The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 27 - Smollop: Oofty Goofty

Episode Date: October 22, 2014

Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine the man known as Oofty Goofty. Tour DatesDollop MerchSourcesPatreon

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That was the opening song. No there's already an opening. Gary. Gary. Don't you look at me like with soap opera face. Gary. Listen to me. That's our opening song. Okay. It's different. I'll say that it's the second the second time is different than the first time. Christ. The year was 1962. Hot year. Leonard Bochrat was born on April 26th in Berlin. Okay. He came to America from Berlin at the age of 14 as a stowaway aboard a ship in 1876. Wow. What. Wait. He. He. See he's old. No. We're starting 14. Okay. Oh shit. 18. I should 1962. Yeah. 1862. Okay. I was like what is he didn't travel in time. Okay. Well that's quite a stowaway.

I apologize. Stowaway to the time machine. Okay. I'm gonna start over again. The year was 1862. Well do you want me to do the song or are we good to go? All right. No start. No start. Okay. So he's born. He comes to America from Berlin at the age of 14 as a stowaway on a ship called the FSS Frisia. Oh gorgeous. 1876. He was discovered en route to the new world by the captain of the ship and forced to join the crew to earn. Oh should I mention that this is a small up. Oh yeah you should. Should we start over again? No I think it's okay. Okay. You'll put it out. You'll put it out and you'll say it's a small up. Right. So we're doing

occasionally we're gonna do small ups. It's like a short because I'm getting some stories that are too small to be dollops but I'm like that's funny. Yeah. So we'll do small ups occasionally. Yeah. It's time-consuming but we'll throw some in once in a while. This is the first small up. Okay. I'm ready. The year. He was discovered en route to the new world by the captain of the ship and forced to join the crew to earn his passage. He returned to Germany and back again to the United States aboard the Frisia before being allowed to disembark in New York City. Okay. Bulkhart drifted from state to state before signing up for

the US Calvary in Detroit. Wow that's just sounds crazy. It's a quite a jump. Yeah. It's quite made like quiet a leap. Yeah. All right horse and shoot people. Sure. His fellow soldiers made fun of him because he was Jewish. It was a terrible time. Yeah. After learning he would be fighting Native American Indians who might scalp him. He deserted. He sold this horse and gone to a farmer and headed for San Francisco. Better. Yeah. All right. Yeah. He arrived there in 1884 at the age of 22. All right. Okay. Well working on Market Street two minutes approached him and struck up a conversation. Oh they offered him a job

in a local museum show. Something tells me museum shows putting a little shine on some shit. No it's good. You see him show. He accepted before he even knew what the job was. All right. By the time he asked what it was arrangements had already been made and it was too late for him to back out. Hey what's the job you're in. The job he learned was to pose as the wild man of Borneo. Oh here we go. When he arrived at the museum show the two men stripped him from head to toe. They then covered him from head to toe in road tar. After that they applied an enormous amount of horse hair. This gave him a savage and ferocious appearance. Underneath

as well. What. He was now the wild man of Borneo. So he looks like this child man of Borneo. He looks like this giant hairy weirdo. Do I get to. Is there going to be context to what the wild man of Borneo is supposed to be. No this was the day when you just bring out like there he is the wild man of Borneo. This was just like some weird little freak show. Yeah they had these all over the country then. And what is he supposed to be like a were man almost. Kind of. Yeah he's like a wild man. He's like he's like a like a thing from the Adam's family. Yeah like a they look in Borneo. This is what people look like and everyone's like wow I'm glad I don't have a television. I'm glad we didn't

go there. The men are made of horse hair. So he was then handcuffed chained and locked in a heavy cage. What. A sign was placed outside the tent to announce his present and the amount for the ticket. Large numbers of not large numbers of people paid a dime each to gaze upon the wild man recently captured in the jungles of Borneo and brought to San Francisco at enormous expense. And here is catchphrase is like hey free me this is a trap and illegal and. Now you hold on. Oh no. To add to the supposed realism large chunks of raw meat were poked in between the bars by an attendant and the wild man was forced to eat it ravenously. Occasionally growling shaking the bars and wildly yelping. Ufti gufti. Ufti gufti. That's

what they told him to say. Ufti gufti. I mean oh my god. Ufti gufti. Ufti gufti. Mom and dad I found a job. But okay. Ufti gufti. I didn't know you spoke Borneo. I do. I do. Ufti gufti. I mean it's a time when they're just like a man from Borneo. They're covered in horse hair. They say Ufti gufti and they love their raw meat. But it is a job. This is a job. Yeah it's just not like trapped. Well he's kind of trapped isn't he. He is trapped. I don't. It doesn't sound like it. It sounds like it's his job. You'll see. Spectators were told that the wild man of Borneo spoke 21 languages but understood none of them. What? Yeah. I mean that's one of the reasons he says Ufti gufti isn't it. That line needs

a rewrite. No I don't think so. Spectators were told that the wild man of Borneo spoke 21 languages but understood none of them. How do they how. Gabbly flirty do you. Like that. I don't know what language that is. Okay. So they're non-language. Blah blah blah blah blah blah. You know what that was. I don't know how to communicate. I'm pretty sure that was Chinese. Ufti gufti. Gufti Ufti. He performed his this act in the dye museum show and was a huge success. But the act only lasted about a week when two Irishmen came in and began poking him in the ribs. Now being of Irish heritage I totally totally get this. He finally yelled out something in English and that was that. He was like fucking stop

it and they were like whoa. Oh look at him. I told you Ufti gufti would start talking there. The show folded the two men took off with all the cash and Ufti gufti as he was forever known was stuck and covered in tar and hair. I'm sorry. He was he was covered in tar and hair forever. Well he couldn't get it off. Okay. He became ill because he was unable to perspire through his thick covering of tar and hair. So like his toxic shit is backing up in him. He can't secrete. Yeah. Doctors at a hospital tried in vain for several days to remove the tar and hair finally dousing him with a tar solvent and laying him in the sun on the roof of the hospital in order to soften and remove the foul mixture. Ufti gufti

Ufti gufti Ufti gufti Ufti gufti Ufti gufti Ufti gufti Ufti gufti Ufti gufti Ufti gufti Ufti then got a job as Ufti as a mascot for a baseball team. Wait. So did they get the tar off? Yeah. Okay. But he's still maybe he wants to roll the dice a little bit more maybe. Well now he's calling himself Ufti. Ufti gufti. He got a job as a mascot for a baseball team. It's so great that it's Ufti. It's just such a great made up one thing. Just say Ufti Gufti. Shut up. It was not the best contract though for the baseball team. If the team won, he would receive $20. Oh boy. But if the team lost, they would get to beat the shit out of them. What? Which they did for the first two days of the job because they lost. Quote, they nearly

beat the life out of me and then made me walk home. So Ufti Gufti quit. Ufti was then arrested. Ufti was then arrested for dessert in the army and was sentenced to three years hard labor. Oh no. He tried to fake fits while in prison hoping they would throw him out. But doctors discovered that he was faking his fits. Then one day while doing work at the prison, he fell some distance was injured and was then released from jail. These are the days. These are the good old days. Ufti Gufti. Ufti Gufti had a bad fall. Ufti Gufti. That's exactly right. All right, perfect. Ufti then made his way back to San Francisco and turned to the theater, sort of. He secured a spot at a local beer hall. His job was to drink six beers with a teaspoon

in 10 minutes while smoking a cigar. Oh my god. Can he read? Could he try to just... It's a man making his way. He may be working a newspaper. He may be capable of and he goes after it. Sell some sort of product or... The patients did not enjoy the show and he was flung onto the street onto the hard rocks. What might have otherwise been a humiliating and painful experience actually worked in Ufti's favor. It showed him the direction in which his career would then turn. Despite being kicked ferociously and landing heavily upon a stone sidewalk, he discovered that he felt no physical pain. Oh no. For the next several years, he exploited this newfound talent by touring the city and allowing himself to be kicked and battered by all who chose to pay a price

that depended upon the grief brutality they wanted to inflict. Oh, poor Ufti. Poor little Ufti. For instance, for 10 cents, Ufti Gufti would allow a man to kick him. Ufti Gufti. For 10 cents, Ufti Gufti would allow a man to kick him, is what you just said. Yes. Okay. It would allow a man to kick him as hard as he pleased. For a quarter, he would take a beating with a walking stick. For 50 cents. I can't wait. For 50 cents, Ufti Gufti would become the willing recipient of a blow with a baseball bat, which he always carried with him. Use mine. I mean, is there 75 cents? No, that's all. Okay, okay. For 75 cents, you could murder Ufti Gufti. It was his custom to approach groups of men in the streets and in bar rooms and inquire.

Hit me with a bat for four bits, gents. Only four bits to hit me with his bat, gents. I'm a good thanks. I've got the money you need, friend, right here. It turned around. In 1981, heavyweight boxer John L. Sullivan was in the city to fight Patty Ryan. Sullivan was the heavyweight champion of the world. He probably knocked out 200 men in his lifetime. He could carry a keg of beer up six flights of stairs and then drink most of it. He looked like a side of beef, usually well marinated in whiskey. Saloons were his home and he always entered in style. My name is John L. Sullivan and I can lick any SOB in the house that he would shake hands all around. Ufti invited Sullivan to come down and hit him as hard as he could with a billiard cube. Excuse me, friend. My name's Ufti

Ufti. You can call me Ufti. I'd like to hit me really hard with this. Sullivan did, fracturing three vertebrae. Jesus. Even still, Ufti turned around and laughed at Sullivan. Ufti finally called it a day when the internal bleeding became too much. With the beat the crap out of me act, the blow from Sullivan caused Ufti to walk with a limp for the rest of his life and he was no longer immune to pain flinching at the slightest touch. So he went the opposite way now. Now he's like, oh, no, no, no, no, no. Ufti, Ufti. Ufti. Now Ufti attempted to push a wheelbarrow from San Francisco to New York because of a bet. Bet him. Ufti, Ufti. Bet him. Here's who bet him. Some guy was like, how do we get rid of this motherfucker? Hey, I got an idea. Hey, Ufti,

I will bet you $250. I'll take it. That you cannot push this wheelbarrow to New York City. Can do, dummy. Okay, so when you get there, I'll just pay you. I'll be there. All right. Ufti out. He made it 40 miles. Oh, really close. When he fell over in the dark and landed in a creek. Oh, Jesus, Ufti. Ufti continued his career trajectory. He performed as a human skittle in Woodward's garden where patrons would win a cigar if they hit him with a baseball. Wasn't he just out of the pain game? I don't know. He was like, that's it. I'm done wheelbarrowing. Back to do your thing. You guys want to hit me with a baseball? Really hard? He also performed along with a plus size actress of sorts who went by the name of

Big Bertha and his Shakespearean spoof dubbed Borneo and Juliet. Wow. So there was even hack shit back then. He performed in the character as the wild man of Borneo, though the storyline followed the original script to a large degree. So that's a really interesting. Yeah, I would pay to see that. Oh my God. Yeah. Oh, why'd you say that? It's all I want. For $20, he allowed himself to be shipped in a box to Sacramento as a joke gift for a young lady. This guy has such low self-esteem. Just know, but does anyone ever hug him? Ufti, it's okay bud. Ufti. A feat made even more harrowing by the fact that they left him upside down in the unopened package in a warehouse over the weekend.

What? Ufti, Ufti sat upside down in a box for $20. It was an ordeal that didn't seem to lessen his bravado, although he later admitted he was pretty near played out that time as a tough one even for Ufti. Even for Ufti. Ufti can say Ufti no likey. Ufti didn't like that. No Goofy about that one. No Goofy about that one, Ufti. Ufti Goofy was then invited to Texas by Mr. Holland. Oh no. While entertaining some men at a private party, he was asked if he could eat 30 quail in 30 hours. 30 quails? That's when Ufti said, this was my first quail eating contest. That was the hardest experience of my life, but I consider myself the champion quail eater of the United States. That was the hardest, not getting hit by a bat or being

covered in tar and hair and put in a cage for a week. Yeah, and have chemicals burn it off while you're on a roof like a fucking sun. Yeah. In Texas, Ufti traveled from one oil field to the next where he would entertain drunken workers by racing to drink beer with a bar spoon and engaging in quail eating contest, which were all the rage at the time eating contest. After his spoon and quail career came to an end, he met an imitation diamond merchant. He became an imitation diamond merchant walking around with a suitcase full of fake diamonds selling them to blokes. It's not known what happened to Ufti after he was interviewed by the Houston Daily Post on August 9, 1900. I actually found the newspaper and read the newspaper from 1900. And it's crazy. Most of that

is from his interview where he's saying what his life has been like. Ufti, Ufti, Ufti. I mean, I just can't believe there was a time when I didn't know about Ufti, Ufti. It was a dark time in your life. Ufti, Ufti. Yeah. Ufti. How do you feel? I feel like I wish I could have seen The Borneo Man Show, The Wild Man of Borneo. Oh my god. I think you said, I mean, do you see, just right now, if we could just go and just walk through this little weird museum only to see him be like, Ufti, Ufti, Ufti, Ufti, Ufti, just to be like, that's gonna be your name. Yeah. People poke him with sticks and throw fucking meat at it. Putting red meat and eat it. Yeah. Until two Irishmen did it, he goes,

all right, enough. Stop it. Stop. Oh, I told you. And that's what did it too. It wasn't the fact that he was dying from tar poisoning through his pores. He was like, these Irish guys were kind of pricks. Right. He couldn't take the Irishman. Anyway, that's our small up. The story of Ufti, Ufti. Do you feel good about yourself? I feel Ufti, Ufti. Your life is going well. Yeah, no. I like what he's saying. I can't feel pain. Oh, that can. I can. Real bad pain. I can really. Wow. I think I might live forever. Holy god. He is strong. I was not feeling pain, but I gotta tell you, when you break my vertebra, am I? Actually, that's where the nerves are. I think that's my threshold. This one, my vertebra crack. Yep. Yep. I think there's nerves in there.

He's good. I am not doing well. You know what? Put me in a box. Give me the Gladys. Put me in a box for the weekend upside down. That'll help my posture, right? Boys, I'm heading to New York with this wheelbarrow. Hey, it was great to meet everyone, but unfortunately, the wheelbarrow game, I came to call him. Off I go on my Barrow march. Ufti Gufti out. And then 40 minutes later, he's like, Hey, I'm not going to do that shit. Fuck that game. I lost that bet. Who's got a spoon? Who's got a spoon? Who wants to punch Ufti Gufti in his nuts for a cigarette? Who's going to put a bottle rock in my ass? Ufti's here. Come on. Someone can pull my heart out for $2. Ufti Gufti time. Pop my eyes out of the spoon.

I'm here. Never been hugged. Never been hugged over here. Nobody loves Ufti. Raised in Germany. Kind of tough. Raised in Germany. Stow away a lot of a lot of times. Gufti's the name. Ufti's the game. Ufti Gufti. Ufti Gufti. Ufti Gufti. All right. All right, David. That's our first smallup. Congratulations. That's what happens.