Episode 0140 - Whitney of Houston

Frank Murphy is joined by his friend Whitney Wells, who is the social media coordinator for Marble City Opera. Find Whitney online at https://www.instagram.com/whitneywellssoprano/ Whitney is from Texas. She is in town to work as the assistant stage manager for Marble City Opera’s production of il Tabarro. 

There will be a concert version of il Tabarro aboard the Star of Knoxville riverboat on Thursday, June 13, 2024. Use the code RIVERCRUISE to get a 30% discount when buying tickets at https://www.marblecityopera.com/tickets 

There will be fully staged productions of il Tabarro on Friday, June 21, 2024 at the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum in Vonore and on Sunday, June 23, 2024 at Melton Lake Park in Oak Ridge. The performances will take place alongside the lake at both locations. 

At the world premiere of The Doctor and the Devils, several opera patrons recognized Frank from the tv show Tennessee Scholars’ Bowl, which is currently re-airing the most recent season on East Tennessee PBS. The composer of The Doctor and the Devils said that his son was recently a contestant on Scholars’ Bowl. 

While she is in town, Whitney is staying with her friend who is the manager of Knoxville Princess Parties. Whitney is “best friends” with Cinderella and several other princesses. See photos at https://www.knoxprincessparties.com/ Whitney’s husband Ben once played Prince Eric. 

This episode is sponsored by BoneZones.com (don’t forget the S). Buy books and other merchandise autographed by Body Farm founder Dr. Bill Bass at https://bonezones.com/ including Body Farm t-shirts. Contact BoneZones to hire Frank to give a presentation about Dr. Bass and the Body Farm. 

Frank asks Whitney if he is supposed to try to follow back private Instagram accounts or not. He decides against it because he already wastes too much time on Instagram looking at various s’mores recipes, including s’mores cookies, s’mores brownies, and s’mores dip. 

Frank finds thrifting videos on social media to be upsetting. When someone buys an item for pennies at a thrift store but then resells it for much more, Frank feels bad for the person who donated the item to the thrift store. 

Frank is wearing orange because the baseball Vols are one of eight teams in the College World Series. His favorite flower is an orange day-lily, which would bloom around Frank’s birthday in New York but bloom a month earlier in Tennessee. 

Frank and his wife Jere intended to use a gift card at Arby’s. Frank also had a two-dollar off coupon, which caused them to forget to use the gift card they had purchased at Kroger. Whitney likes a Texas grocery store called H-E-B. 

Whitney’s parents grew up in Lake Jackson, Texas, site of the first Buc-ee’s convenience store. They knew the owners of Buc-ee’s. This week the new world’s largest Buc-ee’s opens in Luling, Texas. It is slightly larger than the former world’s largest Buc-ee’s in Sevierville, Tennessee. Frank ate a brisket and egg burrito but wished they sold Buc-ee’s dental floss. 

Whitney met her husband Ben at a summer opera program in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. They put on three operas during the run of the summer festival. In one production of Cendrillon, Ben played Prince Charming and Whitney was one of Cinderella’s ugly stepsisters. 

Frank’s friend Bean was stumped by a crossword puzzle clue he saw on X. The clue was “‘90s alt-rock band named after an X-Files monster-of-the-week.” Bean sent the clue to Frank, who had to solve the whole crossword puzzle to figure out that the answer was EVE 6. 

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