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This is an iHeart original.

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Let me take you back to the eighteen sixties.

0:19

One evening, while the Civil War rages

0:22

back east, a newspaper man in San Francisco

0:24

is on his way home, far from

0:27

the bloodshed tearing the nation asunder.

0:29

He's peaceably working to keep readers

0:31

of the Pacific coast well informed.

0:34

But this man is not a man at peace. He

0:37

has a hair trigger and a set of brothers

0:39

who've trained him for fighting, and a

0:41

sense of righteousness that often boils

0:43

over into quick anger. So this

0:45

newspaperman, Steve Gillis,

0:48

while he's on his way home, he passes a saloon,

0:50

one of many, but this saloon, more

0:52

like a bar, stands out because he

0:55

can hear a man shouting and screaming

0:57

inside. Steve Gillis stops,

1:00

and then he steps inside the saloon to

1:02

see what's going down. Steve

1:07

Gillis sees a man he knows, Big

1:09

Jim Casey, the proprietor of the bar.

1:12

Big Jim is busy beating on a much

1:14

smaller man. Now,

1:20

Steve Gillis has a bad habit of always

1:22

standing up for the little guy, and

1:25

so he tells Big Jim Casey to

1:27

stop beating on that fella. Surprisingly,

1:30

he does as Steve instructed. Big

1:32

Jim turns the little fellow loose. Then

1:35

he refocuses his remaining

1:37

anger at Steve Gillis. He

1:41

comes at him with big, long strides,

1:44

and then he marches right past Steve headed

1:46

for the door. He doesn't

1:48

leave, though, Instead he takes

1:50

the key locks the saloon door. Then

1:52

Big Jim tucks the key away in one

1:55

of his pockets. He tells Steve Gillis,

1:57

now it's your turn. The newspaper

2:00

man, Steve Gillis, He's also on the

2:02

little side, but he has the

2:04

beating heart of a Scottish lion. Steve

2:07

Gillis takes absolutely no

2:09

guff. He stays cool headed.

2:12

He just calmly grabs a beer pitcher.

2:14

That way, when Big Jim rushes him,

2:17

which he does, Steve can smash

2:19

that heavy glass beer pitcher right upside

2:21

the big man's head, which is exactly

2:24

what he does. Big

2:28

Jim gets knocked out cold, but not only

2:30

that, He's circling the drain pipe of life

2:32

and Steve is there still locked inside

2:34

the bar. By the time the police arrive,

2:37

he ends up arresting. Steve

2:40

is taken to the San Francisco Police headquarters,

2:43

charged with AsSalt and battery. Word

2:46

quickly spreads. His best friend

2:48

is awakened with the news. Half

2:50

awake, Sam Clemens jumps up and he

2:52

springs into action. He marches over

2:54

to the layer of his enemy, the chief

2:56

of the San Francisco Police Department. Once

2:59

there, Sam Clemens arranges freedom

3:01

for his friend. He bails out Steve

3:04

Gillis. What that means is

3:06

he swears out of bond and promises to

3:08

pay five hundred dollars if Steve Gillis

3:10

jumps bail. That is about five hundred

3:12

dollars more money than Sam Clemens has

3:14

to his name. That means

3:16

if his buddy Steve flees, which

3:19

is more than likely than Sam Clemens will

3:21

subsequently be arrested, jailed, and

3:23

subject to the will of the horribly violent

3:26

and vindictive SFPD of

3:28

the eighteen sixties, who, by the

3:30

way, already hates Sam Clemens

3:32

for what he writes about the cops in the newspaper.

3:36

Now, Steve Gillis has two brothers, Jim

3:38

and William Gillis. William records

3:40

the event of that night in a book that he wrote,

3:43

and he called his book Memories of Mark

3:45

Twain and Steve Gillis.

3:47

William writes that quote.

3:49

When the two friends left the Hall of Justice, they

3:51

walked along in silence for a short distance,

3:53

with Sam and the lead shaking

3:55

his head and muttering to himself. Sam's

3:58

aloofness on this occasion was so unusual

4:00

that Steve couldn't comprehend it, so at last he

4:02

hailed them. Hold on, Sam, don't be in such a hurry.

4:05

What's the matter with you anyhow? Sam

4:07

Clemens's pissed, That's what's the matter with him

4:09

anyhow. The truth is he's also scared,

4:12

terrified actually, because now the San Francisco

4:14

Police Department possess a strong

4:17

legal reason to come after Sam.

4:19

And that's likely why he shouts back at his

4:21

friend, Steve. Haven't you got the brains

4:24

in that thickhead of yours to know that a policeman

4:26

could come here at two o'clock in the morning since

4:28

snake me off to the station house

4:30

without them knowing that you were in trouble.

4:33

Hothead or not, Steve Gillis isn't about

4:35

to be yelled at for defending a smaller man

4:37

from a beating, and Sam Clemens

4:39

equally hot headed, continues to yell

4:42

back at his best friend. Mind

4:44

you, this all occurred long before

4:46

Sam Clemens became the old cat in

4:48

the white suit, that guy you see on

4:50

the book covers with the churlish mustache.

4:53

This was back when Mark Twain was still

4:55

known by most folks as Sam Clemens,

4:57

and Sam Clemens, well, he was

5:00

a bit of a badass. In the

5:02

autumn of eighteen sixty four, Sam

5:04

Clemens was twenty nine years old and

5:07

a drinker, a rooftop carouser, a loyal

5:09

friend, and in this story, a man on the

5:12

lamb hiding out from the law. And

5:14

thanks to Aul, these early misadventures

5:17

they transform Sam Clemens into

5:19

the man we know as Mark Twain.

5:21

It's been said that all American literature

5:24

starts with Mark Twain. I'm here to tell

5:26

you all of American literature actually

5:28

started with that badass name, Sam

5:30

Clemens. Because you'll see there was

5:32

that bar fight and then a flight from the law to save

5:35

his best friend, but also a magical frog

5:37

and a hideout in the Gold Country that

5:39

all really seal the deal, crime

5:42

and camaraderie. That's how Sam Clemens

5:45

becomes Mark Twain. This

5:47

is the story of the birth of a literary

5:49

legend. This is a portrait

5:51

of the artist as a young Mark Twain.

5:56

Welcome to very special episodes in iHeart

5:58

Original podcast. I'm your host,

6:01

Zarn Burnett, and this is portrait

6:03

of the artist as a young Mark Twain.

6:10

This episode is very exciting for me because

6:13

I'm a big Mark Twain fan. Oh

6:15

really, I mean yeah, anyone who was like in you

6:17

know, a little English literature nerd in like

6:19

sixth grade, seventh grade, It's like, I

6:21

feel like we were reading Mark Twain and I was like, oh,

6:24

books can be funny, exactly.

6:25

That's a lot.

6:27

Yes, the picture of Mark Twain in my head is

6:29

always going to be the picture on the

6:31

poster that was probably in our fifth grade classroom,

6:34

the old guy, the wig, the not

6:37

the wig, the crazy hair, and.

6:38

It might have been a wig you should have been.

6:40

We'll get into that. But getting

6:43

to get the origin story here, Sarah,

6:45

I think you brought up this story the first time

6:47

we ever talked about doing the show, that you wanted

6:49

to do it in early Mark Twain history.

6:51

Have you always been always been drawn

6:54

to him?

6:54

I'm a huge Mark Twain fan.

6:56

I love a churlish writer who's

6:58

just kind of cantankerous and doesn't really like kind

7:00

of a missingthrope.

7:01

I just love him for that.

7:01

But also you can tell that he really does love humanity,

7:04

so it's like it's both ends of the extreme.

7:06

So I just love him for that.

7:07

And then I have on this board

7:09

of my office as all these images all over

7:11

it, and it is used for just random associations,

7:14

and two of them happened to be old Mark Twain,

7:16

the exact cover you're talking about, the white suit,

7:18

the white hair, and next to him is young Mark Twain.

7:20

And I just always kept that as like a how a writer

7:23

ages or something, and I don't know. And then I looked

7:25

up at that and I was like, I want to know the story of how these two

7:27

connect.

7:27

So that's why I pitched.

7:28

It to you.

7:29

That's a pretty good pitch. I think we should get right

7:31

back into your story. We'll talk about it on the other side,

7:33

all right.

7:33

Absolutely, Sam

7:36

Clemens did not want to go out west,

7:38

not at first, but sadly

7:41

he had to turn his back on his first love,

7:43

being a Mississippi river boat pilot.

7:49

He gets forced from the river in eighteen sixty

7:51

one. All the traffic was shut

7:54

down on account of the Civil War. When

7:57

the Civil War first boomed a bloody

7:59

life, Sam Clemens endured a brief two

8:01

week stint as a Confederate militiaman.

8:04

However, having seen no action and deciding

8:06

he was on the side of the Union, Sam

8:09

Clemens went a wall.

8:10

He traveled north to Keokuk, Iowa,

8:14

where he met up with his older brother, Orion

8:16

and his brother. Orion was an ardent

8:18

Lincoln man. Orion had been named

8:21

the new Secretary to the Governor of the Territory

8:23

of Nevada as a Lincoln appointee.

8:25

Orion Clemens he labored hard and earnestly

8:28

to get Lincoln elected.

8:29

This was his reward, a political

8:31

appointment.

8:32

Out west, far from the horrors of the

8:34

Civil War, he offered to take his

8:36

brother Sam with him, especially if

8:39

Sam footed the bills for their cross country

8:41

travel. Sam indeed paid

8:43

for their trip with what money he had left from

8:45

his well paid salary as a riverboat pilot.

8:48

The two brothers were off to see America

8:50

via an overland stagecoach west.

8:53

It was to be quite the adventure, crossing

8:55

the continent all the way out to the Nevada

8:57

Territory. In

9:00

August eighteen sixty one the two brothers

9:02

arrived in Carson City, Nevada, the

9:04

soon to be capital of the territory. It's

9:07

an underwhelming sight when compared

9:09

to the city's back east. Yet the

9:11

sagebrush boomtown is filled

9:13

with life and color and sensation.

9:16

Sam Clemens dashes off a letter to his

9:18

mother in the rough language of the time,

9:21

telling her about the great desert land

9:23

and all his hopes for their futures in the West.

9:26

The country is fabulously rich in gold, silver,

9:29

copper, lead, coal, iron,

9:32

quicksilver, marble, granite,

9:34

chalk, plaster of Paris, gypsum,

9:37

thieves, murderers, desperadoes,

9:40

ladies, children, lawyers, Christians,

9:42

Indians, chinamen, spaniards,

9:46

gamblers, sharpers, coyotes,

9:49

poets and preachers, and jackass rabbits.

9:52

I overheard a gentleman say the other day that it

9:54

was the damnedest country under the sun, and

9:56

that comprehensive conception I fully subscribe

9:59

to.

10:00

By eighteen sixty one, when Sam Clemens

10:02

first arrives, many many folks

10:04

have already traveled out West. They showed

10:07

up in the decade just prior. When the California

10:09

gold rush launched in eighteen

10:11

forty eight, eighteen forty nine, they came

10:13

west to take part in that mad frenzy

10:16

to pull what was called the color from

10:18

the hills. Faster

10:20

than you can say jumpin Jack Sprat, hundreds

10:23

of thousands of people, all looking to

10:25

strike it rich quick with a gold strike,

10:27

flooded into the soon to be US

10:30

state. That gold mining mania

10:32

lasted for years. Then in

10:34

eighteen fifty nine, a massive silver

10:36

deposit was discovered on the other side

10:39

of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, near

10:41

what would later be called Virginia City, Nevada.

10:43

The silver deposit was known as the Comstock

10:46

Load. When Sam Clemens and his brother

10:48

Oriyan pull into the territory, they're

10:50

too late for the gold rush, but they're just

10:53

in time for the silver craze gripping

10:55

Nevada. And at first Sam

10:57

takes no interest in mining for silver,

10:59

But soon enough he decides he'd like to try

11:02

his hand at silver mining. See what all

11:04

the fuss is about. Sam Clemens

11:06

finds a place himself in the Humboldt

11:08

mining region. He helps establish

11:10

a tiny mining camp with a few fellow prospectors.

11:13

Men work the mountains searching for

11:15

ledges that bear the signs and stripes

11:17

of color, which suggests there might be

11:20

gold or silver present within

11:22

the rocky face. Men buy

11:24

mining claims, lease others

11:27

the miners. They make some fines, but not

11:29

many. Sometimes out of boredom

11:31

or due to bad weather, Sam Clemens

11:34

writes letters from the mining camp. He sends

11:36

them into Virginia City to be published in the

11:38

local papers, the Territorial Enterprise

11:41

and the esmarel To Star. He

11:43

signs the letters he sends Josh

11:46

as in just joshing or joking around.

11:48

The letters are meant to be Little Vignette's

11:50

humorous accounts of life in the mining camps,

11:53

but his letters have this quality to them.

11:56

They're more than just funny letters.

11:59

Eventually those letters will set sam

12:01

Clemens on a new path away from the dust

12:03

of mining.

12:04

He's doing that only because he's

12:07

been trying to hit it big in the mines and

12:09

that didn't work out.

12:11

That's Robert Hurst. He's the head of

12:13

the Mark Twain papers. You see Berkeley's

12:15

archive of Twain's published works, letters,

12:17

sketches stories.

12:19

He's really out of money. He and

12:21

his brother are both been trying to kind of, you

12:23

know, find a mind that really

12:26

will make them millionaires, etc. And

12:28

they come close, but they don't make it a lot. I can like

12:30

a lot of people while he's out there in

12:33

the mines, you know, just really

12:35

digging. I mean Mark Plan is not a big physical

12:37

guy, but he was, you know, he used

12:39

to pick et cetera shovel.

12:44

Sam Clemens gets offered a job at the Territorial

12:46

Enterprise. The twenty five dollars

12:49

per week he's promised sounds far

12:51

better than the backbreaking nothing that he's

12:53

making as a miner. So in August

12:55

of eighteen sixty two, Sam Clemens

12:58

gives up on working his silver mining claim

13:00

and then Devata Territory. He then

13:03

hEFS his pack up onto his shoulder

13:05

and hikes one hundred and thirty

13:07

miles, crossing desert and mountains

13:10

until he reaches the Boomtown, Virginia

13:12

City. Sam Clemens arrives

13:14

in town exhausted, dust covered,

13:17

and trail sore. Thankfully

13:21

for the future of American literature. He's

13:23

welcomed into Virginia City by a group

13:25

of wild eyed journalists who spend their

13:27

days running a Boomtown newspaper. It's

13:30

a respected paper, but it's also one that's

13:32

known more for its colorful prose than

13:34

for its sober treatment of the news of the day,

13:37

sam Clemens finds he's in good company.

13:40

The men all become fast friends. The

13:44

proprietor and chief editor, a

13:46

man named Joseph Goodman, offers

13:48

sam Clemens steady employment. His

13:50

days spent as a typesetter back home

13:52

in Missouri come in handy. He

13:55

takes the job, and within a year sam

13:57

Clemens emerges as the defecto leader

13:59

of that rowdy bunch of mining camp newspapermen.

14:04

The next year, eighteen sixty three, amid

14:06

the the ongoing horrors of the

14:08

Civil War. Safe there in the far

14:11

West, sam Clemens stays busy

14:13

giving the news to minors working

14:15

the comstock load. He's sent to

14:17

Carson to report on the territorial capital

14:20

and its legislature. Nevada

14:22

is debating statehood. Now the capital

14:24

isn't the liveliest beat, but his editor

14:27

trust Sam Clemens can make his reporting

14:29

come alive. With his unique observations

14:31

and his rare wit. He's already

14:33

in getting known for his voice on the page.

14:36

It's at his first professional writing gig

14:38

there at the Territorial Enterprise, that young

14:41

Sam Clemens finds he has a natural

14:43

born gift for telling stories, funny

14:45

ones, so he.

14:47

Should hire as a reporter. And

14:49

the reporter's job is visited to go around

14:52

Virginia City and find out, you know, brief

14:55

stories, brief squibs

14:58

about what's going on. Okay,

15:00

but of course, because he's got a sense of humor

15:02

that it's so in parallel.

15:05

All those things are amazingly

15:08

funny, and he

15:11

is eventually given the role of

15:14

an out of town writer. Letter

15:16

writer, send him to Carson where

15:18

the legislature is taking place.

15:21

Unlike with mining, Sam Clemens is

15:23

an instant success as a political reporter.

15:26

Clemens is first of all just

15:28

extremely outgoing and

15:31

able to kind of talk to all kinds

15:34

of people, and then he's able

15:36

to kind of give a report that

15:38

is, well, it's

15:40

not what you and I would think of as news. It's

15:43

part story, part fiction, part

15:46

a joke, a hoax, all kinds

15:48

of things like that.

15:50

Long before Hunter S. Thompson and Tom

15:52

Wolf would invent gonzo journalism

15:54

as a blend of fact in fiction, Sam

15:57

Clemens is out there pulling that same sort

15:59

of literary stunt with his letters from

16:01

Carson.

16:02

We don't have those letters. They are so

16:05

early that no one has only

16:08

preserved brief descriptions zone.

16:10

It's just clear from what we've

16:12

gathered over the years that Martroy

16:15

liked publishing those things that he wrote

16:18

for himself without ever really thinking

16:20

of himself as a professional

16:23

writer. That would take a while

16:25

before he got there.

16:27

Now that he has essentially found his

16:29

tribe and his calling, Sam Clemens

16:31

gets to work making a name for himself.

16:33

As a reporter.

16:36

While he's working in Virginia City for

16:38

the Territorial Enterprise, he's also sending

16:40

letters down to a bigger paper in San Francisco.

16:43

Those readers fall.

16:44

In love with his accounts from the rough and tumble

16:46

part of the West. Most of his writing

16:48

in those days as a Territorial reporter

16:51

doesn't carry his byline, as in there's

16:53

no name given for the author. But

16:56

then on February second, eighteen sixty

16:58

three, Sam Clemens sends in a letter reporting

17:01

on the political events going down in Carson,

17:03

and this time he signs the letter for publication

17:06

Mark Twain. That's

17:08

the first time he uses that name in print,

17:10

February second, eighteen sixty three.

17:13

Apparently Sam feels it fits him

17:15

well, because from that day forward, Sam

17:17

Clemens uses the new name in print,

17:20

and soon enough in life he becomes

17:23

Mark Twain.

17:25

It's not like it is today, right, I

17:27

mean, if you're a stand up comic

17:29

today here at the top of the a

17:31

list, right, that's not the way it was in

17:33

Mark Twain Stein. It really wasn't that way for the

17:35

whole of the nineteenth century. It's

17:38

a low form, and so a pseudonym

17:41

is used as a kind of protection

17:44

against being too much identified

17:46

with this not very respectable

17:48

journalist and form. It is

17:51

a mask. I mean, the humors we know, if

17:54

we know them at all, we know

17:56

them by their pseudonym.

17:58

Well, Sam Clemens is working as a reporter at

18:00

the Territorial Enterprise, carousing with

18:02

that wild group of fellow newspapermen.

18:05

One of the most famous humorists of the comes

18:07

to town. He's

18:09

there to entertain the denizens of the boomtown

18:12

for some of that silver jingling in their pockets.

18:14

His name is Artemis Ward, which,

18:17

well, as you might guess.

18:19

Artemis Ward is asuday, it's not

18:21

his real name. Charles Brown is his real

18:23

name.

18:24

Artemis Ward stays in Virginia City

18:26

for eleven days. In that time,

18:28

Mark Twain reviews his show for the enterprise.

18:31

He witnesses first hand the comic wit

18:33

of Artemis Ward and his stage presence,

18:36

how he has mastered the effect of his voice

18:39

to share truths, not facts. This

18:41

performance will stay with Twain, and

18:43

it also marks the beginning of their friendship.

18:46

Artemis Ward was a fellow newspaper guy.

18:49

The two men quickly bond as both friends

18:51

and peers. Those

18:53

eleven days are memorable for all involved.

18:57

Artemis Ward keeps in touch with Sam Clemens,

18:59

writing to him from another mining camp in Nevada.

19:02

I shall always remember Virginia as

19:04

a bright spot in my existence, as

19:07

all others must, or rather cannot be, as

19:09

it were. But not only that, He also

19:11

urges his comrade and Ink to recognize

19:14

the unique power of his own voice. Artemis

19:16

Ward writes to Sam Clemens.

19:19

Sir, do not flatter yourself that you are

19:21

the only chastely humorist rater

19:23

onto the Pacific slopes. Goodbye,

19:26

oh boy, and God bless you. The

19:29

matter of which I spoke to you so earnestly

19:31

shall be just as earnestly attended

19:34

to now. That matter was

19:36

Artemis Ward's offer to get editors

19:38

in New York to read and publish Sam Clemens's

19:41

work. However, Sam remains

19:43

doubtful.

19:44

Well, I certainly didn't hurt us say to

19:46

have someone like Artemis Ward say

19:48

you should make yourself known to the Eastern

19:51

journals. It was encouraging.

19:54

But first Sam Clemens will have to leave

19:56

behind those happy days at the Territorial

19:59

Enterprise. One

20:07

day, while his boss Joseph Goodman is

20:09

away at the time down in San Francisco

20:11

on a holiday and Sam Clemens is

20:13

acting as editor in chief, he

20:16

uses the opportunity to renew a

20:18

personal feud.

20:19

James L.

20:20

Laird is the fuddy duddy editor

20:22

of the rival Virginia city paper, The

20:25

Daily Union.

20:26

For a number of.

20:27

Days, Sam Clemens amuses himself

20:29

and his newspaper buddies by sending challenges

20:31

to Laird, demanding that he partake

20:34

in a duel. But then the

20:36

editor Laird actually does take Sam Clemens

20:38

up on his joking offer. A time

20:41

and a place are set for the writer's deadly

20:43

play with firearms. True

20:45

to that time in his life. His friend

20:47

Steve Gillis is integral to the story

20:49

that follows. You see via

20:52

one well placed little white lie,

20:54

Steve saves Sam's hide.

20:57

The deed went down like this.

20:59

Steve is helping Sam get ready for his future

21:01

duel with some target practice. But

21:04

the thing is Sam Clemens is a hopeless

21:06

gunman.

21:08

I began on the rail, I

21:11

couldn't hit the rail. Then I tried the barn door,

21:14

but I couldn't hit the barn door. There

21:16

was nobody in danger but stragglers around on

21:18

the flanks of that mark. I

21:21

was thoroughly discouraged, and I didn't cheer up

21:23

anyone. I presently heard pistol shots

21:25

over the next little ravine. I

21:27

knew what that was. That was Laird's gang

21:30

out practicing him.

21:32

Laird and his gang do, indeed hear

21:34

Sam's gunshots. Naturally,

21:37

they come over the rise to see what sort of shot

21:39

Sam Clemens is, which, as you know, is

21:41

the terrible kind. This is

21:44

where his buddy Steve Gillis steps in to save

21:46

him. A tiny bird catches

21:48

Steve's eye. He whips out his pistol

21:50

and he fires. He dots

21:52

that bird with a bullet right in its eye.

21:55

The bird's head explodes in a cloud

21:57

of feathers. What little remains falls

21:59

to the earth, cold and dead, barely.

22:02

A few moments later, Laird and his boys

22:04

walk into the scene.

22:08

We ran down to pick up the bird, and then

22:10

sure enough mister Lard and his people came over

22:12

the ridge and they joined us. When

22:14

Laard second saw that bird with his head shot

22:16

off, he lost color, he faded,

22:19

and you could see he was interested. He said

22:21

who did that? Before

22:23

I could answer, Steve spoke it. He said,

22:26

quite calmly, a matter of fact, way Clements

22:28

did it. The second said, why,

22:30

that's a wonderful How

22:33

far off was that bird? Steve said,

22:35

oh, not far, about thirty yards.

22:38

The second said, well, that's astonishing shooting.

22:40

How often can he do that? Steve said,

22:42

languidly, about four

22:44

out of five. I knew that little

22:46

rascal was lying. I didn't say anything.

22:49

Second said, why that's amazing

22:51

shooting. I suppose he couldn't

22:53

hit a church.

22:56

This well timed lie by Steve slyly

22:59

saves Sam Clemens's life, since,

23:01

as he later learns.

23:03

Lard had hit his mark four

23:05

out of six right along. If the

23:07

duel had come off, he would have filled my skin

23:09

with so many bullet holes that it

23:11

wouldn't have held my principles.

23:15

After he avoids near certain death and a

23:17

duel, Sam Clemens decides it's high time

23:19

for he and Steve de Van moose from Virginia

23:21

City, especially after they hear

23:23

from the territorial governor. The governor

23:26

gets word to them it would be a good idea

23:28

for us to leave the territory by the first stage

23:30

coach.

23:31

Now.

23:31

If they missed that early bird stage coach

23:33

the next day, Sam Clemens will be the

23:36

first man prosecuted under the new

23:38

state law forbidding dueling, and

23:40

it carries a sentence of two years in

23:42

prison at hard labor.

23:46

I've never had anything to do with duels

23:49

since I thoroughly disprove

23:51

the duels. I consider them

23:53

unwise, and I know they are dangerous

23:56

also sinful. If

23:58

a man should challenge me now, I would

24:01

go to that man, taken kindly

24:03

and forgivenly by his hand, lead

24:07

him to a quiet retired spot, and

24:10

kill him.

24:13

Sam Clemens and his buddy Steve Gillis

24:15

read the shifting winds and recognize

24:17

it's time they try their hands working

24:20

elsewhere, perhaps for one of the big newspapers

24:22

down in San Francisco. On

24:24

May twenty ninth, eighteen sixty four, Sam

24:27

and Steve leave Virginia City

24:29

by stagecoach.

24:30

Then they take a riverboat back to the

24:32

Bay.

24:34

Back east, young men like Sam Clemens

24:36

and Steve Gillis are dying by

24:38

the thousands in muddy, bloody

24:41

battlefields of the Civil War. Meanwhile,

24:44

these two young newspaper men, both

24:46

from the South, are lucky to be

24:48

way out west where they can chase libertine

24:50

pleasures and literary futures. In

24:54

San Francisco. One hundred years before

24:56

the Summer of Love put the city by the Bay

24:58

on the map as the capital of the hippie counterculture,

25:01

there was this prior era of Bohemian

25:03

rebellion. You see, back in the eighteen

25:05

sixties, a free space, sirited era first

25:08

royaled the status quo of the city.

25:10

A perfect example the type of folks who were drawn

25:13

to San Francisco at that time was this.

25:15

Man named Emperor Norton. That's

25:17

not his government name. He was born Joshua

25:20

Abraham Norton, a commodities

25:22

dealer when he first arrives, but after a disastrous

25:25

loss when he tries to corner the local rice

25:27

market, he loses everything,

25:29

including his marbles. Free

25:31

of his sanity, he reinvents himself

25:34

as the Emperor of the United States,

25:36

because why not, and as Emperor Norton,

25:38

he becomes this beloved figure in this

25:40

loose, free, willing city. Now,

25:43

in order to time travel back to those days,

25:45

we caught up with Emperor Norton's

25:47

fantastic San Francisco time

25:50

machine, and we asked the historical

25:52

reenactor who gives guided tours of the

25:54

city dressed mind you as Emperor

25:56

Norton, to take us back to the San

25:58

Francisco haunts that Sam Clemens

26:01

would have known.

26:04

So we are now within the wicked, wicked

26:07

Barbary Coast. When the

26:09

beginning of the tour around Maiden Lane formerly

26:11

Morton shut but I said that was like take

26:14

that, multiply it by a hundred

26:17

add in gambling halls, opium

26:19

dens, concert saloons,

26:22

every vice imaginable,

26:25

some unimagined.

26:27

You would have.

26:28

The Barbary Coast gold

26:30

miners would come down the Sierra loaded down

26:32

with their gold dust and gold ore and take

26:34

it down appropriately named gold Street.

26:36

Here you are looking

26:38

at Safrus from the eighteen fifties.

26:41

Literally, the gold miner would

26:43

scoop up that cash and make a b line

26:45

to the establishments around here to get

26:48

all the things he couldn't get up

26:50

in the Sierra. Let's just

26:52

say wine,

26:54

women and song. You know, a whole

26:56

lot of it. A lot of that activity

26:58

took place well applock up there on

27:01

Pacific Street, which then

27:03

had the nickname of Terrific

27:05

Street because of all the things you could get

27:07

there.

27:09

This was the vibe in San Francisco when

27:11

Sam Clemens and Steve Gillis arrive in

27:13

May of eighteen sixty four. At

27:16

that time, it's a boisterous city of around one

27:19

hundred thousand people, filled

27:21

with boundless optimism, enthusiasm,

27:24

and plenty of unchecked greed, as

27:26

well as the interlocking labyrinths

27:29

of the underworld community. Sam

27:31

Clemens he plans to strike it rich

27:33

now. His new idea is to buy and sell stocks

27:36

in the silver and gold mines.

27:38

Less work. That way, He finds

27:40

lodgings for himself at a swanky joint, the

27:42

Occidental Hotel.

27:45

I lived at the best hotels, exhibited

27:48

my clothes in the most conspicuous places,

27:51

infested the opera, and learned

27:53

to seemen raptured with music, which

27:56

oftener afflicted my agorant ear than

27:59

enchanted it.

28:02

As he's infesting the opera,

28:04

waiting on his imminent wealth to arrive

28:06

from his many mining stocks. His

28:09

fortune never does arrive, it

28:11

never materializes. Instead, the value of his mining

28:13

stocks come crashing down.

28:15

He loses it all.

28:18

The wreckage was complete. I

28:20

was an early bigger and

28:22

a thorough one.

28:24

Sam Clemens turns back to his writing.

28:26

He cobbles together an income from a few

28:29

literary journals and newspapers

28:31

in San Francisco. Meanwhile,

28:33

he also befriends men whose names would

28:35

later earn them fame. Back

28:37

to our tour guide, Emperor Norton.

28:39

What studier of eighteen fifty three to nineteen

28:41

fifty nine was this building?

28:44

The Montgomery Block, affectionately

28:47

known as the Monkey Block,

28:50

It was the first modern office block

28:52

in San Francisco. It was home

28:54

to artists and writers like Ambrose

28:57

Spears, Brett Hart, Jack

28:59

London, Robert Lewis

29:01

Stevenson, Lola Montez,

29:03

and Lotta Crabtree all had

29:06

offices in the Montgomery Block at

29:08

one time or another, as

29:10

did a relatively obscure writer by

29:13

the name of Samuel Clemons.

29:16

Well, that was his name when he got By

29:18

the time he leaves San Francisco, he's

29:20

world famous and known as

29:23

Mark Twain.

29:26

Back then, the real Emperor Norton and Sam

29:28

Clemens were quite familiar with each other. Some

29:30

claim the King from the King and the Duke from

29:32

Huckleberry Finn is based on

29:34

Emperor Norton.

29:36

Our pas costs many times.

29:38

After all, he worked here, I

29:40

lived there At one

29:43

point. His office was right next

29:45

door to the Eureka Logics

29:47

boarding house where I lived.

29:49

He wrote about me on a number of occasions,

29:53

but.

29:54

Not a very flattering torture in that book

29:57

says I was a drunken, a grifter

30:00

who that Stiggs.

30:03

We're going to have very stern words

30:05

with Clemens the next time we encounter

30:08

him.

30:08

I can assure you it's

30:10

to be very upsetting.

30:12

That claim, by the way, is disputed

30:14

by the head of the Mark Twain Archive, Bob

30:17

Hurst. But we'll let the Emperor

30:19

have his story. Why argue?

30:21

Now flatbusted and needing a job

30:23

and qualified for few, Sam Clemens

30:25

finds work at the San Francisco Morning

30:28

Call, located there at six hundred

30:30

and twelve Commercial Street. For the newspaper,

30:33

sam Clemens writes about the local events,

30:35

Penn's theater reviews. He handles crime

30:37

reporting. His day starts at the

30:39

courthouse middle

30:41

hours of the day. He spends patting about the

30:44

city, sniffing after any story of the

30:46

day. At night, he attends the

30:48

theater. He sees the shows people are

30:50

talking about.

30:51

He reviews those.

30:53

Then finally he retires to his chambers

30:56

around eleven pm.

30:58

There he writes.

30:59

Into the small hours of the morning. Typically

31:02

he turns in sometime

31:04

around.

31:04

Two or three am. At

31:07

nine am the next day he's back at the courthouse.

31:10

It was fearful drudgery, soul

31:13

of drudgery, almost destitute

31:15

of interest. It was an awful

31:18

slavery for a lazy

31:20

man.

31:21

Also, The Morning Call is a inexpensive

31:24

newspaper, one aimed at the working class,

31:26

predominantly Irish population. It's

31:29

known as a washerwoman's paper, not

31:31

the ideal for a young writer with literary

31:34

aspirations, mostly though in practical

31:36

terms it means the stories he writes have

31:38

to accord with the cultural prejudices

31:41

of his readers. That grates

31:43

on Sam Clemens until finally,

31:45

in October of eighteen sixty four, Sam

31:47

Clemens makes the damnable mistake

31:49

of going against the overt prejudices

31:52

of his readers.

31:54

One Sunday afternoon, I saw some muddlms

31:57

chasing and stone in a chinaman who

31:59

was heavily laden with the weak waship

32:01

Christian customers. And I noticed

32:04

that a policeman was observing this performance

32:06

with us interest nothing more, He

32:09

did not intervene. I wrote

32:11

up the incident with considerable wimpth and holy

32:13

indignation, and so

32:16

I sought for it in the paper the next morning with eagerness.

32:19

It wasn't there. The

32:21

foreman said mister Barnes had found in a gallery

32:23

poof and or its extinction. He

32:26

said that the Call gathered its livelihood

32:28

from the poor and must respect their prejudices

32:31

or perish.

32:34

After his editorial against anti Chinese

32:37

racism gets killed, so dies

32:39

his future at the paper. Yet

32:41

even after he fires him, his editor still

32:44

encourages Sam that he's quote capable

32:46

of better things in literature.

32:48

He says, Barnes gave him a

32:50

chance to retire, to resign, and instead

32:53

of just firing him, I mean the Call

32:55

job was not well suited to him. He was doing

32:58

nothing but local items. And

33:00

this piece that gets turned down was

33:03

actually more ambitious than almost anything

33:05

else that we know about that he actually published.

33:07

Hoping to stave off the dolgrums of poverty,

33:10

Sam writes ambitious pieces for Brett

33:12

Hart's stylish new weekly The Californian

33:15

in the eighteen sixties. San Francisco is

33:17

home to a rare group of writers. Collectively,

33:20

they're known as the Bohemians. This

33:23

informal group includes Brett Hart, Ambrose

33:25

Spears, Henry George, Joaquin Miller,

33:28

and Mark Twain, although Twain

33:30

more often he prefers the company of a separate

33:32

San Francisco literary society, the

33:35

Argonauts, and there are also others,

33:37

such as the Romancers. It was a

33:39

fertile literary grounds in which to

33:41

grow. But why San Francisco

33:44

in the eighteen sixties. What brought this

33:46

literary scene together?

33:48

It was a relatively unburned

33:51

free atmosphere in which

33:53

you were allowed to say things, print

33:56

things which might not be

33:58

printed if you were in New York, or in

34:00

Washington or even Denver.

34:02

Since he's no longer a paid reporter for a

34:04

daily paper, money grows tight quickly.

34:07

Literary aspirations often do leave hungry

34:10

bellies, underemployed, broke. Yet

34:12

again, Sam Clemens falls into what we

34:14

would think of as a deep depression.

34:17

He gives up his room at the Nice Hotel. He

34:20

moves into a cheap rooming house for

34:22

months. The Blues are his constant

34:24

companion.

34:28

And Mark Twain. When he comes

34:30

back from the Angels camp, he's still

34:32

unemployed, and he goes from about

34:34

February eighteen sixty five until

34:37

October eighteen sixty five, it's unemployed.

34:41

Maybe writing a few things for the Californian,

34:43

so some income, but not

34:46

committed to being a writer. And

34:49

we know from a very important letter that

34:51

he writes in October

34:53

eighteen sixty five that a reason

34:56

for not committing himself to this profession

34:59

is that humor was well.

35:01

As he said, it's my strongest suit,

35:04

but there's nothing to be proud of. It's

35:07

literature of a low order. I

35:09

issuees.

35:10

In his book Roughing It, Sam Clemens writes

35:13

about this sense of shame at his prospects,

35:15

in the deep embarrassment of his poverty,

35:18

such that it prevents him from seeing his friends.

35:21

I slunk from backstreet to backstreet.

35:24

I slunk away from approaching faces

35:27

that looks familiar. I

35:29

slunk to my knees. And at midnight,

35:31

after wanderings were but slinking

35:33

away from cheerfulness and light, I

35:36

slunk to my bed. I

35:38

felt meaner and lonelier and

35:41

more despicable than the worms.

35:45

During all this time, I had

35:47

but one piece of money, a

35:49

silver ten cent piece. I

35:52

clung to my dime desperately, till

35:54

it was smooth with handling. I

35:57

held onto it and would not spend

35:59

it on any account, lest

36:01

the consciousness coming strong upon

36:03

me I was entirely penniless.

36:06

Might suggest suicide.

36:09

And in a marginal note he records

36:12

in his manuscript for the book Roughing It,

36:14

Sam Clemens documents his lowest

36:16

moment as he writes of how he decides

36:18

perhaps he ought to end it all.

36:21

I put the pistol to my head, and

36:24

I wasn't man enough to pull the trigger. Many

36:27

times I've been sorry I did not

36:29

succeed, but I was

36:31

never ashamed of han't tried.

36:37

Despite this brush with self annihilation,

36:40

his humor and sarcasm remain intact.

36:43

Sam later jokes about thoughts of self harm

36:45

the same way he'd joke about missing out on a

36:47

failing mining stock. Luckily

36:49

for the floundering writer. About this same time,

36:52

an old friend comes back into his life.

36:54

Joe Goodman could see what

36:57

Clemens was all about. He knew

36:59

this was a genius.

37:01

Joe was still at the Enterprise, so he

37:03

rehires Sam Clemens as a San Francisco

37:05

correspondent. In daily Letters

37:07

from the Heart of the City, you see

37:09

they flip it around now he writes about the city

37:12

for the folks in Gold Country.

37:14

These are two thousand words and they

37:17

are a gold mine

37:19

of early Mark Twain's writing. I

37:21

mean he is able to do things

37:24

in these letters which show

37:26

you where he's going to go.

37:29

Writing in the Enterprise, Sam Clemens often

37:31

pens critiques of the San Francisco Police

37:34

that captured the attention of Police Chief

37:36

Martin J.

37:36

Burke.

37:37

You have to understand at the time, the police

37:39

in San Francisco were not normal

37:41

cops. The early Gold Rush era

37:44

San Francisco Police Department had been taken

37:46

over by a group called the Committee

37:48

of Vigilance, and Sam Clemens

37:50

was quick to criticize these former self

37:52

appointed vigilantes turn police

37:55

and their ideas of law and order

37:57

through applied violence and by

37:59

running the vice operations themselves.

38:02

The festering tensions between sam Clemens

38:04

and the San Francisco Police Department were bound

38:07

to come to a head just as sure

38:09

as the sun will come up tomorrow. The bubble

38:11

finally bursts for Sam when

38:14

Steve Gillis gets in that bar fight

38:16

with Big Jim Casey.

38:18

Well, oh, first of all, let's realize

38:21

that what would happen if he had stayed

38:23

was that he'ld be imprisoned because he couldn't meet

38:25

the bail. I mean, what he had done was

38:28

to basically bail Steve out

38:30

with the little money that he had, and

38:33

if you stuck around, he would be hit

38:35

up for the rest of that which he didn't

38:37

have.

38:38

And add to that, Sam Clemens is

38:40

keenly aware of the fact the chief of Police

38:42

can now use this opportunity to get

38:45

his personal revenge against the young

38:47

newspaper man, the one who's printed all those

38:49

disparaging opinions about his police

38:51

force.

38:52

He's been sitting on their toes for a

38:54

couple of months in the Enterprise, so you

38:57

ain't got a lot of friends there.

38:58

He knows that Sam Clemens

39:00

knows for certain that if Steve Gillis

39:02

jumps bail and makes a run for it, which

39:04

is likely, he'll have to pay the full bay

39:07

amount, which he does not have.

39:08

If he fails to pay up the San Francisco Police

39:11

Department, we'll get their bloody revenge

39:13

on Sam Clements. They will beat some

39:15

respect into him.

39:17

Now. Aside from that bodily pressure, Bob

39:20

Hurst believes Sam Clemens also felt

39:22

a more personal motivation to flee

39:24

San Francisco.

39:26

My own view is that other

39:28

things were really motivating him to get

39:30

out of town. And part of it is just

39:33

not knowing what he's going to do with his own life.

39:36

I mean, not knowing what

39:38

kind of job, what kind of career, what kind of

39:40

profession he's going to pursue. It's

39:43

clear, as he says, humor is my strongest

39:45

suit. It's just nothing to be proud of.

39:48

And so when Steve suggests they

39:50

make a run for it, Sam Clemens

39:53

listens to his friend

39:55

say.

39:55

Sam says, Steve, if

39:57

I have to go back to Virginia City, and I guess

40:00

I'd better you go up to my two

40:02

brothers on Jackass Hill and you stay with them until

40:04

this thing blows over. They will

40:06

be delighted to have you with him. There

40:08

will be a splendid vacation and adding for

40:10

you, and you will have the time of your life.

40:13

It won't interfere in your engagements with the papers for

40:15

which you are writing here, and you will be

40:17

able to pick up a lot of things that will help you as

40:19

a writer.

40:21

On the lamb, sam Clemens can stay

40:23

safe and free from the violence of the SFPD,

40:26

and it also gives this rootless, underemployed

40:28

young man with few prospects the

40:31

time he needs to decide what he

40:33

should and what he wants to do next.

40:36

Should he listen to the advice of his friend Artemis

40:38

Warden, write for the big publishers back

40:40

east, or continue on as

40:42

he would want to as a newspaper man

40:45

on the Pacific coast. All of his answers

40:47

would come to him at a place called Jackass

40:49

Hill. That's where Sam Clemens

40:52

will finally strike it rich. Only

40:54

it isn't the gold he's always imagined.

40:56

Rather, this gold will arrive in the form

40:59

of a magical frog. In

41:06

the first days of December eighteen sixty

41:08

four, Sam Clemens flees San

41:10

Francisco like a thief. In the night, he

41:12

sneaks out of town on a steamship. He's

41:14

again back on a riverboat, this time

41:17

headed east. The next

41:19

day, Sam Clemens takes the morning stagecoach

41:22

into the Gold Country to a town called

41:24

Sonora. After long, dusty

41:26

travel, he finally arrives on December

41:29

fourth. He makes his way to the Gillis

41:31

Cabin at the summit of Jackass

41:33

Hill. The nearest town is a small

41:36

mining camp called Tuttletown, fifteen

41:39

hundred feet above sea level in

41:41

the foothills of the Sierras. Now,

41:43

when Sam Clemens arrives, most of the gold

41:45

is already gone. The big gold

41:47

strikes, the Bonanzas mother loads,

41:50

they're all things of the past. However,

41:52

that doesn't stop Sam Clemens from jumping

41:55

into gold mining.

41:56

Since the big gold.

41:57

Deposits are all mined out, that leaves only

41:59

small pockets of gold which are picked

42:02

over by what's called pocket miners.

42:04

That's what the brother of Steve Gillis does.

42:07

It's a very tenuous kind of existence

42:10

as not as if you're going to make it big in doing

42:12

this, and that's pretty clear that the

42:14

Gillises and others who

42:17

were there with him just liked the freedom

42:19

from civilized city

42:21

life. They liked being out in the country

42:24

often where is a good way to think of it, I think,

42:27

And because there

42:29

were skilled at this, they could in fact easily

42:31

support themselves.

42:35

Living in the Gillis cabin with Sam or Steve

42:37

Gillis's brothers, Jim and William

42:39

Gillis, and their mining partner

42:41

Dick Stoker. The Gillis Cabin

42:43

is bitterly cold in winter, has no

42:46

indoor plumbing.

42:47

Not even an outhouse.

42:48

The men they all sleep in one

42:51

big room on wooden planks.

42:53

They cover themselves in.

42:54

Old, damp, mildewed, flea

42:57

infested blankets. Add

42:59

to this mix that Dick Stoker brought with

43:01

him and a menagerie of animals

43:03

he has with him in the cabin, a pig,

43:06

a jay, a skunk,

43:10

and a cat. And

43:12

now also add in the dog

43:14

that Jim Gillis takes with him everywhere

43:17

he goes. You can practically

43:19

smell this cabin. The place was

43:22

ripe with life, and not nearly enough

43:24

room to house at all. Since

43:26

it's deep in the winter. When sam Clemens

43:29

arrives, the men often spend

43:31

a week or more cooped up together,

43:33

snowbounds stuck inside.

43:36

For sam Clemens, though life on the lamb

43:38

from the law, life at the Gillis Cabin,

43:40

it feels like simple, rustic

43:43

heaven, he writes about it in his autobiography.

43:46

It was the most singular and the most touching and melancholy

43:49

exile that fancy can imagine we

43:51

lived in a small cabin on a verdant hillside,

43:53

and then we're not file of the cabins in view over

43:55

the wide expanse of hill and forest.

43:58

Sam Clemens he's up there on Jackass

44:00

Hill for a total of eighty eight days.

44:02

For that nearly three months stretch,

44:04

living life on the lamb, he spends a

44:07

lot of time writing in his journals

44:09

instead of doing any serious mining.

44:12

He fills out four notebooks

44:14

while he's in Gold Country. Over

44:17

his time there at the Gillis Cabin. Enraptured

44:20

by this surrounding beauty and all the unfettered

44:22

simplicity of nature, sam Clemens

44:24

just thinks, and

44:27

he breathes, and he lets

44:29

life happen. At this point,

44:31

he knows he wants to write, but

44:34

he hates that the writing he's best

44:36

at is humor, as Bob Hurst

44:38

put it, quote that lowest form of writing.

44:41

And because of this, sam Clemens struggles

44:43

with ideas for his future. Meanwhile,

44:47

up there in Gold Country, sam Clemens also

44:49

finds a couple of healthy distractions,

44:52

namely a pair of sisters. He

44:54

relaxes with them for afternoon picnics,

44:57

He talks with them on long walks, and

44:59

he spends many hours in shady glens

45:02

with them and Jim Gillis.

45:04

They're called the Danielle Sisters, Nellie and

45:07

Molly. In her book The Saga

45:09

of Old tuolemy Edna Buckby describes

45:11

the sisters in a way that they come to life

45:13

with the broad brush that she paints them with.

45:16

They boasted of having the slimmest

45:18

wastes, the largest bustles.

45:21

And the stiffest starched petticoats

45:23

in the entire locality.

45:26

Sam Clemens will also later write about

45:28

the sisters in his book The Innocence

45:30

Adrift.

45:31

They were sisters seventeen eighteen

45:34

years old, respectively, beautiful

45:36

creatures, clean minded, good

45:38

hearted, well meaning, favorites

45:41

with old and young. Yet they could

45:43

outswear satan. It

45:46

was the common speech of the remote,

45:48

thinly celled region. They

45:50

had come by it naturally, and if there was any

45:52

harm in it, they were not aware of it.

45:55

Despite this time spent squiring

45:57

the Danielle's sisters around Gold Country

45:59

hills, Sam quickly grows to dislike

46:02

life as a pocket miner, enduring

46:04

the poor weather, bad food, and worst

46:06

coffee. Eventually, he and Jim

46:08

Gillis relocate to better accommodations

46:11

in a place called Angels Camp.

46:13

He and Jim Gillis get rooms at the Angel's

46:16

Hotel. There they

46:18

spend considerable time together at the hotel's

46:20

saloon. It's the only real hotel in

46:22

the camp. Thus it's the camp's main

46:25

hangout spot. It's where everyone stays

46:27

dry and swaps stories by the wood stove.

46:29

So there he is in Angels Camp, hanging

46:32

around a tavern in this hotel, swapping

46:34

tall tales and short stories passed

46:36

around a wood stove, and Sam Clemens

46:39

meets an old river boat pilot.

46:41

The two men get to talking. The fellow

46:44

riverboat pilot tells him a story about

46:46

a peculiar jumping frog. It

46:48

isn't the story per se, but rather

46:50

the way the man tells it. His

46:52

funny little yarn stays with Sam

46:55

Clemens. He jots down the important

46:57

details in one of his notebooks. He

47:00

records in his notes just a scant amount

47:02

of words. Coleman with his jumpin

47:04

frog, a stranger of fifty dollars.

47:07

Stranger had no frog, and see

47:09

got him one. In the meantime, the

47:11

stranger filled cs frog full

47:13

of shot and he couldn't jump.

47:15

The stranger's frog won. Sam

47:19

Clemens lets the story ruminate

47:21

and percolate inside him for a while.

47:24

Meanwhile, something in him also signals.

47:26

It's time to leave Gold Country return

47:29

to life in San Francisco. One

47:31

long and dusty stagecoach ride,

47:33

later followed by a slow riverboat

47:36

trip, he's back home. When he

47:38

arrives back in the city, Sam Clemens finds

47:40

the heat was off, the cops aren't looking

47:43

for him. Seems all has been forgotten

47:45

or swept away by the steady passage

47:47

of time and crime in the city. However,

47:50

returning home, Sam receives some bad

47:52

news. He's missed important mail.

47:55

It's from his old friend Artemis Ward, as

47:57

Sam later records in his.

47:58

Notebook, February twenty

48:00

sixth Home again, Home Again.

48:02

At the Occidental Hotel, San Francisco,

48:05

find letters from Artemis asking

48:07

me to write a sketch for his new book of Nevada

48:09

Territory Travels, which is soon to come

48:11

out.

48:12

Too late.

48:14

Oh to have gotten the letters three months ago. They're

48:16

dated in early November.

48:18

Away from the city, He's missed his big chance,

48:21

or so he thinks. Regardless,

48:23

Sam Clemens starts to work on stories

48:25

he believes might interest Artemis ward

48:28

stories he heard up in Angels Camp,

48:30

stories told at the Gillis Cabin on

48:32

Jackass Hill. But Sam Clemens.

48:34

Can't get any of these stories to work, not

48:37

the way he wants. He struggles

48:39

with writer's block, he falls into another

48:42

of his blue spells. Then

48:44

one afternoon he has a dream about

48:47

the frog, the frog from the jumping

48:49

contest story he heard back in Angels Camp

48:52

from the Riverboat Pilot. The frog

48:54

comes to him in his dream, and this jumping

48:56

frog whispers that Sam should

48:59

write his story, as

49:01

Sam records it in a letter.

49:03

One dismal afternoon, as I lay on my hotel

49:06

bed, determined to inform Ourtemis,

49:08

I had nothing appropriate for his collections, a

49:10

still small voice began to make itself

49:13

heard.

49:14

Try me, Try me.

49:16

It was the poor little jumping frog. Because

49:19

of the insistence of its pleading, and for want

49:21

of a better subject, I immediately got

49:23

up and wrote out the tale. If it hadn't

49:25

been for that little fellow's apparition in this

49:28

strange fashion, I would have never written about him.

49:30

Sam Clemens doesn't question

49:33

the dream's logic, nor the dictates

49:35

of the frog. Instead, he writes, and

49:37

he writes some more, and he writes some more after

49:39

that, until he has the story down on paper.

49:47

What results is dubbed Jim Smiley

49:49

and His Jumping Frog, but the story

49:51

will soon be retitled The Celebrated

49:54

Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. In

49:58

October of eighteen sixty

50:00

five, with the Civil War now over

50:02

and the nation tending to its wounds

50:05

as the people stitched the country together,

50:08

Sam Clemens sends his jumping frog

50:10

story back east. He sends

50:12

it to George W. Carlton, publisher

50:14

for Artemis Ward. He sends it for

50:16

a possible inclusion in the upcoming book

50:19

Artemis Ward His Travels, but

50:21

it's too late to include his jumping

50:23

frog story. Instead, the publisher

50:26

Carlton forwards the story to the

50:28

editor of the Saturday Press. There

50:31

the story is published, and it is an instant's

50:33

success, a comic delight for

50:35

a nation that's in the mood for a good old

50:37

fashioned laugh. As Bob

50:39

Hurst reads it, you can hear that voice of

50:42

the narrator indeed come alive.

50:46

Well. This year Smiley had rat

50:48

Terrius and Chickencox and Tom Kats and

50:50

all them kind of things till you couldn't

50:52

rest, and you couldn't fetch nothing for

50:55

him to bid on, but he'd match you. He

50:57

catched a frog one day and took him home and said

50:59

he calculated to educated. And

51:02

so we never done nothing for three months. Was

51:04

set in his backyard and learn that

51:06

frog to jump. And you bet you

51:08

he did learn him. He'd give him

51:10

a little hunch behind. The next minute, you see

51:13

that frog whirling in the air like a donut.

51:16

See him turn one summerset, or maybe a

51:18

couple if he got a good start and

51:20

come down flat footed and all right like

51:22

a cat. He got him up so in

51:24

the matter of catching flies, and kept him in

51:26

practice so constant that he'd dale

51:29

a fly every time as far as he could see him.

51:31

Smiley said all a frog wanted was education,

51:34

and he could do most anything. And

51:37

I believe him.

51:39

The jumping frog story gets reprinted

51:41

all around the country in newspaper

51:44

after newspaper. Then it's reprinted

51:46

all around the world. It's

51:48

a global phenomenon. One

51:51

of the first. The jumping frog story

51:53

is also the beginning of Mark Twain's

51:55

literary fame.

51:57

I think the basic plot, if you will

51:59

is minimal. It is, in fact,

52:01

not really why we enjoy the Jumping

52:04

Frog story.

52:05

Bob Hurst also speaks to how how this narrator

52:08

captivates readers.

52:09

Still, the substance of what

52:11

he's saying isn't what's important. It's

52:14

how he's saying it, and that he's

52:17

loquacious. He's talking and

52:19

he's not hesitating about how to describe

52:21

this, and you have an

52:23

absolutely vivid picture of what these

52:25

animals were like. Now he's invested

52:28

in them all kinds of I

52:30

guess projection, right, but

52:32

I think that is really what he's after

52:35

here. It's the ingenuousness

52:37

of the speech. And now whatether

52:39

that means he wants to elevate

52:42

uneducated characters above the

52:44

rest of us. I wouldn't take it that way.

52:47

It's more that in their

52:49

unlearnedness is a kind

52:52

of freshness.

52:53

And that's what sets Mark Twain's early

52:55

writing apart. It's what gives people

52:57

of America a sense of this country's own

53:00

unique voice. With that noted

53:02

freshness of perspective.

53:04

We enjoy the Jumping fris story because

53:06

Mark Twain is able to describe

53:09

this guy's speech, the way

53:11

he speaks and what he says

53:14

when he's trying to tell his story.

53:17

But the point is, the pleasure of this story

53:20

isn't in what happens. It isn't in

53:22

the plot. It's in the way Jim

53:24

speaks. He is speaking

53:26

in a way which is deliberately

53:29

not sophisticated, but is

53:32

wonderfully evocative and

53:35

makes you see what's going on and

53:37

understand what this guy is all about

53:39

in a way that no other kind of formal

53:42

dialect w a while. It's

53:44

really an amazing discovery.

53:47

In the Jumping Frog story, Sam Clemens

53:49

finally discovers gold his comic

53:52

voice. There's an immediacy to it,

53:54

even though it's loquacious and talks around

53:56

the situation.

53:58

That's, of course, the great

54:00

innovation that he's going to make is

54:03

to tell an entire novel, entire

54:06

story in someone's voice.

54:08

I mean, that's what Hemingway and all

54:11

the others are coming out. They

54:13

see that as a liberation. You

54:15

don't have to be Henry James, you

54:17

don't have to have this very proper Bostonian

54:20

or whatever English voice

54:22

telling the story. You can tell

54:24

the story through a character.

54:26

The simple but consequential innovation

54:29

is not an easy thing.

54:30

That he's accomplished and.

54:31

Not a simple thing at all. And I think

54:33

really that's what strikes Hemingway

54:36

and everyone else. You'd be hard to find

54:38

a twentieth century writer, American writer

54:40

who wouldn't say Mark Twain started.

54:43

And it's such a radical idea

54:46

that, I mean, you don't find it

54:49

in short stories before this, you

54:51

don't find it in the literature before Mark

54:53

Twin did it. I think you could doubt

54:55

that if it were just English professors saying it.

54:57

But it isn't just English professor. It's

54:59

basically writers saying it, and they

55:01

should know.

55:03

Thanks to that magical frog, Sam Clemens

55:05

breaks free from all convention,

55:08

all fear. He's able to hear and authentically

55:11

speak in the voice of the West. What

55:13

results, although wholly constructed,

55:16

feels uniquely American. For

55:18

the first time, America can hear itself

55:20

speak in the voice of Sam Clemens

55:23

and the people they laugh in response.

55:26

The huge reception to the Jumping Frog

55:29

Story comes as a terrible shock to

55:31

one man, Sam Clemens.

55:34

He feels his frog story isn't literature.

55:36

If anything, it was a lark, something

55:39

he's sent off to his friend for a book he

55:41

cannot understand. Why the whole world

55:44

loves his dumb little frog story so much.

55:47

In a letter to his mother and sister dated

55:49

January twentieth, eighteen sixty six,

55:52

Sam writes.

55:53

To think that after writing many an article,

55:55

a man might be excused for thinking we're tolerably

55:58

good. Those New York people should

56:00

single out of Villain's backwoods sketch to

56:02

compliment me on Jim Smiley and is jumping

56:04

from a squip which never would have been written

56:06

but to please Artemis Ward, and then it

56:08

reached New York too late to appear in

56:10

his book.

56:13

All things being equal, Sam Clemens would

56:15

have rather been a pilot on the Mississippi

56:18

River. But he gets over his nostalgia

56:21

and his writer's block, and he will

56:23

go on to write the novels and books

56:25

that will launch American literature.

56:27

The author H. L.

56:29

Mankin once wrote that quote Twain

56:31

was the first American author of world rank to

56:33

write a genuinely colloquial and native

56:36

American. More famously,

56:38

Ernest Hemingway said, more to the point,

56:41

all modern American literature comes from

56:43

one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry

56:46

Finn. American writing comes

56:48

from that. There was nothing before and there's

56:50

been nothing as good since now.

56:53

Even though Sam Clemens doesn't necessarily

56:55

like the jumping frog Storry, his resulting

56:58

fame sends him to Hawaii, which results

57:00

in his book Innocents Abroad. This

57:02

is the book that launches his career as a

57:04

public speaker and as a personality.

57:07

All of it begins with those

57:09

eighty eight days on Jackass Hill.

57:12

On January twenty sixth, eighteen seventy,

57:14

Sam Clemens writes this letter to his old

57:16

friend, the pocket miner Jim Gillis,

57:18

brother of Steve. He reminisces

57:21

about their time spent on Jackass

57:23

Hill and how those days forever

57:25

changed the course of his life and

57:27

his literary path.

57:30

It makes my heart ache yet to call

57:32

to mind some of those days. Yet

57:35

it shouldn't, for the

57:37

right depths, of their poverty and

57:39

their pocket minding bag of bondage

57:42

lay the germ of my coming good

57:44

fortune. You remember that one gleam

57:46

of jollity that shot across our dismal

57:49

sojourn in the rain and mud of angels

57:51

Camp. I mean that day we sat

57:53

around the tavern stove and heard that chap

57:55

tell about the frog and how they filled them with shot

57:58

and you remember how we quoted from that yarn

58:00

and laughed over it. I jotted

58:02

down the story in my notebook that day and

58:05

would have been glad to get down our fifteen dollars

58:07

for it. I was just that blind. But

58:10

then we were so hard up. I

58:13

published that story, and I became

58:15

widely known in America, India,

58:19

China, England,

58:22

and the reputation for me has

58:24

paid me thousands and thousands

58:26

of dollars since.

58:33

And that was another very special

58:35

episode. Great jobs, Aaron.

58:37

Thank you, thank you.

58:38

I always liked the idea that sometimes crime

58:40

can save culture. I mean, I just think that

58:42

that tickles me. I don't know why, but I love

58:45

crime as we all know.

58:46

You love crime as we all know.

58:47

Yeah, exactly what did you guys think about the San

58:49

Francisco history of it all? Finding out that San

58:52

Francisco has always been this libertine, free

58:54

wheeling kind of culture, I mean, gave me hope

58:56

that San Francisco will return the one that we knew

58:58

then.

58:59

Yeah, A lot of the stuff you get into makes

59:01

me feel like a kind of sketch comedy

59:04

troops like competing coming up

59:07

up at the same time.

59:08

Totally.

59:08

When we get into the casting later, I

59:10

think that that informed all my thoughts

59:13

on who should play all these people.

59:15

Oh that's very exciting in terms

59:17

of casting, Zarn, where are you at? Because I feel

59:19

like you've probably given this a lot of thought.

59:21

I have, and I had only a hard time

59:23

with one role to cast, and that was, of course,

59:26

Mark Twain. I was like, who can play Mark Twain?

59:28

How Holbrook killed the part when he

59:30

played Mark Twain, so it's like who and he's gone now,

59:32

so who? And then I realized Tom

59:35

Hanks doing his best hel Hoolebrook,

59:37

Right, you can see it for young Sam

59:40

Clemens. I was thinking Casey Affleck, he

59:42

just seems to have the right vibe for

59:45

the Gillis brothers Jim Gillis, William Gillis

59:47

and Steve Gillis. I'm like, okay, where we get three brothers.

59:50

Came to me the Jonas brothers. Give

59:52

him an acting part.

59:54

I mean, that's that's interesting because you had

59:56

Casey Affleck right there. You're not doing that

59:58

for the brothers, You're saving him.

1:00:00

Yeah, right, it's right there.

1:00:01

I was like, I don't think Ben Affleck can play older

1:00:03

Mark Twain. I don't think he can be one of the

1:00:05

gillises he'll be we You're like, why is

1:00:07

he fighting his brother or should they be together? You

1:00:09

know, I don't know, so I thought, you know, go

1:00:11

Jonas brothers. Give them their first chance on screen,

1:00:14

you know, really see what they can do.

1:00:15

I'm going to be dating myself. They

1:00:17

used to have a Disney Channel television

1:00:20

show, so they haven't been on screen.

1:00:22

It was called Jonas.

1:00:24

Yeah, the big screen though, have we? They then on the big

1:00:26

screen?

1:00:26

Well, if you think of camp Rock as a

1:00:28

cinematic experience, which.

1:00:31

Yes, yeah I did look past that.

1:00:34

Oh my god, I'm so embarrassed. So

1:00:37

see the Danielle sisters. I was thinking

1:00:39

the Sydney Sweeney and Anna Taylor Joy

1:00:41

For some reason, I thought they had, like, you know,

1:00:44

pre iPhone faces enough to really nail

1:00:46

that role.

1:00:47

For Also for the Sheriff.

1:00:48

Of San Francisco, same thing, pre iPhone

1:00:50

face requirement.

1:00:51

Jesse Plemmons, love.

1:00:52

Jesse Plemmons for this. Put him in a period piece

1:00:55

and I'm thrilled, Right, I.

1:00:56

Just got period piece face. And then Big

1:00:59

Jim Casey.

1:00:59

The proprietor of the bar, I wanted to bring

1:01:01

back a WWE wrestler. You could pick

1:01:04

your favorite I'm going with the big show.

1:01:06

A seven foot tall, fifty year old man

1:01:08

is perfect for this role.

1:01:09

And then last up, Emperor Norton.

1:01:12

I think I've cast him before. Bet.

1:01:14

I love the guy Sam Rockwell. He just has

1:01:16

the chaotic energy he can pull this off.

1:01:18

So there you go. There's my casting. What do y'all

1:01:20

think.

1:01:21

Sam Rockwell as Ember Norton

1:01:23

is kind of inspired.

1:01:25

I love that.

1:01:26

I always think of him as Zafad Biebelbrockx

1:01:28

and the Hitchhiger's Guide of the Galaxy,

1:01:31

and that let me see how far that guy's

1:01:33

willing to go.

1:01:34

So tell us about your

1:01:36

interview with the Emperor. Is he someone

1:01:38

that you interact with usually?

1:01:41

And when you're in San Francisco?

1:01:42

I do look for him. Anytime I'm in that area

1:01:44

of town, I look to see because he does. At

1:01:47

eleven o'clock he'll be out there in the

1:01:49

Union Square getting ready to start his tourist

1:01:51

Then I know now and know which way he goes, So if

1:01:53

I'm over there around noon, I'm looking for him. The

1:01:55

guy is super fun. I recommend it to anybody

1:01:57

who goes to San Francisco. It's one of the coolest

1:01:59

guided tours. I've ever done. I've only done like

1:02:01

three in my life, so that's kind of a low bar, but

1:02:04

still very good.

1:02:04

All right, next time I'm in San Francisco.

1:02:07

The list, Oh nicee, I'll let him know.

1:02:09

Do you think historical characters should

1:02:11

be almost like AI just in

1:02:14

if you want to interact with them, they should

1:02:16

be there and willing to tell that story. He was

1:02:18

great, great, great decision to

1:02:21

go talk to him and get him to fill in some of the

1:02:23

details.

1:02:23

Yeah, he was just a really fun guy and he seemed to have the spirit.

1:02:26

He embodied the spirit of the story and

1:02:28

also reminding me never let money

1:02:30

get in the way of a good time, so if you have it, you

1:02:32

don't have it, never letting get in the way.

1:02:34

So there you go.

1:02:35

Well, he was my very special character, so

1:02:37

he wins this segment for me.

1:02:39

I'm a big fan of the Emperor myself.

1:02:41

I have to agree with Jason there. He's a

1:02:43

character I've talked about on my podcast

1:02:45

Noble Blood. He also I don't

1:02:48

know if any of you have read Neil Gaman

1:02:50

Sandman, but he's a character in

1:02:52

that. Oh no, yeah,

1:02:54

it's just he's great. So if anyone also hasn't

1:02:57

read Sandman. Just go read all of it.

1:02:59

Okay, that's on my list. Now I'm gonna go do

1:03:01

it.

1:03:02

Yeah.

1:03:02

Did you guys notice how Mark

1:03:04

Twain's friends in this story were constantly giving

1:03:07

them him the perspective, like we had Artemis Ward

1:03:09

who pulls him off his path? Right, So I

1:03:11

was thinking, that's a lesson I think people

1:03:13

should take away from this is be thankful when your friends

1:03:15

see something about you that you don't.

1:03:17

A lot of good lessons in this one. I

1:03:19

love your line about he finally

1:03:21

discovers gold and it's not gold.

1:03:25

I mean, he's getting into the gold rush.

1:03:27

It would be like getting into NFTs today.

1:03:31

This is where I'm gonna make my mark

1:03:33

here.

1:03:34

That is a great lesson.

1:03:35

Yeah.

1:03:36

I love seeing him at that period where oh

1:03:38

there's something that people like that I do and I'm

1:03:40

a little bit ashamed of what that is.

1:03:43

That tension I relate.

1:03:45

I get it.

1:03:46

We're all better for it.

1:03:47

Oh totally.

1:03:48

Also, if anytime you have a magical animal appear

1:03:50

to you in a dream, you've got to listen to the magic animal.

1:03:52

I mean that's just the rule and my other good lesson.

1:03:54

Yeah, these are the lessons listen to your friends

1:03:56

and listen to Magic Animals. This is a very

1:03:59

very special episode with all the wisdom we're

1:04:01

dolling out.

1:04:05

Very special episodes is made by some very

1:04:07

special people. This show was hosted

1:04:09

by Danish Schwartz, Zaren Burnett and

1:04:11

me Jason English. Today's episode

1:04:14

was written by Zaren Burnett. Our producer

1:04:16

is Josh Fisher. Editing and

1:04:18

sound design by Josh Fisher and Jonathan

1:04:21

Washington. Mixing and mastering by

1:04:23

Beheth Frasier. Original music

1:04:25

by Elise McCoy. Our story editor

1:04:28

is Barisa Brown. Research in fact

1:04:30

checking by Austin Thompson. Show

1:04:32

logo by Lucy Quintinia. We

1:04:34

have some special guests and voice actors to thank

1:04:36

today. Mark Twain was portrayed

1:04:38

by Frank Nemick, Sam Clemens

1:04:41

by Zack Nemeck, Edna Buckbee

1:04:43

by Elizabeth Dutton, William Gillis

1:04:46

by Jonathan Washington. As I want to thank

1:04:48

Bob Hirsch from the Mark Twain Archive

1:04:50

at UC Berkeley and Joseph Amster,

1:04:53

Emperor Norton himself from the Emperor

1:04:55

Norton's Fantastic San Francisco

1:04:57

Time Machine. I am your executive producer.

1:04:59

If you'd like to email the show. You can reach us

1:05:02

at Very Special Episodes at gmail

1:05:04

dot com. Very Special Episodes is a

1:05:06

production. Buy her Podcasts

1:05:10

M