Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio Zarah.
Speaker 2: Hey, what up, my girl? How are you doing?
Speaker 3: I'm great? How are you?
Speaker 2: I'm doing pretty well and taking nourishment.
Speaker 3: I like that. I want you to listen to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm listening. I'm totally pitching. Look, I'm listening. What
Speaker 2: you know?
Speaker 3: Yeah, is ridiculous?
Speaker 2: Oh my god? Do I did you know that? There
Speaker 2: is a prejudice against people named Kevin In Germany? There
Speaker 2: was a whole prejudice called Kevinism. It's prejudice against people
Speaker 2: named Kevin. And the crazy thing is it's about US Americans, essentially,
Speaker 2: because there was a whole cultural excitement over the name
Speaker 2: Kevin thanks to two movies Home Alone in nineteen ninety,
Speaker 2: which the Germans called Kevin alinees out House, which means
Speaker 2: Kevin all alone in the home, instead of just calling
Speaker 2: it home alone. The Germans like, we can out of
Speaker 2: wood put Vin in this. And then there was also
Speaker 2: Kevin Costner's Dances with Wolves, so they're like, oh, we
Speaker 2: love se Kevin. So it's a bunch of kids named
Speaker 2: Kevin in nineteen ninety, nineteen ninety one. By twenty ten,
Speaker 2: they have become a problem for the culture. So you
Speaker 2: got all these Kevin's and they become an indicator of
Speaker 2: like a I don't know how to say this with
Speaker 2: in in a polite way, but basically they think of
Speaker 2: them tho as a lower class name. So if you
Speaker 2: have Kevin, they think of you as just this loud,
Speaker 2: this uneducated, you're gonna interrupt class, you're gonna be chalk,
Speaker 2: but specifically like in the German context, but just it
Speaker 2: has these associations with America. So the stamp of America,
Speaker 2: the imprimature of America just happens to be applied to
Speaker 2: these people, and the people who choose the American life
Speaker 2: all end up bad. It's like, oh you're you're a Kevin.
Speaker 2: And some people call people though.
Speaker 3: The subreddit tragedies or the names where you put ei
Speaker 3: g H at the end of whatever name, like oh
Speaker 3: oh yeah, okay, and it's just spelled all nuts.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, in twenty fifteen, there was an online poll
Speaker 2: and it was alpha Kevin, which was a combination of
Speaker 2: alpha and Kevin was the German word of the year,
Speaker 2: right because they're using it so much, because it's like Karen,
Speaker 2: yeah exactly, it becomes this this like like you know,
Speaker 2: marker and also a smear, a slur if you will,
Speaker 2: all right, and uh yeah, there's also a female component.
Speaker 2: There is chantelle chantelle. Yeah. I don't know why, but chantelle.
Speaker 2: So Kevinism and Chantellism in Germany is the whole thing about,
Speaker 2: like how we've corrupted the German culture. So there you go.
Speaker 2: Ridiculous is ridiculous kevin ism. My mom almost named me Kevin. Really,
Speaker 2: she's like them, Yeah that I'm a good son.
Speaker 3: That's ridiculous. Goat glands.
Speaker 2: What this is?
Speaker 3: Ridiculous Crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists
Speaker 3: and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and
Speaker 3: one hundred percent ridiculous. Oh you damn right, buddy, I
Speaker 3: got a guy for you. Really, he's like this amalgam
Speaker 3: of many of our previous characters that we've.
Speaker 2: Shared here, sure in our stories, in our.
Speaker 3: Stories, and as I tell my story, let me give
Speaker 3: you a little taste please. So we've got a diploma.
Speaker 2: Mill, is this taste free? This is first taste.
Speaker 3: Usually free and then you got to pay.
Speaker 2: Okay, we got a diploma.
Speaker 3: Mills got a diploma. Mill. There's pirate radio. There's a
Speaker 3: failed political run, he got a little mail fraud. How
Speaker 3: about a book in a movie? My interests, and most importantly,
Speaker 3: we have goat testicles.
Speaker 2: Whoa wait, you said that last one in there.
Speaker 3: It's like a little bit of a bunch of other
Speaker 3: stories all rolled into one dude named John Romulus Brinkley.
Speaker 3: Kidding this just like I feel like I'm making it up.
Speaker 2: It's like, is this real? Is this going to run
Speaker 2: on April first? Are you just like playing with me?
Speaker 3: Well? No, we found out about this because this guy,
Speaker 3: John Rice, John Rice, John Rice gave us a tip
Speaker 3: about this.
Speaker 2: Oh thank you?
Speaker 3: Whoa? She always say good looking out He helped us
Speaker 3: out here. So John Romulus Brinkley was born in eighteen
Speaker 3: eighty five.
Speaker 2: A Christy's grandfather.
Speaker 3: Yes, her dad. Oh sorry, he was born in eighteen
Speaker 3: eighty five. So his dad was John Richard Brinkley and
Speaker 3: his mom was Sarah Candice Burnett. She a relative of yours.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, so, Mam sage.
Speaker 3: John Richard the dad was a true hillbilly, nice like
Speaker 3: he's a man of the hills in North Carolina. And
Speaker 3: I love it. I love that for him. He's in beda.
Speaker 3: I don't like shirts either, beda, North Carolina.
Speaker 2: Okay, do you know where that is?
Speaker 3: It's kind of I looked it up on the map.
Speaker 3: Of course I didn't do street view.
Speaker 2: It may not be possible.
Speaker 3: Well, I think that's kind of where Hurricane Helene like
Speaker 3: wrecked shop. It's like it's like a little west. It's
Speaker 3: further out. Yeah, it's just a crossroads. But it's like
Speaker 3: further out from Asheville. So I think it was just
Speaker 3: on the perimeter. But it's deep in the hills.
Speaker 2: What you're saying.
Speaker 3: So the dad, he's this like itinerant preacher. He also
Speaker 3: served as a medic for the Confederate Army during the
Speaker 3: Civil War. He did some doctor and up in them
Speaker 3: our hills, and so his first country dodger. His first
Speaker 3: marriage was annulled because he was underage.
Speaker 2: You don't normally hear that.
Speaker 3: Hear that he was the child's room. So he went on.
Speaker 2: Was he had trunk trunk like husband he sent on
Speaker 2: the train down a couple of towns or like, No,
Speaker 2: he opened the box and see what your husband looks like.
Speaker 3: Took a like into an older lady.
Speaker 2: Oh hello.
Speaker 3: So he went on to get married four more times,
Speaker 3: and he was a widower each time. Okay, so it's
Speaker 3: just keeps outliving these ladies.
Speaker 2: He's always picking older ladies.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I suppose in eighteen seventy he's forty
Speaker 3: two years old and he married Sarah Mingus and sadly Sarah.
Speaker 2: Died no relation to Charlie, no.
Speaker 3: None, and then well and then her twenty four year
Speaker 3: old niece, Sarah Candas Burnett. Ah, my people's she moves
Speaker 3: into the house.
Speaker 2: This is how we're related to the Minguses Charlie. He's
Speaker 2: back in the family.
Speaker 3: Now, go on, So Sarah Candas Burnett moves in. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna help you because you know, like my my auntie
Speaker 3: died and I'm gonna help take care of.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and people needed that then yeah.
Speaker 3: So she goes by Sally so that she's not confused
Speaker 3: with her late aunt Sarah.
Speaker 2: Sarah don't have too many sarahs.
Speaker 3: Sally and John Senior. They hook up naturally before they
Speaker 3: So he's forty two, she's twenty four. Just the old
Speaker 3: flip the numbers. Okay, he's working young now, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: He's the December now.
Speaker 3: So before they get married, she gives birth to a boy.
Speaker 2: Okay, John before they get married.
Speaker 3: Before they get married. John Romulus Brinkley, Oh he was.
Speaker 2: He was a legitimate He's.
Speaker 3: Named after his father. But the Romulus was from the
Speaker 3: twin from myths, you know, Romulus and Remis.
Speaker 2: Yeah, founders of Rome.
Speaker 3: The ones who are suckled by wolves.
Speaker 2: You know, that's gotta be good, strong milk.
Speaker 3: So by the time the game they get married, like,
Speaker 3: they get married. But by the time little John is ten,
Speaker 3: both of his parents have died.
Speaker 2: I'm telling you, I got a sense when he was
Speaker 2: born illegitimate. At that time, I'm like, there's gonna be
Speaker 2: some problems in this childhood.
Speaker 3: So he lived up in the Tukasigi area in North
Speaker 3: Carolina with his aunt dirt poor. Yes, they have absolutely nothing.
Speaker 3: And then his early twenties he meets Sally Margaret Wike
Speaker 3: and she came from a pretty rich family, like by
Speaker 3: the standards of the area. So they get married in
Speaker 3: nineteen oh seven in Silva, North Carolina, was right next
Speaker 3: to Beta John. He always wanted to be a doctor,
Speaker 3: just like his daddy. So he what does he do?
Speaker 3: He joins up with a traveling medicine show selling like
Speaker 3: tonics patent medicine.
Speaker 2: They they got the wagon, they opened the side, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: So he gets married, he and his bride moved to Chicago.
Speaker 3: They have a daughter. He enrolls at Bennett Medical College.
Speaker 2: Oh, he actually goes. He doesn't just start calling himself
Speaker 2: doctor Brinkle.
Speaker 3: Well, well he did, and then he decides, I'm going
Speaker 3: to go to I'm going to go to medical school
Speaker 3: to legit. Bennett Medical College is what we in the
Speaker 3: biz called diploma mill. I told you about that, you did,
Speaker 3: I didn't see it even though it's unaccredited. It's focused
Speaker 3: on eclectic medicine.
Speaker 2: What is that I'm going.
Speaker 3: To tell you. So the eclectic medical movement came up
Speaker 3: in the US and like the you know, early nineteenth century,
Speaker 3: early you know, eighteen hundreds, and it was the medical
Speaker 3: treatment at the time was like pretty aggressive and so
Speaker 3: this was like an alternative.
Speaker 2: To it, like we don't use leeches.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're not going to make on this, you know peace.
Speaker 3: So I mean, yeah, the blood letting, mercury based medicines.
Speaker 3: So eclectic. They they were like gentler. They were all
Speaker 3: about botanical cures and natural therapy. Yeah, and they would
Speaker 3: draw from like Native American herbal knowledge or like I
Speaker 3: would say, quote unquote native American, it's.
Speaker 2: Like pretending American.
Speaker 3: So eclectic medicine. It reaches his peak in the mid
Speaker 3: eighteenth hundreds, and there are like a lot of schools
Speaker 3: that were starting to train these practitioners, and by like
Speaker 3: the late eighteen hundreds, early nineteen hundreds, like when John
Speaker 3: was up in there, the movement's on the decline. So
Speaker 3: he gets in on the tail end of it. And
Speaker 3: like real medical schools, they're like emphasizing scientific rigor.
Speaker 2: Sure they've realized germ theory by now exactly.
Speaker 3: And then the American Medical Association the AMA, they're really
Speaker 3: pushing for higher educational stand wash your hands, and then
Speaker 3: like this whole notion of licensing. Yeah, so yeah, proove
Speaker 3: up that.
Speaker 2: You know, here's this book called gras Anatomys, buy it,
Speaker 2: read it.
Speaker 3: And you think about it. Eclectic medicine is pretty much
Speaker 3: going on today.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's what we have. We have a new Medical.
Speaker 3: Preserve comment on that, all right, you know, but come on,
Speaker 3: So anyway, at school, John learned about glandular extracts. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: he decided that was going to be a specialty.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I've talked about it, all about it that
Speaker 2: was a big thing. Then there was a serum of
Speaker 2: potency exactly.
Speaker 3: So he hears about it. He's like, this sounds awesome.
Speaker 3: That's I'm going to be like at home. He and
Speaker 3: his wife rocky relationship. They kept splitting up and then
Speaker 3: getting back together. At one point he kidnapped his own
Speaker 3: kid by grabbing her and taking off in a taxi
Speaker 3: with no license plate, and he took her up to
Speaker 3: the cab stolen. I don't know, but that was what
Speaker 3: it was in the paper, and he took her up
Speaker 3: to Canada. But then the couple got back together.
Speaker 2: So like a bad mother and he's like saving the child.
Speaker 3: They're both just dramatic.
Speaker 2: They're both bad parents and child exactly.
Speaker 3: That's how I got it. So they get back together.
Speaker 3: John continues his studies until one day he came home
Speaker 3: from school. His pregnant wife has scidadled back to Tuckasege,
Speaker 3: North Carolina with the kid. This is nineteen eleven at
Speaker 3: this point, so he goes after him. They reunite. He
Speaker 3: couldn't afford to go to school anymore, dropped out, and
Speaker 3: he tried to get it good enough. Well, he tries
Speaker 3: to get work as a quote undergraduate physician. I don't know.
Speaker 3: It's like hilarious, Like, well, I'm majoring in it, so
Speaker 3: it's close enough.
Speaker 2: Mostly, come on, do you want the two that or not?
Speaker 3: He's calling himself an undergraduate physician, dragging his family all
Speaker 3: over the South, trying to make a go of it.
Speaker 3: No dice. By this time nineteen twelve, he has three
Speaker 3: kids and a wife who's like totally over it, not
Speaker 3: into this. So then they split for good. John goes
Speaker 3: to Greenville, South Carolina.
Speaker 2: Oh I know that place, yeah, and.
Speaker 3: Sally heads back to the Haller in North Carolina. He's
Speaker 3: up in the upstate Greenville.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's in the hills.
Speaker 3: So John set up quote Greenville electro medic Doctors. What now,
Speaker 3: Greenville electro medic Doctors. So he's got like gadgets and
Speaker 3: stuff yues with this guy as this business partner, James
Speaker 3: Crawford aka J. W.
Speaker 2: Burkes.
Speaker 3: So, okay, they catered to men looking to up their
Speaker 3: manliness in the manisphere.
Speaker 2: These like where they strap you on a machine that
Speaker 2: shakes your belly, you know, like.
Speaker 3: Just jiggles it at you. So they would they ran
Speaker 3: ads and they said that they used solver sand. Okay,
Speaker 3: which was supposed to be a German eclectic medicines Salvarsan.
Speaker 3: It was just colored water and they would just like
Speaker 3: inject it into desperate dudes, and.
Speaker 2: So saltwater we're gonna give you. The saline shot.
Speaker 3: Cost twenty five dollars back then. I just imagine it
Speaker 3: was like egg dying water.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, yeah for.
Speaker 3: Eastern twenty five bucks. Elizabeth. That doesn't sound like a
Speaker 3: lot of money, not now, Elizabeth, but it sure was then.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: It's like it's like charging more than eight hundred dollars
Speaker 3: a shot?
Speaker 2: Are you kidding me?
Speaker 3: Well, but it totally seems like something that like TikTok
Speaker 3: kids would do. Now yeah, you're like, oh, well we've
Speaker 3: got salver sand and raw milk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Seems like a lot of people that just
Speaker 2: the TikTok kid like.
Speaker 3: This eights a shot because that.
Speaker 2: Makes it sound like it's worthwhile, and it's right in
Speaker 2: that price point of like, oh, that's like, you know,
Speaker 2: less than my rent, but like more than most things
Speaker 2: I buy.
Speaker 3: Than my car payment. So they couldn't pay their bills. Uh,
Speaker 3: John and then his his buddy James, right, James Crawford,
Speaker 3: even though they're charging these outrageous amounts for shots of
Speaker 3: like tinted water. They got all these bills, so they
Speaker 3: skipped down and they got to Memphis, Tennessee. Good place
Speaker 3: for it, eventual home of Graceland, Yes, thank you for it.
Speaker 3: Was there that John met Minnie Jones.
Speaker 2: That's a great name, doctor's daughter, oh man, Jones, perfect,
Speaker 2: she knows the life. They went a courting for four
Speaker 2: good on them, poor whole days.
Speaker 3: And on the fifth day they got married.
Speaker 2: Oh man, yeah, great week.
Speaker 3: But wait a second, Yes, Elizabeth, wasn't John still married
Speaker 3: to Sally.
Speaker 2: That's a great question, Elizabeth. I don't know the answer.
Speaker 3: The answer is yes, yes he was.
Speaker 2: Oh I thought that was the case.
Speaker 3: So yeah, so they John and Minnie they traveled around together.
Speaker 3: But like they get to Knoxville, Tennessee, things take a turn.
Speaker 3: To see, old John got arrested and well, no, it
Speaker 3: seems that skipping town and Greenville wasn't the.
Speaker 2: Most all right, he's got bills.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so he and his business partner, James Crawford, they
Speaker 3: owed the merchants of Greenville a grip a cat and
Speaker 3: they've been like buying up a storm on credit.
Speaker 2: I'm sure.
Speaker 3: And then he Also they're like ps practicing medicine without
Speaker 3: a license, PPS writing bad checks. So then John's like, well,
Speaker 3: you know what, I'll tell you who really did this? Crawford?
Speaker 3: So they arrest him. Yeah, the two the two settled
Speaker 3: their debts out of court for a few thousand bucks.
Speaker 3: So he gets out of jail.
Speaker 2: He's doing well. They got throw away.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he gets out of jail, he's cleared by the law.
Speaker 3: John meets up with Minnie in Memphis. Memphis.
Speaker 2: Mini does Memphis many do you think aware of this?
Speaker 2: Like in the headlines, there's that kind of a choir.
Speaker 3: I think Minnie's fully aware of everything. But you know
Speaker 3: who else went to Memphis?
Speaker 2: Who else went?
Speaker 3: Sally the first wife undeterred, So she confronts them and
Speaker 3: they're like, whatever is going on? They leave town. They're like,
Speaker 3: we're going to Arkansas altogether. Yeah, Sally stays he John
Speaker 3: and Minnie are like, you're like, I thought to do
Speaker 3: this grand thing. He's already married. Minnie's like, I don't care, man,
Speaker 3: And so then John he somehow got an undergraduate license
Speaker 3: to practice medicine.
Speaker 2: You know enough lawyer style, And I'm.
Speaker 3: Guessing those exist because there aren't enough educated folks at
Speaker 3: that time.
Speaker 2: Totally.
Speaker 3: Like when I first moved to the rural south, the
Speaker 3: town where I lived had a magistrate, a judge, and
Speaker 3: that magistrate only out a high school diploma.
Speaker 2: No, yeah, yeah, And.
Speaker 3: So then they eventually made a law that you at
Speaker 3: least had to have a bachelor's degree, but it didn't
Speaker 3: have to be in law, just like what degree?
Speaker 2: Yeah, show us even finished something exactly.
Speaker 3: So then let's see where are we. October nineteen fourteen,
Speaker 3: John and his family they moved to Kansas City.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and there.
Speaker 3: He finds Eclectic Medical University of Kansas City.
Speaker 2: He founds it. No, he like discovers, Oh, discovers finds it. Oh,
Speaker 2: there it is.
Speaker 3: There's the phone book. He enrolls. It's another diploma mill.
Speaker 3: And this is the kind where you just like straight
Speaker 3: up by a diploma.
Speaker 2: So you don't even have to do any pretense.
Speaker 3: No, he just bought it, that's what he's done. So
Speaker 3: it was like a small and shall we say, controversial
Speaker 3: institution because it's part of that eclectic movement.
Speaker 2: So fit in a mailbox, yeah exactly.
Speaker 3: So it's like if you can't get into real med school,
Speaker 3: you go to EMUKC.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 3: So they're curriculum again botanical medicine. They get trained to
Speaker 3: be skeptical of surgery and pharmaceuticals and it's just all
Speaker 3: about herbal treatments, you know, which is fine. I have
Speaker 3: some medical conditions that could in no way be treated
Speaker 3: with herbs. Yeah, and spices, yes, many people to a
Speaker 3: blend of verbs and space.
Speaker 2: And you know, I believe food is the first medicine.
Speaker 2: So I am not sitting here.
Speaker 3: Like the drugs I take suck, but they keep me
Speaker 3: from dying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. There are a lot of things like that.
Speaker 3: I got that going for me. So it's safe to
Speaker 3: say that the training at Eclectic Medical University was inadequate.
Speaker 2: And probably costing lives.
Speaker 3: Yes, and it's graduates, you know, they don't really have
Speaker 3: scientific knowledge. Everything's like anecdotal, vibe based, traditional.
Speaker 2: And they're not even like up to like the homeopathic
Speaker 2: standard of like the German doctors of the time, who
Speaker 2: are like I'm going out and picking stuff.
Speaker 3: And then giving that they're even like like analytics hundreds of.
Speaker 2: Years of stuff. I'm basing this on right now. Chinese medicine.
Speaker 2: Same thing we had, you know, centuries.
Speaker 3: There was in nineteen ten, the Carnegie Foundation commissioned this
Speaker 3: selection report, and this came out before John was in
Speaker 3: phony med school, and it kind of exposed and called
Speaker 3: for stricter standards.
Speaker 2: Doesn't it lead to the AMA?
Speaker 3: It does. So while eclectic medicine, you know, there's some
Speaker 3: knowledge and herbal remediants and stuff, but like it's just
Speaker 3: it can't keep up with modern medicine. So John he
Speaker 3: wants to finish up his doctrine. His focus was quote
Speaker 3: the irritations and enlargements of the prostate gland in elderly men.
Speaker 3: So he buys his diploma.
Speaker 2: He's like, that happens a lot. That should be a
Speaker 2: good market. What's his move there exactly?
Speaker 3: I don't know. It's it's just a curiosity for him,
Speaker 3: a growth markets, A diploma that gives him the right
Speaker 3: to practice medicine in eight states.
Speaker 2: What are those eight states? Are they all formerly Confederate states? Elizabeth?
Speaker 3: I don't know. So he gets this job as a
Speaker 3: doctor slash medic at animal rendering plant and he's like
Speaker 3: tending to injured workers, but he's also studying the animals.
Speaker 2: How depressed I know.
Speaker 3: So everyone tells him that like the healthiest animal. Of
Speaker 3: all the kinds that are killing in there and slaughtering
Speaker 3: up is the goat.
Speaker 2: Oh there's no horse. You're gonna horse. That makes sense.
Speaker 2: I can see that.
Speaker 3: So, like you know, John and Sally Good officially animals.
Speaker 3: John marries Minni again, this time.
Speaker 2: Legally marries her again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he gets drafted into World War One.
Speaker 2: But like freaking wondering how old he was for that.
Speaker 3: He gets he just falls apart during training. Two weeks
Speaker 3: they send him home. So Minnie and John they moved
Speaker 3: to Milford, Kansas.
Speaker 2: Why Milford and Milford, Kansas.
Speaker 3: John saw an ad in the paper they needed a
Speaker 3: doctor there. He figures, why not me?
Speaker 2: He's like, I'm gonna go moonlight Grandma over there.
Speaker 3: Let's take a Breakay, we don't have ads advertising for
Speaker 3: doctors that I know of, but we do have an
Speaker 3: abundance of wonderful products and services that no one could
Speaker 3: ever resist. So enjoy this capitalist symphony, and when we return,
Speaker 3: we'll pick up with doctor John Good ads right.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, so good. I put my wallet away.
Speaker 2: I was just by getting on my phone and started
Speaker 2: throwing numbers at the computer all this stuff.
Speaker 3: Thank you companies for funding this operation. We appreciate you.
Speaker 3: The product in me recognizes the product in you. I
Speaker 3: must say. Okay, So John Brinkley, Milford, Kansas. This is
Speaker 3: a tiny town. I'm no high school, no traffic lights,
Speaker 3: no paved roads, no water or sewer systems, not a town,
Speaker 3: no electricity.
Speaker 2: Just some houses too close to each other.
Speaker 3: So it's just two hundred people at a crossroads. Wow.
Speaker 3: There was a bank, I'm sure, and like some mills
Speaker 3: and a general store, and there was a post office
Speaker 3: at a telegraph machine. Okay, So he got himself diploma,
Speaker 3: got himself some snake oil, got himself a new bride,
Speaker 3: and got himself a mission. I Am here to treat
Speaker 3: and eradicate male impotence. Like that's that's his whole thing.
Speaker 2: Town, Like what seven men who qualify You know what, though.
Speaker 3: Big Pharma will tell you it's one of the most
Speaker 3: urgent and important public health issues of all time.
Speaker 2: As men grow, as men grow older, and we all
Speaker 2: grow and we all like live longer, you have more
Speaker 2: time to catch it. That's for to develop it. Rather
Speaker 2: I should catch it. You know.
Speaker 3: It is the most important public health issue. It's up there,
Speaker 3: hands down.
Speaker 2: For you.
Speaker 3: Older guys don't study anything else, just put everything. So
Speaker 3: he studied and he analyzed, and he like vibed out,
Speaker 3: and he came up with a breakthrough. He could cure
Speaker 3: male impotence and other sexual health issues impotent.
Speaker 2: So we're just talking about he came up with viagara
Speaker 2: back then. It's not like I'm going to believe your suffering.
Speaker 2: I'm going to help you with the pain. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: make us your back and you can sit down. None
Speaker 2: of that. I'm going to give you back. You're male vigor.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm going to rub it with a savage.
Speaker 2: Of course, you got to get a sa there, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: So he says, I know it. I'm going to transplant
Speaker 3: goat test to goals into human men. Man. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: you told the story once. Oh yeah, very Similargo nineteen
Speaker 3: twenty two for.
Speaker 2: The doctors who were doing this, and you had to
Speaker 2: get the testicle somewhere.
Speaker 3: He dates that. And remember you had like all the
Speaker 3: research of all like the forerunners of them.
Speaker 2: He studied those guys, the same guys. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but and your guys were stealing men's much.
Speaker 2: Human testicle trans man. Just load that sack.
Speaker 3: Up man on many intra species.
Speaker 2: So you got two how about four.
Speaker 3: We're gonna we're gonna get even more disgusting here. Oh no,
Speaker 3: goat to man, No, goat to man.
Speaker 2: They load them up. They're not making like a serum
Speaker 2: that's shooting in the armors.
Speaker 3: No, don't they use pig insulin for diabetic.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's your point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so, Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2: And then skin for burn victims, baboon hearts, bab boon heartsrplants.
Speaker 3: Kitty to human ear transplants.
Speaker 2: I asked for draft eyes to my doctor and he
Speaker 2: looked at me weird. I'm like, this is why I need.
Speaker 3: Them perfect Hello anyway, Okay, so you talked about these
Speaker 3: men being robbed of their little nutsocks by mad prison
Speaker 3: doctors and the whatnots not John Brinkley his first operation
Speaker 3: was in nineteen seventeen in Milford, Kansas. His neighbors where
Speaker 3: everyone knows everyone. So he had a patient who was
Speaker 3: always begging him to help boost his virility, like drink
Speaker 3: your ovaltine, bro, bro, and so. John, he was only
Speaker 3: in Milford for two weeks.
Speaker 2: Before this guy's like, hey, can you help me.
Speaker 3: With the farmer came to see him. He tells John
Speaker 3: quote all in no pep a flat tire. Wow, yeah,
Speaker 3: flat tire. That's a good one.
Speaker 2: So tired of the cod liver oil.
Speaker 3: It's just not working. So he and his wife they
Speaker 3: wanted another kid. They had a kid, they want another one.
Speaker 3: But it's just not happening.
Speaker 2: Okay, the equipment wasn't helping.
Speaker 3: We had the farmer. He'd gone to all these other
Speaker 3: cities looking for help, but no doctor was able to
Speaker 3: get his motor run in.
Speaker 2: So uh.
Speaker 3: John had been taught at Bennett Medical College. You could
Speaker 3: quote treat the issue with serums, medicine, electricity, got a
Speaker 3: shock and like it wouldn't work, but you could keep
Speaker 3: trying with the patients because they're desperate. That's what they
Speaker 3: taught him in medical. This isn't going to work, but
Speaker 3: just like it's not, just keep try. Is a payday and.
Speaker 2: We all learned from your failures.
Speaker 3: Exactly. Shock that John John and the farmer. They're making
Speaker 3: small talk and discussing farm animals.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm hoping you mean in a professional way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like you know, you go to the doctor
Speaker 3: about something like this, John John jokes to the farmer, quote,
Speaker 3: you wouldn't have any trouble if you had a pair
Speaker 3: of those butt glands in you.
Speaker 2: But it's like he's making up.
Speaker 3: Now you gotta flip it around the butt in there.
Speaker 2: An elbow buck buck. Okay, but you see talking about goats.
Speaker 2: Got yeah, the male goat.
Speaker 3: And the farmer says, well, why don't you put him in?
Speaker 2: Got got some time there?
Speaker 3: So like John tells him, like, you can't transplant from
Speaker 3: an animal to a human.
Speaker 2: They are all sorts of And the.
Speaker 3: Farmers like, I don't see why not?
Speaker 2: You know, I know animal husbandry.
Speaker 3: And then John's like, you know what, the surgery could
Speaker 3: be fatal, and the farmer says, I don't care.
Speaker 2: The one who wants to be a father, the one
Speaker 2: who has a small child.
Speaker 3: The man is willing to give his life to get
Speaker 3: a stiffy for science.
Speaker 2: He's wanting to give his life for science. Stiffy.
Speaker 3: John later told his biographer that he quote felt his
Speaker 3: flesh crawl, felt dirtied by the thought.
Speaker 2: Well, I bet and did he take the money and
Speaker 2: to get clean?
Speaker 3: So dirty that he went ahead with it?
Speaker 2: I knew it.
Speaker 3: John tells him I don't have a goat. And the
Speaker 3: farmer is ready for this. He's like, I raise him
Speaker 3: I'll furnish the goat, you do the operation.
Speaker 2: I'll bring in the sack. You do it. Huh. He's like,
Speaker 2: I got goats, oh yeah.
Speaker 3: And I know how to castraight one. So let's get
Speaker 3: and we're good. So a couple of nights later, the
Speaker 3: farmer came by with.
Speaker 2: His goat and like a bucket. Oh wait, with the goat.
Speaker 3: With the goat, he just brings the whole goat to
Speaker 3: the office. Zarino. No, I will not do that. I
Speaker 3: will not do that. No, I'm kidding, We're not going
Speaker 3: to do that.
Speaker 2: Oh thank god.
Speaker 3: John performed the surgery. If you want to imagine it,
Speaker 3: it's like in a cartoon where there's like a one
Speaker 3: of those old timey screens like in a hospital room,
Speaker 3: and like there's clanking and then like a soft flies
Speaker 3: up like whatever, Like just imagine that.
Speaker 2: Okay, So like Popeye's doing.
Speaker 3: This exactly exactly. So John does the surgery. They didn't
Speaker 3: want anyone to know what they did.
Speaker 2: I bet they did not.
Speaker 3: It's kind of it's kind of a rule that I
Speaker 3: have for myself, Like if I think that I don't
Speaker 3: want anyone to find out about something, I don't do it.
Speaker 3: If you're thinking like I wish I know, I don't
Speaker 3: want anyone to know about that. Then don't do it.
Speaker 2: I just try to do it better. It's like I
Speaker 2: don't want to even to find out about it, so
Speaker 2: I can't make a mistake. I like you is way better,
Speaker 2: totally write that down.
Speaker 3: The two guys work out a plant. So the farmer
Speaker 3: goes home like walking all the wide.
Speaker 2: Steps, what about the goat?
Speaker 3: And then in the morning he tells his wife that
Speaker 3: he's sick with the flu. So she calls the doctor
Speaker 3: and he says he'll come out and check on the farmer.
Speaker 3: So this way, like they know, the telephone operator listens
Speaker 3: into all the oh thought about it, so that the
Speaker 3: telephone operator the wife none the wiser. La. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: so I guess the guy didn't die, because.
Speaker 2: I guess the guy died.
Speaker 3: Two weeks later. He paid John one hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: dollars for the procedure.
Speaker 2: And that's like second fifellars.
Speaker 3: Super stoked about the results.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it works.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah. So it's a tiny town. People talk, including
Speaker 3: the farmer where he's like, oh, we will never speak
Speaker 3: of this, and then he goes.
Speaker 2: He's like going to the neighbor. Hey, you want to
Speaker 2: feel something? Where yees.
Speaker 3: Four?
Speaker 2: So count them soon.
Speaker 3: This other guy, William Stitsworth, and I give his name
Speaker 3: for the benefit of his descendants. William Stitsworth. He came
Speaker 3: in complaining of terminal flacidity.
Speaker 2: Oh he could never come yeah, And.
Speaker 3: So John makes him swear to keep this to himself.
Speaker 3: He's like, all right, look, I got it. I got
Speaker 3: a procedure, but you cannot tell anyone. He's like, I
Speaker 3: won't tell anyone.
Speaker 2: I would never.
Speaker 3: And so John does the operation on him.
Speaker 2: Wait does he have to bring his own goat in
Speaker 2: or did they go back to the first farmer.
Speaker 3: I think you got more than was the goat.
Speaker 2: He's now the supplier. He's like, I got a plug.
Speaker 2: You're good exactly.
Speaker 3: So like he does the operation. William's happy with it,
Speaker 3: and he brings his wife in.
Speaker 2: With the goats.
Speaker 3: Their logic was that if if the testicles worked on
Speaker 3: a man, then maybe goat ovaries would help a woman.
Speaker 2: Oh well, at least they were keeping it, you know,
Speaker 2: specific to the parts.
Speaker 3: So sure. So John and I think that, like in
Speaker 3: your testicle thief case, he was just adding the balls
Speaker 3: into the sack and not connecting them to anything for.
Speaker 2: The most part, Yeah, just doing an absorption.
Speaker 3: And I'm guessing that's the case with the woman. I
Speaker 3: have no idea how this would work.
Speaker 2: I don't know how you would connect or how.
Speaker 3: Would No, they're not connecting anything. Would the inserted materials
Speaker 3: not start to putrefy?
Speaker 2: I would, and your body would absorb what it could.
Speaker 3: And then there's part of me that wonders if he
Speaker 3: even did any transplant at all.
Speaker 2: Will they be able to feel something just putting like
Speaker 2: a glass bead in there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you feel with the ovaries thing like, yeah, nothing,
Speaker 3: I wouldn't touch that. But I think he actually really
Speaker 3: did it. Anyway, here's something crazy.
Speaker 2: Neither there's something crazy, I think, is what you mean.
Speaker 2: Here's something crazy.
Speaker 3: Neither of the Stitsworth died. In fact, they went on
Speaker 3: to have a healthy baby. What yes child out of her?
Speaker 3: So John, he starts performing these operations on the regular,
Speaker 3: like everyone starts talking about the guys come from all
Speaker 3: over California. Two dudes came from California. But he ran
Speaker 3: into this problem because the initial goats that he were
Speaker 3: he was using were Toggenberg's. It's the type of they're
Speaker 3: odorless goats, and then he started using angoras because like,
Speaker 3: I think the farmer ran out of goats, Like, who
Speaker 3: else has goats? Those two Californians after their surgeries, quote
Speaker 3: smelled like a cross between a goat pen and a
Speaker 3: perfumery shopd from them. Yeah, so they've just been like
Speaker 3: perfumes decur to cover up the animal musk emanating from them,
Speaker 3: and like the musk would eventually wear off, but.
Speaker 2: Still, you're right, that is crazy.
Speaker 3: He's mentioning this to one of his patients. He's like,
Speaker 3: you know, it's gonna stink to and they're like, and
Speaker 3: they he the patient takes a look at the neutered
Speaker 3: goat used in the last operation. There's just like a
Speaker 3: huge pens handing there, and the guy says to him,
Speaker 3: that's an angora. Billy doc, I thought any dang fool
Speaker 3: would know what angora stinks to.
Speaker 2: High Heaven because all the oils.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like using different he's like, oh, I got to
Speaker 3: use different starts advertising his services. Yeah, it's no secret
Speaker 3: he used the Stittsworths in the ads. He paid them
Speaker 3: for it. He put them on his like payroll because
Speaker 3: they were proof that this families have kids intended. Here's
Speaker 3: a clip from a book called The Bizarre Careers of
Speaker 3: John L. Brinkley by R. Alton Lee R.
Speaker 2: Elton Lee, R.
Speaker 3: Alton Lee quote. An even more remarkable case soon appeared.
Speaker 3: The Stitsworths told John about their cousin in an insane
Speaker 3: asylum in Nebraska. He had been institutionalized and his condition
Speaker 3: was caused, Brinkley claimed, by onanism or self abuse. Brinkley
Speaker 3: operated and the man recovered and later became an executive
Speaker 3: in a Kansas City bank.
Speaker 2: So wait, this man was handling himself too much And
Speaker 2: the answer was goat and jesticles. Yes, okay.
Speaker 3: He went on to become an executive at a Kansas
Speaker 3: City bank. Brinkley added insanity to the growing list of
Speaker 3: ills that the goat gland operation could cure, provided the
Speaker 3: cause had sexual roots. So this guy touches himself too much.
Speaker 3: And it's not like on Sons of Anarchy where the
Speaker 3: fingers off. This is like he goes on to be
Speaker 3: a bank executive.
Speaker 2: I don't even know where to begin.
Speaker 3: So what he has all these ads? One man who
Speaker 3: read an ad was the chancellor of the University of
Speaker 3: Chicago Law School.
Speaker 2: What yeah, he goes out to the University of Chicago.
Speaker 3: Yes, he goes out to Milford to get some goat
Speaker 3: balls and planted. Wow. And he's so thrilled with the
Speaker 3: results that he invited John to graduation and gave him
Speaker 3: an honorary Doctor of Science degree.
Speaker 2: Are you.
Speaker 3: Making all this up as I go? No? He expands
Speaker 3: the practice. So he built a special hospital in Milford,
Speaker 3: the Brinkley Jones Hospital and training.
Speaker 2: School for nurses, the Goat Institution.
Speaker 3: It's like three stories.
Speaker 2: Are you kidding me?
Speaker 3: It cost twenty thousand dollars to build it. That's like
Speaker 3: a bit over four hundred thousand. Now, sure there are
Speaker 3: beds for sixteen patients, and then there were pens in
Speaker 3: the back for the goats. I got to keep Minnie.
Speaker 3: She goes to the nursing school, but since she was
Speaker 3: also vice president of the school, she signed her own diploma.
Speaker 3: Oh my god. And this is all all of this
Speaker 3: is less than a year after John got to town.
Speaker 2: What the year one?
Speaker 3: All of his development is really benefiting the town, Like
Speaker 3: he brings in water, sewer, electricity, paper, Milford on the map,
Speaker 3: but many were not model citizens. Like he would get
Speaker 3: into his cups and get a little wild. He started fights,
Speaker 3: and he was just generally an ass. Yeah, he chased
Speaker 3: people with butcher knives.
Speaker 2: Why are you dry? You were real casual.
Speaker 3: You apparently bit off a piece of a guy's ear
Speaker 3: in a fight. Milford in nineteen twenty, Many got arrested
Speaker 3: for selling alcohol to a dentist. The guy was like
Speaker 3: three sheets to the wind when cops found him, so
Speaker 3: they were like, okay, that alcohol was not provided for
Speaker 3: medicinal purposes, because you're just like the prohibition. John stepped
Speaker 3: in and took the fall for Minnie and he got
Speaker 3: charged with bootlegging. There are all these stories where like he, uh,
Speaker 3: some guy came up to John and he pulled out
Speaker 3: a gun and the guy had to get like a
Speaker 3: heavy board and bang him on the head to stop
Speaker 3: him from going crazy and shooting everybody. Okay, so he's
Speaker 3: just a wild drunk in town, and.
Speaker 2: He's also the doctor who's putting goat junking people and
Speaker 2: everyone's like, oh, yeah, that's the respectable guy.
Speaker 3: But you know what, he got electricity, the.
Speaker 2: One who had to get a board to the head
Speaker 2: last weekend.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so at the hospital, they're conducting regular procedures too.
Speaker 3: It's not just all goat business. Oh that's appendectomies, and
Speaker 3: side really is all about the goats at the end. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so he's you know, people are paying all this money.
Speaker 3: The AMA strongly condemns the goat gland transplant as quackery,
Speaker 3: and they warn the public like this has no scientific merit.
Speaker 3: This could be terribly dangerous. And it wasn't all successes
Speaker 3: of like farmers pop boners on tractors and his baby's
Speaker 3: coming up.
Speaker 2: This is mostly a placebo effect people, that's we're talking.
Speaker 3: And there were a lot of men who had like
Speaker 3: really severe complications, infections and abscesses, and some died.
Speaker 2: Oh I was wondering if they would lose their parts.
Speaker 2: They lost their lives.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the surgery was not sanitary, and it was so
Speaker 3: poorly thought through. It didn't matter because.
Speaker 2: Pretty sowe back up.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Part of John's thing is he starts his own
Speaker 3: radio station kb Kansas First, Kansas Best, and he's promoting
Speaker 3: his services and giving all this crazy bad medical advice.
Speaker 3: And on the radio he expands beyond medicine, like he
Speaker 3: would air programs about religion, country music, political speech.
Speaker 2: Daniels type yes.
Speaker 3: And it became one of the most powerful stations in
Speaker 3: the Midwest, and like broadcast, those broadcasts were really revolutionary,
Speaker 3: and he becomes like one of the early pioneers of
Speaker 3: radio advertising.
Speaker 2: Are you kidding?
Speaker 3: Well, he'd advertise Brinkley's pills and then his goat gland
Speaker 3: stuff and like other weird.
Speaker 2: Treatments medicine jump right back out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like he's it's like current day stuff. He's
Speaker 3: preying on the hopes and fears.
Speaker 2: Of course, yeah, people who are desperate to have the alleviated.
Speaker 3: And he's like this populist hero in rural American. But
Speaker 3: when you're out in the open like that, you get scrutinized,
Speaker 3: or at least we hope you do.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the Federal Radio Commission, they revoked his radio license
Speaker 3: for broadcasting misleading and fraudulent medical advice. Kansas State Medical
Speaker 3: Board revoked his medical license.
Speaker 2: He had one, yeah, well the one that he.
Speaker 3: Got with because for him. Yeah, so they're like, no,
Speaker 3: you can't do that here. Then there are all these
Speaker 3: lawsuits from former patients and families of those who died
Speaker 3: as a result of the procedure, which like adds to
Speaker 3: all these let's take a break. I'm going to go
Speaker 3: feed the goats out back, and then when upon my return,
Speaker 3: I'll tell you more about John's goat testical empire and
Speaker 3: how it crumbles.
Speaker 2: Zarin, I thought the goats were for yogurt, Elizabeth, you
Speaker 2: have yogurt soap?
Speaker 3: Uh huh, Yeah, it's so creamy.
Speaker 2: So tell me more about the goats. Sat medicine guy.
Speaker 3: We got doctor John Brinkley. He's lost his medical license,
Speaker 3: lost his broadcasting license, but he hadn't lost his appetite
Speaker 3: for fame and spectacle. No. So, in nineteen thirty he
Speaker 3: did what any delusional businessman slash dangerous snake oil salesman
Speaker 3: slash narcissistic abbliviator would do. He ran for office. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: he wanted to be governor of Kansas.
Speaker 2: Wow cast so do I? Yeah?
Speaker 3: So he missed.
Speaker 2: He's like, you know, who can really hide their crimes?
Speaker 2: The governor?
Speaker 3: He missed his deadline, defile No, so he ran as
Speaker 3: an independent write in candidate. Yeah, and it wasn't the
Speaker 3: most exciting election before he threw his hat in the ring.
Speaker 3: But after Buddy so everyone had heard about his loss
Speaker 3: of the various licenses, and he had that giant radio
Speaker 3: station still going because the license revocation was in appeal.
Speaker 3: People were hurting, the economy is not good. They sympathized
Speaker 3: with a guy who'd been stripped of his livelihood, and
Speaker 3: he was entertaining I'm sure, yeah, like forget qualifications. We
Speaker 3: love his ring charm. He didn't. He didn't think he'd win.
Speaker 3: It was just like another way to increase his public profile.
Speaker 3: He wants the publicity. And he announced his candidacy five
Speaker 3: days after the Kansas Medical Board revoked his license, and
Speaker 3: in his announcement of his run, he said, quote, let's
Speaker 3: past your goats on the state House lawn. Yeah. So
Speaker 3: he ran a super populist campaign. He talked about free textbooks,
Speaker 3: free medical care for the poor.
Speaker 2: They were buying their textbooks, I.
Speaker 3: Guess, free health club programs for children, pensions for the elderly,
Speaker 3: the blind, and like anyone who couldn't work. He railed
Speaker 3: against agribusiness and like lauded the family farm. He called
Speaker 3: for a recreational lake to be built in every county
Speaker 3: in the state. Like he had the Yetti cooler owners.
Speaker 2: On that seriously, and he had a Minnesota on watch.
Speaker 3: But actually he said that when the water in the
Speaker 3: lakes evaporated. It would bring about more rainfall and moisture
Speaker 3: for Kansas crops.
Speaker 2: So wait, they were going to make lakes and then
Speaker 2: the lakes were going to go away and start rain,
Speaker 2: and then that would just rain on Kansas.
Speaker 3: He is a man of science. Wow, yeah, that's eclectic.
Speaker 2: In every county, we're going to put an evaporative lake.
Speaker 3: Yeah okay, and like and then it's going to rain
Speaker 3: all the time, just rain on Kansas. Amazing.
Speaker 2: And we'll put that water back from somewhere else, who knows,
Speaker 2: we'll get it, we'll steal it.
Speaker 3: He wanted to raise the gas tax in order to
Speaker 3: pave like thousands of miles row.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he's got plans, big plans.
Speaker 3: He wanted Kansas to buy Kansas products, okay. And his
Speaker 3: slogan for the campaign clean up, clean out, keep Kansas clean,
Speaker 3: so just clean, clean, clean, unlike in his surgery rooms. Yes,
Speaker 3: so this was actually that's that phrase though, was stolen
Speaker 3: from a mayor's race, like several years prior that he
Speaker 3: heard about. And he's like a.
Speaker 2: Local one, like not even from like Missouri.
Speaker 3: I don't know, I don't know. It was just like
Speaker 3: someone else.
Speaker 2: I'll take that.
Speaker 3: Well, that sounds good to me. So we had that
Speaker 3: radio station and he used it. He'd get on there
Speaker 3: and just like yammer for hours. I mean, he had
Speaker 3: these huge rallies too.
Speaker 2: Sounds yeah.
Speaker 3: And a lot of people showed up just out of
Speaker 3: morbid curiosity to see this. They wanted to see the
Speaker 3: famous goat gland doctor. But then some of the people
Speaker 3: who showed up, they actually like liked what they heard.
Speaker 3: And he was this super rich guy. He'd raked it
Speaker 3: in when he was doing the goat snips. And but
Speaker 3: he's appealing to the working man. He'd say, quote, all
Speaker 3: of us physicians and nurses down here at Milford are
Speaker 3: good Christian folks, just like you. So while his campaign
Speaker 3: was centered on populist rhetoric, he also had his eyes
Speaker 3: on destroying his enemies.
Speaker 2: Oh, political enemies.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So if he got the gig, he wanted retribution
Speaker 3: on all the people who took away all of his licenses.
Speaker 2: That's who I thought he watched. You want to revenge
Speaker 2: on the licensing bodies.
Speaker 3: Yeah. He said in one speech that he wanted to
Speaker 3: abolish quote unnecessary boards and investigative body. So you know
Speaker 3: it's yeah, and so I have to say, he came
Speaker 3: surprisingly close to winning, Like, especially for a write in candidate,
Speaker 3: it was culd.
Speaker 2: Crazy if that's what I was thinking. For a write
Speaker 2: in candidate, you have to get real enthusiasm to people
Speaker 2: were like.
Speaker 3: Exciting, they were very excited. And there were accusations of
Speaker 3: vote tampering on all sides, like voter suppression. That's his
Speaker 3: supporters wanted him to ask for a recount, but he
Speaker 3: didn't want to spend the money for it. And so
Speaker 3: though he lost, he like remains undeterred and he's still
Speaker 3: like trying to grow the radio empire. Okay, so he
Speaker 3: doesn't they he finally loses that Kansas license. Oh, so
Speaker 3: he sets his sights on becoming what was called a
Speaker 3: border blaster.
Speaker 2: It's a border blast, I'll tell you.
Speaker 3: These were radio guys who took advantage of the fact
Speaker 3: that Mexico got kind of screwed when it came to
Speaker 3: the distribution of radio glassies in North America. So like
Speaker 3: the US gets the most, then Canada, and then like
Speaker 3: Mexico gets a small slice of it. So in response,
Speaker 3: they let radio folks do basically whatever they wanted.
Speaker 2: Yes, and like the power are they right?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And they're super strong superstations.
Speaker 3: So, like US citizens started building transmitters just over the border,
Speaker 3: and it's like great for the Mexican economy, and it's
Speaker 3: a nice middle finger to Uncle Sam.
Speaker 2: In the fifties, Jack, Yeah, we're gonna get that.
Speaker 3: So the AMA heard that John wanted to build a
Speaker 3: station at the border, and they flipped out.
Speaker 2: I bet they.
Speaker 3: So they worked with the US State Department to try
Speaker 3: and prevent it from happening. And like the Mexican government
Speaker 3: responded to their pleas with like a shrug. They did
Speaker 3: bar John from practicing medicine in Mexico, and so then
Speaker 3: he construction begins on a mega station with these three
Speaker 3: giant transmitters in via Acunya, just over the border from
Speaker 3: Del Rio Tech. It's now Ana Zarin, close your eyes, yes,
Speaker 3: I want you to picture it. It's October twenty first,
Speaker 3: nineteen thirty one. You are a radio engineer. You moved
Speaker 3: down to Del Rio, Texas to work at X e R.
Speaker 3: The US got radio call signs W and K, Mexico
Speaker 3: got X. This is an exciting opportunity for you. For one,
Speaker 3: it's the middle of the Great Depression, so any job's
Speaker 3: a good job. You started your career by studying under
Speaker 3: doctor Charles Harold at his herald College of Engineering and
Speaker 3: Wireless in Santase, California. You trained as a wireless operator,
Speaker 3: a radio technician. Then you got a job at a
Speaker 3: fledgling station in Los Angeles about ten years ago and
Speaker 3: meant a nice gal had a couple of kids. Then
Speaker 3: you heard about a new opportunity and brother it paid.
Speaker 3: You couldn't believe the salary they were offering. Only you
Speaker 3: had to move to Texas and you had to cross
Speaker 3: over into mexicook. This wasn't appealing to a lot of people,
Speaker 3: but it was to you and your family. Your wife's
Speaker 3: family was originally from Mexico. They'd been living in La
Speaker 3: since it was Mexico, and a good number of them
Speaker 3: still live south of the border. You are fluent in Spanish,
Speaker 3: so you can communicate with the Mexican staff. This is
Speaker 3: the perfect job for you, except for one thing. You're
Speaker 3: working for that quack John R. Briefly, he is a
Speaker 3: circus ring master, a con. You think he's just disgusting,
Speaker 3: that he's no good, But the job and its money
Speaker 3: are good, so you signed on. Today is a manner day.
Speaker 3: It's the first day of broadcast for XDER. The Del
Speaker 3: Rio Chamber of Commerce has been throwing a party for
Speaker 3: this all week, big bands playing tubas and trumpets. Right now,
Speaker 3: a crowd has gathered outside the via Acunia station building,
Speaker 3: awaiting the sounds of the first broadcast to come through
Speaker 3: the public address system attached to the walls outside. Similar
Speaker 3: groups wait beneath giant speakers in del Rio and Milford, Kansas.
Speaker 3: The station is more powerful than any station operating in
Speaker 3: the US. It's running at fifty thousand watts now, but
Speaker 3: you've heard plans to take it up to one million.
Speaker 3: You give a nod and Managing director Bert Munal gives
Speaker 3: a nod back. Engineer Isaiah S. Gallo flips the switch
Speaker 3: and the station roars to life. Now John Brinkley's not there.
Speaker 3: He's still making his way down from Kansas. His plane
Speaker 3: stopped for the night a piece north of here, so
Speaker 3: he calls in to be broadcast to the masses friends
Speaker 3: in Kansas and elsewhere. This is doctor talking from the
Speaker 3: sun Side station between the Nations. You hear cheers and
Speaker 3: wops rise up outside. X e R is not all right,
Speaker 3: So Radio XCR I.
Speaker 2: Love Sunshine Station between the Nations.
Speaker 3: That's what they call themselves. Radio XCR notable for its
Speaker 3: eclectic programming and not in the medical sense. He continued
Speaker 3: to use the station as a platform for like touting
Speaker 3: the goat lands stuff. Oh my god, I can't practice medicine. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but that's not all. He also had like miracle cures
Speaker 3: and tonics. He like, actually he's talking about the goat glands,
Speaker 3: but he's like shifted away from the goat testicle transplants
Speaker 3: into goat elixir. But it isn't just like quack medicine QVC.
Speaker 3: On this station, they also played a lot of country music.
Speaker 3: They did religious sermons, and like even early forms of
Speaker 3: talk shows, popular musicians of the day performed live, helping
Speaker 3: to build like this really devoted audience. There was airtime
Speaker 3: for traveling preachers and they would pay to be on
Speaker 3: the radio, which further expands the revenue stream. They had
Speaker 3: this They had like health advice, music, religious. It makes
Speaker 3: it such a big hit with this combination, and it's
Speaker 3: so powerful. Listeners all over North America are turning in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're like TBS and WGN superstition.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so remember because it operates across the border,
Speaker 3: not subject to broadcasting laws, so's he could just roll
Speaker 3: on unchecked for years. He does this, Wow, and it
Speaker 3: creates frustrations pirate completely. Yeah, so the US regulators are
Speaker 3: super frustrated about this. They have no control over this
Speaker 3: powerful signal and it's it actually kind of solidifies him
Speaker 3: as a radio pioneer, even though like his medical practices
Speaker 3: are fraudulent. He set a precedent for the use of
Speaker 3: radio as a mass marketing tool and also for the
Speaker 3: potential reach of these border blasters, like look what you
Speaker 3: could possibly simple? Yes, So despite the success, you know,
Speaker 3: the radio station starts getting scrutinized by like both the
Speaker 3: Mexican and US government.
Speaker 2: Eventually Mexican like wait a minute.
Speaker 3: So then the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission in the
Speaker 3: US just keeps putting more and more pressure on the
Speaker 3: Mexican government, and they come up with these international agreements
Speaker 3: regarding radio frequency interference, and that forces Brinkley to shut
Speaker 3: down XCR in nineteen thirty three.
Speaker 2: Oh, not to underpower it, just shut it down.
Speaker 3: So like he was, he was able to start it
Speaker 3: back up again. He changed the name to XCR A
Speaker 3: with it new era, and he took it up to
Speaker 3: one million watts?
Speaker 2: Are you kidding?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: For that, I didn't even know you could do that.
Speaker 3: Neither did I. By nineteen thirty nine, both governments are
Speaker 3: now like really putting the pressure on. They shut him down.
Speaker 2: You're giving birds cancer. You cannot be doing a million.
Speaker 3: But like the infrastructure of the station was really valuable,
Speaker 3: so it gets sold off to other l Yeah.
Speaker 2: It had a million watts.
Speaker 3: Yeah equipment XCRF, which in nineteen sixty three employed a
Speaker 3: DJ who described the signal as such, quote, we had
Speaker 3: the most powerful signal in North America. Birds dropped dead
Speaker 3: and too close to the tower. A car driving from
Speaker 3: New York to LA could would never lose the station.
Speaker 3: And that DJ, Robert Weston Smith aka Wolfman Jack, the
Speaker 3: famous raspy voiced radio personality. Well I couldn't do that.
Speaker 3: I'd never speak again.
Speaker 2: So back to John, he was one of my favorite
Speaker 2: obviously early on, just as like I didn't obviously hear
Speaker 2: him on the radios as a kid, but like he
Speaker 2: was still a present like TV and movie came like
Speaker 2: late night movies instead Elvira, Oh.
Speaker 3: My god, totally on. So John Brinkley, his he grows
Speaker 3: his wealth and his influence when he's in Mexico. But
Speaker 3: like his reputation just keeps deteriorating. Yeah, medical professionals, journalist.
Speaker 3: It's just one expose after another.
Speaker 2: They're taking turns dunking on him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then all the lawsuits keep growing about illnesses, figurements,
Speaker 3: and deaths from his operations. In nineteen thirty eight, he
Speaker 3: lost a major libel lawsuit against Morris Fishbine. He was
Speaker 3: the editor of the Journal of the American Medals, Yes Gemma.
Speaker 3: So Fishbine had publicly called John quote charlatan and his
Speaker 3: operations a quote racket. So John sued him, but then
Speaker 3: he lost. No, because like by the legal definition, you're
Speaker 3: a charlatan run in a racket. So this ruling opened
Speaker 3: up the door for like a bunch of other lawsuits
Speaker 3: from former presidents and their family. Yeah, many of the
Speaker 3: suits ended with like huge settlements damage. He was like
Speaker 3: this multi millionaire, it's just draining, draining, draining. Then his
Speaker 3: health starts to decline, gets he has like heart disease.
Speaker 3: Everything's kind of fallen apart. Nineteen forty one, he goes bankrupt.
Speaker 3: His clinics are all closed because he had them all
Speaker 3: over the place at this point, broadcasting empire totally dismantled.
Speaker 3: He's disgraced, you know, malpractice, fraud, whatever. He passed away
Speaker 3: from heart failure in nineteen forty two in San Antonio, Texas,
Speaker 3: and he leaves this legacy of like deception and controversy
Speaker 3: much but like it's interesting because his life and his
Speaker 3: career are this example of influence of media and the
Speaker 3: risks posed by unregulated medical practices. Yeah, so you have
Speaker 3: the goat gland procedures are totally just like emblematic of
Speaker 3: all the charlatans at the time. But then like the radio,
Speaker 3: he's showing the power of all these emerging technologies and
Speaker 3: he's manipulating public opinion. So like he helps pioneer radio
Speaker 3: is a commercial enterprise community.
Speaker 2: Mass communicating over here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like that totally influences how future broadcasters and
Speaker 3: advertisers approach the medium. So he bridges this gap between
Speaker 3: like the quackery of the wagon entry and the mass
Speaker 3: media exploitation of the twentieth century. So that's him. What's
Speaker 3: your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 2: I just love that you shock me with a story
Speaker 2: that's going I know is going to be about goat
Speaker 2: glands and human bodies, and still you end up delighting
Speaker 2: me with my man, well man, Jack, I couldn't. I
Speaker 2: did not see that coming at all, as a bit
Speaker 2: of a total surprise, and look at my face. I'm
Speaker 2: still delighted.
Speaker 3: There's there's a lot that you don't say.
Speaker 2: You know totally nothing I saw counting what was your
Speaker 2: ridiculous takeaway.
Speaker 3: My ridiculous takeaway is that we have a lot to
Speaker 3: blame him for. And I'll just walk away from that.
Speaker 2: He was an interesting precedent with a really long shadow.
Speaker 3: Exactly exactly long shadow. You know what I do really
Speaker 3: need as a talkback day.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I.
Speaker 3: Went get.
Speaker 4: Hey, rude dudes. My name is B I've been listening
Speaker 4: since day one, and I started reading the books you
Speaker 4: guys recommended. One of the first was Air Force Alligator,
Speaker 4: and dear God, was that one of the biggest ridiculous
Speaker 4: crimes of all time? Awful book, absolutely awful. Glad I
Speaker 4: read it, though, so I look forward to reading the
Speaker 4: rest in Stay slazy.
Speaker 3: Wait, B, I love you so much for you. You
Speaker 3: need to win all sorts of awards.
Speaker 2: We're else need to give you some other books to read.
Speaker 3: Oh that's beautiful. That's it for today. You can find
Speaker 3: us online at ridiculous Crime dot com. We're also on
Speaker 3: social media. Email us at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot
Speaker 3: com and leave a talk back on the iHeart app
Speaker 3: Just reach Out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton
Speaker 3: and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Doctor of Goat
Speaker 3: Husbandry Dave Kusten, starring Annalys Rucker as chewed in. Research
Speaker 3: is by pirate radio personalities Marisa Brown and Andrea song
Speaker 3: Sharpen Tear. The theme song is by Californians Looking for
Speaker 3: a Cure Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe is
Speaker 3: provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair and makeup by
Speaker 3: Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are Chief BS Inspector
Speaker 3: for the Ama, Ben Bolan and noted Elixer manufacturers Nobel Brown.
Speaker 3: Ridicous Crime Say It One More Time Piquious Crime.
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