Muse

I can't come along with you on this.

What?

But I can help in the gun department. I still have a few pieces laying around from the old days.

I thought you banished all the guns.

I did. I banished them to here. All right, let me show you around this pretty little lady. Right here, you got your no shooty button. Okay. Okay, they call this the long part. And here is your pusher. Makes the bullets go. You push it. Okay. Uh, let's see. What does this look like to you?

A switchblade?

Even better. Whoa! It's a comb. Whoa! Gafoon, you want all your hair to go in the same direction.

Sure.

T-B-T-L. Guess what day it is. Guess what day it is.

It's Friday. Friday. Gotta get down on Friday. everybody's looking forward to the weekend the beginning is horrible also the middle so i'll give it a four my podcast is on life support hey i need new listeners why don't you come by if you

got some triple fried pizza dough or some kind of frozen meatballs or whatever it is you can warm it up in my microwave or you can warm it up back at home bring it over pipe and hop and if you want

to bring over a vegetable medley a crudite you call hamburgers steamed hams yes it's a regional

dialect uh-oh he's starting that funny talk again all right hello good morning and welcome everyone to the friday edition of tbtl the show that just might be too beautiful to live i've seen it on the set and it's heartbreaking my name is luke burbank i am your host coming to you from the Nest Broadcast Center, high in the sky above Portland, Oregon. So excited that it's a Friday. It's your lucky day. Some big plans this weekend to go visit my family at a yurt in the wilderness of the state of Washington. Like you do. I'm also very excited for today's episode of TBTL. I feel like it's going to be a good one. It's episode 3418 in a collector series. And let the fun begin. We have a lot to talk about, which usually means we'll get to almost none of it. But the plan, at least on paper today, is to talk about this story about a kid who ordered like almost $3,000 worth of SpongeBob Popsicles off of his mom's Amazon account. Kids and fantasy. i kind of i'm this will probably come up i guess when we address the topic formally but one of the things that's actually kind of charming about the story is that there is a picture of the kid eating one of the popsicles in other words when the popsicles showed up his mother did not immediately drive him to an orphanage and drop him off kind of like those moments where like a parent will come around a corner and their kid has gotten into like a can of like paint or a bag of flour and it's just everywhere and it's just kind of like you don't even know what your next move is as the parent so you just have to document it on your phone because it's like you're sort of overwhelmed by it anyway i'm glad the kid is still a member of his family but i there's one part of the story that i want to drill down on involving these popsicles and a gofundme page that was set up afterwards speaking of questionable financial decisions we will talk about the town in japan that spent its covid money on a giant shrimp statue i wish i hadn't done that people get upset some people somewhere sometimes one time got upset when i gave away things from the news quiz show wait wait don't tell me which i will uh be one of the panelists on when it airs this weekend on public radio stations all over america but i will say that we recorded it last night there was a shockingly high overlap of things that we've been trying to talk about on tbtl and things that were on wait wait making me sound like quite the genius when i got a couple of questions right i was very proud of myself anyway uh you

know what i don't feel proud of the fact that yesterday i once again completely spaced that we're trying to do the drops of stupider contest that's right the deuce forget me shot this is where we are going back and listening to great moments in TBTL history and then you can go to tbtl.net and you can vote on those great moments and we can figure out what the best moment in TBTL history is. Two times this week I've completely forgotten that we're supposed to do this segment, we will do it today. I don't have to be anywhere after the show, for a while anyway. The times when I've forgotten it's been because we have a meeting to go to or I'm going to an asparagus field or something.

Today, I promise you, we're getting to the drops of stupider. And we're also going to get to our conversation with this guy, the longest-running co-bro of the show, best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He starts today's episode, honestly, really with more questions than answers. What the hell is the Valley City Youth League, and what did I do with them? He is Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now from the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. I'm scrolling through the Slack page for TBTL here, and I'm seeing some bad news, some medium news, and some fun news. Can we start with the bad news? Yes, sure. Listener Danny. I was seeing if I had some cool audio about news that I could play. It's not really breaking news, though, right? It's not breaking, no. It's just been sitting there. It's just been sitting there on the shelf.

This is basically all I have, and it's not really relevant, but... Single Christians, good news. So this is good news for single Christians. Right. Wait, this is the bad news, though.

Yeah, this is bad news for single Christians and married Christians. Danny, listener Danny in New Hampshire. Oh, okay. Our lawyer friend, yes.

Right, who's going to represent you in your various lawsuits against the people responsible for your broken fingers.

Exactly, because I fell in front of the bus I'm going to sue the bus driver I'm going to sue the bus, I'm going to sue the street I'm going to sue the curb There were some others in there as well Oh, the people who made my tennis shoes, Reebok I believe is the name of that company

A lot of lawsuits Ever since they made Reebok pumps too expensive For me to afford when I was in middle school

Oh, that's part of the litigation

That's emotional, you know what? Add that, class action That's emotional pain and suffering right there

Oh yeah, it's all in there The bad news here, though, is my lawyer, my representation, Danny, is bowing out, at least at the agreed rate that I thought I was going to pay. She says do it pro bonehead. Exactly. She says products liability lawsuits are quite complicated. Unfortunately, I could not take on your case pro bonehead. That's a hell of a thing to wake up to, isn't it? I mean, you think you have a you have a lawyer.

You think you've got it all worked out right now. You've got a suit against Danny. Well, exactly. For incompetent representation. I mean, how how could it be more incompetent than not taking the case for free? The case says, yeah, right. Well, it's fine, Danny. You will see you in court.

Exactly. Add another one. I'm coming at you. Walsh, Walsh and doormat. We'll handle this ourselves. The medium news comes from listener Clive, who is putting this out there. I feel like the guys owe us a three hour episode today. This week, they're averaging less than 90 minutes. We gave the listeners a taste of the long shows last week, Luke, and now they want more. They want more, so I don't know what you got in.

Well, it's very funny to hear that, even if it's just from one listener, because we're having a lot of conversations over on the LiveWire side, that is the other radio show that I do, with our distributor of the show. And one of the things we're trying to do is figure out clever ways to make the LiveWire podcast more popular. it's you know somewhat popular but it could be more popular new host and uh what's that new host that was my first suggestion literally my first suggestion sorry go ahead um but so i said could it please be um simone who won this season of drag race who i just met last night when we were talking to her as the not my job guest on wait wait also not a spoiler it's probably on the

website everybody calm down your new favorite person you were telling me before the show oh my

god dude i am like i it's not an exaggeration to say i am going to start watching this the season of drag race that simone won i am going to start watching it just because of how incredible simone was and talking to her but my point is i find myself once again in a world of a fair number of meetings about podcast theory andrew and everybody who doesn't have a podcast thinks that the key to podcasts is making them 1.5 quibbies long.

Right.

And it's so hard for me because I don't even know if they're wrong. The data is out there and there are a lot of people making a lot of money on podcasts or maybe some people making some money. I actually don't really know. I know there are some companies spending shitloads of money to acquire podcasts, like 99% Invisible, which just got bought by Sirius. Did you see that?

No, I did not see that. By serious.

If anybody needs a loan, hit up Roman Mars.

Did I tell you that I saw that there's a...

Hey, Roman, you know what? My bank account is 99% invisible. Could we work on that?

That's a pretty good move.

Could we make some of it visible?

Because you're loaded. I know that these are our, you know, kind of industry colleagues.

and whatnot, but I must have said this to you. There's a new podcast out. I can't even remember what it is. Doesn't matter of course, but it is a production of Gimlet, Pineapple and Spotify. It's like, who's left? It's just interesting how we have, I feel like, five huge podcast players now in the game and then when they all collaborate on one

show, what's left? It's like NBC, ABC and cnn collabing on a show it's like what is the vertical integration here of this product how is this who's getting paid well so yeah i sit in these meetings and and um and and we we talk about length of show and it's so hard for me to not just go with what my personal kind of like um preference is which is i like longer shows well i like a show to be about an hour is probably the time for me because um to me it's like what task am i going to perform during the the the the duration this show runs so you know in the rudy days it'd be like walk the dog or if i'm on a road trip it's like how far how many episodes of chris hayes's show can i get in before that or that new zoe chase one i'm really into the improvement association yeah so i that's how i listen i have no use i personally have no use for a 15 minute podcast like it's just that's not enough time for me to get into the groove with anything and i don't want to so anyway that's my listening style i don't know if that's what everybody does but it's funny that our listeners an hour and a half is itself not enough yeah and i think it does speak to what we're doing and also

our audience numbers are not comparable to those shows that you mentioned there and you know for

instance we've had i would say limited conversations with serious satellite about being acquired for what is presumably millions of dollars.

Oh, did I not loop you in on that, dude? I'm so sorry.

Did you use my APM email? I don't check that.

I had a Zoom. I had a Zoom the other day. Yeah, with Mr. Serious. Oh, okay. By the way, despite the name, very lighthearted fella, Mr. Serious. So I was really happy about that. And his partner, Mr. Satellite, was there too. So it was just a great Zoom meeting. I'm sorry I didn't loop you in. But, yeah, so what we're doing is a different kind of thing. Like, my podcast listening now is almost entirely Levitard, which is weird. Like, by the way, I'm not slamming Levitard here, but I go through phases of listening where I'll get really into something and then I'll ease up. And I think I mentioned to you off the air the other day that part of me is kind of easing up on Levitard, except, you know what? Only emotionally. Like, they've got me in a grip. Like, I wonder if we do that to listeners, too.

You know, you're having not quite a throw your phone moment, but you're having the general feeling that TV show listeners have when they are listening to the show. But they're also low key, a little bit annoyed with the show for maybe days or weeks on it.

Yeah. And I wouldn't even say that I'm annoyed. I mean, listen, they're cranking out so much content. There are times where I'm like, that doesn't work. But for the most part, it's still it's still. Yeah. I mean, that's pretty few and far between. But like, I've just been gorging on it for over a year now. I started listening during the last Super Bowl and then, you know, it's pretty much eclipsed everything else I listened to. It kind of takes priority. But because it's like such they release it in this weird way that I think helps juice their numbers. They're releasing like five distinct files a day on three days of the week. So they're kind of broken up by a very loose theme and different characters on the show will appear on the different segments. But it's all just one big stew of Levitard and his crew. Right. which is ever expanding and for me it's like I don't even know ever where I am on that it's like turning on the radio and turning it off it's just like a kind of a constant stream for me I'm usually a few days behind and I turn it on and when I need to walk to the car but I don't want to have any thoughts in my head for the three minutes it takes me to get there I pop on my headphones and I listen to those three minutes and then maybe I'll pick it up later on that night when I'm doing dishes it's like it doesn't matter to me whether one of their little segments they release is 15 minutes or two hours because I'm just constantly rolling on it, you know? And I think that is the relationship a lot of listeners have with our show, which is just like, it's just companionship. You know, you turn on the daily, or you turn on Zoe Chase's, is that part of Serial, by the way? It is.

It's the latest kind of offering from that. So it's basically Serial, which is its own show. Speaking of people getting paid, Serial is its own business entity that is partnered with the New York Times. The New York Times bought it for like $300 million or something.

Right, right. And, you know, that's the kind of listening where you need to kind of pay attention to it. You're going for a walk and you're listening to the details of the story. You might rewind once or twice if you miss something important. I don't think a lot of people are rewinding TBTL because they miss something important. When was the last time we said something important? Do a real audit right now. Really? Search your soul.

Think about the last time you said something. Hold on. Let me get out my e-meter. Let me read my engrams. I'm sure – Wait, when did this become a Scientology show?

I'm sure it was said by Jen, so you might want to just start it with 2009 and then go backwards.

No, you're right. Actually, it's interesting because I actually was literally doing that with this latest show from Serial and Zoe. It's really compelling, but it's a lot of names, and it's a lot of people and a lot of voices, And it's a lot of kind of, you know, one of the things that I think Zoe is so great at is telling complicated stories in a very followable and simple way. But I find myself hitting the back 15 second button a lot to make sure I'm tracking who's, you know, who we're talking about in this moment. And I do the same thing with Chris's show. Why is this happening? But it's more because just like somebody will say something that strikes me as a really good way to think about a particular topic. And I want to make sure that I kind of like lock it in my brain. But yeah, there are shows like that Where they take a decent amount of concentration And then there's a show like this Which you just put on So burglars think somebody's home Can't afford SimpliSafe? Just play TBTL In fact, the burglars They'll just be so annoyed That they won't even want to break into your house

Some people don't even put it on They just put a little sign outside their house

You can buy those online That just says this is a TBTL home

In this house we believe blurs days are for blurs day yes exactly the joe pesci and daniel stern will just pick another place i want to go i want to play one more thing for you which i bet you you've heard because you play in the demi and digi ebay space way more than i do but this is i did we were talking about will smith the other day and let's see i should actually attribute who posted this this was um listener marissa in maryland said every time the guys start talking about will smith I always think about Demi's fake End credits with Will Smith Raps I didn't know he does this he'll create Yes these end credits So here's the one this is the first one I heard this is going back For 2018 so probably A lot of people in our audience already heard this These are the closing credit I should say this is his fake Will Smith Song for the closing credits of The movie Get Out I'm just gonna play a little bit of it Well actually it's only two minutes you tell me When to stop Luke

so my girlfriend took me to meet her mom and dad but deep in my stomach was this feeling i had i mean yeah their fancy crib was tight but something just wasn't right oh and did i mention they're white they were polite but it's something you squirre when her dad told me he wanted obama for a third term and then i had a nightmare it was whack i dreamt that i was sunken my body got the next day as i was walking about i took a picture of the strings talking bro he started yelling i looked at him like chill man you're bugging they took him to a room and he came out like it was nothing it was so freaky that i wanted to leave i said girl we gotta dip but she was hiding with keys and they sunk me man that wasn't a dream i ain't sticking around the next time somebody screams you know i'm on me the terrible thing to waste and white folks are God, that's so good.

So good, right? Demi is like, I mean, the thing about, it really is, like, he is a genius multidisciplinarily. Like, the thing that's crazy about his talent is he is a super funny comedy writer, just joke writer for TV shows and for himself. He is a really good singer. He has a really good musical ear. He is an amazing dancer. Those productions that he puts together for September 25th? Or wait, what is it? Do you remember the 24th? Wait, 23rd? Which day of September? Do you remember the 20-something? How could I forget what day in September it is?

That's the whole thing.

And now I'm totally locking up on this. I want to apologize to Philip Bailey and everyone in Earth, Wind, and Fire. I want to just apologize to you that I think it was 24th night of September.

How am I so bad at this?

It was somewhere between 20th and 25th.

I think it's the 33rd day of September.

Oh, that's it, yeah. I've got it all written down somewhere. Do you remember the 24th night of September? It's the first line, right? It's the first line of the film, Bill. It's got to be good.

Oh, that's where it cuts off. Wait, no, here we go. 21st! There you go. God damn it!

oh wait you didn't say that i i mean i and maybe in the wide range of yeah exactly i i bought every lotto ticket and i didn't win somehow 21st night of september you think i would know that but anyway those amazing productions that he's been doing over the years uh for september 21st uh are really good anyway the guy is just the guy is really incredible and um can throw down a mean will smith now we were talking good now we were talking about the

fact that there's probably a limited chance that our show is going to be acquired by some big moneyed outfit and then we're going to be just on easy street andrew like we're just going to be down in z1 tanejo sanding that boat like the end of the shawshank redemption which is how i always saw it ending for us um but if we had a chance to blow up we missed it yesterday when apparently npr featured a story by me that was somebody's like favorite story of the last 50 years but went to great length to make sure they never mention me, thus depriving me and by extension TBTL of the fame and adulation that we so richly

deserve. I was really ticked off on your behalf before you even heard it. I actually wasn't. Which was kind of funny I mean not really ticked off, I was mildly irritated and I but here's one funny thing about this story or maybe not funny but again you're just listening so you don't hear your thoughts listener so go with me here. Yesterday on the show you and I were talking about our interactions with listeners and sometimes like a topic will pop up and then a whole bunch of people will email us about it you know because it's something kind of in our wheelhouse and so when I saw that one of your old famous iconic stories I'll just say it the hot Cheeto story was kind of let's say trending again I saw somebody was posting posting about it I almost sent it to you but I purposely didn't send it to you because I thought oh Luke's already got this a million times from a million different listeners. So I'm not going to send it to you. I'm just going to react to it. And then you're like, I don't know what you're talking about. I wonder if you saying that on the show will keep people like me, your coworker and friend from sending you stuff on the assumption that you've

already seen it. Well, I was I think when you saw it trending, it had probably aired on the East Coast, not the West Coast. So I was just doing whatever my work stuff was here. And so I didn't know what you were talking about. But it was funny because shortly thereafter, I got a lot of reactions including from my first ex-wife who was driving through the desert of California because she goes between LA and Joshua Tree now and she was the one who hipped me to that story she was teaching in an after-school art program at the elementary school where they had banned hot Cheetos it was probably the one and only enterprise journalism piece I ever did in my life you know it wasn't like a New York Times piece about hot Cheetos that I went and then like just did the radio version of it was a person in my life told me about an experience and then and I made some calls, and then it was a story. So that was kind of fun that she got to hear it. She was pretty psyched about that. But anyway, let me just play it for you here. The headline is, for NPR's 50th, a story served with laughter and shit.

Considered to celebrate 50 years on the air, listeners are sharing stories that have stayed with them.

Today, Michael Spikes of Skokie, Illinois, tells us about a piece from 2006 that he used to teach in his media production classes because he loves the sound in it.

I like them so much. They're my favorite. When I eat Hot Cheetos, I get crazy. I just love Hot Cheetos! I love them so much!

There's a story about a principal banning her students from eating Flama Hot Cheetos on their campus. Yes, the reporter included a food scientist in...

Ari. Et tu Shapiro? Ari my my dear friend from the same sort of Starfleet class at NPR that I was in it was like me Ari Audie Rachel Martin David Green we were all kind of in the same like you know late 20s group of folks who were all kind of trying to weasel our way onto the radio and having some success like Ari and I like Ari and I are peeps cannot believe you would say the reporter i have some theories let me just finish playing this because luckily it's pretty short and then um although it says one minute listen but then i'm looking at the file it's

one minute and 31 seconds i think it rolls into the news oh okay just in a frito-lay spokesperson

but spikes says really what it is that what captures your attention so much is the sound of the kids in the story and that is juxtaposed with the narration that comes from the reporter

you know who talks about it in also michael you've been teaching this in your class you never heard

the guy say luke burbank also by the way there's a slight reporter there's a slight at the beginning too it says he used to teach this in this production class what's he teaching now wow probably something from the fucking daily wow seriously yeah no but this is the one time

it's actually justified in somewhat a little bit more of a i don't want to say clinical way But, you know, talks like an adult will talk about Flaming Hot Cheetos. And I just use that story because they always they listen to it. They laugh at it. You know, they get it.

Now he said use. OK, what's the real story?

Yeah.

Michael, are you using it? Are you not using it?

Not only just because of the subject.

but also because of what they heard in it.

Michael Spikes, you caught us. Now you all know our 50-year winning formula. Just sprinkle your hard news with some giggling kids and boom, radio magic. Okay. Our secret? I don't know. That's my secret? Yeah. Is that your secret?

Yeah. It also just feels like you're being negged all over the place there. I'm not lying.

I actually didn't feel negged by it. My guess would be, I haven't listened to the rest of these, But I'm guessing one of two things happened Either the decision was made editorially To just not get into who the reporters were Because it's just one more name They're trying to keep it a one minute thing right That's already a challenge To include some tape from the piece And the person who liked the piece Talking about what they liked about it That's a lot to do in one minute And I could see a world in which the decision was made We can't we're not going to get into This was a Sylvia Pujoli piece This was a whatever you know It just keeps it cleaner I probably would have argued for the same thing Either that So I'd have to listen to the other ones to know if that was Consistent editorial choice or It's that they did think that there was a 5% chance that I would feel a little Roasted by the guy saying that My delivery was kind of clinical And so they didn't want to like They actually thought that they were maybe like Saving me from the Feeling which I kind of wouldn't have because This is the thing The one thing I've never been accused Of is sounding overly serious or clinical like that really it's like if anything there were many times where it would have served me to be set to sound more professional so i the fact that i was i guess sounding kind of and i also probably sounded more like my npr voice then of being like i don't know just more what i thought an npr reporter sounded like so for whatever reason them talking about the juxtaposition of my voiceover and like chaton taylor the little gal who said i just love hot cheetos who's now become you know kind of famous in our world for this whole thing like if they're pointing out the contrast between my voice and chaton's that actually makes me feel good it makes me feel like i wasn't trying to compete with these kids you know i was kind of like teeing them up to be funny and likable um and also the other interesting thing about that story is probably when i went out and got the initial tape i probably thought this is enough of a story these kids are adorable they're not allowed to have flaming hot cheetos we good probably an editor who is smart said you got to add a little bit more to the story and so i think i talked to somebody at the um the monell center for like flavor research or something i talked to somebody who's a food scientist who talked about something called the trigeminal nerve which gets stimulated when you eat spicy things and then little kids eating spicy things it stimulates their trigeminal nerve and almost creates like little mini high for them and that is a dazzling deet that i have repeated like probably 150 times in my life uh the trigeminal nerve and that whole part of it so i'm kind of glad that was in the piece so anyway all of that is my saying i i don't actually feel dragged by that but i do think it's

a little bit curious i disagree with your statement that in this one minute little remembrance that you would have agreed with spiking the reporter's name i think you're somebody who is on the record for liking specificity it's not that much of a time thing and i don't think that it really i am actually somebody who because my brain is so easily confused i am very much less is more when it comes to radio scripts so i don't like extraneous stuff in there either i don't think saying the reporter's name um complicates this too much and i have another theory that i'd like to lay at your feet luke okay if this was a reporter who is still with npr i think they say the name i don't think that whoever did this was necessarily somebody you know whatever producer put this together i don't think that it was specifically a slight i'm actually i'm playing i'm playing that up a bit you know this is some producer probably who's like literally half our age and was like you know well art

silverman is literally twice our age he's listed on if you go to the website it's listed as an art silverman justine kennan and then another name that i don't know piece which is also kind of funny because it's like their piece about my piece oh okay so you actually so this piece okay so you

know that so i'm wrong about that assumption but i was sort of thinking that you know whoever did

this might not even have any connection by the way alejandra marquez jancy is the third person

listed as the creator of this piece but anyway i just think that like probably if this was a reporter that was still at npr and maybe a name they would mention it they would say that but this whoever was putting this together you know whoever had the final approval on this one minute little like kind of kicker story was kind of like well i don't you know why bring him up but You said, like, Sylvia Pojoli, I think.

Was Pajoli, I think they would have said her name.

Well, this is easy to – we don't have to do it right now because we've already wasted enough of the listeners' time with this. But we're not going to get to three hours by not wasting their time, Andrew. That's true. But the way to figure it out would be to go to the other versions of this and just listen to a couple and then see if it's – if they mention the name of the reporter because the person is still reporting at NPR, then your theory is absolutely correct. what's funny is this is also a week in which I will be appearing on one of their more listened to NPR radio shows called Wait Wait Don't Tell Me so it's not like I'm persona non grata there the other thing that's weird and if I can again in the interest of getting us to three hours if I can drill down to an even more esoteric part of this story Andrew I'm looking at the transcript at the NPR website and it says so it's you know what Ari's going to say what Alyssa Chang's going to say And then it says, unidentified child number one. I like them so much. They're my favorite. When I eat hot Cheetos, I get crazy. The child is very much identified in the piece, in the story. The child is named Shaton Taylor. I say her name in the piece. I don't understand why whoever did this didn't listen to the piece and then use me identifying the child who says, I just love hot Cheetos. When I eat them, I get crazy. Like we know her name. It's very noble. It's in the story I did.

This is bunk journalism is what this is, Luke.

Some really bunk journalism. Whoever does the transcripts on the NPR website.

And I'll tell you what, when we do our research on this, and if it turns out they are naming other reporters in these pieces, Danny, let's put our beefs behind us. Let's team up once again. Let's ride and sue the hell out of NPR.

Here's what I propose, Danny. You take an Alford plea on the lawsuit that we are bringing against you. I know that this is civil and an Alford plea is criminal, but just go with me. Danny, if you're willing to settle our pending litigation around you not representing Andrew, in his case against the city of Seattle, I would highly recommend we join forces to take on NPR and whoever does their transcripts for essentially, I guess that would be libel, right? Yeah. The slander is spoken and libel is written. So that's libel, that they haven't identified Shaton Taylor. It's assassination of character. It's erasure, honestly. And as a white man, as a white straight man, haven't I been erased enough historically?

Right.

When am I finally centered in something?

Right, right, right. And if you think about it, this plan actually makes sense because Danny and I both need a lot of funds because we're suing each other and that's expensive. And so if we go in together to sue NPR.

The lawyers always end up winning when you go into one of these things.

So if we sue NPR, we get a payout, and then we can use our individual part of that payout to sue each other, and then that case can go forward. So that all makes sense. Okay.

Well, we worked it all out. I am really tempted to text Ari and be like, bro, what up? But I think they're literally recording their show right now.

You just text him. Not recording. Without any context, just text him, quotation marks, the reporter, question mark.

I wish I could change how I show up in his contacts to the reporter. He's like trying to read an intro live on the air to millions of people. He just gets a text from the reporter and then just like an emoji of a bunny and a pot. I will not be ignored, Ari Shapiro. Is that the show title? I will not be ignored, Ari Shapiro.

I wrote down to Shapiro. Oh, yeah. Okay. That's good, too.

Okay. Let's take a break. And then we'll come back and we'll do the top stories, Dazzling Donors, and some music for your weekend, which I'm still in and out on my music for your weekend choice, which I'll explain when we get to that coming up here on TBTL. Let's thank some Dazzling Donors, the wonderful, supportive, generous, awesome listeners who are kicking us a dazzling amount of dough each month. It's how we're able to do the program. We're thanking folks today, including, but not limited to, one, Andrew John of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Is Andrew, is he the professor, the college professor who teaches psychology?

I met Andrew, I think the first time I met him.

Does that mean he is literally Dr. John? Not to be confused with the late Louisiana blues man.

dr john i met him in an underground bowling alley i did too john and if you'll recall andrew john one of the biggest trump supporters in our audience oh my god again with this i just don't know why he's so obsessed it's not even like hey listen he's like a small government guy he's just he's just one of the he's really into the culture he's actually switched over to

lauren bober now he's getting hip with the times he's moving on to the i you know what andrew i dr john i want to apologize both you and to the late dr john that we're doing this to you every year and that i'm about to just start repeating basically the the a segment the a block from chris hayes's show last night about the evolution of the gop nobody needs that in their life particularly wonderful, generous, dazzling donor, Andrew John. He says, this year my message is another chance for Luke to ask Andrew if he really doesn't believe there's a God. I feel a coincidence is coming here, Andrew. Though I'm a devoted, if time-banditing listener, I'm the only one in my household that is. My spouse, Megan, and a teenage daughter, Meredith, they don't dislike TBTL.

Hey, I'll take it.

Yeah, not dislike. Hey, all right. Watch out, Sirius Satellite Radio. We've been described as not disliked.

Can we send that to the woman who's putting together the deck for us all about the nice things people say about TBTL?

Do you realize we were recently described as not disliked by a donor's family? Anyway, let's see. They aren't Arden fans. They wonder how two people can talk so much Just about their daily lives Last August we were on a long car trip And they were tired of listening to their stuff And asked me to put on TBTL The TBTL that I was listening to It was a Thursday show And when the Blursdays came on Lo and behold I was wished a happy 50th birthday Due to my spouse Sneakily submitting a request for a shout out We were stunned and thrilled That a random choice to listen Brought a connection to our family I also want to note By the way, that was a dope move by Megan. Good looking out, Megan. Well, here's the deal.

So Andrew's point there is that this is just a coincidence. He's listening to a random episode and he gets the shout out. Now, because I'm literally, literally the least fun person in the world, I was reading this the other day and thinking about it. And I thought, oh, well, it wasn't a coincidence. This isn't about my belief in God. This is Megan saying, or I'm sorry, this is Megan saying, hey, how about we listen? to this um and because they knew but i'm thinking that he makes a point of saying that he's just a time bandit and so it was pretty random that this episode i think that's the point of this is that it wasn't a setup by megan and meredith what i think is either it was proof of a loving god

so that's one of the possibilities or it was the proof of a loving family because what it means is that Megan and Meredith slogged through various TBTLs whilst holding their noses and found the part, because, I mean, if Megan went to the trouble to send in a sneaky Blur's Day message, they went and they basically figured out what episode it was going to be on, and then they casually pretended like they were all done listening to their stuff and then asked Andrew, Dr. John, not the musician, this Dr. John, to put it on the car radio and then had that moment. So it either happened by total chance, which is amazing, or it happened by total planning by his loving family, which is also amazing. It's amazing either way. So we either believe in family or God.

We're getting closer.

One of the two. And that's, I mean, classically what people say. You either believe in God or family.

And when it comes to family, I believe families are either lord lunatics or liars.

Yes. What do we always say comes first in this family? Breakfast. I also want to note that in the message, my spouse referred to herself as a TBTL widow. Oh, I remember this. She didn't know the term is long-suffering 11. I think TBTL – I'm sure I said this at the time, but I think TBTL widow is actually pretty clever. And you two briefly worried that I'd actually passed on. Oh, that would really get in the way of Andrew donating. Andrew, could you write us into your will?

Please remember us in your estate planning.

Would you consider making TBTL a part of your estate planning, Andrew? Please note that if you're consistently elaborate mistaking me for a Trump supporter hasn't stopped my donation, death certainly won't. But, Andrew, it is my promise to you that next year, if I remember this, and if you're still donating, I will do what I can to stop Andrew from referring to you as a Trump supporter or somebody who aligns themselves with a sort of political worldview that is certainly not one that we share on this show.

Because while you are obviously a Trump supporter, I understand that that is not what defines you. So I will accept that.

Exactly. We're just saying everything is so crazy out there. You can't say anything. We just need to get past all of this.

this noise and acrimony Andrew. That's what we got to do. Maestro?

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

Everything's coming up Thaler of late. Yeah. We've been blursdanging Ruby. We've been blursdanging her mom. And now look at who this dazzling donor is. The one, the only, the very same Ruby Thaler in Seattle. I'd like to give a special congratulatory shout-out to my folks. Susan and Dan. I should really say everything's coming up. Susan. It's like third Susan mention this week. It's the trifecta.

Are the Thalers on our bingo card? On our TBTL bingo card? Well, next year's

printing. The next edition, they will. Thout out to my folks. If you're reading Ruby's message, do you have to do everything with the Thaler sound effect? I'd like to give a special congratulatory thout out to my folks, Susan and Dan.

Because she says for her pronouncer, you pronounce the last name like Sailor with a lisp. Yes. Sailor.

Susan and Dan, who both recently retired. And in addition to that big change, my 91-year-old grandfather has moved in with them. Grandpa Bill is an amazing artist who paints airplanes from the first half of the 20th century in watercolor. They're amazing, Luke. She's sending in some folks. Can you send me one?

Yeah, I'll send those to you.

Wow. All right, Grandpa Bill going strong at 91, and Susan and Dan with so much more time to listen to TBTL now.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, none of that job stuff getting in the way. Now I just assume Susan and Dan are totally caught up, and then they'll just go start back at episode one.

Yeah. Just put their way back to modern times. Episode one of the Walsh era. Grandpa Bill. Grandpa Bill could also be checking out TBTL. Absolutely. i hear that even grandpa bills don't dislike tbtl even grandpa bills can tolerate tbtl

i hope thanks ruby we appreciate you hello and welcome to top story a coastal town in western japan has drawn ire on social media for using some of its COVID relief funds to build a statue of a giant squid in the hopes of boosting tourism. The town of Noto in Ishikawa Prefecture got $7.3 million U.S., that's about 800 million yen, in grants from the central government. Now, here's the thing, Andrew. It was part of an aid program aimed at boosting local economies amid the pandemic. so this was intended to boost the local economy so they decided to use 230 000 of the money to cover the uh the construction of a shrimp statue that uh is 13 feet high and 29 feet long the total construction cost uh was about 274 000 so the vast majority of the cost of this shrimp uh was paid for by the um the grant um squid is a local delicacy in noto and building the statue was part of a quote long-term strategy to raise awareness about the town's fishing industry and increase tourism said a local government official um reuters called noto's government but the person who answered was not authorized to speak with the press i don't want to generalize about japanese culture andrew but i feel if there's one place where someone's not going to step out of line and talk to the press it's japan if that's not their official job i feel like it strikes me as a culture that's extremely respectful of the hierarchy of things you're

not going to be like just kind of like yeah just give me a little bit just give me a little bit i

don't think it's a it's a culture that goes rogue but our listeners in japan can check it and tell me if i'm wrong about that david and jojo among others um uh somebody on twitter wrote no matter How you look at it This is wrong They have to return the money Construction of the pink cephalopod Began in October of 2020 And the finished statue Was finally moved To its current home in March Have you seen the statue Did you see the photo of the statue Yeah I think it's kind of Interesting looking It's pretty cute actually

But is it enough You know

Is it enough to bring people To the town

Yeah like you and I Started our

No Larry the Lobster

Well that's how we got To Larry the Lobster In the first place Where we started our Australian Our Australian Let's call it a tour, because that sounds good. I changed it to fans, so it sounds like we have more than one fan.

Yeah, we have two fans in Australia.

But anyway, yeah, we started at Larry the Lobster, and the reason that Larry the Lobster story was on our radar was because this giant sculpture or statue of a lobster was supposedly going to leave this small little Australian town, and the town was really...

concern because it like it brought in tourism dollars now it's a very small town um i was gonna say i don't think i'm the kind of person who would like you know drive or fly to a town just to see a giant um statue of something but i guess we literally did that we literally gave our money to that town so that we could see larry the lobster so it kind of worked right now i will

say though i actually like this i like the statue and statue is actually pretty cute and and totally honestly like if you're trying to if you're getting money to build a local economy and you're doing something that you think i mean it isn't like the mayor of the town used it on his condo um you know uh at the at the base of mount fuji or something like this was going towards something that i think you could argue possibly would build the local economy i just think it needs to be bigger

like it's pretty big it's like the size of that i'm this the um shot i'm seeing right now is the one that's in the cnn article that i think you're referencing it looks like it's it's next to that

building there and it's as tall as the building it's 13 feet high and 30 feet long but i mean larry was yeah larry was god probably like 50 feet tall i feel like you've got maybe it's a difference in australian and japanese culture you know i know australians are very into their big things as they call them you know whether it's like the world's largest orange i think they have They have the world's largest ram, like the sheep. They have a lot of those. That's why Larry the Lobster was just part of that kind of tradition. Maybe Japan, they're going more understated, where they're like, we don't need to make the world's largest shrimp. But I'm just saying, if you can say Japan's largest shrimp, that sounds to me like something you need to go take a picture with. But do you think that might just be a cultural difference?

Well, what I think is I owe you an apology. I think I owe you an apology. Where do we start? Once again, well, let's see. Let's go back to that time you were giving me a ride home. You said that Larry the Lobster was like 50 feet tall, and I kind of made it – if you listen back to the tape, I made a little bit of a Marge Simpson kind of rumble with my voice because I was dubious of that. I just looked it up. It's 17 meters tall, which is the equivalent of 55 feet, Luke. You are absolutely right. My apologies for the grumble.

You know me, Andrew Famously, I'm great with dimensions Math, geometry Directions That's just how my brain works The soft sciences, not so much The talking, eh But just the kind of engineering side of life That's just, it makes perfect sense to me And I can't explain it It just clicks for me Yeah, it's just, I mean

The game slows down for you That's right, exactly

I'm in a flow state when I'm guessing at the height of Larry the lobster, a.k.a. the prawn. But, yeah, I just – I don't think that this is the biggest waste of money ever. There's no mention in the article that they're going to have to, like, melt the shrimp down and give the money back. But, again, I just don't know if this is enough of a thing. Or it needs to – almost like it needs to have some part of it where you can poke your head through the shrimp and take a picture. like it just needs to have one more thing it needs to have a slide built into it like okay let's talk about the bean in a millennium park in chicago i do love that which actually it actually has another name too it's it's just sort of known colloquially as the bean but i think it's called cloud something is the actual name of the piece and it's incredible obviously if you've seen photos of it if you've been there if you live in chicago i mean and it's so much fun to take pictures with and depending on how you pose you can pose on one side of it where your reflection Makes it look like you're levitating Which I don't even know if that was part of the artist's design And then another thing they've got in that park That's not Jeff Koons, is it? I don't think it is

I don't think it is either

I actually want to say that I think it might be A Japanese or Japanese-American artist Who actually made the piece But then Not far from there Is this incredible wading pool That's so fun for kids In the summertime in Chicago where it gets very hot And it also has these incredibly interesting pieces of art at either side of the wading pool are these huge walls that spit water out they're kind of like fountains but they have all these digital screens built in where different people's faces come up and it's just it's art that's interactive but it's also functional because the wading pool is fun now i think both of those both the bean or the cloud or whatever it's called cloud gate cloud gate god that was when i get in trouble for wasting all that money

on those clouds sir do you have any comments on cloud gate sir anish kapoor is the anish kapoor okay no is it anish kapoor it is sir anish kapoor indian born anish kapoor anish kapoor is the guy

who says he has the trademark on the blackest black paint oh really i did not know

Clearly, I did not make that connection. Man, you got really excited. I never thought. I thought maybe we'll hit three hours today. I did not think that at any point you'd be screaming, Anish Kapoor at the top.

Well, because I can't. Because remember the story about the story about the whitest white paint and then the blackest black paint. The whitest white paint has apparently been invented. And the blackest black paint has been invented as well. But the artist Anish Kapoor, who did Cloud Gate. Anish Kapoor, any comments on Cloud Gate? Please refer all those to my lawyer, Danny, in New Hampshire. Like, Anish Kapoor trademarked or paid money, basically, to license the rights to be the only person that can do art with the blackest black paint. And then you have this gallery that wants to show the whitest paint in the world next to the blackest paint in the world. But they feel that they're allowed to do that because it's an educational project. It's not art. So that they won't get sued by Anish Kapoor, the guy who also did Cloud Gate, which is, I have to say, a phenomenal piece of art in my opinion.

Yeah, I agree. I love it.

So anyway, all I'm trying to say is I don't know if this squid is quite reaching those levels. Like, are people going to travel from far distances just to see this squid?

Yeah, that's what I mean. It doesn't seem like a draw to me. It seems like a nice addition to a seaside town like this, which also raises the question, like, what would I put into a town to draw people in? Probably a casino in the shape of a shrimp.

Get me there I'll tell you what Speaking of questionable financial decisions A four year old boy Named Noah Bryant Bought $2,600 worth of Non-refundable Spongebob popsicles On Amazon He's from Brooklyn, New York And he went on his mom's Amazon Account, I'm actually shocked It doesn't happen more With how like log I mean that's the whole thing Is the kind of frictionless One click ordering Of course I don't live with any small children Other than Randy And he's on very strict orders Not to mess with my Amazon profile But like It's so easy To To click and buy things on Amazon And if you're still logged into your phone Or your computer I mean that's the whole That's the whole ease of the thing So you'd think this is happening Hundreds of times a day All over America Small kids are getting on their parents' devices and ordering stuff um he uh ordered a bunch of these popsicles uh his 37 year old mother who's a mother of three is pursuing a master's degree in social work at nyu she didn't know how she was going to be able to pay this off in addition to student loans and the other expenses that she's

dealing with are you kind of surprised this is non-refundable i well first of all i'm now clicking on this story that's how i do my prep um you are right the photo of this kid enjoying his spongebob pop like maybe the cutest that you've ever seen so cute and he looks so happy i mean i guess he's kind of posing maybe that's like a camera smile but oh my god um it's like okay you know we're gonna buy you ten thousand dollars more um but here's what i'm surprised about i'm surprised that they don't have some sort of a um some sort of a governor some sort of a check like Like, you know, if you're buying, you know, over $2,000 worth of a whole bunch of something that's cheap, like there should be some sort of a, hey, you know, get Clippy back. We're talking about Microsoft. It looks like you're buying $2,600 worth of SpongeBob popsicles. Do you mean to do that? Like, or send an email, like just stop the order until there's some sort of confirmation.

I am usually sort of annoyed at, you know, multi-factor authentication and stuff. But in this one case, it's like, oh, you're you're trying to buy you're trying to buy thirty seven hundred Paw Patrol DVDs. Yeah. You might be a four year old like Foxworthy on the case.

Look at – because you know they have so much information about us as consumers, as purchasers, as browsers. So you know that if it was good for their bottom line, they could institute that in a second. They could – there could be an algorithm that measures up against past orders. If you're somebody who kind of – here's maybe a good example. Well, I – Luke, all week I haven't even mentioned once that I volunteer with an organization that helps the unhoused. So I need to get this in the year. I know. My God. Again, Luke, I don't like to use the word hero. But – Unless you're ordering a hero sandwich at Tubbs. Exactly. And I wear a shirt that says ask me about my volunteerism because, you know, it's important. No, but I do. I buy, you know, one. every few months I buy like 500 bars of little soaps you know like little like hotel style little soaps um that we can kind of hand out to folks and so that's you know I buy it in one big thing but you could sort of see like okay this person buys you know on the reg 500 swabs and whatever so they might be running a business or they might just be like a true community hero or something like that but now suddenly um so so big orders wouldn't you know set off any alarms but if you're somebody who's mostly just buying household stuff and you're just like a grad student you know and then suddenly two point six thousand dollars worth of popsicles go through like there is a way to kind of put a governor on that there's got to be right i mean i don't want

take it to a weirder place than it's already been but let's just say and i know that i've told this story on the show before when i was a very young kid i heard a radio commercial at like three in the morning on cube 93 that was for a 1 900 line and it was a uh 1 900 line aimed at adults and because it was all just recordings it was not like a live person i the reason i was interested in calling this phone number is because it said would you like to hear an erotic adventure? And I didn't know what erotic

meant. But you liked adventures. I liked

adventures. I can remember literally picturing Indiana Jones in my head when I heard erotic adventure. I just thought an adventure. I'm a fan of adventures. Called the line. Hit not, you know, hit whatever, dial, press one for this pressed one. Had zero idea what they were actually talking about because I just didn't have context for that. But I

did find their enthusiasm interesting i love the idea of these like sexy women on tv saying things like do you like putting a bag of sand on a scale to trick it so you can steal a diamond

oh have you ever been chased by a giant boulder have you almost if you ever almost lost your hat under a garage door oddly enough the one overlap whips whips very very prevalent in both narratives anyway all of which is to say for one solid month i would just call this thing whenever i was bored one day i came home from school my mom was crying she was holding a phone bill that was roughly a thousand pages long did you call this number and i because even at that age i knew deny deny deny said absolutely not she sent me to my room i went downstairs i changed into my little league uniform i left through the garage and went to my game in the middle of my game i'm about to take a swing i'm at home plate the bat stops my dad is holding the barrel of the bat ridden his bike over to the field by the way andrew here's a little dazzling deep for you i believe we may have been playing that game against against the manager of our fantasy baseball league because it was at this field at green lake that we only played against this team called rug which was roosevelt university green lake and that rug team was our buddy joe gerlitz's team so it is possible that that's who i was going up against because that wasn't a north central field we didn't play there that was when we were like on the road anyway you go to swing

the bat and it won't budge that's so cinematic it's my dad is standing behind me i will say to

my parents eternal credit and my dad's eternal credit it was the kind of thing where it was like i wasn't even in trouble it was beyond like it wasn't like oh my god you're in trouble it's like oh my god are you okay is your brain okay dude that was their concern was really like did you hear some stuff that's gonna really um kind of uh you know be before you're ready to hear stuff like that and the answer was yes and that's why i'm a disaster well i did wonder you said your

mom's crying i mean it is kind of a one-two punch given specific oh it was the money i'm bringing i

would guess it was about 90 the money yeah and 10 you know the whips but um so here's my point with that with repeating that whole story the phone company couldn't cancel the charge fast enough because my parents called and now maybe has to do with the nature of the business like the people with that 1 900 line are not trying to get a bunch of attention from the attorney general of the state of washington yeah yeah so what i know is that that bill was something i mean ludicrously high but my parents never had to pay it because they called and they were like this is our child calling this number and they were like sorry so i wonder i mean again spongebob popsicles and erotic adventures are very different things here's what i really want to say though so they started a gofundme site because it sounds like this is a tough deal for um noah's mom I'll see you next time. And the GoFundMe site, I think, has raised like $5,000, which is cool. I mean, I think it's—I'm going to say it's a good outcome because it sounds like a lovely family. This kid seems cute. I hope he's learned his lesson. But can we agree, Andrew, you've got to give those popsicles away now. You've got to give those popsicles to the local food bank. You've got to take them to school and give them out to all the other kids. You can't keep the popsicles and the $5,000 of GoFundMe, right? Is that just a given? Because you're making – I mean you're making money now. You're literally making money off of this. That's fine. It's a cute picture. That picture in the world, I think, is worth $2,000. And I guess really what they made – they had to pay the $2,700. So I guess what they made would be like $1,300. So it's not – they didn't make $5,000. They made $1,300 or whatever. That's over and above what they had to spend on the popsicles.

Yeah, because they brought in almost $6,000. They brought in $5,000. Oh, okay. $5,700 is what they brought in.

So I think this is a sweet outcome to the story. Again, that picture is amazing. As I said at the beginning of the show, I love that. I love that the – and I wonder when this picture was taken, by the way. Was this picture taken the day the popsicle showed up or the day that the GoFundMe brought in $6,000? Right, right, right. I'd give money to that kid. Because everybody seems – everybody is seeming pretty chill about this. And I'm wondering if like the posing with the popsicle and him being so adorable, I wonder if that was if that was because the mom's rage had subsided because they were actually going to be able to pay the bill on this thing.

But because I was almost wondering, like, if the kid likes these kinds of popsicles, could this have been just been like from could this be unrelated to the story? Could this just be him with a popsicle, you know, a month ago because they just have them in the house. But I see that there's a box behind him, which I'm thinking maybe that box is full of these frozen treats. But, Luke, the key word there is frozen. Uh-huh. Like, is there any explanation of this? Like how – because, I mean, you and I get our – and we advertise for our various, you know, meal kit products and services. And those come – you know, some of those things need to be refrigerated, the meat and what have you. And they have a whole system for, you know, keeping things cool in the box. But frozen, like these aren't the kind of pops that can survive outside of a frozen atmosphere, right? Like they would just melt into a puddle. So I don't understand the mechanism for delivering almost $3,000 worth of these things and then how they survive. Like, did they all fit in the freezer?

That's a great question. I don't think of Amazon as being a cold storage delivery company.

Is this whole thing a lie? Is this whole thing a scam?

No, but I don't think so. but there's more there are a few more details to the story by the way the um noah's mom uh was very thankful by the way the the goal they put for the fundraising was the exact amount the popsicles cost so that's you know that's good that makes sense they're like uh we're out twenty six hundred dollars and change for the popsicles if we could raise that that would really help us out so the uh the sort of above and beyond that is just the generosity of strangers i guess uh Noah's mom said, thank you so much for your mind-blowing generosity. She added that the surplus donations will go towards education and additional supports for Noah, who is living with autism spectrum disorder. So that's obviously a good thing for them to have resources to help him out. Again, though, I feel like—I mean, and you're right. The question is, what were the popsicles delivered in, and is there a ticking clock on this? What's the status of the $2,600 of popsicles? Yeah, where are they? Yes. Find the popsicles and save the world. Exactly. That's what Hal Holbrook once whispered to me in a parking garage back when I was a reporter in D.C. He famously said, follow the popsicles. That's just absolute stupidity. I remembered. I remembered. Did you watch much Sesame Street as a kid? I did, but I don't know that reference. There was this great little cartoon where a little girl is trying to remember. Her mom is sending her to the store to buy some stuff. And she's saying to herself, a loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter. A loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter. And she's skipping to the store. It's probably like the bodega because, you know, it's kind of New York-y. and she buys the stuff, and she brings it home, and she says to her mom, I remembered, I remembered, because she brought a loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter that will live in my head for the rest of my days. Huh.

Yeah, you know, now that you're saying that, I wonder if you've mentioned that to me on the show before. Probably, it's a big thing in my life. We've clocked a lot of hours. Yeah, yeah.

Yes, we have. That's how we do it, Megan and Meredith. Yeah. We repeat things from Sesame Street.

Now they actively dislike the show.

We've moved them from tolerating bowel to actively disliking it.

Hey, by the way, the sun just came out where I am, Luke. I'm hoping that it's coming out where you are, too. It started off as a pretty drizzly day over here in the Seattle area.

It's actually very – it's sort of raining here, But it's one of those weird days where I did my little jog earlier and it was sunny and beautiful. So that was cool. And then now it's dark, like rain clouds. But also the sun is shining. Like, I feel like these clouds will also move on. So hopefully it's.

I think they'll blow away. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm thinking it's the nice weather is coming down from Seattle and I'm here for it.

I like just talking about the weather on our podcast. Sure. So I was up late last night, Luke, making like kind of fiddling around in Photoshop and actually may know. um better than that you think whoopee's great have you ever tried making a 32 team bracket in in adobe photoshop because that's what i was doing last night to finally get his wearing tonight

pants a finger splint you know what's sort of interesting actually i wanted to tell you this

before let me try to extend the show a tiny bit we're not doing three hours but i actually want to tell you something that's kind of interesting we have a house guest here now starting last night and staying with us until question mark, as you would put on an invitation for a party that might go all night, because I'm not going to use any names here, but I wanted to tell you this off air because I want to tell you who the culprit is, but I'm going to go easy on that. But our buddy Mason, Aaron Mason, friend of ours and somebody who I've worked with a lot filling in at Cairo Radio, he used to have listeners who will be surprised to hear, He also one time had the 7 to 10 p.m. time slot on Cairo Radio not all that long ago. And then he left Cairo. But not unlike me and you, he will sometimes do fill-in work for them. But he doesn't have a home studio like we do. So he actually still will have to go into the station to do that, where everybody is apparently masked at the station. But when they're on the air, they take off their masks. And they do have to share the actual studio with some people. I believe they have put up some partitions, but, you know, you do your best, but, like, you have human beings in this studio together. And one of these human beings, who I will not mention on air here, Luke, but it's somebody that you and I used to work with, apparently had gone to, like, Montana or someplace like that the weekend prior to, you know, doing a radio show with our buddy and was talking like on the air, talking about how, yeah, I went to a bar there and nobody was wearing masks. And it was like this crowded. And apparently he even maybe made a joke on the air. Like, you're probably nervous sharing a studio with me. Well, guess who's got COVID? Our buddy, Aaron, who has already one vaccine shot into his vaccination process.

Wow, he got it after the...

Yes. So I think it's okay for me to say this because he tweeted about this. And I'm not you know, he didn't mention who the culprit was, who he was sharing the studio was. I'll tell you later, Luke. But so I'm not saying that part. But all I'm repeating, isn't it? No, what I'm repeating here is just what what is common knowledge if you follow him on Twitter. So he is now like one shot in like and Mason, I know him like he's been careful, man. I mean, that's what really sucks. It's when the people, you know, like I say, he was already he was like, I think, a few days away from getting a second shot. he's I've I've seen him I saw him about a month ago he's super careful he wears his mask mask all the time and here he is a victim of somebody else's boneheadedness Danny we might actually cop who's one day from retirement man I know and so anyway the all this comes back to I was up late last night working on these brackets but also we have a house guest now because the one kind of lucky thing here is his his partner his girlfriend who he lives with had been out of town for all of this so she has not been in contact with him for like three weeks so she's now staying with us until he gets better wow because but that's a real lucky break she's she's double vaxxed already so she had gone kind of on a road trip um but anyway and it is now back in town and um and so anyway she needed a place to stay and luckily veves and i are both double vaxxed and she has not been around aaron so we now have a roommate but anyway um just thought you would find that that sounds

like a sitcom yeah i'm into it um well i hope everybody i hope mason is okay and hope everybody everybody does it right that's like yeah that's that's interesting to hear that he was able to contract it after vax number one because i have to admit when i got vax number one i immediately felt i mean i was still doing all the things as i'm sure

mason was i was fortunate that i wasn't called upon to go sit in a airtight radio studio with anybody else you know yeah but like i kind of felt like after the first one like oh man i'm gonna be good um of course i got the second as well but but that's pretty rare because they say the first one is supposed to be pretty effective um you know all on its own not that you shouldn't get the second

one but uh anyway yeah so anyway so um i was in my in my office like literally working on this thing until like 11 o'clock last night because i wanted people to be able to visualize the drops of stupider brackets as as they are um so i'll put this in the newsletter this week and so as a reminder where are we in the brackets we're in round two right now and if you'll recall last week um we had or whenever it was we had the blue angels show going up against the chasing pokemon

show would you like to know who won that um i would love to know i'm sorry i just say no no no i the pause you heard in my voice was 43 thoughts colliding there was when you said the i won't explain it but when you said the pokemon when you said the pokemon go thing it reminded me of something related to wait wait this weekend that i wanted to mention to you but then i didn't because people get mad if we give out too much information about it. So that's what you heard going on in my brain. I see. Thinking, oh, I'm going to say this in the calculation, then decided not to say it. Anyway, please continue. Pokemon Go episode.

It was Pokemon Go versus the Blue Angels episode. And I'm trying to actually, I told you last week, I'm going to try to not make this super tedious, but here I am making it tedious. But for the record, the Blue Angels did win. Congratulations to the Blue Angels episode. It will be moving on. Also, we had the Halloween Spooktacular with our friend Dave Bowes. That was going up against the hot dog show that we produced for American Public Media. And Dave Bowes' Halloween Spooktacular has moved on. So, Luke, what does that mean? I think you can probably figure this out. We have, ladies and gentlemen, the Blue Angels. Three, two, one.

are you kidding me that was one of those that was one of those ones where you don't see it coming

and that is going up against dave bose's halloween can't contain my joy though

she puts her hands out like claws and she snaps back and she says in a man's voice

No one could save you now No way There's your new matchup Halloween versus Blue Angels Nice So there you go everybody We're putting this in the newsletter this week You can vote there Or you can go to today's show page at tbtl.net And you can vote there

Alright let's do a little music For your weekend Before we get out of here What would you like to play this week Andrew

Oh, kind of like you, I was kind of going between two things. But you know what? I'm going to do this. This is a new song that came across my transom yesterday. This is by a group called, I'm going to guess pronounced Bunny, B-N-N-Y. It's a little outfit out of Chicago by a young woman. I don't have her name in front of me right now, but it's her and her twin sister. And the name of this song, which is brand new, is called Time Walk. Take a listen to this.

All right.

We'll be right back. Tell you all the things I could tell you all the things I should tell you all the things I should tell you all the things I should tell you all the things I should tell you all the things I should tell you all the things I should tell you all the things I should tell you all the time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time work time Like it was meant to look into hers Time walks, time walks, time walks, time walks

That's it. That's the whole song. it's 90 seconds it's 90 seconds I don't know why I find that so charming

yeah i like it too it's got a little retro vibe to it i love it that's yeah oh that's totally for me i'm into those i'm into those quick songs well except unless i'm listening to the war on drugs then i'm into those long songs what you know um the people at prx say is the perfect song i was just gonna say those podcast consultants are saying every song should be 14 seconds the average time from stepping down uh you know when you're on the subway and then when the doors open then you get to the steps to the escalator that's 14 seconds and that's they've been able to figure out that's exactly when people listen to podcasts perfect that's 14 seconds okay i've made i've officially made a call and i'm going to i'm going to swerve on the song that i have listed for you andrew okay as my music for your weekend i'm going to play it next week it's a real good song that i'm excited to play but in honor of the fact that you and me and possibly our friend from television chris hayes will all be saying god loves a chancer let me in now i won't i won't fucking take no for an answer um i'm gonna play this song from a irish rapper named we goose song is called belfast mentality i've actually got it here andrew yeah why don't you play it from year end yeah it's not even available i was looking for it on like spotify and apple music and stuff earlier today i think it's because it just uses an m&m backing track like it's probably not

even legal to put it in those services i wonder about that because we goose does have two tracks

on spotify but not this particular one but not this one so what this is is basically this irish guy in belfast uh doing his own rap song about life in belfast ireland um uh over the the backing track of My Name Is, that Eminem song, that I actually love that song, but what I realized when I listened to this is what I really love about that song, Andrew, is the backing track, or whatever you want to call it, the sample. The production of it is so good. This, though, it's so Irish. It's so many things I don't understand. I was a little nervous. The first reason I thought maybe we won't play it is because I wasn't sure if I could stand by everything he's saying in the song, because it's so Irished up that I don't get every reference, and I want to make sure We weren't playing something that was making a reference to something we wouldn't usually promote on the show, but because I just didn't understand it. But I've listened to it about 10 times now, and I think actually the song is sort of mostly fine content-wise. I think he says the F word, but he says it like an Irish guy.

And also I said that at NPR earlier in the show, too.

Oh, yeah. So there you go. That seal is broken for today. So anyway, here we go. This is We Goose doing Belfast Mentality.

Got lifted last night Outside Lavery's One more fence and it's off the Mugabry Only thing I wanted was to do a bit of dancing The bouncer knocked me back for wearing a helly hanser You know what to say God loves a chancer Fucking let me in, I won't take no for an answer The bouncer was raging It started a fight The cops pulled up, so I ran like shit I went on the run, but I only got as far as Newry I had to appear before a judge and a jury The cops were at my door Asking my ma questions We're here about your son He's been done for possession He's not my son What are you on about? My ma said nothing Because she wasn't a tout Fair play My wee braw has a tag on his ankle He tried to do a robbery Up on his shankle He burst through the door Waving a knife His head's lit Fucking run for your life They didn't give him time Because he's only a minor Powerful He didn't want the cash just a barrack of cider the peelers had to chase him but he couldn't care less he bolted up the street and put his nikes to the test only way they caught him is he ran out of breath they gave him a beating and put him under arrest some bird come up to me she look really great all right so there

you go that's wee goose when he's talking about his brother running away does he say he put his

nikes to the test that's awesome there's so many all the little interjections that like that are just like the person saying fair play and all these, I assume just like Irish isms just absolutely kill me. There's just one other part where I think it's his real dad in the video. He's really talking about how his, I don't know. I mean, this is the extent of my knowledge of this song is watching this video like four times today, but he basically like, he basically like is rapping about how his dad's been on disability because of something.

Kicked out of school, didn't have the best of grades, but now we're on top. So I rest my case. i haven't got a job do i need one please sure my dad's been out of work since the rad on his knees it wasn't his fault they thought he was a dealer we'll put one in your head if you're after the pillars now he lives the dream and his life is class he gets paid for nothing sure he's rolling in cash full rate dla is more than your annual salary now that's what i call a belfast mentality

anyway uh it is very very i can't

you follow but so he's getting he's getting um government funds because i assume that's yeah

that whatever he's saying is the is the term uh in that part of uh ireland for if you're getting you know essentially welfare or whatever maybe more like um uh you know workers comp or right i don't know some kind of a pay some payment for something that happened that somebody i think maybe the cops did to his dad's knees in his telling of this story i mean anyway um i just I just can't get over that line God loves a chancer fool can let me in I won't take no he's rapping about how they wouldn't let him into the club because he was wearing a Helly Hansen jacket what's Helly Hansen I don't know that either it's just kind of like a I probably started as a ski brand but now it's just kind of a you know it's just a coat that people wear but it's like a you know a real outdoors like a very cold weather kind of outdoor jacket a Helly Hansen okay gotcha but I just love I just love him saying God loves a chancer fool can let me in I won't take an O for an answer.

And I can't remember the exact rhyme, but I texted you this morning because you were sharing that.

I'm on day five of a three-day bender.

Yeah, I'm on day five of a three-day bender. I love a clever turn of phrase like that. All right. So there you go.

All right. Enjoy whispering those words to yourself, listeners. I went to get a cup of coffee. Andrew and I both went to get a cup of coffee right before the show started, and you overheard me in this room basically whistling the tune of that song as you were also whistling the tune?

I was doing the same thing. I got up and I was like – and then I literally – I took off my headphones and I walked to my door and I was like, like to the degree that I can even recreate that sound. But I was audibly doing it and I was like, oh, Luke's going to hear me doing that. He's going to know I just got done listening to the song you sent me and then you sit down and you're doing the exact same noise coming out of your mouth, only probably better.

Nah, I wouldn't say that I was trying to Oh wow, this is kind of interesting Because remember also before the show We may get to three hours, okay?

I know, I gotta write a newsletter by the way I spent all night just making the brackets I didn't do any of the writing

Before the show we were also Wondering what the sample is That's on that song And I believe the song It samples It actually samples a British singer Named, I guess, Labby Sifri It's a 1975 track called I Got The I want to hear it And also a bass and guitar riff By British pop rock duo Chaz and Dave Oh, okay So I don't know which If the 1975, the Labby Sifri track Is more kind of noticeable or familiar Or the Chaz and Dave track is

Are you on Who Sampled or whatever?

I'm just on Wikipedia Oh, I see

Okay

That'll be my music for your weekend next week. It'll be Labry Sifri's 1975 track. I got that. But I was thinking it's kind of interesting that this song leans heavily on kind of a sound that came from the UK. Yeah, right. And then you've got Wee Goose up in Belfast doing his thing years later. All right. The listener suggestion comes from listener Lauren, who says, hi, y'all. I spent a few months in 2020 playing Billie Eilish's My Future on repeat. And back in October, Crown by Chica was a music for your weekend. I found out about Crown from Hanif Abdur-Rakib on Livewire. We're doing something. I forget what we were asking. Just like, what song are you into? It might have even been in the sound check. Like, what song are you listening to on your jog? And he said, Crown by Chica. I was like, that is a jam. Anyway, Lawrence says, well, now Chica has covered my future. And it's really, really good. This was released on Tuesday And I happened to hear it on Wednesday morning Making this the most up to date On cool new music That I've ever been Enjoy And Lauren says slow build You gotta hear what happens after two minutes So anyway That's what we're gonna go out with I'm gonna start playing that now then It's Chica covering Billie Eilish And it brings us to the end of our broadcast week Thank you so much everyone for hanging out with us We're gonna be back here tomorrow Oh, wait, we're going to be back here. I'll be back here tomorrow just doing my solo project.

Yeah, I'll be in the studio tomorrow, too, I guess.

But me and Andrew will be back here together on Monday with more Imaginary Radio. So please do join us for that. Until then, have a great weekend. Stay safe. Take care of yourselves. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

I'm just a mirror. You'll check your complexion To find your reflections all alone I had to go Can't you hear me? I'm not coming home

Do you understand I've changed my plans Cause I I'm in love With my future Can't wait to meet her and i i'm in love but not with anybody else just want to get to know myself

yeah me myself a thing for i i got that believe we all got different sides that talk back past apologize present youngs and size futures looking dreamy and i want that i'm my sacred soul gonna and take a pole walking truth so nike's all got vacant souls run it up run it down that's a check boy what did you expect boy pressure cooking thought i was a boy i get it any doubt i doubt it didn't move that i regretted it's a movement out ahead of this embedded in my psyche bitch i might be like a new goat tell her again to make a type d there's no stopping shooting stuff i got the yo mine and that's the gold mine the whole grind it's not so hold mine i promise you i'm Set for go time. Tell them other girls it's showtime. Yeah. Can't you hear me?

I'm not coming home.

Do you understand?

Power out.