Drunk History (2013–…): Season 2, Episode 4 - Baltimore - full transcript
Abraham Lincoln tries to avoid assassination on the way to his inauguration, Francis Scott Key writes "The Star-Spangled Banner," and Edgar Allan Poe feuds with Rufus Griswold. Featuring Charlie Day, Adrianne Palicki, Jesse Plemons and Jason Ritter.
- Allan Pinkerton, he was like,
everybody wants
to fucking kill Lincoln.
You hold on to your panties.
- Somebody asks,
is the flag still there?
And Francis Scott Key is like,
yeah, it's still there.
It's way fucking there.
Man, I'm fucking drunk.
I got to drink more.
- Edgar Allan Poe,
he's going from town to town,
like, hey, what's up, guys?
You guys know about
Rufus Griswold, right?
He is a holographic
piece of shit.
Holograms don't even exist yet,
and I'm calling him
a fucking hologram.
♪♪
- Hey, Meatball.
Oh, my God.
This is a great reunion.
Whoo!
B-more.
I'm from Baltimore.
- Right.
- And this place means
so much to me.
How do you tell people
what is Baltimore?
- It's... it's like
a old, comfortable shoe.
It's a little scuffed up
around the edges,
but don't polish that,
because the...
The scuff has a story.
Cheers to Baltimore.
- Cheers to Baltimore.
- Our hometown.
- Baltimore is crabs,
Natty Boh, and Old Bay.
- You pay me 8 bucks,
I'll snort Old Bay,
which I did last weekend.
- It's Baltimore,
fucking Maryland.
It's amazing.
- Aw, man.
This fucking story.
I'm gonna fucking punch you
in the balls
with this story.
- Emotionally.
- Seth, take your shirt off,
and open up another
bottle of wine for mommy.
- Hello.
Today, we are going to talk
about The Baltimore Plot.
November, 1860.
Abraham Lincoln is elected
as the 16th President of
the United States of America.
He was like,
these states in the South,
they don't want me
to be President.
And they want to secede
and stuff.
So I'm gonna take
a whistle stop tour to D.C.,
and I'm gonna wave at people.
Meanwhile, Allan Pinkerton
was hired
to be Lincoln's
private security force.
Pinkerton runs the Pinkerton
National Detective Agency.
Pinkerton starts finding out,
oh, shit.
There's all these, uh, threats
against Abraham Lincoln.
Pinkerton puts together
his, like, dream team.
He's got Harry Davies,
this brilliant guy
who speaks several languages.
And Kate Warne,
the first female detective
in the history
of the United States.
Pinkerton's like,
everybody wants
to fucking kill Lincoln.
So they go undercover
in Baltimore,
in the Barnum Hotel...
pretending to be Southern.
Like...
how do you do, sir?
And getting intel, like,
what is your political
affiliation, if I may ask?
I'm not trying to press you,
but I am a lady of the South,
and I need to know that
I'm, uh, fraternizing
with people I can trust.
All right, I'm actually leaning.
- Are you okay?
- I started to lean.
- That's okay.
- No, it's all right.
It's just...
where do I... wha...
So they discovered this guy,
Cipriano Ferrandini.
He's a beady-eyed
Corsican barber
who wanted to kill Lincoln.
Ferrandini, he gathers together
all of these Southern rebels
into this hideout.
Davies gets in on
the Ferrandini meeting.
And Ferrandini,
he's holding up a scimitar.
And he says... moth!
And he was like,
in this hat,
or bowl, or bucket, or whatever,
there is a card...
I'm gonna burp.
Excuse me...
With a red dot on it.
And whoever gets the red dot,
you're gonna kill Lincoln.
Davies is like, oh, fuck me.
Now, we really have a problem...
To himself, quietly,
because he's undercover.
Lincoln lands
in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Pinkerton goes to him, and says,
we got to get you the fuck
out of here
a day before they're
gonna kill you, so...
He took off his little
pop-tart hat,
or whatever that was.
Uh, what was it called?
A pop... popeye, popeye...
It was a called a...
his hat, it was a stovepipe!
Lincoln says, sorry, stovepipe.
I got to be incognito.
I'll see you soon.
They sneak him out to the train.
People can see him,
but they don't know it's him,
because he's wearing a beanie
and a shawl.
Kate Warne is like,
I need to get my invalid brother
into the train.
They get on the train.
"Zu-di-di-doo, di-di-doo."
Lincoln is on a train into D.C.
to become the President.
So Pinkerton had to get Lincoln
through Baltimore early
to get to D.C.
without being killed,
because there are assassins
in Baltimore
waiting for Lincoln to show up
at, like, noon.
They get to President Station,
Baltimore, Maryland,
at 3:30 in the morning.
And the conductor's like,
we have to stop,
because there's a sound
ordinance.
Pinkerton's like, what the fuck?
There's a fucking
sound ordinance?
What the fuck am I gonna do?
Okay.
I'll tell you what we'll do.
We'll get some fucking horses.
So they hook up this train car
to horses,
and drag the train car on
the tracks through Baltimore.
They get to Camden Street
Station,
where they're supposed
to pick up
the Washington-bound train.
No train.
Train's late.
So they sat there.
It's basically
assassins everywhere.
And they could hear
people saying,
this fucking Lincoln
is a piece of shit.
The South will rise.
Pinkerton's like,
if these guys find out
that we're in here
with Lincoln, we're dead.
We're all of us dead.
You hold on to your panties.
No, he would not have...
All right.
Okay.
The Washington-bound train
finally shows up.
And at 6:00 A.M.,
February 23rd,
Abraham Lincoln arrives
in Washington D.C.,
and they successfully averted
the assassination attempt.
And the Pinkerton
National Detective Agency
has existed for 163 years
since that time.
Moth!
Look.
- Oh.
- Oh.
Son of a...
Oh, no!
Moth!
- There's actually
a huge tradition in Baltimore
of live action role-playing.
I am Skip Lipman.
When I LARP,
I'm Banner of Laconia.
- Uh, I'm Craig.
My battle name is Crog.
- I decided to go with Emoticon.
I'm in search of my wife, Emoji.
She's out there somewhere.
L.O.L.
- So you really want
to, like, swing, right?
- Ah!
Right in my dick.
You got me in the dick, Skip.
- ♪ Whose bright lights
and bright stars ♪
♪ Through this pe... ♪
And now, what are we doing now?
- Keep going, keep going.
- All right.
That's enough of that.
I'm done.
Hello.
Today, we're gonna talk about
Francis Scott Key,
the man who wrote the n...
American national anthem,
The Star-Spangled Banner.
Francis Scott Key,
a very prominent lawyer
in Baltimore
during the 1812, uh, War.
One night, his brother-in-law
shows up, and he says,
Francis, the honorable
Dr. Beanes
has been taken captive on
a British warship.
Dr. Beanes is a very upstanding
member of the community.
He helped everybody.
- He's Dr. Beanes.
- He's Dr. Beanes.
He's amazing.
Francis Scott Key goes
to President James Madison,
who was the President
at the time.
He says, listen, the honorable
Dr. Beanes has been kidnapped.
President James Madison,
he was like,
the... it's like a terrible...
Like, yeah.
Obviously, you got to do
something about this.
And so he hooks him up
with a guy named, uh, Ja...
John Skinner,
a prisoner exchange agent.
And they set sail
to the British headquarters,
which is a fucking boat,
under the control
of Vice "admirable"...
Uh, Vice "admirable"...
Uh, f... sorry.
Admiral a...
Oh, okay, let's back up.
Vice Admiral Alexander Cochrane.
Man, I'm fucking drunk.
I got to drink more.
The British wine them,
and they dine them,
and Key and Skinner were like,
you've got this frail,
old doctor man
sitting in his cell or whatever.
It's like, let the guy go,
you know?
They made a really good case.
And Major General Ross was like,
sounds good.
Let's let Dr. Beanes go.
They wined and dined
a little bit more.
Eventually, Key and Skinner hear
some British soldiers saying,
you know what?
Next week, we're gonna be...
attacking Baltimore.
We're gonna be
attacking Baltimore.
And they saw maps and plans
of how they were gonna do it.
Cochrane tells Key and Skinner,
you know too much.
You know too much.
He and Skinner were held
prisoner for a full week.
They would tease them
and say things like,
hey, I hope you take a good look
at that flag over there,
because, um,
it's not gonna be there,
'cause it's gonna be gone.
Sorry.
Francis Scott Key is thinking...
well, this sucks.
- Oh, wait, no.
That's your... that's your mic.
Just keep that in your pocket.
- All right.
I'll put that in my pocket.
- Here, let's...
Let's go inside, just so...
Okay, all right.
I'm all good.
Oops... ooh!
And by the way...
- You okay?
- I'm good.
You're g...
So September 13, 1814
rolls around.
The attack begins on Baltimore.
Cannons just raining fire,
bombarding Fort McHenry.
Francis Scott Key stays up
all night
and watches in suspense
as this happens.
Eventually, Skinner and Beanes
wake up,
and they're just like,
um, is the flag still there?
And Key's watching,
and the dawn's light breaks.
The smoke clears,
and all of a sudden,
Key sees this giant,
humongous American flag
over Fort McHenry.
And Key is like,
yeah, it's still there.
It's way fucking there.
And Key is so blown away
by the emotion of it,
he starts just writing a poem.
Eventually, Cochrane says,
you're free,
and they let 'em
go back to Baltimore.
The British retreat.
Francis Scott Key spends the
whole night finishing his poem.
The next morning,
he calls his brother-in-law.
And he says, I got this poem,
and you need to see this.
His brother-in-law looks at it,
and he's like,
this is the best poem ever.
We have to publish this now.
Like, right now.
It should be put to that melody,
the Anacreon In Heaven,
a British drinking song.
So they distributed the song
to everybody,
and people in the town
would be kind of like,
♪ Oh, say can you see ♪
I get this.
I dig it.
It... this is... this'll work.
And the song wound up being a...
Pretty much an amazing hit.
And it's called
The Star-Spangled Banner.
And it's America.
Who are any of you people?
♪♪
- That's pretty much it.
- What is that?
- It's nothing.
I don't know.
It's like you... you get high
and play it.
I don't know.
If I'm eating edible marijuana,
and I want to feel like
I'm flying a spaceship
powered by music,
then that's what this is for.
Cheers.
Hello.
Today, we're gonna talk about
Edgar Allan Poe
and his rivalry
with Rufus Griswold,
one of America's first pieces
of shit.
Okay, this is the 1800s,
and no one has any money.
Like, people are, like,
sweeping the streets,
and maybe you'd find,
like, a crust of bacon.
And you'd eat it.
Edgar Allan Poe, he's one
of the great American poets.
Completely disrespected
by everyone
he ever came in contact with.
He was always broke.
And he came into contact
with a fellow
by the name of Rufus Griswold.
So Griswold says to Poe,
hey, I'm making this book called
The Poets and Poetry of America.
So give me some of your poems,
and if I like 'em,
I'll put 'em in.
He knows if he puts him
in the book,
then Edgar Allan Poe will be
likely to write a nice review.
So Poe is like, okay,
I'll give you some of my poems.
So here's my poems.
So books get... book get...
The book gets published.
Poe's... three of Poe...
Poe's poems are... are printed.
Griswold has printed 50 poems
by one of his friends.
50!
Poe's sitting there with
the book in front of him,
flipping through the book.
Flip, flip, flip, flip, flip.
What the fuck?
Are you fucking serious?
This cocksucker,
hack, loser, asshole
has put me in the very back
of this book.
I've been hornswoggled
by a cunt.
Griswold comes to him,
and he's like,
Edgar, what do you say
that you write
one of your wonderful reviews
of my book?
And I'll give you
a-a hundred dollars for it.
It's basically bribery.
And Poe's like,
sure, no problem.
I'll take your money, and write
a review of this... this book.
No problem.
No fucking problem, Rufus.
So... so he... so he writes
the review.
Now, Griswold has been telling
his friends, you know,
Poe's gonna write
this great review of my shit.
Then he... when... when he reads
the review that he paid for,
like, no one should read this.
None of these poets are gonna be
remembered except for me.
It's a waste of time
to even look at this thing.
All of this is crap.
Edgar Allan Poe.
He's like, really?
I gave you money to write
a fucking review
of a book of poetry that
I put you in, you asshole.
Game on.
So Poe starts hearing
that Griswold is now, like...
Is talking shit about him.
So he goes on a tour of America,
and being like,
hey, what's up, guys?
You guys know about
Rufus Griswold, right?
The guy who wrote this fucking
shit book of poetry
where he only put
three of my poems in?
You know about this guy?
He's, like, a hack.
Just, like, a stereotypical,
basic,
bullshit asshole.
He has no talent at all,
and if you give Griswold
a hand job,
he'll put 20 poems
in his shit book.
He is a vile, holographic
piece of shit.
Holograms don't even exist yet,
and I'm calling him
a fucking hologram.
- So Poe...
very important note,
the anthology, despite Poe
talking all this shit,
is massively successful.
Poe goes to his job
at this magazine,
and seated at his desk
is Rufus fucking Griswold.
He's like, oh, I'm sorry.
While you were gone,
I got your job.
And, uh, I'm getting paid more
than you got paid,
so I win.
Good night.
So Poe is like,
what the fuck?
He's like, what the fuck?
His worst enemy has taken
his job,
and he's fucked.
He's fucked.
He goes on drinking binges.
He's a drunk.
He's a drunk.
He's a lunatic.
He's, like, wandering
the streets.
And right around that time,
his wife dies.
And, uh, Poe goes insane.
And he starts taking laudanum,
which is this, like, downer,
but it makes you high
as a fucking kite.
And that's it, man.
Poe continues to spiral down
into an ob...
A shitty oblivion.
They find him laying in a gutter
in Baltimore,
they take him to a hospital,
where he dies.
So Poe's dead.
Griswold wanted Poe to seem
like a monster,
so fucking Griswold proceeds
to write
these scathing biographies
of Edgar Allan Poe.
He was a drunk.
He was always in debt.
He sucked.
He was awful.
Forget about him.
Forget about him!
But everyone in America
read this,
and they're like, wait, what?
Drunk, crazy guy
who wrote about ravens?
Where can I get this book?
That sounds awesome.
It ended up making Edgar Allan
Poe 50,000 times more famous.
And he's considered to be one of
the great writers of our time.
Later in his life, Griswold
comes down with tuberculosis,
and dies alone,
with a picture
of Edgar Allan Poe on the wall,
watching him,
like, look at you, man.
Where are you now?
Look at Griswold,
all you people out there.
I don't care what you do.
What'd you do?
Guess what.
No one's gonna remember it.
Your... your silly attempt
to disguise a fucking
history show,
and, like, people getting drunk.
It's failure.
No one cares.
No one's buying it, man.
Forget it.
We're all getting sucked
into the void.
Ugh.
♪♪
All: Baltimore!
- ♪ If you're not
taking chances ♪
♪ Then that's just a sin ♪
♪ I'm all in ♪
- That's how we love, right?
- Yeah.
- Right.
- That's how we love.
- That's how we love.
everybody wants
to fucking kill Lincoln.
You hold on to your panties.
- Somebody asks,
is the flag still there?
And Francis Scott Key is like,
yeah, it's still there.
It's way fucking there.
Man, I'm fucking drunk.
I got to drink more.
- Edgar Allan Poe,
he's going from town to town,
like, hey, what's up, guys?
You guys know about
Rufus Griswold, right?
He is a holographic
piece of shit.
Holograms don't even exist yet,
and I'm calling him
a fucking hologram.
♪♪
- Hey, Meatball.
Oh, my God.
This is a great reunion.
Whoo!
B-more.
I'm from Baltimore.
- Right.
- And this place means
so much to me.
How do you tell people
what is Baltimore?
- It's... it's like
a old, comfortable shoe.
It's a little scuffed up
around the edges,
but don't polish that,
because the...
The scuff has a story.
Cheers to Baltimore.
- Cheers to Baltimore.
- Our hometown.
- Baltimore is crabs,
Natty Boh, and Old Bay.
- You pay me 8 bucks,
I'll snort Old Bay,
which I did last weekend.
- It's Baltimore,
fucking Maryland.
It's amazing.
- Aw, man.
This fucking story.
I'm gonna fucking punch you
in the balls
with this story.
- Emotionally.
- Seth, take your shirt off,
and open up another
bottle of wine for mommy.
- Hello.
Today, we are going to talk
about The Baltimore Plot.
November, 1860.
Abraham Lincoln is elected
as the 16th President of
the United States of America.
He was like,
these states in the South,
they don't want me
to be President.
And they want to secede
and stuff.
So I'm gonna take
a whistle stop tour to D.C.,
and I'm gonna wave at people.
Meanwhile, Allan Pinkerton
was hired
to be Lincoln's
private security force.
Pinkerton runs the Pinkerton
National Detective Agency.
Pinkerton starts finding out,
oh, shit.
There's all these, uh, threats
against Abraham Lincoln.
Pinkerton puts together
his, like, dream team.
He's got Harry Davies,
this brilliant guy
who speaks several languages.
And Kate Warne,
the first female detective
in the history
of the United States.
Pinkerton's like,
everybody wants
to fucking kill Lincoln.
So they go undercover
in Baltimore,
in the Barnum Hotel...
pretending to be Southern.
Like...
how do you do, sir?
And getting intel, like,
what is your political
affiliation, if I may ask?
I'm not trying to press you,
but I am a lady of the South,
and I need to know that
I'm, uh, fraternizing
with people I can trust.
All right, I'm actually leaning.
- Are you okay?
- I started to lean.
- That's okay.
- No, it's all right.
It's just...
where do I... wha...
So they discovered this guy,
Cipriano Ferrandini.
He's a beady-eyed
Corsican barber
who wanted to kill Lincoln.
Ferrandini, he gathers together
all of these Southern rebels
into this hideout.
Davies gets in on
the Ferrandini meeting.
And Ferrandini,
he's holding up a scimitar.
And he says... moth!
And he was like,
in this hat,
or bowl, or bucket, or whatever,
there is a card...
I'm gonna burp.
Excuse me...
With a red dot on it.
And whoever gets the red dot,
you're gonna kill Lincoln.
Davies is like, oh, fuck me.
Now, we really have a problem...
To himself, quietly,
because he's undercover.
Lincoln lands
in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Pinkerton goes to him, and says,
we got to get you the fuck
out of here
a day before they're
gonna kill you, so...
He took off his little
pop-tart hat,
or whatever that was.
Uh, what was it called?
A pop... popeye, popeye...
It was a called a...
his hat, it was a stovepipe!
Lincoln says, sorry, stovepipe.
I got to be incognito.
I'll see you soon.
They sneak him out to the train.
People can see him,
but they don't know it's him,
because he's wearing a beanie
and a shawl.
Kate Warne is like,
I need to get my invalid brother
into the train.
They get on the train.
"Zu-di-di-doo, di-di-doo."
Lincoln is on a train into D.C.
to become the President.
So Pinkerton had to get Lincoln
through Baltimore early
to get to D.C.
without being killed,
because there are assassins
in Baltimore
waiting for Lincoln to show up
at, like, noon.
They get to President Station,
Baltimore, Maryland,
at 3:30 in the morning.
And the conductor's like,
we have to stop,
because there's a sound
ordinance.
Pinkerton's like, what the fuck?
There's a fucking
sound ordinance?
What the fuck am I gonna do?
Okay.
I'll tell you what we'll do.
We'll get some fucking horses.
So they hook up this train car
to horses,
and drag the train car on
the tracks through Baltimore.
They get to Camden Street
Station,
where they're supposed
to pick up
the Washington-bound train.
No train.
Train's late.
So they sat there.
It's basically
assassins everywhere.
And they could hear
people saying,
this fucking Lincoln
is a piece of shit.
The South will rise.
Pinkerton's like,
if these guys find out
that we're in here
with Lincoln, we're dead.
We're all of us dead.
You hold on to your panties.
No, he would not have...
All right.
Okay.
The Washington-bound train
finally shows up.
And at 6:00 A.M.,
February 23rd,
Abraham Lincoln arrives
in Washington D.C.,
and they successfully averted
the assassination attempt.
And the Pinkerton
National Detective Agency
has existed for 163 years
since that time.
Moth!
Look.
- Oh.
- Oh.
Son of a...
Oh, no!
Moth!
- There's actually
a huge tradition in Baltimore
of live action role-playing.
I am Skip Lipman.
When I LARP,
I'm Banner of Laconia.
- Uh, I'm Craig.
My battle name is Crog.
- I decided to go with Emoticon.
I'm in search of my wife, Emoji.
She's out there somewhere.
L.O.L.
- So you really want
to, like, swing, right?
- Ah!
Right in my dick.
You got me in the dick, Skip.
- ♪ Whose bright lights
and bright stars ♪
♪ Through this pe... ♪
And now, what are we doing now?
- Keep going, keep going.
- All right.
That's enough of that.
I'm done.
Hello.
Today, we're gonna talk about
Francis Scott Key,
the man who wrote the n...
American national anthem,
The Star-Spangled Banner.
Francis Scott Key,
a very prominent lawyer
in Baltimore
during the 1812, uh, War.
One night, his brother-in-law
shows up, and he says,
Francis, the honorable
Dr. Beanes
has been taken captive on
a British warship.
Dr. Beanes is a very upstanding
member of the community.
He helped everybody.
- He's Dr. Beanes.
- He's Dr. Beanes.
He's amazing.
Francis Scott Key goes
to President James Madison,
who was the President
at the time.
He says, listen, the honorable
Dr. Beanes has been kidnapped.
President James Madison,
he was like,
the... it's like a terrible...
Like, yeah.
Obviously, you got to do
something about this.
And so he hooks him up
with a guy named, uh, Ja...
John Skinner,
a prisoner exchange agent.
And they set sail
to the British headquarters,
which is a fucking boat,
under the control
of Vice "admirable"...
Uh, Vice "admirable"...
Uh, f... sorry.
Admiral a...
Oh, okay, let's back up.
Vice Admiral Alexander Cochrane.
Man, I'm fucking drunk.
I got to drink more.
The British wine them,
and they dine them,
and Key and Skinner were like,
you've got this frail,
old doctor man
sitting in his cell or whatever.
It's like, let the guy go,
you know?
They made a really good case.
And Major General Ross was like,
sounds good.
Let's let Dr. Beanes go.
They wined and dined
a little bit more.
Eventually, Key and Skinner hear
some British soldiers saying,
you know what?
Next week, we're gonna be...
attacking Baltimore.
We're gonna be
attacking Baltimore.
And they saw maps and plans
of how they were gonna do it.
Cochrane tells Key and Skinner,
you know too much.
You know too much.
He and Skinner were held
prisoner for a full week.
They would tease them
and say things like,
hey, I hope you take a good look
at that flag over there,
because, um,
it's not gonna be there,
'cause it's gonna be gone.
Sorry.
Francis Scott Key is thinking...
well, this sucks.
- Oh, wait, no.
That's your... that's your mic.
Just keep that in your pocket.
- All right.
I'll put that in my pocket.
- Here, let's...
Let's go inside, just so...
Okay, all right.
I'm all good.
Oops... ooh!
And by the way...
- You okay?
- I'm good.
You're g...
So September 13, 1814
rolls around.
The attack begins on Baltimore.
Cannons just raining fire,
bombarding Fort McHenry.
Francis Scott Key stays up
all night
and watches in suspense
as this happens.
Eventually, Skinner and Beanes
wake up,
and they're just like,
um, is the flag still there?
And Key's watching,
and the dawn's light breaks.
The smoke clears,
and all of a sudden,
Key sees this giant,
humongous American flag
over Fort McHenry.
And Key is like,
yeah, it's still there.
It's way fucking there.
And Key is so blown away
by the emotion of it,
he starts just writing a poem.
Eventually, Cochrane says,
you're free,
and they let 'em
go back to Baltimore.
The British retreat.
Francis Scott Key spends the
whole night finishing his poem.
The next morning,
he calls his brother-in-law.
And he says, I got this poem,
and you need to see this.
His brother-in-law looks at it,
and he's like,
this is the best poem ever.
We have to publish this now.
Like, right now.
It should be put to that melody,
the Anacreon In Heaven,
a British drinking song.
So they distributed the song
to everybody,
and people in the town
would be kind of like,
♪ Oh, say can you see ♪
I get this.
I dig it.
It... this is... this'll work.
And the song wound up being a...
Pretty much an amazing hit.
And it's called
The Star-Spangled Banner.
And it's America.
Who are any of you people?
♪♪
- That's pretty much it.
- What is that?
- It's nothing.
I don't know.
It's like you... you get high
and play it.
I don't know.
If I'm eating edible marijuana,
and I want to feel like
I'm flying a spaceship
powered by music,
then that's what this is for.
Cheers.
Hello.
Today, we're gonna talk about
Edgar Allan Poe
and his rivalry
with Rufus Griswold,
one of America's first pieces
of shit.
Okay, this is the 1800s,
and no one has any money.
Like, people are, like,
sweeping the streets,
and maybe you'd find,
like, a crust of bacon.
And you'd eat it.
Edgar Allan Poe, he's one
of the great American poets.
Completely disrespected
by everyone
he ever came in contact with.
He was always broke.
And he came into contact
with a fellow
by the name of Rufus Griswold.
So Griswold says to Poe,
hey, I'm making this book called
The Poets and Poetry of America.
So give me some of your poems,
and if I like 'em,
I'll put 'em in.
He knows if he puts him
in the book,
then Edgar Allan Poe will be
likely to write a nice review.
So Poe is like, okay,
I'll give you some of my poems.
So here's my poems.
So books get... book get...
The book gets published.
Poe's... three of Poe...
Poe's poems are... are printed.
Griswold has printed 50 poems
by one of his friends.
50!
Poe's sitting there with
the book in front of him,
flipping through the book.
Flip, flip, flip, flip, flip.
What the fuck?
Are you fucking serious?
This cocksucker,
hack, loser, asshole
has put me in the very back
of this book.
I've been hornswoggled
by a cunt.
Griswold comes to him,
and he's like,
Edgar, what do you say
that you write
one of your wonderful reviews
of my book?
And I'll give you
a-a hundred dollars for it.
It's basically bribery.
And Poe's like,
sure, no problem.
I'll take your money, and write
a review of this... this book.
No problem.
No fucking problem, Rufus.
So... so he... so he writes
the review.
Now, Griswold has been telling
his friends, you know,
Poe's gonna write
this great review of my shit.
Then he... when... when he reads
the review that he paid for,
like, no one should read this.
None of these poets are gonna be
remembered except for me.
It's a waste of time
to even look at this thing.
All of this is crap.
Edgar Allan Poe.
He's like, really?
I gave you money to write
a fucking review
of a book of poetry that
I put you in, you asshole.
Game on.
So Poe starts hearing
that Griswold is now, like...
Is talking shit about him.
So he goes on a tour of America,
and being like,
hey, what's up, guys?
You guys know about
Rufus Griswold, right?
The guy who wrote this fucking
shit book of poetry
where he only put
three of my poems in?
You know about this guy?
He's, like, a hack.
Just, like, a stereotypical,
basic,
bullshit asshole.
He has no talent at all,
and if you give Griswold
a hand job,
he'll put 20 poems
in his shit book.
He is a vile, holographic
piece of shit.
Holograms don't even exist yet,
and I'm calling him
a fucking hologram.
- So Poe...
very important note,
the anthology, despite Poe
talking all this shit,
is massively successful.
Poe goes to his job
at this magazine,
and seated at his desk
is Rufus fucking Griswold.
He's like, oh, I'm sorry.
While you were gone,
I got your job.
And, uh, I'm getting paid more
than you got paid,
so I win.
Good night.
So Poe is like,
what the fuck?
He's like, what the fuck?
His worst enemy has taken
his job,
and he's fucked.
He's fucked.
He goes on drinking binges.
He's a drunk.
He's a drunk.
He's a lunatic.
He's, like, wandering
the streets.
And right around that time,
his wife dies.
And, uh, Poe goes insane.
And he starts taking laudanum,
which is this, like, downer,
but it makes you high
as a fucking kite.
And that's it, man.
Poe continues to spiral down
into an ob...
A shitty oblivion.
They find him laying in a gutter
in Baltimore,
they take him to a hospital,
where he dies.
So Poe's dead.
Griswold wanted Poe to seem
like a monster,
so fucking Griswold proceeds
to write
these scathing biographies
of Edgar Allan Poe.
He was a drunk.
He was always in debt.
He sucked.
He was awful.
Forget about him.
Forget about him!
But everyone in America
read this,
and they're like, wait, what?
Drunk, crazy guy
who wrote about ravens?
Where can I get this book?
That sounds awesome.
It ended up making Edgar Allan
Poe 50,000 times more famous.
And he's considered to be one of
the great writers of our time.
Later in his life, Griswold
comes down with tuberculosis,
and dies alone,
with a picture
of Edgar Allan Poe on the wall,
watching him,
like, look at you, man.
Where are you now?
Look at Griswold,
all you people out there.
I don't care what you do.
What'd you do?
Guess what.
No one's gonna remember it.
Your... your silly attempt
to disguise a fucking
history show,
and, like, people getting drunk.
It's failure.
No one cares.
No one's buying it, man.
Forget it.
We're all getting sucked
into the void.
Ugh.
♪♪
All: Baltimore!
- ♪ If you're not
taking chances ♪
♪ Then that's just a sin ♪
♪ I'm all in ♪
- That's how we love, right?
- Yeah.
- Right.
- That's how we love.
- That's how we love.