Drunk History (2013–…): Season 1, Episode 5 - San Francisco - full transcript

- Mary Ellen Pleasant
is the mother of civil rights

in California.

Here's my money.
Here's $30,000

so you can buy guns and stuff.

- Mark Twain gets his start...
as Mark Twain,

but he's telling some fucking
drunk riverboat captain's story.

Yeah.

It gets that dirty
in the frog jumping world.

- The next time
we see Patty Hearst,

she's got a machine gun
at a bank,

and she's like,
my new name is Tania.



Get the fuck down.

[patriotic music]

♪♪

- San Francisco was built
on, like, thieves and whores,

and this is a place where
the freaks and weirdoes come

where they feel
they can be accepted,

and that is where
some of them can be.

The Gold Rush was
a bunch of poor men

running to where
they could get money,

um, getting money where you can,

and it still is.

Like, Twitter, Facebook,

whatever, you know?
It's, like, the new shit.

Like, oh, let's fucking
make a gold mine on that.



It's not titties and ass,

but it's a whole nother angle
of that dangle.

City by the Bay.

- [playing Toccata and Fugue
on organ]

♪♪

[organ stops]
I really want a drink.

[organ continues]

Hello.

Today, we're gonna talk
about Mary Ellen Pleasant,

the mother of civil rights
in California.

Mary Ellen Pleasant
was a light-skinned black woman.

She was a slave

until one day a planter
bought her out of slavery

and made her a free woman.

So when she went to California,

she pretended
that she was a white woman.

Now, first off, she was a chef,

and people are coming in
and she's cooking for them.

And people love her.

People had started bidding for
her to be their personal chef.

And she was like, you know what,
fuck all that.

I'm gonna open
my own restaurant.

She was head bitch in charge.

She had made some shit happen.

She had made shit happen
for, like, black people...

getting jobs.

So as a white woman,
she started opening restaurants.

She owned laundries.

She owned boarding houses.

She started getting
black people hired

for positions they'd never
normally be hired for

at that time.

This woman was
a Renaissance Woman.

In the late 1850s,

Mary Ellen Pleasant
is making a ton of fucking money

in California,

but she said, even though
I'm kinda, like, light-skinned

and I get along with everybody

and everybody thinks I'm white

and I could live
a very comfortable life

if I wanted to...
pfft!

Pfft!
Fuck that.

She took that money

and she started doing some shit.

During this time,

she'd been actively
freeing slaves.

She said, you know what,
James Brown.

No, it's John Brown.
[laughing]

John Brown,
a famous abolitionist,

who was a white man,

you know,
he's trying to free slaves.

Here's my money.
Here's $30,000

so you can buy guns and stuff.

They buy land in Canada

because they're gonna open
a home and a farm

so that these freed slaves
can go live.

John Brown gets caught,

and they find a letter on him
that says something like,

hey, I'm in support of you

and I'm gonna keep being
in support of you.

Just make some shit happen.

And instead of M.E.P.,
it looked like W.E.P.

So it was published everywhere.

Everybody be on the lookout
for some dick named W.E.P.

Where was I at, historically?

At that time, she was in love
with a man named Thomas Bell.

[romantic music playing]

He was a Scotsman.

He was a businessman,

and she loved him.
[chair creaking]

[music stops]

That is...
That was not me farting.

That's... the... chair.

And they had businesses
together,

I mean, laundries,

and blah, blah, blah,
and bullshit.

And together,
they amassed a fortune

of $30 million.

Which, like, nowadays...

is like a batrillion gillion
a-dollars.

In, like, one
of the "censuseses,"

she outted herself
as a black woman.

When the love of her life,
Thomas Bell, died,

people started talking
about her badly.

They... what's it called?

They "dismissinated" her.

They "shenamenanated" her.

They [talking gibberish] her.
[laughing]

No, but really.
They said terrible things.

She eats babies.
She steals babies.

She does this, she's a whore,
she's a whore madam.

She's a this, she's a that.

That's when they gave her
the name "Mammy."

And they called her
"Mammy Pleasant."

The fuck's that about?

And you know what, in the end,

she made money
like a true American,

and she fought
for people's freedom and rights

like a true the most American.

She did exactly
what she wanted to do

and said, "I'd rather be
a corpse than a coward."

I'm free,
I want y'all to be free,

and I want me to be free.

Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.

And p.s. I count

'cause I'm a motherfucking
person, dickfaces.

There's some park
in San Francisco

that is dedicated to her,
and she haunts it.

- Now, why would she
haunt something

that pays tribute to her?

- 'Cause it's the smallest
motherfucking park

in San Francisco.

- That's an angry ghost.

- I don't know if she's angry.

Can ghosts be angry?
They're already dead.

What are they pissed off about?

- That they're dead.

- Yeah, I guess it depends
what you feel about things.

- [laughs] [chair creaking]

- Again, that wasn't me farting.

- Mark Twain starts taking on,
like, the local politicians

and police force.

He's a fucking
America's most wanted.

- I love Mark Twain.
He started in San Francisco.

He came to the city
and became a...

Kind of a, uh, ambassador.

San Francisco is
an excellent place

to discover who you are
and who you want to be.

Ahh!
[singing]

Hello, America!

- [laughs]
- Za-zoom!

I'm just a guy that likes
to wear ladies' lingerie.

- Hello.

My name is Derrick Beckles.

And today we're gonna talk
about Samuel Clemens,

aka Mark Twain.

Wow.

Samuel Clemens,
he was from Missouri.

He grows up along,
like, the Mississippi.

In his heart,
he wanted to be a writer,

and it wasn't going well.

"Mark Twain!"

is what the riverboat captain
would scream.

He was like, oh, that's clever.

So when he goes out West,

he starts writing under
the pseudonym of Mark Twain,

which nobody in the West
understands

what the fuck that is.

When he's writing
under this name,

I guess maybe he feels
a bit more emboldened.

He's got a bit of a name
for himself,

but he pisses off
the wrong people.

The person who he wrote about
was not pleased.

Well, he was just like, ooh,
you wrote something about me.

You wrote something about me
in the newspaper.

[belches]

And, uh...
ha!

Okay, where am I right now?

I don't remember
where I am right now.

[laughs]

Not co... not cool.
[laughs]

I'm gonna challenge you
to a duel.

I'm gonna blow
your fucking head off.

Meet me on the street,
3:00.

And Mark Twain's like,
all right, let's do this thing.

Oh, you can't duel in Nevada.

So he was, like,
breaking federal law.

So he went to San Francisco.

He was just
a master provocateur.

He starts taking on,
like, the local politicians

and police force.

He would just, like,
take jabs at them

in his writing for the local
newspapers and shit.

He was just like, pfft.
Okay, what do I do next?

Mark Twain fucked up.

He is straight-up
a fucking America's most wanted.

And he goes out
to the middle of fucking nowhere

and hangs out at the local
fucking watering hole, saloon,

and there's a guy
who's hanging out there

who constantly spins yarns.

Oh, I got a story.
My name's Ben Coon.

I got another story for you.

And they're like,
fucking I don't wanna hear it.

I don't wanna hear it no more.

I know what I'm talking about.
I know what I'm talking about!

There's Mark Twain
sitting at the back of the bar.

Uh, I'll fucking listen.

Ben Coon's like, finally.

Somebody's gonna fucking listen
to my bullshit.

So he's like,
okay, here's the deal.

There's these two dudes

are pitting frogs
against each other

in a leaping contest.

So everybody else is just like,
god damn it,

I've heard this fucking story
100 times.

And one man sabotages
the other man's leaping frog

by feeding him
lead-filled buckshot

so that the opponent's frog
can't jump as high.

Yeah.

It gets that dirty
in the frog jumping world.

Anyways, Mark Twain's just like,

this is an awesome
fucking story.

Yes! I'm gonna write
about this shit.

Mark Twain goes back
to his typewriter

or whatever the fuck...
His computer...

And goes, brrrrr.

I'm gonna transcribe this
in this dulled-down,

everyman's storytelling.

Bang!

That story gets picked up
and becomes a fucking huge hit.

And it's described as
"the story of the day!"

Mark Twain has hit the shit.

What he's done is amazing.

So it becomes
the story of the day

and it just, like,
spreads to every newspaper,

and Mark Twain gets his start...

as Mark Twain.

But he's telling some fucking
drunk riverboat captain's story

of a fucking frog
filled with lead.

Blah, blah, pbbt.

His signature becomes
this dumbed-down vernacular.

He, like, laments,

oh, I'm only known
for this frog story.

But that was his jump...

This frog story
was his jumping off point.

He became this, like,

sloe gin...

porch...

storytelling...

patriarch.

And I think the Mark Twain
that became the Mark Twain

was like a Liberace
that became the Liberace.

- Then all of a sudden,
she opened the door

and they all came pouring in.

And they're like, ahh!

And they beat up
the math teacher, strangle her.

- Well, San Francisco's
interesting

because its history,
there's cool people,

there's beauty,
there's architecture,

there's art and hills and water.

It's like New York
but on the water.

It's really nice.

I say we have
the actual tequila.

- Yes, that is... chilling.

- With the orange juice
that we just squeezed.

- I say we put that in there
after we do a quick shot.

- I never do shots.
I always sip it.

I should just do a shot, right?

[coughing]

Well, hello.

Today, we're going to talk about
the kidnapping of Patty Hearst.

So Patty Hearst descended
from William Randolph Hearst.

He is a very wealthy man,
and her dad is Randolph Hearst,

but essentially,
they own all of media.

And so, you know,
she's from that kind of...

The people who made the country.

At 19, Patty Hearst
was living in Berkeley

in this nice apartment
that her parents are paying for.

So they're sitting at home,

and she's reading
in her bathrobe with her fiance.

And then there's, like,
a knock at the door.

[dog barking]

No, Cutie, it's okay, it's okay.
It's fake.

[dog barking]

They didn't have dogs.

Quiet!
Quiet, quiet, quiet!

She opens the door.

Like, oh, can we help you?

We ran out of gas money.
Blah, blah, blah.

And then all of a sudden,
they all came pouring in.

And they're like, ahh!

And they beat up
the math teacher,

strangle her, take her captive.

Bring her in a van
over to their headquarters.

She's blindfolded.
She's gagged.

I don't know if she's gagged.
She's definitely blindfolded.

They put her in this closet

that's, like,
the size of a closet.

And she doesn't know
what's happening, really.

So it's 57 days
she's in this room.

So finally, one day,

they let her get out
of the closet,

and they take off her blindfold.

And she looks out
and she sees all the people.

She's like, oh, my god,
you're so beautiful.

Oh, who are these peo...

Like, you guys like...
You're my mommy.

This is essentially
what Stockholm syndrome is.

That was the Symbionese
Liberation Army.

First of all,
"Symbionese" is not a word.

It's... they kinda made it up.

They're not the brightest people
in the world.

Now your name's Tania,

and this is your new life.

And she's like...

okay.

[upbeat rock]

And then they do a photo shoot,

and she puts a beret on
and a machine gun,

and she's, like,
all with the S.L.A.

So she started recording
these audio tapes

and sending them to her parents.

Mom, dad, I'm okay.

But I need you to feed
every poor person.

That ends up being like 300,000.

$300 million.

They're already stupid.
Like, they could not count.

And the Hearsts are like,
we don't have that much money.

We'll give you $3 million.

Whatever, dude.

I mean, can you imagine?

So they started all these, like,
um, food kinda trucks

on the corners of San Francisco,

and they would start,
like, distributing foods.

And then they said
they wanted even more.

Mom, dad,
there was no beef or lamb.

That's not the kind of food

that you should be giving
to poor people.

That food sucked.

Meanwhile, everyone's, like,
worried about her.

Her family is freaking out.

So they're just like,
what the fuck is happening?

And they're dressed in black,
and they're saying,

we don't know
what happened to Patty.

What's gonna happen?

And then she's like,

mom, take off
that dumb black dress.

It's not helping anything.
You're embarrassing us.

Like, I'm not dead.
I'm alive,

and I feel that
what you're doing is wrong,

with being a rich person.

And I'm here
to be part of the people...

of the people people.

Basically, what happens is
they decide...

I forgot to pee.

- Let me interrupt.

- Good.
- No, I wanna do a...

- Do a Jell-o shot with...
Come here... Lydia.

Dave.
- Derek.

- Derek.
- No, that's Dave.

- So what do...
I've never done a Jell-o shot.

- Put your finger in it.

- You just give it a little stir
so everything goes down smooth.

- Okay.
- More than that.

You have, like, woman hands.

- Give your finger a lick,
shake it up.

- Shake it up, then do it.
Mm-hmm.

That's good, isn't it?

- [laughing]
- Isn't it good?

- It's kind of a bad decision
with your life...

- Mm-hmm.
Bad decision.

- But it's efficient.

- This does not taste good.
- No.

- It tastes a little good.

- The next time we see her,

she's got a machine gun
at a bank,

and she's like,
my new name is Tania.

Get the fuck down.

And so she's like,
doing this, like...

You know, like, threatening
everybody in the bank.

And she's kinda into it.

It's in the news, and
her parents own the newspaper,

so it's like...
It's... it's everywhere.

People are like, Patty Hearst.
Where is she? What's happening?

This is, like, all that the news
is talking about.

What's happening
with Patty Hearst?

And so this bank robbery
is the first time

that she has, like,
been out in the public.

And they don't catch her.

And then, all of a sudden,
in L.A., there's a shooting.

And the police are all there.
They start shooting.

The whole house is just like...
Becomes flames,

and everyone thinks
Patty Hearst is in the house.

Well, here's what happens.

Patty's still alive
and she's with this couple,

watching it in a hotel
in Anaheim.

Hi, Blanche.
Come here.

So people...

People start...

What was I saying?

[laughing]

She moves to San Francisco,

and she just starts, like,
living her life,

going grocery shopping,
doing whatever.

Then all of a sudden,
one day, like, on a errand,

Patty Hearst gets spotted.

Someone recognizes her.

And when she comes into jail,

she's gotta say
what her profession is,

and she says
"urban guerilla."

They sentence her
to 35 years in jail,

and then after 22 months,
Carter commuted her.

When she comes out of prison,
she is like,

I'm so excited.

I'm about to go on vacation.

She's, like, a great example
of a really rich person

who could've just, like,
stayed an idiot

and who was like,
now I understand, like...

what it's like.

She was really attractive.

I have to get some water.
- Okay.

[patriotic music]

♪♪

- Like, I don't...
Your affect is,

like, what you're showing
to the world.

- Oh, shit.
- Your affect is so flat.

Which is... that means that
whatever you say is just like...

[mouthing words]

- So I'm like
a Charlie McCarthy dummy.

- You're a goldfish.