, if they make a high-pitched squeal back to back, one of them is having a birthday. If they do it three times, it means they're organizing a surprise party for one of them having a birthday. It's all in my book.

Okay. Yeah. Open my book. Well, I'm a scientist, so they're actually scientists. I'm the same. Yeah. Huh? Yeah. Same scientist. Where'd you get your scientific degree from?

Little place I'd like to call monkey you. No, I just, I played a record for monkeys of other monkeys, not the rock band. Oh, this is confusing. Right, because they're not even around you. I know. Smoke bomb! So the book had transcripts of his sessions with monkeys. What?

What did the monkeys say? Well, that he, that's part of the, he put the transcripts in and about him talking to the monkeys. Is he putting in the monkey speak with a translation or just what they're saying in English? I wish I could have found a copy of this book. No, he's saying that this is what the monkeys are saying. So he's translated the monkeys fully. So it's like, do you want breakfast and a monkey's like, eggs benedict? That is correct.

Or the monkeys talking to each other, like one's like, hey, Lou, what are you doing? I'm going to play Frosby later. Like, is that kind of... You seen this branch? Yeah. Yeah. All right, take care. So this was just the launching pad for his next step, which would be to travel to Africa to study the language of monkeys in the wild. And sure enough, that year with Samuel McClure playing his way,

Aral headed to Gabon, a country on the west coast of Africa. Gabon was the first place a European exporter had ever... Sorry, explorer, that got changed by the old shit. So it's the first place an explorer has ever saw a live gorilla. Okay. And that had happened just 50 years before. Okay. By this time, Aral was being called Professor Garner.

Wait, I don't know. What was his last name? His last name is Garner. His name is Aral Garner. Okay. So now he's Professor Garner. You seem sort of perplexed. Well, like, yeah. Well, he wrote a book.

So now you're... I mean, Professor is such an interesting, like... There's a lot of gray area. Remember, he's been doing a bit of a PR campaign. Yeah. He's putting the PR in Professor. Okay. So now he's called himself Professor. Now he's... But really, all he's done is professed a lot of crazy stuff.

Well, we'll see. Not grounded in reality. We might be talking to monkeys. Look, I want that world more than anyone. Okay. Hey, Don, have you ever seen Planet of the Apes? Oh, Caesar had some upside. Really?

Yeah. He was a good guy. He got upset because he was betrayed by man. Don't trust the whites. And that goes with the Planet of the Apes, too. Well, first of all, the monkey shouldn't ever talk to the whites. They should have just acted like they couldn't talk. Yeah. First, yeah. Don't talk to the whites.

Yeah. No. He's saying, give us the silent treatment. Okay. So he's gone Africa, right? He's the professor. He's the professor. Aral brought all of his equipment for listening to monkeys to talking to each other, which included a phonograph. So he's bringing a phonograph and then he's got a big steel cage.

The cage weighed one ton. The phonograph was said to be, quote, so sensitive that they will record the slightest jungle noise. Okay. Okay. Keep going. He really felt it was just the inability to record the language of monkeys that was keeping him from understanding it. So now he's like, I got to get out in the wild because maybe these domesticated zoo monkeys, they're not talking right.

But if I get out to hear street monkeys, like just monkeys in the wild. So he's basically like, I'm sick of English. I want to hear some French. Basically. Like he thinks that monkeys are... What does he think the cage monkeys are doing? That's not really a great comparison. It's like if you're just listening to people talk in like an Oxford

and then you're like, I got to hit the streets of London. Wait. Wait. So the idea is almost like the monkeys in the cages are like in jail and they're just not going to like talk because of the warden. Yeah. They might not. And the monkeys in the wild are just regular humans. Yeah. When we get on the wild, then you hear the real monkey talk. Right.

You know what I'm talking about? Right. Yeah. The real monkey talk. Hey, man. Do you see this branch? Yeah. Right. Very similar. Quote. I expect my discoveries to be unique and startling.

Oh, they are. So he set up a camp called Fort Grilla. Now, RL was also like most men interested in science during this time. Well, he's the professor. A racist. I'm sorry. Like most men who are interested in science this time, he was also a racist. Good. Well, I'm sure he will thrive in Africa.

He went along with the commonly held beliefs of white superiority. Great. This was all included in his writings while he was in Gabon, a place where he was completely dependent on locals for everything who he thought he was better than. And he stood out walking around in linen clothes and a pith helmet. Oh, God. And sometimes a business suit. Oh, God.

So he's like leaving Fort Grilla and everyone knows he's the monkey man and he's just wearing linens and a pith. He's just a cursor on mid-1800s African business suit. Yeah. Like he's like just come down from heaven. I have a meeting, gentlemen, with the monkeys. Excuse me. Out of the way, I'm learning chimp.

At the time, the Gabonese, I assume, let's say, were occupied with the French, who wanted the area for its ports. Sure. The Gabonese looked to Garner, hoping RL could somehow help them gain more freedom. So they're like, well, here's a guy that's not French. Maybe you can talk to these French assholes. And they're like, they're barking up the wrong tree part of the park. Or a monkey.

Or yeah. RL often found himself negotiating with the locals and French administrators. And then he began his first ventures into the wild. He would write all about his adventures, which would be printed in McClure's magazine and syndicated two newspapers across the US. With the help of locals who would take him deep into the forest to find these jabbering creatures, he would spend time amongst the monkeys. So they'd put down the cage and he'd get in the cage.

And that's where he'd stay for a while. OK. He spent. I was curious about the cage. The cage is for him. Yeah. OK. Yeah, that was a good, that's a good question.

It's for him to sit in. Yeah. Well, I thought in my head, it makes no sense to cage them if you're trying to get like. It's like he'd create a reverse zoo. He actually went to Gabon to be put in the zoo himself. Yeah. A human zoo. He spent between 100 and 115 days.

It would be so great if like the guys, he was like dicks too, just kept him locked in there and then just treated him like an animal. What a great, like we're like, all right, let me out. Give me the key now. No. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. No, no. You stay in cage.

So he spent between 100 and 115 days in this cage in the jungle. It's like a prison sentence. Oh, it's insane. August 1893, this appeared in the Chicago Daily Tribune. Quote, monkeys are attractive little beasts. Arielle Garner has set himself the task of acquiring their language. In pursuance of his studies along this unusual line, Professor Garner has gone into the heart of Africa and is living among wild animal protected from them only by a cage, which

he has set up in the jungle. So like back home, they're fucking ramping this shit up. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's just it is just not even far from the nonsense that goes on today. Like when I mean, like what they send reporters to do, you're like, this is just Oh, yeah. How about just the facts? Unfortunately, the one thing Arielle could not do was provide any proof that he could

learn the language of monkeys. Well, is that going to be a problem to prove the language of monkeys? Well, that's the whole point of going there. That's what you got everyone fired up about. I don't think it's going to be an issue. The fact that you can't learn the language of monkeys, I don't think is going to affect his ability to learn the language of monkeys. How is that going to be a problem?

He said he could understand some words and could tell the difference between types of apes from their calls. Well, anybody in a cage for 120 days is going to pick that up. And a professor, is he? When another African explorer, the first European to see a gorilla, remember that guy, heard the claims of Arielle, he was furious. He called the experiments pure charlatanism, charlatanism, charlatanism, charlatanism, charlatanism, and charlatanism.

When someone wrote and said Arielle had heard a monkey call him a duffer. Wait, Arielle said that he heard a monkey call him a duffer. Yeah, what the hell's a duffer? A duffer who's the guy yelled, I begin to believe Garner after all. What else would they call him? A duffer's like an idiot. So wait, and he's saying he must know monkey because they're so accurate without dummies? Somebody wrote that, but it might have been a prank.

Yeah, well, I don't think it happened. Hey, duffer, what? He's a bit of a duffer, ain't he? So then his funding ran out and Arielle left Africa unable to find that monkey language. He first went to Liverpool and brought with him two chimpanzees named Aaron and Alisha Bah. Alisha Bah became ill quickly from the cold. She was not used to. His only goal had been to prove monkeys could talk and he had not.

Now things were different. Oh, by the way, she died. Oh, I didn't mention that part. Right. Now things were different for him in the US. Arielle was now being made fun of in newspapers and everyone just bailed on believing in him. Like just turned overnight. Like he came back without the language of monkeys and everyone's like, you're a loser. Yeah, but he was like, no, remember a year ago when it was great?

Shut up, dummy. Even Samuel McClure bailed on him. But Arielle insisted he could find proof of the language of monkeys. Getting sad. He just needed more funding. No, no. Oh. But this was now harder because his first chip had been a failure.

But still, he managed to pull together the cash and return to Gabon the next year. But thank you. What about when these guys see him come back? Oh, God, it's the idiot with the monkey. It's the monkey guy. Hello, gentlemen. Sorry for the delay. I'm ready to get back in the jungle and hop in my cage.

Who's excited? No one. Yes, I'm better than you. Clean my pith hat. I'm in linen's. Savages. Savages. I'll be in, excuse me, I'm going to Fort Gorilla.

But first I have to put on my suit. Let me put on my shit suit and then I'm going to Fort Gorilla. So things only got worse. While he was in Gabon on his second expedition, the English journal The London Truth published a series of articles titled Garner's Mythical Exploits. OK. Ripping him and calling him a fake. The article said Garner was a liar that he had not gone into the jungles of Gabon,

but instead had spent all his time resting at a Catholic mission. Oh, my God, but that's not true. He was going to get a cage, but they're just like ruining him. Like, well, if he's going to say he talks to monkeys, we're going to do this. It's double-faked news. But because Garner, he was in an alternative cage. Alt cage. Alt cage.

So but because our all was in the jungle, he had no idea that he was going to get a fake, but he had no idea the stories about him were running wild and that they were popular. And then he came back to the US and discovered he was now the country's laughing stock. That's brutal. RL threatened to punch the editor of the truth, but it didn't matter. He could not save his. Well, that'll make people respect you. He couldn't save his honor.

The damage was done. So what to do? Well, obviously the answer was to go back into the jungles of Gabon. Yes. And figure out the language of monkeys. No, I'm sure now with a mental attitude of I have to crack this, this will come real easy. Of course, getting the funding together for his third. Who's funding the third?

Was it even harder than this? Yeah, but because people are like, what? No, you're, everyone's laughing at you. Stop going there. But when it comes to monkeys, there will always be some rich guy out there who wants to know what they're saying. What are they talking about? I got so much damn money and I want to know what the monkeys are saying.

Look, all I care about is, are they talking about me? And if they are, what are they saying? What are the monkeys saying about Richie McRitcherman? Do they like it? So he managed to get enough money and to head back to Gabon to continue his impressive research. He spent two years mostly on the country's southern coast, but also on the rivers and other jungles looking for monkeys, chimpanzees, gorillas, and other animals.

And when he returned to the States, he again had no proof and his reputation continued. He was, he was a complete clown. His proof now literally lies in people being able to talk to monkeys. Like he basically needed to come up with a monkey to English dictionary. Yeah, basically. I mean, the ambitious solve there. It's like you're, you're going to Gabon and you're just like, okay, all right, okay.

One more crack at this. I just, everybody, you look, it's, it's, it's two out. It's bottom of the ninth, but you got two men on base. All you need to do to redeem yourself, my man, is become completely fluent in the language of monkeys. If you can come up with a monkey dictionary, people will see, people will see that you're not crazy. You're not crazy, which I believe in chimpanzee is, ah, so, or, or that means I got a poo. It could also mean I'm eating a leaf.

Right. But we're narrowing it down. Right. These trips aren't useless. Right. All right. I'm going to get in this cage for a day, see what happens. It isn't known exactly how many, hey, do you ever wish you had a life?

Sorry. I don't mean to, but you ever, you ever, you know, sometimes I'll sit in that cage day 90 and I'll just think to myself, you know what, what if you did something that could happen and you worked at that? What did that be? Yeah. Yeah. Here I go.

I'm, I, I get, I get sentimental 60 days into these. Day dreaming again. Here I am. All right. All right. Back to cracking the language of chimp. I don't know what that means. I don't know what any of this shit means.

It isn't known exactly how many trips he actually took to Africa, but it was up to six. He wrote two more books, Grillas and chimpanzees in 1896 and eight. Oh God, I messed up my life. And apes and monkeys in 1900. Oh, you got to read apes and monkeys. Well, that's being turned into a movie. Yeah. That's going to be a great one.

Now, of course, RL was not the type to give up. Instead, he went for it more than he had ever gone for it before. What does that mean? I'm really going to crack the language hard. Here we go. Double down on the monkey. All right. He was at a party in New York when he met a wealthy socialite named Ida.

Whoops. Ida out of money soon. Ida Vera Simonton. Okay. Now, Ara was pretty into Ida for two reasons. The first was her enthusiasm for writing and the second was the fact that her marriage had just ended and she was rich. Ara was super into Ida from the get-go, but he did not let on.

What he did do was invite her. When you say he was into her, he genuinely liked her or he was into the angle of getting her to fund monkey adventures? I think that was part of the attraction. Right. So the attraction was that she, at this point, he's just trying to date monkeys. Yeah, I think that's the reason he wants to learn monkeys because I think he wants to date a monkey.

So where are you from? Finally. Hold on. Let me look that up. Oh, Oxnard. That's great. I love Oxnard. Yeah.

What do you like to do for fun? Okay. Hold on. Let me look that up. I love sleeping. I'm a huge sleeper too. I love... Hold on.

Sorry. Did you say sleep there? Or... Ah! Okay. Okay. No. Wait.

What do you mean you're going to rip my nuts off? Hey, I think this thing actually works. Oh, my nuts! So... So here's our man trying to translate monkey to human. He invites her to Gabon to help him edit three of his books and to provide her with material for her own book. Sure.

Hopefully he means paper. Turns out, according to him, Gabon is a great place for writing. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's really easy. That's where Twain went and did all his best writing. That's absolutely right. That's right. They made plans for her to come to Averga in the summer of 1906.

Then RL headed over and renovated the house that they would live in. Okay. Now, Gabon was in a tenuous state as some of the tribes had just rebelled against the French. Dave, I'm sorry to cut you off, but I'm just going to make a mental note here that bringing up tribal imbalance probably not going to benefit our hero. So the revolt was continuing and RL saw an opportunity. Okay. He wrote to his son that he was going to end the revolt

by introducing Ida to the local chiefs. Okay. Because she was a white lady, he just assumed that they would be down with this. Oh my God. I mean, this is not good. The pompousness. Well, once they see a white. A white lady.

They'll see a white lady. They'll know everything superior and everything. So they'll be like, what do we do? She's better than you because you're not white. You understand? She's white. Okay. We're going to kill you.

Okay. I know. No, no, no. Hold on. I believe you. You don't know English properly. What you said is you're going to kill me. Yeah.

Yeah. So that's I brought you a white. Yeah, that's why we're going to kill you. Okay. I just do you speak monkey? Maybe we could meet in the middle here. I'm half fluent. I nobody speaks.

It's not a thing. Ha. Well, then why have I spent five years in a cage, you fool, in the jungle without an actual life to, um, yeah. Yeah, kill me. Go ahead and just end this. So he thought Ida was the perfect woman to become what was known as their Ota Noato Natagari,

a.k.a. female white chief. And he thought when she was made chief, she could use her new position to talk to the French government and have them give the natives more freedom and the rebellion would be over. Solid plan. We've got a lot of hoops. The job.

Solid plan. It's a simple plan. There's a couple of hangups. Oh, but what's that? First, even though were they not looking to hire a white female chief? Even though he'd spent a lot of time living in Gabon at this point,

he had not taken time to learn any of the local languages. Well, Dave, because they existed. They existed. What an asshole. They existed already. He's been there for like six trips. Look, again, if they want to learn monkey, they can speak that to each other.

He's trying to learn the monkey language, but he won't take the time to learn the people like. It really, it is a puzzling decision. Probably because he was a racist is why he didn't want to learn the language. But, you know, okay, not that I like, okay, you're racist. You've come here five or six times.

Yes. Do you want to have a conversation? Are you also like a logisticist? Do you have an issue with like figuring out stuff easily? You're, I mean, if you're there and you have all this time. I know. When you're sitting in a cage. Right.

At that point, can you be like, what's the word for rice again? Right. That's it. Right. Rice. Okay. Right.

Right. I got to write that down. Once I get another journal that's not for monkey terms, I'll jot that down. So this meant, because he didn't know the language, just meant he actually had no idea how tribal politics work. He was just, Well, it doesn't sound like it from his plan

to just throw a white woman in there and let her lead. He was just going on a hunch. It figured. Figured with the white and black thing. They'd be cool with it. That's an insane. I mean, again, like this guy isn't only racist. He's like delusional.

He's a delusional racist. So the other big part of his problem was that he hadn't mentioned any of this to Ida. Oh my God. She thought. So what is this, a prank show? She thought she was just coming to Gabon to kick off her writing career,

get some great inspiration from a new country and have a nice life experience, not to run Gabon. Well, I mean, like, you know, another things changed. Another problem was that Ida was an independently wealthy woman who was very adventurous and independent. And he was a dick who thought women should do what men said.

In his own writings, quote, sorry. In his own writings, he had taken many shots at feminists and their quote, masculine behavior. That is the craziest complaint to have. That's your behavior. They're too manly. That's what you do.

He did not think at all, this is how a proper woman should behave. RL thought Ida would come over and he would act all chivalrous and protect her honor from the savage natives. Wait, so has his plan shifted? No, no, no. But he's going to make them,

he's going to make them make her the queen or the whatever, the chief. But at the same time, he's going to protect her from the savage. His best case scenario is basically she goes there. There may be a little adverse to it. He saves her and then she becomes the leader of them. Yep.

Has he looked anything up? Well, no, he doesn't even know their language. He doesn't know anything about anything. Right. He thinks he can talk to monkeys. Well, worst case scenario, he can just do the monkey whistle and they'll come bail them out

with their little army of sticks. But Ida came and was not down with it. She didn't have anything to do with his plan. And then she just got to Africa. And then she started having a good time. The setup was that RL would sleep in the veranda and Ida would sleep in the bedroom. It didn't take long before Ida was having a good time

with many of the traders who came to the country. The traders were all into her because she was a good looking single rich white woman. Right. And one of the few in this part of the world. Okay. She sent back a word that they had indeed learned the language of monkeys.

So she sends back... She sends... There are newspaper articles that I read. She sends back a message that they've learned to talk to monkeys. Does he know she sent that word? Yeah, I think he had her do it. I think it's part of his...

The curator... Like at what point are you like... I mean, I've just... I'm all in on the monkey game too much. So deep in the monkeys game. These monkeys, they'll be the death of me. The curator of anthropology at the Museum of Natural History called it a joke and said RL Garner

was just the latest thing in nature fakes. Okay. I love nature fakes. Yeah, that's a great bar. Then one night RL caught one of the traders in the bedroom with Ida and he lost his shit and got into a fist fight with the dude. Okay.

So he does... He likes... He doesn't know that these traders are just... He's just out on the veranda like, maybe I'll make my move in the next few days. Seems to me that she's most amiable later on dusk. I also... You know, he's...

He's... I'm gonna get her a nice jar of that priest... I'm sorry, is she getting screwed in there? What is that noise? Those are noises of... Is that a monkey? Are you okay? Um, no.

So he has this idea that she's somehow this pure... Like he hates feminists and she's clearly a straight-up feminist who's like, I'm gonna just have a good time and fuck a bunch of dudes and write a book. And his mind, she's supposed to be like, you know... The pinhole of acceptability that this guy presents. It's terrible.

I mean, he's like a monkey. Yeah, yeah. This... He is... I mean, that is the best part. At the end of all of it, he knew monkey more than anyone. So, uh... So by the time 1907 came around,

it's like three months later, Ida's just done with RL. She called him incompetent. RL told, openly told people, she was quote, one of the most unwomanly women that I have ever known. She has an idea that rudeness and bravado, insolence and, uh,

the hem... Veminence, coarseness and invectives are equivalent to courage and talent. But as I know her, she is simply a masculine female. Okay. Well, there is that word again. Yeah, he does not like to...

I don't like men, ladies. She likes to do what she wants. She's very strong. Ida left. She had spent all three months in Africa. And when she returned, she gave interview after... I went through so many interviews. She gave interview after interview huge,

full-page newspaper stories about her adventures in Africa. Over and over, not once did she mention him. Wow. Is she admitting that monkey language has not been cracked? No, she didn't admit that, but she just went on all these talks. She talked about ants in the jungle and how they ate peanut butter and poison arrows,

and even described to a tea the house they live in and never mentioned him. Like, she talked about every single thing you talk about Africa. So she liked him still. It was like the biggest fuck you ever. Yeah, right. So now RL is really in the shit. He had spent all his money renovating the house

for his new lady chief. And she's gone. He could make some money from writing, but while his articles were a harder and harder sell, his stories about the adventures he had. And he's gone. We're starting to win over some fans back in the United States. Oh, no.

So instead of writing about his theories, he started more writing about adventures. And it was catching on and redeeming his reputation a bit. Okay. He had a dog with him in Africa. Booboo was his name and he wrote about him, quote, while they frankly confess my attachment to my dog, I shall try to record his virtues with as little bias as possible.

I believe my habits of studying the psychic qualities of animals allow me to do this with no partiality. So now, okay. So now he's done trying to crack monkey language. Now the animals are psychic. I think he, no, he's psychic. He's psychic. He can, he has a psychic ability with animals is what he's saying.

Okay. Okay. He then went on to explain how Booboo having a single white hair. Then why couldn't he ask them to just give them the, give him the language so that he didn't look like a psycho? Why couldn't he go up to a chimp and telepathically be like? These are bad questions. Okay.

All right. I want to explain how Booboo having a single white hair. So he had like a little stripe of white hair. Sure. Meant he was a noble dog of European blood and therefore quote of cultured heredity and his innate intelligence indicates a well bred ancestry. Fortunately, even dog breeding was a door to discuss racial hierarchies. But Booboo was also apparently a good dog because he wouldn't allow an African to

pick anything up near their home. But quote any white man, however, that has so far visited me. Booboo permits to take hold of everything and he has never growled once. On the other hand, Booboo would bite Africans who came to pick items near the home like sugarcane. Do you know how big of an asshole you need to be to make your dog a racist? There's a guy that has moved to Africa and raised a racist dog. And he's proud of it.

And he thinks it's awesome. Well, he's a tuckered out. He barks all day. Not a lot of white people around here. And because he had a psychic connection with animals, he knew that dogs were better than feminists. Quote, I see hearted suffragists lacked the inner sense of caring that separated them from well bred dogs and gentlemen adventurers. So he's gentleman adventurers.

He's getting really specific. Still a little better. So he returned to the United States in 1910. And when he was on his way back, the stories of his accomplishments preceded him, saying he had been successful. At what? Talking to monkeys. But he didn't.

Well, remember she said the letter. Yeah. Oh, and then he is probably sent other letters. So he's he's he's going to light it up. Okay. Some proof would be great. From the Baltimore Sun, May 1910, quote, Not only has Professor Garner succeeded in catering the language of monkeys to a great extent,

but he has also taught them to understand many of the words of the French and English languages. Right. Yes. Of course, you're going to make the monkeys bilingual by striking many matches and saying fire. He has taught apes and chimpanzees to say fire as distinctly as a human being. Great. Where? Where?

Oh, you'll see. I will. Wow. They're in the jungle. Oh. But they don't want to say fire. But they don't want to say fire. But that I have a flash pot.

Excuse me. Smoke cloud. Where'd he go? Oh, thank God. The flash pot didn't get me, but the smoke cloud did. And it went on, quote, He is of the opinion that many monkeys have acute faculties of perception of form, color, number, and dimensions.

He has taught them to do mathematical problems of simple nature. What? So he's taught. So he can't prove anything, but they know French and arithmetic. Well, now, right. Previously, he came back empty handed, but now he's coming back like full of lies. Yes. Just pack of like he's like, I'm lying my way in.

Yes. And monkeys also believe in marriage. Now, previously, when he'd come back with no proof of his talking to monkeys claims, he had been ridiculed. So this was the new plan. He brought a young chimpanzee named Susie with him, and he told everyone the two of them could have a conversation. And this time, the newspapers bought it.

Now he is being described as, quote, a modern Ulysses and an adventurer. Oh, God. In 1910, he went on a widely publicized lecture tour. While they traveled across the country, Aral and Susie became a media sensation. But Susie wasn't the best chimp for the job. She very often would not cooperate and would just sit there mute while Aral did everything he could do to get her to speak.

But it didn't matter. People were just so excited to see a monkey and all our monkey antics, that audiences just love the show. Sorry, but that is insane. So, so the proof, they would say you can talk to monkeys and a theater and fill up a people that would pay. And then wanting to see a monkey with jump around and they'd be like, this is great. Well, I don't even remember what this was supposed to prove, but it sure did.

It was such a popular show that Aral and Susie performed for President William Taft. Of course, for that performance, Susie. He was just like watching the whole time, like, I bet monkeys delicious. He really liked it. Stick it to Taft, dude. Come on, come on. Of course, he got stuck in a tub, right? I don't remember.

That might be fake. I think I'm thinking of a TLC show. You're talking about man in the tub. That man in the tub. It's about a guy losing the tub because he can't get out. Yes. So for the performance in front of President Taft, Susie also sat there quietly, not making a peep, but they loved it.

Oh my gosh. Whatever town he went to, Aral would have a local newspaper reporter come to interview him and Susie. From the Shenute Daily Tribune in Kansas, quote, Garner held a long conversation with her and asked her how she would like to go out and be introduced to some cousins of hers who were spending the summer at the estate of EH Furnace. Susie said, yes, she'd be delighted to meet them upon proper introductions. So what is happening? So he is jibbering in monkey talk, and then the monkey jibbers back,

and then he acts like he had a conversation with the monkey. And the reporters would sit there and think they're having a conversation. Well, this is amazing. Teach me monkey. More quote. She told Garner, wux, ki, ki, ki, wux, squee, yap, wuk, wuk, wuk, wuk. And Garner said, this is in a paper? I literally took that out of the paper.

Wux, ki, ki, ki, wux, squee, yap, wuk, wuk, wuk, wuk. The editor should have taken that page from your book and taken it out of the paper. Garner said, Susie's on record. Extra, extra, wux, wux, ka, ka, ka. You can quote her on that. Garner said, interpreted that meant, I don't know why you brought me all the way from my home on the first street on the, sorry, I'm going to start over again. I don't know why you brought me all the way from my home on the first street on the left

from the corner of the trail leading from Congo street. But I'm willing to meet those Wallingford monkeys. Anything would be a relief after talking with those reporters last night and kissing them. Why do you make me kiss them? That's what wux, ki, ki, ki, wux, squee, yap, wux, wuk, wuk, wux. Dave, my mind is a little blown. How is he, the idea that he's making it all up and. And it's insane.

And then she doesn't like it. Why did you take me from my home on the first street on the left from the corner of the trail leading from Congo street? That's like when you have a dream and you're just in the grocery store buying like regular food. Like what a waste of, if you're going to lie and you're going to say that this monkey speaks English. Why not have the monkey be like, wow, you're terrific. You really get it.

You sure are a professor instead. He's like, she's pissed. She doesn't like the situation because he's a fucking idiot. He's more on a fix than he'd be able to talk to monkeys. So now he's like, like the language that she's using is so complex. It's insane. And he's like, uh-huh. I'm sorry.

You feel that way. So now he is no longer the clown who couldn't prove he could talk to monkeys. He was talking to monkeys. He was once again popular with the wealthy members of the New York Zoological Society. Oh, say, I'm sorry we doubted that you could talk to monkeys for all those years. Boy, egg on our face. Welcome aboard, member. He was able to form a business partnership with a Bronx Zoo curator William Hornaday

to import animals from Gabon for the Bronx Zoo. Hornaday paid RL to go back to Gabon in 1913 and RL returned with a bunch of different animals including a gorilla and several chimpanzees. This haul just further raised his profile as a great adventurer. Though he had not given up completely on the idea of communicating with animals, he told a New York paper in January 1915, quote, someday a man will talk to his dog and his dog will talk to him. It will be, it will be then that all animal and bird life becomes articulate.

What's, what the hell? He thinks it's going to be able to talk to all, he thinks that all animals can be able to talk to people. And after a dog talks to a man, everyone's going to be like, we got the go ahead, we can finally talk. Listen, Charlie, I've been meaning to say to you for a while, I don't like that bird scene. Not at all! World War I came and that made traveling to Africa dangerous, but RL managed to get the Smithsonian Institute to fund another trip.

Because the scientific community had now come around and he was being accepted there as well, his theory of talking to monkeys was somehow just kind of not discussed. And he was now just like a monkey slave trader who, which brought him respect. So like they're kind of ignoring the fact that he's going to talk to monkeys and they're just happy he's bringing back monkeys. Right. Well, he's like a monkey expert who maybe has a bad mark on his record. Yeah, he's got a little bit of quirk.

Right. He went on a final expedition to Africa in 1917. On this trip, he said he came across what he described as quote, a speaking ape. He said it was one of the few that communicated with the locals. But when he tried to capture it, things went south. It was a six foot tall and it was six feet tall and weighed more than 200 pounds. Arl called out to it and what he believed was its language.

Oh, God. But whatever he said did not go over well. Oh, God. And so he maybe became angry and charged aggressively. So maybe he was he was trying to say like, hello, large monkey. And what he actually said was, go fuck yourself. Yeah. He said, shit.

I you do kind of have to hope that he learned monkey and just still didn't understand it well. The monkey, the ape charged him aggressively. He shot the ape and killed it. He was completely up, you know, bummed because he still liked monkeys. And he felt that this had been his last chance to talk to a speaking ape. He then decided that this was his last trip. He went back to the US and settled down in Florida where he founded a center for primate communication. Oh, my God.

What, like a phone bank? RL could easily making a living now as a writer as his articles were published in newspapers across the nation. The New York Times published an article in 1919 about a Baltimore professor who had just returned from Africa on an expedition who claimed credit over RL for finding speaking ape and said that neither RL Garner nor anybody else had made progress in communicating with the creatures. Oh, and this guy was racist too. Quote. The natives of the jungle only a little removed in intelligence from the apes are unable to hold the conversation with them. Okay. So that, so his, so he's saying that because the Africans are so stupid that they can't talk to the monkeys.

That's his problem with it. That's where he finds like, no, you fool. The Africans are too stupid. And to make matters worse, a commercial photography company published in newspapers, a photo of RL kissing a monkey who was chained to a chair. But it was not RL in the photo, though he was named in the description. So they took a, they took a, they got a guy who looked like him and chained a monkey to a chair and then acted like it was him. To discredit him? Just to fuck, yeah, to fuck with him.

He sued the company for $100,000. But as it was going to trial in 1920, he came down with what, what was known as Bright's disease, which is painful inflammation of the kidneys. He ended up killing himself in a hotel in Chattanooga. He was 72 because no one from his estate appeared in court. He'd lost the suit and the judgment of $108 was entered against him. Though he's mostly totally full of shit, Richard Lynch Garner is still a pioneer for his observations of primates in the wild. Even though they couldn't talk to him, he was still listened to by academics and layman-like. And lay monkey.

And lay monkey. Well, that is, I mean, you know, like, the truth is that he's like, obviously he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, obviously way off. But like, you know, there is like, there are like levels of communication with it. Of course there are. And there are, there are ways for humans. But he was seeing the obvious, which is that they do have a communication between them. But he took it to the point where he was like, why don't they write me a letter?

Yeah, he wanted it translated. Yeah, he's out of his fucking mind. He was like, he was like, ready to get it translated. Yeah. He's like, I should be it. You can, you can teach, you know, you can teach animals. Sure. Yeah.

You know, but it's just, you're not. Really? Do you want to, do you want me to read the sentence that he said that fucking Susie said again? No. He's clearly not. I'm not talking about that level. No, we get it. Yeah.

You're, you like monkeys, you know that they can talk. Yeah. When no one's, no one's, no one's disputing that point. No, I'm not even, I'm not trying to, I'm not saying that I have beef with that. I'm saying that like, it just shows you how the second you get too creative with your scientific thought, you're going to lose the plot. Well, you're not supposed to get creative with scientific thought. No.

You're supposed to get scientific with scientific thought. Yeah, exactly. So it's the second that he says, I can translate this. He's lost it. Yeah. He picked up on a reality, which is like, oh, they're communicating. Oh, well, they're similar to us. And then he went the, the creative step.

I thought I could teach them Shakespeare. I could teach this to college students. Oh, monkey man. Well, what a, what a fun monkey man. We sign monkeys. Yes, that man.