What a Vermont. On today'show, we talk a little bit about our favorite pigs. We get into taxes, but trust me, it's not boring. We talk about the weirdness of sunscreens at schools. We offer some solutions for refugee housing. Glow has a plan to move to Plainsfield. Or is it Plainfield? And then there's more talk about yurts than I ever expected. And of course, we got the scumbag map and so much more. And again, we're always playing around with some AI, so you're gonna hear a new version of our theme song. This is the hip-hop version, so enjoy that. Let's get into the show! Hey, for one, it's time to get brought up. You never know when to get brought up. On the mic, it's Blue, Matt, and Adam. Pretty much anything can happen. Every single town in the Green Mountain State is covered in smother like a Waffle House plate. Kick back, relax, and put us in your ears like DPR with a cup on the bed. Welcome to Remark Ketchup with Matt. I'm Matt. Glow. I'm Glow. And I'm Adam. We are a weekly rundown of everything going down in the Green Mountain State. Happy National Pig Day. That's a day I can get behind. Yeah? Get behind some pigs? Yeah. Yeah. And eating them. Yeah, yeah. Okay, funny you say that. So here's a recommendation. How should one observe National Pig Day? Cuddle up with one. Read about one. Wilbur. Or eat one. Yeah, I mean, actually, people do have them as pets. Have you ever encountered a pig as a pet? No. Really? Yeah, I know. You've lived with all sorts of vermin. I know, I mean, I've even taken care of guinea pigs, but no. No pig? No, no pig. Are you anti-pig? No, I love pigs. Okay. The four-legged ones. What are the other ones? Us. The two-legged. Okay. I'm glad you said us. It didn't just point to me and Matt. Anyone have a favorite pig? Arnold. Oh, yeah. Celebrities? Well, yeah. I like Jeffrey down the road. He's a little muddy, but... Arnold was a smart guy. Did Arnold talk? He grunted like a pig. And somebody could, what's her name, Ava Gabor could understand him for some reason. Right, and of course his owner as well. So it wasn't like a Mr. Ed situation? No, he didn'talk, he just grunted and everybody, oh yeah. And the only one I think couldn't understand him was, what's his name? The only one with the brains. So they're like talking and Arnold pipes up and they're like, good point, you're right, we should do that. There's also Babe, I liked Babe. I never saw Babe. Really? It's a great movie. I've heard Babe gets out and then there's like Babe 2, Pig in the City, right? Yeah, that's a darker version. Oh, what happens? He goes to the city and it's dark. Yeah, he starts killing taxi drivers or something. No, I don't know. It's a much darker version. The first one is very adorable. I think your wife would like it. Because it's a really sweet movie. It's funny, too. Yeah, it's very funny. I just don't know when in my work week would I be like, you know what, Wednesday night after dinner, we're popping in Babe. It's National Pig Day. You're right. You can do it tonight. Honey, we're watching Babe. She's probably seen it. Yeah. Yeah, it's a very popular movie. Yeah, it was like, it came out like right when I was like, when did it come out? I'm guessing it came out right around Pulp Fiction. That's my guess. In the early 90s. Yeah. 93, maybe. Well, who's your favorite? 95. So I saw Pulp Fiction in 94, and I was like, I am done with Babe. Now I want murder and heroin. It changed me. Yeah, I remember seeing that like three times the first weekend it was out. Just taking it and going with different people. Do you have a favorite pig? Wilbur in Charlotte's Web is a classic, right? He's a good, wise pig. Porky Pig is pretty good. Did he ever have his own cartoons or was he just there? No, he did. He did? Yeah, he had Porky Pig. He did it with other people, I mean, other characters too, but yeah, he was one of the older ones, I think. He had a stutter, right? Yeah, he had a stammer. Yeah, I don't like that. No. I don't know that I do have a favorite pig. I was reading about National Pig Day, Chloe, did you have one? I don't want to leave you out of the pig conversation. Yes, Porky Pig would not exist today. No, no. I mean, I think you've all mentioned, you mentioned all of them by now, right? I mean, how many pig celebrities have there been? There's got to be more. Right now people are screaming in their headphones like, oh, you didn't mention this one. In Dublin in 1772, there was a trained swine called the learned pig. It's a pretty good name for a bar, right? The Learned Pig, full of learned pigs. Well, we saw that Nick Cage movie, Pig. Oh yeah, Pig. Was there any pigs in it? There was a big pig. He used to hunt for truffles. Yeah. Somebody kidnapped him. Spoiler alert, did he get the pig back? No. I don't remember how that ended. I don't either. Did he end up as pork chops? I don't remember. I don'think so. Somebody steals a pig and... Yeah, he was a truffle sniffing pig. Oh, much more valuable. Although we find out, he didn't really need them. He just said, actually, I'm the one who found them. Yeah, he's more like a friend. Yeah, he was his friend. So we're off pigs. All right, moving on to some Vermont stuff. Glo, you ever date a guy who told you about the things that they almost bought you? You ever date someone like that? They're like, oh, I was going to get you this. and they just didn't? No. My dad used to do that all the time. Not really to us kids, more to my mom. I was gonna get you this, and she's just like, either get it or don'tell me you were gonna get it. That's what the Vermont lawmakers did to us. They were gonna do something cool with Medicaid by expanding the salary requirement, income requirement, And at the last minute, they decided, oh, let's form a committee to review that instead. That's what they do with everything down there. I'm guessing they already know what the committee is going to say. You formed the committee because you don't want to do that, right? I don't know. Yeah, I mean, it's just stalling until it just goes away and nobody remembers it. I don't know. It's like, why even bring it up if you don't want to do it? It'so bizarre to me. It's Montpelier though. I mean, they do this all the time. I'm confused. Medicaid is federal, correct? Correct. And each state has its own whatever payout? Or I mean salary limit or whatever? I think so. And then they can raise it or lower it, you know, whatever. It's like the hourly wage. Right. Okay. So, as initially written, the bill would have dramatically raised the income threshold for Medicaid over the next five years, likely making tens of thousands of Vermonters newly eligible for publicly funded health insurance. Hmm. Maybe I'd get it. I think maybe, yeah. Because, yeah, like, I don't know about your situation, Matt, but like, so many people live at that like weird region where you're like, the government's like, nah, actually you make too much money. You're like, fuck you. I'm like, dude, come look at my house! You know what I mean? So, yeah, it sucks. But, why don'they just do it? You know? Don'tell me you're gonna do it. Just don't do it. This is Lucy and her football. Every time. So, people in Vermont, adults with income of$16.76 a month for a single person are eligible. That's what this says. Anyway. 1676 is eligible when rent is 2,000 for a shithole, basically. Pretty much. Yeah, 1676, if you'renting, what does that get you? Yeah, you're in the minus. You're in the trailer with four other people. Yeah, if you're in your 70s and you are forced to have roommates, You should automatically be eligible, right? Right. No one should have to suffer that. All right, so that sucked. What else is going on? Hackers. Yeah. I feel like we're like, they have these cyber attack on Vermont pharmacies. Is this like the calm before everything just falls apart? I think so. They're just warming up. Like AT&T was hacked, this pharmacy's hacked. Like all kinds of municipal services. There's hospitals, like, what was it, down in Florida, like, the water supply was, like, hacked for a few minutes, and it's just, like, what? Hospitals. Don't people have anything better to do? Hackers? Yeah. I can definitely see the possibility of that happening. Totally. You know, like some rogue government. Or just a group of people. Yeah, yeah. Four teenagers in a basement somewhere. War games. Right. Four North Korean teens. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Glo, do you have like a mattress full of money and a drawer full of gold for when it all goes down? I used to. I mean... I've decided this is crazy. I mean, I had a little bit of money stashed away just in case of that. But that was like 10 or more years ago because I had come to the conclusion that cash isn't going to get you anything. That's another thing, right? Like if it all falls apart, does cash matter? Yeah, exactly. Because I see your next thing is about cashless. And we've seen that. We've already talked about it too. about, you know, like now, what's the Four Quarters Brewery? You can't use cash. The only thing they take is card there. Well, yeah, so we'll just get to the next story. We'll bridge the two. Lawmakers are trying to challenge that, that every place has to accept cash. Because there are certain blacks and Hispanics are less likely to have bank accounts, so they would be excluded. We couldn't go to Four Quarters Brewery. You pay $10 for a six ounce? Yeah. We like Four Quarters. I do like Four Quarters. Try the IPA. Yes. Yeah, yeah. But also, it's not just black and brown people, right? I think if my brother had a choice, he wouldn't have a credit card. He has to have one. Yeah, poor people don't have them, in general, a lot. You know, they live from paycheck to paycheck. You can't rent a car without a credit card. No. And they had that for a long time. Oh, yeah. You know, because of course, if you just take off with the car, hey, at least they have your number. But, you know, who's not to say then you go and cancel that car the minute you get down the street. It's true. Look at you, high-level car rental scam. Hey, you know, I could have been a criminal. Still time. I always tell you. I always tell you, there'still time. Late bloomer, the late blooming criminal. But there are places where you have to pay cash, right? Hookers. Right? Drug dealers. I mean, I could pay for like a high-end escort with like PayPal or something. Yeah, I'm sure they can do that. Yeah, but I'm trying to think of a business that you would have to pay cash. Well, an ethnic store. Yeah, those straight up like in my hometown, there's restaurants that only take cash. Yeah, actually, we had one in Florida, too. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I can't remember. One in Cortez. Cash only. And they said, this they're saying in Florida, they're saying like, oh, we have to pay like a certain percentage. So if you, some places were like, you can pay with your card, it's just going to be more expensive. Because they had that surcharge on. But the business used to eat it. Right. Then one day they're like, wait a minute, what are we doing? Yeah, it's like, I think it's 3% or 4%? Yeah, I think it was 3%. You remember when went to Palmer? Maple syrup, but also those creamies? They're back, by the way. They're back. They're already? Yeah, I saw it on Facebook or something. I'm going Saturday. Okay. Well, um, but we bought a bunch of stuff in the store, like maple syrup, and he told us that he's about to do that. He's going to charge, if you're going to use a card, he's going to charge you 3% more. The reason is, I mean, I'm not talking about the ice cream. I doubt that is part of it, but anything in the store. Yeah. Why is this a sudden thing? People woke up, because everyone just started doing it? Yeah. I feel like during the pandemic, prices went up because of supply chain or whatever. And every business and restaurant was like, Oh, these dummies are still going to pay it? It's actually more in demand? Okay, let's just keep raising them. And people keep paying them and complaining. And it's just like, stop buying stuff. Haven't reached the limit yet. No, haven't. When people say, hey, that's enough. We're not going to do this anymore. No, not if they keep doing it slowly. It's not that slow though, you know what I mean? I know, but why isn'there a revolution already in just the last five years, right? I'm tired. I would have gone to the revolution, but you know. Isn't someone else going to do that? I'll be in the back. Call me when it gets really close to revolution time. Then I'll show up, but you know, who wants to be in the streets? You don't want to be the first one in the streets. They get shot. But who knows? I don't know, man. It's crazy how much prices are rising and businesses are just like record profits across the board. Remember when were all worried about them? Like, oh, no one wants to work anymore. Poor businesses. So that stopped. That flipped. Well, the businesses that should have been out of business went out of business, probably. if you know, they didn't change their way, I mean, they didn't pay people enough for one thing, you know, so. Oh, that's insane, man. We're looking at daycares, guess how much a month of daycare costs?$1,200. You are low. If I found that, I would jump on it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We've talked about this. I think it was around $2,000 or more. A little less than that, like $16,000, $17,000. Yeah, but still, that's, I mean, that one person about Medicaid thing that were talking about, forget it. What would be the point of getting a job that's only going to probably pay you that much, and then throw you out of Medicare because you made a dollar way too much? It's, you know, it makes no sense. Why isn'there more daycare centers then? That's a cash cow. I would think so. I don't know if it's really hard to get like accredited. Yeah, probably. I feel like it's not. But, and now they do this thing called, I forget what it's called, it's called like homestay or home care, where like, it's like one person, I mean, all the ones I saw were women, and like, they will just watch like eight to ten kids just in their home. And they're cheaper, but also it's like, you know, like, I don't know. Eight kids in one home? The whole concept is weird, like dropping your kid off, even at daycare, it's like here's my kid, see you in 8 hours, that's kind of weird. Yeah, I feel bad enough dropping dogs off. But if it's one person, you're like, I don't know, it feels worse, like scarier. And there's always something going on with some of these daycares, people get arrested for doing weird shit, I'm sorry I don't mean that. Cool, Matt, let's talk more about that. Tell me more about the potential problems. Okay. All right, so here's a possible solution, Lou. There's a report from the State of Working Vermont, and they, or I'm sorry, the Public Assets Institute, they recommended we do a wealth tax. What does that mean? It means we tax the wealthy more than we tax the poor. You would think that would just be common sense, but... That's not the case. That's how it used to before Reagan. In the 50s, that's why were so, you know, that's why America was so great. It was, not now. College was cheap. Homes were affordable. Healthcare was cheap compared to what it is today. Insurance, all that. Yeah, so as of right now, I'm looking at this report, if you make between a household that makes between 83,000 and 135,000, they're taxed at 10.5% at state and local. Okay. If you make over 588,000, you're taxed at 10.1%. It should be more. Yeah. Yes. Like the other one should be less. Yeah, right. The other one should be, one should be 5 and one should be 15. Like if you look at it looks like a bell curve kind of where it peaks at the middle class and then goes a little bit down. It should go steadily up. Right? Like, yeah. So are they forming a committee for this? I think they're forming a nominating committee to elect the chairperson of the select board to start a study to look into this. This is one of those things you think to yourself, isn'this just really natural to do? I think most people walk around thinking that the wealthy pay way more in taxes. Some of them don't pay anything. Right. The real wealthy, they don't pay anything. Right. That's true. It's all capital gains, right? It's all tax-free. Yeah, I don't know. It is shocking that this is not more... It seems like no one talks about this, right? I guess because politicians all make a lot of money, so they don't give a fuck. But it seems like someone local who was like, if this was their issue, would get elected. You would think the state of Vermont would already have done this. They are one of six states that has what they call taxes that lessen inequality. They're not progressive like what we used to have, but they lessen inequality. You want to guess the other five? They're all southern states. No, no. Oh, I see. Yeah, yeah. You're close though. Washington, California. New York. Yep. New Jersey. Massachusetts. I don't know if that's New Jersey. What's east of Pennsylvania? Is that New Jersey? New Jersey. Okay, New Jersey. Massachusetts. Rhode Island. I don't know if I'm looking at Rhode Island in Jersey. You never know. It's not a great map, by the way. It's a tiny map. Anyway, it's and also, So, what's, what is that, Wyoming and Maine? Wyoming? I think that's Wyoming. Or is it Colorado? Oh, no, what's west of Wyoming? See, I'm not good at maps. West, that's... Is that Minnesota? No, Minnesota's way north. No, it's, yeah, west of, not west of Wisconsin, I mean. Oh, that's Minnesota. Oh, yeah, Minnesota, yeah. I'm just as bad. And that's geography. Yeah, now I'm just as bad as you, Adam. Well, these are the funny looking ones. Like, I know the Dakotas. Which one's north and which one'south? Yeah. I'm strong on Dakotas. Yeah, anyway, it's interesting that they recommend this. Nothing will be done. But maybe more people think about it. Income of top 1% is double the general fund budget. After 50 years of decline, income inequality has started to rise again. That's cool. A lot of rich people move in here. That's true. We need to run them out of here. How do we run them out of here? Well, if they start paying their way, then let's not run them out of here. That's a good point. Touche. I mean, if people pay their way, fine. But if they're not, then run them out of here. Run them back to Massachusetts or wherever they came from. Yeah, I think people think that they're paying their way. I think so. They're like, I'm a self-made man. Get out of here, that garbage. All right, a little education portion here. We've got a statewide teacher shortage. Oh, shit. And this article is like, oh, here'some incentives. They don't really offer any incentives. I think the incentives are obvious, right? It's a job. Pay them more. Yeah. I wonder how Vermont is on where they rank with teacher pay. Because in the story it says UBM, I think they graduate like 150 teachers a year. And maybe a third of them stay within the state and the rest leave. I mean, I'm sure you go down to Massachusetts to make a hell of a lot more money or New Jersey as a school teacher. I have friends who they live in Massachusetts, Springfield by the way. And they work in Connecticut and they, because it's like a short drive. Yeah, yeah. Yes, they're like, yeah, we make like 10 grand more. They're both teachers. Let'see. The, wow, what? Sorry. It's all right. I'm trying to figure out this teacher pay across the country. Where do you think Vermont ranks? Do you think we're on the good side or the bad side of the average? I think we're right in the middle. I think a little bit more than middle, going positive. Only because I'm comparing it to other states, like the southern states, who don't pay teachers much. Well, they don't like education. That's how you keep people enslaved. This is like by district. And never mind. Yeah, it's not that important. But it is curious, because the cost the living up here is pretty high for, if you're underpaying anybody, teachers, how are you going to get them up here? Right now, and with our aging population, is there less? Do we need them less? Are there less students? That's true. You know, you go up to the islands now, you know, North hero, South hero and all those, I bet you there's about half the kids they had 30 years ago, you know, because they're all vacation homes now. Same way with where I grew up, Anna Maria, there's barely need a school now probably. And when I was there was 200 students there. That was back in the mid-60s. 200, all eight grades or sixth grades? It was kindergarten through sixth. And it was all together 200 or 200? A little over 200, I think, yeah. Holy, wow, that's, what is it, a one-room schoolhouse you went to? Well, there are classes of about 25 kids, each class. Wow, that is small. Maybe there was more. I don't know. I mean, I think that was just my whole school, period. That was just your neighborhood. Yeah. No, I don't know. It's not that way anymore, that's for sure. We are 19. That includes DC. DC's a little higher. I'd say higher, yeah. Yeah, you want to guess the average? No, I don't have the average. Or the best? Yeah, Connecticut is 6th with 81,000 California is 3rd with 87,000 New Jersey is, when I say Connecticut was 6th, New Jersey is 7th with 79,000 New York is number 1 with 92,000 Really? Vermont is 62,000 That's not bad, that's average, right? That's average, yeah a few 20-year career? Well, you only work. Oh my god. 10 months out of the year. Yeah, if you're going to incentivize a teacher, and the very last one is Mississippi. Of course. I was right on that one. I think I read that the other day, too. I'm about to tell another story.$47,000. You could make more at Little Caesars. Right. Not there. Oh, yeah, it's true. Yeah. That's true. Hey, Mississippi teachers, come to Vermont. Work at Little Caesars. What was I going to say? Yeah, if you want to incentivize teachers, like, yeah, pay them more and do something about the parents, and do something about the special education, personalized plans that every student has, like, sorry, I know that's insensitive, but... Hey, went through it, and we survived. Yeah, look at you, no problems at all. Never cried, right? No, it's true. I mean, you look at... If you look at the list of how much people make in schools, you know, they have so many administrators and stuff. They're the ones who make a lot of money, too. You know, they all make 100 grand just for some title. You know, but yeah, I think you're right. It's the educational system has gotten out of control, and is it any better than it used to be? It's worse. We're dumber than were. Mm-hmm, like four scores in reading worse like civic knowledge worse like critical thinking like any measure I mean, do they even teach kids how to read maps anymore? United States maps Before Alaska Hawaii came along I'm good with it. Go does Matt. Yeah Alright stay with schools Vermont is on its way to allow children to bring and apply sunscreen at schools inside the classroom well in a function or something you know if they have a ground yet they're out of the place so does that mean they get an extra five minutes at the locker in order to be able to do this no you gotta apply on your own time figure that out but you know if your class maybe just shorts them on and so as you're sitting there in class and the teachers teaching you're over there squirting away and and you're like rubbing yourself, it's, I mean. We're talking about sunscreen, right? Yeah, I was gonna say, I knew a guy. Usually you rub yourself before the squirting away. So apparently the FDA labels sunscreen as an over-the-counter drug. What? This is why, yeah. What the hell is wrong? Oh my God. Yeah, so you have to get a doctor's note to apply sunscreen. If you're in a Vermont school, go to the nurse's office and apply the sunscreen. Yeah, it'so weird that, I guess this is important if, like with global warming and things are getting hotter, right? Like, maybe? I mean is it because a kid'sitting next to the window and the sun's coming in? I can't figure this out. They don't put the fair-haired kids near the window. I told you, no Irish by the window. I think it's like for kids that have to go outside and like they don't want to... Yeah, if they're doing some field trip or something they're doing. Oh yeah. Let's also keep in mind like students these days are like just little pieces of veal, right? They're just like, they're allergic to peanuts, they're allergic to the sun, they've got anxiety, they've got ADHD, they're all full of stuff. But they probably have a room full of games and stuff like that, right? Possibly. What am I looking for? I don't know. Video games? Video games, there you go. So there's part of this bill that I think goes too far. I think this is a potential problem. The bill also states that schools could adopt policies to allow staff to assist students in applying sunscreen? No. Oh, no. Mr. Peabody, could you put some lotion on my back? He's our sunscreen guy. Yeah, right? He volunteered. Am I your teacher or your cabana boy? Like, what am I here? I could go south real quickly, right? Oh my gosh, yeah. What if this, you know, how high do you go up the skirt before it's considered? I mean, that's a good question. You know what I mean? Yeah. You know, if we're in a beach environment, you know, go to the bathing suit, right? That's what I'm just saying. But that's even getting a little close. Totally. I'm not saying that's what you should be doing. I think that's what people do. Okay, got it. All right, moving on. We have one more Vermont school story, right? Yeah, Montessori. I just thought it was funny. You didn't go to a Montessori school, I know that, but are you familiar with Montessori style? Well, not the style so much as much as I know people who only would allow their child to go to a Montessori school. Let me guess, these people wear a lot of clothes that flow? Yes. They like to look and claim that they're poor, but really they're living off of their mom and dad's good chunk of money. Two Volvo's in the garage. They might smell of a certain oil. Patchouli? They are not easily agitated. Correct. Their fingernails can be dirty too. it at a time. Now, my chiropractor had an assistant and that's, I mean, yeah, he, you just described him. Yeah. No, I know. I also know Montessori graduates and they're just, Montessori schools just make old hippies. Yeah, exactly. Oh, and also you forgot that if they do have a child, they'll sleep with the child between them. You know, what age? Until they're 39. Until they're good and ready to leave on their own, I guess. So there's a Montessori school in Barrie, and they just got a big grant to update their building. They're expanding it by 50%. And it'so funny, like this story they kept saying, like, we're getting the kids out of the basement. Right. So they've been in a basement? Yeah, that doesn't seem conducive to what we just described as, like, Montessori education. Don't you need a window? Doesn't a school have to have a window? Then you need sunscreen. Oh, that's funny. We're getting the kids up and out of the basement to beautiful natural light. It's like, where were these kids learning before? Mushrooms? Yeah. But good for Barry, good for the Montessori school. Good for these kids who are getting back to natural light. tuitions are $10,500 to $12,000 a year yeah it is it is oh I would take the Montessori well do they do zero do they do zero can you sign up now yeah I get a discount if I want the basement it's three through six toddlers too bad all All right, Glow, if you got a call from Green Mountain Power, don't answer it. It's probably a scam, that they're asking you for money to keep your electricity on. Sounds like a threat. You really think that I would, you know me, I'll start questioning, and I'll ask another thing over another thing, and I'm like, by the time we're done, they're about to just hang up on me instead. I wouldn't even know if these are real people you'd be talking to. Might be a robot. Are you kidding? People are actually being controlled by a robot? No, wait, what do you mean controlled? And being... Tricked? Tricked. Oh, yeah. So, holy shit. So not even like people... Well, we talked about this also pretty soon. We're not going to know if the person sitting across from us is a robot. That's true. Some would say we're doing that now. Not us. Not the three of us. but I don't know, it could be happening. But yeah, people are getting scammed, and they came out and said, like, hey, if someone calls you and asks you for money, like, we don't do that. Like, we don't actually call you to ask for money. Shut your electricity on. Right. Shut your electricity off, wait for you to call us. Right. So yeah, I mean, just the general rule of anyone listening, if anyone calls you asking for money, it's always a scam. Always. It doesn't work that way. Even if you think it's a relative. Right. Because they do that in jail in Lisbon or something, I need a thousand dollars. There's this thing, right, where they tell you when you answer the phone, don't say hello, because they can take your voice and use it for like, they can make it sound like Matt's calling me, telling me that he's in trouble, and it's using Matt's real voice. I don't know, it'so crazy now. What do you say? Don't say anything. I think you're supposed to say yes. Really? Maybe that's worse. It's your nickel. Yeah, right. It's what we used to do. Yeah. My father, he thought this was the funniest joke in the world. He would say, jello. So maybe I'll do jello. I'll do jello back. I can't use that one. No? Right. All right. Green Mountain Power, don'trust them. UVM has a new logo. People don't like it. It'stupid. Matt doesn't like it. I agree. First of all, it's going to be a huge waste of money. I heard it costs like $140,000 or something they spent on this. See? They already spent somebody to come up with this? That's it. That's what they paid $140,000? That's the thing that you're looking at. Oh my God, give me the job. What would you come up with? I don't know, but I like the one with the catamount running, you know, going through the V. I think that's great. It's too violent, it makes me uncomfortable. Yeah, this is like the most boring thing. Who can complain? People can complain about it. Yeah. But it's not a complaint you're going to get sued about. Right. It's not offensive. So people are going to forget about it. It is to us, but. People are pissed that the tower is gone. What tower? There used to be a tower logo for UVM. Oh, right. Yeah. Oh, yeah, it's the patriarchy. Got to get rid of that? Just got to get rid of that. Yeah, I don't know how much money they spent. 140, that sounds low to me, honestly. Somebody told me that, or somebody said it on Facebook. I think you can probably find it's just not in this store. Yeah, let me see if I can find it real quick. Yeah, you get a chance, listeners, just look it up. It's hideous. Yeah, just with UVM new logo, I don't mind the color green. I guess it's fine. But you figured you would incorporate, you know, like... And, oh, they have a new logo, too, which they took from the UN. For People for Planet. Oh, that's their new motto? Yeah. Used to be the Green Mountain State? I don't know that it had... Oh, you're talking about UVM. Yeah, UVM, yeah. Yeah. What was it before, and what's it now? I don't know that they had one before. Probably some Greek... Oh, here we go. So, UVM, this is from 7 Days, paid a Philadelphia firm $1.58 million to rebrand. Oh, so I'm way off. Yeah, you're off by like a factor of 10. Holy smokes. I never told you that, I forgot the zero maybe. That's an amazing amount of money wasted. And then, now they're going to have to change all the stationery and the painting. Go right to the stationery. They do, I mean everything has to change. The sign out front, they're going to have to get a new one and engrave it and do this. Everything in the bookstore, everything on the website, everything everywhere. That's asinine. So what do you think the people said, so what do you want? And they said, the most inoffensive thing you can come up with. I think that they want something that is not super local. Like the tower doesn't mean really anything to anyone who's not around here. so they want to be more internationally recognized. And I think they want simple. They want simple and recognizable. I think they want the Michigan M. Or the Rutgers R. You see that, you know exactly what it is. I think that's what they're going for. And maybe in 20 years, this will be that. Could be. I don't know. So what's that going to gain? And they think more people are going to be attracted because of the new logo? What was the motto? Something about international? It was for people, for planet, I think. For planet. They're probably trying to get more students up here. I don't know. I think they want to lean into the environmental kind of human focus kind of stuff. Really? Because they're selling the bittersweet down the street. And that happens to be the Department of Environmental Science. Well, I mean, they're going to move the department somewhere else. Maybe they're moving it somewhere bigger. I don't know. Well, I was wondering. I mean, yeah. Where's the ghost gonna go? Stay in that bittersweet. You don'think it wants to leave its home, do you? What do you think that bittersweet's going to get turned into? Oh, gosh. Well, we'll have to come up with a what? Creamy stand. I hope a slumlord doesn't get his hands on it. Oh, of course. Yeah, of course it's going to be that. They're going to chop it up into nine housing units. Oh, or a fraternity, although that's kind of small for one. It's already chopped up into little offices. It's disgusting. So it's going to be perfect. It's going to be perfect. It's a great old building. I know. You walk in, you go, there's nothing left of it. It's got the fireplace. It doesn't have the bones. Yeah. Well, the entrance still does a little bit. Oh, yeah, where the lady, the ghost stands at the top of the stairs. But it's all these offices. Maybe the ghost will have some revenge. Turning into a poltergeist. Oh, here we go. It's been a while since we had a proper haunted house. Speaking of rebranding, I didn't even read the story. I was looking at these pictures. I don't know that we saw these pictures last time, of this Burlington Main Street parking project, or street project, whatever it's called. So this first big picture, that's the road, right? Like, that woman's crossing the road. OK, trying to get my bearing straight on here. Where? Yeah, the church or whatever. Is that? Oh, that? Yeah, that's City Hall. Oh, that's City Hall. Okay. So then you got to park behind City Hall, which is to the left. Yeah, that looks like Main Street. So I mean, there's cars going up and down. But like, doesn't it look like really? It says maple. You're talking about the arrows going to the right? No, no, there's a picture. Well, I'm not getting it. Oh, there it goes, okay, finally. Main Street and St. Paul Street could look after the Green Streets project. This is what they would look like. I don't know. Is that enough room for cars? That might be St. Paul Street. Okay. No, that's Main Street, because, yeah, you got the park there. I don't know. It looks like two skinny lanes. Yeah. I think this is going to be a traffic nightmare, that's my main point. Well, right now, they have all this parking along Main Street, diagonal parking or whatever. That's all going away, we assume? Yeah, that's what it looks like to me. That's the only way they could get room. So where the hell am I going to park my barbershop? I gotta go to a parking garage? I don't like that one bit. You don't know how to parallel park? No. I kind of figured that you didn't. Well, they still have parking along South Champlain Street on the other side. Will they? I guess maybe. Maybe. I don't know. That's a nightmare. Glow, do you think it's going to look nice? Do you like the concept? Yeah, I do, but it's never going to look like that. I promise you it's not going to look like that. Okay. Challenge accepted. I mean, I brought it up so many times, the loft apartment here on UVM, the blue, brown, yellow, some other colors, mush-mosh that they did, yeah, that was... The rendering was really good? The rendering was beautiful. It didn't look like that, what we see across the street. Yeah, I wonder if the actual construction team ever sees the rendering. Everybody has a different rhetoric. We got our own rhetoric. It seems like they should maybe talk to each other. Alright, a few more things. Vermont is passing laws against ghost guns, kind of. Sort of, yeah. So, Glo, do you know what a ghost gun is? No. Have you ever seen the movie In the Line of Fire with Clint Eastwood and John Malkovich? Did I, Matt? No. Not with me. There's no serial number. Whoa! Yeah, so this law is trying to make it would not render those self-assertive, so it's not making those guns illegal. Let's be clear, it's not doing that. Why not? Unclear? We're big pro-gun state. But it would mandate that once you build your ghost gun, you have to take it to get licensed. Oh, are you kidding me? Right. Yeah. Yeah, everybody's gonna do that. You can have a pipe bomb. Right. Just make sure you register your pipe bomb with your local pipe bomb authority. Man, these people are so stupid down there in Montpelier. Yep. They are really stupid. They're just scared of like anything that's close to gun regulation, right? They just are so worried about it. So, yeah. So, if you build a ghost gun, just, you know, honor system, make sure you register it. How much is one of these 3D printing machines? Oh, they probably vary in like size and ability, like what do you want to print? Glow's going to build an armory. We got, the last two podcasts we talked about guns, so keep it going, you know? Good segue. Glow, here'some good news. Vermont got a bunch of money, 700K, and they're using unclear how much of it to plant thousands of trees around the state. Oh, I love that idea. Downtown could use a few. Maybe you should get you on the board. You can direct them. How many states are in this? How many counties are in this state? Because it says 10 counties in the state. Is there more than 10? I would assume so. I would think there is. But I've proven myself as not a very good map guy. I'm just wondering who's getting the trees. Oh, you think they're like, not you, Lemoyle. You've got plenty of trees. Let'see, I'm pulling up a map of Vermont. 14. There's 14 counties. So who's included, huh? That's a good question. Chittenden. No. Oh, they're excluded, I bet. You think so? Yeah. Chittenden? No, I bet there's a bunch of... Like, close it. There's gotta be some counties that have so many trees. They're like, you're good. The Northeast Kingdom. Yeah, they probably don't need any more trees, right? Well, some of it is to replace because of the ash borer. Oh, that's another thing, is that other recipients include groups that mitigate the impacts of the emerald ash borer. Yeah, I would think that the three counties in the Northeast Kingdom don't really need any more trees. Glo, how much is a tree, like a baby tree, like a tree that I could plant, that I could plant? Well, it's gonna vary. It depends on the variety of tree, how old it is. Listen lady, I just came into the tree store. I don't need a lecture. Just give me a recommendation. That's all I want. Oh, okay. I'll give you a range. Probably from 50 to over a thousand. Over a thousand? What is this? Some Japanese bamboo? No, I'm talking about the ones with really big root balls that you can see. Root balls? You know, with burlap and you can see them. Usually, developments, especially in Florida, you know, they all have that same look, the same tree. Do they start, okay, this is a dumb question, they must start very small though, right? Like all trees start small? Of course. Alright, so like... It's not like... I'm paying two grand for a tiny little thing that I... No, no. That one would probably be around 50. Or less. I mean, if it's kind of tree, you could just dig up in your backyard and put it in a pot. You know, it's not going to cost that much, I don'think. Why would you want to do that? I wouldn't do that. I'm at the tree store. I want to like... I know, yeah. But, yeah, that's about my best estimate. Yeah, what kind of trees are they going to plant? I don't know. That's the other... Maple? Yeah, a hearty tree, you'd imagine, right? No palm trees. What's the tree that's the best for the environment? Is one better than the other? I don't know. I don't know if there's answer to that. Or we just don't know it. Yeah. That's true for the environment. Broadleaf species, such as oak, beech, and maple, are best because they have a larger surface area of leaves, which generates more photosynthesis, whereas conifers absorb more heat. So, I guess they're both... Maples. Let's grow some maples. Especially red maples. I mean, sugar maples. That's what pops out as orange, I think, and reds in the autumn, besides give us maple syrup. Sugar maple tree, buy one get one free. Well, they spelled tree with three Es. It is a Tennessee nursery, so. It's a tree. That's like 1999. Buy one, get one, free shipping. Damn. It doesn't say what size pot, or? It's a picture of a giant tree. This is what it'll be like in 40 years. One to two inches. One to two inches? That's hardly a little itty-bitty. Look ladies, buy one get one. I don't know what you want. So I'm telling you, yeah, it's kind of expensive to buy a tree. I don't know. And the variety probably, first of all, an oak tree takes forever to grow. That's why it kills me to see when people are cutting down oak trees. But they'really hardy trees. I mean they grow to be old and they're big and they put out a canopy I mean there's Fairmount Street used to have a bunch of those really big ones Oak trees never cut down, you know Because one old lady said to me. Oh, I don't you know it there's too many leaves to rake in Get out of here old lady. You can't rake it you go to the retirement home, right? It like as if she ever raked once in her life. Anyway, right? Oh, you could tell she didn't have the breaking hands? No. Like she lived a life of privilege? Yes. And in that house, yeah. So if I buy an oak tree or maple, put it in the backyard, no one's cutting it, no one's mowing it. It's just there. It's getting just natural water. I'm not doing anything with it, right? And it's just going to live. It's hardy. It's hard to kill. Yeah. Evens a gallows tree? I mean, the first two years, I think, or something like that, you need to really take good care of it. Oh, I have to like nurture it. Yes. Oh, now I'm back to tree daycare. How expensive is that? I thought trees were like smarter than that. Don'trees like talk to each other? They do, but here you're putting in a stranger amongst all these other trees that have been around. Or, you know what I mean? That's right, these are Vermont trees. They're gonna exclude anyone who comes into their community. That's right. Especially those Tennessee males. Right, right. Raising the property value over here. All right. Speaking of transplants, refugees. You like that? That's pretty good, right? Refugees are asking for housing money. I don'think this is going to go very well. Yeah, you bring them over and I don't know. I don't know a place for them to live. Yeah, we brought over all these Afghan refugees and they're sleeping in hotels. is not the best thing. So yeah, we don't have housing for refugees. We don't have housing for anyone, essentially. So who came up with the great idea of having refugees come to a place where there's no housing for them? Liberals who are bored. Progressives who don'think things out all the time. People who don't have enough problems in their life that they have to manufacture their own. Yeah, so they're asking for, it was like 900,000, wasn't it? 600,000? Maybe 600,000. Yeah, I don't know that this is going to go well. Seems like a political loser for anyone who approves this. I mean, the obvious attack is citizens. What about these empty office buildings? I can think of one off the top of my head, all scripts in South Burlington. It's all glass. You could everything the whole four sides except on the three sides are pretty much glass anyway. It's empty because of COVID. Ever since COVID they've never had again staff in this building. It's been abandoned. It's empty. Why not use places like that? The old pizza hut on Shelburne Road. They're tearing that down. That example. And the filling station next to it, or the right, yeah, the shell station, they're tearing those, and they're gonna build housing. Right, sure, it's affordable. I'm sure they have refugees in mind. Right. I'm so glad, how long has that building been empty, or abandoned, or whatever, I'm just saying. I'd say about- Since COVID. Since COVID, and even before that, then it started to dwindle. You know, there weren't as many cars in the parking lot. There should be some rule where, like, if you just have a building that's been abandoned for so many years, like, You have to sell it or do something. Yeah. We're just like, the government's just going to take it from you, right? It's like, we can't just have space we're not using. You've already made this monstrosity, right? Like you've already, don't build more buildings, use the buildings we have. Right, Glow? Wouldn't you agree with that? Yeah. That's what I've been saying. I agree. But all these Afghanis in Sears. Right. They even have parking, covered parking. There you go. They got mattresses there probably still. Unsold sweaters and power tools. Yeah, they'll be sleeping in the parking garage. And these are Ethiopians, I think. I wonder what they're thinking. They think they're going to this like, hey, you've been selected to go to this new country. And they're like, Oh, y'all got the same old problems we had. What? They're staying at the Quality Inn in Rutland. Oh, man. I don't know. Staying at the Quality Inn. You've been here two weeks. Your oldest daughter's addicted to heroin now. I don't know. Seems like a bad situation. But we love the refugees. We just don't know if we have any place for them. We wish them well. I hope somebody can figure it out. There's just never enough money for these kind of things. Yeah, we shall see. All right, y'all ready for a break? Yep. Alright, the artist is Jason Rowe. The song is How Will They Know? Down the slope went to the pool house We slept up in the rafters We went to your house We went to my house We went to the pool house We slept up in the rafters We would sit around We would talk about How we'd become famous And we'd never hold No longer innocent Too young to pay rent And were dreaming big Before we knew that night I'm going to make a cake with the remaining dough. I'll tell them we're high on emergency care D with your ATS Do you remember we took my mom's caravan? Your guitar cabinet smashed the window out If you open the infopound, then we'd get on and move around You don't need to look who's there We will do the things we think, cause I'll tell them we're high on an emergency cure I will think, cause I'll tell them we're high on an emergency cure And we're back. Matt, you got a voice for radio. You got a face for radio. So, Matt, you put the story on here. I resisted the urge because I feel like what else can we say about the Linden Covered Bridge? We've talked about this. Yeah, but it happens again and again and it actually... Glow, did you know an eclipse is happening? I'm just kidding. One of the reasons, there's a story that I can read, it's on the Caledonian Record, that an endowment established for Linden's Covered Bridges. Oh, an endowment. Right. Which, of course I know what an endowment is, but maybe you can explain it to Glow. Somebody who donates their money for a good cause. But what... Oh, what? In terms of money? Like dollar signs? Like, are there rules around it? Like... Yeah. Is it like conditional? It says the six-figure endowment will provide a 50-50 match for the required work with public or private funds covering the other half of the specific project cost. They're talking about stuff like maintenance, repair, capital improvement on the bridges. So repair seems to be a big part of that. So this is one person who loves this bridge so much. They donated six figures. It was established in the memory of natives Dale and Betty Dawson by their children, whoever they were. Dale grew up in Lindenville, graduated from Linden Institute, and the University of Vermont had a lifelong fondness for his hometown, and particularly the covered bridges that shaped the area's character. I will refrain from dispersing. Why didn'they just build a taller bridge? You know... A taller roof, I mean. Does that mean the trucks win? Yeah. You can't let the trucks win, honey. Not only that, then the trucks get bigger, that means the weight gets heavier, and that means the bridge goes down. Right. Because we can't make the truck drivers smarter. That's the problem. Well, they're originally for horses. You know, not trucks, you know, mostly horses. Or people. So, what kind of trucks? Like UPS trucks? You know, delivery? It's box trucks, whatever. Oh, like delivery trucks. Yeah, like box, yeah, UPS. and kind of make those deliveries, you know, for anybody who goes and orders something online and their delivery causes this, I know they shouldn't be the ones penalized, but it's... I like that you somehow blamed the consumer. I'm just trying to get my paper towels, man. I didn'tell the driver to hit the bridge. There is actually another story in the Caledonia record. Oversized truck smashes headache bar. Headache, that's what it's called? Yeah, they're putting them in on the bridges now, so the people know that they've hit something, I guess. I don't know. It crosses less than 24 hours after reopening. Oh my god. Is this sport for these trucks? It must be. Are they crossed? Is it a TikTok thing? Do they have a bingo card of bridges? Is it TikTok? I don't know. They need like, okay, this is what they need. Maybe they have something similar. They need something that comes out way from the bridge over the road, like the bill of a hat. Right. That comes out so far that the truck would hit that hundreds of yards before they would ever hit the bridge. Like one of those things in front of a train, a cattle. Yeah, yeah. Like just long spikes. Not in the windshield, but like... Why not? Well, that would hurt other people. But just enough where if you hit it, you would know it. And you would probably hit the brakes, unless you're just whacked out on fentanyl or whatever. I don't get what people, can't you look? No. I know, I know what they could do. Hang a tennis ball by a string. And so. Okay, so like the old garage door thing? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. If you're already hitting this, you're not going to get through without destroying the bridge, that's what it should say. Maybe it should be a really big ball. A big ball. Root balls. Yeah, I don't know what the solution is because they have signs, we assume, right? They're all over the place. Oh, man. Maybe they need lights. You know, those flashing lights. They have them. Don't you think they have them? Probably not. I think flashing lights are like pop-up ads. We're just trained totally ignore them. I swear, those flashing lights they have for the pedestrian crossings, like on Pine Street, they're gonna get people killed. People don't even see them. And you think, oh, I got the light on, so I walked across. Yeah, but you always take that first step, and you look to your left, and you're like, that car is not slowing down. In fact, they might be speeding up. Yeah, that is a dangerous game for sure. Well, moving on to more motor vehicle trouble. I guess they're having a hell of a time figuring out their parking situation in downtown Rutland. People don't know how to work their machines, for one thing. Well, the same thing happened down here. But the machines are confusing because they have coin slots, but they don'take coins. Are you kidding? Yeah, that's part of it. So why don'they put at least some like slugs or something to cover the holes so people stop trying to put and maybe a little sign would help Are you interviewing for the Parking Commission? Because I like your ideas glow I don't know why they don't do that I'm guessing the people who are in charge of doing it don't have a lot of pride in their work Mm-hmm. So are people actually dropping coins and nothing's happening or just won't even accept the coin I don'think it'll even accept them. Okay, so it's beat me to my first idea. Next is a sign. I don't know if it will accept them or not, but, and also the rates went up. Yeah. From $1 to $1.50 per hour. The tickets went up, the fines. Yeah, from 15 bucks to 30. What's the ticket downtown Burlington? It says right here, it's less. 15, because I already got one. That's double what it is in Burlington, that's in the story. It's only 15 bucks in Burlington? Yeah. Hey, don't. I'm just saying, that's not much. It's like, sometimes that's worth it. Like, if you're driving around, and you're late for your concert or whatever. My concert. All the concerts I go to. And it's a short drive to the police station, you pay your ticket, and you go home. You say, thanks a lot, suckers. So yeah, that's a problem. And then I guess it's really confusing because there's like an app, there's like kiosks, those apps never work, man. They never work. I hate apps. I'm very anti-apps. But he loves appetizers. Love them. Yeah, I don't know what they're doing down there, but it seems like it's a big mess. And downtown Rutland does not need another big mess. They need all the business they can. Has this crossed the mayor's desk yet? Because I feel like he would have a solution. Well, the parking committee meets at 5.30 on March 7th. So they have a committee. Is this their first meeting? I don't know. Oh boy. Imagine having to sit through one of those. You're on this committee. You've come up with these really brainless ideas. And then you have to go listen to the public scream at you. You don't get paid enough for that. If you use the app, you have to pay a 45-cent processing fee on top of the parking fee. See, apps suck. We were in Waterbury a couple of months ago now. There's a place to park that's pretty close to the Black Pack Pub and Prohibition Pit, whatever. Walk up to the kiosk, 20 bucks minimum. 20 bucks to park in this parking lot. I was like, what the hell? I was like, alright, so we got in the car. I'm not going to pay that. Got in the car, drove a block, parked in the street for free. That makes no sense. That makes no sense to me either. I mean, we had to walk an extra block, but it was a private lot? Or it was a city lot? It was a kiosk. I didn't really look into it. The woman next to us, she was from New York. She just paid it. And I was like, all right, I guess maybe she's used to that price. Thinks it's cheap. Yeah, $20 to park seems ridiculous. It's terrible. And I guess in this story they're complaining that the parking changes are causing problems for the businesses. So speaking of parking, Burlington City Market is trying to crack down on parking at their downtown location. They have hired something called Premium Parking. What is this, like a private security force? It is. And they're basically camped out on the lot, and if you don't park and go directly into the store, than directly to your car, they're going to bust you? Yeah, I guess so. It sounds pretty wishy-washy. I got the email from the co-op because I'm a member. And it's ridiculous how they're going to get an invoice on their windshield for the first month to warn them. So the first month, it's going to be a warning. And I don't know how they're going to know what car is there all day. Maybe they know by now, they probably have a good idea. And then the first and then the second month, they get an invoice. I'm not sure exactly for how much or what. But yeah, it was, again, it's that liberal thinking that, oh, yeah, right. And they don'tell you. You have three invoices, you'll be told. Yeah, yeah, it's your third strike. Yeah, the first time you get a warning, second time you get this written up thing, and then the third one, they tow your car. So if you're the kind of person who just doesn't give a shit, you'll just keep getting another one and another one and then... When your car gets towed, you'll give a shit. Oh, I know. I've had that happen. What's around there? Do you think people are like... Isn't it like Felino's right there? Movie theater. Oh, you think that's what it is? The Roxy. It used to be. I mean, there used to be a parking lot that I used to park in when I went to the Roxy many years. Nickelodeon at the time. That's what it was called. Yo, Nickelodeon, I'm gonna go watch the Jazz Dancer, Jazz Singer, whatever it's called. Yeah, but I don't know. I mean, people just get in a hurry? Is it people working down there during the day? They just park their car? Could be. Because it's expensive. Yeah. And there are restaurants on Church Street. There's no parking specifically for them. So yeah, you're gonna have to go around looking for there are parking decks, parking garages, but now that's even more confusing than it used to before when they had person, a live person at the booth to take your ticket and money, cash, you know, but now, no, you have to know your license plate before you go down three levels to get to that machine so then you can, you know, stick your license plate number in there and pay for it by machine. And I'm not sure if there's even the first two hours are free anymore. No way, no. Yeah, that's what I figured. Pre-COVID. When I was going to the gym there at the Y, those of us who would, we would park there in the morning and we had a thing to hang in our window, but you had to be out by 9 o'clock in the morning. We were going at 5.30 or whatever, so we just parked over there. But then again, right across the street from the library, 5 o'clock in the morning, there's nothing there either. Right. Well, there'some people who are like, God damn it, they've been scamming the system for how long? They're like, they're onto me. I lost my spot, I lost my secret spot. You have to find a new scam. No, there's always a new scam, a new scam on the horizon. Speaking of scams, in Plainfield, they have realized that their municipal office needs an upgrade. About 20 years ago or more. Probably, and the problem is they can't afford it. So they consulted with a technology firm to see if they needed an upgrade. Surprisingly, the technology firm who provides upgrades found out they need an upgrade and they are going to have to shell out, so how much money is it? Can I ever put that in the first line?$21,000 to upgrade the building's technology with a data management fee of about $1,000 a month. Yeah, I feel like, so they said that this can like protect them for like potential hacks. Yeah, so this is the pharmacy, the hospital. I'm sure they have upgrades too. And, I don't know man, $21,000, I bet you get a couple of UVM kids that do this for six. You know what I mean? Like, it's not... What are they doing? Like, what are they... I'm sure it's not that complicated. Yeah, why are they... There's cheaper ways of doing things. You don't always have to take the people who are advising you. You know, the consultants who also do the thing that they're consulting on the side, so. Resident Bob Fancher, who's been helping the town manage its website, reported he had been an IT director for 15 years before he retired. I feel like IT is one of those things that if you retire, it kind of moves beyond you. Yeah, if you retire for six months, you've forgotten everything. I mean, everything'still new, you know. So I'll be curious to see what happens to old Plainfield. And Plainfield, have we done this one? What you know about Plainfield, Vermont? What you know about, what you know about. I don'think so. No, but we've talked about it. Let me look at the list of people born in it. Meg, look, what you know about Plainfield, Vermont? OK, well, there's the co-op there. I have a couple of pictures of it. We stopped there. I can't remember the name. It needs a lot of repairs. And it's an old building. Then there was also at one time this big old mansion that used to be a used bookstore and it was cool. It was just stuffed with stuff but the building itself was cool. And then there is a little restaurant part that is where a single pebble started. The restaurant that we liked so much. Now there's a New York style pizzeria and a cafe. Oh, New York? Oh, that's right. Then it became a pizzeria that kind of, you know, then moved to Montpelier and stuff like that. And what else? I actually know quite a bit about it. Oh, and then on the corner, just before that small bridge as you're going down, used to be a great old hardware store. It's out of business. But it's that really very small bridge, only one car wide, to get in and out of the little village there. Funky little village. It's a very funky, and then I happen to have a friend who lived there as well, so, and she's passed away, which is sad. But yeah, I used to go there. Very artsy. Oh, very, oh, you want to hit talk. This is where the hippies kind of, they stayed. From Goddard College, which is where Goddard College is. Oh, that's even better. Yeah, it's home of Goddard College. Is that still up and running, Goddard? Who knows. Only, I don'think it's in student residence. I think they're all doing everything online and stuff now. They still do workshops and stuff. Kind of ruins the whole thing, huh? I know there's a radio station at Goddard College. Still? I don't know, but I know I wanted to see if I could be the DJ for a while, but when a person introduced me to this enormous bunch of buttons and toggles and this and that and all that and I was supposed to learn that all within an hour I was like no I don'think so I don'think I can do this now you could have figured out it's not more complicated than rebuilding a sewing machine I bet oh yeah I don't know this thing was I mean it looked pretty impressive for what it is it's a college news thing yeah right I mean, it's very... I don't know what the radio station was and how far it went. It's probably like a cockpit. You're not even using half of that stuff. It's just there just in case. You're probably hitting three or four things. Maybe he was just trying to scare me then. Maybe he was. He was hitting a lot more than that. Well, showing off. That'showing off. Matt, you mentioned notable people? I like the ones that list who was born there. This is not people who were born there. These are people who passed through. William Macy, the actor. Oh, you mean William H. Macy. H. Macy. Are you kidding? He's from Plainfield? No, he lives there. Oh, he lives there now? Because David Mamet lives there, or used to. I don't know if they still do. People told me they see William H. Macy on Church Street, just walking down the street. Trey Anastasio from Phish, he lives there. I remember he lived in Richmond. But I don't know how many of these people were born there. William H. Macy definitely was not. No. But David Mamet went to Goddard College, I think. So did Macy. Yeah. So that's where they met. A lot of artists, a lot of musicians. musicians. Paige McConnell from Fish. I don't know. I don't know Fish, so. Mary Azarian. I know. I met her son. She does those block prints? Yeah. Yeah. She's a famous artist. Yeah. Yeah. Her kids were friends of my friend Ted's. Yeah. You skipped over Piers Anthony. Who's that? I don't have answer. Oh, he's, I mean, if you ever go to a bookstore, he's got a thousand books. He is a, he's like a science fiction fantasy guy. I think it's time to move to Plainfield, Matt. I mean, it seems like the place to go. I don't know. Yeah. Remember, there's also on the, is that route four? That goes past, that goes through Plainfield and then it bears left? That's Route 2, okay. There was also, once you passed a little bridge into the village, if you kept going on Route 2, there was also a very popular restaurant on the right, but again, it was just an old ramshackle building. But, you know, again, very groovy and very healthy and all that stuff. But that went out of business. Yeah, and Thomas Yamamoto. Is he the one who plays an instrument? No, he's a, you're thinking of Yo-Yo Ma. Oh, okay. Same name, same thing. Some other Asian guy. I gotta close the shade. Yeah, Matt needs some sunscreen. He could wear my big hat if you want. Wear it a little earlier today. All right, moving on. We have nothing else to say about Plainfield except for Glow is actively looking at real estate in Plainfield now. Well, not really, but. Maybe Neighbors with David Mamet. What could better? I've always enjoyed playing field. Like I said, it killed me to have the sun. Yeah, wrong shade, Matt. But anyway, yeah, I've always liked it. Very old, funky. Old funk. It's really fun. I mean, all the houses are a little on the crooked side. All right, moving on. So that's Plainfield, Brattleboro, is always fighting with Montpelier and Plainfield to be the most woke liberal city. I don't know. Plainfield's gotta be the most woke. I don't know. Between what again? Brattleboro and Montpelier? It's definitely more woke than Montpelier. Plainfield is? Yeah, you haven't been there, obviously. Or you just zip on through on Route 2. No, I don't care, not a care in the world. You don't even pay attention. Yeah, I was just eating my cheeseburger, and I ball up my wrapper and throw it right at Goddard College, and I say, Take that, Mehmet! Yeah, I don't... Brattleboro? Brattleboro's great, yeah. Gave kids a bunch of coats? I don't really care about that. I was more thinking about... Is Subaru the brand with the best image? Car brand? For Vermont? Yeah. I'd say anywhere. It's definitely the Vermont vehicle of choice. Oh, definitely. I don't even know where... Prius. I haven't even heard of a Subaru until I moved to Vermont, I feel like. Really? Yeah, like, I don't know. They're so huge here, it's unbelievable. Oh my gosh, it's the only thing that would make it up my hill to get home, in rain and slush and snow and whatever. Can a straight man buy a Subaru? He has to be married and have two children. And a paddleboard? Or, I mean, not married, you know, living with somebody. I don't know. Okay. He has to be a couple and at least one paddleboard or one child, right? Okay, a vest. Yeah, there's at least one vest in the closet. Are we talking about the car? Yeah, Subaru, I don't know, Subaru, I've never seen a single straight man own a Subaru. And I'm not saying that's bad, I'm just saying that's an observation. How many people do you know have Subarus? Do you actually go around asking people, what car do you drive? No, I don't do that. But I notice, I'm a noticer. Oh my god, here we go. You're walking under an 8 foot sunflower and you don't notice it. So, no, I don'think... Yeah, I would definitely hit that bridge. No, I'm just thinking like the people who I do know. People who I see. Anyway, that's Subaru. It's an interesting car brand. Well, good for them. Yeah. For doing it. Yeah, but yeah, I mean if I could afford a Subaru, I might have one like they're very great in snow Like do they sell Subarus in the south? No, I don'think so Why would you even want one down there maybe I like the brand well, I mean it is great for snow so and that's their Trademark in a lot of ways I think right. Yeah I mean I parked in a parking lot when I first moved here and I came out and there was exactly four identical cars parked next to mine, all Subarus. But now we, your car, there's a lot of those. The Prius, of course, you know, come on, come on, we're cool, we're hip. Yeah, Prius screams cool. All right, moving on. More Brattleboro News to make it more woke than Montpelier. They're now letting 16 year olds vote. They don't even know how to wash the dishes at 16 anymore. You know what I mean? So they learn that by the time they're 18? They never learn it. They always have a maid. Washing dishes is not a requirement for your civic duty of voting. We can't say, oh, they don't know anything. they can't vote. Look at the electorate. Is a motivated 16-year-old a more educated voter than your average conspiracy theorist? I think today it could be. There's a very good possibility that a 16-year-old knows a hell of a lot more than that 60-year-old who watches Fox News every night. Or doesn't do anything. That's true. I mean, they're more exposed, first of all, to everything than what were. Well, they're involved, too, sometimes in politics more than maybe were when were kids. This kid says, I'm not too young or too naive to know what's happening and to know what I want to be happening. And when those things conflict, it feels very unfair and wrong for me not to be able to do anything in an official sense. I can go to protests. I can speak my mind. But I can't do anything in a legal sense. and now I can't, so that's exciting. Sounds like a smart kid. Yeah, so future mayor of Brattleboro, Silas Rubicker, that's a 17 year old, so. Yeah, I don't know, why not? Yeah. What's the voting age in playing field? We don't know that. Probably 18. 13. Yeah. We'll beat you. You have to wrestle David Mamet. If you win, you can vote. Well, I think this is kind of exciting, kind of cool. They only had like 37 people sign up so far, so it's not like it's going to make a huge difference, but you know, if you're a... But you know those 37 are really into this. And that's the only reason why they're even signed up in the first place, right? So, yeah, that's great. That may change politics quite a bit. And now if we could just put a cap on how old you can be, that'd be great. like 85, I feel like, is a good time to stop voting? I think like a driver's license, people should get a politics test and quiz, yeah. What would be on that? That's a good question. I mean, I'd fail, whatever it is. Like the citizen test? Who's your senator? How many senators are there? How many houses are there? Yeah. That kind of thing? Yeah, how many counties are in Vermont, you know? Okay, maybe not that one, but... Can you find South Dakota on the map? But why not? I mean, why... You know, you can be a total imbecile and vote, but yet, you know, in order to drive a car, you need to go through all this testing, and at least in New Jersey, we had a driven test. You had to be able to parallel park your car. I don'think they teach that anymore. Oh, they do. Do they? Yeah. I didn't have to do it in Florida. It wasn't part of the requirement, so I never learned. Of course it's not part of the requirement. You're nothing but Strip Mall State. That should be your new name. Strip Mall State. I'm not Florida Glo. Oh, yes, you are. Don't direct it at me. Oh, yes, you are. You are. You are. Alright, moving on. Randolph. Randolph kids are doing some cool things. They are students in Lance and Mad Z's digital film and media arts class. I wish I had a media arts class when I was like a middle school, high school student. I think it would have been very cool. There was one, but it was so new. Like, I didn't really know what it was, and they didn't really do much with it. They didn't do much, but these kids are making like YouTube videos. It was like about like local history. All right. Like they have one, I linked it on here. Don't click it because if you play it, there's no, don't play it with sound. If you want to like, check it out. Yeah, I've been watching it. It's about a fire. Fire, they had a big fire down. It's pretty good. I mean, I'm watching it without sound, but it's very good. I was hoping that they would like, how can I explain it? Like they're doing the style of thing that they've already seen. I was hoping they were going to like do something and really different with it, you know what I mean? Doing their own thing. Yeah, they're still kind of like doing the way it's been done. Maybe they don't know enough to like, or don't feel confident enough to break the rules a little bit. I was hoping they were going to have explosions or something, or something that's like a different thing. But in the beginning, they have a cool shot with the drones. I mean, they're doing stuff. Yeah. Well, good for them. Yeah, good for them. We applaud their, I mean, it's pretty cool for these kids, right? They want to go into that field. They're already building a portfolio. It's not too shabby. How many views on that thing Matt? Oh, the video? Yeah, let'see. Sorry, I didn't mean to make you go all the way back to... I have no idea where to find that. No worries. Once the tab is closed, the tab is closed. It will remain closed. Actually, I can pull them straight here. Get the ad out of the way, page is loading. 708 views in less than two weeks. Two of them are mine. Yeah, one of them is mine. Look, that's pretty good for a video about a fire that happened in a building in Randolph, Vermont. You know what I mean? That's a very niche audience that they're working with. Yeah. All right. Glow, Pickleball, yay or nay? You know, I have no idea why. Okay, isn't it pretty much the same as tennis? I don't get it. The ball's different, the paddles are different, or the brackets are different. It looks more like a ping pong racket to me from here. I always thought it was like ping pong, but you're standing on the table. Okay, that's a good way to put it. But this article says it's a cross between volleyball, badminton, and tennis. Volleyball? I mean, the nets are up to her waist. I mean, so you know what I mean? I'm also looking at the height. I haven't actually ever been to a pickleball court. Are you interested? No. For some reason, it's really popular with older people. And younger people. I mean, it's just popular, I think. Really? So is it like the racquetball of our 80s? I think it's more than that. I mean, racquetball during the 70s, when I was introduced, but 80s, you know, late 70s, early 80s, it was very popular. It was. I think it's more like cocaine of the 80s. Right. That was very popular. Cocaine had a moment. Yeah, I mean, I played racquetball, you played racquetball. I did, yeah, even after working full time, going to school at night, and then we'd go and play racquetball at 12 midnight. Why? Nothing on TV? Well, maybe we ended at midnight, but still. And then you have to wake up and do the whole thing again the next day. You don't have to. The whole drudgery again. Yeah, I've never played it, so I don't really know. Me neither. So there's a new place, Catamount Pickleball in South Burlington. So if you're interested, you can go check it out. It's the first indoor pickleball courts, I guess you would say. started by this guy, so I read through this, I was like, man, this guy sounds annoying. He says, every chance I had, I came back home and spoke about pickleball with my family. There wasn't a day where I didn'talk about pickleball. My god. I tried to find courts on every vacation I went on. And I'm sure his wife is like, cool, more pickleball, great. Jesus. You imagine, she's like, well, let's go check out Venice. I guess he's like, is there pickleball courts? So anyway, he was obsessed, and then his parents opened up this place. So yeah, I guess if you're checking out, there's an open house glow. When is it? I can't find it. But the courts are open every day from 7 AM until 10 PM. Wow. Probably full, too. They're probably full. Yeah. And if you, yeah, for all ages, all skill levels, get your pickleball in. This picture looks like a nightmare. Like, it looks like you're kind of playing like right on top of each other. What is that, like six courts, it looks like? I don't know. Seems like a lot. All right, moving on. There are some workshops happening in Vermont for collaborative divorces. So if you are married and you don't want to be, and the person you're married to also don't want to be married to you, y'all can work it out, get a collaborative divorce. Leave the lawyers out of it. Yeah, just look at each other and be like, you take your stuff, I'll take my stuff, shake your hand, see you later. Didn't know there was a name for it. Yeah, I didn't either. I mean... I guess this started with Divorce with Respect Week, a national movement. Wow. When did that start and where? I never heard of that. Divorce with respect. Next week is divorce with respect week. We're going to talk about that on our podcast? Probably not. So if you're thinking about getting a divorce, wait until next week. Just do it with respect. Just look at your spouse and say, respectfully, I'm leaving. Boy, so many of these divorces go south. Oh my god. and yeah. When I was in divorce court, the judge said, this is the most dangerous court in the yeah, as my and then she pointed to the guard in the corner that was like armed to the hilt with it's got like an AK but yeah, she said don't even think about losing your temper I mean, because that's how bad divorce court is. People are so super emotional, you know, taking their kids away and doing it, whatever. It's the worst time of a human being, probably. I mean, you know, when they show their selves, but yeah. And that's what she said. She said, don't even think about it. She pointed to him over there. This guy will kill you. This guy is a veteran. He's got PTSD. He's looking to kill someone. He's trigger happy. Yeah, other than my parents, I haven't really been around... No, that's not true. I've been around message forces. I don't know. I don'think if I ever got divorced and, you know, knock on wood or whatever, I think it would be collaborative. I don't know what would happen that would cause it. But it seems like it would be like, just go and start over. That's what mine was. There was no lawyers, there was nothing. We just agreed on this and this. Do you think it's messy because one person is thinking like, it's not real, or like it'll change and it'll go away? There's always that. Or they're just pissed off because the other person had an affair or something. You know, it's just they can't get over that shit. Well, that's why you get divorced, right? Like, you don't want that person to be with you anymore, right? Like, I don't know. But lawyers can stir up stuff that wasn'there before. That's the problem. I heard a couple once say that, you know, they were doing fine in their divorce until they hired lawyers. And they were at each other. That's true. Well, that's the whole point of collaborative divorce. Yeah. You do it without lawyers. There's workshops and... When you think about the money you waste on these lawyers, you know, you would have been better off just what we've done, collaborative, or what I've done. That's it. I'm not divorced. Not yet. Yeah, so what were you, like, signing some papers? Like, did you have to, like, allocate assets, or was it not even that big of a deal? No, you did. Was it 50-50, like... All you had to do was, you know, there's these papers, official papers, and then you just write down everything that you agreed upon, but you still have to face the judge. So even then, you can't get away from that. Could the judge, in your situation, even though it was all agreed upon, could the judge have looked at your agreement and say, uh-uh, he needs more, or she needs more, or this ain't fair? Like, no, you don't look at it? Yeah. I'm sure all the pews were filled. There was plenty of people. and that was all for just one day, you know, it was something you scheduled, of course, so when you look at the workload, no, you don't care, you're just going to keep on signing away. I guess it does get messy with kids, like, people don't want you to see kids. Yeah, yeah. Anyway. All right, Collaborative Force. Love the name. It sounds so positive. Very cool, yeah. It's like we'really coming together, for what? To break apart. Love that. What is next, Matt? Oh, these are weird things. Crypt Celium is a business. I'm not sure if I'm saying that right. It's like natural art made with like mushrooms and dying flowers and pieces of nature that are on their way out, essentially. Yeah, like the dandelion. I mean, that's the time they're still pretty, but they blow all those seeds around. So that's pretty cool. So he goes around and he cuts dandelions. It's a couple. It's a married couple. Oh, okay. They. Sorry, I didn't mean that. Not a pronoun. Right, right. It's a couple of folks. Okay. So I still wouldn't want to buy one. No, no, certainly not. No, but it's one of those things where like if you walked into like if this was a shop and you walked in you'd be like, oh you look around a little bit and about 45 seconds in you're like, I have to look at a wall? I'm kind of ready to go. I get it. Yeah, not my cup of tea. So did they actually come up with the names themselves called Cryptocillium in order to take credit for coming up with this idea of dead flowers? you know, in a globe? I think so. Oh, okay. I don't know. That's branding, Glo. That's how business works. Yeah, I don't know what to do with these things. I don't know if, like, I guess they make, like, jewelry and art, like, let'say it runs the gamut from wall hangings to table pieces, jewelry, candles. One person says, a lot of my pieces have accents that glow, So I have to do a lot of phosphorous. I don't know what that means. Phosphorous glows in the dark. But it's already glowing. So I can imagine like it's Valentine's Day and my wife. I'm like here you go. I got you some phosphorous earrings. Yeah, I'm sure there's certain couples that maybe it makes sense, but you know, hey, it's for the person who has everything. I think it's for the person who just likes weird stuff. Oh, okay. Like, if you're dating someone who has a lizard, you know, like, maybe they're into this, right? My roommate had a boa. There you go. I'm pretty sure they'd be into this. Oh, yeah. Five foot. This thing was big. And I had it around my neck. I still have a picture of it. But she said to me, oh, he'safe. And I was like, well, but he'still growing, right? So how do you know when the time, that moment comes when the snake knows that this is what I'meant to do? Yeah, I mean snakes are safe until they're not, right? Exactly, yeah. I always asked her, please don't feed the snake when I'm around. You know, wait until I'm pet sitting. I can'take it. What do you feed a five foot boa? Live mice and rats. It's got to be live. The boa will eat if it's not live. Exactly. And also, you know, so that poor animal is just terrified in that cage until that boa feels like eating that poor thing. And then they feel better. They're no longer terrified. Yeah, that's true. Throw them in the crypselium. Alright, moving on. There is a new show about Ruth Bader Ginsburg coming to the Flynn. And Matt, did you see who this play was written by? Uh-uh. The guy who did the Pina Colada song. Oh, no. I should probably say his name, because... Rupert Holmes. Wasn'that his name? Is that right? I don't know why, I just remembered the Pina Colada song is a horrible song. But it's called Holmes. Holmes is the last name, at least. I think you might be on to something, Matt. Why are we selling? Oh yeah, play it right, Rupert Holmes. By the way, listeners, Matt is fantastic at trivia. If you ever need him, on your team, if you ever see him alone at a bar, and you're doing trivia, get him on your team. Why are we doing... I don't know. I kind of hate Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I do. Selfish. Because she stayed on too long, and then ended up with a president who went and put instead jackasses. Yeah, the biggest jackass. Summed it up. Yeah. But she became this cultural hero because she refused to retire, essentially. And they call her the notorious RBG. And you see this picture of her with a crown. It'supposed to be a takeoff of this rapper, Notorious B.I.G. And it's like... I don't hate her, but I just think she did a really selfish thing. She shouldn't have done that. I mean, she should have. Maybe she thought this country was continuously getting better. Instead, she couldn't foresee what was ahead. Well, let's not call her a moron, too. I'm sure she knew what she was doing. I mean, I'm guessing she probably didn'think she was going to die. Well, that too. But she was what, 80-something? Yeah, she was in her 80s. But maybe, like I said though, maybe she didn'think the next president or next two presidents were going to be dicks. Could that be? Could she be so liberal that she didn't believe what we've become? I don't know. I don'think she's that naive. Yeah, I just, yeah, I'm not going to see it. I'm not going to go see it either, I'm hoping no one tells me that they're going to go see it. Because then I don't want to do like the, well, actually, I'm not going to do that. It's doing the podcast, I'm not going to do it in real life. Someone tells me they're going to go see the show, I'll be like, cool. Okay, great. Cool, I have nothing else to say about this human being. Let's talk about something else. All right, Matt, speaking of something else, Meg Mott, down there in Putney. Yeah, she says she received an invitation in 2008 to run the town meeting. She was the moderator. She goes, I was once, this is why I put this on, because I like her quote, I was once very suspicious of Robert's rule of order, said the 67-year-old, Who recall living in a yurt as her wife built their goat farm We just repeat that this is maybe the most Vermont sentence we've said of the podcast in a long time I was one suspicious very suspicious of Robert's rule of order said the 67 year old who recall living in a yurt as her wife built their goat farm I mean, that's like that is Vermont Yahtzee. You got You got suspicious of the patriarchy you got uh... well lesbian clearly we have any debt to that part of your you know your arm but it could be killed was it just the patriarchy or white supremacy or had a role normal activity and all the big words and uh... she then that she had to do run the meeting it's all patriarchy until you got the gavel and now it's just the way right Mm-hmm, cool. I just thought that was a great, that was Vermont. Mm-hmm, even in Middlesex. I had a neighbor who lives way up in a hill, even above me, and she lived in a yurt. No sheep, though, just yurt. Or goat, sorry. No goats, no sheep? What makes a yurt different than a tent? I don't know. It's not going to get blown over as easily. Why? I've never seen a yurt. I've seen them in movies, but not in real life. They're more tied down so that they're more of a permanent structure. And the floor is usually just right on the dirt, but it's like a wooden floor, I think. Something like that. And of course, you have to have your wood stove. Somewhere, yurts are kind of round, so it's kind of fun how hard to corner. There's quarters of this yurt, we don't cut quarters. Wait, wait, if I'm a Mongolian... Sheep herder? Yeah, yeah, okay, let's do that. Don't I want my yurts to be very temporary, so I can get them and go? Because I'm just on the move, right? Yeah, yeah, and I think that's exactly its original purpose. Kind of like the teepees of the Native Americans. You know, you want something you could just, like your luggage, pack up and go. But it sounds like the way you describe yours, it sounds like they're more permanent. Well, I think because, you know, here we go, you know, the liberals, the hippies, whatever, decided, okay, let'see if I can make this a year-round thing, because I'm not going anywhere. And so there's a couple people, at least one that I know, a middle sex that used to live in New York. Yeah, you're right. They are more permanent. Okay, Vermont yurt for sale. What? Are you kidding me? What's the price? Are you going to scare me? Well, I don't know. What are you going to pay for a yurt?$180,000. Whoa! For a yurt? Okay, let me go back down again. $29,000. Okay, you're like $28,000 off.$56,000. No, no. You're going the wrong way. Oh, I see. It's only like a thousand bucks. I can get a yurt on Amazon for $579.$579? Wait a minute, but then you got to put it together and then you got it's not going to include the floor. It's not going to include the wood stove. It's not going to. Look, I am new to yurts. Okay, here's one for $18,000. That's not Etsy. It doesn't make any sense. There are some in the thousands like over $10,000. Oh, here's one for $4,000. Oh, here's one for 50,000. But that can't be, 490 square foot. That's, wow. I guess the one I was in was, it felt bigger than that. But I think now that you mention it, yeah, it's probably about 500 square feet. Yeah, these seem very permanent. They don't seem like. Right, the people are meant to live in them, to stay there. But you're right, I think it's, you know, one of those stand countries, it's probably the. All those yurts in the Stan country. Hey, look, I live to be dismissive. Everybody would say, oh, is that in, anyway, I can't remember, but people didn't know where the hell Portugal was. Including National Geographic. Are they like, what do they speak in Portugal, Brazilian? Or Spanish, yeah. So I grew up with it. I can dish it out. All right. Yeah, yurts, Matt. Yurts. The future. I don'think so. Maybe have one back here. You might have to in Vermont. It's a cheaper way to live. I'm surprised there's not more hipsters living in yurts around here. In Tittenden County? No way. Too cold for yurts? No, the one is in Middlesex I just told you about. Are there a bunch of yurts in Middlesex? No. What about Plainfield, is that yurt town? Well, probably that would be the place you would find a yurt for good. For sure, I mean. For good. Maybe. Yeah, maybe. Maybe we'll go find some yurts in Plainfield. Such a fun word to say. Isn't it? Yurt. Yeah. So much better than tent. Yurt. I guess Boy Scouts didn't pitch yurts. No, we didn't have yurts. There was no merit badge in yurt pitching. I guess it is called pitching a tent, but that means totally something else. Would you like to let us know what it is? Do you not know what it is? Pitching a tent, meaning you're getting a hard-on, and therefore you're raising whatever trousers you're wearing, so it looks like a tent. So I feel like pitching a yurt would be like a much more intense It would be like my neighbor across the street in Edison. What happened with his neighbor? He had the testicles so big, they'd fall out of his shorts. He had root balls. Oh my god. Was this a medical condition? I think it is a medical condition. It was just a fella who... Had large testicles? And didn't seem to care about... They stood out? So it was just... It was just the beans and not the Frank, right? Right. Oh, I want the opposite. You want the Frank and not the beans? I don't want any beans. If I can remove my beans, yeah. They're cumbersome. Well, his were extremely cumbersome. I'm not like... I'm not worried about wardrobe malfunctions, I'more worried about like, regular everyday Did he have to wheel a wheelbarrow down the street? Elephantitis? Well, let's just say that if he went from shorts to anything lower, it would be long pants They were long They were something else But no, I know with testicles I know with testicles when I see one I was around the barns quite a bit that time. So I guess we'ready for a break. We've got some more Vermont music. This is Technicolor Limited. The song is Drive On By. Not the way I expected. It's not the same old place. Can't go back to the way things were. No hog, I don't know why I'm doing this, but I'm going to do my best. I wonder what was the cause So I drive on by I wonder why, I wonder if I was ever I drive on by I wonder And, we're back. Alright, it's time for us to get into America's favorite segment where we run down the worst people in Vermont. The Springfield-tonians. Huh? What's going on? You, somebody from Springfield, Massachusetts? There actually is somebody in one of the stories. Springfield is the worst place. Springfield, Massachusetts is the worst place in Vermont. Yeah. We say it all the time. Matt, it's time for the Scumbag Map. One, two, three, four! Okay, so let'start with a couple of silly ones. Yep. Oops, someone shot a school in Burke. By accident or intended? I think it was an accident. It was from a muzzle loader. So they were shooting turkeys instead? Or trying to? They said it wasn't malicious. Oh, they couldn't see the big yellow bus going? Come on! This was at the school itself. No. Yeah. Wait a minute. He's not supposed to be shooting off a muzzle loader or whatever they are. Isn't it for hunting other animals besides us? So they found the bullet, it hit a bookshelf But they don't even know, they say this could have happened anytime between August 23 and February 24 They don't even know Wait a minute, wait a minute, so only now they notice there's a bullet hole in their window? Yeah, and there's been a missing kid since August 23 Oh my god! Yeah, they actually found the bullet, finally It's from a muzzleloader, and they believe it was a considerable distance away. Wow. It's a cool berk. I don't even know where berk is, but... It's way on the other side, going towards New Hampshire. It's northeast of St. Johnsbury. There's also a ski resort there. Not really a resort. Yeah, I've skied there. It's all right. It's all right. It's alright if you're right next to Lindenville. Oh, okay. Beautiful bridge in Lindenville. So, we're going over to... This is a story from Concord? Oh, we had that one podcast. It decided how to pronounce it. Concord. I'm always calling it back. Yeah, so they... If we look at this guy's picture, and you're like, huh, what crime did he commit? Fraud. Something with computers. Oh, I was thinking, okay. I was thinking maybe he was getting crazy with the sunscreen. So, yeah, this guy is definitely... He was embezzling from Listen Community Services. Oh my gosh. I'm glad you know what that is, because that was unfamiliar. I mean, no, I know embezzling. I know what that means. Doesn't care who he's from. I don't care you're embezzling. I don't care from I don't even care. Well, I guess I would if it was like the Ku Klux Klan It's okay, right? Okay, that's okay that then I say hey Go for it, man Isn'the clan just like We gotta change our sheets Bum, bum, it's not working. I don't know if you can see that, Matt, where he started. Yeah, so he started as a volunteer in 2013, worked his way up, was appointed head of Listen, and then he started using money to gamble. Right, and where? New York, right? Springfield, Massachusetts. There's casinos there? There is. There are? The MGM Casino in Springfield, Mass. Ah, this guy's a goober. And so I guess he's got to pay it all back? Was it 240? Yeah. Good luck. He did it and sold $240,000 in less than two years. So it's over 10 grand a month he'stealing. Nobody noticed. Not for a long time. Like that movie we watched. Oni Mahoney. Yeah, Oni Mahoney. If this guy would have just done it for like, really just 18 months, he probably would have been fine. But really, if you did it for like six months and like, I gotta step down, no one would have ever known. Nah, they might have. You think so? Yeah. It wouldn't be chaos. Somebody would look at the books. But like, if he'stepping down, someone's news company, you don'think there would be like a just chaos of transition and people are like, well, it's looking funny, ah, it's fine. But then they say, why are you stepping down? You were a volunteer, now you're in charge. No, he'saying, you make something up, my mom'sick. Okay. Well, he's a scumbag. Yes. Speaking of scumbags. And he may have other vices that he looks like he would have. Well, we're not going to call anyone a pedophile, but... I'm just saying, look at the picture. He is very nerdy. Trustful looking, too. Oh. I'm just saying, that man's got candy in his car. No, that means he's clean shaven, you know, he looks like a normal kid. He doesn't look like, he's got white teeth, you know, he doesn't, anyway. Moving on, a Fairfax rescue paramedic is on leave after she seemed to be impaired by drugs or alcohol when she arrived to transport a patient. Oh, I'd love to have that video. Imagine that, like losing this patient. It was like sliding down a hill going towards the bay and, you know, all those movies. I just imagine the, I don't know, the Seinfeld dentist putting on the mask for the patient and getting some gas for themselves. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, this woman's name, Bambi Dame. Well, you're asking for it right from the start. Bambi, you should never. I don't care if you spell it with an I. Of course they do. How else would you do it? The Y? Oh, Disney is the I. Well, you know how some of them, they feel like, I'm going to be creative and change it. Bambi with an IE? It could be possible. Or a Y. Yeah. IEY? Exactly, yeah. Could be all kinds of spellings. But anyway, a name like Bambi. Dame. Bambi Dame. Her last name is Dame. And they decided to call her Bambi. Yeah. I mean, this poor person had no chance. I mean, just to have parents who were that demented to call your kid. I'm just saying like, you know, hairstylist, okay, makeup artist, okay, stripper, okay, paramedic? No. I think she was like the head of it, right? Yeah, she was. She was in charge. She was in charge. That's the second time in about two months of my life. People would just show up to work intoxicated. Yeah, because we had the attorney, right? Or the prosecutor? Prosecutor down in wherever that was. So it's unclear if this person was, like, was it late at night? Officials say that Dame did not drive an ambulance or provide direct care to a patient at any point that night. So, like, was she on call? I think she was on call. That's the problem. Yeah. People get too comfortable with being on call. Like nothing happens for like five years that you're on call, you're like, okay, I guess I can just light up a joint and have some drinks, right? And then- I couldn't even leave the county when I was on call. Well, things have changed. That's for sure, yeah. What were you on call for? Air pollution inspector. I'd get a call for everything, an odor, all you needed was one call and I had to be out in the middle of the night. Any odor? I feel like you'd be busy in Jersey. Yeah, that's for sure. And I was. Yeah, but weren't even supposed to leave the county. It sucked. Yeah, it sucked. And it was one week a month. Did you ever break the rules? Nope. Did you ever get called? Oh, yeah, many times. Oh, yeah. No, I was out there in the middle of the night. One time I got called because there was a bacteria in a something or other in a school's cafeteria. Because were under Board of Health umbrella, didn't matter, people just wanna talk to anybody. So they'll call and just complain about whatever and I got it, waking me up in the middle of the night for something like a cafeteria. Good thing, thanks, that's your job. It was really shitty pain too, I gotta tell you. So we're moving on to Decker Towers, which is now in the news every week once that one story broke. So I guess they got a security now? They got a guy with a stun gun and some pepper spray? That's what it sounds like. I thought he pepper sprayed someone. I think that there was a pepper spray incident. I think I might have the wrong story here, but I think he did spray someone. Oh, it was somebody who, no, it was Burlington Police say Brandon Luther, or to take, this is, this is a guy who decided to take things in his own hand. Brandon Luther was attempting to clear transients out of the stairwell Wednesday afternoon and use pepper spray when they refused to leave. In the process, police say he also sprayed a BHA employee trying to clean the stairwell. He was arrested on simple assault charges. B-H... B-H-A. Burlington Housing Authority. And was cleaning the stairway? Yeah. And he decided to spray... Uh... Whatever. Pepper spray at the transients. Yeah. This guy's a hero. Yes! That's what I was thinking. I just don't know how he could have mistaken somebody. Don'they wear a uniform? Well, no, he was clearing the people. Maybe he didn't even know that they were cleaning, it could have been the next, you know, 10 feet up or whatever. I think if you're not really familiar with pepper spray, which I've never sprayed pepper spray, but I'm guessing that, like, this guy probably is not a pro with it. But like, if you're in a stairwell, you hit someone in the eyes, and there'someone like Matt said, a floor up, you don't realize that it's going to mess them up too. Yeah, yeah. So maybe he just didn't anticipate, maybe he thought like, the cloud would stay where it was. He shouldn't be charged with anything but a badge. Yeah, deputize this man. Exactly. Well, he overstepped his bounds, they say. Oh, give me a fucking break. You can't just pepper spray people. Yeah, yeah. Unless they're trying to enter your own home. I mean, they did at some point, right? So you could pepper spray them then. Your own home is already not only your little tiny unit, but the hallways, the elevator. Right. That's true. The front, the sidewalk, the street, the city, the county, the state. You can see them at Walmart. Spray them! Earth, people. We're all in the same shithole. Well, they actually have sheriff's deputies patrolling the hallways a few times a night. Oh, right. But he says it's kind of like herding cats. You go down the stairwells, they know you're coming, and they go into a dealer's apartment or their friend's apartment, and after security leaves, they come back. Yeah, I mean, I would say it's more like trying to catch a cockroach, you know, like cats are cuddly, but like junkies are not, right? They disperse. They scurry. Oh, really? Even like all zonked out, they can scurry? You know, sometimes you have to. You're zonked out, but you get up that energy, like, you know, once the light comes on and a cop shows up, you gotta scurry. Like how you just said they're like cockroaches. Is that too far? Nope. Okay. Glo got me fired up with her speech about we're all in the same shithole. It was protective. We're all Decker Towers. Yeah, we're all, yeah. We are. Yeah, we are all Decker Towers. Yeah, when we start to realize that, imagine... I don't know. I won't be around for it, that's for sure. Let's take the streets back. Essex-Junction police are investigating a bank robbery happening at 4pm. Yeah. Right? Closing, or is it? Yeah. Probably not full staff, right? No, no. Just a couple people. Investigator said the man handed over a note demanding cash, but did not show any weapons. I don't understand the note thing. Is that because you don't want to speak? Because that's one more piece of identifying information. It could be. You better take your note back, too. Right. Unless it's typed. Well, even then, right? You've got to be careful. But couldn't you just do an accent and like, uh, It's a me, a Mario! I'm a Robert, your big! Yeah. I don't know, just do something crazy. Robert is described as a white man, about 5'10", 6' tall, slim build, he's wearing a white Nike sweatshirt, brown pants, black North Face beanie hat, a face mask, and gloves. He ran away, he didn't have a foot. Bold. Yeah, probably lives nearby. There's a movie called Take the Money and Run. Woody Allen, I think it's his first full feature, where he plays a bank robber, and he goes into a bank, and he hands the teller a note, and the teller starts reading, and he goes, I have a gub. What's a gub? No, it says gun. No, it says gub. Or is it like, you're supposed to do that, so like, only that one teller knows what's happening, so you don't alert everyone. Right, exactly. If you say a thing, behind you might have a gun. That's true. You know, but if you do everything like here, that's true. Learning. Learn how to do it. One day. One day, we'll be expert bank robbers globe. There was a shooting in St. Johnsbury last month. I don't even know if we talked about it. Did we? Yeah, it was a woman who was shot, right? The woman who was shot, like, found over the, like, funny money? Yeah. The counterfeit bills or whatever? I think it was. Oh, no, that was the woman in the barrel. This is another drug thing gone bad. She was shot right on the street. Damn. In a car. I also see... But they have a bunch of videos. Oh, okay. From the street. But she hurt a raccoon. Am I on the right story? I don'think so. No. This is a 15-year-old from Massachusetts, charged. Okay, never mind, go back. From Springfield, Massachusetts. Sorry. Originally from, I don't know how I like saying this, but he is not from this country. Oh, where is he from originally? I think he's... Let's rule out where he's not from. Right. I'm gonna say he is not from Finland. No. Or Sweden. Or China. Somalia is where he's from. I think. So yeah, he killed this woman, drug related we think? Yes. God, if you're 15, you're killing a 38 year old. Damn, if you're 15, you're killing people? That seems like... A little too young. Well, you can't even vote in Brattleboro. Yeah. And you're killing people? I'm just saying, it seems like based on... A lot of my knowledge comes from movies. If you're 15, you're the lookout kid. You're maybe running notes from here to there. You're not even giving a god. You're the younger brother of somebody who else is involved. Like, you don't have a gun, you're doing little stuff, you're not even in on stuff like this. That's a big responsibility for a 15 year old. Because you're gonna crack, if they catch you, right? I don't know, maybe this kid won't. Maybe 15 in Somalia is like 25 in America. Probably, yeah. But damn, that's crazy. I do hate that he's from Somalia, because that just feeds into this fucking stupid narrative that like immigrants cause more crime when statistically it's completely untrue. I believe that's where he's from, he's from one of those, one of the countries, either Somalia or something nearby. Yeah, I hate that. Again, we're not a big map show. The map out. We need to have one here on the wall. All right, moving on. There's no picture of this guy, but we can all imagine what this guy looks like, right? His name is Scott. What do you want? Oh, Scott. So a former long-term Middlebury College IT specialist has been sentenced to almost seven years in federal prison for receipts of child pornography in a sophisticated and significant child sexual abuse material case. Wow. Scott Remick of Shoreham. Scott Remick sounds like a really familiar name. He's also active in theater productions in both schools and local communities in northern Vermont. He'll be on 14 years of federal supervised release conditions after discharge from his 80-month prison term. Good for him. He's always the IT guy. Always the IT guy. Yes. He's a scumbag. Yeah, not much else to say about that. Moving on. Oh, this is a fun story. Vermont State Police log. I love when they just like break down like the happenings. I love Vermont. I love any kind of police logs in the newspaper. while the car was in motion. Obviously, they did not have their seatbelts on. Probably not, unless they are very bendy. But I guess they didn't fool them, because they knew they did it. So troopers at New Haven Barracks got a report that police were pursuing a car in Heinsberg, headed towards Starksboro. So I'm guessing one guy, intoxication, no license, some reason to swap. The troopers located the vehicle and were unsuccessful in their attempt to stop it. I feel like they're always unsuccessful the first time. They throw the spike strips like a minute late. Oh, wait a minute. It just went by. The troopers stopped. The vehicle continued, and the operator and passenger swapped seats, while the vehicle actively moving, nearly causing a head-on collision. Nearly. The vehicle fled, but troopers found it again on River Road in New Haven, where the man and woman were taken into custody. Since they were both suspected of driving the car during the chase, they were both cited for eluding police, grossly negligent driving, reckless endangerment, possession of stolen property, speeding, and driving without the owner's consent, so the switcheroo cost them. Didn't do them any good. But the switcheroo, it never works. No. How could that happen? And you're doing a high-speed chase? You gotta really trust the person you're driving with. Honey, you hold the wheel. You go over, I'm going under. I hope there's not a stick shift in the middle. Yeah, stick shift ruins the switcheroo. It would for me. The clutch. Yeah, how would you do that? I don't know. Assuming this is an automatic. Safe assumption. Alright, another police blog roundup. St. Albans. A couple of highlights here. I like this. Monday, February 12th, 6.23pm. Dun-dun. You said it in your Sergeant Friday voice. I don't have it. Do you have one? I don't know. I don't have it either. A man digging a hole on South Main Street near Greenwood's cemetery, according to reports. That's it. It's just a man digging a hole! The rest of that man is digging a hole! Also, he's digging a hole near a cemetery? Maybe it's a grave. Maybe he's just at the cemetery. I just love that neighbors are like, This guy's digging a hole. I don't like holes. Call the cops! Tuesday, February 13th, 8.35am. dude woman was probably driving on a sidewalk I need more information this is like little tantalizing like how long was she driving on the sidewalk like miles is it a mile because that's a lot different than like her just like getting on like maybe you know parking some people parking their own yard or whatever like what was it any of these stand out to you Matt? Wednesday February 14th 9 27 p.m. there were people reportedly jumping in a dumpster on North Main Street. Gloria DeSouza was one of them. Wait a minute. Reportedly. Was it food or flowers? I mean... Um, what else? Friday, February 16th, 1926. A man was reportedly banging on walls at a random air place. Thursday, February 15th, 6.56pm. Dun-dun! A suspicious car had its lights on. What else do you do? It's dark! Oh my god, these are hilarious. Yeah, these other ones are kind of serious. Yeah, we don't want to talk about the heart attack. No, that's the one that really upset me. Or the women being threatened. All right, last story. The crime champion of Burlington has been arrested. This guy has had more than 1,600 police engagements. Think about that. Most of them here in Burlington. 1600. Wow. Did they have the picture of him? I think this one does not. No, but I've seen the picture of him. Is this the same guy? I'm thinking that was his name. Something Reynolds. Michael Reynolds. Obviously has problems. Yes. He assaulted an officer with bodily fluids. I think he spit on somebody. Or could have peed on him. Could be. This story labels him as a notorious transient. Yeah, I mean, this guy obviously has mental issues, but like, I don't know, police, maybe around 1,000? Do you do something different than just engage with this fella? Give him an elevator ride. 1,600 times. That's insane. He sounds angry. He does sound angry. That's the problem. There's no place for a guy like this, right? No. What do you do with him? He doesn't belong in jail. Military? No. Can't. No. I don't know, what can you do with him? That's an engagement with the police every other day for almost nine years. That's incredible. Most people avoid the police. Not this guy. He's a police magnet. You think the police just like follow this dude? Like, well, let'see what ol' Michael's gonna do today. He just causes problems everywhere he goes. He's definitely mentally ill. What did he finally do that made them arrest him? Call the Phoenix Recording after he... Oh, he just started pushing people. Yeah, he was at this... That's it? He's probably like, this is the thing? I've done way worse. I was having a good day. This is my good boy day. Well, maybe he'll move into the Decker Towers. This guy can't. I was paid to tell him to watch the door. Oh my god, alright. Are you already out of here? I'm out of here. Peace! Bye. Bye bye. This button in the verb. You mean this button? Oh, I'm sorry.[created using whisperjav 0.7]

Vermont Catch-up (Ketchup)

178: Confused by Maps, Too Tired for a Revolution and Pitching a Yurt

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