Episode 179: TRUE STORIES (1986)

A bunch of people in Virgil, Texas, are gearing up for the sesquicentennial celebration – the Celebration of Specialness – and in TRUE STORIES, David Byrne of Talking Heads is your guide to the lifestyles, traditions, and movers & shakers of the oddball town. In this episode, we discuss the kind of world Byrne and company imagined in TRUE STORIES, the assumptions its inhabitants make about their changed world, what its exaggerations of contemporary American society say about the real thing, and the effectiveness of punching without punching down. Links: - The Escape at Dannemora tweet we reference in the Junk Drawer: https://twitter.com/bobby/status/1081971563635847168 - HomeTownNews.com, which we reference in Cody’s Noteys: https://www.hometownnews.com/home/state/tx/ - “NIC CAGE, NATIONAL TREASURE” (June - Aug 2022 at the Trylon): https://www.trylon.org/films/category/national-treasure/ - “GENE TIERNEY” (July 2022 at the Trylon): https://www.trylon.org/films/category/gene-tierney/ - “YAPHET KOTTO” (Aug 2022 at the Trylon): https://www.trylon.org/films/category/yaphet-kotto/ Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/trylovepodcast and email us at [email protected] to get in touch! Buy tickets and support the Trylon at https://www.trylon.org/. Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Closing song: “People Like Us (feat. John Goodman)” by Talking Heads from the TRUE STORIES soundtrack. Timestamps 0:00 - Episode 179: TRUE STORIES (1986) 4:41 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary (under exclusive license from AG Enterprises) 7:21 - David Byrne, STOP MAKING SENSE (1984), and understanding through idiosyncrasies 21:45 - Mockumentaries, political alignment, and punching without punching down 41:12 - Louis Fyne and love in a post-alienation society 49:03 - Musical numbers and the stuff between the stuff 1:00:44 - The Junk Drawer 1:12:27 - Cody’s Noteys: Try Stories (small-town TX headline trivia)