A reasonable person might think that we should include the following background information somewhere in the course of this film, probably pretty close to the front…

Since the late 1800s, good scientists, bad scientists and charlatans had been experimenting with and/or selling the transplantation of testicles as a means to “rejuvenate” old, sick or impotent people. They were trying all kinds of stuff that would take too long to get into here. Suffice it to say that people like Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard, Eugene Steinach, Harry Lydston, and Serge Voronoff were certainly important influences on Brinkley. Brinkley himself cited the work of these “pioneers” in his own writing, especially Lydston who he admired greatly.

Brinkley and Voronoff specifically had quite a rivalry going. It is unclear from newspaper records which of them was the first to successfully transplant the testicles of animals into humans (or say they had). Voronoff used monkey glands, and Brinkley goat glands. Voronoff was at least as famous as Brinkley, at least in Europe. Brinkley denigated him at every opportunity.

Glands and hormones were hot stuff back then. For example, Dr. Frederick Banting discovered insulin in 1921; two years later, he was awarded the Nobel Prize. So while our film essentially makes it seems as if Brinkley all alone had this brilliant idea, he was really riding a wave. Like all good quacks, Brinkley took something real from the scientific zeitgeist, distorted it, and sold it to a public primed to believe him in part because they had been hearing about some of the same ideas in the papers.

A lot of the things we say or imply Brinkley “invented” he didn’t exactly invent, is our point. Which isn’t to say he wasn’t a genius, or an early pioneer of many things. It’s just that the “Great Man” theory of history really falls apart when you’ve done enough research.

The story goes that he “realized what radio could do” when he visited California in 1922. “In February 1922 the doctor received a brusque invitation from Harry Chandler, owner of the Los Angeles Times, to come to the West Coast and put goat glands in one of his editors” (Brock, 56). “Chandler was in the midst of constructing Los Angeles’ first radio station, KHJ. Brinkley saw it and had a religious experience” (Brock, 60).

In September of 1922, Brinkley installed a state of the art radio receiving set in his own home, a big enough deal to make the papers.

At least one source indicates that KFKB was the fourth “commercial” radio station, but the source that author Lee cites is Shruben, and when we went back to Shruben to fact-check this we didn’t find that claim anywhere in the cited article. So we didn’t make this up, but we also don’t have great substatiation.

In any case, assuming it’s true, we still left out the “commercial” part because (1) it’s overly complicated and we don’t really know what it means; and (2) we’re not emphasizing what a self-serving action this was. We want to keep the focus on “innovator/pioneer” here.

It might be an exaggeration to say he was the “first guy,” but he was certainly a key figure in the popularization of country music.

The sound truck was actually used in Brinkley’s 1932 campaign (not in 1930), and it is documented that Huey Long was using sound trucks, to great advantage, as early as 1930. So no: Brinkley didn’t invent the sound truck. But he may have invented the idea that the sound truck would play pre-recorded speeches and not just warm-up music. We spent a long, long time on this note before deciding to move on. The point is, he either invented it, or he was a very early adopter/pioneer.

There was already one “border blaster” station (XED, which began broadcasting on November 9, 1930, with a regular schedule from 6:00 PM to midnight) when Brinkley “somehow” got the idea. Brinkley announced he would open his own in January 1931. We’re leaving that out because we’re continuing to feed the implication that he alone invented all these wonderful ideas.

I don’t know that Brinkley really invented this format, an early version of both infomercials and simple corporate sponsorship, but he was certainly an early adopter/pioneer. Previous to his Border Radio days, he only ran ads for his own hospitals, but during this period realized that companies would pay a lot (he apparently charged $1700 an hour) to advertise products on his powerful station that U.S. stations wouldn’t advertise.

Brinkley probably didn’t himself “invent” this method of recording on transcription discs, but he was an early adopter of the technology and was the first to use it to circumvent the new law. So many transcription discs were produced and discarded by XERA that locals supposedly used them as roofing shingles.

Yup.