Muse

The more brilliant people we can get working here, then the faster we can get whatever is in your head out into the world. Let me tell you a story. In 1999, Google was a little startup just like we are. And when they started bringing in chefs and masseuses, we thought they're nuts, but they were attracting the best possible people and they were able to create the best product. And now they're worth over $400 billion. And do you know the name of that company?

Google, right? You said it at the beginning of the story.

You're right. I did that wrong. TBTL.

Hello.

Did you say hello? No, I said hello.

Well, that's close enough. Well, I was just driving down Northern Avenue, getting ready to pull into Albertsons. and all of a sudden I was just minding my own business. Bam! Hit me hard right from the back. I was glued to my seat. I was like

This house is obviously infested with reticularmes, Mario Cuomo's. What's that? What's what? Reticular. See, you can't even say it yourself.

I'm doing the work. I'm baby stepping. I'm not a slacker.

I don't watch television. I don't even own a television. Notice I didn't say TV. TV is a nickname and nicknames are for friends and television is no

friend of mine. And Ali, you knew it. listeners, all I can really say is good luck.

All right. Hello. Good morning and welcome to a Wednesday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. I just want you to be normal and clearly you're not. Coming to you from the Ness Broadcast Center high in the sky above portland oregon right before showtime today i was hearing all kinds of strange noises the one thing i will say about this apartment building that i'm in is that it's pretty quiet it appears to be mostly just like poured out of concrete or something and so it's unusual for me to hear unexplained noises and i walked out into the living room to see what all the racket was about and it was a window washer clean as your mama's forehead who was clean now this i don't want to give the exact floor of the building that i'm on let's leave leave some mystery uh as to literally the exact place i live but it's really high up it's like almost at the very top of this building and it is very far down and i didn't realize that the window washer had a safety harness on like of course they do it would be insanity if they didn't but the dude was just standing up on like imagine a little like a kind of a swing a rope swing that you would have as a kid hanging down from a tree where you've just got a little square of wood that you're kind of sitting on that's sort of what the dude would normally be sitting on he was standing on it doing some adjustment and i couldn't see that he had a a safety line on and i just

I am petrified, petrified with this story.

I thought this dude was just, like, hanging out 500 feet in the air. Just kind of, like, you know, doing his thing. Anyway, I think he's safely harnessed up. But at some point, he's now done the living room. He is going to move. He's going to descend right past the Nest Broadcast Center and see me doing this. This being episode 3491 in a collector's series. Let the fun begin. Very interesting story today in Slate.com about why Teslas seem to have a problem with crashing into emergency vehicles. I'm an excellent driver. When they're on the autopilot function, which you're not supposed to use, like an autopilot, it's just supposed to help you when you're driving. But it has to do with pixels. So we'll talk about that coming up also. Andrew and I will finally get our small talk game completely dialed in.

I just want to talk. There's nothing to do with mating.

Found this article that was the seven mistakes people who are good at making small talk avoid. So we will dig into that, plus emails and v-mails. And, of course, this guy, longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He got a pretty good review during his last Thrive meeting, and I think it's kind of going to his head. Now, don't think it's okay to just roll in here at 100 kilometers per hour like you're Joel Otto with the Calgary Flames. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now from the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. Good morning, Wafer.

Good morning, Luke. Sorry, you just say the same thing every day, and when you drop off the good morning, my friend, I mean, I am like a Pavlovian dog. I will sit there and wait for it forever. All this weight and weight. Are you salivating? I am. Are you thinking of steak? Do you remember when we used to do the show in person and you'd give me a little treat every time I, you'd go, and you'd give me a treat every time I talked? That was great. I miss those days. That's the bad thing about being trained. You don't get the treats anymore. You just do it.

I could actually do that. I think, you know, at some point I've got to go get some of my stuff from my old house. It's still there. And one of the things was that remote control, remote dog feeder made by a company called Wopet. Carrie is very anti-technology. I don't think that that's one we're going to have to have the lawyers really spend a lot of time on. I don't think she has any interest in that.

And you're interested in case you do end up getting another dog or pet at some point?

Well, no, I want to bring it to your house. and just dispense treats to you when my good boy does a good job at the top of the show, then the thing will just kick a pellet out for you.

What about throughout the show? I mean, this could be... What if TBTL suddenly gets good? Imagine that. Like, suddenly I am motivated to bring my A game because I'm getting sweet, sweet treats?

Mm-hmm.

What would you...

I mean, obviously, I'm going to put human food in there. Landyagers. Okay, I'm going to have to cut them up into very small bits.

No, I want you to throw the whole thing at me. Like, you know, a big dog, you can throw him a sausage and they'll devour it. Like you see in the movies when there's like a guard dog or something and you need to, you know, kind of satisfy it with the word sedated. You throw it a steak.

Usually it's some kind of big, it's like a Turner and Hooch type of dog. Yeah. Or like the dog in Christmas Vacation. Ah, he's probably just yakking on a bone.

I'm picturing the scene in Fletch Where Fletch is cornered by some guard dogs When he's breaking into somebody's office To take some surreptitious photos of their files

I wonder if Chevy Chase has an issue with dogs Because the dog in Christmas Vacation Is kind of a plot point And also the dog is poorly behaved And then you're saying it happens in Fletch I mean those are two examples

Well I have a whole theory that those movies Take place in the same universe Oh right I'm just joking But we could come up with that theory right now and try to convince people of it.

I could use the help of is Fletch a detective? What does Fletch do in those movies? I've literally never seen those movies investigative reporter.

They're actually based on a bunch of they're actually based on a whole series of books. You know how I kind of get into my little like kind of pulpy books sometimes, whether it's like a P.I. story, like in the Fletch stories or, you know, like. Well, no, I'm sorry. He's an investigative reporter, but then there's the P.I. kind of noir stories that I'll get into as well. Yeah, there's a whole series of those books. I can't remember the author's name off the top of my head. I want to say Ian something. And you can just kind of pop through those books like Candy. And I don't know at what point they decided to make a movie out of one of them and then a sequel, which I don't think is based on a book. But that first movie, Fletch Lives, I think, is just a screenplay. But the first book is actually, I'm sorry, the first movie is actually based on the first book in the series. Yeah.

Now, is Dr. Rosenpenis mentioned in the book? That was an ad lib by Chevy Chase.

I think John Coctosin was definitely an ad lib. I've seen those movies a lot, especially the first one.

Well, I need an investigative reporter to look into what the hell is going on with my blazer, Andrew, that has now been disappeared by this dry cleaning company. Remember yesterday, right when the show wrapped up, I said, we got to get done with this because I got to run down the street to the one hour of the day that this dry cleaner where I had dropped off a blazer of mine, like my favorite blazer. You know why? Because it's the one that fits, Andrew. That's why. It's the one that causes me the least distress when I button it. And I had dropped it off there some weeks ago, And then when I came home from a work trip or something, I went to the dry cleaner to pick it up and they were closed. And they said, basically, we're open like from like 11 a.m. to noon if you want to pick your stuff up. Well, that's a bad time for me. We're often still doing the show or I'm kind of working on other things. So I hustled down there yesterday and I get to the building and there's just a guy in there doing demolition. Like I knock on I knock on the door. The guy was super nice, by the way. But he's not the owner of the place. He's just literally demolishing or harvesting the, like, I don't know, shelves or something. And he comes around, and I'm like, hey, my blazer's in here. He's like, oh, yeah, I don't know. I'm just here to demolish.

mall shit you want to just like look around see if you can find it he's like a contractor right he's not even with basically yeah uh or maybe he works for one of those like habitat for humanity type of deals where you like you know you kind of get stuff that's still usable uh again really sweet dude knows nothing about dry cleaning or martinizing he was like yeah just i guess look around i was like cool he goes i think i saw a couple of things so i'm just walking around this bombed out shell of this oh my gosh this is and i'm just like weird and he's showing me like There's like literally three items of clothes. One of them appears to be someone's outfit for marching band.

Okay.

That's just like in. Take that one. Still in class tempted. Didn't have the hat, which I got to have. Got to have that hat, that big old tall, like a loyal order of water buffalo hat that like Fred Flintstone would wear. But so I'm like, it's not that. And then I'm just walking and literally the whole place is demolished. And there's like two or three just random items. None of which are my jacket.

Yeah, because somebody else went in there and they said, well, look for your stuff and take it. I know, right? That's gone, man.

Well, I don't know. He gave me the number to the guy who owns it, and he said that that guy probably knows where it is. So I'm hoping it's been moved to another location. I hope so. I think they might have a second location. So I haven't lost all hope, but it wasn't encouraging, Andrew. Man, is there just no accountability? We're going to find out. I'll keep everyone posted on this story as events unfold. I hope it doesn't get as bad as things got for a listener. Was it listener Kristen in the city? It was Kristen.

I was looking it up while you were trying to scour your brain for that information. Good memory.

And her boyfriend's vehicle, which, I mean, we, life is, life kind of, I mean, I don't, Listen, there are far worse things that happen to people than a blazer has gone missing after I let a month go by before picking it up. So this I'm not trying to be overly extreme here, but life is very weird because we don't realize, I think, most of the time how much we're just hoping everyone kind of does the right thing. Yeah. Like listen to that story from listener Kristen. It was like, yeah, what what does happen if a company just goes out of business and they just have your stuff?

Yeah.

And like then you have to – she said they had to get like an attorney or like a tax somebody from the state to like go in and – like I think about the paperwork associated with getting your car back. And what if that guy would have just sold the car, like created a fake title and sold it off and now the car is just in the wind and he has no money because his business went out of business. there's so many ways that we could just get absolutely hosed and we don't because most of the time people are generally obeying the rules but I mean, you know, yeah, if this jacket is gone, there's no recourse what am I going to do? Small claims court? Actually, that would be kind of dope. People's court Are they still doing the people's court? That'd be a great

people's court case. That would be a great people's court case. I don't know. It'd also be great for TVTL if you could get yourself on that show

Yeah What would it be? Well, I was about to go into my Doug Llewellyn Who I used to love Like he was the original announcer For the people's court And it was always You know there was always a clever name It's a case of honey I shrunk the couch You know Or something like that I'm wondering what I'm wondering what the name Of my case would be All I can think of when I think of Jacket are those like terrible Like sexual references Like the band Cake I think has a Or maybe it was Who did the Bloodhound Gang? One of them has some album where it's like They're talking about It's like take off your coat and jacket Oh, that's dirty Yeah, so I don't think that would be the name Although who knows I feel like all of those shows from our youth Have really taken a turn Like the Family Feud Which I actually think is a fun show still Because I think Steve Harvey is very fun He does a really good job When I catch that show Like if I'm scrolling through the thing I'm like, I'll give this a few minutes of my time. Yeah, me too. But I do find the premise of the questions to just be totally BS at this point.

They really are. And they're all just like just trying to get people to say a double entendre. Exactly. It's all just like, yeah. And that definitely feels forced. And I know that Steve Harvey, like, you know, apparently, you know, there were those articles. Apparently he's not. Don't make eye contact. Yeah. And I think he's also, I don't know. I think, isn't he like, I feel like I'm always slandering people. I was, by the way, remember the other day when we were talking about Mayim Bialik and the Jeopardy story, and I was like, there's something that kind of trails her around that I can't remember. And I didn't want to say it, what I thought it might have been. And then I said, no, no, no, I know she's pro-vaccine. And it turns out, no, that was the big controversy with her. And I watched this whole video that a listener sent me that, you know, there's some gray area there. She's skeptical of some of the, some vaccine.

Vaccines and also thinks that some vaccines are the are the result of big money interests. She went into this long thing about saying she doesn't just blanket give her kid every single vaccine that is on the menu. But she's not anti-vaccine and she did get the covid vaccine, whatever. But it was just so funny. I was like trying not to slander her. And what I end up saying is, oh, she's definitely pro-vaccine. And I just like volunteered that. It was almost like it was just out of the blue for me to say something that was just so loud. wrong it was so weird oh but anyway wrong i missed that yeah i gotta catch back up with my levitard i know actually i don't know if he said that in a while that's is that something that i only know because levitard says it is that i've never heard anyone else say it but i think it's kind of genius i do too i do too uh but we're talking about steve harvey but i think that he might have had you know he might have belonged to some like men's groups that didn't seem like they necessarily were on the right side of everything i sure i would be unsurprised well he pulled a

But I want to say he pulled a The Weeknd, singer-songwriter The Weeknd. But I was watching something on TikTok where he was talking about being sober. And he was like, that's why I never drink because my very – he was like, I don't drink because the very job that I do, my mind has to be so sharp. And it was like him just talking all about a sobriety. He was like, I mean, I never have more than like two drinks. He put it at the end of the statement. Which, again, I am the last person who – I am not judging anyone's relationship with drugs and alcohol as somebody who's had a very complicated relationship with alcohol throughout my life or my adult life. But I find it funny when someone is passionately talking about how they don't drink and then they mention that they – I mean, this is a good time for that tape of Singer-Songwriter The Weekend because it's literally that but not as a joke. I got to the end of this 45-second clip and I was like, well, basically, I think the headline here is Steve Harvey doesn't get drunk, which is different than Steve Harvey doesn't drink. and again steve harvey has the right to do whatever he wants but this was like i also i follow like this is very weird considering i'm not a sober person but i follow a lot of like sober talk like tick tock that's just people in sobriety which i i don't know i just find it interesting and also probably there's some part of me that's like i should reconsider that at some point in my life and so i think that's the algorithm that delivered it to me steve and i was like oh interesting i'm not surprised to hear steve harvey is sober he has 11 jobs he probably he's a gregarious fellow I had like written this whole backstory in my mind that oh he probably you know had a had a problem with it and now he's sober and he's doing you know great and then it was like no he just doesn't get drunk or at least thinks he's not drunk right actually

and I don't know if this is the right tape or not but I'm looking up this article that you're talking about it looks like there is a video component where they interviewed him and I think I actually I don't know if this will work or not but I do have tape of him uh talking about his

sobriety. They're trying to say I was drunk. I drank eight beers yesterday. That was

all I drank. There it is. There's your Steve Harvey. It's almost not funny when it works now. Singer-songwriter Steve Harvey.

Exactly. I've been trying to go through and sort of take an inventory of all the things that I'm signed up for, all the streaming services. I'm very mad, by the way, at Disney Plus right now because I canceled it as part of this you know I'm like my finances are being separated from Carrie's and just seems like a good time to like go through and go like yeah do I use this do I you know and so I canceled yeah and I canceled Disney Plus and that just got a bill for it the other day which I was kind of mad about and then also Carrie said hey your Hulu who are you luing your Hulu is still being charged out of this old account and I was like oh sorry about that also I didn't even know I signed up for Hulu Oh, you've been missing out. Well, right, because is that where Ted Lasso is? No, that's Disney Plus. That's Apple, I think. Apple. I've got that one. So I went to Hulu, and I said, like, I don't want to do this anymore. And it was very, basically, it was very undignified of Hulu because it was like, I was like, I'm canceling. And then it was like, would you like to do $3.99 a month with commercials? And I was like, no, I'd still like to cancel. and I had to click through like nine more screens. And then it was like, how about $3.99 a month with no commercials? I mean, we can just be friends who go to dinner like just on Sundays. Yes. Yeah, exactly. I don't know how to tell my mom we're breaking up. Could you just pretend? I need you to come to Thanksgiving and pretend you're still subscribing to Hulu. It was so sad that they went from like it's $10.99 a month or whatever to like how about $3.99 with commercials to how about $3.99 with no commercials? And you still said no, though, huh?

I did because I don't... I was going to say $3.99, no commercial. It's pretty good. What are you missing on Hulu? Let me dial in.

Yeah, what am I missing?

Because what I feel like is Hulu is a thing that I will sign up for because there's one show I want to see. And then I end up paying for it for two years, obviously, and not even remembering. I mean, the big one that I use a lot, I use HBO Max. Oh, speaking of which, I've made zero progress on White Lotus, but I am continuing to find out things about it that I don't want to. Somebody tweeted. Well, don't spoil it for me. I'm not going to. I'm going to be vague. Somebody tweeted yesterday, it was a photo of characters from White Lotus. I know this from watching, like, how much of the first episode have you watched? I haven't started it yet. Oh, okay. So somebody tweeted a photo of a couple of the cast members from the show and said something like, I'm never not going to be afraid of people like this or something. I forget what exactly they said. I also forget who tweeted this I think it was someone relatively famous and I was I was viscerally annoyed at them Andrew like I almost wanted to jump on and go hey thanks like on Twitter that's not a good look for me also although I don't know picking fights with more famous people on Twitter could get me a little bit of heat could get could kind of really raise my Q score but anyway I was like I was I looked at that last night I was like thank you now because now I know these two characters are in on some shit Yeah, right. Everyone, please stop with this. I mean, again, I know I said this yesterday on the show. Spoilers are a very boring, overdone topic. But this one feels to me like we didn't get enough time. I don't know how long it's been out, but it really does. And of course, I almost spoiled WandaVision for people, which you, thankfully, Andrew, kind of caught because that would have been a bad thing.

but on tbtl yeah that's fine you know we can have spoiler conversations we just gave a we inserted a spoiler warning so people could avoid it if they wanted to and i mean that's where i struggle with this because the whole white lotus thing is i want to see it because there is so much smoke around it right now right like it's interesting like and the fact that these are you know these cultural moments that are shared like the wandavision was a cultural moment i happen to be on that one and there are a million that i miss i don't know why white lotus i just honestly that tweet that i saw yesterday or the fact that it was trending like mike white is ready to take the criticism just like oh and somebody else somebody who i don't even share a lot who i don't bro down with on tv just happened to mention the show and that she was enjoying it and said i don't want to tell you too much because it's it's kind of part of the part of the experience of watching it is understanding what it's about and i was like oh that's kind of intriguing and so there was just a couple of things around it that i was like i should watch it then i started seeing those tweets and i'm like i really gotta watch it i don't know why this is one that i decided to care about we'll also see if i even follow through i might not ever even watch it what was it you said yesterday because

i was saying i'll watch anything uh that mike white creates because i just have i really like his work generally speaking starting with like chuck and buck way back in the day oh i don't know about that one you said you haven't seen vice yeah what's vice oh vice that's his movie

right about about cheney and um it's about cheney and bush and uh who plays you haven't seen vice either i think it would be up your alley i don't know why i haven't seen it yet not spoil it for me does dick cheney become vice president or not it's a christian bale who's playing um dick cheney under like a lot of makeup and sam rockwell i believe is playing um george w bush and so i think it's some really good and you know and it's mike white so he comes from the comedy background but here he is doing a somewhat like you know of a recent historical story are you sure you're not thinking of adam mckay i am i am what's the difference between those guys about 200 pounds

i am totally thinking of adam mckay aka ghost panther on twitter right i still haven't seen vice but that's yeah that i think because that's sort of adam mckay's whole world right yes okay

so i remember liking mike what do i like mike white from because i oh okay so he's school of rock which i didn't like so maybe i am wrong about a lot of things now listen is you didn't

like school of rock because it's just jack black chewing too much scenery it's just too much jack black yeah and i you know there's a thing that went viral the irony that mike white wrote it and jack black ruined it i know right um but i what else has mike white done but i feel like

mike white used to be in some because was mike white uh connected to like a comedian that we

like like conan no he just always kind of wrote these these sort of offbeat films he wrote that film orange county that had uh i think colin hanks in it nacho libre which i loved even though i don't know if nacho libre is okay anymore uh because it's you know it's jack again jack black but he's sort of doing i don't know if you would call it you know brown face or something i mean And he's sort of doing an impression of somebody who sounds Latinx. which is probably not great anymore even though I do think there are some funny jokes in that he did The Good Girl which was like a really good Jennifer Aniston film where she was very sort of like made down I think she works at a grocery store in that film

I remember seeing that in the theater and really liking it I felt like it was a sleeper I didn't know that he did it and I also don't ask me anything about it because again I saw it in the theater and that's pretty old now I don't remember much about it other than really enjoying that

he also must have been a voice in the emoji movie well which uh or i don't think he wrote it but again you know no no hate if you're gonna make some money uh i guess make some money but man that was when i really felt like we had reached now let me say this i haven't seen the emoji movie maybe it's great but when that one came out i felt like we had reached a certain nadir point with cinema in this country but that was when we officially had reached the point where because the irony is that like a movie like chuck and buck or the good girl that would never get theatrical release anymore i mean forget covid but just like that just wouldn't happen because there's no there's not enough audience for it but if you make a movie about something people have already have an awareness of whether it's from the marvel universe or just a thing they do on their phone i mean the emoji movie just felt like a studio executive was like trying to think of an idea to go into a pitch meeting and they were just like on their phone and they were like what about these things yeah and then people are like oh i know what that is because i use them i'll go to a movie where there's wisecracking emojis how about that like seriously though how about that poop emoji though luke i mean that's kind of naughty that wasn't in the film who okay we got to do this really quick who was the voice i who do you think would be the voice of the poop emoji i don't know the answer to this i'm just kind of trying to scroll through well now i got jack

black on the brain like well no probably not that high of energy right would the poop emoji be more

like kind of droll and ben stein although he's not famous enough anymore poop emoji voice emoji film okay let's see ah wow i now know who it is that it is not who i would have expected really yes uh it is a i'm gonna give you some no no no that's a good one too i just know that his voice work isn't that despicable uh this is great actually you know what Andrew we finally made

it to some decent content I am really embarrassed that's confusing Adam uh Adam McKay and Mike White not embarrassed I mean whatever I'm hey now people know I'm a human you know what I mean I like to show some of my vulnerabilities sometimes because I don't like to be too sharp all the time but it's just my mind is a little bit blown because I'm trying to figure out how for how

long have i been conflating these two people um okay i'm a little i have to be honest with you i'm i'm kind of i'm a little frustrated at the what now that i'm looking at the emojis from the emoji movie so i landed at the hollywood reporter.com where they've done a very helpful thing they've taken the emojis from the film and then the people who play the voices but i guess i assumed that these emojis would be like very similar to the emojis on our phone but they're all kind of stylized if that makes any sense like they're not really so like uh Anna Faris is an emoji called jailbreak which is like a sort of female appearing emoji with a little beanie hat on and purple hair I don't think that's a real emoji that I'm aware of or if it is it's uh and the the poop emoji is wearing this might help you a little bit the poop emoji is wearing a bow tie and has eyebrows so it's not quite like the exact thing that we're used to seeing from on our phones But it is – the poop emoji is voiced by a very well-respected actor who was part of the Star Trek universe.

In a bow tie and eyebrows, part of the Star Trek universe.

Oh, oh, LeVar Burton. Not the old generation. No. No, not the old generation, the next generation. I guess I'm trying to think who's dapper.

It's hard for me to picture any of those Because I

The bow tie refers to the sort of properness Of this person's speech

Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh right I know who it is and now Sir Patrick Stewart

Exactly Yes of course And I gotta give them credit And I gotta give them credit They obviously went comedically with this idea of like Instead of the poop emoji being Somebody who sounds like Their voice sounds like poop They decided to make the poop emoji very proper thereby creating a comedic tension there between what we think of as poop and the poop having a British accent.

Did you know, like, one of the reasons, I just couldn't think of the name of anybody, and I could only get... You just thought of Patrick Stewart. I'm proud of you. Do you notice that I could only get there by saying sir? Like, if I... I'm not even joking at all. I was like, if I say sir, I might get there in the moment. And that sir could... have easily been sir and that could have lasted until tomorrow until i finally fulfilled the

patrick stewart andrew you know the number three thing that people who are good at small talk avoid they avoid starting to talk without having something to say wow we just went from talking about number two to number three pretty good all right let's take a quick break when we come back maybe we'll go through this list and uh get better at our small talk in a moment here on tvtl let's thank some donors of the day the wonderful generous folks making this episode possible talking about ann taylor out in washington dc and how are you ann taylor has been with this show Unless we have another Ann Taylor in Washington, D.C., Andrew, since the, like, earliest days of the program, I'm talking radio days, she used to call in. Really? I want to say her and her, at the time, partner, maybe husband now, who knows what twists and turns life takes. But I believe they, I want to say they taught us how to make mint juleps once.

Really? So Ann was here in the Seattle area.

Or no, I think it might have been over the phone or something. I mean, we did a lot of weird stuff. It's part of why we got fired I was trying to explain TBTL to our new boss yesterday And I don't know if I did a great job I should have led with the We were getting coached how to make mint juleps over the phone by someone

Yes, you know, it's that kind of a show

Yeah, it's one of those classically It's one of those kinds of shows Yeah, we did a lot of push-up contests By the way, I've not gotten back to that Remember, I've stuck with my little basketball mornings Now I'm doing that like two days a week, Andrew Because I old and my joints can't take it

Are you still getting the space in the gym? Because that actually kind of gives me anxiety when you have a very specific routine, but you don't know going into the gym if you can get on your machine or in this case into your gymnasium.

I went, this is going to sound like I'm just trying to brag, but on Monday morning I went at 5.45 because I have to wear a mask. I wanted the whole gym to myself so that I could, please don't yell at me, listeners. I was hoping that if I was in the gym by myself, I could maybe let my mask down a little bit. Do you think that—is that poor form? I mean, I was masked walking through the gym. Had anyone else—I mean, walking through where everyone's on, like, weights and stuff. I go into this giant gymnasium. I'm the only person in it working out.

If you're literally the only person in there— Literally the only person. Do you think that was okay? Even me, who's kind of like, if I'm following the rules, you should follow the rules. If I saw somebody in a gym and they're literally the only person in this gym, I don't I don't I think you'd have to be you because you're really missing the point if you're mad at that person.

Right. And I mean, I had my I had my mask. I was wearing it, but I just had it down a little bit as I was getting kind of extra tired. Were anyone to have walked into the gym, I would have masked up immediately, like 100 percent. Although at that point, who knows? Maybe I've already filled the gym with my expectorant.

Oh, but maybe that's the I mean, maybe that's trying to be fair for the argument. I guess maybe that's it

But I got there that early Because I wanted to have the whole place to myself So that maybe I could Again, sometimes let my mask down a bit I will tell you That I was a sweaty Mess With that mask on It really added to the aerobic nature Of the stuff But anyway Where was I going with that? Who knows? I was going to thank Alice Oh, your push-ups You were saying you don't do push-ups. Oh, I have not gone back to that. I did 20 push-ups. I tore every muscle in my body, and I'm done with that. Probably for a while. Whereas, I guess my point there was, in the early days of the show, I mean, we were, like, doing 100 push-ups a day. Like, we were, or at least that was our goal. Yeah. The 100 push-up challenge. Yeah. And, well, that's what 13 years of aging and hard living will do to you, Andrew. No more push-ups for burbs. Apathy. Apathy also. You know who's not apathetic about this program? Alice Weimers Alice Weimers I wonder if Alice goes with the V instead of like you know like Werner Herzog or if she's going with the W like Weimers I'm pretty sure it's Weimers but her first name is Elise Ah okay that makes sense and then Gabe Claire they're in Davidson North Carolina that's gotta be the home of Davidson College right? The home of Steph Curry Oh. Or Steph Curry went to college? I don't know. Steph Curry very slept on college, you know, coming out of high school and then scored a lot of points at Davidson. Jamie Beverer is in Seattle, Washington. I don't know where that is. Robin Burlingham, not to be confused with Bellingham. Robin Burlingham is in Seattle. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Love it. God, Saskatoon. That's just one of the great Canadian towns to say.

Now, don't think it's okay to just roll in here at 100 kilometers per hour like you're Joe Lotto at the Calgary Flames. I was trying to conjure that myself. I couldn't remember the name Joe Lotto. Yes.

Brian Covey is in Seattle, Washington. Brian, thank you for supporting the program. And then Nathan Halley is in Chesterfield, Missouri. I believe Nathan is our roller skating enthusiast. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's old school too, huh? Yeah, it is. I wonder how Nathan's been doing during the pandemic. Roller skating really has been having a moment. Yeah. Like it got really big on TikTok, and then I was starting to hear the stories on public radio about how like, you know, roller skating, places that sell roller skates can't keep them in stock. Whoa, Andrew. Dude, a rope just went past my line.

We got to talk about that. First of all, what are the privacy implications? Did they tell you, like, hey, the window washers will be here in a certain day, so maybe close your blinds and don't be, you know, dancing around in your undies?

I think there was some kind of an email that went out from the management of the building in their defense. Of course, I didn't make a note of what day it would be, but I'm sure they did warn us. That's good. I mean, yeah. God, I feel like what a thankless job. I mean, I don't think it's thankless. I bet you it's fairly high paying. But what a hard job, like to be in charge of getting all of these windows cleaned. It just seems like it would be so daunting. But I will tell you, the living room looks way better now. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's it's very I think I overuse the word cathartic. I just mean for any time something just kind of like is satisfying. Maybe I need to start saying satisfying more and cathartic less because cathartic has kind of an emotional component to it.

I think cathartic is sort of like calmingly satisfying, but I don't know if I'm right about that.

I just think satisfying is really the word I'm looking for here. It's very satisfying to see those windows cleaned from the outside, windows that I could not reach, obviously, on my own.

Do you know that when we were having, and I'm not bringing it back to this so I can self-flagellate, but when we were having that Mike White, Adam McKay conversation, and I can't remember if I said this to you on air or during the break. I said, I just want to know how long I've been conflating these two in my head. Do you know that I actually thought of the word cathartic because I was much, much younger. But I think maybe I was maybe a young man and early in college when I at some point somebody used the word cathartic or catatonic and also a light bulb went off above my head. And I realized I've been using cathartic and catatonic interchangeably, at least in my thought processes. I don't know if I ever said it. I don't know if I ever had a conversation where I used them interchangeably or use the wrong word. But like those are very different words. And I had been, you know, like I just had this realization that I had not untangled them in my brain. And I was like trying to relive my entire life, trying to relive every conversation I ever had, figuring out if people thought I was just like off my rocker.

Yeah, because those ones are pretty those are pretty far apart. Yeah. Although, you know what? For a decent portion of the population, I don't think you'd get any pushback. They would go by quickly and nobody would be sure. They'd go by quickly. It would sound vaguely like what you were trying to say.

In the context, they'd probably get it. So cathartic, though, I think we're providing psychological relief through the open expression of strong emotions. So, yeah.

Nice. Anyway, thank you so much to our donors of the day. Thanks for making this possible. Thanks for sticking with us while I just am mesmerized by these ropes, Andrew. It's just, I don't even see the people. I think they're down on the lower floor, but the ropes are coming off the roof, and they're just swinging right out in front of me, and it's very distracting. But I'm going to try to focus and do the rest of the show now. Hello, and welcome to Top Story. All right. Let me just quickly get through these. seven mistakes Andrew that people who are good at small talk avoid okay this is from somebody named John Bowe what I love in John Bowe's bio is he's a speech trainer award winning journalist and author of I have something to say clearly this is not a person who has watched Strangers with Candy I know I was going to say

I have something to say

these guys say that all the time a lot of Strangers with Candy talk on the show lately let's see if I can wow my computer is moving very slowly i was trying to get to this and now i think i've got something to say anyway uh so uh the first thing that you want to avoid if you're going to try to make small talk successfully and you know it's possible that some point in the future we will actually be gathering again and small talk will be something we need to remaster uh

And you want to avoid the thought that nobody wants to talk to you. Oh, God. So assuming that nobody wants to talk to you is a mistake that people who are bad at small talk seem to make, according to the motivational speaker and author of I've Got Something to Say. This is honest.

I mean, this is a fun segment. But I think that all the time. I was saying that to Vives this week. Well, I've said this to you before on the show, too. And then it becomes, no, we love you, Andrew, conversation, which is not what I'm fishing for. But, you know, Genevieve went to this lake house to hang out with a bunch of our friends and ended up being a pretty big group. And I took the opportunity to kind of hang back, catch my breath. It's been a busy summer and have the house to myself this weekend, which I enjoyed. And, you know, if I feel bad in any way, it's mostly to Genevieve because, you know, as a boyfriend, if she would want me there, I'd understand it. And then maybe slightly to the host because it's a gracious invitation that I turned down. But for the most part, my thought process really is like, y'all don't need me there. Like, you guys are all funny and fast-witted, and, like, you don't need me there clunking up the conversation. That's the second time I've used clunking up, which is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy when I use phrases like clunking up the conversation. But that is sort of a – so point number one here is actually something maybe I do need to think about. I also do think that, like, I kind of hate small talk, so maybe that's the problem.

But ironically, you're actually very good at it. I mean, not only do you co-host effectively a daily small talk program, so you're very good at keeping the needle moving. But I observe you in social situations, and most people would never know what's going on kind of below the surface for you because you come off as an engaged, outgoing, friendly person to be around. And I see you make small talk very effectively with people that we work with and with the 10s and things like that. So I guess the advice would be Don't assume that nobody wants to talk to you

Assume that people want to talk to you Okay, I will do that

Okay, I think a better way You can tell that this guy wrote this It was supposed to be sort of proactive and positive Christ, do you hear that? Oh, is that the window washer clanking?

Yeah

Are you making eye contact? No, he's like one floor below me But can you hear this? Yeah This is like Those are just the ropes Slapping against my windows Anyway, I've got to focus here. You know, one of the things people that are good at podcasting, one of the mistakes they never make is getting distracted by something that's a purely visual experience that the listeners have absolutely no ability to observe. He wanted to make this like it's proactive, like this is how you're going to be good at making small talk, but really what it needs to be is these are the seven mistakes that people who suck at small talk make. It's a better way to present this. They assume that nobody wants to talk to them. Okay. They interrupt or they intrude upon an existing conversation. Ooh, yeah. Timing is everything. If you see two or more people vigorously engaged in conversation, they're probably not ready for you to barge in.

Yeah, saddle up. Maybe saunter up, saddle up. I don't know. Sidle up. Sidle up. And just kind of slowly listen for a while, then maybe make your conversational move once you're in there. Yeah, I like that. You know what I always say, Luke? Timing is everything.

You really chunked up this show, didn't you?

The funny thing is I interrupted you to make that terrible joke, which actually is funnier than the joke itself.

We already talked about this one. People who are bad at small talk, they start talking without having something to say. Yeah. Boy, that one hits close to home. I have been having this kind of odd experience the last couple of weeks where i'll be talking to somebody like you know becca or something or whatever just like my normal life and i'll just at some point almost start to feel like i'm outside of myself observing that i'm talking do you ever get that experience where you're sort of like you're talking but you're sort of on autopilot in some way to where i mean people who listen to the show are like yeah we've heard tv tell you're on autopilot the whole time but just you realize that you've kind of been talking but you i'm not like having a specific point or i guess it's just that i don't have a real um a plan for what i'm doing in this situation i'm just like we're driving somewhere we're driving to lake billy chinook and it's like you're just kind of chatting and then i just all of a sudden realized i'm just making sounds with my mouth but i'm not like 100 100 sure where this is going i don't know if i really have a point

well i you know you hear me say this a lot i believe i said this to you just moments ago before we started recording today you and i were talking about something we had just dialed up i don't remember what it doesn't matter but I wanted to tell you one quick thing but of course my thing is I get bogged down in the details I'm very much like my dad in that way like you'll talk to my dad and if he just wants to tell you he had wonton soup and I say this with all love because I have the same trait if he just wants to

Say I had wonton soup for lunch. That could easily be a half hour one-sided conversation with all of the details about how the decision was made, how he ended up, where he ended up, et cetera.

That sounds so good right now. I know.

I had wonton soup for lunch the other day.

I could really go for some wonton soup right now.

So what I said to you today was I was going to tell you a quick anecdote, and then it got really long, and I think I said to you, oh, my God, I hear myself. So I think I literally do have those moments where suddenly I hear myself prattling on and I have to kind of ground myself again and get to the point. That's a little bit different maybe than what you're saying.

Please don't ever – first of all, I don't – that's not my experience with you. I know people like that. If that was how I experienced talking to you, this show would be rough for me. Well, yes and no. Because we've got to keep the needles moving. Well, exactly. So, A, I don't think you get overly bogged down, and B, to the degree that you're keeping the needles moving, I thank you, sir. I thank you, good sir. Because we'd be pretty screwed if you were just like, if your move was brevity, we'd be in some real trouble. So I think this is playing to your sort of personality, or maybe Bob Walsh's personality. Another thing that people who are bad at small talk do, according to this guy, they broach controversial topics.

Ooh, religion. Sex.

Mm-hmm. Stuff like that. If you're talking to somebody new, it's generally best not to talk about weighty, off-putting, or polarizing topics, like abortion or politics.

Just imagine. I'm like, you're just throwing some examples in there.

Hey, great barbecue. Yeah. I've been meaning to tell you, I don't know. I just think life begins at conception. That's a weirdly specific topic to tell people not to talk about. I love this song. Is this the weekend? How do you feel about a two state solution? Right? Singer songwriter the weekend. We have some tape. I do think that the version of life that we currently exist in has created particularly around the vaccine because I feel so strongly that and masking. I feel so strongly that it's just so obvious that there is the right way to there's the the responsible way to comport yourself on planet Earth. And it is if you have access to a vaccine that will keep us all safe, you should take it. And if you have to wear a mask to keep the transmission rate down, you should wear it, I guess, unless you're me in the gym at 545. But anyway, I don't feel like it was always the case that there were like if I'm if I were to be talking to someone and they were to casually mention. that they're not vaxxed I would be so done with that conversation with them like I have no room unless there was some medical situation that I'm not aware of where it was it was medically very dangerous for them which I guess there's probably a couple categories unless they had a really legitimate excuse which I can't think of too many of them or if somebody supported Donald Trump Like, that's not just like, oh, you know, I thought Mitt Romney's proposal for a tax plan just made more sense. It was going to stimulate more business growth than, say, who did Romney run against? Did he run against Obama?

He ran against Obama the second time.

Like, I feel like there is a time in this country where I could be talking to someone and they could mention something that we disagree on. And it wouldn't be the kind of thing that would make me want to literally just walk out of the party and not interact with them. And now there are a number of those topics. Again, the top of the list being Donald Trump and also stuff around the pandemic in terms of being anti-vaxxer, you know. Like, so I guess it's like at one point I would have thought this was silly, like, oh, whatever, controversial topics. But I guess in my own life, I've experienced some moments where I'm like, I'm just, I'm not even going to talk to this person. I'm moving to another table at this restaurant. I nailed it.

It was the second time. Oh, God. I never get that stuff right. In fact, I was last night. I couldn't sleep last night. And I was buttering around. Did you say when did Schubert dip come out? Um, and I, I, there, we've talked about this a lot on the show before, but I just, there's a certain itch that modern historical documentaries produced by CNN scratch for me that nothing else does. The Windsors, okay. The Windsors is like that. And also, um, now my thing is, and almost all of these CNN documentaries now in these docu-series are available on HBO. and like you're really into documentaries and like you'll even watch kind of kind of bad documentaries and but like the art form but like these are what I like about them is they're they're formulaic and I think I do have a weird even though I'm not smart about it and I don't retain the information very well I do think I have a fascination with like like kind of modern American history sort of. And the way they're presented, it's just so easy to watch. And there's this series on CNN, also available on HBO Max, called Race to the White House. And it's just they break down. It's like a 45-minute show where they just kind of break down historical presidential races, like going back to I think the earliest one. Well, last night I watched the Eisenhower, who was Eisenhower-Adlai Stevenson race. Oh, wow. It kind of gets into the – I hope I got that right since I just watched it last night. But I gobbled a few of them last night. But anyway, it's such a comforting thing to watch, and you always learn something. I sound like such an old man. Well, you always learn something when you watch my stories. I learned about Adelaide Stevenson. Did I say his name wrong? You said it right.

You said it right. I learned about him because I had to, for work, I had to read this Jill Lepore book about this kind of like the first sort of focus group company called the Simulmatics Corporation. And they were sort of like the first, one of the first groups to kind of figure out that you could put in a bunch of data about people and kind of figure out what they were going to likely do. And they applied it to politics. and I feel like they were talking a lot about how like Adelaide Stevenson just kept losing and just did not have a very broad appeal but they just they oh my god so much water just dumped down oh they're clearly in the floor above me but oh they're now it is that means they're gonna fix it oh my god he's gonna be here Andrew we gotta wrap the show I cannot stand here talking to this microphone when there is going to be a man oh I can't wait oh literally three feet from me Just staring at me

Stripped down to your underwear It's your right It's your house

I'm already in it

Okay Change of plan Put some clothes on But you were going to say That he was like Reluctant to run right Or at least that was The narrative I heard Last night

Oh yeah maybe so They kept drafting him to run But he just was He was a real intellectual Is what I learned about him From that book He was But that problem was At that time That wasn't what was Really appealing to people And they just kept like He would run and lose And then they would like Draft him to run again At the convention and then he would lose and it was just kind of like it was at some point they just needed to be

like Adelaide Stevens and you don't have it can I just here I'm just totally needle dropping this I have no idea where this is I hope this pays off but just like just listen to I don't know 30 seconds of this and just understand like it's late at night Genevieve has conked out I'm just still puttering around making my ice balls and making coffee for the next day I'm making tomorrow's coffee today and i just kind of have this on the ipad and i am i got my ear you know my bluetooth earphones on i'm just puttering around and

taft supporters are there to confront them we were given signs that said utah bees buzz for taft some wise guy new yorker said to me how much did they pay you girls to parade for that awful taft And I took my placard and I hit the man over the head.

Like all of I can't explain it. I mean, do you get any of why I 100 percent the the pacing? It's always the same that I love the narrator's voice. It's the same narrator for all of these, although I think they're directed by different people because they have slightly different styles. But like everything is just in its place. The dramatic music, the the archival audio. I love it. And these things, you also don't have to really look at them either. They just work as podcasts if you're – I was folding clothes last night and not even really looking at the visuals that much.

Yeah, I could totally get into that because I do geek out on feeling like I'm learning a little bit about something. Yeah. You know? Another thing that people who are bad at small talk do, Andrew, is just drop HBO, CNN documentaries. Being hard to follow, number five. Once you've made a connection with each other, keep that connection going by making yourself easy to understand. if you speak different languages for example well this is a little i don't know if i agree with this one if you speak different languages for example slow your speech and enunciate clearly if you tend to speak in slang don't use words they might not know if they uh if they ask what you do for work answer in a way that doesn't take five minutes or deploy a lot of workplace jargon that gets a little dangerously close to speak more loudly if you think someone's

The first language isn't English. They're careful not to say that because obviously that doesn't help anybody. But I will say that we are not enemies. Our countries are friends. I will say that one thing, if I am talking to somebody who speaks English as a second language, I do try to avoid idioms. Or maybe if I might not be good at avoiding it, but I'll hear myself and I'll kind of think, just use regular words. don't slip into expressions that this person might not be familiar with.

Yeah, there's kind of a fine line between trying to be helpful and speak as clearly as possible and just try to meet somebody in the middle. Like certainly if I were trying to converse in Spanish, which would be laughable, it would help me a lot if the person I was talking to tried to keep things fairly straightforward. So you kind of want to be helpful to somebody else, and you also don't want to patronize them. Right, right. So like where that line is is kind of a tough one. Number six, things, something that, oh, my God, you can see the guy. He's washing the bedroom now. So I am in this middle room where the studio is. To my right is the bedroom, and then to my left is a living room. For some reason, this is, I guess you could say serendipity or lucky that they're deciding to wash this part of the building last, giving me the maximum amount of time where I'm not staring at this dude because it's going to be way too much.

So they're washing your bedroom now, not the one above you anymore? So they're now on your level, literally. He is washing the bedroom above my bedroom.

Oh, okay. Gotcha.

I see his bucket. I'm just going to take a picture.

So it is still above you. It's getting ever closer, Andrew. It's very terrifying and embarrassing. Again, I just can't get over. You're much more afraid of heights than I am. Oh, I cannot imagine. But this is just, again, I apologize to the listeners. this is not good podcasting even by our standards but i can't get over it i'm just watching a dude like he's literally 600 feet in the air he's sitting on a little wood thing i mean obviously he's roped in but still like the experience of being out there just must be clearly he doesn't it's not bothering him but it's bothering me is what i'm trying to say to you what if you did i

mean if you applied for a job and you said and there's like you're perfect for the job except you're scared of heights like that's got to be a demerit right like that's going to make the job

more difficult you'd think uh all right we have a visual i just waved did not wave back oh that's probably not a great sign um gotta focus yeah get this guy all right i took a picture of him how's it going man should i open the window and do a quick interview no i mean sure actually wait yeah maybe that would be good why did i say no oh there's two guys oh they have these suction cups Andrew it's amazing so they are

interacting with you at all when you try no they're

working they're at work yeah but now they we we have we have soap has been applied to the windows of the Nest Broadcast Center these the so what this guy has in his left hand is a little like handle thingy that has two suction cups on it and he sticks that to the window to have a handhold and then his right hand has a giant squeegee wow that is satisfying Andrew extremely clean windows. Would you say it's catatonic? I'd describe it mostly as catatonic. Anyway, another thing that people who are bad at small talk do is they talk about themselves too much and or the window washing that's going on at their apartment. I, you know, I have to say that this is, this is one that I go back and forth on the, the talking to yourself talking about yourself thing because uh i do think that i mean a lot of my kind of socializing is telling stories about i mean not just i'm not talking about this which is our job i'm talking about like hanging out at a party i'm i'm often kind of you know regaling people with something that happened to me or whatever which is sort of technically talking about myself i also think i'm an okay storyteller at times so i do i don't think that that's the worst thing um but also i don't know i wonder maybe i do talk about myself too much i think that i think you're good

at reading the room and and that's the important thing there right um you know that there are those people who can tell a stem winder like i mean this is a kind of a bad example but like your boat story and that ended up winning like the drops of stupider as like the best moment on tbtl right your your story about your just absolute boat disaster disaster on the water as uh readers Digest might call it. And that was a really long stem winder. But let's say you have a shorter version of that and you're at a cocktail party and that story comes out. And for like you tell a five to 10 minute version of that story and everybody's on the edge of their proverbial seat. Like that's a good story. That's not like talking about yourself too much. But I also think about the time that I met an old friend. I think I've said this on the show before. I met an old friend from high school for drinks. This is going back a ways. I think maybe around the time I'd first moved to Seattle. So going back to like 2010 ish, maybe me and Genevieve go meet this guy who I used to know in high school. And I remembered him as being kind of obnoxious. I mean, he was in my friend group, but he was Mr. You could be, and again, I know I can be a little bit long-winded at times, and I've been true to that my entire life. So maybe I'm not always saying the most tantalizing thing, but I could be in the middle of saying something, maybe even something important to me, and he would literally interrupt and just say, I love quarters. Like, he was just like, he was so... I hate that. I hate that, too. And then now here we are adults. I hadn't seen him in a decade or two or whatever. And then Vives and I, it turns out he's visiting Seattle. He hears I'm in Seattle. Hey, let's meet up. OK, so me and Genevieve and this guy, I guess I'm not saying his name because I know some of my friends listen and know him. But do you think your friend who loves quarters will know you're talking about him? No, but I know that I have some friends listening who are friends with him who would know what I'm talking about. Anyway, point is, I just remember, like, we sat down, and let's say we had drinks with him for, I don't know, an hour to 90 minutes or something. Like, he only talked about himself the entire time. He never said, and I remember, like, Genevieve leaving, and she's like, what is with that guy? Never once. She said, that guy knows nothing about me. We just sat down with him for drinks for, again, let's just say it was 90 minutes. He never said, oh, hi, nice to meet you, Genevieve. What do you do? Like, just nothing. It was just like a rat-tat-tat-tat-tat of where he is in his life, the mundane grievances he has with work, where he – it's just like it was nothing but him. So I think that's what this writer is talking about there.

I'm Googling how much do window washers make. It supposedly averages between $10,000 and $198,000, which seems like a pretty big range.

Yeah, that's a pretty big – well, ask – well, that could be the first question for your interview with this guy.

Well, this is what I'm wondering because, okay, so –

It would have been really funny if you had just said, I'm Googling why I really like quarters.

Sort of had that vibe. Sorry that I'm obsessed with this, but it's like – I just sent you pictures. There's just two guys just right here where we're trying to do this thing, and I – how many quarters is $198,000?

oh wow that's a great photo of him so he did he saw that you're taking his photo he's kind of

posing for you in this one well this is the thing though is that so it's two dudes doing the work and both of them have more or less so when i went out in the living room i actually took a picture of the dude when i was out in the living room earlier and i was giving him a thumbs up and i was like is it cool if i take a picture and he kind of nodded like that's okay but they're very non-eye contact and i bet you that's part of the job yeah is because think about this if you also So, well, I don't want to generalize, but let's just say if I was maybe an attractive gal, maybe it would be a different situation. I don't know. I'm just not getting the sense that either of these two dudes are extremely vibing with me being in here doing this show. And I wonder if part of the thing is it's just a known thing. You just don't get into a bunch of weird pantomime situations with people because you're going to be looking at people all day long. It would really slow you down. Maybe it's considered unprofessional. You're just there to kind of like clean the windows And keep moving because if you had a little If you had like a 25 second interaction With every person who's like holy shit This is your job Like if you do that over the course of the day You lose like two hours of just those 25 second interactions so maybe Maybe it's an intentional thing or maybe they just don't

Like me I'll bet you there's a combination Of both guidelines And also just you know Some I don't know if jaded is the right word But I mean this is what they do day in and day out And everybody who sees them must be not maybe not everybody, maybe somebody who works in in a building where they see it kind of all the time. Maybe they're not as, you know, impressed, but like they must just be constantly seeing people who are agape and also nude.

Like you think that's why you get into that? I mean, like because you really must just see people in all different states of life, no matter even if the company sends out or the management company sends out an email. Like, I'm sure 1% of the people in this building took note of it. So most of us are just living our lives in here, doing whatever it is we're doing. I mean, you must just see every possible moment of people's lives.

But the question was there for a moment, do you think that's why you get into window washing? Well, nine-year-old Luke Burbank would have considered it.

I just want to make sure I understand the question before I attempt to answer that.

Listen, when I was about 10 and people would ask me, what do I want to be when I grow up? I would say a Playboy photographer because I just thought that would be the best job ever. I get to look at naked ladies. That's my job. So, yeah, if you're asking a 10-year-old Luke Burbank, that would probably be one of the draws of being a window washer. And the – okay, and the seventh thing that people who are bad at small talk do, Andrew. I'm laughing because I don't think you could – I don't think this – you could find something that describes –

The seventh thing that people who are bad at small talk do is they waste people's time. Oh, my. So we're not supposed to be doing that.

No. If we were good at small talk, this would be one of the things we avoid. Uh-oh. If you're talking to someone, talk to them. Don't stare at the floor or look over their shoulder at another person or say you like quarters. That's weird that that was in here. Put your phone away. Be present and give them your full attention. Well, see, I I think that's kind of these are two different things. I think being present is obviously super important in a conversation. I don't know if that's quite the same as wasting someone's time. I think that's definitely two different things. I'm 100 percent on board with you on that. Right. And I think it would be a reasonable thing to say people who are good at small talk. They avoid spacing out. Right. Like one of the things that the seven habits of highly effective small talkers. is that they're present in conversations. And everybody loves that. Like, when you're talking to someone and they can tell that you're interested in what they're saying, again, you're maintaining the right amount of eye contact and you're not kind of looking over their shoulder at who else you should be talking to at the party or checking your phone. Those are all things that make people feel like this is a good conversation to be in. So I don't know if I'd call it waste. We definitely waste people's time on this show, but we're also very present.

We're also pretty present for the most part, yeah. Mostly.

All right. Let's talk about this Tesla thing really quick. I had been seeing these articles about how Tesla's – apparently the NHTSA, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. I think it's –

I don't know if they have a better acronym. They call it NHTSA, I think, don't they? I feel like this is something – I feel like when I was producing shows in New Hampshire a long time ago, this was something that came up a lot. I don't know why. I don't know if it's pronounced NHTSA. It feels like it is.

NHTSA says that there have been 11 incidents since 2018 where Tesla vehicles struck stationary first responder vehicles. There have been 17 injuries. There's actually been a fatality, which is really sad. And I guess it comes down, this is a really great piece. This is actually in Future Tense, which I guess is a kind of a subcategory of Slate. This was somebody named Aaron Mack writing this piece. And then Aaron Mack was interviewing someone named Raj, Raj Kumar, who is an expert on this kind of stuff. And what it sort of comes down to, if I'm reading this right, is that Tesla has stopped using radar for its quote unquote autopilot system. Of course, they would tell you you're not supposed to just like press go on your car and let it drive itself. You're supposed to be keeping your hand on the wheel. It's supposed to just be something that kind of assists you as you drive. Let me also mention, Andrew, that my—because the car that I have, this Mazda CX-5, it has, you know, some of this stuff now. Like, I can put it on a setting where I won't rear-end anyone that I'm following on the freeway, and it tells me if I'm changing lanes and there's a car in my blind spot, it beeps at me. I now can only drive cars that have this technology. When I'm driving a car that doesn't have this, it's terrifying. Like, it's rapid how quickly my ability to operate an older car is atrophying.

I don't think I've ever, and I mean, I guess my sample size is small, but I've never known anybody who has experienced and then become dependent on any kind of, like, driver-assist technology than you, because, of course, it goes back to Australia, because I think that was maybe your first sip from that magic fountain, or maybe an early sip.

Which happened in, like, our last 50 miles.

What do you mean? Right? I thought by, like, day three, you were practically, like, hands off the wheel letting this thing drive. I thought you were obsessed with it, no?

My memory of it, which could be faulty, is that it was kind of late in the trip that I realized that this car would do that for us. And I was lamenting the fact that we'd been driving, you know, eight hours a day or longer for days on end. And it was only sort of at the end that I realized, oh, this thing will kind of steer for us. But that, I mean, it could be somewhere in the middle.

And then, of course, you ended up getting some cars that have some of this technology anyway, but then the irony is going back. So, you know, we're talking about that road trip, which was years ago. Then what was our last road trip? Not just a car without this technology, but a car from 1994 with a steering wheel on the wrong side or on the opposite side, and you can't go over like 65 miles an hour or whatever it is. Like, like you really you really went from I can't drive cars that don't have this driver assist technology to I am driving a horse and buggy now.

Exactly. Well, I'll tell you, it was stressing me out. I mean, I was enjoying driving the Delica, to be totally honest. But you're right. I was I'm so used to like when I was backing it up, I was always like, oh, God, am I going to hit something? Because I'm used to a backup camera now, you know, all that stuff. Well, in this article, apparently Tesla decided to stop using. radar at some point um for who knows why i guess because radar would create these certain kind of false braking situations so they decided to just go with cameras so the tesla is just using a bunch of presumably super duper high-tech cameras now to kind of map the world and what's kind of interesting is it seems like it's just a system of i guess you could say machine learning like these cameras are just supposed to see like a picture of everything that could possibly ever exist uh when you're on the road that's a that's what a you know that's what a stop sign looks like that's what another car looks like that's what a bridge looks like that's what an overpass looks like and it just kind of learns over time through millions of images what everything is yeah i mean

and it seems like yeah this article is fascinating it gets a little uh it gets pretty technical but But you're exactly right. If most of these cars use a combination of this sort of learned camera system in combination with these two different types of radar systems, then the car has a it'll be more kind of careful, for lack of a better word. It'll detect more things. But the radar also means it's going to lead to more false positives. And you'll have it. There is something I was a little confused about why an overpass in particular is going to trigger it. But like cars, these Teslas, when they were using the radar, they were breaking when they didn't need to. And that's not safe either. Like if you're just cruising down the highway or a state route and and your car just breaks because it thinks something is ahead of you and it's not. Well, that's going to be a problem. So Tesla says, OK, we're going to get rid of the radar thing to get rid of that problem. But now it's all machine learning and things are, that is an infinite, I'm sorry, that is a, yeah, that is like a non-infinite or I guess finite is the word I'm looking for. That is a finite system for a car that has kind of infinite possibilities of things that might run into in the road. And that's going to be a problem. And so I'm still confused why specifically it's emergency vehicles. I'll tell you. Is it because of the flashing lights? Was that what they landed on?

So here, with cameras, this is reading from this Aaron Mack piece, with cameras, you basically get numbers, which correspond to the red, green, and blue value of each pixel. These are just numbers on a computer, so the computer has to interpret them and understand what those pixels mean. It's basically a super-duper, very sophisticated pattern-matching scheme. The problem is that in the real world, when it is given an image where it sees an obstacle that it's never seen before, the patterns really do not match. so it won't detect it as a vehicle. For example, when the first person was killed using the Tesla autopilot in Florida, the truck that was hit by the Tesla was perpendicular to the direction in motion. The training did not have those images yet, so therefore the pattern matcher did not recognize that pattern. There have been many recent incidents where the Tesla vehicles run into a fire truck or police vehicle. The lights are on, so the red, green, and blue pixel value look different as well, and therefore the pattern does not match. lo and behold they declare that there's no obstacle ahead and the vehicle very promptly dysfunction has no idea there's something in front of it so because it's never seen that pattern of pixels it basically goes um it goes west world on it that doesn't look like anything

to me and then just deep trunks it yeah yeah and that's and again and how can you input into this machine even if there's a lot of like kind of ai involved every version possible thing that could ever happened and a light you know like a strobe light spinning on top of a fire truck like that's going to hit the camera a zillion different ways it hits your eye a zillion different ways as you pass that thing you know given five seconds as you pass it on the road which also kind of makes me

think damn our brains are amazing like to think that we as human and many of us are dumb by the way that we as dumb humans can figure this out like we are able to navigate the world and we are able to you know pattern match if you will so many more things than this computer can do even are these you know these cameras even though they're like incredibly sophisticated things it is still kind of wild what the human brain is able to do next time i can't remember somebody's

name or i misrecall something i'm just going to get defensive and say well at least i know what A firetruck is.

Andrew, to take it back to my church days, you are fiercely and wonderfully made. What is that? That's just a thing that you used to throw around in church. I think it's a, maybe it's a Bible verse or something. They would say that we are fiercely and wonderfully made as humans.

And I have to say, it actually is kind of true. That's actually a great forward promotion for something that I want to share with you in the email segment, Luke. Sweet. Here I go once again with the email every week. I hope that it's from a fee.

oh man it's not from a female all right what is the fiercely and wonderfully made email that you

want to share with me megan and tenver of the denver dossier i believe um shared a tweet from sam sanders with us this gets a little bit complicated did you see this by that's who did

Don't look at Sam Sanders' tweet. That's who did the tweet last night that I feel was tipping me off about White Lotus.

Oh, really? Well, this is not White Lotus related. It just says the butler did it. You know what hasn't been a minute? Hasn't been a minute since you spoiled White Lotus for me, Sam Sanders. But Sam Sanders was retweeting something. You know, his show is It's Been a Minute, and he had Katherine Hahn on the show. Comedian, actor, Catherine Hahn Who is, of course, we were just mentioning WandaVision Which is a great breakout for her, especially, I think Guess what they learned During this interview, Sam Sanders Interviewing Catherine Hahn on his podcast It's been a minute What did they learn about each other? They both played Salty the singing Songbook What? Sam Sanders retweeted and said I have never met a Salty before You also have this in common with them, right? You played Salty

I was not Salty, but I was in, no, listen, well, I was in Colby, I was in Colby, I think it was Colby 4, God Uses Kids, but the following year was Salty. So Colby was a singing computer that would sing Christian songs, and Salty was a singing psalm book. Now, you want to know something else that's crazy, Andrew? I was looking up Fiercely and Wonderfully Made. It's Psalm 139.

Oh, really? Okay.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know that full well is at least the translation I'm looking at from Bible Hub. So that's what Salty was. Salty was a singing psalm book. I cannot believe that Catherine Hahn played Salty as well. And Sam Sanders, my mind is fully blown because I thought that was a very weird, niche-y thing.

Now, okay, but this was not something that – so you were not in this production. You just were aware of this production and had seen this production before. My sisters were in it.

I think I started off – I think I actually was – I think I was in a Salty production and then literally dropped out for some reason, maybe getting someone pregnant. I don't know. But I'm very familiar with it because these were like kind of Christian music tapes that were circulating in my life.

I had another thing I wanted to share with you, but now I'm wondering if it's wrong because somebody had a comment here about – well, is it songbook or psalm book officially? I think it was Psalm Book, because, of course, psalms are songs, right? Right. Because he has it written as Salty the Singing Songbook.

And somebody was like a real Lucy Dacus situation, messing up Vacation Bible School. Right. Because people are like, you know, don't come at me with the evangelical childhood experience unless your game is tight.

Because Megan also is saying that it should be salty, and salty is spelled P-S-A-L-T-Y, so she thinks that singing should be spelled P-S-I-N-G. Well, you know what's funny?

If you go on YouTube, everybody is, well, you know what? I'm sorry.

You might be wrong about this, huh?

It's been a minute since I've been right about something on this show, Andrew, because I'm looking at this YouTube video. So it says Salty the Songbook. It's Kids Praise 5. And written on Salty is Songbook.

Yeah, I think that. And here it is on Amazon, Salty the Singing Songbook, yeah.

Is that me? No, it's me. Oh, that is me. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Hold on. I've got the email music going and the psalm book. I think I've been saying it wrong my whole life, by the way. Here we go. Let's see what Salty's up to.

Thanks for reminding us, Lisa.

Will you pray for us? Yeah, Lisa, you're good at praying. dear lord thank you for letting all of us go nothing weird about this oh i know this song oh this is yeah kids praise five sure i knew this one i think i maybe i was in this i know this i mean i think i might have been in two of these productions and i'm just like literally blacked one of them out um but uh yeah definitely salty the songbook kids praise five is bringing back some memories yeah just they keep oh number five

like come up with some new ideas hollywood right like just keep on like trotting out the same original emojis film yeah right exactly schaefer wrote in to say um luke was speculating about the amount of time a listener might

spend on tbtl in a given year do you remember throwing that out there recently um and schaefer says i continued the math in my head and if my calculators are correct which is by no means certain we spend about 10.8 days together a year which explains why the three of us are such fast friends i agree schaefer good to hear from you that sounds low to me i'm not questioning shape no it does to me too but i think it's because it's a 24-hour period and we think i'm not days

is the part that we're awake for yeah i'm not trying to question schaefer's math i'm sure it's much better than mine but i that seems i mean it's a very intense 10 and a half days let's just yes

and also like you i think you might have said um i mean what do you think if you look at like let's say the modern era of tb tell the past like five or six years since you and i have been doing it with american public media what do you think is the average length of a show because i think you said 60 but i think that's low well it would have to be because i mean we do a minimum of 60

most days like i right it's it would be very rare for us on a not like uh summer or winter games but on a typical day it'd be very rare for us to turn in under 60 minutes so that's the absolute shortest if we were just to actually just go right out at the one hour mark like right now by my calculation we're about an hour and 20 minutes into this or so right and then sometimes

You go really long So I would say Would you say 90 minutes is the average? No, I think 80 minutes is the average Really?

Yeah, don't you?

Well, I feel like we often go almost to like 90 We almost always go to close to 90 I feel like And then some days we really blow it out of the water We haven't done one of those

No, never Yeah But we've like It's been a long time since we did one of those real just let's go three hours just to mess with the listeners thing just to mess with Lynn

right right yeah we haven't done that in a while okay so here's what I'm doing so I realize so that's we do 260 shows a year right so 52 weeks times you know five weekdays in those weeks so that's 260 shows a year and then if you multiply that by 80 because if we're going to go with the 80 minute show that's oh but now I'm by minutes I can't do this divide it by 60 no do it times 80 and then divide that number by six okay so that number is 20,800 minutes divided by 60 how many hours is that that's 346 hours so then divide 346 divide that by 24 and then divide this by 24 and what do we got see I got 14.44444444 it goes on in for infinity so for you got 14 days and Schaefer got 10 days i got like 14 and a half if you're going with a 24 hour day he might have been going

with the schaefer's been basically slacking on like four of those days he's probably turning it

off early yeah oh what you skipping blurs days schaefer wow i love it when you shadow box over

the birthday it's very fun i like pretending i care all right well um at the you know hour and 20 minute or so mark uh should we wrap things up i think we got to keep going now i had one more

recommendation for a Nancy Griffith song but it was also a music for your weekend recommendation I don't know were you holding on to that do we keep this thread going or no let's play it okay now the question is do you have time for me to look this up because I started talking but the tab was not open and now I have to get through all the do you find it more difficult to log into the tbtl email now I find generally speaking the experience is better once you're in there with this Microsoft Office thing but it definitely takes longer to get in here yeah because it's

toggling between because I actually have a couple of different accounts now well the our APM account is also handled through this Outlook thing now right by the way I had my thrive meeting with our new boss and it was very productive and I really like our new boss and it was funny because this just shows you how low I have lowered the bar at the end of this conversation with our boss has a lot of stuff going on she's spinning a lot of plates she said hey if you could just try to like kind of like occasionally look at your work email because she goes i'm not going to catch everything she goes if i see something that's important to you i will forward it to you but she goes i might not see it i've got these bosses so trained they're they're nervous to ask me to check my work i know it's not i've been really like i had a boss we had a boss he was one of

our worst bosses actually um but he did say like when he was crime just got a new worst boss He did say, like, you've got to check your work email. I'm like, well, I use Gmail. He's like, you've got to check your work email. It's kind of the one time. And that was totally fair. That's totally fair on him to do it. And ever since then, that was years ago. And also, back then, I was having issues. Just to give myself a little bit of slack here, it was like I couldn't get it on my phone because this all comes back to, like, the security at 8 p.m.

And during this time, if you had the email app on your phone, they shut down so many permissions on your phone. You couldn't use public Wi-Fi. And it made my – so anyway, it was just like kind of this black hole of checking my email because I couldn't check it on my phone. I've got that all sorted out now. There's all kinds of technological solutions to these things. So I think asking us to check our work email is not too much to ask. I got this note from our friend Susan in New York in Shrub Oak, New York. gutted by the loss of Nancy Griffith and hoping you might honor her by playing the song. This is a duet that she did with Adam Duritz.

Now, who's Adam Duritz?

Is that a Maroon 5 guy? I should have said, hey, Luke, have you heard of Adam Duritz? Yeah. I'll edit it so that that's the joke. The window washers love that one.

The song is called Going Back to Georgia. Do you know this song, Luke? I don't, and I also didn't realize that we had so many Nancy Griffith fans in our audience. So I'm not super familiar with her work, obviously, but it's been nice to find out more about her and get to play some songs here to kind of honor her this week.

I've been enjoying it a lot myself, actually. So here we go, going back to Georgia.

All right, thanks for listening, everyone. We'll be back here tomorrow. Good news, they probably won't be washing the windows, so I'll be at least 20% focused on my actual job. Until then, have a great Wednesday. Stay safe, and please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

New York, New York is a friend of the traveling kind And I'm coming around from years of hard times He's chased me down to the towns and the miles Once stilled by love, he was bound to roll on by And if you feel my love won't leave you

And if your sorrow has been your share If you are traveling back to Georgia Won't you take me with you there?

Well, I'm long gone, darling, lonesome blue I've been thinking of leaving, I've been thinking of you But that big city singing, man, I like the way that it shines

Yeah, I was half a mile from Canada waiting on a train Wondering and wishing I could disappear again And I've been killed by love. Still it takes me to the end of the line.

If you feel my love won't leave you.

And right on you. Midnight cowboys. That's not a thing. Power out.