Jack is going off to law school. So the gang sits down to reminisce on his time at NDRN, share a few stories from behind the scenes, and hear a joke from Stephanie that gets a good laugh out of us.
Full transcript available at: https://www.ndrn.org/resource/ndr-august25/
Like we have any sort of agenda for today, so just sort of going to get what I get. Turn that into a podcast, I guess.
And that’s different from any other episode because…
It’s not, it genuinely, I guess is not, I suppose at some point we’d have a guest and questions we thought we should ask them.
I’m the guest and I have the questions. I don’t know.
I’m pretty sure you’re not the guest.
I’m pretty sure Jack is the guest.
This episode is for Jack, isn’t it?
It would be very funny if we just made it the Stephanie episode, even though we’ve done like two of those.
No. That would make me feel like such a bad chicken nugget.
Even though we’ve already done-
We already did a Stephanie wedding episode.
We did a whole one about you getting married.
We’ve already done a bunch of episodes about me doing chicken-nuggety things like, come on.
Oh, that reminds me. My mom wants to hear about the legally blind Uber driver.
I forgot that I slipped that into an episode.
Yeah, she’s still listening and she has some follow-up questions.
Well pack might have to address that at some point.
Well, Stephanie, do you want to address it? I mean, let’s give the people what they want, I guess.
Yeah, I guess we can give the people what they want.
Yeah, we have one listener, so we should probably follow up on that for her.
Yeah, no, that makes sense. And Carol, thank you so much for being a dedicated, loyal listener to this wonderful podcast. So I will give a slighter Cliff Notes version just so it doesn’t take up the whole hour. So I am waiting for a car outside of, I can’t remember which Metro stop it was, but I had to go get something, and so I just figured I’d take an Uber home from the Metro because that particular Metro was a lot easier to get a car and it would only be a 20-minute ride. Okay, fine. This is what I’ll do. And so I get out of the Metro station, I’m trying to find my driver or whatever, yada, yada, and I can’t even remember his name. Maybe we should just call him Bob for anonymity. I am bad at saying that too. But yeah, so Bob pulls up in some sort of Toyota of some sort and I get in the car and we start driving and I noticed that I’m hearing a lot more horns, but I’m just not thinking about it because it’s rush hour DC traffic.
And then we started, he was like, “You know, I’ll be honest with you, I’m legally blind. I can only see out of one eye.” And I was like, “Oh, okay.” And I’m just trying to think of some of the things that he said, but he said different things that were essentially low vision, blind hacks or what have you. I’m trying to remember the specific hacks, but honestly, when he said, “I’m legally blind,” I was kind of like, “Huh, Jesus, take the wheel. Please get me home safe.” So it was a wild ride. No, that was not an intended pun but we can make it a pun.
So you’re saying he might’ve had limited vision in the one eye?
Yeah, potentially. But, he said that he was only legally blind, he was legally blind or totally blind out of one eye, and then he could see out of the other eye just fine.
You don’t sound convinced he could see just fine out of the other eye.
I don’t want to say it. Jack has to say it.
I don’t want to say it. Michelle, kick us off as always.
Yeah, Michelle, you do that. Yeah.
Why is it always me? Okay.
Because you’re such a good public speaker and I’m really sad right now.
We’re already dealing with enough change. I don’t want to deal with more. Could you please kick us off?
On this very special episode of National Disability Radio, we say goodbye to our pro-host extraordinaire, Jack Rosen, who is leaving NDRN to go to law school. Yay, Jack. We need an applause. We’ve never had an applause. Can we-
I know I keep saying that. Oh my gosh. But seriously, Jack, we’re going to miss you so, so, so much. And you have been an amazing pro-host with the most.
I also have bad news. I definitely did not have enough time left to add in the applause, but…
Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap clap, there. I’m trying not to, oh man. That made me sound facetious. I might have to-
No, we’re keeping that in.
That’s definitely staying in. The part where Stephanie was very salty with you is definitely staying in. This is still the most professional podcast in the business.
We pay the big money for the good effects.
But thank you Michelle. I am sad to be leaving NDRN. It’s been five years here. I started back, for those who don’t know, I started back in 2020. It was actually pretty early COVID. It was May the fourth, because I’ll always remember it’s Star Wars Day.
May the fourth be with you.
And it’s funny, NDRN was pretty much the last job interview I had at the start of COVID because nowhere else in the world was hiring. And I interviewed with Michelle and David Hutt and our former ED for a position on the voting team, and I told them at the time like, “Hey, my background is really in politics and comms. I’m a person with a disability. I have ADHD. And I’ve received services throughout my life for it, but I don’t know a ton about the disability rights movement, but I’m willing to learn.” And I got lucky enough that they decided to take a chance on me.
And so for the first two years I was here, I worked for Michelle helping get out the vote in the role that our friend Monica is in now. Then about three years ago, I switched over to the communications team, and one of my first projects there was that we had this podcast they wanted to restart and for, God, yeah, three years now since, we have been putting this out together, meeting once a month, usually meeting twice a month because we’re disorganized and what we do is create a podcast episode and then every time forget to do the intro and outro to it. A little behind the scenes, we have never recorded one of those in the same time we’ve recorded the interview.
They have to know because sometimes one of us just isn’t .there
Or is sick or something. Thank you-
For part of the episode, how come Stephanie was in the interview, but she wasn’t there when they did the intro?
Right. They have questions.
We’re super good at this.
We have all the questions. We are sorry guys. Sometimes we have migraines, sometimes things happen in life.
Also, Stephanie made us start the podcast.
That was 100% Stephanie. I was the only host that was left, Justice and Erica were already gone. And Stephanie was like, “I want to host a podcast. We need to do this podcast.” And then they were like, “I guess Jack has to do it and produce it.”
So what you’re saying is that I made Jack and you do this against your will.
You definitely added a significant chunk of my workload. This is one of my core responsibilities.
We remember it the same way. It was totally Stephanie.
I kind of think it was you Stephanie.
Lies, slander, blasphemy.
I know Michelle did not want to start doing this again.
I kind of made it worth it with my awesome jokes, right, yeah?
I’ve enjoyed Michelle’s reaction to them a lot. When did we, now I’m wondering when we started adding the puns. I think it was-
It wasn’t the first episode. I’m looking right now. It was the second one Stephanie.
It only took me one episode.
It took you one episode, and then on the third one we added, I believe Stephanie’s iconic sound.
For Stephanie’s Joke of the Month. Everyone else needs to know what we are living with over here with Stephanie and the puns.
I’m sorry that you guys have been personally victimized by me for almost four years now.
So yeah, after five years here, I decided it was time to make a little bit of a career change and I decided to go to law school. I decided, I’ll say hopefully a career change, but not necessarily a field change. The law school I picked out is one that has a disability law clinic and a strong focus on public interest. It’s sort of funny. It all comes full circle that I can remember five years ago telling you guys, I don’t know a lot about this, but I’d like the opportunity. And it was something I always vaguely wanted to do, disability rights, but I thought it would be like, oh, after I’ve had a corporate or a politics career, maybe I could give back that way.
And even then it was just vaguely I’ll do something to help people with disabilities, it wasn’t, I want to get into legally-based disability advocacy. And five years later I’m like, oh, when I’m looking at these law schools, I need to find one where I can go further in this field and expand my skill set and be able to do more here. So I don’t know, I’m sad to be leaving. I’m also grateful to you, Michelle, because it definitely changed my career trajectory in a way I never expected. And it is bittersweet. But we have shared probably too much of our personal lives on this podcast for three years now. So we figured really no other way to end it than with the podcast.
And we are three of the least interesting people.
Hey, rude. Everybody thinks I’m interesting.
No, Jack, we’re going to miss you.
It has been a pleasure to work with you all this time. I’m glad we converted you into a full-blown lifelong disability rights advocate.
[inaudible 00:10:09] on you when you were young, scrappy and hungry.
We did not throw away our shot as NDRN.
I’m going to quote Hamilton in this episode until we get sued because we have to get sued at least once.
We have to get sued for Jack’s last episode.
We have to get sued at least once before Jack leaves.
It’s been my entire goal while producing this podcast has been to get us sued. I’ve tried by-
We’ve tried everything. How many copyrights can we violate?
We’ve tried to get Taylor to sue us. We’ve tried to get the cast of Hamilton. We didn’t do Disney. We’re scared of them.
I thought we did do Disney. Remember, we sang Let It Go?
You know what, yes, we did do Disney.
I thought Jay-Z was going to sue us when I didn’t put him in my Top Five on the live episode.
Oh, on the live episode. I was like, wait, is going, how is Mississippi, Michelle?
The rain in Mississippi is annoying. It’s like extra humid.
Totally. All the time. Oh yeah. It’s humid. I’m not built for this.
It’s stormy. The whole time. So I haven’t really gotten to see the glory of your home state.
Oh, so sad. Yeah. Nope. You got to go to Keefer’s and Bulldog.
But Jack, seriously, we are very much going to miss you, and I just can’t thank you enough for being such a good coworker, colleague, friend, and confidant during my time at NDRN. And I know that you won’t be far, but yeah, it’s been amazing working with you. Whether we’re coming up with tweets or I’m bothering you with puns or all that good stuff. Oh, or that one thing that happened last year at annual conference], the getting kicked out of the bar thing, which probably should be.
In our defense, and we’re not going to say which bar, they were being kind of ableist.
They were totally being ableist.
Can we tell the story on the pod?
Don’t name the bar. That’s definitely how-
We’re not going to name the bar.
Is it bad that I can’t even remember what the name of that bar was?
Where was I even when this was happening?
I think you must have been asleep. Wait, we can’t say where we were either, Stephanie.
Did you just call me old in the middle of a podcast episode. Where was I when you guys were at the bar?
Asleep, Michelle, you’re ancient.
You were invited. Yeah, but I think we were there at like 11:30 at night.
Okay. That’s worse. Could you tell people it was like 2:00 A.M. or something?
Yeah. Stephanie and I were out, we were at the club. It was 3:00 A.M.
Everybody in the club getting, okay, I’m done. Anyway, it was 3:00 A.M. We were at the club in Nowhereville.
It’s 11:30, you know your Gen X bedtime does not allow you to be up past 10:00.
Low key. I go to bed at nine o’clock on the rag.
We need older people on this podcast.
Oh, come on. I go to bed at nine o’clock. I’m basically an oldish person now.
I’m pretty sure your new producer is going to be my age, I’m pretty sure.
But if we’re getting the producer, I think we’re getting, she is a Swifty, so now it’s just going to be an all Swifty crew. So we look forward to the next episode of this podcast where it’s all about people with disabilities who love Taylor Swift.
I may have warned her when I was telling her how to produce the podcast. I’m like, so for the first 20 minutes they usually talk about Taylor and then I turn the recording on after, so I don’t have to go through all of that because eventually we’ll just get to the podcast. But you got to let them go through talking about Taylor Swift first.
<< Don’t say that I didn’t warn you >>
You don’t need to hear all my theories about when Rep TV was going to be dropped since it’s apparently never coming. So that’s fine. I have a little embarrassment.
You have been predicting it for years.
I mean, some of the evidence was convincing, okay. Never mind. It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s fine.
Is she not now that she owns her catalog? I thought she would anyway.
She never actually recorded it, so…
Yeah, she’s only recorded like a quarter of it, so I’m thinking it’s a no. There’s going to be Vault Tracks though, Stephanie Vault Tracks. We still have things to look forward to.
I love the Vault Tracks, honestly.
Nothing New is like my jam.
You know I saw that Live with Phoebe Bridgers.
Oh, this is already transitioning into a Taylor Swift podcast and Jack is still here.
Right? God bless it. I’m still so jealous that you got to see Phoebe and Taylor and you got to see Taylor three times.
Okay. Jack Antonoff also came out that night and Ice Spice. Anyway.
We should probably talk about Jack or at least disability rights or something.
At least the podcast, maybe?
No. Let’s talk about Jack. This is the Jack episode.
Okay. I guess we’ll do a couple stories from my time at NDRN.
Yeah, we need your favorite stories from your time at NDRN. Yes.
Don’t let either of us jack the episode from you.
Oh, come on Stephanie, that one was lazy.
Stephanie, did you really just say that?
Don’t let any of us jack the, oh, come on. That was fun.
I don’t don’t know if I’m disappointed or proud of that one.
You should be disproud-pointed.
It’s like 50/50. Anyway Jack, no illegal stories, please.
We don’t want to get sued for that reason.
Yeah, there’s certain things we want to be sued for and certain things we should avoid.
What are some of the funniest stories from your time at NDRN?
Let’s think. I mean, yeah, as we alluded to, there was the time, Stephanie and I, at one of our annual conferences, we were out at an undisclosed location. It was very late. Michelle was in fact there earlier partying it up, but then she was like, “Hey, it’s 3:45 A.M. I got to get out of here before sunrise.”
Yes. But no, they double charged Stephanie at this bar. They were claiming the credit card transaction wouldn’t go through, it was bad. They just kept trying to talk to me and show me the receipt and I’m like, A, I’m not dealing with this. You guys figure it out, and B, you are just being wildly ableist to us right now.
But let’s see, what else? That one was wild just because I did not ever think in my years of working here, I would be not quite asked to leave, but certainly not asked to come back.
You did also ride in a self-driving car.
We did record an episode from a self-driving car. That was when Raquel was on the pod. It was me, her and Marcia.
I think I was also leaving a bar if I’m correct.
That one was. That was after when we all went out to a Mexican restaurant at the Phoenix conference and Marcia just, we ordered it and Marcia just sort of volunteered. She’s like, “Okay, I wanna come along and see this.” I’m like, “Okay, but you’re on the podcast.”
I also wasn’t there. I’m never there when these things happen.
I don’t know why you weren’t there for that.
I feel like both of you weren’t there for the self-driving car one.
Yeah, I wasn’t there because I had, we were doing a public policy team dinner, so that’s why I wasn’t there.
It was supposed to be for Stephanie, because-
I know and I never got to ride-
Because it was supposed to be about self-driving cars for blind people.
I know. I never got to ride in it.
Stephanie, they’re coming to DC.
I know. I’m so excited. Quinn on the other hand is not.
I’m pretty sure I saw one already.
Yeah, they were doing test laps around our building.
Yeah, they’re testing a ton out in my neighborhood. I don’t fully trust them, but I’m not going to lie, they’re cheap and convenient and I’ve had some bad Uber drivers in DC.
Let’s see. What’s another appropriate NDRN story we could tell?
Any stories from traveling for the documentary?
That’s why I’m not here for any of them. I might only be there for the stories that are inappropriate.
I mean, with the documentary, this was funny. So we’re there and we’re getting towards the last day of our travel in, so yeah, we were in South Carolina. It was me, Monica, and a third person who helped make the documentary who’s a little more private, but shout out them. They helped a ton with it and taught me a lot about filming.
But anyway, so the three of us, we discovered early on that week that our last night there Katt Williams was going to perform and we wanted to go. We all wanted to go really bad, but as the director, I had to keep being the bad guy and being like, “Okay, Monica, we will, if we don’t have any interviews scheduled that day, and we have all these people we need to interview before we can leave South Carolina, we can’t blow any off to,” she didn’t want to blow any off, but I had to be, as I often am at NDRN the last few years, the person who says no to things, and I don’t know if that’s feasible.
You guys don’t don’t know what kind of a bummer Jack is on a regular basis, y’all.
And finally we got the last interview scheduled and we were so hyped. We all just went out to see Katt Williams together and it was the perfect way to end having worked together and been on the road for two weeks, traveling, filming, doing 10-hour days interviewing people.
And it probably saved your friendship with Monica.
Oh yeah. Even if she’ll never forgive me for the fact I didn’t invite her to a music festival with my friends. That’s a joke.
She’s still trying to get into that with you though, right?
Into that festival, or is this a different one?
It’s a different one. There’s been two incidents.
Both times that I went to a music festival in Los Angeles I did not invite her to. It’s okay. You know I love you Monica, and we’ll go to the next one.
I do have a very special announcement to make for the After Hours Jack’s Goodbye episode. I have to say, you’ve been our producer for a couple of years now. We have frequently referred to as our pro host since you’re our producer, you’re our Gelman, if you will. Our producer who gets to talk during the episodes, not so much a silent partner as you first began. And so I want to say before you go, Jack, you are a host of the podcast.
I’m genuinely a little touched.
We finally, we finally got you to admit it, Michelle.
That’s a very bad hatchet.
After hosting episodes you haven’t been on.
Wait, Jack, are you crying?
No, but that’s how we’re going to tell the story, and then Jack cried. Also, the people need to know that we don’t actually hate each other.
No. Michelle is like my mentor, she’s a friend, and she has been a mentor to me as I’ve entered a career in disability rights.
I’m like the sarcastic persona on this show, and I’m pretty sure everyone thinks that I’m mean, and I hate you guys, but we actually all get along quite well despite the fact that I’m apparently never there when anyone goes to the bar. But other than that…
We’ll make sure you’re there for the next one.
Thank you. I’ll probably be too tired, but I appreciate the thought.
It’ll be funny. You’ll just miss my goodbye Happy Hour.
I was going to say, are you going to miss that? Hopefully no.
No, I’m going to be there. I am, but that’s happy hour. That’s early enough so I can still get to bed on time.
But thank you, Michelle. I appreciate that.
You do intros, you do outros, you help interview guests. Sometimes we make you read the guest bios because me and Stephanie just didn’t prepare, so I feel like at some point I have to let this go. We have to call you a podcast host.
Yes, and Jack is always the first one to come up with questions if me and Michelle are like, ugh, blank canvas stares.
I don’t want to say me and Stephanie never prepare, but…
But… Jack holds us together.
Yeah, yeah. It’s all him.
We’re going to miss that.
My job is to wrangle everything together for the podcast.
Yeah. If you recorded all of the behind the scenes conversations, I’m pretty sure the podcast would be an entire Taylor Swift album and more.
It used to, remember the podcast used to be an hour long and after the first year. I just said, “I am not doing that anymore. I am spending like 15 hours a month on this podcast.”
I’m also pretty sure that’s why no one was listening. Who wants to listen to an hour-long podcast?
I don’t know. I listen to hour-long podcasts all the time.
Oh, I can’t listen to podcasts. I don’t even listen to our podcast. I can’t listen to disembodied voices.
I got to be honest, I still don’t know other than your mom who listens to our podcast.
Please, if you listen, write in at [email protected] and tell me why you do. I have never quite been able to figure it out.
Oh my gosh. Yes, please. We need encouragement. Or maybe not encouragement, if people are like, oh my gosh, get these ding dongs out of my newsfeed. I don’t know.
Yes, there’s a good chance. There’s a good chance that could be the responses. It’s been a tough year, guys. Maybe just the good stuff. Thanks. [email protected].
Also, Jack, if you just do a outtakes and bloopers episode and just go rogue and drop it on your last day so no one can do anything about it, I respect that.
I would totally respect that. That would be so fun.
How about all the outtakes of Southern Belle Stephanie cussing?
Where are you going to find those?
Like one time that happened, probably.
I try not to curse on the recordings.
Or in real life, you say chicken nugget.
I know, but this year is a change in me. I don’t know. Look, I’m not trying to jack the episode away.
Okay. A second time is lazy. This is like when you and Claire get all that mileage out of, I didn’t see you there.
That one never gets old. Claire and I would bump into each other and we would literally go, “Oh, I didn’t say you there. Oh, neither did I.”
No. You know what? That might be my favorite NDRN story that Claire once did that to me twice in a day though, and the first time I was like, okay, that’s hilarious. And the second time it was still funny, but I’m like, damn, you are using this line every time you bump into someone, aren’t you?
Honestly, it’s really funny when you’re out in public and you say it just to random passersby because they don’t know how to take it. Usually there are some folks that are like, “Okay.” And then of course there are the folks that it seems like they’re gobsmacked when they hear, “I didn’t see you there.” And then they realize that it was a blind person who ran into them, and then here comes the end of the world. << It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine >>
You are really going for it on this one, Stephanie.
I appreciate it. This is the send off I wanted. I can’t wait to be named in the lawsuit.
Oh wait. No, crap. Wait. No. I guess it’s okay because I’m doing this still as an NDRN employee, they can’t sue me personally. If I do come back as a guest, it can’t be one where I get sued. That’ll be a problem. Then they can go after me.
We’re going to have you as a guest and just violate 30 different copyrights on that episode.
Just so that we can sing 80s music and Santana. I know Santana is not 80s, but I know that that was something I could never live down.
It is still too soon to talk about how you thought Smooth Criminal was a Santana song.
Oh my God. That was still, just confidently telling that pun. Folks, if you go back and listen to, I don’t know which episode, but if you, let’s see if this will work. Can you find it? This one. Yes. If you Google Stephanie Flynt, Smoothie Criminal.
Everything’s transcribed for accessibility, so yeah, Google captures all of it.
Guys. We made it. We made it.
In fact, if you google Stephanie Flynt, the fifth result is our recent episode. Should Stephanie get a Cat?
And the answer is still no. Thank you for checking.
Oh, that reminds me. Tell Quinn, there’s this stray cat that keeps laying on my patio. I’m going to get a carrier and snag her and bring her over for you guys.
Yeah. I got a cat for you.
Don’t bring it to Quinn at our happy hour on Tuesday.
Okay. I’m bringing a cat.
Michelle, you got to bring a cat to the happy hour.
Stephanie, I think it’s like a Godfather situation. Stephanie can’t refuse to take that cat on the day of my Goodbye Happy Hour.
Well, of course not. That would be inhumane.
Okay. That was a good one. I’ll give you that one.
That was pretty good. That was pretty good. Can’t lie. I’m impressed today and I kind of like all the puns with Jack’s name. I don’t know why he’s so salty about it. Probably because he’s been hearing them for like 30 years, but whatever.
Probably so. I wonder how many puns ChatGPT has. I’ll have to figure that one out and send that to you, y’all. I do have a fun joke.
I was going to say, how do we end this episode? This has been an episode of nothingness. There has to be a way to wrap it up, but I guess if there’s a joke…
There is always a joke. Okay. This is not an original. I actually got this one from Ms. Pencils Away, which if y’all like my jokes, you would absolutely love her. Oh my gosh, she’s so funny. And here we go. So what is Beethoven’s favorite fruit?
Y’all got to guess first?
Okay, let’s think Michelle. Beethoven’s favorite fruit. Do you want to hop on? My girlfriend’s sitting next to me and she thinks she figured it out.
Peaches? Like an ear of something? A slice of something?
No. You’re thinking of the painter who cut his ear off.
Okay. What is Beethoven’s favorite fruit? I am stumped. Michelle, do you have anything here?
Was a conductor, A composer.
Okay. Do you want me to put you all out of your misery? Wait, you have a guess?
No, I got nothing. You stumped me.
Okay. What is Beethoven’s favorite fruit? Ba-na-na-nas, ba-na-nas. No?
I can’t decide if that was amazing or awful.
My girlfriend just walked away, just experiencing too many emotions from that.
I really, really liked that one.
It’s good. This is Jack’s episode, so it’s good that it was one that brought him joy.
That was my hope. I’ve been saving this one for like a month. Because I heard it and I was like, “Ooh.” I’m kind of shocked none of you said kiwi, because that was my first thought.
The key, like the key of.
The key, like the key of.
Yeah, like a key. A, B, C, D, E, F, G.
Well, I guess I have a joke.
I’m thinking how to phrase this. Let me think.
Michelle, you got to come up with one too now.
No, I did my cat tuna fish library joke. And you guys didn’t like it, it was a classic. I used my best material on you guys.
What do you call putting out my Goodbye podcast two months after I’ve actually left NDRN? Incredibly on brand for us.
Yeah. Sorry folks. If you’re hearing this, I’m already gone and I am possibly wondering, oh my God, how am I going to make it through law school? What did I do? Or, I’m having the time of my life. We’ll find out. I’ll be back sometime in the future to let you know.
So sorry folks. He’s gone. You’re too late to say goodbye to Jack. But, if you want to be the new producer/pro host of our podcast, email [email protected], and we’ll consider your application. Jack, one last time since you’re no longer here. Do you want to tell the people where they can follow us on social?
You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Bluesky, Threads. If anyone actually uses Threads, I don’t know who does, but we’re on it. We’re on Twitter. I’m still calling it Twitter. I think we are maybe going to make a TikTok at some point, but-
Oh yeah, don’t we use that?
But that is no longer my problem. So the other member of the comms team, that is their problem. But if we’re on TikTok by the time this episode is out, Alden, if you’re listening, you should add it to the show notes.
Alrighty. Well, until next time folks, this is not goodbye. This is see you later.
For Michelle and Stephanie because Jack’s already gone. Bye guys.
