Flash’s July Recap

So here we are, the end of July; another month older, another month wiser, and another month with great additions to the Why? family.

Our talent pool this month had us hanging out in the deep end. And once you hear who we have coming up for August, you’ll be heading for the nearest diving board. (That’s the last of the water-related word play… Promise)

We had a great response to our interview with rock legend and “Happy Days” star Suzi Quatro’s interview and it was a wonderful way to head into July. In just under a month, Suzi has already become one of our most-listened to interviews ever. Thank you for your listens!

What better way to start off the month and the July 4th weekend than talking strippers? We talked with Jeffrey McHale, the director of a great new documentary about the cult classic film Showgirls called You Don’t Nomi. It was a fun conversation AND we got to use all of our favorite quotes from the movie in our promotion. We also got to release a promo shot for the episode with our logo covering all of Elizabeth Berkley’s parts. Life goals realized.

We topped that episode off with our first of two bonus shows of the month. For our first conversation, we reconnected with long-time friend of the show Bob Trate from the Colonial Theater in Phoenixville, PA. The Colonial is where they filmed the classic horror movie The Blob and, because of Covid, they had to move their annual celebration, Blobfest, on-line. (Damn you, Covid!!!) On the plus side, it brought more people from around the world to the party and we had an excuse to talk to Bob again.

One of the highlights of the annual festival is the Run Out, where fans run out of the theater screaming, just like they did in the original movie. Here’s what it looked like when a 30 year-old Steve McQueen was unconvincingly playing a teenager:

And while this year they had to settle for a virtual run-out, they promise to run out again soon. Hopefully we’ll be in the crowd for Blobfest 2021, covering it live!

For our next episode, we were the ones calling the shots.

Us: “You will listen to this week’s podcast immediately, worm.” 
Our listeners: “Yes, Mistress! May we have another?”

Yup, episode 91 was our conversation with polyamorus, dominating writer Tammy Jo Eckhart. It was a great chance to ask all the questions we ever wanted to know about the dominant and submissive world. And because our audience is made up of a wide array of sexual proclivities and interests, this chat was pretty popular with the listeners too.

And then it was right back to bonus episode time, but this round, we got a real music legend: John Ellison. You may not know the name, but you know the songs. John wrote Some Kind of Wonderful when he was part of the Soul Brothers Six. And he just released a new song, written as a response to a lifetime of questions he’s had about the treatment of African American citizens in this country. Wake Up Call (Black Like Me) is a powerful statement while John questions how America got this way. And while the topic is serious and important, we still got to have some fun with John. 

For reasons we cannot begin to fathom, he invited us to sing along with him on a new song he was working on. (He didn’t say that he regretted this invitation, but he also didn’t say “that was GREAT!” when we were done singing.)

The only way we could follow-up our talk with John was by talking to another music great. For the week of the 20th, we got to talk with Talking Head & Tom Tom Club member Chris Frantz. Chris is the biggest name we’ve had on the show thus far, and it was great to talk with him. He told us some stories about his time with Talking Heads, about his early days playing music, and if Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club would have been so great if the rhythm section wasn’t so in sync. We suggested that part of that might have been due to the fact that Chris is married to the great Tina Weymouth, the bassist in both groups and that maybe Kiss would be even bigger and better if Gene Simmons & Peter Criss had a good cuddle. Chris did not disagree with our theory.

Chris has a memoir out, which was the perfect tie-in to our conversation.

And we closed out the month in grand form with the return of the national pastime. Yes, baseball is back and we celebrated by talking with Paul Zwaska. Paul was head groundskeeper for the Baltimore Orioles for 15 years. He told us some stories about rain delays, what to do to keep our own lawns looking green and one of the nicest things Cal Ripken Jr ever said to him.

We’ve continued to add to our YouTube page this month, including extra footage from some of our interviews, as well as going through the Why? vaults, pulling out and posting some of our best episodes. Recently we’ve released our conversations with Jeopardy Champion Sarah Jett Rayburn and water skiing legend Shellie Blum talking about which of the Go-Go’s was the best water skier in the Vacation video. (And for those of you thinking it’s Jane… well, hold onto your skis… Damnit, more water word play)

While the summer is usually a slow time, what with folks on vacation, this year is seeing us head into August under a full head of steam. We have a great list of guests coming up, both famous and infamous. Will there be Action? Will there be professional sports? What about the art of the dance? And dog grooming?

We’re steaming toward September and our 100th episode. We’re almost 100. We can hardly believe it. Now only if Willard Scott would announce our anniversary on the Today Show and tell everyone how young and spry we look.

Hey, Ho, Let’s Go,

Luke & Heidi

— 
lpoling@gmail.com
508-423-3395 c