Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe - Sounds Like… - Jim & Molly the Cat

Episode Date: November 24, 2023

“Jim never had any intention of having any pets at all” To be fair to the other household critters (and no, we’re not talking about headlice again!), last week was dogs, so today we have a story about cats. One of our favourite characters, Jim Scoffield, finds a new friend while caring for his cat Molly. And Jess gets into some of the practical and technical aspects of being out on the road with the Vinyl Cafe, recording 60-80 concerts a year.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the Apostrophe Podcast Network. Hello, I'm Jess Milton, and this is Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe. Welcome. Last week we had two stories about dogs. Today, it's kitty cat time. We've got Jim and Molly the cat, a story we recorded in Whistler, BC back in 2006. I remember that trip so well. It was the trip where I learned how to ski. I think I had been on downhill skis a couple of times before that at school, like class trips, that sort of thing, but not for real, not as an adult.

That trip in Whistler was the first time I really ever skied. Stuart and I were heading out to Whistler to record a show. Stuart loved skiing. It had been a huge part of his life as a kid. And so we were going to write about skiing. He had this idea. He thought it would be fun to write about me learning how to ski. He was convinced that I'd love it and that we'd be able to write about discovering that joy and love. I was game to give it a try. But before I could learn how to ski, I had to learn how to dress to go skiing. I had no idea. I was a city girl back then, and I didn't have any of the gear, which is funny because that's the clothing I live

in these days. If 26-year-old Jess could meet 43-year-old Jess, she would not recognize her. Gone are the dresses and the skirts and the heels, and in are the base layers and the down sweaters and the big huge winter boots. I had to buy long johns back then, and snow pants, and ski mitts. I still have all the stuff I bought for that trip. And I think of this show, this story that you're about to hear, I think of it almost every time I head to the ski hill. I love downhill skiing now. And I developed that love at Whistler when we were recording the story that you're about to hear. Of course, it was all downhill from there, both literally and figuratively. Because when you live in the East, but you start skiing at Whistler, you're sort of destined for disappointment.

Our big mountains in the East just aren't, well, big. But what they lack in size, they make up for in proximity. I live six minutes from my local hill now. It's not Whistler, but that's okay. It's more my speed. It's a lovely little local hill that's perfect for a blue run skier like me. It may not be big, but it's small. I'm not sure I would have ever become a skier if not for that trip to Whistler. Stuart was right. It sparked something in me. The funny thing is we didn't

even end up writing about skiing, or not really, not in the way we thought we were going to. As was so often the case, we uncovered a different story once we got into town, and we always followed our noses. So I remember this recording well, but not only because of the skiing. I also remember it because both Stuart and I were sick, or not actually sick, but battling a cold, fighting it off. And I can hear that in this recording. I got to know Stuart's voice so well, I bet you did too, that I can tell when something's even just a little bit off. And hearing this recording today reminds me that that was a real thing. His voice and worrying about his voice.

We recorded 16 shows in studio every year. And there were about 60, 70, 80 live concerts every year. And then we also had a whole other show called Vinyl Cafe Stories. So that means there were over 100 days a year where Stuart's voice needed to sound, well, exactly like him. It needed to sound perfect. His work, his job, depended on his voice sounding exactly the way everyone expected it to sound.

Not just his job, the jobs of others too. At any given time, there might be a dozen people more whose life would be impacted by that far away tickle that makes you think, am I getting sick? Imagine your career, your livelihood, and the livelihood of a dozen or more people relying upon your voice. And then one day, out of nowhere, it disappears. For weeks. That happened once. We were in Cobalt, Ontario. Stuart had been fighting off a cold, and then one day he woke up and his voice was just gone.

Laryngitis. He couldn't talk at all. It was the kind of thing that, to be honest, we took for granted. Stuart was super healthy. He rarely got sick. And then one day he woke up in Covault, Ontario with laryngitis and he couldn't talk for two weeks. It was kind of scary. It lasted so long that there was a part of me, a small part, but still a part of me that wondered, will it come back? Like ever? But that little bit of laryngitis did change things for us. It made us or or made me, realize that we needed to do more to protect his voice. I knew we'd need to change a few things. Stuart used to come out after the show to sign

autographs and meet people. He loved doing that. It was one of his favorite parts of the show, meeting people afterwards, hearing their stories. He used to ask them what they liked about the show and what parts they didn't like. It was how we learned. But after that bout of laryngitis in Cobalt, Ontario, we realized Stuart had to stop doing that. You're out there in the lobby meeting all of those people. You're shaking all of those hands. You're adding all of those extra hours to an already super long day. We had the difficult realization that if we wanted to keep going, if we were going to keep this intense pace, that thing, that thing in the lobby, that would have to end.

Honestly, I wasn't into it. I loved that Stuart would go out into the lobby after the show. I loved that he always, no matter what, made time for you, the audience. It's one of the things he taught me. It was core to who he was and, by extension, who we were as a show and as a team. So it just didn't sit well with me when he wanted to change that. But he was right, of course. We all know that now. COVID drilled that home for us.

There's no social distancing on a tour bus. If one person gets sick, the entire tour can go down. And how did we manage that back when we were touring? Well, everyone we toured with over the years seemed to have their own theory. Macrodosing vitamin C, drops of oil of oregano, shots of apple cider vinegar, active bacteria culture. I heard it all and I tried it all. Lots of us became almost superstitious about it. Things we swore worked, despite clinical evidence saying exactly the opposite. Some of these things were backed by scientific data,

but most of them were backed by nothing but anecdotal evidence and wishful thinking. total evidence, and wishful thinking. A lifetime of advice from the back of the bus. Like, I have this thing about ginseng. I swore up and down that if I took it religiously, I wouldn't get sick. If I started taking it a week before a tour, and if I took it every single day on tour, I would not, no matter what, get sick. But if I didn't do that, bam, I'd get a cold every time, every single time. I swore it was true. It probably wasn't the ginseng. I mean, even at the time, I think I knew that at some level.

I'm sure it had more to do with my commitment to the practice of taking the ginseng. Here's what I mean. If I was in the zone where I was diligently taking ginseng, then I was also probably in the zone where I was washing my hands more often and getting more sleep and drinking more fluids. If I was in the zone where I was paying attention to my health and not, you know, drinking wine till three in the morning in the back of the tour bus. Okay, I know there are some people listening who know that the truth is that I was probably paying a little bit too much attention to my health and also drinking wine till three in the morning in the back of the tour bus. But anyway, this is where the superstition comes in. I knew all of those things. I knew that they

were probably true, but I also wasn't going to test the theory. Like I knew these little tricks probably weren't actually keeping me cold free, But I certainly wasn't going to put that theory to the test. That was way too risky. It was safer to just take the ginseng, just to be sure. And the macrodose of C. And the zinc. Better safe than sorry. Now, what actually helps, of course, is washing your hands and getting enough sleep and masking.

But getting enough sleep was rarely possible on tour. Washing your hands was, and so was wearing a mask. And we did those things. People used to look at us like we were crazy, walking around airports wearing medical masks. But I guess now it just sort of looks like we were ahead of our time. When COVID first hit, I broke out my little touring kit and I was like, I've got this. I've been training for years. I still find myself turning to some of those superstitious habits when my kids get sick.

The moment one of them coughs, I break out the bottle of vitamin C and start eating them like M&Ms. Maybe it works. Probably it doesn't. But it helps me feel like I'm doing something. And it does help remind me to wash my hands more often and to leave the laundry for another day so I can get that extra hour of sleep. Stuff that, you know, actually does work. Anyway, I want to play that story for you now, the one we recorded in Whistler, BC, and I want you to listen and see if you can hear that little tickle in the back of Stuart's throat.

See if you can hear him battling a cold. Is it there or is it just me? But before we do that, we have to take a quick break. So stick with me. We'll be back in a minute, maybe less. Welcome back. Okay, it's story time now. You've been very patient. Thank you. Here is Stuart McLean from Whistler, B.C., back in 2006,

fighting off a cold that, sadly, I think he may have caught from me. He's sounding a little bit raspy, but still very much like himself. This is Jim and Molly the Cat. On New Year's Day, Dave's neighbor, Jim Schofield, called his mom in Nova Scotia. Conversation was brief. Jim's mother gets anxious when she's speaking long distance. She's old enough to believe that long distance is a shameful waste of money. As usual, they talk just long enough for Irene

to give Jim an update on her sciatica and to report on the price of bananas at the Lawrence Town grocery store. And as usual, pretty soon after that, it was time to say goodbye, and Jim and Irene slipped into the same exchange that they have had every New Year's since Jim was in his 20s. Happy New Year, said Jim.

It'll only be happy for me, said Jim's mom, if you find yourself a wife and settle down. Now Jim is what people used to call a confirmed bachelor. It's a designation and a life with which Jim is entirely comfortable. He's had girlfriends over the years and various relationships, but he's never met anyone who could convince him that he would be any good at marriage. Marriage, Jim suspects, is something that is not in his genes. Jim grew up as an only child, the only child of a single mom. He lived alone with Irene in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia, South Mountain. When Jim was small, Irene told him that his father had died from a wound he received in the war. She said his father died shortly after Jim was born.

Discretion was not a skill possessed by many of Jim's extended family. Jim learned the truth from his uncle. Learned it after one too many glasses of punch at a Thanksgiving dinner. It was the Thanksgiving that Jim turned nine. One night, when Jim was only a few months old, his father had apparently sat up in bed and announced, matter-of-factly, that marriage wasn't at all what he had imagined it to be. And before his wife could wipe the sleep from her eyes, he had packed a small bag and was out the door.

Never returned. Despite her insistence that Jim should marry, Irene never remarried herself. I've had my kick at the can, thank you very much, was all she'd say if anyone asked. But it wasn't just his parents' failed marriage that convinced Jim to avoid nuptials of his own. It was his grandparents' reputedly happy marriage that really put him off. Married for over 50 years at the end, Lloyd and Edna Hitchcock's ran their marriage like an ongoing siege. The happy part of Lloyd and Edna's happy marriage came from the occasional victories they scored in the war of their lives. The happy part was the small acts of torture they inflicted on each other.

Every Sunday night, for example, Edna produced the only dessert of the week, a warm pineapple upside-down cake. She made pineapple upside-down cake because Lloyd had once said he hated it. In the summer, after everyone else had eaten their dessert, Lloyd would take himself down to Miller's General Store and buy an O'Henry bar as a consolation. In the winter, however, he'd remain indoors and wallow in self-pity. But he never wallowed for long, because at precisely 8 p.m. each evening, just as Edna had finished the dishes, just as Edna was sitting down to relax for the night, Lloyd would produce his bagpipes and serenade her for half an hour.

and serenade her for half an hour. Serenade was not a word that Edna would have used to describe it. Edna said the sound of Lloyd playing his bagpipes each evening was like having fingernails drawn down a blackboard. Down the blackboard of her brain. As Jim grew older, he grew to admire his grandparents' combative creativity. But he knew that he didn't have the fortitude to engage in that kind of marital bliss. So Jim is content, quite happy in fact, to find himself on the far side of 50 and living alone. Well, that's not entirely true true because Jim doesn't live alone.

He lives with Molly. Molly is Jim's 20-year-old ginger tabby cat. Now, most people who meet Jim wouldn't peg him as a cat man, and he isn't. In fact, Jim never had any intention of having any pets at all. And then one afternoon, he went out to the garage to find his stepladder, and it was while he was rummaging around back there that he heard a pathetic mew from the back alley. And when he went out to investigate, there was Molly. Tiny, dirty, thin, and sad, perched tentatively on top of a garbage can. When she saw Jim, she began to

mew with such intensity that Jim did something completely out of character. He went to the kitten and he picked her up. He took her inside and he gave her some canned tuna and a bowl of water. After a few phone calls and visits to the neighbors, Jim printed up some handbills and he tacked them up on telephone poles and at local businesses around the neighborhood. He called the Humane Society. No one came forward to claim Molly. In the end, Jim figured it was for the best. In the short while that they had been together, Molly had made herself thoroughly at home. And despite her forwardness in the alley, she turned out to be more or less self-sufficient. She expected her food dish to be full and her litter box to be empty.

But other than that, she seemed to expect nothing from Jim. When she was feeling particularly friendly, she might sit next to him on the couch and allow herself to be petted. And sometimes, especially if the house was cold, she'd sleep at the foot of Jim's bed. But most of the time, she ignored him, or at least gave the impression that she was just tolerating his presence in her house. that she was just tolerating his presence in her house. That was 20 years ago. It's been 20 years since Molly showed up in Jim's life.

So it shouldn't have been such a surprise to Jim when at their last checkup, just before Christmas, the vet announced that Molly was failing. Her thyroid, said the vet, it's underactive. She'll need medication every day. And then he added her kidney functions down too, but there's nothing we can do about that except keep an eye on her. Jim came home from the vet with a bottle of pills and a sense of foreboding. He set the little cage down that he used to carry her to the vet. He set it down on the kitchen floor, and he opened the door, and Molly stayed put. Jim got down on his hands and knees, and he peered into the carrier. Molly was lying at the back of the dark box.

Why didn't you tell me you were sick, he said. He stuck a little butter on the end of his finger, and he wiggled it in the front of the door of the cage. And Molly stood up uncertainly, and she licked up the butter, and when she finished, they both curled up on the sofa and had a nap. Jim gave Molly her first pill that evening. It was a battle of heroic proportions. It was a battle of heroic proportions. The only instructions the vet had given Jim were to put the pill at the back of the cat's tongue.

You try that sometime. Vet didn't mention how you're supposed to get yourself near the tongue of an angry cat. By the time Jim managed to get the pill into Molly, his hands were covered in tiny bite marks. He looked like somebody had been trying to staple him to something. The two pills a day, Jim figured he'd be shredded by the weekend. By the third day, however, Jim had figured out how to get the tiny pill thoroughly engulfed in a glob of butter right down Molly's throat. And I don't care what it does to your cholesterol levels, Jim told her. By the fifth day, his shirt sleeves were stained with butter and his arms with scratches. And an ugly thought occurred to Jim. He had booked a flight

home to visit his mother. He was supposed to be leaving in less than a week. Now, usually when he's away, Jim gets Dave's kids, Stephanie or Sam or sometimes Kenny Wong, to come in to take care of his cat. But he didn't feel right asking them to subject themselves to this pill routine. He needed to find somebody who could wrestle a sick cat and get the bed over. He got Gwen's name from the vet. Gwen was a part-time veterinarian assistant who did cat sitting on the side. She's great with all animals, but she's passionate about cats, said the receptionist. Gwen arrived at Jim's door a few evenings later. She came to meet Molly and

receive her instructions. She didn't look to Jim like the sort of woman who was passionate about anything. She was wearing a tired wool toque and a dull blue parka with applique penguins marching around the ham. She appeared to be in her early 40s, earnest looking with a broad forehead and a small mouth. The only remarkable thing about her was her shock of orange hair. As he took Gwen's coat and hat, Jim stared at her hair and wondered if it could possibly be her natural color. So, said Gwen, as soon as she had kicked off her boots, what's Molly's routine? Jim stared at her blankly. Routine, said Jim. Her day, said Gwen impatiently. What does she like to do? What does she like to do?

Jim realized he was repeating everything that Gwen said. She's a cat, said Jim. As if that explained everything. It didn't seem to explain anything to Gwen. Gwen was still staring at him expectantly. So Jim tried again. She's a 20-year-old cat. She sleeps, she eats.

If I'm lucky, she uses her litter box. What about exercise, said Gwen, undaunted. What do you do about exercise? Well, I go to the gym, said Jim. Gwen was glaring at him. Okay, fine, I used to, said Jim. I was asking about Molly, said Gwen. Sometimes, said Jim apologetically, she goes outside. Gwen looked horrified. Gwen looked as if Jim had just said that he used his cat for scientific experiments.

She goes outside, says Gwen. Don't you know that the average life expectancy of an outdoor cat's only two years? She's 20, said Jim. She's just been very lucky, said Gwen. She could get hit by a bus anytime. 20 cat years are about the equivalent of 95 human years. Jim was thinking by the time he reached 95, the idea of being run over by a bus might be the best of the alternatives. But looking at the alarm streaking across Gwen's face, Jim decided not to voice the thought. He offered Gwen a chair instead. I'd rather meet Molly, said Gwen.

Gwen a chair instead. I'd rather meet Molly, said Gwen. Gwen spent half an hour with Molly and Jim that night, and she made it abundantly clear that she felt Molly was being taken for granted, under-stimulated, she said. At the door, pulling her toot down low over her orange hair, her expression towards Jim softened slightly. You know, Jim, she said quietly, cats are people too. Well, actually, said Jim. And then he saw the softness disappear from Gwen's face like butter on a cat's tongue. And for the second time, Jim decided not to finish his thought. Instead, Jim said, thanks for coming. And Gwen headed down the front steps. Jim got the call at his mother's an hour and a half after he arrived in Nova Scotia. Thought you'd want an update, said Gwen.

Huh, said Jim. Jim had hardly been away from his house longer than he was on an average day. It hadn't occurred to him to wonder about Molly. She seems relatively perky, said Gwen, but I think she misses you. Oh, said Jim. It was all Jim could think of saying. I do hope that woman is calling from her own house, said his mother. she's not calling long distance on your phone is she Gwen called Jim every day he was away at the end of the week Jim knew more about the state

of his geriatric cat than he would have if he'd been living with her. He knew how much water she'd consumed. He knew if and when she used her litter box. He knew how long she played with her new fur mouse. Not long. And how long she'd been sleeping. Hours. Jim couldn't believe how Gwen went on. But if he were being honest, he'd admit that he was grateful for the calls, because after a couple of days, Jim and his mother had reverted to the relationship that they had shared when Jim had last lived at home. That was when he was a teenager, and when Irene focused on the myriad of ways that Jim could improve himself. And Jim responded to all her helpful suggestions with a sulky silence. You know what would help you out, Irene had asked three days into his visit? A nice pair of slacks.

I think we should go out and get you a nice pair of slacks. And then later the same day, Irene plunked a small box on the kitchen table. I bought you some green tea, she said. Betty says, green tea helps with weight loss. I imagine you've already tried everything else. A few days after that, she got down to the nitty gritty. You know where you could meet some nice ladies, she said? The bingo. I meet the nicest ladies at the bingo. By contrast, Gwen's suggestions about Molly, and she had more than a few, didn't seem so bad. I've taken the liberty of making a few changes, said Gwen cryptically on Jim's last day away. Jim didn't ask what the changes were. When Jim got back home, Molly was standing expectantly at the front door. When the cat saw it was him,

her tail dropped and she turned away as if in disappointment. Hey, said Jim, following the cat down the hallway. "'It wasn't that he was expecting a warm welcome. "'Usually when he came home, Jim found Molly curled up on the couch. "'Usually, if she gave him any response at all, "'she lifted her head with an air of bored indifference. "'But she had been standing at the door. "'And Jim was surprised to realize how hurt he felt that Molly had obviously been expecting someone else. Hey, he said.

In the kitchen, Jim found a two-page type memo taped to the fridge. Gwen had logged all of the medication and food that Molly had consumed each day. She had switched Molly to a more expensive cat food. The feline geriatric digestive system requires some dietary accommodation, she had written. She had bought her a sheepskin sleeping mat. She had introduced her to organic catnip. And Jim had to admit that Molly looked better for all the changes. Her coat had a shine. Her fur seemed brighter. So orange, in fact, that it looked like Gwen's

hair. It was two nights after Jim got home that Molly had her seizure. Jim had opened a beer and was about to sit down to a bowl of homemade chili when Molly suddenly got up from the sofa, stumbled over to a corner of the living room and began to pant. Her sides were shuddering. Her small mouth was open. Her eyes looked glassy and strange. When Jim put his hand on her back, she growled softly. Jim felt a mix of panic and dread wash over him.

He watched the cat shaking and heaving in the corner for a few more seconds, and then he dashed to the phone. When he said, when she answered, something's wrong with Molly. By the time Gwen got over to Jim's place, Molly had settled. She was still in the corner, but she was lying down. She was still breathing heavily, but her eyes had cleared. Gwen crouched down, and she put her hand out. Before long, Molly was sitting on Gwen's lap,

and Gwen was stroking her ears and whispering to Molly, their two orange heads as close as if they were sharing a secret. Molly began to purr. And then suddenly, with a flick of her tail, she leapt down and she headed into the kitchen to her bowl. Gwen sat alone on the couch, looking thoughtful. You might want to bring her in to see the doctor for a checkup, said Gwen, but there probably isn't much that she'll be able to do. Jim nodded. You know, Gwen said,

kindly, 20 years is pretty remarkable. She's not going to last forever. Yeah, said Jim, I know. Yeah, said Jim, I know. There was a moment of silence, and then Gwen said, that sure smells good. Jim asked Gwen to stay for dinner. It seemed like the only polite thing to do. So Gwen and Jim sat at the kitchen table and ate chili together. And after a few mouthfuls, Gwen put her spoon down, and she said, I think what you just did is terrific.

What, said Jim. Spending a week with your mother, Gwen replied. Oh, said Jim, taken back a little bit. Looking after cats, said Gwen, even sick cats, that's easy. Looking after parents, that's hard. They're both quiet for a few minutes then, and then the conversation began again. Gwen told Jim about her divorce, and Jim told Gwen about Brenda. My neighbor Dave's cousin, he explained.

She drives a taxi in Cape Breton. She hooked up with a mechanic from Sydney last spring, so that was that. Gwen nodded sympathetically. Yeah, it never would have worked out, Jim added. She hated cats. They both looked at each other then awkwardly. And it dawned on Jim that he didn't know if Gwen had cats. I had two, said Gwen, but I just have one now. How come, said Jim. Oh, laughed

Gwen, I can't have more than two cats at a time. If I had more than two, I'd be one of those crazy cat ladies with a smelly house and bright orange hair, wouldn't I? After Gwen left, Molly came up to Jim as he stood at the sink washing the dishes. She purred around his ankles until he bent down and scratched her behind the ears. She looked smug, like a cat that had swallowed a canary. You big fake, said Jim. In the days and weeks that followed Molly's seizure, there seemed to be plenty of reasons for Jim to call Gwen. He wanted to tell her about Molly's vet appointment and about how much she enjoyed her new sleeping mat.

He called to laugh with her about his mother's latest advice, and eventually he called to invite her for another bowl of the chili that she'd liked so much. Eventually he called to invite her for another bowl of the chili that she'd liked so much. As the year unfolds, Gwen and Jim will see more of each other. Most of the time they'll hang out at Jim's house with Molly. Sometimes they'll leave her sitting in the living room window while they make an evening stroll through the neighborhood. Despite all the time they'll spend together, despite his mother's New Year's request, Jim won't be thinking of marriage anytime soon. Yet when spring arrives, Jim will realize that he and Molly are approaching the 21st anniversary of their meeting in the alley. 21 years with anyone is no small accomplishment,

even if that someone is a cat. And one day in May, as the leaves of Virginia Creeper green the garage walls along the alley, Jim's going to find himself thinking that maybe he's finally ready to let another person into his life. He'd never meant it to anybody but Gwen, but the thought has occurred to Jim that this is exactly what Molly was trying to tell life. He'd never met it to anybody but Gwen, but the thought has occurred to Jim that this is exactly what Molly was trying to tell him. And as he and Molly shed their winter coats and seek out sunbeams in the backyard, Jim will stare at Molly and see not an old tabby in her last days,

but the unpredictability of life itself. You befriend a hungry cat. Who wouldn't do that? And 21 years later, your life is totally different. 21 years later, you find yourself thinking about something you'd never have dreamed. Thank you very much. applause That was the story we called Jim and Molly the Cat. So could you hear it?

Could you hear his voice? Did it sound raspy? Or is it just like some of my superstitious cold prevention methods? Is it all in my head? I could definitely hear it, but I could also hear something else that made me really happy. I love, love, love the way the audience sounds in that story. I love when you can really hear the audience. That's a combination of a number of things.

It's how the audience is mic'd, which mics we used, where they were placed, and also how close the audience was to the microphones and how live the room is. Some rooms are full of hard surfaces like concrete or glass with nothing to absorb the sound. The sound bounces around those rooms like a racquetball on a court. That's too live. That's difficult. But other rooms are what we call dead. Often that's because there are too many soft surfaces soaking up the sound, absorbing it. Carpets, curtains, upholstered seats, low ceilings. You want some of that, but too much of it feels dead.

You can't hear or feel the audience. You want some of that, but too much of it feels dead. You can't hear or feel the audience. Their energy is absorbed like water into a sponge. But in that recording, the one you just heard, you can really hear the audience. There's that great section about Jim's grandparents' marriage. I love that part. There's that great section about Jim's grandparents' marriage. I love that part. I love that Jim turns sour on marriage, not because of the dissolution of his parents' marriage, but because of his grandparents' reportedly happy marriage. The description of their marriage as an ongoing siege is so funny.

is so funny. When Stewart gets to the part about the pineapple upside down cake, there is this great reaction from a woman in the audience. She says something like, oh yeah. Actually, hold on. Let's just play it so you can hear it.

Here it is. Every Sunday night, for example, Edna produced the only dessert of the week, a warm pineapple upside down cake. She made pineapple upside down cake because Lloyd had once said he hated it. I used to hear those people backstage and it would always make me laugh. And so I'd be so happy when I'd get back to the hotel and listen to the recording and I'd be able to hear them. I'd be like, oh, there they are.

It gives the recording texture. It makes us all feel like we're there sitting in the audience. That's kind of what we tried to do with those live recordings. Over the years, we actually started to change the way we recorded the show in order to pick up more of those little details. This was Greg DeCloot who came up with this. You hear me mention his name every week. He wanted us to be able to hear the big wave of laughter and applause, but also those little comments that can make those of us listening at home, even years or decades later, can make us feel like we were there, sitting in the audience, to make us feel like we're a part of it. So that made me happy to hear today. And it also made me forget about the raspy voice and the laryngitis and the hand sanitizer.

Okay, it didn't totally make me forget about those things, but close. We have to take a short break now, but we'll be back in a minute with a sneak peek from next week's episode. So stick around. That's it for today's show. We'll be back here next week with two Dave and Morley stories. And next week's December, so you know what that means. It's Christmas at the Vinyl Cafe. We'll have two Dave and Morley Christmas stories,

including the Christmas story that started it all. And by 6.30, he had the turkey more or less thawed. He used an electric blanket and a hair dryer on the turkey and a bottle of scotch on himself. That's next week on Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe. Join us next Friday to hear Dave Cook's The Turkey and another classic Vinyl Cafe Christmas story. Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe is part of the Apostrophe Podcast Network. of the Apostrophe Podcast Network. Our recording engineer is someone who has seen me drink wine till 3 a.m. in the back of many tour buses, Greg DeCloet. Theme music is by Danny Michelle. The show is produced by Louise Curtis and me, Jess Milton.

Let's meet again next week. Until then, so long for now.