Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. Guess what, Mary, what's that mango? Did you
Speaker 1: know that Mark Twain absolutely hated Jane Austen?
Speaker 2: Huh?
Speaker 3: Let me guess he thought Elizabeth Bennett would have ditched
Speaker 3: mister Darcy and gone rafting down the Thames.
Speaker 1: I mean, that would have been an amazing book. But no,
Speaker 1: he just thought Austin was a terrible writer. He wants
Speaker 1: to hold a friend. Quote. Every time I read Pride
Speaker 1: and Prejudice, I want to dig her up and beat
Speaker 1: her over the skull with her own shin bone.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I know, right, yikes. But wait a minute,
Speaker 3: Wait a minute. He read it multiple times, this book
Speaker 3: that he hated so much.
Speaker 1: I guess Mark Twain invented hate reading. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: one of his lesser known accomplishments. But it got me
Speaker 1: thinking about other crazy feuds. And then I realized, Twain
Speaker 1: versus Austin isn't actually a feud at all.
Speaker 2: What do you mean?
Speaker 1: So? According to the Day Dictionary, a feud is quote
Speaker 1: a mutual enmity or quarrel that is often prolonged and
Speaker 1: Jane Austen died years before Mark Twain was born, so
Speaker 1: there was nothing mutual about it. He was just being
Speaker 1: snarky after her death.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 3: So rule number one a feuding make sure your opponent
Speaker 3: is still alive.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is a good rule. But we've got
Speaker 1: some actual feuds to talk about on today's episode, and
Speaker 1: some of them are pretty wild. So let's get started. Hey,
Speaker 1: their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm mongas Shittigula,
Speaker 1: and today I'm joined by my producer extraordinary Mary Philip Sandy.
Speaker 1: And over there behind that soundproof glass sticking pins through
Speaker 1: photos of his enemies, and he sure has a lot
Speaker 1: of enemies. That's our producer, Dylan Fagan. I gotta say,
Speaker 1: I did not expect Dylan to have beef with the
Speaker 1: great character actor Judy Greer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, or Olympic figure skater Brian Boyce. Out what what
Speaker 3: is happening?
Speaker 1: Oh he's holding off a sign now it says Brian
Speaker 1: and Judy know what they did? Good?
Speaker 3: Ah, Okay, well it sort of makes sense now, I guess,
Speaker 3: but I am curious.
Speaker 1: You know, today's episode is all about feuds. Have you
Speaker 1: ever had a feud of any sort?
Speaker 3: I had a feud in first grade, and it was
Speaker 3: very serious and should we bleep his name?
Speaker 2: His name was Kenny lives in Still we can bleep that,
Speaker 2: we can bleep that.
Speaker 3: There was a competition to read books, and there were
Speaker 3: paper ice cream cones put on the walls of the
Speaker 3: classroom and every time you read a book, you had
Speaker 3: a scoop out of your ice cream cone. Whoever had
Speaker 3: the highest scoop at the end of the year was
Speaker 3: going to get a prize. Kevin was reading little kid
Speaker 3: books I'm talking bored books, and he was racking. I
Speaker 3: was reading chapter books in first grade. I was reading
Speaker 3: Little House on the Prairie. It's longer, it takes more time.
Speaker 3: And I went to my first grade teacher, Missus Davis,
Speaker 3: if you're listening, and I said, this isn't fair, and
Speaker 3: she said, a book is a book and sat there
Speaker 3: and laughed.
Speaker 1: You know what I noticed. Yeah, we didn't have to
Speaker 1: beat missus Davis's name out.
Speaker 2: She's dead.
Speaker 3: Oh no, well, miss David, Yes, I carry a grudge
Speaker 3: about that to this day. I learned an important lesson
Speaker 3: at age seven in first grade, and.
Speaker 2: That's that life is very unfair. Yeah about you? How
Speaker 2: about you?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know that scene I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've seen it, but in the Bulls documentary where Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan makes up that feud with someone and he's like,
Speaker 1: and I took that personally, like it's an event that
Speaker 1: never takes place. He makes it up in his mind,
Speaker 1: so he plays better. I feel like I have a
Speaker 1: lot of feuds with people don't know they're in fuds
Speaker 1: with me. Huh, Okay, not a lot, but like when
Speaker 1: we started Mental Flaws, there was another magazine that was
Speaker 1: so much shinier and so much prettier and so much
Speaker 1: better made, and we had this like rivalry with them,
Speaker 1: but it was so one sided and they never knew
Speaker 1: about us, and so like, I feel like that type
Speaker 1: of thing happened.
Speaker 3: A well, maybe they're kicking themselves now looking back on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know maybe. Anyway, let's talk about some real feuds.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about some.
Speaker 3: Real feuds that don't involve magazines or you know, cheating
Speaker 3: seven year olds. Okay, well, here's a ninety four year
Speaker 3: old literary feud that is still being debated today, and
Speaker 3: it involves the authors Langston Hughes and Zora Neil Hurston.
Speaker 3: So they met in New York during the Harlem Renaissance,
Speaker 3: and they became close friends and really great supporters of
Speaker 3: each other's work, which I think is probably the opposite
Speaker 3: of a feud, right yeah, yeah, that was actually a
Speaker 3: beautiful friendship.
Speaker 2: Is the technical death of what that was.
Speaker 3: But it all began to fall apart in nineteen thirty
Speaker 3: when they tried to write a play together. So it
Speaker 3: was a comedy ostensibly based on one of Hurston's unpublished
Speaker 3: short stories called The Bone of Contention Foreshadowing, which in
Speaker 3: turn was based on a folk tale that she had
Speaker 3: heard in her Florida hometown. And then here's where things
Speaker 3: get murky. Hughes thought they would finish the play together,
Speaker 3: but while she was away on a trip, Hurston rewrote
Speaker 3: the script herself. She titled it Mule Bone and submitted
Speaker 3: it for copyright registration in her name only. She also
Speaker 3: sent her draft to the author Carl van Vechten, who
Speaker 3: turned around and sent it to the Theater Guild, which
Speaker 3: was an organization that produced plays on Broadway, including many
Speaker 3: by well known authors at the time.
Speaker 1: And so did herson know he was going to do
Speaker 1: this like submit it to this group?
Speaker 3: No, No, she had no idea he was going to
Speaker 3: share it with anyone, But now all of a sudden
Speaker 3: it's out there and people are talking about this play
Speaker 3: and Langston Hughes is like, wait, what I mean?
Speaker 2: I'm sure he said it more more eloquently than that,
Speaker 2: because he's Likenston used that was.
Speaker 3: The gist of it, right, And at first he said
Speaker 3: he was just disappointed that the collaboration didn't continue. But
Speaker 3: apparently he had stronger feelings than that, because next thing
Speaker 3: you know, he has combined Hurston's second act of the
Speaker 3: play with his versions of the first and the third acts.
Speaker 3: And then he sent that whole thing off to the
Speaker 3: copyright office again, this time with both of their names
Speaker 3: on the cover.
Speaker 1: So there are two versions of the same play now,
Speaker 1: like both copyright.
Speaker 3: Now, Yeah, exactly exactly, And then he hired a lawyer
Speaker 3: and started commanding credit and royalty. Sure, and Hurston pointed
Speaker 3: out that the story was her idea in the first place,
Speaker 3: and Hughes hadn't participated in the rewrite that she had
Speaker 3: done herself. She also added that he'd borrowed some of
Speaker 3: her ideas for his novel Not Without Laughter, and she
Speaker 3: hadn't been going around demanding credit.
Speaker 2: And you know, looking back on.
Speaker 3: It, some people today read this as Hurston being selfish
Speaker 3: or petty. But if you look at the context and
Speaker 3: you look at it another way, what she was doing
Speaker 3: was fighting for control of her work, and that was
Speaker 3: the struggle she knew all too well.
Speaker 2: During her career.
Speaker 3: She had this wealthy white patron named Charlotte Osgood Mason
Speaker 3: who gave her a lot of money, but it came
Speaker 3: with a lot of strings attached. She owned a lot
Speaker 3: of the work that she did. And this guy, Carl
Speaker 3: van Vechten, he gave her play draft to producers without
Speaker 3: even asking if it was okay to do that. So
Speaker 3: maybe this question of authorship was just kind of the
Speaker 3: final straw.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense. But did the two of them
Speaker 1: ever work it out? Like, did they conference?
Speaker 2: Nope? That was the end of it.
Speaker 3: The hol debacle ended their friendship, and many years later,
Speaker 3: in the eighties, Henry Lewis Gates dug out the different
Speaker 3: versions of Mulebone and combined them into a production script,
Speaker 3: and the play made its debut in New York in
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 1: Huh, I feel like I've never heard of this was
Speaker 1: any good?
Speaker 2: Not really it.
Speaker 3: Got very mixed reviews, and basically critics felt that this
Speaker 3: Franken script didn't accurately reflect either Hurston or Hughes's real talent.
Speaker 1: That is a shame.
Speaker 3: What is it?
Speaker 2: A camel?
Speaker 1: Is a horse made by committee or something? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: feel like maybe this is the camel of their play.
Speaker 3: Yeah, something like that. But you know, the way I
Speaker 3: see it, this story behind the play is the most
Speaker 3: compelling drama of all. So I am hoping that someday
Speaker 3: someone will turn that into a play and we can
Speaker 3: see it on Broadway.
Speaker 2: Someday.
Speaker 1: I'm into it. Well, I've got another story of a
Speaker 1: friendship gone wrong. This one takes us all the way
Speaker 1: back to eighteenth century Europe and involves Jean Jacques Rousseau,
Speaker 1: who is a philosopher from Geneva and wrote several popular novels,
Speaker 1: but his radical views actually got him in trouble. For
Speaker 1: one thing, he believed that all religions are equal, and
Speaker 1: the Church obviously considered this heresy at the time, so
Speaker 1: he was condemned by Genevan authorities and by many people
Speaker 1: he'd consider friends. In fact, he actually had to skip
Speaker 1: down to avoid being arrested.
Speaker 3: So it was like the Enlightenment version of getting canceled.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, cancel culture was so much worse back then. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the Scottish philosopher David Hume heard about Rousseau's struggles and
Speaker 1: he could actually relate. Hume was a religious skeptic and
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church had banned his books, but unlike Rousseau,
Speaker 1: he wasn't ostracized by his establishment friends. So Hume decided
Speaker 1: to use his connections to help Russeau relocate to England.
Speaker 1: He actually convinced King George the Third to provide a
Speaker 1: pension for him. He arranged lodgings and even met him
Speaker 1: in Paris to travel to the UK, and at first
Speaker 1: Rousseau was pretty grateful. I mean he settled in a
Speaker 1: house in Staffordshire where he seemed, you know, pretty happy,
Speaker 1: And that could have been the end of it, except
Speaker 1: two things happen. So one Russeau has a notoriously bad
Speaker 1: temper and two there's an ill advised prank letter that
Speaker 1: gets into play.
Speaker 2: A prank letter.
Speaker 1: I did not see that coming. What happened. So this
Speaker 1: letter began circulating in the British press. It was ostensibly
Speaker 1: a message from Frederick to the Great, the King of Prussia,
Speaker 1: and it offered Rousseau safe haven. But the whole thing
Speaker 1: was just poking fun at the controversies. One of the
Speaker 1: lines went quote, it is high time to grow prudent
Speaker 1: and happy. You've made yourself sufficiently talked of for singularities
Speaker 1: little becoming a truly great man.
Speaker 2: The King of Prussia wrote that.
Speaker 1: No, it was the English writer Horace Walpole, and he
Speaker 1: was trying to be funny. Rousseau was furious by this,
Speaker 1: but he also knew that Walpole and Hume were friends,
Speaker 1: so he started with the accusations right now. Hume denied
Speaker 1: knowing anything about this, but Rousseau was convinced he was involved,
Speaker 1: and he got so mad he even refused to accept
Speaker 1: the royal pension that Hume had arranged for him, which
Speaker 1: you know, feels insane to me, but I guess he
Speaker 1: was a man of principle anyway. After exchanging these scathing letters,
Speaker 1: Rousseau accused Hume of plotting to destroy him.
Speaker 2: That sounds a bit paranoid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but remember he'd spent all those years being persecuted,
Speaker 1: so I guess it'd become kind of had it by
Speaker 1: this point to be that paranoid, but eventually Rousseau writes
Speaker 1: a letter that's so angry Hume starts to think he's
Speaker 1: really gone over the edge. His friends advise him to
Speaker 1: let it go, but he ignores them, and in October
Speaker 1: seventeen seventy six, less than a year after their friendship
Speaker 1: had begun, Hume publishes his account of the conflict, including
Speaker 1: the letters, and it becomes this giant he said, he
Speaker 1: said scandal, with rumors flying about who knew what and
Speaker 1: who said what, and in the end Rousseau actually leaves
Speaker 1: England and he and Hume never speak again.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: You know, when I think of eighteenth century philosopher's juicy,
Speaker 3: drama is not the first thing that comes to mind.
Speaker 3: But I guess I've been wrong this whole time. Well,
Speaker 3: from drama to comedy, although this comedy also involves drama.
Speaker 3: Did you know that Abbott and Costello had an off
Speaker 3: stage feud?
Speaker 1: So the main thing I knew about abd and Costello
Speaker 1: other than the Who's on first routine is that Leu
Speaker 1: Costello was a kleptomaniac, really, and I remember this from
Speaker 1: an old mental article, that he used to steal so
Speaker 1: much furniture and so many props from sets that people
Speaker 1: used to claim his house was furnished in early Universal
Speaker 1: as in Universal Studios. But I knew they weren't exactly
Speaker 1: the best of friends.
Speaker 3: But tell me about this few Okay, So during their
Speaker 3: heyday in the nineteen forties, Abbot and Costello they were
Speaker 3: the most popular comedians in the country, in the highest paid, too.
Speaker 3: But their act began as an accident. Luke Costello had
Speaker 3: another partner who didn't show up for a performance one night.
Speaker 3: So but Abbot stepped in to play the straight man
Speaker 3: for him, and that's it.
Speaker 2: The rest is history.
Speaker 3: Abbot was actually considered one of the best straight men
Speaker 3: of all time, and so for a while he took
Speaker 3: sixty percent of the duo's earnings. Eventually, Costello demanded more,
Speaker 3: and there's even a rumor that he tried to get
Speaker 3: the order of their names reversed in the credits of movies.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. First of all, it's amazing that like a
Speaker 1: straight man could demand more money. You know, you don't
Speaker 1: expect that. But also, Costello and Abbot just sounds wrong.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why no one changed it.
Speaker 3: I think if it had sounded right, we'd have heard
Speaker 3: about it, but as their fame grew, their differences just
Speaker 3: became more and more apparent. Abbot was kind of easy going,
Speaker 3: he enjoyed the finer things in life. Costello was more
Speaker 3: uptight and anxious. He sometimes worried that Abbot hadn't done
Speaker 3: enough to prepare when they were rehearsing new material. And
Speaker 3: it all came to a head in nineteen forty five,
Speaker 3: but not because of anything showbiz related. Apparently, Costello fired
Speaker 3: his maid and Abbot hired her. So I'm waiting for
Speaker 3: a punchline yet, No, no, there isn't one.
Speaker 2: That's all it was. I mean, believe me.
Speaker 3: I tried to find out if there's anything else, but
Speaker 3: I think that's all it is. They just had an
Speaker 3: argument about a maid, and for some reason they couldn't
Speaker 3: get past it. And they were about to start a
Speaker 3: run at the Roxy here in New York, so Costello
Speaker 3: tried to rebook himself as a solo act. Abbot gets
Speaker 3: wind of this and shows up at the theater. So
Speaker 3: the shows go on as planned, but they only speak
Speaker 3: to each other when they're on stage. The tension continued
Speaker 3: into the fifties as their popularity declined, and in nineteen
Speaker 3: fifty seven, they split up for real. Costello said later
Speaker 3: that they had just gotten tired of the act doing
Speaker 3: the same thing, but there may have been more to it.
Speaker 3: Legendary film star Errol Flynn wrote in his memoir that
Speaker 3: he had invited Abbot, Costello and their families to his
Speaker 3: house for dinner, very nice. Afterwards, he offered to show
Speaker 3: them a whole movie, but instead of vacation scenes, the
Speaker 3: real ended up being a blue film like pornography. Yes,
Speaker 3: just imagine Abbott Costello, their families unstar Errol Flynn with
Speaker 3: surprise pornography. So everyone is horrified. Everyone is like, what
Speaker 3: is going on? Errol Flynn pretended he didn't know what happened?
Speaker 3: How did that get there? And so Abin and Costello
Speaker 3: ended up blaming each other for the prank, the first
Speaker 3: the maid thing and then the poor Yeah he was
Speaker 3: the old one. Two made.
Speaker 1: Such a weird way to end a business partnership.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's not even a very creative prank if
Speaker 3: you think about it.
Speaker 1: Well, speaking of creativity, you know what it is creative
Speaker 1: is painting your rival space into a famous fresco.
Speaker 3: That actually sounds more like a compliment to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I guess it could be, but when
Speaker 1: it came to Michelangelo and Rafael and obligatory note here
Speaker 1: for our listeners, I am not referring to the Ninja turtles.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, okay, so the actual not teenage Renaissance artists.
Speaker 1: Okay, So yeah, no martial arts here. Now. Michlangelo was
Speaker 1: a legend in his own time, but he was not
Speaker 1: an easygoing guy. He actually had these intense rivalries with
Speaker 1: many other artists, including Leonardo da Vinci, and he was
Speaker 1: known for being difficult and ill tempered. But Rafael, who
Speaker 1: was nearly a decade younger, really really got under his skin.
Speaker 1: So in fifteen oh eight, Pope Julius the Second chose
Speaker 1: Rafael to paint a fresco in his private library. And
Speaker 1: not only was Michelangelo offended that he didn't get the gig,
Speaker 1: he then had to hear everyone praising Rafael's work, and
Speaker 1: there were some people who said Rafael was the better artist,
Speaker 1: even though they knew Michelangelo was one of his biggest influences. So,
Speaker 1: according to one biographer, Michlangelo lashed out, making the younger
Speaker 1: man quote bear the brunt of his unrelenting envy, contempt,
Speaker 1: and anger.
Speaker 2: So how did Raphael take this?
Speaker 1: Not lying down? So, in one of his frescoes for
Speaker 1: Pope Julius, Rafael painted Michelangelo's face onto the body of Heraclitis,
Speaker 1: an ancient Greek philosopher who he depicted in a gathering
Speaker 1: with Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato.
Speaker 2: That still sounds like a compliment, though.
Speaker 1: Except hera Clitis was widely known as a bitter and
Speaker 1: arrogant misanthrowt.
Speaker 2: Okay okay, okay, I get it now.
Speaker 1: But it turns out this was a real two way feud.
Speaker 1: So Raphael snuck into the Cystinine Chapel before Michelangelo finished
Speaker 1: the famous ceilings so he could see what his rival
Speaker 1: was up to. And it said that the muscular figures
Speaker 1: of God and Adam inspired Rafael to actually beef up
Speaker 1: his own subjects. And the conflict grew as Rafael won
Speaker 1: more and more commissions. And unlike Michelangelo, he was just
Speaker 1: well liked and social. He's really good at old timey
Speaker 1: schmoozing with patrons and important people in the clergy. And
Speaker 1: in fifteen fifteen, just a few years after Michelangelo finished
Speaker 1: the Sistine frescoes. Rafael was actually asked to design elaborate
Speaker 1: tapestries for the chapel's walls. Now, some of them have
Speaker 1: since been damaged or loss, but back then the complete tapestries,
Speaker 1: which were woven with real gold and silver thread, were
Speaker 1: probably the most eye catching art in the Cistine Chapel,
Speaker 1: not the ceiling. Wow is actually hard to imagine, right,
Speaker 1: but it is true anyway. It's safe to assume the
Speaker 1: feud would have continued if Rafael hadn't died suddenly in
Speaker 1: fifteen twenty. Of course, Michelangelo was not one to let
Speaker 1: things go, and he summed up Rafael's life by writing, quote,
Speaker 1: what he had of art he had for me?
Speaker 2: Wow? Way to get the last word in.
Speaker 3: Well, that's actually the perfect lead into our next feud
Speaker 3: between the famous author Edgar Allan Poe and the much
Speaker 3: less famous editor Rufus Griswold.
Speaker 2: Which one of them? Have you heard of?
Speaker 1: The first?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: So they met in eighteen forty one, and apparently they
Speaker 3: never really liked each other very much. Griswold, who came
Speaker 3: from a religious New England family, looked down on Poe
Speaker 3: as an immoral social climber whose talent didn't match his reputation,
Speaker 3: and although he occasionally complimented his work, Poe thought Griswold
Speaker 3: was just way too full of himself, which he kind
Speaker 3: of was. But they kept up a polite appearance. They
Speaker 3: moved in the same circles. They could be nice if
Speaker 3: they had to, and Griswold even included some of Poe's
Speaker 3: work in an anthology he published called The Poets and
Speaker 3: Poetry of America. So Griswold was really into this idea
Speaker 3: of defining a national literature, and of course he felt
Speaker 3: he was the best person to do that. But Poe
Speaker 3: was unimpressed, asking a friend, quote, have you seen Griswold's
Speaker 3: book of poetry? It is a most outrageous humbug.
Speaker 1: So there's only one problem here, right, Like, this is
Speaker 1: the anthology that Poe himself is in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but he just disagreed with Griswold's other editorial choices.
Speaker 3: And weirdly, despite knowing this, Griswald paid Poe to write
Speaker 3: a review of the anthology, and then, perhaps because there
Speaker 3: was money involved, Poe's review was a lot less harsh
Speaker 3: than his private comments about the book, but a few
Speaker 3: months later, another review of the anthology appeared in a
Speaker 3: Philadelphia magazine. This one was anonymous, and in addition to
Speaker 3: calling Griswold's book quote nonsense, it called Griswold himself a
Speaker 3: toady who was destined to sink into oblivion.
Speaker 1: I love all these old time insults, right, like a
Speaker 1: humbug tody sink into oblivion. Yeah, and so I leve
Speaker 1: you guess was this Poe as well? Not exactly. That
Speaker 1: vicious review turned out to have been written by a
Speaker 1: guy named Henry B. Hurst, who was one of Poe's friends.
Speaker 1: Griswold definitely thought Poe was behind it, and in a
Speaker 1: way it might have been right. Hurst was probably repeating
Speaker 1: a lot of things that Poe had told him. So
Speaker 1: does Poe try to patch things up here? No?
Speaker 2: He did the opposite.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: He went on to criticize Griswold and his anthology at
Speaker 3: every possible opportunity, Like anytime he was giving a lecture, anything,
Speaker 3: he was sure to get in how bad Griswold and
Speaker 3: his taste was. But there may have been a romantic
Speaker 3: rivalry a play here too.
Speaker 1: Let me guess it was at Costello's maid.
Speaker 3: No, no, God, that would have been perfect. But no,
Speaker 3: both men had relationships with a poet named Francis sargent Osgoode,
Speaker 3: who was separated from her husband.
Speaker 2: And I know we said earlier.
Speaker 3: That a feud involves two living parties, but this one
Speaker 3: continued long after Pos's death in eighteen forty nine.
Speaker 1: Is that tell me about it?
Speaker 3: So, days after Poe died, an obituary appeared in the
Speaker 3: New York Tribune. It was attributed to someone named Ludwig,
Speaker 3: but it did not read like a normal, respectful obituary.
Speaker 3: What it said was, quote, Edgar Allan Poe is dead.
Speaker 3: He died in Baltimore the day before yesterday. This announcement
Speaker 3: will startle many, but few will be grieved by it.
Speaker 3: Oh Griswold, Yeah, yeah, yeah. The pseudonym did not fool anyone.
Speaker 3: And from that point on, Griswold leaned into his role
Speaker 3: of the world's number one Edgar Allan Poe hater, and
Speaker 3: through some backhanded deals with Poe's mother in law, Griswold
Speaker 3: actually managed to get the rights to some of his work,
Speaker 3: and he published a posthumous collection in three volumes. He
Speaker 3: claimed that sales of the books would benefit Pos's family,
Speaker 3: but he kept the proceeds for himself. No, No, it
Speaker 3: gets worse. Griswold and included in this collection a wildly
Speaker 3: inaccurate biography of Poe titled Memoir of the Author, and
Speaker 3: in it he depicted Poe as a raving lunatic who
Speaker 3: was hopelessly addicted to drugs and alcohol. Weirdest of all,
Speaker 3: he included a bunch of forged letters allegedly from Poe
Speaker 3: to support his own lies. Others who knew Poe crazy,
Speaker 3: Others who knew Poe tried to defend him in the press,
Speaker 3: but Griswold's smear campaign was just incredibly effective and wide reaching.
Speaker 2: His facts air quote.
Speaker 3: About Poe influenced the way people saw him for years,
Speaker 3: and it wasn't until decades later that other biographers came
Speaker 3: along and started to correct the record.
Speaker 1: That is so funny, you know, I'd always heard that
Speaker 1: Poe was an alcoholic, and there's this weird story about
Speaker 1: him that I've seen written in a lot of books,
Speaker 1: actually about him as a West Point cadet. Have you
Speaker 1: heard this?
Speaker 3: I don't, I mean, listen, he did drink, but no,
Speaker 3: I don't think so. Tell me about West Point.
Speaker 1: So apparently he was really unhappy there, So when the
Speaker 1: cadets were ordered to show up to a parade in
Speaker 1: some fancy belts, he showed up in nothing but the
Speaker 1: belt and Tom got himself kicked out. But you know,
Speaker 1: now I'm wondering if Griswold actually might have been behind
Speaker 1: that story as well. Anyway, we are going to transfer
Speaker 1: from the world of American letters to the world of
Speaker 1: German grocery stores now, because our next feud begins in Essen,
Speaker 1: Germany in the nineteen twenties. This is where a working
Speaker 1: class family called the Albrechts ran a small grocery store.
Speaker 1: They had two sons, Carl and Theodore, and they stood
Speaker 1: out from other local shops by keeping prices as low
Speaker 1: as possible. Now, Carl and Theo were conscripted during World
Speaker 1: War Two. They were captured early on and survived as
Speaker 1: prisoners and Allied pow camps. But when they got home
Speaker 1: they take over the family business. They had no money,
Speaker 1: and in a post war Germany there were constant food shorges.
Speaker 3: Sounds like this was not the best time to go
Speaker 3: into the grocery business.
Speaker 1: Then, yeah, except it kind of was. So the Albrets
Speaker 1: had no choice but to stock basics like noodles and soap,
Speaker 1: and they developed a focus on cutting cops. So one
Speaker 1: of the first things they did was to get rid
Speaker 1: of counter clerks. Back then, you'd go up to a counter,
Speaker 1: you tell a clerk what you wanted. They'd go back
Speaker 1: on the shelves and bring it out to you. But
Speaker 1: the Albrecks adopted the American self service approach to shopping,
Speaker 1: and fewer employees meant a lower cost of business, and
Speaker 1: I guess higher unemployment in the counter clerk demographic, but
Speaker 1: I guess that wasn't really their concern.
Speaker 3: You know, if those self checkout machines had existed back then,
Speaker 3: I guarantee the Albrech brothers would have been all over.
Speaker 1: It, definitely, And thanks to their capitalist savvy, the Allbreck's
Speaker 1: business takes off right By the nineteen fifties, they owned
Speaker 1: over a dozen stores. The enterprise continues to grow even
Speaker 1: though they refused to spend money on advertising, and by
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty they had hundreds of stores throughout Germany, and
Speaker 1: they changed the name to ALDI, which is an abbreviation
Speaker 1: of Albrech Discount or Allbrech Discount. But in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: one this grocery empire nearly collapses when the two brothers
Speaker 1: have a falling out over cigarette. Apparently, THEO thought they
Speaker 1: should carry them, and Carl said absolutely nine. Wow, So was.
Speaker 3: Carl just like way ahead of his time in terms
Speaker 3: of knowing about the dangers of smoking.
Speaker 1: No, he thought that cigarettes would actually attract shoplifters. Okay,
Speaker 1: this debate actually splits the brothers and the company they
Speaker 1: had built split apart. But in true Allbrech spirit, let's
Speaker 1: focus on our own business for a minute and throw
Speaker 1: to an ad break, and I'll tell you the rest
Speaker 1: of the story right after. Welcome back to part time Genius,
Speaker 1: where we're talking about a few of history's most fascinating feuds.
Speaker 3: Okay, and before the break, you were telling me about
Speaker 3: the Albreched brothers and their disagreement about selling cigarettes in
Speaker 3: their grocery stores.
Speaker 1: So okay, what happens, Well, Carl and THEO never come
Speaker 1: to an agreement, so they split the business in half.
Speaker 1: Literally like they took a map and drew a line
Speaker 1: through Germany, using their hometown of Essen as the boundary,
Speaker 1: and THEO took all the stores north of the line,
Speaker 1: calling them Aldi Nord and Carl takes the one south
Speaker 1: of the line, Aldi Sud. From then on they operate
Speaker 1: completely separately. The brothers developed different logos carry different products,
Speaker 1: both under the name Aldi, but many believed the cigarettes
Speaker 1: weren't the only reason for the split. Apparently, THEO was
Speaker 1: a real micromanager and Carl, on the other hand, was
Speaker 1: more laid back. He liked to delegate and he enjoyed
Speaker 1: spending time with his own family.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I could see how that would cause friction. But still,
Speaker 3: I mean they're brothers, right, So did they ever repair
Speaker 3: the rift?
Speaker 1: I mean, they don't end up working together, but they
Speaker 1: are on friendly terms. There was even a crazy situation
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy one where THEO got kidnapped and held
Speaker 1: for ransom and Carl Yeah, I mean Karl pays millions
Speaker 1: of Deutsche marks to secure his release. But to this day,
Speaker 1: Aldia's two separate businesses. Both haves operate in Germany, but
Speaker 1: elsewhere it's divided by country. So if you live in
Speaker 1: Italy or the UK, you shop Aldi Sud. In France
Speaker 1: and Spain, that's Aldi Nord.
Speaker 3: Well, not to make everything about America, but what about America.
Speaker 1: Well, if you're shopping in an Aldi in the States.
Speaker 1: Aldi Sud expanded into the US in nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 1: but not to be outdone, Aldi Nord actually purchased the
Speaker 1: Trader Joe's chain in nineteen seventy nine to gain its
Speaker 1: own foothold here. What.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I had no idea a German supermarket chain owned
Speaker 3: Trader Joe's.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's all because a guy named Carl was
Speaker 1: worried about shoplifters.
Speaker 3: He should have been worried about someone kidnapping his brothers.
Speaker 3: What he should have been worried about. Well, anyway, that
Speaker 3: is incredible. Okay, So I want to tell you about
Speaker 3: a disk track that made history by setting off hip
Speaker 3: hop's first recorded feud. And it all began in Queens
Speaker 3: in the early eighties, where a young girl named Chante
Speaker 3: Gooden heard people rhyming and holding impromptu rap battles. So
Speaker 3: she started free styling too, and it turned out she
Speaker 3: was a natural talent. Even as a middle schooler. She
Speaker 3: was going out and winning battles at local clubs, beating
Speaker 3: men twice her age.
Speaker 1: That's amazing and I can see how that might start
Speaker 1: some funing.
Speaker 3: Well, actually, this feud that I'm talking about began in
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty four when a Brooklyn hip hop group called
Speaker 3: UTFO released a single called Hanging Out, which flopped, but
Speaker 3: the B side was a song called Roxanne Roxanne, and
Speaker 3: it started getting a lot of radio play. In that song,
Speaker 3: a woman named Roxanne gives the rappers her number, only
Speaker 3: to stand them up at the end. So it's kind
Speaker 3: of a twist. You know, they're not bragging about getting
Speaker 3: the girl, they're explaining how they didn't. But with their
Speaker 3: popularity growing, UTFO hottest ticket in town. They agreed to
Speaker 3: perform at a concert promoted by Mister Magic, who's a
Speaker 3: famous New York DJ with a radio show called Rap Attack,
Speaker 3: and coincidentally, Chante Gooden's neighbor, Marlon Williams also worked on
Speaker 3: Rap Attack and he and mister Magic were counting on
Speaker 3: this concert to bring in some money. But then at
Speaker 3: the last minute, UTFO cancel. I don't know. Chante happened
Speaker 3: to hear Williams bemoaning the situation and just offered to
Speaker 3: retaliate with the dis track.
Speaker 1: They recorded a song together.
Speaker 2: Well, at first.
Speaker 3: Williams was like, what are you talking about, kid, Just like,
Speaker 3: let me record a distrack to make off rest situation.
Speaker 3: This kid comes by, but he changed his mind. He said,
Speaker 3: you know what, all right, kid, come up to my apartment.
Speaker 3: We'll record a song, and he played the beat from Roxanne.
Speaker 3: Roxanne and Chante freestyled over it, absolutely destroying the three
Speaker 3: members of UTFO. And she did it from the perspective
Speaker 3: of Roxanne, right, the woman in their song. And Williams,
Speaker 3: who went by the name Marley Marl, called the song
Speaker 3: Roxanne's Revenge, and he played the tape on Rap Attack.
Speaker 3: It was an overnight sensation.
Speaker 1: First of all, that sounds so literary, like I'm going
Speaker 1: to do it from the perspective of Roxanne and also
Speaker 1: disalterate guy. It's amazing that she just went up there
Speaker 1: and freestyled it.
Speaker 3: Well, she came from the world of rap battles, right,
Speaker 3: and so she said later quote in battles, I was
Speaker 3: rhyming for thirty to forty minutes, so four minutes was
Speaker 3: nothing for me. And this DIY track sent shockwaves through
Speaker 3: the hip hop community. As Williams put it later, nobody
Speaker 3: had ever heard a girl rap like that before. So
Speaker 3: does UTFO answer back to oh, of course, of course,
Speaker 3: what are you gonna do? Not respond? So one of
Speaker 3: the members. The rapper Kengl Kid told Billboard magazine years
Speaker 3: later that their first reaction to Roxane's revenge was, You're
Speaker 3: not even the girl we were talking about. She doesn't
Speaker 3: even exist. They just made up this character, right. The
Speaker 3: problem was that Shante attacked the UTFO members by name,
Speaker 3: and she does. She calls them out by name, one
Speaker 3: by one, and as kennggl Kid put it, we do exist.
Speaker 3: So we took that personally. So they went out and
Speaker 3: found another female MC to record a response called the
Speaker 3: Real ro Sand And people just couldn't get enough of
Speaker 3: this feud. All the songs are climbing the charts and
Speaker 3: responses start to pour in. It's like every rapper wants
Speaker 3: to have a say in the Roxane wars. So there
Speaker 3: are songs like Roxy Parenthesis, Roxanne's Sister, The Parents of
Speaker 3: roxand and my personal favorite, the final word, no More
Speaker 3: Roxanne Please, which includes this great line quote, don't you
Speaker 3: know all the DJs are going insane because they're tired
Speaker 3: of hearing that same old name.
Speaker 1: I love that people have a feud with this feud.
Speaker 1: So what actually happens to a chante.
Speaker 2: Well, she blew up.
Speaker 3: I mean she became famous and she started performing under
Speaker 3: the stage name Roxanne Chante. She even went on tour.
Speaker 3: Of course, listen, you got to ride it right. You
Speaker 3: can't let an opportunity like that go. So she even
Speaker 3: started touring and sharing a bill with UTFO because promoters
Speaker 3: knew the feud would sell tickets. She and UTFO never
Speaker 3: spoke backstage, and according to Kangole Kid, there were quote
Speaker 3: lots of glares and snarls. She went on to release
Speaker 3: a couple albums in the early nineties, but then her
Speaker 3: career faded. She went through some really tough times. She
Speaker 3: survived in an abusive relationship, and there were financial problems
Speaker 3: caused by managers who she had trusted. I mean, remember
Speaker 3: she was so young. But in recent years she's been
Speaker 3: back in the spotlight. She released a few new singles,
Speaker 3: and she's hosting a serious XM show called Have an
Speaker 3: Eye Stay. And in just a few weeks she will
Speaker 3: receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the twenty twenty five Grammys,
Speaker 3: alongside Prince and the Clash.
Speaker 1: That is amazing and not bad company.
Speaker 2: Well deserved, well deserved.
Speaker 1: So for our final feud, I want to make sure
Speaker 1: we get a sports rivalry in here, and there are
Speaker 1: so many sports feuds it is hard to choose just one,
Speaker 1: but I decided to go with a feud between Andrea
Speaker 1: Agassy and Pete Saprez. So I'm sure anyone who's our
Speaker 1: age really knows. They dominated the men's tennis circuit in
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties, and they couldn't have been more different, right.
Speaker 1: Agasy was flashy and aggressive, both in his playing style
Speaker 1: and his wardrobe. He pushed the boundaries by wearing neon
Speaker 1: and acid washed denin schwartz on the court. He also
Speaker 1: kept his hair in a shaggy mullet that he held back
Speaker 1: with this bandana.
Speaker 3: Hey yeah, no, no, no, I know we all made fashion
Speaker 3: mistakes in the nineties.
Speaker 1: But people obviously loved it. And Pete Sampras meanwhile, had
Speaker 1: this clean cut image. He stuck to traditionalness whites and
Speaker 1: played with incredible precision, and while Agaze liked to win
Speaker 1: by hitting powerful returns from the baseline, Sampress was known
Speaker 1: for his punishing serve, which earned them the nickname Pistol Pete. Anyway,
Speaker 1: they played each other for the first time in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety and went on to compete thirty four times until
Speaker 1: they retired in the early two thousands, but while they
Speaker 1: were active, sports writers described their relationship as a friendly
Speaker 1: feud based on competition, not on personal grudges. In nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety five, Sampress told a journalist that's just how Americans
Speaker 1: perceive sports. He said, quote, I think people like to
Speaker 1: see contrasts like Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.
Speaker 3: That's a very astute comment. But this also doesn't sound
Speaker 3: like a very exciting feud. It's just sports competition, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you're right, right, Like when they play
Speaker 1: each other, it's something to watch. But it wasn't much
Speaker 1: to it off the courts. That is until two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine when Agassie publishes his memoir Open, which is
Speaker 1: one of my favorite books, and in it he had
Speaker 1: harsh words for Sampress, calling him quote more robotic than parrot.
Speaker 1: I actually have to read you this other quote because
Speaker 1: it is so incredible. Quote. I envy Pete's dullness. I
Speaker 1: wish I could emulate his spectacular lack of inspiration and
Speaker 1: his peculiar lack of need for inspiration.
Speaker 2: Geez, tell what you really think, you know?
Speaker 1: So Agassi also called Sampras's stingy relating a story about
Speaker 1: him tipping a valet a single dollar, and when reporters
Speaker 1: asked Sampriss about it, he said he wanted to meet
Speaker 1: with Agasy quote men to men. Now, this doesn't actually happen,
Speaker 1: and in twenty ten, the feud really blows up. Sampras
Speaker 1: and Agasy meet for a charity match in California. It's
Speaker 1: this doubles game. Sapris is paired with Roger Fetter, Agassy
Speaker 1: with Raphael and Nadal, and the players wear microphone headsets
Speaker 1: so the crowd can hear their banter. And even though
Speaker 1: it's just a charity match, Sampriss starts bashing his serves,
Speaker 1: so Agassi starts teasing him, saying, quote, you always have
Speaker 1: to get serious, and Sampress yells back, quote, I'll joke
Speaker 1: around a little bit. I'll imitate you.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Whoever decided to put MIC's on these guys was either
Speaker 3: panicking or cheering in that moment, like they were either
Speaker 3: super excited or super terrified.
Speaker 1: So if you watch the tape, the audience is laughing
Speaker 1: like they think this is all in great fun. But
Speaker 1: Sampress starts doing this exaggerated pigeon tooe walk like if
Speaker 1: you've ever seen an xy walk. He his feet are
Speaker 1: turned in and he sort of walks that way, and
Speaker 1: so Aggasi retaliates by pulling out the empty pockets of
Speaker 1: his pants and whining, I don't have any money. Oh
Speaker 1: no weight, I've got a dollar.
Speaker 2: Was this a roaster a tennis match?
Speaker 1: Both apparently, so fetter and a doll are just standing
Speaker 1: there awkwardly waiting for Sampris to serve. He's kind of chuckling,
Speaker 1: but you can tell he's mad, and Agassi taunson. So
Speaker 1: Sampress unleashes his serf, but not to Nadal, who's on
Speaker 1: the receiving side, but directly at Agassy jumps out of
Speaker 1: the way just in time.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I know.
Speaker 1: And he's got a real bl of a serve right,
Speaker 1: So this is incredible. Agassie just keeps going. He makes
Speaker 1: another crack about Sampress and the valet before everyone calms
Speaker 1: down and finishes the game, which Sampress and Feeder end
Speaker 1: up winning. But luckily, this feud has a happy ending.
Speaker 1: So the next day, Agassie tells ESPN that his jokes
Speaker 1: were quote out of line, and he adds that he
Speaker 1: had texted Sampras and has to apologize in person. It's
Speaker 1: not clear if that happened, but a year later they
Speaker 1: meet again for an exhibition match at Madison Square Garden.
Speaker 1: Everyone was waiting for another outburst, but they were cordial.
Speaker 1: They were even joking around together, like actually joking around
Speaker 1: this time, and super friendly.
Speaker 2: I no one got hit with a serf.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's right.
Speaker 3: Okay, getting hit with a Sampras serve would have been
Speaker 3: god terrifying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's great.
Speaker 3: You know what.
Speaker 2: I like that story so much.
Speaker 3: I would be willing to give you today's trophy, except
Speaker 3: you're the one who started this whole episode about feuds
Speaker 3: by telling me about a thing that actually wasn't really
Speaker 3: a feud.
Speaker 1: Well, I had a feeling you might say that, so
Speaker 1: I came with a backup fact, this one that comes
Speaker 1: from nineteen eighty six. It's about the author Alice Hoffman,
Speaker 1: who reviewed Richard Ford's novel The Sportswriter for the New
Speaker 1: York Times and long story short, she didn't think it
Speaker 1: was all that great. In response, Ford takes a copy
Speaker 1: of one of Hoffman's novels into his backyard and shoots
Speaker 1: a hole in it, and then mails it to her,
Speaker 1: it became the stuff of literary legend, but Ford shrugged
Speaker 1: it off, telling the Guardian, well, it's not like I
Speaker 1: shot her. Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 3: That is a trophy worthy feud for sure, So congratulations,
Speaker 3: it is all yours.
Speaker 1: Well, I feel like we should end this on the
Speaker 1: best of terms and share this week's trophy arguing about it.
Speaker 1: But that is it for today's episode. Remember you can
Speaker 1: follow us on Instagram at the handle part time Genius,
Speaker 1: and you can still write Will's mom and my mom
Speaker 1: at pggenius moms at gmail dot com. Seriously, it is
Speaker 1: a brand new year and they are waiting for your mail.
Speaker 1: But from Will, Dylan, Gabe, Mary, and myself, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for listening. Part Time Genius is a production
Speaker 1: of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted by Will
Speaker 1: Pearson and me Mongaystikler, and research by our goodpal Mary
Speaker 1: Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and produced by the
Speaker 1: wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang. The show
Speaker 1: is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norvell and Ali Perry,
Speaker 1: with social media support from Sasha Gay trustee Dara Potts
Speaker 1: and buy Me Shorey. For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
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