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Jun. 1st, 2011 10:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cblj_backupOver the weekend, one of the many entertaining things I did was finish reading Titanic Thompson: The Man Who Bet On Everything by Kevin Cook. Unusually, this wasn't a book recc from anyone -- I happened to see it in a bookstore and liked the look of it, so I ordered it from the library. I figured it would either be awesome or dreadful.
Turned out: awesome!
He told Bogardus he had concluded that the human race was divided into two groups, the suckers and the sharps. -- p. 15
The book is a biography of Alvin "Titanic" Thomas, a professional gambler in the early part of the twentieth century. (Thompson, the name on the cover, is a newspaper corruption of his name which Ti preferred because he believed publicity was bad for business.) It's compellingly told, and clearly Cook did his homework -- the story is narrative but there's visible evidence that Cook interviewed relatives and friends and did extensive textual research.
He hunted quail by throwing rocks, knocking the birds out of the air. --p. 2
Ti Thompson's story is fascinating. He became a professional gambler very young; functionally illiterate, he had an amazing head for numbers and an unusually high level of manual dexterity. Abandoned by his father as an infant and always uneasy with his stepfather, Ti left the backwoods farm where he was raised and became a road gambler as soon as he could.
He was proficient at cards, both straight play and cheating; as a "proposition" gambler he also had to be something of a con man, able to trick his opponents into doubling their bets or betting on something only Ti knew wasn't a "sure thing". For example, he compulsively had to con Al Capone, just to say he had; he bet Capone he could throw a lemon over a five-storey building. He had filled a lemon with buckshot for the purpose (an old trick of his) but Capone bought a new one, squeezed it dry, gave it to him, and told him to throw that one. Undeterred, Ti palmed the mashed lemon, swapped it with the buckshot lemon without Capone noticing, and won the bet. He legitimately could palm items, pick pockets, and do all kinds of coin and card tricks, but he used those in combination with trickery to win bigger and harder bets.
Ti liked to say golf was like sex: "Most men think they're better at it than they really are." --p. 82
Thompson married five times, but most of the women agreed he only loved one of his wives: Alice, a teenager he caught trying to pick his pocket. His love story with Alice, who died young, is pretty wonderful (except for the death, obviously). By the end of his life, however, he's a sixty-year-old man marrying an eighteen-year-old woman, and Cook does talk about how plenty of people saw him as a perv for it.
I do think I should make it a rule never to read the last three chapters of any biography, because famous people don't often tend to end well. By the time he was older, he also had trouble hustling enough to live on; the last few chapters are a combination of WAY too much information about boring golf games and the tragic story of an old con man who had lost his touch and lost his income as the world grew more sophisticated, as the world moved on. It's sad, and it's unfortunately the part that sticks in the memory more than his wild and fairly wonder-filled life.
Final Verdict: I do think the last chapters are the only place the book falters, and the rest of the book is well worth it, especially for people interested in old-time con hustles and the last gasps of the wild west. Thompson lived a larger-than-life existence, and it makes for a great story.
Turned out: awesome!
He told Bogardus he had concluded that the human race was divided into two groups, the suckers and the sharps. -- p. 15
The book is a biography of Alvin "Titanic" Thomas, a professional gambler in the early part of the twentieth century. (Thompson, the name on the cover, is a newspaper corruption of his name which Ti preferred because he believed publicity was bad for business.) It's compellingly told, and clearly Cook did his homework -- the story is narrative but there's visible evidence that Cook interviewed relatives and friends and did extensive textual research.
He hunted quail by throwing rocks, knocking the birds out of the air. --p. 2
Ti Thompson's story is fascinating. He became a professional gambler very young; functionally illiterate, he had an amazing head for numbers and an unusually high level of manual dexterity. Abandoned by his father as an infant and always uneasy with his stepfather, Ti left the backwoods farm where he was raised and became a road gambler as soon as he could.
He was proficient at cards, both straight play and cheating; as a "proposition" gambler he also had to be something of a con man, able to trick his opponents into doubling their bets or betting on something only Ti knew wasn't a "sure thing". For example, he compulsively had to con Al Capone, just to say he had; he bet Capone he could throw a lemon over a five-storey building. He had filled a lemon with buckshot for the purpose (an old trick of his) but Capone bought a new one, squeezed it dry, gave it to him, and told him to throw that one. Undeterred, Ti palmed the mashed lemon, swapped it with the buckshot lemon without Capone noticing, and won the bet. He legitimately could palm items, pick pockets, and do all kinds of coin and card tricks, but he used those in combination with trickery to win bigger and harder bets.
Ti liked to say golf was like sex: "Most men think they're better at it than they really are." --p. 82
Thompson married five times, but most of the women agreed he only loved one of his wives: Alice, a teenager he caught trying to pick his pocket. His love story with Alice, who died young, is pretty wonderful (except for the death, obviously). By the end of his life, however, he's a sixty-year-old man marrying an eighteen-year-old woman, and Cook does talk about how plenty of people saw him as a perv for it.
I do think I should make it a rule never to read the last three chapters of any biography, because famous people don't often tend to end well. By the time he was older, he also had trouble hustling enough to live on; the last few chapters are a combination of WAY too much information about boring golf games and the tragic story of an old con man who had lost his touch and lost his income as the world grew more sophisticated, as the world moved on. It's sad, and it's unfortunately the part that sticks in the memory more than his wild and fairly wonder-filled life.
Final Verdict: I do think the last chapters are the only place the book falters, and the rest of the book is well worth it, especially for people interested in old-time con hustles and the last gasps of the wild west. Thompson lived a larger-than-life existence, and it makes for a great story.
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Date: 2011-06-01 03:47 pm (UTC)"Our smiles just fade away."
*needs a Mozzie icon*
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Date: 2011-06-01 03:56 pm (UTC)I also thought of it because it's good right up to the end (basically because she committed suicide. Tragic, but much more compelling to read about).
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Date: 2011-06-01 04:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-01 04:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-01 04:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-01 04:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-01 05:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-01 05:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-01 06:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-01 06:59 pm (UTC)I found the fact that he married a pickpocket just so delightful.
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Date: 2011-06-01 07:38 pm (UTC)True love in the sphere of crime! D'aww.
(today, so far, has been very much a Monday. Why this is so, when it is in fact Wednesday, is beyond me. I haven't even left the house ARGH. Also, I have a self-publishing question to ask you, but I'll probably just email you. If I can find your email, that is.)
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Date: 2011-06-02 06:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-03 01:01 pm (UTC)