Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of My Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Dutton, saren you know what's ridiculous? Yes, I do know.
Speaker 1: It's ridiculous. People who comment on recipes online with stuff
Speaker 1: like that looks good, can't wait to make it? Well,
Speaker 1: I don't care. I mean only say it if like, oh,
Speaker 1: this actually works. If you've made the recipe, you can comment.
Speaker 1: You don't want to hear enthusiasm. I don't care. I
Speaker 1: don't care, like I don't care what you think it
Speaker 1: might be. I want to I want I wanna results.
Speaker 1: I want to work with something that's going to help
Speaker 1: me get there. But what if that's like feedback of enthusiasm.
Speaker 1: You can see how many people are excited to try it.
Speaker 1: I wasn't too excited, but everybody seems so excited. I'm
Speaker 1: going to give it a go. Their excitement doesn't make
Speaker 1: me excited. You know. The other thing that I don't
Speaker 1: like is when people comment, well, I didn't like this recipe,
Speaker 1: but then again I substituted, and then they list like,
Speaker 1: instead of turkey, I used fellow, and then it's just
Speaker 1: one thing after another. Well, of course it's not going
Speaker 1: to turn out it asked for two cups of flour,
Speaker 1: but I only had four tablespoons used us that. But
Speaker 1: it didn't really come out negative reviews. That is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: It's ridiculous, and my my opinions on it are ridiculous. Well,
Speaker 1: I kind of got it will be in a bonnet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well I like that one. Actually it is. I don't
Speaker 1: really follow the recipe scene. It feels ridiculous. You're not
Speaker 1: recipe corps. No, no, well, I don't even know how
Speaker 1: to read a recipe? Is all that stuff in the beginning,
Speaker 1: I'm like, when do we get to the rescipe words? Well, no,
Speaker 1: I mean that's the story. I read the whole story
Speaker 1: before I can get to like you. But you don't
Speaker 1: because now they a lot of times online they'll have
Speaker 1: jumped to recipe and I hit that so fast that
Speaker 1: I don't care about their journey. I just want the recipe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like that. Are you ready for the story? Have
Speaker 1: a stolen Brain? No? Not really? Well this was That's
Speaker 1: what I got for you, So it's a good one.
Speaker 1: It also has a rep recipe. This features a great
Speaker 1: American road trip, stolen brain from a very famous person
Speaker 1: and the trip to reunite it with that man's granddaughter. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're ready for part three of our trilogy of
Speaker 1: the stories of famous stolen body. So ready. This is
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers. He
Speaker 1: and cons. It's always murder free and one ridiculous Elizabeth. Today,
Speaker 1: I would like to tell you the story of a
Speaker 1: man and his stolen brain. And that man's name is
Speaker 1: Albert Einstein. That's a brain right there, that's quite a
Speaker 1: big brain. Yeah. Now, just to get us started, have
Speaker 1: you ever thought about how much you're worth? I mean
Speaker 1: your your body, not like your like sense of like value,
Speaker 1: the street value of my body exactly. Look, yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: run it down. What you have, what you're working with?
Speaker 1: All right, You've got a body. It's sixty oxygen carbon,
Speaker 1: ten percent hydrogen, nitrogen, and calcium by percent phosphorus. Then
Speaker 1: you've got some trace elements potassium, sulfur, odium, chlorine, magnesium, iron, iodine, silicone,
Speaker 1: a bunch of manganese, fluorine, copper, zinc, arsenic, aluminum, just
Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff. Right now, if we set the
Speaker 1: prices for all these minerals, and we ignore the recent
Speaker 1: spike in rare earth mineral prices and inflation prices, and
Speaker 1: we just go off of like nas your body would
Speaker 1: be worth five dollars. That's generous. Yeah, not just your body,
Speaker 1: my body. Anybody's body is about worth five dollars. Mine
Speaker 1: might be worth a little more because I've all those percentages,
Speaker 1: but attitude, like a T shirt, does the gold or
Speaker 1: silver in my mouth count? Because I have gold and silver?
Speaker 1: So I guess bump up. Like but when I asked
Speaker 1: all that, I don't really mean what is your body's worth?
Speaker 1: But like, let's just consider well, I mean we do
Speaker 1: put a price tag on body part, like you are
Speaker 1: walking fine like a black market kidney. Okay, I'm thinking
Speaker 1: living body. No, no, no, I mean, like you know,
Speaker 1: like individual you can put it on a scale body parts.
Speaker 1: So look at kidney, Like what will that run you
Speaker 1: about a couple of grands on the black market? Right? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would imagine it seems about right. I don't really
Speaker 1: know the prices. I don't talk to people who like
Speaker 1: harvest kidneys, but I read some new stories. I see
Speaker 1: the prices. Well, they're supply chain issues now and for
Speaker 1: are and with inflation, the prices have got have been
Speaker 1: going up. So Let's say you have, um, just one kidney, right,
Speaker 1: how much would one kidney be worth? Because you know
Speaker 1: it's gonna be very valuable to the person who's waiting
Speaker 1: for the transplant, right right, right, And we typically sell
Speaker 1: functional organs on the black market. So basically the price
Speaker 1: and the value of that organ depends on how useful
Speaker 1: it is, right well, and how clean it is, how
Speaker 1: clean it is, So someone who doesn't really drink a
Speaker 1: lot of water and holds their p in a lot,
Speaker 1: their kidneys are not going to be very valuable. Are
Speaker 1: you looking at me? I feel like you're looking at me.
Speaker 1: Let's just say sometimes I run a little dark. I
Speaker 1: think you're telling on yourself here. So let's just say
Speaker 1: you go like, there's a four day old kidney, right,
Speaker 1: the four day old kiddy. No nobody wants a four
Speaker 1: day o kiddy. You need a fresh kid You need
Speaker 1: a fransplant. Right. So after a couple of days, no
Speaker 1: matter how good the kidney is, how about how clean
Speaker 1: the person is, how much water they drink, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter because the kidney is going to go bad after
Speaker 1: a couple of days of the body right spoil, which
Speaker 1: we'll call it right now, let's flip it and let's
Speaker 1: say it doesn't matter we're not using the kidney for transplant.
Speaker 1: Let's just say we want to own the kidney because
Speaker 1: it once belonged to Prince. It's Prince's kidney. How much
Speaker 1: for Prince his kidney on the open market right now?
Speaker 1: That totally changes thing. Even though it's just one kidney,
Speaker 1: it's still more valuable because of whose it was, right right, Okay?
Speaker 1: Essentially how much you think prince is kidney would be worth?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think like it depends, I suppose
Speaker 1: on on what people want it for. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that's very key. Is it going to be sort of
Speaker 1: like freeze dried and then crushed pulverized into a dust
Speaker 1: that people could snort? Is it going to be used?
Speaker 1: I was thinking, like you're going to crush it up
Speaker 1: and they give away a little pieces like the True Cross,
Speaker 1: and like the fans could all get a piece of
Speaker 1: their kidney. Oh yeah, they could sell that as a
Speaker 1: commemorative or you could blend that dust into like some
Speaker 1: purple paint and then paint your Chevy shovel Prince is
Speaker 1: kidney purple paint your Ford Taurus Prince Purple, Prince Kidney Purple,
Speaker 1: I like that likes going with I, you know, to
Speaker 1: be on Shark Tank. You really should. I mean the
Speaker 1: business center you have, it's amazing. It's amazing. So now
Speaker 1: let's just go to our man of the hour, Albert Einstein.
Speaker 1: That's right. What do you think the value of, say,
Speaker 1: his brain would be on the open market. Now that's
Speaker 1: interesting because I would think that for research purposes that
Speaker 1: people are you laughing at me? I think that's honey.
Speaker 1: Research purposes are like we can just unlock the brain
Speaker 1: and find the stuff. Well, I mean, like, what if
Speaker 1: go with me on this one here, seatbelt it go on.
Speaker 1: But if you look at Einstein's brain and then you
Speaker 1: cut it open and there's like gems inside, special brain
Speaker 1: gems that we didn't know existed. Oh snap, what if
Speaker 1: other people have the brain gems? How do we activate them?
Speaker 1: What if you cut it open and then a little
Speaker 1: man jumps out? This, by the way, would love this too.
Speaker 1: The cart is a little man who jumps out of
Speaker 1: the brain. See where I'm going with this. It makes
Speaker 1: so much sense. I'm just waiting for you to get
Speaker 1: to the pineal gland and the seat of the soul
Speaker 1: and we'll just have all. Well, the issue of Albert
Speaker 1: Einstein's brain and what it's worth has actually been a
Speaker 1: debate for about almost a century. I found this out
Speaker 1: when I was researching. It turns out that the world
Speaker 1: famous Jewish physicist was a target of the Nazis, and
Speaker 1: they had designs on his head. In fact, so much
Speaker 1: they put a price on his head. Now, according to
Speaker 1: the journalist Michael Patternettie or Paternity He and I quote,
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty three, a German newspaper reported that Theme
Speaker 1: and Extreme Nationals organization had put a bounty of five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars on Einstein's head. When he heard the news,
Speaker 1: Einstein touched his hair and said, I did not know
Speaker 1: what was worth so much. Then he fled first to
Speaker 1: Britain and onto the United States to Princeton. We're in
Speaker 1: nineteen forty he became an American citizen. Five thousand dollars
Speaker 1: on Einstein's head back then. This is why when you
Speaker 1: see a Nazi, you punch a Nazi completely, like no question. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is of mindset. This is what we have to
Speaker 1: stamp out. YEA. So Einstein big fan of America. He
Speaker 1: gets to America flees the Germans. They don't get to
Speaker 1: put a price on his head. Now when he gets here,
Speaker 1: his head is still super valuable. And I don't just
Speaker 1: mean that the theory of relativity and the photo electric
Speaker 1: effect and all the various things that he gave to
Speaker 1: the world of science, but also by this time, and
Speaker 1: we're now after after World War Two, we're into the
Speaker 1: fifties and Israel has been formed, and Israel says, you
Speaker 1: know what his head is worth it as the leader
Speaker 1: of a new state. We could have Einstein be the
Speaker 1: first prime minister of Israel. So they go to him,
Speaker 1: they go, hey, Albi, he want to be a prime
Speaker 1: minister and he's like, no, I'm working on the world
Speaker 1: peace right now. I swear to God this is his thing.
Speaker 1: He turns down being the leader of the newly founded
Speaker 1: Israel because he was really worried about the atomic age. Now,
Speaker 1: I I don't know about you, but I just kind
Speaker 1: of imagine his father sitting there like Senator Einstein, Governor Einstein,
Speaker 1: I had such hopes for you think he I think
Speaker 1: he's surpassed all that. Well, no, it's the whole Godfather.
Speaker 1: I was just picturing, like, you know, He's family would
Speaker 1: be so upset to him not to be the leader
Speaker 1: of Israel. I'm just guessing. I don't have no idea.
Speaker 1: Maybe his father didn't care about world politics. But the
Speaker 1: point is that Einstein, he wades into world politics, decides
Speaker 1: it's not for him. He finds that the world leaders
Speaker 1: are resistant to change. So by the fifties, he's pretty
Speaker 1: much just focusing on his gravity research and trying to
Speaker 1: get the last bit of his theory relativity all like
Speaker 1: worked out, so you can include gravity because he's over
Speaker 1: the Earth. He's just like by nine five, Einstein is
Speaker 1: now seventy six years old. Okay, he feels worn out. Einstein,
Speaker 1: he remarks to a friend in the weeks that leading
Speaker 1: up to him getting a hospitalized. He says, I finished
Speaker 1: my task here. He's just done right now. At the
Speaker 1: same time, his doctors are warning him like, hey, Albert,
Speaker 1: we need to perform surgery. You got this condition and
Speaker 1: your body. Your a orta is hardening, You got issues
Speaker 1: with your arteries. You can suffer a fatal aneurysm. So Einstein,
Speaker 1: when here's this from his docks, he tells them, lets
Speaker 1: it burst. I don't know why my Einstein is so
Speaker 1: all over the place, but there you go. So dude's
Speaker 1: done with you. Ear if he's like just all the
Speaker 1: way over what I've said? Right. So, as his health
Speaker 1: is deteriorated, he's admitted to Princeton Hospital. His son Hans Albert,
Speaker 1: flies out to from Berkeley, California, where he's a professor,
Speaker 1: and his stepdaughter, Margot, she's there by his bedside. Everyone
Speaker 1: wants to succeed him for his last moments, and on
Speaker 1: a Sunday night, the attending doctor checks on Einstein. He
Speaker 1: seems to be fine. His son should be there in
Speaker 1: the morning. Sometime after midnight, the nurse, a woman named
Speaker 1: Alberta Rosel. She comes into Einstein's room to check on him.
Speaker 1: She finds him labored breathing. He's just struggling to breathe.
Speaker 1: He looks real pale, He's thin from not eating, and
Speaker 1: at this moment he's just sitting there muttering in his
Speaker 1: native German. The nurse listening to Einstein, she doesn't speak German.
Speaker 1: It's totally lost on her. Whatever she's saying. He then
Speaker 1: kind of sits up, takes in two big inhales, exhales,
Speaker 1: and passes away. His final words are lost to time
Speaker 1: because the German is misunderstood by the nurse. It's like
Speaker 1: the curse of a genius. He's last words are misunderstood.
Speaker 1: So the next morning, the world learns of Einstein's passing. Right,
Speaker 1: so this news conference is hastily announced by Princeton Hospital. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: around this same time, in the basement, there's a crime
Speaker 1: going down. Yes, hospital pathologist Dr Thomas Harvey is scheduled
Speaker 1: performing autopsy of Einstein's body. His mentor couldn't make it,
Speaker 1: so the task fell to him. So time to meet
Speaker 1: our anti hero of sorts, Thomas Harvey. Now, I want
Speaker 1: you to just try to get you into the mind
Speaker 1: of this Guy's a forty two year old doctor. He's
Speaker 1: a husband, father of two. He was raised by Quaker
Speaker 1: parents in a Louisville community. He would later attend Yale,
Speaker 1: then he would go to med school. There, he gets
Speaker 1: a job at Princeton Hospital, where he's now working as
Speaker 1: a pathologist. Up and commerce striver. Good career in front
Speaker 1: of him right now. Before he performs the autopsy on Einstein,
Speaker 1: Dr Harvey had met Einstein a few times. He knows
Speaker 1: the guy had gone to his house to take blood
Speaker 1: work and I quote Dr harveystead of Einstein. He was
Speaker 1: very informal and cordial, a very kind sort of man.
Speaker 1: Right now, he hadn't, as I said, he had not
Speaker 1: expected to be the one to cut open Einstein's body.
Speaker 1: He was supposed to be his mentor, doctor Harry Zimmerman,
Speaker 1: who was a neuro anatomist at Yale. Right. But as
Speaker 1: Dr Harvey recalled from and I quote a fellow up
Speaker 1: in New York, my former teacher, Dr Harry Zimmerman, he
Speaker 1: was going to do the autopsy, but then he couldn't
Speaker 1: get away. He rang me up and we agreed that
Speaker 1: I'd do it. Imagine my surprise cast them into this role, right, Okay, Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: We're going to take a trip back in time to April,
Speaker 1: to the fateful Princeton Hospital, and I want you to
Speaker 1: picture it. I'm there, okay, the day April eighteenth, nine
Speaker 1: fifty five, in the Princeton Hospital morgue lies the body
Speaker 1: of the world's most famous scientist. It's near eight am
Speaker 1: in the morning and Dr Harvey arrives at the morgue.
Speaker 1: It's a green tiled room, well lit, quiet as a crypt.
Speaker 1: You see that there are all sorts of hoses and
Speaker 1: vacuum tube, as well as silver bowls, stainless steel hand tools.
Speaker 1: There's a scale for weighing organs, as the operating tables,
Speaker 1: and of course there's that really big refrigerator unit for
Speaker 1: all the dead bodies. Now you watch the scene as
Speaker 1: it plays out before you. Now for the rest of us,
Speaker 1: I'll read from the account from journalists Michael Praternity. Quote.
Speaker 1: Harvey says he took a scalpel in his fingers and
Speaker 1: sliced Albert Einstein open with a y incision, tracing down
Speaker 1: from each collar bone and scoring the belly, the skin
Speaker 1: giving away like cellophane. Now, after the skin is peeled open,
Speaker 1: you marvel at the glistening organs revealed. It's like looking
Speaker 1: at slim good body. Except for slim good body, it's
Speaker 1: a seventy six year old German American physicists exactly that.
Speaker 1: Doctor Harvey reaches into the cadaver and you see him
Speaker 1: as he quote pulled back two heavy slaps of skin
Speaker 1: like drapes. He took a saw on his right hand
Speaker 1: and cut open Einstein's chest. Inside the wet wonderland of
Speaker 1: the body, his wet his body is a wet wind
Speaker 1: and he like that, So the smell were, at least
Speaker 1: from this wet wonderland was just as intoxicating and intense
Speaker 1: as you can imagine. Right. So, You're watching Dr Harvey
Speaker 1: route around in Einstein's chest cavity, and as Paternity puts
Speaker 1: suit quote, he remembers fingering Einstein's heart and then then
Speaker 1: the stomach. Then a criminal temptation sets in. You watch
Speaker 1: as the doctor decides and then axe on his plan
Speaker 1: to steal the brain of the genius quote. Working quickly
Speaker 1: with a knife, Harvey taunsered the scalp, slicing from below
Speaker 1: one of Einstein's ears, around the back of the head
Speaker 1: to the other ear, and then up and over the
Speaker 1: crown of the skull in an arcing motion. The skin
Speaker 1: peeled back from the bone with a ripping sound like
Speaker 1: masking tape being pulled away from a surface. Harvey again
Speaker 1: shocked to the skin on the face side, so that
Speaker 1: now the dome of vanilla white skull was revealed in
Speaker 1: its entirety. Bearing down on a bus saw, he cut
Speaker 1: through Einstein's head. He cracked the skull like a coconut.
Speaker 1: He removed a cap of bone, peeled back to the
Speaker 1: viscus menengus and snipped the connecting blood vessels and nerve
Speaker 1: bundles and spinal cord. And then at last, and there
Speaker 1: it was a huge, rough pearl. He reached with his
Speaker 1: fingers into the chalice of the man's creatium and removed
Speaker 1: the glistening brain. I am so queasy right now. I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry. That was Oh so pathologists. You watch him,
Speaker 1: is he secrets away of the brain? You know, I
Speaker 1: love a gross out, but yeah, that's a bit much. So.
Speaker 1: Dr Harvey's sitting there with you know, Einstein's brain in
Speaker 1: his hand, playing like you know, York with York. He decides,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep this thing for myself. I gotta have this,
Speaker 1: and so he's secrets away the stolen brain. He fills
Speaker 1: out the death certificate, official cause rusher of the arterial
Speaker 1: sclerotic puts in birthplace OLM, Germany, citizen of USA, occupation scientist.
Speaker 1: And that wasn't like that. It would take a while
Speaker 1: for the world to learn the brain of Albert Einstein
Speaker 1: had just been stolen, grabbed like a cat burglar snatching
Speaker 1: up crown jewels. And after this break, we'll get into
Speaker 1: what happened to Einstein's wet calculator. Welcome back, Elizabeth. You
Speaker 1: have a chance to towel off and kind of recollect yourself.
Speaker 1: I got some fresh air, I drank some water, blinked
Speaker 1: really hard. Okay, Okay, I'll be okay. I got no
Speaker 1: more gross outs for you. All right, this is just
Speaker 1: pure narrative now. Okay. Now we have a brainless Albert
Speaker 1: Einstein and a press conference coming up to announce his passing.
Speaker 1: The Princeton hospital is all abuzz. Oh, and a press
Speaker 1: conference that they said, and they're going to wheel him out.
Speaker 1: We can. We did, had convertible lines. It took like
Speaker 1: an old sweater and shoved it in the cavity where
Speaker 1: his brain was. Oh look what I'm doing. Now, where
Speaker 1: is today's newspaper? Because the intrigue is just beginning. Okay,
Speaker 1: we have the this press conference, and down in the
Speaker 1: basement is brainless Albert Einstein. Things are about to go
Speaker 1: off the rail for Domino to check on. For of course,
Speaker 1: Dr Harvey he claims he never stole Einstein's brain. He
Speaker 1: hasn't been his story forever. He always claims. Look, it
Speaker 1: was just the big misunderstanding. Sure, you know, like hops
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I meant to put it back,
Speaker 1: he got stuck in. I took it home in my
Speaker 1: car keys I was like, oh, I should bring this back.
Speaker 1: I hate when that happens. And then I didn't have
Speaker 1: anything to put it in. So anyway, the idea is
Speaker 1: unlike to say, the wrong briefcase he tooks home, it
Speaker 1: is actually he's very aware that he took Einstein's brain him.
Speaker 1: Come on, dude, you know you took a brain home
Speaker 1: with you. I mean, unless his house is riddled with
Speaker 1: other random brains, no, actually know it is like his
Speaker 1: only one. Only it's the beginning of his brain collection.
Speaker 1: His home brain locker is empty save Einstein's brain. He
Speaker 1: just has one very important brain. So Dr Harvey explains,
Speaker 1: and I quote from told us to the Miami Herald quote.
Speaker 1: I was the one who removed the brain, of course,
Speaker 1: and had it. The family knew that I knew some
Speaker 1: good neuropathologists, and so I guess asked me to keep it.
Speaker 1: They thought it might throw some light on his genius.
Speaker 1: I guess, so he's of your mind. There just there
Speaker 1: may be some brain gems in there. We can find crystals,
Speaker 1: brain crystals, power crystals, you know all the various head
Speaker 1: crystals that have possibly up there. Now, he also wasn't alone.
Speaker 1: I pointed out that you were there for the most
Speaker 1: But then also there was Dr Otto Nathan, who was
Speaker 1: a colleague and a friend of his and also was
Speaker 1: the executor of the Einstein literary estate, so he had
Speaker 1: the family's blessing somewhat, and he was just there as
Speaker 1: a spectator, like an emotional support, a sandwich and a drink,
Speaker 1: going yeah, cut in and then I'm like up in
Speaker 1: the eaves, dry heaving now. But he's he's a doctor,
Speaker 1: he's a little more familiar. He'd gone through all of
Speaker 1: the like desensitization necessary for these guys. It must have
Speaker 1: been like hot tickets, like I'm gonna cut Einstein, open
Speaker 1: you one in on this. He's like, oh, yeah, you
Speaker 1: want to see the wet wonderland of ees. He's wearing
Speaker 1: his Einstein T shirt. He's going to the concert. Dr Nathan,
Speaker 1: He's apparent he was fully aware of what everything was
Speaker 1: going on. And this is what Dr Harvey says. Now,
Speaker 1: there was another doctor there, Dr Dean, who he was
Speaker 1: the one who signed the official death certificate. So two
Speaker 1: other doctors are there to apparently see this theft go down,
Speaker 1: if it indeed went down. After the autopsy, they take
Speaker 1: Einstein's body over to a funeral home, then over to
Speaker 1: a crematorium. So he was he was cremated, and the
Speaker 1: family sprinkled his ashes in the river, and they basically
Speaker 1: freedom from his earthly existence except for the brain. The
Speaker 1: brain remained here, and so he had people in there
Speaker 1: as witnesses. He would he used like a sleight of hand,
Speaker 1: shove it in his pocket. Look over there. He wasn't.
Speaker 1: He was by himself for a few minutes. So there
Speaker 1: was an opportunity, and you know what that means. Opportunity
Speaker 1: pants part of motive. So news leaks about this stolen brain.
Speaker 1: It somehow gets out. Turns out the news story is
Speaker 1: such that it makes all the way up to the
Speaker 1: New York Times, and New York Times writes about it,
Speaker 1: and they run with the headline, key saw it in
Speaker 1: Einstein brain, which is a great headline. I like that one.
Speaker 1: So the news story spoke about Einstein's brain. Quote may
Speaker 1: shed light on one of nature's greatest mysteries, the secret
Speaker 1: of genius. So everybody's right there with you on this
Speaker 1: idea that Einstein's brain must be able to reveal to
Speaker 1: us something about how he constructed the reality he did.
Speaker 1: They want to talk to the little man who lives
Speaker 1: in there exactly. Knock knock. Can we talk to day Card?
Speaker 1: You know who's in there? Buzz the animatronic. That's what
Speaker 1: it's all coming together. Now, he's making connections all like this.
Speaker 1: So there's a second press conference scheduled for a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks to announce like what they're gonna do with
Speaker 1: the brain. The second press conference doesn't materialize because the
Speaker 1: Einstein family catch his wind of the New York Times story.
Speaker 1: They're like, wait, what where is his brain? No one
Speaker 1: told about the about the brain being missing. We just
Speaker 1: burned up the body. What the double hockey sticks? Now?
Speaker 1: Dr Harvey wasn't the one who gone to the press.
Speaker 1: It was Dr Zimmerman who said the thing about the brain.
Speaker 1: He let it slip and basically he was like, you know, hey, yeah,
Speaker 1: my boy, Dr Harvey, he's going to bring me the
Speaker 1: brain if Einstein, I'm gonna do this fabulous study. So
Speaker 1: he was hyping himself, and by hyping himself, he creates
Speaker 1: this huge problem for the Einstein family. And that's when
Speaker 1: Dr Harvey goes into hiding. He's like, I'm taking his
Speaker 1: brain and I'm cutting. So he's like in a gross
Speaker 1: motel room with the brain in a jar next to
Speaker 1: hime sitting on the bed. Next look when he blows over,
Speaker 1: I'll take you somewhere nice. We'll go to the tropics. Baby.
Speaker 1: He has the brain in a jar and there's a
Speaker 1: wig on the jar. Incognito mode um. Elizabeth, did you
Speaker 1: know that Einstein had an equation for happiness in life?
Speaker 1: He equals mc squared different equations. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't know. That's the only equation I know. There's a pythagger,
Speaker 1: isn't that Yeah? And that's I think we have hit
Speaker 1: the end of the map for me. Well, those are
Speaker 1: two good ones. There's here's the third one we can
Speaker 1: add to you, all right, Einstein said, quote, if a
Speaker 1: is successful in life, the rule might be expressed A
Speaker 1: plus X plus y plus z x being work and
Speaker 1: why being play and Z being keep your in your
Speaker 1: mouth shut. Yeah, exactly, So that could have been a
Speaker 1: little lesson to DR's emory. No. Dr Harvey, meanwhile, can
Speaker 1: keep his mouth shut, but he's laying low. He's still
Speaker 1: going to work. He still has the brain. People like,
Speaker 1: can we get the brain back? He's like, no, well,
Speaker 1: maybe I'm going to research it. The family gave it
Speaker 1: to me. The family says they didn't. Maybe they're wrong.
Speaker 1: Asked them again. You know, He's like talling as much
Speaker 1: as he can, running all circles around any logic that
Speaker 1: comes at him. Right now, this last roll more good
Speaker 1: while until the fall of that year. Dr Harvey slips
Speaker 1: away with Einstein's brain. He's now had in a formalde
Speaker 1: hyde filled jar with the wig on top, and it's
Speaker 1: the shotgun next to him, and he drives up to
Speaker 1: Philadelphia and he goes to the University of penn And
Speaker 1: the reason he goes there is because they have, as
Speaker 1: he puts it, quote a big lab there, real big
Speaker 1: and so big professional baby so and I quote. They
Speaker 1: had equipment for sectioning whole brains, including a microtome used
Speaker 1: only for brainwork. Those particular microtomes are very scarce and
Speaker 1: special technicians are needed to operate them. Dr Eric, who
Speaker 1: ran the laboratory, had such a technician. And though it
Speaker 1: took six months to do, we did a beautiful job
Speaker 1: of sectioning the brain. So now he's got to go
Speaker 1: and he's like telling the story. No, this is for research. See,
Speaker 1: I sliced it all off a really nice Deli slicer
Speaker 1: for exactly, running big Einstein's brain to the Deli slicer,
Speaker 1: they got super thin cut Einstein brain, like this is
Speaker 1: suitable for the finest sandwich. You can imagine it as
Speaker 1: thin as possible. So, now, once he's got the brain
Speaker 1: sectioned up, what's he gonna do with it? Deli sandwiches?
Speaker 1: Which is so he starts passing it around. He does
Speaker 1: a whole Johnny apple seed routine around the country, taking
Speaker 1: bits of like Einstein brain to different scientists, going here's
Speaker 1: some for you, and here's some for you, pieces of
Speaker 1: the true cross exactly. I'm going all the way around
Speaker 1: full circle, so he said, and I quote, I usually
Speaker 1: delivered the pieces myself. It could have been handled by mail,
Speaker 1: I guess, but I wanted to meet these men, only men,
Speaker 1: even though the person he went to at the University
Speaker 1: of Penn. Oh, woman, you're saying, man is in mankind. Anyway,
Speaker 1: after all these years, a study finally emerges. Now, how
Speaker 1: long do you think it takes before a study emerges?
Speaker 1: Try thirty four years. Scholarly articles is published with the
Speaker 1: title on the Brain of a Scientist Albert Einstein, quite
Speaker 1: the prosaic title. Now this was the only one, and
Speaker 1: this study purported essentially what your argument, which is that
Speaker 1: Einstein's brain must have been different from others and this
Speaker 1: could be explained by the structure of his brain or
Speaker 1: possibly brain gems. Now Dr Harvey, he's like, you know
Speaker 1: milk in this theory. He's he's also he's mentioned on
Speaker 1: the paper, even though you had nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1: I like that it took him thirty four years to
Speaker 1: come up with what I came up within thirty seconds
Speaker 1: with brain gems. I know right, ask the right question
Speaker 1: to get there faster. So that's pretty much all he
Speaker 1: has to show for it. Meanwhile, he loses everything in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty one, just six years after that fateful autopsy
Speaker 1: that changed his life. Dr Harvey loses his job because
Speaker 1: he won't give up the Einstein brain. Because it's not
Speaker 1: because he's pocketing other brains. No, he had started like
Speaker 1: a new habit, and he's not like you know, Dr
Speaker 1: hard you gotta keep He just wants friends. And he's
Speaker 1: got all these jars with wigs on with eyes attached
Speaker 1: so he loses his job in the hospital and the
Speaker 1: staff everyone liked him, but it was payback because he
Speaker 1: had kept the brain. They're like, we gotta get rid
Speaker 1: of you. You You won't listen to the ball. Look. So
Speaker 1: he loses his job and that causes him to lose
Speaker 1: his wife. His wife takes his kids. So now he
Speaker 1: loses his job, his wife, and his kids. Like a
Speaker 1: country song exactly all in one fell swoop. The only
Speaker 1: thing he didn't loses his dog. Non't got a dog
Speaker 1: game a country song. So now that he's lost everything,
Speaker 1: he moves to Kansas, where he had at one time lived.
Speaker 1: He gets a job a plastics factory. Then he's working
Speaker 1: as a prison pathologist. Later on herd. In the seventies,
Speaker 1: he loses his license because he fails a medical exam.
Speaker 1: So then in the nineties he moves back to Princeton,
Speaker 1: back to his old stomping grounds. Still got Einstein's brain,
Speaker 1: still in the Formaldehide just doesn't have any good career futures,
Speaker 1: but he still has still has the brain. In the nineties,
Speaker 1: just still got it. And he's been giving up some sections.
Speaker 1: You know, he gave some to some researchers and they
Speaker 1: came up with one paper. He's got the majority of
Speaker 1: the brain in a glass jar. And so he gets
Speaker 1: into a car accident and then in the car cars
Speaker 1: brain car accident in this instant, and this is when
Speaker 1: journalist Michael Paternity he reaches out to Dr Harvey. And
Speaker 1: it requires months because Dr Harvey do just want to
Speaker 1: answer his phone. He's used to people badgering him. But
Speaker 1: finally journalist wears down his resistance and he gets the
Speaker 1: doctor to agree to go with him on a road
Speaker 1: trip to take Einstein's brain and drive it across country.
Speaker 1: There's a good reason for this that that's like the
Speaker 1: greatest feature to pitch to an editor. Exactly. I found
Speaker 1: the guy stall Einstein's brain. We're taking a road trip,
Speaker 1: driving across country. Spring break, y'all, Yeah, we're taking the brain.
Speaker 1: Don't worry. It's got a wig, sunglasses, got a picnic basket,
Speaker 1: we got a colored glass in case it gets too hot.
Speaker 1: So Dr Harvey, though, as I told you before, he
Speaker 1: had a secret plan. He wants to take Einstein's brain
Speaker 1: back to his granddaughter. He wants to reunite it with
Speaker 1: the family. Okay, so the journalist says, like I love
Speaker 1: this pilgrimage. Let's do the brain track for us. Let's go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And he's like, look, you're all banged up from the
Speaker 1: car accident. I'll drive. He's like, alright, deal, So Dr
Speaker 1: Harvey agrees to hop on a car with a stranger
Speaker 1: and drive across country with Einstein's brain at this plane. Now,
Speaker 1: after this little break, we'll be back to dive into
Speaker 1: the Great American road trip with Einstein's brain. So we're
Speaker 1: in the nineteen nineties, Elizabeth, how does it feel? So?
Speaker 1: Can you hear the whole playing? Ye? Yeah, Courtney love
Speaker 1: is just booming in the speakers outside of the t
Speaker 1: c B. Y. It's amazing. I like your Jinko jeans
Speaker 1: by the way, thank you. They're extra big. These are
Speaker 1: size sporties. Yeah. I actually put a whole one pound
Speaker 1: block of cheese in my pocket as long as it
Speaker 1: doesn't get tangled on the wallet change. Yeah, no, I
Speaker 1: don't want it. That's how you cut the cheese. She'll
Speaker 1: be here all night. Please tip your waitress. So the nineties,
Speaker 1: we all know and love. There had been uh you know,
Speaker 1: a heyday of interesting magazine writing at this time. And
Speaker 1: so Michael Perny He's like, oh, I want to get
Speaker 1: in on this. I got a story. Boss bosses like
Speaker 1: I love it. Do it. So he gets a budget,
Speaker 1: he goes out and he rents a Beli Skylark shows
Speaker 1: up and Princeton's like, Dr Harvey hop on in. Dr
Speaker 1: Harvey's like yeah, So they're all ready to do their
Speaker 1: road trip, but there is some swirling darkness around the
Speaker 1: trip that I kind of have to mention. Right, there
Speaker 1: are rumors. Fraternity finds out because there was a journalist
Speaker 1: before him and the New Jersey magazine. A journalist went
Speaker 1: Stephen Levy, and he basically looked for Dr Harvey. He
Speaker 1: went to find the mystery where is Albert Einstein's missing brain?
Speaker 1: So Fraternity had somebody ahead of him on this path,
Speaker 1: and he basically realizes that there's these rumors that Dr
Speaker 1: Harvey's trying to sell the brain. And one of the
Speaker 1: people the rumors point to is Michael Jackson is supposed
Speaker 1: to be wanting to buy Einstein's brain out here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he wanted to, I guess keep it with the Elephant
Speaker 1: Man's bones, which he already owned. Now in the short
Speaker 1: film Leave Me Alone, I did well doing research. I
Speaker 1: found that Michael Jackson has this scene where he's filmed
Speaker 1: dancing with the elephant man's bones. Yes, anyway, so can
Speaker 1: you imagine them like moon walking with a Mason jar
Speaker 1: filled with Einstein's brain around the wall and those from
Speaker 1: the hides all cloudy after all this time. He The
Speaker 1: Sacramento B updated this story and they said, quote, try
Speaker 1: as he might, Harvey can't find an institution or museum
Speaker 1: that wants the brain that produced the theory relativity. So
Speaker 1: everybody kind of knew that he was out there on
Speaker 1: the make trying to Like he's losing jobs right and left.
Speaker 1: He's gotten really no future. He's basically looking for a
Speaker 1: retirement package at this point. Now, Dr Harvey decides, you
Speaker 1: know what, since I can't sell it, Michael Jackson won't
Speaker 1: buy it, I'm gonna have to do the right thing,
Speaker 1: damn it. So that's when he comes up with the
Speaker 1: plan to bring it back to Evelyn Einstein, granddaughter of Albert,
Speaker 1: and he's like, okay, I'm gonna get there. Michael Patternity
Speaker 1: sweeps and he's like, I got a rental car. Let's
Speaker 1: do it, bro now, as I will quickly quote. The
Speaker 1: Sacramental B also reported that for a while there was
Speaker 1: an interest in Einstein's gray matter, especially me what appeared
Speaker 1: to be its high concentration of glial cells g L
Speaker 1: I A L glial cells, but as an explanation of
Speaker 1: Einstein's brilliance, that theory fell by the wayside, and the
Speaker 1: secrets of his thinking prowess, or of anybody's for that matter,
Speaker 1: are now thought to lie in the complex chemical functions
Speaker 1: of the live organ, not the dead tissue. So now
Speaker 1: basically what he has is a jar full of useless
Speaker 1: body tissue that once belonged to inste guess rain gems.
Speaker 1: If you shake someone really hard and you hear rattling,
Speaker 1: you know they're smart because it's the brain gems. I'm
Speaker 1: going to write this down, let me take some notes
Speaker 1: better than an i Q test. Yeah, this is like
Speaker 1: true science. You see someone, You're like, how smart is
Speaker 1: that guy? Hold on a second, shake him violently, and
Speaker 1: then if he rattles like a Morocco, You're like, I
Speaker 1: got me Einstein two point out here, got a real
Speaker 1: brain genius over here? You hear that rattle like a rainstick,
Speaker 1: because I'm brain genius. Yeah, I like this. I think
Speaker 1: it's just kind of funny that science determines that Einstein's
Speaker 1: brain is essentially worthless to science. You're like, oh, by
Speaker 1: the way, a brand worthless. So Einstein's brain basically had powers,
Speaker 1: and the powers were his animating spirit. It wasn't about
Speaker 1: the car, you know. So it's so, what did this
Speaker 1: journalist discover about the man who eventually stole the brain
Speaker 1: of this genius and now has this rather useless collection
Speaker 1: of body tissue? You got these two strangers in the
Speaker 1: Smeller card driving across America, backseat filled with Einstein's brains
Speaker 1: right now. Meanwhile, paternity he starts this trip. He's got
Speaker 1: some hard questions. And I will quote from his book driving,
Speaker 1: Mr Albert quote, is he a grave robbing thief or
Speaker 1: a renegade, a sham artist or a shaman? What about
Speaker 1: the rumors that he plans to sell Einstein's brain to
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson for some unspecified millions of dollars or has
Speaker 1: entertained another private offer a three million. So he's just
Speaker 1: sitting there. This is what's swirling around with him as
Speaker 1: he's like, all right, close it, or let's get on
Speaker 1: the road. I started driving across country. These questions seem
Speaker 1: to matter less and less the further they get away
Speaker 1: from Princeton, he starts focusing on the man. He starts
Speaker 1: to get into like who was this guy when he
Speaker 1: was at forty two year old doctor and just fate
Speaker 1: fell into his lap and say, can you cut open
Speaker 1: the body of the most brilliant man you've possibly ever
Speaker 1: seen or known? Right, He's like, yeah, okay, Well, at
Speaker 1: this point, Harvey, you know, he's got the brain, as
Speaker 1: I've told you numerous times, and it's in essentially a
Speaker 1: giant glass mason jar, right, or maybe like you think
Speaker 1: of like a candy jar. I don't know what jar
Speaker 1: would be in my head, giant mason jar or sometimes
Speaker 1: when you say it, I imagine like a like a
Speaker 1: big candy jar at like a store. Yeah. Once I
Speaker 1: guess how many? Yeah, how many job breakers are in
Speaker 1: this thing? And there's like one loose jaw breaker floating
Speaker 1: in the framale Hyde with the brain. Okay, we're getting
Speaker 1: ready to getting ready for the road trip. Turns out
Speaker 1: that Dr Harvey, you know, switch containers and so Michael
Speaker 1: Fraternity gets to finally see the brain. He's been talking
Speaker 1: to this guy for months. He keeps asking about it,
Speaker 1: and he's like, hey, before we get on the road,
Speaker 1: can you like show me the brain? And he's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know about that. It's like, come on, man,
Speaker 1: to show me the brain. He's like, all right, can
Speaker 1: you like kind of calm down a little bit, I'll
Speaker 1: go get it. So Dr Harvey shuffles around and now
Speaker 1: I turned it over to Michael Paternity Quote. Harvey appeared
Speaker 1: from the darkness with a big cardboard box in his hands.
Speaker 1: He set it down and wanted to time. Pulled out
Speaker 1: two large glass cookie jars full of what looked to
Speaker 1: be chunks of chicken and a golden Einstein's brain chopped
Speaker 1: into pieces ranging from the size of a turkey neck
Speaker 1: to a dime, A swirling universe unto itself, galaxy, suns,
Speaker 1: and planets. It seemed to glow, and the old man
Speaker 1: he stood over it transfixed nodding. In his face was
Speaker 1: a sudden nakedness, an expression of awe of the soul
Speaker 1: manifesting itself on the surface of the body. Now, okay,
Speaker 1: I got one for you. I got one for you. Ready, Okay,
Speaker 1: So while they're driving across country, once they load up
Speaker 1: and they got the brain in the backseat, and it
Speaker 1: isn't tough where that they package it up. Here's the
Speaker 1: thing though, when I imagine it in my head, it's
Speaker 1: like a cartoon. It's a comic. And then when you're
Speaker 1: reading these descriptions and oh, my stomach is turning. As
Speaker 1: they're growing across country with the tupperware, they started basically
Speaker 1: getting into some very stories of other people's brains and
Speaker 1: what happens to them. And there's an interesting one I
Speaker 1: thought you'd like to know. At the y Star Institute
Speaker 1: at the University of Pennsylvania, it was famous for how
Speaker 1: many bones and brains it once held back when that
Speaker 1: was the thing to keep. And uh, the institute had
Speaker 1: Walt Whitman's brain right. But then there was an accident,
Speaker 1: as the Birmingham Daily Mail reported in December six seven,
Speaker 1: quote Mr Anthony Spitzka, professor at the Jefferson Medical College,
Speaker 1: in a published report on his comparative study of the
Speaker 1: brains of eminent American authors and scientists, states that Walt
Speaker 1: Whitman's brain is lost to science. A hospital employee carelessly
Speaker 1: dropped the jar containing the poet's brain, which was cut
Speaker 1: into pieces and would not be saved. That's incredible, and
Speaker 1: it's like so he's like mopping someone and they hit
Speaker 1: it with the handle. Kids across the exactly, there's no
Speaker 1: dog to come in and get like that TV show. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was like, look, it's all mixed in with the glass.
Speaker 1: I can't even sort this out. I just put it
Speaker 1: in the dustbin. Cut my brain in two pieces. This
Speaker 1: is my last cortex. Oh god, right now. The Great
Speaker 1: American Road Trip with Einstein, it surprisingly wasn't as fun
Speaker 1: as it sounds. It does not sound like a barrel
Speaker 1: of laughs. It's miles from New Jersey to Berkeley, California,
Speaker 1: so they felt about all of those miles. Let's put
Speaker 1: it that way. That Buick Skylock rental car journalists and
Speaker 1: scientists was pretty quiet for most of the drive. A
Speaker 1: couple of times they got a little tense with each other,
Speaker 1: and also like there's other personal issues with both of
Speaker 1: their partners in their lives, so compounding pressures right. Well, Eventually,
Speaker 1: as we're getting closer to the West Coast Praternity, he's like,
Speaker 1: this guy's a handful. I gotta call Evelyn Einstein and
Speaker 1: let her know we're on our way and she doesn't
Speaker 1: know they're coming, and see if she really wants this
Speaker 1: to happen, right, we shouldn't just like, you know, shock
Speaker 1: her with this, Yeah, you're just hanging out at home.
Speaker 1: And then these two goofballs pull up in a rental
Speaker 1: car with two jugs full of brain bits. Your grandfather's brain, Hey,
Speaker 1: grandfa's brain. Want they're fighting, and so they're just like
Speaker 1: all passive aggressive, like just take it? Do you take it? Exactly?
Speaker 1: So when he calls her, Evelyn Einstein, she knows who
Speaker 1: this dude is. She's like, ah, yes, the White Rabbit
Speaker 1: Fraternity's like not quite getting with the riff, right, and
Speaker 1: she's riffing on the Jimmy Stewart movie Harvey. So she
Speaker 1: explains to the young journalists he lived in Kansas. His
Speaker 1: name is Harvey. Enough said right, and he's like, okay, whatever.
Speaker 1: So she's just like, flies over. I don't totally don't
Speaker 1: get your mid century references. So later in their phone call,
Speaker 1: Evelyn Einstein, who was pretty tense with him. At first,
Speaker 1: she starts to warm up and then you start talking
Speaker 1: about the theft her grandfather's brain, and she's like, it's
Speaker 1: degoutin you know, it's disgusting what he's done, all right,
Speaker 1: But then she eventually softens her stance because a journalist,
Speaker 1: Michael Praternity, he's pretty kind and nice story, and he's like, look,
Speaker 1: do you want to meet this guy or not. She's like, look,
Speaker 1: and I quote, I'm interested in science. I'm curious about
Speaker 1: the brain. And besides, I have to have a sense
Speaker 1: of humor about this. It's really the only way I
Speaker 1: can deal with it. Yeah, with the Oregon party organ
Speaker 1: and buddy parts of your dead relatives like, hey, you
Speaker 1: want to see this. You're like, I gotta laugh at this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's got a lot of brain crystals, super brain crystals.
Speaker 1: No miles and miles later to be exactly, they get
Speaker 1: to Berkeley and they're like, hey, we got the brains.
Speaker 1: We're showing up at your place, right, And then they
Speaker 1: arrive at her place and she's prepared for it, and
Speaker 1: she's like, you know, psychically prepared herself to deal with
Speaker 1: this guy who stole her grandfather's brain decades ago, and like,
Speaker 1: why would he want to show up at her house?
Speaker 1: Going here it's back, I'm sorry, forgive me. She doesn't
Speaker 1: know what he's gonn asked her. Right, he shows up
Speaker 1: and he's the nervous one, right, he won't sit down
Speaker 1: She's all gracious and generous, invites him into her home
Speaker 1: that has this beautiful view of San Francisco. It's a
Speaker 1: really nice Berkeley home. He's sitting there, he stands up.
Speaker 1: The journalist is sitting on the couch with her, the
Speaker 1: two of them having a conversation. He won't sit down.
Speaker 1: They ask him, Hey, you want to sit down, and
Speaker 1: he's like, nope, ask hey you want to sit down?
Speaker 1: Four times. It takes before you find He's like, okay,
Speaker 1: he's done wrong. Oh yeah, no's he's highly nervous around her.
Speaker 1: Now she tries to break the ice and so she's
Speaker 1: asking him questions. She's like, hey, did you autopsy the
Speaker 1: whole body? And he's like, oh yeah, the whole body.
Speaker 1: She's like, what was that like. He's like, oh, quote
Speaker 1: why it made me feel humble and insignificant. She's like,
Speaker 1: I can see that all right. And the journalists He's like,
Speaker 1: I got it involved in this. I got a couple
Speaker 1: of questions. Let me pepper him with a couple. And
Speaker 1: so he's like, hey, can we see the brain? Let
Speaker 1: her see the brain and show where the show where
Speaker 1: the deal? Right. He's like, I don't know if that'd
Speaker 1: be a good idea, and she's like, oh, that would
Speaker 1: be wonderful. He's like, okay, let me go get the tupperware.
Speaker 1: So he pulls out the tupperware container that he's got
Speaker 1: the brains in the brain broth in, puts it on
Speaker 1: like the little lenon I imagine like a coffee table,
Speaker 1: and he's like pushes aside the day's newspapers. He's like,
Speaker 1: hearently put space for the brain cracks. Open the lid. Whoa,
Speaker 1: he took the lid off. Takes the lid off. He
Speaker 1: pulls out a piece of her grandfather's brains, holding it
Speaker 1: up hands. Yeah, his hands touching it. It's all formaldehyde
Speaker 1: and the stink is filling the room. It just now
Speaker 1: smells like a Morgan there. And he's like, yeah, you
Speaker 1: want to touch it, and you want to hold it.
Speaker 1: She's like yeah, he won't hand it to her. She's
Speaker 1: like all confused. He's like, yeah, you want to touch it,
Speaker 1: and then he don't hand it to her. She's like,
Speaker 1: what is that? What is this guy's deal? Like right, exactly,
Speaker 1: but the journalist paternity. He's getting annoyed, right, He's like, dude,
Speaker 1: just candor the body part and she's like, oh no, no,
Speaker 1: we just put it back in the tupperware, right, and
Speaker 1: he steals the lid, won't give it to her. It's like,
Speaker 1: it's my grandfather's brain. Let me hold the brain. And
Speaker 1: he's like, I don't know. Look, I gotta call my cousin.
Speaker 1: He lives in sam Matey. I'm gonna go have dinner
Speaker 1: with him. And she's like, why I had dinner plants
Speaker 1: for all of us. I thought we could go out.
Speaker 1: No, no no, I gotta go see my cousin. I don't
Speaker 1: get out here that often. She's like, so I had
Speaker 1: dinner plans, eyeing the tupper did you bring cayenne pepper?
Speaker 1: So the At this point, Dr Harvey is like, look,
Speaker 1: I gotta split, and he's like, you're gonna give me
Speaker 1: a ride and the journalist is like, no, bro, we're done.
Speaker 1: This is his trip is over. So they diverge pass
Speaker 1: and he just takes off and goes to meet his cousin.
Speaker 1: Ends up taking bart over to stop it. He takes
Speaker 1: a bart over because he's like the guy, the chauffeur
Speaker 1: won't drive me, so he just goes. He takes part. Well,
Speaker 1: then he would have to get on like cal train
Speaker 1: to get down to San Mateo. Oh yeah, totally good car. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of transit options there. Meanwhile, he leaves the
Speaker 1: brain behind in the rental car. These all three of
Speaker 1: them at this point, I'm just like enough they all
Speaker 1: need to get smack in the face heavily. And the
Speaker 1: paternity of the journalists. They go, houtside, they're gonna take
Speaker 1: a little walk coming back from dinner, and they see
Speaker 1: the rental car, and they noticed that the tupper where
Speaker 1: is in back? And she's like, he left the brain?
Speaker 1: Does does he do this? Often? Like what's been going
Speaker 1: on in this rud trip? And Turney's like, no, man,
Speaker 1: I don't even know what the deal. The two of
Speaker 1: them look each other like what a cook? He was? Huh, alright,
Speaker 1: look so glad he's gone. Right. He just couldn't bear
Speaker 1: to say, here's the brain like that was. His friend
Speaker 1: checks it, just like I gotta go. I'm out peace.
Speaker 1: So Paternity grabs the brain. They bring it inside, crack
Speaker 1: open the lid. He's like, what's wrong with these people?
Speaker 1: But you want to play with your granddad's brains? So
Speaker 1: she's like she runs her fingers through the golden broth.
Speaker 1: The brains all bobbing in there like stars or galaxies,
Speaker 1: apples at a county fair and us. She's like poking
Speaker 1: around at the brains and she's like, so this is
Speaker 1: what all the fuss is about. She's like, you know,
Speaker 1: running her finger to the brains. Now. He tries, is like,
Speaker 1: can I leave these with you? You just keep these
Speaker 1: aw in the liquid A little slurp, just just a
Speaker 1: little taste. I just always wanted to. Doc would have
Speaker 1: thought it was weird. So she's like reluctant. She's like, no,
Speaker 1: I don't want the brains. You can take them. He's
Speaker 1: like no, no no, I'm just gonna leave them here. She's like,
Speaker 1: no, no no, no, you take to start fighting over the brains,
Speaker 1: but nicely and I like actually fighting but casually like no,
Speaker 1: you take it. In the end, he takes the brains
Speaker 1: and he's like, oh, I'll take the damn brains. He
Speaker 1: takes the brains, he gives them back to Dr Harvey.
Speaker 1: He's like, look here, you take the brains back. Dr
Speaker 1: Harvey's like I thought we were giving him to her.
Speaker 1: I thought I was out. And she's like he's like no, man,
Speaker 1: I'm done. I'm gonna go write this book, all right,
Speaker 1: so return he checks out. Dr Harvey goes back to
Speaker 1: Princeton and he takes the brain back to where he
Speaker 1: got it, to Princeton Hospital, and he's like, how about
Speaker 1: you guys, will you take the brain? And so he
Speaker 1: then takes it to this dude, Dr Elliot Crouse, who
Speaker 1: now has his job. Dr. Elliot Crous is the pathologist
Speaker 1: at Princeton Hospital, and he commented on how strange this
Speaker 1: moment was for him. Dr Holle Krouse said, and I quote,
Speaker 1: he didn't really say anything. He just walked in here
Speaker 1: and he handed me the cardboard box. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think he was relieved. He looked relieved, but he didn't
Speaker 1: really say anything. Didn't give me instructions or anything. Just
Speaker 1: now it's mine. So now this dude has don't say anything,
Speaker 1: just like you know, you know, so worried that you know,
Speaker 1: some careless janitor might knock it off the shelf and
Speaker 1: have like a whitman accident, or that somebody else might
Speaker 1: come in and steal it. This pathologist he's like, you
Speaker 1: know what, I think I'm gonna have to take this home.
Speaker 1: He takes the Einstein brain up with him. The Lord
Speaker 1: of the Energy my precious. So he's over there, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, interestingly, all these people, none of them stopped
Speaker 1: to think about what would Einstein want with his brains.
Speaker 1: So Einstein very clearly said, and I quote people showed
Speaker 1: them to worship my bones. So this is and it
Speaker 1: isn't even like, oh, I wonder what he would have said.
Speaker 1: He literally we have to assume that a lies to brains.
Speaker 1: You know, you had that really beautiful thing of my
Speaker 1: task here is done. Like he's a lot of brain gems.
Speaker 1: You see him way beyond this, you guys, let him
Speaker 1: slip his mortal coil, to slip out of his skin
Speaker 1: and go be one with the universe. But there you go.
Speaker 1: That is our story of the Albert Einstein brain theft.
Speaker 1: That's a ridiculous takeaway. I'm gonna be really self centered
Speaker 1: and focused on me right now. Go for it. But
Speaker 1: my takeaway is that I can dish it out, but
Speaker 1: I can't take it. I can say lots of gross stuff,
Speaker 1: but when people, when you're telling me all these gross things,
Speaker 1: I am literally queasy. I was worried, but then also
Speaker 1: a little excited. My ridiculous takeaway, thanks for asking people
Speaker 1: saw about me, right now I'm sorry that I haven't
Speaker 1: called time on that yet. All right, fine, yes, thank you, Ralph.
Speaker 1: Starting with a favorite quote of his, Einstein once said
Speaker 1: and quote, there are only two ways to live your life.
Speaker 1: One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other
Speaker 1: is as though everything is a miracle. Now, for me,
Speaker 1: that's the ultimate lesson of Einstein. When a finger points
Speaker 1: to the guy and shows you the wonders of the heaven,
Speaker 1: don't get hung up on the finger. To stay focused
Speaker 1: on the wonder, not the finger that pointed it out. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't see how that's so hard to grasp. And also,
Speaker 1: here's my second part. This at that finger that it's pointing.
Speaker 1: That's the same finger that you could pick a nose with.
Speaker 1: There's nothing special about a finger, even if it's Einstein's
Speaker 1: doesn't freaking matter in this case, if it's even if
Speaker 1: it's his brain, it doesn't freaking matter. It's what we
Speaker 1: do with the brain that matters far more than the
Speaker 1: gray matter itself. Perfect, that's all I gotta say. That's it.
Speaker 1: Be back next week for another one. You can find
Speaker 1: us online at Ridiculous Crime on both Twitter and Instagram.
Speaker 1: You gotta tip for us about a ridiculous crime you'd
Speaker 1: like to hear about. You want to confess to Ridiculous Crime,
Speaker 1: Hit us up, Email us Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Duton and Zarin Burnett,
Speaker 1: produced and edited by the Resident Pathologist of the Soul,
Speaker 1: Dave Cousta researches by the Chief Anatomous to the Stars,
Speaker 1: Merissa Brown. Our theme song is by Thomas Let Me
Speaker 1: Finger Your Brains Lee and Travis No Get Away from
Speaker 1: Me Dotton. Executive producers are Bend Brains for Days Bowling
Speaker 1: and No how Much for a Stolen liver? Brown Ride
Speaker 1: Say It One More Time? We Dequeous Crew. Ridiculous Crime
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio. Four more podcasts
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