Muse

All right, let's spin those wheels and play with some clay. Now, there's one and only one rule in this class. I will tolerate no reenacting, whether it's ironic or sincere, of the Patrick Swayze Demi Moore pottery scene in Ghost. Ever since that movie was released in 1990, I have seen every conceivable variation of what I call ghosting. This could be guy on girl, girl on guy. the hilarious guy on guy. So since it never stopped, I had to adopt a zero-ghost-tolerance policy. If you so much as hum three notes from that Righteous Brother song, With God as my witness, I will come at you with everything I've got. Okay? Let's have a great time. TBTL.

i consider myself to be an absolutely dead center normal average american i think i'm looking forward

to cracking up uh i hope i can like you know totally crack up so uh i haven't like totally

cracked up in a long time mom it's not real it's a jib jab if we wanted to we could have our own business no i agree if we really wanted to we could it's just that do we want to do that do We want to have a website and a blog and be like, this is what we did today. No, it's too much work. Yeah, and too expensive.

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

Hey, want to hear the most annoying sound in the world?

My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host. Going to be a sit-down comedian on Tiki-Taki. Coming to you from the Nest Broadcast Center high in the sky, above Portland, Oregon on a beautiful, just absolutely gorgeous early September day. Oh, Ma, Pa, it's just beautiful. I thought I was coming down with something yesterday. By the end of the day, I was pretty ragged. My voice was kind of shot. I was feeling a bit feverish. It is never fun to be under the weather, but in the current version of this world, it's especially unfun. But then I woke up this morning and I just felt pretty much revived. My voice is maybe a little bit scratchy, but otherwise I'm feeling so much better. Got out there on my little morning exercise jog, and there's a certain set of stairs that I tend to go up between two sections of the kind of Willamette River area that I jog near. And I'm going to be honest with you, it's always an adventure on these steps. I've talked about them before. You just never know what you're going to encounter in terms of things that have been left behind. Stuff that I don't want to start the show talking about, but it can be fairly unpleasant. Well, this morning, I got on those stairs and they had just been pressure washed. Like five minutes previously. Clean as your mama's forehead. And it was, you know that smell of the first time it rains after a long dry spell and what the cement smells like? I believe there's actually a term for that, which I'm not remembering at the moment. But it had that smell. It was like the cleanest city stairs in Portland I've ever seen. And I got up to the bridge level and I looked over. And on the other side, the same crew of city workers were starting on the other set of stairs. And I just gave them a wave. And I just thought, I don't know if I've ever appreciated a bit of civic kindness and civic spirit more than getting to go up those 12 freshly power-washed stairs. So my point is things are off to a great start here on episode 3,506 in a collector series.

Let the fun begin.

Things are not off to a great start for this 79-year-old guy in California who was just sentenced to fairly lengthy prison term for selling something like $126 million in overpriced printer toner to various companies and non-profits. The thing that his company did, though, that finally brought the heat down on them, finally kind of sealed the deal and got the government involved, was kind of amazing. It reminded me of the woman who was arrested in Hawaii for faking her vax card when she misspelled the Moderna on her card that she'd filled out. She spelled it Moderna. This was almost on that level of idiocy. So we'll get into that also. You know, summer is winding to a close. Fall is starting, which has its whole own fun thing going. But there's a little bit of wistfulness. comes with the end of summer and so i thought well what can we use what can we do to feel happy of ourselves i feel happy of myself how about the 10 songs identified by neuroscientists that

are supposed to actually there's not doctors for your mind that are supposed to actually be the

happiest songs ever created we'll play them for you and see if it does the trick coming up we'll We'll do all that with the help of this guy, longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He has really been getting into fashion. He was looking for suits this weekend.

Attention, everyone. Andrew has a new hat.

He is Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now from the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. Good morning, my friend.

Brother, you are speaking my language. Let me just say that as a fellow city dweller, there is no better feeling than being the first person to take a poop on clean steps. I am so happy for you. That must have been a wonderful experience.

It's not one that I've had, but I can tell you a lot of other people have here in Portland, Oregon. And it just, I mean, look, obviously there's a lot that goes into, it's a very complicated matter, people who are living in cities like Portland and Seattle and who are often, I think, you know, unhoused. And that's, I would imagine, that's at the core of, or that's kind of the reason that you have a lot of people kind of using public areas to go to the bathroom. And so I don't want to get into like necessarily shaming those folks But I will just tell you my experience My lived experience as a jogger in this town Is just stepping over so much Stuff like that That when you get one of those mornings Where it's just In the words of Coolio Clean is your mama's forehead And you just don't have to like Because the other thing is I'm always exhausted You know when I'm doing this jogging project So the slightest inconvenience it goes from being a four to being an 11 in my mind and that can be if somebody's just walking slow or you know i've talked about the kind of this like low-key battle of wills that unfolds on this one bridge i go on called the hawthorne where it's like who gets to be in the running lane versus who has to go over into the biking lane any little thing that just makes me have to step to take one step to the right i wasn't planning on or whatever it just sort of feels almost like it's you know impossible to me so I'm sure that adds to the whole thing so getting to just go up those stairs and just relax and and again I do also just love that smell what is the

term for that smell we've talked about that on the show a while ago this does not ring a bell to me I did not know there was a term for that now I always think of it as like concrete or asphalt that I think usually though concrete right that's been baking in the sun probably for days if not weeks then the first rainfall comes and that smell when the cool rain hits the hot concrete or

blacktop yeah it's called petrichor really yeah the scent of rain it's the earthy scent produced when rain falls on dry soil the word is constructed from the greek petra or rock you know this growing up catholic the book of peter upon this rock i will build my church also the heart the christian rock band petra right it was even too rocky for me i was i was so not into hard rocking tunes as a kid that even christian rock sometimes petra was i was like well it's a little rocky um you were more than a christian pm don was there a christian oh my god let me think what would have been the closest i'm sure that the band pm don identified as christian i mean they're very spiritual i'm sure they identified as like you know pan spiritual um but uh i would have i mean i liked the real pm don a whole lot so it's a combination of petra or petros which means stone and core the fluid that flows in the veins of the gods of greek mythology wow that just got

very epic very fast i mean come on guys it's just rain hitting the soil like it's just well good

Well, but the thing is, it doesn't happen. What's so fun about that is it does not happen every time it rains. No. And, you know, living in the Northwest, we will enter a time of year where it's raining probably almost every day. And it's like then you're just, you know, you're just smelling, I don't know, whatever the smell of rain is, if it has a smell. It's that, you know, kind of it hasn't rained in a long time. There's just soil and other things. There's dust. There's just stuff that's settled and now it's being released or it's, you know, it's, you know, as we like to say on the show, it's getting wet, though. And I didn't know you like to get wet, though. And that there's something about the fact that it's not always Patrick.

that makes it kind of fun when it is. Yeah, I'll admit that when I think of that, I think more of like summers of my youth growing up, like out there in Ohio. One thing, and this is a very cliche thing to say as somebody who grew up in the Midwest or somewhere else and then moved out to the Pacific Northwest, but while it does rain here quite a bit in the wintertime, or kind of like more like drizzle and it's overcast, I really miss storms, man. That was like when you were, you know, in the middle of a summer break and it hasn't rained in a while and you're laying in bed and then you slowly hear a rumbling storm come from miles and miles away and get closer and closer, then eventually kind of gets violent in the sky while you're, like, laying there in bed and then that smell comes, especially if it hasn't rained in a while. Like, that is something that I just really miss is just, like, a good classic thunderstorm in the Midwest.

The thing about that, though, is for that to happen, you need a lot of humidity. And I don't – for me, the trade would not be worth it.

Oh, no, me too. No, I love the weather out here. I'm not saying that I would trade that in the same way that sometimes I miss one big snowstorm. Like, I would never want to live in that again. I would never want to put up with Ohio winters or even really the summers, although there are just small moments like that that I think about. I also, I mean, listen, I can romanticize my past to no end. Like, I grew up, you know, out in the country, too. Man, going to sleep to the sound of frogs was just part of my growing up. And, like, it's like they have apps for that now. I mean, they have apps for all of the sounds that I loved going to sleep to as a kid. And I'll tell you what, like, the sound of just, like, frogs out in the pond was amazing and kind of omnipresent in the summer months. Now, contrary to that is the sound of crickets somewhere in the house. Like, suddenly I'm having all these memories of going to sleep as a kid. But every now and then during these same summer months, you would be going to sleep. You mean one that actually they've gotten into the house? somewhere a cricket has gotten in the house and you can never find them. You can never find them. I mean, it'll be three in the morning. You'll have torn apart your entire bedroom. Everything is out the window and smashed and you still cannot. You're clawing at the carpet looking for that thing and it's just like, every time you think it's gone, all of a sudden you hear the eek eek and you're just like, you son of a gun.

You're like, I forget. I sometimes mix up Bob Hoskins and Nathan Lane when they're playing a person who's going crazy trying to destroy a smaller thing. But there was a movie called, like, The Great Mouse Hunt, I think.

Okay. I think I've seen the cover of it.

It's got, like, a short guy and a tall guy. It's got a certain kind of – it feels a little bit like Home Alone, you know, in the way that Pesci and Daniel Stern are just forever just getting, you know, messed up by Macaulay Culkin. But I believe this one is they're trying to get like a mouse out of a house and then, you know, hilarity ensues.

Oh, you know what? I think I was picturing a different – I thought this was going to be like a wacky 80s movie. This is a 1997 film possibly? Is this going to be the voice? This is a DreamWorks trailer, by the way. It was Nathan Lane, by the way. So it was not Bob Hoskins. We're going to hear the voice. This is the exact kind – I know that this is the Nutcracker Suite, But this is that kind of plucky music that I feel like so many movie trailers in the 90s began with. And then somebody opens a pickle jar.

When the once wealthy string magnet Rudolf Schmuntz dies, he leaves his factory and an abandoned Victorian mansion to his two sons, the dutiful and optimistic Lars and the venal cynic Ernie. I'm already in, by the way.

Dude, I thought you were riffing at first. I was astounded. I thought you were doing a better riff on this type of trailer than I did with my Pickle Charge. I was like, oh, man. Boy's been practicing. I'm just reading from Wikipedia. I love that. Oh, okay.

I see what's going on here. I love that this has a string magnet named Rudolph Schmuck.

A string magnet. I mean, that's exactly, yes. Here, let's listen to a little more of this. Okay. All right. We just saw, okay, all these metal spikes are tearing through walls trying to get at a mouse, I now realize. The mouse, though.

Lars, give me a hand with this. The Smontz brothers have inherited their father's old house. Sorry, Pop. I'm sorry. Fixing it up could bring them a fortune. We can make seven, eight hundred thousand easy. Oh, man. Smart. Our future is staring us in the face, and all we have to do is grab it, baste it, and scarf it down.

there's just one small problem it's a mouse hello hello all right now they're just tearing the place

apart trying to catch this mouse i you know what honestly i might watch that movie this christmas yeah yeah like that put me in a i mean the soundtrack is clearly why but that put me in a very christmassy mood um very comfortable

Very cozy

You love to hear those songs And I'm always looking for a new Kind of you know Go to Christmas movie Or I should just say Another one That you can kind of watch Around Christmas time Just to feel cozy And have a fun time Briefly what I was going to say You know what I kind of miss About my time living in DC Is Fireflies Which I know also You have in the Midwest Oh yeah That is not a Northwest phenomenon But it's funny because This will be the second day in a row That I referenced this movie That I watched Called um i don't feel at home in this world uh which was definitely shot in portland but they're trying to there's like it's clear they want you to kind of low-key think it's in virginia because there's this one scene where a car has virginia plates and in the sort of final scene when some of the characters are kind of sitting around in a backyard having kind of a i guess you would say a lovely moment they have obviously animated in fireflies oh yeah yeah because you don't have fireflies in portland but in watching and but it was it's obvious that the i don't think it was so much as to create the verisimilitude of this being virginia although you would get fireflies in virginia i think it was because we just universally i think as humans tend to identify a warm summer night with fireflies just kind of doing their thing as a peaceful kind of like things have turned out okay like i think they literally animated in these fireflies so that you would subconsciously get the cue that things were okay for these characters.

Hey, Luke, I'm going to be a little bit of a sleuth here. I have something. I just cracked a case wide open. Whoa. Underneath the trailer on YouTube for Mouse Hunt 1997, somebody named Brianna Quinn six years ago left a comment about how much she liked this movie. Now, I think that I have just deduced that Brianna Quinn is not a real person. Her avatar is she's a young, I'm going to say, like, very early 20s blonde young woman. And her comment is, without any punctuation, I used to watch this movie almost every day when I was little. I got a kick out of it. It's kind of all one sentence without any punctuation. This is why I know that Brianna is not who she claims to be, because there is nobody. nobody there is nobody younger than me who uses the phrase i get a kick out of it or i got a kick out of it it is i believe that i am potentially the youngest person to still use that phrase like have you ever heard like a young person say yeah i got a kick out of that no i think you're right you've cracked this case and closed it yes gotcha Also, this appears to be the only thing that she's ever done on YouTube is left this singular comment, which really makes me wonder, what is the endgame here?

I was trying to get into... Carrie and I used to really be big fans of that song, You Send Me. Oh, yeah. That's me and Veeves' song, the Sam Cooke song.

Oh, really?

The Sam Cooke song?

Yeah, if we have a song, that's our song, so don't steal it. Well, you're lucky I'm divorced because I don't have to fight you over it now.

So silver lining alert for you and Veeves.

Oh, we had it claimed a long time ago.

I was trying to, I think for a while we were both talking. I don't, Carrie was much less given to affectation than I am. But I was like, we're going to start saying that really sends me. Like that's kind of, that's from that era of getting a kick out of something. Yeah, you're right. Like, oh, golly, man, that just really sends me fill in the blank.

Yeah, no, I actually like that. I don't, I never thought of that as the phrase outside of the song, but you're right. I like that. It's like, that sends me daddy-o.

Yeah. Hey, I don't know if you actually want to talk about this. So you have every right to, you know, not. But we went into last weekend. You had a plan to go do some shopping to get a suit for this wedding that you're going to be in. And I'm kind of curious if you ended up actually pursuing that, how that went, how you're feeling.

I'm feeling OK. I got a suit. I know that you're big on hats now. We've got the attention, everyone. Andrew has a new hat. I wish Andrew did have a new hat. It went okay. So we dedicated Saturday. When I say we, yes, of course, it was me who needed a suit. But Genevieve is a huge help in endeavors like this and I think enjoys doing it. So we ended up kind of having a nice day bopping around town looking for a suit. Now, the first place I went to was a place that caters a little bit more to probably people a little bit more young and stylish than I tend to be. Bonobos, which I believe is a chain. Oh, yeah. I've seen the name. Yeah, and the style of suit they had was perfect. I found one, but it's like one of those kind of new retail experiences where no matter what you get, it's got to be shipped to you, but they're like checking everything on iPads. But you have one day to pick it up before they burn it in front of the store.

They're going to call you, sir, are you going to come in and get your suit?

I can't today. Well, that's it. We light it on fire.

And it's weird because you'd think that if they're ordering everything, then everything would always be in stock. But that's not the case. And it's kind of the end of the season. So I was in there for a little bit.

It's a ghost kitchen of suits.

It was a little bit. I mean, they were very, very nice. But again, like as I'm there, a bunch of – Genevieve even said later, she's like, you could tell that was a good place to start because everybody who came in there, there was like maybe four other guys who came in there to try on suits. And they were all very good-looking, kind of stylish men. and, like, I don't know, young college-age guys. But anyway, so there was, like, the kids there, they helped get me close, but they just didn't have what I needed. And then with the turnaround time, and it would have been, like, something along the lines of, like, well, we can get you those pants, but not quite the exact right jacket to go with it. So that ended up sort of being a bust. I got a little bit frustrated there because we went to – the whole retail experience is not super up my alley. It doesn't send me. see yeah right and so we went to a place that I really hate being called University Village which you know of it's like kind of a it's kind of I guess this area's answer to like an outside kind of an outside somewhat upscale mall experience kind of like the Grove in Los Angeles

I would hold the somewhat I think it's the most upscale mall in Seattle now which to me is I note that Because, you know, back in my day, like, University Village was a very humble, low-slung, little, like, cluster. Oh, really? I mean, just a handful of shops. I mean, that's where Storable's Extra Space was that I worked at. And also the Ram Restaurant and Bar, which now is this big glittering palace. But it used to just be this grimy little place with, like, carpets that need to be replaced where my friend Ben's brother, Josh, was a cook. So we could sometimes scam a free burger in there. like that's my that's the the university village of my childhood and now when i look at it it's just you know these high-end places that i've never even heard of aritzia and the like it just it's it's like i said it's very noticeable to me based on what it used to look like and it's funny

because it's also now the home to all of these brick and mortar stores of companies that started out and vowed to be online only it's really interesting it's like if you want your warby parker um if you want your amazon yes there's an amazon bookstore there which is just like the

biggest fu in the world it's right it's just it's right out of conan the barbarian what is best in life destroy your enemy and hear the lamentation of the women like amazon is just like to destroy your enemy and hear the lamentation of the barnes and noble we're just gonna do a brick and mortar

because we can we're just gonna destroy all brick and mortar business for books in bookstores around the country forever but then we're going to start building our own bookstores because why not for fun people like that people like that experience um there are a few others that aren't coming to mind right away bonobos sort of walks the line of that as well kind of more of an online experience

also can i mention i'm seeing a bonobos in west portland and i'm getting some ideas i'm like oh

maybe i should go yeah not that actually does look kind of my alley the problem with me is if i had more time i could have really you know probably made that work for me but i was already down to like the last few weeks and then something gets shipped and then you have to get it um altered what did i say to these i misspoke this weekend and i said well i'll look for a place that has altercations she's like do you want to rethink that sentence um but anyway uh so we did that then we bopped around some other places at university village and the reason i dislike that by the way is just like the flow the traffic flow they're both pedestrian and for cars is really is really terrible and i i think it might slightly be by design i think like once you're in this labyrinth like they kind of want you to walk around and pass as many open storefronts as possible but it's just like it's kind of a nightmare especially on a on a saturday game day before the huskies would lose to oh my goodness gracious somebody pointed out that they lost to that team since the harding administration 1920 i mean hey you know what we've got listeners in

montana you know tip of the cap yeah for it like in fact i think we even got one gloating email from a montana fan which hey you deserve it it's been a hundred years you've been waiting for that but wow i i said this on our text chain sorry to quickly no go ahead please yeah yeah you know becca was is a is a graduate of university of oregon and there's a bit of a rivalry between the u-dub and u of o and so she was listening to the ducks game i went over to pick her up on saturday we were going camping for the long weekend and she was like excited she's like yeah we beat fresno state but it was pretty close and then i in just probably the most cringy way was Like, well, well, actually, what these big teams like, you know, Oregon and Washington do is they pay these smaller teams to kind of come like lambs to the slaughter, you know, so that they can start the season with a decent, you know, like a three and a record, like usually the first few teams you play.

If you're a big program are smaller teams that you have literally paid them money to come show up and play with the kind of understanding that you're going to beat them by a lot and you're going to maybe go up in the rankings and you're just going to like when your real schedule starts, you'll kind of have, you know, kind of a bit of a cushion. So that was the speech that I gave to Becca and then checked my phone, a little sportsplaining. And then a Sunday morning, in fact, I was so confident that I would that we were going to beat Montana that I didn't even look at the score until Sunday morning. I looked at my photo and there was chatter on the fun-loving criminals and I realized we had lost and all I could do was lull like it was just so unbelievably bad that I just laughed about it so anyway yeah that was the that game was about to kick off when you were traveling around University Village with Veeves trying to figure out what

you were going to do yeah so I'm bopping around a few stores there it's not really working out like we are kind of between seasons here which isn't helping either and so you know I check out a J.Crew and a couple of other like kind of similar things and then we're like okay you know what we have to get to just like a more of a standard mall area maybe look for a department store i'm starting to already kind of lower my standards a little bit like i'm not going to get something that's probably the the latest look but let's get something serviceable to me one of the most important things is that the color scheme works again i'm in this wedding and you know my buddy nick who's getting married he's the groom That's how that works. He's going to wear a dark gray suit. And so us groomsmen are supposed to get a light gray suit. So I really wanted to make sure, like, there were some suits that, like, were in a style that I liked but were a little bit more mid-gray, if that makes sense. And I just – I really did not want to be the person who had the darkest suit of the groomsmen, basically. You know what I mean? Or do anything that gets close to the groom's color. I really had a light gray look in mind and some examples that he had sent out. So we head over – I'm like, let's go to some place. Like, let's drive well out of Seattle, whether it's north or south or whatever, and go to, like, an honest-to-gosh mall area. And then I'm like, oh, you know what we should do is let's head over the lake. Let's head to Bellevue, right? Like, Bellevue again, like kind of plenty of – Go see your favorite traffic cop.

Yeah.

Yes. Say hello. I was tempted to get one of those pastrami sandwiches over there again. But anyway – One of those $50 pastrami sandwiches. Yeah, yeah. I keep forgetting the name of the place. It's something on Main. It starts with a G. Guillermo's on Main? Gilbert's, I think, on Main. Yeah, Guillermo, put it on the pole. It's Gilbert's. Anyway, so we went over there. Long story short, once we're over there, we hit a couple of places, but mostly knew that, like, let's go to Macy's like that's that's going to do it. And I go in there and there was a little Calvin Klein area where they had a jacket and pants, you know, full suit set that did fit me. I have to get them hemmed. You know, the look is slightly more like, probably more like it looks like I got it at Macy's than Bonobo. You know, it's like slightly more generic maybe looking. But the color is right. The fit is right. The woman who, like, I just have, I have no experience really shopping in those kinds of stores myself, like department stores. Like, I got a jacket, a pair of pants, obviously the suit. and a white button-down shirt for the wedding and a package of, like, undershirts, white undershirts. And for some reason, we had to ring up every single purchase individually in order to keep, like, saving money. Like, by ringing up the most expensive one first, that put me into some plan where I'm now a copper member and then every $100 I spend is $20 off the next thing the first time. So I bought the most expensive thing first, which then knocked a bunch of money off the pants, which were next, which then earned me more star points, Macy's star points, which then went. Maybe I only had three ring ups for four products. But like this woman and Genevieve were speaking a different language and I just I just wrote it out and kept tapping my credit card.

There is nothing more Byzantine than the pricing situation at a Macy's. First of all, everything is 90 percent off and you wonder how they're losing money. And, you know, do you remember this? Actually, this happened at Penny's. We talked about this a couple years ago. So Penny's hired a dude who had been at Apple, who had been at the Apple, I should say, the Apple store. And he came in, and his whole thing was, we're going to make Penny's, like, it's going to operate like the Apple store. It's going to be, like, the design is going to be really awesome. We're not going to offer sales. We're just going to offer things at the price that they, you know, we want to set. But everything's not going to be, like, 90% off. We're not going to fall into that hole that Macy's has fallen into where you're just used to like if I were to pick up an item at Macy's and it wasn't 80 percent off, I'd be like, this is not the item for me because I'm so trained. And it's all a shell game, right? Like they have some price they were always going to charge and they're probably boosting it and then taking it down. But the guy was at Penny's for like six. months the company lost like 80 percent of its like business and then he was just like off to his next project leaving just the you know bombed out hull of the of the company anyway so maces is in that same kind of world where it's everything's always some crazy discount and they're always trying to get you to sign up for the card and there's all kinds of things going on that are super confusing but i always feel like nothing is ever the price that there's no just like hey this is a hundred dollars it's like something complicated and then also this didn't make

sense so the suit was actually one of the easier things to find there and then i tried it on i maybe tried on various sizes until i dialed it in um but then i'm shopping for a white button-down shirt and weirdly that was one of the harder things to kind of get like one the material was very strange and a little bit too see-through if you can believe it um and i know that sounds hot but it just wasn't the look i was going for for this particular wedding uh and then some other ones just like i don't know whatever fitting issues and i finally land on the just plain white shirt right semi-spread collar i mean we're just talking about the kind that like they come folded up with the cardboard and like 50 pins you know i tried on too many shirts because by the end i knew exactly where all the pins were gonna be to me i always thought it was just a random exercise

i feel like where they're losing their money right it's pins i know so much what's the overhead on there being 77 pins in each like van heusen shirt right exactly and then also i feel terrible like

i do not understand how they're gonna put it back together at that point right it's just burned like i just don't understand and like so i'm trying to after i try one on and doesn't fit i'm trying to drape it over like the area where you're supposed to return the clothes that you're not gonna buy i'm trying to keep the packaging close to it so i'm like how will they ever come back and find this little card that was wedged perfectly between the two buttons that said that this is wrinkle free or whatever it is like i'm trying to like do i'm just trying you know me like my brain is not comfortable with this idea that i'm taking these perfect squares of cloth and unpinning everything and messing them up and pulling all this hardware out of it and then just leaving it in a pile unsure how it'll ever get reconstructed again and feeling bad for the people who have to do it

Anyway, I don't, I mean, just not to belabor this point, but, like, I don't understand the business model there because I don't think that somebody at Macy's or Penny's or wherever you might be, Nordstrom Rack even, I don't think someone is putting Humpty Dumpty back together again. I wasn't sure. With the pins. Well, I just, it.

Maybe they just get hung up after that. Maybe they just hang them on a hanger after that. Maybe, because I feel like. They're not throwing it away, right?

No, they're definitely not. But I'm saying when you pull one of those things out, it's like a machine did that. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like it's not it's it's not even like a human being folded this thing up into this. It's like something that seems like an assembly line with machines did it. Maybe they're just really good at putting it all back together. But I mean, it has a feeling of like this has never been out of this package before.

Yeah, definitely. You're right. I don't know. I guess they can't fold it all back together. They probably move them over to hangers and they still have like the tag hanging off of them. Anyway, all of that is to say, so I try on various white shirts. I finally dial one in. And while, and I didn't even look at how much it is. I don't know what the tag said. But as this woman is ringing me up, she's like, oh, well, this shirt is only $4.99. We're like, what? And she looks surprised. She's like, maybe that's a mistake, but I'm not going to look to correct it for you. it is just like like you said it makes with this macy's yeah no i mean it doesn't have sleeves and it's just like one button up at the collar and the rest just hangs open look though yeah and there's no back to it either but that's okay because i've got a good back no i'll be wearing a jacket no no i mean i i can't like it sounds like i was like buying i wasn't looking for a cheap shirt it was just like the first one that fit it's fine like you said it's a van huesen or a calvin i don't know what it is but um pardon me i think i just wheezed but uh anyway i was just like $4.99 and like we're all surprised like we're in this store where the person who's selling me something is just as surprised as I am that it's only $4.99 it makes no logical sense I don't

know what's going on with Macy's yeah but I got a suit well there you go and you're happy with it yeah it didn't break the bank sounds like everything turned out uh in almost the best possible kind of uh way yeah it's good it's um it's a Calvin Klein suit I think so the other thing too is i bet you that bonobo stuff and this is something that i've really been dealing with over the last couple of years because i will sometimes sort of aspirationally buy a suit maybe or at least buy a blazer and by that i mean it's right on the line for me in terms of like my my weight and my size and stuff and then if i if i gain some weight then like i mean i have a number of suits they're actually still up in bellingham but i have a number of suits that that even though i've been really kind of working on it i'm still like i really couldn't probably wear those suits and feel comfortable comfortable it's not a very forgiving type of clothing no it isn't i mean well here's the thing it is flattering but it's not forgiving in that if you start the day in a suit that is like the weight you know the pants are a size smaller than is comfortable for you that's all you're going to be thinking about throughout the entire event and also i know that it's still the style is maybe not quite as like super duper skinny pants and like tailored look as it used to be it's still i think the bonobos of the world are gonna have the suit it's just gonna be they're gonna go for a tighter

fit yes they were definitely trying to get me into like these very tighter fit things that you could actually when you buttoned it around my belly you could see the the lines almost like kind of like stress lines and i kept saying so it was like genevieve and then two saleswomen who are like way younger than me and stylish right and they have this job and i keep saying but are you supposed to be seeing these lines because to me as a as a guy who's dealt with weight issues his entire life basically like when your belly is pushing forward on something and you can see the lines that's not a good look but they're saying no no like all three of them were like insistent like no no you buy your clothes too big like this is a good thing it makes you look good to have

that actually tight like it does but also you have to be comfortable yes standing up there and being in the photos and at the end of the day if you're going a little a size bigger than you really need to and they're not wrong by the way like wearing the whole reason i don't know why i'm taking this here but like the whole reason that i wear like most of the jackets i wear is so that i can button one button right over my stomach so as to create a sense of a waste even though you can see you know my torso kind of slightly stressing at the margins it's like that i don't think that those folks were wrong but i also think you have to be comfortable in this because you're the one that's going to be wearing it and and also if you're uncomfortable it's going to make it a less fun day for you and this is a day to have fun with with nick and rosen and thieves and all those people so yeah i'm glad you you ended up in something that you feel good about yeah i feel

i feel that way too again it's not like i i'm not gonna win any fashion contest but i'm not not going to stand out and look bad again it's not it's not a bad suit at all it's just like yeah you know i don't know if you would wear this suit or not i'm not sure um i don't know well i will

like i look forward to seeing the photos and then i can render my uh my judgment then as if it's a suit that i would i mean if it's calvin klein i can't imagine i i bet you we're talking about very very small differences between like yes what those hipsters at bonobo were going to have you do and what you ended up with i bet you it's it's very very very mild uh differences yeah i think

it'll be fine i'm supposed to have a conversation with nick later today the groom i mean i think of him as my friend but in this context i'll refer to him as the groom but um and we were supposed to talk about just uh we're just going to catch up on some stuff but he did say in a text message i have a question about the wedding so i'm wondering now what what that could possibly be do you want to take any um guesses i'm guessing he's going to ask you might want you to say something i was wondering that i was wondering about that too because i was going to say like Like somebody sent out a note. I don't know if I'm airing too much business here, but somebody sent out a note to everybody in the wedding party. And I don't really know most of these folks. They're just showing up as Snapchat numbers, not Snapchat, as WhatsApp numbers on my phone. Oh, wow.

And using signal.

This isn't all encrypted. Yeah. But because I think I don't know if people are around the around the globe or out of the country or not, but it's a cheap way to communicate. But anyway, point is, I don't really know who is sending out these organizing text messages. But somebody said, you know, hey, does anybody want to, you know, speak during the wedding? Do you want to make sure that we allow time for you to speak during the wedding right now? It's just like I think we have maybe the best man and the maid of honor or something along those lines. And in the back of my head, you know, I don't love I don't like public speaking, especially public speaking in a small group, if that makes any sense. But I was totally I consider this podcast private. Well, you can tell by the things I talk about that.

I number one fear is public speaking and the number two fear is private speaking.

But in the back of my head, I'm like, if I'm in the wedding, I mean, that's part of the thing. Like, I should be prepared at least at the rehearsal dinner or at the wedding if something pops up to be able to say something and not just run away. But I'm also not going to sign up. I figured I'm not going to sign up. Like, this is a small gathering, and there's a lot of people with a lot of very close bonds. A lot of people at this wedding know each other a lot more than I know the other folks here. There's going to be family. Like, they should have precedent. I feel like I'm probably the outlier in the wedding party. I don't know if that's true or not. And I, you know, certainly I don't think Nick would say that. But I'm just kind of like giving people their space. But I was wondering if Nick wants to ask me something that I did wonder, like, oh, does he want me to say something? And if so, of course, I of course I will. But it's not something that I think I'm necessarily great at. And I don't know that it's necessarily my place unless they particularly want me to.

I could see that because, you know, you I think. You guys had a really, I mean, obviously you have a friendship off air, but you guys had a really great connection on the radio show. And, you know, producing that show, the two of you basically, you know, kind of against certain odds and feeling probably a little bit like it was kind of the two of you against the world. That's a pretty strong bonding experience. And, you know, I think you're a better public speaker than you might give yourself credit for. But I also know that, you know, I'm somebody who does a lot of talking into microphones or addressing groups of people. And I will tell you, nothing strikes fear into my heart more than having to talk at like a wedding or a gathering of 100 or fewer people. Like put me on stage at the Fifth Ave or, you know, I'm doing supposedly if it still happens, I'm supposedly interviewing Annie Leibovitz. I always say Annie Leibowitz, the photographer, when I mean Fran Leibowitz down here in Portland in like January at this place called the Schnitz, which is like huge. I have zero nervousness about that. I don't know why, even though it's a few thousand people. I would be terrified to speak at somebody's wedding, not to not to not to put that into your brain. But it's just weird how that is more stressful than a mass group of people that you just kind of can't see because they're out there in the darkness.

Well, it's interesting because – so I've only done it once before, and I'm trying to think why I was asked – I think somebody just asked me, hey, could you give a toast at our reception after the wedding? I was not in this wedding party, but I felt like this was a really – I felt like the bar was really high for this too because these are incredibly smart people. Like these are two of the smartest people I know getting married in this case and just professional communicators and all this stuff. And so I remember being so nervous, Luke, and I never like sat down to write anything. But what I would do is, you know, I like to take long showers, right, for months, for months. I mean, I lived with so much anxiety over this, but I would start writing it in my head in the shower. And I would just think I'm going to say this and this and little bon mots here and there, like whatever. And after doing that for a really, really long time, I had it in my head. I also remember and I don't know if either one of them know it know this but I also don't think either one of them will ever hear this um I remember being so distracted they had a beautiful outdoor wedding in Maine I want to say literally like getting married on some bluff overlooking the water and at the end an eagle soared across I'm not even making that up like this thing was picture esque. And the whole time, all I can think of is I think I'm going to throw up. I was so nervous about giving this giving this like toast. Right. I know that feeling. And like, I mean,

that's the stuff of stress dreams for me. I think that's connected to my dream that somebody just told me I have to do stand up comedy. Right. Like, I didn't realize I was supposed to be doing it this night. But I just had a dream about that the other night. I forget Until we were talking about it I had forgotten all about it But yeah There's just something about And then the funny part is I'm sure it went great So the whole time I'm just like

Sitting there thinking Oh my god I can't do this But Luke do you know what The absolute best thing in the world That can happen to you In this situation is Everybody who goes before you Was rough man Just rough And again I don't think they'll ever hear this And I don't want to I don't want to call anybody out specifically. But there was a family member who was bestowing some sort of family towel on to Josh with a bunch of wisdom on it. But this wisdom was all rooted in sexism. Like it was kind of like it was all the type of humor of like advice. Number one, she's always right. And number two, even when you're right, she's right. You know, but like but it didn't end like it was a scroll. and you thought like after the first two it would be done but it just kept going and going and like it was just so awkward and rough and then some other people some colleagues of mine had too much to drink and sort of tried to tried to tag team a toast and it was a disaster and like I was like number five and I just got up and said what I've been practicing in the shower for like six months And it was good I think that it was probably potentially the best one So I should at least Maybe start talking to myself in the shower Before this wedding In case I am called upon to say something

Andrew gets the W And just so the listeners know That's also the dynamic we've been cultivating on this show For about 3,506 episodes Lowering the bar One of these days we're going to do an episode of TBTL That is just going to knock your socks off And it's going to seem so good because of what's preceded it. But it'll be on somebody else's podcast, though. Oh, yeah. No, I'm on Nora's podcast at some point talking about Newman. I think I might hit it up. out of the park yeah i'm great i'm great at like just like discrete focused 10 minute conversations about a specific topic that's the stuff i can really do this thing still not really my long suit but here we are all right quick break and then we'll be back with more at tbtl it's donor of the day thank you time these are the people that are making today's episode possible because they are donating to the show each month i think we can all relate to the flurry of sort of seemingly small payments that we all make in a lot of directions every month and we really appreciate those of you who are having one of those seemingly small payments go in our direction because it's the only way that we're able to do this thing folks like Elizabeth Gerard in Seattle Washington, thanks Elizabeth how about Daniel Knopfel or Knopfel in Las Vegas Nevada I don't want to say I was disinvited, Andrew But I was politely not invited to Las Vegas With Camaro Kev Wait, oh, tell me everything Well, I can always hang out with Daniel So, I mean, who needs Camaro Kev and his family? I think what it was So disinvited meaning you were invited and then disinvited? No, that's why it was not disinvited He mentioned In fact, it might even be like this weekend I don't know, it's very soon When we were hanging out in the summertime he casually mentioned they were going to vegas and i would say for a lot of our life if any of us were to be going to las vegas to visit listener daniel and the other sights and sounds there it'd be sort of a given in fact not only would it be a given that everybody in the friend group was invited but there would be like a kind of a group text going like hey does anybody want to go we're going to go in for the fight it's this weekend it's you know and everyone starts kind of like i can or i can't you're making hotel plans it's a whole thing so that's kind of in my mind somewhere and camaro just mentions they're going to vegas and you know truth be told i was probably a couple of drinks in at this point and i said oh well maybe i'll come visit you too and i saw this look on his face because it's him and his family maybe it's like somebody is getting married in the extended family i actually don't think it's a wedding necessarily but it's basically a thing where i could what i saw on his face which i totally understand and and i don't i don't begrudge

him this at all what i saw in his face was this is gonna be the kind of trip where i don't really need luke wilding out like and also i don't need to wild out like this is kind of more family it's probably more sedate there's probably gonna be more like we're gonna go on the um you know helicopter tour of uh of the hoover dam or whatever you know what i mean just kind of like

that sort of vibe was that an imitation is that the voice that camaro uses when he's thinking family or was that a family member? I assume so.

I've never been allowed to hear it. We're going to go on the helicopter ride. It keeps me separated from him. Yeah, right. So I've not heard it, but that's if I had to sort of imagine it, that's kind of what I think it sounds like. That's funny because he was begging me to go.

It's just such a weird home. Well, that's the thing.

It's just, that's, it's okay. You mean, you know, friendships change. Yeah, it's fine. My friendship with Daniel is stronger than ever, as is my friendship with Patricia Lenhart Pendergrass, who's in Aurora, Colorado. And also, Alex Strawn Seattle Washington Alex What is up Alex has been In it For a little longer Than a minute With TBTL man Alex has been A friend of the show I remember Like Events at the Azteca That Alex was on Oh wow And then we've got Another Alex Who's been part of This show forever Our friend Alex Washington Out there in Brooklyn New York Alex thank you For sticking with us All these years Alex is The best As is Kevin In Brooklyn, by the way. Yes. I believe I went out after we did Live Wire in Manhattan at WNYC in a naked attempt to get WNYC interested in putting us on. Did not work, by the way. Shouldn't have been naked. Well, I misread the room, Andrew. Grossly. And I'll be living it down for the rest of my career. But then we went and met up a bunch of us, me and a bunch of the 10s from New York, and we had a very fun night. And Alex was there, and we appreciated it. Kevin Wilson is right here in Portland, Oregon. Kevin, go to the stairs on the Hawthorne Bridge. You've got another hour. Take your lunch. Have your lunch. Spread your lunch out on the steps. No, I don't mean in a Tupperware. I mean physically on the steps. You can eat off of those Hawthorne stairs steps right now, my dude. Thanks, Kevin. Thanks to all of our donors of the day. We would not be here doing this without you. So thanks so much for making this possible. Thank you, baby. Life must go on.

Hello and welcome to Top Story. This is kind of a crazy story, Andrew. Out of California, a guy named Gilbert Michaels of Los Angeles has been sentenced to four years in prison. He's 79 years old. So, you know, that's a substantial sentence if you think about what his expected rest of his lifespan is. This is what the prosecutors say he did since the 1970s. He's been running this scam. They think he's defrauded more than 50,000 victims around the countries over the years, selling about one hundred and twenty six million dollars worth of toner to unsuspecting victims. This is I mean, you almost have to kind of like tip your cap at just the fiendishness of the scam. So this is what they would do. he had this company called idc servco and what they would do was he hired these telemarketers that were in like a boiler room and they would pretend to work for toner supply companies that they could somehow figure out we're already working with like a you know like a smaller company or like a non-profit or a ymca or whatever so they would call these people up and they would say we're from you know whatever the name of the toner company is that they've been getting their toner from and then what they would do is they would tell them the price on toner has gone up but we're still going to give you this toner at the original price although the quote-unquote original price they were quoting was also grossly inflated so the scam was hey i'm with the toner company you've been using for 20 years the sorry the price is going up i'm still going to give it to you though at like the previous rate but then they would lie about what the previous rate was then they would mail the toner to these companies and then when the company would say hey this is way more than we used to pay they would threaten them with legal action or that they were going to send them to a collection agency or if they mailed the toner back they would charge them a restocking fee so at no time were they even with the companies that they were claiming to be from they were this whole other thing the way they have finally got busted was they sent invoices To a California storage company That only uses typewriters So They were charging them for printer toner But this company was like We only have typewriters What are you talking about Also what was this company doing Only using typewriters of the 2000's But they didn't have computers According to this article From MarketWatch And so that's how they finally got busted They basically messed with the wrong storage company That is somehow not using computers Even though they're trying to charge them for printer toner

I am so confused by this story, and I don't want to take the fun out of it. And I don't think this is – I think I'm confused because it's probably a very complicated story and a complicated scam that is hard to make digestible in an article of this length. But here are my main questions with this. Number one, if the scam is, I'm going to swoop in. So I've already – so I'm – okay, you're a business, right? And you've been doing business directly with Brother Computer Inc. I know that they don't make their own Inc., but let's just say Brother Brand Computer Inc., right? Now, I come in as this telemarketing company, let's call them, and I don't identify myself as being with IDC. I say, hey, I'm with Brother Inc., and the price is going up, but we're going to cut you a deal, and we're going to ship this to you. Number one question is, well, what's going on with the relationship you already have, whether it was directly with brother or some other local vendor at some point didn't they call and say hey when are you going to place your order again and did you have to break up with your original vendor over this like again this was something that went on for decades across so many organizations i don't understand why i've bought things on behalf of my dad's business before and you have these vendor relationships i don't understand how somebody can come in and pretend to be the vendor when you still have an independent vendor out there do you know yeah Yeah, that's a good question.

I wonder if some – I mean, I wonder if some had to do with the kind of places that they would target. So among the victims were a YMCA, a California country club, a Christian preschool in Alabama, a tow truck company, and steel workers union local in Kentucky. Now, that doesn't really answer your question because you're right. Like there are whole layers, and many of our listeners work in these layers. There are just layers of these relationships, you know? Like there was somebody who really was selling the toner to these places, and that person, that's somebody who's living. They're the person who's maintaining this region. They are the brother toner rep for whatever part of the country this is, and their job is to maintain the relationships with all of these different places. I always thought I would be kind of good, which is weird because as I say it out loud, I think I would be actually bad at it. But like when we worked at a radio station, you had those account executives is what they were called who would like maintain the.

relationships with the advertisers so if you're listening to a local you know commercial radio station you hear an ad for Les Schwab or whatever it's like there's somebody at that station whose whole job it is well it's not their whole job but a big part of their job is making sure Les Schwab is happy yeah yeah because you know they're they've gone out and they've they've basically extolled them on the virtues of advertising on the station this is why you want to have your ads on us and then you got to make sure that the Les Schwab people are happy Because it's a big contract I always used to think God it's so much schmoozing I would just crush it at that But it's also a lot I would be good at the schmoozing part But all the follow through I'm already regretting agreeing to put those Splooch the turtle signs up in my apartment building

Like

The follow through I would be great if there was a golf tournament And my job was to make the guy from Les Schwab feel special I'd be terrible at returning the guy from Les Schwab's email on a sunday at two when i was starting to get the sunday scaries like you know what i mean like that's i've always thought oh man i could have made a killing in the sales game but to the degree that you have to be like very very available to people and you have to respond quickly and you just have to be kind of like on call all the time because you have to make sure that there's never a moment where that person is having a bad experience because they could take their business elsewhere You have to be very like, yeah, whatever you need.

And think about all the stuff you'd have to expense as well. I mean, just think about your concur situation. Actually, I like that part of it. Moon River or whatever it is over at CBS. Chrome River, my friend. Here's my other. You've embarrassed yourself again. Here's my other. Here's the other thing that doesn't make sense about the story. Obviously, the typewriter part is the dazzling detail. And of course, you know, when I got to that part of the story, too, I was like, oh, that's why we're doing the story. That's good. But I still don't understand how that fits into the scam. I'm a company. I've been buying printer cartridges from somebody. Now these people come in, they pretend to be the printer cartridge company, and they're going to pull this scam. But if I'm only using typewriters, I was never buying printer cartridges to begin with. So they must have at some point just started shipping product to people who didn't ask for it. Because if somebody calls me up and says, hey, I'm with Brothers Printer Inc. and the prices are going up, I'd be like, brother, good luck with that because I only use typewriters.

I think that a lot of this scam, and I'm kind of guessing at this, but I think a lot of it depended on the right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing. So if you reach out to – if a company is just large enough that it's got – I don't know what the number is, but let's just say 30 employees and there's six people that work in an office and everyone is just kind of doing their thing. like you could sort of like you could kind of play one side off the other or if you if you talk to a person who didn't really know what the deal was or a new person in the position a lot of those jobs you know there's a fair amount of turnover i think it depended on just confusion on the part of the companies that were being billed and sometimes it was 10 times the normal price so i think uh what they would do is yeah they would just they would they would prey on companies that were i don't want to say disorganized but somehow somebody was getting tricked into thinking this is what the deal was sure yeah yeah and then and then once the toner was there probably another thing that played on it was this these poor people who got sucked into the who you know unwittingly were now part of the scam even though they didn't have any nefarious intentions then they're probably in a little bit of trouble or kind of worried imagine you're just working at some like uh you know the christian preschool in alabama and like somehow you get you find yourself it's a you want we're talking about coen brothers movies yesterday this is a coen brothers movie you work you're the office manager at a preschool christian preschool in alabama somehow you've got twenty thousand dollars of toner that you can't send back because they're

going to charge you a restocking fee and i'll tell you what francis mcdormand your boss is

not an easy person to get along with exactly like it just i can just see it being a thing where and your heart goes out to these people because a lot of times these scams oh they just dropped a new

season of american greed by the way andrew oh i'm kind of bummed you know i never watched that that's like the american crime story in american they that's part of that series right who's the

producer behind all those no uh not well i i think we might be talking about different things Bill Curtis of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me fame His company Is the company that produces American Greed Which is narrated by Stacy Keach The other guy it's the guy that did Glee Right those are all like kind of Real prestige like I guess you would call them horror TV series or something

Well they're doing the Lewinsky thing that's coming up now But it is he does do American Horror Story As well but then American Crime Story I think they're the ones who did the O.J. Simpson. Got it. I don't even know if it's prestigious. It's almost like somewhere. It's like very middle brow. It's like soap opera-y, which is kind of a fun, campy ride. This is basically like.

like, a Dateline NBC type of show, except instead of being about, well, one, there's no correspondent, there's no Keith Morrison, just kind of, or Josh Mankiewicz or whatever, but it's basically, like, instead of it being about, you know, crimes of violence, it's about financial crimes, and I don't know why, but I love it so much, I also feel less bad about watching it than I do about watching, like, Dateline and those shows, because those are shows that are they only exist because somebody you know is has been killed and it's obviously for the people who love that person probably one of the most traumatic things i'll ever go through and then it's entertainment for me which feels a little bit slimy this one is just more like the condo king of florida gets busted i mean literally that's what it'll be and you sort of feel bad for the person who dumped their life savings into this condo that never got built but The stakes just feel a little bit lower.

Yeah.

And what I love is, I don't know why, I just see myself, I think, in these con people. But there's just that moment when they're flying high and you see these pictures. They're like, he hired MC Hammer for his kid's bar mitzvah. And you're just watching and you're like, you already kind of know how it ends. And you're like, this is a slow speed crash. Yeah. And like, what's the point at which it starts becoming desperate where all of a sudden the check to MC Hammer is bouncing? And then like, you know what I mean? like so i love those i for some reason i really enjoy watching those shows um again because i could very much see myself being the condo king of florida who then never builds any of the condos the problem is this new season of american greed it's like they've run out of good old-fashioned scams they need to do one about this dude because now what they're doing is they're just taking stories that have already i've already know the story i can't give you a good example right now unfortunately but what i saw there was a new season there's like eight episodes i was So psyched And what I realized was They were mostly It's like the Sackler family It's like the You know The American greed story Of the like You know Opioid The Sackler families And Oxycontin And the way that they have Basically Destroyed the country With their greed But that's not A new story to me Right Like I want to know About the Condo King of Florida Yeah I don't want to know About the Sackler family Because I'm already getting A steady dose of that In the real news Yep Yep That makes total sense That makes total sense So I'm bummed about that But I do think that the Prince of Printer, that could be a guy. Gilbert Michaels of West Los Angeles. See, now that one I would watch.

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.

All right.

I really want to hear those happy songs, so keep that on the show sheet for tomorrow. Oh, yeah. Okay.

It was a lot of work. I had to create a whole Spotify playlist. Oh, okay. So I'm invested. I've got a lot of pre-production in this thing.

Okay, so Luke, the other day on the show, we played a voicemail from a listener who had just gone through the Starbucks line in her car, in her vehicle. Listener Anna. Anna, right, and fell into this, like, pay it forward or maybe more appropriately pay it backwards scenario where she got to the window and they said, hey, the car in front of you already paid. And she almost said, oh, good, zoink, but instead said, all right, I'll pay for the car behind me, too. And then that ended up being a much higher charge than what her original order was anyway. And I was kind of, you know, I was pretty negative on these pay-it-forward-in-a-drive-through-situation stories. I think they just have a whiff of astroturfing to me and sort of a false feel-good story that's very, I don't know, commercial-based. based and starbucks gets good headlines for it and the local news can spend another day not covering something that matters so i was pretty negative on it and thought that maybe i was being too negative about it but we got several people weighing in here christina says i feel strongly about the starbucks pay it backwards line situation this has happened to me only once and i was taken a bit off guard so i just smiled and said wow how nice and i enjoyed my free coffee I think that's what everyone should feel free to do. Act like you're pleasantly surprised and a little confused and then go on with your day. However, having thought about it a lot in the meantime, I now think the best situation is to try to give the barista a big tip in lieu of donating any money towards the next car's order. This could be the equivalent of the cost of your own original order and tell them to keep it or just some amount that is significantly more than you usually give. And then you'll get to act magnanimous slash pay it forward and break the chain all at once.

I like that's a very interesting idea of course I think anytime that we can treat the folks that are doing food service uh as well as possible that's a that's a really good thing to do but I do like also just you know breaking the chain being yeah I mean I I think that the I think that's the ideal situation which is you just say oh my gosh that's great and then you just give the employee the equivalent of what was just Thank you.

for you and then everybody kind of wins because maybe you'll be here's i bet you would have a much better opinion of this andrew if the way it worked was sometimes people are in line at starbucks sometimes they're just feeling nice maybe they're looking in their rearview mirror and they see a parent in the car and the kids are kind of going wild and it's just like boy that looks like somebody who could use just a little ray of sunshine in their day love it and and somebody wants to do that that's great but the societal pressure that's now been generated to where, like, oh, now that you get the thing bought for you, you've got to keep doing it backwards. That's where it becomes less fun. If we were all free to break the chain anytime we want, then it kind of gets rid of a lot of that stuff that I think you don't like about it. Exactly.

Now, so I thought that was kind of a skeptical but positive spin from Christina. Meanwhile, Patrick, Luke. Patrick thinks this goes all the way to the top, my friend.

Hello, Imaginary Radio Show hosts. It's Patrick in Sacramento. though and i figured out why this pay it forward crap happens at starbucks seemingly more than any other place it happens on double star day when people with the starbucks app get twice as many reward stars for their purchases so they buy their own coffee maybe they're close to getting a reward or something and they're like oh it's double star day i'll just pay for the people behind me and I'll get rewarded twice as much. So it's selfish to begin with. It's not charitable. It sucks.

Alright, bye-bye. There, that's from Patrick in Sacramento. People are just after those stars, those double stars.

Part of me would say that it sounds like that's somebody just going way too far to get their little whatever their Starbucks points are, but if there was an Alaska Airlines version of that? Yeah, right? Baby Have you ever bought a seat on a plane that you didn't even use just to get points?

Because I think I know somebody who did that.

I'm very much considering it this December if it comes down to it. I got to average like 10,000 miles a month for the rest of the year if I want to get back to my beloved gold 75K status. I am not like currently flying enough. to. And then next year, I mean, again, knock wood and fingers crossed, you know, maybe we will be back to a more normal version of life. And then maybe, you know, more work travel for me, more typical work travel. Then I'm going to be like back with the hoi pull. I'm going to be back, you know, further back in the plane. So anyway, I don't know. I've got to figure that out because I mean, that's a whole thing for me. If I don't have that status, I'm going to be in real trouble. So I may, in December, I may just be like, Andrew, would you like to fly to Kuala Lumpur with me? I need two tickets. I'd probably take you up on that. That'd be an interesting CBTL week. That would be. There you go. Like, Andrew and Luke get Luke to Gold 75K at great personal expense to Luke.

Hey, speaking of getting back to normal, I'm going to put you on the spot here, but this is also editable if you don't want to get into it. Now, you had something on the show sheet for the top of the show that we did not end up getting into at all. It sounds like this Delta variant and the new protocols have maybe impacted Livewire after all.

Yeah, and I tweeted about this yesterday. You know, we were supposed to have our first in-person theater show next week on the 16th. We were going to be at the Alberta Rose Theater. We had some fun guests stopping by. It was all ready to go. We'd sold a bunch of tickets. And just, you know, in talking about it and looking at what other kind of, you know, shows like ours are doing and just thinking about, like, do we want to be the show that is pushing the envelope on in-person events where you put a few hundred people in a room together when there's just still so much kind of unknown and hesitation and stress around all of that? uh we just made the call to to cancel the the kind of in-person theater version we're still going to do the show it's going to be virtual which i know listen we are people of honor lies do not become us i really understand that we're all over going to virtual events at this point and like but it will be fun uh people that have tickets to that show their might they can get their tickets refunded or they can come to the virtual show if they want whatever people Want to do is fine but um yeah we just Decided that it was there was just not That much upside like we do we want to Be like hey we want to go down to History as like the show that was Rushing back the fastest yeah right to Get people indoors together like that Just isn't a great look plus the other Thing is public radio listeners are so Savvy and are very you know generally Speaking I think really on the right Side of this stuff so there's one group Of people that we don't want to be like Hey get a load of us let's get a lot of us doing something that feels edgy in terms of public health this is not the group of people to broadcast that to right right right for all those reasons we're kind of putting it on hold for now and then you know as we look at the numbers and i mean the thing is everyone was going to have to be vaxxed and masked anyway like that was a given but even under those circumstances

it just was like why why push it you know what you could have done though is you could have used it as an excuse to lower the bar on livewire because you could have kept it an in-person an event but said because we are concerned about spreading the virus we're going to try to keep the laughter to a minimum today i've been doing that for years no this is you've been practicing and now's your big moment this is the moment you've been practicing people would say to me

say to me luke why don't you make the show funnier why do you like it to have a funereal vibe and i

was just because honestly public health implications absolutely and that my friend is why you're the

gyro how about going out will we ever explain that stupid i mean i think people understand that

gyros we're mispronouncing gyro which sounds like hero i think people get it um in fact one of our listeners god i could really eat a gyro right now i'm so mad i want to say maggie but i think i'm off i'm so sorry listener but one of our listeners based on i believe maybe you and i talking about this maybe not at one point created a little cartoon of a gyro wearing a cape that says not all gyros wear capes although that's i think i'm getting the name wrong and i may be wrong that it was inspired by us but i like to think that in a roundabout in a roundabout way almost everything is inspired by us so i'll just go yes how about um how about going out with the chain by fleetwood mac in honor of the idea of breaking the chain of course you can't break the starbucks yeah so

let's do I have one problem with Fleetwood Mac Andrew and it's only one whoever mastered the song gypsy although actually it's gypsy that's Fleetwood Mac that's not just Stevie Nicks solo I'm not sure I'm on my little when I'm on my little jog I have this playlist it's actually now it's a very sad playlist because when I stopped paying for Apple music like they they pulled like 80% of the songs on there I guess those those are songs I was renting from Apple music i could just make a new list on spotify but that would take four minutes and who has the time but the one song i guess i own gypsy i guess i probably own rumors or whatever that's off of mirage it looks like it is fleetwood man oh oh okay so that song on this playlist i have which used to be for a half marathon so it was like a couple of hours of music which has now been whittled down to like 40 minutes of music all the songs are at a certain audio level and then gypsy comes on and then I have to turn on my watch, turn the music up and then the next song which is I think a Band of Horses song Weed Party is too loud and every time it happens I think for some reason I'm like I need to talk to Fleetwood Mac

about this. That is weird but you might have a, well, why do I have to get into this? This is a streaming service? This isn't an MP3 on your phone? No, it's on my watch

so it's been downloaded from my phone to my watch

It has been downloaded, it's not See, I almost wonder, like, this isn't some janky file that you got, like, back in the days when we were, like, kidding.

No, it's not one of those Kazaa glitched files. That's weird. I legitimately bought, you know, this music through Apple Music at some point. So I am the owner of it, which is why it's what's still on the Half Marathon playlist. But it's not balanced or it's not at the same level as all of the other songs. It's really Apple's fault. You know what? I don't want to blame Fleetwood Mac for this.

Yeah, it does sound like it's Apple's fault. Also, and again, you didn't ask me to try to solve this problem, but I do know that a lot of these services have a switch somewhere, a setting where you can say, you know, like optimize all songs so that it'll automatically supposedly adjust those levels. But also, I don't know.

Do we trust that? Right. I bet you there is that feature on the watch. I have it going in like in whatever iTunes, Apple Music, but maybe I'll check. What I really need to do is just I've been listening to the same playlist again, Andrew, which is a very sad playlist now. And if I go on a longer run, it's not enough music. So I have to basically restart it at some point. And it's one of those things where it would seriously take me 30 minutes of my life to sit down, hook the watch up to the power because it has to be like hooked up to a power source, go into my phone and just migrate over like a shitload of music from Spotify and then be totally set. But instead, what I do is every morning I run and every morning I think, why have I not fixed? Yeah, yeah. And I will do that for the next three years of my life instead of taking a half hour to manifestly improve my life.

Until the one day when that pot of coffee that we make won't be had by either one of us. Boy, did I make that. All right. So we're going to go out with – Let's go out with the chain. Okay. It would matter.

All right. Thanks for listening, everyone. We're going to be back here tomorrow.

with more imaginary radio for you please do join us for that until then have a great wednesday stay safe take care of yourselves and please remember no mountain too tall and good luck to all

Listen to the wind blow Watch the sun rise Run in the shadows Damn your love, damn your life

And if you don't love me now You will never love me again I can still hear you saying You will never break the jam I don't really know how to end this conversation, so high five, sure.

Power out.

You