Beantown Podcast - Public Libraries, Guardians of Ga'Hoole, and TSA Bins (01312026 Beantown Podcast)

Episode Date: January 31, 2026

Quinn comes to you LIVE to discuss CLEAR at the airport, the Asmara Public Library, and desert opera houses

Hey, what's going on? It's Quinn David Furness. Welcome to my show. Quinn David Furness presents the Beantown podcast for Saturday, January 31st, 2026. What's going on? What's happening? How are you? Come on in, get out of the cold and pour yourself a stiff, tall glass of Trader Joe's sparkling water, winter sangria flavor, huddle around the fire. Get ready. for an hour, give or take of Bean Town, probably less than that. My Notes app has our trivia question and our Animal of the Week. And typically I'll like to come in with another three to five bullet points of things I want to make sure I hit. And today we're at zero. So we're just going to play it by ear, see how it goes,

not all that dissimilar from how we typically run things here at Quinn Dave, France, presents the Beantown podcast, where I am the creator, the host and the I don't know the narrator I guess when you host you kind of narrate

at the same time that's okay I'm not in the Epstein files that's really exciting I was like 95% sure and then you know you do all sorts of crazy stuff in college

and you say yes to you try to say yes to as many things as you can because you don't want to close any doors prematurely. It's kind of like how your father's day rolls around.

And I'm greater than 99% sure that I'm not a dad, but you can never know for sure based off of past choices. And no one's come running around looking for love and affection

or money or a handout or anything like that yet. So I think with each passing year, we get a little bit closer to being in the clear. What's going on? What's the deal with this clear line at the airports now? So you got your regular TSA, then you got your TSA pre-check, which is, what, 85 bucks for five years. Although what's even before we even, before we even do the pre-check conversation? We don't have to go all the way into this but I will mention I think when when pre-check came out I think it was like oh one of the really exciting things is that you get to keep your shoes on now and this this came up what in like

the fall TSA said you know what you guys we haven't seen a lot of bombs in the platform shoes or the chuck tailors or anything like that lately or ever so So you guys are good. You can keep your shoes on. So what's the big draw between or draw of TSA pre-check versus regular TSA? At this point, I think it's just the electronics, right? We get to keep your laptops in the bag and stuff. But even then, I've certainly, I feel like it's about a quarter of the time when I go through TSA.

Pre-check, mind you. I'm still having to take out the, you know, usually travel with a laptop and a tablet. and a tablet. And you know what's the worst when it's like you got a laptop and you can't quite fit it one way, so you got to turn it the long way in the bin, and then you can't quite get your tablet in there either? Or it's like they have a slight awkward overlap,

and usually it's fine, and then occasionally you get the one blowhard TSA agent who is like, nope, they got to be separate. So now you're holding it up, this is one of my least favorite things when you're not necessarily holding up the line, but when you got like three big, bins going. I hate that. It's just so clunky to try to move. You got your own caravan going.

And then there's Clear, which, you know, what I think what really pisses me off the most about clear is how it's like you get like the concierge, right? The people, you feel like such a, such a plebe standing in that pre-check line because you look over to the right across the Stanchions, that's right, Stanchions, S-T-A-N-T-I-O-N, I think it's those ropes and the metal poles and stuff that you can, you know, for setting up a Q, Q-U-E-E-U-E. And they got their little concierge, right? They paid the clear however much it is. You got like the little, you know, 19-year-old making $17 bucks an hour at O'Hare

walking you through. and that's the worst when you're about to get up to the initial TSA person where they check your boarding pass and or your ID. I guess it's usually just your ID these days. Sometimes you scan the boarding pass. Sometimes you don't. I don't really know what the rhyme or reason is on that. But it's like you're right up at the front of the line.

It's about to be ready, about to be your turn. And then boom, here comes the teenager and the blue shirt guiding this rich person. I don't know. I don't want to be in clear even if you gave it to me. I would feel like such a smarmy listener discretion advised when listening to this program, remember one of occasional use language. Or, yeah, listener discretion device. Number two, podcasts, podcasts objectively terrible. Smarmy asshole skip in this line.

And then there's a whole thing where it's like you just like press your fingerprint and it unlocks your entire, you know, your bank accounts, your transaction histories, all that fun stuff. And then you just jump right through. And I don't know. If people in TSA pre-check are getting to keep their shoes and belts and precious jewels on, what do you do in clear? I don't know. You definitely get to keep your laptop and your tablet in the backpack and clear, right?

There's got to be some other bonus. Maybe you get a hot chocolate when you get through the line. The TSA people are extra nice. They don't yell at you. I kind of I don't mind it you know these days for the most part it's just you walk right through the basic metal detector occasionally I'll get randomly selected to go in the big tube right where you throw your hands up over your head and the thing swirls around I don't mind that it's kind of fun unless you got pants that you're trying to like hold up because you lost some weight or something and then it's a little risky because you got to let go of the pants to throw your hands up but I don't know it always feels like I'm at a children's science museum or something

stepping into the big tube they're scanning me someone could have a real kink right it's like oh their kink is they can they got the x-ray vision those TSA guys behind the computer and who they could see see my nether regents probably not I don't have that sort of kink but people out there might and then you got you get through you know all this stuff and then you're you got all the bins coming through and then you're like awkwardly trying to collapse the bins you know help the TSA people out and then you're kind of

you're like waddling away from the security because you can't put all your stuff back together humpty dumpy it when you're just standing there right at the end of security you got to give yourself a little bit of space a little bit of breathing room and so you're like awkwardly I feel like you can give yourself like five seconds to try to reassemble your backpack and your bag and stuff. And then if it takes longer than that, you got to cut loose and you got to just go find a bench or something. That's how we're leading the show. That's what's going on in my world. I don't even know the last time I went through TSA.

October. Las Vegas wedding probably. What was it? It used to be McCarran Airport. Now it's Harry Reid International Air. report. This reminds me, so we had this,

Harry Reid reminds me of Arthur Reed, of Mark Brown, Arthur Children's books, and later subsequent TV series fame. So our library growing up, the Cherry Valley Public Library, and by the way, shout out to Pakistan.

Thanks for making us the 112th ring comedy podcast in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. By the way, email us Beantown Podcast at yahoo.com. Do you guys think like libraries are a ubiquitous thing like every country has libraries in some form or fashion or because i'm thinking like what about some of these i don't know seheran nations

obviously if you got a big you got a big dog like sudan or chad like they got some they got enough population there's got to be library in some form or fashion but i don't know and this isn't even i don't even know how to like quantify this but it's like does eritrea for sure have a library the eritrea public library it's the capital of eritrea it's like uh something not mogadishu something around the horn of africa as mara the azmara public library where i don't you go to one of these uh what about these pacific island like Palau or Tuvalu.

You think there's a public library in Tuvalu? I don't know. Email us Beantown Podcast at yahoo.com. Again, it's Beaton podcast at yahoo.com. Or if there's any big shockers out there like, did you know that Japan doesn't actually have public libraries? I would find that very interesting and hard to believe. But you never know.

La Biblioteca, we know Spain has it because they have a word for it. very very interesting stuff our summer or our library growing up would run you know summer programs for kids as i'm sure any library would do and one of them was like uh you know some sort of work sheet or something as you write down the answers you bring it back to the library for a chance to get entered into a raffle to win a i don't know uh veggie tails VHS tape or something like that but the key thing you know it's a library so they're all about literacy and learning to read and write for little kids all that stuff so it's like you have to spell it correctly to get credit and one of our sheets or whatever the answer was Arthur read

from the TV show Arthur which we knew very well we were a huge Arthur family and we spell it like I think we spelled it I don't know if it was like Harry Reid R-E-I-D or if it was like read like you're playing the oboe or something but either way the way arthur's last name is actually spelled should have gone with a more literal interpretation it's r e a d which i've never seen someone in real life has a last name r e a d but then again arthur is not real life if you want to take it a step further who's really not real life is that uh that imaginary friend of d w is what's her name nadine with the hair coming out of the top of her head like a fountain what animal was nadine Was she also the artwork or was she something different?

I don't know. She was kind of like a little brown nugget. But yeah, we turned in our answer sheet, Arthur Reed, and it was spelled incorrectly so we didn't get credit for it. And it's just like, you know, it's one thing, that kind of bugged me, because it's one thing if they're asking you to spell like satellite, which is a word that I once misspelled in a spelling bee. I think I put two T's in there.

and I got knocked out on that one. Or if it's, you know, Trisca Decaphobia or something like that. T-R-I-S-K-A-D-E-K-K-A, P-H-O-B-I-A, something like that, Trisca-Dekophobia. I think I messed something up in there. That's okay. But when you're talking proper names, especially when it's like, hey, man, I haven't read the books. I've just seen the TV show. why are you you getting on my ass about this miss barbara the children's librarian before she

packed up ship and moved down to florida i wonder if she's still running around florida i don't know what her last name is i i'm assuming if you google miss barbara cherry valley public library considering she left when i was a kid so 20 years ago i'm guessing uh you're not going to going to find anything. I volunteered at the at the Cherry Valley Public Library for a hot second. It was kind of like an on and off again thing when I was, it was like in high school slash middle school probably before I had a car and an actual part-time job at Kmart, just a way to keep busy. Look good for the college applications. I really needed those volunteer hours to get into Northern Illinois University and Knox College.

You guys hear about this Knox College out there in Galesburg, Illinois. Western Illinois is a very, and there's also Western Illinois University, which I think is in McComb. That's what you say when you get out of the shower, you yell, where's McComb? But now my mom was kind enough to drive me over, and one day we did August-Danacom. college. I know there's a couple of Augustanas. There's one in Minnesota somewhere.

That's where C.J. Ham went to college. I think it's in Minnesota. Vikings legend. Fullback C.J. Ham. But we did a two-stop and one day kind of thing. Augustana College and Knox College. The only thing I remember about Knox College is that it was a site of one of the Lincoln Douglas debates. And that, man, that whole college was you know you go on the campus tour and it's like a straight hour of what just felt like a history lesson and it's just like do you guys like do you have actual classes or sports teams or clubs or anything or is it just this is where lincoln did this this spot is where lincoln you know peed in an alley it was just it's just i just remember being like flat

desolate and a lot of buildings named after Abraham Lincoln. I don't even know who the Knox from Knox College was. But yeah. What a day. If anyone's got any tidbits on Knox College, go ahead and hit this up. I remember it being like just, if you ever been to Galesburg, it's just nothing.

And I was like, this is only, you know, it's about a three-hour drive. drive, I think, from where I grew up. So it's not so far that you're like stuck there, but man, I just, there is nothing about Knox in Galesburg where I was like, oh man, I could really see myself thriving here. And of course, I'm going for music, piano specifically. And these music departments at places like Western Illinois and Augustana College and Knox, they got to have, their annual budget for the entire school of music's got to be like 74 cents meanwhile I'm over here every year getting an invitation to the DePaul School of

Music annual gala gala how do you guys say that and do you say it differently if it's an apple versus a high society event I think gala is what we're going with right this is my biggest gripe the DePaul School of Music gala every year get the invitation and it's i get it because it's like their biggest fundraising thing but tickets to these things are like 200 or something like that or you can get you can buy it you can like buy an entire table for 5 000 or an individual ticket for 200 the math on that doesn't make sense but that's neither here nor there but i never it feels like there should be and i've probably aged out of this now because it's been almost a decade since i graduated college

In fact, this, what are we? This is the 10-year anniversary of, yeah, I'm five months away from an anniversary of my college graduation, which is crazy. Haven't heard a peep about a 10-year anniversary party, and I'm getting eerily suspicious, frankly, that this is going to be a repeat of my 10-year high school graduation situation that I was not invited to, and I found out about from our, like, Facebook alumni page after when the pictures were posted. And it's just like, look, there's zero percent chance that I was going to go.

I really did not enjoy my high school experience at this particular school who was hosting the graduation or the anniversary party reunion. That's the name I'm looking for. But you just, it's nice to be invited, you know? You just want to feel included. You should see if my parents have any of our old yearbook. books from our homeschool co-op. I'd like to page through some of those.

That'd be fun to look at. Probably stashed away in a cardboard box in the back of the garage somewhere out in the Pacific Northwest. It's going to be a little bit tough for us to access. I don't even know how we got all the way down this rabbit hole. Oh, we were talking about. But how did we even get to places like Knox College? I don't know. Illinois, outside of Chicagoland, it's just kind of flat, flat farms.

We got Fleet Farm. You got Blaine's Farm and Fleet. Here in Chicago, we get the running stores Fleet Feet. And outside of Chicago land, you got flat farms. So you got a little bit of everything, a lot of F words. I don't know if there's anyone out there is an alum of one of these Illinois colleges. you know, eastern Illinois, western, Augustine and Knox, you want to go down south. It's a whole different world down there, but S-I-U-E, S-I-U-C.

I don't feel like they don't really call it S-I-U-C. It's just S-I-U-C, Carmandale is the primary campus, and then there's S-I-U-E, Edwardsville, which is east of St. Louis. It's not in East St. Louis, which is infamous in its own right, but it's east of St. Louis. That reminds me down there, Cape, what is it, Cape Girardeau is a city in Missouri on the Mississippi River across from Illinois. And the town on the other side of the Mississippi is called East Cape Girardeau. G-I-R-A-R-D-E-A-U. It's a little bit south. It's close to like where the bottom of Illinois is where it meets Kentucky and Missouri.

and I was over there like 25 months ago to get exact because it was right before I switched jobs. So it was December of 2023, I think. And I did some hiking down there and hung out in Kentucky and Missouri and Illinois. And I had never done like Southern Illinois hiking before. But I remember driving over to Cape Girardeau. I think I went to a brewery there. And to get through there, you drive through East Cape Girardot.

and it was just like a one street town and it's not one of those you know how you got those quaint little towns with just the tiny little like downtown district and it's just one street and it's you know it's kind of nice to look at this is this was the same setup but instead of like old historic homes and a public library if we can bring it back to that it's all strip clubs and like auto repair shops and it just i remember thinking like man imagine being born into this and East Cape Girardeau is just your thing, your home that you claim your own. Just hard. You know, people think Rockford's bad.

Well, at least you've got some variety and there's more than one street. If you're from Cape Girardeau, email us. And it just brings me to my bigger point is like, what are some of the most depressing, desolate towns you've ever driven through where you're like, or maybe you're from there, I don't know, but you're driving through it. it's just like, man, this cannot be real. I'm trying to think I, this was not, I didn't come prepared with this.

I'm trying to think if there's anything else off the top of my head that makes me think like, man, this is, this is really rough. I've been in a lot of places in my time, so I'm sure I can think of some. This is not in that, this is not that same kind of archetype, but something that stands out to me. I have a picture on my phone from a trip when I was, out on the west coast and I started and ended in Phoenix, but I had a rental car and I went to Grand Canyon and Death Valley and what's the, I was going to say Kings of Leon National Park,

but that's not right. Kings Canyon. I didn't actually go. I was just like on the edge. I drove up to the base of Mount Whitney. Anyways, Hollywood Hills. It was a fun trip. It was like fall of 2021, something like that. The reason I mentioned this, and I took a picture of this, Right when you were going, I was driving early in the morning from Las Vegas to Death Valley, just like a two-hour drive. And right before I get to Death Valley, the Furness Creek Visitor Center, that's right, Furness Creek Visitor Center, you come to a tea in the road, and there's an opera house there. And I'm not talking Las Gala, right?

The Wagner had snow. it was just like a very like geometric square or rectangular looking building and it's just like how the heck is there an opera house in the middle of the desert just sitting here it doesn't make any sense i can't make sense of it let me see do i still have this picture on my phone i hope i didn't delete it here's the trip i think i might have oh no there it is it's the uh it's the amargosa opera house and you can probably probably Google it and see what I'm talking about. It's a very like rectangular white building with blue doors and, you know, instead of windows, they're covered up, but they're blue. And I had to take a picture because if you're driving in the middle of the desert between Las Vegas, you know, you're in like western Nevada. And it's like, how did this ever be a thing that we had an opera house out here? Amargosa Opera House. doing a Google search and then we'll get to our Animal of the Week.

Here it is. This is Wikipedia. I'm glad I thought of this because I've had this picture on my phone for, what, five, four, five years now and I've never really researched it. The Amargoza Opera House and Hotel is a historic building and cultural center located in Death Valley Junction, eastern Inno County, California, near Death Valley National Park. resident artist Marta Beckett staged dance and mime shows there from the late 1960s until her final show in 2012 it's in the national register of historic places and is owned by a non-profit it was part of a company town there it is so that makes more sense it's a company town so everyone who lived there it was not like they were born and raised there they just moved there to work like like the pullman train you guys know

Pullman, Chicago. The Pullman Car is what they would call it. The theater is part of a company town designed by architect Alexander Hamilton McCullough and constructed in 1923 to 1925 by get this, the Pacific Coast Borax Company. I don't know Pacific Coast had a borax company. I don't even really know what Borax is. Is that an element? Let's find out.

Borax is a salt normally encountered as a hydrated borate of sodium. There's like four different elements going on in there. It's just a type of salt? I don't know why we care about borax that much. The U-shaped complex of Spanish colonial revival architecture, one of my favorite architecture styles. Style adobe buildings included company offices, employees headquarters,

a dormitory and a 23-room hotel with a dining room, lobby, and store. At the northeast end of the complex, it was a recreation hall used as a community center for dances, church services, movies, funerals, and town meetings. See if there's anything in the in-popular culture section that's interesting. Featured in a couple, you know, movies and TV shows and stuff, but nothing super crazy. But yeah, that's the Amargosa Opera House. And, oh, yeah, you can see inside.

It's like, well, it's flat, so I feel like it'd be kind of hard to see the stage. It's not like raised or anything. Yeah, there it is, the opera house. Anyways, interesting stuff, man. You learn something new every day, hopefully, on the Beantown podcast. This would be a great time to very quickly say thank you to our sponsors. First and foremost, you know, they've probably never inspected an opera house before, but they certainly could do that because they're double internechi insured.

That's right. Is there good friends at Home Pride, Oregon, whether you are buying a house, in central Oregon or maybe you're thinking of moving down to Death Valley Junction and Inyo County, I think it says. That's the name. It's not like in York County. It's in York County. What was the thing we had at the top of the show? It was something else like that. You can rewind to minute two. We made a great pun. McComb, that's what it was. I say great, great pun. It was a very average pun. That's McComb. Oregon listeners or in Yo, County, California and Oregon have a solid border.

I feel like a lot of more, not geography, illiterate people, but people who aren't really plugged into the whole West Coast scene, they don't even realize that. And also the California, Oregon, I feel like, doesn't, Oregon border doesn't get a lot of, like, press. And there's not really any sort of, because Oregon and Washington are so intertwined in Idaho, if you want to throw it in there.

California is just its own separate thing. Even when you're talking northern California, it's all redwoods and Bay Area stuff. You never really think to go up to Oregon. Makes you think. Home Pride, Oregon, inspection, perfection. I also, of course, want to give a shout out to the Samson Q2U series for crisp, clear audio quality, almost as crisp as this delicious Trader Joe's sparkling winter sangria water. Dude, dry January, we are, it's 3 p.m.

I'm on the dot right now. We're nine hours away from dry January ending, and I'm in an interesting spot because I haven't been, like, craving alcohol that much, and I know, you know, especially last year in particular, whiskey was really wreaking havoc on my stomach. So I think we're definitely going to, and I drank a lot of whiskey last year, after the wedding towards the end throughout the year. It's just a pretty, like, consistent thing for me,

not getting drunk or anything, just like warming you up a little bit, you know, two glasses, you know, fairly frequently once or twice a week. But it was just so bad on my stomach that I think we're, I think I'm leaning towards this being a wine year. I don't really know what a wine cooler is, but I feel like I need to have some wine coolers. Northern California, wine coolers. But, you know, the beer, you know, packing on the pounds if I do the beer, the whiskey's tough on my stomach. I've never been like the biggest wine person, although I enjoy wine plenty. But I think this is going to be more of a wine year for me.

So if you got any recommendations, I like living in that $10 range. When I was younger and a little bit, you know, didn't have quite as much spending cash. I would just say, okay, like what is the absolute lowest that's still above like yellowtail? And we just go with that. It would be a lot of $6 bottles and stuff like that. I feel now like $10 to $15. That's more of my sweet spot. And if my lovely wife has a special request for something in particular that's like 18 to 20,

I know bad an eye because I'm a loaded. But give me your best recommendations. I'm a big, I don't drink as much white in the winter, but certainly when spring rolls around, I love a good white. I think I'm more of a pinot, grigio. It's probably my go-to white and as far as red goes, Pinot Noir or a cab. we were just going through the different types of red wine like three or four episodes ago give me your best recommendations uh when god speaks he uses a samson but yeah to cap that thought

it's not like uh every year dry january's got a little bit of a twist to it right in 2020 we just ended up taking it the whole 12 months has been other years where it's like really tough to uh to get through it this year was not one of those i've been pretty comfortable with my sparkling water scene. Last year, we did dry January and then I extended it essentially through our wedding in late April with two exceptions, one for our bridal shower, our wedding shower in February and then once for St. Patrick's Day slash my birthday. But excuse me, this year, I don't know. It's like, I don't want to jump right back in right away. Like, do I want to have a drink tomorrow just to Mark the end of the journey, maybe.

But I'm also not a big Sunday drinker, unless it's a Vikings game or something. So this all makes for very interesting podcast content. Let's keep going here. I do want to briefly shout out to good friends. At Cutsby, Hugh, got the brand new wall clippers. Haven't gotten to try them out yet because I'm not in need of a cut right this second. But I'm actually legitimately looking forward to my next haircut

because I know when we finally pulled the plug, literally and metaphorically, on my old pair of clippers, it was well, way past its expiration date. You know, I'd been using it for 10 years. It's a lot of haircuts without upgrading your equipment. And it was really tough. And I know that that's not what the haircutting experience is supposed to be like, you know, literally like ripping your hair out of the follicles rather than just cutting it because the blades were so dull. So, man, I'm excited for this thing to go right through my hair like butter.

It's going to have to control myself. I'm going to want to go for the military-style buzz cut, like those guys in prison break. I think the guys in prison break had a buzz cut. I never saw it. It was on Fox. I think the first season they broke out of prison and then they tried to make more seasons. And I don't know. Did they break into prison?

That'd be kind of good. Because it's not prison break out. It's just prison break. So you could have broken in, too, maybe to get their friends out. I don't know. If anyone's got any insights into prison break, you can tweet at us at Beantown Cast. The Twitter is still out there.

The blue sky actually is, too. I don't know the last time I was on Blue Sky. But, yeah, the Twitter I haven't logged in and checked for a couple months. So it might be good to brush up on that just in case any celebrities, you know, tweet it at me or something like that. I don't know who would, but you never know. Maybe the country of Pakistan. You think they have an official Twitter?

I don't really know how global Twitter is. I'm not sure about that. I just straight up don't know. Finally, oh, our good friends, our newest friends on the show here, Beantown Sportsbook, Hey Sports Heads, hasn't been too long since you made a terrible decision. The all-new Beantown Sportsbook is now live, leveraging the latest AI, advanced analytics,

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prop-free bonus guarantee up to $500, no-limit, Texas Hold'em. Bean Town Sportsbook, Bet Like a Better, Better. I did a, like, not a focus group, a usability test a couple days ago for a British online casino game. And I got to tell you. No personal shade, you know, directed at any one individual or a group of individual who choose to partake and entertain themselves this way. but the whole concept of playing online slots is just that is tough for me to get behind if that's

if that's how you you know like passing the time good for you but slot you know an actual slot machine which you know i did a little bit i think rachel rachel gave me five dollars to gamble with something like that in las vegas a couple months ago the actual slot machine were you you physically get to touch the buttons and pull the big handle down and all sorts of noises and Vanna White themed this and stuff like that. I find that to be pretty boring in and of itself. So these people who are out there playing virtual slot machines and you're literally just tapping a button with real money sweeps coins and gold coins and all sorts of stuff, it is just, it is wild to me, man. like if I'm going to do any sort of gambling with real money

let me at least try to use my intelligence to some sort of advantage whether it's real or perceived but you know something like sports betting or you do research on the Kentucky Derby or the Australian Open is happening right now you know at least throw your money behind something where it's they feel like you you give yourself some sort of advantage just throwing yourself

at money where you know 90% of people are going to lose, go down rather than win is just, man, that's a tough one to get behind. But that's our thank you to our sponsors for another fantastic show. One other thing, or two things I want to mention, then we'll finish up with our trivia question. First, our Animal of the Week, and then we'll talk Pledge Drive Month. We'll just kind of have an on-air production walkthrough because I haven't thought about pledge drive the pledge drive toll fund fundraiser we don't have a date February's pledge drive month but we're mixing things up a little bit we're not doing

go fund me or anything like that so I guess we're already talking about it so let's just lay it out there if you're new and then we'll we'll get to our animal of the week if you're new to the bean town podcast February every month is pledge drive month and what that means is that's traditionally where we raise money to cover the cost of the show which there's just two major things if you don't know because the Samson's fully paid off. I put those on Layaway and paid them off after about six years. But the web hosting of our RSS feed, some sort of acronym, whatever it stands for,

you have to actually have a place that generates this feed, and that's how we distribute the show to wherever you're listening, cast box, player FM, Stitcher, Spotify, Netflix, Hulu, whatever. So I do that on SoundCalls. So you got the annual plan. It's like $100 a year or something like that. And then there's our website, which frankly we could probably do without. But I like having the Beantown blog as a creative outlet.

I tap into it like twice a year. Beantown Podcast.com. You can find all our latest shows there as well. And that's through WordPress and that's like $80 a year. So our total operating costs in the year is like a little shy of $200. Anyways, we raise money every year to cover those costs of the show. We have different donor tiers. A fan favorite certainly is our Topaz elite club.

Usually we've got some great swag items, some giveaways if you donate X amount. I think last year was the tote bags. That was a lot of fun. And the thing, the kind of key thing to know with this is it's always, you know, I donate, I match the donations one to one and send the money over to a local charity. Usually we partner up with the United Way of Chicago. So that's what it's been. And the medium for collecting that money has always been GoFundMe.

And it just feels like GoFundMe is unnecessary. Usually the people who are donating are people, you know, who are closer friends and family. So the GoFundMe is kind of unnecessary because we can just set up Venmo or Zelle or PayPal or something like that. So I think we're going to ditch GoFundMe. I'm still working on the logistics. But we're going to, you know, Pledge Drive Month starts tomorrow. So nothing is set up yet as far as if you actually wanted to support and promote the show. We'll get to it next week.

But then we always have a special telethon, a Pledge Drive fundraiser, where you can call in live to the show, you can play a game, you can talk about whatever you like, shoot the shit really. And that's usually a weekend late in February. So I think that's the plan. That's what we'll be doing. Maple's freaking out here. This would be a good interview with a dog segment, buddy.

You want to do interview with a dog? No. What do you got? What do you got, Mipple? Yeah, doesn't like the Samsung Q2U series. You're crazy, buddy. It's been a great supporter of the show. So all this is to say, we brought it up into three minutes on it,

just to tell you I don't have a lot of details yet, despite February 1st being tomorrow. So we'll see. We'll let you know. I'll announce the date and time as soon as I have it, and of course you can always call into the show to play a game. or sing a song or if you've got a five-minute stand-up set you want to do live by an air, I'd be down for that as well.

Just entertain the people. It's kind of the one thing that we still live stream over a video. So looking forward to that. Our Animal of the Week, continuing on with this wintry weather over here, it's the snowy owl. You guys know these owls. They're kind of white, and they got the big round faces, moon faces. That's what they call them.

Moonface Martin, isn't that the guy? He's a character and Anything Goes, the Broadway play. Anything Goes. I've never seen Anything Goes. But I have seen Indiana Jones in the Temple of Doom featuring Kate Capshaw opening numbers singing Anything Goes in Mandarin. It's a classic. Are there other movies out there?

I know Temple of Doom is a, is kind of the prototypical example of this where it's like the first scene of the movie is absolutely not indicative of what's to come in the rest of the movie. I wonder if there are other great examples or film examples out there. Because it's not like there's no connection in terms of story, like what's happening in the opening number, like why you're watching a dance and a song and dance scene of anything goes for two minutes. It's like, yeah, Indiana Jones is at the club.

I think it's called Club, Club Canobi or something like that. And he's watching that, and it introduces Kate Capshaw's character, and man, she's a pain in the ass in the movie. But just, you know, tonally, it's extremely different from what's to come. What's the name of the bad guy? I was going to call him Razol Ghoul, but that's not it. That's Batman Begins. Molaram.

I've got to rewatch Temple of Doom one of these days. I love that one. but I'm wondering if there are other films out there like Temple of Doom where the opening scene is just completely different than what's about to come in the rest of the movie. If you got any examples, email us Beantown Podcasts at yahoo.com. The only other thing I want to mention about the snowy owl, it reminds me of, you guys remember that Guardians,

the legends, what is it called? Like the legend of the Guardians of Gahul or something? There's a great reference. If you're 30 Rock fans, episode where Tina Faye's trying to, you know, she's on the flight and her, she's dating Matt Damon Carroll and, you know, the flight keeps getting delayed and they end up breaking up, yada, yada, yada. But the in-flight entertainment is the Guardians of Gahoul, which I think wasn't that, that

was directed, we'll look this up. It was directed by a fairly famous, was it Zach Snyder who did the Guardians of Gahoul, like before Justice League and stuff. But I knew it from well before the 30 Rock episode, which keeps referencing, by the way, and it is Zach Snyder. The reason I bring it up is, you know, it's called the Legends of the Guardians,

the Owls of Gahoul, G-A-A-A-Postrophe, H-O-O-L-E. And it's a, it's kind of like a fantasy film about owls. The reason I bring it up, well, because it's about owls, but I got it as a like a book set. I think there was like three or four in the original series. Maybe there's more. I don't know. I think I read the first one and that was it.

But got it as a birthday present from someone, I think, obviously. I think I read the first one there. They're like there's these owls. They get kidnapped and they can't look at the moon or else they get hypnotized. I don't know. It's a whole big thing. Maybe on a future episode, we will read the plot summary from Wikipedia of the Legends of Gahul,

but that's not going to be today because my voice is starting to get a little bit scratchy here, running out of sparkling water. I also got a separate birthday party. I got the, what's the name? Philip Pullman, is that the guy's name, who wrote the Golden Compass? There's a name for that book series. I think there was three of them. It's like the Golden Compass, you know, there's like the polar bear on the,

on the cover and then there's two other ones we'll we'll just we'll finish up with this and then we'll do a trivia question just so we're all learning something the golden compass though they made a movie out of it 2007 based in the 1995 novel northern lights by philip pullman i don't know why i thought the book was also called the golden compass oh because it was titled the golden compass in north america and like isn't philip pullman he might be british Yeah, he's English. So why are we calling it? Why do we need different names for different countries?

It's not like, and they're the same language too. It's like, what if you called something, fuck you in Japanese? And that means like loving family in Japanese, but it means what it means in English. Like I can get retitling that. But going from, what did we say, northern lights to the golden compass seems unnecessary. It's a young adult fantasy novel by Philip Pullman. set in a parallel universe. She goes to the Arctic, look for her friend.

It features a mysterious substance known as dust. Sounds awfully familiar to Dune. It's the first book of the trilogy, His Dark Materials. There it is. Which of you're curious, what do we think? There's three books in his dark materials, Northern Lights, a.k. the Golden Compass, the subtle knife, and the amber spyglass.

So I got this trilogy of books, His Dark Materials. when I was a kid for a birthday, and I think I read like half of the Golden Compass, but I never finished it and never got to the other two. I also read, and you remember that Aragon book, and then they made it into a terrible movie? I liked that one. It was dragons and swords and like Game of Thrones Light. Pretty fun. All right, let's finish up here with our trivia question,

and is in honor of a fallen comedy legend, Catherine O'Hara, passing away. yesterday. Yesterday was a crazy day. It was like, we'll get to the trivia question in a second year, but morning was kind of, you know, easy going, nice and slow, and I knew I was going to have some, like, middle of the day into afternoon meetings, but work, work got really busy. And then at the same time, first it was the twins firing their president, which is like, I'm not a huge twins fan, whatever. But it's like, that's, you know, a lot of the people I follow are, you know, Minnesota sports people. So they're talking about it's like, wow, that's, you know, that's pretty big news fire you're in your president and then like an hour later the vikings fire their GM and then like

half an hour later katherine a hera dies and it was just one of those days where everything just happens all at once but rest in peace katherine a hera hell of a run sad to see her ago i think the last thing she was in that i saw was that season two of the last of us but i know she got emin nominated for the studio as well with Seth Rogan and that's on our list to watch. I think we just got to get an Apple TV logging. But that was, I don't know, was the studio the last thing she filmed or does she have like any other projects that she's filmed that haven't come out yet? I'll be interested to see. We know she won't be in season three of the last of us because I think I saw a headline as like, HBO is excited to start thinking about planning the process of how they're going to start filming the last of us season three.

It's like, okay, they're shooting for like summer 2033. It's like, all right, we got to let this go. My trivia question is one of Catherine O'Hara's great partners in entertainment was, of course, Christopher Guest. And there's obviously Eugene Levy as well. But we just watched one of these last night in honor of Catherine O'Hara. So I'm curious, I want you to name the four Christopher Guest films that, Catherine Ahera was part of. If you don't know, Christopher Gess' legendary actor, musician director, known for Spinal Tap.

He plays the guitarist in Spinal Tap. Nigel Tufnell, married to, I was going to say Catherine Zeta Jones. That's not right. That's Michael Douglas. Jamie Lee Curtis. But, you know, the classic Christopher Gess mockumentary style, Catherine Ahera is in pretty much all of those, except for the most recent one called mascots. So I guess that gives you a clue.

She wasn't in that one. So name the other four. All classics. I think I was going to rank them, but I can't even rank them. They're all so good. So what are the four Christopher guest films featuring Catherine O'Hara? If you want any more time to collect yourself, go ahead and pause. But we're hitting 50 minutes here.

And I think I just got to lay down. Just feeling. Pooped. Eight miles in the snow this morning. Slushy, challenging conditions, came home, showered eight breakfast, then went back out for a social call. I had some coffee with friends,

which was a lot of fun. But I'm not usually one who's like leaving the house an hour after getting home from a 90-minute workout. And it did. It took me almost 90 minutes to run eight miles this morning. That's how bad the snow was. It was rough. The four films that Christopher guest directed featuring Catherine O'Hara in order of release date,

waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, and for your consideration. There you go. That's what I got for you guys today. Thank you so much for listening to the Beantown podcast. More details to come on Pledge Drive Month and the Telethon Pleas Drive Fundraiser, so be on the lookout for that. You'll know about it when I do. I think we're good to go. My name is Quinn David Furness.

This is my program. Quinn David Furnace presents the Bean Town Podcast. Stay safe, stay sane. Stay warm. I'll check in on you next time. Bye-bye.