The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 92 - Owen Kildare

Episode Date: June 27, 2015

Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine the life of Owen Kildare, the Kippling of the Bowery.SourcesTour DatesRedbubble MerchPatreon

When you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? You could be sitting on an Airbnb and not even know it. That in-law sweet guest house where your parents stay only part-time Airbnb it and make some money the rest of the year whether you could use a little extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.ca slash host. Oh, welcome to the dollop. This is a bi-weekly podcast. It's about American

history each week. I, Dave Anthony, read a story from American history to my friend. Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic is about. Why not? Because they're fucking crazy. God, do you want to look who to do? I'll do one bottle. People say this is funny. Not Gary Gareth. Dave, okay. Someone or something is tickling people. Is it for fun? And this is not gonna become a tickly podcast. Okay. You are Queen Fakie of Hade Up Town. All hail Queen Shit of Liesville. A bunch of religious virgins go to mingle and do what? Pray. Hi, Gary. No, I see you've done my friend. No, no. Gary. Gareth. Gary, do you have anything? Gareth. To... It's Gareth. We've had our fun.

We've had our fun. The name is Gareth. G-A-R-E-T-H. I was told it was a night of around table. Turns out he was at something called the alternate table. But that's my fucking name. Do you know why he was at the alternate table? Because he wouldn't say his name the right way. No, no, that's bullshit. No, I think that's exactly what it was. The idea that they're like, so Gary, would you like a seat at the table? And he's like, it's Sir Gareth. They're like, have fun at the child's table for Gary. June 11th, 1864. Okay. Jesus Christ. Owen Kildare was born to poor immigrants in the fourth ward at the lowest end of the Bowery in New York City. Okay. His Irish father died three months

before he was born and his French mother died during childbirth. Okay. So right off the bat, a good hand has been dealt to him. Yeah. So this is going to go well. Yeah. Good. An Irish couple took baby Owen in. They were the McShanes. Okay. They paid $6 a month for two tiny rooms of six flights in a Catherine Street tenement. The woman was kind, but Mr. McShane, a long shaman was a mean drunk. That's so weird that a long shaman would be a mean drunk. Well, McShane, too. That name doesn't make me think drinking. No, not at all. As he grew, they gave Owen chores like taking out the family coal bucket to pick up any loose nuggets laying around on the docks where the coal boats were unloaded. You know, times aren't that different.

You think about it. I mean, Finn did go to kindergarten, but, but after kindergarten is done at 1230, we give him the coal bucket. He's got to go. He can't come back until it's full of coal. Yeah. Now, Finn, you go out there and you'll go pick up the spare pieces of coal down by the docks or they dropped off now. Or there's no fire for you, lad. Take the coal bucket. Otherwise, you won't be playing baseball on Saturday. Owen was also given the task. This is when he was six, six of carrying Mr. McShane's beer pale to and from the nearest saloon. Pale? Is that how it worked? Is that like a corking fee back then? There's just like a pale tax. Okay. So at this time, bars were men only. So when

fourth, the way it should be. I'll tell you the one thing I always hate is when I go to a bar and see a bunch of girls ruining the boys club drink with bros. And this was probably like the most homophobic time. And there's still like do take with dudes. So at this time, the bars were men only. So when fourth waters chose to drink and mix company, meaning their wives, they held impromptu parties on rooftops and front stoops of their tenements. They were called growler parties, can rackets or mixed ale camps. Can rackets is the winner. So young Owen would ferry the pales of beer back and forth from a bar to the party. At six. At the time this was considered a child's job. So okay, so he was basically just getting

refills. Yeah, he's going and getting just going a six year old. They don't allow women and bars, but six year olds can go in. That's not an issue. The job was known as rushing the growler because hurry the fuck up. Hurry the fuck up with the growler. Growler was slang for the pale. It's not like we think of beer now, like a bunch of bottles in a bucket. Yeah, it's a two court galvanized pale full of beer. The pales will be hung on a stick. So kid would be running with two sticks with like four pales of beer on each is a little notch and the beer and the handle would go in the notch and you run it down the street with eight things of beer. Eight pales. I mean, I just imagine the filth inside

of those buckets. Good God, it's like a toilet seat. The growler term came from the constant conflict between the bartender who was filling the pail and the customer who wanted a full pail. Okay, that makes sense. The kid who had this job had to rush back and forth because young teens called growler gangs often stop them taking their cash on the way to the bar or their beer on the way back. So wait, they a gang of older kids would stop a six year old and take his beer? Yeah. Okay. I mean, it's just like I that type like it's a little bit like if you take the filth out of it. It sounds kind of like a fun time. It's a little bit like like Mad Max. Right. Make it a run trying to get there. Right. Yeah. Later as

the moral police called for prohibition to kick in pressure was put on local law officials to enforce laws concerning minors buying beer. Yeah. See, not only minors, children, six year olds and exposés of the bucket boys and girls were a feature of many newspapers of the era. Hey, what the fuck is wrong with us? Hey, why have we got kids beer? So at age seven, Owen had enough of abuse from McShane and he left home at the age of seven. Yeah. This was a different time. But still, this is seven year old brain at this time ready to go like, you know what, it's just not working out with parents. I fucking had it with you. I'm out of here. Well, he's probably been drinking for four years already. Oh my God.

He slept in doorways and sidewalk grades and finally fell in with a gang of newsies led by Little Tim Sullivan. Okay. Little Tim was the cousin of Big Tim Sullivan, a future Tammany Hall giant. If you don't know Tammany Hall, his Tammany Hall was basically a political hall that ran New York for years. Right. In America, there's this iconic idea of the newsie for movies where we see cute young newsies. Now, wait a minute. If you're going to shatter my image of a newsie on this podcast, I'm afraid I might have to stop you. What do you think? What do you think adorable children, adorable children with with song in their heart and gusto in their step? All they want to do is pass on the day's headlines for the businessman

that they idolize. Meanwhile, make a penny or two, sing a song, dates around, grab a lamppost, scare a dame. Yeah. Well, that's exactly what it is. Oh, okay. They're cute young kids and all on calling out the day's headlines and getting their first taste of entrepreneurship. Yeah. But the life was actually brutal. Huh? Being a newsie back then was like being a child gladiator. Sorry. This was obviously before labor laws. Many of them were recent immigrants who abandoned school to make pennies a day to keep their family afloat. Many more simply lived on the streets. They slept in doorways or parks or stole smoke and stole smokes and booze. I think I joined the picture on paint. It's like Disney was

right to cut this part out of the movie. I painted a picture of like children hobos. Yeah, children hobos, basically like I'm picturing that Malaysian three year old who was like smoking cigarettes, like a bunch like that sort of world. Thankfully, the newspaper industry like things the way they were so they could print the opposite when people tried to get these kids a better life. That's I mean, really, who are you going to fuck with the most disturbing fact of a newsie life was it was it was one of pure violence. The young boys use their fists to defend their papers, their pennies in their corners. They often started brawling as young as six years old. In News Alley, where the boys gathered to pick up their copies

of the paper, they learned how to battle other young newsies for the bonus free copies given away by the newspapers each day. Jesus. So they're like drug dealers in Baltimore fighting over corners. But these are chambers and they're seven to enjoy this for stash. Yeah. Yeah, but they're seven. Right. So little Tim Sullivan staked Owen a nickel and handed him a sack a stack of papers to sell. Like most newsies, Owen couldn't read and didn't have much hope of every learning how to at this point. But ironically, he was selling papers. What is it? I mean, that ruins the extra a little bit, a little bit extra extra. I got no idea extra big black letters. Extra extra. We're all illiterate. It's kind of sad.

He hawked his papers around City Hall. Luckily, Owen was a big kid and he was good with his fists. He soon fought his way to the top of the Newsy heap. Whoa. And like a lot of newsies, this led to boxing. Sure. Sure. Quote, it's a gateway occupation. It is a gateway. Yeah. Yeah. Quote, I was I was of large frame. My face was a bulldog type. My muscles were strong. My constitution hardened by my outdoor existence and all sorts of weather. And without knowing it, my advance in the art of fisticuffs was eagerly watched with the hope of discovering me a new dark horse for the prize ring. So guys would watch the newsies fight and then pick them as they got older, picked into. Oh my God. Isn't that what should happen today?

I'm not against what you're pitching. But that is amazing. Like the newspaper industry was where you scouted boxers. It's just pretty weird to continue among the men who followed my progress in boxing were such renowned sports as Steve Brody, Warren Lewis, Fatty Flynn and Pop Kaiser. In due time, overtures are made to me. I was properly tried out on several third rate boxers and said goodbye to the Newsy life to blossom out as a full fledged pugilist. Oh, shit. Before long, I began to have higher ambitions. It was the day of smaller purses and more fighting. And I determined to fight often so I could accumulate money quickly. I had some dim desire to wanting to have a lot of it to having the sensation

of being the possessor of a roll of bills. And this being the only road open to me for that goal, I was eager to travel it. Makes sense. By his teen years, he was fighting in barrel knuckle boxing matches in front of the men. It's amazing that you just said in his teen years after all the shit you just said. You're like, what, he's not 40? Yeah, no, in my head, like the calendar, you know, the days are dropping off the calendar, the years are rolling by. We're, we're meeting our boy as a man and 15 12 and a half. Alright, so he's fighting in bare knuckle boxing matches in front of the men and gamblers who partied in Horde on the Bowery. The fights were held in saloons and halls like champions rest champions

best and Bill McGlory's Armory Hall on Hester Street. The Armory Hall was the favorite gaunt of gangsters of the fourth and six wards in the Bowery. And of the thieves pickpockets and knockout drop artists who flourish throughout the city rarely a night went by without a half dozen gory fights. And it was not unusual to see a drugged and drunk and reveler his pockets turned inside out by the waiter girls who had fawned upon him just minutes before being dragged from a table by one of McGlory's bouncers and tossed into the street. Good time. There's pockets were searched again. Frequently, they stripped the victim of his clothing and left him naked in the gutter. Why would you ever go back if you heard if

you if I heard that just one eighth hand, I'd be like, no fucking way. I won't go there. What? How was it? Well, a guy died in the ring. The waitresses robbed me and then the bouncers took my clothes and I couldn't get home. I was wasted. That sounds awesome. Does not sound awesome. Can we go tomorrow? Fuck no. McGlory's is also well known for its transvestite male hookers. Yeah. Oh, here we go. Who made it one of the best known places in town for homosexual account encounters. Oh, so we are. Okay. McGlory employed half a dozen males who wore feminine clothing and circulated through the crowd singing and dancing. Music was provided by piano, cornet and violin. So dudes are just going there to fuck dudes

just like ladies and and there's and watch people there and no one is if people are upset by it, they wouldn't allow it. But everyone's just like, yeah, how about it? He's not fucking a dude. What's a dude dressed as their ladies with dicks. And they were the exhibition fights. McGlory's place was entered from the street through a dingy double doorway, which led to a long narrow passageway with halls painted dead black and no light. 50 feet down the passage was the bar room. And beyond that, the dance hall with chairs and tables for around 700 people. Jesus. A balcony ran two sides of the hall with small boxes partition off by heavy curtains and reserved for the best customers. Generally parties of out of

town men who appeared to be willing to spend considerable money. Drinks were served by waiter girls. So you understand what that means? So up top, there are tourists watching the filth. Right. It's kind of like the box seats. Yeah. But they're not there to enjoy. They're there to just watch the right. They just want to watch the show behind the show. Yeah. Yeah. The fights might go only a few rounds. But the ones that attracted serious wagers were long and brutal. They would last until one of the fighters could no longer stand. Sometimes more than 40 rounds. What? Are they 10 second rounds? 40 rounds? No actual rounds. Kill there spent many nights fighting in the ring, busting knuckles, shredding ears

and gashing eyes. Weapons were banned. But any other pleasantries like biting, clawing, choking, gouging were not only allowed, but really essential. The fight didn't end until one guy was unconscious or begged off. Jesus. So Owen enjoyed fame as a winning boxer on the Lower East Side. But his downfall in the ring was a terrible temper. He would always listen to the instruction given instructions given before a fight and adhere to them for two or three rounds. Then he would lose his shit. All the rules, instructions, time limits will go out the window and he would attack with deadly determinations to do his opponent in at all costs. This led to defeats, but also fame. But is he legit boxing or he's

doing this sort of? I mean, this isn't really this sounds more like cage fighting. I mean, they can do they're punching, but they also are trying to do whatever the fuck they can. Like they're just it's just animal fights. Yeah, right. Which is right. His temper was known to have been matched by one boxer out of Pittsburgh named Tommy Gibbons. Red Hot Tommy. Red Hot Tommy. Tommy Red Hats. Holy shit. Tommy's ready for one. Oh boy. He'll take you on a one. Got Tommy's, Tommy's pissed again. Knowing it would be a great match. He was paid to go to Pittsburgh and fight Gibbons. Okay. He had never been defeated in his own state and the promoters were anxious to find a more vicious brute than he to vanquish him.

I was chosen for the mission. We weighed in at 140 pounds. Wow. This encounter. We were nine. I know he had to have been like, he's mid teens and he's 140 pounds. This encounter lasted 27 seconds, 27 rounds, 27 rounds, different, much different. The humanity of our seconds and backers prevented us from going any further. Our physical condition was the cause for stirring that humanity. We were smeared with blood, a broken arm, a torn ear, a gash from eye to the lower part of the cheek constituted Tommy Gibbons injuries. I was damaged to the extent of two broken thumbs and a broken nose, not to mention minor disfigurements. I don't think you can use minor before disfigurements in this. They fought three more times over

the, you know, yeah. The second fight went 17 rounds. The third went 43 rounds and the fourth just 11 rounds and that fight could there knock Gibbons out. Wow. Gibbons never recovered from the defeat mentally. He ended up killing a man and being executed. Well, Owen was a celebrity in the fourth ward. Okay. Owners of saloons and dives encouraged him to come drink at their spots because he draw fans in. Yeah, appearances. The owners also invited famous hoods, gangsters and ex-cons for the same reason. Taurus would come to see the saloons and the disturbing characters that hung out there and killed there was a perfect match. His favorite hangout was Chickery Hall, a horrific basement dive at Bowery and

East 4th Street. Originally it had been a bake shop, but after being unoccupied for years, a coffee merchant rented it to prepare his Chickery there. Okay. Only one man worked there, Tom Nozly, and he just happened to enjoy sporting proclivities. All right. Back then meeting a boxer was a big, big, big deal. So young Tom decided to invite a bunch of boxers down to the Chickery for a drink and the pugilist came to rush the growler. Quote, our first call at the seller convinced us of its many attractions. It seemed just the place for an ideal hangout. Then also there was Tom Nozly's weekly stipend of $18 a week, he was willing to spend to the last cent for the furthering of sport. Okay. So it's just

a guy who got a job in a place, making coffee, and then he just invited a bunch of boxers in to hang out and drink. Yeah. Right. Sounds like a good business model. It's very clear what you're doing. Very clear of what your goal is. Tom just didn't like boxers. He was also a fan of men who had spent time in prison. Men who had a reputation for crookedness and men who made a living without working. Okay. So this place is not going to be. It's going to be great. It's not going to be great. It's going to be great. I don't have a good feeling and they're all drinking and they're violent people. Yeah. Okay. And they're in one spot. Yeah. Okay. Small spot, a little tiny spot. Yep. Small spot. Chickery. Drinking.

Mm hmm. All very violent. Four small windows covered with impenetrable dirt led a little bit of light in at night. One dim flame from a gas from gas gave off a sort of weird glow to the filthy hole. The dog growling. Yeah. That's weird. I think it heard growler. I think it's growling at the beach. Shortly after establishing their headquarters at Chickery Hall, Owen and his friends chose the storage room as their sleeping chamber. Oh boy. Making the unwieldy making unwieldy couches from the heavy unclean bags. Oh God. Owen was often found sleeping in the back room where he would spend days and nights there quote feasting on many pounds of raw meat and drinking gallons of beer. Oh my God. What? Sweet God. He has

access to the street. It's not like this is a bunker and there was like a meteor hit earth. Just sitting down there just fucking pounding raw meat, sleeping and just guzzling booze. He's living the life man. Dude. And he's just got like little slits of light popping in every now and then. He walks out and fights someone. Yeah. Just beat the fuck out of someone going a pound of raw meat. Quote. Certainly we had conveniences. A front room and a better and what more could we desire? Luxury. Oh my God. There's two rooms here. Look at the soys and s. Oh, good. You know what? There's another room. Holy shit. What are we going to do? Let's sleep in it and eat meat. We'll call this the meat room. Have we opened other

ideas for what we could do? Because we could do other things besides live in the room and just eat meat. We'll drink beer. Right. But like, I mean we could do something like totally different. We'll drink beer and eat meat and sleep. Right. All right. And maybe I'll punch Fred. Okay. He sounds lovely. Quote. We appreciated it. Did not I myself spend 10 entire days and nights in trickery hall without ever leaving it? Oh my God. This smells so bad. Oh God. The fucking smell doesn't sound like it in a shower. Smells smell hall. A smell hall. Oh, I mean, then when they open that back room, you're like, my God, what's in there? Raw meat. Oh my God. Smells like rotting hobos and meat. Yeah, it's nice, right? Yeah. If

you want to take a nap back there, feel free. There's an extra pillow and by pillow, I mean meat. They're just sleeping on the meat. The rest of his crew were boxers. The regulars included Jerry Slattery, the limerick terror, rags, Mike Ryan, the Montana giant, Tom Green and his brother, Patsy Green, Charlie Carroll and Owen. Wait, the limerick giant? The limerick terror. The limerick terror. Gentlemen's names and rags and the Montana giant. But the limerick guy. The limerick terror is a good one. That's tough. That's tough. Yeah. Those are hard to write. They really are. Yeah. I mean, he's like, fuck, what did I just call myself something about rhyming? That once was a man from a dragon. Oh shit. There once was a boxer who wasn't

taught, so he decided instead he would fart. These other men that he lived with inside of a fuck don't have it again. There once was a man who had cold feet, so he lived on a locker full of meat. His friends all smelled bad because they had had a fuck. I lost it again, fuck. On Saturdays, Tom's payday, two or three of the boxes would accompany Tom to pick up his pay. Then they'd go get meat and beer and that's how the weeks went. Those are, those are, those are not good details. Those are the good days. Those are not good the good days. I just hope the meat was wrapped up. And the fact that you're making weekly trips to pick up meat, raw meat, not good. It also became a big destination for uptown

slumbers who came to watch the locals. Their fancy horse-drawn cabs and carriages lined the filthy block. Excuse me. Where's the shit hole? I'd like to see the fuck dirty people. Excuse me. Where are the pig pigs, filthy pig people? Bro, I want to see the grotesque ones. Bring me, bring them, bring me to them. Is there a small place with meat and coffee? As a matter of fact, I can think, I can smell my way there. It's this way, isn't it? Oh, it's terrible.

Oh, good lord, it's getting worse worse. This is going to be lovely. I'm excited. The Lower East Side had long attracted such fancy people, but it really boomed as a destination placed toward the end of the 1800s, bored silly by the strictures of late Victorian manners, feeling increasingly isolated from the real world behind the curtains of their brownstones, uptowners flocked downtown to see how the lower class lived their horrific lives.

Wow. Look at these shit people. You know, it's almost... Oh, it's marvelous. It's almost like reality shows. It is like reality shows. That's exactly what it's like. Yeah, you just want to, the rich people just want to watch the scum and be like, ooh-hoo. Could you imagine?

Oh, do you see how they live? Awful. This one says she's honey boo boo. In Greenwich Village, they crowded into bistros and spaghetti houses, hoping to catch glimpses of authentic artists and Bohemians. At Chickery Hall, gentile ladies and gentlemen sat on cheese boxes, crippled chairs, upturned pales, and flower barrels, and other makeshift seats, staring as Owen and others put on fights in an impromptu arena for them, which, quote, for ferociousness and bloody stubbornness had never been beaten, it was said.

The men drew a circle with chalk near the stairs. That's where the tourists were expected to put money, and then the fighters would provide whatever amount of entertainment the money was worth. Wow. So they just put a circle on the floor, and then they put money in there, and they'd be like, oh, that's two rounds. Oh, well, look, I'll fight him, but not with my hands. Yeah, I'm going to fight Owen with my feet.

But kick fight. You know, I'll take on the Limerick terror, but just with me pinkies. Did someone say the Limerick terror? There once was a man with a bad nickname, who always con- God damn it! These are hard to fucking write. They're very hard. That's- Why did I pick Limerick?

That's a shit one. Fucking hey. Now, have you talked to Haiku Harry? He's doing his own fucking head in back there. Haiku Harry's botched his fucking head in. Uh, the door was always kept shut, and there was no ventilation. No! I mean, they had to keep it shut because it was illegal, but that's the most horrifying

statement that's ever been read on this podcast. It's more illegal to die in meat funk. It's not- God, who is signing off on all of this? Holy shit. I went outside, came back in, and the damn meat funk is something else. Something else, mate. Fucking hey. Maybe we should open a window, or- Don't open that fucking window!

You don't even have window closed. Don't let any of this smell out. Owen Kildare's reputation as a fighter increased at the chicory. He became known as a man who would fight anyone or anything, and they all came- Anything is funny. And he fought them. He fought this toyer, beat up the toyer. There you go.

Here's a poll. Have at it. Beat up this pair of puns! Fight these puns! They throw the pants at him. Fuck you puns! At one point, he was set to take on Mickey Davis, who was the champion rough-and-tumble fighter of New York.

These were the conditions of their meeting. They were to be locked in the back room, with the privilege of using any means of defeating each other besides weapons. The first man who begged to have the door unlocked, and to be taken from the room was the loser. Oh my god. Is that even fun to watch? Well, no one got to watch it.

So what is the point that you're just here- You just hear the screaming, and then- Oh, it sounds like they're really beating the fuck out of each other. And then one guy comes out all bloody, and you go, oh shit, Mickey Davis took one there, huh? Oh boy, oh boy. Mickey Davis was the man who came to the door. These fights went on for some time, and Owen remained the champion.

He's the best back room fighter in the fucking business. You close the door, and he stays in every fucking time. What if he's just giving them a bunch of meat? Wait, nah, I'm gonna give you a bunch of free meat. Go ahead and rub that on yourself. And then in five minutes, beg to come out. Yeah, you come out. Let's just scream now.

Owen's a tough one there. Yeah, all right. You good? Cool. You like corned beef? Because none of this is corned. I mean, it's not corned when it comes into the place, but somehow it gets corned just bringing it through the room.

Do you like pillow fuck meat? That one's soft. I've slept on it for four days. And I've actually been dating this boil of meat. You know, to be honest, we don't leave here except for Mondays. So we've been fucking and sleeping on the meat a lot, eating the meat. Yeah. Don't care what kind of meat it is.

We're trying to find something the meat can't do. We only know the generic term meat. We don't know what it is. We don't care to know what it is. Could be the cow's asshole. Don't know. We're just going to eat it after I sleep on it and fuck it. I'm taking this one out to brunch and by brunch, I mean, I'm going into the front

room and having a beer brunch. I mean, I'm going to fuck this and then eat this over there with ale on fan plenty of other opportunities to put his fighting skills to use. He and his crew were served as Tammany enforcers at the polls on voting days. He was frequently employed by a captain boss in Hoboken, who he called a notorious guerrilla chief. During one heated contest in a small town near Baltimore, the boss shipped 50 men from the ward to help elect his patron.

Five Bowery gents in rough and ready ware were stationed near each polling place and induced unwanted voters to keep away from the ballot boxes. Local primaries and conventions, regardless of politics, couldn't do without Owen and his fellow pugilists. One day, they would be the tough guys for one candidate and the next election, they'd take the same money and turn the tables on that candidate. Excuse me, you're not going to vote today. Oh, but I...

No, you're not going to vote today. Oh, no. Get the fuck out of here! Okay, that's good. Quote, Still, we were loyal to our temporary bosses. We offered our strength and brutality in open market. We asked a price and if it was paid, we did our work with a faithfulness worthier of a better cause.

That this was so proven, that this was so, is proven by the fact that not only John McCain, the czar of Coney Island, recruited... God, he's really old. I didn't realize he went back that far. Fucking hang. He was none of the czar of Coney Island recruited his police force from among us. But even reputable concerns like the Iron Steambunk Company and others, engaged men of our class to preserve order and peace at designated posts.

So that's like union busting shit. After a bit, Owen voluntarily gave up the title of champion to close the door room fighter or whatever it was called that Chickery else. So he stopped backdoor fighting. Cool. He's like, I can't. It's extremely violent and terrible. I'm just tired of being covered in meat.

I don't know what this is, this meat or my arm. I don't even know where the meat stops and I start anymore. His reputation offered him other opportunities, that of a bouncer or floor manager. He moved from venue to venue in the Bowery and gained an even bigger name for himself. His fame was increasing. At this point, he thought he was surely on the road to success. Yeah. Well, I mean, he's left the meat room.

And now he's a bouncer. So life at the top, he'll be watching the poor in no time. I reasoned the case with myself and drew the following deductions. I was feared because of my brutality. I had more money than ever before. I was wearing well made, if flashy clothes, the grumbling envy of my less fortunate fellows and chums sang like a sweet refrain in my ears. I was strong, vicious and healthy.

Why wouldn't I consider myself successful? One night, he saved an uptown man from a thrashing and was rewarded with a purebred bulldog pup named Bill. Okay. I like this. This was the beginning of the decline of Owen Kildare. Oh, God, what? I dropped the pup at my cot and intended to note how he would take to his new surroundings.

First he squatted down and looked at me intently. He came to the edge of the bed and gave me a little wine. I meant to grab him by the neck and throw him to the floor, but when my hand touched him, he felt so soft and warm and well, I patted him. That night, I went to the saloon at the custom time and did my duty as well as before. However, at odd moments, I'd think of the little fellow up in my room. What the fuck is going on right now? And as time went by, they became closer.

It was a new bewildering sensation to me to perceive a living being to be so pleased at my appearance. It was a new, strange welcome, perhaps not entirely unselfish because milk and good things to eat generally came with me, but still much purer and more sincere than the greeting hello or loudmouth invitation to drink by companions. He's enjoying himself a dog. Yeah. How about that?

So Newsy's is real. Owen began to spend more time at home because of Bill the dog. What? This is great. What is happening? Is there a feel good story on a dollop? Then he began to fix up the place and make it a home gone where the bare walls were placed with pictures.

He would take Bill for walks. Bill had a glittery collar and no one often heard from others on the street, which is the dog. What a bunch of assholes. Yeah. People are horrible. Yeah. This is about the time reforms swept through the city of New York.

Suddenly all the saloons and halls were closed and Owen was a man in search of a job. He found himself at free lunch counters. He also made money taking the slumbers around as a tour guide and bodyguard. So there were still some places open, but most of them were being shut down. One night he did this for three Princeton students, quote, arrayed in yellow and black mufflers and wearing the insignia of their fraternity. They started out at Fatty Flynn's dance hall on Bond Street and wandered to others. Owen was pretty much disgusted with how little they could drink.

He warned them about drinking too much, as that would ruin the tour, but they were college prep boys and off they went. As they left the Golden Horn, one of the college boys saw a gin mill that was run by a very rough gang. Hey, let's go in here, fellas. Hey, what's bad about this place, nothing? Come on, guys. We got it for fraternity sweaters on.

We'll be okay. Look, we're educated. They'll appreciate that. Owen warned them not to go inside, but they did anyway. All seemed well as the boys treated everyone in the place to drinks. Owen decided it was a good time to go to the bathroom, which I assume was out on the street. Yeah. No, it's in his pants.

It literally doesn't move. He's like, I'm going to go to the bathroom. It doesn't move. When he returned, the college boys were surrounded. Oh, God. Turns out one of the gang had slapped one of the boys on the shoulder too hard and the college boy had tried to punch him. Oh, God.

What? That's why you don't take college boys into gin mills. That's why you just, if you're going into a gin mill at this time, don't just be really tolerant. Really tolerant. Owen spotted one of the gang with something flashing in his hand and got himself in between the attacker and the college boy just in time to take a knife to the neck. What?

He ended up with a three inch cut that put him in the hospital for weeks. The college boy was very thankful and knew that his life had been saved. I mean, just been kicked out of Princeton, he offered his show, Owen the World. What? What? What the fuck? What? What?

This is, what? The Princeton kid took him on a tour of Europe in a minute. Wait, wait, wait. Owen takes a knife to the fucking neck. Yeah. Almost dies. Same kid's life. This kid gets kicked out of school and is like, want to go see Earth?

Yeah. Okay. So they went, they toured around Europe in the Mediterranean and then they arrived in Algiers. Oh boy. And that's what Owen learned. The kid had spent all of the money that they had and he wired home asking for more. Oh boy.

But it did not come. Oh god. So they were stranded in Algeria with a fucking stranger who stabbed you in the neck. They enlisted in the Legion of Strangers. What? They enlisted in the French Foreign Legion. Okay. But you offered to show me the world, asshole.

Well, you seen it. Yeah. It feels like it's over. They just hit a rough patch. Yeah. The only way out, you know. Yeah. Join the army.

They fought in a few skirmishes, but they hated being in the hot desert sand and the strange food. So when the time came for them to re-up, they bailed. Actually, I don't know if they were supposed to re-up. I think they just bailed. Just after leaving the garrison of Deg del Kerr, they learned it had some disastrous encounters with local tribes and had they stayed, they probably would have died. For six weeks, they walked to the desert avoiding all native villages while at the same time

being aided by the occasional random tribesmen. What? It's just like the Bowery. It's just like the Bowery. Man, you know what I'm thinking of right now? What's that? The meat room. Oh shit, Christ.

It's just full of meat. The whole fucking thing. And then you beat up a man in there. Beat up a man, fuck the meat, eat it, sleep on other meat. Oh, we're in the desert. His mirages are like meat rooms. Right up there, I think I see a meat room. Oh my god.

Just more sand. Upon reaching the coast, they found a work shoveling coal in a boiler room ship. Full circle. And made it to Marseille. Okay. There, they found the college boy had been sent credit by his parents and back to New York they went. What a fucking moment that must have been.

Hadn't been that gratified since a knife got pulled out of his throat. Owen went straight to Bill who had been moping around the whole time. He was gone and suddenly got his spirit back when he saw his old friend. Okay. So they thought Bill was going to die basically and then all of a sudden here comes fucking Owen. Yeah. Yeah.

The moral crusade against drinking. That would have been a YouTube sensation video. Yeah. Owen returns to Bill. That really would have been a good one. Good Lord. The moral crusade against drinking had died down a bit after the prohibitionists had lost local elections.

It was a good time in the bowery again. Owen started telling tales of his adventures in bars. This only served to make him more famous in lower Manhattan. There was an ex-nizzy named Steve Brody. The Brooklyn Bridge had just been constructed and people were jumping off of it to their deaths. Someone had bet Brody that he could not jump off the bridge and live to tell the tale. Oh my God.

So naturally, Jody took the bet and jumped. Oh jeez. I don't know if it's like a technique thing. Hey Brody, I bet you can't jump off that death bridge and live there. Oh I bet I fucking can't. Alright, well let's see you do it. Feed first dummy. Yeah.

I bet it's just that you can't. Oh. There's no wager. I'm just saying. I don't think you can. I'll take it. His bet ended up making him famous. Because he lived.

And led to him funding his own saloon on Bowery at Grand Street. We're talking about a time when you could jump off a bridge to prove that you could live and then you get a saloon. That's about right. Yep, okay. The jump also led to a starring role on the stage. He played himself in the hit 1894 review on the Bowery in which he recreated his jump. He played?

Oh yes. Oh delicious. This is me jumping off the bridge now. He played himself in a play about when he jumped off the bridge. Here I go. I'm jumping. Okay. Okay.

It's just a small apple box but I jumped a little bit there. Steven no, you can't do it. Nobody's brave enough to jump off the bridge and live. I'm afraid Matilda I have to. Because if we want the saloon I have to dig deep. I bet I'll survive. He even sang a few songs in a Bowery accent. I can't believe I live the bridge.

I live the bridge jump. My poet is a Bowery Goyle, she means all the world to me. To pull a Brody became slang for- Jumping off a bridge and living. Crazy stunts. For doing a crazy stunt was to pull a Brody. Yeah right okay. This is where Owen found himself now as his new self, a storyteller. He regaled patrons of the narrow tin ceiling saloon while living in the back room.

He was given free drinks by the patrons. This was the perfect job for him as his health still had not fully returned from his trip in Africa. But eventually the patrons at Brody's had heard all of his stories and were done with them. But Owen had the bug, he wanted to fill the void so he's basically become a comedian. Yeah and now his first hour is done. He's just recorded his first album and I was like what else he got?

He's like uh. Hi so. Yeah. Do I tell you what the time I was in out here? You ever? Hold on, I got a bunch of ideas. Hey I've got a dog that I like. Yeah who likes dogs?

Hey uh have you ever accidentally eaten the meat you're fuckin'? I'm out of ideas. I got nothing. I got nothing. One night the bartender, Johnny Mobile, came into the back room, say kill you got to do me a favor. Steve is out and they're into single solitary men in the place whom I can introduce to the bunch I got up against the bar.

They just came in and are fine spenders but I'll lose them if you don't do this for me. Turns out Johnny wanted Owen to pretend he was Jack Dempsey, famous boxer Jack Dempsey. Interesting. Casting. So the spenders would stick around and keep drinking. Look at this, Jack Dempsey's here. This led to Owen's next job, pretending to be celebrity boxers. That's great that there's no, like you're at a time where like it would be like a Michael

Jackson impersonator today but you just weren't sure what Michael Jackson necessarily looked like. How would you know? You would never know. It is a great time to be an impersonator. Oh my god it's the best. Nobody can check your bullshit. Know what?

It could just literally walk up, hello I'm Jack Dempsey. He looks like the drawing in the paper. Yeah he just looked like that drawing. And it wasn't just Dempsey. He pretended to be any boxer the tourists wanted to see. And they're just giving him drinks and sometimes more than one at the same time. It was also very embarrassing. Wait he would be playing two boxers at the same event?

It was also very embarrassing. So it would be like that sitcom play where like the main characters on two dates. But he's doing that with two different boxers. Exactly a sitcom. That's great. He forgets who he is at one of the tables eventually. You said you were Tommy. Yeah I am Tommy.

I was doing a joke as Tommy being Jack. Good lord. Anyway I'll be right back with those drinks. It was also very embarrassing when at the same time I had to double and even treble. As an illustration let me tell you that one evening at the same time I represented Jack McAuliffe at the head of the bar, Mike Bowden at the end of it and Johnny Regan in the back room. What the fuck.

All well-known poochless champions in their class. Oh my god. My audiences were especially annoyed that night holding me down to dates and details and keeping me on the edge of apprehension. How annoying. Realism. But the faking life as a famous boxer to get drinks era would come to a close. I'm shocked that that had a shelf life.

Brody and Owen had a falling out. Next he made his way to Barney Flynn's. A saloon. Isn't it cool how in some stories we tell stories of guys going from state to state or doing different things. Yeah. And he's basically just going from bar to bar. Which almost feels state to state.

I went to Barney Flynn's, a saloon on the edge of Chinatown. The biggest celebrity at Flynn's was another braggart Chuck Connors called the mayor of Chinatown. Connors was a professional or Irishman full of Blarney. He gave reporters and slumbers tours of the area's dives and opium dens. Some real and some fakes he set up in empty rooms paying locals to act like dope beans. Oh look at this. This guy's really addicted to the junk, isn't he?

Oh hey Chuck I gotta pick up my son. Sorry. Did I blow it? Yeah. Right back. Well hold on. It's a miracle. What kind of opium is this that made a man?

I took a, oh I took a, look I'm going to sit back down. Yeah. Oh gosh. It just hit me. Oh that heroin. Well there it is. It finally hit him. Are you almost done then?

You got to fucking lay down and pass out your fucking asshole. Okay sir. Oh boy. I tell you. I wonder why I pay him sometimes. He developed a peculiar outfit. Bell Bottom trousers, a small bowler cocked at an extreme angle on his head and his short waisted picoat with large pearl buttons.

So he dressed like a pimp. This would become the stereotyped bowlery boy costume in films, cartoons and on stage for decades. Right. And it was just the one guy. One guy did it. So Connors was all about faking what the Broadway was or exaggerating. Besides having the usual tourists Flynn was known to get writers seeking authentic low

life color to put into their articles and novels. Well they came to the wrong place. So the boys at Flynn's gave it to them. They basically created a fake language giving an almost cartoonish version of themselves for the writers who would then go on to write it all down the stories and send it around the country giving people a false idea of what a real man of the Bowery was like. It sounds like journalism today. Quote, the Eastside dialect is not abound in slang.

Whatever of it, whatever of it there is in, it has been absorbed from the tenderline and other sources to coin a funny slang phrase. One must have time to invent and try it. They have no time for this on the Eastside or even time for schooling cannot always be spared. And that accounts for ungrammatical expressions and whimsically twisted sentences but not for the idiotic gibberish and forced coinages of words slipped into the tongues of my people by writers.

Jesus. Yeah. I like that shit. Then another wave of morals swept through the city. Vice began cracking down at all the establishments. Here we go. A bar called the slide, the lowest of the lowest was investigated and shut down and the owner put in jail.

This led to a quick domino's effect and all the saloons closed their doors. And just like that, open new ones, this time by politicians. So the politicians had all the places shut down and then they opened up. This is how Owen Kildare found himself in the establishment of the honorable Michael Callahan of the state legislature. And that's where he was one day with Jack Dempsey and Frank Casey when Frank said he had had it with the life. He didn't want to graft anymore.

He didn't want to try his hand at a real job. At first the other two thought Owen was kidding, but he wasn't. Oh, no, Frank, so I Frank was kidding, but he wasn't Frank wanted to try an easier life. So the three put their heads together and that's when they decided to become strawberry pickers. What? What? What?

I said they're going straight. Okay. You're going to become strawberry pickers. That's a little too straight for me. First they had to put together money for the trip. What? I'm sorry. They're just pulling the trigger on this?

Yeah. Okay. The first they skirmished around and raised about $6 is joint capital. Casey went and spoke to a well-known hobo about where to go and how to get there. Oh, right. So the plan to be a strawberry picker goes through the hobo. That's correct. Alrighty.

I'll find a normal. They took a ferry out of the city and then jumped on trains or at least tried. Owen and Jack could never make the connection to a new train and they ended up walking from Hobok in New York to Newark. What? Once in Newark, they were very thirsty but the water tasted odd to them so they just got a beer. Hours later they were plastered on the streets in Newark.

They then walked to Philadelphia. What? Wow. Yeah. They're walking. That's a long way. I mean, I think like five blocks from the bar is kind of a pain in the fucking ass. They spent a day and night sleeping on the outskirts of the city while looking for strawberry

farms. This is, is there focused strawberry picking? It feels like it might not be the focus. This might be a bar crawl. They spent all their money on food and no one they saw on the street would tell them where the strawberry country was. That fucking hobo had bad directions. Finally out of food, hot, tired and delirious, they stumbled upon a train station and climbed

on the train while staring down the crew. Okay. This is the time when the crew would try to kick your ass if you're a hobo. Yeah, but not these guys. Not these guys. So we're going to ride on the train. Yeah, we're getting on the train. You okay?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was just checking some of the other passenger's tickets but um. Are you done? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. We're on the train. Thank you so much.

So they climbed on the train. They made their way back to New York and their attempt at the straight life was over. My life is a strawberry pickle. I got drunk for two weeks and that was it. They then settled back into life at Callaghan's. They spent the days grafting people and tripping pedestrians as they walked by. A dream's come to realization. I mean these guys are like in their thirties now or like twenties just tripping people

in their lifelike. Tripping people for money somehow. They would also throw rotted fruits and vegetable at people walking by. Oh Jesus. One day after a particularly good score, they exited the bar and Skinny McCarthy, who couldn't hold his liquor, bumped right into a small woman. She looked at them and yelled, you are men! How dare she!

Without even a moment's hesitation and not really knowing why, Owen went over and punched Skinny McCarthy under his ear, sending him sprawling on the sidewalk. No one in the gang knew quite what to do. They all looked at the unconscious Skinny on the sidewalk and then back at Owen. Without quite understanding why he was doing what he was doing, Owen took the woman's arm and walked her off. Say sis I better walk a block or two of you because I think it's better. That push there won't do you nothing but they're all drunk and might go fresh to you again.

They walked together for a bit and she grilled them about his life. She was a schoolteacher at a school nearby. He walked her all the way back to her boarding house and as she left him she told him he should not go back and hang around with a gang of idiots. From what you have told me about yourself and from what I have seen of the street life I am afraid it is not absolutely impossible that one of these days you may find yourself in serious trouble. And Mr. Cadare, you can rest assured that the prisons are full of men who are convinced

when it is too late that this sort of talk does amount to something. You say you do not know where else to go. The evening is beautiful. There are parks, the riverfront, the Brooklyn Bridge. One can go and sit and think. Think I interrupted. Now what would I be thinking about? Yeah, told her.

As my man. I ain't got no brain. I ain't got no time to think. I am so sorry for you. So sorry. Do try and be a man. A man has more strength than muscle. Put the fucking...

Dare she? Owen walked back to Calhans but he didn't go in. Before he reached the bar he crossed the street and ended up looking at it from across the street. Then he went home, got Bill and went for a long walk. He never went back to Calhans. Every day he met her and walked her home from school to her boarding house. Okay.

For the first time, Owen was in love and through her eyes he began to realize that he was, quote, not only a nobody but a despicable, contemptible thing without the least of claims to the grandest title man. Yes, there was no denying the fact that somebody had fallen, sadly fallen from his horse and all his house of cards had been knocked into smithereens by a little bit of a schoolman. Jesus. So he's realized he's a douchebag. Yeah, still.

I mean, she's really yokoing the boy gang. Owen survived by collecting loans he was owed and quickly realized that if he didn't go to places like Calhans, his money would last a bit longer. Bullshit. Then he started taking up some of his rich friends on their desire to be in better shape, thinner, more muscular and on and on. He was basically a personal trainer. A trainer?

He's a personal trainer. Wow, okay. What? I remember a patient who was troubled with too much embodiment, oh embompois, I don't know. Sure. I don't believe in the prescriptions of his physician, but rather prefer the physical culture system of Professor Kildare.

He was a man of much weight in public affairs and in flesh, about 250 pounds in the flesh, if I remember right. For a long succession of many mornings, a select audience, including several news boys, a few policemen and myself, watched the spectacle of this 250 pound, absolutely refusing to melt pounds, chase around the square like mad at 5 AM, so he's just making an effect. Yeah, yeah. That is what a personal trainer does. His woman, Marie, learned he couldn't read and she taught him.

Every day after school was out. Her name was Marie Rosetta. She frowned upon his work as a personal trainer and whatever it was considered dead, so she didn't like him being a personal trainer. So he went to work at one of the steamboat piers as a baggage man, sometimes referred to as a baggage smasher. That's not, I mean that's what the title should be today as well, right? That's what I was thinking.

Yeah. Yeah. It's really hard. It's always fun when you can watch the baggage smashers through the plane window, he's like oh look at him smashing those fucking bags in there, these monsters. The wage was $8 a week, which was a smaller amount than he earned in one night working at the dives of the Bowery, but he discovered he loved and honest his work. She continued to teach him how to read and write and math for six years.

He asked Marie to marry him and she said yes. Her name was too large and unwieldy for someone from the fourth word, Marie Rosetta. Down there they were all Maggie, Sadie, Susie, Lizzie, and Nelly. Easy to say names without ours. So he gave her a new nickname, Mammy Rose. Oh boy, she really lost that on that. She did not care for that. Good lord.

My name is Marie Rosetta. Hey, Mammy Rose. Hello, Mammy. They were set to be married in February when she got pneumonia. Or is they called it fammy? Marie slowly wasted away and then finally died the week before their wedding. No. Do you think it was going to be a happy story?

As long as Bill's okay. He couldn't work. Yeah, Bill's fine. That's okay. And the dog was there when she died, the dog was the only one he let in the room also. Oh my god. He even kicked the mother out. He couldn't work and for a few short weeks he had to resist the temptation to return

to the life of the Bowery, but he didn't. He got a job as a dishwasher and he continued looking for a better job. Then one day he was waiting in a lodging house for a man who had a lead. When he saw that at the bottom of the evening journal there was a headline. The evening journal's true love story contest. It was the winning story. He read it. Not that good, he thought.

He picked up a piece of paper from the ground, judged it to be clean enough, and wrote his own story. Oh wow. It's just 750 words. Three days later his story was printed. He won the contest, which was apparently daily, and he got a check. Okay. He then sent the story to McClure's magazine.

It was accepted and partly paid for, but later returned because it was quote, too true. Oh yeah, well, that is the problem today, too, right, the entertainment. He then sold it again three days later to the Sunday press. The editor invited him to become a contributor. He was now a newspaper writer. Jesus Christ! Writing short stories, editorials, and special articles. What?

One day the Sunday Herald published a story. How to be a gentleman on 10,000 a year. The story was written as a complaint, explaining how difficult it was to be a somebody in society on such a small amount. Owen thought of his life in the Bowery and the East Side, and how everyone managed to make it on quite a bit less than 10,000. He quickly wrote an article and submitted it to the Herald. It was called, How to be a Gentleman on $3 a Week.

How to say fuck you to a fellow reporter. At first the editor thought it was a joke. Owen was called into his office to explain how indeed a man could live on $3 a week. Okay, so you get a meet room. Well, first of all, you get one room and you put meat and ale in it. And you get six, eight guys in there, you all sleep with the meat and ale. Alright. That's it.

Any questions? Who proof reads? He then began writing more and more stories about his people, the people of the Bowery. He was offered a new job at the Sunday News in 1902. That was the newspaper of the Bowery, and his old friends got to see his name daily in the paper. Often his stories were framed and put on walls in the fourth ward. Hey, that's the guy who made it out.

Hey, it's the guy who couldn't read and fucked meat. His editor then pushed him to write about himself. And now he started as a Newsy and ended up working at a newspaper as a writer at the age of 37. All these honed stories that he's already honed in these bars. Great one-man show. He did and the stories became a book. It was given rave reviews and he wrote three more books about the Bowery.

He became known as the Kipling of the Bowery. He remarried. In 1908, with the help of playwright Walter Hecket, he adapted My Mammy Rose into a play called The Regeneration. When he saw it opening night, he hated the production and was so angry at the way the lead actor played him that he had to be restrained from beating him up. Jesus. The play closed in a month.

Oh, man. The Bowery wasn't done with Owen yet. Just after the near fight at the theater, he collapsed and was taken to Bellevue Hospital. He was diagnosed with parises, a general physical and mental deterioration usually caused by late stage syphilis. Big Tim Sullivan would soon get the same diagnosis. Owen never recovered. He spent most of his last three years in the psych wards at Bellevue and the Manhattan

State Hospital on Ward's Island. When he died on Ward's Island in 1911, the New York papers ran long obits retelling his colorful life story. In 1915, William Fox, also known who had grown up on the Lowery side, produced Regeneration, a silent feature film adapted from Kildare's book and play. That is quite a fucking life. Yeah. That's a fucking man right there.

That is a fucking man, right? Good Lord. Jesus. So he made it out, but then he died. But he made it out. Made it out. That's a good story, right? It is a good story.

That is a good... That is not... No. I mean, if we look at it through the prism of dolloping, that is a very good story. She died, but he became a writer because of it. She died, but she changed him. So she lived. Right.

She lived. She lived. She lived on. I don't know what happened to Bill, but I assume Bill didn't make it because he's a dog. I think if it's okay with everyone, I'd like to pretend that Bill's still with us. What about in the last scene, just cut to Bill eating meat in that room? Yeah. And then someone's like, we need a boxer.

So, not bad, right? Not bad. Fucking crazy shit, dude. There you go. Oh, one killed there, ladies and gentlemen. Oh, one killed there.