Hi, I'm Rico Gagliano.

And I'm Brendan Francis Nuneum.

And on this week's show, we learn how to make a spectacular cocktail.

We joke around with the calmness from the Los Angeles Times.

We talk to a band we've loved forever.

All so you don't have to.

It's a tough job.

That's right. It's not salt mining, ladies and gentlemen,

but it does take kind of an astonishing amount of time

and effort to distill the most interesting and tasty stuff in the world down to 15 minutes

of audio tape. Trust us. And it also costs money. There's bandwidth, there's studio time.

If you value the dinner party download, make a contribution to our website, dinnerparty download.org.

Now, back to the grind.

Here's your icebreaker.

A three-legged dog walks into a bar and says, I'm looking for the guy who shot my paw.

I'm Brendan Francis Nuneum.

I'm Rico Gagliano, and from American Public Media, this is the Dinner Party Download,

the show that equips you with everything you need to win this weekend's dinner party.

You just got a joke from novelist Rick Moody to break the ice.

Later, you'll hear some stuff you didn't know from Alastair McLean of Brit Band

the Clientel. But first, as at any dinner party, let's make some small talk.

This week in the news, you've been hearing this.

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