Best News
Luke and Elena discuss the Kate Bush resurgence, a missing dachshund that made its way into Hillary Swank's lap, and sexy Swedish trash cans.
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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 actually good in the news. I'm Luke Burbank. Right over there is my friend Elena Passarello. Elena, welcome to Week 22 of the Best News podcast.
Elena Passarello 22 in 2022!
Luke Burbank I feel like this, I don't know if this podcast is working for the listeners, but I feel like it's working for me. On Sunday, our intern Jonas sends out this list of good news stories for us to peruse. Sometimes we've got our own that we bring to the table. Sometimes we rely on the list. And I swear, by the time I'm done reading through it, I do feel slightly better about the world.
Elena Passarello Yeah, it's a nice way to end the week with just like a list of links to stories that are-
Luke Burbank The things that are not sad in the world.
Elena Passarello Right, they're constructive, they're funny. They give you a little bit of hope sometimes. They remind you that people can be super amazing.
Luke Burbank Mmhmm.
Elena Passarello And animals.
Luke Burbank And they also remind you that people can email in to our show. They've been doing it. They've been using the email bestnews@livewireradio.org. People like Mace here in Portland. Now remember Elaina on the show recently, I was talking about that thing called the Xerxes Society?
Elena Passarello Yes! Near Pizza Schmizza!
Luke Burbank That's right! It's behind a pizza place here in Portland is right by my apartment, and they advocate for bees and butterflies and other invertebrates. And they we were talking about them on the show because they were part of this very successful lawsuit to have bees in California categorized as fish, or at least protected under the law in California that protects things like fish. And so, I mean, I was talking about this place and Mace was very excited because this is where Mace actually works! First, Mace says, "I'm a regular Portland based listener to the Best News show, going all the way back to show one.".
Elena Passarello Whoa.
Luke Burbank So, gosh, it just seems like a lifetime ago.
Elena Passarello I know. [Laughs]
Luke Burbank 21 weeks ago, we-
Elena Passarello March.
Luke Burbank - started. "I work for the Xerxes Society and lead our agricultural pollinator conservation work. In the pre-COVID days, I would regularly commute from my house. I would park my bike next to Pizza Schmizza, and I would walk through that mysterious door behind the pizza shop and climb the stairs to my office where I would spend my days helping my team, help thousands of people create thousands of acres of pollinator habitat all across the U.S. Our work has led to over one and a half million acres of bee monarch, butterfly and pollinator habitat across the country. Not too shabby for a small 50 year old conservation outfit above a pizza shop."
Elena Passarello So cool!
Luke Burbank Way to go Mace and their team. That is awesome. Best wishes to you both and thanks for bringing me good news each week.
Elena Passarello Thanks, Mace!
Luke Burbank Do you remember Elaina, what something called the Pajaggle?
Elena Passarello Yeah, that was my Xerxes. It was like there's like a shopping center in Corvallis that has an office devoted to something called Pajaggle. And somebody wrote in about it?
Luke Burbank Ken, who is an OSU grad-.
Elena Passarello Go beaves!
Luke Burbank So this is apropos to the town where you are recording from. "Elena, I took the perilous task to determine what pajaggle was." Ken is out there just doing some shoe leather investigating on behalf of the Best News podcast.
Elena Passarello Bless his heart.
Luke Burbank Yeah said, "it is a company that makes board games. They describe their game as follows: 'It's a curiously addictive new game, brain teaser in puzzle all rolled into one. It's the brain tingling union of a perplexing puzzle and an electrifying game. The twist is it's a puzzle where the players assemble the pajaggle as fast as they can.'"
Elena Passarello I thought it was like a singing telegram that came in your pajamas, like, "Oh, I gave Luke a pajaggle for his birthday". There's no-
Luke Burbank Or like a Donovan song, right? He has a song called Barabas Jangle, which is. Okay, what if somebody what if the Pajama Telegram company showed up and sang Baraba Jangle? So it was like a-
Elena Passarello Or Hurdy gurdy, man.
Luke Burbank It's a game, right? It's a game company down there in Corvallis that Ken was doing somebody. Now, Ken said "You should stop by their office. I'd love to hear more about their game." Ken, you already know where it is. I would just say, don't delay joy. You're still up in there.
Elena Passarello Also, no pizza there. So, as far as I know. So, I mean, the incentive is diminished.
Luke Burbank Yeah. Whereas I'm at the Xerxes Society day and night. Just for the proximity to the schmizza.
[Music Plays]
Luke Burbank All right. What's going on out there in the wider world, Elena? And what are you seeing that's good?
Elena Passarello All right, I have a one sentence. One, and then I'm my real one. My one sentence one is it's such incredible news that all of the children of the world today are getting into Kate Bush like-
Luke Burbank I am so glad they brought this up. This is totally not on the script!
Elena Passarello Nope!
Luke Burbank But I have been having the same thought!
Elena Passarello Like, I guess something happens in the new Stranger Things, "Running up that Hill" is playing. It's an amazing song. It's Big Boy from Outkast's favorite song, bet you didn't know that.
Luke Burbank I didn't.
Elena Passarello And didn't I just. I hope that the the children of the world just keep listening and they get into the "Red Shoes". They get into the "Dreamin'", and they go a little "Cloud Busting". They go a little "Wuthering Heights". They watch her Christmas special from 1979, which, if you haven't, it is it's a you don't have to watch it during Christmas and you probably shouldn't. So.
Luke Burbank I love that you noticed this because. Okay, so I look at a lot of TikTok, which is totally normal for a 46 year old person. You know, works in public radio, but like everyone is using "Running Up that Hill" as the soundtrack to TikTok stuff because of its appearance in Stranger Things.
Elena Passarello It charted, you know, that song.
Luke Burbank That's amazing!
Elena Passarello I don't think made it into the top 30 in 1985, and now she has her first U.S. top ten hit because the stars aligned. I mean, it's such a great song, too.
Luke Burbank It really is.
Elena Passarello And it's it holds up, beyond holds up. It's like I saw this meme, you know, I have Marty McFly at the end of Back to the Future plays Chuck Berry, and then the whole dance is like, what? And he's like, I know this. This isn't going to work for you, but your kids are going to love it. I saw a meme where they took those two that line, and they put Kate Bush's head on Marty McFly body.
Luke Burbank That is so genius. Okay. Well, now you've used up most of the time allotted for the best news, but I think that honestly takes the cake. So, yeah, good luck following that up. What is your actual best news topic?
Elena Passarello Well, how about a dachshund who was running up that hill?
Luke Burbank Okay. I mean.
Elena Passarello So a little dachshund named Blue Escapes in Albany, New York, from its owner, Chelsea Blackwell. Chelsea is running up that hill, running up that road, looking for that dachshund. And then you can't find it and then sees a bunch of police cars and what looks like a news crew by the Greyhound station. And she's like, Oh, I don't know if Blue would be a reason why this was happening, but she pulls over and it turns out it's not a news crew. It's a movie crew. There's a movie crew filming something there, and she's like, I don't know. Did you guys happen to see a little dachshund named Blue? And they were like, Hold on a second. Somebody makes a call, somebody makes a call. A car drives up that road, drives up that hill. And then she looks in the passenger side and there is Blue sitting on the lap of Hilary Swank.
Luke Burbank What?! Million Dollar Baby herself?!
Elena Passarello That's right. The Oscar winning actress and known dog rescuer and puppy pup enthusiast. She actually has a nonprofit organization that paired foster dogs with kids at this really cool summer camp for underserved kids. So she got her little doggie back Blue and she got to meet Hilary Swank and get a picture in the process, so all's well that ends well.
Luke Burbank That's incredible. I wonder, was it like was Hilary Swank in the middle of like a dramatic scene and then like the docks and just wanders onto the set and then she's like, cut. And then she's like, picks up the dog? Or did someone on the crew find the dog and go, you know, who would love to take care of this dog? Swank. She's big with the animal rescue. I wonder how that dog ended up on the lap of one Hilary Swank.
Elena Passarello Well, if I only could, I'd make a deal with God and learn the ins and outs of that story.
Luke Burbank Oh, my God. Is that another Kate Bush reference?
Elena Passarello Yeah! It's the- [Laughs]
Luke Burbank We've now got- we've we've gone further than I can journey with you on the Kate Bush lyrics. But what's that from?
Elena Passarello It's from Running Up That Hill! If I only could, I'd make a deal with God, and I'd get him to swap our places!
Luke Burbank Next time we have Live Wire karaoke night, which I know it's been like six years since the first and only live where karaoke night. You have to do that song.
Elena Passarello Oh yeah.
Luke Burbank That was a really good Kate Bush.
Elena Passarello We want to hear about the deal making. I practice a lot.
Luke Burbank I also want to hear your Bjork at some point because that's also-.
Elena Passarello It's similar! [Laughs]
Luke Burbank Hey, speaking of this is a stretch for a transition. But speaking of things going on over in Scandinavian countries, Iceland doesn't really count as Scandinavian.
Elena Passarello They were colonized by one. Does that count?
Luke Burbank I was trying to make the jump from Bjork to Sweden. Okay. Just, you know, go with me here. Yeah. The best news that I saw this week is in Malmo, Sweden, where they're trying to get people to be a little better about throwing their garbage in the garbage cans in public. And so they came up with an idea which was to create an audio message that would play when you throw garbage into these garbage cans. And I actually have tape of this, Elena. It's basically like sexy. It's like a sexy garbage can it. It's got a recorded voice.
Elena Passarello A Halloween costume waiting to happen.
Luke Burbank Definitely. In Malmo, Sweden, pedestrians that drop trash into one of these two bins in this particular neighborhood by this bridge are rewarded with what the what CNN calls extremely positive feedback from a sultry female voice who offers a range of responses. So, of course, somebody went out to this garbage can and just videotaped it on their phone. So this is like real tape, I'm not kidding, of this sexy garbage can.
Elena Passarello Do we need to do a NSFW?
Luke Burbank You know, I think it's it's it's it just falls in the category of, I guess you would say, entendre. It's nothing actually dirty, but it's, you know, it's sort of things that we associate- yeah, it's innuendo. Exactly. However you say that in Swedish and I should know I took Swedish in college, but I did not pay attention because on day one, the professor said, Just so you know, everyone in Sweden speaks English, which really undercut my motivation to master Swedish. But anyway, this is actual-
Swedish Trash Can [Speaking]
Luke Burbank So by the way, this person is just putting garbage in and then like letting the recording out and then putting more garbage in. So you're just going to hear like a little kind of sort of series of these responses.
Swedish Trash Can [Speaking]
Luke Burbank So for folks that don't speak Swedish, it's saying the garbage can says, "Oh, right there. Yes. Come back soon and do that again. Mm hmm. A bit more to the left next time". [Laughs]
Elena Passarello What?! That would, honestly, I would be more hesitant to throw stuff away if it was going to make that noise near me.
Luke Burbank And, you know, I hadn't thought of it that way. I mean, I put this up as my best news, but you're kind of right. Like in the SeaTac Airport, I think it is. They have an art installation that I think is a cool idea. But when you go up to this water fountain and try to use it, the water fountain works. It's functional, but it broadcasts on speakers the sound of water rushing really loudly through the area. And so anyone who's walking through there like again, it's kind of an interesting trick, but it stops you like if you're just like going to your flight and someone trying to get a drink of water and you hear this like rushing river sound, you stop and you go, Huh? Yeah. And I noted this because I never use that water fountain because I have not tried to be part of that art in that moment.
Elena Passarello I think I would just want less erotic praise, like, "Good job guy!" You know, just like a nice, like, like, "hey, you did it!" You know, kind of more of a plucky PG.
Luke Burbank Uh huh.
Elena Passarello But, hey, man, I don't want to yuck anybody's yums.
Luke Burbank These sentences are part of a campaign intended to get more people to talk about the dirtiest thing there is: littering. And that's according to this person quoted in the local newspaper there in Sweden. So I guess whatever is working over there is getting people to throw. And by the way, I watched I tell you, I watched this video, this garbage can is clearly heavily used. I'm saying like it's like it is you can just tell by the sort of just like the scuff marks and things that like people are utilizing this garbage cans. So I don't know if it's because of the sexy recordings or because of whatever it is, but something's working. It looks spotless over there. What I could see in the video, there was no trash anywhere.
Elena Passarello Hey, man, whatever rolls your meatball, you know what I'm saying?
Luke Burbank I try to figure out to make a lingonberry joke, because that's also a Swedish kind of food?
Elena Passarello Some kind of ABBA reference.
Luke Burbank Listen, if you're in Sweden right now and you want to email us and give us the word on actual Swedish culture, we welcome those emails-
Elena Passarello We need it.
Luke Burbank At Bestnews@livewireradio.org. We do.
Luke Burbank All right. That's going to do it for this week's show. Before we get out of here, though. A preview of the radio program coming up and the podcast. This week we're celebrating Father's Day, sharing some incredible conversations that we had with guests regarding their dads. We're going to talk to Kirsten Johnson. She's a filmmaker who made this documentary, Dick Johnson Is Dead about her father and his journey with dementia. It's a really, really fascinating film. Chris Garcia is going to swing by as a comedian, talk about his kind of complicated relationship with his Cuban father, and also this podcast that he is put together about it called Scattered. Then Jeff Tweedy from Wilco will show up and play us a song. Do you know if you can see behind me, Elena? I've got a sound file that's on the wall. That is this the wave file of the interview with Jeff Tweedy. Not to-.
Luke Burbank That was a gift, right? Somebody knows you well enough to know that that is like the ultimate thing that you like to hang is the the vocal evidence of you speaking with Jeff Tweedy.
Luke Burbank Yes.
Elena Passarello That's so cool.
Luke Burbank That person was not wrong. And and I'll just tell you that it's the only interview you'll hear on Live Wire that is also represented as a wavefile on my wall here in the studio. So don't miss that that's coming out on Friday in the podcast feed and then on a public radio station somewhere near you this weekend.
Best News! [Music]
Luke Burbank All right. Thank you so much to our team who makes this show possible each week! Of course, Laura Hadden, our executive producer, our producer and editors, Melanie Sevcenko and our assistant editor is Trey Hester. Special thanks to our intern Jonas Meyers. Also, Molly Pettit is our technical director and mixer. Our theme music is composed by A. Walker Spring. And of course, thanks to all of you, our listeners. We will see you very soon. In the meantime, head on out there and have the absolute best week.
