Best News
Luke and Elena discuss furniture-scratching cats, saxophone-accompanied brain surgery, and twins who finally sold their domain name.
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Luke Burbank: Hey there. Welcome to the best news podcast from Live Wire. Brought to you by Alaska Airlines. This is the show where we talk about what is good in the news. I'm Luke Burbank, right over there, my friend Elena Passarello. Hello.
Elena Passarello: Hey, hey, hey.
Luke Burbank: This is week 29 of the Best News Podcast. And I have a question for you because you have been a cat owner for a lot longer than I have. And you've also got a couple of cats, right? Is it two?
Elena Passarello: I have three.
Luke Burbank: Three. So that's one more than two. And like I know I've been on this show kind of documenting and narrating my journey with like a getting a kitten, you know, Bubbles Burbank. And I did. I bought the world's most expensive and possibly unnecessary litter box that he got robotic thing that self cleans. Although I will tell you the update on that is it works pretty well.
Elena Passarello: Oh, good. She likes it.
Luke Burbank: She likes it. I like not having to constantly be in there scooping, although I will say that what happens is when you have to clean out where everything goes like it takes about a week, right? With one cat. And so at some point, instead of everyday doing one thing that's a little bit unpleasant, you just wait until Sunday where you do one thing that's deeply unpleasant. Just take the whole bag out, which is kind of a little bit intense.
Elena Passarello: That's kind of like I used to live close to a town that made breakfast cereal and every day of the week it would smell like a different breakfast cereal, except for on like Saturday when they cleaned out the back pipes of the cereal factory and it just smelled like Black Death.
Luke Burbank: Oh, no, that wasn't Battle Creek, Michigan, was it?
Elena Passarello: I know Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The Cinnamon Toast Crunch day was particularly great.
Luke Burbank: I would get nothing done if I lived in a town that smelled like Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I would turn into a character from a cereal commercial where I would just start like Pepe la Lupu. I just start floating like a cartoon on the smell towards the factory. This is the cat question I have for you, though. Have you figured out an effective way to keep your cats from just absolutely destroying your furniture? Like you have a really nice chair that you bought with your Jeopardy winnings, but what do you do to keep them from getting kind of destructive? Because here's what happened. I have this couch. The cat likes to use it as a bit of a scratching post. It's not the worst, but she does it too much for my liking. So then I bought some of that tape that you put on it that's like clear. And I put it on there and it's great because the cat does not scratch the couch. But I now have lost almost all of my armchair from the Tate because the arms of the couch are tape. And it's like, that doesn't seem like a good solution either. Like, what are you doing at your place to keep your furniture intact?
Elena Passarello: You know, positive reinforcement is the only thing that works with cats. So we bought a bunch of really kind of attractive, kind of mid-century modern looking, scratching posts for when our cat QQ started just ruining our furniture. And when she was little, whenever she would scratch on the scratching post, we'd say, Good girl, good girl, good girl. And then we give her treats. And now when she wants a treat, she goes over there and she just like scratches on the scratching post. And then we have to give her a treat. But she would. We were so obsessed with it. We put another scratching post in the bedroom and she would scratch on it and we'd be like, half way going, Kick your kick, girl. And that was just like embedded into her psyche that when she scratches on the scratching post, she gets praise and rewards. And, you know, it worked.
Luke Burbank: I got to figure out what this cat of mine Bubbles actually likes because she is not super food motivated. I bought a bunch of these mice, like not live mice, but like stuffed animals that had catnip in them. She doesn't even care. She inherited none of my issues with addiction, it turns out she's just like, as soon as I figure out what she really likes, then I can start using the positive reinforcement. Okay, thank you. That's actually useful advice. I don't know if that was helpful to the Best News listeners, but it was good for me as your friend and co-host, so I call that a win. Let's explore what's good out there in the wider world. What's the best news that you saw this week?
Elena Passarello: Oh, I love this news. Okay, we got to go to Italy. Everybody's favorite place. Well probably not everybody's, but one of my favorite places. We're going to Rome, where last Monday at Rome's Paideia International Hospital. By the way, paideia is like a Greek word. That means education. And there's a school in Atlanta with that name. But when we grew up, we called it Pi Day. So I did look up the pronunciation. But anyway, at this hospital, a 35 year old musician underwent a nine hour surgery to remove a tumor on his brain. First interesting fact. He was awake the entire time.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, right. Because they have to make sure that they're not stimulating the wrong area, right?
Elena Passarello: Yes, that's right. I had no idea about any of this that like stimulation of the brain pockets is an important part of this awake surgery. And apparently the doctor, Dr. Christian Brogna, is an expert in awake surgery. And one of the reasons I think, I guess, that it became a total success was because this individual intermittently played the saxophone over the course of the nine hour procedure.
Luke Burbank: You got to be kidding me.
Elena Passarello: Is it this great? The tumor was in a kind of a tough spot, and it was kind of exacerbated by the fact that the patient was left handed, I guess, which sort of changes or it's like a different map to read. Brain activity. This is just something you're just blowing my mind. Playing music really helped Dr. Brongna and his team of ten individuals because it's such a whole brain exercise. So it really helped give the professionals a map of the brain while he worked. Also, it's part of this whole new movement to really keep the patient super informed about everything that's happening with the procedure. There was like several meetings over the two weeks before the surgery. Brogna says that every brain is unique, every person is unique, and their skills and experiences are a part of these surgeries. So the more you can bring them into the process, the more likely you're going to have a success like the one that they had with this patient who was operated on last Monday and he was home by Thursday, expected to make a full recovery. Can you guess what songs?
Luke Burbank: I really only know one. It's not even a saxophone song, it's just a riff. And it's just the riff from Wham song. Careless Whisper. Was it that one?
Elena Passarello: No. But can you imagine having to perform really intense brain surgery.
[Elena plays fake saxophone]
Luke Burbank: Okay. So it wasn't that. What was it?
Elena Passarello: We all know what my vote would be. Of course, the greatest song ever written Yakety Sax. But that seems a little intense for.
Luke Burbank: That's a little slapstick when they've got some probes in this extremely, you know, sensitive thing called your brain. So what did they end up going with?
Elena Passarello: The Italian national anthem? Oh, and the second one, a the ballad, the theme from the 1970 movie Love Story, which goes like this. La la, la, la, la. La la la la la la la la la la la la. I should do a sax one. [Elena plays fake sax]
Luke Burbank: Went into Yakety Sax. See, that's such a sad movie, though, right? And that was Ryan O'Neal. And I forget who the...Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal. That was a very I wonder, like the mood that that casts over the OR.
Elena Passarello: Yeah. Maybe it's just easy to play when you're, like, laying on your back with your skull cut open.
Luke Burbank: I mean, that's okay. So I was aware that, you know, for some of these procedures, they will have people stay awake for the reasons that we've already talked about. But, you know, I had seen maybe on like some kind of PBS show, somebody kind of just they go like, you know, look at the Green Square versus like they have the people doing some brain stuff, but it's nothing as engaged and even physical as playing saxophone. I'm just trying to imagine if I were to have this procedure and they were like, We want you to keep podcasting throughout the procedure to figure out what's lighting up. You know, what they would do. They'd be like, Talk about your cat. And then I would start talking about and they would shut down that part of my brain. They'd be like, The listeners have requested less activity in that quadrant.
Elena Passarello: Never. I would like I would like put a special pocket of your brain so that that would be all you talked about.
Luke Burbank: Well, I'm glad that it's working for you, because I think the the listener feedback may reflect somewhat differently. But yeah, I mean, that's incredible for the medical professionals who can do this. And I have to say also pretty incredible for the person who can go through that procedure, because I just don't know psychologically how I would deal with knowing that that was physically happening to my you know, to my brain in my head while I was still conscious. I, I mean, I'm the kind of person that, like, I want to be knocked out. If I get a feeling, I'm like, Can you put me under General? Then it's it's like it's a filling. I'm like, Yeah, but let's not take any chances.
Elena Passarello: You're getting a manicure, and you're like, Do you have any gas, laughing gas that you can give me?
Luke Burbank: I actually would need that. You know, I've had one pedicure in my life and I laughed uncontrollably throughout it because it tickled my feet.
Elena Passarello: You ticklish?
Luke Burbank: I'm the only person that would need a general for getting a pedicure. The best news that I saw. Okay. This is actually a follow up to a story that's been going on basically since 1995. And the news came out recently. It just hit my radar this week that the Minnesota Twins baseball team have finally made a deal to become the owners of the URL Twins dot com.
Elena Passarello: Okay.
Luke Burbank: So since 1995, two twins in like Northern California, kind of the Silicon Valley area, guys named Durland and Darvin.
Elena Passarello: No no.
Luke Burbank: Have been the owners of twins dot com and Elena whatever you imagine that Durland and Darvin looks like that's exactly what Durland and Darvin.
Elena Passarello: Oh no.
Luke Burbank: And their sister, by the way, is named Durla. Durla Durland and Darvin.
Elena Passarello: I love them already.
Luke Burbank: Although Darla is not part of the conversation for these purposes. These, these brothers are twins and they have always just they're twins. And this has always been a huge part of their personality. They have always lived together. They're not married to other people. They've they've they've they've always worked together. And at some point this was back in I think it was like 1995. In fact, this article I read points out that this was actually a year and a half before the Space Jam website was founded. You know, like the famous.
Elena Passarello: I love the Space Jam website.
Luke Burbank: That's like that's just like the most beautiful expression of like what we thought the Internet was going to be at a particular moment of time.
Elena Passarello: Why doesn't the Live Wire website look like the Space Jam website?
Luke Burbank: I would totally support that. I think our bosses would take a dim view, but I I've been recently to the Space Jam website, which is still operational, but anyway before that, before the Space Jam website somehow Durlan and Darvin, who are not as I can tell from any of these articles, tech people, they just kind of were in a, I don't know, they just had a sense that URLs might be important at some point. And so they and this was at a time you didn't even have to pay for it. There was not a service that charged you. You just had to be the first person to ask for it. So they were the first people to ask for twins dot com and they were granted it. They never did anything with it. It's been the sign on it for many years. Said it's under reconstruction. Which raises the question, can it be reconstruction if there has been no initial construction? But so for years and years, Major League Baseball has been going around trying to get all of the names of its teams for those teams websites like they can't they still to this day can't get the Tampa Bay Devil Rays because a fish restaurant in Seattle that I used to go to called Ray's Boat House has it and won't sell it for any amount of money. They can't get the Giants, as in San Francisco Giants, because the football team in New York, New York Giants has it. So a couple of them they have been able to get, but they just kept going, why can't we get these twins? Oh, by the way, one of the funny thing about Durland and Darvin, clearly they spread the word in their friend group that like, you should just sign up for these websites because their friend Jeff has been the owner of Jeff dot com for the last 20 years or so. It's like they're friends with a guy named Jeff who has Jeff dot com. This is what I'm trying to tell you.
Elena Passarello: Bless their hearts.
Luke Burbank: I know, right? Oh, another couple of other fun facts about Durland and Darwin. They drive two Hummers. One is white and one is black. They were in a band called Wildfire back in the late eighties, and they were a cover band. This is going to like honestly Elena. You are not even going to believe this. They were in this Bay Area Battle of the Bands, right? And Wildfire had a song that got to the like. Championship of this thing. And they ended up not winning. But well, here's what was on the line. A deal with Mercury Records. So this was a radio station promotion and it took the best band from the West Coast and they put up against the best band from the East Coast. So Wildfire almost made it out of the West Coast bracket. They didn't. But guess what? The East Coast record was run away by Bon Jovi, which is why Bon Jovi signed with Mercury Records.
Elena Passarello: Oh, my God. Der Linden. Durwood.
Luke Burbank: They're like the Zelig, like characters that have just been showing up at all these moments of history.
Elena Passarello: But this is so good.
Luke Burbank: Right? So the funny part is there's not a ton of information about what changed recently other than I guess they just decided that they were finally ready to part with the URL twins dot com because they reached some sort of agreement with Major League Baseball and the Minnesota Twins. And now and I just tested this today, by the way, I want to make sure that the reporting I was reading was accurate. I went to twins dot com and it took me to the Minnesota Twins baseball team, not D and D, which is what Darvin and Durland's thing was for like years and years.
Elena Passarello: They never did anything with it. They just it was just the....
Luke Burbank: Never one thing.
Elena Passarello: They didn't make a wildfire...
Luke Burbank: And they were offered at one point like $780,000, they told this reporter, because, you know, there were a lot of people came in and wanted to broker a deal, like they recognized that the URL had value. So they would approach these guys and say, if you sell it to us, then we'll resell it and we'll take our cut and stuff. But no, they never did anything with the website ever all of those years other than just kind of hang out on it. But they said they were like, this is a big part of us being twins and owning twins dot com feels to us like a big part of our identity.
Elena Passarello: I am so into this story I don't even know what to do.
Luke Burbank: I'm sending you the link of the original article which was in Grantland, and I want to give a shout out to Ben Lindbergh, who wrote the piece in Grantland back in 2015 about this, when they wouldn't sell, I mean, high, high quality reading and I would recommend. So that's the best news that I have heard about in a long time, including this week.
Luke Burbank: Hey. Coming up on the radio show this week, we are going to be celebrating friendship. Talking to somebody who knows all about the ups and downs of having friends. In fact, he wrote about it in his latest book, Our Country Friends When We Talking to Gary Shteyngart. The book tells the story of eight friends, one country house and six months in isolation. It's been called the Great American Pandemic Novel. We're also going to hear some standup comedy from a friend of our show, Atsuko Okatsuka, who was so, so funny the first time she was on Live Wire that I came close to literally busting a gut, which doctors advise against. So anyway, she's going to be back on the show and hilarious as always. Plus, we got some music from a couple of friends who met on the banks of the Mississippi River. We're going to hear music from the banjo duo, The Lowest Pair that will be dropping, as they say in this feed this week on Friday. And that'll be on public radio stations all across the country this weekend. So please do tune in for that.
Luke Burbank: Thank you for tuning in for this this week and a thanks to our team who make the show possible. Laura Hadden So our executive producer, our producer and editor is Melanie Sevcenko. Our assistant editor is Trey Hester. Our production fellow is Tanvi Kumar. Molly Pettit is our technical director and our mixer, and our theme music is composed by A. Walker Spring. Also, thanks to all of you, our listeners. We will be back here next week with another edition of The Best News Podcast. In the meantime, head on out there and just have the absolute best week.
