Pod Insights Normal Gossip Sluts for Paperwork with Yowei Shaw About this episode Yowei Shaw joins us on [BLEEP] Island for a tale of volunteer firefighters, fancy snacks, and rampant nepotism. Follow Yowei on Instagram here https://www.instagram.com/yoweishaw/?hl=en and check out Yowei's podcast Proxy here https://www.radiotopia.fm/podcasts/proxy-with-yowei-shaw.
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Transcript 0:07 Speaker 00 Hello and welcome to Normal Gossip. I'm your host, Rachel Hampton, and in each episode of this podcast, we're gonna bring you an anonymous morsel of gossip from the real world. If you tuned in last week or to the finale of season seven, I'm sorry because you're about to hear me repeat myself. Like I said at the top of the premiere of this season, if you haven't tuned in in a while, you might be thinking, "That's not Kelsey's voice." You're correct. Your ears work. I'm still not Kelsey, and that will remain true for the foreseeable future unless they end up creating that Face Off machine. At the end of season seven, Normal Gossip underwent a peaceful transition of power, and I'm the captain now. If you'd like more details on the transition and our feelings
0:51 Speaker 00 around them, go listen to the finale of season seven. If you've already done that, welcome. I'm so excited you're here, and I am even more excited to introduce our second guest of season eight. Today, I am joined by Yowei Shaw, the host and producer of Proxy, a podcast that answers niche emotional questions through conversations with experts and strangers with shared experiences. Yowei self-describes as an emotional investigative journalist, which is one of my favorite job titles I've ever heard. Yowei, hello, welcome. Thank you for coming. Hello. Thank you so much for having me. I feel like I've made it to the Gossip Olympics or something. Oh, my God, we're here. We're on the podium. We're gonna distribute some medals?
1:36 Speaker 00 I guess this is the post-game interview because I need to know, what's your relationship to gossip? I love it. I'm always hunting for gossip, to the point where some of my friends find me dramatic.
1:52 Speaker 01 Which I disagree with. I am just looking to be entertained. And like, I am launching this new podcast, so like, I don't do anything right now. Like, I've just been in crunch mode and I am depending on my friend's gossip to feel alive. Recently, I had these two friends who did this very cute thing. There are these two very imposing, tall, manly-looking men who were in Austin recently and they went in together on these $400 snake skin cowboy boots that they were gonna share. And they live in two different cities, so they were gonna trade off who was wearing the boots.
2:29 Speaker 00 Wait, custody arrangement for the snake skin boots?
2:33 Speaker 01 Sisterhood of the traveling pants, but for cowboy boots. So recently, I was catching up with one of my friends and I was like, so, who has the boots? Is there any boot drama yet?
2:43 Speaker 00 Yeah.
2:44 Speaker 01 And he was like, Boot Brothers don't have drama. And then he said, I quote, "I try to live without gossip."
2:54 Speaker 00 Your friend just went from so high in my ranking of other people's friends
3:01 Speaker 00 to so low so quickly. How do you go from the iconicness of the first rule of Boot Brothers is don't talk about Boot Brothers to "I try to live without gossip"? Why would you do that? Why would you deprive yourself?
3:15 Speaker 01 I felt very judged and I also felt sad for him.
3:20 Speaker 00 Yeah.
3:20 Speaker 01 Because I was like, you're setting yourself up in this very cute situation. Why wouldn't you try to squeeze some like gossip juice out of this? You know, like even if it's positive gossip.
3:33 Speaker 00 Exactly.
3:34 Speaker 01 I have a very expansive definition of gossip. So like, positive gossip counts too.
3:39 Speaker 00 Yes, 100%. Kelsey calls it posse, positive gossip, which is very cute. And I feel like that situation lends itself so well to positive gossip. Like, did you wear the boots on a date? Did the date go well? Did the date go badly? Did the date notice the boots? Who's complimented you on the boots in public? What were they wearing? What are you wearing the boots with?
4:05 Speaker 01 Let me take a selfie with my boots and send it to you every time I wear them.
4:11 Speaker 00 Show me the boots. That's gossip.
4:14 Speaker 01 There's endless amounts of posse to get out of these boots. So I feel sad for him. I'm choosing not to take it personally. It's really about him. It's not about me.
4:25 Speaker 00 He needs to expand his mind. I need him to consider that he contains multitudes. I could talk about this for hours. But speaking of wanting to know gossip, I heard you have some gossip for me that I want to know.
4:40 Speaker 01 I do. I have this friend who I'm going to call Harper. And last summer Harper went to an action in DC. She was planning on getting arrested. And as her friend, you know, I was like worried. Protest can get violent. So I was waiting by the phone, waiting for an update. And I don't get an update from her until the next morning, when Harper finally texts me back. And she was like, the action was super good, super powerful, super successful.
5:09 Speaker 00 OK.
5:10 Speaker 01 Also, I have some gossip. And what you need to know about Harper is that for the past year or so, she's dated a string of very similar people, all from the same social justice organizing circle. Let's just say the type is like DIY punk musician, working odd jobs to support their activism and music. All these guys loved to cook for her. Not only are these dudes the same person on paper, they all broke up with Harper in similar painful ways. You know, so the pattern is like she meets the guy, it's great.
5:45 Speaker 00 Yeah.
5:46 Speaker 01 And then things sour. One day, they're at her house making falafel and hummus for her. And then 36 hours later, they're not returning her texts.
5:58 Speaker 00 Yeah, that's about what I expect from this milieu of men that you were describing.
6:04 Speaker 01 So yeah, so Harper has, you know, had her heart broken by this string of ex, by the same person essentially. And she's never gotten an apology from any of these guys that doesn't involve hooking up again. And all of these breakups have like messed with her confidence in a similar way, where it's like, you know, the guy will say stuff like, oh, you care too much about your career. You care too much about work.
6:28 Speaker 00 What?
6:29 Speaker 01 No, I know. I really hate when people say that as someone who works all the time.
6:35 Speaker 00 Yeah.
6:35 Speaker 01 But you know, like Harper's like, "Am I not artsy enough? Am I not cool enough? Am I too square?"
6:40 Speaker 00 Harper, it's not you.
6:42 Speaker 01 I know. But this is where Harper's at when she goes to this action. So what ended up happening was, at the action, she ended up getting arrested and handcuffed to someone who was also from the same social justice organizing circle.
6:59 Speaker 00 Okay.
6:59 Speaker 01 Someone who she's friendly with and who's friendly with all of her various exes.
7:05 Speaker 00 Okay.
7:06 Speaker 01 And they end up getting handcuffed together for 13 hours in the blazing July sun in front of the Capitol Building on the sidewalk.
7:15 Speaker 00 That's a really long time.
7:17 Speaker 01 It's way too long to be handcuffed to anyone. So they just start talking to pass the time. First hour, second hour, they're just like talking about the action. Will they get food? Like, will the police let them go, you know, to the bathroom?
7:30 Speaker 00 Yeah.
7:31 Speaker 01 Answers basically no and no. And then by like the third and fourth hour, they've switched topics. They're like getting to know each other. Like, what are their hobbies? And Harper learns that, let's call him Jake, he is also a DIY punk musician. Jake is also really into cooking, specifically vegetarian Indian food.
7:51 Speaker 00 I'm not surprised.
7:54 Speaker 01 Also, Jake just got out of a relationship, but recently has been hooking up and having a great time.
8:01 Speaker 00 Oh.
8:02 Speaker 01 Harper's like, "Oh shit, this is the like exact same person who I've been dating and who's broken my heart multiple times." So, long story short, Harper and Jake get put on a paddy wagon. They end up in this warehouse with hundreds of other protesters who've been arrested.
8:17 Speaker 00 Mm-hmm.
8:18 Speaker 01 It's like hour five or six by now. They're still handcuffed. And she's just like feeling delirious and loose. And so she's just like, Jake, I want to get your read on something because you're actually kind of similar to my exes that I've dated. And she just proceeds to tell him all about her exes and the breakups and how it made her feel.
8:42 Speaker 00 Yes.
8:43 Speaker 01 And Jake listens, nods his head. And when she's done talking, he's immediately like, I am so sorry. And he's not saying sorry in like a, you know, breakups, they suck kind of way. He's like being really specific because he knows these guys and he identifies. Basically, he's had similar struggles and he starts like kind of apologizing on their behalf. And he's like, that's really shitty. Like, they shouldn't have treated you that way. Like, they probably feel insecure for X, Y, and Z reasons. Like, they're probably threatened by your success. And you're totally art scene cool enough.
9:24 Speaker 01 Like, this is like stuff they need to work on that I had to work on in my relationships. So when Harper gets home finally after 13 hours, she gets to go to the bathroom. She's relieved. She feels like a burden has lifted off of her. And it's not just because she's not weighed down by urine.
9:46 Speaker 01 It's because she told me in this text that like, she feels like her heart is lighter. She wrote, Yo A, I had a real life proxy conversation.
9:56 Speaker 00 I was literally just thinking this sounds like proxy.
9:59 Speaker 01 No, no, I know. This is why she texted. She was like, Yo A, I had a real life proxy conversation and it was helpful in my healing, actually. These proxy conversations being the thing that I do on my show. Or, you know, I place people with strangers who have relevant experience to talk through the problem that they share. And she said that like, there was just something that hit different. Because like, you know, I had been telling her, all her friends had been telling her the exact same things this whole time. But there's just something about like, hearing an apology from someone who has played that role before in a relationship and who like resembles that person that you're having conflict with. It was like healing.
10:39 Speaker 00 Yeah, I can only imagine. I mean, I feel like so many people in my life have had the experience of being broken up with in the same sort of casually cruel way where your humanity is sort of denied. And it's not necessarily the most devastating breakup, but it is the most confusing. And I think just being able to answer the question of why did this happen? Why did this happen this way? Being able to answer those questions and not just having to sit with the uncertainty is so healing. I love that for Harper. I hate that she was handcuffed for 13 hours and dehydrated. But I love that she was handcuffed to her proxy. That is incredible luck.
11:24 Speaker 00 I hope Jake is not doing this in further relationships.
11:29 Speaker 01 I know. That's like really the follow up that we have to investigate.
11:33 Speaker 00 It's one thing to be self-aware. It's another thing to change your actions.
11:36 Speaker 01 Exactly.
11:37 Speaker 00 Yes.
11:39 Speaker 01 Maybe that will be a proxy investigation.
11:42 Speaker 00 Please just connect people with like the people who have ghosted. Where it's like, just explain why. Just tell me why. Wow, that was great gossip. Thank you, Yowei.
11:55 Speaker 01 You're welcome.
11:57 Speaker 00 Are you ready for some gossip of your own?
12:00 Speaker 01 I cannot wait. I'm so excited. Yeah, let's go.
12:08 Speaker 00 We've been cooking up a fun, special holiday project for y'all over here at Normal Gossip. And usually when work gets crazy, I kind of just try to continue my life like nothing's happening. But recently, thanks to therapy, this time around, I was like, what if I didn't? Not try to pour from an empty cup. And that is what growing feels like. If you've been thinking about starting therapy, then I think you should check out today's sponsor, Growth Therapy. Growth Therapy is built for therapy that actually feels like care. You can find therapy based on what matters most to you, like insurance taken, mental health specialties, identity, or night and weekend availability if you're working a lot.
12:53 Speaker 00 Book your first session in minutes and you can start in as little as two days. Sessions average $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0, depending on your insurance plan. Prepare for holiday glimmers instead of holiday stress. Visit growththerapy.com/gossip to get started today. That is growththerapy.com/gossip. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. Y'all, for months, I've been in search of just a simple black crew neck cardigan. And I finally found exactly what I was looking for. I should have just gone to Quince as soon as I started thinking of this, but for some reason I didn't.
13:36 Speaker 00 Well, Quince had exactly what I wanted. Their Mongolian cashmere cropped crew cardigan is in fact so cute and their reviews are so good that despite the fact that I went in saying, I need a black cardigan to wear with everything, I took 15 minutes to decide what color I was getting. Do I need a red cardigan? Maybe. I can't promise I'm not gonna buy it later, but I did get the black one. Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Normal Gossip.
14:20 Speaker 00 It's the best way to support the show. I'm gonna admit something embarrassing. I know, shocker. I have not had a bedside lamp for an undisclosed amount of months, long enough that I basically haven't read before bed for a really long time. And I only realized this because I'm hosting a friend and I was like, wow. They deserve to have a light by their bed at night. I don't. But this finally inspired me to find the perfect bedside lamp. And I had a vision in mind, Wayfair. They had exactly what I need, which is one of those library style lights with like the green lampshade and little pull cord. I have been having this image in my mind of having one. And now I have one because of course Wayfair had it.
15:05 Speaker 00 For all things hosting, Wayfair delivers high quality, customer trusted products for your home. So you can host and celebrate without distress. When refreshing your home this holiday season, Wayfair delivers exactly what you need. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W A Y F A I R dot com.
15:23 Speaker 02 Wayfair, every style, every home.
15:34 Speaker 00 Our story today takes place in a small island community off the coast of Washington state. The year round population is just under 2,000 people, though that number doubles during the summer when the island is maybe one of the most beautiful places in the world. Because this island is only accessible by ferry or helicopter, the community is super tight knit. Almost all of the emergency services on the island are done by volunteers from the community, from the EMTs to the fire department, to the harbor patrol. Do you have any experience living in like a small community like this? Does it appeal to you at all?
16:11 Speaker 01 I used to be involved in the Chinese Christian church community as a kid. And that did not end well for me. But I want to go to that island. That sounds like a nice version of the tight knit community so far.
16:25 Speaker 00 That is exactly how our friend of a friend, Kennedy, felt. Kennedy moved to [BLEEP] Island 10 years ago when she was 24. You see, one of Kennedy's favorite movies growing up was the 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger film, Kindergarten Cop. Have you seen this movie?
16:44 Speaker 01 I bet I have. I don't remember it off the top of my head, but I'm just seeing Arnold's abs. Like what's flashing in my head?
16:53 Speaker 00 That is the most important image that you could have in your mind. And this movie is not essential viewing. It is pretty cute, I will say that. Arnold Schwarzenegger is an LAPD detective who has to go undercover as a kindergarten teacher in the Pacific Northwest. Hijinks ensue, but I think the most important thing to note is that the town they film in is absolutely gorgeous. It has got that beautiful morning fog rolling in, the mountains are towering in the distance. Kennedy saw that movie as a little kid in the flat suburban sprawl of the Midwest and decided that when she grew up, she was gonna live in the Pacific Northwest no matter what.
17:33 Speaker 01 Oh, wow. So she was like really inspired by Arnold Schwarzenegger's character.
17:38 Speaker 00 She was.
17:39 Speaker 01 She wants to be him without being a cop.
17:43 Speaker 00 Yeah. She took the most important part of that movie.
17:47 Speaker 01 She got the right message.
17:48 Speaker 00 Exactly. So when Kennedy saw a listing for a registered nurse on the island, she packed her bags immediately. And that was 10 years ago, and it was the perfect choice for her. Kennedy loves island life. It feels like the sort of place where the Winchester brothers from Supernatural would go in like the absolute best possible way. Kennedy loves that she can pretty much bike everywhere she needs to. She loves that she knows everyone and everyone knows her. She loves how the remoteness of the island instills a real sense of community engagement. Within a few months of her living there, she was asked to join the planning board,
18:28 Speaker 00 even though her degrees were in music, theater, and art history, and she was 24 years old.
18:34 Speaker 01 Oh, my god. That right there means that nobody wants to be on the planning board. And you are really reaching. You are like, anybody, please volunteer.
18:45 Speaker 00 And Kennedy did. She did it for six whole years, but she decided six years in that there might be a more fun way to serve her community. Yo, wait, did you ever have the little kid dream of being a firefighter?
18:59 Speaker 01 I have to say, I'm absolutely a wuss. So the answer is absolutely not. If there's a fire, I'm running away from the fire. But I think I had a fantasy at some point of like getting with a firefighter, because that sounds hot.
19:15 Speaker 00 Oh, same. A person in uniform?
19:19 Speaker 01 So hot.
19:20 Speaker 00 So hot, strong, can break down a door?
19:22 Speaker 01 Can pick me up and carry me out of a burning building? Sign me up. Enough said.
19:28 Speaker 00 Enough said. So Kennedy also hadn't had any real dreams of being a firefighter when she grew up. She's not a real adrenaline junkie. One of her least favorite things about living on the island is knowing that if she ever needs to be medically evacuated, it'll have to be in one of those tiny island hopper airplanes, which she refers to as a flying tin can.
19:51 Speaker 01 Oh shit.
19:52 Speaker 00 So when Clara, the chief of the fire department at the time, approached Kennedy about joining the fire department, Kennedy's first question was, "Do I have to drive the fire truck?" And Clara laughed and then said, "Only if you want to be chief," which is great because Kennedy does not want to be chief, especially because Clara is such a great chief. Clara had single-handedly recruited half of the firefighting department through just raw charisma. Clara's like 5'2", but she can squat 330 pounds.
20:23 Speaker 01 Hell yeah.
20:24 Speaker 00 She's covered in beautiful botanical tattoos, all native to Washington State, of course.
20:30 Speaker 01 Hot.
20:31 Speaker 00 What kind of skills do you think a volunteer fire chief on a small island might need? And would you want this job?
20:38 Speaker 01 A fire chief needs to be cool, calm, collected in moments of emergency. You also have to be a leader. Like, the charisma part is, seems really important because everyone's a volunteer. So you have to get people on board with the mission and keep them engaged enough that they'll keep serving.
21:00 Speaker 00 Mm-hmm.
21:00 Speaker 01 You also kind of have to be like a coach.
21:03 Speaker 00 Yeah.
21:04 Speaker 01 Like, you have to like get the morale up, make sure everyone knows what they're supposed to be doing, probably someone who's very good at like direct communication because like we're dealing with life or death situations. So like, no passive aggressiveness. If someone's fucking up, you're like, "Pick up the goddamn phone when I'm calling you when there's a fire." Oh wait, I haven't even mentioned any skills that have to do with putting out fire. Oh my gosh.
21:30 Speaker 00 You can learn those on the job.
21:32 Speaker 01 That's all the way at the top. A lot of skills. I could keep going. And the answer is absolutely not. I would not trust myself.
21:41 Speaker 00 Clara has all of those skills that you mentioned. Clara charismatic. Clara such a direct communicator. She knows how to praise early and often, but also knows how to give proper feedback. And one important thing to know about Clara is that she recently got engaged, the love of her life. The whole fire department is all like Clara, Clara, Clara. Kennedy is also over the moon because she loves Clara and Kennedy also loves love. But Kennedy is also a little nervous because Clara is stepping down to plan her wedding. Very fair. I've never planned a wedding before, but I've heard it's a lot of work.
22:20 Speaker 01 As someone who has, yes, it's annoying.
22:23 Speaker 00 Clara is like, I'm not planning a wedding and volunteer fire chiefing. I just got to do one of these things. I'm a focus on my personal life. And so when Clara steps down, she appointed Grace Williams as her successor. Technically Kennedy, who is assistant chief, was up for the job, but four years of the fire department have made Kennedy no less afraid of driving the fire truck. It's too big and unwieldy and loud. Kennedy won't even drive a U-Haul. She's not doing that. Meanwhile, Grace loved driving the fire truck and she's a great firefighter insofar as anyone is on this island because it's so small. Almost none of the job really entailed fighting fires. But Grace is very organized and also very young,
23:08 Speaker 00 which means she both has a lot of energy and no kids, while Kennedy has a preschooler at this point. When Grace joined the fire department, she started doing a lot of extra projects for the crew, like reorganizing the storage closet so that it's usable and not a fire hazard. So all of that is why Clara tapped her to become the chief. But why Grace is confirmed as chief through a majority vote is because all of those reasons and because Grace is a Williams. And according to our friend of a friend who said, I quote, I included her last name because the Williams family is sort of a big deal, at least according to the Williams family. First of all, there are a lot of them. Most of them stayed on the island and had several children,
23:51 Speaker 00 each of whom have stayed on the island and had several children, some of whom are still on the island. They have their own special seats in a corner of the stadium at football games. They're like a little mafia.
24:02 Speaker 01 Oh, my god. Okay. That feels, it's starting to get a little creepy now.
24:09 Speaker 00 And the Williams have been some of the first settlers on this island. So they're both incredibly important to the island's founding and also incredibly infamous for some of their ancestors' misadventures. One of the reasons the fire department is so respected on [BLEEP] Island is because way back in 1923, Grace's great-grandmother, Eunice Williams, her barn had burned down in what became the biggest fire in island history.
24:37 Speaker 01 Oh, no.
24:38 Speaker 00 It had taken more than two hours to wrangle a crew together, and by then, the fire had spread, eventually engulfing downtown. It's now very easy to tell architecturally what was built on the island pre and post-fire. This fire loomed so large in the collective imagination that it basically becomes [BLEEP] Island's version of 9/11.
24:58 Speaker 01 Oh, my god.
24:59 Speaker 00 Have you ever lived somewhere, like a town or a campus, where everyone was sort of haunted by this event that happened a long time ago, but is up there in the brain?
25:10 Speaker 01 I mean, I live in Philadelphia, where the move bombing in West Philadelphia, I mean, haunts everybody here.
25:16 Speaker 00 Yeah. So similarly, Kennedy heard about this fire within two weeks of moving there. It is just this kind of stain on the collective imagination. And her first thought was, how are the Williams still so prominent after this if they caused this big fire? Isn't the mayor a Williams? What's going on here? In the aftermath of Eunice's barn fire, the Williams family quietly paid for half of the construction that had to be done in town because they wanted to preserve their reputation. It also Helped that at any given moment, half of the population is somehow married or related to a Williams, if not a Williams themselves. The same is true of the fire department,
26:00 Speaker 00 as in, half of it is somehow married, related to, or a Williams himself, which meant no one was really surprised when Grace was confirmed as chief.
26:10 Speaker 01 Oh, my goodness. Wow, okay.
26:14 Speaker 00 After high school, Grace went to a good college, but she graduated right into the 2008 recession. So that was when she moved back to the island and started working for her dad, Elijah, who manages a little collection of vacation rentals on the island that are notoriously shitty.
26:31 Speaker 01 Oh, no.
26:32 Speaker 00 Tourists are always complaining about leaks and exposed wiring, but the island's code enforcement officer is married to a Williams, so nothing really ever gets done.
26:44 Speaker 01 I'm sensing a pattern. I'm sensing a pattern. Keep that pattern in your mind. Oh, my goodness. Okay.
26:52 Speaker 00 All this to say, Grace's appointment to fire chief makes Kennedy just a little bit nervous. Sure, Grace is competent, but if 10 years on this island have taught Kennedy anything, it's to be prepared for everything, especially when a Williams is involved.
27:07 Speaker 01 Oh, my goodness.
27:08 Speaker 00 How are you feeling so far? Do you have any immediate concerns? Your boss is about to be a 24-year-old.
27:14 Speaker 01 Okay, well, 24, your brain is not fully developed until 26?
27:19 Speaker 00 It's true.
27:20 Speaker 01 So that's my first concern, which is just like impulse control. It's just like, that was one of the skills that we listed.
27:28 Speaker 00 You're right, that Clara had.
27:30 Speaker 01 Right, that Clara had, which is to be calm, cool, collected in an emergency. I'm with Kennedy in having concerns, but also, what is she gonna do about it?
27:40 Speaker 00 Well, the thing is, at first, things honestly go just fine under Grace's leadership. They're maybe even good.
27:49 Speaker 01 Oh.
27:49 Speaker 00 Like, everything is very organized. A bunch of physical paperwork and records that had been sitting around since the late 90s was finally digitized. Another fire hazard removed from. The fire department.
28:00 Speaker 01 Oh, go Grace.
28:02 Speaker 00 Yeah. Grace signs herself and Kennedy up to be CPR instructors for the first responder course that all the emergency services volunteers go through. Does Kennedy necessarily have time for this with a preschooler at home? Who's to say? But it's a worthwhile endeavor, so Kennedy is mostly fine with it. What Kennedy isn't fine with is the way her duties as assistant chief slowly start getting eroded. The first thing to go is Kennedy's responsibility to order inventory, which she's been doing since she was named assistant chief two years ago. But Grace's reasoning for taking over inventory ordering made sense, sort of. Grace thought that since the budget was ultimately the chief's responsibility,
28:46 Speaker 00 it made sense for her to have discretion over how the funds were allocated. What do you think of this rationale?
28:52 Speaker 01 I'm not liking this. I like responsibilities being taken off Kennedy's plate for her work-life balance. But whenever like the person in charge is like, now it's only up to me how funds are being allocated. That's a red flag.
29:09 Speaker 00 Kennedy is not sure how she feels. Because ordering inventory did take up a lot of her time, which you noticed. She's busy. But the thing is, Kennedy didn't really mind. Kennedy is one of those people who's just like an absolute slut for paperwork. She loved to send a little email. She loved renewing the fire department license.
29:33 Speaker 01 Wait a minute, I just love this phrase you just said. A slut for paperwork. I'm gonna steal that. I love that.
29:42 Speaker 00 We need the people.
29:43 Speaker 01 We need sluts for paperwork. We need more people to be easy and slutty around paperwork. I'm not one of those people and I, we need them.
29:54 Speaker 00 Yeah. She actually really only joined leadership because Clara had needed a hand with the admin work. And ordering inventory was one of Kennedy's favorite tasks. She got to listen to a little podcast and shop on someone else's dime. And this is why Kennedy kind of starts to get. That feeling in her chest, you know, you get when you feel like something might be starting to go wrong. But everyone else thought Grace's rationale was just fine. So Kennedy's like, maybe I'm just overreacting. And, you know, somehow Grace seemed to have found some room in the budget because right after she takes over ordering inventory, some fancy new snacks start appearing in the firehouse.
30:34 Speaker 01 Interesting. Like, what kind of snacks?
30:37 Speaker 00 I'm so glad you asked. We're talking spindrift. We're talking Himalayan sea salt popcorn. We're talking goji berries and things labeled cacao instead of chocolate.
30:50 Speaker 01 Oh, my. This is the good shit. Okay, this is like tech industry level snack. Okay, where are they getting the money for this? This is a volunteer operation. I understand treating your workers well, but these people aren't even getting paid. So like, maybe start there, you know, before spending on Himalayan popcorn.
31:14 Speaker 00 Kennedy is not exactly complaining because who doesn't love a fancy snack?
31:20 Speaker 01 I mean.
31:20 Speaker 00 She's like, ah, how bad could it be? But that feeling in her chest returns when she's suddenly taken off scheduling, which she's also been responsible for for the past two years. If ordering inventory was one of Kennedy's favorite jobs, scheduling was her absolute favorite. She had inherited this monthly scheduling tradition from the previous assistant chief, where one Sunday a month, she would get the whole crew together for a big dinner at the firehouse. And everyone looked forward to it, which means that morale on the crew takes a sharp drop when, without warning, Grace says that Sunday dinner isn't in the budget.
31:55 Speaker 01 Oh, because you're spending on the snacks.
31:58 Speaker 00 The fancy snacks do remain. Grace also has a new idea for scheduling that she wants to implement. So the shifts everyone worked used to be 48 hours. And if you're on call for your shift, that means that you have to be within 10 minutes of your car. So no hiking, which is a big deal on [BLEEP] Island. It means that you can't drink any alcohol. Makes sense.
32:18 Speaker 01 Yeah.
32:19 Speaker 00 And it also means that you need to have childcare lined up in case you get called in. So if you get a call during work, then you're expected to leave. But all of that changed when Grace unilaterally changed the shift from 48 hours long to a whole week long.
32:34 Speaker 01 Oh shit.
32:36 Speaker 00 And Grace's justification is that this new schedule allowed more people to be on call at any given moment so that they would never be understaffed for a fire. This causes a lot of grumbling because finding childcare on an island of 2,000 people for a 48 hour shift was hard enough, but a whole week?
32:53 Speaker 01 Geez.
32:54 Speaker 00 It's at this point that I would personally have done a mutiny. But then I have to remember that half the fire department is either a Williams or married to one or related to one, and they're all so proud of Grace for being chief. None so much as Grace's father Elijah. Elijah Williams has been volunteering for the fire department for as long as Kennedy has been in town. But he has never been in contention for chief because Elijah is kind of the fail son of his generation of Williams.
33:26 Speaker 01 Oh no.
33:27 Speaker 00 Which includes the island's lawyer, four out of the seven members of the island's town council, and several prominent businessmen. Meanwhile, if you remember, Elijah manages some shitty summer rental properties. He doesn't even own them. They belong to his father, Grace's grandfather, who plans to will them to Grace when he dies and not Elijah.
33:50 Speaker 01 Oh, because Elijah can't even be trusted. Damn.
33:55 Speaker 00 Yeah. Elijah's one redeeming quality is that he loves his daughter more than anything else in the world. He is so, so proud of Grace, which is sweet, but also means whenever someone starts complaining about all the new changes that Grace is unilaterally instituting on the fire squad, Elijah will just start loudly talking about how he just always knew she'd do something great. And did you know she made the dean's list every semester in college?
34:24 Speaker 01 It should be outlawed that anybody talks about the dean's list after you graduate, period.
34:30 Speaker 00 I agree. But despite the long arm of the Williams family, Kennedy still wouldn't live anywhere else. She loves her husband that she met on the island, one of the few locals who somehow blessedly is not in any way related to the Williams. They do exist. Kennedy loves their adorable preschooler, even though he's going through a sleep regression right now. And Kennedy and her husband are being driven slowly insane from sleep deprivation, which is maybe why Kennedy doesn't care about anything at the fire department enough to be chief. She just wants to avoid another Eunice Williams barn fire. And even though all of Grace's changes are annoying, none of them are dangerous or feel personal. Do you think our friend of a friend is being wise here?
35:15 Speaker 00 Do you think Kennedy is right in thinking there's not a lot to be done right now?
35:20 Speaker 01 Now that I know about the sleep deprivation, I'm like, Kennedy, the red flags are adding up. I totally feel for Kennedy.
35:30 Speaker 00 Yeah. And Kennedy, she doesn't have any real plans or rebellion in mind until the town council meeting. Every month, she and Grace have a meeting with the town council where they give little reports and requests to increase the budget for the fire department. A couple of days beforehand, Grace had told Kennedy that she was planning on asking for an increase to her stipend since her responsibilities had increased. Both the chief and the assistant chief get stipends because they're leaders, so they get a little bit of extra money. So Kennedy wasn't surprised when halfway through the town council meeting, Grace makes a case for increasing her own stipend.
36:10 Speaker 00 What Kennedy is surprised by is Grace's response when one of the councilmen asked her where the funds for her increased stipend should come from, because Grace suggests decreasing Kennedy's stipend to make up the difference.
36:25 Speaker 01 Snake in the grass. Wow, that's a bold move.
36:31 Speaker 00 Kennedy's jaw drops. Even some of the Williams on the town council look shocked at Grace's brazenness. And they do that thing that people do in like polite company where they're like, that won't, that won't be necessary.
36:47 Speaker 00 In the moment, Kennedy is just thieving because even though they don't decrease her stipend, they do agree to increase Grace's because we're still in a Williams world.
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38:18 Speaker 00 A month passes in a sort of uneasy stasis, but Kennedy is on high alert, especially when the next town council meeting comes around. Grace has got a new idea. A new idea she has run by no one else in the department. Grace's new idea: the creation of a deputy chief position. To be below Grace, but above Kennedy. Why? Well, because Grace's right hand needs to be able to do everything that Grace can. And at first Kennedy is like, "What the fuck are you talking about?" And then she realized that Grace is proposing Kennedy basically be demoted because Kennedy doesn't want to drive the fire truck. And the thing is, Kennedy would actually be willing to hear that out because she will
39:03 Speaker 00 literally never drive the fire truck. And there are a whole host of qualified people on the crew who can drive the fire truck, who will be great deputy chiefs. But guess who Grace suggests? Elijah Williams?
39:15 Speaker 01 Ay yi yi.
39:17 Speaker 00 The failed son of the Williams clan. Kennedy briefly wonders whether she is hallucinating. But reality reasserts itself when the town council starts seriously considering Grace's proposal. Luckily, the proposal ends up being vetoed for a lack of proper detail. But it's vetoed without prejudice, which means that Grace can flesh out her proposal and present it again at a later meeting.
39:41 Speaker 01 Wow.
39:42 Speaker 00 Kennedy leaves this meeting and tells everyone on the squad who wasn't a Williams, and even a few Williams who happen to be cool. Everyone's in shock. Kennedy cannot believe how fast morale has deteriorated. Coming in for Sunday dinners with the crew used to be one of the highlights of her month, and now she just constantly prays that she never gets called in. And on some level, her prayer is answered because, under the guise of fleshing out her deputy chief proposal, Grace makes a document outlining what firefighters and lead firefighters were allowed to do while on call. You might be asking, what separates a regular firefighter from a lead firefighter? I'm so glad you asked. Largely, it came down to whether or not you could drive the fire truck.
40:26 Speaker 01 Oh, my gosh.
40:27 Speaker 00 What this new document meant in practice is that Grace and her father and a few other select firefighters, who mostly happened to be Williams, got to do the glamorous work of cutting ribbons and kissing babies, rescuing cats from trees and things of that nature. While the rest of the crew had to do the grunt work of scene cleanup, hauling like the heavy, heavy hoses, clearing out Blackberry Bush, which was endemic to the island and just a huge fire hazard. So that was a huge part of their job. How did these jobs sound to you? Which one would you rather do?
41:00 Speaker 01 I mean, cutting the ribbon sounds fun.
41:03 Speaker 00 Kissing the babies. Yeah. Around Thanksgiving, Grace imports a purebred dalmatian for photo ops. And it somehow becomes part of the crew's responsibility to care for it because it's their mascot.
41:17 Speaker 01 Okay, this is too much.
41:19 Speaker 00 While the crew is running around washing the fire truck and cleaning up after the dog, Grace is posting photos with her dad, Elijah, that are captioned with "my favorite firefighter."
41:30 Speaker 01 Damn, she's becoming like a firefighter influencer.
41:33 Speaker 00 Yes, exactly.
41:35 Speaker 01 You know, like she just wants to like, look like she's doing all the glamorous work. Like, let me take photos, let me post on social media. But like, making other people do all the work.
41:45 Speaker 00 Correct. One day, both Kennedy and Grace are on call together and they get called out to a house fire. Let me just say, so no one gets scared, this is still normal gossip, it's not normal disasters, no one's gonna die.
41:58 Speaker 01 Okay, thank God.
41:59 Speaker 00 Kennedy is expecting a little kitchen fire, since that's typically what they're dealing with on the island. But as they round the corner, Kennedy can see these big plumes of black smoke.
42:11 Speaker 01 Oh no.
42:12 Speaker 00 Her heart drops, her adrenaline starts pumping. And it's maybe in this heightened adrenaline state that allows her to recognize that the house they're pulling up in front of is none other than the house of Grace's idiot boyfriend, Sam.
42:29 Speaker 01 Oh no.
42:32 Speaker 00 The island was introduced to Sam a year back when he was trying to cross the channel between the island and the neighboring one on a paddleboard during a huge storm. And he got stranded on a rock.
42:46 Speaker 01 What?
42:47 Speaker 00 So every single island emergency service had to be deployed in the rescue.
42:53 Speaker 01 Oh my gosh.
42:54 Speaker 00 So Sam now also works for Grace's father as a shitty handyman for the shitty little vacation rentals. And now he has somehow managed to start a fire. So the fire truck comes screeching to a halt in front of Sam's house, sirens blaring. And Kennedy can see that the main house seems fine, but there is a detached garage that backs up against the forest. And there's just smoke pouring from under the eaves of the garage.
43:20 Speaker 01 Oh shit.
43:21 Speaker 00 Kennedy looks around, waiting for Grace to leap into action. Have you ever been sent into the flight part of Fight or Flight at the absolute worst moment possible?
43:33 Speaker 01 I don't think I have. I've been in the freeze part quite a lot. That's my go-to stress reaction.
43:39 Speaker 00 Grace has the same one. Grace just freezes.
43:43 Speaker 01 Ay yi yi.
43:45 Speaker 00 Later, Kennedy learns that this was actually Grace's very first real fire.
43:50 Speaker 01 What?
43:50 Speaker 00 But in that moment, Grace is like, "Someone has to do something." And Kennedy is like, "Grace, you have to do something." And the crew is like, "Based on your detailed flow chart, we are not allowed to do something until you tell us to do something." Meanwhile, the fire is spreading. It's leaping into the blackberry bush that Sam has not trimmed from his yard, even though the fire department has sent out so many notices to the island about trimming blackberry bushes on private property. Eventually, Elijah, who also is on call, takes charge as the only other lead firefighter,
44:32 Speaker 00 and they get the fire put out. There's a hole in the roof. The whole garage smells like smoke in a way that Kennedy knows is gonna take months, if not years, to get rid of. But overall, the garage is gonna be fine. Grace spends the whole time sobbing over Sam, who is completely fine, if Kennedy suspects, a little stoned. It's while the crew is cleaning up the scene, which is one of their only duties they're allowed to do without supervision, that they finally figure out what caused the fire. Sam, genius that he is, had blown a fuse trying to use a microwave and a toaster oven at the same time in the detached garage.
45:15 Speaker 00 Which, by the way, was absolutely full of partially charred snacks. Snacks that look just a little bit familiar. No.
45:28 Speaker 01 Wait, the fancy snacks?
45:30 Speaker 00 Correct. Kennedy is looking at some spindrift that she remembers unloading into the firehouse, along with a giant half-melted plastic jar of peanut butter pretzels that she's pretty sure had gone missing a week back. Kennedy is like, is this snack embezzlement?
45:47 Speaker 01 Oh my god. Caught in the act. This is so delicious. This is so delicious.
45:55 Speaker 00 The crew starts gossiping on the ride back to the fire station, which also happens to be when Grace finally stops shaking, crying, and throwing up, and starts yelling. Why did no one do anything? Do you have a "I'm really mad, but I'm not gonna show it. I'm gonna be calm" voice?
46:14 Speaker 01 Oh, well, that's how you know I'm really angry.
46:18 Speaker 00 Can we get a demonstration?
46:19 Speaker 01 Okay, let's see. Rachel?
46:22 Speaker 00 Oh.
46:23 Speaker 01 I'm going to talk to you like I'm totally calm, but I'm actually seething.
46:32 Speaker 00 Yo, I'm scared.
46:35 Speaker 00 When does this voice come out?
46:37 Speaker 01 I mean, it really only comes out with my husband, Kyle, when he's really fucked up.
46:46 Speaker 00 So something in Kennedy kind of just snaps when Grace starts yelling. Maybe it's the specter of snack embezzlement. Maybe it's the fact that they all just spent hours cleaning up the mess of Grace's stupid boyfriend. Whatever it is, it just makes Kennedy go berserk. And by berserk, I mean she puts on her mom voice and very calmly and methodically explains how Grace's changes to the organizational structure of the fire department had led to that day's crisis. Kennedy is so calm, so methodical, that the rest of the crew just starts slowly nodding their head in agreement. By the end of her speech, even Elijah, Grace's father,
47:30 Speaker 00 is mumbling something about change being implemented in increments.
47:35 Speaker 01 Wow.
47:36 Speaker 00 And Grace may be young and perhaps diktatized, but she's not stupid.
47:44 Speaker 00 She's like, you know what? Fine. And she agrees to do a thorough review of her recent changes. And at first Kennedy thinks it's the power of her mom voice, which to be fair, is very powerful. But later Kennedy learns from one of the cool Williams that the family was not pleased with Grace's choice of boyfriend, or that he had embarrassed her so thoroughly. So all of that explains why a few days after the fire at Sam's house, Grace promotes everyone who has served on the fire department for longer than a year to lead firefighter, which at that point is basically everyone. Another reason Kennedy suspects she's giving crumbs is because Grace had been stuck going on call two weeks out of the month because every crew needed a lead firefighter.
48:29 Speaker 00 And under Grace's previous plan, there were so few of them.
48:32 Speaker 01 Right, right.
48:34 Speaker 00 So this quells some of the tension, as does the approach of Christmas. And Christmas on [BLEEP] Island is truly something to behold. Everyone just puts their whole backs into decorating. The island's tree lighting ceremony is one of Kennedy's favorite moments of the entire year. It is so gorgeous. So she's just returned from the tree lighting ceremony. She's in a great mood. She knows she has some cookies at home from a neighbor. When she checks her email and she receives an email, one that she receives every single year, from the town bookkeeper that details the fire department's finances. Except something is different this year. This year, Elijah Williams is CC'd on it.
49:18 Speaker 00 And at first Kennedy actually doesn't think a whole lot of it because there are so many Williams who are in positions of power in the town.
49:26 Speaker 01 Yeah.
49:26 Speaker 00 Emails get swapped all the time. You mean to send it to [email protected] and instead you send it to [email protected] . It happens all the time. So Kennedy just responds back to the town bookkeeper like, "Happy holidays, lovely seeing you with the tree lighting. You've got the wrong Williams CC'd here." And the town bookkeeper responds like, "I don't think so. As deputy chief, Elijah Williams needs to be CC'd on these emails going forward."
49:55 Speaker 01 Oh!
49:56 Speaker 00 Kennedy's like the math lady meme. She's like running calculations in her head.
50:02 Speaker 01 Oh shit.
50:03 Speaker 00 It had been months since Grace originally proposed the creation of the deputy chief position that had gotten vetoed and Kennedy hadn't really heard about it since.
50:13 Speaker 01 Right.
50:15 Speaker 00 Kennedy is like, "It's time to do an investigation. It's time for me to put on my Sherlock Holmes hat and go investigation mode." And by investigation mode, I mean she calls one of her best friends, another nurse at the doctor's office, who also happens to be the island administrator. Small town. And the island administrator had access to the minutes of every single meeting the town council has. So she's able to find out that a few days after the fire at Sam's house, Grace had not only gone back to the town council with a new deputy chief proposal, she had gotten approval for the deputy chief proposal. After Grace got approval for the deputy chief proposal,
51:00 Speaker 00 Grace told the council that she'd already offered the job out to the whole crew and everyone turned it down, except one man, Elijah.
51:11 Speaker 01 Wow. Grace is playing dirty.
51:14 Speaker 00 Kennedy kind of just blacks out for a second. She's so done with this shit. This child is ruining her life. She has one child in her life and that is her preschooler and she's not dealing with anymore. So Kennedy tells the town administrator that no one on the crew had been offered the position, which was paid, by the way, one of the few paying positions on the crew. Kennedy says, "Not only were we not offered this job, none of us were aware that it existed."
51:42 Speaker 01 Hmm.
51:43 Speaker 00 The town administrator tells Kennedy that not much can be done right now because of the holidays, but that Grace will be called in for a meeting with the town council as soon as business opens back up after the new year. We're almost at the end of the story. How are you feeling?
51:58 Speaker 01 I'm still thinking about the snacks.
52:01 Speaker 00 The Himalayan sea salt popcorn?
52:02 Speaker 01 The Himalayan sea salt popcorn, the peanut butter filled pretzels. Grace is going down. That's what I'm crossing my fingers for. Otherwise, there's no justice in this world.
52:15 Speaker 00 Well, luckily, we do have a pretty sick conclusion from our friend of a friend, who told us that as soon as business opened back up after the holidays, Grace was indeed called in for a meeting with the town council. Technically, Kennedy as next in line should have been at that meeting, but the Williams wanted to keep Grace's misdeeds as private as possible, so the meeting was closed to the public. But that wasn't the only meeting Grace had to attend. About 75% of the fire department, the non-Williams half, and then the contingent of cool Williams, were not happy once they heard about Elijah's elevation to deputy chief, not least because he is a fail son at many things.
52:58 Speaker 00 And the non-Williams plus cool Williams had enough of a majority to call for a series of crew meetings with Grace to discuss her blatant act of nepotism.
53:09 Speaker 01 Yes.
53:10 Speaker 00 Except during these meetings, Grace refused to discuss her blatant act of nepotism. She said because of ongoing negotiations with the town council, she wasn't allowed to discuss the future of the deputy chief position. The crews like, "That's okay. We want to talk about the past of the deputy chief position, as in how the fuck did this happen without any of us knowing about it?" But somehow, these meetings never really went anywhere because Grace would just spend her time shitting on the town for lack of vision and budget mismanagement.
53:44 Speaker 01 What?
53:45 Speaker 00 She'd grumble about not being appreciated. Look at all the paperwork she digitized. Look at all the snacks she upgraded. Someone in the back mumbles, "The snacks that were at Sam's house?" And the thing is, there were still enough non-Cool Williams at these meetings that they could easily derail them, which meant that after every single one of these meetings, 75% of the crew would have another meeting, huddled in the parking lot, where they tried to figure out what they would do next.
54:15 Speaker 01 Hmm.
54:15 Speaker 00 Does this just sound like the beginning of a union drive?
54:18 Speaker 01 It really does.
54:20 Speaker 00 But luckily, or unluckily, it didn't get that far. Before they can sign their union cards, there is a morning where Kennedy is kind of just like puttering around her kitchen, getting ready for the day, hanging out with her kid who's at the stage where they're starting to pretend how to read. Kennedy's phone chimes, and it's a text from someone on the crew that contains a Facebook link and the eyes emoji. The link sends Kennedy to Grace's Facebook page, where exactly 24 minutes prior, Grace announced her resignation as chief of the fire department.
54:50 Speaker 01 Oh, my God. Oh, shit.
54:53 Speaker 00 According to Grace's Facebook status, the reason she quit wasn't because her crew was planning to unionize against her, kind of was, because Grace says she's quitting because everyone's been so mean to her. And she just couldn't work in this sort of environment where innovation wasn't prioritized. And besides, Grace said, "The town just refused to fund the fire department properly, and she was fighting an uphill battle. She could not put any more of herself into a thankless job." What do you think of this?
55:24 Speaker 01 Wow. The organizing got the person in power to just fold. She sounds like a tech leader who has been found out and is on their way out.
55:35 Speaker 00 Low-key giving Elizabeth homes.
55:36 Speaker 01 I know, I know, I know, I know. That's so delicious.
55:41 Speaker 00 Kennedy is caught between like relief and disbelief. She scrolls through the comments, which are just a litany of Williamses being like, "You did the best you could, and you've always thought too big for this town."
55:58 Speaker 00 And then there's one comment from Grace's grandfather, Noah Williams, who Kennedy's actually pretty fond of. He's one of the Cool Williams in town. Grandpa Williams comments, "Congrats on getting into University of Washington, sweetie. So proud of my future lawyer. I thought that's why you were quitting."
56:15 Speaker 01 Oh, my God. So that's why she's leaving. Well, at least she'll be gone.
56:24 Speaker 00 Yeah. Yeah, we have one more postscript from our friend of a friend. Do you want to hear it?
56:29 Speaker 01 I would love to.
56:30 Speaker 00 So, our friend of a friend says that she wound up stepping up as chief, but another one of her friends became co-chief with her. Her friend can deal with the equipment and our friend gets to deal with the paperwork.
56:42 Speaker 01 Oh.
56:43 Speaker 00 She gets to be a slut for paperwork.
56:45 Speaker 01 Oh.
56:47 Speaker 00 She says she's still co-chief and loving it. Elijah quit, also in a virulent Facebook post, after a town meeting, because he was mad that they didn't thank the fire crew enough at the meeting.
57:03 Speaker 01 Wow, he's got some deep wounds.
57:07 Speaker 00 That's the end of our story.
57:08 Speaker 01 Oh, my God. What, what a thrill. What a thrill. That had everything. Snack embezzlement, union organizing, nepotism.
57:20 Speaker 00 And we have a really enticing addendum from our friend of a friend, who writes, "If you like the setting of the island, but aren't sure this one is a good fit, I also have a story about a school principal trying to shoot a ghost." So let us know if you want to hear that.
57:37 Speaker 01 There's a lot happening in [BLEEP] Island. Clearly, we all need to go visit.
57:43 Speaker 00 Island life is clearly popping off.
57:49 Speaker 00 Thank you for listening to Normal Gossip. If you have a gossip story to share with us, email us at [email protected] , or you can leave us a voicemail at 2679 gossip. If you love this podcast and want to support us, become a friend or friend of a friend at supportnormalgossip.com. You can follow the show on Instagram and TikTok at Normal Gossip. You can follow me on all social media at HeyDNA, H-E-Y-Y-D-N-A-E. This podcast was produced by Sierra Spragley-Ricks and Jay Tolviera. The co-creators and dourers of Normal Gossip are Alex SuJong-Lawklin and Kelsey McKinney. Justin Ellis is Defector's projects editor. Jasper Wang and Sean Kuhn are Defector's business guys.
58:34 Speaker 00 SuJong Loflin is Defector's supervising producer. Tom Lei is our editor in chief. Dan McQuade runs our merch store, which you can find at normalgossip.store. Tara Jacoby designed our show art. Thank you to Catherine Chu, Brandy Jensen, Louise Paez-Pumar, Chris Thompson, Jasper Wang, Sabrina Embler, Dave McKenna, Patrick Redford, and Ray Rado for your help on this season. Thanks to the rest of the Defector staff. Defector Media is a collectively owned subscriber-based media company. Normal Gossip is a proud member of Radiotopia. I'm your host, Rachel Hampton, and remember, you didn't hear this from me.
59:14 Speaker 04 Radiotopia.
59:17 Speaker 04 From PRX.
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