TSPS 90: Ghost Tower

**Show format: 49 minutes, Pre-recorded**

**Call types: Neighbor, Mall, Request**

**Notable call: Kevin the ‘Ghost tower’ guy (31:54)**

**Show info**

**Play on the Youtubez**

This show would have been live, but reasons make it pre-recorded. Brad is still being inundated with ‘Cactus’ sound clips.

The first part of the show contains some request calls to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

4:18: Roy calls about a property for sale. But he’s not interested in the property, he just wants to buy the potted cacti out front. The lady selling the place initially seems up for selling them (although you can tell she thinks Roy’s a bit weird) but bails at the idea of them being destroyed as part of Roy’s anti-racism demo at the Blue Cactus (a call from TSPS 89).

5:57: Real estate developer Roy has just bought the place with the cactus outside and needs to tell neighbour Nancy that he’ll be building several storeys of strip club and casino there. Nancy finds this all very amusing and doesn’t believe that Roy is who he says he is, but her tone changes when he insists he’s for real.

7:08: Jonathan from the City needs to let neighbor Mike know about the same strip club project that’s gonna be going up there. Mike’s not as amused as Nancy was and is instead full of disbelief about how they’ve allowed someone to build a strip club there, but it’s his fault for not bothering with the meetings they had over it.

The next few calls are to various businesses at the same Park West shopping mall. So if you love mall calls, strap on your Common Enemy pants and listen to Roy unite the businesses in this mall against him.

13:51: Kenny from Yolo frozen yoghurt needs to let Smoothie King know that 10 boxes of their stuff got dropped to his store by mistake. Employee Erin just wants to skedaddle off and tell her manager, but Kenny’s already talking about payment. Erin’s manager Frank doesn’t understand how they do things over at Yolo and thinks he can just swing by and pick up the boxes, but luckily Kenny’s a reasonable guy and is open to start negotiations at $20 per box.

15:46: Kenny calls back to let owner Sue back at SK know that he’s actually over at the GameStop, and not at Yolo at all – it’s all part of the ruse to throw Frank off the scent and get him to pay for their merch. Kenny will drop to $5 per box as Sue sounds more reasonable, but she just thinks he’s strange. Not a good thing to say to the guy who has your stuff, muses Kenny.

17:17: Kenny (who’s now at the Yolo corporate office) calls to warn employee Chris about Frank from SK who’s about to come over and scam him. Apparently Kenny’s too late - Frank’s already been over and tattled and now Chris is full of doubts that Yolo even have a corporate and hangs up with threats to set the police on Kenny.

19:03: It's Kevin from GameStop's turn to call SK and ask Sue if they've received a package of his games. Apparently someone is prank calling around says she. But Kevin has other suspicions – he’s heard tales about the antics of Frank from SK before. While Kevin's still on the phone, it sounds like Frank has finally made it back to SK after his goose chase trip to Yolo and GameStop and the ruse starts to unravel.

21:12: Doug is the new employee at SK, hired by Frank to do promo stuff. He’s calling Erica to let her know about the gym they’re installing in-store, but Erica’s not talking to him without clearing things with someone named Guy first. Seems there are two SK outlets at the mall – Erica thinks hers is safe, but it’s only a matter of time until both have gyms says Doug. “Uhuh, Noooo. Yeeeeaahhh, nuuuoooo. Nooo. No more. Nooooo” fumbles Erica as she bails to tattle to Guy.

24:11: Frank from GameStop corporate calls to help employee Ed in the mall about the problem he didn’t know he was having with their computers. Frank gets the details of customer Will, just so he can run it on their system. Frank now confesses to Ed that he’s actually the manager over at SK and it was all a dare with the girl he’s working with and hangs up to call customer Will before the GameStop staff can warn him (Will’s still in the store it seems). Frank (now Mark from GameStop security) calls Will to tackle him about his shoplifting, but when Will doesn’t buy, Mark confesses that he’s really called to ask Will out on a gay date on behalf of employee Ed, but sucks to be Ed as Will’s taken already.

29:31: Kevin (no, wait, it’s John) gets the cold hang up when he tries one more call to Smoothie King. Switching names at the start of your prank call is a red flag it seems. Brad declares this an end to the mall prank.

30:13: There’s a Twitter account that tweets when there’s a prank show live.

31:54: Tom wants to rent some space on one of Kevin’s antenna towers but has trouble getting through to Kevin’s grouchy secretary that he isn’t from a company. Initially Kevin has the same difficulty understanding as Tom is a really unconventional guy who doesn’t pay attention to antenna numbers or anything, and his intention to build a tree house on the tower and charge a toll for the other antenna installers doesn’t fit into Kevin’s business model. Tom’s idea of renters’ rights are not the same either, as Kevin thinks Tom won't own his place, although Tom's sure he will. Scaling back his ambition, Tom now wants to put a plain old 50ft ghost antenna up there, but even this gets scaled back to a scant few inches as Kevin seems concerned about the antenna clotheslining planes out of the air.

Tom now wants to talk ghost apparition insurance cover, but Kevin wants to get all technical and talk freqs, an insult which offends Tom immensely. A 2600Hz antenna which runs on crystals rather than mains power and makes ghosts appear is way out of Kevin’s field of experience it seems, and money’s no object either, so Kevin can’t even scare Tom off that way. But it’s fine, as it appears the whole thing is a trojan horse so Tom can just set foot on the tower to claim his squatters rights. Kevin’s ultimate put down is that a Florida guy like Tom wouldn’t last long up there in the Idaho winters and that's that.

Tom calls back to claim his squatters rights on Kevin’s tower (seems like he climbed up there quick), but Kevin’s grouchy secretary won’t speak to him anymore.