Muse

Hey, hey, son. Oh, my goodness. Look who it is. I was just gonna call you. This is, uh... Back in town? Are you, um... Yeah, briefly. You going to the family thing that we're, uh... Giving to ourselves? No, no, I, uh, can't make it. Yeah, no? Should I tell them? Well, you know, listen, I wasn't gonna go, so don't, don't, don't not go, because I'm, you know... Well, no, you're the reason I would go. Oh, yeah? I just, uh, have some plans, so I can't, yeah.

You got plans, huh? Well, we make plans and God laughs. Yeah, that's right.

right no i always want to make plans but uh you don't want to be laughed at tbtl

it is always 67 degrees with a 40 chance of rain always oh that naughty old elf must be one mean

bastard to give us this so early i'm so funny i can't believe my dad didn't think i could make

it as a stand-up comedian was my underwear showing when i was climbing down the tree I wore my Thursdays because my Saturdays had a case of the Mondays, if you know what I mean.

I like it. Each second's so rife with information. Go on, please.

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

Oh, it might not be good for the mind, but it's most definitely good for the soul.

My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host.

You know, you gotta eat that microphone.

Coming to you from the Nest Broadcast Center, high in the sky above Portland, Oregon, looking at a bit of a cloudy day, chance of rain, but apparently the blue sky and sunshine is on the way. We are about to transition into some real summer weather around here, which will be exciting and toasty. Sorry if you're hearing Randy the Roomba in the background. He was just finishing up some vacuuming of the apartment. I'm going to now send him home using the app. You know, he's not just a computerized robot vacuum cleaner. He's my best friend.

Best friends are very cool to be.

So, you know, try to let him kind of live his life and do his thing. That's the key to friendship, is not tying people down with your schedules, like when it's time to record your podcast. When he's ready to clean the house, I try to let him, you know, follow his bliss in that way. But then Andrew heard it during the soundcheck, so now I have to send him back to his little home base charging station. Speaking of robotic devices in my life, this one is not doing me any favors. Ahoy, ahoy. My iPhone really hurt my feelings today. Which we will talk about coming up on the show. We are at episode 3,445 in a collector's series. Let the fun begin. And we have some interesting top stories in store for you, including the unlikely YouTube ASMR star. Your voice is like a combination of Fergie and Jesus. Very, very calm former farmer. He's 84 years old. He doesn't know what YouTube is, but it's a big hit on there. We'll play you some of his tape to see if it soothes you as well. And then speaking of voices, there's some new research about why it is that we hate the sound of our own voices.

Hey, want to hear the most annoying sound in the world?

Has to do with, well, the shape of our skulls, more or less. So we will talk about that. And if we have time, we may get to this topic about dreams and whether or not science can now force us to dream about certain things. We talk about you and your life, your hopes, your ambitions, your dreams. Plus emails and V-mails. And we've got this guy. He's got dreams. He is following his passion of living Manos. I have something that could maybe be referred to as a reverse bucket list. He is Andrew Walsh, and he is joining me right now from the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. I'll mention also, in case this is your first time, he is the longest-running co-bro of the show. Good morning, my friend.

Luke, I swear you made some sort of marsupial gurgle sound yourself when you were introducing me. Before you got, you said my name, but then you took a pause, and then you wanted to introduce the drop of me talking. And everything is blank from that point on, because I was astounded. You were like, you squeaked something out While you were thinking of your next words Do you have any recollection of this? I wish I could go back and play the tape

That was completely involuntary I mean, you do, we've learned that you do technically have the ability But it's quite time consuming, right?

I would have to stop the recording I don't know how we would do it Because I'd have to stop the recording

Well, I guess I could stop the recording of myself Do you feel, do you feel Okay, fine, do you want me to do this? Yeah, let's do it This is a big moment The listeners have no idea what a big moment this is.

I am recording a backup of myself in Portland You're recording a backup of yourself in Seattle If I hit stop That means if something goes wrong We don't have a backup recording

That's okay, just do it now Wow, I love it

In the words of Aerosmith

Living on the edge I thought you were going to say loving an elevator

What's another Crying That's what's going to be happening If we don't have a backup of the show Okay, so here we go. So what I have to do, I've now taken the SD card.

Oh, this will be a Sonic Adventure for the listeners. Okay, do you want me to tap dance here? Because I have another thing that's on my mind here if you need some cover while you're doing all of this audio technical wizardry.

Sure. I mean, I'm pretty much ready to go.

You ready to go? I was going to say, one thing we can maybe talk about today. I don't know if you saw this and dismissed it or didn't see it, but I have been seeing both people sending it directly to me and just people tweeting and retweeting like crazy. Another story that I swear TBTL covered back in 2019, I know we covered it to some degree. Why is the story of the Garfield phones washing ashore suddenly breaking news or top news again? We talked about that back in April of 2019, and I thought that these journalists had taken a camera inside this cave and discovered that it was an old crate of phones. Or a shipping container. I thought we knew all of this.

We did, but it's, Andrew, it's because the internet is, in your words, weird. Weird! Wow, I just did a duet with myself. That was perfect. The internet is weird, and things are just always getting kind of, you know, this catches us sometimes. It catches me more than it does you, because you actually look, oftentimes, the date on a story. But things will just, because there are so many different news outlets and quasi-news outlets and clickbaity zerg nets, there are just so many humans and bots that are constantly thirsting for the clicks that news stories are always being pushed back up to the top of the internet, even if they're from a few years ago. In fact, the story, I feel like that story about the kid who dug the cave that we talked about, that could have been from a while ago, but it just hadn't made it from like BBC Europe to my awareness until, you know, some good news website had had sort of signal amped it. So that's probably why it just somehow got back into the into the news universe and and bubbled up. And a listener who hadn't didn't remember, which, by the way, is kind of comforting to me that we're not the only ones who don't remember what we've done on the show.

the listeners also don't remember yeah and it's not you know and not every listener has been here for every show um you know whereas we have by definition have been i mean with the exception of when one of us happens to be out but that's very rare but yeah you know all of the articles that are bouncing around about this if you click on them they go back to 2019 when we talked about it it's just that somebody or something um that goes by the name cool potato at the twitter account like the twitter acc just as just as garfield shaped phones have been polluting the shores of the coast of britney france for 35 years the reason is due to a container wedged between the rocks it's not even linking to an article it's just somebody taking the story and retelling it on twitter and then just just raking in the likes and i assume all of the money that goes along with

those likes i noticed that this has been happening on tiktok and it's been making me kind of annoyed actually like yesterday people of tiktok like people of america like i i was like it's people just putting up kind of random facts that i already knew which because i'm a kind of smug annoying person one of them was that abby elliot they're like five five things you may not know about snl cast members today part three and then it's like abby elliot they're pointing at a picture of abby elliot uh is actually the daughter of chris elliot from and of course they like from something about mary because these people these people know nothing about get a life andrew they know nothing about this history look at this look at this face um so there was another one too that was like i'm about to blow your mind with and it was it was just one of those like so-called dazzling deets that i am always i mean the i think why this why this particular style of information on tiktok bothers me is because what it really is is exactly what i do when i'm in social settings And it hurts me because it makes me realize how annoying I am

You mean just bring up a story Well no I mean I think what you're talking about is Keeping the conversational needles going By bringing up interesting stories that Maybe people don't know about And then if people do know about it then they can join you in the storytelling

There's a line though Right like there's like Having a fun conversation and there's somebody who's I feel like I rely Increasingly on Hey but did you know like someone will be talking about about SNL and then they'll talk about a sketch and I'll be oh but did you know that AD Bryant is uh married to Connor O'Malley the guy who does those weird videos where he's like in like the Gowanus Canal screaming into a like I'll just I increasingly only relate by taking a piece of information that's been presented in this conversation and then telling somebody something I think they don't know about somebody involved in that piece of information what is the Gowanus canal and why is he screaming what well you i've we've we've talked about this before there's a guy named connor o'malley who he's actually on i think you should leave remember that sketch on i think you should leave where they're pointing they come out and they're whole they're like a advertising like a corporate conference but their whole they're they're called like the pointer brothers and their whole thing is they just point at the crowd you know vaguely i feel like i must have

missed an episode of that show somehow or i was just so high that i don't remember because that does not ring a strong bell to me but i know i've watched that entire that entire season well he's

in that sketch and he's in a few other things he is a conor o'malley i don't know why i mean i want to apologize to conor o'malley that we ended up here because he is he is a he's a comedy person that comedy people seem to really like a lot of comedy people who i am a fans of their work they will retweet his stuff or they will put him in sketches and i thought i okay he's the honk of your horny guy that's oh yeah that's he's also that yes yes that one i don't remember the dirty sketches andrew because i'm sorry i should have referenced more of the pervy sketches did they do

more than just that sketch that's the only one i can remember um anyway that guy he does these

he he was doing these kind of like videos where he would be like wandering around in these very industrial parts of new york like screaming about howard schultz and like he would have like a selfie stick oh yeah and he would be like it would be like a quasi-political like he was i think it was either he was either he was running for office or he was just trying to really support howard schultz when howard schultz was was considering a run or whatever and it was just like energetically the kind of comedy that makes me feel uncomfortable which probably means something actually interesting

is happening i didn't so the guanis canal i had never i did not remember if you had used that term before i you know me i'm not a new york person i didn't know what you were talking about

there i see it's a little it's a i don't even know if he was in the guanis but it was just the guanis canal i mean not so much now because like many things in brooklyn i think large sections of it have been rehabbed and it's like probably there's like beautiful cafes lining it or something but in the day it was kind of a go-to joke for like uh a pretty like industrial uh waste polluted kind of not picturesque place that you might go in new york i mean he'd be standing by like a landfill he's always in these particular string of videos he was always standing in a very kind of visually unpleasant area usually like sweating or covered in sweat or like wet and just kind of yelling into this into his iphone camera okay that that rings more of a bell yeah i was

not picturing new york city when you said the canal okay so uh where are we on this tape i've been ready for literally an hour okay do you want to uh really i've got it right here i'm surrounded by clocks it says we have not been doing the show for an hour okay are you ready do you do you know

the part i'm talking about uh i mean what i did i'm recording again by the way so we're back oh Nice. We're back, baby. We got the net is back and is stretched beneath us. It is taut. It will save us if we fall. I've got this. Now, this will also be interesting for the listeners because what they are going to hear is me talking sans music. Oh, yeah. Sans drops.

Because all that comes from my end and you're only recording.

All that is being played on Andrew's end. And this is the recording. This is basically my California Got Sunshine moment. Yes. This is no backing vocals. No backing track. Nobody else. It's just me singing my song. H to Fergie and Jesus. Oh, wait, sorry, I forgot. The drops are being played from here, so you will hear the drops. You just won't hear the intro music or you wouldn't hear Andrew. Very, very calm former farmer. He's 84 years old. Doesn't know what YouTube is, but is a big hit on there. We'll play you some of his tape to see if it soothes you as well. And then speaking of voices, there's some new research about why it is that we hate the sound of our own voices.

Hey, want to hear the most annoying sound in the world?

I heard you Paul Rudding

sipping there

yeah that was me sipping coffee this is where this is where things get truly complicated on this show that was me sipping coffee in real time while I was playing me from one to two hours ago I think well the shape of our what's that

I was gonna say I think that if we keep doing this where we're talking over top of you we both have to talk in silly voices so we know that that's present

you're always looking for a reason to break out that character I could also go low. All right, go ahead.

Gulls, more or less. So we will talk about that. I'm going to do something, Andrew. I'm going to mute my microphone. Okay. You've got to mute that microphone. I'm going to mute my actual microphone. So what you are about to hear is there's no danger of me making a sound in real time. We are just going to hear the unvarnished, original, uncut tape of if I made a weird marsupial gurgle or not right before I got to Andrew. here we go i unmuted my microphone to say here we go okay now i'm muting it first i'm having a sip of coffee okay and i went down the wrong pipe a little bit this is hard to do actually okay now i'm muting my microphone and if we have time we may get to this topic about dreams and whether or not science can now force us to dream about certain things we talk about you and your life your hopes your ambitions your dreams plus emails and v-mails and we've got this guy he's

got dreams you know that would have been it right that was it and it was buried in the music so i heard you this time say well you know but in the music it just sounded like a little squeaky little

marsupial let's hear it again here we go got dreams you know sorry i'm just trying to make it i wanted the listeners to be able to hear it here we go one more time you know you know

that was kind of what that was yeah okay so we can actually hear the word that you are making which makes it, you know, more cogent than the noise that I made low those many years ago. When do you think that was that? Oh, we should. Well, we know this because it launched a website. What was it like? It's the anniversary yet? 2013. Do you think that was? No, I was already announced. Yeah, it could have been 2013, 2014. Like, what was that? That was literally, if people don't know, if you are a new listener, that sound that Luke is playing right now, that was me in a moment, not unlike Luke there, kind of getting my thoughts together between two sentences. Or no, actually, I think you asked me a question, and I was trying to consider the answer. And I said, well, you know, but I made that sound instead.

What's interesting is that what a sensation it became on the program. I mean, it launched our friend Lin Pham's whole kind of audio empire of the marsupial gurgle. That's what that's a reference to. It's been played probably hundreds, if not thousands of times now on the show. It's really become, I would say, a defining piece of audio tape on the show.

I mean, I think thanks to your remixes, I remember after that noise came out, you – because I was late at this time and you said, okay, I got some stuff I've been working on. I remember – I think we even dialed up late or something. You're like, sorry, I've been working on some tape. And you had like four or five remixes where you would like take songs and drop that in. Now, I'm putting you on the spot. I'm not expecting you to have those. I think I have them here.

I have some of them. I don't know what, like, you know, which is the best or which version, but I can play a couple of them here. So everybody just heard the sound itself, the quote-unquote weird sound isolated. So here are some things. I mean, these are just the various ways that this thing has been remixed. Okay, Andrew, let's just take a quick audio journey here. Okay, this is, I believe, maybe you mixed with Marshawn Lynch, because I was also obsessed with Marshawn Lynch's Super Bowl week press conferences where he was saying, I'm just here so I won't get fined. So I think this is...

I'm just here so I won't get fined.

Okay. Here is you mixed with Columbo.

Oh, sir. Just one more thing.

Here's the wickedly talented. Please welcome the wickedly talented. Here's a good one.

That one really works.

Yeah. Almost sang Barabajaggle. Here is You Looped with Kanye. Oh, yeah, this one. This one's actually pretty soulful.

Yeah, exactly. Which is really, I think, I mean, happier big picture. I don't know. I'm happier with my media options. Media options. I mean, happier big picture. I don't know.

I might have tacos when I go home. I'm not quite sure yet. Oh, no.

How funny is that? That's pretty funny.

New Hampshire? I think, I mean, happier big picture. Big picture, I don't know. I'm happier with my media options. Media options.

Really, the credit on that is, of course, all to Kanye. He's amazing.

No, but you look at all the different drops. You put more work into that song. than we have anything i've done yes that is um no that's what i remember yeah no that's a p that's

a real piece of work how is that not in drops of stupid or two look for it folks drops of stupid

or three right right of course i guess marsup actually it was

Yeah, and Marsupial Gurgle made it in there in some form. No, it didn't, did it? Huh, that's weird. Scandal. Scandal. I smell a rat. Anyway.

I'm scandalized by my phone this morning, Andrew. Yeah, what's going on? I'm not even trying to be totally funny with this, although I did write this on Twitter. But I noticed that recently the facial recognition function. Do you have one of these on your phone as well? You don't have an iPhone, but does their Samsung have one?

They do. I don't think I use it on my phone. I use it on my Samsung tablet.

So I have it on my iPhone, and I have noticed recently that it has stopped recognizing my face, facial ID. And for a minute, I thought it was just because I was trying to log into, like, my bank account, and I thought maybe my bank account info changed. Like, I had to change my password there, and so maybe that somehow told the face ID to stop recognizing me until certain, you know, dual authentications had been authenticated or whatever. but no it's just across the board every single app on my phone that uses face id including just my phone opening itself up turn itself on as you will if you will doesn't it doesn't work anymore and i can't tell if it's because my face has actually changed that much during quarantine or if it's just because there's an update to the iphone i'll bet you it's an update it could be

the state of your camera i bet you a million bucks it's a technical thing you think you think that it's that your face is changing too much and that makes my face has changed a lot I also have

a giant pink dollop of pink on my face right now of my special acne drying medicine because I have it's not to be gross but I have like a pimple on my face that has seriously been here for a month and it will not go away and I'm starting to think it might be a fungal infection or something beyond a pimple because no pimple should last for a month on a 45 year old man so i don't know i basically have like this giant you know square of this pink drying cream which is one of the many reasons i'm glad andrew that we the experiment of us looking at each other during the show was kind of short-lived but um i don't know if that's not helping things this morning that i like literally my face is kind of a different color i'm not sure yeah i i'll bet you i mean you can

I figured this out by going through the process of reestablishing your face into the computer, you know what I mean, into the phone. Like you could go through that security thing before.

Well, that's the other thing that hurts. It's like this is sort of – we must always preface these conversations now with a statement that says everyone's body is different and everybody should live in their own body in whatever way works for them. So I don't want to say something that hurts anyone's feelings. But for me, if I have to, like, tell my phone that my face looks different now, that's like just going up a pant size.

But we don't know if that's the case. This will kind of answer the question. I'm just looking at it from a more, like, kind of analytical.

Like a rule out every day. See, I want to see if I can go back to my old face, just like I want to see if I can go back to being a 32-weight. You want to see, okay, I'm going to spend, like, a month or whatever and lose some weight. Yes, it's an aspirational face login, much like, you know, not buying, you know. I mean, honestly, at this point, I'm solidly probably more comfortable in pants that are a 36, but I would like to be a 34, which I was for a long time. I'd really like to be a 32 again, but I could live with a 34, but honestly, 36 is more comfortable. I bought a suit, Andrew, a while ago down here in Portland, a white suit, because I was going – one, I had been hanging out with Wayne Coyne, which will really get in your head. Because that guy's always wearing some kind of a John Varvatos, cool, tailored thing. And it looks great on him, but he's effortlessly casual with it, even though it's formal. So I think I came home with this idea that I wanted to be the sort of portly Wayne Coyne. So I was in J.Crew, and they had a white suit that was marked down. It looked summery. I thought, oh, this will be fun to wear when Livewire starts doing events this summer. It's already too small for me.

I hate that feeling. I have a wedding that is coming up. Not for me. I'm not getting married. I think I can actually say this now. I think I've cleared it that it's been on social media or whatever. It's actually our dear friend Nick Jarin and our dear friend Rosen. They are tying. My former dear friend Nick Jarin. Tying the knot. Oh, that's right. Why are you guys beefing? Because I'm not invited to the wedding. Oh, right. I think it's a very, very small affair. I'm going to be in this wedding, in fact, and I don't even know what. Really? That's cool, actually. Yeah, I'm pretty honored. I don't know, like, and I need to reach out to Nick. You have to wear, like, a hype beast outfit? I'm hoping. I mean, that's the thing. Like, Nick and his friends are very stylish people. Make a sweatsuit that's also a suit. I mean, I don't know. Like, I don't know. And I don't know if there's going to be, like, hey, we're all, you know, renting or buying this specific suit. or, like, hey, this is the vibe, go for these colors or what. So I need to kind of figure that out. But, like, I'm not even going to try to use any of my, you know, formal-ish wear from weddings past. Like, I am just, like, goodbye to that. It's been at least three years since I bought a new suit anyway, I think. So, like, and the last suit I bought I really liked. In fact, I think Genevieve maybe picked it out and got it for me as a gift and we got it tailored. But, again, that was several years ago, and I'm not going to put myself through that of trying to squeeze into it.

Can I ask you something real quick about that? And, you know, obviously if any of this feels overly personal to you or this is not a fun conversation for you to have, by all means, opt out. But, by the way, these conversations are opt out. So I will have them with you until you actively tell me you don't want to have them. Okay, gotcha, gotcha. Much like everything Facebook and Twitter and all these other places are doing, we also follow an opt out policy on this program. Can I unsubscribe from this? This is TBTL Sidewalk. I will ask you about your feelings about your body until you turn that off on your phone. You and I, when we got together for TB Telethon 12, I mentioned to you that I thought you were actually looking trim. And you mentioned that you thought maybe through a little bit of anxiousness around your finger injury and just other things that you may have actually maybe lost a couple of pounds. not through actively trying, but just because of how life was going for you. Is it the very act of, like, if Genevieve got you this suit and you got it tailored, would the act of even just trying it on to see, would that, I mean, itself be stressful to you?

Yes. Well, first of all, I hate that feeling. I really hate that feeling. And it reminds me of being a child again, of just, like, having to go to a wedding, which was, or some formal thing, which was rare, and I was always gaining more weight. And so, yeah, I feel just terrible trying to put on something that clearly is not even going to, you know, button. But the thing is, like, I think that when I saw you, I lost, you know, maybe, I mean, just negligible poundage. But I do think that I was going through a pretty stressful time because of my finger and everything. By the way, that's how I describe my lovemaking. Oh, God. I mean, forget the fact that that's your go-to joke. I mean, that's just a disgusting usage of it. But I have not lost weight compared to, as a matter of fact, now that I'm thinking about it, this suit, Genevieve bought it in the Garment District in L.A., and I got it. Ooh, cool. Yeah, right. So it was a cool thing. But, I mean, we're talking this was 20 – when did I move out of L.A.? I was there – I might have moved out in early 2015. Exactly. So the point is I said a few years, but I actually don't think I've bought a new suit in six years or something along the lines of that, which I can't believe time works that way. But obviously right off this whole past year and a half, no formal events there. And like, yeah, time just flies. So, you know, I might have been somewhat skinnier when you saw me on this last road trip than I had been maybe in the in the weeks and months leading up to it. But first of all, also, I've regained my appetite threefold. No joke. I've been eating like crazy lately. Me too, dude. And it just weird. Like, and it's like I don't want to settle into one thing. So I just am like heavy, like just heavy grazing constantly. But, yeah, there's no way a suit that I got tailored for me back when I was living in L.A., which is actually a thinner moment of my existence, would fit me now.

So then does the idea – I just – again, this is where I feel like we're going to hit that kind of wall of what I want for you versus what feels comfortable to you. but like i as you know as the king of the affect i i like wearing suits and i really you know once i got used to it i was into that whole thing where i wore a suit every day for a year and i like i think i liked that i felt like i looked nicer i mean suits suits are designed to be flattering you know they they make the shoulders look kind of broader and the the middle part of you look a little uh more you know i don't know what proportional or something so what i'm wondering is can we do some kind of a pretty woman type sitch where we like get you a nice suit that fits well on you that you feel comfortable in because i then i feel like you would not be dreading

going to this wedding oh i'm not whoa whoa whoa i'm not dreading going to this wedding no no i think you misunderstand i'm saying that i'm not going to put on any of my old clothes What I'm going to do is I'm going to do exactly what you're saying. Yeah, I don't know how that got missed in the translation. What I'm saying is I'm not going to go through the process of, like, seeing if any of my old clothes, if I can squeeze into them, or probably even any of my old shirts and having that moment where, like, the collar doesn't fit around the neck. I'm just going to go out. I'm going to find out from Nick. Again, if there's some sort of prescribed thing that we're all getting the exact same outfit, which doesn't seem like his steez, I'm sure it will be more of a, like, this is what the vibe is. And again, he and his friends are much younger than me and all way cooler than me, especially Nick. Like Nick and Rosen have style.

So, no, I'm not dreading that part. Veeves and I are going to go, and Veeves has a pretty good eye for these things. So that's what my point was. I'm starting fresh for whatever this is because I want to look fresh.

I think what I was basing, my misinterpretation of the situation, I was previously on shows. I feel like you have said to me that you feel really uncomfortable getting dressed up sometimes to go to things.

No, that is definitely true. But it's often – I mean, yeah, I'm not somebody who necessarily is down for formal wear stuff. But I haven't done anything like this in a long time. But I will feel just so much more comfortable. Yeah, that's what my point was just like. But if I'm getting – if I'm going to go out and just like – if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it right. I'm just going to get a bunch of clothes that fit me and will look good. Not like, well, I think these pants from several years ago I can squeeze into that and make – Because, and let's face it, I'm not going to name names here, but there are other weddings that maybe I've gone to that are not like whole new wardrobe events for me, right? You know what I mean? Like maybe a colleague of Genevieve's or something. I'm not going to go out and buy a new.

None of my future weddings, Andrew, are going to be formal.

Right, right, right. They're all going to be clothing optional. Oh, nice.

Are you having it at that hot spring?

I am.

Saul Duck on the Olympic Peninsula. It's clothing optional. Nice, nice. And I think you're going to really enjoy yourself. I wish you the best. What if I had a wedding and I asked you to be in it? Which, by the way, I mean, I wouldn't do that. I probably wouldn't do that to you only because I wouldn't want to create Ajita for you. But I would say, obviously, you are now, after this many years of us doing the show, you're on a very, very short list of the people that I interact with the most in my life. And I'm really closest to, honestly. So it would make sense for me to have you in a wedding if I were to have another one. But I also wouldn't want to stress you out. But what if I invited you, but it was clothing options? Oh, I wouldn't accept. And you know that.

And you just like that.

What if I offered you a chance to go into space, but it was clothing? I'd need a day to think about it, about how I'm going to say no. All right. Let's take a break. And then when we come back, we'll get into these top stories and emails and v-mails here on TBTL. Stay with us. hello and welcome to top story our top story uh involves this guy named john butler who has become this huge hit on youtube for his asmr style of speaking even though he doesn't know what asmr is and also doesn't know what youtube is um i uh let me see i emailed myself this audio file so let me see if i can but what did i call it andrew that's the real question farmer asml or asmr or the guy's name also i just deleted like nine could you just play the tape of you making that funny sound again that's the asmr hit that america wants that's right yeah you know what let me just do this i took the time yesterday to load this thing into my computer but as i was down in yahats now i can't seem to find it so let me just you mean yakety yakits i mean i'm pretty sure i'm

pretty sure it's yakety yakits don't talk back don't talk back it yes what did you go with for the show title oh what did we oh the one the other day by the way was a big hit amongst um friends and fans, the one that you came up with, what was it? Honky Tonk Banaka Donk. Oh yeah, Stu liked that. Stu did, and also I heard from some listeners who just like, literally just texted me to say like, that's a great title. Yesterday, oh, you know, I did something weird with yesterday's show title. We went, we were going to call it Reverse Bucket List, and I never do this. I very, so rarely insert my name into the title, but I thought it just was funnier or something if I called it Andrew's Reverse Bucket List. Oh, I like that. It seemed slightly more compelling as opposed to the reverse bucket list. So I went with it. It's part of the Andrew Walsh takeover.

You know what? I welcome our Andrew Walsh overlords. Did you see the name? Kent Brockman style.

I'm going to buy you more time now. I'm going to go with some more. I've got it, by the way. Oh, good. I will just say, though, on Friday, or was it last Thursday's show when we were talking about chicken tendies, I did name that show Love Me Tendi.

Oh, that. I also love the way we've poisoned

We've poisoned a good friend of ours Oh boy, and we will not mention

the good friend because I swear my good boy, I don't even want to like Nope, no more We'll leave it there We'll leave it there with this caveat and this asterisk, we cannot vouch for anything that's on that particular subreddit that we mentioned, like many things on Reddit and other dark corners of the internet. There is much that is

quite deplorable going on but there are also some layered meta jokes that have created some mirth for us indeed um but but but i i literally don't even want to say the name anymore because lest anybody else go there and then read it and then think that we somehow stand behind any of the content because we really don't um this guy named john butler is a former farmer in the uk He's also, I guess, one of these guys who's very, I think, thoughtful about the universe. He was one of the first organic farmers in England in the 1970s. And he appears to be, now maybe there's more to the story that I haven't been able to find, but he appears to be just this kind of very in touch with the universe and himself kind of hippy-dippy guy who's just been hanging out and farming and has lots of thoughts about the universe. And so somebody decided to interview him about his thoughts on the universe and life and being on this planet. And in him just talking about it, this video, which was, which was, you know, for some kind of, I think, relatively small outfit at the time, started to get picked up by the ASMR community. Do we need to explain what ASMR is anymore to the listeners? Is that kind of pretty well described? I think it was something called Conscious.TV was the first place where they were featuring this guy, John Butler. And, again, it wasn't because he doesn't have a soothing voice. It was he has interesting thoughts about what – I could see this guy being on the Krista Tippett show on being. Sure, yeah. Formerly speaking of faith? Yes. Formerly calling all pets? So, anyway, here we go. This has 9 million views As I've already mentioned a couple times John Butler says I've never heard of YouTube And I hardly know what the internet is Which is probably part of why this guy is so freaking zen Yeah maybe Because he's not spending all his time Judging people on TikTok For repeating information about Abby Elliot That they already knew

Do you think he does Nope Do you think he knows about the Garfield phone

in order to be what we are we have to come out of what we are not now then here you and i are sitting in a body now in a few years this body will die go back to dust

am i the body is this what i am i live in it by the way it's a little on brand england that there are church bells tolling in the background that's not part of the bit i just think they're sitting in some like beautiful sort of like stone library that could have been out of like game of thrones and like of course there's a church bell tolling in

the background right raise my hand i raise my hand but am i the body what am i he was a quiet man an artist a craftsman very conscious of his surroundings a landscape artist mostly at that time so he taught me to observe nature now i'm going to say something here and i

with peace and love to john butler but somebody's got to get him some water Dude, yeah, that lip smacking is kind of driving me crazy.

And I don't have is it misophonia and misophonia? Is that what it's called? I knew you were going to do that. Is that the name of the thing that people where people can't stand the sound of where people can't stand the sound of like lip smacking? Is that right? People don't like it.

For instance, when I Paul Rudd my coffee on the show or when I used to eat like, I don't know, cashews or something during the show, people were not enjoying the sound of me. The people who have misophonia do not enjoy the sound of mouth noises like that. And this is a case where this guy is not young. Again, he's 84 years old. His body is not what it used to be. Probably salivary glands are not generating as much saliva as they used to. Who knows? But it's like this is something. Maybe it's just our public radio producer background, Andrew. But this is like when you get a guest into a studio and they're doing an ISDN thing and they need water. So because also when people get nervous, which I don't think this guy, John Butler, even knows what it is to be nervous. He's so transcended all of that. But like in the radio interview setting, people will get nervous and then their mouth really dries up. And then they're like their tongue is sticking to the inside of their mouth. And that is a that's an awful feeling as a producer because you have not done your job of getting people coffee or water, at least.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think this is going to.

to trigger some people like it's it's much for me okay here we go what was in front of me nothing

elaborate just the hedges the trees the grass to notice the sky he was also very conscious of good work he loved carpentry he taught me how to use tools and I remember so well him saying pay attention keep your eye on what you're doing when you're sawing a piece of wood listen and watch listen to and watch the movement of the saw watch the hammer so you hit the nail straight and these two lessons of 100% giving attention and observing what was around me have stood me in good stead all my life.

I don't know. I would say Bob Ross gives this guy a real run for his money, and also, you know, Bob Ross seemed properly hydrated.

Yeah, no, this is not working for me. This is making me uncomfortable. And, again, I can't stress this enough to you.

You mean this topic or just TBTL in general?

Well, TBTL in general makes me generally uncomfortable, but the sound of him talking, that's interesting that people are enjoying this because this lip smacking is...

Yeah, the lip smacking is rough. Really rough.

And I'm not sensitive to that stuff, I promise.

Now let's go with Bob Ross. This is just when you go to the YouTube page of John Butler discovering stillness from Conscious TV, it tells you on the side you might also want to watch Bob Ross. So clearly this is for somebody who is seeking a certain kind of energy on their YouTube videos. Let's just listen to Bob Ross now. This is not, again, promoted as ASMR. This is just Bob Ross being Bob Ross.

We're going to be using today. First of all, the main two brushes that we'll use. We have here a two inch and a one inch natural bristle brush. I know these may look like house painting brushes, but these are high quality artist brushes designed specifically for this technique. Don't confuse these with synthetic brushes such as nylon, polyester, and et cetera. It absolutely won't work. The painting knives that we'll be using, we'll use two different knives. We have a number 10 knife, which is the larger of the two.

and i'm finding this actually more soothing what do you think yeah definitely um you know and still

that asmr quality of it's he's mic'd so closely you still pick up a lot of the breath and the which is something that drives me crazy when i'm recording um when i am recording like you know sponsorship spots for tbtl we pre-record those of course and often i will go back in and pull down the volume level on my breaths because i don't know if i'm doing this during the show and it's in the midst of conversation it doesn't stand out to me as much but when i am doing a um you know like recording an ad i don't know if it's because my microphone is so close or if i'm in my head about what i'm saying or i'm trying to think more about what i'm saying which has never stopped me on tbtl um there's something about it where i'm taking these big gulping breaths and it drives me crazy so i usually go in and actually pull that down a little bit it's not a good sound

I don't know if this is going to pay off I think it won't Andrew because you can't see What's going on nor can the listeners But I have actually A couple of times when I've been Having a hard time sleeping and it's probably Been due to like way too much Scrolling on my phone Which we all know is like in bed we all know is like The worst thing you can do I have actually turned to This thing called that I've talked about before On the show called men with the pot Oh yeah These guys I think they're in Poland And they just cook in these elaborate outdoor settings that are all very kind of naturally created. So, you know, they'll be boiling something, but it's like the – it's just a big wood fire they've made. And then the sort of thing that the pot is hanging on is like two pieces of tree branch that they've like chopped by hand and made a supporting cross member with. Anyway, I have found – now, I don't know if – actually, this would be a great experiment, Andrew. You can't see what they're doing. So tell me if this sounds relaxing to you without being able to see what they're actually like chopping up and cutting up. Or maybe it only works if you have the visual. By the way, this is titled Crunchiest Fish Cakes on Another Level ASMR Forest Cooking. but now they're just hiking which is come on guys get it together what are you trying to stretch this out can we get the okay now they're chopping up some potatoes yeah i don't think this works as audio it only but if you can see it oh my gosh there are times

only thing is i wish that there was a vegetarian version of this i'm such a little snowflake now andrew like i'll be watching it and every single one is like the best sirloin steak you've ever had and it's like i'm not so triggered by seeing someone cook a steak but i just like it if one time it was the best vegetarian pasta you've ever had or something because then i could really get into it the best impossible burger you've ever had made out in the wild the best soy latte that

you've ever had in me you were showing i'm trying to think at some point during our recent travels i think maybe when genevieve was still there at some point you and i were watching these things together yes i don't remember i'm an evangelist for them although like i said they didn't really

work as audio but i um but i i do find it to be very relaxing my dream would be i don't know maybe this could happen my dream would be to to trick cbs sunday morning into letting me go to poland and do a piece on these dudes well first of all when you pitch it don't try not to use the word

trick um i think that's a boondoggle waste of travel i think that it's a good i think it's a good story i know that it's an expensive story because it's international well lord knows they

sent me to puerto rico in the dominican republic to do a story about pina coladas that's never been on television it has never that never aired although i heard i heard through back channels that that story is legendary within cbs as one of the bigger boondoggles they've had are you serious Yes I'm serious I mean not like Probably not network wide But somebody made a sort of a passing joke about I think I had brought it up But they said oh yeah yeah yeah That's like Sometimes people refer to that as like Well it's not going to be another piña colada situation is it Wait but did you Oh this is interesting Did you pitch that

Do they think it was a boondoggle on your part I thought they were Well I didn't pitch it

It was a producer pitched the idea Yeah The you know Higher ups signed off on it And then we did the story And I think it was a fine story It just languished on the shelf where it continues to languish and will now never be on TV. Although I'll tell you what, that version of me, Andrew, definitely face idea on my phone. Let's see what old LB from six years ago looks like. I mean, we've said this on the show before, and I don't want to get too focused on physical appearance on the show, particularly today. But, like, it's worth remembering, and I'm telling myself this, that I'm sure if I were to watch this Pina Colada video, I know for a fact, Andrew, while I was doing that video, I was racked with the normal amount of massive self-loathing that I am racked with when someone's pointing a television camera at me. I think TV – is TV camera redundant or unnecessary? Does it matter that it's a TV camera? It's a camera, right?

Yeah, but it's a different camera. I think so

Whenever that camera's being pointed at me I feel very uncomfortable Because I have never once seen myself On television and thought Yeah, that looks good Never one time But the funny thing is I bet you that if I were to watch That Pina Colada piece From six years ago I'd go, what was I so hung up about? Yeah I mean, now I look like wet shit But back then I was fine You know what? If I watch something that I did today In five years, same experience And yet somehow I cannot connect my brain To that concept, you know?

It just makes you dread five years from now. Like I'd say, hey, think about how good you'll think you look now five years from now. Then that'll just make you think, oh, no.

Oh, my God. Do you understand? I'm going to make John Butler, 84-year-old former farmer who needs a drink of water, going to make him look like damn George Clooney. That guy did have just he was the most old British farmer you could be. Even in that video, Andrew, the hairs growing on the outside of his nose, which is a real mood when you get to the point where it's like outside nose hair is a sitch on your nose hair.

Yeah. Oh, that's no good. That's no good. I'm kind of – you've moved on. I have not moved on from this pina colada story. I don't understand. Maybe I should have done an ASMR voice. I mean listen I don't understand like I don't like that maybe this is you just saying it this way I don't feel like that's a boondoggle and a boondoggle is when somebody is trying to get away with something like hey you know what this is a junket I'm doing this thing it's not really I'm not really gonna get much work done but I want to I want to go to this conference or I want to go to do this story because it's a nice part of the world and while that was probably a very fun thing fun project you put a lot of work into it and it's not like you pitched it you didn't say like I've always wanted to go here and my friends having a wedding there the same weekend so it's a boondoggle it's not a boondoggle they should put it on the goddamn air i well right

i i said i probably part of the reason why i'm comfortable mentioning that is because i don't actually feel targeted by that comment and somebody could also have just been you know trying to be sort of funny or what have you um but uh yeah i don't

It's not on me or the producer or anybody involved in the piece. A piece was greenlit. We went and did the piece, and then they just decided not to put it on TV. So I don't think – I mean, let me put it this way. Since then, I have traveled many, maybe hundreds of thousands of miles to do stories for CBS, and no one has ever been like, do you really need to go to West Palm Beach for this? in fact if anything what i've learned about doing that job is one of the main challenges for me is to figure out how to limit my travel you know because you don't want to be on the road all the time no and i mean although you know of course with the pandemic things change pretty drastically but it's like if anything what i've learned i don't know how many years i've been doing it now that kind of version of that job where like it's me and a crew and we're talking to people is there are things i don't have to be there for and more often than not it's like oh we're shooting b-roll we're just getting shots of people of like we're getting close-up shots of asparagus in a field um how about i get there after that which is sounds diva ish but but but the the real impact is or like there have been times where there was a proposal that i i forget what the story was but This idea of me to fly all the way to the East Coast to basically interview one person, and they weren't critical to the piece. And I was like, let's hold off on that. But in the early days, I would have been like, well, that's what we got to do. I got to fly to South Carolina to talk to this one person, and then that person may not even end up in the story. So I have – if anything, I'm the one limiting the travel options regarding me and CBS. I don't think that the scarlet letter, the scarlet P is not following me around.

Well, I'm going to, I am, what does the P stand for? Pina Colada. Oh, Pina Colada. I guess PC would have been a better. It's PC, man. It's all just politically PC police are here. But yeah, now I feel like I'm pulling, and again, I hope you know that I'm saying this defensive of you, not to rub this in. But also, like, what's with the Gordon Ramsay piece? Oh, you mean Not Gordon Ramsay Who was it? Who did you Nope, Wolfgang Yes, Wolfgang Puck Was it Wolfgang?

Yeah, Wolfgang Puck That one fizzled for some reason Again, through no fault of my own I'm going to represent you Hey, Luke

I'm going to be Shaking some bird cages

I went to Remember I went to Colorado and went to that place where they took all the tigers from the Tiger King.

Was that where you took the photo of Butte stuff?

Well, that was after that. So I had been in Butte doing a story. Yeah. And then I got a call, and they said, could you stick around and actually maybe just go out to Colorado to this place where they're housing a bunch of the tigers that were basically confiscated from the Tiger King? I said, sure. So I went down there. I stayed in Montana for an extra weekend, went down there, did a story. That one never got on TV. I mean, I did a story once about a guy driving a stagecoach through Texas that never got on TV. I mean, there's probably like five, maybe five pieces that I've done that are, I guess, technically on the shelf but are probably never going to get off the shelf. But the sense I get is that that's also just kind of par for the course.

Are you excited that John Dickerson is the new host of CBS Sunday Morning? And are you going to hang out with him? And are you going to introduce me to him? And are we going to become friends?

Wait, is that true? Yes. You think I would know that working on the show? Let me see here. That's news to me.

So Jane is retiring. Let me double. I'm looking this up. But, yeah, I'm not seeing it. I'm not seeing it on his Wikipedia. But I thought that's the big news. I thought he's the new host of CBS Sunday Morning.

Well, you're a Dickerson head, so I would believe that you would be – let's see. Again, you think I would know this? Yeah, here it is.

May 27th, 2021, John Dickerson to switch from 60 Minutes to CBS Sunday Morning. Oh, when I was looking at his Wikipedia page, I was like, what have I been going around and telling people? Right, but that doesn't mean he's the host, right? Oh, is he just going to be – let me see here. You and I are just reading up on that. Why not? Oh, you're right. I guess he's he will be contributing to Sunday morning and we'll continue.

So I'll mention there was no such press release when I moved from not doing stories on Sunday morning to doing story.

It says that he's going to be doing pieces on piña coladas, which is interesting. Now that feels personal. My apologies. You know, I conflated this news. So he's just moving to be a contributor on CBS Sunday morning, not to be the host of Sunday morning is what we're understanding here. My oh, man, I'm spreading rumors. This is how rumors get started.

I'm actually kind of relieved, though, because I feel like while I'm not the most in touch with that television program as far as people who work on it, I feel like I would have heard if there was a new host. And I'm glad to know that I'm glad. No, I didn't miss that memo.

Yes. OK. My my apologies. Yeah. So he's going to be doing his he's going to be bringing, you know, his beat, his national affairs reporting to CBS Sunday morning.

You love him because you love the slate political gap. That's where I fell in love with him. Exactly. I fell in love with him years ago Because he was on day to day all the time Because that show I've mentioned this before Was a co-production of NPR and Slate And so Mostly what I did as a booker Was try to wrangle The John Dickerson's of the world The Dahlia Lithwick's The you know Just various folks over there At Slate and get them on day to day It's kind of funny because that show day-to-day was it got you know canceled obviously wasn't a big hit but it's like slate has gone on to just on their own basically do what day-to-day was supposed to be you know how so you mean just with their audio show yeah they tap into their reporters and they and they tap into their expertise and their personalities you know that are good talkers and like so basically like it was npr was going to like tap into the resources of slate magazine and great people like john dickerson or will salatin or or uh you know fred kaplan right whomever and and then that show didn't work out but then slate just tapped into them or panoply tapped into them and now they just have a bunch of hit podcasts where they they just have their people on talking about stuff and

people seem to love it right dahlia i was trying to think of dahlia lithwick as well right she wasn't she oh you did oh sorry i was blanked out i was probably trying to think of her name while

you said it she is probably my favorite person to hear talking about legal issues i mean and there's a long list of people that i love to hear talk about i'd put like jeff tobin top three by the way our book club that you set up yesterday um we're gonna do a run a run for his

uh the run of his life is gonna be the first book we talk about oh my god he also i don't know why

Am I doing this because we've effectively chased off all the listeners on this Tuesday at the I didn't give we didn't play the full Jeff Toobin kind of I guess you would say mea culpa. Please let me back on television. Jimmy Swaggart. I have sinned. But what he said towards the end of it was that you'll know a person by their enemies. And he's – because O.J. Simpson apparently has been – was delighting in the sort of downfall of Jeffrey Toobin because Jeffrey Toobin covered that trial and wrote The Run of His Life, et cetera, about O.J. And the anchor, Allison Camerota, who was interviewing Jeff Toobin, said, like, even O.J. Simpson is making fun of you. And he said, well, you know a person by their enemies, so I'm okay if my enemies are O.J. Simpson.

That's interesting. Yeah, of course O.J. would have beef. Yeah, yeah.

O.J. Simpson, we're not – this is not the kind of stuff we get into a ton, but he's got like a million Twitter followers, and he just is on Twitter all the time doing – I hear this by way of the Howard Stern Show, by the way. They play a lot of this stuff where he's on there talking about football and politics, and I mean the sense I have is that these people are following – most of them are following him ironically. like get a load of me I'm following OJ Simpson but it makes me kind of upset because it just still is him having a voice in the culture that I just don't feel like he deserves based on what I believe he did based on everything I've seen and read about the case of his estranged wife and Ron Goldman so you know yeah I just like it bothers me that he's on Twitter talking about you know like Matt Stafford And other football things And he's always on a golf course somewhere Because he's in Florida Where I guess they can't touch his NFL pension And anyway Yeah so O.J. Simpson has also apparently Been critical of Jeff Toobin Just quickly because we promoted it And because it's relevant to the ASMR stuff I thought this was kind of an interesting thing From CNN about why we hate the sound Of our own voice It is because when you listen to a recording of your own voice, Andrew, the sound. So when you hear yourself, either when you're putting a spot together for TBTL or you're filling in on Cairo, although I don't know if you would hear it later, but when you hear yourself coming out of a radio or computer, the sound is traveling through the air and then into your ears. This is referred to as air conduction. The sound energy vibrates the eardrum and your small ear bones. These bones then transmit the sound vibration to your cochlea, which stimulates nerve axons that send the auditory signal to your brain so that's fairly intuitive when you are hearing yourself coming out of a radio or something else or answering machine in the olden days it's coming through the air into your ears when you speak the sound from your voice reaches the inner ear in a different way it's much of it is internally conducted directly through your skull bones so when you're listening to your like when I'm hearing myself right now as I'm saying these words to you it's a lot of the sound is going from inside of my head to my inner ears and it makes my ear makes my voice sound deeper and richer to me as i'm talking to you andrew than what you are hearing and what the listeners are hearing so basically our voices sound more sort of rich and whatever inside our own heads than everyone else is getting them and the only time we get that memo is when we are hearing our voices coming out of some amplified thing and then into our ears in the more traditional way

yeah i swear i've heard that somewhere before and it makes sense and i also just think there's something that obviously i'm used to hearing my voice it doesn't mean i always like it but i'm very used to hearing it at this point been doing this for a long time now but um the first few times you hear your own voice or if you live a normal life where you don't hear it all that often it's just shocking it's just it's it's a little bit like that um you were let's bring it back to cbs again do you hear john dickerson is the new host john dickerson show minutes yeah with john dickerson um you mentioned when you're on tv like you don't have control of the camera if you're recording something in your in your home with your little studio setup and your phone like you know all your good angles but then if somebody else takes a photo or a video of you and you don't even know they're taking it's good angle yeah right and you singular and it's a drone above me right oh really because i have a bald spot up there i got i got nothing left no no i'm looking

up oh i see oh i straight up at the camera like a character in bob's burgers looking up at something

right high in the sky exactly um anyway just you know where i'm going with is that that that vibe of like somebody else takes a photo of you um there's a photo of me well i don't even want to talk about there's the worst photo of me in the world from a tbtl event i've never mentioned on the show before it is so bad but it pops up from time to time and i don't maybe people don't see it in the light that i see it in but it is so bad but it's just like wow that was a moment where i was just like playing a game and not thinking about what i look like and this is the photo that emerged from it and i was not controlling what i look like you're looking in a mirror and seeing it uh myself straight on that's the equivalent of hearing your voice uh for the first time or if you rarely hear your voice and then suddenly you're confronted with it you feel

kind of naked and vulnerable yeah i i'm i was trying to when i put the story on the list today i was trying to self-assess how i am at hearing my voice on the radio now and i think interestingly enough i'm less embarrassed at what my voice sounds like because i just have i guess had a lot of experience with it but i'm more embarrassed at the content of what i'm saying oh not not more Not more than in the past, but what I mean is I still feel uncomfortable hearing myself on the radio, but it's maybe for different reasons. It's not because of what the quality of my voice is or how my voice sounds because I'm fairly – like I'm doing Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me this week from this little room, and that will be on a lot of radio stations on Saturday. And there's even a chance I will just accidentally have the radio on. I'll get in the car at, like, whatever time it's on here in Portland. I'm guessing 10 a.m. And I will hear it, and I will immediately turn it off. But I won't be turning it off because I don't want to hear what my voice sounds like. I will be turning it off because I don't want to hear my lame jokes.

Can't you just steal some more of my jokes again? Which one joke? I don't even know. Honestly, I don't even know. You've just brought that up before, and it's not even been stealing. That's not really something I heard.

No, but now I want to – the listeners will remind us.

You've just mentioned before. And it wasn't – you made a big deal of it, and it wasn't even stealing. It was just like, I don't know. No. Oh, there was – was there a Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young? There was some – somebody who – I made some reference to somebody looking like Wilford Brimley or – I don't remember what it was. Wait, that's my joke.

I'm the king of the Wilford Brimley reference. Yeah. That's why – The listeners will remind us. Somebody let us know what we're talking about. But are you at this point, having had your own radio show, are you pretty used to your own voice and does it like does it great on you or make you feel embarrassed or are you are you pretty much fine with it?

I think Sim, I hadn't thought about it in the terms that you just said it out, but I think that's how I feel. I'm used to the sound of my voice. Here's the weird thing that I'll.

never get a real answer to is um starting a long time ago i think even when i was a just a producer just a producer but like somebody whose voice was not you know on the radio to today when i do a lot of talking on radio style things um if i am talking to a stranger over the phone sometimes you know if it comes up what do you do i work in radio people will say oh you have such a great radio voice yes And I don't think that I do. I think I sound sort of like a Muppet. And I don't think Muppets make for great radio voice. But, like, you know, whatever. I'm not saying that to be self-deprecating. I just wonder if I remember, like, you know, if I'm, I don't know, making an appointment or something and they need to know my occupation for something. Back when I was at New Hampshire Public Radio as a producer and you say, oh, I work in radio. Oh, you have such a good radio voice. Are people just saying that? Is it just like, is it after the fact that people are convinced?

Yes, because I get that. I have gotten that many times I think it is something that people say to fill the silence after the news is delivered that you work in radio or you host a radio show or whatever it is I think because it's I've happened to me many many times in my life where someone will say oh I can hear that I think you have kind of a nice voice for radio and I like you I I've you know I feel like I luckily got into radio at the time when like Ira Glass was also really blazing the trail for just sounding kind of like a quote-unquote normal person like i got into radio when it was no longer the like you didn't have to have a golden voice or you know sound like um you know uh whoever you know some some sort of like trained radio broadcaster from the 1950s um but people say that to me all the time and i i do think it's just it's just something that people naturally want to say because it seems related to what has just been uh mentioned to them about the radio i also tell people that i work in the adult film industry and i get a lot

of compliments on that too oh really they say oh yeah your your face looks like it i'm known as the

negligible pounder here i go once again with the email every week i hope that it's from a female

no man it's not from a female all right emails and vmails my good boy i just got an email from

xfinity where the subject line says channel lineup and services and pricing notice do you think that my price is going my cost of cable and internet is going down my guess would be

the opposite i don't know i just got an email from the management of this apartment building what to flush oh my god toilets only flush human waste and toilet paper our buildings plumbing by the way they're missing an apostrophe i don't know why i gotta like be so petty with these folks our building's plumbing system cannot handle wipes nose tissues paper towels and anything other than regular toilet paper tissue seems weird to me you would think a tissue would be okay

i've always wondered about that because i grew up you know being told don't flush tissues but i don't know why tissues are so much uh worse than toilet paper but i mean there must be something

in there kitchen disposals your kitchen sink disposal system is designed to grind light food waste avoid grinding very fibrous food what would that what would be a very fibrous food like uh like celery oh wow you'd think celery would it's mostly water i mean you're right it's just big long i guess strings of fiber strung together guessing or i really i mean a celery high in

fiber actually now that i think about it maybe yeah maybe not i was just trying to think in

terms of the disposal run cold water while the disposal is on that one i know from my dad actually i know to run water but i didn't know it had to be cold my i remember my dad saying you should run cold water i wonder if that's just because i think it'll keep the engine like the motor from burning out maybe it's probably the cold water actually cools the motor that's spinning the

little blades down there also it might just be like not wasting hot water i always feel like

Do not grind coffee grounds or eggshells. Yeah, I've always heard that. Yeah, I've always heard no coffee grounds in there. Yeah, that sounds like it would just be a dull place. Run after dishwasher completes its cycle. That's weird. So you're supposed to... I guess they don't want you running the disposal while you're running the dishwasher? Hmm, I don't know why. I don't know either. I, you know, I'll spare the listeners my upteenth whinge about this place. But I will tell you, I felt very, very seen the other day. I got into the elevator with a fellow resident and she said something like, I forget, we're just like a very brief conversation. None of which involved astral projection, Andrew. No updates on that front yet. Too bad. But she said something like.

Again, I can't even remember what we were saying about the building, but she goes, well, I mean, you know, because this is the most annoying building you could ever live in. And I was like, oh, and I hadn't like, I hadn't like telegraphed. That was where I was going. I wasn't complaining. I was just, we're just having a conversation. And she seemed like a very normal, adjusted person. And she was like, well, yeah, because, you know, this is the most annoying building you could ever live in. And I was like, okay, thank you, fellow traveler. Yeah, kindred spirit. Kindred spirit. Okay, sorry.

No, that's okay.

I'm glad we got to go through some of our fibrous items down the toilet.

All right. So let's do this. Let's make today the final day that we talk about computer dating and computer love, the song by Zapp and Roger. I have one voicemail and one email related to these topics. This has gone on now for several weeks. Not that it's not all interesting, but it must end somewhere. So let's put a bow on this today. Sandra says, I love the song Computer Love by the Zap Band, but I always wondered why it said featuring Roger Troutman. Now, that's kind of confusing because Zap went by a bunch of different names, right? It was four brothers, and they went by the Zap Band or just Zap, and then sometimes it was Zap and Roger. Correct? Do I have that right? Right.

Yeah. Okay. I think so. I don't know if they were ever called the Zap Band. I think they just went by Zap and then Zap and Roger. But I'm not really the expert on this. It's more Camaro Kev's world. Yeah, I think.

Yeah. Anyway, it looks like maybe at some point they went by the Zapp band, but I'm looking at that too quickly to verify that. But anyway, anyway, Sandra says that one thing that she always... Wikipedia says you're right. Okay. I learned that the person who's singing with the computer voice, that's Roger, the talk box, also producer and writer. Okay. But Charlie Wilson from the Gap band actually makes the song. His label wouldn't allow him to make a music video with Zap, however, but he's got the lead vocals. So this is she was just kind of blown away by this. Charlie Wilson of the Gap Band has got the lead vocals on this. By the way, I did, of course, run this all by Kamara Kev via text message this weekend. Did you verify this? Yes. Yes. He's because I hadn't heard of this and he's so deep into this universe. He's like, absolutely. Too deep. He said. So let's see here. Sandra says Charlie Wilson has got the lead vocals. It's strange how their best song is led by Charlie Wilson from the Gap Band I would hear this song and tell my husband Are you sure this isn't the Gap Band? Because his voice is so distinctive It used to freak me out He'd say, nope, that's Charlie Wilson from the Gap Band On lead vocals with the Zap Band So that's just a little bit of background That I thought was interesting This is me, Andrew, talking here But I think the second paragraph is even more interesting Sandra says Maybe this is widely known I did not know this The Gap Band is kind of relevant right now because of all the documentaries and news about the Tulsa Massacre in 1921, where the successful and black Greenwood community was burned to the ground, 35 blocks, and people were murdered between 50 and 200 by racists aided by the local government. The name Gap Band comes from the three main streets in Greenwood, which were Greenwood, Archer, and Pine. They were trying to get the message out in the 70s, but they were never believed despite being vocal about the massacre. People thought, oh, it was a race riot. No, it was among the worst terrorist attacks in U.S. history. The story started coming out after the Oklahoma City bombing. But anyway, so that's talking about the incident itself and the atrocity itself. But I did not know that the Gap Band was named after those three streets as a tribute and a way of trying to start a dialogue.

I would have never known that in a million years. That's really interesting. That is a, that's a very, that's something that I'll now be telling people at parties.

At parties, exactly.

It's kind of a weird topic considering it centers around a tragedy. But yeah, I would have never. What's also interesting was you had, you had like three bands that all made music that was very similar and all had very similar titles. You had Zap or the Zap Band. You had the Gap Band and then you had the Daz Band. Remember the Daz Band? I swear I've never heard of this. You dropped Da Bomb on me. Oh, interesting.

If I ever knew that You would have mentioned it on the show And I don't recall it But yeah, that sounds like new information to me

Cleveland, Ohio Really? And Zap is from Dayton, right? Oh, and by the way Am I wrong? No, no, I was wrong about their I don't think they You dropped a bomb on me Maybe that was Gap Band They did Let It Whip I think was one of their big hits in 1982

Weird that Ohio was such a Funky place

Hey could we Oh you probably

Yeah I just have one more thing here Because I want to wrap up this thing When A lot of this started because Or no maybe this was a follow up But listener Amy wrote in To tell us the story about how her parents Back in the 1960s Met via computer dating But it wasn't internet dating And it raised It was

It was a very interesting story, but it also raised a bunch of questions we had. Amy did call back with answers, so take it away, Amy.

Nice. Hi, guys. This is listener Amy. I had called last week about computer dating, and you just played my voicemail and, of course, had more questions than it provided answers. I have to say that Andrew's description of how he thought this must have worked was pretty accurate. It did mostly get started in colleges, and you would fill out a form. You know, they advertised, you could mail it in, or you could actually just go down to an office and fill it out. And it cost $5, the best $5 he ever spent, according to my dad. But it actually spread quite a bit beyond colleges because neither of my parents were at college, and yet they somehow both found out about it. And if you really want to know all the details, I actually gave a talk about this at a conference last year that I called Punch Card Love, and you can find it on YouTube. It was part of a conference called Bandang Con, but that name has become difficult to Google because the band BTS had a concert and named it Bandang Con. Can you tell Band Can Con?

I don't know. I couldn't quite make that part out.

That was quite a tangent. Anyway, I hope that maybe clarifies something. Power out.

Raises more questions.

What was this listener's name again, Andrew?

Amy. Listener Amy.

Do you see the spelling on there?

Well, it's a voicemail. Okay.

I don't know if I'm trying to find it. Oh, okay. I got this. I got this. It's exclamation point, exclamation point, con 2020, punch card love. A very personal history of it's loading. It's going on YouTube by listener Amy. I mean, unless there's a different Amy in the world who gave a very similar sounding talk. So that's cool. People can go check that out.

Yeah, absolutely. There it is. So if you just search Punch Card Love Amy, you will find it. Okay, so, Lucas, you wanted to go out with a song suggestion, I assume, by one of these bands?

Yes. How about we go out with a big hit for the Gap Band that I love to this day, Outstanding.

Okay. I don't think I know this one, but I don't really know the Gap Band.

You know, I thought I knew the Gap Band, and now I know the origin of their name, which is, again, just absolutely fascinating to me. Yeah, yeah. It's got that historical context to it.

All right, well, I think I got it right here. So this is off of the Gap Band 4, in case anybody's keeping score at home. Outstanding. Even Gap Year. This might be one of those where once I hear it, I'm going to know it.

I bet you might recognize it, just literally from being at Camaro Kev's house. There's an hour of the night where this or Def Leppard is coming.

Yeah, of course, those hours tend to get fuzzy.

Yeah, they do. All right. We'll go out with this little Gap Band, and that'll bring us to the end of the show. Thanks for listening, everybody. We will be back here. Boy, got a pretty Kairiz doll there. Thank you, everybody.

I didn't even notice.

We'll be back here tomorrow getting the whole relatability thing.

Yeah. All right, go ahead.

Until then, enjoy your Tuesday. Stay safe, and please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

You'd like my mind. I'd like my mind. You'd blow my mind. I'd say it's mine. I'm so excited

I'm so excited I'm really so excited

Girl, you got me up Excited I'm so excited You make me want to shout Gee, I feel so lucky now To have you all along, girl All along, girl I really love the way you love it, girl Whatever I love, baby You blow my mind, baby I'm so alive, baby You blow my mind, baby You blew my mind, baby Baby You blew my mind

Power out