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The Leaf Blower Episode · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
0:30
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Listen, folks, We're a family show,
0:36
Speaker 1: but we've got a lot of feelings about this when
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Speaker 1: it's a long time and coming, so it might be
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Speaker 1: uh might get a little explicit. Luckily, we got our
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Speaker 1: super producer Mr Max Williams here on the buttons to
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Speaker 1: help us, to help us uh beep and as always,
0:53
Speaker 1: to watch out for uh for all sorts of unwelcome
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Speaker 1: noises that might occur when you're trying to folks us,
1:02
Speaker 1: Who are we talking about here, ben, Oh no, we're
1:07
Speaker 1: talking about We're talking about a noise that has become
1:10
Speaker 1: a recurring villain in the rogues gallery of the Ridiculous Universe.
1:17
Speaker 1: Look we you guys, don't We are huge fans of
1:21
Speaker 1: a lot of things and Noel, Max and I love inventions.
1:26
Speaker 1: We love heist, we love food history. We three acknowledge
1:31
Speaker 1: the technology can fundamentally change the world, not always for
1:36
Speaker 1: the better. So in today's episode, we're diving into the
1:40
Speaker 1: origin story of a strange, cartoonishly specific invention that only
1:46
Speaker 1: has a few uses. It's not everywhere on the planet.
1:49
Speaker 1: You won't find one in every single household. Thankfully. To
1:52
Speaker 1: some people, landscapers primarily is the origin story of a hero.
1:58
Speaker 1: To others, nol, it's the origin of a super villain.
2:02
Speaker 1: I didn't buy others. I believe we were very specifical. Well,
2:05
Speaker 1: I mean many, but you you've got a better You've
2:08
Speaker 1: got an interesting relationship with the leaf blower man who
2:11
Speaker 1: comes round usually Monday's which is when we sits recording this,
2:15
Speaker 1: this very moment. Yeah, sometimes called the lazy man's rake,
2:20
Speaker 1: the devil's hair dryer. Uh. Without further ado, we loudly
2:25
Speaker 1: present the leaf blower episode. Now. So I went on
2:35
Speaker 1: Twitter earlier and said we were finally recording this and
2:40
Speaker 1: just wanted to be honest and tell everyone this is
2:44
Speaker 1: definitely a hit piece, and it's an objective hit piece,
2:47
Speaker 1: valid with good reason. No, could you tell us a
2:51
Speaker 1: little bit about your personal take on leaf blowers, your
2:54
Speaker 1: experience with them. Well, you know, aside from like the
2:57
Speaker 1: odd landscaper landscaping company, you know that maybe you hire
3:02
Speaker 1: occasionally to do a little work for you more the
3:05
Speaker 1: law and trim the topiaries, you know, on your palatial estates. Uh,
3:10
Speaker 1: that's your personal overlook hotel. My experience has always been
3:14
Speaker 1: at least with the family leaf blower of the electric variety,
3:18
Speaker 1: which I think, you know, is a bit of a
3:19
Speaker 1: pain because it requires a very long chord that you
3:23
Speaker 1: have to plug in and maybe constantly kind of move around.
3:27
Speaker 1: They still are noisy, but they certainly don't, you know,
3:30
Speaker 1: have the same polluting power as a gas leaf blower,
3:34
Speaker 1: which I think is sort of at the center of
3:36
Speaker 1: part of the controversy. The other part, uh is irrespective
3:41
Speaker 1: of electric versus gas, which is just noise pollution, a
3:45
Speaker 1: different kind of pollution entirely. But I've always been fascinated
3:50
Speaker 1: by the things because of their place in sort of
3:53
Speaker 1: low fi Hollywood special effects. If theever you see a
3:57
Speaker 1: scene where maybe someone's experiencing g forest or something, or
4:01
Speaker 1: maybe there's a giant explosion and their faces go all
4:04
Speaker 1: wibbly wobbly. Oftentimes it is something along the lines of
4:08
Speaker 1: a humble leaf blower or industrial strength air horn air,
4:13
Speaker 1: you know, blowing device that causes that effect. It's nothing
4:16
Speaker 1: more than that. So I do think, you know, the
4:18
Speaker 1: power of compressed air, the power of propelled air is
4:22
Speaker 1: fascinating within pop culture you know, outside of the whole
4:26
Speaker 1: the leaf blower debate and next what about you? Oh,
4:30
Speaker 1: so I'm from uh, you know, Don't originally, which is
4:33
Speaker 1: for those who don't live in Atlanta, on the outskirts
4:36
Speaker 1: of Atlanta, and it is the land of vast lawns
4:40
Speaker 1: and lots of law and care. It's pretty affluent areas.
4:43
Speaker 1: So my entire life has been spent listening to just um,
4:49
Speaker 1: you know, landscaping crews with their backpack gasoline powered leaf
4:54
Speaker 1: blowers just constantly going. Personally, my family has always been
4:58
Speaker 1: to North Point all about the electric leaflower It just
5:03
Speaker 1: you know, it's way less loud and it's also way
5:06
Speaker 1: better for the environment. But you know it, you'll see
5:10
Speaker 1: like three people at a time just in a yard
5:13
Speaker 1: with those giant ones going on, and then that's all
5:15
Speaker 1: you hear. I actually have a friend who his form
5:17
Speaker 1: of misophoonia is uh leaf blower adjacent. He loses his
5:23
Speaker 1: mind when people are using leaf flowers, which is quite
5:28
Speaker 1: common up here in the burbs. I'll say, yeah, I
5:31
Speaker 1: want to see something. Possibly, So I grew up with
5:33
Speaker 1: both gas and electric powered leaf blowers, and one thing
5:38
Speaker 1: that I can say that is a positive that really enjoyed.
5:41
Speaker 1: Is if you're hauling one of those bad boys around,
5:44
Speaker 1: especially if it's not backpack, if it's the the more
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Speaker 1: like residential leaf flower that's handheld and just sort of
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Speaker 1: kind of heavy on one side. Uh, the vibrations of
5:57
Speaker 1: using a leaf blower make it really interest seem to
6:00
Speaker 1: touch different surfaces after after you put it down, like
6:04
Speaker 1: putting your hands through your hair. It feels but I know,
6:08
Speaker 1: my center stay is just coming out, but it feels amazing.
6:11
Speaker 1: It's it's um almost mossy. But Okay, So we're describing
6:16
Speaker 1: something that a lot of people in Canada and the
6:19
Speaker 1: US and Australia properly are familiar with. But if we
6:24
Speaker 1: wanted to explain a leaf blower, like paint a picture
6:30
Speaker 1: for people who've never seen one, how would we how
6:33
Speaker 1: how would we describe it? What does it look like? Yeah,
6:36
Speaker 1: I mean it's essentially just a motor with a fan
6:40
Speaker 1: in it with a little handle or again, this is
6:43
Speaker 1: let's just go from the most simple version and then
6:45
Speaker 1: we'll obviously take it to the like proton pack kind
6:48
Speaker 1: of variety. UM. But the simple version is just a
6:51
Speaker 1: handheld UM fan that is directly funneled into a plastic
6:56
Speaker 1: tube much like a oversized dustbuster, let's say, um, and
7:01
Speaker 1: it usually terminates in some sort of kind of slit
7:05
Speaker 1: so that the air is funneled and sort of hyper focused.
7:08
Speaker 1: And you can also kind of use it to direct
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Speaker 1: the flow in such a way that like piles of leaves,
7:14
Speaker 1: sort of you're like a sheep, you're like a sheep
7:17
Speaker 1: dog for leaves, sort of hurting them in an appropriate
7:20
Speaker 1: direction using this device, And that would be pretty much
7:23
Speaker 1: the same for either an electric powered one or a
7:25
Speaker 1: gas powered one that you know, power strength level or
7:29
Speaker 1: whatever UM upgrade. From that you get the backpack variety
7:33
Speaker 1: that you were talking about that which is more for
7:34
Speaker 1: commercial landscaping, and also you know, for people that need
7:38
Speaker 1: to be able to use it for extended periods of
7:40
Speaker 1: time and don't want to be tethered to an electrical outlet,
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Speaker 1: or maybe they don't even have access to an electrical outlet.
7:45
Speaker 1: You know, if they're having to do the rounds in
7:47
Speaker 1: the neighborhood, they wouldn't want to have to keep figuring
7:50
Speaker 1: out where to plug the thing in. So for a
7:52
Speaker 1: home owner makes sense to have the electric one because
7:55
Speaker 1: you're probably just hanging around your perimeter. But for the
7:58
Speaker 1: folks that are doing this professionally, gas one just makes
8:00
Speaker 1: a whole lot more sense logistically. Yeah yeah, and it
8:04
Speaker 1: saves time, which is one of the biggest arguments in
8:07
Speaker 1: favor of this controversial invention. And then if you step
8:11
Speaker 1: up one more notch you see even larger models. They're
8:15
Speaker 1: like writing lawn mowers. They rest on wheels, they have
8:19
Speaker 1: a motor that can propel them along the ground, and uh,
8:24
Speaker 1: the only real differences. They blow stuff around, right, and
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Speaker 1: they sheep dog it or they heard it as you said,
8:31
Speaker 1: instead of cutting cutting it like grass. And there are
8:34
Speaker 1: various different versions that have arrived on the scene. Now
8:39
Speaker 1: they are leaflowers that can not just blow stuff, but
8:43
Speaker 1: suck up debris and then shred it into an attached bag.
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Speaker 1: But the basic principles, let's blow this around, let's pile
8:51
Speaker 1: it faster, have been consistent since the beginning. You know,
8:56
Speaker 1: the thing that gets me, I think maybe gets all
8:58
Speaker 1: of us, is that the leaf blower is not a
9:01
Speaker 1: necessary invention. You don't have to have a leafblower to survive,
9:10
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It's it's very specific. It's
9:13
Speaker 1: for convenience primarily. That's what I would say, is a
9:16
Speaker 1: snowblower the same essentially as a leafblower. It is. It
9:20
Speaker 1: is snow and and snowblowers, as we'll see, came first.
9:25
Speaker 1: So like, okay, let's let's imagine life without the leaflower.
9:29
Speaker 1: This for all our landscapers out there who are saying, hey,
9:33
Speaker 1: we're not the bad guys. Before the leaf blower, you
9:36
Speaker 1: had to rake by hand, you had to clean gutters
9:40
Speaker 1: by hand, and as all sorts of Norman Rockwell esque
9:45
Speaker 1: things taught us, you could spend hours raking up a
9:49
Speaker 1: pile of leaves, only for mischievous scamp to run along
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Speaker 1: and we into your leaves and and ruin hours of work.
10:00
Speaker 1: So it's um, there is a there are good uses
10:06
Speaker 1: for it. I'm really trying to be positive. I didn't
10:09
Speaker 1: know this for a while, but NOL leafblowers have also
10:13
Speaker 1: been used for some time to fight fires in the
10:16
Speaker 1: United States. Huh, now that I did not know. I mean,
10:21
Speaker 1: it certainly makes sense depending right, because as we know,
10:25
Speaker 1: sometimes if you blow on a fire, you you give
10:29
Speaker 1: it more oxygen. Right. Yeah. The thing that they can
10:34
Speaker 1: do well is imagine you're at the fire line and
10:38
Speaker 1: there's burning debris, right, So you can. It's too hot
10:42
Speaker 1: for you to put a plastic brake to it, right,
10:45
Speaker 1: so you can use the leaf blower to push that
10:49
Speaker 1: burning material back toward and already burned area. So this
10:55
Speaker 1: idea of using it for firefighting is pretty cool, right, Uh,
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Speaker 1: It's an idea that could save lives and into creative you.
11:05
Speaker 1: So you know, regardless of all the negatives about leaf blowers,
11:09
Speaker 1: which will be the majority of this episode, we can
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Speaker 1: also say that they have, um, they have been I
11:17
Speaker 1: guess they have been utilized past the intent of their
11:21
Speaker 1: original inventor, like you were talking about with practical effects
11:25
Speaker 1: in phil Yeah. I mean not not as get hung
11:27
Speaker 1: up on this because it really isn't the point. But
11:28
Speaker 1: I just want to say I saw did a little
11:30
Speaker 1: YouTube rabbit holing and recently discover the the little checkbox
11:34
Speaker 1: where you can just have kind of keep playing you
11:36
Speaker 1: stuff along the lines of what you were watching, and
11:38
Speaker 1: and then up watching this really cool video about practical effects.
11:43
Speaker 1: And remember that sequence in Terminator two where it shows
11:47
Speaker 1: kind of like the nuclear destruction of Los Angeles. Um,
11:51
Speaker 1: all of that was done with miniatures, as you can imagine,
11:53
Speaker 1: and when you see the buildings kind of disintegrate. That
11:57
Speaker 1: was all done with like what they described in the
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Speaker 1: video as like an army of air blowers, and they were.
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Speaker 1: Some of them were large with big kind of wide
12:06
Speaker 1: mouths on those nozzles, and some of them were just
12:09
Speaker 1: your average humble neighborhood leaf blowers. Also, I gotta I
12:14
Speaker 1: got a fact for this about this, you guys know
12:16
Speaker 1: in that movie when Robert Patrick first appears kind of ish,
12:19
Speaker 1: he shows up and he makes a clone out of
12:22
Speaker 1: the security guard and throws a spike at the other
12:24
Speaker 1: guy's eye. Of course, that was actually twins that did it.
12:29
Speaker 1: They had twin brothers playing that. There wasn't like a
12:32
Speaker 1: duplicator something that I learned that from an episode of
12:35
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema for stuff to blow your mind. So
12:38
Speaker 1: I wanted to incorporated here to further blur the lines
12:41
Speaker 1: between podcasts out our network. Yeah yeah, we also it's
12:45
Speaker 1: also time for the sound cute enough right now, fat
13:01
Speaker 1: and big thanks to oh first one, big thanks to
13:07
Speaker 1: our ride or Die, Mr Matt Frederick. Uh. Now, look,
13:11
Speaker 1: we love credit where it's due, and that's where leaf
13:15
Speaker 1: Blowers become a little mysterious, because, believe it or not,
13:21
Speaker 1: today multiple people claim to have invented the leaf blower.
13:33
Speaker 1: I think there are two possibilities of play here. No,
13:35
Speaker 1: I think there's quite I think the most likely possibility
13:40
Speaker 1: is parallel thinking, right the way multiple people invented something
13:44
Speaker 1: like the typewriter because it fulfilled a common need. However,
13:49
Speaker 1: after we walk through these inventors, I want to pitch
13:52
Speaker 1: you a bit of a not quite a conspiracy theory,
13:57
Speaker 1: but maybe we talked. We talked about the inventors first.
14:00
Speaker 1: I love that you pointed out the snowblower has been
14:03
Speaker 1: around way before the leaf blower, and it's basically the
14:07
Speaker 1: same thing for a different I would argue more needful purpose.
14:13
Speaker 1: That's why I brought it up, because I mean, to
14:15
Speaker 1: your point, like leaves, no one's getting buried alive under
14:18
Speaker 1: a pile of leaves or having leaves caused them not
14:21
Speaker 1: to be able to leave their house. Um, it's really
14:24
Speaker 1: more of an aesthetic thing. So you could argue on
14:27
Speaker 1: the frivolous side compared to being quote unquote snowed in. Yeah,
14:32
Speaker 1: just so. So. Here here are some of the big
14:36
Speaker 1: candidates for the invention of the leaf blower. The one
14:41
Speaker 1: that you will see probably most often on different blogs
14:46
Speaker 1: and Wikipedia is sometimes quoted as fact is a semi
14:50
Speaker 1: mysterious character named Dom Quinto sounds like a serious dude,
14:56
Speaker 1: um Like, so you know, maybe it's just the Dom
14:59
Speaker 1: maybe mimic think of Dawn, like some sort of mafio.
15:02
Speaker 1: So I think it's easy for your mind to go there.
15:04
Speaker 1: But yeah, um, he is one candidate, as you said,
15:08
Speaker 1: given credit for inventing the leaf blower, but it really
15:11
Speaker 1: could be argued that he didn't exactly invented He just
15:15
Speaker 1: kind of repurposed it to a degree. Um. It was
15:18
Speaker 1: created in the nineteen fifties, introduced as a method of
15:23
Speaker 1: dispersing agricultural chemicals. Yeah, well you know in the nine
15:28
Speaker 1: fifties were like bad right, but people didn't it but
15:35
Speaker 1: they were just spraying that stuff Willie and or nilli
15:38
Speaker 1: and um. So the makers of the device uh that
15:41
Speaker 1: Quinto uh invented saw that a lot of their consumers
15:45
Speaker 1: were actually using it, um and sort of doing a
15:48
Speaker 1: little bit of of hacking on him um and and
15:51
Speaker 1: removing the chemical dispersion, you know, element of it and
15:56
Speaker 1: just using the blower part. Yeah. That's kind of weird, right,
16:01
Speaker 1: That's like that's like buying a microwave, removing the part
16:06
Speaker 1: that makes it a microwave and just saying look now
16:09
Speaker 1: I have a weird lamp in a box. But but
16:13
Speaker 1: but yeah, and also don't play with microwaves. Folks were
16:17
Speaker 1: legally required to tell you that's dangerous. So people thought
16:20
Speaker 1: this was a good maintenance tool for cleanup task. Like
16:22
Speaker 1: you said, Noel, they said, we don't need to spray pesticides.
16:27
Speaker 1: We just need to move stuff around more quickly. And
16:31
Speaker 1: if we're in an area where we have to conserve water,
16:34
Speaker 1: it makes more sense for us to use air. And
16:37
Speaker 1: for this reason you could call dom quinto the accidental
16:42
Speaker 1: inventor of the leafblower. But there's something tricky here. It's
16:47
Speaker 1: very difficult to find solid sources for this claim. That's
16:51
Speaker 1: why whenever you read a source, you want to try
16:54
Speaker 1: to corroborate it. You want to find a primary account.
16:58
Speaker 1: And in the case of don Quento, we will due
17:02
Speaker 1: respect to Dudul, you've got to uh, you got to
17:05
Speaker 1: take it with a grain assault and look at some
17:07
Speaker 1: other candidates. That's right, and for that we journey to
17:12
Speaker 1: Japan in nineteen forty seven. It also was there was
17:18
Speaker 1: a version of this device that was created kind of
17:21
Speaker 1: as a backpack chemical apparatus. Again a fogger made me
17:26
Speaker 1: think of like a bug fumigator or whatever fogger. This
17:30
Speaker 1: was invented by a Japanese based company called Kayitsu Noki
17:36
Speaker 1: UM and this company followed up that design with a
17:40
Speaker 1: more of a I guess power blower kind of missing
17:44
Speaker 1: machine in nineteen fifty five, and then in nineteen six
17:47
Speaker 1: eight they applied for a patent on a backpack blower
17:50
Speaker 1: MR design, And in nineteen seventy two they established themselves
17:55
Speaker 1: UH in the United States UM as another iteration this
18:00
Speaker 1: company that they called Cures Corporation of America UH, and
18:04
Speaker 1: that corporation is often given credit as inventing the first
18:09
Speaker 1: official leaf blower. In nineteen seventy seven also changed its
18:14
Speaker 1: name to the slightly sexier Echo. So this is UH Yeah.
18:22
Speaker 1: So we're we already see two completely different origin stories.
18:28
Speaker 1: And then we've got a third person to add to
18:30
Speaker 1: the mix. H L deal Dale d I e h
18:36
Speaker 1: L Uh. So in nineteen fifty nine, this guy who
18:40
Speaker 1: was an ex engine technician for Pratt and Whitney, a
18:45
Speaker 1: jet engine technician by the way, UH, he develops what
18:49
Speaker 1: his company calls quote the first walk behind lawn vacuum
18:55
Speaker 1: and leaf blower. So already we see that there are
18:59
Speaker 1: three re possible candidates for something like the modern leaf blower,
19:05
Speaker 1: and we know that whatever the case is, however you
19:09
Speaker 1: want to delineate it, whomever gets the award for first
19:13
Speaker 1: in the post. Uh. In the By the nineteen by
19:17
Speaker 1: the very late nineteen forties and early nineteen fifties, leaf
19:21
Speaker 1: blowers were a thing that people knew about around the world.
19:25
Speaker 1: Other companies got quickly involved, especially if you're already manufacturing
19:30
Speaker 1: you know, vacuums or long care equipment. It makes sense because,
19:33
Speaker 1: I mean, what's a vacuum if not I mean there's
19:35
Speaker 1: a you know, a circuit that you can reverse the
19:38
Speaker 1: polarity of essentially, right, and then it can go from
19:41
Speaker 1: suckage to blowage. Um. So it's hard to patent the
19:47
Speaker 1: specific thing. You can patent to design, but you can't
19:51
Speaker 1: really patent a thing that blows air. I think it's
19:54
Speaker 1: a little too generic, right, Yeah, yeah, nailed it. Uh.
19:59
Speaker 1: Nineteen six, these Dutch vendor Mullen begins manufacturing and exporting
20:04
Speaker 1: a two stroke engine backpack blower, and then just a
20:10
Speaker 1: few years later sixty six Uh. The company that hl
20:15
Speaker 1: deal starts is rebranded Giant Vac, and they start making
20:19
Speaker 1: a bunch of different variations of the leaf blower. Some
20:23
Speaker 1: of the stuff also collects leaves instead of just blowing
20:26
Speaker 1: it around. But the two stroke engine part is important.
20:30
Speaker 1: It's common to so many push lawnmowers in the United States,
20:35
Speaker 1: and it's not the same as a four stroke engine.
20:39
Speaker 1: Because a two stroke engine mixes air and fuel in
20:44
Speaker 1: a way that gets contaminated with the oil lubricating the mechanism,
20:50
Speaker 1: and that fuel and oil gets mixed with the exhaust.
20:53
Speaker 1: We're setting up a problem. But but here's the thing, No, Max,
20:58
Speaker 1: When these were originally introduced, people with nuts. Everybody who
21:04
Speaker 1: could afford a leaf flower was buying a leaf floor.
21:06
Speaker 1: The Dunwoodie suburbs of the world were like, this is
21:10
Speaker 1: a better way or rake. By the nineteen seventies, these
21:14
Speaker 1: things were commonplace. By nine we're talking sales in excess
21:20
Speaker 1: of one million leaf blowers per year, exactly, leaf blower
21:26
Speaker 1: for everyone there. Everyone gets a leaf blower for for
21:30
Speaker 1: a price. And you know, pretty much like you said,
21:33
Speaker 1: been along with innovation oftentimes comes controversy or comes h irritation.
21:40
Speaker 1: Innovation breeds irritation at times, so as soon as the
21:43
Speaker 1: things became widespread, Uh, people started complaining pretty much right away.
21:49
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, okay, and here's so now we have our
21:52
Speaker 1: our unsolved list of inventors. This leads us to a theory.
22:00
Speaker 1: Ridle me this. No, is it possible that no one
22:05
Speaker 1: is admitting to being the one true inventor of the
22:08
Speaker 1: leaf flower because they don't want to be associated with
22:12
Speaker 1: the enormous controversy max cute suspensible music. Yeah, and again again.
22:22
Speaker 1: I think the whole no one's exactly clamoring to to
22:27
Speaker 1: to take credit, you know, after all these years. Uh.
22:30
Speaker 1: And I think part of that is the sort of
22:32
Speaker 1: generic nature of of the invention. Um. But also, yeah,
22:37
Speaker 1: there's sort of kind of a public new sense, you know. Yeah, Okay.
22:42
Speaker 1: Not every invention is gonna appeal to everyone, Believe it
22:46
Speaker 1: or not. There are people who don't drink coffee. This, Uh,
22:51
Speaker 1: the leaf flower is pretty remarkable in the amount of
22:55
Speaker 1: controversy it's called. People who don't like leaf blowers tend
23:00
Speaker 1: to have two primary issues with the invention. First, a
23:05
Speaker 1: lot of them are still gas powered the modern day,
23:08
Speaker 1: which immediately raises concern about pollution and emissions. And you
23:12
Speaker 1: can't easily dismiss this. Mixing gasoline with oil in a
23:17
Speaker 1: two stroke engine means that a third of the mixture
23:21
Speaker 1: is not burned. It doesn't help the thing blow the leaves.
23:27
Speaker 1: It goes out and creates exhaust, and it creates way
23:31
Speaker 1: more exhaust than you could reasonably assume. The facts are astounding,
23:36
Speaker 1: no question. And you found this this data, um, that
23:40
Speaker 1: is something that I never would have considered. So how
23:43
Speaker 1: much pollution are we actually talking about here? I study
23:46
Speaker 1: that you found Ben for eleven found that running a
23:50
Speaker 1: leaf blower for about a half hour creates as much
23:54
Speaker 1: pollution in the form of n m HC is a
23:57
Speaker 1: subset of non methane volatile organic compounds hydrocarbons as a
24:03
Speaker 1: Ford F one fifty, you know the ones um. Driving
24:07
Speaker 1: from Texas to Alaska, that's insane. How far even is that?
24:13
Speaker 1: It doesn't make sense. We gotta ask, though, what part
24:17
Speaker 1: of Texas to what's part of Alaska. Look, let's just
24:21
Speaker 1: we're speaking in broad strokes here. And even if you know,
24:24
Speaker 1: given the size of Texas and the distance of Alaska,
24:28
Speaker 1: I don't care if it's from the northernmost tip you know,
24:30
Speaker 1: I mean that's still alarming just as a basic kind
24:35
Speaker 1: of you know, metric to I mean, I had no idea.
24:39
Speaker 1: I mean, think of all the leafblowers we've seen in
24:42
Speaker 1: the past month. That's a lot of road trips that
24:47
Speaker 1: that's an insane amount of emissions overall. And it doesn't
24:51
Speaker 1: stop there. So leafblowers are made to blow leaves, but
24:56
Speaker 1: this invention can't magically differentiate between being different objects in
25:01
Speaker 1: the path of the air. That means that if you're
25:05
Speaker 1: going back to our boy don quinto, that means that
25:09
Speaker 1: if you're just aiming a leaf blower at something, it's
25:12
Speaker 1: gonna blow whatever is in its path. That includes pesticides, mold,
25:17
Speaker 1: feces like that gets blown around two. It is, for
25:22
Speaker 1: the record, a quick Google map search of just Alaska
25:25
Speaker 1: to Texas with no specifics gives you two roots. One
25:30
Speaker 1: of them is sixty three hours, three thousand, eight hundred
25:33
Speaker 1: and sixty seven miles. The other is sixty five hours
25:36
Speaker 1: three miles. And we're talking make sure and check this
25:40
Speaker 1: bend thirty minutes of use here. Bonkers, it's bonkers. And
25:44
Speaker 1: that's all in one spot. You know this, The emission
25:49
Speaker 1: generated by that f one fifty making this heartwarming family
25:53
Speaker 1: journey of discovery. UM is spread out over a very
25:57
Speaker 1: large area. Also, I want to point out that and
26:00
Speaker 1: bents that feces both me and all left. You know why,
26:04
Speaker 1: because I forget what movie is from, But there's a
26:06
Speaker 1: joke in a movie where someone asked the feces or
26:08
Speaker 1: baby mice. I can't remember. I think it's a I
26:12
Speaker 1: can't remember, but I was working on I feel like
26:14
Speaker 1: feces is so is so ready for some good pun banter,
26:21
Speaker 1: you know, like the feces of the species is more
26:23
Speaker 1: deadly than the something. I don't know. We'll work on it,
26:26
Speaker 1: put a pin in it. But this the thing is,
26:29
Speaker 1: the actual emissions pollution isn't even the largest problem. There's
26:43
Speaker 1: another type of pollution. And way before the public was
26:48
Speaker 1: worried about emissions and air pollution, they were upset about
26:53
Speaker 1: the noise pollution, even before they called it noise pollution,
26:57
Speaker 1: even before they had a term to hang that complaint, antonin.
27:01
Speaker 1: They hated the sound. You know you had mentioned earlier
27:04
Speaker 1: that UM, shortly after leafblowers became popular, people started complaining.
27:11
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, So by the nineteen seventies, UM, you had
27:15
Speaker 1: two different cities in California that had outright banned leaf blowers,
27:21
Speaker 1: and admittedly they are two pretty boogie communities. You got
27:25
Speaker 1: Carmel by the Sea Hyen and Beverly Hills, UM. Carmel
27:30
Speaker 1: was first to the jump in seventy five with the band,
27:33
Speaker 1: and then Beverly Hills and seventy eight. But you know,
27:36
Speaker 1: I would argue that the while the noise pollution part
27:38
Speaker 1: is certainly annoying, kind of pales in comparison now that
27:42
Speaker 1: we know these these details to the to the actual
27:45
Speaker 1: you know, emissions part event. But you know, people like
27:48
Speaker 1: their their people, people like they're quiet beach beach front communities,
27:52
Speaker 1: so the noise is so undesirable. Then more than a
27:56
Speaker 1: hundred cities across the United States, including One's New Jersey,
28:00
Speaker 1: New York, UH, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Texas, Alaska, though UH
28:06
Speaker 1: and Vermont UM had some flavor of either a complete
28:11
Speaker 1: or partial band placed on leaf book leafblowers, and Governor
28:17
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom over in California also signed a bill meant
28:21
Speaker 1: to phase out gas powered leaf blowers entirely, along with
28:25
Speaker 1: a lot of other gas powered lawn equipment. UH. The
28:29
Speaker 1: majority of those bands that that we just mentioned that
28:32
Speaker 1: you just mentioned or specifically for gas powered leaf blowers,
28:38
Speaker 1: almost as if the emission concern is a way for
28:43
Speaker 1: people to rationalize their problems with the noise right, which
28:48
Speaker 1: is an unpleasant noise and uh. In Seattle, Washington, for instance,
28:53
Speaker 1: it's illegal to use any leaf blower at all, no
28:56
Speaker 1: matter how it's powered battery, electric, cord, gas, us. You
29:01
Speaker 1: can't use it if it's louder than sixty five decibels
29:04
Speaker 1: before seven am or after seven pm. Places like New
29:09
Speaker 1: Jersey have bands between eight and six and they also
29:14
Speaker 1: have It's weird. It's almost like blue laws. Blue laws
29:19
Speaker 1: are those moral laws the pretty common in the South
29:22
Speaker 1: and places like Utah, like for a long time here
29:26
Speaker 1: in Georgia, home to ridiculous history. What was it? There
29:31
Speaker 1: was no there was something with alcohol on Sunday, like
29:33
Speaker 1: you couldn't buy it before noon or it's before noon
29:37
Speaker 1: even like it brunches, they won't serve you a momosa
29:39
Speaker 1: until noon. And I think twelve thirty something like, yeah,
29:43
Speaker 1: twelve exactly, which is right. I think that that was
29:49
Speaker 1: there was a vote on that that we just did,
29:51
Speaker 1: or at least it was about alcohol being available for
29:54
Speaker 1: sale on Sundays, and it kind of changed the timing.
29:56
Speaker 1: But yes, these laws that are sort of based in
30:00
Speaker 1: religious sort of morality are are always very interesting and
30:04
Speaker 1: apply to leaf blowers. I also don't point out until
30:07
Speaker 1: it was like early two thousand's when they changed the laws,
30:11
Speaker 1: you actually could buy alcohol on Sundays at all. Remember, Yeah,
30:15
Speaker 1: it used to be a no go. You go to
30:17
Speaker 1: a restaurant and get loaded, but you couldn't go get
30:19
Speaker 1: anything at a store. There we go, which seems counterintuitive
30:24
Speaker 1: considering that I would say, outside of any kind of
30:27
Speaker 1: religious you know, hang ups, the most important part about
30:30
Speaker 1: alcohol prohibition would be having people not drunk driving. So
30:36
Speaker 1: I would think it would be a better move to
30:38
Speaker 1: have it available to buy and take home than to
30:41
Speaker 1: get loaded, because that's the only place you can get
30:43
Speaker 1: it and then drive home and cause some sort of
30:47
Speaker 1: horrific traffic. You know. Maybe maybe it's something with a
30:51
Speaker 1: restaurant lobby we've got to do. Maybe we we get
30:55
Speaker 1: into the history of blue laws in a future episode.
30:58
Speaker 1: Let's let's just amat Cinema of the mind, folks, the
31:03
Speaker 1: countless tensions created by leaf flowers, maybe in your very
31:06
Speaker 1: own neighborhood. They often operate pretty early in the morning
31:11
Speaker 1: or midmorning. Sometimes they operate later in the evening. Countless
31:16
Speaker 1: people across the United States have called law enforcement on
31:21
Speaker 1: their neighbors for leaf flowers. This is not hyperbole. They've
31:25
Speaker 1: called nine one one saying this person has to be stopped.
31:30
Speaker 1: But if we exercise empathy, we have to realize that
31:34
Speaker 1: leaf flowers, in terms of noise pollution, are much more
31:38
Speaker 1: dangerous for the people operating them than they are for
31:41
Speaker 1: the people nearby. Like this, Okay, so we all three
31:45
Speaker 1: of us have various backgrounds in musical spheres. The sound
31:50
Speaker 1: level for a person holding and operating a leaf flower
31:54
Speaker 1: often exceeds one hundred decibels. I mean, how do you
31:58
Speaker 1: see the people operating them wearing those sound proof headphones
32:03
Speaker 1: or whatever, the ear muffs whatever they call them, the
32:05
Speaker 1: same ones you might use in a rifle range. Yeah, yeah, no,
32:09
Speaker 1: that's a good point. And uh they're doing so for
32:12
Speaker 1: good reason. The World Health Organization says that if you
32:19
Speaker 1: want to be safe for your hearing long term, you
32:24
Speaker 1: need to keep things under fifty five decibels for up
32:28
Speaker 1: to eight hundred feet for on the ground comparison, that's
32:33
Speaker 1: more than two blocks away. In a lot of neighborhoods.
32:36
Speaker 1: So while the noise maybe an irritation to you if
32:40
Speaker 1: you're sleeping in one Saturday, you have to realize that
32:43
Speaker 1: the person operating a leaf blower, who by the way,
32:47
Speaker 1: properly isn't excited to do it. Uh, they are at
32:51
Speaker 1: risk of permanent hearing loss. It is like being a
32:56
Speaker 1: drummer in a touring rock band without any album sales.
33:01
Speaker 1: That's that's a swindle. That's a grift. I don't know
33:05
Speaker 1: future leaf blowers. It seems like they're probably here to
33:08
Speaker 1: stay for a while, but they're they're getting banned increasingly
33:13
Speaker 1: in different in different cities. It's starting on like a
33:17
Speaker 1: municipal level in a lot of places. I don't know,
33:20
Speaker 1: what do you what do you guys think should the
33:22
Speaker 1: leaf blower be banned entirely? Landscapers love them, yeah, because
33:28
Speaker 1: it optimizes their ability to get more houses in on
33:33
Speaker 1: their routes. And I get that. Um, I'm just shocked
33:38
Speaker 1: by the pollution oh angle. That is something that I
33:42
Speaker 1: was not you know, obviously, this this all started for
33:45
Speaker 1: us because of the noise pollution angle, but um, the
33:49
Speaker 1: actual pollution angle. I just had no idea and you know,
33:51
Speaker 1: when I was doing a little bit of extra research
33:53
Speaker 1: on on this, uh, this one that you really lead
33:56
Speaker 1: the charge on, Ben for obvious reasons, it I was.
33:59
Speaker 1: I was amazed that how many articles come right up,
34:01
Speaker 1: literally just by googling history of the leaf blower, about
34:04
Speaker 1: all of these petitions and bands and and discussions around
34:08
Speaker 1: all of that horrific pollution. I just had no idea. Well,
34:12
Speaker 1: you know, I agree with you know, and one thing
34:15
Speaker 1: we can take away from this is humans are amazing
34:19
Speaker 1: and inventing things, and not every invention is going to
34:22
Speaker 1: be a winner. Also, before we get out of here,
34:26
Speaker 1: I got a question, Yeah, what do y'all think Julia
34:29
Speaker 1: Barnett Rice's opinion of the leaflower would have been? Remember
34:32
Speaker 1: her the one who got so mad at the tugboats
34:35
Speaker 1: behind her house. She uh she started passing selling laws
34:38
Speaker 1: and everyone. Uh huh oh. Yeah, she would have absolutely
34:44
Speaker 1: hated this. She might have gone vigilante. She might have
34:47
Speaker 1: been in the streets with a cape, you know what
34:49
Speaker 1: I mean, and a mask. Uh. Yeah, I think I
34:53
Speaker 1: think that's a great question, Max. And also, you know, yes,
34:57
Speaker 1: this is a hit piece on leaf blow words unapologetically. Uh,
35:02
Speaker 1: it's an invention that does not necessarily need to exist
35:06
Speaker 1: outside of a few very creative uses that we outlined earlier.
35:11
Speaker 1: But we're very clearly not disparaging people who rely on
35:17
Speaker 1: leaf blowers for their livelihood. Like nol, you raised the
35:21
Speaker 1: excellent point that it might be impractical for commercial landscapers
35:26
Speaker 1: to have a leaf flower that is less powerful, that
35:30
Speaker 1: relies on an electric cord, right or a set of batteries.
35:34
Speaker 1: It might it might put them underwater to have to
35:38
Speaker 1: spend that extra hour and a half braking leaves that
35:42
Speaker 1: would have only taken thirty minutes earlier. But with that
35:47
Speaker 1: being said, do we really need the leaf blower as humanity?
35:53
Speaker 1: I think no, Yeah, for sure, the pictures speak being
36:00
Speaker 1: I say, for sure we do not, because once again,
36:04
Speaker 1: it is a cosmetic thing, you know, um, and it
36:07
Speaker 1: is something that certain municipalities and neighborhood associations and stuff
36:11
Speaker 1: would consider an eyesore. And you will get like, you know,
36:14
Speaker 1: a finger wag if not a fine if you don't
36:16
Speaker 1: get that taken care of. But is it, you know,
36:20
Speaker 1: like many things in our society, is the convenience worth
36:24
Speaker 1: the uh, you know, the potential you know, pitfalls of
36:29
Speaker 1: the technology, And I would say, you know, to whom
36:33
Speaker 1: um you know, because you definitely do sometimes see cues
36:37
Speaker 1: of landscapers raking still, but it takes like three or
36:41
Speaker 1: four individuals to do the job of maybe what to
36:46
Speaker 1: leaf blowers would do. So you know, I think professional
36:49
Speaker 1: landscapers would would argue that they need it for their livelihood.
36:54
Speaker 1: But it's a trade off, you know. So I you know,
36:56
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be in camp no leafblowers, and I mean,
37:01
Speaker 1: I'm gonna jump in here if that's okay. It seems
37:04
Speaker 1: to be okay, so I'm jumping in here. I mean,
37:07
Speaker 1: it's one of these things where it's just like the
37:10
Speaker 1: drawback the leaf flowers is just so horrifically bad compared
37:14
Speaker 1: to what it does. I mean, I don't think it's
37:17
Speaker 1: ideal to like go full blow and blue law and
37:20
Speaker 1: just outlaw these things and as we said, put these
37:23
Speaker 1: like landscaping companies under water. But the thing we cannot
37:27
Speaker 1: do is just say, well, the landscapers are gonna be
37:31
Speaker 1: in trouble if we do something like that. So we're
37:34
Speaker 1: gonna allow these things for literally a cosmetic thing to
37:37
Speaker 1: pollute the air and pollute our ears and stuff. I mean,
37:41
Speaker 1: something has to be done. And I will say electric
37:43
Speaker 1: powered leaflowers have gone a lot better. Yes, that I
37:47
Speaker 1: will say is significantly better. That is true. And who knows,
37:52
Speaker 1: perhaps one day someone will invent an affordable silencer attachment
37:57
Speaker 1: for a leaf blower, and that that would that would
38:01
Speaker 1: change the game in such a strange way. But just
38:06
Speaker 1: to be a bit of a nerd, like, the only
38:08
Speaker 1: way to silence something that is is literally generated by
38:13
Speaker 1: air moving would be to slow down the flow of
38:17
Speaker 1: the air uh and and or have the generator part
38:22
Speaker 1: farther away, you know, where you're not actually hearing it.
38:25
Speaker 1: So it's two things that would render the whole affair
38:29
Speaker 1: kind of moot anyway, because it just wouldn't It wouldn't
38:32
Speaker 1: do the job. It's slowing down the moving of the air.
38:34
Speaker 1: Like in recording studios, to get rid of air conditioning noise,
38:37
Speaker 1: you install these little baffles, these buffers kind of in
38:40
Speaker 1: the UH and the thing because you're not depending on
38:43
Speaker 1: fast moving air. If to f air condition you just
38:46
Speaker 1: need a constant flow of cool air. But with the
38:49
Speaker 1: leaf blower it absolutely has to be fast moving, high
38:53
Speaker 1: powered air. UM. So therefore you know the motor would
38:57
Speaker 1: have to be like inside a truck and then isolate
39:00
Speaker 1: in and then you have to have some sort of
39:01
Speaker 1: giant hose that would come off of it, and then
39:04
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, I just I'm just yeah, I'm with you.
39:08
Speaker 1: Let's brainstorm, alright. So, so much of innovation isn't just
39:14
Speaker 1: answering a question, it's figuring out the right question to ask.
39:17
Speaker 1: So I want to take a I want to take
39:21
Speaker 1: a moment in homage to our pal Scott Benjamin of
39:25
Speaker 1: car Stuff fame, and say, why don't we find some
39:29
Speaker 1: animals that will eat the leaves, replace the leaf blower
39:34
Speaker 1: with a very focused petting zoo. Cows, l buffalo, buffalo
39:38
Speaker 1: are probably too big. Also elks also cows, goats? Why
39:41
Speaker 1: not goats? Get the goats to eat the leaves? Well,
39:44
Speaker 1: goats eat everything. Will work on rent a goat, did
39:47
Speaker 1: you talk about? Yeah, of course that's that came from
39:50
Speaker 1: a Scott story. You can hire a goat to to
39:53
Speaker 1: clean up your yard. Yeah. I like the idea. Like
39:57
Speaker 1: the goat doesn't have a human intermediary. You hire the
40:00
Speaker 1: goat a man cans. So with that, uh, we are
40:08
Speaker 1: going to call it a day. And we cannot wait
40:12
Speaker 1: to hear your opinions folks. Leaf flowers, as they would
40:15
Speaker 1: say in the South, are your firum or again? Hum?
40:18
Speaker 1: And why what do you think the world would look
40:21
Speaker 1: like without leaf blowers? I feel like we'll we'll touch
40:25
Speaker 1: a nerve with a lot of people who are listening
40:27
Speaker 1: to this podcast despite a leaf flower operating their vicinity
40:31
Speaker 1: right now. Find us on Facebook, where we are ridiculous historians.
40:35
Speaker 1: You can also find us on social media. I'm at
40:39
Speaker 1: Instagram and Twitter, Twitter at them Bowling hs W and
40:43
Speaker 1: Instagram and a burst of Creativity at ben Bowland for
40:48
Speaker 1: behind the scenes adventures. Big big win for you. If
40:51
Speaker 1: you're on Instagram, you can also find my colleague Mr
40:55
Speaker 1: Noel Brown. Can I am at how now? Noel Brown
40:59
Speaker 1: exclud visibly on Instagram, where I post lots of memes
41:03
Speaker 1: and you know, pictures of me and the recording studio
41:07
Speaker 1: doing nerds stuff and and you know, things of that nature.
41:11
Speaker 1: So check it out, how about you, Mr Max? Yeah,
41:15
Speaker 1: I am exclusively on Twitter for some odd reason at
41:19
Speaker 1: at l Underscore Max Williams. I'm thinking of getting an
41:22
Speaker 1: Instagram and moving over to Instagram because Twitter is kind
41:25
Speaker 1: of uh, I don't know. Post apocalyptic nuclear waste land
41:30
Speaker 1: at this point, but nothing's starting yet. And uh, in
41:37
Speaker 1: these uncertain times, we want to thank you as always
41:41
Speaker 1: for tuning in, fellow ridiculous historians, thanks to our superproducer,
41:46
Speaker 1: Mr Max Williams. Thanks to all those people. You know,
41:50
Speaker 1: despite the fact that leaflowers just they absolutely blow, they
41:55
Speaker 1: absolutely suck. They're they're just the worst. Despite certainly do suck,
41:58
Speaker 1: ben su it sucks. Yes some uh you know, despite
42:07
Speaker 1: despite the fact that these are cartoonishly stupid inventions, Uh,
42:12
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people who are using them
42:16
Speaker 1: for their livelihoods. We respect that. We got your back.
42:19
Speaker 1: We want to hear your take on leaf blowers and uh,
42:24
Speaker 1: let's see, who else should we think? Oh, thanks to
42:27
Speaker 1: our leaf blower guy. We actually recorded a little later today,
42:31
Speaker 1: So thank you leaf blower guy for not making an
42:34
Speaker 1: appearance in today's episode. Who else should we think? Nope? Oh? Man, Um,
42:39
Speaker 1: what's the guy's name? Mr dom Dom the don guess? Yeah, yeah,
42:46
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland, our personal leaf blower of a human. Um,
42:55
Speaker 1: keep it no, no, no, no, no, we love we
42:58
Speaker 1: obviously loved love. Hey, it's a very complicated relationship with that. Um. Yeah.
43:04
Speaker 1: Thanks to Christoph rociotis here in spirit, he's Jeff Coke
43:07
Speaker 1: wandering this wide world of sports, doing great things out there.
43:11
Speaker 1: And of course to you, Ben for for taking us
43:15
Speaker 1: on this journey, this journey of discovery, much like that
43:19
Speaker 1: hypothetical drive from Texas to Alaska. Um, I'm so hung
43:24
Speaker 1: up on this, you guys, that it's that much. I mean,
43:27
Speaker 1: good gracious, I literally was about to just you know,
43:30
Speaker 1: die on the hill right there and say these things
43:32
Speaker 1: should be outlawed. Well, it's true that a lot of
43:37
Speaker 1: people have been trying to get them outlawed. And as
43:40
Speaker 1: we're talking about trying things, let's do a little tease.
43:44
Speaker 1: Tune in for our next episode when we talk about
43:47
Speaker 1: several people who tried to be president. Let's see your
43:51
Speaker 1: next step books. For more podcast from my Heart Radio,
44:00
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
44:03
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.