May 1, 2026 • 30 mins
How did a beloved children’s author become an expert on a rare breed of sheep? Which rock star is also an astrophysicist? And what happens when a famous actor becomes a clown, literally? Today, Will and Mango are pulling back the curtain on celebrity side hustles!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:23):
Guess what, Mango, what's that will? So, of course, the
rock band Queen is known for hits like Don't Stop
Me Now and another one Bites the Dust, but their guitarist,
Brian May, is also known for something else. Are you
ready for this? He's a bonafide astro physicist. Mango, an
astro freakin physicist.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
You know, I think I had actually heard that before,
But also I don't know anything beyond that one line,
kind of like, did you know Mick Jagger started at
the London School of Economics, Like yeah, but I don't
know anything beyond that.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yeah, And both of those things are true. But let's
actually let's keep this one about Brian's. Before Queen made
it big, he was in the midst of his doctoral research.
This was at the Imperial College of London and he
was studying something called zodiacal dust, or the zodiacal cloud specifically,
and he was trying to understand how it moved through space.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
So, uh, what is zadiical dust?
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Well, unlike Brian, I'm not an astrophysicist in addition to
my day job. But as far as I understand it,
it's a cloud made up of dust from asteroids and commets.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
So kind of like the cloud of dust that follows
Pigpen around on the peanuts, like a big dust cloud.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
He is one hundred percent like that mango. I'm sure
there's zero difference at all. But you know, Brian was
actually far enough along in his studies that he submitted
his research to his advisor. But in what ended up
being a stroke of luck for music fans, his advisor
was like, you know what, this isn't ready. You need
to go back and do a little bit more work.
And at that point, Queen was starting to take off,
(01:54):
so Brian was just like, no, thanks, I'll do this
band thing instead, and he left his academ program after that.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
You know, you hear about people reaching a crossroads in
their lives, but like that feels so insane, right Like
Option today is like spend years in a lab analyzing
space dust, or Option B is tour the world, playing
in front of millions of screaming.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Fans crazy, right.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
As rewarding his lab work might be. You know, you
can't blame someone for choosing Option.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
B, you know, and they're the band.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Whenever we play the game, which band do you wish
you could have seen touring in their original form and
Creed is always is well, it's always the band that
my wife Georgia picks, but they would be way up
there for me. But anyway, amazing band. So it's a
very very cool, cool story. But here's the cool thing.
He actually kind of managed to have it both ways.
Like he didn't quit his studies completely. He never lost
(02:46):
interest in space and while he was on tour he'd
take other musicians outside and give them little presentations about
the night sky. And May said later that it's a
natural fit. In fact, he said, maybe it's kind of
romantic spirit to make music that's over into curiosity about
the universe. He even composed a Queen B side called
thirty nine, and this was about space travel and the
(03:08):
theory of relativity. But there was that nagging matter of
the doctoral degree that he never earned. And so in
the two thousands, when Queen wasn't super active anymore, May
heard from an old friend. It was the famous UK
astronomer and TV host Patrick Moore who told him he
should go back and finish that PhD. And first May
was skeptical so much time had passed, but then he
(03:30):
started mentioning Moore's idea offhandedly, like in these little interviews,
and word must have gotten around because one day he
gets a call from someone at Imperial College. They invite
him back to the program, picks up his research, and
in two thousand and seven he successfully submits his dissertation.
It was titled a Survey of radial Velocities in the
(03:50):
Zodiacal dust Cloud, which that sounds legit to me, and
so that means he is actually sir doctor Brian May.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Sir doctor, sounds very impressive.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
That's right, sir doctor.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Well, as you might have guessed, today on the show,
we're discovering side hustles of the rich and famous. I
don't mean boring celebrity tequila brands or ho home luxury
fashion deals. I am talking about a philosopher who wrote operas,
a nineteenth century author who created a precursor to Pinterest,
and an iconic musician who is also a childbirth expert.
(04:24):
So let's dive in.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and is always I'm here with my good
friend Mangesh hot Ticketter and over there on the booth
launching his own scuba certification business. I didn't see this
when coming Mango, I didn't guess he'd be doing this.
This is our PALIN producer, Dylan Fagan. Not what I
would have expected from a podcast producer. But I guess
that's kind of the theme of today's episode.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
I think it's because we start every episode by saying,
let's dive in.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
I think, man, I didn't even think about that. You're right.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
So, speaking of which, let's dive in to a side
hustle of one Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain, who, of
course was the author of books like the Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. But what many
people don't know is that he was also an inventor.
He invented an adjustable strapped titaned garments, and a memorization game.
(05:40):
But his most successful invention by far was a scrap book.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
You mean, like an album for keeping photos and newspaper
clippings and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
M hmm, exactly that. So, back in the late eighteen hundreds,
scrap booking was this pretty common practice for anyone who
wanted to collect or archive written material, and this was
something Clemens was really really into. Apparently he'd spend his
sundays collecting clippings of articles he'd written, book reviews, drawings, cartoons, photos, letters,
anything that caught his fancy. The problem was scrap books
(06:14):
that were available at the time just had plain blank pages,
so you had to glue items into them one at
a time, and Clemens was not into it. He got
tired of his blue drying out and ruining his scrap
book sessions. And you know how running out of glue
can totally ruin a sunday for you, right.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
It's the worst.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
In eighteen seventy three, he was tired of his sundays
being ruined and he patented his very own self adhering
scrap book. This is a book that came with a
thin layer of glue pre applied to every single page.
You just dampen the glue one page at a time
and then layer on all your clippings.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
And so were people like into this.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah, it was like super super popular. The book came
in various styles, like different leather or cloth bindings, and
different sizes for all your scrap booking needs. By eighteen
eighty five, Clements had actually made around fifty thousand dollars
from sales of the scrap books, which is the equivalent
of about two million dollars today. To put that in perspective,
(07:14):
he'd earned around two hundred thousand dollars from his writing,
which by that point included Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
So goodness.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Anyway, the scrap booking thing had taken off. But there
was just one problem. The scrap books turned out to
be terrible for preservation. If unused ADISA got wet or
exposed to humidity, the pages would actually stick together and
they would ruin whatever was on them. So eventually other
people developed better scrap book technology, but Clemens version actually
(07:42):
was kind of the most popular one for about thirty years.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Oh that's wild. I was actually looking the other day.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
I like, it really is wild how you can now
make virtual scrap books just on your phone. These days,
kids can just be so lazy about it, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Yeah, I mean I guess a lot of people still
do it the old fashioned way, which people find satisfying
for some reason, just arranging pieces of paper and photos
on a page. And maybe that's just because so many
aspects of our life are virtual today. Speaking of which
will we are so lucky because today's episode of Part
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Speaker 3 (10:48):
God, I'm so.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Glad that rickshaw driver finally drove you home, or you'd
still be stuck in India.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah, I definitely would anyway.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
All right, So to our side hustles for our next fact,
we're traveling back to eighteenth century Europe, where Enlightenment era
writers and philosophers were busily debating hot topics at the time.
We're talking topics like political theory, individuality, you know, the
role of religion and society. And one of the leading
philosophers involved in all of this was the guy we
(11:17):
remember from our high school philosophy class, Jean Jacques Rousseau. Now,
he wrote several influential books that you probably haven't read
but may remember reading about. Examples would be discourse on
the origin of inequality and of course the Social Contract.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah you know me, well, I have not read those.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Well, his books are considered classics in Western philosophy. But
Russo actually liked to present himself professionally, not as a
writer or even a philosopher, but as a music copyist,
which is exactly what it sounds. He got paid to
copy sheet music, and believe it or not, it's still
a job. Although these days music copyists use software to
prepare sheet music for individual instrument It is based on
(12:01):
a composer's master score. Now, back in Rousseau's day, of course,
this was all done by hand, so it was incredibly
time consuming and very exacting work, which I guess is
also a true philosophy, right, that's very true. But you know,
Rousseau's love of music went well beyond copying other people's scores.
In seventeen fifty two, he wrote his own one act opera.
(12:22):
It was called The Village Soothsayer. It's about a young
couple who run into a series of problems when they
each think the other is being unfaithful, so they have
to consult the you guessed it, Village Soothsayer to clear
things up. And Rousseau wrote the libretto and composed the music,
which wasn't very common then. In fact, sourtss say he
was the first person potentially to have done this.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
That is so crazy and what a weird detail. So
was this opera a hit?
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Yeah, well, I mean it's not considered a masterpiece today,
but it was one of the most popular operas of
the time. I was first performed in the court of
King Louis the fifteenth, who liked it so much that
the next day he's posedly wandered around singing one of
the arias, of course, very off key, and the opera
was even performed at his grandson's wedding in seventeen seventy.
(13:09):
The grandson was the future Louis the sixteenth, whose wife
Marie Antoinette, is another huge fan of Rousseau's opera. Later,
she even played at Heroin in a private performance for
friends and her own one hundred and twenty seat theater
at Versailles.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
That is so funny. I had no idea. Well, I'm
glad you mentioned Mary Antoinette because there's actually a nice
little thread here, because we're going from let the meat
cake to someone who loved to make cakes, and that
is Emily Dickinson. Now, Dickinson was famously an introvert, even reclusive,
but aside from being a star on the page. The
(13:44):
other place she felt very comfortable was in the kitchen.
She'd often send cakes and breads to her friends and
her family. She was also known to lower baskets of
treats from an upstairs window down to the neighborhood kids,
who apparently were big fans of her gingerbread. But what
is also cool is that Dickinson would use the backs
of her recipes and cake wrappers to draft her poems.
(14:06):
For example, a draft of The Things That Can Never
Come Back was written on the back of a coconut
cake recipe.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
You know, I got another fun fact, Mango. It's that
I love coconut cake. So we're gonna we're gonna do
We're doing ten facts in this episode. I I love
coconut cake.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Well I am so so on it, but I'm glad
you like it. If you want to make Dickinson's cake,
you can actually find the recipe online and it looks
pretty good, especially when you compare it to her black cake,
which is an age fruitcake that involves nineteen eggs, five
pounds of raisins, two pounds of butter, and a half
pint of brandy. When this thing was done. It weighed
(14:46):
more than twenty pounds. It was like an oven roaster.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Wow, tell me she wasn't lowering that down in a
basket like It feels like you'd get in trouble if
you bunk a kin on the head with something like that.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Yeah, I mean, apparently it was a special occasion cake,
but it's still being made today. Since twenty fifteen, a
team at Harvard's Houghton Library, which has the world's largest
Dickinson archive, has been making the black cake in honor
of her birthday. It's pretty fitting because during her lifetime,
Dickinson was better known as a baker than a writer.
In her obituary, her sister in law wrote that though
(15:19):
few people knew Emily personally, quote, there are many homes
into which her dainty treasures of fruit and flowers and
almost ambrosial dishes for the sick and well were constantly sent.
That will forever miss those dainty traces of her unselfish devotion.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
That's actually really sweet.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
All right, we have to take a quick break, but
when we come back, I'm going to tell you all
about an actor who's a real clown, I believe it
or not. Actually mean that as a compliment, So don't
go anywhere.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're counting down
nine side hustles of the rich and famous and one
fact about Will and coconut cake. Before the break, you
said you were going to tell us about an actor
who's a clown, and you know, I know people hate clowns.
They think they're terrifying. I kind of don't have an
opinion on this, Like I remembering they were fun and
(16:23):
silly as a kid. I kind of want to hold
onto that feeling. And I don't really like watch horror
movies or things about serial killers, which I guess is
where some of that fear comes from. But I'm curious
about you, Will. Do you have a big fear of clowns.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
I don't have a fear of clowns, and I used
to not really have strong feelings about them, but you
know what, it kind of changed for me. It's sort
of like people who get super into like cosplay or
something like that. While it's not something that I'm into,
I actually really love that people love to do it,
you know, like it's just kind of fun to watch
(17:00):
people who get so passionate about a thing. And I
feel like most of the time, people that really get
into the clown thing, like to want to be a clown,
are doing it because maybe for some reason, like since
they were a kid, they always wanted to do that,
or at least that's what I assume.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
So yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
I'm kind of a fan of the fact that they exist.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Yeah, I mean I feel like like people who want
to be clowns, like want to make kids happy in
hospitals and stuff like that is how I think about it.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
But yeah, exactly, I don't want one in my house,
but yeah, I love that they exist. So anyway, one
person who really loves clowns is the actor David R.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Quett.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
When that seems no surprise, it feels on brand for him,
but he was a huge Boso the Clown fan as
a kid. He'd run around pretending to be Boso the
way other kids might pretend to be Spider Man or
some other superhero. And recently he made it official he
is Boso the Clown. Like, officially Boso the Clown.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
What does that mean exactly, Well.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
You buy the rights to the character.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
It took him about fifteen years of togoiations, but in
twenty twenty one, Arquette became the owner of Bozo the Clown,
which means not only can he sell or make a
movie about him, but Arquette can play Bozo himself, which
he does and to make sure he's doing the character justice,
he even studied with a renowned Russian clown teacher.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
That is incredible, and he spent fifteen years of negotiation.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Yeah, it takes a while, he negotiating a clown thing.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
I didn't realize that was standard. So what does that
mean if anyone else wants to play Boso like, they
have to go through David Arquette.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
I mean, yeah, technically, it's just like any other character
protected by IP law. But what I love about this
story is that Arquette seems really sincere about his motivation.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
It's not a money grab here.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
So when the deal closed, he told the press that
he wanted to use his influence and resources to revive
Boso in popular culture. He said, Boso represents a world
of love, light and laughter, something we can all use
more of right now.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
And he's not wrong about that.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
And in twenty twenty two, for the first time ever,
a black woman stepped into those big red shoes. It
was a performer named Jessica Harrison took on the role
of Joso, the female version of Boza Jo. Soo I
love it Joso. Yeah yeah, okay.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
So our next side hustle involves a Grammy Award winning
musician and fashion icon, Erica Badu, and in addition to
being a truly visionary artist, she is also a certified doula,
which is, of course, someone trained to support parents through childbirth. Yeah,
it's true. Badou has said that she became interested in
(19:36):
the concept after the birth of her oldest son. This
was in nineteen ninety seven. She started out by attending
some friends' births. Then she found out not only was
she good at this, but she found it really fulfilling,
so she pursued formal training and earned her certificate in
two thousand and one. Now, doulas aren't technically medical professionals,
but there's plenty of research showing that their support leads
(19:58):
to better outcomes for parents for newborns.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Mm hm.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
And you know, I don't know that there's ever been
a research study on this detail specifically, but I have
to assume that if ericabi Do is one of the
first people you see when you enter this world, you're
pretty much going to be super cool when you grow up.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Yeah, that feels very scientific and reasonable. Badu said she's
assisted with at least fifty berths by now. Her clients
include Diana Taylor Summer Walker, among many others. But this
is my favorite detail hands down. She calls her doula
service but doula.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Oh yeah, that's why she did it.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
That's amazing. I didn't see that one coming, but it's
so obvious.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
When you see it.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
All right.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Well, another celebrity involved in births, but I have a
very different species is the author Beatrix Potter. She wrote
and illustrated The Tale of Peter Rabbit and so many
other great children's books. But get this, she was also
a sheep breeder. Specifically, she raised Herdwick sheep, which is
a very old breed indigenous to the Lake District in
the north of England. Now, actually, let me pull up
(21:01):
this photo. Isn't this like a super cute sheep?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Oh my gosh, that is so cute And it kind
of looks like it's smiling.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
I know that's just how their mouths are, but it
earned them the nickname the smiley Sheep. Now, more importantly,
These sheep are designed for harsh northern weather, and their
wool is actually so thick and coarse they can survive
being buried in the snow.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
So did Beatrix Potter grow up on a farm? Like
I'm realizing now, I actually don't know much about her life.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
You know, I didn't either, But no, she didn't. She
grew up in London, but her family was from northern
England and they often spent summers there, so she always
felt connected to the region. She bought her first farm
in the Lake District in nineteen oh five and eventually
moved up there and married a local lawyer. She and
her husband bought many more farms over the years, eventually
including sheep farms.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
So threw her hands on work. Learning from local experts.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
She really got to know the Herdwick and that's when
she started to breed them, and after a while her
sheep started to win prizes, so in nineteen forty three
she was even elected the first female president of the
Herdwick Sheep Breeders Association. She unfortunately died a few months
later before she could take office, but her sheep live
on today.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
She left fifteen.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Working farms and more than four thousand acres of land
to England's National Trust with the stipulation that these farmers
continue raising the herdwick. So as a result, many people
credit Potter with saving this hyper local breed.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
That is actually kind of an incredible legacy. So, yeah,
are these farms still raising herdwickes?
Speaker 3 (22:34):
They very much are.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Many of Potter's properties are still working farms, and many
are open to visitors too. So if you want to
see the cutest sheep in the world, just head to
England's Lake District and think of Beatrix Potter.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
As a kid, when I was like two or three,
I used to warn my dad I was so worried
that he would go to work because he'd get caught
by farmer Brown or whatever Peter rabbit was caught from.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
Of course, yeah, that's pretty great.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
So my last fact involves a very different artist, the
surrealist Salvador Dolly. He is best known for his paintings
and slightly less best known for his experiments in fashion, architecture,
and film, but his biggest side quest was book illustrations.
In fact, he illustrated over one hundred books during his lifetime.
Some of the titles are more surprising than others. You've
(23:27):
got Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, don Quixote, Faust, but also
a special edition of the Bible, and Shakespeare's Macbeth, which
I had no idea about.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Yeah, I mean, with the witches and everything, that one
actually seems perfect for the Dolly treatment.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I actually found a New York Times review of Dolly's
illustrated Macbeth, which was published in nineteen forty six. One
drawing is described like this quote. There appears a box
from whose keyhole blood gushes into a bowl, also containing
a dismembered human finger, a skeleton wearing a robe with
a grinning rubbery mouth in the middle, and a woman
(24:05):
part octopus from whose head sprout various kitchen utensils.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
I mean, I have to bet that sounds very Dolly.
I'm not sure if it sounds like McBeth, though, And
unless I'm remembering that play wrong.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
I love that we're more scared of clowns than we
are solved for Dolly.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Yeah, it's true, that's true.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
But the review goes on to say that Dolly's only
loosely resemble Shakespeare's story, that the pictures hint at quote
another and rather darker story, which is kind of fascinating
in its own right. It's like he drew what Macbeth
felt like to him instead of doing the usual thing
where the illustrations present a very faithful depiction of whatever's
(24:49):
described in the text.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
I mean, plus, in this case, the author wasn't alive
to complain, so so Dolly could really let his imagination
run wild here.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah, and if clocks can me out of trees, it
certainly seems like one of Macbeth's witches can be an octopus.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
That is, that is very very true.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
All right, Well, let's wrap up with a classic celebrity
side hustle, which is the restaurant. How many celebrities have
started restaurants. The Wallberg Brothers have Wallburgers. Yeah, good stuff, Right,
you've been to Wallburger's.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
No, I just know it.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Oh, you just like saying it? I get it? All right.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Well, Eminem of course has mom Spaghetti. John bon Jovi
has jbj Soul Kitchen, just to name a few. But
I'd argue that fewer as involved in theirs as the
late great heavyweight boxer Jack Dempsey, who opened his place
simply called Jack Dempsey's in Midtown Manhattan. This was in
nineteen thirty five, he'd retired from the Ring. Of course, now,
(25:46):
Dempsey's served classic mid twentieth century food. You got steak,
liverwear sandwiches, chicken a La King, shrimp cocktail, and something
called Jack's Delight, which the menu described as quote Virginia
ham with eggs and cream.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
I have no idea what that is, but that's what
it was.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
I feel like my arteries are clogging just hearing you
read off these. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
I don't think any of these were low fat, but
it was just a different way of eating back then.
But the food must have been okay because the restaurant
stayed open for almost forty years.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Dempsey was a fixture there. He would be.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Hanging out, signing autographs, chatting with the patrons. And it
seems that one of the things he was proudest of
after all those boxing titles, was his cheesecake recipe. In fact,
in nineteen seventy three, when New York magazine chose the
city's best cheesecakes and Dempsey's wasn't included, he wrote a
letter to the editor defending its honor. He added that
the late President of France, Charles de Gaul loved Dempsey's
(26:46):
cheesecake so much he had shipped it to Paris several
times a year.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
I mean that's kind of high praise, right, Like, yeah,
if someone like the President of France is ordering it,
they come from a lad for this series, Like, it's
not free of desserts or anything. So do we know
where Dempsey's famous cheesecake recipe actually comes from?
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Well to answer that question, we have to look to
another New York magazine cheesecake round up. This one was
from nineteen ninety nine. Brooklyn Diner's cheesecake took the number
one spot, and the owner of that restaurant claimed he
got his recipe from his aunts, who ran a hotel
and the Catskills.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Now.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
According to him, Dempsey used to visit this hotel when
he was training and also got his hands on the
cheesecake recipe, which he copied for his restaurant. Now, Dempsey's
closed in nineteen seventy four and Jack Dempsey died in
nineteen eighty three, so he could not confirm nor deny this.
But the good news is Brooklyn Diner is still around
and still has a cheesecake on the menu, but it
(27:46):
now comes with strawberries and Valroona chocolate fudge. Jack Dempsey
might not know what that is, but I'd like to
think he'd enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Yeah, I'm sure he would well will. Since you introduced
me to these adorable British sheep, I think you deserve
today's trophy, and you know what, I'm gonna throw in
a slice of New York cheesecake as well.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Oh thanks, I'll split it with you. That's the cheesecake,
not the trophy. Yeah, fair enough. Well that does it
for today. Remember we love hearing from listeners, So if
you have a question or idea for the show, or
if you just want to shower us with compliments, you
can give us a call at three O two four
oh five five nine two five. That's three O two
four oh five five nine two five. You can also
(28:30):
send us an email at high Geniuses at gmail dot com.
That's Hi Geniuses at gmail dot com, and come hang
out with us.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
On Instagram and Blue Sky. We're at part time genius.
There's no excuse for not coming on and hanging out
with us. So this episode was written by the wonderful
Marissa Brown. Thank you so much, Marissa. We will be
back next week with another new episode and in the
meantime from Will, Dylan, Gabe, Mary, and myself. Thank you
so much for listening. Part Time Genius is a production
(29:12):
of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. It is hosted by my good
pal Will Pearson, who I've known for almost three decades now.
That is insane to me. I'm the other co host,
Mangeshatikular aka Mango. Our producer is Mary Phillips Sandy. She's
actually a super producer. I'm going to fix that in post.
Our writer is Gabe Lucier, who I've also known for
(29:35):
like a decade at this point, maybe more. Dylan Fagan
is in the booth. He is always dressed up, always
cheering us on, and always ready to hit record and
then mix the show after he does a great job.
I also want to shout out the executive producers from
iHeart my good pals Katrina and Norvel and Ali Perry.
We have social media support from Calypso Rallis. If you
(29:57):
like our videos, that is all Calypso's hand. For more
podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
App Apple Podcasts, or.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Tune in wherever you listen to your favorite shows. That's
it from us here at part time Genius, Thank you
so much for listening
Guess what, Mango, what's that will? So, of course, the
rock band Queen is known for hits like Don't Stop
Me Now and another one Bites the Dust, but their guitarist,
Brian May, is also known for something else. Are you
ready for this? He's a bonafide astro physicist. Mango, an
astro freakin physicist.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
You know, I think I had actually heard that before,
But also I don't know anything beyond that one line,
kind of like, did you know Mick Jagger started at
the London School of Economics, Like yeah, but I don't
know anything beyond that.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yeah, And both of those things are true. But let's
actually let's keep this one about Brian's. Before Queen made
it big, he was in the midst of his doctoral research.
This was at the Imperial College of London and he
was studying something called zodiacal dust, or the zodiacal cloud specifically,
and he was trying to understand how it moved through space.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
So, uh, what is zadiical dust?
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Well, unlike Brian, I'm not an astrophysicist in addition to
my day job. But as far as I understand it,
it's a cloud made up of dust from asteroids and commets.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
So kind of like the cloud of dust that follows
Pigpen around on the peanuts, like a big dust cloud.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
He is one hundred percent like that mango. I'm sure
there's zero difference at all. But you know, Brian was
actually far enough along in his studies that he submitted
his research to his advisor. But in what ended up
being a stroke of luck for music fans, his advisor
was like, you know what, this isn't ready. You need
to go back and do a little bit more work.
And at that point, Queen was starting to take off,
(01:54):
so Brian was just like, no, thanks, I'll do this
band thing instead, and he left his academ program after that.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
You know, you hear about people reaching a crossroads in
their lives, but like that feels so insane, right Like
Option today is like spend years in a lab analyzing
space dust, or Option B is tour the world, playing
in front of millions of screaming.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Fans crazy, right.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
As rewarding his lab work might be. You know, you
can't blame someone for choosing Option.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
B, you know, and they're the band.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Whenever we play the game, which band do you wish
you could have seen touring in their original form and
Creed is always is well, it's always the band that
my wife Georgia picks, but they would be way up
there for me. But anyway, amazing band. So it's a
very very cool, cool story. But here's the cool thing.
He actually kind of managed to have it both ways.
Like he didn't quit his studies completely. He never lost
(02:46):
interest in space and while he was on tour he'd
take other musicians outside and give them little presentations about
the night sky. And May said later that it's a
natural fit. In fact, he said, maybe it's kind of
romantic spirit to make music that's over into curiosity about
the universe. He even composed a Queen B side called
thirty nine, and this was about space travel and the
(03:08):
theory of relativity. But there was that nagging matter of
the doctoral degree that he never earned. And so in
the two thousands, when Queen wasn't super active anymore, May
heard from an old friend. It was the famous UK
astronomer and TV host Patrick Moore who told him he
should go back and finish that PhD. And first May
was skeptical so much time had passed, but then he
(03:30):
started mentioning Moore's idea offhandedly, like in these little interviews,
and word must have gotten around because one day he
gets a call from someone at Imperial College. They invite
him back to the program, picks up his research, and
in two thousand and seven he successfully submits his dissertation.
It was titled a Survey of radial Velocities in the
(03:50):
Zodiacal dust Cloud, which that sounds legit to me, and
so that means he is actually sir doctor Brian May.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Sir doctor, sounds very impressive.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
That's right, sir doctor.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Well, as you might have guessed, today on the show,
we're discovering side hustles of the rich and famous. I
don't mean boring celebrity tequila brands or ho home luxury
fashion deals. I am talking about a philosopher who wrote operas,
a nineteenth century author who created a precursor to Pinterest,
and an iconic musician who is also a childbirth expert.
(04:24):
So let's dive in.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and is always I'm here with my good
friend Mangesh hot Ticketter and over there on the booth
launching his own scuba certification business. I didn't see this
when coming Mango, I didn't guess he'd be doing this.
This is our PALIN producer, Dylan Fagan. Not what I
would have expected from a podcast producer. But I guess
that's kind of the theme of today's episode.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
I think it's because we start every episode by saying,
let's dive in.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
I think, man, I didn't even think about that. You're right.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
So, speaking of which, let's dive in to a side
hustle of one Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain, who, of
course was the author of books like the Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. But what many
people don't know is that he was also an inventor.
He invented an adjustable strapped titaned garments, and a memorization game.
(05:40):
But his most successful invention by far was a scrap book.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
You mean, like an album for keeping photos and newspaper
clippings and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
M hmm, exactly that. So, back in the late eighteen hundreds,
scrap booking was this pretty common practice for anyone who
wanted to collect or archive written material, and this was
something Clemens was really really into. Apparently he'd spend his
sundays collecting clippings of articles he'd written, book reviews, drawings, cartoons, photos, letters,
anything that caught his fancy. The problem was scrap books
(06:14):
that were available at the time just had plain blank pages,
so you had to glue items into them one at
a time, and Clemens was not into it. He got
tired of his blue drying out and ruining his scrap
book sessions. And you know how running out of glue
can totally ruin a sunday for you, right.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
It's the worst.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
In eighteen seventy three, he was tired of his sundays
being ruined and he patented his very own self adhering
scrap book. This is a book that came with a
thin layer of glue pre applied to every single page.
You just dampen the glue one page at a time
and then layer on all your clippings.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
And so were people like into this.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah, it was like super super popular. The book came
in various styles, like different leather or cloth bindings, and
different sizes for all your scrap booking needs. By eighteen
eighty five, Clements had actually made around fifty thousand dollars
from sales of the scrap books, which is the equivalent
of about two million dollars today. To put that in perspective,
(07:14):
he'd earned around two hundred thousand dollars from his writing,
which by that point included Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
So goodness.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Anyway, the scrap booking thing had taken off. But there
was just one problem. The scrap books turned out to
be terrible for preservation. If unused ADISA got wet or
exposed to humidity, the pages would actually stick together and
they would ruin whatever was on them. So eventually other
people developed better scrap book technology, but Clemens version actually
(07:42):
was kind of the most popular one for about thirty years.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Oh that's wild. I was actually looking the other day.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
I like, it really is wild how you can now
make virtual scrap books just on your phone. These days,
kids can just be so lazy about it, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Yeah, I mean I guess a lot of people still
do it the old fashioned way, which people find satisfying
for some reason, just arranging pieces of paper and photos
on a page. And maybe that's just because so many
aspects of our life are virtual today. Speaking of which
will we are so lucky because today's episode of Part
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Speaker 3 (10:48):
God, I'm so.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Glad that rickshaw driver finally drove you home, or you'd
still be stuck in India.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah, I definitely would anyway.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
All right, So to our side hustles for our next fact,
we're traveling back to eighteenth century Europe, where Enlightenment era
writers and philosophers were busily debating hot topics at the time.
We're talking topics like political theory, individuality, you know, the
role of religion and society. And one of the leading
philosophers involved in all of this was the guy we
(11:17):
remember from our high school philosophy class, Jean Jacques Rousseau. Now,
he wrote several influential books that you probably haven't read
but may remember reading about. Examples would be discourse on
the origin of inequality and of course the Social Contract.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah you know me, well, I have not read those.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Well, his books are considered classics in Western philosophy. But
Russo actually liked to present himself professionally, not as a
writer or even a philosopher, but as a music copyist,
which is exactly what it sounds. He got paid to
copy sheet music, and believe it or not, it's still
a job. Although these days music copyists use software to
prepare sheet music for individual instrument It is based on
(12:01):
a composer's master score. Now, back in Rousseau's day, of course,
this was all done by hand, so it was incredibly
time consuming and very exacting work, which I guess is
also a true philosophy, right, that's very true. But you know,
Rousseau's love of music went well beyond copying other people's scores.
In seventeen fifty two, he wrote his own one act opera.
(12:22):
It was called The Village Soothsayer. It's about a young
couple who run into a series of problems when they
each think the other is being unfaithful, so they have
to consult the you guessed it, Village Soothsayer to clear
things up. And Rousseau wrote the libretto and composed the music,
which wasn't very common then. In fact, sourtss say he
was the first person potentially to have done this.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
That is so crazy and what a weird detail. So
was this opera a hit?
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Yeah, well, I mean it's not considered a masterpiece today,
but it was one of the most popular operas of
the time. I was first performed in the court of
King Louis the fifteenth, who liked it so much that
the next day he's posedly wandered around singing one of
the arias, of course, very off key, and the opera
was even performed at his grandson's wedding in seventeen seventy.
(13:09):
The grandson was the future Louis the sixteenth, whose wife
Marie Antoinette, is another huge fan of Rousseau's opera. Later,
she even played at Heroin in a private performance for
friends and her own one hundred and twenty seat theater
at Versailles.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
That is so funny. I had no idea. Well, I'm
glad you mentioned Mary Antoinette because there's actually a nice
little thread here, because we're going from let the meat
cake to someone who loved to make cakes, and that
is Emily Dickinson. Now, Dickinson was famously an introvert, even reclusive,
but aside from being a star on the page. The
(13:44):
other place she felt very comfortable was in the kitchen.
She'd often send cakes and breads to her friends and
her family. She was also known to lower baskets of
treats from an upstairs window down to the neighborhood kids,
who apparently were big fans of her gingerbread. But what
is also cool is that Dickinson would use the backs
of her recipes and cake wrappers to draft her poems.
(14:06):
For example, a draft of The Things That Can Never
Come Back was written on the back of a coconut
cake recipe.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
You know, I got another fun fact, Mango. It's that
I love coconut cake. So we're gonna we're gonna do
We're doing ten facts in this episode. I I love
coconut cake.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Well I am so so on it, but I'm glad
you like it. If you want to make Dickinson's cake,
you can actually find the recipe online and it looks
pretty good, especially when you compare it to her black cake,
which is an age fruitcake that involves nineteen eggs, five
pounds of raisins, two pounds of butter, and a half
pint of brandy. When this thing was done. It weighed
(14:46):
more than twenty pounds. It was like an oven roaster.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Wow, tell me she wasn't lowering that down in a
basket like It feels like you'd get in trouble if
you bunk a kin on the head with something like that.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Yeah, I mean, apparently it was a special occasion cake,
but it's still being made today. Since twenty fifteen, a
team at Harvard's Houghton Library, which has the world's largest
Dickinson archive, has been making the black cake in honor
of her birthday. It's pretty fitting because during her lifetime,
Dickinson was better known as a baker than a writer.
In her obituary, her sister in law wrote that though
(15:19):
few people knew Emily personally, quote, there are many homes
into which her dainty treasures of fruit and flowers and
almost ambrosial dishes for the sick and well were constantly sent.
That will forever miss those dainty traces of her unselfish devotion.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
That's actually really sweet.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
All right, we have to take a quick break, but
when we come back, I'm going to tell you all
about an actor who's a real clown, I believe it
or not. Actually mean that as a compliment, So don't
go anywhere.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're counting down
nine side hustles of the rich and famous and one
fact about Will and coconut cake. Before the break, you
said you were going to tell us about an actor
who's a clown, and you know, I know people hate clowns.
They think they're terrifying. I kind of don't have an
opinion on this, Like I remembering they were fun and
(16:23):
silly as a kid. I kind of want to hold
onto that feeling. And I don't really like watch horror
movies or things about serial killers, which I guess is
where some of that fear comes from. But I'm curious
about you, Will. Do you have a big fear of clowns.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
I don't have a fear of clowns, and I used
to not really have strong feelings about them, but you
know what, it kind of changed for me. It's sort
of like people who get super into like cosplay or
something like that. While it's not something that I'm into,
I actually really love that people love to do it,
you know, like it's just kind of fun to watch
(17:00):
people who get so passionate about a thing. And I
feel like most of the time, people that really get
into the clown thing, like to want to be a clown,
are doing it because maybe for some reason, like since
they were a kid, they always wanted to do that,
or at least that's what I assume.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
So yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
I'm kind of a fan of the fact that they exist.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Yeah, I mean I feel like like people who want
to be clowns, like want to make kids happy in
hospitals and stuff like that is how I think about it.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
But yeah, exactly, I don't want one in my house,
but yeah, I love that they exist. So anyway, one
person who really loves clowns is the actor David R.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Quett.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
When that seems no surprise, it feels on brand for him,
but he was a huge Boso the Clown fan as
a kid. He'd run around pretending to be Boso the
way other kids might pretend to be Spider Man or
some other superhero. And recently he made it official he
is Boso the Clown. Like, officially Boso the Clown.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
What does that mean exactly, Well.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
You buy the rights to the character.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
It took him about fifteen years of togoiations, but in
twenty twenty one, Arquette became the owner of Bozo the Clown,
which means not only can he sell or make a
movie about him, but Arquette can play Bozo himself, which
he does and to make sure he's doing the character justice,
he even studied with a renowned Russian clown teacher.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
That is incredible, and he spent fifteen years of negotiation.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Yeah, it takes a while, he negotiating a clown thing.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
I didn't realize that was standard. So what does that
mean if anyone else wants to play Boso like, they
have to go through David Arquette.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
I mean, yeah, technically, it's just like any other character
protected by IP law. But what I love about this
story is that Arquette seems really sincere about his motivation.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
It's not a money grab here.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
So when the deal closed, he told the press that
he wanted to use his influence and resources to revive
Boso in popular culture. He said, Boso represents a world
of love, light and laughter, something we can all use
more of right now.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
And he's not wrong about that.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
And in twenty twenty two, for the first time ever,
a black woman stepped into those big red shoes. It
was a performer named Jessica Harrison took on the role
of Joso, the female version of Boza Jo. Soo I
love it Joso. Yeah yeah, okay.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
So our next side hustle involves a Grammy Award winning
musician and fashion icon, Erica Badu, and in addition to
being a truly visionary artist, she is also a certified doula,
which is, of course, someone trained to support parents through childbirth. Yeah,
it's true. Badou has said that she became interested in
(19:36):
the concept after the birth of her oldest son. This
was in nineteen ninety seven. She started out by attending
some friends' births. Then she found out not only was
she good at this, but she found it really fulfilling,
so she pursued formal training and earned her certificate in
two thousand and one. Now, doulas aren't technically medical professionals,
but there's plenty of research showing that their support leads
(19:58):
to better outcomes for parents for newborns.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Mm hm.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
And you know, I don't know that there's ever been
a research study on this detail specifically, but I have
to assume that if ericabi Do is one of the
first people you see when you enter this world, you're
pretty much going to be super cool when you grow up.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Yeah, that feels very scientific and reasonable. Badu said she's
assisted with at least fifty berths by now. Her clients
include Diana Taylor Summer Walker, among many others. But this
is my favorite detail hands down. She calls her doula
service but doula.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Oh yeah, that's why she did it.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
That's amazing. I didn't see that one coming, but it's
so obvious.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
When you see it.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
All right.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Well, another celebrity involved in births, but I have a
very different species is the author Beatrix Potter. She wrote
and illustrated The Tale of Peter Rabbit and so many
other great children's books. But get this, she was also
a sheep breeder. Specifically, she raised Herdwick sheep, which is
a very old breed indigenous to the Lake District in
the north of England. Now, actually, let me pull up
(21:01):
this photo. Isn't this like a super cute sheep?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Oh my gosh, that is so cute And it kind
of looks like it's smiling.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
I know that's just how their mouths are, but it
earned them the nickname the smiley Sheep. Now, more importantly,
These sheep are designed for harsh northern weather, and their
wool is actually so thick and coarse they can survive
being buried in the snow.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
So did Beatrix Potter grow up on a farm? Like
I'm realizing now, I actually don't know much about her life.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
You know, I didn't either, But no, she didn't. She
grew up in London, but her family was from northern
England and they often spent summers there, so she always
felt connected to the region. She bought her first farm
in the Lake District in nineteen oh five and eventually
moved up there and married a local lawyer. She and
her husband bought many more farms over the years, eventually
including sheep farms.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
So threw her hands on work. Learning from local experts.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
She really got to know the Herdwick and that's when
she started to breed them, and after a while her
sheep started to win prizes, so in nineteen forty three
she was even elected the first female president of the
Herdwick Sheep Breeders Association. She unfortunately died a few months
later before she could take office, but her sheep live
on today.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
She left fifteen.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Working farms and more than four thousand acres of land
to England's National Trust with the stipulation that these farmers
continue raising the herdwick. So as a result, many people
credit Potter with saving this hyper local breed.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
That is actually kind of an incredible legacy. So, yeah,
are these farms still raising herdwickes?
Speaker 3 (22:34):
They very much are.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Many of Potter's properties are still working farms, and many
are open to visitors too. So if you want to
see the cutest sheep in the world, just head to
England's Lake District and think of Beatrix Potter.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
As a kid, when I was like two or three,
I used to warn my dad I was so worried
that he would go to work because he'd get caught
by farmer Brown or whatever Peter rabbit was caught from.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
Of course, yeah, that's pretty great.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
So my last fact involves a very different artist, the
surrealist Salvador Dolly. He is best known for his paintings
and slightly less best known for his experiments in fashion, architecture,
and film, but his biggest side quest was book illustrations.
In fact, he illustrated over one hundred books during his lifetime.
Some of the titles are more surprising than others. You've
(23:27):
got Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, don Quixote, Faust, but also
a special edition of the Bible, and Shakespeare's Macbeth, which
I had no idea about.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Yeah, I mean, with the witches and everything, that one
actually seems perfect for the Dolly treatment.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I actually found a New York Times review of Dolly's
illustrated Macbeth, which was published in nineteen forty six. One
drawing is described like this quote. There appears a box
from whose keyhole blood gushes into a bowl, also containing
a dismembered human finger, a skeleton wearing a robe with
a grinning rubbery mouth in the middle, and a woman
(24:05):
part octopus from whose head sprout various kitchen utensils.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
I mean, I have to bet that sounds very Dolly.
I'm not sure if it sounds like McBeth, though, And
unless I'm remembering that play wrong.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
I love that we're more scared of clowns than we
are solved for Dolly.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Yeah, it's true, that's true.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
But the review goes on to say that Dolly's only
loosely resemble Shakespeare's story, that the pictures hint at quote
another and rather darker story, which is kind of fascinating
in its own right. It's like he drew what Macbeth
felt like to him instead of doing the usual thing
where the illustrations present a very faithful depiction of whatever's
(24:49):
described in the text.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
I mean, plus, in this case, the author wasn't alive
to complain, so so Dolly could really let his imagination
run wild here.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah, and if clocks can me out of trees, it
certainly seems like one of Macbeth's witches can be an octopus.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
That is, that is very very true.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
All right, Well, let's wrap up with a classic celebrity
side hustle, which is the restaurant. How many celebrities have
started restaurants. The Wallberg Brothers have Wallburgers. Yeah, good stuff, Right,
you've been to Wallburger's.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
No, I just know it.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Oh, you just like saying it? I get it? All right.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Well, Eminem of course has mom Spaghetti. John bon Jovi
has jbj Soul Kitchen, just to name a few. But
I'd argue that fewer as involved in theirs as the
late great heavyweight boxer Jack Dempsey, who opened his place
simply called Jack Dempsey's in Midtown Manhattan. This was in
nineteen thirty five, he'd retired from the Ring. Of course, now,
(25:46):
Dempsey's served classic mid twentieth century food. You got steak,
liverwear sandwiches, chicken a La King, shrimp cocktail, and something
called Jack's Delight, which the menu described as quote Virginia
ham with eggs and cream.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
I have no idea what that is, but that's what
it was.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
I feel like my arteries are clogging just hearing you
read off these. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
I don't think any of these were low fat, but
it was just a different way of eating back then.
But the food must have been okay because the restaurant
stayed open for almost forty years.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Dempsey was a fixture there. He would be.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Hanging out, signing autographs, chatting with the patrons. And it
seems that one of the things he was proudest of
after all those boxing titles, was his cheesecake recipe. In fact,
in nineteen seventy three, when New York magazine chose the
city's best cheesecakes and Dempsey's wasn't included, he wrote a
letter to the editor defending its honor. He added that
the late President of France, Charles de Gaul loved Dempsey's
(26:46):
cheesecake so much he had shipped it to Paris several
times a year.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
I mean that's kind of high praise, right, Like, yeah,
if someone like the President of France is ordering it,
they come from a lad for this series, Like, it's
not free of desserts or anything. So do we know
where Dempsey's famous cheesecake recipe actually comes from?
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Well to answer that question, we have to look to
another New York magazine cheesecake round up. This one was
from nineteen ninety nine. Brooklyn Diner's cheesecake took the number
one spot, and the owner of that restaurant claimed he
got his recipe from his aunts, who ran a hotel
and the Catskills.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Now.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
According to him, Dempsey used to visit this hotel when
he was training and also got his hands on the
cheesecake recipe, which he copied for his restaurant. Now, Dempsey's
closed in nineteen seventy four and Jack Dempsey died in
nineteen eighty three, so he could not confirm nor deny this.
But the good news is Brooklyn Diner is still around
and still has a cheesecake on the menu, but it
(27:46):
now comes with strawberries and Valroona chocolate fudge. Jack Dempsey
might not know what that is, but I'd like to
think he'd enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Yeah, I'm sure he would well will. Since you introduced
me to these adorable British sheep, I think you deserve
today's trophy, and you know what, I'm gonna throw in
a slice of New York cheesecake as well.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Oh thanks, I'll split it with you. That's the cheesecake,
not the trophy. Yeah, fair enough. Well that does it
for today. Remember we love hearing from listeners, So if
you have a question or idea for the show, or
if you just want to shower us with compliments, you
can give us a call at three O two four
oh five five nine two five. That's three O two
four oh five five nine two five. You can also
(28:30):
send us an email at high Geniuses at gmail dot com.
That's Hi Geniuses at gmail dot com, and come hang
out with us.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
On Instagram and Blue Sky. We're at part time genius.
There's no excuse for not coming on and hanging out
with us. So this episode was written by the wonderful
Marissa Brown. Thank you so much, Marissa. We will be
back next week with another new episode and in the
meantime from Will, Dylan, Gabe, Mary, and myself. Thank you
so much for listening. Part Time Genius is a production
(29:12):
of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. It is hosted by my good
pal Will Pearson, who I've known for almost three decades now.
That is insane to me. I'm the other co host,
Mangeshatikular aka Mango. Our producer is Mary Phillips Sandy. She's
actually a super producer. I'm going to fix that in post.
Our writer is Gabe Lucier, who I've also known for
(29:35):
like a decade at this point, maybe more. Dylan Fagan
is in the booth. He is always dressed up, always
cheering us on, and always ready to hit record and
then mix the show after he does a great job.
I also want to shout out the executive producers from
iHeart my good pals Katrina and Norvel and Ali Perry.
We have social media support from Calypso Rallis. If you
(29:57):
like our videos, that is all Calypso's hand. For more
podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
App Apple Podcasts, or.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Tune in wherever you listen to your favorite shows. That's
it from us here at part time Genius, Thank you
so much for listening
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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