The Unfettered Critic – May 2026

RECENTLY we found ourselves intrigued by the title of a novel: Murder Your Employer. We’ve notably been employer-less for well over a decade, so we figured we could expose ourselves to this intriguing tale without developing the temptation to emulate it. Thus, we ordered a hard-copy from Eileen at Jacksonville’s own Rebel Heart Books. (Eileen is a champion at scoring Special Orders, by the way. We call on her to do it regularly; and so should we all.)

We loved Murder Your Employer. It was hilarious. Imagine the depiction of a school that educates adults in the art of killing their unbearable bosses in truly devious ways—so devious, in fact, that if they weren’t fictional and funny, publishing them likely would be illegal. And beyond the fabulous prose, we were surprised to learn that the author, Rupert Holmes, was the composer/singer of a 1979 Number One hit, known as The Piña Colada Song. Yup, that one. In addition to singing “story songs,” Holmes, a British multi-tasker, has stretched his talents into novel writing. And he’s so good at it that we started wondering who else might have a career that we know about while they engage in, in fact, a simultaneous second.

We didn’t have to look far.

The first individual we thought of has been on our minds since his passing last September. Uber-actor Robert Redford is widely recognized for starring in films like The Sting, All The President’s Men, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, etc., etc., etc. But his efforts as an entrepreneur and businessman may be more important. He created and headed The Sundance Institute, a non-profit that today offers workshops, funding, and mentorship for young filmmakers, and he sponsored the world-renowned Sundance Film Festival. Yes, we’re impressed.

Just as impressive, and even more surprising, we’re blown away by the career successes accumulated by musician-extraordinaire and, yes, doctor of astrophysics, Brian May. We may think of musical group Queen’s phenomenal vocalist Freddie Mercury when we hear the words “Galileo, Galileo, Galileo” as “Bohemian Rapsody” blasts from our car radios. But May wrote half of the band’s songs (including “We Will Rock You”) while working as a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. Among his many engineering feats, May is member of the New Horizons Probe team, the first space probe to take high-resolution photographs of Pluto. Plus, May has collaborated with NASA on multiple missions, such as creating 3D stereoscopic images to help identify a safe landing site on the asteroid Bennu. Again, we’re impressed.

Our favorite of these day job-dualities may be less widely remembered today, but is no less impressive. In 1916, a gentleman named Wallace Stevens accepted a position with the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, and served as the much-respected vice president of the company from 1932 until his death in 1955. Meanwhile, Stevens fulfilled his artistic yearnings by quietly penning poetry. Following a series of books dating from 1923, his 1954 “Collected Poems” won both a National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Yeah, that Pulitzer Prize. To those paying attention—including Yale professor and famed literary critic Harold Bloom, Stevens was lauded as “…the best and most representative American poet of our time.”

And yet: (We love this!) Note that above we said Stevens wrote “quietly.” When he died, members of the academic press converged on the Hartford Insurance offices in Connecticut to ask his fellow executives, “What did you think of Vice-President Stevens’ poems?” The answer they universally received at the company was:

“Wally? Poems?”

Dang, we just love this stuff.