Muse

So, Brandon, tell me about yourself. What do you like to do?

I'm just a regular guy. I like NASCAR and fishing. You know, quoting Borat, setting up universe warm-ups. And, of course, Vegas, baby. TBTN! My show's on the Internet, where Beyonce and the president live. He's really having trouble keeping his balance. He's still funny, but not ha-ha funny.

If you ever need somebody to talk to, and you don't want to talk to your dad, you can always come talk to me. Think of me as your secret dad. You keep hiding from s*** in the world, and eventually the world comes to your front door. Nice. That's very nice. I heard an episode of Touched by an Angel.

That's the voice of the youth of America. Just keep your head up, and don't let anybody tell you they're better than you. Because they're not. All right, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Thursday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Hey, where's the freaking gabagoo? My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. When did you find time to eat a diaper that you found on the beach? Coming to you from just off the beach in Santa Monica. Wait, Santa Monica. I knew I was going to do that. I'm sorry. Santa Barbara, California, where I thought I was getting a pretty swank deal with this hotel. They offered an oceanfront view. But really, I'm just looking into the courtyard of a restaurant called Chad's, where everyone is having breakfast and looking at the weirdo talking into a microphone. I'm here in Santa Barbara because of the TV story I'm doing about the history of Hidden Valley Ranch dressing.

There's a Hidden Valley Ranch party in my mouth.

And I actually went to the Hidden Valley Ranch yesterday, violated a number of no trespassing signs, and snuck into the facility, onto the premises, which we'll talk about today, Among other things, on episode 3,497 in a collector's series.

Let the fun begin.

We're also going to find out if Andrew played high school football with a dude who is now a head coach in the NFL.

You gotta be a real football nerd to sit through the whole thing.

And did that NFL head coach bully Andrew? Spoiler alert, we are talking about Bill Belichick. Also, people are climbing on milk crates and falling off of them.

Let's take on projects that we know we can't do and do them.

And the Internet is very excited about this. I'm going to be honest with you. It is fun to see somebody just eat absolute shit when trying to do something they can't do. But I saw something here in Santa Barbara related to all this, which seemed very mysterious to me. So we'll talk about that. and also because it's a Thursday, a.k.a. Blur's Day.

Blur's Day today.

We'll do the Blur's Day messages. We'll do all that with the help of this guy, longest-running Cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He is Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now from the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning. I think I just got TBTL'd myself. Or maybe a better way of putting that is I now know what it's like to be an editor for the TBTL newsletter, because I got a late-breaking Blur's Day message just in through the transom. And that's the sound for that.

TVTL breaking news.

And it involved the word cramping, as in I hope you enjoyed our cramping trip. And I honestly was not sure if that was a typo or an inside joke because, you know, people, I like the Blur's Day messages because people kind of have their—we get exposed to people's little secret love languages, right? And sometimes that sneaks in there, and I love it. But also it's hard to tell a typo from, you know, love languages sometimes, and that's exactly what happens.

And or something that we said accidentally that then became, you know, the lexicon of the show.

Exactly. Like, I mean, how many times have people tried to correct spread she? How do they not understand that spread she is the proper way to spell spread she? You know, that's kind of obvious to me. Anyway, that's what's going on in my life.

What do you think cramping would be? Glamping is glamorous camping. And cramping, I mean, of course, what comes to my mind is you have diarrhea. You're crapping, but you're also camping. It's a bad scene. You're cramping.

I, at first, because my brain was doing something weird with the letters, I thought it maybe was like car camping. But the type of car camping where you're in the backseat doubled over because you have bad stomach pains. I don't know, something like that What about your camping

But it's Christmas But the guy that's not Santa Comes Krampus comes here Cramping Cramping with Krampus

Krampus must have come early I knew we were going to end up there

Can Krampus must have come early Be a show title

Are we saying that right though Is it Krampus Why does it sound weird now

I believe that's the Like it's some kind of Scandinavian Santa That comes and like Takes things or something

Yeah I think so Are shoes involved I don't know man Baby shoes, barely used. Somebody made a scary Christmas movie called Krampus a few years back. Right, exactly.

Like the people, I don't know, on a Thursday, why do I have to start the show negative? But I think there's a kind of a person who takes great delight in Krampus because it's like, guess what? Everyone's zigging with this Santa. I'm going to zag with this Krampus.

Genevieve's in the doorway here. Am I saying Krampus correctly, Genevieve?

Yeah. Do I say Krampus funny?

Do I say Krampus funny? Krampum up. Thumbs up on that. We're doing great. Yes, we're doing really well. How are you doing there in Santa Barbara?

Well, I'm having trouble, Andrew. I'm not going to lie to you. I feel like I'm off to a rough start with this show. I went for a little beachside jog this morning and then got back to the hotel, this allegedly fancy hotel that CBS has some kind of deal with and it's called the Hotel Milo I'm just going to tell you and if you were to look at the pictures you would think boy oh boy Luke is farting through silk there in Santa Barbara but no I'm just farting through regular shorts because it looks so nice from the pictures but it's quite threadbare at least the room that I'm in and when I got back to the room this morning the entire room smelled like a sewer oh what like and in fact you know i had noticed it on the beach noticed it sewer on the beach there were you know this happens in a lot of cities las vegas comes to mind where there's just something going on with how their you know sort of sewer system is and they'll just be a block where you're like whoa i'm getting a big hit of that and so as i was uh as i was getting closer to the hotel i was noticing that smell and i thought whoa that's unfortunate for a beautiful city like santa barbara and then i got in my room and i was like oh it's all centering it's it's it's emanating from my actual hotel room and i think it's at the water you has it was following

me on the entire run it's like that's not in the hotel it's like that time i couldn't escape that terrible stink in the backyard and uh the babysitter and my sister didn't think it was so bad and it turns out because the duck shit was in my hair it was following they suddenly realized

They were smelling me

So it sounds like we've really Pinpointed the problem here

I think There are two issues going on One is that there actually is some kind of a Sewage You know smell issue Going on in this part of Santa Barbara and then I think the other thing is that The water is very sulfuric It's not the water That's not what I've heard

Sorry to cut you off I couldn't not um you think water is always like this i have a um also can i just say the

cups the plastic cups that they now have in hotels for drinking water they're like one use plastic cup they're so unsatisfying to drink water from for some reason i know that it's a covid world and also there's probably a lot more work associated with glass wear in hotel rooms but you know i'm talking about that clear plastic cup that's it's it's usually sealed in its own plastic bag and it's always kind of like next to the coffee maker that you don't want to use you

know what it's not terrible for late night secret whiskey sips there's something maybe stirred with your remote control there's something kind of like to me that feels like i don't know like uh old school about a little illicit a little illicit yeah not old school just a little illicit about like oh maybe a little taste of whiskey maybe you come to the west coast what voice am i doing um

You're doing kind of a Bruce Willis. Kind of a Bruce Willis, but yeah. I have a few laughs. That was right before he realizes something smells like a sewer in this air duct. Oh, no, it's me. The call is coming from inside the Bruce Willis.

I will say that those cups are pretty small, too. I like to chug water. I like to guzzle water, especially in the morning. You wake up. You're parched. Yeah, and when you have to stop to refill the cup, it's not the most satisfying thing.

Also, the problem, again, I didn't think this through. Maybe I could have gotten some ice. Our buddy Camaro Kev is the king of getting ice right when he checks into the hotel room. That's like the first thing he does. Oh, that's cool. He and I were once at a – we went to a casino to watch a fight. I think we went to the Little Creek –

casino and the funny part was it was so booked that we had to stay at a different casino we we went to one casino to watch a boxing match it was live but we couldn't get a room at the casino so we ended up staying at an adjacent casino okay um that had rooms and it was kind of a bit of a shabby place we were staying and the thing that kamara did was immediately when we got there he went and he got all this ice from the ice maker and i will tell you my friend the next morning when he put that into some of these little plastic cups and put the water in it was like i was drinking water from you know the fountain of youth it was restorative because the temperature so i didn't think this through because had i gotten some ice this would probably be okay but what i'm drinking right now is tepid sulfuric water while a fam a nice family uh waits for their name to be called

so they can get breakfast at chad's and they start have you asked i mean have you asked anybody at the hotel why it stinks is that a rude question well i feel like i'm already becoming kind of a

problem customer here because i thought the wi-fi wasn't very fast and i called them and i said because i'm this is a fairly kind of sprawling hotel complex and i am at the far end of it so i called last night because andrew i think of you even when we're not you know together you're always on my mind when it stinks and i i turned on the computer and i thought oh this is a not great wi-fi connection and i have to do the show with my friend andrew tomorrow so i called the front desk and i was trying to figure out what's going on and the woman at the front desk said no one has ever complained about the wi-fi being slow i mean she didn't say it in a mean way but it was clearly like out of the blue yeah like it wasn't like people call on the reg and go why is the wi-fi slow yeah and um and so uh there was another thing that i wanted there's something else i wanted that i called and they didn't have oh i wanted to get a late checkout today and they don't do that because the hotel is sold out also the wi-fi is great i was gonna say this is a really

good connection um right it's better than we had the last time you're on the road so i guess and

that would explain why the woman was slightly confused when i called complaining about a thing

that no one's ever complained about yeah well maybe if you see her on the way out just say

hey by the way the internet ended up being great thank you again yes um can i tell you about my I had a real sort of Axel Foley, Beverly Hills cop. Banana? Tailpipe? If I do an impression of Eddie Murphy saying, ain't nobody putting a banana in the tailpipe, is that on the line from a race standpoint?

Let me put it this way. The world won't miss it if you don't do it. It's not like we're not putting enough out there.

But you set it up. You said a thing. You called, and the response is me saying. Doing an impression of Eddie Murphy, doing an impression of Taggart.

Do it in the voice of Clinton. Do the line in the voice of President Clinton.

Ain't nobody going to put no banana in the tailpipe.

See? That was good. The world would have missed that.

Oh, by the way, that dude, one of the detectives from Beverly Hills Cop plays a main role in Midnight Run.

Oh, well, it's obviously the guy who isn't Judge... Exactly, Judge Reinhold.

Yeah, the guy who's not Judge Reinhold He's like the third lead in Midnight Run And granted, I think he plays an important role In Beverly Hills Cop But I wonder if he felt like After he did Midnight Run He was like, well, now I'm a leading man I just did a movie with De Niro and Charles Grodin And now he's a guy who Eddie Murphy is saying Ain't gonna put no banana in the tailpipe too

Now, I remember him vaguely Is he almost like walking heartburn? Did you kind of give off that vibe?

I've never heard a human Describe that way But yes, exactly Did you come up with that?

Yeah, I think so Just kind of like He just looks like he's He looks deseptic He just looks like

He just shotgunned A thing of Tums At all times That is the best description Of that kind of dude in film

Is he the same in Midnight Run? More or less

I bet these movies were shot you know a year apart and or in fact maybe maybe midnight run came out after beverly hills cop is that possible well we can look that up that i don't i don't want that to be true because i think of midnight run as being a really long time ago but i bet you i bet you this was after after midnight or i'm sorry i bet you midnight run came after beverly hills cop uh give me a couple of

Give me a couple of guesses on a year for each

Okay

I feel like Beverly Hills Cop was like

85 or 86 Okay And you think Midnight Run might have been My thought is Midnight Run Any movie with Robert De Niro seems like it was made in the 70s Other than Meet the Fockers 2 Even more Fockers

so my so the midnight run because i only recently came to it um and shout out to listener i think it's april who was tweeting it's one of their favorite movies um and was stoked that we were talking about on the show midnight run seems to me like it's from 81 but my guess is i bet you it's from 87 and it's and it's actually newer than beverly hills cop you are right that it is newer

And you were very close on each of these years. You had Beverly Hills Cop at 85. It was actually 84. But, Luke, it was December of 84, my friend. December of 84. I don't remember. Yeah. And then Midnight Run was a summer release July of 1988. So he was in Beverly Hills Cop first and then Midnight Run.

He gets a more prominent role. I need to talk about sneaking into Hidden Valley Ranch. But can I just speaking of dates tell you something that has been going around the internet that I was staring at this fact for 20 minutes the other day thinking this can't be true. But do you realize that 1980 is as far from 1939 as it is from 2021?

Oh, OK. Sorry. I'm going to sip on my sulfur water while you contemplate.

It took me a second to figure that out. OK. How's that water? It's actually less bad than it smells. That is an astounding stat. So when it was 1980 and you and I were like four years old or three years old, somebody who had been born in 1939 would have seemed extremely old. It would have been like, how can people even be born in 1939? Right. And now at 2021, we are the distance from 1980 that that person would have been, if that makes sense. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I've gone on this weird ramble on the show before, so I'll just give you the bad Cliff Notes version here. But, I mean, I grew up listening to the Beatles and being obsessed with, like, that era, right, and just thinking, like, it was so, so, so long ago. But I was listening to that in, like, 1986, and they were making music in, like, 1966. It was 20 years. that was like the difference from me listening to the Beatles in the 80s is like I don't know somebody who's like 13 years old or maybe 10 years old now listening to something from 2001 like it wasn't old when was Schubert dead? I just could not as I became an adult and I started thinking about how I fascinated and fascinated is kind of the wrong word there but the way I just like thought about that era of the Beatles and everything that went along with it and the hippie culture eventually and all of that and how I romanticized it and just like looked at it through these kind

of rose colored glasses of and also probably felt a little special because you were listening to something archival like you were like and I'm not saying this to like you know roast you because I think I had the same feeling about like Led Zeppelin or something but it was like you're like I'm one of the few people who gets this old timer music maybe a little bit I don't know if I had that

exact context but it definitely felt like discovery to me it felt very in a certain way like yeah Everybody knows that I want to hold your hand, but everybody's got something to hide except for me and my monkey. Like, does anybody even know about this song? You know, it's a little bit of like, yeah, a little bit of that, a little bit of like kind of discovery and just it felt magical sort of. And it's like, oh, yeah, that would be like somebody like romanticizing something that came out in 2001.

i am i speaking of things that i saw on twitter uh that i guess may or may not be factually correct i think i saw something like the beals were actually together for four years

that's not not four but it was something like that because like i think did they come to america in 65 i think we had this conversation on the show it was a photograph what it was was

a photograph of the first time that they ever you know and this is like not pete best era but Like, the first time that the Beatles were ever photographed together, which presumably would be, like, at the Cavern Club or something, and then the last time they were ever photographed together. And the time was, like, a shockingly short – I feel like six years?

I think that was ten – yeah, maybe something like that. But, I mean, they were – I'm looking just for the official record. Like, officially they were years active 1960 to 1970, but 1960 is a very early version, a very early version of the Beatles.

I have what we call restraint

yeah everybody knows that famously known for my restraint but I think it's like 1964 1965 that they're starting to be the Beatles that we know of now right so yeah I mean that's basically six years and that's what I remember we had this conversation because like that was another realization I had as I got older and time was it had more context to it and I was like yeah this whole era of boy they were young and it was black and white and Thank you.

1964 and then it was psychedelic and in color in 1970 and they're in india with the maharishi i'm just like that's like six years like that was just like that was a blink of an eye did you i mean

yeah that's like probably 1.6 marriages for me um did you uh take no i mean obviously you saw this but did you have thoughts about uh the drummer for the rolling stones uh charlie watt dying I didn't I always kind of like the cut of his jib but I don't know really a lot of the lore and and what have you around the stones but he was like he was there was never another stones drummer was there now I'm just turning it back Pete Best had a mint which is weird no I also didn't know a lot about him but over the course of the last two days I've been hearing obituaries and then I was reading something this morning that was actually very interesting from this guy who wrote a whole sort of biography I guess of the Rolling Stones The reason I thought of it was because Paul McCartney was on Twitter eulogizing Charlie Watt.

Oh, nice.

I guess that there was this point in about the 1980s, maybe 84. We think of it as the Beverly Hills Cop era, that Keith Richards had finally gotten sober from heroin. He went a real singer-songwriter of the weekend. I'm reading this obit, and they're like, Keith Richards had finally gotten sober, And then later in the piece, it's about how he and Mick Jagger were just getting ham-boned in Amsterdam. Yeah, right. It was like, oh, we're just doing less heroin. Okay, cool. But so Keith Richard had finally gotten off of the H. And Mick Jagger was apparently obsessed with becoming a solo artist because he really, really wanted to be David Bowie. And David Bowie had this amazing ability to kind of like jump between, which would also explain their dancing in the streets version. But it's sort of like when David Bowie does Dancing in the Streets or Labyrinth or what have you, he doesn't lose any, you know, Ziggy Stardust cred. But like Mick Jagger at this point, according to this biographer, had started to think of the Rolling Stones as kind of holding him back. Oh, bad, bad idea. He wanted to be this. He wanted to be a solo hit as well. And so he signed he was supposed to be negotiating a contract for the band with whoever their label was. but according to this one telling of things he just basically signed some massive solo deal for himself and everyone was super pissed at him so um newly sober keith richards was really mad because he was basically like uh you know we've we all have to the band has to be the priority like we we could all you know get some kind of solo deal we could all go off and do our thing but if we want this to keep going we have to it's like a relationship we have to make this a priority basically was keith richards's opinion and charlie watt was supposedly just kind of like ride or die with the rolling stones even though funnily enough he didn't like being famous he wasn't that into the kind of music they played he was a he was a jazz man yeah i knew that like the the first time the rolling stones went to new york the only thing charlie watt wanted to do was go to birdland um so uh so he was uh charlie watt was there they all meet up in answer to him to have some kind of meeting and uh i think it's uh uh keith richards loans mick jagger his favorite coat like jacket and mick jagger and keith richards go out and just get bombed again newly the weekend sober and uh that's like the new cali sober uh and they they they come back to the hotel room and a mick jagger calls charlie watt's room and says oh is my drummer there and this is five in the morning by the way dude is clinton i'm not your puppet so the story goes that charlie watt shows up at the hotel room it's 5 a.m he has not been drinking because he was

not a crazy person he's in a suit he's shaved he has cologne on dude is like ready to go with life and mick jagger is called and said where's my drummer and charlie what comes into the room and says don't ever call me your drummer again punches him with a right hook which apparently it was he's a pretty decent punch Mick Jagger is falling out the window into a canal in Amsterdam and Keith Richards only saves him because he's wearing Keith Richards favorite jacket and it probably

had some heroin in it and also it had some which he was considering getting back into right so I

I don't know. I read that story this morning. I probably told it poorly, but I thought it was.

No, it's funny. You know, me and I always that that resonates with me, because in our industry, you will hear people refer to like my producer or even sometimes like I worked with a senior

that's exactly why. Like the headline was, don't call me your drummer. And that's exactly where my

brain went. Yeah. And or just even my host. It's funny how it can be. It can be just off putting Yeah, you've... either side of the power dynamic or whatever you perceive that power dynamic to be because i've heard hosts refer to my producer and i don't really love that and then i worked with a producer who would sometimes say well i got to go back and talk to my host and be like you're talking about laura we just had dinner at laura's house last night please stop referring to her as your host it's just a weird flex yeah i i've always felt really uncomfortable with that and in like this tv stuff you know you might say someone could say my crew which i would never say i would say the crew or the producer or the camera person like i really don't like that kind of weird possessive you know way of describing humans um also his name is charlie watts i think i was dropping the s which you know you know it's a good obit when the person delivering it doesn't actually have the person's last name totally correct i don't think that's important in an obit isn't there who's mike watt mike watt is a indie music person i think mike watt and charlie watts those last names always come across in my mind like what was like what fire hose and um what was his first one something i mean i used to just see his name on like you know posters at like rock clubs i would go to yeah minute men was his first one then fire hose i think and uh yeah i know him he was in the minute men uh he he was a he was a minute man yes no but i mean no no i don't know he was in the yeah he was in the band the band the minute men yeah yeah right um i'm andrew i've gone from being embarrassed that people are staring at me to hurt that no one's noticing that is the that is the fine line of Luke Burbank right there we're gonna walk that fine line I know you're between being embarrassed and being butthurt it's it's like when I'm in a party I hate it when people ask me what I do but then when I tell them what I do and if they're not impressed enough I get mad oh good you're finally catching on to my rhythms I'm gonna send you two pictures one is actually the neither Neither of these really pay off, but at some point, you know, we have listeners named Chad in Peace and Love. It's a, you know, it's a fine name, but it is a name that's now been sort of loaded a little bit, you know, because it's seen as, well, people use it as shorthand for the male version of a quote-unquote Karen, which also, we have lots of listeners named Karen, and it's like, what a bum deal to wake up one day and find out that everyone's decided your name is the way to describe a person who's sort of poorly behaved. But this restaurant being named Chad's Strikes me as kind of odd Oh that is Chad's So it's apostrophe S Yes this is apparently Chad's restaurant Okay yeah There was a huge line at one point Which is when I felt self conscious But now the line is dissipated By the host stand And now no one's paying attention to me And again it kind of hurts Well I'm half listening if that means anything Alright let's take a break And we come back I do want to tell you about my trip up to the Hidden Valley, and so much more here on TBTL. Stay with us.

Hey, let's thank some donors of the day. These are the wonderful, generous people keeping this whole thing going. Jennifer Evanoff is in Chicago, Illinois. Andrew, I may have to fly into Chicago next week Or St. Paul Well, you don't fly into St. Paul Or Minneapolis I'm trying to get to Sioux Falls, South Dakota next Friday For a TV story And it turns out Nobody flies to Sioux Falls Huh Not directly, anyway? I mean, I've been through Sioux Falls It seems like a wonderful, robust place I stopped at a great Starbucks there A local coffee joint, I believe And today I was trying to figure out well, how am I going to get to Sioux Falls? And it turns out you go by way of Denmark. Wait, hold on, though. They literally don't have an airport, are you saying? Or are you just no direct flight? No, they have an airport, but there are very, very few direct flights to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Other than if you're leaving Chicago, which is why I thought of Jennifer Evanoff, or the Twin Cities. You've got to already be kind of almost in Sioux Falls. Yeah. And then you can get a flight. Like, Sioux Falls has a flight to Sioux Falls. I can see that That's a food flight There is a layover which is weird But no It's in Sioux Falls I think Going from Portland to Sioux Falls It turns out all but impossible So Jennifer I'll see you in Chicago Next week Also Morgan Gilchrist Scott Is in Middleton Wisconsin There is a flight from Middleton Wisconsin to Sioux Falls That might be Gilchrist Scott Gilchrist Not Gilchrist? Not Gilchrist? It sounded like Gilchrist. I don't know. I don't usually like to correct people. I just wanted to make sure, though, just in case, because, you know, it's their name. Do you think—how about the first name? I kind of—it looks like Morgaine. I know. I've seen that name around, too. Yes, Morgaine. Morgaine has been a long time ago.

supporter of the program we do appreciate exactly yeah yeah and i've also seen that name like you know attached to other people as well i think it's morgan and i think that the this person has emailed in before to tell us i just don't remember because my brain is bad but um it could be morgan

i don't know how about alexis gee also in chicago it's going to be an alexis jennifer and luke party Oh, yeah, I'm jealous already. Morgane is invited, too. Just come on up. We're talking about the upper Midwest at this point. It's all kind of the same thing. How about Lisa and Christian McKee in Portland, Oregon? Nice. That sounds familiar. Portland, Oregon. Have you been? I've considered it. You've also got Michael and Langley Meade checking in from Redmond, Washington. Speaking of flights, do you know that for many years I'd be sitting in SeaTac Airport and I would see Alaska Airlines launching flights out to Redmond, and I would just think, boy, can't you just drive? I mean, it's not fun on 520 when there's traffic, but I was like, I can't believe they're flying to Redmond. That just must be for real Microsoft, you know, high-level people that are like, we're going to take a flight to Redmond. And then I realized one day, oh, Redmond, Oregon.

Ah, okay, I see.

Different place and the kind of place you would want to fly to because it is a bit, you know, it's a bit of a hike.

Now, I think Langley might be the young listener who sometimes leaves jokes on our voicemail machine.

Wow. Langley making it into the donors of the day. Langley, did you do some extra chores or, you know, resubmit part of your allowance? Do you think kids get allowance anymore? I don't know anything about kids. I told Camaro Kev and JD that I was like, I might have more kids. And they were shocked The shock on their face told me Maybe that's not a good idea Like It looked like I was telling them I might adopt a rescue Komodo dragon Like They just were like What? And I was like yeah I like kids They're fun I had a kid I was very young It was very stressful Come out to the coast Have a few kids

I think the argument I like kids. They're fun. I think that's... They are fun. No, I know. I think you've proven that you're ready to be a father again.

Langley, you have a new father. But you better be fun. Also, Kristen Myers is in Seattle, Washington. Kristen, thank you for supporting the show. Thanks to all of our donors of the day, especially Langley, for making today's episode possible. hello and welcome to top story all right um i am here in santa barbara because of uh this story about ranch dressing which was i guess invented you know 40 minutes from here up at this house that is was known as hidden valley ranch uh this dude named steve henson uh moved down to santa barbara with his wife and kids he had made a bunch of money in alaska as a plumbing contractor and he moved down here and his dream had always been to have a ranch of some kind and so he went and bought this property the funny part is it's not a ranch there are no animals there's no grassland it's on a steep hill it's like a place where you would just build a really bitchin house in santa barbara like you know what i mean like the the salad dressing Bottle looks like rolling hills And you have this whole kind of image that the Clorox Corporation has created Around ranch and I know you're not A ranch head because it's too creamy

For you like is there a chance that You did not actually see that because the whole Point is it's hidden did you see the real

Ranch I will tell you this That shit hidden yeah It'd be hidden different it'd be hidden different It is very it is hard to find And you go down this winding road Where you it's like this Crazy windy dirt road that's very steep and is one way and it's a lot of no trespassing signs so you're kind of like oh are we allowed to do this but in fact we got down there there was somebody that was just taking care of the property and I was like hey we're doing a story about the salad dressing also by the way I believe there was a bit of a language barrier but this nice fellow was like yeah come on by do whatever so we filmed a bunch of stuff there and I wandered around the place where the

guy invented ranch dressing now did you ask him if it's a dressing or a condiment because that

would have been did you think about that well right this whole uh trip at least i'm doing three stories while i'm down here but the whole part of the trip that's been around this ranch dressing thing i have been we write these little promos and teases and what we call stand-ups there's all these things where i've been writing around this topic and every time i call it a dressing i think of archives. conversation about it's a different dressing so i split the difference i did this promo it was so corny where i was like standing in front of the place where they invented it and i said like something like this is uh i said hidden in this valley is the home of america's favorite salad dressing ahead on cbs sunday morning we dip into the story of ranch wow yeah that's the response

that deserves is it ever i'm not proud of myself is that a claim that they make well it it replaced

Italian dressing as the most used salad dressing at some point like 20 years ago you have to put your own bias aside

I realize that my tastes do not align with most American tastes I realize that but I am surprised because it seems it just seems less universal by nature and again I know that I don't go in for it so I am biased here but it just sort of seems like I would guess it would be something Something that's just kind of quick and oil based Just seems more universal by nature And that it would just be more available As opposed to something so like kind of creamy That I associate with a kind of A different specific salad experience But again

That's a great question I mean I wonder Because I was about to say I bet you that fewer Americans than you would think Have olive oil and balsamic Just in their pantry Because I think of that Because I didn't even know that was a thing You would do for salad dressing or to put on bread until I was in my adulthood. So weirdly enough, even though those are sort of basic ingredients, that seems fancier to me or more refined. Like the first time I walked into a restaurant and they brought some bread and there was a little – there was olive oil and balsamic. I was like, ooh. Yeah.

No, I do like that. And even when I said oil-based, I didn't even mean like that you would maybe just quickly whisk it up yourself, which of course you can do. But I just like Italian just seems so flexible to me just generally speaking. Of course, like I say, it's also one of the dressings that I eat. Do you know that I grew up not eating any dressing? Well, that's not going to shock you, right? Like, I would eat my salads dry until I got to an age where I started asking for a lemon wedge. And then I would put lemon wedges. It was not until probably, I'm going to say after college, well into adulthood, that I started experimenting with some of these, you know, like, again, a light Italian, a vinaigrette, something like that.

So even Italian was too, I don't know, liquid for you as a kid?

And what was the experience you didn't like? You know, it's really hard to say. It was so psychological with me. And also, a lot of it did come from my older sister, sort of like what she found gross, I found gross. And so, I don't know. For some reason, I just grew up thinking that salad dressing is gross. And obviously, that was my approach to a lot of foods, yet some of them I've kind of turned the corner on and others I haven't. I will eat – when I order sandwiches now from Tubbs, which I want to do, I don't even say no mayo anymore. I've just been eating mayonnaise on sandwiches, and I think I've said this before. And aioli was the gateway drug for you on that, right? And again, how psychological is that? Like call it something else and suddenly I'm not scared of it anymore? I cannot defend – not that anybody is asking me to, but I can't defend my kind of quote-unquote tastes on these things. I really do think it's very psychological.

cool uh well the guy who is credited with inventing hidden valley ranch so the story if you go to the clorox website because clorox bought this salad dressing dip what have you uh in the 70s i think they tell the story of him inventing it in alaska and bringing it down like which makes no sense by the way the story is like he was trying to keep his you know his plumbing contractors happy by making this dip i'm like in the bush of alaska with like no running water yeah he's just out there making salad dressing sure but he um he did apparently invented at this dude ranch that he and his wife bought with their money that he got from alaska from his contracting they overbuilt it nobody showed up it was kind of a financial disaster was repossessed a couple of times but the one thing everyone who came liked was this dressing the dude was making and yesterday we interviewed like basically the last living person who was there when it was invented because the the guy and his wife have both both passed away their their children are in ill health uh and have passed away so we basically had this guy who was kind of david copperfielded into their family like this dude's story is he lived up the hill from the hidden valley ranch and the school bus took way too long to get either up or down the hill so he and one of the hidden valley ranch family's kids used to hitchhike to school together because they lived nearby and he had like he didn't have a mom he lived with his dad his dad was absent so he just kind of got adopted into this hidden valley ranch scene and has these crazy stories of like everything that would go on at this place um like the guy who drew the first hidden valley ranch bottle Thank you.

like the logo for it he was an animator at hana-barbera and the dude said that this guy was clearly the person fred flinstone was based on like he didn't draw fred flinstone he looked like fred flinstone and clearly someone else at hana-barbera had been looking at the guy who drew the first hidden valley ranch bottle and was like that's how we're making our caveman like somebody's

just like kind of daydreaming at work and they just kind of look across the drawing table room That's what they call it, right? The drawing table room? Yes. And they start sketching their friend or their colleague. Yes, and that's Fred Flintstone.

And the dude who looks like Fred Flintstone is the dude who actually drew the first logo and bottle for Hidden Valley Ranch. Again, basically the thing, the ranch itself was a flop. So eventually it's the dude and his wife and also the guy who owned the ranch when he repoed it one time. his terms were you got to cut me in on this salad dressing situation so they they got to keep the ranch by making this guy kind of like a co-partner and then he invented this like sort of elaborate system that would dump the various kinds of spices into a plastic bag so you could pull a lever and it would it would combine all of the things that are the spices for hidden valley ranch And then that would go into a bag And then they would mail that out It was a mail order system when Clorox bought it from them

Sounds like that's taking away jobs For Americans By having an automated mixer

Hard working plastic bag fillers I think it was Steve and Gail Henson Were the hard working plastic bag fillers Who were probably very happy to get to just pull a lever

The robots are coming for our jobs Is my point I'm just trying to make sure that TBTL remains true to its roots of like kind of am radio trying to keep it topical you know kind

of populism but with a real undercurrent of just uh you know predatory behavior like we're about the people except we're gonna do this ad for um some kind of reverse mortgage for your grandmother and guns and and guns anyway um so uh we talked to this dude who knows the recipe which i guess is pretty secret and there's there's an ingredient that has never been talked about uh that was in the original hidden valley the other funny part is the guy that we interviewed he lives in ojai have you been to ojai i don't think so it is heaven my friend it is the most wonderful place i may have ever been to in my life when i die i want to be reincarnated uh in as an avocado tree in Ojai because it is just the guy was explaining to me it's one of the few valleys in California that runs east to west I guess most of the big valleys think about the San Fernando Valley or the you know Sacramento Valley or whatever they run north south the Ojai Valley runs east west and because of that there's an interesting light situation it gets very pink at a certain hour of the night because of how the sun moves and it is just unbelievably gorgeous there so that's where we caught up with the dude who has the recipe And he had the secret ingredient And it was wrapped in like paper And then he unveiled it during the interview And he said he's only comfortable talking about it Because everybody related to the story has passed Because he said he was sworn to secrecy Back when he was like a teenager When he was a foundling living at the Hidden Valley Ranch

So we know how good his word is We know how long his word is good for I think those things expire when people die

Anything that I swore you to secrecy over You're free to tell the listeners when I'm dead

Oh wow man, that'll really ruin your legacy forever though I've done a pretty good job of ruining my legacy all on my own.

Thank you very much. So, yeah, so it was really kind of a fun, again, as a person who does like ranch dressing and is interested in the lore of this thing.

Oh, the guy invented it.

I've eaten zero ranch dressing on this trip, which is the irony.

That is weird. So it wasn't like going to the Charlie's Chocolate Factory. I'm having some trouble with words, man. It's not Charlie's Chocolate Factory. It's Willy Wonka's. I think it becomes Charlie's at some point. Well, it was eventually, though. Yeah, that's a good point in a spoiler. Sorry, kid.

I did get in a glass elevator, which didn't seem up to code.

Boop, Charlie, boop.

The guy who invented it apparently, his thought was, I want to come up with a lower-calorie version of blue cheese. Again, another thing that you don't mess with. But he supposedly started off wanting to just make a blue cheese-style dressing that was lower-cal. And so he made this thing with, like, Miracle Whip and some spices. and he told the guy that all the like spices the things that he threw into the dressing a lot of it was just for effect it was just to kind of make it look fancy um and uh and and yeah it was a um it was a big hit and i'm not telling people the uh the secret ingredient because i want to force them to watch cbs sunday morning and find out for themselves oh but you are telling

it on on the show so these people i'm telling i'm whispering it to you and you can tell them when i die okay later this week that sounds good um so uh yeah we got to the ranch and it's now owned by some land like some sort of business consortium like you know there's some like some i assume it's a tax shelter some some weird string of numbers and letters owns it now and it's not anything related to dressing and we went down there and they have this insane swimming pool like it must to be three times as large as the pool that i had in bellingham which was a weirdly large swimming pool to have at your house like it is like an olympic sized swimming pool that is just perched at the edge of this this canyon that goes all the way down to santa barbara and golita it is an insane view and everything else there the swimming pool is pristine the guy was there cleaning the pool everything else is just completely and totally dilapidated really oh yeah it was kind of sad yeah yeah that pool sounds amazing though oh my god i know i was very tempted to jump in but i felt like the guy the caretaker was being nice letting us be there i thought me doing a cannonball

would have probably been one cannonball too far that would have made great television though

um let's uh let's talk about your possible brushing of shoulders with an actual nfl coach

It's Mike Vrabel Yeah, who, I mean, I wasn't sure if this was somebody who you followed as a player Because he was an NFL player too Yeah, I think I was aware of his career a little bit

I mean, I think he was like a linebacker or something, a defensive guy

Yeah, I think he was a linebacker And I don't follow these things closely I like my Browns, I like my Seahawks But I don't have a lot of institutional knowledge about the NFL Especially former players But, you know, I've heard the name Mike Vrabel being tossed around and he was in the news last week or maybe earlier this week because he's tested positive for the coronavirus and it's implied that he's vaccinated too because they said oh wow all the coaches on the titans i believe he coaches for the tennessee titans um the rule is if you are a coach in contact with players then you have to be um vaccinated so i think it's implied that he is vaccinated um anyway so that's why that's why he's in the news and for some reason hearing his name and i don't know why maybe i was like well what team does he coach for for some reason i'm like let me just google him really quickly so i google him he's the coach of the titans and then i'm looking at his biography oh no boring detail but i know why i decided to do this i saw a news report about this on twitter from a cleveland outlet and they tagged the cleveland guardians they well it was probably like somebody who writes for the plane dealer and they tagged Walsh Jesuit in the tweet and Walsh Jesuit High School is my former high school kind of I don't know an hour or so outside of Cleveland more in the Akron area actually and I was like why are you connecting Mike Vrabel to Walsh Jesuit maybe he's an alum so I quickly look him up and on his Wikipedia page I see that yes he did go to Walsh Jesuit and that he was born in 1975 well Luke you're talking to a fellow right now who was born in 1976 and also went to Walsh Jesuit for one year so if I'm doing and played football there I saw the photo yes and played one year of freshman football I mean which was a mistake I should not have played freshman football was not a good experience I did it because again I had an older sister who had already lived some high school experiences and she recommended that if I want to if I have any chance of making friends I should try to be

a cool football guy um right she was like ixnay on the salad dressing and sea on the being a

football job exactly what she said i have it was a contract that i signed um but anyway she said you should really play football so i signed up for it felt like a bad idea it turns out it was a bad idea um but you know my experience on that team is i mean my memories are a bit hazy but i do know that like i was as i was technically on the team but i was like so far removed from the team i was as far removed as you can be and still be on the team basically like i did not have a number i i believe everybody else even in the in the freshman class had a number i did not have a jersey number i just remember they would just give me whatever jersey was like on top of the hamper that fit me Basically, I feel like I just I can still smell the nasty smells of freshman football. And is that because David said he thought he could smell you through the photo? Oh, that's right. Because I sent my freshman football photo. My mom had it turned into a button. Remember when you could like get your sports photos taken and then you could also buy them in button form? Well, my mom apparently did that.

She was moving recently.

She sent me the button. Can I just mention one thing very quickly about uniforms? I don't think that you should – if you had to use a kind of jersey that was just available, I don't think you should take that as some kind of reflection on your sportiness because when I played football for the Greenwood Boys and Girls Club, my uniform, they didn't have enough pads. And I remember the guy, whoever was running it, going, okay we don't have a knee pad for you kind of like you know the bottom of the pants that you pull down the thing that goes over like your your patellar your kneecap i remember him just going oh let me see and he just like got a really thick piece of felt and then he cut it with some like medical tape scissors and then he just jammed it in there he's like that'll be fine so like i think there was a lot of improvising at the like middle school and high school level i mean probably not anymore i'm sure all these kids have like personal trainers and ice baths and all that but in our era i don't think it was that crazy to have some jacked up hand-me-down uniform situation yeah and

that's why i wasn't sure yeah i wasn't sure about that my my vague memory is people were a little bit more established and that i was i was especially numberless but i could be i could be totally wrong about that here's what i'd like especially numberless should be the name of your memoir let me let's can we just bullet point the things that i actually remember about high school football about freshman football because um i feel like if i was on an actual football team with somebody who became a football player it seems like i would know that i wouldn't

be discovering it definitely mike rabel would have been i'm assuming that his year his you know four years at walsh he was the captain of the team and probably being written up a lot in the local paper because presumably mike rabel was one of the other than brian hoyer i'll just surprisingly long list of uh nfl alums that came out of your high school hoyer went to ignatius yeah my other

high school i only went to walsh for one year and then ignatius the thing is yeah i mean they're both kind of football schools ignatius has a much better reputation for being a football school but any any whoozles like yeah you would think that i would know but like i knew nothing like i here's first of all i don't remember anybody's name i don't have any friends or contacts that i knew at waltz jesuit like i i know i had one friend named dave who i spent a weekend with him and dave's not here man divorced dad at a lake house i remember that i think it's the only time i tried skiing it was it really did seem like uh who's the who is it who's the divorced dad in the simpsons

it kind of had that vibe milton's uh millhouse's dad it definitely felt like hanging out kirk van

houden who sings can i borrow a feeling and i remember really liking um dave by the way it's not a hit on him but i also remember that was the weekend where i really wanted to go to the into the great wide open tom petty concert that was in cleveland that night i don't think i'd really gone to many concerts at that point and i was probably like 14 or something at this point and i couldn't get my parents to to take me and they said well you should go spend the weekend at dave's lake house he gave you the nice invite anyway so i know i went to school and was friends with a guy named dave that is the only that's the only like kind of social interaction or name i can name from my year at Walsh Jesuit.

This is where we have the perfect job to find this out, Andrew, because we have a bunch of people who listen to the show who love nothing more than internet sleuthing. And what we need, one of the 10s to please do, is figure out if the Walsh High football team team photo from 1992 is online somewhere. Would that have been the year? What would the year have been that you and Mike Vrabel might have overlapped.

I want to say 91. Does that seem right? No, because I graduated high school in 95.

I graduated in 94, and you graduated in 95, right?

Right, so it couldn't have been 91. It would have been 92, yeah. I did do a little bit of Googling around for a team photo. I couldn't find anything, but I'm not the best Google sleuth. I wonder if we can reach out to Mike Vrabel directly. if he remembers me because there was you know there's a lot of bullying going on in my life at this time it was a very miserable this one of my worst years i was i was worried that i was

being a little glib about no no you were actually bullied at football you were bullied oh yeah and

one time they soaked my locker but listen to this this is how listen if any kids are listening and they're having a tough time in school right now because somebody's not being nice to them listen how the worm can turn so i had a combination lock um that i used i actually She again, this is a very sister centric show. I inherited this lock from my sister when she went to junior high school in seventh grade. It was the first time she had to have a locker and get a lock. And so she got one of those. What is it? Master lock. Is that the main? Yeah.

And that is the biggest deal when you get to the level of school where you get to bring your own lock.

That is exciting. That's cool, right? So then at some point, she hands that down to me. Maybe she gets a cooler lock. I don't know why, but I now have that lock, right? And then I'm taking it to junior high school, and then I'm using it in high school. And I remember that was the lock that was hanging on my gym locker during football practice. And one day after practice, I came back, and somebody had soaped my lock. I don't remember if they did anything to the—I think they tried to squeeze some soap into the locker itself through the slats. I don't think that was a very successful prank. But do you know what it means to have your lock soaped?

I actually don't. I'm unfamiliar with this prank. Does it just make it impossible? Is it soap like a bar of soap or like shaving cream?

I don't think it was shaving cream. It was some sort. It must have been some sort of liquid soap. Or maybe they took a somewhat soft bar of soap and just kind of like went to town on the lock. So basically, I come back to my locker and my lock is hanging there and it's just like all slimy and gooey and covered in soap. I mean, I think it was just soap. It smelled like soap. So really not the worst as far as bullying is concerned. It's like, well, it's not pleasant. And it certainly sends a message that says we're not interested in roller skating with you this weekend. But, you know, it was soap on a lock. So I wipe it all off. I continue to use it. Luke, I am using that lock to this day, and I'll tell you what.

Worm turned.

It is smooth as hell. They may have lubricated it. They may have helped you. I believe they did. At first, it was gross and hard to turn.

If you're not soaping your lock, what are you even doing? What are you doing?

After a while, it became the nicest lock to use, and it's the only lock that I— Take that, Mike Vrabel.

and you may be the head coach of the Tennessee Titans but Andrew is is twirling his master lock

without a care that's right and I remember it did get to a point I'm like oh this is a smooth ride now I like it and I'm still using it it's funny it's like one of the only number combinations that I have memorized like in the years since I have bought new master locks um and this is maybe lived at the bottom of a drawer or something and then something will happen I'll stop going to the gym so frequently or something will happen and i'll forget the combination of it right and then that lock is just done because you can't remember the combination i don't mind saying this out loud i think it's pretty um it's gonna be a pretty rare uh chance pretty slim chance that uh somebody's gonna like follow me to my gym and break into my locker so i'll tell you 20 26 20 it's a great

locker combination it's hard that really is it's 20 26 20 oh it's beautiful but you got to go all the way around you have to go all the way around but it's worth i remember being a kid going like all the way around like being very stressed about if i had done the full revolution for the middle

number yeah no great combination though and i remember it to this day so every now and then i'll like i this lock i found in the bottom of my drawer in the past few years since i've been living here and uh i was like old 20 26 20 it worked and so i'm using it again i i would really

like uh if the listeners can please uh you know shine some light on this i would love to know if you were at any point actually being tackled by or tackling or doing a drill with an actual nfl player did i ever tell you about this uh speaking of greenwood boys and girls club football we had a coach who had just stopped playing for the I think Pittsburgh Steelers he had gone to the University of Washington I think his name was Randy Jacobs or Jacobson and he played for the U-Dub and then he got you know I think a very brief like I don't know if he even ever played in a real game but what I know is he still had the Steelers uniform because he would wear it during practice and play with us which was crazy he also would wear his U-Dub jersey he was in full

pads playing with children i feel like i i mean if i had a stealer's jersey i might wear it to

i feel like he had like a u-dub holiday bowl like a you know the special jersey when you go to a bowl game or maybe it was rose bowl he had like he had he would wear this u-dub jersey that was from a bowl game and i was so starstruck to just even see that fabric yeah i believe it i believe

it i mean it's kind of like having a um having a baseball that you that you've caught at a game Or in my case that kind of landed near you

Well you know what it's like having a finger That's not been destroyed by a baseball Or that

I'm talking about the actual ball that I have That Ryan Court It's a foul ball right

I'm the guy with an Ellis Burks ball I've been toting around for 40 years So I can't really talk

I think it's more valuable Because he only played like 3 games It's especially rare to have a foul ball From Ryan Court But I think he was 64 when he hit that foul ball that I have. But I will just hold that and just, you know, the dirt that is on it, the official MLB dirt that is on it. Like, this was in a baseball game. I can't remember who was pitching that day, but this was in the hands of an MLB pitcher. Like, there is something about touching something that has been in that world.

An MLB pitcher had hidden some sticky stuff in the jockstrap and wiped it, and then wiped it on this ball to increase his rotation, his spins per whatever. That's right. What's that called? Rotation rate or something?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Spin rate, I think. But, yeah. Oh, spin rate.

Yeah.

Exactly.

So, anyway. But, yeah. I understand. You know more about. You officially know more about baseball than I do It's not even close It's not even close anymore The student is now the master

Well let's not say master But yeah anyway I understand that But yeah let's look it up Like maybe I only did a cursory Google For like my years football Because not everything was archived back then But maybe if somebody can find Yeah Mike Vrabel

There's also a possibility Your team photo was with the freshman team And Mike Vrabel was already Like on the varsity squad because of his inherent Vrabel-ness.

Well, that's, see, maybe we can answer this right now because I can't even remember how it was set up. I thought that the freshmen were just, like, kind of playing on the same field but not getting much time. But, no, would I have been in a completely different program because I was a freshman where we just, I don't remember how it worked.

Well, you know what? Vrabel was older than you by one year. Yeah. And I'm guessing that by sophomore year he was already, like, the best player on the Walsh High team. So my guess is Depending on how big the school was You were probably on the freshman team Or JV And Vrabel was already well on his way To NFL stardom So it's possible there's not even a photo of the two of you But then again Sometimes they'll do things where they'll use the freshman team Or the JV, they'll practice with the varsity You know, for drills, etc So I think there's a decent chance Vrabel is the one who bullied you

Probably, he's soaked my damn lock If I ever meet him, I'm going to shove that lock in his face

and say thank you bring that lock to a game and go remember this mike polite lock a real polite

lock there's a right way to rock and a wrong way to roll you can't just listen to your soul just remember that life is number one you can't be having so much fun just remember that life is What do you think, Luke?

Should we do some Blur's Days?

I think we should, but you know what I realized? I actually brought my little sound box. It's just across the room from me, so I'm going to run over and grab it. Okay, you do that as well. This music.

By the way, spoiler alert, it's camping that is coming up later. Camping, not cramping.

This is the special one that, I'm so sorry, I forget the name of the listener and his kid who did some work on this.

Dylan? It starts with a D. I tried to hit the uh-oh button, but my fingers are too fat. Wait, also, did I lose this on the plane? No, here it is. Oh, yeah. Heck, yeah. Here we go. We got this. Nice. All right, I'm ready to go. Adam says, Happy Blur's Day to my wife, Carrie, and her mother, Gay, who both share the same Blur's Day and are very pleased to be able to spend it together here in sunny Fortuna after... We were just there. Yeah. After not being able to get together for a while now. So we have a nice little birthday reunion going on. That's great.

Thomas says, my sister Joan loves you guys. She lives in New Zealand and listens to you all the time. I would really appreciate it if you guys could give her a shout out. She's from Chicago, but you give her a feeling of home. Thank you very much. Nice. Well, thank you, Thomas. Happy Blur's Day, Joan. Or sorry, Joanne. Joanne. News in England. Sorry, Joanne, that I Joined you. And Thomas, thank you for reaching out. I feel like that's one of the nicest things that somebody can do who probably doesn't listen to the show. But they've heard somebody in their life talk about it so incessantly that they're like, I guess I'll look up what a Luke and Andrew is and send them a message so that this person I love who loves them will have a special day. That is a really thoughtful thing, Thomas.

Yeah, I mean, cash is also a good gift. Really close second here. Kendra in Ballard says, Happy second blur say to my five Emmett. While he doesn't listen to TBTL very much, he has become intimately familiar with all of the drops on my fancy TBTL noise machine. His favorite is, do you have your TBTL noise machine there, Luke, or do you just have the red one?

I do not travel with it. The TSA has told me that it's a safety hazard. I see. Well, I think it's this one here. His favorite is I Just Love Hot Cheetos.

I just love hot Cheetos. Perfect, Walsh. Perfect.

I can slap my chin up.

There it is. He can't really talk yet, but he does try to imitate that girl's voice to my delight. Kids, they're fun. Thanks, TBTL, for teaching my son the English language.

I can slap my chin up. Nice. They say TBTL doesn't impact a child for a day, but for a lifetime, Andrew. That's what they say. Thanks, Rick. Back to you for the happy numbers.

That was something that our friend Durst. Oh, can I tell a really quick story? Our friend Durs was on vacation, I think maybe two weeks ago, and I texted him. The Mariners were in the ninth, and it looked like they were about to blow a win. And I was like, oh, my God. I think it was like Castillo's going to blow this win for us. I texted him out of the blue. And he's like, I actually can't see or hear the game right now. I can only get your texts. Like, what's going on? So I was like, ooh. And I don't even know where he was, if he was at dinner or what his location was. But I decided I would just take it upon myself to give him a pitch-by-pitch call of the game via text message. And then it kind of got more – You must have unlimited. Yes. And then it got more elaborate as it went on. I included a message that this game cannot be distributed without the sole consent of Major League Baseball and the Seattle Mariners organization. Express written. Express written, yeah. And anyway, and then at the very end, I was just like, okay, back to you in the studio, Angie. And he's like, thanks for those happy numbers, Rick.

And I got to say, it had me rolling. That's so good. I had totally forgotten about that, but that's very much from my childhood. Rick Riz has been saying that, you know, for 30 years on the Mariners broadcast. And now, you know, so-and-so with the happy totals or the happy numbers. It's just like, that's so embedded in my brain. I love it. Holly and Merit want to wish their number one Stanwood 10, Gary, a happy Blur's Day. They say he's our trivia and Seahawks-loving favorite guy as he starts his 20th year of teaching this school year. We wish him nothing but the best. His students are incredibly lucky to have him, and so are we. We love you. Happy Blur's Day to Gary. You love to hear it.

Hey, look who it is. Candy in Chicago. Does this feel like a pretty Chicago-centric day to you, Luke?

Well, I've already made it clear that I'm going to Sioux Falls via Chicago in the most Wilco sense. So it has been at the front of mine.

Yeah, we had two donors from Chicago. I believe we were talking about Chicago earlier. Anyway, Candy in Chicago. Candy, who once gifted me a cute little hot dog pin. Candy says, happy, no, I'm sorry, a very happy half-century Blur's Day to Carolyn in Chicago. Wishing you a wonderful next half-century. Aw. Love it. Happy Blur's Day, Carolyn. Not Caroline. It says specifically here, not Caroline. It's Carolyn.

Was that a note to yourself to remember that, or was that from Candy?

That's word for word what Candy sent in.

Carolin, not Caroline. Candy, could you just do me a fave, and could you find out the names of every listener and send me those helpful pronouncers? Because I'm dying over here.

Yeah, thanks, Condi.

Michelle would like to wish a happy Blur's Day to her five, Harrison, Shane, who's making his 15th trip around the sun this year. Aww. Let's see here Oh, I scrolled down on my little sheet Alright, this is what Michelle was saying

You can't print it because you're on the road

See, this is why everything's been falling apart for me today, Andrew I need my printouts I got this, though Michelle says that Harrison might have tacos tonight He's not quite sure yet He's an amazing young man who makes me laugh every day He's just starting high school this week And I cannot be more proud of the amazing human being that he has become So, happy Blur's Day, Harrison Shane

Yeah, Harrison, if you have not

Now you have a friend in the Harrison business

If you have not If you're just tuning in for this part of the show Because you wanted to hear your Blur's Day Go back, I have a very special message for you About how to Keep a good attitude when your locker gets soaked Which your locker probably won't even get soaked But if it does

You're half joking, but I think that was a nice story

Yeah, still have it 2026-20 Tan Ying in Pittsburgh says, I want to wish my five yen, a.k.a. the boy with the cartoon sausage. Remember the video, Luke? Yes, of course. Eating a sausage off of a fork like a champ. Anyway, happy 10th Blur's Day. Happy first decade, Yan. Here's to more and more. Actually, it says here's to many more. I can't wait. That's another way of saying many more. Also, when you guys are in school, learn how to read. which is something that I really wish I had done, but I was too busy cleaning my lock. I can't wait to celebrate with you at Kennywood. Lots of love from Mom. I'm learning.

that's unpopular

Tan Ying was also the person who sent in I think security video of her garbage can being

oh wow yeah right I forgot about that yeah

he's really bringing it with the multimedia dimension we appreciate you Dylan says I'd like to wish my wife he said wife but I just feel like in the parlance of our time my wife Julie June a happy 29th Thursday I am so happy that I took a bit of Luke's advice back in December of 2012 when he mentioned on TBTL before the end of the Mayan calendar to think about reaching out to anyone that you feel you might want to if the world were going to end. I did, and we've been together ever since that fateful coffee date. Andrew, I am making a difference. You know what, Luke? You keep telling me I'm not. You should have a kid. They're fun.

They're fun. You've earned it. That's really, really sweet. Happy Blur's Day, Julie.

That's really great. I mean, you know, to not center myself in the story, that's just a really cool thing that they were able to connect and that they're together all these years later.

Justin says, I'd like to wish my wife a happy birthday. We've been listening since the AM days. Is that right? Or did TBTL start after the Cairo switch? No, I think. Did you guys start on AM?

We were on AM, which I was kind of proud of. And to this day, I will often tell people we started as an AM radio show. And half the people don't even probably know what that is anymore, because it's been so long since AM radio was a thing, despite that hot rod intro that we play.

Yeah, right. And also some people, I remember, would call in and say, coming in on the AM dial.

Yeah, and then I think it was probably maybe eight or nine months when Cairo switched over to FM. We took over 97.3, which had been a variety of things. I think it had been, like, some kind of an oldies station before that Cairo had that I think Frank Shires was actually one of the DJs of. Oh, I don't think I realized it was oldies. I could be wrong about that. It definitely wasn't—it was some kind of throwback format. It wasn't, like, playing, you know, the popular hits of the day.

I'm trying to think if I can find—here, is this going to— I think the B97-3 or something. Let me do this.

Actually, you know what? it may have been kbsg which was literally the oldies station and i think that maybe they were trying to zhuzh it up by calling like b973 or something so rayden tell me about yourself is

this okay yeah here we go this is too beautiful to live with luke burbank on news talk 710

cairo i heard about that thing on the am radio there you go literally day one that is apparently i have the whole show here but i was just wanting to hear the intro because i thought they said am in there and they did. Very first TBTL show ever and not only does he say 710 AM or 710 you start with a drop about AM radio.

Oh this is beautiful to live with Luke Burbank on News Talk 710

Cairo. I heard about that thing on the AM radio.

Oh my gosh that's Adam Sandler

the goat. Yeah I'll stop it there because I know you don't love hearing. I definitely

am very embarrassed about that first episode, but hey, look it, here we are, Andrew, freaking 3,497 times later, so I guess there was something going on that was worth doing.

Wait, hold on, I don't think I ever finished Justin's special message here. I'd like to wish my wife a happy birthday.

We've all moved on, Justin.

We have been listening since the AM days, is that right, or did TBTL start up the Cairo switch? Anyways, love you and hope you had fun when we were cramping. I love Justin, Tyler, and Ember.

Cute. Aw. Happy Blur's Day from P. Fletch to Bay Area 10. Ivan. Ivan was a classmate with Jen at Jesus Creek and also with Phyllis at Washington Middle School. Ivan is a brilliant architect and has an awesome wife and kids. Ivan is a great friend who's kept monthly Zooms going with our high school classmates since we missed our 30th reunion. She's also a proud Garfield Bulldog. Happy Blur's Day from your old locker partner, Phyllis. Sorry that I soaped your lock. Now that is kismet.

A lot of locker talk.

Phyllis also had a related anecdote.

A lot of locker talk today. Kind of makes me want a locker. Did you have anything hanging in your locker? Did you have any, like, pictures or anything?

I don't think I did. I do remember just being so excited to have a locker and to have a lock. And to just do the tropes of high schoolness to be – except here was the thing. I think I was a very wiry kid, and I think I could get in my locker. So I think I might have, like, put – like, bullied myself into my own locker. You did. You did.

You know, that was like a thing.

Yeah, see, I think my first locker was one of those half lockers where it was just like up or down. So I did, at times I had a full locker.

I could fit in one of those.

I had a medical condition called tiny burbs syndrome. Yeah, you could be useful.

You know that I did grow like a foot my junior year. I was 5'1". I think I entered my junior year of high school at 5'1". And I thought, well, I'm just going to have to try to be the short, cute guy. Oh, how did that work? I became the tall passable guy With a kid

They're fun They're fun Sorry I was just stalling because now we're at that point of the show Where I should have some ideas on something Is there a good high school song Or a football song Or a locker related song

How about This is so out of the blue But if we're going high school Can we go with Vitamin C's song Graduation which is just a shameless reworking Of Pachelbel's Canon

Yeah, we can. Okay. Friends Forever.

I believe it'll probably be the first song from Vitamin C that comes up.

Weirdly, the first thing that popped up was a song called Vitamin C by the band Can, but we can go out with graduation.

We could do that, too. Stick with this. All right. That's how we're going to wrap things up today. Thanks for listening, everybody. Thanks for hanging out with us. We'll be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you. Until then, have a great Thursday. Take care of yourselves, and please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

We'll be right back. Have another day Cause we're moving on And we can't slow down These memories are playing Like a film without sound And I keep thinking Of that night in June I didn't know much of love But it came too soon And we were seeing you And then we got real blue Stay at home Talking on the telephone And we would get so excited And we'd get so scared Laughing at ourselves Thinking life's not fair And this is how it feels

As we go on, we remember all the times we had together And as our lives change from whatever We will still be friends forever

Hey, Hunks! Stop infringing on our turf. Go back to your gyms and looking at your abs in the mirror. Stay out of our science labs and our comedy clubs. And stay away from our smart girls. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hey, we're just doing our thing, friend. You know, you're all born with your perfect features, and we're just like this. We had to make up for it by having a sense of humor and being smart and reading and knowing about music and art. As soon as you guys start doing it, well, it renders us invisible. I believe it was Ram Dass who called it the costume of identity, right? Stop it. Stop reading. Power out.