Latest / Privycast / Ep. 136 White House Plumbing

Transcript

Ep. 136 White House Plumbing · Privycast

0:00
>> Hunter Hoover: I would argue if your
0:03
plumber shows up to stop leaks and
0:06
they explode the entire bathroom in your
0:08
face. Not the best
0:11
plumbers.
0:16
Welcome back to privy. Privy
0:19
is a podcast about bathrooms
0:22
recorded from my home
0:24
bathroom. I'm your host, hunter
0:26
Hoover, and I love
0:28
bathrooms. Um, welcome back, everybody.
0:32
And if you're listening to this on the
0:35
day it's released, yesterday, you celebrated American
0:37
Independence day. America. Freedom.
0:40
Dig it, man. Every year when I was
0:43
growing up, independence day, 4 July,
0:46
as it is colloquially called, because it happens on July
0:49
4. It was kind of like a holiday
0:51
that, like. It was fun. It was fun, mostly
0:54
because we got to light chinese explosives off into the
0:57
sky. But as I get older,
1:01
um, and as I live in this
1:03
country, um, and more
1:06
importantly, as I get to watch my kids grow
1:09
up in this country, the
1:11
value of American Independence
1:14
day becomes more and more
1:17
evident as time goes on. I want to say at
1:20
the top of this episode, uh, usually I say this at the
1:23
end, but, uh, we normally. For
1:26
ratings and reviews left for the show, we give a
1:29
dollar to wounded warriors in living water.
1:31
Um, we're going to bump that up to a couple for the month
1:34
of July. Um, we're going to
1:37
be given, uh, we'll say we'll do
1:40
$3 for ratings left. Um,
1:43
we'll go five for written reviews.
1:46
Um, and that's just as a thank
1:48
you to leaving that
1:51
kindness on the show. And we want to pay that back to
1:54
the men and women, uh, who served in this country
1:57
to give us these freedoms that we celebrated
2:00
yesterday at the release of this episode, um,
2:03
as well as realizing that there's parts of this
2:06
world that are not as free as ours, um, in many of those
2:09
parts of the world, they do not have access to clean water. And,
2:12
um, so we're going to give a little back to work towards
2:15
that as well. But american independence is a pretty
2:18
neat thing. Uh, freedom.
2:22
And I think there is this trend in the
2:25
zeitgeist of the culture today where people are
2:27
supposed to almost feel ashamed of their american
2:30
ness. And if you feel that
2:33
way, I'm sorry. Uh,
2:36
you shouldn't. No country is
2:39
perfect. No country's history is
2:41
perfect. But
2:45
I think if we are, if we are
2:47
being honest, the things that we have stood for as a
2:50
country, whether or not they've been right, the
2:53
things freedom, liberty,
2:55
truth, justice,
2:58
they're value. The principles
3:01
that undergird our country are good.
3:04
Just got to find them again.
3:07
We're going to recap some of the highlights in the past
3:10
on privy on the 4 July. We've shared some
3:13
stories about, uh, uh, american
3:16
independence and bathrooms. Some of those
3:19
include the patriotic privy
3:21
pits, wherein, as they search through the
3:24
bathroom pits, where they dump their skeet. More on those in a little
3:27
bit. Um, they found all sorts of interesting
3:30
things related to american history that gave us
3:33
information about historical, uh,
3:36
events and historical figures in our country.
3:39
Last year, we talked about Wendy, Ben, uh, and how
3:42
Ben Franklin, he's a big fan of farting.
3:45
Um, and he was a big fan of sleeping in the buff.
3:48
He's a big fan of right when he wakes up,
3:52
just hanging little Ben right out in the window to
3:55
let that guy aerate. And so
3:58
there's a lot of fun, interesting bathroom things going on in
4:00
american. It's an election year here in
4:03
the states. Um, and we're already seeing the political
4:06
pissing match begin. It's awful.
4:10
Well, welcome to our hell. Uh,
4:13
but it is what it is. We have to fight a little
4:16
bit before we can vote. And what's
4:18
interesting is this building,
4:22
the White House. It
4:25
has housed members of both parties. It is
4:28
this commonplace, no matter which side
4:31
you're on, that whoever wins, you get the spot.
4:34
But that historical building, this really
4:37
icon of american landscape,
4:40
has gone through a lot of change.
4:48
Now, the keen eye will note that I am still
4:51
supping on last episode, Seltzer
4:54
didn't finish it quite in time. Don't worry. I
4:57
will have my mid episode grip and rip for you.
5:00
Nonetheless. It wouldn't be. It wouldn't be an American
5:03
celebrating 4 July patriotic
5:05
episode without it.
5:09
But we need to get into some White House history.
5:13
Where did this building come from? Our first
5:15
president. Say it with me, kids.
5:19
George Washington commissioned
5:23
and selected the plot of land
5:26
for the president's residence.
5:28
It rhymes. Um, the
5:31
original. It wasn't called this, but the
5:34
original White House. And he commissioned
5:37
that land in
5:38
1791. We'd
5:41
been a country for 25 years. Might as well give the
5:44
president a place to live. James
5:47
Hobanous was selected
5:49
as the architect. And this original White
5:53
House was built before the turn
5:55
of the. Of the 18 hundreds. The
5:58
first president to live in the White House was
6:01
John Adams, though when he
6:04
moved in, it was unfinished.
6:07
It should also be noted this White House was
6:10
not at all like the one we know today. It was
6:12
black. No, I'm just kidding. Um, but it was
6:15
dark. It was poorly lit. It was kind of damp and
6:18
stuffy, kind of like it is metaphorically
6:21
today, you know,
6:24
because of politics. Oh, um.
6:26
Shoot. In the war of
6:29
1812, still salty. That they
6:31
absolutely got their butt handed to them in the
6:33
revolution. Uh, the Brits set fire
6:37
to the White House. Bold move, cotton. Let's see if
6:39
it pays off. Turns out if you build it
6:42
once, you can build it again.
6:45
So they called James Hoban back up
6:48
to rebuild the White House. Now, I'm starting to wonder, like, if
6:51
it was damp, dusky, musty and moldy,
6:54
why did we call the same architect, but they call him up to
6:57
repair the damage? James
7:00
Monroe moved into
7:03
this new white house, and over the course of
7:06
the next ten to 15 years, the north
7:09
and south porticoes would be added to the
7:12
building. But this
7:14
is a show about bathrooms, and really, we're here
7:17
to talk about White House bathrooms and the history of
7:20
White House bathrooms.
7:23
Bathrooms in this period of our history were
7:26
very rudimentary, and in the White House, those
7:29
bathrooms were non existent. People
7:31
were dumping their night soil, which is
7:35
academic. Nice speech for
7:38
liquid Shaz in the streets, or,
7:41
as was often the case at common
7:43
repository dumping spaces. They had these
7:46
designated spaces around town
7:49
wherein, if you didn't enter it, the.
7:51
The gong, uh, farmer. We're gonna get to
7:54
gong farmers one day on the show. But the gong farmer
7:57
would come in and take the skeet to the
7:59
pita. Washington,
8:01
DC, had a few key spaces for
8:04
this and the one nearest the White House
8:08
being on the north side of the city.
8:11
Now, while the
8:14
president lived in the White House during
8:17
this time period, if they had to skeet a
8:20
patriotic pile, they had to
8:23
use the brown shack out back.
8:26
The White House outhouse was
8:28
common use in the White House for the
8:31
first 60 years.
8:34
The house might be big, it might be white, but you
8:37
still make brown out back.
8:40
Often this combined a chamber pot
8:43
being dumped in the outhouse via
8:46
servants or, you know,
8:48
slaves who were in charge
8:51
of running these bowls. It's a grim thing,
8:54
the leader of the free world squatting in an
8:57
outhouse like the rest of us at this time,
9:00
to get water to and from m the White House
9:03
servants, which is, this side of
9:06
history's term, likely for slaves.
9:09
Again, it's. It's bad. Not all of american
9:12
history is good. Carried the water to and from
9:15
the White House. And before the White House was burned
9:17
down, James Madison suggested
9:20
that they put running water in.
9:23
Now, the White House
9:26
was brought running water in 1833 to
9:29
supply the white house with running water
9:32
to help fill the fire safety
9:34
protocol reservoirs. Now, you might be
9:37
wondering, why are they so worried about the fire safety
9:40
protocol reservoirs? It's not like
9:43
attacking. British forces have recently burned
9:46
the, uh, shoot, the Brits had just burned
9:49
the thing down and they're wanting to avoid
9:51
that happening again, and so they.
9:54
They spent a lot of time and research and money
9:57
figuring out how to have these water repositories
10:00
and build ups, so that way, if
10:03
they need to call on large deposits of water, they can put
10:06
out another british fire. But to get that
10:09
water into the White House,
10:12
it would need to be plumbed in
10:16
to find the water source. The search
10:18
had begun much before the fire in
10:21
1814. Seven years prior, it
10:24
was proposed to pipe the water in
10:27
from a spring six blocks away.
10:31
They didn't do this. Rather, after the
10:33
rebuilding, they purchased a spring of water in
10:36
Franklin Square in 1831, just two
10:39
blocks closer than than the original proposed
10:42
spring. Robert
10:45
Lecky was commissioned to do the work,
10:48
and the project was completed two years later
10:51
with fresh iron pipes moving water to the
10:53
White House. Andrew
10:56
Jackson was the first to use this
10:59
new running water in America's Capitol
11:02
building. Clean water
11:04
was brought to the White House. And when
11:07
you consider the polluted Potomac in the
11:10
cratfield, DC Canal, which we will discuss
11:13
in the future, it seems to be a huge
11:16
step forward.
11:23
William Henry Harrison
11:25
became the 9th president of the United States
11:28
in 1841. Up until that
11:31
time, he was the oldest president to fill
11:34
office. Consequently,
11:38
William Henry Harrison is known
11:41
primarily for just one
11:44
dying. He was the first president
11:47
to die in office, serving as president for
11:49
just 32 days.
11:52
The official White House website says that
11:55
Harrison caught a cold and died of
11:57
pneumonia. Thankfully, he had the
12:00
opportunity to enjoy the new running water
12:04
of the White House before he snuffed it,
12:07
a likely story since he gave his
12:09
inaugural address in the cold, wet night.
12:12
But what if I told you there was
12:15
more afoot than pneumonia?
12:19
An initial diagnosis from his doctor
12:22
suggested more is going on. Thomas Miller,
12:25
William Henry Harrison's doctor, declared the
12:28
cause of death is pneumonia. But he did note the
12:30
fevers and distress he exhibited
12:33
on his deathbed were more akin to
12:36
intestinal distress related to
12:39
parasitic bacteria.
12:42
He had enjoyed the running water of the White House.
12:46
Three weeks after his inauguration, he complained of
12:48
anxiety, fever, constipation, and nausea,
12:51
upset stomach, diarrhea. So he may
12:54
very. He should have got some pepto Bismol. That's all I'm saying.
12:57
Pepto Bismol would not have solved his problem, so he
13:00
may very well have died
13:03
also from complications of his
13:06
gastrointestinal problems. Based on a
13:08
study published by Oxford. Study at
13:11
university. It's a sad affair.
13:15
Uh, there's something in the water.
13:20
Maybe William Henry Harrison was an outlier.
13:23
Oh, wait. Eight years later, James K.
13:26
Polka lay ill in a
13:29
Tennessee bed three months
13:32
off his term as president, where he had
13:34
supped that White House water for so long, he had
13:37
suffered from cholera, diarrhea, vomiting,
13:40
and was dehydrated. During his
13:43
time as president, he had gallstones, kidney stones,
13:46
and much gastrointestinal
13:48
distress. Polk died
13:51
of cholera at the age of 53. If you haven't picked up
13:54
on it, it suggested that polk, too,
13:57
received many of these struggles, or many of
14:00
these struggles were made worse
14:03
by White House plumbing.
14:07
Months after Polk passed, President
14:09
Zachary Taylor Thomas also fell
14:12
ill in his time as president.
14:15
The commonly told story is Taylor fell
14:18
ill after eating too much
14:21
iced milk and cherries as part of an 1850
14:24
Independence Day celebration. I think
14:27
iced milk is ice cream. And who
14:29
amongst us, in celebration of our
14:32
country's history and freedom,
14:34
hasn't eaten too much cherries and ice cream?
14:38
Again, at the point of this record, I was just nards deep
14:41
in a cherry tree, plucking cherries. Um,
14:44
here we go. But that's
14:47
the story, that the dude ate too much ice cream and cherries,
14:50
and he got sick, and he got sick and fell
14:53
ill with cramps and vomiting and diarrhea, you
14:55
know, other cholera and typhoid, similar
14:58
symptoms. And Taylor, it
15:01
seemed, may have actually diarrhea, hid his
15:04
self to death. It is also
15:06
guessed,
15:09
based on this theory, that this water
15:12
may have also claimed the life of
15:15
Willy Lincoln. A tough look. Something
15:18
totally avoidable, if we remember one
15:21
important concept. Crap
15:23
slides downhill.
15:26
Because if you remember those two night soil
15:29
dumping spots that they chose for the White House,
15:32
the closer one, the one that was two
15:35
blocks closer, is uphill from. From
15:38
where they. The spring that they drew water
15:41
from and pumped it in, crap slides
15:44
downhill. Kids
15:46
could have saved three presidents and a president's son.
15:50
While three presidents likely died due to the
15:53
plumbing shortfalls of piping infrastructure in the White
15:56
House, or, at bare minimum,
15:59
the springs for the water being pumped in
16:02
being poorly located. During this period, an
16:04
important change came to the White House.
16:07
They got the first flush toilets.
16:10
Millard Fillmore is credited
16:14
with installing the first flush toilet,
16:16
and Franklin Pierce expanded this
16:19
toilet closet into a full bathroom.
16:22
It was in Pierce's presidency that improvements were
16:25
made to the plumbing and other facilities of the
16:28
home, likely resulting in
16:31
less gastrointestinal related
16:34
distress and death. Second story
16:36
bathroom were installed in the White House.
16:39
Up until this time, if you wanted to take a hot bath
16:42
upstairs, you had to haul the water up.
16:46
If you wanted a bath on the second floor, it was cold, but
16:49
now hot running water to the upstairs
16:52
at the turn of the century, Theodore Roosevelt
16:55
began to do updates to the White House.
16:58
And in doing so, Theodore Roosevelt
17:01
gave the White House its name.
17:04
One of those updates, it
17:06
seems, needed to be a larger
17:09
bathtub because William
17:12
Howard Taft succeeded
17:14
Roosevelt. And my dude, Mister M.
17:17
President Taft was thick. My
17:20
dude was wide. The report
17:23
goes that Taft had to have a special
17:25
bathtub, just a girth, some tub
17:28
installed to fit his large duff.
17:31
For some time there was a rumor that he had gotten
17:34
stuck in his fat tub. But the rumor is very
17:37
unlikely. Taft's bathtub
17:40
was a 2000 pound,
17:43
seven foot long tub.
17:47
Taft loved his baths. So
17:50
much so that he brought his bath with
17:53
him to the White House when he was
17:55
elected. But now that the,
17:58
but now that the plumbing is installed, the water's
18:01
running, the baths are in place.
18:05
It seems even the bathrooms of the White
18:07
House could not avoid being a piece of
18:10
political conversation.
18:17
Herbert Hoover was a president of these United
18:20
States. He's remembered, either accurately
18:23
or otherwise, as not contributing much to
18:26
America. For our purposes, this
18:29
is not the conversation. For our
18:31
purposes, politics slipped into the
18:34
bathroom when Herbert Hoover left office.
18:37
In a relay. When you're running a relay, one of the most
18:40
critical moments of the relay is the
18:43
handoff of the baton. And if you can
18:46
get the handoff just right, it can make or break your
18:49
race. And if you fumble the
18:52
baton, it can completely
18:54
cost your team the race.
18:57
And in the case of Herbert Hoover,
19:00
handing off the baton to Franklin
19:03
Delano Roosevelt, FDR, he didn't
19:06
fumble the baton. He just
19:09
skeeted the baton,
19:11
just threw it laterally into the
19:14
next field of the
19:17
opposite track, flipped
19:20
FDR the bird and walked
19:23
off. They weren't in a
19:26
race. They were passing leadership of our
19:28
country. And while Harrison is
19:31
remembered primarily for dying,
19:34
FDR is remembered as being the only president
19:37
to date who was physically disabled.
19:40
So what's the baton throw? How did, how did
19:43
her, how did Hoover
19:45
do FDR so dirty?
19:50
When Herbert Hoover left office, he took the oval Office
19:53
bathroom toilet and he left a
19:56
urinal in place. Now,
19:59
you can do a lot of things while in a
20:01
wheelchair, but usually one of
20:04
those is not traditionally using a
20:07
urinal with a lot of comfort.
20:09
Now, while many people didn't know the extent
20:12
of FDR's paralysis at the beginning of his
20:15
time in office, Hoover seemed to be
20:18
pretty keen on it in his
20:20
dealings with this urinal jab as he left. It's
20:23
a bold move. Like, it's, it's pretty
20:26
gutsy. It's kind of a butthole move. It is a
20:29
butthole move. While the old
20:32
plumbing in the White House bathroom may have led to the
20:34
deaths, um, of three former
20:37
presidents, further potty politics
20:40
in the White House rise in the Nixon
20:42
administration. When the plumbers of the White
20:45
House have him all fouled up.
20:48
During the M Nixon administration, there was
20:51
classified leaks being sent out to the
20:53
media, leaking government secrets and data.
20:57
A special task force called or
20:59
referred to as the White House plumbers get
21:02
it? They fixed the leaks,
21:07
was sent to plug up those
21:09
leaks. In the famous Ellsberg break in,
21:12
the plumbers nearly got caught. Much of their work was
21:15
dissolved. However, they were called
21:18
in to help the committee to reelect the president and helped
21:21
with the Watergate scandal. These plumbers
21:24
became known as Nixon's fixers
21:26
and played a huge role in the events resulting in
21:29
and leading up to Watergate.
21:32
I would argue if your
21:35
plumber shows up to stop leaks and
21:38
they explode the entire bathroom in your
21:41
face. Not the best
21:43
plumbers.
21:47
Less than 55 years after Roosevelt
21:49
renovated, the Truman
21:52
administration did so again
21:55
under architect Lorenzo
21:57
Winslow. Under the rehaul,
22:00
everything but the outer wall was redone.
22:03
And really, at this point, it is the
22:05
White House that is in place today.
22:08
Today, the White House boasts
22:11
35 bathrooms.
22:14
It still doesn't keep our current president from pooping
22:17
his pants in
22:18
booze.
22:23
I want to know. In years past,
22:26
our 4 July episode
22:29
has brought coverage of Nathan's
22:32
famous hot dog eating contest. And
22:35
while usually it's quite a spectacle, um,
22:40
we'll see if there is something.
22:43
But this
22:46
year, leading up to Nathan's famous hot
22:49
dog eating contest, there was
22:51
scandal in the ranks of glizzy
22:53
guzzlers. And this brings us to an
22:56
installment of who in the
22:59
news
23:04
in the past, like I said, we've covered Nathan's famous hot
23:07
dog eating contest. And if you're listening to this, that competition
23:10
has already happened. I hope you enjoy it. And
23:13
you probably noticed there was a lot of chatter
23:16
about a, uh, one Joseph
23:18
Chestnuts. There was a bit of an
23:21
upset this year, unless
23:24
something has changed between the time of recording and the
23:27
release of this episode. But at the time of
23:30
recording, there was a lot of scuttle about Joseph
23:32
Chestnuts. This article comes to us from
23:35
NPR, and it is titled Hot Dog eating
23:38
champ Joey Chestnut won't compete this July
23:41
4. What's the beef
23:44
now? I'm not going to read this whole article to you.
23:47
If you want to go check it out, link in the thing below.
23:50
Um, but pretty much what happened
23:53
is Joey Chestnut, this guy who can
23:56
just, like, suck down wieners so fast it's
23:59
almost unhuman, decided
24:02
that he is going to take a deal
24:05
with impossible sausages.
24:07
Now, while there's no rule
24:11
against, uh, a, uh, competitor
24:13
having a brand deal or whatever,
24:16
striking up a brand deal with impossible
24:19
wieners, where in most
24:22
of their marketing is like, hey, guys, we
24:25
all know how regular hot dogs suck big time,
24:28
right? Get yourself one of these fake
24:31
wieners instead.
24:34
The organizers of Nathan's famous hot
24:36
dog said, you know, that messaging
24:39
seems kind of intuitive to our whole
24:42
thing, and maybe it's better if you
24:45
just don't show up. So
24:48
because he has chosen to represent a, quote, rival
24:51
brand Joey Chestnuts was
24:54
told that he may not participate
24:57
in this year's Nathan's hot dog eating contest.
25:01
I also want to note in the article,
25:05
they interviewed Joey Chestnuts, and
25:09
he really seems to be playing the victim a little bit.
25:12
He's. He's very much like, you know, you're depriving
25:15
the fans of a champion. You're not giving the
25:18
people what they want. I can't
25:21
believe that Nathan's famous would do this to me.
25:24
But here's the deal, Joey.
25:27
If you're listening, you're not. But if you were,
25:31
why the flip are you signing on with fake
25:34
wieners? Dude, like, you're
25:37
known primarily for one thing, sucking back
25:40
hot dogs. So, like, you
25:43
had to have a little bit of a clue that if you
25:46
started, like, slurping down fake
25:48
sausages, things were probably not
25:51
just gonna magically just be Oakley
25:54
dokly. Bud. According to.
25:56
As of this recording, June 22,
26:00
Joey chestnuts will not be
26:02
participating in the Nathan's famous hot dog eating
26:05
contest. Why in the flip are you partnering with
26:08
a flake glizzy lizzy? Dude, like, I don't get it. I don't
26:11
blame Nathan's famous for doing this. In fact,
26:14
Joey, figure it the heck out.
26:17
Like,
26:20
you're faking it. The plant based sauce, they're not
26:23
better. You can pretend that they are.
26:26
Oh, the flavor is the same. Yeah, but the texture
26:29
is not. Okay. So
26:32
admit you're wrong. Swallow your pride.
26:35
You already got this brand deal. Just ride the wave. But quit
26:38
complaining. You made your bed. Sleep in it, bud.
26:41
I don't blame Nathan's at all. In fact, I'll be
26:44
watching this year. And at the point of this, listening.
26:47
I already have. This has been
26:50
poo in the news.
26:55
This brings us to the end of another episode of privy.
26:58
Thank you, guys, for being here. I hope that if
27:01
you're here in the States, that you. You had a chance to
27:03
celebrate our american freedom. Um, I hope that you
27:06
were safe. Uh, I hope that you still are safe. And I hope
27:09
that it was a good time had by all.
27:12
Um, as always, leave us a rating and review. I
27:15
told you at the beginning of the episode, five star options are preferred. We're going
27:18
to bump that up for the month of July to three and
27:20
$5 respectively. Um, thanks to
27:23
Kevin and Poddington for the use of their music. As always, you
27:26
can send us an email privycastmail.com.
27:29
you can follow us on social media at privycast. You can follow me.
27:32
I'm out at seven. Don't forget about randybowles.
27:35
Andybowles. We'd love to engage with you online.
27:38
Lots, uh, of stuff going on out there. Check us out. Uh,
27:40
share the show with a friend. Send it to them. Say, hey, I
27:43
listen to this podcast about bathrooms. I know it's weird, but give it a
27:46
shot. Um, and encourage them to leave a rating and review.
27:49
That's how people find the show. This
27:52
brings us to the end of another episode of privy.
27:55
Keep pooping in the free world. Own your stank.
27:58
And now, as always,
28:01
don't forget to flush.