The Anne Levine Show
Funny, weekly, sugar free: Starring "Michael-over-there."
The Anne Levine Show
Sports Bras, Snow, And A Butt That Won’t Quit
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A cold Cape Cod morning sets the scene for an hour that swings from laugh-out-loud awkward to quietly profound. We open with a hallway full of chairs, a pair of black scrubs bursting at the seams, and winter outfits that defy reason. It’s funny, yes—but it’s also a small study in shared space: how we move through clinics and crowds, what we notice, and the gentle obligations we carry when we’re together in public.
Then we widen the lens to a journey that spans continents. Meet Karl Bushby, the British former paratrooper who bet he could walk from Chile to Hull and just kept going. His Goliath Expedition wrestles with ice floes, bureaucracy, and time itself—crossing the Bering Strait in winter, navigating Russian courts, swimming stretches of the Caspian with support boats, and marching across borders that don’t like being crossed. It’s ambition made tangible: the cost of a promise, the math of endurance, and the complicated beauty of finishing what you start.
Back home, we taste the region’s past in our pantry. Polar Dry’s Prohibition pivot from whiskey to seltzers turned a Worcester family business into America’s largest independent bottler. Old Bay’s recipe traveled with a Jewish spice maker who escaped Nazi Germany and flavored the Mid-Atlantic forever. Add NECCO wafers, Friendly’s ice cream, and Rhode Island’s elusive Dell’s lemonade, and you get a map of New England written in sugar, salt, and memory. We end with TV—our new fixation on Pluribus from Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould—and a candid take on streaming’s long waits, dwindling momentum, and the power of a great cliffhanger to hold us anyway.
The final minutes turn reflective as we mark Epiphany and say a name in remembrance. Through jokes and cravings, endurance and loss, the thread is community—holding space for each other in the cold. If this hour moved you, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review to help more listeners find us. What story stayed with you most?
Find our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/447251562357065/
Live From Cape Cod
SPEAKER_00I'm a traveling man that made a lot of stuff all over the world. And in every more heart at least one lovely girl.
SPEAKER_01Hello. This is Anne Levine. Welcome to the Anne Levine Show. It is Tuesday, January 6th, which is Epiphany, and you know I've got words about that. I am joined by the extraordinary Michael over there.
SPEAKER_03Hello.
SPEAKER_01And we are coming to you from W O M R 92.1 FM in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
SPEAKER_02And WFMR 91.3 FM Orleans. And we're streaming worldwide at W O M R dotorg. And folks, this is the only place you can hear it. This stuff. This this is it. Yeah, we're it. We're it. And you know, it's all Cape Cod. It's all homegrown. This whole thing. It is, isn't it? It is. Yeah. It's extraordinary. Community radio. Well, that the whole world gets to listen to. Isn't that cool?
SPEAKER_01It is cool.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
Eye Clinic Circus
SPEAKER_01Uh and more members, more affiliates of the Pacifica Network should podcast their shows. Oh, yeah. Because there's so much great stuff going on. Uh a reminder that Ukraine 242 is still alive and kicking and on WOMR every week. So don't forget to check us out.
SPEAKER_02That's right.
SPEAKER_01Well, uh, we have quite a lot to discuss today.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, yes, and a lot of it has to do with food and beverages.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay. All right. I like that part.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Uh and they're Massachusetts based. Everything is is kind of close to here, but uh we will be getting to that a little later. Um first I would like to talk about something that Michael and I saw recently. I don't know how else to say it. Um we were at a doctor's office.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it's a large sort of warren of a doctor's office with lots of different sections where different doctors have their offices. Right.
SPEAKER_02And long hallways and lots of um uh people in scrubs walking around.
SPEAKER_01And lots of oh, there's that guy. I forgot it. That guy. Oh I gotta add him to this. Um and and so and and there's all along each side are just is this huge row of chairs, and that's where everyone sits and waits.
SPEAKER_02Right, yeah. The the like the waiting room isn't really a waiting room, it's just chairs along the hallways.
SPEAKER_01Along both hallways. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And then there's this warren of doctor's offices in between. Yeah. Anyhow. So we were sitting and waiting, which is mainly what you do at this place at this time. It really is. And you have to find ways to entertain yourself, and it's not hard. No, because there are all kinds of people on the staff and among the patients. Yeah. It's rather extraordinary. Well, I saw something that blew my mind, and I think Michael's as well. Uh we were we had been called in to an office, so we were getting up and coming the other way was a woman. Would you like to describe this? Because I don't even have words. Do you know what I'm talking about?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the uh Can we mention that it was very cold?
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_02It was a cold day.
SPEAKER_01That has a lot of means 20-something degrees. Right.
SPEAKER_02And snowy and gray and really winter. It was frigid. Yeah, it was wintry. And um and the woman was wearing, I don't know, it's she did have a jacket on, right?
SPEAKER_01Now wait a second. Did she have a jacket on? She did, kind of on the well, being worn loosely. Right.
SPEAKER_02Not zipped up or anything.
SPEAKER_01No. I wa wide open, actually. Yeah. Uh please tell the age and the hairdo.
SPEAKER_02Okay, well, the hair, all I all I remember is the the bleach part.
SPEAKER_01Well, I don't know if it was bleach or if it was gray.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01But it was a big white, messy side ponytail.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01A side ponytail. That's right. Coming off the top of the head.
SPEAKER_02On a person whose uh BMI is a larger number than mine. Right? I mean, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_01This was a heavy.
SPEAKER_02I don't like saying these things, but yeah, yeah, she was a heavy leader.
SPEAKER_01No, but in this case wearing her sort of half jacket.
SPEAKER_02How old would you say she is? Oh, I don't know, mid-40s. Are you serious? I thought so.
Winter Wardrobes Gone Rogue
SPEAKER_01Oh, I was thinking 70 something.
SPEAKER_02Oh, well, I okay. How interesting. I don't know. It's hard. Maybe because you saw white hair and I saw blonde. Uh whatever. You know what I mean? But anyway, she was she was too old for this outfit, regardless. Everyone was too old. Because she's wearing a jacket and no shirt. Correct. It's a sports bra. Right. And that's what she's wearing. That's her top.
SPEAKER_01That's her top. And she's wearing like a pair of sweatpants. Yeah. But who knows what she had on really below the top of the sweatpants? Because you could not stop staring at this. Yeah, I'm going definitely older than 40s.
SPEAKER_02And and with the and with the constant uh ringing of the word why. Why? And also going off in my head anyway.
SPEAKER_01Well, and Flopsy and Mopsy were hanging love.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It was a swing out sister situation.
SPEAKER_02Yep, yep.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So um this bra was what was it doing? It certainly wasn't holding anything where anything should be held.
SPEAKER_02No, it was basically keeping her from being arrested. And that's about it. You know, that's that's all it was doing.
SPEAKER_01Oh my God.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It was so shocking.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it was I I'm like, what is this half-dressed woman doing? Um and she was I don't know, she was she doing at the doctor's office climbing around on stuff. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, I I climbing around on stuff. I'm saying if this now, if this woman had it wasn't obscene uh or something, it was if you had seen her on a hot summer's day down by the beach, you wouldn't have looked twice.
SPEAKER_02That's correct, yeah.
SPEAKER_01It was the fact that it was twenty degrees and that this whole other situation was going on.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and the doctor's office. I mean, yeah, and this coat. Well, wait a minute. Not just the doctor's office, the ID. The doctor's office. Yeah. So it's not like a having a seal physical or anything. You know. Yeah. It's not like she needs to be undressed for any part of this. Well, because they're just looking at her eyes. So it's not like, you know, I need to be able to get out of this quickly.
SPEAKER_01Maybe she had to say, hey, my eyes are up here. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01What? No, no, no, no. That was the wrong reaction to what I just said. Wrong. Anyway. It was I'm still not quite.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you were a little traumatized by it.
SPEAKER_01Well, as were you.
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah, but I uh, you know, I I tend to uh take my trauma and shove it you know way down so I can't see it anymore.
SPEAKER_01Oh, you shove down?
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01Most people shove up.
SPEAKER_02No, I bury it downward.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, I didn't do either. I didn't do any shoving with this.
SPEAKER_02No, you're like rolling around in it.
SPEAKER_01No, no, no. It's it's unfortunately burned into my retinas. Yes, which is why we were at the eye doctor's beginning. To have some of that removed. Yeah. I should have mentioned that when I went in. I should have said, by the way, I had an event while I was in the waiting room. Could you please get rid of this image?
SPEAKER_02Can you make this image go away?
SPEAKER_01Anyway, I'm saying it was tough. I can still see it perfectly 100%. And I resent it. And the color of the coat was mauve. The whole thing was uh now. Here's here's what you do, people, in case you're wondering. Anything would suffice. Yeah. A tea towel. There you go. A t shirt. Yep. Anything, just something. Just have something on yourself. Yeah. Okay. You're in public, you're not at the beach, you're not at the pool.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you're not at home. Come on, folks.
SPEAKER_01No. Yeah. Put put something on. If first, even for sitting around at home in these temperatures, I would never.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly. It's just it's too cold for that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it's it's winter. There's snow on the ground. Oh God.
The Butt In Black Scrubs
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I don't uh I don't understand it myself.
SPEAKER_01But uh Well then, speaking of doctors' offices, I was at my um primary care physician, and we were parked right up front by the door, and this woman is a totally different situation. A woman was coming, was approaching, now it was twenty something degrees. Yeah. It it was absolutely freezing.
SPEAKER_02It's I don't know if we've even got I mean where we are, if we've gotten into the 30s in the past few couple weeks anyway.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it has been unbelievably cold here. So yeah, it was at the most 25 degrees.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I see this woman coming, and she is wearing a two-piece outfit. She is wearing gray.
SPEAKER_02Oh, this was a younger, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Now, this is an attractive, curvy, younger woman.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And she had on um like a tracksuit type of thing, but a little thicker, kind of a sweatsuit, but it was like a dressy sweatsuit. Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Like a designer's uh sweatsuit, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it had really nice the bottom of it was really nice, the color was really nice, and the top was really nice.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the whole the whole outfit. I mean, she looked she looked nice, she just didn't look well like she was in the right place.
SPEAKER_01She was not wearing a coat of any kind. Yeah. And the top was cropped.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it was a uh crop top. So she's shown her whole midriff.
SPEAKER_01So her whole midriff is exposed.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_01It's twenty five degrees, and she's walking around looking like through this large parking lot. I know. I mean, it wasn't like ooh, a quick j even if it was, I'm just gonna quickly run run in, hop out of my car, hop back in. You how do you leave your house in these temperatures in with your midriff exposed?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I don't get it either.
SPEAKER_01But um so that seems to be a trend on Cape Cod. Um exposure therapy. Um keeping parts of your torso exposed in in sub-zero temps.
SPEAKER_02I guess. Yeah. Well or sub freezing. Yeah, not sub zero.
SPEAKER_01Well, sub zero Fahrenheit. Centigrade, yeah. Uh no, in Fahrenheit. No. What do you mean in centigrade?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, in Celsius. Thirty-two is zero in Celsius.
SPEAKER_01Right. Okay. Uh okay, so then then there was another thing at we're back at the eye doctor with the sports bra lady.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_01And I frequent this particular um I have a lot of eye problems. So, and I had recently had cataract surgery. So we'd been there frequently recently. And I know pretty much every technician there by name.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. And if we don't know their name, we've seen them there many times before.
Carl Bushby’s Goliath Walk
SPEAKER_01And there are a lot of them, but I've gotten to know them all, and I always ask anyone I'm gonna be working with, any tech, any nurse, any whatever, I always ask their name. And so I know these people, except for this man. I don't remember his name. I didn't ask. This is the first time now he said something. Yeah, but my ears were not functioning by that point. Most of my senses stopped functioning when I saw him.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And um I'm gonna ask you again to describe him and his voice and the whole situation.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Well, um, where do you start? He's uh he's not super tall. Right? So he's an average uh uh average height guy. Right. And he's trying very hard to make up for that. He is trying his hardest to make up for being average height uh by whatever workouts he does, which are uh probably all he does if he's not working, because that's what it looks like.
SPEAKER_01Right. He is he's jacked underneath the He's jacked and he has one of the most deep voices I've ever heard.
SPEAKER_02Which also, uh in the words of my mother, as she used to describe to me, it carries. It is a you know, it's it's a voice that projects. It's not just you know a deep sound. It's loud. He's loud.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02You know. Yeah. It it it it gets right. The voice i is heard when he's speaking. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yep.
SPEAKER_01Well, carry on.
SPEAKER_02Let's see. Oh, well, well, what uh what else is there? Really? Well He seemed to remember uh working with you before, although He was lying.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, although you've never uh No, he said something at some point like you look familiar or I know the name or something.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, something, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh and he also had uh an argument with me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, he will he was like, you know, you're you're like you told uh you told he he said something to you, uh, are you taking these eye drops? And you're like, yes, I'm taking these eye drops, and I'm supposed to be taking them for so-and-so because of because you had the cataract surgery. And you had there is a there is a routine that you have to go through before you have the surgery and then you after with these eye drops. And you were telling him how much further you have to go, and he's like, uh I don't think so.
SPEAKER_01No, he said you're taking um traps of vinebol. Yeah. Or whatever. And I said no. No, I'm taking primus, whatever the heck it's called. Yeah. Impromis. Impromis. Yeah. And he said, look in here at the chart. Nope. Don't think so. He actually said I don't think so. He said, yeah, I don't think so. You were told to stop. Now I had had my post op the previous day.
SPEAKER_02Right. The day before. He actually saw us there that day, too. Uh, you know, he didn't work with us, but we saw him in the hallway.
SPEAKER_01Right. And I've been through this deal with with cataract surgery. My first the first time I did it was last February. Yeah. So I know that you take imprimace, you take it, you know, you do it however many times a day for X amount of weeks, and then you continue for at much fewer times a day. Right, you kind of for nine more weeks. And this time around, what the doctor did was said, you know what? When you're finished with the imprimace, I'm gonna write, I'm gonna send in a script for something else for you to use. Well, I'm not even finished with the imprimace now. So I said, I take imprimace until it's done, and then I move on to what the doctor prescribed yesterday.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_01He said, We'll have to check that out later. Yeah. I said, look it up. Look up imprimace. So he does. He says, that's a compound drug. Yep. I said, yes, it is. It's three drugs, three drugs in one. Yeah. And that's why you don't have to use three different eye drops anymore. Because someone bought a vowel and figured out, oh, we can put all this medicine in one. That's exactly and charge 40 times more. Well, yeah. Yeah. But whatever. Anyway, this guy was such a stew nod. And I don't know how to say this except he was wearing black scrubs. Yeah. And so tight. Yeah, they were a little too small for him. And certainly by accident, um, every time we've seen him, which hasn't been frequent, he's wearing black scrubs. Yeah. This guy's butt was enormous.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, he's got a dancer's butt.
SPEAKER_01Oh, it's some kind of break dancer or something. I mean, this was not a beautiful ballet dancer's butt. This was I spend, you know, many hours a day working on my glutes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, all my time when I'm not here, uh lifting weights.
SPEAKER_01I'm somewhere doing glute exercises. And it totally out of proportion with the rest of him. I mean, he was jacked, but the butt was way bigger than any other part of him. And of course, he's wearing the size extra small scrub bottoms. Yeah. And he's practically bursting. Squeaking down the hallway, yep. Bursting out of them. Oh, I I honestly, next time we're there, um, should he be there, I am definitely gonna get a picture from the rear. Oh, yeah. Two reasons. I don't want to expose anyone to you know, I don't take peep pictures of people's faces and post them, you know. Right, yeah. Um, but this butt must be seen by people other than us. All right, yeah. In my opinion. So anyway, I have him listed on my things to mention mention as the butt button man. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Okay. Um to talk about. Are you done with the butt man?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, tell me the man.
Crossing Seas And Borders
SPEAKER_02I have a man to tell you about. Okay. Um I found out about him today, and uh, I don't know why I haven't heard about him already. But his name is Carl Bushby. Oh. And he's a Brit. Okay. Well, of course. Years ago, he and some friends were in uh South America, I believe. And they were uh hanging out, they got a little drunk, they're just sitting around, and uh and Carl says, Hey, I'll bet you a hundred dollars I could walk from here in Chile home to Hull in England.
SPEAKER_01Oh, to Hull.
SPEAKER_02Yep. Uh-huh. Yep. And they said, okay. And for twenty something years now, he's been doing it. Are you kidding? No.
SPEAKER_01I have a few questions. Done. Well, of course he's not. I first of all, I want to know. So what's he doing going over the polar cap?
SPEAKER_02He crossed the Bering Land Bridge during winter. He knew it. Yes, he did.
SPEAKER_01Because what other way is there?
SPEAKER_02They walked through Russia in the winter. Yep. Because a lot of it was very swampy and nasty that he couldn't get through if it wasn't winter.
SPEAKER_04Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_02And he has been walking since 1998.
SPEAKER_01When's he gonna get to Hull?
SPEAKER_02He's gonna get to Hall maybe in December the end of this year. They he's right now he's in Hungary. Yeah. And you know, this walking, he's going 36,000 miles. Right. That's how far he is walking.
SPEAKER_01I have several questions, and I don't know if you know the answer. He's had a lot of trouble doing it, too, but yeah, go ahead. Well, I can't imagine why. What tell me about what some of his troubles have been.
SPEAKER_02Well, when he crossed um the Bering Strait on foot, they were trying to go cross the 58 mile straight from Alaska to Siberia. That's as far as it is. But they couldn't go that way. There were other stuff going on, and they had to go around and go 150 miles rather than the 58 miles from Alaska to Siberia. Russia gave them tons of trouble, banned them from entering the country. It it ended up in Russia's Supreme Court who said no, he can come walk through here. Yeah. And uh and all kinds all kinds of stuff has gone on. He's been he's been kicked out, and and the thing is, when he gets when he's gotten kicked out of one place, he's actually gone to another place and started walking from there.
SPEAKER_01Now, a few times you've said they. Now, did you me is he alone?
SPEAKER_02He's not entirely alone. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02No. He's got people documenting things for one. And uh there's a guy, uh, a French adventurer named Dimitri Kiefer, who uh was with him when they crossed the um Bering Strait.
SPEAKER_01So there are people kind of flying in and flying out. Yeah, yeah.
Polar Dry’s Prohibition Pivot
SPEAKER_02And he's got sponsors, you know, which uh during the 2008 uh crash, he lost uh his sponsors, he had to get some more. So yeah, so he's uh he was banned from re-entering Russia for five years, saying that he had some sort of border violation, but that's the thing that the Supreme Court turned overturned. So um, yeah, it's just been it's really been kind of loopy. Um let's see, in August 2024, he swam across the Caspian Sea from Kazakhstan. Who is this guy? He's just a guy. He's an English ex-paratrooper. He's uh 56 years old. He was born in 1969, and uh and what they're calling his trip here the Goliath Expedition. He uh he was in the army in uh Britain. He was uh he's an ex-paratrooper. Right. And uh he he did that for 11 years, and that's it. You know, it this was just on a on a silly little bet with his pals, but yeah, he's uh he's continued.
SPEAKER_01I have I have so many questions. First of all, I feel like none of this makes any sense. Uh-huh. Um a 56-year-old man doing this. I don't care if he's an ex whatever. Um when you talk about swimming across the Caspian Sea, yeah, for instance.
SPEAKER_02That was uh in 2024, yeah. How many miles is that? Oh, that's a good question. I'm not sure that it says here.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I know that it's a lake, right?
SPEAKER_02Right. It's not really a sea.
SPEAKER_01No, but it's massive. Yeah. Um it's like the Sea of Galilee is actually a lake. Um so there are some seas that are actually lakes. They're not salt water. Um so it's not a Dianayad sort of thing. Right.
SPEAKER_02But I don't understand. They didn't it wasn't a continuous swim. It was, however, 179 miles. And they achieved it in 31 days, 132 swimming hours. Yeah. They uh they they he had other people swimming with him, and they did two three-hour sessions, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. And then they uh rested and slept on some support boats.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so he had support boats.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so it wasn't Diane and Ied.
SPEAKER_02No.
SPEAKER_01Um and but oh my god.
SPEAKER_02Now I also want to mention he is now twice the age he was when he started.
SPEAKER_01So what, he's a hundred and twelve? No, he was twenty-eight when he started age. I know. Um I wish you were saying he's a hundred and twelve now. Yeah. Well that would be that would be awesome. Um all right, now uh here's my next question. Let's say someone bet you to do this.
SPEAKER_02Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01What amount of money would you need to get to take on this bet? All of it. All the money?
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_01Let's let me ask you this. Is a million enough? Not for me.
SPEAKER_02No, I don't think it I don't think it is. It doesn't go that far anymore. I think I think a billion might be Oh yeah, well, for a billion dollars, yeah, that would that's kind of a no-brainer.
SPEAKER_01Oh, it's a brainer for me, in that if if I was 30 years old um or twenty years old.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I'd say twenty around twenty-two is when I was at my most fit, at my strongest. You know, I think if you had said a billion to me at that point, the problem is the years.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know, the number of years you just have to cut out of your life.
SPEAKER_02The pl the plan was that it was gonna take eight years to do. Yeah. Yeah, and it's uh it's a little more.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we're at uh well it sounds like it sounds like a nightmare to me. Mm-hmm. And uh good luck wishing Mr. Bushby best of luck. It's cool though, isn't it? Yeah. It right now it sounds so cold that I can barely think about it. You know, crossing the bearing landmass.
Old Bay’s Survival Story
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Oh Lord. Well and uh and actually having to go three times the distance, too, because you have to go around. Yeah. Um so there's uh there's uh the Carl Bushby and the Goliath uh expedition story. How about that?
SPEAKER_01That's quite extraordinary. Well, speaking of things polar, I want to talk about polar dry. Oh, okay. Now the drink. That's correct. Okay, now Polar Dry is a brand of soft drinks that we never saw in New York. It was not stocked on shelves in New York. Uh-huh. Not in New York City. Was it stocked on shelves anywhere you lived? I don't believe so, no. Right. So I've always thought of it as a purely local thing.
SPEAKER_02It is actually I think it's kind of a New England thing or something.
SPEAKER_01Well, it it yeah, there's an interesting story. It's an American soft drink company based in Worcester. Uh-huh. And it is the largest independent soft drink bottler in the United States. How about that? Good for them. Now, I don't know any more about it than that in terms of um, you know, where it's sold outside of New England. I have no idea. But Polar Dry is absolutely my favorite soft drink brand. Orange dry, grapefruit dry.
SPEAKER_02Oh, they're so good.
SPEAKER_01And they have diet and sugar and whatever. Yeah. Now, here's the extraordinary part of this. Okay. Um the original uh slogan of this company was drink polar stay dry. Oh, okay. Any idea when or why that might have?
SPEAKER_02Um polar stay dry. I don't know. It sounds like, you know, obviously it sounds weather related somehow.
SPEAKER_01Prohibition.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay, of course.
SPEAKER_01Stay dry. So what happened is this guy, um, Ralph Crowley, or no, it was started by Dennis Crowley.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um Ralph is his great great grandson who or who who is in charge of it now.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_01Um, it began as a liquor company. Oh. And in in 1880, and it was the JG Beerbach Company, a liquor company. And in nineteen sixteen, the company took the polar name. And I don't exactly know why. And they stopped selling whiskey during prohibition and began selling carbonated beverages like water, ginger ale, and what they call dries. And I don't know what that means, but the company is a member of the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce. I think it means just not overly sweet, you know? Or it may mean just no alcohol. Yeah. I don't know. Could could very well be, yeah. But the origins of this company trace back to Wurtheim, Germany, where this guy Brun started oh no. Making his own making whiskey, right? Yes. And uh that is the story of polar drawn. How about that? And I never in a million years would have thought that uh, you know, stay dry. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Drink polar. Yeah, the guy pivoted right away as soon as they said you can't make whiskey anymore. He's like, All right, all right, I got I got to. Start making this stuff. Which I'm glad he did, because I I love it.
SPEAKER_01I know it. And if it if he was making whiskey, I would not be buying it, nor drinking it, nor in any way supporting that business.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I wouldn't even probably know anything about it at that point. Exactly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, I am thrilled by having found that out.
SPEAKER_02How about that?
SPEAKER_01Uh now. Oh, and he was known as Boss Crowley. Boss Crowley, okay. That's what they call him. So the company was Started by Boss Crowley.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
New England Treats And Oddities
SPEAKER_01Which I love. And is so Cape Cotty. Uh now you recently found out the history of the Old Bay Seasoning Company. Oh, yeah, yeah. And that also is local to the Atlantic coast, the North Atlantic coast.
SPEAKER_03Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, and so it's New England down to Maryland. Now in Maryland, the stuff is like on every yeah, it is absolutely everywhere. And it's all over crabs. I mean, they even there are some places that refer to it as crab seasoning. Yeah. Which um, but they they famously put it on French fries.
SPEAKER_02Yum.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You know, if you go sit down at a crab shack, I guess you call it down there as opposed to a clam shack.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And they bring you fries, they've either got the shaker on the table or it's already on the fries.
SPEAKER_02I've never done that. I'm gonna have to do that.
SPEAKER_01I knew that as soon as I told this story. You're going to have to do that. Well, you're gonna have to buy some.
SPEAKER_02Uh oh, did you use what what we had?
SPEAKER_01No, it's because what we have is Bell's seasoning. Oh man. And that's the stuff that we all use in New England to put on our turkeys, to put in our stuffing. That's what the Bell seasoning is.
SPEAKER_04All right.
SPEAKER_01And that is now owned outright by McCormick, and I don't know the history, but I just want to say that this guy um with the Bayes seasoning. Yeah, um he was in Wertheim, Germany, Brun, Jewish, and then World War One came around, and in nineteen thirty-eight, after Kristalnacht, yeah, um this guy Brun ended up in Buchenwald, yeah, yeah. Concentration camp.
SPEAKER_02And he got ransomed out, right?
SPEAKER_01I mean he would thank God it was right at the beginning, and he got ransomed out by his family, and he was able to escape with his two children to New York City, and then they ended up settling in Baltimore, Maryland. And then he he brought one small spice grinder with him. That's all he had. I want that makes me want to cry. Yeah. And he founded the Baltimore Spice Company, of course, from nothing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01He produced it, he sold it as the delicious brand shrimp and crab seasoning.
SPEAKER_03Yum.
SPEAKER_01Which was renamed Old Bay.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And um, it's Old Bay in the yellow can.
SPEAKER_02And we don't even know all of the things that are in it. That's the thing. They don't tell anybody what all the ingredients are. No.
SPEAKER_01Goofstoff Brun um either took that to his grave, may he rest in peace, or someone in the family knows what I mean, it's still being produced. So someone knows.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, anyway, you can still buy it. Go buy it. Oh, yeah. Enjoy. Sprinkle it on your French fries.
SPEAKER_02I'm gonna do I'm gonna do that next time we have some.
SPEAKER_01Sprinkle, sprinkle on something. We have every other spice in this house. You might as well. Now that I'm cooking again, yeah. The spice cabinet is groaning.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and really kind of a lot of spices going on. It's so fabulous, though. Hey, uh, you know what? I was thinking of another New England uh food thing. What's that? It's the Neko wafer. Oh, yeah. How about that? Also from the Worcester area. Yep, and they uh, you know, they they they closed. Yes, but then but then uh Spangler, which is another candy company, uh bought them and and cranked it back up again. Which is good, and you know, I don't I don't know no one screams, hey, gimme those Neko wafers, I just gotta have them. I was just gonna say I can't stand neckers. But people eat them. A lot of them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01No, absolutely.
TV Obsession: Pluribus
SPEAKER_02And I uh and I think they make some that are like um that are uh not the assorted kind, but just like um licorice. Have you ever had them? Uh no. Yeah, I've I I think uh uh maybe it may be a different yeah, licorice. I've had just licorice before. And oh my god, I love that so much.
SPEAKER_03They are so good.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's bizarre how many things, like friendly's ice cream.
SPEAKER_03Yep, yeah.
SPEAKER_01There are so many food companies that have started in Massachusetts. Yeah, how about that? And that were mean as kind of New England things. They're also Rhode Island things. I can't remember the name of it. That lemonade that I looked for everywhere. Oh, um and you can only get it in Rhode Island.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it's which is infuriating because, you know, what, we're ten minutes away, but you you know, you can't get I'm exaggerating. Yeah. But you can't get it in a store here. Right. Um I can't even remember how I had it. I think we had been on the road maybe, and had gone in. I think that's what it was, yeah. Right. Gone in someplace in Rhode Island and I said, ooh, look, sugar-free lemonade, let me grab some of that. And I was obsessed. And I tried to get it shipped here. I, you know, I went through my usual, my usual thing. Um, so we've been through a lot of seasonings. And is it Dell's? Yes. Yeah, that's what it was. D E L 1L. Yep. Well, if anyone out there can get me uh some Dell's lemonade, just please be in touch. Uh it's yeah, just let us know where the heck to find it. Or let let me know how much you want and and I'll pay you to ship it to me. Oh, I want it. Um, Michael and I have a new obsession, and I mean obsession. We we talked about it a little bit at one point, but the obsession is the show. Yeah. Pleurabus. Yep. And it's a Vince Gilligan joint with help from my old friend from college, uh Peter Gould.
SPEAKER_02Yep. And if you and if you don't remember Vince Gilligan, he's the guy who created uh Breaking Bad.
SPEAKER_01Right. And the two of them wrote and created Peter and Vince wrote and created Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. Uh Pluribus.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You must see it.
SPEAKER_02Rhea Seahorn, who was uh Kim Wexler in um Better Call Saul. Better Call Saul, um Saul's partner there for a while.
SPEAKER_01Is the star and she is amazing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, she's she's absolutely mind-blowing. And so's the new guy.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_02The South American guy. Who we only just saw him in the last couple episodes of the season. No. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01The horrendous, horrendous part of the show is that the season is over. Yep. And of course, you know, we binged ish. We were watching like an episode a day.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And now it's gone.
SPEAKER_02Now it's gone. Now we gotta wait for who knows how long.
SPEAKER_01And it's uh I'm I'm not over it.
SPEAKER_02You know, if it's what did we wait for uh a series uh uh mad men? I think it was like two and a half years one time. Oh we were waiting in between seasons of madmen. That was crazy.
SPEAKER_01All sorts of things. Just waiting the year.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you know what? I have something to say about that where they do this. It really takes the taste out of it. It does.
SPEAKER_02I agree with you. I absolutely agree.
SPEAKER_01So I was obsessed, obsessed, obsessed with the morning show.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And a year later, it's back. I haven't watched one episode. Yeah. You do lose your taste when they make you wait a year.
SPEAKER_02You kinda yeah, you kind of do. There's uh there's so much other stuff, for one thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I don't think it's a good uh template for you know putting these shows out. I really don't. Yeah. Um think it's kind of screwy. But uh yeah, I'm afraid that I'm not gonna feel about Pluribus a year from now the way I feel about it now.
SPEAKER_02I don't know. The cliffhanger was really something. So, you know, they left us in a place that is just insane. Yes. So, you know, it's gonna be fun to see what happens.
SPEAKER_01It's Vince Gilligan doing his magic. Uh I that guy. I would follow him anywhere. I mean, if I was what's his name, Ted Sarandos, uh-huh, or any of those big guys, I would be. This is actually on, is it on Apple TV? Yes, it is, yeah. Um I don't know who runs Apple TV, Ted Sarandos is Netflix. But I would be name it, Vince. Name your price, name your project, what you want to do, when you want to do it. I mean, this guy is just a genius.
SPEAKER_02He really is.
SPEAKER_01And you know, when you finish first of all, when you finish Breaking Bad, you think there can never be anything again.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01This great. And then, you know, Better Call Saul.
SPEAKER_02Which was oh my it it was it had such a different attitude, but it was so Oh, it was so good. And then please as much there was so much more violence in Breaking Bad than there was Saul. Right. Um oh man.
SPEAKER_01And Michael McKean, it had these different but fabulous uh story arcs going on. Um this is nothing like either one of them except it takes place in New Mexico, so it'll look familiar to only similarity besides the fact that it's you know uh Rhea Seahorn is in it.
SPEAKER_02When we first it's in New Mexico.
SPEAKER_01When I first saw the house she lives in, I said, Isn't that where Hank and Maria lived? Now those are characters from what are called Saul. Um I mean from breaking back.
SPEAKER_02I have I have since learned that where their houses are, uh they're not real houses. They built that area just for the show. Right. Outside of Albuquerque. Right.
SPEAKER_01So it's kind of a it's a trick. Yes, it is a trick. Oh, I'm I'm curious. I'm gonna have to look up and and nitpick and find out more about the show.
Epiphany, Grief, And A Farewell
SPEAKER_02Um I was just gonna say I'm I'm curious about the um location of certain things, but I don't want to Well, I mean I will I will tell you what I what I learned is that there are no locations in this episode that were also in Breaking Bad. No, no specific locations, you know. So he he deliberately kept them, you know, kept the two worlds separate as far as places, you know, recognizable places, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right. No, I'm thinking about stuff that happened not in New Mexico. But anyway, we'll no spoilers at all. Yeah. If you hear me, I don't care how annoying you think I am, um whatever you think about me, about Michael, you have got to watch this. Yeah. This pretty great is homework. This is absolutely not something that you can blow off.
SPEAKER_02No, you and you don't want to anyway. No it's awesome.
SPEAKER_01But oh my. Yeah, how about that? Well, uh we have reached the end of the Anne Levine show. Um but tomorrow is Epiphany, so as you know, those Christmas lights, ornaments, and deck down. It's got to come down. I'll give you the week. You have till next week, shop. Oh, okay. All right. That's nice. I'd like to mention today Tatiana Schlossberg. Tatiana Schlossberg was the daughter of Carolyn Kennedy and Ed Schlossberg. And um she passed away at age 35. She was diagnosed with a voracious form of leukemia on the day that her second child was born because they did blood work, and her white cell count was 130,000. So if you know anything about blood cell, let's just say that's extremely high. Yeah, that's and she was immediately alarming whisked away from her daughter and worked up because with a white blood cell like that, count like that, you can't be anywhere near your uh your anyone. You can't afford to get an infection. No. Tatiana lived a year. She was a journalist, she was an Oxford scholar, a Rhodes Scholar, brilliant, brilliant woman. Um she was an interesting blend of her parents. She she had the dark coloring of her father, but the bone structure of that incredible Kennedy DNA, that or is it what am I trying to say? They just look alike. That they all look alike. There's something about that jaw, and if you look at certain photographs of Tatiana, um you can totally see where Caroline is her mother. I cannot believe what has happened to this family, the tragedies and the sorrows that continue to be visited upon this family. And for Tatiana Schlossberg of blessed memory, may her name be a shining name in Israel. And for Tatiana, please put on a light.
