The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 201 - Roger Babson's Fight

Episode Date: August 21, 2016

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine the life of Roger Babson and the greatest fight of his life. SOURCESTOUR DATES REDBUBBLE MERCH 

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History podcast each week. I, comedian Dave Anthony, read his story to my friend. Fellow comedian Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic is going to be about and I just want to point out I don't know if we should time stamp these these podcasts. We don't know if someone's listening to it in the morning. My guess is some are but probably you know a good amount aren't just by sheer odds. Would you look at me at least when I talk to you? Is there any way that we can have like a connection during a conversation or are you just gonna even before we started the podcast you just got a you know I mean do you look at me

please sir sir hello yeah hey it's Gareth calling anyone there anyway now you guys have had your morning coffee let's get into this podcast not Gary Gareth Dave okay someone or something is tickling is it for fun and this is not gonna become the tickly quad okay you are Queen Fakie of made-up town all hell queen shit of Liesville a bunch of religious virgins go to mingle and do my friend first of all we'd like to thank all of our subscribers on patreon you guys make this podcast possible we really really really really really really really

appreciate it if you want to sponsor go to patreon you can sign up I just sent off the latest t-shirt order a lot of you guys have not sent me your addresses if you want your rewards those who have sent addresses then you don't send me your shirt size but there's some going out there's a bunch going out so hopefully get this in can I make a suggestion maybe it might not be financially prudent but maybe we just send one of every size to those people they have the option and then and then it's on the honor system yeah that they send back they send back the other the other ones yes the others yes I like your ideas I don't see how it

can be a financial problem at all yeah you're telling me this is a big yawn it's a big boy on July 6 1875 okay Roger Babson was born in is it gluestor is it like Worcester Gloucester it's Gloucester Gloucester Massachusetts he was the 10th generation Babson born okay I don't want to do it like we got lobster from Gloucester okay well come on we're not gonna eat the gloss the gloss the lobster is it a Gloucester is it a Gloucester lobster is it just a lobster it's a Gloucester he was the 10th generation Babson born in the town Roger's father owned a dry goods store if so if you need dry stuff great he's

not there next door was the wet shop they obviously competing competing in products next door soaking in Suns he'd be like I got that beef Jackie I got pickles you fuck there's a lot of that it's a lot of that we're a real odd couple Roger spent many days in the store learning business and investment practices in conversations with his dad Roger grew to reject the values of quote the codfish you can tell I'm already like what the fuck aristocracy what the codfish aristocracy

what that's what he called it that's not a codfish you said right yeah that's what he called up the town structure like the structure what so I guess they they their main fish was codfish like that's what they brought in so he called it like you know they're the town structure is based on codfish so he called okay I'm just gonna move on yeah let's move on he believed in the value of self-reliance in the summer of 1893 tragedy struck the family when Roger's three no more quadfish don't know it's worse no this three-year-old sister Edith drown now you feel weird right well she was probably looking for quad

it's drown the river near their home so that's where cod are not Roger was very angry about her passing because he was older I think he was 93 so he's like 18 at that point right yeah or maybe even older yeah 18 after high school Roger wanted to just go into business and had no interest in going to university he thought schools just taught what had already been accomplished instead of looking at future possibilities he believed professors had failed to see the coming of cars and planes and phonographs and many more inventions that were becoming successful teaching if they wouldn't be in a schoolroom

teaching if they knew if it's like who's gonna sit there and be like another thing I think is gonna be huge cars unfortunately I can't bring this cream to fruition because I'll be busy ain't a dreamin about what might be next okay class today we're gonna talk about uber yeah what is uber this idea called face book something like that where you use your face I don't have time to put it together I'm just a teacher here at Harvard just teaching Facebook I'm just teaching Facebook here at Harvard or it's a here come that's a loud buddy wow you're out you're out and screaming we're a grown-up come on so so but his

father was like you're going to college he went to MIT okay that's where I went yeah which is a weird school to go to if someone's like you gotta go to college like I would be like with the community college yeah one dance no no the one of the best the best technological school in the country that was where he learned about sir Isaac Newton Roger's very taken by Newton's discoveries discoveries past tense well he says yeah he was dead at that point interesting how history had something to teach I think he was when did Isaac Newton doesn't matter if he died my point sure it was learning a historical fact and enjoyed which is what

he thought he wouldn't I don't like this this is getting really personal we talked about this I don't like Roger but we talked about me he wouldn't be here in the story tonight and now he's here and it's all weird we talked about you not taking these personally oh I'm sorry that Roger's bothering me okay you know we have beef dried beef so right a Newton's discoveries had a profound effect on Roger's thinking in the course of his life after graduating from MIT and making a brief go at engineering which he did not enjoy at all he decided to try and make a go in the world of finance okay yeah like every good great person

yeah he was hired to work for a Boston investment firm where he learned about securities okay and there he questioned the methods of his employer and the prices that he was charging their clients uh-huh interesting well that'll get you fired real quick he gave us immediately fired he was yeah Roger that set up his own business selling bonds in New York City and Worcester but in 1900 he went back to Boston to work for a different investment firm and there he met and married his wife right in 1901 Roger came down with a cold he just couldn't get rid of even though he didn't feel well he still took a business

trip to Buffalo and by the end of the trip he was a human disaster when came back and unfortunately it turns out he had tuberculosis which is not a good no not one of the better one not a good travel ailment either his wife and doctor tried to hide the truth from him but eventually found out that's what they used to do back then if you had a terrible disease they would be like don't tell him like that was them that was totally the thing you did that is amazing oh don't tell him he's got it you're gonna be fine Roger now send your wife in so I can reassure her what send your wife in so I can reassure her of

your fineness that's blood that's blood it is blood and well like I said that's normal now can you go outside quick get your wife in here can I talk to your wife for anybody okay come on are we milking it a little bit today Roger come on I can't get up get the wife in here the prognosis was not good it was in one lung and beginning to attack the other lung the doctors told him they did not know if he would survive now to most men at this point this would have been a death sentence he was told to get open air rest and plenty of nourishment that's what they told them a lot they told people to just get outside and get fresh

air yeah well yeah I mean the truth is breathing resting and eating are things that you're just gonna kind of do on instinct anyway well some people don't some people will jog and not eat well time to climb Everest so it's common for people TB to go live in the fresh air in the southwest Arizona California but Roger would not do that and he remained in Massachusetts so we still need to work but he couldn't do anything strenuous okay what who hires someone with TB I mean that's just it who does you know who does Roger okay Rogers decided to start an investment business outside of the city in well as Lee Hills he started

Babson's reports an analysis of stocks and bonds that would be sold by subscription he knew every investment house had a group of statisticians and he figured if he could provide that resource then they wouldn't need that department of people so they would fire him and just use his report and he was right he helped revolutionize the financial services industry and was making millions in annual annual revenue off of the report okay and he got to do it from home avoiding an office in the dirty air of the city I want TB yeah it's fucking I tell you what TB is like an idea creator you know you can't TC be

more like it taking care of business okay go ahead and shut off the recorder he often worked in the winter with the windows open even though the temperature was below zero how livable is tuberculosis I thought then it was well it's you could if you what was it was there was no the prognosis was not good like it's it doesn't go away but I think if you if you took care of yourself it would lead it a lot yeah you wouldn't die from TB perhaps right I think I think if you took care of yourself wouldn't but then there's cases that you just couldn't stop it but I think that there was a like you know right that's why

people go to the Southwest because I think they could live and then you'd be like I'm not moving here look it's a bunch of TB people talking about just cattle farm and then there's just a TB farm the if you can get a flank steak done there great burgers so he's he's he's got the windows open it's zero degrees out he just could get the fresh air in all the time it's what he want to fresh air coming through yeah nice cold his secretary would wear a huge cloak with a hood and mittens she would hit the typewriter keys with rubber hammers mittens what she would hit with she'd hit the typewriter with rubber hammers to

type because she had mittens on I mean you might be describing the craziest thing I've ever had she would sit there in a coat with mittens on and hammer at her typewriter slow down mr. Babson oh my god tick tick tick tick so he figured out a way to best TV loves invented I yeah I don't know if gloves back then were but I don't know if I mean you might have leather gloves but I don't know if they had the properties to keep your fingers warm and zero degrees that's what I'm talking about so if you got a way to best TV and it would not be the thing that would kill Roger and he was incredibly successful from 1910 to

1923 he wrote regular columns in the Saturday evening post in the New York Times he founded Babson College in 1919 which is still open a business school for aspiring CEOs he was a rather well-known man in America okay now being a very wealthy man he started to invest in ventures that he thought would benefit humanity okay he applied Isaac Newton's theory of actions and reactions to economics and created the Babson chart of economic indicators basically the idea was that for every action there is a reaction that's why it was based on the actions and reactions using this chart he predicted the stock market crash of

October 1929 what in September what but now I hear they say it's not it doesn't actually but but he saw it coming yeah still yeah that's pretty amazing he also had a thing for setting words into stone actually like literally actually putting words in stone he wouldn't do it he'd like he but hire someone to do it he had a case of the command but he enjoyed seeing words in stone okay that's a I guess I didn't know anybody took that as a hobby well he did just words like hey during the Depression to do his part to help out the economy he started a public works project he hired stone cutters to engrave inspiring

messages into boulders in a park in your face it's just okay okay you can still see them there today yeah okay one there's one stone that says kindness is he responsible for like those little office stress sandboxes where someone's like here's my kindness much bigger you we're gonna bigger bigger level there's another one that says help mother okay it's just that kindness is that one general and then this one it little weird attitude well how mother you could read his help mother or it could be like a lot of trouble yeah a lot of trouble yeah he continued being very successful in his business ventures and in 1940 he

decided he had a lot to offer the country and he ran for president's president of the United States of America okay as the prohibition party candidate okay in 1940 so what prohibition was far earlier well yeah there was way it was way over the country had done it and decided it was striking while the iron had been right on there right right on there right but he came in also let's go back to wagons wagons I'm the wagon president he came in fourth with point zero one two percent of the votes he had fifty eight thousand votes which was just shy of the twenty six million that Roosevelt got

well I mean you know he put it he put his mark on the election I certainly did which is nice for and I don't I don't think I've ever heard of this Roosevelt character so it's not yeah no one knows who he is Roger was a lifelong friend of Thomas Edison right great minds hang out you know exchange and ideas Babson was also be great when they're like sitting there spitballing and Edison has an idea for some invention and he's like I think I'm gonna write help mother in a rock hey I got an idea I know you're doing your electricity blah blah blah but what if I get a rock and I just write beaut like on the front I don't want to

be friends with you anymore just beaut right no or pretty I'm starting to come around a little bit now now what's this energy bullshit you keep talking about you know it's kind of stupid I'm kind of like in this rock thing your pitch it huh yeah that's where the money is in that that's where the money is we might have a deal we'll just write electricity on a rock boom we're back baby so he formed he was he wanted to get his more of his thoughts out into the public so he formed the publishers financial bureau to distribute his writings to different newspapers across the country okay it's like a syndicate it's like a financial

collar yeah right okay well he would write of all kinds of stuff he would he would go on to write 47 books covering a multiple topics a common the common theme for everything was that society could change for the better so he's a very hopeful unfortunately after World War two tragedy struck his family again his grandson died in 1947 he drowned just like Roger's little sister had so many years before his grandson was on a motorboat and a friend of his was in the water and was drowning and his grandson dove in to save him didn't work out they both

died that's it once again Roger was very angry and he was angry at what he considered to be a lifetime nemesis gravity okay oh boy yeah and dinner is sir I think so I'm still going yeah I'm still going so you heard it you heard it correctly the year is 1940 ish 1947 and he wants to beat gravity well his grandson you know I just died from gravity in his in 1948 he wrote an essay called gravity fuck you our enemy number one whoa okay in it he revealed his reason for being upset with gravity for all of his life it began when his sister died in the river quote yes they say she was drowned and drown

as in of course quotation right he put drown in parentheses to show it's not real okay so that drowning is not real well that's what he's implying yes he started to lose me a smidge they go back quote yes they say she was drowned but the fact is that she was unable to fight gravity which came up and seized her like a dragon and brought her to the bottom there she smothered and died from a lack of oxygen okay and he has to be mad at water to I mean you can't why would you be mad at water water's fine water you're just swimming in and then gravity takes you water didn't do it don't bullshit gravity did it no her lungs did

and now it killed his grandson underwater wow the grants I didn't know anyone I know you have so many problems well we're gonna write about this one from the essay gradually I found that old man gravity is not only directly responsible for millions of deaths each year but also for millions of accidents broken hips and other broken bones as well as numerous circulatory intestinal and other internal troubles that are directly due to the people's inability to counteract gravity at a critical moment he's starting to swing me let's get this gravity that's I'm talking about let's show this thing a thing or

two after the death of his grandson Roger became completely obsessed with the fiendish acts committed by gravity he should just be into reanimating drowned people that seems it's probably gonna be right on the nose 40 needs but the difference between Roger and a guy who lives in a shack up at the mountains and yells at gravity was that Roger had piles and piles of money there's just some old dude in a shanty on them like on Mount St. Helens Hey gravity come and get me try it you bastard I'm on the top of the hill for a reason gravity you come and get me if you want gravity come on you son of a bitch it's just me

the two squirrels and nine hundred cans of beans gravity you too glad I said no you better come for me your move gravity no wait when you need it I'm here so Roger wasn't gonna take this gravity shit laying down right the man was a successful entrepreneur he was a CEO he was gonna do everything he could to get rid of the force of gravity get rid of it I can't even wrap my mind around fighting a battle or just you think the war on terror is a tough battle or at least there's like or just take take command over it okay be gravity's master yeah this is the campaign to make gravity his bitch to Babson gravity was

unacceptable and needed to be changed quote it seems as if there must be discovered some partial insulator of gravity which could be used to save millions of lives and prevent accidents he bought a Washington DC company called invention incorporated the sole reason was to have three investigators at all times looking through patent proposals coming in to the US Patent Office quote the investigators were constantly on the watch for any machine alloy chemical or formula which directly relates to the harnessing of gravity there's shark tank a little bit they're just reading every patent

gone through every patent to see if any patent comes in that has to do with oh just gravity bit like no they're looking at all patents to see if anything coming through yeah we kind of have to because all all the patent you know it's not like a path it's like the crazy shit you're reading I mean this guy wants the he wants his own patent for dishwings well dishwings that tell me a little bit more about okay so what dishwings is yeah dishwings how many times does this happen to you okay you're going to get your dinner and when you up there you drop your dish and it smashes and your dinner's ruined not off

then you got to get furious at your wife and shot at your kids and maybe hit him and then you drink it all night well no more that's not happening not with dishwings what is dishwings is an adventure that makes most plates or dishes unsmashable by putting these nice little wings on the side of the dishes when they land on the ground they probably won't break or if they do that's why you guys come in and help are you saying that they fly no no I'm not some lunatic coming in here saying that I want to make dishes fly however if we have the technology I'm still here on I what I'm talking about is an edge that

will prevent the dish from breaking sort of like a little cushion a cushion for the dish why don't you call it a dish cushion instead of dishwings because the wings make it seem like it might be flying I'm not gonna lie I'm not the easiest guy to work with I'm not gonna take notes very well it's either dish wings or it's go fuck yourself okay go fuck yourself well I'll see you guys at the invention awards yeah where do we got a product they're called dish cushions so I'm not getting the patent no why why would wings get a patent when we got cushions we're good thank you thank you well I retract my thank you he believed

that a gravity harness would probably come in the form of a metal alloy which would act as a partial insulator when the alloy was discovered it would be a quote great blessing to mankind that same year Babson established the Gravity Research Foundation it was headquartered in New Boston New Hampshire 60 miles from Boston he wanted there because it would be safe if Boston was bombed in World War three fair it's a fair we all have reasons to put businesses in different places sure and predict the Third World War the purpose of the Foundation was to collect and disseminate gravity related information

and to fund gravity research products projects well they're getting there okay the goal was to help push toward the inevitable discovery of a gravity shield what like so you so like you would have a gravity shield but no it's not a cone of silence it's a gravity shield so if you if you are an old lady and you have your gravity shield on so you don't fall over and break your hip okay I'm sorry for this you've sold me the Foundation's underlying imperative was to learn all it could about gravity and defeat it pretty much what what why is it what is happening the gravity is a monster that kills people I just have

too much money no he's a man with ideas is what he is I think he might have too much money pretty much no one at the Foundation were actually experts well that's a problem you sound legitimately sad what are you gonna do well you're gonna defeat gravity and learn about it at the same time Babs had assumed he could get his rich smart friends together and they could fix the problem of gravity because they're all CEOs and smart rich guys there are no dumb rich guys name one that's what he did as a businessman right he put people together and made shit happen get threat mines in a room and they'd figure it out to him

this approach made total sense as a businessman he didn't know what caused gravity but he knew it was everywhere and only a sucker would go on accepting this bullshit he thought gravity was wasting itself pulling things in the same old direction for its own purpose and not humans like works on a script or something for just an epically long amount of time yeah and then you got to do like you know over ten years you're doing seven rounds of notes yeah and eventually you're just kind of like did yeah do you have a new idea it's time to write something no no no we're just getting into it electricity light

magnetism could all be insulated and controlled why should gravity be any different it seemed reasonable to who it seemed reasonable who I wrote it so it does to him and his buddies the foundation was a beast that rose up with what seemed like unlimited funds and a fervor that seemed to suggest a total lack of awareness of what the enemy was but he was not alone others joined him frozen food magnet Clarence birds eye became a gravity research trustee sorry for what the what did you just say frozen food magnet yeah birds I you know frozen peace frozen like they're okay the birds I magnet okay birds yeah birds

I they're on board did I say magnet yeah you said magnet okay so yeah I think that like a magnet was like well as long as there's no steel it's okay I'm gonna be a big contributor so so here in America one of the biggest frozen food yeah vegetable companies yeah it's birds eye like they're still around they're enormous so this guy started birds eye yeah and he became a gravity research trustee birds I believed that a gravity insulator might be discovered by happenstance what through unrelated research who sometimes that happens sometimes you that's not a theory that nobody has that theory that happens

sometimes yes you have a side cure to something he's working the thing you're looking for initially doesn't actually come to fruition you're like oh look I did this he's don't go in there saying let's throw a bunch of shit at the wall and find out what gravity he's working off an idea these aren't ideas so he had 2,500 labs contacted 2,500 and each was asked to keep an eye on the lookout for an accidental way to control gravity and how many of these places thought it was a prank call I don't think we need to get into the responses yeah we make the vegetables that you freeze can you guys keep your eyes open for anything

that might defeat gravity and hit us back if you do you will all right thank you I mean yeah that's pretty much yeah it's a lot of places it's not like you're gonna get in depth with what the process needs to be to these places look you get a call from a guy he he he pretty much is they pretty much owns frozen vegetables yeah and he says hey keep a look up for a stuffing and stop gravity your answer is like yes a good job there might be some carrots that's exactly right that's why they say yes cuz he might throw him some fucking money because this do you like broccolini there are also a lot of birds at the

gravity research Institute Institute Thomas Edison and Babson have been together one day when Edison wondered out loud how it was that birds could fly Babson thought maybe there was something to that thought oh god and so a huge collection of stuffed birds from 5,000 different species were collected for study and housed at the gravity research Institute what's wrong what is a dead bird go what is this stuff I mean I don't want birds to die but for God's sake if you're trying to find answers you should be you looking at a living bird we know you this is even a good path you can inspect them and see how you

know I think it's something to do with how they have no guts no no these were just taxidermy oh sorry I don't know what we're doing here could you can you imagine the anger in the gravity research center if someone accidentally drops a coke oh god oh I'm not mad at you I'm not mad at you you you were merely the vehicle for the accident it should just be hanging there in the air it's that rotten bitch gravity it's that coke should be hanging in the air it shouldn't even be a thing we shouldn't even need to put it on surfaces oh for the love of God I'm getting worked up again let's take a 10

okay so they have these birds on the off chance that birds were the key to ending gravity the foundations chairs but what are you been up to well I'm fingering stuff birds to try to stop things from dropping so you're a Republican so you're a Republican senator from Oklahoma fuck the foundations chairs also kept their feet very high as a way to fight just kind of the middle finger to gravity we're on the prowl and that it's days are numbered hey gravity where are my feet fuck you you can see over welcome to the lab you can see over over the doorway it says fuck gravity that's like our motto here it's

something we believe very strongly two people I know drowned so now I'm gonna stop gravity how are you that not make sense it makes sense do you guys want some stir fry packets George right out was the foundation president and Babson's longtime right-hand man he came up with the idea of an annual essay contest the winner would get $1,000 the idea was to inspire scientific minds all over the world to research on quote the possibilities of discovering some particular insulator reflector or absorber of gravity mm-hmm yeah no take

it to the streets again at this time a higher an expert I go ahead at this time a physics professor brought in around 5,000 a year right that was the average kind of size so a thousand bucks it's a lot of fucking money it's like so physics 20% or like let's win this shit in 1953 a postdoc named Bryce DeWitt wasn't doing so well so he submitted a paper and won boom cash in the bank more entered two professors from Princeton won in 1954 and a team from Cornell and Harvard in 1957 the essay contest would become more and more popular with researchers Babson a writeout also bought 25 years worth of time magazines to use

as an almanac why are you why are you making that face what what does it even mean the magazines were to be searched for correlations between international incidents and the phases of the moon you can do it every year what you can renew it they won't leave you alone but they're going back they're going back through they're going back so they're so they meant they ordered time for the next 25 years I'm retiring oh I guess I didn't yeah okay that makes it the way I said it did not make sense 25 years of time right they got they got through to find so

they have any release so they like probably had like a chart where the moon is falling up and then they're reading the issue anything exciting some of these tough birds we need room for the times oh my god did that one just defy gravity no it fell I swear to God if another thing falls in here I'm gonna freak the f out every god I hate gravity so much every time I drop a pencil every time I drop a cup every time I drop a ball my little sister dies again and see that's why we do these guys that's why we do these gravity support groups we all hate it and it's all it's hurt all of us

yeah and that's why we don't buy into it anymore I haven't bought into gravity for 160 days why'd you why'd you wink I'm attracted to you fucking gravity my eye wouldn't have done that without gravity so the magazines are to be searched you know to find the moon right because obviously the moon gravity from the moon was up to no good right the moon helps is gravitational pull find an idea from 25 years ago on a physical level they looked at whether or not gravity's pull on the body affected temperament hey interesting to solve this mystery exactly they mail the survey to subscribers of Babson's

investment report wait how well they need a large body of information so they but the question that the feet the thing they're trying to discover is does gravity change your like emotional disposition yeah and in order to find that out they send a survey to people who subscribe to the financial thing he worked on yeah you see my issue I think I think that I've got more issues than 25 years of time with this this is like the premier financial report in the country and he sends out people are going like oh the new Babson did he wants to know if having to stand on earth makes me miserable oh no normal investors

all around America asked to fill in their weight and to agree or disagree with statements such as I love physical comfort or I am an unimpressive talker and also ladies like me oh my god what honey the honey the new Babson report is very strange what's it asking about if my shoes feel weird oh do they know just tell them no that hard it also it also asked me if my wife's voice is driving me crazy just it why would they ask that I would put yes why is that one hand written I wish gravity would take me it sucked up gravity take me now I'm ready I'll stop demanding gravity and I'm marriage Charles the gravity research

foundation also published many pamphlets good well it sounds like they're getting close such as gravity aids for weak hearts was such was such was such pamphlet that recommended lessening gravity strain on the body by moving into a bungalow-style house or using a cane these are not going well this needs to stop a cane will stop help stop gravity if you you're pushing up yeah you're fighting it off constant fight fight it don't give in but you're you you have to you're you're pushing right you're using something Jesus Christ man this is fucking quitter talk that's what I'm hearing oh I'm by the way I'm hearing

quitter I'm a fan of gravity okay all right I'll try to finish this but I'm trying to finish this and then we'll go off there to have our gravity argue the pamphlet gravity and posture stated quote it behooves us therefore to give the body all possible aid in maintaining the proper gravity pull by wearing the right corset that why'd you put that down what what the this is insane so people are just gonna be Tommy sucked cane using bungalow dwellers now it's science it isn't I I think I think it might be science has no connection to science well they're asking questions to science science is the investigation

it's about asking questions about pondering what can be it's about finding out what's out there and exploring the limits and seeing how things function you have to ask questions it's a process science is a process there were many instructional guides with titles like gravity and weather and gravity and your feet the guides really covered a lot of subjects and discussed their relations to gravity gravity is linked to the common cold house fires insomnia poor crop conditions tilted uteruses the firing of general Douglas MacArthur what the hell the shrining of the elderly

tuberculosis worries Veracos veins and haemorrhoids one article stated hemorrhoids quote are merely Veracos veins of the rectum hey good to have That guy had a party. Guys, I don't want to take us off track, but I just want to point out that Veracos veins are your assholes. It's the hemorrhoid. I messed that up. I went back.

Who wants a round? Not that he was across the board normal, right? And then just had this one thing about gravity. Right. Babson also had other weird ideas. What? He envisioned chocolate covered fish. Whoa.

My head hurts. What just happened? What is that? What just happened? Real fish? I think it's a fair question to ask if he sees them swimming. He thought that they would bail out Glaston's troubled economy. He wanted to create a chocolate covered.

So I think a fish that had a chocolate. I mean, that might be the grossest thing I've ever thought of. A shell of sorts. Like a chocolate on the outside, fish on the inside. Oh, I mean, imagine what he's talked about. Glaston save, gentlemen. You know, when you get like that little box of chocolates and it's got your little map of what is what?

Oh, look at this one. Salmon. Oh, God, that's terrible. I'm going to try this shrimp one here, love. Oh, God. Oh, my God. We just I guarantee you we are first Inuit just probably started listening to podcasts and it's so angry right now.

So fucking angry with you. It's a shame. Just turned it off. Yeah. Well, listen, I guess I've got bad news. We won't be touring those areas. Sorry, Juno. Also, he came up with the idea of asbestos lined pants pockets.

Hey, those will never go bad. To prevent men from igniting their junk when putting their pipes in their pockets. Well, it's good because, um, oh, that is just. That is unreal. I mean, the fact how else are you going to stop it here? Put on these cancer dockers. But how else are you going to stop the fire in your pants?

I've got a bunch of a ton of ideas. Oh, such as don't have anything flammable in the pipe when you put in your pocket. Fuck you, Edison. There we go. And there was the desire to create a federal department of character training to be headed by a secretary of character. This is one of the most successful businessmen in the country.

Yeah. See, you just can't have money for too long. He wrote, quote, world peace will come only as the spirit of Jesus grows in the hearts of man and as the principles of birth control are taught to overcrowded nations and the latent power of gravity is used as freely as air, water, and sunlight. Well, it sounds like Jesus has quite a bucket list of things

he needs to get done. But there's a few things that there's a few things that have to happen. Also, he wants all the fish to be covered in chocolate. And as this was an unexplored area, no one was doing any work on gravity at the time until Babson came around trying to domesticate it. Domesticate gravity.

I came up with that. I thought that was a nice phrase. Yeah. Okay. But still, it's my personal little touch on the script. What's the matter? I'm happy with it. Good.

Let's domesticate gravity. We're happy for you. It's like domesticating your cat or look how that's going or one of your many girlfriends. Oh, here we go. He ended up bringing great minds into the field because of the money the foundation offered interest suddenly started. The man who won the 1953 essay on gravity went on to found

a highly regarded Gravity Research Institute at the University of North Carolina. He also tried to get other universities to research harnessing gravity for good. Yeah. Babson part of this effort included paying for and having 14 monuments installed at various colleges. Is he trying to do something?

Are we sure he's trying to stop gravity? Yes, he is trying to do something like laundering money. No, he's trying to stop a menace. It seems like how many people are hurt from falling down? Lots. Okay. So what's your fucking deal? I guess you stone as much as possible.

Well, the monuments would have inspiring words carved into them from a granite block that sits at Tufts University today. All the monuments are still there. The money this monument has been erected by the Gravity Research Foundation. Roger W. Babson founder. It is to remind students of the blessings forthcoming when

a semi-insulator is discovered in order to harness gravity as a free power and reduce airplane accidents. Can you imagine just reading? Oh, what's this? Oh, it's like a pre-monument. It's a monument for something that hasn't happened. All it says is that they want to beat up gravity. Usually they do monuments for stuff that they've done.

But this one is for something that probably won't ever happen. Screw you, gravity. Oh, on the back, it says go fuck yourself, gravity. I'm going to fucking get you for what you did to my sister, you bitch. Jesus. Wow, somebody does not like gravity. Wow.

Silly statue. The monuments came with endowments, but the endowments were supposed to be invested and then used in the fight against gravity years down the road. Because I assume that we promise. I assume that he was thinking that man would know more and more research had been done. So when it came time to use the endowments that they would

have, right, they would better success rate of stopping gravity. But it was tied in legally. Like you took the you took the money. If you if you were to be you. Yeah. The Tufts University stock was finally freed up in 1989. So for at that point, I was worth half a million.

The university's lawyers went to court and were able to get it detached from anti-gravity research because the judge was like, wait, what is what's happening? He's dead, right? Yeah, I'm sure. Okay, so that will not do that. Yeah, yeah. The money was then used to establish the Institute of

Cosmology, which is now a prestigious learning institute for theoretical. Physicists. Okay, in the realm. Okay. Yeah. So that one that that actually went very well. So now he's had a positive influence hasn't he?

Mr. fucking coming down on my bro coming down on my bro. How many hyphens are in my name? And secondly, I it's not he could have done he could have taken all that money and just given it to me. You're rageful. Babson died in 1967 and he's buried six feet above at nine. You can see him floating at Forest Law. Yeah, I was 91 years old, sadly, he did not have the

satisfaction of seeing the deserved end of gravity. Well, but Babson was the man who helped return a physicist to the study of gravity by tossing down tons of cash. It is now a serious subject today. Gravity research gets government funding. There are now conferences and experimental equipment is being built. The Gravity Research Foundation still exists today.

It has evolved from conquering gravity to understanding it. The essay contest still goes on and is pretty much all the foundation does. Well, look, if you take a if you take away trying to defeat gravity, then yes, there are a lot of a lot of good stuff. I mean, it's a good if you were to say that if you were to start a foundation that was like, hey, let's understand gravity more, you know, okay, everything has to have a start.

Yeah, but he did. He stuck with his start. The idea wasn't bad. Okay. Now graduate students quote, look to see the coolest honest stuff because of the essay. That's where everyone goes to look at fucking what's happening with gravity again.

I'm not against a young man named Stephen Hawking won the contest one year among physicists. He now for him to write that it is almost like he had to wear mittens and use a hammer. Among physicists, the contest is now extremely highly regarded. Steve Carlep, a physicist at UC Davis who won the essay contest in 2007 said quote, it is nearly universally known

among people working in gravitational theory. The contest has a large impact because it encourages people working in the field to step back a little and give a broader overview of their research. The Gravity Research Foundation is now headquartered a mile from Babson College. George Rideout Jr., the son of Roger's right hand man, runs it from a back room in his basement.

He just makes copies of submissions and sends them to an anonymous panel of judges. He can't understand the essays them himself. When a graduate student earns a doctorate at the Institute of Cosmology at Tufts, she undergoes a strange ceremony. The graduate kneels down and her advisor drops an apple on her head in hopes that it might inspire her in the manner of Isaac Newton.

They do this in front of Babson's monument. That's a very weird ceremony. I mean, that's without last parts real weird. Well, whatever. I mean, it's you know, how many apples must die. Don't worry about it. How many apples of Paris? It's going to be great when one finally floats.

Yeah, right. I'm looking down for floating apples. You just don't. You don't figure it out by looking at stuffed birds. Everything had to be everything was on the table. They didn't study. They didn't study flying birds when it comes to gravity. Everything's study birds that flew.

Everything's on the table. Doesn't that seem like a better option? One of those things won't isn't defeating gravity right now. And the other one as a way to not have things drop necessarily. Doesn't drop. My Nana broke her hip. My Nana broke her hip. My Nana broke her hip.

Okay. So let's just meet in the middle and say our Nana's broke their hips. I'm out of here. Sign your car.