05-23-24 FULL SHOW - Short Show with The RTD Union Head and RTD's Response

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Thursday. I was just quizzing you. I knew it was Thursday. That's
just Jeff. I'm Mandy Connell.We're going to take you through a whopping
hour long show as we go rightup to the Rockyes, pregame as they
try to take the series with theA's after dropping the first one, winning
last night and hopefully winning again today. Now we have a lot to do
on the show today. I'll havea short shout out for my friends who

(00:21):
I will be going to Norway within a brief hang on one second,
let me pull this up on myphone. Thirteen days, five hours,
twenty four minutes and forty seven seconds. If you're going on the Norway trip,
check your email for an email fromthe Big Time Traveler that is going
to set up our Facebook page.So check your spam check all that stuff,

(00:42):
because we have a private group Facebookpage just for the Norway travelers.
This is yet another benefit of goingon vacation with us. It just allows
us to kind of have contact beforethe trip and after the trip as well.
So and if you are not onthe trip, you cannot be part
of the group. So sorry aboutthat, but there's a real specific reason
for that. And that is thisis just for us on this one.

(01:06):
So in any case, we're gonnabe here for an hour. I've got
a blog that's worthy of like five. So let's go to mandy'sblog dot com.
That's mandy'sblog dot com. Look forthe headline that says five twenty three
twenty four blog short show with theRTD union head and RTD's response. Click
on that and here are the headlinesyou will find within with Office South America

(01:26):
all with hips and clippers and seelet's go to press flat today on the
blog. So how do RTD workersfeel du as negotiating with terrorist? It's
harder to get a driver's license now. Morrison's speed trip rep is back.
Nikki Alely said she's voting for Trump. Man meets Bear in Steamboat. Have

(01:48):
you heard of the Colorado Orange?Apple? High prices are still a problem
for many scrolling scrolling this as ourconfident kids are failing miserably. Oh wait
a minute, that was something's messedup here. It's time to do something
about smartphones at school. Pot usesurpasses alcohol use for the first time.
Anger is toxic to your body.It's Memorial Day weekend. What's the Fastest

(02:10):
Way to the Airport Megan Kelly withBill mahers Worth watching how about an Endless
Cruise? The most popular baby namesin Colorado are quite old fashioned. Here's
the RTD response to the CSI reportwe talked about yesterday. Those are the
headlines on the blog at mandy'sblog dotcom. Look for that today because it

(02:30):
is quite good, if I dosay so myself. Now, if you
missed yesterday's show, we spoke withKelly Bruff. She is currently doing a
fellowship at the Common Sense Institute andworked with a couple of other people to
create a kind of an RTD report. The issues that RTD has, the
history of RTD, wridership, budgetgrowth, all these things. They broke

(02:53):
it down in this report. Shewas on to talk about that yesterday.
I'll put a link to that podcastif you want to go and listen to
it on the free iHeart Radio appwhere you can always hear a crystal clear
audio. Just letting you know iHeartRadio app Kowa or in your smart speaker.
Anyway, Today we are going totalk to the president and business agent

(03:16):
at ATU Local one thousand and one, and he is the guy who represents
the workers at RTD, So Lanceis going to join us at twelve thirty
to talk about this from their perspective, and also on the blog today near
the bottom. I got an emailresponse from RTD to the CSI study,

(03:38):
and it's long. It's really long. So I put the whole thing on
the blog. I thought about liketrying to edit it, but I don't
want to edit their words because it'sobvious that someone put a lot of thought
into this to address certain specific things. And there's some really interesting information about
what RTD is doing to stop crimeto you know, really provide a safer

(04:00):
atmosphere. There's a lot of interestingstuff. So that is on the blog
in its entirety at the bottom ofthe blog so you can read it.
But I am trying to get someonefrom RTD to come on to talk about
that report. But that will obviouslynot be today, probably next week,
hopefully before I go on vacation,so we will make that happen. But
Lance will be in here at twelvethirty to talk about that, and then

(04:24):
I have so much other stuff onthe blog today it's not even funny.
I got to ask you this though, just Jeff, are you from Colorado?
I am yep. So what growingwhat point did you start hearing stories
about Morrison being a speed trap?I will point probably at a young age,
probably because they've always been known asa speed trap, right, I
mean, it's just it is whatit is. They are now a speed

(04:46):
trap on steroids. Okay. Isaw this story and I'm like, oh
MG, the Morrison Police Department Andhere's the thing, you guys. Morrison
is tiny, right, Morrison isa tiny place. They don't have a
lot of tax dollars. I getit. A community that small often uses
tickets as a means of revenue andalso to keep their citizens safe. But

(05:12):
the speed limit in Morrison is twentyfive miles an hour, so they would
give out an average, an averagenormally of seventeen hundred tickets every let's see
every issued a total of seventeen hundredspeeding tickets in twenty twenty three. Okay,

(05:32):
now that seems like a lot.That's multiples per day, right,
that's somebody busy writing tickets. Well, that was not efficient enough for the
Morrison PD. They have now broughtin a traffic radar camera that if they
snag you going more than ten milesover the speed limit. They're going to
mail you a forty dollars ticket.This thing in the first two weeks of

(05:55):
operation wrote wait for it, tenthousand tickets in two weeks. Holy hell,
you guys. Morrison. The cityof Morrison is going to be like
the seminal Indian tribe rolling in thedough. This is like their lottery right

(06:15):
here. This is their slot machine, sitting there just ding ding ding ding
ding ding ding ding ding. Imean, and you know, tons of
these people are from out of state, right so they're either just going to
ignore the ticket because they're from outof state and just be like, come
after me, bro, or they'regonna be like, oh my god,
I can't believe I got a speedingticket on vacation. I have to pay
it. It's just it's absolutely crazy, absolutely crazy. So if you're going

(06:42):
to Morrison to see a show,because we cut through Morrison, that's the
way we go. Sometimes we usuallygo the other way that takes us to
the the other entrance that's closer tois that two eighty five seventy What rote
is that seventy right there? Thinkit's seventy, yeah, seventy. So
we go in that entrance over there, and when we do go through Morrison,
it's like, dude, don't breatheover the speed limit. Just don't.

(07:05):
I get it. I get it. I understand. It is about
safety, especially in Morrison, whereyou during the summer you always have people
just wandering into the middle of theroad that aren't paying attention. But all
that being said, man, you'vebeen warned. You have been warned.
Clearcreek is getting just as bad.Said this text or watched the construction zones.

(07:25):
Well there's no construction zones in Coloradoin the summer. Aha, that's
hilarious. That's hilarious. I wenta different way to work today, Jeff,
thinking, Okay, this way isnot going to have anything under construction.
Well I was wrong, big fatwrong. But I am encouraged.

(07:46):
You guys, am seeing more andmore people get the Zipper Merge. More
and more people are starting to getit. So there you go. That's
only six tickets per day before notvery much. Okay, Eric, your
kind of attitude is why we havethe ticket machine in Morrison. Now.
It's like a machine that you youknow what is, should just hurl them

(08:07):
at your car as you drive by. It should be like when you go
into a parking garage, right,and you press and it puts out the
ticket. This one. They'll havetwo machines. The first one that's about
fifty feet ahead. It's the onethat gets your speed. And then by
the time you drive past, thesecond and it just shoots a paper airplane
ticket at your car and you're supposedto stop and pick it up. This

(08:30):
person says, let me ask thisquestion. This person said, do not
pay tickets you get in the mail. So what is the actuality on that?
Like, what is the real dealon that? What do we do
with that? You know, becauseif I don't have to get paid for
a ticket I get in the mail, then all bets are off, you

(08:52):
know, toll violations. Why don'tyou have to I mean, and don't
get me wrong, I understand thedue process argument because you tech the leak
can't face your accuser, right,because you're accuser a machine. But what
is the law on that? Whathappens? They don't put a warrant out
for your arrest for a forty dollarsticket. I believe they actually changed the
law this year that those photo radarsare more enforced now. I believe.

(09:16):
I believe it before, but theywere declared unconstitutional in other municipalities. I
think at the Supreme Court, perhapsmaybe just district court. I don't know.
Don't quote me on that, butthere is some question about whether or
not you actually have to pay that. Uh oh, Eric said, I
just got an idea. Just drivethe speed limit. If you're driving thirty

(09:37):
five and a twenty five, youdeserve the ticket. Well, Eric,
you're just a pantload of fun,aren't you. You're just cranky, and
you're one of those people who neverlikes to go fast and everything's to yourself.
Maybe this person is trying to getto the hospital because his wife is
in labor. That's what I think. If somebody tries to speed around me,
I don't care. Red Rocks isa Denver park, not Morrison.

(09:58):
Do ticket sales go to more?I moved to Evergreen and O six,
and they were known for targeting backthen. I heard they changed police chiefs
that it wasn't so bad. Iguess not. Two eighty five and seventy
four both bad. You gotta dowhat you gotta do. Over five years
ago, says this Texter, Iwrote the mayor of Auroras suggesting speed cameras
on I two two five to makethem hurt two two five is out of

(10:22):
control. Do you know what they'redoing now in the UK? I just
found this out from a friend ofmine who's married to an Irish guy.
They now track you on the highwayright and if you get to where you're
going too quickly, they will sendyou a speeding ticket. So they're using
GPS to figure out how fast you'regoing. And I find that incredibly objectionable.

(10:46):
I mean that kicks my paranoia levelinto overdrive. What's the movie with
Will Smith where they're being watched?It's Will Smith and gosh, I can
picture the scenes in the movies perfectly, but dang it five six six nine,
Oh do that right now? Onthe text line that movie, that

(11:07):
one with Will Smith with that guywhere they were, you know, doing
that thing where they were being watched. Is it the enemy of yas going
to be a state? Yeah,that's that's what that makes me think.
But we're you know, we're headedin that direction as well. So you've
been warned if you're going to RedRocks, don't speed through, uh Morrison,
because they're going to get it.An officer of the court must deliver

(11:30):
that ticket to you in your hand. Wait a minute, sorry, this
just updated. I can't find wherethat was now, Mandy. If the
ticket is not issued by a copat the time of the alleged time,
it is an illegal ticket and doesnot have to be paid. As little
as I trust our government, andthat very little is very very little trust

(11:52):
of the government, I have tobelieve they figured out some way to justify
this, and I don't know ifit's been fully adjudicated by the courts.
Gene Hackman, thank you, thankyou very much. Thank you. Verla
got one going over the Golden GateBridge. I said, don't pay it.
They threatened to take her driver's license, and she paid it. She

(12:15):
didn't send back. You could takeit out of my cold dead hand,
which is what I would do.No, I wouldn't do that. I
would say I was gonna do it, but then I wouldn't actually do it.
All right, other stuff that's onthe blog today. Nicki Haley has
now come out and said she isvoting for Trump. Now that is really
big, and I've heard some pungitryabout this, that this is about Nicki

(12:35):
Haley saving her own hide, Andabsolutely there is a chunk of that in
this But I also think that Republicanswho genuinely care about this country, and
I believe NICKI Haley is a Republicanwho cares deeply about this country, are
going to recognize that Trump is thebest chance we have for beating Joe Biden.

(12:56):
As sad as that sentence is,it truly is because because the polling
data is leaning in his favor,and I think that Republicans who are worried
about where the future is headed forthis country are going to fall in line
behind Trump. And this is whereI hate myself for saying this. I
hate it, but we have toget to the point where, if this

(13:20):
is a horse we've been given,we all have to be behind this horse,
no matter what, whether you'd thinkthat horse is a nag or a
cheat or whatever, you got toget behind the horse, because, honestly,
I just don't think we can putup with four more years of Joe
Biden. But we wouldn't put upwith four more years of Joe Biden.
There's a zero percent chance that dudemakes it through another four years. So
you're basically voting for President Kamala Harris, and that that scares me tremendously,

(13:50):
just frightened of that. Mandy.I grew up in Colorado. What you
call zippering is just the way it'salways been done here, even when I
was a kid. It's the transplantswho came here with no clue how to
drive in a correct manner. Coloradowas also much more polite society than too.
The funniest part about that text messageis that if I could go back

(14:13):
in time, I could share dozensof text messages about zipper merging, saying
things like you transplants are always tryingto change things. We've always been polite
in Colorado and done it the waythat it's not supposed to be done.
So I'm glad transplant that we're onthe same side. But I got a

(14:33):
lot more transplants who say that Iam not on the same side. Mandy.
I was stationed in West Germany beforethe wall came down. They used
to find people that made it fromWest Germany to Checkpoint Charlie in West Berlin.
Of course, I mean, whynot? Why not? We also
have a cool story on the blog, and I'm ripping through the blog right

(14:56):
now because I have a guest comingup. After the break and I want
to get through some of the stuff. Now, there's a really cool story
about the Colorado orange apple. Neverheard of it, neither had I.
You know why, because it wasalmost dead, almost died out. And
then these I don't know how elseto call them, apple hunters. Doesn't

(15:16):
sound like it'd be much of ahunt, but it has been because these
apple hunters they've been trying to goaround and make sure that these apple species
are not dying out. And theColorado orange was widely expected to be extinct.
When a woman who has one ofthese orange apples in her backyard and

(15:39):
they are indeed orange. They almostlook like kind of like a tomato in
a way, an orange tomato.But they contacted some apple hunters and then
they went through this arduous DNA basedprocess to figure out if this was indeed
the Colorado orange apple. And nowthey have taken cuttings off this tree and
they're growing them. There's one hundredThey have distributed one hundred trees per season

(16:04):
since they found this. Fourteen treesare within a couple of seasons of bearing
fruit. This is like the nerdieststory that I think is so cool.
First of all, I had noidea until fairly recently, maybe in the
last five years, that when ourforefathers came to the United States, there
was like three hundred different varieties ofapples. People would have different apple trees

(16:27):
in their yards, and you'd havein a neighborhood you would have ten or
twelve different varieties of apples. AndI don't know why I think this is
so interesting, but I do.But then when mass production of apples became
a thing, they honed in onapple breeds that were either very fast growing
or very versatile and could be usedfor a lot of different food items,

(16:48):
and those are the ones they planted, and all of these other apples kind
of went extinct. So the factthat there are people out there trying to
find these remaining apples and ensure there'sI for some reason, I have more
sympathy or more more affection for thisstory than I do for like a lot
of Like we have to save theone eyed Newt. I don't care about

(17:12):
the newt as much as I careabout the apple. Now, if it
was like a cat or something,then then it would be real competition.
But for something weird, like atoad or I don't know, something I
find ichy, but the Apple story, now that that thing has legs,
I really really like it. Alsoon the blog today, I have a
story from the Wall Street Journal.Think I think I shared the right link

(17:36):
that you can see it even ifyou don't have a paid account, But
I'm not positive, so don't quoteme on that. But it's about the
growing push to ban cell phones atschool. And I know here in Colorado
parents freak out because their kids havehad to endure some horrible situations at school.
But there are ways to mitigate that, ways to mitigate that that can

(17:56):
be done on a classroom classrooms.So but we've got to do something because
people are seeing real, horrible,significant changes in students in schools where cell
phone use is not controlled. Youknow, I remember being a kid and
we were in fifth grade and everybodywas trading football pencils. Now, Jeff,

(18:18):
you're too young to remember. Doyou remember football pencils? They were
just pencils with the team name andthe helmet embost on the pencil. Now,
I remember those. Yeah, Sofootball pencils became something of a thing
in fifth grade, and the peoplewere trading them and they were selling them,
and it was like a black marketwas going on in Catholic school,
and it got so crazy at onepoint that the principal did this insane thing.

(18:45):
She was like, yeah, ifyou bring a football pencil to school,
I'm going to take it away andthrow it away. And so the
great football pencil Distraction of fifth gradewas over as quickly as it began.
Now, I'm not saying that cellphone and should be thrown away, but
they have to be kept out ofkids' hands during class. And when you
read this story, you will go, Okay, Mandy, you're starting to

(19:07):
make sense here. This person saidyour texture is wrong about red light tickets.
It used to be you had tobe personally served to make the ticket
valid, but Colorado changed the lawthat you don't have to be personally served
and the ticket is valid and youhave to pay it even if they send
it to the wrong address. Now, if they send it to the wrong
address, I would protest that there'sno way I'm paying somebody else's ticket.

(19:30):
I mean, come on, that'snuts. Now, when we get back
yesterday, if you heard the interviewwith Kelly Bruff about RTD, we are
going to talk to Lance Longenbon.He's the president and business agent of ATU
Local one thousand and one. He'scoming on to talk about what's going on
in RTD from the employees perspective.We're going to do that next got away

(19:53):
for the got away for the Trumpets. I'm Mandy Connell will be here for
the next twenty seven ish minutes twentyfivees just Jeff here as well. Joining
me in the studio is the presidentand business agent of ATU Local one thousand
and one, Lance Longenmon. Hereached out to me yesterday after I did
the interview with Kelly Bruff from theCommon Sense Institute about their report about the

(20:15):
state of the state at RTD,and the report is really compelling, very
very interesting. RTD also responded tome today. I'm trying to get someone
on the show to talk about it, but they've sent a very long response
about some of the issues that theyare already trying to address. They are
in mid stride trying to address someof the issues brought up by Common Sense.

(20:37):
That is on today's blog at thevery bottom. It's very long,
so I put it at the bottom, but it's very interesting and you should
read it. But Lance wanted totalk about what the situation on the ground,
on the bus, on the trainis for the employees of RTD.
So Lance, welcome to the show. First of all, well, thank
you, Mandy, and I reallyappreciate you giving me the opportunity to react

(20:59):
to that. It is a goodreport. It did leave out one of
the key things in RTD's current situation. But you know, the safety and
the writership, those two are kindof intertwined, you know, the writers
even if the service is there andis reliable, the writers who try it

(21:19):
are not comfortable with the current conditionsof safety. And really it goes back
for a number of years where thesafety the service hasn't been there and it
hasn't been reliable. It's due toa labor shortage. And the labor shortage,
of course now unfortunately is a resultof the safety. So it's kind
of a chicken and egg situation.But yeah, the frontline workers who go

(21:45):
to work every day and endure that, many of them have just accepted this
is my job, and they tolerateit. Many of them just leave.
I've talked to folks who go homewith a headache every day and they accept
that that's there their job. Letme ask you, what are they dealing
with what are the things that arehappening right now on a consistent basis that

(22:07):
that are negatively affecting the drivers.So on the trains, you know,
because the operator is in a cabaway from them, they they feel,
you know, a lot more freeto just smoke openly and on the trains.
On the trains and you never reallyone hundred percent sure what they're smoking.

(22:29):
But there's a whole myriad of thingsgoing on with drugs and that sort
of thing on there. I getpictures of foil and hypodermics and just all
kinds of things that you know,would you want to take your family on
there, would you want to beon there? Personally? On the buses,
it's starting to become more rampant.People go and sit at the back
of the bus and pull their coatover the head and do whatever it is

(22:52):
that they're going to do. Butthe fumes, you know, there is
an effect from the fumes. Iwas able to negotiate with RTD to get
some relief for those folks, purelybased on safety because you know, you
don't want someone being impaired by thefumes that they've been exposed to. And

(23:14):
then continuing to operate a bus ora train. And now RTD does not
share your belief that those fumes arenecessarily harmful. They share They had someone
from the CDP, the Colorado Departmentof Health and Environment come in and give
us a presentation that said, basically, it's all in your head. There
is no way to suffer from anyeffects from a secondhand exposure because the primary

(23:41):
user filters most of it out intheir lungs. Well, you know,
if you've ever seen how they smokeit, it goes up in fumes and
drifts around. But yeah, youknow, I can tell you that I
hear it from my represented employees,and I hear it from non represented employees
who are on the trains that thetrains are really the worst of it.

(24:03):
Right now, Yeah, and youdo there is an effect, and you
know, no one, no onereally knows one hundred percent what the long
term effects of it is. Forme, I picture the baby sitting in
the car seat in the back ofa car with the adult driving long smoking
a cigarette. You know, whatare we going to figure out years from

(24:25):
now? You know? I agree, So let's talk about the labor shortage
and how long and when you saylabor shortage. What percentage are you at
full authorized capacity? How many jobsshort are you? And what are you
short? Have you ever heard thejoke about asking an attorney what tuplus two
is? Yeah? What would youlike it to be? Ah? Yeah,

(24:47):
so you know it. How shortare we based on the current service
commitment? How short are we basedon the service that we should be that
the public is waiting for. Youknow, it's a moving target, but
I can tell you that just bysheer numbers. When I started in two
thousand and nine, there was abouttwo over nine hundred operators bus operators.

(25:12):
That's a core group, that's thelargest group. But I also like to
remind everyone that it's not just operators. It's transit workers, the mechanics,
the surface and cleaning, the maintenancepeople. They're all part of it too.
But so there was over nine hundred. One of my officers tells me
when he started twenty eight years ago, it was over twelve hundred. Right

(25:33):
now we're at just over seven hundredaround him now, And so you know,
it's it used to be that shortagewould result in people going down and
waiting for buses and trains that didn'tshow up, right, and that's where
the ridership really began to fail becausepeople gave up on RTD. One of
the last times I drove a buspassenger got on and said to me,

(25:57):
well, I'm glad you showed upthis morning. And you know, so
the shortage then chases people away fromit because they can't rely on it.
And then, you know, throughthe pandemic, there was the explosion of
just people with who had been kickedout of shelters. So there was a

(26:18):
lot of a myriad of social needsthat basically became RTD's burden. And you
know that that's the one thing Ican say is that RTD is a transit
agency. They need to be ableto focus on transit, the transit police.
They are part of the solution.But municipalities have to get to these

(26:41):
social needs before they become RTD's problem. Well, let me ask you this.
I just got a very interesting textmessage that said I haven't paid for
the train since I saw someone smokingmeth. If they're allowed to do that,
then I'm allowed to ride for free. I mean that it does sort
off you. If you embrace lawlessness, then lawlessness will follow. Let me

(27:03):
ask you this, because I gota long explanation, as I said from
RTD about the things that they areworking on. Are you seeing any improvements
from the front line people that youhear from there? It's a moving target,
you know. A few years agowe chased everyone out of Denver Union
Station after I announced in a newsstory that it was a lawless hell hole,

(27:26):
right, But now it's moved onto the buses. It moves around
just like the So basically we're squeezingthe toothpaste too. It's, you know,
the solution. The transit police arepart of the solution, but they're
not the solution. What we reallyhave to do is get more support from
the communities. And Kelly addests thatin that report, But yeah, I

(27:51):
see, I hear reports good andI hear reports bad. I think overall,
it's just kind of we're in astagnation and where we're not fixing the
problem. As bandating the problem,we're just bandating the problem because really it
needs to be the homelessness, thedrug addiction, the mental health challenges,

(28:17):
all those need to be taken offof the plate. That's really what's clogging
up OURTD system. And I thinkthat is part of the public relations problem
that RTD has that is extremely significant, and they can tell us everything's fine,
everything's fine, everything's fine. Butwe see the news stories. I
hear this anecdotal stuff from people whoare like, I'm not taking my kid

(28:38):
on the train when someone could besmoking drugs. And so I think,
for me as a writer, twothings should happen. Number One, they
got to get the public safety takencare of like that nothing else matters until
that's taken care of. And thenafter that's taken care of, show me
as many pictures as you can ofthe police that are in on the plot

(29:00):
forms on the trains. I wantto see them every single time I ride
for the foreseeable future, because unfortunatelythat's what it's going to take. I
like what you said yesterday about beingmore open about what, yes, what
actions are being taken. That absolutelyneeds to happen. But you know the
methods and the mechanisms. You know, I am still just a bus driver,
so I don't know all of thebuild Well, the PR people should

(29:22):
be doing this, and good PRwould go a long way, because it
doesn't just tell non criminals that RTDis safe again, it also tells criminals
that RTD is not a place youwant to go mess around, and that's
what we need. Lance. Ireally appreciate you coming in, Lance Longenbon.
He's the president and business agent ATUof Local one thousand and one.
I appreciate you coming on giving theperspective of your workers. Thank you very

(29:45):
much. Mandy. All right,we'll be back for a tiny segment right
after this one. Dude one,dude three, four. All right,
guys, I got about four minutesleft before where we turn the show over
for the Rockies pre game. Hopefullythey will take this win after a big
win last night in the twelfth inning, and win the series. I'm not

(30:08):
saying I'm hopeful. I just wantto. I want to. Okay,
Jeff is here today for I'm tempering, see what's happening. I'm just tamping
it down a little bit because youknow, they were Rockies, went on
a little bit of a tear therefor a minute, and now they're back
ish but still not as bad.Right, I mean, you win a
month ago, they would have lostin the twelfth I'm just saying, so

(30:32):
hopefully they can win this series withthe A's and move on now. Last
night at the Denver Center for theperforming Arts. I saw the revival of
the musical Company. Jeff, areyou at theater person at all? Do
you know anything about the theater?I don't. My wife does, but
not me. No, okay.So Company is a musical written by Steven
Soenheim, either in the late sixtiesor the early seventies. I think the

(30:52):
early seventies. I can't remember theexact history, but it was kind of
a Seinfeld show, and that it'sa show about nothing. There's no plotline,
there's no antagonist, there's no protagonist. It's a series of scenes of
these couples, and it's circled aroundin what was the original show a male

(31:14):
who was turning thirty five and wasunmarried, and the whole show is about
why is Bobby not married? Thelast time I saw it staged as it
was traditionally, about seven or eightyears ago. I loved the score because
I love Stephen Sondheim. I justlove the way he writes in the phrasing
and the pacing, and I loveeverything about Stephen Sonheim. So I love

(31:34):
this show for his music. Butthe last time I saw it it felt
like super dated, you know itJust the themes were as they were presented
just felt out of date and outof step a little bit. So I
was really excited to see this revivallast night, and it is so good.
They made Bobby female, but intoday's era, a thirty five year

(31:56):
old female would be the right personfor this kind of thing because all of
her friends are basically like Bobby,what's wrong with you? Why aren't you
married? You know? But itwas so good. If you love steven
Sonheim, if you like steven Sonheim, the voices in this thing are incredible.
The staging is so good and soentertaining. I loved it. I
don't know how long it's playing.I should, but you can go to

(32:19):
DCPA dot org and find out more. Do you know what. I just
found out that they have a standbyticket program for people I think over sixty.
I think you have to be oversixty, maybe fifty five, but
you can call ahead find out ifthere's availability, and you can go down
the day of the show and gettickets super cheap. So that's just a
fun thing to know. I didn'tknow it. I'm not in the age

(32:42):
group yet. Oh my god,oh god, Jeff, I just realized
this year I turned fifty five.I'm about to qualify for the old people
discounts. That's clearly unjust as Iam not in any way, shape or
for I'm an old person. I'mwearing sneakers right now that have bad the

(33:06):
word bad on one foot and thenit has a picture of a donkey on
the other, so you know,bad ass, get it? Like elderly
people don't wear things like that.Oh God, I'm gonna have to go
home and take a nap. Now. That was a terrible way to end
the show. Go see company.That's the thing to do on the blog

(33:27):
today. I have a bunch ofstuff that we didn't even get to,
including a snippet of the Bill Maheron Megan Kelly podcast. I got recommended
that whoever recommended it, thank you. Totally worth the watch because Bill Maher
has met his intellectual match who wasbetter prepared than Bill Maher was. And
Megan Kelly actually corrected him in spectacularfashion on some really egregious things he believed

(33:54):
right, so, and Bill Mahertook it in stride. That's one of
the reasons I like him. He'slike, oh, okay, you're right.