The Best/Worst Moments of last night's show

[dave in the yard]

are you sure it was the guy from woodstock...?  i remember his voice, but i am pretty sure he has been drunk and angry every time he's called.  like i think he was saying how he liked julie klausner and how tom is a jerk.  then tom made fun of him for slurring and being drunk and it kinda went the same way.  the dude from woodstock was spacier.   

i am sure this woman is probably a frequent wfmu caller, and that THIS has come up, but i heard the madness lady from rock rot rule call into shut up, weirdo, get pedantic and get smacked down.  http://wfmu.org/flashplayer.php?version=2&show=51963&archive=89996  50 minutes in.

[CSW]

Just to clarify/expand on something Jason from Hunstville mentioned in passing on this week's show. (Sorry to be a Fact Checker Jerk)

The UK Census includes an optional question on the religion of the respondents, with the major religions of the world as pre-populated boxes to check and in addition a write-in box is available.

This prompted various radio/TV campaigns in 2001 to encourage people (presumably those otherwise non- affiliated to an existing region) to write-in Jedi as their religion. Many people did so - enough for Jedi to be the 5th largest religion noted in the 2001 UK census (but 6th overall when "no religion" was included) However as far as I am aware Jedi is not officially respected as a religion by the UK government, nor has it been included as a pre-populated answer in future censuses (censii?)

The write-in option does leave the door open for such fun - my roommate back in 2010 wrote in his religion as Heavy Metal, for example.

Can we UK FOTs start planning now for the 2020 census and filing religion as "Friend of Tom"?

[Joe Rogaine]

Thinking of changing my screen name to "Rag Man".

[mike a]

Yikes, I never noticed the two bells (or whatever they are) hanging off Mick Fleetwood's pants like testes on the Rumours cover.  And could have lived my entire life without that knowledge.

[ColbyCheese]

Here's the Billy Joel clip that Kurt Vile was talking about:

Billy Joel Goes Crazy In Concert!!

One interesting note about that is apparently it was in Soviet Russia (where spotlights light YOU) and he was mad they kept shining lights on the audience to identify especially heinous threats to the Soviet way. Why they let an example of Western Decadence like Joel play there is a mystery.

There used to be a clip on YouTube (which I've been unsuccessfully trying to find since Tuesday's show) of him being interviewed about that very incident, and he goes on some tear about how "I just felt that the Russian audience was tired of being watched. You know, they're being watched by their government all the time." His explanation is almost as puke-inducing as the Glass Houses album.

[fonpr]

Worst (for me) it was 432 not 438. I regret the error. Found my notes.

Despite the petitions of over twenty thousand musicians in france, The ISO codified concert pitch globally by 1955. The Schiller Institute campaign for a change in concert pitch from A=440hz back to A=432hz is based that 432hz is deeply connected with nature and the vocal chords of singers will not be damaged by higher ranges when centered at concert pitch A=432hz.
The recent rediscoveries of the vibratory/oscillatory nature of the universe indicates that current contemporary A=440hz international concert pitch standard may possibly generate an unhealthy effect or anti-social behavior in the consciousness of human beings.

[Steve of Bloomington]

Worst (for me) it was 432 nor 438. I regret the error. Found my notes.

Despite the petitions of over twenty thousand musicians in france, The ISO codified concert pitch globally by 1955. The Schiller Institute campaign for a change in concert pitch from A=440hz back to A=432hz is based that 432hz is deeply connected with nature and the vocal chords of singers will not be damaged by higher ranges when centered at concert pitch A=432hz.
The recent rediscoveries of the vibratory/oscillatory nature of the universe indicates that current contemporary A=440hz international concert pitch standard may possibly generate an unhealthy effect or anti-social behavior in the consciousness of human beings.

The whole time you were talking about that my thoughts were a) can a human really distinguish that fine a difference b) can instruments be tuned that close (couple of Hz) or is there typically a margin of acceptable error?

All the Goebbels stuff made sense, though.

(update: looks like the human ear can distinguish between 440 and 441. I'll be back when I find out about tuning tolerance)

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/sound/earsens.html

[bigoteetoe]

The write-in option does leave the door open for such fun - my roommate back in 2010 wrote in his religion as Heavy Metal, for example.

I, too, am a fan of Census-Fun.

[fredfoster]

are you sure it was the guy from woodstock...?  i remember his voice, but i am pretty sure he has been drunk and angry every time he's called.  like i think he was saying how he liked julie klausner and how tom is a jerk.  then tom made fun of him for slurring and being drunk and it kinda went the same way.  the dude from woodstock was spacier.

Not 100% sure, but it really sounded like him a lot to me.

[Mr. Colin]

The whole time you were talking about that my thoughts were a) can a human really distinguish that fine a difference b) can instruments be tuned that close (couple of Hz) or is there typically a margin of acceptable error?

It's more than just a matter of "detect" = someone untrained in music would notice the difference between 440 Hz and 432 Hz if you played the two tones back to back.  And if you played them at them time, you'd hear the phase effects pretty strongly.

[cavorting with nudists]

I Googled the first sentence of Fredericks' quote and found quite a few online discussions of this matter, though--get this, conspiracy theorists-- a lot of the links are dead.

Here you can compare renditions of "Silent Night" played at A=432Hz and at A=440Hz.  They are discernibly different, though I'm not confident that my ability to judge differences of effect has been uncontaminated by the power of suggestion. Try to get someone to play them for you without telling you which is which (though admittedly, since it is a Christmas carol, it's possible that either version may send you screaming from the room): http://omega432.com/432-music/concert-pitch-comparison

[buffcoat]

The only bone I have to pick with your call, Fredderrixxxxx, is that Goebbels' first name was actually Gordon, not George.

Lady buffcoat thought I was having a seizure I was laughing so hard at the "I hope you die" bit.

"This might sounds mean, but it's not meant to be mean… I hope you die. Does that sound mean?"

[Carver]

Lady buffcoat thought I was having a seizure I was laughing so hard at the "I hope you die" bit.

"This might sounds mean, but it's not meant to be mean… I hope you die. Does that sound mean?"

I nearly ran my car off the road. 

[BadGuyZero]

Thinking of changing my screen name to "Rag Man".

That was my nickname for a while in high school due to the metal kids I hung out with thinking I bore a resemblance to Ragman from the movie "Trick or Treat."

[JesseFromVegas]

Yeah, George Gobel was an old boozy comedian who was on Carson a lot