OPHIRA EISENBERG, HOST:
Let me introduce our next two contestants: Sterling Walker and Steve Spinoglio.
(APPLAUSE)
EISENBERG: Sterling, you have a PhD in neuroscience. I didn't know that was a real thing. I just thought that was something you say sarcastically to people.
(LAUGHTER)
STERLING WALKER: No, that's true.
EISENBERG: But you actually have it.
WALKER: Yes.
EISENBERG: Steve Spinoglio, other than having, I think, the best name I've said in a long time - Steve Spinoglio, that is so fun - you love airplanes. You go all around the world to different airplane museums.
STEVE SPINOGLIO: Yes.
EISENBERG: So all four of them.
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: And I'm happy to hear that you and your 9-year-old is a big - your 9-year-old is a big fan of the show.
SPINOGLIO: A huge fan of the show, she loves this show.
EISENBERG: Oh, that is our demo. So that works out perfectly.
SPINOGLIO: Yes, yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: Just perfectly. Okay, Jonathan, that guitar is looking a little underused, I'd say.
JONATHAN COULTON: Yes, yes, it is. Why don't I use it for this next game?
EISENBERG: I'd like that.
COULTON: Yeah. This is called Street Music. I'm going to play songs that mention a specific road or street, and you have to give us the name of that street. After each song, there will be a bonus trivia question that either of you can answer. Whoever gets more right will move on to our Ask Me One More final round at the end of the show. Are you ready?
WALKER: Yes.
SPINOGLIO: Uh-huh.
(SOUNDBITE OF SINGING)
COULTON: On the corner is a banker with a motorcar. The little children laugh at him behind his back. And the banker never wears a Mac in the pouring rain, very strange.
(LAUGHTER)
SPINOGLIO: I'm blanking.
EISENBERG: Looking for the name of a street.
COULTON: It's a rather famous band.
(LAUGHTER)
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
EISENBERG: Steve?
SPINOGLIO: It's not Abbey Road.
(LAUGHTER)
SPINOGLIO: I'm blanking out.
COULTON: That's the right neighborhood.
SPINOGLIO: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
EISENBERG: Sterling?
WALKER: It sounds like Cherry Lane.
EISENBERG: Oh, so close.
COULTON: Everybody is so mad right now at you guys.
(LAUGHTER)
COULTON: Does anybody know the answer?
(SOUNDBITE OF AUDIENCE YELLING)
SPINOGLIO: Penny Lane.
EISENBERG: No problem, people, it's just your first question. You got plenty more to go.
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: Here's your follow-up question. Either of you can ring in. As teenagers, Paul McCartney and John Lennon would meet at Penny Lane to catch a bus into the center of town. In what English city would you find the original Penny Lane?
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
EISENBERG: Steve?
SPINOGLIO: Liverpool.
EISENBERG: Correct.
(APPLAUSE)
(SOUNDBITE OF SINGING)
COULTON: Now, in the street there is violence, and lots of work to be done. No place to hang out our washing, and I can't blame all on the sun. Oh, no, we're going to rock down to some street I cannot name.
(LAUGHTER)
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
EISENBERG: Steve?
SPINOGLIO: Electric Avenue.
(APPLAUSE)
EISENBERG: That is correct. Eddy Grant wrote that song about the 1981 riots in London, because back in the 80s, that's what riot songs sounded like.
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: But another scandal rocked California in 2001, when what company was found to be manipulating the electricity market.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
EISENBERG: Steve?
SPINOGLIO: Was it Enron?
EISENBERG: It was Enron, yes.
(APPLAUSE)
(SOUNDBITE OF SINGING)
COULTON: I walk a lonely road, the only one that I have ever known. I don't know where it goes, but it's home to me and I walk alone. I walk this empty street, on the...
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
WALKER: Boulevard of Broken Dreams.
EISENBERG: That is correct, Sterling.
(APPLAUSE)
EISENBERG: And there is a painting titled Boulevard of Broken Dreams that features Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, sitting in a late night diner. I'm sure you've seen it. And that's actually a parody of what famous Edward Hopper painting?
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
EISENBERG: Sterling?
WALKER: Nighthawks.
EISENBERG: Correct.
(APPLAUSE)
(SOUNDBITE OF SINGING)
COULTON: Don't need reason. Don't need rhyme. Ain't nothing I would rather do. Going down. Party time. My friends are going to be there too. I'm on the street that I can't name.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SPINOGLIO: Highway to Hell.
EISENBERG: That's correct, Steve, Highway to Hell.
(APPLAUSE)
EISENBERG: Perhaps no highway could be more hellish than the 405 Freeway in Los Angeles. In 2011, a weekend-long shutdown of the 405 was given what apocalyptic nickname in the media?
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
EISENBERG: Steve?
SPINOGLIO: I just blanked out.
EISENBERG: Okay, Sterling?
WALKER: Carmageddon.
EISENBERG: Carmageddon, yes.
(APPLAUSE)
EISENBERG: Noah, how's the - what's the scores looking like?
NOAH TARNOW: It is close, but it looks like Steve just edged out Sterling.
EISENBERG: Oh.
TARNOW: And he is our winner.
EISENBERG: No, that's great.
(APPLAUSE)
EISENBERG: Just by a point, close tie, Steve, you are moving on to our Ask Me One More final round at the end of the show. Thank you guys. Jonathan, that was a great game. Do you want to play us a song?
COULTON: Yeah, why don't we do a song about a street that we did not mention in the game?
(SOUNDBITE OF SINGING)
COULTON: All I want to do is have a little fun before I die, said the man next to me, out of nowhere. It's apropos of nothing. He says his name is William, but I'm sure he's Bill or Billie or Mac or Buddy. And he's plain ugly to me, and I wonder if he's ever had a day of fun in his whole life.
We are drinking at noon on Tuesday, in the bar that faces the giant carwash. And the good people of the world are washing their cars on their lunch breaks, hosing and scrubbing as best they can in shirts and suits. And they drive their shiny Datsuns and Buicks back to the phone company, the record stores too.
They're nothing like Billie and me, because all I want to do is have some fun. I got a feeling I'm not the only one. All I want to do is have some fun, and I got a feeling the party has just begun. All I want to do is have some fun, until the sun comes up over Santa Monica Boulevard.
(APPLAUSE) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.