Muse

Ladies and gentlemen, if you will please direct your attention to the center of the room, it is now time for the kick.

You're 25? Yes. Can you believe it? Finally old enough to rent a car.

Ah, ah, ah.

Oh, it feels good to laugh. TBTL.

hey now don't you tell me you don't remember me because i sure as heck fire remember you

listen to me you're the lowest of the low you bring shame on your family your country and your ancestors they're watching you god's watching you and we're watching you that was great that was good you went for it i appreciate that i can say big loud things i can be demonstrative don't worry

Because they call me Devo, because I can whip them good.

I'm sorry, but when I hear an undeserved compliment, it makes my ears want to throw up. Oh, your ears are always throwing up about something.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Thursday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

You didn't even die, you didn't even die, you didn't even die. Am I on? Is this on? Is this on?

My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. I'm a professional. Look it up in the book. Coming to you once again from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, which I have to tell you is such a great town. I am absolutely loving it here. And maybe that's because yesterday Wayne Coyne from The Flaming Lips and I became basically best friends.

Best friends are very cool to be.

Very best friends are dope to be. But I think it also just has to do with this just being an amazingly cool and maybe not talked about enough city in America, Oklahoma City. So that's where I am bringing you episode 3,377 in a collector's series. Let the fun begin. Uh, happy anniversary? It's the one year mark of this here pandemic that we've all been living through and living with. So we will kind of reflect back on that today and just, I don't know. I was going to say try to make sense of it, but I don't think I'm qualified to try to make sense of a global pandemic. But I'm just here to talk about where I was when I realized, oh, yeah, this is going to be a real thing. So we will get into that. Also, NFT, more like WTF.

This is so confusing, Ron.

We will continue our journey to try to understand what the heck a non-fungible token is and how it relates to art that's now selling for $60 million. Digital art. Also, why does Andrew want me to go in on some kind of Frasier-related, non-fungible token that he sent me yesterday? Anyway, we will discuss that as well. And also, I have real concern on this Thursday morning that I have unintentionally... Well, that's not true. I mean, there was intention behind it. I may have picked a fight with William Shatner. Spock, sabotage the system. which I can't see ending well for me, that show that he was on, Star Trek, it's got a few really, really, really, you know, hardcore fans, and I don't need them coming for me either. But anyway, I'll tell you what's going on between me and Bill Shatner. And because it's a Thursday, a.k.a. a Blur's Day, we'll do some Blur's Day messages. We'll do all of that with the help of this young man, the longest-running co-bro of the show. He may be best known for his drawings of the tall ships. Now, there's something that happens when he hears me say his name, when I welcome him to the show, which is, I would say, slightly inconvenient for him as a professional podcaster. Exactly. Perfectly.

The scenario that makes me have to go number two immediately.

He is Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now from the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. Good morning, my friend.

Luke, we just, just escaped a very awkward situation You know how sometimes my cat will get on the TBTL recording Because he's a yowler and he's a crier And it hasn't happened quite as much recently Because he just sleeps behind me on this chair Oh, he's about to do it now But I was going to say, while you were introducing me Theo was just trying to cough up a hairball Making that gross kind of guttural kind of coughing noise right behind me, and he stopped just as you said hello to me.

The bad news is it has now woken him from his slumber, and he's standing by the door, and in a second he's going to start crying to get out. So you're going to have to hand the rugby ball to you, and you're going to have to— do you run with a rugby ball? You're going to have to run with it or kick it or bounce it off your head or whatever they do while I let the cat out of this room. Okay.

I mean, do you want to do that right now? Yeah, maybe. Maybe I'll just Google the rules of rugby while you're doing this. Yeah, you do that.

I'll just open this door.

I've never understood Andrew we don't need you narrating from afar I'm trying to talk about rugby I never really understood the rules of rugby although I would watch guys playing it at Green Lake when I was a kid and I found it sort of fascinating but very confusing are you back now Andrew? It's violent right?

Are they banging their heads into are they wearing leather helmets or am I just thinking of leather necks or leather

heads? John Krasinski George Clooney

Yeah I didn't know Krasinski was in it but I knew Clooney was in some Movie about football where they wear leather Helmets I believe

No I mean I think in rugby some People choose to wear a certain amount of head Padding depending it's kind of like A soft helmet it's not anything like what they wear in American football but It's a lot of there's a thing called the scrum Yeah where you have the Rugby ball kind of Down on the ground and then there's like guys are in a circle and uh i do think there's some some tackling that goes i mean people that are into rugby will tell you that it's tougher than american football because they don't have all the padding although there have been arguments that if you want american football to be less violent you just take away the helmets yeah i don't you know i don't think i'm down with that argument

though yeah the taking away the helmet yeah i don't think that that's how it's going to work or if that was ever a case for that i think the time is long gone i mean the way the way professional football players like work out and they're they're physical specimens of bodies like i just don't think that we're gonna be like all right everybody we're gonna go back to leather

helmets so take it easy out there i mean you know what's gonna happen andrew not to jump into the top stories because we have a lot to talk about before that what is going to happen eventually is that there will be no real football players there will be nft encrypted teams that are so like i'm not even shitting you like they're so lifelike you will not be able to tell that it's not human beings you'll be able to own teams maybe or because of the blockchain it will be because it won't just be a video game there'll be some way that it's like as if you were rooting for the seattle seahawks it will the stakes will feel like you're rooting for a real you know carbon wait are we made out of carbon what are we made out of um i'm i'm made out of sugar and spice and everything and everything nice yeah um like i i am not even trying to be uh you know sort of funny when I say I I bet you that in 20 years there will be some football league that is very very compelling to watch that involves no actual human beings and it and it will just be I will be screaming at the TV or the hologram or whatever exactly like I would be screaming at the TV now watching you know Russell Wilson hold on to the ball for one second too long I just checked my

my chart which might you know is my way of communicating with my doctor's office it says the spice i made up of is cumin so sugar and cumin so that's gross that's an interesting combination oh god i thought i had something better to offer you i'm sorry hey i am very intrigued in um in how your uh day went yesterday i'm excited to hear at the beginning of the show that you're now best friends with wayne coin i didn't see yeah didn't see that coming do you want to talk about that now or i gotta say to you also alluded to the fact that today is uh march 11th which i've been thinking a lot about what i was doing on march 11th last year and that entire week in fact the other day i called up my my calendar because i thought i remembered all the orders of events uh when i started to realize oh the pandemic is real or you know what i mean it's like the world is really changing i mean i remember the minute it happened should we start

there um yeah well let me just do i can i can describe my my wayne coin adventures in like under two minutes so okay cool i don't want to give it short shrift yeah no no we talked about it enough uh yesterday and the various elements of wayne coin um but um uh he was she's just he seems to be the nice maybe the nicest human being i've ever met uh and he is extremely friendly and present and we were supposed to talk for an hour and i think we were getting towards three hours And when the producer literally just ended the interview, which has never happened before. I mean, that was just like how how well it was going.

And just like, OK, OK, guys, we got to end this bromance here for a moment. Like, we just got to wrap it up. Basically, there's a bunch of people here who are holding boom mics.

Literally, there are people here who have places to be. Yeah. So please. But I mean, it was just like a very, very natural conversation. They're going to play a show tonight where the band will be in these kind of air bubbles and all of the fans will be in these. air bubbles or you know space bubbles i guess you'd call them and which is kind of the thrust of the story it's sort of a pandemic story uh so we're going to go film that uh but you know the for me of course the best part was that when i walked into uh wayne coin's studio he we were talking for under 30 seconds before he asked if he could get my cell phone number oh so he can send you more santa claus emojis right because that was sent to our producer and i was very jealous i said to the producer anthony i was like if i was like i'm gonna get steal wayne coin's cell phone number out of your phone just know that that is happening and i didn't have to because we were i don't even remember what we were chatting about just casually chatting he said oh yeah we'll want to keep in touch would you be cool with me getting your cell phone number and i gave him my cell phone number and we have probably texted 30 times in the last 24 hours and i'm like i kind of want to say to him you have set like something like seven sold out concerts you have to play in the next like Five days and it's very Technically complicated with these space bubbles I was like why don't you focus on that A little bit Wayne I don't want to be a distraction Sir but I mean he just like is Legitimately maybe the nicest person I've ever met We had a really fun time hanging out at his house He also just lives I said this yesterday But I haven't been to his house he lives Andrew In a Completely normal neighborhood Like it there Just and I don't want to give anyone any ideas Although that's another thing that relates I know I'm going over my two minutes but i'm gonna wrap this up no no right this kind of almost relates back to the tbtl listeners in my mind which is he and his family just live in a totally normal house that i mean it's a cool house but it like they bought it for twenty thousand dollars when it's a cool house brother is it a cool house cool house he lives in a real rem cool house but um i mean but it's just like it's just in a totally normal neighborhood like you and it's not can it's not um vague as to which house is wayne coins because it's like painted this kind of crazy like yellow color and it's got all these like art pieces out in the yard i mean it's like and i just was saying i would say to him like aren't you worried about like people just coming up to your house and he's like you know what the only people that would come up to my house are flaming lips fans and they're awesome it's like a cell it's kind of like a self like it's like a self-selecting system and it kind of reminds me of the tbtl listeners because you know people can figure out where we live not that i think we're wayne coin but like and for a while in the early days of this i thought i gotta really try to you know obscure my my where i live but it's like no you know what anybody who actually listens to this show they're already a good egg they've already kind of like self-selected Themselves as being Somebody who is cool and has good intentions

And I think that was kind of like His feelings like yeah you know people like our music They're usually pretty chill I thought that was so interesting

I would just say except for Max in Brooklyn He's the one listener Who I think is a little Maybe the exception to that rule About tens all being cool

Well we've got to throw Our Chattanooga Ten On the list Joseph Yeah, yeah Am I remembering the right name? Is this from yesterday, I believe? Yeah, because he is stewing angrily over the fact that his music for your weekend never gets played

Oh, right, right, right You know what, I think we should do And I know this isn't where you were taking this feel-good conversation But I should probably just create a list of the tens who we actually do have real, real beef with

Right By the way, it's Paul, not Joseph Yes. But I was thinking because Paul's last name is Jorgensen. Yes. I somehow filed that under Joseph. I was the listener. You know, unsurprising. And I don't say that with any malice. Like I know that like the division of labor on this show is if there is a if there is a name to be remembered, I shoulder that burden. And that's and I don't do a great job of it, by the way. But I know I know that that's kind of my thing. So don't worry about that. I you have a lot of amazing qualities that you bring to the show. I don't expect you to remember Paul Jorgensen's name.

OK. But, you know, who would remember his name? Wayne Coyne.

He would. He absolutely would. OK, so the last thing I wanted to tell you, though, just about Wayne Coyne's deep, deep normalness is he was telling me that the reason his house was cheap was because it's the lowest point in the neighborhood. So it floods constantly, including his basement was flooding. I was like, wow, we are more alike than I would have thought. right and um he was telling me that like they had this elaborate like drainage ditch kind of thing that had been cemented in and i was like oh did you hire somebody to do this we're just like walking around his house talking about drainage and i was like did you hire somebody to do this and this was not being filmed by the way this is just us chatting and he said well yeah but nobody could fix it so here's what we did like the last one time when there was a really really rainy me and my wife

Thank you.

just came out with shovels in the rain, and we were just digging this trench. And when we would dig it in a certain direction, then the water wouldn't go up to our house. So we just kept digging in that direction.

Like reversing the flow of the river in Chicago.

Yes. They were just like, we have to do this when it's raining, when the problem is happening, and then we just have to figure it out. And so the idea of Wayne Coyne, kind of international music star, out in his front yard, in his super normal neighborhood, with his wife digging a trench so the rain will stop flooding their house just very much endeared him to me. And also probably just looking awesome while doing it. I mean, let's not even, please can we not even get into that? The dude is 60 years old and he looks so good. Wayne Coyne is 60 years

old? Or 60 years old? He's 60 years old. No kidding. I know.

Like, he's a very, very handsome person and I sit down and on the like to do the interview and i have this like mattifier that i use which is something that i rub on my face so that my forehead looks less shiny under television lights this is the extent of my makeup for being on national television and i'm putting this thing on and i go yeah one of the producers hipped me this he's like oh can i get some of that and then he just like grabs and he starts slathering it on all over his face we're just like sharing our our makeup or whatever and of course he didn't need it because he's just a he's just a vision um like at all times he's just yeah he's a pretty incredible dude so that's the update on that let's though let's actually talk a little bit about the fact that we've been in this pandemic bs for a year where were you andrew when

you realized everything was changing this like i don't think like when 9-11 happened you knew something huge was happening immediately and do you know that i kind of didn't well i mean it took me at about a half hour because i was producing a radio show at the time and we realized we need to stop talking about i think the wage gap at about 9 30 when the show started at 9 to realize that oh no we really need to cover this but did it take you days you mean i mean or do you just

mean hours i mean when when it happened when 9 11 happened and i was watching it i thought well i guess this is what we're going to talk about on the show today like i didn't understand that we wouldn't i was working on a local show i didn't realize we wouldn't even literally be on the radio for weeks because it was just rolling coverage but my i didn't i i don't want to get bogged down in 9-11 but i just it's weird to me that i didn't in that moment realize that life would kind of never be the same like i was sort of like i just didn't grasp the enormity of it

To quote Werner, the enormity of the stupidity, my flat brain, but like this one, and I think a lot of people can relate to this. It was like more of a slow roll. And because I remember you asked me specifically, where was I like on March 11th when it happened? I'll tell you that in a second. But to lead up to it, because I went back and I looked at my calendar for this week because I remember it all pretty well. Genevieve's birthday is um is on March 9th and um and so the night before her birthday we went on Sunday we had a birthday dinner at Maneki and I remember things and Maneki is like it's a Japanese restaurant in downtown or actually in the international district in Seattle oldest Japanese restaurant in America if um the internet is to be is that the place that also has I guess

that's a different place in the international district of Seattle where you can see the luggage that was left behind by people who were being interned by Japanese-Americans.

Oh, shit. I don't, if that's part of it, I didn't know that.

There's a, I think it's a hotel actually where they've actually preserved the luggage of Japanese-Americans who were being interned and they just had to leave so quickly. They were taken so quickly they had to leave their stuff there.

God damn.

I don't know. I don't know if that's part of this restaurant. You and I, way back in the day. Happy March 11th, everybody. I know. Like, how many, like, how many, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. How many, like, just American tragedies are we going to be bringing up here? You and I were at Maneki once years and years and years ago with our dates. But anyway, so, but I remember, like, it was, you and I had already been talking about, you know, the virus a lot on the show. But, like, you know, we were trying to figure it all out and going from the, well, they say everybody's going to get it. But it's like the flu and realizing, no, it's more serious. But then you started to get, you know, a lot of xenophobia, which is, you know, obviously still continuing to this day and kind of bias against not just Asians, but their businesses. And so Vives and I, we love Maneki anyway. And we're like, yeah, let's let's go support Maneki. Right. And that was the Sunday. And then life goes on. And then it's Wednesday, the 11th. And I have in my calendar.

here something that says leave house for Genevieve thing from six to nine and you can tell I was probably pretty grumpy when I wrote that in there leave house Genevieve thing and Genevieve was having a small gathering here like the last of the gatherings right and so we still weren't sure to what degree of seriousness to take this and so I had to get out of the house that's what that means this means this is this house is off limits to Andrew she puts a sign on the door that says no Andrews and I say but there's already one other Andrew here and she says that's right no Andrews just like in the Simpsons I'm like okay so I went to and the R is backwards and the R is backwards um and so what I did was I went to what was then my new favorite little divy place Mike's Chili Parlor and I'll never forget this day and I love I still love Mike's I've been thinking about it um i've been thinking about it all pandemic i'm not even gonna lie to you i've been thinking about the burps one gets after yeah eating at mike's chili parlor i they last they last another eight hours and it sounds disgusting and i shouldn't say that here but it's actually something i've missed i've missed oh i the burps a lot of a lot of the food that i eat is just because of what the burp game i am not usually like that i will i will it's Definitely a shame that I'm feeling. That wasn't the drop I was trying to play, by the way. It's accurate enough. That's the one. So I don't know if you remember this, but there was a time where you could sit at the rail or at the bar or at the counter in a bar or a diner. And so I'm there by myself. I had just eaten my chili dog, and I'm nursing a beer and a whiskey probably. And the bartender was a woman who had just dealt with a real handful of a customer Some guy who started off being way too kind of exuberantly nice to her And just like a little flurry in a way that I was just like just let the woman do her job And this is a woman who works at Mike So you know she's you get the impression this woman has seen it all And she's pretty tough and she's not taking shit off of anybody but I'm kind of watching him like talk about you know how much he loves her but then when it's time to pay the bill he's exponentially drunker and he's fighting with her about the bill and where am I going with all of this my point is I don't usually insert myself into like conversations or force a bartender to talk to me when I'm sitting at the bar and then I think especially if it's a woman working I like to make sure to give them their space and you know let them kind of draw the lines of what kind of conversation they feel like having with me or anybody else of the bar and so I remember like purposely kind of not making a lot of extra conversation with her because I just felt like she had just dealt with this other dumbass who finally left um but as I'm sitting at the bar there's a few other people kind of sitting in the tables behind me

there might be one other person at the bar and I'm just like scrolling through Twitter and there's a basketball game on the on the TV and I'm scrolling through Twitter and then it's like Rita Wilson and Tom Hanks have have COVID they've contracted COVID they were overseas I think and I'm like wow and that was the first thing like weirdly I was like oh that's pretty heavy that feels a little bit real but I just keep scrolling and more time goes on and then I think within 20 minutes maybe a half hour another news alert on my phone the NBA has just suspended the basketball season and I look up and the basketball game that's on is still on and I remember saying to the bartender and of course this is a pretty small place so when you say something to the bartender you're kind of saying it to the room kind of situation and I'm like hey listen sorry I just got to say this to somebody I've been sitting here just like scrolling through my phone and I feel like in the past half hour and I kind of reiterated the two events that I just told you and I'm just like scrolling through my phone and I think this is getting really real they just suspended the basketball season and the bartender thought I was messing around with her she's like wait both of those I think she thought I was lying or joking about both of those things I'm like no I'm serious and she looks up at the TV and she says so is this this is the last basketball game i'm like i think as far as i know and then you know it kind of became a group conversation amongst maybe the 10 of us that were in this bar and it just that was the moment like it became kind of chilling and it's it's funny to think now of course none of us are wearing masks you know this is before before everybody is wearing masks and i just remember leaving the bar in kind of a somewhat stunned state and i still had a few hours i wasn't allowed back home so i think i i think i ended up going to like another bar where i pulled tabs for a while but felt incredibly guilty doing so and then uh and then eventually headed home and i think i told genevieve the news that it broke i don't know if she had if she had been following it because she was having a gathering and that was it man that was my last moment but i just it's so clear and i I can I can taste the whiskey and. and chili that um i had just consumed when the world literally changed for me i i wonder if that

will be if that moment you're describing if that is going to be for for people in the u.s anyway the if we all are going to have that be kind of our moment because that's exactly what i remember i was sitting in dan tana's in la i was at the bar having some pasta and they have big tvs in there and the exact same thing first it was actually i believe the the way that it unfolded on there was the nba is close like the nba is folding or whatever you want to say suspending their season everyone's like wow that's crazy and then then somehow the news came out oh and tom hanks has it and everybody was like oh shit like it was a bigger deal that tom hanks and rita wilson had covid it's felt in that room maybe because it's la maybe because it's hollywood oh but like maybe It felt more like people were more upset by Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson having COVID than the – I mean not – they were both pretty big news events. But the way that those both happened, sort of one, two, like a beloved icon of American cinema and all-around good guy, Tom Hanks having it and Rita Wilson for that matter, that and the basketball news just coming kind of like boom, boom, that really felt like the moment for me too. And then I was supposed to fly to Portland and do Livewire. And, you know, the week before we had done the show and I had made some joke about the people that were in the theater, you know, being survivors and not wanting to waste their $20 that they'd spend on the tickets or something. And that, you know, by the time that the news came out, by March 11th, I rerouted my flight. And instead of flying to Portland, we were like, yeah, we can't do the show, which felt like a crazy thing to cancel Livewire. Like as if that was going to be such a big deal. But I remember just being like, I can't believe this is actually happening. We're canceling our show. And then I, you know, flew home to Bellingham and and and thus began for me and, you know, for all of us, this whole weird ass journey. And you're right. You know, I I'm remembering I'm like, well, how was I allowed to be sitting at a bar in L.A.? How was I allowed to be sitting in Dan Tana's without a mask? And it's like, yeah, because we just didn't know.

Yep. Yep. Exactly. I remember this is an embarrassing thing, too, because I remember I'm, you know, very happy that my parents back in Ohio were taking all of this very seriously and continue to do so. They're both vaccinated now. And I remember talking to my dad on the phone probably in March. And he had a trip, you know, he and my stepmom had a trip planned out here, out west. I think it was part of it was going to be a river cruise down the Snake River or up the Snake River. I don't know. And somehow that involved also spending at least one night or maybe possibly two nights in Seattle somewhere. And so, you know, we helped find a hotel and there we're going to get together. And then I remember talking to him on the show on the phone in March and him saying, well, yeah, obviously we're canceling that. I'm like, oh, that's June. Like I was at once very proud of them for taking it seriously and happy that they were so, you know, just given their age and their generation, they're more at risk than I was. But I was also like, oh, really? You're canceling your plans in June? Let's not overdo it. All right. Like I guess that's, you know, that's that's your decision to make seems a little excessive to me. June. June, Luke. Like four months away. Like, that was, like, June seems like, you know, forever ago, and June was such a, we're just in the heart of it, just in the heart of it. I just, I think back, like, just little moments like that stick out to me, whether it was, like, me completely misunderstanding this. I told you on the show, and I'm glad that you're not embarrassed about it, but for the longest time, the only TBTL moment that I was really too embarrassed to ever go back and listen to, which I haven't, was the time I got too drunk during the 2014 Super Bowl, and I couldn't finish the show because we were recording it on Super Bowl Sunday remotely, and so I can't ever go back to listen how drunk I was on that show. But now, like I would, if anybody ever turns on an episode of TBTL and I'm in the room, that's never happened to me before, by the way. And it's like a moment where you and I are trying to piece together how serious to take this virus that hasn't even hit the United States yet. Or maybe even you and I were figuring it out maybe when there were a few cases here in Washington state. But I'm just like so embarrassed. And again, we were just operating with the information we had. I shouldn't necessarily be embarrassed about it, but I am. I never want to hear myself talking about it.

I wish I wouldn't have called it the karate chop flu that did not hold up well and I want to apologize well you were running for president so right yeah so man I feel like the over I mean I've been having a lot of conversations with people about this just casually and it seems like everyone says a version of the same thing which is kind of what we're saying which is you just

maybe a few really smart people knew but no one i've talked to realized how long this was going to go on i mean that's the big takeaway is like remember when we thought like this will probably be i thought well we're going to cancel like we're going to cancel a week of live wire but then we'll probably be back in like two weeks like if you would have said the spring is canceled i've been like you are insane and then if you'd have been like the fall season is also canceled in terms of live attended like I just don't think very many of us were able to you know wrap our minds around what this was really going to look like it's just it was just so you know out outside of any of our previous experience but that seems to be the thing that most people say is I just thought this was

gonna be over in a couple of weeks yeah yeah and I remember there was another there was another party here on my calendar that happened after the 11th and it had been on the calendar for a long time a relatively small gathering but with some folks in West Seattle who I had not seen in a long time and I remember um you know Genevieve and I were debating whether or not to go and I was like I'm just not comfortable but I also you know felt maybe a little bit guilty in the back of my head thinking am I just using this as an excuse because I don't really feel like going to West Seattle on a Saturday you know um and these are like friends who I truly truly love by the way and truly miss um and even did then because I hadn't seen him in a really long time but I also you know it's just hard for me to leave the house that's one thing I think I mentioned this on the show and we'll really see I think a lot of people are having these conversations with themselves we'll really see if I live up to this but when things reopen I really and maybe you can hold me to this Luke and the listeners can I really want to make a concerted effort to get out of the house and not let that one moment of yeah but wouldn't it be nice if I just cracked a beer and turned on the baseball game or cracked a beer and turned on Madden or you know a video game I really want to make a concerted effort to when somebody says let's do this just to do it and not overthink it and not slip into my I think I'll I think I'll be happier. I think I'll be happier for that if I can

kind of push through those moments of weakness. Yeah, I agree with you. And I'm, you know, I'm a little bit more socially inclined than you are as far as like leaving the house. But I've been having that thought to like, you know, well, for one thing, even though we're all dying for this thing to be a poor choice of words, but even though we're all really ready for the restrictions to be lifted in the pandemic to to uh sort of abate if you will um there's also a certain amount of comfort in having no expectation of going and doing anything but i will tell you that like even like i had my nephews come over just because i wanted to hang out with them and uh you know uh took them around to some safe activities in the city in portland it was such a fun day and like i'm glad that i'm not bringing this up to be like go uncle luke but i guess i just mean that even in this limited way like i visited you know with my sister outside and stuff you know and like safely and all that like my other sister that is anytime i've actually like motivated to go get together with people in whatever that looks like these days you know i'm so happy i did it you know what i mean or like that day with my nephews was it was a pretty long day to have two kind of young boys running around and all their energy and everything but it was just like it was so rewarding and so anyway i'm just echoing what you're saying like that i'm going to try to i'm going to try to uh make sure that i'm engaging with uh you know out outside and normal life as much as possible because not having it uh you know i've i've talked about like you know wanting to go to the minnesota state fair like really badly that was so fun it was great when we did i mean i was having fun when we were there but now i really want to go back to it

because you had something we went to the state fair and we did the show but you had to go back for another work related thing right i think i had to go like record live wire at my hotel room or

yeah i think so or some some we weren't actually doing that maybe it was cbs stuff i don't know but yeah like i didn't get to kick it as long as i wanted to but the other thing is i texted you yesterday that the mariners are hoping that i guess it's the county or the city will allow them to have fans at the stadium for the first game yeah i saw that now they don't have permission yet though right but they've been just the fact that that like that's even on the table that they're even publicly saying that and again you know all this is with the huge asterisk of what is safe and permissible what is what is in the best interest of you know the citizens of of king county and seattle and whatever but like it would seem to me that with it being an outdoor activity and if they take the proper you know precautions it seems to me like something that could happen relatively safely i'm not an expert but just the fact that that's even part of the conversation That really, really excited me yesterday. So I had to text you immediately and say, look what they're trying to do.

You know, I don't think I responded to that. But my initial thought on that was like, well, first of all, I've never been to an opening day. Last year was supposed to be the first opening day. Like you, me, and my buddy Colin had plans to go to opening day for the first time. But I kept on holding off on getting the tickets because I was like, well, let's just see. Let's just see.

but I remember our buddy Durs we're in a text chain not about going to opening day or maybe it was just about sports I don't remember what it was but our friend Durs who is like one of the more cautious people amongst us especially I mean he's really really taken this more than almost anybody I know I think that he's hardly except for work and essential services like he has really buttoned everything down I saw him a couple of times and he would like not even take off his mask to drink something which was really messy just really messy just pours it all over his face no I give him a lot of a lot of credit for that but I will say again me being a boner head don't use that against me at some point um I uh I remember in a text chain saying something about opening day and him being like yeah we'll even see if there's an opening day and I didn't text back but in my head I was just like all right there's like I know come on calm down like we're only one minute in this football game don't say that we've lost and it's the end of an era already you know what i mean that's by the way that's my job to yell at just it wasn't it was i wasn't angry i just kind of in the back of my head i'm like okay there's whatever and then of course he was right

of course he was right all the cautious people were right right i know um you know our our buddy chris hayes the oft mentioned chris hayes on this show was really the maybe just the person i was following on twitter who was just the most realistic about things and i remember at some point thinking like all right buddy we kind of get it like you know like being like man chris's timeline is really a lot of this covid stuff but it's just because he's very smart and was actually like looking at the data and he before anybody else that i knew was really like this is gonna be serious yep and uh yeah all all of the cautious people were right um and uh it's been a it's been in another way though i mean it's been a really strange year and yet i feel kind of proud of the scientists and the you know health care workers and the the fact that like people are getting vaccinated you know in large numbers my parents are vaccinated i'm vaccinated like just the fact that like that that's happened in one year that they like went out and freaking got a vaccine and got multiple vaccines that are really effective and are getting them in people's arms and three million people a day now or so are getting vaccinated and i mean just today i saw the news was that the the u.s has now ordered enough vaccine for every like adult american to be vaccinated

plus like i believe i think there's there or by they've ordered enough so that when they arrive we'll have like 500 million vaccines right and i kept reading that i'm like isn't i always get confused about how many people are in the u.s but i thought i had it i was like i thought we only have 330 million so i think the idea there is we can help out other nations as well good exactly

sure but yeah but it's just like i'm also surprised we even have to order them i feel like isn't it i mean aren't the people making these things just like run the factory 24 hours a day like make as much of this as you can like it's interesting they're like oh did you want some more i mean obviously there are some logistics you do have to order them but it was weird to me to think of of us being like yes can we please have 500 million doses or whatever the actual

order right exactly and then because i just feel like you'll get them and they'll give you a lot of utensils and you'll be like oh it's just us here oh this is embarrassing right like i just

feel like you know what hey if you're running the the places i don't even know what kind of a place makes a vaccine but if you're running that go ahead and just i'd burn that candle at every end i'd light the middle of the candle on fire and you just go ahead and do that until we tell you to stop right anyway so um yeah let's not let's not go into that business together okay because

I feel like there might be some logistical things that you and I are unaware of. You don't think I'm qualified to be the person in charge of getting the vaccine for America? I just, I mean, I don't want to be negative here. All I'm saying is there might be people who are slightly more qualified. But I'll follow you anywhere. You know that. Oh, Andrew.

Well, anyway, happy one-year anniversary. Or, you know, maybe that's a weird way to say it. But here we are a year later. Man. Okay. Let's take a quick break. And then when we come back, I do want to tell you what's potentially going on with me and Bill Shatner, and we'll do Blur's Days and anything else that we decide to do, because this is our podcast, Andrew, and we can do basically whatever we want.

Yeah.

All right. Back with more TVTL in a moment.

On your mark. On your mark. Get set. Get set. Now ready. Ready. Go.

Everybody rattle, dazzle. Everybody rattle, dazzle.

Hey, let's thank some dazzling donors. These are the people that are helping make TBTL possible with their donations. And these are not insignificant. There are no insignificant donations. But these ones are especially non-insignificant. That's a lot of negatives, dude. Especially generous. over the top. These are some especially generous folks like Kelly Nelson of San Diego, California by the way Dazzling Donors are able to send in a little message that we then read on the air, a message of their choosing that's one of the ways that we like to thank them Kelly says first I'd like to thank my sister and boss 10 Ann for turning me on to TBTL. I tuned into my very first episode while I was spring cleaning you guys were talking about how some 10s clean while listening and it was just too meta for me to quit wow that was a that was lucky for us that that was what was happening that locked kelly in uh it's been a long time listen affair since then uh second unlike many folks i found myself in a position to increase my donation this year because i am very lucky and 2020 was a year in which taking stock and reprioritizing took on special poignance the global pandemic toll i paid came in the form of emotional and familial crises so having tv tbtl as a refuge of laughter silliness and general conviviality makes my donation one of the best investments i've ever made wow thanks kelly also those are

big words yeah i know i wonder maybe listeners should start writing as big of words as possible on the dazzling donor messages to see if they can stump us of course that's not fair because i don't

read them you do yeah like poignance and conviviality it's a real let's you know a real workout rubber baby buggy bumper rubber baby buggy bumper just i'm gonna start reading this message from kelly each morning to just kind of wake my uh my voice up uh third kelly continues i would love if you would go out with the song cloud busting by kate bush oh dude i love that song while the song's not about two bros growing it up on a podcast the chorus reminds me of tbtl but every time it rains you're here in my head like the sun coming out oh i just know that something good is gonna happen thanks to tbtl for making good happen lots of love signed kelly in san diego wow kelly thank you for that incredibly nice note uh and thanks for the

great recommendation on the kate bush song yes i think i only know it because of you luke there's something that you were saying as you kind of got into this and that i you know kelly mentioned that she she found herself in a position unlike a lot of people um to increase her donation and i mean I think maybe that puts a fine point on these these dazzling donors, because, again, I don't want to diminish all the support we get from everybody on the show in all kinds of ways, by the way, not just financial. But, you know, one thing we're just talking about the one year anniversary of this pandemic, like I am getting emails from folks who are saying, like, hey, bro, I'm really sorry about this, but times are tough and I just lost my job. And people are really, I mean, going through shit. And we all know this. And, you know, nobody wants to write to the host of a radio show or a podcast and say, hey, I'm really sorry if I got to do this. But nobody should feel bad about doing that, for starters. Like, you're supporting the show in so many ways. The fact that you ever donated is really special. And to the people like Kelly who say, you know, right now, like, nobody knows what the future holds. But right now I was able to do this. And so I was able to help out some other listeners who can't. That's what I am not trying to be corny. But I think that's what's really special about this. not especially right now not everybody can give and so the people who are kind of recognizing that they can right now it's just so damn appreciated and and like you always say look very humbling

yeah we do not deserve these listeners but um somehow they're still listening and donating and and supporting the show like you said in myriad ways so uh thank you kelly for for supporting the show and giving me a chance to say the word conviviality correctly just to kind of show

off my skills maestro on your mark on your mark get set get set now ready ready go everybody

we also have to thank audrey worthington of akron ohio akron go zips and i'm from kent state so that's you know hard wow that's your gift to audrey that is your that's your way of thanking audrey for their donation uh is the is is basically like selling out your kent state

golden flashes i mean this is a golden flash saying go zips i mean and i mean i am steeped in that golden flash culture as you know like that's you won't shut up about those words so

obviously you really do audrey says i've been listening to tbtl for nearly 10 years now and for nearly as long luke and andrew have tortured me by casually mentioning how cool it would be to do a live show in Cleveland. So this year, I'd like to use my minute amount of power to put pressure on the guys to make, period, this, period, happen, period. Once COVID is in the rear view, you would make this longtime 10 so happy. Love you guys. Love the show. Thanks for getting us through yet another insane year. Yeah, we need to do that, Andrew. We need to do a live show in Cleveland when it is safe and perfect. prudent what if um what if we didn't do Cleveland what if we did Akron and we called it the because of course rack because Akron aka Rakron is the rubber capital of the world of course so we could call it rubber what do you say baby buggy bumpers yeah that that one that's what we could call the

show absolutely um uh yeah we I mean Cleveland I don't want to give too much away but we've been having some conversations about the show and about you know when in the future we can actually get back out in the world and see people and do things and Cleveland has come up because it's such a, it's sort of probably the most discussed place, like the most over discussed city on this show that we have not yet done a thing from, you know it looms very large in the lore of TVTL, so Audrey all you gotta do is donate for another 10 years and I promise at some point we will be coming to the greater Akron area, so thank you for the donation thanks for making the show possible

Hello and welcome to Top Story.

Well, the top story in my mind right now, Andrew, along with the fact that I have a new best friend, Wayne Coyne, and that we're on the kind of one year mark of this pandemic, is that I may have started a beef with William Shatner today on Twitter, kind of intentionally, but kind of unintentionally, because he was rude to a friend of mine. Oh, really? I know nothing about this. so i am friends with andrea seabrook andrea seabrook was a um npr reporter for years a covered congress and other things and it's just an amazingly brilliant journalist in fact andrea and i did that thing the bryant park project um the original version of that the pilot was me and andrea um just uh kind of you know basically doing a version of tvtl with maybe a little like Except we got to the top stories on the BPP pilot That was really the only main difference

No Seabrook, got it, fine, whatever

But anyway, so I've been friends with Andrea for a long time And she was tweeting at William Shatner Which I didn't think there was any way that it was going to work at all Let me go, I'm booting up the Twitter machinery on my phone Let me see if I can get to the Okay, here we go, I'm at the original thing So basically, I got up this morning And because I follow Andrea on Twitter I saw that she had written a tweet Hey, at William Shatner Would you join me for a live streamed interview From Riverside, Iowa The future birthplace of James T. Kirk Misses you And I'm a real journalist, I promise We met at NPR So obviously Andrea at some point had talked to William Shatner The future birthplace

Meaning because in the lore of Star Trek We haven't gotten to the point where they live in time and space yet

Andrew, you are asking the right person Because as you know, I spend a lot of time studying the Star Trek universe. No, I'm guessing that sounds right. But I just woke up this morning and saw this tweet. And honestly, I just thought, that's never going to work, Andrea. Like, I've tried that move before a couple of times. That's like plan Z for me is just like publicly tweeting at somebody. but imagine my shock when the next time i looked down at twitter i saw another tweet from andrea responding to william shatner who had replied to her nice okay good so she throws out hey william shatner you want to do this thing and william shatner's response is since when do quote real journalists use twitter to ask for interviews what and then he has an emoji of like the eye roll like the emoji kind of like doing an eye roll what what is his problem i know right thank you that's that's the righteous indignation i was looking for i'm being serious what yeah what's your problem i know it's like it's one thing to just ignore people tweeting at you that seems like a you know um if you're william shatner you're pretty famous like i would expect that you just wouldn't be aware but to actually take the time to respond and be kind of rude uh Since when do, quote, real journalists use Twitter to ask for interviews? Emoji, eye roll. Thank you, but I don't book any kind of new media streaming podcast, YouTube, Twitch, etc. type of interviews. And then Andrea responded very politely. She said, let's see if I can get her. She basically responded. Oh, she said, well, PR agents become ways to separate rather than connect you with your audience, which is 100% true. Yes. I mean, that's why she was doing it, because if she calls up whoever is the PR person for William Shatner, he's that message.

is never going to get to him i know this from experience with famous people um and then she says happy to send a quote real interview request but it sounds like live streaming is not your bag this was like a very nice response from andrea when william shatner took time out of his day to just be rude for no reason and i was so i responded and i was like uh i am shocked that this actually kind of worked i said this to andrea but william shatner is in the thread I said also Bill was the only wait wait guest We've ever had who called in after we'd recorded The entire show without him because he did not Realize Chicago and LA were different time Zones

True fucking story You know and now you And now you have a pretty good sense that he will See that like you know

When I went to his Twitter feed all he does Basically is reply to people About how he doesn't want to do their shows Jesus it's crazy like so william shatner's bio on twitter he's got two and a half million followers father of three girls canadian not political be warned or be blocked and then he's got a link to his calendar a link to his charity and then i don't book podcasts it's just in his bio and then if you go mostly what he's doing is telling people he doesn't want to be on their show so uh or complaining about the ways being interviewed he just uh wrote uh on twitter i only don't i only do interviews when i have something to talk about somebody had asked him to be on their thing and again he's on twitter telling them no i only do interviews when i have something to talk about i give national outlets 15 minutes so we can stay on point i recently booked a career retrospective interview for one of the emmy publications the woman spent 99 of the interview asking me silly star trek questions um Ringo is strong in this one now that's a show title where's my bell the Ringo I'm writing that

down no you continue I'll write it down you continue you got the story it's just it's just

kind of wild to me that William Shatner is spending as much time as he is on Twitter basically telling people he doesn't want to be on their shows it's like just I mean I don't know maybe there's an argument that it's at least he's interacting maybe there's something to be said for like he's taking the time to respond but but i didn't appreciate the tone to be rude and to

puff himself up and talk about how important he is and what a get he is like and it's like bro

you did one thing i mean i guess he was also tj hooker but it's like it i mean what i really want to say is well again as i'm not a star i'm not a star trek person per se i mean i watched the original show i enjoyed it i in fact even saw some of the movies so i'm not like anti star trek but i'm just not in that world i'm not a trekkie as it were but like i know that he's iconic from that but it's like bro you were you were like notably a bad actor yes like part of the part of the camp and the fun of it is that you're not good at acting and that was a long time ago and we all know you're wearing a hairpiece and kind of get over yourself is what i really what i wanted to say to him um but again the fact that i like called him out for having kind of bungled his wait wait appearance i will say that once he was on he was actually pretty likable um although he was being i think he had two like i want to say they were like great danes climbing all over him like during the interview it was kind of crazy and literally it's the only guest the times i've done wait wait don't tell me it's the only guest we've ever had who didn't show up by phone we had to do the entire show because they just kept saying no william shatner so we would and this was live on stage days live on stage days in chicago and you know usually you do like half the show then they bring the guest on and i mean we've had like i i wasn't on this show but like you know there's a pretty big star like obama has been on you know he made it uh you know um obama's a better actor than william shatner by the way but you know what i mean it's like it's just kind of like we've had very very big stars on that show and they've all managed to get there on time and there's only one person who did it and it was william shatter and it was i'm not exaggerating because he indicated he did not realize that we were not in the same time zone

that he was in god so what is it there's like yeah really makes you appreciate the human the humanity and humanness of um of Wayne Coyne right and again like yeah Wayne Coyne is not a household name Shatner for better for worse is but still though I mean there's a huge power dynamic there right by the way actually going back to the coin thing for a while I wanted to ask you this while you were talking about it earlier did you share with him I'm assuming not while the cameras were rolling but did you share with him what you talked about on the show yesterday about how that moment of graciousness from him when he found out that they wanted to put you on stage and he was just like oh great let's roll with that did you mention that story to him as a as a way of how it as an example of how it changed your outlook on things I did actually i don't think it'll be in the piece but i did want to mention it to him and i actually had the a photo of the event that i printed out at the hotel and i gave him the like the printed out folded up photo kind of like as evidence and he was very gracious about it um he he sort of said yeah i remember that but i mean you know they've played 10 000 shows in their life so i i didn't expect him to remember it yeah but uh uh but and that's probably part of why the interview was three hours long because there was a lot of digressions like that but i did mention to him that that made a real impact on me good and uh and and he seemed to he seemed to appreciate that

i know that you and i both have a tendency to want to not fanboy too much and maybe you're

getting better but i'm glad you took the opportunity no i'm not i i'm not better at it with that guy because that was the other thing he was just so nice and so cash that and we just had a lot of time hanging out that i just started telling him i was telling him about my you know the the art that my my uh first ex-wife was making i've since since that conversation now he asked about it like once i mentioned it he wanted to see it so i texted her to get what was her art again that you said this yesterday i forgot it was a statue of superman made out of um like sugar basically like a sugar paste okay it's like a statue of all white sort of superman it's actually very cool looking and um and she made it i think it might have even been called like waiting for superman or something like it was because of uh her and uh listening to that flaming lips album soft bolts and a bunch so i'm telling about this art he's like oh my god that's so interesting so then he's like texting me later like hey i want to see a picture of that so then i'm texting my ex and going like hey uh i'm hanging out with wayne coin could you send me a picture of that statue you made based on his song and she's all you know psyched about it because she's a big wayne coin fan and and then he's asking all these questions about like why did you make it out of sugar so then i'm like i'm basically this go-between asking her why did you make it out of sugar and etc etc

So you must just I mean, you must have also enjoyed being able to text an ex and saying I'm hanging out with Wayne Coyne. That must have been kind of I think she knows. I think she gets it.

She's missing out, you know, on this wild ride that is Burbank. But yeah, sure. I guess that was a kind of a low key flex. But actually, you know, you know, though, when I think my fan boy when I actually fully stumped him at some point when I was like, because, yeah, usually I try to play. it cool and i try to just sort of not let the famous person i'm talking to know that i know they're famous that usually and honestly that usually works the best in my experience but i'm such a fan of the flaming lips and also he was just so nice i honestly just felt like i can tell this guy anything so i was like i was like you know um back in the you know before the pandemic i was in dc with my hanging out with my adult daughter and we went to a like a cafe slash record store called Skylark in DC and we sat in the basement of this place while uh they while they played I think it was Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and then two like music nerds and I say that with affection like broke down the like production and the history of the album and kind of where it fit in you know basically it was just like geeking out on a flaming lips record but first thing you do is you sit in this room quietly and listen to it on vinyl were you sitting on the

floor i remember this story in my mind you were sitting on the floor no we had chairs but um but how many people were in the listening session maybe like 10 yeah that's how i pictured it it was

you know it was a was a lightly attended affair but i loved it anyway so i'm like telling like i'm telling wayne about oh my my ex-wife was making art based on your songs and i've seen you guys a million times and here's this photo of you and me together that you don't remember happening oh and me and my daughter were recently in a basement quietly listening to your music with other enthusiasts that last part might have just been one piece of info too many yeah that that

was when he stopped returning my text messages did you tell him about your beautiful picturesque

feet or did he just notice himself do you send him some photos tonight i you know we're going to be filming the concert and i plan on being barefoot can i share something with you we aren't

doing regular emails and v-mails today however i because this just came up right now i'm just gonna break protocol are you cool with that are you ready to just to kind of zig and zag along and just be like jazz um i got this note from kelly in vancouver washington i was mentioning how it's gross when somebody just you know i said i noticed that there's a woman i follow on twitter who like took a photo of something on the floor but then black like kind of put a black bar over her feet so that pervs wouldn't like take it and like distribute it on their on their feet fetish sites now is that rude like if somebody is into feet and they're attracted to them i'm not saying you're necessarily a perv so my apologies if that hit wrong but i do take a lot of offense at people taking photos just like a somebody taking an innocent photo on twitter and posting it and then you turning that into something right you're saying that is the per Pervy behavior, not being attracted to feet. Exactly. And actually, it's as strange of a statement that is for me to make. I do mean that. I don't want to shame anybody for whatever they kind of find attractive within the boundaries of consent and everything. But anyway, Kelly.

Everyone's attracted to my feet.

Kelly in Vancouver, Washington said, a couple of years ago, I was gearing up to get surgery on a bunion on my left foot. And in the lead up to it, I posted a before picture to Twitter, thinking there was no way little old me would be at risk of capitalized weird stuff. Cue that Oh No song from TikTok. Luke will know what that means. Anyway, a foot enthusiast liked and commented and then made the picture of my gnarled foot into their Twitter cover photo without asking.

What?

I don't know how I figured out that they did it, but I did ask them to remove the picture, and they complied immediately. I've since learned that there is good money in unique feet. Should I lose my job? I now have a horrifying scar, and the bunion is coming back, so cha-ching.

Oh, my God.

Is that not? That's a good email. Do you know why I didn't want to sit on that through the weekend?

There's just so much to try to unpack from that. Like I feel like anything I say is going to offend somebody So I'm not trying to be You know Foot typicalist But I'm surprised to hear I want to be inclusive to people Who have bunions And that's their foot situation And they are proud of it I don't want those people to feel excluded from this conversation But I will just admit to being surprised to hear That that's a subculture of this whole thing As am I I wrongly assumed that the foot fetish stuff would be about what we think of as the sort of, you know, quote unquote, perfect feet, feet like mine, Andrew. I would assume those would be the ones that were fetishized, did not realize that there was a whole bunion situation going on as well.

Yeah. So there you go. You learn something new every day. I give the person credit for taking it down immediately, I guess.

like think about the other tweets from this person who's using our listeners gnarled foot her words like think about like that person then just tweeting about the seahawks or like politics or any other topic just like you know just being like out there just talking about like oh man boy wandavision i didn't see that coming and then just like their their avi Is our listeners gnarled foot Yes I would really I would have a hard time Taking anything else They were doing seriously Or saying on Twitter seriously Yeah Well consider that anecdote An early birthday present To all of our Blur's Day people

There's a right way to rock And a wrong way to roll You can't just listen to your soul Just remember that life Is number one You can be having so much fun All right, Luke, you ready for this?

We're going to do it together. Yeah, man, I've got it right here.

By the way, this Shatner situation is deteriorating rapidly.

Oh, what's the update? What's the update?

It doesn't involve me, thankfully, but he is now beefing with Andrea on Twitter because people are calling him rude. And now he says, you mean rude? She was so gracious. Of course. She has comported herself honorably, but basically people are like coming at William Shatner now. And William Shatner is saying, hey, at NPR, is this the new way your reporters get interviews by publicly shaming and then getting their friends to follow up with harassment? I'm beginning to lose respect for your organization.

What? And now I see she's saying most responses are coming from your audience, actually. I said you and I met at NPR. I've since worked at several other important news organizations.

Like other people are like being kind of, you know, touchy with Bill and he's now mad. I mean, luckily, I think he's I don't think he realized that I was involved in this, which is which is fine for me because I don't want to get in trouble for spilling the wait, wait tea. I mean, I do it here, but no one hears this like Twitter, you know, slightly more outward facing. But yeah, it's really sorry to sully our blurs days with with that. But I just I'm watching it unfold on my telephone.

I mean, just what is your, what is your, what's the upshot here, Shatner?

Shut it. That sounds like an REM song. What's the upshot, Shatner? I mean, just so gross. And also.

It's a bad look. Yes, and also just like I think there are actually a lot of journalists out there who use Twitter as a tool, dude. Like you're not winning points. Like you're the one who's out of it. You don't know how things work anymore. Like why are you on the platform? Get off the platform. Peace and love. All right. The Ringo. What did you say? The Ringo is strong with this one? Yeah. All right. Let's palate cleanse here. Okay. Thank you. Wash it away. Good. Bass riffs. Thanks to our buddy, Tim Heidecker. When I say buddy, I mean we're best friends.

Tweet at him later, see if we can get him on the show.

Yeah, this first Blur's Day message comes from a friend of the show to somebody that you like to call J-Dog.

Oh, sure, J-Dog, yeah.

J-Dog, Jonathan Hauser. We don't usually do last names, but in this case it will make sense because this is from Anna who says, Happy birthday to my perfect Pisces, my St. Patrick's Day, honey, my favorite hunky-dunk, Howie. You light up my life, and I'm so glad you were born. Love always, Anna, Ninny, and sometimes Donna. I don't know if that... Those are all different names for Anna or different entities. I don't care. That's lovely. Happy Blurs Day.

I have to tell you, he is a, I'm sorry, he is more of a Marciano. What is the Z plus? We're not using Pisces anymore. Oh, right. Yeah. Anna, we're using, I forget, I don't have it in front of me, but Hauser, your new name is whatever March is. I wish I could remember off the top of my head. Happy Blur's Day, J-Dog. Yeah, for sure.

Hey, can I ask you a quick question before we move on? How did you come up with J-Dog? That's such a good nickname.

I just thought, what's the first letter of his first name? J, that's J, yeah. Yeah, right. Like, I call you A-Dog behind your back.

That could kind of, wow, that works with a lot of people. You're A-L-Dog.

You know who it doesn't work with? My new best friend Wayne, because W-Dog is too much.

No, you got to call him Dub-Dog. Sure.

Do you know that I got my nephew, Jack, with a Up-Dog? It's so great to be able to teach the next generation the important things. We were walking around Mount Tabor. This is right after the 11-year-old said his sign was D's Nuts. And I said, oh, man, it smells like Up Dog around here. And Jack looked at me really kind of confused. And I was like, it's even coming through the mask. Are you getting that? And he says, what's up, dog? I said, not much. How about you? And then I air-fived him. I was so proud of myself. Did you slay him? He was not as – I thought he was going to be, you know, just like his eyes were going to light up um but he was more just kind of confused annoyed with me in that very moment

but let me ask you an important question about um podcast production if you don't mind um today my backup recording uh apparently my card was full and it just stopped now this is my master recording luke not the one that has us individually recording ourselves is your recording still fine on your end because you know it baby we'll be in trouble if not keep an eye on that thing if anything happens in that we're going to be in a lot of trouble you're going to be in a lot of

trouble all right that's how that works i don't know all right good you're up i am and i would like to say a happy blurs day that is being sent out by listener sarah says i'd like to send a Quick birthday shout-out to my boy, Cooper, who turns 13 this weekend. Zoinks! Zoinks! Happy birthday, Coop. Coop J! J. Coop J!

That's not unlike J-Dog.

Coop J-Dog.

Yeah.

LL Coop J. I love it. That's what they call Coop out there. Happy Blur's Day, Coop. Happy 13.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Dig this, Daddy-O. Owen and Logan from Spokane say, Happy Blur's Day to our Dada, Mark. We hope you get some confetti cake and dancing music. Happy birthday to Choo Choo Trains. Happy birthday to Gumby. Happy birthday to our Dada, Dada. You're our favorite. Dada is like an art movement. Dada is a loving father. You're our favorite, like the color red. Love you to the moon and back. Always. Always. Happy Blur's Day, Mark, from Owen and Logan and us, your friends at TBTL.

Will, wait a minute. Will in Worthington, Ohio. Go Browns. Oh, you know what? Audrey, our listener from Akron, her last name is Worthington. Oh, interesting. And you don't believe in a God, Andrew. So you think that they're a romantic couple now, I assume? It's obvious that they are. No, but it's just interesting that we've... We've had two appearances of Worthington coming out of Ohio today on the program. That is something. Will is in Worthington, Ohio, the city, not the last name. And he says, I'd like to wish my Step 5 Nora, what a great name, a happy 7th Blur's Day. Thanks for being such a precocious youngster who likes to play Nintendo Switch, dominate 1500 piece jigsaw puzzles. That's impressive. and cheer for the Cleveland Browns and the Columbus crew. Last week, Nora was listening to TBTL and said, these guys are really wacky. And she asked me to turn it up louder. Nice. Wow, Nora, happy Blur's Day. And yes, we are very wacky.

Gary and Holly in Stanwood. We've got some Stanwood 10s here. Happy 13th Blur's Day to our darling Merritt. She dances. She watches Beverly Hills 90210 and the Avengers movies, and we love her. Cute. That's really cute. Love it.

Happy Blur's Day, Merit. Did they reboot 90210, or does that indicate that Merit is watching the OG? Clap, clap. Should I sing the whole original 90210 song? Yeah, where does it go from there? happy blurs day merit um yeah do you i mean i'm i'm curious though is that seems like one of those shows they probably brought back at some point does feel i'm trying to remember was there a reunion did you watch 902 i mean in a million years i wouldn't expect you to watch 90210 but then you often surprised me with the stuff that you did interact with the first season was i think

the first season was out in the first year that i had a television in my room luke i could not believe i had a television in my room this was eighth grade for me so my timeline on that might be slightly off but i know that in eighth grade we had moved to a new house i had a tv in the bookshelf of my room maybe it's more of a tv shelf um and i remember getting excited that 90210 was on and i would go upstairs and watch it by myself in my room but it was like early 90210 also they have the same last name as me and that's important oh yeah brenda and dylan walsh

This one's you

Oh it is Oh did you do Merit Oh I thought I did Merit Yeah remember Merit 90210 Yeah I thought I did that Domini in Frisco Colorado says You did do that Oh I did do that Okay I was gonna say

We finally morphed into one person That was not me laughing at you That was me laughing at me.

Oh, no, no problem.

I mean, what a Dumas I am. I mean, I also believed that you had done that. I did, too, intensely until I remembered that you were the one talking.

Our souls have officially merged. Yeah, yeah. All right, well, do you want to do the next one? It doesn't matter to me.

It's dark in here. Domini in Frisco, Colorado says, I would like to wish my amazing person, Stefan, a very happy Blur's Day. I am so lucky a simple Facebook friend request finally got him to talk to me after a year of just staring at each other at work. Wow, this is, you know, a dramatic story of love. It is. Three years later, and I couldn't be happier. I look forward to our future adventures. Bear and I love you very much. Happy Blur's Day.

That is so sweet. Happy Blur's Day, Stefan.

So, uh, Domini and Stefan were working together and staring at each other longingly, but didn't know how to, um, you know, had to, had to change the nature of their relationship. And then Domini Facebook messaged or Facebook friended Stefan and the rest, as they say, is history.

That's what I, that's what I'm getting from that. I like it. I wonder how that staring went. Was it a two way staring thing? Or was it, um, what kind of, I wonder what kind of work they do.

Yes. Were they in cubicles staring at each other? Were they like, you know, his nominee, like a WNBA player, and Stefan was like the ball boy? So many different kind of jobs they could have where they'd be staring at each other longingly for three years.

Either way, glad it worked out. And finally, Peter is wishing. Hold on, Andrew. This one's mine. You just read the last one. Sorry. You know, I forgot. I feel like you read it. I can't. Happy Blur's Day to the Borg that is Andrew and Luke. this, the day of their blurs, as one entity. Wow, more Star Trek references. Peter is wishing Cherry, my Port Townsend wife, a very happy 61st Blurs Day. Did you say Cherry? I know it got confusing there.

Did you say cherry or Sherry? I said Sherry, but it's C-H-E-R-Y. Did I go too hard on the chuh? Should I say Sherry there? I think so.

I would go Sherry.

All right. And also confusing because I wrote, Peter is wishing Sherry my poor Townsend wife. Now, I want to make it clear. Sherry is not my Andrew poor Townsend wife. It's Peter's poor. Okay, let's start this over. Okay, we're going to cut all this out. I'll just beep it all out, actually. Everybody just heard like a two-minute beep. Okay. Peter says, I'd like to wish Sherry, my Port Townsend wife, a very happy 61st Blur's Day. Let's head to North Beach and find some treasures this weekend. Love, Peter. That's awesome. Happy Blur's Day, Sherry.

That's got me remembering North Beach and Port Townsend.

Do you think they have a metal detector?

Was that a reference to my old landlord, Glenn?

no i just peter says let's find some treasures this weekend so i wasn't sure if that was literal or not and i don't mind even saying that as a joke like the part of i had a metal detector when i was a kid man um i loved it and i kind of want one now um you know they're definitely make they

make some pretty spiffy ones now because i did a tv story years ago about um people who are metal detectorists and uh and and basically the kind of like consumer ones the ones that like you know You might have bought at Kmart or something back in the day. Those ones aren't really that great, but you can buy some really fancy ones and find all of the nails that you want in the ground. That's mostly what people find.

Yeah, I know, right.

And they get excited about nails. I was hanging out with these guys, and they were like, oh, yeah, this is a very old nail. I was like, I thought we were going to find gold.

I am now Google searching 1980s children's metal detector, but I'm not seeing it. I've been surprised at being able to find some things from my youth online in this manner, but I don't think – I'm just finding new ones for sale now. It's ignoring my 1980s. What if I type in vintage? Should I do this off-air or should we just keep going for another couple hours while I look for my old metal detector online?

I think we should probably kind of wrap things up here, but feel free to do as much research during your personal time.

Of course it was a Radio Shack brand one. Everything good was from Radio Shack. This is literally my – I'm going to make this the show pick today. I'm very excited right now. I can buy this for $13. Would it be a good look if I, as an adult man at 45 years old – 44? I guess it depends on how long it takes to ship – was using a child's Radio Shack metal detector from 1984. Maybe that can be the show pick. Yeah, I will. I'll do that. This is sweet sweetness.

And you wrote down the – what was it? The Ringo is strong in this one? The ring goes strong in this one, and we're going to go out with Cloud Bursting by Kate Bush. Nice, Kate Bush. All right. Well, listen, thanks, everyone, for tuning in to today's episode. Thank you so much for helping us keep this thing going. We are going to be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you. So please join us for that. Until then, enjoy your Thursday. Take care of yourselves. Be safe. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

And good luck to all.

I wake up crying. You're making rain, and you're just in reach. When you in sleep escape me, you're like my own. That glowed in the dark, what needed special, needed dangerous. So I bury it. I forget But every time it rains You're here in my head Like the sun coming out I just know that something good is gonna happen I don't know when But just say that it could even make it happen On top of the world Looking over the edge You could see them coming Power out.