The Insiders

Episode 11: The Insiders (season 1 Finale) Transcript 

 

[Intro Theme Song]

 

Amy 

Welcome back to Volsteadland and thank you for joining us for our season finale. 

For once, we're not going to suggest that you go back and listen to the other previous episodes because this one kind of is a standalone. However, if you have no idea who Kid Cann is and this is your very first listen, you probably will be a little lost, so Google Kid Cann or Isadore Blumenfield or Blumenfeld before you start otherwise…I hope you still enjoy it. 

 

We are your hosts, I'm Amy. 

 

Heather

And I'm Heather and we're so excited to have you here. OK tonight we are drinking the Fancy Free. It is a cocktail with 2 ounces of rye whiskey, 1/2 an ounce of maraschino liqueur, a dash of Angostura bitters, a dash of orange bitters, and an orange twist for garnish. We don't have any oranges, so there's just some extra bitters. 

 

Amy 

No, but we do have these fancy cherries. These are the cherries that Heather's father… 

 

Heather

Yes

 

Amy

…gave her and she brought them over. And we've been enjoying those. 

 

Heather

It is delicious. It's quite some potent. 

 

Amy

It's potent, yeah, because it's all booze, right? 

 

Heather

Pretty much, Yep. 

 

Amy

I don't think there's anything in there that's not booze, so yeah, I can feel the heartburn starting already. 

 

Heather

So we got a five star review on Apple Podcasts and that is excellent. We love five-star reviews.

Amy

Yay!

 

Heather

TaigaRaider wrote, “So focused. I always love finding a show with such a laser focus on a specific time and place. The depth of exploration here is impressive because it's such a specific slice of history, handled brilliantly. Recommend 10 out of 10.”

So thank you so much, Tiaga Raider. 

 

Amy

Yes, thank you, that's amazing and I don't know who that is. You know a lot of times I'll be like that's my cousin or whatever, but I don't know who that is! So whoever you are thank you, we appreciate it.

We also hit a nice milestone on October 25th, 2021. We surpassed 1000 downloads of the show. So that's exciting. 

 

Heather

That is great. Let's get 1000 more. 

 

Amy

Yes, so thank you everybody for listening and downloading and hopefully enjoying the show. Once we get… (laughs) so this makes it sound like it's not actually that great, but once we get 500 downloads per week, we can start doing ads. 

 

Heather

So tell your friends!

 

Amy

So tell your friends 'cause we need some podcast money. Anyway, uh, yeah, so we can't…we need 10 times what we have. I guess is. What it comes down to…I think, I don't know. I can't do math. We've discussed that. 

 

Heather

Yeah, math is bad. 

 

Amy

Yeah, math’s hard. 

 

Amy

So also I registered us on a website portal called GoodPods, which I think is kind of like Goodreads is for books you know.

 

Heather

Oh OK, that makes sense. 

 

Amy

You sign up and then you put in all the podcasts you're listening to, and then you share it with your friends. And then you're, you see what once your friends are listening to, and then you can recommend the podcast to each other and stuff so.  I got an email from them saying that, we were ranked in the top 100 listener charts in three categories.

 

Heather

Excellent!

 

Amy

I know. So in indie history, independent podcasts history, we ranked #37 out of 100. In indie True Crime, we ranked 57, which I think is pretty good because there's a gazillion true crime podcasts out there, so that's pretty good, I think. I'm happy with it. And then in top 100 history podcasts, not just Indie, we rank 73. So that's not bad, not bad at all. 

 

Heather

Excellent, So after this airs, we'll be taking a small break, celebrating holidays, etc. and this will serve as the end of season one, right now what we're doing. And then this focused on Kid Cann and his reign in Minneapolis during the 20s and 30s. And we are working on a season 2 which will be called Single Barrel Theory. We kind of came up with that name, kind of based on 2 themes from this season: Guns and booze, right? So there's single barrel shotguns. And then there's single barrel Bourbon and bourbon is something we like here over in Volsteadland, right? 

 

Amy

Umn-humn.

 

Heather

So yeah, each episode in Season 2 will be a standalone deep dive based off of maybe something we talked about in season one. Yeah, we're really excited about. 

 

Amy

That yeah, yeah I want to give Heather appropriate props because she came up with that name and I really like it. So yeah, we're going to be taking turns researching and telling the stories, and we'll cover them one at a time. Like she said, each story one episode, unless there happens to be something that's really big and we want to break it into 2, maybe we'll do that. But for the most part, it'll be each episode, a standalone story, and we're going to trade off doing one.

 

So like I think we talked about last time, Heather is already working on one for Machine Gun Kelly. And I am working on one that is the story that we talked about last time, with Kid Cann’s White slavery Trial, which is…yeah . And because that is there's so much stuff in there and there's a lot I haven't even uncovered yet.

 

Heather: and I have an idea for another one as well that I haven't even told you about yet. 

 

Amy

Ohhh

 

Heather

So we'll talk about that later. It's a secret.

 

Amy

Yeah, I have a couple other ideas too. Yeah, so that’s going to be super fun. 

So while you're waiting for those, I'll just wanted to let you know that I do have a couple other podcasts. One of them is called Collected Sounds, and that's where I just read stories and up to now they're just ghost stories. And I talked to my mom yesterday and she said, “I tried to listen to your story…” but first of all, she had trouble understanding me because I trail out at the end of my sentences apparently, and I'm sure I do. But she also said, “then I realized it was about ghosts and I didn’t want to listen to it anyway.”

 

Heather

(Laughs) Oh Barb.

 

 

Amy

And I'm like it's not even scary. I mean, it's a little creepy, but it's not scary. You know, I, I don't want to give away anything, but it's not scary. It's just a cool story. And then I'm also working on another podcast that is called “Tales from the Shift”, and it's going to be about people’s work experiences, like weird jobs they've had, or regular jobs where they've had weird experiences, funny stories, sad stories, scary stories.  I have next week I'm interviewing somebody who worked overnights at a convent. 

 

Heather

Oooh, where did you find that person? 

 

Amy

Well, I'll tell you later who she is because I'm not sure. I don't know if she wants to be anonymous, or not. 

 

Heather

1.  

 

Amy

So I I won't, I won't tell you yet who it is, and then I'm going to talk to a nurse. I'm going to talk to a sex worker. I've got like a bunch of people lined up, so that's going to be fun. I've done one interview so far, and then I've got this next one next week and then so if anybody has any cool stories about your job. 

 

[sound of a loud car going down the street]

We have drag racing outside I guess. 

 

If anyone listening has any cool stories about your job or anything that happened to you while you're at work that you want to discuss, we can do it over Zoom like this, or we can do it on the phone and I can disguise your voice. You can be anonymous or you can be credited. However you like. 

So hit me up at the number in the show notes (612-424-1684) or Volsteadland@gmail.com so check the show notes for the contact info and let me know if you want to be on the podcast. Oh, I plan to launch that early next year like January, February maybe depending on how many I get done, I want to try and get them all In the can and wrapped up before I release because I don't want to be struggling to get something out every week and I do want to have that one be weekly instead of every two weeks. 

 

OK, so oh uh, did you want to say something?

 

Heather

Oh I was going to say that can go on forever I mean. Yeah, like you can. I mean there's a lot of people with jobs, right? 

 

Amy

As long as I get people. There's a lot of people without jobs too, some by choice. 

But yeah, I mean I'm not working right now, but I have some crazy stories that maybe I'll interject and weave mine in too.

 

Amy

Our friend Melissa, who runs the Skylark Bell podcast. She just finished season one or book one of the Skylark Bell and she's now working on book/season 2, but she's releasing some fun short stories in between, while she's on hiatus, which… she's not really on hiatus if she's still writing stories and [laughs] recording them and putting them out, but in between seasons she's doing that. The other day she sent me one to read because she was like, “I don't know. Is it too weird?” And actually, I'm like I'm probably the wrong person to ask 'cause I like weird, so she sent it to me and I loved it I totally had something in my eye. [Heather laughs] It was it was really good so I'm really excited for that. She's recording it this week. It's going to come out just two days after this one comes out. I think it's coming out on the 12th and this should be out on the 10th. So look out for that. It's in the Skylark Bell podcast and it's called “The Wedding Dress”, and it's going to be super good. 

 

Heather

Awesome

 

Amy

yeah

 

Heather

All right, so Amy, let's dive in. And you spent a lot of time researching this and you put out a lot of asks for people to reach out to you and give you personal stories they might have had about Kid Cann and you know or things they've heard of him and you actually came up with a lot more than. I realized you did looking over some of the notes earlier today. So, let's let's hear about what you learned. 

 

Amy

1. Well the first one I want to tell you about is, I'm just going to call her Source One. 

I found her on Next Door. I actually had posted about how I was doing this and did anybody have any stories about Kid Cann and she called me and the first thing she said is, “Well, he is a friend of the family.”  And I was like, “What? I struck gold!” [both laugh] And I did. She's amazing, so uhm, she called him Fergie. 

She knew him in later years she met him when her father was on the jury of the transit scandal trial in 1960, so that's when she met him and that's when her father met him. And then after the trial they became friends and they would go down to Miami together and hang out together in Miami. 

 

And during that transit case, she was working at City Hall and she would go out to lunch with her parents at, when they had breaks in the trial and they'd go to Sheik’s Cafe, she said, which I do believe ended up being Sheik’s Disco in the 80s and then it was a strip club after that. 

 

Heather

Yep, a gentlemen's club. 

 

Amy

Yes, yeah, that's probably the more PC way to say it, but I used to go there in the 80s for dancing, and it was a blast. It was called Graffitis. 

 

Heather: Oh wow!

 

Amy

it was super cool. It was so 80s. So 80s. Everything it was like the black light so that your eyeballs would shine and everybody had their fingerless gloves and everything. It was amazing. Amazing, I loved it. We, my friend Rachel and I, used to go there all the time all through college. 

 

Anyway, Sheik’s Cafe, and so then they would all go out there and her parents would be like “there's the attorney for Kid Cann” and “there's the attorney for the other guy” and all that she didn't really…She was a kid, really, It wasn't that impressive to her, but they were like real excited about it. Uhm, then she also mentioned that she would sometimes go to Charlies and I'm like Charlie’s? she goes, “Don't you know Charlie's?” and I'm like, “I don't think so.” And then I was like wait Charlie's Cafe Exceptional?!  Yes that's the one. 

And she actually told me that she had her engagement dinner there, when she got engaged to her husband, her family took her there. So I gotta, I'm going to talk to her again 'cause we had such a blast. 

We actually ended up meeting and she we sat down together and she gave me a bunch of pictures to look at and stuff, she even let me take some of them home. Now I'm gonna meet her, meet up with her again and return them to her. But anyway, back to Charlie's. I know we talked about having the potato salad while we were doing this one. But I didn't plan ahead and I did not make the potato salad, but I'm thinking that if I can get enough about Charlie's, we could do a whole deep dive on Charlie's and we can eat the potato salad. 

 

Heather

Ooh, and use the potato salad. Maybe we could even cook it. Together as a podcast. 

 

Amy

We could do a cooking demonstration. That's a good idea!

 

OK, so during the trial…this is one thing I thought was kind of fun... During the trial, she noticed that when she and her boyfriend were outside her house in his car, necking as she said, they noticed that someone was watching them, kind of like she didn't say she said they weren't exactly like following them all around town, but there was somebody in a car watching her and she thinks it was maybe to be sure that nobody was approaching her or family too because her dad was on the trial (jury). 

And she thought maybe it was like to make sure that there was no jury tampering or anything. Which you know, there were stories about that afterwards that that is indeed what happened, and that's why he got away with everything and everybody else went down. 

 

She doesn't think that's what happened. She didn't say that's what happened. She doesn't believe that's what happened but she did say there were people watching her and she said they probably just wanted to know what…you know…the daughter of a guy on the trial who she was with who she was talking to, who she was seeing, you know?

 

Then I asked her to confirm that he hated the name Kid Cann and she said she didn't know because it was never used. They always just called him Fergie. And she knew his name was Isadore Blumenfeld, and he was called Mr. Blumenfeld at restaurants and stuff, but that she only knew him as Fergie and they never talked about the name Kid Cann, if he liked it or not. 

 

And so she told me also that during his real estate years when he was involved in developing real estate -- buildings and stuff, he had to wear a hard hat when he was on the site and somehow she ended up with that hard hat, and it's it actually said Fergie on it.  She doesn't have it anymore. She doesn't know what happened to it, but she got it after he died when his wife Lillian was giving away and/or selling his stuff so she had it.

 

Heather

Interesting, now what I find is really confusing and strange is that her father was friends with him and then her father ended up on the jury. I don't understand how that could happen. 

 

Amy

She said that he was friends with him only after the trial, they became friends. 

 

Heather

Oh as a result of it. After the trial OK, OK OK yeah OK. I missed this. 

 

Amy

Yeah, maybe I didn't say that, but that's how it, that's how that's how she remembers it. That's what that's what she knows. 

 

Heather

1.  

 

Amy

However, she didn't tell me that her dad was a bootlegger back in the prohibition days,

 

Heather

Right. 

 

Amy

…and I was like, “are you telling me that your dad didn't know him back in the day?”

 

Heather

Then, right!

 

Amy

When they were bootlegging and she's like, no, I don't. As far as I know, they didn't know each other. Who knows, maybe they did. 

[Heather laughs]

But he still got on the on the jury, so.  Uhm, no I I think either he did not…They did not know each other or they hid it very well and it would be hard to hide that. You know?

 

 

Heather

I would think

 

Amy

Everybody knew who is he was hanging out with I think. I don't know. 

She also told me a story about how when they would go to dinner and the host would call “Mr. Blumenfeld”, or Blumenfield. I don't know if they said his name right or not, “Your table is ready” and she said there would be a whole lot of people like standing. around and being like that's him, that's him right there. She said he did not like the attention. He is not somebody…and I kind of got that from all the stuff we talked about, and all the research I did, that he really didn't like the spotlight shone on him and a lot of times people who are doing shady shit, you know, that makes sense.  

“Look the other way, don't look at me” and I know that he was also very upset when he would get in the papers and then his family would get upset because you know he has all these brothers and sisters who all had children who had children and he said every time that he got in the paper it would upset them and he felt terrible about that. He just wanted to be left alone. So that's that makes sense. 

 

Uhm, she said that he gave her son a dollar once. [laughter]

I don't remember what the circumstances were there I he probably said something like don't spend it all in one place or something. 

And then whenever they would go, whenever he and Lillian would go out with her parents, he would, he would say to the ladies, “You broads get in the back.” He wanted the broads in the back of the car. 

So here's one thing I don't know if this is going to work, but this is a picture that she gave it to me to take home. 

 

Heather

Oh yeah, umn-humn. 

 

Amy

I have to give it back to her, but this this is Izzy (Fergie) and this is her dad and I'm leaving it far enough away so hopefully nobody can see him and then…

 

Heather

I think my parents had a car like that when I was like 6. 

 

Amy

That was his car.

 

Heather

It definitely looks like it was taken in like the early to mid-70s. 

 

Amy

Yeah, it might have been. It might have been and so, somebody wrote on the back, let's see if I could get that, I’m covering his name. It says “Kid Cann, AKA Isadore Blumenfeld” crossed out “field.” 

 

Heather: Oh yeah. 

 

Amy

And then she also sent me home with this, which I have to give back to her. This is a letter from the United States -- United States District Court from the Court clerk. A letter to her father and I have covered his name, but….I don't know if you can actually read that or anything,

 

Heather

Oh wow. 

 

Amy

But it says “I want to thank you for forgoing your usual pursuits and serving as a juror on the so-called Twin City Rapid Transit case.”

 

“I am sure nobody believed the trial would be so time consuming. I know the remuneration you received is not at all adequate to compensate for the disruption of your personal affairs and the really valuable service you rendered the court. Should you perchance be called on for jury duty in the future, it would certainly be proper to ask to be excused on the grounds that you have already served longer than a person should be expected to serve in a lifetime. I know your experience on the jury has been a value to you and that you have gained real knowledge of the administration of justice in our courts and the personal satisfaction of knowing you have had a place in so vital a branch of our government on behalf of Judge Norby as well as myself, I want to express our sincere appreciation. 

Sincerely, Frank A. Massey clerk.”

 

Heather

Wow, I didn't get a letter like that when I was on jury duty!

 

Amy

Those are some things that she gave me and I'm gonna meet with her again and I can't wait 'cause she was a delight. Oh, I did ask her if kid can, if he knew Kid Cann before the trial. She said no, not as far as she knew. But she did say that a lot of this stuff, whenever I'd ask her like for details she'd be like, I don't know because this was not stuff we talked about. You weren't supposed to ask. Don't ask, don't tell. 

 

Heather

It is so you got the sense that she kind of knew that something wasn't right or going on. 

 

Amy

Either she knew or she suspected but wasn't sure and just didn't want... 

 

Heather

Just knew better than to ask.

 

Amy

yeah. So she also told me that she remembers that when Fergie died it was because he had gone into the hospital for a surgery and they botched it and they left something inside him when they sewed him back up. I don't know what sponge or scalpel. I don't really left something inside of him and he got a bad infection and that that's what he died from, not heart failure as the papers said, but I don't have his autopsy report. If there even is one, I don't have a coroner's report. I don't know. Maybe somebody does, but. But, and that's just what she remembers, or at least her family knew to be this story so. But they said he died of heart failure, which of course everybody dies of heart failure eventually, I mean. That's what happens. Your heart stops and you're dead. She also told me that she remembers that Fergie took the fall for somebody in one of these cases that was going on in 1961.

And she thinks it was one of his brothers. And I told her that his brothers were both also indicted and convicted in the liquor probe, so he couldn't have covered for them in that way. And she said, “no, I think it was the white slavery case.”

 

 So then I'm thinking, well, neither of his brothers had anything to do with that as far as far as I can tell, as far as what was in the papers. I mean, the woman testified that it was you know is Izzy she was having the affair with, so I don't know. I guess we'll dig into that when we do the deep dive on that, so there might be a little bit more there.

 

Heather

Interesting, OK. 

 

Amy

And then remember how at the sentencing in 1961, his lawyer made him out to be like super frail and sickly? And we talked about like how Robert Durst and Harvey Weinstein and all those guys pull that shit? So I asked her if she remembers him being sickly 'cause she knew him after that and she said no, not at all. 

 

Heather

Hmm, Yep. 

 

Amy

She said he seemed like to be a very healthy guy and she said she. 

 

Heather

And he certainly looked healthy in that picture you just showed

 

Amy

And yeah, right. 

 

 

Amy: And he lived another 20 years after the sentencing where he was, you know, according to his lawyer falling apart at the seams and then he lived another 20 years. And she does not remember him being sickly. She thinks it was probably something that the lawyers just made up

 

Heather

for sympathy. 

 

Amy

Yeah, yeah. 

 

Heather

Maybe it worked, maybe that's… 

 

Amy

Maybe maybe. So if you're listening to this and not watching and you didn't see the pictures I put up, don't worry I'm going to. Put them on the blog and on all the socials. 

 

So this woman, she was a delight. I can't wait to meet her again. She's had a really interesting life herself. We spent most of the time actually talking about her. And she's really, really interesting. And I told her that maybe she should have a podcast about her life and she kind of just looked at me and went …”mayyyybe….”. [laughter] So we'll see. Maybe I can convince her. 

 

All right, so then source #2 is one that sort of disappeared. We spoke the first time back in May and I haven't heard from her since and I have reached out, but I haven't heard back. It's fine, I get it.

 

She mentioned that she had been working for a government agency, which I won't name. 

Back in the 70s and she did want me to make sure to point out that it was very gender biased. 

It was men did not like her having the job. She was a special agent. And the men thought she was taking a job away from a man and then she was also Jewish, which made them, you know, rank her down a little bit lower too, which is awful. She was assigned to look for cases where people weren't paying their taxes. 

You know, like how we talked about, that's how they get those guys is on tax evasion so. She said she doesn't remember if she was given it or if she offered to do it because she was interested in it. 

She was Jewish, so she thought she could get in with the people that were doing it, not that they're all Jewish. But enough of them were, and this was in the 70s, so it was long after Kid Cann’s people were around, but there were some other restaurants, bars that continued these practices gambling and mostly they had bookie rooms or whatever. So like in the there'd be a secret room upstairs where they did all their accounting and stuff.

 

She also told me about how when the Jewish immigrants came from the old country like Romania in the 1900s, they would sell their wares by wagons. They put all their stuff on wagons and then when the wagons went away and the trucks started coming out, these same guys are now needing a job. And they would drive those trucks. They'd be delivery drivers. So, which I thought was kind of interesting and they were the ones that opened up the Army Navy surplus Stores and I remember there being a big store downtown over by. 

 

Heather

In the warehouse area, right? 

 

Amy

Yeah, in the warehouse district. 

 

Heather

Yep, I've been there. 

 

Amy

Yeah, I think I went there for Halloween looking for stuff and then yeah, you know when I was in in College in the 80s it was. It was really a big deal to wear all those fatigues and all that stuff and combat boots and everything and that's where everybody went to get their stuff. And she mentioned that her grandfather had a vegetable and fruit stand …produce stand. And it made me made me wonder if she was related to those guys in the episode, The Bumbling Crew where the night of the murder of Walter Liggett and Kid Cann was doing his rounds all over the town, and one of the places he stopped at was a produce stand.  

 

Heather

Oh, I bet it was.

 

Amy

Run by two guys, Max Levine and Robert Lindgren. 

 

So I don't know. I didn't know about that when I met with her so I didn't. 

I didn't ask her about that, but I, but she did say that she's pretty sure that her grandfather, new kid can. But she didn't have any real stories. She also said that it was well known back then that the City Council members would go to the police and erase any infractions that the syndicate and combination types had on their record. 

 

She also talked about being a mob wife, and she said those ladies they had it great. [Heather laughs] She's they treated their women very well and she said, like the men would go off and do their killing and then they'd come home and bring diamonds to their wives. And she’s like, who wouldn't love that lifestyle? 

 

Heather: Well, I've watched The Sopranos and Yeah, I mean Carmela had it pretty good except for all the cheating And you know abuse, but right? 

 

Amy

I mean, aside from that…That reminds me. Also, the first, my first source? She told me that Fergie and his wife Lillian were madly in love with each other. 

Oh, and I was like oh 'cause remember last time I was like I don't know why she's married to him. 

He's obviously having an affair with this 20-year-old girl. Well, I forgot about the diamonds, and she was madly in love, so yeah. 

 

Yeah, so this woman. She knew a lot of people who knew the family, but she wanted to reach out to all of them before giving me their phone numbers. And then she actually never got around to reaching out to them, and so I never heard from her again except for her to tell me that she hadn't done it yet and she's like, “I don't know why I haven't done it yet, I guess I'm just procrastinating.” and then she just ghosted me so it's fine. I get it. Uhm, if you're listening lady who helped me out, I don't blame you at all. It's all good. I get it why you wouldn't want to get too involved. 

 

OK, and then the third person that I spoke to is a guy who's family member, we talked about him before, his family member was supposedly one of the alibi witnesses at the Liggett murder trial. 

And he says that this family member saw Kid Cann, at the time of the murder drinking and gambling in a bar, and that's what he testified to. 

 

Heather

So he couldn't possibly have been present at the murder right? 

 

Amy

OK, well right and he said, “he could have had it done but he didn't do it.” OK yeah, I mean, yeah, there's a lot of people that wanted to shut up Walter Liggett. So yeah, it didn't really matter if it was him or not. I mean, I don't know that he would have been the one to make the call. I don't know, maybe he was. 

Anyway, this guy was great. He had a lot of good stories about Minneapolis in the 40s through sixties, 70s, so if and when we cover those stories, I'm going to reach out to him again. 

He was really fun to talk to. He had some great great stories that don't pertain to this realm at all, but they were still interesting and I I'm keeping those in the back of my mental file cabinet. 

 

He did say that he met JFK when he was in the city campaigning to be president. 

 

Heather

Wow

 

Voiceover of source (altered)

 

Yeah, I sold flowers to a guy named, a, you might know this name, Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy? Kennedy was campaigning for president and he came though in a limo- um convertible. 

 

And he stopped in front of the house and he asked me how much the flowers were, I says “would a dollar for 2 dozen red roses be too much?”

 

“No, I'll pay ya that.”

 

 That's before, it hada had been around 1960 or 61. I would think that was when he was running for President. 

 

But I thought he was one of the nicest guys I ever met. And he went back to the car and I think if Jackie was with him, uh he give ‘em to somebody, I don’t remember if it was Jackie or who but he give the flowers to somebody in the convertible. Probably was his wife Jackie.

 

 

Heather

Oh!

 

Amy

thinks it was his wife, but he's not. 

 

Heather

Sure, oh, wouldn't it be great if it was Marilyn.

 

Amy

I know I was thinking that too! So he was super fun, uhm, and I I would like to talk to him again too. I don't know if he's listening, I don't know that he even knows what a Podcast is but he was great. 

 

Heather

How old was he? I mean, if he was a kid in the, I guess early 60s…

 

Amy

60s yeah yeah. I mean, I think he's…all these people were in their 70s. All the three I'm talking about they were in their 70s. 

 

Heather

So we are going to talk about some of the leads that came from the various Facebook groups. Would this be a good time to stop and refresh our cocktail take? 

 

Amy

A break, sure, yeah, let's do it. 

 

[break]

 

Heather

So Amy posted looking for information on various Facebook groups and got a variety of people weighing in and different responses. We have one here on the name. The Bloom name. This is from a woman who actually wrote an article about his family for a local website. She was also a source who sent Amy some articles. 

 

It says “his brother changed his name to Harry Bloom and his other brother to Yiddy Bloom, but I've never heard that Kid Cann ever went by that except when he got arrested for the Cotton Club murder and gave his name as Harry Bloom. First I thought the reporter made a mistake then someone. Said he did it on purpose.”

 

And then there was a response that said “yes, during the legit murder trial he was asked about the spelling and he replied that he had a complicated name and that sometimes he went by Bloom. His siblings all changed their names. Yiddy was born, Isaac went by Jake and then legally changed his name to Yiddy.” 

 

And then another person replied. “On that topic, I may be asking this question a couple of decades too late.  I've read that in his later life in Florida his friends called him Fergie. Apparently short for Ferguson. 

As someone pointed out, this name could be a play on the Yiddish,” and I'm going to bastardize this: “Ikh fargesn which means I forget” and I do apologize to our Jewish listeners. “It could have been a play on the Yiddish for I forget. Many years ago I” this is still somebody replying, “Many years ago I heard an old northsider refer to him as Izzy Bloom, which made sense as both his brothers Yiddy and Harry used Bloom, sadly that old guy died before I could ask him more about it. Which brings us to the question what did his friends and family members call him? Does anybody remember?”

 

And someone answered to that they just said “yes it was Blumenfield, but he changed it and so did his brothers.” No one answered the Fergie question, but we know from Amy’s source that we were just talking about, that this is true. Especially during his time in Florida. 

 

So there were some other people who responded to different things, saying that they knew him. 

One guy wrote, “I worked in a brokerage office where Kid Cann had an account. This was in the late 60s. 

He came in one day accompanied by what I assumed to be a bodyguard. This guy was huge and right out of central casting. Blumenfeld was chatting up a secretary, a blonde bombshell. He offered her a trip down to Florida with him since it was cold up here. The little voice in my head suggested that I say, are you bringing a heater, but I deferred to common sense and shut up. “

 

Amy

[laughs] I love that.

 

Heather

Then on a different thread the same person said “he had an account at the brokerage firm I worked at in the 60s. He would come in with his huge guy right out of central casting who just stood there, looking menacing. We had a receptionist who was this wonderful blonde. He was chatting her up talking about how cold it was here in Minneapolis and how nice it was in Florida where he was. Going, I was tempted to ask if he was bringing his heater with, but decided considering the big guy, not to.” 

 

Amy

That's probably wise. 

 

Heather

And then here's another story from a person whose father knew Kid Cann, a nice story. 

 

Amy

This one was on Next Door, actually. 

 

Heather

She says “My parents were both blind. And there were eight children and very little money. 

My dad started the world most dangerous polka band at Nye’s,” which I have seen. “Everyone knew Joe, the Blind drummer one night while walking home from knives, Dad got jumped in what used to be called Bum Park, but is now known as Chute Square. Dad had his head cracked open and had to go to the hospital. He was robbed of the couple bucks he had on him. Not very long after that, my mother would receive envelopes with cash in them to help her get by. I was really young but I remember the man coming up to our house to tell my mom that Mr. Cann would be looking out for her and he did.”

 

And then Amy, you responded to her and you said, wow, interesting, I have seen that band at Nye’s. 

I used to go there in College in the late 80s.  Thanks for the story! 

 

Amy

Yep

 

Heather

You got around a lot. You were quite the social butterfly in your college days. 

 

Amy

I was way more than I am now. That's for damn sure. 

 

Which brings us to, back in 2000. Sometime I think it was around 2000.  I had a friend who was working at First Avenue and there was a committee that was being started. Well, this is when I had my music blog Collected Sounds and this friend of mine said, “oh, I think you should be on this committee. 

I'll give you the name of the guy that's running it” and his name was Steve McClellan and anybody who knows music in Minneapolis, well, anywhere, knows Frist Ave knows who this guy is. I went to the meetings and it just ended up being like, well, all they really wanted you to do is go to the shows and like sit at the door and hand out flyers and stuff

 

Heather

Right. 

 

And I didn't want to do that so I kind of backed out. Of that, but I met the guy and he was really nice. And so when I was looking on Facebook for stuff he commented about can on one of these threads. And so I was like, wait a minute. I know him so I sent him an email and I said you probably don't remember me. But I saw that you commented on this Kid Cann thread on Facebook and I am doing this podcast and I want to know if you know anything and he was like “Oh yeah, I know some stuff. Like what do you want?” and I go, “Anything? I'll take anything, anything!” so he sent me this email and… I'll just read you the email he said:

 

 I was born in 1950.  Thus, I was only a toddler or in grade school when the Minneapolis liquor licenses were controlled by the "Jewish mafia" of the time - Isadore Blumenfeld aka Kid Cann and one of his "henchmen", Abe Percansky…

 

Heather

Oh Abe

 

 

Amy

Yeah, Old Abe, “just prior to the city closing down the Flame Bar in the late 70's.  I did NOT know about the club's or Abe's history in regards to the Kid Cann era.

 

   I was involved in the political scene in college and learned that Hubert Humphrey was given credit for "chasing" Kid Cann out of town, but even later learned (all third hand information and some "reading" books on the subject) - that Hubert Humphrey actually received financial support from Blumenfeld when he was mayor of Minneapolis (and part of Blumenfeld getting to leave town and live a comfortable retirement in Florida was part of Humphreys' pay back). So then he’s like

“Anyway, when I met with Abe Percansky…” and I was like you what?

 

And he said: 

 

“the Flame was in decline and bringing in an audience "not desirable" to the community according to the City officials at the time.  Basically, downtown did NOT want black audiences to get comfortable and venues like the Flame and other bars bringing in black clientele were forced to close.

 

“Since I started to bartend and then manage a club called Uncle Sam’s [Heather laughs] in the early 70's (we later changed the name to First Avenue in the early 80's) –

 

Amy

I'm like Oh yeah, I think I've heard of that. [Heather laughs]

 

 

“I did this during and after I stopped taking classes at the U of M. I got more involved in the "history" of downtown nightclubs.  Good read is Augie's Secrets published by the University Press about the downtown nightclubs and mafia influences.”

 

Amy

which I've referred to this book before, I read it. It's super entertaining. The guy is a good writer. It's really fun to read. However, I've also heard that most of it's not true, but whatever, it's a fun read. 

 

 

He said, “Anyway, most of my knowledge about Kid Cann is later history that I read or heard third hand from sources that either were involved in downtown business or Minneapolis political circles.”

 

Amy

So then I was so excited that he met Abe Percansky, I wanted to know more about that. So I asked him about that and he said. 

 

“So when I met Abe, I actually sympathized with his exclamation of why the city was revoking his liquor license from early Uncle Sam's days. I realized the downtown business establishment, the Minneapolis Police Department, and the city leaders of the time” and he puts all this in in Caps “DID NOT WANT BLACK AUDIENCES DOWNTOWN. The flame had started to fill with the quote funky crowd that lived in the neighborhood back in the early 70s. Nicollet Ave, South of downtown was not a highbrow neighborhood.”

 

Heather

Oh gosh. 

 

Amy

“I specifically remember Abe saying something to the effect. All I have done to survive in this venue is adapt to the neighborhood. The city has handed me over the years.”

 

And I knew nothing about this. I mean, I knew about the flame and it was. It did have a lot of black acts would come in like famous famous black people came in and played at the Flame and what I had heard was that the audience was were very diverse that there was a lot of black people there. But there were also a lot of white people. Especially Jewish people so I could see why they you know like to have their spot. So yeah, that's I was upsetting to me to find out that that, that that was happening back then, but it not surprising, not at all. But unfortunate anyway. 

 

Heather

So we have a couple other responses. 

 

Amy

OK, so this next one is one that I gave Heather to read, and I just noted that I am super dense. I read this. I probably read it five times and it still doesn't make any sense to me. I don't know how any of this would have impacted this person’s life. Maybe somebody else can figure it out. Maybe Heather, you'll understand it a little bit better. 

 

Heather

OK, so this is what they wrote “these mugs once did my father a favor which greatly benefited as it turned out a very young at the time, me. All I know is a certain divorce case was being held up in court. My dad was being bled dry. The details of this case were divulged during a legitimate business discussion, and a solution was offered to which my horrified Dad said something like are you nuts get the hell out of here? Nevertheless, weeks later my dad case was mysteriously moved to head of the docket. He prevailed and my life was changed forever. 

 

Amy

 I mean, it sounds like his Parents were getting divorced. And his dad was getting all the money taken away from him. 

 

Heather

Yep

 

Amy

And these ‘mugs’ must have found out something derogatory about the mother, right?

 

Heather

Right, well, it says the details of the case were divulged during a legitimate business discussion. 

So maybe his father was a business associate of Izzy. 

 

Amy

Yeah, maybe.

 

Heather

….and helped him out. 

 

Amy

It sounds to me like they had to have gotten some dirt on the mother

 

Heather

Wife, yeah.

 

Amy

In order for the dad to have had the for the trial to be finished and sent him to. 

 

Heather

“My dad case was mysteriously moved to head of the docket. He prevailed and my life was changed forever.” Wow, yeah there's not a lot of detail there. I wonder if that poor guy ever saw his mother again.

 

Amy

yeah, I know. Well maybe he didn't want to, maybe? She was a ne'er-do-well.

 

Heather

And then we have another one “had drinks with Kid Cann way back in the day. Don't even remember if we were old enough to drink. We had heard the name but didn't know all the background, so we weren't too impressed. Just some old guy who bought us a drink.”

kind of cool.

 

Amy

I mean that tracks 'cause he was always looking at young ladies and chat and chatting him up and stuff. 

 

Heather

And then we have another person who says I lived a block away from him on Oakland Avenue on Halloween. His maid would answer the door and give a bag of candy to each kid.”

I guess as a. Kid, you would remember something like that. 

 

Amy

Of course

 

Heather

Everybody likes the candy. 

Another guy, Alan he says “I used to shine kid can shoes in front of Addison Bar on Franklin Avenue. 

He always tipped you well.”

And then someone quite succinctly just posted “piece of shit.” 

[laughter]

OK then that's what you think all right. 

 

Amy

Yeah, I could just see that guy type “piece of shit” send! 

 

Heather

I actually I won't, well you can cut this out, but I commented on an Aaron Rodgers post today. 

(Amy, I'm just talking to you) and  I just threw a ‘piece of shit’ and I and I hadn't even read this yet! 

 

Amy

[laughter]I think we should leave that in. 

 

Heather:  You can! 

 

Amy: He is a piece of shit.  Lying about being vaccinated, the turd and then getting sick and hopefully didn’t get anyone else sick. Dumb fucker.

 

Heather

Right! 

 

Amy

Anyway, OK, here's another one that said, “I heard he had something to do with Sunset Memorial Gardens Cemetery sold cemetery plots to people then. We sold the same plots to someone else. Wonder if this is true and what did they do with the bodies that were. Supposed to be buried?” 

 

Well, I looked into this. I looked in the newspapers.com, I did regular Google searches. I couldn't find anything about a story about this coming out. Maybe it never came out, but maybe it never happened either. But Sunset Memorial Gardens does have a Facebook page and all the reviews are negative. Terrible customer service. 

 

Heather

Oh wow, and didn't you visit? Didn't you visit Izzy at the cemetery this week? 

 

Amy

I did, but that not that cemetery he's at the Adath Yeshurun. 

 

Heather

Oh OK, OK. 

 

Amy

Uhm, there's one more word, and I don't think it’s just cemetery. Anyway, I did. I went out. I had to go to Edina to renew my driver's license and I took the long way 'cause I don't like. I didn't have a driver's license on my way out, it was expired. So, uhm, so I drove, I didn’t want to get on 100 'cause I'm like what if I get pulled over so I took the long way and went down France Ave, Xerxes and France. And I was like, oh, the cemetery is coming up. And I don't know if I mentioned this. Did we talk about this before? I don't think we did

 

 

Heather

I don’t know, we tried to go a couple weeks ago

 

Amy

 not last weekend but the weekend before? 

 

Heather

Oh I think we did mention this.

 

Amy

And it was closed?

 

Heather

We tried to go a couple weeks ago. Oh, I think we did mention this actually, but yeah, it was a it was a Jewish holiday. 

 

Amy

OK, and that it was closed. Yeah, it's a…. 

 

Heather

And we didn't realize the cemetery would be closed. 

 

Amy

…Sabbath, and we're I'm too dumb to realize that that it was closed. 

 

Heather

Oh, it's a Sabbath, yeah. 

 

Amy

So uhm, anyway, yeah so I'm driving by there and I couldn't stop on my way out because I was getting to be late for my appointment, but on the way back I was like I'm just going to pop in and see if I can find him and I didn't have any of my notes with me. I didn't, I didn't know where he was in there so I just got in. It's a really cute cemetery. It's real hilly, little tiny road to drive around, and I drove all the way around and then I was like, you know this is stupid, I'm going to pull over and just Google. Where is he buried and I found it section three row one, 4th grave from the left. 

So I I parked and I got out and I walked over and I almost didn't see the grapes because they are literally like. I don't know what's that like. A foot wide, maybe 14 inches wide, 8 inches tall. They're really small little markers which I found interesting because they were pretty wealthy. There are very small markers and most of them are grown over. They were, you know. There was of course it’s fall… 

 

Heather

Right, you said you cleared it off for him. 

 

Amy

… so I cleaned them. I was trying to take video and so I did clean him with my foot and then I was like, oh, I wonder if that's like bad to do that like to not clean him off with your hands. I don't know. Anyway, I did clean off some of it with my hands too but. Uhm, but so I cleaned off the…. so it was. Morris Fogel and Blanche Fogel. Blanche is Lillian sister, so it was Morris and Blanche and then Isadore and Lillian. And then I believe next to them was Ann and Sam Shink, who Ann is his sister and then down the way a little bit further, was Yiddy Bloom and his wife Verna. I couldn't find Harry.  I didn't, I mean, I just they weren't in that section. Right and then there was another section of other people with different names that I didn't know, but there was a there was a something in the ground. I don't know how you describe it. It's not a headstone, but it was like a little planter kind of thing and it had some dead flowers in it. Uhm, but and that said, Blumenfeld on the bottom or Blumenfield on the bottom, his grave and Lillian both say Blumenfield. And everybody else is Bloom or whatever their other real name was. Yiddy and Verna’s graves were clean. They had been somebody taking care of those, but everybody else is were all grown over. 

 

Heather

That's really interesting. I wonder who those? Maybe probably their….

 

Amy

Yeah, the kids kids have kids or something. 

 

Heather

Kids. 

 

Amy

Yeah, somebody in the family is probably keeping track of that.  Or maybe there's maybe that that there was some kind of like maybe they paid extra when he was buried to say keep it clean. [Heather laughs] I don't know. I assume you can do that, I don't know. So yeah, that was fun and I think we should go back 'cause there's other people there that I want to see. And you probably want to see? 

 

Amy

It so yeah, yeah we we'll go back again some Sunday. 

 

Heather

And we get to go out and eat lunch in Edina.

 

Amy

Exactly, yeah, 'cause we had a good brunch at Edina Grill. 

 

Heather

And I know which is always fun. 

 

Amy

Bloody Marys and everything. OK, so then the next one I found was some somebody wrote. 

Seen on the wall of a men's restroom in Ford Hall Philosophy Department, University of Minnesota, circa 1967. “Immanuel Kant. But Kid Cann.” 

 

Heather

[laughsl Ah, that's awesome. Oh, I like that. 

So another comment we have here is “my grandmother would talk about working for Kid Cann. Making shoe box deliveries for him and his cohorts. I remember her saying that she never looked inside the shoe boxes, but she figured it was stacks of money.”

 

Amy

It probably was. Remember back in the Excelsior scandal, Excelsior Baking scandal and they said that they had to pay Kid Cann and his cohort Joey, Schwartz or Swartz maybe? Uhm, that they paid them in cash that was in, like paper bags. 

 

Heather

It's interesting that they would hire a young girl to go around and do that, 'cause it. It's kind of dangerous to walk around with that amount of money. I would think, and you're carrying a shoebox, I mean. It's kind of suspicious and draw attention. 

 

Amy

But you know, at least it's going to no one going to look at a little girl walking around with a shoe box where a businessman was walking around the shoe box, especially if he's part of the syndicate… 

 

Heather

Another one wrote. “My sister lives in his house. Found some prohibition alcohol bottles in the wall when remodeling.”

 

Amy

So fun. I know I love it. 

 

Heather

And then we have. “When I was a kid, my mom had told me about a time my great grandpa had told her that my great grandma and my grandpa had been robbed in their house by Kid Cann. I don't know a lot of details about the situation, but saw this and that story brought me back.”

Uhm, so we haven't found any proof that he ever did house robberies. 

 

Amy

No, I it doesn't seem like his jam. 

 

Heather

It doesn't seem like his style at all. Uhm, you know he might have known people who robbed houses, but yeah. You know? 

 

Someone else wrote “my grandfather’s first job was working in one of Cann’s, Kid Cann’s places bar backing. His name wasn't on the liquor license, but everybody knew who it belonged to.” 

Not surprising. 

 

Amy

You can say the name of this one. 

 

Heather

See Facebook OK, Steve Polski. Right, “Harry had a very large house on France Ave when I was growing up on Halloween. He gave out quarter candy bars when everyone else gave out nickel candy bars when I grew up he had dinner with me on many Sundays at the market barbecue.” 

 

Amy

The Polski's owned the market barbecue. 

 

Heather

Wow, OK. I used to live near the market, barbecue and frequented it myself. But yes, two people made Halloween comments about the amount of candy he gave out. 

So interesting. 

 

Amy

I thought so too.

 

Heather 

Next we have “my grandfather was Abe ‘Brownie’ Brownstein. I would love to know more and willing to share my stories from my childhood. I met with Paul Maccabee once and he gave me information. My grandparents had a lake home in Detroit Lakes that we spent every summer there. If those walls could talk. Many of the locals have stories to tell. I loved my grandparents and they were normal people to me, but the excitement of the gangster days were over for them when I was growing up, but would love to know more.”

 

Amy

Yeah, I this when I saw this I was like you're Abe Brownie Brownstein’s granddaughter!

 

Heather

Right? 

 

Amy

and I did send her a message, but uhm, this comment was like 8 years ago or something on an old old thread, this wasn't on mine and so I sent her a message via Facebook and I did not hear anything back. I don't know if she's even still on Facebook or yeah. 

 

Heather

Well, eight, now she might not. Oh she might not be around anymore I don't know. 

 

Amy

Exactly, yeah. 

 

Heather

Uhm, we have another Facebook poster. “My great uncle came up from Waukesha to escape the poverty. He was 14 years and Kid Cann paid him to roll drunks. I don't know how long my uncle did that.” 

I don't know what roll drunks means, do you Amy? 

 

Amy

It means, uh 

 

Heather

So beat them up or… 

 

Amy

Knock them over and take their money. 

 

Heather

Or roll, Oh OK.

 

Amy

Yeah, or mug them. 

Which also doesn't sound like his style. Why would Kid Cann need to roll drunks to get money? 

 

Heather

And why would he pay a 14 year old? 

 

Amy

I don't know. I'm not saying the guy's lying, I'm just saying. 

 

Heather

You know, it's like a game of telephone. 

 

Amy

Exactly. 

 

Heather

you know the stories change once they're passed down from generation to generation, so. 

 

Amy

Well, in this other one, this is from somebody who calls himself Uggo Stinko which I thought was hilarious. Sent me an email and he said “

“Hey, I’m unsure how much you know about Isadore or Minneapolis already, so I’m going to give some general info my family and my studies told me.

The grave of Isadore is in Adath Yeshurun Cemetery. It’s just two rows from my great grandparents.

Fulton is a neighborhood in southwest Minneapolis, built to tap into the market of Blacks, Jews, Irish, Italian and other groups who were prohibited from buying land in neighboring Edina. There are old pics my family had of signs in parks saying "no blacks, Jews, Italians, Mexicans, dogs" “

 

It's crazy to me that they thought they were the same as dogs. [Heather laughs]

 

“Blumenfeld had connections who could make him fake permits for construction. We aren't sure if he did it for virtue or because he saw a profit in it.”

 

Heather

Probably saw profit in it. 

 

Amy

I'd say it's probably both

 

“Isadore built his first mansion using his fraudulent development connections although he built it in Linden Hills which is separated by Xerxes avenue and cornered by 50th Avenue. He built Fulton and named it after Fulton, the man who created the ferry…

 

Heather

What do you think that means? 

 

Amy

Uhm, it sounds to me like somebody named Fulton created the ferry boat and  Isadore named his neighborhood or his house, the area Fulton.…. 

 

Heather

1.  

 

Amy

“Because it was a legal way to cover up a mobile Speakeasy, he ran.” 

So OK, now that I'm thinking about it mobile, speak easy…

 

Heather

Would that be a ferryboat? 

 

Amy

Yes, probably yes yes,

 

Heather

Like running a Speakeasy on a boat. 

 

Amy

Because uhm the rules were different on a boat. You know they weren't, I want to say that if the…

 

Heather

Right, well, I mean it's. 

 

Amy

…If the boat was on the water. 

 

Heather

It's like gambling, a lot of places where you, you know if you gamble on a boat, it's legal like you can take a ferry boat and once you get on to waters. Even if you're still in whatever city. You can do it on a boat. 

 

Amy

It's a different jurisdiction or whatever… different laws. 

 

Heather

Yep, Yep. 

 

Amy

That's what I think. 

“He was accused, but acquitted, of killing a taxi driver and in a different case, a newspaper writer.”

 

I just want to say everybody says that Charles Goldberg was a taxi driver and from what I could tell he was not. Abe Percansky was there and he's a taxi driver. Charles Goldberg was not a taxi driver. Or if he was, he wasn't driving taxi that night. I don't think he was a taxi driver, he was just a guy at the bar that was flirting with a girl…

 

Heather

No right. 

 

Amy

…but didn't like him flirting with a girl. Anyway, “but the newspaper writer was famous for busting open Blumenfeld criminal activities, but the court couldn't prove that Isadore himself killed the man. Isadore died in 1981 from a failing heart from old age. He moved there to be closer to Meyer Lansky” I think.

He left out the part that he was in Miami that he went to Miami, 'cause he says he moved there. 

I think he means Miami “to be close to Meyer Lansky and a growing population of Jewish retirees and ex gangsters. The Jewish population of Fulton has decreased as the taxes have skyrocketed over the last 12 years.”

 

Heather

It's a weird comment to make, but yeah, OK dude. 

 

Amy

OK, Uggo Stinko 

 

Heather

Oh so OK, we have another Facebook commenter regarding his nickname. He writes. “My grandfather used to tell me stories about Kid Cann. He told me one about how he got his name. The story goes that when he was young, he was in a place that got raided. He hid in the bathroom and didn't. Get caught. Hence the name Kid Cann I don't know if it's true, but I hope it is.”

 

[laughter]

Amy

Well, that certainly is the lore. That's what everybody says.

 

OK, and then I did….I was looking up his houses because so many people say I lived in kid can house. 

And and if that was two of everybody who said that he would had to move like every three weeks to have lived in all these homes. 

But what I've gathered is that his first adult home, when he didn't live with his parents anymore, was at 35th and Colfax. But I don't know the address for sure and I don't even know if it's north or South. 

 

And then his second home, his second adult home, was an apartment at 3948 1st Ave and I have pictures of all of these, so I don't know for the audio version of this. I'll probably just leave this stuff out and then we'll keep it in for the video so. Those watching the video version of this will be able to see the pictures that I have of these different homes. 

 

He also lived at 3417 W 38th. This is across the street from the Minnekahda Golf course. It's a really cute area.

 

And then he had a home at 2305 Mountview Avenue. Then 5900 Oakland, so the lore says that he built this house for his mother but never lived there. But author Paul Maccabee says that he lived there between 1957 and 1961, and the house was built in 1952 and I did confirm that that's when the house was built. I looked up Hennepin County records. So if the house was built in 1952. It would have been silly for him to let it sit there for 9 years with no one living in it. Because he was trying to sell it in 1959

 

Heather

Right? 

 

Amy

when he was going to leave town and they were like oh he's selling his house at 5900 Oakland He had never lived there, but I don't see how that's possible. I can't imagine he would build a house in there. Nobody would live there or he wouldn't live there. 

 

Heather

Right, that doesn't make sense, but. 

 

Amy

I don't know and then somebody on Facebook said “That beautiful stone house on Glenhurst was my refuge when my parents were fighting. The Blooms were wonderful to me and oh how I loved that beautiful house. Spent many hours over the years there with my dear friend and her parents. Her mom was the best cook in the world.”

 

Now I don't know if this is Harry and Verna, or Yiddy and Lenore Bloom. I know they both lived over there, but I don't know which one of them lived on Glenhurst, but everybody that I have heard talk about these guys say that Yiddy  Bloom was the nicest man in the world. Everybody loved Yiddy. And he was the baby brother. 

 

Heather

And maybe he married a great cook. 

 

Amy

Yeah, one of them did.

 

{break]
Amy

Somebody posted a picture of this group of people sitting at a table, and apparently it's at the Flame Bar, the same place we were talking about. 

 

Heather

Yep

 

Amy

And she said “here's a picture of Kid Cann seated with my son in law's grandparents Kid Cann is the man on the far right. My son in law's grandmother is seated. Next to him on his right. We know it was taken in the Flame Room nightclub, but not sure of the approximate year.”

 

And then I asked her if I could use it for our purposes put it in the blog and stuff and she said yes. 

And so I think, for those of you who are listening, not watching, you'll have to check the blog. 

But he is in this picture and I can tell which one see me second from the right and it looks like him. 

And it's a really cool picture of these people all in their like fancy outfits sitting around a table and he's just sitting there with his arm around the woman next to him, which I think is Lillian, although it doesn't really look like her, but it probably is. And so, I'll put that up on all the socials and stuff. It's a great picture. 

 

Heather

Yeah, they are having a good time. 

 

Amy

Oh, to be alive back then. 

 

So I think we're going to end on a nice note. 

Do you want to read this one? 

 

Heather

OK, sure. 

Looks like this is from the Minneapolis Star Tribune, July 5th, 1981. A week or so after he died. ‘Kid Cann was Caring’ is the headline. “Thanks Rabbi Max Shapiro for being kind enough to mention Isadore Blumenfeld’s generosity and kindness. Tribune, June 24th. His friends present company included, remember. I was a waitress at the Kennesaw drugstore in the 50s and 60s when he would send those these poor fellows into the drugstore and tell us to give them all they could eat and he would pick up the tab. Or the fellows would come in nice and clean with a fresh haircut and shave they got at the Barber school. He would pick up the tab. If I were an author and all the people he helped out would give their little stories. I would have a best seller. My condolences to the family for the loss of one great guy. 

And that was Elsie and Minneapolis. 

 

Amy

You know, it's funny that she said that about, you know if people would if she was an author and if people would help out. So, Greg and I were out at happy hour last night and a guy came in that we've known for a long time. He's a regular, and he listens to the podcast and he said he thinks that I should write a book. 

 

Heather

About this or OK. 

 

Amy

About Kid Cann and about all of this and I was like, I'm not a writer. 

And he said, “I think you are and I think you can do it and I think you should.” 

And I was like, yeah yeah, whatever and he would not let it go.” You need to write a book.” 

And then Greg and I talked about another way home and I was like, well, I've learned that I'm a shitty writer because I was taking this class on Coursera and apparently, I don't know how to do anything right. Because I got shitty grades and whatever, but that's all Peer review you know. So nobody wants to really…

 

Heather:

Right? 

 

Amy

Then I had one person that was honest and like gave me actual critique and actual feedback. 

Everybody else was just like, just gave me zeros without saying why. But The thing is, with Coursera a lot of this stuff is people just come, they cheat. Basically, they you can't see other people stories unless you put in one of your own and so they just put in like a 1 and then submit it and then they're able to see other people stories and then they copy them and submit them as their own. So, Greg assured me that I really shouldn't take my experience on Coursera as a word-fact that I can't write. So, we'll see. I don't know. I mean, it would be really fun to write a book. But yeah, I would need people to talk to me. 

And that's hard. 

 

Heather

It is especially with someone who's been dead for 40 years. 

 

Amy

Yeah, yeah. Especially when it's stuff people don't really want to talk about, you know or they're scared to talk about. But yeah, it sure would be fun. Sure it would be fun. 

 

Heather

So I missed an opportunity when I think. When you sent me the script earlier today. 

You were gonna you were this was, I think you're one of your sources and it says “when they were in Florida she told me he would get upset at her mother's dog barking...”

 

Amy

oh Yeah,

 

Heather

…and I was worried that he didn't like dogs, so I asked and she said no, that's not it. He just knew that the barking was bothering neighbors.” And I was going to comment that everything that is he did. And you're worried that he doesn't like dogs? With all of…

 

Amy

Well of course I am. I love dogs. 

 

Heather

I know, but he's probably a murderer and all,

 

Amy

But does he like dogs? 

 

Heather

…but he doesn't like dogs. 

And then I was going to talk about with all your in-depth research and just throwing everything into all of this, but maybe you have a little bit of Stockholm Syndrome where you're sympathizing with a criminal. 

 

Amy

Yeah, I might be… because the people that I spoke to. Knew him as just a regular cool guy

 

Heather

Right, right,

 

Amy

…and because you know, he says 90% of what's written about him is bullshit.

 

Heather

Maybe it is. 

 

Amy

Maybe maybe it is, and maybe he…I mean certainly he was a criminal -- that much we know. I don't know that he murdered anybody. I don't know that he beat up anybody. I don't know that he robbed anybody. He might have. But if he didn't like dogs, that would make it so much worse. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up 'cause I forgot to. Even I forgot to add that part but yeah. 

 

Heather

I know that I in my notes. I wrote haha. Of course she's worried about the dogs, it's Amy! 

 

Amy

That’s me!

 

Heather

For those listeners who don't know, Amy has quite the menagerie over here. 

 

Amy

Which, yeah, maybe we'll leave that in when Greg had to go get Vivi and put her upstairs. 

Yeah, our food came and so they all lost their damn minds. 

 

So thank you everybody for listening to us for 11 episodes now hopefully you have listened to 11 episodes. 

I hope that you stay subscribed and we'll be able to see some of the stuff we're doing in between and then pick up with us in Season Two: Single Barrel Theory. 

 

Heather

Yeah, very excited for season 2. When do you think those will drop, Amy? 

 

Amy

I'm thinking well. I'm going to say February, just because I don't want to push it. It would be nice if we could get him out in January, but I know that you and I are both going to be really busy with holidays and stuff like that, so I don't know that we're going to have a whole lot of time to get together to record. Maybe we will. 

 

Heather

And we'll probably record before then, but. Maybe release them in February. 

 

Amy

Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm thinking. So I'd like to get a couple of them done before we… 

 

Heather

1.  

 

Amy

…get started so that we're not like, Oh my God, we have to record this week and I haven't done anything. You know, like I have been doing all this season so I want to get ahead of it this time so yeah.

 

Heather

awesome. 

 

Amy

Alright, well thank you everybody. Good night and. 

 

Heather

Okie doke 

 

Amy

Okie doke 

 

Amy

Thank you for joining us for another episode of Volsteadland. 

Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss the next episode and visit us on all of our social media platforms for extra content. 

 

[outro theme]

Volsteadland is produced by me, Amy at Whimsical Productions and as part of the Collected Sounds Network. Thanks for listening. Okie doke!