May 20, 2025

These CDs are worth thousands...do you have one?

Show Notes
Transcript

In today's episode, host Johnny Macc shares five uplifting news stories. Discover how old CDs, like rare Bruce Springsteen or Prince albums, could be worth thousands. Learn about Fresh Kills Park in New York City, which is transforming a former landfill into a lush park with 50,000 violets. Celebrate the release of 31 sea turtles back into the Atlantic Ocean. Find out about 'Happy to Talk' benches in London created by an autistic artist to combat loneliness. Lastly, get inspired by Barbara, a widow who donated $100 million to Rhode Island non-profits, funding various educational programs and scholarships.

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Callaroga Shark Media. Stay there, Shounny Mack with a creaky voice,

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barely today with five good news stories. Hey, do you

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have some CDs lying around with good news? They might

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be worth something. Remember everybody got back in vinyl. Now

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everybody's getting back into CDs. Check your closet. You have

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Bruce Springsteen's The Future of Rock and Roll. That was

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a promo only compilation released in Japan in nineteen eighty eight.

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It might be in your closet. It's now extremely rare.

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I think it was always extremely rare. Anyway, if you've

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got that one, it'll fetch you around twelve thirteen hundred bucks.

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Maybe you have My name was Prince by Prince. Only

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fifty copies of that Japan collection were made in nineteen

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ninety three to promote the twelve track album The Hits.

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Collectors will pay over five grand for copy of that one.

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How about Paris Hilton? You got any Paris Hilton CDs?

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She had a debut album called Paris And apparently we

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want that one because the famous graffiti artist Banksy in

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two thousand and six distributed five hundred fake copies of

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the album in forty eight shops. He swapped the original

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booklet with his own art and replaced the disc with

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one featuring Danger Mouse remixes eight grand. If you got one.

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I remember those compilation CDs. Now that's what I call music. Well,

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now that's what I call music. Four was released in

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nineteen eighty four and was the first Now album on CD,

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but only five hundred copies were made. They did reissue

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it in twenty nineteen, so don't worry about it if

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you have one of those. But if you have an original,

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I can still get like four hundred bucks. How about

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Cold Plays nineteen ninety eight EP The Safety you Got

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that Supposedly only three hundred and fifty were given to family,

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friends and label executives. It's now one of the most

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valuable CDs, and I'll go around fifteen hundred dollars. And

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David Bowie's Sound Plus Vision nineteen eighty nine compilation only

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three hundred and fifty produced four grand. If you were

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from New York City, you remember the big garbage jump

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in Staten Island. Believe me, if you ever saw it,

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you wouldn't forget it. It was huge and it smelled well.

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Members of the Fresh Kills Park Alliance have announced the

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kickoff of the fifty thousand violet project at Freshkills Park

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North Park. That park opened in October of twenty twenty three.

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The project aims to plant fifty thousand native violets over

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the next two years so that we'll see butterflies, bees

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and other pollen. And it was drifting through the violet fields,

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which of course are above a big pile of garbage.

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The Fresh Kills Landfill operated from nineteen forty eight to

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two thousand and one. It was originally temporary, It became

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the largest in the world by nineteen fifty five. At

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its peak in nineteen eighty six, it received up to

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twenty nine thousand tons of trash per day. Anyway, they're

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turning it into a park. Portions of Fresh Kills Park

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have opened in phases. The park is expected to be

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fully opened by twenty thirty six, at which point it

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will be three times the size of central Park. Good

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news for some sea turtles. They were released back into

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the Atlantic Ocean thirty one turtles, twenty five from the

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New England Aquarium's Sea Turtle Hospital, and six more from

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the New York Marine Rescue Center. What's been going on

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is the changing ocean temperatures and extreme wind patterns have

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forced sea turtles up north, and then they get cold

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stunned in the freezing waters of Cape Cod Bay, and

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then they get stranded. Good to see they're back out

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at sea. In London, an autistic artist is working with

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the city to implement happy to Talk benches to combat loneliness.

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Oliver explains, loneliness is an important topic for me because

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my autism can make it harder for me to form

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connections with other people. I tend to talk about a

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specific range of subjects and bring up the same things repeatedly,

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and this can make people not want to interact with me.

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So here's the premise. Advertise a park bench with the

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goal of getting strangers to sit and talk together. That's it,

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Oliver says, Well, all these lonely people out there, I

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felt was important to do something about it. I decided

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I would try to promote it in Camden. There were

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now Happy Talk benches and four locations in his town,

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with hopefully more to follow. Ralph passed away at age

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ninety two. He was a multi millionaire. His widow, Barbara,

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found herself with a fortune. She wanted to spend it

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right she told Wjaar, I think of those that struggled

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now to put food on their tables, to fix a

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car that broke down. Since Ralph passed away five years ago,

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Barbara has donated one hundred million dollars to three hundred

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and fifty nonprofits in Rhode Island. One of those programs,

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Read to Succeed, encourage students to read six books over

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the summer, after which they could take a test and

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receive a one thousand dollars college scholarship. That program alone

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has funded more than two point two million dollars in scholarships. Now,

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students can apply to scholarships like the Transform RII program,

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which asks students, if you had a million dollars to

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improve the lives of those who need it most in

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Rhode Island, how would you do it? Then? Barbara invested

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that one million dollars in making the winning idea a reality,

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and the student behind it gets a twenty five thousand

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dollars scholarship. That is really neat. And those are your

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five good news stories for today. You have an awesome

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one