The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Herbal Medicine for Preppers: Storax and Playing Mandolin

Starting point is 00:00:01 Hey y'all, welcome to this week's show. I hope you're having a great January, loving this bleak cold weather. I know I am. Well, it's a good time to get some writing and woodcarving going. And it's a good time to get new projects started inside. And that brings me to a little bit of an announcement this week. As many of you know, I am a musician. I've played music for well over 30 years. I play about a dozen instruments or so. Guitar is my main instrument, but I'm also a pretty darn good mandolin player. And I decided to start offering free mandolin lessons online. I have some issues with the way mandolin is taught these days. You know, I'll get into all that. I don't think you really learn to play an instrument just by

Starting point is 00:00:53 copying other people's solos. That's basically what it comes down to. That's, you know, mandolin used to be an instrument that was played in many different genres of music, from Celtic to classical. I mean, it was really popular in popular music around 1900. Actually the first jazz recording of all time was actually not recorded by the original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1917, I think, as people usually say. It was actually recorded about two years earlier by an all-black band called Cairo's Club Coon Orchestra, believe it or not. That's probably why it's kind of been erased from history. The Ken Burns types get all upset when you call early jazz Dixieland jazz, right?

Starting point is 00:01:38 And they're like, oh, it's, you know, the original Dixieland band, the first to record was an all-white band, and it's racist for you to call it Dixieland music. I think that is insane. I mean, Dixie's a term for the South. The music was made equally by black, white, and especially Creole musicians. In fact, most of the early jazz musicians who recorded were Creole, which is distinctly different from either white or black, by the way. I'm part Creole myself. I'm as white as sheetrock. You'll see other Creoles that are dark black and everything in between. It's a mixed race of people, a mix of French and Spanish and African and English and Irish and German and all kinds of stuff got mixed in there down in the islands.

Starting point is 00:02:30 But especially French and African is what, well, and some of the native folks too, and a big Spanish influence. Cannot leave that out. How this idea got that like, you know, jazz is a black invention. I don't get it because really the first guys to record were Creole and they probably had a bigger influence on the music than anybody. And they all played together in the same band. So it's not like you can say, well, it's Creole and not black or it's black and not Creole or it's white and not black or whatever. They all played together in New Orleans, which was, you know, unsegregated.

Starting point is 00:02:58 And but that doesn't mean that we're not racial tensions. Jelly Roll Morton, I know I'm getting way off topic here, but Jelly Roll Morton actually has probably the best claim to having truly invented jazz as a form of music. Buddy Bolden was a black guy who played trumpet. He was a little before, well, they weren't contemporaries, but he may have been just a little bit before Jelly Roll. But contemporaries that wrote history said he was really a blues musician that played trumpet. So Jelly Roll was Creole, and he actually was extremely racist. He would not play with black

Starting point is 00:03:36 musicians. If you called him black or African American or whatever you want, he would punch you in the face. He was really not a nice guy. He a pimp he was violent i mean he so this whole idea of how you know it's so racist to call it dixieland jazz actually it's not because all these people lived in dixie and they made southern music and that's all there is to it but anyway this cairo's club coon orchestra just be glad it wasn't named after their band as opposed to the original Dixieland Jazz Band. Well, anyway, they did a version of W.C. Handy's St. Louis Blues, which I consider to be the first jazz recording of all time. Look them up on YouTube. It's brilliant. You would not believe this was done live in one take. And the lead instrument was a mandolin. It was what's called

Starting point is 00:04:23 a mando banjo. It's essentially a small framed banjo strung in tune like a mandolin. It was what's called a mando banjo. It's essentially a small framed banjo strung in tune like a mandolin. So what I'm saying is before Bill Monroe came along, mandolin was played in all kinds of different genres. You'd see it in, you know, just anything you can imagine. I mean, it was from upscale music to folk music, right? Blues mandolin was really big. But then Bill Monroe, of course, invented bluegrass, and everybody went crazy over it, and now everybody just totally associates mandolin with bluegrass. Well, I grew up playing bluegrass.

Starting point is 00:04:55 I grew up following Doc Watson around. I'm really more of a blues and jazz, and actually more like a lot of southern music, a lot of soul, a lot of that kind of stuff. And actually, I really love punk rock. I'm of that generation. So I play rockabilly. I play all kinds of different music on the mandolin as well as the guitar or the banjo

Starting point is 00:05:17 or whatever I happen to put my hands on, right? So I wanted to teach mandolin in a way that teaches you to play the instrument as opposed to copying a bunch of solos by Bill Monroe or Jesse McReynolds or Sam Bush or Dave Grisman. I mean, I was really privileged growing up around those guys. I got to see Dave Grisman many, many times. Never got to see Jerry Garcia except at a concert. But never you got to hang out with him or anything. But, yeah, I mean, Dave Grissman was hanging around Doc a lot.

Starting point is 00:05:50 So was Sam Bush. So was Marty Stewart and Ricky Skaggs and just about everybody you can imagine, you know. Anyway, I'm going to start doing these videos. Put out maybe one or two a week. If you're interested, they're going to be on rumble i may go on youtube as well you know i have issues with youtube but i've put together a free substack newsletter it's called mandolin demystified and if you go to mandolin demystified dot substack dot com you can get the free newsletter and you'll get my lessons for free

Starting point is 00:06:22 each week and you know share it with everybody you know and let's see if we can get a mando revolution going here if that interests you you know if you play the tenor banjo everything is absolutely applicable that it two instruments are basically the same just tuned a fifth apart if you play violin or fiddle you'll be able to pick up a lot from it and really if you're a guitar player um or any pianist whatever but uh because i will be getting into some very practical music theory like how we build chords and and how to voice them and such as that i think you'll find it interesting as well. So anyway, again, that's mandolin demystified.substack.com. So that's my January. That's my winter project.

Starting point is 00:07:11 I'm going to write a companion book to go along with it. And, uh, you know, book sales will be the only money I make off of it. You know how that goes. Uh, but, um, yeah, I think it's fun. I really enjoy it. I've gotten started on this. I haven't done any videos yet, but I've got a couple of the first chapters of the book written. And I don't think there's actually anything like this in terms of music construction for the mandolin really on the market today. So I think you're going to find it useful if there's something that interests you. So now let's get into the herb of the week. And we're going to start with one that goes by a couple of names. I know it as Styrax. Older books call it Storax.

Starting point is 00:07:52 That's the Latin name. The common name is Snowbell. There are three varieties of Styrax that have been found useful in herbal medicine. herbal medicine that's Styrex japonica, Styrex officinalis, and Styrex cerealatus but we have two native Styrex to my region which are not among those three but that's they seem to have fairly interchangeable uses we have here the Styrex americanus, Styrex grandifolius, or big leaf snowbill, an American snowbill, obviously. And they do seem pretty interchangeable.

Starting point is 00:08:32 I just don't think there's been a lot of research done on our native varieties yet. Like I said, they likely share the same properties, but you always got to put in that caveat. They'll need further study. But plants for a future list, Styrex is simply a resin obtained from the stem of the plant as antiseptic and expectorant. Well, that obviously makes it very useful in any kind of survival situation. I mean, you need antiseptic herbs. You know, you're going to get cut. You're going to get, well, all kinds of issues, right?

Starting point is 00:09:04 But when you got one that's also expectorant, which means helps get the mucus up out of your lungs, you don't have to worry about what's really probably the biggest danger right now, at least where I am this time of year. We've had so many respiratory viruses going around. People are getting hit by one after another or two or three at a time. And it seems like half the county has walking pneumonia. Well, this would be a very good herb to have on hand. It's got a long use. D.S. Corides wrote of it back in, you know, over 2,000 years ago. He said, Styrax is the oozing of a certain tree that is like a quince tree. So it's not a very big tree. of a certain tree that is like a quince tree so it's not a very big tree the best is yellow fat and full of resin wow anyway he says the gum is also found to be transparent like myrrh

Starting point is 00:09:57 uh oh it could be yellow it could be transparent and it was so popular it was actually counterfeited by certain apothecaries at the time they would mix honey with the uh the boring the sawdust left over by worms or termites that were eating the plant which is odd and mix in a little wax or tallow so obviously it was caught to be a very important remedy. He goes on and on about how to tell which one is authentic and which one is not. That's always been an issue in medicine. He says it is softening and digestive. It cures coughs, dripping mucus, runny noses, hoarseness, and loss of voice. It is good for closures and hardness of the vulva and taken as a drink

Starting point is 00:10:46 and applied, it dries out the menstrual flow. It gently softens the bowels if a little of it is swallowed. It is also effective mixed in ointments or applied as a plaster. It is burned, roasted, scorched, and made into a soot, and the soot is used for the same things. But the ointment of Styrex, which is made in Syria, warms and powerfully softens. It causes pain and heaviness of the head and sleep. Interesting. So it was used as an ointment for probably sore muscles and joints but would give you a headache and make you go to sleep so it's um yeah interesting uh in 1500s england gerard said

Starting point is 00:11:35 it helpeth the cough the falling down of the rooms and the humors of the chest that's basically post-nasal drip it helps helps with the falling down of the rooms or the mucus from the nose into the humors of the chest, the congestion of the chest and hoarseness of the voice. It also helpeth the noise and soundings of the ear. So he thought it was good for probably not like tinnitus ringing ears, but like, you know, when your sinuses are really clogged and your ears kind of get stuffed up and they just ring. That's what he's talking about. Good against the king's evil, nodes of the nerves. That means the, oh, what's the name for that?

Starting point is 00:12:18 Scrofula. It's basically swollen, infected throat glands. Any hard swelling preceding a cold cause, and prevaileth against all cold poisons such as hemlock. I'm not going to recommend it as a cure for poison hemlock, one of the most deadly poisons on the face of the earth, but hemlock is considered to be very cold and it actually does reduce body temperature as it lowers the heart rate and respiration the person becomes very cold to the touch as they slip into a coma and apparently this is warming and stimulating so you know it may have

Starting point is 00:12:57 helped I'm not gonna say it didn't but I'm not gonna I'm gonna avoid eating poison hemlock if I can possibly help it. He says, of the gum, there are made sundry excellent perfumes, pominders, sweet waters, sweet bags, and sweet washing balls, and diverse other sweet chains and bracelets, whereof to write were impertinent to this history. In other words, it was used in perfumes and things you might put with your clothes to make them smell nice or anything like that. And he's saying that's not pertinent to his herbal.

Starting point is 00:13:31 But if you're looking for a cottage industry, look up the word pomander. P-O-M-A-N-D-E-R-S. These were once very, very popular. Kind of like potpourri is today. And potpourri of course was very popular as well. But a pomander could be something as simple as an orange studded with cloves and dried. And it has this incredible scent. And you put it in with your cloves and it would make them smell nice and it would help keep the bugs out.

Starting point is 00:14:01 People made pommanders out of all kinds of things. He's talking the gum of this tree. You know if you've ever seen a cedar line chest, the scent of the cedar would help keep the bugs out and also made your clothes smell nice. So it's actually a pretty... people sell those things on Etsy and they get some good money for them. And of course you could use it to make scented candles or soaps or anything like that and it's always good to have you know the side hustle as they say I have several myself as you know about a hundred years later Cole Pepper wrote of the Storax tree he said the gum was used and it's hot in the second degree means it's very warming

Starting point is 00:14:41 and drying it heals moll, which means softened. Digests and is good for coughs, cataract congestion, distillations of the rooms, that's again the mucus, and hoarseness. Peels thereof, made with a little turpentine, gently loosen the belly. So it could be basically good for constipation. It resists cold poisons. Dropped into the ears, it helps the singing and noise in them. So again,ists cold poisons dropped into the ears. It helps the singing and noise in them. So again, we're talking about ringing in the ears. It has a stringency to it, and that warming would also help kind of break up congestion and such. Applied to

Starting point is 00:15:15 parts afflicted with cold aches, it gives much comfort and ease and is good to be put in baths for lameness and weakness. It is also good to be put with frankincense to perfume those that have cataracts or congestions, rums, defluxions from the head and the nose or other parts by casting on quick coals or hot coals and holding the head over the smoke. It dissolves hard tumors in any part and is good for the king's eve or scrofulous swollen infected glands essentially um that's interesting so uh burn almost as an incense but inhaling the smoke would help with congestion in the head miss grieve writing in the 30s said a sim stimulating and expectant

Starting point is 00:15:58 and feeble antiseptic so she didn't think it was a very strong antiseptic at present it is very seldom used as a constituent of the compound tincture of benzoin benzoin I may still be around actually men's home sold in the pharmacy when I was a kid you know my teens working in the drugstore externally mixed with two or three parts of olive oil it has been found useful as a local remedy for scabies. It has the same action as balsam and peru. I'm not sure what peru is, but benzoin I know. It has been recommended as a remedy for diphtheria and pulmonary cataract and as a substitute for the South American copaiba using gonorrhea and leucorrhea so a remedy for gonorrhea and leucorrhea combined with tallow or lard it is valuable for many forms of skin disease such as ringworm especially in

Starting point is 00:16:58 children the taste and smell of opium is quite well concealed by storax and pills it's fragrant being fragrance being used frequently also in ointments hmm wonder why you would want to conceal the taste and smell of opium I hope you if you've ever smelled it smells very nice any sap from the poppy is gonna be very very bitter so maybe the taste but that seems a little shady i'm not sure why you wouldn't be slipping somebody some opium without their knowing it but king's american dispensatory 1898 tells us storax is a stimulant acting more especially upon mucus tissues as do nearly all the balsams

Starting point is 00:17:42 and you know balsams are very good not only for the sinus it's also like they said for sore throats and all that so it's like balsam it's stronger and probably more warming it has been found beneficial as an expectorant in cough chronic cataract asthma bronchitis and other pulmonary infections also in gonorrhea, leucorrhea, and gleet, in which it is efficient and more pleasant than copaiba. In fact, the uses of Storrex are very similar to those of the latter balsam combined with tallow or lard. It forms a valuable application in many forms of cutaneous disease, especially those common

Starting point is 00:18:31 to children such as ringworms, tinea, ringworm of the scalp, scabies, etc. It forms a good application for ulcerations as a result of freezing fingers or toes. It is much used on account of its fragrance when compounding all ointments and pills. It is an excellent addition to opium in the form of a pill, where it is necessary to conceal the taste and smell of this narcotic. Three to four grains of Storax may be combined with one grain of opium for this purpose. dose of storax is from 10 to 20 grains gradually increase so uh strorex obviously has uh some really good uses especially if you're looking at survival uh applications you know whether it's you know the sinuses and the throat and the lungs all you know

Starting point is 00:19:22 can really be a big problem if you let them get out of control like i said people walking around here with walking ammonia just about everybody's wheezing and coughing and gurgling all around me when i go to the store um but also in any uh situation where you're going to be in the woods for any point of time skin infections can become really serious and they can be you know like the ringworm I guess it's bacterial the scabies which is I think a little mite causes that or etc you know anything that gets irritated it can become infected so learning to identify storax would be um very uh very useful uh maybe get a few growing on your property like i said it's not very big um don't try to slip anybody any opium with it if you don't mind but um anyway actually you know uh growing up around um boone uh north carolina

Starting point is 00:20:24 you know it's a real hippie town. And basically, everywhere you went, I mean, this is going back to the 90s, the 80s, everywhere you went, you smoked pot. Smoked pot constantly. But every now and then, you'd get that little whiff of opium. And in my opinion, it smells very nice. It's like an incense.

Starting point is 00:20:41 I don't use it myself, but a lot of people were into that for a while and it did seem to be very popular mid late 90s wherever you go you hmm oh that smells oh okay you know you see somebody just kind of like stoned out of their gourd but it does actually smell nice to me so I'm not sure why you'd want to cover up the smell. But all narcotics are incredibly bitter. That's one aspect. And many of them have what's called a nauseating quality.

Starting point is 00:21:14 So that may be why they were using it in the pills for flavor. So that's just an aside. This is just a historical antidote, I guess, from recent history. So anyway, y'all have a great week. Remember, if you're interested in learning the mandolin, check out what I'm doing, Mandolin Demystified. Hope to have by early next week some videos up. And we're going to start like super simple.

Starting point is 00:21:36 I mean like how to buy a mandolin, how to set it up, you know, how to string it and tune it. And then we're going to get into like,, you know basic scales and how to build chords It's gonna be like super simple from ground level getting up to really very advanced and I Think you're gonna enjoy it. I think you can enjoy it a lot Actually, if that's something you're into, you know, if it's something you've ever wanted to do I think you know if you go like mandolin or any of the mandolin websites, people, people's beginners often get turned off because, well, first of all, they try to convince you,

Starting point is 00:22:13 you can't, you shouldn't learn to play a mandolin unless you buy a nice mandolin. And a nice mandolin is going to be, you know, two to $5,000, right? Well well no actually uh you can get a the mandolin i play on this exclusively these days like my favorite instrument is really good quality and better than some of the nicer instruments i worked with when i was working in a music store i mean the really expensive stuff i paid 75 bucks for it so i mean we're going to start at really a low entry point and uh you know just like i do with herbal medicine, I don't like jargon. I don't like any kind of barriers to entry. You know, I try not to use a lot of scientific words on here.

Starting point is 00:22:52 If I do, I try to define them so that anybody can listen and understand what I'm saying. Well, that's the same thing I'm going to do with music. So if it interests you, I mean, I love to play music. And when the power goes out and I'm sitting, you know, in my cottage in the mountains in front of the fireplace two, three weeks, to me, having stored food and access to good fresh water and firewood and kerosene and everything else I need to survive up there is music just as essential. A good book to read during the day, but then when it gets dark, yeah, I'm going to grab my guitar, my mandolin, my violin, and, you know, banjo, anything. You go crazy sitting around up there in the silence, or you just sleep a lot. And I consider, you know, playing music actually

Starting point is 00:23:38 one of those essential life skills that a prepper really ought to know how to do. And, you know, anyway, I'm going to teach you to play this instrument. If it interests you, you can play country on it, you can play jazz, you can play reggae, you can play rock and roll, I don't care what you play. I'm going to teach you how to play the music, and that's what makes what I'm doing different than just about everybody else, which is like how to play bluegrass mandolin, how to play old-time mandolin, how to play Celtic mandolin. No, I'm just going to teach you how to play the instrument. I mean, I was rocking out with some Booker T and the MGs last night, old Green Onions, and ended up playing, oh, let's see, who originally did the song?

Starting point is 00:24:16 Peter Green. He was with Fleetwood Mac back when Fleetwood Mac was actually a good band. He came up with a song called Black Magic Woman. And, of course, Carlos Santana made it famous. Well, I'm just fooling around on my mandolin. Next thing I know, I'm playing the solos from Black Magic Woman, kind of half Peter Green and half Carlos Santana. And I'm like, man, you know, more people really ought to play rock and roll on this instrument.

Starting point is 00:24:40 It's pretty cool, you know. But anyway, y'all uh thanks for putting up with uh listening to me talk about music that's another subject i can go on about i mean herbal medicine food music wood carving you get me started it's hard to get me to shut up anyway y'all have a great week and i'll talk to you next time the information this podcast is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease or condition. Nothing I say or write has been evaluated or approved by the FDA. I'm not a doctor.

Starting point is 00:25:16 The U.S. government does not recognize the practice of herbal medicine, and there is no governing body regulating herbalists. Therefore, I'm really just a guy who studies herbs. I'm not offering any advice. I won't even claim that anything I write or say is accurate or true. I can tell you what herbs have been traditionally used for. I can tell you my own experience and if I believe in herbs help me. I cannot nor would I tell you to do the same. If you use an herb anyone recommends, you are treating yourself. You take full responsibility for your health. Humans are individuals and no two are identical. what works for me may not work for you you may have an allergy a sensitivity an underlying condition that no one else even shares and

Starting point is 00:25:55 you don't even know about be careful with your health by continuing to listen to my podcast or read my blog you agree to be responsible for yourself, for your own research, make your own choices, and not to blame me for anything ever.

The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Herbal Medicine for Preppers: Storax and Playing Mandolin

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