Muse

I'm really sorry. I am. I'm sorry. Yeah, sounds to me like you're sorry you f***ed up, but not, you know, not for what's underneath it. I apologized. That's what's important. It doesn't matter if you apologize if it's not sincere. Apologies don't have to be sincere. It's just the act of the apology itself. It's only, all that matters is if you're acting sincere. That is literally the only thing an apology has to be, is sincere. Otherwise it's just words I'm acting sincere Of course I don't believe it TBTL

I don't know what this is But Jay says it's a Big sea turtle

So maybe this isn't exactly The most polished radio broadcast You've ever heard

You don't dress down to the sweat pant You dress the sweat pants up

Close only counts in horse grenades It's a saying, because if you're playing horseshoes and then you throw a grenade at a horse, it doesn't have to be that close and you can still blow the horse's legs off. It's from the movie Seabiscuit. It's bad, isn't it? It's not great. Hey, guys. I just discovered a new drug, too. It's called your relationship, and I'm only on it.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Wednesday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. These are OR scrubs. Oh, are they? My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. I'm an activist and house party enthusiast. Coming to you from the Nest Broadcast Center, high in the sky above Portland, Oregon, where... Sun appears to be trying to break through. So I look over past Mount Tabor and on towards Mount Hood. Noise! It looks like we're going to have an okay day here in the 503. Also, we're in the 3411, that is... Let the fun begin. Episode 3411 in a collector's series. Happy Ed Balls Day, everyone. Beautiful purple balls. God, can you believe it's been 10 years? Happy 10th... What do you get somebody for their 10th Ed Balls Day? I'm not sure. But anyway, we'll celebrate it together coming up. Also, a Russian guy who went to an audition for a Chinese reality show about boy bands, just so he could translate for some people there, found himself trapped on the reality show. And every week he would tell the audience, please vote me off. Please send me home. I don't like this. And every week they continued to move him along to the next round.

Attention, everyone. I have an announcement to make. I am leaving this party

Well he's finally been voted off The fans of the show have finally Respected Lelouch Lelouch's wishes So we will Give you the details on that story And then A pretty big Piece in the New York Times About one of the most Revered restaurants In the state of Washington A place called the Willows out on Lummi Island, not far from the Bay City of Bellingham, Washington, about all kinds of sort of toxic workplace behavior and, well, lying to the customers. Did I pay $1,100 for what I thought were scallops pulled from the cold waters of the Salish Sea that were, in fact, from Costco? Sounds expensive. We will pick through the details of that story as well. And, of course, we will wrap up round one of the TBTL Drops of Stupider Contest, The Deuce.

Memories are made in your mouth.

Where we are trying to figure out the greatest moment in TBTL history. Today is the last two competitors in round one. So make sure you stick around for that. And make sure you also stick around for this guy's contribution. He's the longest-running co-bro of the show. He may be best known for his depictions of the tall ships. I, okay, fine I lost a little money to him In a fantasy baseball bet that went awry I'm gonna get him the money when I get a chance I feel like his method of collecting the money from me If I don't pay Seems, I don't know Kind of intimidating I don't know, it's a broken finger People break fingers all the time He is Andrew Walsh And he's joining me right now From the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle, Washington Good morning, my friend Don't even remind me, man Our empire is crumbling in the fantasy football realm. Have you even been looking at this? I thought you were talking about your finger, which is also crumbling. Well, that's also crumbling, yeah.

In fact, I'm interested in hearing how the beginning of the show sounded. My apologies if the mix was off. I did something I've never done before, which is I was talking on the phone while. So I've been waiting for a phone call from the doctors to tell me, like, what time to show up for the surgery on Friday for my broken finger and all this. And to give me all of the instructions about what's going to happen with the, you know, COVID test prior and all this stuff. And I was thinking, you know, I have a really busy day today when we're done with this show. And then a work meeting, I'm running to get vaccinated. And I was like, they're going to call at an inopportune time when I can't take this information. And they literally called about, I don't know, 15 seconds into Larry David arguing with Jon Hamm about apologies. And so I'm kind of like, OK, I can't talk right now. I'm about to go on the radio, which is maybe a little bit more highfalutin than what I'm doing here. But then she's giving me more information. I'm trying to take down a phone number. I have a cat on my lap. OK, picture this broken finger, left hand cat on my lap, a giant cat on my lap, because if I don't give him about, I don't know, two minutes of affection before putting him on his own office chair, he will cry the rest of the show. So I'm kind of like doing that. And then the phone rings. So I'm I got the the phone to my ear using my shoulder. I have one earbud sort of halfway on, not earbud, but, you know, earphone, halfway on, and I'm waiting to hear your voice. And she's like, okay, you can just call this number and then ask for this person. I'm trying to write it down while I hear you start talking. So I'm reaching over and trying to grab the fader to fade the music underneath you. I hope it all sounded okay. I'm obviously pretty proud of myself right now.

As well you should be. You were spinning a lot of plates. That actually all sounds, I mean, I would never have known any of that was going on. Good. So great multitasking. Did you get the information that you – I mean because I've had – I don't – I'm not proud of this. But there have been some times where I've had to do the same thing. Let's say like the intro audio is playing and, again, some kind of phone call happens that I know is like I can't let this go to voicemail. And what always happens is I end up both messing up my contribution to the show and not getting the information that I was trying to get. right always it's the worst of both worlds did you did you get the the info that you needed well

luke i'm not gonna lie to you i um i wrote down the number i was a i was like okay she said it's a 206 number so i didn't write that down and then it's 633 and then i did write that down and then she gave me the last four digits but then i think you started talking so i couldn't write them down but i thought i remembered what they were i won't read them here but i think i remember what they were and i wrote it down and then when she hung up uh on me and then uh you know you're doing the show i decided i'm going to google that phone number and do like kind of a reverse well now this is overkill well i just want to see you want to see if it was correct yes so i'm like if i type in this number that i just wrote down that i'm you know 90 sure now like 89 sure was right like does this um orthopedic place pop up but instead it's a dry cleaners in my old neighborhood that is popping up instead but it also says that that dry cleaners is permanently closed so then i was like oh that's a bummer and then i was like oh well i've never actually been there so i guess i didn't support them with my business but i was like but they do have that cool sign and then i was like also though are they going to be operating on my finger and in a closed is it possible that you're going to martinize your finger is it a dry cleaner slash orthopedic does insurance i honestly i think apm insurance does cover martinizing of broken fingers one of the weird quirks of our

coverage is no medical procedures but if you want extra starch in the collar of your shirts that is that's a zero copay yeah and you can pay with your hsa or at least i have been but uh every year i guess this is changing now because of my changing marital status but i swear to god we had that hsa and every year it would be like on the day it was all gonna like expire carrie would be calling me from costco being like do you need any prescription glasses do you need any do you need a wheelchair do you need that like toilet that like that like rolling toilet that sometimes people will will then leave out and i saw this once in real life i'm sure it came up on the show but one time i was in seattle and somebody had put one of those out so it's you know it's a kind of a walker but it has a toilet seat function for people that need to use it that way and it was out in front of someone's house free and i think i wrote on twitter i as hard as i've passed on anything this is even harder my pass right this used uh walker slash toilet but anyway carry i'll be like anything medical do you need like some ace bandages we got that hsa thing i guess it's tax free i mean this is really where we're taking the show um i guess the benefit of it is it's pre-tax right so that's the upside but the downside is and for me anyway as a person who's been very fortunate to not have a ton of medical issues over the last few years we would never use it and then it goes away and then it would be this weird mad dash to try to buy like all the you know preparation h at the local cvs even though neither of us were suffering from hemorrhoids well i will tell you

this maybe that had something to do with coverage that you were getting not from apm because i do know that i actually had a conversation with like somebody in hr who administers this stuff and i will say like talking to somebody about my health coverage in HR in a giant company that is you know it's our company but it's a big company that has offices in Minnesota LA well Seattle now if you count my office but you know like a big company that has a lot of different departments it's not my favorite thing I will say the woman I got on the phone was so awesome and this is a couple years ago so amped about the HSA system and she said you should just put as much money into the hsa as possible because hours rolls over from year to year and it's like what only yeah so you might have been on a different i did not need all those depends i didn't have to buy those depends damn it i don't know it depends on what plan you're on i know that's a hilarious joke why that's the only thing that makes me wish that i was a parent is i'm just like i'm using all of this terrible humor on adults and i think it would be better on children who haven't heard these jokes

before do you know did did i saw a joke on tiktok the other day that made me laugh but then i also was trying to remember if it came up on tbtl what happens when you fight a tyrannosaurus rex what you get your ass kicked you just get your ass kicked is that what you said i'm jurassic jurassic oh you get jurassic Jurassic. Oh, okay. I didn't miss that. Jurassic. Jurassic. Like Jurassic Kicked Park. You get Jurassic Kicked. That famous

Jurassic Kicked. Yeah. That's pretty good. I don't think I've heard that before. I thought the joke I didn't quite hear the wordplay so I thought the joke was one of those things where it's just obvious you just are in trouble because you're

fighting somebody. No, I think I also delivered it. I think I tried to. I should have just said you get Jurassic Kicked because but I was trying to make it. I was trying to conform it more closely to Jurassic to where I lost like the ass kicked part is what makes it funny so that's really on me that's operator that's operator error hold on let me turn off the burbank power it down repower it on note that i'm not playing taps here note that i'm not playing taps everybody because we got some feedback on that was causing some people to have some not great feelings so we're retiring that if anybody has any ideas on the new thing that i can play when i make a terrible joke like that i'm all ears because Because it happens a lot on the show.

Fart noise, I guess. I could do that. You wouldn't like that. Yeah. You're not into that kind of humor. If I can control the fart noise, that's the difference. Coming from my mouth, a fart noise is like poetry, Luke.

It sure is. Now, I noticed that you were on Twitter yesterday putting a tweet out about what I assume was some kind of a just spam, like a spam email that you got or offer. I couldn't tell if it was TBTL related, but it was somebody named – well, the top of their email was Tanner, and then the bottom was Leather Expert?

Well, this is – yeah, this is funny. So this was actually some email that we got after these messages. So our show after these messages is posted on SoundCloud. That's what we use as a kind of storage and delivery thing. So you can get it in your pod catchers and everything, but, you know, the home base for it and for all that audio is SoundCloud. And it's really funny because every now and then you will either get a note in SoundCloud or an email from somebody just saying, hey, man, your track is fire. Let me pump it up for you. Click here or something along those lines. Right. And Genevieve and I always think it's funny when somebody says that our podcast track is fire. And sometimes it'll even like specifically say this, like, those beats. I'm like, yeah, we got beats. But anyway, this one that we got yesterday came into the email account associated with After These Messages. And the person that supposedly came from was Tanner Malone. Now, the rest of this is like gibberish that basically has been run through some sort of translator or I'm guessing multiple translators, like, you know, like computer translators. Hello there. Expectation. You're progressing nicely. I ran over your SoundCloud record, which, yeah, that's how I broke my finger. I ran over your SoundCloud record.

Like a disco demolition night going on.

Yeah, right. I picture, yeah, with like a steamroller. And thought you'd be astonishing being more celebrated. I'm eager to present to you an assistance that would help you in your experience will be a positive one. Give it a shot. There's a link. And then it says, expectation is actually the thing you were searching for. And then it's signed, leather expert Malone. So it's from Tanner Malone. But then somebody, not somebody, but whatever saw. software translated this translated tanner one who tans leather and they translated the name to leather expert malone advanced influencer is that not beautiful great i see i i missed a little bit

of what was going on and so i think i thought that that person was just trying to do a play on their own name like be funny like that was again i you know how it is when you sort of slightly missed the joke and then your brain tries to write a new version of the joke with limited information but oh my god that's great so this translation software just went with what a leather tanner is yeah tanner malone translates to leather expert malone wow that is great because i also got an email yesterday from somebody named tanner but it was not didn't go through as many translations but i thought it was kind of funny because just we both this is somebody who's uh Trying to promote something about Cruella starring Emma Stone as the eccentric fur-loving villain doesn't hit theaters until May 28th. But the upcoming film has already caused a backlash even before its release. The new trailer, a new trailer appears to deviate from the classic 101 Dalmatian story in favor of a villain origin story. So this is, of course, trying to get us to have, I guess, click on some list of Disney villains and their crimes. And this is from somebody at the Ace Cash Express marketing team in Irving, Texas. Anyway, it's from a guy named Tanner. Malone, though? Not Malone, but this guy does know Post Malone.

Oh, well, that's good to know. Yeah, I do wonder if Tanner Malone is related to Post Malone. Do you think, what if we, let's bring back an old segment. We've been doing that a lot lately, but with a twist, with a modern Andrew Walsh twist on it. Let's just call it Thank You, Rich Gazarian. And we just read And we just read like you know press releases That are moderately interesting and kind of pleasant And nice and you know Something sort of there

But what if it's like Thank you leather expert

No thank you rich gazarian

Thank you leather expert A lot of belt talk a lot of strop talk Alright let's take a quick break

We're going to take a break before you tell me about these balls

Yeah it's the first story under Top Story. Happy Ed Balls Day. Have you looked at the show? No, I literally have not. I literally have not. Well, you did have a lot going on. You got two broken fingers. You got a cat on your lap. You're writing down dry cleaning phone numbers. This is understandable today. This is your one freebie, Walsh.

Well, it's your, I mean, it's to your credit that I'm this interested that I'm disappointed. Has there been a point where I'm like, I don't want to take a break. Tell me about Ed Balls, Luke. So, you know,

good tease, my friend. Absolutely. We will talk about that

when we come back here on tbtl on your mark on your mark get set get set now ready ready go

all right let's thank some dazzling donors wonderful generous supportive ride or die listeners who've been helping us make the show possible this year talking of course about megan French In Sacramento, California I'll just point out Her name is Megan French I was being real jaunty And I said French, but it's not Well, honestly, and not to get super political I call her Megan Freedom Sure, do you know that I worked In Congress, I believe When that was happening

During the Freedom Fries, so you were there Right after 9-11

Yeah, I mean I guess the war was in

I mean, when they started bombing, that was, what, three months after 9-11?

You know, maybe not. Maybe this is the Mandela effect. Maybe I just was eating in the dining room that had been the Freedom Fries dining room. Because I wouldn't have been there shortly after 9-11. It would have been three, four years later. Oh, okay. But I was like, I remember sitting in that dining room and having a thought about Freedom Fries. And maybe it was just, isn't this funny that this is where these used to be called freedom fries? But for those that don't remember, I think it was because France was not going along with our war efforts. And so somebody, somebody obviously pretty, I would say, rational, sort of intellectual, somebody who really took the long view on things in Congress decided that they needed to stop calling them French fries in the cafeteria in the house. They wanted to call them freedom fries.

Hey, Luke, actually, you might be – I was really wrong. I didn't realize – now I'm really embarrassed. I thought it was like six months, three to six months later that the invasion of Iraq happened, but that didn't happen until 2003. So the term – I'm looking at the Wikipedia page for Freedom Fries. I still wouldn't have been there, so don't. Because it says the term was – I'm just embarrassed about that. Because I used to know that, and then I just said something stupid. But anyway, it says, The term was created in February 2003 in a North Carolina restaurant, widely publicized when the Republican chairman of the Committee on House Administration, Bob Nay, renamed the menu in three congressional cafeterias. So that would have been 2003 in the context of France's opposition to the proposed invasion of Iraq.

Well, sorry, France, you were wrong. It was obviously a completely great idea. And Megan Freedom of Sacramento, California, you didn't help much. I'm so sorry, Megan. My goodness, did I ruin this. Megan says, thanks for another great year, my dudes, and for keeping things hot-doggingly cool. Nice. Oh, that's a word, all right, Megan says. Is that a word, hot-doggingly? I like it. Yeah, it is now. Excited for the next THON. That makes three of us, Megan. Well, that makes five of us. Megan, you, me, Sarah, and Emily. Yeah, they are our TV telethon. There are sinkos of us. Sinkos! Excited for the next thon and hoping I get to meet you beautiful bozos in person someday. That's my new thing. Any whoozle, time to scoot. If you don't already have a song from another dazzling donor, I would love to hear Light and Day by the Polyphonic Spree. Oh, hells yeah, Andrew. I was just thinking about the Polyphonic Spree the other day.

Do you know their songs individually? I know they had one big hit, but then you had an album. It was this one. This is the big hit?

This is like if there was going to be a Polyphonic Spree song that people knew, it would be this one. Okay. I saw them live. It was great. Definitely connected with a lot of kind of old, like, church vibes for me. So the Polyphonic Spree were this, like, sort of giant band that would wear these white robes. It was a little, you know, a little cult-y. But also, I believe this song was featured on the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind soundtrack. Oh, it was? Which would have put it in front of more ears than just a typical Polyphonic Spree song.

Well, I remember them being—their very first hit came out, like, in the 90s, though, right? Cause I remember like being, I thought, and now again, like I've already messed up a lot of facts during just this dazzling donor message alone. So, but I thought I remembered being in high school and seeing the video of them all like out in a field with like white robes. And then also I thought in an auditorium, but I don't know. Are you looking, are you? I am. It's, it's, it's not looking.

Well, what, when did you graduate high school?

95.

Yeah. This is based on Wikipedia. This is looking formed in 2000. Yeah. Not super possible, but, yeah, I don't know. Maybe that was just the Phonic Spree. Maybe they hadn't added all of the members.

You know what it was? That was the first invasion of Iraq, the Polyphonic Spree. Oh, sure, that was the Monophonic Spree. That was Operation Monophonic Spree.

Actually, you know what? Were you thinking of the band Tripping Daisy? No, I don't think so. Because that was apparently, according to the Wikipedia page, That was the previous group that the kind of leader of the Polyphonic Spree had started. I mean, someday— Just more false memories from me. Anyway, I love this song. It's a real pick-me-up. Again, as long as—it's an interesting dynamic to kind of play with the Polyphonic Spree because, again, it was like the band had like 30 people in it. They were in white robes. It was sort of ecstatic. It was ecstatic music in an almost Like I said I don't want to say cult because I don't think They were a cult but it had all of the It had all of the trappings of something That had that could go wrong at any Moment and has historically gone wrong a Lot so it's like an interesting vibe to Pull you know what I mean yeah I always thought that

They were like but they were kind of in on that Yes they were there It was kind of a statement on that stuff right Or them kind of imitating it but if you wear the robe

Long enough the robe fits I think As Jeff Garland famously said on our program Megan says, I heard a weird Muzak version of that yesterday that stuck in my head. Love you guys. Stay cool. Don't change. Man, that would mess with me. If I was somewhere in the pharmacy and I'm hearing the Muzak version of light and day. Or in an elevator.

I got in an elevator. Sorry, my brain just went somewhere else. I was just getting retroactively angry again about a guy who got in an elevator with me without asking the other day. It was just one floor down. It was the grocery store elevator. I park in the garage underneath the grocery store, as listeners know. I love the fact that some listeners probably are literally thinking, yes, we know where you park at the grocery store, and that's my life. And so I know that a lot of people don't like to take an elevator in a grocery store. They tend to be weird elevators, but I do take it up one floor if I have a grocery cart. And I need to take it back down if I have a full grocery cart. And so I believe I was with Genevieve, too. I got on the elevator and then some guy just no, I was not with Genevieve. Some guy just pushed in right after me and I almost like got off. Like it all happened so fast. So I just turned my back to him and faced the wall. Again, I didn't think in that 30 seconds I was going to necessarily get COVID, but I thought it was pretty rude. Did he have a mask on?

I assume I don't think you can get in that store without a mask. Yeah. Oh, so you are of the opinion or that let's just say like neither of you were vaccinated because everything kind of changes a little bit once we're as the CDC has recently indicated. But let's just go back two months ago. Did would you be of the opinion that two people being in that elevator who didn't know each other at any time would be like unacceptable or rude?

Or was it that he didn't ask? There's a sign, you know, again, like I'm not. It's a very, very short elevator ride. I really, truly, you know, to the degree that I understand science at all, I don't think there's much scientific evidence that I would probably get COVID in that scenario. It's also a pretty big elevator. It's not like super tight quarters because it's like, you know, they probably load tons of grocery carts in there. And it's a very, very short ride. But there is a sign that says only people of the same household should be riding together. And I just sort of feel like I thought that it was I thought that we were all on the same page that in this day and age, we ask before we get on before we share an elevator with somebody.

Yeah, no, I don't think you're wrong about that. I didn't know there was that sign because like, you know, this the elevators in this apartment building, you're just constantly getting in with people you don't know. But everybody always asks. They do ask.

Because I could be I could be behind the times on this. I'm seeing more people. I'm assuming vaccinated people walking down the street without a mask. And again, I notice it, but I think that's fine if you're by yourself out and that's on the sidewalk without a mask walking briskly. I have no issue with that.

Yeah, that was the big news yesterday from the CDC was that if you are vaccinated, you can pretty much be maskless outside. The only time when the CDC says you should wear a mask would be if you were like in a at a baseball stadium with 40,000 people. Like if you're going to be packed up against a bunch of people you don't know, they're saying you should still wear a mask. But just about any other outdoor activity, if you're vaccinated and even if you're not vaccinated, they're saying that if you're in a park, you know, or out jogging, the chances of transmitting the virus outside through that kind of contact is is incredibly low, low to the point where people don't need to wear masks outside when they're in their own sort of, you know, bubble of space. Well, it was funny because Fauci was on Chris's show last night, and I didn't actually catch this part of the show, but my sister Hannah texted it to me and said, I've never loved Anthony Fauci or Chris Hayes more. I guess Fauci basically like threw down on Chris that now they can play pickup basketball together and he can dominate Chris at pickup ball. That is awesome. Oh, my God. So, yeah, that's the latest on that. But you know what has happened in my building, Andrew, that I have been really mad about. I've had two or three times now where people have gotten in the elevator with no mask. Now, here's the thing. I'm vaccinated. So, one, two, one, two. Listen, me and MC Blowfish, we got the Pfizer. I am vaccinated. And so I, you know, putting aside the variants and the breakthrough cases and the whatever, the kind of statistical outliers, the chances of me getting COVID right now are pretty low because I am vaccinated. So really, it's not a threat to me, but it made me furious. It was just like, what the F? Like, what are you doing getting in an elevator? Those are people that did not ask, by the way, because had they asked, I probably would have said, hey, where's the gabagool? They'd be like, oh, God, I heard about the weird elevator guy. Like, hold on, I got to run back to my apartment and get some lunch meat, get in the elevator with this guy. No, but it's like those were folks that just walked into the elevator and just didn't have masks on. And I was it was shocking to me again, even though and I'm sitting there, of course, with my mask on, even though I am vaccinated and I was not in any danger. It just felt like it was just really violating the rules of our society.

Yeah. And that's where, you know, and this has been coming up for the past year and a quarter now, like or however, a year plus now that this is where I'm trying to. i really do i'm sincere when i say that i try to give people the benefit of the doubt during this but it's like it really prickles my um or it really is prickle prickles your pears it really has this famous saying goes it really you know prickles my pettiness because it's gotta be a show title um

Um, because I am so, and I don't like this about myself. I'm not defending it or justifying it, but I'm somebody who, you know, the, I don't like people just like disobeying rules just so that it's a little, life is a little bit more convenient for them. And it doesn't matter if they're stepping on the toes of the people around them, proverbially speaking. And so, you know, like I say, like, let me put it this way. When I'm walking outside, I would prefer not to have a mask on. And I told you that, like, I also do believe that if I'm walking by myself outside without a mask on on the sidewalk and I pass a couple of people, we're fine. We're all good. But I don't do that. I do wear a mask at all times because I want to be a good boy and I want people to know that I'm a good boy and that I, you know, I'm taking the proper precautions. And that is what I do. And then part of me, I think, thinks, boy, I'd really like to take off my mask now, but I'm not, you know, but I'm really trying not to get into too many, like, kind of petty arguments with people and just saying, like, everybody's in a different place. I mean, we have good vaccination rates specifically where I live. I'm talking about in Seattle, Washington right now. And so I think I'm doing a relatively good job of giving everybody the benefit of the doubt. And my guess is we're seeing that despite what started this whole thing, which was me just remembering some guy kind of getting on the elevator. I would have just liked him to say, is it cool if I get on? And I probably would have said yes. But, you know, maybe that's what you're seeing in your apartment building. You've described the people as a kind of a younger clientele, generally speaking. And I'm assuming these people were not particularly young.

It wasn't like they were, you know, millennials. There was one woman who looked like she was my age, maybe. And then it was a guy. These are the two people I remember specifically who was. No, he was a bit younger than me. But but like anyway, just yeah, actually, though, whatever that I even I don't even know why I brought up age.

Like, I don't know what how that breaks down versus like who's getting the vaccination. I just sort of think that my guess is in a place like Portland, and I'm assuming in Seattle, where you have high rates of vaccination and a pretty a pretty progressive thinking populace, people are probably thinking, oh, we're I'm I'm assuming that a lot of people around me have the vaccination or have been vaccinated, I should say, and I am vaccinated so I can get on this elevator without asking. I mean, I guess eventually we're going to start seeing things soften a little bit. I mean, we can't see things soften right now, though, because didn't you just tell me yesterday off air that I don't know if it's your county. Yeah, it must be that county is rolling back again.

Yeah, I think it's like 15 counties in Oregon are going back on Friday to everything's closed, like no indoor dining, no no gyms, no, you know, It's basically back to square one in Portland, in Multnomah County, starting on Friday, because I think if it's like 200 cases, I forget the exact data, but we've hit that point to where they're deciding to crank things back down. And it's very complicated, though, because, you know, the death rate is not very high from COVID right now. You know what I mean? Like because people are we have better treatments for it and because it's now mostly young people that are getting it here in Oregon. Because a lot of the older population has been vaccinated, and so it's young people. I don't know how they're getting it, but they're getting it, and unfortunately, they are pretty sick. But I think they're trying to kind of err on the side of caution here a little bit because Portland has had really low rates throughout, relatively speaking. And because of that, there's not as much naturally occurring sort of herd immunity, if that makes any sense. because portland was successful in in keeping the number of people who got covid down over the course of the pandemic there's a lot of people who haven't gotten covid yet and therefore are not resistant to it so there's more there's like sort of a higher ceiling on the number of people that can get it so kate brown and her experts are being you know being careful and i have to respect that although i have to say it is demoralizing yeah just i understand that god damn it like it's a summer is almost here everyone i know is vaxxed at this point and it's like you know the one nice thing is the outdoor dining is still allowed and the weather is going to be nice so it's kind of it's sort of academic but it's bad for you know a lot of small businesses i'm not trying to get weirdly political on it but i'm just saying it's it it what i was not expecting us to um be going backwards here in portland as of like you know the beginning of may yeah no that i was very

surprised when you when you told me that I actually have a related question for you that oh by the way just to finish my point on that though then I would say that if that's the kind of rollback you're seeing in your community well then people should not be getting on the elevator without you with you without asking and without a mask then that that to me makes it very clear that we are not softening on those things and that's just a polite thing to do let me ask you a quick question here and then we got to finish we got to get to our next dazzling donor but this has been on my mind. I'm going to get my second COVID shot here in a few hours. Luke, my left arm is where I got. the shot last time it's also my left hand that has the broken finger on it right and it's the left hand that's been pretty sore when it gets sore i woke up this morning it was fine then i kind of took a shower and just from like kind of like kind of holding it out of the way and bagging it up and doing all this stuff um it kind of gets sore just from whatever banging it around um and so right now my left hand is pretty sore do i get the shot in the left arm again and just say that whole that whole arm give up on that because that is one thing last last time i got my first shot it wasn't debilitating but i felt it in my arm all day right just kind of like did

you do the thing where you where you shook your arm while you were in the waiting area i did not

hear about that you know about that you told me about that but i thought you were kind of scoffing at it the idea that you're that you're by shaking your arm around you're delivering the the load

around your body more i think that it depended on the you know the person who gave you the shot Because from different people Even in my family I got different reports I didn't get that advice When I got the shot Nor did I But other people I know The person who gave him the shot Said yeah you want to shake your arm A bit to help kind of Move it around And distribute it

I didn't know it came from the provider I thought it was just something That was on TikTok or something

No, no, no I mean Addison Rae Is a strong supporter of it As is Charlie DeMello But no Somebody I know Was told that by the person Who gave them the shot Now, I don't know if that means it was medically sound or not We have doctors and medical professionals in the audience They'll probably clarify But I don't think it could make it worse, right? Like, I mean, there's a certain kind of silly logic to it Like, eh, if you kind of get it moving around your body Maybe it's not all in the same place Maybe it's a little bit, like, the soreness will be a little bit less concentrated I don't know I mean, again, I don't think it'll make it worse

But the, like, the listener mentioned in her Dazzling Donor message the other day describing a dream she had you know she just wants the world to shake it out anyway so why not just be in the waiting room shaking it out but okay really quickly before we move on what would you do like part of me says i should get the shot in the left arm and then the whole left arm just kind of sucks tomorrow with the finger and the shot and everything but i also think oh that could exasperate excess nope i'm using that word well i mean it would be exasperating to not be able to move your arm exactly i could hear i'm like nope i'm using the wrong one i'll just say it could increase the pain in my finger to potentially just kind of make that whole situation more miserable for me. I'm leaning towards getting the shot in my right arm, but then I got two broken wings. Yeah, that's a tough call. How sore were you from the first shot in the arm? The only symptom I had was the arm kind of hurt, and it wasn't terrible, and by, I'm going to say by midday the next day, the pain had already peaked and it was going back down, and when I say pain, I mean, you know, like Don Jeffries punched you hard in the arm at recess again, and everybody laughed at you, and a lot of the pain is just kind of emotional. Okay.

Mm-hmm. Well, then I would – how much are you using your left arm? I mean, you've got the two broken fingers on that hand. But I get the sense I can kind of imagine you sitting behind your console there. You're probably still using your left hand as much as possible because you do a lot of things that take both hands.

Like you're thinking like here, like during the show. Yeah, running. the show and stuff like that and i still have like keep in mind i'm so lucky sorry i keep bringing it back to this but i'm so lucky that it's my ring finger so if you can picture my left hand everybody picture my left hand i'm parked okay i'm parked underneath the grocery store in the garage near the elevator uh my left hand has a splint on the ring finger the pinky is not really usable but it's not splinted up um but i do have index finger uh middle finger and thumb my pinchers Right. And so I'm still doing things like just around the house. Right. Like if I need to wash dishes or something, I have to do it very gingerly and carefully. But I can pick up a mug by the handle and kind of give it a little wash or unload the dishwasher. You know, I'm doing little tasks with these pinchers. So I don't want my left arm to be completely. And I don't know why I'm just sort of in my head about this. Like, this morning when my finger was hurting pretty bad after the shower, I was thinking, ugh, to add to the pain in the same arm seems very un—that seems not ideal to me.

Also, could you conceivably do, like, you know, do all the stuff for the show that you do, including posting the show tomorrow? Could you conceivably do that with only your right hand?

Or would it really, really be a hassle? computer yeah you know i'm finding myself i'm typing a little bit with my one finger yeah i'm not i think i mostly could you know what the this is just now i'm getting this is really boring but um you know i am having to kind of retrain how i kind of do things like i cut and paste things a million times a day when i'm posting the show right because all the same information has to be in like five different systems or whatever so you're copying and pasting this this this this and this and so like the quickest way for me to do that of course is to use the you know control c control v all that stuff um but like i'm i do

Doing that a lot less because it's just not, you know, hitting control in another letter is just kind of a pain. So I'm having to slowly kind of copy things, use my mouse, right click, copy, you know, kind of doing the old school thing. So things just take a little bit longer.

I would go right arm. I would go. I think your instincts are right. I would just go. I would go right arm because hopefully it won't hurt that bad or, you know, won't be that sore. And then we'll leave pretty quickly and we'll give you, I think, you know, 80% or maybe 70% of both of your arms is better than 0% of one of your arms and 100%. I mean, think about it. 70% on two arms, you add that up, that's 140%.

Yeah.

100% on one arm and 0% on the other arm, that's only 100%. It's math, dude.

Thanks, Doc. Maestro. All right. Hold on. I'm on the wrong face.

See? And also, if your left arm were down, you'd be even more screwed right now.

I just clicked away for a second. On your mark. Get set. You Googling more dry cleaners?

Ready?

Go.

Let's thank Jen Joyce of Seattle, Washington. I know her. She's pretty cool. She's a cool customer. She is pretty cool. Our long, long, long time friend and supporter and ally of the show, one Jen Joyce, sometimes known as uber jen in these parts jen says hello friends what a wild year thanks for always being a source of happiness for us tens because of that supporting you has always been an easy decision smiley face i don't really have anything to promote oh i got into tiktok in january of this year yeah jen only the real heads know how great tiktok is i don't know man i was looking at some tick tock last night sometimes what i do andrew is if i'm tempted to start watching more television let's say it's like 10 or 11 it's an hour of the night where i'm getting tired and i'm thinking i want to go to bed but then i'm like oh one more episode of dude i burned through this sorry jen this is happening in the middle of your message i just went burned through this um netflix thing Called The Devil Next Door About the case of John Demonyuk He was this Ukrainian Guy that you know was The question was was he Ivan the Terrible In the Treblinka camp or not

Wasn't he in Cleveland or the Cleveland area He was in Cleveland

So I'm sure that was big news in your childhood Because it was a big story Anyway So I went ahead and like you know Watched all of that in like a couple of nights Anyway sometimes what I'll do is I'll be tempted to start another hour long program And I'll think I don't want to do that So what I will tell myself is you're allowed to look at TikTok. Like you're allowed to look at TikTok in bed for like 10 minutes until you get tired and fall asleep. It's like my it's my way of tricking myself into making what seems like a slightly better decision. But I was doing that last night and I don't know, man. I think I may have may have officially hit the the end of my of my of my deep interest in TikTok. It just kind of has evolved into something that is just not particularly interesting to me. But anyway, putting that aside, Jen got into TikTok. Maybe Jen will get you back into it, though. Maybe so. I got into TikTok in January of this year. Let's all be friends, or as the cool kids say, mutuals. Oh, my goodness. I didn't know about that. Yeah, man. The kids have a lot of language that I have learned from TikTok that I'm trying to figure out how to use in conversation. Mutuals is one. Also, bet. I think bet just means, like, you're agreeing to something, like, you bet, but you just say bet.

Oh, interesting. Okay.

And then also, of course, there's no cap, which means I'm not lying. We love Jen Joyce. No cap, Andrew. Oh, okay. That reminds me of something you would have said growing up in Seattle. Well, we did say cap, but it had a totally different meaning. It was when you were, like, somebody was making fun of someone, they were capping on them. Oh, right. And then we would also say burn. We would say roast. We would stroke our chins. That would be like the really odd thought of just a bunch of fourth graders sitting around stroking their chins. Do you ever say psych? Because somebody capped on somebody. Oh, yeah. That's pretty universal, right? Did psych make its way out to where you were? Oh, yeah. You want a piece of gum? Oh, yeah. Please, psych. Psych. No way. This is for me. Jen is at Knit Pearl on TikTok. I'm going to actually start following Jen. Are you doing that now? No, I'm doing the show, Andrew. You're doing it now. Laser focused.

at knitpearl

K-N-I-T-P-U-R-L my phone's in the other room K-N-I-T-P-U-R-L knitpearl that's where Jen is at on TikTok and I'm going to go I'm going to go give her the follow I'm going to mash that like button okay stay safe tens there is a light at the end of this tunnel we might not know how bright it is or how long until we get there

But there is light and it's really exciting. Power out from listener and today's dazzling donor, one of today's dazzling donor, our friend, Jen Joyce. Thanks, Jen. We love you. We appreciate you. You're the best. And yeah, I'm going to go follow you on TikTok.

Hello and welcome to Top Story.

Ten years ago, Andrew, a British politician named Ed Balls was told by his staff that he should get on Twitter because that was kind of the new way to communicate with your constituents and all that. so he did he signed up for a twitter account and he was trying to as he tells it just search to see what people were saying about him to see you know what's the conversation around um around me as a politician and my policies um but he didn't know how to operate twitter so instead of searching for his name he just tweeted out ed balls okay so politician ed balls in england his first tweet ever um he was a top leader in the labor party by the way at the time so this is like you know imagine a politician of a you know fairly decent standing in the u.s like a fairly important congressperson who's named ed balls who just gets on twitter and then just tweets out ed balls this was 10 years ago today it became as you might imagine a real sensation mostly in the uk mostly in britain i guess this was a an article in the new york times that i saw today uh 10 years ago ed balls tweeted ed balls how is it still funny it is a confluence of a lot of things isn't

it like it's a funny name it's not just like you know yeah whatever ed smith right in fact he says

ed balls is in on the joke he says if my name was ed smith this would not have been did he actually use the word smith yeah look yeah he says if my name was ed smith yeah he says when i was 12 i might have been i might have been appalled for my name to be part of a joke but by the time i was 45 i was well beyond that nice he was like he's sort of he yeah he totally gets it he tweets out happy ed balls day now every year on uh whatever it is today april 28th um one of the things that this times article kind of looks at that's interesting is the uh is the fact that like they're pointing out that ed balls day has really outlived a lot of the other like earlier memes planking nyan cat the song friday by rebecca black hipster ariel i think that was ariel from the little mermaid but with like hipster glasses on like they're pointing out um and of course andrew i apologize maybe you have it in front of you i don't have the person who wrote this piece in the time i can call it up here the vagaries of when i print stuff out but um uh the the writer of this article is pointing out that that this has been a pretty durable meme daniel daniel victor

by the way does daniel victor know that we still use you know um content from the rebecca black song Friday every Friday on our show well except it's I feel like that's a that's the next level

yeah because it's not Rebecca Black singing Friday it's it's uh I don't even where did that

even come from I don't know I can't find it anymore it was some you know when that was a huge viral sensation I think I grabbed it from my old radio show in fact Luke I don't think that was originally a TBTL thing I just grabbed some tape of some British person reading the Friday song as a poem and i think they did the whole song and i just grabbed that gotta get down on friday bit and then the rest was history i guess well i guess friday and all those other ones that i

talked about or that i mentioned that are from daniel's piece again i don't know what nyan cat is i bet if i saw it i would know what that is but i don't know it is described as n-y-a-n cat but like those all happened in 2011 those all happened at the same the same year that ed balls Happened and yet Ed Balls Is the meme that has survived The longest it's still going Said Phoenix Andrews a writer in Leeds Who is writing a book about politics Fandom people still retweeted Outside of Ed Balls day I keep an Eye on it it happens all the time Unlike some other memes doesn't require deep Internet fluency or awareness of cultural References to understand Mr. Balls came off as like everyone's Embarrassing dad and that's fine Said Mrs. Andrews

Yeah, think about all the ways people have made mistakes online that are not so cute and are not so funny, right? Posting the wrong things or having the wrong tab open or what have you. Nyon Cat, by the way, I'm on my favorite website for young people called Know Your Meme. I'll read directly from them.

I live there. I know. It's so sad.

Dian Cat, also known as, and I bet you I'm pronouncing it wrong, too, also known as Pop-Tart Cat, 8-bit animation depicting a cat with the body of a cherry Pop-Tart flying through outer space. What it doesn't say is, and I believe there's a rainbow kind of coming out the back of the cat as well.

Marie LeConte, a journalist in London, was originally on board. I'm just reading from this Times piece, Daniel Victor's piece. The first anniversary was even funnier than the day of the original tweet, not unlike Lawn Chair Larry. Andrew The first anniversary Happy birthday lunch here Larry Day Was a thousand times funnier than The first day that we talked about it As it became clear it would have staying power And continued to be noted each year This journalist Marie LeConte said At the time Mr. Balls was seen as a political heavyweight bruiser And the tweet did not square with his public image People always love when a politician makes a technological mistake And also to be blunt His name is Balls which is kind of great um the the closest uh daniel victor says the closest analog in american politics was probably covfefe oh right an apparent typo tweeted by the former president of this country who shall still remain largely nameless on this show um but the thing that's different about that now i'm not reading the piece i'm just kind of thinking about it is well first of all i don't know i i know very little about ed ball's politics and i don't know if he's, you know, on the right side of these things or on the wrong side. But the Covfefe thing is just different because everything that's done by that guy was dark and evil and politicized. And as Daniel Victor points out, Covfefe is not embraced by both sides of the political spectrum. The left likes to tweet it out and make fun of it because we're making fun of a person that we think is a very, very bad person. The right has Not picked up Covfefe as a funny joke Whereas the left and right in Britain all Enjoy Ed Ball's day right it's bipartisan Thank you it's Ball's partisan really Sorry yeah Let me tell you the story of a guy named Vladislav Ivanov He's a 27 year old native from Russia Apparently living in China He Was serving as An interpreter the guy seems like a real Oh man I always try to say this word, and I always have to take like two minutes to think of it. It is, I believe, polyglot. Oh, you bring this up a lot. I think that's a person who speaks a lot of languages, but I always confuse it with polymath. You're right.

Polyglot is knowing or using several languages.

Polymath is how I list my orientation on Tinder. So he's a polyglot. This guy, apparently, he speaks Russian. He speaks Mandarin. He also speaks Japanese. And he had shown up at the audition for a Chinese reality TV show called – into my English brain, it reads as Produce Camp, but it's not about – it's not about fresh fruits and vegetables. It's not Supermarket Sweep. I guess it's probably called like Produce Camp 2021. Oh, okay. Sure, yeah, okay. Like maybe that – it's basically a TV show where dozens of singers compete to create an international boy band. By the way, this article is written by Lyric Lee and Teo Armas in The New York Times. So this guy shows up, this guy, Vladislav, and he shows up to translate for a couple of contestants because he speaks like every language on earth. And while he's there – I guess he was there for a couple of Japanese friends. while he was there the producers confused him for a contestant and so they persuaded him to actually join the audition and he was in fact brought on to the show his stage name he competes under the name Lelouch or Lelouch however you say that he made it through 10 weekly episodes and several vlogs a spin-off all these other things and he has been trying the entire time to get kicked off the show. He has said, I hope the judges won't support me. He said, while the others want to get an A, I would like to get an F. An F for me stands for freedom. He is described as a fashion marketer and sometimes model. He says he expected he would have been cut at the first elimination, but his lone wolf persona and dark humor made him an unlikely internet sensation. His stage name was inspired by a character from his favorite Japanese anime series. He had this huge fan base of Chinese fans. They knew him as Sun Si or Bamboo Shoots, which is a pun that also means prankster. They apparently, his fans paid for a bunch of LED...

billboards of him above a dozen Chinese cities to try to get people to vote for him to keep him going. Here's what he said. According to the rules of the show, I won today, but to me, I lost again. That was when he got second place one week. He says, I don't want to be in the group. My dreams are to make designs, enjoy freedom, and be a model. Despite his intentionally lackluster performances of Russian rap songs, Ivanov Much to his dismay Only skyrocketed in popularity One plea earlier this month For fans to stop voting for him Drew 55 million views Making it the second most watched interview clip To come out of the show I'm standing here feeling scared But I still believe that my fans will respect My choice of not being in a boy group I believe they know how far they should go He said earlier this month Now Is there any chance this was cooked up by the producers Way ahead of you Andrew Some skeptical viewers have theorized That Ivanov was putting on a nonchalant attitude To stand out from a crowded field of contestants But his makeup artist on the show Told one Chinese vlogger That the stint on the show had in fact Cast him into a depressive state So somebody who knew him was saying No, this is legit The dude does not really want to be here

But he could just quit though

I mean, that's the thing, right? You could just say Well, then I'm not going to do it Actually, you can't Because they confiscated their phones, and anyone who wanted to leave early would face steep fees to break the terms of the contract. What?

But he didn't sign the contract.

He was just there as an interpreter, you said. Well, he started out being there as an interpreter. They talked him into auditioning, I would imagine. I mean, at some point, he was participating in this. They didn't throw him in the trunk of a car and drive him there, but he had signed some kind of releases and contracts. And the sense I get from reading this is he, once it got going, realized I don't really want to be doing this, but he was already contractually obligated, and they could actually have charged him, as this piece writes, steep fees if he were to break the terms of the contract. So it did seem like there was actually a certain amount of financial pressure on him to not quit, but he did appear at every turn to be telling the audience, please stop voting for me. They finally, just recently His fan group basically circulated Like a petition within the fan group To stop voting for him Oh, so they really do care then And he finally got voted off The following day after being voted off Or not receiving enough votes or whatever it is Once the contestants got their phones back Ivanov posted a meme of himself Clad in a bright yellow hoodie Sporting a rare smile He wrote that he felt, quote, happy as a clam

Good, good for him

Yeah. Speaking of clams, Andrew, this crazy story in The New York Times yesterday, which I want to be careful in how I talk about it, because it's really, you know, details some really toxic behavior and some things that are that, if true, would make it a really awful place to work involving rampant sexism and, you know, mistreatment of people, particularly mistreatment of women and lack of access for women and people of color. But it involves this place, The Willows. Have you ever heard of this joint out on Lummi Island? No, I don't think so. What is it? So it is like a very, very respected, admired, very like of 2020 type of restaurant. So it's on this island, Lummi Island, which is a very short ferry ride from Bellingham. And the story on the willows has always been that they only will serve you food that was foraged or hunted from Lummi Island. Lummi Island is not a giant place, but it has farms on it and stuff and a pretty small number of residents. And so it's always been – I'm slightly dragging my feet here because, of course, also as I try to click on this New York Times article, It wants to open it in a browser that doesn't know That I pay for the New York Times As we like to say on this show The New York Times customer service is not the New York Times of customer service

Let me ask you a question that might buy you a little bit of time But also might put you on the spot There's no chance that this restaurant You said it's called the Willows or Willows It didn't come out of I remember hearing about some guy who would have these big dinners That I thought were all foraged as well But they were like these outdoor event type of things

like 10 years ago this isn't related to that i don't think it's the same people although i mean that could have been the guy's name blaine wetzel who's the chef and the co-owner of this thing the willows inn is the official name and um i mean he may have been doing some things like that years ago as well um but what he's been really best known for over the last i want to say five ten years that i've been aware of this place the willows inn is this this particular location so it's a small inn like a small little kind of hotel and then it has this kind of big house that is now also the restaurant so when you go there you you you start off having some drinks in what was the like living room of this house that's now been kind of opened up and then you move over into what is like a huge dining room and then And they come out and they serve you all this food. The thing about it is it is really expensive and it is all supposedly food that's, like I said, been fished from the waters surrounding Lummi Island and also hunted on the island and picked from the island, whether it's nettles or some kind of vegetables or whatever it is. It's all supposed to be from there. That's the whole draw. So this article in the New York Times by a writer named Julia Moskin, the headline is the island is idyllic as a workplace. It's toxic. Globe trotting diners flock to the Willow's Inn, serene northwest setting. But former employees say faked ingredients, sexual harassment and abusive kitchen are the real story.

Sounds like some of these – I mean, I don't have any specific examples to go to, but it does sound like the high-end restaurant business can be a really, really toxic, tough place to work in a lot of instances.

Yeah, it's interesting this would come up two days in a row because yesterday we were sort of talking about pay equity in restaurants. But yeah, I mean, I think it was always probably well-known to people that worked in the industry, and now it's becoming more apparent to those of us that don't that restaurants historically have been a really messed up place for a lot of people, particular women and particular people of color to work in because of how hierarchical it is, because of how male-dominated it is, because of drug and alcohol use, because of all of these things that have made it a really inhospitable place to a lot of people. And so based on this writing, if this is to be believed, the Willows was not different from all of that. So like I said, I want to be careful that I'm not low-keying the really serious part of this, which is the impact this had on the people who worked there, particularly a number of young women who lived on Lummi Island and then would go to work at the Willows Inn. They felt like they were real targets for a lot of sexual attention that they were not interested in and were too young to be receiving. But I was also, I have to say, pretty shocked about just the food side of it because I – Carrie and I went to this place for an anniversary some years ago, and it was not cheap. I want to say – because it's a pre-fixed meal. This is – now, Andrew, again, I don't want to, like, re-trigger you from yesterday.

Yeah, no, this is clearly not – yeah, this is not my vibe, yeah.

There is probably – well, I don't know. I was going to say it didn't have a lot of dairy, so you'd have that going for it.

That would be good, yeah, but no.

Other than that, this would be probably your least favorite situation because basically what you do is you hand over – I think with the wine course, it was like, I think the total bill was around $1,100. Wow. I mean, that's more than I've paid for any other meal in my life. Like the top five other meals in my life that I've paid for don't add up to $1,100, right? Was I trying to save the marriage? I don't know, Andrew. Did it work? You can say. Well, I don't know if the listeners are caught up on the show, but anyway, greetings from Portland. Oh, I'm sorry. Anyway, no. I don't mean to tease hard. No, no, no. The thing that was quite shocking to me, along with all the other stuff that's alleged in this, which is that it was a really toxic work environment, is the fact that they were not getting the ingredients from Lummi Island. Oh, my God. I had a feeling.

I had a feeling that's where this was going.

And this is, by the way, one thing that is absolutely not disputed by—there may be a certain— differences in accounts of some of the behaviors at the Willow's Inn in this article, but this line of all of the restaurant employees interviewed disputed the claim that the food came from the island. In fact, they said most ingredients were ordered from distributors and farms on the mainland. When local produce ran out, cooks routinely bought supermarket ingredients like beets and broccoli that were then passed off as grown or gathered on Lummi Island. They said, quote, Pacific octopus arrived frozen from Spain and Portugal. Wild venison purportedly shot on the island was farm-raised in Idaho. Bury this guy. roasted chicken drippings part of a signature dish were made in big batches from organic chickens

bought at costco oh costco i was gonna say like yeah maybe the the giant um cisco trucks backing

up to the willows would have been a good clue early on like i just remember going to this meal i mean i will say this i was absolutely impressed by the um level of service and the almost the choreography of the staff because again it's a pre-fixed meal so you pay all of this money and then it's like 18 or 19 courses and they are bringing them out you know the place is full oh that's the other thing it's like you can maybe now you can but back in the day you had to like get a reservation six months in advance at this place so and oh i'm sorry yeah oh i wasn't were

you going well i mean i don't want to get on a high horse here because i'm really just exploring

By the way, none of the high horse they served was from Lummi Island either.

And they weren't even naturally high. No, they weren't. They were on stilts. Ironically, the horses were sniffing glue. It's really dark real fast. No, but I'm not talking about you here. You can answer based on your own experience or not. But I'm talking about just an invented couple that I'm making up here goes and maybe loves going to the Willows several times.

We'll call them Kuke and Bear and Larry. I forgot the first letter of my first name.

I wasn't even – no, I was actually going to try to do that joke too and then I got caught up. But no, but for real, I'm not – I'm thinking about a couple who like maybe goes there once a year, right? And it's just their thing. The reason I'm thinking this is I'm wondering is there potentially a class action lawsuit here because they might be thinking, you know, this is a couple that is, you know, of a certain age and they go there every year and they tell their friends about it all the time. it's just a big part of their personality is going to this place right and then they get this news now do they retroactively think those meals weren't as good like it gets too kind of and again i'm not trying to say and i know that i have lowbrow tastes i'm not trying to say like all this highfalutin stuff is bullshit because i don't think it is and i think that we all like different experiences the experiences i liked aren't built around food as much or this kind fine dining, but that's fine. And again, I don't want to take away anybody's love of fine dining experiences or even slightly higher than mine. Like everybody likes what they like. But is it telling at all? If you take this imaginary couple I just made up who like rave about this place all the time, right? But now they're like, well, I want my money back. It's like, but you had the same experience. It was the experience. Like, does it matter? You enjoyed the food. The food was good you told all of your friends about it and you told everybody about the experience now you just realize oh i was being lied to the whole time but it doesn't change your experience you still had a good time on you know whatever june 21st when you went there i did by the way

immediately text carrie do you think we can get our money back literally like i was like because we'll see my experience with this place was i thought the service was unbelievable the setting is is just absolutely gorgeous like I love Lummi Island if I could snap my fingers and just like live somewhere it'd probably be on Lummi Island but I also found the the food itself what I what I said to Carrie after the meal was like you know the service was incredible the food was now it changed by the way it was seasonal so in a certain time of year I think we were there in the winter time actually it was seafood so it was almost all just like every kind of scallop you could imagine and every kind of sea anemone, whatnot. Like it was just all seafood, like literally 19 things of seafood. And the one thing I really liked, by the way, the lobster in butter. And what I had said to Kerry was, that's comfort food for people like me. Because everything else, a lot of it was like just smoked or – and it was all very minimal presentation. They'd bring you a plate, and there'd just be like a teeny tiny little, you know, scallop sitting in the middle. or it'd be sitting in a hollowed out, like, clam shell. And it would be, like, one little bite, which is, by the way, how you can have 19 courses because each course is, like, a bite. But I was like, can they just throw us a bone, you know, figuratively, of, like, people like me who don't have the most refined palates? I mean, there were a couple things I literally had to pass on. Like, I don't want to eat. I'm not trying to be gross, but I don't want to eat. There was one that I think literally was the brain of a sea anemone. It looked like a walnut. I don't want that like a raw brain of a sea anemone that's not for me but I was like a little bit more of the like because when you have a bite of lobster in butter like nobody it's impossible to not like that you know and I was like so I found the meal itself the actual food to be kind of for me I don't know at the end. of the at the end of the 19th thing i was not more satisfied than if we would have just gone to a mid-level restaurant and i would have gotten a yummy thing of risotto um the one thing you didn't

realize is that brain was actually just a date that they bought it safeway but it was the safeway

on lummi island so right okay well in their defense at least it was from the island um this is a quote from a uh a person who worked in the kitchen named julia almost a line cook from 2017 to 2019. On my first day, I was cutting frozen Alaskan scallops down to the shape and size of pink singing scallops. I remember them having pink singing scallops, Andrew, as one of the 19 things they brought out.

But go back to my kind of more philosophical question about this. So it's a little bit tough because it's not hypothetical to you and you actually went there and it sounds like you didn't, you know, it wasn't something that you absolutely loved and talked about and circled a calendar to go back to. But assuming that you were somebody who felt that way, that this really was like the pinnacle of dining to you, what does the, I mean, I guess.

If the marriage had survived, I would be fine with the coffee.

If somebody really, really enjoyed this food, and then it turns out, oh, yeah, I really enjoyed eating it. It tasted great, and I loved everything about this meal. But then it turns out that, well, you still had the same flavors in your mouth, the same mouth feel the same satisfied feeling afterwards like you everything is the same for you but you find out that these singing scallops were actually tone deaf toads or whatever they were like i like how does that change your experience now i could understand that and i'm just and i'm poking at this from a bunch of different angles in my head because i think that that let's add another hypothetical if you are a vegan and you go into a vegan restaurant and then you later find out that that wasn't coconut milk there was actually dairy in there there are huge implications there because they're ethical implications and there are you know dietary implications so that would be i think an argument for saying like okay yeah there could be a lawsuit or some sort of actionable thing here so if you're going to this place and part of the experience is feeling good knowing that there's a sustainability going on with this meal i understand how maybe that maybe that's an argument for saying i was lied to and thus i deserve my money back but aside from that you raved about the food not you but one raved about the food and they loved this place and then they find out the food was something else well it still tasted the same well it's funny

because next paragraph guests who requested vegetarian and vegan versions of the menu uh staff said were routinely served standard dishes made with chicken and sea oh that's not that's that's a i mean that you're fucking with people's health there i that's crazy by the way That's denied by Mr. Wetzel, Blaine Wetzel, the guy who co-owns the place. Back to your question. I think it's a really interesting question and a very valid one. Should there be some sort of, like, remuneration from the Willows Inn to the people who were not eating as locally sourced stuff as they were told? I kind of feel like – I mean the only reason that I even considered this unbelievably lavish expense, which I can't state enough, that's not my normal life. This literally was like, oh, there's a reservation in four months. It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience. And again, low-key, I probably thought, hey, this isn't bad for the old relationship to do something very memorable like this. I don't think I would if they would have just been like, it's a really yummy restaurant on Lummi Island. Like, I don't know if I would have went forward with this unbelievably intense cost. I think the narrative around it, like to me, it feels like false advertising. And if you get people in the door by lying to them, I kind of feel like everything that happens after that is sort of a bit of a scam. Like I know what you're saying is like if the food – if a person loved the food, if a person loved the experience, even though they were being lied to, like what's the real harm to them because the experience they had was positive? I kind of agree with that. But I sort of feel like if you lie to people to get them in the door, if you lie to people for them to turn over their credit card information to you, that to me feels like the original sin of this.

Yeah, no, and I think you're right. And again, and I don't know that I have a point or if I do, I'm shying away from it because I really don't want to be that knuckle dragger who says, oh, this is all bullshit. But for me, because I think you're right. Like anytime somebody is giving you money and you're promising a certain service, like again, like even if it's a – I don't even know, man. And if you buy a high end stereo and it turns out that the guts inside of it are actually are actually just like, you know, let's yeah, let's go with this. So there's that really. expensive like stereo shop down the street from me right there's several in fact um but you know that one like it's really high end and it's kind of we always talk about how you feel one feels intimidated when you walk in there because there's nothing less than a certain amount and you know if they sold you that and they said yeah these are like these are vintage tubes made from like this american company that went out of business in 1978 and you know paul mccartney only listens of music through these tubes like what the fuck ever right um and then it and you take it home and you listen to it and you're just in and you're you're bringing your friends over and you're pulling out old vinyl and you're playing it with a thousand dollar needle and you're like can you i mean it sounds so good have you ever heard anything like it paul mccartney loves these tubes and then it turns out you find out later oh you know what it was a bunch of like modern like actual digital chips in there and this thing was you know made overseas and suddenly you're like whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa i paid a lot of money for something and you sold me something else but then you're like yeah but hey mr music snob you loved it you loved the way it sounded i think that that's what i'm kind of dancing around here and maybe hypocritically this idea of when we're dealing with these things in the very high end of of luxury how much are people just paying for things so they can say that they have the best thing or did the best thing you know what I mean like how much you're paying for the idea of something and maybe I'm questioning that a

little bit yeah I mean it definitely gets squishier the higher up you go with the price point and but I just think that at a set of at a sort of basic level I mean it's like let's imagine that you bought a twenty thousand dollar bottle of wine there is an amazing documentary that I'm always recommending to folks called sour grapes oh yeah you've talked about I really like for folks out there who are interested in wine or just like good documentaries do check out sour grapes i don't want to give away too much but let's just say it turns out that a bunch of this wine that's being sold as you know twenty thousand dollar once in a lifetime type bottles of wine was not was not what it was being sold as to me though like so if you were to buy a bottle of wine for ten thousand dollars and you were to open it and drink it and get great pleasure out of it But the person had made the wine in their kitchen Had like combined a bunch of different wines Corked it and passed it off Even if you enjoyed it thinking it was a $10,000 bottle of wine I would be of the opinion that that person should be held responsible For, you know, basically theft Because they sold you something that was not what they told you it was And that's kind of like a not super fun answer Because I actually like more what you're doing here which is talking about the question of, like, experience and bragging rights and what's the value of that. Exactly.

And I agree with you, by the way. I want that to be clear. From a financial perspective, if anybody, and I think I already said this, but I'll say it again, like anybody takes your money under false pretenses and tells you they're delivering something that they're not, I think you're right. I think that there should be some sort of, you know, compensation for that.

I'm just angling to get my goddamn $1,100 back. You're going to really get me out of a couple of jams.

Actually, you should, yes. But – and so, no, I agree with you on all of that. And I think what I'm exploring here – and, again, I'm knocking dangerously close to the door of saying, like, all these rich, fancy people, they don't even really know – they don't – they think they have better taste in wine. I think wine is a good example. And I think it's one of the reasons why a lot of people are intimidated around wine, which is something that is kind of a bummer because you can get – you know, I'm not a big wine drinker now. But I used to really like the I used to really like hunting down nice bottles of wine that were cheap, that were like inexpensive because they are there. And to me, that was part of the fun. And but I think a lot of people are intimidated because they're like, well, don't it's so expensive and it'll be wasted on me. And I think, you know, maybe a lot of the people who think that they do have a really great taste, again, whether that's your ear or your tongue for wine or for food or whatever, you're just it doesn't really matter. you don't have better taste you know like it was this was frozen food and it was prepared in a way that tasted good to you and now it's like you're yeah your idea of yourself is really what is being

damaged sure no i think you're i think you're totally right i don't think i mean certainly people develop you know if they've had a lot of experience or something they can develop their palate there is something to that but i do i agree with you that and this applies to art this applies This is across the board. Just because people have money and just because people are consuming something that's more expensive than something else does not in any way mean that they actually know what they're looking at or know what they're tasting or what have you. This is a total side thing, but I would recommend to people if you do enjoy wine and like me, you kind of know nothing about wine, I would suggest that you stop into a local wine shop. So there is a wine shop here in Portland. That's just off of Hawthorne I just saw a sandwich board for it I was going to the Tender Loving Empire Which is Tender Loving Records Gift shop To like buy some stuff for Addy at one point Because I don't know what's cool But I just go to a place where cool people work And then I figure the stuff they sell My daughter will enjoy Is that like a record Tender Loving Records Is a label but then they also have A thing called the Tender Loving Empire Which is like They sell records and they sell Clothes and they sell like a bunch of different things It's a vibe It's a vibe and it's a vibe that I don't understand But I go to where the vibes are I go to where the vibes are the illest and also Narudic

They asked me did I have a vibe and I said no but I sat next to the vibe

No but I went to the tender loving empire And they knew what the vibe was And then I got stuff there and then I gave it to my daughter And I seemed cool But anyway I was walking out of that place And I just saw this little sandwich board for this wine shop That was like just kind of, you know, half a block off of Hawthorne. And I went in there and the guy was like, I mean, it was Andrew. When I tell you this was the stereotype of like a local, this could have been a bookstore. This could have been a high end Wi-Fi place or this could have been a wine shop. Actually, maybe not the high end Wi-Fi place, but it's that classic thing where it's just a guy. He is playing jazz on a record. There is wine everywhere. he is like clearly knows from wine but is just like i mean i'm sure there was two cats living in this wine shop um and i was just told him i was like oh here's the stuff i like and then he just like walked me around and i swear to god i got like a couple of like eight dollar bottles of of wine that were some of the best wine i've had in years yes luke this is what i mean and

again i know i don't talk about this much on the show because i really don't know that much about wine but for a while there i had a friend who was really into wine and we we were he would come over a lot we were we were cooking a lot he was bringing over wine and kind of expanding my palate in a lot of different ways actually including jazz as well um these were some fun times and then i moved out here to seattle and like my wine shop i am looking at a map here i think it was the one on 15th ave um in capitol hill i know it was i think it's this one that's called european wine i'm sorry european vine selections i was always going in for the french wines myself they were the only ones i knew about and um and i i think that it has changed hands now but luke you would go in there he had a like some sort of a large poodle like it looked like a purebred whatever it was and the dog's name was kiwi and it was the sweetest dog in the world and i would go in and i would i would hang out with him i would i would say what do you think of these and i'd be poking around and he would tell me some stuff and he was never um he was really laid back he wasn't super conversational but he was also helpful if you wanted help like the least intimidating situation and it felt cozy in there and i can still there's a certain smell of a wine shop and kiwi would follow me around and i always my feelings would be a little bit hurt when somebody else would come in the store and then kiwi would go check them out and i'd be like i thought we were building something but um i mean honestly you talking about that really sparks like i just i haven't been in the mood for actually drinking wine the way i used to but that experience of finding your wine shop and going in and supporting a business like that i can't i can't advocate for that enough yeah but

i'll give these guys a plug portland wine merchants is the name of this joint and yeah it was like because when i'm wandering my strategy when i'm wandering around the grocery store is to like go well this is normally i'm i'm such a sucker for like well this is something that's normally twelve dollars a bottle but right now it's seven so i'm just going with whatever is marked down the most or whatever has the highest regular price now that is marked down the most for this moment because then I'm like, I'm getting over on them. These are normally $20 and I'm getting them for $10. It's a bad system. It's imprecise. But just to go to a place where somebody really knows their stuff and just say, hey, I want to spend $7. What's the best $7 bottle of Pino you have? I was really pleasantly surprised at the experience and will be returning once I have burned my way through this cheap one that i got wait hold on luke not a poodle i just typed in european vine selections

kiwi and it says um kiwi is the portuguese water dog oh like bo yeah so here what is this this is from seattle refined and there's a photo of um the uh this is from 2014 so i think this place has changed hands now but there it is a photo of the owner with his european water dog kiwi

i love this place i i love portuguese water dogs yes beautiful when i see them out and about i am like i'm telling you andrew i uh you know i'm i'm definitely i'm i'm not gonna get another dog because first of all it's weird because i still have a dog that just lives elsewhere and also i you know now that um prancer the

chihuahua has been adopted i just you know i missed my chance but man oh man i'm like turning into you just as i wander around portland when i see dogs i'm just like want to get down and give them a major pat a major scratch and portuguese water dogs are really pretty cool dogs yeah they

are um that's just absolute stupid generally speaking generally speaking do you think our shows are this is a great way to start the segment and i think this is a good thing but i think generally speaking the past couple of weeks we've been turning in longer shows than usual just like on average right yeah like it's an hour and a half now how you feel about that you know

I other than like maybe one particular listener who has taken it upon themselves to listen to the entirety of the show and pull out audio somebody does the general sense I have is that the listeners like longer shows yeah which bucks every possible trend and piece of like wisdom about podcasting so I'm going to assume that it's a good thing

Yeah. And I think it's a good thing for this reason. It means that you and I were well, I know I'm just going to use this word too much, but we were like legitimately vibing. Right. Like we're not like trying to get through too much stuff. It means that we were on a roll and we had a lot of stuff we wanted to talk about. So anyway.

It also means that I have been having a little bit more success at not scheduling something at 11 a.m.

Oh, right. Sure.

Yeah, that's what I mean, because that's also a driver of like if we got to get out of here versus I mean, we have meetings today and stuff we got to do. In fact, this is where it's now going to get into kind of impinging on your time because you're still Mr. Mr. Showposter. But, yeah, no, I think that for me, I'd probably talk to you for like three hours if I never had anything else I had to do afterwards.

Yeah, no, that's a good point. You and I also had to, you know, probably we chatted for probably 45 minutes before the show today. But, okay, so let's get into this. It was weird for me to bring that up over the, you know, can you hit that music again, Luke? Because I love that intro, and it's so good, and I wasted it. Sure. That is, is that Hawk Harrell? Hawk Harrelson, I think. Hawk Harrelson? Yeah.

That's just absolute stupidity.

all right who's ready for some drops of stupider luke you were about to mention i think that this is the um this is the final installment of round one so this is these are the last two submissions of tbtl moments slash tbtl segments and today's matchup pits mary the tbtl virgin against luke's agent mort so let's explain both these these are four and five seeds in this category of guests on the show. Mary, the TBTL virgin, is a relatively new friend of the show. The first time she appeared on the show was back in November of 2019 after I saw her posting a lot in the 10's Slack page. And she was hanging out in there and talking with people, and at some point she mentioned that she has never heard an episode of TBTL, which, you know, is a curious thing. How did you find this private Slack page? Who are you, Mary? and it turns out that she somehow accidentally started receiving the tbtl newsletter she's a writer and editor herself she enjoyed reading it um i think she'll explain why she enjoyed the newsletter so much here and so we invited her on the show and we just wanted to know what's your deal mary she lives in arizona in the phoenix area actually i think in phoenix um in phoenix proper and uh and so we asked her to come on the show and explain her relationship to us so let's start with that. How in the world is it that you are a person who is kind of so involved in the TBTL verse yet has literally never listened to this show? I don't really understand that, but

it's been really fun. Your newsletter is phenomenal. My daughter went to school at University of Washington, and I just thought maybe you were friends of hers, and I asked her if she knew you and she knows she never heard of you in in her life so um i again i don't know i cannot explain the magic in the universe that would have populated my email feed with the tbtl newsletter but it's a great newsletter because it has everything in it it has a nice welcome introduction. I still don't know if it's too beautiful to live or too beautiful to live, as in this is a live broadcast from Seattle, Washington. And I don't understand what TBTL really even means. But then you have these phenomenal GIFs that are so much fun. And then you have this very friendly text, you know, where you talk about amazing, wonderful people, and you introduce us to new things, and then there's the expanding Uncle Phil and the hot dog listening to the race battle.

and then the songs of the week oh my gosh i keep asking my kids please send me new music and they just ignore that all the time but then you give me this list monday tuesday wednesday thursday friday with songs that i can click the link and listen to and it just makes me so happy but but money savers i look at this and i laugh every month because half of them i don't even know what They are eight sleep. I get $150 off my purchase to pay for eight people to come sleep with me? What is that?

No, you nailed it. That's what it is. It's on the fringes of legality. Mary, always a little fresh.

TB Till. God, she seems like a kindred spirit with my mom.

Yes, I love. I'm thinking now, I probably pulled the wrong piece of tape because what was really interesting was later on in that conversation, And she offhandedly mentioned that she has a list of things to do every day. I think she wakes up and she makes a list of things to get done, like write a card to her friends and all these various things. And we're going to keep up with her and find out what was on her list every day. But anyway, big, passionate supporter of the TBTL newsletter, as you heard there. Now, she is going up against Luke's agent, Mort. Luke, my understanding is you've been in this business for a while. You need help finding gigs sometimes, especially paying gigs. And you have an agent.

I'm only one person, Andrew. Right. I can only, you know, I can only sort of handle so many things at one time. And that's why, you know, it pays basically. It makes financial sense to, you know, sort of subcontract out some of that work, like to my agent Mort.

But my understanding is you are not paying a lot for this agent.

Don't overpay for your agent or your health care. Those are the two things that I've learned over the years. So, yeah, it's not – I had a Groupon is how I got Mort.

And Mort's out there. I mean he's grinding. He's looking for work for you. But a lot of the gigs that he's coming back with aren't always kind of at the top of your list. This is one of the voicemails that he left for you way back in 2010. Take a listen to this.

Lukey B. Hello, your agent here. Sorry to bother you. Hope you don't mind if I make your day. Quick question for you. What is your favorite Natalie Imbruglia song? Now I ask you because all the event organizers want to know what song to play when you walk out on stage at the opening act for the one and only Natalie Imbruglia, male impersonator, Natalie Imbruglia, that's right, rated the second most popular Imbruglia impersonator in northern Canada. So clear your schedule, the event last weekend of the month, and hang on for a second here, I'm sorry, Luke, I got another call, let me click over and ditch him here for you. Okay, I'm back. The pod just got sweetened. You ready for this? You better sit down. I'll wait. Okay, hope you don't mind sharing the stage and your dressing room with American Idol runner-up David Archuleta's brother Ricky. Confirmed. Call me.

Confirmed. call me oh man i love that i love that i've told you the i've told the story on the show i'm sure a few times right about that i don't want to break any of the kind of the magic and the myth around that but let's just say the character of mort grew out of a real conversation that i had with a real friend of mine and fellow i guess you could say actor as we were uh as we were wearing puffy pirate shirts in san diego handing out 3d glasses at an insurance conference and we were doing an impression of whatever agent would have booked us for this and thus Mort was born

and I sorry to do this I think now I've done this every time maybe it's my way of getting in on the joke or inserting myself too much but remember this actual voicemail that I got at my actual desk phone at KCRW and I was like I am this is not a joke this is an actual voicemail I got a PR pitch and I was like yeah I guess I'm really in L.A. now.

Hey, this is for Andrew Walsh. Andrew, this is a public relations office calling out of Hollywood. Erwin Zucker, Erwin Zucker PR. I sent you an email last week. I'm following up to see if you can use a relationship expert, Dr. Nicky Monty, who's written a brand-new book called Our Love Matters. Is this suitable for Madeline? let me know if you There's an opening, even if it's just a few minutes on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday, because Dr. Monty has a big event, big retreat seminar in Encino on Saturday.

I don't know that it necessarily gets better after that. There's like 15 more seconds left, but you understand why my brain goes there.

You imagine Erwin Zucker as the guy, the Six Flags, like dancing guy with the glasses?

Yeah, right.

A gentleman of a certain age, bald, fair, you know, decent number of liver spots, big old glasses, but still just banging the phone, still just working the phones, getting, you know, doing the best for his clients. Oh, my God. Yeah, that's an amazing. That is an amazing voice.

Man, I love that it's real. I know me, too. I almost I sort of like it's weird. I love that tape so much, but I also always feel a little guilty putting him out on Front Street so he can laugh about it, because I also have a weird warmness towards him. I mean, I don't think he ever left any other voicemails, or maybe I just stopped checking my voicemails and just sat in my car and cried instead. But I just have a warmness listening to that. He actually sounds like a guy that I would like to meet. I would love to have. Absolutely. I would love to go to Langer's with him. Are you kidding me? Oh, my God.

The guy's got to have stories. By the way, as of – I can't see the date on this, but there was a little piece written about Irwin. And he still drives at age 92. He only recently sold his Hollywood offices. He now works from home. And up until whenever this piece was written in Not Born Yesterday, news for smart and savvy adults. By the way, would you be surprised to know Irwin Zucker has a beautiful head of hair? Like you and I would both kill for Irwin Sucker's hair Is it like white? It's white, but it's luxurious It is there, it's definitely not a wig Like, he's not how I pictured him But apparently as of the writing of this thing He was still on his grind That was, by the way, 2019

2019, okay, and I'm looking here He was the owner of Promotion in Motion for a while Yeah, as well, that's a great name

Yeah, so that's, yeah, that's a great voice smell uh what um what should we go out with today polyphonic spree light and day oh because of the like 40 minute conversation about the polyphonic spree and the fact that someone donating money

to the show asked that we do it is that why is that why that's what we'll do this is for megan freedom late and day uh all right you wrote down a show title way early on right i think i assigned it to myself it's like giving yourself a nickname but it's all we got i think well okay

here's what i wrote down you said this could be a show title prickles my pettiness oh prickling

my pettiness maybe but i also like prickle prickles my pears because isn't prickly pear a thing yeah we could do that prickling my prickle prickling my pears prickle prickling my pears okay yeah that sounds i i would i would you know sign off on that you know one thing i was kind of hoping for is that because i just said i'm taking a note like i did think i was kind of thinking With my broken hand I might be able to like for a newsletter Actually say Genevieve take a note And have like yes take a memo Take a memo and like actually like say What I want in the newsletter and have her type it out But then you can I mean maybe there's a weird power dynamic There that um and maybe She just wouldn't do it but I did like the idea Of tell or possibly you saying Luke take a note and then you could transcribe

Take dictation yes sir And then I'll write it down I always wonder if Maybe that would finally Get me to actually like maybe try to do this Book project that I've been threatening for years maybe it's just the although I'm a very fast typist actually so it's not like typing holds me back I actually like typing it helps me organize my thoughts but something in me thinks well maybe if I just you know just had one of those little you don't even need them anymore I was going to say one of those little you know dictaphones or whatever or dictation recorders where I just you know 1976 Luke Burbank was born in Arcata California Fortuna Hospital There it is. That's the first chapter of the book. Did I need a scooter? No. Did I have one? Yes. You know who's going to promote that book? Erwin Zucker. All right. We'll go out with a polyphonic spree, and we will thank all of you for listening. I'll be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you, including the Blur's Days. So do tune in for that. Until then, have a great Wednesday. Stay safe. Ask before you get in the elevator with someone you don't know. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Then you'll say, cause all my feelings are more than I can let by, or not. It's more than you've got. Just follow the day, follow the day and reach for your sight.

All day and reach for the sun See me fly into the red One more your day Just about the seasons and find the time Reach for the bright side You don't see me fly into the red One more, you're nuts. Just follow the day, follow the day, and reach for the sun.

Follow the day, follow the day, and reach for the sun.

Power out.