Best News
Luke and Elena discuss kitten claws, a high school student who subbed in as Pearl Jam’s drummer, and a Minnesota prison program that teaches tattooing to inmates.
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[Opening Music] Best News!
Luke Burbank Hey there! Welcome to the Best News podcast from Live Wire. Brought to you by Alaska Airlines. This is the show where we talk about what is good in the news. I'm Luke Burbank. Right over there is my friend Elena Passarello. Hello, Elena.
Elena Passarello Hello. How's it going?
Luke Burbank It's going all right. Although, I don't know if you can tell because I just was feeling a little warm, so I kind of took off my sweatshirt I was wearing, and I just have a t-shirt on and I am covered. Covered in love bites and scratches from my new cat.
Elena Passarello Yeah. [Laughs]
Luke Burbank Now you have two cats-
Elena Passarello Three! [Laughs]
Luke Burbank Three?! Excuse me. You're adding them by the day. Were they, like, absolutely terrorizing you when they were kittens? Is that- is this typical?
Elena Passarello Well, you have a Bengal. You have the border collie of cats. You have the athletic, ball of energy breed. But some people say that you should not use your hands too much to play with them because then they'll just attack your hands for the rest of their lives, like while you're sleeping and stuff. So you should always have like a, a glove that doesn't look like your hand. Or.. [Trails off]
Luke Burbank It may already be way too late because this cat has just absolutely gone to town on my hands. [Laughs] I'm basically hiding out as we do this show. I did get her a battery powered toy, though, that is currently going in the other room. Like it's just one of those things-
Elena Passarello Oh I love those! [Laughs]
Luke Burbank That kind of looks like just whips a feather around in a randomized pattern.
Elena Passarello Do you remember? Like the first year I was at library, you all got me a gigantic taco. It looked like a gigantic taco mat and the cat rolls around on it. I highly recommend. Then you can fold it up like a taco. So the cat looks like it's one of the toppings in the taco shell. Ten out of ten would recommend.
Luke Burbank I've just got to keep figuring out ways to keep this cat distracted so she's not just completely eviscerating me. Like right now, this toy that's going in the other room has three AA batteries in it that I stole out of the remote. So, depending on how much juice is in those batteries, that's how much time I have before she comes over and starts meowing outside the store. It's like Chekhov's cat toy. It's about to go off by the third act, I promise you.
[Interlude]
Luke Burbank This is week 20 of the Best News podcast. Can you believe it? We made it 20 episodes.
Elena Passarello Oh, my gosh.
Luke Burbank Speaking of the podcast, what's going on in the wider world? What are you seeing that's good out there, Elena?
Elena Passarello Oh, my gosh. Okay. I was really excited to talk to you about this one because more than the news story, I just want to hear your connection to this. Because -
Luke Burbank Alright.
Elena Passarello We are about the same age. I grew up in Georgia. You grew up in Seattle? Partly.
Luke Burbank Yes.
Elena Passarello You were there when all of the other little teen kids were thinking that Seattle was like the coolest place in the whole wide world.
Luke Burbank It was probably - The nineties in Seattle was the only time in my life where I was actually at what was sort of the cultural epicenter of something. And like everybody knew it, like when that movie "Singles" came out.
Elena Passarello Oh, yeah.
Luke Burbank Like, I was living in the neighborhoods where they were filming those scenes, and I was, you know, when I could sneak in, I was going to some of those venues that, you know, the Off Ramp and places like that. So I didn't realize it at the time, but it was by far and away the coolest I would ever be was 14 year old me during the grunge movement in Seattle.
Elena Passarello Okay. And then what was your Pearl Jam? Did you were you team Pearl Jam?
Luke Burbank Oh, I would have died for Pearl Jam. I mean, I actually have to say, like, you know, Nirvana is a seminal band and really, I think arguably changed the landscape of rock music in this country. But I actually liked Pearl Jam more at the time, so I was totally obsessed with Pearl Jam.
Elena Passarello Okay, my friend, this story is for you. You know who Matt Cameron is, then?
Luke Burbank Sure. Drummer for Pearl.
Elena Passarello Jam, original drummer for Soundgarden. He was actually in a band called Skin Yard that David loves because David likes everyone's early stuff.
Luke Burbank Yeah, there were some unfortunate the grunge movement-
Elena Passarello Skin Yard. [Laughs].
Luke Burbank I mean, Grunt Truck that was a band. David's probably into I'm asking about Grunt Truck later.
Elena Passarello Yeah. So Matt Cameron has like never missed a show. He's been Pearl Jam's drummer since 1998. And I guess Pearl Jam has become like this, like road band touring band. They have these die hard fans. They've kind of had a great long career off of the radio in a way that's really respectable, and he's been there the whole way until this past week when he got COVID and, you know, Pearl Jam had a little bit of a jam on its hands because they have shows booked night after night after night after night. So no drummer, but they're so cool. They came up with these amazing solutions, like in Fresno on May 16th, Dave Crewson, who was the original Pearl Jam drummer, the session drummer for Ten, the only Pearl Jam album I know. He came back and played their first show with them since 1991.
Luke Burbank That's amazing.
Elena Passarello Yeah. So he was a sub one time. They have a touring musician named Josh Klinghoffer, this longtime friend of the band who is a music teacher. He subbed in.
Luke Burbank Animal from the Muppets.
Elena Passarello Yeah, that's right. Animal from the Muppets. That monkey from all the horror movies? No. The best one though. 18 year old Kai Neukermans from Mill Valley, California. He saw them play with one of the substitutes in Los Angeles, and then he remembered that he had met, he probably didn't forget, that he had met Eddie Vedder's daughter at a festival like three years ago, texted her and said, "Hey, remind your dad that I can play drums".
Luke Burbank So this guy, this guy reached out, this high schooler, reached out to Eddie Vedder's daughter, who he knew, to try to get word to Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam that he would be happy to show up and play drums for them if they needed someone still.
Elena Passarello Yeah, funny. Funny. Right. But it worked. Because I guess Eddie Vedder had seen his band Alive, the Alive, which of course, seems like a Pearl Jam reference, even though it's not.
Luke Burbank Right. I mean, the "Jeremy spoke in class today" would be the only more on the nose.
Elena Passarello Or if your band was just called the [noises]. Right. that would be a real a real reference player.
Luke Burbank Is that your Kurt Cobain impression?
Elena Passarello [Laughs] This is my Bikini Kill. That's my Kathleen Hanna.
Luke Burbank We're hitting all of the all the nineties bands coming out of that part of the world.
Elena Passarello But anyway, now that I know that you're a Pearl Jam fan and I know you love feel good stories, you've got to be like the other 11 million people in the past 48 hours who have watched this YouTube clip of this 18 year old kid getting introduced by Eddie Vedder and then wrecking shop with the band on the song, "Mind Your Manners". You can see the whole band come alive. This kid crushes it and now he's going to go graduate high school like next month or something.
Luke Burbank Oh my god, I feel like if I were in that spot, the nerves would render my arms like spaghetti noodles. I mean, more than they already are, which is pretty noodly.
Elena Passarello That might be a cool sound though. Kind of like a little behind the beat, Charlie Watts kind of a thing.
Luke Burbank I guess. But I just feel like to be in that arena. You know, with all of those screaming people, and then to be trying to do something physically; that's incredible that this that this young person was able to pull that off. The the best news that I saw this week is out of Minnesota, where the Minnesota Department of Corrections has announced that they are going to open a tattoo parlor at a prison at the Stillwater Prison, and they're actually going to hire, like the state of Minnesota is going to hire a tattoo supervisor to come work at this tattoo parlor in this prison. And it may sound a little bit unorthodox, but they've been dealing with a problem in the Minnesota state prisons of rampant hepatitis C infections. And treating hepatitis C cost between $20,000 and $70,000 per person that you're treating. And, of course, the inmates in the Minnesota prison system deserve health care as much as anybody else. And so they were- it was really, really becoming a very expensive thing to try to treat. And a lot of the infections they were tracing back to dirty tattoo needles. So, you know, people giving each other sort of jailhouse-
Elena Passarello Sort of DIY.
Luke Burbank Kind of DIY stuff, which by the way, is also very popular outside of the prison system. I don't know if you know anyone under the age of 25, this is going to be the oldest thing I've ever said, but I've got cousins who are younger. I've got friends of like my daughter. And I am surprised at how many stick and poke tattoos are out there, how many of these kind of, you know, let's just say not completely official tattoos people are getting. But anyway, of course, prison culture is heavily based sometimes around tattoos. And so a lot of people were doing these prison tattoos and then unfortunately, getting hepatitis C from it. So this is going to address that because they'll be able to get a hygienic, safe tattoo. They can also get tattoos removed sometimes associated with, you know, prison life would be a tattoo representing some sort of allegiance that maybe later on wouldn't be something that would help you outside, like when you're going to apply for a job. So this tattoo parlor is going to offer both tattoos and also the removal of tattoos. And they're going to train people in how to do tattoos like legit.
Elena Passarello Oh, see, that's great, too. Like, any time there's, like, a life skill attached, it makes so much more sense to me.
Luke Burbank Totally. And the theory is that, you know, if you're somebody who's coming out of out of being incarcerated and you're trying to go get a job, there will be certain industries and certain environments that may be more or less accepting of the fact that you were a person who was previously incarcerated. And the theory goes and, you know, I wouldn't say I'm not like a, you know, Hell's Angel over here, but I do have a significant number of tattoos. Probably for a public radio host. I probably am like, you know, that's a low bar.
Elena Passarello You're like the Hunter S. Thompson of public radio.
Luke Burbank Let's not get carried away. But I mean, I've gotten a number of tattoos and I'm assuming many of the people that I have that I've been getting tattoos from and hanging out with in those environments could have done a little time somewhere. Like the thought really is that that industry is a very welcoming community. And that it really is too. For our listeners who are hearing this, who are really into tattoos and tattoo culture, it is an extremely welcoming kind of inclusive environment actually.
Elena Passarello Yeah totally.
Luke Burbank And so they're thinking that it could also be a good skill to have because you might be able to get a job in a tattoo shop where you might have a more difficult time in a different industry based on your history. So. And also somebody, of course, because it's 2022, somebody got mad about this and they said, like, "Why aren't we- why aren't we offering, you know, job training for dry walling or plumbing or electrical work?"
Elena Passarello We could do that, too.
Luke Burbank Yeah, we can do all of those things. It's not either or. But also if if I had an option in any of those, I'm going tattooing.
Elena Passarello Oh really?
Luke Burbank More than drywall. Have you ever tried to hang drywall?
Elena Passarello No.
Luke Burbank I'm just saying. Of the possible vo-tech things being offered in the prison, if tattoo artistry is one of them, that's where I'm going to hang out.
Elena Passarello Yeah!
Luke Burbank So folks, you know, getting a life skill for use outside of incarceration and also, you know, getting a more safe and healthy environment to get their tattoos. I think that's some pretty good news this week.
[Interlude]
Luke Burbank I've got more good news for you! Coming up on the radio show, we are going to be talking to New Yorker writer Kathryn Schulz. She's got this really incredible- I feel like we've been saying that about a lot of books lately on the show. We've been really, really getting some just incredible books to get to read and interview folks about. But I will say this book, Lost and Found by Kathryn Schulz is pretty amazing.
Elena Passarello So good.
Luke Burbank She talks about losing her father, but then at the same time finding the love of her life and how life can kind of be like that sometimes. Then we're going to talk to Keenan Lowe. He was a big football star here in Oregon at the University of Oregon. And then he decided to move back to the Portland area to coach a high school football team. He left an NFL career, as a coach to come back here to Parkrose High because he was dealing with some trauma in his own life. And as part of his time at Parkrose High, he turned the football team around and he also managed to disarm a student who brought a gun to school with a hug. It's a pretty incredible story. And then we will have music from John Craigie, who has been on the show before. He's just an absolute delight.
Elena Passarello Yeah, he's a staff favorite.
Luke Burbank He is. Sure is. He's got to be the funniest musician that we know and also the most musical funny person that we know.
Elena Passarello Yes.
Luke Burbank He somehow stands astride these two worlds. And he's got a new album out called Mermaid Salt that you're going to want to hear a song off of on the show that drops this Friday on the Internet and then this weekend on a public radio station near you.
[Outro Music] Best News!
Luke Burbank All right. Thanks to our team, who makes the best news podcast possible. Laura Hadden is our executive producer, our producer and editor is Melanie Sevcenko and our assistant editor is Trey Hester. Special thanks to our intern Jonas Meyers. Molly Pettit is our technical director and mixer. Our theme music is composed by A. Walker Spring. And thanks to all of you, our listeners. Hey, send us an email. Maybe you have some cat tips. I'm all ears. Also, I think the cat's ears have mites. I'm not sure. Anyway, it's Best News at livewireradio.org. Hit me up, please. All right. We'll see you very soon. In the meantime, head on out there and have the absolute best week.
