Muse

Anytime you can do something that's fun and you like to do it and make money doing it, hey, it's a win-win-win. And anytime you can win-win-win, you're win-win-winning, you know? If you're just winning or win-winning, that's just winning or win-winning. But when you're win-win-winning, you're win-win-win-win.

TBTL! Am I cool, kids? No. Good, I'm glad. And that's what makes me cool. Not caring, right? No. Come on, Johnny. You're talking to a grill master. Do you know that I've been given three different aprons because of my barbecue skills? Let's see, I've got license to grill, I've got working grill, oh, and I have grills just want to have fun.

Brother, who are you? What are you doing? I'm with the news, dude. A lot of times what we like to tell people is that you have to let life bounce off of you. Yep. Right. And so we are going to do just that literally, in a literal sense.

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

TBTL!

My name is Luke Furbank. I am your host.

Here we go for Luke Furbank!

Coming to you from the Nest Broadcast Center, high in the sky above Portland, Oregon, where it is. Another beautiful day. We are seeing some smoke. I'm assuming from the bootleg fire. A little bit of haze, a little bit of smoke, but it's going to be in the 90s again today.

I feel warm and I'm levitating.

So I was happy to get my little exercise in this morning at the Super Sport 24-Hour Fitness here in Portland, which I don't know if I've had a chance to mention. I started going to the gym before the show.

The world needs to see the madness that is my upper torso, okay?

I did something that's typical of me that's sort of mildly passive-aggressive and overly possessive and things like that this morning at the gym. But I'm sort of glad I did. We'll probably talk about that coming up here on episode 3481 in a collector's series.

Let the fun begin.

We saw a story out of Australia about a couple of things that I know are near and dear to my friend Andrew's heart. One is garbage, and the other is exotic birds, cockatoos in this case. Early bird gets the worm, but who wants to live on worms? We'll tell you what the cockatoos in Australia are getting up to involving or related to the garbage situation there. Also, R.I.P. to Henry Weinhardt's Private Reserve. They're trying to say I was drunk. I drank eight beers yesterday. That was all I drank. If you grew up in the Northwest like I did, you know that Henry Weinhardt's was a whole thing. It was a whole mood. And they're stopping production on it, thanks to Hard Seltzer. Nothing gold can stay, my friends. It's Hard Seltzer's world, and we just live in it. And then if we have time, we'll get to a story about menu engineering, which it turns out there's a lot of science behind what's on that menu that you're picking up at that restaurant, particularly if it's a large chain type of restaurant. First of all, I'd like to see the chef face to face.

These are the best Cajun chicken niblets I've ever had.

So we will get to that. Like I said, time permitting, and we'll do emails and emails. And we'll talk to this guy, longest running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships he has decided here on august the 4th that he is just marching to the beat of his own drummer from now on i don't take no from anyone i smoke my stogie anywhere i want 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 wanted to

tell you something i this a big thing happened to me during the two weeks when we were on tape and i forgot to mention that yesterday and monday um i'm a tapper now my friend i just tap tap tap

okay i feel like there are so many possible uh ways that that that could uh indicate something One, you could have gotten into tap dancing. You could have become a fan of John Tapper from the television show Bar Rescue, where he just goes into places and yells at everyone that they're doing it wrong.

Nope, that's not it.

You could have recently read Jake Tapper's novel. Journalist Jake Tapper, who also dabbles in fiction now and has a novel out.

I did read his novel. I don't know if he's written one or two at this point.

See that Sky Riding Over the Willamette? I read his first one. I don't remember.

much about it i believe it was about like kind of uh like kind of intrigue in the government yeah

it was which does not speak to me honestly from jake tapper peace and love was not great i remember

just being like and i i have generally good feelings about jake tapper but that as as somebody who likes to read kind of you know yeah somewhat not trashy but i like little mystery summer reads and stuff i thought it was kind of corny anyway that's not it any other guesses um all right let's

I believe Irish Tappers, I think that's a group of folks that live in the U.S., and they're described as Irish Tappers. That's it. You got it. We could be a fan of the company Tap Plastic in Seattle, which I find there's a Tap Plastic building that is in part of Seattle. I drove by it recently It's like a sort of industrial one story And it's in an area Oh you know what it is It's down in South Lake Union And I thought that can't be here for long Because like everything in South Lake Union Has now become an Amazon You know dome or something Yeah or a restaurant to support that Right exactly And you know a bar Like a bar fitness studio That's inside of a fusion restaurant You can only approach it on a one wheel skateboard A one wheel power board And you have to be wearing a tech vest But I remember driving by this Plastic recently and thinking Yeah that's This is on borrowed time And also there's nothing touristy about it There's nothing Amazonian about it It's just a place where they do something with plastic That's you know The real estate it's on has to be worth 10 million dollars So anyway those are my guesses Did I get it?

It's the Irish tapper thing No, this isn't even really that interesting, but I just thought of it as I was opening up my microphone. I was kind of excited. I have a new debit card now because my other one just expired, so they automatically send you one. And I'm – well, I don't have to say what bank I'm a member of. Maybe some things I can just keep to myself after taking my cybersecurity training video, which you haven't done yet. But anyway –

That's why I start every show by giving out my social and my bank account because I haven't done the cybersecurity training.

What's your mom's maiden naming it? I guess. But my old card was one that did have a chip on it, but it had a chip on its shoulder. But it was like, you know, you'd insert the chip or you'd slide the magnetic stripe. But the new card is the kind where you just tap it on the little device, kind of like you do with your phone probably, only I'm not doing it with my phone. Then this is the bigger news, and I don't know how much I talked about this on TBTL. but a couple of years ago it was actually right before the pandemic one of the last businesses I went into literally the day before everything shut down was the bank to say um you guys shut down my credit card because I forgot to pay it for a couple of months do you remember this like I did not I was not carrying a large balance I don't carry a large credit card balance but I literally just forgot I forgot to pay it and it was just sitting there for like six months so they eventually shut off my credit card and then would not give me a new one and i kept applying oops somebody's going the wrong way did you hear that horn out my window uh yeah anyway you know

it's funny that we both live above we are both perched above one-way streets that people often go the wrong direction on is that like i mean is that just a coincidence or is that is that

somehow woven into the dna of this program it is now vives and i have that where when we hear a long horn blast or a frantic horn blast one of us will yell from our respective office wrong way but anyway a good news for me i now have a credit card again i waited a year and a half or whatever i reapplied they sent it to me i'm a preferred customer i'm getting cash back i don't know exactly what that means but i when i spend at restaurants that's supposedly a good thing guess what teddy's counts as a restaurant anyway i'm a tapper now i love tapping it means jennifer

garner shows up at your house on an annual basis and just does a very unconvincing spiel about she actually comes into your house and asks you to be quiet but in a way that just is very

unbelievable for someone who's a professional actor there is some there's very few people who i think i think highly of her as a human being for some reason i just hear great things about her yet anytime she's on the screen i'm just like wow just i just don't think you're good at acting but I'm glad that she's successful I remember Genevieve watched Alias forever ago I think maybe when it was still on the air and that's when I that's when I said Genevieve this woman just acts by like kind of furrowing her brow like that was her number one move she was always just furrowing her brow maybe that was the alias

maybe that was the character that she was playing as a person who's bad at acting anyway this is not a special agent this is a person who's terrible at acting alright give them the codes I feel bad Let's go.

alias it's weird that i i feel bad i'll never meet her she'll never hear this i feel bad talking about how i don't like her acting because i hear she's a nice person i don't usually have

well yeah she was great i believe she's done a great from what i read in the in the tabs i'm a tabber now andrew i only read the tabloids tapper and tapper tapper meet tapper tapper meet tapper um i if i sound like i have a lot of energy it's because i'm standing today while doing the You know, I do have a standing desk. Well, okay, quick wrap-up on the Garner situation, then I'll tell you about my backside, my coccyx. Oh, no. Coccyx or coccyx? I think it's coccyx. Tailbone. By all accounts, Jennifer Garner is a great co-parent with Ben Affleck and has been really supportive of him as he has struggled with addiction and other things, and she seems like a lovely human And a person we would be so lucky to ever get to meet and know in our real life. But those those credit card ads, I just whoever is directing them, I want like I don't feel like they're doing Jennifer Garner any favors in the acting department. You're the one that alerted me to it. You put a name to it. I just been vaguely because they play those so much during football season. And I just had this kind of like vague sense of like those ads kind of don't work for me. And then it was like, because it's always her going into a library and getting shushed while also trying to enthusiastically tell someone about about APR or whatever it is.

Yeah. What's in your wallet?

It doesn't give her. I don't think they're setting her up for success with those ads.

I would agree. But I also think she's probably getting paid and, you know. Oh, yeah. I don't think she's getting scale for those. Exactly.

So getting four hundred and sixty two dollars a day.

Yeah. And I'll say this, too, just to spread it out. You know, another person who I actually like in other contexts is – oh, Walsh. Here's that thing where you can't remember people's names. Who's the – Is it Joe Walsh from the Eagles? Joe Walsh from the Eagles. I like him a great deal, and I love his credit card commercials. Now, oh, my goodness gracious, Luke. He's the comedian. You've had him on Livewire. He recently did the improv special with the two – him and another famous comedian on stage. Oh, sure.

Is it Middle Ditch? Middle Ditch. Thank you. In those cell phone ads

Exactly and they've stopped those Now but for a long time And I generally like Middle Ditch too But I just do not understand these campaigns Where they take somebody I like And they make them unlikable How is that your idea To sell product or service Let's make our spokesperson Just irritate everybody And it's not like he's a screen presence And it's my opinion that he's irritating The point of the commercials is he's irritating Everybody in the commercial Why does that – why would that be appealing?

Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. That's a good point. I feel like that is a fairly common sort of – I guess it's the people writing the ads think that it's a little bit more fun and edgy if – although I do those – speaking of cybersecurity, I do these like cybersecurity videos for the Microsoft Corporation that I think if you work there, you have to watch. So apologies to the folks that work there. But I would say It's not that my character is annoying It's that my quote unquote character is just a moron Which I think is kind of very fun Like I love it Getting to do that Just because my friend Graham and Kurt They write the ads Or whatever they are, the videos And they're very funny writers Graham in particular writes them And so I think they're funny But it is me just being an idiot But I'm not annoying people I'm not middle ditching it up in those Verizon ads Or whatever they were

Mm hmm. And you're you're this is the role you've been practicing for your whole life. Right. I had. Oh, exactly. I've been preparing for this. Turns out you're not an idiot. You're a method actor. Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. OK, I am standing up. It's weird that, you know, I've been in Portland now for a while now. Right. Like I'm coming up on a year in November in late November. It'll be a year that I've been here. Can you believe that, by the way? No, I can't. I really can't.

supplies so um and i have this very nice uh jarvis sit stand desk that's from the nice people over at fully well really i harvested it from the live wire offices because we when the pandemic happened they were like well no one's going into the office why don't we stop renting like you know so much space yeah and so anyway this is a sit stand desk and i think my plan when i put in here was to stand sometimes and this is literally the first day i've ever been standing while doing the show And it's because I was doing so much broadcasting yesterday from this room. I was doing this. I was doing stuff for Livewire. I was recording stuff for CBS that I literally, like, bruised my tailbone, Andrew, sitting and recording. People think this is not a contact sport. Think again. I thought that something happened.

happened at the gym no please i i have a podcast related injury my friend wow well this is workers comp territory i guess definitely that's what i'm setting it up for now if i can just log into the

system wait oh no like any employer never has to worry about you filing a workers comp claim Can you slack me the link

Where I fill out a workers comp claim With APM please

It's easier for you just to get a fifth job Than to file a workers comp claim

I have to get a different job That I know the login information to So that I could get some Healthcare here Yeah so I'm standing Which I don't This actually feels really good I don't know why You know our friend Don from the Ron and Don show who famously would always stand. Why wouldn't he? And when he was giving them all four, when he was giving the Snohomies all four. And, you know, I think probably at the time I thought it might have been a little over the top, but I feel like this show is going pretty well today. And I credit the fact that I'm standing and also that I got things off to a good start by visiting the 24-hour super sport here in Portland. I will tell you, though, Andrew, I kind of alluded to this at the top of the show So I have developed A new workout that's sweeping the nation It's called the burbs And you know anyone can do it It just involves playing basketball Shooting around And trying to be sort of active with that And then doing some running And then doing some push-ups Although by the way I think I tore every muscle in my body Doing 20 push-ups yesterday I don't know if it's my lats or my traps Or my deltoids Whatever those muscles are that are like below your armpit on your back that's lats right latissimus dorsi i'm not sure i just see them on swimmers uh-huh well um i think i tore mine yesterday because it was so painful trying to do my 20 push-ups today but i i'm i'm very obviously i'm very excited about this little thing i've developed because it burns some calories and it's also fun for me and but it all depends on having access to a basketball court and not having other people like kind of in the way yeah And, of course, I don't have any kind of special privileges or priority for the basketball court, for the gym. I just figured, you know, I'm there at 6.45 in the morning. There's probably not going to be anybody else there. Well, today I'm driving over there, and, like, a couple of things happened. First, I'm trying to pull into the parking lot of the gym, and there's a guy just kind of sauntering along the sidewalk, and it means I can't take a right, and the cars are backing up behind me. I don't know if you ever have this experience where I started to be resentful of this guy He was just out living his life walking It's not his fault but because I was stressed out About the cars behind me I was then kind of like Focusing it on him being like do you really have to walk This slow at this time in the morning and he's wearing A Rip City t-shirt And I'm like are you even really a blazer Like I'm going into a weird place with this guy Who's just trying to live his life

Is he on his phone? I will say that like sometimes There's a certain body language that does seem Like kind of galling like you know is somebody just walking in front of your car like so slow potentially on their phone like it really seems like they're trying to trigger you other times people are just walking yes this was

him just walking although there is a phenomenon in portland uh and probably in seattle too where i do feel like people sometimes pedestrians almost walk extra slow just to flex which i've we've talked about this before i just a little pep in your step and i and i'll do the same just Whatever your body allows you to do in terms of peppiness, even if it's just kind of almost you're just miming it. Like it's not even about speeding up. It's about kind of being like I'm going to just walk a little faster or at least move my arms faster so the person in the car knows that I know that I'm delaying them and I'm going to try to make this as quick as possible.

Or wiggle your shoulders a little bit. Or, you know, if you can't, if you're physically unable or for whatever reason can't in the moment, eye contact with the driver. Give him a look. Sometimes I'll flash a quick peace symbol when a car is waiting for me Yes, I do that too

So I The guy finally clears the driveway or whatever The entry to the thing I pull in and I park And I go in One of the things I really like about this particular setup is I don't need my wallet to get in there I put my phone number in and then I scan my fingerprint

Oh, they're back to fingerprints See, I haven't been in a few weeks now But the one I go to, because of COVID, they stopped the fingerprint scan.

The fingerprints are back, baby, at least in Portland. So I scan myself in, and I'm going up to the basketball gym. It's a really huge court. I mentioned yesterday the three-point line is more legit than I would like.

like it to be it's like this is a full like nba length basketball court which you don't realize i don't know how many of our listeners like play basketball or whatever but most of the basketball courts we're on are not actually like official length uh and you really start to notice what it's the full deal it's way further like way longer than you kind of think of i found that

fascinating as somebody who does not play in that basketball space i had no idea i just figured a basketball court is a basketball court i figured that they were standard although when you started comparing it to like college and nba i guess i did in the back of my head know there were some differences there but yeah it didn't occur to me that if you go to a different gym the basketball

court may be different dimensions yeah usually i mean it just has to do probably with the footprint how much space is available um you know but like an nba like an official nba length court is noticeably longer than probably most of the most of the courts that you might play on of you're going to a gym or someone's you know backyard or whatever so i walk in and there is uh uh somebody already there and he's like on the let's just say to the left there's like a full court and then they're like side hoops and he is on the to my left end of the court and he's shooting around and i have my bag i have my uh slides on my nike slides andrew because i'm one cool young guy once said those look good on you and so i don't even have my basketball shoes on yet and i'm about to put them on and i am overwhelmed with a kind of a fear that in the time that i'm putting my shoes on somebody is going to come in and start shooting around on the the other end of the court the place where i have all my designs my big plan for day two of the burbank workout and so i i walk out to the court and i basically at around like the three point line i sit down and start putting my basketball shoes on so as to indicate that anyone that comes in this is my side of the court which is petty and passive aggressive and unnecessary except andrew in this one case because who comes strolling in rip city oh the dude who i had been like and again this guy could not have been less uh the the you know He was behaving absolutely appropriately In every conceivable way At every point that I interacted with him Like he was not doing a bad thing The way he was walking down the sidewalk He was not doing a bad thing Coming into this gym to shoot around But he kind of looks at me And then he just beelines it For one of the side hoops And then he's shooting around on the side hoop And the younger guy Like a teenager Is shooting around on that end And I get this whole end of the basketball gym to myself And I'm doing my stuff Doing my whole workout And had I not gone and sat down there And started putting my shoes on He would have come in And he would have just went to the other end that was open And started shooting around And my entire plan would have been destroyed

Well, I don't know etiquette, obviously, around basketball Pickup basketball or courts or anything like that But I will say that I think that's a pretty universal thing That people feel a little protective in gyms in particular because it's such a routinized thing right I mean speaking for myself here when I go to the gym I don't do that many things anymore but I do them in a certain order and I think that part of getting through your exercise routine is having a routine that you kind of stick to and so you know if there's only three crunch machines and I'm done with my cardio and all three of them are taken up or somebody's got their bag on one of them like that really messes up my routine because that's what I do next I don't want to start doing my arm stuff next you know like I think that's pretty relatable and it again I can't say if what you did was boorish a word that I love to use and imitate imitate some guy I met 20 years ago who nobody knows who used boorish too many times but I still think it's funny um but uh I I don't know if that's bad behavior or rude behavior but I certainly get it as far as like people kind of are protective of their routines well I was there

first so you know it to the degree that that matters i mean um that's probably something in other words if if the if the order of who gets to use their their preferred basketball goal if it goes in who got into the gym first it was the kid who was there before me so he was doing his thing it was me and then it was this guy so it wasn't like i didn't cut in line as it were but uh for me it was just weird because i'm constantly doing shit like this unnecessarily i have this unfortunate kind of mental condition where i think there's just scarcity all the time when there isn't yeah so frustrating if there's a thing that i like i want to have i mean this is my super possessor ways too it's like i want to possess things so that then i can always have them if i you know if i ever want no one can ever Thank you.

like to if I would have shown up this morning and there would have been two people playing and I would have had to like rethink my whole because the deal is too is that like I'm I'm not just sort of shooting around casually kind of practicing my jump shot it's a whole thing I'm like I go to half court I dribble the ball with my right hand all the way down and I do a right-handed layup and then I run back to half court and I dribble the ball with my left hand and do a left-handed layup and then I do the right hand again left hand and someone there just kind of shooting around particularly because this game i've made up for myself i have to make all of these shots in a row like you know it would have it would have messed with me but had i shown up and there were two people there shooting around and i didn't couldn't do my thing i would have been devastated as opposed to just being like well i guess i'll do something else today or i guess you know i'll just roll with it so every once in a while it actually works out there's actually a good thing that i that i am this way and to this morning was an example of that but most of the time it's just me being kind of a little bit pushy and uh i don't know just not a great person that feeling of we've

talked about this before you and i are very different in a lot of ways and i don't have the super possessor thing as you describe it and i definitely don't have the hey i can upgrade this or i can do super crackers i can do one better you know how you like you talk about that like hey somebody gave you tickets free tickets to a concert cool can i get in the front row cool can it backstage cool like you know and that's one of the reasons it's fun to be around you is because you are successful at doing that stuff and it's the only reason we all put up with your bullshit because we're using you for the experiences that you unlock for us i'm sorry what was i saying no um i don't i don't have that but i do have the anxiety of just to use the example of you go into a restaurant and you start eyeing all the people around you if there is a wait you know And like, wait, did that person just get served before me or I'm or I think maybe more to the point, I'm worried that if I am not if I'm if I don't hear them call my name, somebody will get in front of me or or just this anxiety that I sort of have that you're sort of describing here in the gym. I think I have to and I'm not joking like because I find myself in situations where I do go over to do my crunches after my cardio and I realize all three benches are taken up like I start mentally preparing myself for that ahead of time now like I because I do like my routine. But sometimes I will say like when I'm wrapping up one phase, say, listen, if it's not this, then I will move on to this and be prepared for it. Because that is one thing of, you know, you're now in this world of a very public gym, right? Like there's limited resources and limited hoops, especially. So you should just be – it worked out today, but instead of, like, feeling like you lost or feeling frustrated, you should probably start going in thinking of backup plans so that you don't feel as crushed if you can't get your A1 game.

Right. That's a good point. Well, part of the problem today was I only had basketball shoes with me and then my slides. so like if if the basketball wouldn't have worked out like what i have to start doing is i gotta throw some running shoes in my gym bag because i could always just go run on the treadmill or something if i need to but i had committed so yesterday day one of the burbank workout i was in running shoes because my whole plan had been shoot around for five minutes and then go to the treadmill so i'm doing all this basketball stuff in these running shoes and there's a lot of like lateral movement and i was like i'm gonna destroy these hookahs and also i got a couple weird blisters like they're not super painful but i was like this is not the right footwear for this so today i brought basketball shoes which i wore but that locked me into only one type of working out so you're right i should just go in with an open mind then the mental note i made was i just need to actually get there earlier too like if i get there at 6 a.m that entire gym is my oyster and then the other last thing is and i apologize to the listeners who couldn't possibly care less about this stuff pick up basketball uh rules and etiquette etc but well what else we got to talk about this is our job so much dude okay uh menu engineering garbage birds okay all right you're right who has his dog pooping on a green roof right now on top of a building where he's not supposed to be huh is that it yeah what uh let me just okay sorry go ahead no put a pin in the basketball thing uh it's a known thing that like no one gets to like you don't get to say this is my basketball hoop and no one else can shoot around here you know what i mean like like when there's three if there's four people or whatever in the gym it's like you just share that's just how it works i'm gonna try to get a picture of this guy too andrew just so you i can explain this to you in a minute so there is one of these buildings that has a a bunch of hvac on the top of it and stuff. This is not a place where you're supposed to be hanging out on the roof In other words, it's all the air conditioning, and then that's all kind of fenced off. And this is part of your facility, or this is a different building? No, this is a different building. This is a totally different building that has also a green roof. So imagine, I took a picture, and I'll send this to you. Maybe it can be the show pic. Imagine, like, the industrial part of a roof. This is not an area that is, like, designed for people to be on. There's no, like, walls or, like, safety barriers. It's just the HVAC, which is fenced off And then some amount of, like, moss and grass that's been planted Because it's probably technically a green roof

Yeah, that's cool

Probably got them some kind of, you know, a special, you know, easement from the city Or, you know, some kind of I'm sure it has to do with energy efficiency, et cetera, and zoning But there's a dude out there just walking his dog on the green roof And his dog is just shitting on the green roof Is he picking it up? He did pick it up I want to give him credit. I didn't think he was going to. I thought this story was going to go in another direction. I thought he was going to be like he's invented the perfect crime because his dog is pooping on this eco-friendly moss on top of this roof, and there's no one else allowed up there. I mean, he's not even allowed up there. He should not have been there. It was dangerous. I like this move, though. How did he get up there? I don't know. That's pretty cool. That's a cool customer. Well, what it is is I'm looking – there is like a little – I think that there is a – I believe it's some kind of condo or apartment rental thing. And it looks like there is a teeny bit of access probably for people that live in the building, right, on the roof. But it's all very fenced off and, like I said, controlled. And he has somehow managed, he and his dog, to sneak around the fencing of where you're like supposed to be if you live in the building on the roof. And he got out into, like, unfenced, unchartered green roof territory and let his dog just go for it.

See, he's a real Burbank. Somebody said you can go on this part of the roof, and he said, good, I will take this part, too. I think it makes me angry because it's the kind of thing I would do. You're going to get a dog just so you can walk that dog on the roof.

I've said this before. We obviously should go to the break now. And I've said this before on the show, and it's not the greatest look for me, although, you know, I don't think today has been the greatest look for me in terms of my behaviors. is what I've already talked about. But I saw somebody yesterday near my building. There's that kind of sort of thing where there's a tree that's growing up out of the sidewalk, but there's a square that's cut into the concrete so the tree can grow. And then there's like a metal grate that is covering the dirt and that has like a circle shape in the metal grate that's where the trunk of the tree goes. You know what I'm talking about?

I know exactly what you're talking about.

And I saw this woman trying to get her dog to shit into the hole in the grate. And this poor dog, this little chihuahua, it just looked like it was a head case. And she was just standing there, and the chihuahua was shaking, and she's just trying to get it. Because this represented the most greenery on this particular block of Portland, was where the tree is growing covered by a metal thing. And I just thought if you're not willing to take care of your dog in a thoughtful way, don't move into an expensive high rise building like it's one thing if somebody doesn't have resources and they want to have a dog and they're just living where they can live because of what their economic situation is. I think I have a lot more sympathy for that, although I learned recently from Becca that sympathy and empathy are different. Did you know this?

I know there's a difference. I can never remember what it was, what it is. Can I take a stab at it? Yes. Do you know? Okay, so.

I know now because I was corrected by my, I mean nicely, by my extremely wise girlfriend.

I think the difference is one of them is you can really internalize and feel another person's feelings. You can put yourself in their place, whereas the one is more just intellectually I can associate with what you're saying. Am I anywhere close?

Yeah. No, I think you're pretty much right. What I was told is that empathy is when you are sort of just, you know, you're empathizing with someone. You're imagining their experience. Sympathy is you've actually had the experience. So you can sympathize because, like, I can sympathize with people who are nervous about the basketball court being overused at their gym. I can sympathize with that.

I see. Okay.

Now I can empathize with this guy who has his dog shitting on a green roof, even though I've never done that. But I can I can imagine that, you know, it's tough living in the city. He found some greenery and, you know, he's going for it. But the thought that I had, you know, I can I can I can sympathize with people who maybe don't have the ideal living conditions for having a pet, but that's just what their economic situation allows for. I want to be very clear what I don't have a lot of sympathy or empathy for is people who are living in very like this the building that I was walking past is called 5 MLK and it is I look. at apartments in there it was a way too rich for my blood it's like it's adjacent to my building it's a cross burn side and it is a very tony building it has a swimming pool on the roof uh it is it's it's fancy and the person that i saw make trying to make her chihuahua crap into this one weird area was i could tell she lived in that building and i just had this thought like please people who have means and resources and choices stop bringing animals into situations that are not ideal for them because you just don't want to like go to the dog park or i don't know i just feel like if you're gonna have an animal in a high-rise building you better commit a lot of your life to making that animal's life okay i was a little confused when you first said this so

i thought i thought in order to avoid picking up the poop afterwards she was trying that may have And part of it in between the slates or that.

I mean, that's actually that's actually possible. I didn't stick around to see, you know, how this played out.

It would have been funny if you did, if you just stopped and like folded your arms and watched.

What's a male Karen again? Sorry to our listeners name. Karen, I really do think we should retire that. Chad, sorry to our listeners name. Chad, that would have been a real kind of let's just say it would have been probably an overly nosy moment for me. But I did really just have the thought, like, please, these animals, they didn't do anything to live on the 12th floor of 5 MLK and have to crap through a metal grate. Like, give the animal a break, please. I mean, even in my building, they have these things that are like, I've never gone near them because I don't have a pet, obviously, other than Randy, who is housebroken.

Yet you still take Randy out to that little grate. I do. Trying to empty his bin.

Yeah. I want him to be able to sympathize with the other pets in the neighborhood. We do have like this thing off of the parking garage that's like AstroTurf that you can like let your dog pee or poop on, which I find totally disgusting.

Yeah, that seems – that's just like, yeah, pooping. But you can – they can pee on it too. You can't clean that up.

I think it might – I haven't actually gone out there. I just see people coming and going from there. But my guess is that it has a filtration system. This is a real thing where, you know, the dog pees into the AstroTurf and then it actually goes down into a drain somewhere. Like it's sort of tilted in it. You know what I'll do, Andrew? I'll do a little shoe leather.

Yeah, go pee on it.

I'll do a little investigative reporting. I'll go check it out today after the show and I'll give you a report tomorrow.

Okay, sounds good. Get down on your hands and knees. Do some real close research, okay? Okay, I'm going to send you this picture of the guy on the roof. I kind of want to see this. This is my new hero. I just found my fidget spinner, by the way. Remember our fidget spinners from our – that was our RV trip. I think it was like five – I'm looking for – my glasses are loose, so while you're talking, I'm looking for my – I have a little glasses repair kit. I'm looking for my little screwdriver so I can tighten these up, and I'm finding all kinds of fun things like my old fidget spinner that got us through many miles and many hours in an RV.

That was a fun time for us as a nation when we were fidget spinning. yeah speaking of loose glasses speaking of loose glasses i bought these sunglasses when i was in oklahoma city i went to a warby parker like physical location because they had one and i wanted some sunglasses to impress wayne coin probably and uh i bought these sunglasses and they were fine but they're too loose so there's a warby parker brick and mortar here in portland i was like great i'll go in there i'll have them tighten it up and i went in and they were like it's a three hour wait to get your sunglasses i thought really are there that many warby parker parker sunglasses in portland wow that need to be tightened in this moment that it's three hours i was like that's a shocking number to me the other thing that happened yesterday uh to me involving customer service was this is why we never get to any of the real stories of the world because i have so many stories from my life andrew i um i took a a like a blazer of mine like a suit coat into a cleaner like a dry cleaner because i had gotten some schmutz on it and uh and and the lady was so nice uh who who took the the coat she was like just really friendly it was just down the block i walked over there which is one of the things i love about living in a city right now is like just just walked over to the dry cleaner and and he gave her the thing and again she was so friendly and i said i know this is a little bit annoying but would it be possible to shoot me a text when this is done because i will probably forget that i brought this thing in until i need to wear it like in eight months i'll be going to a live wire event and i'll be looking for this blazer and it'll be at the dry cleaner still she was like yeah absolutely no problem so she says i'll just shoot you a text when it's done so like two days ago they texted me it's done i was like oh cool um and so i'm driving around portland yesterday and i i realized oh I'm right by the dry cleaner.

I pull over, and I walk up, and it just says, permanently closed. Oh, no. This is like a sitcom.

What? It's like a Seinfeld episode.

Yeah, I was going to say Curb Your Enthusiasm or something, yeah.

Permanently closed. Like, I was like, say what? Well, I mean, did you know you were going to permanently close two weeks ago when I gave you the blazer? And could you have mentioned that? Did this come as a surprise? You can't be the only one with clothes in there, either. Yeah, so you have a number. I have a phone number. And actually, I mean, the story is gets less interesting because they did say something like pickup available from I think it's like pickup available from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. or something, which is like the worst time for us with this job. But so I think they're letting people get their stuff in a very narrow window of time. But I was like, like before I saw that it was a handwritten sign indicating the hours of pickup. I just had this other sign that said permanently closed. I was like, is that legal? Can they just expropriate my blazer?

It's actually a great idea for a scam, like a pop-up dry cleaner. Just be like, hey, we just started a new dry cleaning place. We don't have all the equipment yet, but we'll take your clothes, and we'll get them back to you in two weeks, and then zoink out of there the next day. You got everybody's clothes.

Well, if this podcasting thing doesn't work out. Yeah, that's a good backup plan. If my lawsuit against APM for my workplace injury of my tailbone, if that doesn't come through, and then we end up losing this job, I think pop-up dry-cleaning scam is our next act. All right. Sounds good. Sweet. All right. Let's take a quick break, and then we will be back with more TBTL. Stay with us.

Thank you, baby.

Let's thank some donors of the day. Fine, wonderful, generous folks keeping this show in business with their donations and their support. I mean, not just with money, but with, you know, I don't know, sending us emails and forcing their partners to listen to the program, possibly doing long-term damage to their relationship. But that's how valuable TBTL is in their life. They're willing to do it. People like Kelly Moore in Seattle, Washington. And then old Caitlin Parker, Andrew, in Los Angeles, California.

Caitlin Parker, good friend of mine, friend of the show for a very, very long time.

Yeah.

Go to Caitlin Parker's wedding in the far beyonds of the Northeast. It was absolutely beautiful. And while we're doing shout outs, too, quick shout out to Kelly Moore, who's one of the people who's maintaining the tens helping tens. website yeah thanks kelly how about laurel robertson out there in ferguson north carolina

we know laurel laurel is uh don't we have like i feel like we have an over-representation of

laurels we do have a lot of laurels in the world of this show an over-representation of laurels that's what do you call a group of laurels an over-representation wait that sounds mean yeah No, I didn't mean it negatively.

Considering our relatively boutique status as a podcast, we have a few laurels. We love all of them. We also love Chelsea Shriver, who's up there in Vancouver, British Columbia. Chelsea, someday we'll be allowed to reenter your fine country, and maybe we can thank you in person. Are we still banned? No, we're not banned.

They've opened up their border. The U.S. hasn't. Yeah, it was a whole thing. We can go we can go see Chelsea, but we can't get back or no. What is I can't I don't know exactly how the rules are working. And there might have been an update now, but it was like a big flap like a week ago. You were out. You were gunk holing. But yeah, it's like a big ironically.

I was like up near Canada in international water.

Oh, interesting. Yeah. But Trudeau opened up the border, but Biden did not. And there was a lot of and there was a lot of hurt feelings from Canadians over this. That's weird.

OK, that's complicated because I'm my guess is. And, yes, I did totally miss this story because of being on vacation.

I'm probably messing it up, too. This is one of those things where I'm talking like I know what I'm talking about, and later on I'm going to be like, oh, shit, I messed up that story.

But, you know, like, to me it seems like, ah, Canada, I mean, look, I don't know the latest, but my assumption is they're doing a better job with the pandemic than we are just because most of the time they seem to be better at stuff like that, being logical than we are. Mm hmm. So I'm assuming that we have very little to fear from Canadians visiting the U.S. So why would you close the border? And then I started to wonder, is it because we don't want to seem like if we close the border with, say, an African country or country in Asia and we're like, you can't come here. But then we're like, yeah, Canada, you're fine. Does that seem like we're picking favorites or we're being somehow regionalist or.

even sort of racist in a way, because I can't see a logical reason why we wouldn't let people from Canada visit the U.S. if their vaccination. I know the vaccination rate in Canada is higher than in the U.S. So, like, if anything, they should be afraid of us. Right. I don't know what.

And again, I've kind of I've said all I know. And again, now I'm worried that I might have some details. The sparse details are wrong. But I I don't know. I mean, not not to nitpick. I mean, we don't have a border with other countries except for Mexico. So that's different. International travel is different than, I think, a border opening, closing decision. So I don't know if that really plays into it.

Yeah. Well, anyway, Chelsea, we thank you for the donation. And Catherine, with them, is in Chicago. Are we allowed to visit Chicago or is that close to travel? No, they closed it. Dang it. We're not going to be able to go visit Ramonsky Love, purveyor of fine Instagram memes that you and I love even though many of them are not appropriate

I always forget that, what is the name? what is the actual name?

well it's my buddy Ramon who I know from O'Callaghan's and Rossi's where he works at both locations but I think his Instagram is like Ramonski love or something or at least that's what I would call him

his Instagram name is something that I'm not I'm going to say oh it's Chi-Town

and then a term that he can use

as a latinx person but that you and i would never exactly but yeah no those i don't follow a lot of me me kind of me me i don't follow a lot of kind of meme related content on instagram i follow mostly like people whose photos i enjoy that sounded very snotty but it's just it's the vibe i like right um but man do i enjoy his post i mean always put a smile on my face and yet they're

they're like it's sort of like our attendees it's a bunch of stuff that like we would never promote on the show i mean some of it is just funny and up and fine and appropriate some of it's funny and really not appropriate and really from a different kind of comedy culture than you and i tend to play in yes exactly just a little bit more raw yeah raw possibly objectifying you know like a lot of stuff about it that like again i wouldn't like i wouldn't we wouldn't post it as a show pick but you and i again you and i don't follow i don't think anyway in our social that's probably the only person that i follow in one of those spaces who does have that kind of sense of humor everyone else is very much like just similar to you and i if that makes any sense well i know

what they post you said we i i i don't think his stuff is that i mean it's just like i say it's a little bit more raw than the stuff we talk about i don't think it's that even inappropriate like right it's just not yeah i mean i'm just going through some of these here i guess i don't have I don't have – a lot of them I don't understand too. But here's one. Like this is a little – are we still – we have one more person to thank. But here's one. This is like – But you know what?

Dominic Arrico in Federal Way loves Ramon's Instagram feed. So this is actually – we're super serving our P1, Dominic Arrico, who's our final donor of the day today. Thanks, Dominic. Here's one.

This is a little – this is about as raunchy as it gets. It says commercials when I was a kid and there's a clip from that commercial where the woman is washing her hair and it says orgasm noises. Do you remember what shampoo was that organics or I can't remember what it was.

Yeah, there was a there was a shampoo that their their ad campaign was very clever. It was kind of it was equating, you know, good shampoo with also like a woman having an orgasm.

Right. And so it says commercials when I was a kid. And it's a clip of that, and it says orgasm noises. And then it says commercials now, and it's that guy from the underwear commercial, the long-haired. No, it's the soap commercial. Or the soap commercial, long-haired beer guy, and he's pointing at the camera and says, do your balls stink? That's the meme. That makes me smile when I see stuff like that pop up in the middle of my curated Instagram feed.

Yeah. It's nice to have. It's nice to – I don't think this is a space that I would want to live in all the time with my online world, but it's nice to have one connection to, you know. And again, there's so much stuff that I just absolutely do not even understand because it's so meme-ified. This is just one. Cubs have reportedly traded Ronnie Woo Woo to the White Sox for a pallet of sunflower seeds and an Italian beef combo. And then there's just like a picture of a guy, and I don't know if he was a cub or he's somebody who's known in Chicago. I don't know who Ronnie Woo Woo is I like this one

This one speaks to me I may not be that funny or athletic or good looking Or smart or talented I forgot where I was going with this

I saw that one the other day And I thought I know that feeling Alright I'm just playing the top story Sound over your voice

Hello and welcome to top story

Listener Diane sent this story Along from It was I believe An actual NPR story by somebody named Christopher Intaglia. I was struck, Andrew, by how speaking of things that are a bit ribald, I was I was struck by this headline at NPR dot org. It's a story about clever cockatoos in Australia that are opening garbage cans. But the headline is, oh, flock. Yeah, I don't like clever cockatoos are more culturally complex than we thought. No, no, I agree that it doesn't really work as a joke. But I can't believe somebody at NPR.org was like, yeah, we cool with you making a joke that's basically saying, oh, fuck.

Do you know that NPR interns has a Twitter account?

I think I saw you retweeted the other day.

Yeah, I think I did, too. That's how they came on my radar and I started following. By the way, yeah, this story was really making the rounds. It's very TBTL-y. So I think this is the type of thing that came out of an Australian newspaper or something and was kind of, you know, like several people were sending it to us. And now it looks like and I haven't read this whole NPR version you have here, but it's different than the version I read last week. And I think that NPR is doing that thing where they're now adding some science and in a little bit of context to the story.

Ah, got it. OK, so I don't know if you had a chance to read this, but the sort of the broad strokes are they were seeing these cockatoos in Australia, which are like, you know, parrots. They're they're not like a crow or something. I think people probably can imagine. Now that's different than a cockatiel Oops the dirty monster was a cockatiel Yes that was a cockatiel So they were seeing these Cockatoos eating garbage And they just thought oh somebody must have left their Garbage can open But then they figured out that no the cockatoos in Australia Are learning how to open garbage cans And teaching each other How to open garbage cans I thought this was kind of interesting from this A guy named Richard Major who's a bird ecologist He talks about one time he says the thing that really got me excuse me the thing that really got me was when i saw a cockatoo fly up how did my i've been to australia had my australian accent which was never great get so much worse you have to you have to exercise these muscles you call that an accent god you'll know when i'm not doing a good job with the accent andrew why did i try for that uh the thing that really got me was when i saw a cockatoo fly up from a rubbish bin sit on an electricity wire holding a chicken drumstick in its foot he said uh uh here it was just munching on a drumstick and i thought oh god this is verging on cannibalism once cockatoos start eating meat we're done for so cockatoos are not generally apparently meat eaters they eat seeds and plants and things they're usually out in like the bush the wilderness but now they're coming into cities and they're just eating drumsticks which i didn't realize how upsetting that is until I thought about it. Yeah, that's upsetting. That's just like you gnawing on a human ankle.

I think, listeners, you can correct me. Well, I guess you can correct me if I'm wrong about this. Also, don't bother. But don't some people feed chicken to their chickens? Am I wrong about that? Isn't there some weird cannibalism thing that happens there sometimes?

Yes, I don't know what it is, but that's ringing a bit of a bell. There's some upsetting thing where there's animals are being fed, you know, the same kind of animals being fed back because it's a source of protein or meat and it's cheaper. It may happen with pigs, too. I'm not sure. There's something. Yeah, it's certainly an unsettling idea. So they did this study where they basically were like, we're going to try to figure out how if these cockatoos are actually like learning how to do this. or this is just we were seeing like one particularly smart group of them. So this other researcher went out and, well, she did this thing where she basically like got cockatoos. She stood in a park with bird feed and got cockatoos to come close enough to her that she could spray paint them with non-toxic paint. And so she could figure out, like she could track them. And then she went around seeing like, you know, how these cockatoos behaved and she could track them because they were painted. She said she also became the sensation of the local Facebook group because everybody was like, what is this lady doing in the park spray painting birds? What's going on with that?

And also, isn't a big part of a bird's life and especially mating rituals, aren't they tied to its appearance? Is spray painting a bird, aren't you affecting what you're trying to study by changing the reality of the bird?

They also found that these birds got laid.

I mean, like, just. All right, Ramon, save it for your Instagram.

Save it for your Instagram is a decent show title. I'm assuming these people, you know, spending their whole life, these scientists studying birds, I'm guessing that they didn't do anything that would mess up the birds, you know, mating habits or whatever. But what they found was initially they had found a trash, trash raiding, that is to say, birds that could take off trash can lids. They found them in three.

suburbs and uh later they found them in 44 suburbs so basically this is happening now they're teaching each other how to do this and also they have different techniques depending on where they go um different region uh different birds in different regions open the lids differently um some use their feet some use their beaks some go on the left side of the garbage can some uh go on the right side some uh they they walk the lid back by shuffling their feet or one foot in front of the other basically depending on which bird figures this out in which group they then teach all the birds to do it that way interesting and so these different these different flocks of cockatoos uh are doing it differently but yeah they're learning how to open garbage cans and apparently people in australia are mad because the birds kind of leave a mess i have to say I'm sort of pro bird here Now this is where I thought I would like to get your opinion Because you're somebody who is You know You dedicate a certain amount of thought To your garbage can situation And you don't like people Throwing stuff in there Certainly don't think you would like it If a bird came in And started pulling the trash out On the other hand to me It's like If you're throwing away food That's edible And that could sustain a bird And the bird comes down And gets it That to me Other than maybe some mess It seems like a good outcome

But I think that the bird's going to make a big mess Like the thing is it's not going to be super neat They're going to be pulling shit all over the sidewalk Like that's going to be a problem If I'm in this situation I'm putting a brick maybe on the bin I don't know what's going to happen when I take it I don't think that the people who collect the garbage

You wake up one morning the brick is just through your front window

Yeah right There's like two feathers stuck to it Can I tell you something You know since we live here on kind of a main drag and they're like a lot of people in the one way district in the one way district and we have like we have people who you know we've been to the victims of vandalism uh several times somebody smashing grabbed like a little tiny tool kit that came with the car out of the back seat i was rearranging things and i had forgotten that i had moved it out of the trunk temporarily i mean there's nothing valuable in there but somebody saw it so they this is like i don't know two years ago our scooter was stolen you know like there's been various things we now don't we now park on the street that's a little bit further away from the main drag but just like a block away luke i went out to my car yesterday we had parked the car maybe had been sitting there 24 48 hours not a super long period of time um and i see i come around the corner and i see a guy maybe in his 20s taping up the window of his car which is parked on the same side of the street as me at the curb um and it's like his his passenger side window which is like kind of out in the street is like shattered but it's not glass all over the ground it's just kind of shattered in the windowsill still the passenger side it's not a windowsill but he's taping it all up to stabilize it and then i'm like oh no and then behind him a car was parked but it's gone so i don't know what the deal is there then there's a jeep and the jeep same deal it's not taped up but somebody's shattered this window there's like a hole in it about the size of a um i don't know silver dollar kids ask your parents what silver dollars are um and it's just shattered but still mainly in there like in other words these are not smashing grabs this is somebody who's just walking down the street with a golf club or a crowbar or something and it was just smashing windows for the sake of smashing windows and then my car is next and it is luckily untouched actually what's next is a space where another car was i don't know if that was touched or not but my car was not and now i'm just like now these and i are like well what if we try parking under this tree like it doesn't i'm just like now i only want to park in that one spot that i was parked in because for some reason spot the lucky spot the person with the golf club didn't uh didn't smash our window but oh i just think about like how let's see this was two days ago like my life would have been different the last two days if i was dealing with this yeah dude that's exactly what happened

to becca she had parked her car here and well so what had happened was she had been on a run down in salem oregon with a friend and somebody had broken into her car and um unfortunately stolen a bunch of stuff which really sucked like and ids and things like that which she's still are dealing with so then she goes to trying to get the window fixed and the dealership is backed up so she goes to this other place and they put the window in but they like kind of don't totally know what they're doing and like it doesn't go up and down very smoothly and they're like it'll learn the car will learn how to do it i'm like i don't think that's how that works like just keep using it and it'll figure it out a trash can yeah exactly just think of it as a cockatoo yeah so So she is over here visiting, and we go down to go somewhere in her car, which is parked on the street, and the window is totally shattered.

This is two days after the window has been shattered, but nothing is taken. And I realized what happened was they put the people put the window in. They put it in wrong so that it was flexing in some weird way. So that basically like there was pressure on the window so that it just like exploded because nothing was taken from the car. And I was like, that's exactly what happened. So you need to call them and explain they did the window wrong. And she's just starting to buy my theory Until we look at the car behind her And their windshield is just Windshield just has a massive Like it's not broken I mean it's shattered but it's still intact Somebody obviously just like Slammed a huge boulder into it And then the car behind that Has like someone did the same thing They're just going down the street Just wreaking havoc But not stealing anything Just destroying shit So I'm like well we should Move this car into my parking garage Because it's it's now it's it's it's Vulnerable and we don't want to leave it out on the street So I'm driving the car I'm pulling it into my parking garage and it's It's it's like kind of Hard to it's sort of hard To um the car's not driving Well like I'm pressing the gas but kind of not Very much is happening I'm like this is weird I get the car parked And I realized that there's a Giant rock Under the gas pedal The rock that somebody threw through the window to break it landed in the car rolled under the gas pedal and was like it's a i have it it's a doorstop in my apartment i've seen it can you imagine if that was under the brake that's exactly what my thought was i was like man life is a real series of lucky and unlucky moments because that was obviously very unlucky but if that rock rolls because i live on kind of on a hill i would have pulled out in in her car i would have pulled out hit the gas and been driving down the road and only at that point would i have learned that the brakes don't work yeah and it's it was like the perfectly shaped rock it's round it's fairly substantial if we had just settled under the brake i at a minimum i would have destroyed her car a bunch of other cars i probably wasn't wearing my seat belt because i was driving what i thought was like half a block like I was very lucky that that rock wasn't under the brake pedal yeah I think

about lucky situations nestled in unlucky situations all the time because I think I've said this before like you know I drove beaters most of my life and my first car was this 86 Dodge Caravan that I was driving in the 90s and you know it broke down several times I don't know and but I would always think like oh thank goodness it broke down right at this exit by the house or thank gosh thank gosh well i'm trying to keep it clean for the kids finally thank hod what did i text you yesterday you just had a typo to text you're like i was trying to say god but did it come out as hod forbid is that what you had it was something along those lines but um uh yeah i mean it's funny how sometimes things can be so bad but you're also like boy they could have been so much

worse yes i know hey speaking of um well things not being great henry weinhardt's private reserve is no longer now again if you uh if you grew up in the northwest you know about this beer it was for one thing they spent a lot of money on tv ads in the 80s and they sort of had this vibe it was it was founded in portland so it was a local brewery for years and it was also i think they produced it um in olympia washington as well or in lacy washington i heard somebody on the radio this morning talking about it um but it was sold throughout the northwest and uh molson coors who I have a long history with. Well, I did one TV commercial for them many years ago. It was a very long commercial, though. It was one of the longest commercials in the history of beer commercials. I was the fourth guy who says,

Weser. Yes. They cut you out of that. Yeah, they did. We never talked about that.

They're like the rule of three. Like, it's good if it's three guys doing it. There's just me. And they're like, yeah, it's not working.

You're doing it in that Australian accent. And they're just like, this just doesn't work.

Let me see. How would that sound? So, what's up?

Could have been worse.

This is a fun party game. Try to say what's up in an Australian accent. I didn't actually realize this until I just literally started looking at this article, Andrew, because it wasn't initially on the list of stories we were going to talk about. The Henry's thing is a bummer because, again, it was just something that was always being promoted on television and just reminds me of my childhood. I actually really didn't drink much Henry's because by the time I was of drinking age, it was probably not considered the craftiest of beers. But it was at the time when it first came out. I remember it just being kind of seeming more like a craft beer than, say, a Budweiser or a Coors or one of these other mega brands. And their commercials were kind of folksy sometimes.

were they were pretty clever and so i just i remember thinking oh that seems like a quality product but what i'm realizing also looking at this list is there's a lot of beers that molson coors announced they're discontinuing so they apparently own like every beer now that's not a you know local microbrewery they're getting rid of keystone ice oh wow well about time that's kind

of a biggie yeah they're getting rid of miller highlife light miller i didn't even know that was a thing you can get miller light and you get miller high life i'd know i've never seen the champagne of light beer oh my god i did not know that existed they're getting rid of milwaukee's best premium oh we're getting rid of ice not the ice house edge oh yeah okay so here's the deal let me give you a little back so all of these are like side brands right because milwaukee's best premium but uh my friend paulie used to call milwaukee's best the beast and then he would call ice house shit house go on how about mickey's ice mickey's had i that's malt liquor isn't it

yeah there's a mickey's ice that they're not gonna make anymore no i know you're exactly right though these are all what these were all were like attempts at expanding a brand yeah it didn't work how about something called key lightful which i assume was a light keystone ice

Keystone Ice Oh man

They're not doing Key Lightful anymore And by the way Keystone is still going to exist Because we have a listener Keith Stone Who's out there in Indiana Grab me my stones And if Keystone goes down That's going to be a real hit for our listener Keith Stone Miller Highlight Life We talked about that Ham's Special Light Steel Reserve 211 I've seen that stuff around Old English High Gravity 8000.

Oh, that must be that must be malt liquor, too, right?

Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, OE High Gravity. That's been around for a long time. I'm wondering if High Gravity 8000 was an expansion of the high gravity space because I can't imagine they're getting rid of Old English High Gravity, which I always thought was just the I admired the truth in advertising. They said, if you drink this, gravity is going to feel more powerful.

Wait, was all Old English called high gravity?

No. Okay.

See, I'd never heard of the high. I knew Old English, but I didn't know high gravity was a thing.

There was Old English 800, and then at some point they introduced high gravity, which I assume had, like, more alcohol in it. But again, think about drinking something called high gravity. Yeah, right. Like, you will be crawling on your porch, my friend, when gravity is increased by multiple factors.

factor isn't that what the do you remember the old saturday night live skit with um yeah it was

tim well it was tim meadows uh sending up billy d williams billy d williams that's right you know

in my memory in my memory it was billy d williams but you're right it was it was a a parody of him yeah cold cock it's just like it just punches you in the face right because i believe billy d

williams had started doing ads for uh it might have been old english 800 it was you know some malt liquor and uh what i'll look it up yeah anyway magnum there was something called magnum they were making not the condom and not the uh weird ice cream brand um which i always thought was kind of funny like if you go in certain mini marts there's like it's sort of um this chocolate it must be from europe originally it's like a chocolate ice cream bar so imagine like a Dove bar or one of those like things It's like chocolate around a kind of square Of ice cream there's one called Magnum But it's funny because it's often sold In a mini mart not far from the condoms Called Magnum I did not know about that By the way Colt 45 famously Colt 45 thank you that's what it was And then last but not least Henry Weinhardt's private Reserve can I play I don't think this is going to pay Off but I just like googled Like Henry Weinhardt's classic ad and somebody He said these are Henry's beer commercials from 1980. Can we just like maybe listen to one of these?

Yeah, I got to say, like, this all missed me. I really feel like an outsider because I didn't know that this was a thing. I did not pick up on this.

Again, it had to be a Utica thing. Like, it must have just probably didn't really make its way out to Ohio. But so here we go. This is a Weinhart commercial from the 80s, kind of like a Hereford, which I think is a kind of a cow. And it says, based on an actual incident That's like the words on the screen And the guy is like sitting in like a little office Doing something A large Texas ranch ordered a private stock Of a very special beer Kingsley Ranch is bringing in a stock Of Henry Weinhardt's What kind of stock is a Henry Weinhardt? There's a bunch of cowboys Sitting around The guy has come out of his office And he's telling them, you know, that they've ordered a new

stock of these beers.

Thank you. beer you might just discover henry's yourself used to drink henry weinhardt out around saragossa if it's worth a special trip to texas then it'd come in a tall bottle it's sure worth a trip to

the store or was it a short bottle can that's actually a pretty clever commercial so you got the guy this is kind of the tall tail guy who's first he thinks it's a cow so he's telling the whole story about saragossa and these cows and then the train pulls up and of course it's not a how it's a case of beer and now he's got the same story going about these beers but i love that folksy voiceover kind of reminds me a little bit i mean it's sort of different but kind of like those

paste picante ads i was going to say this part of the rich tradition of cowboys not understanding

something from the big city right new york city right yeah that seemed to really be a thing in the 80s it was a lot of cowboys misunderstanding the origin of some product right it sells

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 all right uh got an email or a v-mail that you're uh interested in oh yeah

let's start with a voicemail uh i will say this one grosses me out i don't think it's gonna gross most people out but this is because of my when you hear it you'll understand um i almost didn't play this one because it kind of made me feel icky but i think the listeners will appreciate it i

think it's my own hang-ups take a listen to this okay guys i have a new shame eating level that i've gotten to i've really been craving a queso dip from a particular restaurant in town but it just hasn't been convenient for me to like get to that part of town so last time i was at trader joe's i bought some tortilla chips and a queso dip and i was like whatever this will just have to do for now, which is already slightly embarrassing because my husband is kind of like a health freak. So for him to open the fridge and see queso dip, he's like, what are you doing? I'm like, don't judge me. So I've been slowly eating it throughout the week and tonight he was tired. So he went to bed early and I went to the fridge and I got my queso dip, but there was only a little bit left in the bottom and i was down to the dregs of my tortilla chips and i couldn't quite reach and so i just crushed up tortilla chips and put them into the bottom of the jar mixed them up with a spoon and ate it like salty cereal and i'm not mad at it life Pack it, buddy. I think this is going to be a thing from now on. So thanks for sharing my new love with me. I love you all and talk soon. Okay, bye.

You understand why that does not appeal to me, of course.

Well, sure. The cheese thing, I mean, that's really, really not your preferred consistency of food, kind of a liquidy cheese situation. But I think that is just a genius solution to the problem because we've all had that happen where it's, you know, you have like a jar of some kind of cheese dip thing or whatever it is. And you can't really get the chips in there anymore. And then it's like, you know, just bring the mountain to Muhammad. Like, I think that is a really brilliant life hack.

You know, one of the worst jars to get to the bottom of is that's not how that sentence was supposed to go. I said something. There's a clip of me. I mean I hope nobody clipped it out but I was just sort of needle dropping through yesterday's show before posting it and I have like sort of I think I do this a lot and you probably hear it and just like don't comment comment on it every time but I have like sort of dyslexia of the mouth which I don't think is a thing like I said a sentence I was talking so fast and it was probably because we're talking about the issue of white people referring to black dudes and maybe I was talking too fast. and maybe felt a little insecure about my theories and the topic and whether or not I should be weighing in on this. But I'm talking so fast that I said a sentence where I almost want to find it. I just said all the words out of order. Like they're just out of order. I went back and I listened to it. I'm like, can I edit this? Can I cut it out? And I think I decided that if I...

If I cut it entirely out, then I felt like it was necessary to leave it in for whatever reason for the for the whole segment to make sense. But it's really embarrassing. You can be honest. Have you noticed me do that a lot? And is it getting worse?

No, I don't notice you to be doing that. I think we both on occasion will just misspeak because, I mean, Lord knows we're talking for five plus hours a week. And it's just like we're going to have, you know, we're going to switch a word here and there. So I might hear you do that on rare occasion, and I certainly do it a lot. But I don't even remember you saying something yesterday that I was like, oh, that's not – do you remember the specific sentence?

No, and I'm so tempted to, like, kind of try to scrub through yesterday's show to find it. But it's not worth it now. If I think of it after the show, maybe I'll pull it out and play it for you tomorrow. But, yeah, it was just like – it was kind of word salad. Like, they were all the right words. So, you know, where's my bell? That's fun for the listeners. That's all the right words. They get to put it together. It's very interactive. It's a jumble. Nobody has done a podcast word jumble yet. That is a space we're coming up. That's our brand extension. I'm going to talk about it during my Thrive review today with our bosses. To finish my thought, the jar, bottom, get to hardest, and then clean are peanut butter jars. It's I mean, I love peanut butter, but it's almost enough to make you give up on peanut butter because I don't know what to do. I know that China is rejecting our recycling because we're sending over too much dirty garbage that people aren't you're supposed to be rinsing this stuff out. And, you know, and so I try to be very conscientious about cleaning out the things I recycle. But then a peanut butter jar, what I do, because there's always some just like peanut butter left in there. If you could scoop it out, you'd probably have a spoonful or something, but it's just impossible. So I usually let it soak overnight and then try to scrub it out in the morning. But if you use a sponge, then that sponge is dead because that sponge is just a peanut butter sponge now. It's a real problem of modern life.

Yeah, I was going to say you could just, if you have a dog, let them lick it out. I don't know if that's bad. I think it's okay for dogs. I think you can give him a little peanut butter because that would be a fun project for, like, Rudy. But then, you know, the next day she would have literally eaten the entire – she would have licked it for all it was worth and then chewed it into some weird, plasticky kind of odd, pulpy shape. And then she would have swallowed it. And then – but I would finally – I'm still paying dog insurance, by the way. Oh, yeah. Not to get into my finances. But – and it's weird because I would never want Rudy to have any kind of medical problem. But I also am like if something were to happen Heaven forbid I would be like well at least We had the dog insurance

Yeah sure Do you remember eating wax as a kid by the way This came up recently Yeah those wax like little pretend Bottles that were made of wax or lips that were made of wax Or those lips and we would chew on them And then you had braces right Did you get Oh you didn't Wanted them desperately

I thought braces were the coolest I thought braces were the coolest thing on a dude And the cutest thing on a girl I would make pretend braces for myself out of paper clips, like, and would hope that somebody would see that and think I had braces.

For the record, you just used the word dude, and it was not racially tinged at all. So there are examples where people do say dude. There are dozens of us. Why do I keep going back to that? Okay, no more on that. But also, so now I'm going to make you even more jealous because one of the cool things about having braces are the accoutrement, right? and you'd go to the orthodontist and you would get like if if you go to the dentist and you leave with let's say a toothbrush and floss one of the things you leave the orthodontist with is a little plastic flat case almost like a tiny little briefcase no handle that you flip open and inside are like i'm going to say six to eight little strips of wax that are connected to each other and you're supposed to like peel them off and make little balls of wax and put them on the outside of the braces if you had an area where it was like kind of irritating or aggravating the inside of your mouth right the skin on the inside of your mouth but we would just eat that shit like that's something about being a kid like or we would chew on it i'm sorry i don't think we would swallow it but just like that wax like those wax lips flavor to it no and but it reminds me of like being an altar boy i've said this before too like we would have a bunch of like what we call hosts in the catholic church right the little the little unleavened bread discs and they're not sacred before the mass they're just bread or whatever but they don't they've not yet been substantiated nice exactly but they don't taste good there's nothing special about it but as a kid you're like i'm gonna eat a bunch of those like there was just something well maybe it was just me but i feel like we would just like get a kick out of eating things you're not supposed to eat as a kid like oh just went to the just went to the orthodontist got me some

fresh wax to chew there is something yeah anytime as a kid there's something that seems like it's on the line like behaviorally you're just attracted to it because you're just like well i'm not officially i'm not supposed to do this but that's why it's fun yeah i also used to eat

my baseball mitt but that was more of a that was more of a shame i would chew on it i don't i

didn't actually digest much of it but i might probably maybe somewhere in my parents basement They're still like old baseball mitts of mine. And you chew that like leather, you know, the laces that are tying the mitt together. You just chew the end of it like endlessly.

And oh, my God, I don't think we've talked about this because it's kind of a big joke. Like Genevieve loves this story of mine because like I had a mitt that you had all these little like, you know, dangly little pieces of leather, the little ends hanging off.

But one was, you know, just hardened and chewed and it would stick out straight.

And, like, Genevieve enjoys the picture of me, you know, like, roly-poly Andy out in the outfield, probably playing a made-up position that isn't even a thing. Oh, come on.

Be nice to my friend, Andrew, please. Just, like, center-left field or something. Just, like, chewing my mitt the whole time and praying the ball doesn't come anywhere near me.

I ended up, like, having a brief window of competency at baseball, but I started out really rough. I've talked about this before. I have went an entire season on the Greenwood Boys and Girls Club baseball team, not swinging. I literally never swung at a pitch because it wasn't that I was afraid of the ball. I just had a mental block. I just knew I'd probably walk because these are kid pitchers. Yeah, you're real Thai France.

And so, no, no, no, no, Jake Fraley, Jake Fraley. Sorry.

Well, both of them, I think, do a decent job of working the count. In fact, I would say as a team, the Mariners, I'm very impressed at their. In fact, watching them play Nelson Cruz yesterday, who I think is an awesome dude and a force for good, I was reminded of, like, how frustrating it is when Nelson Cruz would come up with runners in scoring position and then just, like, whiff out the window. And, like, seeing the Mariners, like, you know, Crawford or whoever it is, just, like, take pitches with two strikes. I'm just like, yes. But anyway.

Now you said awesome dude. I don't know.

Wait, did I just say dude as it relates to Crawford? Not to Crawford. you were talking about um nelson cruz nelson cruz okay well i'm i'm i'm i'm one for but i'm i don't know that two today with my i don't know if that even fits my rule i don't even know what i'm talking about that's how i always talk about people from venezuela yeah that's right yeah wherever wherever uh nelson may be from right uh anyway uh i um i had a whole season where i didn't swing the bat so i'm just telling you andrew you're not the only member of this podcast team who had some kind of questionable baseball experience i also used to sit in right field This was the same season They put me in right field Because they were like No one's hitting it out there And I would literally During the game Throw my mitt As high as I could in the air And see how much time I could spin around Before catch This is during Like I'm Supposed to be Catching a fly ball If it comes to me And I'm throwing my mitt In the air And trying to spin Like eight times Before the mitt comes down

Yeah Yeah That's I mean That's kind of your Early Burbank exercise You know You have this Oh that's another thing I want to say about Your basketball routine I have another email here I could read Or maybe Maybe we'll just wrap it up on this thought yeah um but um i don't know if you're gonna agree with this or not i don't know if i'm right but you have talked about how as a kid you did have kind of some things that you've described maybe as ocd tendencies um like going to sleep at night i think you had something with

your lamp right or well yeah i had a digital like i had an alarm clock that was also a radio and it had the standard sort of illuminated numbers on it, and I would blur my eyes, and I would move my eyes around in a rectangular shape and make the light go in a rectangle.

Didn't you do other things, though, too? Like, I thought there were other things where you would touch something. I can't remember.

Yeah, I had a little, I had a touch of the OCD.

And I did, too. Like, I remember sitting in church and, like, kind of counting all of the candles. Like, everything in a church is, like, symmetrical, right? Like, if there's a candle on the left, there's a candle on the right. But then they all meet in the middle, so then things end up with an odd number instead of an even number. So I'd go through it again until they were all odd numbers. It just doesn't really make sense, just these weird things that I would do as well. And there was something about you talking about your new basketball routine game thing, which I think makes sense from an exercise perspective. Like you need to gamify it a little bit, and thus you're kind of tricking yourself into exercising a little bit. But it's also a little touch of that. There's something that I can really associate with, even though I've never been on a basketball court. I can associate with what you're talking about. Like, first, you have to do it all with your left hand. Then you do it all with your right hand or whatever you're doing. Like, there's a touch of that in there. Sure. Absolutely. And I can't leave until it's done. Like, literally, there will be.

if i keep this up which i don't know what's the over under six days before i completely ditch this new uh healthful uh regimen i always i always have trouble with regimen versus regiment i think a regiment is like a military as a group of people right anyway um i uh i can't like one day i just won't even be here for the show because i'll still be at the 24 hour fitness trying to make a three-pointer from college range because like i cannot leave until it has happened you know what I mean like it would it would stick with me all day if I was just like well I got most of the way through I did I'm happy to say even though I started off pretty bad because I told you like my muscles my arm muscles were very sore from those all 20 of those push-ups yesterday I started off not too hot but I ended up doing the full circuit three times in my 45 minutes wow wow that was kind of fun see that's the thing too the more you do it the easier the task will become right So now my goal is – it used to be I just have to do it – used to be yesterday when I did it for the first time versus today when I did it for the second time. Back in the olden days of yesterday, Andrew, it was I just got to do this one time. And now it's like how many times can I do it in a 45-minute period? So now the new record is three, and I guess I'll see where I get tomorrow. Why don't we call it Burb Ball? You had a different name for it, but I feel like Burb Ball. Burb Skit Ball? That's too close to a South Park, trademark South Park basketball. That might be the name of today's show. Burbskittball? Burbskittball, yes. I'm into it. Okay, do you have a song that you're into? Always. Let me just go look. Hey, Andrew. Yeah. I officially severed my relationship with Apple. Oh, you all in on Spotify now. I'm all about that Spotify life now. I like Spotify. i do too i mean i knew for a long time that it was um you know was a uh a better service i think and i found apple music to just be constantly frustrating although i will tell you spotify doesn't play well through this system for our purposes and apple music did for some reason but i was just going through my bills and i was like man this is another whatever 14 bucks a month i'm paying for this service that i don't really use that much anymore as i started to use spotify more and more it still felt a little scary though because i have been on apple music since it was invented like so that's probably 15 20 years of my life or something so how about this how about the song come alive by chromio a favorite of our good friend camaro kev sounds good i just just came up on a playlist that uh was in my spotify this is the i didn't realize this features toro i moi i remember that name from like 20 years ago toro i moi i feel like i love that guy what i've seen him i saw him play at the crocodile he plays his music is sort of um reminds me a bit

of washed out or washed out's music reminds me a bit of toro i moi he's a really really smart guy and um just yeah does music that i really enjoy very vibey um but uh this is uh this will be a Chromio, doing the song Come Alive. If we can go out with that, that would be great. Thanks for listening, everyone. We're going to be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you, including the Blur's Days. So join us for that. Until then, have a great Wednesday. Stay safe. Go Mariners. It's not the water. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

We'll be right back. All right.

What's going on? That's just something, just tweak a little something real bad. I like to rotate until the pain spreads and it's more of a numb, numb everywhere kind of thing. There it is. You know, it's nice to see how sort of loopy and weird your arms are. I've got real noodle arms these days. Power out.