Muse

I like it when I go traveling. I like to have a cell phone because it's really important to have a cell phone, especially when you're going to pretend like you're a business person. And I'm a business person, too. I'm a business person. I have pens. I have a checkbook, okay? And that's what I like to do. I like to go, like, when they have a conference in the hotel, I like to go down and mingle with my cell phone, pretend like I'm there for the... Yeah, uh-huh, yeah. Can you believe it? They let me out on bail. Yeah. Yeah, manslaughter, can you lose shit? No, I did it. No, I did it. Anyways. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Yeah, I need 900 billion. No, Jillian. TBTL.

They said you were bland.

And dull.

And chubby.

Repregnant. Repugnant. That's repregnant. Repugnant. They said you were jowly. That's not a word.

I keep hearing you say when you do the snort laugh that you've got to stop doing the snort laugh, and I don't want you to stop doing the snort laugh. I love the snort laugh. It's a laugh. I love all the laughs.

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.

TBTL breaking news. Call Kenny Loggins because you're in the danger zone from Top Gun. Just be careful. No. All right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Monday edition of TBTL, a show that just might be too beautiful to live. There is no burning. There's nothing noxious about this whatsoever. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. You ain't no rapper. You more like a TED Talk set to music. Coming to you from the Nest Broadcast Center, high in the sky above Portland, Oregon, where, boy, does it ever feel like we have really entered a new season. I think the temperature's dropped like 20 degrees. It is not summer anymore here. We're not ready.

We're not ready yet.

Back to you, Steve. Also, here in the Nest Broadcast Center, because there's a heavy cloud cover, it is extremely dark. Like, very dark in this room.

Don't stay in my house if you're dark-sided.

There's no overhead lights anywhere in this apartment that I am renting. And so, it's like one of those things you've got to have lamps. And I know that I started doing the show from here in like, I don't know when it was, November or something. So I have been through a winter season here in this room, but I don't remember it being this dark. That or my eyesight is going. I got to figure something out because we got, you know, many shows to do through the dark of the Pacific Northwest winter. And in the words of Steve Brühl, Steve Brühl, that is, I am, I'm not ready for it, apparently. I am, thankfully, ready for episode 3,509 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. A.K.A. today's show, because I've been carefully preparing important top stories for you all. That is when I've taken a break from just being kind of super cranky this morning. And this is why I end up being so cranky, by the way. I am going to be taking part in this public radio conference this week. It's normally an in-person thing. This year it's virtual, but I have to use some other system that I've never used before. Some other kind of web meeting platform thing that is an absolute nightmare to deal with. And it's got my whole morning schedule thrown off, and it's got me in a bit of a state. But I'm going to try to kind of, you know, I don't know, get the nose up on this negativity plane early on here on a Monday morning. Because who needs that in their life to start their week? As a listener. Oh, but one more possible negative thing before we really get the nose up. Zoom dysmorphia may be a thing, according to a Harvard researcher.

You are handsome. Don't worry.

Apparently, all of us looking at these video conferencing type things all the time is not doing us any favors in the self-esteem department. So we will talk about that. But also, has our parasocialization of John Mulaney reached maybe an unhealthy level? The internet has just been, well, there is the backlash about John Mulaney's announcement that he is going to be having a child with Olivia Munn. And then there's the backlash to the backlash. People are very upset about what's going on with John Mulaney. That's the saddest thing I've ever heard. So we will look into that as well. plus emails and vmails, and we will talk to this guy.

He's not just the longest-running co-bro of the show, but I consider him a real, actual friend. Their friendships survive many years and multiple hairdos. He is Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now from the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. I have a question for you. Should we get our dear friend Nora McInerney a tough shed? Like, that seems like it could be a good gift, but it also...

Not a spindle of TBTL archival CDs? You think there might be something even better than that?

We were talking about this on the show last week because Nora has done us many solids over the years, including a really big one. When our van broke down in Arizona and let us turn her house into a chaotic broadcasting center, as her and her family tried to vacation. And I said at the time, we're going to get her something so nice when we get back that's going to show how much we appreciate her. And then I just got on with my life and never even sent her so much as a note. So I was thinking, how do you solve a problem like McNora? And I got a bunch of emails from people. Is that a show title? Several folks, including our friend Lauren in Florida, said while she was driving you on your first leg of your hitchhiking adventure, another big favor. She said how much she wants a tough shed. The thing is, you get somebody a gift like a tough shed, you got to clear it with them first. I mean, I'm already picturing her backyard. Like, where is she going to put that?

Couple of things on that. One, if I remember the how that kind of plot line ended, we were trying to just, you know, create a little bit of, you know, online chatter. And I guess you could say earned media mentions for old for that company and see if they would just give her one. Yeah. And they wouldn't. And then I think she may have even reached out to them. I remember a conversation with her. I don't know if it was on air or off where she basically said she was done with that company. because despite what we had done and i think a couple things she had done and maybe she was tweeting at them and like you know we are not you and i are not uh media influencers of note but mackinerney with her ted talks and her books and her her various things is a real she's a you know she's a real power player in the online space and so i think what we decided was that that company is dead to us and then there's the other part of it andrew as you already mentioned Which is when those conversations were unfolding She was living in the great white north Yeah Now she's down there in that AZ lifestyle It's a much more sort of, you know Mid-century, kidney bean shaped pool Yeah Kind of life Yeah I don't think Again, I'm not even going to say their name I don't think that particular kind of shed Would fit in in the whole kind of aesthetic of their place

I would agree with you I mean, I was picturing the area where we did the recording, you know And I was thinking, I don't know, they have they have an area where they store things. I mean, not to get too much into their business. But I was like, I don't know, maybe you turn that into a shed. But I didn't I didn't think it worked. I just wanted to I wanted to air it out because a lot of people said, hey, you know, the answer is right there in front of you. I just wanted to make sure that we at least gave it its its proper time and consideration.

Duly noted. Thank you for the suggestions. Keep them coming. But just go more mid-century with whatever you're suggested and something that's under forty dollars. So more mid-century and more under $40.

I mean, if it's really good, I'd do $42. I'd even cover the extra $2 out of my end. But that's a general rule of thumb.

We're not doing the no point right now. We are not. But I will tell you, I'm sitting on a cool $130 that I was able to win with the Seahawks winning by more than seven points. So that's a factor as well. I could go up to probably like $50. Oh, wow.

You'll have these on a $50 thank you gift. Oh, that's interesting. Now that I'm kind of flush. What can I buy with a broken goddamn heart? I guess we'll find that out. Oh, we are doing the no point. I guess we'll find that out in the next segment. Actually, let's talk about no point because you and I had a little conversation last week about how our schedules are different than they were last season, and we might not be able to do a no point every single week anymore, and maybe not every single Monday. It might move around a little bit. But then on top of that, you know, I had this thought while watching. I was really looking forward to Football Sunday yesterday, like bought a whole bunch of snacks the day before, was just like ready to like not leave the house for like 12 hours. Still somehow ran out of White Claw, though. Had to have an emergency supply sent in by our friend Durst. But I will say that I have a wedding in two weeks on a Sunday. I'm not going to watch either one of those games. That's going to be the first time in years that I will have not watched the Seahawks and Browns game on a given NFL week. It's going to be weird.

Can't you do the classic bro move? The phone. The subtle looking at it. You're in the wedding party, Andrew. You're standing up there. Oh, I'm giving a reading, by the way. You are? Yeah. From the Torah? It is from the Torah. Giving a reading sounds like something you would do at a bat mitzvah or bar mitzvah.

They want me to read something at the wedding, but it's non-denominational, non-religious.

I feel like it being Nick, it might be something from like future. It's like a reading from a really hot hip-hop song that you and I are only vaguely aware of.

I've only scanned it once, and it looks to me like a list of basketball shoes, but I'm not entirely sure.

For some reason, the word drip comes up a lot. It's a lot of checking the fit and the drip. You know what? Love is drippy. love says bet this is a good fit

anyway anyway all of that is to say wow i think that i think our no points might be a little bit um i mean i think we're going to still try to do them on most weeks but if a week goes by where you don't see one of your podcatcher on a monday it might show up on a tuesday or in some cases it might not show up we'll try to let people know these uh via tbtl but just just a heads up on

that yeah not to um re-explain what you just explained but yeah i think i think the thing is the the no point conversion which you're if you're like a a new listener to the show uh and you have started listening in the last few months so we haven't been even you don't even know what we're talking about during the football season we uh you know for the last couple of years have done kind of a well it started out that we used to start the show just talking about football and the listeners who didn't care about that said could you please stop then we would just do it at the end of the show and then we'd have like a three-hour show where like 2.4 hours of it was us talking about football and then we thought well maybe this just should be its own thing that only the people that care about it can interact with and thus the tbtl no point conversion was born and it's the kind of thing that i don't think uh it's nearly as uh as as popular or it doesn't get the level of engagement that a normal episode of our show would but for the people who like it they really like it and to be honest it's my very favorite show that I ever get to do because it's me and my friend Andrew with absolutely no roadmap I know it seems like this has no roadmap but I promise you it kind of does it's you and I Andrew just talking about sports which is just my dream job you know and so I do want to keep doing it but the problem is the recording schedule for a Livewire is very different because of the pandemic than it has been in the olden days. It used to just be that on a Thursday night at the Alberta Rose Theater, I would go there, we would do the show, and that was pretty much the show. And we have a completely different kind of radio show now and way of creating the show, et cetera. So that means Mondays are a little tougher for me. And so I would just want to manage everyone's expectations that there may be, like you said, Andrew, some weeks where it's on a different day or maybe it's possible we won't do it. Although that seems sort of unlikely to me because, again, I just like talking about sports with you. So selfishly, I want to make this happen every week. But if you, the dedicated No Point listeners, can just kind of like try to roll with us on this and know that this year, like everything in our lives, it may be a little bit different than it's been. And we'll just try to make the best of it and give you as many No Point conversions as we can generate.

And I'll say this, too, in case we ever do a no-point conversion on, let's say, a Thursday, several days after Football Sunday. One of my favorite segments on the Dan Levitard Show, actually probably just full stop, my favorite segment on the Dan Levitard Show, the podcast that I obsess over, is the weekend observations, Stu Gatz's weekend observations. And their schedules have been so disrupted, too, that sometimes he'll roll that out on a Thursday or even a Friday. Weekend observations from the previous weekend where everything is so outdated. It is so hilarious. Oh, by the way, Luke Burbank.

PRPD, web meeting software. Collision course.

Luke. Andrew with a broken heart. Seahawks with a win. Football's back. You need a third one there, you son of a gun. Damn it, I knew I could pull it off. I want to send you a clip of tape this isn't even forget about tbtl for a second this is just me I already did okay forget about you've heard the first so man I couldn't think of a third thing god damn it um but speaking of people imitating the weekend observations I need to send you this tape the lebitard show did a 24-hour podcast marathon a while back I believe maybe claimed to be one of the first to do it I mean I think somebody else got

there first did that was a comedy bang bang yeah they did one too i don't expect those are much those are such those shows are so much bigger than we are i would not expect them to have any idea that we had done that before they did but it is kind of funny to hear and again i i also think i sort of understand that for the comedy bang bang thing part of it was engaging in a certain amount of self-aware hype of it um as being i think the first of its kind i think i might what did i see jesse tweeting about a jesse thorn but i was like y'all we did that yeah that's where

i get a little frustrated but then i get mad at ourselves too because it's like we we do nothing to promote it right we did literally nothing to promote that except to our audience who's already there and then you're like when other people do it and claim to be the first one it's like we have a small audience and we're not even doing ourselves any favors by like reaching out and saying hey we should get some press releases out on this or something so i don't know um but all of that is to say mike sure of course the um the creative brain behind like parks and rack and i mean what else is mike sure is so famous and he's community right no sorry um uh definitely parks and rack but um the good place the good place that's the other one that i wanted to rattle off there yeah um anyway he's a big fan of that show he's written about the show before he's a friend of that show and he does his own weekend observations only it's like the observations of the 20 of the 24 hour marathon they were doing like marathon observations or something and it is so brilliant and you realize hearing somebody else break down the structure of that segment and all the tent posts that are within the tent posts like you realize how brilliant the segment is and how brilliant mike sure is i got to find the tape and play it for you i apologize for wasting tbtl listeners time with that anecdote and not having any tape to play here well uh you know all jokes

aside luke burbank prpd web meeting software is in fact a collision course okay first of all if you andrew if you if you were going to name if you were building a piece of software that was going to help people like i'm assuming mostly what this thing is for is for big conferences and get-togethers that are unfolding on uh you know online so as opposed to zoom which is more one-to-one kind of like or maybe not just one-to-one i guess zoom you could have a lot of people but it's like i do i will say this it does get a little complicated when you're trying to hold an event on zoom where there are breakout rooms and there's like a main place it's happening but then there's also uh you know little side things going on that can get a little bit complex like i think zoom the origin of zoom was probably sort of like yeah you're gonna have a meeting with three other people you work with and you all want to be able to see each other and maybe look at a spread she if you have to and because of the pandemic and everything now it's you know we've asked it to to be more than that and sometimes it does hit up against this sort of limitation so there are other pieces of software that people have developed if you're going to develop a piece of software though what would you name it if i'm going to develop a piece of software that's going to be for people getting together having a meeting actually that's not the right way to ask the question like giving what would be a presentation it sounds like it's more like What would be a bad name? What would be a bad name for an app that was bringing people together for like a business type of deal? Divide and Conquer. Divide and Concur. Oh, my God. That's the show title. Forget how do you solve a problem like McNorry. Divide and Concur is, I mean, are you writing that down or am I? I'm writing it down. Keep on going with your story. Well, I'll just tell you what the name of the software is, which I just think is bad on about three different levels. The software is called Socio. have you ever heard someone say socio in a good way and then and then the little breakout things are called paths hey how do you uh which which hey i'm sorry which sociopath am i on here i think i got the wrong login oh god i don't know i'm not can you make me the host i'm not allowed to invite people to this sociopath like socio that's not good socio i mean one thing is this is this is for conferences so it's actually not even a social app like if you were trying to do a social media app maybe you could make the argument that you wanted people to understand this was a social event but i i i mean hey uh which one was uh which one was mike we were hanging out with him at the party oh he's the one that's kind of a socio oh yeah let me spend more time with him that's just such in our current you know lexicon socio is not good yeah why would you name your

Crap, that sounds, you know, I think I can say this without getting you in trouble. It sounds very Microsofty. You know how, like, Microsoft waits for other people to develop something and then they create a worse version of it and then force all of their employees and then, like, other institutions like universities to, like, it's like what.

do they have instead of zoom they have teams teams and like when i'm doing some projects with certain um certain companies you have to use teams not zoom and it's always like are you kidding me like just that's the that's part of it is zooming it's a verb now well listen not to defend microsoft

who pays me handsomely to help them with various projects but uh not only not only do they sometimes develop a product seemingly late but then every once in a while they're actually at least they own the product early and they fumble that one skype oh like yeah you're at the goal line well

you know who celebrated you know who owns skype right wait who owns skype now microsoft that's

what i'm saying oh okay oh i'm sorry in other words yeah in other words skype should be we should be somehow zoom like like zoom was dk metcalf and skype was uh was it marcus peters who ever had that interception where DK Metcalf chased him down 90 yards? Wow, football on the brain. And also, I don't think it was Marcus Peters. But anyway, it was like Skype was the only thing that anyone knew about video conferencing. And then there was a pandemic, and suddenly it was like, well, I guess we'll all be on Zoom now. It was like, how did you? Right. How did Skype, as they were the Xerox of that kind of thing the month before the pandemic, How did they somehow not become the thing we were all using? And why are we using teams? And why am I using something called socio Andrew? Anyway, because that's the thing. And this is actually the part where I will defend Microsoft a little bit because I would like to continue to be in their employ. And also because I think this is a little – the bigger issue is I feel like we are all at the point in our lives where none of us want to add one more GD piece of software or app so as to socially or professionally interact with each other. You know what I mean? Like we just – like nobody write any new apps for doing this shit, please, because I don't want to have to learn how to download. So this socio thing, it's the PRPD, which I mentioned at the top of the show. This is and you and I have been to this together many times, Andrew, or at least we've been to it many times, sometimes together, sometimes not. But like this conference is is virtual this year. And like the instructions on how to get into this socio and be in the right room. And also it's like socio really only works on a PC, I guess, or at least when I would go to the app store to try to download it because I use Macs. So to try to download it on a Mac, I couldn't get it to work. It was telling me that app was not available in the U.S. So then it was like I was only going to have it on my iPhone. And you know what's really sad is most of why I'm mad about this, Andrew, is because I bought a kind of expensive green screen that I don't even know if I get to use now. So when I heard – what we're doing today is I am hanging out in some side room of this virtual conference with the other folks from LiveWire. And if somebody who, like, runs a radio station somewhere has any questions about LiveWire, they can pop into our side room and we'll chat. So I'm in the equivalent of, like, a booth. You would be at one of these conferences, you know? And I was assuming the whole time that this was all just going to be on Zoom. And because I have my whole Zoom situation fairly figured out, I was going to put, like, a photo of the theater with the LiveWire sign in it behind me. I was going to wear a little blazer. I had my whole mental plan. And one of the things I did recently was upgraded my green screen situation.

So normally, or what I was doing for the first almost year that I've been broadcasting in this room, is I had actually two different huge green sheets. And by the way, I don't need to explain the green screen stuff, right? Do we all know what that is at this point? so i had this kind of elaborate and annoying system that i had developed where i had these two large green sheets that i could hang in here so that the everything behind me was green and i could put whatever picture i wanted behind me but they it involved like standing on a stepladder because i had to put them all the way up to the ceiling and i they would velcro against the walls but then when i would pull them down the velcro on the walls wanted to come off so it's like doing something to the paint it was just it took like 10 minutes to set up and 10 minutes to carefully take down i had stapled all this velcro into these green screen sheets sometimes those staples would catch my fingers as i was taking it down and cut me it was just like there has to be a better way it shifted to black and white all the green screens fell out of a cupboard i couldn't catch all of them it was like the you know infomercial for yeah when you're having trouble with something So I was like Because this is what I do Andrew If I feel stressed out about something I think well what can I purchase that will solve this problem And I realize that they make these It's like a pop You know it's like a pop up

like you do a slide projection on or a video projection on but it's just green so I bought the biggest one they sold on Amazon and the idea is I can pop that up behind me and it's just like a it's a thing that that collapses down into just being kind of like a I don't know the size of it but anyway it's much more convenient and I haven't had a chance to use it and it was like $150 which was kind of a ripoff and so somewhere in my mind I was like well I got to do this thing but at least I'll have my green screen. I'll get to test it out, da-da-da-da. And then when I find out we're on some system called Socio, which I don't even know how to use, I've got to use it on my iPhone or some such. I can't do my normal setup where I'm talking to this mic. Just for the record and so people don't go crazy emailing me, I actually can at least, I think, use this microphone. When I sent you the show sheet, Andrew, I was in a state because I had not figured out how to do any of it, and I literally thought I was going to have to just be holding my iPhone the whole time. And tomorrow I have to judge a talent show, an online talent show as part of PRPD. That's like three hours. And I was like, I'm going to really just be sitting here on my iPhone for three hours doing this because this is all part of the PRPD.

Wait, is this a LiveWire talent show or a PRPD talent show? I think it's the distributor. Are they stealing our idea?

No, that's PRX is stealing our idea. You're right. We did do that. Everybody is stealing our ideas all the time. But the upshot is this. This app is not as bad as I thought it was initially. When I got up this morning, I was trying to get into the system, and then I was getting denied, and I was being told this app does not exist in the U.S., and I was, like, thinking not only am I not going to be able to use my whole setup in here, like just the normal computer I use and microphone I use and all that. I'm going to have to do this on an iPhone. I'm not going to be able to use my green screen I paid too much for. And then also it threw my whole jogging schedule out of whack because I was going to get up, I was going to go for a jog, I was going to do this show with you, was going to do this PRPD thing, and then we were going to come back, we were going to go to no point. I had this whole plan in mind, and because I was dealing with so much stuff with socio this morning, my jog got pushed back. And the problem with that, Andrew, is I have a whole schedule about when I'm going to shower because as I'm talking to you, I currently have pink Mario Badescu drying agent on, like, three zits that I'm dealing with. So the idea is I do that at night. I get up in the morning. I go for my jog. Then I take a shower. Then I come in here and do this show with you. Like, there's just a whole chain of events that have to happen in a perfect order for me to feel okay in the world. And those chain of events have been totally thrown off this morning, and I'm obviously kind of worked up over it.

You usually jog with the pink on your face?

Yeah, because I just feel like no one cares outside on the river. No, I think that's good.

I'm surprised, though, because you seem kind of self-conscious about the pink.

I am self-conscious about a lot of things, but for some reason that one, I mean, it's fairly subtle. It's, you know, the stuff is kind of pink. I mean, it's subtle enough that if I'm out jogging, you wouldn't notice it. But if I'm on a Zoom or I'm on a socio, it would look weird. So this is – but my real frustration, I promise, this is the last bit of negativity that I'll put out into the world and then just solid positivity going forward. But the real issue for me is that it's messing up my shower schedule. Now, whereas you like to take multiple showers a day, I for some reason don't, and I don't know why because it's not that big of a deal. But what this means is my new messed up Monday morning schedule means that I am going to have to, when we're done with this, I'm going to have to go get in the shower, get all prettied up, comb my hair, put my balding powder in, mattify my face, i.e. rub this Revlon roller that I have that makes my forehead less shiny. get all like ready to go do this event and then go on a jog after that and then take a shower again and i don't for some reason that feels so inefficient to me i don't like getting all dolled up and then exercising and then taking another shower i like to get all of that stuff done and then and then get pretty so there's something about that my little chain of events now being out of whack or out of order that i'm clearly having some trouble what if you find out

this might not be the case but what if you find out that you like you end up liking the second shower what if it ends up being a game changer for you like you're like it'll be a post like a later in the day post run shower where suddenly like ideas are flowing all the best ideas come in the shower right a lot of bad ideas too um but some good ones and so maybe you'll end up liking it and changing almost fundamentally who you are as a showering adult the problem is it's all about

the hair andrew isn't it always so i have to make a decision every day about my hair how involved am i going to get with it so if it's a relatively casual day i'll take a shower and i'll comb my hair but i won't do anything special

And I'll just wear a hat afterwards Although I don't really like how I look in hats these days I think it adds to the roundness of my face Which I'm not a fan of By the way, this is foreshadowing of the first top story Which is Zoom dysmorphia But I don't love how I look in a baseball cap But sometimes it's just like I don't want to deal with my hair Because dealing with my hair means this Combing it, obviously, or brushing it, rather Then putting in this topic powder that makes me look less my hair is less thinning which is a whole situation i put it in there but then it's like there's like it's very um how do i describe it this is this weird keratin thing that's a powder but also like there's kind of too much of it when you first put it in so then you have to brush it off but it goes everywhere so i have to go stand on the balcony of my apartment and lean over the balcony and like brush my hair out of like the too much of the excess of this

You make black snow for the people down below. I do. I didn't mean to rhyme that, but I'll take it.

You ain't no rapper. You're like a TED Talk came to life. You and Common. So it's a whole situation. And then, you know, so it's like, how into this do I want to get with my hair is the question. Now, a lot of people who are just less messed up than me would just be like, who cares? Just, you know, go out, whatever your hair looks like, just go outside and be in the world and no one's judging you. No one cares. I'm like, I understand that intellectually, but there's my own bullshit. And so, so much of my showering, like the reason that I'm, it's like, I am, listen, I don't want to overly gender this, but let's just say I have an appreciation at this point in my life for many of the women that I've known in my life in one way or another, and how, depending on what their approach is, you know, there are women who kind of get made up every day. and it's a whole thing and it's like you got to build in some time for that and then it's like um you know if i'm going to a thing if i'm working all day and then i'm going to an event at night am i going to refresh this or am i going to take it down or i've heard women talk about being really relieved to come home and just get all that makeup off or whatever you know i have a small sense of what that must be like because like when i take a shower and i wash that weird stuff out of my hair and then i like just brush my hair or whatever and then and then it's It's just like I'm in sweats and I'm not like – I don't know. I kind of also appreciate this feeling of being au naturel now that I didn't have 20 years ago.

Yeah. I mean can I ask you a quick question because I think I'm confused about one thing and it's going to sound like I'm missing your broader point. I promise you I am not. I understand what you're talking about from a broader perspective. But I guess the one thing that I at first was maybe a little confused by was why the second shower requires all of the get up again. And I guess that is presuming that you're going back out for the evening or you have another evening, you know, engagement of some sort, whether it's virtual or work related or going out. I am somebody who, of course, has often limited my evening activities. So for me, the evening shower is, yeah, you take that shower and then you put on, you know, your soft pants or whatever. You get snuggly and you watch your shows. Couldn't that be the case tonight?

An evening shower. But see, the thing is, I'm not taking an evening shower. I would have to take another daytime shower. That's the thing. So I will have gone because, you know, I'm not going to like after I go on my exercise this afternoon, I'm not going to then just be sweaty all day until 8 o'clock at night. So what will be frustrating for me is showering, getting all dolled up, then exercising, then having to take another shower right afterwards. There will not have been enough time in the dolled up state, I guess is my point. It's like if I normally if I get all dolled up, it's like then I will go to the grocery store and shop with confidence. I will just be out having my life. It's like now I'm ready to go meet the world. And then when I come home at night, like, yeah, I guess I could take a shower at eight o'clock. And that probably wouldn't other than just I don't know. I'm not a night showerer. But I guess my larger point is that none of this matters or makes sense. It's just I am so locked. It's like why the other day I almost got taken up by a drawbridge in Portland because I needed to do this one loop that I had told myself I was going to do. And any deviation from that plan felt like completely not possible to me. You know what I mean? Like I think of myself as a relatively go with the flow person. But when I start to really think about how my anxiety works and what my day to day existence looks like, I'm extremely rigid.

I think I don't want to turn this into a therapy session, but I wonder if you're getting more like that as well. And I also wonder if I also wonder if this type of life you're living now has brought that about. I'm thinking specifically about the travel that you do now. I mean, I know that the pandemic has changed that somewhat, but let's just speak broadly here. You know, when I first got.

know you your route I don't know how routinized you were but your routine was a bit smaller it was a bit closer to home right you go into the radio station you do the morning show you would still do wait wait don't tell me you do events you would fly from time to time but like in the past few years a huge part of your job is juggling three different things and being on the road for a bunch of it so you feel like you've created all of these these systems I think people that travel a lot create systems anyway but then especially when you are juggling a bunch of things you have to kind of say, okay, this is when I do this, this is when I do this, and it feels manageable to you. And now, even if you're not traveling, you still are kind of locked into these things. It's almost, and again, I don't like to use actual clinical terms when it doesn't really apply, but you talk as a kid sometimes having OCD tendencies, and I wonder if this is somewhat related to that as well.

I think it's 100% a way of managing stress, and I think some of the listeners probably can identify with this what i do if if i'm going into a day that feels like stressful for me in terms of a lot of moving parts i make this insane to-do list and what's insane about it is that it's down to the five minute increment so i'll sit there you know on my couch on my laptop or whatever and i'll be like uh 6 a.m get up 6 10 make coffee 6 20 go on run 7 10 uh you know spn yeah exactly 7 15 fire danny and paul 720 hire mike salt wait hold on you're looking at mike's checklist but like you know what i mean so what i think what it does is when i get that thing all laid out and it's always the night before right then i can actually like sleep and then i feel like there's a roadmap like because then i feel like things can't get out of control because i know exactly at what time everything should be happening and if everything is happening at the five minute you know increment that it's been sort of assigned to then it'll be fine now most days none of that schedule gets followed you know or not none of it but you know it ends up getting out of control anyway it's the process of sitting down to do it right are you even looking at it after you make it i might check in with it sometimes and then i do this very uh what for me is a very satisfying thing uh which is if i did something i do a strike through on it oh yeah you know and so then i've got like but again these are things like uh go to the bathroom 706 strike through uh you know like i i will put down extremely accomplishable things too um just because i don't know that's my habit and then when i do them i feel like pretty proud of myself but um create to-do list and then number two exactly strike off create to-do list i have a feeling by the way that actually like you know on wednesday's show i think all of my prpd stuff is today and tomorrow i have a feeling on wednesday i'll tell you that like socio is one of the greatest apps ever could be and then it really might be afternoon showers are the best thing ever yeah you never know you know what i still i still possess the capacity for change andrew all these years so i also possess the capacity for us talking for 37 minutes before going to i know i know about nothing so all right let's do that let's take a break we'll come back we'll do uh top stories and thank some donors in a minute here on tvtl all right let's thank some donors of the day these folks are making today's episode possible an episode that i think so far has been of very little use to the listeners but has been for me very therapeutic i'm real i mean i work some shit out i think the show itself has been fine

I'm really mad that I messed up my imitation Of Stugatz's Weekend Observations Only because I know that people are listening I'm embarrassed for the Stubot to hear this Is there a way I can send a note to the Stubot And say just don't listen to today's episode Because I really bungled something that you would have done well Yeah

I'll thank the donors of the day You text the Stubot

I'll start by thanking

Donor, supporter, and listener And all around amazing person Matt Jones Down there in Mountain View, California Matt, thanks for keeping TBTL going We do appreciate you April Kent is in San Diego, California Thank you, April, for supporting the show Julie Kumasaka is in Marysville, Washington Thanks, Julie Rena Lopez is in McMinnville, Oregon Hey, I just found out about a flight museum that's in McMinnville, Oregon, that I really want to go to. I think the original Spruce Goose is there. Oh, really? Yeah. I think it's huge, right? Or am I misremembering that? Yes, it is huge. Howard Hughes built it, or had it built.

And it was this massive plane that would, you know, take off from the water. And I believe its total flight time in its existence was like one minute and 12 seconds or something. It took off. It technically was aloft and then landed and then like for some reason could never fly again. Like it was one of those things that was not actually like well designed or really very possible at the time. And for whatever reason, I believe it's in McMinnville, Oregon. I want to go see it. I was hanging out with my mom and dad this weekend and a bunch of my siblings and Becca because we went out to my sister Liz's place and celebrated some of the birthdays of the kids. And I was chatting with my dad about airplanes and stuff. And I've said this on the show before, but it's really funny how much I didn't like any of that stuff when my dad would try to take me to it when I was a kid and how much I'm into it now that I am a 45-year-old guy. Like, I was like, uh, the Spruce Goose is in McMinnville? Yeah. And no one told me. I'm going out there right now. I'm putting on my New Balance sneakers and my white socks and my jean shorts. I'm clipping my cell phone into its holster on my belt, and I'm going out there because I'd like to get a look at that with my own eyes.

I gotta say as a kid I think I was in like you know I remember I have a very vague recollection of being enthralled during a submarine tour when I was a kid and I think my dad liked to go and like tour old ships or at least look at the outside of you know the ships that are you know retired and docked somewhere I think I was always pretty firmly fascinated by that stuff even as a kid so I also read Tom Clancy as a kid so there you go.

I took my speaking of my nephews I took Jack and Abe to a uh a submarine tour here in Portland there's a uh a submarine that is kind of permanently docked outside of OMSI it's in the river but it and I I mean they were medium on it I was enthralled I was like can I can you guys just wait here I'm going to do this tour again because I had there was a few questions about the radar system on the torpedoes that I'd like to get some more clarification on like it is insane how much i have just turned into one of those just hardcore middle-aged dad types that just wants to know about like naval battles and what was the range on this particular submarine you know like just stuff that i was incredibly bored by and now i'm just totally fascinated well

you're still on the good side of it though because right now you're still asking questions you're not going through offering more comments than questions about like well i mean i when i was in virginia i learned that um i'm not gonna even try to riff on that one i'm still stinging from my fall earlier

in the show but you dig what i'm saying yes i luckily i have such a small amount of knowledge that is to say no knowledge of these things that i haven't gotten to the point this is when you know it's bad when me and another dude my age sort of have a break-off session and we start

just comparing notes you pull out you're sharing photos that you took with your ipad at various Exactly.

We have our iPads out, and we're showing each other pictures that we took of other kind of like submarines at other museums or whatevers, and we're just like, oh, that's the T-4000, huh? I got to get a better reference than T-4000 for whenever I'm trying to talk about anything that's a real kind of specific model of whatever. I mean, that kind of works in computer jargon or robot jargon, but there would never be a submarine called the T-4000. So, Andrew, you're not the only one who's failing and flailing on today's show. You're going to feel terrible about your weekend observation. I'm going to feel terrible about the T-4000. We're real swinging a miss.

What's the difference between the T-4000 and the T-3500? God damn it. I'm going to stop joking. I'm going to stop joking for the rest of the show. In fact, I might stop talking. I don't know where that leaves you.

Chris Pugh loves all of it, Andrew How do we know? Because he's donating to the program He's helping fund this operation He's in Radford, Virginia And then Stephen Rand is in beautiful New York City New York, New York Stephen, thank you for keeping the show going as well Thanks to all of our donors Even on the days when we're battling all kinds of self-esteem issues And self-doubt Y'all are still keeping this thing going So thank you very much. We wouldn't be here without you.

My love, all my time, my devotion.

Not a praise, not a hope for promotion.

Wow. Woo! Really came in hot. Hello and welcome to Top Story. I like to play the beginning of the Top Stories so loud that people drive off the road. And then the part where he's saying Top Story is so quiet, you're not really sure what segment it is.

That was shocking.

kind of the um it's like it's like the gaffigan joke about the hot pocket it's just like scalding on the outside but still somehow frozen in the middle yeah i had my first totino's non pizza roll pizza this weekend uh please explain okay so you know that totino's makes the pizza rolls right i do know that yes you know they also make the party pizzas they're small little frozen you know freezer pizzas but they're not like a big round kind they're like i don't know the half the size of a full-size square pizza, maybe even less than that. I wasn't super impressed with it. I was really excited just to have garbage food for the football day, and I did try to honor our longtime listener, Allie. I did try to buy her family's brand pizza, which is Wild Mike's, but wasn't available at QFC, so I filled out a complaint card and I bought myself some of these little Totinos that I know some people are obsessed over, But really what it is is it's really like they did just take a bunch of the pizza rolls, kind of open them up and smear them on the pizza crust. It's not the best.

So what you were trying to say to me is you had a Totino's frozen pizza.

Yeah, a party pizza.

Okay, a party pizza. I'm looking at this now. I see. So it's, like you said, it's kind of rectangular. It didn't present very well.

Oh, and it's in a bag too, right? Oh, yeah, it did. It came in a bag, not a box. It's kind of weird. Yeah, yeah. It seems very, you know, I'll bet you people have, I'll bet you like if you ate these in college, you probably have, it might even be like your Heggies. I could see people really loving them. But, you know, there's a big spectrum of frozen pizzas these days. The ones that are like, hey, it's like gourmet as it comes out the oven, which it's not, but it's what they're shooting for. And I would say this on the lower end of it I could see being a drunk college kid Getting very much into these things Which are probably, I don't know, a couple of penny farthings I don't know why Why penny farthing I gotta get a new grocery store, man It's getting so hard to figure out What I'm actually paying for things But anyway, I don't know why I wanted to interrupt And tell you that, but that's my experience

I know that feeling, though I had that feeling yesterday, too We're not doing the no point, Andrew This is not the no point But I was very excited for the return of real meaningful NFL football, and I have a strong association with those Sundays involving kind of like eating some not-great-for-me food. And I got up actually – I went on a run with Becca, and then I was just – I didn't have any garbage food in my house, and then she was coming over to watch the game with me, and she's a very healthy eater. And so I was like – I had like dried apricots and some almonds that I was kind of munching on and drinking some coffee. And the thing that was really upsetting me was that the almonds were actually working. Like they were filling me up. So I kind of wasn't hungry. But I was mad at myself because I was like this is not what you're supposed to be eating right now. You are supposed to be eating a giant thing of nachos or just something bad. Cause what I think is interesting about you getting this Totino's party pizza is like you said, there's 10 other better frozen pizza options in that, in that frozen, uh, you know, section. But my guess is you almost wanted to go down market because of it being football Sunday.

And there's something, um, there's another side to that too, which is very tedious, but it could be an entire episode of this or maybe a different podcast. But I don't know, man. I don't like my freezer situation here at home. And like Genevieve is somebody who traditionally, you know, does a lot of cooking and just used to having a very packed freezer. And when I lived by myself, I think I had a few things in the freezer. Right. So if I wanted to buy a frozen pizza, it'd fit in there easily. Now, I got to say, I don't want to be talking out of school here. I, of course, do like to make my chicken stock, which means there's sometimes chicken stock in that freezer. Sometimes there's chicken bones in that freezer. I'm not the Genevieve is not the only one using the freezer, and that's not why it's a little bit out of out of hand. But we just do not have much room. And so if I'm bringing home a full pizza box, I probably need to eat it that day because it's just every time you open the freezer, it's probably going to slide out. It's a disaster. It gives me the it gives me a bad feeling just thinking about my freezer right now.

Do you also have any kind of, you know, accumulation of like frost or ice in there?

No, I'm doing pretty well on that. In fact, we it's a new that's right. It's a new refrigerator. When we came here, we had an old refrigerator that had some ceiling issues. And so that frost was building up a big time and I'd have to defrost it or try to chunk it off, which you're not supposed to do. So luckily, that's no, the freezer's in good shape. But here, let me ask you this. And we got to get to top stories. But let me ask you this, because this came up briefly this weekend, maybe because of a similar pizza related conversation. But I told Genevieve, I said, you know, I would really love to have a refrigerator freezer that is the side by side kind. I believe that's the kind I grew up with where freezers on the left, refrigerators on the right. But we have the kind that's maybe more traditional with a freezer on the.

top you know like maybe it's a quarter of the freezer a quarter of the unit is the freezer on the top and in the the two thirds two thirds the three quarters is the fridge i'm below wow um anyway i don't like that which do you prefer i would like to go back to side by side genevieve

disagreed heartily huh i guess i would go side by side because there's more space that's what i thought i the only time i think i had that was in bellingham and now i'll tell you what here uh at the nest broadcast center along with it being incredibly dark in this room and true like something's going on like either my rods and cones are very much deteriorating in the last nine months or or i don't i mean was i doing the show by candlelight for january and february or whatever it is so not light in here but anyway um the other thing is because this is an apartment i have a i like the size of a size of refrigerator you would have in a dorm and a freezer that is the kind if you were to even have a freezer in a dorm that that's what i have and it's oh really

in my memory you had a big refrigerator and freezer i didn't realize that no no no it's it's

it's it's both of them are like not even half the size of like what probably you and genevieve have um and i will say this not to not to you know blame i don't know what not to pass off some of my bad eating habits when i moved to portland to uh you know the the refrigerator and and freezer But honestly, part of I think why I was just existing on pizza and crappy delivery food for a long time was because I didn't actually have a very good setup for cooking and or for refrigerating food because there's not much room here. So I would take a side – but I would take a side-by-side. I'm with you. I don't see any upside to it being the kind where the freezer is on top other than I guess efficient use of space in a smaller kitchen. Like for that, I guess I would give it points. But if it were like if all bets were off and you could have either one and there was enough room, I mean, side by side is a no brainer.

That's what I think. But Genevieve seems to think that it's too narrow to hold what needs to be held, which I just don't. I think you could slide a frozen pizza box in there.

It would be wide enough for what if you were like in a hotel room and there was a refrigerator that was also the minibar and that door was just a little bit ajar. What would you have thoughts on that?

I might suggest that we close the things that close. Really? Would you? I might. OK, we have some top stories to get to. I heard the sounder. It was very loud.

But then the end was very quiet.

Yeah, but then I got confused.

You and the listener, believe me. Article in Wired that came out recently about Zoom dysmorphia. A professor of dermatology at Harvard Medical School, a dermatologist by the name of Shadi Karosh, did a kind of a survey of people who had been using Zoom a lot during the pandemic and found that people were inordinately preoccupied with sagging skin around their neck and jowls, with the size and shape of their nose, and with the pallor of their skin. This was a survey of 7,000 people. Now, there was actually, they're calling this like Zoom dysmorphia, but there was something else that was basically called Snapchat dysmorphia. But this is apparently different because when you're on Snapchat, you are aware that you're using a filter. I've actually never used Snapchat. I'm not of the generation that Snapchats, I don't think. But when you're using Snapchat, apparently, you know that you're using a filter. So your brain is kind of aware this is not exactly what I look like, maybe for better or for worse. The thing that's trickier about Zoom and video conferencing, according to this research, is that it distorts our appearances in ways we might not even realize. Front-facing cameras distort your image like a funhouse mirror. They make your nose look bigger. They make your eyes look smaller. This effect is exacerbated by proximity to the lens, which is generally nearer to you than a person would ever stand in a real-life conversation. I hadn't thought of that. That's interesting, yeah. We're also used to seeing our own reflection when our faces are relaxed. So I guess like if you were to look in the mirror, like you're getting ready in the morning or whatever, your face is relaxed. The concentrated frown or bored expression that you wear in a Zoom meeting jars with the image of yourself you're used to seeing in the mirror. so and i know that very well like i find these video meetings to be really tiresome because even though probably no one is really looking at me i feel like i'm on stage the whole time and i'm always trying to stare directly into the pinhole camera because i'm trying to make direct eye contact like as if we were in real life like i don't want to be looking i'm trying to not look at myself in the gallery view because i don't want every i don't want it to look like i'm not engaged in the group conversation and it seems to me like the only way to make everyone think you're paying attention to them is to look into the camera but that's also kind of disorienting because that's not a human you know what i mean it's not holding my attention the same way a regular person would it is

all pretty disorienting i think and i will tell you this i never leave a zoom meeting feeling better about myself no no me neither what's your like i mean what is your kind of what's your what's your what's your experience with this and have you developed any systems are you are you just like at this point inured to it or do you still kind of dread it or what i'm you always have to check

your privilege and i want to say that obviously i'm privileged that i was born with pretty much perfect looks so in a certain way and thank you for and thank you for recognizing yeah exactly saving people the emails when i when i walk around this the city of ours or if i dial up on a zoom i am treated in a different way because i am so beautiful in fact some people have described my beauty as almost difficult to look at uh for long periods of time like looking into the face of god i was going to say the sun but i think you actually got closer there um but anyway putting that aside when i am having a one of my rare self-conscious moments um i realize i think i actually have a question for you luke about my behavior on zoom um because everything that you just mentioned about like kind of trying to maintain good eye contact on zoom i do that but i also try not to stare too intently at at the lens also i have a part of my beauty is i have a lazy eye um and so if i stare too which god gave you just so the rest of us would literally jump off a bridge exactly and also the extra chins and whatnot um but uh anyway so i i need to kind of make sure i'm not staring too closely at one pinpoint because my eye will start to do weird things that make other people uncomfortable i think um but when i am not the person talking on the zoom i think i do a pretty good job of maintaining eye contact but you and i were just on a four-person business meeting zoom call that's right we have business meetings yeah uh with uh our colleagues emily and john just last week do you remember this i do remember um i think i noticed me doing something i think when i'm on a zoom call i will make eye contact with you until it's my time to talk and then when i talk i i don't realize i'm doing it at the moment but i realize when I'm done talking I then look back down to the screen and I had this realization that like oh I think I find it maybe difficult to as everybody who listens to this show knows I find it difficult to form my words and I think I find it difficult to form my words even more when I'm staring at a zoom screen yeah whether I'm staring at myself which is probably a big part of it but also maybe staring at the like you say that the three people staring back at you are right there on your laptop closer than you would be if you were all sitting around a table at, let's say, American Public Media headquarters in St. Paul, right? And so I think in order to concentrate, I look away and then I come back down to earth. Did you happen to notice that?

I didn't notice you doing that, but I will tell you, I have the same experience of feeling like I am so much less eloquent in the Zoom meeting environment. Not that I think I'm some great orator in normal life, but I find myself consistently kind of just flailing and being like thinking to myself why'd you say that that way or that why didn't you just stop one sentence earlier or like some of it probably has to do with the timing you know what i mean but like i i am i am much worse at talking or holding the room on zoom than i am in real life and i leave a lot of those meetings just thinking god did i ever did i ever do i did a bad job in that conversation of kind of trying to uh whatever i don't know explain where we're coming from or make my point or what have you i think that i wonder if there's a better setting maybe i need to stop using gallery view and use speaker view because part of the problem for me is i'm also a narcissist and so if i'm in gallery view like if i'm always seeing myself i know there's a setting for this and i should have probably learned this 17 months ago but there's got to be a way to just turn off the view that shows me myself yeah i'm sure there is i'm trying

I'm trying to think if I've ever done that. When people are screen sharing, I know that I disappear because you can only see like four people at a time.

I mean, is there anything better than when it goes to a document? Right. You know? So you're just like – you're just buttholes just clenching. You're just like, God, I'm trying to like angle my chin into this ring light and like act cash, but I'm also looking at myself constantly, which people have pointed out is also why these meetings are exhausting because in normal life, you're not seeing yourself. You're seeing the other person. That's huge. This is this added amount of information for your brain to take in, which is how do I look? How do I look? How do I look? And that's exhausting. Then all of a sudden someone's like, well, let me put up this Google Doc. And then you're looking at it. And then that's what everyone's looking at. And you're just like, oh, my God, I'm going to let my gut out. We can't even see your stomach on this Zoom. I know, but I can finally just relax. Or if we can, you better adjust your Zoom, adjust your laptop camera. Tubing. Yeah.

I think that's the. the biggest part of it right it's just like we don't go through or we didn't go through i mean what is normal life anymore so i it's weird to say that but i would say that we didn't go through normal life looking at ourselves throughout meetings we just didn't i mean that's it right there like it would be like if two years ago and we were all still going to regular you know in person jobs and meetings and if we had a weekly editorial meeting or a morning editorial meeting but next to everybody was a mirror like and you're just staring in the mirror while you're talking to everybody it's like right no we don't need to be looking in the mirror this much like i think it gets in your head and maybe this will i mean my guess is though this is the new normal and you know we'll deal with it and there will be some dysmorphia and other maybe conditions that need to be you know addressed or treated in some way but chances are this will just become something

very normalized to us somebody needs to make a piece of software actually you know what there is something that's on like zoom that supposedly presents your face in a more flattering way or whatever yeah you can but like somebody needs to really make one that's super convincing that you just put on only for yourself that's just like sending you back this like positive maybe overly positive feedback confident you know i actually have okay so i have like a couple of different laptops that i use for work stuff and um one of them is just the one that i will take when i'm doing the show when i'm doing this show from a hotel somewhere and for whatever reason that particular macbook air the camera is really flattering which i know sounds insane like these are pieces of electronic equipment they should all be the same that one when i'm using it so let's say that um you and i do tbtl i'm in oklahoma city then i'm going to do an interview with someone for livewire and for those things we use zoom i've had the livewire staff say hey you look really good on this camera like there's something about i don't know what's the like elizabeth taylor setting from the white diamonds ads somehow this one camera is really my friend we need to develop somebody needs to develop an app that's doing that all the time on like whatever platform we're using so that we all end these because after those interviews i'm like hey You know, I not not not so bad, Burbs, not the worst. I got a little pep in my step, even if it is just some quirk of that particular machine. But I just need more of that in my life.

Well, first of all, I'm a little surprised that your colleagues over at that show feel comfortable commenting on their colleagues appearances. It's not how we do things over here at TBTL. But we have no H.R. department. Yeah, apparently not. But we have an overzealous HR department at 8 p.m., which is why I'm stressed out about this goal situation, these goals. Have you written your goals yet? Have you written out yours?

No, I have a meeting with our boss later today to explain how I write my goals.

This is so ridiculous. I can't even get into it right now. But what I was going to say was, okay, I want to make fun of the live. Why are people about it? Oh, no. I love this. I love this idea. We call it confidence mode, right? And it is a filter. Confidence mode. It is a filter on socio or Zoom if you prefer that is all kinds of filters. They can even be like just wacky filters, but only you see them. It's whatever makes you feel good. Like if you want to put on a Shrek filter and feel like I'm going to be my best if I look like Shrek in this meeting. Nobody else has to see it, but you are putting that out there. I actually think that's a really cool idea.

I'm not joking. That's like being a never nude. like if you need to have those skin tight jean shorts on under your outfit to feel good in the world go for it yeah yeah like i don't really need like if we're in one of these meetings with our colleagues andrew i don't need you to have a shrek filter on in the meeting that might be because i feel like that would be distracting but if that's what makes you feel comfortable and your best go for it yeah confidence mode you have coined two really good uh like um you know What was the other one you did earlier? Divide and Concur. Divide and Concur and Confidence Mode. Those are almost as strong as the guy who opens the pickle jar and his whole life changes. And what was your other movie pitch?

That was pretty deece. I can't recall. Oh, it was a TV show, Piano Man.

Yes, it was. I loved your graphic that you, I loved your James Spader. That's right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Piano Man graphic that you made for that show, for that episode.

What is the actual show that Spader is in that I was?

He's like, it's kind of called The Blacklist.

The Blacklist, yeah. I just took that. Check out the, if you haven't already, check out the website on tbtl.net for the artwork from maybe last Wednesday's show. Yeah, I just took The Blacklist and I remade it so it looks like it's a show called Piano Man. What is it? Piano by Day, Justice at Night, I believe is the long line. Yes, it was so good. 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.

I'm sorry, I meant to play the email sound.

At 1 million decibels and then at negative 1 million decibels. But maybe tomorrow I'll get it together.

Is it playing? I didn't hear it. Okay, here's what I'm going to share. It doesn't sound like anything to me. I'm going to share a couple of emails about Rod the Bod Stewart. I was surprised last week when we were talking about Rod Stewart and I mentioned Rod the Bod. And then I started doing some Googling because I'm like, we all call him Rod the Bod, right? And it turns out, no, like Rod the Bod, if you just Google that phrase, It seems that there's a famous coach who used to be a football player who's like a gym rat, and he goes by the name Rod the Bod. I did not find any mention of Rod Stewart being called Rod the Bod, which raised the question, was this something that we only did in my household? Because I remember this from being a very little kid. And I got some emails over the weekend that made me feel good. Ivy says, my mom definitely called Rod Stewart Rod the Bod when I was growing up. I'm 39, and I call him that too. Bing. Wow. How about Jeffrey in Eugene, Oregon? For what it's worth, I also grew up referring to Rod Stewart as Rod the Bod. My family was in Columbus in the mid-1970s, and my friend's mom was a big fan of Rod Stewart. I don't know if I learned that name from her or my own family, but it was a very big deal in our collective family group, and we all referred to him as Rod the Bod. And then one more interesting note here from JM, who says, Hey, friendos, listening to your brief talk about the faces. Of course, that's the early Rod Stewart band Faces the other day Sent me spiraling down a Rod Stewart rabbit hole I've spent the past few days listening to some of his hits that I remember from my youth While listening to the now ironically titled song Forever Young It dawned on me that I'm now older than Rod Stewart was in that music video I joyously watched as a 13-year-old In case you're wondering, that was 1988 Rod Stewart was 43 at the time So as I'm sitting here feeling old I am older than Rod Stewart was when he recorded the Forever Young song. I wanted to know if you guys have anything that pushes your holy shit I'm old button. I think you just did push it.

My love of submarine tours.

This is a very weirdly specific one, but I think there might be some universal in this general feeling. I was talking to my father the other day, and he mentioned that either me or my sister, My sister's a couple of years older than me. I think my sister is about to be older than my dad was when he married for the second time, when he married our stepmom. And that doesn't mean anything to you, the listener. All, you know, families, there are all kinds of remarriages and families that happen at all different points of the timeline. But for me, that was one, you know, like there were times in my life where I thought like, wow, I'm older than my parents were when they had me. right? Or I'm older than these things that I don't really remember well, but I just know they're marks of adulthood. But this one, like, you know, I was a young man when my parents got married, when my dad and stepmom got married, you know, I remember it well, I was what, 14 or 15 or something like that. And to know that I'm almost older than my dad was at that phase of life, that blows my mind. I cannot, I can't make that make sense. I think it's always

uh other people well i mean in this case it is technically you getting older or i guess your sister getting older but like the thing that always gets me it's not so much my oldness it's thinking so thinking about how old the people in my life are getting or like for instance when i was hanging out with my family this weekend a i don't even know what my relationship to her would be but somebody my my brother-in-law josh somebody in his family just got married and i the last time i saw that person she was 12 years old you know and it's like those kind of things i'm like avery got married what is that even legal it's like yeah she's 24 or what you know what i mean yeah it's the it's for some reason it's other people's age progression that seems to make me really confront my own because to me it's mostly just like grass growing just kind of happening slowly but surely and i'm what was another one that i saw yesterday oh i was watching this i'm really into this um this documentary series on netflix that's uh called untold sports documentaries you know that was the first one was the um the malice in the palace about that big fight that happened at the detroit pistons game and they've they've it's a whole you know it's a whole bunch of these and they're really well done. I was watching one last night about U.S. tennis and they were showing Pete Sampras, the tennis player, and like how, when he was, you know, really at his height. And so I Googled him and then I saw a picture of Pete Sampras now. And like Pete Sampras is, you know, a completely normal looking guy for his age and is in fact probably a pretty handsome dude. But I don't think I've seen a picture of Pete Sampras in 20 years. and I looked at that and i just thought well we're all dying that's it it's over for the planet which it might be but nobody thought it was going to be viewed through the lens of pete sampras's aging but i just was like something hit me was like pete sampras is not allowed to be as old as he looks in that photo that is not acceptable because i guess by extension that means i am also much

older than i used to be yeah yeah it's funny um also seeing like people who will like that's an example of somebody you don't know in real life this is going to sound weird or almost vaguely insulting and I hope it doesn't of course you'll never hear this but Paul F. Tompkins is an interesting one for me because I kind of forget how much work he did way back in the day like I got to know him from Mr. Show which is a pretty big star turn for him back in the very late 90s but of course he was working he was showing up in little comedy bits here and there going back I'm sure throughout the 90s and I think that he is somebody who continues to age very gracefully like I do seriously reverse aging Yeah, he's really got a style now that he's leaned into, and I think he's a really sharp-looking guy, for real, to the degree that I'm going to be judging people on their appearance today. I'm not like those Livewire people. But every now and then, you'll see a really, really young version of him pop up in something you're watching and surprise you, and then you're like, wow, that's him, but he's a child. That's one for me that also makes me feel old somehow. He did the really smart thing

Which is he kind of got He got real dapper at some point And got a real look going like you said And I think it really suits him I mean literally and figuratively By the way he's going to be on Livewire At the At Revolution Hall here in Portland We're doing a show in December I don't know the date off the top of my head And of course you know This is all lord willing and the covid don't rise But um He agreed to do the show So he's flying up from L.A. and it's, you know, we'll be on stage and everything. And he agreed to do it because he said, I get to wear a, quote, Christmas suit.

I love that.

Like, that's the appeal for him is he gets to wear an outfit he's excited about.

That's great. I do love that. Yeah. Now, try not to piss him off before Livewire. Didn't you come close to piss him off on Twitter one time?

I was trying to write What in my mind Sounded like a Kind of like a Good natured kind of ball busting To him about I think Spoiling something on Game of Thrones Oh yeah yeah I do remember that yeah But it just it just didn't translate It just came off tonally as me Just being kind of rude to him And I think he DM'd Me and said because he was due to be On Livewire in like a week or two but he said, you still want me to come to the show, right? Or something like, I think it was a kind of a not-so-subtle way of going, like, what was that? Yeah. And also don't. And I was, like, super apologetic. Of course, I took the tweet down. But, yeah, no, a lesson learned. I deleted a tweet this weekend, I thought of you.

I don't remember exactly. Oh, yeah? It was just silly. It wasn't something important. It wasn't, like, scandalous. It was somebody, it was just one of those moments where I think I was watching the ball game, didn't really have anything going on. and so somebody started following me on Twitter or something and I'm like oh what are they seeing here it was just like one of those moments where it's like oh if you're just coming to look at my Twitter for the first time what are you seeing and I scroll back and it's just like my Twitter has no rhyme or reason it's usually just stuff that I tweet out in the moment usually or like retweets during baseball games that make no sense without context at all you know so anyway I think I just was doing maybe a little bit of clean up on that like huh that's a weird thing just to have living there Anyway, end of my Twitter story

I was firing out some tweets last night That I don't know if I want to I don't know if I want to pick some kind of a fight With the biographer Michael Wolff Yeah, I saw that But there was just a picture of him In this New York Times profile of him He's, you know, this kind of He's a celebrity journalist In that he is also a celebrity himself And he has written a number of books About major celebrities Often like political figures and people like that, and he gets access to them. I mean, I think he's also had a few kind of, I forget the specifics of it, but I know there was some pushback at some time about some of his methods.

I think it's some of his sourcing for that Trump book, I think, maybe was questioned.

Maybe that's what it was. But so the picture of him, I don't know why this struck me. Believe it or not, I was drunk on almonds maybe, but nothing else. But there's this picture of him in the Times. He's got his hands together, his fingers together like Mr. Burns would do. Yeah. And that it's just the most self-serious pose ever. And I don't even blame him because I don't know what the I don't know what the circumstances were. Like if he knew that that was the photo they were going to use, if they asked him to do that, if you know what I mean. But it just comes off as somebody who's a very, you know, uppercase V, very uppercase.

I important uppercase P person and I wrote something kind of like I hope I do something so important that this can be the picture of me in the New York Times which whatever it's a dumb observation I was debating deleting it this morning but then also I was like I hope this doesn't get back to him somehow and then he's like I don't like that dude because I'm sure at some point we'll be like trying to get him on CBS Sunday morning I'll be like hey sorry I roasted

your hand position in the New York Times I see my former program director from KCRW liked it though So that's why it appeared on my timeline.

Worth it.

Congratulations. Thank you. All right. I have a confession to make. I'm not a huge Rod Stewart fan. I don't like that. Yeah. Oh, you call him that too?

That was what we always called him growing up.

Yeah. I don't tend to like his vocal stylings, generally speaking, that kind of raspy thing. I know. I'm not saying that it's bad. I'm saying that's just my opinion. I'm probably on the outside on that. However, we should go out with some Rod Stewart. I have Broken Arrow lined up, but I could play any Stewart that you want to hear, except for I'm going to veto the ones that you think I'm sexy. I don't want to do that one.

I mean, if you want to deny Rod the bod the right to posit the question of do you think I guess it's what I don't even know the lyrics to that song. I don't care about that song. You know what I do kind of like, though, is well, there's two. There's two songs that I feel like I really like from Rod Stewart. One is the handbags and the glad rags. Which I think is the, I don't know if it's his version, but didn't he do a cover of or do the song that was the British Office's theme song? And I feel like we had this conversation like six months ago. Oh, is that?

We might have even actually played this song. You know, I don't know if we talked about it on this show or not, but I think somebody did hit me to the fact that that was an existing song before it was the theme song to The Office. Something that I never realized before. But then also, I like You Wear It Well.

Do you know that one? No, I don't. Could we – I'm not to override you on Rod the Bob, but could we do You Wear It Well? Yeah, You Wear It Well. Let me see. Yeah, something to that effect.

All right. And you start talking, and I'll get the sound ready. Sorry. I don't know what's going on here. You wear it well.

We still have an entire sports show to do later. How are we doing? All right. Listen, I promise everyone if you tune in tomorrow and if you don't stop your donations, tomorrow's show is going to kick ass. We're going to learn from today. Okay. we're going to go we're going to tonight we're going to get the film back we're going to look at what went wrong and we're going to come up with a new game plan and we're going to fix those mistakes this was our first you know this is our first time out obviously there's going to be some rust there's going to be uh you know but we we will we're going to improve on things we're going

to adjust at half exactly we're a half you know what we're a second half team yeah okay we make

a lot of adjustments at half and we're going to do that uh tomorrow's tbtl is going to be amazing And also, today's No Point Conversion, which will be coming your way in some number of hours, that's also going to be incredible. So please join us for that. All right. Until then, enjoy the rest of your Monday. We will see you tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

do on this hot afternoon but to settle down and write your line I've been mean and tough on you but from Minnesota and it's been a very long time you wear a little old fashioned but that's all mine well I suppose you're thinking I bet he's sinking or he wouldn't get in touch with me Oh, I ain't begging for losing my head I sure do watch it tonight That you wear it well There ain't a lady in the land so fine, oh my Remember their Facebook parties Your brother's karate The all-day rock and roll show They're the homesick blues and the radical blues I haven't left a mark on you You wear it well A little out of time that I don't mind But I ain't forgetting that you were once mine

But I'll do it without even trying

Do you ever kind of look at each other and go,

aren't we a couple of dapper Dans? Power out.