October 8, 2025 • 36 mins
We kicked off the program with four news stories and different guests on the stories we think you need to know about!
Life On The Other Planet: Documentary on Boston’s Impact on Rock & Roll. Premieres October 24th 2025, at The Arlington Regent Theater - From the mid 1970's through the 1980's, Boston was at the forefront for producing some of the country's greatest bands and music. Guest: Vincent Straggas - Emmy Winning Filmmaker
How to handle that uncomfortable conversation when you’ve gone out with friends and not ordered as much – but they want to split the bill evenly.
Guest: Betty Lin-Fisher – Consumer News Reporter for USA Today
Survey: 1 in 5 Americans believe real romance is possible with AI chatbots.
Guest: Dr. Jonathan Thorp - relationship expert and the CEO of Quantum Connections, firm helps individuals and organizations find connection in a disconnected world.
Boston Public Library Revamps "Passport" Program
Guest: Jay Willet – WBZ NewsRadio reporter
Life On The Other Planet: Documentary on Boston’s Impact on Rock & Roll. Premieres October 24th 2025, at The Arlington Regent Theater - From the mid 1970's through the 1980's, Boston was at the forefront for producing some of the country's greatest bands and music. Guest: Vincent Straggas - Emmy Winning Filmmaker
How to handle that uncomfortable conversation when you’ve gone out with friends and not ordered as much – but they want to split the bill evenly.
Guest: Betty Lin-Fisher – Consumer News Reporter for USA Today
Survey: 1 in 5 Americans believe real romance is possible with AI chatbots.
Guest: Dr. Jonathan Thorp - relationship expert and the CEO of Quantum Connections, firm helps individuals and organizations find connection in a disconnected world.
Boston Public Library Revamps "Passport" Program
Guest: Jay Willet – WBZ NewsRadio reporter
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's nice eyes with Dan Ray. I'm going easy Boston's
news radio.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Well, the good thing about getting a really nasty cold
at this time of year is maybe I'll be able
to get through the winter. WHOA, I've gotten hit with something.
I hope none of you have had anything like this.
But the last couple of days have been stressful, I
mean really stressful. Just my whole body seems to be aching.
(00:30):
And I've finally got some medication, so I think I'm
going to be okay. But I would just apologize and
ask any of you who think I sound quite differently tonight,
you're correct, I do. I can hear it in my head,
simple as that. My name is Dan Ray. I'm the
host of Night's Side Monday through Friday night right here
on WBZ ten thirty Am in Boston, a legendary, legendary
(00:55):
radio station here in Boston, as I think many of
you who grew up with WBZ, the radio station of
Dave Maynard and Carl Dessous and Gary LaPier and Gil
Santo's and just's as. It's a great, great station with
a great history going back to when the first one
(01:15):
of the year in nineteen twenty one. So with all
of that. Just in case you're not you're perhaps weren't
a weir of some of that history. We're going to
talk with four individuals and the first guest, his name
is Vincent Straugis. I hope I've got Vincent's name correctly. Vincent,
If I'm wrong, go ahead and tell me, go right ahead.
That's my pleasure. So we're talking about some music history.
(01:38):
Doesn't quite go back as far as WPZ, but it
takes us back to the mid seventies through the eighties,
Boston at the forefront of producing some of the country's
greatest bands in music. I'm sure you know those bands
off the top of your head, and I'll bet you
if you've just bounce a few a lot of people's
memories are going to be be called to mind.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Absolutely. The film's called Life on the Other Planet, and
it's a tripped from late mid to late seventies to
the mid to late eighties, and it features bands like
The Atlantics, the Stompers, the Real Kids, the Nervous Eaters,
Robin Lane, and the Chartbusters. There's so many to list,
I won't list them all, but those are some of
(02:20):
the big names. The neighborhoods and so on. The only
the only problem with it all was there were so
many bands at that time you couldn't hit them all
in the film.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
So what about Stephen Tyler's band?
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Well, they were they they So this this was more
of a local scene, the local scene that came after
a lot of the groups like Aerosmith and Jay Giles
established this this road. And there wasn't really a Boston sound,
per Sae. I mean Aerosmith, Jay Giles, great rock and
(02:52):
roll bands, but this local sound which kind of came
in on the heels of punk rock in the seventy
four seventy five era and and morphed into like a
new wave sound which was at that time. But you know,
it created its own sound with with groups like, like
I said, Nervous Eaters, the neighborhoods and oh.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Here's the d Let me run this one by you.
This is a band I'm sure you are very well
aware of. Saw them one night at the Channel just
really blew me away.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Girls Night Out there in the film too.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
D D.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Stewart and Girls Night Out fantastic band. And yes it's uh.
And there are a lot of the local bands that
had females in it were the Bristols and the Girls
Night Out and again Robin Lay and the Sharbusters, who
really kind of paved the way for a lot of
women bands back then.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
So you've made a movie, you're the I assume you
you're the producer of the.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Movie, producer director. Yes, So how tough was it?
Speaker 2 (03:52):
How tough was it to make a movie and find
a video of these bands? I mean, in those days,
everything probably was on different type of digital or maybe
it was just on videotape. Maybe he was on film.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
That VHS and I mean, and it was far in
view between because nobody had a camera, nobody had a
phone to be able to tape a concert, and so
there was a lot of footage that was at teamed through.
Harvard had a collection called the Already Freedman Collection. Uh
and Larti was a cameraman back then who went to
(04:27):
different nightclubs and shot a lot of these bands. And
fortunately there's there's collections of them, but they're they're far
and few between, and we have been a bit of
in our phone and a lot of the archival footage
that tells the story of Boston at the time was
was obtained through WGV and S Archives, who was fantastic
working with on the film. So a lot of great
(04:50):
cool stuff. And I want to say that the film
is about the music, but you know, when I was
sitting down to edit this film, one of the hardest
things to do was I did we want to make
it a film where we interviewed an artist and then
saw a clip of their music and then just keep
going like that. When you step back from it all,
(05:11):
the real star of the film is Boston back in
the seventies and eighties, the culture of the time and
things that are long gone from here. And that's that's
what it's about.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
I'll bet you your film had kind of a gritty
feel to it because that was Boston.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
That was Boston. Yeah, yeah, And we have we have
a great local historian who fills in the gaps of
the history of Boston and that talks about talks about
the times and how Boston was was ranked pretty low
as a city back then, and which is surprising because
now it's it's not. It's a fabulous city, always has been,
(05:49):
but it did have a lot of grit back then
that doesn't happen anymore.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Well, you know, you had a lot of crime back
in the late sixties. You had the Strangler, Albert DeSalvo,
you know, Whitey Bulger and his group was n was
running around. Real estate prices in the Back Bay and
Beacon Hill were nothing compared to what they are today.
So yeah, and you had.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
The combat zone, you had you had places that don't
exist anymore. And did you tell a young person about
this stuff? They think you're you know, making it up.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
Well, the Rat Sclar Rat Scar Kadis and Kenmo Square
and girls rather the channel over by by the postal station.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
So yeah, looking forward. Okay, so you're running this on
the sixtieth of October, which is.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
It's actually the twenty fourth of October.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Why is my why does my does my my specs here?
Have you changed? That's okay, I had this.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Okay, No, no, it's it's yeah, it's on the twenty
fourth of October, Okay, And yeah, it's uh it's the
Nervous Eaters are actual playing that event. So they've been
around for forty years. They're coming coming to play the
concert and the film will be shown after that. So
(07:10):
it should be a fun night for everybody. And it's
it's a great time to reminisce and just you know,
for young people to learn a little bit about the
history of Boston music.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
And you are doing this is the Boston Prepare Boston
premiere on Friday night, October twenty correct. I don't know
why not said the sixteenth.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
No, No, there's a screening, but it's it's just it's
a private screening.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Oh okay, we don't okay, So this is this also
at the Regent Theater in Arlington.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
It's at the Arlington Region Theater on October twenty fourth.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yes, correct, that's all we need. That we got this
thing covered. That should be This should be a good
night for you and Vincent Stragus. Thanks very much for
doing stuff like this, frankly, because I think what happens
is there's some great times and people should remember the
great times. You know, Austin has always been there's a
great city, and that was the era of Kevin White
(08:05):
was the mayor in the seventies, in the eighties.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Son he actually makes an appearance in the film. Briefly.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised, all right. Thanks, thank
you so much, Vincent. I enjoyed our conversation.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Thank you very much for having me on. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
You bet you it. Sorry about my voice and my cold.
It's one of these things where I cough and I'm
remote so I can't wave it rob and say yeah,
roll kill my mic so I.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Hear you man, be well, well I'll get well. Thanks.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Vincent Talks. Okay, when we come back, when I talk
with Betty Lynn Fisher. She's a consumer news reporter with
USA Today. I'm going to talk about some uncomfortable conversations
that you might find yourself in and how to extricate
yourself from those uncomfortable conversations. Back on night Side right
after this.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
You're on night Side with Dan Ray. I'm done you easy,
Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
All right, I want to introduce Betty Lynn Fisher. Betty
Lynn Fisher, Welcome to night So. You're a consumer news
reporter for USA Today, as I understand.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
It, correct, Yes, yes, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Very welcome. So I'm not sure if this is the
only circumstance, but well, we're going to talk about how
you deal with an uncomfortable situation or an uncomfortable conversation. Uh.
And the example that I'm giving that I've been given.
Here is you know, you go out with friends, maybe
(09:37):
maybe it's a group of girlfriends, a group of guy friends, whatever,
and you don't order much, maybe you have one glass
of wine. But other people decide, well, this would be
a good opportunity to have dinner and a couple of
a couple of desserts. And when it comes time for
the bill, someone says, well, why don't we just split
(09:57):
it evily? And you're thinking, okay, this bill is going
to be like four hundred dollars and I had one
glass of wine. Four hundred times five divided by five,
that's a very expensive bottle of a very expensive glass
of wine. Explain to you, to us how someone like
yourself would extricate yourself from that situation without causing a
(10:23):
lot of angst and gnashing of teeth amongst your friends.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (10:28):
So I wrote a story as part of my series
called Uncomfortable Conversations about Money, and it was about splitting
the bill. I actually used two examples very similar to
what you explained. One was Alan Klensky and his wife Sandy,
and they were actually still kind of seizing about this
twenty years later. They were explaining something that happened twenty
(10:49):
years ago that they were young at the time. They
went out with two other couples and they didn't note
the other couples very well. But the other couples decided
to order duck. It was the most expensive thing on
the kosher item, and of course, when it came time
to pay the bill, they're like, let's split it three ways,
and you know, the Kolinskis were just not sure what
to do. They didn't want to be awkward, they didn't
want to seem cheap, and so you know, they went
(11:11):
ahead and did it, but they it just left a
bad taste in their mouth. They to this day called
the other couples mister and missus Duck. But their advice is,
they say, you know, you need to you need to
communicate with the people who have invited you, and if
you're on a type budget, you need to don't be
afraid to say it. Too many times. People are, you know,
kind of afraid to say like, oh, you know, that's
(11:33):
that's not something I can afford, or you know, that's
not that's not what I planned for, it's not in
my budget.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Just just to make it reallier. I'm curious, what was
the bill since you wrote about this, what was the bill?
Speaker 5 (11:46):
You know, they actually didn't tell me. They didn't tell
me the amount, and either didn't remember because it was
twenty years earlier. But I have another example, which was
a single woman who went out with another single friend
and a couple and they all ordered, and exactly like
you said before, the other couple ordered a ton of
food to share. The husband ordered its on entree. He
ordered a steak, and the woman was like, you know,
(12:08):
I she didn't really like much of what was being ordered,
but she figured she'd find something to pick at. And
of course, when when the when the bill comes up,
the husband says to the server, let's split it three ways,
and he included him and his wife as one pair.
Oh and the one of two singles as singles, sore
four people three ways, and that came to two hundred
(12:29):
and thirty eight dollars each.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
And the woman said, how.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Much too, fifty eight a piece.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
To fifty eight apiece.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
And okay, I'm doing some quick math here, Okay, I'm
a quick math guy. Two fifty eight will will round
down two fifty two fifty two fifty that's seven point
fifty okay. Yeah, First, first of all, under any circumstances,
the husband and wife, who represented two of the people
at the table, should have picked up fifty percent of
(12:57):
the bill. So if it was seven fifty, they should
have picked that three seventy five. Now we can get
into what they had and all of that, But why
do people do that?
Speaker 5 (13:06):
I mean, yeah, she said, she said, She said that
didn't seem fair at all. I kept my paid my
portion and I've been stewing over it ever since. And
she said, should I have said something? And now she
wishes she had, but they were good friends and she
didn't want to rock the boat.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Are they still good friends?
Speaker 6 (13:21):
I who knows?
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Right?
Speaker 5 (13:24):
So I talked. I talked to Elaine Swan, who is
an etiquette coach and founder of the Swan School of Protocol,
and she said, you know, you've got to embrace the
awkward that really, you know, these these awkward situations just
just turn into something that you do about for twenty years, right,
You're you're still telling that same story and wishing that
(13:45):
you had done something different. And you know, her suggestion
is to do it early. Before you accept the invitation
to go out to eat, look at the menu, see
if it's something you can you can afford and ask
if people be splitting the bill or address it as
many as you sit down the meal, she says, Well,
you know.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Going out to eat is always sort of an adventure,
and sometimes when you're going to a restaurant for the
first time, you just don't know what's going to happen.
And my wife and I went to a restaurant a
couple of weeks ago, and the food was great, but
the place was so packed, I mean, you couldn't hear
yourself think, and there was no carpeting in the restaurant,
(14:30):
you know, people there were a lot of people too,
I mean like a hundred people in a very small restaurant,
and there was a bar that was crowded and everybody's
it just was unpleasant. And the owner, you know, came
over and how'd you like the food? They said, the
food was great, blah blah blah, but uh, you got
to do something. You got to get some sort of
insulation for the sound here, because it was you know,
(14:51):
it ruined the meal. If we had been smart and
I should have said, you know, look, why don't we
get up and just leave because you can't even have
a conversation and then people who are at a table,
and this has happened a couple of times. People who
are at a table, it's like, I don't know if
they're drunk, but every other word, it's like they're yelling
(15:15):
across the table and you want to say to them,
you know, there's other people here who are looking to
have a quiet conversation, but it's like these goofballs patriots
a Patriots one, and you know you want you just
want to go over and whack the guy outside the
head and say, knucklehead. You know. The ignorance of people, Well,
(15:38):
it doesn't astound to me anymore. I guess. You know,
I don't know if you ever addressed those those sort
of conundrums. You know, what do you do? You want?
You know, you're either you're going to sit there and
say nothing and not even able to have a conversation.
You know, you glare over it a couple of times
and you hope that somebody realizes that they're looking. But
(16:00):
I don't care. They just don't care.
Speaker 5 (16:03):
Maybe you may, maybe you can bring it up to
the you know, the waiter or the waitress maybe and
see if they could say something too.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Yeah, Well, you know what's funny that happened. One time
we were in a very expensive restaurant, very expensive restaurant,
and we were in a small room and there was
I was with two people and myself, and there was
about five or six people pretty close. But they were
that they were just incredible. So I actually asked the waiter.
(16:29):
I said, I said, could you ask them just to
keep it a little bit on the d lo? And
he said, oh no, we couldn't do that. So I said, okay, fine,
do you have another, you know, table somewhere else? Oh no,
we're booked up till nine o'clock. Said thanks very much.
We got up and walked out, and I felt so liberated,
(16:52):
to be honest with you, I felt, well, you know,
I wasn't going to sit there because dinner at this
restaurant would have been probably for three six hundred dollars.
I just felt liberated by it.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
You know, you you you.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Have to at some point draw a line. How can
people get your Obviously you're in USA today. Is there
a book that you happen to have put together that
you'd like to reform my listeners.
Speaker 5 (17:17):
To No, no, but they can they can take a
look at you know, USA today, dot com slash Money
for stories by myself and others on the Money, Tech
and Travel team.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Oh that's great. Well, Betty Lynn Fisher, thank you very much.
We'll be looking for your for your reports. The great
thing about USA today is wherever you happen to be
in America, it's in every hotel in America. And it's
great for it's it's great. It's a great newspaper. It's
a great newspaper in my opinion. It gives you everything
you need when you're on the road. And please, good luck,
(17:50):
keep working at it. Okay, thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Thanks, thank pleasure.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
All Right, there has been some developments in the Middle East,
and so we're going to take the CBS special report
at the bottom of the hour. Again, very hopeful. President
Trump has made a statement on Trump's social today and
that here's here's a special report from CBS News.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
All right, want to welcome doctor Jonathan Thorpe. He's a
doctor of business administration, not a medical doctor. But he's
a relationship expert in the CEO of Quantum Connections. It's
almost illiterative. A firm that helps individuals and organizations find
connection in a disconnected world. However, he has produced for us,
(18:43):
for our consideration, for your consideration, a very interesting statistic.
First of all, doctor Thorpe, welcome to Nightside for having me.
One in five Americans. This is one in five of
the people who live on U stream, one in five
of the people who you work with. One in five
of the people who whatever you do you do with,
(19:05):
believe that they can find real romance, that it's possible
to find real romance with artificial intelligent chat bots. H
are you The only question I guess is are you
kidding me? I don't know what it is said.
Speaker 7 (19:24):
It's funny, and I would almost say, you know, you
can't be surprised today with anything related to AI. AI
is doing some amazing things. Even this, the suggestion that
people can find real romance or what they feel is
real with a computer. I mean, if you look at it,
there've been over two hundred million downloads of these AI
(19:45):
companions and chatbots. It's a two hundred million dollars a
year industry. And what people are doing dan as they're
building these echo chambers around themselves to reflect back everything
inside their head that they already know their interest curiosity,
and it just reinforces that for them.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Yeah, but my question is, what happened does the traditional
old fashioned blow up dolls? It's like nuts, It is crazy, right.
Speaker 7 (20:18):
The world is so socially fragmented that people are looking
for alternatives, so much isolation, everything is.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
So let me ask you this question because I think
it's important. Okay, So, is this a chat box bot?
Would be obviously artificial intelligent intelligence image of someone of
whoever they're having this relationship with men and woman. Correct,
(20:46):
They're not just looking at a computer screen. They're having
this this relationship with what would appear to be an
image of a human being. Correct.
Speaker 7 (20:56):
Absolutely, And it's invoice and AI is so powerful. It
can be created at the person's own design. You can
tell it exactly what to look like, what form to take,
what to sound like, how to speak, so it can
really be customizable in a scary way almost.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
How can you be sure that the chat box will
remain faithful to you and will cheetah on you with
some other weirdo? I reade, I'm serious, I'm asking, I'm
asking relatively serious questions here. It is on my mind,
is blown that people will think this that they're going
to sit in front of computer and share their their
hopes and their dreams and their aspirations with an AI
(21:39):
generated human being. That's what it comes down to, right.
Speaker 7 (21:43):
It's crazy to think about it, right, what people will
turn to as an alternative to other living, breathing human beings.
And you just have to say, we need to pay
more attention to the people around us and find out
and ask those questions, Hey, what are you not getting?
What are you missing that you can't find any human being?
(22:04):
I mean, is it is a powerful draw?
Speaker 2 (22:08):
So let me ask you this this statistic one in
five Americans. I assume this means Americans, but over the
age of twenty one or something like that. I'm sure
we're not. I hope we're not talking about kids here, right, mean,
I'm going to can I Is that an accurate assumption
that I'm making.
Speaker 7 (22:25):
I think it is. It's not my research, and I
would say the survey did probably survey adults, but teenagers
are swarming to this technology. And I think if you're
a parent out there, you have to pay attention because kids,
you know, as young as ten, eleven, twelve years old
are seeking to find this feeling of being seen and
(22:45):
heard in technology instead of people, and that's really scary.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Well it is. I mean, you can understand how a
lot of kids now think. Look, when I grow up,
I'm not going to be a teacher. I'm not going
to be a firefighter, not going to be a police officer.
I'm going to be an influencer. Because it looks like great,
easy work, but of course it is quite hard. I mean,
so that distorts. But I would hope that most people
at some point would say, well, I actually got to
(23:11):
go to school and I got to learn and trade,
or I have to go and get a college degree
and enter the workforce. But this is a study that
has been done here in America. Please tell me that
the rest of the world is just as crazy as
we are, and that I hope that they've done studies
(23:33):
in other countries which shows that the fascination with these
chatbots ire as sick as we are.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (23:44):
I can't confirm anything about what's going on over see.
What I can tell you is if they've got access
to technology, then they're going to have to deal with
these exact same problems the same as we are.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Yeah, do you think that? And again, this is your
area of expertise, is not my and I don't script questions.
These are just thoughts that can in my mind. Do
you think that over time the novelty of chatbots as
relationships will subside and that people will realize that's not
(24:17):
a real person that you're talking do here, it's it's
it's computer generated. Do you think people will figure that
out eventually?
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (24:25):
I hope so, and maybe I share your optimism too,
that that over time the novelty will fade. And I
think people are going to discover that, you know, we
as humans we love because time runs out and AI
it has no existential stakes in the game, no threats.
It's going to be there endlessly, So the love and
(24:46):
the attention that an AI chatbot can provide is going
to be effectively empty. I think people will eventually discover,
you know, AI as a tool can be great to
rehearse interactions for people, but as soon as it replaces
interactions for people, that's when it gets really problematic.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
I mean to think that someone is sitting in a
house or in their apartment and having this conversation and
this relationship, and I assume that just to make sure
I understand this. Someone's sitting there and they have their
chat bot up on a screen and they're having an
(25:23):
ongoing conversation like, Hi, how are you tonight? Doing great?
What's up with you? Well, it's kind of a slow
I mean, that's what we're talking about. We're talking about
there's actually a conversation theoretically going on.
Speaker 7 (25:38):
Absolutely, Dan, there's voice recognition, and these conversations are live, dynamic,
and they're synthetic, but they're actually happening in real time.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Wow, I'll tell you that's fascinating. I've interviewed some subjects
that are talked about, some subjects that I thought were
pretty weird, but this tops them all. Right now, So
anything you got a story that you want to chat about,
doctor Jonathan Thorpe. I'm a real human being. You're a
real human being. We can do it right here a
(26:07):
WBC radio. Okay, that sounds good, Dan, Thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Doctor.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
I think that's fascinating. I really think it's fascinating. When
we get back, we're going to talk with a WBZ reporter.
It's Jay will Lett, and he's going to talk about
the Boston Public Library is revamping a passport program. So
nothing is really new. Everything is kind of being revamping,
being revamped, I should say, and this and this actually
(26:37):
talks about how about this for an idea actually physically
visiting libraries. Yeah, really buildings walking into the library and
maybe taking a book off the shelf and I don't know,
reading it a little bit, or maybe even checking it
out and bringing it home, and then after twenty one
days or whatever the time is, you bring it back.
(26:58):
Kind of like a nineteen fifty or nineteen forties thing,
but it's coming around. The new passport program, or I
should say, the old passport program, has explained to us
by WBZ News Radio reported Jay. We'll let right after
this break.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on Boston's news Radio.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Delighted to be joined by WBZ reporter Jay will Lett. Jay,
I hear you during the day obviously, and we're going
to talk about a program. I don't know if you
discovered it, but you certainly did a very interesting report
on a Boston Public library program that revamps passport program.
Revamp says to me, it used to be around, used
(27:40):
to be available, it went away, and now it's back.
Tell us the history of it.
Speaker 6 (27:45):
Yeah, Hey, Hey, Dan, Thank you so much for having
me and I really appreciate your kind words. Yeah, yeah,
it's revamped, is you know a way of saying that
you know they had it in previous years. I think
you it just would have had a different design to it,
but the library passport has a whole new design. I
(28:06):
think if it started in September, and that's how I
found out about it, is we were reporting on it
in WBZ in the newsroom, we got the release from
the library, and you know, I kind of started out
doing it for myself. I've actually completed the challenge myself,
and I didn't do it for work. I didn't do
(28:26):
it as a reporter. I just decided, you know what,
I want to explore my city and see the neighborhoods
myself and you know, just kind of live in the moment.
And it wasn't until afterward that I thought, you know,
I'm kind of depriving people of this if I don't
kind of get the word out.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
So yeah, so you know, when when did it? Was
it always there? Or was it there and it fell
into disuse and then someone said, hey, that's we haven't
done this for twenty years, or was it you know,
was it suspended for some period of time. If you
know I asked questions Jay, you know, I just made
them up as they go along. Here, So I'm asking
(29:01):
you something you don't know. I apologize.
Speaker 6 (29:03):
Go ahead, no, no, by all means, please do. To
my knowledge, it didn't necessarily go away. I think the
original passport started a few years ago, but for whatever reason,
you know, people fell off from it. There maybe wasn't
a lot of draw to it. I can tell you
(29:24):
that this time around there's some big interests, notably because
of those prizes.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
So if you.
Speaker 6 (29:31):
Don't know what we're talking about, if you go to
twenty so there's twenty six libraries in Boston. There's twenty
four that are currently open. And if you go to
what you what you do is you go to your
local library. You get the passport and it's kind of
like a little booklet.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
It's cool.
Speaker 6 (29:50):
It has all the libraries on there, and you go
to each of the libraries and each has each will
give you a stamp, and if you get ten stamps,
you get a custom magnet. And if you go to
all twenty six you get a deck of custom bpl
playing cards, which are very cool. And I have them myself.
(30:10):
But if you ask me, the real prize of it
and what really drew me to it, and what I imagine
drew a lot of adults to it, is just getting
the opportunity to check out other neighborhoods that may not
have checked out and seeing what kind of libraries are
in store.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
So when you say you get a stamp, is it
like a stamp when you're traveling internationally and they just
stamp the passport or do they give you a stamp
that they affix to your passport.
Speaker 6 (30:42):
Yeah, so's it's much The new design is much like
a traveling passport in the sense that you have all
these blank pages at the back of your booklet and
the librarian will just whip out this stamp, and each
library has its own special stamp. So it does feel
like you're traveling in a way.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
You know, I think, how.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Long did it?
Speaker 2 (31:05):
So? It sounds to me like there's twenty four libraries
or twenty six, but two are currently under you know,
reconstruction or something. So how long did it take you
to hit all twenty four?
Speaker 6 (31:16):
J It took me about a month. One of the
advantages that I had is that as a reporter, I
am traveling around Boston always, and so the way that
I kind of approached it is that I would go
do stories and I would just look at my map
and my booklet and say to myself, well, which libraries
(31:37):
am I close to right now? And can I just
waltz on over? And yeah. I ended up kind of
completing it within a month, which is pretty cool and
one of the cool the important things about the the
booklet is that it shows you how to get to
each library from the others. So if you're they have
certain routes from nearby line libraries that you can follow.
(32:01):
And what's cool about it is that none of it
involves driving a car, So all these libraries you could
get get to by walking, running, biking, or taking the tee.
And they really try to hit that home that you
don't need to have a car to to go and
visit these libraries if you if you just get to
the first one.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
But as a reporter, I assume as a reporter because
I was a reporter a long time ago and we
had vans and stuff, but sometimes you had to drive
yourself to the story. I'm assuming then when you're when
you're heading off to a story, you probably you're not
taking the tea, I hope.
Speaker 6 (32:40):
Yeah, No, I'm I'm definitely using a car to get Yeah,
that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Yeah, I get the I get the point. But I mean,
I don't want to find out that you're in some
sort of an MBT A train that people had to
jump out the window into the Mystic River. You know.
That's yeah, that's that's a that's above and beyond. Okay,
I grew up in Hyde Park. I'm a Boston kid
many many many years ago. Jay, What what is the
(33:05):
library in hyde Park? If you have your passport? Is
it named Reedville? Hyde Park? There was a library that
was the next street over from us. Actually, I'm just
graous if it's the same location.
Speaker 6 (33:16):
I think it is the same location. It's quite an old,
older library, it was. What was notable about Hyde Park
is it was pretty strict on the phone policy. I
noticed that it was really that library in particular that
I walked in and there's all these signs that say
please no phones, please, no devices. They're very distracting. And
(33:38):
all the other libraries they had some semblance of a
phone policy. Is in you know, there's like a quiet
zone and whatnot. But Hyde Park, it was all over
the place, like they just did not want people on
their phones, which I can appreciate.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
You know, it's still and I totally get it. Libraries
are supposed to be quiet. I spent a lot of
time in libraries and you're trying to concentrate, so people
don't you know, phones are relatively I mean when you
think about it, you know, fifteen to twenty years new.
So when most of us grew up and we're at
that age where you go into libraries, did you pull
(34:14):
any books out along the way or no? Did you? Oh?
Speaker 6 (34:17):
Yeah, oh yes, of course. I am an avid reader.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
I love to read.
Speaker 6 (34:23):
One of the cool things about going because you know,
these days, everyone's checking out books. I shouldn't say everybody,
but a lot of people are checking out books on
their phones, speaking of phones and their laptops through just
the ebooks. And what I find is the benefit of
going to these physical libraries, apart from you know, face
(34:44):
to face connections and learning a lot about the neighborhood,
is that you can also check out the Lucky Day aisle,
which those books are not available for holds. Nobody can
reserve them. They're all he's gonna sit there, so and
you only have two weeks to read them. But it
just it keeps it more available. And these are these
(35:06):
are the books that people are seeking, like, these are
the sought after books, like right off the shelf.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Well, I'll give you a book when next time you
go to the library. See if they have A Day
in the Life of a Television news Reporter. That was
a book that came out many years ago on me.
It was a theoretical Day in the Life of TV Reporter.
It was published by Little Brown, written by a fellow
who was a photo journalist named Bill Jasperson. It'll give
you a really good history on WBC TV A Day
(35:31):
in the Life of a television news report when I worked, okidding,
I used to get one of them every month or
so in the mail from some library across the country.
Some kid took it out, uh, and they said, will
you give me an autograph? Will you do this? And yeah,
it was. It was in all the libraries across the country.
Now it may have it's been a while, so you
may I have a few extra I have a few
(35:52):
extra copies by you. Yeah, absolutely, all right, Jay, thank
you much. We'll talk soon.
Speaker 6 (35:59):
Okay, buddy, all right, keep on reading.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Absolutely Jable at WBZ News Radio Reporter we come back.
We are going to talk about what happened. It was
a riot last night, plain and simple. It was a
riot by a group of anarchists and four Boston police
officers were injured. We'll talk with Larry called Around of
the Boston Police Patrolman's Association. He's the president. He'll have
some interesting things to say.
It's nice eyes with Dan Ray. I'm going easy Boston's
news radio.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Well, the good thing about getting a really nasty cold
at this time of year is maybe I'll be able
to get through the winter. WHOA, I've gotten hit with something.
I hope none of you have had anything like this.
But the last couple of days have been stressful, I
mean really stressful. Just my whole body seems to be aching.
(00:30):
And I've finally got some medication, so I think I'm
going to be okay. But I would just apologize and
ask any of you who think I sound quite differently tonight,
you're correct, I do. I can hear it in my head,
simple as that. My name is Dan Ray. I'm the
host of Night's Side Monday through Friday night right here
on WBZ ten thirty Am in Boston, a legendary, legendary
(00:55):
radio station here in Boston, as I think many of
you who grew up with WBZ, the radio station of
Dave Maynard and Carl Dessous and Gary LaPier and Gil
Santo's and just's as. It's a great, great station with
a great history going back to when the first one
(01:15):
of the year in nineteen twenty one. So with all
of that. Just in case you're not you're perhaps weren't
a weir of some of that history. We're going to
talk with four individuals and the first guest, his name
is Vincent Straugis. I hope I've got Vincent's name correctly. Vincent,
If I'm wrong, go ahead and tell me, go right ahead.
That's my pleasure. So we're talking about some music history.
(01:38):
Doesn't quite go back as far as WPZ, but it
takes us back to the mid seventies through the eighties,
Boston at the forefront of producing some of the country's
greatest bands in music. I'm sure you know those bands
off the top of your head, and I'll bet you
if you've just bounce a few a lot of people's
memories are going to be be called to mind.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Absolutely. The film's called Life on the Other Planet, and
it's a tripped from late mid to late seventies to
the mid to late eighties, and it features bands like
The Atlantics, the Stompers, the Real Kids, the Nervous Eaters,
Robin Lane, and the Chartbusters. There's so many to list,
I won't list them all, but those are some of
(02:20):
the big names. The neighborhoods and so on. The only
the only problem with it all was there were so
many bands at that time you couldn't hit them all
in the film.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
So what about Stephen Tyler's band?
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Well, they were they they So this this was more
of a local scene, the local scene that came after
a lot of the groups like Aerosmith and Jay Giles
established this this road. And there wasn't really a Boston sound,
per Sae. I mean Aerosmith, Jay Giles, great rock and
(02:52):
roll bands, but this local sound which kind of came
in on the heels of punk rock in the seventy
four seventy five era and and morphed into like a
new wave sound which was at that time. But you know,
it created its own sound with with groups like, like
I said, Nervous Eaters, the neighborhoods and oh.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Here's the d Let me run this one by you.
This is a band I'm sure you are very well
aware of. Saw them one night at the Channel just
really blew me away.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Girls Night Out there in the film too.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
D D.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Stewart and Girls Night Out fantastic band. And yes it's uh.
And there are a lot of the local bands that
had females in it were the Bristols and the Girls
Night Out and again Robin Lay and the Sharbusters, who
really kind of paved the way for a lot of
women bands back then.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
So you've made a movie, you're the I assume you
you're the producer of the.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Movie, producer director. Yes, So how tough was it?
Speaker 2 (03:52):
How tough was it to make a movie and find
a video of these bands? I mean, in those days,
everything probably was on different type of digital or maybe
it was just on videotape. Maybe he was on film.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
That VHS and I mean, and it was far in
view between because nobody had a camera, nobody had a
phone to be able to tape a concert, and so
there was a lot of footage that was at teamed through.
Harvard had a collection called the Already Freedman Collection. Uh
and Larti was a cameraman back then who went to
(04:27):
different nightclubs and shot a lot of these bands. And
fortunately there's there's collections of them, but they're they're far
and few between, and we have been a bit of
in our phone and a lot of the archival footage
that tells the story of Boston at the time was
was obtained through WGV and S Archives, who was fantastic
working with on the film. So a lot of great
(04:50):
cool stuff. And I want to say that the film
is about the music, but you know, when I was
sitting down to edit this film, one of the hardest
things to do was I did we want to make
it a film where we interviewed an artist and then
saw a clip of their music and then just keep
going like that. When you step back from it all,
(05:11):
the real star of the film is Boston back in
the seventies and eighties, the culture of the time and
things that are long gone from here. And that's that's
what it's about.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
I'll bet you your film had kind of a gritty
feel to it because that was Boston.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
That was Boston. Yeah, yeah, And we have we have
a great local historian who fills in the gaps of
the history of Boston and that talks about talks about
the times and how Boston was was ranked pretty low
as a city back then, and which is surprising because
now it's it's not. It's a fabulous city, always has been,
(05:49):
but it did have a lot of grit back then
that doesn't happen anymore.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Well, you know, you had a lot of crime back
in the late sixties. You had the Strangler, Albert DeSalvo,
you know, Whitey Bulger and his group was n was
running around. Real estate prices in the Back Bay and
Beacon Hill were nothing compared to what they are today.
So yeah, and you had.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
The combat zone, you had you had places that don't
exist anymore. And did you tell a young person about
this stuff? They think you're you know, making it up.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
Well, the Rat Sclar Rat Scar Kadis and Kenmo Square
and girls rather the channel over by by the postal station.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
So yeah, looking forward. Okay, so you're running this on
the sixtieth of October, which is.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
It's actually the twenty fourth of October.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Why is my why does my does my my specs here?
Have you changed? That's okay, I had this.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Okay, No, no, it's it's yeah, it's on the twenty
fourth of October, Okay, And yeah, it's uh it's the
Nervous Eaters are actual playing that event. So they've been
around for forty years. They're coming coming to play the
concert and the film will be shown after that. So
(07:10):
it should be a fun night for everybody. And it's
it's a great time to reminisce and just you know,
for young people to learn a little bit about the
history of Boston music.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
And you are doing this is the Boston Prepare Boston
premiere on Friday night, October twenty correct. I don't know
why not said the sixteenth.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
No, No, there's a screening, but it's it's just it's
a private screening.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Oh okay, we don't okay, So this is this also
at the Regent Theater in Arlington.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
It's at the Arlington Region Theater on October twenty fourth.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yes, correct, that's all we need. That we got this
thing covered. That should be This should be a good
night for you and Vincent Stragus. Thanks very much for
doing stuff like this, frankly, because I think what happens
is there's some great times and people should remember the
great times. You know, Austin has always been there's a
great city, and that was the era of Kevin White
(08:05):
was the mayor in the seventies, in the eighties.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Son he actually makes an appearance in the film. Briefly.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised, all right. Thanks, thank
you so much, Vincent. I enjoyed our conversation.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Thank you very much for having me on. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
You bet you it. Sorry about my voice and my cold.
It's one of these things where I cough and I'm
remote so I can't wave it rob and say yeah,
roll kill my mic so I.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Hear you man, be well, well I'll get well. Thanks.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Vincent Talks. Okay, when we come back, when I talk
with Betty Lynn Fisher. She's a consumer news reporter with
USA Today. I'm going to talk about some uncomfortable conversations
that you might find yourself in and how to extricate
yourself from those uncomfortable conversations. Back on night Side right
after this.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
You're on night Side with Dan Ray. I'm done you easy,
Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
All right, I want to introduce Betty Lynn Fisher. Betty
Lynn Fisher, Welcome to night So. You're a consumer news
reporter for USA Today, as I understand.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
It, correct, Yes, yes, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Very welcome. So I'm not sure if this is the
only circumstance, but well, we're going to talk about how
you deal with an uncomfortable situation or an uncomfortable conversation. Uh.
And the example that I'm giving that I've been given.
Here is you know, you go out with friends, maybe
(09:37):
maybe it's a group of girlfriends, a group of guy friends, whatever,
and you don't order much, maybe you have one glass
of wine. But other people decide, well, this would be
a good opportunity to have dinner and a couple of
a couple of desserts. And when it comes time for
the bill, someone says, well, why don't we just split
(09:57):
it evily? And you're thinking, okay, this bill is going
to be like four hundred dollars and I had one
glass of wine. Four hundred times five divided by five,
that's a very expensive bottle of a very expensive glass
of wine. Explain to you, to us how someone like
yourself would extricate yourself from that situation without causing a
(10:23):
lot of angst and gnashing of teeth amongst your friends.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (10:28):
So I wrote a story as part of my series
called Uncomfortable Conversations about Money, and it was about splitting
the bill. I actually used two examples very similar to
what you explained. One was Alan Klensky and his wife Sandy,
and they were actually still kind of seizing about this
twenty years later. They were explaining something that happened twenty
(10:49):
years ago that they were young at the time. They
went out with two other couples and they didn't note
the other couples very well. But the other couples decided
to order duck. It was the most expensive thing on
the kosher item, and of course, when it came time
to pay the bill, they're like, let's split it three ways,
and you know, the Kolinskis were just not sure what
to do. They didn't want to be awkward, they didn't
want to seem cheap, and so you know, they went
(11:11):
ahead and did it, but they it just left a
bad taste in their mouth. They to this day called
the other couples mister and missus Duck. But their advice is,
they say, you know, you need to you need to
communicate with the people who have invited you, and if
you're on a type budget, you need to don't be
afraid to say it. Too many times. People are, you know,
kind of afraid to say like, oh, you know, that's
(11:33):
that's not something I can afford, or you know, that's
not that's not what I planned for, it's not in
my budget.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Just just to make it reallier. I'm curious, what was
the bill since you wrote about this, what was the bill?
Speaker 5 (11:46):
You know, they actually didn't tell me. They didn't tell
me the amount, and either didn't remember because it was
twenty years earlier. But I have another example, which was
a single woman who went out with another single friend
and a couple and they all ordered, and exactly like
you said before, the other couple ordered a ton of
food to share. The husband ordered its on entree. He
ordered a steak, and the woman was like, you know,
(12:08):
I she didn't really like much of what was being ordered,
but she figured she'd find something to pick at. And
of course, when when the when the bill comes up,
the husband says to the server, let's split it three ways,
and he included him and his wife as one pair.
Oh and the one of two singles as singles, sore
four people three ways, and that came to two hundred
(12:29):
and thirty eight dollars each.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
And the woman said, how.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Much too, fifty eight a piece.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
To fifty eight apiece.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
And okay, I'm doing some quick math here, Okay, I'm
a quick math guy. Two fifty eight will will round
down two fifty two fifty two fifty that's seven point
fifty okay. Yeah, First, first of all, under any circumstances,
the husband and wife, who represented two of the people
at the table, should have picked up fifty percent of
(12:57):
the bill. So if it was seven fifty, they should
have picked that three seventy five. Now we can get
into what they had and all of that, But why
do people do that?
Speaker 5 (13:06):
I mean, yeah, she said, she said, She said that
didn't seem fair at all. I kept my paid my
portion and I've been stewing over it ever since. And
she said, should I have said something? And now she
wishes she had, but they were good friends and she
didn't want to rock the boat.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Are they still good friends?
Speaker 6 (13:21):
I who knows?
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Right?
Speaker 5 (13:24):
So I talked. I talked to Elaine Swan, who is
an etiquette coach and founder of the Swan School of Protocol,
and she said, you know, you've got to embrace the
awkward that really, you know, these these awkward situations just
just turn into something that you do about for twenty years, right,
You're you're still telling that same story and wishing that
(13:45):
you had done something different. And you know, her suggestion
is to do it early. Before you accept the invitation
to go out to eat, look at the menu, see
if it's something you can you can afford and ask
if people be splitting the bill or address it as
many as you sit down the meal, she says, Well,
you know.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Going out to eat is always sort of an adventure,
and sometimes when you're going to a restaurant for the
first time, you just don't know what's going to happen.
And my wife and I went to a restaurant a
couple of weeks ago, and the food was great, but
the place was so packed, I mean, you couldn't hear
yourself think, and there was no carpeting in the restaurant,
(14:30):
you know, people there were a lot of people too,
I mean like a hundred people in a very small restaurant,
and there was a bar that was crowded and everybody's
it just was unpleasant. And the owner, you know, came
over and how'd you like the food? They said, the
food was great, blah blah blah, but uh, you got
to do something. You got to get some sort of
insulation for the sound here, because it was you know,
(14:51):
it ruined the meal. If we had been smart and
I should have said, you know, look, why don't we
get up and just leave because you can't even have
a conversation and then people who are at a table,
and this has happened a couple of times. People who
are at a table, it's like, I don't know if
they're drunk, but every other word, it's like they're yelling
(15:15):
across the table and you want to say to them,
you know, there's other people here who are looking to
have a quiet conversation, but it's like these goofballs patriots
a Patriots one, and you know you want you just
want to go over and whack the guy outside the
head and say, knucklehead. You know. The ignorance of people, Well,
(15:38):
it doesn't astound to me anymore. I guess. You know,
I don't know if you ever addressed those those sort
of conundrums. You know, what do you do? You want?
You know, you're either you're going to sit there and
say nothing and not even able to have a conversation.
You know, you glare over it a couple of times
and you hope that somebody realizes that they're looking. But
(16:00):
I don't care. They just don't care.
Speaker 5 (16:03):
Maybe you may, maybe you can bring it up to
the you know, the waiter or the waitress maybe and
see if they could say something too.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Yeah, Well, you know what's funny that happened. One time
we were in a very expensive restaurant, very expensive restaurant,
and we were in a small room and there was
I was with two people and myself, and there was
about five or six people pretty close. But they were
that they were just incredible. So I actually asked the waiter.
(16:29):
I said, I said, could you ask them just to
keep it a little bit on the d lo? And
he said, oh no, we couldn't do that. So I said, okay, fine,
do you have another, you know, table somewhere else? Oh no,
we're booked up till nine o'clock. Said thanks very much.
We got up and walked out, and I felt so liberated,
(16:52):
to be honest with you, I felt, well, you know,
I wasn't going to sit there because dinner at this
restaurant would have been probably for three six hundred dollars.
I just felt liberated by it.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
You know, you you you.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Have to at some point draw a line. How can
people get your Obviously you're in USA today. Is there
a book that you happen to have put together that
you'd like to reform my listeners.
Speaker 5 (17:17):
To No, no, but they can they can take a
look at you know, USA today, dot com slash Money
for stories by myself and others on the Money, Tech
and Travel team.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Oh that's great. Well, Betty Lynn Fisher, thank you very much.
We'll be looking for your for your reports. The great
thing about USA today is wherever you happen to be
in America, it's in every hotel in America. And it's
great for it's it's great. It's a great newspaper. It's
a great newspaper in my opinion. It gives you everything
you need when you're on the road. And please, good luck,
(17:50):
keep working at it. Okay, thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Thanks, thank pleasure.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
All Right, there has been some developments in the Middle East,
and so we're going to take the CBS special report
at the bottom of the hour. Again, very hopeful. President
Trump has made a statement on Trump's social today and
that here's here's a special report from CBS News.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
All right, want to welcome doctor Jonathan Thorpe. He's a
doctor of business administration, not a medical doctor. But he's
a relationship expert in the CEO of Quantum Connections. It's
almost illiterative. A firm that helps individuals and organizations find
connection in a disconnected world. However, he has produced for us,
(18:43):
for our consideration, for your consideration, a very interesting statistic.
First of all, doctor Thorpe, welcome to Nightside for having me.
One in five Americans. This is one in five of
the people who live on U stream, one in five
of the people who you work with. One in five
of the people who whatever you do you do with,
(19:05):
believe that they can find real romance, that it's possible
to find real romance with artificial intelligent chat bots. H
are you The only question I guess is are you
kidding me? I don't know what it is said.
Speaker 7 (19:24):
It's funny, and I would almost say, you know, you
can't be surprised today with anything related to AI. AI
is doing some amazing things. Even this, the suggestion that
people can find real romance or what they feel is
real with a computer. I mean, if you look at it,
there've been over two hundred million downloads of these AI
(19:45):
companions and chatbots. It's a two hundred million dollars a
year industry. And what people are doing dan as they're
building these echo chambers around themselves to reflect back everything
inside their head that they already know their interest curiosity,
and it just reinforces that for them.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Yeah, but my question is, what happened does the traditional
old fashioned blow up dolls? It's like nuts, It is crazy, right.
Speaker 7 (20:18):
The world is so socially fragmented that people are looking
for alternatives, so much isolation, everything is.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
So let me ask you this question because I think
it's important. Okay, So, is this a chat box bot?
Would be obviously artificial intelligent intelligence image of someone of
whoever they're having this relationship with men and woman. Correct,
(20:46):
They're not just looking at a computer screen. They're having
this this relationship with what would appear to be an
image of a human being. Correct.
Speaker 7 (20:56):
Absolutely, And it's invoice and AI is so powerful. It
can be created at the person's own design. You can
tell it exactly what to look like, what form to take,
what to sound like, how to speak, so it can
really be customizable in a scary way almost.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
How can you be sure that the chat box will
remain faithful to you and will cheetah on you with
some other weirdo? I reade, I'm serious, I'm asking, I'm
asking relatively serious questions here. It is on my mind,
is blown that people will think this that they're going
to sit in front of computer and share their their
hopes and their dreams and their aspirations with an AI
(21:39):
generated human being. That's what it comes down to, right.
Speaker 7 (21:43):
It's crazy to think about it, right, what people will
turn to as an alternative to other living, breathing human beings.
And you just have to say, we need to pay
more attention to the people around us and find out
and ask those questions, Hey, what are you not getting?
What are you missing that you can't find any human being?
(22:04):
I mean, is it is a powerful draw?
Speaker 2 (22:08):
So let me ask you this this statistic one in
five Americans. I assume this means Americans, but over the
age of twenty one or something like that. I'm sure
we're not. I hope we're not talking about kids here, right, mean,
I'm going to can I Is that an accurate assumption
that I'm making.
Speaker 7 (22:25):
I think it is. It's not my research, and I
would say the survey did probably survey adults, but teenagers
are swarming to this technology. And I think if you're
a parent out there, you have to pay attention because kids,
you know, as young as ten, eleven, twelve years old
are seeking to find this feeling of being seen and
(22:45):
heard in technology instead of people, and that's really scary.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Well it is. I mean, you can understand how a
lot of kids now think. Look, when I grow up,
I'm not going to be a teacher. I'm not going
to be a firefighter, not going to be a police officer.
I'm going to be an influencer. Because it looks like great,
easy work, but of course it is quite hard. I mean,
so that distorts. But I would hope that most people
at some point would say, well, I actually got to
(23:11):
go to school and I got to learn and trade,
or I have to go and get a college degree
and enter the workforce. But this is a study that
has been done here in America. Please tell me that
the rest of the world is just as crazy as
we are, and that I hope that they've done studies
(23:33):
in other countries which shows that the fascination with these
chatbots ire as sick as we are.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (23:44):
I can't confirm anything about what's going on over see.
What I can tell you is if they've got access
to technology, then they're going to have to deal with
these exact same problems the same as we are.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Yeah, do you think that? And again, this is your
area of expertise, is not my and I don't script questions.
These are just thoughts that can in my mind. Do
you think that over time the novelty of chatbots as
relationships will subside and that people will realize that's not
(24:17):
a real person that you're talking do here, it's it's
it's computer generated. Do you think people will figure that
out eventually?
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (24:25):
I hope so, and maybe I share your optimism too,
that that over time the novelty will fade. And I
think people are going to discover that, you know, we
as humans we love because time runs out and AI
it has no existential stakes in the game, no threats.
It's going to be there endlessly, So the love and
(24:46):
the attention that an AI chatbot can provide is going
to be effectively empty. I think people will eventually discover,
you know, AI as a tool can be great to
rehearse interactions for people, but as soon as it replaces
interactions for people, that's when it gets really problematic.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
I mean to think that someone is sitting in a
house or in their apartment and having this conversation and
this relationship, and I assume that just to make sure
I understand this. Someone's sitting there and they have their
chat bot up on a screen and they're having an
(25:23):
ongoing conversation like, Hi, how are you tonight? Doing great?
What's up with you? Well, it's kind of a slow
I mean, that's what we're talking about. We're talking about
there's actually a conversation theoretically going on.
Speaker 7 (25:38):
Absolutely, Dan, there's voice recognition, and these conversations are live, dynamic,
and they're synthetic, but they're actually happening in real time.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Wow, I'll tell you that's fascinating. I've interviewed some subjects
that are talked about, some subjects that I thought were
pretty weird, but this tops them all. Right now, So
anything you got a story that you want to chat about,
doctor Jonathan Thorpe. I'm a real human being. You're a
real human being. We can do it right here a
(26:07):
WBC radio. Okay, that sounds good, Dan, Thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Doctor.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
I think that's fascinating. I really think it's fascinating. When
we get back, we're going to talk with a WBZ reporter.
It's Jay will Lett, and he's going to talk about
the Boston Public Library is revamping a passport program. So
nothing is really new. Everything is kind of being revamping,
being revamped, I should say, and this and this actually
(26:37):
talks about how about this for an idea actually physically
visiting libraries. Yeah, really buildings walking into the library and
maybe taking a book off the shelf and I don't know,
reading it a little bit, or maybe even checking it
out and bringing it home, and then after twenty one
days or whatever the time is, you bring it back.
(26:58):
Kind of like a nineteen fifty or nineteen forties thing,
but it's coming around. The new passport program, or I
should say, the old passport program, has explained to us
by WBZ News Radio reported Jay. We'll let right after
this break.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on Boston's news Radio.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Delighted to be joined by WBZ reporter Jay will Lett. Jay,
I hear you during the day obviously, and we're going
to talk about a program. I don't know if you
discovered it, but you certainly did a very interesting report
on a Boston Public library program that revamps passport program.
Revamp says to me, it used to be around, used
(27:40):
to be available, it went away, and now it's back.
Tell us the history of it.
Speaker 6 (27:45):
Yeah, Hey, Hey, Dan, Thank you so much for having
me and I really appreciate your kind words. Yeah, yeah,
it's revamped, is you know a way of saying that
you know they had it in previous years. I think
you it just would have had a different design to it,
but the library passport has a whole new design. I
(28:06):
think if it started in September, and that's how I
found out about it, is we were reporting on it
in WBZ in the newsroom, we got the release from
the library, and you know, I kind of started out
doing it for myself. I've actually completed the challenge myself,
and I didn't do it for work. I didn't do
(28:26):
it as a reporter. I just decided, you know what,
I want to explore my city and see the neighborhoods
myself and you know, just kind of live in the moment.
And it wasn't until afterward that I thought, you know,
I'm kind of depriving people of this if I don't
kind of get the word out.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
So yeah, so you know, when when did it? Was
it always there? Or was it there and it fell
into disuse and then someone said, hey, that's we haven't
done this for twenty years, or was it you know,
was it suspended for some period of time. If you
know I asked questions Jay, you know, I just made
them up as they go along. Here, So I'm asking
(29:01):
you something you don't know. I apologize.
Speaker 6 (29:03):
Go ahead, no, no, by all means, please do. To
my knowledge, it didn't necessarily go away. I think the
original passport started a few years ago, but for whatever reason,
you know, people fell off from it. There maybe wasn't
a lot of draw to it. I can tell you
(29:24):
that this time around there's some big interests, notably because
of those prizes.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
So if you.
Speaker 6 (29:31):
Don't know what we're talking about, if you go to
twenty so there's twenty six libraries in Boston. There's twenty
four that are currently open. And if you go to
what you what you do is you go to your
local library. You get the passport and it's kind of
like a little booklet.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
It's cool.
Speaker 6 (29:50):
It has all the libraries on there, and you go
to each of the libraries and each has each will
give you a stamp, and if you get ten stamps,
you get a custom magnet. And if you go to
all twenty six you get a deck of custom bpl
playing cards, which are very cool. And I have them myself.
(30:10):
But if you ask me, the real prize of it
and what really drew me to it, and what I imagine
drew a lot of adults to it, is just getting
the opportunity to check out other neighborhoods that may not
have checked out and seeing what kind of libraries are
in store.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
So when you say you get a stamp, is it
like a stamp when you're traveling internationally and they just
stamp the passport or do they give you a stamp
that they affix to your passport.
Speaker 6 (30:42):
Yeah, so's it's much The new design is much like
a traveling passport in the sense that you have all
these blank pages at the back of your booklet and
the librarian will just whip out this stamp, and each
library has its own special stamp. So it does feel
like you're traveling in a way.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
You know, I think, how.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Long did it?
Speaker 2 (31:05):
So? It sounds to me like there's twenty four libraries
or twenty six, but two are currently under you know,
reconstruction or something. So how long did it take you
to hit all twenty four?
Speaker 6 (31:16):
J It took me about a month. One of the
advantages that I had is that as a reporter, I
am traveling around Boston always, and so the way that
I kind of approached it is that I would go
do stories and I would just look at my map
and my booklet and say to myself, well, which libraries
(31:37):
am I close to right now? And can I just
waltz on over? And yeah. I ended up kind of
completing it within a month, which is pretty cool and
one of the cool the important things about the the
booklet is that it shows you how to get to
each library from the others. So if you're they have
certain routes from nearby line libraries that you can follow.
(32:01):
And what's cool about it is that none of it
involves driving a car, So all these libraries you could
get get to by walking, running, biking, or taking the tee.
And they really try to hit that home that you
don't need to have a car to to go and
visit these libraries if you if you just get to
the first one.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
But as a reporter, I assume as a reporter because
I was a reporter a long time ago and we
had vans and stuff, but sometimes you had to drive
yourself to the story. I'm assuming then when you're when
you're heading off to a story, you probably you're not
taking the tea, I hope.
Speaker 6 (32:40):
Yeah, No, I'm I'm definitely using a car to get Yeah,
that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Yeah, I get the I get the point. But I mean,
I don't want to find out that you're in some
sort of an MBT A train that people had to
jump out the window into the Mystic River. You know.
That's yeah, that's that's a that's above and beyond. Okay,
I grew up in Hyde Park. I'm a Boston kid
many many many years ago. Jay, What what is the
(33:05):
library in hyde Park? If you have your passport? Is
it named Reedville? Hyde Park? There was a library that
was the next street over from us. Actually, I'm just
graous if it's the same location.
Speaker 6 (33:16):
I think it is the same location. It's quite an old,
older library, it was. What was notable about Hyde Park
is it was pretty strict on the phone policy. I
noticed that it was really that library in particular that
I walked in and there's all these signs that say
please no phones, please, no devices. They're very distracting. And
(33:38):
all the other libraries they had some semblance of a
phone policy. Is in you know, there's like a quiet
zone and whatnot. But Hyde Park, it was all over
the place, like they just did not want people on
their phones, which I can appreciate.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
You know, it's still and I totally get it. Libraries
are supposed to be quiet. I spent a lot of
time in libraries and you're trying to concentrate, so people
don't you know, phones are relatively I mean when you
think about it, you know, fifteen to twenty years new.
So when most of us grew up and we're at
that age where you go into libraries, did you pull
(34:14):
any books out along the way or no? Did you? Oh?
Speaker 6 (34:17):
Yeah, oh yes, of course. I am an avid reader.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
I love to read.
Speaker 6 (34:23):
One of the cool things about going because you know,
these days, everyone's checking out books. I shouldn't say everybody,
but a lot of people are checking out books on
their phones, speaking of phones and their laptops through just
the ebooks. And what I find is the benefit of
going to these physical libraries, apart from you know, face
(34:44):
to face connections and learning a lot about the neighborhood,
is that you can also check out the Lucky Day aisle,
which those books are not available for holds. Nobody can
reserve them. They're all he's gonna sit there, so and
you only have two weeks to read them. But it
just it keeps it more available. And these are these
(35:06):
are the books that people are seeking, like, these are
the sought after books, like right off the shelf.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Well, I'll give you a book when next time you
go to the library. See if they have A Day
in the Life of a Television news Reporter. That was
a book that came out many years ago on me.
It was a theoretical Day in the Life of TV Reporter.
It was published by Little Brown, written by a fellow
who was a photo journalist named Bill Jasperson. It'll give
you a really good history on WBC TV A Day
(35:31):
in the Life of a television news report when I worked, okidding,
I used to get one of them every month or
so in the mail from some library across the country.
Some kid took it out, uh, and they said, will
you give me an autograph? Will you do this? And yeah,
it was. It was in all the libraries across the country.
Now it may have it's been a while, so you
may I have a few extra I have a few
(35:52):
extra copies by you. Yeah, absolutely, all right, Jay, thank
you much. We'll talk soon.
Speaker 6 (35:59):
Okay, buddy, all right, keep on reading.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Absolutely Jable at WBZ News Radio Reporter we come back.
We are going to talk about what happened. It was
a riot last night, plain and simple. It was a
riot by a group of anarchists and four Boston police
officers were injured. We'll talk with Larry called Around of
the Boston Police Patrolman's Association. He's the president. He'll have
some interesting things to say.
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