wallace-thrasher

Alive in '25 (2025)

Track 15: LPC Interview Reverie Archives Show

Runtime: 4223 seconds

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Aliases: Grover

LPC: Hello. Hi, this is Grover from Longmont calling for Michael.
Michael: This is Michael. Hey, how's it going?
Michael: It's going well. How about yourself?
LPC: I'm doing well. Thank you. Doing fine this morning. Had some oatmeal and uh, sorry, I'm a couple minutes late.
Christina: Totally fine. By the way, I'm Christina. I'll be doing most of the talking.
LPC: Thanks, Christina. How are you doing today?
Christina: I'm pretty good. It's evening time here. It's been a good day.
LPC: Are you in Holland as well?
Christina: Yeah, we're sitting next to each other in a really small room.
LPC: Okay. I love Amsterdam. Where are you guys at?
Christina: Yeah, we're in Amsterdam. In Amsterdam Nord. I don't know if you've been there.
LPC: Yeah, sure.
Christina: Yeah. What were you doing here?
LPC: Just visiting and sightseeing and stayed in a renaissance.
LPC: hotel was really, really nice.
LPC: Too nice. I mean, the bed just sucked you in. He barely wanted to get up, but...
Christina: Yeah. Did you even see the city? Did you even get out of bed?
LPC: Oh, God, yes. I did manage to get out of bed.
Christina: So how are you doing? How's a pandemic going?
LPC: Ugh. I'm following along.
LPC: You know, working and then staying at home.
LPC: Yeah.
LPC: I'm not...
LPC: sick, fortunately.
Christina: Yeah, that's great.
LPC: How about you?
Christina: Yeah, it's crazy. We're like the hotspot of Europe right now, but nobody really believes it,
Christina: and I feel like somehow Q'Anon caught on in the Netherlands.
Christina: Like, people don't think masks work, and we get weird letters in the mailbox from people named Orlando
Christina: telling us that there's no dead birds or insects with coronavirus, so it's not airborne.
Christina: It's from a vial, and the government has bought patents on it, so we want to know how many patents they
Christina: bought, and I just...
LPC: Oh, my God.
Christina: It's real.
LPC: Oh, my God. I don't even know how to unpack that one.
Christina: I know. Yeah.
Christina: Yeah.
Christina: Yeah, are you, is this good, like, fodder for calling people?
Christina: Is this a good time since everybody's at home to just pick up the phone and just start
Christina: unleashing?
LPC: By and large, I'd say no.
LPC: I just don't see the response anymore.
LPC: I don't see people answering their phones anymore.
Christina: Really?
LPC: Really?
LPC: Yeah.
LPC: That more than anything else has made it.
LPC: Difficult to continue doing the LPC stuff, but I just persevere.
Christina: Yeah, I guess that's the problem with just the death of the telephone, is it nobody answers or could be bothered to engage in a vocal conversation anymore.
Christina: That's such a bummer.
LPC: Uh-huh. Yes, it is. I mean, everybody has a phone, seemingly, but it...
Christina: All the time.
LPC: But they don't use that feature nearly as much as everything else, so.
LPC: the actual telephonic part, but I don't know.
LPC: I think every walk of life gets hit.
LPC: People in that vocation are forced to adapt and happen to me.
Christina: Yeah, you're now in the territory of obsolete media,
Christina: even though telephones are very much more present than ever.
LPC: I think it's still possible.
LPC: It's just, I mean, definitely gone are the days of the new,
LPC: album per year. I mean, I don't see how that could continue, especially when you're doing
LPC: like double-length albums like I've been doing. Right. But you just released one this year,
Christina: right? Yes. So you think that since then and now it's been a noticeable difference?
LPC: Yeah, a continuation of a difference, you know. But that album, uh, was weird. It just sort of came out
LPC: overnight, which is the first time that's ever happened with me.
LPC: I just gave myself a month to put something together, basically force something out.
LPC: And like the night before, I was thinking, nah, I mean, it was done.
LPC: And then at the last second, I said, okay, yes. And then I just put it out the next day kind of thing.
Christina: Wow. But I think people have been pretty.
Christina: stoked about it, right?
LPC: I think so. I mean, for the longest time, it seemed like nobody would favor anything after volume
LPC: four. It seemed like those first four that was a standard that I got held to for a long time. And then
LPC: after that, it was anything past like nine. And now it's like anything past 13 or 12 is somehow
LPC: the worst or something.
LPC: So I've heard people say, but.
Christina: I definitely don't feel that way at all.
Christina: At all.
Christina: What is it?
Christina: I keep saying it wrong.
Christina: You have a new character in the last one,
Christina: Wacker,
Christina: vecker.
Christina: Well, in Dutch, it's vecker.
Christina: So I keep saying it decker because I'm trying to learn Dutch super fucking hard.
Christina: It's extremely difficult.
Christina: Yes.
Christina: But it's, what is it where?
Christina: And you get that lady,
Christina: when you get people to say the names that you come up with back to you, this to me is
Christina: like pinnacle.
Christina: Like when they adopt,
Christina: the fucking nonsense. That's really when it gets, I don't know, that's for me the best.
LPC: Yes, thanks for me too. Pretty obviously. I enjoy hearing that, getting them to bounce
LPC: it back, you know? Yeah. I always try to get them to say it, but.
Christina: I think you should call, like, the Netherlands. I think you should call people here because everybody
Christina: speaks really amazing English, but kind of funny because the syntax is wrong. And they're,
Christina: they're never going to, like, give up. They'll just.
LPC: Yeah, I'd love to. I need some more digits over there.
Christina: All right. I'll drum some stuff up. I think I think I can help you out.
LPC: No, but you're right. It doesn't have to be U.S. based.
Christina: Yeah, international. It's a globalized world.
LPC: Very much so.
Christina: So we do have like formal questions. I guess I'm just going to launch, launch into it. But I know you're not like a super big fan of going to. I know you're not like a super big fan of going into the,
Christina: the backstory, the origin story, but I don't know, like, I kind of wonder what your parents did
Christina: for a living and like what kind of serial you guys ate or something. Like, what was baby Longmont
LPC: like? Oh. See, military dad and mom was a paraprofessional, which means that she was an assistant to a lot of, you know,
LPC: lawyers, doctors. And it was like that growing up. And I guess around 79, we lived in the
LPC: mountains pretty remotely, my sister and my parents and I, and they had party line. So if you ever
LPC: picked up your landline in your house, chances are good. Somebody in your little community would already
LPC: be on the community phone. You were supposed to hang up and wait, pick it up later. And if they
LPC: were gone, then you could use the phone. So I just listened to my neighbors all the time.
LPC: I think that was about as far back as I could remember. Calling radio stations. I can't
LPC: remember which was first, about the same time. And then as quickly as possible, started recording it
LPC: after that, and frequently until I got serious about recording in general. Yeah, and how did your
Christina: family feel seeing you kind of start as a young type doing this?
Christina: and then keeping up with it, were they like, yeah, that's cool, or?
LPC: No.
LPC: Yeah, once they started gravitating to that, they were just, I was like, would you hang up?
LPC: Get off of there.
LPC: Stuff like that.
Christina: Yeah, wouldn't they have to pay for it?
Christina: Like, weren't they, weren't they calls that they had to pay for?
LPC: Probably.
LPC: In more ways than one.
Christina: Yeah, have you ever prank to your family?
LPC: Yes.
LPC: I found a cassette a little while back.
LPC: I completely forgotten that it existed, but I,
LPC: I don't know. I called my dad and said I was a contractor or something.
LPC: It was so embarrassing. I was like, what were you thinking?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, did he find out, like, immediately? Because he gave birth to you and stuff?
LPC: I don't know. On the tape, he's just, like, stunned, silence. Like, I don't know. He never asked
LPC: if it was me. But, yeah. I forgot about that one.
Christina: I kind of thought about giving you my mom's number, but
Christina: that I kind of don't want to know what, I kind of, yeah, I think that, that they're, it's like a litmus test.
Christina: What kind of person are you really is revealed on these phone calls? And I don't want to really know
Christina: what kind of person she is.
LPC: See, no, if I called your mom, that would be fine.
Christina: Yeah, for you.
LPC: Yeah. And yeah, like you say, if you don't want to ever listen to it, that's fine too.
Christina: Yeah, that's true. That's true. Yeah, she would answer. I'll tell you.
LPC: Nice.
LPC: Let's give her a holler, shall we?
Christina: Yeah, we will.
Christina: Well, actually, we've got material for you just in case, because I know you're saying it's tough
Christina: for to get people on the horn, but...
LPC: Yeah, it is.
Christina: Maybe we can help you up.
Christina: But anyway, we'll get to that in a bit.
Christina: Okay.
Christina: Yeah, I guess I was wondering, when you first started taping these, especially when you were a kid
Christina: and probably not really thinking about where these would end up, were you picturing an audience?
Christina: Or did, who were you thinking you would play these back to?
Christina: Were they just for you?
LPC: Oh.
LPC: there would usually be somebody I would cross paths with as I was working on these things
LPC: and be like, hey, listen to this.
LPC: I remember doing a lot of that.
LPC: Then, like, I'd pop it in my cassette deck and play some for the random people who I'd come across in my room at my house.
LPC: And, yeah, people laughed at it and wanted to hear more of it.
LPC: So there was never any shortage of motivators.
Christina: Yeah.
Christina: So, like, obviously.
Christina: you know that people listen to your tapes and double over and not even breathe at a certain point.
Christina: Does that happen to you?
Christina: Are you playing your own tapes and then having that very visceral physical reaction?
Christina: Or to you, is it just, are you critiquing yourself the whole time?
LPC: Sometimes, yeah.
LPC: It still happens.
Christina: Like live?
LPC: During?
LPC: No.
LPC: Of course not.
LPC: I mean, hey, you know, no.
LPC: But when I'm listening back, sure.
LPC: I just, you know, I can't let that happen.
Christina: Yeah.
Christina: Yeah, how do you not laugh?
Christina: That is the real question.
Christina: What is the muscle in your body that prevents that normal human response?
LPC: I'd probably have to ask an actor.
LPC: It seems like acting.
LPC: Improvisation slash acting, one or the other are both combined.
Christina: Yeah.
Christina: Do you ever get nervous on the call?
Christina: Do you ever call people and feel like this is scary or bad, or I feel bad about what's happening?
LPC: There was the speaking in tongues.
LPC: incident.
LPC: That was weird.
LPC: A bunch of people got on the phone and tried to rebuke Satan.
LPC: They kept saying I was Satan or something.
LPC: So that was weird.
LPC: But no, no moral dilemma.
Christina: And I also just kind of want to ask me more like conceptual questions or theoretical questions.
LPC: Sure.
Christina: Like, do you think,
Christina: do you think prank phone calls have a political purpose?
LPC: In some hands, yeah.
LPC: I see that just says giving a theme to them, which I've tried to sort of attach a theme to them at certain times.
LPC: But usually randomness just prevails and try not to ascribe a theme, whether it be politics or, in my case, it was animal rights at a couple points.
LPC: But those were short-lived kind of thing for me.
LPC: You know what I mean?
Christina: Yeah.
Christina: Although now that you say it, it makes sense because animals do sort of come up a lot.
Christina: And I know you're a vegetarian, so are we.
Christina: So I think it's kind of cool.
Christina: But, yeah, I guess.
Christina: And then I was going to ask you, like, why is there a goat?
Christina: What's the goat all about?
Christina: But then I guess it's an animal thing.
LPC: The goat?
LPC: The lamb, you mean on the covers?
Christina: Oh, the lamb?
Christina: Yeah.
Christina: Yeah.
LPC: Yeah.
LPC: Just needing a cover, not to be too disappointing.
LPC: I didn't really have a message other than just the picture, just the needing a cover.
LPC: I've got more into the covers myself the last few times out.
LPC: I've made slightly more elaborate covers, I think.
Christina: Yeah, for sure.
Christina: I mean, the last couple of ones seem more surrealist, which I guess seems apt,
Christina: because a lot of people describe your calls as surrealist.
Christina: So is that intentional?
LPC: Yeah, there's precedent for it.
LPC: And I feel pretty good about that.
LPC: I feel pretty good about being lumped in.
Christina: with that. Do you think of what you're doing as artful?
LPC: Yes. When I think of it, which I don't always, but sure, I can see that. Just going through
LPC: the time and effort to arrange the recordings and make a record album, just going to that
LPC: extent. Is artful, sure. And not the improvisational part?
LPC: Sure, that too. But I've never been in acting or acting class.
LPC: or in drama club or anything like that.
LPC: But it does seem like some type of acting or something, I guess.
LPC: Never really thought about it.
LPC: Never really thought this through until now.
LPC: And I'm working that out.
Christina: Yeah, I mean, what will happen if you can't make calls anymore?
Christina: What are you going to do?
Christina: I mean, doesn't it sort of encompass a big part of your identity at this point?
LPC: Yeah.
LPC: I'm just coming to terms with.
LPC: that, like I say, it'll probably take longer intervals to put something together at this rate
LPC: to where I couldn't have something ready in 12 months. But I'm still active. I'm not going to put
LPC: out something soon, but I am working on it. I've been doing some other things. There's been a
LPC: couple other things on TV and I was in your movie. Cam. That's already been like, what,
Michael: two years? I think it's been two years now.
Michael: Yeah.
LPC: Yes.
Michael: More.
Christina: It has to be more.
Christina: It was 2017.
Michael: A little over two years.
Michael: What did you think about how that turned out, that project?
LPC: It turned out very well.
LPC: Very well.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
LPC: Yeah.
LPC: Very well done.
LPC: It looked very good.
LPC: Everyone's acting was well done.
LPC: And then I popped in there.
LPC: I liked the way I turned out.
LPC: Fine.
LPC: I thought it was cool.
LPC: Really good.
Michael: It, uh,
Michael: It actually came about because the director and I had been listening to a lot of your albums while we were in the edit.
Michael: Of course, I was doing sound design on it, and we just kept talking about how we needed to add something to the phone operator.
Michael: And since I was playing it, I jokingly said we should just find a way to put Longmont Potion Castle in the film.
Michael: And I think two or three weeks later.
Michael: we were at your home.
LPC: That's terrific.
LPC: How open-minded of you guys to do such a thing.
LPC: And so you can actually, while you're working on your own project, intently like that and painstakingly like that,
LPC: you can listen to other albums and stuff?
Michael: It depends.
Michael: I think every now and then when you're working on something creative, you need some time off, a break.
Michael: Big time.
Christina: I was kind of wondering, sort of, you can still call a lot of businesses, right?
Christina: Like, that's a pretty mainstay trope within your series of Uvres.
Christina: And, yeah, I'm wondering, like, what is your obsession with jargon?
Christina: Why do you love jargon?
LPC: Oh, because, you know, I have to say something.
LPC: Something that, I don't know, is worth saying, but we'll keep them on the line.
LPC: And I just figure you might as well make it interesting, at least to myself.
LPC: And so that comes in the form of funny names and scenarios and things like that that will engage people.
LPC: They're not all keepers, but the ones that are, oh, boy, they sure are.
Michael: Do you have any particular favorites?
LPC: tracks of all time?
Christina: Yeah.
LPC: Oh, so many.
LPC: I really like 10, just in terms of ones I would listen to.
LPC: I would listen to. I would listen to that one, for sure.
LPC: And some of the later ones as well.
LPC: I listened to probably like that first one, like maybe once a year, something like that.
LPC: I still really like it, but it's so old that I just can't.
LPC: bring myself to hear it constantly.
Michael: I think one of our favorites, and I believe it's on volume 10, is Dieter's heat.
LPC: Yeah.
LPC: Yep. Yep.
LPC: Deter.
Michael: Deter.
Michael: What I appreciate about that call and a lot of others is how amenable people are to such an absurd circumstance,
Michael: and such an absurd call.
Michael: And, yeah, maybe that's something we're going to talk about a little bit to you.
Christina: Yeah, I mean, my favorites are always, and maybe this is because I'm a wimp, but the ones where people are kind of nice to you.
Christina: Like, I think, like, Denise Plant, I love her.
Christina: Poor thing.
Christina: She just walked right into it.
Christina: But then she really, she gives you the benefit of the doubt the whole time.
Christina: She just assumes you misunderstood her and that the phone is independently losing his shit.
Christina: And those are neither of those are your fault, and she's going to.
Christina: correct the problem. And I wonder, like, for you, is it better when someone's cooperative
Christina: or when someone's a total asshole? Like, what for you is a better outcome? Well, like you were just saying
LPC: at this point, it's like businesses calling companies where they have someone who's going to, you know,
LPC: try to work it out, work out whatever the situation is and is actually open. I like having that element
LPC: in there, sure, or radio. You know, I'm
LPC: I'll figure it out.
Christina: Yeah.
Christina: Well, we want to give you some phone and versus some recruiters, because I think those are people who always have to answer their phones.
LPC: Let's do it.
Christina: Yeah.
Christina: But, yeah, I guess I was also wondering, partly because I saw that you worked for the labor union in L.A.
Christina: I don't remember which labor union it was.
Christina: because it works sort of differently here.
LPC: Yeah, that was a, that was a misprint.
Christina: Oh, really?
LPC: I'm sure where they got that.
Christina: Yeah, it's in the documentary.
LPC: Yeah.
LPC: Which was not made by me, but.
Christina: Yeah, of course.
LPC: I saw that or something about that.
None: And she was like, huh.
Christina: Oh.
Christina: Well, I guess, but, I mean, it still applies.
Christina: Like, I've read a couple interviews with you where you say, like, when you were a teenager,
Christina: you did whatever possible to never.
Christina: have a job, and now you kind of, like, torture people at their menial shitty jobs.
Christina: I just wonder, like, do you have a, do you have a secret war against, like, labor?
LPC: That's just a coincidence.
LPC: I mean, I definitely wouldn't say I focused on that or anything, but it's all torment, if you want to
LPC: look at it that way, but I don't really look at it that way.
LPC: I'm pretty sure everybody forgets about it eventually.
LPC: And, like, I'm convinced that.
LPC: that I'm the only one who's holding on to anything.
Christina: Yeah, and your fans.
LPC: Oh, yeah.
Christina: Yeah, but I mean, I guess, like, I don't see this torment either.
Christina: I just see it as like an injection of absurdity into the otherwise absurdity of banality of just
Christina: banality of just middle-class American life,
Christina: then suddenly sort of being turned on its head or having a,
Christina: Yeah, just an unreal recalibration or something.
LPC: Sure.
LPC: It'd be pretty great to have somebody on the inside.
LPC: There's been very few times where I've heard the other side, like after the caller hangs up,
LPC: where you get to hear the aftermath on the other side.
LPC: There's been a couple examples of that historically, but I haven't dabbled in that side too much.
LPC: I guess although hidden camera is sort of the same idea, kind of.
Christina: Well, you have those, like,
Christina: public access TV shows that you called, although I feel like they really brushed you off
Christina: very fast.
Christina: I think they always pretended that the call got disconnected or something to not deal with, what did
Christina: you say, like, there's something about a tangerine one, like just, just total nonsense, and they're like,
LPC: the chiropractor, yeah.
Christina: Yeah.
LPC: That was a short-lived show when I was in high school on public TV, and I would always call
LPC: if I missed the bus, the public bus, to go to school, to school.
LPC: and I'd have an extra hour, so I just walked back home and called the show, and I had a tape
LPC: all queued up, and I'd just call it.
LPC: Yeah, and then that tape just sat around for years, and then I had an opportunity to put it out,
LPC: and the guy erased half of it who was working on it.
LPC: So that stuff met kind of a sad demise, but some of it still survived, which is what you saw.
LPC: but there was like an hour of it that got erased.
Christina: I saw you mention that you had a sort of storage unit incident, the asco, where you lost quite a bit of stuff with,
Christina: I feel like there's always a storage unit.
LPC: Yeah, that was the other thing that happened.
LPC: 99% of it was garbage, and I don't care.
LPC: But there was one or two things that were so amazing that were in there that, yeah, I've,
LPC: I've never forgotten that as a result from the late 80s.
LPC: But, yeah, this didn't survive that storage war.
LPC: Yeah, how did you know about that?
Christina: I don't, I mean, I've read, I've been reading a lot of interviews.
Christina: I've been scouring the internet.
LPC: Oh, okay.
Christina: You know, I'm trying to be prepared.
Christina: I'm, you know, I'm a little nervous, I guess, I don't know, just try to be prepared.
LPC: Oh, no, that's good.
Christina: Yeah.
Christina: I've been listening for a long time, so it makes you nervous, I guess, but trying to be very dutiful,
Christina: but I think that's probably not the right move when interviewing you, but whatever.
LPC: Good job.
Christina: Thank you.
Christina: I really appreciate that.
None: Yeah.
Christina: Yeah, sometimes I just really need to hear that, actually.
Christina: But I was wondering if you could maybe elaborate on what you think makes a really good name.
Christina: and how you come up with, these names that seem on their face very normal and realistic,
Christina: but then upon any, like, further inspection, just are somehow on their own hilariously funny.
Christina: Like, what's the name generation scheme?
LPC: I would just have to tell you the two most recent ones I thought up.
LPC: We could sort of analyze those.
LPC: They are Humphrey Sandal and Morris Mango.
LPC: Those are the two most recent ones.
LPC: recent characters I've thought of, if you want to call them that, characters.
LPC: So, Humphrey Sandal, just wonderful combination.
LPC: And Morris Mango sounds like a, I picture a guy in sandals, oddly, oddly, with Morris Mango.
LPC: So, not sure where those came from, to be perfectly frank.
Christina: I feel like Morris Mango is like a Florida grifting.
Christina: who's trying to sell you a snake on Craigslist.
Christina: That's what he sounds like to make.
LPC: A big old snake.
Christina: Yeah.
Christina: Yeah, like that he caught in Everglades.
Christina: Like, not even a pet snake.
LPC: You know, those huge snakes like that, they come off the ground when they're walking around.
SPEAKER_05: What?
LPC: Yeah.
SPEAKER_05: I don't even understand.
LPC: They don't just wiggle around the floor.
LPC: Like those 18-foot snakes and stuff, they're like whole front half comes off the ground.
LPC: They, like, look around.
LPC: stuff. They're crazy.
Michael: Was that the snake in
Michael: Little Egypt when you call the
Michael: Midwestern
Michael: veterinarian as
Michael: ape man? Oh, my God.
LPC: There was a store in Colorado
LPC: that I used to go to called Reptillion
LPC: Haven, and they had
LPC: one of those
LPC: just whatever,
LPC: Ball Python, whatever the huge ones are, and it would just
LPC: walk around the store, and it was like 16 feet
LPC: long. Just be coming down the aisle.
LPC: It's crazy.
LPC: So I go in there and, like, look at bugs
LPC: and shop with that huge snake walking around.
LPC: It was crazy.
LPC: They're long gone, but that was a trippy place.
Michael: Yeah, I'm actually, I'm curious because you seem to have
Michael: so many wonderful local shops that you must have called a lot in the beginning.
Michael: Were any particular ones that you really enjoyed calling?
Michael: And how many times you were able to call them before they just stopped answering?
LPC: Oh, God, in the old days, like on the first one, like at the mall.
LPC: I'd call places in the mall a lot, local mall or record stores.
LPC: Just a lot of random people out of the phone book, which the white pages,
LPC: they used to have just tons of people with landlines who are paying for it,
LPC: so they would probably answer it.
LPC: And I don't even know if those phone books exist anymore, to be honest,
LPC: because they don't publish them for cell phones.
LPC: I don't know what ever happened to those white pages.
Christina: I think they're just very.
Christina: businesses now.
LPC: Yeah, yellow pages, right?
Christina: Yeah.
LPC: So there you go.
LPC: I just got to call businesses all the time.
Christina: Yeah.
Christina: It's a sinking ship.
Christina: It's good to leave now.
Christina: You might as well start calling other places.
LPC: Long overdue.
Christina: Yeah.
Christina: I was wondering if you ever record with an audience,
Christina: I think Michael mentioned that you're married, and I wonder if your wife likes to sit in,
Christina: just hear what you're up to.
LPC: There was one where she did.
LPC: That was the one.
LPC: neighborly Melange is the name of it where I was talking about the guy and his kettle drums and
Christina: Wow, that one's such magic.
Christina: Did you just think, holy shit, how is this happening?
LPC: Yes.
LPC: And she was sitting there the whole time.
LPC: I had a cable, which allowed for two sets of headphones, and I was basically testing it.
LPC: I was like, here, put these on, and then I dialed some numbers.
LPC: Someone sent me, and then that happened.
LPC: For like 15 minutes, so.
Christina: That guy's kind of great, though, I think.
LPC: I don't know what was happening there.
LPC: Somebody gave me that guy's number.
LPC: I had never talked to him before, but he seemed kind of in tune with it, oddly.
LPC: Maybe he's just funny, or maybe those things were true.
LPC: I can't tell what's going on there.
Christina: Yeah, so you didn't already know that he had coy fish and just sold his kettlebells.
LPC: No, I don't even know who he was.
LPC: And I think that was more.
LPC: of the technology of the time.
LPC: You'd have to record on your answering machine and just turn the volume up kind of thing for people
LPC: to hear it, but now those don't get really get used anymore.
LPC: So it's more of a quote unquote studio endeavor at this point.
Christina: Yeah.
Christina: Yeah.
Christina: Yeah, also sometimes you have these tracks that are, they really deviate from like the phone call format.
Christina: Like I'm thinking specifically about Walrus, where you're clearly editing a bunch of calls together
Christina: and even looping some stuff.
Christina: how do you like sort of navigate when you're going to intervene as an editor on these calls
LPC: or just sort of let them ride like walrus yeah so those are just kind of like fun with rhyming
LPC: seems like it adds to the confusion so yeah i would say if i ever appeared on any of those
LPC: types of recordings it would be an accident that got left in there i try not to appear too much in those
LPC: those are so fun they also take about a week to make but they're really fun what what takes
LPC: so long just because there's so much work connecting places with things that rhyme it's very time consuming
LPC: but i really i really enjoyed doing it so probably because i don't have to talk so much it's everyone
LPC: else doing the work and i'm just sort of managing it you know yeah yeah for sure the best part of
Christina: of that documentary for me was when you got all those radio shacks on the phone together
Christina: just so so crazy that it really does become this sort of uh strip mall across america just
Christina: cannibalizing itself it could be any strip mall just imploding like a black hole it's amazing
LPC: thank you or uh on that other one omniprong which is a lot like that uh you have two stores with
LPC: employees with the same name so it's just really mind boggling at some point yeah it's like a
Christina: feedback loop of reality big time big time i i i know uh i know uh i know like your your tech
Christina: has evolved over the years and some people think like you're you're two people because your voice kind
Christina: of changed at some point yeah i can't help that yeah i mean i don't think it could be two people it's
Christina: obviously there's just one mind but uh how do you feel like your calls have has evolved over the years
LPC: other than like very technical thing other than the technical side um i don't know i was talking
LPC: to a guy the other day before an interview and he said that he thought the last couple of albums were
LPC: mature which for prank calls i thought was very interesting but that was the word he kept using so
LPC: when that comes out in print i'll point to it and show you okay cool yeah i guess i i
Christina: sort of understand what he's saying in that maybe there's like a i don't know like like you hit a stride
Christina: of some kind but i think maturity should be really removed from the vocabulary when describing calling
LPC: a radio track well thank you i noticed you didn't say i was tired sounding
LPC: you said it sounded like i hit a stride so yeah i definitely take that over over that
Christina: i don't i don't why i have no intention of like that is not something like that would benefit me in
Christina: anywhere i'm a big damn thank you yeah no i don't think you sound tired i'm actually pretty surprised
Christina: to hear you say that it's been getting difficult just because you've released like i think two in
Christina: 2016 and then one every year since which i i i i
LPC: actually thought you were maybe like ramping up oh yeah um you know you might think that
LPC: because of the pandemic i would just be doing that all day um and there have been days where i
LPC: tried for a lot of time and i just didn't get anything really worth hearing i have a bunch of stuff
LPC: and i guess i should mention i have a bunch of stuff with Alex Trebek on it still um and i'm very
LPC: that he's gone uh so i just don't know what will happen with that but there's a lot of
LPC: great stuff with Alex Trebek that i still have that uh is new so yeah i feel like that's a
Christina: you can honor him with a with a comp or something just because he always comes across as a pretty
Christina: stand-up guy i think he's he comes across pretty glowingly it's a loving thing you know
Christina: at least what the ones i've heard are always just him explaining to other people what madness they
Christina: have just been you know hooked into without ever leaving it like he doesn't hang up or anything
LPC: he just patiently right and all the new stuff is very much like that they're just different examples of it
LPC: but the same attitude for sure his explanations have just gotten better too so it's all fine
Christina: yeah he he donated over his lifetime like 62 acres of land to like the public park service of
LPC: California right i think he's a kind of sweetie yeah yeah there was one time i mean well after i had been
LPC: calling him for a while where i call them and he answered the phone hi is sweetie he's just so
LPC: open about talking to people wow obviously he thought i was
LPC: his wife or someone calling him but you get what i mean right why would he think that
LPC: well i mean he just he was expecting a call i figured i mean why else would he say that yeah or maybe
Christina: she doesn't give him her number so it's always a surprise yeah he gets sweeties from unknown numbers
Michael: all the time yeah you were the fourth sweetie that day that could be could very well be i don't know
LPC: i was just very uh it's a good example of his demeanor yeah and now that uh
Christina: that he's gone rest in peace of course are there any particular celebrity white whales or not
Christina: celebrity fuck it they could be anybody but any any people that you just wish you could call well i've
LPC: said before bill cosby but i'm sure he would just be mute because that seems to be his approach um
LPC: maybe um i got a bunch of uh politico numbers recently and talked to a couple people
LPC: like that um which was interesting um to tell you the truth i'd be perfectly happy with a bunch
LPC: of obscure folks to be honest i never tried to attain any quote celebrity numbers they
LPC: just sort of fell from the sky and so i called them but i'm just as happy i'm just as
LPC: happy with just other crazy people i'm sure there'll be some other quote celebrity who
LPC: appears in fact i could almost guarantee it yeah i think didn't you get a alpuccino's number from
LPC: danny yes i just haven't been able to connect
LPC: which i need to uh persevere with because that would be great
Christina: yeah what a voice no one like it's unmistakable
LPC: i won't even try to do an impression can you do impressions uh sometimes if i'm in i can do
LPC: sometimes john travolta from from welcome back carter that era yeah stuff like that just like a couple
LPC: words never like you know full paragraphs worth of words just a couple words here and there
Christina: Sean Connery's John Travolta things like that yeah I also do John Travolta from welcome back Carter all the
Christina: time you do yeah can you do horshack or no he's kind i'm not very good
Christina: impersonations i just and that was my favorite show growing up i watched her a lot but i always say
Christina: hey mr kata or so stupid why are doing this yeah so i appreciate early tovolta yeah uh okay so i
Christina: I also think like the Politico stuff is kind of great and it's a little late now obviously
Christina: but there's just such a fever pitch in america whenever elections come i feel like you could just call
Christina: uh campaign headquarters for politicians they will always take a call especially if you pretend in any way
Christina: to be a part of the press i feel like yeah i don't know there's there's probably a lot of people
Christina: waiting for for phone calls time you could get a two campaigns
Christina: just calling each other you could loop them into each other oh that would rule democrats
LPC: and republicans if they're not going to reach across the aisle i'm going to reach across for them and
Christina: i'm going to make it happen you could save america from my basement yeah i think that's uh i think that's
Christina: honestly the only hope we have anymore so how often do people think you're bill murray uh
Christina: i've never really heard that what i was convinced for years you were bill murray
LPC: he's he's such a midwestern guy and i don't know i've grown up in the southwest
LPC: most of my life so it's it seems different to me southwest midwest seems a little different to me
Christina: i kind of i feel like i really want to find bill murray's number just to prove myself right and have
Christina: have you talked to him just because i i feel crazy now but i really i would
Christina: play like your voice next to his voice and just completely i was convinced
Christina: michael actually was the first person to let me down when he met you and you were at bill
Michael: mary oh i'm sorry but i still wasn't sure after i did meet you yeah yeah because i've never
Christina: met bill murray so i guess jury's still out yeah that's true yeah so so since you're you're bringing up
Christina: like sort of accent differences but also just regional differences
Christina: do you feel like calling all over the country for this long you figured out what
Christina: who america is especially in different parts of the country like do you know now how a
Christina: a southerner will respond versus a a west coast guy yeah i know what you mean when i when i
LPC: switch gears and get into a new area code i pretty much know what i'm going to be getting
LPC: what i you know when i'm prepared to hear at that point when i move into uh louise
LPC: New Orleans area versus like uh Saskatchewan Canada for instance either of those cases i
LPC: kind of know what I'm going for and at points like that it makes me feel like I am working it
LPC: sort of is in a musical context like I know what tone I want to hear for this particular moment in time
LPC: so then you add in people from New Orleans people from Canada you know stuff like that or
LPC: painting perhaps get into a new hue here different tinge right here for a little bit
LPC: you can do whatever you want in your world that's bob ross used to say stuff like that yeah
LPC: yeah i definitely know what you mean like uh people from canada maybe a little more single coil you know
LPC: people from new jersey may be more of a humbucker kind of sound if you like uh do you think that
Christina: Over three decades of prank calling has given you hope for humanity or left you with dread.
LPC: That's a fair question.
LPC: I think there's no doubt that attitudes are changing or have changed since 1988
LPC: when the first record came out.
LPC: I think that that's been made clear people's attitudes are changed and are changing.
LPC: do I still feel dread yes
LPC: I would say just enough to make me want to continue
LPC: and it's not as
LPC: all encompassing as it surely can be
LPC: at times so
LPC: my point to put it in other words is that I am trying to move forward
LPC: and I have not retired
LPC: is what I'm trying to say
Christina: yeah I mean
Christina: retirement age in America is like 84 now so
Christina: you got off
Christina: You got a long way to go.
LPC: That's true.
LPC: I'm only 54, so no.
Christina: That's not true.
LPC: I'm not 54 either.
Christina: No, actually, what's your, what's your birth sign?
Christina: When were you born?
LPC: Cancer, rat,
LPC: depending on what country you're talking about.
Christina: Mm-hmm.
Christina: What kind of rat, do you know?
LPC: No.
LPC: In China, I would be the rat.
LPC: In America, I would be the crab.
Christina: Yeah.
Christina: Yeah, but they have like fire rats or iron rats.
Christina: I don't know.
Christina: They have like, they have a different ones.
LPC: Which is odd since I have a rat phobia.
LPC: It's unfortunate.
LPC: It just comes from, you know, I've lived in rat infested places before,
LPC: and that sucks.
Christina: Yeah.
Christina: We have a mouse problem here.
Christina: But they're very tiny and kind of cute.
None: Yeah.
LPC: Yeah, get a cat.
Christina: Yeah.
Christina: Yeah.
Christina: Yeah.
Christina: We know.
Christina: Yeah, I guess I'm also wondering, like, is it sort of a lull in the calls making you focus more on music?
Christina: Has there been an uptick in that to counterbalance?
LPC: That's a good question.
LPC: I do have some great, I guess you'd say collage rock that I usually include on the
LPC: Longmont Records.
SPEAKER_05: Mm-hmm.
LPC: I've got some great new LPC theme songs that are really cool.
LPC: And some calls.
LPC: I just don't have enough to put out anything right now.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
LPC: That could change because I am trying.
LPC: But, yeah, some of the collage stuff that I've got, it's great.
LPC: I have a really strong sample bank at the moment.
LPC: I'm constantly saving samples up just from everywhere I go.
LPC: Everyone I talk to, I'm recording all the time.
LPC: and I throw it all in there.
LPC: And these two new tunes are really cool.
Christina: You've released that stuff on its own before, right?
LPC: Yeah, that's true too.
LPC: I'd sort of pictured putting it on LPC18 and having it be on there.
LPC: That's what I sort of saw happening with it.
LPC: But so we'll see.
LPC: It is true.
LPC: I haven't been making anything happen, but I have put out stuff with other people and a couple
LPC: limited edition things and stuff.
LPC: And a couple of limited edition things and stuff.
LPC: And a couple of things.
LPC: new tracks here and there
LPC: this year.
LPC: That's kind of what I've been doing.
LPC: Plus,
LPC: custom calls like birthdays, weddings,
LPC: that kind of stuff.
LPC: I've done marriage proposals.
LPC: I've done happy birthdays.
Christina: Is this an ad? Are you doing an ad right now?
LPC: No, I'm being serious. That's what I've been doing.
Christina: Do you want to do an ad? Do you want to let people know that you're available?
LPC: Sure.
LPC: You go to Longmont Potientcastle.com.
LPC: calm and let me know what you've got going on.
LPC: I'd love to hear about it.
Christina: Yeah.
Christina: I guess I also wanted to talk a little bit about the adult swim sort of thing that never took off.
LPC: Oh, gosh.
Christina: Yeah.
LPC: That's fine.
LPC: I feel like I've talked about that a lot, but sure.
Christina: Well, not specifically that, but just like, I don't know, what do you think it means
Christina: when places like adult swim or vice, which are at this point, like, extremely mainstream,
Christina: want something really underground, but then also kind of want it to be very profitable
Christina: and organized and basically have none of the tenants of anything that is also underground.
Christina: Like, what do you think about that kind of relationship?
LPC: I think it's very hard to talk about for me personally, because it gets into just this legal area.
LPC: I mean, when you're dealing with networks, I mean, of course it does.
LPC: So you can't skirt around it.
LPC: You can't sort of fudge anything.
LPC: It's just very clear at that point.
LPC: So I understand the legality of it.
LPC: And then if you wanted to get into it, I mean, then that's when they bring in voice actors and do recreations and stuff like that.
LPC: Nothing I'm interested in doing.
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
LPC: You know what I mean?
LPC: So that's all it was.
LPC: It was a legal thing as far as I know.
LPC: Neil Hamburger's answer was.
LPC: much better on why the same thing happened to him, the exact same thing, befell him.
LPC: And when asked about it, he said, they blamed the lighting.
LPC: They said it was bad lighting.
LPC: We had the best lighting people in the business, so that doesn't make any sense.
Michael: Yeah, that's a perfect Neil Hamburger response.
LPC: I'm just like, whatever.
Christina: Do you think then, like you said that that that just doesn't interest?
Christina: you the voice acting and all that's the dubbing and recreation.
Christina: So then, I mean, you're pretty clear about what does interest you.
Christina: And there's a lot of recurring themes and sort of through lines in all of the records as far as I can tell.
Christina: So I just wonder, like, do you have a thesis?
Christina: Do you think, like, this is, there is an LPC thesis statement that you try to hold on to?
LPC: If there was, it would just be the only thing that I am interested in expending energy on is
LPC: recording new material.
LPC: And that's pretty much it.
LPC: And when I have to, making a record cover.
LPC: But anything else, like social media or reenactments or promotion, or just anything else I just have no energy for or interest in doing,
LPC: it's just making the recordings.
LPC: That's all I really care about.
LPC: And that aspect of it is definitely the thing I'm most interested in.
LPC: And that's good because it takes a lot of time.
LPC: and energy and concentration to create this stuff.
LPC: So I would say that bodes well for me.
LPC: Everything else can just wait as far as I care, you know.
Christina: Yeah.
Christina: I also saw that you had some videos that you uploaded earlier this year on your website.
Christina: And I'm wondering, is that like a new direction you're going in making videos?
LPC: I thought those were up there for years or a long time.
LPC: And then somebody pointed out that they weren't or they only,
LPC: were if you had a certain kind of browser. I don't know. So I basically just reconfigured it.
LPC: It's the same thing. They've been up there for a long time. Do you know what those were?
LPC: Those were backgrounds when I would do live performances. Very rarely. I think like 06 through
LPC: 08 or 9 or something. I did a lot of that. But rarely since and obviously not anymore now. But yeah,
LPC: I did live performances. And those were the backgrounds at venues that had big screens. I would put those up.
LPC: they were just things that I put together to take advantage of that environment.
LPC: But yeah, I'm 99% an audio person.
LPC: That's what I spent time learning and like 1% video.
LPC: So anything I've made video-wise has been rudimentary.
Christina: Well, and the covers.
Christina: You do the covers.
LPC: Oh, yeah, and the covers.
LPC: Those aren't bad.
Christina: Yeah, I like them.
LPC: Those are pretty good things.
LPC: But yeah, that's like one.
LPC: percent of what I, I know just enough to do what I need to do with video kind of stuff.
Christina: Yeah. I'm guessing you're saying, obviously, you couldn't do the live shows now because
Christina: everybody would have their phone out and would be a total nark, but.
LPC: No, I mean, because of the pandemic.
Christina: Oh, right. Oh, fuck. I always, yeah, they're right. I totally, um,
LPC: people had cell phones in 06. I didn't care. I was far away. I was on stage, you know, so it didn't
LPC: bug me, but there's videos of those. I did some touring at that point. It was sort of like a
LPC: farewell tour at the time, but it didn't stick. So I just came right back like a year later and made
LPC: another album and like, do-to-do, here I am again. You're like Cher. I'm a lot like Cher. I'm a lot like
Christina: share. I hope so. I'm Armenian. Are you? No. Oh. Well, totally you know that she's Armenian.
LPC: Share's cool, though.
Christina: Yeah, I'm a big fan.
Christina: I'm literally looking at a picture of her right now.
LPC: Her buttocks.
LPC: What's it?
Christina: Yeah, Cher got her first tattoo when she was 27.
Christina: I always think that's kind of a cool.
Christina: Cool fact.
Christina: She got divorced from Sonny Bono and immediately got a tattoo
Christina: over her ass.
LPC: That's a good way to spend 27.
Christina: Yeah.
Christina: Well, I guess I was asking about the live performances,
Christina: just because, yeah, there's documentation of it online,
Christina: But for you, is it, was it nerve-wracking to have to kind of be on?
Christina: Like, what if, it's such a risky, both improvisational, but also sort of outside of your control.
LPC: Oh, okay. I should back up here.
LPC: The live performances were musical.
LPC: They weren't spoken word.
LPC: They weren't prank calls.
Christina: But they have the prank calls in the videos.
Christina: So those are just, you just edited something else separately.
Christina: Because you have, like, town.
Christina: That's true.
LPC: There were like 30-second interludes.
LPC: between the thrash metal songs.
LPC: All I did was play guitar.
LPC: I just played the songs, the thrash songs from the albums.
LPC: It was my way of, yeah, I had the opportunity to tour,
LPC: and I had a box set out at the time.
LPC: So I was just sort of going with the flow and performing and promoting that box set
LPC: by doing a musical performance.
LPC: Yeah.
LPC: Since then, I have done live calls remotely for live audiences.
LPC: mostly revolving around the documentary, the movie that came out, where I was asked to do that.
LPC: And I did that.
LPC: Across North America, I made remote calls for live audiences at venues across Canada and USA.
LPC: So I have done that, too, to answer your question.
LPC: And as you would expect, a lot of people did not answer, which is exactly why I avoided doing it for 30 years.
LPC: and then it had its good points.
LPC: And I did Q&A with the audience.
LPC: And it was a lot of fun for the most part.
Christina: How would you, the Q&As, is it difficult to remain anonymous or to maintain anonymity
Christina: when you're sort of directly in contact with the people that are fans of yours?
Christina: Is that a difficult distance to maintain?
LPC: Yeah, it's pretty much impossible.
LPC: But, I mean, if the people are there, they bothered to come all the way out there to your show.
LPC: then that's fine.
LPC: Just in the case of a magazine article or on a website or something,
LPC: I was never interested in going beyond that.
LPC: I went to one movie premiere of the documentary,
LPC: and I even did a meet and greet at that.
LPC: And I thought that was great.
LPC: I had a tall boy and just talked to a huge group of people all at once.
LPC: It was fun.
LPC: I had a lot of fun.
LPC: That was in Los Angeles.
LPC: and that was the one time I went to one of these movie screenings.
LPC: And I'm glad I did it.
LPC: Everyone was super cool.
LPC: So I was happy with the way that turned out for sure.
Christina: Yeah, I mean, I can see sort of being anonymous for so long
Christina: has also meant that you couldn't really bask in, yeah,
Christina: the sort of subculture that you've created as much as you would
Christina: if you were, you know, sort of out in the open
Christina: and could openly meet people at any given moment.
Christina: So did it go to your head?
Christina: when you finally had, like, fans in the room?
LPC: Oh, maybe.
LPC: Maybe a little bit.
LPC: It was fun.
LPC: I just had a good time,
LPC: and I really enjoyed talking to everyone that was there.
LPC: I was honored,
LPC: and I was surprised how many people came to it.
LPC: I was just happy.
LPC: I mean, I could see it potentially going to my head,
LPC: but for the day in question, I was just happy.
Christina: Yeah, how do you feel about being sort of a,
Christina: a legend, I guess.
Christina: I mean, it sounds silly, right?
Christina: Because I think you're described in a lot of interviews, and I can hear it now.
Christina: Like, you just seem like a pretty, and I don't want to say normal.
Christina: I don't even know what that word means, but just eating keeled kind of person and a person that I could probably run into at the grocery store and think, okay, that's a nice man or something.
Christina: But then you just have so many people all over the world obsessed with what you do.
Christina: How does that feel?
LPC: it feels surprising um i was prepared to do this anyway if everybody didn't care about it
LPC: and i know most people don't but that there are people who do i i i'm happy about that and i'm happy about that
LPC: and i'm surprised it just sort of hinges for me on my ability to continue doing it in a way because that's the main thing
LPC: like I said is that I'm concerned with is just doing the actual recording that was my interest in the
LPC: first place that's still my only interest in it is making enjoyable recordings and as long as I can
LPC: continue to do that somehow I'm happy with the whole thing but it is in a slump right now as I say because
LPC: it's just it's just an arduous process trying to get people on the phone for the time being that could change
LPC: stay the same i just got to adapt i think again yeah how how do you bring longmont to
Christina: to tick to incorporate anime somehow yeah yeah diversify monetize
LPC: you have to disrupt i saw a band on the internet had a song called longmont potion castle as a
LPC: sell out what yeah and i listened to
LPC: it but um it was just noise whatever i didn't tell if they had lyrics but it's like i have
LPC: done such a bad job at trying to monetize i don't have a youtube channel i don't put it out there
LPC: you know i don't organize it online i'm not doing a lot of the social media about it you know it's
Christina: like what do you want for me so yeah yeah i mean i guess you probably only make money off the record sales
Christina: pretty undermined by all the hundreds of people posting your stuff online right that's just
LPC: the way i've always done it because i'm old and i just make make recordings cassettes were the only
LPC: things i had when i started so that's what i made you know but like i say i'm happy that i'm
LPC: interested in continuing and i am interested in continuing and that's what i'm currently working on
LPC: in addition to the the whole pandemic thing is so weird and it hasn't been terribly
LPC: conducive to recording phone stuff i know it seems like it probably would be
LPC: it just hasn't felt right not at first and then not now with everything going on and it just hasn't been
LPC: a great time for it so yet another reason i'm looking forward to coming out the other side from
LPC: COVID like everybody else on earth yeah you're probably the only person on earth like
Christina: really focused on this coming to an end so you can get back to prank called yeah i will buy that
Christina: yeah and maybe it's just not as funny right when when when nerves are afraid and people are just
Christina: isolated and freaking out all the time it's just not yeah it doesn't have the levity no you know you know
LPC: people crying i mean my god be ridiculous don't be ridiculous uh i've cried to your
Christina: tracks a lot well in a good way i hope yeah like that moment where i realize i haven't had oxygen in like 10
Christina: minutes and i and i and then my body starts breaking down and doing things like crying or peeing i don't
Christina: know i love it like thank you yeah no seriously thank you um um um
Christina: um absolutely i think you're you're you're a pretty concise answerer in these interviews i kind of figure that because of uh well all the interviews that i read but you kind of uh you like to stick to the stick the issues i guess um oh actually my my uh my boyfriend he's a dutch dutch guy he wanted to ask you a question sure um he wanted to know uh what genre of music you think has the most virgins i apologize has the most what virgines virgines
LPC: virgins like what music has the people you know getting laid the least okay what genre of music has the most virgins yeah uh i love holland um maybe like disney teen pop kind of stuff i mean that was really big a few years ago i i probably
LPC: still is i actually encountered large groups of people of kids dressed like the jonas brothers talking about the jonas brothers
LPC: really interested in gossip about those guys which i just thought was ridiculous so probably that i thought that was
LPC: really lame well also they have like a problem in hollywood at the copy shop or the grocery store you just hear some of the stupidest stuff
Christina: i swear well just like they got famous because they promised not to have sex yeah so that's a good that's a pretty pretty logical answer i think that's a good i'll let him know i asked him if he had any questions for you and this was all he had so but it's it's really uh it's probably a translation issue you know his english
LPC: oh yeah trying to sing along with uh dutch bands in the past has been interesting but there's several of them i like a lot so um
LPC: it's a neat language really neat language i can imagine that'd be really freaking hard
Christina: it is really hard by the way it's the hardest language i've ever tried to learn it's very
Christina: questioning anyway um we had some kind of specific questions but these are these are um very into the
Christina: weeds guess how did you find the dirk and josh kid oh well i i tried to explain that on the on the album i put
LPC: his original voicemail that he left me at my office um where he says who can i talk to to
LPC: get my music out there where i become famous um he sounded like he's maybe like eight years old or
LPC: something i don't know he sounds really young and uh i just called back the number he left and i kept
Christina: getting his mom and yeah what would you have done if he picked up like how how would it have been
Christina: different if you actually got in touch with josh
LPC: I think there's a good chance it may have never come out or been used it was just funny that he
LPC: you know that's what he thought to do when he got a hold of his mom's phone and then he clearly wasn't
LPC: allowed to use it because she you know kept answering it so it just worked out in such a way
LPC: that i thought yeah this is interesting i'll include this yeah man imagine being a child
Christina: who accidentally gave his home phone number to one of the most prolific prank callers
LPC: of all time yeah i was at work so that was pretty unprofessional of me but i was on the way out i
Christina: didn't care anymore is having a job been uh an impediment to to getting this work done is it like
Christina: you just want to focus on this and jobs are just what you need to pay the bills oh man that has
LPC: definitely been the case at times this is how crazy about it i was
LPC: there's been times when i would get a new job and i would start it and i would be there and i'd be like
LPC: i just i just can't do this i have to go home and record because i knew what a golden opportunity it was
LPC: everybody was answering the phone all day long they just were so that's what i would do i would just ditch
LPC: work basically like on my first or second day and just go back to it so that longmont two could come out
Christina: that's what i was doing why did you even apply that it takes so much effort to even ask for a job
LPC: yeah uh i i remember i was hired in a wave like along with a bunch of other people at the phone
LPC: company at that point and uh i definitely used that to my advantage there were so many of us
LPC: and it was such a large place with such a big building that i would just sign out at a later time
LPC: time than it really was and leave and i would do that most of the time what what phone company
LPC: like what was it a phone baking job or uh it doesn't exist anymore but yeah it was it was a local
LPC: phone company who sold things like call waiting and three-way calling and voice messaging and
LPC: stuff like that caller id ironically
Christina: that's great i can't imagine if a person was calling this company to get caller ID because
Christina: they'd been harassed all the time by you by the same person who was selling them caller ID
LPC: that may have happened because there were times where i actually did do my job believe it or not
LPC: one interesting outgrowth of that is i met a girl who was hired at the same time as me
LPC: and we did all of training together for weeks and then on the last day of training i was talking
LPC: to her in the elevator and she's like yeah i quit i'm not going to show up for my first day i'm
LPC: out of here i'm like oh okay well it's nice meeting you and her name is passion so on monday i
LPC: started uh using passions uh suddenly absent phone line to send out some weird samples and
LPC: stuff just to get everybody uh to respond like covertly i don't know if that makes sense no but i made
LPC: some weird recordings like that because nobody knew she was quitting except me so
LPC: so i used her extension to send out bizarre samples to like a thousand people all at once
LPC: in the corporate world and then log on anonymously and record their responses so i'm always trying
LPC: people i am always trying to make this stuff happen it's a lot of work but you must have a huge
Christina: archive at this point right you must just have like salinger or something just most of your work is unreleased
LPC: oh at this point it's i mean it's pretty out there at this point you know that passion stuff
LPC: does exist uh i think it's called tell a choice if you ever wanted to hear it michael's nodding
Christina: with a knowing look very enthusiastically michael's heard it well yeah see i trained with the
LPC: girl to become an operator she never started but she never told anyone but me so that when i did
LPC: did start she had a extension that was no longer in use
LPC: and i secretly sent out like weird audio samples over her line and then would wait a few
LPC: hours and then log back on to her extension and record people's replies which were increasingly
LPC: mad and angry um about receiving these and then i forward the replies out to everybody it was uh
LPC: it was a little chaotic in there and no one knew who did it so we had another question about
Christina: someone that you you pranked a lot how did you find uh the person from need to borrow
LPC: a broom need to borrow a broom it gets on volume seven seven oh the interloper yes yes oh
LPC: he was another person who would call my office in hollywood california and uh yeah you get all types on
LPC: there and then he would sometimes show up at my office and and just sort of make up grandiose
LPC: uh statements and titles for himself that he's a writer and an actor and a musician and this
LPC: and that um he had no business being there that's why i call him the interloper he would call me
LPC: constantly and try to brag about uh meaningless stuff and uh and i was all too happy to return the
LPC: favor to him all too happy what if he was pranking you um i think he was mentally handicapped
LPC: so i'm pretty sure hey maybe i doubt it i just think he was crazy he was crazy so
LPC: i mean a lot of people are delusional but this guy was uh very much so you know do you uh is any
Christina: person you ever called that you just kind of wish you you could know them in real life
LPC: there's been some interesting things that have happened on the phone you know even before i
LPC: began recording i just spent so much time on the phone that i've heard some weird things happen
LPC: like uh i've had an operator call me back and want to know all about me after placing a collect call i've had
LPC: i've had crazy stuff happen so there's been some encounters for sure just about everything you can
LPC: imagine the people speaking in tongues at me on all the lines in the house you know operator
LPC: calling me back it's like saving my number um it's very obscure history that i seem to have
LPC: basically wasted my life to do this so well i think a lot of people would disagree that's cool but
Christina: um i guess i'm wondering since you're a musician and obviously you have a pretty strong
Christina: relationship to sound and and just audio in general what do you think is so special about
Christina: the disembodied voice what do you i mean people love hearing podcasts now but before that was the radio and
Christina: i think there's something amazing about hearing somebody that you'll never see and how have you played
LPC: that to your advantage yeah i guess it's just if you like what you hear and you like the way it sounds
LPC: i think that for me is all there really is to it i mean there might as well be a million
LPC: million radio stations because i i don't want to hear most of them you know but um it's all
LPC: worth it if you find one thing that you want to hear or two things um and i certainly think it's
LPC: just as valid as an ensemble or group i think a solo project is just as valid as a group project
Christina: in that way and uh do you think there's anything specific to the sound of a phone on a landline
Christina: that's sort of lost now with digital phones do you think it like sonically is a different
LPC: experience do you miss these analog calls um it was such a simpler time you know of course uh yeah
LPC: and i look back fondly at that stuff it was blowing people's minds so i i look back on it happily
Christina: yeah thank you um we're kind of out of questions i guess we ask a lot um how do you how do you feel it was great
LPC: it was excellent i thought it was very very good good great stuff
LPC: heck of a deal yeah thank you so much thank you so much cool thank you