The Family Archives

Long time listeners of our show may remember a period when Cy used to come into the studio like every other day. Before that period, he came in for the first time, right near the very beginning. So early, in fact, that we were still broadcasting out of Tom's basement because we weren't sure this show would last. Well it definitely lasted, as did the many episodes with Cy Amundson. And if the show goes for another twenty or so years, I might even have time to make a lost episode out of all of them.

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This is a Catholic episode, so to listen, you either need to be Catholic or hold a rosary the entire time. Sorry, that's the rule. It's in the bible somewhere I'm sure. You can also gain temporary favor with the Holy See by watching Siobhan's movie, Shelter In Solitude, which comes out on the 6th. Since the entire world is apparently on strike, you should have plenty of free time to watch movies.

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You know how they say there are two things you should never bring up in polite discussion: religion and politics? How about an entire hour of just those two things? That's right, we're going Full Impolite.

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Frank's back, and this time he's in person. After all, he is live at Acme today and tomorrow. He's also a modern day philosopher. Bet you didn't know that part, did you? It's true. We discuss topics like raising children, education, and the definition of "comedy". And we all do it in Donald Trump's voice. Well, one of us did. We'll let you guess who.

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The strike seems to finally be coming to a close maybe, even though they just added video games to the pyre. We speculate that you'll be seeing a lot of "no AI" clauses in contracts in the near future. It won't write our shows, it won't act, but it will diagnose and treat your medical problems. I don't know, something about giving a robot access to scalpels and anesthetic drugs seems a lot more concerning than letting one write a TV show, but our societal priorities are a bit off lately.

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Do you freeze up when you get put on the spot? Of course you do. Almost everyone does. That's why you need to learn to both think faster and talk smarter. You can do that by reading a book called Think Faster, Talk Smarter. It's very up front about its contents. Maybe if you learn to think faster you'll also get better at pickleball, which is important because everyone on the entire planet is playing it now.

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This week, Fancy Ray returned. In 2017, he simply arrived. It was his first visit, and both the show and the very planet itself have changed quite a bit since then. Ray seems unperturbed. In fact, he may even be higher energy now than he was six years ago. Now's your chance to compare and contrast for yourself.

Disclaimer: this episode isn't technically "lost" in that it can be found by digging around our Megaphone archives, but for ease of access and visibility we're republishing it here. Besides, I'm not even sure how most people do access our archives. Maybe you can't.

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Last time Fancy Ray was in studio, we were deep in the heart of a pandemic. Apparently the pandemic is coming back, which of course means Ray must come back. Actually, it's a complete coincidence. We just like finding patterns. Here's another pattern: whenever he's in, you can expect the energy level to hover somewhere around "very high". How does he do it? We may never know. All we can do is benefit.

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In the distant past, everything was local. The news was local, entertainment was largely local, and even controversy was local. Sometimes it was a little too local, like when the guy across the street is the wrong denomination of your religion. Even then, these were the things that gave communities their identity. Globalization has stripped away the uniqueness of our neighborhoods, and whether you think we're better or worse off than the "good old days", you have to agree that they generated some pretty interesting stories we're not likely to see the likes of ever again.

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Medical science has come a long way in the past hundred years. Even the past ten. And while getting here has been a combined effort of countless people, Mary Lasker and her husband Albert were among the first to realize that the federal government and its infinite money could be leveraged to improve cancer outcomes. Since then, cancer has slowly gone from a virtually guaranteed death sentence to something many people can be cured of. It wasn't long ago that doctors refused to use the word "cured" when talking about cancer.

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