December 13 2010

Cold open and show introduction

• What is the show about?

The show opens with the hosts joking about a listener's daughter who flushed a sock down a school toilet, which spirals into a riff on how filthy men's public bathrooms are and the gymnastics of helping a three-year-old use one. A first-time viewer in the chat asks what the show is about; the hosts answer that two minutes of toilet stories makes it self-evident. A host introduces himself on air as 'Ben Foose' and welcomes listeners to Live from the Path on Des MoinesAmplified.com, announcing that musical guests Tim Cooper and friends are back in the studio.

Interview: Tim Cooper, the hippo artist

Tim Cooper explains his defining hobby: he draws only right-facing hippos, and puts one on every envelope, bill, and Christmas card he sends. His brother, a schoolteacher in England, started a running joke with his students that a hippo is loose in the school, using Tim's drawings. The hosts close the interview by rating the night's show an 'apathetic lemur' on their scale from a one ('drunk hippo') to a five ('tenacious panda bear').

Preview: Christmas commercial, apocalypse game, and Mark

• Why aren't people appreciated or taken seriously in their own hometown or family -- and is there anything to do about it?

The hosts preview the night: a Dr. Freud couch session with Tim Cooper, another round of 'Non-Biblical Signs of the Apocalypse,' and the long-promised reveal of the 'best Christmas present ever' before the 11 o'clock hour. A host shares that reading Mark struck him this week -- Jesus healing few in his hometown because of unbelief, and the line about a prophet not being honored in his own country -- and wonders why people aren't appreciated or taken seriously within their own family or city. The segment dissolves into comedy riffing about Mark's mother, the apostle Bartholomew, and leftover fish and bread.

Band catch-up: summer gigs, deer, and a bird funeral

Tim Cooper reports a busy summer of outdoor gigs, a worship set at the State Fair's Riley stage where the heat defeated the keyboards, and a fourth CD ('Venice Stew') three years in the making. He tells how he prayed for the two thousand dollars he needed for the CD and then totaled his car on a deer, pocketing the insurance payout -- joking that 'the cattle on a thousand hills' near Des Moines volunteered. The hosts and band trade animal stories, correct Pants's chat claim that they held a funeral for a whole flock of birds (it was one bird that hit a window at the oil-change shop where he worked), and debate the best way to hunt deer: camouflage and silence versus a pickup truck with the radio blaring.

Live set and the do-do singalong

Tim Cooper and Friends play their first number of the night, a peppy tune with a 'do-do-do' ending that the hosts immediately latch onto. The hosts get Tim to lead them in a few rounds of the do-do chorus, imagining a music video of themselves strolling down the street with a right-facing hippo. The moment lands as pure studio silliness, complete with a joke about a 'do-do cam.'

Interview: doodles, drawings, and hippo lore

The conversation turns to everyone's go-to doodle: a woman with 80s hair, a muscular Pac-Man with a rock falling on him, and a self-portrait 'dream me' with surfer hair, a beanie, and a Band-Aid. Tim recounts selling a framed 'lizard in a box' and a 'sleeping pig on a limo' on Craigslist to no takers, and tells of the school exam where he drew Jesus riding a hippo for the triumphal entry and passed. The hosts pull up his website, tcoopermusic.com, and roast his minimalist hippo logo, which one host says looks like a thumb with a wart.

Station business: call-ins, the website, last week's lost show

After more hippo-at-church jokes, the hosts give the studio call-in number (327-1007, joking that it routes through India and incurs Budapest charges) and point listeners to livefromthepath.org for past shows and artist performances. They confess that last week's show was so bad it mercifully failed to record, after they ran out of things to talk about 45 minutes into a two-hour show. A host named Ben is identified on air as having resorted to playing clips from old shows.

Christmas number and its aftermath

Tim Cooper and Friends play an original Christmas song built around the word 'Emmanuel,' introduced by a mock-serious story request directed at a host named Mike. The hosts praise the song and award it 'three hippos up.' The band's website, tcoopermusic.com, is plugged again.

Crosswords, word finds, and chat banter

A guest named Julie is revealed as a crossword-puzzle maker who builds them by hand for baby showers, grandkids, and Christmas. The hosts trade crossword war stories -- the New York Times puzzle through Wednesday, cheating at the msnbc.com online crossword by brute-forcing letters -- and admit word finds beat them once their kids get competitive. Chat regulars Allison and Chad chime in.

Doug's footwear: wellies versus slippers

The hosts notice that Doug arrived wearing wellies (Wellington boots, named for the Duke of Wellington) and changed into slippers in the studio. The bit spirals into Mr. Rogers jokes about changing shoes and sweaters when changing activities, and a vow to break out bunny slippers when the show is truly on its way out.

The 'best Christmas present ever' infomercial

The hosts play their produced fake infomercial: 'Ben, Mike, and Dan sing over perfectly good Christmas songs,' a parody album ruining favorites like 'Baby, It's Cold Outside' and 'Away in a Manger,' bundled with 'It's a Wonderful Live from the Path,' a parody of the film's famous scenes. The spot closes with the punchline that no albums were actually produced and listeners should keep their money and give it to someone in need; all marks courtesy of 'Big Donkey Incorporated.' A listener named David checks in from Guam during the segment.

T-shirts, borrowed shirts, and bumper stickers

A host shows off a new Live from the Path sweatshirt design -- a blue hoodie with a donkey -- that costs too much to buy for himself. The hosts accuse each other of permanently borrowing each other's dress shirts after church, and joke about their van's bumper stickers: 'Going Samson on it' and 'Fred O8' for Fred Thompson.

Scones is posh

Tim Cooper teaches the hosts that in England 'scones' is the common pronunciation and 'scones' (rhyming with 'cones') is posh, learned at a Victorian Christmas tea. A host stages a bit where he plays an abrasive Westerner asking for 'scones' and has Tim correct him in a properly posh manner. The segment ends with the hosts mangling 'wellies' into 'willies' and giving up.

'Mercies' and the musical-landscape game

A host has a guest named Mike close his eyes during Tim Cooper's original song 'Mercies' and afterward paint a 'musical landscape' of what he heard. Mike's honest answer: a spider weaving a web through the entire St. Louis arch while a giant red bird gets caught in it. Tim declares him crazy, and the hosts agree Mike needs the mercies.

Non-Biblical Signs of the Apocalypse

• Does Allison in the chat have any relatives in the studio room?

The hosts play their recurring game: strange news stories are read aloud and the room votes whether each is a sign the end is near. Stories include a Wisconsin woman who bit off her husband's tongue in Sheboygan, a toddler stuck in a Pennsylvania crane vending machine, a naked spirit-photographer in a Picayune cemetery, a dead squirrel deposited at a Bartonville Hardee's drive-through, a camel named Lulabelle falling on a South Florida church audience, a marijuana plant decorated as a Christmas tree in Germany, a 178-pizza prank order after a Bob Dylan show in Amherst, a 73-year-old who smashed his Motel 6 room to free a nonexistent trapped person on a prank caller's instructions, a German DIYer who walled himself into his own basement, and an update on the Kentucky beard-eating case. Verdicts are mixed, with the beard-eating probation and the motel-room smashing judged 'end is near.'

Wrap-up and 'I Will Arise'

The hosts wrap the show, plug the newsletter, podcast, and YouTube channel, and thank Tim Cooper and Friends for the night. The band sends the show out with 'I Will Arise,' whose lyrics draw on the Song of Songs ('flowers appear on the earth, the season of singing has come').

Outro: Christmas commercial replay and sign-off

After thanking the band, the hosts replay the full 'best Christmas present ever' Christmas commercial as the outro. The show signs off with 'Merry Christmas' and the reminder that Jesus is the reason for the season.