Latest / Privycast / Ep. 39 The Inspiratorium- The Bathroom that Sparked the Protestant Reformation
Transcript
- 0:00Feel off, tired, moody?
- 0:02You might be missing minerals because 99 % of us are.
- 0:06Concentrate's daily mineral powder helps support energy, mood, and immunity.
- 0:10From the inside out, go to TraceMinerals.com and feel the difference minerals make.
- 0:18Something fun happened just before I set up to record this week.
- 0:25If I haven't ever shared, know, when I record, it's really not just like, well, I'm gonna go plop down in the recording studio because the recording studio is where I regularly
- 0:35plop it.
- 0:36ah And so this week, I had the astute pleasure of having to take a liquified shaz minutes before getting to do this.
- 0:45And the descriptor...
- 0:47that I used to describe it to my lovely wife who definitely wanted me to give the description was popcorn chicken but poop.
- 1:06Welcome back to Privy.
- 1:07Privy is a podcast about bathrooms recorded here in my home bathroom.
- 1:14I am your host Hunter Hoover and I love bathrooms uh and I'm very thankful for them.
- 1:22Quick bathroom check in, went to go to the bathroom at Target, actually on the evening of this recording and wouldn't you know it, I, you know, I...
- 1:32I come strolling into the neighborhood target.
- 1:36First thing I do, right hand, bam, turn the head.
- 1:40Is there any Pokemon cards on the wall?
- 1:42Nope.
- 1:45None there.
- 1:46And so got into the store, got sacked deep up in the store, and then had to go to the bathroom.
- 1:56I could tell it was gonna be a danger wild man going on here.
- 2:00ah
- 2:01But trotted up to the front while my wife checked out with the stuff that we had procured.
- 2:09One of which is gingerbread Oreos.
- 2:12You gotta get up on these.
- 2:13They're real good and they should take them off of just being seasonal and make them a year round thing because they're phenomenal.
- 2:23I trotted into the Target bathroom and hit up stall number one, kaboom.
- 2:30uh There's just like, somebody had mud-butted the seat.
- 2:38And I'm not, I'm just not in that, I'm not in the space to deal with it.
- 2:44So I go out and I go to the handicap stall, which I tried to not, but.
- 2:53go the handicapped stall, this joker is plum clogged.
- 2:59And so I just, I didn't go, I just held it.
- 3:02But I let the guy know at the door, was like, hey, um you know, the bathroom needs attention.
- 3:08Not in a mean way, but just like, it doesn't do anybody any services not to let somebody know.
- 3:15If there had been a plunger near the toilet, I'd have plunged it myself.
- 3:18That's all I'm saying.
- 3:19So I held it all the way until just before recording this.
- 3:23Hence the popcorn chicken.
- 3:27And it's this build up to Halloween.
- 3:30We bought way more Halloween candy this year than normal.
- 3:33Trying to get a good stockpile for events coming up.
- 3:39But I gotta say, yeah, we've done most of the Halloween things.
- 3:44I think I'm ready for it to happen now.
- 3:47Get out of the way.
- 3:49I'm gonna do my best not to too much about Halloween this week.
- 3:52We'll get into more of that.
- 3:53But you know, sometimes, like, you just get writer's block.
- 4:00Not so much on like what to talk about.
- 4:03I've got a notes page just full of stuff that I can talk about.
- 4:10But like this week was more how to talk about what I wanted to talk about.
- 4:17And it's one of those weeks like because I've had this topic on my list of things that we need to discuss probably since the beginning.
- 4:30of this podcast, I'd say, maybe, I don't know, probably longer than most, if not any other topic.
- 4:37Because once I found out this little nugget of information, and it is a hard nugget, uh it's been one of those things that has just wedged itself in the back of my brain, so much
- 4:51so that I regularly just, yeah.
- 4:55We've talked in the past about the things that people do while on the toilet.
- 5:00They play on their phones, they read, you know, who knows like what's going on here?
- 5:07People listen to music.
- 5:10There's all sorts of stuff.
- 5:12People spend so much time on the toilet that some have passed away.
- 5:15We talked about that.
- 5:16People read, use their phones, the greatest hits, do puzzles.
- 5:21And here's the deal.
- 5:24Being on the toilet is generally speaking a private thing.
- 5:27You don't have to have all the other things of life going on with you in those moments.
- 5:36It's just you and your bathroom.
- 5:38The peace and quiet save for the subtle rumblings of your derriere.
- 5:44It's the perfect time to read or play a game or in this week's case, do some writing.
- 5:54For the sake of this week's discussion, going to call the bathroom the inspiratorium.
- 6:01And we're going to find out what Paul McCartney and countless other rock and pop musicians have to do with the Protestant Reformation.
- 6:14There countless musicians who report that they do some of their best writing when they are seated on or in the quote, good acoustics end quote of the bathroom.
- 6:28Now, as a person who regularly, like I would say about three times a month, has to interface with my bathroom in an audio medium,
- 6:44Here's the deal, the phrase good acoustics is not like top of what I would say it is.
- 6:52Now it's not terrible.
- 6:53There's worse rooms that you could try to record a podcast in, but good is yeah, there's a lot of empty hard wall space and it provides a fun echo and an editing challenge week to
- 7:10week.
- 7:12Now yeah.
- 7:13Good acoustics not the best way to describe it.
- 7:15I would say echoey and hopefully sanitary.
- 7:21But for writing, like I said, I was having some trouble figuring out how to approach this episode.
- 7:29I knew what I wanted to talk about.
- 7:30I just didn't know how I wanted to get there.
- 7:34So I plopped down on my phone with the Google Doc opened and just kind of started.
- 7:43typing.
- 7:43uh
- 7:51And before you remind me that I essentially told people to stop using their phones in the bathroom, but okay, I did that.
- 8:01Here's the deal.
- 8:03Just wipe your phone down.
- 8:05I've changed, okay?
- 8:07I use my phone.
- 8:08It's kinda hard to log my logs if I'm not using my phone.
- 8:16So, I've changed.
- 8:18So, I'm doing research, I'm sitting there.
- 8:21I have probably already voided myself.
- 8:24And I'm doing some typing and it hits me now how to approach this thing.
- 8:30John McCartney of The Beatles, ever heard of him?
- 8:34They're British, which means that they're both apparently sophisticated and smart in some way.
- 8:44Mr.
- 8:45McCartney is on record as saying that he often finds inspiration for his songs while using his bathroom in Liverpool, England.
- 8:58Now, some of their tracks come from abroad.
- 9:03One, Another Girl, that's the name of the song, was composed by McCartney while using, likely more like finishing up using,
- 9:14or spending time in a bathroom in Tunisia.
- 9:18The song is purported to be about he and that is McCartney and his girlfriend and it was viewed as a filler song on their help album.
- 9:27Now, here's the deal.
- 9:29People can scream into the void of their car or wherever you listen to this, but I'm not gonna tell you where to scream into the void at.
- 9:37What I can say is I did not label another girl
- 9:43a filler song.
- 9:44The internet and even kind of the Beatles' own words did that.
- 9:48So if that's your favorite song, I'm not trying to pick a fight.
- 9:53I'm just giving you data.
- 9:57I heard this song for the first time when I found out McCartney composed it while being in the johns.
- 10:03So you aren't getting upset with me.
- 10:05You're getting upset with someone else.
- 10:07Paul isn't the only person though.
- 10:09So they...
- 10:10came up with the lyrics of Another Girl which...
- 10:14there's a theme of writing love song lyrics while taking a deuce and if that's not its own form of poetic irony I don't know what it is.
- 10:27But Paul isn't the only person getting artsy while they're getting fartsy.
- 10:30Katy Perry is reported to have found inspiration while on the bathroom floor.
- 10:36Now, here's the deal.
- 10:38I'm not gonna tell artists how to be artists, because I'm not the person to be doing that.
- 10:45There's folks who have more artistic ability in their elbow than I have in my whole situation.
- 10:55But, like why are you on the bathroom floor, dang it?
- 10:59Like, there's literally a seat in your bathroom.
- 11:03There uh is a fixture in your bathroom that is designed for you to put your butt on it and sit on it so you don't have to be on the floor.
- 11:14And I feel like the bathroom floor is maybe one of the floors in a person's house.
- 11:21You would do well to spend, let's say, as few minutes interfacing with as possible.
- 11:27I'm sorry, Miss Perry.
- 11:29Get off the floor.
- 11:30Also, your Pokemon song is okay, and that's all I'm saying.
- 11:35Taylor Swift, it's just okay.
- 11:37Taylor Swift, who I'll admit there is like one song, to my knowledge of hers that I enjoy at all or any, reports that she often takes her notes for her songs.
- 11:48while sitting in airport and mall bathrooms.
- 11:51Okay, now, to my knowledge, I am not a pop culture aficionado by any stretch of the imagination, nor could I even begin to try to keep up with all the gossip of who's doing
- 12:07what with celebrities.
- 12:09Couldn't care, won't care, refuse to try to care.
- 12:14But I don't think old T.
- 12:16Swizzles has any kids.
- 12:18And so I'm sure she travels a lot.
- 12:21But like, if you're gonna post up in a bathroom for extended periods of time, writing songs about your ex-boyfriends and how you used to be country, but still want all the
- 12:33attention from the country music industry, do it at home.
- 12:38Like, it's not even an etiquette thing, it's just cleanliness.
- 12:41Do it at home.
- 12:43You don't need to be in a mall bathroom.
- 12:45I get the airport a little bit, but like...
- 12:49Do it at home.
- 12:52Ed Sheeran, who in my brain for some time and for until recently was synonymous with the guy who played Ron Weasley in Harry Potter.
- 13:01uh Ed Sheeran, which I also every time I read his name think his name is Ed Sheeran.
- 13:10That's okay.
- 13:13Ed Sheeran is reported to write many of his lyrics from hotel bathrooms.
- 13:19And that makes sense.
- 13:21I can buy that one.
- 13:22You're in a hotel, you you just want a different space to work in.
- 13:26I recorded a hotel bath in a hotel bathroom once.
- 13:29It wasn't awful.
- 13:31Acoustics were beef.
- 13:33But yeah.
- 13:35Mariah Carey says she took down the lyrics for Hero while going to the bathroom, like in the act.
- 13:42And maybe you're hearing these things and thinking, can I roll back to like 13 to 14 minutes ago?
- 13:53to a world where I didn't think Ed Sheeran and Mariah Carey had to take a deuce?
- 14:00Like, can we roll that back?
- 14:04But no, everybody poops, and pooping, it would seem, creates a lot of downtime.
- 14:10There's a report that Steve Jobs, Mr.
- 14:17Jobs, would sit on the back of his toilet
- 14:23and sit with his quote feet hanging into the water to do his thinking.
- 14:29Now this seems like it almost has to be negative propaganda from a competitor to me.
- 14:36Like the odds of Mr.
- 14:39Jobs doing this seem little to none.
- 14:46If he is like you've got some debased methods of being inspired, dangling into
- 14:52Dengling your toes into your toilet lake?
- 14:57Mr.
- 14:58Jobs, come on now.
- 14:59Like, my fat guff would be afraid of breaking the back of the toilet sitting on it.
- 15:08Shigeru Miyamoto, Miyamo, run again.
- 15:11Shigeru, shoot.
- 15:14Shigeru Miyamoto, got it first try.
- 15:17The man who in many ways made Nintendo
- 15:21what it is today is said to have a bathtub in his office for private use, which like if the bathtub is inside your private office, it's for private use.
- 15:34He shared that it was during one of his quote soaking sessions.
- 15:39Don't tell us that.
- 15:41That he came up with the idea that became Donkey Kong, which as we know is really just the thing that became Mario.
- 15:50Rich Berry took down Louie Louie on a strip of toilet paper, Kenny Rogers wrote Lady in the bathroom of a recording studio, and here's the deal.
- 16:00I didn't look very long or hard.
- 16:04Yeah.
- 16:05For these things.
- 16:07It was like page one of some pretty passive Google searching while I was going to the bath.
- 16:15And this is not the topic this week.
- 16:19I just want to set the stage to tell you there's precedence for these things.
- 16:24And this writing is probably not as popular today, but I know it is more influential.
- 16:32So to set the stage, the year is 1501.
- 16:37A young man is enrolled in the University of Erfurt to study law and philosophy.
- 16:44Four years later, on his way home from visiting his parents, a thunderstorm strikes and a lightning hits nearby.
- 16:53Terrified, the young man calls out to St.
- 16:56Anne to save him.
- 16:58And if she did, he says he would commit himself to becoming a monk.
- 17:03He was saved, and that's just what he did.
- 17:08He dropped out of school, joined the monastery of St.
- 17:11Augustine's Monastery,
- 17:14in Effort, Erfurt in 1505.
- 17:19Now, as Dr.
- 17:20Anderson would remind us so often, Augustine is a city in Florida and Augustine is the saint.
- 17:28Just shy of two years later, this young man was ordained as a priest and a year after that, he was sent to study in Wittenberg, Germany at Wittenberg University.
- 17:45He came and went from the monastery and eventually ended up leaving to be a teacher at Wittenberg.
- 17:54He became vicar and gave a number of sermons which he is known for and most, most, what would stand out the most in this is he began to speak out against the Catholic Church's
- 18:11theology and practices.
- 18:14Later, this man would later he would he would be called to the Deity of Verms where he was asked to come and give an account of his teachings.
- 18:24There he was pronounced a heretic in 1521, only 16 years after he has committed himself to the church in some way.
- 18:34What happened?
- 18:37Scholars argue on the timing, but most will agree the thing that was kind of this big gesture that resulted in all this took place on October 31st, 1517.
- 18:54Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Church of Wittenberg.
- 19:00And in these theses, he outlined the Catholic Church to the Catholic Church their abuse of power and inappropriate practices.
- 19:10Primarily the concern was being their use of and sale of indulgences.
- 19:16That is, these indulgences were
- 19:20pardoning of sins for good deeds, services, and tithes rendered to the Catholic Church at the time.
- 19:28In his 95 Theses, Martin Luther highlights these in 95 statements, and he nailed those statements to the door of the church at Wittenberg, the town wherein he was a teacher.
- 19:44Now, Halloween has in many ways overshadowed this event.
- 19:50But October 31st is Reformation Day.
- 19:54This year marks the 504th anniversary of the Reformation.
- 19:59And with Reformation Day right around the corner, and because I Halloween is stupid, I want to talk about this.
- 20:08Here's the other just excellent nugget of information.
- 20:11It's reported that while Martin Luther nailed his theses...
- 20:15Oh, you might be hearing all this, forgive me.
- 20:19You might be hearing all this and going, okay, this isn't church history time, Hunter.
- 20:26This is privy.
- 20:28We came to talk about bathrooms and the sometimes debased, all the time disgusting things people do in them.
- 20:37So what gives?
- 20:40It's reported that while Martin Luther nailed his theses to the door at Wittenberg, he penned his theses in the bathroom at Effort.
- 20:52Just like McCartney and Bill Gates, the man who sparked the Reformation appears like he did some of his best thinking and, likely, some of his most influential writing while in
- 21:04the bathroom.
- 21:06In his case,
- 21:08the bathroom of the St.
- 21:09Augustine monastery.
- 21:11This room was likely one of probably a maximum of two rooms that was heated at the time, the other being a common reading and sitting area.
- 21:20Because here's the deal, if you are writing a 95 theses long document to nail to the church, highlighting all your concerns and challenges to the church, it's probably
- 21:35uncomfortable
- 21:37at best, and hostile at worst, to do that writing seated in a room full of people who, as you have, have kind of committed their whole life to the church.
- 21:52That could be awkward.
- 21:54And so, I believe Martin Luther took to the bathroom to get many of these ideas organized and put down and out of his head.
- 22:06Now, this might not entirely be the case.
- 22:09I don't know.
- 22:09I'm speculating.
- 22:11But the prior of the monastery, Johannes Lange was a close friend of Luther and it was he who later actually helped distribute and promote many of these teachings and ideas.
- 22:26Many of the friars at the monastery withdrew their association with the Catholic Church and were early adopters of the Reformation.
- 22:35And don't forget, monks poop too.
- 22:38Like, that's important to remember.
- 22:41Monks have bathrooms.
- 22:45The monastery began to be repurposed as the new Lutheran Protestant Church.
- 22:50It was used as this Lutheran Protestant Church until the mid-1500s when the last of those friars passed away.
- 23:01Then, the city of Erfurt repurposed the church into a school with dormitories and it served as such for nearly 250 years until the early 1800s.
- 23:13In the early
- 23:14to mid-1800s, renovations began to be done on the now 300 to 350 year old Augustan monastery.
- 23:24It was in disrepair and it needed fixed.
- 23:27It had been used as a city hall and later repurposed as a church in 1854.
- 23:33has been renovated and damaged and renovated and damaged over and over.
- 23:38It has been through both world wars.
- 23:40In fact, the basement served as a public air raid shelter
- 23:44wherein people still lost their lives having taken shelter there, one of which included the pastor of the church at the time.
- 23:53A seminary took residence in the building in the 1960s and would remain for about 30 years.
- 23:59Women of the Evangelical Lutheran movement used the space until 2011 and it wasn't commissioned to be added to the Luther sites of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites until
- 24:122016.
- 24:14Just one year before the 500th anniversary of Luther, nailing his theses to the door of Wittenberg.
- 24:22The theses he wrote while taking feces.
- 24:27Cause it rhymes.
- 24:30I wanted to shave my head for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.
- 24:35I wanted to shave my head into a monk's halo, but for lack of a better way to talk about it, I was quote, not permitted to do so.
- 24:45Just like everybody else, Mariah Carey, Shigeru Miyamoto, Bill Gates, T.
- 24:53Swizzles, Ed Sheeran, Martin Luther Poop.
- 25:00And I like to think maybe it was after a session of uh rigorous voiding he penned his very influential document.
- 25:10If you have interacted with Christianity at any point in your life, you likely, if not definitely, have been influenced by this situation and specifically by this document in
- 25:23some way.
- 25:25A document at least concocted.
- 25:30in the bathroom of an Augustan monastery.
- 25:33Martin Luther wrote his 95 Theses, where most folks drop feces.
- 25:39And that is a rhyme that I have had on my mind for some time.
- 25:44He was reforming religions.
- 25:48And when I was in college, all the guys that were doing there from the toilet were just playing video games.
- 25:55We had these guys who would set up their laptops on their laps.
- 25:59as they played Call of Duty or whatever the heck they were playing from the bathroom.
- 26:07And this guy's over here changing the face of Christianity.
- 26:14It's all in how you spend your time.
- 26:17Remember one guy who would play this Clash of Clans weird alien game in the bathroom?
- 26:22It's not a lot I guess, but it is something.
- 26:26This has been another episode of Privy.
- 26:29Thank you so much for joining us.
- 26:32uh Happy Reformation Day and Happy Halloween.
- 26:36It's right around the corner.
- 26:38Be safe.
- 26:39Celebrate how you want to and need to.
- 26:42And I hope you have uh a very good season.
- 26:45m As always, follow us on social media.
- 26:48We're at privycast trying to post some highlights and some more images over there.
- 26:54so, yeah, connect with us there.
- 26:56Share those social media posts.
- 26:58And tell your friends.
- 26:59Use that as a way to share the show with people that uh don't know about it.
- 27:04It's good way to get the thing out there.
- 27:06Email us privycast at gmail.com.
- 27:09Give us a rating or review.
- 27:10uh iTunes allows you to rate and review.
- 27:13The five star option is our preferred.
- 27:15And we'll try to read some of those reviews and emails on the podcast as we continue to get those in.
- 27:21And it just helps folks find the show.
- 27:24As always, we'd like to thank Kevin McLeod for the use of Barroom Ballet as our intro and outro music this week.
- 27:32You can find Kevin's music at
- 27:34in Competech.com.
- 27:36Thanks Kevin.
- 27:38This has been another episode of Privy.
- 27:41Thank you so much for joining us.
- 27:43And now, as always, don't forget to flush.
- 28:00You're doing all the right things like eating clean and staying active, but nearly all of us are still missing a key piece, minerals.
- 28:08Concentrate Daily Mineral Powder helps restore what your body's not getting, supporting mood, energy, immunity, and nervous system balance.
- 28:16It's made from ionic-trace minerals your body actually absorbs and comes in three delicious flavors, blue raspberry, blue Hawaiian, and blue acai.
- 28:24Because your body can't make minerals and modern food and water don't supply enough,
- 28:29Start with minerals.
- 28:30Start with Concentrates.
- 28:32Find it now at TraceMinerals.com.