Muse

He who questions training only trains himself at asking questions. What? Patience, my son. To summon your power for the conflict to come, you must first have power over that which conflicts you.

Okay, am I the only one who finds these sayings just a little bit formulaic?

If you want to push something down, you have to pull it up. If you want to go left, you have to go right. Your temper is very quick, my friend. But until you learn to master your rage... Your rage will become your master? That's what you were going to say, right?

Right?

Not necessarily.

TBTL! Now this is something the other tour guides won't tell you. Yeah, when you light up the rear tires on this mother, it screams like a Bee Gees with his fingers trapped in the car door.

Where art thou, dog? Thy canine lover. Where is your hot breath upon the nape of my neck? We shall form a bond of brotherhood, man and beast. You shall lick my face and I shall lick your snout. Did you ever find Bugs Bunny attractive when he'd put on a dress and play a girl bunny? My husband? He'd rather be drinking at lunch. I drink your milkshake.

This way to the cafeteria.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Monday edition of TBTL, a show that just might be too beautiful to live.

Isn't that for techno geeks with spreadsheets?

My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host.

You don't want to get mixed up with a guy like me. I'm a loner, Daddy. A rebel.

Coming to you from the Nest Broadcast Center, high in the sky above Portland, Oregon. I can't believe you're still on the air. we made it everyone we made it to episode 3419 in a collector series he said it wasn't possible he said there was just no way for this thing to go on for this many years and yet here we are monday may 10th episode 3419 in a collector series and as we go forward we actually take a moment to look backward to look back to friday show where we did that story about that kid who ordered, like, $2,600 of Spongebob popsicles off of Amazon without his mom's permission. That was going to be a financial strain on the family because the popsicles were not returnable. And anyway, there was a GoFundMe. They raised money. They actually got in excess of the amount that was spent on popsicles. Well, there was just one little detail that I saw over the weekend after we talked about it that kind of blew my mind and I think would have really shot this story into the stratosphere. so we'll um can you can you verify can you give me some 411 we'll bring you the latest on that particular story we'll also tell you well we'll congratulate you if you're hearing this right now it means you were not crushed by a chinese rocket that was coming back down to earth in an uncontrolled fashion odors cannot travel through the vacuum of space this appears to be a thing that the Chinese space program is kind of into now which is sending things up into space and then not doing the research science or spending the money on increasing the chances that when it comes back down to earth it will go into the ocean things got a little sketchy this weekend with that but we will bring you the latest and if we can do anything to anger our listener April who is an actual astrophysicist with my description of space junk and its re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. That's really what we're here to do on episode 3419 in a collector series. Oh, and also, I have embarked on yet another personal improvement project. I'm lifting it right now with my left arm. It's so heavy. I'm trying to drink more water. I bought this thing called a thermoflask. I think it holds 70 ounces of water. I have been drinking this for the last three or four days. I've been drinking two of these a day, and it is really creating some problems in terms of how often I have to go number one. Didn't know you like to get wet, though. Had some real near misses yesterday driving out to my sister's yurt in Willard, Washington. More on that coming up. Of course, all of that can't really begin in earnest until we talk to the longest-running co-bro of the show.

He's a handsome young stranger. He may be best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He knows all about having problems holding it in in the number one department. I'm a bit of a bedwetter, so you're going to want to bring an umbrella up. 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. Can I, we got to talk about your water. We got a lot of stuff to talk about. You just laid it all out there. But can I very quickly, can I have like three minutes to tell you a story that I meant to tell you last week? Yes. It's a story of coincidence, Luke. It's the kind of story where at the end you might turn to me and say, and you don't believe in a god.

From my point of view, it's a beautiful story. I love your story.

So I found myself, because of the drops of stupider projects we've been working on.

Oh yeah, we're going to do that as well today, everybody.

That wasn't a subtle way to bring it up, but for real, because of that, I have found myself on that website, the Internet Archive, where some kind listeners, a listener, a one young cool listener named Ben, has archived a lot of TVTLs that you can't find anywhere else. So I was over there, and I somehow accidentally stumbled on something called the Newsweek Hour from 1995 and I hit play on that for a second but I was in the middle of something else but I thought I'm somebody who likes to snort nostalgia like nobody's business I want to go back and listen to some like just hour-long audio news program called the Newsweek Hour from 1995 later this evening when I'm doing dishes so I make a note of it that night I go to dial it up but I think hey I wonder if there's any full hours of all things considered from 1995 Now, why am I sticking to 1995? Well, because, coincidentally, that's what I landed on when I saw that Newsweek thing. But also, that's the year I graduated from high school. I wasn't a huge news consumer during those times. And I thought it would be interesting to go back and listen to a full hour of All Things Considered for a year that is before I even really know what NPR is. And now I'm starting to think that maybe some of the 50-year and 8-day anniversary of NPR is maybe influencing some of my thought process anyway. Okay, so I do some searching around. I find an hour-long episode of All Things Considered from 1995. In fact, do I have it here? I can even look. Yeah, it looks like this was April 7th, 1995, and I hit play on it. In fact, can I hit play on this? Do you want to hear a little bit of this?

I would love this so much. Honestly, like I didn't even know this was a possibility, just going back and finding. Because now that I know this is a thing I want to go back and I want to listen to like Art Bell from that same day Like just And we talk about this on the show a lot But just the like I want to like listen to the radio commercials That were playing on Cube 93 Yeah, right On that day during like T-Man in the Morning Like just all of that kind of You know, detritus if you will Audio detritus I just love that stuff I find it so fascinating

So we are in the depths of the Republican Revolution Right here and I'm going to hit play on this. I was wrong. This is not a full hour. This is about 22 minutes. I'm not going to play the whole thing. It's April 17th, you said? April 7th, 1995. Let's take a listen to this.

Worthheimer? Yeah. Noah. To talk about the real issue of the Republican Revolution, what do we really want the government to do?

Who's going to turn away free money? Most people have become dependent on those programs. That's not to say that's a good thing. I think that the simple fact of the matter is we have to think seriously about weaning ourselves from some of those programs. That discussion and more coming up on all of you.

By the way, that discussion, which is kind of like almost a town hall. It's very old school NPR where they have like very long pieces of tape and they talk to people on different like kind of everyday people. But, you know, with with different political outlooks and they are all so goddamn reasonable. It is just amazing how reasonable these folks are. But we won't get to that part of the tape. We're just in what they call the billboard right now. This happens in the first minute of the hour and then they go to the newscasts.

Things considered now this hour's news.

From National Public Radio in Washington, I'm Barbara Campbell. House Republicans gathered on the steps of the Capitol today to celebrate the end of their first 100 days in power. NPR's John Greenberg has this report.

That's my friend. Oh, really? John Greenberg is when I – here, let's listen a little bit more. This was the coincidence I want to tell you about. Of all of the hours of All Things Considered that are available on archive.org, I choose this random one from 1995 Before I even know what public radio is Back in 1995 And I'm like let's listen to this What's going on in the world And the very first person on the newscast Is this guy John Greenberg Who ends up being one of my first Maybe not bosses but a senior You know like a senior editor At New Hampshire Public Radio And becomes a close friend of mine

The signers of the contract with America Bast in bright sunshine And as they see it the successful X

of the contract. Ten items promised, ten items brought up for a vote, although only two bills have actually become law. House Speaker Newt Gingrich held up his pocket-sized punch list of the ten promises. He said Republicans had confounded the cynics. The editorial writers

scoffed. The political pundits said it was a mistake. But the truth was, and this may be our greatest contribution to modern America, we did mean it. We did keep our word. They really created

a victory for themselves didn't they they just lowered the bar to all they had to do is get votes on these things it doesn't matter if they passed but then they just claimed victory and the

world was never the same again geez that is so interesting to listen back to just even i wonder if some of the it sounds like it doesn't sound like from 19 well part of it is and i'm not ready to recognize that 1995 was um forever like 20 well let's see when was schubert dip i'm not willing to recognize how long ago 1995 was but that tape sounds like it's from 1895 to me and i wonder if some of that's because of compression because of it being kind of archived on the internet and some of it's just because it was that long ago man and also this

was probably just recorded on somebody's like boom box on a cassette tape at some point you know how did this how did this 20 minutes of all things considered end up on this website chances are somebody's going through a bunch of cassette tapes and maybe they were like me did i ever tell you this story oh i went over my three minutes really quickly uh when i was in college i was a student employee but i worked at the grown-up radio station wksu that's how i end up in the um

where you would walk of fame yeah you would one day be in the hall of fame at the station

nobody could have known that at that time i was very proud of my status there as a much trusted student employee i i don't believe i maybe even at one point they even gave me keys to the building i lived very close to the radio station if i heard something you know a mistake going out over the air like dead air or something in the middle of the night um i would sometimes be the first person to call the program director and maybe even head over there to try to fix it really like that role of myself i then graduate college i moved to new hampshire public radio i'm a now i'm like one of the youngest people in the building there um and i am you know earning my stripes in my first couple of months uh there i am still in the habit by the way of sometimes recording public radio shows so that i can listen to them later on cassette tapes um and one night after air one morning i should say after a night of heavy drinking with my friend paulie who you now know he's the savior of our fantasy baseball team um he and i are both public radio nerds we stayed up late uh the night before just nerding out on stuff who knows what the next morning i turn on the radio so that paulie and i can enjoy some wait wait don't tell me maybe some prairie home companion on this beautiful Saturday morning and I turn it on and fresh air is playing and I'm like oh my god there's something going on at the station why is fresh air playing oh no and I'm in this hazy state but I still think I'm Mr. Radio Hero right so I call the program director um I don't even think I have a cell phone at this point I call the program director the program director is calling the guy on air the guy on air is saying no I'm telling you I'm listening to Carl Castle right now or Peter Sagal or whoever it is he's like I'm telling you it's fine I'm like well I'm here on my radio listening to fresh air program right yeah exactly it's an audition or vice versa he's whatever he's hearing in the studio is not matching what's going out over the air guys and then the program director is like i don't know i'm not hearing it i'm turning on my own radio everything seems fine and then i realize i had just turned the power on my radio and it was in tape player mode and the tape just started playing and that was a that was early on i want to say that was actually in my first few weeks at new hampshire public radio highly embarrassing

Does that – you know, so I'm going to interview the writer John Green later today. He has this really great podcast called The Anthropocene Reviewed. The Anthropocene being kind of like this era of Earth's existence where humans have radically reshaped it. And what he's doing is – the podcast is genius as is the book, which is kind of based on it, where he just takes things and just rates them. Gives them a one to five star rating So like the history of Piggly Wiggly The grocery store Which is fascinating by the way I mean it's tempting for me to want to just like Repeat everything I've been reading in this book But he's just He also wrote that He wrote a book that became that movie The Fault in Our Stars Which was a real like I think Kind of tearjerker for the younger set He wrote a book called Turtles All the Way Down He's a very I think well known And very popular guy I think actually amongst our listeners really I think that the people who like this show also are really into, like, John and his brothers named Hank, a lot of the projects that those guys have done. But anyway, I've been reading this book this weekend, and, Andrew, this guy and you have the exact same...

brain like you've been describing this to me for years about like intrusive thoughts and kind of how something that's embarrassing for you that happened years and years ago maybe like calling the the program director to tell them they're playing the wrong show or like the thing you said when you were leaving new hampshire public radio or whatever i'm not saying that's to trigger you but like the way you've described that to me i've heard you say that and i've understood it kind of intellectually but he has this whole chapter on mortification and his mortification what does he oh man you know what that's a great question i should go back and look i don't know what what he gives i'm sure he gives it low marks yeah but the way he described like the way that anything he's ever done that's been embarrassing to him is seared into his brain and the way that when he gets in bed and after he's done some reading for the night he turns off the night light or whatever the the light on his nightstand and he closes his eyes that's when his brain says all right let's do this you want to replay the tape he's like i would rather not and his brain is like well okay here we go let's go to the tape and just starts and and i forget the i mean there were just like there was four or five things that were just i was like oh my god this is word for word the experience that you've described for me andrew of what it's like to live inside your brain and i don't know it's not that i didn't believe you but it was very powerful for me to hear someone who is not you describe the exact same set of feelings intrusive thoughts anxiety stuff like that um so i don't have a power out to that other than to say i'm really sorry that that's a thing that you battle

with man how about this this is one thing that i learned the other day surprisingly one of the most beautiful phrases I've ever heard in my life is, oh, I don't remember talking to you because last Wednesday, Vives and I stopped in the Eagles, our fraternal order of Eagles briefly, and we were hanging out for a little bit and I don't want to kind of get into it. It was not that big of a deal, but there's a couple there and I don't even, this is one of those embarrassing things and it's this way with a lot of people at the Eagles who I know their faces. I see them there all the time, but I don't remember their names and we're well beyond Figuring out names at this point You know what I mean

It's just You're in hey there territory For the rest of your life At the Eagles With various folks

And it's so many hey there's Which is a bummer Because I see And legitimately like A lot of these folks

Ironically you do know Tim's name

Yeah

It's like The people that have made an impression Maybe not always for the best reasons

Right They're very fixed Tim's a sweetie though But anyway The So there's this couple there I don't even know their names And we get into a very brief conversation in which I think that I, I'm just like, I'm not being as coherent as I'd like to be, as I am right now, you might say. And I said something to them that later on that night, and again, I don't want to get into it, it's really not that big of a deal, but it was one of those things that just sort of stuck in my head. And actually, it didn't stick in my head. It was a passing moment. But then when I was going to bed later that night, all of a sudden it just jumped, a replay of this conversation probably a warped replay of this conversation just popped up in my head was like surprise you're gonna deal with this now and it was like the type of thing where i just replayed that conversation i was like i am such an idiot i'm i was just i could not have been less nice to your friend andy as we like to say in this moment of going to sleep eventually you know i get over and i go to sleep this is the same night though by the way the next morning i apologize to you If you'll recall before we dialed up Right, which you had no

Which I didn't think you had any reason to

For some other conversation I'd had with you So I had these two things that are kind of battling it out For my attention as I'm trying to fall asleep I guess on Wednesday night I ended up seeing that couple again At the Eagles over the weekend And I was passing their table and I couldn't help myself I just stopped and said hey by the way I think I, you know, Mike was mixing the drinks Kind of strong on Wednesday I felt like I was pretty awkward, sorry about that I think I even said like I went to bed on Wednesday night replaying a conversation we had And I was highly embarrassed. So sorry if I was being drunk and annoying or something like that. And frankly, I don't think I was that drunk. I think I was just being an idiot. But anyway, they both looked at me and they said, oh, did we talk on Wednesday? I don't remember talking to you. And I could have kissed them both. I could have gotten down on my knees and kissed them both. See, the irony is that would have hurt me much more.

This is the difference in how we're wired. Like that would have been such a cutting remark to me. But just the fact that you were off their radar was like a like a call from the governor at eleven fifty nine p.m. As you're sitting in the electric chair of your emotions going, we've stayed Andrew's execution.

Oh, I'm just like the stealth bomber of awkward conversations. Like I'm not on anybody's radar, so it doesn't even matter.

I mean, you'll never this because none of this stuff is is logical or rational. This won't sink in. But I I'm trying to think.

of annoying conversations i've had with you over the course of well now many years andrew um like both on this show and then also just driving through the outback hitchhiking like we have spent a lot of time together and like nothing comes to mind like that's my other than genevieve i would argue that i've probably spent you think i've spent more time talking to you than any other

person on planet earth other than genevieve at this point you know i think that's a tough one because the parents that raised me and I'm still having conversations with them. Yeah, I must.

But I mean, in the last 10 years, I've talked to you more

than you've talked to your parents. Yes. Oh, most certainly. I mean, me and my dad do a podcast called Too Walshy to Live. I just came up with that myself, actually. He came up with that name. I don't know where he got it. But yeah, no, most certainly, yeah. But I mean, now I'm in a position where I want to be like, yeah, but what about when I'm in this mode or that mode? But there's no need for me to convince you that I'm annoying.

No, because you're also running so much interference internally to try to tamp down what you think are your bad impulses conversationally. You, the other day, I'm not going to get too detailed, but the other day you had had a completely, I think, reasonable reaction to a somewhat frustrating experience related to the work that we do. and you and I happened to just like dial this connection up right after you had had a frustrating experience and you were just venting in the way that people vent all the time and in fact, not even in the ventiest of ways that you could have, you know? You were more of a, I don't know, this would be such a better joke if I knew the other sizes of coffees other than Vente at Starbucks. I wanted to say a smaller size coffee in the Starbucks lingo, but I don't know what the, I don't know what those are.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? You know how those like. Yeah. I think that they relate to the number of ounces.

Yeah. Well, yeah. Venti is 20 ounces. Right. But I don't. I see. Yeah. And you're you have, you know, there's Starbucks, Starbucks royalty in your family. Right. And King David.

Yes. Although King David no longer works at the Starbucks. That's right. He's a mod. He works now at the Mod Pizza. If you're out in the out there near the Cedar Hills area and go in and see a very tall guy night managing the Mod Pizza. That's my brother, David. Mr. Manager But anyway All of which is to say I hope that at some point You're able to connect with the idea That you are not coming off the way That you think you are coming off I on the other hand am often coming off In a way that I don't think I'm coming off Like in the opposite direction I'm thinking things went great And people are like wow That was a little acerbic And you're like beating yourself up Over something where you were actually Still being completely nice and appropriate So somewhere in the middle I think is probably about the right balance. Maybe that's why this show is such a hit because you take a little Andrew, you take a little Luke, you mix it all together and what do you got? The facts of life, the facts of life.

I don't mean to extend this. I'm not trying to take the spotlight off of me and put it on you. God knows I love it here and the warm glow of the spotlight. But is that legit? I feel like you're glossing over something there that is not entirely true as far as you're... I think that you think about things that you've said too i mean maybe not in this gripping way but you really think that your characteristic is that you often think you're coming off well when you're not like because i feel like i have a lot of conversations with you where you're maybe you know not concerned but thoughtful about the way you come off and i think i'm much more i think i am much more reflective

now than i was 10 years ago and i think i mean really what it is is you just don't know how other people are perceiving you. Um, and everyone's very nice to me and, uh, like that I work with and stuff. And I, I try to really maintain a, you know, a positive attitude and be friendly and hopefully be somebody that people don't dread dealing with. But I'm also very, um, I mean, I'm prone to, uh, if, if something strikes me a little bit wrong, I can get triggered and I can say things in a way that are probably a little more stern than it needs to be without getting too detailed on this i was in a meeting not related to tbtl i was in a different work meeting the other day and somebody said something that was not intended to be in any way um i don't know dismissive but they were basically describing a potential project and they were saying that shouldn't be much work and i knew that it would be a lot of work for a lot of people actually the least of whom would be me if that makes any sense in other words i was i was sort of i felt sticking up for some some people that would have to put a lot of work in to make something happen and I instead of just saying well we should probably just kind of like take a look at that and figure out the best way to approach this I said something like well it's actually not not a lot of work etc etc and then I explained in a pretty calm way Why this would be a bigger project Maybe than we were expecting Or was being described by this other person And then The reason I know it made an impression Was because like 20 minutes later That person was talking again And they said And I didn't mean to say That it wouldn't be work to do that thing Like I could tell that for 20 minutes It had just been bouncing around Inside the head of this person Because I had come back pretty strongly on it So I have that capability

But you're not blind to that though That's the thing that maybe I'm correcting you on a little bit And maybe I'm making this very tedious.

Yeah, but then why don't I stop?

Why don't I stop saying dumb things to people at the Eagles?

I don't know. And honestly, I think you're on like, what is it, strike two? I mean, when are you officially banned from coming to that former yarn store? Sorry, that former quilting store.

They say the language of the signs around there is 86th, which I love. I hadn't heard that term in a long time, but there was a hand. There's often you can tell when the bartender has dealt with somebody or something that he doesn't want to deal with on any given day because there will be a new hand scrawled sign taped up somewhere that says something like, no talk of politics or you're 86. And I always love the term 86.

Yeah, that was that was one of the first things I learned when I worked in restaurants, you know, because that's when you're out of something.

Oh, oh, really?

So we're 86 on canned pickles right now.

Oh, I didn't know that's the origin.

Yeah, it's like whenever you're out of something, the back-of-the-house talk is we're 86'd on that. Oh, no, shit. But, yeah, it's great. It's one of those beautiful terms of art that I love, too. I need to bring that back into my regular lingo because it's a fun way to describe being out of something or somebody being kicked out. It's also used to be like, yeah, we 86'd him. Do people get – is there anybody who's 86'd from the Eagles besides me?

I've never been there when anything goes down. That's why I always find these signs pretty funny, because I'm always like, what is the backstory on this one? What did Mike have, Mike the bartender, what did he have to deal with yesterday? Why is there a sign that says, yo-yos are 86? Why is there a sign that says, no banging your Barbie dolls on the table? Like, what is it? Who's doing that?

I don't know. Right. All right. Let's take a quick break, and then we come back. I have actually, we have two updates on stories from last week. the squid story in Japan, getting some late-breaking news on that, and then also the SpongeBob Popsicle Kids story, and we'll talk about Chinese space rockets as well in a minute here on TBTL.

On your mark. On your mark. Get set. Get set. Now ready. Ready. Go. Everybody rattle, dattle.

Everybody rattle, dattle. All right, let's thank some dazzling donors. This wonderful, generous, supportive, amazing people Who are keeping this show in business Are the reason I'm Andrew's closest friend, confidant And most frequent collaborator Even above and beyond his parents

And you're like a father figure to me

I wanted to start quoting the song Father Figure by George Michael But I'll spare everybody that weirdness

Yeah, that gets pretty sexy pretty fast, doesn't it?

I would like to be your preacher teacher

I have had enough crime

does he say that in that song that feels a little never knowing who to cling to when the rain set in I might be misremembering the lyrics of that song but it's like Father Figure does not seem like it's a law and order song and then at some point I believe he says I have had enough crime I don't remember it well enough I also believe this is a conversation we have had on this show which is just mind numbing to think about let's thank Mackenzie Williams in Cheyenne Wyoming Mackenzie says my message is a shout out to my fantastic wife and fellow 10 Wendy she chooses to use her extraordinary legal ability to represent our state's child welfare agency ah I'm looking for a new lawyer

since Dan yeah well help me with some of my lawsuits sorry children of Wyoming who need

To be advocated for by the system Andrew's got some Couple of tort cases That he needs to launch

Remind me I gotta sue that tort Company too oh yeah

When kids Are abused or neglected sometimes It's not possible to address the family's Problems and those kids need a new Permanent home Wendy plays a Critical part in that process It's demanding work and can be emotionally Brutal at times I can only imagine Just the My sister Hannah works in education and a big part of what happens at the school that she works at is helping kids who are coming from sort of family situations that are really less than ideal. And they end up, Hannah and a lot of her colleagues end up being kind of a second set of parents. of these kids and it's just emotionally really wrenching to you know to to to be helping kids that are not your own kids and who aren't going to probably live with you but who is emotional and physical and uh you know nutritional needs are are still really not being met so this is an intense thing um she is my hero mckenzie writes and she still manages to enjoy the other finer things in life like sending and receiving holiday cards in tbtl card exchanges making fun rainbow artwork maintaining the snack bins being our pandemic era forager i wonder what that means i wonder like foraging around like around the yard there in wyoming and cheyenne also is it possible that that uh wendy says that she foraged those things but actually got them from costco like that willow's inn place oh right the willow's inn boy i was by the way i apparently put those guys on big old blast this weekend on wait wait oh you did well more than the new york times well i mean yes that was a bigger blast i'm going to be honest with you but i we were talking you know that show is much like this show you're just you're trying to keep the needle moving you're trying to create content they edit it down later so it's like your job is to just throw as much spaghetti at the wall as you can and then they try to you know figure out what works and doesn't work and um and so somehow in a conversation about a restaurant i just go into a fugue state and start talking about that place and then i guess yelled at some point i want my 1100 back willows in and the reason i know this got on the air was because one of the chefs who was part of bringing not i wouldn't say bringing that place down but bringing attention to the working conditions she emailed me and was like thank you nice for calling out the willows in i was like

wow i'm a real norma ray over here that's great i love it yeah justice i know but then i'm like

i started getting nervous like wait are they going to come after me did i did i say something that was slanderous i guess not hey got on the radio how about this for a really really quick

aside i don't even remember who this person is i'd so i'm not even protecting their identity but genevieve went for a walk with a friend recently i can't even remember who this friend is and they're talking about their parents or something and this friend says yeah you know my mom is doing really well she's she's met another woman um and uh who's who's a new friend of hers and they're really getting along well and they go for walks every day blah blah and somehow through the conversation turns out this woman who is going for walks every day with Genevieve's friend's mom is the mother of the chef who ripped us off on Thanksgiving oh no yes yes I can't even remember

friendship is over yeah oh my gosh that's crazy small call them out we gotta get you on we gotta get you on wait wait and then i want you so our what we do is we get on larger more popular radio shows and then we call out local restaurants that have really let us down um uh mckenzie says uh she is our pandemic era forager and she also keeps the cats warm in the evenings and also he says Thanks to Andrew and Luke for another year of shows For us to enjoy together Even if we listen separately We never go more than a few days without someone asking Have you listened to TBTL yet We hope this will be the year we get to attend A live event Us too Mackenzie, it would be cool if we could do something out there Wyoming way I mean that is, tell you what That is beautiful country out there in Wyoming I need to be nicer to the state of Wyoming You do Because obviously Mackenzie and Wendy are awesome people not just because they listen to the show and support us but because they sound very cool but like because wyoming has such a low population but has two u.s senators and also gets the number of electoral votes that it does i tend to think of wyoming the state as being an example of why i don't think the electoral college this is why i'm taking this andrew uh mackenzie and wendy are donating their hard-earned money to the show and i'm taking it to the electoral college place but i kind of like some i mean wyoming for just being beautiful country and for having a lot of really wonderful people in it i think we gotta get some we gotta we gotta really relook at the way that we apportion votes in this country but i'm you know what i'm gonna i'm gonna like check myself before i do that next time because i'm remember we have mckenzie and wendy out there just being awesome in the state of wyoming maybe next year instead

of donating a dazzling amount of cash they can just donate one of their senators yeah i would

you know what for the good of the country we'll take that in lieu of your dazzling donation please give one of your senators to the district of columbia we love you mckenzie and wendy thank

you so much maestro on your mark on your mark get set get set now ready ready go everybody Everybody rattle, dazzle, everybody rattle, dazzle.

Well, all right, our second Dazzling Donor. Today is someone who chooses to remain anonymous. Oh, no, this is Anony Mouse. Oh, thank God for the pronouncer. Hey, I've been saying this wrong. I've been saying anonymous for, like, years. This is what, the sixth year anonymous has donated?

And it's Anony Mouse this whole time.

God, I love these.

You know, this is somebody who is a little shy, I think. This is somebody who's been listening for a long time. sometimes we read their uh so you know who this is and they just said we'll go ahead and remain anonymous here's how this went down this person submitted a dazzling donor message then in a very andrew-like way had a lot of second thoughts about that message decided didn't want to go down that path i said okay we'll send a new message they said no you know what i'll just i'll just stay under the radar i said well can we just give you a shout out by name and they said no i don't need that but how about this i here's the quote i don't want to be thanked on the air but i would like to silently endorse going out with me and honey by rem today of course it's a song with kate pearson of the b52s as well so i i love that song um and so that sounds like a favor to

me and everybody involved can you tell me what their name rhymes with i just whisper it i can't

because it's a it's a unique name i think i've mentioned this on the show before one of my favorite and this doesn't do this person any good because i'm not saying their name but one of my favorite Instagram follows. This person has a fantastic eye and I love watching their

photos. It's Ramonski love? It's my guy Ramon from Rossi's in Chicago and O'Callaghan's?

He has not been posting lately. He went dark for a really long time. Oh no. I need to text him.

I'm going to text him right now and I promise his response will be

He came back for a little bit. His response will just

be, and I'm sorry to use a kind of a slightly coarse Spanish term, but his response will just be ¡Culo! What does that mean again? It means like, I think it means kind of a bad thing in Espanol.

He posted five days ago. I mean, this is a fellow who will sometimes post like, you know, ten times a day and then it's just like really slowed down. So we've got to figure out what's going on and if we can help out.

I'm going to text him right now. Find out if he's doing okay. Anyway, thanks Anani Mouse. And yes, we will go out with that song And thanks also, of course, to Mackenzie and Wendy Today for making the show possible We really appreciate you all We would not be here without you Hello and welcome to Top Story I sent you kind of a crazy text at like I think it was about 2.30 in the morning Saturday morning, Andrew

Yes, or to me, very, very late Friday night Because I do think I was still awake when I got it, but I was confused.

No, I think it was 2.30 because I went back and looked at the time stamp.

No, no, that's what I mean. But, like, it was 2.30 in the morning, Saturday morning, but for me it was Friday night, right? Gotcha, gotcha.

I had actually gone to sleep relatively early, but then I'd woken up to use the restroom. And then, of course, in just a pro move to make sure that my sleep is just restful and intense, I start looking at my phone as I'm in the bathroom because, like, that's what you want to do to your brain at 2.30. And I see this picture of this kid, Noah. I don't actually have the story right in front of me. His first name was Noah. I remember that much. I forget his last name. I thought I was seeing something that was Photoshopped because this is a little kid who ordered all the SpongeBob popsicles who's just as adorable as could possibly be. And in fact, what really sold us on this story last week was just this cute photo of the kid holding this popsicle that he had ordered an excessive amount of. But what I saw at 2.30 in the morning, early Saturday morning, late Friday night, if you're Andrew, was him actually standing on the boxes of popsicles. And somebody had written on Twitter, no, don't you dare try to crop out the popsicles from this photo. And I thought it was Photoshopped. I thought it was just a joke. But, no, the original photo, he is standing on these boxes of popsicles, which – now, you said you had brought this up on the show, and maybe I had just sort of, like, warged out when you were talking. but we were wondering how did these popsicles get delivered and and like because amazon i don't think of them as a cold shipping organization or outfit and uh anyway they were there in these boxes apparently and he's standing on and that picture is so much more compelling to me i don't know why that wasn't the picture that they put in the newspaper yeah like what a weird crop i think

the article that i read was uh and that i think you put in the show sheet was from cnn and i remember at one point and i was on a real ramble too so i'm not surprised that this didn't really stick but i went on this weird ramble about yeah well how does amazon ship this stuff anyway and how did these things not melt by now where are they storing them and then we were talking about the photo and i made one comment i said you know this could

be an old photo of him eating one of these things before the shipment even came in this is just his jam and he likes these things but then i said but in the background you can see a shipping box back there so maybe he's standing in front of the shipment we didn't realize he was standing on

the shipment yes and like i want to say whoever the photo editor is of whatever that publication is that we were referencing this is some really bunk photojournalism because there's so much it's It's it's it's such a more interesting and rich picture of this little tiny diminutive human creature standing on these giant boxes of the things that he bought. Why would you crop that out? Why would you deprive us of that information and of that visual law? Well, anyway, this is an article in Gothamist that has much more information. They had the wisdom to show him standing on the boxes to use the whole picture. Also, apparently the boxes said frozen fruit on them. This is what his sister said. the boxes were labeled frozen fruit when they opened the packages they discovered the spongebob popsicles i was just like there's no possible way my baby could have done this 51 cases hell no this is what the mother said and she filed a dispute with amazon's customer service um anyway um so then there's a picture of this kid noah pushing the boxes around the apartments in brooklyn so uh anyway we have a little bit more information on that and that is that they came in those cardboard boxes and if you want if you had fun with this story on friday we want to have even more fun find the original photo because it's really quite something now speaking of other

things hold on hold on one second sorry to beat your transition i just i besmirched the good people at cnn we were reading from a new york post article and i'm looking at it now that makes sense that's the one that cut they crop it right above his knees sort of so you don't see that his feet are standing on these boxes it looks like he's standing in front of them again i do not understand like the new york post fine not exactly my newspaper of choice or news site of choice but you would think if nothing else they get the idea of what is sort of phenomenal and what is sticky

i think they don't actually honestly like yeah i feel like i don't know i i i don't know why this is where i'm going with it but like i i used to work there are probably some maybe a couple good reporters left at the New York Post but I just and again by the way it's where we get like half the stories for the show because they do have an eye for things that are kind of weird and I don't want to say salacious we don't usually go salacious on this show but they just tend to focus on dumb non-stories that are the kind of dumb non-stories that we tend to get into but I've also worked in New York in the media and there is a certain kind of New York media person who even though they live in New York and even though they work in the media they're very unrefined and I feel like the post is just crawling with those kinds of people i don't know i have no i have no like basis for that i've never been to the offices of the new york post but if there's one publication that i feel like would the photo person would miss what's good about that photo it would be the new york post for some yeah it's just a gut feeling i have but that could be political too because they tend to take every opportunity to try to drag hunter biden they're like we got to crop out these boxes

we need more room for talking about hunter biden that's exactly why they do you know what i mean

the other thing that i think uh i kind of slept on last week that should be corrected and comes from our friend bill in toronto the toronten remember that town in japan with the squid where they spent their covid money on this giant squid and i said i don't think that this squid is exciting enough to bring tourists into the town it needs to be more like larry the lobster that we saw in australia um bill said that japanese squid statue uh looks like it's built for somebody To crawl through the mouth Or poke your head out For a picture And then he attaches Some Some Photos And it looks like The eye of the squid Is actually a hole Okay That if you're a kid You can like Stick your head out of

Now is this Is Did this come in as an email Or are we looking at Twitter here Okay cool I need to check this out Because was there also Some discrepancy On what kind of animal This was Or Oh really I thought I saw something Come in late But again this was like I was confused When you had texted me At 2.30 in the morning too and i think i saw this around that time too and i my brain wasn't it's full functioning at that point well so um i was i'm trying to figure out what i saw about questioning whether or not we were misidentifying this animal but it's a squid right did we say shrimp accidentally at

one point i think i was probably saying shrimp the whole time on on friday so that was another mistake my bad uh just be happy i didn't send you a message at 2 30 a.m with attachments like bill did, Squid Hole 1 and Squid Hole 2 I'm amazed that that even got to me on the internet, I'm amazed my some kind of filter didn't filter that out but anyway, it sounds like this, first of all, sorry it's a squid, I was probably calling it a shrimp that's because I got Larry the Lobster who's a prawn on my mind but thanks Bill for the update, that does actually seem kind of boss when you're a kid

kid if you can like climb up in something and stick your head out of it like that's a very fun experience like it's why i used to like to climb into hamburglar jail yeah not even hamburglar jail just hamburger jail at the mcdonald's playland we talked about this a few months ago i would honestly at this point i'm worried that if i talk about this more it will move into my nightscape and it will become a stress dream andrew but if at this point at that At 45 years old, if you said, I will pay you $1,000 to climb up that little narrow thing and then emerge into that weird jail in the middle of the hamburger buns that you used to have at certain McDonald's Playlands, I wouldn't take it. I would not do it for $1,000. It gives me a very bad claustrophobic feeling. But as a kid, I loved it for some reason.

Yeah, I'm with you. I also that. Yeah. And as as I get older, my little phobias and whatnot, whether it's heights or claustrophobia, they get more intense. And so, yeah, thinking about that makes me uncomfortable, too. I'm scrolling back here, not finding. But I want to tell you that those those little hamburger jails celebrated some anniversary last week. I know that I believe through my Twitter feed of retro news now, which will just tell you some really crazy anniversaries. But I think it was the late 70s when those started being introduced in McDonald's playlands.

I want to just say congratulations to everybody for not being hit by a Chinese rocket that reentered the Earth's atmosphere this weekend. Apparently, it landed in the Indian Ocean somewhere near the Maldives, although the Maldives are like over 1,100 islands. So they still don't know if maybe some of the stuff hit, you know, an island maybe with like doesn't have a lot of population or something. They're still trying to figure it all out. Again, I know in having this conversation, we have a listener named April who is an actual astrophysicist. And the last time we talked about something like this, she went on Twitter and said, I've been listening for I forget what it was, 12 years or something. She's like, and this is the first time I had to really literally throw my phone. So I hope you've picked it up and dusted it off, April, because it's time to fire that bad boy out again.

Maybe wrap it in a T-shirt or something this time.

Yeah, just, I mean, you know it's going to happen. Bubble wrap, just something. Plan ahead. Apparently, according to this article I'm reading in the New York Times anyway, for some reason, China's space administration has decided that they're not going to, for whatever reason, make it so that when these rockets are coming back into the atmosphere. There's a way to do it, and the U.S. tries to do it. Even SpaceX, remember that SpaceX thing that was reentering kind of over Seattle? Yeah. That was the original conversation that made listener April angry. Yeah. Even in that case, SpaceX had apparently a design that was supposed to help control where that rocket ended up landing, but it malfunctioned. malfunctioned so like that was why it was where it was at the time it still i believe well parts of it ended up in washington state but that was not like that was because of a of a of a you know of a accident if you will whereas it sounds like this chinese rocket which is huge it was like putting this chinese space station in space this chinese rocket i think i read somewhere it's like the fourth largest thing to ever fall back to the earth in a kind of uncontrolled random fashion Huh. And and basically it sounds like the Chinese government, for whatever reason, is not that concerned about where this stuff lands or they're not building into it whatever process or mechanism you need to try to increase the chances that it will land in the ocean as opposed to just randomly landing where it lands. By the way, the Chinese government is mad at the U.S. They said the U.S. is and Space Force is is rampant. It's kind of like winding everyone up on this just to make people mad at China, which gave me a very weird feeling last night when I was reading the story, which was. It's not the same right to call this to talk about this Chinese rocket and the Chinese government. That's not the same as like describing covid in terms of being from China. Right. Because I feel like there's a really weird racist thing around the way that like Trump and a lot of Republicans would talk about covid-19 and associating with China. This is a different thing that we're associating with China. But like this one's OK. Right. It's OK for us to be mad at China because it's their project.

It's right. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's it is a strange thing. Right. There's so much racism and xenophobia, like you just said. And I'm just repeating you now that, you know, we do have to think about what we're implying. And when we're saying something casually, I mean, geez, why, why, why, why would I even begin to say this? But, you know, the idea of the policies of Israel and being critical of them without necessarily being anti-Semitic is another, you know, conversation along those lines. Like at certain times it's like, no, I don't like the actions of this government. It doesn't mean that I'm anti-Semitic. So that's all I'll say about that. But yeah, like sometimes we're talking about the actions of a government. into our government program.

Yeah, and it sounds like even, let's see, Bill Nelson, who's in charge of NASA these days, he's the administrator of NASA, issued what the New York Times calls an unusual rebuke after China's announcement accusing China of, quote, failing to meet responsible standards regarding their space debris. This is what I thought was kind of interesting. This is, of course, not the first time that rockets have had uncontrolled re-entries. In 1973, Skylab, which was this... I remember reading about Skylab in National Geographic when I was a kid and not fully grasping it. We had basically like our own kind of space station or project called Skylab. It broke up as NASA... NASA was trying to bring it back to Earth or, you know, they weren't trying to bring it back to Earth in one piece, but it was coming back down to Earth in 1979. and it broke up over the indian ocean but there was debris that was scattered across western australia and president jimmy carter had to apologize for sky lab crashing in australia i remember this like until i read this line i had like buried this memory i remember being a kid in around that time 1979 1980 and again like or maybe what it was maybe i was older we had all these national geographics around like forever like my parents still have them if you go to my parents house they have national geographics from 1984 and which by the way are super fun to read because of the ads andrew like going back to the earlier conversation like the first 10 pages of a national geographic from 1984 are so awesome they'll be like gallagher doing an ad for a minivan

like a photo i can picture i can picture that black and white with like specifically like he's

Yeah, he's sitting crisscross applesauce, I think, like either on top of the minivan, I think, or like next to it. It's like, wow, minivans were just being invented and Gallagher was still relevant. We don't know if it was Gallagher or his brother. It was a real Gallagher.

Gallagher too.

Yeah, right. So maybe what it was is I was older, but just reading. But I just remember being a kid and reading about Skylab and reading that Skylab was going to come down and we didn't know where it was going to hit. And I had totally forgotten about that. So I looked at this article.

I love the idea that I mean this is I mean you just want to really underscore the differences between you and I especially at that that time of our development like you are in Seattle Washington reading about Skylab in National Geographic I'm in a basement in Valley City Ohio trying to figure out why Archie is so hung up on Veronica when Betty seems so much more approachable it's just like I I still like that too I don't think I've ever well you're a voracious reader I don't think I've ever read National Geographic to this day.

Oh, man, it's so good. David from The Basement subscribed to me, resubscribed to me to it, I think, as like a Christmas present one year. Yeah, it's such a good magazine. Let's see. Veronica was the rich one. No, Veronica was from Veronica Lodge. She was from the rich family. She was the richie rich. And then Betty was the blonde kind of like best friend. Yes.

And I mean, they were always going back and forth, but Archie was hung up on both of them. But I didn't really get the appeal of Veronica at that point. I didn't understand the appeal of a kind of a girl that puts you in your place so much, I would say.

And then you had, was her name Midge? Was that Moose's girlfriend? Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, Moose and Midge. Midge was cool, yeah. Boy, Moose was definitely not to be trifled with in that cinematic universe. Here's one last interesting thing from this article. What would happen if space debris actually hits something? Apparently, there's an international legal framework that's based on treaties from the 1960s in which a country can demand payment for damage caused by another country's falling rocket. This has happened, actually. After Cosmos 954, a Soviet satellite that was powered by a nuclear reactor, crashed in Canada in 1978, Canada billed the Soviet Union for part of the cost of cleaning up the radioactive debris. This has actually happened before.

I cannot find it. I cannot find this Gallagher ad. I want to find it so bad.

I don't know why that is so seared in my brain, but I want to say it was... Okay, this part has to be wrong because Voyager, that's not the name. What was the name? What was the first minivan called? My brain is saying Plymouth Voyager, but that's not what it was. But it was something like that.

Well, what did I have? Suddenly my brain is locking up And I had a Dodge Caravan Maybe it's a Dodge Caravan

But so if you You know what's really sad I believe this topic has come up before Yeah Plymouth Voyager That's the first one Well there was something called a Plymouth Voyager So I'm not saying that's the one that he was um i think we've actually looked this ad up have we this or tried to um anyway all right you

got to go what you got to do is at another point in time you have to go um dig these up at your

parents house and i know you know what next time i head over there oh by the way i just had a absolutely one speaking of my parents wonderful hang yesterday with a big majority of my family We're out on my sister's place, and, you know, everybody's vaxxed, and we were actually outside because there's very little indoor space at the yurt currently. But it was so much fun to get to see my fam. I mean, I've seen parts of my family over the last year, but this was the largest get-together we've had, and we were celebrating Mother's Day and kind of celebrating my birthday. Yeah, happy birthday. The kids were firing BB guns. They've moved on from chainsaws now. They're just into BB guns. Are they actual BB guns? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Little Luke was trying to fire one. Then we're like, okay, all right. Let's, you know, let's be careful here, everyone. But, no, it was such a wonderful day. And I didn't even get into the fact, Andrew, that I had to stop three times to use the bathroom on the way out there. It's like a 50-minute drive. No, it's like an hour and 10-minute drive. So hopefully my body will adjust to drinking 100 ounces. So this is what the rule of thumb is. You're trying to drink half of your body weight in ounces, and these days I'm running around 200, and so half of that is 100 ounces. So I bought this Thermo Flask, which is I think 75 ounces or 70 ounces, and I'm trying to drink one and a half of these or something to get to my 100 ounces.

I'm trying to figure out how many – can you convert that to cups or no because ounces is weight, right? So that doesn't make sense. Okay.

yeah i don't yeah i'm um i'm terrible with that kind of stuff as far as um you know i don't know

converting ounces to cups to whatever it's like it is here it is it looks like uh so it's you're just under a gallon and maybe you even said that at the top of the show i didn't a hundred fluid ounces is zero point get your pencil zero point seven eight one two five so just over three

quarters of a gallon i guess wow that's why i'm peeing so much that is far too much water

and and i'm sorry and this is to flush your system is this a way to lose weight is this a way what what are you going it's just to be healthier it's just to flush my system out a little bit more to

just because you know all i i just drink tons of coffee i do drink a lot of like bubble water but i don't even know if that's great for me you know but too much of it maybe it's like it's just to try to be healthier try to like i said flush my system out a little i also figure you know if i'm drinking water maybe i'll be a little less hungry maybe i won't need to eat you know four slices of baby doll pizza before i go to bed each night this is my current ritual or maybe even my sometimes i'll swerve on having a an alcohol drink if i'm already enjoying or if basically if i already have water coming out of my eyeballs yeah because of all of the water i've ingested maybe that'll help me make some better decisions i'm not sure i'm just trying it for a week as i was telling everybody yesterday mainly what it allowed me to do was do a deep internet dive on what the best giant ass water container is which is really what i live for you know what i mean like well i was

thinking that i didn't want to be stalking thing yeah i didn't want to be like um i didn't want to needle you but you i was going to ask why you weren't using because didn't you buy some other fancy water bottles that were going to change i do you drink water sorry i'm just drinking now

because I have to keep doing this. I'm not going to get through this thing. That's the other thing, everyone. I'll be drinking water throughout every episode for the next four days until I give up on this. I did, and I love those, but they're just a little bit smaller. I would need to refill that 10 to 12 times, or maybe more. So the idea with this, you know what also is sadly part of this? I saw Jonah Hill carrying something like this. Jonah Hill seems to be really living his best life. He's in all these great movies. He's so funny. He's a good actor. He likes to surf, which I'm impressed by. And he also has this kind of, like, weird – I say weird in quotes because I'm old. I don't get it. But he's got this kind of, like, clothing style that makes no sense to me. But it's also kind of the way Pete Davidson dresses, which I would never try it. I could never pull it off, but I'm kind of impressed with it. And he's just always walking around. He just looks like he's having a – sometimes his hair is dyed blonde. I don't know. Jonah Hill just seems like he's having a good time. And I saw him carrying one of these giant-ass flasks – not flasks, but, well, it's actually technically called a thermo flask. I saw him carrying one of these giant ass things And I thought he's probably just like Got done at the gym and he's drinking his water And he's going off to do some creative interesting project And for some reason it made me think I should probably try to do that too So this is basically calling it the Jonah Hill project

There's something that's Good. Operation Jonah. Actually, wouldn't you find yourself in the belly of a whale in Operation Jonah? Yeah, you got to be careful with that. No, that is always tempting to me. And I know that drinking water is one of, you know, a very healthy thing that you can do. And I do have my water bottle sitting here next to me at my desk at all times. And so I drink a fair amount of water during the day, but I know I'm probably not drinking the recommended amount. And it's so tempting to me because you know me i'm not a i'm not living a very healthy lifestyle but when you think of first of all there's something satisfying to me just about the idea of just like flushing something out whether it's your system or a drain or whatever you know what i mean it just feel it's like such a passive thing that you can do that makes you feel like you're doing something and not to be gross but probably you're you're getting up to pee more than as you're peeing and you're thinking like yep just just keeping it all just flushing it all out it's just like a good satisfying feeling yes i'm telling you at this point now i'm gonna drink

some water my pee is very very clear yeah not i'm not trying to be gross i'm just saying it's just running right now this is why i was laughing andrew i just googled jonah hill water bottle it's a whole thing oh is he famous for it it's people are like like esquire how jonah hill managed to turn a water bottle i'm sorry i clicked on the link enough how jonah hill managed to turn a water bottle into a perfectly sleazy style flex and like if you just google jonah hill water there's like hundreds of pictures of him just wandering around carrying this gigantic water bottle which really literally was part of the impetus for me wanting to do this and my the one i have is exactly what he has except mine is black and his is white also it's funny because in one of these pictures he is wearing and this by the way will just only be interesting to a few people he's wearing one of these great grateful dead lithuania national team tie-dyed t-shirts which is a crazy story that we don't even really have time to get into right now but basically there was a point at which the lithuanian uh national basketball team i believe they had qualified for the olympics but they didn't really have resources for uniforms or maybe the travel or something and the grateful dead sponsored them the band the grateful dead and so they had these like crazy Grateful Dead inspired tie-dyed like warm-ups and things they would wear. My guess would be maybe Sharonis Martialonis. One time Seattle Supersonic was on that team. Anyway, Jonah Hill in his Grateful Dead Lithuania t-shirt with his giant water bottle was a whole mood and I wanted to get into that mood.

From 1992, I'm looking at the back of his shirt right now, bronze medal winners Barcelona 1992. So anyway, I'm sorry.

That's what I'm doing, but if you hear me drinking during the show, don't worry. It's only water. And also, if you hear me leaving the studio, it's only because I have to go put that water in the toilet. You know what they say, Andrew? You don't buy the water. You only rent it, man.

Just let me know when you just need me to go on a real long, incoherent stem winder about, I don't know, anything, listening to old NPR episodes or something like that. Okay, go now. So. That's just absolute stupidity.

Hey, hey, hey, it's time for what are we at? How many times have we successfully gotten to this in the last five days?

Like twice? Yeah, what is this? This is a matchup number three, I believe, in this new round of the Drops of Stupider. And what we have going on today. I'm just going to start by telling you what the new matchup is before we get into those who did not make the cut to round two. But the new matchup is none other than Chris Hayes' scatting scandal. Going up against Luke, and this one is, you know, close to the fam. Chris Hayes going up against your mom.

I would go, Lugles, my Googles for sale. How much does he cost? I'll buy him. And da-da-da-da.

That one, man. There's going to be some emotions involved in that matchup, I believe.

Oh, I'm voting for Chris. I mean, I love my mom. That's what I mean. You don't want to insult Chris, right? I love my mom. I was great to see her yesterday. Happy Mother's Day. But this is business. And Chris is a longtime supporter of the show, both content-wise and financially. And, Mom, where's your dazzling donation is what I guess I would say.

Happy Mother's Day. You know what? You wouldn't have said that yesterday, but now you're as far away from Mother's Day as you can get to say that. By the way, just for those who are keeping score at home, the Scouting with Chris Hayes beat out Rap Master Maurice. And this did surprise me. And, again, no offense to Mama Burbank, but Susie.

Burbank beat the Ross Dress for Less story with one Katie Springer by a mere seven votes. That shocks me. Ross Dress for Less. And again, this is not a statement about how wonderful it is to have your mom on the show. But that Ross Dress for Less segment is one of my favorite moments personally of all time in TBTL history. And I wasn't there. I agree.

And in fact, maybe that's why it should have gone on. I feel like my mom is getting credit for her body of work. Sure, yes. You know? Her body of work, you mean. Sure.

don't talk about my mom's body you brought it up all right so once again the matchup is the matchup is scatting with chris hayes versus suzy burbank appearances you can vote on that and the other matchups in round two at today's show page at tbtl.net here i go once again with

the email every week i hope that it's from a female no man it's not from a female

i bet we have more than a few emails and or v-mails that uh that have been piling up i feel like we have been because of the drops of stupider and other things we just and just being rushed at times i haven't gotten to a ton of them anything uh you're particularly interested in yeah that's

a really good question because i yeah i've been collecting these things and i now i'm opening up opening up the dock yeah we have tons of stuff we can talk about actually this is one thing i told you about this before the show the other day i thought this was pretty funny we were having a conversation about bill gates i'm assuming the bill and melinda gates news the other day and somehow clippy came up that yeah helpful or maybe unhelpful little paperclip character that would pop up on early versions of windows or maybe it was the the microsoft like office suite and be like hey it looks like you're trying to write a letter is it a business letter um and i really hated clippy and then at one point way back and i think 2008 microsoft decided to get rid of clippy and I messed up telling you a story about how I remembered a wait, wait, don't tell me joke about Clippy and apparently that was a very famous little joke. I had said that Adam Felber had made some spoof about like, oh, it looks like you're digging a grave. Can I help with that? But it turns out it was not Adam Felber who was spoofing on that. It was actually Paul Provenza and I know this because we have an unnamed digital producer who wanted to let us know that the infamous Clippy Must Die segment Was from June 2008 Wait wait don't tell me was In Seattle they were actually doing A live show by 2008 were they always Doing live shows they might have Transitioned into being yeah definitely

By 2008 I think yeah Because I would have been On the show by 2008 I mean I would have had Appearances because they had Basically put me on there to try to promote The Bryant Park project that was how I sort of Jumped the queue I see and And so yeah definitely they were all they were

doing all live shows by then yeah so that coincidentally that was a Seattle show and I just thought it was so funny that like I just had this little memory of a joke that I thought Adam Felber said but I thought I was the only one who remembered that specific you know like 15 seconds from um however many years ago 13 years ago or whatever it is and uh yeah I'll just say him because it's getting awkward but uh you know our friend Lynn tweeted that out and then other people were like oh my gosh I remember that joke I I think about that joke all the time when Paul said looks like you're digging a grave is a personal grave or a business grave because again the joke is that they were killing clippy so apparently like that little moment that stuck in my head although incorrectly i guess in some ways um really stuck in a lot of people's heads all around

the country so i found good see don't you feel like it was like when i heard john green talking about what goes on in his mind wait that's more about you than me but anyway don't you feel kind of like you're part of a community of people who remember that joke yes i do and do you want to

know the biggest coincidence of all of this my friend who i heard on national public radio how we started the show his name john greenberg john greenberg and you don't believe in the god luke you don't believe in the god um hey do you want to hear do we have time uh we're running kind of short on time but i will play one story for you again we got a bunch of voicemails when i broke my finger a couple of weeks ago uh people kind of relating their own stories and um rachel has an interesting story about when a family member hurt themselves.

Hi, this is listener Rachel from Pittsburgh. I just heard Andrew telling his story of falling and breaking his finger and how it's helpful to have someone like Genevieve around who can keep him kind of grounded talking. This reminded me of a story I wanted to tell where I was a terrible partner I was at a party and I get a text from my husband who is quite the gymnast and so he tells me that he was doing flips on the porch and landed

on and he stepped on a nail and for some reason my brain read it as I stepped on a snail I was like with my girlfriend but I kind of was like oh okay I mean I'm sorry for the snail like are you okay and he was like I don't know should I pull it out and I said I yeah pull it out thinking he's meaning the little pieces of the snail's shell. He's like, yeah, you're fine. He was like, you think I'll be okay? And I said, yeah, yeah, you'll be fine, Mike. Just pull it out. He said, I think I'm going to go to the doctor. And I was like, I started to roast him to my friends. I was like, Mike weirdly landed on a snail, and now he's going to go to the doctor about it? And my one friend said, yeah, that'd make a lot more sense if he landed on a nail, which made me recheck the text and i read back and i felt awful that i was being so dismissive of him when he landed on a nail and he did that to the doctor who said that yes and he followed my advice too and i pulled out the nail and the doctor said that was actually fine to do um but he was surprised that he had the nerve um and you know what's funny is that uh while i look this was such shame i just talked about it yesterday with my husband and he said um first of all he never knew that i had made this mistake but he also found it very helpful that i was so nonchalant about it that that helped calm him down so um i feel unending guilt that i guess it was not the worst in the end um so uh power out wow everything's kind of full circle

I was going to say, today's theme is intrusive thoughts about things we've said and done that we feel bad about. Exactly, right, right. God, I have so many questions. Was it a front flip? Was it a back flip? Was it a handspring? How far in did the nail go? How big was the nail? I did a flip yesterday. I did a number of flips on a trampoline trying to teach my nephews, Jack and Abe, how to do a front flip and land on your feet. Which I was unsuccessful in landing on my feet But I will tell you My life flashed before my eyes As I was bouncing At age 45 and getting ready To go up into a full front flip How did you land? I just landed Kind of on my backside And feet, like in other words It was like a front flip that didn't get Around enough to land in a standing position Okay But it was terrifying but I was in full-on fun uncle mode. I was like, I really got to make an impression on these guys. I got to really like, you know, I got to show them that I'm still spry and I don't know, whatever else. So I basically got into this thing where I was like, I can't not try this front flip because they were doing them, and I was like, you got to really tuck your knees. That's the whole key. You got to pull your knees against your chest, and you'll rotate more quickly. And so then I did a little proof of concept, But then I landed on my butt, so that really didn't sell them on my advice because I was doing a worse flip than they were.

I don't think I've ever been on a trampoline, although that doesn't sound right, right? Like there must have been some moment in my life where there was a trampoline and I was on it. But I have no recollection of ever being on a trampoline. I can't even – I don't have a visceral memory of what that feels like.

I lived for trampolines when I was, you know, middle school or whatever. It was – Philip Peterson had one. and we went crazy on that thing. But what I will tell you is at this age, and my parents had a trampoline. I didn't live there, but when David was living there and Sammy and stuff, my parents had a trampoline. And as I've gotten older, I think I was talking to my brother-in-law, Josh, about this yesterday. I think he said, yeah, the stakes are really high when you get on that trampoline at our age. It's fun, but it's not relaxing when you're my age because I'm thinking, am I going to throw my back out Am I going to hurt myself? The whole thing about being a kid on there is it is just absolutely as carefree as you can be. You're just bouncing. You're going high. It's just like the most fun stuff. And for me at this age, it's calculating at all times. Is it more important that I impress my nephews or that I'm able to actually like walk? Yeah, walk away from this thing.

And also when you're a little kid, the body to trampoline ratio is so much greater, right? It's like you can jump up and land almost anywhere. I feel like I would just be like a giant fat gorilla in that thing, testing the strength of the springs.

Well, that's what I was – I asked my brother-in-law, Jason. I was like, am I – is it okay if I get on this? He was like, yeah, it's fine. I was kind of hoping he would say no. Then I would – Right. Then this cup would have been passed.

Sorry, I can't teach you today, boys.

But then you're exactly right. I was like, are they making these trampolines smaller these days? God, soft baseballs, participation awards, and tiny trampolines. This is what's going on with the kids. No, but it was just because I'm so much bigger now. And I was like, as I was getting ready to do the flip, I was like really trying to calculate, like, am I going to fly off the end of this trampoline? Because I, relative to the trampoline, I'm so much bigger. But anyway, it was a fun day. And I only peed my pants a little bit when I was on the trampoline. That's good. It was also kind of a win. More or less than your nephews? You know, you'd have to ask them. The topic did come up recently because, okay, so over the weekend, because Saturday was my birthday, my dad sent out just a flurry of family pictures, and particularly pictures of me. One of them was from my kindergarten I went to, which was at this school called Pillar of Fire Christian School. And the teachers were really something. They were laid back, older, just unbelievably chill. They were like, follow your heart. They were like, you know what? You were they people think we're here to teach you, but you're here to teach us. What would you like to do today? You grade us. Exactly. They were like, we really want to please call us by our first name. And please, like, we want to really just we want to get down on your level. No, this was these teachers were pretty hardcore. And the one teacher named Mrs. Foreigner Which is forever will be A weird last name to me This came up in the As we were talking about all these photos She wouldn't let me go to the bathroom One time until I finished a worksheet And I didn't finish it Before I peed my pants and then later my mom And I were at Burger King and my mom said Smells like someone peed their pants and I said not me Too loud too soon Yeah, too specific to the guy whose pants were currently soaked in urine. All right. Anyway, that's where we're going to end today's slightly weird, but I think overall kind of fun Monday edition of the program. We're going to be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you, so please do join us for that. Until then, oh, yeah, we're going to go out with this REM, thanks to Anani Mouse. And we'll see you tomorrow. Until then, have a great Monday. Stay safe. Take care of yourselves. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to you all.

I sat there looking ugly, looking ugly at me. Knew what you were saying, you were saying to me. Baby's got some new rules, baby, so she's had it with me.

Seems a shame to waste your time on me. Seems a lot of wasted time for me Left me to love What it's doing to me

There's a lot of honey in this world, baby This honey's for me

Got to do what you do to do it with me Seems a shame to waste your time for me Power out!