Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is the
Speaker 1: story about a ghost, a ghost story, a ghost who
Speaker 1: was full of shit, a ghost, too many say represented
Speaker 1: the greatest illusionist of all time, escape artist Harry Houdini.
Speaker 1: But it's also a story about the occult, about magic,
Speaker 1: about fame and grief, and about a mansion where great
Speaker 1: music was made. Unlike that music I played for you
Speaker 1: at the top of the show. That wasn't great music.
Speaker 1: That was a preset loop for my melotron called Laurels
Speaker 1: Blues MK. Two. I played you that loop because I
Speaker 1: can't afford the rights to I Adore Mia Moore by
Speaker 1: Color Me Bad? And why would I play you that
Speaker 1: specific slice of heart shaped creola cheese? Could I afford it?
Speaker 1: Because that was the number one song in America. On
Speaker 1: September twenty fourth, nineteen ninety one, and that was the
Speaker 1: day of the Red Hot Chili Peppers released the album Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magic,
Speaker 1: further stoking the myth of Harry Hoddin's ghost. On this episode,
Speaker 1: the Occult, Fame, Grief, the Chili Peppers, and the Ghost
Speaker 1: of Harry Houdini. I'm Jake Brennan. In this his disgraceland.
Speaker 1: John Fruchante, guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, felt
Speaker 1: the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
Speaker 1: He was staring at a missing panel on the ceiling,
Speaker 1: watching the darkness inside stare back at him. He heard
Speaker 1: the sounds again, strange noises, voices, and then a disembodied
Speaker 1: scream somewhere between pleasure and pain. John thought about what
Speaker 1: his friend and bandmate, Chili Peppers bass player Flee had
Speaker 1: told him the other day. That he saw a lady
Speaker 1: dressed in black walking around this place, but not just
Speaker 1: any lady. She was there, and also she wasn't there.
Speaker 1: She was translucent, a ghost. John Fruchante wasn't sure what
Speaker 1: he expected from this rehab mansion in the Laurel Canyon
Speaker 1: neighborhood of Los Angeles, but it wasn't this. For decades,
Speaker 1: Laurel Canyon, nestled up in the hills between Hollywood and
Speaker 1: the San Fernando Valley, have been a creative sanctuary for
Speaker 1: artists and musicians. In the nineteen sixties, it was ground
Speaker 1: zero for the counterculture movement. Home to Mama Cass, Frank Zappa,
Speaker 1: the Birds in Buffalo, Springfield It's where Graham Nash and
Speaker 1: Joni Mitchell fell in love and then dropped out of love.
Speaker 1: It's where John Lennon dropped acid for the first time
Speaker 1: while the actor Peter Fonda told him what it was
Speaker 1: like to be dead. Okay, that last one technically happened
Speaker 1: in Bennett at Canyon, I think, but it's like right
Speaker 1: next door, so you know, close enough. And now, in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one, roughly a quarter century after the Summer
Speaker 1: of Love, John Fruchianta and the Red Hot Chili Peppers
Speaker 1: found themselves carrying on that rich tradition, living in a
Speaker 1: four bedroom house and Laurel Canyon, specifically on Laurel Canyon Boulevard,
Speaker 1: which was referred to aptly and quite simply as the Mansion.
Speaker 1: Along with their producer Rick Rubin an engineer Brendan O'Brien,
Speaker 1: the band had installed a makeshift studio inside the mansion
Speaker 1: so that they could record their fifth studio album there.
Speaker 1: That album, Blood Sugar Sex Magic, would transform the group
Speaker 1: from freaky stylely La Seinsters into one of the biggest
Speaker 1: rock bands on the planet. But more on that in
Speaker 1: a minute. The idea was that the Chili Peppers would
Speaker 1: live and work in the same space for the duration
Speaker 1: of the album's recording, thus isolating themselves from the influence
Speaker 1: of the outside world while also tapping into their deep
Speaker 1: musical brotherhood. Or, as the band's lead singer Anthony Keita
Speaker 1: so poetically put it, by not recording in a traditional studio,
Speaker 1: they avoided the quote anal retentive vibrations of the sterilicity
Speaker 1: involved with that sort of courting environment unquote. But drummer
Speaker 1: Chad Smith, the odd man out in the Chili Peppers
Speaker 1: in more ways than one, didn't want to spend every
Speaker 1: night in the mansion with the other guys. He just
Speaker 1: met the girl that he was pretty sure he was
Speaker 1: going to marry one day at after hours hanging with
Speaker 1: these dudes. The last thing he wanted to do was
Speaker 1: hang out with them some more, go put socks on
Speaker 1: their dicks or whatever it was they were doing, and
Speaker 1: not when he had a lady waiting for him back home. Plus,
Speaker 1: the mansion was creepy as fuck. Weird shit happened there
Speaker 1: all the time. But this being the Red Hot Chili Peppers,
Speaker 1: the same band that was currently laying down new tunes
Speaker 1: with titles like Suck My Kiss, and Sir Psycho sexy.
Speaker 1: The supernatural vibe of the place quickly took a turn
Speaker 1: from creepy to horny. John was the first one to
Speaker 1: hear it, the sounds of a woman getting laid in
Speaker 1: one of the other rooms. It sounded so real, but
Speaker 1: just like the trapdoor in the ceiling, John couldn't see anything.
Speaker 1: It didn't matter. The moaning, the panting, the shrieking climaxes,
Speaker 1: they couldn't be ignored. Up to that point, John had
Speaker 1: focused solely on the music he was making with the band,
Speaker 1: and they had a tight deadline, a deadline that Warner
Speaker 1: Brothers Records was holding firm. But he just couldn't hold
Speaker 1: out any longer. He spent the next night in that room,
Speaker 1: turned on by all that weird ghost sex, a room
Speaker 1: in which, as he later told Interview Magazine, he furiously masturbated. Still,
Speaker 1: John and the others were curious as to who or
Speaker 1: what these spirits were, so they called in a team
Speaker 1: of paranormal experts to investigate, or should I say so
Speaker 1: called paranormal experts, Because after a few visits in which
Speaker 1: the investigators seemed to become possessed by whatever was in
Speaker 1: the house, it became apparent that they were simply trying
Speaker 1: to scare the band in order to make a quick buck.
Speaker 1: Cut to a few months later, and the Red Hot
Speaker 1: Chili Peppers were the ones making the Bucks. Big Bucks,
Speaker 1: released in September of nineteen ninety one, and led by
Speaker 1: the tremendous success of the ballad Under the Bridge, Blood Sugar,
Speaker 1: Sex Magic made the band megastars. And while that album
Speaker 1: was making its way up the charts, and John, Anthony, Flee,
Speaker 1: and Chad all returned to their respective homes in the
Speaker 1: Greater Los Angeles area. Back on Laurel Canyon Boulevard, ghosts
Speaker 1: continued to haunt the living, and just because a team
Speaker 1: paranormal investigators tried to take the Chili Peppers for a ride,
Speaker 1: it didn't mean that the spirits inside the place weren't real.
Speaker 1: Years later, after Rick Rubin purchased the mansion at two
Speaker 1: four five one Laurel Cannon Boulevard and continued to use
Speaker 1: it as an unorthodox studio, the band Slip Knot had
Speaker 1: their own creepy encounter with an apparition while recording there,
Speaker 1: this time the ghost of a Man in the tuxedo.
Speaker 1: The legend of Rick Rubin's Haunted Mansion grew partly because
Speaker 1: it was commonly being referred to as the Houdini Mansion,
Speaker 1: named for the iconic illusionist and escape artist Harry Houdini,
Speaker 1: who died back in nineteen twenty six. While calling Rick's
Speaker 1: Place the Houdini Mansion is something of a misnomer because
Speaker 1: there is no evidence that Houdini ever lived at two
Speaker 1: four five one Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Now just down the
Speaker 1: road Apiece, there's another mansion, this one at two four
Speaker 1: zero zero Laurel Canyon Boulevard, as well as its smaller
Speaker 1: guesthouse across the street, number two four three five, and
Speaker 1: there is some evidence that Harry Houdini and his wife
Speaker 1: Bess may in fact have resided at one or both
Speaker 1: of these addresses when Houdini was in town to shoot
Speaker 1: a couple of movies near the end of the silent
Speaker 1: film era, and it was in this exact area, the
Speaker 1: twenty four hundred block of Laurel Canyon, that a small
Speaker 1: but devoted group of people gathered every year On Halloween night,
Speaker 1: October thirty first, the anniversary of Harry Houdini's death, They
Speaker 1: gathered to perform an annual ritual, and they performed this
Speaker 1: ritual in nineteen thirty six and nineteen fifty six, even
Speaker 1: as late as nineteen ninety one, at the moment that blood, sugar,
Speaker 1: sex magic was being blasted from car windows cruising down
Speaker 1: nearby Hollywood Boulevard. This ritual was conducted under the belief
Speaker 1: that Harry Houdini, the greatest escape artist of all time,
Speaker 1: had saved his best trick for last, that he was
Speaker 1: going to find a way to escape from the great beyond,
Speaker 1: to tear the fabric between this world and the next,
Speaker 1: and furthermore, that this group of true believers would be
Speaker 1: his guide as he made his unprecedented exit from the
Speaker 1: suite hereafter carrying out the ritual, did so hidden amongst
Speaker 1: laurel canyons, flora and fauna, lit only by candlelight, emboldened
Speaker 1: not by blood or sugar or sex, but by magic,
Speaker 1: black magic, reaching into the dust of the past, peering
Speaker 1: through the veils of time, reality, and reason to do
Speaker 1: the impossible, to wake up a dead man and bring.
Speaker 2: Him back to life.
Speaker 1: What is magic? The Mirriam Webster Dictionary describes it as
Speaker 1: quote the use of means such as charms or spells
Speaker 1: believed to have supernatural power over natural forces. That's the quote.
Speaker 1: Jimmy Page and David Bowie's favorite occultist, Alistair Crowley, define
Speaker 1: magic as the science and art of causing change to
Speaker 1: occur in conformity with will. While the yacht rock band
Speaker 1: America once insisted in the top ten single that you
Speaker 1: can do magic, many of you out there probably think
Speaker 1: that in reality, magic is a bunch of bullshit, And
Speaker 1: you know what, you're not wrong. Stage magic, magic for entertainment,
Speaker 1: all that pick a card, any card, rabit out of
Speaker 1: a hat. Stuff. Yeah, that's total bullshit, bullshit by design.
Speaker 1: It's not magic. I'm putting air quotes around that word,
Speaker 1: by the way, so much as it is sleight of hand,
Speaker 1: smoke and mirrors, misdirection. You know this though, but seeing
Speaker 1: as you also know, is believing and getting you to
Speaker 1: believe in something um believable is the whole game when
Speaker 1: it comes to being a magician. Harry Houdini, for one,
Speaker 1: understood this better than most. This is why he took
Speaker 1: the breaking out of handcuffs. Not only was his mouth
Speaker 1: tape shut, but completely naked, so that he theoretically had
Speaker 1: nowhere to hide a key, and if you were alive
Speaker 1: way back at the turn of the twentieth century and
Speaker 1: saw Houdini do the impossible and only his birthday suit.
Speaker 1: He did so knowing the old story about how when
Speaker 1: he was barely old enough to walk, he was already
Speaker 1: picking the locks of his mother's treat box where she
Speaker 1: kept her homemade apple cake. My point, you went into
Speaker 1: the experience already believing that there was something special about
Speaker 1: the guy, the Harry Houdini we all think of now
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four, the illusionists who slipped out of
Speaker 1: straight jackets, who cheated death while submerged upside down in
Speaker 1: what he called the water torture chamber. That was a
Speaker 1: persona created in a large part by Houdini's very real limitations.
Speaker 1: Ask any magician then and now, and they'll tell you
Speaker 1: Harry Houdini was a shitty magic man. What he was
Speaker 1: good at was escaping from situations that John Q. Public
Speaker 1: could never manage to escape from. That's how Houdini's legend
Speaker 1: was made. He was the world's first escape artist. And
Speaker 1: not only was he the first, more importantly, he was
Speaker 1: the best. At least that's how he promoted himself Houdini
Speaker 1: was aggressive when it came to self promotion, and he
Speaker 1: took no prisoners. You get in his way, you steal
Speaker 1: his thunder, you attempt to rewrite his story, you should
Speaker 1: prepare to be destroyed. Even the great magician from whom
Speaker 1: Houdini took a stage name, Jean Eugene Robert Houdin, eventually
Speaker 1: found himself and his disciples crosshairs at five five and
Speaker 1: all muscle. The man formerly known as Eric Weiss, a
Speaker 1: native of Budapest, even though he'd have you believe he
Speaker 1: was born in Appleton, Wisconsin. Harry Houdini like the greatest
Speaker 1: of showmen and the toughest of bullies. Anyone who listened
Speaker 1: to prove him wrong. Bring him us at a cuffs
Speaker 1: and he'd break free. Lock him in a prison cell
Speaker 1: and he'd bust out. But Houdini was no superman. He
Speaker 1: wasn't an alien from another planet. He was only human.
Speaker 1: The means and methods of his particular brand of illusion
Speaker 1: were real, and thus the one thing that really got
Speaker 1: Houdini's goat was when someone tried to undermine all his
Speaker 1: hard work, his real work, by giving credit to magic.
Speaker 1: Spiritualists were having their moment at this time in history,
Speaker 1: the early nineteen hundreds. Now, I'll think of a spiritualist
Speaker 1: like a medium, someone who claims they can communicate with
Speaker 1: the dead. In Houdini's eyes, spiritualists were like those guys
Speaker 1: hired to investigate the ghosts who convinced John Fruchiante to
Speaker 1: rub one out in a haunted mansion, and they were
Speaker 1: a cheap parlor trick, a hoax. Houdini had more respect
Speaker 1: for the common criminal, the person who was openly cheating you.
Speaker 1: We know because he wrote and published a book called
Speaker 1: The Right Way to Do Wrong, which, besides being a
Speaker 1: great title, was all about how to commit crimes and
Speaker 1: actually get away with them. But again, Harry Houdini was
Speaker 1: only human, and even he could be convinced to give
Speaker 1: the whole spiritualism thing a try, especially when his beloved mother,
Speaker 1: Cecilia died of a stroke in nineteen thirteen at the
Speaker 1: age of seventy two. Cecilia was Houdini's rock. Some even
Speaker 1: said she was the motivation behind his career, that the
Speaker 1: reason he worked as hard as he did was because
Speaker 1: he once promised his father that he Houdini would take
Speaker 1: care of his mother till her dying day, and now
Speaker 1: that day had arrived, and Houdini, pained and grieving, would
Speaker 1: do anything to speak with her again. So years later,
Speaker 1: when his good friend, the writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
Speaker 1: creator of Sherlock Holmes, along with Doyle's wife Lady, invited
Speaker 1: Houdini and his wife Bess to a seance. Houdini took
Speaker 1: the bait the Doyles, like many at the time bodily
Speaker 1: stock and spiritualism. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle hoped that by
Speaker 1: performing the seance, by contacting Houdini's dead mother, he could
Speaker 1: bring some solace to his friend in the time of
Speaker 1: great need. Let's set the scene. The room is dark,
Speaker 1: the blinds are drawn. The faint sound of ocean waves
Speaker 1: gently lapping a nearby beach here carried on the wind
Speaker 1: through an open window. Candle flames flicker on a table
Speaker 1: in the center of the room, and they toss shadows
Speaker 1: on the wall at one end of the table, the
Speaker 1: Houdinis at the other end, The Doyles. Sir Arthur Conan
Speaker 1: Doyle hung his head and Harry Houdini followed his friend's
Speaker 1: lead and did the same. The Lady Doyle began to speak, Cecilia,
Speaker 1: Cecilia Weiss, are you here? This was the same question
Speaker 1: Houdini himself had been asking for years now, Mama, Mama,
Speaker 1: are you here? He sought out his dead mother in dreams.
Speaker 1: He often startled awake in a cold sweat, reaching out
Speaker 1: for her, but she was never there when he called.
Speaker 1: She was always just out of reach. Tonight, however, when
Speaker 1: Lady Doyle asked that question, Cecilia, are you here tonight?
Speaker 1: The question was answered by three loud knocks on the table.
Speaker 1: Every muscle in Houdini's body tensed up, his throat clenched,
Speaker 1: The flames of the candles on the table flapped wildly,
Speaker 1: as if something had just passed through them. Was his
Speaker 1: mother really here in this room with him? Right now?
Speaker 1: Harry Houdini, the world's greatest skeptic, could feel the impossible happening.
Speaker 1: He was starting to believe. Suddenly, Lady Doyle picked up
Speaker 1: a pen from the table in front of her and
Speaker 1: began writing on sheets of paper. She wrote fast, and
Speaker 1: seeing that she wasn't even looking at what she was writing,
Speaker 1: auto writing they called it psychography, allowing a spirit to
Speaker 1: miss manipulate your hand and write for you. Houdini knew
Speaker 1: this to be one of the buzzwords around spiritualism, and
Speaker 1: now he was watching it happen in the flesh. And
Speaker 1: by the time Lady Doyle had finished, she had written
Speaker 1: on fifteen pieces of paper, all of it a long,
Speaker 1: loving message to Houdini from his deceased mother, or so
Speaker 1: the Doyle said. The papers were handed over to Houdini
Speaker 1: and he began to read, but not before he noticed
Speaker 1: what Lady Doyle had drawn at the top of the
Speaker 1: first page across odd, he thought, seeing as his family
Speaker 1: was not Christian but Jewish. And then as he began
Speaker 1: to read in earnest he was struck by how the
Speaker 1: words were written in English, not in German, which was
Speaker 1: the only language his mother spoke. That was all the
Speaker 1: proof he needed. He didn't even need to know that
Speaker 1: the three knocks on the table at the start of
Speaker 1: the seance had actually been made by Lady Doyle herself,
Speaker 1: not by a spirit. Harry Houdini had been hoodwinked by
Speaker 1: a friend. No less, he'd been made to look like
Speaker 1: a do and Houdini would not be made to look
Speaker 1: like a doe. The seance ruined Houdini and Doyle's friendship forever.
Speaker 1: It also sent Houdini on a crusade against spiritualism. He
Speaker 1: publicly took on bogus mediums who were conning people out
Speaker 1: of their money. He testified before Congress and hopes that
Speaker 1: he could single handedly outlaw seances altogether. They were bad
Speaker 1: for Houdini's image. They were bad for business, and around
Speaker 1: this time, the nineteen tents the nineteen twenties, business was
Speaker 1: very good for the world's pre eminent escape artist. Harry
Speaker 1: Houdini was one of the most famous people on the planet,
Speaker 1: as big as Babe Ruth or Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin was
Speaker 1: a master of the moving picture. Movies dazzled American audiences,
Speaker 1: and they were their own kind of magic. For Harry Houdini.
Speaker 1: Cinema was another illusion, another conduit from which to saturate
Speaker 1: the market with his brand, which is why in nineteen nineteen,
Speaker 1: Harry Houdini and his wife Bess pulled up stakes from
Speaker 1: their home in New York City and went out west
Speaker 1: to Los Angeles, so that the world's greatest escape artists
Speaker 1: could become a big movie star. Instead, he became something else, immortal.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this We're, We're, We're. Contrary
Speaker 1: to popular belief, Harry and Bess Houdini never owned the
Speaker 1: mansion at twenty four hundred Laurel Canyon Boulevard, the one
Speaker 1: just down the road from Rick Rubin's mansion, nor did
Speaker 1: they own the guest house across the street. Those were
Speaker 1: the property of Ralph M. Walker, a department store executive
Speaker 1: who happened to be friends with the couple. Hard evidence
Speaker 1: is scarce, but let's just say it is very likely
Speaker 1: that Ralph Walker let the Houdinis crash in his guesthouse
Speaker 1: while they were in town for Harry to shoot two movies,
Speaker 1: The Grim Game and Terror Island. Rumor had it that
Speaker 1: the guesthouse had an elevator that dropped you underground, where
Speaker 1: you could make your way through a dark tunnel passing
Speaker 1: beneath Laurel Canyon Boulevard and find yourself surfacing over at
Speaker 1: the Big House, a three story, eleven bedroom, nine bathroom
Speaker 1: Mediterranean style villa with a ballet room and a big
Speaker 1: stage for musicians. The whole underground tunnel business fits perfectly
Speaker 1: with Houdini's image a master escape artist who could secretly
Speaker 1: escape from his own home and you never saw exactly
Speaker 1: how he did it, how he got out of a
Speaker 1: coffin six feet underground, or how he pulled off the
Speaker 1: metamorphosis act, the one where he was bound with rope
Speaker 1: and locked inside a trunk, only for the trunk to
Speaker 1: be opened and revealed that he was no longer there
Speaker 1: and instead his wife Bess was in his place, bound
Speaker 1: in the very same way. Maybe fake rivets, fake screws,
Speaker 1: or fake welds, and the construction of the apparatusus. Maybe
Speaker 1: real handcuffs were swapped of for trick handcuffs. He kept
Speaker 1: audiences guessing, is the point, and he also made sure
Speaker 1: they had some skin in the game by welling their challenges.
Speaker 1: There was no problem he couldn't solve, and no outside
Speaker 1: force he couldn't beat. You could even punch him in
Speaker 1: the stomach if you wanted. He would easily absorb the
Speaker 1: blow with what appeared to be prodigious strengths. Houdini couldn't
Speaker 1: remember if he had actually issued that last challenge publicly
Speaker 1: to be punched in the stomach, but in nineteen twenty six,
Speaker 1: a student at McGill University in Montreal was telling him that, yes,
Speaker 1: indeed he had and Furthermore, the student wanted HOODII to
Speaker 1: prove it now. Hoodini was tired. His career as a
Speaker 1: movie star never took off like he expected it would,
Speaker 1: and one of the two movies he made, The Grim Game,
Speaker 1: didn't even get released. He was fifty two years old
Speaker 1: and these days increasingly worn out by the physical demands
Speaker 1: that his job as an illusionist required. His fight against
Speaker 1: the spiritualist movement was a losing battle, not as great
Speaker 1: of a loss as that of his mother, whose death
Speaker 1: thirteen years earlier still weighed heavily on his mind. This
Speaker 1: is all to say he wasn't operating at one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: And I haven't even mentioned the incredible pain happening in
Speaker 1: his stomach, pain that he'd been experiencing for weeks but
Speaker 1: had not told anyone about, not even best. But here
Speaker 1: in Montreal at McGill, he was still a god, still
Speaker 1: revered by an adoring public that was humbled to have
Speaker 1: the world's greatest escape artist in their presence, or so
Speaker 1: thought the two students currently interviewing Houdini for the school paper.
Speaker 1: That interview was on hold for a moment, however, as
Speaker 1: a third student entered the room and brazenly asked if
Speaker 1: he could test one of Houdini's standing challenges. He wanted
Speaker 1: to punch Houdini as hard as he could. Pudini paused
Speaker 1: for a moment. Again, he couldn't remember actually making that
Speaker 1: challenge to the public, but it didn't matter. He was
Speaker 1: motivated not only by a promise he once made to
Speaker 1: his father, but by his own iconic status, by his
Speaker 1: dominance as the most incredible entertainer of the day. He
Speaker 1: would defend that status and that dominance by any means necessary,
Speaker 1: even if the crowd was small, like it was today.
Speaker 1: So Houdini accepted the student's challenge. He began to stand
Speaker 1: from where he was seated, but before he could straighten
Speaker 1: his back, tense up the right muscles, and get his
Speaker 1: athletic body in the proper stance for such an attack,
Speaker 1: the kid came in hot with a clenched fist. Three
Speaker 1: punches in quick succession to Houdini's ribs and stomach. Houdini
Speaker 1: doubled over Jesus Christ. That hurt, and he could hardly
Speaker 1: get his bearings before the kid swung again. He landed
Speaker 1: another punch as Houdini was going down, and another, and
Speaker 1: another about seven in total. Houdini's insides were in turmoil.
Speaker 1: He thought his stomach hurt before, but now it was
Speaker 1: on fire. Still, he couldn't actually show that he was
Speaker 1: in pain, so he simply offered a tense smile to
Speaker 1: the three kids in the room and politely said that'll do.
Speaker 1: He wanted to put the whole ord ill behind him,
Speaker 1: the pain, the humiliation. But later that night, while performing
Speaker 1: on stage in Montreal, Houdini began to sweat. His heart
Speaker 1: was pounding in his ears, and the pain in his
Speaker 1: stomach was getting unbearable. After the show, he collapsed. He
Speaker 1: was hot and then cold. His temperature spiked to one
Speaker 1: hundred and two. He took a train to Detroit for
Speaker 1: his next show, and there a doctor made the diagnosis
Speaker 1: the Houdini was suffering from appendicitis. He was instructed to
Speaker 1: go to a hospital for immediate surgery. Houdini declined treatment.
Speaker 1: The show must go on and all that. So he
Speaker 1: took the stage in Detroit without one hundred and four
Speaker 1: degree fever. He collapsed twice. His eyes burned, his lips quivered.
Speaker 1: He slipped in and out of consciousness. His dreams began
Speaker 1: to mix with reality. He saw faces, not only the
Speaker 1: faces of those standing by his bed like best, but
Speaker 1: faces from his past traveling medicine shows. Sideshow freaks, a
Speaker 1: Japanese acrobat who once taught him how to swallow a
Speaker 1: ball and cough it back up, the barker who gave
Speaker 1: him a crash course and how to slip free from ropes.
Speaker 1: The ghosts of his own mind haunting him or welcoming him.
Speaker 1: He wasn't quite sure. He just wanted it all to stop,
Speaker 1: so he finally relented and agreed to allow the doctors
Speaker 1: in Detroit to remove his appendix. In the end, it
Speaker 1: didn't matter, the damage was already done, whether the punch
Speaker 1: from that McGill student caused the appendicitis, had just made
Speaker 1: it worse, or whether it even had nothing to do
Speaker 1: with the appendicitis at all. Six days after that punch
Speaker 1: and five days after surgery, Harry Houdini died on Halloween,
Speaker 1: October thirty first, nineteen twenty six, but not before he'd
Speaker 1: spoken to the attending surgeon from his hospital bed. The surgeon,
Speaker 1: doctor Charles Kennedy, was glad that Houdini was recovering. Hodini's
Speaker 1: fever had gone down, and he was once again thinking clearly,
Speaker 1: and that clarity led to some reflection. He told the
Speaker 1: surgeon that he'd always wanted to be a doctor and
Speaker 1: that he regretted not doing so, and the surgeon couldn't
Speaker 1: believe what he was hearing. Houdini was the greatest illusionist
Speaker 1: on the planet. He was rich, he was famous, and
Speaker 1: he brought people great joy. Wudini responded, not like he
Speaker 1: was speaking to a surgeon, but like he was speaking
Speaker 1: to a priest. The difference between you and me, Hudini said,
Speaker 1: is that you actually do things for people. I, in
Speaker 1: almost every respect, am a fake.
Speaker 3: Oh thou disembodied spirits. Those of you that have grown
Speaker 3: old in the mysterious laws of spirit Land, we greek dee.
Speaker 3: We have gathered here at the appointed time. We have
Speaker 3: complied with all the requirements to enable all of you
Speaker 3: to make your presence known. All is in readiness. It
Speaker 3: is the spirit of Houdini. We wish to contact Houdini.
Speaker 3: Are you here? Are you here, Houdini, Harry, We are
Speaker 3: all seekers after truth. Please manifest yourself in any way
Speaker 3: possible to LEVI. Take the table, move it, lift the table,
Speaker 3: move it, wrap on it.
Speaker 1: Spell out a.
Speaker 3: Cold Henry please please, Bugini, we are awaiting speak Heady.
Speaker 1: What you've just heard is recording of a seance that
Speaker 1: was conducted on the roof of the Knickerbocker Hotel in
Speaker 1: Hollywood almost ninety years ago on Halloween night, October thirty first,
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty six. The goal of the seance was to
Speaker 1: make contact with Harry Houdini on the tenth anniversary of
Speaker 1: his death. It was the brainchild of Houdini's widow, Bess,
Speaker 1: and a man named Edward Saint, the guy you just
Speaker 1: heard in that recording. Edward Saint was a former Carnival
Speaker 1: barker who became professionally and romantically involved with Bess a
Speaker 1: few years after Houdini died, when she was depressed, drinking
Speaker 1: and smoking way too much and throwing parties in seances
Speaker 1: back at what came to be known as the Houdini Mansion.
Speaker 1: Not Rick Rubin's mansion on Laurel Canyon Boulevard, but Ralph
Speaker 1: Walker's three story Mediterranean style villa just down the road,
Speaker 1: the one with the guest house connected by an underground tunnel.
Speaker 1: Like those parties, best, Houdini's rooftop seance was strictly invitation only.
Speaker 1: Three hundred people total, the CNB scene of Hollywood, captains
Speaker 1: of industry, the true heads of spiritualism, all of them
Speaker 1: craning their necks to get a glimpse of the dimly
Speaker 1: lit table where Bess and Edward Saint went through the motions.
Speaker 1: Bess claimed that she and her late husband had made
Speaker 1: a pact that the first one to die would attempt
Speaker 1: to contact the other from the afterlife. She further claimed
Speaker 1: that they had developed an intricate code, a string of
Speaker 1: words that her dead husband would communicate to her in
Speaker 1: order to prove that it was really him. And in
Speaker 1: addition to the code, Harry Houdini's ghosts would then unlocked
Speaker 1: the pair of handcuffs resting on a table. In so
Speaker 1: many words, Bess Houdini claimed that she was attempting the
Speaker 1: greatest magic trick ever, bringing back the dead. Of course,
Speaker 1: it was total bullshit, as much bullshit as a card trick.
Speaker 1: Her dead husband could have told you that it was
Speaker 1: nothing more than spiritualist hoke entertainment. You could even call
Speaker 1: it insurance to make sure that Harry Houdini's name and
Speaker 1: legend stayed relevant in the annals of time, even as
Speaker 1: time marched on. It was also the last time Best
Speaker 1: led a public seance, but it wasn't the last time
Speaker 1: the living tried to make contact with the ghost of
Speaker 1: Harry Houdini. A few miles northwest of the Knickerbocker on
Speaker 1: Laurel Canyon Boulevard, among the willow trees, sycamore, and cottonwood.
Speaker 1: Year after year, on Halloween night, they gathered those who
Speaker 1: believed in those who wanted to believe. They gathered when
Speaker 1: Ralph Walker's mansion and guesthouse were still standing, and they
Speaker 1: gathered when both properties burned to the ground in the
Speaker 1: Great Fire of nineteen fifty nine. They gathered as ivy
Speaker 1: began to consume the ruins, and they drew pentagrams on
Speaker 1: crumbling pillars and burned candles on the remains of staircases.
Speaker 1: They planted a wooden cross in the yard and draped
Speaker 1: it with ceremonial beads. They sang out archaic incantations, hymns
Speaker 1: to the underworld, designed to summon forth the greatest escape
Speaker 1: artists who ever lived. And then there in the moonlight,
Speaker 1: someone saw it. A figure, a man. He was walking
Speaker 1: the grounds, dressed in a suit and a bow tie.
Speaker 1: He was there and he wasn't as translucent as a
Speaker 1: sliver of thinly sliced garlic. They followed closely behind, and
Speaker 1: the man made no sound. It was like he was
Speaker 1: walking on air. Seconds later, he disappeared into the mist.
Speaker 1: He reappeared months later in Chicago, walking right into someone's bedroom.
Speaker 1: Then in Long Beach, took possession of a medium and
Speaker 1: spoke through her mouth. Soon after that, he was seen
Speaker 1: in Kansas City, in Detroit, in Montreal, and the people
Speaker 1: who saw Houdini's ghost all over the country swore that
Speaker 1: what they saw was real, that he really had come
Speaker 1: back from the dead. But how was his sleight of
Speaker 1: hand misdirection? Old fashioned bullshit? As they say, a magician
Speaker 1: never reveals his tricks. To do that will be a disgrace.
Speaker 1: I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created
Speaker 1: by Yours Truly. It is produced in partnership with Double Elvis.
Speaker 1: Credits for this episode can be found on the show
Speaker 1: notes page at disgracelandpod dot com. Subscribe, follow, like, rate,
Speaker 1: and review the Disgracelam podcast wherever you get your podcast.
Speaker 1: Because the Disgracelam podcast is now available everywhere. If you
Speaker 1: love Disgraceland, tell someone, tell everyone, Shout us out on
Speaker 1: social spread the word and follow us to find out
Speaker 1: how you can cop some free merch for spreading that word.
Speaker 1: Follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook at disgraceland Pod,
Speaker 1: and on YouTube at YouTube dot com, slash at Disgraceland
Speaker 1: pop Rockabroll. He's a bad, bad man.