Muse

What a beautiful morning.

It is now.

Oh, thanks for getting up to make the coffee.

I didn't.

What?

I made this coffee yesterday.

But it tastes like you made it today.

That's because I used yesterday's coffee. It tastes like you made it today.

That's a time saver.

Yeah.

Hey, if we leave now, we could catch the ferry to Grassy Point, have a picnic like we used to.

That sounds great. But I can't. I got to make tomorrow's coffee.

Can't we worry about tomorrow's coffee tomorrow?

Nope. The only reason why we have today's coffee is because I worried about it yesterday.

So tomorrow we'll drink the yesterday's coffee that you made today.

Yes, and I'll make the next day's yesterday's coffee tomorrow.

Think we go on a picnic?

We'll see.

Ted, I really... What?

Damn it, Jill. I'm sorry. I'm doing this for us. I know. Someone has to think about the future.

I understand. Do you? For the rest of our lives, we will always be one pot of coffee ahead.

Until that day when I make a pot of coffee that neither of us will ever drink.

I'm going to lie down.

TBTL! These are the circuits of history, gentlemen. They'll take us to any point in time we wish.

You were given a power. It's in the wind. Oh, my God!

Listen to that horn! Oh, my God! Oh, she's beautiful! Sounds like you're really going through some tough stuff right now. It's too bad there's not doctors for your mind.

My mom's in prison for two years for tasering up to 22 dogs. She has this weird condition where she smells like a cat that happens to smell like Hamburger Helper. Oh, this is special. This is special. All right. Hello. Good morning and welcome, everyone, to a Monday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Don't miss the Sausage Fest. Coming to you on a Labor Day Monday.

I am doing my job here.

Our job, of course, is to host this podcast five days a week. So while hopefully many of you listening are enjoying a well-deserved day off, a little break from the typical work week, here we are bringing you episode 3,504 in a collector's series.

Let the fun begin.

Yes, we're working so that you can enjoy yourself. I don't like to throw the term gyro around, but I'm just saying. Andrew and I a couple of regular modern day gyros or something that rhymes with that anyway it's episode 3,504 in a collector series maybe you're relaxing and enjoying your Labor Day by watching a movie maybe you're watching it via one of the streaming services and I'm wondering are you having as fun of a time as you would were you at the movie theater Because Patty Jenkins, the director of the Wonder Woman film, says streaming movies aren't really, like, real films to her.

It's the first line of the film, man.

It's got to be on the money here. Also should be mentioned that she was pretty upset that Wonder Woman 1984 that she made was released as a stream as well as a box office film. I think she thinks that was part of what undermined its popularity at the box office. Anyway, we'll talk about that. Also, I've got an update on what's going on with me and REI.

Hey, what happened?

Involving my tent that I need for this weekend. That's why I live in a teepee. So we'll update you on all of that. And we'll talk to this guy, the longest running Cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships.

Damn. Fireball. Back at it again with the white van.

He is Andrew Walsh, and he is joining me right now from the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. Happy Labor Day, my friend.

Thank you. You too. I have something to admit to you here that might be slightly interesting, or at the very least, move the needles for a couple more minutes. You played that clip at the beginning of the show of, I'm trying to do my job here. And that is Dennis Quaid, right? That's from that viral video where he was doing a fake outburst on set. It went viral like, Dennis Quaid goes berserker on set. But it turns out it's a big setup and maybe even a viral promotion for a movie or something. The thing is, I keep saying Dennis Quaid, Dennis Quaid. The thing is, I know the background of that clip, but Dennis Quaid is one of those actors. There are many of them. He's one of those famous people whose name I just have so much trouble conjuring. And I always have to go through the same journey to get to his name. And it helps if I'm behind a computer.

Because what I can remember is, oh, he is the brother of the Wackadoo who believes in Star Wackers, which is maybe why I landed on Wackadoo there. And then I always have to think, okay, he's the brother of the Star Wackers guy. And then I have to remember the Star Wackers guy is Randy Quaid. And again, usually I just end up Googling Star Wackers. Oh, I forget about Wackers!

Wackers! Those cheesy Star Wackers! Wackers! To hell with back checkers! Wackers! Those sleazy Star Wackers!

uh that's the guy you're talking that's a good recording of that i looked that up not all that long ago and it was very distorted

it's amazing to me that randy quaid and his wife

have have crisscrossed the country skipping out on hotel bills ruining productions of fall staff that were being um you know created in in seattle and just generally leaving a wake of destruction and their takeaway from it is somebody's coming after them and trying to stage a murder suicide like how could you be that toxic in the world i don't need to even finish that question because i guess there's a lot of people in this category but the irony that those two are walking around thinking they're being wronged by the world where they're so clearly just really really taxing the

local patients of every place they land i almost wonder if there's some uh mental issues going on there did you know that they made a movie called starwhackers in uh 2011 a documentary of them did yeah d their detailed account of how hollywood assassins have been out to kill them for over a

decade do you think i mean it's dangerous stuff to get into um you know trying to speculate on people's mental health but you know randy quaid for many years and by the way you having to think of randy quaid to think of dennis quaid is literally the first time anyone has had to do that and also it generally goes the other direction and also no i don't think of randy

quaid first i think of starwhackers first and then that's got to get me to randy quaid i'm the one who got into a big argument with genevieve i believe it even spilled over onto this very podcast at one point about whether or not dennis quaid should be considered an a-list actor i was referring to him as a as an a-lister and genevieve was saying i have some very gross misunderstandings

about what a-lists mean right but i just uh i what's weird to me is that is that uh randy quaid was in a lot of films and was clearly of of of reasonably sound mental health he could remember lines in films he could show up he could deliver those lines uh you know to the other actors in like he was in a lot of stuff and then I wonder what happened to him say 15 years ago like was there always something simmering or did something activate it people also as far as I understand it's it's sounds like it's atypical for somebody to develop kind of a delusional state or whatever he might be dealing with at you know the age of 50 or whatever from out of nowhere you mean from yeah from seemingly sort of out of nowhere um and then i also have mentioned this on the show multiple times but after we were pretty obsessed on the show with the whole deal with them for a while and um at some point his wife started following me on twitter which i found shocking and it was really her too i like kind of looked it up and then at some point unfollowing me and i i must have at some point sent some fire tweet out speaking of fires by the way i am looking at a fire not the flames but the smoke um of a fire i'm you know pretty high up in this apartment building here at the nest broadcast center and what i realize is i'm essentially a modern day fire watcher andrew like i'm like one of those people who used to sit the the fire tower instead of the nest broadcast center the nest exactly tower yeah and i'm looking at um so i can see all the way over to like kind of the mount tabor area of portland and something definitely caught on fire because it was very black acrid smoke the kind that happens when like a building is burning uh but i'm happy to report that it seems like it's all um handled now the smoke is dissipating but anyway yeah just uh it's weird to me that randy quaid sort of ended up where he ended up and also it was weird that his wife was following me on twitter but then at some point oh i was starting to say i must have tweeted something about them and maybe she was just searching the internet for mentions of them and found me and then started following me and then i did something that actually ticked her off enough or bored her enough that she was like, nah, I'm not going to follow you anymore. That's the moment that I'm really interested in. I would love to find out what I did to make Randy Quaid's wife, Evie Quaid, stop following me on Twitter.

Probably something about, like, some Seahawks player, some pun on a Seahawks player's name.

Just basically when I, like, tweeted out a picture of a Mariner's reliever who had let me down. Right. She's like, eh. Just like his sort of official photo of, oh, speaking of having a hard time remembering names, who was our, whenever I say this, then it sends you into a panic.

My heart is, all you had to say is who was, and my heart is beating fast. I don't know. I don't care how you finish this sentence. or it could be my father's name. I will tell you. I will totally choke on this. The good news is that bought me enough time to remember. Fernando Rodney. Fernando Rodney. Are you thinking of Fernando Rodney? I'm thinking of the one and only Fernando Rodney. How would you have gotten me there? The bow and arrow? He would do a bow and arrow motion?

He also was once sleeping in a tree almost. Remember that kind of iconic photo? So they were – I don't think it was T-Mobile Park or whatever they were calling it back then. How quickly we forget these things. Safe go. But, yeah. But I think it was maybe at a different ballpark where they have for some reason like pretty intense shrubbery and like trees planted, which seems like an odd look out in the like bullpen. But he was like – somehow ended up sitting in a chair and he was more or less in a small woodland area.

He looked like Homer kind of backing into the shrubbery. Yes. Yes, I'm looking at the photos now. It was in, let's see, it was at Coors Field. Okay.

Yeah. And it was like Fernando Rodney. By the way, it's Labor Day, so we're allowed to talk about baseball if we want. That's the rule. That's the rule. But Fernando Rodney both had very kind of gaudy numbers. Like, I believe he was, like, leading the AL in saves one year. But it felt like every game he came in, he would give up the exact amount of runs he could give up while still somehow actually winning or saving the game. So if it was a six-run lead, he would give up five and a half runs. He would load the bases, and then somehow he would always get out of it, and then he would shoot an arrow into the sky. But then sometimes he wouldn't get out of it, and I'd be so mad.

I don't remember that he had such gaudy numbers, unless it was pre-Mariners, or I have terrible sports memory, but he was so frustrating by the end. Did he end up maybe even going to the Twins or something, where he frustrated more fans? He was infuriating to watch.

He had a moment where he was it was it was so counterintuitive because every game you watched it was like it was just like, well, he blew this one, but he somehow pulled it out to where he had actually some pretty decent save numbers. But it was just like a heart attack waiting to happen every time he took the mound. But, yeah, it was probably a Fernando Rodney tweet that eventually drove. I like to. Hey, we're actually, of course, recording this on a Friday because we wanted to be able to enjoy Labor Day. So this is a pre-recording. This is a serious message recorded on a Friday. So I guess my question to you, Andrew, is you'll have to speculate here a little bit. You'll have to future cast. As this is airing on Labor Day, what are you doing? You got any big plans, any fun plans? I don't have any big plans.

I have a couple of social engagements on Saturday and Sunday, I believe. The thing that's looming over me, I guess the largest, though, is I've waited too long. I have to buy a suit for this wedding that I'm going to be in pretty soon.

Yes, I know you've gotten your tie because Genevieve let our friend group know that on the text chain accidentally.

Yeah, so I'm actually in this wedding party. This is our friend Nick Jarin, and so known to the listeners of this show. He and Rosen are getting married later this month, and this is one of those things where the people in the wedding party, or the groomsmen, I guess you call us. I don't know. Yeah, we buy our own, you know, we provide our own suits with some guidance, right? Which I think is cool. I think that's a cool way to do things. And, of course, you know, buying formal wear for me. I told you a while back that I'm going to maintain a good attitude about it and get something that I feel good in and hopefully look good in. But, you know, trying on suits and picking out suits always is, you know, like I have body issues. I don't like the feeling of trying on clothes, especially clothes that are a little bit more restrictive. So I'm not complaining here, but I am saying that I've put it off. I cannot believe that Fernando Rodney played for us in 2014 and 2015. It feels like just yesterday. And a line drive to left. Was it that long ago? Sorry about suits.

And that will make it six to five.

I think you know that I'm a man of faith, Luke. No, I'm sorry. I just have the stat page in front of me. I just can't believe it was that long ago. But anyway, so – It's Labor Day. We're allowed to interrupt our –

He's about suits with the years that Fernando Rodney was a mariner.

Does that seem right to you, though? 14 and 15?

Man, that does seem like a long time ago.

Yeah, and then he's played for a lot of teams since. But anyway, yeah, so this weekend, so I've been kind of putting it off. Now, the guidelines are thus. I believe the groom, am I allowed to air Nick and Rosen's business? I think so. The groom is going to wear it. The cat's out of the bag. I'm already not invited to the wedding. They asked you, you turned them down, and then they asked me. That's the way these things always go. No, they asked you, you turned them down. Then they asked both Don and Ron. They turned them down, and now I'm in the hot seat. So I believe Nick is going to wear a darker gray suit, and I can't remember the tie color, but then for the groomsmen, the guidance is a lighter gray suit, not shiny, hopefully a material that has a little bit of texture to it, just a little bit of something. And then we're each supposed to pick a different colored tie. He put together this kind of grid of various tie colors so we can each choose our own color. But we all have to have a different color in one basically in the in the parameters that he kind of set out. And I just bought the actual tie that he used as an example. It was an Etsy tie and it was like cinnamon red or something. It seemed like it would fit me well. So I'm going to have a light gray suit, which I'm going to have to finally just. every weekend for the past like four weekends I've been telling Veeves like this is the weekend but then I'm just like I can't I feel fat or I can't I'm playing a baseball game I can't I'm looking up Fernando Rodney's numbers yeah he was a mariner you should say that and he went did he I'm trying to figure out it looks like he left and came back anyway so anyway this is the weekend to do it and I and again I'm not great at trying things on this isn't like my most comfortable, um, kind of activity, but I'm just trying to maintain a good attitude about it. And honestly, I'm doing this thing where sometimes when I feel maybe pressure or responsibility for something like this, I can lose sight of the bigger picture of what's going on. And if I ever start to feel a little bit anxious about this, and also I should mention like Nick and Rosen are like significantly younger than us. And, um, and just like very like kind of fashionable, beautiful people and all of their friends are as well. And I don't really know them that well. And so I'm really, really honored to be in this. But I'm already kind of picturing these photos where everybody is kind of young and good looking. And then you have this troll in the background. And that's me. Oh, Andrew. And so I'm, you know, I could focus on that. But instead, I'm just like, no, you know what? I keep on thinking like, God, I love these kids like Nick and Rosen. Like the amount of love I have for them is so overwhelming. And I haven't seen them in quite some time because they moved down to Texas right before the pandemic. So whenever I start to feel a little stressed out about whether or not I will be able to perform my groomsmen duties in a non-embarrassing way, I assume we carry them both up to the bedchamber at the end of the wedding. I don't know. I've been watching a lot of Game of Thrones to prep.

But anyway, then every now and then I'm just like, man, these guys are getting married. And it's like such a love story. They've been together since high school, I believe. It's amazing.

I know. It really is. I follow them on the gram and I just see them out living their life and just like, yeah, just having a great time and supporting each other and both having cool, interesting careers. And, yeah, they're a couple of real – them and DFTB and his lady are pretty much – I believe the children are the future, Andrew. Yes. But my question to you is have you figured out where you're going to go buy the suit?

Well, I was looking at some – I was like, well, I'm not going to go to just a chain store. I'm going to go to like kind of maybe a nicer store like where I can get something at this boat. Avoid like the men's warehouse. Well, I was going to, but honestly, everywhere I look that isn't like the men's warehouse or H&M or something like that. And also, I don't think they allow bodies like mine in H&M. I'm not joking. Stop it.

But also, do not go to H&M.

Yeah.

Do not go to H&M.

But anyway, but if it's not one of these chains, literally all the suits I'm seeing are $1,000. I'm not spending $1,000 on a suit. Like, I need something a little bit more affordable than that.

Yeah, $1,000 is a lot. But what about checking out J.Crew? Oh, maybe. because j crew is kind of split in the difference it's not you know it's it's not h&m see the thing about h&m stuff because i once was in a pinch and i bought had to buy like a blazer at an h&m i was somewhere for work but i had forgotten to bring the thing i needed and i'll tell you i'll tell you it was so like by the end of the event that i was hosting the suit had lost all of its or the blazer had lost all of its sizing it was so just destroyed after one wearing um that i would recommend uh you know maybe going somewhere like j crew which again is not cheap you are going to drop five hundred dollars but you might find a really nice suit that you feel really good in and and and you know feel flattered by um i yeah because i i just feel like Like... Suits, here's the thing that you should also remember. Suits are flattering. They are designed, as long as you get the right size and everything, they are designed to make you have broad shoulders, to kind of create a waist. Like, it is, you know, I don't know. I don't want to get too gendered or whatever. I know we don't talk about people's looks anymore. But, like, you know me. I had my whole year of affectation. Actually, it's been a lifetime of affectation, but my specific year of wearing a suit every day. And boy, it is amazing how many compliments you get being in a suit because it's just like the most flattering thing you can wear as a dude or I guess as a person of any gender that wants to look a certain way, I guess, is how we now would say that. But anyway, so I think that this is an opportunity for you to get a suit that you really like, that you kind of feel good in, and then you're going to look great in these pictures.

Jake, you're going to love the way you look. I guarantee it. Hi, I'm Jake Crew. Let's see. It looks like they have one that fits my parameters as far as a light gray suit is concerned. The pants seem a little, well, they're not pleated, but it is the Ludlow slim fit suit jacket and then the pants. Oh, yeah, so that already is putting me up. That's $425 for the jacket plus $225 for the pants. We're getting up there again. Yeah, that is.

The Ludlow collection is a decent. I've got some pieces, Andrew, from that collection, from my year of living suitedly, or whatever I'm calling it, my A.J. Jacobs-esque project. Did I ever tell you that I actually – you, I'm sure, interviewed him back in the day on public radio or whatever.

Yeah, his year of living biblically, whenever that was, 2002 or whatever.

But I actually interviewed him for some TV story, and he was so lovely. I actually really liked him. He's a really sweet guy, really smart. Because I had sort of like – it was around the time when like I think John Moe wrote a book about my year of eating beef jerky or some shit. And it was like everybody was doing this like my year of doing this. And I don't know. It just – it all kind of felt like people just wanted a book contract at some point. Yeah. And so I think I kind of took a little bit of a sort of dim view of that. And then I probably in shorthand would think, oh, like an A.J. Jacobs project. But then I met him, and he's actually totally lovely.

Oh, yeah. Well, I remember. I mean, that's the thing. He's so good on the radio. He really is. I mean, there are people who are like that. And again, it's nothing against his particular book. It's just like – No, it's against John's. We had just done – Basically, shite. I remember – I'm trying to remember what John's was because he did do something.

This was my year of living conservatively. He literally like went to like a monster truck derby and like went to a beef jerky festival. That was his year of living as a conservative. I should have written that book because I legit lived as a conservative in my younger days and I'm not proud of it. But you want to talk about like walking the walk.

I was walking it. But anyway, yeah, I just remember on the old radio show we had done like I think we had done like four or five of those in a two year period. And I was like, yeah, maybe we need to kind of stop on these books where it's like my year. Well, you also had, I think, that was also the era of the huge documentary where the Morgan Spurlock supersized me. Where he ate McDonald's. That might have even been the huge thing that really kind of launched the trend. Yeah, maybe that kicked it off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway.

Well, so I think we've agreed. You're going to start wearing a suit every day for one year and write a book about it. I'm going to wear a suit every day for one wedding. Well, another thing you could do, this sounds kind of crazy, but you could go to a secondhand shop and you could find a suit that you liked and then have it tailored so you don't spend nearly as much on the suit. You might spend $40, $50 on the suit, but then you spend maybe $100 on the tailoring and then they make it perfect for you.

That's where I'm a little – listen, I'm not up to the last minute yet, but that is where I should have gotten on this a little bit sooner. because almost any suit I buy is probably going to need some sort of, I feel like some sort of tailoring in some way. And let's see, it looks like the wedding itself is, I can't remember. It's later this month, but it looks like it's about two and a half to three weeks away. But anyway, so I do need to maybe make sure that I have enough time to get whatever I get to get it tailored.

Would recommend Pretty Parlor. pretty parlor on Capitol Hill if you decide that you do want to

literally across the street from where you used to live yeah I know that place but again even Genevieve says you'd go in there I really don't think second hand is going to be right for me I mean a lot of that second hand stuff and that vintage stuff it's just for smaller bodies like it just is it's just a real frustrating even she didn't go into pretty parlor after the first time

I know that John Roderick aka Bean Dad at one point I saw him on twitter talking about how because he's a very sort of snappy dresser and like

suits and everything he had i guess just like kind of had this pretty huge collection of stuff from again i'm just going to call them pieces because i love it on like i mean they're they are like making pieces i guess on like um project runway but they're when they're calling clothes well this piece but anyway he had like taken in his entire the john roger collection to pretty parlor and was like consigning it there oh really so he was like actually oh interesting so he was like a vendor and i believe it was like the way that i found it out was i don't even think i follow roger but like i saw john hodgman retreating john roger saying he was selling off the roger collection at pretty far anyway all right let's take a quick wait i just i do want to say we have to take a break here but when we come back i don't know if this is part of your plan or not but you have a whole retail experience i'm dying to get an update yes i do i've been trying to force the listeners to listen to this entire episode that's why dangling it but yeah i'll uh i'll tell you about that uh my rei situation when we get back here in a moment on tbtl all right let's thank some donors of the day here on this special labor day edition of the show These are the wonderful, generous people who spend their their typical weekdays laboring and then receiving some sort of remuneration for that and then redirecting a little bit of it towards us, which is how we're able to do the show. people like Wolfgang Weber in San Francisco California now we've seen Wolfgang's name before Wolfgang has been supporting the show for a while and we really appreciate it and I think every time we we talk about Wolfgang I ask aloud if Wolfgang is going with the W or if he's going with the Vim Vendors kind of more European pronunciation but since we're in the states Since we're in San Francisco, California, USA, I'm going to go with Wolfgang Weber. Not Wolfgang Weber. Not Wolfgang Weber. Okay. But if he were in the old country, I think that's probably what they would be saying. Probably. Weirdly, it is Vadeline Vinay in Chandler, New Jersey, our next donor. It's actually Madeline Kanai, who's in Chandler, New Jersey. Do you think if the show Webster was Webster? Would it be Webster? Webster? I feel like there's a tweet in there Also, I feel like there's a tweet in everything And there usually isn't That's how you lose Evie Yes, exactly With my Webster tweet Well, it's your tweet, but I do think it's funny Think about how different of a show that would be If little Emanuel Lewis' name was Webster

uh thank you madeline for the donation and hope you're doing okay out there in new jersey uh it's been a it's been a tough week out there with the uh weather and hurricane ida or super storm ida so hope you're doing all right in chandler uh linda critchfield is in lancaster uh-oh she's in lancaster california i almost went lancaster like pa yep but this of course is Lancaster and don't we it isn't this doesn't Lancaster California have a claim to fame like it's not the it's not the Lego place right no that's um that's Carlsbad oh okay another place you know in two different states right but you know what Lancaster uh when we were driving the Delica down through like the grapevine down towards LA I just gave you about 30 percent of a line from a pavement song from the grapevine to la um i was i got obsessed with trying to make you listen to that afro man song compton oh yeah right which really didn't pay off i felt bad but um he talks about moving out to lancaster and that was why i wanted to play the song because we were driving and we were seeing the signs for lancaster right i see it's just okay it's just uh north of la yep you're absolutely right yeah and so then because of the lancaster california sign i then made you like you were like trying to play it off of youtube on your phone because i was driving and it's not on spotify right it was a whole thing i kept thinking we had the wrong version going anyway you know it's amazing our friendship survived that trip but it did also uh emily griffith and clark it's emily and clark griffith and they're in estes park colorado beautiful estes park the jumping off point for so much outdoor recreating you know i might be doing some outdoor outdoor recreating if this happens andrew this will be something to talk about on the show um because there's a possibility i may do a profile of the filmmaker i think his name is jimmy chin

And he's the guy that made that film Free Solo. Oh, yeah. About Alex Honnold climbing that incredible rock face that he did without ropes. And the guy who made the film about who won an Academy Award, he is himself a very experienced climber and fit guy. And he's actually in Jackson Hole, I guess, Wyoming. But the producer that I would be working with said, are you cool with going rock climbing with this guy? Like, we might try to shoot part of it with us, like, 800 feet in the air, roped up.

No, how about different? How about you listen to this producer, and you sit down with him in a safe place on cushy chairs, and you treat this interview like an intervention, and you get him to stop doing what he's doing, because it's only dangerous.

Well, you know, what's funny is that I immediately said yes, because I was like, well, whatever, I'll have a safety harness on, I'll have ropes, it'll be fine. And then I went on that sky chair with Becca at the fair, and I started to immediately rethink what I had agreed to because it was like, as we talked about extensively that particular episode of TBTL, once you get the fear, it's not about rational thought. Like, rationally speaking, I should be all right. I would be all roped in and fine, but the fear doesn't care about that. And if I get the fear, like I have stress dreams where I'm basically out on a rock ledge, like out on the face of El Cap or something. I've never done that, but this could be a situation where I'm literally out on a rock face, 800 feet above the valley floor, trying to talk to Jimmy about making films. And then I just go into complete paralysis. I don't like this.

Even before you said that part, I was thinking, if you have an opportunity to interview him, get him and his friends to stop doing this foolishness.

And also, I want to thank Amy Rohrabach today, who's in Seattle, Washington, and is supporting the program. And then, of course, Georgia Millward is in Baltimore, Maryland, sitting very safely right at sea level, right there in Baltimore's inner harbor. She's just waiting for those blue crabs to come in to that moment when they're in between shells and they're so delicious and you can just eat them right up. That's, I think, and donating to TBTL. Those are George's main hobbies, waiting for the blue crab and donating to our show. So thank you very much. Thanks, in fact, to all of our supporters for making the show possible. We really do appreciate getting to do this for our job on a Labor Day. Hello and welcome to Top Story. Well, the quick update on the REI situation, Andrew, is I did, in fact, head over to the REI co-op in Portland. And I went up to the front. And I told the guy, I've got a tent that you're holding on for me, holding on to. And he went and looked for it and could not find it. And I was like, you got to be kidding me. And then it turns out it was, in fact, there. It was just in a different place. He didn't expect. so i have secured the bag andrew i've secured the marmot tent jalapeno nice you have it in your home right now i have it well it's in my car because i'm you know i didn't feel like schlepping it up here but it's in the back of my car the other thing i did though was i told you that i had taken a few things back recently well i had bought this supposedly self-inflating mat for sleeping on now when i was a kid and probably when you were a kid andrew you just had like that foam that yellow foam mat was what everybody was using and then i feel like they got like some slightly better technology um just better foam technology and then at some point it all started being stuff that was kind of like filled with air and the problem is i'm like the princess and the pea i guess i can't go back to the old school foam i feel like it's not going to be soft enough for my uh delicate bones or whatever so i just grab one of these self-inflating air mattress thingies i i don't know if it had a price i should have known when it had an anti-theft device on it that i was looking at a 200 item andrew does that and then so i'm standing up there the tent was like 250 the air mattress is as much as the tent and i was i was just kind of like this is way too much to spend for this but on the other hand i was like you know if you're in the middle of a bad night's sleep like you're camping and there's a root underneath you or a rock and you just like cannot get comfortable and you're just tossing and turning and rolling over in that moment you

would pay any price to just be able to go to sleep so i guess i just decided i'm gonna go with this um but i still feel like that's that just seems like a lot of money to pay for an air mattress Yeah, I don't remember. I mean, growing up, I camped with the...

boy scouts here and there but i don't remember i just had like my one sleeping bag i don't even think i had i don't think i really had a cushion i remember like a lot of our trips were like kind of survivalist trips sort of like not in a weird toxic way but i remember like one time we weren't even allowed to bring tents we had to um make lean twos we had to make our own structure and i told you about the time that you we weren't allowed to bring a pack either right it was like oh you can only bring what you can fit in your pockets and then my dad said oh i got just the thing and he found an old fishing jacket that the whole inside of it was basically one big pocket and we just loaded it with salamis i have forgotten it and i love it yeah my dad's like oh really uh don't worry son i can don't miss the sausage fest i can keep you rich in summer sausage as you're out there making lean twos while everybody else is just like filling their levi's pockets with food i have a fisherman's jacket downstairs that the whole in and it's not like he ripped it open and turned it into a pocket it's just like the whole inside had a big pocket that went all the way around it um you know for all your tackle or whatever if you're waiting i don't even know why maybe it was a hunter's jacket i don't know if my dad was ever a fisherman or really even a hunter so i don't know but um yeah so i don't remember really sleeping on cushiony things like that but

um i don't either that's what i'm saying like it wasn't back in the day you maybe just had like a shitty foam thing or something and it was it seemed fine but now because like i up in bellingham uh which I, you know, have to kind of at some point actually go get my possessions out of my old house. But I have like a full on cot that like is, you know, like a cot that that that you is kind of heavy. Actually, you'd have to be car camping. But man, you get that cot going and you put a pad on that and you're farting through silk. You don't even realize you're camping anymore, which kind of defeats the purpose, I guess. The problem is I've just cosseted myself so much at this point. I've glamped myself so much that I can't go back.

Well, I'll tell you this. I'm going to say something here that I feel like I must suggest and that you will most certainly ignore. But you said you didn't bring that tent up because you don't want to schlep it back and forth, and it's eventually going back out to your car. I really think you should find a place to set that thing up in advance and make sure that you know how it all works and that everything is in there before you go out to the wilderness.

Well, here's the thing. I know how to set it up because my nephews taught me, actually, and my nieces. So I had this same tent, the two-person version, and I just turned my nieces and nephews loose on it at my sister's house. I was like, you guys want something to do? Put this tent together. And they did. So now I'm putting together the three-person version. Are they coming with you on this trip? No, no. But I'm going to – I'll FaceTime with them and have them walk me through it. Okay, yeah. But you also want to make sure that everything's in there. Well, yeah, I mean, I'm going to just cross my fingers on that Because it worked out last time And I just, I tend to trust Even though I was mildly annoyed with them I tend to trust the recreational equipment What's the I for? Recreation, R-E-I Ink Oh, it's an incorporation No, no, they sell printer ink Oh, that's what it is I feel like we're, you know, we're On these holidays, we're supposed to do a short show we're not doing a short show we haven't even gotten to the top story which was a holdover from Friday which was just basically like I thought it was kind of interesting Patty Jenkins who made Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman 1984 was at a like a con and she was talking about the films and I mean I mentioned this in the open of the show but she's sort of not happy with the studio that released her film because the Wonder Woman 1984 one because that film I guess kind of underperformed and she feels like it's because it was one of those movies that got uh released it was it was released theatrically and on hbo max so i'm forgetting which studio but there was that one studio that basically turned all their films over to hbo max during the pandemic and she feels like that sort of led she called the decision heartbreaking to release wonder woman 1984 as also a streaming product she said all of the films that are streaming that streaming services are putting out i'm sorry they look like fake movies to me i don't hear about them i don't read about them it's not working as a model for establishing legendary greatness and i was thinking about that i was like has there been a cinematic event during the pandemic like of the movies that are released i could just be forgetting i mean let's see i mean

um well tenant was the big one well that one went to theaters right yeah yeah well here i guess what

i mean is has there been a cinematic event that was streamed like has there been a movie that was released and this is my blind spot is all of the marvel stuff and the you know dc i don't know anything about these superhero films so maybe some of those films have done gangbusters business as streaming products but i i would say it feels to me like she's not totally wrong like Thank you. I don't think about like I think about movies that I would go see opening weekend. It'd be like exciting, like, oh, I'm looking forward to that film. I haven't had that feeling since we shut everything down and I stopped going to movies in the theater.

Well, I have a lot to say about this. I will say that as a viewer, just for my own personal enjoyment, I don't enjoy watching movies at home as much as I enjoy watching them in the theater. And I probably would not dial up a superhero movie at home. But that's just me. And I don't think I'm in the majority there. And especially we have younger generations coming up who that's how they experience a lot of this stuff. And they have a great at home experience with this. I don't mind saying that as a consumer, I'm not interested in watching these types of movies at home on streaming services. I think that you get in some real pretentious territory when you're a filmmaker. Like you can say, hey, I prefer to make things for the big screen because that's that's the that's my palette or that's my that's my canvas is what I should say. Yeah. And so and that's what I'm making it for. I'm not saying that you shouldn't have an opinion about it, but you sound sort of out of touch, especially when word on the street is the second Wonder Woman movie was terrible, just terrible. Now, I didn't see it, so you can get at me if I'm wrong, but I've done I've read about it and I've been having conversations with people about it who are really into that world. And it's like, you know, the first Wonder Woman movie was supposedly amazing and empowering and great. And the second one has so many missteps as far as like it's like Wonder Woman is in love and, you know, and like puts love of a man before everything else. And it's just like it just sounds like it came so far afield. And when somebody releases a movie that is just like so terrible and again, I haven't seen it. But just word on the street is just so many missteps in storytelling and then blames the fact that it was released on HBO at the same time. I will tell you this. That was a DC movie, right? Well, so was The Suicide Squad, the new version of The Suicide Squad that just came out. That's also a DC property that was just released in theaters and released on HBO Max at the same exact time. And I'll tell you what. I went to the theater and it was one of the best superhero movies I've seen in a long time. And by far the best the best superhero movie that I have seen or supervillain movie, maybe that I have seen from the DC universe. And that movie does not suffer for being on HBO Max. In fact, I am very likely to rewatch that movie on HBO now that I've had the cinematic experience with it. And I loved it so much. And I'm pretty sure I was trying to do some searching here, but I'm pretty sure that the Suicide Squad did good box office numbers. It's another DC movie that has got to be, like, in line with what they were trying to do with Wonder Woman. I mean, I just feel like this person made a shitty movie and is now blaming the fact that it was streaming at the same time that it was in theaters.

Can I point out that I'm just – I appreciate you saying you went to the theater. Don't you think it's odd how we just all say – no, but, like, oh, I saw that in theaters. Like, you went to multiple theaters to see it. Oh, do we? Because we're so – not you, but somebody just said this the other day. Listen for this. People will commonly say, oh, I saw that in theaters. I think it's because we're trained to hear like, you know, now in theaters and coming, you know, like it's because the people that are promoting the film, the Don LaFontaine's of the world R.I.P. It's like they're it's coming to multiple theaters. You're only going to see it in one theater. So you see, I saw that at the theater would be the way to say it. People, a shockingly high number of people say, oh, I saw that in theaters.

Yeah, I have not noticed that. I will listen for it. I will say that I have confirmed that Suicide Squad was a box office success, grossing $325.1 million in the U.S., $421.7 million in other territories. Here's what I will say, though, that I might not be completely fair about this, is Wonder Woman 2 or Wonder Woman 1984 came out at a different time, I believe, in the pandemic. I don't think as many people were going to theaters. You know what I mean? There was, I think, probably at least a half a year, if not more, difference. So maybe there was some suffering because of the pandemic. But I also would just like to underscore that it really – I mean, I've heard universal panning of this movie. That's not just because it was streaming, lady.

I wonder why it is that I have not gone back to theaters. You have not gone at all. I have not seen a movie, unless I'm forgetting, I have not been in a – and you know what's kind of funny?

this this new nicholas cage movie pig oh it's getting great reviews something about that yeah

it's supposed to be great it was filmed here in portland becca was an extra in it i think her back is in it she's like in the in the restaurant where there's a seed involving nicholas cage's character and and we've been saying for weeks oh we got to go see that and i it's weird because i will go to a restaurant um and and you know try to sit outside but also i have been to restaurants that are in

indoors um and followed the masking policy and all of that there's i don't know why it is that going to a movie theater feels dicey to me when i have done plenty of other things that are would be equally dicey i mean they're all things that are allowed under the rules but you know what i mean like i don't know why going back to a movie theater is just something i haven't done yet and i i want to because i actually really love seeing movies in the theater for me for me in theaters

In theaters. In theaters this Friday. For me, I think it was a lack of movies that I wanted to see because I had the bug for a while. But then when finally things were opening up again and I felt safe to do it, there just wasn't a lot of stuff. There was like everything was scary movies. Like the closest thing that tempted me was in the silence to know a silent. Oh, yes. A silent place. You know, we even talked about that. And I saw a quiet place. I saw the first one in theaters. I liked it. I thought it was good, but I didn't have a desire to see the second one. Certainly not without Genevieve. I'm somebody who will happily sneak off to the theater by myself at some point. But I'm not going to see a scary movie without Genevieve. I don't really like scary movies that much. They well, they scare me. And so it wasn't until Genevieve said, oh, the Suicide Squad is coming. And then we read a little review of it because we weren't sure if it was a remake or a sequel. And it turns out it's kind of both. But it was just a really enjoyable experience. And as more and more movies kind of return to theaters, I think that I'll continue to do so. It's not it wasn't like a safety thing for me, like going to I've been in much more crowded restaurants and bars than going to this theater where it was like me and Genevieve and then maybe two other couples or something.

And then like Robert De Niro in The Way Back laughing a little too loud. Cape Fear style.

What? Right, right. There was something, the car felt heavy on our way home. I don't know exactly why.

Here I go once again with the email. Every week, I hope that it's from a female. No, man, it's not from a female.

Any emails or V-mails that you like? If not, I can just play you a funny TikTok clip that Addy sent me.

You can play that for me, but let's start with a listener voicemail. I love this. I don't remember if this person left their name or not, But this came over to the voicemail line, I believe, just yesterday.

Hey, guys. It's Anna in Seattle. I was just going through the Starbucks drive-thru trying to get myself a little bit of caffeine and a snack while I'm out on some errands. The line was taking forever. And then I rolled up to the window finally and offered my card. And they said, oh, well, the person in front of you offered to pay for your order.

Whoa.

I was scared of the person. And then I was like, oh, thanks. And I wanted so badly to say, cool, I will take these items now. But I didn't. I fucking paid for the person behind me. And yes, the order was more. Sorry, I swore. Anyway, whatever.

I hate fake nice people. Come over it.

Bye.

I can't quite tell what Anna said at the end. I think she said, I hate nice people. I'm over it. I think she said, I hate fake nice people. I'm over it I think I don't know if I got that completely right or not but no that that is something and maybe this goes back to me and like my refusal as a kid to want to clap my hands at the appropriate moments during performances or whatever like I was always very stubborn I'm you know when somebody is like outwardly begging for a compliment I'm not very quick with it I'm not trying to be a jerk but I don't like performative measures or or anything that is just

you don't like feeling like you are only allowed to give one reaction like you're on the spot to give a reaction someone's expecting that's not a good feeling yeah and there's just something

about this pay it forward starbucks thing that just seems like such like it just seems like i don't know it's just like local news feel good story bullshit that starbucks like it's in their best interest to you know kind of perpetuate these stories and it makes everybody feel like they're some sort of hero when really they're probably terrible secretly anyway and selfish and an anti-vaxxer i don't know what i'm going on about here i'm just wait a sec can i ask you

a practical question yeah so it has to be the person that's actually behind listener anna right because if they were ahead of her yeah you can't pay for a thing that hasn't happened yet

so it must be the two window thing right i mean you go through more of these drive-thrus than i do but the person behind her must have already placed their order so i don't understand this

because is there some way that they just hang on to your card information if only i had a brother who had once worked at starbucks it's like because i don't understand the the mechanics of it so so listener anna's pulling up to the window and the starbucks person says somebody paid for your order if it was the person in front of her how did they they just leave their card info open or they leave a twenty dollar bill and hope it doesn't exceed that i mean my

guess is it doesn't doesn't Starbucks and you go through more Starbucks drive throughs than I do although I did just go through a McDonald's drive through the other day and it's a two window system so when you're pulling up to the first window you're placing your order the person in front of you like that order goes through immediately the person in front of you can say okay let's just say you're starting this chain okay I'm gonna buy my chicken McNuggets also do you know what the person behind me got I'll pay for them too and that order is probably already registered before you get up to that second window okay because that's very confusing to me how it

even works and again the big issue is it's one of those things that you know something like i think you said you described it accurately i mean this is not the most fun labor day show we could have done but i think it's accurate which is it's this kind of weird like it's very like live laugh love i'm proud of myself because i bought someone coffee behavior that i think is more about the person just feeling kind of self-satisfied i don't know why we were taking shots of people that are well it's listener anna's fault for starting us on i loved her i loved her um just

unvarnished dismissal of this which gave me permission to go on some weird rant but then

it's also like again the bigger issue is just you now have the social obligation yeah to buy the coffees or the whatever for someone else and if it's a freaking suv with a family of five in it

you're you're hosed yep it's a bad deal potentially it's a bad deal don't you have it's a soup it's a

super bad deal so i i you know again i'm sure at one time it came from a place of of trying to be just a nice uh you know fellow citizen of the world but it has gotten out of control and i'm with you this kind of like way that it's become now a local news story and guess what the this dairy queen and uh wherever that was this i think it was like in minnesota where they had been doing it for two straight days and we were like who broke the chain yeah that's the person i want to kick it that's the real gyro you know who else i want to by the way i love that i started today's show with a dumb joke that you and i were making before the show started just zero context for the listeners um you know who i want to hang out with this kid from tiktok i don't know anything about them i don't know their age i don't know their gender i just know that addy sent this to me this kid is standing outside of i'm just going to say maybe it's like a middle school classroom I don't know if this is going to translate to audio, but I'm just take a let's see here. I'm going to load up old tick tock. Bro.

OK, so I just got locked out of the gym and it started to rain and I have my French horn. So I'm kind of freaking out right now. But yeah, that's the video.

It's the whole video. That's it. It's the kid with their French horn getting stuck in the rain, kind of freaking out.

Okay, so I just got locked out of the gym, and it started to rain, and I have my French horn, so I'm kind of freaking out right now, but yeah.

I just love that kid so much. I love that they decided to make that video they put up. I love that it's 2.5 million views. There's just something weirdly funny and relatable and likable in the way that they're just like talking about this moment. I want to know what happens. Well, you know what? I mean, yeah, what I'll do, I'll do a little research over this long weekend, and I'll try to see if I can find – because there's an account associated with it, but I don't know if that's the account of the person who made the video or if it's just a bigger account that picked up the video because I thought it was funny.

Well, don't worry about that. Just enjoy your camping. Don't be flipping around the TikToks when you're supposed to be camping. Okay, Dad. No screen time when you're out there.

Do you have a fisherman's vest full of salami I can borrow for this trip, Dad?

I like to think that somewhere in the universe, not probably in my family's possession anymore, but that jacket is out there somewhere, maybe still hanging in a thrift store, and there's still just like an extra pepperoni hiding in the back. Yeah, that would be great.

All right. What's a Labor Day song? Just probably some Woody Guthrie, just something about the labor movement. I think we got it right here. Oh, yeah. I need a gyro.

Yes, you do. I need a gyro.

Famously. I could kind of eat a gyro. I just cut up a big old heirloom tomato, salted it, and ate it for lunch. And I got to tell you what, pretty delicious.

Yeah, it is the season. I know a lot of people are growing their own now, too. And it's like a harvest time for that stuff.

Yeah, man. All right. Thanks for listening, everyone. We'll be back here tomorrow with a real show, which means it'll be four minutes longer than this one. So please join us for that. Until then, have a great Monday. Enjoy your Labor Day. We'll see you tomorrow. Stay safe. Take care of each other. and please remember no mountain too tall

and good luck to all

I need a hero I'm holding out for a hero Till the end of the night He's gotta be strong And he's gotta be fast And he's gotta be fresh from the fight I need a hero I'm holding out for a hero

Till the morning light He's gotta be sure

And he's gotta be soon And he's gotta be larger than life He's not sure than life

okay goodbye say goodbye derek ah good bob i hope we same place again very now

his brain is wrong power out