Shift Happened

Mark Houston's in a suspiciously good mood, which means WalletHub is about to catch some hands. They left Rapid City off their list of the 100 best Fourth of July spots, and he's taking it personally. There's also the real origin story of Renaissance fairs, a deep dive into pool funk that might change how you do summer, and a wind farm out in the desert that's out-muscling the Hoover Dam. Plus that mysterious hum people keep hearing? The call might be coming from inside your head. It's Friday, it's warm, and the show went a few interesting directions.

Houston catches up from a Weird Al concert long enough to introduce you to Cookie Monster's new Bruno Mars parody, and yes, there is a lot of nom nom nom involved. From there it's bears wandering in from Wyoming like bored college guys, a Florida man suing Waffle House over a strawberry shortcake photo, and Elon Musk's very brief run as a trillionaire. Throw in some Frankenstein rabbits and a banana car getting pulled over, and that's your Thursday on The Second Shift.

Houston's flying solo this week, with Stitch off living it up at Disney World. He gets into the FIFA fifteen, the foreigners packing on extra pounds thanks to America's endless supply of ranch dressing and dirty sodas. He breaks down which airports will ruin your day and which ones won't, plus why Denver's weirdness earns it a pass. And then there's the guy in California who went head first into a vault toilet to save his sunglasses. The sunglasses did not make it out.

Mark's flying solo this week with Leslie city-bound and Stitch off at Disney, so it's back to old-school radio. He digs into why someone out there is paying a hundred bucks for a wool diaper that supposedly cleans itself for a month, then breaks down the science on whether your cat actually cares when you've had a rough day. Turns out your cat would rather show you its butt and go lay in the sun. Plus the Father's Day gift that comes with serious Maury Povich energy, and why grandma and grandpa might be the chillest people you know before too long.

It's a solo flight for Mark Houston this Juneteenth, and he spends the afternoon pulling one thread he's never pulled before. Turns out almost every song on the radio, from Taylor Swift to your favorite country tune, traces back to one day in Galveston, Texas. The banjo on your front porch playlist took a much longer trip than you'd think. Then we get into Father's Day, a holiday that started with a coal mine disaster and almost didn't survive because a circus act and some fireworks stole its thunder. Crank something you love this weekend and find out where it really came from.

Leslie's cat Oswald is about to endure a triple whammy of misery, and the gang debates whether you can morally body-shame a trillionaire. Somewhere in there: a self-driving toilet that grinds up the evidence, McDonald's bringing back the fried apple pie, and hot dogs boiled in Gatorade until they turn a disturbing shade of blue. 

Leslie brings in a tallboy of banana water, and things go downhill from the first sip as the crew tries to figure out how you even squeeze water out of a banana. Then an orange cat crashes a stage production of Romeo and Juliet, attacking poor dead Romeo mid-death-scene before settling in to watch the rest. And it turns out people will pay serious money for a chair, as long as the right celebrity sat in it first.

The Knicks finally win it all, and the guys realize hip hop didn't even exist the last time it happened. Then Japan's World Cup fans pull out blue garbage bags and start cleaning a stadium that isn't theirs, which somehow spirals into who's to blame when kids grow up to be slobs. And a high school lacrosse team gets caught with cigars at graduation, so the parents fight back with a receipt swearing they were made of tea leaves. One principal wasn't buying it.