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We're here live, talking baseball, hitting, catching, making all the plays happen.

Let's talk to it. Ever seen them launch your Grand Slams? What's that? Ever seen them launch your Grand Slams? I don't know what you're saying, dude. Ever seen them launch your Grand Slams? Oh, Grand Slam, yeah. Of course. Is it real? Is it real?

Yeah. it's right it's it's it's a it's a real real great sport when when everybody is around and we're swinging for two long bombs away how how do we come around to know man this really this

really is what it's for yeah are you high right now what what was that is that question wow it's

the worst interview I've ever had. I'm sorry, man.

No problem. Great group of guys. TBTL!

You've got to be vaping me. That is totally absurd. And please don't play this on the radio. No one listens to the radio. I wasn't even listening. I was listening to podcasts. Podcasts are great. Radio's boring.

This Canadian-wrapped, Jumpman, Jumpman, them boys up to something. Oh, oh, oh, I think I need some Robitussin. This party is going to be off the hook.

Well, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Wednesday edition of TBTL. The vibes will be the illest, and the jams, gnar-redeeming. The show that just might be too beautiful to live. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. As Jay would say, he's got flow. Coming to you from the Nest Broadcast Center high in the sky above Portland, Oregon, where Randy is working away in the background. Sorry for that noise. I was out of town this weekend and then didn't run him for a couple of days because of some, I don't know, software glitch. I actually noticed that the Nest Broadcast Center, and I should say the Nest Broadcast dwelling, the place where I live in this apartment building. It's noticeable. It's like, well, Randy's really doing it. By the way, Randy is a Roomba if you're tuning in for the first time and you're like, this person has lost their damn mind. That's what I am talking about. Here on episode 3451 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. Looks like we'll have some beautiful weather today here in the Portland, Oregon area in the 80s, but this weekend heading towards triple digits as the heat cloche lowers over the Pacific Northwest. Ugh, yesterday was super steamy. So anyway, hope you're doing alright wherever you are. There are, of course, other parts of the country where it's extremely hot, dangerously hot, so everybody be safe out there. Stay inside. If you have air conditioning, run it, I guess, responsibly. And listen to this here podcast, which is going to tell you about a recent article in the New York Times looking into the practices at the Subway sandwich restaurant empire.

Is it too early to get a fish sandwich?

The question being, is there actual tuna in the tuna sandwiches served by Subway?

That's a tuna, bro.

There's a lawsuit in California alleging that, Well, the initial filing alleged that Subway is not using tuna in their tuna sandwiches, and therefore they are perpetrating a fraud on their customers. And so this New York Times reporter got a bunch of Subway sandwich tuna and then sent it to a lab to have it independently tested, and we will tell you what they came up with. Also, it's Conan O'Brien's last week on, I guess, regular late-night television. and if you like that show and if you like Paul Rudd and by the way if you don't like those things I don't know what we have to talk about anymore because those are two of the best things going Paul Rudd for many many years has been pranking Conan O'Brien by pretending he's going to play a clip from whatever movie he's promoting and then by playing a clip from the movie Mac and Me which I think was something about an alien seemed like a very low rent E.T. situation So this being Conan's last week, it's kind of a victory lap for him. And Paul Rudd came on and, in fact, did manage to spoof him.

How funny is that? That's pretty funny.

But it was pretty involved. We'll play you the tape. It was kind of an amazing thing that he pulled off, along with Bill Hader, another national treasure. And if we have time, we'll get to the Supreme Court ruling from, I believe, well, I don't know if they ruled this morning, but they've released their rulings. They've released. what their decision was on the case of the foul-mouthed junior varsity cheerleader from Pennsylvania. It's kind of an interesting case. I'll take off my mildly hungover podcasting hat and put on my Nina Totenberg Legal Eagle analysis pants. And we'll talk about that, too. Time permitting. Oh, we will definitely make time for this. We have a big announcement.

Attention, everybody, madames and Miss Waz.

A big announcement about a TBTL classic that's coming back this summer that people are going to be very excited about, I think. So we'll get into that, too. We'll do all that with the help of this guy, long-standing co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. They're just trying to say he was drunk. He had eight white claws. That was it. He is Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now from the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. I have a real meteor... I knew I was not going to be able to say that word.

Meteorological? That's a very, very hard word to say.

And you know what? First, you know, like literally the first five words to come out of my mouth, and I'm going to try to bite that one off. Like, that's... I know better. Weather?

Like, just know your... Weather-related dilemma?

Yeah, I guess so. I wanted to sound smart. I wanted to sound clever. Dig my own holes here. I do have a mystery on my hands, though. So, you know, it's been really...

Well, that's another reason to say meteorological because you got the alliteration. I've got a real meteorological mystery.

That's what I was going to say. Okay, here's what I'm going to do. I don't trust my mouth to try to form that word right now, but what I'm going to do is I'm going to say that sentence again, but I'm going to pause, and you're going to say the two M words, and then I'm going to keep going, okay? Are you ready? You're going to be my voice. Are you ready? Got it. Sure. Good morning, Luke. I got a real... Hey, Andrew. I got a real... Neurological mystery.

They can get worse. I want to imagine Is this like delay in the line It is a delay between Seattle and Portland And so it's not helping

Okay so here's what it's going to do You said hello to me I'm going to say hello back Don't respond to that I'm responding to you And then I'm just going to launch into it And there will be a little bit of a delay But I think we can work with it

I've got to get more in the group I've got to intro you again So I'm going to intro you And then you respond I'm going to intro you You respond I don't respond to your response Then you're going to set up the double M And then I'm going to say the double M word And then we're off to the races Of course we'll do all that with the help of this guy The longest running

Wrong part of the song Sorry there's a bunch of drops in there Let's try this one more time Here we go

We'll do all that with the help of this young man the longest running cobro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. They're just trying to say he was drunk. He drank eight white claws. That was it. He is Andrew Welsh, and he's joining me right now from the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle, Washington.

Good morning, my friend. Good morning, Luke. I have a real meteorological mystery on my hands here. So you know it's been really hot. That was really awesome, by the way. You know it's been really hot here under the heat dome in the pacific northwest the past few days and um i had the understanding that it was not supposed to rain anytime soon it was just gonna get hotter and hotter and so i have a pair of shoes that i wanted to air out last night so i'm like you know what i'm just gonna leave them out overnight and then the the bright sun will hit them uh in the morning and during the day and that'll be good um so i left my my shoes outside on our little roof deck area and of course you know this from visiting our our house we live kind of our our house is kind of up on top of another building so a lot of our windows look out at other roofs you know like people it's the type of apartment people dream about like what do you want to look at when you open your drapes probably the the flat top tar roof of a neighboring building and so roof district i am definitely in the roof district and so i wake up this morning genevieve and I both wake up and I hear her look out the window first and she says, huh, rained? I'm like, ah, son of a gun. Of course, I left my shoes outside like, ah, of course, that's just such an Andrew move. I should have actually checked the weather. I just had, I thought it was not supposed to rain.

Yeah, you assume it's like record-breaking, dangerous levels of heat. You assume that pretty much rules out rain.

So I, you know, get up and I walk down our stairs and in our little stairwell areas where We have a big window that overlooks, you know, again, the roof of the nail salon next door. It just gets nicer and nicer the more I describe it. And it is true that flat top roof of this business next door has little puddles on it. Not huge, but, you know, I mean, well, significant enough. There are puddles.

on this roof that you would see after a rain and i'm like oh yeah so it definitely did definitely did rain so then i come downstairs and i go out onto our little you know roof area where i left my shoes there's no wetness at all there's no my shoes are dry um i can't figure out why is there water accumulating on the roof next door when it apparently has not rained that is weird didn't know you like to get wet though that is very the whole thing was just a setup so you can play your

favorite drop that nobody understands we're working a real bill hater and paul rudcich which i'm actually very excited to play for you um that's quite fascinating so it sounds like and and we're the there's no way that these shoes were under an eve or some kind of overhang that

was keeping them dry nope there you can picture my roof so they're on a chair that i pulled out into the kind of the middle of the roof area. I'm going to send you a picture of the roof next door so you can sort of get a sense of... I'm going to send every listener who's listening right now a photo of the roof next door so you can get a sense of the water accumulation.

It makes me think, were they working on the roof and they hosed it down? Were they washing the roof? Which just seems like the weirdest time to do that. Like, it couldn't be... I don't think it could be condensation because one of the things they've been saying, maybe this is more of a Portland thing, But they keep stressing that it's also very hot at night right now, which I guess is a little bit unique to, I'm going to just say the Northwest, because that's one of, you know, it might get warm in the daytime. But the temperature, it's not, we're not in New Orleans or D.C. or somewhere where it's warm throughout the day and then into the night. There's no, like, humidity at night, generally speaking. So it seems unlikely that that would have just been a natural phenomenon of, like, you know, dew or something.

Yeah, which is what my gut said at first. So I just sent you two photos now, and you can sort of see where the puddles have accumulated. Now, there is some sort of an air conditioning unit on top of this. Ah, okay. You know what? That might be it. I don't know if it's an air conditioning unit. I assume it's that. It's some sort of a unit, you know, an old rusty-looking thing with tubes coming out of it. And I'm wondering, you know what? I'll bet you I know what it is. I'll bet you this thing, because it is a cool morning right now. it's not super hot but i'll bet you this thing has been working overtime maybe and it's been um you know there's condensation that builds up with an air conditioning unit maybe i am looking at this

yeah and i am agreeing with you 100 because you can see i mean it's a giant it's a it's a huge roof you've already mentioned that you've already described it but it's like yeah just a typical giant air conditioning unit but there's water like little puddles like under it and i bet you as it has been working away it has been generating condensation and then that just what we're looking at is the natural slope of the roof and where the water went and pooled up, which is very satisfying that I think we've solved the mystery. Yeah.

The one thing I do want to say so that people don't think I'm a complete moron is the biggest puddles are not necessarily around or under this unit, although there is some condensation there. The bigger puddles are, you know, I don't know, several feet away. But you're right. That's like the low point of the roof. And it probably accumulated there and accumulated in several other areas along the way. But I guess on the north end of the roof, it does seem to be dry. So, yeah, you know what? It's sort of satisfying. It's sort of disappointing because it was maybe an easy answer that I could have figured out without the help of a podcast. And one might argue I didn't get into the segment as cleanly as I could have.

That's the thing with meteorological mysteries, Andrew. And now you're showing off. Nice flex. Weird flex, but okay. Weird flexing, but okay, bro.

I know. I say that every time that guy takes the mound for seven and a quarter innings. We have a third innings, rather, not a quarter inning. Go ahead. Sorry. What was that? I mumbled something about because I was happy that he went seven and a third innings yesterday, but I just mentioned seven and a quarter innings. And I just wanted everybody to know that I know that he didn't pitch a quarter of an inning. Sorry.

This is exciting, Andrew. We have managed to bring back one of the more beloved summertime traditions on the show. And we are announcing today that the TBTL Song of the Summer is back, baby. DFTB, a.k.a. David from the Basement. I think I would have his sound effect. I've only had 24 hours to plan this out.

Well, you're playing two different. You're already playing. That is hard to do.

Yes, that is. David from the Basement is going to be once again running the TBTL Song of the Summer contest. So people will have a chance to nominate songs and then vote on songs. And then we will pick a song of the summer, which I mean, I don't know, just feels maybe I'm just in a awesome mood this morning, Andrew, which I kind of actually am. But it just feels like. This is going to be a really fun summer again, if we don't all melt from being 111 degrees every day, this just feels like this is. going to be a really great summer um things are opening back up uh you know we seem to be moving in the right direction i also of course i was just listening this morning on public radio to all of the less than encouraging news updates about variants and people not getting vaxxed and whatever but let's just in in honor of announcing the song of the summer's return let's just take a rosy view of the next couple months i just think it's going to be a really fun summer think people are going to get to see each other again people are going to just be able to really enjoy the world in a more typical way and that is why it feels particularly apt that the tbtl song of the summer is also coming back one of the greatest american summertime traditions

in existence one of my um favorite summer memories of the past several years was the last time david uh ran the song of the summer uh game or contest or competition or whatever we call it and um he had narrowed it down maybe to like maybe it was the weekend that he had narrowed it down to the 32 final songs and put a playlist together on Spotify and I think you remember me telling you about this that Friday I got done with my work around midday walked over to Green Lake rented a kayak for the first time in my life and just popped in my earbuds and just like chilled in the middle of Green Lake and listens to the Song of the Summer playlist, which was just banging that year. So I'm hoping to recreate some of that magic, too. The way it's going to work is right now it's just an open nominating process. Anybody who wants to nominate a Song of the Summer, email it to David at this convenient email, dftb.sots at gmail.com. A lot of letters, dude. Think about it. DFTB, David from the Basement. dftb.sots, songofthesummer, at gmail.com.

Can't believe that wasn't taken.

It's dftb.sots.69. No, dftb.sots at gmail.com, and send any song that you think should be considered to be the TBTL song of the summer this year to David. And then once all of the nominees are in, he will arrange it into a 32-contestant bracket, it and then we'll whittle it down throughout the summer yeah that's gonna be fun i'm also excited

to bring this back because just selfishly it has been historically how i've learned about whatever good music is happening on a particular in a particular summer yeah and i still when i hear a song out in the wild that's from the song that was a one-time song of the summer contestant i feel this strange affinity with the song like the song has been my friend for years You know, if I, like, hear something that was, you know, really, like, from fun, like, We Are Young or whatever.

I think it's Kacey Musgraves' High Horse. It might not be her. Somebody did a song called High Horse. Every now and then I hear it in the wild, and it just takes me back to that summer because I only think of it as a TBTL song of the summer. There was a Polish song that got a lot of play here in the United States. Music of Conchalata. Exactly. I think of that as a TBTL song of the summer. Any time I hear that on the radio, I'm like, yeah. Exactly. Yep.

do you want to know an interesting a quick interesting story about music that I actually learned from my friend Elena Passarello recently is that they did this study around earworms like music that is an earworm and they what they did was they showed people clips from movies and then they played them some kind of earwormy song and then they did the same thing or they they had other people come in and they didn't do the same thing they didn't play the music they just had them watch the movie and the people who had the earworm song when they brought them back in they played the earworm song and they remembered the details from the movie more clearly that doesn't

that doesn't surprise me like i've i've mentioned this before to you i mean this is this is very tangential to earworms specifically but like i have this thing and i don't think i'm the only one where i just have a pretty distinct memory of where i am where i when i've heard something Like if I've listened to if I'm listening to a podcast and, you know, you listen to so much sports radio and podcaster. I'm not saying I remember every moment of it. But when I remember, oh, that's when Scott Aukerman said this one thing, I'll kind of remember where I was, especially if I'm not just like Aukerman's a bad idea. I listened to ninety nine percent of that show just puttering around my kitchen. But like, you know, I remember listening to Pete Carroll say something on the Brock and Salk show very specifically while I was taking a walk one time and then I needed to go back and grab the tape for some ridiculous reason. And I tracked it down by looking at my my my app on my phone that tracks my walking. And I was like, oh, yeah, I was at this street and somehow I was able to like I can just do that. If I if I remember a snippet of a conversation that I heard or a song, I can very much remember where I was. And I wonder if there's a kind of connection there between people relating the movie scene to the music. and having that brain connection i think they say that smell and and like smell is a hugely um kind of nostalgic thing right like there was a wild war and who knows if the studies held up but they were saying smell is what might trigger deja vu the sense of deja vu and then also yeah like songs music like you hear a song from you know back in the day like really transports you back those are two extremely powerful kind of nostalgic forces yeah definitely and of course

You have the phenomenon where you get into an album or a song for a period of a few months. That's kind of where the Song of the Summer stuff comes up, too. And then when that song comes on later, it might surprise you how it takes you to such a specific place. And there are times – this is going to be infuriating, meteorological mystery. This is going to be frustrating because I can't remember the details of it. But there's like there's a period of time where I don't even really think that I was listening to much music or I don't have a real sense of that time frame. You and I have talked about how, like, for some reason, for me, like kind of the mid 2000s to maybe mid teens in the 2000s, like I just don't have a great sense of the culture of that time. I'm not a very culturally literate guy, but like, you know, I had my high school years. I had my college years. I had my I'm new at New Hampshire Public Radio years with the party barn and everything. But then there's this period where it's just sort of like, I don't know, it all kind of blended together for a couple of decades. But I'm actually in a mode now where maybe enough time has passed that I'm hearing things or maybe even seeing something on TV that reminds me of that time. And it's starting to like it's actually the past is actually starting to take some shape for me of being like, oh, yeah, that has a 2005 vibe to it. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does. I was thinking of songs that instantly transport me to a specific like not even not even moment, but like minute of my life. If I ever hear the song Such Great Heights, the Postal Service song, I immediately envision myself jogging down Sunset in Echo Park because I must have – you'd think I would have been into that album before I got to L.A., but maybe I just took a while or something. I just remember, or maybe it was just a special moment, but I remember jogging down Sunset right by that weird French restaurant called Tay. It's kind of like a chateau style over the top, low, low rent French restaurant in Echo Park that existed forever. Maybe it's still there. I don't know. And it was across the street from a breakfast joint called The Bright Spot. And I just remember running like a long sunset and listening to that song and just feeling like literally every single element of my life was perfect in that moment and becoming very emotional as I was like out of happiness as I was jogging. And if so, if I ever hear that song, in fact, that that song should just be therapy for me. I should just put that song on whenever I'm feeling blue because it transports me to what feels like it might have been the best moment of my life.

Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, and I have, you know, I mean, a recent example that you know about because you were there and I talked about it a heck of a lot was that that Jenny Lewis record that I was listening to in and I put it on kind of reluctantly on the airplane to maybe to listen to it for a second time and thought, I don't know, I don't think I really like this record that much. And then then throughout the course of the trip to Australia, I mostly listened to it by myself with my headphones on, although I think I played it for you once or twice. I just got more and more obsessed with the record. But there are several specific moments within that week of you and I traveling through the outback of me listening to this record in certain moments standing out. Like I remember listening to the song Do-Si-Do. So after you and I, we had come a long way. We had just recorded the Splooch the Turtle show, the only kind of late at night show that we had done, and that is Tenant, not Tenant Creek, where we're, yeah, that was Tenant Creek.

Yeah, that was Tenant Creek.

Yeah, Tenant Creek, and then you and I hung outside for a while. I think we, I think, that's right, you weren't drinking. I had a couple of beers, and we hung out by those tires. Do you remember that? Those giant tires that were just like.

So specifically in that, like, in that caravan park they would call it in Australia.

Yeah, we were in this caravan park. We had just recorded. We had one more show to do. We had one more day of driving. So I think you and I were starting to feel a little bit relieved. We chilled out. We talked for a bit. And then I think we both then retired to our chambers. And I remember I still had a lot of Andy time energy to burn up. And I remember just like kind of puttering around, putting my equipment away after that recording and just really taking my time with everything and really feeling like kind of in a stable place. Because, like, you know, it was a nice, clean, you know, humble but nice, clean place to stay. And I was just, like, kind of puttering and listening to that song Do-Si-Do and just thinking, how is this song so good? And, like, that album, I've listened to it. It's probably the most listened. two record that for me in the past couple of years because it just brings me good feelings and that song i've probably heard thousands of times now but i always think of that particular

moment with that particular song we we should go to the break because we're trying to keep today's show relatively compact because we have a lot of other recording to do later but so no time for tangents but uh let me just do one quick one off of that tangent which is you were mentioning us being in Australia which was um you know a really fun kind of special experience to get to be a part of that you know and I think about it a lot because that's like I think that's the furthest from home I've ever been um I haven't been to like East Asia or anything like that so I was in I was taking that uber home from the airport the other night uh and the driver wasn't a bad dude he was sort of business-like and he was talking about his uber business or whatever and then he talked about he's getting a new car next week and he we were in a hyundai santa fe that was the car we were riding and that's what he had and i said oh my buddy and i drove one of these literally through the middle of the australian outback and then he just didn't miss a beat and he just said so yeah this thing i'm gonna get next week it's uh you know low apr and i thought what kind of people have zero follow-up questions about driving through the middle of the outback like you think and i know it sounds like i just want people to pay more attention to me which maybe is what's at the core of this long-running theme in my life of being shocked when if i say something to someone that i feel like really really deserves a follow-up question from them some clarification when was that how was it wow the outback by the way this guy wasn't australian as i could tell if he was australian i guess i would understand it because he'd be like yeah

the outback we've all been there no i think if he's australian he'd show more interest and maybe

so be like wow that's where are you from i'd be like or you know where'd you go and i'd be like tenant creek he's like i'm from tenant creek right i just i don't understand people i'm you know i don't think this guy was on any kind of spectrum that i could i know we can't tell these things always but it's just it's so interesting to me when i'm in a conversation with someone because I'm like asking him follow-up questions about the freaking APR he's getting on the next Hyundai. Like he's getting a hybrid. I can tell you all about the hybrid this guy is getting. It's also a Hyundai, but it's a Sonata because it's more affordable, but he's only going to have to fill it up twice a week instead of every day. That is with gas, et cetera, et cetera. I know more about this guy's Hyundai Sonata he's about to acquire than he'll know about anything in my life ever. And I was deploying more interesting information to him than he was to me.

I'm going to ask you a question. But that doesn't take this. I'm actually doing what he did to you. I'm just moving on and not really biting that apple because I had a thought.

Are you going to be buying a Hyundai Sonata that you'd like to tell me about?

I have heard the phrase MSRP a million times in a million commercials. And it was just the other day that I thought, what the hell is MSRP? And I looked it up. But I was wondering if you already knew because you've bought so many. You know, you're more into cars than I am. I usually just buy whatever my boss is selling.

I want to say that it stands for Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price.

You are absolutely right. I gave you just enough time to Google that.

You can hear me typing over here. What you did not hear there, my friend, was typing. Yeah, because they're always talking about things being under MSRP, which I always took to mean they're saying, we're going to give you this for less than Chevy says we should sell it for, basically.

To actually respond to what you were just saying, it's interesting. You and I might even, I can't believe we're friends because in a certain way, think about it. But you – this is the third thing that you've mentioned where you really kind of expect a certain response from people. One thing is when you – you and I have talked before about how we don't really like talking about our work. But if you mention to somebody what you do for a living and they don't take any interest in it, you're just kind of shocked. You have the story that you just mentioned about driving across the outback. The guy didn't take the bait. He just kept on talking about MSRP. And then the third thing is, and I think about this all the time, Luke. This is one thing that you just mentioned once. I don't remember where I was, weirdly, when you said this. What song were you listening to when I said it, though? I remember listening to Do-Si-Do and trying to drown you out. Okay, now that explains it. When you mentioned on the show a long time ago when you were driving around in your truck with Rudy a lot. And you would, if Rudy was in the back of the truck, making eyes at the cars around you in traffic. And if a person in another car, a driver or a passenger in another car, did not see Rudy and have some sort of, like, kind of physical reaction or kind of communication, like make a who's a good boy kind of look, that upset you. You felt like people need to respond to the cute dog in the back of your truck.

Well, can I clarify one thing? I don't know if upset would be. the accurate way you were furious i've never seen you your ass was chapped yes um it was more i was

mystified i would file all of these things under i am mystified by it because you're you're right you said something in that moment about how you and i aren't i'm not like dying to talk about tbtl to people in the world i feel a little sheepish about it sometimes it's hard to explain etc etc So the irony is I'm not even and I didn't necessarily want to like I was burned out after sitting on the tarmac and, you know, waiting in various at various points on the long journey home from Seattle to Portland. It wasn't like I wanted to regale this guy with the story of Australia. I literally didn't. But I am mystified at people who when you say something to them or when they are sitting at a stoplight in Bellingham and there is a car, a truck with the back window down and maybe one of the cutest dogs that's ever lived is just sitting there staring directly at you with its tongue out. Like, I don't understand how that doesn't have an impact on you. And so I would say I am mystified by those behaviors.

Well, I'll tell you what. I always think of you saying that. And now whenever I see a dog in a car, I flick them off. I give them the old big middle finger. Well, you know what?

The Supreme Court has recently held that that should not lead to you being kicked off the cheer squad, Andrew. So that's actually a great segue into our top stories, which we're going to do in a moment here on TBTL.

Meteorological mystery.

hello and welcome to top story really great piece this weekend in the new york times by julia carmel a uh a writer for them of looking into what's going on with tuna fish at subway the big tuna sandwich mystery this is a very actually lengthy and well-reported piece that sounds like it took the writer a good six months of research. And it's a real deep dive on the whole topic.

Yeah, because I started this yesterday. I didn't get through the whole thing. But one of the things that I maybe found intimidating was I didn't realize that this was a follow-up to a story that was kind of viral six months ago that started this whole thing. The lawsuit out of California? Yes, exactly. And the report that Subway was serving something other than tuna and its tuna sandwiches like that was that was the claim at the point at that point.

I almost I have a very vague memory of us actually maybe talking about that lawsuit or mentioning it in passing. And I just assumed it was one of these many kind of BS sort of, you know, attempts. I don't know if it was an attempt to shake down the company or just get a class action thing going because I just thought like what's the how much real harm is being done? to someone to the average person who might eat one tuna sandwich from subway in a year like and i don't even think that's actually high probably the average american you know eats if you if you average the number of tuna sandwiches sold by subway actually that wouldn't work because there's somebody out there who's eating seven of them a week but i'm not eating i've never had one in my life so right so it's like i'm just saying the point is i don't i thought that lawsuit sounded like bs to me when it came out and maybe that's why we didn't talk about it or maybe that's why We made it a low priority, but I do have a bit of a memory of that existing. Well, so that's why Julia Caramel, I'm trying to say her name right. Her name is spelled exactly like the candy, so I guess you would just say Carmel, Julia Carmel. Actually, the candy is Caramel. Yeah. Her name is spelled like the place where Clint Eastwood lives. Yeah, because I think Caramel is spelled with an extra A in there, right? Okay, so Julia Carmel is the name of the writer. Anyway, so what she did that was kind of genius was got some Subway tuna. And this was kind of the methodology of it, if you will. She says, to procure the sandwich specimens, I visited three different Subway locations around Los Angeles. It seemed logical to order only tuna on the sandwiches, no extra vegetables, cheese, or dressing, as the lab was already wary about the challenges of identifying a fish that's been cooked at least once, mixed with mayo, frozen, and then shipped across the country. So she goes to three different Subways, and she basically just gets tuna on bread and then freezes it and then mails it to this lab that she has found. The first shipment, it's $150 of Subway sandwich tuna, and she mails it to the lab. It gets lost in the mail.

Oh, jeez.

So she has to go and do the whole process again. The second shipment of frozen tuna sandwiches from Subway makes it to the lab, and they do the analysis. And what they basically find, no amplifiable tuna DNA was present. in the sample and so we obtain no amplification products from the DNA therefore we cannot identify the species so here's where I want to clarify because this story has gone a bit viral and the headline has kind of been there's no tuna there's no tuna DNA in a sub Subway tuna sandwich it's it's not really that it's that there is it is fish but they're having trouble the lab was having trouble connecting it to a specific species of tuna this is um this is continuing in her piece uh there are two possible conclusions is what somebody from the lab said one the tuna is so heavily processed that whatever we could pull out we couldn't make an identification or we got some and there's just nothing in there that's tuna now she also julia also mentions that Inside Edition did the same kind of thing, and they set samples from three subway locations in Queens out for testing, and that lab found that the specimens were indeed tuna.

Inside Edition is still a thing?

Yeah, right? And they're doing the same stories? Bill O'Reilly backposting this? Bill O'Reilly and Deborah Norville? We'll do it live. Wow. Yeah. So I don't think, I mean, I guess what I'm trying to say here is I don't think that the argument, They also talked to somebody who worked, Jen, a former Subway sandwich artist who worked at a location in Iowa for a year, said she couldn't imagine what incentive Subway would have to replace the tuna with anything else.

Yeah, it's not like tuna is like a super expensive fish.

Right, it's not, I'm going to say this wrong because I always do, and then I'm going to get corrected. Wagyu? I think I always have the Y in the wrong place, but you know, like that very, like just say Kobe. Like, it's not Kobe beef. It's not something that's super, you know, like premium. I mean, it's just this is what the sandwich artist says. I dealt with the tuna all the time. The ingredients are right on the package, and tuna is a relatively cheap meat. There would be no point to making replacement tuna, replacing tuna to make it cheaper. So this is what Julia seems to think has happened. Once tuna has been cooked, its DNA becomes denatured, unnatured, meaning that the fish's characteristic properties have likely been destroyed, making it difficult, if not impossible, to identify. So basically, I don't think the headline is they're not using tuna in their sandwiches. The headline is they process it so heavily that you can no longer figure out what specific kind of tuna fish it actually came from.

You know, you mentioned in setting this up that you might have dismissed this story if we had talked about it at all um because the lawsuit and the story because what is the um what is really the harm if you're eating a slightly different fish but you thought it was tuna and of course you and i got into this i think a bit from a slightly different angle because of the kind of the sort of class issue there but what is the restaurant willow of the winds i have that wrong what was the willows oh just it's just called the willows the place on lummi island exactly and they They were a very, very fancy place where you had said you had gone once and they serve, you know, food that is supposedly only picked from the island or gathered, you know, on the island. And it turns out it was a lot of bullshit, just like a lot of a lot of Safeway shrimp or whatever. And we talked about, like, if you had a great experience there and you loved the food, like and I was just kind of, I don't know, just teasing it out sort of intellectually, like, what is the harm done there? And one thing that is very concrete is, well, certain people can only eat certain things, right? And I guess the question is like – and I'm wondering if you're more sensitive to this now that you have more of a limited menu of items that you can choose from because you've cut meat out of your diet and I think some other meat-related things as well. I wonder if this hits you a little bit harder, this idea of, hey, listen, I ordered a tuna sandwich and it's not tuna. I mean, in this case, it could be. We don't know. But I just wonder if you're more sensitive to that now.

I don't think I am. I mean, for instance, it didn't even occur. I think I was telling you this at the baseball game. It didn't even occur to me until somebody pointed out recently that like every time I eat beans, if I'm at a Mexican restaurant, if I have the refried beans, there's lard in there. There's, you know, there's an animal product like it. So and I guess I can just stop ordering refried beans or see if they have black beans or something, which maybe I'll start doing. I don't know but it's like I am I'm also a person who's lucky I'm not allergic to anything I'm not like super allergic to anything so I don't have any kind of anaphylactic response to whatever so that's part of it I know what you mean like if there's something where somebody has a peanut allergy and you're serving some food product that you aren't saying does not have peanuts in it and it does that could be dangerous sure yeah stuff like that but i still go back to i kind of feel if it's if i can say this i feel kind of bad for subway on this whole thing to be honest with you because all of the reporting is really making it sound and the headlines are really making it sound like they're just putting you know yoga mats which was another thing that was we talked about that on the show that's another story where it's somebody tried to explain it to us right somebody who was like a food scientist that it's not technically it's something they're putting something in their bread that is also something that sometimes is used in other industrial processes right but it doesn't mean that it's plastic it's not made out of yoga mats right but of course our brains do that kind of facile connection because we see yoga mat and subway bread and now it seems like oh that bread's made out of yoga mats um and then this story is yeah they can't find any tuna dna in their tuna fish which makes you think it's not tuna it probably is it's just probably that the process that it goes through makes it hard to figure out what kind of tuna specific they they claim by the way that it's skipjack and yellowfin tuna that is what subway says they use and um and so you know that's their official statement on things but i you know it's like these are these are bad headlines for them although i wonder if it'll actually drive any behaviors in people i wonder if you're the kind of person which i was for much of my life i used to love nothing more than on a tuesday night i would go play pickup basketball with my buds and then on my drive home i would stop off at this one subway and i would get like a foot long meatball sub with like everything on it and the cookies and the the chips and a big old sodie pop and then i would go home and i would just wharf that thing down and it was almost more fun than the basketball was the foot long meatball sub well you know when i fell in love with that sandwich i was in a um a high school basketball game i mean i wasn't in it i was on the bench andrew because i was not very great as a freshman but we were playing at university prep this very tony private school in seattle my not so tony private school was the visiting team and i'm sitting on the bench and i i realize now looking

back on it that many of the coaches i had in my life in team sports were basically doing community service i had this coach named matt mold and he was kind of a rando because our real coach this was the the jv team our real coach on the jv team his name was uh jared davis and he was an interesting case because he was only a couple of years graduated and um and then came back and coached our team and we were very bad we lost every game and we could never find him before the games and we realized was he was flirting with somebody who would then become his wife a few years later when that person was was a marrying age but so he was off doing i thought

you're gonna say that he oh wait he was he was flirting with somebody who was significantly

younger than him i don't know about significantly because he wasn't that old i mean it was basically like a guy this is when you're like in the c-tech b league you're not usually getting the best and brightest uh-huh uh jv basketball coaches so anyway we got who we got and then this guy matt mold started showing up and he was like fun he wore cologne he drove like a v-dub rabbit that was all tricked out and he seemed to have no connection to the school or basketball but he was there and we're like what's this dude's deal and then later we learned he had gotten drunk and done some kind of petty vandalism with his friends and part of the community service was coach a youth team also this happened with my baseball team i had these two rocker dudes who were our coaches and they were also doing community service um that was the team where we had these two rocker dudes who knew nothing about baseball would literally literally wear leather jackets they looked they were like wayne in garth they would show up to our practices they had no idea what to do then we had this other random guy who was out of nowhere we don't know how he showed up he knew everything about baseball at one point he cut off four of his fingers accidentally using A tile saw I think he worked in construction And then he showed up at practice They reattached his fingers He showed up at practice With this massive apparatus on his hand On his arm that was keeping his fingers in place And continued to hit Fielding practice Because he was still better than the rocker dudes Even having had Four of his fingers cut off like three days Previous Anyway, so I'm sitting on the bench The way that it worked in those days was if you're on JV like I was but you were like maybe one of the slightly better JV players you could suit up for varsity so it meant that you got to actually wear a varsity uniform in your JV games and then you would ride the bench for the varsity games and there was theoretically a chance you could go in but it would never happen if you were me anyway so I'm sitting on the bench I'm so hungry it's towards the end of the game and Matt Mould randomly shows up and he's just like chomping on a meatball sub from Subway and I'd like never even Thank you. I thought to order a meatball sandwich. I'd never even been to Subway, but I was like, dude, I'm starving. Can I get a bite of this? And because he was cool. This is Cologne guy. Cologne guy, Matt Malt. And so he gave me a bite of his Subway meatball sandwich. And I was like, that might be the best sandwich I've ever had in my life.

I cannot imagine asking a coach for a bite of this sandwich. I know.

I'm sitting on the bench in my warm-ups. He's sitting behind us. I'm like, bro, can I get some of that sanduzzle from you? And he's like, sure.

Wow. Wow. I can't imagine being on either side of that exchange, honestly. I'm not giving my sandwich to a sweaty teenager, and as a sweaty teenager, I'm not asking to bite anybody's sandwich.

I did. I had the confidence of a much younger woman, and it was delicious.

Have you ever had the tuna? Because, I mean, I don't go in for that kind of stuff at all, so I have not and will not. It's totally mayo-based for you. Yeah, and I don't really even like fish that much, so cold fish and mayonnaise is not my deal. But what about you?

I don't really – I don't think I've had that very much at Subway. But I know that I was big on a, like, whitefish kick for a while, which is kind of a cousin of tuna. And I used to go to this bagel place that was in the QFC in University Village back when University Village was way less bougie than it is now. And I remember, like, on a Saturday morning, my go-to would be to get, like, an everything bagel with tuna on it and lettuce and fixins. And I remember really, really liking that. I think it was, like, Einstein bagels or something. So I've had a history of ordering that, but not for a while anyway. I guess I just feel like we need to clarify that I don't think – it does not sound to me like Subway is trying to sell something that's not tuna as their tuna. It just sounds like, you know, you know what you're getting when you walk in there. This is not something this tuna did not just get hauled out of the cold North Atlantic or whatever. Actually, tuna is probably more of a Pacific fish. But like this fish was not just hauled out of the ocean and then brought there still alive to that subway where they've carefully prepared it for you. You're getting what you get when you go to subway, which is stuff that's extremely shelf stable that can be, you know, shipped out of some central location and, you know, not go bad for a long time and have a pretty low cost point, etc. Like, that's just, you're getting the tuna from Subway that you probably expect to get, is what I would say.

Well, then why do they have the lobster tanks when I go in there? What's happening to those lobsters?

Don't get me started on that. It's like, when you go into, like, that place, Goldie's Casino, that I used to go to a lot, they have a lobster tank there. I don't know if you ever noticed it. I can't remember. It's been a long time since I've been there. They have a lobster tank because I guess they serve lobster. But, I mean, this is a very, very crummy casino on Highway 99 in Seattle where the idea of ordering the lobsters seems just hilarious to me. But also just to think about the lives of those lobsters. Like, of all of the live lobster tanks you could get stuck in, that just seems like somehow the worst to me. I don't know why.

But it's one of the only lobster tanks you can smoke in, so that's cool. Absolutely true.

Hey, I want to play this tape for you of Bill Hader and Paul Rudd teaming up to try to pull a prank on Conan. Were you familiar with this whole running bit about the Mac and Me clip? I was, although I don't remember Hader being a part of it. Well, he wasn't. That's why this is so genius. So, you know, I've already kind of laid it out. But basically the deal is that Paul Rudd has done this running joke every time he's ever been on Conan's show, which is this is the last week of conan's uh tbs show um paul rudd has always done this thing where he pretends he's going to play a clip from his movie and then he plays this random clip from this movie mac and me and so the problem with doing that this week on conan's like final week is it's going to be so obvious to him um what's going on so they had to do this incredibly elaborate setup and so the setup is paul rudd's not even on the show right okay bill hater is the guest and Bill Hader is telling a story about like the worst sketch that he was ever involved with on SNL and it's a sketch well I'll just play Bill he's talking about by the way he says and Paul Rudd was in this sketch Paul Rudd was the guest star and this was the sketch that we were doing and I'll just kind of pick it up mid-conversation he's trying to explain it's a sketch that's basically characters you remember when Ed Burns was all the rage in the indie

filmmaking world uh is that the nebraska no ed burns who's ed burns he made all those i of course

can't remember the names of any of them but like the fighting the fighting mcglories he was always like everyone's in boston they're kind of like sort of got a ben affleck and um matt damon vibe but before all that they're always like these kind of family dramas about working class dudes in boston and because i think that was his lived experience and uh there was he had a

couple of films that were really big in the 90s at least big in the like for people like me who

fancy ourselves indie film enthusiasts he's the one who's in the brothers mcmullin and saving private ryan i'm looking at the i'm looking at the internet now okay got it also known as the

fightin mcglory is what the fightin mcglory is yeah um so anyway the the premise of bill haters thing is that he had been on a movie with ed burns and he had written this sketch that's basically characters from an ed burns movie barbecuing and that paul rudd was in it and that it was a terrible, terrible sketch.

I would not do the voice. And I don't understand why Paul decided not to do it.

And now Paul Rudd walks out in a tuxedo. So in Conan O'Brien's mind, you think anyway, he is just thinking that Paul Rudd, this is kind of like Paul Rudd is sort of in a way pranking Bill Hader by showing up to actually talk about this sketch and give some clarity. takes a minute because you know when paul rudd enters a room there's going to be a minimum of one minute of applause which there should be in my opinion

and that's just in real life too yeah party he walks into a subway yeah the lobsters all start

applauding how dare you oh because part of the bit is that bill hater is saying that paul rudd wouldn't do the Ed Burns voice, which is part of why the sketch was so terrible.

See, why didn't you do that? I can do the voice. I did the voice. Well, what happened? You disagree that the sketch... Bill's memory is very hazy. Yeah. Now, I might not be a trained monkey boy like your man over here with the voices.

And Bill Hader is just doing an incredible just like I don't know what you'd call it he's just making this face that's pretty

great I remember correctly I did do the voice the reason the sketch didn't work is that it was terrible we were standing around both of us as Ed Burns just talking about our pop and grilling meat and it was hilarious we thought it was funny but it was a it was a it was a construct was an idea that just did not fly it didn't work in fact this is true lauren said in the in his history with the show it was the worst received sketch that's fantastic of all time yeah we did it address and And it didn't get one, not one laugh, not one.

I love how much they love each other.

Thankfully, they actually do film the dress rehearsals. They do. If you would like to see the sketch.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Are you serious? Yes. Ah, shit. And you will see what I'm talking about. Play the sketch.

And Mac and me.

Here comes the clip.

Pretty good setup, right? It's really good. Now, like, I don't think that the Ed Burns sketch ever existed. I think that was all a totally made-up thing to just trick Conan to not seeing the Mac and Me clip coming.

Are you going to play some more of this? Because I was going to say, so this is something that's always kind of fascinated me. I mean, this, and I'm not trying to take the fun out of it, but like anybody who knows of this just ongoing prank or, let's say, ongoing joke that is, did it start with the TBS years? I think so, or I don't know.

No, no, it started with the NBC years.

So it just goes back, you know, decades. And at some point, you know, any time, you know, I'm not saying that Conan necessarily was in on the script, but obviously after the third, fourth time, like he's braced for it. So I'm just wondering if in this case, if all of the smoke and mirrors really did totally get him forgetting that it was Paul Rudd for a second and what they were going to.

That's what I'm trying to figure out for myself. Like, I've watched this clip a few times now, and I'm trying to analyze the look on his face, if he seems suspicious, and then also his response when it happens, like, because they're showing the Mac and me clip. But, like, afterwards when they cut back to them on stage, if he seems, you know, surprised or not. I will say Conan is not a great actor, and his response feels to me, like, very genuine. I think they did enough. he and or i should say the producers and paul rudd and bill hader i think did enough to throw him off the scent that i get the sense he was genuine

surprisingly surprised because they did such a good job of setting it up it's again it's not just Paul Rudd coming out to promote Ant-Man 3 and then he says let's toss to the clip my guess would be that you know three years ago when Paul Rudd was on the show promoting a film and he said let's take let's look at a clip Conan knows it's going to be the Mac and Me thing right it's just part of their shtick I but I my sense is this one it had it was so elaborate that and also it's you know this is Conan's last week of doing the show maybe his you know sort of got a lot on his mind or he's feeling nostalgic i don't know i just get the sense that they kind of got him with

this one i i could feel i didn't see it but just having all the setup that you just provided and the tape i agree with you i feel like that was a pretty good that was a really good setup to to

fool and they delivered it well like i would have been if i were paul rudd i would have been um well i would have been stoked because i would get to be paul rudd yeah but also the trying to keep it Like, it's actually very good improv from Bill Hader and Paul Rudd because they both know what's about to happen, right? They both know that the jokies are going to play this clip that has been the thing for all these years. But you can't, like, overdo it. You can't seem overly excited. You can't, like, you have to stifle the urge to say, and by the way, Conan, this is not the Mac and Me clip. Like, all of these weird, intrusive, nervous thoughts that I would have, he doesn't do any of those. He, like, plays it really, really, really well so that it doesn't tip his hand at all. Then he goes on. I was going to play this for you, too. He kind of explains the story on the clip and this other clip that he was thinking about playing from a movie called Baby Geniuses. Take a listen to that.

You know, just rotting pumpkin head. And you see it happen over a period of years.

This is Conan talking about a supercut of Paul Rudd playing this clip on him.

I just remember the very first time thinking it's so artificial to come on and sell your wares and show a clip from your movie and what if I just show a clip from another movie? Right, right. We've never talked about this really but I thought what if I show a clip from this movie that I saw a long time ago that is just really strange and there's one scene in particular but I was kind of waffling because there is another movie that I was obsessed with at the time. that was equally like, who was this made for? Yeah, yeah. Called Baby Geniuses. Baby Geniuses.

Does anyone know Baby...

Oh, okay.

Bob Clark.

Yeah, yeah. Right, that's right. So you were, so there was actually a contender. There was a contender, and there was this idea, there was this, basically there was this scene, I remember a baby, they're breeding these super babies or something, and one of them escapes, and these, I don't know, like seven or eight grown men chase after him, and then the baby jumps out and just beats the shit out of all of these grown-ups. And there's this kind of demonic laugh that just keeps recycling over and over again, and it's clearly a little person just beating up these... But it was so bizarre, and I'd always, the whole time... Did you almost go with that, then? I almost did. I never did. I never showed. Obviously, I just stuck with this, but I always was thinking about this clip, and I thought, seeing it as your last week, congratulations by the way. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. There was no way that I would not come. And I was wondering if it was alright. We could show I could show you the other clip that I was thinking about.

I want to see it. Yeah, definitely. I know.

And Mac and me again.

See, I bet you I felt that one come in that

time. Yeah. I could, I was like, because now I actually want to see the baby geniuses clip. That one, the second one really got me because i thought i maybe just the way my brain works but i was like yeah there is some finality to it there's some sort of pulling the curtain back there's like it's last week let's just let's close things out with the other weird thing that i almost played all these years but didn't so i was i was genuinely surprised that he went with the mac and me clip

again but anyway that was pretty good yeah that's really good and just like three very lovable

fellas right there oh my gosh yes uh those three are uh are tops in my book 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

we did not get to the cheerleader story but that's fine just listen to all things considered today and you'll get a much better description of what happened basically supreme court said this jv cheerleader should not have been in trouble for standing in a mini mart saying f cheer f my school f everything because she was mad because she and she was flipping off the camera she put this on snapchat and uh because she had not been um had not been uh accepted to the varsity cheer squad so then they kicked her off the whole thing because of her video she made and then she sued and it went to the supreme court which is so interesting the cases that the supreme court takes.

They're like constantly choosing to not hear something about, you know, the ACA or Roe v. Wade or you name it, consequential things. And then they're like, I mean, I guess this is consequential, though, in a way.

It doesn't seem like the type of thing we would talk about, but we talked about this on TBTL. And I remember I can't remember exactly where I came down, but I think we came down on different sides of it. But for me, it matters whether or not it was a public school or a private school. And wasn't this a private school? Isn't that what flabbergasted me? Because I thought private schools can basically, like, I went to a private school. I'm not to brag. That's where I learned to say meteorology. That's not even the word I was trying to say before. Meteorological. It's just so hard. Anyway, I remember, you know, they always made it clear from day one, like, when you're out in, you know, when you're out in public, you represent the school. You're an Ignatius man now. Like, you represent the school everywhere you go, and you will forever. Like, they hammer that into our heads. Now, that's just something you can say to students. So I don't think that's legally binding. But I did think that it would it would it would differ if you were in a private institution or a public institution. Maybe what I got caught up on was this idea. I know I was doing emails. This idea of like, are extracurriculars a right for a student? And I guess they are. By the way, this is a public school. Okay, it's a public school, but I think I was caught up on this idea of, like, we're not saying you're getting kicked out of school or even you're going to have to do detention or Saturday suspension or whatever. I don't think Saturday suspension is a thing. But anyway, I think that I was surprised by the fact that, like, but you still have a right to be on the squad. That didn't seem like overreaching by the school to me, but I'm on the wrong side of history here.

well i i i don't know where we came down the first time we talked about it but i don't know if i 100 disagree with you in that i feel like to take it back to junior varsity basketball and me munching on a meatball sub that wasn't university prep um i feel like if i i mean there was no snapchat then there were no cell phones then at least not phones with cameras on them like i kind of feel like my my um experience with with sports in particular was yeah if you if i made if i had made a video if i had typed up a document that said f mr collard f basketball f this and gotten kicked off the team i kind of feel like and let's just say that i had like taped that up across the street from the school like where the smokers hang out there's always that like little patch of dirt that was technically not school grounds where like once you get old enough that they kind of can't stop you you can go smoke um i guess i just sort of feel like i understand her being frustrated because she didn't make the squad and if she wants to scorch the earth and and and you know give the middle finger to the school into the cheer squad i don't think she should be like in like prosecuted for that but i also think the cheer squad could say that seems to undermine the camaraderie of this operation exactly even

for even if it's not for the adults who run the program like feeling um feeling put off by this but just like for the you're building team right and it's about i mean that's what team sports are about often or that's what's emphasized like this it's bigger than just you don't be a ball hog like it's it's a team win and we're building up the fact that you guys are all looking out for each other. And so this undermines that. Therefore, hey, you can stay in school. You don't have to be necessarily punished for this, but you don't get to take part in this particular extracurricular activity that you are kind of undermining. But again, I haven't reread into this today. I'm only trying to remember the conversation we had the first time. I'm also wondering what the parents

level of involvement was, because the couple of articles that I've read on this and also listening to the actual Nina Totenberg this morning, they were describing in a way that it was this the lawsuit was brought or the case, I should say, was brought by this student. So if she wanted to bring this and fight this up to the highest levels of her name is Brandy Levy, by the way, if she wanted to fight this to the highest levels as a, I don't know, 16, 17 year old person, I guess go for it. Good on you if you can figure out, you know, how to get the money for legal representation, etc. But I actually, weirdly, also have a slight problem if it was the parents. Because I'm imagining I have a little kid, not a little kid, I have a kid who's on the cheer squad. She flips off the cheer squad on Snapchat, and then she's kicked off the cheer squad, and I kind of think my response would be, you shouldn't have flipped off the cheer squad, hun. Like, that was, that's probably going to get you in trouble. It's probably not going to endear you. To the people there My response wouldn't be We're taking this to the US Supreme Court Yeah Like which I I got a lot of big ideas about parenting That are easy for me to have Because I don't have young children I don't have children that are in middle school Or what have you But I say this a lot But it's like I was raised in an era Where when you got in trouble At school You were also in trouble at home Now I know there's some misapplications of that You've talked about a time Andrew when you were being bullied and you finally sort of pushed back and then you were also in trouble, even though what you were really doing was just trying to stand up to the people that have been bullying you. And so for you to also be in trouble at home over that, that would be seemingly an unfair outcome. So I'm not trying to say at all times this was a good system, but I guess I just, I'm imagining me or anyone I went to school with in the 1990s flipping off the sports program we were in, literally flipping off and saying, F them, and then getting kicked out, and our parents being mystified that this is what happened, and then taking it to the Supreme Court. It just doesn't seem how, it's not how that would have been treated in those days.

Yeah, and it just seems like, it's just weird for me to be on the, taking the side, especially now that the ruling has come down, that I'm taking the side of anti-free speech, because I like to think that I...

Well, you're taking the side of Clarence Thomas, because he was the only dissenter.

Oh my gosh, how am I? Who am I? But it's just so weird because I feel like, yeah, speech is free, but there are also some there are also some ramifications for your actions. Right. And in all things. And so therefore, you know, like when people and again, I know I kind of brought this up awkwardly the other day and maybe I'm jamming it in here again in a way that isn't 100 percent appropriate. But like this idea of like you can't say anything anymore. I'll get canceled. It's like that's not true. You can say anything you want. You're not going to jail. We do have free speech. People not liking what you're saying is not getting canceled. It's just people using their free speech to talk about your free speech. Like, you know, like I just don't believe that we are not there. I don't feel like there is a real threat to free speech in the culture right now. And in this particular case, like I say, if she had gotten kicked out of school or had to face some sort of punishment for her free speech. I just think that like saying this isn't a good fit for this club. Maybe this is my lack of understanding of how extracurriculars are handled in school, but like that doesn't seem like a punishment to me. It just sort of seems like I just thought that not everybody gets to be on the teams anyway, right? Like when I was like we used to have to try out for football. I'm trying to think were there kids who were like fully rejected from football or was it like you just don't get playing time? I guess you just don't get playing time because I would have been one of the kids who got fully rejected because I didn't get playing time. They never gave me a jersey.

But I think there was, I think, well, different schools probably handle it differently. I had heard at one point when I was at the UW that they didn't cut backup punters. Like they would let anyone who wanted to come down and be technically a punter on the team, they would let you be on the team, but you just would never get to practice or have a uniform if you weren't good.

Even at the college level.

That could have just been a rumor, too. I don't know. But let's just say, you know me, the thought crossed my mind at some point. Yeah, right? I can see you doing that. Should I be the ninth string non-travel punter for the University of Washington? That's where some of the best sandwiches are. Yeah, exactly. All right. Emails and V-mails.

So we won't talk about that. We'll skip that story today. Okay. Did the Supreme Court rule on D-mails and if those fall under the free speech? That means, don't you know, we have some V-mails. I actually was going through the voicemail line today, and I don't like admitting this because I really don't. I love checking the voicemail line, but sometimes it gets on top of me, and I realize there's a big chunk of voicemails that I missed from late April, early May, and so I started going through some of those, and it makes me feel bad because some people were calling in just to share some, you know, in one case, some kind of heavy news, just wanted to share it with us, and I didn't respond. I reached out today to some folks going through some stuff. But anyway, so if you left a nice, sweet voicemail and you didn't hear a response, my apologies. I'm trying to catch up on some things here. But what I've done today, Luke, is I want to play two voicemails for you. Neither one of them is exceedingly long. But one goes back to something we talked about in late April. And one is something that we talked about just yesterday, I believe. So let's start with the late April one. This references some story that you told, Luke, where a bike was stolen. I don't actually remember this. Your bike was stolen and you just had this moment of watching the person steal it maybe and thinking, oh, that's happening.

Does that ring a bell? I don't think, I mean, I had a bike stolen when I was actually at football practice as a kid, but I don't think I saw the person stealing.

Oh, okay. I think maybe I'm getting confused because of the content of this voicemail, but either way, take a listen to this because that rang a bell as I just accidentally rang a bell in here with this list.

Hey, Luke and Andrew. This is Sarah from Hampton, Illinois. I was just calling because Luke had mentioned getting his bike stolen and coming across where he thought he left it and just kind of going, huh? Well, that happened. And it reminded me of something that happened about 10 years ago. I'd parked my car in my friend's driveway and I was just running up to drop something off, left it running because that's just what you do when you're dropping something off real quick I was standing at her front door and someone jumped in my car and took off with it and in that moment you don't think my car is being stolen my brain said huh I guess someone's moving my car down the street they're not coming back and you kind of just have that moment of going huh well that happened so i definitely relate to luke's weird feeling of well it's not there anymore that's all that i have power out i feel like i can relate to that although i can't

think of a specific example but when something is just seemingly big but so out of the ordinary that you're just numb in the moment yeah that's i mean it's that it's that moment where you just

kind of don't know what to do next you're you're stunned and you're just kind of trying to also what she said about your mind trying to create a rational kind of context for what's happening like oh they're moving my car for me yeah i mean this is a really dark place to say it but people often report that if they're at the scene of a shooting or a mass shooting initially they say I thought it was fireworks going off or I mean, people will often describe really horrific situations as being like, I thought this person had just fallen down or something because your brain is just looking for the most trying to make sense out of it. And it's going with what seems like the most likely scenario, not the outlying scenario.

This is a really dark place to take this. I mean, you've kind of led us here. Yeah, no, no. I mean, it's related and I'm going to dig even deeper into it. I don't even know why I'm sharing this. I should just share this other voicemail and get out of here. But, you know, there was, I mean, it's hard to keep all of the mass shootings in America straight, right? But there was the grocery store shooting in, was that Texas, Luke? It was probably. No, that was in Colorado. That was Colorado, too. At the King Super. Yeah, that was Colorado. Wow, they've had a lot. Anyway, maybe because I love my grocery store and, like, you know, I haven't been in a school in a long time. And, of course, that's just frightening for so many other reasons. But, like, there's something maybe very visceral to me about I was very able to picture the scenes in this grocery store. And that was a while back. But then more recently, I'm going to say in the past month or two, I've described my grocery store parking situation to you before, Luke. I park in a garage underneath the grocery store and I take this kind of cold, weird elevator up one floor with my grocery cart from the garage up into the grocery store. And I got in the elevator and I heard some sort of like loud bangs from upstairs. And I assume, you know, I assume now that it was probably just something in the parking lot or something. And even at the time, I don't know that I was fully, like, that I was scared, but I did have a real moment where I said, what if these doors open and there's a shooting going on right now? And, like, I contemplated that for probably, I don't know, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, but it seemed longer. But, like, it was probably the only moment in my life that I felt like that could have been a possibility. So it was not. I don't know what it was. It was something in the grocery store parking lot upstairs. But, yeah, it was just a very weird thing. Like, what if these elevator doors open and we have another just gruesome scene on our hands? I don't like thinking about that stuff.

I have had that thought. I don't, you know, I feel very fortunate that, like, my anxiety or my, you know, it doesn't manifest in such a way that I'm constantly worried about that stuff. Because I know that is, for some people, that's how they process that information is it becomes, you know, something that they're very worried about. but I've had a couple of times where I've been somewhere and for me what it's been is people moving in kind of a frenetic way like if you're in a store and you see people like a group of people moving in a way that's just like your brain your eyes and brain interpreted as like not the normal kind of way that we are in a space then I'll be like something's up and you know it could be in Portland it could be anything honestly I was going to the bank yesterday and this dude was trying to like literally break into the Whole Foods and the Pearl. I mean break in because he had been kicked out and he was trying to bash his way back in by just like smashing the glass where this security guard got to give this person credit because i don't i'm sure that these security guards at this whole food are not armed so it's just kind of like they just have to basically hope that if they eject someone from the store that person uh you know i guess just doesn't escalate it to a certain kind of level but this guy was he looked appeared to be somebody who was dealing with drugs and possibly homelessness and he was very mad about being kicked out of the store and he was just like smashing the window with both of his fists and then cursing and then he would take two steps away and run back and smash the window again and i was like and then i'm i'm in the in the the lobby of the bank um getting some money out of the atm and i'm just like i hope he doesn't look over here because i don't want to yeah i don't want to get in that situation but anyway that's unrelated to this other than to say i've had that impulse a couple that thought a couple of times where i've been in some kind of a place and there's been something weird that happens and i think for the splitest of seconds like oh is this happening now it's kind of like if i were to be on a plane and i felt like it were going down i'd be like oh this

is actually happening oh yeah that's the thing if i start thinking about that on an airplane i just get in my head too much it makes flying very uncomfortable for me hey can i um i see that you've uh got rid of the doogie music but let's just end on a slightly happier note here kind of a funnier note if you don't mind stay on track with the second voicemail this is um we actually ran out of Doogie music. It actually did go away at the right time, though, because it might have been weird talking about that with the Doogie music. But here, last thing to end on, if you don't mind, Luke, this is from listener Scott. We were talking about that feeling of sending an email accidentally, like doing a reply all and realizing you sent the wrong thing to the wrong people. Here's a voicemail from Scott.

Hey, guys. Scott in Seattle. I was listening to the show earlier this week about accidentally sending emails to people, and it reminded me And having been on the receiving end of that, not the sending end, and I had a good laugh at this memory. I just thought I'd read the email to you. This is my wife inviting some people to breakfast at the Girl Scout camp she runs. And this is this company that's kind of like this eco-friendly food company. I'm not going to name them or anything, put them on blast. But it kind of has a reputation for being, you know, iffy-dippy environmentally sound and all that stuff.

I'm going to pause it there for a second because I listened to this and I got a little bit confused. And that might have just been me and my bad brain. But just to keep things straight. So Scott's wife is the person who is running this Girl Scout breakfast thing. She's not with this company. But she's sending out an invite to a bunch of people, including some people who run businesses, including this, as he describes it, sort of a hippy-dippy, I think he said, food company.

So she sent them an email inviting them to this event, and I think the owner must have just, instead of forwarding, replied all, included his wife. I'm going to change the names, but he said, hi, Jane, this is John from Human Resources. Now, remember, they're married and they own this company. i received an email asking if you wanted to attend an anti-mining rally by the tree-hugging mfers at the girl scout camp this weekend would you like to bring the kids and indoctrinate them because that company from new hampshire that makes footwear also apparently makes a good breakfast god save us all john i think we scratched our heads a little bit trying to figure out if they were being serious or making fun of us or just trying to be funny and then he realized his mistake and responded to some effect about it being just a little bit of marital humor sorry about the forward anyway we had a good laugh about this they didn't show up at the event so

power out man put them on blast who are we talking about i don't know i don't know i actually did a

little i did a good because at first i was like is this like a it sounds like it's northeast you know so i'm like is this like a ben and jerry's thing but that's not owned by a husband and a wife so then i that's actually owned now by unilever yeah and then i remember that too it's like well that's definitely owned by a major company now um so yeah i i don't i don't know and i got a little confused too like maybe his wife actually works for the footwear company i

was a little confused about the footwear company what it sounds like though is that this this husband and wife who are running this company that's outward facing as eco-friendly and like he said hippy dippy like there are some low-key kind of maga types i don't know if it gets to the level of maga but basically it sounds like they behind closed doors have a very different way of talking about the world and they're expressing to the wider world or they're just

being super sarcastic i don't know if vives and i still have inside jokes like this anymore but like you know i know our level of sarcasm vives and i know each other and our values so well and have you know influenced each other's values by this point her influencing how i look at the world more than me her I would

assume um but you know when you're comfortable around somebody you might kind of play a character where you're saying the opposite of how you truly feel you know what i mean like i'm trying to think of an example but like thieves and i am sure like in our just weird um joking around we might like this this email it might have there might have been some inside jokes in there and it was actually referencing some other experience that this couple had gone through earlier and this was kind of reminiscent of it so he was playing this character because sometimes they play these characters where you're the opposite of how you truly feel right totally no that's that's that's a good point

um i feel like the joke could have been better maybe we can get a hold of them yeah punch it up a little bit if you're going to do characters in a relationship just bring your a-game that's

all i would say yeah like that you know like we punched up that cicada tweet when the cicadas

grounded the plane i think we did some good work yeah didn't we end we ended with something about Donald Trump I remember

saying am I bugging you don't mean to bug you I felt very strong about that alright do you want to go out with do-si-do by Jenny Lewis

this always reminds me of jogging down sunset in LA this always reminds me of eating a meatball sub that coach Matt Mould handed me yeah let's do that we talked about it a lot today so that's how we'll wrap things up on this Wednesday thanks for listening everybody we're going to be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you so please do join us for that until then have a great wednesday take care of yourselves and please remember no mountain too tall and good luck to all

Open the window Get back in the saddle This ain't no ghetto joke You're on the payroll Don't sit down

Ooh, rock and roll Ooh, don't sit down Let the grown man cry It's suicide I'm out on my

Power out.