This week’s show was recorded in Chicago with guest host Tom Papa, judge and scorekeeper Alzo Slade, Not My Job guest Vicki Peterson and panelists Alonzo Bodden, Helen Hong, and Dulcé Sloan. Click the audio link above to hear the whole show.

Who’s Alzo This Time

Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back To The Salad Bar, A Presidential Spat, and The Next Pumpkin Spice

Panel Questions

Armpit of Despair

Bluff The Listener

Our panelists tell us three stories about something new in funerals, only one of which is true

Not My Job: Vicki Peterson, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and co-founder of The Bangles, answers our questions about mummies

Vicki Peterson co-founded the Bangles with her sister and some friends in high school, and went on to become one of the biggest acts of the 80s. She’s now writing and performing with her husband, John Cowsill. But, can she answer our three questions about mummies?

Panel Questions

Jungle Gym, Haute Happy Meal

Limericks

Alzo Slade reads three news-related limericks: Work Doh, Sweet Workout Bro, and Barnyard Couture

Lightning Fill In The Blank

All the news we couldn’t fit anywhere else

Predictions

Our panelists predict, what’ll be the big surprise at the World Cup final?

Elizabeth Kobliha knows her one-eyed cat Likho has more friends than she does. So much so that on his 15th birthday last Saturday, the sidewalk outside her downtown Long Beach store where he spends most of his time transformed into a makeshift fair.

There were vendors selling peach cobbler, watches, hot dogs and offering tattoos and face paint. A DJ spun records in celebration.

“He’s a very good businessman. We’ve got stickers, T-shirts, keychains, and buttons [of him], and it all goes under his account, his name,” Kobliha said of the cat.

Before Likho roamed the 7,000-square-foot Long Beach Vintage Etc, there was Apollo. The “big rag doll” came in with health problems but was the perfect shop cat. Apollo, a Maine coon who died at 13 following a seizure a year after his arrival in 2015, had curbed the shop’s mouse problem and brought “so much love and energy.”

Similarly, Likho, a one-eyed Russian Blue, also was ailing when Kobilha took him in at 8 years old, but she wanted him anyhow.

“I always wanted to open my own shop so I can have a shop cat,” Kobliha says, adding she was inspired by bookstores with cats “just chilling.”

Vendors line the sidewalk for Likho’s birthday party. The cat is a local celebrity.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

In 2016, Kobliha was swiping through Facebook when a video stopped her scroll. In it, a woman inside of a hoarder’s garage bobbed a feather toy in front of Likho, who jumped up to catch it.

The post was made by Sia Barbi in collaboration with animal rescue group Stray Cat Alliance after the cat had been abandoned at the Hancock Park home. During the early ‘90s, Sia and identical twin sister, Shane, made waves in the fashion and pop culture worlds, often modeling for Chanel, Thierry Mugler and Jean Paul Gaultier. Their rise to fame began after the Los Angeles Times covered a Sunset Boulevard billboard featuring the twins wearing little clothing that had been causing car accidents.

“Guys of a certain generation would get very hot and bothered over them,” Kobliha said of the Barbi twins. As they exited the modeling industry, they pivoted into animal activism and volunteering for rescue groups and trap, neuter and return programs for cats.

Elizabeth Kobliha holds her cat Likho. When she opened her vintage store, she knew she wanted a shop cat just like chill bookstore cats.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Kobliha wanted to adopt Likho, but first he’d need a $3,000 operation to remove an infected eye, paid for by the Stray Cat Alliance.

“They took care of everything, then we had to wait because he had to recuperate,” she recalls. “The whole time I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, what if it doesn’t work out? What if the cat gets here and is just absolutely bonkers?’”

That fear was for nothing. Likho, who lives at the shop full-time, acclimated within a day. “He has been a beautiful addition ever since then,” Kobliha says.

He’s since become the face of the shop, with a mural dedicated to him outside to welcome customers. That was done by local muralist LaJon Miller, who worked on another on the sidewalk during Likho’s party.

“I got adopted into it,” he says of the Likho fandom. “He’s been my muse on this street for a while. … He just roams around the store, chills, does his little nap thing, and hangs out with everybody, so he’s very social.”

Likho has never harmed the centuries-old objects in her shop, Kobliha says, but he has spooked suspected ghosts.

LaJon Miller, who calls Likho his muse, paints a portrait of the cat on the sidewalk outside of Long Beach Vintage Etc.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

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Kobliha believes ghosts once connected to shops at the 1922 building — a former patron of a grocery store shamed for his obesity and a former furniture shop owner who died by suicide — still roam her store’s stalls.

“We see shadow figures … there’s a certain area where they pass back and forth. They don’t do anything, but they’re scary as hell,” Kobliha says of unusual sightings. “Likho is very protective, and we do feel really safe when he’s around.”

“It is a little weird, though, when he’s sleeping, and then suddenly he will jump up and look around,” she adds.

Likho’s biggest fan may be a man named Dom Gomez. He lives within walking distance of the shop, and tends to visit after long shifts at a restaurant aboard the Queen Mary. He stopped by the birthday party wearing his work uniform: a white, button-down shirt and black slacks. His hair slicked; his hands behind his back.

Likho’s face graces merchandise at Long Beach Vintage Etc like this fan.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

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When he speaks of Likho, he speaks with a tender cadence and dignified countenance, as if he were his own.

“Time flies, you know?” he says, smiling, of visiting Likho over the years. “He gets a lot of love from all the ladies that work here and myself … he has a lot of fans. I don’t know who’s more famous, Muhammad Ali or Likho the Cat.”

On a previous birthday, Gomez wanted to get Likho a gift. He settled on a kid’s denim jacket he modified for a cat with a patch for the Cure on the back but, regrettably, it was a “little too big.” Next year, he’ll give it another shot with a sweater.

“That’s my little buddy right there,” he says. “Today is a special day. I didn’t know a cat could live that long, but I think he’s still got a lot of energy to live … maybe another 100 years, I hope.”

If the Spanish Men’s National Team pulls off a World Cup victory on Sunday, the Spanish football federation would make history as the first to bring home successive World Cup championships on the men’s and women’s side in the history of the tournament.

The women’s team won the 2023 World Cup and will enter next year’s tournament in Brazil as defending champions. While the men’s team has been a perennial contender, appearing in 17 out of 23 World Cup tournaments, they last won the Trophy back in 2010.

The FIFA Women’s World Cup has had a much shorter history than its male counterpart; having started in 1991 compared to 1930 for the men. During that time, it has only had five different champions: the United States, Germany, Norway, Japan and Spain.

Only two of those teams, Germany and Spain, have also won the men’s World Cup.

The Spanish System

Spain has a robust men’s soccer league system, led by the Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Primera División, more commonly known as La Liga. Its teams are consistently among the top-ranked in Europe.

Real Madrid, based in the capitol, is one of the world’s most successful soccer clubs. FC Barcelona is the third-most valuable soccer club in the world, and Argentina’s Lionel Messi broke Brazilian legend Pelé’s record for most goals scored for a single club for the Catalonian team. Trips to Barcelona’s stadium, Camp Nou, have reached near-pilgrimage status for diehard soccer fans.

Spain’s players and officials celebrate with the trophy after winning the Australia and New Zealand 2023 Women’s World Cup final football match between Spain and England at Stadium Australia in Sydney on August 20, 2023.

Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images

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Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images

Spanish women’s soccer has lagged far behind, with both a league and a national team system plagued by poor coaching, underinvestment and abuse.

In 2015, the entire Women’s World Cup squad successfully called for the removal of coach Ignacio Quereda, whose leadership of the team since 1988 led many female players to accuse the Royal Spanish Football Federation of indifference to the women’s team. Even before the 2015 tournament, some longtime national team players said they refused to return to international duty as long as Quereda kept coaching.

In a 2021 documentary, “Romper el silencio,” players alleged Quereda sexually harassed and verbally abused them.