The Best Show on WFMU

I'm sorry to do this m@tt but I believe it was TROWER who was one-noting you to the ground

Hahaha iirc Gilly landed the helicopter directly on my fucking face.

Hey JRN... no worries, don't want to slight Grower!

It seems that the Friends of Tom message board on the FMU site has disappeared...which sucks.

omg, I've been looking for the rest of those phone calls for years. thanks!

https://twitter.com/BadGuyZero/status/420099251700776960

http://www.avclub.com/article/inside-the-final-days-of-the-best-show-on-wfmu-201219

I'm loving AP Mike's weekly Skype thing...

scharpling @scharpling
We want to bring back The Best Show. We're hitting some walls. If you want it back, tweet #BringBackTheBestShow and let everyone know.
about 6 hours ago

Totally unsurprised. I wonder how many times Ken F. asked him "are you sure you don't just want to take six months or a year off?"

That's obviously a joke.

?

Anyone know what the shitty thing was that happened to Tom that he referenced on Facebook and Twitter yesterday and today? If it's personal, then it's none of my business, but it sounded more like a plan for BestShow2014 fell through.

Huge gear theft at the post office, apparently.

Oof.

Fuck, really? He tweeted about a Brooklyn post office last week

asking if anyone had a connection

Where did you hear that?

A since-deleted Tweet, 'bout 4 am East Coast time.

That fucking sucks

Someone should start a Kickstarter

poor dude can't catch a break. any details?

I think people have suggested crowdfunding to him a million times, he hasn't seemed interested in that option so far.

The tweet went down really quickly, but if I remember it correctly, he was going to do the show completely DIY, and the fancy computer and network equipment he needed and had just purchased is what got disappeared.

There's got to be a way to track that through USPS though

anyone know if there's been any kind of falling out or tension w/ wfmu? i know terre t is 'taking a break' from the show.

If you listened to her last few shows, she talked about wanting to come back repeatedly, and she did her last show at the record fair. The Scharplings still say nice things about 'FMU all the time. I think (and this is pure speculation) that Tom wasn't setting up a Best Show II podcast as much as a new podcast network in which Terre will be involved, and that's why he needed so much equipment and why the crash hurts so bad.

ok, i was hoping not

OK, Tom just posted on Facebook:

It's fine. I appreciate people caring and wanting me to go forward. But so that there's not a ton of speculation about it, the house in which I was planning to resume The Best Show got broken into and all my equipment was stolen. I'm back at square one in so many ways. Really dispiriting. It feels like the wind is out of my sails and I'm just exhausted.

No crowdsourcing, no Kickstarter. It's not about the money right now.
32 mins · Like · 1

Tom Scharpling Seriously, I won't accept one cent. So please don't organize anything. I'll let you all know when it's time for money.
31 mins · Like · 10

....and a much more encouraging note from the FOT board a little later:

Here it is in a nutshell.

The house that I was hoping to do The Best Show out of - which has been a completely safe and secure place for ages - was broken into over the weekend. All the equipment I had for the show - which was not everything, but was a lot of stuff - got taken.

I am pretty dispirited right now. Trying to figure out where I'm gonna do the show from. Not sure whether I can trust this location anymore. So yeah, I'm back at square one. It really sucks and I'm mentally and physically exhausted from dealing with all this shitty stupidity.

But I'll be damned if I'm gonna let some shitty thief derail The Best Show. Fuck that. We might be back at square one but we'll just start over.

And this isn't an issue of money right now. So please - PLEASE! - nobody start anything to generate money. It won't make the show come back any faster. It's a question of security and safety and picking up the pieces. And don't worry; there will be plenty of chances to throw your money at Best Show 2014.

Thanks for all the kind words I've gotten. It lets me know that I'm doing the right thing by getting up off the mat and getting this thing back on track and any other cliches I can think of.

Onward and upward --

Tom.

that sucks :(

We're down now. To remove any sense of vagueness or concern from everyone's lives who have seen my cryptic writings and aren't sure what's going on, the house I had been hoping to use as the future home of The Best Show was broken into a week ago and all the equipment got stolen. We didn't have a full studio built but it was still thousands of dollars of stuff.
At this point it's not even about the stuff, even though that blows royally. It's about not having a location. So you could say we're not even at square one anymore.
And we don't need any help and there are no plans to do any sort of kickstarting/crowdsourcing. Trust me - there will be stuff for sale, and when we need you to buy it, you won't miss the messages. I'm just suffering from exhaustion from 13 years of asking people to donate, and it's time for me to try a different model for now.
Yeah, we're down. But we're not out. The Best Show IS COMING BACK. There's no way some lowly creep knocks us out of the box. We're coming back and we are going to take the whole thing over.
One way you CAN help is to keep your eyes on my Facebook and see if I ask for any insight or help with something specific.
Hang tight. We're gonna do this. Nothing can stop The Best Show.

why the hell did he stop doing it in the first place?

he wasn't getting paid

Not only not getting paid but putting a lot of his own money into. I'm sure it's been frustrating to see podcasters starting to make a living doing something roughly similar to the thing that you're shelling out cash to do.

ah ok i figured he was getting paid

https://twitter.com/matt__byrne/status/518032455769812992

Sweeeeet.

http://m.mixcloud.com/Scharpling/10-10-2014-birthday/

http://thebestshow.net/

That illustration of Philly Boy Roy is amazing and I want it.

Between this and the Numer -- uh, secret project, it's going to be a very Scharpling and Wurster Christmas.

http://www.pinterest.com/howsyrface/mick-nick-pick-mick-nick/

http://numerogroup.com/products/scharpling-wurster-the-best-of-the-best-show

Hoooooly shit that looks amazing.

Just ordered it obviously...but there's a 2nd secret coming soon I think, maybe finally a start date for the new show? Listening to the show from the first 2000 episode has been amazing, except Petey sucks!

two more https://twitter.com/scharpling/status/522808678110744577

Listening to all of the episodes from the start was such a daunting task but well worth the investment. The only downside of this box set is that there are so many wonderful non-Wurster call moments that are equally deserving of archival treatment.

They would need permission from the callers I would think to do that, tho

Even just stuff like Coffin Talk and the Four Loko show.