Muse

Good morning. I have an earworm that I thought I would sing into this little imaginary radio show voice catcher, and maybe it will leave my head. Okay, here we go. Splooch, the diarrhea turtle lives in Australia. That is literally all I got. It just is going around and around and around in my head, and I need it to stop. Okay, we're out. T-B-T-L Guess what day it is Guess what day it is It's Friday, Friday Gonna get down on Friday Everybody's looking forward to the weekend For $20 I can tell you a lot of things For $30 I can tell you more And for $50 I can tell you everything

It's kind of weird, I feel like I'm being interrogated but by someone who doesn't really want to know anything important. For the sake of customer service, try to chill out, my mom. Oh my God, man, we are seeing some s**t we ain't never seen before. Alright, hello, good morning and welcome everyone to a Friday edition of TBTL, the show that was almost too beautiful to live.

Hey, what happened?

My name is Luke Burbank, I'll be hosting things today.

Brother, who are you? What are you doing?

Coming to you from the backyard of our friend, Nora McInerney, in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona, or as we now say on the show.

This is the way we talk in Tucson, Arizona.

In Phoenix, Arizona, where we've had to take some sort of evasive action. We've had to go to plan, I don't even know if it's plan B. It might be like plan G or something. Yesterday we were cruising down the highway in the Arizona desert, somewhere near Agua Caliente. And I remember thinking to myself, God, this is just going great. We've got four shows in the books. We're on our way to Phoenix to do the show for Mary, the TBTL virgin, who's never actually heard the show and yet is somehow a fan of the program. And I thought, nothing can go wrong. Nothing bad could ever happen on this trip. I wish I hadn't done that. And that was right about the time that the van started spewing coolant everywhere. And we got stuck at a little roadside gas station in Sentinel, Arizona. It was literally a major disaster. But here we are, everybody, ready to bring you episode 3,433 in a collector's series.

Let the fun begin.

Of course, a little van breakdown isn't going to stop us from continuing on with TBTL-a-thon 12, contentless delivery. That's right. We are still trying to raise money for this little program. So you got my money? It's the last day of this TBTL-a-thon thing. So if you can take a moment to go to tbtl.net. I don't know if you can hear that in the background. Hey, want to hear the most annoying sound in the world? That is our friend Nora and her husband Matthews, the pool robot, the thing that cleans the pool here in Arizona in their backyard. And it makes what could only be described as an absolutely terrifying sound about every four or five minutes. A lot of podcasts would say, let's unplug that thing. Let's get that out of the mix. We said, can you make it rain harder? Can you make it sound worse? So we're leaving it going because we think it's kind of funny, although I'm not sure if my mind will change on that throughout the show. Anyway, that's what that noise was in the background. The point is, here we are, raising money for TBTL over there at tbtl.net. Speaking of money, it looks like the Sploogecoin, which is the cryptocurrency that we're trying to create with the listeners, the TBTL cryptocurrency, is getting ever closer to being a reality. Well, we have a mock-up of it anyway, so we'll talk about that. Also, the listeners, at least one listener on Facebook says, I'm overstating the menace that is the cicada reemergence. And I would say tell that to Manu Raju, the congressional correspondent for CNN, who recently had a cicada climb on him while he was trying to do a TV report. And it was not great. Cicada. What the hell? Do I have more on me? We will tell you what's going on with the cicada menace. And then speaking of good animals, there is a guy who is playing classic rock songs on the guitar while his parrot sings along to them. And it is just exactly what you need to hear on this Friday. Did you see a parrot just flew by? Is that a thing, Mary, here in in Phoenix? It's a peach faced lovebird. That's what he used to call me in high school, by the way. God, that joke never gets old. An actual like lovebird parrot type thing flew by. as I was talking about this parrot that sings classic rock songs that we're going to play with the audio of coming up.

We'll do all of that with the help of this young man, the longest running cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He was recently reminiscing about the time that our van broke down in the Arizona desert. It was a moment that I didn't enjoy. He's Andrew Walsh. He's joining me from about two feet to my right here in Nora McInerney's backyard. My friend, how are you doing on this Friday morning?

Oh, great. Everything's perfect, Luke. I'm looking forward to talking about our adventures. There's one thing that I just noticed, one programming note. I would have completely forgotten about this, but I just got an email. Like, the email is still hot. Just in from Chicago, we will be crowning the champion of the Drops of Stupider contest.

Yes. This is, of course, a multi-week project run by our friend Jake in Chicago to try to figure out by listener vote, what is the greatest moment in TVTL history? And so we will be announcing the winner. And what are the finalists?

It's down to you telling your boat disaster story and splooch the diarrhea turtle.

Right, which, you know, we've got our friend Mary the TBTL virgin here in Nora's backyard. And Mary's never actually listened to the program before, of course. She somehow got on the newsletter. We've had Mary on the show, but she's never listened to it. Now we're having her listen to a show where we've already said diarrhea at least four times in the first. I don't know, five minutes of the program. I think this is going to be a long journey today, my friends. We have so much to tell you about, and I think we're kind of hyped up. It's the final day of the TBTL fun. I don't know where we would be, Andrew, if we had not picked up our dear friend and colleague Kiki Lolo in Los Angeles. I feel like Christina Lopez, you've been the emotional compass for the last two days When we thought maybe we weren't going to be able to finish the trip, you brought a certain calming, fun energy, which has been really needed on this trip. So thank you for being here. How are you doing, my friend?

I'm actually doing pretty good. I think we all get into what happened, but it was fun to catalog our journey and then have it hit a certain hitch. And some really interesting conjectures happening based off my Instagram story.

Yeah. Just so folks know, Christina, well, once again, and I think we're on very good Wi-Fi because we are, again, using the Wi-Fi of noted Internet celebrity Nora McInerney. And, you know, she doesn't skimp on her on getting the best, the finest Wi-Fi available in Phoenix, Arizona. So Christina is going to be monitoring the various channels, Slack, YouTube, things like that, and and reporting on what you all are saying and questions you may have. So just get in there, get chatty, because we actually have a professional here to keep track of things. Are you already seeing stuff? You're shaking your head, ruefully.

People are nervous about the drink placements.

Oh, let me just tell you, folks who are watching this on the internet, this is the least of the worries right now. A bigger problem, Andrew's phone turned off one minute before showtime because it was too hot here in Arizona, and we had to...

We should mention things are going to get hot. They're going to get funky. For those who don't know, the phone is what is bringing this YouTube live stream. You know, it's not like, oh, I can't get a text message from our boy, the stew bot. I mean, everything is dependent on that phone, which was baking in the sun until it shut down. I had to put it in the refrigerator.

Now, let's point out, too, though, that Christina and I tried to hatch a master plan to take one of Nora's kids teepees. Like they have a little kind of like for kids to play around in. And we put it on a table. We tried to create a tent over your cell phone, Andrew, so that it wouldn't get too hot. That clearly did not work.

It did not. We weren't really good at that. I think it was still hitting the front of the camp, the front of the, we tried, we tried. We didn't just put it out there. We knew, we knew enough that it was going to get overheated. We just couldn't engineer something.

But just so the listeners know, honestly, the water getting on the equipment might help. Yes, right.

It might actually have a cooling effect. Exactly.

That we, speaking of coolant, let's talk a little bit about what happened yesterday. my friends I think it would be fun to do this kind of Rauchelman style maybe we get everyone's perspective on it

can I throw this and just one thing I did get a note from our kind of program director the other day who said that we're probably looking inward a little bit too much on this show and like we have top stories to get to we have a cicada story to get to that I'm really interested in maybe today is not a day to like just kind of talk about ourselves and the journey like maybe we just skip I mean I don't know Luke I should have talked to you about this before the show I apologize I'm putting in a weird position but like believe he just i just don't know if people are interested in that stuff

i don't even have time to like play along with this because i need to process what happened yesterday okay okay let's start christina with your perspective on this when did you realize things were going terribly wrong for us

it was actually immediately after i took that last instagram story where i was like we're here getting gas and food and behind me was the the uh the toe yeah uh and i didn't realize at the time we didn't use the toe uh but i turned around and you guys were talking and i heard something dripping and i looked down and i something i saw green fluid dripping and i'm not very good with cars so i don't really know what was happening i thought it might have been the diesel because you know at the time it was right it was hooked up into it and it was pumping gas basically like

yeah yeah exactly the where the diesel you know pump goes into this van this 1993 mitsubishi delica happened to also be right above where the coolant was coming out so it was very confusing at first yeah yeah and you were like guys guys guys you pointed and then andrew was like oh he kind of moved over in the direction of the thing and i'm gonna be totally honest honestly i thought

for a second I survived an entire pandemic and this is how I go

you had that little

style gasoline fight explosion and somebody having to explain this to my mother that I died in Phoenix near Phoenix, Arizona

so you had like in that split second you had that thought of like this could be dangerous to me I can't believe that this is how it ends for Kiki Lolo I know that feeling I have that sometimes where you just like you think oh this is okay This is how it ends. This is how it happens? All right. I'm curious how the end's going to come for me, but I didn't think it was going to be this way. Andrew, what was going through your mind in that moment?

So I think you established the fact that when we saw this water kind of pouring out, I immediately just thought, oh, there's something going on with the pump. The nozzle must have slipped out or overflowing gas or something. So I immediately turned, you know, I kind of stopped the gas. And then suddenly that's when I realized, oh, this is not gas pouring out. It's something green kind of pouring out from underneath the van, right below that. But it looked like you were about to say something, Luke. I'm interested in hearing what you thought, because you were about to say, I did something.

Well, I just, I love you, Andrew, and we would not be able to do this show without you. I hate it when you start sentences like this. This is never good. But you can at times, when we're doing this, you can be a little bit anxious, I think by your own description. Yeah. And I just When I saw you kind of move The way that you moved I sort of thought that maybe You were just overreacting To something All I did was turn off the pump There was something about your body motion I'm just telling you what my mind thought And my mind I bet the phone has now overheated again We're not on YouTube anymore That's alright, we're still recording our podcast Which is the important thing I'm just telling you what my first thought was And I thought, oh, this is probably not I guess what I'm trying to say is I thought this is probably not as big of a deal as as these two people, Christine and Andrew, are thinking it is my my weird reaction to stress is to think this is not a big deal. Yeah. And it was very much a big deal in this moment, though.

I didn't either. You know, I mean, I don't think you mentioned this yet. My apologies if I keep saying that. But on the trip before we stopped for this gas, the air conditioner wasn't working right. And we were kind of keeping an eye, or I should say you were keeping a very close eye on the heat gauges on the van, knowing that we're driving this 1993 van through the desert. And every now and then you'd say, hey, listen, if the engine's getting a little bit hot, I'm going to cut the air conditioning. We're just, you know, being very mindful of these things. And then at one point, the air conditioning, I didn't notice it in the back, but you said that it wasn't blowing cold air anymore. So here's exactly what happened, I'm going to say, in the first 10 seconds of us seeing this juice pouring out from the thing. And initially, I think...

Should I have not put juice in there? Yeah, I love juice. I was told that that's how that van cooled itself, was through ocean spray cranberry juice. That was now, I think, a mistake.

But anyway, so I just saw the stuff pouring out, and I thought, oop, it's overflowing. I didn't think it was a big deal. I just went to stop the pump, and then we stopped the pump, and it's still overflowing. And then even at that point, I'm like, oh, that's probably just related to the air conditioner. And I'm just thinking at this point, oh, it's going to be a hot ride. That's all. I didn't think that it was going to ground us. So I thought, well, we're not going to have an air conditioner. And I even thought, like, I'm probably pretty, you know, I'm fine with that. Like, you and I have both driven beaters in our lives. Like, it's an adventure. It's something that will be miserable, but we'll talk about later.

Yeah, because another part of the story is the air conditioner had quit, like, a half hour previous to this. So we're driving along, and all of a sudden the air conditioner goes out, and we're all kind of speculating on, like, what that could be. Maybe we just need to turn it off for a while, let it kind of get its shit together, as it were. And so I was with you, Andrew. I immediately said, it's the air conditioner, because I didn't want it to be anything more serious. And so, yeah, then we, well, you got down on the ground and actually did a very macho move, Andrew, which I've never seen before, which is you, like, rubbed your hands in the coolant, we learned later, that was coming out. I then thought you tasted it. Like a cop tasting cocaine in a movie? Exactly.

Exactly.

Or, like, in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the guy picks up the ice, and he, like, takes his hammer.

I just thought, like, okay, that is super macho and also very dangerous. I asked you, did you just taste it? I forgot about that. You ran it through your hands, and then you said, yeah, this doesn't feel, you actually said this doesn't feel like coolant to me. I was wrong about that. And I thought, I thought I saw you put it up to your lips. But anyway. I just smelled it. It turned out to be an overflow of coolant from the motor of this van. Now, the problem is, this is a 1993 Mitsubishi Delica. It was made in Japan. It is not a standard sort of car that you would have a problem with in the middle of the Arizona desert. So we didn't even know how to figure out where the engine was. I was trying to open the hood of the van, which makes like no sense because there is no, it's like a snub nose on this van. There's no motor there. We were sitting on the motor. So I go into the service station and there's a very nice dude in there, Ruben, who is the with his family, owns the service station and also owns a towing company, which will become important to the story in a minute. But I went in and I asked him, like, hey, do you know anything about 1993 Mitsubishi Delica vans? And he said, actually, don't know. And I said, do you know how we would get to the motor? And he said, no, actually, you should probably Google that. and i said okay let me also mention it's 95 degrees outside and we are in i mean the reason that christina was like documenting this gas station because it looks like something out of a tarantino film it's just yeah absolute desert as far as the eye can see and this this it's literally called middle of nowhere i think that's the technical name for this gas station slash little mini mart so it's like even being outside is oppressively hot like being near the van so we're all now the three of us are kind of like trying to figure out what to do next we're trying to go you're googling like how do we find the motor on a this kind of a van uh Andrew you

actually were the one who figured it out I'm googling what happens if you drink a coolant

out of a 1993 van so you figured it out though Andrew I was very impressed it we had to somehow to unbuckle the seats. Yeah, the engine is under the passenger seat. And the middle of the kind of like between the driver and passenger seat, we were able to actually get to the motor, which was like a huge accomplishment for us.

Yes, and yeah, I guess just for whatever it's worth, if people are trying to picture this, it's under the passenger seat, but if you're picturing a car, the passenger seat is where the driver's seat would be on a normal car. So it was under what would usually be the driver's seat, but this is actually where Christina was sitting. As a matter of fact, I was wondering, Christina, I didn't notice this when I was sitting up there. I was in the back of the van for this part of the leg. Was it getting hot underneath your bottom?

No, I didn't feel my butt being hot at all.

Yeah, because that's literally where things were going wrong.

I know, and I didn't notice anything.

How much of this is Christina's fault?

I know, I'm sorry.

Too hot.

That's right.

Too hot, too caliente for this van. And so we get the we actually get the like motor exposed. We can see it. And I go back into the gas station and I get Ruben again. And I'm like, OK, we have gotten to the motor. But I don't want to like I don't know what he's got going on on this particular day. I don't know if we're ready to retain his services or if his services are even being offered. So I'm trying to be like chill about it. Kind of like like let him bring up the idea of coming out to look at the motor again as people are just like coming through the mini mart. So I'm like, yeah, we got the – I'm also trying to be kind of macho, which is not really my default setting. I was like, oh, yeah, we got the seat up. We're looking at the motor anyway. Yeah, it looks all right. And then he's just waiting, and he goes, would you like me to come take a look at it? I was like, I mean, if you want. If you want to check it out, if you're curious. It's always good just to neg the mechanic as much as possible. I mean, I can probably handle it, but if you want to get a lesson on how to fix these bad boys, come on out. Meanwhile, inside, I'm like, please, dear God, let this actual manly man come out and save us. So he comes out, takes a look at it, and realizes it's not one of the belts, which had been his first theory. Boy, that is really like the Sarlacc from Star Wars.

I keep thinking that.

Yeah, you know, the thing that Luke Skywalker and Han and them almost get thrown into that digest you for a thousand years. Yes, I'm hoping it's picked up on the mics. Because otherwise the worst outcome is The listeners can't hear it and it's massively Distracting That would be the worst of all worlds I have a quick question for you I want to keep going with the story but of course we've now lost The YouTube feed because of heat Should we consider Taking Andrew's camera indoors

Yeah they were I don't know if you want me to I can run it indoors and like cool it down So we can get it back up

I was also just thinking maybe literally set it up in their kitchen And we can just take a little break here because we're just recording

okay i already yeah they were like can't you guys go inside i was like we already set up

If you guys want to move inside, let's do it.

I was just thinking of moving the camera inside. So at least people can listen, even if they don't have a great video shot. We'll just set it up like some person looking out their kitchen window at us or something.

Yeah, so let's maybe just take a little break here, and then we'll clean this all up and post. Okay, we'll be back.

And we're back. All right, so for those of you who have rejoined us on YouTube, welcome back. You are now seeing the view from inside Nora and Matthew's kitchen. That is the only place we think that the camera, also known as Andrew's phone, will be able to stay at a cool enough temperature so as to keep streaming this thing. If you are just listening to this podcast days, weeks, or even years from now, thank you for bearing with us. I know none of this is relevant to your interests. But anyway, we're back up. We're streaming. It's all happening. Keep letting Christina Lopez know what's going on, And we'll keep checking in with you out there in YouTube land. Now, we were just talking about Ruben coming back out to the Delica van to look at the motor and tell us what was wrong. And when he looked at it, he noticed that all of the belts seemed to be in working order, like the things that turn the fan and things like that, which is part of how the engine stays cool is moving this coolant around. What was basically happening was the tank that's the overflow, like when the engine gets too hot, the coolant, like things expand and this coolant kind of dumps over into this overflow tank. That thing was just spewing coolant. And in fact, the coolant was boiling. Yeah, we could hear it actually boiling. Someone in our group said it sounded like a bong. I don't want to say who. Yes. Because I don't want to impugn anyone's integrity. But somebody did imagine the sound of a bong.

Right. If they knew what that, I don't. Yeah, I'm not familiar with that.

sounds i listened to a lot of cypress hill at one point it sort of sounded like whatever instrument they play on a lot of their tracks sure it was that so it was uh it was sort of like at this

point it started to dawn on me that we were not driving this van out of sentinel arizona right

that was the the the moment for me when i realized oh this isn't oh darn it's gonna be a warm trip with no air conditioning it's like oh we're looking at a tow truck and saying does our whoop there's the monster again does our van fit on that tow truck and where the hell does it tow

us yeah well uh we got very lucky that uh that ruben was there and that he also runs a towing company and that it's not just like a tow truck that you hook the car up to it's like a beast of a vehicle that you can actually put your car on it and then it can drive you places and so he was like i mean i can drive you to arizona i mean i can drive you to phoenix that is we were already in Arizona um it just so happened that he was there to do this which it was a very unlucky day for us but there were things that were in fact lucky it was lucky that we needed diesel fuel

because that's where we would because that's what made a stop at that station you mean yeah because

it had we just kept driving there's a really good chance that the the engine would have overheated and we would have been like I mean this is the part the part of Arizona that we're in it's like like every hundred there's only something every like hundred miles and that something could just be like some random person's house it could be a gas station that doesn't have diesel it could be a place that doesn't have tow facilities in fact when we ended up riding in ruben's truck to phoenix with our van on his truck i asked him like what would have happened if you would have just not been here with your tow truck and he was like it could have been a long long time There's, like, two towing companies in this whole, like, huge area of the Arizona desert, and he's one of them, basically. And had he not just been there, like, yeah, I can take you into town, we would, I mean, we would just live at that gas station. Yeah, we'd be there right now.

And I don't even eat meat. There would be no options for me. Yeah, you'd be having a breakfast of Funyuns and Gatorade lights. It sounds kind of good.

Someone on the YouTube, Jeff Stewart, says, Car Talk is going to ask YouTube to demonetize this.

Car Talk is, right. Oh, wow, yeah.

Don't drive like my tow truck driver. We are represented by Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe. So we've inherited them now that Car Talk is out of production. But, yeah, so it was a bummer to realize that we were not going to be able to do the normal plan, which was drive the van here, go to Mary, the TBTL Virgin's house, and broadcast the show to her. Thankfully, Mary is here. She has brought gifts. She brought the sorry game. She brought, what is it, a safety whistle? Yes. It's brought all kinds of awesome things Cookies Thank you, we could have used that yesterday Where were you yesterday with that, Mayor? Also, a shout out to Mary's neighbor Who had apparently set up a whole electrical thing For us, and fans At the Condo Association So, sorry that we had to do this Sorry we had to do this kind of Last minute changeroom But... I have to say, like, I have still internally been having a bit of a battle with myself over if we should have just tried to drive the van from from the gas station after all of this happened. Yes, because. Well, let me put it this way. If it were just me. And if it were my van, which it's not, we're renting it from a very nice lady named Andrea. If it were just me and if it were my van, I would have talked myself into just driving to Phoenix.

And I think that would have been a mistake. I will say this, for almost everything related to TBTL on a trip like this, we have conversations about production stuff, technical setup, camera angles, all of these things. Almost everything I say to you, Luke, is I will give you my honest opinion about this, but at the end of the day, it's your call. Because honestly, I just think you have good instincts on stuff, and you're usually right about that. I'm not just saying that to be nice, because frankly, I don't enjoy being nice to you. No, but for real, that is God's honest truth. If that had come up, though, I would have said no. I would have really stood up strongly against that. That's where you actually draw the line. Because I think that would have put us in a very dangerous position. Yeah.

Were you guys a little bit worried? Andrew, were you a tiny bit worried that I was going to try to make the case for us just risking it?

It didn't even occur to me that you would be that crazy.

Were you worried that I was going to say, like, we got this? I was kind of just going with the flow. I was in a very zen place. You really were, which was awesome.

Yeah, we needed that energy. I really had the thought. I was thinking, okay, here's what we do. I buy like four or five huge bottles of water in the gas station, and then we just start driving. And if the engine gets too hot, we crank the seat up, and I just pour water on it and just try to cool it down. That was a thought I had.

I also, this is where my mind was, and this just, Christina laughed her ass off because this just goes to show you just how cheap I am. We were filling up the gas, and then we thought gas was overflowing, so we stopped the gas. And then we realized, oh, it's not the gas. So you started the gas back up. And then as the van is being pulled onto the tow truck, I'm like, I'm glad we just spent 50 bucks to fill up that tank of gas so that we can pull it. That's my friend who had this Camaro one time. He had a car that broke down, completely broke down. He had to get rid of it. And his last words were, I had just filled it with gas. It was like that.

Well, the thing is, it was full of diesel when we got it. So I think it probably needed to be pulled. Even if it goes back to Portland on a truck, I mean, no joke, I don't know what they charge if you send it back with less fuel in it, but I mean, that's the big question. So where things stand now, by the way, Mary, the TBTL virgin, is handing me notes. She is working her comedy into the show. THTL, Too Hot to Live. Too Hot to Live, possible show title. I love that. Possible show title. We're putting it on the list. Where things sort of currently stand is we got the van to Phoenix on the back of Ruben's truck. We learned all about Ruben's Daughters podcast. She is apparently a very, very accomplished wild Mustang tamer.

Trainer.

Trainer.

Tamer.

Slash tamer. This is a whole thing. The Bureau, I don't know if it's the Bureau of Land Management, but they go out and they catch all these wild horses because there are too many wild horses. And despite the Rolling Stones and what they had to say on it, they catch these horses. And there are people who like to, like, train these horses to do things. And Ruben's daughter is apparently amazing at it. And I have to be totally honest with you. Ruben, we've already established, is a pretty macho guy. You know, got some dirt under the fingernails. Broken hand. Broken hand, but he eschewed the cast. Yes. Take a note, Andrew. I know. Ruben had a broken hand.

I was like, but I stubbed my finger.

Went to the doctor, didn't like the cast, took it off, then said, you're not putting another cast on me. So this is a guy who I did not necessarily think Was going to be familiar with the world of podcasting

Yeah, and then he's like, my daughter has a podcast

Yes, which is how you know Mary, do you have a podcast yet?

Not yet

Not yet, she says Let's put that on the list of to-dos We can have you a podcast by later this afternoon

I will also say, I think I shared this with you Ruben posted about the van asking for help in the area If anyone knew how to fix it And he called us podcast celebrity

Yes, and he tagged TBTL. Before he even pulled the van, or maybe around the time he was pulling the van onto his flatbed, he was, and I think, Luke, you're the one who told me this, he was already tapping into his social networks to see if there were any, like, you know, Mitsubishi, vintage Mitsubishi experts in the area. He's already putting little birds out there trying to help us. It was amazing.

Yeah, because one of the dispiriting parts of this whole thing yesterday was standing in the baking sun in this sort of dusty, you know, parking lot of this gas station calling. And by the way, at this point, it was about 5.57 p.m. And I'm on the Internet and I'm calling any places in Phoenix that claim.

to specialize in japanese automobiles and i'm calling them and i'm either getting voicemail or this number does not exist or a person and i would i would like do this thing where i'd be like hey do you work on a japanese uh vans yes we do okay uh we have a mitsubishi could you work on that uh probably it's from 1993 click yeah nobody literally people were like yeah i don't have any parts for that i don't know how to work on that like we it turns out we may have not thought this fully through driving an extremely boutique vehicle through the desert that is now having some problems so where things currently stand is the van is safely at our hotel uh we are there are people in portland working on the project i.e the owner of the van is trying to find someone that will come look at the van i got a text though by the way uh there's also a a place up in portland that works specifically on these vehicles and those people are in this text chain that i'm on Okay, cool, directly. Okay, I'm interested in this. I'm texting with a vintage Mitsubishi repair place in Portland and the woman who owns the van, and I just got a reply. John at Sundance Auto Service and Machine said he would be willing to look at it, but he can't get to it until Monday. Monday, which is actually Memorial Day, right? I guess we just live in Phoenix now.

Wow.

That's, by the way, that's the first person who's even agreed to look at the van.

To even look at it, and then we don't know what's going to happen. And once they look at it, they could say, well, we need to fly in a part from, well, 1993. Yeah, we need to build a time portal. Exactly.

We need to go back to 1993 and get the thing. By the way, one of these mechanics that I've been texting with today asked if it was the thermostat or said he thought it might be the thermostat, which was Ruben's theory. That's what Ruben was saying. He knew his stuff, man.

Yeah, Ruben, my favorite sandwich and now my favorite tow truck driver, Ruben.

So I don't really know what we're going to do next. We're very grateful to be here. we're very grateful mary was able to join us and and to sort of last minute change of plans but like christina you at some point got to get back to los angeles yeah i gotta figure that out we have to at some point go back to our real lives i don't know if we can just stay in phoenix

waiting for a part for a 1993 van well is there a chance that because right i was saying this to you my position here is like so luke you work a whole bunch of jobs right christina is christina is closest to home by being in arizona what is it a six hour drive so chances are you'll probably rent a car maybe peel off at some point drive back that makes sense a little road trip for the memorial day weekend luke you have a million responsibilities um you have various jobs you work i have basically one responsibility and it's tbtl so is there a chance that i stay back in arizona myself you go back to real life in portland we you know do the show remotely from arizona for a few days and i'm driving this thing back myself i don't feel like that's a good deal for you at all it doesn't seem like a great deal but i you know options are running thin right i don't know I mean, to be totally honest with you, which is rare for me, you don't want you're scared to see me driving that van, which I don't blame you.

No, I could. I mean, I could stay in Arizona. Mary, can we stay at your house? Do you have a swimming pool at your place? Does it have a terrifying cleaning robot like this? OK, good. That sounds like a much better setup. The truth of the matter is, Andrew, I don't really have to go back to Portland because my jobs are all things that I can do in a hotel room with a microphone. That's true. So technically, I mean, I want you to believe that I'm so important that, like, I'm being called, like, Portland needs me. But the truth of the matter is, I also could just stay here with you. But then it's like, how long are we going to stay in Portland waiting for –

Or Phoenix.

Yeah.

Phoenix.

Yeah. I mean, how long are we going to stay in Phoenix waiting for this thing to get worked out? I guess – Mary, what do you know about Mitsubishi Vans?

Absolutely nothing.

Oh, that would make you like most of the people that work on cars in Phoenix.

Yeah, so you're at level with everybody else. Yeah, I guess I do this thing, and I was trying to explain this to you yesterday, Luke. I don't know if I was understandable in this, but you mentioned that we found ourselves in a pretty bad situation, but there were a lot of good things breaking our way considering how bad the situation was. The fact that there was a tow truck right there, that there was this guy Ruben who was actually very good at what he does and very personable and all those things. And I find myself when I'm in bad situations kind of counting my blessings like that. When my cars and vans used to break down all the time when I was young, I'd be like, Like, yes, it broke down right on the off ramp on Stearns Road, not in the middle lane, you know, in downtown Cleveland or whatever. And I always say, like, wow, OK, this could be worse. This could be worse.

Our best friend Nora McInerney lives in Phoenix.

And it's like, you guys can come over and do the show. I'm going out of town. And, like, I'm just thinking, and again, I apologize to you, Luke, because I was saying this to you yesterday, but there are 10 people listening who didn't hear this. But, like, if I was on this road trip with Genevieve right now, like everything else is the same, but I'm on the road trip with Genevieve. But I've got to. Way more sex. about even um but I got a cat back at home who's got a cat sitter and needs like three pills a day otherwise he's gonna have seizures and then I have to you know manage that and then there'd be all these other things in my life but like right now don't get me wrong I don't I don't you know necessarily think it's best for me to spend an entire week in Phoenix but if I have to I'm actually in a good position I can do that in a certain way I feel lucky like my responsibility is to do a show with you every day and maybe this even ties back to the TV telethon and kind of what we're doing here I don't know I'm not trying to force it but like I just spent some time yesterday thinking I'm really lucky that yes this is a bad situation but it's also my only responsibility right now is to work on this with you and do some shows that are hopefully entertaining Well, I'm glad that you're taking that perspective, and I think you're right.

We got very lucky in an unlucky situation, which is, by the way, going to be my next motivational speech. Yes. Forget being unreasonable in unreasonable times. Staying lucky in unlucky situations is the new Luke Burbank keynote speech that you can have at your Rotary Club or other get-together. But the other thing that happened that was insanely lucky was when we finally got to the hotel in Phoenix and Ruben got the Delica off of, which that van seemed fairly sizable to me when we were in it. But when we saw it on Ruben's truck, it just looked like a baby. My friend Graham on Twitter said, I want to see a Russian nesting doll situation where the tow truck breaks down and then a bigger truck has to tow the tow truck and the Delica and then it ends up on an aircraft carrier. After the van was, our van was off of Ruben's truck and it was safely back on terra firma, we wanted to take a picture, you know, for the memories. It's all hashtag content. Oh, my God. And I was trying to prop my phone up on the back of this huge flatbed truck that is Ruben's. And I had my backpack, which has this computer in it. And all my, like, the most vital things for me are in that particular backpack. I set the backpack on the back of the truck. It's dark now, by the way. And I put my phone, propped it against the backpack to take the picture. We take the picture. I grab the phone. We're all happy. Ruben high fives all around. Pay for the towing with the APM card. More on that coming up, Rachel Dennis. And we're all ready to go. We're about to head into the hotel. And Ruben comes back around and says, oh, your backpack's on the back of my truck. It's black, by the way. I'll mention the backpack is black. It was completely invisible.

He was looking for some piece of his gear. I think he was maybe just doing a scan to make sure that he hadn't left anything on there. Did I have that right?

Whatever he was doing, he noticed this thing, and I just have to say, had he not noticed that, he would have driven back to Sentinel, Arizona, 99 miles from Phoenix, with my most important work and really worldly possessions, sitting on the back of his flatbed truck. And, Andrew, you pointed out, best case scenario, it would have made it back to Sentinel, Arizona. Right, right. More likely it would have ended up somewhere in between here and there on the road, like our signs.

I get I get panicky just thinking about the moment you make that realization because it might have been an hour later. It could have been, though. I mean, I guess if it was 20 minutes later, we can maybe call him and say, hey, stop. We think the back, you know, I think you would have remembered maybe where you left it. You had his phone number. Maybe you don't even have his phone number. I do have his phone number. But I keep thinking about that imaginary moment where we realize your bag was left on the back of that truck. And I get panicky thinking.

I think that would have broke me. Honestly, like, I'm really proud of us how we made it through this together. We end up having a lovely – how was your second dinner out of Pandemic? Oh, my gosh.

Can we talk about that? That was so good. Because that felt like a real dinner. That was like a real – yeah, it was a wonderful – like, we shared a bunch of entrees, and we had great cocktails. It was really good.

It was exactly what we needed. This place, Belly. Have you been to that place, Mary? Vietnamese? Check it out. It's delicious. We may go back there tonight. I don't know. We live in Phoenix now. But I think honestly If I would have realized After we got Also you know You throw on this It's still super hot We're sweating It's been a long day If I got back to the hotel room After schlepping all these Various bags of gear That we have Got my And then At some point Had that realization That after all of that Andrew I had also left my backpack On the back of a giant Flatbed tow truck I don't know You would have found me Floating in the pool Like the beginning of Sunset Boulevard At the hotel it would be like that you know the guy who ends up dead in the movie I don't I honestly don't think I feel like I'm a pretty like resilient person I don't think I could have rolled with that that would have just ended me it would have just been one bad thing too many

you see and then I would have been like we can get we can wake up early and I can rent a car and it's only a three hour drive you know

I would have quit the podcast is my point you guys now you would host it with Mary which actually sounds like a good show I would actually listen to that

but yeah because all of that is on the assumption christina that it doesn't just fall off the back of the truck which i mean that and that was we know it was exactly 99 miles right yeah so i mean that's a that's a long way for this bag that was on the very end of the flatbed to travel without just like hitting a bump and falling off like there's no way that would have made it all the way back to the service station yeah no way no way

so thankfully uh that disaster was averted and take a breath here we are in nora's backyard by By the way, a huge thanks to Nora, Matthew, Ian.

Sophie, Ralph, Quentin, Stacey and Meredith the dogs, and then cuteness the turtle. Yes, I'll take a picture of cuteness for people. There is a turtle here. Cuteness McInerney Hart is the name of, what is it also? Cuteness the darkness

McInerney. Okay, I have it because she texted it to me, so I'm going to pull it up right now.

Just give it to me. This is, I'll tell you what, this place is teeming with life.

I know. When we came in, it was just like, whoa.

Because they live down here now, but you guys all know Nora does terrible things for asking here on American Public Media on demand is that what we call this network we're apm studios you're on apm studios yeah and they were so nice so as to let us like squat in their house or in the backyard of their house uh so that

we could do this so a big thanks to them so the the turtle's full name is cuteness darkness of doom

mcinerney heart and i'll tell you what she's a cutie yeah yeah i mean you look at the you look at the turtle and it's like of course you would name it that what else would you name that turtle

Right. Yeah. It's that junior, right? You could have named it. You could have named it sploosh.

Oh, that's you know what? That's Sherilyn. Sherilyn Corrales did that. I don't want to take it. We have a dazzling donor that we'd like to thank here on this Friday. Now, we're sort of, you know, winding down the dazzling donors, I think, ideally from last year. Although we're hearing from a few folks that we missed for one reason or another. So let me just get to that part of my.

And I will actually, if you don't mind, I will give the name. I believe this is longtime listener Hess Sa, who we have met at various TBTL events. I can't remember. It will be in the copy where Hess lives now, but I think she's moved around a lot. So we've seen her in various live shows over the years.

Hess is one of the wonderful people that's been donating to the show the last year. And, again, we hope that if you are in a spot financially to keep this thing going, you could pop over to tbtl.net. This is the last day of this thing. I don't know where we are in terms of our goals. They don't tell me any of the goals. I'm not at that pay grade.

I heard yesterday that we were about 83% there. Okay. So that's some, you know.

If you could just help us splooge over the line for that last 17%, it would really mean a lot. And maybe you're somebody who is thinking, well, I don't have that much to donate. I don't even think it's about the amount. I think that what makes our bosses really happy and what allows us to keep doing this show is a lot of people signing up because then it tells them that we people actually do care about this show.

And they can say, like, we have this many people who care about this show.

Exactly. Also, if you know how to fix a Mitsubishi van in lieu of a donation, we will accept that. Hess says, let me start by giving a shout out to my friendos, Megan Tuomi or Tuomi, I should say. i've only said megan's name like a thousand times on the show i still have trouble joe and missy boyle megan letter camp and tiffany heiner it's been amazing to make fantastic connections this way it's kind of hard to explain to my real life friends that i am going to meet a stranger at a bar in korea in the middle of the night and not get the side eye as you can see i was not abducted or sold for parts i'm imagining that uh hess must have met up with a fellow tbch listener in korea somewhere yeah in the middle of the night like most people i am utterly grateful for this program that has been my companion during highs and lows in my life and like most people this show has been my lifeline prior to and through the pandemic i would like to take my brief dazzling donor moment to ask the tens to reach out and connect with me on facebook or slack although i have been extremely blessed through the pandemic i'm finding myself in almost complete social isolation as i have permanently moved to middle tennessee and have very few ways to meet fun people without sounding creepy although i am realizing this may sound kind of weird but what the heck uh you should have heard me when i realized oh shit i live here now i would love to hear from some tens especially in tennessee so if you are a 10 who is looking to keep uh you know another 10 virtual company particularly if you're in Tennessee hit Hess up so that she doesn't feel so lonely in middle Tennessee yeah Hess says finally thank you for providing an awesome space where y'all can appreciate each other I hope someday you both realize how much you and your show has helped people

power out listener Hess thank you Hess you know something that Hess says there reminds me of a conversation that I overheard yesterday I hope it's okay Christina to talk about a conversation

do you know what I'm going to say? I have no idea what you're going to say

Good. You were on the phone to somebody who kept saying, no, I need a kilo. I don't know. No, I'm just joking. When we were at Lisa's house yesterday and we were talking with Farron, listener Farron, who is also there for the show. You guys were talking about you get a certain age as adults and it's a little bit harder to meet people and make friends. And then you throw a pandemic on top of that and it can be even more difficult. Right.

It's like we're not going to school every day. We don't have these kind of built-in social structures. And so one thing that Farron's been doing, and she said that she volunteers with a lot of groups and meets like-minded people in that way. And I think TBTL is another way to find. This is why Hess can be in Korea and just reach out to somebody who she knows is safe and a friend and has something in common and something to bond over, you know, on the different side of the globe. And that's really nice. And we see that happening virtually every single day on the Stens page, on the Slack page. And a lot of these friends become IRL friends.

There are people talking about having meetups again. Like, I can't wait to see those happening and starting up again. The Arizona Tens are already, like, brewing something. So, I mean, it's a really beautiful community to, like, observe. And also, I consider myself a part of now. Right, yes. And it's just, like, instead of playing adult dodgeball, maybe just gather around, like, podcast club, a podcast listening club.

Yeah, if you do have the chance to donate We have some cool thank you gifts Including this TBTL sound box Which continues to bedevil us as we travel around the west Because it is, I have to say It's a beautiful piece of equipment But if you put it in your backpack And something in your backpack is leaning on Your voice of your actual mom saying this It's a little maddening But this thing is full of 16 different audio drops that are from tbtl uh in fact you know it's kind of incredible i feel was it was it little ralph here little little ralph uh who was like playing with this christina i was quentin oh it's quentin okay yeah this is if you have kids i mean just know they are going to be obsessed with this you might need to order two yeah the kids are going to be running around you're never going to see it again but anyway we have the sound machine we have some cool pins we got a cooler Which we could use right now. I know. I was just thinking that. I'm trying to, as my computer, by the way, starts to slow down because of the heat. Yeah, the heat, yeah. I'm thinking, did we learn nothing from Sacramento?

I know. Well, we are under an awning here. You know, we're trying, everybody said keep it from direct sunlight, which we are, but it's just hot.

I know, but like we could have done, I mean, the house is abandoned.

Oh, why are we not inside the house?

Why did we not do it inside the house? Why, we wanted to be as close as possible to this sarlacc of a pool crew.

That sound is amazing. I also wanted to make sure that, I mean, we are asking so much of the McInerney family, and they are so gracious. And it was just, you know, I made a mistake. I didn't bring this box full of equipment. We thought we brought everything, but I left one box behind. Never leave one box behind. I forgot my emergency whistle. Thank God Mary got one for me. We made this agreement like, listen, they are bailing us out so hardcore here. let's just make this so easy on them we just want to kind of we'll just set up outside we'll be very we'll just stay out of the way and then i'm like do you have a power cable they bring me a power cable oh yeah like but one with a power strip oh yeah here's it oh and like do you have a tripod oh yeah but i mean but one for my phone okay oh wait you didn't roast me a chicken i mean i thought you're gonna make me some food before you left so i think one of the reasons like shoved

water in my hand yes i'm giving you water you need to drink it it is true by the way this is a big

difference of being here in arizona i am so thirsty i'm guzzling water you know how kids drink they take both of their hands and they wrap them around the glass kids and donald trump yes and they just hold it up their their mouth that is how i'm drinking today yeah so um thanks

again to nora and matthew for letting us do this uh here at their house and also thanks to everybody who's been supporting tbtl for all these years this is freaking episode 3433 in a collector's series although we're starting over at one because it's the first episode mary has heard yes so monday will be episode two okay um but but but everybody who has been supporting the show for all these years and has been part of this really cool community of listeners the tens of listeners we just thank you so much we feel really lucky to get to do this and also very loved and uh by all of you and and the the level of concern that the tens have for us when they saw the van the picture of the van on the tow truck it's really like really warms my heart Yeah. You know, because like to know that there's this group of people that are legitimately hoping we're OK, that's very fortunate for us. So it's a very lucky position to be in. Yeah, absolutely. So if you can head over to tbtl.net, you can see all of the thank you gifts and all the stuff. And we'd really appreciate it so that we can, you know, do this for another year for our jobs.

I did enjoy the like speculation theory. Now I know what TV writers go through when they, like, leave something on a cliffhanger and people, like, what the WandaVision people were going through. Like, what does this mean? What were some of the theories? Well, first of all, I had, like I mentioned, I posted that Instagram story where I, like, was trying to zoom in on the sign, but it zoomed in on the tow truck instead.

This is before we ever broke down. Before we ever broke down. We had no idea the tow truck would be relevant to the next three hours of our life.

Yeah, exactly. And so people were like, oh, this was, like, foreshadowed.

I am not that thoughtful. I am like planting those seeds. But it was just fascinating to kind of watch people try to string together what could have happened.

Does anybody think that we've done this on purpose to like raise the stakes and like get to tune in factor?

No, they just thought that we ran out of gas and had to get to the station.

Oh, no. It's so much worse. It was so much worse. Way worse.

So much worse than that, unfortunately. Hello and welcome to Top Story. Top Story is we're about to be rich because not only because we have faith that the TBTL listeners will continue supporting the show, but because I think we've hit on a real and I don't ever had the idea, but I'm going to go ahead and try to take the lion's share of the credit. This idea for a TBTL cryptocurrency. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Which now actually I think it was Bruce, maybe. Was that listener Bruce who I'm not sure who designed it. There's a there's an actual. There's a couple of them going on. Oh, okay, okay. Maybe I just saw the one Bruce did, but there are people that have now rendered a splooch coin. Now, Mary, you don't know what the heck we're talking about, but when Andrew and I were in Australia a couple years ago, we were stopped at a... Most of the show is talking about what happened at a gas station. Very little has changed over the years. Andrew went in to use the restroom at a gas station in the northern territory of Australia. This is the outback. This is a real outback country. Yeah, just blooming onions everywhere. Yeah, exactly. It's just growing out of it. It's crazy. You can just walk up and eat them. Yes. It's insane. So Andrew had seen in the bathroom a little kind of helpful sign that was, I think, reminding people to wash their hands.

Because to avoid some sort of, like, I don't know, illnesses that are gastrointestinal.

But to really drive the point home that they'd use a little clip art of a turtle that's having real stomach distress. And it's a very funny picture of a turtle drawing.

And the turtle is sitting on a toilet or a turlet. Yeah, and it's saying splooch. We think it might say splooch. We'll show you the picture after the show, man. You understand why we're attracted to it.

You're an artist. You'll appreciate it. So Andrew showed me a picture of this turtle, and we happened to be recording the show, and it made me laugh so hard. I was dying of laughter. So that's the story on that splooch thing. Well, we've also been talking about non-fungible tokens and cryptocurrency and how we really missed the boat on that. like you know we got in way too late somebody suggested that we start our own cryptocurrency the splooge coin you know what dogecoin is married you follow that stuff okay so what i'm trying to figure out is because dogecoin that was a joke right that was that was made up i didn't know that yeah that was a thing that was started by a couple of people totally as a joke and then elon musk started talking about it and it went from being a joke to being a real thing now and there's actual money that's gone into it and people are making money on this dogecoin thing so i don't know enough about cryptocurrency but i don't understand if dogecoin started as a joke what why can't sploogecoin which started as a joke become a real thing and are we all rich yet

let's be clear all money is made up we all just yes decide what this piece of paper and yes like

hard metals are worth exactly okay so this sounds like a this sounds honestly like i think we can An argument in favor of us doing this. Okay. Because if we, I mean, like, honestly, if we get this thing off the ground, does anybody know computer programming? Yeah. Does anybody know how to mine cryptocurrency? Mary, do you mine cryptocurrency on the side?

I had to figure that out. Even close. Okay.

I think, Christina, this feels like it's in your wheelhouse.

I think I can get this off the ground.

Yeah, okay, by Monday. Can we be rich by Monday?

Rich by Monday or get it started by Monday?

No, just rich. I don't know. Start it Saturday, rich by Monday.

A Monday or this coming Monday?

I know it's a holiday, but this coming Monday would be good.

Well, I'll see what I can do.

We can use that cash.

How many splooge coins do we need to get the Mitsubishi fixed? Good, sir. I will pay you in splooge coins. I don't want to say I'm getting into it with the listeners, but I think it was listener Lisa went on Facebook, and I think Lisa lives in an area that has cicadas. Oh, okay. And she said, I'm paraphrasing here, but she sort of said, I don't really appreciate Luke acting like cicadas are this menace. I've been talking about cicadas a lot because, first of all, in Indiana, you have the cicadas that are high on mushrooms. Their butts fall off. Yep. And they were called flying salt shakers of death by one entomologist. You've also got the real possibility of being peed on by a cicada.

That was yesterday's top story, I believe.

And what troubled me about that was that the people in the piece were all acting like it was NBD.

Yeah.

They were like, it's cute. It's a cicada urinating on you. It's like a little rain It's not cute to me if a bug pees on me And then I watched a YouTube video Associated with the story And it wasn't like a light drizzle It was a full on monsoon of cicada pee If you're in like the rainforest yeah i don't want that so uh lisa was saying luke you know leave it alone with the cicada with bad mouthing the cicadas well how about this i saw this on twitter today uh manu raju who is the chief congressional correspondent for cnn is trying to get ready to do his live hit and a freaking cicada crawls right up his neck he's in the capital he's standing in the capital

listen to this so am i going to be in the break i mean same block out of this or you know take a

break okay the cicada is crawling up his neck he's about to notice oh oh my god

cicada what the hell do i have more on me are they adding my hair Oh, yes, that's right. Where are these cicadas coming from? Wow. Oh, thank goodness. I was like, what is that? I was like, there's something. Oh, my goodness. Okay, where were we? I think I'm saved from cicadas.

You know what I thought was kind of interesting about this is I saw this. I saw it on Twitter. My friend David Gura tweeted it out, but it was from the official CNN Twitter feed, which is like it's learning. Like these news operations are learning that this kind of stuff is actually funny and humanizing. Because 10 years ago, CNN does not release itself a clip of its news guy saying the F word a million times because a bug's crawling on him. Right, right. That's just not how it would work, but they understand now that there's actually value and interest, something Christina knows all about in her line of work.

Right, right. That was kind of entertaining. So I was wondering, so it was mostly the F word that we were hearing there based on the video? Because I didn't see the video. I think so. Okay, yeah. I was wondering, because those were long beeps, and there was a lot more of them than I thought. Yeah.

Yeah. Foul mouth. So I'm just trying, like, again, I'm not trying, this is not the week for me to go to war against the tens of listeners. No. For me, to remind them that they're amazing and they're the only reason we get to do this job. But I would just say to Listener Lisa, checkmate. Yeah. Okay, the cicadas, the menace of the cicadas, it's very real. They are coming for us all. On the subject of great animals, this parrot singing along with its owner playing the song Don't Fear the Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult. Oh, what a song. It's my new favorite thing. I saw a listener, Spritzy, on Twitter. Actually, I don't know if Spritzy is a listener. There's just somebody that follows me on Twitter They tweeted this out Somehow it seemed like they're part of the TBTL universe

I think so

But this is a guy who has a whole bunch of YouTube videos Where he just kind of plays Strums his acoustic guitar to some classic rock riffs And then his parrot just gets in there And likes to kind of free jam Just kind of do its thing So take a listen to this

What? What? Wow. Honestly?

It's pretty good, right? This is starting over again. So that was like the whole clip. I'll just play. I'll let it play one more time. Partially because my computer's so hot, I can't stop the fire. It got the message. I've seen the footage. That's not like Doctor. That's just this. He does all these different songs, and the parrot just chills and then does its little improv singing. I was going to say that. That is actually better than the karaoke we heard at the junkyard. Oh, my God. That never happened, Christina. I men in blacked you last night. Do you remember? I made you forget that your first meal after the pandemic. He held up a fork to my forehead and tried two men in black.

In front of the server.

I was trying to erase her memory from the actual first meal that she had after the pandemic, which was very forgettable, in Oceanside, California, at the Junkyard Bar and Grill. But, yeah, I feel like I'm not saying I'm going to get a parrot, but remember we were at listener Cheryl and Lance's place in Corvallis, and they have a really cute bird that says treat that they were feeding. And I was like that. And it was like that bird made the right amount of bird noise. It was in their home, but it wasn't like shrieking. It was just kind of like cooing softly and it kind of made it nice and peaceful in there. Beautiful bird.

Very cute.

And then this thing, this bird, I mean, listen, I'm a person who's my strongest human connection right now is with my Roomba. Ram. I feel like maybe I should I get a bird I don't think so I mean a bird

you're notoriously anti bird on this show

he doesn't even like the bird is the word that's true what is with you and birds

your mom had a parrot named oops it was a cockatiel it ate my dad's credit cards there's a cartoon about it on YouTube look it up it's actually pretty great also Christina in the car yesterday in the before we broke down boy weren't we innocent then I know. Oh, my God, I know.

Tiny mic. Hey, what are we going to get for snacks, everybody?

Yeah, I know. Even in that last one, the one before we had the tow truck, I'm just like, my hair is blowing in the wind, and I'm like, we're getting gas and snacks.

Yeah, so that's like, what, like 30 seconds before it starts belching. But even then, Christina, you were asking for Instagram, like, what song would you be happy to never hear again? I think you said Don't Stop Believin' by Journey.

Yeah, I never want to hear Don't Stop Believin' by Journey.

I said the song Firestarter by The Prodigy. That's a good pick. Because I don't like that song, and I don't want to hear it. And then Andrew said, bird is the word.

It just comes in. I mean, I don't hate that song. I actually kind of appreciate its role in kind of like a real garage-y era of rock and roll that might have even been pre-punk in some ways. But have you ever been somewhere, like now, like we've heard the song, we've appreciated it. Now you're chilling out, and then somebody puts out the bar, bar, bar, bar, is that good? Does anybody need that anymore? We've acknowledged it. Same with rock around the clock. Yeah, that one we don't need to hear anymore. I mean, we've heard them. That's good.

I can pull up the answers that people gave me yesterday, too. Okay. Hold on one second.

And I also said Life is a Highway, which is what got us on there, that Tom Cochran song.

More importantly, I would like to hear what Mary song,

what song you would ever hear again. What song would you never like to hear?

Do you want to turn the mic over? I'm embarrassed to tell you this, but it's Brandy, You're a Fine Girl. Oh, you don't like it?

I don't like it. Yeah. Who does that song? Brandy, you're a fine girl. That doesn't answer your question. What a good wife you would be. It's just me singing it. Is that, is that...

My Love and My Lady is the Sea. Oh, gosh, it's awful.

Do-do-do-do-do-do-do.

And I adapted it to sing as the mother of the bride at my daughter's wedding. Looking Glass? Looking Glass. Wait, wait, hold on.

Wait a second, Mare. So you... I just like saying Mare because I watch Mare of Easttown now. It makes me feel like a real cool Philly guy. So you don't like that song, but then you change the lyrics to sing it to your daughter at her wedding?

Because my kids would torture me with that song. They knew how much I didn't like it. So my daughter's name is Annie and I changed it to, Annie, you're a fine girl. What a good wife you would be unless you are hungry or have to pee.

How did she take that?

Hated it. I had to apologize.

Mary, I'm going to introduce you to my mom. I think you guys would really hit it off because my mom has a very similar energy, very entertaining. She loves to, you know, sort of like be the center of attention. She loves to be funny. A lot of her jokes may or may not work. Some of them are hurtful.

She's apologizing a lot.

No, my mom never apologizes. That's the difference. Yeah, Luke's mom doesn't apologize. My mom will do a move where we get everybody together, and then she'll make us sit and watch her and my dad sing Bridge Over Troubled Water, which is kind of a bit of an ask because they don't know the lyrics.

Okay, well, is that important for karaoke?

And also there's no music. Okay, so is that a problem? It's just them singing at a cappella. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. You didn't do that at your daughter's wedding, did you?

No, but I apologize because I have another mom move for you. Okay. I was really worried about you on the road, and I found these things that I thought you could take in the car. Mary. Dude wipes.

Do you know that I actually have these at my apartment in Portland? Dude wipes, and they make me laugh every time?

They're minty. What about a minty flavor in that region of the body? That makes no sense to me.

I don't have the minty ones, but I will absolutely use these, and I will report back. I think the idea of dude wipes are so funny. Every time I use one, I think, I got a dude butthole. I really do. By the way, your donations are not refundable. I'm sorry.

Oh, and Mentos the Freshmaker. Well, that's garbage in, garbage out.

Oh, I see. So I'm really just, I'm minting up the whole process. See, now, Mary, you don't have to apologize for mothering me a little bit, because you know who's not mothering me on this trip? My mother. My mother, who on Tuesday was blowing my phone up during the show, trying to figure out what happened to her Powell's bookstore gift card.

Oh, right.

And so, whereas that's where her energy is at right now, you are bringing me these very helpful wipes, thank you, and these Mentos, which I'm sure everyone has to ride in the car with me, will thank you for me eating these breath-freshening little things. Let me ask you something. Because you've never heard an episode of the show, now you have heard an episode of the show. Shoot us straight. How was it? how does this compare to what you thought we would sound like like just please leave us a

yelp review oh i will leave a yelp review absolutely

have a yelp page for this you should have a yelp page so i'm amazed at well first of all i apologize arizona apologizes we're very sorry for all the heat and and how it's taking nobody told us arizona was going to be hot in late may i tried to yeah i did i tried you probably did but you kids don't listen uh that but that's okay um i'm amazed at how you arrange everything here and how much goes into the show i mean the cables and the wires and the regulation of temperature and the cohesiveness which would with which you you know all banter with one another um and i'm when i when i look back on the show i'm trying to think other than the breaking of the van what is there where

where's what's the takeaway like what happened kind of like what are we even like if the van hadn't broken down what would we be talking about right now yeah nothing that's why i brought the

dude wipes because i thought that would at least you know give us a little something to

she's trying to make his content hashtag content mary you are wise beyond your years because honestly we could have done a whole show on dude wipes yeah the other day the other day i'm sorry i'm now eating a mentos as well the other day i was using a dude wipe at my house the reason i got them was because i couldn't find a dude wipe i couldn't find i usually use these Cottonelle ones. You don't use a Tushy? I have a Tushy at the house that I moved out of when I got divorced. And I didn't want to go to bat for the Tushy in the sort of division of the assets, so to speak. That's not bad at all. I wish I could fire them. I cannot believe you just told that joke. But I was at the store and I usually buy these Cottonelle wipes and they didn't have them. And all they had were these dude wipes. And I was using them and I was laughing because the idea that like you need dude wipes and I again I thought I was singing a song called I have a dude butthole and I thought this in my head I wasn't singing out loud I don't want to make Randy my Roomba feel weird and I thought to myself this is a good topic for the show to talk about with Andrew that these dude wipes and Mary you instinctively knew that this was good

content not only that I made you cookies they're in the shape of cacti and they're in the shape of hearts and the hearts are for all your listeners who love you so much from what i read on the slack channel well mary they're loving you right now well that's very kind of all of you thank you i love you all but the hearts when i was decorating the cookies i only had green frosting and i kept thinking why am i putting green hearts now to hear that you had a green fluid leak leaking from your van maybe there was you know something was going on in the universe something was happening so i

guess my question to you mary and no pressure because we will happily come back here next year and make you listen to another episode of the show. But could you see yourself ever becoming a listener now, or are you going to stay in the realm of a person who just interacts with the newsletter?

So that's a good question because I am very visual as a person. It's hard for me to listen. I would rather be in a quiet room reading and watching the little Hey Dummies videos that you do. By the way, I asked you a Hey Dummy question and nobody ever got back to me on it.

What was the question?

It was about all the flavors and types of salt there are in the earth. Did you ever get that one?

I don't think so. What was the question? You wanted me to list them all?

No, I wanted you to talk about the fact that how many people know that salt is not just salt. It's really amazing. There are all different colors and flavors. I have black lava salt at my house, truffle salt, pink Himalayan salt. What are the differences in salt?

This is more of a comment than a question. I feel like this is your video to make, Mary. You know so much more about it than we do.

What inspired it was the fact that you guys are the salt of the earth. What your show is. Oh, that's so nice. It's really just you're down there, you're in the trenches with everybody, and you're talking about all kinds of things that just everybody needs to talk about. This is really refreshing. And I can see now, this is the first show I listened to, you probably sustained a lot of people over the pandemic. Because this would be this little window into the outside world of nice, kind, funny people talking about interesting things.

We have heard that feedback from the listeners and that has been really, really gratifying because it's sort of like I don't I don't want to pull a muscle patting us on the back too hard. But we have kind of been doing this companionship radio companionship podcasting for a long time and always been a little bit amazed that people keep donating and that like American public media allows us to just do this. Yeah. And then this year came or the last year, the pandemic came and it became clear to us that it was actually something that was really, really helping a lot of people feel connected to to the outside world. And it was almost like we were not to get woo about it was almost like we were just kind of like, you know, waiting for this little moment for our show to actually actually be meaningful to people. And we've been hearing that so much this week.

with this TV cell-a-thon. So it's very nice of you to say that, Mary, and it's been really, really humbling and gratifying to hear that from the listeners.

Well, there are many industrial complexes out there. We deal with the medical, the prison, the romantic industrial complex.

The dude wipe industrial complex.

Exactly. And there doesn't seem to be really, especially if I give American public media a lot of credit for this because there's really no radio industrial complex from what I can tell, and you guys are like the front runners of that. the fact that there is not that industrial thing so when you make a donation you just remember all the times that you laughed while listening to the show you you write that check with a smile and I'm not here to like promote donors but yeah but I mean I honestly it would be nice if you did well

I will then you're doing an amazing job Mary I'm not kidding have you worked in like radio at any

point in your life no the only time I really did that was when I had to ask my dad for money when i was in college a long long time ago but wait a sec oh that was when you were basically doing a

mary pledge drive pretty much where you were asking your dad for money yeah you are a natch at this honestly you should i know you have a pretty full plate with all of the projects that you get up to but i could see you being a beloved a phoenix public radio commentator how kind of you thank you i mean i don't know if you listen to kjzz i do it's a great station and uh like i I think you should write some commentaries for them.

And K-Bock as well. Although classical and jazz really don't lend themselves much to comedy. You want to kind of go seriously. Right.

But KJZZ, they have talk programming, right? Yeah, they do. I think your first commentary, Dude Wipes.

Okay, I'm on it. Think about it.

But Mary, the first time that we had you on the show, we knew that you were an extremely special person and extremely intriguing and entertaining. So we appreciate you being part of TBTL in your own unique way. But back to my question, which you kind of delicately did not answer. Do you think you'll ever listen to another episode of the show?

Absolutely. Oh, really? Maybe not this one because I know what I said. I said what I said. I was here. I was here. Why do I need to relive this?

Thank you so much, Mary. Thank you for everything. It's been fun getting to know you over the years. And also, I will apologize to you. And actually, I should apologize to Cheryl and Adam and Megan and everybody. Oh, there's the monster again. And, of course, Lisa yesterday, everybody whose house we showed up at, when you first see me and we are getting ready to set up these shows, I am a bit of a – I am not the most gracious I could be. I am very intense and focused on getting everything up and running so that we can get the live stream up live at 10 and then, of course, overheated and down by 10 after. Ideally. But anyway, so I'm glad now that we can relax a little bit and have some fun. And you see that I'm not just a total rude guy. So thank you.

I understand your anxiety having watched you do all this stuff.

With two broken fingers, by the way. Anyway, thank you. This is fun. I'm so glad it worked out even though it wasn't our original plan. But it is what it is.

So I guess that's going to be where we wrap things up. We could do Drops of Stupider. You want me to let you know about that? I guess we should do Drops of Stupider. No, no, no, I just completely, it's only fitting that I forgot about the championship of Drops of Stupider here on the, like, arguably the most important day for this whole competition. I've been forgetting this thing, like, for the last two weeks, but here we go. It's time for the Drops of Stupider. Wow, your computer's literally fried. Yeah, listen to that. Your computer's literally fried. Luke. Okay, we got it. It's working. Okay. Hold on, starting it over. It's okay, everything's all right. Yes. That's just absolute stupidity. If my computer dies from this, it was worth it.

Oh, my gosh. After this music, please turn the whole thing off and just put it inside. Does anybody need to fry an egg?

I've got just the cooking surface for you.

It's called my computer. We can't have your computer totally fried. Also, we haven't played any audio from mine for a while, so we will see if this works. But I will say we were down to marry the drops of stupider. You look confused. With the help of a listener, and now I'm just going to call him associate producer Jake in Chicago, we have been playing some of the greatest moments in TBTL history over the past 12 years as nominated by and then voted on by the listeners. Jake has been coordinating this. We started with 32 clips of tape. We are down to two of them. As I said at the beginning of the show, it was Luke telling the story of his epic boat crash about two or three years ago versus the time Luke and I came across that splooch, the diarrhea turtle sign in Australia, and we were losing our minds laughing at it. Are you ready, Luke? This is it.

So this is, let me hold on. Just let me reset here and reset my mind. I think also Kiki had to go in to see if she could turn the phone back on. Have we lost the feed again? That's great. You know what? We're incentivizing people to download the podcast. Yeah, that's true. Trying to not, you know, make it too easy on folks to just sit.

they're at home with their popcorn watching us on the live stream we've got to make got to get those downloads baby so basically what you're about to tell me andrew what you're about to reveal is in the minds of the listeners the greatest moment in the history of this podcast

so far this podcast oh so far wait it looks like somebody's just nominating this show as we speak

i think that this should be on the list i think i think we may need to like extend the voting so So, you know, 3,433 episodes, 12-plus years, all kinds of adventures, and this is going to be the moment where we learn what the greatest moment in the show was.

Yes. It feels big. If my computer isn't fried.

Okay, well, I'll stop stalling.

Here we go.

I am holding myself by my fingertips. Wow. Hanging there in midair. Wow. Like, slightly above the water. And I'm just thinking to myself

Well, this is how this ends This is how this ends That was from your epic boat journey

I am the best part of this show You needed a win today, my friend I kind of needed a W I kind of needed a W Wow, you know what? Honestly, I think I sort of have said a version of this before Related to that tape But there's something extremely important for me about realizing that that is the listener's favorite moment in the history of this show. And what's important about it is that when it was happening in real life for me was so crushing. What I did, Mary, was I had this boat that I didn't really know how to drive because I had a fantasy of being the kind of person who was out on the water on this boat and kind of figured if I can get that, then my life will make more sense. I'll feel better about myself. Ended up crashing it in the marina with my friends and their parents on board. got out into the water actually got out of the marina and then ran out of gas and then realized there was a hole in the side of the boat where i'd hit one of the other boats and then had to get towed back into the marina um by ruben which is the craziest part of this story a lot of toes same guy that helped us out of sentinel arizona and it was just so it really was a moment where i felt so humiliated and i felt because it was just a very public embarrassment i mean i embarrass myself on the show all the time but i'm in control of that like when i sing dude butthole song i know what i'm doing that is that's like an active choice by me this was just massive humiliation for me being towed back into the marina past all the people i had hit and it it really just felt like an extremely low moment and to know that something like that can then generate something that has made the listeners laugh or think was an a really kind of important moment i don't know important is the right way to put it but like just the idea that good things can come out of things that seem very very bad that principle is really a great thing for us to all think about

yes and i i'm not trying to feed a fed horse here by bringing everything back but i mean these are the final moments of our tbtl-a-thon we only do this once a year so i appreciate y'all putting up with a show that's always pretty navel-gazy being even more navel-gazy but i mean that does Because having this show as an outlet and feeling like we have friends out there that we are gathering stories for as we knock around this world and make mistakes really makes things worthwhile. Like yesterday, I think one of the reasons the three of us were able to kind of remain pretty calm in the face of some pretty big adversity in the middle of nowhere in the desert was because we said, you know what, though, we're going to tell the listeners about this. Yes. And this is going to be interesting. And we keep you know, we are we always have the listeners not far from our minds as we're going through things, whether it's individually or in this case, which was better together.

Yeah, you're so right. That's a real privilege for us that we have this outlet that like when something when something not great happens or something weird happens, we can know like particularly you and I, Andrew, can know that like, yeah, but it's going to be an interesting story tomorrow. on the show like we're so lucky to get to do that so i just want to say thanks to everybody who's been making it possible for this to be our job for all these years and um we're hoping that we get to do it for another year so if you um have been for some reason on the fence i don't know why you're this far into this episode you're also on the fence about the exactly if you came here because you're a mary the tb the former tbtl virgin fan and you just you know you found the show to be enjoyable please take a moment go to tbtl.net and help us keep doing this thing I think that's going to wrap it up from Arizona we like this is not for effect I legitimately don't know how or when we're going to get home so tune in Monday to find out where we are and what the heck is going on with us we'll see you then until then have a great great weekend please stay safe take care of yourselves take care of each other Mary thank you once again you're a treasure really really appreciate you you're the best as are all of you, the tens of listeners. Christina, thank you for rolling with us and being part of this weirdness the last couple of days. All right, we'll see you all on Monday. Until then, have a great weekend, and please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Power out.