Speaker 1: I guess what will What's that man Go? So? Have
Speaker 1: you seen this trailer for the movie Tag. It's about
Speaker 1: these brothers who play an epic game at Tag. I
Speaker 1: I think John Ham's in it, and maybe Ed Helms. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say I saw Ed Helms was in it.
Speaker 1: I saw a couple of articles about it. It looks
Speaker 1: pretty funny, and actually saw it's based on a real story, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So when I heard that, I was actually a little
Speaker 1: confused because I've heard this other great story about brothers
Speaker 1: playing Tag and this from a while back. So this guy,
Speaker 1: Richard Mellon was actually like a captain of industry. I
Speaker 1: wanted to say. He came from Pittsburgh and he and
Speaker 1: his younger brother Andrew had this game of Tag that
Speaker 1: they'd play, and apparently the game lasted for seven decades.
Speaker 1: It's not nuts. But here's the craziest part, right, So
Speaker 1: when Richard was on his deathbed, he summoned his brother
Speaker 1: Andrew over to him, and he pulled him close and
Speaker 1: then he just whispered into his ear last Tag and
Speaker 1: then he died. Oh I love that. It's such like
Speaker 1: a just kind of like a big brother thing to do.
Speaker 1: But were those actually his last words? Yeah, and apparently
Speaker 1: Andrew had to stay it for four more years, is
Speaker 1: until he passed away. But that that story made me
Speaker 1: think we should do today's nine Things about epic last words.
Speaker 1: Let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part
Speaker 1: Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined
Speaker 1: by my good friend man guest shot Ticketer and behind
Speaker 1: the soundproof glass just chugging this big jug of V
Speaker 1: eight as he works from my I I feel like
Speaker 1: he thinks, if he drinks enough VA, he's just never
Speaker 1: gonna have to think about his last words. Well, you
Speaker 1: just never know. I mean, he's a really smart guy.
Speaker 1: But that's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. All right, mango.
Speaker 1: So I know last words are a little bit of
Speaker 1: a morbid topic, but I still find them pretty fascinating.
Speaker 1: I just can't help it. And I know John Green
Speaker 1: when he used to work at Mental Flaws, he was
Speaker 1: completely obsessed with these. Yeah, I remember showing those like
Speaker 1: pages of this and uh, a lot of that found
Speaker 1: its way into Looking for Alaska. But uh, one of
Speaker 1: the things I remember was like that was the first
Speaker 1: time I heard that Dylan Thomas quote about eighteen straight
Speaker 1: Whiskey's I think that's the record, which were his last words,
Speaker 1: horrible last words, and also Henry Ward Beecher's one about
Speaker 1: now Comes the Mystery, which is way more poetic. You know,
Speaker 1: I think the part of what's so great about last
Speaker 1: words is when somebody you already consider a genius says
Speaker 1: something funny or just meaningful, or even exactly as the
Speaker 1: character you want them to be. There's something so satisfying
Speaker 1: about that. No, I definitely agree. So I kicked this
Speaker 1: off with the tag story, but I'm curious, what's your
Speaker 1: first last word going to be? All right, well, I
Speaker 1: think I'm going to kick this off with a smart
Speaker 1: alec who didn't disappoint, and that's Bold Tair. Now, I
Speaker 1: know you and I have plenty of great facts about
Speaker 1: bull Tair. I know that's yeah. I got so many
Speaker 1: Voltaire facts up in here, but any why you know,
Speaker 1: there was the one that he was pen pals with
Speaker 1: Catherine the Great and then he supposedly drank forty cups
Speaker 1: of coffee a day. They may have been tiny cups,
Speaker 1: but still it's pretty impressive, I know. And and supposedly
Speaker 1: he was such a fiend for coffee that he actually
Speaker 1: imported these luxury beans because he couldn't just drink plain coffee. Really,
Speaker 1: I actually didn't know that about the luxury beans. Well,
Speaker 1: my favorite story about Voltaire is what he told his
Speaker 1: priest on his deathbed. And as the story goes, the
Speaker 1: priest new Voltaire was close to death, so he was
Speaker 1: encouraging him to use his last words to secure his
Speaker 1: place in heaven, just kind of pressing him on it
Speaker 1: over and over to renounce Satan. And you know, of
Speaker 1: course Voltaire, being a legendary smart Alec just says to him, now,
Speaker 1: my good man, this is no time for making enemies,
Speaker 1: and then he passed away. That's pretty great. So here's
Speaker 1: a weird one. I'd heard that I just thought was
Speaker 1: an urban legend. But did you know that the Nike
Speaker 1: slogan just Do It is based on a phrase from
Speaker 1: death Row. No, seriously, Yeah, it's so grim. But apparently,
Speaker 1: you know Dan Widen, he's like from that legendary ad
Speaker 1: firm Widening Kennedy. He was he was trying to come
Speaker 1: up with some sort of slogan to tie all of
Speaker 1: Nike's advertisements together. And this is a totally separate and
Speaker 1: weird thing. I actually read that um Phil Knight, the
Speaker 1: CEO of Nike, thought TV advertising was like a mistake
Speaker 1: for the brand and just a big waste of time.
Speaker 1: And widen't actually had to really convince him to do it,
Speaker 1: and you need to convince him to trust them and whatever.
Speaker 1: But anyway, he was trying to figure a way to
Speaker 1: tie all these ads together, and he remembered the last
Speaker 1: words of this murderer from Portland, this guy named Gary Gilmore,
Speaker 1: who in the late seventies was put in front of
Speaker 1: a firing squad and before they shot, he just shouted,
Speaker 1: let's do it. And I guess Widen edited out the
Speaker 1: phrase let's and insort of justin That's how just do
Speaker 1: it came to be. That's so strange. It's also so
Speaker 1: strange to imagine in the seventies firing squad. I know,
Speaker 1: a bizarre thing, but I don't know. What's weirder is
Speaker 1: that I had actually written down the story of Nike
Speaker 1: as a last word, and so I think I'm gonna
Speaker 1: use that one next. So the reason we run marathons,
Speaker 1: or that people run marathons, is to honor a messenger
Speaker 1: from four and im DBC and we've heard this story before,
Speaker 1: but it's still pretty fascinating. But according to the myth,
Speaker 1: he raised from the city of Marathon to Athens after
Speaker 1: the Athenian army had won a battle, and supposedly it
Speaker 1: was incredibly hot that day and he raised the twenty
Speaker 1: six miles between the cities, and when he got there
Speaker 1: he uttered that one glorious word for victory, Nike, and
Speaker 1: then he passed out. Yeah, and now the goddess has
Speaker 1: a shoe company name for which is great, so all
Speaker 1: worth it. So one thing I love about last words,
Speaker 1: and I feel like I couldn't find enough of this
Speaker 1: was people using their deathbed as a soapbox to really
Speaker 1: complain about someone they detested, kind of like festivals, you know,
Speaker 1: the airing of grievances exactly. So these are like words
Speaker 1: that are worthy of Frank Constanzas and uh and so
Speaker 1: this one is actually one that Chris Higgins, our friend,
Speaker 1: found on Mental Floss and I just love it. So
Speaker 1: apparently there was this pickpocket named Thomas B. Moran who
Speaker 1: was nicknamed Butterfingers. I've never heard this story before, but uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you think of Butterfingers as someone who drops
Speaker 1: balls in the outfield and not someone who's like a
Speaker 1: silky smooth pickpocket. But by all accounts, Moran was, and
Speaker 1: he had stolen over fifty thousand wallets over the course
Speaker 1: of his career. Right, that's amazing. But these are his
Speaker 1: last words quote I've never forgiven that smart alecky reporter
Speaker 1: who named me butterfingers to me, it's not funny. And
Speaker 1: then he died he'd really been wrong and feels so
Speaker 1: sorry for the guy. But I know it was probably
Speaker 1: a relief that he finally got to admit that. But
Speaker 1: all right, well here's what I really liked, because it
Speaker 1: kind of shows someone's true spirit. So Marie Antoinette obviously
Speaker 1: got a bad rap for the whole let them have
Speaker 1: cake comment, which of course she didn't even say. But
Speaker 1: you know that public perception of her was clearly as
Speaker 1: this out of touch royal who didn't really care for others.
Speaker 1: But you know, when you look at her last words,
Speaker 1: it kind of paints a different picture. So as she
Speaker 1: was walking to the guillotine, she accidentally steps on the
Speaker 1: executioner's foot, so her last words supposedly were pardon me, sir,
Speaker 1: I meant not to do it. Huh, So that actually
Speaker 1: makes me like her a lot more like when you're
Speaker 1: on your way to be executed, you normally have like
Speaker 1: tons of things on your mind. But I like that
Speaker 1: she decided to use her manners and was considered of others. Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: so we've got a couple more of these before we
Speaker 1: settle on a winner. But let's do those after a
Speaker 1: quick break. Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're
Speaker 1: talking about famous last words, and we've got a couple
Speaker 1: more stories to tell, Mango, So you know what's funny.
Speaker 1: And I realized this is a little off topic, but
Speaker 1: every time I hear the phrase famous last words, I
Speaker 1: think about my study abroad trip in college. So before
Speaker 1: I went, like the group had sent out this packing
Speaker 1: list of supplies you should have, and part of our
Speaker 1: trip was at the foothills of Everest essentially, so it
Speaker 1: was through Nepal and Tibet, but there were these places
Speaker 1: and elevations that were really really cold. So my mom
Speaker 1: took me to this Army Navy surplus store to get
Speaker 1: like a really good sleeping bag and some of the
Speaker 1: other things, and the shop was totally empty, like everything
Speaker 1: was dusty, and they had a lot of these goods
Speaker 1: just stacked up, and it seemed like people hadn't really
Speaker 1: gone there in a while. And the shop keep he
Speaker 1: just seemed like this grizzled old veteran. But I think
Speaker 1: he spotted my mom and realized there was a sale
Speaker 1: to be made here. So like every time my mom
Speaker 1: took out this list and she'd look at it and
Speaker 1: she'd say things like it says two pairs of extra
Speaker 1: thick socks, he just looked at her and he'd say
Speaker 1: famous last words, just like grumble it to her, and
Speaker 1: then she'd be like, three pairs, the three pairs, write
Speaker 1: four pairs. We'll take six pairs. Like I feel like
Speaker 1: by the end of this trip we had this station
Speaker 1: wagon full of things we didn't need. It was crazy.
Speaker 1: I can so picture that. But that's pretty great. Well,
Speaker 1: speaking of famous last words, what are you going to
Speaker 1: use is your last last words of the day? So
Speaker 1: initially I was thinking I'd aim for something funny, right,
Speaker 1: because there are tons of those. There's a Groucho Marx
Speaker 1: who said this is no way to live, or Richard Feynman,
Speaker 1: who you know is that physicist who said this dying
Speaker 1: is boring, but I'm actually gonna go with something a
Speaker 1: little bit sweeter. And this is Arthur Conan Doyle, who
Speaker 1: you know, we know from Sherlock Holmes stories. And he
Speaker 1: was in his garden, which I imagine is this beautiful
Speaker 1: English garden, and just before he died, he clutched his chest,
Speaker 1: turned to his wife and said, you are wonderful, and
Speaker 1: then he passed away. Oh wow, that's sweet and romantic.
Speaker 1: But actually, Mango, I feel like I may have one
Speaker 1: even better for you. And he's come from Harriet Tubman.
Speaker 1: Oh no, the Harriet Tubman card. So I feel like
Speaker 1: we've done lots of stories about Harriet Tubman over the years,
Speaker 1: but I actually know nothing about her death. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: sadly she died of pneumonia, and there are a few
Speaker 1: accounts of how she left. There's there's one that said,
Speaker 1: you know, she told some clergyman, give my love to
Speaker 1: all the churches, and then she quoted a biblical passage
Speaker 1: and that passage was I go away to prepare a
Speaker 1: place for you. But I think the version I like
Speaker 1: more is that after she made her statement, her family,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of sensing that the end was near,
Speaker 1: they gathered around her and sang together, so the last
Speaker 1: words of hers were actually swing low, sweet chariot, that's
Speaker 1: really lovely. I think you've got to take this round.
Speaker 1: That's it for today's nine Things. We're gonna be back
Speaker 1: tomorrow with a full length episode, but thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening.