Speaker 1: Guess what, Mango, what's that will? So, of course, the
Speaker 1: rock band Queen is known for hits like Don't Stop
Speaker 1: Me Now and another one Bites the Dust, but their guitarist,
Speaker 1: Brian May, is also known for something else. Are you
Speaker 1: ready for this? He's a bonafide astro physicist. Mango, an
Speaker 1: astro freakin physicist.
Speaker 2: You know, I think I had actually heard that before,
Speaker 2: But also I don't know anything beyond that one line,
Speaker 2: kind of like, did you know Mick Jagger started at
Speaker 2: the London School of Economics, Like yeah, but I don't
Speaker 2: know anything beyond that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And both of those things are true. But let's
Speaker 1: actually let's keep this one about Brian's. Before Queen made
Speaker 1: it big, he was in the midst of his doctoral research.
Speaker 1: This was at the Imperial College of London and he
Speaker 1: was studying something called zodiacal dust, or the zodiacal cloud specifically,
Speaker 1: and he was trying to understand how it moved through space.
Speaker 2: So, uh, what is zadiical dust?
Speaker 1: Well, unlike Brian, I'm not an astrophysicist in addition to
Speaker 1: my day job. But as far as I understand it,
Speaker 1: it's a cloud made up of dust from asteroids and commets.
Speaker 2: So kind of like the cloud of dust that follows
Speaker 2: Pigpen around on the peanuts, like a big dust cloud.
Speaker 1: He is one hundred percent like that mango. I'm sure
Speaker 1: there's zero difference at all. But you know, Brian was
Speaker 1: actually far enough along in his studies that he submitted
Speaker 1: his research to his advisor. But in what ended up
Speaker 1: being a stroke of luck for music fans, his advisor
Speaker 1: was like, you know what, this isn't ready. You need
Speaker 1: to go back and do a little bit more work.
Speaker 1: And at that point, Queen was starting to take off,
Speaker 1: so Brian was just like, no, thanks, I'll do this
Speaker 1: band thing instead, and he left his academ program after that.
Speaker 2: You know, you hear about people reaching a crossroads in
Speaker 2: their lives, but like that feels so insane, right Like
Speaker 2: Option today is like spend years in a lab analyzing
Speaker 2: space dust, or Option B is tour the world, playing
Speaker 2: in front of millions of screaming.
Speaker 3: Fans crazy, right.
Speaker 2: As rewarding his lab work might be. You know, you
Speaker 2: can't blame someone for choosing Option.
Speaker 3: B, you know, and they're the band.
Speaker 1: Whenever we play the game, which band do you wish
Speaker 1: you could have seen touring in their original form and
Speaker 1: Creed is always is well, it's always the band that
Speaker 1: my wife Georgia picks, but they would be way up
Speaker 1: there for me. But anyway, amazing band. So it's a
Speaker 1: very very cool, cool story. But here's the cool thing.
Speaker 1: He actually kind of managed to have it both ways.
Speaker 1: Like he didn't quit his studies completely. He never lost
Speaker 1: interest in space and while he was on tour he'd
Speaker 1: take other musicians outside and give them little presentations about
Speaker 1: the night sky. And May said later that it's a
Speaker 1: natural fit. In fact, he said, maybe it's kind of
Speaker 1: romantic spirit to make music that's over into curiosity about
Speaker 1: the universe. He even composed a Queen B side called
Speaker 1: thirty nine, and this was about space travel and the
Speaker 1: theory of relativity. But there was that nagging matter of
Speaker 1: the doctoral degree that he never earned. And so in
Speaker 1: the two thousands, when Queen wasn't super active anymore, May
Speaker 1: heard from an old friend. It was the famous UK
Speaker 1: astronomer and TV host Patrick Moore who told him he
Speaker 1: should go back and finish that PhD. And first May
Speaker 1: was skeptical so much time had passed, but then he
Speaker 1: started mentioning Moore's idea offhandedly, like in these little interviews,
Speaker 1: and word must have gotten around because one day he
Speaker 1: gets a call from someone at Imperial College. They invite
Speaker 1: him back to the program, picks up his research, and
Speaker 1: in two thousand and seven he successfully submits his dissertation.
Speaker 1: It was titled a Survey of radial Velocities in the
Speaker 1: Zodiacal dust Cloud, which that sounds legit to me, and
Speaker 1: so that means he is actually sir doctor Brian May.
Speaker 2: Sir doctor, sounds very impressive.
Speaker 3: That's right, sir doctor.
Speaker 2: Well, as you might have guessed, today on the show,
Speaker 2: we're discovering side hustles of the rich and famous. I
Speaker 2: don't mean boring celebrity tequila brands or ho home luxury
Speaker 2: fashion deals. I am talking about a philosopher who wrote operas,
Speaker 2: a nineteenth century author who created a precursor to Pinterest,
Speaker 2: and an iconic musician who is also a childbirth expert.
Speaker 2: So let's dive in.
Speaker 1: Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Speaker 1: Will Pearson and is always I'm here with my good
Speaker 1: friend Mangesh hot Ticketter and over there on the booth
Speaker 1: launching his own scuba certification business. I didn't see this
Speaker 1: when coming Mango, I didn't guess he'd be doing this.
Speaker 1: This is our PALIN producer, Dylan Fagan. Not what I
Speaker 1: would have expected from a podcast producer. But I guess
Speaker 1: that's kind of the theme of today's episode.
Speaker 2: I think it's because we start every episode by saying,
Speaker 2: let's dive in.
Speaker 3: I think, man, I didn't even think about that. You're right.
Speaker 2: So, speaking of which, let's dive in to a side
Speaker 2: hustle of one Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain, who, of
Speaker 2: course was the author of books like the Adventures of
Speaker 2: Huckleberry Finn The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. But what many
Speaker 2: people don't know is that he was also an inventor.
Speaker 2: He invented an adjustable strapped titaned garments, and a memorization game.
Speaker 2: But his most successful invention by far was a scrap book.
Speaker 1: You mean, like an album for keeping photos and newspaper
Speaker 1: clippings and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: M hmm, exactly that. So, back in the late eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 2: scrap booking was this pretty common practice for anyone who
Speaker 2: wanted to collect or archive written material, and this was
Speaker 2: something Clemens was really really into. Apparently he'd spend his
Speaker 2: sundays collecting clippings of articles he'd written, book reviews, drawings, cartoons, photos, letters,
Speaker 2: anything that caught his fancy. The problem was scrap books
Speaker 2: that were available at the time just had plain blank pages,
Speaker 2: so you had to glue items into them one at
Speaker 2: a time, and Clemens was not into it. He got
Speaker 2: tired of his blue drying out and ruining his scrap
Speaker 2: book sessions. And you know how running out of glue
Speaker 2: can totally ruin a sunday for you, right.
Speaker 3: It's the worst.
Speaker 2: In eighteen seventy three, he was tired of his sundays
Speaker 2: being ruined and he patented his very own self adhering
Speaker 2: scrap book. This is a book that came with a
Speaker 2: thin layer of glue pre applied to every single page.
Speaker 2: You just dampen the glue one page at a time
Speaker 2: and then layer on all your clippings.
Speaker 3: And so were people like into this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was like super super popular. The book came
Speaker 2: in various styles, like different leather or cloth bindings, and
Speaker 2: different sizes for all your scrap booking needs. By eighteen
Speaker 2: eighty five, Clements had actually made around fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 2: from sales of the scrap books, which is the equivalent
Speaker 2: of about two million dollars today. To put that in perspective,
Speaker 2: he'd earned around two hundred thousand dollars from his writing,
Speaker 2: which by that point included Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer.
Speaker 3: So goodness.
Speaker 2: Anyway, the scrap booking thing had taken off. But there
Speaker 2: was just one problem. The scrap books turned out to
Speaker 2: be terrible for preservation. If unused ADISA got wet or
Speaker 2: exposed to humidity, the pages would actually stick together and
Speaker 2: they would ruin whatever was on them. So eventually other
Speaker 2: people developed better scrap book technology, but Clemens version actually
Speaker 2: was kind of the most popular one for about thirty years.
Speaker 3: Oh that's wild. I was actually looking the other day.
Speaker 1: I like, it really is wild how you can now
Speaker 1: make virtual scrap books just on your phone. These days,
Speaker 1: kids can just be so lazy about it, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I guess a lot of people still
Speaker 2: do it the old fashioned way, which people find satisfying
Speaker 2: for some reason, just arranging pieces of paper and photos
Speaker 2: on a page. And maybe that's just because so many
Speaker 2: aspects of our life are virtual today. Speaking of which
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Speaker 3: God, I'm so.
Speaker 1: Glad that rickshaw driver finally drove you home, or you'd
Speaker 1: still be stuck in India.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely would anyway.
Speaker 1: All right, So to our side hustles for our next fact,
Speaker 1: we're traveling back to eighteenth century Europe, where Enlightenment era
Speaker 1: writers and philosophers were busily debating hot topics at the time.
Speaker 1: We're talking topics like political theory, individuality, you know, the
Speaker 1: role of religion and society. And one of the leading
Speaker 1: philosophers involved in all of this was the guy we
Speaker 1: remember from our high school philosophy class, Jean Jacques Rousseau. Now,
Speaker 1: he wrote several influential books that you probably haven't read
Speaker 1: but may remember reading about. Examples would be discourse on
Speaker 1: the origin of inequality and of course the Social Contract.
Speaker 2: Yeah you know me, well, I have not read those.
Speaker 1: Well, his books are considered classics in Western philosophy. But
Speaker 1: Russo actually liked to present himself professionally, not as a
Speaker 1: writer or even a philosopher, but as a music copyist,
Speaker 1: which is exactly what it sounds. He got paid to
Speaker 1: copy sheet music, and believe it or not, it's still
Speaker 1: a job. Although these days music copyists use software to
Speaker 1: prepare sheet music for individual instrument It is based on
Speaker 1: a composer's master score. Now, back in Rousseau's day, of course,
Speaker 1: this was all done by hand, so it was incredibly
Speaker 1: time consuming and very exacting work, which I guess is
Speaker 1: also a true philosophy, right, that's very true. But you know,
Speaker 1: Rousseau's love of music went well beyond copying other people's scores.
Speaker 1: In seventeen fifty two, he wrote his own one act opera.
Speaker 1: It was called The Village Soothsayer. It's about a young
Speaker 1: couple who run into a series of problems when they
Speaker 1: each think the other is being unfaithful, so they have
Speaker 1: to consult the you guessed it, Village Soothsayer to clear
Speaker 1: things up. And Rousseau wrote the libretto and composed the music,
Speaker 1: which wasn't very common then. In fact, sourtss say he
Speaker 1: was the first person potentially to have done this.
Speaker 2: That is so crazy and what a weird detail. So
Speaker 2: was this opera a hit?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean it's not considered a masterpiece today,
Speaker 1: but it was one of the most popular operas of
Speaker 1: the time. I was first performed in the court of
Speaker 1: King Louis the fifteenth, who liked it so much that
Speaker 1: the next day he's posedly wandered around singing one of
Speaker 1: the arias, of course, very off key, and the opera
Speaker 1: was even performed at his grandson's wedding in seventeen seventy.
Speaker 1: The grandson was the future Louis the sixteenth, whose wife
Speaker 1: Marie Antoinette, is another huge fan of Rousseau's opera. Later,
Speaker 1: she even played at Heroin in a private performance for
Speaker 1: friends and her own one hundred and twenty seat theater
Speaker 1: at Versailles.
Speaker 2: That is so funny. I had no idea. Well, I'm
Speaker 2: glad you mentioned Mary Antoinette because there's actually a nice
Speaker 2: little thread here, because we're going from let the meat
Speaker 2: cake to someone who loved to make cakes, and that
Speaker 2: is Emily Dickinson. Now, Dickinson was famously an introvert, even reclusive,
Speaker 2: but aside from being a star on the page. The
Speaker 2: other place she felt very comfortable was in the kitchen.
Speaker 2: She'd often send cakes and breads to her friends and
Speaker 2: her family. She was also known to lower baskets of
Speaker 2: treats from an upstairs window down to the neighborhood kids,
Speaker 2: who apparently were big fans of her gingerbread. But what
Speaker 2: is also cool is that Dickinson would use the backs
Speaker 2: of her recipes and cake wrappers to draft her poems.
Speaker 2: For example, a draft of The Things That Can Never
Speaker 2: Come Back was written on the back of a coconut
Speaker 2: cake recipe.
Speaker 1: You know, I got another fun fact, Mango. It's that
Speaker 1: I love coconut cake. So we're gonna we're gonna do
Speaker 1: We're doing ten facts in this episode. I I love
Speaker 1: coconut cake.
Speaker 2: Well I am so so on it, but I'm glad
Speaker 2: you like it. If you want to make Dickinson's cake,
Speaker 2: you can actually find the recipe online and it looks
Speaker 2: pretty good, especially when you compare it to her black cake,
Speaker 2: which is an age fruitcake that involves nineteen eggs, five
Speaker 2: pounds of raisins, two pounds of butter, and a half
Speaker 2: pint of brandy. When this thing was done. It weighed
Speaker 2: more than twenty pounds. It was like an oven roaster.
Speaker 1: Wow, tell me she wasn't lowering that down in a
Speaker 1: basket like It feels like you'd get in trouble if
Speaker 1: you bunk a kin on the head with something like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, apparently it was a special occasion cake,
Speaker 2: but it's still being made today. Since twenty fifteen, a
Speaker 2: team at Harvard's Houghton Library, which has the world's largest
Speaker 2: Dickinson archive, has been making the black cake in honor
Speaker 2: of her birthday. It's pretty fitting because during her lifetime,
Speaker 2: Dickinson was better known as a baker than a writer.
Speaker 2: In her obituary, her sister in law wrote that though
Speaker 2: few people knew Emily personally, quote, there are many homes
Speaker 2: into which her dainty treasures of fruit and flowers and
Speaker 2: almost ambrosial dishes for the sick and well were constantly sent.
Speaker 2: That will forever miss those dainty traces of her unselfish devotion.
Speaker 3: That's actually really sweet.
Speaker 1: All right, we have to take a quick break, but
Speaker 1: when we come back, I'm going to tell you all
Speaker 1: about an actor who's a real clown, I believe it
Speaker 1: or not. Actually mean that as a compliment, So don't
Speaker 1: go anywhere.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're counting down
Speaker 2: nine side hustles of the rich and famous and one
Speaker 2: fact about Will and coconut cake. Before the break, you
Speaker 2: said you were going to tell us about an actor
Speaker 2: who's a clown, and you know, I know people hate clowns.
Speaker 2: They think they're terrifying. I kind of don't have an
Speaker 2: opinion on this, Like I remembering they were fun and
Speaker 2: silly as a kid. I kind of want to hold
Speaker 2: onto that feeling. And I don't really like watch horror
Speaker 2: movies or things about serial killers, which I guess is
Speaker 2: where some of that fear comes from. But I'm curious
Speaker 2: about you, Will. Do you have a big fear of clowns.
Speaker 1: I don't have a fear of clowns, and I used
Speaker 1: to not really have strong feelings about them, but you
Speaker 1: know what, it kind of changed for me. It's sort
Speaker 1: of like people who get super into like cosplay or
Speaker 1: something like that. While it's not something that I'm into,
Speaker 1: I actually really love that people love to do it,
Speaker 1: you know, like it's just kind of fun to watch
Speaker 1: people who get so passionate about a thing. And I
Speaker 1: feel like most of the time, people that really get
Speaker 1: into the clown thing, like to want to be a clown,
Speaker 1: are doing it because maybe for some reason, like since
Speaker 1: they were a kid, they always wanted to do that,
Speaker 1: or at least that's what I assume.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I'm kind of a fan of the fact that they exist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I feel like like people who want
Speaker 2: to be clowns, like want to make kids happy in
Speaker 2: hospitals and stuff like that is how I think about it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, exactly, I don't want one in my house,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I love that they exist. So anyway, one
Speaker 1: person who really loves clowns is the actor David R.
Speaker 3: Quett.
Speaker 1: When that seems no surprise, it feels on brand for him,
Speaker 1: but he was a huge Boso the Clown fan as
Speaker 1: a kid. He'd run around pretending to be Boso the
Speaker 1: way other kids might pretend to be Spider Man or
Speaker 1: some other superhero. And recently he made it official he
Speaker 1: is Boso the Clown. Like, officially Boso the Clown.
Speaker 2: What does that mean exactly, Well.
Speaker 3: You buy the rights to the character.
Speaker 1: It took him about fifteen years of togoiations, but in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, Arquette became the owner of Bozo the Clown,
Speaker 1: which means not only can he sell or make a
Speaker 1: movie about him, but Arquette can play Bozo himself, which
Speaker 1: he does and to make sure he's doing the character justice,
Speaker 1: he even studied with a renowned Russian clown teacher.
Speaker 2: That is incredible, and he spent fifteen years of negotiation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it takes a while, he negotiating a clown thing.
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that was standard. So what does that
Speaker 2: mean if anyone else wants to play Boso like, they
Speaker 2: have to go through David Arquette.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, technically, it's just like any other character
Speaker 1: protected by IP law. But what I love about this
Speaker 1: story is that Arquette seems really sincere about his motivation.
Speaker 3: It's not a money grab here.
Speaker 1: So when the deal closed, he told the press that
Speaker 1: he wanted to use his influence and resources to revive
Speaker 1: Boso in popular culture. He said, Boso represents a world
Speaker 1: of love, light and laughter, something we can all use
Speaker 1: more of right now.
Speaker 3: And he's not wrong about that.
Speaker 1: And in twenty twenty two, for the first time ever,
Speaker 1: a black woman stepped into those big red shoes. It
Speaker 1: was a performer named Jessica Harrison took on the role
Speaker 1: of Joso, the female version of Boza Jo. Soo I
Speaker 1: love it Joso. Yeah yeah, okay.
Speaker 2: So our next side hustle involves a Grammy Award winning
Speaker 2: musician and fashion icon, Erica Badu, and in addition to
Speaker 2: being a truly visionary artist, she is also a certified doula,
Speaker 2: which is, of course, someone trained to support parents through childbirth. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's true. Badou has said that she became interested in
Speaker 2: the concept after the birth of her oldest son. This
Speaker 2: was in nineteen ninety seven. She started out by attending
Speaker 2: some friends' births. Then she found out not only was
Speaker 2: she good at this, but she found it really fulfilling,
Speaker 2: so she pursued formal training and earned her certificate in
Speaker 2: two thousand and one. Now, doulas aren't technically medical professionals,
Speaker 2: but there's plenty of research showing that their support leads
Speaker 2: to better outcomes for parents for newborns.
Speaker 3: Mm hm.
Speaker 1: And you know, I don't know that there's ever been
Speaker 1: a research study on this detail specifically, but I have
Speaker 1: to assume that if ericabi Do is one of the
Speaker 1: first people you see when you enter this world, you're
Speaker 1: pretty much going to be super cool when you grow up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that feels very scientific and reasonable. Badu said she's
Speaker 2: assisted with at least fifty berths by now. Her clients
Speaker 2: include Diana Taylor Summer Walker, among many others. But this
Speaker 2: is my favorite detail hands down. She calls her doula
Speaker 2: service but doula.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's why she did it.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. I didn't see that one coming, but it's
Speaker 1: so obvious.
Speaker 3: When you see it.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Well, another celebrity involved in births, but I have a
Speaker 1: very different species is the author Beatrix Potter. She wrote
Speaker 1: and illustrated The Tale of Peter Rabbit and so many
Speaker 1: other great children's books. But get this, she was also
Speaker 1: a sheep breeder. Specifically, she raised Herdwick sheep, which is
Speaker 1: a very old breed indigenous to the Lake District in
Speaker 1: the north of England. Now, actually, let me pull up
Speaker 1: this photo. Isn't this like a super cute sheep?
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, that is so cute And it kind
Speaker 2: of looks like it's smiling.
Speaker 1: I know that's just how their mouths are, but it
Speaker 1: earned them the nickname the smiley Sheep. Now, more importantly,
Speaker 1: These sheep are designed for harsh northern weather, and their
Speaker 1: wool is actually so thick and coarse they can survive
Speaker 1: being buried in the snow.
Speaker 2: So did Beatrix Potter grow up on a farm? Like
Speaker 2: I'm realizing now, I actually don't know much about her life.
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't either, But no, she didn't. She
Speaker 1: grew up in London, but her family was from northern
Speaker 1: England and they often spent summers there, so she always
Speaker 1: felt connected to the region. She bought her first farm
Speaker 1: in the Lake District in nineteen oh five and eventually
Speaker 1: moved up there and married a local lawyer. She and
Speaker 1: her husband bought many more farms over the years, eventually
Speaker 1: including sheep farms.
Speaker 3: So threw her hands on work. Learning from local experts.
Speaker 1: She really got to know the Herdwick and that's when
Speaker 1: she started to breed them, and after a while her
Speaker 1: sheep started to win prizes, so in nineteen forty three
Speaker 1: she was even elected the first female president of the
Speaker 1: Herdwick Sheep Breeders Association. She unfortunately died a few months
Speaker 1: later before she could take office, but her sheep live
Speaker 1: on today.
Speaker 3: She left fifteen.
Speaker 1: Working farms and more than four thousand acres of land
Speaker 1: to England's National Trust with the stipulation that these farmers
Speaker 1: continue raising the herdwick. So as a result, many people
Speaker 1: credit Potter with saving this hyper local breed.
Speaker 2: That is actually kind of an incredible legacy. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: are these farms still raising herdwickes?
Speaker 3: They very much are.
Speaker 1: Many of Potter's properties are still working farms, and many
Speaker 1: are open to visitors too. So if you want to
Speaker 1: see the cutest sheep in the world, just head to
Speaker 1: England's Lake District and think of Beatrix Potter.
Speaker 2: As a kid, when I was like two or three,
Speaker 2: I used to warn my dad I was so worried
Speaker 2: that he would go to work because he'd get caught
Speaker 2: by farmer Brown or whatever Peter rabbit was caught from.
Speaker 3: Of course, yeah, that's pretty great.
Speaker 2: So my last fact involves a very different artist, the
Speaker 2: surrealist Salvador Dolly. He is best known for his paintings
Speaker 2: and slightly less best known for his experiments in fashion, architecture,
Speaker 2: and film, but his biggest side quest was book illustrations.
Speaker 2: In fact, he illustrated over one hundred books during his lifetime.
Speaker 2: Some of the titles are more surprising than others. You've
Speaker 2: got Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, don Quixote, Faust, but also
Speaker 2: a special edition of the Bible, and Shakespeare's Macbeth, which
Speaker 2: I had no idea about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, with the witches and everything, that one
Speaker 1: actually seems perfect for the Dolly treatment.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I actually found a New York Times review of Dolly's
Speaker 2: illustrated Macbeth, which was published in nineteen forty six. One
Speaker 2: drawing is described like this quote. There appears a box
Speaker 2: from whose keyhole blood gushes into a bowl, also containing
Speaker 2: a dismembered human finger, a skeleton wearing a robe with
Speaker 2: a grinning rubbery mouth in the middle, and a woman
Speaker 2: part octopus from whose head sprout various kitchen utensils.
Speaker 1: I mean, I have to bet that sounds very Dolly.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if it sounds like McBeth, though, And
Speaker 1: unless I'm remembering that play wrong.
Speaker 2: I love that we're more scared of clowns than we
Speaker 2: are solved for Dolly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's true, that's true.
Speaker 2: But the review goes on to say that Dolly's only
Speaker 2: loosely resemble Shakespeare's story, that the pictures hint at quote
Speaker 2: another and rather darker story, which is kind of fascinating
Speaker 2: in its own right. It's like he drew what Macbeth
Speaker 2: felt like to him instead of doing the usual thing
Speaker 2: where the illustrations present a very faithful depiction of whatever's
Speaker 2: described in the text.
Speaker 1: I mean, plus, in this case, the author wasn't alive
Speaker 1: to complain, so so Dolly could really let his imagination
Speaker 1: run wild here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if clocks can me out of trees, it
Speaker 2: certainly seems like one of Macbeth's witches can be an octopus.
Speaker 3: That is, that is very very true.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's wrap up with a classic celebrity
Speaker 1: side hustle, which is the restaurant. How many celebrities have
Speaker 1: started restaurants. The Wallberg Brothers have Wallburgers. Yeah, good stuff, Right,
Speaker 1: you've been to Wallburger's.
Speaker 2: No, I just know it.
Speaker 3: Oh, you just like saying it? I get it? All right.
Speaker 1: Well, Eminem of course has mom Spaghetti. John bon Jovi
Speaker 1: has jbj Soul Kitchen, just to name a few. But
Speaker 1: I'd argue that fewer as involved in theirs as the
Speaker 1: late great heavyweight boxer Jack Dempsey, who opened his place
Speaker 1: simply called Jack Dempsey's in Midtown Manhattan. This was in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty five, he'd retired from the Ring. Of course, now,
Speaker 1: Dempsey's served classic mid twentieth century food. You got steak,
Speaker 1: liverwear sandwiches, chicken a La King, shrimp cocktail, and something
Speaker 1: called Jack's Delight, which the menu described as quote Virginia
Speaker 1: ham with eggs and cream.
Speaker 3: I have no idea what that is, but that's what
Speaker 3: it was.
Speaker 2: I feel like my arteries are clogging just hearing you
Speaker 2: read off these. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't think any of these were low fat, but
Speaker 1: it was just a different way of eating back then.
Speaker 1: But the food must have been okay because the restaurant
Speaker 1: stayed open for almost forty years.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Dempsey was a fixture there. He would be.
Speaker 1: Hanging out, signing autographs, chatting with the patrons. And it
Speaker 1: seems that one of the things he was proudest of
Speaker 1: after all those boxing titles, was his cheesecake recipe. In fact,
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy three, when New York magazine chose the
Speaker 1: city's best cheesecakes and Dempsey's wasn't included, he wrote a
Speaker 1: letter to the editor defending its honor. He added that
Speaker 1: the late President of France, Charles de Gaul loved Dempsey's
Speaker 1: cheesecake so much he had shipped it to Paris several
Speaker 1: times a year.
Speaker 2: I mean that's kind of high praise, right, Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: if someone like the President of France is ordering it,
Speaker 2: they come from a lad for this series, Like, it's
Speaker 2: not free of desserts or anything. So do we know
Speaker 2: where Dempsey's famous cheesecake recipe actually comes from?
Speaker 1: Well to answer that question, we have to look to
Speaker 1: another New York magazine cheesecake round up. This one was
Speaker 1: from nineteen ninety nine. Brooklyn Diner's cheesecake took the number
Speaker 1: one spot, and the owner of that restaurant claimed he
Speaker 1: got his recipe from his aunts, who ran a hotel
Speaker 1: and the Catskills.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: According to him, Dempsey used to visit this hotel when
Speaker 1: he was training and also got his hands on the
Speaker 1: cheesecake recipe, which he copied for his restaurant. Now, Dempsey's
Speaker 1: closed in nineteen seventy four and Jack Dempsey died in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three, so he could not confirm nor deny this.
Speaker 1: But the good news is Brooklyn Diner is still around
Speaker 1: and still has a cheesecake on the menu, but it
Speaker 1: now comes with strawberries and Valroona chocolate fudge. Jack Dempsey
Speaker 1: might not know what that is, but I'd like to
Speaker 1: think he'd enjoy it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure he would well will. Since you introduced
Speaker 2: me to these adorable British sheep, I think you deserve
Speaker 2: today's trophy, and you know what, I'm gonna throw in
Speaker 2: a slice of New York cheesecake as well.
Speaker 1: Oh thanks, I'll split it with you. That's the cheesecake,
Speaker 1: not the trophy. Yeah, fair enough. Well that does it
Speaker 1: for today. Remember we love hearing from listeners, So if
Speaker 1: you have a question or idea for the show, or
Speaker 1: if you just want to shower us with compliments, you
Speaker 1: can give us a call at three O two four
Speaker 1: oh five five nine two five. That's three O two
Speaker 1: four oh five five nine two five. You can also
Speaker 1: send us an email at high Geniuses at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: That's Hi Geniuses at gmail dot com, and come hang
Speaker 1: out with us.
Speaker 2: On Instagram and Blue Sky. We're at part time genius.
Speaker 2: There's no excuse for not coming on and hanging out
Speaker 2: with us. So this episode was written by the wonderful
Speaker 2: Marissa Brown. Thank you so much, Marissa. We will be
Speaker 2: back next week with another new episode and in the
Speaker 2: meantime from Will, Dylan, Gabe, Mary, and myself. Thank you
Speaker 2: so much for listening. Part Time Genius is a production
Speaker 2: of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. It is hosted by my good
Speaker 2: pal Will Pearson, who I've known for almost three decades now.
Speaker 2: That is insane to me. I'm the other co host,
Speaker 2: Mangeshatikular aka Mango. Our producer is Mary Phillips Sandy. She's
Speaker 2: actually a super producer. I'm going to fix that in post.
Speaker 2: Our writer is Gabe Lucier, who I've also known for
Speaker 2: like a decade at this point, maybe more. Dylan Fagan
Speaker 2: is in the booth. He is always dressed up, always
Speaker 2: cheering us on, and always ready to hit record and
Speaker 2: then mix the show after he does a great job.
Speaker 2: I also want to shout out the executive producers from
Speaker 2: iHeart my good pals Katrina and Norvel and Ali Perry.
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Speaker 2: so much for listening