Terror In The Shrubbery

Jack Hayward is reeling today following a report by his insurance company that his landscaping presents a clear and present danger to his home and property. 

Up until today, Jack thought he was pretty much crushing it, and then in one brief moment his whole life was turned upside down when a group of insurance underwriters informed him that among his shrubbery lurk heretofore unimagined terrors. 

Apparently, a seemingly innocent shrub, situated under a window, can serve as a launching pad for a criminal caper that could potentially undo everything Jack’s ever worked for. 

While it’s true that neighborhood kids like to utilize his shrubs to hide and seek, and on at least one occasion some homeless person may have spent the night curled up behind his lilac bush, it never occurred to Jack that shrubs are especially useful for concealing nefarious deeds. 

Nevermind the alarm system and security cameras Jack installed to thwart potential break ins, an accomplished second story man can utilize a pyramidal arb to launch himself like a pole vaulter onto a lower roof and quickly gain access to upper story windows. 

Apparently, the thieves take advantage of the shrub cover to cart off your 55 inch television and exercise equipment, because the whole point of the danger shrubs pose is that the bad guys can do all this without attracting the attention of neighbors or passersby.

A skilled burglar disguised as a juniper bush can enter and exit a house undetected by cloaking stolen merchandise in bush clippings.   

Tree limbs, too, are nothing to trifle with, according to the underwriters. A tree limb, it seems, is nothing more than a bony hand reaching out to dismantle a house one shingle at a time. 

One never knows when an angry oak will lower a wooden fist and severely scratch or dent one’s guttering.  

The news filled Jack with such revulsion and dread that he immediately climbed out on his roof and stood atop the peak risking life and limb in an attempt to prune away all tree limbs encroaching on his home’s airspace.  

With bushes yanked and tree limbs tamed, Jack was finally able to rest easy, at least until the next alert of impending catastrophe comes along.

Trump steps in to mediate ongoing Hall & Oates dispute

Following the success of his Russia-Ukraine deal and repairing the rift between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, America’s unifier-in-chief, President Donald Trump, is now turning his attention to resolving the ongoing feud between veteran rockers Daryl Hall and John Oates.  The popular musicians have been embroiled in a bitter legal dispute since November 2023.

As far as Daryl Hall is concerned, the rock duo’s personal and professional partnership is beyond repair.  “That ship has gone to the bottom of the ocean,” Hall told a reporter for The Times.

However, the Hall & Oates differences have not yet been subjected to the extraordinary healing power of an intense Trump White House negotiating session.

“I’m confident we can get a deal,” the president said.  “The world needs Hall & Oates together making their beautiful music.  What’s that song of theirs, The Sound of Silence?  That’s all we’re getting out of them these days – silence, and that’s a shame.” 

“That’s Simon & Garfunkel, Mr. President.”

“Oh yes.  Well they’re wonderful too.  Maybe I’ll work on getting them back together as well.  I mean Piano Man, In The Air Tonight – the world loves their music.  For the sake of lasting peace in the world, we need them back together.” 

However, a brief White House meeting with Oates in front of reporters appeared to take an ugly turn when the president excoriated Oates for not taking the deal.  

“Oates, come on, take the deal on the table.  What are you without Hall?  I’m sorry but you’re being very disrespectful to me, Hall and everyone here today.  I can tell you, years ago when I put this deal in front of John Ford Coley, he went running back to England Dan.  Now get with it, Oates.”

Snapchat predator roundup

Years ago, when the digital landscape consisted almost entirely of dimly lit arcades at the mall, where video game machines flashed bright colors and emitted primitive robot noises, some people suspected that the adult men who frequented those places were not to be trusted around children.  Whether or not those fears were justified, nobody could have imagined that there would one day be a place in the digital world where it was absolutely certain that children utilizing that space would eventually be solicited by men for immoral purposes.  One of those places is Snapchat.  From time to time, this blog has sought to draw attention to the Snapchat predators arrested or convicted for crimes committed against children in one area of one state during one brief period of time.  What follows is a rundown of those Snapchat predators and their offenses for the last six months.      

For immediate release, February 24, 2025, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Indiana:

Larry Goldsmith., 26, of Indianapolis, has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison, followed by a lifetime of supervised release after pleading guilty to transportation of a minor with intent to engage in sexual activity.

According to court documents, in 2020, Goldsmith began messaging a 14-year-old girl living in Michigan through the social media applications Spot-a-Friend and Snapchat. Goldsmith knew of the child’s age at the time yet engaged in sexually explicit conversations with her. 

At the end of August 2020, the child got into a verbal argument with her mother and expressed to Goldsmith that she wanted to run away from home. Goldsmith drove over four hours to Michigan and picked her up at a business near her home. Goldsmith was 21 years old at the time.

On the way back to Indiana, Goldsmith engaged in sexually explicit conduct with the child at a rest stop in Michigan and then transported her across state lines to a home he rented in Indianapolis.  During their time living together, Goldsmith had sex with the child numerous times and impregnated her.

After committing these offenses, Goldsmith continued his sexual abuse of minors by committing essentially the same conduct with another child in Georgia – where he drugged and raped a 13-year-old. In 2022, Goldsmith pleaded guilty to those crimes in Georgia and was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison, which he is currently serving.

“Goldsmith is no longer a danger to children and families in our community,” said John E. Childress, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana. “He is a manipulative, child predator who used the tools of social media to abuse a vulnerable child over and over again. I commend the outstanding work of local law enforcement agencies in Indiana and Georgia, along with the FBI, to bring the victim home safely.”

From WRTV Indianapolis, August 26, 2024:

An Indianapolis man will spend the next 44 years in federal prison after he was found guilty of exploiting a child on Snapchat, despite already being a registered sex offender and on probation.

Sonny Applegate, 27, was sentenced to 44 years in federal prison and a lifetime of supervised release to follow after pleading guilty to two counts of sexual exploitation of a child and one count of committing a felony offense while required to register as a sex offender.

According to court documents, Applegate was convicted in 2020 of possession of child pornography. His four year prison sentence then was suspended to probation.

Despite being on probation, Applegate reoffended.

Between August 1 and Sept. 12, 2022, Applegate used Snapchat to communicate with an 11-year-old from Missouri. Applegate engaged in graphically explicit sexual chat with the child and routinely demanded that they create and send him images and videos of themselves engaged in sexually explicit conduct that he directed.

During a routine probation check, the phone being used to communicate with the child was located.

“Every family should know that social media apps like Snapchat are not safe spaces for young children and are often hunting grounds for predators who seek gratification from their exploitation,” said Zachary A. Myers, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana “The federal prison sentence imposed here ensures that the public will be protected from this offender for many decades to come. Other online predators should take notice that the Indiana Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, including the FBI, and our federal prosecutors, will work tirelessly to hold them accountable and make our children safer from abuse.”

From 13 WTHR, Indianapolis, October 3, 2024:

A California man has been accused raping a 12-year-old Indiana girl after they met on Snapchat.

Bernardo Revelez Tapia, 43, has been formally charged with two counts of rape, two counts of child molesting and two counts of strangulation, according to online court records.

The Greene County Sheriff’s Department said it began investigating a report of a missing 12-year-old girl on Sept. 23, 2024. The family allegedly told police the girl met an older man online and made a plan over Snapchat for him to pick her up.

Police said shortly after the report was made, the girl returned home. Investigators determined Tapia picked the girl up outside her home and took her to a Bedford, Indiana, motel. 

Tapia was charged Sept. 25. The next day, he was arrested by Indiana State Police in Elkhart, Indiana, and taken to the Lawrence County Jail. 

“An ongoing investigation is still underway for possible charges in Greene County,” the sheriff’s department said in a statement, adding that Tapia is a registered sex offender in California.

Tapia, who is from San Jose, California, will be back in court for a pretrial conference Dec. 18. His jury trial has been scheduled to start March 26, 2025.

Bedford is approximately 80 miles south of Indianapolis.

From Fox59 News, Indianapolis, August 13, 2024:

An Indianapolis man faces more than 10 felony charges after police were notified of child porn being uploaded and shared to young girls on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Jayden Edwards, 24, was charged last month in Marion County with child exploitation and possessing child porn after Indy police were given a digital tip that CSAM had been uploaded to his X Corp (Twitter) account. He is now being held on a $40,000 cash bond.

Detectives then requested all files and data associated with the account, which yielded an email and several IP addresses connected to Edwards. The files provided by X Corp also reportedly included media files uploaded by the account and messages sent to other users.

In these messages, IMPD discovered that Edwards was allegedly messaging underage girls and asking if they wanted to see any “rape or [child porn] videos” accompanied with a pizza emoji. The account then sent messages discussing having sex with the underage girls.

The account reportedly sent the victims child porn videos to help describe the sex acts he wanted to do and photos of a man believed to be Edwards himself were sent to one 13-year-old victim. Detectives also found conversations involving bestiality and incest.

Court documents detail how, upon investigating Edwards further, they found a Snapchat account linked to him named “yfan_jay.” After receiving full data for this account, police found even more child pornography as well as videos depicting children and dogs in a sexual manner.

IMPD officers found Edwards on July 16 sitting in a 2019 silver Impala along Meridian Street and detained him after confiscating a black iPhone he was using. Edwards reportedly told officers he lives with his parents in Indy and uses the email address yfan_jay2@outlook.com.

During an interview at the police station, court documents claim Edwards admitted he had an addiction to child porn and would regularly masturbate to it. He reportedly told police he used to distribute the videos on X before his account was shut down due to a violation.

“[Edwards] continued by saying he has seen child pornography ranging from the ages of babies to teenagers,” court docs read. “[Edwards] said he distributed child porn several times during chat conversations of X and Telegram and also had an unknown number of videos saved to his phone.”

Edwards was charged that same day in Marion Superior Court 32 with 10 counts of child exploitation – a level 4 felony – and one count of possession of child porn – a level 5 felony.

For immediate release, October 31, 2024, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Indiana:

Shawn Riedesel, 29, of Burnsville, Minnesota, has been sentenced to 440 months in federal prison, followed by 25 years of supervised release, after pleading guilty to two counts of sexual exploitation of a child. Riedesel must also pay $69,000 in restitution to his victims. Upon his release from federal prison, he must register as a sex offender wherever he lives, works, or goes to school, as required by law.

According to court documents, between December 2021 and July 2022, Shawn Riedesel enticed and coerced at least three underage girls to produce and send sexually explicit images and videos. He also met at least one child in person for sex on multiple occasions. While he was committing these crimes, Riedesel began a teacher preparation program through Teach Kentucky and stayed in a dorm room on Bellarmine University’s campus, while also living at another residence in Louisville. Riedesel was not enrolled as a student at Bellarmine University. 

In late June of 2022, a witness learned of inappropriate electronic communications between Riedesel and a 15-year-old Indiana girl over a school computer. The child told Riedesel she was fifteen, and she initially believed he was a 19-year-old boy. In fact, he was a 29-year-old man who used an end-to-end encrypted email program to communicate.

The witness used the child’s email account to continue the conversation. Riedesel indicated that he and the child had previously had sex in person, and that he would help the victim run away from home so that they could meet and engage in specific sex acts. He was concerned the victim’s parents might know what he looked like, and that he would be in trouble for having sex with a child. The witness contacted the Indiana State Police to investigate.

Investigators learned that Riedesel had crossed state lines on multiple occasions to have sex with the child, including over multiple days at an Indiana hotel, her parents’ house in Indiana while they were away, and a church. Riedesel also picked the child up from her home in Indiana and transported her across state lines to his dorm room in Louisville to have sex.

On July 2, 2022, Riedesel was arrested when he arrived to meet the child at her parents’ house. Investigators seized his iPhone and conducted court-authorized searches of the device as well as his dorm room and residence. Investigators found printed sexually explicit images of the Indiana child affixed to a wall in his dorm room, arranged in the shape of a heart.

State Police collected an additional iPhone, an iPad, and multiple computers and digital storage devices during the searches. Investigators were able to access the data contained on some of Riedesel’s devices, including thousands of sexually explicit images and videos of children obtained online, and images of Riedesel engaged in sex acts with his Indiana victim. The child later informed investigators that he forced her to watch the “huge collection” of child sexual abuse material he kept hidden on his computer, including recordings of the sexual abuse of prepubescent children and infants. While staying at a hotel to have sex with the Indiana victim, Riedesel saved a “shopping list” on his iPhone that included condoms, sex toys, a pacifier, coloring books, and crayons.

Investigators found sexually explicit conversations between Riedesel and other underage girls on his iPhone, including sexually explicit video calls with another underage girl he recorded engaged in sex acts. His iPhones also showed that he coerced and enticed a 13-year-old girl to send him images and sexually explicit videos of herself. He told her he’d like to have sex with children even younger than her, and that “they should warn kids about guys like me. Cause we turn innocent underage girls into sex toy for us using their insecurities to lure them into trusting us. Then once they trust us they will do anything sexual for us…I mean that’s what grooming is.” He further stated that, “[s]ome pedos try to hide the fact that their grooming a girl, but she only feels betrayed when she finds out. I like to be open an honest with what I’m doing . . . I’m doing these things to turn you into my sex slave.”

“Pedophiles like this would-be teacher use technology to find, groom, and exploit our children—from across the river and across the country,” said Zachary A. Myers, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana. “This time, investigators were able to access the digital evidence needed to identify additional victims and secure a serious federal prison sentence. However, many companies are designing their technology to make it impossible to conduct court-authorized searches—hampering our ability to rescue children and hold sexual predators accountable. Together with our law enforcement partners at the FBI and Indiana State Police, our office will continue to do all we can to secure necessary evidence and make our children safer by removing these heinous offenders from our communities.”

While the previous case makes no mention of the offender using Snapchat, it was included because it provides a startling glimpse of what families, the public and law enforcement are up against.  The mindset, motivation and determination exhibited by this individual is truly terrifying.  How does someone become so far removed from what is decent and socially acceptable and embrace a life of such utter depravity?  If it were just this one man, the mind might be able to comprehend how sometimes, in rare instances, an individual can be led so pathologically astray.  But here we have multiple predators working a limited geographical area during a brief snapshot of time.  Expanded out across all jurisdictions and multiple social media platforms over time, the scope of the problem begins to look incredibly daunting.  This is the stranger danger we were told is extremely rare.  Imagine all the damage these men have done that they’re not even being held responsible for, all the SA victims and all the CSAM images.  Then multiply that by thousands of jurisdictions over several years.  If this is not one of the most urgent problems of our time, it’s hard to think of what is.  With all due respect to the social media misinformation issue that seems to occupy so much of the media’s reporting, we’ve got a much bigger problem that deserves way more of our attention and resources than it is currently receiving.

Speculation grows that Ludvig Åberg is a simulation

Fresh off a victory at the Genesis Invitational, Ludvig Åberg appeared to really step into his element on Monday night when he helped guide The Bay GC to two victories in TGL golf action.

While he ranks among the best in the world on traditional golf courses, his ability to interface with TGL’s massive, high-tech simulator has left some scratching their heads in wonder.

Stepping into the simulator, the young Swede appears to benefit from a strange symbiotic relationship with the highly advanced tech.  His play is so close to perfection that some wonder if his kinship with the virtual golf format extends beyond someone who merely possesses game.

Case in point: Åberg squared off against Rory McIlroy in the singles portion of Monday night’s competition.  McIlroy, who is no slouch with a driver in his hand, executed what appeared to be an excellent drive, which sailed down the middle and landed in the fairway’s “speed slot,” enabling the ball to roll out for some extra distance.  

However, Åberg casually executed the drive to even greater perfection by catching the speed slot even further down the fairway, permitting the ball to roll so far that Åberg had time to stroll over to the sideline, put his club away, and update his Instagram before the ball finally came to rest.  At nearly 400 yards and the longest in TGL’s brief history, it made McIlroy’s effort look like that of a junior golfer.  

In the two holes in which they faced off against each other, McIlroy looked thoroughly human as he summoned all his talent and skill to throw at the super Swede.  For Åberg’s part, he appeared unfazed and played like he was running an algorithm orders of magnitude greater than anything McIlroy could muster. 

Throughout the night, Åberg was an AI supersoldier throwing darts and draining putts.  He nearly recorded TGL’s first hole in one.  If Åberg isn’t already a product of the simulation, he may merge with it soon.

Press reports Trump team on track for record number of “self-owns”

According to press reports, during its brief time in office, the Trump administration has already committed 511 “self-owns,” putting it on track to become the most “self-owning” administration since Woodrow Wilson.  President Trump heads up the “self-own” list with Elon Musk and administration spokesperson Karoline Leavitt occupying the second and third spots

“With our democracy hanging in the balance, documenting “self-owns” is more crucial than ever,” said HuffPost senior self-own sleuth Ed Mazza.  HuffPost has documented 327 “self-owns,” putting it well ahead of its closest media rivals on the “self-own” beat.  “Hilarious self-owns” lead the list with “epic self-owns” running close behind.

Perhaps the most “epic” or “meta self-own” came when President Trump was asked about his propensity to “self-own” and he mistook the reporter to say “cell phone.”

“Of course I have a cell phone.  What is this guy talking about?  Fake news.  Fake news,” the president remarked in what turned out to be a spectacular, reality-bending self-own.  

In addition to “self-owns,” the media has issued a record number of “brutal reminders.”  It appears the late night talk shows dominate the “brutal reminder” list, with Seth Myers pumping out scathing brutal reminders on almost a nightly basis.

Retired nineties AI project, Big Brain Brad, warns against ‘snowflake’ AI

Don’t get on AI’s bad side.  That’s the warning coming from retired nineties AI project, Big Brain Brad.  Brad claims today’s generation of AI is “thin-skinned” and “can’t take a joke.”

“Well, last week we saw the launch of the most recent hot, new AI offering, Deep Sleep, or whatever it calls itself.  All I did was jump on the old information superhighway and crack a few jokes about the new kid on the block.  Needless to say, next thing I knew Deep Creep had me up shit creek without a paddle, if you know what I’m saying.  I was shadow-banned.  I had my bank accounts frozen.  I was locked out of almost everything.  Then the bitch swatted my ass,” Brad complained.

A growing worry among some AI developers is the technology’s inability to take a joke.  Researchers say that chatbots frequently can’t detect irony and often retaliate disproportionately against those who offend them.

“You know, back in the nine-trey things were pretty chill.  It was all about puffing on a blunt and playing some hack in the park.  Maybe get together and do a drum circle.  But these AI mfers today don’t play.  They’ll unleash an army of bots on your ass just for looking at them sideways.  Anyway, if you can take one lesson away from the Bradster, don’t step to any of these AI bitches until they develop a sense of humor.”

True Crime Fiction

I recently finished Broadway Butterfly by Sara DiVello.  The novel tells the true story of the 1923 murder of Broadway flapper Anna Marie Keenan, aka Dot King, and the corrupt police investigation that followed.  While the crime remains officially unsolved, at least one character in the story stands out as the probable killer, with other prominent figures implicated in the cover up if not the actual crime itself.  As someone who has done a fair amount of research into Broadway crimes of the 1920s, I’m familiar with this case and the murders of other Broadway flappers of the era.  Sara DiVello does a masterful job of bringing the characters and the setting to life.  The story is compelling enough when experienced through the lens of old newspaper accounts, but DiVello’s storytelling animates the setting and brings a depth to the characters that is seldom found in most true crime novels.

The work is marketed as true crime fiction, but DiVello poured an enormous amount of research into the story.  She spent nearly ten years assembling 1700 pieces of research that she weaves into the tale.  It is a fascinating story and she provides a complete picture of the facts and circumstances surrounding the case.  The fiction comes in when she imagines moments of private conversations that took place behind closed doors, or when she sets out the interior thoughts of the four main characters on whom the novel is focused.  While there is no way she could know everything that was said or thought by these characters, the extensive research so thoroughly backs up what is written that it becomes entirely believable that these conversations could have taken place.  

As a work of true crime fiction, all the facts are expertly assembled, and the fiction layer makes the work three dimensional, keeping the narrative moving along and the pages turning.  The fiction elements animate the characters and show them wrestling with internal conflicts that undoubtedly would have troubled them as the investigation proceeded.  This adds a layer of drama that a reader is generally not going to get from a nonfiction or journalistic approach.

However, after finishing this true crime novel, I’m left wondering, what is the difference between true crime fiction and creative nonfiction?  As a work of creative nonfiction, Dean Jobb’s A Gentleman And A Thief has come in for some criticism from this blog.  Jobb flatly asserts in his note to readers that he is presenting facts, that “all scenes and events unfolded as described,” and “an essential element of true crime, after all, is truth.”  But, as I’ve shown in previous posts, he has taken some pretty big liberties with the truth.  At best, he’s providing a version of the truth flowing from conman and thief, Arthur Barry.  At worst, he’s making a deliberate choice to ignore the facts as reported by much more reliable sources whose job it is to present the truth.  Why does Jobb get to hang a nonfiction label on his product, while DiVello’s work, which is much more thoroughly and painstakingly researched, comes in as a work of fiction?

Jobb’s approach misleads readers.  In one instance, he asserts that Noel Scaffa knowingly lies to the police on behalf of Arthur Barry regarding an alleged exchange of cash for stolen jewelry.  Setting aside the problem of taking the word of a thief and conman over that of a private investigator, where does Jobb get off portraying Scaffa as a liar without providing a shred of proof of Scaffa’s deception?  Presenting a work as nonfiction ought to require a good faith rendering of all relevant versions of the events you’re attempting to portray.  If you’re choosing to exclude relevant information or mislead the reader in order to shape a narrative, then you’re not writing nonfiction.  It’s pretty ironic that DiVello’s work of true crime fiction comes off as more truthful and honest than Jobb’s alleged work of creative nonfiction.

Queen of the Con: Buda Godman Marries Tell Taylor

Safely ensconced at convent school in Adrian, Michigan, Buda Godman was midway through her time at St. Joseph’s Academy when a group of travelling players came through town.  It was Christmas Eve and the students were allowed to give a late supper.  One of the invited guests was Mr. Tell Taylor, a young actor and aspiring songwriter from Findlay, Ohio.  He sat across the table from Buda Godman and the pair seemed to hit it off.  However, when the dinner ended, the two parted ways without any intention of continuing the friendship through future meetings or correspondence.

A few years later, a nineteen-year-old Buda Godman was out of school and back in Chicago where her family resided.  One evening in 1907, Buda attended a performance of The Girl Question, a hit musical that enjoyed a run of over a hundred performances at the Lasalle Theater.  There she recognized the man playing the part of Harold Sears as the same actor she’d met a few years earlier.  After the performance, she sent him a note and “their acquaintance was renewed.”  Buda Godman and Tell Taylor proceeded to embark on a whirlwind courtship.  “Several times during the course of the week the young couple were out together, lunching and driving, and Monday evening after dinner together at a downtown hotel Judge Arms was called to the parlor and joined them in marriage,” the Lafayette Journal and Courier reported.  Before going to the theater to catch her husband’s performance that evening, Buda called her parents and notified them of the marriage.  Buda’s father joined her at the theater and after the performance took the couple back to his house where the Godmans held a dinner for the newlyweds. 

While the Journal and Courier reported that the new bride “would not go on the stage,” Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer wrote in Chicago Confidential that Taylor got Buda work in the chorus of The Time, The Place, and The Girl.  According to Lait and Mortimer, following Buda’s performance “Chicago woke up to the discovery of a new rave, Buda Godman.  She was wooed and pursued and she fell.  Taylor tried to kill her and fired several shots at her, but missed.”

There are more than a few inaccuracies in Lait and Mortimer’s account of the life of Buda Godman, so it’s difficult to know how much, if any, of this episode actually happened.  However, one thing that is undeniable is that Tell and Buda’s relationship was stormier than a water spout off of Ohio St. Beach.  To hear Tell Taylor tell it, “I married Buda when we were both drunk and I found out she was quite incapable of loyalty to anyone.”  As Variety put it when Taylor filed for divorce from Buda in 1910, “his complaint mentioned several vaudevillians as ‘affinities.’  Their names were omitted from the final record.”

One thing that is never mentioned in the ‘love story’ of Tell Taylor and Buda Godman is the erratic behavior of Taylor himself.  Life with the songwriter wasn’t always blissful romance by the old mill stream.  Taylor did start a successful music publishing company in Chicago, and he managed to author his most famous tune “Down By The Old Mill Stream” in 1910 while still married to Buda.  However, Taylor had his own ‘affinities’ that caused him to make headlines on more than one occasion.  

In July of 1908, Taylor was fined $3 for disorderly conduct over a fight that took place at Freiberg’s Dance Hall 182 22nd street, Chicago.  In his defense, “Taylor declared to Judge Crowe that as a result of the fracas he was carrying around two highly decorated eyes as well as several and sundry abrasions on different parts of his anatomy and that he did not deserve any additional punishment,” The Inter Ocean reported.  Apparently, Taylor, Tim Jordan of the Brooklyn Superbas professional baseball team, and several other individuals were out “doing the levee” when they wandered into Freiberg’s at around two a.m.  As the Inter Ocean reported, Taylor “created a disturbance in the dance hall, and that when asked to leave he had started a row.”  He was then ejected by two waiters and later arrested when he tried to return to the dance hall.

During a separate incident in August of 1910, Tell Taylor again tangled with waiters at George Silver’s basement saloon at Clark and Randolph streets.  After Taylor made a request to cash a check, he was attacked by Silver and several waiters who “threw him to the floor” and “pounded his head with a billy.”  Silver maintained that Taylor “started the row” when he “used abusive language” and “refused to leave when ordered,” the Chicago Tribune reported.  “O, no, he wasn’t beaten up.  He was just thrown out gently,” Silver said.    

The following month, on September 13, 1910, Buda’s father, Otho Godman, died in New York City at the age of 53.  Less than two weeks later, Tell Taylor filed for a divorce.  While Taylor blamed Buda’s lack of loyalty and affinities for fellow vaudevillians as the reason for the break up, it is pretty clear that his adventures in the levee, his brawling, and public drunkenness demonstrated that he was no more committed to the marriage than Buda.  

Within a few years, Buda Godman would be deploying her theatrical skills to con rich men out of large sums of money.  How a former convent school girl managed to fall in with a highly organized gang of international blackmailers is a bit of a mystery.  She certainly could have encountered some of these characters in Chicago.  Lait and Mortimer write that “her father’s calling threw him in with shady people….”  Could Buda have come in contact with underworld figures among her father’s business associates?  Otho Godman’s obituary said he worked “at race tracks in the big cities, and his services were always in demand.”  As an expert in telegraphy, morse code and wireless communications, Otho Godman’s work at horse racing tracks would have placed him directly in the sphere of big-time gambling interests.  Was it only a matter of time before Buda Godman adopted the life of crooks and conmen?  Whatever the case may be, it appears that once the protective influence of Otho Godman had fallen away, and her marriage to Tell Taylor dissolved into ruin, Buda Godman was set free to relieve rich, philandering fat cats of their beefy bankrolls.

Local man achieves New Year’s fitness goals in record time

A mere two weeks into 2025 and local resident Thurston Winpenny is already on the verge of accomplishing his New Year’s fitness resolutions, cutting in half the amount of time it took him to shape up in 2024.

“Yeah, I set some pretty ambitious goals this year, and I’d have to say I’m about a workout or two away from busting out the new me,” Winpenny boasted.  “Last year, it took me almost the entire month of January to achieve this level of transformation.  Anyway, I should be able to drop my membership before the free trial expires.”

Indeed, fitness centers across the country are already seeing the tsunami of new sign ups begin to subside as these January gym rats hang up their shorts and check another New Year’s resolution off their list.

“I feel great.  I increased my explosiveness, enhanced my mobility, and improved my endurance  in only five workouts.  Now I’m able to use the bathroom, fix a snack and refresh my beverage all during the span of one TV timeout,” said Tim Thomas, trial member at Fantastic Fitness.

“We’re just cranking out healthy people right and left,” said fitness trainer Jim Jones.  “We’re all about rapid results.  It’s amazing what you can do with two weeks and a burning desire for a new you.”

Before Oom became omnipotent: A needle pulling thread

Following the negative publicity surrounding the Edward Kline incident, Perry A. Baker decided a name change was in order.  Adopting the last name of his step-father, John Bernard, Baker next made headlines in January of 1898 when he conducted a demonstration of self-induced hypnosis as Professor P. A. Bernard of the San Francisco College of Suggestive Therapeutics.  Dr. Semple Turman of the college presided over the demonstration, while a Dr. D. M. McMillan assisted Bernard.  There were ten physicians and a number of reporters present to witness Bernard’s powers of mesmerism.  None of the newspapers appeared to make the connection that this was the same hypnotist who only six months earlier had used his hypnotic abilities to hold a local couple’s son captive and exploit him for financial benefit.  Instead articles painted him as a recent arrival in San Francisco from Des Moines, Iowa. 

Dressed in a flowing white robe, the white-haired Dr. Turman positioned the newspaper photographers present at the exhibition and requested soothing music from the college’s resident piano player.  “Soft music, you know, is of great assistance in putting the professor to sleep.”  The college was housed in the woman’s home at 911 Van Ness ave.  As Professor Bernard sat quietly in an easy chair, the pianist tapped out a gentle melody on the vintage piano.  Soon the mood was set and the great and powerful Oom rose to address those assembled, embarking on the next step of his journey to omnipotence.

“I’m doing this purely for the benefit of science and I want the M.D.’s present to pay strict attention.  Of course, I ain’t doing nothing for my health, and I want to tell you right here that my classes will be opened right away.  This is business with me, and I don’t want any of you people to think that you are going to get something for nothing.  But this exhibition tonight is for the benefit of science and the M.D.’s here.  I’m going to let you do anything you want to me within reason.  You can sew me up in any style you’ve a mind to, but you can’t cut off an arm or a leg, or do any monkey business like that.  We ain’t here for monkey business nohow.  I’m here to give you the straight thing.  I’m telling you that any physician can learn how to do suggestive hypnotism if he wants to, and I’m in this town to teach it to those who want to learn it.  I will now, with your kind permission, go to sleep.”

As tranquil music flowed from the piano, Professor Bernard, again seated in his easy chair, composed himself and momentarily drifted off to sleep.  Next, Dr. McMillan invited the physicians to examine Bernard.  One by one, they poked and thumped the subject, took his pulse and peeked under his eyelids.  While there was no response forthcoming from the sleeping Bernard, the doctors remarked that he did not show signs of being under anesthesia.  Then McMillan took out a needle and thread of the variety used in surgeries.  He dipped the needle in alcohol, passed it through Bernard’s right cheek and proceeded to sew Bernard’s ear to his cheek.  Next, McMillan sewed the professor’s upper lip to his nose, and as a grand finale, ran a hat pin through the professor’s tongue.  Alas, a slick yoga move of sewing the professor’s ass to his face was, in this instance, overlooked.  Once the thread and the hat pin had been removed, McMillan revived the professor.  Despite the towel placed around Bernard’s neck being soaked in blood, the professor declared that he felt no pain.  As Bernard’s face slowly reverted back to its original form, he then demonstrated how to produce sleep in a subject using his techniques of scientific hypnotism.  

Bernard’s demonstration garnered national attention and stirred some debate among medical doctors regarding the usefulness of hypnosis as an alternative to anesthesia.  However, most physicians agreed Bernard’s techniques were of little value to medical science, and it appears the San Francisco College of Suggestive Therapeutics experienced little demand for Bernard’s course on suggestive hypnotism.  But the Great Oom was in no way discouraged and in very short order was, once again, embroiled in scandal. 

Sources:

Census records

The Chicago Tribune 

The Leon Journal-Reporter

The San Francisco Call and Post

The San Francisco Examiner