Muse

Oh, sweetie, you got a little Mars cocktail on your beautiful gray dress there. Can we get that for free? What? The Mars cocktail. Can we get one of those for free? Because she spilled a little bit on her dress. Sure. Great, because if you said no, I would have gone home and got on Yelp and said that I found a Lego head in my corner. I've done that to a lot of places. It works. TBTL!

I used to be with it, but then they changed what it was. now what i'm with isn't it and what's it seems weird and scary to me objection on the grounds

that i'm like what you know people think i'm fancy but i like nothing more than to end the day with one of these fine hamburger sandwiches from the good people at the mcdonald's you think you're

too cool for school but i got a newsflash for you walter cronkite you aren't well i've got to run I can hear the blender crying.

Coming, baby.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Monday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. What a fun, sexy time for you. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. Give it up for Luke Burbank! Coming to you from the Nest Broadcast Center, high in the sky, above Portland, Oregon, where, let me just crane my neck and look down the street. We had that thing happen here in my neighborhood where they put out all these no-parking signs all weekend. I assumed it was some sort of city of Portland project, but no, it was a big-time Hollywood production. It's the first line of the film, man. It's got to be on the money here. There are all kinds of film trucks down on my street, and I don't know if this is, you know, like an episode of Portlandia or if it is a Tom Cruise blockbuster. Actually, it's unlikely to be a Tom Cruise blockbuster because I was watching that Euro Cup final yesterday, and they were showing David Beckham, the one time, you know, England national player. And he was high-fiving Tom Cruise at one point Back when things were going good for England in that game Or going well, I should say In the words of Tracy Jordan Superman does good, you do well So anyway, it's probably not Tom Cruise Because he's in England Unless he took an overnight flight here But they had this giant Like when you get on an airplane That's kind of a prop plane And you check your bags By putting them on that rolling cart kind of thing They had that just full of different colors of suitcases so either the character in this film or what have you is pretending to come home from a vacation and they needed a lot of options on suitcases or it is literally a luggage ad that's being filmed anyway very exciting times here in Portland and very exciting times for all of you because we've arrived at episode 3,464 in a collector series

Let the fun begin.

Richard Branson, he was not at the Euro Cup final yesterday because he was traveling to the very edge of space.

Is this a thing people care about?

No.

Apparently there has been some kind of beef between Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos about who was going to get to space first. Somebody wrote on Twitter Billionaires need to calm down, a dog has been in space Which is a pretty good spoof if you ask me I guess Jeff Bezos said the other day that Richard Branson isn't going to go to space enough He's not going to be fully in space And Bezos is going to be more in space when he goes But Richard Branson went first Anyway, I don't know, who cares Well, we do slightly Because we're going to play you some news tape And talk about what happened to the rebel billionaire Also, speaking of beefs, there is a Jersey-related beef going on in MLB right now between the New York Yankees and the Houston Astros.

The crack of the bat, the roar of the crowd. That's right, baseball's back.

Again, I just want to preface this by saying peace and love to our listeners in both Houston and New York. And we have many listeners in both places. and you may be fans of your baseball teams and I absolutely salute you doing that but I just have to speak my truth I have to speak from my experience which is I can't think of two teams I hate more well the Houston Astros and the New York Yankees are on a very select list of about three of my least favorite baseball teams on planet earth and there was a whole thing involving putting coats on people who were hitting Thank you.

home runs and other people taking their shirts off it really got weird in houston yesterday and we'll look into that and time permitting we'll talk about the tv show hacks which i just started watching it is forget about hot girl summer it's jean smart summer my friends jean smart the breakout star of designing women also in mayor of east town and now in hacks she's great the show is pretty fun, although they take some real liberties with the city of Las Vegas and its geography.

Vegas, baby! Vegas!

Which kind of had me slightly irked last night as I was watching it. So we'll talk about that, plus emails and v-mails. And this, my good boy, the longest running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships, I consider him sort of the Carl Havoc of podcasting. I don't want to start with loser talk here, Luke. I don't want I don't want to be giving you loser talk. I don't want to be a loser. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now from the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. I fear that I jinxed myself this weekend leading into this Monday morning. I found myself in that always awkward position twice yesterday trying to explain to people what I do for a living and what the show is about. We've talked about this a lot on the show. Sometimes I do a good job of that. I feel like I'd been getting better at that. In these two instances, I did a terrible job of explaining my job and TBTL to these folks who I just met. And so in both of these conversations, at some point, somebody said to me, yeah, but what do you talk about? And I said, I don't know. Like, for example, tomorrow I might talk about it if they don't pick my garbage up. And I said, you know, often the people picking up my garbage miss my house and it becomes a whole thing. But in the back of my head, I felt like I was being disingenuous Because when's the last time they didn't pick up my garbage, Luke? It's been a minute, actually Thank you, Sam Sanders And here we are This weekend, Aisha Roscoe, but yes Oh, wow, somebody's really keeping their finger on the pulse of It's been a minute

Of the shows that are dominating the weekend space on public radio One day it'll be live wire

Oh, right, right, right Boy, yeah, Sam Sanders is really killing you both on the podcast front and the radio front, huh?

And I can't say it's been a minute without having to throw that asterisk. I know.

He took a phrase.

It's really flooded the zone of my brain, unfortunately.

But anyway, yeah, so I went to collect my garbage bins here right before the show. And the recycling picked up. No problem. Yard waste picked up. No problem. Garbage can full of old cat litter that almost blinded me when I lifted the lid to see if they'd emptied it yet. Whoa. I'm afraid that that has not been picked up. It's out there in the blaze. It was your cat litter, though, right? Yes. So far, no neighbors are. No. As far as I know, cat owners aren't going around throwing their animals' feces in other people's garbage cans. For some reason, though, dog owners feel like that's their human right or canine right. But we don't have to get into that whole thing right now. But, no, I don't know what's going to happen. Lonely garbage can out on the curb right now, baking in the sun, just stewing whatever. horrid gases are in that bin and I don't know if they're coming to pick it up or not. What time should

they have picked it up at like 8am this morning? What time is it usually gone?

I don't, you'll be surprised to hear, I don't know what time it actually gets collected but I will say that usually I go out at 9am and if everything is going well all the bins will have been emptied by 9am. So if it's after 9 as it is now, it's 9.49 and I believe it has still not been picked up We start to get into, you know how hurricanes, and this is a lot like hurricanes, obviously, and tornadoes, there are watches and there are warnings. And warnings mean that the conditions are right. I think I have this right. Can't wait to get this wrong and have everybody email me. But I'm pretty sure that a warning means the conditions are right, but a watch means that one of these weather phenomenon has been cited in the general area. So keep a watch out for it. So right now I'd say we're in the warning phase of this. Right now the conditions are right for them to skip me this week. But we are not in watch territory yet. That would be probably in the afternoon.

I really think you need to just splash out for one of these Nest Cams. We don't do ads for them, although I wouldn't rule it out. I just think you should put up some kind of security camera, point it right at the spot where your garbage cans go. I have one at the Bellingham place from SimpliSafe. It's a way that I keep tabs on old Olive because it just happens to be sitting in this random side porch.

And every time she goes in there, I get a little update, and then I look at her, and I think, what a cute cat. The times when she doesn't have, like, a rabbit in her jaws. It would be ideal for you to set that up. In fact, it would also mean that if people were coming over to visit you, because you guys have a gate kind of system there at your house that is lockable and is generally locked. I mean, I know you don't want to live in a security state. You're not trying to be a sort of platinum member of Nextdoor.com, but it would be great because you could also just like – if people were coming over, you could see when they were there or people could text you or if somebody were – in fact, you could even put a ring light like a doorbell out there so people could ring the doorbell or whatever, and you would also just know what's going on with your garbage. Because your house is set up in such a way That you don't have eyes On this one critical part of your whole situation A part of the situation That causes you great consternation When you don't know what's going on with your garbage for instance

But I don't know what it solves for me It doesn't make it Well first of all it's hours of fun I'm not even kidding

Does a cat come with it? I mean you finally understand That thrill of being Billy Baldwin In the film Sliver

Garbage Sliver Garbage sliver show title It could maybe prove that they never came to pick it up But also what I do is because they are a bunch of Lying liars and they You know if they skip our house They say well it wasn't out there in time And they just lie about it But that But I'm not going to send them You know well here is 24 hours of footage of you not Showing up what I do is I take a photo Of it with my phone which is time stamped Every evening when I take the garbage cans out like that is the proof I need that the garbage cans were out there having footage of a truck

not showing up doesn't solve my problem right I just mean you could be sitting see this is why I would get a camera if I were you because then I could be sitting in my house and I could go onto my phone and I could just observe anything that's happening on that street if there's a delivery person that we're waiting for I could just have you could have it running on your laptop just like a running piece of footage so that when that person showed up you would know they were there Again, if you did find dog poop in your garbage can, you could rewind the tape, which, again, just feels real like Dateline NBC or Crime Procedural to rewind the security footage and see who threw something in your garbage can that shouldn't have been in there.

Probably Sharon Stone is who did it, probably.

Very possibly. Oh, you mean Carly Norris from Sliver? Wow. I just wanted to double check. Somebody watch a lot of Sliver. I don't think I've ever seen that movie, but it did make an impression on me. I wanted to make sure I had the right Baldwin. I did. William Baldwin, he plays Zeke Hawkins on the movie. Tom Berenger is in it as well.

Oh, Tom Berenger.

And, of course, Sharon Stone.

Do you ever get Tom Berenger and Tom Skerritt confused?

No, because Tom Skerritt is from Seattle and has a very craggy appearance. I would say, like, Tom Skerritt and Willem Dafoe, I think you should leave season three, if they do a craggy, like a little craggy boy contest that's hosted by Sam Richardson, I think they'll have Tom Skerritt and Willem Dafoe in it. Tom Barringer is a man of larger carriage. I'll forever love his role in the movie Major League, where he plays a catcher whose best days are behind him. And he calls his shot. This is actually a pretty genius plot device. He calls his shot at the kind of critical last moment of the film. And calling your shot is like where you point to a section of the outfield, like, that's where I'm going to hit it. Which is apparently something Babe Ruth did back in the day And Tom Berenger, he calls his shot And then instead of trying to hit a home run And be a real alpha male, he bunts it And he has bad knees So it's like him bunting it and reaching safely on a bunt Is almost a bigger accomplishment than hitting a home run Anyway, that's, I would say, peak Berenger

I was about to say, oh yeah, I'm not even joking here I was going to say, oh yeah, Berenger When I think of Berenger, I think of Rambo you know first blood or whatever sure but no not sure that's dennehy and i believe they're both mentioned now there you go song dennehy as well by the way i'm pretty sure berenger gets a name

drop in dennehy so well what do you think the chances are that tom berenger is remarried to somebody who's much younger than him and they have a child and that child's name is peak berenger i would say better chance 80 i'm sure there's a jack berenger there's a peak berenger there's a Matty Behringer. Uh-huh.

wow you're absolutely right wow nobody look it up i told my friend elena about that i actually

told everybody on the live wire call last week about every time you say wow think of owen wilson saying wow yeah and i've just been hearing it's very addictive i've heard back from a number of them saying including elena saying i haven't stopped telling people about owen wilson wow

since you mentioned that now let me ask you this i think this is a really stupid question but it's been on my mind lately so let's just air it out here do you think there's also something going on where people are saying wow a lot more i because i feel and it's a great question it seems like this is i guess the sharpshooter fallacy like now that we're hearing it or we have some connection to it it's standing out more that makes more sense but i we know that there are certain words that are in the common vernacular right or or that that become you know slang words that have a moment but I feel like we also as a society or at least you know the people who are having conversations along the lines of you and me and a lot of our listeners um I feel like we also share verbal tics and I feel like we're going through and maybe we're at the tail end of a verbal tic of saying okay it's something I've found myself doing a lot lately because I listen to some podcasts where people say okay it's like a it's a reaction I feel like our friend Phyllis Fletcher will say that a lot it's like a good way of saying like i'm hearing you but i'm also going to let you continue and i don't want to insert too much i've also heard on some podcasts somebody just saying okay can also be a conversation killer it's just like hey man you're going to kick that hacky sack a little bit harder or you're just going to say okay and let the conversation die here but do you can you relate to that at all let's start with that as a base level have you noticed people in conversation just saying okay a lot more i haven't noticed that but i do think that there's an

argument for the wow thing that you're putting out there which is maybe because we are living in such unreasonable times like we're there are more things that are wow worthy just oh hey did you hear that uh you know five percent of alabama is vaccinated wow uh peace and love to bruce and the fam down there and our other alabamians um alabamians i think they say alabamians um but uh You know, like, there are just so many. Sure. I was almost going into. There's some kind of one of those schools has a has a I don't even know if they're in Alabama, but it's like rammer jammer, which also sounds like how you create a child named Peek Behringer. But there anyway, I was there's just so many things that in the moment of life that we're in that the only response is, wow, like, oh, that. Okay. You know, Jeff Bezos is making in the time it takes to say Jeff Bezos made a million dollars. Jeff Bezos made four million dollars. Wow. Like, oh, I can order a, you know, I can order all the groceries that I need and they'll be delivered here in 20 minutes by someone who is not getting paid enough. Wow. Like we live in a very wow worthy world. And so maybe there are just more things that that that is the proper response to. And then when you overlay the Owen Wilson thing on it, you start to really – it's like, well, they say when you buy a wow, when you buy a word, you start noticing everyone else who's driving that word. Yes. Right.

Everywhere you look, you see that word. Right. And also when you drive that word off the lot, it loses most of its resale value immediately. Except not lately. Do you know this whole thing? No. I want to say, though, really quickly, the wow thing. Like I borrowed your what a world for a while. Like that to me – and that's kind of like wow. That's like wah, right? w-a-w what a world it's very very similar anyway go ahead wow wow that's me trying to say that's

me trying to be owen wilson saying wah instead of wow so what is it what's weird is it doesn't work like an owen wilson saying wow is pretty easy wow owen wilson saying wah wah doesn't work

no no so anyway that's what tbtl is about um what were you gonna say i hope those people are

listening and now they are fully they didn't make it they've been fully read in on what the hell

this is what the hell is tbtl are you saying that um cars are maintaining greater resale value is

that what you were about there if you bought a car i heard this thing that if you if you purchased a car like during the pandemic that car is likely worth more right now than when you bought it like cars are an appreciating asset for the first time like ever because of all kinds of uh you know supply chain problems and something having to do with a computer chip that's essential to many vehicles these days i was thinking it was kind of funny though because i thought i finally made a good decision by leasing a car mid pandemic like i you know i am a super possessor and so I

always like to buy things if i can because then i own them and then no one can tell me i can't have them like i'm very weird about that stuff and so for years i've been buying cars most of my life i had really crappy cars actually and then i started um getting slightly nicer cars and then it kind of peaked with space car well space car 2 which was the uh i had an audi and then one time it needed repair so i took it in and then the audi dealership loaned me a nicer audi uh to use while the uh initial audi was being serviced and then i fell in love with the nicer audi and then immediately hatched a plan to make that my reality which i did and then that car kind of blew up on me which really sucked so and then i bought this uh carry and i bought this tiguan and anyway i'm just like not a kind of person who would ever lease something but then i was like i don't know man if i'm gonna have a car payment like anyway why not just i'd always heard that leasing was smarter than buying and so i finally put aside my super possessive ways and lease this mazda which i like by the way a lot it's a mazda c5 it's a very comfy car i'm happy about it um and then i hear that actually had i bought it it would be worth more now than when i bought it

i really mistimed that and i'm sorry you said it has something to do with the computer chip what is why are they worth more now than they would have been well pandemic well i think just generally

speaking um a lot of auto manufacturers scaled back because of the unknown of the pandemic so they weren't making as many cars so there are not as many cars like in the supply chain um which which is happening with everything right now there is just there we've talked about this kind of a lot now but there's just so much demand whether it's tables at a restaurant whether it's cars whether it's airplane seats there's all this pent-up demand for things but the supply was greatly um sort of truncated if you will or like basically everybody stopped making as much stuff because they were freaked out that the pandemic was here and they didn't know and they laid people off or furloughed people or whatever so there's just less less stuff in the supply chain and so now there's more demand than supply in a lot of areas also adding to the car thing there is some sort of particular computer chip that is used in a lot of cars now um in fact we were talking about this the other day although i can't remember if it was during if it was on the real show or if it was on a show that is yet to air but you know cars are basically rolling computers now and some kind of critical chip uh is was not being manufactured at the same rate i don't know if that had to do with the pandemic or it was just like i don't know i don't know why that happened but what i know is that there's a couple of different weird shortages that have led to there being fewer cars on car lots in places. And it means that once again, I made the poor financial decision, which I thought was the good financial decision of leasing a car. You know, I had a nice moment myself

this weekend that I think you'll appreciate the new Luke will appreciate this being a living a less car centered life with your urban lifestyle down there in Portland. I went to get in the car on Saturday afternoon to run an errand and I saw some bags that I had left on the front seat and I was like man I left those bags there on Sunday I hadn't driven my car in almost an entire week now I guess part of the I guess you could wow well I guess you could say well you should get out more but I don't think it's about getting out more it's just about not needing my car I actually did get out last week believe it or not I went places went to the ball game I've done things but like I didn't need a car to get anywhere I love that yeah you I don't I have never met a

person who loves public transportation more than you do which is that well there is veves is the

i mean she's actually she's passionate about it i just use it she is like it's a i mean she loves

it well then uh i guess you other than veves love well i still think it is on a some level of passion for you because i think it fits into your whole experience um on a certain day like you love going to those mariner games and i swear part of it is you listen to your jadena on your headphones while you're taking the light rail like or even when we were staying in minnesota you were one time one trip you were staying in kind of much further away from the mothership than i was but you were kind of intrigued by the idea of taking oh the green line the green line in um and it's funny because there's just nothing i hate more than public transportation i mean i think it's a a good thing that should exist and uh we all should take it more in fact i should take it more there's the max here in portland which i've literally never taken um although i may have to start because i think i told you this the other day when i got back to the airport it was going to be i think 162 dollars yeah for a rideshare home yeah uh and so uh i did not pay that by the way i was able to find a cheaper rate eventually but it would probably do me well to know what the max route back to my apartment is from the airport that would probably be useful information yeah

if there's no transfers that could be really sweet I don't really obviously I don't know that system at all I've taken the max a few times when visiting friends who used to live there but um yeah I definitely love the I mean they're going to be opening up a train station here very near my house right now I have to take the bus to get to the train to get to the ballpark but I'm thinking by oh that's right it's supposed to open in October just in time for me not to see um October baseball from the seattle mariners i'm sure but um that would mean that next year wow that's a uncharacteristically negative mariners well i mean i'm actually it's funny i i was telling somebody this week and i'm like my only concern is that we're gonna go to so many playoffs that we're just gonna get sick of the playoffs as mariners fans um so i i swing wildly back and forth on that but um anyway i doubt we'll we'll see if i'll be taking any trains to any october baseball games by our beloved seattle mariners i kind of doubt it but it does mean that by next baseball season unless something drastically changes in my life or we move or something like like that i will be able to hop on a train two blocks maybe three blocks from my house and end up right outside the stadium that is great like i do love that like the idea of taking a driving a car to go see a ball game just the the idea of even if there's a parking pass this weekend my friend who got me some tickets to the games yeah you had some sweet sweet tics i know man i'll never see a ball game like that again front row first baseline it looked like yeah we were like fourth row right behind home plate it was it was great thanks to my friend james for for the hookup but yeah james had a um a parking pass that he offered to go to uh you know to park at the ballpark and i was just like no like i i love the idea of getting on a train and just being free and clear First of all, not dealing with traffic, obviously, and even if there's a parking pass, you don't have to fight for parking, which is nice, but it still means you'll be, you know, sitting in a parking garage trying to get out of there. Also, you're counting your beers at the ballpark. Nothing I like less than counting my beers. So, yeah, no, there's a freedom in being able to take the train, I think.

I mean, everything that you're saying makes perfect sense, and I totally agree with you. Like, I don't want to get a DUI. I don't want to have to sit in that parking lot. But I think it's that I am so impatient and I think I've gotten more impatient as I've gotten older, which is really messed up because the progression should be you realize that life is precious and that you should enjoy every moment. And like I should be way calmer about things now that and particularly considering went through a pandemic, all of that stuff. But I just I dislike getting on to a mode of transportation that I'm not controlling, that is going to have to just take potentially its sweet time. By the way, I also realize the fallacy of that statement because a lot of times public transit is faster, particularly talking about the light rail. Like if there's traffic, it's a thousand times better to just be on something that has its own dedicated track that's not affected by traffic. So you're actually probably moving faster. There's just some lack of autonomy for me when I get on like a bus or whatever. And maybe it's because mostly when I'm on a bus now, it's the shuttle to the rental car lot at the airport, which is just a special slice of hell.

Yeah, there is something a little soul – have we talked about this before? I feel like you've tweeted out wisdom, humorous, and otherwise about life on – What?

Otherwise?

It's a half reference to a comedy bang bang bit.

That's going to be the name of my PBS satire show, Humor and Otherwise.

No, I mean that's what the parody is. Now let me see. Can I remember everybody's name? Wow. Wow, sort of. But it's basically a character that is making fun of the old NPR character Roy Blunt Jr. Am I right about that? No, no. Who was the guy? Who was the cowboy poet on NPR? Baxter Black. Baxter Black. Sorry, not Roy Blunt Jr. I was confusing those guys. But yeah.

Not to be confused with Back in Black.

Oh, has no NPR nerd from the 90s and early aughts created a Baxter Black slash Back in Black parody song?

It was right there for you the whole time. Andy Daly plays a character whose name I can't remember, but he's a. Oh, there it is.

We were out on the South 40 when we saw a calf that was in a bad way. I don't know who I'm. I'm channeling Sam Elliott, channeling Baxter Black. I don't think I ever heard Baxter Black. I just knew the lore of Baxter Black, cowboy poet.

And the character's name is Dalton Wilcox And he's got a book that's something I'm doing this off the top of my head

It's like humor and other notions or something

You can't buy

Buy your horse more jewelry than you buy your wife and other observations, humorous and otherwise, from a life lived on the range, I think is the full name of Dalton Wilcox's book. But I also love the fact that it is a Baxter Black reference. It's funny on its own, but there are millions of people who hear this and they don't know who Baxter Black is. It's just such a weird thing to make fun of on Comedy Bang Bang.

I love that because I feel like Andy Daly Who's in all those What are those Car ads as well True Car True Car is Adam Lissigore You should do a podcast with Jesse It's something like that though It's like one of those really ubiquitous ads It's funny that at least from facial recognition More people probably know Andy Daly From those car ads than from his Many many many Different comedic appearances But he must have just heard, like, Baxter Black or, you know, whatever character he's sending up, just heard that character on NPR at some point, and then it just got tucked away in his brain. But I love the specificity of that, and I love people not even getting the reference but just thinking this is a funny, weird character. I mean, most of TVTL is based on people not getting the reference, including us not getting the reference. Mostly me, I was going to say. References we're making.

Yeah, I was going to say mostly me, and it also just occurred to me that this conversation we're having right now, sorry, Luke, is going to make a conversation that we're going to have in the summer games a little confusing because I'm pretty sure that Dalton Wilcox comes up in a TVTL summer game, and I will have explained it again, I think. I can't remember. I don't think you explained him.

You know the proper response to all of this weird time-shifting is, Andrew? Just ignore it. Wow. Wow. Wow. I don't think you brought him up in the Summer Games because I think I would remember. It's a very specific reference, although maybe it was a question that you answered. I think it was.

I'm almost positive that it was one of the answers. But whatever. Listeners, you will enjoy the Summer Games. They're quite fun. Yes.

This is all considered forward promotion for the TV show Summer Games.

I know. What's the opposite of promotion? Less promotion? Forward demotion. I don't know what it is.

All right. Let's take a quick break, and then we'll be back with more Forward to Motion here on TBTL.

Thank you, baby.

Could it be this time already? Time to start thanking some TBTL donors of the day. why it feels like just a few weeks ago, Andrew, that we were motoring down the 101 in a 1993 Mitsubishi Delica, asking folks to support the show. They did. We're still here. And we got to thank some of the people making the show possible. Wendy Mathia, or Mathia, from Arlington, Virginia. Shanna Gratton Demke in good old Minneapolis, Minnesota. Oh. Home of the Green Line. Yeah, sure. Chandra, Benjamin, and Keith Scholl are out there in Eden Prairie. This is a very, we're in a Minnesota heavy. Like, we're coming out hot with the Minnesota references and the Minnesota locators here.

There's something that happens every year, and I can't, you know, I've gotten this question recently. What is the rhyme or reason behind the order of the donors When we thank people on the air And I don't know But I bring it up because I feel like every year The beginning of the list is very heavily Minnesota based Now we have a lot of listeners in Minnesota And we love our Minnesota listeners But it does seem like we start with a big, big, big Minnesota contingent And then it starts to even out as the days and weeks go on So I don't know what accounts for that

Well, it's a simple explanation APM is headquartered in Minnesota. That's true. When people from Minnesota go on the website and donate, it gets to the home office faster. The tubes are shorter. Yes. Exactly. I'm an idiot. It's high-frequency donation. Right. Exactly. So thanks, Chandra and Keith. Also thanks to Emily Lind, who's in Mounds View, Minnesota. And Laura Hahn in... I am going to just... I'm going to just throw a Hail Mary here. Kenoki, Michigan? I mean, I don't know for sure, but I'm glad you went with that as opposed to Kenoki. I think it's got to be Kenoki. Kenoki. Okie dokie, Kenoki. If that's not the town slogan, it really should be. Laura, please look into that. Kenoki, Michigan. And then Craig Parsons is out there in old Hickory, North Carolina. i'm sure the last time we thanked craig and hickory north carolina came up uh i just um actually you know i may have made this reference i believe the late great carl castle might be from hickory north carolina oh really wow wow i gotta stop

doing that i don't want i know it's a verbal crutch um i don't know i think the listeners

are enjoying it sorry i'm um i'm pausing here because i'm trying to google this let's see if i can uh carl castle hickory north carolina um must include hickory my google search must include

hickory oh that's never a good sign hickory yeah yeah that's not like i don't like it it's like when the googles tell you well you know what we got something close enough let's just lose this word you cool with that i'm like no i'm not cool with that i didn't decide to write hickory in

here just on a whim like yeah yes it's critical it feels to me he's a native of goldsboro north carolina okay um i i seem to have this weird memory of at some point somebody on the show introducing him or him being referenced as being from hickory but that could all just be you know my uh my sort of faulty memory but anyway uh we're glad craig parsons is down there in hickory north carolina and is supporting the show uh thanks so much to all of our donors of the day we would not be able to do this without you so thanks for making tbtl possible and congratulations on being in the very first piping hot batch of tbtl donors for 2021 hello and welcome to top story what are you more interested in andrew my um knee-jerk Review of the television show Hacks Or Richard Branson Going to space for four minutes

Probably Branson I feel like we can come back To Hacks at any point and who knows Even though I'm not watching that much TV this summer There's a chance that maybe I'd even Catch a whiff of that show myself before we talk About it not making any promises

You know it's weird I had no preference Which you picked but I feel mildly negged That you want Branson over my Knee jerk reaction of Hacks

Well it's just the Branson story is You know it's going on now He's the rebel billionaire. And also, let me just start by saying, this is just irritating me more and more. We haven't even gotten into the story. But these rich guys going into space, like I have a real question for you. Before we get into the story, let's do the analysis first, NPR style. Is this good? Like the space race of the 1960s was good for education and science and the fact that it was our federal government that was behind it. And it was good for morale and it was good for all kinds of things. This is not good, right? Like, I mean, there might be some scientific exploration. There might be some things that we're getting from these private flights, we'll call them. But not really. This isn't good for society. This is just a bunch of rich guys playing with their stupid toys.

I think you're right. And, in fact, I was trying to find the source of the – I was trying to find the exact thing that Jeff Bezos had apparently said. I'd seen it referenced in a few pieces that Jeff Bezos was kind of being a little bit sour about Richard Branson's journey because old Jeffrey Bezos wanted to be the first rich guy in space. And so he was trying to diminish what Branson was doing. Anyway, I couldn't find the exact statement that Bezos made. He apparently kind of then, like yesterday, said congratulations on being the first one or something. So it was like he was sort of indicating that he he accepts the results of the election, I guess, if you will. Like he accepts that Richard Branson went into space. He conceded. He finally conceded. But anyway, in looking around for that stuff, I saw this other thing in CNN, someone writing an op ed piece about how this is bad for this is bad for civilization. Because you're right, this is not governments sending research missions that are there expressly and exclusively to do research and to figure out what you can and can't do in space, etc. This is just rich dudes trying to, you know, have a pen 15 measuring contest with each other. And it's just not it's not it's not particularly useful. And also, you know, every every story about this stuff is like, you know, ushering in an era of like civilian space tourism. It's like to quote Marcel, the shell compared to what? Like, who is the civilian that's going to go into space in the next five years? Like, it's not going to be you or me or probably any of our listeners. Like, this is not increasing.

Can you please get an apartment without so many sirens? It's just getting to be so much. The – oh, my God. The other day, Andrew, after we – We were done recording that day's TBTL, but before we started recording some summer games, there was a fire in my neighborhood somewhere. I actually couldn't see it, but it was like four different, you know, fire stations turned out for this thing. I got on the scanner. Like, I was listening to the scanner on my phone to figure out what was going on.

Yeah, we're scanner boys, yeah.

Yeah, because I was like, how long is this going to go on? also is you know have the rooskies attacked like what the hell is going on turns out it was some smoke happening on a construction site i don't want there to be fires uh and i don't want there to be loss of property or life but gosh darn it if you're gonna like seriously have like a 12 fire trucks and however many ambulances coming out to a thing and then i'm listening to the sort of dispassionate firefighters uh no um natural ventilation is fine i guess that there's a thing they can do listener ben out there uh in uh is it pittsburgh he knows all about this but like i guess they can throw out some like artificial ventilation i.e some fans or something but the firefighter was like no we opened a window he literally was like uh natural ventilation is fine we opened a window that's the level of fire we were dealing with it turned out which was something was smoldering on a construction site they showed up all 50 fire i swear to god part or was it just excited they thought there was a fire?

Yeah, I don't think it, as we approach fire season, I don't think you want to throw that out there. Well, no, those are very different things, though. I know those are very different fires. But I do know the saying, every time a fireman closes a door, he opens a window. Fireman doesn't.

Legally, firefighter can't close a door without opening a window.

That's absolutely right. And by the way, sorry to go gendered there. Firefighter, I should have said.

Fire starters. Oh, wait, fire people. I am a firefighter. No, like, I mean, the great irony is that there are almost no, like, residential or commercial fires anymore because the fire – in fact, that was another thing they were talking about on the scanner, Andrew. They were like, sprinklers have been engaged. And I was thinking to myself, I bet you the sprinklers have – I don't know why, how – this is the show I'm coming out pro-fire, which is really – nobody saw this episode ending up here. I was thinking to myself, oh, shit, I bet the sprinklers did more damage than the fire.

Oh, potentially, yeah, depending on where they were in construction.

You've got a half-built building. That's what they were saying over the scanner was, you know, this building is mid-construction. There was something that was smoldering. It triggered the alarms. It also triggered the sprinkler system. And I'm thinking, oh, man, that's probably like a foot of water in this place, which is probably potentially worse than, you know, maybe some kind of fire. But, yeah, fire suppression is really good. Buildings are just built more fireproof. Things don't burn down very much, which is great. but because we're all inside these beautiful fireproof buildings cranking our AC, and I am at the front of the line. By the way, you may be dealing with a smolder, a smolder sitch.

Sorry that, I mean, I interrupted you. You were actually talking about something when I was saying that the noise is getting too loud. Of course, this is coming from my end today. Will you turn the scanner on? Let's find out what's going on. I know, I kind of want to, I do kind of, okay, I'm just going to open it.

You're going to be underwhelmed, though. I know. That's the thing. I was underwhelmed. I was like shit we deal with some backdraft up In this and it was like nope something was Just smoking but I was gonna say The horrible I guess you could Say irony or weird kind of Push and pull of life on this planet Is less chance of Our apartments burning down but more Chance of the wilderness burning down Because of climate Change and so you've got Like I mean we're already in British Columbia they're already like Midway I mean they're at where they would be in the Middle of a bad fire season and it's you know hasn't even really started and here in oregon they're saying that the conditions are just like the conditions are so much worse than they've ever been including years where there have been record wildfires um so it's a very weird i mean it's an awful thing for nature and it's a very weird time to uh to be alive because again houses not burning down everything else in nature is

burning down yeah it is very i have another friend who's visiting pretty soon and i'm just like I was thinking, oh, I'm glad that she missed the heat wave.

You're leaving the light on for people there, Bodette.

I know. I was actually telling you. I have a stretch coming up of I believe it's like if everything stands as is. We are supposed to be talking about billionaires going to space. But right now, if everything stands as is, I believe I have six to seven weekends in a row that are already booked up. And I'm getting a little nervous about it. And I'm thinking this gets a little bit – you'll know what I'm talking about. a friend of ours is having a cabin weekend we're all invited to spend a night or two at a cabin i love this vibe i'm not much of a kind of a swim i'm not a big swim party guy but i love a nice cabin vibe but that's at the very end of this long stretch of things that we're doing on weekends, including Genevieve throwing her own... Oh, did you get an invite to the party that Genevieve was throwing? I did. Okay, cool. Anyway, now we're just talking. Do you think, you know our friend, this might even be better content, without saying any names and realizing that he might hear this, do you think that I will be in friend trouble if I skip the Lake House weekend? Because it's the very end of this long string of things. I thought you were going to ask, do I think you're going to

be there? I think the answer is definitely no. Didn't you skip last year?

I did. That last year was weird, though. It was still kind of COVID-y, I believe. I don't want to.

Yeah, we were all outside. Yeah, it didn't seem. I don't think many of us were vaxxed, but it was very socially distant, and it was very outdoors. I'm not trying to put you on the spot, but I feel like if you didn't make that one, and this latest round is going to be at the tail end of seven weekends in a row when you're socially committed, I think the chances are pretty slim, right?

But I do think you're painting me a little bit wrong. I didn't go last year. there were a lot of different factors. Well, if you hold still, I will paint you better.

And again, I don't... You keep moving around. Paint me like one of your

French recluses. Because I went the year before that, and it was one of my favorite memories. I love a lake house weekend. Like, I'm not necessarily all for the splashing around and playing in the water, but I love a lake house weekend evening. That was a great party we had. We were playing Dice. Dykstra was there. Unrelated but similar names, Dice and Dykstra. It was just – those are two weird things for me to highlight that made it so great. There were a bunch of people there. It was a wonderful, wonderful weekend. It's not – if all things were equal, I would definitely go to this. It's just that it's at the tail end of this – for me, what is a marathon of summer weekends, and I'm just wondering if by that point I'm going to need a bit of a breather. And then, let's be honest, and she can probably overhear me now, but if Genevieve is going for this weekend, whether it's one night or two, That also means I kind of get the house to myself, so I really get to kind of recuperate energy-wise.

Well, and also at that point, house Haswalsh is represented. Yes, exactly. So that's the other thing, too. It's like, I mean, it's fun to have you at places. Actually, I really, really enjoy socializing with you, Andrew. You're very fun to be around. But you don't need me if you've got Vives. I truly believe that. Well, it's just there will be somebody from your family. Or you've got to send Theo. It's kind of one of the three.

We'll try to send Vives, but if she's not available, we'll send Theo.

How many characters do we get for the show title? Because paint me like one of your French recluses.

That's a possibility.

That was a very solid poll for you. A little Titanic, but then you put recluse in. That was really solid.

It's taking me too long to write it down. That's how long this title is.

Back to your initial question, Andrew. Is this good for humanity that these billionaires are going into space? The answer is obviously no. Like none of us are going to This does not mean that in five years You're going to be able to get a southwest flight To frickin' the moon Like this is for many years Still going to be something that is prohibitively expensive And also sort of to what end Other than just getting your ya-ya's out The other thing too I know I said this a couple weeks ago When the details of Jeff Bezos' Flight Were released Or Rocket Ride or whatever But it's like you're a billionaire go to mars go to the moon like they're just going to a very high high high place in the atmosphere which would be cool if somebody called me and said hey do you want to go fly up 55 miles above the earth's surface i believe you got the 50 miles i would be like yeah that sounds fun i would do that that seems like a once in a lifetime deal but i wouldn't be going around with these astronaut wings like richard branson is now i mean it's so it's like he's such an infant in a way i mean in one way he's more accomplished than certainly i'll ever be but there's an infantilization to it let me just play you some of this nbc tape around branson going to space and coming back okay under a blazing sun a new age of space travel lifted off from the New Mexico desert today, Virgin Galactic's Unity attached to the belly of its mother ship inside. I will say this. It's pretty dope how this whole system works. This giant ass plane takes off with the Unity rocket or whatever you call it, spacecraft kind of attached to its belly as the guy, as NBC's Pat Duggins. That guy sounds, got strong Pat Duggins vibes coming off of this guy. Pat Duggins was the member station guy in Orlando who had locked down every single space story. And he had the best voice for space stories, right? It was kind of a high-pitched rat-a-tat-tat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that would describe it. He just was – and he – our friend Bill Radke used to work in Orlando with Pat Duggins. And Pat Duggins –

apparently just, like, would make, like, $100,000 a year just doing spots for NPR about procedural stuff related to space launches and delays in space launches and updates and what kind of booster they're using. Like, there's a whole, like, wing on Pat Duggan's house that's just built from NPR newscast, like, built $90 at a time through NPR newscast spots.

Really putting his business out there. I'm looking for one of his stories on NPR, but unfortunately they're all, like, really, they're all kind of sad, so maybe we should just keep moving. It's been a sad time in Spaceland for a while. Well, one of them is a look back at the shuttle that exploded. I believe this is the Challenger.

Well, the problem is he didn't do a lot of pieces. He didn't do a lot of produced, like, you know, a piece that's four minutes long and has. He was the king of the 45 seconds of, you know, today's launch was delayed because of weather. Launch mission commander so-and-so said they will be looking for a window within the next two days.

pat duggins orlando or whatever alabama yeah i'm looking to try to um well he's moved to alabama

now yeah oh sure yeah anyway go ahead following that um virgin founder richard branson three other employee passengers and two pilots climbing to 46 000 feet then 45 minutes after liftoff

three two one release release release a 2300 mile i i was before i realized this weekend And what actually I was seeing, I was seeing this clip going around where the person, I don't know if the voice that you heard, if she's the, like, mission control, is she the Ed Harris from Apollo 13, or if she is the person who's just kind of narrating everything. But I thought it was interesting that she said, release, release, release. Like, why would you say that three times?

Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I was into it, though.

But doesn't that seem just like when you say release? I wondered if it was like that adrenaline got on top of her, you think, or you think I wouldn't I can't imagine she would be saying anything that deviated from the plan.

So the plan must have been to say release, release, release, maybe for clarity, maybe because if you say it's a very it's a relatively short word by syllabic, of course, but relatively short word. And so maybe you need to say maybe that's protocol so that it gets clear in case there's a glitch in the line.

And I would say, well, I've never heard that before, but also I don't think I've ever heard of like a spacecraft that's getting flown up in the belly of a different plane and then released, released, released. So, yeah. Released, released, released the Kraken.

For our rocket ride, three Gs to more than 53 miles high. Passengers in the back have been cleared to unstrap. Then the moment that Branson has been dreaming of since he was a teen. The curvature of the Earth and the darkness of space. Looking down to our beautiful, beautiful earth. After three to four minutes of weightlessness, the journey home. It's a complete experience for a lifetime. Safely touching down just over an hour after takeoff. A perfect landing. On the ground. Jubilation, triumph, and the famous Branson champagne shower. Finally.

Is that a thing, the famous Branson champagne shower? I don't know. It sounds like something that they sell in Branson, Missouri Like you go to some You go to Fluck and Chucks And they have the famous Branson Champagne Tower In Soviet Russia

Champagne showers you Yeah, this reporter, God bless Who is not, I want to stress Is not Pat Duggins The voice reminded me of This reporter, whoever it is, is really in the bag for this whole thing The famous Branson Champagne Shower Yeah, all the kids are asking for it for their 7th birthday. Mommy, can I have the famous... I want to be a rebel billionaire for Halloween. And I want to do the famous Branson champagne shower.

17 years after starting Virgin Galactic.

The wings that are the Virgin Galactic wings. Ladies and gentlemen, this here is Sir Richard Branson, astronaut.

So that's some person who I assume is themselves an actual astronaut. He's like a guy of a certain age. I could be wrong, but he just had that bearing about him. And I'm sure that, you know, the rebel billionaire slash wannabe astronaut. I'm sure he is all kinds of former astronauts on the payroll. So they're putting these little wings on him that signify that he uses the big boy potty. I'm sorry, that signify that he is now an astronaut.

Yeah, what is more like you get so rich that you can hire an astronaut to put wings on you and call you an astronaut?

Well, you know what it reminds me of, an RIP, I guess. But Paul Allen used to have this thing, and I was invited to it or I was hired to work it, so I should be. grateful because it was kind of cool that was where i met ringo star basically the most that like 10 most famous people i've ever met probably were all at this thing and it was because paul allen loved rock and roll music and loved playing guitar and he was very rich and so what he would do is he would have this get together that was ostensibly about raising money for um the uh the rock and roll museum in seattle whatever that thing was called emp back in the day now i think It's called Mopop. And, I mean, money was raised, so it did go to a good cause. But what I had the sense the whole time was Paul Allen wants to hang out with Jimmy Page. Yeah, right. And so Jimmy Page is here, and Ringo Starr is here, and all of these rock legends are here, and they're hanging out, and they're vibing with Paul Allen. And, you know, again, you could be using your money for a worse cause. Like, it was actually the programs. In fact, a good friend of ours worked at EMP, and these programs were actually very great for kids. So it's not like it wasn't going to something that was worthwhile, but it was very clear to me that you had somebody who had a lot of money and an interest in hanging out with his rock, like the rock stars he looked up to. And there they were. It was quite something to behold. That's sort of Richard Branson palling around and getting his wings. Like, again, there's something about, first of all, having to call him Sir Richard Branson is exhausting. Having to call anyone, sir, is exhausting. Sir Elton John

I'm the one who has to call you sir during the editorial meeting

and that's actually a medical condition that I have okay sir wow sir wow sir but like this idea this honorific title that's just a bunch of BS anyway that we have to give to people if they establish a certain amount of fame in the UK is just I'll just say it again It's exhausting to me. And the fact that it's this whole thing, sir, Paul McCartney, sir. I mean, the list goes on. I have a feeling, Andrew, that if you and I were ever like getting a cup of coffee and Richard Branson were in line in front of us, he would probably be lovely. Like he doesn't seem like a guy who is rude or not thoughtful towards others. He has that kind of Hugh Grant Kind of British Stumbly Charm and stumbly kind of I don't want to take up too much space Even though he's a rebel billionaire And gives those famous champagne showers But he doesn't seem He does not seem like a cold or unkind person And I bet you that if we were to Look into the amount of money That he and his foundations have donated I bet you it's quite something It's weird because on a personal level If Richard Branson were out there in my living room and when the show was done, I was going to walk out there and be like, hey, man, do you want some pebble ice? He would probably say, brilliant. And then he would have some pebble ice. He would have some pebble ice and he would compliment me on the pebble ice. And he would have an interesting anecdote about how he wants to get a pebble ice machine out at Necker Island, his private island that he owns.

It's not totally out of the realm of possibility that you would someday interview him in one of your various things, especially TV related

Yeah, watch, you're going to see me on CBS with him in like three years Everyone forget this conversation, and by the way, don't forward it to people

Yeah, I was going to say, especially producers forget this conversation, otherwise Luke is not going to bag this interview

But, you know, again, he does not seem like a bad person on a personal level he seems actually to have a certain amount of humility to him and kindness not unlike Paul McCartney in my very brief meeting of Paul McCartney he was kind and he looked you in the eye and he was like you know he was polite for being a massively famous rich person but there's just still something about all this that I find so annoying and I find it so childlike that he's like I got my wings like that's what they give you when you fly unaccompanied minor on like an Alaska flight

like did they let him go sit in the cockpit look zoom in are those just alaska flight wings that would be pretty amazing do you think that if you didn't call him sir somebody in his entourage

would correct you yes but not him yeah that's my guess my guess is that if you met him and you said oh you're sir richard branson he would he is like astute enough to say um please just call me sir rich yeah call me sir richie um uh please sir richard was my father call me sir easy um no but like i think he would have the good sense to be like oh that's silly you know you don't have to call me sir richard but i'm sure every reporter who's dealing with him does that because they're trying to make sure they're on his good side and you and you do i

mean professionally speaking if you were interviewing him on cbs you would do that you have to that i would try not to really i swear to god i promise you if i were to be interviewing him i would do everything in my power to first of all not be filmed calling him sir richard and i don't think i would call him sir richard to his face i would i wouldn't try to be rude i wouldn't be rude but i'd be trying to think of a way to not have to call him sir richard i probably would introduce myself and say it's so nice to meet you i'm luke burbank from cbs television like so i wouldn't even say his name but i'll bet you in the script your producers would make you it would be probably the end of my career at cbs because they would that's how much you would is that that would be the hill you would die on i mean i've died on worse hill i'm dying on a hill right now like i mean that's the kind of thing that's very triggering for me this sort of playing this game of these like honorary titles and this like deference to somebody in a way that just doesn't really um i don't know just make probably what it is is i because i'm insecure i feel somehow diminished by being part of the process and that's what i'm very very anti you know would

you make people call you sir if you got knighted which would be a lot of interesting things would have to happen both in your life and what do you think how do i get knighted and the world in order for you to get knighted.

For service in podcastery.

The first American knight. Wow. Congratulations.

The first American knight awarded for bravery in the podcast theater. For attracting tens of listeners. I would, I mean, there's no universe obviously in which that's going to happen. I would be mortified. I would, I don't know. I also have an Emmy here that's sitting on this desk. So apparently I get over my mortification around stuff like that pretty quickly if I think it will make me look cooler in people's eyes. But anyway, I'll play a little more from this because I believe there's a part of this, either I read this this morning or it's in this news tape, where they just talk about him just like not refusing but he wouldn't like take off his astronaut wing.

I'm never going to be able to do it justice. It's indescribably beautiful. In an exclusive Ransom family interview with NBC News, Sir Richard could not contain his excitement, proud of his wings.

Proud of his wings that he got from a claw game at the fair.

I got to stay up till 10 o'clock.

I won them in Space Army, Mother.

These are my wings, Mother. i don't know again it's just uh i bet you that richard branson is probably a nice dude but there's just something very bizarre about and i don't know if you were listening uh during the the intro my intro rap andrew but uh somebody had written on twitter something to the effect of like a dog has been in space everybody calmed down yeah like if you think about it in that context Like Laika the dog, the Russian dog was in space.

Sent there by, well, Laika, that was the Russian dog, huh? Yeah. Never mind that. Who were you thinking? But I was just, I was going, sorry, I blanked out for a second. I forgot that it was the Russian dog, but I was just going to say. But again, that was part of a, you know, a space race that actually had some, that had a lot of good things going for it, I believe. Right. That's my point, that it was about research. And yes, there was competition. you know of course where it's the cold war there's a lot of scary things going on and it's it's a competition with uh you know with our i guess you know an enemy state but it was a competition that did lead to good things and exploration and it was based on education and science and that those are good things and this is just so this is just so annoying yeah it is and then you got you know

james cameron fighting with a different rich guy about who's been down to the bottom of the ocean The bottomer of the ocean Which you know I have to say There just must be There just must be A sort of point where You have so much money And you are so You've mastered your universe so thoroughly That it is an empty feeling It would have to be That would be the only thing that could explain All of these dudes And by the way you don't see any women doing this That I remember That I can think of off the top of my head And there are women who are very rich in the world And you don't see them being like I want to be the first person to High five Pluto Like it's something about these rich Dudes and I think just this ennui That develops when you just have nothing Else You have not had any sort of desire That's gone Unrecognized and Unquenched if you will And so you just get obsessed With going to the deepest part of the ocean are going to the highest part of the atmosphere.

Yeah, and it's just... hubris too though i mean it's just also they've lived lives where i mean not only yeah they've accomplished a lot but they've also i don't know you know i the more i talk about this the more i'm going to slip into pay your goddamn taxes and stop ruining my city which is tired territory and i'm not the right person to speak on that so i'm well seattle is dying after i've said my part but

yeah i'm sick of these dudes here i go once again with the email every week i hope that it's from a

female oh man it's not from a female andrew people call me the rebel podcaster oh yeah right one cool kid called me that one time and as the rebel podcaster i wanted to try something outside the box today which is i know i'm playing the email and female music but i really want to talk about this shirt related thing going on in the mlb but i also think it's good that this is happening at the very end of the show because some people they don't care about the baseball and so if you don't care about baseball or sports or what have you i mean this is a fine time i guess for you to jump off the train as long as you listen to all the ads and my hot takes on rebel billionaires you're now free to go if you would like to stick around and listen to what's going on with the yankees Astros. We will commence that portion of the program right now. So the Yankees and the Houston Astros have a kind of a pretty fraught rivalry going back to the 2019 American League Championship Series when Jose Altuve hit a walk-off home run that put Houston in the World Series. And what we know now is that that year that team the Houston Astros team was using a series of technologies they prayed to the cheating gods both old and new

where they

were like filming they were using like a camera within the building to film the catcher of the other team and the signal that the catcher was throwing out to the pitcher and then they had this very elaborate system of relaying that information like what pitch is going to come to somebody who was standing kind of in a – like sort of in the – not in the dugout so much, but in the hallway leading out of the dugout who had a giant trash can that they would bang a certain rhythm or number of bangs to tell very quickly to tell the Houston batters what pitch was coming.

And they had code breakers, of course, too, to break those signals, right?

Oh, sure, yeah. I mean that's a good point.

I'm just throwing that out there. It's just like another, like, you know, another dazzling deed. Yeah.

Right. My sense is that the signs, they totally did, by the way. You're not wrong about that. I guess now I'm wondering how complicated it is to break. Because if the catcher doesn't think you're stealing the sign, like, they want to make sure that there's somebody on second base. They want to make sure that that person can't steal the sign. But I mean, I know that they change them up inning to inning. I also wonder how they remember all that stuff. Yeah. And also the third base coach, when the third base coach is going through their kind of, like, series of signs. Although I feel like that's another thing that happens way less. Like, when I was a kid and you watched a baseball game, if it was a 3-0 count, you knew that the third base coach was signaling to the batter to not swing. And the third base coach would do this whole series of moves, and then, like, you know, some of it was just a fake to throw the other team off. and then they would change what the indicator sign was. So in other words, it would be the third thing after he touches his earlobe in whatever inning, but then in the different inning it would be the third thing after he does a nose or whatever. Oh, that's interesting.

Oh, I didn't know that. Okay.

Yeah, so they would like switch things. And the same thing catchers do that too. If I understand this right, the signs change throughout the game as far as what the real sign is versus kind of something that's meant to throw the other team off so they can't steal your signs. But, yeah, so there was somebody in there who was able to also effectively steal whatever the signs the opposing catchers were throwing. OK, so the Yankees are very mad about that. In fact, that year, 2019, Aaron Judge, who's a very good hitter for the Yankees, he got second place in the MVP vote to, wait for it, Jose Altuve. Oh, one other thing that's relevant to this story is that there is some speculation. It's funny, Andrew, because I am so non-conspiratorial in everything that matters, but highly conspiratorial in baseball, which doesn't matter. Like, I fully believe Jose Altuve had some sort of buzzer loaded onto his body. Because that was something that also was speculated on, was that beyond just the trash can banging, these players, some of them would have some kind of a little, what do you call that? like circular kind of thing that you you know you'll stick on your body yeah I can't

yeah like an electrode what are they

call it like in the hospital but maybe everybody can picture what you're talking about so that he

had something like that on his body that could be controlled remotely that would buzz him uh you know and by the way if it's the american league championship series it's probably very loud in that stadium it's probably hard to hear the trash can and so there's speculation that he and maybe other members of the astros had some kind of a little buzzer device that they were wearing that would buzz them indicating what pitch was coming well when jose altuve hit that home run to go to the world series in 2019 he came around third base and of course his team is going insane because they're going to the world series and it had become the trend for a while i think i don't know if it was that season or the season before but at some point it became this like kind of weird ritual that if somebody hits a walk-off home run the teammates would like rip that person's jersey off and Altuve comes around third base and almost more important than touching home base to him which will send his team to the World Series is him holding his shirt closed visibly holding his shirt closed so as to signal to his players, his teammates don't rip my shirt off please now it was noted that that was kind of weird at the time but I don't think we knew about the cheating yet so people just thought he's being weird One story that he told was, my wife doesn't want me to be shirtless on television. That was the one where it's like, oh, you're bad at lying. Right. Now the Astro's line apparently has been, he had an unfinished tattoo that he was embarrassed about. I just learned this from Defector today. By the way, this summarization that I'm kind of reading you and referring to is Tom Lee writing for Defector dot com. So, I mean, those stories are just preposterous. Like you hit a home run to send your team to the World Series. And what you're thinking is, I have an embarrassing half finished tattoo. Right. Like, right. I mean, I the reason that I think he had some buzzer on his body is because there's just it's actually an Occam's razor style sort of approach. It is the simplest explanation.

i i agree i agree it would be funny if you had a big ban ben affleck style dragon on his back though and he was thinking about duncan done yes exactly okay so the yankees

have always been kind of stinging over that home run from altuve so aaron judge hits a home run uh the other night they're playing in houston the yankees in houston are playing and Aaron Judge hits a big home run and he is rounding the bases remember he's the guy who lost on the MVP vote to Altuve and he's rounding the bases and he's holding his jersey closed I didn't see this this is a lot Altuve I love as he comes around now he was asked about it after the game and he said I thought this was actually very clever he said it's you know when they have the roof closed it can be very cold in that stadium so I was just telling everybody that

was very cold he didn't he didn't go with one of the lies he didn't say well my wife uh asked me

not no that would actually okay that would be next level but you know you don't get everything in life you either get to be as athletic as aaron judge or as clever as andy or the hide of an

elephant like i have but that's well you know that's why um um uh aaron rogers that that's where like he made his his heel turn for me personally was when he in a post-game press conference after he beat the the seahawks he parodied and kind of parroted uh russell wilson by saying well i guess i guess god was a packers fan today or something and it was like a reaction to the to post con you know the post game uh press conference with russell wilson the last time that the seahawks won and of course russell wilson and again you know i'm not a super religious person but i just thought that was kind of a shitty thing to say because russell wilson you know

kind of offers everything up to god right yeah that was um uh that was probably unnecessary so okay so now we have aaron judge has hit this home run and he is holding his jersey closed because of how cold he says it is in uh by the way houston i mean granted with the roof like they probably do have the ac pumping but this is just clearly him trolling and and the Yankees, who I have no love for, had won the first two games, which is actually very much helping the Mariners. Because every time the Mariners would win and the Yankees would win, the Mariners would gain a full game on Houston. So, the Yankees won the first two games. They get to the third game. And the Yankees are actually kind of running away with it. They're leading 7-2 going into the ninth. And at one point in the game, the Astros catcher, Martin Maldonado, he hits a home run. And then, when he comes around the base, he is unbuttoning his Thank you.

jersey and showing his chest the Houston guy is showing his chest to show there's no buzzer meanwhile every time the Yankees in this game hit a home run somebody puts a jacket on the guy who hit the home run so the celebration becomes you get into the dugout and they put the jacket on

you because of how cold it is this is getting really complicated and we don't even know about the joke about oh no this is a game later in the series so they he has had the press conference so We know what the joke is

Exactly, so I think maybe it was game one Aaron Judge hits the home run And kind of trolls Altuve And then says it's because it's cold in the stadium And by game three, it's a whole Thing going on for the Yankees I'll play you a little quick clip on Twitter Of when they're In their full put the jacket on the guy Mode The jacket Gets put on Gary So there you go, Gary Sanchez as I think hitting a home run and getting the jacket. So this is a whole funny thing. Well, Andrew, cut to the ninth inning. I'll play you one more Yankee getting a jacket.

You've seen stuff we've never seen before. Now we're putting coats on after you hit indoors.

It's chill. So cut to the ninth inning. The Yankees have been just, you know, lapping the Astros. They're up 7-2. the Astros mount a comeback Jose Altuve comes up to bat he hits a three run walk off home run Andrew Jose

tries one deep to left field when Castro looks up you've got to be kidding me six run bottom half of the night Altuve's done it again a three run home run for the second time this year against Chad Green I don't know, but that one kind of gave me a buzz, TK

And as Altuve comes around His teammates surround him And what do you think they do, Andrew? Rip his shirt completely off I gotta tell you what, dude's pretty yoked He's a handsome man If I was his wife, I wouldn't want him Shown his sugar all over town

What a sad ending of this story Not that I'm a Yankees fan, but I don't like that

I mean, it is poetic, though in a way right like i mean or it's the fact that he then gets to hit a three run i mean they're down two by the way as well i always feel like walk-off home runs and walk-off base hits are much more meaningful when you are trailing by uh you know the amount of runs where you need whatever it is to get over the hump like if you're if it's tied and you hit a home run that's great but it's like you weren't going to lose the game if you didn't hit the home run you were going to have Sort of like field goals, field goals in football, like a clutch field goal to me is when you're down by one point and you kick a field goal to win the game. If it's tied and you're trying to kick a field goal, I'm not saying I wouldn't be nervous, but if you miss the field goal, the game's not immediately over.

Yeah, yeah. I'd be nervous.

Well, I would be nervous, too, but I just think there are levels of how clutch things are, and hitting a three-run home run when you're down two is the most clutch version of that, I think. Must have felt good for them. So the thing, though, that I'm wondering is, did as Altuve still with his wife and as she relaxed her standards and is the tattoo finished? Did we see the tattoo? He does have a tattoo and it is very, very subtle. Like it is no Ben Affleck dragon. It is. Let me see. I can't quite read it. It might be. It looks like it's a name.

It looks like it's a tattoo of a buzzer. Weirdly.

Actually, I'm zooming in. computer give me an enhance with a head wobble it says melanie i'm going to guess that that's his wife's name it says melanie just in like you know a script and then it has a little red heart around it which also very very much belies the argument that he had a tattoo he was embarrassed of that was mid way complete because this is a tattoo i could do if you gave me prison tattoo supplies i could do it in one hour like this is not a this is not a complicated piece as the tattoo enthusiasts would say this is a tattoo he could have gotten literally in 20 minutes so it wasn't like he needed to go back for for additional uh tatting in other words the argument about the shirt in the first place made no sense it's also even further it's it's rendered further uh or even more ridiculous by the fact that he now has his shirt off and to anyone who thinks that proves something i mean i guess him hitting home run without the help of a buzzer does prove he can hit but it's also not 19 2019 so of course he took his shirt off because he knew he didn't have a buzzer on him this doesn't prove to the there were some people's you know speculating on

Will this prove something? It's like, of course it doesn't prove anything. You could catch Lee Harvey Oswald three days later. He's not holding a gun. It doesn't mean he didn't shoot JFK. Wow. Like he just – he doesn't have the – and I think these are comparable events.

Yeah, I think you're right. No, I'm surprised it took us so long to get JFK in there.

But, like, I just – I know you're mad – or not mad, but you're like, you wish Houston didn't win. I kind of do too. But I do think it was the most, like I said, poetic way for this to end. And I mean, I guess the most poetic way for it to end would be Aroldis Chapman, who Altuve hit the original home run off of in 2019. Aroldis Chapman, for some reason, is batting and he hits a home run and then they rip his shirt off and he has a buzzer on. I mean, that's the only thing that would be more sort of like from a narrative standpoint, be more interesting.

I do think if Altuve had a tattoo of a buzzer, that would have been amazing. Not just to crush on my own joke again, but that would be amazing. They rip the shirt off and he's got a tattoo of a buzzer. Garbage can?

It just says, zzzz.

Or a garbage can, yeah.

No, the buzzer's better, though, because no one thought he had a garbage can under his jersey.

Yeah, right.

The buzzer is so genius.

That would just... You should get that tattoo. God, I hate him.

I don't... Well, see, that's the thing. I don't... Every time I hear Altuve talking, I don't hate him. He seems like a sweet dude. But, I mean, what I was really hoping to see was the absolute implosion of the Astros once the cheating was found out because then it would prove that the only way they were able to get those hits was because they were, you know, cheating. And it turns out either they found a better way to cheat or they just are really good hitters.

Yeah, and that's the thing, too. I mean, cheating enhances, too, right? Like, that's the thing. They weren't a bad team that was just good because they were cheating. I mean, we have to admit that, that they were cheating to amplify their success and to ensure their success even further.

Yeah. So that's what I want to say about that. I guess does that bring us to the end of the show?

That's your power out. I was trying to figure out also.

So that's what I want to say about that.

You don't do that in the clear, and I'll edit it. So it sounds like that's your power out, okay? Three, two, one, go. So that's what I wanted to say about that. Ooh, good power out. What song should we go out with? I was trying to think of baseball-related songs. I don't think I really like a lot of baseball-related songs.

um there is a meme i think of is it blink 182 i think it's there's a meme where they were playing a blink 182 song at a baseball stadium and then they cut to it's like tom de long the lead singer if i'm remembering my like kind of pop punk bands from that era correctly and uh and it's like he i don't know if he's singing along with the song or if he's just kind of like looking wide-eyed at the fact that they're playing his music in this stadium So I don't know, a song by Blink-182 That seems kind of rough

Didn't PDUSA have a song That involved baseball, what was that song We were obsessed with, was it two years ago I'm blanking on the name of it and it's driving me Bananas here I don't know the name of that song But it's kind of intense Yeah, it is, it's a little bit sad Let me just try this right now

My guess would be if you look up PDUSA And Spotify, it'll be one of He actually just dropped a new song the other day And he's having Bob Weir from The Grateful Dead is now in a bunch of his videos.

Oh, I did not know that. Here, I'm having trouble all over the place. Do you just want to play a Blink-182? I don't even know any Blink-182 songs, do I?

Yeah, all the small things.

Oh, he just goes by PD. Okay, wait, hold on. I'm getting closer. He just goes by PD.

I do think all the small things would be appropriate because Altuve is like 5'2".

All right, we can do that. I don't know the song, but okay. I did find it. You know the song. Oh, Pitch a Fit. We'll go out with Pitch a Fit next time baseball comes up. But what's the name of the song again?

I'm having, you know, me and my long simmering beef with Apple Music. I'm having a little bit of a hard time playing it. Can you play All the Small Things by Blink-182? I will be shocked if you have not heard of this. Will you tell me tomorrow?

Okay, I'll tell you tomorrow. I'm sure I've heard this in the background or something and just didn't know it was them. I would have never I'm looking at The names of their songs I would have never known Any of these song Titles at all I guess this is

Growing up Andrew God next road trip All we're playing Is Blink-182

Alright

Thanks for listening everybody We'll be back here tomorrow With more Imaginary Radio For you until then Have a great Monday Go Mariners Oh go All-Stars Go Kikuchi Is he even allowed to pitch He has COVID or something

He doesn't That's a little bit more complicated The headlines would make you Think he's gonna be fine He's vaccinated He just needs to pass One more negative test you'll be in the all-star game that's my understanding okay thank you these songs by

the way are two minutes long so i know this song i know this song oh see Yeah. That was very satisfying to hear you say that. All right. We'll see you tomorrow. Until then, have a great Monday. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

We'll be right back. Me roses by the stairs, surprises let me know

Power out