Bach in Black: Composer Crimes

Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.

Zaren Hey, Elizabeth Dudton. Oh are you doing pretty well? How about you? Good? You feel well?

For asking?

Oh? My pleasure. You know I'm a curious tech.

You are listen. Yeah, I have a question for you, curious George. Oh sure you know it's ridiculous? Oh yes, Oh do you. Mister David Lee Roth, Oh my god, he's so beautifully ridiculous.

I love him. Did you know in two thousand and four, David Lee Roth aka Diamond Dave aka mister David Lee Roth he went to work in the Bronx as an emergency medical technician. I do know that.

I think I talked about it on Ridiculous History once.

Oh that's right, I did you do know? You know this? Huh well? He called it a perfect job for him. I was blown away by this.

He's amazing.

I was like, dude, how cool is this? And like he was like super excited where he was like talking about. Like at one point he would go up to people. There they are like lying bloody on the pavement of New York City, and David Lee Roth comes up to them, grins down at them and goes, you're gonna be okay, I mean like that, like that it was like a dream, right, and then he actually starts to save them, like not just like it's an apparition. He tastes their blood pressure,

Ridiculous. That is ridiculous. You want to know what else is ridiculous? Oh dude, please getting arrested for trying to quit a job.

I think I've done that.

This is ridiculous. Crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.

Damn right zaren yes.

Close your eyes.

Fast.

I'm just kidding you. Like classical music.

I love classical music.

Answer the question, sir, I reclaim my time. Well, I have a whopper of a show for you today. I too like classical music. Thanks for asking.

Okay, do you like classical music?

Yes, I do. I just said that these these are criming classical composers and musicians that I have for you today. Oh can you believe.

That this is awesome? And this is not like Hector Barreleos did some opium. This is like crazy stuff.

Oh yeah, now this is Remember you did the stolen strategy. Now this is beyond beyond that, beyond that, your your mind will be boggled at the level of crime.

I'm gonna buckle up, buttercut.

So yeah you should. Now, we don't have any hardcore criminals in this one. What I'm trying to say, we don't have arsonists or bank robbers. This is good, clean fun Oh nice, just squeaky clean. That's what we're all about here, clean Schubert. Oh do you play it? Do you play an instrument?

Zeren?

Does harmonica count? Yeah?

I would count a harmonic musical instrument.

Yeah, yeah, So I play harmonica, but I would say I'm no musician.

Okay, because like from the ages of about eight to twenty. I played the cello. That's a big secret. I couldn't play good. No, I couldn't play to save my life today, I'm guessing. But like I played in this school orchestra in high school and it really went with my whole Like I have to wear net gear at night, and I didn't attend one party in high school. Ye I play, Yeah, she'll play cello.

I leaned in.

I leaned in.

I wore he garb too, by the way, just so you know, only for six months, but I did wear it.

Okay, well here I was.

Leaning it fully adjusted.

You're well come sharing with Sandford so Schubert, Yes, he was one of my favorite composers to play. Oh really, and not necessarily to listen to I always, I mean in that case, I like favored the tragic stuff in a minor case. But boy howdy was he fun to play for the strings. Yeah, very bouncy and not as technically demanding as some Mozart stuff, but a nice little challenge totally. The Schubert that we played didn't relegate the cell out to just like long bass notes.

Is holding the note. Yeah, you play a lot of Beethoven too for the Yeah, but.

We got to shine baby.

Oh yeah, Schubert.

So that's what I'm going to start yelling when I stubbed my toe, or maybe if someone sneezes. I don't know. I'm open to anything with that. I'm taking suggestions. Franz Schubert, that little darling. He was an Austrian composer born in seventeen ninety seven. Oh, I was six years old then.

Yeah, you were just a sprite a little bit.

He was in that late Classical early Romantic era.

Yeah, romance.

He wrote seven symphonies, lots of good chamber music.

They brought it.

That's what I'm trying to say. Do you want to hear me? Try and say the name of the suburb of Vienna where he grew up. Yes, Okay, I'm gonna have to sound say fast him out fort Grund.

I'm sorry I missed it. Can you say that again?

Him out fort Grund.

I'm sorry I missed it. Could you say that one more time?

Hum Ut fort Grooms Schubert. So he was a child prodigy. That's always fun. That's fun for the kid.

And for everyone around. Everybody loves that.

Yeah, he died when he was thirty one.

Actually, their siblings.

Oh so good. He died when he was thirty one from what was likely mercury poison.

Is he just like sucking on thermometers?

Well in the early eighteen hundreds, you know what that meant. The man was battling syphless.

Oh he had a touch of the siff and he needed the mercury.

Oh yeah, he got around.

Yeah yeah, Blackbeard did that too.

Yeah, exactly. In fact, he and his pals loved to party.

I bet it sounds like it.

They would throw what they called shoe Bertie ads.

Wait what, he had his own party.

Name, schubertiads. Real ragers. They were intimate gatherings.

Oh my god.

Like, here's what they did. They all danced, and they read poetry and they had political debates.

That's salon they were leaning in. That's a salon leaning in.

It's no wonder he had syphilis. I mean, come on, they're reading the poetry and the debates. So this gang, this bad boy club, this rat pack. They called themselves Schubertia den like the men of the Schuberti eyes.

Why are they on his jock? I don't know.

So this was after the French Revolution, after the Napoleonic Wars. The Austrians they didn't want that stuff.

Kitchen like the eighteen twenties. I got eighteen thirties. Yeah, I'm guessing because he was born seventeen ninety seven.

So the Austrian police they were suspicious of such wild youthful gathering. Of course, can't have students and artists and intellectuals, you.

Know, upsets the public.

Thearon Nerd parties were surveilled. So in eighteen twenty, the Austrian secret police pounced. They were like a little kitten in the grass, pounced. They arrested Schubert and four friends on suspicion of revolutionary activities. Sert yeah they he So they arrest him and then Schubert he was reprimanded and during the arrest for quote, inveighing against officials with insulting and opprobrious language.

Oh wow, talking foul.

Yeah he was talking about but they just reprimanded him. So to translate the shoebies, you know, he said, first off and the click you claim, that's the translation of it. He was the tupac to the secret police's junior mafia. Okay, following yes, yeah, the cops they were offended, they would they let him go.

Like little Officer Ricky.

They let him go. But Schubert he had a best buddy fellow by the name of Johann Sen, son of the freedom fighter Franz Michael Sen.

Oh, not the freedom fighter Franz ever so Johann.

He was a writer slash poet. That's just how he introduced himself to the syphilitic ladies.

Ladies.

He was hardcore. He had a street name. It was Bombastis beba durwa Bebderva. I suppose bombastis Bebaderva.

I don't understand he had a street name.

I am not making this up.

That was Oh, that was his street name. I thought you were like he came from a street I didn't follow. That was his street name.

He was a weird street It's hard to say bombastis Bebaderva.

That's too many bees making it up.

And I have no idea what it means, although I think it's kidgeon Latin for loud pompous drunk.

Yeah, to drink whatever, loud drunk.

Yeah. So, mister boombastic, thank you.

Much better street name.

He popped out of the mouth. They call him Miss the Boombastic Okay, so he popped off at the cops at the same as Schubert. But then he ended up getting imprisoned. I'm guessing probably because they're like your dad's spark plug too.

Yeah, and you're not a talented.

Musician, right, So he got imprisoned for fourteen months without charges. They're just like you just sit here and think about what you've met. So then they let him out, and then he was permanently exiled from Vienna. And you know he was yelling the same crazy tupac. Sure, so he and Schubert never saw each other again. Oh, Schubert didn't let that stop him from honoring his friend. He set his music to sends poetry, including the famous song I'm sure you know it go on Shungazong? Oh he wrote,

Seriously.

She was an English composer born in eighteen fifty eight and she was part of the women's suffrage movement.

Okay, she was that vote. Yeah.

She was the first female composer to be granted a Dame hood. Oh what a day, what a most British name. So as a female composer, a lady composer, if you will, she was pretty much dismissed by the powers. Imagine she was always either too much or not enough. Oh, gals, I believe a lot of us can relate.

That's the line of a woman that I understand.

Too much not enough. So she was wildly talented. Her opera called The Wreckers, which like greatest opera name ever, The Wreckers, It was later referred to as the most important English opera of the time.

I've never heard of it.

Me neither, and her works have been and continue to be performed around the world to much acclaim.

About to check her out, Dame smythe She was.

An outsider, a firebrand. She was once engaged to Asker Wilde's brother and at the.

Age of seven, Bob Wilde.

Yeah, Bobby Wilde. I think his name, honestly, I don't have it in front of you. I think it's Willy Wilde. I'm not even kidding you. And at the age of seventy one, she tried to seduce Virginia Wolf. Oh girls, she's all over the p I like it, So back

Elizabeth, I always want to hear more about prisons.

Smith hung out a lot with the WSPU leader, Emmeline Pankhurst, and the.

Two of them sounds familiar, painkhursed.

Probably go on, And the two of them knew that in order to advance the cause, they were going to have to get tough.

Yeah, of course, maybe a little diolent. It makes some demands.

Yeah, don't forget this is the era of the anarchists.

You might have to throw those things.

I think you're gonna have to. So sometimes you know you got to tear it down in order to build it up or yes, some such and.

Not with the master's tools from what I hear.

Right, So paint Hurst thought that they should start breaking stuff.

But natural, that's an easy, like first step.

Let's get a little while right to break. Smythe was like, guess what, I want to break things too.

I got a hammer.

So Pincurse started telling the suffragettes to throw rocks through the windows of any politician against a woman's right to vote. You see their house, you bust their windows.

Break that glass.

You see a misogynist who doesn't see a woman as a human being deserving of respect, Well they don't deserve windows.

That's that glass thing.

Yeah, mess with f so you get bipped.

Yeah.

So Pinkhurst, she was all about it. Here's one problem. She pulled Smyth aside told her there was a problem. She didn't know how to throw things. Like literally, yeah, She's like, guess what, I can't throw things? So I try underhand it total keen Athleen. She's like, no problem, I totally know how to throw things, and I have a deep desired erect shot. Again, gals, I think some of us can roll wait the rage.

It is real surface.

So smythe she took pankers out to the forest and they threw rocks at trees for practice. Yeah, they practiced.

I love it.

And they practiced until old girl was chucking stones like nobody's business. I like to imagine that the two of them got so good that they were embedding stones in the bark of trees and they were like successfully hunting.

Deer like straws and ari the wood.

They invented modern baseball pitching, and then they invented a digital speed gun to clock their throas that were consistently north of one hundred and twenty five miles an hour. And then they realized how dangerous the technology was for this speed gun that they invented, so they buried the device in those same woods, and they gave a treasure map indicating its location to a young girl. Okay, and that young girl grew up to be none other than

One hundred and nine and rocks are cheap.

Why you just get them anywhere? One hundred and nine women got together and they went a shattering. Smyth went to the home of Colonel Lewis Harcourt's Secretary of State for the colonies.

Get that glass.

Why why did she go after the colonies? Well, he said, if all women were as beautiful and wise as his own wife, they would have already won the right to vote.

Wow, it doesn't make sense.

On so many leves, right, But they're like, I don't stand for those kind of insults. Attack, yes, and they.

Throw mess your face up, buddies.

So of course they were arrested and they did two months in Holloway Prison. Nice And it was there that the women found strength and distraction in singing the March of the Woman.

I was about to say, they're just sitting there singing and rocket. Yeah.

So the conductor, Thomas Beacham, he went to visit Smythe while she was in the clink, and he later recalled watching the suffragettes in the inner courtyard of the prison, quote marching round it and singing lustily their war chant while the composer beaming approbation from an overlooking upper window. Beat time and almost bachic frenzy with a toothbrush. She's like conducting him with a toothbrush, Like, yeah, ladies. Anyway, So Smith, like I said, she did get her recognition.

She imagine that on day seventeen of singing that song, were we still doing this walking out a circle in the song? I don't even hear the.

Words any other one. You can like mess.

Around, try just something else to mix up the meter.

So, like I said, she became a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire debat eight Whoa nineteen twenty two. She was also awarded honorary doctorates in music from the University of Durham and Oxford. Yeah. So. She died in nineteen forty four at the age of eighty six. A life well lived. Let's take a break. When we come back, I'll have more classical music high jinks for you night.

So I don't make a rock pole Schubert.

What's up, Sarin, Your name is Saren, Sir Michael Kemp Tippett, that's not your name, No, it is not.

Where do you think he's from Albania?

Yeah, of course he was an English composer. Was born in nineteen oh five. They made him a night in nineteen sixties.

Oh, they gave him the sword.

Yeah, and from that moment forward he was four to wear a chain mail suit, effectively ruining his career since it was both noisy and hot full metal. He came from a well off family.

This guy, I'm guessing he said. He was.

Pretty much all from his mother's side, and so while they were fancy folk, they were also pretty subversive. His his mom was big in the suffragist movement, just like James Smith. The family also pushed for Irish home rule excellent, and they were skeptical of organized religion. So they were not like their peers.

Yeah, they were very out of step sometimes, tipp It.

He created an anti war masterpiece, A Child of Our Time, rub this is your favorite song, right? A Child of our time the time, Sir tipp It. He was so horrified by the start of World War Two that he started writing this oratorio. Newsweek said it was quote something Handel might have written had he lived in the age of Auschwitz.

Huh.

Yeah. So the oratorio, it's about the events leading up to Krystal Knock, a violent, deadly, horrific, coordinated attack on Jewish citizens in Germany in nineteen thirty eight. So it has a three part structure based on Hondel's Messiah. But then he used Negro spirituals in place of the traditional corals of oratorios, so kind of mixed it all up. So Tippett was heartbroken over the inaction of the Allies in nineteen thirty eight when they just left Jewish refugees stranded.

Especially during the warriors.

Yeah, and that's what we're talking about. Yeah, So orchestras they disbanded during the war, cities are being bombed, re sources are you know, needed to put towards the war efforts. Sadly, young men or some of those resources.

We need that clarinet read for the war effort.

Right, So they're fighting a noble cause, to be sure, But sir Tippett wasn't with it. Lucky for him, Morley College in London was hiring in the middle of the war. He got the job of director of music there in nineteen forty Wow, which I just can't get my head around.

We need to keep the spirits of.

Its facilities had been like pretty much bombed out.

Are the kids going to college in class?

I guess between the roads, I don't know. Tippet he wasn't dissuaded by the fact that the buildings were gone. He wanted to bring back music to the shell of a campus, bring music back to the people. So he used whatever he could to keep the programs running, and in the meantime he finished his work A Child of our Time, but there wasn't any place for him to perform it. His work had somehow gotten him out of military service thus far, but that luck ran out in

Oh wow, that's the.

Best prison name. Prison name, His Majesty's prison, Wormwood Scrubs.

Is it weird of me to be surprised that the British do not honor the conscientious objector and that Americans do? Like it just kind of surprises me that they don't have that same tradition that we do.

I don't know, man, at that point, like I know, they're.

Not really they're like seeing on giving our conscienti's objectives, not like something that's easy to get. But in fact it sounds easier for an American than a brit I don't know.

I guess yeah. He he did two months in Wormwood Scrubs, Oh rough, rough, and he didn't have a very good run for a while after that. In fifty two, he finished what he thought would be his crowning glory, an opera called The Midsummer Marriage. Critics saw no glory in this. They said his libretto was quote one of the worst in the three hundred and fifty year history of opera.

It was flat, uninspired and made you miss silence. That's harsh, real bad.

In fifty three he debuted his work Fantasia Concertante on a theme of Corelli, and that was probably like one of his most popular.

But critics fun Yeah.

Critics complained about the quote the excessive complexity of the contrapuntial writing. There was so much going on that the perplexed ear knew not where to turn or fasten itself.

Or in other words, too many notes.

Yeah.

He became known as a quote difficult composer, and some said his music was quote amateurish and poorly prepared.

They say that about my music.

He had I Feel for You Brother the Piano Concerto in nineteen fifty five, and it was declared unplayable by its scheduled soloist. Why just add one after another? This guy's on, he's done time people. He did though he lived to be ninety three. Yet another well lived.

Yeah.

I mean he kind of corrected the ship after a while there. So we had some you know, mediocre who managed to the ship. But what about someone awesome?

Oh yeah, lay it on me.

Johann Sebastian Bach. Yeah, named after the lead singer of the band Schedule. So for those not in the know. He was a German composer and musician born in sixteen eighty five. We are quantum leaping all over the timeline.

I love that, you know me.

I want to watch the new Quantum Leap show no dud, but I don't know if it'll evolve into a hate watch. Because I saw one ad where dude lands somewhere and says, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore. I wanted to stick a pencil in my ear.

I'm just going to go right on the line with that one.

Anyway.

Boss, Wait, you're gonna not watch TV all this time and the first thing you just have to watch.

You never watched a TV show in my life. I'm not sure how I saw this ad. Yeah, I think it was trans transmitted to my brain.

It's probably like on your social media Somewhereyson.

I'm not online. You're wow, I don't have it.

Maybe it was projected out of the grass you're always touching.

I don't have a computer. I just live on the lawn. Bach So January seventeen oh three Mack JSB. He got a job. Oh job. He was fresh out of music school seventeen oh three, ready to take the world by storm. He was appointed court musician in the chapel of Duke Johann Earnst the Third in weymar.

Ah Inymar that's republished, Sure it is.

This wasn't as rat as it sounds, though he had lots of like weird odd chores and jobs too. It was like light on the music and heavy on the other other duties as assigned. But people heard his tinklings on the ivories and they were blown away. This guy shreds is what they were saying.

They were like, who is this?

I have a transcription that I found the German.

This guy sounds better than the original German.

A kliin of shreds, very with the consonants constant. Because of this, he became the organist at the new church, and this involved teaching too, So that gig came with a fat paycheck and a giant organ.

Oh this is what he starts writing all of his stuff. That's the big organ.

Yeah.

Yeah, Bach had a giant organ.

I heard you talk about.

He could do much more with it.

So you going to keep coming?

No, I'm stopped back. Wasn't always feeling it, though, he thought the student choir was bogus, untalented, like they didn't reach his level. There was one guy, a guy named gazer Bach, and he called gaser boxer box sure, let's say that. Uh okay, here's what Bach called him though, zipple fogotist, and that translates, apparently in that time to weenie bassoon player, which is the sickest of burns.

Burn.

So the wienie bassoon player, he wasn't going.

To take this, I hope not.

He went after back with a stick. Oh he didn't come back with another bad No, he didn't want to like Perry back and forth likes like, oh yeah, how about this so upside.

Your head, side your head?

So Bach like he gets, you know, he gets chased with a stick. Bach asked to speak to the manager, and the.

Cops were called.

So they gave the weenie bassoon player a metaphorical slap on the wrist. But then they blamed the victim and they told back the coolest jets and be kinder real, like, honestly, this wouldn't happen if you wouldn't call people names. Yeah, So seventeen oh six, Bach was like, whatever, I got an even better job. He gets a job as the organist at the Blasiest Church in Muhlhausen, and he was now making even more money, had a better setup, had a he had a big organ, but he also had

I'm just trying to work on my media.

I like that.

That's good.

I wouldn't know because I'm not online. So Bach he goes back to the Viymar. This time is back. He wasn't the errand boy. He was the direct director of music. No more student musicians. Now he was working with pros.

Yes, it was.

It was then that his composing really kicked into overdrive. So he's getting better and better. He's surrounded by all that talent. He transcribed the works of masters like Vivaldi and then incorporated their styles into his. So in the spring of seventeen fourteen, he was promoted to concert meis there. Oh yeah, that means a concert master.

Yeah, he's the master baby. It's like a puppet meister, but for concerts.

But his comfort there didn't last. In seventeen seventeen, he asked the Duke of Viimar to cut him loose from his contract. He wanted the job of kappel Meister. Yeah, at the court of Prince Leopold. Now Zarin, do you think the Duke of Weimar would accept such a request?

Done? What I know? But for three months scared.

I scared myself. I think we're all scared them. But for three months Bach continued to nag him, please please, sir, I beg of you and coming with tears in my eyes. So the Duke was like, if I can't have you, nobody can. Which hello red flag. The Duke put him in prison, so per the Weimar Court Secretary's minutes. On six November seventeen seventeen, Bach, till now concertmeister and half organist, was put under arrest in the justice room for obstinately demanding his instant dismissal.

So he asked, like, can I quit? They're like, yeah, you can stop doing that, but we got a new job for you. Prison.

It's like no worries though Bach. You know, he could keep himself busy. Some men, you know, they go to prison and they while away the hours in prison making wine in the toilet.

Yeah, are bigger muscles, right, And.

Some join gangs and participate in violent racial segregation, meaning we know, right books, Oh, isn't that the truth? Some of them lure disturbed ladies into being their pen pal.

This is true.

Some start podcasts that eventually help them get their sentence commuted.

That's how my mom met my.

That's a shout out to ear Hustle podcast in erl on Woods.

That actually is a good story.

So some do that. In seventeen hundreds prison Bach wrote a book of keyboard exercises called the orgelbuchn oh Waiting.

In fact, the one that people used. They kept using it.

It's a prison book.

Yep, so good it is.

So he got out on December second.

Toilet paper.

Onion skins. He got out on December second, seventeen seventeen. Per the Weimar Court secretary quote. On November sixth, the concertmaster and court organist Bach was arrested and held at the County Magistrate's House of detention for obstinate behavior and forcing the question of his dismissal. Finally, on December second, he was informed by the court secretary of his unfavorable discharge and simultaneously freed from his arrest. So they're like,

So you get what you want, But we also got what we want.

Yes, now, fun facts. I don't know if you're aware of this, but bach He went on to become one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music. WHOA, I feel bad for people who are listening to this on earphones are just like, yeah, but what does this tell us, Daren? It tells us that music programs in the prison reduce recidivism. It works.

We should bring music inside, Zaren.

Close your ah my god, you keep sneaking. I know, and I'm kidding. This one is a false alarm too. Let's break through some ads when we come back. I got a real doozy for you. Welcome, Elizabeth, Hello, Elizabeth Schuberty, Elizabeth there, Elizabeth, Elizabeth, can I Elizabeth?

Go ahead?

We've had arrests for political vandalism, draft dodging, nerd partying, trying to quit a job. I love all of them. Yes, I have two more for you.

I relate to almost all of them so far.

Yeah, me too, sure related, So two more?

Yes? Please.

There was a man named Ivor Novello. I know you love the name Ivor I.

Do, yes, so it's up there with drogone.

Yes exactly. He was a Welsh actor, composer, dramatist and singer. Born in eighteen ninety three. He wrote the British patriotic song Keep the Home Fires Burning in nineteen fourteen, during the beginning leading up to World War One. The song yeah it was this, you know, the song was in that movie Johnny Got His Gun where the characters are celebrating a Christmas party, and that's the clip from the movie later used at the end of Metallica's music video.

One There you go. Bring it full circle, you know.

Full circle, circle of life.

So i've or.

He starred in two silent films, The Lodger and Downhill, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. He wrote symphonies, he wrote musicals. He intimidated Noel Coward. Really yeah Coward said what he said quote. I just felt suddenly conscious of the long way I had to go before I could break into the magic atmosphere in which he moved and breathed with such nonchalance.

Really no Coward wanted to be him, uh huh.

He was once called the prettiest man in England.

Oh wow, she wanted to be him and be with him.

Yeah, a little bit of both. So of course he drove a Rolls Royce naturally. Naturally so during World War Two, petrol gas, as we'll say over on here, was rationed. Yes, pretty much everything was rationed, even in the years after the war, but gas especially.

For a long time after almost like a ten years almost sometimes I fit into fifteen years for some supplies. I couldn't believe you when you hear from those like sixties eras rock stars like ye, yeah, Keith Richards will tell you about his childhood. Yeah, he's like, yeah, we got butter and I was fifteen or whatever exactly.

So there's no gasoline to be found. But uh, you know, gas is a commodity, and that gas that's what kept the war. That Sir Michael Kemp Tippett was, you know, so despised, that's what kept it running. So in order to cruise around in his sweet ride, Ivor applied to the Regional Transport Commissioner for a permit.

No dice, buddy, I'm not saying you get that.

They're like, we got a war going on, what are you even about He's like, okay, listen, you need to let me have the gas for my car because it will boost morale if people see me tootling.

People see me, they'll feel Goodah, just.

Come on, like it will make him so happy. Let me toot big note is what they said. So there he was at some event, whining about not being able to gas up his roles and go for spins. A fan named Dora Constable overheard him. She walked up to him and looked at his pretty little mouth and said, I'm going to try and do what I can to get your car on the road. And oh, thank you, Dora. You're really a deer. Oh no problem, Ivor, that was

Yes, it's very impart the effort.

Yes, so, Ivor, here's her plan and is like, that's awesome. Count me. In January sixth, nineteen forty four, a day that will live in infamy, he transferred his car to the company. Dora wrote a letter on the company's letterhead and signed it Grace Walton, the company secretary. So much forgery and duplicitous action while our boys are over the fighting.

So the letter, no white poppies for you on white feathers.

That the Yeah, not for white feathers or the cowardice.

Yeah, I've seen the four Feathers movie. White Feathers and the white poppies.

For all the soldiers, the red poppies, red poppies. The blood spilled in Flanders feelt look.

Enthusiast.

The letter said that the car was a Rolls Royce and it would only be used for transport. That was absolutely you know, essential, he's an essential worker. Of course, go bang your pots at seven pm. You got to get to So the license was granted March sixth Nora took it over to Ivor and he was quote tremendously elated.

It would be great if she just sent him a note thanks for the car and never talked to him.

Yeah, transferred it over that would be an even better ridiculous nor you missed your chance. So he starts cruising all over the place. Tutelands he had his like perfectly palmated hair, unflappable in the wind, tuxedo, crispcket square, not moving totally. Then he got blabah blah ba busted. Dora confessed and when this happened, and then when she served a summons and she said, I will not go back on my statement and shall plead guilty to it all.

So she's like got groupie thinking, Yeah, but.

Here's the thing. Iv R only saves Ivor of course.

Yeah, so I are the selfless or way to the selfish.

When provided with a copy of his statement on the matter, Dora said, quote, he is trying to put all the blame on me. That is grossly unfair. He was willing to do anything crooked so long as he had use of the car. Why he knew every move, plan and suggestion the whole way through. He agreed to everything and

He played your girl.

So April twenty fourth, nineteen forty I or Novello. He went to the court and was sentenced to eight weeks in prison. He only served for over misuse of petrol coupons. Wow, four weeks he did a month? Yes, apparently though broke his spirit and he never recovered from the experience. Huh, but I think all boys have gone through much worse.

Stiff up and limp.

What Noel Coward, one time admirer than full time hater, said quote He's been fighting like a steer to keep going as before the war and hasn't done a thing for the general effort.

Not one of his ding's projection is tough. Yeah.

So then now we're going to wrap it up here. Lastly, for you, I have.

Eric Sadie, Oh not the Eric Sadie.

French composer and pianist born in eighteen sixty six. Yes, I feel like you're going to enjoy this, dude.

Oh nice.

He founded his own religion.

Sadism, called.

Sorry Igles. Metropolitan doubted his zoo convict to Jesus.

The Metropolitan Church of Christ, the conductor.

Yeah, the Church of Art whatever. To this day, he's the sole convert. He's the only Yeah.

I started a church. At least I got one convert.

He had one love of his life, the painter Suzanne Valadon. Okay, they had a five month liaison and then she moved away and he was heartbroken and that was it no more for him.

One of them. He would only done with women.

He would only eat things that were white.

I live with a girl who did that. I thought she was kidding. When I heard my bad was like, yeah, she's telling me about Nicole's coming up from LA And you know, I'm like, what's he like? Well, if she only eats white foods, I'm like, that's the first thing you're gonna tell me about this.

I think that's an important thing.

Determined.

He said, quote, my only nourishment consists of food that is white. I have a good appetite, but never talk when eating for fear of strangling myself.

Okay, he's all the way crazy. Ohyah, he doesn't want Probably my.

Favorite detail, he carried a hammer on him at all times for personal protection. Yeah. So if I had a Hammo, I'd beat you in the face with it. In nineteen seventeen, Ballet russ commissioned a ballet from him. He gave them Parade in Paris, performed at the Tiata di Chatellat.

So what did the French John Henry do for the Russians?

Well, he synthesized live music, dance, poetry, fashion, set design and visual art.

He basically in movies pretty much just.

Poet, writer, filmmaker, all around artist. Jean Carteau did the libretto Oh Wow, and Pablo Picasso did the set designs. So in the program note, he's good instincts on who he hires. He's got great friends. The program note was written by Guillaume Appollinaire, whoa said Parade in Paris was quote a kind of surrealism. I am butchering today. I apologized that he did this three years before surrealism became an art movement in Paris, so the term was born there.

Is that a thing?

Yeah, they were rested and jailed for eight days.

They had laws against cultural.

At the time, so they get busted for cultural anarchy. Critic Jean Pueg congratulated Sadie after the event. That was amazing. I'm so proud of you. Honey, that's what he said. But then his review came out and it was another story.

It did not sing.

Yeah.

Pueg dismissed parade as quote an outrage on French taste, and Sadie quote for his lack of wit, skill and inventive. So Sadie like he's going to respond to this, he has to. Yeah, he started writing Pueg irate and crass postcards.

Post cards response postcards.

And since they were postcards that anyone could see, Pueg sued Sadie for slander, and on July twelfth, nineteen seventeen, they went to court. Zaren close. Oh, I want you to picture it. You are a French judge, O la la. You are overseeing the case of Jean Puigue versus Eric Sadie. These two twits have been going at it and it's working your last nerve. You stare out the window and you imagine some back playing something lovely. You're lost in this reverie until a man clears his throat, how rude.

I like the Picasso was smart enough not to go.

He's like, I am not touching that at all. So Sadie appealed, but the final verdict came out in Puig's favor. Princess de Polinac came to Sadie's aid and loaned him the funds to cover the fine as well as damages. On March fifteenth, nineteen eighteen, his sentence was suspended quote on the condition that he showed good conduct and not receive any prison sentence for five.

Years better than going in scent to the front.

Right, So Sadi maintained good behavior, but he didn't pay the damages to Puig. Of course, it looks like he just pocketed the cash from the princess, so he wrote in October of nineteen eighteen, quote, I have no intention of giving one cent to the noble critic who is the cause of my judiciary ills, and instead ask for permission to use the money for living expenses. And they let him do it. They did. They let him do it,

That was really nice, Thank.

You, saren Ice. What's your ridiculous takeaway?

These guys act like my friends like I mean, they're just as ridiculous, from Shooter Art all the way down to Sadie. I'm like, I could chill with these guys. Sound like amazing stories of people I've been with.

I like them all. I liked every last one of them.

Those were fun, they didn't involve like hurting a lot of people. They didn't really like, you know, con the Queen.

And some great postcards.

Great great postcards, great great writing.

Yes, that's all I have for today. You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com. We're also at Ridiculous Crime on Twitter and Instagram. Don't email Ridiculous Crime email dot com. Do do leave it talk back on the iHeart app. Then that's it. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by head Flop Dave Cousten. Research is by Chief Gord's and Turkey,

Browns Qui say it one more times.

Cry Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts, My heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.