Clare’s Hydraulic Telephone Expertease

Warning! This is not the Expertise podcast. This is an illegally recorded phone conversation about the Expertise podcast. By listening, you are a party to that illegality. And that's the best kind of party there is. Hello Clare. Hey Danno, this is Clare. Hey, what was that sound? It sounded like your phone was on a hydraulic system of some kind. Oh, that's funny because it sounded that way? You could hear it? Yeah, it sounded exactly like you were lifting a phone that was situated on some sort of hydraulic system. No, see, that's the beauty. I wasn't lifting it because it's on a hydraulic system.

Wow. So, these weekly calls that we do are so important to the lifeblood of our podcasting business. And I have to say that when you're there at the office and I'm calling in from home like this, that it makes me a little suspect of how you're spending your office time if you're installing hydraulic systems for the phone. What does it even do? Danno, I did it because of something you said. When you started getting so strict about our weekly calls, I thought, he's right. You know, I don't have the strength of a person who would make a good partner. I don't even have the strength to lift the phone. So, I built a hydraulic device.

That's using the old noggin, Clare. Thank you. Could I just offer some advice? Yeah. You know, we have the... Oops, sorry. It went down. Hold on. Yeah, go ahead. I have a manual crank. You don't have the strength to lift the phone to your ear. Danno, strength is a mental game. But you have the strength to crank the entire phone device up to head level. Yeah. This thing, it weighs about 280 pounds too because I had to make it myself out of scraps we had in the basement. Clare, simple suggestion for you. Yeah. Twice a day workout, doing the old crank, you know, lifting that 280 pounds of iron.

That's going to get your muscles right in shape for being able to lift the phone. I know I would do that, but I have an iron deficiency. I've got the perfect solution for that, Clare. We've got those honor system granola bars over there by the coffee machine. So, what you want to do is grab one of the high iron granola bars. I can spot you 25 cents, which is what the honor system asks for. Right. I can even put it in the slot for you because it might be difficult for you to lift that quarter. Are you talking about my mouth? Because I am pretty weak. That would really help a lot if you could just feed it to me.

Yeah, yeah. I'll just slide that granola bar into the slot. Thank you. Oh, I feel better already. Not lightheaded or anything, right? No, no, no. Very heavy headed. Ready for business? Ready to go. Because we have so much going on this week, Clare. Oh my gosh, I know. I feel stressed. We sort of let things slide. Yeah. I just got off the phone with our producer, Chris Naughty Pine. Chris Naughty Pine. And he faxed over the scripts for this week and asked if we could just run through them real quick. Wow. He's getting real pushy. So, did you get the fax? You got the stack of scripts there?

Just the fax. I got them. Okay. So, we've got three shows scheduled this week. Shows? You've scheduled shows? Okay. Why? Why are you skeptical? Well, I don't have time to go to a show, Dan. And we've got podcasts we have to make. Right, right, right. But I just thought if we could stop by, take in 42nd Street, Something Rotten. Right. Yeah. And Mousetrap, The Longest Running Mystery in Broadway History. Amen. That would really refresh us. It would put us in that creative mode to have all that real professional entertainment floating around in the back of our brains.

I think that's a great idea. Okay. I mean, we're going to have three shows. Okay. So, that's this afternoon. Okay. They're all matinees. They're doing the Disney Junior shows where the program only lasts 25 minutes and it's all done by children. All the curse words are taken out. You know, the skimpy costumes are just costumes. 30% off is more on a child. Yeah. Those Moron Children are so talented, though. I think this is great, helping the Moron Children of our town by putting them in short versions of Broadway shows. Although, Dan, I was going to say, these Broadway shows, it's genius.

We're going to invest in that. Yeah. They're short. In fact, even the titles on a lot of these plays are shortened, Claire. Right. What they do is they take the regular play and they shorten the title. So, for example, Les Mis. Right. The Wiz. They've combined those. It's actually Les Wiz. Okay. So, having refreshed ourselves, Claire, it's down to business. Yes. So, these are the scripts from Chris Naughty Pine for the podcast this week. We have three podcasts scheduled. One with an astronaut. He's an expert in space, I'm guessing. I guess. I don't know. What do astronauts do?

I'm not an astronaut. Don't ask me. Right. Luckily, the questions are pre-written. We have a brownie troop, Troop 106 from Muskegon. Right. From Muskegon. Yes. Yeah, yeah. They're working for their merit badge. They actually make merit badges. It's the cutest thing. Oh. Because each troop kind of has its own specialty. So, their specialty is making merit badges, not necessarily earning them. Exactly. Yep. Although they do earn a merit badge for the merit badges they make. Oh, wow. I think they may be blackmailing some of the other Girl Scout troops. Oh, is that what we get to in the podcast?

Well, let's check here. If you flip over to, yeah, page 15. Yes. There's a little Rebecca who says, You get your filthy mitts off my goddamn metal molds. Wait. I thought merit badges were sewn and embroidered. These are metal badges. Apparently, they're made in molds with molten. Molten. Yeah. I mean, it's up to us, Claire. We can scratch it out. If you want to take out metal and put in cloth, take your goddamn mitts off my fabric. Just one other thing, too. I mean, I'm so glad we're off air right now. But we try to keep this show pretty PG for families to get educated.

If you're worried about it, we're actually bringing in the Girl Scout troop. But we could hire some of those Broadway morons if we just want somebody to read our script and voice what the man tells them to. Yeah. But if it's already written in there, get your goddamn hands. Come on, Claire Language. No, no. I'm just reading the script. Sorry. Sorry. But if you could get your goddamn hands off my microphone, that would be so helpful. Sorry. Yeah. No, if it's a child saying it, it's okay. I forgot. Yeah. It's kind of cute, actually. Yeah. It is so cute. So then she takes out a little bag of reefer and offers it to...

Wait, Dano, I think this is sounding a little quirky and dark. Okay. You know what? We have a right of first refusal on any of these scripts. We have the right of first refusal? So we can refuse it one time. And then what happens? But after that, we're obligated to do it. What kind of a contract is this? Claire, I have one of the Girl Scouts drawn up for us. I was just trying to save money. Dano, I do not blame you. I've been having a problem since Mr. Naughty Pine took over the podcast. I just feel like his vision does not match ours. And this latest script is kind of point in fact.

We've lost the creativity. We've lost monetary control over monetary decisions. We've lost right of second refusal. And now he's given us this kind of bull bleep with the God bleep mitts language from the bleep bleep little girls. All right. It's decided then. Yeah. We're gonna fire him. Mr. Naughty Pine is out. Yeah, he's out. And I just realized, I thought it was naughty in quotation marks pine. I just realized today for the first time that it's one word, Mr. Naughty Pine. And he's out. He's out. He's out. He is not ever green in our eyes. It's back to the workers.

The workers take control. The workers control the productivity. That's it. Mm-hmm. Stand up, you victims of oppression. Oh, are you singing from Les Whiz? That's background. All right, Claire. Tomorrow when we meet up for the podcast, power to the people. Power to the people, Dano. You know what I'm writing? You know what script I'm writing right now? Willy Wanker. And you know who stars in it? Chris Naughty Pine. Yeah! Woo! Talk to you next week. Bye.