RIFd Episode 7 : A born Lead-er

That's right.
That's right.
Y'all know what time it is.
It's whatever time it is right now for you.
Hey, welcome back to episode seven of Rift.
Sorry about the delay here on episodes.
I've been doing a lot of job interviews and intensive college work and now I'm getting
a phone call.
So let me just answer that.
Hello?
Hello?
Yeah.
I'm good.
Thanks.
All right.
So I want to thank everyone for listening and again, apologize for the slow.
That was State Farm Insurance.
They wanted to give me a quote.
Slow upload on this one and I really want to give a big thank you to Dustin for coming
in and spilling his guts about the Home Depot with me.
I hope you all enjoyed that.
I had a lot of fun doing it.
You know those guest ones are fun.
But now I'm just back here on the basement public radio all by my lonesome talking about
whatever we're going to talk about today.
So I guess just right off the bat, quick job update.
I'm on, I'm deep in the interviews, three different places.
Things seem to be going well.
I've got to do a million interviews and guest presentations.
Guest presentation?
Just presentation.
I have to do, talk to all sorts of people about who I am.
One guy said I have to do like a culture fit test.
They haven't gotten back to me yet.
Yeah, you know, I hopefully get a job soon and then I can stop doing this podcast.
No, I'm kidding.
I'm kidding.
I'm kind of, look, that's not what I want to talk about today.
I want to talk about something that's always sort of annoyed me in life.
I live near a small airport, recreational airport I guess you could say, but we are
starting to get jet traffic in there.
One thing that has always annoyed me are the planes flying over.
They're loud.
They're so loud, aren't they?
Aren't they just loud?
Sometimes I just want to enjoy some peace and quiet without some shitty Cessna flying over
like a flying lawn mower.
But you know, every time they fly over I think about the chemtrails that they're spitting
out and I'm joking about chemtrails because that's stupid and anyone that believes in
chemtrails is stupid.
But these planes, these little internal combustion engine planes that are flying over, they use
something special in their gasoline.
They use fucking lead and they just get to spew lead all over the air for everyone to
breathe in so they can fly over and be like Charlie Niner.
Look at that, that's bullshit.
So I started to dig into the whole lead thing and the story is kind of crazy of why lead
is in gasoline and I guess I wanted to talk about that.
I know there's probably podcasts that have already talked about this and did it much
better than I am going to.
You're here with me so you get my take on this.
So let's talk about it.
Where did this shit come from?
Why are we just pumping lead all up in people's face holes?
Why?
Why is that a thing?
Was it necessary?
Short answer.
Come on.
Come on.
No.
Alright, you can turn off the podcast now.
Answer's no.
So it all started.
I need a sound effect for that.
Hold on.
Okay.
Let's go back to 1916.
So there's this dude, his name is Thomas Midgley Jr. and he comes from Ohio.
Like all good things.
And he was an engineer of some sort and he went to go work at the Delco Corporation,
which I guess if you know car parts, I think it probably turned into AC Delco.
I didn't really research that.
I'm just going to assume that it did.
So he went to go work at the Delco Corporation.
His boss was a guy named Charles Kettering who apparently was a big smarty pants and
he invented a lot of things.
Most notably he invented the starter motor for cars so like when your battery's dead
and it goes like "Ring, ring, ring, ring."
Really good sound effect.
That is the starter motor.
His boss invented that.
And his boss Charles comes over to Tommy Midgley Jr. and says, "Hey dude, we got this problem.
It's called engine knock.
I want you to fix it."
He's like, "Alright.
What the hell is engine knock?"
And the boss is like, "Bro, how do you not even know?
That's when fuel pre-ejaculates in the engine.
Before the piston gets to the top of the engine where you want the fuel to blow up at, the
piston's at the highest point so it can exert all the force downward on the piston and spin
the shit.
The fuel's blown up before that, man.
We got to fix that."
So Thomas is like, "Cool.
I'm on it."
And his boss goes, "Just a departing note.
I've noticed that the plants outside our office, like one specific plant, even in the wintertime,
its leaves can be red.
So red probably has a lot of energy in it.
You should see if the color red stops engine knock."
And Thomas was like, "Alright.
I'll start there, man.
Thanks, boss."
And he got on it.
And he started researching engine knock and what you could do with fuel and gasoline to
stop that from happening.
Because when the engine knocks, it can hurt the engine.
You're not putting as much power out.
So it's just inefficient and it hurts your little engine.
So no one wants that.
So he started on his little journey of figuring out what engine knock was.
This was in, again, 1916 when this dude started this.
And allegedly, according to Wikipedia, he tested 33,000 compounds mixing various chemicals
and elements with fuel and figuring out.
Also, if I misspeak from a science perspective, that's great.
I don't care.
He tested all these things.
And he wasn't really getting anywhere.
He tested all sorts of shit.
It took him forever.
And then in 1921, he found out after a lot of testing that heavy metals were good at
reducing engine knock.
When you put heavy metals in...
Mic hit.
You put heavy metals in gasoline, they reduce the ignition point.
They make it more resistant to igniting prematurely, ejaculating.
And one of the heavy metals he tried was lead.
And it was fucking great.
That shit worked like gangbusters.
Everyone loved it.
No one loved it yet, but he loved it because it worked.
And he's finally done this project that he's been working on for five years.
So he came up with the, I guess the ratio of lead to gasoline is one part lead for every
1300 parts of gasoline.
That's pretty small, right?
Seems small.
Seems good.
And lead, I think, already had been known to be bad for people for thousands of years
at this point.
Thousands?
A long time.
Let's just say a long time.
Okay.
And knowing this, they named the compound tetraethyl lead.
Tetraethyl lead.
But then they made the street name, the screet name of it, they just called it Ethyl.
So now Ethyl hits the streets and the car companies are going bananas for this shit.
They're like, "Oh my God, our cars are firing on all cylinders."
And they're firing at the proper times.
That's a direct quote from the car people.
So they went around to various places.
I guess they partnered with the DuPont company and DuPont has always been known as sort of
like a leader in human compassion.
And please do not look up the Bhopal disaster, RuPaul, where RuPaul killed thousands of people
in India.
But they partnered with DuPont and they set up a factory to make this tetraethyl lead.
And I guess that, or sorry, Ethyl, they don't want to call it the real name.
They started making this shit in New Jersey, 1924.
People start making it.
And I guess I should backtrack a little bit because 1924, they started making it like
a lot.
They were making them before that too.
So 1924, they're making it and then a bunch of workers at the New Jersey plant start hallucinating,
going insane and dying.
Who knows why?
I mean, maybe it was just the working conditions or maybe it's just part of living in New Jersey
or maybe it's the lead fumes.
They've been breathing a whole bunch.
So that sort of started taking the, catching the eyes of people like, "What the hell are
you doing?
You're going crazy and dying."
So that was at their plant in Deepwater, New Jersey.
Eight people ended up dying there.
So then other people were critical of how they were making it.
So they created a new company to make this tetraethyl lead.
And that new company was based in a different place in New Jersey because it's New Jersey.
This is where you do this shit.
And then within the first two months of that plant opening, people had hallucinations.
They went insane and five people died.
So I'm just eyeballing this Wikipedia article.
It says people knew that lead was bad since at least 2000 BC.
Okay.
So that's cool.
Meanwhile, while all this is happening, Thomas Midgley Jr.
Did I ever say junior?
He's a junior, which come on.
He was in 1923, he took a sabbatical and went to Miami because he had lead poisoning.
He said, "I find my lungs have been affected and it is necessary to drop all work and get
a large supply of fresh air."
This is fresh air.
And then so he went to Miami and then he came back to work later.
He's like, "I'm all good."
It could be somehow being in Miami.
It really did the job.
So there was a lot of criticism, I think, because of these factory deaths of people dying and
going insane and shit like that.
So he took it upon himself in 1924 to hold a press conference where to demonstrate the
safety of this shit, he poured it over his hands, like he washed his hands in it.
He put a bottle of it under his nose and inhaled its vapor for 60 seconds, declaring he could
do this every day without succumbing to any problems.
Motherfucker, you just got back from Miami for succumbing hard.
You succame super hard.
And so hard you had to go to Florida, which I mean, come on, that's already a big red
flag.
So we had this little press conference.
Despite this, New Jersey decided that the plant needed to be closed.
That sounds good.
You know, like people are dying.
New Jersey took it upon themselves and had that plant closed.
But then the federal government intervened and said that we need high octane fuel for
the military.
So we can't just ban the production of the stuff.
We fucking need it.
At which point he took, Midgeley took another leave of absence because he had lead poisoning
again.
That's super weird.
Um, and that's sort of where Midgeley, I guess, left off from lead.
He just decided, okay, all right, I did miss something important.
And they're going through these 30,000 compounds or whatever.
It was like the Nate, the Nate, the late 19 teens, let's say.
And they've discovered the ethanol when coupled with gasoline, which today you might notice
that a lot of gasoline has ethanol in it.
I mean, that's a whole other thing, but ethanol helps prevent the engine from knocking or
predetonation as well.
The reason that they didn't want to use ethanol was number one, you can't patent ethanol.
You can make that shit at home.
It's not patentable.
Number two, everyone because of prohibition was making that shit at home.
So they didn't want people to just mix it up on their own for free and not get a sweet
cut of those gasoline profits.
So that's really the reason that they went with lead.
They knew lead was bad.
They decided to go with it because they didn't want people making their own shit, which is
really fucked up.
So at this point, lead and gasoline was just kind of flying high.
It was part of fuel until 1996 when it was banned in the Clean Air Act.
And it was banned with two exceptions.
One was airplanes.
Airplanes didn't need it.
I should say it's only like the annoying ass, it's not jets.
Those use essentially jet fuel, which is basically kerosene.
Chemists please, shit on me right now.
But it was just the annoying planes.
They still to this day use lead.
Now they call it low level lead or what is it?
Something stupid.
It still has fucking lead in it so that Johnny airplane man can fly.
And then it's also it was allowed to be used in race cars, which is a cool thing because
then there's this story about how some researchers were wondering about the effect of leaded fuel
in race cars because in up until 2007 NASCAR was using leaded gasoline for their cars.
So they sort of did a study centered around two racetracks, both in Florida, Daytona and
Homestead and found that the test scores of students in schools nearby these racetracks
went up in 2007 when they stopped using leaded gasoline.
So they could actually see an impact like almost immediately in people from Florida.
I mean, I can't iterate enough how important that is because they're already super dumb.
So just seeing them improve, I mean, everyone was really happy to see these Floridians really
start to thrive when they weren't so addled with lead.
So Tommy, Tommy Midgley, he moved on from lead.
You know, I think he he knew deep down inside that he did the world a huge disservice.
So I think he took it upon himself to really in his next phase of his career, amp it up
and help the earth.
And that is when he worked with another scientist to develop Freon, which is a chlorofluorocarbon
and he really started making a whole shit ton of CFCs.
Now if you grew up in the 90s, like I did, CFCs were kind of a big deal.
They talked about them a lot.
Maybe the maybe you remember a big ass big ass hole in the old ozone was caused by those.
That hole is like pretty much gone, right?
I think science people, please.
So he also made fucking Freon and managed to fuck up the entire globe two ways.
I have never worked so hard at a job to fuck up the globe in one way.
This guy really did it.
He just did a sweet ass number on us and is really impressive.
I'm surprised he was able to do that.
Not many people know this guy, but he really fucked things up hard.
Horde for a lot of people.
And I am implicating him as the number one reason for boomers and why they suck.
They were just eating up chemicals all day, but primarily the lead.
I'm going to blame the leaded gasoline.
Although my dad would say when the DDT truck would come through their neighborhood spraying
for mosquitoes, all the kids would get on their bikes and ride behind it in the cloud.
They're just like inhale DDT.
And that would explain why he forgot my birthday yesterday.
He didn't send me anything.
He sent me a text the day after my birthday, which is today.
I'm recording this.
That was about Cisco systems and it was just dumb.
I didn't even read it.
It was reply thanks.
So the boomers, I blame Thomas Midgley Jr. for them.
He was one of the greatest generation, I guess.
The silent generation, whatever, whatever generation.
It's not great.
All I know is he fucked a lot of stuff up with this stupid lead.
And to this day, we still have these godforsaken annoying airplanes spewing out lead over anywhere
they fly for no real good reason.
Right?
But if you fly a recreational aircraft, for shame on you.
For shame.
So Thomas Midgley, I mean, what's his deal?
How did he end up?
What's his legacy?
Where'd he go?
He in 1940 at the age of 51, and I swear I am not reading directly from Wikipedia, Midgley
contracted polio and was left severely disabled.
See, it didn't say "severely" on Wikipedia.
So he made an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys to lift himself out of bed.
So he made essentially some Looney Tunes level shit where he had ropes all over his limbs
and he could lift himself out of bed.
And that was in 1940.
On November 2nd, 1944, at the age of 55, he was found dead in his Worthington home.
His home in Worthington, Ohio.
He had been killed by his own device after he became entangled in it and died of strangulation.
Now his family says he actually just killed himself.
But I don't know.
I mean, you know, was it suicide?
Was it machineicide?
Did he Looney Tunes himself to death?
Or was he just so ridiculously filled with lead that he didn't even know what he was
doing?
I don't know.
But he did a real good service to the world.
Some people say he has, you know, one guy on Wikipedia said he had the most adverse
impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history.
His mother fucker, I mean, that's a prestigious shade being thrown at this dude.
But I agree.
I think he sucks.
And all because they didn't want people making their own alcohol in their house to mix up
with their gasol.
It's bullshit.
So whenever you think about those planes flying overhead and how stupid they are, just remember
they're actually more stupid than you give them credit for.
And any recreational aircraft pilots, I really want you to know that you're stupid as well.
And your plane is stupid and I think it looks dumb.
And it sounds dumb.
Like at least paint them cool colors.
Why are they all white?
Stupid.
Why aren't they pink?
Huh?
Huh?
Anyway, check this out.
This is from the F-Fold Corporation.
1956.
Mm hmm.
Fucking carbon.
They're blaming carbon.
Pre-exaculation.
Lick that shit.
What additive?
How do you get higher octane?
What can we put in there?
But how do I pick it?
Oh, okay.
I don't have to pick it.
So everything's the same.
Mm hmm.
Sure.
What?
Yes.
But how?
Yeah.
There it is.
It's lead, you asshole.
It took you that long to tell me that shit?
This video is like 40 minutes long, by the way, and I just clipped just a very short
piece to be a prick about it.
But come on, guys.
We're better than this.
Can we put, why don't we put like cat pee in everything?
We need to expand our horizons and figure out this is shitty stuff we can put in everything.
And with that, I'm going to leave.
It's been great.
I really want to get more guesty people on as well.
So if you want to be on the show, God, it sounds desperate.
I'm like a desperate housewife.
I'm like Terry Hatcher.
If you want to be interviewed by me, Terrence Hatcher, hit me up.
And if you don't, don't know.
Just live your life.
And I forgot to use the science music.
Lead all up in your shit.
How do you feel about the lead in your shit?
On a very special episode that you've already heard of Rift, you can hear about the lead
in your shit.
This episode has been brought to you by lead.
Also Thomas Midgley Jr. and his suicide rope machine.
This is Basement Public Radio.
I'm your host, Kevin.
And also a special shout out to State Farm for calling me while I was recording this.
I've not been sponsored by them, but you're in good hands on this farm.
State, State, all, all farm.
I love you guys.
Have a great day.
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