Speaker 1: Welcome to Part Time Genius, the production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: I guess what Will Ah, that's right, Will is not
Speaker 1: here today. Actually before this episode, Will told me he
Speaker 1: loves Teddy Ruxpin and Teddy Pendric guest, but he has
Speaker 1: zero interest in Teddy Roosevelt, which is what today's episode
Speaker 1: is all about. So of course I led him off
Speaker 1: the hook. But me, I love Teddy Roosevelt, and one
Speaker 1: of the things I love most about him is that
Speaker 1: every story you hear about the man is better than
Speaker 1: the last. He gave the White House its name, he
Speaker 1: invited the first black man over for dinner there. He
Speaker 1: made things like national parks, but he also tried to
Speaker 1: bring hippos to the US as a meat source, like
Speaker 1: he actually wanted to farm hippos in to buy you
Speaker 1: and get people into hippo bacon. He walked his pet
Speaker 1: bear around on a leash, and one time in Montana
Speaker 1: this guy called him four Eyes, and even though the
Speaker 1: dude had two loaded guns on him, Teddy casually noted
Speaker 1: him out. I mean, the stories are insane, but I
Speaker 1: have so many questions, from whether Roosevelt once actually climbed
Speaker 1: a mountain of a spite to what we're Teddy's productivity,
Speaker 1: life hacks, and also what is big stick energy. So
Speaker 1: we're diving into all of that. Let's dig in. Hey there,
Speaker 1: podcast listeners, it's mong Issue Tiler. You're listening to part
Speaker 1: time genius and my co founder, co host Will Pearson,
Speaker 1: decided not to come in today. It is such a
Speaker 1: mistake because Lowell is wearing a shirt with the words
Speaker 1: Emily Spinach on it. It's got a picture of a
Speaker 1: cartoon garter snake, and I'm guessing it has something to
Speaker 1: do with Teddy Roosevelt because he always plans for these things.
Speaker 1: But we'll have to ask our guest today about that.
Speaker 1: But I am here with a wonderful Aaron McCarthy. Aaron
Speaker 1: is the editor in chief of Mental Class position I
Speaker 1: used to have years ago, and she's an old friend.
Speaker 1: Some of her interviews and articles are still some of
Speaker 1: my favorites on the site. She's the one who told
Speaker 1: me all about jelly bellies, disastrous attempt to make a
Speaker 1: pizza flavored jelly bean, and uh also the oral history
Speaker 1: of traffic keepers. But today she's here to talk exclusively
Speaker 1: about a different obsession, Teddy Roosevelt. Hey, Aaron, so I
Speaker 1: want to get into your new podcast, History Versus, which
Speaker 1: is all about Teddy Roosevelt. And I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: you know this, but I years ago I desperately tried
Speaker 1: to get Teddy Roosevelt on the cover of Mental Floss.
Speaker 1: I did not know. I mocked up a version of
Speaker 1: him cutting like karate chopping aboard like in a Judo
Speaker 1: and no one else dug it. But it's still in
Speaker 1: the So tell me, how is it that you got
Speaker 1: so obsessed with Teddy Roosevelt. So you I feel like
Speaker 1: when you work at Mental Floss, history is kind of
Speaker 1: your thing. It's just like, yeah, I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: like it somehow becomes part of everything that you do.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, I knew a little bit about him.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, yeah, you know the conservation president. Um,
Speaker 1: he liked to hunt things. And that was sort of
Speaker 1: where my knowledge ended. And then I took a fateful
Speaker 1: trip to the Strand bookstore and I was just kind
Speaker 1: of wandering and looking at the shelves as I want
Speaker 1: to do, and I saw Colonel Roosevelt by Edmund Morris,
Speaker 1: and I was like, Okay, I'll just like pick this
Speaker 1: up and I'll read this like, I don't know that
Speaker 1: much about t R. It's gonna be interesting. I didn't
Speaker 1: know it was the third book in a trilogy. Um.
Speaker 1: So I read it, and uh, it was amazing. I
Speaker 1: cried at the end on the subway, like a real weirdo.
Speaker 1: And so then I had to go back and read
Speaker 1: the others and then it was just like, you know,
Speaker 1: full speed ahead from there. I was just like, did
Speaker 1: you know that Theodore Roosevelt did this? And did you
Speaker 1: know that he did this? And now I just can't
Speaker 1: stop talking about him ever and making a podcast about him.
Speaker 1: So that's great. And it didn't confuse you to start
Speaker 1: with the third one, like it was like starting with
Speaker 1: Back to the Future three or something. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean I was just kind of like, hmm, maybe
Speaker 1: I should have gone back to get the other ones,
Speaker 1: but I just didn't like it just didn't even occur
Speaker 1: to me. And by then I bought it, so I
Speaker 1: was like, well, you know, I'm just going to read
Speaker 1: this and then you know, you go back and I
Speaker 1: actually I feel like I read them. I read the
Speaker 1: third one, the first one, and then the second one,
Speaker 1: so it was like really weird. Um, But I came
Speaker 1: out of it knowing so much more about him and
Speaker 1: just being totally obsessed. So it's amazing how your series
Speaker 1: is structured, because it's like history versus and in different
Speaker 1: aspects that Teddy Roosevelt's babbling. And I wanted to start
Speaker 1: with time because I have no idea how he managed
Speaker 1: to get so much into a day. Oh me either,
Speaker 1: me either, And it's just baffling, baffling, Like it makes
Speaker 1: you tired when you read about how productive he was.
Speaker 1: I just strive for that energy every single day, every day. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean even as a college student. You think, like
Speaker 1: college students should be lethargic or whatever, but like, like
Speaker 1: his schedule that you lay out is insane, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: And I mean that's part of what made him so
Speaker 1: productive was that he just had this devotion to a schedule.
Speaker 1: And what he would do is he would block out
Speaker 1: his time, which allowed him to be more productive. You know,
Speaker 1: I spoke with productivity experts and they were like, this
Speaker 1: is the key. Obviously he had a lot of energy,
Speaker 1: which helped a lot, but you know, he was just
Speaker 1: really really focused and he blocked out his time. And
Speaker 1: apparently all the super productive people in history, well maybe
Speaker 1: not all of them, but many of them do that.
Speaker 1: You know, they'll say, this block of time is for
Speaker 1: reading my book. And you know, he had the schedule
Speaker 1: from when he was on the campaign trail, and it
Speaker 1: was literally every hour and a half an hour was
Speaker 1: blocked out. He had something else going on, and that
Speaker 1: allowed him to be super focused and super productive. Well,
Speaker 1: the other thing is that he was also like, not
Speaker 1: only was he reading and doing all these things and
Speaker 1: writing letters, but you're just giving speeches NonStop to all
Speaker 1: the time. It's insane. I wonder if he ever got
Speaker 1: tired of the sound of his own voice, because like,
Speaker 1: I sometimes get tired of this end of my own
Speaker 1: voice as I'm sitting in the studio podcasting, Like uh,
Speaker 1: I read somewhere that he had a distinctive voice though
Speaker 1: too right, he did. He spoke with this really distinctive
Speaker 1: style and some people actually think he had a speech
Speaker 1: impediment as a kid. But he had this kind of
Speaker 1: high pitched voice and he would distort words. So there's
Speaker 1: this story that Edmund Morris tells about how when he
Speaker 1: was in the New York State Assembly, he would just
Speaker 1: yell Mr Speaker, Mr Speaker, like forty times, just over
Speaker 1: and over until the speaker would acknowledge him. You know.
Speaker 1: So he was he was a weirdo. They always talk
Speaker 1: about his teeth. One of my favorite things that I
Speaker 1: learned from this podcast is that people talked about his
Speaker 1: teeth all the time. And so when he was police
Speaker 1: Commissioner of New York, Vendors Street Vendors used to make
Speaker 1: these whistles and they were Roosevelt whistles and they had
Speaker 1: his his teeth. Yeah, and uh, I mean, I'm assuming
Speaker 1: they were really cheap because I can't find any of
Speaker 1: them on eBay. I've looked, but yeah, like his teeth
Speaker 1: were just so um distinctive, you know, just like really
Speaker 1: white and square, and he was always just like chomping
Speaker 1: on word. That's funny because I guess if you think
Speaker 1: about like the caricatures of him, they do have that,
Speaker 1: but it's not something that I had picked up on. Well,
Speaker 1: now you're going to notice, Well, he also used to
Speaker 1: put those teeth to good use for meals, right, Like
Speaker 1: he was a big eater. Oh, big eater, huge eater. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, like pretty plain stuff. He wasn't like
Speaker 1: um into super duper fancy foods. But yeah, he ate
Speaker 1: a lot, so when he wasn't being his active he
Speaker 1: got kind of chunky and it made him sad. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The other thing I didn't realize was how much coffee
Speaker 1: he drank so much, so like a gallon a day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, and what was his his son something that
Speaker 1: said something like his coffee mugs resembled a bathtub. It's
Speaker 1: more in the nature of a bathtub. And actually, if
Speaker 1: you go to the birthplace in New York, they have
Speaker 1: like a tea cup of his and it's huge. It's
Speaker 1: it's huge. Um, yeah, it's really it's really big. And
Speaker 1: now at the gift shops in some places they actually
Speaker 1: sell a bull Moose coffee mug that's really big. So
Speaker 1: I obviously bought one, Um, and I drank my coffee
Speaker 1: out of it exclusively now because I too have a
Speaker 1: bit of a caffeine problem. Not that badly, but pretty
Speaker 1: pretty bad. Well, tell me a little bit about his childhood,
Speaker 1: because I feel like you think about Teddy Roosevelt and
Speaker 1: you imagine him as this super rugged person, which he was.
Speaker 1: But he grew up in New York City partially. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he was born in New York City in eight
Speaker 1: and um, you know, he was born to a very
Speaker 1: wealthy family. His father, Uh, the family business was plate
Speaker 1: class importing. But yeah, it's weird, right, And I think
Speaker 1: his father was eighth generation Dutch New Yorker. But his
Speaker 1: father the was basically a professional philanthropist. He gave money
Speaker 1: away like crazy, and he supported a lot of causes
Speaker 1: like the Newsboys lodging House, and he would bring the
Speaker 1: kids along to go down there. So service was like
Speaker 1: a really big part of his life growing up. His
Speaker 1: father also was part of the founding of the American
Speaker 1: Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Speaker 1: So like this guy was just give away money, making
Speaker 1: it rain towards worthy causes all the time. So tr
Speaker 1: was born. He was the second child, first son. He
Speaker 1: had his first asthma attack at age three, and he
Speaker 1: had asthma so badly that he would have to sleep
Speaker 1: sitting up. His parents really didn't think he was going
Speaker 1: to live to see his fourth birthday. They would make
Speaker 1: him drink black coffee and smoke cigars to try to
Speaker 1: get him breathe, which makes no sense, but you know,
Speaker 1: at that day, it was in that day, it was
Speaker 1: you know, that was a cutting edge and you know,
Speaker 1: when you're when your kid is sick, you're willing to
Speaker 1: do basically anything that you think is going to help. So, um,
Speaker 1: you know, his father would put him in the carriage
Speaker 1: and and go for these wild rides down the road
Speaker 1: trying to force air into try to try to get
Speaker 1: him to to breathe. And you know back then, I
Speaker 1: mean asthma is still it can be fatal today, but
Speaker 1: back then it was it was really bad. So yeah,
Speaker 1: he was this this sickly little kid, but well traveled.
Speaker 1: So you know, they lived in New York and the
Speaker 1: family would go out. They would spend summers in New
Speaker 1: Jersey or out on Long Island just to kind of
Speaker 1: get the fresh air tier and his mother would go
Speaker 1: to these like health spas where they would take the
Speaker 1: waters or do whatever it is that you did in
Speaker 1: that day to try to make yourself healthier. Um. And
Speaker 1: they toured Europe and they did the same sort of
Speaker 1: thing over there. So yeah, he had this kind of crazy,
Speaker 1: crazy childhood where he was all over the place and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, just like a sick, sick little kid. And
Speaker 1: then when he was a teenager or just about to
Speaker 1: be a teenager, his father said to him you have
Speaker 1: the mind, but not the body, and so you have
Speaker 1: to build your body. And so now we think of
Speaker 1: him as this robust guy, and he really built himself
Speaker 1: up to be that robust guy. He basically they built
Speaker 1: a little gym out on the piazza and he would
Speaker 1: be out there like lifting weights and pull ups and yeah. Yeah, basically,
Speaker 1: like that was kind of what it was like. Although
Speaker 1: I guess there was like a beautiful garden in the
Speaker 1: back yard or whatever, so he would be like lifting
Speaker 1: weights and looking out over the garden and um and uh.
Speaker 1: And then he took up boxing because he actually took
Speaker 1: this trip up to I want to say moose Head
Speaker 1: Lake in Maine. But he met these kids on the
Speaker 1: stage coach on the way up there, and they just
Speaker 1: beat the crap out of him. And so you know,
Speaker 1: he's like, I've been lifting weights for two years, why
Speaker 1: can't I like take on these kids. And so then
Speaker 1: he was like, I'm going to take up boxing. So um,
Speaker 1: he became a lifelong boxer, at least until he got
Speaker 1: punched in the eye and lost part of the site
Speaker 1: in his eye. As president at the house that's the
Speaker 1: White House. Yeah, and then it was like no more boxing,
Speaker 1: so that's when he took up judo, anything to stay active.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of the Jersey Shore where like all
Speaker 1: these people can't fight, but they lift weights. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: if you have that much focus towards any activity, I'm
Speaker 1: sure you just get great at it, right, Like if
Speaker 1: he had that same focus as a child, well, and
Speaker 1: I mean like and he applied that same focus to
Speaker 1: everything he did all throughout his life, so you know,
Speaker 1: and I mean I think it helped that his father
Speaker 1: was the one to kind of push him. He worshiped
Speaker 1: his father, and you can sort of see how that
Speaker 1: plays out throughout the rest of his life in a
Speaker 1: lot of really interesting ways. But his father told him
Speaker 1: weakness is a shame and often a sin. And you
Speaker 1: can imagine if you worship your father and your father
Speaker 1: tells you that, like what would happen or how you
Speaker 1: would act down the line to kind of not be
Speaker 1: not show your weakness. So whenever he has any kind
Speaker 1: of major tragedy in his life, he just just like
Speaker 1: he doesn't show it, he doesn't talk about it, he
Speaker 1: acts like it didn't happen. And I think you can
Speaker 1: trace that back to not wanting to show weakness. Ah,
Speaker 1: there's so much good stuff, but we need to pause
Speaker 1: more with Aaron after the break. Okay, So we're here
Speaker 1: with Aeron McCarthy and Mental Flaws talking about Teddy Roosevelt
Speaker 1: as a child. I know from the podcast that he
Speaker 1: had a snapping turtle that he like strapped to a
Speaker 1: sink or something and tried to train a woodchuck. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he I mean, I don't think it was, but
Speaker 1: you know he was going to try, so he you know,
Speaker 1: growing up in New York, you sort of feel like
Speaker 1: maybe you're not going to see a lot of nature,
Speaker 1: but there's actually a lot of nature all around you
Speaker 1: in New York, which I can attest to. So one
Speaker 1: day he was walking down the street. He was going
Speaker 1: to get strawberries from the market or something, and he
Speaker 1: saw a dead seal at the market and it just
Speaker 1: kind of like his whole life in New York. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it had been swimming in the harbor and somebody killed
Speaker 1: it and which poor seal. But you know, they brought
Speaker 1: it up and they I guess we're trying to sell
Speaker 1: it or something. And so he saw it and he
Speaker 1: was like, I need to know everything about this seal.
Speaker 1: So he was measuring it and he really wanted to
Speaker 1: bring it home with him, which he only imagined what
Speaker 1: people would have thought at his house. But he ended
Speaker 1: up bringing the skull home and then that sort of
Speaker 1: kicked off this obsession with nature, and so he would
Speaker 1: just bring things home living dead. He keep them in
Speaker 1: his room. He had the snapping turtle. Um, I feel
Speaker 1: like there were some squirrels that he raised by hand
Speaker 1: or something. I mean, he was just obsessed with obsessed
Speaker 1: with nature. And it's a funny thing too, because you know,
Speaker 1: I think today we kind of think to ourselves, like, well,
Speaker 1: how could someone who loved nature so much go out
Speaker 1: and hunt like he did? As someone told me, that's
Speaker 1: very like twenty one century attitude. Back in the day,
Speaker 1: there wasn't a difference between being a hunter and a scientist.
Speaker 1: You know, if you wanted to know about animals, if
Speaker 1: you wanted to study them, you kind of had to
Speaker 1: kill them and see what made them work. And so
Speaker 1: he did that a lot. Yeah. So now it's hard
Speaker 1: hard to reconcile those things, right it is now, yeah,
Speaker 1: but not back then. It was just it was it
Speaker 1: was the thing. One thing that I think is is
Speaker 1: interesting that came up in the course of researching this
Speaker 1: is that you know, a lot of hunters of that
Speaker 1: day were the first con revationists because they could see,
Speaker 1: you know, that animal populations were depleting, and so they said,
Speaker 1: you know, we need to take care of these like
Speaker 1: if we want to still be hunting them many years
Speaker 1: in the future, we need to make sure that the
Speaker 1: populations are managed. And so you'll see that, and you'll
Speaker 1: see that today. Like if you are a hunter and
Speaker 1: you pay for a hunting license, a lot of times
Speaker 1: that goes back to conserving animal populations. Protecting animal populations,
Speaker 1: you know, So if you pay for a permit to
Speaker 1: shoot a bear, which makes me sad, but it's a
Speaker 1: thing that happens um that goes back to helping bears.
Speaker 1: So it's one of those things. I'm actually surprised more
Speaker 1: people didn't yell at me about that Nature episode because
Speaker 1: I'm a big believer in scientific collections. Yeah, that's the
Speaker 1: thing that's kind of controversial these days. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: they inspire so much wonder you know, and and just
Speaker 1: being at the museums and stuff. If you couldn't have
Speaker 1: seen all these wonderful taxidermy things, right, Like, it's hard
Speaker 1: to imagine being as interested in at least for me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you know they have in the back rooms and
Speaker 1: museums they have just drawers and drawers filled with specimens.
Speaker 1: We went to see like the Hippo's Hippo skulls, which
Speaker 1: was incredible. They're so cool, They're massive, they're huge. It's like,
Speaker 1: how can you figure out, for example, if mercury levels
Speaker 1: are rising in the world's oceans, Well, you can go
Speaker 1: back and you can look at the feathers of seabirds
Speaker 1: in scientific collections and you can prove that mercury is
Speaker 1: rising in the ocean. If you didn't have those specimens,
Speaker 1: you couldn't make that discovery. So that's kind of important.
Speaker 1: The way that scientists collect today is not like it
Speaker 1: used to be. I mean I feel like, especially for
Speaker 1: t R, he would go out and he would just
Speaker 1: be like, I'm a bag everything I can bag science.
Speaker 1: In high school, I saw Bill Clinton was going to
Speaker 1: Africa and they were contrasting his trip there with like
Speaker 1: Teddy Roosevelts, and it just listed out all animals he
Speaker 1: shot hundreds and hundreds hundreds of animals. Yeah, Yeah, And
Speaker 1: they went to the Museum of Natural History. They went
Speaker 1: to the Smithsonian. There are some like I guess ticks
Speaker 1: that came from those animals or in a collection of
Speaker 1: ticks down in Georgia or something, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I want to go there, but maybe one day. Well.
Speaker 1: The other thing that's interesting to me is that Roosevelt.
Speaker 1: You think of him as such a collector, right, he
Speaker 1: has this like little museum in his house or in
Speaker 1: his room or whatever, and and and he's always contributing
Speaker 1: to things and whatever. Jefferson also kind of had that inclination, right,
Speaker 1: like he collected fossils and whatever. But Roosevelt did not
Speaker 1: like rated him so much, hated him. Well, one, Jefferson
Speaker 1: was a constitutionalist, right, so he really believed, at least
Speaker 1: my understanding of it is he believed that the president's
Speaker 1: powers were limited to what was written specifically in the Constitution.
Speaker 1: And I think he kind of bent the rules a
Speaker 1: little bit for the Louisiana purchase, but otherwise it was
Speaker 1: basically like, the Constitution is what it is. And tr
Speaker 1: was was a Hamiltonian and he sort of thought, well,
Speaker 1: you know, if it's not expressly forbidden by law or
Speaker 1: the Constitution, I can kind of do what I want,
Speaker 1: and he did so I think it has something to
Speaker 1: do with that. He also had an issue with the
Speaker 1: way that Jefferson dealt with George Washington, or like tried
Speaker 1: to undermine George Washington, and Washington tr held up to
Speaker 1: a pretty high He put him on a pedestal um
Speaker 1: not as high as the pedestal who put Lincoln on,
Speaker 1: but you know, he thought Washington was pretty great. Well
Speaker 1: that that was a funny line in your show. Was
Speaker 1: was talking about how, you know, he loved Lincoln but
Speaker 1: less enamored with his neighbor Jefferson. Jefferson hated Jefferson so much.
Speaker 1: And what's so funny is that it's Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt's
Speaker 1: long Island of State. There is a portrait of Jefferson
Speaker 1: hanging I think like on the second or third floor.
Speaker 1: And as we were touring it, I said to Tyler Caliberta,
Speaker 1: who's the education technician. They're like, what's what's this doing here?
Speaker 1: And he goes, you know, I have no idea. That's
Speaker 1: really funny. They just needed some things. I know, I know,
Speaker 1: it's like somebody's fooling around here. Somebody's playing a little trick.
Speaker 1: That's pretty funny. So tell me about his obsession with Lincoln,
Speaker 1: because it starts when he's pretty young, right, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: so his father actually worked with Lincoln. I get so
Speaker 1: confused about the times, but like the fact that he,
Speaker 1: like his he kind of interacts with Lincoln because the
Speaker 1: lack of hero in someway. Right. But but but also like,
Speaker 1: doesn't he have like a Doctor Seuss incident as well?
Speaker 1: I feel like he does. Yeah, is so strange in
Speaker 1: terms of how far it expands. And basically it's like
Speaker 1: if something crazy happened in the time when Theodore Roosevelt
Speaker 1: was alive, Theodore Roosevelt was basically there or involved in
Speaker 1: some way, but start with the start with Lincoln. Lincoln,
Speaker 1: so his father worked with Lincoln on this program that
Speaker 1: would okay, well, let me back up. So Theodore Roosevelt's
Speaker 1: father did not go to war, didn't sign up for
Speaker 1: the Civil War. He paid someone to go in his place.
Speaker 1: And that is because or at least partially because well, yes,
Speaker 1: but not really. I think he probably still would have
Speaker 1: gone except that his wife was a Southerner and her
Speaker 1: brothers were fighting in the war, and she could not
Speaker 1: bear the idea of her husband potentially fighting her brothers.
Speaker 1: And I think she also did a little bit of
Speaker 1: the guilt trip, like, um, you know, if you died,
Speaker 1: I've got all these kids, and like, please don't go
Speaker 1: to war. Um. So he didn't. He paid someone to
Speaker 1: go in his place. You know, there was probably a
Speaker 1: little bit of guilt there. And so what he ended
Speaker 1: up doing was working with the Lincoln administration to create
Speaker 1: this program that would allow soldiers to send money home
Speaker 1: to their families. And so he actually traveled a lot
Speaker 1: during the war um signing soldiers up for that program.
Speaker 1: So he wasn't home a lot, and when he wasn't home,
Speaker 1: t R's health took a nose dive. There's just a
Speaker 1: whole other thing. So he worked with Lincoln in that capacity,
Speaker 1: and they even went to church together one time. So
Speaker 1: Big Theodore and Little Theodore both big Union guys, Diddy
Speaker 1: not so much. And her mother and sister were in
Speaker 1: the house as well, So it was like a nation
Speaker 1: divided and the house divided. So it was kind of
Speaker 1: a delicate time. So he really revered Lincoln for that,
Speaker 1: and he also revered Lincoln for keeping the country together
Speaker 1: in a time of great strife, and so his when
Speaker 1: he was sworn in for the first time he was elected,
Speaker 1: so he assented to the presidency when McKinley was assassinated,
Speaker 1: but then when he was elected of his own right,
Speaker 1: his secretary of State John Hay, gave him a ring
Speaker 1: with Lincoln's hair in it. And John Hay had been
Speaker 1: lincoln secretary of State as well, and so he kept
Speaker 1: that his whole life, and it's at Sagamore Hill, along
Speaker 1: with a portrait of Lincoln that's basically looking down at
Speaker 1: his desk. So he really loved Lincoln. He thought he
Speaker 1: was like the perfect person. It is interesting to me
Speaker 1: that Teddy Roosevelt not only took his presidency so seriously right,
Speaker 1: like he'd never take a photo of himself in tennis white,
Speaker 1: all these things. But can you talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about how he and Taft how to falling out because
Speaker 1: they were really good friends, right, Yes, they were extremely
Speaker 1: good friends, very very close, and actually Taft was TR's
Speaker 1: hand picked successor to the presidency, and so as soon
Speaker 1: as they decided like Taft is going to be the guy,
Speaker 1: Taft didn't even wanted. Taft wanted to be a Supreme
Speaker 1: Court justice, and it would have been cool with that.
Speaker 1: But his wife was really ambitious and she was like,
Speaker 1: you have to be president and was like fine, which
Speaker 1: is kind of indicative of how Taft was with everything right.
Speaker 1: He kind of let himself be bullied or pushed into things.
Speaker 1: And so the minute that tr decided this is going
Speaker 1: to be the guy, he starts sort of coaching him,
Speaker 1: you know, like, don't let people see you golfing. It's
Speaker 1: bad form. You know, I don't let people take a
Speaker 1: photo of me and my tennis whites. And that's one
Speaker 1: of the things that makes him a modern president was
Speaker 1: that he cared very much about his image and the
Speaker 1: image he projected and how people perceived him. And tafton
Speaker 1: care He just wanted to golf and fish and do
Speaker 1: what he wanted to do. And and so he ascends
Speaker 1: to the presidency or he's elected president, Tire goes off
Speaker 1: to hunt in Africa for a year and he comes
Speaker 1: back and Taft is sending him these letters where he's
Speaker 1: basically whining about how he can't get anything done and
Speaker 1: he can't lose weight, and you know, Teddy, come visit me,
Speaker 1: and tr is like, no, I don't think it's it's
Speaker 1: a good idea. For you know, a former president to
Speaker 1: come down, you know, a visit a current president or whatever.
Speaker 1: He was like, it's just unseemly. But I guess the
Speaker 1: real falling out and there are people debate about why
Speaker 1: it happened, but the people that the experts that I
Speaker 1: spoke with, one of them at least thought that it
Speaker 1: was the firing of Gifford pin Show, who had been
Speaker 1: trs chief of forestry. That was the break. And then
Speaker 1: there were also issues with U S Steel and Taft
Speaker 1: went after US Steel, which is a merger that Tier
Speaker 1: had approved, and it was just like a whole mess,
Speaker 1: and then they were just at each other's throats for
Speaker 1: the rest of TR's life. Basically. I feel like there
Speaker 1: was one time when they ran into each other somewhere
Speaker 1: and they like shook hands and kind of put on
Speaker 1: a show, but they were never close again after that.
Speaker 1: That's kind of crazy. Yeah, And I remember from the
Speaker 1: show some of the like curses and banter they had
Speaker 1: for each other was kind of awful. I mean awful,
Speaker 1: but also awesome. It's like this old fangle, like there's
Speaker 1: nobody who's better at crafting an insult in Theodore Roosevelt
Speaker 1: and you know Taft got some good ones. He called
Speaker 1: him a puzzle wit and a fat head and brains
Speaker 1: less than a guinea pig. And I mean he would
Speaker 1: know because his children had so many guinea pigs. But
Speaker 1: you know, his favorite or my favorite insult of his
Speaker 1: is he called William Jennings Bryan a professional yodeler, a
Speaker 1: human trombone, which is like human trumpones. Pretty great human trombone.
Speaker 1: It's so good. So you know, I just look for
Speaker 1: excuses to use that all the time. There's so much
Speaker 1: good stuff there. We need to pause more with Aaron
Speaker 1: after this break. So we're here with Aaron McCarthy of
Speaker 1: Mental Fluss talking about Teddy Roosevelt. So I I do
Speaker 1: want to talk about I'm sure you get asked about
Speaker 1: the story all the time, the one about the bear.
Speaker 1: But but the thing I didn't realize was in the
Speaker 1: chronology what had happened right before? Right, okay, can you
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about that theater Roosevelt went on
Speaker 1: this bear hunt and it was partially two sort of
Speaker 1: smooth feathers over because he had had Booker T. Washington
Speaker 1: over to the White House for dinner, and back then
Speaker 1: it was just really not considered proper to have dinner
Speaker 1: with the black man, because it basically meant that you
Speaker 1: were saying that this black man could marry your daughter.
Speaker 1: Tr just kind of didn't really care about that, or
Speaker 1: he when he went out to send the invitation, he
Speaker 1: was like, he hesitated for a minute, and then he
Speaker 1: was like, no, I gotta send it, Like I can't,
Speaker 1: I'm ashamed. I can't believe I hesitated. So he sends it.
Speaker 1: Book or t Washington comes for dinner. He has dinner
Speaker 1: with the whole Roosevelt family, and it's like a working
Speaker 1: dinner too, but you know, the kids are there and
Speaker 1: and Edith is there, Tier's wife. And then the next
Speaker 1: day someone put it in the paper and it was
Speaker 1: just chaos. Chaos. I was gonna I was going to
Speaker 1: use an expletive, but I was like, what's the word
Speaker 1: that doesn't have an explutive in it. Yeah, it's pretty bad.
Speaker 1: And actually it never died down, really, I mean people
Speaker 1: kept bringing it up and bringing it up and bring
Speaker 1: it up long after tr was out of office, basically
Speaker 1: up until the day he died. Did he feel like
Speaker 1: he'd made a mistake or how did he know? He
Speaker 1: was just comfortable with that. Um, he never talked about
Speaker 1: it again, and he never invited book Or to Washington
Speaker 1: to dinner ever again. So but you know, afterwards, he
Speaker 1: sent a letter that was basically like, I don't understand
Speaker 1: why everyone is so upset, and you know, I'll have
Speaker 1: him back to dinner anytime I want. And then he
Speaker 1: just never did because I think he realized that politically
Speaker 1: it was a little bit of a risky move. Um.
Speaker 1: And he was always very attuned to his image. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I mean, I I don't know if he cared
Speaker 1: so much about his image. Like he was very um progressive,
Speaker 1: you know, like he fought against segregation in New York
Speaker 1: when he was governor, and he certainly appointed a few
Speaker 1: African Americans to prominent positions. But you know, it just
Speaker 1: became such a thing that I think he was kind
Speaker 1: of like, and then I'm sure it's slowed policy and yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know he then had to go smooth feathers
Speaker 1: is that a phrase? I think? So making things up,
Speaker 1: you know, So he went down there to to try
Speaker 1: to make amends a little bit. Um. So he goes
Speaker 1: down to Mississippi. He goes down to Mississippi on a
Speaker 1: bear hunt and they're led by this legendary bear hunter
Speaker 1: who supposedly has killed thousands of bears. It's probably more
Speaker 1: like a few hundred, but thousands of bears. Apparently. Tire
Speaker 1: from the start was like, this is bad news because
Speaker 1: there are million people with us, and you know, this
Speaker 1: isn't really a bear hunt. His perception of hunting was,
Speaker 1: you know, you go out with a few dogs, or
Speaker 1: you go out on your own, and and you know,
Speaker 1: you do it that way. But there were a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of people with them, and so he was like,
Speaker 1: not my version of it, but he went ahead and
Speaker 1: did anyway. He was at the invitation of the governor
Speaker 1: of Mississippi or one of the senators. But so he
Speaker 1: goes down there and he's everybody has shot a bear
Speaker 1: but him. Um. And so he comes back to the
Speaker 1: campsite and they've tied up this this kind of sickly
Speaker 1: bear that has already killed some of the dogs, and
Speaker 1: they're like, here's a bear for you to shoot. And
Speaker 1: here I was like, no, I won't do it. This
Speaker 1: isn't sportsmanlike. And so that's that's where the teddy bear
Speaker 1: comes from. Someone uh from a toy company came to
Speaker 1: him and said, can we use your name for this
Speaker 1: teddy bear? And he said sure, okay um, and then
Speaker 1: it became a thing. But I think what most people
Speaker 1: don't necessarily realize is that it's not like they let
Speaker 1: the bear go. Somebody else killed it with a knife.
Speaker 1: Oh god, So I know. It's like. So I want
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about his family because I'm
Speaker 1: kind of fascinated by his sister Baby and and how
Speaker 1: he relied on her. Talk a little bit about that. Basically,
Speaker 1: any time he had a big decision to make, he
Speaker 1: would bounce it off of her, which is wild, you know,
Speaker 1: because he's the president and that was not really something
Speaker 1: that was done at that time. But she was very
Speaker 1: involved in his political career. She was always writing letters
Speaker 1: for him and sort of making connections for him. And
Speaker 1: I think his sister Karin also helped, but to a
Speaker 1: lesser extent because Baby was down in Washington, and uh,
Speaker 1: he just relied on her and her judgment a lot,
Speaker 1: which was rare for that time. Yeah. I think in
Speaker 1: the show, you said he referred to her as like
Speaker 1: the second White House, her house, the second White House,
Speaker 1: which is crazy. Well, I want to hear just a
Speaker 1: few of the like fun stories that maybe you haven't
Speaker 1: gotten to talk about on the show. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: there's so much. Okay, so we've kind of discussed a
Speaker 1: little bit about how the Roosevelts had this insane menagerie
Speaker 1: of pets. So Emily Spinach obviously was Alice's pet garter
Speaker 1: snake that she would carry around in her purse. Yeah, loves.
Speaker 1: But my absolute favorite story about their pets is they
Speaker 1: had a bear, a small black bear named Jonathan Edwards.
Speaker 1: The kids named it Jonathan Edwards because of its calvinistic tendencies,
Speaker 1: but then also I guess Edith was somehow related to
Speaker 1: Jonathan Edwards. But they used to take it for walks.
Speaker 1: They had like a leash, it was a chain basically,
Speaker 1: and they would walk it with a club, which is yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it would get out of hand,
Speaker 1: you know, And I could see it getting out of
Speaker 1: hand pretty quickly. And eventually they gave it to the
Speaker 1: Bronx Zoo. And when they did, tr was like the
Speaker 1: whole household breathed a sigh of relief, except for the dogs,
Speaker 1: because the dogs love to chase it um and it
Speaker 1: would give them the thrill of the hunt. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean they had so many, so many pets. He
Speaker 1: got a hyena which he named Bill from some diplomat.
Speaker 1: They had a hyena for a little while. Um, so
Speaker 1: lion cubs, a zebra. They had lion cubs. They had
Speaker 1: lion cubs for a little bit. It's crazy. A pig
Speaker 1: named Maud. I know. The names are incredible, really good names.
Speaker 1: They had a badger named Josiah, which was a gift
Speaker 1: from from a little girl who named it after her brother.
Speaker 1: And they would just carry this badger around and then
Speaker 1: all the guinea pigs who had names like father O'Grady.
Speaker 1: They were really really good at naming animals. And I
Speaker 1: feel like if anybody out there needs an animal name,
Speaker 1: just look up what tr named his pets and go
Speaker 1: with it, because they were really good at naming animals.
Speaker 1: So that's one story. It's funny. I um, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I told you this or not, but my
Speaker 1: my granddad was one of the heads of forestry in
Speaker 1: India and and he uh had a similar not entirely similar,
Speaker 1: but but also ended up shooting animals because um, yeah
Speaker 1: you do in the jungles but but but also, um,
Speaker 1: there was a bear that couldn't give milk and was
Speaker 1: shot my grandfather. But they found um because it was
Speaker 1: attacking like villagers or something, and they found the three cubs,
Speaker 1: and so my granddad brought him home. And so my
Speaker 1: mom has no fear of animals because she had like
Speaker 1: a pet bear like as a kid. They didn't have
Speaker 1: a club to Oh my god, I can't imagine, Like
Speaker 1: cats are about as wild as I can get. It
Speaker 1: just seems a little intense. One of the things I
Speaker 1: had no idea about until I heard your podcast was
Speaker 1: um that Roosevelt lived in North Dakota for a while,
Speaker 1: So why why does he end up there? Yeah, so
Speaker 1: he I believe in eighteen eight three he went out
Speaker 1: to the Dakotas to go hunting for bison. So he
Speaker 1: basically had a list of big game animals he wanted
Speaker 1: to hunt and get you yeah, yolo, And so he
Speaker 1: went out to the Dakotas to hunt bison and he
Speaker 1: gets one. But while he's out there, he is staying
Speaker 1: with these cattle ranchers and so he's having discussions with
Speaker 1: them and uh, and he decides he's going to invest
Speaker 1: in a cattle ranch pretty impulsively, because what does he
Speaker 1: know about cattle ranching, literally nothing, but he's like, whatever,
Speaker 1: I'll just throw some money at this and uh and
Speaker 1: become an investor. So he's he gets this cattle ranch
Speaker 1: and then um four, his wife and his mother died
Speaker 1: on the same day, which was horribly traumatic, as you
Speaker 1: might imagine his first wife, Alice, who is Alice's mother.
Speaker 1: And so he goes back to the New York State
Speaker 1: Assembly and he's got He's kind of like a rough
Speaker 1: last term because the Mugwumps, which was a faction um
Speaker 1: of the Republican Party, wanted him to support the Democratic
Speaker 1: nominee for governor and not the Republican nominee for governor
Speaker 1: because the Republican nominee was super corrupt, and tr made
Speaker 1: some comment that ended up getting out into the press
Speaker 1: and it was like a whole big mess. And so
Speaker 1: after his term was done, he was like, this isn't
Speaker 1: for me. I'm going to move to the Dakotas and
Speaker 1: become a cattle rancher. And so he just like up
Speaker 1: and moved to the Dakotas. He bought another ranch that
Speaker 1: was more solitary. He The first ranch he invested in
Speaker 1: was called the Maltese cross ranch, and it was sort
Speaker 1: of on a thoroughfare out of town. I mean as
Speaker 1: much as a thoroughfare as you can have in the
Speaker 1: Dakotas at that time, but you know, it was pretty
Speaker 1: People would come by, and you know, he was like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk to anybody, you know, I
Speaker 1: kind of just want to be by myself. And so
Speaker 1: he heard about this other parcel of land that was
Speaker 1: thirty five miles away from Medoro, which was near where
Speaker 1: his other cabin was, and so he bought the rights
Speaker 1: to that land for four d bucks, built cabin out there,
Speaker 1: and he lived out there off and on for a
Speaker 1: few years. He was never like fully fully out there,
Speaker 1: but he didn't tend to go out there and stay
Speaker 1: there permanently. It just didn't work out that way because
Speaker 1: people were still pulling him back to New York. You know.
Speaker 1: Like when he moved to the Dakotas, he left his
Speaker 1: daughter Alice with his sister baby, and so he would
Speaker 1: go back to see her and sort of take part
Speaker 1: in political things. And then he met or reconnected with
Speaker 1: his childhood sweetheart, Edith ker mccarrowe, who would become a
Speaker 1: second wife. And so he was back and forth a lot,
Speaker 1: So he didn't move out there permanently, but he was
Speaker 1: out there for quite some time. And I think one
Speaker 1: of the funniest stories he bought this buckskin suit, fringed
Speaker 1: buckskin suit, and uh, you know, I mean his thinking was, oh,
Speaker 1: it's it's really soft and comfortable, and you know, you
Speaker 1: can wear it and move through the brush and it's
Speaker 1: really quiet. But people in the Dakotas didn't really wear
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. And so he shows up in
Speaker 1: this in this get up, pretending to be a cowboy basically,
Speaker 1: and they're like, this dude from New York. And he
Speaker 1: also had glasses, which at that time people took us
Speaker 1: a sign of weakness that they would pick on him
Speaker 1: and then he would just pop him right in the
Speaker 1: face and they would realize, like, oh, well, I shouldn't
Speaker 1: have done that. And he was like a boss man
Speaker 1: out there, And so he was never quite I think
Speaker 1: the cowboy that he portray raid himself to be. But
Speaker 1: he also wasn't a person who was afraid to get dirty.
Speaker 1: So he would spend thirteen hours out in the saddle
Speaker 1: with the rest of his men um and work really hard,
Speaker 1: just like just like you know, the men, so they
Speaker 1: really respected him. They came to respect him, not at first,
Speaker 1: but eventually. That's all the questions I had is like
Speaker 1: where does he feel most comfortable? Because he's obviously like
Speaker 1: he grows up with well, he goes to an idlie school,
Speaker 1: he's in the army, he's like, you know, like he's
Speaker 1: in so many different scenes, Like where is he most
Speaker 1: at home? I mean, I think he always felt the
Speaker 1: most at home in nature. You kind of see a
Speaker 1: pattern when any tragedy occurs in his life where he
Speaker 1: works himself to the point of exhaustion, I think, basically
Speaker 1: trying to keep himself from thinking, and then he just
Speaker 1: goes and he retreats to nature and that kind of
Speaker 1: heals him after every major death in his life. That's
Speaker 1: the pattern he follows. So I think he always felt
Speaker 1: most at home, you know, when he was like in
Speaker 1: the dirt and the mud, you know, doing some kind
Speaker 1: of physical activity. One of the questions gave throughout to
Speaker 1: me is, uh, he wanted to know is it true
Speaker 1: that tr once climbed the matter horn out of spite?
Speaker 1: So what was that? I saw the question. I was like, what, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So on his first honeymoon, tr heard some British climbers
Speaker 1: in the lobby of the hotel he was staying in,
Speaker 1: basically like bragging about it. And so he just decided
Speaker 1: that he was going to summit the matter Horn to
Speaker 1: show them that he could climb just as well as
Speaker 1: any brit could. And he did it. And the matter
Speaker 1: Horn is like, is like a really difficult like many
Speaker 1: people have died. Um. And of course he had guides,
Speaker 1: but he was pretty much an amateur and he was
Speaker 1: just like, I'm doing it exactly. And you know what's
Speaker 1: wild is that he was still having asthma attacks at
Speaker 1: this time. I mean, he he kind of created this
Speaker 1: this myth that he defeated his asthma, which is not true. Um.
Speaker 1: He suffered from asthma for the rest of his life,
Speaker 1: for his whole life. But you know, he basically was
Speaker 1: just like, I'm not going to let this stop me.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to show that I'm weak. Just the
Speaker 1: stories of his physical exertion make me It's inspiring and
Speaker 1: also exhausting. He would go to Maine and just like
Speaker 1: climb mountains and moccasins when he lost his boot in
Speaker 1: a stream, which is like not not an easy thing
Speaker 1: to do. You know, or they he'd hunt caribou for
Speaker 1: thirty six miles in the snow with just like a blanket.
Speaker 1: He was a crazy guy. Yeah, it's crazy. Well. One
Speaker 1: of the things I always hear Um Jorge Kurrn's Goodwin
Speaker 1: and say about him is that like he wanted to
Speaker 1: be the baby at every you know, frisks or whatever,
Speaker 1: and um, you know, I feel like he's always the
Speaker 1: center of attention. How did he fair with being president
Speaker 1: and then not being president? Oh? Not well, not well
Speaker 1: at all. One of the experts that I spoke with,
Speaker 1: Clay Jenkinson, who's the founder of the theater Roosevelt Center,
Speaker 1: was basically, just like after he left the presidency, he
Speaker 1: was the most unpleasant guy because he just he felt
Speaker 1: like he should be the guy. What happened was in
Speaker 1: his second term, early on he said, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to run for re election for a third term because
Speaker 1: people will be tired of me and you know, two
Speaker 1: terms is enough. And uh, it's like a very stupid
Speaker 1: thing to do. Um because people loved him, um, and
Speaker 1: he could have had a third term, but instead, you know,
Speaker 1: he said early on that he wasn't going to run again,
Speaker 1: and so at the end of it. He was like, nope,
Speaker 1: I said, I wasn't gonna run again. I'm done. And
Speaker 1: then you know, Taft kind of didn't keep up his
Speaker 1: reforms in conservation. He went after us Steel. I think
Speaker 1: he also sort of apologized to the Colombian government for
Speaker 1: helping Panama pull off a coup so that the Panama
Speaker 1: Canal could happen. He was just furious, furious, and he
Speaker 1: really hated Woodrow Wilson like so much. His entrance into
Speaker 1: the presidential race is what led to Woodrow Wilson becoming president.
Speaker 1: And then he just hated Woodrow Wilson for being a pacifist.
Speaker 1: So you know, he just was was bitter, bitter, so bitter,
Speaker 1: so mad. He just really wanted to be president. You know,
Speaker 1: he always thought that he could do a better job,
Speaker 1: and I mean maybe he could have. Yeah, well, I
Speaker 1: I liked that you refer in one of your shows
Speaker 1: to his political style as big stick energy, which I
Speaker 1: thought was really funny T shirt. I can't take credit
Speaker 1: for that. My researcher, Michael Salguerollo came up with that
Speaker 1: and he was like, please use that, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna thanks Michael. He wins a Nobel along the way, right. Yes,
Speaker 1: he was the first American to win a Nobel prize
Speaker 1: of any kind um and it was partly for his
Speaker 1: mediation between the Japanese and the Russians during the Russo
Speaker 1: Japanese War, which some people called World War zero because
Speaker 1: it was like an early mechanized war and they were
Speaker 1: killing each other in huge numbers. It had the potential
Speaker 1: to really sort of unsettle things in the Pacific, and
Speaker 1: so he stepped in and was sort of a neutral
Speaker 1: media or sort of not. There's this one great scene
Speaker 1: where he calls the Russian diplomat over to Sagamore Hill
Speaker 1: to tell him how he thinks he shouldn't negotiate, and
Speaker 1: he's playing tennis, and he doesn't stop playing tennis while
Speaker 1: he's talking to this Russian diplomat, you know, like in
Speaker 1: breaks from the game. He comes over and he says, well,
Speaker 1: here's what I think you should do, Here's what I'd recommend,
Speaker 1: and then he goes back to play some of my tennis,
Speaker 1: and then he comes back and this went on for
Speaker 1: like ninety minutes. I can have to imagine what the
Speaker 1: Russian diplomat was thinking. He was like this guy's crazy.
Speaker 1: That's amazing, but you know that was that was his style.
Speaker 1: So I do want to hear do you know anything
Speaker 1: about that doctor who's stories? I do so. I can't
Speaker 1: remember the exact date. I feel like it was eight.
Speaker 1: But Theodore Roosevelt went to this small town um where
Speaker 1: he was going to hand out awards to boy scouts
Speaker 1: who had sold a thousand dollars worth of war bonds,
Speaker 1: and Theodore guys all like a Dr SEUs, who was
Speaker 1: one of those boys. All the boys are standing up
Speaker 1: on stage. There are ten of them. Tier only has
Speaker 1: nine medals. Um, somebody messed up, and so you know,
Speaker 1: he's pinning medals on the lapels of all these kids.
Speaker 1: And he gets to theater guys all he doesn't have
Speaker 1: a metal and he says, what's this boy doing here?
Speaker 1: The boy Scouts master, which didn't say anything. He just
Speaker 1: like ran guys all off stage. And then apparently that
Speaker 1: gave Dr Seuss stage fright for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1: That's incredible, you know, and horrifying. Yeah, I mean, like
Speaker 1: it makes sense. It would be so humiliating. And you
Speaker 1: know it wasn't his fault, wasn't t R's fault. It
Speaker 1: was just just a thing that happened, and uh, and
Speaker 1: there were there were implications. So tell me, have you
Speaker 1: been inspired by Teddy Roosevelt to change your life in
Speaker 1: anyway or have you taken any sort of inspiration from
Speaker 1: all these stories? I really want to try to be
Speaker 1: more productive and sort of block out my time. Like
Speaker 1: I'm a big believer in a to do list. But
Speaker 1: apparently that's not enough. That doesn't help you be productive enough.
Speaker 1: So I think I'm going to start blocking out my time,
Speaker 1: um and seeing how how that goes. Or maybe I'll
Speaker 1: take up Judo. We'll see. I like that. But no
Speaker 1: carrying a badger around or no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 1: I mean my cats They're about all I can handle.
Speaker 1: I mean, Pearl kind of looks like a badger, so
Speaker 1: Pearl Wolfe looks like a badger. So adorable cats. So
Speaker 1: tell everyone where they can find the show and and
Speaker 1: what episode they should start with. Well, I mean, I
Speaker 1: personally think you should start from tr versus Weakness, which
Speaker 1: is the first one because it kind of lays the
Speaker 1: groundwork for everything that comes next. But um, in terms
Speaker 1: of my favorite tier, versus time is a big one. Um,
Speaker 1: I like tr versus Language just because it gets into
Speaker 1: the whole simplified spelling Tobaccle, which is one of my
Speaker 1: favorite stories of all time. Tier versus Corruption is really
Speaker 1: fun because I think you get a really good sense
Speaker 1: of the unusual style he used to take on corruption.
Speaker 1: They're all kind of close to my heart, to be honest,
Speaker 1: And it's crazy everything he's involved in, from like everything football,
Speaker 1: and I mean, like there's so much we couldn't even
Speaker 1: get into, you know, like I could go forever. But
Speaker 1: you know, every time I said, like let's add an episode,
Speaker 1: no no, no, no, no, Laon were like, Aaron, you're
Speaker 1: crazy stuff. Tear versus Nature is really I don't know.
Speaker 1: They're all fun. They're all fun in their own ways.
Speaker 1: And I mean I think, what's yeah, I can't make
Speaker 1: you choose, but you know, I think what's what's good
Speaker 1: about this is that, you know, you read the biographies
Speaker 1: about t R and everybody kind of focuses on the
Speaker 1: thing that they want to focus on. Doing a podcast
Speaker 1: like this in this format has kind of allowed us
Speaker 1: to drop in and out of his life, to feature
Speaker 1: different things, and I think it's actually allowed us to
Speaker 1: get into some of the not so great stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: and explore that in a way that I hope is
Speaker 1: enlightening and thoughtful. So you know, we'll see people respond.
Speaker 1: It's a really excellent series and and and really really fun.
Speaker 1: And uh, you can get history Versus from Mental Flass
Speaker 1: everywhere from My Heart to Spotify, the Stitcher to wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcast. But what's next for the series.
Speaker 1: So we are looking at an explorer for the second season.
Speaker 1: I don't want to say who, don't want to spoil it,
Speaker 1: but not the explorer you're probably thinking of. So that's fun.
Speaker 1: And then for the third season, I have an author
Speaker 1: i'd like to feature awesome and we'll see. And there's
Speaker 1: kind of a Theodore Roosevelt connection to all to both
Speaker 1: of those, um I mean of course, I mean yeah,
Speaker 1: like he was involved in literally everything. Oh, Aaron McCarthy,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for being here. That's it for
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius this week. We'll be back next week
Speaker 1: with an episode on Elevators. I think it's going to
Speaker 1: be great, I promise. And in the meantime from Will
Speaker 1: Gabe lolom me, thanks so much for listening. M h h.
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius is a production of I Heart radio.
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