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This Week On Lying Awake With John Newly

2 Nov

November 2, 2014

And we’re back. It’s 2:45 and this hour we’ve been talking with Chet Humpty from the Oregon Association of Junior Transdimensionalists. Amazing stuff.

I want you all to know that the new Lying Awake newsletter is out, Lying In Print. In it, you can read about all of the hot topics we’ve covered on the show. In this issue, is ISIS behind Ebola? A pair of former NASA whistleblowers debate whether or not there are there fish on the moon. Could you be invisible to radar? Just imagine what you could do. My producer Fast Eddie asks “is your DNA safe?” and gets some surprising answers, and in my monthly column, Newly News, I reveal the ten secrets to using crystals to housebreak your chupacabra.

We’ll continue our conversation with Chet Humpty but first, here’s what’s coming up next week on Lying Awake.

conspiracy-theorist

On Sunday night, guest host Wink Martell will be joined by Sgt. Ramon Raquello, a pilot in the Bolivian air force, to discuss his fifteen year study of migrating salmon.

On Monday, I’ll be hosting a night of open lines. I’ll be taking calls on my special “ghost mother” hotline. If you have a ghost mother, call in and tell us your story.

Tuesday’s topic will be “I have Ebola but my wife doesn’t know it!” Call in if you’re hiding the Ebola virus from a loved one.

On Wednesday I’ll play “Name That Cough!” Every ten minutes, a past guest will call in and I’ll try to identify them from their unique coughs. Last time we played I couldn’t identify anybody! I’ll try to do better this time. My producer, Fast Eddie, wants me to assure you that their coughs have nothing to do with Tuesday night’s Ebola topic.

Thursday night I’ll have in the studio three old hippies from Woodstock to tell us what it was like back then.

Friday night is the return of our always popular Bigfoot Bingo. Download your very own Bigfoot Bingo card from the Lying Awake website and play along at home.

On Saturday, guest host Sgt. Ramon Raquello, a pilot in the Bolivian air force, will be here to talk to previous guest host Wink Martell.

You know, sometimes I wish I was a listener at home so I could just lay back in bed and listen to these great shows I’ve got coming up. But then I realize that there would be no one to do the shows! If only Strickland Von Weir was right. I had him on last week and he said that I have a doppelgänger who flips burgers at a Gooey Burger in Mobile Alabama. I could get him to do the show while I stay home and listen. Problem is, they’d have to find someone else to flip the burgers! Hmm, maybe a second doppelgänger? That would blow my mind.

We’ll be back right after this word from Nebulous Enterprises.

 

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I Was The Life Of The Party Of The First Part

24 Oct

October 24, 2014

I’ve rarely demonstrated any respect for the legal profession. And really, what have they done to earn my respect? Let’s take today as an example.

I had to give a deposition in a lawsuit today. Almost three years ago I was involved in a car accident and I had to go to downtown to meet my lawyer, who was assigned by the insurance company, to discuss what was going to happen. Yes, the accident was almost three years ago. “Wheels of justice grind slow but grind fine,” said Sun Tzu. We’ll see.

It was nasty out, cold and rainy, and the one and only other time I had to give a deposition it was nasty out, cold and rainy, but that time I was taking the Staten Island ferry to Manhattan, this time I was taking the subway to downtown Brooklyn, a nearly better situation.

I was on time and no one else was. First to arrive (15 minutes late) was my lawyer, who looked, talked, and acted like Willie Degel, from the Food Network’s Restaurant Stakeout.

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Next to arrive (30 minutes late) was the opposing lawyer. During the course of my disposition, he asked me my address, I told him, and then we had an off the record sidebar about whether or not he once had an office in my building. He was adamant that he did. I was adamant that he did not, on the grounds that he claimed that my building was two stories when it in reality six stories. Good lawyer that he is (though probably not) he challenged not his own faulty memory but mine, until I showed him my ID with the floor of my apartment on it. Of this I am sure: my building has more than two floors, otherwise I am somehow hovering many feet in the air when I come home.

Yes, he challenged me on if I was lying under oath about how many floors my building has. Luckily, that was as contentious as the session got.

While we were waiting for the stenographer, there was plenty of time for small talk. First, my lawyer showed me a picture of his neighbor’s house, all decorated for Halloween. I still have no idea how this came up. One moment he was talking about how his office had a faulty vent, the next minute he was showing us his neighbor’s house the way other people show their newborn’s pictures. Then he talked about his house out in the woods. Then he asked the other lawyer about his iPad and suddenly the light bulb went on over my head. That explained how he afforded the house.

I know the stereotype is that lawyers are all rich, but I also know that isn’t true. These guys made good money I am sure (one of them talked about how he was buying a second house) but the secret of their wealth?

They are ridiculously cheap.

My lawyer talked about how he didn’t buy an iPad until he had gotten enough gift cards as presents to cover it. The other lawyer said he bought his iPad refurbished from Apple. My lawyer chimed in with the fact that he bought a refurbished coffee maker. The conversation then steered to discount batteries before the stenographer finally arrived (45 minutes late).

Everything went normally from there until we realized the stenographer was a loon. First, she couldn’t begin until she had two glasses of water. Oh, sorry, I need to be accurate- she needed one and half glasses of water, sitting at the ready beside her. And it had to be one and a half because she made a point of spilling out half a glass.

Then, she would not stop blabbering about her dog.

“My dog hates this weather.” “My dog hates when I leave him.” “My dog yada yada yada….”

It all went well until about 20 minutes into my deposition when, interrupting a lawyer, she yelled “do you hear that noise? WHAT IS THAT NOISE????” The lawyers heard nothing but I, sitting closest to her, thought I heard the sound of people from below the window. But nope, that wasn’t it. She was hearing “cartoon characters” from “under the table.” She got under the table to find them too. (Unsuccessfully.)

The whole thing wrapped up in an hour and if it goes to trial, it won’t be for at least a year. Too bad, because I’m looking forward to finding more about those discount batteries.

 

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