The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 466 - Wicked Phenix City

Episode Date: February 2, 2021

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine Phenix City, Alabama.SourcesTour DatesRedbubble Merch

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American History podcast where each week I, Dave Antony, read a story from American History to Ma Fiend. Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic is going to be about. You know Russell from ATC forwarded me an email from someone who was like he doesn't need to say about at the end of the intro. I was going through the because I have thousands of emails that I haven't read so I was going through them today and there were about three of those. Hey listen man he he doesn't have to say about it's actually unnecessary. It's redundant. Right. That's why he's doing it. Right. You know and my my email my

last name is spelled Renlod's R-E-Y-N-L-O-D-S. Sure. And I didn't notice for a while and then it just was how mad it was driving people. Yeah. It was so the sensation to never change it was a media. Yeah of course. I mean this stuff everyone needs to calm down. Everyone needs to calm down. Including Josh Olson if you listen to Josh. Oh yeah Josh Olson go fuck himself that guy. Pump the brakes. Jesus. I mean dude we get it. We get it. You're an Oscar nominated writer. Yeah we get it. Yeah. Guess what people still. You went to the big dance Josh we get it. People still like to have fun with words buddy. You're gonna be okay.

You could be alright. I'm actually writing a movie called History of Violence about. And called it quote is jam-packed. Jam-packed. I'm the fucking hippo guy. Stay okay. My name's Gary. My name's Gary. Wait. Is it for fun? And this is not gonna become a tiggly podcast. Okay. This is like an. And a five part coefficient. My room's a place. Now hit him with a puppy. You both present sick arguments. Don't sleep though hippo. That's like though hippo. Actually partner. Hi Gary. No. Is he done my friend? No. No. Ronda. Ronda are in the car. April 16th 1865. Year of our lord. Jesus Christ. Women. Hey what? Hmm. I'm just

even the playing field. Ah men seems a little. You know what I mean. See my dog back there. Little limiting. See my dog. Yeah. Looks like it's stuffed or dead. So congrats on that. Thank you. Wouldn't surprise me either way. One of the great one. One of the last bat. Sorry. You threw me off by killing my dog. One of the. Just start with it and within about it'll help. One of the last battles. When in doubt and with about. One of the last battles of the Civil War was fought in Gerard in Russell County Alabama. The cities of Gerard and I guess the town of Brownville were butted up against each other. So they're right against each other. A town in Tuscaloosa

County already had the name Brownville. So the post office called Brownville Alabama lively. The post office was like we'll just we we actually went through some marketing stuff back here and lively is much better. We're not interested in your town name. How about Brownsville. No. No. Now we went with lively. Just totally different. So that's where you all live now. No. We're the post office. So the people who live there still want to call it Brownville. So in 1890 the census had it listed as both Brownville and lively. Just to make things. This. Okay. This is. All right. But they gave up a few years later and the name was changed.

Fine. We're lively. No. No. They changed it to something else. They changed it to Phoenix City. Okay. Sure. Much like the legendary Egyptian mythological bird. Except. Right. They left out an O. So it's Phoenix without the Phoenix. Phoenix. We're Phoenix. We're going to rise from the ashes like a Phoenix. We're going to Phoenix Arizona. I wonder if they do actually call it Phoenix. I didn't look that up. Well but Phoenix is always one of those weird like you know Phoenix doesn't really have a leg to stand on. The E. O. situation in Phoenix has always been a bit of an issue. Oh no. It should be Pheonix right. It should be Pheonix

but it's Pheonix. A Gerard now at this point in time. We're in the early 1900s. Gerard now has been nicknamed Sodom by locals in the area. Wait. So. Okay. So Brownsville is off the market. Yeah. Go on. So Brownsville went to Lively. Lively switched to Pheonix. And now you've got Gerard who's been called Sodom. Nicknamed Sodom. Sodom. Sorry. Not Sodom. Not Sodom. Sodom. Sodom. Well that's Sodom and Gomorrah. That's where all the vice and sex and gambling and booze and it's happened right. So. Okay. A lot of immigrants have moved

there and a lot of them started making booze. In 1913 Alabama was a big no drinking state. Very cutting edge on. It's changed. Yes. Every candidate running for governor in 1930 1913 was was for prohibition. Two years before the U.S. made drinking illegal. Alabama did. So Alabama's way ahead of the game. Wow. Crazy. Now this just made more money for Gerard. Soon. Right. Soon this the town is sending booze all over the country. Gerard made so much money with its distilleries that a citizen's bank had

to be incorporated to handle the inflow of cash. That's amazing because it does not sound like the town to have a bank. It does not. But apparently. Like they were they were against. They were like oh god damn it we got to make a bank. Finally the state sent an army of revenue officers to take down. An army of revenue officers. Not. It wasn't a huge army but it's like pencils out. Right foot forward. No pad. Hey.

Oh. Is that. Is that. The army. That's about all I know. That's fair. So they broke in into the whiskey. So they broke into the whiskey distillers and the saloons. They made a rest. They poured poured barrel after barrel of booze into the street. Four thousand people from around the area come to watch. During prohibition if you were like a sewer. If you could get into the sewer you were just going to get be able to just

shitface get so much booze. Yeah. Like they were just basically like long islands just running down the street. There's also shit in there but yeah yeah I get your point. Whatever. Yeah there's shit and everything. Yeah yeah it's true. That's a good. It's just a garnish. If anyone's like oh there's a rat tailed here you're like that's a garnish my love. That's right. Put an olive through it. It's a toothpick. And all the booze is going to kill the eagle eye so you're fine. Yeah exactly. Thank you Dave. You're welcome. There was so much liquor being poured out in the street that children were waiting

in a stream of liquor and calling it Whiskey Creek. Hey we're at the Whiskey Creek. Yeah it's fire at the Whiskey Creek. Right in my cheek because we're at the Whiskey Creek. It's at the Whiskey Creek. You shouldn't drink the whiskey from the creek but some of us had a sip from the Whiskey Creek. We're at a bit of a drink in the creek from the Whiskey Creek. Tommy. We had a drink from the creek. Tommy. Can you get out. Tommy. Can you get out of the creek.

Can you get out of the creek. We went down to the Whiskey Creek. Okay honey your shit faced. Can you get out of the creek now. He is shit faced. You get out of there. It's absolutely shit faced. We're playing in the Whiskey Creek. I'm going to drive. I'm going to kill a horse in the Whiskey Creek. I stabbed the horse. I killed the horse. It's the Whiskey Creek. It's the kids that go. Got a Whiskey Creek. They nobody say no.

I've been saying no. I've been saying no for a while. At the whiskey. At the whiskey creek. Okay he's asleep. He's asleep. Let's get him out of there. Even the sheriff was arrested for having booze. So after the raid the tide goes right back to making whiskey. Nothing stops. But now they're just more clandestine about it, right? They're just doing it in secret. So after World War I Jard had returned to its criminal ways. Camp Benning

was nearby and soldiers love booze, gambling, and sex. So they'd come to Jard. But they're treated horribly there. They're cheated while they're gambling. They're given water down booze. If they complain they're beaten and cut up. They're thrown in the river through trap doors in the back of clubs. So the military declares Jard off limits for soldiers. But they still go. I mean it does not sound like the right place to unwind if you're a soldier. No but they still want to have sex and

get drunk. Sure they'll try. They'll figure it out. In 1923 federal agents raided the town again. Over 100 gallons. Raiding a town is amazing. All right everybody! Over 100 gallons of liquor are dumped out. But the booze makers just start up again. Now that year Jard and Phoenix merged into one city. Awesomsville. Well they called it Phoenix City. Well not creative land. So now it had a population of 10,374. A lot of them worked at the textile mill. And then Fort Benning had 8,000

soldiers. So they could just make a lot of cash. Booze is slowing. Morphine is being dealt. Brothels are flourishing. Okay. Now the town had always since it started been controlled by a small group of crime families which we will call the syndicate. During the Depression it goes bankrupt. The town, the city. Okay. There are 1.1 million dollars in debt. So local authorities take a look around and they see vice as a revenue producer. And since there's no other businesses, everything's been

wiped out, they start issuing licenses for the vice that's happening. Who who starts doing that? The city authorities. The city government. So the city is now, the city is seeing like how they've blown a hole in their own economy and this other like, so we'll hand out vice, we'll hand out vice licenses? Yeah. So the so the depression just... licenses? Depression has ruined everything. So they're like, well this is, this seems to be going well. Right. Yeah. So they hand out licenses but

at the same time they hand out tons of fines for gambling and using and selling liquor. So they're sort of doing... What do you call that? I mean... Both ending? Yeah. It's what LA does a lot. Yeah it is. Where, yeah. Like LA is just like, we've just declared war on the citizens via fines. Pretty much. Like remember when you like, like I remember when I first got to LA like a parking ticket would be like, like parking ticket, if you get a parking ticket in LA now, you are, your jaw drops. Yeah, it used to be 20, 25 bucks.

Now they're like, it's, it is something like, it's like 200 dollars every time. It is, I remember, I had a stand-up bit about it once. You get fine less for shitting on the street. That's true. Which is... So. Yeah. So if you have, if you have your option. Yeah, if you want to do that, go ahead. Not if you want to move. I would say move your car. No, if you want to get a lower fine, I'm suggesting you should. Yeah. But officer, I'm pooping too. In 1938, a gambling syndicate known as the SNM syndicate

created a lottery. It took off. It's super popular immediately. There were so many, so many poor people because of the depression and they all wanted to hit it big. So during one lottery in April 20th 1938, a huge crowd packed into the club where they're announcing the numbers to hear all the numbers read and part of the roof collapses. But just 10 people are injured so it's not that bad. So the next day they all come back and as a matter of fact, it's many more people.

So even though the roof came in, everyone's just like, I got to hear the numbers. And there's so many people in the club that they're pushing against the walls and a a loading, a load bearing wall collapses. Wait, there's enough people that they have like hulk strength? Yeah, they knocked over a load bearing wall. And if memory serves, those are important walls. Yeah, yeah. There's actually a reason that you put like some walls you'll say that's a wall and this why you say, oh, that's a load bearing wall. That means that there's a more important holding up the rest of

the building. Right, right. So the basically there's just a massive collapse. 24 people are killed, 83 are injured. Who's coming back tomorrow? Didn't, it didn't slow down the lottery. Really? I mean, they just need to replace the 24, I guess, but yeah. Oh my god. So Phoenix City is the place for crime. There's fuck. Sorry. There's loan sharking, extortion, bribery, sex work, drugs, booze, people being robbed. Even grocery stores have gambling. The bridge grocery store had slots,

dice, poker, and roulette. Some stores had kitty chairs, so kids could sit at slot machines and gamble. Oh, dynamite. Just dynamite. On the slot machine in the grocery store, you're like, I got three cherries. I'm like three cherries. Come on. Hey, that is exciting. What the fuck? All right, two bananas. Hey, I want two bananas. Hey, mister, don't mind me. I'm just a little down on my luck. I'm on a cold streak. This guy's a cooler, I tell you.

So Laundry Cleaners ran a lottery. A barbecue restaurant had a lottery. What? And they're all, I mean, they're all just number lottery. I mean, yeah, literally everybody just had gambling in every place. Right, right. So people who cause trouble, often they get killed if you cause a lot of trouble, and you end up in the Okefenokee Swamp on the Georgia Florida border, which is my favorite swamp. Okay. The women who worked at strip clubs and clip joints were called Bee Girls. Bee Girls? Yeah.

Okay, is there any? Nope. Just be okay. Be cool. Yeah, yeah, sure. Because of all the pollination. That's right. Their job was to just get soldiers shit-faced and then get all their money by getting spending money or whatever. Their cut was 50% for a drink. So if they could get... So if they, a soldier to drink, they would get half of the drink cost. Right, okay. And each drink was about 10 bucks. Okay. Now it's 1930s, so that's about $100 today.

Wow, god damn. So you just get a guy drunk enough who comes in if you find a drunk guy. Yeah, you get a couple of them. And the drinks are all watered down. If a soldier came in with his own booze, the Bee Girl would pour herself a huge glass, and then the bartender would take the glass in back, pour it into a bottle, and resell the booze. Jesus Christ. Well, why, if you're a soldier, why would you, I mean, obviously come in with your own booze. You're trying to have sex. All you want is the sex part.

Right. When the soldiers were so plowed that they could barely stand up, the girls would take them outside, and bouncers would beat them up, and the girls would also beat them up, and then they'd rob them of everything they had, cigarettes, jewelry, whatever they had on them, they'd take. So if you're a soldier and you wake up the next day and you go, oh, dude, Phoenix City, man, they took all my booze, they fed me a bunch of water until I got tipsy that was way overpriced, and then once I had too much of it, they took me outside, robbed

me, and beat the fuck out of me when we go back. Let's do this. Yeah, this story I can think of is just that, you know, they're young, they're soldiers, what, 18, 19, 20, and they just want to have, they want to get drunk and have sex, and then the only place to do it is Helltown, so. Yeah, and they keep going to Helltown and get robbed. Hey, man, I definitely got fucked last night, but not in the way I was thinking. You know, I also, there's probably a huge turnover at the base, I would imagine.

Um, maybe not, I don't know, so anyway. It was so bad that in 1840, uh, General George S. Patton was in charge of Fort Benning, and he threatened to drive tanks over to level Phoenix. We will invade Phoenix City. We will take back our booze and we will water theirs down. We will make sure all these men who paid for sex will have sex one way or another. We will not take no for an answer, and by the way, no drinking a fucking, I'm not sure how that affects the battle

plans. Let's move. No, fucks, no, fucks. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson called Phoenix City the wickedest city in America, and that was a nickname that stuck, so now everyone's calling it the wickedest city in America, and I'm sure in Phoenix City they were like, that's awesome. Yeah, of course, it is. I mean, you know, I would only, you could only really compare it to Vegas, and like the whole thing about Vegas is how they lean into sin, and they like, they market sin. Yeah, if you told, I mean, I don't mean, I don't mean sin in the way of like,

you know, biblical, but they, like vices, they market vices. No, if you told me that I, and I was a soldier, and they said, oh, by the way, the wickedest city in America is like three miles over, I'd be like, how, how fast and when, let's- And, and the caveat of you don't go there. Right, no, yeah. You don't go there, do not go there, it's just fucking and drinking, don't go there. So, when Payday came to the base, Phoenix City is just fucking overflowing, right? Oh. Ton of brothels. They're not exactly

secretive about their sex work. Pimps would drive sex workers in the back of pickup trucks down the main street, and then they cat-call to dudes to try to get soldiers to- It's a pimp-up truck. It's a pimp-truck. It's a pimp-pimp-up. Truck. You'll get there. Yeah. Yeah. If one, if one, if a soldier was like, yeah, he'd hop in the back of the pickup bed, and the pimp would drive them around while they had sex in the back of the pickup truck. Wow. Usually from one end to the town to the other, and then they'd stop and

he'd drop out, and then hopefully another guy would jump in, and they'd just drive back and forth. Oh my good lord. So, it literally is a pickup truck. That's right. Wow. Let me see if we can have one of those crazy horns. Can you imagine, like, actively- Can I imagine? daylight street? I now have a new fantasy. Oh, good lord. And once again, pimp. Pimp. Real easy job. Once again. It's a super easy for the pimp, but the lady-

Super easy. The poor lady's doing all the work here. All the work. Well, that's the whole relationship is based upon that. That's, uh, I already think we should get a union and double her salary at the very least. Yes. And I assume it's a salary. I assume it's a salary with benefits. Yeah, right. By the end of the mid 40s, Phoenix was collecting about $228,000 in fines. So just fines are just big money. And they're fine. And who's finding them? The police? Yeah, the police. Yeah. So the police department, but

again, it's a grift, right? In a way, because it's like you've set up this place where a bunch of laws are going to get broken, and then you have a police department that enforces when the laws get broken, but you're just making it very easy to do that. Yeah. And the businesses know it's part of business, so it's just a racket. It's just a racket. Right. Right. The whole city at this point is now, ever since the depression, it's just dependent on vice. That's all it is. Right. It's vice-fill. That's right. And

the syndicate rigs local and state elections at this point to keep control of the Chamber of Commerce, the school and hospital boards, even service organizations like the whole town. The school. The whole town is run by the syndicate. Right. So I'm wondering what the school, the school programs are probably not the greatest. Okay, kids, can you open up your book fucking and sucking? Yeah. Okay. On page four, why don't you go ahead and read that, Timmy? When you are sucking, suck it really good. Make sure to also lick. Licking is

also important. Look what? Does it say to lick what there? The clitoris. That's right. Oh, it's a dinosaur. The clitorisaurus. Sure, it's a dinosaur. The clitorisaurus. So when you see the dinosaur clitorisaurus, lick it. Okay. Then once the clitorisaurus is getting ready, it's not tracking with the dinosaur from what I'm reading ahead here. Okay. Why don't you stop reading because you're confused. Yeah. Let's just skip to the next chapter called

Hitting That. I'd like to read this one. Jack Culpepper was a 13-year-old paper boy delivering papers. When he came upon two drunk soldiers playing a game of William Tell, Improvised Game. Oh, William Tell. Oh, my God. What? That's not the drunk game to play. No. No. No. Let's play arrows. That's the only game you should play for sure while sober. Let's play arrows and apples again. They were not arrows. So one had a shot glass on his head and the other

was going to shoot it off with his gun. Uh-huh. I'm about to kill my friend and not hurt a glass. Jack, quote, part of his head hit my shoulder. Well, you're jumping to the conclusion. Jack was covered in blood. He shot his friend's head off, basically. That's right. And Jack jumps off his bike and leaves his bike in newspapers and runs home. He's living with his sister and her husband and the sister faints. And the brother

cleans him off completely and gets her to the clothes and then goes out and gets the bike and brings it back home. And then Jack just goes back to delivering papers as if nothing happened. Oh my god. Well, he's a paper man now. Because that's that is certainly shifted. That's what life was like in Phoenix City. Oh my god. You imagine like having to read the paper from then on. You're like still not the biggest story of the week. What's the matter, Jack? I just keep thinking about when that

stranger's brain went in my pocket. Well, come on. Perk up, boy. You've got papers to put in boxes. A man named Hoyt Shepard owned the biggest gambling house in town. In September 1946, he rigged an election for a drug-addicted councilman to win. So he's got this drug addict and he wants him on the city council. I'm really not sure if I'm ready to run, but your confidence in me has been unbelievable, man. Yeah. So supportive. Hey, here's some stuff.

Here's some more stuff. So I'm gonna need you, you know, the new ordinance coming up. Yeah, for sure. I'm gonna need you to vote yes on that. Uh-huh. Yeah, a hundred percent, man. Yes. And if you don't, I gotta cut you off. But okay, no, man. I don't need to get cut off, dude. I said I'd do it. I'll vote yes, man. Come on. Just check it in. Come on. I'll suck the city's dick for another hit, man. Okay. Well, that's that's a couple of weeks down the road, but right now we don't have to talk about

sucking dicks, but you might have to suck some dick. All right. Yeah. Oh, man. Your confidence has been so key in my run. Yeah. He buys all the ballots. Hoyt does. He has he has dead people voting. He not actual dead people. That's just 2020 all over again. Drug addict wins in a landslide. They have, uh, they have a by the way, in this city, wouldn't you, if you were just like, I'm addicted to drugs, wouldn't they be like, this is our guy? That's the boy. It's a boy right there.

He's a man amongst the people. So they have a victory party in a bar that night. That's smart. And while, and Hoyt goes in and he sees this guy sitting in the table with this young woman and it's a guy that he, he ordered to leave town ages ago and said, don't ever come back. You're like enemy competitor type guy. And the guy all of a sudden on this just day decides to come back. So Hoyt and his brother Snooks take the take the guy out into the back dice room and shoot him in the head. Come on, Snooks. Let's go to the dice room.

Okay. So, and that is the man who is now in the government? No, that guy, it's just a different guy. He's dead. It just happened at the party. It was just at the, no, no, no, but, but it wasn't, oh, okay. So that has nothing, that's just at the victory party. That's just the victory party. Gotcha. So, uh, Hoyt and Snooks are arrested. They have, they have several defense attorneys because they have so much money they hire a bunch of defense attorneys, including, okay, including longtime Phoenix resident, Albert Patterson. Now Hoyt and Snooks claim self-defense

and they're acquitted, of course. Okay, okay. Even some of the defense attorneys were disgusted by the verdict. That's disgusting. I cannot believe that just happened. Holy shit. Can you believe we did this? Oh, I am fucking sick of myself. We have no morals. I am the, I am the grossest lawyer in town. I'm putting that on my sign. Grossest lawyer in town. I've, I get so many people off it fucking sickens me. That's how, oh, that's how gross I am. I look at myself in the mirror every day

and I go, God damn it, you got another fucking criminal off. What a pig. I'll tell you, if I find myself guilty, I feel really guilty. So, all right, well, yep, to the mansions. So Hoyt basically had been paying off cops, deputies, politicians, judges for years. Usually charges are dropped against him. In this case he gets to trial and of course nothing happens. One of those deputies that he paid off was a guy named Albert Fuller. Fuller grew up in Phoenix and he joined the Navy in World War I,

sorry, World War II, where he learned to shoot. Okay. And then he came back to Phoenix. He was usually at this point armed with two gold plated pistols and holsters. Wow. So like John Woo was like, right this way my friend. That's right. He wore western clothes and a white cowboy hat. Wow. And he got a job as a deputy in the sheriff's department in the 1940s. Okay. And guns. He then set about extorting club owners and became part of the sex worker trade.

Okay. So he is, yeah, so he's running cover for these guys and extorting them. He's becoming more and more powerful. Fuller would discourage state and federal officials from finding out about what is going on in Phoenix. He would discourage them about fighting us. He's like, don't try to learn. Don't attempt. You know how you're looking into what's going on in Phoenix City? You see my hat? You see my hat? White, right? It's all good there. It's all good, man. He sounds like how Peter Billingsley dressed in the Christmas story, BB gun

fantasy. I have no idea. It's a deep cut. We got to have Maple just in the background for all of these. I totally agree. We got comfortable. Really bringing a lot to this. We got comfortable. Gorgeous. So he took, on average, he took a third of clubs earnings running interference for law or anything else. Annually? For anything, yeah. A third. Holy shit. So he's like literally rolling your money. Yeah. Brothel's explode under Fuller's reign. He's just,

he's making it super easy for everyone. When I picture a brothel exploding, it's not because of financial impacts. We've got a cum explosion again. He was known to flash thousand dollar bills and he wore expensive clothes even though he made What an asshole. $300 a month as deputy. Oh, God. Jesus Christ. Fuller worked under the sheriff who also worked for the syndicate. Okay. If anyone was causing trouble, the sheriff sent Fuller to bus tents. So he's basically like...

He's the enforcer, right? He's an absolutely terrible person. He once was having a bad day so he pushed a taxi driver down a flight of stairs. Oh my God. You know, yeah, I'm in a bad day. You gotta kill a guy. I gotta let this dog in. Jeez. So he just pushed a cabbie down the stairs just because he was having a bad day? Yeah. It was said Fuller could quote, shoot the high heel off a whore from 50 yards. Well, that's, they weren't known for those expressions back then. Yeah. Also, at what point, at what point is

that useful? She's got a bomb in her heel. Hold on. Got this. Yeah. In 1949, he was made chief deputy sheriff. Of course. He should be rewarded. This is, down is up in this town, right? So the worse you are with law enforcement, the higher you will, like... That's correct. It's the backwards echelon. But that wasn't a position. It was something he just made up for himself. Oh, those are always good. And then gave himself the job. Yeah. At a raise. He deserves it. At the time, there was a bootleg liquor war happening between Alabama and Georgia.

There was a, okay. Now, now we're starting to feel like we're tracking Alabama again. Felt like we really lost Alabama early, but now we're finally back to our roots. So they're competing and Phoenix City was... So they're having an illegal competition, essentially. So there's a couple things going on. There's the competition between the two bootlegger groups, and then there's the cops trying to crack down. But the cops in Georgia are legit, and then the cops in Phoenix are not.

Right. So Phoenix City is giving refuge to rum runners. Georgia wants it stopped. So revenue agents start coming in from Georgia into Phoenix City and taking information and trying to investigate. And they're arresting men when they cross the state border into Georgia. And when they start arresting men when they come across the border, the crump mayor of Phoenix tells the cops to arrest anyone in Phoenix working with Georgia revenue agents. Okay. So now you just have basically two territories off limits to the other territory, right?

Essentially. Not really. Because anybody... For a lot... Yes. For a lot... The cops can't... And he's sort of legal enforcement. Cops can't go to Phoenix. Yeah, yeah. Right. So Georgia agents are now just walking around Phoenix City gathering evidence, and then they figure out... They arrest them. They're in plain clothes, but they figure out who

two agents are, and they arrest them for loitering. Right. Okay. So now... All right. Seems like a good system. This is what they say when they say... This is what they mean when they say, leave it up to the states. They release them after a little time in jail, but now the feds sent an agent down who is supposed to have unlimited control. He can do whatever he wants, kind of. Uh-huh.

The agent's like, okay, I found the fed. He's like, I found out about these two bootleggers. We're going to raid them. I need two of your best guys. And the sheriff's like, okay, we'll take Fuller because he's fucking awesome. Oh, God. So the feds come into Sin City. There's one fed. And one fed, and he's just like... But they're basically just like, I need someone to work with me. We really got to fix this down.

And they're like, let's give you the shittiest, most corrupted guy we have. He'll help you with this. How about my crime boss? By the way, he killed the cab driver because he was sad last week. So the bootleggers that they're going to raid are these... Are probably like Fuller's best friends. They are. They're two guys. Hey, look, Fuller's out there.

Oh, he's got some weird guy from the city with him. Well, surely he's got to be in the illegality. So he's with Fuller. So yeah, so he's... They're bootleggers and Fuller's in business with everybody. So he knows they can rat him out. So they get to the house and he tells the agent, he goes, you go around back and I'll flush him out.

And then he kicks in the front door and shoots one of them who's sleeping in his chair. Oh my God. So he's just like, I have no allegiance. No, no, no, no. Wow. Okay. Absolutely not. Hey, Fuller. Well, we got that whiskey for you.

Oh, why'd you shoot me? You're my best friend. He shot. He emptied his gun in the guy. The other brother does run out back. He gets arrested, but then nothing happens with it because the guy's probably too scared to talk at that point. Right, right, right.

So Fuller plays the part of a legit cop for the day when the fed's there. The fed's like, you know, there's a lot of illegal booze being run through here. He's like, man, I swear if I knew who'd done it, string them up, show them a thing or two. Sons of bitches. Hold me back. Hold me back. I'm living at them. Living at them.

Liquor in my town, in my town. Under my nose the whole time. Another guy. So a phoenix city is also just becoming this massive crime. Like so a guy named Pat Webster ran the phoenix city card company. It's all rigged. Everything is rigged. The slot machines, cards are marked, everything.

You can't even win cherries at the grocery store anymore. He's so successful with his card company gambling house that he starts sending rigged slot machines and marked cards and anything else that he uses to cheat to other places around the country. So he's basically become a factory slash consultant for the rest of the country to set up illegal gambling houses that cheapy. He's franchising scamming. Yes, basically.

Hey, guys, what you need is a rigged slot machine. Okay, here you go. Just a sign that says none of these slot machines are rigged and you're pretty ready. I mean, he's literally a rigged gambling contractor. Right, right. And phoenix also becomes, phoenix city also becomes a gathering place for safe crackers. So, oh wow. Criminals now, so this gang starts in phoenix city, they're the best guys.

Criminals from other states now come to phoenix city to learn safe cracking. It's like a, it's like a safe cracking college. Is this the story of Gotham? So, yeah, so you go. So if you are like, I mean, essentially you have crime town. Yes, it's crime town. Okay, interesting, interesting. The guy, the guy who ran the safe cracking gang was named head revel.

What the fuck? That's his actual name. What is he's named after? Like a fond memory, the sensation of a fond memory or maybe it's head reveling. And maybe he just came out and the mother was like, oh, look at, look at his big old head. What a reveal. You mean reveal. Hey, wait a minute.

So the way it would work is he would give safe cracking jobs to the highest bidder. Now they have such a name that people from around the country would send them jobs. They'd be like, okay, so this guy has a safe in this place. And they would send it to head revel. And then he would give out the info about the safes and their location to the safe cracking gang who bid the highest. So you'd be like, wow, you'd be like, so you're even, this is, I mean, that's like general contracting.

Yes, you'd be like, you're getting like house estimates. I'll do the job and you I'll give you 60%. And then they'd go do it and they take their 40 and give them 60. It's named that tune for theft. It really is. I could crack it in 20 minutes less and I'll take 10% less. And so yeah, then they come back and they'd split the cash and they just kind of, they were like big, big swingers in town.

One safe cracker liked to spend his off time on the top of the Manhattan club where he would sit with his air rifle and shoot soldiers in the ass as they walked down the street. I guess the question is, when does a hobby no longer become a hobby? Like when you're shooting people. I think that's when it's no longer your own personal little hobby. I assume an air rifle is like a BB gun type thing. Yeah, it's it's pretty close. Yeah, but it's still a rifle.

It still hurts. Dude, they hurt. Yes. I've been shot by a BB. It's not great. Oh my God, I've been there used to be the copperhead BBs, which would fucking get hurt. And so one day he shoots a soldier who turns around and sees him on the top of the building and then he charges through the club up the stairs on horseback.

I'd like to put this on the way you can do it. And then on top of the Manhattan club, the safe cracker and the soldier just have a long extended fist fight. Oh, wow. So yeah, this is very John Wick. At one point the the safe cracker gets knocked down and he grabs a brick to hit the soldier over the head. But he must have been swinging or something because he drops it and it goes through a skylight

and falls into a poker room and where a bunch of guys are playing poker and just grazes a really well-known gambler and the gambler just immediately pulls out his gun and just starts shooting at the roof. Oh my God. And then the two guys having the fist fight have to jump off the building. What? What? They did not have to do anything like that.

They could have, I mean, how many, but they're like, he's got never ending bullets. The roof's going to collapse. No, you could like duck, duck for a little while. Duck for a minute. This is current. All right. You know what we got to do? We got to jump off the roof.

You damn right we do. In 1952, a new law required all gambling houses to be registered. There were 270 registrations in all of Alabama. So the entire state has 270. Okay. 230 of those were in Phoenix City. Wow. Wow.

Wow. So just very centralized. So what must the vibe be like when you cross that city line? I cannot imagine. It's just been like, oh, just smells like theft and screwing. Smells like theft. So Phoenix City native Hugh Bentley was a very religious man.

He taught Sunday school. He owned a sporting good store. Wait, where does he live? He lives in Phoenix City. Okay. This is amazing. When I read up to this part, I was like, wait, what's happening? Somehow these churchgoing people like Hugh who have legit stores,

they have no idea what's happening in Phoenix City in the early 50s. He has no idea? He has no idea. He goes to a sporting goods convention in Chicago and he's talking to another attendee and he tells him where he lives and the guy laughs. What's so funny about that friend? The guy says I was stationed at Fort Benning and he calls it the wickedest city and then he tells, he tells Hugh all about.

You must be thinking of a different Phoenix City friend. You think about that? That is not what happens in my town. I mean, really, Hugh is offended. So you have quite the nerve to come to me and accuse my beautiful city of such a thing. Well, I don't think one drop of alcohol has been served there quite a while. Let alone pick up truck sex. How dare you? The Lord is watching. So he leaves the convention and this is just, he's just like, I just can't.

I'm just so, I am so pissed at that guy. The nerve to think that something like that would happen in my town. It's all Christians for God's sake. He goes back and he tells his wife and she's like, I just know that can't, Phoenix City can't be worse than any other city. Of course it's not. This man is just lying for some reason to make himself feel better. So he and a friend who was also named Hugh.

So I decided not to use his name. I'm going to call him the friend. Thank you. Because there's enough names in this already. Thank you. He, uh, he and a friend decide to go down on a Saturday night down to the red light district. Well, you know, I thought that red area has often been a little weird, but it's always seemed a little weird to me.

You don't think any sittings happening down there, do you Hugh? I doubt that highly Hugh too. And it is just, they cannot believe what they're seeing. It is just fucking and gambling and drinking like on a level that they didn't know is humanly possible. Right. They're going into club after club and seeing all this stuff in one club. A bouncer won't, won't let them in and they're like, we're going in. We're gentlemen of the town and the, we are the Lord have sent us.

And the bouncer says to him, quote, I'll tear your head off and hand it to you. Okay. All right. Well, we'll just, is what's next door have appetizers? That's sort of what we're in the market for. So they, they come out of another club and they, in the alley, they see a soldier being brutally beaten as we already know is just what happens. Right.

And they try to stop it and they're threatened with their lives. So they go to the sheriff to report it. And the sheriff's like, just mind your own business. Okay. And then they go to the police chief and the police chief's like, yeah, I don't have enough cops to deal with that kind of stuff. And then they go, they go to the mayor and the mayor's like, I don't want to fucking see these guys.

So they, they're literally spending the whole night trying to get someone to deal with the fact that they saw a guy being beaten to death in an alley. And everyone's like, yeah, that's not a thing. We don't have enough police power to stop two people. So they give up at dawn at dawn. They're like, I guess we can't find justice. And they go home. And then how was it, darling?

Did you see anything? Or was it just as you expected average? I saw a man's eye come out of his head. Oh, well, it doesn't sound like something that doesn't sound too bad. And that's what matters. Phoenix city is as regular as every other town like we were saying before. Grown men were drinking whiskey at a five gallon jugs. Well, sort of what we were saying prior that this town is as pious as most other towns.

And maybe you saw a thing or two, but it's nothing you can't shake. I saw the love of the Lord. I saw a truck. Well, one must think that potentially that is just the ways the Lord is trying to keep us excited about solving so many problems. That must be what it is. We're just as regular as any other town like you were saying before you left. And sure, you saw a man's eye come out of his head and things of that nature.

But still, the Lord does love us and the Lord loves this town. And this town is a void of sin. There is a blood soaked paper boy that just rides around. Well, it's long. It's great to hear that the journalism is thriving in this town. That's what I hear when you say something like that. I don't mean to undercut it, but it sounds like the free press is thriving. Gosh, we just live in the best place on earth that we'd all face.

So he and his buddy the next day after they get a little sleep, for whatever reason, I couldn't forget why they decided to go back in the daytime. I was going to say take a look around. You've got it. Your mind has just been blown. Like literally someone was just like, hey, you live in the matrix. You're like, no, I don't. And then you walk around and see a bunch of ones and zeros.

And you're like, blow. I mean, essentially, this is the old part of the town that was drared. And he lives in what used to be Brownville. So he's living in this little church community. And he has no, there's no reason for him to ever go to that part of town. So he has no idea what's happening there. And I'll tell you, the largest sin I've seen around here is Betty's mud pie. Well, that is a sin if I've ever seen one.

So they go during the day, they go, that day they go down there and they, there's a bridge you have to go over and they get to the bridge and they decide, let's park the car and we'll walk over and they start walking over and they look down from the bridge and there's just this horribly beaten soldier just laying on the river bank. Hey, Hugh, can I ask you something, Hugh? Does that load of twigs and branches sort of looks like a bludgeoned soldier? Does it not? Oh, look closely down there.

Look at that. Look at that is a red, red, red man. That is a very red man. Well, all right. They do love, they do love face painting over here. Do I agree? This potentially a clown is drowned. That's what this is.

It's a drowned clown. So they, they take the soldier and they put him in the car and they want to, they're gonna drive, which one of you is gonna suck my dick? They're gonna, they're gonna drive him to Fort Benning. The soldier is upset because they've taken everything. They've taken his boots. They've taken everything, his money, taking everything. Yes.

Quote, they promised us a private show. Then when they closed the club, they came after us with spiked brass knuckles, clubs, and chained fists. They took it needs to add spikes to brass knuckles. Just crazy. What? They took all my money and my boots. They took my boots.

The sergeant will bust my ass for losing my boots. The guy's face is like hamburger. Drowning and it was dying in a river. He's like, uh, man, sergeant is going to be pissed I lived. But that shows kind of how they get away with it. Right. They're, they're, everybody's ashamed of, you know, right. Yeah.

Yeah. Yep. So after all this, Hugh Bentley decides he's going to clean up Phoenix city. And he organizes a group called the Russell County Betterment Association known as the RBA. The goal is to get the gamblers, the drug dealers, the sex workers, the bootleggers out of the city. Sure. Real easy.

So the RBA spoke out against fixed elections because that's obviously a huge problem. Right. As well as vice and then the syndicate starts threatening people to keep them from joining the RBA or supporting the RBA. Okay. Hugh gets tons of the death threats. The RBA meets in secret.

Honestly, can I just say how it's, I'm relieved that death, like death threats are so vanilla. Like seriously doesn't seem like your death normally got like a warning. Yeah. Right. No, you're totally right. It's a compliment on January 9th, 1952. He went to a hospital in Augusta, Georgia for some treatment. I don't know what for, but he had to go.

He didn't want to leave because he had gotten so many death threats. He comes home around midnight, pulls into the driveway of what is left of his house. Oh no. It had been blown up. He, it had just been blown up. He dives into the rubble to find his family and somehow they're all alive. His son got blown out of the house. His daughter just found this pocket.

His wife's okay. I'm actually quite warm. I feel nice. I was chilly before and now I feel lovely. His nephew is in the house. He's okay. They're a little, I think the mom and the brother are a little battered, but they're okay.

Like they're alive. Right. Right. Pretty good for a house. Yeah. No, if a house explodes and you're alive, you're like, wow, okay, this is a good outcome. Pretty good. So them all being alive to Hugh is like.

Oh no. The Lord is validating my movements. That's right. He is telling me that I must continue my quest to shut down the sin of that town. He, he posts them out of the rebel. He immediately hits his knees and starts praying to God and tells God that he understands this is a message to keep fighting against evil in Phoenix city. Look, let me tell you something.

We've had a lot of people on this show completely misinterpret things and just always find reasons why it's the Lord's mysterious work. If I came home and I had a family and my house had blown up and they're all basically on the lawn like, oh, my shirt's dirty. I'd be like, Lord, you are my savior. Let's get out of here. You are real. So the sheriff arrives and asks Hugh if his oil heater has exploded.

Good. By the way, great. What a great cop. Just lovely, lovely sheriff work. So he knows, he knows the deal. Just so people understand there was trolling well before the internet. And this is this is just a delightful example of troll. What the hell happened here?

It looks like what happened? Oil heater problem with that. Someone like a match. So let me guess. You were trying to fart into a lighter and it went haywire. So Hugh yells at the sheriff. You know damn well what happened here. Demolition experts from Fort Benning come to be a part of the investigation.

And they conclude dynamite had been put under the porch. It's just very it's very it's not very tactical. It turns out that we don't want to get caught for this. What should we do? Dynamite under the porch. Go. Turns out it was a local guy named Tommy Caps whose nickname was dynamite.

Oh no. I just realized the downside of my terrific nickname. It could connect me to crimes involving such a weapon. Boy it seems like I'm a victim of my own brilliance. So dynamite there was dynamite under the porch. That's what brought us to your house today. Boy that's a regular officer wouldn't have imagined something like that. You know they don't call me dynamite because I have an affinity for it or nothing.

Why why do they call you dynamite? Because um because uh because they think yeah yeah because they call me dynamite not because it's anything to do with the sticks of dynamite one bit at all. No no no they actually call me dynamite because uh because uh I uh yeah because uh when I die when I die which happens a lot to me I got a condition the might that I show makes a lot of guys go nah so they uh one guy just one day said hey why don't we put it all together out of order and die now might. They do not call you Tommy reasons Caps do they?

Oh I know it doesn't enroll off the tongue now but but again I hate dynamite I abhor the sticks. Oh boy there's nobody's more allergic to dynamite than old dynamite here I'll tell you that much actually wait yeah that's it that's why I got that nickname yeah yeah because on the cat I get a rash if I touch the stuff some people think rash should be a better nickname but who wants to go around being called rash so I pushed back at the meeting yeah I did I said nah I don't want to go by rash I want to go by dynamite yeah yeah and that's uh that's why come I couldn't have done nothing with that dynamite under that porch I look like I fell in poison oak if I did it. How do you know it was under the porch no one said that.

Well maybe it wasn't under the porch at all actually it probably wasn't under the porch I never even seen a porch in my life the house I was born it didn't have a porch my dad told me I'd never have one he made me swear to god I'd never touch a porch I swear to god I can't touch dynamite and my father's dying wish was that I never set foot near a porch. Okay this sounds reasonable. So it turns out that Tommy Capps got the order from Deputy Fuller and Tommy was often seen at the courthouse talking to the sheriff and district attorney Arch Ferrell who were both part of the syndicate the DA was also known to drink a lot it had a

terrible temper and Tommy Capps was a man who took care of problems for the syndicate and even with all this Tommy Capps would never be charged for blowing up the house. Of course not he had nothing to do with it. So the bombing had the opposite effect the the bombing brought the town together it was a step too far the RBA membership swelled people publicly called out the DA and others at this meeting the local dirty politicians all pushed back saying phoenix city was clean and law abiding at the meeting a man stood up and called the DA a liar and the DA's sister then yelled quote don't you call my brother a liar and slap the man meanwhile the DA jumped off the stage and ran

to fight the man but the sheriff held him back and then the DA got dragged back yelling at the man to go outside and fight him and then the people at the meeting yell that they're going to impeach the DA and the sheriff and the DA yells bring it on so the meeting is not going well it doesn't sound like it's going very well for the DA in any way so they try to impeach the sheriff side Garrett who was the attorney general of Alabama who's also corrupt he comes to the sheriff's impeachment trial and as a witness and says that he knows every sheriff in Alabama and he did not know a better man than sheriff Ralph Matthews and the sheriff gets off wow it's just like everyone else in that town that's right so as this is all going on right

the town's getting upset they're trying to impeach the sheriff the gambling house and brothels don't slow down a bit nothing right slows down right now Albert Patterson remember him he was the he was the attorney of the of the guy who shot the the the two brothers who shot the guy in the dice room and helped get him off so he helped set up the rba but then he really starts getting involved after the bombing he had moved to phoenix city in 1933 so he'd been there for a while and he'd also defended a lot of criminals over that time period but now he's like this is fucking too much so he also starts getting death threats because he's now on the other side and on February 24th 1952 someone broke into his office and covered it in motor oil and set

it on fire Jesus it didn't completely burn down there was janitor there who who helped stop at time but no one is ever charged again obviously right all right well who would have done it hey motor oil you know anything about this nope never been near the place I can't go into offices is that too claustrophobic is that motor oil leaking out of your pocket yeah but uh it's not what you think what I um it's uh not my motor oil it's my sisters I'm holding it for so you put it in your pocket yeah that's right I took two handfuls of it and put it in my pocket she's going to come get it later I gotta say this story is really I haven't heard a story this bad since I talked to Tommy uh dynamite caps hey I got nothing I didn't even see a thing

motor oil I can't touch this stuff huh so he has a bit of a spaz so the fire and bombing like the combination they make it makes a lot of the locals realize that they have to vote out the powers that be it's it's at the top this this situation right because you know they're all controlled by the syndicate so right the rba decides it's going to try to win elections to gain control of the city elections in may and the polls are on fifth avenue just one place and so voters come from all over town and the syndicate does their usual thing they're buying votes from poor mill workers for a buck um the ballots are already marked dead people who are dead are voting my ballots already been voted on twice by a dead guy yeah just put in the box shut the fuck up that's all right sex workers

are being dropped off dropped off by the truckload some who would yell quote what name do I put on the ballot again okay still it's at all hands on deck so head head rebel and his gang block the voting booths from rba people they just block them off okay which is good oh yeah i'm the bouncer the guy the friend of hughes who went with him that day the other hugh he hugh yeah he tries to push through heads mob to talk to reporters who were on the other side and a thug grabs hugh too and spins him around and hits him with a sledgehammer okay so will he be talked to the reporters it feels like that's probably not gonna happen anytime soon now sledgehammer if i see spins him into a sledgehammer i gotta say if i'm going to vote and there's a guy out front with a sledgehammer i know something

is off oh yeah for sure you're like how do you do it do you are you hitting a bell is that how we vote so hugh too goes flying through a plate glass window of a store Jesus so this dude spin sledge hammers him so hard he flies through a window yeah okay then the group attacks hugh and his 16 year old son now hugh had been an amateur boxer so he's fucking give up your dukes boys you want a slice of this pie come on who wants a slice of the lord pie huh ring your bell fella so he's given as much as he's getting a news photographer a news photographer is taking photos can you imagine waiting in line all right now the newsman's taking pictures of the the preacher boxing the sinners in the town when we're supposed to vote meanwhile his friend also named hugh

lies outside in the dirt because he was sledge hammered through the window hugh's mother-in-law runs up to a cop and asks for help but he says quote lady they're not gonna hurt them they're using their fists and feet well who's ever died from hands the fight ends he and his friend uh and the son have minor injuries they take a photo of him which i'll put up they'll put up with the episode but it's the three of them and they're just bloody and there's the white shirts bloody this picture national news it's in the front of every paper okay and as we know national news very helpful for your cause always albert ran in uh so albert paterson now decides to run for attorney general he's the guy okay because they're like we got to take the we got to take

this from the top i mean the attorney general of the state is fucking corrupt so i mean imagine how much money is coming out of phoenix city going into the state oh god yeah i mean the whole it just fucks up everything that's yeah so he runs the democratic party now it's it's the south and it's the 50s so if you win the democratic primary you're gonna win the whole thing so the primary is really the race that matters okay he campaigned as a quote man against crime that was his slogan it's cute sure yeah the syndicate obviously the syndicate runs their man against him now the syndicate attacks albert by starting rumors that he was part of their criminal enterprise and pointed out that he had defended men like hoitz shepherd and head revel so so they're like the only way to win this

is to make him one of us that's right they're right they're they're they're so disliked right they're acting like their guy is the clean guy and this guy albert oh i'm sorry i mean enemy wink in order to focus on the campaign albert turns his law office business over to his son john who's also a lawyer and uh albert ends up winning by 854 votes so basically means he'll be when the general election comes along he's gonna easily win yeah now the mafia the syndicate starts pressuring and scaring the election officials to put aside the win saying they're needed to be a count count the vote and there is fraudulent voting all the stuff that they had done now they're saying right that's what happened they did everything they could undermine the results

16 days after the win albert gave a speech to a church women's group and he told them he had a hundred to one chance of actually living long enough to become attorney general because the gangsters could not afford to let him get into office right well that's that's how we that's how we talk about our like revolutionary candidate in this country that's right like i mean we're when you and i talk we're like yes unfortunately then they will kill them anyway but he will win but they will kill him or her on june 18th 1954 albert worked late and at 9 p.m he left his office and went into the alley whereas car was parked a man walked up shoved a pistol in his mouth and shot he then shot albert three more times a witness quote albert walked 15 steps

with a bullet in his brain and two more in his chest before he fell face down on the pavement at the bottom of the stairs leading to his office a few minutes later the da and deputy fuller went into a bathroom in dixie jones cafe there was a soldier in a stall and he heard one of them say quote i told you not to shoot him there you son of a bitch a crowd gathered in the alley the governor immediately called out the national guard under general major walter hannah nick named crack sure so that's what we'll be going general crack yep yes sir what do you think we should jump through the window and get these uh crystals out of our arms as soon as we can so general crack was a tough guy he tried to enlist in the military when he was just 15

and sir i'm ready and when the recruiter found out his age he told them to leave so crack tried to deck the recruiter and then the recruiter threw crack down the stairs okay in world war two he was in a bombing and he had two crushed vertebrae two shattered knees and a broken nose but insisted on going straight back into the fight after the field surgeons bandaged him up let me go sir i'm ready don't worry i've got this so now that's who's arriving general crack and 75 national garment arrived in phoenix early the next day all right i like the general cracks on the scene when general crack got there he went straight to the alley where the shooting was he sees no police line no deputies no investigators and the crime scene is full of locals standing around destroying

evidence what do you think crack not the best scene i've seen actively destroying hey why don't you guys get some pickaxes we're destroying evidence help us he immediately drives down to the red light district and tells the gambling places and other crime venues it's over okay in the middle of the night that night trucks leave town packed with gambling equipment many so they like listen to hit they were like this guy's crazy yeah many of the top syndicate members leave too okay can only imagine what he said to him oh like yeah i mean well you have the national guard and then this guy you know you're like i think this is the real one the jig is up this is closing time john Patterson his son said the local lawmen leading the investigation

were the actual suspects well that's but that's what we depend that's what this country's founded upon policing ourselves but they're so brazen that they just don't even fucking care the attorney general we think this dog did it the attorney general comes to town and makes a speech saying he was going to take charge of the investigation and catch this killer no matter what yeah while he's sheriff oj simpson to lead the investigation for double homicide we will find this man or woman or running back probably not running back while he's doing this the da is standing next to him taking swigs from a liquor bottle shit face out of his mind and at one point he says out i always hated that son of a bitch all right let's not go on record any longer now please

i always hated that son of a bitch the da then says that sorry the attorney general then calls the da the quote best damn solicitor in the state and look at this guy and found not to remove him even if the governor or supreme court ordered him to yeah yeah that's yep all so familiar you're doing a heck of a job brownie this guy nobody is better drunk than this guy this guy is the best drunk uh da we we have ever had nobody can lead better than him look at him i mean he's sitting sure he's sitting and he's spitting a little bit on his shirt but that's because he said he told me he had the warm spits before we came out here he said vomit is for sure happening but he's fighting through that's what matters intoxicated or not and he is intoxicated

he drank the whole car ride down he said it was something he made in his bathtub i didn't even really understand but he did it through a straw and he looked at me the whole time he drank it didn't blink once nobody's better so the ag runs the investigation for two days and then goes on a vacation out of state uh huh well some exhausted well he'd never worked before he was like Jesus being a da sucks so remember this is the guy who's the the da leaving so then someone else steps in the acting attorney general takes over and he immediately removes the da from the case why where what oh oh okay a week later he has the da brought in for formal questioning for 10 hours okay while this is going on the national guardsmen on our raiding nightclubs warehouses and gambling

institutions 24 7 so they're just doing 24 7 raids right there's just pictures of them just taking out gambling equipment you know slot machines the syndicate is being decimated on july 22nd the governor declared martial rule now martial rule is different than martial law okay because with martial rule that allows all law enforcement to be fired and replaced with military personnel oh shit and this was the this was uh the fbi hoover and uh the president's call like they were like go with it oh sh god i mean who who do you root for nobody so general crack goes straight to the sheriff and says you're fucking fired they're all cleared out they confiscate all their cop cars they do the same thing the police confiscate all the cars everyone's fired go to the courthouse

the the da everybody out they just clear fucking house they bring in military lawyers general clark brings in 15 000 soldiers oh my god wow once that happened all of a sudden witnesses come from everywhere they had been weird they'd been scared of everyone in power and as soon as they're out they all come forward it is very very like it's like a dictatorship i mean really yes it is dictatorship yeah i mean you're literally killing people who are witnesses so yeah yeah true no true existence of truth or anything you know or law yeah a lot of the criminals now just fucking vanish they just take off the they still prosecute a bunch though they acting ag and his investigators park their cars every day in the same spot albert paterson was shot and then work in an

office next door at his so they're making a statement with that right right right right the investigations dragged into november and then a guy named johnny griffin testified before the grand jury that he had seen the district attorney talking to albert paterson in the bathroom another man came up and shot him so he saw the shooting okay right later that night johnny griffin had his throat cut as he walked down the street wow they look into the murder and it turns out it was just some dude and he gets arrested he admits killing griffin and said griffin had started trouble and then this a stripper that was also there is a witness she backs it up and says griffin started trouble so the biggest grand jury witness

this is just because of phoenix city it's just a coincidence that he gets killed by somebody else wow so they're like it's an inside job and they're like nah it just was that someone didn't like him just a regular killing oh thank god thank god thank okay thank god deputy fuller is arrested he's tried and convicted for murdering albert paterson he gets life in prison but is paroled after 10 years district attorney archer ferrell was acquitted many claimed he was the legal brain behind the entire criminal enterprise the wasted guy uh yeah the wasted guy right so the the man in charge of your policy is pickled you know he should do nags put a slack slot machines for kids in the grocery store go ahead hurry be quick with it too thank you so much

attorney general sigh garret testified for 10 hours about voter fraud and the murder and when he was finished he got in his car and drove straight to texas and checked himself into a mental hospital which kept him from being tried wow that's like one time i bombed so hard at the improv i walked offstage without talking or seeing anyone and left and went right to my car i've done that it's like where you just you it's so bad you don't pause to do any actual any any there's no housekeeping it's just over gone uh the new governor came in and he pulled the national guard out after six months john paterson became attorney general on january 18th so he must have been a point okay right but he's a total piece of shit he banned the naacp from operating in alabama he

tried to stop black community boycotts of tuskegee businesses and Montgomery buses he was backed by the Ku Klux Klan and that helped him be win and become governor of alabama in 1958 boy power is awesome a movie was made about the events called the phoenix city story in 1955 it's a noir it's apparently a very good film i haven't seen it yet but i'm going to and they used a lot of locals in the film like a woman who ran a club was in it and so they actually used criminals it should be very careful and where's the gaffer oh my god he's hanging we didn't see nothing let's shoot this is based on wicked phoenix city by faith seraphine phoenix city by edwin strickland and gene wartsman and death prostitution in the paper boy by brian moseley it's crazy i mean you know

that's the thing that is that like we never get a chance to like i mean vegas is like that with legal but as far as like everything being legalized in this country we're so uh against that and the pro like in a city like that you're like well that that business model can totally work it's just that everyone's so fucking corrupted so you don't get like a fair shot you know uh but yeah crazy i mean you just think about how this this country used to be it just used to be such it just used to be so crazy and it just i read a really interesting article about his dan solovan and he he sort of made the point that like organized crime has been pushed out but just replaced by corporations you know what is what is fizer fizer is this company that just

gave everybody legalized heroin like it's just they pushed everybody out and then they took over and then the people who the people who came up with the drug get fined so little compared to what they made right it's a working business model yeah um but it still is just yeah i mean that that's that's what's so interesting and saddening is like it is so wild and so different and yet when it comes to like the political makeup uh or the way that the you know no actual checks on any institutions which is what we live in right now i mean that's the same thing and to the point you're making about how you know the when they're voting them out they're voting them out like you know that is not uh an option that is uh yeah it's not a really working option we have anymore either you

know so not to get political but um just very very similar you know like how how do you check power when the watchdog is in cahoots with the power that they're supposed to check it just doesn't seem like it'll really work great no it won't oh but it's working great now no it's good it's all good things fine now um great great really nice really cute little cute fun cute fun time only a few people died which is always nice about three or four deaths that we heard about um it's cool yeah i would i mean those are like you know that would be on my time travel bucket list i would want to go to a place like that oh yeah hang out for an afternoon just just to see it just seriously just to like see it you know and just sit there and be like oh my god yeah what is happening yeah

everywhere uh and then also go to sunday school that sunday just watch people be like the town is perfect and everything's fine just drive across town and it's just yeah literally like have you ever gone left on ninth why no why wouldn't we well you should try it no no our town's fine um great well we signed cash even though you're not legally allowed to we started signing money i didn't know that yeah oh you didn't know that no yeah wow yeah we're signing money we sign a lot i signed a lot of money i've signed all my own money here so yeah sure i mean that makes sense it's all good to go ready to go so if you guys want that it's two dollars for a dollar that's the program we have do people have we announced yet that you're gonna be on the five

dollar bill i think we must have have we i feel like we should we should yeah we i'm sure we've said it if we if someone's just tuning in and hasn't listened to the past few episodes um i'm going to be the new face the five dollar bill uh lincoln's moving to the three and i'm going to take the five for about a year or two just to sort of see how it goes um so yeah so from now on don't be alarmed to see and if some of you are like hey but only presidents go on money well let me tell you benjamin franklin's on the hundred dollar bill and you're probably going well yeah he's a president i'm going hey i hear you it makes sense in every way that he would have been a president they could not insinuate that he was a president more god damn it but uh but no so

i'm going to be on the five for like the next couple years and this is promotional i'm sure we've mentioned this this is promotion it's purely dollar promotion the us is now allowing people to buy uh how long before that happens how long before pepsi can buy their spot on a on a bill i mean it is i honestly i don't even know anymore now it's starting to get to the point where you're like like i love when people are just like you know when history looks back on the trump administration it's like how long do you think we have to look back like what world are you living in where we have two generations that are going to be sifting through this bullshit be like you know in retrospect that was a it's like it doesn't make me laugh i know all the time they're

like well history will look back fondly on this it's like if you're lucky yes if you're lucky there's history i know yeah well yeah i always i mean i remember when i was a kid and i was just you know like i always would think like wouldn't it be nicer if if when so like instead of waiting for someone to die like when they're these terminally ill people who are kind of iconic like do the retrospective while they're alive so that they can sit there and you know what i mean like so they can go oh yeah they did do all that and then they die in a week and then you go now they died but we showed you everything about them and you learned them and you valued them while they were here you know that's that's over yeah it's all just going to be you know lumps you're just

going to be today's lump and that's what we're doing yeah it's just lumps anyway no not to get political not to get political we signed cash see on the five everybody start using more fives i get a kickback