Thar she blows?

[00:00:25] Speaker A: Hey, Aaron. This is a special episode. [00:00:28] Speaker B: It is. If you say so. [00:00:31] Speaker A: We tried to do something, and we promised it in the last episode, and. [00:00:35] Speaker B: We have to deliver. [00:00:39] Speaker A: Something. Something. So what happened? I feel like it was a fever dream. We were in Boston. [00:00:48] Speaker B: We were in Boston. We. We were east of Boston, and you. [00:00:52] Speaker A: Were bowing down to the oh, God throne. [00:00:58] Speaker B: Is this where we're starting? [00:01:00] Speaker A: Are we starting there? Well, we don't have to go. [00:01:04] Speaker B: I think. I think we kind of have to go there, but not at first. [00:01:07] Speaker A: Was it on starboard or port side? [00:01:09] Speaker C: I just don't remember. [00:01:11] Speaker B: Oh, man. [00:01:14] Speaker A: No one knows what I'm talking about yet. [00:01:16] Speaker B: We went on a whale watch, and you can listen into some of the audio. We micked ourselves body parts, and we're looking for splashing. [00:01:26] Speaker C: Oh, there's a cap. [00:01:32] Speaker A: Right there. Let's see. [00:01:34] Speaker C: Okay. My cap is getting a little curious right now. [00:01:39] Speaker A: All. Wow. Huge. [00:01:42] Speaker B: I thought we would just go on this light little trip out into the ocean, where we would see some of nature's grandest creatures, and then we would talk to the expert on board, and that's what we had in mind. But instead, you're getting this episode, which. [00:02:06] Speaker A: You'Ll find out what it is, but we're not sure what it is. [00:02:09] Speaker B: So today is. What is today? July 21 Friday Friday, July 21 we are standing on Long Wharf in Boston. Boston harbor. I have to admit it. I'm a little scared. I haven't been on a boat in a really long time. [00:02:33] Speaker A: You'll be okay. I better be until you're on the journey with us. Because, let's see, we could bullet point this thing, right? Aaron doesn't like boats. [00:02:47] Speaker B: I don't like boats. [00:02:51] Speaker A: No Dramamine. [00:02:52] Speaker B: No Dramamine. I have no history of seasickness. Until now. [00:02:58] Speaker A: Cello player failed to bring Dramamine. [00:03:00] Speaker B: Any dramamine. Did you remember? You didn't bring it. I asked you to bring Dramamine. [00:03:09] Speaker A: You did. [00:03:10] Speaker B: And now here we are. We're stuck on the boat with no drama. All right, well, I failed. [00:03:18] Speaker A: Oh, sorry about that. No, we're good. We spoke with a person who had a very sad story, but she was an interesting character, and she spoke a long time about her life. [00:03:34] Speaker B: Well, yeah, it takes a while to get out to sea, and you talk with whoever you see. And she told us her story. Even after we told her that we were mic'd, she got very personal. [00:03:47] Speaker A: She doubled down. She's like, oh, I'm on microphone. We did that. We're not going to share that audio because that's personal for her. But then the other thing that we did was we saw whales. We saw. We did whales. [00:04:01] Speaker B: That part of the journey was a success. [00:04:04] Speaker A: And we'll play some audio from the. [00:04:06] Speaker B: Announcer, the naturalist who is on board. [00:04:11] Speaker A: How we go over here. [00:04:14] Speaker C: You can see that splashing. So it looks like we've got one small whale and one big whale. There's another tailbreak. [00:04:27] Speaker A: Oh, look. [00:04:27] Speaker B: Okay, there it is. [00:04:33] Speaker A: Two of them. [00:04:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:37] Speaker A: Well, the whales tell time. [00:04:39] Speaker B: Aaron, we're at the moment this is happening. [00:04:43] Speaker A: We are seeing. [00:04:44] Speaker B: I have spotted one whale and one the tail. [00:04:51] Speaker A: There's one who we did not get to speak to at the end. [00:04:55] Speaker B: No, we'll get to that. We'll get to that. [00:04:57] Speaker A: But we saw a mama whale and a two year old calf. We did swimming around. [00:05:04] Speaker B: That was pretty cool. [00:05:06] Speaker A: Yeah, the calfs don't get named. Dross was the name of the mom. [00:05:10] Speaker B: Dross. [00:05:10] Speaker A: It was dross. And the calf of dross essentially. Sounds like a Sci-Fi movie. [00:05:16] Speaker B: Sounds like Star Trek. [00:05:17] Speaker A: Exactly. Calf of know. So anyway, calf of Dross and mama were swimming around, and it was quite beautiful. I had not seen whales in the wild before, and that's where we still felt like we were succeeding. And then I believe you disappeared at some point. [00:05:39] Speaker B: Well, this was all happening at the same time. I was feeling a little uneasy during this journey, but because of the majesty of the whales, it inspired me to plow on. Not that I really had any other choice, but I was, you know, being a journalist, and being a journalist means that you take your own personal feelings, including how you're feeling inside, and sublimate it to the. The job at hand. And the job at hand was to watch the whales. And, in fact, we got an eyeful and an earful. Those whales came pretty close, and it felt like a successful journey from that point of view. And despite the fact that I was feeling queasy and queasier as the Journey went along, I felt good about where this was headed. [00:06:38] Speaker A: Yeah. And we did this for a reason. It was initially, I think, you had wanted to get an interview with a naturalist. I did, and they had suggested the whale watch. So it wasn't our idea to go, let's go on a whale watch, but we got basically a free ride. [00:06:57] Speaker B: Well, I think I might have suggested that we go on the whale watch and talk to the naturalist. Yeah, we're not mentioning the company because they worked with us in good faith. [00:07:10] Speaker A: Yes. And we did what we could to try to salvage what we could. And this is what you. So you get a story out of Captain Bob. Captain Bob? [00:07:22] Speaker B: That's not his real name? [00:07:23] Speaker A: No. I don't know why we're getting a. [00:07:26] Speaker B: Little ahead of ourselves because there was a moment that you weren't to. I found the naturalist. I'm clutching my stomach at this point, but I found the naturalist on the third deck and I walked up to her and she's doing a great job. And I say, we're the ones that are going to be interviewing you. And she said, I have no idea what you're talking about. Hi. Are you a naturalist? [00:07:55] Speaker C: Yes. [00:07:55] Speaker B: Hi, I'm Ariel. I'll be interviewing you later. Did somebody tell you? [00:08:00] Speaker C: No, really? What about for a podcast? [00:08:04] Speaker B: Nobody said. [00:08:05] Speaker C: I mean, usually they communicate those things, but I guess I wasn't. [00:08:09] Speaker B: Wow. [00:08:09] Speaker C: That's okay. [00:08:11] Speaker B: Okay. [00:08:11] Speaker C: Yeah. Do you want to do it after the trip? [00:08:13] Speaker B: Well, I've miked myself so we could talk to you. Are you going to be here? [00:08:23] Speaker C: Yes, I'll be on the boat. Give me 1 second. [00:08:26] Speaker B: Okay. Which is kind of what I was a little concerned about because we were unable to make personal contact. We worked through an intermediary, someone who was very kind and generous, but just was unable to put me directly in touch with the naturalist. She offered to let us interview her on the boat, which was really not our plan. We'd brought our microphones, they were in the trunk of the car, and we were going to set it up afterwards and talk to this naturalist. But she said, well, I just have time for a quick interview on the boat, using the little microphones that we had on our lapels to talk about whales. To talk about whales. [00:09:07] Speaker A: Emphasizing that we're talking about whales. That's it. [00:09:10] Speaker B: That's it. Those of you have listened to this podcast up to this point. You know what our theme is? Every episode we have a theme. When we talked about computers, we talked to the guy that came up with the hello world program. When we talked about Alan Turing, we talked to an author who had written about Alan Turing. When we talked about. I don't want to keep talking about, but you get the idea. It's the expert. There's an expert. And we have a song about whales. And it's Michael's song, man and a whale. [00:09:46] Speaker A: This is a tale of a man and a whale who dreams of the world in giant snail in ocean palm sitting quietly he walks around breathing oh so slow pondering. [00:10:13] Speaker B: And so the idea here was to go beyond not just to talk to somebody who had an expertise in Wales, but to have an experience with them together, and then to talk about that experience when it was over. But first I got sick and vomited. [00:10:32] Speaker A: In the starboard garbage can, probably. [00:10:35] Speaker B: Yeah. So I remember there was a moment, and we may have this on tape when we're sitting on top of the boat, and I say to you, I'll be right back. I believe my exact words were, I'm really feeling it now. [00:10:54] Speaker A: Oh, that's right. I probably blocked it out. I'm like, oh, I think he may be feeling it. [00:11:01] Speaker B: Let's go to the audio tape. [00:11:03] Speaker A: Yes. [00:11:06] Speaker B: I am definitely feeling it. [00:11:08] Speaker A: You are? [00:11:14] Speaker B: Okay. All right. So now I'm walking down the steps very quickly, with purpose, pretty much anywhere. [00:11:23] Speaker C: These whales move around quite a bit. [00:11:25] Speaker B: Excuse me, because I remember that there was a trash can. I could not find any. Can I say barf bag? On our podcast, I couldn't find any barf bags. I'm sure there were some, but they were not clearly marked. So I could have either gone over the edge, which I thought, you know, that's a cliche. No, I'm classy. I use a garbage can. And so I have to tell people, excuse me. Excuse me, please get out of my way. Excuse me. [00:12:04] Speaker C: Humpback whales, like all other whales in the world, are very, very good at holding their breath. [00:12:10] Speaker B: Moments later, I'm clutching this garbage can and reliving. I think you bought me Ben and Jerry's before the. [00:12:17] Speaker A: Oh, no. [00:12:18] Speaker B: And so it had a distinct taste of strawberry marshmallow. And I was reminded of the chinese leftovers that I had had for lunch. [00:12:30] Speaker A: All in one package. [00:12:32] Speaker B: All in one. I had had a coffee to kind of calm my nerves. Note to self, not a good idea. [00:12:39] Speaker A: Take note, chefs. Take note. [00:12:41] Speaker B: Yeah. Anyway, not their fault. I don't blame them for getting seasick. It just happens. But by that point, I was kind of grumpy. [00:12:54] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:12:55] Speaker B: It put me in a grumpy mood, which set the table for what would happen next. [00:13:02] Speaker A: Go ahead. Yeah. So basically, we were going to meet the naturalist on the second level, and we're both sitting there wondering, where is she? And so we walk down, and no one else is on the boat. [00:13:17] Speaker B: And it's just us. [00:13:19] Speaker A: It's just us. And then there's Captain Bob. [00:13:22] Speaker B: Captain Bob. And I could see the naturalist across the way from Captain Bob. And I wave at the naturalist, and I say, we're ready for you. And she looks away. [00:13:31] Speaker A: Yeah. No words. And it just felt like there was something wrong. And I don't know what Captain Bob was protecting, because we were going to talk about. [00:13:42] Speaker B: We were. And this was an officially sanctioned interview. [00:13:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:48] Speaker B: Set up prior through the boating company and the very reputable organization that they were affiliated with in Boston, which we're not going to mention here. [00:14:00] Speaker A: But we can mention the city, because Boston did us no wrong. Boston is beautiful. Boston gave us. I didn't get sick, thankfully. I'm thankful to see Wales in real life. [00:14:13] Speaker B: Oh, I was, too. [00:14:14] Speaker A: It was pretty amazing. I just feel sad that it happened the way it did at the end. It's like one of those great experiences. You had an awesome vacation, and then you had a small fender bender. When you arrived home, everyone's okay, but you had a small fender bender. [00:14:31] Speaker B: So let's talk about the fender. So, okay. So I'm saying to the naturalist, it's hammer time. Let's do this. And she looks away. Enter Captain Bob. Go ahead. [00:14:47] Speaker A: Oh, Bob. Yeah. Well, number one, he was saying, well, I've heard nothing of this. And Aaron even showed the email chain with the various peoples, let's say Sally and, I don't know, Sally and Sally II. There we go. Because I can't think of another name. [00:15:10] Speaker B: Yes, Sally. And this was all legit, but the person who I was working with had a Gmail address, which I think might not have given him the most confidence that this was a legitimate person, even though this person has worked for the cruise line for years and years. [00:15:35] Speaker A: Captain, Bob didn't know this. [00:15:37] Speaker B: He didn't know. [00:15:38] Speaker A: Bob was not informed. [00:15:39] Speaker B: He disappeared, made a phone call, came back and said, you've got to call our know. Talk to our education director. [00:15:48] Speaker A: He wouldn't tell us who that was. [00:15:50] Speaker B: He wouldn't tell us who that was. [00:15:51] Speaker A: Or give us an office number or anything. He just basically was pushing us to vacate the boat. [00:15:58] Speaker B: To vacate the boat. [00:15:59] Speaker A: And he was trying in a very tense way. It reminded me of being at the airport when they say, you can't take your cello on board, even though I booked a ticket and paid twice as much, and they tell me I can't. And I saw Aaron slowly doing that thing that I do at the airport. He was standing his ground. [00:16:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:24] Speaker A: Because it was amazing. Watch you at work. You've been in conflict as a reporter. [00:16:31] Speaker B: Oh, sure. I was a reporter for 20 years, and I've been thrown out of some very reputable places just by trying to do my job. But he basically told me to get off his boat, and that's not a good way to court good publicity. It kind of took whatever buzz there was. And let me tell you, I was feeling a very small buzz at that point after throwing up, and then to hear that we wouldn't be able to interview the person that we had been talking with. It was a bit of a sour moment. This was just a guy in a collared shirt. It's not like he was flashing any kind of badge or anything. [00:17:29] Speaker A: Captain Bob. He was just captain of a boat. [00:17:32] Speaker B: He was just captain of a boat. [00:17:34] Speaker A: And worked for a company like, dude, chill. That's what I wanted to think. I'm like, dude was pretty intensely keeping his naturalist from talking about, you know, to all their guess. [00:17:51] Speaker B: Yeah, but get off my boat. So he threw us off the boat. [00:17:57] Speaker A: We were going to go into the naturalist office and set up with our gear, in fact, the gear that I'm using right now. Right. But that's okay. We had some italian food. [00:18:13] Speaker B: Yeah, we went out for a dinner. We went and celebrated my birthday with my family. [00:18:18] Speaker A: Happy birthday, by the way. [00:18:19] Speaker B: Thank you. It wasn't my actual birthday, but it was as close to my birthday as I was going to be with my family. [00:18:26] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:18:27] Speaker B: We actually had a good time, and it rained hard. Glad that didn't happen while we were at sea, because God knows, I might have thrown up or something, but it kind of washed away the bad taste in our mouth. And the people at the cruise line and the organization that sponsored it tried to do right by us. They were very apologetic that things went wrong and tried to salvage the situation for us. And I want to tip my hat to them, even as I'm not identifying them, I want to say thank you to those people. I'm sure it was a simple miscommunication, but. [00:19:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:11] Speaker B: I don't think that interviewing somebody who wasn't on the boat with us at the time would have had nearly the same. [00:19:20] Speaker A: No, we could have asked questions about what we saw. Hey, expand upon. Hey, why does the calf. They're imitating the mother. They're not actually diving to get any fish, but they're imitating, they're learning. And they don't get names from. I mean, I guess they're waiting on the names from the mother whale to submit some names to the humans, maybe, but after five years, then the calf gets a name which tells you that the calf is with its mom for a long time. That's a big animal. They live a long time, and they're one of those ancient creatures on our planet. And I wanted to know more. I wanted to go deeper into what we just listened about. [00:20:07] Speaker B: We just saw. She was a terrific narrator, very knowledgeable, and I'm sure the chief naturalist would also be a terrific interview. But they weren't there with us for that. [00:20:26] Speaker A: It was like a sports game. Like, okay, at 01:00 we've got dross. [00:20:34] Speaker B: This is not a time. This is at 01:00 where you're pointing. [00:20:40] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah, 10:00 oh, there's the mom. [00:20:44] Speaker B: It was very exciting. [00:20:45] Speaker A: It was excellent. And anytime they got close, everyone's like, whoo. We'll play a little bit of that audio for you because it's so exciting. [00:20:53] Speaker C: Sounds that we heard. And there's drops. So drops has decided to join the party again and reunite with her calf. She's on her side. That's her flipper that's waving in the air. And now she's flipper. Sloppy. Still on her side. [00:21:11] Speaker A: It truly is. It was like a sporting event, but a very humane, wonderful, everyone getting along sporting event. Not like roman games where they're trying to kill people and animals. It wasn't like that. It was like nature, and we were respecting nature and seeing it. We were the observers. [00:21:37] Speaker B: It was very gentle, and it gave me a greater appreciation for these animals and what they represent, after decades and centuries, I suppose, of being hunted, that these are the survivors, and it was so thrilling to see them. [00:21:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I feel like they're closeish to. If I was to see a dinosaur, maybe a whale would be the closest thing. [00:22:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:11] Speaker A: Minus a few birds that still represent some sort of heritage to dinosaurs. [00:22:16] Speaker B: But I don't know. Some people would say that folk musicians are dinosaurs. [00:22:20] Speaker A: I'm pretty sure that's. We live among ourselves and hence among dinosaurs every day. Maybe the creation museum is correct. That was our adventure. [00:22:32] Speaker B: It was. I will never forget my day out at sea. And if any of you have the opportunity to go to Boston and take a whale watch, I encourage you to do it. But bring your own. [00:22:47] Speaker A: Yes. Yes. Because the garbage cans may not always be available, and there were two heads only, so that's a lot of people. [00:22:58] Speaker B: And to have two bathrooms, and one of them didn't. It didn't lock. [00:23:03] Speaker A: I know you wanted to get a show, try to go to that bathroom, but that's not why we're watching whales. We weren't watching humans. It was an interesting adventure. Aaron, I'm glad I took it with. [00:23:20] Speaker B: You, because I'm glad I took it with you. [00:23:23] Speaker A: And there you go. There's our special episode. As I like to say, chefs, take note. The combination of flavors that Aaron described, I had not heard, and I'm not sure if that could be made into any redeemable value. As one thing, but light aftertaste of. [00:23:46] Speaker B: Coffee with a hint of monosodium glutamate and marshmallow, strawberry and potato chips. [00:23:56] Speaker A: Pretty awesome. Hey, Aaron, if our adventures are anything, they are not boring. And thank you to all our listeners for being on this know. And speaking of coffee, Aaron and I have coffee mugs. And if you would like any come to our shows, we would love. [00:24:18] Speaker B: We will sell you a coffee mug. We promise this coffee will stay longer than mine stayed with me. [00:24:27] Speaker A: Yeah, the mug says, hello, world. You will wake up to this coffee. It will wake you up further than you ever thought. With that, I don't know if there's anything else to say except we hope you have a great day. [00:24:41] Speaker B: Hey, Michael. [00:24:42] Speaker A: Yeah? [00:24:43] Speaker B: Get off my. [00:24:46] Speaker A: No, no, you get off my podcast or else I'm going to call the podcast guard. [00:24:52] Speaker B: Podcast police. [00:24:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm going to send them at you. Well, the great thing about podcasts is we can do what we want. I do what I want. [00:25:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:06] Speaker A: We can say what we want. [00:25:07] Speaker B: Do what we can. Part of me wanted to be really polite. I hope we're being polite enough, but I have to be honest, too. Part of the job of a journalist is to be honest about what happened. And that's what happened. [00:25:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Until next time, I'm going to give you a word. [00:25:31] Speaker B: Okay, go ahead. [00:25:37] Speaker A: Shallow. [00:25:39] Speaker B: Mmm. Okay, that's a good word. That's a song from that movie. [00:25:52] Speaker A: Yes. [00:25:52] Speaker B: With that cover from that. [00:25:54] Speaker A: I had to sing the second part with the COVID recently. [00:25:58] Speaker B: Okay, well, that's a good. [00:26:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Anyway, there you go. But it's opposite of deep, where the whales live. [00:26:06] Speaker B: That's right. That's an excellent choice. My word of the day is gardenia. [00:26:15] Speaker A: Ooh, my dad's favorite flower. [00:26:17] Speaker B: There you go. Everybody wins. [00:26:19] Speaker A: Yeah. He loved that smell. We had a gardenia plant growing up and my dad would always like. He loved when there were know to take a few, put it in the kitchen and smell it. And I love that smell. To this day. That is one of my favorite smells on the planet. So you know the smell, Aaron, right? [00:26:38] Speaker B: I do. It is a wonderful smell and smells other things a lot. [00:26:43] Speaker A: But gardenia will make any day better. Especially a whale watch gone wrong. [00:26:53] Speaker B: All right, well, on that note, ciao. Ciao. Peace. [00:27:08] Speaker A: Croons itself to rest. A soft wind bends the slender blades of the dune grasses in the west, a pale cloud to pink and fame.