Live, laugh, love. Or die, cry, despise. Your call. Welcome to Night Vale

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Let me start today’s show by saying how much I love you, our listeners. You make this station what it is. I bring you the news: unbiased, direct, and honest. And you listen. Every single day. For… ooh, how many years now…? Who can even know?

The point is that we’re a small community with a small radio station, and a dedicated listenership. I hope you know that you can always call or write in and let me know what you think about my broadcasting. And many of you do. Good or bad, I’m so thankful for everything you have to say, because it means you care.

This is how this business works. Or should work. But maybe I’m getting old. Maybe the business of this business is passing me by. Station Management hired radio consultants to help shape our program – my program – to reach a wider audience.

This morning two brothers named Mike and Cash came into my prep meeting before my broadcast began. They were very nice. They told me they thought I was great. Doing an awesome job. That they weren’t here to tell me what I’m doing wrong. They just wanted to tell me everything I could be doing right. The name of their company is Team “Having Fun.”

This all seemed fine, I told them. I’m a team guy (because I don’t like upsetting Station Management). And I like having fun (within reason). I told them to feel free to listen to my show for a few weeks and then we could schedule a meeting after that to talk about their ideas. But that’s not what Mike and Cash had in mind. They immediately signed me up for the “Team Having Fun” Slack channel and told me they’d be updating me throughout the show with ideas from their remote focus group.

[sound of Slack ping]

I [starts to say ‘hate’]... LOVE this already. It’s gonna be great. And now the news.

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A report this morning from Old Town Night Vale of a possible alien abduction. Beth Jones, owner of the combination Dog Training Studio and Crossfit Gym at Harrison and Somerset, was deadlifting six bull mastiffs above her head, when suddenly a bright light from the sky shone down on her. Witnesses said Beth was pulled into the air, along with the dogs. Beth was still counting her reps aloud. According to the report she had completed over 250 lifts as the light enveloped her entirely. The bull mastiffs remained in sitting position, not barking or jumping, because Beth is a talented dog trainer, and those dogs are good, good dogs.

Beth’s neighbors and friends were reasonably alarmed. Casper O’Kelly, who lives next door to Beth said: “Seeing your friend get taken by aliens is really scary. I’m scared, okay? But also, I’m kind of excited. Like you hate to see someone you know get abducted, but also, like wow, you got to see an alien abduction. Live! Right in front of you.”

Casper continued: “Now I’m imagining all the really cool… uh… terrifying experiments being done to Beth. Whoa. Being frightened is kind of fun.”

Casper then jumped behind a bush and told the reporter: “Okay, pretend you don’t see me, and then walk by here and I’ll scare you. You’ll see. It’s fun. You’ll see. You’ll see.”

###

[ping]

What is.. oh no [corrects himself] oh boy, another message on the Team Having Fun Slack. [reading] Focus group doesn’t like hearing bad news. So if you have to report bad news, try inserting a funny sound effect every three sentences.

[no longer reading] But that’s not really my style to… Okay, you know what, the hallway to Station Management’s office is glowing red. I, uh, I’m on Team Having Fun. Of course I can play… funny… sound effects… during a serious news story. Great. Super great. There are a lot of unlabeled audio files here on my board. I’m sure they’re all hilarious.

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We have breaking news on the alien abduction. The entire Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex has been abducted. How do you abduct an entire building?

(Wait. That was three sentences. Let’s see. How do I play one of these drops? Here we go.)

[JON: insert a sound effect here. It can be absolutely anything. Be random or use your imagination.]

[CECIL laughs at sfx] Yep. Funny sound effects totally working.

The bowling alley was closed at the time, but Daytime Shift Manager Samuel Barkway was on duty in the building. Samuel, as many of you may know, is a former resident of the Civilization Below Lane 5 that attacked our town almost a decade ago. Samuel, being a peace-loving person, defected from his own civilization to become a resident of Night Vale.

[JON: another random sound effect]

[CECIL laughs but it’s more forced sounding] Samuel struggled for years to make ends meet. He was met with distrust from much of our community, because he was from a warring state. Yet Desert Flower owner Teddy Williams found it in his heart to give Samuel a job, a place to stay, and public support.

[JON: another random sound effect]

[CECIL barely laughs at this sfx. Almost cringing] So, Samuel, you will be missed. I hope you’re okay wherever you are.

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[ping]

What is it now? [reading] Focus group liked the sound effects, but not as much as we had hoped. New plan: play with your pace. Sometimes you get into a predictable rhythm (??) that lulls your listeners. Keep them on their toes by speeding up and slowing down.

Great! [not great] Let’s try this out on a local interest story.

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[sections in green, read as quickly as you can while still articulating; sections in purple, read slowly, not cartoonish, just like you’re really relaxed, man]

Last night was the first annual Media Softball Challenge at Mission Grove Park. Our community radio station made up one of the teams, which included me, my new intern Patrick Siren, and our sales team, all of whom are named Shawn. We took on the staff of the Night Vale Daily Journal, which consisted only of editor Leann Hart.

All of the equipment was provided by The World Sporting Goods Capital Conglomerate LLC, which just opened a new location over by the Ralphs. I don’t really play sports at all. But the balls and mitts and everything were so nice. They had metal bats too, which I didn’t realize till I got there. And they were cool. I love the sound of aluminum hitting anything.

The game was not that exciting. The Daily Journal won 20-1. Our station’s team started out strong, when Intern Patrick hit a lead-off, inside-the-park homerun off of Leann Hart. But knowing she had no other players on her team, she disemboweled Patrick with a hatchet, and then placed his eviscerated corpse on top of home plate as a warning to anyone else who attempted to swing at her pitches. And so we didn’t. We kept cool.

I looked for a story about Leann’s vicious crime in the paper this morning, but there was nothing. Nothing at all. To the family of intern Patrick, he had a great form on his swing and terrific follow through. He will be missed.

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Listeners. More breaking news. I’m getting word that the alien spacecraft has been abducting people all over town. Witnesses describe the ship as a large disc with blinking lights all around the edge. Below the saucer shape is where the bright light beams down, and in the windows of the vessel are beings of astonishing structure.

The ship was last seen over the Barista district. And oh no, reports are coming in that the entire barista district has been abducted by the ship. I…

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[ping]

Oh come on! [reading] Doing great, as always Ceec. (ugh) Focus group’s loving the new energy. But they don’t like how polished you sound. They think you think you’re better than them the way you speak so smoothly and preparedly. You don’t sound natural. Try dropping your written scripts entirely. Speak off the cuff, bud. (ugh) Maybe say ‘um’ more often like a common person. They want to know you’re one of them.

[no longer reading] I am one of…. [breathes] Okay. Putting my pages down. I’ll just do this community calendar from memory. Extemporaneously. How’s that?

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Cecil here gives a Community Calendar update. This section should be improvised around the template below. Try not to read any of it verbatim. Feel free to mess up as much as you need (ums, stutters, restarts, etc). And you don’t even need to get every last detail that’s listed. But here are the basic bullet points:

- Thursday is the premiere of Tosca at the new Old Night Vale Opera House. Explain the story of Tosca. Feel free to make it up or read the Wikipedia summary first and then recap it in your own words.

- Friday at Dark Owl Records is a live concert by Megan Thee Stallion. It’s all acoustic. She’ll be singing some of her biggest hits: [name three songs here; they don’t even have to be by Megan Thee Stallion]. No tickets are available. Dark Owl owner Michelle Nguyen and her girlfriend Maureen booked this private show just for themselves.

- Saturday the Rec Center will be starting a weekly Pottery Class for beginners. In this class you’ll learn how to make [name 3 things you might be able to make or not make with clay]

- Sunday is… oh I forget.

[back to the script] This is ridiculous.

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[ping]

Argh! [reading] Doing awesome. Killing it, guy! Focus group loves this common folk thing you’re doing. But, like, you still sound like a radio dude. Don’t think of this as a radio station, Cecilio. Think of it like a bunch of friends sitting around a bar, eating nachos, drinking suds, chitchatting, you know. Consider eating on the air. Get a snack. Give us that normal fellow vibe. Team Having Fun... out!

[annoyed sigh]

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Okay, a bunch of bros in a bar, eating nachos, talking news. Fine. Here we go.

[throughout this passage until the next ‘ping’, actor Cecil should eat something crunchy and take big gulps of whatever he’s drinking.]

Breaking News Night Vale. The entire City Hall, including all of City Council, has been abducted by the alien spacecraft. It’s completely gone. No word on how this ship, which is approximately the size of one and a half Applebee’s, can fit an entire city hall, a bowling alley, and a barista district in its hold. But I’m sure none of those who have been taken from our quiet little community are safe.

Oh, the horrible experiments being done to them. It’s too awful to think about.

[thinks, maybe finishes his bite of food]

But also kind of exciting. Like I don’t want to make light of it. It’s super frightening, what’s happening. But like in a thrilling sort of way, right? Being scared is sometimes fun. LIke a haunted house, or a horror film, or operating a microwave.

[gasp] Oh, no! Night Vale. I can see the alien craft through my window right now. It’s headed straight for the radio station

[ping]

I don’t know if it plans to draw us into its deadly beams. Maybe I should go. Save myself.

[ping]

No. No, of course I shouldn’t. I’m a news man. I’m your news man, Night Vale. And I would never leave you when there is news to cover. It is my duty to you, Night V---

[ping]

What now, Mike and Cash? What do you… [reading] Focus group hates the space ship. You need to get rid of the space ship. Ceecee, please respond. Okay, fine, we’ll deal with it.

[no longer reading]

Listeners, Mike and Cash have just run out to the front of the station, and they’re waving frantically up toward the flying saucer. A light – oh, it’s so bright – is shining down on them and… there they go, drawn straight up into the hull of the ship. And just like that, the spacecraft is gone.

Wow. Well, I guess we should celebr… honor their memories with a weather report. [he takes one more bite out of a chip]

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WEATHER: “All This Time” by Ellis https://ellissongs.bandcamp.com/

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Night Vale, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the aliens are still here. I do, however, love to be the bearer of good news, which is that the aliens have returned all of the people and places they abducted.

Unfortunately, they didn’t do it right. City Hall is now in the barista district, and the barista district is now where the bowling alley was. And the bowling alley is where City Hall was but facing the other way. Daytime shift manager Samuel Barkway at the Desert Flower said he’s so happy to be back home, but he reported that the NBA Jam machine in the arcade is now a Galaga which will be very disappointing to my brother-in-law, Steve, but super exciting to me.

It would be nice if the aliens had put it all back how they found it, but one should never look at a gift horse. The point is, everything and everybody has been returned. Beth Jones from the combination Dog Training Studio and Crossfit Gym is also glad to be back in Night Vale. She claimed, though, that she endured some intense procedures by the aliens. They surgically removed large sections of her brains through her nasal passage. Then they replaced what they took with new, more powerful brains. Beth can now speak in over 2,000 additional languages, although none of them are earth languages. But still it’s kind of neat, she said in Zilzarian, the language of the Ross 128 star system. The mastiffs are telekinetic now, too.

Of course, Mike and Cash have also returned, and honestly, I’m happy they’re okay. I’m sorry if I sounded irritated with them. Or pleased that they were abducted. They were just doing their jobs. And they really do live up to their name. Team Having Fun. Speaking of doing their jobs, they also acquired a new client, which is kind of a relief to me, because they’re too busy with that to keep sending me silly ideas on Slack. (Conversely, station management looks super angry).

There’s not a lot they can do about it, though, Team Having Fun’s new clients are the alien abductors, and even Station Management is afraid of irritating our potential intergalactic destroyers.

But Mike and Cash seem to be really connecting with the aliens. They’ve been added to the Team Having Fun Slack channel, and they’re receiving tutorials on how to use Twitch. According to Mike and Cash: “Focus groups do not like aliens abducting people, but they love watching them play Rocket League while eating edibles and trash-talking 13-year-olds on the internet.” Team Having Fun is currently communicating all this to the beings of astonishing structure via their new translator, Beth Jones.

Good work, Beth. And good luck Team Having Fun. I’m pulling for you. Like you wouldn’t believe.

Stay tuned next for Cat News, the news for Cats by Cats about Cats.

And as always, good night, Night Vale. Good night.

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PROVERB: Listen. You had one job…. And you did great! Keep it up.