Muse

I'm going to play Jerry's Choice. Ooh, that's right. And I'm going to sing along. And I'm going to maintain eye contact the whole time. And guess what? I don't know the words. Harry Truman was the guy. America, Red, China, all the countries, other people. Everyone is fun. Joe Mantegna, E. McKellen, I have to buy a new toaster. This is awesome. You're so stupid. Jumping up and down.

Woo!

Oh, I got another repeat. Come on, Ron. You want to hear it again, or do you want to talk? No? Okay, next verse. Freddy Krueger bought some pants. Oprah has a turtle farm. Peter Piper, pee-pee-poopy. Daddy ate a squirrel. Stop it!

TBTL! You know how someone might describe a situation that's unpleasant or confining as being like a prison? This is what they're referring to.

I'm thinking about getting a new haircut. Changing stuff up. And maybe getting like an Arnie Schwarzenegger jingle all the way type of haircut. You know, short, tall, and stiff. Kind of like how I like my men.

And one more thing. You're not going to sue us, are you? Oh, no. Litigation is for the middle class.

They just think that they can just get in our Kool-Aid when they don't even know the flavor. Oh, that's a good one, Kayla.

All right, hello, good morning and welcome everyone to a Thursday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Peace and love, peace and love. My name is Luke Burbank, I am your host.

I'm a professional, look it up in the book.

Coming to you from the Nest Broadcast Center, high in the sky, above Portland, Oregon. We've got another absolutely beautiful day coming our way. In fact, this weekend, it might even get into the 80s.

It's going to be very hot. It's going to be very uncomfortable for everybody.

I'm going to wait for my blood. It takes a month or so to acclimate to really warm weather like the 80s. So that'll be an adventure this weekend. I paused there kind of awkwardly at the top of the show because as I was just sort of peering out, as I was gazing upon Portland, Oregon, the 503, where the show comes from these days, I looked out on that overpass over the freeway. It's a bridge. It's for bicycles and for pedestrians. It's named for Earl Blumenauer, who's a congressman who's been very focused here in Oregon on helping support cycling and making it so people can cycle safely from place to place. Anyway, like day one of me doing the show from here I was looking out on that overpass Which is actually yet to be completed It's in two sections It does not cover the freeway yet But anyway, today I just looked at it and I realized They definitely have stopped working on that Like there is no human beings anywhere near it I'm sure that was probably When the pandemic hit And they said, let's prioritize the things around here From a kind of infrastructure standpoint They said, well, you know we're gonna hit pause on that but it had not occurred to me for however long i've lived here now five months that there was absolutely no work being done i just realized that today that's why i paused i apologize it's not really interesting to you it's it's visual information that only i can see here on what is supposed to be in uh an audio-based medium but anyway if you've listened to the show for any length of time you know that that's just the kind of stuff that we like to talk about here things that you the listeners can't actually see and things that you don't care about we hope you care that we've arrived at episode 3402 in a collector series let the fun begin actually have a very good show in store for you today i promise a limited amount of conversation around infrastructure in portland going forward i got that out of my system and uh and now i'm ready to tell you about an amazing sports announcing call that i heard the other day if you thought this was the most exciting or excited sports call in tbtl history hey lloyd do some

delivery for the truck to the airport we have a new nominee uh in the pantheon of great moments

and announcing that we'll play for you. Also, is Game of Thrones going to re-film, re-write, re-film, and then re-broadcast their final season?

If only we were trapped in a castle in the middle of winter with nowhere to go.

They got everybody all excited with a tweet, the official Game of Thrones Twitter account yesterday. Put a tweet out that has everybody wondering what the heck they were talking about. So we'll look into that. also because it's a thursday aka a blurs day we'll do some

thursday messages and we'll do all that with this guy the longest running cobro of the show known for his drawings of the tall ships he is andrew boom boom walsh and apparently he was up bright and early this morning just getting his sweat on working on the madness that is his upper torso really i'm trying to build my beef castle he's joining us right now from the roosevelt neighborhood of seattle washington good morning my properly exercised and i don't mean like Worked up, although that's fine, too. Friend.

I'll turn it up a thousand notches if I have to. I ruined the joke. It's turn it down a thousand notches. Oh, yeah, brother. I am distracted. You might have accidentally heard a little bit of extra TV audio coming in in the background just a second ago when you said the Hey Lloyd thing, or right before you played your Hey Lloyd drop, because I actually thought I could be your information man regarding infrastructure, Luke. I'm Googling all over here, Earl Blumenauer, you know, bridge. It's a little bit of a difficult time to search those terms and figure out what's going on with the bridge because he's still a congressman and there's a big infrastructure plan in the works.

You know, the irony is it finally was infrastructure week.

Yeah, I know. Right. It finally happened. And we're finally talking about it on TVTL, just like everybody wants. But the latest news I can find on the actual bridge was from November, which I realize is quite some time ago now, and it's from kind of a Bike Portland blog. And they were saying that construction was still ongoing at that site. They visited the site. It was looking exciting to them. There's no mention of a pause in construction, and now I want to get to the bottom of this work stoppage.

Well, there's actually – it has its own website. The project does. And if you go to that project's website, it does not indicate that they've stopped working. But I'm telling you, if you're the supervisor or the foreperson who is in charge of this project, the Blumenauer Bridge overpass, and you are still cutting paychecks to people that are supposedly there working, they're not showing up.

Yes. And also—

There is no human activity on this overpass project.

If you're looking at the paperwork and it says that they're showing up for work and that they emptied my garbage bins this week. No, no, they did. Oh, no. No, no. Everything's fine. I shouldn't even joke. I should have stolen your garbage can. I shouldn't even joke about it.

I would have been doing you a favor.

No. If they had not picked up my garbage cans this week and you weren't finding out about it until Thursday, I had either get my head checked out or just trap me because I'm probably an alien in Andrew's body.

That's how we'll know. like in the movies you know how like in those i don't know yeah it's some kind of a sci-fi film when somebody's the the cylon version of themselves or the the whatever you know they're just somebody in a in a rubber mask that then they you know eventually that's pulled off and you realize hey that wasn't matt damon that was somebody pretending to be him anyway there's always that point where you as the viewer don't realize that what you're watching is not the real version of the person And then there's that moment where it is realized or it becomes apparent in the movie version of your life. It's when you were chill about your garbage service.

This is a really good test. If I'm ever acting strange and you have suspicions about whether or not it's really me inside this flesh castle of mine. Sure. Right. Yeah. Really?

I'm trying to build my beef castle.

Just say to me, hey, I heard. Oh, did you see in the news? They're not going to be picking up the garbage for two weeks. and there's no real plan for it. Just, you know, put it out on the curb when they start coming. And if I just say, okay. That doesn't look like anything to me. Yeah, if I just say, yeah, no problem. That's it, man. Get the little Ghostbuster thing, throw it on the floor, slide it towards me, step on the pedal, and suck me in.

What would that be for me? We should all have these. It's basically like a safe word, right? But it's like a version of that. Cacao. Right, right, right. It's like the thing that we know that if – we should all just have this established with all our friends and loved ones. Like, hey, if you ever have any concern, if other life forms have descended on this planet and they're doing something or if just a government project has run amok, what is the deal? What would that be for me, Andrew? I think the garbage test is a great one for you. I would just say, oh, hey, Andrew, I heard that they just – the new rule, it's like a budget thing, is the garbage people, the people that pick up the garbage, they just do it kind of like based on if they feel like it.

it it's not far from the truth and they just figure it'll be fine i mean it's not a big deal

yeah um and also they're launching a new program with a lot of signage asking people to throw their dog waste into any empty garbage cans on the street as a way of of trying to reduce the overall kind of dog waste situation so anyway here here i'm gonna try it on you hey luke did you oh my god

I don't know if you've been following this closely, but you hear about that weather pattern where for this summer, there's just going to be no sunshine at all. It's just going to be kind of like gray Pacific Northwest. Fascinating. Yeah. Get them, boys.

But then what happens is – I don't know. This is why I'm not in charge of writing sci-fi movies. My physical body – so this is now the version of this cinematic world that we're in. It's still me, right? My physical body, but it's been taken over by whatever malign forces. okay but it's still so they're controlling me but i'm still in here okay and when you say it's just going to continue to get dark at 4 30 p.m and it's going to be generally cloudy the corner of my eye starts twitching and a single tear comes out fighting through the override just a tiny little

wisp of like kind of a smoke or vapor just a tiny bit comes out of your left ear because somewhere

in there things are not um hey speaking of your beef castle this is i i'm i'm you know i'm i'm encouraged for both of us i actually got my you know morning together enough to get out and put a little jog in this morning which i've been very bad about the last like i don't know a week or so i just have been been slacking and so i felt very happy about that and then i was uh happy to hear that you also got up and went around green lake this morning yeah well we had a little on thursdays

We have a little bit of a later dial-up because I usually have a work meeting that gets out around 10. So you and I dial up at 10 instead of 9. But then that became voluntary today, and I decided not to volunteer. So instead, I'm like, well, I'll use this extra time to go around the lake.

Oh, like the garbage pickup in Seattle?

I thought it might be, yeah. So I thought, yeah, maybe it'll be good. Because I did that earlier this week. We had another late dial-up because you were in your car and not getting to your studio until 11 on Monday. And so that was good. I think it's better if I can, like, be a little bit more awake for the show and not wake up, you know. But I also don't have the discipline to wake up at, like, 6 to go on because it – yeah, maybe not 6. But in order to go on the walk before a 9 a.m. dial-up would be – it's just – I mean, I just stay up too late. I know I could probably change all of my habits, but I'm not going to. So, yeah, so a later dial-up gives me the opportunity to wake myself up a little bit. Although I was going to say I should be sharper. You know, I'm hearing myself in my headphones right now And I would think that I was hoping to be a little bit sharper I feel a little mumble-mouthed today I don't hear that

You know what, forget the garbage test The real test If they've gotten to you Is at the end of the show, I'll say How'd you feel about that show, Andrew? And if you say, good, nailed it

I really feel like I did a really good job

I'll press a button under my desk I'll do a silent alarm Genevieve's gonna come in with a huge butterfly net

throw it over you yeah right but anyway it is a beautiful morning i will say i mean the weather really helps too you know um i i really tried this was yester yester doodle i think i was no no i whatever earlier this week after going on the walk on monday i was like could i do it on a normal 9 a.m dial-up and i set my clock for pretty early in the morning so that i could you know get up take a walk get back here and prep for the show uh and be ready for a 9 a.m dial-up and my alarm went off at that time and I went to bed thinking I can do this I can do this but the alarm went off and it was still dark outside and I know this is again this is kind of your territory I'm playing in here this is your space to play in but yeah like I had no motivation to get up and go outside while it was dark to walk around the lake and so today was really kind of perfect timing beautiful day the sun woke me up also the cat woke me up that son of a gun is getting noisy again he is such a Theo I don't know if it's the weather or what it is But my cat has become a real pain in the ass again lately. And I'm glad that he's alive and still with us after that health scare. But man, you know, we have to wake up to give him a pill at 8 a.m. He is now coming into our room, getting in my face and just yelling at me in my face at 645 now, just waking me up. And then if I if I kind of kick him off the bed, then he just kind of circles the house yelling, Luke. I got him sleeping behind me here now. He's kind of calmed down a little bit. yesterday i swear to god 24 hours straight he just walked around the house yelling at us and it's not like a it's not a cute little meow it is a it is a almost barky yell and i think about how we evolve as humans like you think oh theo's probably sad right now he probably needs a little bit of love i should pick him up and that'll probably quiet him down but you don't want to pick him up when it sounds like he's yelling at you you know what i mean like because you don't want to reward that behavior yeah because i did he puts me in a bad mood which i know doesn't make

sense he's a cat oh i see so you're actually annoyed with him i thought it was just like you don't want to pick him up because then he'll think oh i get picked up when i do this thing that annoys you and i mean you don't want to reward

that behavior whether it's in animals or children um but you're saying you're just annoyed with him you're just like i'm not picking him up if he's being a jerk well i think a little bit of both

i do think a big mistake i've made with cats my entire life is that they understand that reward system better than they actually do and so even as theo was a middle-aged and older cat i think i would still sometimes be hesitant to give him a treat in the middle of the day or or yes somehow reward him for doing his bossy pushy behavior now i'm like the dude is i mean again i am very very happy that he survived his health scare and is here so that's always in the back of my head but like i also got to remember every day with him is kind of a bonus day so i don't think i should be teaching him about reward mechanisms right now i just don't think it's going to stick i think i'm going to give up the ghost on that but i was thinking about it you know i mentioned evolution because there is something about you know they say that's why babies are so cute somebody made a joke the other day somebody a friend of mine has a newborn and said yeah that's why they make them so cute otherwise they just annoy you to death and you'd throw them out the window it

wasn't probably that dark i wish i hadn't said that um but that's a real thing yeah i mean what i mean is there's a i think there's a lot of natural selection behind kind of how we why we look and are the way we are at different stages of life and i think the big eyes and the kind of you know the the all of the things about babies that make us feel this fierce natural need to protect them um and the reason why disney characters look in some ways like babies um there's a lot of kind of hardwired uh natural selection evolution uh behind them also the sound that babies make when babies cry obviously we don't like that sound which is also something that keeps them alive because then we do pick them up and are like you know give them some food or something

Right. And I think about our two cats. So our other cat, I can't even say her name. See, I have to go for another walk. Can you hold down the fort? I'm gonna go for another walk. And I'm gonna have all my shit together by the time I get back. Professor Bananas is her name.

We know you're not a robot today. Thank God.

Oh, that's cool. But she is a very timid cat. And the way she just presents herself is so much different than Theo. And she's getting more vocal in her middle age. But she still has this, like, she looks up at you in this way where she looks kind of meek and timid. And then she lets out these meows. Oh, if you don't feed me now, I just don't know if I'll have the energy to go on. Meow. And then you have Theo who's just like, meow, meow. Like he's just angry at you all the time. And like they're probably thinking exactly the same thing. It's just how it's coming out of their bodies, bodies, sorry. And somehow like one of them, you kind of want to protect and be like, oh, are you going to be okay, bananas? And then you're just like, Theo, I will punch you like a football.

But it's weird because you would think if we're going to go kind of with the natural selection model, you would think that all cats would just behave like the professor because it works so much better in your household. But of course, not all cats live in that environment. And we've domesticated cats. And probably if we go back 100,000 years and Theo is out on the, you know, Russian step or whatever, and professors out there, Theo might get more nutrition and mating and all the things you need by being kind of an asshole. yeah maybe i mean that might have served theo's ancestors somewhere and professor has evolved pretty quickly just to be a cute little like a cute little normal but that cute little normal probably would have been you know immediately eaten by uh some larger animal out there in the

early days of this whole thing i really do have a garfield normal kind of you know dynamic going on with my cats for sure and then who's od that's oh i well is that i guess rude dog they always say If you don't know who the Odie is within 15 minutes, you're the Odie. Yeah, no, it is definitely true. And Theo is just kind of this is why I'm glad that Theo can't actually speak English, because the way he talks in his cat language and the way he's like kind of a he's kind of a bully and pushy and walk like he's. Listen, Theo loves to snuggle. Right. And I like snuggling with Theo, frankly. But there are times when you're laying in the bed and he wants to come and snuggle with you. And that's one kind of body language or just one kind of language, frankly. And then there are other times when he is deliberately just trying to wake you up. You know this. He comes on the bed and he walks across you and then he walks across you again. And then he gets in your face and goes, right in your face. And you're like, here, do you want to snuggle? I'll snuggle with you. He's like, no, I'm trying to wake you up. And then if you're really trying to ignore him, he will do a move where he tries to walk on your pillow. I do not abide that. At all. There's no walking on the pillows. That's gross. Do you think.

He wants you to wake up because he associates the morning with getting fed. And also he likes his pill because his pill comes wrapped in something that he likes to eat.

Well, that and we feed him breakfast right after that, too. It's kind of got part and parcel. Yeah. Sorry, I didn't make that clear. But no, it's definitely a food thing. And then, well, now, geez, I'm just going on and on. I'm sorry. Anyway, last point here is we also we have given pills at different points throughout the day. We usually feed them at six o'clock. Well, now we give him a pill at four. and now he thinks that that is an appetizer and then the entire time between four and six he's just like yelling he's just like standing at the bottom of the stairs if you make any move towards the stairs he does this thing where he clambers up half of them and he looks back at you and he's like keeps on trying to trip you he keeps walking he'll run down between your legs trying to trip you and then run back to the stairs like saying like no you're going the wrong direction you're going the wrong direction two hours of that between four and six i guess we could just feed him at four but then you know we don't want to over feed him and we have him on a schedule especially the younger cat professor bananas we don't she's kind of chunky and not as old as him theo i feel like we just feed him 24 like who gives a shit right um we should just feed him all the time except then she'll eat his food anyway it gets complicated i really am trailing

welcome welcome to roof and bird i'm andrew i'll be your server uh we have a lovely appetizer of anti-seizure medication and then after that have you tried the capra have you been here before have you tried the capra like maybe you just need to maybe you need to fully lean into the fact that for the rest of theo's life you work in a restaurant theo's the only customer and just start to really own it and we have a couple specials tonight i'd love to tell you about

and you know and then you know just to you know again talk about how our brains react to things i feel like theo has two modes and that gives me two modes in relation to him right now luke he's sleeping behind me he couldn't be more goddamn cute right like i right now i would like i would i would throw my body in front of a bullet to save this cat right now you know

so i'm either yeah it's one or the other um speaking of we we're getting towards where it should be break time but speaking of ordering things in restaurants is it rude of me now that this is something that's starting to happen a little bit more in some places anyway although We're actually going in the other direction here in Multnomah County, so who knows? But, like, now that some of us are returning to being able to dine in restaurants more, I find myself kind of in this moment where, obviously, I don't eat meat or fish or anything, and the specials are always meat and fish related. Like, they just always are, or chicken or something. Like, it's just unless I'm at a vegetarian restaurant, the specials are never like the stuff that's not on the menu. It's never like a delicious, you know, vegetarian dish. It's always like we have a braised ox neck or something. Is it rude of me when the server says or just is it just a bad look when the service would you like to hear about our specials for me to say, no, thanks. I don't eat meat. Do they have meat in them? That feels like pushy to me, but also I feel like I'm wasting their time when the restaurant is busy or just just the fact that I'm making them say a bunch of things to me. This is often if I'm eating alone, like when I was traveling for those TV stories recently, I just feel like I don't want this person to waste their breath. But also I feel like, you know, it's kind of I don't know. It feels dismissive of me to say, no, thank you. I don't even want to hear what you have to say.

This is such a good topic. I really wish. I mean, I guess we don't get here without all the cat talk leading up to it. But, man, I wish we hadn't stalled out on the cat talk for so long. This is what I want to talk about today because this is a great question. Now, keep in mind, this is coming from someone who finds those moments where people are talking about the specials as some of the most awkward moments in life. I don't know why I dislike it, but I just really don't. Like I don't know what – I don't want to make too much eye contact that I want to make not enough eye contact.

And you know there's almost no chance that a thing that they're going to suggest is going to be like, oh, I was looking for that. Like, you know what I mean? So it's just – it's a weird sort of kabuki kind of theater of a thing where they have to say it and then you have to figure out how you're going to say no thank you politely, right? Is that part of why it kind of bugs you?

Although I would say maybe the older I get and maybe – and again, I know by any adult standards I do not have a wide palate. But as my palate does widen a tiny bit as I get older and a little bit less afraid of food, I would say that I actually in some restaurants am more likely to get a special than I used to be certainly. And then sometimes I'm actually kind of interested in knowing what they are. But I'd also be happy to read them. Like, can we put them on little pieces of paper?

I understand it's the daily special, so maybe you don't want to have those printing costs, which I understand. But I think it mostly has to do with kind of the culture of dining, and some people really enjoy that. And some businesses really enjoy having that interaction with the customers. I don't think that I speak on behalf of every diner here. But let's talk about it. So let's accept the fact that this is part of reality, and some restaurants like to do that, and some customers really love it. But I never thought of the fact that, yeah, as a vegetarian, you have a different kind of perspective on that. I think you can do it – I think when they say, would you like – let me tell you about the specials. If you – if it – if they leave any space at all, I feel like you can politely say, OK, great. I'm a vegetarian, you know, and then just like – and say, does anything fit that bill? Because you don't want to waste their time. The thing it might – it might cause a problem for them, though, because I feel like they memorize them. Like you ever notice if you ask them what was the second special again, they have to like kind of mentally go through the first special because they have it memorized in a way. In order. Yeah. Interesting.

Yeah, I mean that's – I have to say like that's the kind of thing. When I'm doing like a Microsoft gig, I'm just trying to remember two sentences. I can't do it. And they're – I've been hired for that job and they're paying me handsomely. Meanwhile, you got people that are waiting tables all over America who are remembering what the sprig of what is on the thing on the specials menu, which is a pretty amazing kind of an amazing bit of memorization. I will tell you this. I do not wish ill to Mother Earth, but I really hope menus come back when the pandemic is done. I do not like I get it sort of. I get the idea that it's like everybody went to those QR codes. The problem is my phone is constantly going to sleep. I'm scrolling around on the phone. It never fits the phone. The menu never fits on the phone. It's not formatted for the phone, so it's like you're having to kind of do a lot of moving it around. And then the other thing that it creates, I feel, is this dynamic amongst the people at the table that it's okay for us to all be on our phones now because we're looking up the menu and then the phones are kind of out. And, like, I am a fan of the printed menu, and I really hope that that is one of the things that returns when we can return to normalcy.

Yeah, I'm having a thought that I kind of don't want to share because it's going to make me sound like a grumpy guy. And it's also something that I've wasted your time with before, I believe, on multiple occasions. But I will admit that the look of somebody, whether they're by themselves, but especially if they're with other people, the look of somebody's nose being buried in their phone is just like something that I just don't like the vibe of it. Right. Like, yeah. And it's parodied or you definitely have people who complain outwardly. Oh, everybody's just on their phone these days. And I've said to you before, like, to go back to my old example, I love the idea, like, Vives and I used to go out to brunch together, just the two of us. We'd take the physical New York Times, divide it up, and just sit there and read and maybe talk about what we were reading in the paper. And to me, I love that vibe. Now we don't get a physical paper. We have the New York Times on our phones. Same exact content. Could be the same exact conversation. Hey, V, if what I'm reading here is interesting and relevant to your interests, you know, you can have that, but it just looks different from afar. And I would personally, not that I'm going around judging people all the time, but to the degree that we're just kind of taking in information all the time and making snap judgments probably without even noticing it. If I see a young couple sitting at a table at brunch with their phones out, it just gives me a different vibe than a couple sharing a newspaper, right? And so kind of the same thing with the menus like I hadn't I don't have a strong feeling on exactly what you said there Luke but it is interesting like the idea of walking into a nicer restaurant and seeing a bunch of people kind of looking at the menu and pointing things out or going into a restaurant and seeing a whole bunch of tables of people all looking at their phones even though they're looking at the menu they're doing the same exact thing.

it's a different vibe yeah you're that's such an interesting and if you the good news andrew is because of my selective amnesia you don't remember that example that i always i mean i don't remember it being no i actually don't and i think it's a very good uh i think it's a i think it's actually an interesting way to look at it or to think about it because you're absolutely right same same exact thing i have this nostalgia around two adults sitting at breakfast in a restaurant reading the paper as being somehow very like civilized like that's just what people do on a you know on a sunday morning or whatever and those same two people looking at their phones which could have the newspaper on it as you pointed out just seems like god is this what we've come to yeah live life young people you know like so i and so so yeah i can't account for it's just generational I think, you know, it's.

just um it and that's not really an excuse an excuse for it but but um but yeah that's just i hadn't thought of it that way but you're absolutely right that is and so yeah to the degree that also people looking at the menu to me that would feel like oh look at this we're all talking about what we're going to eat we're we're doing this meal right we're pointing at the things we're saying okay you want to share that with me would you like that all feels like part of the dining experience everyone's nose buried in their phone even when somebody's eating by themselves when sometimes andrew i will try to do this thing which is you want to talk about just the performative nature of my life like sometimes i will be if you know i'm dining alone like i said particularly if i'm on the road i will make a point to not look at my phone i will make a point to just kind of stare into the middle distance yeah because other people call that living i think um i'm somewhat unfamiliar with it but because all i really want to do if i'm sitting by myself at a restaurant with waiting for the food i just want to be scrolling my phone I just want to be like looking at the whatever bright, shiny thing is happening online that makes me not have to contemplate myself for five minutes. But I also think that's a really pathetic look. Like if I just see someone just staring into their phone at a restaurant. So I have to like do these things where I'll just be like, I'll put the phone away. Then I start to think, do the people in here think I'm insane?

Because you're just like eating and looking into the middle distance.

Or I don't even have the food yet. Oh, right, right, right. I'm just sitting there at an empty table by myself staring into the middle distance. Like just trying to be like, what would it be like to just sit here and to just not be distracting myself with my phone to just what would it be like to just be in space right now waiting for the food to come? But then at some point I start to think I look weird doing that. So then inevitably the phone comes back.

Apologies for coughing directly into the mic before you usually have that muted. But I do that all the time, Luke. And I don't I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. And I'm not doing it because I'm saying, like, look, I'm better than you. I can stand here without looking at my phone. it's also a little bit of a maybe kind of a discipline thing for me sometimes it also gives me a freeing feeling because I used to do that all the time before I had a phone in my pocket and there are a few kind of casual lunch routines I have they're not like necessarily like every Wednesday I go to get teriyaki at teriyaki madness but it kind of works out that about once a week I go to my favorite teriyaki place I have to drive to it and I'll get the same takeout and I don't call in advance to order it. I could, it would save me some time, but I go, I place my order, and I think it usually takes, you know, probably about 10 minutes total. So, you know, in 10 minutes, it's kind of a long time just to stare, but I actually often will leave my phone purposely in my car so that I don't just like kind of slip into, and you know me, Luke, I'm not anti-technology. In fact, you and I used to get into kind of conversations a lot. Heated. He did. I call them conversations. You called them wrestling matches. But, you know, and I think when you were first dating Carrie, I think she had a different approach to technology than both you and I.

I would say aspirationally, but yes. What's that? What do you mean? I would say aspirationally. I would say she definitely is very anti-technology in those ways that I tend to embrace it. But she also embraces it. In other words, I say aspirationally because, like, I aspire to be less technologically kind of connected, and yet I am, and yet I admit it. I think she was as connected as I was. Point being that the way she talks about it is very, like, eh.

Yeah, and even if it's aspirational for her as well, she has bigger concerns about technology and society that I didn't necessarily share. I really would always take the side of, yeah, but we're human beings. we can still control the technology like don't blame the technology it's a human being problem not a tech exactly and that's where i'd always come from so i'm not trying to say that like and i want to make this very clear i'm not like going into teriyaki madness by the way luke if you ever tell me that they're not picking up the garbage and i'm cool with it i might have teriyaki madness and you need to get me to a hospital asap okay have you ever found that hostage Where the teriyaki is For those who haven't heard me mention this so many times Not only is teriyaki madness a funny name And by the way I believe there are several different chains This is a local I think Family run mini chain in Seattle

By the way you're 100% getting teriyaki for lunch now You know that I would except The die has been cast

I had it two days ago actually But anyway

That way lies teriyaki madness We definitely made that show title

The sign for teriyaki madness for those who don't know is also like for some reason madness is spelled with a bunch of letters as if they're cut out of different magazines like a ransom note it just doesn't make why is it madness and why is it a ransom note um but I do like that place. And again, I actually really like supporting that place. All of that is to say, I'm not trying to make a huge statement about leaving my phone in the car. And I don't think that anybody in the restaurant is noticing other people who are waiting. Some of them are on their phone. Some of them are in there with co-workers. You can tell they're off a construction site and they're talking to each other while they're waiting for their food. And I'm usually just kind of staring out the window into the parking lot and just thinking about things. And I don't think it's ostentatious. I think that it's just it. For me, I just like kind of to take those moments and I do have to think about it. But, you know, I don't know.

Well, I think there's a critical. Well, maybe it's not a critical difference. But what you're describing is something I would totally do and I wouldn't feel weird about, which is you're looking out a window at people in the world living their lives. I'm talking about you're sitting at a table In a restaurant, inside a restaurant In the interior of the restaurant Just looking across the restaurant At a wall

I see, and you're waiting for your food to come And you're going to eat the food at the table Yes Okay, that's interesting In that case, I'm probably reading something It might be my Kindle It might be a newspaper It might be my phone But that's one of my favorite things in the world To have lunch by myself or dinner by myself At a table and just read

Because I definitely think staring out the window, I mean, that's what I'm doing right now, observing this, for some reason, abandoned cycling bridge project. I love staring out the window. Like, I love nothing more than a good stare. Just as long as there's something going on. As long as there's just cars driving the wrong way up Burnside, which I see about 10 times per show. I've stopped documenting it for the listeners because see previous comments. It's a visual thing that they can't enjoy with me. But yeah, I love a good stare But I feel like it needs to be at something Like out a window As opposed to just into the middle of the dining room Sure, yeah, I feel that Okay, let us take a quick break Because we do have some top stories we've got to get through And of course some Blurs days Andrew's favorite segment of the week So stick around That's all going to happen in just a moment Here on old TBTL

On your mark Get set Now ready Ready, go! Everybody rattle, dazzle.

All right, let's thank some dazzling donors. These generous folks are keeping the show going day after day after day. All 3,402 episodes. We're talking about, of course, Corey Plucker of East Hampton, Massachusetts. Corey says, thank you for almost 10 years of audio companionship. I'm grateful to be able to donate, and always happy I did. Would you please say hi to my four-year-old daughter, Rhiannon? Well, hi, Rhiannon. Hello. How's it going? She never misses an opportunity to sing the TBTL opening theme. Nice. And she unknowingly speaks in TBTL Drops because I can't stop doing it. Recently, I was helping her remember bathroom etiquette by saying, Life's a potty. Wipe your body. And it's working. Okay, now that's... Marcel, right?

That's Marcel.

Yeah, but... Right, but that's a great... It sounds like a great mod, as they would say. A great modification by Corey. Yes, can we just... Because I believe the original is Life's a Party, Rock Your Body. Yeah, I think I got that in there. She had a favorite saying. That's Jenny Slate.

Life's a Party, Rock Your Body.

There you go. Love it. Life's a... But they've now adapted it in Corey's home to Life's a Potty. I love it. Wipe Your Body, which is great.

If you say body, that could be a combination of both, which would also be exciting.

Can we get, can we get, Corey, you know, you're already donating to the show for now many years, and you're doing an incredible job of supporting the program, but can we add one more little ask, which is, could we try to get a recording of Rhiannon singing the TBTL opening theme? Ooh, yeah.

Or just, yeah, that sting at the beginning.

Or just her saying, life's a potty, wipe your body. Yeah.

And of course, we're going to need release forms in all of this, too.

I promise you Rhiannon saying life's a potty wipe your body will make it into the show I feel confident feel very confident about that so Corey thank you so much we really do appreciate you and Rhiannon and and all the support over the years we look forward to Rhiannon being a donor in 40 years can you imagine 44 year old Rhiannon so Rhiannon is now the in this future she's the age that you and I are now and for about 20 of those years the robot versions of us have just been hosting The aliens came down, they Cylon'd us And then they got bored And then they were like, yeah, it was a lot of work To create these Cylon versions Of Luke and Andrew, and then they just went back to their home planet And we've just been here hosting the show for 20 more years, and Rhiannon Is donating, and Rhiannon Has finally mastered the concept of life being A potty

and she is successfully wiping her body. Good stuff. Maestro?

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

Go.

I was just thinking there's a difference between a four-year-old saying wipe your body and a 44-year-old saying wipe your body.

I think we all were, Andrew, and had I gamed that out in this future casting I was doing, I would have probably Swerved somewhere but I didn't

I just want to let you know There's a lot of pressure hosting this show by the way I wasn't purposely trying to leave you hanging there Is my point I realized in the moment I'm not good at a lot of things But I feel like I'm at least good At when you throw me something I can do something with it I will throw my Body on the conversational Grenade if need be And in that case, I just let you down and I wanted to acknowledge it.

No, there's a certain kind of there is a certain, you know, neighborhood of conversation that if it has to do with bodily functions in adults, that's when or, you know, you know, adult, any kind of adult behaviors. If it gets into that neighborhood, that's where I'm just going to have to climb that mountain and throw the ring into it. Right. You are not going to be able to Samwise me up that mountain. I understand that.

But just remember, but nobody asked you to throw. That's the difference. Nobody asked you to throw these rings. You're making these rings.

Andrew, this quest chose me. Okay. I didn't ask to have to be the person speculating on if the listeners who are currently age four will be donating when they're 44 and what their wiping policy will be. I didn't ask for that burden. Okay, Andrew. But I accept it, and I am going to do my absolute damnedest to complete the mission. Hey, you know who else we've got to thank? Wait, speaking of longtime friends of the program, Christy Wise, C-Wise, in Seattle, Washington, our dear friend, our actual real and personal friend, and just an incredibly kind person, just the absolute best. Hey, Christy, thanks for sticking with us. a thousand years later um that's my brain stopping from making a joke about christy's relationship with the you're gonna double down jenny slate i didn't i stopped i stopped myself because i don't have to host the rest of the show by myself and i know that

would officially have chased you off for good maybe christy says with you uh christy does

christy knows all about podcasting in fact uh she said hey uh could you mention uh this show has everything that is the podcast that i know christy over the years has been associated with she says fun segments include the book club mom's on the pod lady scientists the question of the week and much much more so do go check out this show has everything it is a podcast created by i you know tbtl listeners some former some current um and uh and it's got all kinds of cool stuff on there i'm glad to hear there's a book club because i have been thinking andrew people loved it when we had a book club yeah and that's kind of fallen by the wayside because that was a gen project um but um uh you know but people really enjoyed that so i'm glad there's somewhere else that's tbtl community adjacent where people can go for that so go uh check out the this show has everything and also there's one other thing christy would like us to make sure to mention she She said, could you freestyle a message that includes voting early and often for the Pokemon show and the Drops of Stupider contest? So just to explain, Christy is also the Christy who we called live on air when a Pokemon showed up, Andrew, in your house.

It's a Charmander, and it was freaking you out, man. There was panic in your voice. It was on the desk.

I had also taken a lot of drugs. It was real. It was a real moment. It turns out a bad idea before you're going to start actually seeing things. You don't know if it's the drugs or the Pokemon Go.

When the gabagool kicks in, as somebody said to me, a meme of that the other day.

That gabagool will be hitting different.

I want to mention something here regarding the Drops of Stupider. I was thinking of Christy the other day because, I mean, she's just – she continues to save our bacon, Luke. This Drops of Stupider, you know, game that we're playing and Jake in Chicago has been producing it for us, it's a big part of it is tracking down little bits of tape, you know. And I told you that we have this issue of you and I writing one or two kind of vague sentences to describe the show when we've talked for 90 minutes about all kinds of things. And Christie started an archiving project years. years ago and recruited a whole bunch of other listeners to help her with it where they created this immense immense spreadsheet luke that lists like it goes in and like kind of bullet points everything that happens in a show in a particular episode going back to the radio days all three hours and so it'll say you know this particular date this is the show number these are the people who appear on the show luke jen sean guests whatever there's like a category for everything And then the main description has like a detailed, you know, quick little bullet points of every little beat that happens in a show. And that thing has helped me track down so much tape for this. So she is definitely a co-producer of that. And it's just a reminder of how much she has given to this show over the years, not just as a dazzling donor, which she has been for a long time, but just in so many ways that I cannot enumerate here. So thank you, Christy. Absolutely. You are literally the best.

Yes, Christy. We heart you. Long time. Thank you.

Hello and welcome to Top Story.

The Game of Thrones official Twitter account yesterday tweeted out, Winter is coming. And it set a certain corner of the internet afire with speculation that maybe what they were saying when they said winter is coming was that they were going to be re-filming the entire final season because people didn't like the final season, which I had a few thoughts and even questions about, Andrew. My first thought was, oh, maybe we can talk about this on TBTL. And then I thought, how did I even feel about the final season? Did we even like the final season? Were we part of that? Because, of course, we would do a Game of Thrones podcast itself, A Song of Ice and Spoilers Although A Song of Oys and Spoilers Be kind of cool too Oys A Song of Ice and Spoilers I was like thinking I don't even remember I don't remember like hating Like overly loving or overly hating the final season How did we feel about the final season?

I can't tell you how you felt about it I have a pretty strong feeling that you did not like it either

Christy Wise is keeping track of that He's the only person who knows how I felt about the final season

I mean I know how this sounds out of context But, like, you know, you were not attracted especially to the dragony side of the stories. You were much more into the human drama. I was much more into the palace intrigue than anything else. And so the show just got more, you know, kind of magical and dragony. And I got really just hung up on the, and I know this sounds silly for a show that is so based in fantasy, but I got really hung up on the verisimilitude and the pacing. And it just seemed like a rush job. Like, I was – I did not get caught up in the whole Lost thing. I think I watched the first two seasons and then just petered out, so I didn't have strong feelings. You mean you actually – you're talking about that television show Lost. Exactly.

You managed to get off of the train or off of the island, if you will, before it got into those kind of lost final season, as it were.

Yeah, and I know a lot of people who stuck with it felt burned because they thought they were really investing a lot of their time and kind of emotion into the show that really let them down. And, you know, I don't feel like any show owes me anything necessarily, but I was, as somebody who read, yeah, I read all the books and not, I mean, I shouldn't say that because then you're going to ask me about something that happens in the books and I'll be like, I don't know, Ted Stark of Somerdale. But, you know, I did have a bit of that feeling of like, wow, this was such a rich, richly textured universe that I was immersed in for years and years and years. And it really fell flat at the end. So anyway, tell me about this story, though, Luke, because I haven't read this yet and I'm very intrigued. Is it the same showrunners?

I mean, that's the thing, though. There's not very much to the story as of yet At least as of my last checking On what was being written out there I thought, oh, okay, well maybe they've disavowed it Or maybe they've clarified This is Hannah Frischberg writing in the New York Post The New York Post, like, generates a lot of stories Or points out a lot of stories that are kind of good for us You know, good topics for TBTL Because they're kind of not meaningful topics Which is usually the space we play in But then you forget it's also, you know It's a Rupert Murdoch property. And then you should be like, really? That's what we're going to say about the protests? It's kind of a minefield with the old New York Post. But anyway, they were writing about this tweet, and they said, Game of Thrones fans have new hope that the beloved series is remaking its much maligned ending, thanks to a cryptic tweet by the HBO show's official Twitter. Winter is coming, they announced, to its 8 million Twitter followers. By Thursday morning, the post had racked up nearly 170,000 likes and plenty of excitement. Now, here's the thing.

.

There's – HBO does not appear to have – the Game of Thrones account does not appear to have clarified this. Everyone's going, oh, that means you're going to – like people are just tweeting at them constantly. Like you need to really redo that season or fix that ending or – but I think it sounds – I mean incredibly unlikely that they're going to go back. I mean the – what would you call it? Like the filmmaking involved, the going to like wherever they were in like Eastern Europe, the shooting – and Scotland I think. The shooting of that show, the creation of it, the editing, all of it, it's a massive undertaking. It's like making like eight Lord of the Rings films. They're not going to go redo that. My guess would be that they're just either about to release the thing on DVD or that maybe there's going to be some – Arya is going to have her own show or something.

Yeah. My guess would be out of everything you just said and that I'm seeing here is that it seems much more likely that there's some other Game of Thrones related property. Right. Although, you know, I see some references here to the Zack Snyder cut of Justice League. Right. You know, I don't let me again before I dip my toes in these waters where my toes really do not belong because they're my don't go dip in water toes. is that a show my toes do not belong in these waters um don't go tip in water dip in water okay actually write that down because i'm gonna need something after the show um i know so little about that justice league universe so i don't want to make it sound like i know what i'm talking about here but it does seem like we live in an era where you have these massive fan bases these incredibly dedicated and loyal fan bases um but also fan bases that get to a point where they feel they are owed something and when something lets them down then we want a remake or a redo in some way they feel and you know and sometimes sometimes it just manifests in you're leaving the theater and saying i really wanted that to be better i felt that way about several of the Star Wars movies. And people are allowed to have opinions. I don't particularly love the idea of fans forcing the hands of creators to redo things. It doesn't seem like a great precedent. And as somebody who really loved Game of Thrones, and for a good reason, like the first few seasons of that show, were amazing. I mean, they were so good. There's a reason why we all fell into it, into its clutches. I don't I don't want them to remake season eight it's part of history we all watched it together we all talked about it to death you know and it is what it is and if they want to make a spinoff or I mean this could also be like this could literally be a video game you know like they just got everybody buzzing about a tweet that just says winter is coming like it could be a new gummy bear where everybody's in the shape of the Game of Thrones characters you know what I mean like who knows but guess what we've got

we've got the Funko Pops

yes exactly Westeros edition exactly right right so anyway so I hope I would just say that they're not going to try to fix season 8 like it is what it is season 8 is out there let's not try to rewrite history but hey if there's also some really creative people who were maybe more involved in the beginning of the series who want to make a new project that's really good again I'd watch it I'd watch an Aria

a spinoff if it was good i mean they'd be crazy to not do something like that because there's just so much money to be made right i mean you have the one we were talking about yesterday that 99 invisible um episode that was about the rise of the of the megaplex and and and ultimately how the the sort of forces around the economics of filmmaking have made it so there's just it's just not largely speaking it's not worth the risk to try to create a movie that's about something that people have no preconceived ideas around in other words when you have an existing property that's i mean that's why you can make a movie about emojis but you can't it'd be unlikely that you could write a totally original script uh that's an original new universe that's getting Created that's going to be in theaters Also will there be movie theaters Again we there are many questions Out there but anyway I get my second

Shot man one of the first I'm going to Make sure that I'm signed up for the gym and I'm going to See a GD movie I guess Are those are movie theaters open again I think some are yeah I believe in that yeah and Certainly yeah I'm trying to give public Health advice so much yeah

Double vaxxed and wearing a mask in a movie Theater that's presumably being run you know in a Kind of a socially safe way yeah You know, I'd be down for that. But anyway, all I was going to say is they have a thing. You know, whoever owns the rights to this stuff, whether it's George R.R. Martin or now somebody who acquired them.

i don't know hbo whoever has the rights to it like they put an aria show up it's it'll be like the number one show on hbo like the fact that you just have a thing that you know is going to be the most pop i mean presuming you do an okay job with it it'll be the most popular thing that's on hbo and it'll be a huge everyone will be talking about it you know um so i i just i'm sure that something else will come out i i think maybe that we're just funning on the internet because that's what people like to do talk you know people like i mean we're all interested in getting the clicks and getting people to to smash that rt button but like there's no way the people that are on there being like oh good they're going to redo season eight like the people who have fairly influential twitter accounts there's no way they think literally that's what this is an announcement of because not only would it be it would be dumb because it would cost a lot of money it would be an admission that the season wasn't as great as people yeah hoped it would be right um you know so it's like the idea that anybody thinks that that that's how any of this works like oh good they finally got the memo that it wasn't good and they're going to redo it it's like i'd be shocked if that was what they're talking about again it's probably like you said gummy bear related or fruit all right um let me play this for you uh let me play this for you really quick this is uh quite an amazing piece of sports audio tape uh and i've purposely not told you what sport it's from andrew but this was the um this was the u.s open okay so the national kind of championship if you will the national tournament of a sport that was happening recently and um well i'll just start off playing a little bit of it for you you know i think there's so

many processes to becoming a champion on this tour and especially winning a major and uh i'll

get to those processes right after okay what do you think what sport do you think it is i think golf i mean i guess golf or tennis it is in fact you're close you're in the neighborhood of well no not tennis tennis is very far away okay golf is close tennis is way off it's bowling oh okay

it sounded outside that's interesting okay gotcha it's bowling okay pga no no no pba pba okay um

But what's about to happen is a guy named Anthony, I think it's Nauer, he's 18 years old, so he's very young, but his father's a kind of, I guess, pretty legendary pro bowler, and he has inherited those abilities, and he is competing in the U.S. Open of the PBA Tour, but he is about to get the dreaded 7-10 split, Andrew. Also known as the goalposts. Also known as, I don't know what the other one is. The Devil's Teeth. Also known as the Devil's Teeth. Maybe that's a show title. The Devil's Teeth. The bedposts or the goalposts is what they call this. Between 2005 and 2010, the PBA, ESPN, the magazine wrote that it was the most difficult spare to pick up in bowling. And during, between 2005 and 2010, there was a 0% pickup rate on the dreaded devil's teeth, Andrew. Wow. During televised games for the PBA. So, like, during one of these televised matches or games, whatever they call it, no one has picked up a 7-10 share.

Again, you can see that ball breaking loose early. 7-10. Come on, man. Again, the look back. That's what I mean. I don't know why that rewrite.

I will mention too I'm on the edge of my seat Andrew Nauer Anthony Nauer excuse me he's got fiery red hair and he's got it shaved into or cut into a mullet

okay

which is the fashion for some of the young people these days and you know it's lost on me but that's but that's because I'm an old he's also wearing like a kind of a like a very flowy shirt that's got American flags and all kinds of madness on it. People like a lot of visual noise these days when they're putting their fashion together. Anyway, so he is now going to see if he can pick up the 7-10 split.

Right through the face, leaving the 7-10. The 7-10 only been made on television three times in the history of professional bowling on TV.

Here we go.

Come on, kid, do it.

He did it!

He did it! He got the 7-10, Randy! He did it! my goodness the ginger assassin just dropped the 710 you bet kid you bet oh man give me some oxygen and water to spare the game brought to you by guaranteed rate if you believe it you can do it guaranteed rate believe you will i believe the ginger assassin

Can drop the 7 10 Oh man

There you go Rob Stone

That is great the ginger assassin I love everything about that I want to open a bar Just so that I can have bowling on at all times I never watched bowling It was on all the time when I was a kid

I know it always made me feel sad when it was on TV

Oh really my mom was really into bowling So we always had it on

Well it made me well a couple things That's Rob Stone with the call Which also just sounds like an announcer name I assume that Anthony Naur is okay with being called the Ginger Assassin I assume that that's something that he has embraced Because you never know when people have red hair They may or may not love being referred to by that

I think he likes it

I'm guessing that it's part of his vibe And I'm guessing that's why Rob Stone felt comfortable screaming that out The reason that watching that bowling made me feel sad when I was a kid was because on the weekends. So like the hierarchy of sports that I would want to watch if I, you know, if like I was maybe because we didn't have a TV a lot of the time. But if I was at my Peter Williams's house, of course, for me, like the top would probably be an NBA basketball game starring Michael Jordan. That just felt important and cool. And like I was interested in then there'd be or like football, any NFL game I would watch. any major college game I would watch but sometimes when there was none of what I considered or baseball I would watch that too whenever there was none of the major sports going what I consider the major sports sometimes on a Saturday you'd turn it on hoping it'd be like some March Madness stuff and it would be bowling and I would just feel like this kind of weird now we can maybe call it the Sunday scaries I would just feel this weird ennui that I couldn't quite put my finger out of sadness that all that was on was bowling at two on a Saturday

I can imagine that. Yeah, I didn't have that experience because I didn't watch sports really at all. So I didn't care. And to me, it was just like the kind of the background noise of a Saturday. And it kind of gives me a comforting feeling to kind of have that. Again, because they kind of often, at least back then, it was a lot of hushed voices. Like it was golf, only it was bowling. So it was like the hushed voices followed by the clattering of pins.

I mean, there is something very soothing about it. Not unlike, well, golf kind of feels the same way. Sometimes, like maybe once a year on a Sunday afternoon, if I'm on the couch and I'm kind of in and out of possibly napping, I will want to put golf on because golf is the exact. We were just talking about sand cutting the other day. Golf to me has the perfect amount of talking versus just quiet noise versus, like, the sound of airplanes flying overhead because there's a golf tournament, but somebody's pulling a Cessna. Somebody's got a Cessna that's pulling a banner for, like, you know, some kind of, you know, investment company over the golf tournament. So you kind of hear that plane noise in the background, but it's all quiet and whispery. That'll knock me out quicker than anything.

By the way, Nick Green of Slate Magazine got to interview Anthony Neuer after this, And the question is Rob Stone's nickname for you The Ginger Assassin Do you think it's going to stick Or should I say do you want it to stick And the response is I'm not opposed to it It's kind of catchy I think it's definitely going to stick All right Not opposed to it sounds like a solid medium Yeah, yeah

I love it would be Love it, yeah We have, again, I know we've got many listeners You know what's remarkable that I don't have Fiery red hair, Andrew? It's remarkable that you don't have it? Well, just genetically So my biological father had it. His granddad was called Red. And my biological half-brother, who I connected with as of a few years ago, he looks like Andy Dalton, the quarterback. I mean, he's a dead ringer for Andy Dalton. Wow. So I am somehow, yeah, I could have had a whole different look about me. And I, you know, I'm I think I don't think I think as of right now, we still can we give people nicknames based on hair color? Like, where does that fall on the spectrum of things that we that that we kind of have reconsidered saying? I mean, it's not it's not race. Right. It's not based on race and it's not really based on ethnicity. It's just based on hair color. Right. So if you called like we were calling Sammy Hagar the Red Rocker, although I think of Sammy Hagar's hair as being more blonde. But for some reason he's called – maybe the red isn't a reference to his hair. Maybe it's a guitar he played or something.

Oh, I don't know. I think he's got reddish hair. I don't know. People say that – like, Genevieve – now I'm confused what Genevieve and I used to argue about. Did she say I did have red hair or didn't have red hair? Like, growing up, I had very red hair, and it would get lighter in the summertime. But in the winter, my hair was much more red, and it's just kind of become more brown as time goes on. Interesting.

You have the soul of a redhead, Luke.

Thank you.

That's just absolute stupidity.

God, speaking of absolute sports thrill rides, Andrew, if it were a Saturday and you turned on the TBTL Drops of Stupid or the Deuce Contest, you would not have that feeling of sadness that I used to have watching bowling. You'd be like, oh, my God, are they really counting down to the most memorable moment in TBTL history? We certainly are, Luke.

We certainly are, Luke. Yes, indeedy. Okay, I need to be a little bit brief on this today Because we don't have tons of time left And the blurs days are kind of long So everybody knows the setup here I think we are going through a bunch Of listener submitted moments Of TBTL Today's matchup puts Cooking with Sean Against the TBTL players So both of these were recurring segments Way back in the day In the radio days And two real fan faves This is a number three seed cooking with Sean versus the number six TVTL players. So I picked two of what I think of as the most iconic examples of each of these for cooking with Sean. I went to the famous prezine episode where you guys were frying fish in the studio. You will hear I wanted the best parts of this. So excuse the timeline here. As you listen, you'll kind of hear some somewhat clunky edits and you'll sort of hear some chopping going right into frying. Just ignore all of that and enjoy it for what it is, you ingrates. No, just joking. I know. Gee. What the hell happened there?

No, we're going, you know, it's going to be like we're in prison. So you're trying to get in that mindset.

This is really good. Take a listen to this. Oh, I should tell you, I mean, this is going back, man. This is from January 25th of 2009. Take a listen. Wow.

The recipe that Jen selected was Cheez-Its, mackerel covered in Cheez-Its.

Right. The Cheez-Its is like the breading.

Okay. I don't even want to open this can of mackerel in here, you guys.

Yes, you can open the mackerel. Yes, you can.

Will everyone?

Hooray for you. I think I'm going to try to follow what listener, I forget his name, in D.C. said. Jim. Jim, and coat the mackerel a little bit first with some of the flour. Yeah, let's get that batter going pretty quick.

Okay. All right, so Sean, how's it going in there? What's the latest? You're grilling up. You're frying up the mackerel on a hot plate.

Yeah. Yeah, so they seem to be just about done. If we want a sample, I think that we should do that. Do you need a plate?

And you know what? I have to say this because I was so worried about the smell. It doesn't really stink that bad. Right, Lan? How would you describe the smell on a scale of one being not fishy at all and ten being... It's okay, Luke. It's okay. He's plugging his nose, ladies and gentlemen.

Oh, Lan, what a cut up. Was that your newscaster at the time, Lan?

Lan Archer, the Lanimal. Yes. Lan was such an old-timey, sorry, old-timey newsman, just like always had a cigarette in one hand. Oh. And then you couldn't smoke indoors anymore. She was always going outside for a smoke break. He just was just lived on the AP news wires and had worked at every station around town and just really was just a really, really solid kind of local radio newsman.

I wonder what he's doing now. He's probably still like an assistant. Man, Archer.

Oh, my goodness. God, I know that we were a little tight on time today, but I have so many thoughts. I mean, you know, that was you could argue that that prezine segment was in a way the beginning of the end of TBTL as a radio show because you actually got in trouble for deep frying fish in the studio. It was one of those things that I think Dory the next day was probably just looking for something to whinge about because, you know, he's I mean, he's just a terrible human, but he's a quality broadcaster. broadcaster and he recognizes that like oh if you gin up some kind of like what it would be sort of like inter-nice scene fight within the radio station it's entertaining radio he's not wrong so the narrative the next day was Dory and Dory's been talking to people and everyone's mad that the broadcast studio smells like fish because the night show that has zero listeners was frying fish in Cheetos in case they ever had to go to prison not the worst argument and uh well yeah no i mean honestly it's a miracle i've stayed out this long but but like um i love it so much so it's one of those things where dory i think was mostly putting it on just because again he recognized it as funny radio but also you're rod arquette aka the rod father you're the program director of this station there's a complete financial collapse that's happened because you know we started the show in 2008 Right.

So ad revenue is – everything is down and you're trying to think, God, what do I do? How do I shake this up? And it's like you've got all these other shows that probably have pretty strong contracts and also like try to do radio that sort of appeals to the listeners of Cairo. And then you've got this thing at night that's frying food and making Dory mad. So it probably – I don't think it went in the pro column for our show's long-term survival.

Do you think the TBTL players went into the pro column? Of course, one of the things I love about this that I had forgotten about is we never really found out who the TBTL players were. This was apparently a troupe of actors who would come in, and you guys just had people in high places, but you never really revealed their names. Yeah. They sounded a lot like you and Jen and Sean and some other familiar voices. To the untrained ear. To the untrained ear. So I'm going to jump ahead here. This is – actually, I'm going to jump back in time. You know, I couldn't find the exact date of when this was live, but I'll tell you this. This episode of the TBTL Players, the Little House on the Prairie installment, was included in a Best of TBTL Players show that aired on December 30th, 2008. So that's a lot of weird details, but I just think it's funny that it's 2008. You guys are already doing Best of shows so you can take some Christmas vacation because it's December 30th. And so as early as 2008, this was already a best of. Take a listen to this. This is the TBTL Players.

This is an instant classic, man.

I couldn't cut this one off, Luke. So this is the full thing. This is longer than usual. It's two and a half minutes. And you're going to hear some, I think, listeners who have been listening for a while, but not since the very, very, very beginning, are going to hear a familiar drop in this. Take a listen.

Exterior. Pa and Laura are outside the farmhouse.

It's not fair.

What's not fair, Half-Pint?

Everyone knows what to do about Christmas except me.

Don't you worry. You're going to come up with some ideas, and I bet there'll be darn good ones, too. But right now, I want you to get some sleep. Interior. The family is gathered around the tree on Christmas morning. Half-Pint, this scarf is my favorite color, and it's warm as toast. Thank you. Ah, let's see what Mary's got. Mary opens her package and finds a rabbit fur coat.

Oh, Ma, Pa, it's just beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. Here's your present, Pa. You better like it, because I made it. Me and Mrs. Whipple.

Well, if you made it, I know I'm going to like it. Let's see what's in here. He holds up a new shirt. Oh, Mary, that is beautiful. Look at it, Caroline. I hope it fits. It fits perfectly. Ma realizes that she and Mary got Pa the same thing. She quietly hides her present. before anybody sees it.

You did a beautiful job, Mary.

Aw, thank you, darling. Well, I'm going to be pretty fancy going to church. New shirt, fancy scarf. Let's see if there's a half-pint present under here. He hands Laura a large bundle.

Pretty big for a half-pint-sized present.

She opens it and sees the saddle. She begins to weep because she sold her pony to buy Ma's gift.

Looks like somebody really likes her present.

Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas, Pa.

Ma walks over and opens a large crate in the middle of the room addressed to her.

Oh, a stove.

I wonder who gave it to you.

It's from Laura?

Laura runs from the room.

Charles, her pony, we can't let her.

Caroline, she has the right.

But she loves Bunny so.

I think she loves you more.

Oh, I can't.

Caroline, she wants to do this. Laura comes back in weeping, and Ma runs to hold her.

Oh, Laura, I just love my stove. Don't cry. Someday we'll have another pony. It's not the pony. I'm sorry about all the hard work you had to do on the saddle, Pa.

She runs to him, and he hugs her tight. He looks at Ma with his eyes wet with tears and shakes his head. The saddle. Oh, half pint.

The saddle. chills luke absolute chills i was so delighted to hear it acting performances and that really is i'm a little scenery chewy at times um i loved hearing my dear friend rachel bell in that and realizing that this is years before i even met her she must have been a reporter at the station at

the time yeah that was and of course omapod's beautiful that's aaron covey who was like land the lanimal archer one of the aaron was a reporter as well um and somebody we were able to just sort of like pull in from the newsroom i mean that's literally the kind of thing where it's like the show is starting in 10 minutes we're just looking around like we need one more human being to make these read these lines and you were doing it a lot

It was all live on the air, right? You didn't pre-tape that stuff.

No, it was all live. And I have to say, like, okay, so Sean was always incredible when it came to the TBTL players because this was a long time ago. And we didn't have – by the way, Andrew, I'm blowing off my next meeting. Are you sure?

I was going to say we could do Blurzays on a Friday and make them first days if you want.

No, no, no, no, no, no. Honestly, it's a gift.

You can blame it on me. I love doing stuff like that and blaming it, like, you know, on some unseen factor. Like, well, my co-host is going on and on about Blur's days.

So Sean was so incredible because he would do this, like, sort of British this day, or excuse me, the TBTL players thing. And he would have to play all these sound effects. And he would also have to play the intro music, which was like masterpiece theater kind of stuff. But it was the bad old days of the radio station. It was before, like, the version when you did the Andrew Walsh show, that version of the studio, you know? It was before the remodel.

Yeah, I remember the old studio. I liked the old one better. I was a producer then. I remember a little bit of Ross and Burbank. I got to be in my little producer hovel. What was the little, like, corner of the studio was, like, walled off where a producer could stand in there and, like, man the phones and talk into your ears. I loved it.

That's where Jen was cooking her fish. Oh, really? Okay, yeah. The idea was it was supposed to be contained in that booth, but it didn't work. But anyway, Sean would be playing. He'd be not only doing lines. Not only was it the intro guy.

Doing lines, just reading lines, right? Was he doing lines? That's true. No, he was not.

He was reading the dialogue, and he would have to play the various things off of. He had at least one, if not two, reel-to-reel recorders going because we were out of inputs, if you know what I mean. We had, like, News Boss for one thing, something else for something else. He's, like, unpausing a, like, you know, QuickTime file off of a website that's got a piece of music that we need. And then also playing something off of reel-to-reel. Like, I mean, the technical proficiency that our friend Sean, Japan's number one mixer, Dottori, would demonstrate, along with acting, was really something. Also, listening to that, it's like, that makes me so happy. that's actually so much better than i like as far as the actual performances as far as just how smooth it all happened considering that was just in real time with people we could drag in from the newsroom i'm actually kind of proud of it i'm also imagining being a random person in seattle who is driving down the road yes i love it and just is like oh let me hear what's going on with this traffic on cairo and it's like ron and don have just ended yeah they're getting arms around officers they're talking about they're talking about various projects and news stories they're talking to their snow homies and then you just turn on 10 minutes later and you're hearing that shit like you probably thought that you were having a an aphasia you guys probably put the

weirder stuff in the later hours though right like the cooking was shown with all the deep frying i noticed i had to go to a special website because for some technical reason apm does not have the archives of all of your hour threes and they never will but luckily i think it was listener ben i think it was listener ben who uploaded them all to the archive site internet.org where you can find tbtail hour three episodes anyway and so i felt like a lot of the stuff from back then as is hour three where you guys really get weird tbtail after yes hour three was quite something i mean

i mean hour three i mean don't get me wrong hour one wasn't exactly on the news right like hour one was was some some BS that we that for whatever reason we had prioritized as being more palatable to the average person who is still in a bit of traffic trying to get home you would I think

that's where you would like kind of like I I was surprised going through the archives finding bits of like Dave Ross being on the show talking politics with you from time to time I know that wasn't the main vibe of it but you could maybe throw a Tom Tangney in there to do some movies OK, it's softer, but it's still kind of part of the Cairo vibe.

Yeah, I think we thought of seven as being kind of a bridge from the normal programming into what we were really going to get into in the nine o'clock hour, which would be, you know, just some really weird shit.

I love it. I have just such an affection because I'm obviously this is the period where I was listening to the show and falling in love with it. And I love doing this with you and I love podcasts. But, man, there's something about the fact that you were doing that live on the air. really just that's so cool because even then another producer could have said okay well we'll get everybody to cut their lines during the day and then i'll edit it together you know chop your lines right did i just say doing the lines again everyone cut their line after i corrected you but anyway uh yeah i i just

love it i just love the vibe of that and it's such a special moment like who's doing that on live radio anymore i'm sure like probably some people in la i found la am radio to be a pretty wild place when i was down there a few years ago um but yeah i just love it i you know i love it too

i love that we did it and i love that it's part of the history of this show but i don't know i mean i've said this before like this version of the show which is very different now is if i were a listener i think i would be more inclined towards this than than that like what i i'm not speaking for the listeners here but for myself i like things i don't know there's a certain amount of like i'm not in i'm not personally into a radio show that is going to be totally something wildly different each day because some of the wildly different stuff doesn't really work for me like so i it's funny because as a consumer i'm probably more inclined towards stuff that's a little bit more standard like two people whose opinions i kind of admire or who i think are kind of likable and generally funny just cutting it up just just uh you know kibitzing that's probably more my i was listening to um chris's podcast today the latest episode why is this happening and it's he's just talking about wikipedia of all things he's talking with the outgoing ceo wikipedia it is fascinating oh yeah i gotta listen to that completely fascinating so that that's what i'm drawn to as a listener conan o'brien needs a friend you know conan talking to somebody who i really like uh their work and just kind of telling stories and reminiscing or you know observing things like that's that's really for me like something that had a random radio skit from Little House on the Prairie with, you know, people pulled in from the newsroom. That actually is probably too out there for me as a listener. But I'm really glad that we can point to it as part of the history of this show.

I think for me, the difference is partially. I understand what you're saying there, but I don't think I share the same taste. I think it depends. But I do think for me specifically, that's the big difference between the podcast and the radio show. I think that I just love live radio so much and then messing around with the forum and not just doing traffic on the sevens and, you know, updating on or trying to spin up, you know, I mean, frankly, like if we had to like really spin up passionate feelings about the Game of Thrones thing, you know, like I know we just talked about that. so that's a weird example but yeah yeah and like i would turn on and i'm trying to think like honestly i did this too i had that seven to ten slot for a time and i don't want to you're under a lot of pressure right and so other people and but like i have turned on that station during that hour i'm trying not to impugn anybody but i would hear people just bantering more like what you and i do right now but it just to me is so clear that they don't really care about either of the things they're talking about it just fits the format and so they're trying to gin up a pop culture argument about something that they're just not really that passionate about or it was a five minute conversation that you can tell they're stretching into 10 you know and like you and i can talk about stuff and i'm never ginning anything up really on the show with the exception of pretending i care if you wish somebody happy birthday on a non-birthday like with the exception of that bit like it's not really it's not it's not like oh luke well no i think i think we should all drive slow in the fast lane no i'm gonna take the other side on that you know like instead let's just do the tbtl players doing little house on the prairie like i will take that right any day over some of the other stuff i've heard in that

same time slot i am very proud that we and i will give jen 50 of the credit on this if not more but we were very strongly against what we always called fake outrage and like you know we were like that's just not we just don't want to do that you know even if the bosses are trying to get us to have way hotter takes and yeah and do this more the way that it's supposed to sound And, you know, people, I didn't make this up, but it's like people confuse, you know, people confuse sort of hearing people talk excitedly on the radio with the idea that something is really happening and strong opinions are held. And that means this must really mean something. And I better tune in. I better lean closer. And I will tell you that, like, there was never any confusion about if something was happening on TBTL. Nothing was happening. And we were fine with it. Right, right, right. Like, nobody ever tuned in and thought, oh, man, what are they all worked up about? Like, we just never, ever, ever, you know, were interested or good at doing that. So probably even Ross and Burbank. I mean, that was what was strange to me about that period of time when Ross and Burbank actually was really kind of working.

even from the rating standpoint, that was like you, me, and Dave Ross. Even then, I didn't feel like, because Dave is such a genius and such a good broadcaster, and you're such a good producer, and I'm whatever I am. I feel like we really didn't get drawn into that fake outrage machine very much either, which what shocked me about it was people seemed to tune in. At least that was what they were telling us about the ratings, because I always thought it was kind of one or the other. It's either got to be TBTL with no listeners, or it's got to be Dory with all the listeners because it's got all the fake outrage. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. I want to take one thing back. OK, so here's the thing. I tried to make up a fake argument about bike lanes a second ago or fast lanes or passing lanes. OK, here would be a good example. I would. This isn't something specific I heard, but I think a better example. You and I have talked about like condiments and hot dogs on the show to death. Right. And that's fine. But it always comes from a natural place. Like the conversation really led there. And if I'm being a pain in the ass about something or really like sticking to my guns about barbecue sauce, it's coming from a real place. What I hate is people taking just kind of, let's call them pop culture or lifestyle issues like that and clearly ginning them up for the radio. That's what really hurt my teeth is like taking topics like that. Set your teeth on fire? Set my teeth on fire. Like hearing, oh, barbecue sauce. No way, man. I'm a, like you can hear that sometimes on 710, sometimes on other things. Like you can tell when people land in a place where there is some really silly passion behind something. But I hate hearing it ginned up, man. Oh, I'm going to take the ketchup on this one. You want to take – and I've been in meetings since I've left Cairo Radio, but as a fill-in where it's kind of like they have segments set up like that. I don't know why I'm just being cruel to people's – the way people produce shows on Cairo. These are some friends of mine. But like it's just like you've got to take this. I'll take this position, so you've got to take the other. I'll be like, but it's nuanced. I don't – and it could be something important or it could be something non-important like condiments. And it's like, I don't want to just have to take the other side because that person already claimed ketchup. And I would hear these weirdly disingenuous conversations about things that don't seem important on the radio. And then I would be in production meetings with these people. I'd be like, oh, that's how you end up with that sound I don't like. Well, yeah.

I mean, at that point, it seems to me, and I love – you know what? Let me just return to the conversation I was listening to earlier today with Chris and his guest. They were talking about how – and she was talking about how basically Wikipedia was able to – because Wikipedia is an interesting model in that it's a nonprofit. And it comes from this era of the internet when a lot of stuff was open sourced and not for profit and kind of part of this beautiful dream of what the internet was going to look like. And then it all got commoditized. And now it's mostly stuff like Facebook, which is a for-profit company that's invested in getting you to look at Facebook or Twitter for five more seconds. And Wikipedia is this very – is this odd thing that kind of is a holdover from that era and has not either gone – has not stopped existing and also has not been at some point acquired by some big company and is now for-profit. and they were in and one of the things they were saying was so if wikipedia leaves a post up that is something that a lot of people would find really objectionable like leaves up a you know an article if you will at least you have to give them the fact that they're not doing it because they think it'll keep somebody who has horrible ideology some other person uh looking at the screen for five more seconds like because there's not the same profit motive there If they're like look the deal has always been This is how this gets moderated This is what we do We're following our normal procedures And it just means this thing lives on Wikipedia You have to kind of at least kind of say Well you're sticking to your principles Whereas if Facebook says that Usually it's because there's something in it for Facebook That's why they've decided to make that policy And here's where I'm going with all this Andrew TBTL is exactly the same way You have to at least respect the fact That we've never ever done anything In the interest of getting listeners or keeping interesting or keeping listeners I shit you not on my little jog as I'm listening to them talk today on this whole thing I'm thinking you know I will I will pat us on the back a little bit in that and it's not that we don't want people

to listen to the show and we did create a contest to get new listeners but we didn't change our content right well that's the thing

it's like I guess what I mean is if it ever if the if sort of the if the decision is ever between getting listeners and changing the kind of stuff we want to talk about or how we want to talk about it we always choose just getting to talk about stuff the way we want to like that's that like the that always is going to win everything because i think you and i both just couldn't do this silly thing five days a week if if if you were sending me an email at 7.30 going

i called dibs on being pro ketchup right and i was like damn he outfoxed me all right i guess i'm stuck with mustard today right and then we had to have a really like intense argument about something like that that means nothing so i i am i for all of the kind of shit talking that i do about this show i have to say i'm kind of proud of the fact that it still exists and it somehow it's gone on all these years without us ever saying like well what if we just pretended to be a little bit more mad about this topic or what if we just like what was what's your take on it what's my take on it and then those takes conflict with each other in some way like i'm kind of proud that it's still around and you got to give it to us we're boring but we come by this honestly

exactly if anything it's the opposite i feel like you and i struggle to not be as honest sometimes as maybe we should you know what i mean whether it's with each other or something that's on our mind but isn't fully ready to talk about but like our instinct is just to talk it out you know and whether and sometimes have real emotions about things

there's a right way to rock and a wrong way to roll you can't just listen to your soul just remember that life is number one you can't be having so much fun just remember that life is much fun You can be nothing but me

You know what just occurred to me, Lucas? What, Andrus? I never... Did you notice, by the way... Yes, I'm stalling here a little bit. Did you notice, by the way, that when you showed up at the fire pit at our friend's house the other night... Yes. A playlist of mine was playing in the background And around the time you showed up Lucas with the lid off Started playing

No I didn't notice that part I think I maybe had like Stepped away from where the Bluetooth speaker was

It was sitting right behind you and it was playing I almost said hey it's your song But I didn't because I'm a cool guy Who wouldn't need to bring stuff up like that I was stalling there that is a true story Lucas with the lid off did start playing when you were near the speaker It wasn't a good story, but it bought me some time. I just emailed you the Blur's Days for today. I should also check to make sure no new ones came in. But why don't you start us off with that first one, Luke?

Let me take my lid off real quick.

Catch the vibe.

And welcome a Blur's Day. I should say celebrate, not welcome a Blur's Day. Let me put my lid back on. Apparently, when I take my lid off, my brain just starts to levitate out of my skull. and I say I'd like to welcome a birthday to John. John, could I please be the first to welcome a birthday to you in Beaverton, Oregon? I know where Beaverton is now, Andrew.

Hey, I do too.

It's such a different world now that I live here. I'm not even kidding. I think I probably would have said when I lived in Bellingham or Port Townsend or any other place, Beaverton, Oregon, I'd be like, I think Nike is there, but I wouldn't have known if it was six hours from Portland or if it was an hour, And it turns out it's about 30 minutes tops.

And I now know we're Beaverton, Oregon. I took a train out of – I think I took a long train ride from Beaverton into Portland the first time I visited Portland.

Oh, wow. I did not know that. See, so I'm learning even though I am now a resident of Oregon. John, who's in Beaverton, says, As much as Luke may want to confuse the nature of people's relationships in these segments – And I do, John. I will add. I very much do. I would still like to wish a very happy 49th Blur's Day to the longest-running real co-bro in his life, Michael in Astoria, New York. Now that we're both tense, it will be weird but great to be on the same coast for the same TBTL events in the not-too-distant future. Okay, Andrew.

I feel like I'm—did I make a weird edit on that? Is it his? Is it my life? I don't know.

I think – I'm wondering if John is wishing a Blur's Day to Michael, who is the longest-running co-bro in John's life.

Would you say that's the most likely scenario? Yes, but as true bros, not romantic bros, I don't believe. Oh, got it. Okay. They're saying also sometimes – Well, for now. This one, the awkwardness here might be on me because sometimes these things – I do have to cut them down to a certain length just in case somebody is listening and they think, hey, you left a sentence out of mine. And that's why I try to keep them to a certain length so that I can instead spend the time explaining how I cut it down to save time. So that's how that works. Anyway, sorry about the awkwardness.

Happy Blur's Day, Michael, in Astoria, New York. Yes. And welcome to the family. It sounds like Michael is a relatively new 10.

Now that we're both 10s. Yes.

Yes. Happy Blur's Day, Michael.

I'm glad we could make that so clean for you. Fired, Walsh. Speaking of Walsh, I'll read this one. This is a message from Jessica in Cleveland. Quick side note here. Jessica is my friend from high school. Although she pointed out to me recently she was actually in college when we met. I was still in high school. We went to homecoming together. She sent me the photo.

Wait a darn minute. You went to homecoming?

I did, yes, but it turns out, I mean, I don't want to go on a huge long tangent here. Jessica is actually visiting Seattle soon, so we've been back in touch. And we talked on the phone the other day, and it turns out, like, my memories, I mean, I knew I had a pretty bad brain when it comes to memories. But I'm really embarrassed because if you had asked me, I would have told you that Jessica and I were friends all through high school. And she said, we were friends for actually a few months. I was already in college when we met, and we hung out a lot and talked on the phone a lot. It was about three months and then you went to college or something along those lines. I'm probably messing that up, too. And it occurred to me that I think of high school as basically one long, awesome day when all of my friends hung out together. Like, I am really losing the thread on some of my individual relationships because I think – well, I think very fondly of Jessica. Obviously, she will hear this, but I would say that anyway. I do, and I just think of her as such a big part of my teenage years.

So anyway, this is Jessica. So you were in high school, and Jessica was in college, and she, dare we say it, she was your homecoming date.

She was my homecoming date. But again, Luke, this is where you can't trust any of my stories from this day forward, because I thought that we went to her dance at her high school. And she said, no, dude, I was already in college. We went to your homecoming. It was the only time I'd seen St. Ignatius from the inside. And I was like, oh, okay. You know, I'm embarrassed. I'm embarrassed for my friends who have better memories. I think it's somewhat insulting that I don't remember things as well as I should. And it also makes me worry about every – what if I wasn't even bullied growing up, Luke? What if my whole narrative on this show is just a lie? What if I was the coolest dude in grade school?

That would be a real Truman Show type situation. Yeah, it really would. Pull back, keep pulling back to, you know, like the cameras, the film set, the like, holy shit. Or maybe it's more of a Kaiser Sose moment. The coffee cup is slowly spinning in the air as it's falling down to the ground as we realize you are not bullied at all. You were actually the bully. You were the captain of the football team, but you've internalized this interesting other sense of your life.

Yeah. But anyway, I'm looking. Jessica sent me this homecoming picture a while back. I'll try to send it to you, Luke, just so you can get a sense. Oh, my gosh. I would. Here.

I was ready to say I would kill to see this picture, but nobody has to die. You could just send it to me.

No, I'll probably just send it to you, just cruelty-free, if that's okay. Cruelty-free photo. I'm going to send this to you now because I actually kind of want to hear your reaction to this because my style is definitely, well, it's something that is maybe questionable. here I'm sending it to you because I'm wearing my shirt is untucked it's five sizes too big I'm wearing a thrift store sport coat I have like looks like white jeans on that are cut off at the bottom like so they're hanging over my Doc Martin not Doc's but some sort of boots yeah I think Doc's um but they're all frayed at the end have you received it yet on your no I think the internet is rejecting this photo just based on the description all right I texted it to you you can take a look at it later. Oh, you texted it. This is not about me. Why do I do this? Whoa, Andrew, you look great. I don't look great, but I appreciate I look thinner than I am

now, certainly. You look total... I thought you were going to laugh at me. You are adorable. Look at my hair. I have a bob. I can understand why this much older woman took a change.

This much older woman. Why this college-aged

woman was like, hey, let's, you know, look at this tall drink of handsome. Yeah,

that's exactly what Jessica said. Andrew, you look

It's certifiably adorable in this outfit. And by the way, the way you described it makes it sound all nutty. You look like a kid going – you look like a kid who didn't want to fully conform to all of the homecoming, you know, whatnot, but who also is still achieving the goal of looking nice. Really? You have a blazer on. You have a tie. It's tied. You're wearing, you know, pants that are maybe a tiny bit frayed at the bottom but not crazy. You're not wearing JNCO jeans.

I mean, I used to buy new pants and then cut off the – or maybe I would buy used pants, but I would purposely cut off the hems so they'd be frayed and hanging over my shoes.

You, Andrew, I really think that you – first of all, if you even saw the irony that, like, you would feel embarrassed. about this picture if you saw what i looked like for my proms one of them i was wearing i i went out and got a houndstooth uh like jacket yeah so that means the whole jacket was the houndstooth

pattern oh that might be a little bit of little ska a little houndstooth goes a long way that

is true i also had a nehru collar for one of these dances like because of course i couldn't just do a bow tie like everybody else i had to somehow assert my individuality one time i decided i wanted to have a ponytail was my hair long enough for a ponytail not totally so i pulled what could get into a ponytail into a ponytail and shellacked the rest of it down like an early gorilla glue girl let's also just for a moment reflect upon the fact that i was at this point Six foot one, maybe 105 pounds. I mean, I was. Oh, and also had extremely prominent acne. I mean, my pictures are so much worse than this. You really over described the awkwardness of this photo.

All right. Well, now I'm really embarrassed because this is not supposed to be about me or even you, frankly. This is not even supposed to be about Jessica. It's supposed to be about Jessica's kiddo. Camille, happy Blur's Day to my five Camille, says Jessica in Cleveland, in case you didn't catch that. I can't believe you are 15. You are so kind and funny and exude an optimism that draws people to you. You amaze me every day. I love our drives to school when we can listen to TBTL. I look forward to reading more of your poetry. And remember, your mom thinks you're cool, too. Love, mom.

Wow. That's adorable. Camille, I'm sorry that we spent so much time talking about not you. Yeah, I know.

When this was your birthday message.

We apologize. But if you've heard the show before, it can't come as a real shock. Angie says, hi, my dudes. I'd like to wish myself a happy Blurs Day. My birthday is on the 20th, my second quarantine birthday. Sorry, Angie, you're in that inauspicious club. But I think at this point, we're all going to have a second quarantine birthday. You're probably right, actually. I thought, not that I'm even that into my birthday, but I figured, eh, May, maybe not. But it seems like we are.

I'm November. I literally.

So you already had two.

No. Wait, no, I only had one.

March to March.

Yeah. Oh, I see. So I'll be really at the, I mean, hopefully, I mean, God willing, if the COVID don't rise. hopefully we'll be pretty far close to being out of the woods. Pretty far close to being out of the woods.

See, my brain is broke because I thought every single person would have to now, by definition, have two of these, but of course not, because if you had yours in November, this is the first I'm hearing, by the way, of your birthday being in November, but if you had it in November and then everything really locked down in March and then we went all the way around, then you had one, We hit March again, and now we're continuing through. But again, ideally – so some people really did – again, knock wood. Some people really did only get one.

So far. So far.

Angie says, I literally would not have gotten through this weird, crazy year in isolation without my favorite imaginary friend does. Oh, thanks for saying that, Angie. We appreciate that we were able to help you out with some sense of whatever, regularity and normalcy. Thank you so much, you guys. I love you. Oh, I wanted to wish a happy Blur's Day to Lawn Chair Larry, to aid in Luke's endless pursuit to get Andrew to believe in God. Some context. TVTL episode number 3227, August 13th, 2020. Then there's a time code. His birthday is April 19th. Thanks again, guys. Power out. How much of this do you remember? Let me, okay. I remember Lawn Chair Larry being a guy who got in a lawn chair and hooked up some balloons to it and tried to go, I think, got blown around the greater LAX area.

Back in the, I want to say, 70s or 80s. Right.

Yes.

Yes. So I remember that. And we were talking about that on the show. And then apparently, again, this is August of 2020. Then apparently the Blur's Days, I know we're playing a lot of old tape today, but the Blur's Days segment began like this. First one's from Lydia to lawn chair. Larry says, happy Blur's Day. You lift me up when I am down. That's not what Lydia said at all. Lydia says, let me ask you this.

If that by coincidence happened today, let's just imagine, sometimes you're pulling in the Blur's Days at kind of the last second, so you didn't have a chance to pre-read this one. and if we had

been talking about Lawn Chair Larry, and then one of the Blur's Days referenced it completely without, of course, them knowing we were going to say it, and without us knowing that it was in the Blur's Day. Would that make you believe in God?

No. Wouldn't that be weird, though? I did not know that that's where you were going. I thought you were going to say, would that be your last show? Would the coincidence overwhelm you? I didn't know that this was going to take on biblical proportions. I don't know. I'd have to definitely reconsider it. By the way, Larry Walter's birthday was April 19th. So maybe next year, mark your calendars if we're still doing Blur's Days. Okay.

What are these days? Let me just mention, of course, we will forget about this. We will forget about this whole show in 20 minutes. Please, somebody write that down and please do a Blur's Day message for Lawn Chair Larry April 19th or that week next year. because I will fall over laughing when that happens because I will have completely forgotten that this existed.

Okay, Luke, you've got to fall over laughing now. You promised. Somebody remembered.

It's on a very high chair. It's ergonomic. It's just kind of not comfortable.

I know that's a long piece of tape, but I wanted you to know that that's what happened there, the belief in God, the reason why. Well, I do.

I believe in God or at least Outlook calendars or whatever system Angie used to remind herself, to remind us about Lawn Chair Larry. Angie, thank you so much. God, you must have been so excited when, and everything I said there came to pass. I forgot that we ever had that version of that conversation. And I would have never in a million years known that that was, we had reached the anniversary of that. So thank goodness for listeners like Angie that were actually tracking this kind of stuff.

Stacy in Spanaway says, I want to send a Blur's Day to the late lawn chair Larry. He was a true out-of-the-box thinker. Who knows? Maybe he is the reason we continue to fly in planes instead of lawn chairs. Thanks for experimenting for us all, Larry. That's from Stacy in Spanaway.

Well played, Stacy. Well played. Rob and Allison in 10 verse A, a big Blur's Day shout out. Is there a T in Blur's Day? Blur's Day. Do I say Blur's Day? Do I say Blur's Day? Big Blur's Day shout out to Mr. Tacoma-wide Bert, who just turned four. Nice. Oh, my goodness.

Aww.

Bert's delightful parents, Bobby and Lizzie, are the best people around and once sent you Pitbull VIP concert passes to wear around Cairo back in the day. I seem to remember this. Bert is such a sweet little guy And he loves purple So enjoy a birthday filled with all the purple you can handle buddy

I love that That is a dazzling detail Happy Blur's Day

Wait till you're old enough for purple drink

Happy birthday Middle Shelf Maggie says Happy Blur's Day to Lawn Chair Larry His birthday is April 19th Are you kidding me Maggie Super happy Blur's Day to my wonderful 10, Erica. Lawn Chair Larry gets top billing there, but also super happy Blur's Day to Erica. That's from all of us, too. Erica, Maggie, have both been listening to the show for a long, long time now. We love you guys. We love Erica.

I just can't believe how many listeners, I know it's three, but that's a lot, how many listeners made a note to remember Lawn Chair Larry? I mean, the real question will be, Will they remember it next year? I think so.

I think we're at the beginning of something special here, Luke. I can feel it.

Here's another question, Andrew. Will we remember it next year?

I know, no.

Zero percent chance. It's so great. It's like, you know, well, I don't want to think. Any analogy I try to come up with here will stray into territory that might, I don't know, diminish someone's experience with real memory loss and stuff like that. But there's something very wonderful for me about remembering nothing from the show.

Yeah, but you can always be delighted when you hear the same story again. I get to be delighted.

I know. Like when you – your hot take on whatever that was earlier in the show that I hadn't thought of or hadn't remembered hearing. It was great.

Yeah, the newspapers instead of reading the newspaper on your phone thing.

If you bring that up in three weeks, I'll be totally impressed once again.

Well, the bigger fear is that you will forget I said it and you will bring it up on one of your properties and everybody will praise you. And also then take credit for it. Exactly, right. That's the bigger issue. Okay, Zadie says. Is this one me? You just did Maggie, right? You go ahead. Oh, sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Wow, how quickly we forget. Literally.

Zadie says, this is for my dad, Christian. Happy birthday, dad. Best wishes, love, and a good day on your birthday. You are the best.

best. Love, Zadie. Zadie. I got a note from Zadie's mom, I think, who helped craft that message. That's from young Zadie. Oh, I see. Yeah, thanks, Zadie.

Not from the writer Zadie Smith?

Maybe. And happy Blur's Day, Christian. Ross says, happy Blur's Day to Lawn Chair Larry on April 19th. You lift me up when I am down. You inspire everyone to reach great heights can't wait until this pandemic is over and we can go eagle soaring again that's from

ross to lawn chair larry oh my god this is like i'm now getting catrolled by i'm getting lawn chaired by the listeners i love it and i love how now everyone's talking about you lift me up all i can think of is the josh groban song you lift me up which is not really my kind of music but he does have a song where he sings You Lift Me Up. So now I'm imagining Josh Groban singing You Lift Me Up as Lawn Chair Larry takes flight somewhere in El Segundo.

Just soars.

Chad in Portland. Oh, right here in Portland. Says, I want to wish a very happy Blur's Day to my friend Chris in Washougal. When I introduced him to TBTL a few years ago, he got the show immediately and I thought, did we just become best friends? Actually, we've been best friends for going on 30 years. Wow. So happy Blur's Day to one of the most kind, creative, and stand-up people I've ever met. And congrats on the new job. You deserve it all. So happy Blur's Day to Chris in beautiful Washougal, Washington.

Nice. Lisa says, happy Blur's to my friend Deb. May your year be full of adventures and drops for days. Looking forward to celebrating you for real in person. Cheers to your birthday month. Your 11 should be listening daily in tribute to this occasion. Power out. Can't argue with that. Everybody should be listening daily.

It all makes sense. Yeah, happy birthday, Dave. Mike from Accounting. Mike from Accounting says, I'd like to wish a very happy, posthumous Blur's Day to our very good friend Larry Walters, also known as Lawn Chair Larry. I don't remember exactly why I said an Outlook reminder a year ago to wish this happy high flyer a happy Blur's Day. But happy Blur's Day, L-Dog. Wow. That's – you lift me up, L-Dog.

You really do. This has re-sparked the joy of the Blur's Day segment for me. And finally, AJ says, a hearty happy Blur's Day to my co-bro-in-law, Brad. You have rocked it this year, somehow teaching middle school special ed inclusion classes online. May your eagle always soar. Power out from our friend AJ. Happy birthday, Brad.

Thanks, Brad. Sounds like you're doing important work, almost as important as we're doing here, commemorating the birthday of Lawn Chair Larry.

I was going to say, almost as important as Lawn Chair Larry's work. Yeah. Wow. That was fun, man.

That was quite an adventure. It really was. Yeah. So every year, I'm hoping that we'll just keep building on this now. That's right.

You wanted to cancel the show, and I said, Well, maybe there will be a reason to keep it going, and I think we found that reason.

Yes, Lawn Chair Larry. Is Lawn Chair Larry still alive, by the way? No. Posthumous. Gone. Ah, I see. Right. R.I.P. And happy birthday. Well, my friend, now that I've blown that meeting off, it really opens up the rest of my day.

I was hoping that you didn't just push it off to 1230 because here we are.

No, it's starting without me. It involves many people in Zoom. It's a board meeting for one of the many organizations I work for. Oh, man. And I, you know, I let me just say I had told the powers that be a while ago that I wasn't going to make it because I have a lot going on. Andrew, I'm a very big, important person. Yeah. Emphasis on the big just in that I've been needing very poorly. And I told the folks a while ago, I'm not going to be able to make the show or make this this meeting, this board meeting. And then we all agreed on that. And then I got sent all the invites and they were like looking forward to seeing all of you tomorrow. And I was like, oh, I see what they're doing. they're just hoping I forgot that I they're hoping I forgot that I said I wasn't going to go and then I was like and it's working because now I'm going to actually try to make the meeting but then you didn't make the meeting but then I didn't make the meeting so jokes on them

and also we just turned in a two almost a two hour long episode of TBTL hey listen I had an idea for a song that came up a long time ago when we were talking about the ginger assassin yes how about the song Anthony Naur. By Belly. I don't think you know it. It's a deep cut. I don't. But let's just play it. Unless you have something else.

No. That sounds good to me.

Anything about lawn chairs or Larry. We could go out with a Larry the Cable Guy track.

I do dip in and out of.

his Larry the Cable Guy's redneck comedy channel on XM.

How do you know, though? Like, honestly, how? There are days when I am just like kind of, you know, doing that thing. I'm waiting for my teriyaki. I'm staring out the window. I'm like, am I a redneck? Like, how? If only there was some litmus test.

I had, you know, I grew up kind of, as I talk about a lot, pretty hard scrabble and in a church that had a lot of people that would sort of identify, I guess, as redneck maybe. So I kind of grew up in redneck culture and then I was able to sort of leave it. And yet there's something about it that ultimately brings me back to it. I mean, I had a dirt bike. Almost pulls me back in. Yeah, almost. And it's almost like every time that I leave Redneck Culture, I'm reminded that I may be being pulled back in. Happy Blur's Day, Lawn Chair Larry. We'll be back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio for you. Until then, have a great Thursday. Enjoy the weather if you're somewhere where it's pretty or tolerable. Stay safe. Take care of yourselves. Go Mariners in their upteenth doubleheader. Your first place Seattle Mariners Wouldn't it be funny if they're not in first place By the end of the second game

Did that win just put them in first place

According to Durs I saw a text from Durs Which I generally don't I love you Andy But I don't usually read them If there's a sport thing I haven't watched Because there's a chance that it'll either spoil it for me Or more just put me in an ill temper No it was congratulations to your first place Seattle Mariners

Oh tied for first place with the Angels

We'll take it

We'll take it indeed

See you tomorrow, everybody. Until then, have a great Thursday, and please remember, no mountain too tall.

And good luck to all.

You'll know the end to the end of the day But the sun, all the sun, all the heat and all the well done home I'll only start Power out.