My apologies to Ms. Polygon, who does, in fact, exist

Oh. Well looks like Ruby, Starlee Kine’s intern, is a real person. Sorry about that. I guess I denied it out of jealousy. If I could’ve been Jonathan Goldstein’s intern at 16, I think I could consider myself fulfilled. Although the intern position at Wiretap is perhaps more ill-fated than the Defense Against the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts. (Was that okay? To make a Harry Potter reference? Do Wiretap fans like Harry Potter?)

Anyway, this week’s episode drew heavily from National Post articles. The show kicked off with some diary entries about Tucker spitting in his own coffee, mohawks, souvlaki and Jonathan in a bathing suit.

These thoughts originally appeared in the articles “Get out of my dreams, get into my copy store” on June 11, 2008 and “The Truth about Spats and Dogs” from June 4, 2008.

The monologue rolled right into a conversation where Jonthan quizzes Tucker about his everyday surroundings.

In the next bit, Jonathan mentions MELBA TOAST, stating “After spending an hour eating breadsticks and melba toast over the sink while reading grocery circulars, I come to the conclusion that my life, too, lately has become more than a little stagnant.”

This rolls into a three-way conference call with Starlee and her intern, Ruby. Some material from the July 23, 2008 “How to buy cottage cheese” appears in this bit.

Jonathan re-introduces himself to Ruby as Starlee’s “older gentleman friend.” I’d like to someday introduce myself as that, rather than so-and-so’s “scrappy sidekick.”

Lastly, Gregor eggs Jonathan on to take dance lessons. In case you were wondering, Goldstein’s signature moves are the robot, “stir the pot” and “shuffle from foot to foot” and “throw in some kicks.”

The episode closes out with Jonathan learning the Soulja Boy dance from ZouZou.

As an aside, this is the first episode which I recorded myself. If anyone missed it, I’ll email it to you or something. Because I have nowhere to host it. And SuperNintendoChalmers will have tomorrow, hopefully.

(Psst. Just joking. Check out the summary to listen.)

Help Wanted

I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t make episode summaries anymore. I’ve done so many – I’ll keep doing them but I need your help! The goal? Make summaries for every episode for easy reference, just like at the This American Life Web site.  The This American Life Web site is so useful – you can just type in a search term like “Jorge Just” and find all the episodes with Jorge Just in them, such as this Wiretap-tastic episode from March 31, 2006:

Episode 233: Starting from Scratch

The episode kicks off with Ira talking to Jorge about his brief brush with the show “The Bachelorette”:

Host Ira Glass talks to Jorge Just, who thought he’d started over successfully. He’d moved to New York, found an apartment that everyone told him was a great deal, things were looking good. Then a reality television show visited his building. (8 minutes)

And then there’s a Jonathan Goldstein Bible story. The original!

Act Three. The First Starting from Scratch.

Jonathan Goldstein reads a story about the first people to ever start from scratch, a couple named Adam and Eve. Jonathan Goldstein is the author of the novel Lenny Bruce is Dead. (14 minutes)

See, wouldn’t it be nice if we could do that with Wiretap? If you wanted to know every episode that had Sam Shalabi in it? Or which episodes mentioned melba toast?

Also, while we’re on the topic of This American Life/Wiretap, This American Life’s myspace has some tracks from their compilation “Stories of Hope and Fear,” one of which features our friend’s Starlee Kine and Jonathan Goldstein. My favorite part of this piece is that he keeps referring to “the office where Starlee and I used to work at” which, I’m assuming, is This American Life? Ch-ch-check it. Then buy it! Or don’t.

Nice day – have one. Bye.

Note, if you are opposed to Myspace, the above piece originally appeared on episode 238, Lost in Translation.

Recent Jonthan Goldstein/Wiretap Feature in the News

Times-Colonist recently ran an article on Jonathan Goldstein and the Genesis of Wiretap.

The article describes Goldstein’s arc as this:

• Attends university in Montreal.
• Pays the bills with his 10 year stint in telemarketing. (See: This American Life Episode “Plan B“)
• Got Ira Glass’ attention with a CBC Radio piece about his parents musical tastes.
• Was hired as a TAL producer in 2000. Learned the art of scoring.
• Produced a story with Joshua Karpati in 2002 which pretty much kicked off the whole Wiretap thing. (See: TAL Episode: “Recordings for Someone.”) For those of you who remember, this is the one with the voicemail message where the kid’s mother said that he and the Little Mermaid could go fuck themselves.
• Pitched Wiretap to CBC, who was reluctant at first but then OK’d a 10 show season in Summer 2004.
• “Now, some 100 shows later, nearly 350,000 tune into WireTap every week.”

The piece notes some of the reactions to the show, mostly people not knowing if its real or not and then calling and emailing and complaining, and then this:

For the most part, however, Goldstein doesn’t know what people think of WireTap. He works long hours, stitching together every second of every show, and rarely has opportunity to socialize or meet listeners.

They also reference episodes “The New Josh” and the Howard Chackowicz interview with Paul Tough from the episode “Canadian Content” :

But there’s a downside to broadcasting conversations that sound real: Some listeners think they are real. Howard Chackowicz, another contributor, recalls an episode in which he interviewed a writer.

He began with a ridiculous question – “When I write, my hand really aches a lot. Do you use an ergonomic pen?” – and things quickly went downhill from there.

“We got e-mails from people complaining that the standards of the CBC had degraded beyond repair,” says Chackowicz.

But most exciting is this:

Biblical tales still fascinate Goldstein. His new book, out next spring, contains his take on the lives of Old Testament figures. In the Bible, Jonathan Goldstein Edition, the narratives remain intact but are infused with jokes and a modern sensibility. “I try to imagine what it was like for them,” he says, “and then I impose my own neuroses on them.”

Oh man I’ve been searching for this nonexistent book for years. All I’ve ever found on Amazon.com was this II Macabees (Anchor Bible) by Jonathan A. Goldstein (our heroes’ middle initial is “S”). I hope it won’t be disappointing that I’ve heard a vast majority of the stories already on Wiretap and This American Life.

Anyway, I had more to this post but it was tragically lost due to technical difficulties. Read the article yourself for more info.

Melba Toast

I’ve noticed from browsing through old National Post Jonathan Goldstein pieces that he is quite obsessed with melba toast. A cursory search reveals three references to “Jonathan Goldstein” and “Melba toast.” One poignant reference I remember (from “Man is a rope between the ordinary and extraordinary”) was when he was going through the day feeling as if he had something to look forward to, but he couldn’t remember what. So, he goes through the whole day feeling optimistic and hopeful because there was something happy in his near future but later he realized that it was because he had some uneaten Melba toast in his desk. Later, while eating the Melba toast, he didn’t know whether to feel happy about the Melba toast or sad that the thing that he was looking forward to was Melba toast.

This strikes me a very Jewish thing to go through. As an Asian, I feel this way about leftover crispy sesame tofu. All inappropriate stereotypes aside, I think Jonathan may simply reference Melba toast simply because it is such a funny word. He is a poet after all.

Read more about Melba toast.

On another note, Jonathan notes here that he hasn’t cried in 20 years. This was the subject of a Wiretap episode…I can’t remember which one, I want to say it was Fake it Until You Make It? Dunno, I’m probably wrong, but he ends up calling an actor who tells him all about how he can make himself cry, and JG admits, “I’m afraid that if I start crying, I wont’ be able to stop.” This strikes me as a very middle-aged syndrome. We spend so much of our years as fledgling adults beating residual emotions and impulses from our teenaged years into submission (for the sake of “maturity”) that when it comes to finding a healthy outlet, we are at a loss. Victims of our own mastery of our selves. I think it has something to do with 9 to 5 and being an infallible parent, etc. But this really isn’t the proper forum for such personal musings as this. Sorry. I promise the next post will be 150 percent Wiretap-related.