Muse

Welcome to Federici's. What can I get for you guys?

Well, as hard as it is to believe, given our apparent ages, this is my son.

Seems about right.

Okay, good. My son is currently studying at a local pizza academy. Really? Which one? New York Pizza Academy.

Well, then I hate you, because I'm a pizza academy in New York, man. Wonderful. So, what fraternity are you pledging?

i'm not there are no fraternities at new york pizza academy that's right you correctly answered

my trick question now i'm bound by pizza academy tradition to grant you any request wow this could

not have gone any better we need to see all your delivery receipts from the last two months oh you got that delivery receipt exam coming up huh what a bear here you go take your time i'll be in the

back trying to think of other ways to help you tbtl in a few hours you're going to be smarter

than anyone you've ever met do you like see what i see a talking duck yeah that's it i've been doing too much toot this is malicious fecal distribution you know you're overthinking it buddy yeah i mean just kind of see this as a fun thing to do or you make a little bread our apologies it's okay okay

We'll be right back. And you're off to an awesome start. Thank you.

All right. Hello. Good morning and welcome, everyone, to a Thursday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

I just want to hug this show and never let it go.

My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. I know this podcast is a very big part of your life. You've mentioned it to me multiple times. Coming to you from the Nest Broadcast Center high in the sky above Portland, Oregon, where we are looking at another beautiful day, although I'm happy to say temperatures are now sub 90 degrees, which I've talked a big game on this show about a couple of things. One, I can drink coffee shortly before going to bed. Weird flex, but OK. The other thing is I've said that as I get older and now the ripe old age of 45, I actually don't mind warm weather as much. And that is true. But boy, 95, 95, I was feeling it the last couple of days. It was toasty. So glad that we're getting down below 90 degrees here in the 503. Speaking of numbers, this is the 3437. That is episode 3437 in a collector's series.

Let the fun begin.

Where we're bringing back an old segment, Sky Jinx Woo. Sky Jinx Woo. in which we talk about stories related to air flight air travel i think sky jinx has been on hiatus for most of the pandemic because most of us haven't been flying very much during the pandemic well that is changing and as people are coming back onto airplanes they are bringing their own alcohol they are getting very drunk and they are being a menace to both the other passengers and the staff of the airlines drunk people are so mellow a number of the major u.s airlines are delaying bringing back alcohol service because they say that drunk people are a danger on their flights raising the question do we even need to be drinking so much or at all on flights don't get me wrong one of the great joys in my life is to eat a cheese a box of little cheeses and crackers and drink a glass of red wine on an alaska airlines flight but on the other hand is it the best environment we're stressed out we're in a giant aluminum tube full of farts is it the best time for us to be going ham anyway uh we'll look into that also about two-thirds of the world's commercial airplanes were grounded during the pandemic and mostly they were grounded in dry desert environments because that's better i guess for the equipment the equipment lasts longer in an arid environment and they had a bunch of these planes that were stored out in victorville california where the folks bringing these uh these planes out of storage, un-mothballing them, if you will. They had to bring something called a wheel whacker to get all of these snakes out of the M-F-ing plane. Oh, God, I don't like to think about snakes. Yeah, they're rattlesnakes living in Qantas jets in Victorville, California. We'll tell you what's going on with that. And then, time permitting, we'll tell you the story of this kid in Spain who got mad at his parents. I'm mad at you, Dad! Because they would not let him wear a track suit to the local village. and so he started digging a hole and four years later he's not done yet he has made an incredible underground fort with wi-fi and he's now 20 years old by the way and uh so uh we will bring you the latest on that speaking of kids and fantasy it's a uh blurs day thursday so we'll be celebrating the blurs days as well can't do any of it with the help uh without the help that is of this guy oh speaking of madness this guy the world needs to see the madness that is my upper torso okay he just started going back to the gym and the results are already apparent he is andrew walsh he's joining me right now from the roosevelt neighborhood of seattle washington good morning my friend hey man you

don't mind me doing the show topless today right just want to let my muscles kind of breathe yeah after that day of pumping iron actually i pumped zero iron i did nothing i was on a well you got

two broken fingers i'm impressed that you even uh darkened the door of a of a gym with your what I mean, we heard about the bugs up your butt yesterday. You're dealing with a lot of physical maladies to go and work out. So I salute you, sir.

Thank you. You know, I had talked on this show a while back. I think it was, I think even before I was fully vaxxed, or maybe even before I had my first shot, I had just, like, floated a trial balloon, like, should I go back to the gym? I know the gym is open again. I can work out in a mask. I'd really missed, you wouldn't know what to look at me, But I'd really missed going to the gym because, wait, that made it sound like I looked good during the pandemic. You wouldn't know it to look at me that I missed the gym. You know what I mean.

Anyone who's listened to the show for more than one episode knows that that's not, that would never be the nature of a statement that you would utter about your corporeal form. So I think you're safe. We all know. We all take that in the spirit it was intended.

Exactly. So anyway, but I had just been in a good routine before the pandemic broke out. Just like I was going to the gym almost every day. That's when I started listening to the Levitard show pretty regularly. And I had sort of had that connection to it as like just part of my routine. Then I would stop at the same 7-Eleven on the way home and get a Gatorade and put it on ice in my water bottle, which just it was a new thing that I was experimenting with and I missed. Anyway, I missed it a lot during the pandemic. And then I said, well, once I'm vaxxed, you know, I can't wait. That'll be one of the first things I do. I'll start going to movies again and I'll go to the gym. And then I don't know if it I think it was mostly the fact that I broke my finger before I got fully vaccinated. So I guess to complete my thought before I was toying with the idea of going to the gym before my vaccination, but I did not follow through on that. I did not decide that that was a good idea. So I was like, I'll go after I'm vaccinated. And then I broke my finger right before my second shot. And I did feel very fragile with this thing and thought, well, I'm probably not going to go to the gym until I get this weird kind of pin contraption pulled off of my finger. But then yesterday, yesterday was the first kind of post TBTL-a-thon Wednesday where I really had a lot of like I got done with my work. And while I had other projects to work on, like my Concur, I have like 100,000 receipts, as do you, Luke. And I promised myself that yesterday I was going to start like, you know, I'm the Cruella of concur receipts.

I've got one hundred thousand and one.

Yeah, right.

Somebody wrote on Twitter the other day, like, look, I'm not siding with Cruella, but one hundred and one Dalmatians is too many. Let's be honest.

It's a lot. I mean, they got it over their heads. I actually don't really know the plot of that movie. I don't remember.

Cruella is the good person.

Yeah.

Weird naming on that show. Weird. I don't know why they decided to go with that for the for the hero.

Yeah. Yeah, whenever I think, all I think of is Mr. Burns, feel my vest or whatever. See my vest. See my vest, yeah. So what happened at the gym? Sorry, now I'm just thinking about Mr. Burns. So yesterday. I'll go on the radiola. Wow. I thought that was the drop, man. That was really good.

You're flush with endorphins from working out. Wait, wait, wait.

That was you, right? I'm not joking.

That was me. I'm not kidding, man.

Go back and listen to the tape. That hit me out of the blue It took me a second to realize that was you

You'll know it's me because I don't even think that's the drop I think it's As often is the case with me I think I'm like one or two words off with it I think he says radiolo I'll go on the most popular show On the radiolo or something

Yeah here is it this here

That's it the radio

I'll go on the most popular program of the day I assume that's still Don McNeil and his breakfast club But wait, there's another one where he says radiola or something.

Anyway, please, I've interrupted your story too many times already. Tell me about the gym.

Great heavens, what kind of radiola show is this? That's what it is. You combined a couple of drops. But either way, I was there for it. Thank you. All of that is to say, why did I end up going yesterday? You know, I had been putting it off because of my broken fingers and feeling generally fragile and gearing up for the TBTL-a-thon and maybe just not feeling.

like i had the mental space for the gym in my life it just hadn't occurred to me and then yesterday i was done with my work about midday and i'm like okay i gotta dig into all this concur stuff and i was like ah but i'm hungry i should go grab something to eat and i thought well wait what if when you're done eating you swing by the old gym arena which is another thing that uh mr burns says i believe yes let me find that drop here um and i was i looked down at my finger and i said i I mean, I put my finger through a lot more by like, you know, going on the road and setting up.

Honestly, you were doing you were doing functional medicine or functional physical therapy for the entire week we were doing the trip. You were hoisting tables and chairs out of the van and running equipment. And that was probably more of a workout that you would maybe do at the gym.

Exactly. Like there was or certainly put my finger more in the way. I'm like, I can be on a and I said, you know, you don't have to. I said to myself, you don't have to like go ham, as you like to say at the gym. Like, it's your first time back in over a year. I haven't been in any kind of space like that. You know, I've been in some restaurants and bars, but I haven't been in, like, a gym. I don't know what the rules are there anymore. But let's go check it out. Like, the finger can be fine on an elliptical, and then I can maybe just do some crunches. Like, neither one of those are finger intensive. So I'm really curious how this is going to work out. I almost brought my Vax cards with me, but I was like, nah, I don't. It's 24-hour fitness, which is, as we discussed, more like 20-hour fitness at this point. I'm like, I don't think they're going to ask for Vax cards. And if they do, well, then I'll deal with that later. So I just went, and I walked in, and I was surprised to see that the guy behind the counter – Now, I don't know if this is breaking Washington laws or not, but the young buff man behind the counter was not wearing a mask at all. i i didn't know that employees couldn't of any establishment could go maskless i don't know if he was uh flouting the rules or not i have started to see that a bit here and there in fact the hotel

that we stayed at in phoenix uh i there was you know a like a plastic partition but it was like the employees it was very haphazard i'm not saying this to drag anyone there everybody was very nice And I'm assuming they were vaxxed, but it was like people would have masks on. Then some people would have the mask on to be pulled down. Then some people wouldn't. It was like I think we're moving into this moment where I would guess the law on the books in places like Washington and Oregon is if you were working somewhere, you're supposed to be masked. But people are also just starting to go, I don't know, man, we're all vaxxed. Just everybody. Everybody just play it as it lies or something.

Yeah. And it didn't bother me too much. By the way, I mean, just I'm so proud of myself for saying flout correctly there. You know, I wanted to say flaunt. Right. But that's wrong. Good job

You nailed Transgressive yesterday You didn't make it to the end of yesterday's show You got to listen for a real treat And you're getting the rare W

I am now flaunting the fact that I got flout right I'm flaunting my flout I love this side of you I'll write it down So anyway, I was a little surprised by that But I said, hey, this is my first time back they usually to log in there or like to sign in when you get there is you put your little finger on a little like biometrics device and you just sign in with your fingerprint it's been that way for a decade or however long i've been going there now um and so i walk in i realize oh those are gone and i'm like oh right i guess kind of the you know we were trying not to touch the same things for a while so maybe that's a safety thing so the guy now the guy just he's like what's your phone number and i gave him my phone number i'm like at first i thought he was gonna be a little Kurt with me because he wasn't giving me much attention he was having a conversation with somebody else but then I said hey just this is my first time back like what are the rules what do I need to know and he actually ended up being a very very helpful young man he said you know feel free to wear the mask if you want but there's no mask rules the the locker room is fully open you know try to social distance with people we have some machines blocked off so that you don't have two machines two people working out directly next to them on machines but you know except for like there's like a sauna hot tub or something that i would never set foot in anyway i'm not going to set foot in the hot tub at the 24-hour fitness next to northgate anytime soon that was and to be honest pre-pandemic that was probably also your policy yes exactly absolutely i didn't even know those things were back there until like a year or two ago anyway uh so i went in but here's i don't think this is very interesting but i will say the most interesting part for me was I you know I go directly into my routine right I go into the locker room I don't show up in gym clothes I like to show up and leave in street clothes so I go back to the gym I or I go back to the locker room and first of all I noticed like wow this is midday and still kind of pandemic times like it's relatively dead I was able to get the best locker the one that I always hoped to get nobody was around me that was nice and then I'm you know in my gym attire and I'm ready to go to the elliptical, I'm still still leaving the mask on and now keep in mind like i'm double vaxxed every not double vax but you know i'm fully vaxxed and passed the you didn't get all the vax i've got all of them

yeah even the ones yeah they're even the ones that did poorly in trials yeah i got all of them

i made my own vax i've been i've been cooking up stuff in the kitchen here and injecting it just

like why sausage vax luke someday someday science someday science will recognize that it was one

dose it was delicious but the problem is it doesn't go through your veins because your veins are too clogged to actually make its way through i realized i had a dream last night where i was at a 7-eleven and people were getting their vaccinations from um like the uh the soda machine you could like put a cup under there and the vex would like kind of come out but it would

it was like a it's not the worst idea by the way to reach these last stragglers you go to make a graveyard at 7-eleven and just a freaking needle drops down and pokes you in the

hand yeah the big gulp vaccination they call it yeah um but anyway this was this was the moment that felt really really weird to me as i i come out to the gym floor i find the elliptical that works for me and i get on the elliptical and i kind of forget that i'm wearing my mask even at first because i've just been wearing it so much but i was going to say before that so much of my mask wearing as we've said on the show and i have been very diligent with my mask wearing through all of this has been less of me feeling like I'm protecting myself but me feeling like a I'm doing the right thing be I'm sending a message to other people let them know that I'm doing the right thing see just making other people feel comfortable around me like it's been very rare that I've been in a place where I feel like I'm wearing this mask to protect me for better for worse but here I am fully vaxxed now in the gym on the elliptical like a minute or two in and suddenly I realize oh i'm still wearing my mask i guess i don't have to but i didn't just rip it off it was the first moment that felt really weird to me like naked and afraid sort of like i i was like well it'll be a lot better if i take this thing off i can breathe better as i do this exercise but it just felt so wrong and i felt very vulnerable like i'm around other people there was one fellow in front of me he was wearing a mask there was one woman to my left she was not wearing a mask either way I'm like, do I believe in this vaccination or not? And, again, I know that it's not 100% for those of you who are quickly emailing me that. But, you know, it protects you. I have the Moderna one, which has really great protection rates. But, like, I felt it was like a weird leap of faith. I felt like Indiana Jones when he had to take that leap of faith where he had to step out into the chasm and just assume that the land bridge was there. Do you remember that? I think it was from the third one. It's dumb, though. It's just a perspective thing. And, like, when the camera moves, you can then see the land bridge. Couldn't he have just shuffled off to the left or the right and moved his perspective a little bit? Always bothered me. But anyway, it felt like that. Have you had any moments like that?

Well, it's funny because, God, this is just going to turn into, like, gym talk today, I guess. But I was on my Tuesday when it was, like, extremely warm here. I thought, oh, you know, it would be fun to go sit by a pool somewhere. And then I thought, you know, I co-own a house with a pool It's very far away, okay, let me focus on Portland And so I was like

Just acknowledging the little gut punch there for a second

Let's just say It was noted Somewhere in my mind that it's very hot And I was like, God, I would love to sit by a swimming pool And I thought I got one of those I sort of have at least half I'd like to sit by half of a swimming pool But anyway, that's fine But it was it was funny because I was like, you know, I was sort of calling around. I called the McMinimins. There's a McMinimins facility called Edgefield, which is out in. I don't know the geography that well yet, but it's a little bit outside of town, but not too far.

And I think it is that I stayed in the Beaverton one.

I don't think so. I think it's the other direction, but it's I'm sure similar. It's some massive place that used to be like I think it was literally like, you know, do we say insane asylum? anymore i don't know what we call it was i think it was like an asylum of some kind and now of course it's a bunch of cute restaurants and it has a soaking pool and so i was like i'll go out there well they were like you have to be staying at the hotel today to go there um normally they sell day passes but they weren't doing it because of the holiday weekend i don't know why that i need to point that out but just lest people email me and say you could have gotten a day pass i tried then i called the apartment building next to mine which is very fancy andrew it's called five mlk they have a pool on the roof i tried to break out the charmingest burbank charm that's ever charmed on the leasing agent and i almost got there but basically saying hey uh what are the chances uh of me maybe visiting that sweet rooftop pool that you guys have even though i'm not living there

what if i took a tour of an apartment what if i you know i was just trying to be funny and likable and she it was kind of working but then she said you know because of covid andrew you'll be unsurprised here she's like right now the rule is like even people that live in the apartment building and are paying rent can't bring any guests yeah the only people who can be up there are people that live in the building which makes sense yeah so it turns out i know somebody who has a membership to this like very fancy health club out in a different direction into the sort of suburbs of portland and that fancy club has a swimming pool and so my friend said yeah i'll just like put you on the like list or whatever and you can go to this this fancy gym and and she said by the way this fancy gym if you're vaccinated you don't have to wear a mask so i got there and i was like i can walk i'm vaccinated i've been vaccinated for a long time i know i can walk in here with no mask and i did i wanted to just feel the feeling of being in a i mean it's a massive facility too like it's like the ceilings are like 200 feet high like it wasn't like some tiny little basement where like i was never within 20 feet of anyone but still i got i got in there and i was walking around now this is where the story gets interesting only to you andrew i'm walking through this place heading back towards where the pool is and um i see that there's a a tall gentleman in a mask who has bears a certain physical resemblance to someone that i know and i'm like is this possibly who i think it is so i do a loop and then i just i'm trying to he's talking to a trainer though like he's getting a tour of the place and i'm trying to get i'm trying to listen to his voice because i don't want to walk up to this person who's in a mask and say who i think it is unless i'm pretty sure but and also by the way i don't have a mask on now so i go rummaging through my bag and under my beach towel and my new yorker magazine i find my mask that i had taken off triumphantly because i was like i can do this and i put it on because that's how strong my virtue signaling is is i don't want this guy that we both know if it's the guy i think it is to see me without a mask so i put the mask on i walk up and i go carl gardner and he goes huh and i go it's luke burbank i'm hoping it was because of the mask and not because of the 20 pounds that i've gained but i had to introduce myself to him it was our old boss carl gardner who lives down here now and was getting sworn in at this fancy gym i was i was i was sneaking into nice did he have to put

He was getting sworn in. He had to put one hand on a diet book and then repeat an oath.

He said, I promise to train at the highest intensity and to put Zumba above all. I don't think Zumba's even in style anymore. I don't know what the current cool workout is. But, no, it was this dude that we used to work for. Our big boss.

He was the biggest boss we had there.

Yeah, and he was a fan of yours and he was a fan of mine. I always thought of him as being kind of like the most cerebral dude or one of the more cerebral dudes that we ever worked for who was, like, a boss of a commercial radio station or cluster of commercial radio stations. Anyway, my point, I guess my long-winded point in that is I did go inside and walked around without a mask, and I didn't work out, by the way. I was just there to lounge by the pool.

And the pool is outdoors at this place?

Outdoors, yeah.

Oh, wow.

I felt like I wanted to assert my, I guess, my scientific and my legal right to be inside a building without a mask on to see what it felt like. But then as soon as I saw somebody, I thought I knew I went and I dug the mask out. Yeah, yeah. But also he had a mask on because I just didn't want to seem I just was that was I didn't want our ex boss who I hold in high regard to see me and think, oh, Burb's a mask denier.

Yeah, but also, yeah, I mean, you're being honest about where your thought process was right there. But also, I think if I were going up and talking to somebody at the gym, somebody who I had not seen in you know at least five years or whatever it's been and they are wearing a mask i still think out of respect i would put on a mask and it's it i mean you can call it virtue signaling but you can also call it consideration for where this person is like if they're wearing a mask there's a reason they're wearing a mask and for whatever reason like for five minutes i'm gonna go say hello to them i'll i'll match them i'll put on a mask too i think um i think it's okay for me to say this like when we picked up uh christina kiki lolo for the trip you know i can't remember we picked her up literally at the side of the road because it's kind of hard to get into her apartment complex so she was kind of standing in a bus stop area on a pretty

and unlike the way that you and i are very free and easy about our residents let's just be vague

oh yeah sure part of la that we were in oh yeah no absolutely if you want her address i can send No, I wouldn't even know. But anyway, but we picked her up and I think she was wearing a mask at the side of the road. And then you hopped out first and you put a mask on right away. And I didn't do that because I thought, listen, I know that all three of us are vaxxed. Christina would not be going on this trip if she weren't. I know that Christina has. been incredibly strict with with going out and like the way she's been treated just incredibly responsible during this pandemic but I'm like we're all gonna be in a van together for well originally if we hadn't broken down it was gonna be four days five days I can't remember when you consider the return trip so I was like well obviously we're not all wearing masks in the van the whole time it didn't even occur so I hopped out to say hello to her outside and I saw that you had masked up and i felt terrible i can't remember if i apologized or not but i did i actually a big chunk of that ride up until the point where we got to the disneyland gas station which was just amazing it was as magical as he told me it was going to be luke it was they say it's the most magical gas station on earth the way that it was locked and nobody could get any snacks just

beautiful there were skater kids there menacing us menacing just by skating i think right were

they actually menacing you no they were so nice but they looked they looked like the kids the bullies from the simpsons yeah had been realized into actual human form right and but they didn't do anything bullyish but what why am i doing this right now i'm sorry just give me 30 seconds christina wanted to get some snacks i needed to pee real bad you were just marveling at the wonderment of being within one block of disneyland and the gas station was locked the mini mart was locked which i've never seen before in like at eight o'clock at night or 755 at night and these skater kids skated up and i i was wondering like they could just skate somewhere else what is their it was almost like that experiment where they give a kid one marshmallow but they say if you wait you can have two marshmallows and it's a study of like delaying gratification i was like do these kids have any sense of delaying gratification or are they just going to be like it's closed we're out of here let's blow this popsicle stand they saw it and then one of them said oh it's closed and then the other guy said what time is it opening it was like 805 and the other guy goes what time is it a different kid said it's 801 and then the other kid said that's four minutes let's wait which was totally the right decision so you were proud of them i was proud of them i didn't know if they would just be like you know forget this place i don't know what they were gonna do but they just decided to wait out the four minutes you know who didn't wait the four minutes us you were like deuces okay sorry back to your regret oh yeah so i just sort of felt bad about

it in that case because i felt like that wasn't really respectful to christina because then you said christina is okay if we take off the masks or something somehow you addressed it head on and you started it by putting on your mask and then asking and every other scenario i do that too but for this for this one i'm like oh we're in this car together we are right on the same page i made an assumption and you know again it just goes back to the carl gardner thing it's just like i don't know if it's virtue signaling or just meeting people where they are and having the conversation before you make the assumption and i i don't know i don't think there's anything

you know bad or negative about yeah i'm with you on that i don't like i don't think there's any harm and it does sometimes drive me a little bit crazy because you know how i get around what i feel like are our rules or behaviors that are at some point not really rooted in any real good reason for me so but that being said it's such a simple thing to put a mask on and to just be like oh hey are you cool if i take the mask off like it's just such it's such a small lift um in my life for so if it matters to somebody or if it just makes somebody feel more comfortable or even just make somebody feel like I'm not assuming anything it's like I you know I'm good with it also when we saw uh our friend Nora McInerney at her house when we were doing the show she said to me because I had the mask on because you know we're in her house and she said oh you know you look good and I was like it's this mask man it gives me like a jawline and I realized it's the mask is the closest I'm ever going to get to a beard like to being able to grow a beard and I don't know if i'm ready to give it up so uh again i'm although we we should go to the break now and and i don't i don't want to um i'm always now a little bit uh try to be careful about these kinds of conversations about our bodies and and our body types and where we're trying to go with them because everyone's body is different but the so the first 20 minutes of me being at that gym were like oh my god i ran into carl gardner and then this the next hour was me sitting by the pool just feeling deeply not great about the state of my physical being right now after a pandemic of indulging in probably more drinking than I need to do and certainly more eating of entire pizzas late at night than I need to do and I just was sitting there like there was all these buff dads there I mean there were some dads there were some dads that looked like me but then there were some buff dads and I was like that's not cool you can't be like a buff dad with like three adorable children um and that you're chasing around being all cute like that like that's not fair to the rest of us for you to be this this fit and also being a good dad like no please uh knock it off with that and so i made a little i made a little decision there uh in my mind that i'm gonna try to be just take better care of myself and i don't have any i don't have a super specific goal but It's just like fewer 11 p.m.

pizzas kind of cut it out on the so much boozing uh and uh and try to keep with my exercise speaking of which this morning i was out on my little jog and you know how i have talked about that one particular section of bridge it's the hawthorne bridge where i always find myself deviating my trajectory or my path to make room for other people particularly other people who are walking so the basic thing is it's a wide sidewalk okay but it's also it's the sidewalk that is used by people that are running people that are walking and people that are cycling you cannot ride your bike on the bridge itself because it's like these weird metal grates because it's like a bridge that goes up and down so the problem with this setup is if you're jogging along and then there's someone walking or a group of people that are walking towards you they're hugging the railing they're hugging the water side of this sidewalk for me to go around them puts me in the path of these cyclists and some of them are hauling ass so it's like i'm always kind of nervous to to ideally like the perfect thing is when there's no one on the bridge um and then i just hug the railing and hug the water and then i know that i'm i'm a okay well for some reason today i just felt like i am going to i'm jogging i'm hugging the railing and i'm just gonna like stick with this plan and for once in my life i'm not going to have the stress of trying to merge into the cycling lane to go around people who are walking and it turned out there was like only one other person on the bridge and he was this guy walking towards me and i'm jogging and he's walking and i'm hugging to the the to the side of the bridge and he's hugging to the side of the bridge and we get to where we're about 20 feet apart and he just stops he doesn't move over he just stops like try me dude And I'm just like you gotta be kidding me So of course cause I'm just running And trying to keep my time up I glance over my shoulder And make sure there are no cyclists And I go around him But I was trying to get a sense of him As I went around him Like I couldn't put him into a category If he was like a business dude If he worked for a non-profit If he was someone who was experiencing homelessness He didn't have whatever the markers The traditional markers of that are You know what I mean He was just this kind of like Doofy white dude with a ponytail tail and a backpack on who had just decided that he was going to stand his ground on that path and i was so mad at him for the rest of the run now had he moved out of the way i guess i would have been the one that prevailed like someone's gonna somebody is gonna have to give give up the right away on this right and it just happened to be me but i was i felt i i felt like what i think sometimes it must feel like to you sometimes when you have been obeying the rules and then someone is just being unnecessarily a jerk about it and it really frustrates you i just felt so mad at this guy like furious at this dude for the rest of my jog over or nothing

there were no other spikes i just went around him it was fine but i played out like what if i would have just stopped and then i just wait for him and then we just start tbtl late like what like

i was playing through all these things start doing tbtl together i was like wow you guys

really bonded over this um i mean it would be an interesting show it would be i think i would tune in for that luke and this derp in a ponytail who just decided to plant his feet and like i'm not moving off of this line and like i'm sure that this is all coming from my own just being overly annoyed and whatever but my i think i laid this out towards the beginning of the pandemic my totally arbitrary rules of the road and the sidewalk i would think that if i were walking on this bridge like if i were just out for a nice relaxing stroll i would be more inclined to give people who are running a little bit of a birth because the reason my reasoning would be if i'm walking it's less of a thing for me to kind of like look over my shoulder check for bikes kind of just like assess the situation and then and then pop over something about when i'm running and if i'm really tired and then there's lots of things on that bridge that are irregular on the ground you know like sort of pieces of metal where the like bridge goes up and down and meets and things for me when i'm running and i'm like tired and it's a slight uphill on that bridge the first half of it looking over my shoulder actually feels like a thing like it feels like i'm expending more energy and if i if there's a bike right there by me i'm running so i don't want to be too close to him maybe i trip it just feels it all feels a little perilous and if i'm walking it doesn't feel as perilous to me it feels like a stroll and it feels like i just glance over my shoulder i see there aren't any bikes and then i just give the person some space that's what i think i would do this guy chose not to do that and it was so funny to me that the literally the one time that i decide i'm going to assert my legal right to stay on my path i run into the one person in portland who just wants to like assert their right more than i wanted to assert my right

no i understand i completely understand that feeling i have actually i know you want to take a break but you've just said so many things we've just we've skidded through three different topics Thank you. And I want to address several of them. First of all, what you're talking about, just like my inherent – I'm not saying that what you're talking about is necessarily pettiness, but I'm going to call this pettiness. Oh, I was being very petty for the record. Getting back into the real world, you know, I've told you before that the parking lot under 24-hour fitness is like a really tight one that's often one of those things where people are driving around in circles looking for a spot. I didn't realize that there's a whole second level like underneath that you can go to. It's like a slightly less convenient so people don't go down there. but like on the main floor of the small garage people are always fighting for spots the spots are very tight even the non-compact ones and um yesterday it was not especially crowded like i said this was midday on a wednesday still coming out of the pandemic so it wasn't a super super busy garage and i found a place to park no problem but then as i was leaving the gym and i came out to get my car i saw that somebody else like i drive a vw golf that thing is a compact car i was parked in a compact car spot clearly labeled compact car um and i came out and i saw that somebody was parked not directly next to me but like two spots down in the compact car spot in another compact car spot it was some sort of a subaru but it was big you know it's like a station wagony kind of thing whatever we call those modern versions of station wagons crossovers sure yeah and it didn't fit in the spot they were literally crossing over into another spot again these spots are very tight and it's a garage that's why they called a crossover yeah yeah they're crossing over the line assholes and like you know these are the types of spots where not only are the lines tight but there are pillars holding up the garage right it's like an uh-huh so you know we've all experienced that where you really have to squeeze in there tightly well this person parked next to one of these pillars but then did not you know was not able to fit their car into the allotted space and now there was nobody parked next to them because nobody could park next to them and it says compact car and i'm just like i wanted so badly well i wanted badly to set it on fire or scrape it up which of course i would not do i wanted to write a note that just said clearly this is not a compact car and you can tell because it doesn't fit in one space like why did this person just think oh yeah i'm gonna park in this car like and i'm sure this person didn't even realize they were doing it and that's what drives me crazy like i don't know what's worse i've said this on the show a million times i've broken record but like is it worse if this person was like huh don't fit it i don't fit there yeah who cares suckers or is it somebody who doesn't even realize because they're just in their own you know they're not thinking about their impact on other people at all and so they're just going to park their goddamn car wherever they want it doesn't matter what the sign says and it doesn't matter if it's clear that they're just blocking somebody out of a spot like why even why even try to mostly fit in one spot if you're going to do that they should have just parked right down the middle and taking them both up anyway i don't want to spend a lot of time on that that's just more of the petty and of course i didn't do anything

I didn't write it and I was like dude the garage isn't even that busy there's plenty of places to park you're leaving now there's no need for you to be upset by this person but you know that's a weakness of mine I just was upset okay that's one thing I want to say now going back several topics ago you entering this nicer gym and and feeling kind of a relief of not having to wear your mask I think that like if I were going to a restaurant or a nicer place or even Teddy's maybe I would love to be able to walk into Teddy's and not wear a mask I'd really like to be able to go to Teddy's and sit at the bar at some point I'm looking for forward to those um rules changing where you can actually sit up at the bar but anyway I think that this demasking the demasking of Andrew at 24 hour fitness I also wonder if part of that is because I think those facilities are generally gross like now it's not super um like let me put it this way when you go into this 24 hour fitness It's super, super tall industrial style ceilings, right? Like I think there's probably it's more like two stories in there. So I feel like there's plenty of air circulation. It doesn't feel cramped. You don't feel like you're on top of other patrons. But 24-hour fitness, generally speaking, always feels kind of cruddy to me. And I go to one of the nicer ones, by the way. I asked him why there was the extra charge on my bill. And he's like, oh, yeah, it's because this is one of the club fits or something, which is a nicer one. You have to pay more for it. I'm just like, oh, really? Tell that to the people who are just spitting gum on the ground. Like in the stairwell going from the garage up to the gym. Now, this is outdoors but kind of covered. I've always noticed that whoever these patrons at 24 Hour Fitness are, they think it's okay to spit their gum on the stairs. And in me walking – and usually it's already trampled down and old by the time I see it and it just looks disgusting. Today, one of the very first things I saw before entering my gym for the first time in over a year is brand-new, bright, yellow-green piece of chewed-on gum just stuck right there in the middle of the stairs waiting for me or somebody else to step on. And I'm just like, who is the MF-er? It's probably the same person who parked their Subaru. I mean, just like there is something about the clientele. You think it was the ponytail guy who confronted me on the bridge?

You might be responsible for all three.

I think of 24-hour fitness. I think of the times where I have to, like, go in to use a shower, but somebody has just used it before me, and they've left Band-Aids on the ground, which I can't think of anything that makes me want to retch more than that with the possible exception of eating cottage cheese. Like, there's just things about 24-hour fitness and who I presume to be some of the clientele there who do not put, like, I don't know, cleanliness at the forefront that just makes me think that 24-hour fitness is a dangerous place to take off a mask. I wasn't thinking this directly, but I do wonder if I was in a nicer club. I wouldn't have had this weird demasking feeling, but it was just like, I think I have some gross. I think I have some thoughts of grossness around this place anyway. You know what I mean? Right.

So you were just like, and I know what you mean about it. There are. Well, sorry. Men's bathrooms. I may. I may always wear a mask in the men's bathroom. Like you go into a you go into a men's room and you have a mask on. It is like a, you know, at an airport or something. it is a much better experience to have that mask on yeah so there are times where you're like yeah you know i would do this anyway like this is actually for me this is no longer about the rules

now i have one more just one more comment and this and maybe you'll want to answer this after the break i don't know but um it is a serious question actually your experience at the pool yesterday um where you described you're sitting there and you had a lot of body shame it sounds like even more than obviously you've talked about having some body shame at times and it manifests different ways on the show before but that specific experience of being at a pool and taking off your shirt and feeling it sounds like pretty uncomfortable with it yes had you had that before that is something that I have had my entire life and I go back and I look at old photos of me and I'm like you had it then too you were skinny then but I have always had that I was a fat kid I grew up as a with a fat kid mentality I've always been kind of out of shape the idea of going to I've avoided pool parties even as an adult here still in my 40s I would avoid I know

where we can have half a pool party if you want you know I've always been uncomfortable I'm not

comfortable in that situation because I have so much body shame and as you said all the caveats I know I shouldn't blah blah blah is it still white boy summer like I don't know what Chet Hayes is on that whole thing but like all those caveats I am who I am and I'm just telling you I have always been deeply deeply uncomfortable in a pool like setting unless it's complete strangers and Genevieve around is this the first time you've had that specific feeling in your whole life

it's not the first time but that the feeling has evolved over the years when I was like a teenager I was very skinny and I was embarrassed because I was very skinny oh my god and because I didn't have any armpit hair that was my biggie for like a couple of summers was like I was the late kid to get armpit hair and I just was mortified about that so you'll still sense a theme by the way because it's just basically like whatever my body type was it felt but but that that wasn't I mean I loved swimming and I would swim at Green Lake for hours and hours and hours so obviously it didn't hang me up that much in those days and then uh you know throughout my 20s and 30s and and and when we you know when I had I lived in a house with a swimming pool and stuff I certainly would have my shirt off there when I was swimming and stuff and it didn't make me feel particularly embarrassed I think that through the pandemic I've definitely also I just think has to do with my age has to do with you know probably my testosterone levels going down just my body's changing a little bit and it's it feels like i'm either gonna have to literally make it the only thing that i focus on which is doing some crazy amount of like kettlebell working out every day which i just don't really have the heart for or i'm gonna have to just kind of embrace the fact that my body's just a little bit different than it used to be and so anyway to answer your question uh this is the the feeling that i had the other day was much worse than i've had it in the last 15 years and i think it just had to do with the fact that i have put on some weight during the pandemic i think it was honestly i mean you want to get down to the very very prosaic level i have some flattering swim trunks they're still somewhere in storage in bellingham so i had to wear these random ones that i just had down here that were like not very flattering so i just didn't like the way my I mean I think a lot of people can particularly our female listeners can probably identify with like a flattering bathing suit versus a non-flattering bathing suit I was wearing a non-flattering pair of shorts so there's kind of a lot going on but it's I'm fortunate in that has not I'm not somebody who has been avoiding boats and swimming parties and things like that my whole life because of because of feeling embarrassment to answer your question so it But it really was one of those. Well, what it was was I was, like, looking at the different – I'm not saying this is healthy, by the way. It's unhealthy probably. But I was looking at the different dudes my age who were there. And there were the dudes who clearly had prioritized staying in shape. And there were the dudes that hadn't. And I was squarely in the camp of dudes that hadn't. And I didn't like that feeling. And that's just me. I'm not telling anyone else how they should feel about themselves. That's interesting.

I just was kind of curious. And I don't know if that, as I'm rethinking about that question, your answer is exactly what I was interested in hearing. I don't know why I was so interested in hearing that. But I just think of you. And I've been thinking of I've been kind of picturing what you were probably like or what our friendship would have been like if we knew each other in high school. I think we've like this or even maybe younger than that. And I think we've established that we probably we were so different. We probably wouldn't have hung out. I do wonder about that. I bet we would have hit it. I bet you we would have because I think that whatever I think that maybe we would have. And on this trip we were just on, there were moments, I think, when it came to the the signs, which we thought were stolen and probably the wind. And, like, you laughing your ass off about that and me being mad, for some reason I keep picturing that in my head of us being both, like, 14 years old and your, like, little lanky Luke just laughing about it and me being, like, pudgy Andy kicking the tires and just being frustrated by it. Like, that is our – there's something about our core that was revealed there, I think, and it just reminded me of what it seems like we would have been like if we were childhood pals. I don't know why if you can follow that at all. It's just what went through my head. And so I just picture you as a kid, you know, lapping up the sun, maybe being self-deprecating about a concave chest or something. But for the most part, my God, a kid like me would kill to have a concave chest. Right. As opposed to, you know, like boobs, which was what I was dealing with at that age. and so like I don't know I could just see you just kind of being so comfortable and drawn to those kinds of situations and gregarious and splat and splashing around and having fun and being everything that I would want to be in those situations but literally my entire life I have not

been able to be that person I definitely had it like it was very fortunate that of the different things internally that were going on for me emotionally you know I would I I was both very insecure about certain things like i had pimples which was embarrassing and things like that but i but i definitely would have a ton of fun at like i looked forward to going to wild waves you know once a year like at the end of seventh grade in the end of eighth grade you got to go to wild waves water park and it was like you would sit in the wave pool and try to like flirt with the girl that you had a crush on maybe tiffany mcmacken or somebody like that you were mad i looked forward i was mcmacken on mcmacken it didn't work out by the way i did end up i i would they were able to get me into a Janelle Smith at a, at a, at a reasonable price. I came on the lot. I was like, well, show me the McMack. And they're like, sir, we've looked at your armpit hair and we think you'd be more comfortable in a Janelle Smith. Okay. But I, you know, the fact that I looked forward to that all year long probably tells me in, in retrospect that, yeah, I was, I was lucky to feel pretty comfortable in my body in those ways. But I think not, not to take this to like the place I keep taking shit right now, but I just think it's where I'm at in my life. I also think this one dude, actually it was like two dudes, but these two dudes were completely unintentionally having a big impact on me and my sense of self at this swimming pool. And they were both these dads. They had cute kids, but they were both fit guys. And they were running around chasing their kids. And I think I had this feeling of like I'm this I'm this puffy version of Luke that's sitting here with a grown child, but no younger kids. And I'm working through my second divorce I think I was just feeling kind of like a loser overall And there was something about these guys Who seemed to have And of course they have their whole own set of problems I don't know their lives I didn't talk to them But there was something about seeing these dudes running around Who seemed like they had their physical shit together They had cute wives They had cute kids And I was just kind of like Man, how did I miss the boat on all of that? So I almost think that their in shapeness was just almost a signal or some some was the tip of a larger iceberg that I think I've been just feeling a certain amount of like, how did I find myself at 45 with kind of as little success in the relationship and family building department, you know, as I sort of have, like, I've just been feeling some sense of that lately. And I think that these guys also being hunky was just making

it even worse for me. Yeah, yeah, no, I appreciate the honesty there. And I think it's really, really relatable and you know as your friend you know I don't want you feeling that way and I'm not going to well I won't when I lose 20 pounds exactly first I'll lose 20 pounds and you'll be perfect no but you know in those moments as much as you can you're not asking for advice and I was kind of you know probably asking a lot of prying questions here well you've been self-loathing longer than I have honestly I'll I'll sit at your feet do remember of you know how many great things that you have going on in your life that you aren't seeing in those moments but just like Think about your life and like, you know, those guys don't have a moderately. successful podcast actually they probably do but they certainly don't have one of them was joe rogan they certainly don't have a very popular radio show you know and again i know that these things aren't always rational and they're not always the same thing but whatever the best you can probably do is just remember that like this is one you're focusing on a couple of aspects and they're kind of related and you're feeling kind of down as you should you're going through some shit if you weren't having these emotions it would be more worrisome because it would mean you're a sociopath right like you're going through some hard shit like it's okay to feel that way but also So try not to beat yourself up too much and remember that you've got a lot of good shit going that you've that you've worked for and earned.

Thank you for saying that. And, you know, I will tell you this. That was. Tuesday, today's Thursday, so it hasn't been that long. But what has what makes me, you know, what makes me feel better than I was feeling that day is in the in the subsequent days, I like did I've been eating a little better. Like I have not been eating a pizza every night. I, you know, have been I've been trying to stay steady with the exercise. We're talking about three days, but still, it's like I have been low keying on the alcohol. So I what I feel good about is that moment, which didn't feel super great to me. I'm translating it, at least in the very short term, into doing some things that are making me feel like way better as opposed to going further into the behaviors that have. you know what I mean like I could have also I could have gone home that night and just poured myself a super tall glass of JMO and watch the Mariners although I think Tuesday was a day game so whatever I could have probably I could have just like just been like effort and I'm just gonna like this is me now and I'm gonna just go deeper into the things that are probably not great behaviors for me but I didn't do that I haven't done that so far and that actually makes me feel kind of good like I was out on my jog this morning and like despite wanting to throw that guy off the hawthorne bridge i felt generally pretty happy and i'm feeling very happy right now so i'm gonna try to keep that at the front of my mind like you said the things that i have i really have to be thankful about and and when i'm getting those feelings kind of push but you put it in the direction of like doing something about it as opposed to just giving up or something i don't

know so not watch the mariners games when you're spiraling my friend that is not the right way to

i watch you it's kind of funny because like you know i will what i watch your twitter account now to know kind of how badly things are going for us i don't tweet that much but it is no no but like

yeah that is probably the last few times because i tweet so rarely now that it's probably only it's like the emotion and alcohol involved of watching a goddamn mariners game when i'm gonna probably

tweet something out i got so bummed yesterday because i was all excited i i swung by this place way out of that i love and i got this like healthy salad bowl thingy relatively healthy and i was because you know i was like miss this is new luke i'm going to give those hot dads a run for their money at the gym pool and uh i was like the mariners are on i kept checking the app and it was like zero zero and i was like yes and then i realized either the app excuse me either the mlb app wasn't updating or in the time between when i parked the car and got in the elevator in my building and got to my apartment floor oakland had put up five runs so i had this whole plan in my mind which was like my yummy food i'm gonna just have this and i'm gonna watch the mariners this is gonna be so great oh it's a good game it's zero zero to turn it on it's five nothing

and i'm just like that's about where i left things yesterday as well i said i got better things to do with my life and watch this michigan again all right uh you know it's 54 minutes into

the show i think it's time to take our first break so let's go ahead and do that uh all right quick break and then we also have blurs days this week so um this is actually if we're gonna do this if we're gonna drag it out this is a good day to do it because all those people that are waiting to hear the blurs day messages yeah they've been listening to all of this like we've incentivized people to get to the end of the show because they want to hear themselves or their loved ones recognized on their birthday but we've in the in the beginning in the run-up to that we force them to listen to all of my deepest darkest self-loathing so everybody wins i think all right quick break then back with more tbtl in a moment hello and welcome to top story i am thinking about proposing a little uh i don't know i'm calling an audible here because i honestly think this conversation about if we even need booze on flights is an interesting one and one that you and i both probably have a lot of thoughts on, Andrew. But I feel like it lives next door to the conversation we just had about, I don't know, behaviors and what's good for us and bad for us, et cetera. I feel like it could go right back to the question of alcohol consumption, things like that.

Well, let's maybe save both of this to Gai Jings for tomorrow. Because I have not read the story about this teenager who's created an underground cave. Like, that sounds like there's some dazzling.

details in that there are and um you know just a special preview for people who are going to listen to the live wire radio show this week this may also come up on that program so act surprised when you hear it during the best news we heard this week this teenager named andres canto when he was 14 years old got into an argument with his parents this is according to the uk the mirror in the uk the argument was over the fact that they wouldn't let him go to the local village wearing a tracksuit he lives in la romana spain by the way so in retaliation he stayed he stayed home and then he grabbed his grandfather's pickaxe and then he took out his aggression by by attacking the ground in their garden with this pickaxe all of this feels very teenager you know what i mean

like oh i'm just so mad i'm gonna go do this i can picture paul rudd throwing a teenager style fit in this man. Right. This sounds

kind of, yeah, sort of on brand for being a teenager. I do really, I wish they would have elaborated on the tracksuit situation. Yeah, exactly. It was very dedicated to the tracksuit. Or was it like that's your good Sunday tracksuit? You can't wear that in a town on a Tuesday and get it dirty because that's your special Sunday go to meet and tracksuit? Or did they just think it was like beneath him or beneath them? Was it that they were trying to preserve the tracksuit? They were like, you're going to get the tracksuit dirty? Or was it that

they thought it looked too casual? And maybe for the teenager in question, it was less about the actual tracksuit, but just more about autonomy. That is something with teenagers a lot, I understand.

Well, he's got a lot of autonomy now because he's 20 years old. And for the last six years, I might have said four years earlier. I had the time, the sort of timeline a little off. For the last six years, he has been creating his own underground cave. He's been working on this thing day and night for the last six years, Andrew.

So it started with him just throwing a tantrum with a pit and then just kept on ripping up dirt, kept on ripping up dirt. And then at some point in that moment or maybe even a day later, a light bulb went off and said, well, if I keep going, I could just make my own room.

And what's crazy about what's really great about this article, too, is they've got photos of Andres when he was, let's say, 14 and a half when he started to do some real digging. Like he had enough for a little room down there. There's a picture of him And then next to it And he's like Sitting there On like a little cushion On a bench Or like a little Yeah, bench seating He's made in the cave But this looks a little bit Like where we stayed When we were in Coober Pedy, Andrew

Oh yeah, that was cool

I'd say not quite as Not quite as designed out But you know We've stayed in an Underground cave before So there's a picture of him As like a 14 year old And then Next to it Is a picture of him As a 20 year old Like Six years later Still down in the cave Still digging He brought his friend Around to help him His friend brought a nomadic drill It got serious They spent up to 14 hours a week Digging almost 10 feet into the earth In the garden

This is a large property I imagine Like this is just like It's kind of like country

I'm going to guess They don't really say But it's like La Romana, Spain Which I haven't heard of I don't think it's a major metropolitan area Yeah I get the sense it's kind of it's somewhat rural okay um the they write in this article the layout of his retreat was often determined by the obstacles that got in the way of the project he said sometimes i came across a big stone and it could be frustrating after hours of digging that i had done almost nothing and so apparently what he would do then is if he like hit a big rock he would just make it part of the like architecture of the cave cool uh the soil was originally moved by using hand buckets but as he went deeper and deeper he began to study excavation techniques techniques online and he eventually developed a pulley system to take rubble to the surface this thing has wi-fi it has multiple rooms he's reinforced the ceilings using an arched entrance and vaulted ceilings i should say uh he's got columns that are built in to prevent a potential collapse he stays down there a lot of the time now it's like he says the temperature is always constant so if it's a real hot day it's a it's nice and cool there and if it's a cold day it's nice and warm in there uh like i said he's got wi-fi he's got electricity this is his chill out zone his parents like if someone comes over and they're looking for andres they're like he's in his cave i wonder if this is a bonvoy property yet because i feel like it's going to be eventually right i mean let me check on the app right now to see if i can use some of my bonvoy points there or if it's one of these fancy ones that's not accepting points right now um this kid i have to say is living out my childhood dream i was like this would you know this was a fantasy that i had as a kid which was to dig an underground fort that had for some reason in my mind the big thing was it was going to have a couch in it and it was going to have lights now i was trying to do this in a teeny tiny postage postage stamp size backyard of a rental house in seattle like a backyard that was probably 50 feet by 50 feet i can only imagine that if i would have had the determination that this kid has shown and actually dug something like this there would have been a massive sinkhole that would have opened up and it would have taken the whole

green lake neighborhood with it i'll bet you and i don't know the last time you did this you are a property owner um but well half yeah i was wondering can the today's show title be half a pool party i have a bunga dude i don't know that that kind of sounded gross the last time that you started digging like that fantasy you have as a kid now i did grow up like out in the country like we had some acreage you know like seven acres or something but plenty of room for a little kid to like run around and get into trouble and find nooks and crannies in the property to create little forts and what what have you um and yet anytime you start digging you just think well what if i just don't stop like nothing is you'll get to china you just that's what we all thought and i never got that far but i'll tell you what luke when i never got to china no i got to i got to some part where it was like bubbly orange like hot liquid uh and it was really hot yeah um you know my friend don more touched it and he burned his finger so i said maybe we should just start putting some of this uh dirt back and i think i might have left him down there which is something

I feel bad about but yeah anyway of an episode of DuckTales are you confusing your life with

DuckTales again let's see I do remember he was saying DuckTales yeah okay that's yeah yeah yeah that's it when the what is the lyric when you're oh I'm thinking of Muppet babies never mind forget it I was gonna say though as an adult as a young adult but as an adult in my 20s and then maybe early 30s I you know Veves and I owned that house in New Hampshire which just had a tiny little plot But it was a little plot behind our house We had a fire pit right We had big parties and stuff And every now and then I would dig out the fire pit Maybe it's I don't know in the fall at the end of the season or whatever And our house Like you know this is New Hampshire Everything goes back hundreds of years As far as like kind of property lines and what have you And our house When it was our house I think that thing was built in the 1890s Or something So a long long time before that house was built there I think it was some sort of I guess a dump I don't know the better word for it But I know that the neighbors all believe That you know we found so many Little relics and stuff if you dug A little ways like we had little glass Bottles that look like they're from the 1800s That Genevieve still has and things that You don't have to dig that far before you start Finding this stuff I think the earth is probably pushing it To the surface and as you dig a little bit You find it what's that do you know what the

Glass bottles very likely were This is a known thing I don't know I'm picturing a little where the outhouse was

Oh these are the ones I'm talking about The one I'm thinking of like right now Was something about the size of Like a little medicine thing Like a dropper bottle almost from back in the 1918 but a big thing

I know this because my I guess soon to be former Father-in-law is kind of Into you know antiquities and things Like that and and was showing Me the blueprint of their house because They live in a house that's probably about as old as the one you Had in New Hampshire uh-huh you can see in the Original drawings where the outhouse was And one day people came by, bottle hunters, and they said, can we look at your plans and figure out where your outhouse was? And he showed them, and they said, would you mind if we dug down? We'll put everything back the way we found it. And they found a bunch of bottles. And apparently, and I'm not saying this necessarily was going on.

But little mini bottles like that, huh?

Of anything, because what they would do, so you would have this outhouse, and you'd have to dig a big hole for literally all the crap to go in. And then it would also be where they would throw all of the old bottles. In fact, when I was at that ghost town in California, the mining town, Cerro Gordo, he was doing the same thing. He was really into finding old glass bottles, and he would go try to figure out, based on old maps, where the outhouses had been. Because I guess it was a thing to throw old glass bottles into the outhouse hole. Then when you would patch it back up and move the outhouse, there'd just be a bunch of bottles there.

I mean, they did specifically say, like all of our neighbors believe that it was like a dumping ground for things. It was like a – that had been covered up. So I don't know if that's the outhouse thing there, but that's interesting. But, yeah, everybody said, you know, they would dig in their yards and find interesting artifacts. And so anyway, as I would be digging out this fire pit, like, we would find little things like that. And I would just still have this moment of being – of thinking, like, what if I just keep digging? Like, this is so interesting. And for some reason I didn't, maybe because I'm an adult. And I don't know why I had stopped digging. But now that I'm living in an apartment in Seattle, like part of me wishes I hadn't stopped digging. Like, what if I had just been like this Spanish teenager and just kept digging and digging until I don't know, until something really great happened?

Well, it's one of the many ways that when you get to be an adult, you don't do the thing you thought you would do when you were. Yeah, because think about this. Like, if you're talking about a piece of property that you own and you're like a grown adult human, you could dig a deep asshole. Yeah. wanted to like literally by hand or through some you know bringing a backhoe in like you could make a bitch in underground fort if you wanted to you could also just only eat candy you could also like there's so many things that you could do that when i was a kid i thought well that's my dream life is i just you know all i'm gonna do is eat candy and uh like play nerf basketball jump off a trampoline and do nerf basketball dunks and videotape and then watch it back in slow motion when I'm not eating otter pops or when I'm not hanging out on my underground fort those are literally all things I could actually make happen right now Andrew and I'm doing none of them

well you did put a strike zone on the wall of your apartment that you throw a pick ball that's not that's not too far away from the from the nerf basketball fantasy oh my god I hadn't even thought of that you're right it's happening and that makes me happy by the way that might have sounded like a dunk or in this case a pitch But no, like, I actually, I like that. I have a, you know, I had this out in my office for a while. Now I have it in my closet door because I just started to think that my office was looking. There's one thing to have a childlike sense of wonder, and there's also just a midlife crisis where it looks like you're living in some sort of toy room. But I like playing darts. I wouldn't put a dart board up in here because I wouldn't want to ruin the walls. But at one point, as a lark, Genevieve got me one of those felt targets with the Velcro balls, and I had that on my wall. Yeah, and since then, I, like, put a piece of art there instead. It looks a little bit better now. But I still have that in the inside of my closet door. So if I'm listening to a podcast or something or putting around, I can open up my closet door and just, like, do a little target practice. Like, it's fun to do stuff like that, even though we're adults.

I love that And this is The whole start Of the rubber ball thing For me Was because I wanted To have that scene In the movie Where they're They're like Brainstorming And they're trying To come up With the next great thing And they're like Someone's bouncing One of those balls And then that's When inspiration strikes Yeah I've had zero inspiration While pitching Against my strike zone But I still I still like that idea For us Like maybe when we're Planning next year's TBTL-a-thon Maybe we'll like I'll have you over We'll bring your little Velcro thing I'll have my pink pitching zone and you can throw balls at your Velcro target and I can pitch in the strike zone and we're going to have a humding. By the way, there is an idea out there floating around for next year's THON already that I do want to talk to you about at some point. I emailed you about it and I don't think you responded and I'm wondering if that's an early indication

about your THON. Oh yeah, I feel like there are some

problems with that, but yeah, we don't have to get into it now. Or a blessing. You and I will talk about that offline. But hey, speaking of TBTL projects let me just say this real quick before we get to the blurs days um the tv chill summer games are next month if you can believe that so each year in the summertime we like to take a couple of weeks and we like to well first of all it's a chance for us to take a little vacay but it's also a chance to take part andrew and i in some fun little quizzes and thought experiments and riddles and the like and i i don't know how how many summer games now and winter games have been listener generated but it's so much more fun when the ideas come from the listeners because you guys have lots of great ideas so if you have an idea for a tbtl summer game this is like some kind of a again like a quiz andrew and i can i can do or some other kind of fun thing that

could fill about a half hour of time whether it's a personality test or you know some people have been sending these in already like after our last one people just stayed on a roll because they enjoyed them so much i'm gonna look for some examples here um but we have some unused quizzes like um how old are you food quiz i don't know if we already took that one or not but like based on the foods you take how old are you etc etc so like stuff like that that is floating around online

yeah so and and i don't want to like assign people homework but in years past some folks have done things that are tbtl specific uh which can be really cool too um so anyway if you have ideas for a summer game, send them to me and Andrew. Please put summer games or summer game in the subject line so that we can put it in the right little folder. But that's going to be coming

up here in just a bit. There's a right way to rock and 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. Just remember All right, Blur's Day time.

Woo-hoo! This is from Natalie in Minneapolis. It's a good city, Minneapolis. Yeah, it is. But I won't stall. Natalie says, I'd like to wish my mom, Maureen, a very...

happy blurs day she started listening to tbtl to help her sleep all right okay thanks natalie

let's just do the next one uh she started listening to natalie what's that what'd you say and did natalie see me at the pool she just could try to pile on my already very very fragile fragile

self-esteem natalie says her mom maureen started listening to tbtl to help her sleep and she's almost become a 10 i want to wish her a happy blurs day and happy retirement uh happy retirement Maureen, Maureen, Maureen, Maureen

I wonder if anybody else has ever done that

Yeah, I can't That's Dolly, right?

Jolene

Jolene, yeah, yeah, I couldn't quite There we go

Mario in I am thinking that's Miami Oh, did I spell that wrong? Sorry Welcome to Miyama Mario in Miami And Aaron in Amesbury, Mass This is where I'm out of my element, Donnie You know, these Massachusetts and Northeast towns always get me I'm thinking, how would you pronounce that? Yeah, I think it's Amesbury

Probably Amesbury I'm just astounded I don't think I'm dyslexic But me spelling Miami, Miyama, is really something

Welcome to Miyama I kind of like it I do too, it's fun It also sounds like a convertible car That somebody's dad would have driven in the 90s After he got divorced He got a baby blue Miama And he just won't stop driving it by the high school It's kind of weird Mario in Miama And Aaron in Amesbury, Massachusetts Want to say happy Blurs Day to Kelly In Pawtucket, Rhode Island She's an amazing person Who sadly has been facing hard losses this year Including listener Kate Who we were all very sad to hear about Listener Kate passing away We know she knows how important and special that she is and how much she's loved by us and her nibblings in the Himalates, Maggie, Charlie, and Sophie.

Wait, in the Himalates? I think you added an in there.

The Himalates.

Yeah. I just want to say we're thinking

of you, Kelly, and that's an awesome message from Mario and Aaron. High degree of difficulty, though, you guys. Nibblings, the Himalates?

Yeah, I don't know. What's a Himalate?

I don't. That's what I'm saying. They're in Miama, there are Himalits

Yeah, Miama's

This one, I don't know Maybe that's how Mario spells it

I think I was transcribing that wrong But yeah, so the Himalit How much she's loved by us And her nibblings The Himalits, Maggie, Charlie, and Sophie Anyway, Blur's days

What are the chances? Are those humans Or animals? I mean, humans are animals, but do you think those are dogs Or humans? Charlie, Sophie, and Maggie

I think they're small, squirmy little dogs.

Let's see. Himalas. I'm going to Google that.

I Googled it, too, and I couldn't find it.

Happy Blur's Day, Kelly, by the way.

Yes. In fact, not just from Mario and Aaron and us, but Linder also wants to wish Kelly a happy Blur's Day, who says, everyone who writes in always says what a bonkers year we've been through. But Kelly has been through a pant load of it. It's a lot. It's a lot. I'm sending her a huge virtual hug From all of us who know and love her You're an excellent human being That's from Linda Very sweet Why don't I have my I should have had this ready now

You want to keep Googling

I can do this next one while you're Googling

No, I didn't find anything either Well, Kelly, we're thinking of you And obviously lots of people out there love you So, hope you're doing well and happy Blur's Day Kathleen in Bloomington says I would like to wish a happy Blur's Day To my mother, Jane She and my dad started listening after I told them That a podcast read my email About crying over a tiny trash can

What a world

I hope you had a wonderful Blur's Day You know next time we're in an all staff meeting Andrew and the other folks are asking How do you grow an audience We can explain to them You read someone's email about crying Over a tiny trash can and then they will Tell their parents including their mother Jane to start listening that's how you grow the audience

It's textbook it's almost cliche I'm embarrassed that they had to ask us Alright, Sydney says I'd like to wish my 11, Micah The happiest 34th birthday ever Do you think I got that right, Luke? I think I asked you this last year M-I-C-A-H, Micah? Yeah, Micah Micah, you're the sweetest and most thoughtful boyfriend ever And you make every day brighter I cherish our Zoom date nights Better Call Saul binge watching sessions By the way, I'm halfway through season five right now, Sidney and Micah. If you're looking for somebody to crash your dates, I could watch it with you.

And look who's trying to get involved in the relationship with the listeners now. I thought you didn't like it when I did that.

That's how you build an audience.

I've been DMing most of the listeners. is asking them to invite me into their special times. Still no takers.

Let me start this sentence over because I've brutalized it. I cherish our Zoom date nights, our Better Call Saul binge-watching sessions, and each and every text message we exchange. If you guys want to text me, too, you can text me. Just, like, loop me in there. I can't wait to celebrate your day of blurs in real life next weekend. Until then, I hope Scoopy gives you lots of kisses and snuggles. That's why I live in a teepee.

Mary says, I want to wish a happy Blur's Day to my husband and Eleven, Nick. Nick is the best cat dad to baby cat Maggie and my best friend. Nick likes TBTL, but there is too much Meadowlark Media content for him to fully commit to your show. whoa so i want to send him a chorus of owen wilson's for his blurs day is that yeah is that the is that the podcast that you're also cheating on me with there's something going on over there

where they're doing yeah the the shipping container they all have like a levitard verse yeah they all have a um imitation of owen wilson oh what do they call it when they just do a one word imitation uh oh yeah i think it's everybody just saying yeah yeah no i can't they're making some sound that sounds like owen wilson that is funny when we have an owen wilson on standby by the way owen wilson is marmaduke wait we have this one too marmaduke no i always forget that that's

him um can i just say uh something real quick first of all uh happy blurs day to everybody who's celebrating a blurs day this week um also when you mentioned like way earlier in the show You mentioned the Levitard show in passing, and I laughed out loud, and I never explained what that reaction was about. And it's because I sent you the most old man texts friend text yesterday. I decided that I wanted to try to catch up on that a little bit. I had some time yesterday. I had listened to enough of the actual news of the world by way of public radio, and I thought, let me just chill out for a minute and listen to some Levitard. And so I tried – really what I was trying to do is figure out how to play it on the Sonos system in my apartment. oh and so is that voice activated no it's just without getting into the boring details it's not as simple as going on my phone and finding a show i have to go through their app and through their various tabs and pages because it all has to get amplified through these speakers or whatever so i was trying to find it and i kept seeing this one icon of them where they're like on a pirate ship but i didn't understand that that was the current version of it i thought that that in my mind that was the old version of them because they used to call it the pirate ship sometimes they still do

i mean i thought they were calling the pirate ship when they left espn that's when i noticed they really leaned into all the pirate imagery and almost to an exhaust so i was confused about

so what i what i could find in the sonos system was and i was like on stitcher trying to get it then i was on soundcloud i was like jumping around from different platforms i would find these weird like albums that had been released that'd be like the 10 best moments in lebitard history that somehow was filed as like almost like a music album so then i found this like friends of lebitard or whatever that's like a picture of dan lebitard but involves all of these i'm trying to find it too as i'm talking to you it's like everything that's in the lebitard universe that's not the

actual show yes the lebitard and friends podcast network that's the one so it's basically like

stupidity and um i think the local hour and i didn't know brockmeyer yeah the brockmeyer character hank azaria has a show on there or something yeah anyway all i wanted was to listen to my boy stew and dan doing their thing and i kept getting these other versions and finally i just texted you like where in the holy hell is this and then you sent me like an involved link which explained it all but it was like that was the that was the oldest i think i've maybe felt

in my life i can't find this darn pod card i think that's on them though i mean they have made it kind confusing and i think like they're still in this transition phase in fact i believe maybe next week is like when they officially kind of relaunch under the partnership that they've now made with draft kings and everything in fact they're doing something unique luke something that has never been done in podcast history before which is this friday they're doing a 20 can you imagine this a 24-hour podcast marathon just like they're not going to stop for 24 hours in fact you know what wait one podcast did that before too and claimed to be the first ones that was the um comedy bang Bang show but wait I feel like one show Did it before either one of them posers Did it I can't remember it's an American Public media show they definitely Smash Boom Best it might have been Smash Boom Best was 24 hours out of the back of a Van that was driving around Washington State Yet these other shows claim to be doing it for the very First time well get your own God damn ideas that's what I say

Mm-hmm Well the good news is I can't find the show So they're down one listener Yeah.

Yeah, did you – after I sent that to you, though, you just signed up for Levitard, like the Dan Levitard Show podcast, I think.

I know, but yeah, I will. This is so boring. But it more has to do with the problems with the Sonos app. It's not very, like, user-friendly towards the podcast space. And so that's more what I have to solve for now. Because I like to be able to put it on all the speakers because if it's just on my phone – I wonder if the listeners can relate to this. I wonder how the listeners tend to experience our show, Andrew. My guess would be a lot of people play it from their phone through their car, maybe Bluetooth or something. I wonder – because I can play stuff on my iPhone and just carry my iPhone around like a little speaker. But if anything else is going on, if I'm running water, if Randy the Roomba is doing his thing, I literally can't hear it. I guess I could put in headphones. That's kind of your move, right? You put in headphones and putter?

Yeah, I wear headphones.

But some of that's because you live with someone too, right? So you kind of want to, like, not overwhelm V's with your sound.

Also, though, I'm, yeah, that is definitely part of it. But I'm also just, like, I'm going from room to room. I'm going upstairs. I'm emptying the litter box. I'm coming downstairs. I'm emptying, you know what I mean? I'm emptying the garbage. I'm taking it outside. It's just easier for me if I can have my phone in my pocket and my headphones on at all times. You know what I mean?

I think I really like, I got very obsessed with years ago that idea of having speakers in every, like, room or the bathroom so that you can just walk through the house and hear this sort of continuous stream of. It started with me and music, because I loved being at a party if someone had a similar setup. So anyway, I'm trying to figure out how to get it playing on my Sonos, and I will. But the mood had passed yesterday by the time you sent me the info. So maybe I'll block out. Between trying to file over 101,000 concur reports today, maybe I'll go try to figure out how to work that as well. Yeah, sounds like we have similar afternoons.

Okay, to go out with, we're talking about sports radio. Huey Lewis and the News has an album named Sports.

Can we go with the heart of rock and roll?

Do you want to? Because that's on sport. Yeah. Yeah, it is. Or you'd be sarcastic. I couldn't tell.

No, I love that. When they said Seattle, San Francisco, too, on the heart of rock and roll, my heart leapt. Yeah. I was like, I couldn't believe that Huey Lewis and the News were name-checking my town. They also named the top 30 American cities by population, I believe, which is a smart move. If we ever release a song, Andrew, we should just make sure we name all the major cities.

Yes. Bellingham, Bellingham. That was me imitating the YouTube announcer.

I was waiting for you to finish so that Lynn could pull the audio.

I know what you were doing.

A great town to go to.

I always thought that the lyrics were the heart of rock and roller in Cleveland, and from what I see, I believe them. You know that, right?

I could understand that being a Clevelander as a kid. But Cleveland does get a primo shout-out in that.

Yeah, and the whole Rock and Roll Hall of Fame thing, which, you know, whatever. But there you go. Good power out for me there. I didn't want to end the show with me trashing the idea of a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, so that's what happened there. My apologies.

Well, these guys should be in it. You know my Huey Lewis story that I constantly tell was, I was here in Portland at the Hotel Deluxe, where we used to stay when doing Livewire, And our friend DJ Tuna And I think, I can't remember who else Were going to go to see Huey Lewis and the News At the zoo the following night So they've been on like a zoo tour And it just so happened that we were sitting next to him In the hotel bar Having dinner, and then he stood up And before he left, someone in his group said You're going to Seattle tomorrow, right? And he said, yep, Nirvana And walked out That's the greatest For some reason I make him sound like brad garrett from everybody loves raymond but he did sound a little bit like that yeah a little rick riz in there too maybe i don't know sure well they say i'm trying to make a for a day or a lifetime right day and a lifetime thing but it's not working they say huey lewises don't impact for a year but for a lifetime that story is gonna be with me for my lifetime i'll tell you that all right thanks for listening everybody we'll see you tomorrow until then have a great thursday stay safe take care of yourselves go mariners go eat a bagel and please remember no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

They say the heart of rock and roll is still beating And from what I've seen, I believe them Now the old one may be there to beat them But the heart of rock and roll, heart of rock and roll is still beating

Power out.