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Small talk: Backyard timeshare and zombie protestors

Marketplace Contributor Aug 19, 2011
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Small talk: Backyard timeshare and zombie protestors

Marketplace Contributor Aug 19, 2011
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Kai Ryssdal: This final note today, comes courtesy of Rico Gagliano, Brendan Francis Newnam and the rest of the Marketplace staff.


Rico Gagliano: Jennifer Collins, reporter. What story are you going to be talking about this weekend?

Jennifer Collins: So these folks in Manhattan’s Lower East Side — you know, nobody has a backyard there — so they’re renting out a backyard space for $50 an hour.

Gagliano: You can rent a backyard?

Collins: Yeah, they’re calling it a “backyard timeshare.”

Gagliano: Don’t New Yorkers have a backyard called Central Park?

Collins: Yeah, but you have to elbow your way in there. I mean, have you ever been in Central Park on a Saturday?

Gagliano: That’s true. You get privacy with this thing. And for an extra $50, you can mow the timeshare, maybe.

Collins: Yeah, and for another $50, you can pay a high schooler to do it for you.

Brendan Newnam: Adriene Hill, reporter for Marketplace. What’s your story?

Adriene Hill: So my story is this: A woman is sitting at a bar. She decides to tweet something negative about the bartender. The general manager at home sees the tweet, calls her up and kicks her out of the bar.

Newnam: Wait, so what happened? What did she tweet?

Hill: Well she, I guess, was frustrated. She called the bartender sort of a negative name, and the general manager didn’t like it, wanted to defend his honor.

Newnam: I guess this is better than like having someone spit in your drink.

Hill: I think so. There was a great comment I actually saw, a good lesson for us here: Don’t tweet where you eat.

Gagliano: Rod Abid, senior producer of the Marketplace Morning Report. What story are you going to be talking about this weekend?

Rod Abid: It’s about the Tennessee Valley Authority. They have a message for protestors.

Gagliano: All right.

Abid: No zombies.

Gagliano: OK, zombie protestors?

Abid: Yeah, see they’re trying to revive an old nuclear plant, and the protestors kept saying the utility was reviving the corpse of the plant, and so they would dress up like zombies.

Gagliano: And the utility is saying they don’t want them to do that for some reason?

Abid: They don’t want zombies at their upcoming board meeting, so they’re banning zombies.

Gagliano: That seems like a really ill-advised move, because you know who’s going to show up to protest that rule?

Abid: Zombies?

Gagliano: Zombies.


Ryssdal: There’s more where that came from. It’s a podcast Brendan and Rico do called Dinner Party Download.

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