Muse

Do you feel this vehicle is safe for highway travel? Yes, I do. Yes, I really do. I believe that. I know it's not pretty to look at, but it'll get you where you want to go. Now, you got no outside mirror. No, we lost that. You have no functioning gauges. No, not a one. However, the radio still works. Funny as that may seem, with all this mess, that the radio is the only thing that's really working good, and it's as clear as a bell. Don't ask me how. TBTN!

it's the first line of the film man it's got to be on the money here you guys are so fun

just relentlessly fun i keep thinking when are they going to stop being fun and the answer is never never i wait around get a wrong way to roll you can just listen

to your soul just remember that life is number one you can be having so much fun i think people should listen to tbtl because it will make them funnier even if it's in their own heads

this party is gonna be off of the hook well all right hello good morning and welcome everyone to a very special monday edition of tbtl the show that just might be too beautiful to live Oh, and the adventure begins again. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. Coming to you from beautiful Corvallis, Oregon.

Oh, Ma, Pa, it's just beautiful.

In a driveway in front of the home of Cheryl, Lance, Irene, and Julian. And it turns out is, in fact, their lucky day. It's your lucky day. You just found a USB flash drive in the parking lot. We have shown up to do some personal podcasting to an audience of four. And on a surprisingly cold day here in Corvallis, I have to say, Cheryl was nice enough to bring us some broadcast coffee in these public radio branded thermal flasks. So this is going to keep us warm throughout the show. Of course, this is all part of TBTL-a-thon 12 contentless delivery.

That cash could really get me out of a couple of jams.

Wherein we are reminding you, the fine TBTL listeners and the people watching us on YouTube. Hi there, everybody. How's it going? that we are raising money this week to keep this show happening. And we sure hope that you can go to tbtl.net and kick us a couple of bucks. We'll talk about that later and all the thank you gifts that we have in store for you, including this little baby.

I'll say, what's up, dog?

The TBTL sound box, which is already, I think, maybe the must-have item for the thoughtful TBTL tent. Oh, by the way, this is episode 3429 in a collector series.

Let the fun begin.

And we have, of course, because we're in Corvallis, we had to check in with the Corvallis Gazette Times and take a look at their roses and raspberry column. So we're going to be giving some roses and raspberries to various things here in Corvallis. I got a raspberry for something. The worst television show I've ever seen in my life. that I watched last night in the hotel room in Corvallis.

I don't even own a television.

It's called World's Funniest Weather. And it's even worse than the title would indicate, so we'll talk about that. Plus, lots of emails and V-mails because you all have been sending in lots of nice messages and interacting with us. We may even try. I don't know if we'll be able to do this on day one. This is very much a kind of a beta test for this whole thing. but we may try to see what y'all are saying on YouTube as well because I know there's a bunch of you watching this right now and commenting and doing that sort of stuff. Of course, we can't do any of that without the help of this young man, the longest-running co-bro of the show.

He may be best known for his depictions of the tall ships capturing their grace and power. He is Andrew Walsh, and he is joining me.

What's the name of this neighborhood? He's joining me from the No Idea neighborhood of Corvallis, Oregon. and he's a mere feat for me. He is Andrew Walsh. Good morning, my friend. Good morning, Luke. I'm sorry that I'm coming a little hot there,

working on the levels. How you doing, buddy? I'm good. I'm good. You know how you used to talk about the podcast, maybe in the bad old days, where you literally had a stick and a piece of string keeping the podcast up? I now relate. I don't think I really fully understood what you're talking about. I am looking at, we're under a canopy that's poking out the side of this 1993 Mitsubishi van right now, and I'm looking at the pole that is holding up the canopy and is blowing in the wind in a way that makes me incredibly anxious. And that's not even at the top of my list. That doesn't crack the top ten things that are making me anxious right now.

I'll take the listeners back to 12 minutes ago. It was 9.15.

Now we had made an announcement

It was a morning just like this

It was a morning just like this 11 minutes ago It was one minute Until we were supposed to activate the YouTube Feed of this thing Andrew had been running around like a Technical maniac Setting up all this audio board And everything and at the last minute we realized Something was not Cooperating with the YouTube feed We never tried to do this before We never tried to live stream the show on video And it involved me speakerphone dialing Eric the Viking Stromstad By the way, shout out to Eric For basically making this show happen today And at about, I think it was, 10 a.m. and 15 seconds, Andrew You hit this critical button that we didn't know about That Eric explained we needed to hit That was on me This thing went live

It was on me I forgot the order of operation on one thing

My friend, you have had a lot going on We've never done the show in someone's driveway. We've never tried to drive a 1993 Mitsubishi Delica van, which, side note, definitely tops out at about 53. Is it self-driving? It's whatever the opposite of self-driving is. I was, like, just driving this down from Portland last night. I have never had to concentrate more on driving a car in the last 10 years of my life. because you forget how many sort of creature comforts and modern things they have now built into cars so that you don't, like, I don't know, bump into somebody else or rear-end someone or have the van blow over, which felt like a real possibility driving down here yesterday. So anyway, this is all a new thing for us, and I think you're doing a great job. So thanks to my friend Andrew here at the top of the show. Now, we did get off to sort of a bit of a challenging start yesterday. we met up in portland and uh we were very excited to to launch out on this voyage and we're also very excited because we had these special magnetic signs made for the side of the van and they said podcast delivery and then it had the phone number of the tbtl voicemail line 206-414-tbtl and we actually this was a certain amount of work we kind of we wanted to look like one of those delivery vans maybe like a dhl van like we're delivering the podcast to people yeah no lawsuits

But let's just say that the design was based on some of our favorite DHL vans.

Exactly. And and we also thought it'd be fun to have the phone number on there, because as we're driving around the western United States, ending up in Phoenix, Arizona on Friday, we thought it might be funny if somebody saw our sign and then called the number. Like, what is that all about? Can you please deliver a podcast to me?

And do you mind if I jump in here? You had asked me, I think it was near the very near the end of the week. You said, you know, should we get signs made or not? And I'll be honest, I was very ambivalent about it. I was like, sure, could be a nice little lanyard, as I like to say, or I think the trip will go fine without the signs. You had the signs designed, and you showed them to me, and it was love at first DHL. Yes. But not really DHL. No, no, something based loosely on the idea of DHL, but nothing that would infringe on anybody's trademark or copyright. Danny in New Hampshire. I'm going to need some representation on this. But I fell in love with these. How big did you say three foot by three foot Four foot by four foot square

Two foot by two foot

But in my heart they loomed larger At like three or four foot square

They were just absolutely perfect And we put them on the van yesterday at my apartment I took a couple pictures And then we hit the road And we came down here to Corvallis And then we parked the van in the parking lot Of the Holiday Inn Express And we got all of our valuable stuff Out of the van And put it in the hotel And then went and grabbed some dinner And at dinner you said to me Somewhat sheepishly Andrew I don't want to be like overly paranoid But should we take those signs off of the van Because like overnight We don't want any like drunk OSU students To like peel them off the van

Do you mind if I add a little bit more context here too From like kind of my perspective I feel like you In a way that I really appreciate I don't know if paranoid is a word that has negative connotations And I don't mean it But I don't mean it in a negative way But you're the most paranoid person I've ever met And it sickens me No, but you have been very, very careful about where we park the van, what we leave in the van, what we don't leave in the van.

Uncharacteristically so, by the way.

Yes, you are being very, very thoughtful. There was a chance that we were going to try to park in an underground parking lot for even more security, but our van wouldn't clear the seven feet. And we even had, and this will maybe come up later, we had parked the van a little bit further away from the front entrance of the hotel, but in a more traditional parking spot, right? Just kind of a vertical parking spot. And you said, you know what, I would feel better if we parked it in one of those parallel spots that are kind of parallel to the road right in front of the doors of the hotel because we're closer to the hotel doors, less chance of somebody, you know, messing with the van. And so we were very you were being so careful instead of this is what I get for it, Andrew. And then we go to dinner and I say, you know, let me just add one more layer to that paranoia.

Maybe when we get back overnight, and by the way, it's still very light out. We're having dinner at 6, something. And I say, when we get back, maybe we should peel those signs off.

And I was thinking, this is Andrew just inventing a potential problem, just borrowing trouble. But I said, okay, yeah, we might as well. What's the downside? So we sashay back.

We did sashay, too.

To the hotel and to the van, and I go, oh, yeah, we should go grab those signs off of the van. And guess what was no longer attached to the van? After we were literally 1.5 hours into the trip, the signs had been stolen. They're gone. They're in the wind. And my theory is that they are on, they are right now attached to a refrigerator in a frat house at Oregon State University or near Oregon State University. I don't know why, it just seems like a frat boy kind of stunt, as I wrote on Twitter yesterday. If you happen to be in a frat house and you see the sign, please like and subscribe.

Now, the reason I mentioned, and this is going to sound like I'm blaming you, Luke, which I am not, I appreciate how careful you're being, but I think there is some irony in the fact that if we had just parked this van in a normal parking spot between two cars or something, it wouldn't have been such an advertisement to the street. We'd kind of parked the van so any passerby walking on the sidewalk would look at it. We almost were like advertising podcasts. We invited them to take it. And again, I didn't think of it. I didn't think of it until we were at dinner that we should maybe take these off.

Yeah, I would get it, Andrew. It's my fault. I'm just saying you're ruining everything. But it was just now my reaction and your reaction were very, very different. I laughed hysterically for 10 straight minutes because the fact that we went out, bought these signs, had to do some – again, it was not an insignificant amount of back and forth with the sign company. I was going to have old Walt B. do it, but they're in Yosemite right now, my mom and dad.

That's an interesting dynamic right there.

Literally, the son of a sign maker goes to Fast Signs. I know. And so, I mean, we got it all perfect. We put it on the – it was so perfect. We were so excited about it. You were checking your phone as I was driving, and you were checking your phone a lot to see if anyone had seen the phone number and called it even between Portland and Corvallis.

Do you remember I told you driving, I said, you know what my dream is, Luke? At some point, we'll be driving down the highway, and somebody will see the sign, and it had our phone number, and they'll call the TBTL listener line, and they'll say, you know what? I want a podcast delivered. What is this all about? Tell me more. And I said, it'll be the perfect intro tape we can use later in the show. And I said, of course, me saying this out loud means this will probably never happen. I'm jinxing it. Good Lord, did I jinx it? I had no idea how badly I was jinxing it.

I was immediately struck by the hilarious, capricious irony of the universe when I saw that we no longer have our signs. You were, as you would say, and I'm sorry, earmuffs, Irene, and Julian, you were ripshit. I'm still ripshit. You were so mad. You needed to take a walk. Yeah. It was a short walk. I was too angry to walk. You said, I'm going to go take a walk. I was like, I'm going back to the hotel room. You were, like, really mad. I just thought it was hilariously ridiculous what had happened.

They were only, like, three hours old. The signs were so new. We never even got to play with them.

Now, it has been raised on Twitter and other places the question as to if maybe the signs just blew off. No. It seems unlikely. Those things were on there. They really were. And also you were talking about the dimensions earlier. OK, the kindly folks at FastSign said you did the maximum dimension you want to go is two feet by two feet. If it's larger than that, it actually can be a problem where it's not. The magnet is not strong enough to hold it on your vehicle. So we actually were going with a size that was specifically designed to stay on the vehicle. And well, now I'm.

This is another layer of irony, I think. There was a moment where you had been taking photos of the van And you had taken one photo of the van with the sign on it Where did you take that photo? In front of my apartment That was before we left Portland So then we drove, whatever, the hour and a half to get to Corvallis So that would be, if there was a, this was a wind factor We'll call it the wind factor theory now We don't have any photographic evidence that the signs were there on the van when we arrived I tried taking a video of you driving past me really quickly We didn't set it up I just was outside the van for a second, and you were parking it to the new spot, and I pulled out my phone, and I took a video, and the video, Luke, was perfect. It was like perfect five seconds. There's no van, and then you cross the screen perfectly.

Yeah.

I didn't hit the right button. Oh, no! Not unlike me almost not having a live stream today. I didn't hit the right button. What I got instead was a video of me walking, and it's a video of my feet as I'm trying to review the video I just didn't take, if that makes any sense, which it does not.

Andrew, I have some, I don't know if it's good news, but interesting news. You're always...

Roasting me about my love of true crime shows and the first 48 and things like that. But this is where it comes in very handy. Forensic files. I have the phone number of Colby. Colby's the manager of the Holiday Inn Express in Corvallis, Oregon. Okay. I was able to find, I was able to comb through the records and find that we checked into the hotel at exactly 5.01 p.m. yesterday. Oh, nice. Okay. This is exciting. If we back time this a little bit, we know that at about 4.56-ish, our van will have gone past the front entrance of the Holiday Inn Express. Uh-huh. Where they have a camera. Yes. I'm going to have Colby review the tape, send us a screenshot of if there were signs on the van when we pulled into the Holiday Inn Express.

Just to make sure, because we don't trust our memory. I feel like that video that I didn't take, is that admissible? Danny, the video that I didn't take, I remember thinking it was so cool because in my memory of it, the van went by with the sign, you know, but I don't have any evidence of it. And now, and you know me, I don't trust my brain for anything.

Yeah, because I keep trying to, in my mind, look back and go, were we just looking at the van sans the signs and we just didn't realize it? That seems like it would be unlikely because we were so excited about it. So anyway, that's, I guess that will be, there will be two interesting narratives this week. Are we able to actually activate the YouTube page each day? And what the hell happened to our signs? Also, if you are driving on I-5 between Portland and Corvallis and you see a large, sort of like DHL, but not exactly like DHL sign that's referencing podcasting on the side of the road, that might be ours. Could you snag it for us?

I'm going to say if you see any sign that says podcast delivery, that's probably ours. Chances are good. And if it says TBTL on it, it's most certainly ours because that's in the phone number. You know, I like that you're taking this in a good spirit, Luke. I am not. It makes me very angry. But here's my question for you. Yes. And earmuffs again, kids. Kids everywhere.

Yeah.

I'm angry. Swears are coming out. But to the asshole or assholes who, I'm sorry, I said earmuffs. Nobody did earmuffs. These kids literally need earmuffs because it's freezing right now. Irene, are you okay?

Golly. I'm I my hands are like numb right now I mean who knew this is by I'm sorry not to interrupt you but you know this is not supposed to be the weather in Corvallis as we approach June because on my little jog this morning I had to dodge like 20 sprinklers that were on timers like if their sprinklers are running if people are spending money on water like businesses are this is this is not supposed to also be raining and freezing but anyway um okay that gave me some time to

clean this up a little bit I'm gonna cut that all out we'll cut it yep we'll cut it out of your memories we have the technology um but to the butt faces somehow worse no it really is i don't like that i don't like that at all to the buttheads okay who stole these signs are there any other

swears that you kids were interested in learning today because um i have a book apparently uncle

andrew's got a lot of them for you um i kind of blame you guys i mean we come into your town and we're victims of property crime almost immediately i mean i'm sorry that's just the way it is but you steal these signs you're not even curious to call the number right i have no record of any calls coming in well one came in this morning from another listener and the call before that was saturday um earlier on saturday um before we ever put those things on the van so whoever stole these things said ha ha ha that's funny podcast delivery and there's a phone number i'm gonna steal it a part of you doesn't just call the number to figure out what's going on again i

I think that these are these signs are now on somebody's wall, some college student, some Oregon State beaver. And the real question becomes, will long term, will we get more promotional value out of that? Like if it's on someone's wall for the next 10 years as they matriculate through the Oregon State University system and they have friends over, they have keggers, there's parties. They get lucky. All those people seeing our sign That could arguably be more people than would have seen it If they just stayed on the vans

But they don't know what it is, it's just a phone number That says 206-414-TBTL And nobody's called it

Well, let's say podcast delivery I'm just saying it may get more eyeballs on it As some kind of trophy In some guy named Chad's Very, very dirty frat room

What if the rest of this trip I know that we're supposed to make our way down the coast Head over to Arizona Would you at all be interested in some sort of a Chuck Norris-esque No, no, Bronson Isn't he the revenge guy? Yes, sure What if we just stay in Corvallis And this is it, man You use your brains We use my brawn And let's face it, just anger My just raw anger I told you

And we find these punks Is this gonna be your chance To finally punch someone into space? not cool with this man i leave our signs alone like what are you doing they were brand new it's thursday okay fine it's thursday of the trip you can take it like they didn't even call the number to say hey are you near the end of your trip can we steal them now i think the plan was

i thought you and i would like autograph them and give them away at the end of the trip or something like say you know now this is if we give them to marry the tbtl virgin or something i don't know what she's gonna do with them but i for folks to think we're playing this up for youtube or for the recording or for Cheryl and her family this is exactly the dynamic that played out last night when we weren't anywhere near microphones Andrew was this angry and I was this just kind of goofy

I just I felt like it's one of those moments when you feel violated and you kind of don't know what to do you know just property crime violation type of thing and almost everybody listening probably has had something stolen or a smash and grab in their car and that that feeling of like you look around like where are they let me is there like I went for this little walk I didn't know what to do with my my energy i just i'm like what am i gonna walk down to the river and see that they took him off and threw him into the river like what am i looking for here but all i knew is i had to look i just i was expecting something and i and i also told you take a right my theory is

they went that way based on nothing you're like just get out of here just get out of here go cool

your head um but uh yeah i was i was furious and i also told genevieve i called her sorry about that I had your music down a little bit But I was Telling Genevieve on the phone I feel like that was probably Like if anybody Had seen you and I in that moment You probably would have gotten an idea of what You and I would have been like as teenagers Like your reaction to this and for some reason You just being like this is funny and almost Doubling over in laughter Reminded me of probably like a young Luke Burbank responding to this when something like this Happens at Green Lake or on Duck Island or Something and I'm just like The chubby angry guy who's like Kicking dirt and is just, like, so frustrated and mad?

Oh, well, you know, I guess it takes all kinds, right? Yeah. You know, I'll handle it the way I handle it. You handle it the way you handle it. Maybe the way I handled it was by having an anxiety dream riddled evening, Andrew.

Yeah, what happened? I saw that you didn't have a good night's sleep, but I didn't want to ask why. I thought we could talk about it here.

I fell asleep okay, but then I woke up at like 4 a.m. thinking about all of the things that could go wrong with this trip and with this production and with the Thawne. And the main thing I was worried about was that you wouldn't hit play on the YouTube page. Turns out that anxiety was fairly well placed. No, I just woke up and started thinking about all of this stuff, all these little unknowns about this. And also just the fact that, you know, this is our weekly sort of chance to sing for our supper. This is the one week where we ask everybody if they could, you know, help support the show so we can keep doing this, so we can keep purchasing signs and then having them stolen within two hours. It's a system we have. Don't question it. And I just started to feel very anxious and I couldn't fall back asleep. I was trying to do a little box breathing. Yep. I was trying to do my fantasy where I beat up Donald Trump. I'm still doing that. Now it's happening at Mar-a-Lago, by the way. The narrative has shifted

Are you really still doing that And that relaxes you

It doesn't get you all worked up No because the planning of how It used to be the planning of how I was going to get into the White House Now it's the planning of how I get into Mar-a-Lago I was last night contemplating maybe a golf course Then I started getting mad Because I was like how much money Are we spending by way of the Secret Service For that guy to continue golfing In his post-presidential

So he needs the Secret Service Because you're going to beat him up If he doesn't have the protection.

If I figure it out, I mean, let's just say there's a chance. So I worked through all of my usual things to fall asleep, and I couldn't. Finally, I must have drifted off, Andrew, because I had a dream that you and I were flying to this for some reason, and we were on a plane, and I had a moment when I was checking us in for the flight or on the tickets where it was like, do you want us to pick you up in, like, a shuttle bus or a shuttle something? Because something about the plane was going to land. And by the way, I rarely talk about my dreams on this show, and I'm remembering why, because they're just not that interesting. I somehow had basically reserved this car that was going to pick us up. So the plane lands, I think we're like out on the tarmac. Like, it's not the kind of flight where you go right into the airport. That was why you had the option. It's like you could wait with the hoi polloi, right? Like, you could wait with everyone to get on the regular shuttle, or you could pay five more dollars and you could have someone pick you up personally and whisk you away. So I opted for that, but then when the guy showed up I looked out the window of the plane when we landed and it was like a very fancy car and then I was like, Andrew's going to be stressed about this because he's going to think, how much did this cost at 8 p.m.? Oh, wow. So I just thought we were getting a shortcut, but it was like a giant black SUV tinted windows. So I was like, okay, well I'm going to have to just, I'll tell Andrew I'm paying for it even though I'm actually going to expense it at 8 p.m.

Can't CBS cover this?

So then they have many times. And when they find out about it, they're going to be ticked. I'm sorry, rip shit. Anyway. Like a butthead. I get like a classic butt face. Show title? Classic butt face? Probably not. So I get off. I deplane. Now, you're also a couple of rows behind me. I'm not in first class, but I am definitely closer to the front of the plane than you. Because, of course, you're like, I'm fine wherever I am. And I'm like, I am not fine anywhere I am. but I need to be at the front of the plane so I feel some sense of superiority

what were we saying in the car we were talking about generally this isn't related to any of the places we're staying on this trip but just generally speaking if you go into a hotel and you have a pretty nice room but there's a slightly better one of course we know that you will say hey can I get the slightly better one and my reaction is more like oh you guys feel the pillowcase is full of horse poo oh okay cool I'm sorry I even asked of course that's fine no that's good please it's the perfect amount of horse poo for my head In between those two personality types is probably the right way to be. And the wrong way to rock.

So anyway, I get out of the plane and I'm walking over to the flight. But the guy who is there to pick us up is wearing a sheep costume, which now that I think of it, looks a lot like the goat costume that John Takamoto once wore to an event. But this is a sheep. And this guy is tripping balls. He's so high. and like i'm like trying to talk to him and he's just giving me these weird answers that make no sense again it's a dream and like i just am trying to figure out what's going on with that because i want to figure out like i want to tell him where we're going and it's just like he gets down on all fours and just starts wandering around like near the car and i'm just like how

high are you and this is your this is how your stress and your anxiety is manifesting yes it's

that we are the guy that's supposed to give us a ride to wherever we're going on this trip is just out of his mind eventually like the police and ambulance have to come he has just like

lost it that's when i woke up what is your i mean do we want to rank this a little bit here because i will say this is a this is a higher anxiety adventure than i think maybe i thought at first um i i was wondering if you want to rank our anxieties because the van driving i didn't realize kind of how anxiety making that might be for both of us you're you've been doing all the driving so far as tradition all one hour and a half of it we're gonna try to keep up that tradition because i'm a nervous driver but i'll drive the way this thing is gives you a lot of reasons to be nervous you can't really see out of the back of it you're on the wrong you're on the wrong you're on the you know your steering wheel is on the right side of the car which you noticed the

other yesterday made me always want to like initially drift over to the other lane because my body wants to be in a certain position in the lane that it's used to but if i achieve that it

means the van is just straddling the the lane going down the highway um and you know it doesn't go that fast it's only supposed to go like 55 miles an hour and so the whole time it's feeling like we're just like we're ramming the rpms it's like it just sounds like it's never like kicking into the gear it needs to be in people that own the van could be watching this right now we're taking very good care of it of the interstellar um but uh it's just like so there's there's all the van stuff like you know and again it's it's a great van we love this thing but it adds some anxiety um the live aspect of this the fact that we're setting this up you know all of this equipment it took us two hours to set up and then um tomorrow it's a whole new ball game i mean it's gonna be we're gonna be in a totally different place we're gonna have to kind of learn this stuff from scratch i'm pretty cranked up right now we yeah we we rolled up and and

cheryl was here with bearing hot coffee and this amazingly adorable little sign it's sort of a

pennant that says tbtl so far this is honestly my favorite part of the trip so far really ties

the room together but the first thing we did was we tried to unfurl this canopy which we had seen you know pictures of on the website and immediately were confused by i had to call uh the woman who owns this van and she was like i don't know you just twist it and it tightens and i was like yeah i don't think that's gonna work and it was like we were twisting one part of it but not the other part because we got off to kind of a a little bit of a slow start i also think that the reason that this trip along with just the financial implications of hoping everyone can donate and go to tbtl.net and help support the show it's also the fact that we have an appointment like we knew we needed to be here at this particular address in Corvallis in the who knows district of Corvallis Oregon and we needed to have that camera working which is also technically your cell phone answer yes we needed to have this equipment like so what this is a combination we've done thons before where we do some weird adventure we hitchhiked a good part of the mississippi river but we could just record the show in the hotel room at whatever time we got there this is the combination of both unknowns which is like this van how fast will it go you know will people steal our signs We'll be right back.

you know, et cetera. There's a lot of unknowns around it. But then we also have these appointments that we have to hit and we need to be broadcasting into your phone every morning at 10 a.m. West Coast. So that's for me, the stress is that we we can't control for everything, but we also have

to be where we say we're going to be doing the show. And, you know, again, there's just a lot of technical ins and outs that to make this happen. And we're getting I was getting pretty anxious before, you know, right before we went live here. And then I got just like the perfect Just like Luke Just like the perfect Comedic cherry on top I finally get everything rolling We see that we're on YouTube You're bumping some tunes before we're actually going to start the show I'm literally just trying to take a breath And remember okay now we're done being engineer Andy now it's time to be host Andy Okay Co-host technically Well I mean First co-host

Well co-bro Co-host first chair Co-bro with the possibility of co-host

if things you know go okay i sit down i'm like okay this is gonna be fine let's put ourselves in the moment i look that i have a comment waiting for me on my work slack account what are you doing with that page open it's just not it's just like on the bottom of my screen it's this little little notification i click on it right as you begin talking and it's from somebody named alex who i've never met at american public media and it just says hey you didn't fill out

your time card last week oh would you like me to fill it out for you i actually it was trying to

fill it out now on the show but i thought you'd get mad if i was trying to mess around i would

get mad if you did that that's a low priority but it was just like it was just like so perfect i've

never not filled out my time card you only have to click like four buttons it's mostly filled out for you um but of course with everything going on like that's the first thing i see as as we do this podcast from a driveway in corvallis a high crime area of corvallis i don't think so

No, we just kidding. No, where we were was the sign stealing district. Yes, I'm just kidding. We came a bit over. This is a beautiful neighborhood. It is well manicured lawns. Neighbors who are probably perplexed at why a van has rolled up and unfurled a 1980 style boombox that is broadcasting the show to this nice family. Now Andrew Speaking of driveways And anxieties of living in a society And I promise The whole trip is not going to be us Talking about how anxious we are That's not true It probably will be Well my part will probably be Yesterday you also had A bit of a bee in your bonnet Your phone was pinging away Reminding you That it was time for you To start getting emotionally prepared For taking your garbage out At your house Right But you were in Portland And so Now we all hung out on Saturday night After we recorded This is I'm so excited about this This is one of the Thank you gifts That we'll probably Tell you about coming up But we recorded a special I guess they call it Riff track I just learned that term Where we watched Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring With Genevieve My brother David You and me And we recorded that And people will be able To download that And if they want to play that While they're playing the movie That's a fun thing

That's for anybody Who donates at any level During the TV Telethon

So we were all hanging out On Saturday night And I overheard a conversation Between you and Genevieve Where you were like Coaching Genevieve up on remembering to do The garbage and then yesterday An alarm went off on your phone about the garbage

Well it's just a calendar reminder It says garbage time 6 p.m. Sundays

I asked you what are the chances that you would Have forgotten that if your phone didn't give a Reminder you said well maybe during the football games Yeah exactly like tuned up sometimes

You know I might be watching my second football game During that season and I've forgotten Because I'm so happy that the Browns won Once again I don't know if you heard but they're a playoff Team now I have heard and I'm

excited for them they're my new favorite baseball team i've shifted allegiance so anyway what's going on because you said there is actually some there's some drama related to genevieve having to

handle the garbage at your house this week okay so let me start by explaining what the garbage situation is at my house just kidding everybody knows what the garbage situation you and i were

talking each other down on our way down here we said we got to try to do a normal show because when we're performing for a huge crowd like this i know and we're like it's more performative it makes me more nervous it's like and then my anxiety level goes up and I shift into this other weird mode of hosting and you shift into this other weird mode of co-broing with the possibility of becoming a co-host where we just get kind of tense so we kept saying let's make this like a regular show we may have made it too much like a regular show

what's going on with your garbage so I didn't bring this up on the show last week because I didn't want to exhaust the listeners with a low level garbage concern but last week was what we call small garbage week which means it's oh that's in in your home you call it that right city of seattle because let me put it this way big garbage day or big garbage week is when they pick up all three bins garbage compost recycling that's every other week the in-betweens it's just you know garbage regular garbage landfill garbage and the compost which is mostly you know they call it yard waste they call it compost whatever but

it's a full-size bin and mostly the only thing that goes in there i've heard the eskimos have over a hundred names for the compost yes yes um and uh we mostly just throw our food scraps from our kitchen in there you know we have a little compost bin uh like tin on our um you know you can picture it on our counter and we fill it up and when it gets full we take our little compostable bags and we dump it in there it doesn't fill up that quickly um sometimes you might throw a pizza box or five in there depending on how your week is going so that'll fill it up but on the occasion that the city doesn't like i guess accidentally doesn't pick up that bin i don't usually i don't usually call it in you know what i mean i don't call the city i don't call my landlords to file a complaint i'm using a lot of csi language i feel um because we have some wiggle room on the compost bin situation right um so last week they skipped picking up the yard waste i don't know why um but i was like okay we can we can work with that it's fine there's room in there we can go another week with this so we bring the bins back uh from the curb and the big thing is they can't skip it two weeks in a row and today would be the second week and i just got a text from genevieve saying they have emptied the garbage so far the garbage has been emptied which is great but the compost still has not been picked up and it's worse because apparently and this has never happened before genevieve said she went downstairs and our landlord was filling up our compost bin with some kind of yard waste. Oh, no. Oh, yes.

This is why you're so mad about the signs.

I didn't know about this. You're transferring your anger. No, no, I was mad about the signs. This is just all layers upon layers upon layers. I thought the garbage was here to pick up your guys. That's tomorrow for you, right? Tomorrow morning is garbage day for the Cherchek family, and so you've got to get those bins out to the curb tonight. You guys, do you have a plan for it? Have you set any kind of Outlook alarm? Okay.

How much of that falls on you, Julian, to take care of? Most of it, probably. Julian, you take out the garbage now. Some of the Lance situation? Okay. All right. Well, so what are you going to do? Obviously, the trip's over, so I just take the van from here and you fly back?

Yeah. I mean, I think that's probably the—I can maybe rent a car. I'll tell Genevieve I can be there by sundown, and then we can take care of this. I don't know.

Wait.

So did she tell your landlord, stop? I don't know. I got the text message. I mean, we're using my phone to stream this video, so I'm trying to get the video stream going and I see that I get a text message from Genevieve saying that Steven has been using our compost and they haven't picked it up yet and I couldn't respond because I'm just trying to use it as a streaming camera function and I also don't have it here with me now so I can't just scroll my text messages I don't you know do anything that would mess up the feed so I don't know man

I don't know we'll figure this out though well that's a perfect time for me to mention Andrew that um you know this is a fairly lean operation that we're running here uh this is uh of course a show that is being broadcast on Andrew's actual cell phone. And so, of course, it only exists because of you, the tens of listeners, helping to support the show. And so we want to thank some of our Dazzling Donors. These are folks who've been supporting the program. Is my computer playing any sound for you?

I'm not seeing it, but you know what? It just occurred to me. Am I supposed to play the Dazzling Donor music? This is me falling down.

No, I was excited. I had some special music from Cheryl and the fam here, a little kiffness music for you. Oh, no, I don't know what's happening. We were hearing your drops before. Sorry, everybody. Okay, we'll cut this all out.

Yeah, he said we'll cut this all out of the live stream.

No, no, no, you know what it is? I turned down Spotify earlier. I'm sorry, this never happens. I am so embarrassed. This is what I was trying to do. Yeah, okay. This is apparently the most popular music for parrots to wiggle to.

Is the word on the street.

Actually, this is pretty great. This could be our new Dazzling Donor. All right. Let me see here. I've got the sheet somewhere.

Are you looking for the actual Dazzling Donors, or do you want to talk about what we're doing out here? Where do you want to start? I'm wondering, did I send you the Dazzling Donors? This is a conversation that Luke and I have every day off air. Hey, did I? Because I usually try to schedule an email to you. I schedule emails now. That's where my life is going. No, I have it here, but you know what?

Let's actually start by talking about the TB Cellathon 12 content list delivery, which I feel like we're doing a great job of today. We rolled up to these people's house. We drank their free coffee. We're displaying their beautiful art behind us. Big thanks, by the way, Julian and Irene, for that. So cool. Lance, if you did one of those, but those are pretty dope, too.

They're very awesome. And Luke, can I just say one thing to you really quickly? I'm saying this to you as my friend, and I would say this to you off air.

That's always a bad sign.

And I want to say, no, no, I think this is good. I just want to say, we are 42 minutes into this show. As much as I've been kind of babbling and stuttering out of nervousness, I think generally speaking, we have delivered 40 good minutes of TBTL. You feel like that? I do. I do feel that way. I feel like you're in your head a little bit because you just had two tiny technical snafus, and you're going to judge everything based on, like, 20 seconds of that. No, this trip is ruined. This has been great. This has been a lot of fun, and I think that we're delivering what people want, which is zero content.

Let's talk about the thank you gifts that we have for folks out there who are able to support TBTL. You're actually sort of the master of coin. I'm the master of Bitcoin And boy I took a beating last week Andrew Oh can you hear that

It's starting to rain harder

This is I mean This is when I channel my inner prince

Can you make it rain harder

Shout out to this canopy That is keeping the rain off of us And also Keeping hopefully the equipment mostly dry Anyway Andrew What do we have for folks Who are going to be able to donate to TBTL This year during the thons

So first of all, everybody keep an eye out for emails coming into your inbox or go to tbtl.net and click the donate button and you'll see what your options are there. I know a lot of folks are already kind of signed up to give year over year. And if you're one of those people, keep an eye out for those emails and you'll learn how you can how you can get those gifts for yourself. And we are we've been talking about this a lot. We hope that you're mostly going to give to TBTL because you want to make sure that we can keep on doing the show day in and day out. And we're not like trying to QVC this with the stuff we're giving away. But my God, it's hard not to QVC this, Luke. I am so excited about the sound machine. This is the little blue handheld sign machine that is custom made for TBTL listeners.

Sound machine. What did I say? Sign machine, which we could use, by the way, because we're down exactly two signs.

This song goes out to all the coffee lovers of the world. They have 16 custom TBTL drops. You can do your own podcast The only problem here is everybody's going to get this Then they don't need us anymore

Now let's talk, Andrew, about the one I don't want to say downside because this is probably fun for the listeners But the one possibly maddening thing about the soundbox Is if your voice is actually one of the things on it

That is me And it is in your backpack

And you are driving Luke's car Trailing the Delica van as we got it from the folks we rented it from What happened?

This thing was just going crazy in your backpack? So I already said I'm generally speaking Kind of a nervous driver when I'm driving other people's vehicles And you have a nice car And you were driving the Delica And I had to drive your car back to your apartment So I'm a little bit nervous It's a bigger car than I usually drive And I'm just, you know, hands at, what is it? Ten and two Ten and two, you know, being very careful No radio on I also couldn't figure out how just to turn on the radio in your car How do you do that? Is it a computer thing? It doesn't have a radio No, really? No I almost believed you because I couldn't figure that out But anyway, so I was like, don't mess around Just like, get this, just don't dent up Luke's car Let's not begin the trip that way Let's begin with some property crime So I'm driving your car A little nervously And every time I hit a little bump My backpack, my overly full backpack Is kind of in the passenger's Floor side And every time I hit a little bump I hear that marsupial That's my voice making a weird noise That has been isolated and now turned Don't miss the sausage fast That's also just good life advice That happened to me in the lobby today No joke, swear in the hotel lobby I moved my bag, and this rang out. The don't miss the sausage fest. Don't miss the sausage fest. But every time I hit a bump, I mean, like, constantly, it was, like, remixing.

It was, like, the whole way. You know what, Andrew? I have to say this. Okay, so this little sound machine is modeled after the sound machine that I've been using for years. And the thing that's interesting, though, is this sound machine can be a little challenging at times because if you are playing a sound effect like this clapping, you can't do anything until the sound is done. But the TBTL sound machine, you can play it. Listen to this. Remix. What's up, dog? That is a cool design element.

I like it, and that's what I was hearing, the marsupial gurgle remix right back at me while I was driving your car. There it is. Okay, well, if this podcasting thing doesn't work out i do think i will have a career as a dj yeah so anyway so we have that and we also have a really cool retro igloo style cooler that says tbtl on it and so if you're starting to uh you know socialize again but you're still trying to maybe do it safely you can go to a park or what have you um everybody we mentioned this before everybody who donates at any level will get access to that three hour as you say riff track that we recorded see if you can find the

point at which Luke got a little drunk.

It's about two minutes in. And finally, Luke, how am I blink? Oh, the pins! Our friend Gigi made these wonderful pins again, and now it's like the third year in a row we're doing it, and they represent

various drops. Well, we've got a hot dog that says I'll say, what's up, Joe?

That's a hot dog? The irony is

I have all of these audio drops in my computer, but I'm just obsessed with putting them on this box. It's fun. So we've got a hot dog pin that says, what up, dog? We've got a pin that says, let the fun begin. Is that this one?

Let the fun begin. Let the fun begin.

Oh, remix.

We the best.

And then what's the other one?

Let's see. Let the fun begin. And what's up, dog? Oh, and power out. Power out, of course. Thank you. Sorry. I should have written that down, shouldn't I have?

Sorry about that. I've got it now. So anyway, those pins, people love those things. It's like a whole collection now. Right. It's a whole galaxy of those pins that we've been doing.

And if you don't mind me saying this, just to maybe minimize the QVC-ness of this a little bit, although I am excited about that stuff, is 1101.

Oh, that one just got me. Odell, it looks like we may need surgery in the studio. Wait. I was fusing together the characters that were involved in that QVC moment. But anyway, continue.

But anyway, and I think we say this a lot, but it's always around this time of the year when I start reflecting about TBTL and the specialness and all the weirdness that led us here, you and you and I as a team and the listeners in the community. And I think I've been getting some more, I think maybe wistful is the wrong word, but contemplative emails and voicemails from listeners saying what TBTL has meant to them just as companionship. And especially during this, you know, this past ongoing pandemic, this past over a year now, a lot of people were kind of relying on this podcast, I think even more than more than ever for a bit of normalcy. And I'm not trying to pat ourselves on the back, but it is really, really sweet to hear that. And it's something that I can associate with with other things in my life as well. So I hope hopefully, you know, you get the sound machine and everything. But really what it's about is like hopefully keeping this going for, well, at least until the wind blows down this tarp.

Yes, which I'm amazed that we made it 46 minutes. I believe that's the local street sweeper.

Nice. You guys have street sweeper.

Yeah, man. Nice. It's a very, very well-kept, very well-manicured neighborhood. It really is a beautiful neighborhood. This is like my perfect neighborhood. Okay. Andrew, would you mind queuing up the Dazzling Donor music now? We want some of this Dazzling Donor music. I want to be dazzled by this music while we thank the folks who – these are people that donated during last year's thaw, And we just have a few more names on our list to read. So let's thank. On your mark.

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

Everybody rattle, dattle.

Let's thank Linder Peacock. Linder. Who's in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. I know the Dazzling Donor segment is to thank listeners like me. Because, of course, I mean, if you're listening to this or watching it on YouTube, you probably know what the deal is. But, of course, folks that are doing a dazzling donation, we just basically say, send us a message. We'll promote whatever it is, charity or business you want to. You just want to talk about, I don't know, the weather. More on that coming up, by the way. World's Funniest Weather, not a good TV show, not even funny. But Linder is choosing to turn it back around. And thank you for doing the show, Andrew, Luke, APM, and the tens of unpaid consultants and producers. You're a necessary part of my life. Here I am, 10-plus years in, still a little surprised about how I rely on, benefit from, and continue to make friends through this pod cart. Talking to you, Maggie, Twosie. There are at least twos of them. And the other is Middle Shelf. The tens reach out with advice, condolences, necessary ribbing, and congratulations more than some of the people I live near or work with. Heck, the newsletter makes my day on the regular. I'm not crying. You're crying. Oh, we're kind of crying. Some of that's from the cold, Linder, but a lot of it's from this message. It's so nice. Linder says, my thanks to you all. Yeah, you know, like, even the fact that we're in Cheryl and Lance's driveway right now, as they have now had to wrap blankets around the children, who are still frickin' freezing. The fact that when we set out on this journey, we were like, immediately people came to mind. Cheryl, you came to mind immediately. We were like, okay, Cheryl and Corvallis We want to stop there because you've been so awesome to us And being a friend of the show Giving us those amazing gift baskets Which I still am pulling things out of Like, I'll be like Oh god, I need a mini-to-mini I need a thumb drive That's like in that basket, you know And just like all the folks along the way Other than Mary the TBTL Virgin Yeah I mean, the goal of this really is to try to convert her over to a P1 If we can I think so, yeah Or possibly co-host on a tenure track yeah exactly um play your cards right you'll still be above her on the flow chart but yeah just just thinking about all these amazing tens that we're going to get to see socially distantly and safely along the way is this really heartwarming and kind of a great reminder that that's what this whole thing is about so anyway um thanks

very much, Linder, for being a part of that crew and for supporting the show. Maestro?

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

Everybody rattle. Oh, we've also got a thank and ank. Ian Seafelt, who's in Superior, Wisconsin. He sure is. Is this the time, Andrew, where we mention that this van we're driving has, I think, a very... I mean, if we didn't get our signs stolen in Corvallis. They were going to get stolen when we got to California. There's a sticker on the window of this van that says, Oregon is above California.

And we've got to drive this through

California. And we're driving through California with a bumper, with a sticker on the window that's basically I thought of that because of Superior Wisconsin. You think like Inferior Wisconsin has a problem with Superior Wisconsin naming themselves that? Madison is not happy about this. Ian is in Superior Wisconsin. He says, I really have no idea what to say. You know, Ian, I don't let that stop me from hosting this show five days a week I have nothing to promote Nothing to ask of the tens And nothing inspirational But I do have a song request and nomination For Song of the Summer I don't have any story or reason anyone should like it I listen to a lot of music at work And I like to listen to non-English language music Because I get distracted less That's interesting You know what I have found happening Just recently is that my brain Cannot listen to Like, the distraction factor of certainly, like, public radio, if I'm trying to get ready for our show, it used to be. I mean, like, up to six months ago, Morning Edition is just playing, and I'm walking around the house getting ready, and then I'm also on my computer putting our show together. Right now, my brain has started to get to where I can't have that going on in the background. It's distracting.

I've never been able to do that. That's why often, like, I'll put on a jazz record or something when I'm on deadline, especially when I was working in a newsroom. Do you want to trade coffee containers?

Jazz containers because, yeah, Cheryl said Stryker is more of a jazz man, which I took as a high compliment. So I've got the KMHD jazz radio coffee thing. Do you want to switch?

No, I'm good. Do you have anything that says Money Jungle on it? Because that's the record I always listen to when I'm trying to. You never miss a chance to mention Money Jungle. But honestly, though, that's not a joke. I think the reason why is because I was working. I think Money Jungle might be available somewhere as a full track on YouTube. So I think it was when I was working at KCRW or something like that where I just got in the habit of when I needed to block out everybody else, I would just put on my headphones and go to that link. And so now I always think you would think that Money Jungle would give me anxiety now, right? That album, because I think of it as deadlines, but it's too good.

Do you want me to start playing it when you're setting up the camera tomorrow? I think you should, yes. 9.57. I was trying so hard to not add to your stress because I'm like, this guy is doing everything that he can. Me being stressed is not going to help. But I was like, are we really going to not Like on Monday, are we really going to not be able to broadcast this? That would have been classic TBTL

We also got here a half hour earlier than we had originally planned Aren't you glad? But I said that to you earlier

So I was glad

Oh, right, yeah, yeah On the air, did you already say that? No, I said it to you off air

That's why I try to keep our real conversations This is all an act When I have real heart-to-heart Heartfelt conversations with you I like to keep that private

What about a Seafelt conversation?

Well, that was, I think, why my brain just went to Heartfelt because of Ian's name. Ian continues, this is a remix by Lab. I'm going to assume that as a band. It's a funk collaboration between M-Flow and Kelmico. Oh, of course, that's what that is. Right, right, right. That's what I was thinking.

I mean, you don't have to mansplain it to us.

Don't Lab-splain this to me, Ian. Don't Lab-splain it. Also, here is the song. As it was originally released, this one is not a remix. If you like this version better, go ahead and play it Whatever you feel like doing Or just skip the whole thing I did send in my email very late this year

We're going to play the original one So we'll play it at the end of the show So it's called So the song is Runaways, is this correct? And it's a lab funk remix

I'm going to assume so I don't actually have that information on my page So that's Ian's request We'll go out with that And it was funny, before the show Before things got really stressful before the show we were like just bumping some of that parrot music and um and you just like it was like and i told sure i was like turn it up and the kids are like dancing in the house and it's like everybody's vibing lance is just feeling it and then lance threw up like glow sticks which was crazy just like when the beat dropped and like i think lance is on molly right now don't tell the kids you looked over you looked over andrew and you're like typical monday stuff it was like bumping, whatever that is.

I was actually, I didn't even notice that. You know me, I get very myopic when I'm working on technical stuff under a tight deadline like that. I meant just what you and I are trying to do. I just meant, here we are. I'm trying to see if I can get a video stream up so we can do a podcast from a...

Is this still working, by the way? Is this still on the internet? Yeah, does everybody see it? Okay, good. Okay, good, thanks. Is this still funny? I'm getting a thumbs down. What does that mean? Hello, and welcome to Top Story. You actually found this yesterday, Andrew. The Gazette Times here in Corvallis seems to be a pretty cool local newspaper. I see a lot of Gazette Times boxes. Yeah. I love that it's still happening. You know, there are so many smaller publications that have kind of gone the way of the Dodo Bird. They have apparently a regular column that's called Roses and Raspberries. I love this. And it starts, this is what's great, in case you're unclear on, you know, the definition or the, what would you call it, the, not methodology, but the point is they define what a rose is. One of the most beautiful of all flowers, a symbol of fragrance and loveliness. often given as a sign of appreciation. So that's a rose. And then they say a raspberry is a sharp, scornful comment, criticism, or rebuke. A derisive splatting noise, often called the Bronx cheer. So I'll tell you who's getting some roses here in Corvallis, Harry Lagerstedt and his trusty horse, Buck. Lagerstedt is a 95-year-old Navy vet and frequent participant in Albany's Veterans Day Parade. He is the sponsor of Buck, a wooden steed That is destined for service in the Albany Historic Carousel And one of several volunteers who participated in carving the animal So this guy, Andrew, and by the way This dude, Harry Lagerstadt Could definitely take either of us in a fight Maybe not you if he stole your signs Yeah, no, no Wait, do you think he stole our signs? Oh my god Everyone's a suspect Everybody's a suspect Guilty until proven innocent He looks like, that's some real Jack LaLanne stuff It looks like he's ready to swim, pulling a boat in his teeth. 95 years old. This guy is fit as a fiddle. It's got to be from carving these wooden horses that are going to go on the carousel. And where's the carousel, or what is the carousel? Do we know? It's the Albany Historic Carousel, which I assume is Albany, Oregon. How far is that from here-ish? 15, 20 minutes. 15, 20 minutes. Okay. And, yeah, so he's been helping out with that. Like any labor of love Carving Buck Has been a time consuming process 10 years and counting, Andrew Dude's been carving that Wooden horse for the carousel for 10 years That's optimistic He started at 85 Think about that I'm shutting her down At like 60 85 years old, he was like A 10 year project, I better start it now And he's still going strong Let's see here this is kind of funny from the the gazette times they said it's 10 years and counting we hope it won't take too much longer yeah right he said george rr martin of wood horses

and also you know we have no one we never know how long we're going to be here like we're all rooting for you to get this horse done right like maybe don't carve every single little hair of the horse let's just get the broad strokes down here langerstedt's 96th His birthday is in August, by the way. Wow. So he gets a big rose from both the Gazette Times and us, which is pretty awesome. I love that. Let's see. More roses. Do they give raspberries? I'm worried about the raspberry. Is it going to be to the rash of sign thieves? Well, here's one thing that's kind of a little confusing. That doesn't make sense. This may be a typo, but they actually gave a roseberry to something? Look at that. A roseberry. Which, is that a thing? It sounds like a soda I would like. Oh, okay, okay, good. This is this is this is why, Andrew, we take the time to get in the van and come down here to Cheryl and Lance and their driveway is because I thought Roseberry was just a typo. But a Roseberry is kind of on the line. Basically, there's things to like. There's things to dislike. It's a nuanced world. They're giving a Roseberry to the cancellation of the Benton County Fair and Rodeo for the second straight year. Even though vaccination rates in the county are high And the COVID-19 pandemic is showing signs of winding down at long last We still think pulling the plug was probably the right call Despite the fact that the event is still a few months away It's too soon to say if it could be held safely We'll miss the tribute bands, the bucking horses, the carnival rides And the gloriously unhealthy fair food God, I'm hungry again I know We ate a lot last night Well, I did I ordered like one of most of the things on the menu that didn't have meat in them But now, fair food got that on the mind what is your fair food do you mind if i ask like what do you crave most you don't seem like a sweets man you're not like you're not craving cake and all that it's not really i mean don't get me wrong like i can appreciate that stuff tastes good but if i'm thinking about fair food i'm thinking about you know some kind of a curly fries a giant like ridiculously large like thick not thicket but like what do you call that when it's all just kind of it's all not yeah A knot of curly fries.

I'm into that. What about you?

You know, it's funny. I love curly fries, just full stop. But when I think of fair food, I tend to think of those fries that I don't usually prefer in other situations where they're thin, straight fries, but often one side of it will still have a little skin on it. And you get them in a cup. Can you picture this? Yes. And the cup, I think, also has pictures of those fries on the outside. So it looks like it's getting your fingers greasy, but it's not. I think of that right away. That's a big deal. And also, you know me, I go for the case meats, or cased meats, I should say. So, you know, I am going to be sniffing out some sausages if there's a Washington State Fair this year.

On the subject of which, I mean, we haven't, we just started this trip, so we haven't really gotten into the, like, road food situation. But do we need to make a Land Yeager stop for you?

I wonder, did you bring any snacks? I've brought no snacks.

Cheryl's waving over there. Cheryl, probably being the incredibly thoughtful person she is, maybe has some, I don't know, something for you. You got like a 48-pack of hot dogs for the trip down to Sacramento? Yeah, we got to figure out the food plan, the road food plan. Oh, look at that. Oh, what is this? That looks like a Land Yeager.

Oh, this is a Bavarian brand. You don't have to bring it here now. Is that a Bavarian brand?

Sure, I'll just take it out of the package and throw it in his direction. He'll catch it like a seal.

I'll catch it in my mouth. And then I'll crawl under the table and eat it.

You know what? I'm going to give a raspberry. By the way, they gave a raspberry to the Linn County Board of Commissioners for putting up barriers for teens who want to get vaccinated against COVID-19. They're not happy with any kind of extra hurdles that somebody would have to clear to get vaccinated, which I'm giving a raspberry to that. Do you know that they just did this in Oregon? They just started a lotto. No, you get vaccinated. You're entered in the lotto.

You win money. New York is doing that in Ohio. Of course, Mike DeWine prize in Ohio first and then New York. Yeah. Can I say I would like to give a raspberry to the person who decided to steal our signs? Well, to steal our signs, but also that raspberry is a negative thing. Because when you say raspberry, I immediately think of raspberries. One of my favorite fruits. Yes, one of my favorite fruits. And I'm not joking. I love to get like kind of a fruit salad-y thing that has both raspberries and blueberries in it. And then the blueberries fit perfectly right into the little hole in the raspberry and you pop that. I love raspberries is my point. And now we have this negative connotation Why couldn't it be like What's a fruit we don't like Like a banana Kiwi I'm sort of thinking kiwi too

Peace and love to our listeners in Australia and New Zealand Oh I like them Yeah they're great Those kind of kiwis, the folks in New Zealand They're great The actual kiwi is not something that I'm ever like Oh god I hope they have kiwi as part of this fruit plate

Oh speaking of that part of the world Do you happen to remember the name of that fruit that we were supposed to try when we were in Australia that, like, you cut it open. Durian? Durian. People flee entire towns

if you cut one of those open. Yeah, like, I think people have been, like, kicked off of airplanes for having it and stuff.

So let's call it a durian. Let's give it a durian. I'm giving a durian to the people who stole our signs.

Nice. I like that. Well, I'm going to give a big durian to the television show called World's Funniest Weather, which I started watching last night.

Can I say that? I don't even know where you're going with this. I have no idea what this is, but at the top of the show you said it's even worse than the name i will say where i am right now coming into the story innocently i love that name that name holds so much promise to me that's a good point

maybe i misstated it you know i was dealing with a lot at the time oh i'm sorry i'm not criticizing

we have a long road trip ahead of us let's let's start fighting around wednesday or thursday or

whenever it's on the schedule um i guess what i meant to say was the name is actually fairly tantalizing yeah yeah i was watching the local news here in corvallis i love local news in smaller cities it just and it makes me endlessly happy to watch and i don't know why i just i also love newspapers in smaller towns too it's just there's something i don't want to say quaint because that sounds like big city burbs swinging in and going oh but get a load of this corvallis uh tv but the fox station they're very very very clear that it's locally owned they really want to let you know that fox corvallis is locally owned that's good i like that i'm into it so i watching the news it was great then the news was over and then it's like world's funniest weather and i was like what does that even mean like if someone gets rained on how do you have a whole show right about funny weather i don't know you don't that's a bummer though there was zero the closest thing to weather content was so first of all the first like 10 things that happen are People just pwning their nuts while skateboarding. Sorry, kids. Like, it's just your typical blooper video, someone hurting themselves. But, like, in the rain? Nope. Just hurting themselves. Are you sure there wasn't black ice involved? I was looking for it because I was obsessed with figuring out how you... you going to deliver on this promise of funny weather and it's definitely w e a t h e r it's not w weather weather shrug emoji it i was that was i was like is this just like what it what constitutes funny weather i don't know i was like a lightning bolt's going to come down next to someone they're not going to be hurt because the other thing about weather when weather is notable

it's usually a bad very not funny it's yeah so i'm like well okay byron allen what do you have

for me i looked it up this is a byron allen production byron allen is a very interesting person actually he's a media mogul now um but he's also the guy behind byron allen's comics unleashed i do should i know this it's like you got to be watching tv at a certain hour of the night and it's like a round i mean they may have suspended it for the pandemic but it's like a round table of comics okay and it's basically just like a chance to tee up jokes for them But it's like there's a studio audience But somebody, one of my friends or somebody I know who was on it once said There's just never an environment where comics are more leashed Than on Byron Allen's Comics Unleashed Because it's just supposed to be this free-for-all But it's like so staged, it's so set up, it's so produced Anyway, he has this whole empire of these like I would say not super high quality shows But I mean he's a billionaire off of this stuff Anyway, the only thing that happened in World's Funniest Weather That was even in the neighborhood of weather was there was a weather caster who had to like 10 day forecast and somebody just keyed in the

wrong temperature and one of the days said 150 degrees oh then he was like oh that's not right and then he that's an incorrect typo and then he laughed for like a minute that was the that was

the only weather related content that i saw during world's funniest weather was a guy And it was a matter of someone just having typed in like an extra zero.

I'm really racking my brain here on the spot for anything that could even be funny weather. I'm thinking, like, could it be rainbow related? I mean, rainbows aren't funny, but at least they're not like dangerous or scary. Like maybe it's like we got to the end of the rainbow and there's no gold.

And then someone caught that on a video, like somebody caught that on their phone. Because, you know, all this is, like, cell phone footage or maybe a security cam. Right. Like, I don't think there's enough funny weather to do a five-minute TV show called World's Funny as Well.

I don't think so. I mean, sometimes it's surprising and exciting when, in the middle of the day, the skies just go super dark and it starts sleeting in Seattle for, like, two minutes. And then it just clears up again. I mean, again, listen, I'm not saying this is great comedy. I'm just saying it's a little bit funnier than somebody falling on a skateboard. That's not related to weather at all.

Exactly. There's this drop we play all the time. and that's somebody funny that is kind of funny it was how loud I had that it was a woman well we um you know that woman had set up I believe a camera to try to like film some lightning and then it struck near her so she wasn't hurt she got freaked out by the lightning that's it that's the one this right here this is the one world's funniest weather that's ever happened what flooding i mean what the notoriously hilarious uh uh phenomenon of flooding what if a what if

it's a cart i want to make it very clear a cartoon cat or or a tune cat if you want to shorten that a little bit um getting hit by electricity and you can see the entire skeleton of the cat for a second and its hair goes kind of like that's that's funny but see did somebody catch it on

a cell phone right what if you're watching world's funny sweater and it literally just cuts to a tom and jerry click which one's tom which one's jerry the tom is the cat tom cat right okay so like wouldn't it be great if they're like world's funniest weather i'm like how are they gonna

pull this off and it's just a cartoon of tom getting struck by lightning world's funniest cartoon weather we may be onto something there actually let's give i just byron who byron allen

let's give him a run for his money i am very again i'm just really disappointed that that's what they went with i wonder if the reason they went with world's funniest weather is because the it's the the the plan behind this television show it's a half hour long the plan is for it to run after local newscasts like that's when i saw it on a sunday night at sure at 10 30 or whatever and so they want it to seem vaguely newsy yeah like oh you just heard the weather forecast for corvallis and now we have world's funniest weather like it just seems like a fit i understand that from a branding standpoint or for how they position it but like they did not deliver on the promise i know any funny weather so you just i mean that is that it we just live in a world of just alternate facts and you know i mean like honestly this is what got you there i know this is the thing that's bothered me not the recount in arizona not the voter suppression not people who are barricading themselves in the chambers of the house during the insurrection but now say it was a normal day but none of that's the world we live byron allen lying about whether if he has enough clips By the way, this was one episode I watched, Andrew. There are like 50 episodes of this show.

Do you think if we go back and we watch the very first one in the archive, do you think it's like really on point? It's like a bunch of really funny weather and they're just like this pilot was great. And then it's like, we're out of funny weather.

I forgot to tell you one other thing about World's Funniest Weather that totally didn't make sense to me. It starts with some clips of people hurting their nads. Then it goes to this Just like video piece of this woman Who's bird watching She's on a set And she's like bird watching And she keeps looking for the birds And she can't see them through her binoculars And they keep pooping on her

That's kind of funny No?

I don't know if it's weather related It's raining poop But this thing is I'm trying to make this work It's raining poop I think you're onto something though I think that it started Like they got a clip of funny They got like a trove of funny weather clips They're like oh man this could last forever They just didn't They didn't think it through They're like can we do 30 episodes of this So it's this woman The other thing to me is you're shooting a fictionalized thing Like if you have an actor portraying something Doing jokes so she just keeps looking up with her binoculars And then birds will poop on her And then she'll look up again She's like I can't see any birds And then she'll look up and they'll poop on her more If you're going to do that Now first of all that's not even a clip

You know what I think I missed the fact This wasn't cinema verite. No! I know you said that, and I blanked that part out because I didn't want to believe it.

If it was a person—oh, are you kidding me? A person getting pooped on by a bird in real life?

I thought it was really a bird watcher getting assaulted by bird poop. I would die for that. This was a skit.

It was a skit. That's what I'm saying. They did a skit. That's how thin they were on content.

I really missed the point there. My apologies. And the skit wasn't even weather-related. That's why you looked at me. I'm like, well, that's kind of funny, and I was missing the damn point.

No, a real person getting pooped on is always funny, unquestionably. They went out of their way to shoot a skit And then it itself Have her almost get struck by lightning If we're faking it have that be the weather piece

It feels a little like what was the We talk about it all the time and of course I'm blanking on it The Cashman show The Seattle local comedy thing

Sure a little bit Almost Live Was it like a really bad Almost Live skit sort of I mean so much worse than anything that would have ever been on Almost Live It almost looked I was surprised that it was in English It almost reminded me of those Red Bull commercials Not that it was animated But you know Red Bull's whole business approach is We'll make ads that are so Non-specific to country that you can throw any language Under them or you can show them without Any dialogue and people will understand it From Madagascar to Michigan This was almost like so lowbrow From a comedic standpoint that you could Just play it anywhere

I actually think that We can't talk about commercials because Genevieve will be mad At us but I actually think that that is A pretty genius strategy

Yeah you need to stay on her good side by the way She'll handle this garbage situation

I'm instinctively going to grab my phone out of my pocket to see what the latest is, but I can't. It's filming us right now. Yes.

Okay. Well, that's good. That's why we need to keep using your phone so you're not distracted.

I've got to fill out my time sheet. All right. Are we ready for some drops of the stupider? I'm trying to play the drops of Stupider here.

What's going on? Why is my computer being weird?

I have a feeling this one could be my fault, but I don't see how.

Oh, no. You know what? It's me again. I can't be trusted with any of these volumes, Andrew. You guys, you're getting to see way behind the curtain both the Churchick family, et al., and the people on YouTube, because normally I do this all the time, and then Andrew cuts it out. So here we go. Drops of stupider, the deuce, round three. That's just absolute stupidity.

Just gets the energy level up. We have some neighbors who are approaching on the sidewalk. We are set up.

How are you feeling on the anxiety level with all of this, by the way? The slightly outward facing nature of what we're doing In other words, the thing that's been Another point of stress for me has been embarrassment About people who don't know what we're doing Just kind of observing it And I'm feeling less weird than I thought I was going to feel I think it's the penance that Cheryl made us It looks kind of official

And you know, I'm Catholic, so I love penance

Heyo See, we gotta share this with the world

Now, that aspect of things This doesn't bother me too much right now. I just have too much to worry about. Right now we are streaming on YouTube. People are hearing us. They're commenting in the chat bar. It looks like I'm recording. This is going to be an actual podcast. If we get the podcast out.

Wait, this is the real one? I thought this was the practice.

Oh, we're going to do one in the van later. It's going to be you and me eating elephant ears.

One quick thing, too. I think, folks, maybe I mentioned this before. People kind of know this, but we love to play the It's Your Lucky Day drop, of course. It's Your Lucky Day. You just found a USB flash drive in the parking lot. The plan is, after the show actually gets on the internet, can I say this, Andrew? Am I spoiling anything? No, no. This is why we do it. Andrew's going to put this episode of the show on a thumb drive and give it to you guys. So we'll be hand-delivering the show on a thumb drive to each household that we visit on this trip. That would have been... very clear if we had a sign on the van that said podcast delivery, but unfortunately

We do, though, have some great art, thankfully, now We really do. We'll bring that on. Hopefully just build this kind of you know, this will become like anything that we pick up along the way that seems interesting, we'll start taping to the van

when we do the show. We will take it off when we're driving just in case. You're going to call that security expert? I'm going to call

the manager of the Holiday Inn Express

He's a security expert. Colby

and I'm going to get i'm gonna get a still shot again i'm so excited about this andrew because it's what always happens in all of my crime shows like first 48 in particular they do a lot of security cam stuff um and like i've never had anything in my real life yet where i've been like if i can just get them to find that part of the security camera i will know the answer to the question and this is i'm finally getting to put my true crime watching skills to to to use they're not gonna have to use

of blacklight in the van, are they? Is that something they do on those shows?

I don't, I mean, this van's been around since 93.

I don't want to see that. No, I think we'll let that lie, let those sleeping dogs lie. Okay, I'm sorry, back to Drops of Stupider. You want to do some Drops of Stupider? Okay, so it's exciting times. We started with, what, 32 segments of TBTL or clips of audio from TBTL going back to the very earliest days. We are down to four. One of these will be crowned the best moment in TBTL history. The four that we are down to right now, Luke.

Can I just mention, I'll stall a little bit for you by saying big thanks to listener Jake in Chicago, who put this together and did a lot of work on this. Jake, thank you very much. This is not in lieu of a donation. We still need you to donate. Yes, significantly. This is not. More than ever. We just can't operate on sweat equity as a business model. If not you, who?

Okay, so today's – and by the way, we want to crown the final winner at the end of this week. Right, Friday. Yeah, so the voting schedule is getting really fast here. I'm going to play these last two matchups for you right now, and then you're going to go to tbtl.net, and you're going to click on today's show page. You're going to donate all of your life savings to TBTL, and then you're going to vote. Looking at you, Irene. What do you got in the piggy bank? College is overrated. But TBTL isn't.

Julian, you got 10? Okay, we'll take it.

Actually, these are our youngest donors, I believe. You know what? That's true. We work for you. You are our bosses. You know that, right? I think that's how it works, no? Sorry, did I go too far in my exuberance?

Yes, but we are very, very grateful to everybody who's sitting in that garage right now. But to you two young folks, thank you. That was really thoughtful of you. It was amazing. To kick some money this way.

Okay, so are you ready for these matchups? I'm ready. Matchup number one, going head to head. We have, still here, Splooch the Turtle. It just says, and I quote, in a hell of a font, Splooch-ah. Now. Wait, who did Splooch beat? What's that? Who did Splooch beat? So Splooch beat, believe it or not, the Blue Angels. Out of the running.

Does that mean you're also not afraid of heights anymore?

I don't know. We'll have to find out. So, yep. So, goodbye, Blue Angels, which I believe was a story by Vonnegut, right? Goodbye, Blue Angels. And we now have Splooch the Turtle going up. And I think this is tonally hilarious. Going up against Drew McFrizz robbing a bank and going to prison.

So she emptied the top drawer and she put the cash on the counter and I fell through it all, put it in the bag. And then I walked out. I walked around the corner to my van and I drove off. Nobody saw me.

Might be worth noting that Drew's amazing saga beat out Scatting with Chris Hayes. Whoa. Take that MSNBC

Take that MSM I will mention too you know that Drew as he told that story You know he was dealing at that time with addiction And ended up kicking that Addiction in a way that was Actually very dangerous and would not recommend But let's just say As he described on our show He basically reenacted Spooch the turtle Right before he did his first robbery No after So he found himself at the end of his rope and he decided that he was going to kick drugs or die trying, to be totally blunt. And then after he did that, amazingly, somehow survived it. He then drove himself up to – he was in California, I believe, at the time – drove himself up to, like, Seattle, like, Bellevue area, went to his parents' house, said, hi, I've robbed 65 banks, and I'm going to go turn myself in. And then he went and turned himself in. But before he was able to do all of that, And as he was in the process of getting off of the drugs, again, in a way that was very dangerous to him medically, pretty intense splooch vibrations going on as well. So maybe it's like splooch.

Either way, Bathroom Problems win.

Splooch the Bankrober. Maybe that could be the show title today. That could be a show title. All right. I give that a durian. So that's your first matchup today. You can vote for Splooch the Turtle or Drew McFrizz's Saga. Now I'm going to give you the next matchup here as well. These will both be on the show page. We have, of course, and thank goodness, Luke's boat disaster story. I am holding myself by my fingertips, hanging there in midair,

Like slightly above the water And I'm just thinking to myself Well this is how this ends

And what is that going up against A little something Oh earmuffs everybody Earmuffs a little something we call cat rolling This is Pepper Schwartz You know what I could just fade it out Before

I like that you've now drawn the line on swearing In front of these beautiful children

There was an F-bomb in that tape That I faded out before we got to So, of course, the tradition of you setting up some tape that I think is going to be related to a story, but instead it's the Game of Thrones theme song sung by a cat, obviously. God, just like every podcast, we're so typical. So, anyway, there's your next matchup, Luke's Boat Disaster versus Cat Rolling. What is out of there? I will tell you Jen's wedding story is now gone. Luke's Boat Story beat that out. and cat rolling beat cooking with Sean, or as I have it written here, coking with Sean, which is a totally different kind of segment. It goes by very quickly. Ask him to get help with that. Yes, exactly.

Am I playing the wrong thing again?

I'm not sure I have everything turned up here. What are we looking at here? Not from a female. There we go.

There's something very funky happening with my audio levels that I think some of it's just user error, but some of it I think is something going on with this computer. It's like resetting everything to zero volume. Oh, every single individual drop. Yeah, in this other setting, I just want the listeners to know that I'm incompetent, but I'm not this incompetent.

That is no bueno. We'll figure that out later. But remember, we have a stream of video and audio going out to about 200 listeners right now. And that, to me, is the important thing we shouldn't lose sight of.

I forgot for a long time that we're on camera with this, and I don't like that feeling because I probably was really just letting my derp face out. I'm very, very, I'm very concerned at all times at how I'm coming off. And if I, if I were to remember that I'm on camera, like when I'm doing a CBS story, I'm always doing this thing where I'm trying to slightly turtle to minimize my double chin. And I'm trying to look thoughtful, but also rugged. I think it's a lot going on. I give almost no attention to the interview questions or the person I'm talking to. They don't have to be there. You're not doing it for them. But in this case, because we're just kind of hanging out with these fine folks in Corvallis, and it's just your phone on a tripod. I'm forgetting this is going out on the Internet. There's hundreds of people looking at me, looking like a Cletus the Slack-jawed yokel.

If you don't mind, I'd like to share a couple of things with you here, Luke, from the listeners. This first one is an email that came in that I found super interesting. It just came in this weekend. It's from our good friend Heidi in Minnesota. Okay. Of course, our, what is your official title? The Latin correspondent. Yeah. And one of our smartest tens, of course. And we have a lot of smart tens. And Heidi's a teacher, and she says, this is super dumb. I just want to start off with that. Plus, I know right now you're probably embarking on a super long and stressful and fun road trip for the TBTL-a-thon. I secured my cooler already. Thank you, Heidi, for the donation. It's great to enjoy that cooler. Looking forward to seeing photos of that out in the wild. You probably won't remember this. There are so many caveats. I love this. This is so Andrew. You probably won't even remember this since it was like five seconds of the show on Friday. But Luke compared the TBTelethon to a gladiator event where the 10s could either give a thumbs up or a thumbs down for the show's continuing existence. I just feel that it's my duty to pass along this fun fact. Scholars now believe, and this is what you'll find in most recent editions of most commonly used Latin textbooks, that those who were in charge of the gladiator games actually used the thumbs up to signal death. What? Indicating a sword through the chest, and thumbs down would basically mean everybody drop your weapons. You don't have to kill them this time. It's still somewhat controversial, so here's hoping the 10s will all come through and give you a big metaphorical thumbs down this week. Good luck and have fun on the road. Heidi in Minnesota.

I'll say, I'll say, I'll say, I'll say, I'll say, I'll say, I'll say, what's up, dude?

That's a crazy... I told you I had a really fun email I wanted to share with you like two days ago. That's crazy to me.

Paid off, right? How many gladiators died unnecessarily?

Dude, it's just a mix-up. They were just confused. Or, like, can we retrain our culture to, like, go back to the source material? I'm starting right now.

So next time I see somebody and they're doing something good, I'm just going to go thumbs down. Thumbs down for rock and roll.

That could be a show title, too. Somebody writing this down because I don't know. My hands are still numb.

I know, it's really cold. And if you don't mind, I got a really nice voicemail from Joanna about her relationship with TBTL. And if you don't mind, here during the TBTL-a-thon, if you'll indulge me, I'd like to play this for you. It's very sweet.

Hi, Luke and Andrew. This is Joanna from Washington, D.C. I just wanted to say I stopped listening for a year for some reason. I don't know what happened. But I took a break, and I'm back this week, and I'm just so relieved and happy that you guys are still doing this thing and doing the same jokes, but also new ones, and everything's different, but everything's also the same. So I just want to say thanks, and I'm going to keep on going for another year.

Bye.

That was really sweet. That actually came in a few weeks ago, but I wanted to share it in this, the holiest of TBTL weeks, Because, you know, again, that means a lot to me And I hear from listeners, you know, often during a regular week, Luke I'm not going to play just a voicemail often that says Hey, I really like TBTL because it seems especially, I don't know Not just self-serving, but vain, possibly

And that's sort of my persona on the show

Right, exactly A lot of them, weirdly, are from you Which is strange Go to the tape We've got a voicemail here from Luke Who says that he loves TBTL especially the lead host Andrew Walsh. No, but anyway, so that was just a sweet note that reminded me why we do this, and I was glad to have Joanna back in the mix

On kind of related to that, or a similar sentiment listener April emailed and said Hi Luke and Andrew, I'm finding the Splenda talk lately hilarious because one of the first episodes I listened to featured Luke complaining about not being able to find Splenda back in 2010

I saw that too. 11 years

later, Andrew, and I have not figured this out there's something comforting about your griping about the same stuff after all these years i might i think i might need to time travel and listen to those episodes again love you power out april in maine i mean it's you know everything it everything in my brain that's trying to think of what is entertaining would say we got to come up with some new material but it's so interesting because i think there's for whatever reason a certain amount of comfort to the listeners in us just kind of being right where they left us, you know? Like the listener who called in and kind of checked out for a year. By the way, I was playing this. This is the traditional thumbs down saying, good job starting to listen to the show again. See, this is how we build that.

We're reconnecting those synapses.

But, yeah, like, I mean, there's something nice about, I would imagine, about turning the show on and being like, yeah, those two guys, and they're doing their thing, and maybe Luke still hasn't found Splendor. Although I'll tell you what, I am, I'm, I'm splendid. I'm splendid up. I'm besplendid. I'm resplendid for the rest of my natural life and really my children and my children's children. Because not only do I have at home now, three, Andrew, three huge boxes. That's a thumbs down, meaning good. Three huge boxes of Splendid listeners have sent me. Cheryl had been saving a half-consumed box of Splenda packets from when they moved into this house. She stopped using Splenda and thought, I'll probably give this to Burbank someday. And look at someday as now. Here we are sitting in your driveway.

You're going to be Scrooge McDuck-ing it, aren't you? You're really going to fill a pool full of Splenda packets and just jump right in there. Just dive right in with your hands in front of you like a prayer.

I'm going to ask Carrie if I can visit the house one more time, drain the pool, fill it with Splenda packets. and scrooge it up. If I do that, it will be the last time.

Do you think that going with this thumbs up means thumbs down and vice versa thing, do you think that I can start giving people the middle finger when I mean, hey, I like you a lot. If I like somebody's driving, should I roll down my window and give them a big middle finger?

You know, don't do that in this van because if they chase us, we can't escape unless they're driving a van that's older than ours.

That's a good point.

That's another thing, too, as we round third base and start to wrap today's episode up. You know, big time, big fingers crossed for this van making it to Arizona. I mean, it's been recently serviced and it's in as good a shape as a 1993 van can be. But I'm not exaggerating when I say driving yesterday was a little bit of an eye opener just because like when we drove through the outback of Australia, we were in just a Hyundai Santa Fe. We were in a rental car that was modern. So it was like long drives, but it wasn't like, will it make it? This thing is does not drive very fast.

We just have to have a mentality of the woman who rented it to us. We just got to get in the right-hand lane and just be like, this is it. We're in here for a while. A five-hour drive is really a six-and-a-half-hour drive. That's fine. We have stuff to work on.

We're going to finish this, and then we're going to put the show on the Internet. We're going to hand Cheryl and Lance the thumb drive. Maybe we'll give it to Irene. And then we've got to break this whole thing down.

and then drive to Humboldt County in this thing, which is like, what, seven hours?

Yeah, something like that. As a matter of fact, I don't think we mentioned this. We have a listener named Adam who is in Humboldt. He reached out and he said we can do the show in his driveway or outside of his home in some way. So that's a new development that we'll be exploring tomorrow.

Yeah, we'll be at Adam's house in Humboldt, in Eureka, I believe, or the greater Eureka area. He might be in Fortuna, which is literally where I'm from. Nice. Perfect. That's the actual cradle of the burbs. The cradle of the burbs. Not to be confused with the carol of the bells. The cradle of the burbs. All right, Andrew, what do you say? All right. One more quick reminder as if. Like, it would be crazy. I mean, I guess because we're streaming this on YouTube, there's like a chance somebody just turned it on. So I'll just remind you that this is the week where we are asking folks to donate. If they like the show or if this is something that, you know, feels like has some value in your life and you can donate, that would be awesome. If you've been donating, thank you. And if you want to continue doing that Or maybe even move up a level If, again, that's something that works for your finances That would be the best Because then we can do this show for another year And also pay for the second half of the van rental Because we only had to put half the money down up front Right And so if we don't make the money we're supposed to make this week I don't know what we're going to do

And, you know, we have heard from some new listeners in the past year or so Who didn't even really know what a TBTL was Including, you know, some people who were just looking for a different Andrew Walsh

Oh yeah, we've got an update on that guy Maybe tomorrow's show from Humboldt County

We'll fill people in on that From Funkasaurus, he's been hitting me up too So maybe you didn't know that Two or three episodes into your listening We'd be asking you to support the show But anyway, if you are a new listener And you didn't know this is how it works This is how it works And we really, really, really appreciate it Go to tbtl.net and click on that donate button

If you stole our signs And then you called the voicemail line Then you googled tbtl And now you've started listening This is your time to donate Because those signs were $150

I was going to say, if you stole the signs, it's not a donation. You owe us $100. I'll take the signs. Just give me the signs. Should we just spray paint something on the side of the van?

They can't steal that. All right. I'm going to go out with this.

Run Always.

This is from listener Ian in Superior, Wisconsin.

The Latin Funk Remix.

All right. Hey, thanks, everybody, for listening. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Cheryl, Lance, Irene, Julian, thank you for hosting us in your lovely driveway. Thank you so much. Sorry, I didn't make better eye contact the whole time. Mother Gaia, thank you for not blowing our canopy over because we would have been just fucked. Language! All right. We'll see you all tomorrow from Humboldt County, California. Until then, have a great Monday. Stay safe. Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all. And us, but all. Mostly us.

Brain Brain Brain All the time All the time All the time All the time All the time All the time All the time All the time All the time All the time All the time All the time All the time

All the time All the time All the time All the time

All the time All the time All the time All the time All the time All the time All the time All the time All the time All the time So they can't go away Power out