Reflecting on the Impact of the Story

Hey there. It's Robin from PRX and I want to take a moment to tell you about a big year long series from this day, a history podcast here at Radio Topia. twenty twenty six is America's two hundred fiftieth birthday this is where. And folks over at this day have requested that I try and say semi quincentennial ten times fast . Anyway, it's been two hundred and fifty years since the Declaration of Independence and over at this day they are in the middle of a year long series called Fifty Weeks That Shaped America . This day is doing deep dives each week on the stories from two hundred fifty years of US history that brought us to this very complicated moment. Some of them are new perspectives on huge moments like the Civil War or Prohibition . Others are lesser discussed stories that still had a massive impact, like the Transcontinental Railroad or the so called hard hat riots of the nineteen seventies. This day is also doing a special weekly newsletter, live shows, collaborations, bonus episodes, and lots more. So as we head towards the fourth of July and beyond, this is a great time to join in. If you need a little help navigating America's big birthday, check out this day . Go to this daypod dot com or wherever you get your podcast. The show is supported by Notion . With the recent launch of custom agents, Notion became the collaborative AI workspace where teams and agents work side by side . And now their new developer platform is turning that workspace into infrastructure developers can build on. Notion's developer platform gives developers and coding agents the primitives to extend what's possible on Notion and take it beyond, connect to external systems, bring cont ext in, take permission actions across your toolstack, and expose custom agents' capabilities to any system that needs them. It includes new primitives that allow systems to sync any data source into Nionot, build any tool for your Notion Agents, and orchestrate any agent in Notion. Plus, it's easy to use. CLI authenticates in one line, workers deploy without provisioning infrastructure, and with a cloud based zero infrastructure path, you can just write your code, deploy, and you're done. Learn more about Notion's developer platform today at notion dot com slash purx. That's all lowercase letters, notion dot com slash purx to try notions developer platform today. And when you use our link, you're supporting our show. Hey, happy New Year. I'm Alex Goldman. This is Hyperfixed . Each week on our show , listeners write in with their problems big and small, and I solve them, or at least I try. And if I don't, I at least give a good reason why I can't. But I guess technically that's not the case because this week we are, airing a problem that we have already solved . We are hard at work as we speak on tackling new problems for twenty twenty six , but you know, it's the holidays. Everybody's really busy. We're all traveling. And we thought this was a great time to re air one of our favorite episodes of twenty twenty five . And when I say one of our favorite episodes , I can only speak for myself, but it was the first time we made an episode where I was like, oh, this is what the show can be if we are firing on all cylind ers. If we are doing it right , this is the stuff we can make. This episode had such a profound impact on our listener and on our audience . And if you make it all the way through to the end, you can hear that it has a very profound impact on me as well. The story is called Two Birds One Hundred Stones . It aired in February of last year. It was our first and to this day, only live performance at a festival called On Air Fest in New York City . And if you've already heard this episode and you're thinking I'm about to dip , do not do that because we added a special surprise at the end of this episode. So if you want to hear that update without listening to the whole episode over again , you can scrub to the end approximately at hold on, let me ask our engineer Tony Williams Tony, when does the bonus stuff start? It's at like forty one fifty ? Okay, just skip to that to hear only the new stuff . And for everyone who hasn't heard this episode , please enjoy. This is Two Birds one hundred Stones . Last week, hyperfix performed our first live story at On Airfest in Brooklyn . And in most cases, if we did a live version of a show, we'd probably rerecord the entire thing for broadcast . But in this case, the live aspect was simply not replicable in the studio, so we wanted to play you the story as it was performed at on Airfest . It's a story about regret , fear , and ultimately the, courage it takes to just try . Here's the story . Okay , this is a story that we produce especially for this . And I'm just gonna launch right into it and we'll see how it goes . Thank you all so much for coming. I really appreciate it. And before I get started, I really need to do one thing, which is I need to shout out my team and you guys should give them all an amazing round of applause . Our engineer Tony Williams, Sarius offers Schenek, Amore Yates, Emma Cortland, who sadly couldn't be here. Thank you guys so much. This is impossible without you. Here we go . I 'm M Gatoldtman. This is hyperf ixed, our first ever live taping . On this show, listeners write in with their problems big and small, and I solve them, or at least I try . And if I don't, I at least give a good reason why I can't. These words that I've just said to you are the words that start every episode of our show. And I like them because they provide the listener with a sense of calm and order like Alex is here to solve problems. He's going to guide you from the beginning of the story to the end . Everything's going to be chill , but when I wrote those words a week ago, I had no idea if we were going to be able to pull off what we're attempting to pull off today. And if I'm being totally honest , I still don't know if we're gonna pull it off . But there's only one way to find out . So this week , two birds, one hundred stones, a live podcast and six chapters . Chapter one , the first bird . Okay , so I have my camera set up on a bunch of DHS tapes right now and I'm gonna use those to hold this thing up so perfect. Why do you have a bunch of VHS tapes? Because I'm a giant nerd. This is Kenan. He's a Toronto native , and if he is a nerd, he is the very best kind of nerd. He is a media nerd. And not just the kind that obsesses over stats and trivia , Keenan is the kind of nerd that attends as much to the social world of the art as the art itself. He spent years working in record stores, concert venues, he has an insane collection of physical media , but there's one artist whose work continues to evade him. And that artist is his mother, Megan . What your rel'sationship with your mom like ? Like you are guys pretty candid with one another? Do you have an easy relationship? Is it difficult? Is it weird? Like what kind of relationship do you have? I would say it's all of those things . That's totally fair . Yeah , I love my mom to bits. She's been a very emotionally honest person my entire life. Like there's nothing that she really hides or holds back on when we have any kind of personal difficulties, like we can talk about it. She's not a very closed person. She doesn't hide things. So that's why I think that we have a great relationship . But there is one thing that Meghan has been reluctant to talk about , her young dreams of being a songwriter. Over the years, Keen's heard the story in bits and pieces, but the broad strokes of it goes something like this. In the early eighties , Meghan was a waitress at Second City in Toronto and she was writing songs. A friend of hers, Second City's house piano player, said, Hey, I have this friend. She's a singer songwriter. I guarantee she would love to perform your songs. Her name's Katie Lang . Let's record some songs. You can give her your tape. I'll put in a good word for you. She was a massive Katie Lang fan . She saw her perform at the Cameron House, which is like a not very large music venue here in Toronto. She did a week long residency and my mom was there every night sitting in the front row by herself . Anyway, she has a cassette tape of her songs and she handed that to Katie Lang at one point and never heard back that was gone . After that, Meghan was so devastated by the apparent rejection she sold her piano. She packed up all her music, and she charted a new career path for herself. Megan started working in film and television, and that's what she still does today. She doesn't need a megaphone. She's the person on set who is just saying like, and we're roll ing and she's five foot nothing and just commands everybody . She is in charge of the set and that's what she's like. These are some photos of Meghan from her on set stuff. This is her with Don Johnson, Brian Danneh , Rutger Hower . For all intents and purposes, Meghan has lived an extraordinary life. She's worked with tons of celebrities, Jason Priestley, Billy Zane, Gabriel Byrne , and she has a massive amount of insane stories about everyone from Leonard Cohen to Robin Williams. But Keenan has always sensed that somewhere inside his mother , there's still a person who longs to be a musician or at least part of her that regrets that she stopped trying. Basically , she gave up on doing this. After the tape didn't lead to anything, after Katie Lang never called her back , she just was like, fuck it, it's never going to happen. I'm abandoning this completely. That kind of b umps me out. I feel like yeah me too Me too She really felt as though she had something to say through these songs and other than a handful of people nobody's ever heard it . And I truly feel like that lingers , it still lingers with her . So I I wanted to bring her some resolution to this thing that she always wanted and never had. Also for a woman who sounds like kind of brassy and willing to talk about anything . The fact that there is this one component of her life that she steadfastly refuses to talk about , it must feel like a gap , a knowledge gap in this person that you , I think know pretty well. Yeah I have never heard these recordings, never they exist on a real to reel tape that is sitting in a box somewhere and then there's sheet music for for all of them, all of the songs that I've never seen. I have memories of this one song that she did sometimes it was about her friend. That's all I remember because we're going back over twenty years at this point . So I would love to see this tape get restored and I have absolutely no, I have no knowledge of how to do that . It's a grimy old tape that would like need to be cleaned up . So that's where Kina reached out to me. He had an instinct that I could get his grimy tape cleaned up for his mom so she could hear her music again and be inspired . And he was right about one thing . I am the type of guy who has a reel to reel in his attic . It's 'cause I'm cool. But I had a feeling he was wrong about something else, which is that I don't think that this pro ject was entirely for his mom . Are you more interested in hearing this tape yourself or in her hearing it with you, I guess, would be the way I would put it That's interesting. I mean, I want to hear it because I've never heard it, so I'm definitely interested in hearing it for myself. But like , I guess I would say I am doing this this it's for her as well . So I guess both. I would love to, I would love to get her to talk about it more. It's one of the few things that she doesn't want to talk about very much. And maybe that's just because I haven't asked the right questions . I'm always hesitant to kind of bring it up . Also, there's not many reasons for it to come up in conversation necessarily. Keenan told me his mother is coming to visit him in a couple d and that she'll be staying for a week . So the plan is for him to bring it up sometime while she's there . Are you worried about broaching this with her? Like are you worried that it might upset her . Yeah , but I think that it's not gonna be I'm hoping that me saying , you know, what we're doing here, I tell her this story. That might excite her. Like I'm leaning more. I am worried , but I'm hopeful . I'm also worried. This is another major thing that I need to bring up. I'm worried that these songs are bad. I am worried that there's a reason she didn't get signed, but I have no idea . I have vague memories of one of the songs that I remember sounding pretty good when I was a kid, but I'm like all I know is that my grandmother truly believed in her How's your grandmother's taste? Oh, my nana was the best . Do you worry about us recording this and then going to her and being like, hey, we talked about this deeply personal thing that you consider a failure in your life and we want you to revisit that thing that you consider a failure. Do you worry that she's going to be like, what's your problem? Like why would you bring this up a little bit ? I mean, like you know her well enough. What do you think her reaction to this being revisited would be I'm leaning more towards the side of this could potentially excite her . I also think maybe she'll be like , well, I'll do this for my son, you know ? I want to believe the reason that I haven't told her about it yet is just because one, I wanted to have this conversation first, and two, I didn't want to necessarily have her shut it down right away . So I wanted to have something on paper to be like, I've already had this like interview with these people who are interested in talking about it 'cause she's somebody that like if If I'll I'll secretly record a video of her doing something ridiculous because she's a very funny person and she'll be kind of embarrassed that I did that and then watch the video and she'll kind of acknowledge that she is very funny in it. So I think with a push , perhaps she will be on board, but I'm gonna have to tell her and I've got a whole week with her. Like this couldn't have timed out better . So we'll see. My advice would be talk to your mom and then I guess we'll just see what happens, you know , like how she feels and if she's comfortable with it. And I would love to talk to her about it. I would love to at the very least hear the tape and see if it's salvageable . It's daunting, but I'm not afraid to ask the question. That's right. Let her know that some strange guy from the internet is interested in hearing her music . Chapter two The Second Bird . So I didn't tell Keenan this because I didn't want to put any pressure on him. But while I was trying to help Keanan solve his problem , I was standing waist deep in a problem of my own . And I was beginning to wonder if Keanan could help me solve that problem So back in November of twenty twenty four, I'd been contacted by the organizers of On Airfest about doing something for the twenty twenty five festival . And I said , Of course , because even though we'd only made two episodes of Hyperfixed at that point, and the team was only just starting to learn how to work together , the festival was four months away . Also, I have a policy of saying yes to everyone who asked me to do podcast stuff unless they're fascists . So anyway, I agree to do the show . And then I mean, you guys know what happened. November turns to December and we're like, We should probably start talking about on AirFest. And I'm like, Oh yeah, let's add it to the agenda for next week. And then next week turns into next week and that week turns into Christmas and Christmas turns into New Year's, you get it . And we were able to come up with a few decent ideas. And if you were eagle eyed, you might have even spotted the original idea we were going to do for this on the On AirFest website . But between January and the beginning of February , every permutation of every idea we've had for the show has fallen apart. So by the time I hang up with Keenan on february fourth , which is what today's the twentieth, so that's four, sixteen days ago, my hands are empty . And if we can't find a story, we will have no choice but to stage our doomsday option, which is titled On Air Fest presents Alex Goldman attempts to make new friends . Honestly, even the thought of that makes me shudder, it's as bad as it sounds . The idea was that I would bring people from the audience on stage and become friends with them during the session . But I have another idea and it involves Keenan, so two days after our first call, I shoot him an email to ask him if he has time for a quick conversation which brings us to chapter three , the first stone . One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. Hi Kenin, you are muted. You're gonna have to unmute yourself there . Can he hear me now? Yes, amazing. Yes . At this point, Kenan's mom is at his house. She's just flown in from Nova Scotia, she's staying for about a week, and the visit's going fine , but Keenan hasn't told her about the podcast yet, so he has snuck out into his backyard to talk to us. I'll keep this brief and it's crazy this is this is crazy. It is totally fine if you're like, there's no way this is going to work. Okay. I just want to get back in front of you . I'm excited to hear it. So I tell them the story I just told you about how I had committed to this thing and then totally shit the bed and about how I'm exploring alternative options for this live show, which is scheduled to take place in two weeks and I thought maybe this is an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone . And then I very tactfully ask him . I was wondering considering your mom truly desires an audience . Do you think she would like we could make this a story where in two weeks the look on your face was mad, skeptical . I can compose this story and then at the end she can come out and sing for us . Oh my god. That is I love my God. I totally understand. Just think about it, no pressure. I know that's like a crazy thing . Do I want it to happen one hundred percent? Do I think it could happen? Big maybe I don't know, I don't think she's done it in years . Again , totally fine if this is not a thing that is possible. I just want her to know that like if she feels comfortable doing it , I would love to give her the opportunity to sing the song she felt like she wasn't able to sing to other people . Oh my God , I will ask her . I'm still trying to think about how to broach this information to begin with, but I have a whole day with her today. And again, I apologize because I'm also putting pressure on you by doing this. I know this is nuts . No it's I mean technically you are, but this is like if God, if this could happen, I would be like just over the moon, but yeah, it would be so cool. Two weeks is like I understand. Yes. I will talk to her today. I mean, I got to broach the story thing first and then I'll I will tell her. Okay , let's see how it goes Can you hear the desperation in my voice? Can you hear it? It's so bad . Listening to that gives me second hand embarrassment for myself That's wacky . Okay, chapter four The First Bird Part two . So a couple days later we get an email from Keenan, saying Meghan's agreed to talk to us and we're like holy shit, this is gonna work. Megan's dream is going to come true. Keenan's going to get to hear his mother's music. We're not going to get banned from on Airfest . And best of all, I'm not going to have embar torass myself trying to make new friends in front of a bunch of strangers . Everything is coming up Goldman. And then we get on a video call with Meghan . And without saying it directly, she very clearly con veys that she does not want to even be talking to us . You good, mom? Yeah, I'll be really great, Canon. See what I mean? Now under normal circumstances, this would have given me pause because the last thing I want to do is force a spotlight on someone who genuinely wants to avoid attention, even if it means that I'm going to walk away from this with nothing to show for it. But Kean cautioned me about his mom that while she may hate the idea of attention, once she warms up a bit, Megan actually kind of loves it . So all I had to do was warm her up. So I'm wondering just to start if you could introduce yourself . My name is Meghan Banning. I am the mother of Keenan Tamlin who started this Kaf el . I live in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which is a beautiful coastal town in Canada. And I'm here to visit my son. And he's ruined your whole trip, right? Well, he was n't in the door, like I think it was like the first day and I cried and I don't cry very, very rarely . Oh , I was like, this is soap of hoke, dare you . And it was it's a part of my life that breaks my heart because it's a shut of cutawata. Right. Well, I want to I like wanna ask you about that. Like how did you get interested in music ? I came from a very dysfunctional home. My mother was bipolar. My father was an alcoholic . But we had love and music and we danced. When on a good day, we danced , but music was always a thing. There was a piano in our home. My mother tells a story. I just clung onto the piano and everything shut out. It was my peace . And I could play anything. I play boy, I could hear everything I could play , and I could write music instantly. I went to another place . I went to a place that I was calm and it was like I was in another world. It was my world, it was my music I played every day probably eight hours a day. Eight hours. Yeah, I played. That's all I did is play music. Now I just play Euchar online . For the next forty five minutes, Meghan told me about her life and her music . She told me about her dreams of becoming a songwriter and about how when she didn't hear back from Katie Lang , she decided it meant she wasn't good enough to be a professional musician . So she sold her piano , stashed the last of her recordings in nondescript boxes and drawers where she expected they'd stay until long after she died . Kenan would later tell me this was the most he ever heard his mom talk about her music. And even though it was clear that revisiting these memories was indeed very painful for Meghan, it also seemed like the process of actually doing that, of sifting through these old painful memories , it was almost liberating for her . It reminded me of that thing that Mr. Rogers used to say about how if it's mentionable, it's manageable , like as long as we can figure out a way to talk about it, we can figure out a way to carry it . And I think for Kenan, watching his mom talk so openly about her music also kind of freed him to talk about what the silence around this music has meant to him and why he started this whole thing in the first place. I guess it mostly came from a desire to hear those songs because my mom is a very, very open person as you can hear and this seemed to be one of the only things that she didn't want to talk about that much . And every time I said, Can I hear those songs? No . She . They were oh there on a real to reel tape and that's going to take I don't know how to clean that up and I got the sheet. I don't know where it is and I didn't know how much of this was true and how much was her holding back And I thought maybe all this story is my problem is that I need to get this tape restored and that way I could present it to her and then I could listen to it and that was that . And then now the story's kind of become a lot more about her, which I love 'cause she has a story . I think that because this is one of the few things that she is hesitant to talk about . It seemed like a unfinished chapter of her life, and it could be a bit of a bookend to that story, but not necessarily the end. Yeah . Can I say, let me tell you what this means to me that my son knew I loved to die I hope so. Oh yeah . But I didn't under I didn't get how much he knew how much it meant to me until he did this . I never thought it mattered to him. I didn't think he to me it was just something I did. I didn't realize that he paid attention to it . And when he said, Mama god, this is what about your music. I went, what about my music? Like I cried, I was mad. Ask 'em, I was in tears. I can't talk about this. Can we talk about it? But no, it wasn't until today that I would let him talk about it because it's so personal because it's when you let yourself down , when I didn't do something that was I should have done , I didn't do something I was supposed to do . And it's a regret , but in my heart of heart I'm a musician . By this point, we've been talking to Megan for over an hour . And I feel like I understand everything that Kean told me about his mom . This woman has not had an easy life. She's been knocked around , beaten down, but there's still so much fire inside of her. And yes , she spent decades carrying the weight of her regrets and fears , but I am a firm believer in the idea that it is never too late to change your life . And also, Keenan had told me that all his mom needed was a push . So I decided to push her . I say, Megan, I don't want to beat around the bush. You're a musician with songs that nobody's ever heard, and I'm a podcaster with an empty stage and an audience hungry for something that stirs their souls , would you do us all the honor of performing your music live at On Airfest in Brooklyn, New York ? Oh , not happening That's never going to happen . I'm never going to be on a stage and sing my songs because I can't sing anymore . Like I can't. Like my voice, I smoke fucking marbles . Just 'cause you don't sing like Katie Lang, doesn't mean no, I don't want to fucking sing like her anyway. She's too twangy . No fuck . No . Um , just could not do that. But here's what I could do I would love to have someone else sing to have my music heard and my song heard , that would be I would die to hear that. Yeah Getting teary eyed just thinking about it . No, it would be it'd be some If there was one song that we could get someone to perform, what song would that be? It's called Room . Roones , Meghan told me, is a song about a feeling she had years ago after her then fiance broke off their engagement. It's about that singular kind of heartbreak you experience when you're by yourself in the same spaces you used to share with someone you loved when the volume of your sadness and anger is only outweighed by how much you miss being in a room with them . What would it mean to you for people to hear that music? Would it mean anything at all to you now? Like what would it feel like to have people in public hear that? It would take you back to me back then . That young sweet I was never sweet . I can't say sweet . No, but that pertinent that still exists to hear that music die . And is it good? I mean, it could be shit. I mean, I haven't listened to it for so long, but I just know heart . In my heart, I know it's good . Chapter five , ninety nine stones . Okay , so we spo to Mekghenan. She told us's she wants to do this, and that when she gets back to Halifax on Tuesday, she's going to send over the sheet music and the cassette, and all of this is great . We say goodbye, we hang up the call, and then all we can do is wait and pray that at some point between now and then, Meghan doesn't change her mind , because if she does , we have no backup plan for this live show and no time to figure out an alternative . And if you think I'm simply I'm mentioning this simply for the sake of ramping up narrative tension , one, you're right . Two , let me remind you, this woman has not let anyone hear her music in nearly four decades, including her son, and now we're expecting her to turn over the only recordings via snail mail to a bald stranger whose end game is to share it with the world . So needless to say I did, not sleep well on Monday of last week . I spent the evening imagining what the organizers of On Airfest would do with this programming slot if I failed to fill it . My most fantastical idea would be that there would be an Alex Goldman effigy contest , during which the most realistic Alex Goldman would be strung up right there in the main hall so attendees could take turns beating it like a pinata When I wake up on Tuesday, I set about finding a singer. I don't know a lot of musicians in New York, so I texted my friend, Eliza McLam, who lives in LA. Eliza is a musician and a podcaster. She hosts a podcast called Binch Top , but her voice , guys, her voice . It's somehow delicate and cuts right through you. She sounds like she could sing you a lullaby and eat you alive simultaneously . And honestly, she would have been a perfect for this, but I was hoping she could recommend someone in the city. And when I got in touch with her, she told me she'd actually just moved to the city . And immediately I'm like, oh, this was meant to be. So I got on my knees and I started begging and she was like, calm down dude. I'd love to sing Meghan's song. And I'm like, great, as soon as I get the music, I'll send it over . We check in with Kean throughout the day. Keanan checks in with Meghan, but by seven thirty PM there's still no news . Meghan's told Kean that she knows exactly where the cassette tape is , but that the sheet music might take a bit longer to find. And as for the Real Terriel, which contains the only copies of the studio recordings Meghan made for Katie Lang , that was completely MIA. So we agreed to circle up on Wednesday morning . Wednesday morning, there's good news from Keenan. The sheet music and the cassette have been located , but the sheet music is just piano chords. The lyrics were written by hand. Megan has no way to play the cassette and there's a huge snowstorm coming to Nova Scotia. So we scrap the idea of sending this stuff through the mail. Keenan starts calling audio nerds in Halifax looking for someone capable of converting a cassette into a digital file they can send to us. Obviously, this is not an ideal situation, but then again , none of the work we've done on this project is ideal. And yet it is starting to feel like we have inadvertently assembled a small army of people who are deeply invested in the outcome of this operation . Like within hours , Keenan has made contact with a legendary local musician named Rich O'Coin who has the gear to get the job done. And Rich is like, Yes, bring me your tired, your poor, your busted tapes, I will convert them and then we can get them to Eliza . But due to the storm , nobody is able to get over to Riches until Thursday . At seven AM on Thursday , Keenan texts to say that the tape is on its way to riches . And at this point, we are exactly one week to the day from our show at On Airfest . And the organizers of On Airfest have started sending us follow up emails remind ing us that our scripts and our clips and our photos are due by Friday AKA tomorrow . But the thing is we don't have any of that stuff because this whole story hinges on a single song, a song we've never heard, and at this point there's a pretty good chance we never will . Because remember, this take this heading to Richards is nearly forty years old, and has been hiding at the bottom of a box filled with all kinds of other shit, and there's really no telling what kind of condition it'll be in when it arrives or if it'll even be salvageable . So when Rich sends this photo of the cassette Our hearts fucking sink . The tape is visibly bent, twisted up inside the cassette's plastic casing . And as I'm looking at it, there's a brief moment where I wish I had quicksand near my house . Then I could just take a walk and end up accidentally buried up to my collarbones and explain to passerby that unfortunately I will not be able to attend the On AirFest twenty five twenty , the premiere festival of sound and storytelling featuring intimate conversations, performances and live podcasts , because I'll be here in QuickSand . Anyway , about an hour later, the thought evaporates completely because rich , he goes in manually , re reels the tape with the kind of care and precision one might expect from a man who's deactivating a bomb . And by noon, we have digital copies of Meghan's songs in our inbox . And the moment we hear them , it's like look, I don't believe in destiny , but over the course of my life , I have experienced I'm gonna start crying . But over the course of my life, I've experienced alignments that certainly felt like they were faded . And when Megan sent music to my friend Eliza , I felt like I was in the middle of one of those things where a hundred crazy elements suddenly and inexplicably aligned precisely the way they were meant to. So without further ado , I'd like to invite Eliza McLam to join me for the sixth and final chapter of our show , the song Rooms by Meghan Banning Smoke filled rooms and lonely afternoons empty faces going over places Idle chatter as we gather at no name bars , no introductions needed are then before Nowhere once her garden now I ever wants forgotten Well I'm ambling on and it's all gone wrong because I'm missing it I'm missing here . I can't complain it's been a blink I'm just a few cards short so I'll wrap myself up in your memory just to get me through the rough spot . I'll live my glass tick survival meanwhile I'll be in the wa I'll be miss ing you I'll be miss ing you Smoke filled rooms and lonely afternoons empty faces going going nowhere places Idol chatter as we gather up , no name bars , no introductions needed or have been here Thank you so much Thank you . So what you're hearing right now is the recording from a boombox on top of a piano from nineteen eighty three , I think so what you don't know is that Kenan and Meghan have been watching via a Zoom call, which is being held by my producer Sari this whole time . So I'm wondering if I could just bring the phone up real quick. Yeah , yep . Hey guys , how you doing? Hold on a second. I'm gonna put you on speaker. No, I don't know how to put you on speaker. Can you ? Oh yeah, you have to unmute yourselves. Can you unmute yourselves real quick . Can we bring the music down the house music down ? Hi. Hey guys, how you doing? How was what did you think? That was something Eliza, thank you. You did a great job, sweetheart. Really great. Keenan's breaking my heart. He's on doom. We've been throwing a win noviscotion to see his sweet little face and we both broke into tears and thank you for someone who I was like, this is not happening . Really quite something. And Alex and all your team, I appreciate it. It was a bit much pulling this off in a week, going in a blizzard and finding all this memories forty years ago of stuff I never thought would happen and the fact that there's people that are hearing this song. I mean, I got five more of them even better, by the way . Very much like her to say something like that. There's more . And they're great. Andrew Rich Moichael Ch whoen helped me out , this strange man, I just ran up and said, hi in a blizzard. Here's a tape. Good luck, Chuck. Bye and ran off. He happened to live five minutes away from her too. Five minutes away and he wasn't home. He's like, Keep this in is enough an. There's a snowfall. I'm halibut is wand, really . Alex, you convinced me. I was like, this is not happening. Like it's a lot and I'm blessed and the love of my son who remembered and kept the memory of my music and remembered because I forgot. It was in a box in the basement that I spent four hours looking for . And it's been quite an experience . You know, that twenty poor three year old that wrote it so many years ago . So what has inspired me is I'm going to go buy myself a keyboard and get back to my music because I'd love to play But I music is still in me . All right guys, well, I'm gonna hand you back to Sari because I'm running out of time . No, you're great. Thank you both so much for sharing this party. I'm gonna start crying again . Thank you both so much. I really appreciate it alone. Thank you so much for coming. So at the top of the episode, I teased that we had a special edition to the story . And that addition is that about a month ago, Hyperfix producer, Emma Cortlin and I jumped on a phone call with Keenan to find out what he'd been up to since we last talked and what Meghan had been up to after they opened their lives to us in such a big and vulnerable way. Which I gotta say, opening up to a podcast is big and vulnerable anyway , but the stakes felt so much higher with Keenan and his mom because we were performing her songs to a live studio audience for the first time ever . And we were just curious how they were doing once the dust had finally settled. And I also knew that Kenan had some pretty big news in their life since we last talked, so we jumped on a video call to catch up . So Keenan, you got married? I did, yes, I did get married. How long long have how you been married now? August thirtieth. Congratulations. How long ago was august thirtieth? You do the math. I'm not a whiz at it. Me either. So august thirtieth, October, November. Oh, so like three months? Not very long. Yeah. Yeah, ye.ah Oh , so actually technically we signed the papers in April , but then we didn't have the ceremony till august thirtieth. So we signed the paper on our tenth anniversary because I was like, well, that seems very fitting. And we were going do to the ceremony out in Nova Scotia where my mom lives and she was like, Don't do it. The weather's going to be terrible. Just do this do the ceremony later and she was right . It was perfect weather the entire time we were there at the end of August and the day of the ceremony, pouring rain, we had to move the ceremony back half an hour because Spencer's family was arriving late and we're like, okay, let's push it to four hundred and thirty. I kid you not, four hundred twenty eight like the clouds park because we're doing an outdoor ceremony. So and we didn't we had a backup kind of , but it was like if we can't do this outside, it's not gonna work out. And it was the timing was unbelievable. And like, I'm reading my vows and this heron flies by right in front of my view and I was like, I don't know, is that a sign ? Whoa. Is that good luck? I'm just gonna say it's good luck. Aren't herons like harbingers of death? I'm sorry, you know what? I don't want them to be true. I'm making that up . We like Googled it and there's a lot of different interpretations of herons. So I'm just like, I'm gonna pick the good ones and I'll say that it's those . Okay, what music did you walk down the aisle to? So that was a big point of contention . So I'm obviously very big into music as I'm sure you guys remember. And I was like , it's just something instrumental, nice and slow. And I was going through like hundreds of instrumental covers of things . And I really wanted to go down to rainbow connection because I'm a huge Paul Williams fan and I'm like, if I can walk down the album of Paul Williams song, I'll be so happy. Spencer was like , I don't think so . Not to correct you by the way, that song is actually by Kermit the Frog. Well, okay, well, you know, he had a little helpful call on the writing side . We ended up with an acoustic instrumental of David Bowie's Heroes, which is a little typical, but I was like, It's a good song and Spencer actually likes it. So I was like, okay, that's fine, that's fair. It's not one of the Cel Beenyeond songs that he was going . You did wonderful. And did you guys go on a honeymoon? Is there like anything going on after this or is it just you got married? Honeymoon is for the future. Honeymoon is for the future. So what else have we missed over the course of the last year? I mean, really , I wanted to call you and ask you about your mom . How was your mom doing? If we missed anything important? Yes She's doing great. She's doing great. She is she's gonna be doing a movie in Ireland , which is really cool. So I might go visit. I've never been there before. I might go and she's shoot ing, so that'll be really cool . I mean, I talked to you guys a little bit earlier about our story getting picked up by the CBC here, which was crazy . Right. What were the circumstances behind that . So I got a DM from a journalist whose name I'm going to pull up, but I believe it's Carsten Knox . Yeah , Carsten Knox, really nice guy. Got a message from him because he heard the episode and he was like, Hey, we want to profile this story on CBC, which was like, huh? What? I called my mom and I was like, the news wants to talk to you. And she was like, What are you talking about? 'Cause she kind of thought that this was it was a pretty emotional thing going through this whole thing with you guys for her. Like overwhelmingly positive at the end of the day, like, you know , I had so many people in my family being like, You did such an amazing thing for your mom and you know, she cried and we cried and it was great. But so I was like are you willing to go through this again on the news? And she was like, okay . And so we got interviewed for the news. It was only about a fifteen minute segment, which was really cool. But the main thing was they played her song on the radio. Wow, she's famous now. That was cool. So it got played on the radio in Nova Scotia because a lot of people listened to the CBC , she had people , including a neighbor reach out and say, I've got a keyboard. Do you want my old keyboard . Yeah , so she got herself a keyboard and the playing part, playing piano has proven to be a little bit difficult. So that's been tough, but she told me recently she's like , I'm writing lyrics. I've got writing things on the pads of paper wherever I can . So I don't know if there's going to be a full other song again, but she's being creative, which is amazing. I'm very happy for her. So hopefully there'll be more from that. Writing lyrics is a big deal , and also I would say that like having this part of your life be exposed in such a public way probably puts a lot of pressure on her . If a bunch of people heard a song I wrote forty years ago and were like and the context was I gave up on songwriting, the pressure would be great. Like I knew going into it. Like that was a concern I had, but also like , I mean, I loved the songs that we found. They were so good . So to find out that the song that you wrote forty years ago really is a banger like to the extent you know that it's just like, oh shit now I have this responsibility to write another one and then it's the sophomore album conundra in I'm like fuck and she's and she's a different person now. That was she's, yes, she, I mean, she's got a lot more life experience. So hopefully there's a lot more to write about. Yeah, I mean my one of my favorite things about the entire experience of us doing this was when I finally heard the song and I was like, oh my god, oh my god that's actually good . I mean that was like a big that could have been like a very terrible end to the story. It could have been a situation where we got to the end and finally got the song and it was just awful, but like she's a great lyricist, she's a good singer, she's a good pianist. Like it was really like we looked out there in the eleventh hour. It was very nice to hear. I know, I know. It was crazy. How often do when was the last time you saw her? Um last time I saw her was at the wedding because, you know, she lives many, many moons away, but I'm gonna see her over Christmas, so that's gonna be great. Are you doing Christmas in Toronto or Nova Scotia? I'm going to do it in Nova Scotia, yeah. So I haven't actually been able to spend, no, that's not true. My mom came down here for Christmas once, but we haven't been able to spend real Christmas together in quite a long time just because of my work schedule , but now I don't work over the holidays. So yay Oh, that's great. Did you get a new job? Well, I quit the record store, yes, a while ago, so I'm not doing retail . I'm a gardener and I'm a landscaper. Our season actually ends. This is my last week. So I'll be semi jobless for a few months. So we'll see. We'll see what happens. But that's being a I was a landscaper , I think when I was twenty and a lot of people do it earlier in life I'm doing it later . Well to be fair, Alex has done pretty much every job there is to do and he's done them at very you know , yeah so, this is this was not a I did it as a young man. It was like Alex's Yeah . This career just happens to be the thing that he settled on at the specific time in his life. I didn't start doing radio until I was thirty. thirty was when I first got into it. So it was pretty late. And Alex, don't you think that if you didn't find out that you were good at radio, you probably would have just like kept sampling things ? Yes. I would have drummed out of every gig . But I was a landscaper and then in the winter it turned into a Christmas decor company. So they would put up Christmas lights for rich people . And it was the worst job . I was just freezing my ass off. I was miserable . People would complain about how far apart the lights were . And so I loved landscaping. It's like you're outside . You get good exercise. It feels great. Like I love it, even on super hot days. Christmas decor like the polar opposite. Pun intended. It was the worst . We don't do any snow maintenance, nothing. It's just like we close up shop for four months , which is, I mean, money wise not the best, but it means like I'm totally unemployed from there. So I get some nice EI hopefully . We'll see. I'm gonna hopefully spend this time pursuing other things that are fulfilling. We'll see. I finished writing a screenplay, something that I had always wanted to do. Congratulations. I shifted my mind to it and I actually finished one and I'm working on number two already, which is awesome . Will they ever get made? Probably not, but hey, I did it. That was my big goal recently was to try and write one of those. So I mean, honestly, Keith, it's just like it's so nice to see you. I'm so glad that you did that and that like, you know, it's like , I don't know, I feel like the I don't know if it felt this way for you, but for us that episode that we made together was like really it was so special to us. Alex when I didn't get to be at the event, but when Alex left the event , he sent me a text message from his car where he was just like sobbing really intense. It was really he said it was like the most meaningful thing that he had done in his professional career. And it's like, you know, we do these things like God . And I'm telling you this because it's like, you know, we take on these things because we're like, you know, we're going to solve your problems. We're going to do something that like, you know, changes something in your life, but like your story actually sort of shifted not sort of, certainly for Alex. And I really felt it too alth,ough I didn't get to be there for the live experience, but like it really shifted something in our lives and kind of proved to us with the show , like what it could be, like how kind of how special it could be and what it could mean for us . So I feel like we have a lot of thanks to you for like being game to really fucking roll with us and really co produce and yeah , it was just you know, it was like it really was like a magical experience that couldn't have happened unless every single person involved wanted it to happen in the same way. Yes. Although my mom wanted it probably the least out of every one, but absolutely . Absolutely. But she loves me so she was willing to pull on for the ride. Good mom. Good mom, good mom. Yeah. It did feel like the first episode of Hyperfix in a way. Like it was the one where we were like, Oh, this is really this show can be. Yeah. Oh my god, wow . Part of what made this episode very fun , kind of stressful , but a very unique production experience was that we were working with Kenan to make this happen . So he got to basically have the first hand experience of a producer rushing to get everything together in time, and Keenan tells me that it was pretty exhilarating . I had so much fun . I was like pacing around that one day when I was getting the tapes from Rich . I spent the entire day just pacing around my living room, like, okay, I got a text from them. Now I have to text them. Now I have to do this. And it was just like watching the pieces fall into place was like, oh my god . And it could have fallen apart at any fucking moment and so when I'm texting you as the organizers of the event are texting me and they're like, Hey, um, your assets were supposed to be in a week ago. And I'm like, yeah, I know, but we just completely changed what we were going to do and I know that we haven't talked to you about it, but like and they're like, can you get on the phone with us right now? That happened. It was just scary . Oh my god. Scary. And they were like not happy with us . But once I explained to them what we were doing, they were like, actually, that sounds pretty magical. They were still upset that we didn't have the assets in. But it was just like, I think that it really felt like in a way, every person who heard about what we were doing kind of became infected with it . The funny thing about On Airfest is I had never performed at it or been to it before and I didn't really know the vibe of what the presentations were like and when I got, the call to participate, I was like, okay, this will be a great way to get the show some exposure. But I didn't know what any other shows were going to be doing. So I just assumed everybody was going to be making elaborate audio projects until I got there . We got there and we put on this big production, like our very intense, intricate production that involved a lot of pieces of tape, so on and so forth . And I just sort of thought like, hey, this is going to be all about live audio performance . And it was just all people like just chatting on stage. Like we were the ones who put together the crazy thing. And when we got there and we were like, this is what we want to do. We need you to fire the ta pe. We need to get this person on here. They were like what? Yeah . We didn't know because we had never, Alex, you had never been to the event. I'd never been on AirFest before. Oh my god. Yeah, I know that was so silly that like we like actually didn't do any research into what other people so crazy. But yeah, I mean Keenan and it's just like it's really good to see you and I don't have any other questions for you, but I just like I wanted to thank you as much as anything for for providing an occasion and for being such a good teammate in that whole thing. It was like really magical for us. Oh, that's so sweet. Well, thank you guys. And as ever, if you're ever in the city, I'd love to get together and if Meghan's ever in New York City, I feel like I at the very least owe her a beer . So yes. Yes, or a wine, perhaps. She's in that ear . In the meantime, Kean , so good to see you. Thanks for checking out with us. Yeah, thank you so much, Keenan. Yeah, you too . Thanks again to Kean and of course Megan for sharing their lives with us in such a public way . Before we get to the credits, I just wanted to play you an original recording of Meghan Banning performing the song Rooms from the early nineteen eighties. Smoked filled rooms and lonely afternoons empty faces go window places Idol chatter as we gather at no name bars , no introductions needed because I've been here before . No way once forgotten No were once forgotten Well I'm ambling on and it's all gone wrong cause I'm missing you Whoa , I'm missing you . I can't complain it's been a gambling game . I'm just a few cards short old so wrap myself up in your memory just to get me through