ALISON STEWART, host:
This is the BPP, from NPR News.
And now, some of the popcorn that fell between the seats when you were at the movies watching "Enchanted." In other words, it's the news you can't really use. Rachel, Luke and I get together, and we just Ramble.
(Soundbite of music)
LUKE BURBANK, host:
While you were at "Enchanted…"
(Soundbite of laughter)
BURBANK: …I want to know who wrote that script. Great lines.
STEWART: Rachel, you get to start.
RACHEL MARTIN, host:
Great. Okay. I'm going to - this is - actually, we're starting off in a very sad kind of tone. This is a depressing story, so prepare yourself.
STEWART: Okay.
MARTIN: Brooklyn police have discovered the body of a woman who died in her apartment - not yesterday, not last week - more than a year ago. Not much of Christina Copeman was left when they found her. It was just her skeleton, and she was wearing winter clothes. She had her little beret on. The skeleton was curled up in a fetal position. It's really sad. And at first, you think, well, this is clearly a big statement about how the city is so anonymous and cold and nobody…
BURBANK: Man's inhumanity…
MARTIN: Yeah.
BURBANK: …to his fellow man.
MARTIN: But, actually, the neighbors were - they just thought she was gone to Trinidad - her native Trinidad for a while. And they would clear out the garbage from her - the front of her house, which I thought was really nice.
STEWART: Also, they actually tried to keep her house…
MARTIN: They tried.
STEWART: …nice, like to clear her porch and stuff.
(Soundbite of laughter)
MARTIN: Well - and then the whole reason they found her eventually is because it was her "worried," in quotes, nephew who finally got the police to break -worried after a year, like…
STEWART: Okay.
BURBANK: Yeah. Reading the story, it seems like it's kind of a confluence of events. I mean, her mail - it sounds like she had one of those mailboxes that the mail went into a little entryway in her house. So it wasn't like it was stacking up on the front step. So it's kind of a bunch of - and, you know, she had a sort of biggish house, and so…
STEWART: Sure.
BURBANK: …it was all these little things that added up to her being able to pass away in the house and no one figuring it out for it looks like a couple of years.
MARTIN: Oh, that's very sad.
STEWART: Check on your neighbors.
MARTIN: Yeah.
BURBANK: Yeah, really.
STEWART: That's the moral of that story.
BURBANK: That should your holiday. That should be the holiday…
MARTIN: Yeah.
BURBANK: …seriously.
MARTIN: Yeah.
STEWART: Oh, I got a creepy story about that for you guys after the show.
MARTIN: Okay.
STEWART: Okay. You know - you're supposed to be quiet in the library. But if you are a supporter of this current administration and you go to the New York Public Library directly across the street from this here radio network, you might have a hard time keeping your mouth shut. There are these - there's an art exhibit there with fake mugshot-style pictures of President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld hanging on the walls of the public library. I mean, it looks like the shots you see at The Smoking Gun…
BURBANK: Right.
STEWART: …of James Brown and Nick Nolte, except…
(Soundbite of laughter)
BURBANK: Right. Right.
STEWART: …they're pictures of the members of this administration.
MARTIN: Clever, clever artists.
BURBANK: I know.
STEWART: Yeah. The two artists - they wanted to - you know, it's been out there for a while, and it's called Line Up. They wanted to generate some buzz, and they did - in fact, found themselves the subject of much discussion on FOX News.
BURBANK: To me, this just feels like one of those stories that, like, you know exactly how it's going to go before it ever happens. It's - people put up something decrying, you know, a sort of controversial piece of public - of art goes up in a public place, FOX News comes in and says, what the what? And then the artists get more famous, and then we talk about it, and now we're done.
Next up: QVC, What does that stand for? Quality…
MARTIN: Food Value - I don't know.
BURBANK: QVC. It's a V. But whatever the middle letter is, QVC, the shopping channel today says it logged the biggest two record sales days it's ever have this past weekend. The Q took in a hundred and five million dollars. A big amount of that was from selling 31,000 Dell computers that were sold on Sunday personally in an appearance by Dell CEO Michael Dell. That's something that's funny. You make fun of the Q, but let me tell you, it's just a Suzanne Somers, Dell president parade of stars that show up there.
STEWART: Marie Osmond dolls after "Dancing with the Stars."
BURBANK: Absolutely. As we were talking about this this morning, I remembered an amazing YouTube clip. Here's a shopper named Jacquelyn whose family owns three Dell computers.
(Soundbite of YouTube clip)
JACQUELYN: I'm actually using the Dell Inspiron laptop that I just got, hmm, probably a year and a half ago from Dell.
RICK: How do you like your laptop?
JACQUELYN: Oh, I love it.
(Soundbite of laughter)
JACQUELYN: You know what my favorite thing is, Rick?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Unidentified Man #1: That's a good one.
(Soundbite of laughter)
RICK: Oh, I don't know. I don't know if I want to know.
JACQUELYN: My favorite thing is…
RICK: What?
JACQUELYN: The way it crashes in less than two years. In fact, the way all the Dells crash in less than two years. That's the best thing about Dell.
RICK: Okay. Well, that would be a setup…
JACQUELYN: And you know what? It's great. The great thing is that…
RICK: …that would be a setup call. And we thank you for calling in, Jacquelyn.
BURBANK: Awkward. Okay. I'm sorry, just indulge me here. One more. This one is so, so primo.
STEWART: This one is so funny. If there's little kids out there, you may want to scoot them away.
BURBANK: Yeah, yeah. Sorry, there's kind of a laugh track because, by the time this actually became public, it was being played on ABC on Jimmy Kimmel's show, so that's who's laughing. But this is an actual clip from them trying to - from QVC, where they were trying to sell some Dell computers.
(Soundbite of QVC clip)
RANDY: Hi, my name is Randy.
Unidentified Man #2: Hey, Randy. How are you doing?
Unidentified Woman: Hi, Randy.
RANDY: I'm good. How are you guys?
Unidentified Man #2: Yeah, we're all right. Where are you calling from, Randy?
RANDY: I'm calling from Dover, Delaware.
Unidentified Woman: Oh.
Unidentified Man #2: So it's almost 2 o'clock in the morning where you are.
(Soundbite of laughter)
RANDY: It's the only time I have alone with my new Dell, and I love it.
Unidentified Man #2: Thank you.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Unidentified Woman: Great. What kind of things are you using your Dell for, Randy?
RANDY: Well, mostly personal use, you know, like porno.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Unidentified Woman: Oh.
(Soundbite of laughter)
RANDY: Yeah, just lots of porno. That's right. These Dells are great for porno.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Unidentified Man #2: Awesome. We don't guarantee that.
(Soundbite of laughter)
RANDY: I guarantee it, and I got the porno to prove it.
(Soundbite of laughter)
MARTIN: I love that it's porno. It's not just porn. It's porno.
BURBANK: (unintelligible)
STEWART: By the way, QVC - Quality, Value, Convenience.
BURBANK: Thank you. Thank you. All right. Rachel?
MARTIN: Do we have time for this?
BURBANK: Real quick.
STEWART: Quick.
BURBANK: Real quick.
MARTIN: Well, basically, we're going to play some Luther Vandross. We won't, or maybe we will. But basically, Luther Vandross - you know him, you love him. He passed away a couple of years ago, and now they're getting around - there he is - to auctioning off his stuff. And he has a lot of awesome stuff: a Gucci-mink-and-alligator-trimmed-three-quarter-length coat, a Pasha de Cartier 18-karat white gold and diamond wristwatch, and red fur cargo pants. It's a two-day sale.
STEWART: Oh, wait. But the pants you left out - made out of pony skin.
MARTIN: Oh, yeah. I did leave that out.
STEWART: What?
(Soundbite of laughter)
STEWART: What? Oh, my.
BURBANK: I'm just going…
MARTIN: That's bad. That's bad.
BURBANK: I'm just going to take credit for this, even though I didn't write it or research it, but I'm just looking in the notes here. Did you know - do you guys know what Luther Vandross' middle name is?
MARTIN: I do, because I'm looking. But you say.
STEWART: I didn't before. So…
BURBANK: It's Ronzoni.
(Soundbite of laughter)
MARTIN: Ronzoni.
BURBANK: Luther Ronzoni Vandross, rest in peace, brother. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.