Muse

Do you live in a hole, or boat?

Neither.

Okay, I didn't get that. I think you chose boat, is that right?

No.

Okay, let's move on. Is your boat a C-classed, licensed boat, or is your boat used for commercial fishing? Okay, I think you've chosen commercial fishing. Now, I'm going to need your boat's name. What is going on here? Okay, I think you've said, Target. Is this correct? What? No. Just to make sure I've gotten all the information correct, I'm going to need you to confirm a few more things. I need some help, please. Your name is Eric Targis. Is this correct? Okay, I'll go ahead and make that change. Great, I've made the change. Your wife's new legal name is Targis. Targis. Is this okay? No. Great. TBTL. let me give you a little motto i live my life by you gotta hit it and quit it no ties tangle free nobody tells me what to do i gotta go bang bang bang the drum what that's not a motto that's that's just you saying a bunch of things sometimes a little comic relief is the best way to deliver a serious message in 1971 bill greats invented microsoft wouldn't it be cool if i could

remember my dingus password for my email the story of this situation is it's extremely personal

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Tuesday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. A beautifully wrapped, glossy, sweet-smelling show. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host.

I'm a professional. Look it up in the book.

Coming to you from the Nest Broadcast Center, high in the sky, above Portland, Oregon, Whereas I am looking out on the landscape, I am still seeing a lot of the white stuff, a lot of snow out there. But my guess is, as you all are hearing this on Tuesday at some point, we may be dealing with a very different weather pattern here. We are recording a couple of episodes of the show in one day because I will be traveling later. But on tomorrow's edition of the show, I'll be checking in from Las Vegas, Nevada. So I'll have, I'm sure, lots of fun adventures to tell you about from what's been going on down there on this TV story I'm working on. I'm excited to tell you about the fun adventure that is episode 3,360 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. I am absolutely obsessed with this website I just found out about that just lets you listen to radio stations anywhere in the world. Now, there's probably other websites that do that, but this one, it's just like a Google map of the Earth, of planet Earth, and it is just incredible. I heard about that thing on the AM radio. We'll spin the globe and see what's happening out there coming up in just a bit here on the program. Also, that's the new way that I say program, by the way. Program. I'm trying to do more Fred Rogers, welcome to the program kind of thing. But it's landing more at a quirky Sinclair. A beautifully wrapped, glossy, sweet-smelling show. Anyway, we're going to talk about that later on the show. this new radio website that i'm really into also remember being a kid if you're kind of me and andrew's age and playing with your uh maybe your nintendo video game console system you play to win the game and then like if it didn't if the if the cartridge wouldn't seem to connect with the machine you blow on it and that always seemed to work right well uh it turns out that was absolutely doing you zero good in fact may have been making the situation worse so we'll get into that plus speaking of things that make me feel old here on a tuesday edition of the show cnn is reporting that young people have made it known that there is one emoji that is the most uncool

emoji that you can use lol laugh out loud omg oh my god wtf why the face and it is the emoji that

i use the most of any emoji then in the article they also make up a passing slam that's sort of a final act a passing slam on my good friend andrew walsh uh so we'll we'll read that article and then figure out what sort of legal action we need to take uh speaking of my friend andrew walsh the longest joining co-bro of the show he is maybe best known for his drawings of the tall ships of course he's also please welcome the wickedly talented he is wickedly talented he is joining us right now from the roosevelt neighborhood of seattle washington good morning my friend good morning luke is it still morning oh it's not quite morning really

I don't know. I was trying to preserve the illusion. Also, I hadn't looked at the clock.

Yeah. Because you did say, I'm not blowing. You already blew up our spot. This is a prerecorded show, which is good. There's going to be a lot of energy, a lot of excitement, a lot of hand clapping today, I assume. Sure. Somebody asked me if the reason I always make fun of certain music is hand clapping music. If I do that because I hated clapping my hands as a little kid, as we were discussing last week. I don't think so. But in fact, I don't dislike hand clapping music. It was my way of trying to describe a genre of music that seemed inescapable in the mid-2000s where it was always somebody who was kind of like some sort of rustic acoustic guitar but embellished with a lot of different instruments. And then there's always some sort of foot stomping, hand clappy kind of thing. So I don't hate hand claps in music. In fact, I love them quite a bit. It was just my way of trying to describe a very specific sound of like, what was that, 2005?

Is that what I'm talking about, that era? I think you're thinking of like the Lumineers. Yeah, that stuff. They do that Hey Ho song. That kind of, that style of music that's got some sort of Americana in it, usually some nice harmonies. But often somebody is wearing, is playing a banjo. Yeah. And they may or may not have escaped recently from a boxcar. Right. Exactly.

There's some night sweats in there. What is his name, Nathaniel? Is it Ratcliffe?

He just played SNL this weekend. Oh, really? I didn't see the performance, but I'm seeing a lot of people. I think he may have lost the night sweats. Oh, okay. Maybe he switched medication. I'm not sure, but I think he's just that guy's name now because that's how it was being promoted. Maybe it was a COVID, like it would have been too unsafe in COVID times to also travel the night sweats to New York. So it's just him.

A lot of people have the night sweats now, too. I mean, isn't that one of the symptoms? I said Nathaniel Ratcliffe. Is that a person? His name is Nathaniel Ratliff. Who's Ratcliffe? Who's the famous Ratcliffe, I'm thinking of? Daniel Radcliffe? Oh, Radcliffe. Who played Harry Potter? Oh, okay, sure. There you go. But still, for me, grading on a scale, grading on the Walshian scale, Nathaniel Ratcliffe is pretty close, considering this is a band that I'm pretty unfamiliar with.

Yeah, I knew exactly who you were talking about. Yeah. So I think that's good enough for government work. yeah um uh i want to play for you what i think is the one of the best top five hand clappy songs and that it literally features hands clapping okay and it's not it's see when you say hand clap i i would call all that music foot stomp music yeah yeah i feel the foot stomp is a more yeah is is a is a is a bigger part of my listening experience if it's like the lumineers or a band like that more so than the hand clapping, but that's just maybe where my ear goes. This is what I think of if I think of hand clapping music from that era, and I think it's legit. This is...

Woo!

Wow. Some of these... It's a good recording. I know, I know. Just calm down. Yeah, for some reason, it's really... This is 100% the least interesting place to go with this. But this is, you know, the shins, obviously. This is off of Chutes Too Narrow. And I must have, I mean, this is music that has been traveling around with me digitally for probably since I lived in L.A. So 15, 20 years or something. And it's really low quality.

Yeah, it's weird. And that's not your, well, I don't want to even give you that. That's definitely the recording, right? It's not a cable or something, because all the other stuff you play is fine. That's weird. I can't even tell. Why is it distorted like that? Usually, like, something from that era, it might sound, like, really low, you know, kind of...

Very compressed.

Very compressed, and that watery sound, because you downloaded it from Kaza in the middle of the night.

I think... No, I think the problem with this is it's not in the cloud. Like, I don't think this music has ever been in the cloud. I think this was back in the day. This was pre-cloud, right? So because the other thing is I did this project that I've talked about on the show before where for some reason this is when I I didn't have that many songs in my iTunes and so I decided to go in and try to organize them by genre by assigning them genre because this was back before like all the algorithms and all of the metadata was constantly telling your music playing thing what exactly this genre is and let's go find you 100 100 other songs that fit the same style and description. So I embarked on a project to name all of the music In my iTunes This is for some reason I decided to call it Rock R-A-W-K That doesn't seem like you It really doesn't But I did because I'm looking at

it i think i was just kind of like i went in uh and in fact you know what there's another song on this album gone for good which i love so much and i put that one under twang i decided to call this one and again apologies in advance for the recording man dude shoots too narrow this is a really really good yeah i haven't heard but anyway i called that one twang the other songs off of shoots too narrow for some reason i called them a rock which i'm with you that doesn't really seem like my thing but i'm only pointing out to say that's still following these files around and i wonder if there's something going on where like because it was pre-cloud these were files and every time i have gotten a new device and and somehow migrated from the old computer you know from that stuff to this like not even using the cloud using like a hard drive or hard disk or something i wonder if there just must be some process by which it's just what shouldn't even be what happened what happens with digital because it's not analog it should be lossless right but somehow there's just a certain section of my itunes it just sounds like wet doo-doo that

is weird i want to see what those files look like you don't have to do it right now but at some point send me that i want to see what that waveform looks like not that actually makes interesting radio but um just the nerd in me wants to just kind of examine that a little bit like

let's do an autopsy in the wave file there's something going on though but anyway um i think that kissing the lip list that's a pretty good hand clappy song um and uh and i have to say full marks to whatever listener at least posited the theory that because i had totally forgotten about that you talked the other day on the show about not liking to be forced to clap your hands during events shows concerts what have you and uh and and and also sometimes when you say hand clapping music i think i've also read it to be something that's maybe not 100 for you but you're

saying those are unrelated things um yeah i i like hand claps and music especially like that what you were just playing there um not a big fan of this more the stompy kind of music if that's what we're calling it um i also would think that if i was in a band maybe it would be uh clap your hands say nah that would be yeah that was such a bad joke man i'm sorry i don't know i got lost in my thoughts there and then i remembered a pun i wanted to say earlier and then it just came out

oh that's not autopsy that joke now i'm like i'm like got garage band open i'm like dragging

files around oh no i want to see if there's if i can kind of figure out uh you know what's going

on here oh you know here's another thing andrew add this to the list of mysteries i don't think oh yeah i can it's an m4a does that tell you anything um only that i used to not be able to

open them i think that is something that is more native to like the apple landscape i think yeah

i'm not sure oh wow yeah this file is fascinating yeah i'm gonna send it to you this is the worst but it's also do you think this is the actual worst it might be but i'm interested i'm engaged It's so blown out in the middle So like here's the beginning of the song Let's see if it'll let me Actually do this

Okay I want the listeners if you don't mind Let me set this up for the listeners As we play this we want you to picture the wave form In like a wave form editor

Do the listeners even know what a wave file I mean do you think that the average listener Know what when we say wave file We throw that around all the time But does the average listener even probably know what that is

I think so because I mean And whether you're watching one of those ghost shows or a commercial for a ghost show or people or a show where somebody is a podcaster, like we see the whole podcasting thing is really torn down a lot of the curtains between what it looks like.

Which is why this is good content, what we're doing. Exactly. Three, four years ago, it's bad content. But now everyone has their own podcast and they know what I'm talking about. So I'm looking at the beginning of the file and it looks relatively normal. It doesn't sound great. No. But it just looks – it's not super blown out. But then you get into the middle of the song, Andrew, and it's just an absolute nightmare. I'm sorry I'm going to play this for everyone. It's going to not be pleasant. Oh, jeez. I wonder why this recording – which there's no way that at some point it was inputted into Apple or iTunes, super blown out. like you know that thing happens with the file where it's just solid it's just a solid mass because it's so over driven that it anyway so that's there's something very funky going on if only Andrew I subscribe to literally four other music services whereby I could actually just play music you know what I've been and I don't have any you know I don't own stock oh man that makes me think of this other kind of genre of story that I've been reading with a certain amount of schadenfreude. When I was first, I was going to say, I don't have any stock in Spotify, but I have fully gone over to Spotify. Ever since you and I did that thing where we tried to decide if the custom station that we started from the same song was going to deliver the next song being the same

song, it got

me into Spotify. And like, I love it. It is a vastly superior product to iTunes, as far as I'm concerned, on every level. So I just thought I would throw that out there now the genre of kind of schadenfreude e kind of stuff that i've gotten into reading is the stories of the people who put all their money into gamestop right before it went back and lost 80 of its high water mark value and like it makes me sad because it's generally people in fact it's almost exclusively people who are investing novices as i am by the way outside of whatever whoever at APM or what fidelity the company we use uh other than that person who's doing something with some matching funds of mine I don't really I'm not really a stock person but even I knew and we said this on the show I was like the business fundamentals of GameStop have not improved like it's not the issues that it's having and this is actually a great segue into what I actually wanted to talk about here at the top of the show the business fundamentals of GameStop have not improved it just was this weird thing that it was a fun it was a fun sort of trend to jump on but anybody with a brain cell would have known that there was not sustainable it's not going to live at three hundred and something dollars a share you know as the as they continue to sell fewer and fewer games at their brick and mortar locations or whatever and so I have to say I've been reading these stories and it makes me feel kind of bad because it's a lot of people who who you know a lot of younger people is the people that were hanging out in that wall street bets reddit or subreddit but i also take a certain amount of schadenfreude because i'm like i thought that's what was going to happen and it's exactly what happened i wonder

if schadenfreude is the right word there or because schadenfreude is taking joy in the misery of others where it sounds like you're more like maybe i'm wrong but maybe i'm trying to give you too much benefit of the doubt but it sounds like you're maybe more like i'm glad i didn't fall for it or I'm glad that I'm glad I was right right yeah right which is you know who cares it doesn't

even matter that wasn't some that wasn't a genius like financial take by me but it was just weird to watch it sort of unfold exactly the way that I would imagine you and Genevieve and anybody else who you would have asked hey what do you think is going to happen with this based on everything we know about the internet and based on what we know about brick and mortar stores it was obvious that at some point this was going to be over and I just find it it was a very interesting thing to see a bunch of people generally kind of young men of a certain kind of internet presence jump on this and then be surprised that it like went back down I was like well of course it was going to go back down I told I wanted to short it when everybody was saying like being shorting GameStop made you a jerk I was like how do I short this thing because this is gonna go way down I know I already said

this before I do wonder if also you're right it does in my head and I don't think this is obviously exclusively these people but you're right i associate a lot of these people who were trying to buy at the last minute and hold the line um right it was literally it was some game of thrones it was some hodor shit yeah but it did remind me and in my head i picture them all being like yeah like guys of a certain age and a certain confidence who spent a lot of time online elon

musk heads i mean literally yeah like every and maybe it was just these were the 10 people i read profiled but they were all people who'd had a deep fundamental faith in elon musk you know like that was the person they aspired to be yeah right and and and so that's who i got the sense it generally was but i was like you know you just would think that those folks would have understood and i guess a lot of them did a lot of them probably got out at the right time but but for the ones that didn't i feel bad for them but i'm also i'm kind of surprised like i would have been i feel like if i bought that stock literally the second the second it stopped like you know expanding sort of exponentially i'd be like okay get let's get off this ride immediately yeah um but um but but speaking of brick and mortar uh retail businesses and the the the changing economy and world uh that we're in i watched this documentary the other night called jasper mall that is unbelievable it's one of the best films i have seen in in years andrew and it's so simple um have you heard of this by the way no i think you alluding to it in yesterday's episode yeah yeah it is such a simple idea but it's so beautifully done it's just a documentary about a mall in jasper alabama in and about this mall that's you know seeing stores close kind of left and right and it just kind of follows the people in this in this mall it feels like a documentary that's from another time because there's just no it's not the tiger king you know it's not nobody's although it's actually very hilarious because if there is a main character one of the central characters is the guy who has a haircut But not unlike the Tiger King, who is the supervisor – he's the security manager of the mall. He kind of – he sort of does everything there. When you first see him, you think, oh, this is just the guy who's like the head of maintenance and security. But he's also on the phone calling, trying to get somebody to put an Orange Julius in there because there's literally no restaurants anymore. And he's – I mean he has a lot of high-level responsibility with this mall. And he seems like an extremely hardworking, likable guy. And I was watching it thinking, well, this guy is the opposite of Tiger King energy. He has the same hair. He's from the south. But he just looks really – seems really dependable and understated. And then he just mentions casually that before he did this, his job was he had his own zoo full of tigers.

No. I was like, what? Wait, wait. I thought you were making a joke. It's not a joke.

He was a Tiger King also. He was a Tiger Prince. And got in trouble. Yeah, he was the prince in waiting. He got in trouble with some protesters And then the authorities came out and took his tiger zoo away Wow I mean, they don't spend a ton of time on it But he And he, again, I don't He seems, based on what I observed in this documentary To be a very salt-of-the-earth person I would be shocked if he was mistreating his animals Anywhere near the way Joe I keep wanting to call him Joe Dirt Just because, you know, those mullets Yeah, Joe Exotic Yeah Yeah, but anyway – so anyway, he's an interesting character, but it's just – well, first of all, I looked it up. One of the main people that made this has been a guest on TBTL, Andrew, years ago because he was the guy that made the Rockafire Explosion documentary.

Oh, that was a little bit before my time, but that's the – oh, wait, is that the kids like Chuck E. Cheese-y place?

Yeah, Showbiz Pizza, which had their own version of like the Chuck E. Cheese animatronic band. It was called The Rock of Fire Explosion, and this documentary is about a guy in Phoenix City, Alabama. So you're sensing a theme here, this particular guy who made this film as well. He must do a lot of – he lives in the South and just does a lot of movies about what's going on down there. But this guy, Chris Thrash, was a guest on the show, as was this filmmaker – I think his name was Brent – to talk about this Rock of Fire Explosion thing, which was this guy, Chris Thrash, had like basically acquired these animatronic band members and he would reprogram them to do like hip hop songs like Love in This Club and stuff. And it was interesting because he's not a guy with any kind of background in computer or animatronics. He was basically a kid who would be left alone at Showbiz Pizza a lot. And he loved that Rock of Fire explosion because it was like when his parents weren't probably doing what they should have been doing as parents, the Rock of Fire explosion was there for him. So anyway, back to Jasper Mall, this is just it's just like these very long scenes of people in this mall just existing. And it's just absolutely beautiful. There are there's a probably seven minute long scene where a woman who works in the like great cuts or hair masters or whatever it is, it's just cutting her friend's hair and they're just talking. and it's just it's I don't want to I don't want to over sell it because then everyone's going to go watch it and they're going to I'm going to have built it up too much I went in with like zero expectations but I have to say I thought it was just really brilliantly done and it's like the way that the film the way that the filmmakers just let the thing breathe that's why I say it feels like it's from another era because in a way there's like nothing's happening right like as almost like those fictionalized like my dinner with Andre or something those fictionalized movies where nothing had to blow up and no one had to be being chased and no one had to be making jokes. It's just the rhythm. It's just enough to observe people having conversations. This movie is just full of that and it's really, really beautiful and kind of surprisingly, sort of achingly beautiful because it also, there's just some sort of, you know, a mall in a random place that's just kind of going under.

And this is, by the way, so obviously this is in the era where malls are going under, but that actually has been going on for quite some time now. Do you feel like the time period this takes place in was like last year or five years ago or more? I think it was released in 2020. Okay.

But what's interesting about that is this mall, they stopped, they clearly stopped. It's very clean. This guy who does the maintenance and the security, he takes it very seriously. And the mall looks like it's very well maintained, but they stopped investigating.

investing in any kind of new decorations or infrastructure, probably in about 1996. So even that is just like an amazing visual journey to just see so many things that your brain goes, oh, my God, I remember that from that era of time. It's like a total time capsule, this mall, you know, in the way that just like the actual physical structure of it. Yeah. So I just wanted to mention that that's a really, really, I thought a really engaging film. And can you remind – I'm sure you said this, but what's the platform again? Is it Netflix? I watched it on Amazon Prime because I have that, so it was free. It was trying to take me to something called Tubi. I was like, no, thank you. Sounds too much like Quibi. Is this going to give my TV a virus? Tubi. I have that, I think. I think Tubi might even be free. I'm not sure. Yeah. It wanted me to watch it on there, but it also had mentioned that I could get it on Amazon Prime, and that seemed like a more trusted source for me. Have you found yourself on Crackle at all?

This is another one that was like it's the old – it's one of the old studios just has the rights to a bunch of their old movies and TV shows.

Well, yeah, because they were the Comedians in Cars getting coffee network. Crackle was, of all places.

Really? I didn't remember that. But now that you say that, that rings a bell. Veeves and I got – aside from the Comedians in Cars, we kind of got into it because it was like a free app on our TV And there was some specific, like, really stupid 90s movie I was just really in the mood for, you know, like probably that – what's that Billy Crystal movie that has the soundtrack that you love by Michael McDonald? Oh, Running Scared? Literally might have been Running Scared, actually. But anyway, we like it because they try to stick with it. I'm looking to see if they still do it. When you click on one of the titles, the description is why it crackles. And they have some good writers. You can tell they have some writers who are having some fun with it, although I can't find any examples right here. But you can spend an evening just scrolling through Crackle and reading the Wyatt Crackles reviews.

I have many an app that I signed up for because it was apparently the only place to see that one thing that I wanted to watch. Yeah, right. And then you forget about them. And ideally, it's not something that you're paying for on a recurring basis. But, yeah. So, anyway. Oh, the other thing, too, Andrew, this is I don't know if you'll ever actually watch this or not. But there is a scene. I mean, they're just like a bunch of really memorable vignettes in this. But one of them is a guy has a jewelry shop in this mall, and he's a very engaging character. I mean, there's this, like, moment where he's basically moving his jewelry store out of there because he said, I had a $24 day the other day. Like, all I made for being here was $24. So because his store is all cleaned out, he's just standing in the middle of his store just jamming out on an electric guitar that's plugged into an amp in this empty jewelry store. That's just like a bunch of scenes like that that are just visually arresting in their kind of how sort of banal they are. But also how kind of much they, I don't know, just sum up a feeling, almost like a feeling you can't put words to.

Yeah. This really sounds like my kind of vibe, by the way.

I think you would dig it because, among other things, when the jeweler is making, he's sitting there making a ring or cleaning a ring or something. This is obviously before he's fully shut down. And he just has like an iPad perched next to him and he's just watching Columbo. a lot of you yeah it was like this is andrew's guy so anyway yeah um uh jasper mall would would highly recommend um i'm just getting started with the recommendations andrew because when we come back from the break i want to play you this thing called radio.garden that i just found out about that's pretty crazy as well um uh and then uh we'll do the other the other top stories including why my favorite emoji is apparently the most uncool emoji that you can use. And get your minds out of the gutter. It's not the eggplant. Something else. I'll beep it. We don't even say eggplant on this show. I'm going to beep again. All right. We'll take a quick break. We'll be back with more TVTL in just a moment. Thank you, baby. Let's thank some donors of the day These fine folks were making today's episode possible

I remember Joe can say, any family members in this batch? And then I remembered, oh yeah, there is a family member in this batch You already told us that

During yesterday's episode, which we recorded 1.5 hours ago I mentioned that one of my own kin is helping support today's show And we've now arrived at that moment where I say the name Hannah Nelson of Grapeview, Washington Of my actual sister And now pretty dedicated T.B.T.L. listener Also T.B.T.L. donor Thanks Hanser Appreciate you It's really kind of you A little bit humbling That you are helping pay the bill on this thing Also big spotless listener now Andrew

Yeah, I know. We've played her voicemail. Yeah, no, I appreciate it. Well, I'm sure she came to TBTL via Spotless. I saw somebody actually did. There was some thread going on on one of the social medias. I want to say Slack, where people were talking about how they came to TBTL. And a lot of, you know, like, wait, wait, don't tell me. A lot of Cairo Radio, et cetera, et cetera. And there was one person who said, I started listening to Spotless. And then I came over to TBTL. And I was like, you are my kind of listener.

You'll never stop lording it over me, will you?

I bet that one listener is worth $1,000.

I bet you there's more than you'd think. I bet you between Spotless and ATM, I bet it's more than a handful of people. Maybe. Thank you, Hanser, for helping keep this thing going. Also, thanks to Kathleen Aiken of Port Orchard, Washington. Jan Kaufman is in Sierra Vista, Arizona. I wonder if you can see the Sierras from there.

If there's a good vista of the Sierras. I was also thinking, I was trying to do some connecting in my mind here, because I didn't realize that Hannah lives in a place called Grapeview. I don't know if I've heard of Grapeview. I love that name. It makes me think of wine country. And then we go to Port Orchard. Now we have orchards, and we have views of grapes, and now we have views of the Sierras. I'm just wondering, could this be a vineyard outside of the mountains?

Have you ever had a delicious Spokane Red? That's where John Lynn is in Spokane, Washington. That's his nickname, I believe, Spokane Red. Yep, that is. Known around town as the Spokane Red. John Lynn has donated to the show. Thank you. Also, Mara O'Neill is in Shelburne, Vermont. Oh, my goodness gracious. Mara is like from, I mean, we're talking like maybe the first episode of the show checking in. In fact, I want to say Mara, I think, had listened to the Bryant Park Project. She was the listener we had there, and I think we ported her over to TBTL. Now it feels a good connotation. She's been, yeah, you know what? And if she starts listening to Spotless, I would like a kickback. Because Mara, that's OG. Now, she's ride or die with the Luke Burbank Radio experience, I would believe. Anyway, Mara, it's so nice to see your name, and thank you for the donations for all of these years. And we're talking a long, long, long time with the program. And then, of course, we've got Amy Crockett there in beautiful San Jose, California.

An Andrew Walsh show listener. I remember that's how she came to TV. Loved the Andrew Walsh show on radio at night and then came over.

Frank Shires holdover.

That is true.

Tolerated TV TL. Got really excited for the Shires interregnum and then once again tolerated the Andrew Walsh show. Then perked up when it became Walsh and Curly.

The John Curley Show with Andrew Walsh Was that really the name of it? Yeah, it went from the Andrew Walsh show to the John Curley Show with Andrew Walsh They didn't give me an and They gave me a with

Man, oh man I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it No, we're having a nice day here We're having a great Tuesday edition of the show There's no reason for us to go negative and we're thanking the donors of the day Thank you to all of our donors of the day for making this episode possible. Both those of whom that I am blood relation with and the ones that just feel like part of my family. Thanks for donating. Hello and welcome to Top Story. All right, Andrew, have you seen this thing bouncing around yet? It seems like something you'd be into. And when we were recording Monday's show, I had only seen it in one place. It was being tweeted out by David Pogue, but by the time we started the Tuesday recording, I saw our boy Stu had also been interacting with the content. Are you familiar with this thing, Radio.Garden?

Yeah, like sometime last week, somebody sent it to me or tagged me in it because they thought it would be up my alley, and I spent a little bit of time with it. I've been on there's I've been on very similar sites before and is to varying degrees of interest on my part, because sometimes the promise of them does not deliver. But in the five minutes I spent with this thing, it delivered. I actually I liked this one a lot.

Yeah. I mean, maybe I just had a really good run with it this morning. But so what it is, I mean, you know, everybody's pretty much familiar with sort of like a satellite image of the Earth. If you do that one Google Earth map where you can just spin the globe or whatever, it's that. But they've somehow figured out – I mean, there must just be lists of radio stations that are broadcasting on the web. And somehow this thing is bundling together all of those different stations and then arranging it geographically. So like right now, because I'm in.

portland it's got this ring that is the general portland area and it's got a bunch of different dots in it so if i it just wants to drop drop me down on something called kxl fm 101.1 lost your

second amendment rights absolutely nobody likes climbing up on a ladder to clean out the gutter how's that for a good start oh my god i mean it started like just it started at the beginning of The sentence, that's almost like a parody. That was awesome. That chore off your list forever. The gutter shutter system will never clog.

It's so sad because, like, I'm sure that I detest everything this station stands for, but there's something sonically about the sound of just these local ads and, you know, whatever, just the kind of the vibe of these kinds of places. Let's do this. Let's travel down the coast if we can to let's see if we can get out of Oregon. We'll get into Northern Cal. Let's go to, actually, this is, let's see, down here in Arcata, California, where one Luke Burbank was born.

KRFH.net.

This is just something called KRFH, Arcata, California. I'm feeling like this is going to be the beginning of the Art Bell Show or something.

Yes. What is it?

K-F-R-H? K-R-F-H. But it doesn't have any other identifying characteristics. So let's just keep traveling down the coast. We're going to head south down to Redway, California.

Radio Free Humboldt is what that is. A free-form student-run radio station. This is what I was doing. I kind of like the fact that, number one, if you don't want me interjecting here for one second, and unless I was missing some features, What I like about the globe slash map is that it's not very specific. Like you don't see the outlines or I didn't see the outlines of states or even cities. But you can see little like kind of green marks where I think you have population density is kind of indicated there. And so you kind of spin around. Like I remember immediately thinking like, OK, what will it land on for Cleveland? But I couldn't get right to Cleveland. I ended up on Dayton radio somehow. And it doesn't tell you anything about it. And the fun part for me is then Googling it. When I opened it up the very first time, I ended up on a Spanish-language Mexican music station that's on the AM dial here in Seattle, or maybe just outside of Seattle. And I was like, I don't even know what this is. And then I started to kind of rabbit hole on that station a little bit.

How about KGUAFM 88.3? This is in Gulala, California.

it's alleviating a little bit because we're getting the pharmacies but three weeks ago people on the internet all day long where do I sign up, what do I do, what do I do go here and that anxiety was just not good for the soul it just wasn't and that's what getting the shot did because it puts it brightens the light of the future a little bit I sent a video

are you able to google can you give me the call letters again KGUA FM 88.3 in Gulala, California. KGUA.

Just the very first line that Google gives you is casual, in-depth, and insightful conversations held with interesting locals and visiting luminaries.

This sounds a little bit too much like TBTL, by the way. Just the lack of urgency, the conversational tone. these people may be ripping off tbtl or maybe we're ripping them off now i thought about you

and your grandson and i thought about all the grandparents and the aunties and uncles and everybody who is just you know that time like you said is getting narrower and uh that's really what

getting the vaccine we also talk a lot about your grandkids andrew which is another overlap

can i have with this show i want to say here it looks so this is a public radio station but a very localized public radio station it doesn't even look like they carry any of like the morning editions i don't know if there's an npr affiliation here or not because i'm not seeing it but um it seems like their flagship show is what we're listening to right now i can't tell if it's a rebroadcast from their morning broadcast at nine and then it's replayed at one but it's called

peggy's place with host peggy barryhill i noticed that they posted on the rcms page they have an old-fashioned telephone and a cell phone, and it says, you know, please pay attention to these because sometimes it happens, you know.

By the way, you know what we're doing right now is, what's the name of that thing that people are saying we're supposed to join? Chat box or something?

Oh, yeah, right. Carousel. No, I can't think of the name of it off the top of my head. Parler. I think it's parler.com.

We're basically just on whatever that is right now, our version of it. Right. Where we're just jumping around and listening to conversations. How about, oh, you know where I will be by the time this is airing, Las Vegas, Nevada. I would be, of course, in Vegas. It's W.A.P. Right, right, right. Unedited. That's something called H.B. Radio. I wonder what H.B. Radio is a reference to it.

H.B. Radio in Vegas, huh?

Yeah, it's Hot B Radio, and it's probably not the best thing for us to play. Let's head over to Flagstaff, Arizona, 93.9 The Mountain. Ooh.

Ooh, they must be borrowing your iTunes.

Yeah, they are. I noticed that actually earlier today, too. It just must have to do with whatever the sort of web streaming quality is from these. Now, this is what I did this morning, though, that I was so – I'm sure it won't deliver now because, of course, you know we're recording this sort of live to tape and trying to make a thing out of it but i immediately went to like the pacific like the way south pacific like i wanted to try to find like midway island or some kind of just yeah tiny speck of land that has a radio transmitter on it like because that's i don't really want to yeah right like i don't really want to hear new york or chicago or la i want to hear because it's like those are big cities i don't care i want to hear like a person broadcasting out of a, you know, manufactured home with one antenna on top. Let's see what's happening here at Kauai Community Radio. This is in Hanalei, Hawaii.

A 84-year-old man from Thailand was killed in San Francisco after being attacked while on his morning walk.

Is this Amy Goodman?

A 91-year-old Asian man was shoved to the ground in Oakland's Chinatown.

Sounds like she's talking about the Bay Area, which is her thing. Let me see here if I can find the most remote one. And let's see, this is something called, oh, Radio Nauru. This is on something called Yeren Nauru, Nauru being the island. Whoa. Wow, that's unpleasant. Huh. Isn't that also, maybe that's too far from Australia, there was an island near Australia that was the subject of a This American Life episode because basically the Australian government was stashing people who were trying to come to Australia and weren't documented on this island, which I thought the name was something like Nauru. But how about something called NIA Radio in a place called New Caledonia? This is like between Hawaii and Australia, just on this one little island.

New Caledonia sounds a little bit like a made-up place, like the superheroes go to New Caledonia.

Yeah. They, like, love to just vibe in New Caledonians.

But do I hear a little, like, a little bit of, like, a didgeridoo or something in the background?

I didgeridoo don't.

There's something about the quality of the drums that seems like it's somewhat regional.

Do you have your glow sticks, Andrew? it's almost time to throw them up

I think I am

more likely to I would be more possible for me to get into this music than you probably right like I don't hate I don't hate this kind of music like I don't ever put it on but you know in the park Mount Tabor park here that I talk about a lot they have like somebody who brings out a stereo and a big speaker and does like plays this exact kind of music At like 5 o'clock at night And people just stop and do ecstatic dancing Really? Yeah, 100% And I've seen it on the regular People will just be like jogging And then they stop And then they just dance to this kind of music Amongst strangers Near the reservoir in Mount Tabor Arms kind of waving above their head All of it, yes Like with abandon You know what I mean? Like totally just like letting them Letting their bodies just react to the music And I'm not even joking when I say I'm not mad at it As a thing I probably wouldn't do it myself I'm a little too in my own head But I don't mind this music actually

I think people should dance like people are watching

That's just you Alright let's see here Hold on I also want to see if we can get up to like Russia Because I feel like if we can get up We can get some good I'm going up into the Aleutians now See if I can find something on the like Kamchatka Peninsula or something That I assume will just be people broadcasting From an ice hut

right does it just seem like a couple of like a couple of ruskies yeah can we say that chill wave this is okay this is something called

radio perga but it's a station is unreachable and that thing seems to be just right in the like tip of siberia oh here we go okay uh this is in anadir russia let's see if this actually goes through nope station is unreachable that's interestingly enough siberia appears to have like the fewest radio stations maybe that's not a surprise to people i just figured you'd need radio in siberia a little bit because it's just so vast that just to communicate across large you know sections of Tundra radio would kind of come in handy

Can I tell you about Something that has lived in my brain For a while something that is kind of Well I don't know if it's interesting I don't know if I can explain it So here we go Save it for Peggy's save it for mornings With Peggy When I was working at New Hampshire Public Radio and The idea of kind of like internet streaming Was still relatively new and Honestly just the The complete takeover of the internet that can take over of society by the internet was still sort of forming you know um it was an interesting time to be alive and we didn't know in the radio biz exactly what the future of digital radio is going to be like i don't think anybody there had any idea that like the podcast revolution was going to happen the way it did the the huge podcast blow up um and i think people were looking at streaming stuff a lot more satellite radio i believe sirius and xm were different were different entities then and there was still competition and one thing that was being marketed were and maybe they're still out there but were internet radios so and some of them looked pretty classy and my program director let me borrow one because I think they were maybe buying them to experiment with them or maybe they were being given them by various distributors but for about one week I had this pretty cool looking not super retro but not but but just nice-looking radio that you would sit on a mantle or something, like kind of old school, but it just scanned the Internet for Internet stations. And, again, maybe these things exist. I had so much fun with that in this one week. I found one station that I loved, and now these are common stations, but it was like a throwback hip-hop station before they were all over the place. You know, it was kind of like K-Day, only a little bit. It had more of an underground. I want to say it was like Fat Rat Radio, or it had rat in the title. I've looked for it since, and I've never been able to find it. There's something else called Fat Rat Radio I think I'm confusing it with. But, like, there was this one week in the mid-2000s where I borrowed Scott McPherson's digital radio, and I had the time of my life. And I loved it, and I always wanted – and they were pretty expensive, and I always wanted one. And I fantasized about someday just, like, splurging and getting one of these things for myself. And every now and then, I'm still tempted to look up if they have these radios, but it's so stupid. I bet you can get a screaming deal on it at this point. Yeah, because it's so dumb because, like, I have, you know, like, things have moved on that you just don't need this weird mixture of old technology and new technology. You don't need a radio sitting on the mantle. In fact, I told you I had a conversation with Kiki Lolo a few months back where I mentioned hearing something on the radio, and she laughed because she legit thought I was joking. Like, I turned on the radio. I mentioned turned on the radio in my kitchen. And she's like, you don't really have a radio radio, do you?

And so, like, there's still part of me having one foot in the old world and one foot in the digital world that wants one of these Internet radios that are totally pointless with our phones and computers all around us.

I love that you are you are sort of moving forward historically because, you know, there's like the transistor radio that you and I both kind of love. And I've even been over to your house before and like hear your shower radio going. So I know that's a big part of your life. But now you're just moving up to the next thing that came after it, which is still totally unnecessary.

Yes, exactly.

What is the next thing that happened after that shower radio? Do you happen to remember who the manufacturer was of that thing? I don't. I feel like I remember seeing those radios around and thinking that they were pretty nifty.

Yeah, I'd have to – because now I think if you just type in internet radio, you're just going to get a bunch of internet radio stations, right? So – and I don't even – maybe if I type in standalone, I don't know. I could ask Scott McPherson, but last time I texted a former program director on the air, they weren't much help.

I'm sure that this will not pay off because I'll end up building it up too much, but I am – sorry, I'm printing something in the background. That's what that noise is. This is the station that's in Barrow, Alaska, KBRWAM 680. Now, if this is the same station, and I would imagine it would have to be – I applied for a job at this radio station, Andrew.

That's the path of a lot of producers.

This is 600 miles north of the Arctic Circle. And when I was like a work-study student at KUOW, I saw an ad for... For a radio producer job, I think it might have been to be a reporter for, like, the public radio station in Barrow, Alaska. And you would be flying around on a little plane reporting on the villages and things happening on the North Slope. And let's just see. This also could just be like an oldie station that's also in Barrow. Although Barrow, Alaska, having two radio stations seems like a lot to me. sounds like your kind of station

i'll tell you when i did that job interview

this is you know back still when we're all using landlines i remember talking to this program director in barrow and you would say i would you know they would ask a question and then i would respond and then i could hear the delay in the line of like three seconds the time it took my voice to get from seattle washington to barrow alaska and there was something about that i could sense the remoteness of the place it was like i was calling the dark side of the moon yes right And I was just like, I can't, I can't do this. It's just too, it's too far away. Also, you know, it would have been very far from my kid. It just, I swear to God, if we just would have had a quicker connection, if it would have been now and I zoomed with them and we were just talking, I might have taken the job because I would have been like, I don't know, it'd be fun adventure. But I, I felt a sense of the remoteness of the place in the job interview.

Yes. You know, my friend Schwa took that route. I feel like when we were all, like, you know, very young, just getting out of college with some public radio experience, and then you're looking for your first, like, real salaried job. I know that Alaska, because, you know, it can be a tough place to live, they will often, like, kind of – they'll often have openings for, you know, entry-level producer positions or reporter positions. And, yeah, he took – I can't remember exactly where he was located, but he was out there for a few years and, you know, covered the Iditarod and et cetera.

I'm sure there I mean, there are a bunch of cool stories to be done. I mean, I think it'd be a really interesting job to have as a reporter. This is something called Radio Mart in a place that I was trying to just drop it down on like Mongolia. But something called Ust, U-S-T hyphen K-U-T Russia. This is, I think, kind of out there, though, on the like kind of in the what we think of as the sort of Russian step. I'm hearing a contender for next year's Song of the Summer. I like this. I got on a real hot streak this morning where I just kept catching the commercials in different places, in different languages. And that was when it really felt to me like I was just needle dropping on the world. You know what I mean? And, like, just needle-dropping on the experience somebody's having in Ustkut, Russia right now on something called Radio Mart. I don't know. I just really, really, really was into this website. A couple more before we should move on, but let's just see what's good in India. This is somewhere called Kelambakum, India. This is called Semrachana FM, and this is, like, as if it matters, but this is, like, I would say the sort of southeast of India, right along the Indian Ocean. Should we jump over to England and see if we hear our friend Bean Baxter doing the show? Yeah, let's do it. Okay, hold on. I think we have to join his Patreon, though. They just put out a free episode today. Did they? Cup of tea and a chat. Let's see here. Oh, man, Europe is very dense. Sorry, that was Algeria that I just happened upon.

I like this because I used to have – I still have it somewhere. It's a big hulk of a machine. But my grandfather's old shortwave radio that I've had since I was a kid. And, man, I used to spend so much time trying to just, like, scrub and pick up. You know, every now and then you hear somebody with a British accent, and you're just like, I'm hearing the other side of the world, even though you're probably just picking up, like, the NPR station around the corner or something, which was the other side of the world because I was growing up in the country and I had no idea what public radio was.

You know, that's another thing. I'm sure that there are many apps now that you can just listen to, you know, shortwave radio. But there's something very fascinating to me about that idea of having that kind of ham radio set up or shortwave radio set up and listening out into the night and hearing things from far away. I think that's why this is now.

Farncombe United Kingdom I almost thought this was Christian music for a second Yeah it sounds like that I think it's just pop music We haven't heard yet

I think this is

This has got to be Christian No? No. I think this is, this sounds like Tears for Fears. You might be right. Maybe they started doing Christian music.

You really want them to sing? This might be Spando Ballet, if that's how you say it.

Oh. Are you Shazamming it?

I'm looking up the lyrics as I hear them.

Yeah. Spandau Ballet.

I'm going to sing along. Turn it up. Yeah. To the barricades. See how the lyrics I don't know. They're saying, and our hearts go to their graves. Literally never heard this song. It's going to end now. Through the Barricades.

Through the Barricades. Coming at you here on Radio.Garden. It sounded very Christian. I'm Luke Burbank. That's Andrew Walsh. Of course, we're looking for the phrase that pays. P. Fletch is at our sticker stop right now. Can you call Phyllis and ask her to go to the sticker stop right now, please?

That's great.

Man, I love this thing. I have to tell you, like, I see myself. One last thing. We should have quit while we were ahead, but how about Zambia? Let's see what's happening in Lusaka, Zambia on ZNBC Radio 4. Ooh. Nope, that's a little crunchy. Let's see. We'll migrate up to – this is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This is Radio RNS.

Are they playing the alphabet song in the background? Or Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star? I would put French at the top of the list of languages that I don't like to

I don't know how to speak but I like to hear people speaking It's very soothing

I feel like French can be sort of on the bubble I think it goes from being one of the most beautiful sounds Sometimes making some of the most ugly sounds I don't mean that to be A jerk to people who speak the language Genevieve speaks the language now You don't mean to talk merd

About the French language

Very good

By the way I just want to say Merd That's good How do you spell merd

For the real word I want to say M-E-R-D-E

Merd I sent you one link of a good looking internet radio So there are a lot of very good-looking internet radios that are still being made. So there is apparently still some sort of market for these things.

You know, I mean, although this one says the one you sent me, which is a handsome, handsome item, it says currently unavailable. We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock, which makes me think that maybe the technology has sort of passed this stuff by. But I mean, this is something that I've always thought about. I don't know if these radios fully solve the problem, but like I've always said that the main thing that terrestrial radio still has going for it is that it's just one button click. You know, if you get in your car and you turn on your radio, although that's changing, of course, you know, all the time. Like with our phones now, pretty much we get in our car. If you've got a newer car, there's a good chance that your phone automatically starts talking to your entertainment system through Bluetooth and maybe whatever podcast you were listening to. Maybe even this one just starts playing. But for a long time, I feel like the whole broadcast radio industry has been it's been existing because it's still 10 percent easier to just turn on the radio than it is to think about what you want to listen to find that thing and activate it. And once that process is streamlined even further, I think, you know, although I will say this, what we're just going to have are more Internet radio things that are just broadcasting live because there is something also nice.

about you know we've had a bunch of storms all across the country really and i'll tell you you want to turn on your local radio station and find out hey how much more is it going to snow that the live element of it is something that's i think adds value it's just we'll someday be getting that stuff via an internet feed instead of via a frequency right yeah and you know i was having a

little bit of um i was having some thoughts around this this weekend actually because i i think i mentioned on the show i know i mentioned to you and phyllis that for some reason because i don't know they just want to give out free promotions I'm now in the middle of another three month free serious radio subscription and like the lust like I'm I have to remind myself that I have access to it now like the first couple of times I have this in the past few years I got really excited and it kind of gave me that feeling of discovery a little bit like kind of scratching through the dial but now that it's so slick and that like the line between what is a pre-recorded program and not even pre-recorded because a lot of it can be pre-recorded but the fact somehow and I know that I'm way way out of step with the American public here but or the consuming public but like once I know it's on demand and I can go back to the beginning of it it feels less special to me like there's something about actual radio that feels like I want it to be live or at least a live stream and like the fact that oh hey you turn on the radio and Stern is on you got to kind of catch up and figure out where you are to me is more appealing than oh I'll just go back to the beginning and listen to it from the beginning because that's a podcast now I like podcasts I work on a couple podcasts I need them I need them to eat so I don't want to talk badly about podcasts but there's something about like this you can't eat unless you're listening to a podcast right that's weird it is weird but like that's why I like this radio garden thing is like there's a little bit of randomness in there and there's this sense of discovery and this feeling of discovery that something is happening in a part of the world and it's a little bit different than what's happening if I were just to you know turn on a podcast right now of my choice and like that's that's missing from satellite radio for me now and you know and we don't have the old days of of you know scrubbing through my grandfather's shortwave radio or my program director's internet radio by the way i just sent you another one that is so beautiful but even these new internet radios i'm looking at are like it looks like you load them up with your apps like oh yeah you can play spotify or amazon music or whatever and It's like that's not the same thing. It's like the sense of discovery to me.

Yeah. I mean, at that point, this is just – well, what this really is is a Bluetooth speaker. Yeah, right. That, you know, makes – or a speaker that makes the radio stuff sound better potentially than just your phone would. So I guess, you know, I could see the argument that, by the way, this one you just sent me is – Beautiful, right? Super duper dope. Yeah, made by Robert.

It's a little bit different. and I'm just going to push back a little bit on that because like a Bluetooth speaker talks to your phone like these things will operate without your phone. You know, like it's just like, yeah, it's like a...

I guess what I mean is compared to your phone, which could also do this. Yeah, right. It's what the improvement of this is, is it has a better speaker. So if you were like, yeah, I can just save a bunch of links on my phone and go to them. Yes, you could. But this, you're right, this is more like full service and I bet you the audio is much better as well just because of the, because it's got a bigger speaker on it And it's just a very beautiful object. But I could see myself on this radio garden thing. I could see myself late at night with the lights mostly out, possibly having an adult beverage and just scanning around the dial and just listening to whatever they're listening to. And for some reason, and I've already said this, so we should just move on, do emails and V-mails. But for some reason, it has to be the most remote place I can find. That's what's interesting to me about it. It's like I don't really want to listen to just a radio station in Portland that I can hear. I want to listen to a station in Nairobi that is the only radio station on this thing for 4,000 miles in any direction. Right, right, right. If they had a radio station on the moon, that's the one I'd want to listen to. There's just something about the remoteness of it that's both slightly unsettling to me and also very intriguing. That's what those islands and just specks of land in the middle of vast oceans where there might just be a couple of people. I'm both very afraid of being stuck in one of those places and very intrigued about what's happening there

you know no joke you describe that moment like late at night on a weekend or whatever you're a few cups in and you you know turn to your radio garden I don't do this all that often but certainly a few times a year I will still get into that exact mode and I'll turn to KPFT which is that Houston radio station that was featured in of this American life like a decade oh yeah the one that does the prison call Yes. And it's like the prisoners listen to it and the people in the community call into the call in show and just, you know, say very, you know, have very intimate one sided conversations so that they can get their message to their loved one who is behind bars and is listening. And it's still great. Like it's I haven't listened in months, but like it's still it's exactly that feeling. Before they even get to the call in part, they often will like kind of have a it's a Pacifica station for whatever that's worth. And they'll they'll have like some sort of a, you know, kind of like that Peggy. What was that Peggy show we were just listening to? It's kind of got that vibe, right? They'll talk about issues related to the prison industry. And it's like very like low production. A few people, you know, we're inviting our next guest on who's an advocate for prisoner rights. And they'll talk for a half hour, kind of get in the weeds a little bit. But it's just real down home. I love it.

Yeah. I've been thinking this is a little bit to the side of that. But, you know, when Larry King passed away, we were talking about his career and that show he was doing at the diner back in Florida where he I guess one of I mean, he seems like he had a few kind of starts, but that was one of them. and how he, by his own telling, kind of honed his conversational skills by just talking to anybody who would come in. And it's like maybe this is kind of what I was liking about Jasper Maul, too, that documentary, to bring it all back to that. It's that – and we are so self-critical about this show and we always sort of joke and we're maybe not always joking about how boring it is. But I do think there's something really fun about unhurried conversations that aren't about anything of any real importance. Mm hmm. Like I like that. And we just don't. There's not very much of that for the people that listen to this show. I would imagine that's a little bit of the appeal. Yeah. Because it's everything has been flavor blasted. The actual food we're eating is all more flavorful than it used to be. And the entertainment we're consuming is generally speaking more entertaining. You know, and I think there was a time when Larry King could have a morning show where he's just in a diner and somebody comes into the diner and he talks to him. Now, do I mean, would I want to listen to that five days a week? i don't know i've probably had my brain has been flavor blasted to the point where sometimes i'm listening to public radio not enough is happening and i'm just like i gotta bump over to like msnbc's audio feed certainly when there's big political events it's like i just want to just mainline the most you know zazzy part of the story that i'm obsessing over or whatever but it's like you know i i i think i think that was cool that used to be a thing and i think there's a lot less of it or at least a lot less on the commercial radio dial maybe it's existing in podcasts now or maybe it's existing in some other form that I'm not thinking of but I don't know I was thinking about that the other day when I read about Larry King's actual radio show just being hanging out in a diner and talking to people who came in I feel like that's a show I would have actually

really listened to yeah no it sounds up my alley for sure and then then in a very different like kind of like less special lowbrow way like it's you know that's why I still like when I'm finished up here I will go stand in the kitchen stand over the sink eat some cold cuts and stare into the middle distance outside my kitchen window and listen to some shitty sports talk and you know we talk about it's a little bit different with podcasting but sometimes people you know they they listen to a show they love a show but then they get mad at the show and they write into the show well I've never written into a show but like I yell at the radio all the time you just think well if John Clayton is making you so mad to just turn on a different station you're like well what's the point like i'm it's just temporary it's like i'm not i'm not listening because i'm standing this right now it's just because it's just on and i need to listen to something and i maybe in you know and there will be moments of joy in there there'll be a lot of it that i'm not paying attention to there will be a lot of cars for kids commercials and there will be a lot of john clayton saying and again when he didn't really say anything the first time so um and why do people listen to things they don't necessarily like i don't know because sometimes you just don't want to think like this is what i was saying to christina when she was surprised to hear that i listened to the radio i was like i listened to bad radio but like i just in moments like that where i'm just grabbing a few minutes of me time i don't feel like pulling out my phone staring at all of my list of podcast options and what is the what matches the mood now and well i'm not going to get into this american life because if i started from the beginning and i've only got 10 minutes i won't be able to hear the full story whereas if i just turned walked into my kitchen and turn on the radio and it's like the middle of a this american life story i won't change it I'll just try to figure out where I am. Yes.

I am exactly the same way. And there's something that's oddly kind of relieving or whatever about just turning your brain off and just listening to some very forgettable sports talk radio or, you know, Como AM1000 in Seattle. And I say that with love and respect for that station. It's just, yeah, there's something about turning your brain off. My thing is I can't for the life of me remember what the phone number for Cars for Kids is. Do you have – is there an internet site I can look at to get that information?

I mean I can Google it for you. You look it up later. I don't want to give them free advertising because I'm hoping to land that Cars for Kids account so that we can start airing that commercial during TBTL and kind of ingratiate ourselves to the audience more.

We will only air those ads if we can air the Rockin' Kids versions. Oh, right. Yeah. You know how it used to be real dump, dump, dump, 187, and then suddenly it got real electric. They went straight up like Bob Dylan. They plugged in, man. 1-877-5.

Well, that's the phone number, everyone, in case you're curious. You got there.

Here I go once again with the email. Every week, I hope that it's from a female. Oh, man, it's not from a female.

All right, I should be skedaddling here pretty soon, Andrew, because I know you've got a lot of stuff going on this afternoon as well. I am going to, I think, what sounds like a bigger rolling of the dice to you? I've got to go to the airport. And I could either drive my car, which I basically have one block that I think could be hit and miss, which is a side street I have to be on until I can get to the main street. But once I get to the—if I can get to one of the main streets, I'm totally fine to the airport. It's just a freeway, which is, like, completely bare and wet at this point. Or do I call some kind of ride share type of thing and hope that they'll actually come get me, and then if they get stuck, what do I do?

If they get stuck, you just run away. Um, not your problem. I don't know, man. I would probably, I'd probably get a ride share.

Yeah. Then I'm like, they're going to probably, they won't want to come down here. They're going to give me some cross street to meet them at, which I guess isn't the end of the world.

Yeah, that could be it. Also, I mean, then you are in a car with a stranger, which exposes your risk a little bit more. I went, we had to get into a, and them. Yeah, I got into a Lyft for the first time in a very long time about a week ago, and the driver—maybe you've seen a lot of this, but it's just I haven't been in that world at all. But the driver had, like, some sort of plastic, you know, very temporary plastic homemade barrier, like almost like a see-through shower curtain or something between the drivers.

yeah i've seen i've i've seen a lot of i've seen more like permanent looking ones now where it's almost like you're in a old like new york city taxi cab yeah right where it'll be actually like kind of rigid plexiglass that they've put in and my thought is you know i mean these are also people's personal vehicles so who knows what they want to do with them long term but i was like you know this is probably a better system for the driver anyway yeah when the pandemic's over i would there's a reason why those new york city taxi cabs have a have a barrier between the people But anyway, okay, I've got to go do that, but before I do that, whatever I decide to do, is there an email or a V-mail that is interesting today? Or even just one that has words in it?

Yeah, anything with words. We need words. Words, words. I need words. I don't even know what that's from. Bean sent me that drop, by the way. I don't even know what that intro is from. Let's see here. I'm just going to play this. This isn't new, but I just feel like if we're ever going to play it, now would be the time to do it. This is a little jingle for our own phone line. Oh, you can actually text this line now, too, by the way.

how did i forget about one four tbtl four one four tbtl four one four tbtl it's in the 206

that's from listener jim who sent that into us years ago now jim do one rocking please jim please don't send me in any more cars for kids related that'll be in my head all day as it is anyway by the way it has been fun it was getting a lot of text messages from listeners all weekend i'm trying to stay on top of that that's been fun hearing from people seeing people

you have been getting a lot of text messages andrew yes well do you see them too now no but just remember that you were you were you were frustrated that you had under you had undersold

it to our bosses in the meeting and now you know all these listeners are like well i didn't want to bother you but no tell your boss that we and so i've gotten a lot of text messages from those

It's people texting you to say we were holding off on texting you.

Yes, exactly. All right, I keep going back to this same thing, but I'm going to play 15 seconds of this song, which somebody left on their voicemail line mysteriously the other day, apropos of seemingly nothing. Was this a McDonald's thing?

McDonald's is your kind of place. Hamburgers in your face. French fries between your toes. Dill pickles up your nose. And don't forget those chocolate shakes made from polluted lakes. McDonald's is your kind of place, your kind of place.

And we got an email from a listener last week who said, well, I knew that song growing up in Ohio, I believe, if you're trying to kind of like triangulate where this thing might have been sung by kids. I got this note from Teresa, or possibly Teresa, who's in Glenside, PA, who says, I grew up in Neptune, New Jersey, which is by Asbury Park, In the late 60s and early 70s, we sang the McDonald's is your kind of place song. However, we sang Don't Forget the Shakes. They come from Alberta Lake. That is a lake in our town. So at some point, that rewrite became standard for our neighborhood. Have a good week. Teresa. I wonder if my mom, because, you know, that's Neptune, New Jersey.

That's not super far from Philadelphia. I wonder.

if my mom knew that song last time i asked her about something like that that was kind of from that part of the world she had no idea what i was talking about yeah it was a commercial right

it was a commercial jingle from philly for a clothing store although then someone later

followed up with an email that said i might have given the wrong part i might have sort of not actually posed the question in a way that was the easiest for my mom to identify i feel like philly was having philly accents were having a big weekend because like the guy that was representing trump on the um yeah you know in the impeachment uh his name was like van van cleef or something he's got real uh as my friend uh brendan francis noonan would call it hoagie mouth oh yeah he's gonna go down the wawa real okay i'm gonna get an ice water like real he's got real philly real or as david roth would say that i now i use real just absolutely brutal philly accent Can I play something before we go out, which will only be funny to our listeners who either are from Philly or have spent enough time there? It's from this really funny writer and performer who I follow on Twitter. Her name is Christine Nangle, and I believe she was a writer for The Simpsons. I mean, she's been on a lot of things. She's also originally from Philly. And she's one of these people that does those kinds of like, you know, single like the cameras on herself and she's in character kind of a thing. But her deal is being the most Philadelphia accented person ever. She did one about four seasons landscaping when that happened, I think went really viral. And can I just play this for you? It's about a minute long. She is Michael Van Der Veen. She is sitting in a car. She's wearing a Philadelphia Flyers hat, and she is mad at the lawyer Michael Van Der Veen for what he is doing as far as how he's defending the president because she feels it's going to create more work for her. Okay? So just please listen to this. It made me laugh very hard this weekend.

Mike? Mike, what the heck? It's a beautiful Saturday morning. I'm doing my volunteer work cleanup.

You know, sorry, I'm wondering if some of our problems have been something related to some audio cables. Although some stuff works fine and some stuff doesn't work as fine, Andrew. So I don't know what's going on. Let's see if I can play it and it will sound less bad.

Mike? Mike, what the heck? It's a beautiful Saturday morning and I'm doing...

Do you want to try to play it from your end if I tell you what to look for?

Yeah, give me the name again. I'm sorry, I wasn't writing it down.

Sure. Her name is Christine. The last name is Nangle, N-A-N-G-L-E. And if you just put in Christine Nangle Philly or Twitter, like one of the first things will come up from her Twitter feed is this video. She's sitting in a car. She's wearing, like I said, a Philadelphia Flyers, like, ski cap.

Oops, sorry. I hit go a little bit too soon there. That's fine.

We've already heard that part three times.

Okay, I do have it here. Let's take a listen. Okay.

Mike? Mike, what the heck? It's a beautiful Saturday morning. I'm doing my volunteer work, cleaning up the dog dirt around the convent. And everyone's blowing up my phone. like you might want to turn on the news uh mike's promising depositions for everybody and their mother like like you can't just go promising everybody to depose everybody because who ends up doing all the work it ain't you it's me your secretary okay and our who does the printer hate me you won't buy us a new one you can't be having like the whole senate and house and probably hunter biden for absolutely no reason up in our office we haven't had a carpets cleaned in like a year and i've been begging you and i might be able to have like lindsey graham up in our waiting room drinking the rest of our wawa holiday blend you know i'm in the middle of planning my sister's rooftop baby shower she deserves it and what's this with philly delphia you you said philly delphia by the way philly delphia i'm having a stroke are you having a stroke mike because that would make a lot more sense and you know what i'm thinking about right now i don't even know why i'm trying to help you because i'm thinking about that day where i was like you know what mike i think that that law firm did fire that lawyer because he had aids i think we should take that case and And you're like, I don't think we should take that case. I was like, I think we should take that case. I think we can win that case. And now, guess what? Everyone thinks it's Denzel, and you could have been Denzel. So I don't know. Whatever. I'm calling my Aunt Dr. Jill.

That's really great. Here, I'm going to follow. She's so good to follow.

She is so great. Anyway. All right. Well, I guess that's where we will wrap things up. What do you want to go out with? I'm going to go out with this song, Radio Free Europe by R&M. How about that? You love to hear it. How about that, indeed? All right. Thanks for listening, everyone. We will be back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio for you. So please do join us for that. I'll be checking in safely from Las Vegas, Nevada. All right. See you then. Until then, enjoy your Tuesday. Stay safe. Take care of yourselves. Please mask up. Double mask up. Do what you got to do. And also, make sure you don't forget that, in fact, there is no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Bye.

We'll be right back.

Power out.