Best News
Luke and Elena discuss Tony Passarello's Live Wire fandom, the first female Mariachi band in Denver Colorado, and rescuing a busload of stranded Torontonians.
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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 good in the news. I'm Luke Burbank. Right over there is my friend Elena Passarello. Hi, Elena.
Elena Passarello: Hi. How's it going?
Luke Burbank: It's going pretty well. Still very warm this week in the Northwest, I guess is a bonus. I should just be happy about it. But I was kind of. I started to mentally make the transition to fall.
Elena Passarello: Oh, yeah.
Luke Burbank: I feel like, I can't miss the summer if it won't go away.
Elena Passarello: Oh, well, the light is fall light. It's just a little warmer. Yeah, it's more like a Georgia fall than a Portland fall, I guess.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, it is. It's it's a really nice time of year out here. This is week 25 of The Best News podcast. You know, we do have an email account which we paid a lot of money for. Most of the budget for the show is this email account Best News at Live Wire Radio dot org. And yet it's still going unused. We're still waiting to get some emails now that we're back to doing this every week. But I hear that your dad, Tony P, has been involved in something in the email space. What is going on?
Elena Passarello: Yeah, he didn't email the Best News. He didn't even email the closest relation he had on the Live Wire payroll, me. He emailed our executive director Heather. I think Heather has been sending out some emails letting everybody know about our upcoming fundraiser.
Luke Burbank: Oh, yeah. Fancy Pants.
Elena Passarello: Fancy Pants. Which Tony P, I'm assuming isn't going to be at because he lives 3000 miles away, but he may have just sent along maybe a donation in absentia. Which is like. All right, good on you Tony P.
Luke Burbank: What a mensch.
Elena Passarello: We got to get him to Fancy Pants because I bet he owns some fancy pants. He is my father after all.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, right. That apple, that sequin didn't fall far from the tree.
Elena Passarello: That's right.
Luke Burbank: So what is going on?
Elena Passarello: He wrote, I guess along with maybe his donation. Thank you, daddy. He wrote to Heather, "Best Wishes for a successful Fancy Pants fundraising campaign. Our family is appreciative for all your staff's effort to keep Live Wire on air, and we recognize that our best chance to keep Elena employed is to ensure that this broadcast gig is sustainable." Signed Tony Passarello really grateful parent and then he put his phone number on.
Luke Burbank: That is so adorable. I mean, the business model is an interesting one. Your dad donating to Live Wire so that you will still have a job at Live Wire.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, I kind of want to be like, Hey, Dad, you could cut out the middleman. And then the subject line of the email is Keep Elena Employed Foundation.
Luke Burbank: Now, see, this is the thing. And that's just, I think, how parents are. You know, I have a 28 year old daughter. She has a great job. But of course, I walk around thinking, well, what happens if the company goes out of -- you know, you worry about your kids? But you have like nine jobs. You're an actual college professor. You're an actual professional writer. You're an actual Live Wire announcer. Like, you have a lot going on.
Elena Passarello: I wonder if he thinks this job is the job that I would be the least likely to be fired from. Because all I have to do is laugh at a microphone and read good news. So maybe he thinks it's the surest shot.
Luke Burbank: Maybe so. But you know, this is very nice of him. My parents don't even know if Live Wire is on the radio or not. You think I'm exaggerating? My mom will sometimes, she'll just message me through the strangest...Like I don't ever go on Facebook. She'll like, Facebook message me. What time? Is Live Wire still on? I'm like, Mom, just Google it, please. Yeah, it's it's also it's on in their hometown at noon on Saturdays. But speaking of, if I can, just give a plug to our -- I know your dad's not going to be able to make it -- but if people want to come to Fancy Pants, this is our big gala that we do each year. But it's not just a fundraising thing. We're actually going to do some interviews and put a little stage show on. It's going to be at the Portland Center Stage Armory on October the fourth. And it is a really, really fun night. And again, it supports Live Wire and it's entertaining. And we hope some folks will stop by. And what we'll do is we'll get one of those cutouts of your dad like and we'll just pose him somewhere in the room.
Elena Passarello: I am 1,000% sure it would not be the first time that a cardboard cut out of him has been made.
Luke Burbank: Let's take a look at what's good out there in the wider world outside of our immediate families. Elena, what is the best news that you saw this week?
Elena Passarello: I love this story. So I'm sure you know about the 300 year old Mexican musical practice known as mariachi, right?
Luke Burbank: I absolutely do.
Elena Passarello: And I didn't really put two and two together on this. But now that I think about it, it's usually a male dominated musical form.
Luke Burbank: You know, good point. I've hired a mariachi band when I lived in Los Angeles. And I mean, that's just one example. But yes, it was definitely a bunch of dudes.
Elena Passarello: And they wear like usually a very spangly suits with a big round hat and a tie. And then, you know, they play lots of different instruments. They're like a tight ensemble. But yeah, almost always, apparently male band. Well, in Denver, Colorado, there is a family that has a long tradition playing mariachi in the area. The Liñan family, Pam Liñan's father, maybe brought the first mariachi group to Denver in the 1970s to play different restaurants and cultural festivals. And she has gone on to be a music teacher in the public schools, and she teaches mariachi practices. Her sister, Jackie, is also involved, and they were trained in mariachi and ballet folklorico, which is this cool kind of coed thing that people do at cultural festivals that I love to go to ballet folklorico shows. Well, when Pam retired, she decided that she was going to take her mariachi expertize to the next level, and she has formed an all female mariachi ensemble.
Luke Burbank: Nice.
Elena Passarello: It's called Mariachi Alma del Folklore. It's multi-generational. Pam is a retiree. Some of her former students over the course of several generations have joined up. They adjust the keys and the arrangements to suit anatomically female voices. And they've even let one guy a 14 year old named Yari into the band. But apparently he takes a lot of teasing. But you should see the photos of this band. They're like, they're not wearing the suits. They're wearing the ballet folklorico, the beautiful ribboned headdresses, white blouses. And they're playing their instruments, their brass instruments, their bowed string instruments, and they're strum stringed instruments. They sound great. And in this great news report that I read, they quote Pam saying, People need to know that women can do this. Women have a passion for music, even though this has been male dominated. I know that people are like, Hmm, let's see what they sound like when they first hear them. But Pam says, I think we do pretty well. Which is just so awesome.
Luke Burbank: That is so awesome. I've weirdly been in Denver a lot the last few months, just passing through for work and I need to go check out what they're doing. Speaking of all my travel, remember last week I was in Tennessee? I was out at a place called Standing Stone State Park, where they play something called the Rolly Hole National Marbles Championship.
Elena Passarello: Of course you were.
Luke Burbank: And they have a marble yard there, which when I heard marble yard, I always thought, like, that's a place where they, you know, go and they get marble, like, you know, it's like a mine or something.
Elena Passarello: Or like a quarry.
Luke Burbank: Like a quarry. But no, if you say marble -- if you're in Clay County or Overton County, Tennessee, let me tell you, Elena, and you say, oh, we're up over there at Dumas Walker's Marble Yard. That is like this dirt patch with this pond mud in it where guys are -- and women as well -- it's not exclusively men. But people are flicking marbles and playing this regional game called Rolly Hole, which has this like really interesting back story. And anyway, I was out in Tennessee and I would just mention that if you and I were hanging out there Elena, it would have been so, so cringey for you because the amount of y'all and folk that I started to integrate into my... Because I was just, I mean, I was the only northerner that I could see for miles. And after about four days, I was like, Are y'all folks going to be down there? You know? Like, I was going real ham on the accent, which for somebody like you, you actually grew up in the South. I'm sure it was terrible.
Elena Passarello: Oh, I don't know. I turn it up to when I get at places like that, like you can't help it.
Luke Burbank: At least you come by it honestly, though. I'm from Seattle. Like it's a complete and total affectation. That's why this story about a Tennessee bus driver jumped out at me this week, Elena, for my Best News contribution. It's a guy named Bill Adams. He drives tour busses, and so he was in the market for a new tour bus and he saw one for sale in Vermont. And so I guess it was, you know, reasonably priced is like a brand new tour bus apparently. So he goes out to Vermont to get his new tour bus for his tour bus operation. And he's driving it back and he's passing through Ohio. He's on his way to Tennessee. And on the side of the road, what does he see? A broken down tour bus with Canadian plates on it.
Elena Passarello: Oh, I hope it was Neil Young.
Luke Burbank: Yes, it was Neil Young, Rick Moranis and Drake.
Elena Passarello: Yes.
Luke Burbank: It was a real who's who from the north. And Mike Myers was following closely behind the.
Elena Passarello: Ghost of Glenn Gould, was hovering overtop.
Luke Burbank: Wow, good pull. It was 50 Canadian travelers. They were from Toronto. And the thing was, it was very, very hot this day. And some of these folks were, you know, a little bit more senior. And the bus's, air conditioning was also broken as the bus had broken down. And these folks were getting pretty worried, actually, because they were in the middle of nowhere and it was really, really hot. And he pulls his bus over and he says, you know what? Let's help these folks out. So they load these Canadian tourists onto his bus, his brand new bus he got from Vermont. And he said, okay, where can we take you? And they said, Well, we're actually going to Nashville because we're going to the Grand Ole Opry tonight. And Bill Adams was like, you know what? I don't live that far from Nashville. All right. So he takes them to the Grand Ole Opry and they make their show at the Grand Ole Opry. He says the motorcoach industry, it's almost like a brotherhood of being helpful, doing the right thing.
Elena Passarello: Aw the motorcoach industry.
Luke Burbank: Who knew the motorcoach industry had a code that they live by?
Elena Passarello: A motorcoach man got to have a motorcoach code or a motor code, if you will.
Luke Burbank: Yes, and I will. He said they had a lot of questions for him as he was driving them to Nashville. Such as where do we buy cowboy boots?
Elena Passarello: Mm hmm.
Luke Burbank: These were these Torontonians. These folks from Toronto were -- probably that's not what they're called. We have so many Canadians on our staff, I'm sure somebody....
Elena Passarello: Yeah, what do you call Torontolas?
Luke Burbank: I bet it's definitely not that. He'll find out. Someone will throw it in the comments. But anyway. And so the the other good news is that the feller with the original tour bus -- see I just said feller there, just saying feller-- he was able to fix the bus and come and pick them up. And Torontonian, by the way, is what our executive producer Laura Hadden says. She says that seems wrong. She had to Google it. But Melanie Sevcenko, a fellow Canuck who works on the show, says that that is actually right. So Torontonians. Isn't that fun to say?
Elena Passarello: Torontonian
Luke Burbank: Very regal. Anyway, the Canadian tour group got to have their fun weekend in Nashville and go to the Opry and go on a steamboat and do all their stuff. Thanks to Bill Adams and his.. I mean, what are the chances that you're broken down with a motorcoach and there's an empty motorcoach going by?
Elena Passarello: I'm just glad that it could house all 50 displaced Torontonians because what if Bill Adams had just bought a tour bus that only seats like 48 people? And he had to leave two people at the side of the road.
Luke Burbank: Oh, God, that would be just brutal. Sorry, Janet and Rodney.
Elena Passarello: Glenn Gould.
Luke Burbank: Sorry, Glenn Gould.
Luke Burbank: Before we get out of here, a little preview of the radio show that's coming out this weekend. That show is going to have Nikki Sixx from Motley Crue talking to us about growing up in Idaho, actually, of all places, and then making his way to L.A. and becoming a big rock and roll star with Motley Crue. We're also going to talk to Todd Haynes, the filmmaker, about this documentary that he made, The Velvet Underground, which talks about The Velvet Underground and how such a kind of avant garde project had such a huge impact on the pop culture. And then we're going to hear some actual music from Melanie Charles. Her album is Y'all Don't Really Care About Black Women. That episode is going to come out on Friday in this very feed if you're hearing this, Toni Passarello don't worry.
Elena Passarello: Tony P.
Luke Burbank: The radio show slash podcast will be coming your way in this feed and then it'll be on radio stations all over the country this weekend. So please tune in for that one way or the other.
Luke Burbank: Alright. Thank you so much to our awesome team that makes this show possible. Laura Hadden is our executive producer. Our producer and editor is Melanie Sevcenko. Our assistant editor is Trey Hester and our production fellow is Tanvi Kumar. Molly Pettit is our technical director and our mixer and our theme music. Arguably, the best thing about the show, the best thing about the Best News podcast is our theme song, which was composed by A. Walker Spring. Also, thanks to you, our listeners. We're going to be back here next week. In the meantime, head on out there and have the absolute best week.
