Muse

Have you ever been in a gang? I have.

I knew it.

Okay. What are we talking about here? Crips, Bloods? Both.

God.

Yeah, them and a lot of gangs. Warriors.

Okay.

Newsies. Okay, so dig this. You're on the street, and one of your gang disses you. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Alright, so what do you do to get them to make it right? Well, see, um, in the gang world, we use something called fluffy fingers. What is that? That's where somebody really gets in your face. You know, you just start tickling them. Really? Yeah. And then he starts tickling you. You know, pretty soon you're laughing and hugging. Before you know it, you've forgotten the whole thing. Y'all can just go to church together and get an ice cream cone. I would have never thought that gangs would be tickling each other. Oh, it's effective.

TBTM. Guess what day it is? Guess what day it is?

It's Friday. Friday. Gotta get down on Friday. Everybody's looking forward to the weekend.

You said you were going to go fondle your sweaters. No, I didn't. I said I'm going to have fondue with cheddar. I was thinking about making fondue with cheddar cheese for dinner tonight. No, Gene, that is not what you said. It is what I said.

Don't watch the news because I'm a kid and apparently every time, apparently Grandpa just gives me a remote after he watched a Powerball.

No, you're going to tell a story. I don't believe that I can bear to listen to another one of your stories right now.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Friday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Don't go there. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. You paint your bald spot? What bald spot? Coming to you from the Nest Broadcast Center high in the sky above Portland, Oregon, where we are looking at a really beautiful Friday. In fact, the orientation of this apartment, I've learned, in the spring, presumably summertime, is such that on nice days, starting at about 7.15 a.m., the sun shines quite brightly and quite directly, not only into my bedroom, causing me to have to build a pillow fort this morning so I could lie there for a few more minutes, but also right here into the broadcast center.

Things are going to get hot. They're going to get funky. Somebody better open the window.

That is right. Once again, we find ourselves in a situation where I'm going to be complaining about the sunlight that is making it very warm in the location where I'm doing the show from.

Hey, want to hear the most annoying sound in the world?

This was the whole thing at the Burbank Springs Broadcast Center. I started every show by complaining about how warm it was getting in the room. And good news, everyone. I've been able to carry that plot arc over here to Portland, Oregon, the Rose City. I do have the window open. I don't know if you're hearing the traffic in the background. Also, I mean, there is air conditioning in this place. I guess I could just turn that on, but I like to go au naturel. And, again, I was able to, and this is when you know you're dealing with a real broadcast professional. I was able to select an apartment that was carefully positioned above an ambulance warehouse. True story. So throughout the day, 10 to 20 ambulances leave the warehouse in a tizzy, going off to whatever they're going to do with their sirens blaring. So my guess is you'll hear a few of those before the show is over. but there's going to be so much other great content you're barely going to even notice because, of course, we are at episode 3,398 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. And we have so much to talk about. An update on that story involving Nike and that art collective called Mischief and those shoes known as the Lil Nas X Satan shoes. The whole thing has been settled. as part of the settlement mischief is politely asking that people who bought the shoes remember the entire run all 665 available pairs they made 666 all 665 pairs were sold in around one second they're asking if people would please send the shoes back in and they will refund your money and uh you know so uh you got uh you got my money i would be surprised if people took him up on that offer but they're gonna try anyway oh And it's day three of TBTL Drops of Stupider. The Deuce. The Deuce, correct. This is our attempt to figure out what the greatest moment in TBTL history is. So we will present two more challengers for that title today. Something you can vote on over at tbtl.net pretty soon. Picking the best moment in the history of TBTL. Oh, and also a surprising amount of feedback related to ketchup. Which is like three emails But that's three more than I expected to get On the subject of ketchup People want to talk about that And they want to hear from this guy The longest running cobro of the show He may be best known for his depictions Of the tall ships He's got kind of a Friday ritual As soon as we are done recording here And he has posted the show He heads directly to the Tubbs Sub Sandwich Shop I don't think they go ham on the spice I think they put the spice on the ham where he orders the Spice on the Ham special. He is Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. From the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, good morning, my friend.

Good morning. Quick point of clarification, you can vote right now on the three, what will be the three contenders in the Drops of Stupider contest. No need to wait. Just go to tbtl.net and click on today's show page.

Early voting, huh? I guess probably drive up voting, too. I guess somebody can probably just give somebody water if they're in line to vote for the TBTL drops of stupider too. Andrew, do you believe in voting integrity at all?

Well, as somebody put on Twitter the other day, I, like a lot of Republicans, just think that voting should be safe, rare, and wait, no. No, it's actually not. Who says, oh man, I ruined that tweet. Sorry, tweeter. Safe, rare, and legal is what I was going for, but I think Oh, is that an abortion reference? Yes, I didn't mess up the I messed up the setup, whatever. God, can we start over, like, start the show over? Like, literally, you do your whole intro over, and we just restart the show, and then you say—

We don't even need to. We don't even need to. I will just say—I'll just say, good morning, my friend. And then you just pick it up with a brand new greeting to me, and then you just start that wherever you want. Wouldn't that be the easiest way to do it? Because I feel like I kind of hit it out of the park with that intro. Okay, go ahead and do it. I talked about windows and how it's kind of warm in here. I mean, I don't know if I would be able to do that again with that same. No, I understand. I don't know. Kind of je ne sais quoi. It is.

You know what? No, hold on. I'm not going to do the role playing of restarting the show because I'll just mess that up, too. I'm in my head about this. Whoa, what's going on, my friend? What's happening? I'm mad at that. I'm mad. I'm nothing. What's happening is just that exact moment that you heard me messing up a joke that I don't even I don't know why I went there. first of all i'm trying to be edgy which i'm not well i started it by making a joke about

about the fact that republicans in a lot of places are trying to make it harder for people to vote particularly people they think will vote for democrats so i sort of took us to a weird place and uh so that's really more on me than you it wasn't but the thing is and this is what i'm

going to tell the listeners that they don't know is i set myself up for that failure like hardcore because just before the show, you and I had one of the rarest, rarest of conversations where I told you, Luke, I did something really rare last night, which is I listened back to almost half of yesterday's show last night, and I really liked it, and I went on. I went on for probably a couple of minutes telling you how I was kind of feeling less shame, and sometimes we're in our heads about these things, but when I just kind of listened back casually last night, I was really impressed with our conversation yesterday. I felt that we were both kind of in the zone and having some real talk that wasn't overly heavy, but sincere. And I was just like going on and on about how great we are slash I am at this job. And how do how do I reward myself? I just just face plant, just face plant as hard as possible right out of the gate today.

You know how I've always described those moments, Andrew, when you and I actually feel good about this show. Safe, rare and legal. That is a very, very unusual conversation that we had right before the show. We were both going, yeah, that wasn't the worst yesterday. That was not the worst.

Never, never, never going to have that conversation again.

Honestly, I think I probably brought up the voting stuff to stop the steal because I've been immersed, Andrew, in the world, at least as a kind of anthropologist, if you will. And I believe that the way you get your anthropology degree is you pay $5.99 a month to HBO Max. Is that how it works?

Yeah, I think so.

By way of HBO Max, I have been watching a lot of conversation and documentation of the QAnon movement, that documentary series Into the Storm. I just finished it last night. And so I've got all kinds of... wackadoo ideas bouncing around in my head from from like watching I don't know six hours of that in like two or three nights so that's probably part of why I took us there and I apologize how is it it is good now I feel like I have as far as people who don't believe in QAnon and don't want to lose years of their life on the internet researching it I feel like I had a decent working knowledge of it because our friend chris hayes uh you're welcome for uh that bingo checkoff um chris hayes did a whole episode about it with a couple of reporters from nbc who are really i believe this was actually maybe before election day but a couple of folks who have spent a lot of time studying that world so i had some sense of it but watching it and watching the players i mean what this documentary does is it really gets down to like basically the three key people behind 8chan which is really where the q movement picked up a ton of steam and then you have this kind of um this dispute between the the guy who who founded it 8chan that is and this uh guy and his son uh the watkins who then basically bought it off of the guy and then kind of continued to let it spiral which the guy who founded it who's an interesting character in and of himself he's a a guy who was born with a um a condition i forget the exact name of i believe it is literally translates to brittle bones and so he's in a wheelchair uh the way that his body has grown is is is um you know is not typical and so he said because he was not really able to be outside a lot and do a lot of the kind of quote-unquote typical kid things he just lived online um uh the guy who founded it i think his name is frank bennett maybe and uh so he just became hyper online he's a very interesting character in this and then he was kind of into free speech and kind of into sort of trolling people i mean he bears some culpability in this but he goes ahead and and spins off this thing 8chan when 4chan starts banning uh you know hate speech and things like q he starts this thing 8chan and then it kind of takes off and at some point he realized he's created a monster so a lot of the documentary follows him trying to really thwart this guy this dude watkins and his son ron watkins i think it's jim and ron watkins trying to thwart them uh and then there's at the end of the series there's basically what would appear to be an exposing of who q is andrew it's a pretty big story is it my cat is it theo um has theo been talking about a gathering storm what what is theo said about

disgraced general michael flynn because that would be a real clear indicator because q is a

big defender of michael flynn it sounds like a um so is it frederick brennan is that who you said

I think I said Bennett Brennan

Just for the record Just so that I can not take any credit for anything today I looked that up Everything you described It sounds like it's a longer more in-depth version Of the Reply All episode That dug into this Oh I didn't hear that one I think that's literally The only episode of Reply All I've ever heard Which is crazy because they're such a popular podcast

Wait you've heard the one where the guy's trying to remember

the song though right no i i have a mental block like everybody in the world emailed me about that and like it's just one of those things where it becomes when you just are bombarded with like hundreds of people saying you got to watch this you haven't lived you got to watch this you haven't lived i'm usually like okay then i haven't lived i walk away from it i don't know why eventually i

will watch it and i'm sure i will enjoy it andrew i'm not this is not this is not the day for me to say this to you because it sounds like you might be in a slightly fragile place but that version of you not clapping as people are singing happy birthday that that guy comes out when everyone's putting pressure on you to listen to something or watch something that kind of like i don't like i don't enjoy being told what i have to do in this moment oh is that is that a question or i'm saying do you think that's probably kind of like is that kind of the same the same feeling a little bit um

i think that um i think there's a lot of complicated things about me listening to other podcasts and and that type of thing and also just like I'm sort of a completist on things like I think that I like things I part of the things that I tend to love are things that I feel like I discovered on my own in some way that doesn't have to mean that it's a rare thing that nobody knows about it but I like I think that I enjoy things more whether it be music or movies but especially radio related things when it feels like it's when it feels like it's my little thing um like i've been listening

to a lot of the beauty of discovery that's a known thing that's why like hollister stores and abercrombie

and Fitch stores were designed the way they were designed back in the like 90s when I was taking Addy there a lot you you're it's not a big open thing it's you're coming around a corner and you're seeing something and you feel like I discovered this and then you have a more positive

feeling yeah yeah and I think that's it for me like I it it feels like oh and and again like it's not that I'll never listen to something that um is recommended like you know my obsession now is like you know I'm kind of listening just hours and hours and hours of Levittard and you know that was something that you'd been telling me to listen to for years but then eventually and I even tried it and for some reason it didn't land I don't know why I wasn't fertile ground for it but then eventually one night I put it on and it stuck and I don't know why or how or what have you lately what I've been listening to is um old-time radio shows from the 1940s and I'm not doing it as like um it's not ironic well also I was gonna say it's also not like kind of an extension of my personality i know that there are people who are very very deep into that world but it's more just kind of casual late at night kicksy kind of brought me there that okay this is maybe speaks to it even a little bit more luke like all all kinds of old time radio dramas are available there are podcast because i think a lot of it is um is you know not copy not protected by copyright anymore so there's all kinds of stuff that i can dial up on all the people who made those things have passed away in

mustache fires yes right nobody to enforce there's nobody to enforce the copyright on the content you'll have a hard time finding whoever made the shadow but for whatever reason i don't

go back and access archives and then hit play on one from the beginning that's not how i like to listen i would much rather just turn on kicksy radio and catch one in the middle or turn on um you know i still have a few more days left of my satellite radio trial so there's a station that is dedicated to that. And of course, with the app, you can if you happen to click on it in the middle of an episode, you can go back and listen from the beginning. But I don't want to I reject that like I just like the kind of the I don't know, again, I don't know if that's ties into a sense of discovery, but just kind of like I am here right now. I'm just dipping in. And I don't know if that if that really applies to why I don't listen to things when everybody in the world tells me to but I'm just very weird in particular in my listening habits, I think. Well, I've stopped

listening to the levitard because you've started which is my kink i can't listen to anything that you're listening to because then i feel like this is you know if andrew's into this i don't know no it's fair um uh i don't know if this came up the last time we talked about radio dramas but you know what's kind of weird is and i don't listen to very many when i was a kid i loved radio dramas and they would play them on cairo uh at a certain hour on like sunday nights and i was there for it uh before i got a tiny tv in my room that was in a boom box that my parents didn't know about but i would be inclined to listen to an old-timey kind of radio drama if i happen to catch it on the radio or on sirius but what i don't have any interest in is updated radio drama i.e you know like la theater works or these other things that will pop up on public radio that are either just stage plays that are developed or that are being you know recorded or even just radio dramas that are based on whatever they're based on and and a lot of these sort of larger podcast entities have you know they've put out uh you know fictionalized stuff i know that you were into that one with katherine keener in it for some reason speaking of just like i don't know why i need to push back on this but for me modern radio drama uh does not hold very much

interest yeah um i'm actually with you on that the podcast you're talking about is homeland which is also a Gimlet podcast. And I listened to the first season of it and kind of got pulled into it. But also by kind of overlooking some of my biases against modern theater as well and like really trying to give it a shot. Season two, it did lose me. I don't know if they went on to make more seasons after that. And here's, I'm 100% with you, Luke, because sometimes Kixi, you turn it on like, you know, like on a Friday or Saturday night because you're ready to party and And you'll hear an old one. You're like, oh, good. And then they say, OK, coming up next on Jim French's Imagination Theater. And then it's like something that was just recorded. And then I started poking around and I felt really bad about this because I started poking around. It turns out Jim French's Imagination Theater is actually a local production. It's not just some national.

Do you know that that's what I used to listen to when I was a kid? And that's Jim French, the voice of the voice of Como. I used to work with his son, Jeff French. We worked at Metro Traffic We would sit next to each other night after night As we would do the traffic updates That's crazy that that's the thing they're playing Because that was, I mean Jim French hasn't been alive For a long long time But I love that it's still branded as that Because that was what I would listen to as like a 12 year old kid And they're still

Making them And so like I was listening to, this is just like a I don't know, like a few weeks ago, I was listening to Kixi, the classic episode ended, and then they went into, I don't know who hosts it now, but they went into Imagination Theater, and I'm like, oh, please don't be an old one, or please don't be a new one, and then I kind of didn't realize, oh, these are all relatively new or contemporary in some way. And then I started Googling it and I ended up like this is actually like Kixi is actually the home of Jim French's Imagination Theater, which had been on Como in years past. And I'm reading about this and I I love I love living in Seattle. I love the Pacific Northwest and I like old timey radio. And so you would think that how was their version of Happy Gilmore?

Yeah. Did they capture the essence of Adam Sandler fighting Bob Barker? Either. I don't I don't get the joke. That would be the worst updated radio play. Do they update things?

Oh, I didn't know that they updated things. I thought these were just original scripts.

Forget it. Let's just move on. I thought you were saying that they do modern – they do sort of modern on Kixi sometimes. Like they do a radio play that's something that's a little bit newer, something that's more contemporary. They're making them now, in other words. So the premise of my joke was thinking of the worst possible thing to be adapted into a relatively modern radio play, which an Adam Sandler film seems like it would probably be a bad one.

And I'm saying I don't think they're adaptations.

I just think they're new. Are they adaptations? I'm asking. No, no, no. I missed that part of it. Okay. Point, Andrew. All right. I would say, though, if you want to know about – kind of try to understand the Q thing and also not have it be one of those punishing journeys where you also feel kind of gross afterwards because you, like – sometimes when you want to find out a lot about a particular topic, something odious like the QAnon conspiracy, you also feel kind of gross afterwards because you've just gotten too much of it. This is the right – this thing on HBO Max, Into the Storm, I felt was the right amount of it. Like you learn about it, but you also don't feel like it's sticking to you afterwards. So anyway, if folks are looking for something to watch, I'm throwing that out there. All right, let's take a quick break, and then when we come back, update on what's going on with the Satan Shoes and also drops of Stupider. I'm enjoying this, by the way. I don't know if the listeners are, but this little—it's sort of like—and tip of the cap to listener Jake in Chicago. It's sort of like this day in TBTL history But a little bit more focused And with kind of a, I don't know Some kind of forward momentum Because this is all deciding on the best moment In our show's history So I'm thoroughly enjoying it So again, Andrew, no joke Thank you to you and Jake for the time on this

Because I know it was a major undertaking Yeah, definitely And Jake, I mean, he's not even getting paid I feel bad Can we send him like a Get any lunchboxes, Luke?

I don't know where I'd find any TBTL lunchboxes At all um we oh no don't don't do it don't do it i just started sweating when i thought about what i'm about to say and also i closed the window in here because it made me too stressed out the noise

oh but um oh i don't think did you notice the difference you know i when you first dialed up i kind of mentioned oh i hear kind of a whoosh i asked you if the um window is open because i sort of heard a whoosh of traffic but as i said it wasn't distracting to me i didn't notice that

it went away though okay so now i'm gonna open i can do this with my foot um and so this is it's closed right now okay now i'm opening it yeah you can you can hear that that difference there is it

distracting no but that's what i was gonna say i don't think it's distracting really at all it's noticeable but not distracting it's kind of calming it's like white noise yes there's a whole

Well, I think I had an idea – this is good because it's making me not talk about a conversation we had with membership that I wanted to repeat to the listeners, which is probably not – that's an inward-facing conversation. I don't need to broadcast it outward. So this is a better topic. I swear to God I had an idea for a stupid joke that has now taken over TikTok. And I think – I swear to God I think I had this idea. I don't think I got it from TikTok. but you know i always have to sleep with some kind of white noise on i have a actual fan in my room i also have a fan i have a variety of fan apps on my phone i have the calm app i've got it all sometimes i'll want to listen to a rushing river sometimes i want to listen to a fan anyway i thought it would be funny if somebody was like you know let's say you're on a you know you're having a sleepover with somebody and you say hey do you mind if i put on some white noise and then i thought it would be funny if then what they're like sure and then you put on it's just the like synthesizer solo from valerie by steve winwood which i've said is like the whitest music maybe ever made oh like if you just said white like white noise if you just said can i put on some white noise and they're of course thinking like a fan or that kind of whatever we typically think of as white noise and then it's just the white music of all time that's a thing on tiktok can i ask you a question about that because i was sent some is it something where people keep on plugging in different sounds because somebody sent me a video that looked like it originated from tiktok and it's somebody saying hey do you mind if i play this as we go to sleep and the other person says no problem and then they start playing the jg

Wentworth jingle no but I'm into anything involving JG JG went for my money and I want it now so but

was that because I know that you know the tick tock thing is you're always you're taking one joke and then you're remixing it and you're punching in other things is that kind of like did you see one where it was like white noise was the music you that you just referenced but now people are

punching other things in there too yes I've seen it yes I've actually never seen it with Steve winwood that's way too old for the generation of people that are doing this but i have seen it with a few different pieces of music you know what i mean like whatever that person's idea for like uh really white sounding thing is so i'm sure that the jg wentworth thing is just another

version of that or iteration of it's probably the same joke yeah that's but the thing is it was sent to me and it was sent to me by our friend nick jarren and um as soon as it started playing i'm like okay this is gonna be um this is gonna be scat man john uh and then and then it was jg wentworth and it was so refreshing that it wasn't scat man i i know that you had some

really great times in la and then you had uh you know some some pressures in your life that that were a bit hard for you but i am glad you live there if only because you get what a jg wentworth reference is oh but that's national though i hear is it yeah yeah i hear him up here too um oh i think i i became aware of it in la so i thought maybe that was kind of a maybe i was just watching a lot of trashy daytime tv in la but i i think i associate that with los angeles also van used to joke about that a lot and then also that show jonesy's jukebox uh which was on um i forget the now i forget indy 103 in la it's like steve jones who is a member of the sex pistols he had this really great extremely weird daily radio show on commercial radio where he would just play songs but then just like hold court. Do you say hold court or hold forth? Ooh, I think you can say either, and I like them both. Yeah, he would just kind of like, I like holding court better because to me holding court feels like you're sitting there and you've got everyone kind of surrounding you. They're sitting and you're like the king in your court and you're sort of regaling everybody with a story or whatever. But he would just sort of hold court and tell these amazing stories because he'd seen everything as a member of the Sex Pistols. And then he would sometimes just have an acoustic guitar And he'd just play and sing And he also loved to just In this like the most cockney accent of all time Just yell It's my money and I want it now Like he was obsessed with the J.G. Wentworth commercials for some Reason this old geezer And so I think that All kind of rolled it together in my mind to be An LA thing but of course that's a national There's no way that business model works Just in the Southland You need to be getting suckers from all over The country sending in their structured settlements so that you can actually probably you know make it make some money

on that yeah and don't quote me on national i don't really know but all i know is i've heard it in seattle too and i or i've seen the commercials in seattle too because they have the opera ones remember there's like a whole opera where people are singing the jingle on stage then there's another well i don't have to get into that there's another one where you have like some young man who's clearly living like in his mom's basement and she's cleaning up around him and i have a theory about that commercial but it's a little blue so i don't want to talk about it here

but i'll tell you off air if you want oh yeah oh do you want to hear jg wentworth opera bus yes this is the is this the one you're talking about i also what i think is really funny about jg

wentworth i have a structured settlement but i need cash now Call J.G. Wentworth, 877-CASH-NOW I have an annuity, but I need cash now Call J.G. Wentworth, 877-CASH-NOW 877-CASH-NOW They have thousands, they'll help you too One long sum of cash, they will pay to you

Uh-oh, there's a Viking You get long-term payments, but you need cash now.

I like the patina of distortion on it.

Love it. It's also some of the worst lip-syncing I've seen in a commercial that is professionally produced. And these are, I assume, actors that were rigorously vetted before this. There was casting that went on. They were trying to really make this commercial a good, slick production, and yet they managed to find people.

who are uniquely bad at lip-syncing this J.G. Wentworth opera. I also, I would love to know what the real dude that owns J.G. Wentworth, and I bet it's not a dude anymore. It's some consortium. It's probably some company that's, you know, like an offshore holding. But I would love to know the real name of whoever started this because I would be shocked if it was J.G. Wentworth. Yes, good point. You know, it's probably like Terry Johnson. Or just like the least, whatever, like the most normal sounding, like J.G. Wentworth sounds like you call him and he like finishes sipping his tea, puts in his listening monocle, and then, you know, has Jeeves hand him his phone. And you know that's completely by design.

Don't you think? Can I ask you a question?

Yes. Do you think he smokes a pipe? Only between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. because he's not a farmer.

lemon let me ask you this does jg wentworth call his wife mother

watch i'm gonna look this up and i i promise you it's probably gonna be uh it's probably gonna be actually started by a guy named jg wentworth the company uh let's see it was founded in 1991 okay okay the guy was not named jg wentworth it was founded in 1991 in new jersey um and uh it was it looks like well there's there's i can only tell you who the current people in charge are the current ceo is named randy oh and the person before that was named dwight and the person before that was named wait for it andrew randy wow i shit you not like randy is like a go-to name for me for just kind of and you know peace and love to our listeners named randy randy is kind of a go-to name for me for just a very i don't know american kind of run of the mill first name and i love that jg wentworth company in the last however many years has had not one but two randys at the helm wow bunch of randy guys over there hey oh all right uh let's finally take this break that we uh threatened to take about 10 minutes ago and then we'll be back

with more tbtl stay with us on your mark on your mark get set get set now ready ready go

Let's thank some Friday dazzling donors. These are wonderful, generous, awesome folks who are making the show possible with these donations that are not an insignificant sum of money every month. Believe me, I know I like like all of you see all those little all those little amounts that go out each month to the various, you know, media properties that I support. And I appreciate very much Just personally that we have listeners Who are willing to have TBTL on that list Listeners like Sidney Hofferth Of Ann Arbor, Michigan Sidney says, hello Luke and Andrew Thank you for being my pod friends Over the years I started listening to TBTL in 2012 And have been hooked ever since How long ago was that Andrew? Nine years ago? I'm not ready for 2012 To have been nine years ago for the record

Man, I've been doing a lot of math like that recently, too. Realizing that 2003 wasn't seven years ago is really getting to me.

I'm so with you. That feels like it was about seven years ago. Anything that's happened since 2000 feels very recent. It does. It really does. Oh, man. I started law school in August going long distance from my partner for the first time. Oh, I see. So Sydney was not living near her partner. Wow. Attending law school. that's that's a lot of pressure and then not being near your person that sucks too the journey has been challenging in more ways than one and i've been so thankful to have tbtl as a constant companion and source of daily memes and hilarious drops i'd like to direct the 10's attention to a cause that's very important to me for the past 12 years the city of detroit has been illegally taxing its homeowners for some context the michigan state constitution caps the assessed value of homes at 50 percent of the market rate between 2009 2015 upwards of 85 percent of homes in detroit were unconstitutionally upset assessed meaning property taxes were illegally inflated the folks bear the brunt of this illegal taxation uh who bear this brunt are predominantly black and brown and poor the coalition for property tax justice can be found at illegal foreclosures dot org illegal foreclosures that's one word dot org they reach out to detroit homeowners and they guide them through the process of appealing their illegally inflated property taxes this semester i am serving as a student advocate for the program and i can vouch for it they do incredibly important direct outreach work that helps folks get their property taxes lowered and connects

them to community resources visit illegalforeclosures.org to learn more and to donate if you can thank you and power out wow sydney doing doing god's work i can see that being a real situation particularly in a city like detroit that's gone through what detroit has gone through over the last 20 30 years where you have a lot of people living in homes that they bought presumably um you know at a at a affordable price back when maybe they were working for one of the big three automakers and and living that kind of you know robust middle-class life and and then things change in detroit and maybe you've paid the house off and you know maybe you're you should be able to live out your days there but the property taxes keep going up and you find yourself uh you know being foreclosed on some house that you bought 40 years ago potentially or that your mom bought

40 years ago and then some richie rich comes in and changes the neighborhood yeah exactly probably

jg wentworth probably can't rule them out anyway uh sydney thank you for supporting the show and thanks for um thanks for uh supporting what sounds like a really good organization that's doing good work thanks for telling us about it also um more of a question than a comment do you think i could go to law school at 44 and three quarters sydney as a person who's in law school get at me let me know if it's if it's too late because you know this podcast thing can only

go on for so long maestro it of course will go on at least through the rest of these dazzling

donors because they've been so generous and supported us we owe it to them we owe it to folks like kirk honda of seattle washington dr kirk honda i was about to say yeah kirk is one of those low-key doctors he doesn't like to put it in the title doesn't like to show off i'll show

for him um what the lizards don't know is that's all part of the script that he sent in the uh did i deliver like it was off the top of my head though yes luke fake ad lib this and isn't the kind of guy who likes to be called a doctor but he certainly isn't a handsome one at

that my parasocial love for you two is strong see because kirk is a doctor of people's brains he knows what parasocial love is. I don't know what that means. What do you think that means?

You know, it's funny because I've read that several times as I'm preparing these for the show. And somehow my... It's funny that you put me on the spot like that. Not that you're putting me on the spot, but somehow just reading it by myself, I'm like, oh yeah, that makes total sense. But then you ask me, what does it mean? And I don't have a good answer for it. I wonder how often I'm just doing that when I'm reading a book. I'm just like, yeah, that makes sense. And I really have no idea what the hell I'm even reading.

It is a relationship where the media persona offer a continuing relationship with the media user. That's what.

Oh, that's no. Oh, wow. That's not what I thought. Interesting.

What did you think it meant?

I don't know. I thought it meant. I don't know. Something about being remote and maybe like having a love for something that you're not like actually like intimate with, but I don't mean that in a sexual way.

Okay, well, speak for yourself.

But also, Kirk. I don't think you're wrong, though.

I mean, I think it's from – there's a distance there, right? Because we're on this little whatever internet podcast broadcast, and the listeners are where they are in space and time. So I don't think you're way off with it. I thought it had to do with the paranormal, which I was excited. I thought we were maybe ghosts. Oh, wow. And we didn't know it yet because we've been dead the whole podcast.

Like that Kit Kat, like that coffee Kit Kat ghost. Exactly. That Kit Kat's been dead for 11 years.

And Dr. Kirk is like delving into that kind of stuff. He's breaking out those like V-meters and things and, you know, going around looking for ghosts. And he found a couple in you and me, Andrew. I guess that's not what it means. It just means that Dr. Kirk has a strong relationship with us through the show. He says, I've been listening every day since the Grizz. Wow. That's a callback. Our long-ago intern, maybe our first intern ever, Jamie the Grizz Griswold. Oh, I hope Jamie's doing well these days. Told me to attend a lecture by Luke at Cairo in which he provided the secrets to a successful podcast. Boy, those were heady times. Do you remember? People were asking. I do actually remember. I believe that that was something that maybe Larry Smokey Gifford put together. Oh, so this is – wow.

So the Grizz was – okay, so this isn't when you're on the radio anymore.

Yeah, I think it was post – yeah, sorry, but that was when the Grizz was most active in TBTL life. But yeah, then obviously we became a podcast only, and then we were – to the surprise of everyone, me included, we continued doing the show. and a couple of years later...

I think that Larry Gifford maybe asked – he was doing this kind of series of things like in the basement of Cairo, and I believe that he had me talk about podcasting, and that must have been the thing that Dr. Kirk showed up to. I should have went to that. I wouldn't have told that joke at the beginning of the show. You would have learned a lot. You would have learned – I bet you if you went back and watched that – and I do believe it's on the internet somewhere. If you went back and watched it, it would be – I would say then exactly what I say now, the same old kind of song and dance. My point being my understanding of the podcasting world has evolved exactly 0% over the last 10 years.

Well, I mean in your defense, I don't think the podcasting world has really changed much in the past 15 years. Well, that's the thing.

It's very, very static. And so my read on it 10 years ago, I think it holds up. I think Dr. Kirk has a podcast or had a podcast. This is also not part of the script, although, again, I'm off script, but in a way that Dr. Kirk carefully noted, parenthetically. I know he at some point had a podcast because Carrie was on it talking about Marlon Brando.

Oh, yeah. She went through a big Marlon Brando phase, or maybe is going. Maybe it's disrespectful for me to call it a phase. It's a lifestyle, Andrew.

Yeah, phase, yeah. Watching Listen to Me, Marlon, the documentary, five nights a week is a lifestyle. And I know Carrie was on Kirk's podcast, and I am wondering, I don't know if that's still out there, floating around, like if the podcast is still happening, but check it out. I bet if you Google Dr. Kirk Honda podcast, bet you anything that it'd be one of the first things that comes up. Kirk says, I have put one request, that Luke play his favorite Andrew drop, or just the weird drop. You know what I'm going to do instead? And Andrew, if you want to leave for a while, you can. Okay, you're just going to fire off a million of them? So something very – I don't want to say unfortunate, but something that I didn't expect has happened in my iTunes, which is because we have a special unnamed, unpaid audio producer who sends me like 10 drops of you every day, and for a long time I must have been just dragging those over into iTunes. The first hundred – it's got to be more than that. I stopped at some point. I started dragging them to a different folder. The first hundred or so pieces of audio in iTunes for me are you, Andrew. They all say Andrew. It's Andrew, colon, and then whatever it is. Sorry, surfer blood. Who was the band that used to have A-Punk? Sorry. Yeah, who is A-Punk? Sorry, Vampire Weekend. Yes, yes, thank you for getting there. Previously, song one. So I'm just going to, and Andrew, you can totally leave if you want, but I'm just going to play, I'll just play 10 of these because they're short. The first one is actually listed at being zero seconds. Oh, and you know what else, Andrew? These are just going to start firing hot and heavy because they're all checkmarked. Hot and heavy.

I want to let you know about something, Luke, and this is a little bit of a, this is something that I learned recently in the Drops of Stupider Research. there's actually you one time gave a name for this style segment where you just let a whole bunch of drops play at once um somebody more modernly referred to it as drop roulette but actually the first time you did this you and i were in a studio in cairo and you called this segment drops let them roll i believe so this is the uh let me yeah drops colon let them roll that is what you're engaging in here just so you know so here we go and i know you're probably not

like this andrew and i'm hopefully the levels will be okay but here we go we're gonna go with 10 because there's actually 10 of these that are checkmarked and then the next two are unchecked so this thing should stop okay at number 10 and this is in no particular order and i don't even i probably haven't even heard half of these but here we go i can't even what's the sexy book i

think i said that very wrong that is something my brain has just been making up for 40 years It's not dirty The theme of the Thon Oh yeah

Why did it do that? I have no idea, but that's where it ended That's where it ended? I don't know why it jumped around These are in alphabetical order But it immediately just started Going around It's not going in the order The first thing I have is called Making a Mouth Pop Something called Andrew Normal Thanks That would be this one Then it jumped down to something Andrew making a funny party horn sound then it wants to jump to it's for some reason my system here is not operating the way I expected it to but I think we can all agree that was a success you're welcome Kirk thank you for donating to the show we really do appreciate it hello and welcome to top story I've already kind of explained this story and given you my one sort feeble take on the matter, which is that Nike has settled with that art collective that put out the so-called Lil Nas X Satan shoes, the ones that supposedly had drops of human blood in them and also had, there were 666 of them available. They sold for $1,000.18 a piece. I bet you if you did some math, I bet you $1,018 also adds up to some kind of numerology. That's a weird number to pick. I'm sure they're like divided by three, it's 666 or something. Actually, that's not how math works because even divided by half, it wouldn't be 600. But anyway, they settled with Nike, and part of the terms of the settlement, which everybody seems very happy about, surprisingly, I guess Mischief is happy because they got the attention they wanted to get, right? And presumably Nike is not, like, going to take everything they have, including their Boston Dynamics robot dog, which was the other schtick they did, the other bit they did recently, where you could, like, get online and make this robot dog walk around and do things in their gallery. They seem happy Nike seems happy And part of the terms of the deal is A voluntary recall They are asking people to send the shoes back in And they will refund their $1,018 And my guess is that Absolutely no one is going to Take advantage of that Because like an NFT These shoes It doesn't say anything in this article But these shoes must be already worth 20 times what anybody paid for them

Yeah, that's a good point Because I was going to say the only people who might send this back is if some like underage person bought a pair of these and their parents found out and they said you're sending them back and they're like we can't they're an art collective they don't have a return policy and then this news comes out and the parents say now you're sending them back but even that is so far-fetched because you're right you could well fetch a lot more money for them by selling them on the secondary market i am wondering

if this makes no sense to me, Andrew. I wonder if this is... I'm on Etsy right now. Mischief Lil Nas X Satan Shoes $650. That's... What? How is that possible? Maybe they're fakes. Ooh, that's meta. Yeah, right. Satanists are so meta. It looks... I mean, you know, the box looks pretty legit. I'm... let's see yeah this somebody this particular shop on etsy they appears that they have the shoes they say in all sizes and they're selling them for less than they sold for that makes no sense i've seen some size 10 ones on etsy that are selling for 900 are you interested i'm seeing them by the way but i'm only i'm so you know what the problem is my brain is so corrupted by this nft and crypto world where everything is worth a million dollars more the day after you buy it like where people are like buying a a digital like an nft digital picture of a duck with sunglasses on and it's like it's like worth two million dollars a week later that i just assumed these shoes were all going to be selling for fifty thousand dollars a pair but it turns out it looks like they're selling for less than they sold for i don't that's not how any of this is

supposed to work i don't yeah that doesn't make sense to me either and of course we're googling this on the fly but yeah i mean i see on etsy because i just googled the same thing you did or i actually googled etsy little nas x and i see some are going for like almost 1200 dollars but that's still not a very big markup you know like yeah why are these things decreased well you know they say the second you walk those satanist shoes off the lot they lose value so

there you go yeah huh well that is not what i expected i mean um i am flabbergasted etsy has hit my flabbergast button i am flabbergasted i really you know you know me andrew too and my like my investing acumen i'm the guy who would have been like andrew i've cornered the market on these satan shoes i've been able to not unlike that kid who's the whose mom worked at nike i am going to there's 666 pairs of these shoes available and i've been able to corner 200 of those pairs our ship has finally come in i just need you to loan me 200 000 for the upfront investment but i'll tell you what buddy these are going to be the next big thing watch out nfts watch out tops baseball cards watch out signed tom brady rookie card that recently sold for two million dollars and then of course it'd be the one thing like that that actually has less value after it's

right right right right although you also buy a bunch of the same things um to wear over and over so i don't know what size shoe you wear but you know let's say you bought are you what size shoe

do you wear 12 i wear an 11 okay 11 um what i don't know what to say if people show up with shoes that are the right size for me at my house it's all over it's weird that i was like sensitive

about that but um yeah you could keep all the size 11s though and wear them along with your blue oxford

shirts and you know honestly yeah if i was into that because i'm also the person who has personally driven the price up of these particular like nikes that i tend to wear because i was buying those on that stock x exchange so i am if i were i don't like the look of these shoes i mean you couldn't pay me enough to wear knockoff nikes that have scripture on them and supposedly human blood in the in the you know air bubble of them like that's just not for me um and a pentagram as well but if i did like that look i mean i could get a couple pairs with the low low price

apparently of 650 per shoe that'd be a huge huge character change for you if you started wearing

things the next time you saw me i just rolled up it's like coming over to do the show you know we're all vaxxed up and everything's good and safe and i'm just like hey andrew and i walk in and I'm just wearing the Lil Nas X Satan shoes. And I'm not even, like, talking about it. It's just kind of my new thing. And everything else, though, is the same. It's just the shoes. What would be more surprising, me wearing that or me wearing a Zubas? Did Zubas, or did a Mambo sock, did Mambo socks ever make their way to the Midwest, Andrew?

If so, I didn't know what they were. But also, I don't think I knew what Zubas were until I met you and Kevin, so I don't know. Do you know what a Mambo sock is, though, from knowing us? I am looking it up now. Google Mambo sock.

It was the Mambo sock was basically like imagine the kind of like a pant leg of a Zuba, but it's got some kind of a drawstring at the top of it and you wear it on your you wear it on your head. You cinch it down and then you tuck this kind of like extra. It's like a chef's hat, but it's cut off at the top and then you just do whatever you want. You flop it over to the side. You tie it back. if you're Brandon Beals and you're wearing your bench press this muscle shirt at North Seattle Christian where it's Jesus bench pressing the cross. Wow. Mambo socks. Those were a big thing and I never wanted even as a high schooler I was like those look ridiculous. You know I was spelling

it really incorrectly so I'm just getting to it now. I have seen these before. I would have never known that that's what they're called though. Never in a million years. How are you spelling mambo sock you didn't you didn't do the um with the with the k at the end i was just spelling like mambo sock but it's one word m-a-m-b-o-s-o-k amazing it looks like they're still at least

there's a website where there's somebody is still doing something with this brand i mean i guess it

was kind of a thing for a minute it's probably randy over at jg wentworth wow look at this

Seattle Times 1991 Mambo Sock Craze starts here So it was bigger than Northwest Have you ever wanted to put a laundry bag over your Teenager's head? Now for a simple Ten spot you can do just that A pair of Kirkland entrepreneurs have come up With a way of putting a sack on a kid's head And simultaneously bringing a smile To his or her face These mini bags Have started a pet rock like rage In the ski and skateboard set Mambo Socks are a cross between a chef's hat Andrew God, when I'm right, I'm right. And an inverted surfer trunk secured to the head with a drawstring elastic like a tiny laundry bag. No wonder it never made its way to Ohio. This was a regionalized problem. And thank God it was endemic to the Northwest. Right.

It was a bad look. I'm sure I probably saw these in like a Temple of the Dog video or something.

I bet you you could find one example of Stone Gossard wearing a freaking mambo sock. No, sorry, Jeff Ahmet. You know what, Stone? I apologize. That's a Jeff Amit thing Jeff Amit loves the big silly hat Nobody loves a big silly hat like Jeff Amit

I will say that in Stone Gossard's defense The internet has his back Because I typed in Mambo Sock Stone Gossard And Google told me It looks like there aren't many great matches for your search

Now will you type in Mambo Sock Jeff Amit

Yeah, I will Although I'm probably going to mess up the uh there are not any great matches for your show look at them well good for you jeff

stop calling so many fouls that pick up basketball um okay uh of course you've all been waiting for it and now it is time for drops of stupider the deuce that's just absolute Day three of our journey to find the greatest moment in TBTL history. Yesterday it was splooge, the diuretic.

I think we've got to really hit the S-B-C-H there, yeah.

Are you worried that splooge is inappropriate?

I'm not worried about it. I know it is. It's just inaccurate. It's also not accurate. Well, it's just not a great word. Unless I'm mistaken about that word, I think that's a great word.

Well, I think, you know, just because your mind is in the gutter doesn't mean to listen to this. Yes, I'm sorry. Spooch. Spooch. Spooch.

Yes. You're the one that saw it. I've never even seen it. I've only heard tell that versus the the the show that we did when the news that Prince had passed away when we heard that news. So those were the two shows that we that squared off yesterday. And as Andrew has mentioned, you can vote on all these over at TBTL dot net right now. What are we going to hear today? What are the two contestants?

So, again, so this is the category where it's kind of, in most cases, a full episode dedicated to a topic. And today we have the Blue Angels episode, which is a number three seed in this bracket, versus Looking for Pokemon, which was a number six seed in this bracket.

Oh, yeah. I remember that.

We went to Gasworks. Yes, I remember that being a very fun day. You came to my Wallingford studio, and we did the first half of the show in the studio. In the second half of the show, we went out to Gasworks Park to look for Pokemon. And so in my head, I always remember the going to the park part because I'm a human being, and we all love going to the park. But in listening back to this, there was a great moment that actually happened in the studio. You and I had not downloaded the app previously. In fact, I still haven't downloaded it, and maybe I should. It's sort of tempting. And this moment that you're about to hear is you and me in the studio, and you just opened the app for the very first time. Oh, I remember this. And you saw a Pokemon character, and it was kind of freaking you out, and we literally didn't know what to do. And so unplanned, I had forgotten about this, unplanned, We called our friend Christy Wise of the this podcast has everything podcast because now we would know to call Mayor Jennifer Gregor.

Right. Yes. Who is who has made Pokemon a chief part of a reelection strategy. She's a second wave Charmander. So that's one.

So anyway, this is the moment where and again, I think I said this, but it wasn't planned. I think that Christy had just been excited about the idea of us trying Pokemon Go and had sent us a bunch of emails kind of encouraging us and telling us maybe what to do. So in a moment of panic, and there is some real panic here, we decided to call Christy for some help. So take a listen to this.

Oh, my God, dude. He's on the desk. Oh, no. He is getting closer. The call is coming from inside the Charmander. Please pick up Christy.

We're so screwed. hello uh hey christy this is andrew and luke can you hear me okay i can can you hear me yeah i think so i think people can uh hear this yeah um so dude it's getting closer we are in our house right now we're taping uh tbtl and we're trying to catch a charmander but we don't know how to do it and

it's getting closer to us it's on the desk and it's snapping yeah i'm trying to what you do Here we go.

If you put your finger onto the red ball.

I'm doing that.

Okay. And then do a swipe up motion.

Oh. Oh, yeah.

Bounce off of it.

Oh, I got to bounce off of it. Okay.

And then if you do it right. Okay. So the tip is that the circle will be green. And when you hold the ball down, the circle will get smaller and smaller. And then as soon as it gets to the smallest, flick the ball up because then it opens to big. He did it. I did it. He killed it.

It's gone. You saved us. Oh, by the way, can we use this tape on TBTL? Okay, good. Because we are going to. There's some real excitement going on right there.

Yeah, I think because it was one of those things that, you know, was getting talked about so much in the media. But then to actually like, you know, you and I, well, you and I are different. You do like video games, but, like, I don't do a lot of that kind of stuff, particularly on my phone. And then to turn it on and to really see it happening kind of in a three-dimensional way, I was genuinely, I think, shocked that it was inside your house. I think I expected it would be – we'd have to be out – what do they call it, a gym?

Yeah.

We'd have to be near a gym, which is, like, where there's, you know, a bunch of them.

Yeah, I think you'd take them to the gym, though, right? I could be wrong about this, but I think you just find them in the wild. See, that's what's also funny about that tape I'm like, you killed them, but I don't think you're actually Killing them, I think you're trapping them And then you take them to a gym, and then you make them all fight

Oh, I see, I think I was under the impression That the gym Was where I'm trying to sign back into this thing, by the way, Andrew

Oh, you still have that phone

I still have it, the app is somewhere buried In the very back Of my phone, I'm trying to reload it now Because I wanted to see if there's one Inside the nest broadcast center but of course i've got to go through like 35 uh you know 35 re-logins and stuff so i don't want to waste the listener's time but uh if i get uh it's unable to sign in for some reason maybe it's for the best

If it's bad for the things that you captured that day, then you never open the app again, and then the app, it sounds like it kind of moved to the background. Somewhere in this netherworld, those things that you captured are just like, well, I know we go there a lot, but maybe like the criminals and Superman 2 and space. I don't know. They're just like, do they exist or not exist if the app isn't on your phone?

I can't tell you, Andrew, because it won't let me get to it because it's telling me my account doesn't work anymore. So I could see you – I know that this is not what we're here to talk about. We're just here to kind of play the tape and let the listeners decide. But I could see you getting into something like this because you do like games and, you know, you like taking walks except for when you don't. And I know you're kind of into puttering. This feels like a puttering kind of activity in a way.

Yeah. When I heard this tape yesterday, I got excited and I almost downloaded the app. And I was like, why did I not? And it's interesting that you downloaded it on your phone even for this episode. And I don't know how or why we decided on that. But it is interesting that I never even tried this just to even see what it looks like, which is kind of odd. And I mentioned, like, in the second wave, I feel like, you know, there's this huge wave. Let's see. That was from, for whatever it's worth, that was from July of 2016, which, again, that was just like last year, right? um so that was july of 2016 and um then i sort of feel like last year maybe because of the pandemic although i don't know i feel like i started hearing from a lot more people who were downloading it and playing it again did you notice that as well anybody in your life yes yeah and i was kind of

surprised by that because i just assumed it was a flash in the pan yeah like the satan shoes and that it's time had come and gone but no people i think have been have been sticking with it and getting back into it during the pandemic because of course it is something you can do relatively

safely yeah outside yep exactly so anyway i was really pleased with that tape i had forgotten how kind of fun that was to listen to and then um the other episode i remember all too well of course this is from way back in august of should we just go ahead and forward this one right to the championship it's interesting that it was a number three seed too now that i think about it the serial show was the number one um in this category but um and again you said it before but just huge thanks to listener jake in chicago for putting this all together like what a undertaking but anyway um so here i'm gonna play a clip of this this is from august of 2012 i'm relatively new i'm pretty sure i started on tbtl in 2012 so i'm relatively new and every year in seattle during normal years for a big event called seafare if you don't know about it the blue angels come and they perform for this big outdoor you know maritime event but before the event begins the Blue Angels start practicing and the sky is above Seattle and it's exciting and Luke you had that great house in Mount Baker where you like to go on the roof and watch the Blue Angels is strafe the right word when I think so when they fly overhead and just tear up the sky and so you said let's go on the roof and do a Blue Angels show which seemed like a great idea because I get very excited about these types of planes too um and i am afraid of heights though so i knew that was going to be a little bit of a problem but i figured i can keep my shit together and as we will hear in this tape i um could not i saw you sit up a moment ago andrew it looks like you're feeling a little bit i'm working on it i'm working on it i'm also this is what drives me crazy fears are so irrational like it makes absolutely no sense i'm like really far from the edge like Like, I know there's nothing that bad can happen to me.

Except the thing that's going to happen in three, two, one. Oh, man. Are you kidding me? That was one of those ones where you don't see it coming. Did he tip his wing?

I think he tipped his wing at you. He did.

Hey, Maverick. Oh, now he's going up here. Look up a little bit in the sky. Look up in the sky. He's doing, like, he's going straight up in the air and, like, leaving a contrail or something.

Oh, nice.

Contrails that are full of poison, by the way, if you listen to Coast to Coast. God, that was so cool. That was one of the, that's as loud as it gets. Okay, that's the loudest it gets.

Okay, I need to relax a little bit here. Was that noticeably? I'm going to owe you a roof tile and a staple.

I know that we keep saying this. The idea that you're gripping, like, a shingle from the roof, that shows me that you are in the midst of a stress stream. Because that's what happens in my stress dreams Is I'm in a high place I know we've just talked about this like one show ago But it's always the thing I'm trying to hold on to Is really insufficient for the job It's not like there's a handle Can I go inside? Yes I'm getting a little freaked out

You gotta take my microphone And then I don't know how I'm gonna get it back again I can put it in my pocket Do you want to turn the mic down?

Yeah, I'll turn you down Sorry if you're woods No, no, no

So that was the one that got to you, huh?

It's just all of this is just getting to me a little Oh, but you seem like you were Maybe it's all the talking about about it probably all right all right here comes another one that's not a bad one the funny thing

about that is i think you kept thinking it was the planes that were scaring me like that's the one that got you is like no it's the heights that are getting to me and it's the talking about the heights it's not the planes didn't add the planes didn't add the planes were the good part see i

I think for me, if it wouldn't have been my roof and I wouldn't have been kind of familiar with it, let's say I was somewhere different that was a little bit high up and those planes were vibrating everything with just the thrust and the noise, that would be what would scare me personally because it would almost feel like this plane is going to literally knock me off of this roof just as it as it flies by with like whatever, like the wind, the wind it creates is or something. So I think I was assuming that's what was going on in your mind, but I guess it wasn't.

No, it's just the heights, and you can sort of hear me off mic say, I think it's all the talking about it, and I remember that very much, and sometimes it doesn't have to be talking, it's just thinking about it, just getting into this, like, pure phobia, like, I'm trying to remember, oh, well, the Grand Canyon was a very good example of it, I'm walking along this path that is right along the edge of the canyon, for the most part, though, you know, there's maybe, let's say, two or three feet between the edge of the canyon and the trail, and I'm walking along, I'm fine, I'm fine, But then eventually Genevieve can just sort of see as the trail at certain points gets closer and closer to the edge. She can just see my body language as she's walking behind me get more and more sort of tense until exactly like that moment where you're in the middle of saying something. I just said, I got to go. Like, that's what happened to the Grand Canyon. I'm like, I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. I got to go. And then I just like kind of dashed off the trail into the bushes as much as possible and made my way down. Like, I just I think I can handle it until that point where I can't. And I got to go and I got I crouched down and I got I got to get as low to the ground as possible.

Do you think if if it were nowadays and you'd been doing the show for all the years that you've been on the show and I let's say I still lived in that house. By the way, great call by me to sell that place. Just try to get out from under that crushing appreciation of a beautiful craftsman home in Seattle, Washington. Just don't need any part of whatever has happened to the value. Do not Zillow that house. luke later tonight when you've had a couple because you will cry anyway if let's say i still lived in that house and it were now we have the kind of working relationship that we do these days all these years later and i proposed that show idea do you think you would have agreed to do it did some part was some part of your agreeing to do it back then because you were a little newer on the show a little bit less comfortable establishing boundaries with me

maybe but i don't think that's the drive maybe but i i think that first of all my fear of heights i do believe gets worse with passing of time so this was 2012 which was you know quite some time ago i think that i mean i really do love planes and jets and air shows and i know there's a social argument against having the blue angels do their thing and i don't feel like getting into that now but acknowledged okay but um i love it like when um like it was kind of near the beginning of pandemic some military planes i don't know if it was that fat albert thing or what but like there were some planes that were deployed to just kind of raise spirits around seattle i don't know if you remember that luke or if we ever talked about it so i ran onto our roof deck which isn't like scary you know it's a flat thing that we hang out on all the time and like i remember It was so far in the distance, lumbering along, and I just got really excited about it. I was yelling to Genevieve, look, you can see it. You can see it. So I am really drawn to stuff like that and air shows. And so I think the temptation of just having such a great view of the Blue Angels was really tempting to me. And I knew I was scared of heights. Like the very beginning of the show, you can hear me kind of saying, OK, well, I'll be very careful. Like we acknowledge it. It wasn't like I got out there and you and I were both surprised. but we just thought that the payoff or i did the calculation that the payoff would be worth it and again i was probably out there for i don't know what do you remember 20 minutes maybe it seems like that to me maybe maybe i'm a little bit off on that but it was just like i was out there and there were times where i'm like okay this is fine this is fine it's not that it's not like a very steep roof right i mean it was pitch it just doesn't have any kind of railing or anything

It was kind of a flat section that I think was maybe over the front porch, actually. It didn't help that the house was already, like, 100 feet off the street because you've got to go all these steps. So the house starts off being, like, kind of high up and a little scary, and then you're on the roof of that. So, yeah, it's a little perilous up there.

I'm having a physical reaction, actually, right now talking about it. I'm getting that thing where my hands are really sweaty, and I'm feeling the physical.

or physiological reactions I have when I'm in that situation just by talking about it. And so, and there is, and even if I, even if we weren't verbalizing it in my head, you can be up there and saying, everything is fine, everything is fine. But then your brain just starts, I don't know, just imagining the worst, I guess, and just like plummeting. Because that's the thing, I'm not scared. I don't know what I'm scared of, Luke. It's not like, I don't know, I can't explain it. It's not like I'm up there and I think I'm going to die or I'm going to get hurt. I'm just thinking I need to get down. There's a weird difference there that's really hard to explain.

Well, I would never, maybe even those days, because you and I didn't know each other as well, but these days I would never set up a situation that was intentionally meant to trigger that kind of stuff for you. But at least, I know that wasn't a great feeling for you, but it did lead to what has become one of the most iconic episodes of the show ever. Oh, yeah, I don't have any regrets. I'm glad it wasn't for absolutely nothing. You know what I mean? And, like, it has definitely created a very memorable thing for the listeners, as evidenced by it being, you know, nominated here in the Drops of Stupider contest.

And I'm glad I at least tried, too. Like, I don't have any regret over that at all. And also, just, like, just for this alone, like, that's pretty good radio, honestly.

Like, I don't think, I don't know if I've ever listened back. I know we've replayed it a bunch of times, and maybe those were the days when I was putting things together. So I might have grabbed the audio file, but I don't know if I've ever actually listened carefully to it. And I'm pretty – I'm actually pretty happy with how noticeable – like it pays off. That airplane – I guess it's not really an airplane, whatever. That fighter jet audio really pays off. You know there's a – out at the Portland airport, there's some kind of Air National Guard station, and they've got a few – they're not quite Blue Angels level, but they're fighter jets. And from sitting right here, Andrew, in fact, I think it was yesterday, I can see them just kind of off in the very far distance. Not anything like what we were experiencing in that recording, but in the way distance, I can just see them out there doing their little things. And I got to admit, offering the same asterisk and caveat that you put out there, which is that the military-industrial complex is probably a pretty bad thing in a lot of ways. Man, I love watching those things fly. Yeah. Yep. all right before we fly out of here yeah i think that sad ding that i did but you can't see my layout here my setup andrew but as i've added more and more things to this kind of huge desk that i'm working at the bell that i like to ding has it now occupies a teeny tiny little triangle of real estate on this desk and i can't just ding it i have to basically ding it with my finger because there's so much stuff around it. It's almost like it's subterranean. So that's me hitting it directly, but I also very often kind of just miss and sort of half-ding it. So I just want listeners to know that if they hear that, that's just because... I guess I could move it here. I mean, also, you just get to a certain age. Yeah. I've been talking to the folks over at Hymns. I've been talking to the folks over at Dings. Some places that really Help you get back to your Get back to dinging that bell the way you used to

I'm going to go to dings.com right now And just see what happens What do you think is that I'm going to make sure my audio is down in case it is filthy Watch it's a link to Mambo Socks It is not filthy Hello and welcome to Dings Entertainment LTD This seems like a very low budget website Up top, it says dings in a strange font that I think is supposed to is supposed to replicate the idea of these are balloons in the shape of these letters. And there's a close up of somebody playing an electric guitar.

This looks like a company and that a company that is endeavoring to basically provide entertainment for parties and get togethers because they've got a whole list of things. They've got bands, DJs and roadshows, comedians. They'll handle any entertainment needs that you have. The comedians says, laugh your socks off with one of our outstanding comedy acts. Comedy is our specialty. So it won't surprise you to hear we've got lots of talented comedians to hire on our books. But it does also, this website appears to be a little under-maintained at this point.

Yeah, it's a British service based in England, it looks like. And, yeah, they still have some sort of a broken Flash thing. And Flash, of course, has been kind of thrown by the wayside in the past year or two. This is interesting, but not as filthy as it could have been.

Well, that's good. So let's do a little music for your weekend before we get out of here. Andrew, what song would you like to play on this beautiful Friday?

You know, I was going through all kinds of songs. I have not been listening to a lot of music lately, Luke. I think I go through phases where I'm listening to a lot of new music.

And it's, you know, radio theater and Levitard and the Mariners.

Right, exactly. And isn't it weird, by the way? Really, really quick aside. And we don't have to get into any kind of actual baseball talk. But I do think it's weird that there is not a game today. This is the second week in a row where, like, these series are being busted up. Like, the series began yesterday with Minnesota, and then both teams are taking a day off, and they're picking up the series again tomorrow. Like, why can't we have baseball on a Friday? Like, all I want to do is get done with the show and go watch baseball on a Friday.

Yeah, I know. They've had two really weird – they had Easter off, and then they have Today off.

Yeah, very strange. Very strange scheduling. So I'm kind of bummed that I don't have that in my future today. Or maybe it's just sweet, sweet relief. But anyway, so I'm going to be honest. I was like looking, I was like kind of like stretching too far, looking for stuff to play for you that maybe you hadn't heard before. But the truth is, if I'm listening to any music these days, I'm still just going through my De La Soul phase. And I need to be honest with you and I need to be honest with myself and the listeners. And so last time, I think two weeks ago, I played a song off of Balloon Mind State, which is De La Soul's third album, which is kind of, I think, among fans, a very treasured record. but I think it's also, among the general public, probably not as well known, right? And that's the last of the Prince Paul De La Soul records. Prince Paul and De La Soul released the three first kind of iconic records. And then the fourth one came around, and I was doing some reading about it. It's called Stakes is High, and I've always liked it. But I didn't really know the story behind it or why Prince Paul wasn't on it. And there's not a real reason why Prince Paul didn't produce this one. It's just that they had done the three with him and wanted to try something different. And I found out that they really thought that this was a real make it or break it record for them. Like the people in De La Soul, I was reading an interview with them, maybe like looking back at the 20 year anniversary of this record. And they were like, we were literally not sure if we were going to go back to day jobs. If this record, Stakes Is High, didn't work out, we were kind of there. And I listen to this record now. And I'm a huge Prince Paul fan. And I love how kind of experimental he was. And that's one thing I love about Balloon Mind State, how it's like there's a lot of through lines there. But it's also a little bit all over the place because he wants to try this and throw this at it and throw this at it. And there's something about stakes is high, which is mostly produced by the guys in De La Soul themselves. Although I know there are some other kind of famous producers who dip in here, here and there, too. But this record feels more mature and like it's got a kind of a constant, steady groove to me. Like it all fits together and it's a little less of a pastiche sort of. So anyway, I'm talking too much But I'm still clearly, as you can hear Obsessed with my early De La Soul records And I want to play for you Track 3 off of this Which is called The Business You will hear Common's voice at the beginning I don't think we can play all the way through But Common has a guest track on here So take a listen to this

And bass up the track a little bit Because I want to hear that You know what I'm saying Yeah, yeah, you know the business Common Sense So with the day lie Get all them play-offs We the rhyme sayers Ha Yeah, that's the menace Ha Go do it like this

In there hot

Like that Chicago's

I speak the fine of God theories No need to be hot Always exhaling facts Cause I don't inhale a lot Play the greater man's game To bounce off my losses So I could earn the acres The houses The horses Of course it's much greater Then your Benz or your Lex The engine to my comprehension It's just too complex Much too complex Effects be live like DOS Make it moves down south To avoid the chaos I never flaunt the coin Cause dime getters be gazing They call me Luther Van They say my style is so amazing I'm phasing those who's supposed To have the last after Cause even when I'm gone I'm reappearing in the after I have to Send respects to real money miggas Do not connect us With those champagne sipping money fakers Taste a quarter pound With spice from Chi-Town

Now what that proved You're so full you can't even move Cause I'm the D to the O, the V to the E And can't another brother cook these delicacies? Well I'm the P-L-U-G to the one Walk around the planet Earth making money, having fun And I'm the C to the O-double-M-O-N I sit and think with a drink about how I'm gonna win

And I'm the C to the O-double-M-O-N I sit and think with a drink Do you wanna be a MC? Remember when we used to like Common?

i don't not like common by the way i just he just became a bit much well in the words of uh keenan thompson on snl you ain't no rapper you're a ted talker that came to life you're a ted talk that came to life it's like it's you know everybody gets to like what they like but

It's just there's a point at which it didn't speak to me as much as maybe it had at one time. That was good, by the way.

Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. I realized I was like just babbling a mile a minute leading into that. Because I just have so many thoughts. I'm constantly by myself listening to these records with a million thoughts about them. I stumbled there, too, because I was trying to recall the name. Jay Dilla, of course, famous, famous producer who died way too young. He produced a track on there, but I just looked it up. that was not a jay dilla produced track but it's good right it's smooth like even without even without prince paul like i don't know man i'm glad it worked out let's put it that way yeah i i was

enjoying that um also a good kind of just summery vibe too which is pretty much everything like all of my listening decisions now are like would this be a nice thing to listen to with the door open in my apartment from the world's smallest balcony which is now taken up by the world's smallest barbecue like i can't even sit out there because the barbecue takes up it's like literally has room for one camp chair and now that there's a barbecue there that's what so what i do is i open the door and i get my little folding like camping chair and i just sit on the edge of the living room by where the door is open but anyway i think to myself now would this be a song that i'd want to hear while in that moment and the song i'm going to suggest is one that would fit that list It's by Japanese Breakfast, a.k.a. Michelle Zahner. This is off of a new album. It's not even out yet. But I don't know. Have you listened to much Japanese Breakfast?

No, I don't think I've heard of this at all.

So this is a real departure from kind of a lot of the other Japanese Breakfast sound. Also, Michelle Zahner, interestingly enough, has a memoir out. We're going to be having her on Livewire here. We're interviewing her next week. It's called Crying in H-Mart. It's kind of about her life. She's a very talented writer as well who's been sort of through a lot. But she's best known as being the singer behind this. She plays under the name Japanese Breakfast. This song is, to me, very summery, very poppy, and is pretty great. It's called Be Sweet to Me. It's off the upcoming Japanese Breakfast album. So if you could play that, Andrew, that would be great.

Tell them, man, I'm coming Tell them, count the dates I can feel the night passing by Like a mistake waiting for me Caught up in my feelings Overthink the truth Fantasize, you left me behind And I'm turned back, running for you

Make it up to me, you know it's better Make it up to me, you know it's better Be sweet to me, baby I want to believe in you, I want to believe Be sweet to me, baby I want to believe in you, I want to believe in something

I think somebody on Pitchfork said this sounded like synth-pop from the 80s meets kind of Northwest Indie or something, but whatever the combination of sounds is, I really like it. Yeah, that's really nice. And it's really upbeat too Again, if you listen to that And then you go back and listen to older stuff It's kind of a little bit of a different vibe But I'm into it The listener suggestion, by the way That's Be Sweet to Me by Japanese Breakfast Sorry, you just heard me pulling down The message from the listener this week For the listener suggestion Is on the back side of this printout that I have But I also have this special little magnet, Andrew That holds the show sheets Up on the little A-frame That I put them on It's a whole system down there. Does the A-frame come with the magnets? Yes. The A-frame is actually made of metal, the little sandwich board, if you will, for my desk. And it's metal, and it came with a little magnet that holds everything up. In case there's a windstorm in here, the show sheet isn't going anywhere.

You were talking about having your window open and kind of like sitting in the open window door area, and I got worried about your pink spalding ball. you're gonna make sure that doesn't bounce out the window right that would be bad you know

something very weird andrew very weird i went out on my tiny balcony yesterday and i noticed that there was i don't even know what you call it

But let's just say if you were to buy like a Swisher Sweet or a black and tan, some kind of a cigarette that you might buy that's more like not just a cigarette, but something more almost like a cigar of some kind. And it has that little white plastic like tip filter on the end of it. Yeah. I don't know what you call that. Is that called a filter? I think you'd call it a tip, but I don't know. A tip. on my balcony was a tip just the tip andrew now there's people above you i guess i mean i'm yeah you're not on the top i'm not on the very top floor of this place

so someone was smoking a blunt and then they flicked the tip off and it blew onto your porch

it's so weird though the physics of that are very very they're not that many there's only one story above me and if somebody flicked their their tip off of off of their balcony above me it would have presumably gone it would have like if i was 30 floors beneath them i could see it going out and then cycling back or somebody snuck into my apartment stood on my tiny porch and smoked a blunt or whatever that would be and then left the tip there it was so weird though because like that is not the kind of thing that i ever interact with um you know what though could it have been

maddie or marion probably was if you think about it that makes a lot of sense now god

gotta talk to hannah after the show anyway the listener suggestion comes from listener casey casey says hey fellas some songs just hit different once the weather starts to get nice heard that casey uh you know this is one of those songs it's a perfect piece of summery pop with a little psychedelic garage rock twist i submit for your music for your weekend consideration Sex Wax by Heather. Don't worry, despite the title, the song is not dirty, or at least it's not any dirtier than Luke's musing on the dazzling donor's carnal desires. Yeah, well, is that where we're setting the bar now? Here's to the crack of the bat and the roar of the socially distanced crowd, signed listener Casey. I don't know this band, Heather, by the way, it's spelled H-E-T-H-E-R, but I really like this song, and it is extremely strong summer vibrations, So I think the listeners will like it as well. All right, that's going to bring us to the end of our broadcast week. Thank you so much, everyone, for hanging out with us. Thanks for being part of TBTL. We're going to be back here on Monday with more imaginary radio for you. Until then, have a great weekend. Stay safe. Take care of yourselves. Go Mariners. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

We'll be right back. Thank you. Power out.