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Speaker 2: Thank you very much, and enjoy the show.
Speaker 1: This week we are talking about Titanic Thompson, arguably the
greatest and definitely the most prolific gambler in American history.
This man hit the road with one thing in mind,
to relieve rubs of their money. This man would hustle
you and pool. He would hustle you in golf. He
was a whiz with cards. He would do prop bets
you couldn't even dream up. He would do prop bets
that only an idiot would take, and so many idiots
took them. Titanic Thompson is arguably again the greatest gambler
in American history, and this man lived a true American life.
So without further ado, here's our episode on Titanic Thompson
America's greatest gambler.
Speaker 2: Welcome to softcore History.
Speaker 1: What is up? Welcome back to softcore History. I am
your host for the week, Rob Fox. I am joined
as always by Dan Regester. Go bird's got your little
DeVonta smithter And look's homemade.
Speaker 2: By the way, I got this from China.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why it look.
Speaker 2: It was fifteen dollars. It was made in someone's home
by little Chinese slave hands.
Speaker 1: But like you can tell, it's off.
Speaker 3: It's a little macromay. Huh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks pretty good for fifteen dollars. Like, fuck off,
I guess for fifteen dollars. Okay, we else join by
Jesse Wiseman. Here here Therey.
Speaker 2: Hello.
Speaker 3: Sorry, I could never wait to speak.
Speaker 1: I'm just it's it lets people. It's almost like it's
like in a movie when you hear a voice from
across the room and then someone walks out of the shadows.
Everyone who's that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, that's what I like. I like to make
an entrance.
Speaker 2: You should be smoking a cigarette.
Speaker 3: Guys, I mean, you know, guest, whatever I feel like
at this point, I'm a part time co host.
Speaker 1: Really, I mean, I believe you're most tenured co host.
Speaker 2: No, no, I don't think so. I think Jack is
because he heard.
Speaker 1: Jack or Gabby is, but they're all pretty close.
Speaker 2: She's still chasing Coop though, she's still chasing her co
host on Crime Corner, which.
Speaker 3: We said, we said last time, my co host on
Crime Corner. I can't beat him.
Speaker 2: He's got the most listens on YouTube. Its because we
made the Canadians, because.
Speaker 3: You made Canadians angry now and the last one I
think I tried to make. Who did I go after?
Speaker 2: I think you gave up pretty quick.
Speaker 3: I gave it pretty quick. I think it was maybe
like an oyster lover I was going after.
Speaker 1: Well, Jake is, Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2: He's Jewish, not a big demographic though. You think Jewish
people are the ones that are the oyster farmers.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I tried something. I tried something.
Speaker 1: You might legitimately, Jake might legitimately be the only Jewish
oyster farmer on Earth.
Speaker 3: Right you think so it's a low, it's a hot
like that might do it, Bob, that might get us,
do you know what I mean? Just that statement right there.
Speaker 2: Oh, dare you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like a whole New Jersey subset we know about.
Speaker 3: Just buddy to research.
Speaker 2: Okay, I know there's a whole Jewish mafia that actually
runs that industry.
Speaker 1: Dear chat GPT. How many Jews farm oysters?
Speaker 2: It's twenty eight and they all connect to the Rothschilds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's all that's how.
Speaker 2: It's how they get their pearls. Didn't know we would
get there with Jesse, but we're here.
Speaker 3: We're here.
Speaker 2: Let's get into this week's episode.
Speaker 1: As I alluded to right before we came on air,
this is a kind of an episode that has a
lot to do with Dan specifically. I feel like this
is Dan. This would either be the life you wish
you lived or it's you, like you were this person
in a past life.
Speaker 2: Bizarrow, you not Bizarro.
Speaker 3: Like literally he has been this person.
Speaker 1: You know how in some shitty reincarnation movies, like people
always end up back together.
Speaker 2: Yeah you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like it's like, oh, our souls are just drawn
to each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like Hancock.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like Hancock or that happened in What Dreams May Come.
They're like, oh, your soulmates, so you can go back
on to earth and you'll find each other.
Speaker 3: You hate that movie, I bet you do. It's so good.
I actually believe you don't cry during that movie, not.
Speaker 2: In Eternal Love, but that there's always somebody in past
lives that is wrong you and continues to wrong you
in every life. Yeah, like you have a rival or
just this incarnates, incarnates to be your kind of enemy.
Speaker 1: Like you're just destined to battle throughout all of time. Yes,
at one point you were too, like scuttle fish in
the Crustacean era, just like there's always a good in
a bad fighting over whatever a rock.
Speaker 2: But it's the same person. I like that. I like
that better than Eternal Love.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because then you know there's no way you're ending.
Speaker 2: Up with that person every time now, because.
Speaker 3: They wouldn't whoever it was, they're not coming to Austin.
Speaker 2: How do you explain? It's certainly not it's gotta be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's got to be infuriating too if you eventually
realize your soulmates. But like you obviously spent the first
like twenty five twenty years of your life like banging
other people. Yeah, Like, well I hope you had fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah we're back. Yeah, No, they whip your memory.
Speaker 3: Wait, what's the problem with any of that?
Speaker 2: It's men in black.
Speaker 3: It has to happen.
Speaker 1: It does, or you won't be in love. But today,
and this is where the dan stuff comes in.
Speaker 2: I thought we already talked about the person that was
in the past life with Kyle.
Speaker 1: Who is that Arnold Rostein? Yeah, No, this is who
you were.
Speaker 2: I thought I connected more with him.
Speaker 1: No, and this person's from the Arnold Rostein story. This
is a spinoff of last time's episode. Okay, we're talking
about one of the most legendary gamblers and golf hustlers
in American history, a man whose nickname is either fitting
or ironic when you hear it. Fitting because he's larger
than life. Maybe ironic because he's very much the opposite
of a catastrophic failure.
Speaker 2: Failure, we're talking about it. You call me a catastrophic failure.
Speaker 1: I said, you're the opposite of a catastrophic failure.
Speaker 3: Just let him finish. He's just got to do the intro.
Then we'll find that the similarity.
Speaker 1: The nickname might imply that he's a catastrophic failure because
his name is Titanic Thompson.
Speaker 2: Okay, I think you mentioned he was.
Speaker 1: He's uh plays a role in the Arnold Rostein story,
which we did on my last hosted episode, Arnold Rosstein
being the guy, the gambling magnate and crime boss who
fixed the nineteen nineteen World series.
Speaker 2: Now, for those at home, the Titanic was a boat
that was too big to fail.
Speaker 3: I was on that too Big to sin.
Speaker 2: You were right, Yes, you were on the Titanic episode. Okay.
Speaker 3: Oh, so you're saying that nickname would imply maybe it.
Speaker 1: Would imply that he's a failure. But he's not right,
You're Titanic.
Speaker 2: I think you're implying that I'm just a massive man,
larger than life. I'm a huge boy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're swollen.
Speaker 2: You're not that big.
Speaker 3: He's really taking this story as I mean, every everything
we say is gonna be a jab at him.
Speaker 2: Now, Bob, I'm gonna have my defenses up. Let's rob
exactly what I am not. No, huh no, I'm not.
Speaker 1: How how Alvin Clarence Titanic Thompson actually got his name
is fitting, though, although a little bit odd. It was
the spring of nineteen twelve and Titanic the Titanic, the
boat had just made headlines, obviously for sinking and killing
one thousand people.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, sure.
Speaker 1: Thompson meanwhile, had just made his way to Joplin, Missouri
that spring, and he was gambling and hustling in a
pool hall there, and he had just won five hundred
dollars the equivalent of fifteen thousand dollars today.
Speaker 3: That is like Dan.
Speaker 2: It's a good lick. Yeah, that is like Dan.
Speaker 1: And he promptly he well, he wanted off a gambler
named Snow Clark, but feeling bad for Clark and being
a gamer and a man of honor, Thompson offered Snow
a way to win enough money back that he would
break even on the night. So Thompson had won five hundred.
Titanic had won five hundred dollars just across the course
of the evening, right, So, but I think Snow if
he won two hundred back, he would just break even
for the night. So Titanic was like, you know what, Pal,
I'm a good spot.
Speaker 3: He drinks like that, huh oh yeah, right, So at
that point He's like, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I'll give you a chance to win the two hundred dollars.
I'll get a chance to win tw hundred dollars Ifack
get back to even.
Speaker 2: Double or nothing. Now was snow icy cold or on cocaine?
Probably both? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Was that a nickname for him?
Speaker 1: Or snow was a nickname for him? There are a
lot of great nicknames in this Snow fats Minnesota or
no Minnesota fats.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, by the way, Minnesota fats.
Speaker 3: It's a really good.
Speaker 2: Having a state as your first name. Strong.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, old Missouri fats over here.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. So Titanic bet him two hundred dollars that
he could jump the length of a pool table. He
could jump over a pool table lengthwise, okay, like take
a run and jump and just clear it.
Speaker 2: Okay, some decent hots.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's crazy, Like you shouldn't be able to do it.
And Thompson said as much. He said, if you think
that's easy, try it. This is from a nineteen seventy
two Sports Illustrated article a quote from Titanic Thompson. But
I could jump farther than I heard of bullfrogs in
those days. I put down an old mattress on the
other side of the table. Then I took a run
and dived head first across the pool table. While I
was counting my money because he'd won, and he'd taken
an extra two hundred dollars from snow So, which is
like an extra like eight grand that he just fucking
bleeds off on a like in two seconds.
Speaker 3: Drunken motherfucker's just like betting this dude is on, you'll
get there.
Speaker 2: It's he's insane.
Speaker 1: So somebody asked Clark what my name was, and Clark
said it must be Titanic. He sinks everybody okay, and
he went from Titanic went by Titanic from then on.
Although Minnesota Fats, who was his fellow pool hustler for
a while. Uh and although he thought he was a
great hustler, I guess thought less of him or just
thought he was kind of like a dishonest piece of shit.
Minnesota Fats claimed that Titanic got the nickname because he
was on the Titanic and dressed up like a woman
to get off onto a boat. War.
Speaker 3: That's a way better story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's one of the worst accusations you could have, guests.
Speaker 3: Right, But what a great insult, do you know what
I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, insult put on a dress to skip out on
his duty.
Speaker 2: You die in that cold water like a man so titanic.
Speaker 1: Thompson was born in Monnett, Missouri, about an hour's drive
away from Chapel Roane's hometown of Willard, Missouri.
Speaker 2: And we're not making her a thing like this is
an evergreen content rob. She's going to be not like
a thing in six months, so there's no reason to
ever mention her.
Speaker 3: I just know way more people that don't know.
Speaker 2: I have no idea who this bitch is.
Speaker 3: We could have given it time, give it time.
Speaker 2: Couldn't lost two times. Chapel Rone is blowing up.
Speaker 3: She's titanic ing, for sure. She is blowing it up
for sure.
Speaker 1: Even though he was born there, he grew up fifty
miles south in Arkansas, and it came from a proud
line of gamblers. And by that I mean his father
lost all his money and ran out on the family.
Speaker 3: Delco Any are you feeling any?
Speaker 2: I mean there was a couple of years there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, where your dad gambled.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, my dad gambled a lot. He always like, no,
it wasn't move it was just you know, teasers or
just a little work parlays. I'm like, just fun stuff.
I don't know I remember you hitting up your bookie
on the phone like every Friday, And I like this line.
He had a bookie, he had a bookie.
Speaker 1: Give me the birds money line.
Speaker 2: Actually, I mean I'm an actual bookie too. It's not
the same feel right.
Speaker 1: Like not because you're on the internet. It's so really.
Speaker 2: It's all through like telegram nowadays. And you know, yeah,
they live down the street, right, like this is local.
This is like he knows the guy.
Speaker 3: It's scarier, it's more real. That's gambling.
Speaker 2: I've never I've never met my bookie. We are all
we do soft hands gambling. We don't do real gambling. Yes,
it's still very much real.
Speaker 3: No, what is the threat, by the way, sorry because
I don't understand, But what is the threat to you?
If you can't pay?
Speaker 2: It's still mafia.
Speaker 3: It's still break your legs?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: Or is it just like collector?
Speaker 2: Because no, it's he's not my book He won't do it,
but the guy above him will if you don't pay, Yeah,
you don't hit him back on because I do know
where the like lineage goes, and it's it is still mafia.
Oh you know the pyramid, Yeah, I know how it goes.
Speaker 3: You've said too much already.
Speaker 2: They kind of want business, so yeah, they will.
Speaker 1: Actually they give you money for referring people to them.
Speaker 2: Really.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're like, it's fine, nobody's coming after us.
Speaker 3: And they want you to be scared of not paying.
Speaker 1: I am, I shouldn't be, maybe because sometimes it's an
unspoken agreement. Yeah, you just it's better not to poke
the bear, right, you don't really want to fuck around?
Speaker 3: Fine, I literally can't imagine not paying, right though. Yeah,
I think we've like on the world.
Speaker 1: But the people who really do that are the ones
who are like addicted pieces of shit, insane. Not well,
there's a difference between me and him getting a little
drunk and be like fuck I lost eight hundred dollars or.
Speaker 2: Him like two thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: And between that and like that's like the same things.
It's like worried about being murdered, where like unless with us,
we unless we're actively involved in breaking crimes like drug deals, Yeah,
our chances of getting murdered or almost zero. And since
you're not married to an abusive man, your chances of
getting murdered or almost zero. So like it's just being
worried about being murdered, like it's the same thing. It's like, oh,
that could happened to me. But it's dude, I'm obviously
gonna pay.
Speaker 2: I also have a well established relationship with this man,
so I've used him for like almost a decade. At
this point, I don't want to find someone new. Yeah,
right aspect, If I don't pay him, I just can
never use him again. And it's like, all right, I
guess I just won't gamble anymore. That's not an option.
Speaker 1: How Never, how Titanic wasn't murdered by the way, I
have no idea, And we're going to get into all
that right now. In nineteen oh eight, at the age
of sixteen, Titanic left home with a dollar in his pocket,
a desire to hustle, and no ability to read or write.
You have to nineteen oh eight, you're in Missouri, you're literate.
You just want to gamble?
Speaker 3: Do you really have to read that?
Speaker 2: I don't know, By the way, I know, the Discord
thinks I'm like illiterate and I can't read, or that
my brain's evolving now with the show, because I am
reading and writing more thanks to the show. But man,
I'm I'm at least on a fifth grade reading level.
Speaker 3: I mean, people think you can't read.
Speaker 2: That's kind of a yeah, a joke that goes back
to grandex.
Speaker 3: You're literally a writer.
Speaker 2: There's a whole segment called Dan Does's words.
Speaker 1: Well, it's a thing where he can read and write excellently,
But reading aloud is it entirely different skill that sure
anything else, Which is why I always I would always
say when people were like dunking on Biden twenty twenty,
like he has to read off a teleprompter, I'm like,
I don't think you know that that's a skill.
Speaker 3: Oh seriously, if you gave them whoever saying that, if
you gave him right, then they'd be like uh uh
slow down and then one way. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like it's so you can say whatever you want
about the guy. But like I was like, I won't
stand for teleprompter slander. Like that's not easy to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was awful trying to read in church. Oh yeah,
when I had to get in front of the entire congregation.
Speaker 3: From more like nerves than knowing how to nerves.
Speaker 1: It doesn't seem like a guy who gets nervous for
that type of thing.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty even with everything. But it's just kind of
looking at the page. It's going from brain to mouth
even when I speak, I have no idea where it's going, right, clearly, Yeah,
that's where you need to have the It's a disconnect
you need to have.
Speaker 1: It's it's an irrational confidence really to be like, yeah,
I saw that right, and I'm gonna shoot it out
my mouth now.
Speaker 3: Yeah. True.
Speaker 2: I think it's when I came out as a baby,
had a lack of oxygen with the umbilical corde wrapped
around my throat, and then I was also in the ICU,
the baby little ICU for like a nick you yeah
for an yeah by myself that.
Speaker 3: Was your dad gambling or what happened probably yeah, yeah yeah.
So they're just like looks, they're watching him.
Speaker 2: You know, he's taking care of he's taking.
Speaker 3: Care of, recovering is everywhere.
Speaker 2: He doesn't need love and affection. So were you not
touched for the first month of your life?
Speaker 3: I think so makes so much.
Speaker 2: It's a lot.
Speaker 1: Because you know what happens when a baby's born.
Speaker 2: Mm hm.
Speaker 1: The first thing.
Speaker 2: They do, I mean I don't remember, no, yeah, so
the first.
Speaker 1: Thing they do is skinned skin, skinned skin, The very
first thing they want to happen is for that baby to.
Speaker 3: Be touched by somebody. It could be dad, it could
be whatever. Literally just a human skin, because if it's a.
Speaker 1: C section, I have not done it, but a lot
of friends I've seen, like guy friends when their wife
had a sea section or whatever, yeah, or if something.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: When I came out though, they're like, can he work yet? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Like he needs to contribute at this point, which you
were You weren't always a couple of seconds old? Get
him on the factory line.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, they tried to get you on the m
night Shyamal online.
Speaker 2: But yeah, no, I did try out for signs.
Speaker 3: You did. Oh that's right, as the as a kid,
as the.
Speaker 1: Kid as Kieran Culkin, Like he's going to get that.
Speaker 3: But like, why are the auditioning people if they have Kieran?
Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like that was line of us.
Speaker 3: It wasn't you, It wasn't you. They were trying to
do local higher ship, but they knew they weren't going to.
They probably loved your performance.
Speaker 2: I bet my life is two percent different if I
actually get that role, Like I'm probably still here.
Speaker 3: That's true because it was a Kulkin already, So we
can't say that like, oh, you would have the trajectory.
Speaker 2: Right, I would have just been, oh, like that's a
cool little oh you're the king. Fact about my history.
I was the kid in's signed.
Speaker 1: How old were you in two thousand and two?
Speaker 2: Two thousand and two, I would have been eleven.
Speaker 1: You're addicted to drugs. You probably go the round of
mac miller and you're gone.
Speaker 3: You and Joaquen like become good friends, which is not
a good idea. Your parents don't like it, right, But
he's fucking rad. You're cool, you know what I mean.
So you guys start hanging out way too young. Yeah,
you're in clubs by he's taking you to the clubs
because you're fucking chill. You don't snitch.
Speaker 1: You don't remember falling asleep at a studio executive's house
when you're fourteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh it's all suppressed. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: And then next thing you know, I mean, you're living
in a house in Santa Clarita, renting a house in
Santa Clarita.
Speaker 2: Working at six character actor, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you are playing a character bugs Bunny.
Speaker 2: Is that at six f Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think that's the only character they're like allowed to
have a six flins.
Speaker 2: I have the Warner Brothers. Not much different than my
actual life in Orlando. I tried out for Gustan.
Speaker 3: Oh, that would have been great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's probably when I didn't get the role.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm Gustan.
Speaker 3: Oh god, oh that would have been perfect, though, go
back and Tristan.
Speaker 2: No one fucks like Gustan.
Speaker 3: Does he not sound exactly means?
Speaker 1: Yes, he looks like he would tell you not to read.
Speaker 2: Gaistan's kind of a hero, right, hmm.
Speaker 1: There's an animal living in a castle they didn't know
about in the woods, holding a woman hostage. This man
wants to get her back, a sentient bear dog who
can speak, and they're.
Speaker 2: Just supposed to be cool with that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: They've burned people alive for so much less at that time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's down with bestiality all of a sudden. Yeah,
he wants to fuck Bell. The only literate woman in
the town surely falls in love with him because she
gets Cavin fever.
Speaker 1: Yes, Stockholm say Rome, uh, what is it? Florence Nightingale?
Speaker 3: Yeah effect, Yeah, yeah, it's I think it's more of
a Stockholm but it's also just manly beast. It's really
a tale about our primal desires. Because when he turns
into the prince, girls, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Hey, yeah, he's a French prince Ghistan.
Speaker 3: Know when the beast turned on to it.
Speaker 2: I was gonna Saystan's kind of beefy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the It's the animalistic representation of Gustan. Right,
So listen, Gaston, that's the problem.
Speaker 1: You'd a hairless chest.
Speaker 3: You keep saying, Gustan, You got me?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: What what woman doesn't want to be cradled by a giant?
Speaker 2: Okay, a hairy giant.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Unfortunately, that is just what it is.
Speaker 2: Hello folks.
Speaker 3: Hello.
Speaker 1: So Titanic went all across the South and Central United States,
hustling and all sorts of games and sports. He won
money playing car cards, playing dice, hustling billiards, hustling horseshoes.
I'm awful at pool uh, and also hustle. He also
hustled in golf.
Speaker 2: It's the only sport I played left handed.
Speaker 1: That's really bizarre. That might be way bad at it.
Probably you're just using the long hand.
Speaker 3: Where do you guys go? Where do we go?
Speaker 2: Boomers?
Speaker 3: Go to boomers. Let's get you on the right track. Yeah,
you would be good if you're good at golf and
everything else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm okay golf. I'm not great at golf.
Speaker 1: You're probably in like the fucking one percent in golf.
Speaker 2: I'm shooting the like mid eighties. Sometimes I can get
down to the seventies. Yeah that's the one percent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, Scott's Scott Peterson.
Speaker 2: But sure you're.
Speaker 1: Getting the difference in the one percent. It's like the
one percent of America that makes like four hundred between
four hundred thousand dollars and a billion dollars, you know
what I mean, Like that's it's true. Yeah, so you're
making like five hundred grand a year, right, you know,
Jeff Bezos.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, Scotty Scheffler. But you're still technically in
the one Yeah.
Speaker 3: You're hanging out at the party, you know what I mean,
they're inviting you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a cousin Greg, literally the cousin Greg a golf.
Speaker 1: Titanic, And this is where I wonder why Titanic didn't
get murdered. He would also make up prop bets on
the spot and win money that way. For instance, the
one where he could jump over a pool table.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he would just do stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But he had other prop bets too, and all these
prop bets were really just him fucking people over.
Speaker 2: He could do yes, and he knew he could jump.
Speaker 1: Over the pool table, so he made the pool table bet.
Or for example, he uh he would say to somebody like, hey, pa,
fifty bucks, as I can throw this he a walnut
over that that building. And what they wouldn't know is
that he had waited the hollowed out shell with lead
to make it heavier so he could throw it further.
Then like a hollow like hollow woodball won't travel.
Speaker 2: The same distance. It's like a heavy Yeah.
Speaker 1: So no though, yeah, no fairs when they didn't know that,
didn't check the walnut. Who waits a walnut?
Speaker 2: True? Uh. He would also.
Speaker 1: Move road mileage signs closer to town than going to town
and be like, who wants to bet me that that
road mileage sign out there is about a quarter mile
closer than I drove right by it, And I thought
to myself, that's about a quarter mile off.
Speaker 3: Who are these degenerate fucks like? They're taking these fucking
beds just.
Speaker 1: Like the music man comes to town and he's like,
the one thing, I know, that sign isn't close enough. Yeah,
and then they're like, i'll bet you fifty dollars it is.
And then he's already fucking moved it.
Speaker 3: So and like who is this guy?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Just a drifter comes in, do you know what
I mean?
Speaker 3: And you go like, oh, jake the bet you know?
Speaker 2: Shoot up?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he takes their money. They what's the saying
it's a sin to let suckers keep their money or
something like that.
Speaker 2: I thought you were gonna say something about drifters coming
into the bar. No, always take that action. Yeah, I
have no idea. We'll never never take a hobos prop bet. No,
God never their magic man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in the nineteen twenties, and this is especially where
I wonder how he didn't get murdered.
Speaker 2: He bet.
Speaker 1: Allegedly, he bet al Capone's men in Chicago about fifty
thousand dollars in that time's money. Hey, that he could
drive a golf ball five hundred yards off the.
Speaker 2: Tee if he was on the driveway.
Speaker 1: They said, I'll take that bet. You're a fucking liar.
There's no way you can do that. Well, it happened
to be winter in Chicago, so he went out to
Lake Michigan, hit the ball onto the frozen water and
it just fucking bounce, slid five hundred yards.
Speaker 3: And so it was like, technically, yes.
Speaker 1: Yes, a drive isn't in the air.
Speaker 2: Drives this way. He stops.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I.
Speaker 1: Believe in today's money, that would be pushing two million dollars.
Speaker 2: What a bunch of that would have been funny if
it's just to go.
Speaker 3: To huh Chicago. Yeah, I guess, jeez.
Speaker 1: The smartest folks, I'm sorry, in eighteen, in nineteen twenty five,
I'm just splitting the decade and a half, it would
have win eight hundred and ninety eight thousand dollars that
he wanted two seconds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but what if he duffed it off the tea?
Yeah all right, pay off, buddy. Yeah, there's still a
little pressure there. He's still got to hit it pretty well.
There is. We'll got to reach the lake.
Speaker 1: We'll get to his golf skills. But it was said
that even though Thompson was illiterate at least when he
left home, he was really good with numbers, a really
good athlete, and had freakish hand eye coordination, hence being
a pool hustler, a golf hustler, a horseshoes hostler, jumping
over pool tables on the fly, which is insane.
Speaker 3: Probably accuracy with random bets. We don't know even all
the dumb bets that he did.
Speaker 1: He was betting every second of every day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's the worth that you question, right, Yeah,
he has all these skills, he can do all these
different things, but he's still living a life of crime.
Speaker 3: But you say that every time about a con man.
Right where you go if you put this much effort
into something that was like legal, right, or college or
like learning something like the lies and the keeping everything together, if.
Speaker 2: You literally just something more honorable or just like.
Speaker 3: You rule the world because they're actually in this weird way,
you know, the best of us, the best of us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're better than anyone.
Speaker 3: They know how to read the room, they know how
to manipulate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they don't want that life salesman.
Speaker 1: They're not a role model. They weren't made. They weren't
made to lead.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: Uh, we'll get want though, because people ask him, they
offer him a or say will you take this legitimate job?
Speaker 2: And he has a answer to your question.
Speaker 1: He was also a crack shot, great with a gun.
Before he left. Before he left home, his uncles his
dad was of course gone, ran out, but his uncles
knew he was like a precise shooter. Allegedly he could
take down a bird between the eyes from fifty yards
away with a rifle.
Speaker 2: Really well, are we sure? Because if you hit a
bird between the eyes, the whole head's gone, right, he's gone.
Speaker 3: What's the ruse here? What happens?
Speaker 2: No, he was really good.
Speaker 1: He was at one point a skill shooter in Captain
Adam Henry Bogertus's Miracle Medicine shows like a knockoff Buffalo
traveling like Buffalo Bill Show. In the show, he would
entertain onlookers by shooting pie tons and cabbages out of
the air. He would also trick viewers. I guess he
couldn't pull this off. He would trick viewers into thinking
he shot a silver dollar out of the air.
Speaker 2: So that that's what I mean.
Speaker 3: Like, even with the bird, I'm like, what what was
the trick?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: The between can't happen because the bullet will just rip
the bird's head. I mean, maybe if it's like ripping
the whole bird. Maybe if it's like an eagle, it
goes through the skull, but like a pigeon, a dove,
you're just obliterating it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's nothing left. You can't check that, you can't confirmation.
But I mean, still he hit his head. It's pretty accurate.
Speaker 1: So basically there was a minute while in his early
gambling days where he was also earning a living as
a freak show carneye like the boy with the miracle
eyes can shoot anything, but he was Lar.
Speaker 2: Was not high back then, Jesse, okay.
Speaker 3: For any kind of.
Speaker 1: Oh really odd I people needed television. Television saved you know.
I think it was Kurt Vonnegut who said America's roam
and television is our lead, the lead in our wine
or whatever. Yeah, like, oh, televisions rotting our brain. Do
you know what people did before television. We did an
episode on this once where at one point some shitty
tiny circus had come through some shitty tiny town and
one of their elephants, it wasn't the topsy episode is
one of my episodes. One of their elephants had trampled
somebody who had who was like some trainer who had
been torturing it. Yeah, right, elephant's super smart. Yeah, all
that stuff.
Speaker 2: They literally game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they have funerals for them for each other. So anyway,
the elephant had to discipline the elephant. I'll try to
I don't remember what episode this isn't, but the circus
people were like, well, we got to discipline this elephant
so it doesn't uh bash someone's brains in again with
its foot, right, we just need to be allowed to
torture and it needs to know that.
Speaker 2: So they took it out into the woods outside of town.
Speaker 1: The townspeople know, hey, we're gonna be disciplining an elephant
tonight in the forest. If you'd like to come watch
whole town shows up. There's nothing on television, since television
doesn't exist, not even radio.
Speaker 2: At this point.
Speaker 1: This is like the turn of the century, probably like
we're probably right around the time nineteen oh eight, eighteen nineties,
something like that.
Speaker 2: There hadn't been an execution in quite some time.
Speaker 1: No one had been hanged in the months. So they
got in the middle of the woods and to watch
this elephant get chained to four trees by its legs
and all this stuff. So they can't move and then
the circus Carnie freaks. Uh, just light a fire under
the elephant, stop and just burn it for a while.
Speaker 3: Every time you do it on purpose, Well.
Speaker 5: You brought you jog my memory, I know, but geez,
but that always like a pig on fire or like, yeah,
that's what happened before Sandford and Sun right, you understand, right, Like, oh,
you think mister beast is stupid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, try watching a beast. Yeah, taking your kid to
watch a beast be burned.
Speaker 3: Right, But it's also not just right in its you
know face, it's not a screen right in the face. Huh.
But no, you're right. What's yeah, what's worse? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think the elephant part is probably together, like no,
it kind of prepares them for the rest of life, for.
Speaker 3: The rest of that life, in those years, Yeah, for sure,
for sure it's letting you know. Yeah, like it's not good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the fact that one of the kids there was
probably burned alive in the First World War.
Speaker 3: So yes, So it was like, I know what this is,
Like I saw, I saw an elephant go through this.
It's not great.
Speaker 1: I've seen I've seen a sentient creature on fire before.
Speaker 3: Bring it on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he was a great He was a great
shot though. From nineteen fifty one and nineteen fifty four,
four years in a row, he won the Arizona State
trap shooting contest, Okay, which I guess is the thing.
Speaker 3: But he was and it was legit. Yeah, you know
what I mean, Like, so there were judges. He's also
winning legit shit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he was legitimately hand eye eyesight.
Speaker 2: Incredible.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately life as an illiterate gambling drifter wasn't all
sunshine and ponies.
Speaker 3: What delco? Is that true?
Speaker 2: It's been sounding?
Speaker 3: Was that true?
Speaker 2: I'm not hearing about any woman in his life. We'll
get to that. That's his downfall, isn't it. We'll get
to it.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ten, at the age of seventeen, Thompson killed
his first man.
Speaker 2: Seventeen Huh what so this was all before he was
what essentially a junior in high school.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this is junior year of high school. His
junior year of high school, Thompson killed his first bit. Alright,
wait really yeah?
Speaker 3: Wait? Okay, so all the other stuff happened when he.
Speaker 1: Was fifteen sixteen, he left, He left his house at
the age of sixteen. I kind of was skipping around
is to tell you stuff. Okay, we get a little
more chronological, got it, got it?
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So he was in Roal, Arkansas, and a man named
Jim Johnson accused him of cheating at dice. The boat
they were traveling on actually belonged to Titanic Thompson, as
he'd recently won it from the former owner of the
boat gambling.
Speaker 2: I know why you did this episode. My dad threw
batteries at Jim Johnson. Don't think it's the same, Jim Johnson.
Speaker 3: That's not why you did the episode.
Speaker 1: No, No, that's not why.
Speaker 2: No, he was. He was one of the Eagles fans
that threw batteries at Jimmy Johnson.
Speaker 3: Oh that's why he picked it. Yeah, you got him.
Speaker 2: There's a little bit more of a connection than you think,
Rob apparently.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: But what this really shows is I think this was
you in a pass life. And then my grandfather threw
snowballs at Santa. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think this was you in a pass life, is
what I'm saying. This is your sort of like inherited memories.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, like you're not gonna, you know, connect with
every single thing. But it's going the entire time. You're
gonna feel viscerally like you. He's telling your story.
Speaker 2: History doesn't repeat at rhymes. Yes.
Speaker 1: So Titanic had won the boat from a friend of
Johnson's and Johnson was like, fuck you, you're cheating at dice.
So Johnson accuses Titanic of it and throws him off.
Speaker 2: The boat, just draws him off the boat into the river.
That would never cheat, that'll kill.
Speaker 1: Titanic climbs back onto the boat, and Johnson pulls a
knife on Titanic's girlfriend and is like, you better get
the fuck off this boat or I'm gonna cut your lady.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: See yeah, So Titanic grabs a hammer, bashes Johnson's head
in what happens, and then throws Johnson overboard, and Johnson.
Speaker 2: Drowns okay, unscathed, girlfriend unscathed.
Speaker 1: When asked if he had any remorse for the killing,
Titanic said that he did not because it was Johnson's
fault that he didn't know how to swim.
Speaker 2: Yeah, better call him also true for me, true him
off first. Johnson threw him off first. I get tossed
up the boat and I climb back in those days.
Speaker 1: Well, I just don't think Johnson was conscious since he
smashed his head with a hammer a couple of times
and then threw him off the boat.
Speaker 2: But he was also thrown off before, so like you
saw him come back on the boat, pulled a knife
on his girl.
Speaker 3: Titanic, help me, listen, I'm just here to have fun.
If someone wants to save me, that's.
Speaker 2: Up to them. I belong to whoever's on the boat lift.
Speaker 3: Whoever wants to save me is cool with me.
Speaker 1: So of course the local sheriff gets involved. There's been
a murder, and uh, he says to Titanic, listen, pal,
we take murder seriously around here. So we're you gotta
go to trial unless you give me the deed to
the boat and get the hell out of town.
Speaker 3: No problem.
Speaker 1: So Titanic's like, sure, here's the deed of the boat.
Gets the hell out of town. Murder solved.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well some new further investigation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's like, we know you did it. Sounds like
it was a fifty fifth the situation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that self defense.
Speaker 3: The only witness is a gal and we don't trust.
Speaker 2: Uh. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighteen, Titanic was drafted into World War One. Sadly,
we never got to unleash him on the Germans. Titanic was, however,
unleashed on American troops. Oh.
Speaker 2: I thought you're gonna say it was a draft dodger.
No he was not.
Speaker 1: He was in the following basic training where he excelled.
Speaker 2: He was a great soldier by all accounts.
Speaker 1: He was promoted this sergeant, but he remained in the States,
uh to train other draftees to be sent overseas.
Speaker 2: They just thought he was such a good shot that
he trained them pretty much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and such a good so good at basic training.
They're like, you're good, you know, you're you understand stuff.
We're gonna keep he's good at physical fitness. Yeah, we're
gonna keep you here.
Speaker 3: Uh to just you know, like, so far he hasn't
done anything wrong in my eyes, I don't think.
Speaker 1: So, you know, sorry about someone who's necessarily doing anything wrong.
A story about a man who lived.
Speaker 3: A life listen, got his money, how he from people
that we're gonna give it to someone else.
Speaker 2: They weren't going to keep it.
Speaker 3: They weren't going to keep it. It was going somewhere. He
was just there to take it revenge killing eye for
an eye. I mean, let's fucking go.
Speaker 1: I'm in Yeah, I have no judgment really this man
in terms of, well, there'll be one thing, but uh
in general that in general whatever, well, yeah, for the
most part is whatever.
Speaker 3: Again, there was no guns to anyone's head. It was
a bet, and if you fucking take it, the money's here.
Speaker 2: If you if a stranger comes into town with such
an odd.
Speaker 3: Bet, it's clearly figured out beforehand.
Speaker 1: Like if a stranger walking into the studio and was like, hey,
you and the Eagles Jersey, I bet you your car
has a flat tire. Yeah, and you're like, well, I
parked my car here hours ago and there was no
flat tire. There mustn't be a flat tire. Then you
walk outside and there's a fucking knife in your tire.
Speaker 2: Yeah, who done it? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: Well I never you pay fifty thousand dollars yea yeah, yeah,
but you really got me that done it.
Speaker 2: You're a clever one. So I mean, people up until
I think people are idiots now, But back then, boy
was it easy.
Speaker 1: To rubs the entire musical music man, which this guy
kind of reminded me of like a dirtier version of that. Uh,
it's just like a guy going to a town to
trick them into buying instruments. Yeah, and he's done that
all over the place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a racket.
Speaker 3: They didn't know what they didn't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So he was charged with training new recruit. Titanic
was a trusted figure amongst the young men who were
training to go overseas man of honor fighting a terrifying war.
So naturally he took them for all the money he could.
Speaker 2: I was just gonna say, I was gonna say, he
taught them some rations.
Speaker 1: He taught them gambling, and then took their money and
sent them to the trenches to die.
Speaker 2: Fucking a Really, they don't need the money when they're there.
Speaker 1: He taught them how to gamble. Okay, then then this
is one of the best gamblers in the country. He
taught them how to gamble, then gambled with them, yeah,
and beat them handily.
Speaker 3: Again.
Speaker 1: He left the army in November nineteen eighteen after the
war ended, having won fifty thousand dollars from his troops,
so which today would be about a million dollars.
Speaker 2: Okay, where else is that money going to go? They
could have kept it. I guess Army's gonna take care
of you for a little bit.
Speaker 3: Army's gonna take what is that like, arrested development. I'm
going back to Army mother. Army will take care of me.
Speaker 2: You may now. I mean this is probably one of
the most successful trip stories out there for him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you're identifying with him more and more
with every story, right, Yeah, you're like, yeah, and they
wanted to you know, they wanted to gamble.
Speaker 2: He's not forcing anyone's hand here. No, he's offer he's
offering up opportunities and that's it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fair enough. So after the war, after he
got out, he hit the ground running on road gambling.
Speaker 2: I was like, I'll just.
Speaker 1: Going from town to town hustling gambling. Love it, fresh meat, yeah,
all the stuff.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 1: One of his h hustling buddies was Minnesota Fats, who
considered Titanic genius quote the greatest action man of all time.
Speaker 3: What a great description.
Speaker 1: And at this point Titanic was becoming like a legend,
like famous nationwide for his gambling, billiards and so on.
People knew who he was, They knew he was a
famous gambler. They knew he made a lot of money,
and perhaps because they wanted to come at the king.
Speaker 3: Mm.
Speaker 1: If you can't beat him, rob him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that hasn't happened.
Speaker 2: Yet, do you know what I mean, he's gotten this far?
Speaker 3: My god?
Speaker 2: Also, can we now refer to you as Missouri Pales?
Speaker 3: Missouri Pales, I like the state, and then some kind
of rescription?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, okay, if you're gonna call me Titanic, I'm
good with calling you Missouri Pales. Was there Pales? I'm
fine with making fun of my skin tone? But is
there a better word?
Speaker 3: It's not fat, you guys aren't fat, but the like
Philly fats, like you know, the fats after it's fucking great.
Speaker 4: Yeah, unfortunately, Yeah, Missouri says Missouri whitesna.
Speaker 3: Calm down, Yeah, calm down. So Missouri supremacy, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they tried to rob him, but Titanic killed again.
Yeah this time.
Speaker 2: He pushed this man too.
Speaker 3: Fu I mean, honestly, would tell me, go ahead, tell
me something bad?
Speaker 2: Yeah? This time.
Speaker 1: It was nineteen nineteen in Saint Louis, Thompson shot two men,
he claimed in self defense because they're trying to steal
his gambling winnings. This time, the local police weren't so
wishy washy.
Speaker 3: They didn't need a boat for the town.
Speaker 1: They were just like, thanks for killing them. They were
actually bank robbers, so I'm glad you killed them. Really yeah,
oh they were like, good job, Titanic, come back anytime.
Speaker 3: The guy's fucking legend, dude, she's.
Speaker 2: Taking the law in his own hands. So he's got
three bodies. He's a vigilante.
Speaker 1: Three bodies so far. And by the way, nineteen nineteen,
so he is like he is, uh, he's nineteen. No,
he's uh twenty six Okay, twenty six years old.
Speaker 2: Yeah. All you've described so far is just like nineteen
twenties Batman.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sort of nineteen twenties.
Speaker 1: He's not solving crimes. He's accidentally killing criminals vigilantes.
Speaker 3: He's cleaning up the streets, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: The third time he killed came in Saint Joseph, Missouri,
where Thompson and his hired bodyguard uh lit up a
bunch of guys who tried to rob a poker game.
And again, the guy who's trying to rob the poker
game were known criminals who So the sheriffs were like,
thank you for your service.
Speaker 3: Yes, vigilante. Yeah, this is Gotham right here.
Speaker 2: He's just killed people and it's all good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, okay, it's all in self defense.
Speaker 2: He's charismatic, he's rich.
Speaker 4: Maybe the first one was a little egregious, right because
there was no like physical threat.
Speaker 2: I don't think he was the first one was very
much a physical threat.
Speaker 1: He threw he pulled a knife on his girlfriend. He
got on the boat, tossed off a boat. Is I
wouldn't call a full physical threat. Maybe if you can't dog, If.
Speaker 2: You throw me off a boat, I'm murdering you. Yeah
the guy, no, he didn't. You don't know. There was
an intent to kill. There was an intent to get
him off.
Speaker 1: You get tossed off a boat, people want you dead.
It's a boat on a on a tiny river.
Speaker 4: It's not like if you if you push me into
a pool at a pool party, I will shoot you
in the face.
Speaker 2: That's fair.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I hear you right right.
Speaker 2: Like we're grabbing beers out of a tub. You push
me into the tub, it's on side.
Speaker 1: Into the tub.
Speaker 3: Done.
Speaker 1: How would your how would your you a five year
old day. Yeah, how would your five year old six
year old react if someone pushed.
Speaker 2: You in the pool?
Speaker 3: Pushed me in the pool?
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I have a I'm gonna explain this question.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, uh, he might laugh or not notice.
Speaker 2: What's okay?
Speaker 1: So one time I was at a situation with this
girl I was dating, and she had a nephew who
at the time was five, and I thought it was weird.
And I still don't know because I've never been around
a five year old regularly, right, not since my siblings
were five. Yeah, and one of her brothers pushed her
sister in law, who was the mother of the five
year old. So like uncle pushes mom.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And this was back in the day when that
was okay, twenty eleven, you can push girls into the pool.
Speaker 3: It was funny.
Speaker 1: Whatever uncle pushes mom into the pool?
Speaker 2: Was the five year old pulled out a gun?
Speaker 1: He would have if he had one, because did he
do it? Looked he reacted in a way that it
was as if his STOPO agent came in and knelt
his mother down and put a bullet in the back
of her head.
Speaker 3: Is he going after the guy? Is he just freaking out?
Speaker 4: Like she's dead, melt down like she's dead, which I
was like, that's weird.
Speaker 1: It is weird, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: At the time, I was like.
Speaker 2: What a bitch.
Speaker 1: I was like, what is this problem? And I don't
want I didn't say like, but I was like, he's
a little sad sensitive. Yeah, But like I'm a little
less that way now because I have kids and I
understand a little more. But like I still at five though,
I'm like a five year old boy.
Speaker 3: If your kid did that, though, if Cordney got pushed
into a pool, you would be like, bro, not right
now as a three year old, as a three year old.
Speaker 2: But as a five year old, yes, I would be
like what, I don't know, Rob, oh, Tom pushed your
wife into a pool, I would hope Rory would just
like sock.
Speaker 3: Him, yes, socking him, or like being like what the fuck?
Getting mad is different than having a meltdown as if
she was murdered, because babies go. Babies go through stages
that like if they don't see their mom, like if
she goes behind a yeah, like a wall, in their mind,
she's gone and dead forever, right, And so he was
almost It's like, yeah, over time, overtime they learn like, oh, okay,
she's the wall is a thing. She's on the other
side of whatever this five year old was in the
first wonder week.
Speaker 2: You also have no idea what that five year old
went through in the first five years.
Speaker 1: I don't actually, for all I know, two years prior
to that a clown showed up to their house and
tried to drown his mother in front of him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know that. That is exactly what I was saying,
like some pts, just like mommy can't wrong, not probably not, Yeah,
I think it's more than likely. It's not more than likely,
but I guess we can't rule it out. It's almost
ninety five percent positive that's what happened.
Speaker 3: Okay, you haven't met any of the kids.
Speaker 1: And yeah, well, Dan also believes that ninety couples swing
a cheater swing.
Speaker 2: You do not cheater swing. You believe that I do,
like into their fifty sixty seventies.
Speaker 3: When when they're fifties, when is.
Speaker 2: I don't know what. It doesn't matter when it starts
as well, as long as they're together, and they're together
like married couples for the rest of their life. They
don't get divorced. They don't bring up. At some point
they're going to get cheated on or swing an Usually
it probably starts around like fifty so empty nest age. Yeah,
what's the kids?
Speaker 1: You're gone nine out of ten?
Speaker 3: Nine out of ten.
Speaker 2: You think my opinions easy, dude. I think my opinion
is a little you know, diluted because I live in Austin.
Speaker 3: Yeah, live in Austin. You've been to a sex club,
swingers club?
Speaker 2: Right, yeah?
Speaker 3: So yeah, I mean I think you were in an
echo chamber for sure.
Speaker 2: But I said that before I did any of those things.
Speaker 1: He did say that before.
Speaker 2: It's all I know. It's pretty it's fulfilling prophecy.
Speaker 1: I'll just never get over the fact that you were
in the same room as an Irish guy who was
too loud.
Speaker 3: And it was distracting. Jesus, it's the It's the entire
reason why I would never go. It was terrible, the
fact that that might maybe happen.
Speaker 2: Not the best crowd, well, it was country night too.
It's not not the scene that I wanted. More like.
Speaker 1: Masks, like a cult.
Speaker 3: You just needed to rich people.
Speaker 1: Doesn't put you in that mood.
Speaker 2: No, it makes me very soft.
Speaker 3: It has to be really expensive to get in.
Speaker 1: You almost need like not even music so much as
it naked woman playing a harp.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, I mean I think in the more exclusive whatever,
they know how to really a mood.
Speaker 1: Sitting on a syby and playing a harp. It's not
b yob.
Speaker 2: That's also not Yeah, they can't serve booze there. They
don't have a look our license, but they had.
Speaker 1: You don't want a lot of paperwork with a place
like that.
Speaker 3: I think it was in the summer, wasn't it in
the summer.
Speaker 2: No, it was like March, okay, yeah, you don't want
you can't, can't go in there.
Speaker 3: And in the hot months they closed down. Probably huh,
because it was it was like a warehouse type.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It was just like a normal cloth smell from
a block away.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you've got to shut that thing down.
Speaker 2: It was just like going to a normal nightclub, but
people they had beds and stuff that you could.
Speaker 1: People were banging when you walked in.
Speaker 2: There was a bang. I feel like they were paid performers, okay,
but there was a bang stage. There was a there
was a stage. Yeah, it's a bank stage. Yeah, it's
a giant circular bed on a stage that was elevated
above everybody else stage. Again, I think there were pay
performers because they were actually good looking people. Yeah, yeah, right,
and then everybody else there was just like oh.
Speaker 3: Right, right right, it's a nightmare.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 3: That's a fucking nightmare.
Speaker 2: Dude hunts my dreams every night.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, I'm an I'm in Austin Ford, but I'm
an Austin sex club seven?
Speaker 2: Right are you saying that about me? Just like a
chick that you saw there, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like a four on the streets, but a seven and
the scouse.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would never call you a four.
Speaker 1: I would never call you a four.
Speaker 2: At least a solid pie, A solid.
Speaker 1: Would never well, speaking of lots of sex, Titanic was
also a family man, hm hmm, in that he had
a lot of families.
Speaker 3: This is where Delco gets his theory is a past life?
Speaker 2: Yeah, from his Yeah, that's just how it was. I've
just seen more things, guys.
Speaker 3: Well, you know what, You're right.
Speaker 1: I have a I believe that you've seen more things
than me. I'm not giving you've seen more things than her.
Speaker 2: That's true. I mean you did work in Vegas.
Speaker 3: Yes, for a good worked in Vegas in La.
Speaker 2: Yeah, bar You worked at bars for years and years and.
Speaker 3: Years in Los Angeles and then went to Vegas.
Speaker 2: You never got invited to those clubs.
Speaker 3: No, I don't know if in my day it was
as open. It was kuth like, I'm sure it was
going on. Like we would go to strip clubs in Vegas.
Speaker 2: It's just like service industry ship yeah me, No, just strippers,
yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but like so we would do that, and I'm
sure maybe from there there was some kind of other thing.
But it's a lot more open though.
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially in the city.
Speaker 3: It's this town, right, it's like cool to be like
I am down, I'll go to a sex club. They
don't really want to, but they go. It's the same
with me going to a strip club, Like do I
love it, No, but like it's fun whatever.
Speaker 1: I knew a lot of girls who went to strip
clubs in Saint Louis when my buddy managed a bar,
because it was it was all girls that worked at
the bar because the bar were clubs and the only
place is still open at like three in the morning
with strip clubs. So if you want to go get
a drink after work, after working service industry. Strip club
was the only place you could go to un one.
Speaker 2: Now Ron would actually go to the strip clubs at
like eleven am too, because I had a good brunch buffet.
Speaker 1: I have eaten at a strip club once in Houston.
Speaker 2: It was next door hotel. How's the food, It's fine?
Speaker 3: Did you have wings?
Speaker 1: No, it was like breakfast in the middle of the night.
So it was like breakfast like four in the morning.
Speaker 2: I was drunk.
Speaker 3: That sounds awesome kind.
Speaker 1: Of yeah, and I did like I did, Like it
was Texas, so it's like they do the Waterburger rip
off of like I did, like a honey buttered chicken biscuit.
Speaker 2: And then every Wednesday in Missouri he would go for
the Prime Rid.
Speaker 3: Perfect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for the Primary you went to Prime Rid.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, a little ju then get a little jew,
you know what I mean, little you on the pole,
you on your plate.
Speaker 3: It's all coming back, Yeah, it's all coming back.
Speaker 1: So Titanic was married five times, perfect, divorced four times. Okay,
his last wife was not the one, if that's what
you're thinking, Like, yeah, what what just happened was his
second wife died in a car accident so.
Speaker 6: Okay, okay, did she die in a car accident because
no one Titanic he can rig a fucking break line.
Speaker 2: She tried to car?
Speaker 3: Oh and back then, like we did on Crime Corner,
like a Nanny doss right, Like back then, the the
investigation into an accidental death.
Speaker 2: Very man, everyone died of aid minimal.
Speaker 1: She fell the baseline.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it's like you have to literally walk up
to somebody and shoot them and five people need.
Speaker 2: To see you.
Speaker 3: You need in order for it to be like there's
a lot of.
Speaker 2: That's a lot of dark history about Hollywood, all the Starlits.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the last one, the last great one being
Natalie Wood.
Speaker 3: Oh she fell off that boat, right, but we all
know that's not true.
Speaker 2: Christopher Walking killed her.
Speaker 3: You think it was Walking.
Speaker 1: He was on the boat, and so was her husband
and someone else, I feel like, but Walking was on
the boat.
Speaker 3: Her husband was the guy from Austin Powers, right, I
patch from Robert Wagner Ert Robert Wagner, and they were
like back and forth, on again off. I think they
even got divorced and back together.
Speaker 2: Brad Pitton, Once upon a Time in Hollywood Is that
kind of based on Walking?
Speaker 1: I think that is a slight no when we walked
Robert Wagner, but they were actors and he was a
But I think that might be a slight nod in
Natalie Wood's weird death. Yeah, yeah, yeah, act We we
did our episode last week with Jack. He was doing
the thing he did on Churchill leading up to World
War Two. And you know how Churchill's mom died of
a broken ankle.
Speaker 3: She he but also in those times too.
Speaker 1: Not like she broke her ankle and fell down the stairs,
like broke her ankle and it went and it just
went bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's what I mean.
Speaker 3: So it's like, you know, my god, you can't investigate
every fucking weird thing like that.
Speaker 2: So you know, she also got around, Okay, she's also
a bit of a whore.
Speaker 3: The amount of people that got away with killing wives,
killing whatever, Like.
Speaker 2: We I'm animal planning, I'm kidding.
Speaker 1: I mean, we probably don't know who the top the
like most prolific hundred serial killers of all time are.
Speaker 2: They're the people that never got caught, you eat.
Speaker 3: That's what I mean. We don't know them.
Speaker 1: But like how many, I mean, how many serial killers
were there in ancient Persia?
Speaker 3: Right, right, Well, there's a difference between there being no
law and then there being a law that, let you
know what I mean, where there is like investigations, there
is a process, but with certain the ways to get
around it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so much more.
Speaker 3: And they had life insurance still too, like really early.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that was there from the jump.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so like people were getting paid out accident.
Speaker 2: Oh no, the only way you were going to get
caught was from an insurance company because I didn't want
to pay out, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but they would need someone to investigate, which they
never would. So it's like.
Speaker 2: Occasionally that would if there was too big of a payout,
they're like, I don't know if we want to pay
this or if the claim was taken like last second.
Yeah yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: Titanic also had three children, only three with five, all
of whom he ran out on, just like his father ran.
Speaker 3: Out on him and Deco when he was in.
Speaker 2: The n one of them or my parents weirdly got
separated for like three years it's the only way, and
then got back together.
Speaker 3: I've told you, I think there should be a marriage
rum springer.
Speaker 2: Kind of Yeah, that's what they did. That'd be sweet.
Speaker 3: So you're your thing of the idea that people at
fifty or whatever would you know swing, I think there
should be a rum Springer And then you come back
and you're like, all right, like obviously I want to
be system.
Speaker 2: Right, You're like everything else out there is pretty.
Speaker 3: You don't get to know. And same with rum Springer. Right,
it's like do you don't say anything? You literally just
come back or not?
Speaker 1: I guess you got to send a text at least
like hey, uh not come back?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Is that what they do? Is that the right
to the Amish when they don't come back? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I don't know the specifics. I think they either just come.
Speaker 4: Back, have phones though, yeah now yeah yeah no, but
in the you know, yeah, they would be like the
idea behind alcohol is wonderful.
Speaker 1: Right, I won't be coming back, right.
Speaker 2: I love Dick too, Bye bye? Yeah mother. I like that.
I don't need to should marriage rum spring beyond?
Speaker 3: Like you said around fifty? Right? No, I mean like
an empty nest.
Speaker 2: Or what about while you have kids?
Speaker 3: That's rough, that's rough you can't do you can't do that.
Speaker 1: I and everyone I specifically everyone I know whose parents
got divorced in high school.
Speaker 3: That is like it's way worse nightmare. You gotta do
it early, or you gotta wait.
Speaker 2: Not from like seventh to twelfth grade.
Speaker 3: You can't the worst, can't the worst. I think I
was thirteen, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: I think Corney was sixteen. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Oh that's way worse, dude.
Speaker 2: Because when you're young, you can justify oh, two Christmases
or to.
Speaker 3: You know, like we said before, like kids, kids learn
what they learn. Yeah, and at a certain age they
just Okay, this is what it is. They I know,
I have two houses or whatever.
Speaker 1: Adaptable at a certain point of insanity.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like before five golden dude, they won't even know
what married people look like.
Speaker 2: But what yeah, you don't have two houses.
Speaker 3: But after that, fuck yeah, yeah, it's.
Speaker 1: Not not what you want real quick. We do have
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Dot emmy slash softcore that's f t bo d dot
mdash E or dot me sorry slash softcore that's fit
bo d dot em slash softcore. One of Titanic's children, Tommy,
talked about his experience. He said, my dad left when
I was four years old. When he left, I kept
waiting to hear from my dad over the years. He
never called, I never got a letter, but I kept
reading stories about him in Life Magazine, Golf Digest, Sports Illustrated.
I read these stories about my dad as a young
boy cool, and I would just fantasize about my dad
really loving me someday and being a dad to me.
I've said, well, maybe if I get good enough at gambling,
my dad will really love me too.
Speaker 3: No, he'll just come steal your money.
Speaker 1: Well, so Tommy did become a professional gambler.
Speaker 2: No, it's a boy named Sue where they finally cross
paths and yeah, and he, you know, takes them for
everything he's got.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well is it Tommy did become a professional gambler.
We'll get to the end of that story with his
father later, but it should be noted that Tommy, in
his life as a professional gambler also ran out on
several children.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Titanic's dad Gambler runs out of the family.
Titanic gambler runs out of the family. Titanic son Tommy
Gambler runs out of the family.
Speaker 3: Plot twist, Tommy is Delco's dead. Yeah, what is your
dad's name? It's Dan Oh damn it, you're a junior.
Speaker 2: I'm not have a different middle name.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, he.
Speaker 1: Didn't get that suffix.
Speaker 2: Not everyone suff so I was actually supposed to be
I j Ian James. Okay, and my mom passed out
I J Yeah, I know, it's terrible god. And then
my dad they asked for my name and he's just like,
oh uh, sure she didn't I J. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I do like the name Ian.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, if it was Ian.
Speaker 2: And then my grandfather was named James, so Ian James
is a solid one.
Speaker 3: I would have happened to be I J. I don't know,
is it a Delco thing?
Speaker 2: But my dad was like he was smart because he
named me after him, But then gave my mother's maiden
name to my middle name, so it's Daniel Murphy, so
she can't be too mad at him. Plus once it's.
Speaker 1: On that paper, it's a nightmare to gain.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that was that was cool. The maiden name
Mine's like can't work as a middle name, but.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, I like that Daniel Murphy.
Speaker 1: We might do Campbell as a middle name, and I
don't think we will. That's Courtney's maiden.
Speaker 3: That's a sweet middle name, dude.
Speaker 2: Yeah, soup. It's okay, soup.
Speaker 3: Soup, old soupy, old soupy jeans.
Speaker 2: Uh so Thompson also Titanic.
Speaker 1: Thompson also allegedly had affairs with actresses Jean Harlow and uh,
how do you say, Mira Nahloy, But Jean Harlow.
Speaker 2: Is the headliner there.
Speaker 1: What a dope guy who was banging Jean Harlow at
one point, I hear.
Speaker 4: Nothing wrong with the hot, little dirty fucker, right, yeah,
I mean he abandoned three children, but yeah, but that's not.
Speaker 2: The kid also became a successful game.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, I would abandon my children to bang
whatever the current equivalent.
Speaker 2: Of Jean Harlow is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, Like it's not even.
Speaker 2: I mean, we've gone through these.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't, but I would still talk to my kids.
I'd better than Titanic Like IM like, hey, Rory, sweetie,
I know you love mommy and Mommy's wonderful. But what
you need to know about Sabrina Carpenter is that she's
Sabrina Carpenter.
Speaker 3: And one day, Yeah, I'm telling you, Brow, I talk
to him. I'm telling you, bro, I'm gonna show you
this picture when you're.
Speaker 1: Older and you're gonna be like, but mommy's pretty, and
you know what, Mommy is.
Speaker 3: Pretty and you're and she's beautiful, beautiful inside and out.
But Sabrina, but Marbrina Carpenter.
Speaker 2: I've never heard of Sabrina Carpenter until like two weeks ago.
Speaker 3: I mean, but yeah, right, yeah, but yeah, you get that,
you get it like she's.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And by the way, definitely passed my time
banging Barry Cugan.
Speaker 4: I know, was get in there, Bob, what a way?
Speaker 2: That's all you have to look like to get a Carpenter.
Speaker 3: God, It's like, I don't even like how they put
him with the like rodent, but you know what I mean,
he was beast.
Speaker 1: We played it on The Boy that's that uh that
stand up clip where it's like Barry cooking is like something.
Speaker 2: You fight yamp or something like that.
Speaker 3: Yes, like he it's it's not in the same You
can't put him next to a Jeremy Allen White and
go like.
Speaker 2: Rat boy somewhere.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, it's ten million times Barry brilliant actor.
Speaker 2: Absolutely genuinely.
Speaker 1: I'm sad he's not going to be the joker in
the New Terrible Batman stories. And he was wonderful and
banshees of in shearing.
Speaker 2: Uh, but.
Speaker 3: I mean it's not what it's not even you, I
would the only reason everyone was offended by the rat
boy ship is because they threw his ass in there.
Speaker 1: By the way, you take that accent off him, what's
what's left?
Speaker 3: He's gonna be fucking and just like hi, literally in
the gutter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm Barry.
Speaker 3: Yeah, can you imagine that face? And he's like, yeah,
I just tell it like it is. You know, I'm Barry.
Speaker 1: But you know what, Pete Davison doesn't have an accent, so.
Speaker 3: He has like a kind of they.
Speaker 1: Get the little Staten Island one.
Speaker 2: Pete Davidson gets bitches because he treats them well.
Speaker 1: To them, which maybe I'm sure Barry does too.
Speaker 3: By the way, these women, yeah that's true. I heard
he doesn't.
Speaker 2: But I heard he's like nice, No, no.
Speaker 3: Pete Davison, Yes, I was talking about Barry.
Speaker 1: Oh well, he did leave his wife who has a
child for Sabrina Carpenter. So Barry's living the life that
I said I would live. Yeah, yeah, but it was
girlfriend long time.
Speaker 3: If the kid hasn't seen the kid, you don't mean
that kind of thing. But he's more of a Titanic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but at the same time, it's car.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we get it. Did.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You know you want to leave your wife, just do
it already, Well, not for anyone. I mean, she's pregnant.
I'm not going to leave.
Speaker 1: It for anyone.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you have to leave it for someone the opportunity.
You have to leave it where no one can dispute. Yeah,
like I guess why he did. Yeah, yeah, you know
what I mean, Like you want to hear someone say like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't.
Speaker 1: But if I just leave, if I just leave her
for a little tight body twenty four year old boomers waitress.
No one's saying.
Speaker 3: Exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, never talking to you again.
Yeah yeah, completely different exactly.
Speaker 1: By the mid nineteen twenties, when Titanic was in his
early thirties, Titanic started living another part of Dan's best life.
That is when he found another game. That is when
he got really, really into golf, and he might have been,
by all accounts.
Speaker 2: One of the best golfers of all time. Would he
compete on tour?
Speaker 1: How do we know he was good enough to be
a pro?
Speaker 2: According to all the pros that played with him. Did
he enter like the US Open. No.
Speaker 1: The problem was, at the time, apparently golfers, at least
according to Titanic, made shit money. Golfers only made thirty
K year, or about half a million dollars a year
in today's money.
Speaker 2: So when asked chump change.
Speaker 1: When asked would you ever want to become a pro
golfer Titanic, you're so good at it, he said, I
couldn't affold the pay.
Speaker 3: Cut, right he would hustle golf.
Speaker 2: I have heard nothing wrong that I didn't say, Yeah,
this guy's done.
Speaker 3: We keep telling Bob that he's like, doesn't like this guy.
He's like, I fucking love this guy.
Speaker 1: So, if you recall Titanic, around the same time, golfers
made thirty k yere, Titanic made fifty k on one drive.
Speaker 3: Right with his with his hustle one hustling ways, yeah, yeah,
yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Thompson would also allege to Titanic, Thompson would also apparently
make thirty grand a week hustling rich country club pros.
Speaker 2: Professional golfers do that now.
Speaker 3: A lot more, though, How do you hustle professional well?
Speaker 2: Because they'll play like rounds with their friends or with
professionals that aren't on tour, and they're playing for money.
Every time, there's always a game going, right.
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's hustling, but I think it's
like you're gambling.
Speaker 1: You're fucking them over.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like a pool shark acts like they're not good
and then just fucking towards the end slams all the balls,
you know what I'm saying. So betting among like a
Michael you know whatever, pros that want to like up
each other's game. That probably happens all the time, right.
Speaker 2: But I'm sure there's plenty of dudes on the Corn
Ferry tour right now or that are like low MPGA
tour players that aren't making a ton of money on tour.
They'll go to their local country club nobody. They'll play
with people that have no idea who they are, and
maybe like they'll throw a couple of holes and they'll hustle. No,
it's not, I am possible. There's a lot of pro
golfers that are not known but who are still.
Speaker 3: You know, like if you okay, yeah, yeah, So I'm
thinking of like a Rory.
Speaker 1: Could be the equival. Like think about like somehow like
if you didn't, if you were like a team of
like double A baseball players, you go hustle a beer
league softball team right like they go and they just
obliterate every every ball. But you don't know who they are.
You know what a double double players are? Same, same
situation there, So Thompson would do that. A big part
of Thompson's hustle in particular was he would pair up
with a rando, saying something like, I'm so good, I
bet you I could. I could grab a fellow off
the street and pair with him, and I'd beat the boat.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 1: You golfle out here, right, and you belong to this
country club all I'm just wandering through town. Sure, I
got a pair of club and I got an extra
pair of clubs. I can loan to this fella. Or actually,
he'll share my pair of clubs and we'll beat the
both you' I'll grab the next guy who walks by
and we'll beat the boat, I promise.
Speaker 2: And people were like, no, he's just he's just that good.
Speaker 3: He's gonna make up for oh what.
Speaker 1: Cheating is probably too strong of a word, but I
would call what he was doing dishonest. Because usually the
person The next person who walked by was Ben Hogan. Yeah,
his hustling partner was Ben Hogan, who is essentially the
Babe Ruth of golf.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, so it's a plant.
Speaker 2: And I mean he's probably one of the most famous
golfers of the time. But they don't, right, there's not
TV and.
Speaker 3: Hustle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Ben ho again.
Speaker 2: So Tiger Woods, Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, comes in and he's like me and him, well
beatcha and they're like, huh, well you don't. You said
you barely play. You play in some municipal course whose
grass is mowed by goats.
Speaker 2: Yeah, will take you all day money.
Speaker 3: Yeah, as if.
Speaker 2: Like lying in mass quantities wasn't created until the seventies
or something like what people.
Speaker 3: Were just like normal people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're just like just took your word for everything apparently. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think it's like the rampant like distrust and lying,
you know, not trusting people.
Speaker 1: With They're just more shame back then, so you just
assume it was a more shame based society.
Speaker 3: It was more polite, So you just assume that.
Speaker 2: Well, and you're only as good as you would This
is you.
Speaker 1: Are debasing yourself if you do this, I don't think
this person's gonna debase themselves, right, And it's like, oh,
this guy is gonna what you think is debased.
Speaker 2: So that's not really cheating though, you're just getting all
I said.
Speaker 1: Cheating was too strong a word, but it was not honest.
Speaker 2: It's a.
Speaker 3: It was hustling.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Titanic also played with guys like Kai Laffoon, Herman Kaiser,
and Lee Elder in these hustling matches.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you heard anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Titanic also played with the likes of although I
believe he just played golf with these people, he didn't
hustle with them. Byron Nelson and Sam Snead.
Speaker 2: Yep, yeah, those are big names.
Speaker 1: Hogan said that Titanic was the best shot maker he
ever saw. Really, Ben Hogan said that Titanic.
Speaker 2: Was he could just move the ball anyway he wants.
Speaker 1: Yes, that Titanic was insanely good at golf, like the best,
one of the best golfers he ever saw.
Speaker 2: Like the shot calls for a fit, the shot calls
for a cut, he could do it.
Speaker 1: He had the hand, eye and the eyesight to do anything.
Speaker 2: This guy. Yeah, I mean, he lives a great life
and very successful life, but if he was just an
honest fella, I don't think he gets half the shit done.
Speaker 1: True, but he's not a footnote in history, a bit
of a bigger name in history, but doesn't get as
much money.
Speaker 2: Know what I'm saying. I think he doesn't accomplish half
the things he does if he's an honest hard work.
Speaker 1: Oh yeaheah, Yeah, I agreed. Honest people are morons. Another
hustle Titanic would pull on the golf course as he
would play right handed, uh and beat them, and then
out of sympathy, would be like, you know what, boy,
I just took so much money from you. I feel
bad about it. I'm gonna play left handed. We'll do
another round left handed double or nothing double or nothing
left handed.
Speaker 2: So he Titanic was left.
Speaker 4: Handed, so the first time he was playing offhand offhand.
Speaker 1: And then he would come and play his dominant hand.
Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying, like, you have to work at
that shit, You have to work.
Speaker 2: I actually don't think he he didn't.
Speaker 3: Maybe it was like one of those naturally.
Speaker 1: He felt he when he started playing the sports, so
growing up and for a while he was didn't have
regular access to golf courses and didn't play that much.
But once he he moved to San Francisco for a
time and there were good courses out there and a
lot of courses out there, so he started playing several
times a week when he lived.
Speaker 2: Out there, and that's when he.
Speaker 3: Practice, Yeah, and that's why he naturally gifted.
Speaker 2: But he really.
Speaker 1: Didn't practice like he just played, you know what I mean,
Like he wasn't working given town. Yeah, Like he wasn't
doing like Dan Know's, Like he wasn't like working on
his stroke, like watching his shot. Like he would just
go out and play and be like, hmm, that happened
that time. I guess I'll try, you know. And like
he just he practiced through playing. He didn't do like
a lot of golfers do now, like oh I gotta
check my stroke. I don't do that either, Well I
know you don't. I don't hit the range. Yeah, but
he was good enough to be pro, and pros now
are like freaks about yeah, yeah, everything. But it wasn't
all fun and games on the golf course. In nineteen
thirty two, Titanic killed again.
Speaker 2: I knew it was gonna happen.
Speaker 3: Am I not going to like this murder because the
other ones I'm cool everything.
Speaker 2: It seems justified.
Speaker 3: I'm cool with the other murders.
Speaker 1: You'll be less cool with this one, but still cool
with this one.
Speaker 2: Cool cool.
Speaker 1: Near a country club in Texas in nineteen thirty two,
he shot a man in a mask who was holding
him at gunpoint. What the man mask? The man in
the mask turned out to be Jimmy Frederick, the sixteen
year old boy who caddied for him earlier that day
after a winning match, so.
Speaker 3: The caddy was trying to rob it.
Speaker 1: Patty knew he won money gambling and then tried to
rob him afterwards.
Speaker 2: I don't feel bad for that bye, And.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I just saw maybe because it was a sixteen year
old kid, it was ok.
Speaker 3: He stuck him up.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The dying Frederick confirmed the witnesses he had been trying
to rob Titanic. So Titanic was like, tell him. People
think I like to kill for.
Speaker 2: Fucking tell him, yeah, I bleeding out. He was like, Okay,
even in their dying moments, all these other people are honest, yes,
literally everyone, and.
Speaker 3: Then Titanic Yes, but he's honest too.
Speaker 2: Well, well, he's an honest killer.
Speaker 1: He's not a killer. That is the one thing, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And then, as we covered in my last episode, Titanic
was possibly responsible for another death. I think probably responsible
for this death, and this one was certainly he didn't
pull the trigger, but he This man was murdered because
of him. America's first coke lord and the man who
fixed the nineteen nineteen World series, Arnold Rostein.
Speaker 2: Was murdered at the border of Titanic.
Speaker 1: By Titanic's bagman, who, according to Titanic, Titanic said it
was his bagman who killed Rostein after Rostein refused to
pay up after losing a high stakes multiple day poker
game that was littered with insane side bets. This game
was orchestrated by Titanic knowing that Rostein was a millionaire
and Titanic had his buddy who was gonna give him
the money afterwards do most of these side bets because
I don't think Rosting necessarily trusted Titanic, so Titanic would
be like, we're gonna do these side bets today.
Speaker 2: Rosting also a bad guy.
Speaker 1: Rosting's terrible person. Rosting happy with murdered all the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Did you watch Bordalk Empire? No, okay, he's a character
in that. I didn't watch it, but I would have.
Speaker 2: I would think you and Ross would like it.
Speaker 3: I probably would like an XBO show.
Speaker 2: It's based on real stuff, real people.
Speaker 3: There's no It was one of those where I just like,
didn't catch it, ever catch it, and then it went
crazy where I was like, who's on it fucking now?
Speaker 2: Like this?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So.
Speaker 1: Rostein essentially gets fucked in these side bets. I think
loses like five hundred thousand dollars of that time is money,
so an insane amount of money. Titanic set up all
these complicated side bets. Again, these are prop bets. Basically,
again Titanic prop Batman certain leaves nothing to chance. Fox
people over constantly. He orchestrated the game, He orchestrated all
the side bets. Thompson couldn't pay, said he wasn't gonna
pay because he was pretty sure he got fucked over.
Rostein was in his own I'm sorry, Rostin said that.
And Rostein in his own right was an excellent guy
with numbers and cards and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So it didn't add up to Rostein, right, and.
Speaker 1: In that in the in the ways he was yeah,
and so Titanic claimed that it was this bagman who
killed him, who killed Rostein in nineteen twenty eight prop
potentially under Titanics orders or maybe who maybe his bagman
was just real loyal, who knows. By the nineteen sixties,
Titanic was in his seventies, and he settled in Dallas,
where he still hustled idiots at the local Muni Tennyson Park.
Speaker 2: You know it?
Speaker 1: No, okay, no, we might be able to play a
Titanic Thompson. Course, let's go for shit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have to kill you though, yeah, yeah, yeah,
on the course.
Speaker 1: Thompson also participated in the very first World Series of Poker.
When was that nineteen seventy Okay, how do you do?
He didn't finish in the final table. He at that
point he was in his eighties.
Speaker 3: I think, listen, that's what happens if you're legit. If
you go legit, it's like he's just a uh. He
didn't even finish, you know what I mean? That would
have been his whole life. He didn't even finish.
Speaker 2: He grew out in the box though, well, well he did.
He died. He died, but not like violently.
Speaker 1: No he didn't. No, he died in his sleep or something,
he admitted. Uh, I'm sorry. Uh yeah. So he didn't
finish at the final table, but he lived out his
final years in a nursing home in Dallas.
Speaker 2: That's not great. Uh yeah.
Speaker 1: He didn't have enough money to retire more comfortably because
although he won millions on these prop bets, gambling, all
this stuff, he wasn't always a winner. There was one
thing that he loved betting on but could never master,
and perhaps he kept chasing that dragon hoping he could.
According to him, he lost millions because he couldn't play
the ponies.
Speaker 2: I was gonna.
Speaker 3: Because you cannot win, and it's the most exciting dragon
to chase.
Speaker 2: He lost millions two minutes, nothing but.
Speaker 1: Millions of those time dollars, millions trying to win money
on horse racing and to be.
Speaker 3: So like smart and prolific, and to be that dumb
to really think unless he.
Speaker 2: Got you know, you get a guy on the inside.
Speaker 3: Unless you have a guy on the inside, which didn't
Rosting did.
Speaker 2: In the our last episode Rosting fixed probably why he
killed him gosh.
Speaker 1: But yeah, and the crazy that's the craziest part too,
is that like he won so much money out and every.
Speaker 2: Need to pay child sport left no no, no.
Speaker 1: Left nothing to chance, but then would take that money
and out of sheer, probably not greed, probably like narcissism,
you know what I mean, Like couldn't admit he's isn't
the best at everything right, just needed to get that
one final fucking thing.
Speaker 2: But he ends up in a nursing home because he
ignores his kids.
Speaker 1: Well, he does reconnect with Tommy the Gambler and for
many years they would go go out and on gambling
trips together.
Speaker 2: Oh that's sweet. Yeah. Before he died in nineteen seventy
four at the age of eighty.
Speaker 3: Huh okay.
Speaker 1: Tommy went on to become a preacher, right and after
he died. Yeah, now convinces people to not gamble, like literally,
like talks.
Speaker 2: To prisoners and stuff like, don't gamble.
Speaker 3: I mean because a fun Yeah, yeah, exactly, do you
know what I mean? Like, oh why not?
Speaker 1: So yeah, Titanic, he lived a long life. Died in
nineteen seventy four at the age of eighty after a
long and I guess I guess he broke even. At
the end of the day, if you're in a nursing home,
you broke even.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because still costs fucking money, dude. Yeah, it's not free. No,
it's just not like you know, lavish.
Speaker 1: That is the story of Titanic Thompson, possibly America's most famous,
or at least most.
Speaker 2: I think he's the luckiest man ever to live. Why
is that? Came across Capone, came across Rostine, like Jean Harlowe. Yeah,
Ben Hogan, Ben Hogan. This is a good life.
Speaker 1: And he was, by the way, as his son said,
this is.
Speaker 2: An American life.
Speaker 1: This was a famous man like like he was like
my dad never wrote me, well, called or cared that
I existed. But boy, it was fun reading about him
in Golf Digest.
Speaker 3: It's almost like I knew him, you know, because I
could just read about him all the time and all
his fun stuff.
Speaker 2: He was doing Tony Rob's kids, listening to the pod cast.
Speaker 3: It's like I'm hanging out with him every day. Huh.
Speaker 2: He was never home when he leaves her for a
Sabrina Carpenter.
Speaker 3: Yeah right, but they'll understand you said it enough.
Speaker 2: If we have explained it enough.
Speaker 1: Her child is a daughter.
Speaker 2: She won't but no, no, no, no, no no. The other two, Yeah,
they'll get it.
Speaker 3: They'll get it, they'll get it, they'll go. This was
the dish the dad left for. Great story, Like, great story,
many moments for us two not if we were different people.
If you were telling this story to a couple different people,
they may have been able to find some fault problems,
some bad moments, some missteps.
Speaker 2: Some really aside from the kids stuff, I don't really
have a problem with this guy's life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he reconnected, I guess with one of them of
the three. Yeah you know what you bat three thirty
three in the Major League? Make a Hall of Fame.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so you know. And it was it was
the only one that was like dying to reconnect, right.
Speaker 1: It was not like were like he's a piece of ship.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: That was like I love him, following in his footsteps,
begging to hang out with him. It's the only reason
that even was like, all right, I'm in a nursing home.
Now you can like come chow, I just want to
visit me.
Speaker 2: At this point, Uh, what'd you guys learn today? I
learned about a very successful man that I need to
base my life off of.
Speaker 1: I told you this sounds like your dream life. I
don't know if you want to abandon children or bash
a man sculling with a hammer, but.
Speaker 3: You don't have children.
Speaker 2: I won't do the former. I'll do the ladder.
Speaker 3: Okay, this is the time. This is the time. If
you're going to try it out. You don't have any kids,
you can you do have skills.
Speaker 1: Well, he did want to cash out a four to
one K and went to Vegas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, first away, I laid off from Grandex. I try
to double up in Vegas.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's not the same. We need you to hustle.
We need you to start using your right the right
hand for fucking pool.
Speaker 2: I need you to take Yeah.
Speaker 1: I need you to have like a backpack with one
hundred thousand dollars in it under a bed at a
motel six.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And you're like, you know, you've got these schemes
and one thing that you're good at, and you're able
to just be like, hey man, you want to you know,
play around whatever it is, which I.
Speaker 2: Could jump over to the y. I go to the
gym and I'm like, I put one thirty five on
the bar and I start to struggle, and I'd be like,
the next set, the next set, I I bet I
can bet I can mention two twenty five. And I'm like,
I just saw you do one rep of one thirty five.
No way you can do two twenty five.
Speaker 3: Something like that or something.
Speaker 1: I bet you I can jump over two stools on
top of each other and they're like no, then you
play them on the side die and you just hop
over and like that'll be ten thousand dollars and then
they will of course be like be honorable. Well, golly,
that clever boy got me Yes again. Why wasn't this
man stabbed a hundred times?
Speaker 3: Because he was that good? Do you know what I mean?
That good? I don't know, Dan, You should try it out,
get a hustle.
Speaker 2: This might have been made some kind of last life.
You know. By the way.
Speaker 1: Not not the worst looking guy either.
Speaker 3: He couldn't have been right you say all those great
things about him.
Speaker 2: He's a handsome fellow. I know, yeah, cool guy.
Speaker 3: That doesn't look like he can do all the things
he he did.
Speaker 2: He did. But what if what if his greatest uh
con of all was just this is all of this
was a lie.
Speaker 1: Right, here's like a more real not a bad looking guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for the time. It's for the time, for the time,
missus strong.
Speaker 3: His eyes are going the same way. Okay, yeah, yeah,
I learned my life is boring man. Well yeah, what
an exciting fucking life.
Speaker 2: And you learn that eventually ninety percent of people will swing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not me, But like I, I believe that that's
what you believe, right, who is today?
Speaker 2: I believe that you.
Speaker 3: Come by you come to that belief with facts and experience.
Speaker 1: It's like someone who saw UFO, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: I believe that that's what you truly believe you saw.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, what else can you say? Hitler? It's Rostine
Rosti in today? Taylor?
Speaker 3: Yeah what again?
Speaker 1: The villain of today, the girl on the boat.
Speaker 3: Fuck that bitch.
Speaker 2: She's like any woman in his story.
Speaker 3: It's a whole light the start of his murdering day.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm going to say his kids, because that's really the
only black mark on his record, his reputation. Yeah, that's
the really the only bad thing I've heard about this man.
Speaker 3: The only bad thing is that he had kids, not
that he left them, that he had them in the first.
Speaker 1: Ye mean they made but if they didn't exist, then
he so their existence makes them the villain.
Speaker 2: That makes sense.
Speaker 1: That's all I got for today. Thank you so much. Listen, Jesse,
thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, thank you guys. It's always fun and
I always learned so much.
Speaker 1: Where can the people find you?
Speaker 3: They can find me on Crime Corner audio drops every
Wednesday eight pm. And Ross Patterson Revolution where we all
on the Drinking Bros Networks chit Chat where we all
just chit chat and you know, maneuver around Ross Patterson
and we.
Speaker 2: Got to go set up in record Crime Corner right now.
Speaker 3: Yes, Dan is helping me produce Crime Corner if.
Speaker 1: You like the vibe of this show, but crime instead
of history. This was crime Crime Corner.
Speaker 2: Well it was.
Speaker 3: These people. We try to do ones where like people
get caught, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Crime Adjacent Corner is Yeah, it's got looked a
great life. Yeah, looks the eighty.
Speaker 3: Crime cul de Sac.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Anyway, for Damna, Jester and Jesse Wiseman, I am
Rob Fox.
Speaker 2: You just got Saucer