Reply All - #87 Storming the Castle

Episode Date: February 2, 2017

This week: Alex meets his hero, the thorn in the side of Dick Dale, GG Allin, and Alex Trebek. Further Reading Longmont Potion Castle's website The Twice Removed podcast Nazanin Rafsanjani's Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From Gimlet, this is Reply Off. I'm PJ Vote. And I'm Alex Goldman. All right, Alex, what are we doing here today? So a couple days ago, I got to interview a person who I consider my interviewing white whale. I guess you could say? Like, it's someone I've always wanted to interview and actually put a considerable amount of effort into trying to get to interview. His name's Longmont Potion Castle.

Just hearing that, I'm sure you know how obsessed I am with this guy. Yes, I do. I feel like, as long as I've known you, you've been like, I'm going to get in touch with Longmont Potion. Castle. Yeah, and getting to talk to him was like a total dream come true to me. For anybody who does not know who Longmont Potion Castle is, he is this very mysterious guy who has been making just these super, super weird prank phone calls for like 30 years. And basically all that I know about him is that he's a musician, he's really a heavy metal,

and he lives in Colorado, so he makes all of his calls there. Is that true? I didn't know that even. I didn't know that was a known thing. And, like, I discovered him at this time when there were tons of file sharing programs and everybody's using, like, line wire and stuff. And not only could you search for albums that you were looking for, once you found it, you could then go through that person's entire music library and just take whatever you wanted. It was like having a cool older brother or something, or a cool older sister, but there's like a billion of them. Right.

And so one day I was looking at some random person's list of music. and I found a bunch of Longmont albums, and I started listening to them, and I just immediately fell in love. Huh. And the thing that I loved so much about Longmont Potion Castle is that it sounded really different than any of the popular prank phone calls I'd heard before.

Like, it sounds nothing like the jerky boys. Yeah, it doesn't feel mean to me, and prank calls can feel mean. Totally. And there's a couple things that make Longmont Potion Castle calls so special. One of them is that he uses all these weird effects on his voice, like it'll speed up and slow down. It just sounds crazy.

But he also just has this very strange relationship to language. Listening to Longmont Potion Castle is kind of like listening to a person from another planet who knows every word in the English language but has just learned how to speak it today. So let me play you a couple things. So like a good example of his sense of humor is like he calls this record store. And he's like, Hi, how you doing? Pretty good. How are you doing?

Super. I was looking for that R&B single. Who? The R&B single's like, Trick, triple check, check, double check, triple check, triple double check, check, triple double check, triple double check. You don't know what it's called? Triple double check, triple double check, triple double check, triple double, triple double check, triple double double triple triple double check, triple double check, triple double double check. It's like that.

Okay, hold on. Otis King, I think. Excuse me? I think it's by Otis King. Otis King? Yeah. Okay, hold on this second. It's like, it's like triple double flip,

double chip, double chip, double trip, double trip, double chip. It's like, it's like triple double flip, double chip, double chip, double chip, double trip, double trip. So I was wondering how late you're open to. Tripp, triple chip, triple chip. Hello? Yeah, how late you're open? We're open until 10? or um

or he calls up like an outdoor apparel store Matthew my name is Schneider Webb yes sir I wanted to get outfitted like a swamp donkey

sorry something of that nature what's a swamp donkey you got it well you know I'm a shepherd that's something encountered many times over the years and I'm a herder okay I'm usually the one leading the charge. Yeah.

So are you... Yeah. Action. Are you looking for like a rain jacket or a shell? Are you actually looking for a costume? I'm looking for a husk. A husk? Yeah.

So whenever I'm really bummed out, putting on a Longmont Potion Castle album is sort of like the quickest way to turn my mood around. And so for a long time, I've been trying to get in touch with him to do an interview. And about a year and a half ago,

I sent him an email, And he responded and said he was agreeable to the idea of an interview, but that he'd hurt his foot. And in order to do it, he wanted some painkillers. And I was like, oh, huh. No, oh, huh? There's no rule of, like, journalists, like, or just human ethics where you can give somebody prescription painkillers. I was just like, I was like, what I said, what I've basically how I felt was, I'm shocked that he responded and even slightly more shocked that he responded. this way.

Do you think he was joking? Not joking or either? I have no idea. It's impossible to tell. So I wrote back and said, you know, I can't do that. But I'd still like to talk to you. And he said, nothing. So I've probably sent him 50 emails over the course of however many years.

I send him about two a month. And then late 2016, I sent my bimonthly email to Longmont asking for an interview. and he agreed to talk to me. Wow. Yeah. Uh, hello. Hello. Hello, is Alex there, please?

Uh, yeah, this is Alex. Uh, who am I speaking with? Uh, this is Longmore. How are you? Oh, shoot. Uh, I suppose you'd like the truth. I've had some rough patches this week, but I'm not trying to go there. I'm good right now.

Oh, thank you. Yeah. How are you doing? I'm good. I'm really excited to be talking to you. Thanks so much for doing this. I really appreciate it. So let me ask you,

how many prank phone calls have you done this week? Oh. You know, it's maybe a fractional number. If you round it up, we could round it off or sand it off or turn it up. What I recommend. So what?

What was the first praying phone call you did? What was that one like? We would call people we knew in junior high, and the people I was with promptly walked away from it, but it stuck with me, and I never stopped. So that's that. What is it that made you stick with it? I just speak to people in a certain way.

and people around would say, what is with this guy? People I knew would say, oh, that's just his way. That's his way is what they'd say. And I was like, oh, that's my way, is it? Okay. So I just took that onto the phone.

You don't know what the fuck you. Something like that. That's kind of how I would describe it. Awesome. To place a catering order for pickup or delivery. I just lost him. Are you still there? Hey, man, I lost you there for a second.

I'm really sorry. Oh, it's okay. So is it usually fun? Right now I'm having so much fun. It's awesome. There have been times where there was a lull. What does that feel like? Just, is this ever going to get done?

Is this good enough, you know? Just uncertainty. And then maybe you're talking to people who really want to hurt your feelings. take it a little too personally and just really try to try to cut you down really far and stuff I usually shake it off

sometimes it's like yeah I don't know is this going anywhere you know those those starts of vibes in those times have you ever thought about giving it up there was a period in the 90s I was done I was sure I was never going to do it anymore

what was making you want to quit personal problems as my dad used to say that sounds like a personal problem son so quiet down you guys so you know

one of the things about your calls that I like so much is that in like 30 seconds or a minute you manage to create like a world that's so disorienting for people where just nothing makes sense. You know, you call the Gomez residents, and then when they say the Gomez... What can I do for you?

Yeah. And then you say when the Gomez... I'd like to file a police report. Yeah, well, call the Harbor Division. Well, can you help me out? I think you're having fun, you jackoff, son of a bitch. Wow. That's harsh.

How do you... Sorry about that. That's okay. How do you deal with people talking to you like that? I jump into my diesel truck, my Ford Ram, and I hop out there and kick up my boots a little bit, left you right. So what about when you prank celebrities, like Dick Dale, G.G. Allen, Alex Trebek. Like, how do you get these numbers and why are these the guys you want to call?

They all have their own particular, you know, stories that correlate. with them like any like any person would. How did you get in touch with G.G. Allen? I wrote to him and at one point said, hey, do you want to put out a split cassette

with my noise band that I had at the time? It was just sort of a harsh noise band. It was like a suburban harsh noise band. And he did. He sent us this live recording of him getting in a fight

with the audience memories. It was pretty wild. And then I got $20 together and I sent it to him for his video tape. And I never heard from him after that. So I was like, after a month, I wrote him a letter. I'm like, hey, what happened there? I sent you $20 and all of a sudden I didn't hear from me anymore.

He's like, oh, I never got it. And I was like, right. So that was what triggered that. I decided to call him in the middle of the night and bug him because he took $20 for me. so so earlier you said you have a certain way about you how much is like how much is Longmont Potion Castle and how much is whoever you are outside of your calls

or are they just the same guy I have I have you know the requisite amount of professionalism in life but that's always under the surface just wanting to break out of the mundane, you know. Just shake off all the commonplace stuff that is everywhere I turn and stuff. But that's a tricky question.

That's a tricky question. So, you know, one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you so bad is that when I was in college, I just had this really sort of, I discovered Longmont when I was in college, which would have been about 2001, 2002. And I had a lot of sort of personal setbacks. I was depressed. I was like self-harming. I got hospitalized for depression for a while.

But when I got out, I was a flower delivery driver. And I just started burning Longmont tracks onto CDs and driving around listening to them. And I remember finding Longmont CDs at that time. Like, I remember driving the car, the, the van around and, like, laughing so hard that I had to pull over and, like, compose myself because I was losing my mind. Well, hey, you know, I'm glad that you came back from the depths there and that I could play a part in that. That's awesome. And, like, every time, I feel like every time I'm in, like, kind of a dark place. So I'll come back to your albums because, like, how do I put it?

I feel like the world when you're depressed really doesn't make much sense, but it doesn't make sense in a way that's sort of foreboding and shitty and confusing. And then I can listen to your albums and, like, I hear a world that doesn't make sense, but it doesn't make sense in, like, a way that's safe and joyful and feels really good. I think that's a great way of putting it. I really do. And there's really only so much you can say about it in terms of descriptors. It's just something to experience or not experience.

But in terms of descriptive, that's among the best I've heard. So thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. Do you have a favorite? That's probably my last question for you. Do you have a favorite album or period or section or track? I just would like to know.

There are like, there's like a series of amazing calls on volume four. There's like the one where you call the coffee shop and ask him if you can have broushati. You guys so confused by you. Broushati. Yeah, broushati. Brishotti. Brishotti. Brishotti.

There we go. That was the brishotti setting right there. Yeah. Thank you. And then the one where you call Twist and Ships and Shamed. out and you ask them for the triple double flip song? Twist and shout hates me.

I'm banished from their store. I really am. Like, in person you're banished? Do they know you by sight? Yeah, they know me. I'm definitely banned. How did you feel after you talk? I felt great.

It felt like getting to hang out with, I don't know how many therapists you've seen in your life, but so few are very effective. Yes. and he's sort of like the perfect therapist for me. So it was like getting to, it was like two hours of therapy talking to this guy. You guys had talked for two hours?

We had a lot of gibberish to work through. And also, I asked him if he would do some prank phone calls with me. And he was totally a game to do it. So he started trying to call celebrities. First we tried JJ Abrams. Jay-J. Oh, JJ, baby. Hi, we're not home right now.

Please leave a message, and we'll call you back. Thank you. We tried Jeremy Piven. We tried Tony Danza. No one picked up. So instead, we called my dad. I've got this pancake makeup, like from a clown. All right, you've got the wrong person, man.

So you're Goldman, right? Can I put this makeup on you a little later? See how it looks? My dad hung up pretty much right away. So last week called my friend Dave. Hi, is Dave there? Mm-hmm. I've got a submarine sandwich that I'm supposed to bring you.

Shanghai Lil gave it to me, and it comes with a frisbee and a few other neat things. It's kind of neat. It's kind of fun. You're trying to give me a submarine sandwich? Yeah. I just need to get with you a little bit. Get together, you know. It was perfect.

It was everything I wanted from a conversation with this guy. Do you feel like now, does it feel weird? Does it feel different listening to his stuff? No. His 13th album just came out. What's your favorite track? Well, he really was into this track called Neighborly Melange, which automatically It hits me in my sweet spot.

There's some weird sounds in there. But he was saying, like, so I've got this track on my new album, where it's just like everything I said. matched up perfectly with this person's life. Like he was saying gibberish, but to them it made perfect sense. Oh, that's funny. So he was like, listen, here's what you need to do.

I'm hearing tons of noise from your house partner. I need you to, I need you to shut up your cats, keep your dogs quiet. I need you to turn the fish light. I need you to stop the fish from making all that noise. And I need you to quit playing the kettle drums. And the guy's like, listen, my dog, he's like sick, he can't even bark.

My cats don't make any noise. Fish can't make noise. And we sold our kettle drums six months ago. It's like really wonderful. That's beautiful. It's a half an hour long. It's a half an hour long. That one track?

Yeah. God. I bet you there is no bigger fan of his stuff than you. I'd like to think so. You can pick up the latest Longmont Potion Castle album and all of his other albums at longmom potioncastle.com. And there are a couple guys working on a documentary about him called Where in the Hell is Lavender House? Keep an eye out for it. It's been a strange week.

After the break, we'll be back with Shrithy Pinnamennanini. Welcome back to the show. This is Shrithi. And I'm a reporter on this show, but I have this rule in my family. that on the weekends, I will not check Twitter. This weekend, that rule was thrown out the window. On Friday, President Trump signed an executive order that basically banned citizens from seven different countries,

whether they had, you know, even people who had visas to come to the United States. He said that people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen would not be allowed into the country. He also banned indefinitely refugees from Syria. And I was just glued to my phone screen Friday, Saturday, Sunday, watching the entire fallout. It was particularly jarring for me because I've been in this country for several years, but I'm not a citizen. I have a green card. And for the first time, I was very confused as to what that meant because a green card is, it's called a permanent resident card, and suddenly things didn't feel so permanent anymore. And while I was on Twitter, I noticed a colleague of mine from Gimlet, Nazanin, Rafsanjani, I could see that whatever was happening around the ban was, it really touched a nerve in her. And I remembered that her family actually, she came from Iran when she was a young child.

You know, and Iran is one of the countries on that list of temporarily banned countries. And I also remembered that there was this other show at Gimlet called Twice Removed who had done this entire, like, long story that was centered around Nazanin and her family. And I listened and the whole thing just felt so relevant. to everything that was happening. And so I wanted to talk to Nazanin about it. But first, let me just play you a short clip from that episode. You're going to hear Nazanin's mom, her sister, talking about living in Iran in the year 1979.

The year that I got pregnant by Nazanin was a year that they forbidden everything, alcohol and Western movie, and they put a hijab in a woman's head. My least favorite part, which I asked, Naae, which is like a... a lycra almost fabric that would cover your hair. And I just didn't understand why the boys didn't have to wear that. And I did. And I would get in trouble. Everything was tighter and tighter and harder to breathe for women.

It was horrible, horrible. They take your identity. They take everything, who you are, what do you think? It's feel like you're trapped. You're in a wheel that you just keep screaming and nobody hear you. And on top of all that, there's a war happening between Iran and Iraq. And so Nazanin's neighborhood in Tehran was getting regularly bombed. And so finally, her parents decide to leave.

I had all these questions for Nazanin, like, how is this different from the Syrian refugees who are trying to leave Syria. So I asked her, like, I don't even know anything about what it means to apply. How does a refugee become a refugee? I only know that the like, you know, student visa to H-1B visa, like that whole track, which is totally different. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's totally, that is a completely different track than the way my family came here, which is that they applied for asylum, which is also a different track than getting here as a refugee. A refugee is somebody who they are outside the country. And from outside the country, they're making the case that they need to be somewhere else from where they are because their life is in such grave danger.

And so that's what the Syrian refugees are facing now. My family completely like we lucked out and we got We got visas. So we left Iran. Like a tourist visa? A tourist visa. Oh. We got a tourist visa. And we left Iran. Which must have been hard. Like, was it hard back there? It was very hard. Okay. There was no American embassy in Iran at that time. There still is no American embassy in Iran. So we went to Turkey. We applied for tourist visas and we got them. And we, it was just, it was literally just, I mean, it was just. I mean, it was just. just luck, dumb luck. Sorry, you're just totally blowing my mind right now. Just like in the 1980s, so I was a kid in India, and I just remember, like, if you drove by the U.S. Embassy, you'd see these lines of people who'd spent, you know, people who'd slept there. But even to get a tourist visa, you had to show you had a lot of money in your bank account,

like you'd reason to stay in the country that you're coming from. Yeah. And so, okay, so you arrive in the States. Yeah. And how do you get asylum status? So you need a lawyer, which my parents were able to find a lawyer in Minnesota who decided to help us. And to get asylum, you have to be considered by the U.S. government as being part of some persecuted class. And these classes are very, they're like very defined.

And so my family's lawyer defined my mom as a part of a person. persecuted class, which was Iranian women who were opposed to the regime. And so we went through that process. And it wasn't until I was, so we moved here when I was six, it wasn't until I was 16 that I got my American citizenship. And was this whole story, I mean, coming from Iran, seeking asylum, was it a thing that day to day you were always aware of or thinking about? no, it definitely wasn't something I thought about on a daily basis, you know, ever, or like growing up. I only ever felt like everyone else here until honestly, until now, like really until now, from last Friday until now. Like I mean it's like four days. That's what that's what I mean. So I actually wanted to ask you about this one tweet of yours that for me was like totally a punch in the gut was you had this picture of the Syrian man, I think.

Or yeah, it was a Syrian refugee holding a boy. Of course, it's like we see these pictures all the time. But you wrote like, does America feel great again? It's just a lack of imagination that separates you and your children from these people. Yeah, that I think that picture, it's just, it like, it. Like, for me, it goes back to, like, I relate to them in that I know, I know now the desperation my parents had of, like, leaving the country that they loved and wanted to stay in and only left because they felt like they had no other option. Someone responded to that tweet being like, so what you're saying is like everyone has a right to be, being a U.S. citizen is a human right. Yeah.

And what I was trying to say was that it's actually the opposite. It's not actually anyone's right. It's just like dumb luck. And I think that that's, I think that's all I was trying to say is that like it's my dumb luck that I got to move here. And it's like your dumb luck that you were born here. And neither of us really did anything to deserve it. And so, like saying that some people don't deserve it and others do. is is just makes no sense to me yeah um and like like you it's like my most i think like that kind of

like patriotism i guess is the right word for it about the united states is like it's really like my most earnest feeling like it's always been my most earnest feeling like i i'm embarrassed i feel like a little embarrassed about it like it's not it's never been cynical like i really have always felt like, yeah, like it's like you're lucky if you live here and it's fucking awesome to live here. And like, and it's like, it's like just by virtue of being here, you're like one of the luckiest people on Earth. I really feel that way. Yeah. And it's, and I think that that felt and feels like threatened. And that's why I think I was reacting that way. You can follow Nazanine on Twitter at Nas Raph, N-A-Z-R-A-F, and also definitely check out the twice-removed episode that features her and her family.

It's incredibly moving. And the ending, just wait for the ending. Reply all is hosted by PJ Vote and me, Alex Goldman. We're produced by Shruthy Pinnaminani, Fia Bennon, Chloe Prasinos, and Damiano Marquetti. We're edited by Tim Howard and Jorge Just. production assistance this week from Sengita Ryasam. Our theme song is by the Mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder, and our ad music is by Build Buildings.

We were mixed by Rick Kwan. Special thanks this week to Sharina Ong, Tom Cody, and also to Vivek Vank Vanketesh and David Hall, who are working on the Longmont Potion Castle documentary. Matt Lieber is a world that doesn't make sense in a way that is safe and joyful and feels really good. You can find more episodes of the show at iTunes.com Reply All, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Our website is replyall.soy. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week. Did you know that cars are basically just drum machines on wheels?