Latest / Privycast / Windy Ben (Independence Day Special 2023)

Transcript

Windy Ben (Independence Day Special 2023) · Privycast

0:03
>> Speaker A: That all well bred people, therefore, to
0:06
avoid giving such offense, forcibly restrain the
0:09
efforts of nature to discharge that
0:12
wind.
0:15
M welcome back to privy.
0:17
Privy is a podcast about
0:20
bathrooms recorded
0:23
from my home bathroom. I'm your host,
0:26
hunter Hoover, and I love
0:28
bathrooms. And if you're listening
0:31
to this, yesterday was American
0:33
Independence day. Happy independence
0:36
day. Um,
0:39
if you don't know the story, uh, I'm sorry,
0:42
but that's the most
0:46
big headed american thing I'm probably going to
0:48
say. Uh, but once upon
0:51
a time, America was controlled by the
0:54
British. I don't know how anybody finds
0:57
themselves in that state, but we don't like
1:00
it. We dumped a bunch of tea in the ocean,
1:03
took up drinking coffee, beat the british
1:05
back, uh, and they went back to where they came from,
1:08
and the rest was literally history. America was born.
1:11
Freedom. Dig it, man.
1:13
And if you
1:16
celebrate in traditional us of a
1:19
style, you shoot Chinese made pyrotechnics into the
1:22
sky, uh, thus declaring
1:25
freedom somehow, I don't know. Um, but I'll tell you
1:28
what, american Independence day,
1:31
it hits pretty hard. Especially
1:33
you kind of go through a slog
1:36
of just the beginning of summer is just kind
1:38
of a slog. And
1:41
that first part of summer, it's the first kind of
1:44
thing in summer that you really, really get to sink.
1:47
>> Speaker B: Your teeth into and just kind of
1:50
just get together.
1:51
>> Speaker A: Do you know what I'm saying? Just go celebrate something worth
1:54
celebrating. Uh, at the point of this
1:56
record, I returned today
1:59
from a couple day camp trip
2:02
with my family in the.
2:04
>> Speaker B: Uh, national, ah, forest out by Mount
2:06
Hood.
2:07
>> Speaker A: And, um, while it's there,
2:10
and you guys, uh, if you haven't heard,
2:13
uh, go follow Randy Bowles on
2:16
Instagram. Randy Bowles. Um,
2:18
that is where all the kind of
2:21
dangerous bowls that I get and.
2:24
>> Speaker B: Take pictures of in my
2:27
bathroom, wanderings.
2:28
>> Speaker A: And travels, uh, those pictures will live
2:31
there. And needless to say, randy
2:33
Bowles picked up some pretty sweet material
2:36
on this camp trip. Uh, there was
2:39
porta potties and camp
2:41
toilets that were well loved,
2:44
for lack of a better way of saying it, at one
2:47
point, there was toilet paper
2:49
pirating and pilfering because
2:52
you just got to make sure that you're going to have the material that you're
2:55
going to need to make it through your next stop. And so there's a lot of
2:58
planning ahead that has to,
3:01
you know, perhaps you are one
3:04
who goes out and ventures
3:07
out into the camping space,
3:10
uh, for your independence day celebrations. I know when
3:13
I was growing up, my family and I used to venture into
3:16
the woods to Lincoln, Montana, uh.
3:18
>> Speaker B: If you don't know, uh, Lincoln is.
3:20
>> Speaker A: Home of the unabomber. So, uh, just another
3:23
shout out to.
3:23
>> Speaker B: Things that Montana gave us.
3:25
>> Speaker A: Uh, but we used to venture out into the woods
3:28
of Montana, and I'll tell you what, a
3:31
fireworks show doesn't hit quite as hard
3:34
as it does echoing off the bowl of the mountains
3:37
as you're sitting in the valley listening and watching the
3:39
fireworks shoot skyward. It's a good
3:42
time. Uh, yeah,
3:45
it's a good display. Uh, we
3:48
regularly out here, um, at the point of this record, a full
3:51
week ago, um, we gather at a
3:53
farm in Sayo and enjoy the fireworks there.
3:56
There's a nice gentleman who graciously, uh,
4:00
invites and hosts a bunch of people out on his property.
4:03
So, um, yeah, that's where we go
4:06
and celebrate. And, yeah, it's just a good
4:08
time, but
4:15
we have come a, um, long way
4:17
since the
4:20
original Independence
4:23
day. Like, America
4:26
is still free, but now we spend a lot of time
4:28
arguing about how we should use
4:31
that freedom and what we should focus that freedom
4:34
on. In past
4:37
years, here on the show, here on privy,
4:40
uh, to remember
4:42
and celebrate american independence, we have
4:45
discussed something that is kind of truly american, that's
4:48
kind of this Independence Day episode
4:51
is, uh, to celebrate something of american
4:54
history that is related to the toilet.
4:57
And in past years, we have looked at
5:00
the patriotic privy pits.
5:03
These were pits that were dug that when
5:05
the contents, or lack thereof, are
5:08
observed, they can tell us a lot about
5:11
life in America at this time. They essentially think
5:13
of, like, a time capsule. You think of those, like,
5:16
1990s Nickelodeon time capsules
5:18
that. I wonder if we're going to start digging those
5:21
back up. We're going to find some horrors of our
5:24
past as we do so. But, uh,
5:27
these privy pits kind of serve as little mini
5:30
time capsules filled with,
5:32
well, regular time capsule things, but also crap
5:35
and pee. Uh, and they
5:38
tell us a lot about american life at the
5:41
time. If you want to go hear more about that, you
5:44
can check out our episode from two years ago. Uh,
5:48
yeah, just go into the, you know, how to find
5:51
podcasts. I'm not going to explain it to you. I refuse to explain it
5:53
to you. This week,
5:56
however, we need to discuss some of
5:59
the found. Well, one primarily,
6:02
but we need to discuss this idea of the
6:05
founding fathers, and we're going to discuss one of
6:08
them. But before we get there, we should
6:11
remember who these men
6:13
were.
6:14
>> Speaker B: M.
6:22
>> Speaker A: To say America declared its
6:25
independence on July 4, is a bit
6:28
of a buried lead. In
6:30
short, the process, much like anything
6:33
that has to do with government, you know what I'm saying?
6:36
Uh, it didn't happen in one day. A lot of
6:39
times, they wait right up to the last minute, kind of
6:42
like they recently did on this
6:44
spending cut thing. I don't know. I'm not a politician or
6:47
a historian, but the process started
6:50
a year before, in
6:52
1775.
6:55
During this time, the actions of
6:58
the colonies and some of
7:01
the means that they were taking
7:03
caused King George. He's the
7:06
dumb sounding and idiot looking fellow from
7:09
Hamilton. If you saw,
7:11
um, that rap musical,
7:15
an idea that very fascinating to me,
7:18
but he's, like, the only funny part in the whole thing. Um,
7:21
but King
7:24
George decided to declare
7:27
America to be an open
7:29
rebellion. And to that, I say,
7:32
whoopty frigendipity, because
7:35
they deliberated, and they
7:38
were figuring out, well, what are we going to
7:41
do? He has declared us to be in
7:43
rebellion, and so what is our next move?
7:46
And so they met, and they held the second
7:49
Continental Congress, where they set up
7:52
a formal military. If we're going to be
7:55
free, we're going to need to fight for
7:58
it.
8:02
On June 11,
8:04
1776,
8:06
a draft document was begun by five
8:09
members. John Adams, Robert
8:12
Livingston, Roger Sherman,
8:15
Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin.
8:18
These men drafted the document,
8:21
which was then sent to Congress on June
8:24
28, 1776. Do you see
8:27
that? It took 20. No, it took
8:30
almost 20 days for them to meet
8:33
and draft this document.
8:35
Like, I'm telling you
8:38
what a time this document
8:41
was signed. And John Adams
8:44
told his wife he thought
8:46
that this is the Declaration of
8:49
Independence. He thought that they would celebrate
8:52
their independence every year on July 2.
8:55
You almost had it, John. Uh, you almost this
8:57
close. Like, two off.
9:00
But meanwhile, the British are coming,
9:03
and they have brought an
9:05
army. The final
9:08
draft of the Declaration of Independence
9:11
was approved on July 4, american Independence
9:14
day.
9:14
>> Speaker B: America.
9:15
>> Speaker A: Freedom. Dig it, man.
9:19
The document itself would not, however, be
9:21
signed in its entirety until August,
9:25
um, which. It's kind of a
9:27
sliding scale, but I hate August, because August
9:30
literally has no holidays. It's kind of
9:33
a boring month.
9:36
And the argument is, well, if we moved the 4
9:38
July, uh, now, obviously, it would not be called
9:41
4 July. It would be just american Independence Day. We would call it
9:44
the whatever of August. But then
9:47
July is not going to have anything, do you know what I'm saying? So just leave
9:50
it where it's at. And
9:53
the other thing here is. So we
9:56
just went camping, and during the night, it's nice.
9:59
It's so cool. Uh, it feels so good
10:02
sleeping in that cold. But, man,
10:04
sometimes during the day, and we're in the mount. Like, we're in on Mount
10:07
Hood. It's up there
10:10
and not, like on the mountain. I'm not like some sort
10:13
of summit person. Uh, it's cold,
10:16
ICE cold, just like this
10:22
polar seltzer.
10:26
But during the day, it gets pretty
10:28
hot.
10:32
I can't imagine all of these
10:35
guys in this building, in this
10:37
room together with nothing but
10:40
windows and the open air. Like,
10:43
no electricity. We're going to talk more about electricity here in just a little bit.
10:46
But, man, it's hot. And these
10:49
dudes were not showering. They probably were
10:52
not the cleanest people around. They were probably not
10:54
filthy. But the standard
10:58
of rank
11:00
was, like, they
11:03
tolerated much more than we do nowadays.
11:07
I went two and a half days with no shower,
11:10
and I was starting to get some ranko stanko,
11:13
and I was fit over it. So
11:15
imagine these guys take a bath or two a week,
11:19
sometimes a special bath. They're
11:22
all huddled in a small room, no aC. Half of them
11:24
had rotten or wooden teeth. Place probably
11:27
stank.
11:31
56 men. It's a lot of
11:33
men. Nice.
11:37
Signed the document. Some
11:40
were born in the US colonies. Some, um, had come
11:43
to the US from abroad.
11:46
The ages of these men ranged from 30 to
11:49
70 years old, from all sorts of professions
11:52
united under one ideal. They're sick and
11:55
tired of paying taxes to a tyrant king.
11:57
And so
12:00
freedom was their pursuit.
12:04
The declaration was signed, and the war began.
12:11
Now, this episode is not about the
12:14
war. Frankly, it isn't even going to be
12:17
about the declaration per se. We
12:20
just need to acknowledge and justify
12:23
the connections we're making. We can't simply just
12:25
sit down and launch in. We have to connect it
12:28
to what's going on in our lives. Thus
12:31
american Independence Day. We
12:34
have made the connection, but we need to talk
12:37
about bathrooms. This is privy, dang it.
12:40
We're here to talk about bathrooms and the things
12:43
that we do in them and on them and around them,
12:46
inside them, with
12:49
them. This
12:52
week, before we talk about bathrooms
12:56
and after we talk about the declaration, we need
12:59
to focus in on one
13:02
of these specific founding fathers,
13:13
Benjamin Franklin.
13:16
Little Benny was kind of a, uh, jack of all
13:19
trades. Besides being the one
13:22
who helped draft and later
13:24
sign the Declaration of Independence, he was
13:27
also an inventor, a scientist.
13:30
>> Speaker B: A philosopher, and turns out, kind of an
13:32
egomaniac.
13:33
>> Speaker A: The dude was pretty into himself,
13:36
and he loved to be right, and
13:39
who doesn't like to be right? But there's a difference
13:42
between loving to be right and liking to be
13:45
right. If you love to be right, you have to be right. Do you know what I'm
13:47
saying, you ever meet one of those people that just has to
13:50
be right? Like, they argue with you about everything. I mean,
13:53
they'd be staring at you. You'd be like, dude, I really
13:56
love.
13:57
>> Speaker B: This purple shirt I'm wearing.
13:59
>> Speaker A: And they will, despite
14:02
all proof, tell you that the shirt is
14:04
white. By the end of his life,
14:08
Ben.
14:09
>> Speaker B: Franklin was known for being the
14:12
first.
14:12
>> Speaker A: Postmaster general, discovering
14:15
electricity, charting and naming the
14:18
Gulf stream. He invented the lightning
14:21
rod, the bifocal glasses, the Franklin
14:24
stove, metal lined furnace. He founded
14:26
the library company, Philadelphia's first fire
14:29
department, and the University of Pennsylvania.
14:33
He was a newspaper editor and printer,
14:36
and he became the author and began to publish poor
14:39
Richards Almanac. In
14:42
short, the man Ben Franklin
14:45
embodied the american dream.
14:48
So much so that they put his mug on the $100
14:51
bill in 1928, which was about
14:53
130 years after his death.
14:57
But before that,
15:00
Mr. Franklin had a lot
15:03
of interactions with
15:12
many know the story of, uh, Ben
15:15
Franklin discovering eccentricity.
15:18
He ignores the good advice.
15:21
Frankly, it's good advice of
15:24
every parent. Every parent has told their
15:27
kid, don't stick your finger when it comes to
15:30
electricity. Every parent has told their kid, don't stick
15:33
your finger in the outlet. Don't stick anything
15:36
in the outlet. Stay away from the outlet,
15:38
and don't fly your kite in the.
15:41
It's just, it's just plain and
15:52
ignored the advice of every good
15:55
intentioned parent. And he flew his
15:58
kite, and he sees
16:01
the thunderstorm, and he thinks, you know what? I'm going to get out there and fly my
16:04
kite. And he says, you know what? Better
16:06
yet, I'm going to strap a flipping key to
16:09
the end of it, some metal bits, so that way we can
16:12
make sure this joker gets hit by
16:15
electricity. Well,
16:17
one thing led to another, and he discovered electricity. Bottled
16:20
it, if you will. All, uh, because of
16:23
a windstorm.
16:26
Now.
16:28
>> Speaker B: The facts of the
16:32
famous key.
16:33
>> Speaker A: Flying kite scene of Ben Franklin
16:35
are. It's kind of one of those american
16:38
tales. He likely flew a kite. He was
16:41
likely studying storms and electricity. He
16:43
probably had a hypothesis. But whether he
16:46
stuck a kite in the sky, it got zapped, and that's how he
16:49
solved this thing. I'm not sure. It's hard
16:52
to tell how much is myth, what we
16:55
do know. Ben Franklin was an avid
16:58
scientist, and he would study the heck out of things,
17:01
try to figure them out. But there's some other things
17:04
that Ben Franklin would do
17:07
that were particularly.
17:10
>> Speaker B: Wind.
17:11
>> Speaker A: Or wind related, particularly weird.
17:19
There's this story about Ben
17:22
Franklin and John Adams traveling
17:24
in 1776.
17:28
I like to think that it was to sign the Declaration of
17:31
Independence, but it likely was
17:33
not. On their travels,
17:37
they were, quotes, forced, quote,
17:40
forced to share a hotel. Now,
17:42
listen, I don't know if this is, like,
17:45
no room in the in situation or what's going.
17:50
And I should also know, I am not
17:52
insinuating a
17:54
homosexual relationship between these two men.
17:58
Uh, it is pretty well established that Ben
18:00
Franklin had a way with the ladies he
18:03
particularly would pursue. Ladies of all marital
18:06
status. It seems you can go look that up for yourselves.
18:09
That's not what we're here to talk about. We're not here to disparage
18:12
the name. But they were
18:15
forced to share a hotel room.
18:18
>> Speaker B: Now, it's probably something simple,
18:21
but there's.
18:22
>> Speaker A: More to go, a lot more going on here
18:24
than that, because Ben
18:27
Franklin and John Adams
18:30
differed on one key
18:32
philosophy. And that philosophy,
18:36
you might hear it and you go, man, oh, man, what is it? Ooh, I bet
18:39
it's religion. I bet these two guys fought on
18:41
know. It's the
18:44
classic roommate atheist versus
18:47
the Christian. No, that is not, um,
18:50
bet. I bet it was their view on government.
18:53
Well, here's the deal. They were both pretty united on the front
18:56
of go, America. We're getting out of this british thing.
18:59
No. Oh, I bet it was a lady.
19:01
I bet one of them. They both loved the same
19:04
woman. Who knows? It ain't my place to
19:07
tell.
19:07
>> Speaker B: No.
19:09
>> Speaker A: Ben Franklin and John Adams
19:12
differed on, uh, an entirely
19:15
different and key philosophical
19:17
point.
19:20
And that is the wind
19:23
will make you catch a cold.
19:32
John Adams believed in the old
19:35
wives tale that sleeping with an
19:38
open window and as
19:41
a result, a, uh, stiff breeze.
19:45
Got some stiff
19:47
breeze all over John Adams would
19:50
make you catch a cold. Now, if that's the
19:53
case, I should have had a cold all through
19:56
freshman and sophomore year, and I should definitely have a
19:58
cold coming back from this camp trip, because I'll tell you
20:01
what, the wind on that lake that one day,
20:04
man, that's a stiff breeze. You can almost like
20:07
it's been a minute since I've experienced wind like that.
20:10
Actually, I experienced a wind like that this
20:13
past winter. Our neighbor, God
20:16
blesses something. I
20:18
wake to some loud thumping and
20:21
pounding sound on the side of my house,
20:24
and I peer out my window and I see what looks
20:26
like four forked things sticking up in there. I'm like, oh,
20:29
my gosh. My first thought is my trampoline
20:32
has gone. It's Dorothy and
20:35
Toto's tornado adventure
20:38
featuring Hunter's trampoline. But no, it
20:41
was actually my neighbor's carport parking. And it
20:44
flipped up over and onto its top
20:46
inside of our yard. And we had to help him push it back and over. It's
20:49
still in a crumpled, mangled mess in his backyard.
20:52
But I digress. It's been a minute since I have
20:55
experienced wind to this degree,
20:59
but if John Adams is correct, I should have a
21:02
cold.
21:05
And I assure you I'm feeling fine.
21:09
My budies and I, in college,
21:12
we used to do a thing called arctic chill. Uh,
21:15
every night before we go to bed, we'd open up the
21:18
dorm room windows. Even if it was, I mean, it would be like 30, 40
21:21
degrees outside and we would open the windows and we just
21:24
crank the window. Just crank those
21:27
window fans as hard as you can, get them going. And
21:30
it's just ICE boxes. This room, it's
21:32
totally cold in there. It's so good. Get
21:35
the arctic chill going for the evening, and then you just kind of
21:38
leave. You go to dinner, you do around the lobby, you visit
21:41
some friends'rooms. You come back to the room at like
21:44
910 o'clock, settle in for some office.
21:47
Oh, baby. Just an ICE cold room in the
21:49
office and a little cup of sweet tea.
21:52
Oh, shoot. It's good stuff.
21:55
Um, that was a good time.
21:57
But
22:00
John Adams would have been pissed if he'd have seen what we
22:03
were doing. However, Ben Franklin
22:06
would have been thrilled because he was a big fan of
22:09
this open air, stiff breeze. Well, Ben,
22:12
in fact, Ben was pretty strong willed guy,
22:16
and he got his arctic chill that night. John
22:19
Adams had to, I guess, catch a cold. Probably not.
22:22
Sounds like he's being a little bit of a baby.
22:26
But personally, if I had to share a broom with Ben
22:29
Franklin, this would have been the least of my worries.
22:33
>> Speaker B: Ben Franklin was an avid
22:35
writer, explorer.
22:37
>> Speaker A: And one of the things that he did
22:39
regularly was write to
22:42
his former colleagues abroad.
22:45
These would translate his discoveries and
22:48
findings into other languages.
22:51
One of the contemporaries that he wrote to was
22:54
Jacques Barbo
22:56
Duborg. That's the american
22:59
English french pronunciation of this man's
23:02
name. Um, and this guy, Jacques.
23:05
Jacques whatever. He was like a french
23:07
version of Ben Franklin. He strapped an electric conductor
23:10
on the end of an umbrella. Was a botanist, a physician?
23:13
You get the idea. Like, he's
23:16
like, wish ben Franklin. He's like, weewee
23:19
Monsour ben Franklin. But
23:21
Franklin loved to discuss
23:24
his medical understanding and findings with
23:27
Duborg. And Ben Franklin wrote
23:30
in a letter to his colleague and friend
23:32
Jacques.
23:33
>> Speaker B: Jacques.
23:34
>> Speaker A: Jacques.
23:36
Jacques. In
23:39
1768 his letter reads, and
23:42
I'm going to read it to you in the Og ben
23:45
English that's what I'm calling it here. It reads,
23:48
quote, I greatly approve the epithet
23:51
which you give in your letter of the 8 June
23:54
4 eighthune to
23:56
the new method of treating the smallpox, which you call
23:59
the tonic or bracing method. I will
24:02
take occasion from it to mention a practice to which I have
24:05
been accustomed myself. You know, the cold
24:08
bath has long been in vogue here as a
24:11
tonic, but the shock of, uh, the cold water
24:14
has always appeared to me, generally speaking, is too
24:17
violent. I have found it much more agreeable to my
24:19
constitution to bathe in another element.
24:22
I mean cold air. With
24:25
this view, I rise early almost every
24:28
morning and sit in my chamber without any
24:31
clothes whatever, half an hour or an hour
24:33
according to the season, either reading or writing.
24:37
This practice is not in the least painful, but, on
24:40
the contrary, agreeable. And if I return to bed
24:42
afterwards, before I dress myself, as sometimes
24:45
happens, I make a supplement to my night's
24:48
rest of one or 2 hours of the most
24:51
pleasing sleep that can be imagined.
24:54
>> Speaker B: I find no ill consequences
24:57
whatsoever resulting.
24:58
>> Speaker A: From it, and that at least,
25:01
it does not injure my health if it does not, in
25:04
fact, contribute much to its preservation.
25:07
Now, uh, end
25:09
quote. If you don't read
25:12
fancy old school American english,
25:15
benny, uh, I like to call it big benny english. I'll
25:17
translate. His budy
25:21
had wrote him that taking a very cold bath served
25:24
to help one's health and could be helpful when
25:27
dealing with smallpox. Now,
25:30
this said, ben Franklin doesn't like cold baths
25:33
because it shrivels up his little Franklin too much and makes
25:36
him struggle for breath in the cold air. He doesn't like the polar
25:39
plunge because it makes his little polar seltzer
25:41
go, and he ain't into that. So
25:44
rather, franklin, Benny boy
25:46
Franklin prefers to strip down
25:49
completely in the buff, open a
25:52
window, and, quote, take a bath in the cold
25:55
air. He will sit with his button
25:58
berries on furniture in his home, um,
26:01
for a half hour to an hour, just going about
26:04
his day, writing and thinking
26:07
with his digit flopping about.
26:10
And he notes he hasn't experienced any problems with his
26:13
health due to it.
26:16
Makes you wonder if
26:19
Franklin ever had guests over, if he did so
26:22
when he did, if he let them know that he, in fact, he essentially,
26:25
like, rubbed his
26:28
little Scott all over the seats everywhere. Like
26:31
every day, windows are open.
26:34
Anyone could just walk by and catch.
26:35
>> Speaker B: Ben in the middle of an airbath.
26:38
>> Speaker A: And I think by 1776, which is
26:41
years after Franklin wrote this to
26:43
DeBorg, people would have gotten
26:46
word that Franklin takes
26:49
air baths. And when Adams and
26:52
him shacked up for the night, and Franklin goes to
26:54
the window and opens it. You have to
26:57
imagine that Adams is just like, do you really
27:00
have to do the thing while we're sharing a.
27:03
You must. You really?
27:05
>> Speaker B: Yes.
27:06
>> Speaker A: John, uh, bequeath you. I do. It's good for,
27:09
my
27:13
know, hanging brain in the drafty window can't be good for you,
27:16
Ben. How
27:19
can it? It just is.
27:22
I can picture it so well, not.
27:24
>> Speaker B: Not ben Franklin's digit, but, like, the argument between
27:27
them.
27:28
>> Speaker A: I don't think of Ben Franklin's member.
27:34
An airbath.
27:37
And what's weird here, the wild
27:40
part is the logic is sound. Cold
27:43
baths or cold showers are a shock to
27:46
the system. Are supposed to be pretty good for you.
27:49
And so Ben found a happy medium,
27:53
a slightly less shock to the system by
27:55
standing nude in the open
27:58
air. The airbag.
28:08
But I think I know the other reason
28:10
Franklin wanted the windows open so
28:13
much. Ben
28:16
Franklin was born in Boston,
28:18
Massachusetts, to Josiah and, uh, Abaya
28:21
Franklin in 17. Six.
28:24
His father was a candle and soap
28:26
maker. Now, while
28:29
these candles were probably more for home lighting,
28:32
after all, his son hadn't yet discovered electricity
28:35
and old Jefferson hadn't
28:38
done the light bulb thing. I
28:41
can't help but think they would sometimes
28:44
put something in it to smell.
28:47
And even just the smell of burning wax is good.
28:49
Sometimes I just think of that
28:53
birthday candle smell. It's
28:56
so good. I ain't a big fan of
28:59
birth. I actually love birthdays. I don't like my
29:01
birthday. Um, it's a thing.
29:04
Big fan of getting hyped for other people's birthdays. I don't
29:07
really understand the, like, I didn't do anything special,
29:10
but that birthday candle smell
29:12
is so good. Um, one of the things that I
29:15
miss, uh, shout out to our
29:17
custodians. But custodian really one
29:20
of them out of the two right now at our church, Michael
29:23
Wall. One of the things I miss is on Christmas
29:26
Eve service, the candle lighting. I
29:28
love standing there with those lit candles as you
29:31
just contemplate the birth of Jesus.
29:34
You can't do it now because it's a fire and safety
29:37
hazard and everybody's going to drip wax on the seats.
29:40
WHOOP dee doo. But, like, you're,
29:43
we're taking. Just light the candles. It's fine.
29:46
It's fine. This is
29:49
America. There's freedom.
29:52
Light the candles. Ben Franklin
29:55
was born to a soap and candle maker,
29:57
and the soap would sometimes
30:00
be perfumed, even if only slightly.
30:03
And it may be a stretch, or it could
30:05
just be self fulfilling prophecy.
30:08
But I can't help but think these good smells in
30:11
the home helped influence another
30:14
essay Franklin wrote in his
30:16
adulthood.
30:24
The essay is titled Fart proudly,
30:27
and it is addressed to the Royal Academy of Farting
30:30
in 1781. And after
30:33
his introduction, Franklin writes, quote
30:36
permit me then, humbly to propose
30:39
one of that sort for your consideration, and
30:42
through you, if you approve it, for the serious
30:45
inquiry of learned physicians, chemists, et
30:47
cetera. Of this enlightened age. It is
30:50
universally well known that in digesting our
30:53
common food, there is created or produced
30:56
in the bowels of human creatures a great
30:59
quantity of wind. That
31:02
the permitting of this air to escape and mix with the
31:05
atmosphere is usually offensive to the company from
31:08
the fetted smell that accompanies it, that
31:11
all well bred people, therefore, to
31:13
avoid giving such offense, forcibly restrain the
31:16
efforts of nature to discharge that wind,
31:20
and so retained contrary to nature, it only
31:23
gives frequently great present pain,
31:25
but occasions future
31:28
diseases, such as habitual colics, ruptures,
31:31
tympanies, et cetera, often destructive of the
31:34
constitution, and sometimes of life itself.
31:37
Were it not for the odiously, uh, offensive smell
31:40
accompanying such escapes, polite people
31:43
would probably be under no more restraint in discharging
31:46
such wind in company than they are in spitting
31:49
or in blowing their noses. My
31:52
prized question, therefore, should be to discover
31:55
some drug, wholesome and not disagreeable,
31:58
to be mixed with our common food or sauces, that
32:01
shall render the natural discharge of wind from our
32:04
bodies not only inoffensive, but
32:07
agreeable as perfumes. That
32:10
this is not a chimerical project, and altogether impossible, may
32:13
appear from these considerations that we
32:16
already have some knowledge of means capable of
32:18
varying that smell. He that dines on stale
32:21
flesh, especially with much addition of onions,
32:24
shall be able to afford a stink that no company
32:27
can tolerate, while he that
32:30
has lived for some time on vegetables only shall
32:33
have that breath so pure as to be insensible to the most
32:36
delicate noses. And if he can manage so as
32:39
to avoid the report, he may anywhere
32:42
give vent to his griefs unnoticed.
32:46
But as there are many to whom an entire
32:49
vegetable diet would be inconvenient, and as little of a
32:52
quick lime thrown into a jake's will correct the
32:54
amazing quantity of fetted air
32:56
arising from the vast mass of putrid
32:59
matter contained in such places, and render it
33:02
rather pleasing to the smell, who knows but
33:05
that a little powder of lime, or some other thing equivalent
33:08
taken in our food, or perhaps a glass of
33:10
lime water drank at dinner, may
33:13
have the same effect on the air
33:16
produced and issuing from our
33:18
bowels? This is worth the experiment
33:21
certain it is also that we have the power of changing the
33:24
slight means. The smell of another discharge, that of our
33:27
water, few stems of asparagus eaten, shall
33:29
give your urine a disagreeable odor. A pill of
33:32
turpentine no bigger than a pea, shall bestow on it the pleasing
33:35
smell of violets. And why should it be
33:38
thought more impossible in nature to find means of making
33:41
perfume of our wind than of our water?
33:44
For the encouragement of this inquiry, let it be
33:47
considered of how small importance to mankind, or
33:50
how small, uh, a part of mankind have been useful. Those
33:53
discoveries in science that have theretofore
33:55
made philosophers famous. Are there
33:58
20 men in Europe at this day?
34:01
The happier or even the easier for any knowledge
34:04
they have picked out of Aristotle. What comfort can the
34:07
vortices of Descartes give a man in his
34:10
whirlwind, in his bowels, the knowledge of
34:13
Newton's mutual attraction of the particles of matter? Can it
34:15
afford ease to him who is wracked by their
34:18
mutual repulsion and the cruel distension
34:21
it occasions? The pleasure arising
34:24
to a few philosophers from seeing a few times in
34:27
their life the threads of light untwisted and
34:30
separated by the newtonian prism into seven
34:33
colors. Can it be compared with the ease and
34:36
comfort every man living might feel seven times
34:38
a day by discharging freely the
34:41
wind from his bowels,
34:44
especially if it be converted into a perfume
34:47
for the pleasures of one sense being little
34:49
inferior to those of another? Instead of pleasing the
34:52
sight, he might delight the smell of those who
34:55
about him and make numbers happy,
34:58
which to a benevolent mind, much afford
35:01
infinite satisfaction. The generous
35:03
soul who now endeavors to find out
35:06
whether the friends he entertains like best clara of
35:09
Burgundy, champagne, or Madeira, would
35:12
then inquire also when they chose musk or
35:14
lily rose or bergamot, and provide
35:17
accordingly. And surely such a liberty of
35:20
expressing one's sentiments,
35:23
sentiments and pleasing one another,
35:26
is of infinitely more importance to
35:29
human happiness than that liberty of the press
35:31
or off abusing one another,
35:34
which the English are so ready to fight and die
35:37
for. In short, this invention, if
35:39
completed, would be, as Bacon expressed it,
35:42
bringing philosophy home to men's business and
35:45
bosoms. And I cannot but conclude that in
35:47
comparison therewith for universal and continual
35:50
utility, the science of the philosophers,
35:53
abovementioned even with the addition, gentlemen,
35:56
of your figure, Quelkan, I don't know
35:59
that word. And the figures inscribed in it are
36:01
altogether scarcely worth a fart thing.
36:05
I'm sorry for the length of this,
36:08
but he wrote so eloquently about a
36:11
fart, that it must be read here
36:14
on a bathroom podcast. Now I will restate
36:16
briefly. Franklin notes, eating makes us fart. Everybody
36:19
farts, and this farting is generally.
36:22
>> Speaker B: Offensive to those around us.
36:24
>> Speaker A: You rip a big, beautiful beefer and people get pretty
36:27
triggered. Now, we live in a world of Jude
36:30
cranes, of hunter hoovers and
36:33
the like that are standing up and saying, you know what? Just
36:36
rip the beefer. It's fine. Like, everybody farts. It
36:39
might smell, but we're all going to get over it pretty quick.
36:41
But Ben Franklin is of the sentiment that if we keep that
36:44
wind puckered up back in your butthole,
36:47
it doesn't feel good. He thus
36:50
proposes a question, perhaps motivated by
36:53
his soapy candle upbringing.
36:56
Can we figure out how to perfume our
36:58
farts?
37:02
Something to spray on food, mix in
37:05
food or drink to neutralize the odor and
37:08
give it a good smell? He notes, we have this for
37:10
other things, so why can't we develop
37:13
this fart fume? Tmtm
37:15
tmtm fart fume patent
37:18
pending. Not really. But maybe
37:21
Ben Franklin loved ripping a good beefer.
37:25
He loved to break wind, often
37:28
while he took a wind bath, an air
37:31
bath. He was in agreement with
37:34
Shrek, it's better out than in, and wanted to come up with a way to make
37:37
the toot less toot smelling and more
37:39
flower appealing.
37:41
>> Speaker B: Not a bad thought.
37:45
>> Speaker A: But the results of that inquiry, uh,
37:48
are for another day. Ben Franklin
37:50
wants the windows open to air out his nethers and let the fart
37:53
stink out.
37:56
>> Speaker B: And can you blame him? That's just another
37:59
aspect of the american dream.
38:02
Ripping it.
38:03
>> Speaker A: Let freedom ringing, if you will.
38:06
Hope you had a great american Independence day.
38:09
This brings us to the end of another episode.
38:13
I, uh, want to mention briefly, um,
38:15
here. Please leave us a rating or
38:18
review. Um, we've talked about freedom multiple
38:21
times, and we were reminded by Sam
38:24
Bagenstaw to keep pooping in the free world. Here at privy.
38:26
For every rating or review left, um, five star
38:29
options are preferred. But for everyone left, we're donating money
38:32
to the wounded warriors project. So leave
38:35
those, check, uh, those at the end of every month, and that goes
38:38
out at the end of every month. We, uh, really want to boost
38:40
those, not just because it helps folks find the
38:43
show, but wounded warriors. These are folks who
38:46
fought and came back and bruised
38:49
and beaten up emotionally and physically,
38:52
uh, for our freedoms, which we celebrated this
38:54
week, um, on american Independence day. So
38:57
if you, um, have been one of those who
39:00
have given themselves in some way
39:03
for those freedoms, uh, thank you. We love
39:06
you. We love your families, uh, and your sacrifice.
39:09
There's not enough that we can do to say thanks.
39:11
M. If you have questions, comments,
39:14
concerns, feedback, if you just want to say hi, if you have a bathroom
39:17
story, pictures for Randy Bowles, anything, send
39:20
those to privycast@gmail.com.
39:23
>> Speaker B: We'd love to hear from you.
39:24
>> Speaker A: Follow us on social media. We're at privycast. You can join the
39:27
Facebook group, the privies. And, uh, don't forget to follow
39:30
Randy Bowles. Now, uh, you can follow me. I'm at
39:33
Owlette seven. Uh, as always,
39:36
we want to thank Pottington Bear and Kevin McLeod for
39:39
the use of their music this week. You can see the description
39:42
of their music in the doodly bopper below. Thanks, Kevin and
39:45
Pottington. This has been another episode of
39:48
Privy. Thank you all so much again for joining us.
39:51
Keep pooping in the free world to wash your
39:53
butthole. And now,
39:56
as always, don't forget to
39:59
flush.
40:00
>> Speaker B: It's.