B (7:40)

Good afternoon.

A (7:42)

Is it the afternoon?

B (7:45)

Well, barely. It's noon. It's 12 noon on Wednesday.

A (7:49)

Oh, right, you're in some other part of the world. Where, where are you right now?

B (7:55)

I am in Lovely Mermaid beach in Queensland, Australia.

A (8:01)

I actually just went to Australia this summer, but I was in Melbourne the whole time.

B (8:06)

Sure, I will be there later, but I'm making my way towards the South Pole.

A (8:12)

One thing I would like to recommend to you, about an hour outside of the city, if you take a drive. There's like a nature preserve for penguins and every night the penguins that have been out hunting all day come back. They use the same path every night so they just built bleachers there and you can pay and watch the penguins come in at night.

B (8:31)

I would love to do that. I love penguins. I'm a big penguin fan.

A (8:34)

What are your living arrangements right now? What are you up to?

B (8:37)

I am currently at the lovely Tropicana Motel on the Gold coast highway halfway between Brisbane and Sydney. I'm going to go see an NBL National Basketball League Australian professional basketball game tonight. They're having their in season tournament and I'm going to see the Brisbane Bullets and the New Zealand Islanders who have an 18 year old kid who is from Mexico, believe it or not, who is supposedly a really high value NBA prospect.

A (9:13)

How does it feel to be off the ship?

B (9:16)

It feels incredibly weird to be off the ship. I didn't know that land legs were a real thing. Sea legs and land legs are a real thing.

A (9:29)

I'm familiar with the concept of sea legs, but what do land legs feel like?

B (9:34)

Land legs are when you cannot walk on solid ground because you've been at sea too long and everything wobbles as if you're still on the boat. And. And it's particularly acute when walking down hallways. I mean, some of this was that I was just drunk, but part of it was that even before I was drunk that the world was still moving in waves and I wasn't. And it also, it's very noticeable at urinals. So you're wobbly and I still am a little bit. The world is still sort of up and down in my head and I didn't realize it would be this acute. I'm sure it'll fade fairly quickly, but it's pretty disorienting.

A (10:22)

I can imagine. How long have you been off the boat?

B (10:24)

I've only been off the boat for three days. I got off the ship in Cairns, which is the northern part of Queensland. And the last, I went from Darwin, Australia, which is at the very top. It's what they call it, the top end in the Northern Territories, famous for saltwater crocodiles and the only place in Australia that the Japanese bombed during World War II. And so that was the last port that I left as a resident. And it was the last place I was able to have my sort of departure ritual. As often as possible when we would leave a port, I would go out to the aft deck and light a cigar and watch the lights fade into the distance. And it was probably my favorite part of the trip. I did it as often as possible. It was the time where I felt like I was really on an adventure. It was kind of cool in a cinematic way.

A (11:24)

What was it about that particular thing that made you feel like you were on an adventure?

B (11:30)

It was being able to feel the sea and the breeze and to watch ports fade. And because when you're going in and out of places, you go through industrial areas and then you come into the. Into the harbor and the bay, and suddenly the whole skyline is laid out in front of you. And so it's the opposite of that. As you're leaving port you've become moderately familiar with shrinks in the background as you slowly fade away and go to the next port. There's something very romantic about it.

A (12:03)

You are kind of sailing into the unknown, as it were.

B (12:07)

Yes. The next chapter awaits.

A (12:09)

You were on the boat for just over a year, and I read your last. Your most recent substack. You mentioned in your last post that things started to escalate toward the end of the trip in the past month or so.

B (12:25)

Yeah.

A (12:26)

Can you talk to me about what was happening?

B (12:28)

I think what happened was just by the passage of time and 250 people that have been together in the same enclosed space for over a year, we started getting on each other's nerves a little bit. And there was a palpable sense, certainly in the last month I was on board, of people being a little bit less patient with one another, being a little bit snappish with one another sometimes. That was amongst the residents sort of being more critical of things and calling each other out for their various complaints. There were some complaints that people had been a little short with the crew members, that they had been barking a little bit at the bartenders and the waiters. I didn't actually see any of that. But it was enough of an issue that the captain made an announcement one day of, you know, please treat these people with the respect that you'd like them to treat you. Some people, I think, really like being in that small community where you've got lots of people to lean on and lots of people to ask for favors. But there was also, also the downside of everybody being in your business all the time. And depending on your personality and your history, that that can be grading after a while. We all know a little bit too much about each other. And I think after a year that started to make a difference.

A (13:54)

It seems surprising to me that it would all kind of happen at Once like that. But maybe that's just sort of the nature of that kind of powder keg.

B (14:01)

There were some particular triggers. We were in Japan for a month and a half during the hottest time of the year, and it was incredibly hot and humid. And you know that that puts people not in their best moods. And so I think a lot of the grumpiness was accelerated because. Because people were uncomfortable. And it was made a little worse by the fact that some of the ongoing problems on the Odyssey were ongoing. The air conditioner was not working all the time. There were people whose rooms at night were in the 80, 85 degrees.

A (14:39)

I can't imagine.

B (14:41)

Yeah. Fortunately, I was not one of those people.

A (14:43)

If I had.

B (14:44)

If my cabin had been 85 degrees, I'd have jumped off long before I did. I wouldn't have tolerated that. And Villa V, to their credit, did the best they could under the circumstances, which I believe they created, which is that if somebody's cabin was unlivable, they would find them another cabin for the night somewhere on the ship where the air conditioning was working. But that's, you know, that's not a good long term solution. No. There were also problems with leaky pipes and several rooms got flooded a couple of times, and people had to abandon their cabins because there was six inches of water in there. And of course, once the water was drained out, then you get stinky carpet. None of it's catastrophic.

A (15:28)

Right.

B (15:28)

But it's. It certainly puts people on edge more than if everything was going swimmingly.

A (15:36)

Do you feel like there is or has been or will be some kind of mass exodus, or is it really just like, are you the only person who's taken off or have other people left too?

B (15:46)

I'm not the only person that's taken off. In fact, there have been. There were a couple of very prominent YouTubers who had a significant audience who had been sort of boosters of the project. And they left because they felt like they were not getting what they wanted out of the experience. I think also felt like they had made some sort of business arrangement with Villa V, that they were not getting the money that they were supposed to get. But their departure caused a big ripple. In fact, if probably that was one of the things that caused people to start talking about stuff in a way that may have led to a few more confrontations than we were used to. People were really debating, why did they leave? What's so bad that they weren't able to work it out? And you then start questioning other things as well. So there's been a slow, I would say slow, but fairly steady trickle of people who have decided, for, I think, a variety of reasons, this just wasn't the right place for them. And I think that's ongoing. There are people that I know that are gonna be leaving in the next month or so as Christmas approaches. A lot of people are thinking they'd rather be home for the holidays. And some of those people probably won't come back.

A (17:02)

So I wanted to ask about that because there was one pretty prominent couple that decided to leave the ship. And I'm wondering if we know why.

B (17:09)

I don't know for certain. I know that they were unhappy with management, that a lot of the irritations just of the air conditioning and the wi fi and the leaky pipes took a toll. But I also think they felt like the management had not been completely upfront with them. They were trying. They had an arrangement where they were advertising cabins for Villa V, letting people know, here, you know, you can come rent this particular model. And I think they expected a certain percentage, some sort of commission, and I don't think they got what they were expecting. And over time, they decided they were not being treated fair and didn't want to do it anymore.

A (17:55)

So that couple, they call themselves midlife cruising on YouTube, it's this very friendly couple named Angela and Steve who shot video of all the adventures they went on when they were in port and talked about what it's like to be on the ship. But in their video about why they left the Villa V, so much of their explanation is bleeped out to the point where it's like, almost comical. We made some great lifelong friends, but there were definitely some things.

C (18:25)

That stole.

A (18:26)

Our joy and we just had to go. And we'll tell you more about that in future videos. And during the process of selling, we had to sign the cabin ownership release form. And in there it has some terminology that we can't really explain A lot of the reasons why we sold. Yes, to sell your room. So. So we're not going to. Yeah, we're not going to. It just feels like a level of sort of intrigue that doesn't match the experience of going on a boat. Like what's happening there.

B (19:09)

They signed versions of a non disclosure agreement and part of the deal that allowed them to get out of their cab cabin and sell it to somebody else was that they not disparage Villa V in any public comments in particular ways. This is how they decided to go as far as they thought they could go without getting in trouble. And so that's why they were bleeping things out. And the non disclosure part of it, they basically had to sign a piece of paper that said we're not going to try and trash you in public in order to be allowed off the ship.

A (19:45)

That's so wild.

B (19:47)

They didn't really have much choice. And fortunately, because I never bought my cabin, I was always a segmenter, I never had to sign anything like that. But there are lots of people, anybody that bought a cabin, and particularly those who signed on the founders level, which are the people that gave them lots of money beyond just the cost of their cabin, basically invested in the idea of they've got really strict non disclosure agreements and they would lose a lot of money if they were to publicly complain.

A (20:20)

It seems like it's not great that they're the ones who have dipped out of the cruise. That seems like actually probably pretty bad for Villa V. Am I right?

B (20:32)

Certainly management seemed to feel that way. They did a lot of sort of rebutting of them online saying, you know, don't believe everything you read. Things were actually much more amicable than you may have heard in whatever social media forum you've been following all of this. But yeah, they, I think it did take a toll. And I noticed that since they left, the Villavi management types who I think spend way too much time on social media anyway, they become more obsessed with it. Anybody that says anything critical online, they immediately sort of gang rush them and sort of flood them with oh no, it's not as bad as you've heard. And here are all the great things we're doing. And those people are all just malcontents. They're whiners, they're complainers, they wouldn't be happy anywhere. And they may be right about some of those people. Hell, they may be right about me. But they do seem awfully defensive about it, which makes you think that yeah, it has, it has some financial impact on them.

A (21:40)

I suppose I would be defensive too if I were in their situation. But also it seems so clear that this thing has been plagued with problems from the start. It would be one thing if it were like one unhappy customer and then many hundreds of other very happy customers. But it seems like pretty much everybody who went, even people who desperately wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, the people who were the boosters, if they can't reach like a sort of satisfactory experience, like what's the hope for everyone else?

B (22:12)

It's, it's a fair point. Having said that though, I, I would say the majority of people on board, maybe even 65 or 70% of the people on board, feel like they've had a great time and feel like they've gotten their money's worth and they're happy they did it and they would do it all again. It would be unfair to say that most of the people that have signed up are disappointed. I don't think that's true. But many of them are. And even the people that are still enthusiastic certainly have questions and have doubts about the future and worries about some of the decisions that have been made in the past.

A (23:04)

After the break, I asked Joe, do you really think the Villa V is gonna make it to the end of its voice? Hey, this is Alex, and I am here to recommend you a podcast. And the podcast that I'm recommending to you is 99% invisible. If you are not familiar with 99% invisible, it is one of the best and longest running podcasts ever made. Each week, the host, Roman Mars, tells a story about the world from the perspective of design. And let me tell you, before I started listening to the show, I was not only oblivious to how many tiny critical decisions shape every part of our lives, but how many fantastic stories lay behind those decisions. But to be totally fair, I am probably a little biased, because even if you have heard 99% invisible, you may not know that the very first narrative radio story that I ever produced appeared on this show over 12 years ago. It's episode 83. It's called Heyoon H e y o o n. So if you like Hyper Fixed, you could do much worse than starting at that episode. And if you like that episode, There are currently 644 more to listen to after it. You can find 99% invisible wherever you get your podcasts or at 99pi.org you should go check it out. You won't regret it. They've made some of the greatest podcast episodes I have ever heard in my life. It's a wonderful show. Please go listen. Thanks so much. This episode of Hyperfixed is brought to you by Gusto. Webster's Dictionary defines gusto as vigorous or enthusiastic enjoyment, appreciation, or vitality. And nothing makes me less vigorous, enthusiastic, appreciative, or vital than owning a business. Doing interviews. The best. Doing payroll. No, thank you. Writing episodes? Heck yeah. Payroll, tax, filing?

B (25:22)

Forget about it.

A (25:24)

Well, Gusto is here to help. Gusto is online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses. It's all in one remote, friendly, and incredibly easy to use, so you can pay, hire onboard, and support your team from anywhere. Automatic payroll tax filing, simple direct deposits, health benefits, commuter benefits, workers comp 401k, you name it. Gusto makes it simple and has options for nearly every budget. Save time with automated tools built right in, offer letters, onboarding materials, direct deposit and more. So use Gusto so you don't end up dropping out of society and living off the grid. And occasionally sending unhinged manifestos to your local newspaper about how payroll was too hard to run and it caused you to leave the world behind. Try gusto today@gusto.com hyperfixed and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll@gusto.com hyperfit one more time gusto.com hyperfixed. This episode of Hyperfixed is brought to you by Quints Cold mornings holiday plans. This is when I just want my wardrobe to be simple. Stuff that looks sharp, feels good and things I'll actually wear. For me, that's quince. And the bonus quince pieces make great stocking stuffers. Or, you know, if you're Jewish, whatever the Jewish alliterative equivalent of that is. Like, I don't know, Hanukkahals, Menorah merchandise. This season's lineup is simple but smart and easy with quints $50 Mongolian cashmere sweaters that feel like an everyday luxury, and wool coats that are equal parts stylish and durable. I've been eyeballing some jackets on Quints because they have so many different styles. Ever heard of leather jackets? They got em Parkas? You know it brother. Pea coats. Absolutely. Poo coats. Don't be a disgusting child. What's a poo coat? Cut the crap. Quints has gifting covered beyond clothing too. Have you picked up anything for home bath, kitchen or travel to share or keep this holiday? Give and get timeless holiday staples that last this season with quints. Go to quints.com hyperfix for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N C E.com hyper fixed free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com hyper fixed. You have given me the impression, yes, in not very subtle ways. Over the course of this conversation and over the course of the year, we've been talking that you don't think this is going to make it to its final port and I'm interested to know what is coloring you're thinking about that right now and sort of what the status of the ship is in terms of Its ability to actually complete this voyage.

B (28:19)

I think physically the ship can sort of can limp along. It never goes very fast, and it stops in lots of ports to get maintenance done. But I think it'll get where it's going if they can continue to pay the bills for maintenance and repairs. And I am skeptical if they have the resources to do that long term. But I was also skeptical that they would make it this far. So. So they've already gone further than I ever thought they would. But they've had. They've gotten lucky. They've dodged a lot of bullets, but sooner or later, one of them is going to hit right between the eyes.

A (29:01)

Yeah.

B (29:01)

That some major catastrophic repair is going to be required that they can't afford to get, and that there's going to be a note on the door some night in some port somewhere in the middle of nowhere saying, we're sorry, but we're having to cease operations effective tomorrow. Please get all your belongings and get off the ship. I don't think that's an unrealistic prospect. I don't have any inside information to tell me that that's what's going to happen. And I don't think it's going to happen anytime within the next few months. But I don't see how they can sustain this. The occupancy rate is still barely 50%. They're constantly putting together these promotional deals that are clearly meant to generate cash in the short term. They just started a thing where you can buy a cabin for five years at. I can't remember what the rate is, but the weight. But you have to put up $50,000 ahead of time. So they seem to me everything. The way they operate seems to indicate that they're cash poor and they're doing a lot of nickel and diming stuff with the residents fees for things that didn't have fees before. They started charging $45 a day. If you had a guest just come visit in the port.

A (30:22)

Jeez. Oh, Pete's. That's so expensive.

B (30:25)

It is expensive. I think their original argument for it was because people were eating in the. In the diner, the Palms Grill. But trust me, that's not a $45 meal.

A (30:40)

They're just trying to make up their margins wherever they can.

B (30:42)

You know, I'm not sure there's anything they could be doing differently at this point. Point. I'm not criticizing them so much for the decisions they're making now. Trying to keep themselves going as I am, for the decisions they made when we started that have basically Put them in a hole that I'm not at all confident they can dig themselves out of. It's a money pit. They bought a house that needed more work than they realized, and they've spent all the time since then just trying to fill that hole in the basement. And they filled some holes better than others. But I think they're always going to continue to be in some version of crisis mode. I would say to anybody that if you like the idea of living on a ship for an extended period of time, four or five months and you can afford to do it, it's great. But I wouldn't give them $150,000 and assume that the ship will still be sailing in 5, 10, or 15 years. And I think some people did sign up with that assumption. And those are the people I worry about that if it goes belly up. The people that have given them hundreds of thousands of dollars and sold their homes, I don't know where those people will go. I doubt seriously that they will get their money back.

A (32:01)

You know, reflecting on this experience, I'm wondering, sort of in aggregate, what your thoughts are about it.

B (32:10)

I don't regret doing it. It's been good for me in that I feel like the world seems smaller. And I think that's a good perspective to have. When things happen in other places, they're not just names on a map to me. As the typhoons go through the Philippines recently, there were some while we were there, but some since we've been there. Those villages are real places to me. You know, we've been to those places. And just from a historical perspective, that we were able to spend time in Hiroshima, in Nagasaki, and to not just have those being places from a history book. You know, I'm hanging out on the ship with. With folks from all over the world and many of whom are in. At different various stations in life. And I don't know that I would have mixed with them if I had not been on the ship. So I don't regret it. If I had it to do over, I would wait. Because most of my misgivings about this have been because of the uncertainty of it and the sort of aggravations that seem to have come from lack of planning. Yes, I would have said, let's let these people sail for a year or two and see how things are going, as opposed to jumping on right at the beginning. Right.

A (33:39)

It must be so weird to suddenly be a civilian again. I mean, I don't know how else to describe it. In some ways, the ship was like this great gift to you. And in other ways, I feel like you were a little beholden to it, you know, because you were a captive in some ways. You had to follow it wherever it went. And there was also just, like, a lot of difficulty that you could not have possibly anticipated. So I'm, like, curious what it feels like to no longer have either the opportunity or the responsibility that you were dealing with before.

B (34:14)

It's very much a bubble when you're on the ship. It's a small bubble. It feels like the whole world, everything is happening within the context of those 250 people in that enclosed space. And that can be both comforting and aggravating. When you step away from it, which I've done a couple of times over the course of the year and a half, you realize that all the stuff that seems important when you're there, a lot of it's really petty and gossipy and not significant to anyone that's not on the ship. But there is a certain comfort level in knowing who the characters are and sort of following the storylines. You know, gossip is popular for a reason. It's compelling and it's entertaining. And so to be in the midst of lots of personal drama, professional, romantic, otherwise, that sense of being in a small town, or as we've talked about several times, of feeling like you're back in high school, there's a certain comfort level in it. There's an infrastructure to it that I'm sure I'm gonna miss. I think I'll feel a little bit more vulnerable out here in the world.

A (35:29)

It's funny, you know, you called your series on the Villa Vie unmoored, but there's nothing more unmooring than lack of community. And for all of the difficulty you had on that ship, you never wanted for community. You always had your people, or people. Maybe not your people, but you always had people.

B (35:51)

Listen, I'm going to keep the substack going, and I'm not changing the title. There's no question. I continue to be unmoored. I still have no real sense of where I'm going or what I want to do when I get there. I'm drifting. And that was part of the reason I got on the ship in the first place. I had been living in the van for 13 years and had, you know, spent that time seeing almost everything I could see in the US and going to the same places over and over again. And I felt like I needed a change. But I don't feel like I've in any way found my foundation or my. Any sense of stability and. But that's probably just about me. I'm not sure stability is among the things that I'm able to attain. So, yeah, I'm out there. I'm. I'm floating loose, and we'll see what happens.

A (36:41)

You know, you spent a career working as a journalist, and it strikes me that you have, like, access to sources and abilities to get what you need to report on a story in a way that nobody else can. Are you planning on continuing to cover the Villa V, or is that just something that you're. Is that just a part of your life that you feel like is over and you're going to just set that down?

B (36:59)

I haven't made up my mind yet. My inclination is to let somebody else write about it. It's different. I feel like I've been a participant and can't actually write the story in the objective way that I would if I were covering it as a journalist. If I were to write a critical piece about it, I think a lot of people would say, well, he's just a disgruntled passenger, and they wouldn't be wrong. My inclination at the moment is to leave that sort of serious journalistic work to someone else, and I highly recommend that someone else take it up. But we'll see. I'm likely to change my mind probably after a couple of years.

A (37:42)

Are you excited to be able to have better beer selections now?

B (37:45)

Oh, oh, oh. I'm so much more excited here. In fact, my first night off the ship, I learned a valuable lesson. We went to a place called the Crock Bar in Cairns where the beer was not shitty and where many people came and bought me beers. And I, because I'm courteous and polite, chose that if they were all going to buy me beers, I should drink them. And it had a great time. And it turns out you can have too many beers.

A (38:22)

I learned that when I was in high school.

B (38:23)

Now, well, I also learned it in high school, but I've kind of forgotten. And, you know, I was never tempted to have too many beers on the Odyssey because the beer wasn't very good, but the beer and the Crock bar was very good. I was supposed to leave the next day on a train to Brisbane. I didn't make that train. I was up all. All night as the. I believe the phrase is talking on the porcelain telephone.

A (38:51)

I see. What's next?

B (38:54)

Oh, that's a good question. Okay. I'm going to stay in Australia until the end of the year. I kind of want to experiment to see if traveling for an extended period of time, six weeks or so, where I'm in charge, where I'm choosing where to go and how long to stay there. If that feels like a more satisfying experience than being sort of a prisoner to the schedule of the cruise ship. It was very frustrating sometimes to go into ports for just a night or to not be there on the night when there was a particular event happening and, you know, missing it by two days and having to leave right when you started to think, oh, this is a pretty cool place. But, oh, we got to be gone at five o' clock on New Year's Eve. I'm going to fly to New Zealand and then I'm going to spend a couple of weeks in New Zealand and just be a scenery gawking tourist over there. I'll take some trains and look at some mountains and chase some hobbits and stuff. And then I will fly back to the States in mid January and then see how it feels to be back there and what I can do to save America.

A (40:04)

Yeah, what are you going to do to save America? What do you got for us? Because we're, we're in pretty sorry shape at the moment.

B (40:11)

You seem to be having some problems. I'm going to work really hard in the midterms for, for Democratic candidates. I'm going to knock on doors, I'm gonna probably poll watch. You know, I live in a van when I'm in the States and I'm gonna go back to living in a van. And because it's a big gray van, it looks like exactly the sort of thing that you would smuggle illegal aliens in. I think that's how they refer to them, isn't it? The bad people. So I'm gonna make the van into an ICE distraction vehicle. I've put a Mexican flag on it already and I plan to put some provocative signs on the side and just drive around areas where we think there are ICE agents and see if I can get them to follow me and waste their time trying to track down my citizenship. I feel like I should be able to get pulled over a couple of times a week and I'll probably be in custody by the end of the year.

A (41:06)

I think that you are a natural for that. And you, that's probably what you were born to do.

B (41:12)

Yeah, no, it feels like a fulfillment of my purpose.

A (41:17)

What are you most looking forward to now?

B (41:22)

I'm looking forward to seeing all the friends that I haven't seen in a couple of years, going back to the States and reconnecting with all my pals that I've only been connected to through social media since I got on the ship. And I'm excited to see if we can save America. You know, I'm, I'm 5050 on our prospects, but I'm ready for the fight.

A (41:46)

I think that's it. Joe, I thank you so much for taking us on this crazy trip with you. And listen, we are going to want to keep checking in. I want to know how your baiting of the ICE agents is going and sort of what the world is looking like to you now that you are back online.

B (42:05)

And I assume that with a little distance I'll have a much clearer sense of what I did and didn't gain from this experience. It's still a little too fresh for me to analyze it. I'm sure I'll have more opinions as time passes.

A (42:22)

It has been a real honor to accompany you briefly on this trip and we really appreciate you being so generous with us.

B (42:31)

I've enjoyed this so much. It's been really, it's been great for me. You are asking questions makes me think about things that would not have otherwise occurred to me and has helped me understand what I'm going through a lot. So thank you so much for helping me.

A (42:47)

I really appreciate that. All right, Joe, you have a good day. I hope the basketball game is wonderful. I hope you drink some good beer.

B (42:53)

I'm gonna do both things.

A (42:56)

All right, take care. We'll put a link to Joe's substack in our show Notes. I know that many of the episodes that he's appeared on are premium feed only so if you want to hear those you are going to have to Sign up hyperfix pod.com join but we have posted a couple on the main feed so if you're not interested in that I will include the main feed episodes featuring Joe in our show. Notes. Hyperfixed is produced and edited by Emma Cortland, Amor Yates and Seri Safer Sukanek. It was engineered by Tony Williams. Music is by the mysterious Brake Master Cylinder and me. Special thanks this week of course to Cousin Margie. You can get bonus episodes, access our discord and much much more by becoming a Premium member@hyperfixedpod.com join also we are currently at almost 3300 premium subscribers and we really want to get to 4000 by the end of 2025. So on Friday, December 12th I'm going to be hosting the first and maybe last ever Hyperfix Telethon a 12th of PM Eastern on December 12th, I will be on Twitch for 24 hours and if you sign up during that time, I will perform a song, any song you request, live on Twitch. Now, I'm a pretty bad musician, so this whole thing could be a total fiasco, but won't that also be pretty fun to tune into again? That's Twitch TV. HyperFixedPod Dec 12 at 12pm Eastern, the 24 hour hyper fixed telethon.

C (44:51)

When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify. Get everything you need to grow the way you want. Like all the way. Stack more sales with the best converting checkout on the planet. Track your cha chings from every channel right in one spot and turn real time reporting into big time opportunities. Take your business to a whole new level. Switch to Shopify. Start your free trial today.

A (45:20)

Radiotopia.

C (45:23)

From PRX.