Muse

Veronica, Ted, I just wanted to thank you for keeping an eye on Arthur. He's in the boardroom right now. We're about to vote him out.

Actually, before you move on Arthur, sir, you should know that he found some documents. And if you vote him off the board, he'll expose the company's worst secret.

Wait a minute. He found out about the thing?

Yes. He knows all about the thing.

Oh, God. If he knows about the thing, he must also know about the other thing, which would ruin the thing we all live on. Apparently so, sir. I think he even knows about this stuff. That's okay. Everybody knows about this stuff. But the thing, that's going to be a problem.

TBTL!

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Change the channel. I can't even look. I can't handle the pressure. Before I say anything else, I want to say no matter what you've done, you deserve respect. Even if you make mistakes, you're lovable. And it doesn't matter your look, skills, or age, or size, or anything. You're worthwhile. No one could ever take that away from you.

Everyone says great things about you. The posture, the haircut, the tiny feet. It's amazing they hold you up. But they do. Ha, ha. Ah, they do. And if they want to drink Merlot, we're drinking Merlot. No, if anybody orders Merlot, I'm leaving. I am not drinking any f***ing Merlot! Okay, okay, relax, Miles. No Merlot.

all right hello good morning and welcome to a tuesday edition of tbtl the show that just might be too beautiful to live i'm so excited about this show my name is luke burbank i am your host

i don't do this for the clout i don't do this for the fame coming to you from the nest broadcast

center high in the sky above portland oregon where we are looking at another absolutely a beautiful day in the p and w looks like this whole week is just going to be absolutely spectacular weather which is exciting oh ma pa it's just beautiful does of course raise the issue for me of the sun beating down on the broadcast center try to do the thing where i open the window for the show but it's also a very windy day i can see on top of a construction site i've just opened the window now with my foot uh yeah guys i'm a um i'm a double threat i can host this podcast and i can open a window with my foot i'm looking out on this construction crane and there are two flags flying uh on top of the crane one is an american flag and one is a portland trailblazers flag and those things are pinned they are just blowing directly at me and if i take my foot off this window it will take about two seconds for it to completely slam itself shut up just like that exactly like that so anyway i'm just gonna suck it up and get through this because it is my job after all to bring you episode 3,400 in a collector's series let the fun begin always fun to get to a round number if in fact that's the correct number i do have somebody emailing me every day telling me what episode number we're on and yet I still sometimes get it wrong. Are you ready to wear your robot exoskeleton suit to work? And for play for that matter. Are you ready for the full integration of the people and the machines that will be apparently coming to Home Depot

pretty soon? Robots are everywhere and they eat old people's medicine for fuel. I'm wondering like

The idea behind these exoskeletons that they're selling, they're like $45,000 a piece right now, but the price apparently is going to go down. They help you, you know, if you do physical stuff, like for your job, it just kind of cuts down on the wear and tear. I'm wondering what that version for podcasters would be. Maybe something that holds the window open? Seems like $45,000 would be a lot for that, but anyway. We will get into that. And also, speaking of this podcast, God, another year and another ambies in which TBTL wasn't even considered. Podcasts are the future of show business. What are the ambies? Apparently, those are the podcast awards. Their board of governors just gave Mark Maron and Brendan McDonald, the creators of WTF, the highest award that you can get. the governor's award for the ambies this year goes to mark maron there's like 124 other nominees and i don't think we were on the list everyone will will this be a i mean are we going to become the susan lucci of the ambies as a podcast i don't know i want to look at who the other 124 nominees are so that i can have even more people to feel jealous about so maybe we'll do that coming up and then you know we may never want to

in an ambi but we are getting ever closer to figuring out what the most memorable moment in tbtl history was as we bring you the drops of stupider the deuce the deuce correct competition which i think today enters like day five maybe where we are counting down and and voting on the best moments in tbtl history i will do that plus emails and emails a listener has written us a song i have not heard it but i've heard it is pretty pretty pretty pretty good and so we'll play that during the emails and emails segment uh of course can't do any of that before getting this guy on the line this guy is a four and a half foot tall pile of awesomeness he is the longest running cobro of the show maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships he is andrew welsh and he's joining us right now from the roosevelt neighborhood of seattle washington Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. I know we should talk about this later on in the show, but I am excited. And I want to tell you that I have submitted TBTL for the Ambien Awards, podcasts that put you to sleep. And I am feeling good, man. I'm feeling really, really good about this. We're going up against the Calm app, which is kind of a problem because we also do ads for them.

And when he said that, that shocked me.

It's a bit of a conflict, but I don't know. I feel good about this one.

People do use this podcast as a way to fall asleep. It's so interesting what works for some people as far as kind of calming their brain and getting them into a state where they're ready for sleep. I will find myself, which is the exact opposite of what you want to do, I will find myself sometimes doing the kind of endless scrolling on social media and things, even in bed and there are uh you know ads for various like i saw one it's just a video loop of i don't even know exactly how to explain it but it's well there's a couple of different things that i have now watched one is this sort of machine it's like a record player but instead it just has sand on it but it's it's very like an oval imagine like a like a a race like a track a horse track right but even more elongated so something that was very very very much longer the the two you know sides of it are very long and then it just connects at the end so a very long oval and this like record player machine this thing is like spinning around and then there's sand in it and then there's this little rake or grate that has to go around and it takes it a certain amount of time to have like zen raked all of the sand so when it spins around it's spinning

around horizontally it's not going ass over tea kettle as you like to say no it's not because

it's full of sand it's like a tray and again i don't even know if this is computer generated like i don't know if this thing physically exists in the world or if this is just somebody you know created it in in like a computer somewhere but it eventually it like it goes around and around and eventually it has like and you know what i'm talking about when i talk about those zen sandboxes yeah it eventually has gone through and done like it's it's sort of raked it all into being the same pattern and there is something about that that just puts my brain to sleep instantly there's another one too that somebody made and you watch that right can i just be clear about this you're

not talking about just like it doesn't create a soft sandy white noise you're actually watching

it and it calls your brain i mean there might be a little background sound but it's primarily a visual experience okay then there's another one where i feel like they're cutting up sand

like it's like this very very fine white sand that they then snort at the end and they're using little razor blades to like kind of cut it up on a mirror do i have that right yes uh it's al pacino is in it for some reason yes does he have a little friend is it al pacino

He does, and usually right as he's screaming about that is right when I'm heading off to – not Dreamland, but whatever the opposite of that is. It's like imagine – it's colored sand, so maybe it could be like purple or green, and it's been formed into different shapes, a triangle, like a loaf of bread kind of a thing. and then somebody is just cutting it up with a big knife but it's so satisfying the the sound of that knife going through that sand and also cutting it in a very kind of um consistent fashion it's like the opposite of that whatever that website is that shows you things that make you mad like when somebody is like cutting up a pie but they're each piece is it's like the wrong size or the cut is uneven this is the opposite of this is like the most satisfying I don't know.

cutting up of purple sand you've ever seen oh wow the most satisfying cutting up on the list

Andrew of times when you've watched someone cut up purple sand on TikTok I put this in top like

top five for being relaxing I'm doing an inventory of all the times I've seen that and I gotta trust you on that one because I've seen some doozies the other night I so I think does this paint me as a dummy I don't know like there are a million things that we can listen to to go to sleep I could purchase a book on tape from our friends over at Libro. There are so many possibilities. But when I'm going to sleep, it's usually very late at night. I've already stayed up about three hours later than I should have, at the very least. I know I will be asleep in seconds. I try not to buy new audiobooks in those last few seconds of wakefulness, because I know I'm going to fall asleep before they even finish reading chapter one. I don't mean getting to the end of chapter one I mean the word one I will be asleep and so mean chat yeah exactly don't tell me what happens after chat I hear there's a per involved but I don't know for sure um but anyway so the other night I think this was two nights ago maybe Sunday night um I was like let me just see what books on tape are on YouTube and I don't know how I dialed this up so quickly um but I landed on like Voyage of the Dawn Treader or something else from that series. What's the series? The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? No, that's the first book. What's the name of the series? I mean, Narnia. The Chronicles of Narnia. But anyway, so I was like, well, if I'm going to do this, let me find the first one. So I kind of click back a little bit. I get to the first book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and I'm falling asleep. I forgot how quickly they get into that wardrobe, or this one was abridged. I don't know. But anyway, I'm like, I don't know, a few minutes in and then all of a sudden there was an ad, ironically, for Audible. And then that kind of woke me up again and it was kind of in there clunkily. Like it auto populated, like I feel like it almost split a word in half. I could be wrong about that. And I'm starting to realize, oh, this is a kind of a janky YouTube thing. And then I'm falling asleep again. And then another ad came in. And then I realized, oh, like exact opposite of what you need. Exactly, exactly. I did eventually, I think, fall asleep with that playing. But usually I read myself to sleep. But just in the past few months, I think I felt like I'd rather somebody else read me to sleep. And Genevieve won't do it.

Can I just play you a little bit Of what sand cutting sounds like And I don't think this will be I mean that's alright Maybe the listeners will all take a nap together And then we'll reconvene this in like 45 minutes Now I know that there are people Who do not like the sound of us eating Or other things that's misophonia But I don't think there's anyone Who doesn't like the sound of Kind of relaxing Like I'm playing this Because I don't think that there is Listener group for whom this is like Something that bothers them right you think there's a safe assumption

I think it's a very safe assumption

Okay because it's at the worst it just doesn't do anything for you And at the best It's going to be very relaxing Now you know what I don't like this is too The sand is too coarse I was going to say that's

That's harsher than I expected not going to lie

It's too coarse this is because I'm on YouTube Right now I don't have my Usual thing that I've been going to of late this is not tiktok i couldn't find it on the fly but this has 17 million views but i want to tell the people who've been looking at something called very satisfying video compilation 63 kinetic sand cutting asmr there's something better out there where the sand is a little bit less wet and packed because you need it to just yeah that's too much sorry i i over promised and under delivered per use can i play you some audio that is actually very encouraging andrew and will definitely 100 percent payoff it's me correctly pronouncing the name of the ketchup company originally out of the pittsburgh area heinz or as i have been saying recently heinz to the frustration of the listeners well our friend uh the unpaid audio producer on the program who who shall remain semi-anonymous went ahead and found the cbs sunday morning piece that i did about ketchup and made a it's very quick it's two seconds a super cut of me saying the name of the company and the good news is andrew i apparently had gotten the memo at that point that there's

no t in the name of this ketchup company heinz heinz heinz heinz that was aggressive one more

time heinz heinz heinz heinz let's go back to the sand um no that's good what what makes i i'd seen that that tape was in our email, but I hadn't listened to it. That's also kind of satisfying. Why do you think, and I'm not trying to lean into the mystery,

here but why do you think you were saying Heinz on the show the other day and then when I saw you over the weekend and you were casually talking about the Heinz company and you called it Heinz do you think there was something about reading it in a script that you see the letters that's a

really good question um I don't know the answer to that I mean because you'd think it'd be the kind of thing you either know how to say or you don't and um I also okay this is a very weird place um a weird reference to make but remember john carrey's wife theresa heinz carrey who had at one time been married into the heinz fortune um i have this weird memory of one time seeing a news story about her and i swear to god the person said heinz and it just burrowed into my brain somewhere and just now maybe and but it only it only seems to emerge at certain times like a cicada once every 17 years i feel the need to mispronounce the name of that company and family and i to me somewhere in my mind it's associated with teresa teresa heinz carrie i could see that

especially given where you probably were in your career then because carrie was uh let's see well i guess we could figure this out although now i feel like i'm gonna embarrass myself with that two thousand nine eleven what's that when was nine eleven when did was that 2004 when he was making the when did schubert dip come out anyway that was a while back and you were probably like taking in as much i'm trying to think where you were in your career then i don't know if you were day-to-daying it if you were covering congress or whatever it was though you were a young up-and-coming political journalist and you were probably just sucking in as much information as possible and hoping to pick up on things so that you don't embarrass yourself in an interview or something like that and you heard this one thing and you I feel like there are examples in my life I can't land on them but I feel like Nevada is one where I never really thought about Nevada growing up but then I got older and then it became this whole debate whether or not it's Nevada or Nevada and then it got in my head and then I have to stop and think before I say it well that's the

problem there is i mean there are words that i was able to pronounce for much of my life and then at some point i heard i got one bad piece of intel or i heard somebody say it wrong or i you know i and then i started to question it and then as soon as you start questioning it you'll never say the word you know effortlessly again you'll never pronounce the word like you'll just have to always stop and yeah nevada nevada is one of those and i believe that nevada the pronunciation nevada ended up winning that one yes and in fact i think you know it's like i believe that it's sort of like it's it's also like calling it oregon like if you're from uh the northwest you would never say oregon like oregon is a dead giveaway you're from the east coast and maybe your most of your knowledge about this state comes from playing the video game oregon trail like that you know uh so so oregon nevada there are some ones that at some point people started trying to make a thing and I've been able to push back on those ones but there are other ones of course I can't think of them off the top of my head but there are other ones where I was doing just fine with a word for most of my life and then at some point oh you know one well one that I've struggled with since my mid-twenties I think I blame our friend Bill Radke for this one is the question of short-lived versus short-lived oh yeah and this has come up on the show before and I just remember being in a car I think and having a conversation with Bill about whether it was short-lived or short-lived, and I don't even remember kind of what the verdict was, but what I know is I will never say short-lived now without thinking, uh, is it short-lived or short-lived?

I think I'm still saying short-lived, too, and I think you have a lot to do with that, you and...

Short-lived might be the correct one, too. I don't know. I just have lost all chill with that term.

My guess... This is the dictionary. Short-lived. My guess is properly it was short-lived, my guess, if you go back in time, and then eventually people started saying short-lived and now it's just short-lived is the acceptable term. You know, there's a million things like that I'm trying to be less pedantic about in my life because language changes. And that's one that I feel like, and also you and I have to admit this too, like if you're the one who's saying short-lived or Ayn Rand, I mean, that example doesn't really live up to it anymore. But when you're younger, you know, you're thinking like, I'm the smart one in the room here. You know, you don't want to comment on it. Just let it, you know, just let it fly. But in the back of everybody's head, as you hold up a martini and you hold court, as we now like to say, you know, at a party, like in the back of the head, somebody is going home that night saying that Luke Burbank character. He said short live. That must be the way to do it.

I feel like Nevada, by the way, the endorphin that you get from that, though, is itself short live. That's the problem. Right. That right then.

I think Nevada. I mean, I think we were all – this is a weird, vague theory that I have that is not really based on anything. But I feel like we were all saying Nevada for a while. I think that – it's just a weird theory. I think that Nevada, as it began to play a bigger and bigger role in the primary process – Yeah. I think reporters like saying Nevada. I think – we think Nevada sounds smarter than Nevada, you know?

I agree. Hey, I think actually, Andrew, I think you couldn't be more right because when it started to be this thing where, like, you know, we all have to make a pilgrimage to the feet of John Ralston, the kind of, you know, main goat. John Ralston is the Larry Sabato of Nevada. He's the guy who's just been watching the local political scene for a thousand years. And if you're going to do any kind of a TV interview about what's going on there, you're going to, like, reach out to that dude. uh sabato uh sabato is the the guy in virginia who's kind of the go-to but once it became a thing where nevada really played a role like you said in primary politics and because of just the way that the way that the sort of uh most states are kind of locked into being generally reliably you know republican or democrat for the presidential stuff nevada's in one of those they're they could kind of go either way and so we spent a lot of time talking about it and you're right if you're a reporter and you want to sound smart somehow i think nevada sounds it sounds smarter that's probably why at some point i started to think maybe it is nevada exactly and i also like

saying nevada more i think it's more satisfying yeah unquestionable yeah absolutely by the way the new hampshire equivalent would be dante scala by the way university of new hampshire he was like he was no he wasn't younger than me but he wasn't that much older than me when i was um you know working in new hampshire um well at new hampshire public radio and he was a go-to guest for a lot of things and he really made a name for himself and now he's your larry sabato so if you're ever in new hampshire um dante is the person to look up and then i don't feel like there is that person

for washington state i mean there are lots of people who know about politics in washington but because washington is not on the national stage because it just goes blue in the presidential election you don't need to find whereas new hampshire is obviously very early in the primary process so that gets at a certain amount of attention um nevada is kind of can be swingy at times uh yeah you only really find out you only deep end up not even deep dive but you only end up repeatedly hearing from the states that haven't made up their mind right right also i think when

i came here like i remember working at kuw and people were there's like a um there's a couple i think one for each party a couple of like um people who advise political campaigns and they're the ones who i'm always hearing like those are the people that uh journalists are checking in on like so and so a former consultant for the democrats in washington state do you know who i'm talking i don't know if you know the specific person but you know that that type of person yeah

i believe for a long time the republican guy at least the guy that kow reached out a lot to I think his name was Randy Peppel And it was like his deal was exactly what you said He advised Republicans But of course he wasn't like a Full on Kind of in the bag for the Republicans I mean that's what also really happened And the same was a Kathy, I forget Kathy's last name But there was a Kathy, whatever her last name is Was the Democrat equivalent And when we used to do election night coverage We'd have them in And they'd both kind of like make the case for their particular side of the of the political spectrum but in a way that was very like david brooks and ej dion talking on atc on fridays like we want to hear some we want to on public radio we want to hear some political debate but we don't want it to be like the crazy people right or party right right we're not trying to get that uncomfortable with it let's find a couple of people and i'm not saying this to be dismissive of of the opinions of any of these people but it's like let's find some people that are both kind of towards the middle of whatever their deal is

So it doesn't get weird. Right, right, right. I also wonder how dated our references are. And if, again, we're kind of timestamping our era on this. I don't know. I don't listen to a whole bunch of political coverage on KUOW these days outside of Radke's show.

You mean timestamping it because of the actual names or because that's not really how we like the media even works anymore?

Oh, I just go to the. No, I meant a little bit more specifically or at least specifically like how things are booked in public radio. It seems like that was all I knew which political pundit to get in the studio for the talk show I was working on. But it's just funny to think how long it's been since I've done anything even close to that.

Yeah I'm trying to think as somebody who just listens now a lot Is that really the way That these conversations unfold still I don't know I mean maybe it's all Maybe the real conversation is happening on TikTok Now Somebody cuts up a loaf of sand and um tries to you know talk about uh business taxes in seattle or whatever yeah chris vance is is he's he's that guy boy this is hyper specific yes it is there's also a real cottage industry around being i'm surprised more people didn't take the bait on this actually being a person who is a republican historically but who was not into what was going on in the trump administration that's a you know obviously that's like the lincoln project and um uh you know on the local level the guy chris vance used to be in charge of the in washington state that state republican party and it was somebody who was republican but very not down with what was going on with the kind of movement that trump was leading i would have thought there would have been way more people that would have been in that camp just because it makes you interesting to tv talk shows you know you've kind of got like you know I don't know it's like a list of like 10 people or something and they show up on all of the shows all the time as the like sane Republicans you know and I was one of the many things that were surprising about that period in our country's history the number of people like I mean you're talking about a Lindsey Graham or a Ted Cruz or people who were just openly insulted by donald trump who then continued to like show up to play golf with him and and did not become like you would only have to insult my wife one time publicly for me to get off the train of whatever it was your political deal was you know like if i was ted cruz and and and somebody i was running for president against accused my dad of killing kennedy and my wife of being homely game over i mean i honestly would probably physically fight the person uh but he he didn't do that he instead became a total supporter of his i don't understand

that well it's about the ideals of the party and really sure absolutely no i mean it's about small government and secret trips to mexico how about this how about this i was just looking up you know because i couldn't remember vance's um chris vance's name and so that's how i ended on it was by googling around and i uh landed on this page how about this for a panel for rad key show back in 2016 today's panel chris vance i don't have my bell hannah brooks olsen oh sure and phyllis fletcher to round it out listen to that absolutely produced by amina al-sadi our

friend and longtime wow that's a real like quadruple supporter exactly people that that we associate with associate with i should say yeah i think at some point now it'll be funny if i show back up on that show at some point i don't know if it was a result the weekend review is what i'm talking about now the like friday kind of news roundtable which i always find really really enjoyable to listen to yeah it's good i mean i don't know if it's because i stopped responding or because they stopped reaching out but i think my days of doing that show are probably done which is again nobody judge me if i you hear me on there at some point but like i think it's probably just as well for everybody because i was kind of like every time i would be on that show i would have a really fun time but i would be deeply stressed out going into it because i don't live in those cities anymore in fact haven't lived in seattle for kind of a long time and to be sitting there across from joanie balter or somebody who are c uh cr douglas or somebody who really knows these issues inside and out and then me just waiting for my chance to just try to deploy some silly joke about me going to goldie's i just think eventually it was not what the seattle public radio listeners needed in their friday roundtable my guess is also the

proximity did have a lot to do with it i mean i think bellingham kind of strained it and i think

portland really knocked you out of there yeah portland might put it over the yeah what do i move to portland maine do you think that would make it a more appealing thing to them who do

you think i was thinking about this the other day because somebody in a message to us just said that they're in portland and i was like which portland i was like well come on we're in seattle you must mean portland oregon but well i think that you'd be very biased growing up around here to answer this question but like if somebody just says portland you don't even question it right you assume it's portland oregon even if you're not necessarily in the pacific northwest when somebody says that let's say okay let me rephrase this let me get very specific and relatable here you're at a wedding in ohio okay and somebody says i'm from portland and it has nothing to do

i have probably been at a wedding in ohio more recently than you were because i did a story pre-pandemic about surprise weddings and it happened to be in ohio i'm gonna be in a wedding

um oh yeah later not in ohio i'm gonna be in a wedding though i thought i was i thought that phase of my life was over um but yeah a friend of ours i don't know how public it is now so i I won't say who it is, but it's a friend and a friend of the show is getting married in September. So I'm going to be in a wedding. I don't know what that involves. I don't know if that means of getting a tuxedo. It sounds like it's a pretty casual.

affair with a very limited guest list but uh well it's limited to me not being on it so they better not be a great friend of the show it's too also you buying a tuxedo doesn't sound at all anxiety

producing for you well i'd rent it i don't think i'd buy a tuxedo but um well i've done it before now a couple of times right because we did it for the 2000 yeah and you looked nice i love that

picture at some point we're gonna have to really rethink that there's no longer real truth in advertising going on with the tbtl.net photo of us in our tuxedos hosting a show both looking I think probably a little more youthful than we currently appear we look about 1500 shows younger

anyway you're at a you're at a wedding in Ohio you have not said where you're from so the the scales are not tipped somebody just comes up to you and says hi I'm from Portland which is a weird like introduction but just says hi i'm from portland you automatically assume portland oregon do you ask which portland or do you is there any chance you can portland maine is a real place

okay there's your answer i've never been there i mean i've never seen it with my own eyes so i guess if i believe the media and the maps and john hodgman uh-huh then i guess maybe it's a real place i mean i okay if my brain was feeling kind of facile enough in the moment i might do the math on where we were in the country so ohio is a stretch if we were in the northeast if we were in vermont and somebody said portland then i'd be like okay well we're in the part of the country where there's a chance they're talking about the main one but if you're if i'm anywhere west of like if i'm anywhere west of pennsylvania i'm assuming it's portland oregon and i have to say this you know of course we love alaska airlines they're a local company they've been very very good to us over the years um they sponsor livewire so i need to offer all of those caveats but i i find it i i find to be hurtful that when you go on the alaska airlines website at least this used to be the case and you buy a ticket to portland oregon you have to go past portland maine first when you go portland it wants to tell you portland to maine and i'm like you guys we're in the northwest can we please have some local pride and can we make portland

oregon the first thing that comes up that's alphabetical i um yeah i'm trying to think before i moved to new england if somebody had said portland what i would have assumed and i feel like i would have assumed portland maine and i grew up in ohio but i don't know if that's

accurate or not and like also what's what's the difference in size of city like i think significant

i think that portland has got to be smaller right yeah i mean i don't i i would imagine okay i'm

gonna google the population of portland or and you google the population of portland maine i'm glad you chose oregon i'm sorry i was already there yep i'm gonna bing the population of portland

oregon right okay you bing it i'm gonna ask jeeves i've got i've got portland maine here locked and loaded ready to go 2019 numbers if that's okay oh okay population i'm gonna go 2019

then because this is very serious science okay um are you ready okay do we just say both the numbers and we're gonna say so at the same exact time over top of each other yes portland oregon 645

thousand thousand people 595 sorry so how many 66,595 oh my god that's not even close no yeah So I guess then I guess maybe another example is if somebody is on Jeopardy and they're being introduced by that jerk from Green Bay and they just say I'm from Portland jerk from Green Day.

And I was like, you're telling me Billy Joe Armstrong or is it Trey cool is hosting Jeopardy? All right. I give up.

They're having everybody. Ugly Kid Joe will be hosting Jeopardy for a special two week stint. Yeah. So if you're on Jeopardy and somebody says I'm from Portland and nobody asks any follow-up questions, the country, the world assumes that is Portland, Oregon. That makes sense.

What is hate everything about you? Would that be every answer in the Ugly Kid Joe? Yes. And it's just the cartoon. It's just the Ugly Kid Joe mascot with the backwards hat. Exactly. That's who comes out and is hosting it.

I would watch that. And you know who's on the panel? It's the GoDaddy logo. It's the Mike's Badass Pizza logo or whatever that frozen thing is. I showed you that, right? We need one more to round them out.

It was just in that same kind of weird, supposedly kind of wacky, but kind of simplified drawing. Yes, exactly.

Backwards baseball hat vibe. And also, I always say this, and I don't know if it's accurate, but also just like a vibe of somebody who has a basement bedroom, has their mattress on the floor and sits on that mattress on the floor. and practices their electric bass unplugged.

Oh. I just get a vibe. I've got that image. Yeah, so who is the third kind of – because you're right. I know exactly now the pizza guy you're talking about. Wild Mike. Wild Mike's ultimate pizza. The GoDaddy guy. I know. And one more. Well, maybe between today and tomorrow we'll figure that out and we'll bring you an update on that on tomorrow's show. The Mount Rushmore. Mount Douchemore. show title or is that too much probably yeah too much all right let's take a quick break and then when we come back uh we'll uh we'll continue on with these things so stay with us

tbtl on your mark on your mark get set get set now ready ready go everybody

hey let's thank some dazzling donors these wonderful generous people are making the show possible with their donations of a dazzling amount of dough each month very very very grateful for folks like rose donnelly in jacksonville florida uh rose says i've been a listener since 2009 and the other day i was thinking about why i love tbtl so much thank you rose for doing that i would like to encourage all the listeners just take a moment of quiet reflection to think about why we're so amazing watch some sand being cut but not the kind that's too loud like i played i don't

like that bad sand bad sand uh show title bad sand uh bad sand duh i don't know i'll write it down well there's something there one joke too many that last one andrew you're supposed to be reflecting on how great we are sorry well what but bad sand and then what would you do if it wasn't duh you said one joke too many i wasn't sure you're being serious there well the problem

is the duh then creates a new thing which is like obviously we're bad sand which makes me like i don't know bad sand and then just parenthetically a so it looks like santa i mean i don't know again we're supposed to be reflecting on how great tb chill is not arguing about billy bob

Thornton movies you wouldn't say that to Billy Bob Thornton would you the first thing that came

to mind was well that you guys and the tens have such kind souls there's so much content out there whether social media podcasts or TV that shows the worst of humanity Luke and Andrew are just a couple of decent guys getting through your days not perfect but always with good intentions So if you can play any sunshiny music that makes you happy, that would be great. Peace and love.

Signed, Rose. Nice. So we get to choose something at the end of the show, something sunshiny and happy. We got to think about that. I'll come up with something maybe. I've got some ideas. Oh, good.

I've got some ideas. Well, Rose, thank you so much for being part of the TBTL community. 2009. Yes. Jeez Louise, that was a while ago. It was easily over four years ago.

It's certainly around four, five, or six

Seven max? Thanks, Rose We really appreciate you and hope you're doing well Maestro On your mark

Get set Now ready Everybody rattle, dattle

We've also got to thank Dazzling Donor Nick Marchant Of Woodinville, Washington

You ever been there?

What's that?

You ever been there? Woodinville Nice

On occasion, I'll make my way out to Woodinville. It's funny because when I was growing up, I remember thinking Woodinville was just a lifetime away. My aunt and uncle, my Uncle Tom and my Aunt Alice and my cousins lived out in Woodinville. And it was the kind of thing where, I don't know, maybe two times a year, we would throw the whole clan into the Ford Fairmont and journey to Woodinville, Washington. And it just seemed epically far. And now it's I realize it's actually not very far from Seattle At all And the other thing that's weird I think my parents just hated driving places when I was a kid Like I was This is not really part of Nick's message You might be surprised to hear But you know There was very very few rides Given in my life as a kid That was a big That's why I was so psyched to get my license Or to get a functioning bicycle Because I think my mom just hated going places that fell out of the way to her but what's crazy is my parents will now drive across multiple states for no reason like all the time i'm like hey where are you guys at oh we're in rexburg idaho because there were there was a world mark bonus time available i'm like what where did you go like they drive to oregon they live in washington state they drive to Oregon like every other week.

sometimes just to like because milk is a dollar cheaper or something do you think it has anything

to do with the fact that they don't have 17 children they have to pack into the car to make

that trip i guess but it's like i could have used a ride back in the day and now you're driving the friggin all over god's green earth at the drop of a hat you know anyway a lot of this is nick's fault um for triggering me by living in woodenville washington uh nick says hey my good looking friends okay you know what nick back you're back on my good side thank you hey my good looking friendos i was thinking about the time i overheard a co-worker use the mixed metaphor shooting from the seat of my pants in a conference call and was hoping to hear it in the clear for posterity with confidence if you would be so kind power out all right in the clear Andrew do you know that Honestly At least 80 to 90% of this show I'm just you know I'm shooting from the seat of my pants here

Yeah but what about the stuff you're saying

No that's That's shooting into the seat of my pants And since I started taking the medicine It's mostly stopped happening I actually love that As far as mixed metaphors go That one works for me Because what I imagine is, and I don't want to talk about an overly violent situation, but if you think about a Tarantino film or a Bruce Willis situation, cinematically, if you were to fall down or you were to get knocked down and you were on the ground but you were still trying to be part of the action movie, you could be shooting from the seat of your pants, right? I think of the seat of your pants being a reference to you're now on the ground, and it's like I'm shooting from the seat of my pants. I'm on the ground, but I'm still pew, pew, pew shooting.

I heard a mixed metaphor yesterday on a podcast that I liked a lot. It was actually Jemele Hill. You know her, right? Oh, sure. Former ESPN person. Is she at the Atlantic now? I believe so. That's one of her many gigs, I think. Yeah, really interesting person. I really like her. I follow her on all the places you can follow people. Well, anyway, she was a guest on the Levitard show. You'll be surprised. Oh, well, there you go. Yeah. And I she was talking about something very serious. If she hadn't been talking about something so serious, I think Dan Levitard would have called her out on this and made it a big thing. Because she was talking about something serious, though. And she said that when people talk a certain way, it sets her teeth on fire. And I think what she meant was it sets her teeth on edge. But I kind of like this sets my teeth on fire. Like, yeah, it cranks it up a notch or two, doesn't it?

Yeah, it really does. You got to hope that that's a day when your body is producing a lot of saliva. Right. I need the moisture, Michael. To just – what was the – that's Lucille, right? Yeah, that's Lucille. And what is she – she wasn't going to send – she wasn't going to lick a stamp? What is she not going to do?

I think that she was on the verge of tears possibly, but she – Oh, right. Yes, that is what it was.

I was on some of those lists of like greatest – Yeah, that's what it's top of mind. Hey, oh, can I ask you a quick question? Yes, of course. Dang it. But we have just an ever-growing list of top stories, and we've got to do Drops of Stupider today. I'm getting worried that we're going to run out of time again. But two drop-related things. I was in the shower the other day, and do you ever just, like, have a drop in your head for no reason when you're in the shower? Oh, my God. Or doing something. Yes. So I think I've asked about this before, but is OK T-Bone time for some serious crunching? Is that Jessica Walter in Archer?

No. We have talked about this before. That is from a Microsoft training video at the early days of Internet or computers. Let me see.

OK, so that has nothing to do with Jessica Walter. It just always sounds like her to me. And then the other one involved a drop that was part of the intro package today where the guy who's saying their tiny feet. Oh, yeah. You don't think they would hold them up, but they do?

Yes.

What is that from?

So, okay, let me just play this. I was hoping to find more context for this Microsoft video, but I can't find it. I'll just play the three-second drop.

Okay, T-Bone, time for some serious crunching. You know, as you play it there and as I listen now with the knowledge it's not Jessica Walter, I can hear that it's not, but somehow in my mind, and you know how this is, I've literally seen some bizarre animation that my brain has created from Archer that is the Jessica Walter-voiced character saying that for some bizarre reason whilst holding a martini. So I guess that was consistent between her Lucille Bluth character and her Archer character.

And then the other one you just asked about, by the way, that Microsoft is some real moms on the net vibe. So I do that. But what is the one, California Got Sunshine, how many times you have to tell me that that is not...

The guy from Van Halen

Do you think it's David Lee Roth or Sammy Hagar

I think I always think it is I think I always think it's David Lee Roth But it's not

You don't think it's Michael Anthony the bassist Who would come out and chug an entire bottle of Jack Daniels And then just slay all day

But you've told me a million times it's actually Smash Mouth is that who that is

It is from a song which we won't play now Because we've played it thousands of times And we're a little tight but it is from Basically a Sort of just the vocals of a song, the isolated vocals of a song called California Got Sunshine. And I don't think it was ever released as a song. And so, yeah, that's what that is from. Now, the Tiny Feet, what is that?

That is from an episode of The Simpsons. I don't remember much about it, but I think, I'm going to play it for you again here, because I think this voice is Edward Norton. I think it's a guest voice, and I'm pretty sure it's Edward Norton. Although I can't remember anything else about it Take a listen

Everyone says great things about you The posture, the haircut, the tiny feet It's amazing they hold you up But they do

They do You can hear an edit at the beginning of that one too

Is he wearing, is the character Do you remember, was the character wearing sunglasses? I don't know if you're joking Because if I google Edward Norton the Simpsons I get this like There was two images come up One is like a guy in sunglasses One is a guy who looks like he's a sort of rival Clergyman to Reverend Lovejoy And I'm wondering if one of those Was the characters Edward Norton Was voicing, here's really where I want to take this

I think it's church, I think that you can hear The echo on his voice, I think that

So he's probably like kind of like Low-key dragging Reverend Lovejoy Maybe, that's what the picture makes it look Is happening, Reverend Lovejoy looks sort of Suspicious and diminished By whatever this Edward Norton character is But here is, when I didn't know that was Edward Norton When I didn't even know it was from The Simpsons, here's what went through my mind The way that character says hold, H-O-L-D, hoed you up, made me think whoever voice that's got to be from Pittsburgh because that is a yinzer way to say hoed. You know who else says that? John Moe freaking Clayton, your least favorite person on earth who is also a yinzer.

I was saying John Moe. I thought that was a combination of John Moe and John Clayton at the same time.

It was me for some reason deciding to not swear. I see. But John Clayton always says hoed like, oh, yeah, I'm going to try to really hoed the line on that. And I've associated that with being a very Pittsburgh, a very yinzer way to speak. You know, of course, famously the home of Heinz Ketcha. So now the question is, I guess we don't know for a fact. You're pretty sure that's Edward Norton.

I am quite, because the fact that in my head it sounded like Edward Norton and I had a vague memory. And then, yeah, you're talking about this episode Pulpit Friction, which is a good name for this episode, directed by Bill or written by Bill Odenkirk, BTW. Yeah, that I'm quite sure. Bob Odenkirk? Bill Odenkirk, that's his brother who was a writer on like Mr. Show and a whole bunch of stuff

Holy moly, who knew Bob Odenkirk is in this new movie by the way, Edward Norton from Boston so my Pittsburgh theory has now fallen apart completely

or he's doing a character though

Oh, I love it, maybe the backstory of that other clergy person is that they were from Pittsburgh, thank you Andrew for saving me, thank you for saving my theory there's that new movie where Bob Odenkirk, I think it's called

Nobody? It's a one word name Yeah, is it Nobody?

I think it's called Nobody, and he's sort of like, yeah, he's like a, you know, the last person you would expect has a background as a, you know, kick-ass secret agent type person, and then he's pushed too far, which typically would not be like a film plot that would appeal to me, but it being Bob Odenkirk is what sells me on it. Me too. Exactly. Did you – I heard this other kind of weird thing that Bob Odenkirk said one time, not weird but surprising thing, about basically when he was playing Saul on Breaking Bad, so like before Better Call Saul, right? And he was talking, I think, about how he basically – he was talking about Brian Crandall, a.k.a. Walter White. He was saying how he never – what's that? Cranston. Cranston. Famously from Pittsburgh, though, so I got that part right. how brian cranston would notice that bob odenkirk had no idea what was going on with the character or the other characters because bob odenkirk never bothered to watch breaking bad i didn't know that yes so he would be shooting a scene and it'd be like him and like i forget the name of the guy but the guy who was bubbles on the wire and um andre royko is that that care Is that the actor's name? The guy who ran the chicken shop. Oh, I don't know his name, but yeah, I know who you're talking about. Yeah. And anyway, like there'd be a scene where Saul is like talking to a pretty like regular character on the show and all the inflection. everything Everything Saul's doing is kind of slightly off. And Bryan Cranston would like take Bob Odenkirk aside and go like, well, that's because that guy did this thing to your character or to the other guy. Like, it's amazing because Bob Odenkirk is so good in it. And to think that a lot of the time he actually literally didn't understand the larger context for what was going on is wild to me.

I didn't realize that Andre Royo is also in the – is that it, Royo? Is he – he's in Breaking Bad. I didn't realize that.

Isn't he the guy – oh, is it a different guy? Oh, that's embarrassing.

Oh, you think that he is the guy that plays – he's definitely not – he's not Gus. I think his name is Gus. He's not Gus. I have always thought that he was Gus. Oh, I don't think so. No, you're probably – I'm sure you're right. Now I'm shooting from the hip, and I couldn't think of his name, but I'm pretty sure Gus – You mean you're shooting from the seat of your pants. My teeth are on fire. Giancarlo Esposito. And is it Gus? Is that his name? What's his – Yeah. Okay, yeah. Yeah, Gustavo. Gustavo, yeah. You know, it's so funny.

I had always thought because they don't look exactly the same, but basically to me, like Giancarlo Esposito looks like if Andre Royo just had aged by 10 or 15 years.

There's actually a photo of them posing next to each other. And I see what you're talking about.

So I always assume when I saw this other guy on Breaking Bad, I was like, oh, man, Andre Royo just got just he's older and he has a shorter haircut. And now he's this guy. And I was like, I was super stoked for him that he was like just crushing it on two different very beloved series.

This photo I found of them together is actually something that Andre Royo tweeted out in October of 2015. It's a selfie of the two of them. And it says the day Gus and Bubz met and people realized we were two different people.

Yeah, I guess I guess I should have known that. But, you know, better late than never. hello and welcome to top story uh this isn't uh a really interesting well i think it's a seems like kind of a potential game changer for how work gets done particularly like repetitive physical jobs get done uh in this country there is a company called california suit actually they're called suit x but they're based in california by the way this was a an article i read on the bbc by somebody named burned debusman jr writing about this company suit x and really this kind of like overall industry now of robotic exoskeletons or wearable robots that are being produced now you know at a pretty uh a pretty quick clip uh they're currently kind of prohibitively expensive but they think you know over time the price will go down just as more people are buying them but they're just basically these like these kind of like it's like imagine what sigourney weaver is in aliens but like less not so much machinery around her but like basically a wearable suit imagine like a knee brace if somebody's had like a pretty serious knee situation and they've got that kind of knee brace on that's kind of got a bunch of velcro um and kind of like fabric but then also like maybe a built-in like i don't know what you would be made out of fiber glass kind of thing going along the sides imagine just wearing that on your knees and the same thing on your arms and your hands and then this machinery this this machine just doing things for you so if you're going to be putting something up on a shelf or lifting things you can lift apparently like way way way more wearing one of these things than you would be just as a normal like regular person i guess and they just think it's going to like reduce on the job injuries i think it's going to help people um maybe well i don't know if we need to be more productive in this society like i think if anything the situation at these amazon fulfillment centers would indicate that we're sort of hitting a limit of human productivity i don't think the issue is that humans aren't being productive enough and in the workplace particularly the workplace that involves physical labor but i don't know i was just looking at pictures of this and just thinking like i mean like i keep mentioning the guy who's in charge of this suit x company says he really thinks they're going to sell these things at home depot like you're going to go in and let's say you're i don't know a roofer or whatever you do some kind of physical labor you're just going to buy one of these and wear them to work and you're going to basically be like a part person part

machine genovive's brother worked for a company up until recently that made these things and one of the biggest regrets of my life and i realize he potentially could hear this but uh i don't care one of the biggest regrets or i guess things i feel like i've missed out on in life is while he worked for that company i always thought one day he would show up on our doorstep completely hulked out in a robot exoskeleton i never got to see it well i mean what i was surprised by

just in this article and looking at a couple of videos was how kind of subtle the machinery is getting, you know, I mean, there would have been a time where it would be like, you know,

know you're like inside of a freaking like transformer or voltron or something where it's almost just like so cumbersome and silly but now i mean it's the stuff they were showing there's something called the iron glove the iron hand uh it's got sensors and motors in each finger it automatically responds the level of force that the wearer applies to his or her hand while lifting or gripping something um uh general motors is looking at this um because it basically like increases the wearer's hand strength by 20 percent for extended periods i also wonder this kind of seems to me like one of those things where it is in a rate there's a race between this kind of technology that would be wearable technology and then just developing more and more robotics and ai that will also themselves just do it like did you see that dominoes and i don't think this is a stunt at this point i think this is just now what's happening i just saw the headline it i didn't get to read all of the details but basically domino's is partnering with some kind of like not quite autonomous vehicle company but some robotics company that is literally going to start delivering pizzas using again not a car but like kind of one of those weird like boxy things that probably goes down the sidewalk oh okay yeah you know and i don't again i don't get the sense it's a stunt i get a sense that it's like they can kind of get away with it based on the laws currently and the fact that this isn't going to be a an autonomous vehicle that will be driving down the street which which of course creates a whole other series of of questions but like there is i mean the question is will we have will we be humans with our with our kind of robotic outfits working in factories sooner than just the robots will be working in

the factories right and what is like because you're right like in the context of the way people are thinking and maybe rethinking about labor in this country, or maybe where we've gotten with labor in this country. The idea of being like, you're not productive enough. Here, wear this exoskeleton that gives your hand 25% more, or was it 75% more strength or whatever? 20%,

which actually seemed low. I was like, can we get that to like, it's a friggin' robot hand. I mean, shouldn't it be like, able to they probably don't want it to be too powerful because if it goes amok, if it goes amok, then It's like that sounds like a Simpsons episode. Homer, they outfit Homer at the power plant with a robot suit, but it's set on too strong. And he's just like crushing cans of soup in the break room like accidentally.

Well, if this becomes a trend, I'm sure the Simpsons will tackle it in the next 40 years or so.

What will they call it to? They'll come up with the worst name for it. Something like Mapple. Apple.

Like, yes.

I'll never forgive them for that. The day the Simpsons gave up. Well, I mean, I just like actually said this like two or three weeks ago. So it's like get some new content, Burbs. But I've started referring to myself in the third person on Twitter now because Herbie Hancock does it, Andrew. So I guess it's cool. Is this true? Yeah. There was an official tweet from Herbie Hancock that said, please join me in wishing Herbie Hancock an 81st birthday. And I was like, yes, Herbie Hancock, Luke Burbank will do that.

Herbie's like niece is running his account, I think.

I guess, but it's like, it literally, it doesn't say like the Herbie Hancock Foundation or like, you know, like it says Herbie Hancock. So, you know, you might want to parenthetically say, hey, this is Herbie's niece. Can we, let's wish the big guy a happy 81st. But it's like from the account of Herbie Hancock with a photo of Herbie Hancock saying, please join me in wishing Herbie Hancock a happy birthday.

Right. Yeah, no, that is odd. So, yeah, no, you're going to go for it. You're going to lean into that yourself.

Oh, 100%. for probably a day or two until I delete those tweets. What I'll never delete, though, Andrew, is the adorable and still quasi-viral photo of you and Poppy the dog.

Yeah, I gave it an old retweet yesterday.

Still racing up the charts. WTF with Marc Maron has been awarded the Governor's Award by something called the Podcast Academy.

Sounds legit.

I mean, what I want to do is basically come at this from the standpoint that this is not a legitimate award and nobody cares about it, but that's only because we're not being nominated, honored, or even in any way referenced by this. Were they to be honoring TBTL, I'd be very in favor of something called the Podcast Academy.

The thing is, though, and this is the God's honest truth, like, yeah, if we were awarded this, you and I would talk about it or what have you, but the thing is applying for awards is a lot of work. There's no way either one of us, I mean, yeah, if somebody wants to walk up and just say, hey, you've done no work here applying for this award, you haven't paid any entrance fees, but here we're just going to bestow this upon you, we would take it. But, like, applying for awards costs money. It's a way for these organizations to raise money. And it's also just like, you know, you've got to submit things and find stuff, you know, submit your best five minutes or whatever. much work involved i don't want to do that there's it is it's a whole this gets a little complicated and by the way wtf is not an example of this for the record but this gets a little complicated because i'm so with you that like applying for awards for all my insecurity which is well documented on this show and all my need for approval for whatever reason like winning awards or applying for awards has never been the way that that played out for me i mean granted there's been a whole bit on the show about me just being tangentially related to a show that won an emmy and i'm looking at that statue that i brought down here so it clearly is not completely it's not not a thing for me but the reason i say it gets complicated is because i've also noticed that a lot of the people that i know that i see being really proud of having gotten awards are often people who come from backgrounds that traditionally were not valued in the kind of larger media landscape and so i have to kind of like just check my privilege on that and be like and the same thing goes for by the way i just got this job or i just got into this law school i just got into med school there's a whole kind of like there's a whole sort of genre of like self congratulatory that's actually sounds a little bit that sounds a little bit meaner than i want it to there's a whole kind of genre of like hey look at this thing that just happened to me like on twitter and it is very often in my experience people who are coming again from from from backgrounds that have been marginalized historically and so what i what while that's probably not a thing i would do i also have a shitload of privilege and i don't if somebody if somebody wants to say hey i got into med school and i can't believe it and then it's got 300 000 retweets i'm like good that's something that they felt like they really wanted to they were really proud of themselves and really excited about this accomplishment and what's the downside of that But as a person who, for whatever reason, isn't wired that way, I'm always kind of like, oh, OK, well, we're all applying for awards and getting into law school. And I'm over here trying to just like hope hope that I will be low key honored, but in a way that doesn't look like I ever tried or was even remotely thirsty.

Well, a few things there. And I'm afraid that I've you know, this is well tread territory for us and for me and for what I'm about to say. So I'll try to keep it so much short. But I mean, the one thing is, is part of me thinks, yeah, I don't have some of those same instincts that other people have where they want to share something going on in their life in a celebratory way. Right. Like I don't really do that much on Twitter or Instagram. And I will often say, well, it's kind of generational. It's kind of me being very shy. And like you said the other day, the guy, the kid who put his hands over his ears when people were singing happy birthday to him as a young kid, like there is something in me. And then I would say then after that little boy grew up to be a teenager, he grew up in a time when we were all kind of like rolling our eyes and doing the whole, you know, latter day Gen X thing, you know, where you're just like you don't try to. I always think of that Simpsons line while we're talking about the Simpsons, like, oh, that's just smacks of effort, dude. Like, we weren't ever supposed to, like, try for anything. But then also you add on top of it that, yeah, I say I don't do that stuff, but I'm constantly talking to you about it. Like, I don't think if I did not do this podcast with you. I don't think if I did not do this podcast with you. Anybody charting this sentence at home? Because it's not even done yet.

We're never getting an ambi at this rate.

Yeah, I feel like if I lived a life where I didn't talk about my personal life for two hours every day, I still don't think I would be the type of person to, for a very specific example, like I still don't think I would be the person who would take a vaccine selfie. But I really don't know. And I think it's somewhat negated by the fact that I can talk to you for two hours about what it was like to get my vaccine the other day, you know? So, I don't know. I'm definitely, I'm like, I'm with you. Like, it's not my style. to kind of trumpet my latest accomplishment or life mark or whatever it is. But I also have to acknowledge that I am sort of doing that every day.

Yeah, we're getting that, like we're letting the steam out of that thing or you know what I mean? As far as like, there's nothing about our lives that we suffer from not getting to talk about enough. So that's a certain amount of privilege. And again, it's just kind of like, I have to remind myself that like, if it's important to somebody to sort of let everyone know that something unexpected or exciting happened to them, even if it's not the way that I would express it in the world, it doesn't mean I got to kind of, I don't know, be somehow sour about it. It's like, who cares? What's the downside of somebody being excited that they got into med school? Right, exactly. Like, what's wrong with me? You know what? What I am sour about, Andrew, is that neither of us were nominated in the best host category of the ambies. By the way, I've got all of the Ambys here in front of me.

These are the different categories, podcast of the year, best documentary podcast, best interview podcast, comedy, news, sports, true crime, business podcast. Would you consider this a business podcast? I think so. We're in the business of podcasting. Do you consider your skin dry or itchy? What is that? That's an old. There was some drop from back in the day that was like that. I think as far as I can see here, probably the best. Oh, best society and culture podcast or entertainment. Would you consider any part of this entertaining? Let's see. I guess entertainment, yeah. Oh, you know what? I'm looking at it. My guess is entertainment podcast is about things that are entertaining, i.e. like about The Office. There's a podcast that two of the cast members from the actual TV show, The Office, do about having done The Office, and that's like in that category.

Yeah, okay.

Let's see. Society and Culture. Let's see. Okay. Society and Culture. We've got Code Switch from NPR. Ear Hustle from Radiotopia. Heavyweight. That's from Spotify and Gimlet That's Jonathan Yeah, Jonathan Goldstein One time TBTL guest, Latino USA Resistance You and me both With Hillary Clinton So Hillary Clinton Has been nominated in the best society in cold It might be the best of those podcasts I feel like Hillary should leave this space To the less talented and smart Of us in the world I mean to be honest with you She's got a lot of she's got a lot of medals up on the shelf can we leave podcasting to to the rest of us please

that's the thing like you know it's like wasn't nora up against michelle obama for a podcast oh was she iheart radio yeah those are the i hearties yeah right and then you have not to be confused

with the ed hardies which is a completely different can we win one of those an ed hardy sure are you how much trucker hat related stuff are you willing to wear a lot best podcast host Well, Dahlia Lithwick's nominated, which I think checks out, a podcast called Back Issue, Josh Gwynn and Tracy Clayton. Whitney Cummings, the comedian Whitney Cummings and podcast host, is nominated for something called Bunga Bunga from Wondery, which I believe is about Berlusconi. Oh, wow. I mean, I've got to give Whitney, who I've never met but I'm a fan of, I've got to give her huge credit. Because that's like, you know, she's carved out an extensive career as a comedian and actor and performer, but then just doing a deep dive on Berlusconi, the one-time PM of Italy. Is that what they call that position?

Yeah, I think so. I could be wrong. I think so. But, yeah, I like that, too. When you said her name, I'm like, oh, she must have one of those podcasts. In fact, some of my favorite podcasts are this format, but I just figured, oh, you know, it's her goofing around with her L.A. comedian friends loosely around a topic, you know. But, no, I like that. Right. I didn't know about that.

She also does one of those. Oh, okay. This is just in addition to that, I believe. Also nominated Mo Rocca for Mobituaries. Wendy Zuckerman for a show called Science Versus, which is on Gimlet. Patrick Radden Keefe, the podcast Wind of Change that I was very into. Asking the question Did the CIA secretly write the song Wind of Change That was popularized by the German band Scorpions Oh wow Would recommend Yeah I remember you telling me about that Very very good podcast And then Malcolm Gladwell is nominated It's good to see Malcolm Gladwell Finally getting some kind of respect Yeah In the media space I think we can all agree So yeah Another ambies Andrew And another shutout Well For old TBTL. We got our Ambien.

That's just absolute stupidity.

What the Ambien's will never understand is how many incredible, memorable, deeply personal and fascinating moments have happened in the history of TBTL. during the 3,400 episodes over the life of this show. And that's what we're trying to get to the bottom of, or the top of maybe, with the Drops of Stupider competition.

That's a good question. Are we going up or down? I feel like we're going down. I don't know.

So anyway, this is us counting down, yeah, through all the most memorable moments. And this is also, of course, kind of conceived and put together by a listener, Jake, the perfect daddy in Chicago.

You said it! I didn't think those words would ever I want to honor the work Jake's put in on this He's put in so much work on this And he's heard us praising him And all the work he put in on this So he said hey would you mind promoting my podcast

Don't praise the Jake scene

And I said of course I'm not going to promote your dumb podcast We're trying to get our own awards And he said please And he got down on his knees like in Miller's Crossing And he said please And I said fine we'll promote your podcast

Podcast, Jake. He said, look into your heart. And I said, okay, I'll promote your podcast. It's called Did You Watch Survivor Last Night? Jake says, we discuss various competition reality shows. We're currently finishing up the challenge, Double Agents, on MTV. And we're going to start an old season of Survivor, most likely season four. Marquesas from 2002. Is Survivor, is that a place, Marquesas? I assume so. Is Survivor based on location? Okay, anyway. So they're going to start that pretty soon. It's a silly podcast with literally tens of listeners, says Jake. So if this sounds up your alley, give Jake's podcast. It's been called Did You Watch Survivor Last Night? That sounds good. By the way, nominated for 12 ambies. Yes. Okay, so let's get into the matchup that Jake set up for us today. We're moving on to a different kind of category this time. We are moving on to recurring segments on the show. And things are going to get a little bit meta today because the number one seed, first of all, for recurring segments is Garbage Anxiety Stories versus the number eight seed, the Drops of Stupider segment. That's genius. Wow. I love it. Submitted by listeners. These were all submitted by listeners. So that's what we're working with today. So I'm going to start with a clip of last year's Drops of Stupider contest. Of course, originally, the first year we did this, we were just playing all of the audio drops that were submitted by TENS, or at least the nominations were submitted by TENS. And here was us, about a year ago, Luke, unveiling the best drops of all time.

Okay, so the final two drops were, I don't watch the news because I'm a kid, Noah Ritter.

I don't watch the news because I'm a kid.

And power out from our friend Linda in Australia. Power out. Okay, here we go. The greatest drop in the history of TBTL as voted by the tens of listeners is... Power out. congratulations listener linda i was pausing there because as i was about to activate it i realized this would have been a prime time to cat roll everyone and i was realizing my failure but then i was also thinking why do i want to make the listeners angry the week before we're going to ask them to support the show financially why would i do that Those were all thoughts that were going through my mind as that drum roll was playing. So there you go. Power Out is the greatest drop in the history of TBTL. I'm going to put you in a tight spot, my friend. How do you feel about that?

I feel great about that. So it wasn't really a tight spot after all. It was pretty clear that I felt very good about that.

I don't know why. Why did I choose Baker Street as the celebratory music? I wonder if that was some kind of in-joke or reference that I've already forgotten about. Also, I don't want to influence how the listeners vote on this, but you realize that if Drops of Stupider, if the reveal of Drops of Stupider becomes the most memorable, the most amazing moment in TBTL history, It will mean that the first two years of the Drops of Stupider competition have been effectively won by listener Linda. Oh, wow. You're right. First for Power Out and then for us awarding Power Out as being the most memorable moment in the history of the show. That's too much power.

That's a lot.

For one Australian.

Although it's weirdly a compelling argument because I wanted to dismiss that. I doubt that will make it out of this round. You never know. You're right. Like, also, just like, will TBTL just collapse on itself? Like, will we just be sucked into some weird void by, I mean, I just don't even know what happened.

It's too much concentration of power in one person. It feels like, yeah, it feels like a black hole. You need some checks and balances.

So, anyway, okay, so the second piece of tape is an example of me having garbage anxiety. Has this come up more than once on the show, though? That's what's weird. I don't know. This particular segment is from my most recent, and you'll hear some anger in my voice here. This is my most recent garbage anxiety when they skipped my house again. The garbage collector skipped my house and then lied and accused me of not having the bins out on time. I know that maybe missing garbage pickup once a week for me when it's been pretty regular.

um for the past year is not that big of a deal but like having gone through this and me having to say no listen here's a time stamp photo that i have to take every time because they're just gonna lie yeah and like that and and knowing that they just keep doing it over and over and i don't think it's the people who are on the front lines of dealing with customer service who are lying i think who is ever driving the garbage truck just like barrels down and there's probably some there's probably even some automated system that just says like if they didn't stop there it's marked as not being out there you know it's just like the lie is built into the system and like it sucks it just it makes me so angry it's not like oh hey we made a mistake sorry even hey listen we made a mistake but we can't fix it this week we'll take it off your bill or like yeah there it's just a lie and their whole system is just built on if we don't do our job we're just going to blame you unless you have literal proof of the other of the reality like it's just it's so frustrating i'm so angry that this is their system i was angry that day luke i like it god

that was a spicy take i love to hear the passion yeah yeah so that was actually from i was looking

for the day before that was from um just this past monday yeah from the last november three years things have been pretty good since november 25th when i recorded that so knock on wood pray for me

if you believe in that prayers up i'm really like still regretting not stealing your garbage can on monday but i don't know if i'd be here on tuesday if you had done that on monday but uh okay it would have possibly been the greatest moment in tv history as you were just like perplexed and angry uh because had i not dropped off that other thing and had you not realized i mean already too much conversation had happened i'd already ruined any chance of this being completely a mystery to you But you didn't even know if I was going to continue staying in Seattle on Sunday night Like I could have if I would have played it right I could have really messed with your brain

But I didn't The best moment in TBTL history is when Andrew went down to Portland And throttled Luke Like I would buzz you into the building But anyway I'm putting today's polls where you can vote on these On today's episode page at tbtl.net

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

All right. I am intrigued about this listener song.

Yeah, this is pretty exciting. So we got a note. I don't usually use last names, but since we're dealing with an artist here, I'm going to use his full name and hope that I pronounce it correctly. This is a note we got from Joey Capocha, if I'm pronouncing that right. I hope I am. His band name is called The Pine Hearts, by the way. That's what you need to remember, The Pine Hearts. And Joey says, I was just listening to episode 3395, and I heard Luke say this phrase, and I thought, hey, that'd make a good country song. And then Luke said, hey, that would make a good country song. The phrase was, the right way to remember the wrong kind of night. It was the name of the episode that day, too, by the way. So Joey says, I write country songs for a living, if you consider dozens of dollars a month a living. I do. So I thought, hey, I'll write the song. In Nashville, whoever contributes anything to a song is now a co-writer. So technically, this song is written by Luke and me. I hope you like it. I don't want to go out with this as outro music because I want you to listen to the whole thing and then we can talk about it. So here it is. This is Joey singing The Right Way to Remember the Wrong Kind of Night.

The right way to remember the wrong kind of night The wrong way to fall in love until the morning light Standing in the shadows after holding you tight The right way to remember the wrong kind of night You can tell me that it's over, but didn't really last that long I've gotten used to waking up and finding everything is gone Cause love's just a little moment, we both try to stay away Right or wrong, sometimes you take it just to watch it all decay The right way to remember the wrong kind of night The wrong way to fall in love until the morning light Standing in the shadows after holding you tight The right way to remember the wrong kind of night It's like sailing through the ocean Through water deep and wide

Weathering the wind and rain to find nothing on the other side Lost in your arms like the embrace of a storm And waking in the morning to find your sails have all been torn The right way to remember the wrong kind of night The wrong way to fall in love till the morning light Standing in the shadows Holding you tight The right way to remember The wrong kind of night

Wow! Right? That, like, started off as a joke and then just became a beautiful song. Like, a really beautiful song. I feel like the key is what the listener did, and his name is Joe. Joey. Joey. I mean, you know, we were laughing and saying the right way to remember the wrong kind of night. But then the next part that he adds to the chorus there about the falling in love before the morning light takes it from being a silly joke and a bit of wordplay to being like, oh, that's a story.

Yes.

Like, that is a story.

And I'm going to mess up the lyrics with the second verse or maybe is it the soul verse of it? The, you know, being wrapped in your arms like being in a storm and waking up and finding that your sails are all torn. Jesus. Wow. That's really good. This is so good. Like, I'll put this on a playlist. Is this the song of the summer?

I mean, the only downside of this is the inevitable legal battle between me and Joey. Yeah, I know. You know, for my rightful share of what will probably become one of the biggest country music songs of all time.

Is it going to be Burbank Capocha or Capocha Burbank? We don't know.

I'm fine with Capocha Burbank, but, I mean, you know, I just need to make sure that my interests are protected as the person who came up with that line. Again, right now we're in the kind of bliss phase because Joey has just written an incredible song and really elevated the concept, but not so much so that I'm not going to still need my cut of the proceeds. I honestly think he could probably submit that, you know, or however it works in Nashville, right? I don't know what the process is between when you write a song and when you sort of like try to get it into the hands or the voice of Carrie Underwood or some such but that song could be a

total hit I think so also you did contribute I believe a chorus of something about their bones being money I think I don't know it sounds like that didn't make the final cut but I mean you had some ideas too their bones are made of money and which one are you

talking to? You're talking to me or Joey because I couldn't tell because I love it when that like that's the part of that sketch by the way that's a reference to I think you should leave now where it's like where you know the feedback people are like really liking the kind of slick Elvis Presley guy and Tim Robinson's like which one are you talking to?

Yeah the ridiculous one who's ruining every time Joey thanks that's so amazing

thanks for putting the time in on that God that's beautiful

yeah I just love that so much

really good All right. Listener Rose asked that we go out with a toe-tapping happy number, and I had an idea. It's not super new, but I absolutely love the version of the song Get Happy that Jane Horrocks, the actor and performer, performs in the really great and I think somewhat underappreciated movie Little Voice.

Okay, I'm looking for this now.

I've got it right here. You want me just to play it from PDX, or do you want to play it up there in Seattle?

If I can get it here, it's called Get Happy, right?

It's called Get Happy. It's Jane Horrockson's off the soundtrack of the movie Little Voice.

Oh, you know what? All of the ones that are popping up for me are karaoke versions, so I have a feeling yours might be better.

All right. Let's do yours. I'm going to play this from here, and I'm going to just, you know, I defy the listeners to not feel at least a little bit more happy when you hear this song because it just absolutely, it always has me feeling at least a little bit better about what's going on in my life in this crazy world. So that's going to bring us to the end of today's show. Thanks for listening. The good news is we're going to be back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio for you. So please do join us for that. Until then, enjoy your Tuesday. Stay safe. Take care of yourselves. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

You

forget your troubles come on get happy you better chase all your cares away shout hallelujah come on get happy get ready for the judgment day come shining come on get happy the lord is waiting to take your hand shout hallelujah come on get happy we're going to the promised land We're headed across the river. Wash your sins away in the times. It's all so peaceful on the other side. Forget your troubles. Come on, get happy. You better chase all your cares away. Shout hallelujah. Come on, get happy. Get ready for the judgment day. Forget your troubles. Come on, get happy. Power out.