The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 630 - Ganna Walska
Episode Date: April 23, 2024Comedians Gareth Reynolds and Dave Anthony examine Ganna Walska Tour Dates Redbubble Merch Sources Lectric Bikes Squarespace...
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And we are also brought to you by Airbnb.
Now look, there's actually a couple times a year when a big group of my oldest friends
and I, and they are old, get together and we will rent an Airbnb and stay in it for
a few days over like a holiday weekend or something like that.
It just always makes the experience a lot better because, you know, we're in a home.
But on the road, if I ever have the choice between a hotel or an Airbnb I always go Airbnb
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more than you think. Find out how and how much at airbnb.ca. I have dollop tour dates to announce
for the year 2024 of our Lord J town. We have our 10th anniversary show coming up
in Los Angeles on April 27th. Guests are Karen Kilgareff and James Adomian. And
then we are going to Australia starting on May 13th in Perth, May 16th in Sydney,
May 18th in Brisbane, May 20th in Canberra, May 22nd in Melbourne, and May 24th in
Adelaide. You can get your tickets at dolloppodcast.com.
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You're listening to the dolllep on the All Things Comedy Network.
This is an American History podcast where each week I read a story from American history
to a hooded person.
Named Dave Anthony, who has no idea what the topic is going to be about.
You didn't say your name.
But you said you're me.
Listen, it got, we, it became, I don't know what it became, but we had to figure it out
and there were some creative decisions made and you know.
It got more confusing.
Look, I am, I am willing to, here's what I'll do.
Here's, here's what I'll do.
I'll do it again. If you want to try one more, I'm open to, here's what I'll do. Here's what I'll do. I'll do it again.
If you want to try one more, I'm open to that.
No, I think that's more confusing.
I'm Dave Anthony.
This whole thing is just kind of, I'm not even sure.
I don't even know what this is anymore, to be quite honest with you.
It's not that.
So my name is Gareth Patrick.
By the way, I'd like to be called Gareth Patrick and I came up with a name for our fans.
I forgot to mention this.
Is Gareth Patrick actually a person that I should know?
I want to be called Gareth Patrick from now on.
But you want to know what I've decided our fans can be called? And it's good because I've got a gimmick involved and merch.
Our fans are the doll heads.
No.
And they bring doll heads to shows.
No.
And we sign them.
Yeah.
No, no, no, no, no.
And we can sell doll heads.
No.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
So if you're out there and you're a fan, if you're a doll head, bring a doll head to a show. No, no, no, no, no, no. That's the thing we're doing now. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, No, we bring him to the show on April 27th at the Palace Theater in Los Angeles for our 10th anniversary.
Bring your doll heads.
Throw your doll heads on stage.
Throw your doll heads at me, Dave Anthony.
It's gonna be so bad.
It's gonna be terrible.
Action.
Wait, should I mention my gripe now or after this?
All right, go.
Okay, so I know that we have comedians.
I meet comedians and comedians all the time who love the show.
They love it.
They think it's the best.
And I've been trying to get paid since December for a show I did in London at a club called
21 Soho on Sutton Row in London.
When did you do it? December, some point. Wow. Okay. on Sutton Row in London.
When did you do it?
December some point.
Wow, okay.
Yeah, something like that.
Maybe even early, it might have been in September.
But either way, I've been trying to get paid since then
and I had the people who booked it reach out to them
repeatedly after I'd sent my invoice and multiple emails.
And apparently this is a place that just decides to not pay performers.
I didn't know that.
What's the name of it again?
21 Soho.
Okay, 21 Soho.
So there are places that have a similar name, like there's the Soho Theater.
It's not that, it's 21 Soho.
And I go on their website, they are still a functioning place.
You call them, they will not return your calls, they will not return emails.
So anyone who's ever thinking of performing at 21 Soho, just
know going into it that this is a place that doesn't pay people. They owe me
thousands, they owe me thousands of dollars. And it's, let's put it out there,
not just performers, but if you're a customer of a place, do you think it's
fair that the labor is being done for free? Well. Yeah, and this is what they do.
They have a reputation for doing this.
The management people who booked it, they were like,
give us a minute because they didn't want me to do this
because they wanted to try to preserve,
they didn't want this, but I am just so fed up.
So I don't even want my money,
I just want other comedians to not do shows there because they do not pay people.
They negotiate deals, they sign contracts,
and then it's like legally, for me to go after them
for whatever, like, you know, the money,
costs me more money, it's an international thing, so.
You should see if legally you can
report wage theft to,
because it's illegal, they're committing a crime,
so it's a legal thing.
Yes, okay.
But anyway, so if you're thinking of it,
do not perform there.
Anyway, back to the show.
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bike.
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I really, yes, I do not have one. But I know you have texted me
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Nice.
We are on tour in Australia starting on,
what, the 10th or something?
At 10th or 11th. May 10th.
Yeah.
We're gonna be doing shows in Perth, Adelaide,
Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane.
And you know, if you're going to the Brisbane,
if you're going to the Brisbane football tourney,
why not at nighttime, enjoy a dollop?
Yeah, we are competing.
We're declaring war on this tournament.
We are declaring war on it.
Yeah.
And then we also have our anniversary show here
in Los Angeles coming up on the 27th.
Yes, and if you're unable to attend it,
you can watch the live stream of it.
We will be live streaming it.
We have James Adomian, we have Karen Kilgarriff, we have Carrot Top, we have former president
Bill Clinton, we have Muscles the dog.
He's not, he canceled.
Dog was so-
Muscles, he always cancels.
It's a live stream, but one of us will be dead.
That's a-
By the end. By the end. Just how it's supposed to go.
Okay, you ready?
Action.
So, this is another episode that,
this is the famous episode in my mind
where we walked out on stage,
we had David Cross with us in New York.
I walked out and saw the recording device
just sitting on my chair.
This show, this is why you go to the live show.
Because sometimes these are only going to happen once.
And this show in particular was, again I don't remember what it's about.
I remember one thing because David and I debated it a little.
But David was, we've got to have him back on because he was such an incredible guest
because a couple things happened.
The first thing that happened was,
it's the first time we thought,
apparently I guess someone else did do this during a show,
but David had to go to the bathroom during the show
and he just stood up and he goes,
which way is the bathroom?
And he just walked off stage and went to the bathroom.
We were like, oh, and then he came out with balloons
and then he started to sing Happy Birthday
to the dollop on a loop and he went into the audience
and it was an incredible moment.
But let's do the crossless version.
Yes.
Finally, the way it's supposed to be.
Like God intended.
Yeah.
June 26, 1887.
Year of our Lord, Jesus Christo, also known to the kids as J-Town.
Are you sure?
Because he's hip and they dig him.
And he, by the way, is giving out flame decals for your board.
Hannah Puch was born in Brest in Russia, occupied Poland.
Brest?
Brest.
Brest. Brist. Brist. Occupied Poland to Polish parents Napoleon Pusz
and Karolina Masalska.
Masalska.
They're Nepal.
Masalska, Masalska.
Yeah, they're Polish.
Or.
Nepalish.
Yeah, I think those are both Polish names, right?
Polish. Sure, yeah.
Yeah.
So her mom dies when she's young
and she's sent to St. Petersburg to be raised by relatives.
She's raised in poverty.
She's also considered extremely good looking.
She's a very good looking young lady.
When she's a teen, she's so hot that she's invited to the Royal Ball in St. Petersburg.
I don't think you're allowed to say she's hot, even though this is back then and she's
dead.
That's what they saw.
You're saying it.
You said it.
No, this was in the books.
The books said everyone-
Well, you're reading-
Everyone-
These are books that I want thrown out of the Florida library.
So whatever you're reading the book said
Everyone thought she was super hot and they also said she was bringing it
Now those that's in the books, I mean screenshot, please
And at the ball, she was chosen as the most beautiful woman there by the czar
The most beautiful woman there by the Tsar.
It's happening. Yeah.
Don't ever say that again.
I wasn't sure you got that.
Oh, I did, no, I'm upset by it.
I'm happy.
He dug her so much that he had a painting done of her,
which is now known as the Tsar's portrait.
Sure.
And so-
That's what we call a Tsar.
I'll keep going. Apologize. No, the more that you push me, the more that I'll do it. But it's apology time. It could always be done. I choose to let you go. I choose to free the people of this problem.
I feel sorry for what happens inside your skull. It's a nightmare. Yeah, it seems like it really is. Yeah. So at 19, she elopes with a Russian count
named Arkady Dei Ingorn.
But he's a drunk and he's a cheater.
She has the marriage dissolved
by the Orthodox Church in 1915.
And then right after that,
he is shot in the head and killed in World War
One. So she could have waited. That's one of those things where yeah that's one of those things where you're like ah man
yeah just hung in there he's gonna die yeah yes so Hannah was raised in a
religious home and she was told that nice girls are not supposed to be stage
performers okay but she wants to be a singer I was told that nice girls are not supposed to be stage performers.
Okay.
But she wants to be a singer.
I was told that too.
Yeah, I know.
So she starts taking lessons in opera.
And she moves to Paris because she's going to have a go at opera singing.
She changes her name to Madame Ghana Wolska.
Better. Much better. Changes her name to Madame Ganna Walska.
Better. Much better.
What's the angle on the name change?
She picked it because she loved waltzing.
Oh, I was gonna say that, that's crazy.
Okay, Madame Ganna Walska?
Yeah, Walska.
It's, it can't be that.
I think that's what it is.
That's pretty good. She gonna waltz good. She's gonna waltz go.
I'm gonna waltz.
And can not.
She's like the erotic Russian version of herself, right?
This is the stage persona.
And so as World War One gets going, she decides to just get out of Europe and she's gonna
head for New York City, make her fame.
That's why we recorded this originally.
Yeah.
This is a very similar story to the original record.
It really is.
Except the recorder isn't sitting by me on the chair or table.
Yeah, except this, we will have the audio.
Yeah.
She has a pretty decent divorce settlement.
So she also has a letter of introduction
by Anna Heldt for her to meet.
Sorry, isn't it easy to get a good divorce settlement
when the husband is dead?
No, because the divorce settlement came before he died.
Oh, right.
OK.
Yeah.
OK.
But he also was a, what was he, a baron?
He was a Russian count.
So he had cash.
Right.
So she also has this letter of introduction
written by Anna Held, and that's for her to meet
Diamond Jim Brady, who is a single millionaire.
Okay, I feel like this is the guy who I remember.
Yeah, probably.
So Diamond Jim is famous for eating. That's the... The name is perfect, probably. So Diamond Jim is famous for eating.
That's the...
The name is perfect, obviously.
I mean, he would eat three dozen clams in a sitting.
Oh God.
It's disgusting.
It's really.
Just a mid-morning snack, just a snack,
not that a meal, That's a snack.
People put away that stuff.
Those are so gross.
You know what it is? It's the water that's in it that I think.
Well, it's the whole thing.
The whole thing looks like a cow eye, but then it's also sitting in like,
like people are like, you want the brine.
I don't want the brine. I don't want the brine.
I don't want anything to do with it.
No.
At lunch- That would actually be
a good Patreon Extra.
For lunch, he would have two ducks,
seven lobsters, and a steak.
Oh my God.
Okay, now we're getting somewhere.
Yeah, he's got issues.
Yeah.
That's really- And now he would be
on the Food Network. Yes, that's got issues. Yeah. That's really- And now he would be on the Food Network.
Yes, that's correct.
But unfortunately for, again, this awesome man
is no longer on the market.
He has been snapped up, he has fallen in love
with celebrity opera singer Lillian Russell.
So she, did she like him?
I think she was looking to land a Richie so I don't know if she liked him or not or if it was just like this could be
good for me. I think that's one of those people you might like but then you see him eat and
you're like, eh. Probably not. I mean 36 claims. It's the way you eat them. Yeah. No, the whole thing is...
Horrible.
So, uh, Lillian also loves to eat. Big eater.
Sometimes she would put away a 12-course meal for dinner.
And reporters would go to fancy restaurants to cover Jim and Lillian's eating contests.
Which is really terrible.
I...
Terrible and yet so, like such an obvious seed of today.
Yeah, yeah.
The two of them also started riding gold-plated, diamond-studded bicycles around New York City.
It's like you with your electric bike.
It's the same deal.
This awesome dude is off the market.
So, again, he's looking for other wealthy dudes.
She's having throat issues, and she's a singer singer so she goes to the doctor to have them check
it out and that's where she-
Have you tried having 24 clams?
Get the clams on it.
Get 36 clams.
So we call this deep clamming.
So we're gonna need to clam your throat.
From 11 to 1 PM just constant clamming.
You're on what we call a clam slam.
You want to clam slide over the throat every single nonstop.
Keep going, keep slamming the clams, brine them down.
So she meets the doctor there, Dr. Joseph Frankel.
He's immediately like this, I love this woman.
So they get married after just 10 days.
Oh Jesus Christ.
Now around this time,
Ganna starts getting really into mysticism.
And quote, the meaning of life.
She's on a journey.
She's on a spiritual and emotional journey.
This is it.
This is the line.
This is where you're like,
all right, let's start the story.
She starts taking part in seances using Ouija boards, yoga, astrology, meditation, and telepathy.
I would love to go to telepathic yoga.
Yeah, right. Don't tell me, downward dog.
Yes. I should focus on my breathing. I should, right. Don't tell me, downward dog. Yes.
I should focus on my breathing.
I should, yeah.
Exactly.
She cold calls this guy Harold McCormick.
Harold is the largest donor to the Chicago Opera Company.
Okay.
And his fortune came from International Harvester,
which is the biggest maker of farm equipment.
Okay.
So Harold had to take over the company for his brother who had a mental breakdown.
And the McCormick brothers had a horrifically sexually repressed upbringing, which led Stanley,
the other brother, as an adult to sleep in a harness
he made that strapped his hands to his ankles
to stop him from jerking off.
No, how is this, this says a lot about this show
that I feel like I haven't heard this before.
I know, right?
They gave him a hankle machine so that he wouldn't whack. Yeah. Yeah, I got a strap. He strapped himself
He probably he might have made a came up with this he had made I bet that I bet they existed because it sounds like something
That would have existed back then surely couldn't you just?
Like there has I don't mean to sound like the black and white part of an infomercial, but there has to be a better way
There has to be a better way. I'm trying to think of one.
I am too because I'm the only one I can think of is hands behind your back.
Yeah, I wouldn't do ankles. You don't have to do ankles.
Yeah, that's just so obvious.
And now your face is closer to your dick, so it's almost mean to yourself.
I thought you were going to say you could suck your own dick, because I was going to say that's not easy.
Well, if you do this enough and you are into you try it right? It's very possible. You've tried right?
You've tried to do it right?
No, I've never actually never tried that you have no number one
I know I couldn't like I know I doesn't mean Dave you got a first of all believe in you can achieve
No, second of all, I you might be the only guy I know who had... Really?
Well, I mean, you hear about it and then at some point you're like, I mean, let's make
sure.
I mean, I kind of feel sorry for the guy that can.
I knew a guy who could.
What, he told you?
Yeah, well, his girlfriend told me and then he admitted that he could, but he said it
wasn't easy, but that he could but he did he said it wasn't easy
But that he could he could start to yes. I was reading a subreddit once
I don't know what it was
It was like one of the people confession ones and this guy said that he went over to have a three-way with a couple
that he knew they use friends with they're like let's have a three-way and he goes okay, and he went over and
and then at some point, the conversation
got around to the fact that he could suck his own. And then they're like, well, do it.
And so he did it. And then it got all weird and they didn't do the three-way.
He had a one-way. Wow. That's crazy. Yeah. But no, I mean, one time I was like, let's
make sure. And no, I mean one time I was like, let's make sure.
And no.
It can't, right?
No, can't, no.
Okay, so Harold, like I said,
Harold is the largest donor to the Chicago Opera, right?
So when Stanley met and married a woman,
he was too freaked out to have sex.
And then he eventually had a psychotic break
from the pressure to have sex.
Oh.
More like you now, right?
It's just, now I'm starting to get it.
Now it's like, yeah.
That is, and this is all because of
the sexual repression they felt.
Something in their childhood.
It must have been more than.
Something where it shamed sex and shamed.
Yeah, it must have just been horrifying,
whatever they. Had to be.
Well yeah, if you jerk off so much,
you need to be taped together as one.
But the parents must have been like,
if you ever fuck anybody, you're terrible.
Yeah, like that kind of deal.
Because he won't even do it when he's married.
So this leads Stanley to becoming obsessed with the texture and weight of his underwear. Oh
What I?
Felt like you were just gonna do a quick drop on this guy, but we're still we're still sticking around
No, the five-pound he becomes obsessed with the texture of his underpants. Are we all?
Nope. Nope, nope.
Okay, that's just.
So the family put him under guard and imprisoned him.
Oh my god, he had a whack guard.
Well.
I mean it's so bad that he is like,
harnessed his hands to his feet
and there's now a guy who also is like,
just in case you get out of that thing, I'm here.
No, he's his own wack guard.
They did that because he had a mental breakdown
and is now like, how much does my underwear weigh?
And they're like, okay, we need to get him somebody.
So do not engage in the conversation
about how much his underwear weighs.
Mother!
Do not ever.
It's 18 ounces!
Don't, and so he's gonna say stuff like that,
and your job is to go, just don't pretend like you didn't even hear it, okay? So he's going to say stuff like that and your job is to go, just don't pretend like you
didn't even hear it, okay?
So he will...
I'm going to weigh the other parts.
So that obviously doesn't make a tremendous amount of sense, but none of it does.
So look, the whole thing here is just let him be.
Let him be.
Let him cry it out.
You know, he will constantly try to figure out the amount that it weighs.
He loves the texture of it.
Hi, mother.
Hello, Stanley.
Hi.
This is Bruce.
He's going to be your new friend who watches over you.
Hi, Bruce.
Bruce, can I say something?
Hold on.
I'm going to jump in.
Before you say anything, don't say anything about how much
your underwear weighs.
My underwear weighs 18 ounces.
So do not bring up how much your underwear weighs to him.
Because Bruce has told me that he will not
be your friend if you talk about that stuff.
Because like, what did I tell you before?
Nobody wants to hear that.
Because we're not doing that.
No, it doesn't.
Stop.
Stanley, no.
Now you go, no.
Don't. Don't have a statement on deck like that.
Just go to, Stanley, go to your room.
Go in there.
Put your hands in your ankle mittens and just go in there.
Mommy?
If this is anything about underwear, do not say it.
If this is about how much your underwear weighs.
No, it's not about how much they weigh.
Is it about how they feel?
Yeah, they feel like the couch.
No, they don't.
What?
OK.
They feel like the couch.
Go to your room.
Go to your room now.
So it pays $2.50 an hour, which we think is super generous.
Okay.
That's actually a lot for back then.
Okay, it pays $75.
Well, it should pay a lot.
That guy was like, wait, what's the job?
Okay, so I can't believe he.
You can't what?
So I just can't believe he bets his thing. Oh, yeah texture and weight of underwear
No, he sounds like crumb
So he's in a mansion in Montecito, California where he's basically imprisoned with the guards and the mansion has
sprinklers in trees to spray him with cold water if he loses his shit while he's walking on the grounds
cold water if he loses his shit while he's walking on the grounds.
They also kept him from seeing his wife
because he would get too upset if he saw her.
But she, what, this poor woman.
I mean what? She made her choice.
He wasn't gray from the get-go.
They were talking about red flags. Turn this, he's having him up. Turn the sprinklers on. Get him the get-go. They were talking about red flags.
Turn the sprinklers on.
Get him.
Get him now.
Go, go, go.
Like, they had to have a conversation where he's like, no, I chained myself up not to
masturbate.
And at that point, you're like, all right, I should find a different person.
How did he stay single for so long?
He's got it all.
He has ankle mittens for jacking off too much. He continuously
talks about how much his underwear weighs. And look, sometimes he goes off the rails
and then we just water him.
Yeah. So she would sometimes come by the mansion and she would hide in the bushes and watch
him with binoculars. She's not normal either.
I actually, that part to me is like why I would stick around.
I mean, I am married to the best nature documentary around.
Yeah, true.
Sprinklers.
So Stanley escaped in 1920 by hiding in a grocery truck
that was leaving the estate.
Oh.
But they found him pretty soon after hiding behind a rock.
Why are all these melons holed?
They start letting visitors come to see him, but a guard had to be hiding behind a potted
plant to make sure everything was okay during the visit.
And after Stanley dies, the estate is broken up and sold. Wow. Can we just say, as far as characters in this show, that guy's in the conversation for goats.
This is a best side character of all time.
Is he?
He's pretty great.
Yeah.
I mean, that's a really epic run.
Way up there.
That's an epic run.
So Gareth, the land that they were on that was broken up and sold, Prince Harry and Meghan
Markle live on a piece of that land.
And have similar issues from what I understand.
Yes, exactly the same.
Anyway, back to Harold and Ganna.
So she just called Harold out of the blue and said she's a singer and she has heard
that he's connected to the Chicago Opera Company and she asked, can you help me? Despite having never done anything like this ever, he's like,
yeah, I can help you. So then he falls head over heels in love with Ganna. Her European
style just completely blows him away. But a big problem was that Harold is married.
Sure.
As is Ganna to the doctor.
Yeah.
But then the doctor dies after he went into hospital with a, quote, stomach complaint
and then was dead.
He leaves her $350,000. Nice. And today's money. Oh leaves her 350,000.
Nice.
Today's money.
Oh, okay, still nice.
That's a lot of money, but Ganna,
she's tired, she's depressed,
and Harold is like, do you wanna go to Europe,
where I'm gonna ask my wife
To marry me again.
To divorce me.
No, close.
So Harold's wife is Edith Rockefeller,
John D. Rockefeller's daughter.
Yeah.
Can he get some of that?
Not if he divorces her, I would think.
Or maybe, I don't know what the laws are.
I don't either, back laws are. I don't either back then.
Yeah.
Who knows?
So she lives in Switzerland, Edith, where she had gone because she had a nervous breakdown
and she went to study with Carl Jung.
Okay.
Wow.
As Richie would do, I'm ready.
You're chuffing a lot of names.
Yeah.
A lot of names.
Yeah.
The AP reported, quote, she has known for a long while
that her husband is an intimate friend of the beautiful young
Polish singer, Walska.
She has taken it calmly because as a student of mental science,
she understands his urges and his right to freedom of action.
By the way, if you're're gonna go pull something like this,
you definitely are lucky that she's in that situation
with Carl Jung, you know what I mean?
She's like, of course, you are in charge
of your own destiny.
That's awesome, because I've been fucking her.
So this is great.
Well, I support that your physical body at this point
is betraying some of the things we agreed to,
but you want what you want,
and that has nothing to do with me.
I do want what I want.
Exactly.
Oh, I want, oh, I want what I want.
Oh, boy do I.
My underpants were 15 ounces.
How much do they weigh?
15 ounces.
Yeah.
How much do they weigh? 15 ounces.
15 ounces.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, right, so he's basically got an open marriage, right?
So on the ship going across the Atlantic,
Ganna meets the richest single guy in the United States,
Alexander Cochrane.
Cochrane of the Cochrane fortune?
No, Cochrane, Cochrane, not Cochrane.
Sorry, sorry.
Like Johnny.
Right, right, okay, gotcha.
He's a carpet manufacturer and he has 80 million dollars.
So she is just like the light to
affluent moths.
Yeah, they just are into it. Okay. Yeah.
He was known as America's wealthiest bachelor. He proposed the day they met on the ship.
She's got a she she's like a like Pam Anderson, like dudes are just like, let's go. How about
we get married? Yeah. Yeah. Gannett says no, but he wasn't going to give up. And he kept courting
her and proposing while they were in Switzerland. And she finally gave in and they got married in Paris.
So, okay, wait.
So she's with, what's that other guy's name
that she went on the boat with?
Harold.
Okay, so she goes there with Harold.
He's going to ask for a divorce.
While they're on route to the divorce thing,
she meets this guy and marries him while Harold is there
going to the Rockefeller daughter to ask for divorce and she's...
But then he doesn't ask.
Because she's...
She's for divorce.
Because she's married.
Okay, well at least it's not like noises off where...
Okay. So then he shows up there and she's like,
what are you doing here? And he's like, I just missed you.
Awesome to see you. God, that's so unlike you to come see me. Thank you. Awesome to see you.
God, that's so unlike you to come see me, thank you. Yeah.
So, so Ganna's marriage to Alexander quickly goes south.
Quote, Alec turned out to be the most miserable man
I have ever met.
He was angry she still had furniture
from her first marriage.
Well, I mean, look, there's a lot of times
where you and I will rag on men on this show,
but there are gripes that are actually legit.
You do not hold on to old furniture, you just don't do it.
No.
That's just a slap in the face.
Every time you enter a new relationship, you refurnish.
That's what you do.
That's right. That's right. Gareth. That's what you do. That's right.
Gareth. That's why it's called a love scene.
Gareth, speaking of refurnishing, we are brought to you by
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Now Gareth, Ghana, she thinks Alexander is very jealous of her career.
That's what she thinks is going on.
He's also upset and jealous about her friendship with Harry McCormick.
Because she stays friends. He's also upset and jealous about her friendship with Harry McCormick.
So she stays friends.
Who is the guy that she went on the ship with.
Because he has the opera company.
She still wants to be an opera singer,
so she's not gonna give that relationship up
because that's her dream.
Right.
So she desperately wants to be an opera singer,
but the big problem is that she, it turns out,
is a terrible singer. Is that gonna be an opera singer, but the big problem is that she, it turns out, is a terrible singer.
Is that going to be an issue?
Her own music teacher said her voice was, quote, like five million pigs.
What?
That doesn't even make sense.
So she's like got, she's got a strong voice, but it's like a squeal.
Yeah, it must be, it must be like a squeal, right?
Very high and terrible.
Five million pigs.
It's wild.
Still.
Okay.
She's not giving up, even though her teacher says that.
By the way, he, that's obviously quite hyperbolic
because there is, he's never heard five million pigs.
That's true.
Nobody has.
But he can imagine, he can imagine.
I mean, I don't know, that seems tough.
Some people heard five million pigs.
I, okay.
It's called CPAC.
The dollop will be right back.
So she's not given, we know Pumineans like this, she's not given up.
She did everything she could to overcome her nerves
in her singing voice.
It doesn't sound like it's a nerve problem.
It doesn't.
It sounds like it's just a talent problem.
She's got pig throat.
Yes.
She was stage productions in which she was the lead.
So she's got the money, she's putting on shows.
In Havana during Fedora, her voice was so off
that the audience threw rotten vegetables at her.
Pigs love that.
Pigs do.
The pigs in her throat were like, yeah.
Wow.
But that means that people went to a show
with rotting vegetables.
That's a very good point. You have to come with that, Wow. But that means that people went to a show with rotting vegetables.
That's a very good point.
You have to come with that or do you go outside and someone brings in a box?
Or if you're smart, you do what we do, which is you sell that sort of stuff, like the way
we sell doll heads at the live performances for our fans, because our fans have started
to call themselves the doll heads.
They haven't.
They have.
So we're encouraging people to bring a doll head to a show.
We're signing them.
We're doing a whole thing.
So but anyway, you were saying about the fetch.
But that is a true point.
Where do you get, like you don't go to the performance being
like, this is going to be rotten vegetable.
Or you people at that time walked around
to every performance with like rotting cabbage just in case.
I mean, I would imagine that there's guys selling
at this time vegetables on carts all over the place.
So maybe you could leave the theater and go out
and come back.
Yeah, you gotta, there's gotta be.
Can I come back in and out?
I need to go get, this is awful.
I gotta come back with a bunch of eggplants
that are leaking.
I'm gonna get some tomatoes.
Leaky eggplants!
The Philadelphia Enquirer said, quote,
famous musicians and audiences of cultured music lovers
have fled in anguish from the sound of her voice.
This is crazy.
Stop.
She's not the blob.
But it's so funny.
Maybe people love attacking her because she is so good looking.
Right. But still, this is like,
they're saying she's like literally Godzilla.
Yeah, they are.
Her marriage, this, I don't know if this surprises you,
but it was not going well.
Right.
Ganna said Alexander was cruel,
and one example was when he gave her, quote,
eight or nine priceless Cartier bracelets.
This upset her because she would never cover the, quote, eight or nine priceless Cartier bracelets. This upset her because she would never cover the quote,
natural beauty of my delicate wrists
with the artificial beauty of Ruby's diamonds and emeralds.
So she was mad about that.
If you can get over the fact that rich men
are always coming after her and that she is,
if you can go to like, you and I, we've done,
you've gone to shows with someone you're like kind of seeing
and watch them do something and you're like, oh boy.
Like we've done this and if you can get over that,
she's very close to perfect because the idea
that this woman wants no jewelry,
is smoking hot, has money.
I get it, is that what she wants?
Is that what it is she doesn't want any jewelry?
Or it's because of her wrist,
she doesn't want her wrist covered, I don't know.
Maybe it's her wrist.
Either way, I want people to pick up on the fact
that I don't know what her personality is
and call her perfect.
That's right.
She also said Alexander, quote,
forced me to accept a sable coat worth a million francs,
so big and heavy that it made me look old and fat.
These are-
Is it sable?
What is sable?
A sable coat.
It must be like a mink offshoot or something.
Sable coat.
Oh, I think sable's actually an animal, a fur coat. Yeah, that's right. Just sable fur coat, yeah, you're right. Yeah, that's what I mean. So that's what it is, sable coat. Oh, I think sable's actually an animal, a fur coat.
Yeah, that's right.
Just sable fur coat, yeah, you're right.
Sable fur.
So that's what it is, sable fur.
Okay.
So I bought her a fur coat and she's like,
"'This makes me look fat.'"
Right.
Okay, so she's hard to please.
Hard to shop for, yeah.
Alexander was soon done and left her in Paris
and he came back to the US.
So, Ghana found out she couldn't get alimony in France,
so she returned to the US and filed for divorce.
Now, Harold and Edith returned around the same time
and the press knew Harold was a sponsor
and close friend of Ghana.
They started asking questions
and Edith said she did not know, quote, that woman.
Okay, but are they like, not you?
No, they asked, I think they asked Edith.
I don't know her.
They asked Edith if she knows Ganna,
and she's like, I don't know that woman.
Yeah.
She also said there was no trouble in her marriage,
and then Edith filed for divorce.
Perfect.
That's the move, that's what you do.
Months later, Ganna filed for divorce
from Alexander for abandonment.
Okay.
And she gets a huge settlement.
So, wait, oh, gotcha, gotcha.
The doctor she got money from, the count.
And now she's got the richest guy in America
giving her a settlement. Yep, and now she's got the richest guy in America giving her a settlement.
And now Harold is single too.
He's single and four days later they get married.
Jesus Christ.
Ganatola reporter quote, I shall not let my matrimony interfere with my operatic career.
My voice will do that.
That is understood by both of us.
It would be, just because that's a great impression,
could you try to just do a Figaro as a pig and we could call it Pigaro?
Figaro!
Pigaro! Okay.
Harold the Green quote,
Ghana is the greatest singer of all time.
Shit dudes will say when they're getting laid.
Oh man, that's great.
So Harold does everything he can to support her struggling opera career.
He somehow gets Ganna into the lead in a Chicago production of Zaza.
I love Zaza.
Zaza, so good.
So good. So good.
Just. So good.
The best. The way Zaza just, yeah.
If I were to ask you your favorite song from Zaza.
It would be Zaza.
I agree. Yeah, right?
Great part of it. Yeah.
During the final dress rehearsal,
the director begged her to sing at a normal volume.
So she really is pushing it.
I guess.
Because he says five million pigs.
So she really is.
She must be, right? Just screaming.
She must be screaming.
She must be screaming. And that note is pretty... I mean, I'm sure he gave it before, but I'm sure now he's like,
look, we open tomorrow.
Yeah.
Please.
So when he said that, Ganna burst into tears and yelled, quote, swine, you would have
ruined my performance.
And then she stormed off.
She's talking to her throat.
After a little while, she came back and announced, quote, gentlemen, I am packing my bags.
At the end of the season, you will be packing yours.
What the fuck does that mean?
Yeah, I was gonna ask you that.
I'm packing my bags, you'll be packing yours at the end.
But that means she's leaving
and then they're gonna get fired later?
But is she, who's funding this endeavor?
This is her?
Well, I mean, no, Harold got her into a production in the Chicago Opera Company.
Okay, so she's basically saying Harold will get rid of all of them.
Yeah, I think so.
The production goes on.
The New York Times review said, quote Gena Walshka fails as butterfly,
voice desserts her again when she assays role of heroine.
And also that quote,
Madame Walshka clings to ambition to sing.
Not great.
No.
Not great.
She then comes up with a way to get critics to like her.
She joined a German opera company that's touring the US,
but this time she would be in disguise
and using the stage name Lewis Berard.
So she's like, they're doing this
because they don't like me.
I'm gonna go with somebody else and then they will hear my voice and they'll be who is this fucking angel? Who is the angel? Okay? Okay?
It's so she's there is they're gonna fold fold. They're gonna praise her amazing voice because they don't know it's her
They're gonna pray. They don't like her because of who she is. Gotcha
the company
Does worse and worse with each city they go to on the tour.
The owner kept calling Harold for money.
Harold gives thousands of dollars over the tour.
Quote, to her great disappointment, the critics in no cities went into raptures over the voice
of Louise Burrard.
So that's like when a celebrity funds their kids music.
It's like when Hulk Hogan and his daughter
was trying to become a pop star.
Or no, who's the guy who had the country singer guy?
Fuck.
Oh, Garth Brooks when he did Chris Gaines.
Chris Gaines.
Nobody knew that was who he was at first.
I think we did know that. I thought we didn't first. I think we did know that.
Did we? I thought we didn't know.
I think we did.
No, I think we knew and I think we just were horrified.
Okay.
Because there was, I believe there's an episode of Saturday Night Live where Garth Brooks hosts and Chris Gaines is the musical guest.
Totally normal shit.
Like writers do this sometimes.
They will, like a Stephen King wrote books under another name and put it out to see what
would happen.
Yeah, but it was King Stephen, so yeah, I think so.
Yeah, so I guess he was going to do a movie about Chris Gaines.
So it was going to be...
And then to promote the album's release.
Oh my God, they did a behind the music on him.
Oh shit, God, how fucking weird.
I think he kinda kept doubling down.
Really weird.
But he did have a single that did alright.
Okay.
That's all that matters.
Called I'm Really Garth Brooks.
Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Oh right. Okay. That's all that matters. Called I'm Really Garth Brooks. All right, well that was a good time.
Yeah.
So, $100,000 he puts down on the tour.
And back then money.
You know, nobody likes it, it's what you'd think.
After he buys, again, a theater in Paris
to put on a big production.
He's like, this is it.
You can, I mean, he buys the theater
to put on a production, okay.
Yeah, he's definitely like, yeah.
Just have the conversation.
But Ganna tells the Chicago Tribune
that she used her own money, not Harold's.
Sure, so she lied.
Quote, I will never appear in my own theater
until I've gained recognition based solely
on my merits as an artist.
So never.
Never.
So she starts, now she starts studying.
With a famous vocal teacher, Cecile Gillie.
Another famous of Gillie said Ganna had no ability to sing and that Gillie just took
her on as a student for the money.
You can imagine a teacher of any art form doing that,
if you can imagine that.
Shocking.
Harold paid for $1,000 worth of voice lessons.
Back then, that's a crazy amount.
The Paris production is a disaster.
Orson Welles based the opera singer with no talent in Citizen Kane on Ghana from this
run in the theater.
I was going to say that it feels very, very similar.
By the way, I saw Citizen Kane for the first time like a year ago.
That's all right.
That's one of those movies where...
I still haven't.
That's when I was...
I haven't seen it still.
I will at some point
It's on my list. I just I don't think I don't like it. You want yeah, it's one of those movies You're back. I'm gonna shoot a couple texts
So
Bad reviews come obviously again. It tries to cheer herself up by buying for abergé eggs
Harold decides to have monkey testicles
put into his testicles.
We talked about this in another episode
where the guy was putting testicles in testicles.
Goat testicles.
I don't, to me monkey balls are new.
Well, it's not something that he just came up with
on his own.
There was a surgeon, Sergei Voronov.
He was a Paris doctor.
He had come up with the idea and it just took off.
So he became incredibly wealthy from putting
monkey nuts into men's nuts.
The rest of the world thought he was crazy
and then would just mock him, but a small handful
of rich dudes started doing the procedure.
Go ahead.
Now I'm not trying to retread Trot and Territory, but um...
Oop, oop, oop, oop, oop.
So she's got a pig throat and he's got a monkey sack? Oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, oop, if you take thinly sliced, sexual drive, you take thinly sliced monkey testicles.
This is, are you being fucking serious?
Yeah.
You slice them?
Very thinly sliced, like you would with like garlic.
They're like garlic?
Yeah, they're like garlic.
Yeah.
And they would up your sex drive and slow down aging.
So it's the combo.
And I think this has been medically proven.
You put the sliced monkey balls in your scrotum just like sitting next to your balls.
Slip them right in there.
And then that is...
And you're...
I'm picturing the way you do it also, much like garlic on a cutting board, and then you
kind of knife it in there a little bit.
Yeah, and then you're...
And there's probably a sizzle.
And then you're ready to go.
That is fucking crazy
Gareth athletes were really into it
In in the
1939 FA Cup soccer final it was supposedly was fueled by men who had monkey nuts in their sacks
So very enough takes like genital bitcoin.
Verinov takes things too far when he put a human ovary into an ape and tried to get it
pregnant.
What is going on?
Who is contrying things?
What is going on?
You can't say no until we tried it.
Novary.
Why would he do this?
And who, where is the semen coming from, a monkey?
It might already be impregnated or you know, then you gotta fuck the, I guess fuck the monkey.
No, stop, stop.
They, they love loving.
He didn't do it.
Monkeys love loving.
No, Dave, come on.
Apes love. Stop it, I'm not gonna let you just sit here and say he was trying to make a choo man people who fucked monkeys a
Humane see also started a man pansy trying to get the testicles of
executed murderers
Wait, what who wants their balls? I I would be like give me monkey. Well, he thought it'd be better than monkey nuts
Man, I look this guy is nuts.
You know what?
He's trying, at least he's trying.
He's not, it's really bad.
Well, you say that now, but what if it worked?
You know how many people we would be executing?
Somehow more than we are now.
That is very true, yeah, that's very true.
Hey, just may I talk to the family?
Have you made plans for the burial of the man?
And what are y'all doing with his testes?
But he wanted to be cautious and keep an eye.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Yeah, no, this guy screams trepidation.
When he puts an executed murderer's sliced testicles into another guy, he wants to make
sure to keep an eye on them so they don't suddenly start committing crimes.
So it's kind of like the movie Heart Condition with Denzel Washington and Bob Hoskins.
So you think that you're going to get the convicted person's drive, sex drive, but then
the downside is you'll also have a compulsion to commit the same criminal acts. Yes, and
Why slice them the flavor and potency comes out more opens up?
The flavor profile decision. Yes flavor. It's like a scratchy sniff when you scratch the book
All right. One of these one of those questions. I guess I shouldn't have asked for sure
I wouldn't have so
I guess I shouldn't have asked. For sure.
100%.
I wouldn't have.
So the idea catches on a little bit.
Dr. Leo Stanley removed 30 testicles from executed prisoners at San Quentin and put
them into other prisoners just for the hell of it.
To see what would happen.
Hey, what's up, Chuck?
I got your balls.
Hey, man, how are my balls doing?
Anyway, Harold undergoes the procedure in Chicago at Wesley Memorial Hospital. It was done by Dr. Victor Darwin
Lespinese and he is America's number one top testicle doctor.
At first the press thought he was doing a human to human testicle surgery with a donator
Or sometimes not a donator from from the AP in 1920, quote,
a married 34-year-old Husky World War I veteran
and marginally employed Wisconsin beet farmer
living in Chicago named Joseph Wozniak
reported to police that he and a friend
went to a Chicago bar where they drank heavily
with four other men.
Later, as Wozniak explained to a Chicago bar where they drank heavily with four other men. Later, as Wozniak
explained to a physician, Dr. Sempolinsky, that four men threw a bag over his head, forced
him into a car and chloroform to him. He woke up on a sidewalk under a viaduct near 17th
street. Then he discovered that one or both of his testicles were missing. Oh my God. Hey.
If you can make a buck.
You know what I mean?
These guys are entrepreneurs, baby.
These guys are, they see a market.
I cannot believe.
Like you wouldn't do it if you needed some cash.
I mean, the place went ball crazy.
Yeah.
They bagged, first of all, they bag his head and then they unbag his junk. You wouldn't do it if you needed some cash. I mean, the place went ball crazy. Yeah.
They bagged it.
First of all, they bag his head and then they unbag his junk.
Mm-hmm.
They unbag.
Yeah.
Double bag.
And then imagine waking up and being like, my balls.
Like, I've like not been able to find my phone and been like, ah.
It's the same, I think.
Like if you miss your AirPods, you're like, oh no.
Boy, that would be...
You're like, I think, I think my balls are gone.
Yeah.
Hey, excuse me, sir, can you do me a favor?
I just woke up under an aqueduct.
And um.
Viaduct.
If you're under an aqueduct, you'd be underwater.
Uh, yeah, yeah.
Well, we have bigger fish to fry right now.
I'm in the middle of a bit of a conundrum.
Now, when I peel this back, what do you see?
Anything?
Nothing, nothing.
Oh, good fuck, Christ, what?
No, why are you peeling that back?
Don't.
Because someone pinched him.
Someone had some sticky fingers.
No.
Well, I'll tell you what, buddy.
I have a monkey, and we can put a couple in there.
I also have a dog.
Oh my God.
Thank God I met you.
Anyway Harold apparently gets the monkey testicle surgery, not the human testicle surgery.
So later Genna would say Harold was insatiable after the surgery.
Really?
Yeah.
Like monkey fucking.
So he was a real monkey fucker. Yeah, all right
So Harold gets her the lead in an opera in Nice
And she's supposed to be in two shows, but then after the first the mayor of Nice
Refuses to let her take the stage again now. That's bad
That's when you're real bad when they mayor. When the mayor has to step in.
Yeah, legally shut it down. And by the way, in French, mayor means mother. That's right. So it
could go either way. He said quote, I just don't dare risk what might happen. Fortunately.
A guy got monkey balls put in him and nothing, but then this woman can't sing. That's how bad she is.
Fortunately, the folk's opera house was in debt,
so Ganna offered $100,000 if she could sing once a month.
You know, she should have done a show at 21 Soho.
Yeah.
In London, if money's not an object.
That's the place where you pay to fly there
and then put yourself up.
That's the place where you book your hotel there and then put yourself up. That's the place where you book your hotel
and you book your travel and then you get there
and then you sell out a show and then they don't pay.
Because wage theft.
Because that's the business model.
And that's 21 Soho that steals from comedians.
That's right.
Okay.
And performers, that's right.
So the opera management is like,
"'Okay, we'll take that money.'"
And she then appeared in butterfly quote, seldom has a singer more vigorously and unanimous
unanimously been roasted by Vienna's critics.
One asked the opera house to give back the hundred thousand dollars.
Oh my God.
Wow.
Oh boy.
I mean, take the note.
It ain't happening.
Yeah.
So she keeps getting a shot in operas all around Europe
and quickly fails everywhere she goes.
Harold supports her and he's in the audience
every single time she sings.
But he wants to go back and live in Chicago
and she wants to stay in Europe
and pursue this singing career that's going awesome.
So in 1931, Harold returns to the States and sues her for desertion.
Okay, that's strange.
But she's a bit older now, and she said her search for truth and great purpose was reborn.
Oh, okay.
She said there would be, quote, no more waiting for Prince Charming and focused
on her career. But then in 1937, she met scientist Harry Grandel Matthews, who lived in a fortified
compound in Wales. The mammal? No, the country. It's like a Pinocchio situation. Okay.
Harry had once claimed to have invented a death ray. Dave. Mm-hmm. Just. Mm-hmm. It just
feels like every man in this story. They're fine. Is absolutely. No. Normal.
Insane. I wouldn't say the women are looking good either.
I wouldn't either, but really, really the log lines on these gentlemen are pretty airtight.
Don't say.
We've got the clam slammer.
If you haven't tried it.
I've tried clams.
And we've got the clam slammer.
Monkey nuts.
In your nuts.
We've got monkey balls. Have you made a death ray? Have you tried making a death ray now? We got death ray, man
No, I haven't nope
So he made
How do you even make a death ray and by the way remember I I did just gloss over obviously the hero of the story
the monkey ankle bind oh right I did just gloss over obviously the hero of the story. The monkey?
Ankle bind.
Oh, right.
So the Death Ray is a doomsday weapon
able to disable engines by remote control,
set fire to distant objects,
and strike death at long ranges.
This is not a real thing.
It also has other convenient functions.
So incredibly. It's a stapler.
Incredibly, the Death ray is not real.
That's what I and Harry refuses to demonstrate it for other scientists or
the military. He just held a press conference where he'd kill a mouse with
a death death ray. So he put on this little demonstration and say this is
what it can do, but at larger scale. What would it do? I don't know exactly what he'd do at the press conference,
but he would kill a mouse with the death rate of some kind.
Reporters love it.
And he gets a lot of backing from the media.
He's a bit of a musk.
Despite physicists saying the mouse killing
was an experiment anybody could do, was not a thing.
But the media is like, no, this guy's fucking great.
And they want to know why British Parliament is ignoring this amazing death ray invention.
Like what's going on with Elizabeth Holmes?
Yes.
Right.
Turns out the military was allowed to see a death rate demonstration just once.
And the military scientists so didn't believe in it that they stepped
right into the beam to show it didn't do anything.
Oh, wow, that's pretty good.
Must've just been like.
I mean, it's rare to be on the side of the
military. The MIC, but yeah.
Very odd.
The military scientists stepping in front of it's not great
for Harry, because he said it could destroy entire cities
and it was making his assistants pass out all the time.
So now the press starts fighting over
whether it's real or not real.
Crazy.
Harry goes bankrupt,
but then bounces back with other inventions
that actually made money. And by the time he-
A life ray.
By the time he meets Ghana.
A death ray Romano.
By the way, that's a new bit I'm working on.
A sex ray.
Say, that's good too.
Do you wanna hear death ray Romano?
Sure.
Turn it on.
My parents live next door to me.
You want more?
No.
Pull the trigger again.
My brother's a cop.
Okay, I'm done.
I gotta take that to the stage.
I don't think you do.
That's real good. We should do one more.
Pull the trigger one more time.
I have twin boys.
Having twin boys is crazy. I
Love when you watch it a guy who does impressions and he's like, hey, here's something
What if William Shatner was sitting around a fire?
Christopher Lloyd the band and Bob Dylan. I
Have a couple of jokes where I'm like, it's
Bordering on that like where you're like, I wonder what that would sound like.
But yeah, those are the best.
Where it would just be like, you know, I don't even know this,
but Bob Dylan loves to build fire.
What would it be like camping with Bob Dylan?
Be like, yay, you can't get this tin.
Maybe we should camp on Maggie's farm. It's so bad. Maybe we should camp on Maggie's farm.
It's so bad.
Okay.
So by the time Harry meets Ganna, he has made money off his other dimensions.
He owns his own compound and he has a brand new invention with military potential, aerial
mines.
What?
They're aerial.
What? Walk me through. They're in the air. How? potential aerial minds What their area
Airy they're in there
How their minds in the air?
Isn't it great that that actually kind of exists now trying to?
Awesome so
Course it's aerial months
Wow, so here explains to the New York Times quote,
"'It has been said that the principle
"'is to establish a minefield in the air
"'by means of rockets and aerial torpedoes
"'fitted with time fuses which can be sent up
"'to great heights to release a colony of smaller torpedoes.
"'Each of these torpedoes drops on a parachute
"'fitted to long wires, and together,
they would form a web-like network around enemy airplanes.
There's a great deal more to it than that,
and I am naturally not telling anyone yet.
Well, it seems like you told everyone everything,
and it also sounds extremely impossible.
It sounds really dumb.
Wow.
So, Harry is, like every other dude in the story super into Ghana and
they both have a love of opera. He should come up with a Ghana Ray. I want to be
clear all I want to do is more Death Ray Romano. No I know but it's not. You can do that
after the show with yourself.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'll do it.
I'm going to do an album called Death Ray Romano.
Just took out Q-Bone.
Okay, Gannet is not into Harry.
She thought he's ugly and that he has a giant ego.
And that makes Harry really depressed,
which worries the British government
because he is now inventing
a way to detect submarines.
Quote, her indifference might kill him before his invention for detecting submarines and
defending London to reach the hands of the War Ministry.
So they are the government's worry
It's fake stuff might not happen I mean
Really amazing it really is Silicon Valley. Yeah 100%
so Harry starts giving interviews and
He's attacking Britain for not backing his incredible work and said he would sell his inventions to a foreign country.
And so like I said, Gannon likes nothing about him, but she is sort of into the possibility
of saving England from military attacks.
And her friends and the British government now start begging her to give him a chance.
Give him a chance.
Yeah, just get in there once.
Get in there once. On behalf a chance. Please fuck it. Yeah, just get in there once.
Please.
On behalf of us.
Just the tip.
Please.
Just the top of it.
Just the very top.
Just the little mushroom.
What we call the steeple.
Let him steeple you, please.
Become steeple people, please.
Your sacrifice on behalf of the British people
would never be overlooked. Give her a little bronze. Here you people, please. Your sacrifice on behalf of the British people would never be overlooked.
Give her a little bronze,
to put on her. Here you are, yes.
Take this, yes.
By a sex. Yes, you see,
this recessed copper will actually allow him to enter you
without actually entering you.
The sex will never be achieved
as long as you put this coppered cul-de-sac inside of you.
Please, please.
Well, she did.
And three months later, they were engaged to get married.
Wow, okay.
After, she goes back to France,
and he goes to his compound,
and she found him grating.
She can't, she's not into him.
Didn't take it long.
Please turn that stupid death rate
from the people off.
I can't believe it.
I'm in another conundrum.
Didn't take it long to realize he wasn't going to save
anyone from war because his vengeance were bullshit.
She's like, this is crazy.
So she goes back to the US and she's now insanely rich.
When she went through customs in New York
after a trip abroad, she had $2 million
in clothes and jewelry.
Back in New York, Ganna starts writing her memoirs
called Always Room at the Top.
Yeah, well, I mean, you could also call it
Marry the Rich Guys.
Yes.
She gets into yoga, and that's how she meets Theos Bernard.
He is the first American to be initiated
into the rites of the Tibetan Buddhism,
sorry, of Tibetan Buddhism,
and he nicknamed himself the White Llama.
So after all this, she ends up with a creepy weird yoga guy.
Look, the guy that's out in town looks like,
yeah, this is a guy who can suck his own dick.
Now we've met the guy who can suck his own dick.
I can steeple myself.
I'm a self-steepler.
He's a Buddhist mystic
and he's a celebrity yoga instructor
and he wrote just clearly fabricated stories
about traveling in Tibet.
So, Theos married a bunch of rich women
and used their money to fund his religious practices.
Yep, we've heard these types on the show before.
He's 21 years younger than Ganna.
Oh wow.
She's not that into him,
but she starts taking yoga every day,
and then he tells her that he loves her
and wants to marry her.
Okay.
When she said when they did get married,
he just burst into tears.
He started crying, He was so happy.
Ganna wanted to live more within her means and she decides to buy a ranch in California.
More within her means?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I mean, her means are basically endless.
Yeah.
Now, Theos goes and finds two properties for her in Montecito, California and commences
her to buy them and then turn
that into a retreat for Tibetan monks.
Okay.
And then Harry dies of a heart attack in 1941 and Ganna is a widow.
Think it might have been the monkey balls?
Too many.
Maybe he got a monkey heart.
Oh, so they're not married yet.
He's asked her to marry.
So, Theos pressures her to marry him and she gives in, but she does make him sign a prenup.
Smart.
So they got married in 1942 in Las Vegas, as you do if you're a yoga instructor.
Yep.
World War II breaks out and now Tibetan monks cannot come to the retreat because of visa
issues, which makes Theos very upset. Well and he's the real victim of this. Yeah. Thank you
So he starts having wild yoga instructor mood swings and then she's like I can't take this and she files for a divorce and
Theo's takes a bunch of
Ghana's books and furnishings and then he sues her for support,
saying even though there was a prenup,
he had been accustomed to this lifestyle.
This is so monk.
This is one of the main practices of Buddhism.
This is a tenant of Buddhism.
It is.
Get, I believe get yours. That was what Buddha said. He was under the trade. He. Get, I believe, get yours.
That was what Buddha said. He was under the tree.
He was like, get yours, get it.
Get everything you can.
Hurry.
So there's a trial, and during the trial he purges himself about how much he had from previous marriages, and he loses the case.
And then he goes to Tibet, where he gets shot in the head and thrown in a river.
No one knows why, but that's what happened.
I'm sure he annoyed someone.
This guy sounds like he should've been shot a lot
in the head.
What is your deal?
Leave him alone.
You know what, I know this guy.
White Llaman didn't deserve to die.
I've seen this guy too many times.
He's out in New Mexico, in the fucking desert.
He's got...
I bet they probably turned on the Death Ray Romano.
Have you ever seen the video Sex Magic? It's a documentary. Really, people won't go watch
it. It's really horrifying.
Really?
Yeah, it's a guy out there who's like a yoga type guy, but he's having sex with all the
women who come to his place. It's just like tantra, of course.
So that's the And of Ganna's marriages.
She lives on the estate in Montecito
and she renames it Lotus Land.
And she turns it into one of the greatest
botanical gardens in the world.
Nice.
She spent the next decade just taking care of
and expanding her garden.
You can still visit it today.
You can go visit it.
Great. She spent so much money on Lotus Land taking care of and expanding her garden. You can still visit it today. You can go visit it. That's great.
She spent so much money on Lotus land that she ran out of money and had to sell her jewelry
to expand.
And she did that up until she died in 1984.
Wow.
What an ending.
God damn.
That is, that is, if you're, if you're looking for a starting five,
husband-wise, suitor-wise, that's top notch.
Can I ask for something that I don't believe
I've ever asked for before?
No.
Please.
It has nothing to do with Death Ray Romano, I promise.
Fuck.
What?
Can you reread the ankle guy part just real quick?
Uh, okay.
Just the part about the guy who had to masturbate
and was obsessed with his underwear.
I won't even interrupt you.
I just wanted to.
Stanley, um, Stanley was a McCormick brother
and they were horrifically sexually repressed,
leading to Stanley as an adult to sleep in a harness
that he made strapped harness that strapped his hands
to his ankles to stop him from jerking off.
Stanley married a woman he was too freaked out to have sex with, which eventually led
to a psychotic break from all the pressure to fuck, which led him to becoming obsessed
with the texture and weight of his underwear.
The family put him under guard and imprisoned him in a mansion in Montecito and the mansion
had sprinklers and the trees to spray cold water on him if he lost his shit during a
walk on the ground.
Oh man, that guy's awesome.
And sadly, he probably had monkey, if you want more, take that guy's balls
and put them in your bag.
Yeah, 100%.
That's your one.
Okay, what a ride.
Sources, biography of Madame Genna Walscom
by Nina Wald, lotusland.org, independent newspaper,
cracked.com, The Washington Times, Buffalo Times, Fiddle of Inquirer, The Daily News,
The New York Times, all this interesting.com,
newspapers.com, and Chicago Magazine.
Man, I cannot believe how little of that I actually remember.
I don't remember any of it.
I remember, well, one thing's gonna come up,
people are like, I kinda remember this. You know what I remember is the guy eating.. I remember, well, one thing's would come up, you'd be like, I kind of remember this.
You know what I remember is the guy eating.
The guy eating, oh yeah.
Isn't that crazy that that's what I remember?
I remember that too.
I think because we maybe had a moment with David
where we were talking about that a little bit.
Everything else is like, what the fuck?
Yeah.
That is so crazy.
All right.
Well, I would encourage people to go to my website, DeathRay Romano, if you want to hear
more sound drops and if you want to get...
Jesus Christ, man.
What?
What the fuck happened in this place?
My wife and I are having issues. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you. Bada bing. All right, beauty.
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