Radiolab - Radiolab After Dark

Episode Date: May 27, 2022

Back in 2002, Jad Abumrad started Radiolab as a live radio show. He DJ’d out into the ether and 20 years later we do the same. To commemorate the 20-year anniversary of the show, the Radiolab team went old school and took over WNYC Radio, live on the FM band. We answered the phones, played some wonderfully weird audio, including one piece where Kurt Vonnegut—yes, that Kurt Vonnegut—interviews the dead, took part in some games and tomfoolery, and did everything we could to have and to share in our good time.

Wait, wait, you're listening. Okay. Alright. Okay. Alright. You're listening. Radio lab. Radio lab.

WNYC. WNYC. WNYC. WNYC. WNYC. WNYC. WNYC. Wait, we're not live right now.

We are? We really are. We really are. Hey, this is Radio Lab. I'm Soren Wheeler. Today, you're going to hear Lulu and Lutthiff and our show in a very different mode, mood place. Reason being, it's Radio Lab's 20th anniversary.

So 20 years ago, Chad started a show that played Sunday nights here on W.O.I.C. our home station, just on the air, no podcast back in that day. And so in celebration of those 20 years and all the things that have happened to the show since, we took over the airwaves of our of W.O.I.C. once again, and we ran the show live. Actually, we did two live shows that night just this past Sunday in a row, but I just wanted to share some of that little experiment with everyone on the podcast. So I'm going to play the second hour of that show in the spirit of the attempt, totally, totally raw, unedited. And I hope you enjoy it.

I'm Lula Miller. I'm LuthevNasser. You are listening to Radio Lab tries lives. So we don't do or really do live radio. So since we're so used to pre-recording everything, this is basically our equivalent of showing up to high school for a pop quiz naked. But it is our 20th birthday and we wanted to celebrate in real time with you. Don't worry we are wearing clothes, and we actually did prepare for this pop quiz.

We've got stories, we've got guests, we've got surprises in store. And we are not going to curse. And best of all, we got you if you want. We're opening the phone lines shortly to take your calls. Okay, so 20 years ago, when Chad Abram Rad started Radio Lab, he called himself a, quote, DJ of documentary. Um, he's so corny, he's such a wonderful.

But so beautiful, he spun audio and stories the way that DJ's been music. Stories from people who weren't always being heard. Stories from people he admired and he thought about what tape to put up against what. And so in that spirit, which I think is so beautiful, we wanted to kick things off by sharing a short story that we love. And honestly, it's kind of better knowing nothing at all going into it. It comes from our pals at the Moth, a live storytelling show, and it is told by a show Ramasubra Munyan. Applause Sometimes when I'm walking down the street,

people stop me and ask me for change. Of course, it's not change they want. They want money. But here's the deal. I always have change. I always give them money. It wasn't always this way. And there was a time when I was quite stingy with my money.

And this is how it all changed. And it's due to my roommate. I was in the third year of my engineering school in India, and one day a relation of mine who's been overseas came back with a Kit Kat, the candy bar, a full bar. He gave it to me and he said, this is Kit Kat. They eat it in America. And it's amazing. So when you're in India and when you have a roommate,

tradition dictates that you share this thing with your roommate. And I looked at it and it was like nothing I've ever seen before. It was beautiful. And I said, I'm going to eat just a small piece. I mean, I'll still share the bulk of the thing with the room. I know how I'm done. I ate a small piece and it was amazing. And I said, I'll eat a little piece more.

I mean, you know eat a little piece more. I mean, you know where this is going. Well, pretty, pretty soon, I had only a very small piece of Kit Kat in my hand. And at this point, some kind of twisted logic seized me. I mean, what's the point of sharing now? I mean, the roommates are going to come home and I got to explain, dude, I had this full bar.

I ate most of it. And there's only a small piece to share with. No, the safe thing to do is to eat that also and hide the wrapper, which is what I did. Now, in my 21 years in India, in my 21 years in India, this KitKat has come into my life only two times. You already know the first time. Now, here is the second.

About two hours later, my roommate comes home and he's clearly delighted about something and and Joy is a concept that's very hard to pin down but you know it when you see it and I saw Joy in the eyes of my roommate. The dude's clearly excited about something. Now in his hand is a small paper napkin folded up and he opened it up and inside it is a small one inch piece of Kit Kat. Now unlike me who had wealthy relatives abroad, a friend of a friend had given him something a small piece and his eyes were filled with a joy of sharing. And he said, this is Kit Kat. They eat it in America. And it's amazing.

And his eyes were sparkling with joy. I've never seen anything like that since or before. Well, my own eyes, more confused than anything else. Like, what am I supposed to say? Dude, I actually had a full bar. I ate it all. So you should eat this. I mean, so he proceeded to take a ruler.

This is engineering school, so there's rulers all over the place. And the rulers that we use have one edge that sharp, the better to draw lines with. So he took the sharp edge of the ruler and he cut his tiny bit of Kit Kat into two. And he offered one piece to me. I ate it. What else are you supposed to do? It's too complicated to do anything

else. But you know, two KitKats in a single day within hours of each other. The universe, God, if you will, is trying to send me a signal saying, Dude, you are on the wrong path, you need to change. And so I did. Thank you. That was a show, Rama Subramanian, and his story came to us via the mosque. The mosque is actually about to celebrate their 25th anniversary, got a speed by five, happy birthday to the Moss. They have a new book out called How to Tell a Story, the Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling

from the Moss. That story makes me so happy. I just get warm when I hear it. A lot of can I tell you a fun factoid that may or may not be true that I learned recently about KitKats? Okay. Okay, so do you know what's inside a KitKat, like what's on the inside?

Weafer, wafer, wafer. Wafer, but more specifically, any other, any other. Besides the wafer and the chocolate, I don't know, I feel like those are the only two ingredients. Okay, apparently it is crushed up KitKats. No.

Which begs the question? What was inside the first kick cat? So pondering unanswerable physical philosophical puzzles like the kick cat Arubarus, as I like to call it, which may or may not be true if anyone from the candy corporation wants to let us know. So, I think it's a bit of a philosophical puzzle, like the Kit Kat Arubarus, as I like to call it, which may or may not be true if anyone from the Candy Corporation wants to let us know. We're here.

That brings me joy. I like to think about stuff like that. And over the past 20 years at Radialab, the show has covered all kinds of things. Science, the Supreme Court, history. But I think it's fair to say we always try to keep our antenna tuned for moments of joy. We try to work at least one into every episode. So listeners, we are calling on you to help us find some joy for this episode tonight.

These are some dark times. There's war, there's pestilence, there's climate change, there's so much more terror. But for just a short segment here, let's focus on the hard-won joy. We're opening the phone lines. If you laughed so hard, you cried in the last week, we want to hear about it. Call us at 844-745-8255. That's 844-745-, talk, or send a tweet tagging at RadioLab or using the hashtag RadioLabLive. It could be a tiny moment of joy and interaction you observed between strangers on a train, a little seedling finally pushing up through the dirt. Whatever it is, if you registered that good warm feeling in your body, call us and tell

us about it. We want to know what it looked like, what it felt like, sounded like, whatever it is, if you register that good, warm feeling in your body, call us and tell us about it. We wanna know what it looked like, what it felt like sounded like, whatever it is, we wanna know. And as the call start rolling in, just to get you in the spirit, we wanted to play for you one of our favorite moments of pure bliss ever captured on tape

is from Radio Lab back in 2012. Here it goes. Okay, hello, hello. Hello! Hello! Hey! How are you? We are super, super excited to talk with you. Oh, same with me, I'm sorry about the delay and so on. Oh, that's fine, no it's a...

It's a... Life is crazy. Life is crazy? Yeah, I know. But, um, you were so enthusiastic, so I was just like... I need to talk to this guys, they really mean it. This is Alex. Alexander Gammah. Gammah. I need to talk to these guys, they really mean it. This is Alex. Alexander Gammah.

Gammah. Are you Norwegian all the way back? Yeah, typical Norwegian. You know, if typical includes things like... biking in Sahara and climbing Everest and things like that. He's kind of a professional adventurer. And we got him into the studio because he made a video last year on one of his trips. Get to tell you this video, it's maybe the most

amazing internet video I have ever seen. I think so too. So let me just have the scene for you. Okay. What you see in the video is this guy, Alex, kind of moving along this piece of on skis, this snowy, snow- scape. He's filming himself, he's got the camera on his right hand.

Where is he exactly? In Antarctica. He's on a three-month trek to the South Pole and back by himself. And what he's been doing is every couple of days on his trip, you know, every 200 kilometers or so, he would bury stuff in the snow. Some fuel and sometimes a little bit of gear that I didn't use. Was that just a light in your load? Yeah. Because every ounce of unneeded weight has to go through.

So in this video, it's day 86. Almost three months since I left. That's three months of walking 10 hours a day. And I lost almost 25 kilos. 55 pounds. He's exhausted. Oh. Shada. 55 pounds is exhausted. He's come upon his last cash.

So on the last cash where this widower is captured. What you see is Alex kneel in the snow, start to dig. I'm telling that I'm quite hungry. Whatever's in this last cash in the snow, it's been three months since he buried it. So I didn't really recall what was there. He hopes it's something good. So he digs up this bag of stuff, starts rifling through it.

I just dig it and I may have a sling or a f**k. Some gasoline, some zinc ointment. It's just a mess. Ich stecke ein Lamé-Wachs-Lähnen, aber ich vergehe es. Ein Besslin, ein Zinko-Eit-Man. So, aber? Es ist ein Mess. Es ist ein Präsent. Ja, ich war schmierlos, und das ist brav. Aber dann... Ja! Ja! Ja! But then... YAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH back of cheese doodles. Yeah! Then he throws it up in the air.

Yeah! And then this is my favorite part. He just freezes. And he's staring off into the distance, almost like, did that happen? Unreal. Is it real? Is it real? So he starts to dig some more

And then... Here's chocolate bar, it's milk chocolate And then it's just like... I find more and more and more Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha of the blissed out voices you heard in that clip to the show right now. Special guests, are you there? We're here, hello. Hi. Hello.

Hi. Those voices, of course, belong to Chad Boom Boom Abumrod and Robert Crelley Crullwich, former host of Radio Lab, welcome, gentlemen. Thank you. Wow. I just feel like saying heat up. Yeah, thank you for coming.

OK, here now that we're calling the shots, here's the gateway question that lets you into this evening. OK, first, Dad, have you had a moment of joy or bliss that you have felt? That's a great question, Lulu. In fact, that question gives me joy. And then it is asked by you, gives me double joy. I'm going to make it harder in the last week.

Oh, well, I'll give you one for today. Okay, okay, okay, great. It's not quite as ecstatic as the cheese noodles, but I, so my oldest son who is now 12 and who plays piano and it was pretty good um he this afternoon went to an open mic night for teens he's not yet a teen he's almost a teen and he and he and he played an original song that he wrote and he got up on this very professional looking stage at this very legit looking jazz venue and he played his song, accompanied by a bass player and a drummer who he never met. And he took a solo and it was great in Carl and I were in the audience.

And we were like, damn, that's our child. And who used to be like a chubby little blob, right? And now he's this tall, like 12-year-old with peach fuzz and he's playing jazz with two other people. It was just a beautiful, joyful moment. So yeah. You can't give us an impression of what this little flavor, what the song sounded like.

No, if I had the piano. But it was like that kind of jazz. It was like a Keith Jarrett standard. I don't know what that means. I didn't know. Okay. All right. You know what? It's pretty. It's pretty. It's like a pretty jazz. Yeah. It was nice. He did great. I was really proud of it. Okay. Robert, your turn. My turn. So let's see. I guess it has to be today, today. Today, I... Last five minutes, probably.

Last five minutes. No, okay. Last week, you could be the last week. No, in the last few hours, I have been completing my wild, my wild grass garden. So I have created a plot of land roughly 40 square feet on the corner of a property that I own which is right by a road. And it was very hot today, but I was determined because the instruction said, if you want to put the seeds of these wildflowers into your cleared area, you must reduce the ground to a completely ruthless p-hung of sweet earth. And the no one has

touched this ground, I guess, in at least 50 years. So there's an awful lot of roots there. So I had this thing where I was on my knees, I was pulling out roots and pulling out roots and pulling out roots and I was sweaty. And then some lady came walking with her dog up the road and stood for a long time. I was sweaty and then some lady came walking with her dog up the road and stood for a long time. I was unaware of her at first. And then she said to the dog, look at this man. He loves his garden. He heard that and the flow just the compliment entered me and I blossomed and I made a full turn so I would think of maybe bowing or something,

but she had walked on unfortunately. So I would think of maybe bowing or something, but she had walked on unfortunately. I was, it was just a little moment, right, but thank the Lord that I had found this pleasure. But it's like, and then at the end of the hour, I was able to then sprinkle this sack of seeds tried bought about two months ago. And then it said, now stamp on the seeds with your feet. So that's what I did. It says don't water it, don't cover it with earth, just stamp on it, and then go away, which is what I did.

Sacred moments in rootless earth and boy jazz. Now we are asking for your moments of joy. The phone number is 844-745-8255. Robert and Jad are going to stick around. Call us in. It's Radio Lab's 20th birthday. We'll be back in a moment. What if? Lutthiff. Lulu.

Radio lab. We are here celebrating 20 years of radio lab and we are doing it by taking calls about moments of joy that we're going to share with Chad and Robert who are here with us. So right now we have Eva in Ohio. Eva are you there? Okay what is your moment of joy? Yeah so you know with the pandemic being what it was I had the great gift of having some friends stay with me over the weekend to I had not seen in years. And you know as happens when you are with people for the first time in a long time, you're starting to relearn the social protocols of spending time with each other.

And we were having a good time, but it was a little stilted until one of my guests went into the bathroom and unbeknownst to him. My cat was also in the bathroom with him. And we unfortunately discovered that the cat was in the bathroom when said cat very determinously tried to get out of the bathroom and the bathroom door is one of those sliding barn style doors that you see all over you know flipper floppers all those other HGTV shows and so we look over at the bathroom and we just see my cat arm arms sticking out of the door. He's like, let me out, let me out, let me out. And my little 10 pound cat was so determined to get out of that bathroom that he pried the door open all on his own, leaving my poor friend exposed on the toilet.

And there was something that so quintessentially human about that moment and the fact that no matter how long it had been since we had seen each other, bathroom humor is always a way to get everyone crying with laughter. Love it. So Eva's moment of joy is a close friend's slight humiliation with Kat. And, you know, at the hands of a tiny little cat. That's wonderful. Well, thank you so much for calling in. And you know, at the hands of a tiny little cat. That's wonderful.

Well, thank you so much for calling in. We're going to just keep moving and make a pastiche of these moments in the last week. So next up, we got Max in Borum Hill, Brooklyn. Max, you are on the air. Oh my goodness. What if it's the first of all, it's a joy to be on the air for incredible people Who I've been listening to for almost all 20 years Think Crawl which joined

And I'm a boredom Hilter and I look on bean street. I'm from that very neighborhood. I mean for a little while Oh my goodness. I'm on Douglas and Smith. Tell us a moment of joy. It was yesterday. I was heading into Manhattan for a friend's birthday party in Central Park and I was on the F-Train and a dad came on with his I'd, probably four-year-old son sat down across from me. Some is looking around the train and gets a little bored and then the dad pulls out a toy

still in its box and hands it to the kid who looks at it. And he catches eyes with me and I give him, I'm wearing my mask and give him just a big eyebrow raise. Oh my goodness, he got a toy face. And he lights up, but I'm reading a book and he's looking around the train and then he just keeps coming back to me and comes back to me and then his eyes start to just drift away and this little boy just starts to fall asleep holding this

toy staring at me trying to figure out what's going on and then falls asleep and his father brings him in and then tries to wake him up as they're about to get off. And this kid just can't keep his eyes open. And it was just this moment of seeing joy in a kid's face when he's at the end of his day was just a real moment of joy for me to witness. I see. So there was a, the gaze at you was the last bit of life you had in before you had to hit the wall. Yeah, why is he? I see. Okay. Yeah. I was like, you can't drug this kid? I was thinking like, you never found a sleep on a done on public transit. I feel like I get my best sleep on public transit every time Especially on a toilet under the under the focused gaze of a happy man on the other side of the train

I mean something strange happened there. I feel okay. Thank you Max Appreciate it. Thanks so much That'll do it. We had more calls, but we just reveled in the joy too much to take anymore So we're gonna call it on our section of joy uh... thank you that's all the joy well there's gonna be more joy just less joy from the college but more joy coming uh... thanks for everyone who called

in That was, that Yodeling was previously recorded by Lulu and myself. We are celebrating Radio Lab's 20th anniversary today, 20 years ago, when Chad started the show, the broadcast live, he played audio from people he admired. We're doing that tonight too. Time now for another short story that we love. This one is called, Are You a Member of Wash Club? And it was originally broadcast on the BBC Radio

for our show show Shortcuts. One night I'm sitting in a student halls of residence, it's in a kitchen, so I have to midnight, and I'm chatting to this guy called Beaver. Beaver's telling me a story. He'd seen a bunch of teenagers hanging out in the 24-hour lawn dred. And one of the kids was inside one of a tumble dryers and was going to go around.

When Beaver first saw this, he thought that they were torturing the guy in the tumble dry. But when Beaver realized that the guy was actually inside a tumble dryer by choice, he demanded to be the next person to get a go in the machine. The tumble dryers, they've got like a temperature gauge on them and the rest of the guys had put this down to zero. However, Bever told me that when it came to his go go and this is his words where he insisted on being tumbled at the same temperature as his clothes. I'm listening to the story right and I'm just thinking I've hit Pader, a clandestine tumbling club here on

campus, that's kind of vintage lifestyle magazine material. If you take into account that the second part of Beaver's story is like definitely a lie, isn't it? There's no way that he did himself at the same temperature that he does as close, he'd be like severely burned. But the first part of the story is probably true, isn't it? Like that's probably true, isn't it?

The next day I start work. I go to the late night Laundrette and I can hang around to see if anything happens. Nothing happens. I don't really surprise by, but I realise I'm only one man. I can't be in all Laundretts in Norwich simultaneously. So I start putting up posters and this is, you know, this is a copy of written. Are you a member of Wash Club? And then I've just put my mobile number at the bottom. Immediately, I start getting text messages about it.

What is Wash Club? Which is a good question, right? It's a good question. My poster doesn't make that clear at all. So I'd respond to something like, Wash Club is a secret society where you get into tumble dryers and go round Are you a member and then there be another message, you know like what is wash club and then I respond Wash club is a clandestine group who tests their endurance by getting into tumble dryers

Are you a member can I join wash club when is next meeting I want into wash club when next wash club meeting Pretty much every message I received from that moment onwards was just an application to join. Over night I became the ringleader of the very cult I was supposed to be investigating. I don't know what you do in a situation like this, maybe like text back, these people and explain the mistake. And like, who retrospects you? I was like, yes, that's a really good idea. people and explain the mistake and like respect. Yes, that's a really good idea,

but at the time I just sent this text message to everyone who texted me saying, meeting for new recruits next Monday at midnight, uni-laundry, no loose clothing. Because, all right, and I wanna justify that, even if they hadn't gone to a club yet, they were like potential people who might join. And that's still interesting, right?

So I wanted to talk to those people, maybe Wash Club already existed, like it didn't exist. But maybe it did, right? Maybe it did, and then the original chapter would hear about this kind of new chapter, and we would kind of join forces except that's never going to happen because like this is a fantasy. I had another text tree. My name is Sue Hartnell.

I'm writing an article on Wash Club. I wondered if you could explain a bit more about the club and what happens at a wash club event. I sent my quick response and just said, oh, let's not stop saying this wash club. It's just a joke. I hope everyone wasted too much time looking into it. Cheers Ross. Two days later, like this is the article.

Students spin and tumble in late night dry erides. Despite the supposed tradition behind the watch club, there have been no past reports about the activity. Members remain ever elusive. I decide at this point it's best that I don't respond to any more text messages. Just in case any more journalists try to weed their way into my club. My plan is that I'm also going to go down on that Monday at midnight and pretend to be another new recruit myself. So Monday rolls around, I'm killing time till midnight so I go down to the

the computer centre of the university and start to do a little bit of preliminary research. There have been reports of people getting inside tumble drives in the parts of the country and that shouldn't be a surprise really. There's board, teenagers everywhere right. But there's one story which is in the seaside town of Tenby in Wales over a 48 hour period every single industrial tumble dryer in Tenby was broken classic wash club activity. The thing that concerned me most about its article was a bit at the end where they did an interview with a tumble dry repairman. He says, you know, it's just lucky that the tumble dries these kids got into weren't gas

operated tumble dries because if he had done that then the fumes from the tumble dry would have made them very sick, possibly, could have killed them. And that did give me a cause for concern based on what was going to happen this evening. But the reason why I knew it was all right was because Beaver told me that he definitely went inside the machines on campus. And that's how I knew that they weren't gas operated drives. Even though Beaver said that he went in at the temperature, that he did his clothes and that clearly was a lie, he definitely went inside the machines, right? That part's true, and that's why I knew for certain

that I hadn't just formed. A death cult. Anyway, it gets to midnight. There's two guys already waiting outside drinking some beer that they asked me if I'm here for wash club. I say yes, I tell them I saw the poster. We stand and have a chat. We're waiting for Mr. Wash Club himself to turn up and kind of validate what we're all

doing here. Obviously he's not turning up. He's me, but they don't know that. I use that time whilst we're waiting to talk to the rest of the guys about the small risk of these being gas operated dryers and the fact that we could kill ourselves by getting inside it. And slowly over the next couple of minutes, we come around to the idea of maybe sacking it off. One of the guys invites us, all of us together back to his halls of residence. About an hour later, one of his flatmates comes back and he asks us where we've been this evening.

And I tell him, this story is just gonna cyclical nature to it, cause like here because here we are back at the start again sitting in a kitchen on a halls of residence talking about getting into Tumble Drys except this guy who's just walked in, he's me and I'm Beaver. He asked us a question which I didn't really answer at the time. Why would any adult get inside a Tumble Dry? Which is just going to show a terrible journalist. I was that what would never have even asked myself why anyone would kind of do it. But I can answer that question now.

At that point of time, I would have done anything for my life to have been like a story. Creating Wash Club was my opportunity to do that. For a minute, you know, I got to be the axis around which everything else turned. Whether or not you have any sympathy for that, I think really depends on which perspective you take. Because if you take the perspective of the person outside the lawn dread looking in,

then all you see is a twat going around in a tumble dryer. If you take the perspective of the person inside the tumble dryer, then just for a moment you get to see the whole world turning around you. That story came to us from Ross Sutherland's show called Imaginary Advice. It was originally produced by Eleanor McDowell for shortcuts, a falling tree production for BBC Radio. Alright, well since we are here doing live radio at night, we thought we had to pay homage to Queen of Late Night Radio Delilah with an... In the first and only occurrence of this never-to-accurring segment, a listener tells us who they want to dedicate a song to and why, and then Chad, who listens to esoteric music that mostly only robots like, picks out the song to play for that person.

Chad, are you ready for your assignment? It's sir. Okay. Okay, okay. So Kelly Clancy just tweeted at us that she wants to dedicate a song to her husband, Jim, her quote favorite person to listen to music and radio lab with. So what are you going to send out? What are you going to send out to Jim as a musical expression of Kelly's love, what you got?

Well, I think I have the perfect soundtrack for that touching dedication. This is a song that goes simply by the name construction because Lulu we are all just that. Constructions work some progress, try and be better. Yeah, really clunky and awkward. And yet somehow cold detached in the face of an uncaring world. And so with that, I dedicate this song simply called Construction Number One by John Wall to Jim. What more do you have to say right? Okay, just get all of it. We already got the relationship. It get all of it really does the relationship It's not quite what I would have chosen Jeff

But thank you anyway. I guess and thank you on behalf of Jim who I'm sure is just bold over with gratitude um And also thank you, Chad for starting 20 years ago this dinky little show called radio up Oh, is that music still playing? Yeah. OK, all right. Bring it in hot. OK, well, so since it is the show's birthday,

and since we do have Chad and Robert here on the line, I want to know from everyone listening, has Radio Lab ever changed your life? Has it ever made you do something you otherwise wouldn't have? Has it ever made you not do something you otherwise would have? Has it at any point over the last 20 years? Has it changed the way you exist out in the world? If so, call us at 844-745-8255.

That's 844-45talk, or tweet at us at RadioLab or just tweet using the hashtag RadioLabLive. This is RadioLab, we'll be back in a moment. I'm Lulu Miller. I'm Lattip Nasser. Tonight Radio Labs' 20th birthday party live. We want to take a few minutes to hear from people about weather and how the show has changed your lives. And especially so in the presence of Jad and Robert. Our first call is coming from inside the house.

It is Radio Lab's W Harry for tuna, our production coordinator here in the studio with us, Harry, hello. Hello. You have a story about Radio Lab from before you actually worked here. I do. Radio Lab is my career change. I used to work in TV and film. And in that job, I was in my car a lot. I was a location scout. And I heard an episode, you versus you. And back then, I'm not proud of it, but I was a smoker, a pretty heavy smoker. And I had tried to

quit a bunch of times. And in that episode, they talk about something called the Ulysses contract, whereas you make a deal with yourself that you're not willing to lose. And because of that episode, I made a bet with my brother, where I bet him my just cherry of a car. I had a 1987 Buick Grand National, AKA the Death Star, which is what it was called, because it only came in one color, black, and I named it Pearl, and I bet my brother that car that I would quit smoking.

And he made an alternate bet with me that he would quit vaping because he started vaping at 42, like an idiot. But he lost the bet in a week, but on the night of my 35th birthday, when I made that bet, I threw the pack out in the trash, and I never smoked again. And it was all because of what I heard on that episode. Wow. Jad and Robert, are you there? I'm a hairy fortu, no, that's pretty cool.

I think it's pretty cool. My lungs, thank you. Okay. All right. And your brother, what's the second, what happened to him? He stopped vaping. Oh, no, no. I found out a week.

I found out later that he lasted about a week And we had some sort of I guess it's called like a dead man switch So you couldn't back out of the bat even if the other person lost but I actually What was so surprising to me because I tried to quit so many times prior to that and done some very depraved things instead of quitting to get more cigarettes that and done some very depraved things instead of quitting to get more cigarettes. After that night, I actually never wanted to smoke again. It just turned to switch in my head that made losing the car was,

or keeping the car was more important to me than continuing smoking. Oh, and was your brother a regular listener to the show or he never heard us? Never heard it. Never heard it. In fact, probably still. Oh, you see, I can maybe draw a line from that story.

Maybe I should have played. Maybe I should have played. Maybe I should have played. Maybe I should have played. Maybe I should have played. Maybe I should have played. Maybe I should have played. Maybe I should have played.

Maybe I should have played. Maybe I should have played. Maybe I should have played. Maybe I should have played. Maybe I should have played. Maybe I should have played. Maybe I should have played. Maybe I should have played. Maybe I should have played. Maybe I should have played. Maybe I should have played. Maybe I should have played. Maybe I should have played. They've been constantly there the ones who failed to listen. Yeah, maybe the dulcet tones of your voice were actually the key to the quitting. I don't know. I think we need a slightly bigger sample size here.

So actually, let us go. We're going to go to the phone lines. We have Haven and Gwen on the phone. Are you there? Haven and Gwen? Hello. Hi. Hey, you're live on the radio. Excellent to me here. Oh, thanks. Okay.

Tell us your story about RadioLab. What happened? Yeah. Gwen, do you want to go first? Or do you want me to? Um, you can go. Okay. Sounds good.

Um, so I got my first episode of Radio Lab friend in college burned onto a CD, the musical language episode. I just had to Google the name to make sure I had the right one. So, I listened on and off for a few years and I listened to an episode about a bone marrow donor and recipient meeting. And because of that episode, I donated bone marrow. And a few years ago, I got matched with Blaine and I donated my bone marrow. Oh my God. That was how we got connected. Yeah. Yeah, Gwen tell us the story from your side.

It was crazy. So in 2018 I was diagnosed with rare blood disorder and my only treatment option really was a bone marrow transplant. And so my doctors told me they were looking on the registry for a donor and Haven was a perfect match for me. Wow. And did you guys, did you meet? Did you act? Yeah. How did you guys get connected? Tell us what that was. Yeah. So after, like, one of them. So a year after, after the transplant, you have the opportunity to meet your donor and the donor has the opportunity to meet the recipient. So we both know that that paperwork saying we wanted to meet each other, but it was during the pandemic. So we actually contacted each other through email first.

And it was such an amazing day when we got the email from Haven. My family and I were so excited. And we emailed back and forth for a little bit and we talked over Zoom. And then just recently last month we met at the, the match Gala in New York. Oh cool. Well there's now a gala so the people can get together in a hotel room and look at the people who give them the bone marrow. Wow. Yeah. The match is the organization right that does the that organizes the donations and the donors and matches everybody is that right?

Correct. Yeah. What must that be like does everybody pair off with their double and sort of sitting and hold hands or do they all mingle together or were you two just special guests kind of thing we were the only two we were the only man and actually I don't I don't even know if I've told you this story, Gwen, but my family flew out with me, my husband and my parents, and we were having lunch the day of the event, so it's going to be that evening. And my husband turns to me and he goes, well, so who are the other matches who are meeting up at the event? And I just looked at him and I was like, it's us. We're the only one.

And he goes, oh, I was wondering why you were so nervous. And I was like, yeah, this is a big deal. Well, I'm not sure if I realized it until I was there that we were the only two meetings. Well, you're the only two match made in Merrow on our on our program too, so you should feel pretty special. Thank you. Thank you for calling and telling us your story. For those of you who have maybe have not heard the episode or don't know about it, it's called match made in Merrow. and actually we got some stats on it after we released that episode, approximately 3,600 people registered to become bone marrow donors and 22 of those went on to match and donate. Yeah meaning that potentially lives were actually saved which is very very exciting. And you too, listen, Rick, can register to donate, go to bethematch.org to find out how. Lulu, you want to take our next caller?

Yeah, Gwen and Haven, thank you so much for calling in. I don't think it gets any better. That's super cool. So we have another set of callers. I wanted to tell you one quick tweet we got, Robert, that came from MJ, who said, I have generalized anxiety disorder and PTSD, and I listen to the episode, a tree-to-shining tree any time I need to ground myself. And I know that's all that's all of you in there, but that piece about the interconnectedness in trees and communication, I think is such a special one. I also listened to that one for

calming and had nothing to do with making it. So double things on that. Yeah. Robert, you know who MJ is, right? Michael Jackson. Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan. It wasn't Michael Jordan at all. But it was. Okay. Okay making it change. Okay, okay, I'm moving on to our callers. We have another set. We have Andy Barnes and Mariana Vettovato on the phone. Andy and Mariana, are you there? We are. Yes.

All right, welcome to the party. Can you tell us how radio lab changed your lives and thank these these old guys who are not very old for the thing they've learned. Yeah, how did radio lab change your lives? Well, first of all, thank you for having us. This is an honor to celebrate your anniversary with you. So how did radio have changed our life? It was the summer of 2017 and I met up with a friend at a bar in Washington, D.C. When I got there, my friend was talking to one of his graduate school classmates who was this cute woman that introduced herself as Mari. The next thing I knew, you know, an hour or more had gone by and my friend

had left by this point. And maybe Mari, if you want to take it from there. Sure. So the conversation was flowing well. And I brought up a recent trip to the Amazon for work and Andy asked me if I had seen a Jaguar. So I put out a picture of my phone of a Jaguar paw-pring. And they explained that I didn't see one directly, but I saw a fresh and warm paw-pr range. So I knew that one jaguar, like, a jaguar was very close, and this is when Andy brought in radio left. Yeah, yeah, so I had just recently listened to the Galab episode Wild Talk, which is one

of my favorites, And there isn't a jaguar in it, but there is a leopard. So it was kind of a stretch, but of course I asked for Marie's phone number, so I could share the podcast with her. And then the rest of these days, three years later we got married, and so we've been together five years. Oh wow congratulations. Thank you. So I, I will do to to Robert and Chad for that episode that episode and helping me get my future wife's phone number. Thank you. Wow. Really. Yeah. I. I would hope that people would be using episodes of Radio Lab to get phone numbers in all 50 statements. Yeah.

Well, global sounds like. And globally, yes. Why not? Why not in Canada as well? It's not in the real forest. What it was. At the risk of asking a question that opens a whole thing, but what were you doing chase in the in the forest?

Oh, actually it was, it's related to my career. I work on forest conservation. Oh, gotcha. So yeah, yeah. So I'm originally from Brazil by by then I was working for Rooves, so it was just a work trip. Cool. All right, That sounds like fun work. Yeah. I think Lulu and I remember when we went up to that guy who was the creating all those national parks for those animals. And he had a sculpture in his driveway that we thought we thought

we had run into a Jaguar because it was sort of hiding behind a bush in Westchester. I believe. Yeah. That was an amazing interview. I think I'm forgetting his name, but it was about his stutter and how a jaguar kind of helped him move through that.

And that's right. That's right. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you so much, Andy and Mariana. We have time enough just to squeeze in one more call here. It is Nick and Wayne, New Jersey. Are you there?

You're on the air. Hi, I guess I am. Thank you for taking my call. Wonderful. To tell us, how did we change your life and was it, should we be apologizing or? And you have to do it in a minute or less, I'm sorry. Oh shoot, no, I'll be super quick.

I used to be a really pessimistic person and I kind of fell into a depression for a while, a number of years ago. And on the radio, one of the others was kind of going through and I just found the radio left one of the others just kind of going through and I just found the radio left completely by accident. And it was the episode on colors.

And learning that the fact that the world didn't have words for the color blue and just the idea and concept of it didn't even occur to them. I'm like, I believe they mentioned this about how Native Americans didn't have a word for the color of the sky. That just concept of that kind of question didn't even occur to me ever before and it gave me a deep hunger to learn more about the nature of the world and just let just such an appreciation for everything around me. And I kind of inspired this lifelong search for more knowledge, more understanding of the world and this constantly being amazed at what we don't know. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. Thank you for calling in. And thanks to everyone who called in this whole night as we tried this out, we pledged to keep trying to change your life. Yeah, and biggest thanks of all to Chad and Robert for making this show, this little world that we live in. We love you both.

We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right both. No, my back. My back too, yeah, absolutely. So as our real thank you to you, Robert and Chad and to all of the listeners who listened over the 20 years and maybe are even still listening tonight, unclear, we have our big, we've got our big ender for our birthday party

because no birthday party is complete without amazing refreshments. and so we have cooked up the biggest and best one we can think of but we need our we need some help we need our collars collars are you there? Waamei Mothalo are you there? Yes I'm here. Great and where are you? Where are you calling from? From Botswana in Malong Okay, and what time is it there and what does it look like around you right now? It's Right now is 355 AM Thank you for staying up. I know. Thank you for getting up. And what is it?

What does it look like out there? What can you see? Oh, well, it's dark and very, very cold because it's winter. Okay, we're going to make this really quick then. We promise Eric, Eric, the Lord, are you there? Yes, I'm here. Where are you and what time is it and what

does it look like all around you? It's just about 4 p.m. my time and I'm on Hawaii Kai which is near Honolulu Hawaii. Okay and it's beautiful here. I mean it's here's a you know big I mean, it's, you know, big palm trees and Hawaiian grass and little breezes and these amazing trees. I got to find out what the name are. They have these amazing colors on the park. Right. So it's a beautiful place. Okay. So, so, Waamei in Botswana, it's cold and dark, Eric, in Hawaii, it's warm and light.

You are standing on opposite sides of the globe right now. What are these called again, Latif? Antipides. OK, so picture, Wame, on top of the earth, and Eric on the bottom, have you each as instructed brought a piece of bread? Yes, I have a piece of Hawaiian bread. Wame, what kind of bread do you have?

A piece of brown bread. Brown bread. Perfect. Okay, so on the count of three, we would like to ask you to put the bread on the ground. Okay? Three, two, one, go. Done. Just did. On the ground. On the ground. Listeners, we have made an Earth Sandwich.

Everyone listening, we are right now inside the very same sandwich. Incredible. Incredible. It feels so warm. Shout out to artists Zay Frank back in 2006, Zay made the world first Earth Sandwich, a baguette was based on the ground in Spain, and a baguette was placed on the ground in New Zealand. And we've been wanting to make one ever since,

and we just did. That is it for this hour of radio lab live after dark. Thanks to our dream team over here, Mary Croke, Leora Nome Kravitz, Zach Goddard Cohen, Jason Isaac, Regina DeHir, Yessica Baldurama, Peter Ayur-Lono, Ayur-Lano, Matt Morondo, Megan Ryan, Erin Cohen, Carolyn McCusker, Sindu Nyanisambundan, Annie McEwen, Dylan Keave, Jeremy Bloom, Sornweeler, and Susie Lektemberg. Special thanks to Alan and Alita Gofinsky, Alex Wellerstein,

and Katherine B. Razugo. Good night, everyone, sweet dreams. And happy birthday, the Radio Lab. Okay, that was our experiment with live radio and celebration of Radio Lab's birthday. I hope you had fun listening to it. We had a lot of fun making it. Just to remind you, this was only half of the full sort

of live show we did. We did two hours last week. And members of the lab and the radio lab plus on Apple Podcasts will get exclusive access to the first hour. I play do the second here. The first hour of that radio show, they'll get that next Monday, May 30th at 10 a.m. Eastern time

So if you subscribe to the lab at radio lab org slash join and to radio lab plus on Apple podcast You you will be getting that in your feed you can go back and listen to it and re listen to it And if you want I'll tell you there are some very Fun things in that first hour you get to hear from our editor Alex Nesson's cat pop hour you get to hear from our editor Alex Nieson's cat Poppy you get to hear silly questions from call-in listeners so a lot of fun there and you even at the very end get to hear my father-in-law's dog sing with me happy birthday so so if you want all that just join up to the lab and whether you do or not this is radio lab I'm Soren Wheeler. Thanks for

listening and we'll be back next week. Radio Lab was created by Chad Abumrod and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Lulumilera and Lentipnosser are our co-hosts. Susie Lektemberg is our executive producer. Dilling Keif is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bressler, Rachel Qsick, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz-Cutieris, Sindu Nianna Sambendum, Matt Kielty, Annemikunin, Alex Niesin, Sara Kari, Anna Rosquit Paz, Arian Wack, Pat Walters, and Molly Webster.

With help from Carolyn McCusker and Sarah Sandbach. Our fact checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger and Adam Aschibot. Hi, I'm Ram from India. Leadership support for Radio Lab Science Programming is provided by the Gordon and Biti Moore Foundation. Science Sandbox is Simon Foundation initiative and the John Templeton Foundation Foundation support for Radio Lab was provided by the Alfred P Sloan Foundation.