Muse

and it it just records hello chaps it's uh it is luke and um it's andrew is it yeah yes yes luke and andrew on uh too beautiful to live um well i i i was talking to um uh well i i was advised Well, not advised per se. I mean, well, anyway, it's October. No, no, no, it's trucktober. I'm ringing. I just thought that I'd say it's a very, very heartfelt, meaningful trucktober to you, to you all, to all of the tens from everyone here in Great Britain. Cheerio, chaps Okay T-B-T-L Guess what day it is Guess what day it is

It's Friday, Friday Gonna get down on Friday Everybody's looking forward to the weekend Do I look like I know what a JPEG is?

I just want a picture of a god dang hot dog Hi, yes, I am an elephant. That's a no from me, dog. How'd it go?

Well, he's going to acknowledge me on Instagram, so I guess you could say it was one of the best conversations of my entire life. I'm such a sucker for content.

All right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Friday edition of TBTL. Okay, let's do it. The show that just might be too beautiful to live. My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host, coming to you from the Nest Broadcast Center, high in the sky, above Portland, Oregon. Day nine, since the doctor told me I'm not supposed to have coffee.

Love the flavor, getting wired, beverage, how I desire.

Finally broke down this morning, and I went to my local coffee shop.

I did it.

And ordered a decaf Americano, and I am drinking it right now, and I'll tell you what. Tastes just like regular coffee to me. So if I have to stay off the caffeine, this seems like a workable solution. I am ready, my friends, at least psychologically and sort of psychosomatically, feeling the energy of drinking this cup of coffee, even though it has no caffeine in it. I am ready on this October 1st.

A blessed to all of you.

And I'm ready to do this episode 3,523 in a collector's series Let the fun begin A guy in Korea Says he's been getting thousands And thousands of phone calls Because his actual cell phone Was the number they used In this Netflix hit show Squid Game

Answer your telephone Answer your telephone

I watched the first episode of Squid Game last night, and it was sort of interesting. Anyway, we'll talk about that. Also, Shakira Shakira claims on Instagram that wild boars attacked really not her or her kid so much as her purse, and then carried it off the purse into the woods.

He's not Spider Pig anymore. He's Harry Plopper.

As her and her son were walking through a park. And so we'll try to figure out what's going on with that. plus the scourge of wild boars in Europe is quite something, actually. And here we are on October 1st, so of course that means baseball's back.

The crack of the mat, the roar of the crowd, that's right, baseball's back.

The Seattle Mariners are entering this weekend with the ever-growing possibility they might actually make the playoffs for the first time in like 20 years. They do have to win three games, it's not nothing. But the team, the PR department for the Mariners, is doing all kinds of clever stuff, including writing people a kind of a form letter excuse that they can give to their bosses for not caring about work today or this weekend and a bunch of other fun stuff. So we'll talk about that, too. Plus, it's a Friday, meaning we've got music for your weekend as well. And we've got this guy, the longest-running Cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He is Andrew Cobrown's Walsh. And he's joining me right now from the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. I'm glad you played that baseball drop. First joke of the day for me. Yeah, I'm in the kind of relationship where I note the first joke of the day. I woke up and I said to Genevieve, you know what I like most about baseball? And she said, what? I said, the crack of the bat, the roar of the crowd. And then I think she said, that's right. Baseball's winding down.

so there you go right off the bat just riffing just riffing first thing in the morning that's what it's like to be us how are you doing how you oh hey i'm i want to sorry no go ahead answer and then i have a follow-up question i'm doing well good sorry full of beans yeah this whole thing about not getting or feeling shy or bashful about getting decaf in a coffee shop i don't think there's any there there you know i know that our dear friend broadcast barry you know he's apparently

mailing me some decaf too which oh really so very nice of you responded directly i was gonna say

yeah i mean you can get a great cup of decaf right there at broadcast coffee and this there ain't no hipper uh hipper shop than that i would say i went down to this little coffee shop

the closest one to my apartment and the um the the woman working there was actually locking it up and i was like oh are you closed because this was at like 9 a.m or something and they're Supposed to be open from 7 a.m. to 3 The sign clearly indicates She goes, oh, I was going to take my lunch Which is totally, I get it It's like if you're the single The one person who's like, you know Running something like that You've got to like, you are owed a break And you've got to do it It just means I guess no one's getting coffee for a half hour But she said, hey, if you're going to do something simple I said, I just want like a cup of decaf She goes, well, I can make an Americano that's decaf I said, that'll be fine So she opens the store back up and goes in and I was panicked the entire time that more people were going to come in.

Oh, gosh, right. Oh, my gosh.

So I was like patrolling with my eyes, everyone coming down MLK Street in Portland, trying to analyze, were they going to come in here and ask for coffee? And was she going to end up with a line of people, and her whole lunch plan torpedoed because of me? Mercifully, it didn't happen.

Did you vocalize that to her? I would have.

I only said it at the end. And I was well, the other thing is I was going to say, do you want me to lock the door? But then I realized, yeah, this is a young woman in her 20s. And I'm a well, I'm a 45 year old man that she's not familiar with. So let's not get into talking about locking this place up. I was just trying to think, like, what can I do? I was like, what should I stand outside and just tell people? No, it's closed. Just ignore the person in there making coffee. So I was stressing the whole time internally. And I was like, of course, it then made me very impatient about how long the Americano was taking. And then finally she finished. And then I said, oh, my gosh, I'm so glad no one came in. I was really stressing about that. And then she laughed. So it all turned out.

It would have been funny if you had just kept building on your order. Like, you're like, I just want just a cup of decaf, no problem.

And can you warm me up, whatever one of those breakfast sandwiches they do at Starbucks are. Now, we do have a little sports show that we do this time of year called the No Point Conversion. And the point of that is to try to not have this show, TBTL, devolve into sports talk. But I feel like there is something going on this weekend in Seattle with this Mariners baseball team that even people who are only lightly interested in baseball are now getting excited about. It's like the big story in the Seattle Times. It would appear I haven't watched Ted Lasso. OK, as I wrote on Twitter yesterday, not watching Ted Lasso is the most indie thing I've ever done. it's my it's my most and I you know I keep meaning to start watching Ted Lasso I'm not opposed to it although I am starting to get into that mode where not watching it is my personality

I've heard so much about it at this point like everybody all you know all of my podcasts were obsessed with it at some point my favorite thing was I was at a little diner having lunch on Monday and or Tuesday and I overheard like there were two women in there I'm gonna put them I don't know like two women in their 60s maybe by the way i found the perfect diner for myself the foods i mean it's fine but there were two old men reading real newspapers and then yes this um these older women who were sitting there uh and the one woman was explaining ted lasso in great detail to the other woman and everyone was drinking decaf and everybody was drinking decaf

anyway go ahead sorry uh by the way it it's not lost on me that one of my weird flexes has been that I can drink coffee and then go to sleep, and now I can't. Like, I can't drink coffee at all, at least not the caffeinated kind. So I have to retire that flex. So it would appear that there's some plot line in Ted Lassa where people are holding up signs that say believe. I'm guessing that that's something that happens with the soccer team that he's the coach of. But it's also been very much adopted by the Seattle Mariners. So you've got, like, pictures of, like, Jared Kalanick holding up this believe sign after the Mariners won the other night. It's this kind of interesting intersection of this pop culture thing, which is Ted Lasso, and then this sports thing, which is the Mariners playing really well at the end of the season. And in an official announcement, the Mariners said the team believes that, quote, the people of the Pacific Northwest deserve to enjoy this playoff race without the unnecessary distraction. of non-essential activities that disrupt the enjoyment of the game. It is unreasonable to expect the citizens to focus on anything other than Mariners baseball. So, they also wrote up a thing that you can print out and give to your boss. To whom it may concern, you may notice a decrease in productivity as Luke Burbank obsessively cheers on AL wildcard contending Seattle Mariners. Please excuse their constant scoreboard watching, endless playoff scenario calculations, and abundant enthusiasm during a thrilling week of baseball. At this time, the Mariners require their immediate attention and focus as we continue to make our final push for the postseason. We understand that you need your employee to focus, but to be frank, our subsequent games are simply more important. We rely on their full support and good vibes. Luke Burbank is a believer, and you should be too. So that's something you're supposed to fill out and slide under your boss's door. This is very, I mean, this is exciting. It's obviously not a done deal In fact it's still statistically somewhat improbable But this is like the most exciting thing to happen for this baseball team Like I said for probably 20 years Actually more than that Because the other year The last time they made it in They won tons and tons of games So it was like It was a fait accompli that they were going to get in the playoffs And then they ended up losing This if they somehow pull it off Well I think of it as having a real Ted Lasso quality Yeah no

Can you explain it to me?

Believe

I yeah I don't allow myself to truly believe and I'm not I'm not I'm not brownsing it up by the way I'd like to I'd like to you know stake my claim as somebody who has been legitimately into this team all season and seeing all the good stuff even through the warts and saying that like they were off to a better start than anybody thought maybe not off to a better start at the beginning of the season but they were they were holding the line throughout the season in a way that makes me very very optimistic maybe even too optimistic for next season and all of this has been um all of this has been kind of a cherry on top or kind of gravy I don't know if you want to put cherries in gravy it seems like that's a bad idea but it's either gravy or cherries where we are right now having said that for us to win baseball teams can win three games in a row obviously the thing is we've won what 11 out of our last 13 like when you look at the full stretch expecting us to take all three of these games and for the other teams to that we need to lose to lose their games it's still a lot to ask I'm very excited about it I'm not being a negative Andrew about it I just uh I'm you know keeping my expectations in check and appreciating all of these moments what the Mariners are doing on social media first of all I think Mariners Twitter maybe everybody feels this way about their teams but I think Mariners Twitter is a very very fun

place generally speaking i think that yeah didn't they get into it with smash mouth some years ago because smash mouth is their oakland fans right i forgot and i think i think mariners twitter just really got under the skin of the lead singer of california got sunshine the smash mouth guy and

the mariners themselves have been really good on social media making funny memes and whatnot on the instagrams and the twitters don't get into a meme more with the mariners twitter never and i'm really glad of that, because one of the reasons why I fell in love with the Mariners, and frankly, why the Mariners got me to fall in love with baseball, what, 12 years ago, was I was new to the city, I was, you know, starting to hear a little bit about this team, it was supposed to be a special year, it wasn't, but, you know, I was reading about them in the off-season, and then, and their commercials were so charming, and what I would later learn is, I was kind of, that was kind of the final sun-setting years of these really charming commercials that the Seattle mariners had been releasing for um for years and years right like you kind of grew up with them you've referenced them a lot on the show i think they used to be with was it one notable uh production house that or creative agency that was yeah it was a company called copacino

in seattle that would uh and my buddy ben was one of the main writers on it and they would uh yeah they'd come up with these really clever ads that that were so popular i remember espn playing them as content like in sports center yeah like saying these the new ads are out yeah i remember even

when i again back in 20 i don't know 2009 2010 i remember oh the new ads are out um but uh that eventually kind of went by the wayside i don't know if they switched production houses or what it was um the commercials that they air now on tv are fine they kind of have this animation style that i actually think is kind of cool but it's like pretty straightforward just like these guys are hitting it out of the park watch him smash the thing is the radio commercials are so bad and they're so annoying and somehow they mostly play them while the mariners and again i don't want to be negative on the mariners today but we just haven't had this conversation and i didn't realize this until i was scrolling through my um my audio files the other day and i realized i isolated one of these things because i was so mad i don't know what i was going

to do with it but i think it was like after like one of those no hitters or the mariners just really crapped the bed yet somehow they always play a promo like this right during or after

a terrible performance welcome to seattle the jet city we're just south of downtown we put big planes in the sky and just up the road you can watch small objects fly scott services soto squad is taking off with daily flights.

Literally, they played this spot after getting no hit by the Detroit Tigers. I'm not joking.

I know the feeling of like, you know, that's why I don't ever like a team to have braggy ads. Yes. Because you just never know if you play that, like you said, right after they've had some kind of a failure, it just is salt in the wound. Incredibly, somehow they've had more success than failure this year, which I did not expect. And, of course, a bunch of us are going to be getting together and going to the game on Saturday night. So I'm coming up just for the game. And I'm already trying to emotionally prepare myself for, you know, the possibility that they might not win tonight or they might not win tomorrow night. You know, you're right. It's still a tall order. And I'm like I'm trying to find a way to still have fun tomorrow night at the game if we have managed to sort of eliminate ourselves from playoff contention. I think it's going to either be if we win tonight and then they're still in it by tomorrow, tomorrow night will be incredibly tense and riveting and exciting. But if not, if they've lost and they're kind of looking like they're not going to make the playoffs, it'll just be almost like a celebration of life. I'll just be like, hey, this team really did better than we expected this year. So I'm going to just be there with a Bud Light in my hand. And I don't know if I'm going to get another veggie dog. The problem is because of the pandemic, the whole condiment situation is different in Safeco or T-Mobile, whatever they call it now. And so with a veggie dog, you really need to – the condiments need to be overperforming because this hot dog matter is not good or it's not – it's way less good than a hot dog, a real hot dog at a baseball stadium. But if you pile enough onions and mustard and things on there, you kind of can't tell a little bit. but because of the pandemic a lot of stuff is in individual packets so like a tiny individual packet of relish I'm not going to open like 12 of them and try to like you've got to really drown that hot dog and you can't do it as effectively when things are individualized yeah luckily the

ketchup and mustard are still in the big tubs and I think they still have the onions but it is for some reason they chose the relish like I don't quite understand that and it's not a huge deal for me I like I like relish on there and I'll put it on there but I can also skip it but But I don't understand why, again, this is one of those weird things where I'm not criticizing, but it's like, I know it has something to do with the pandemic. But how do we square that the pandemic rules? Ketchup and mustard can remain in their big tubs, like the pump tubs. I like to pump tubs when I'm tub thumping. But the other stuff has to be in these little packages. Like, I don't quite understand, like, what the dividing line was there.

Not to mention I can't even get my ivermectin there That I used to like to just get out of the huge You know I would ladle it out Of this that kind of like tub That they had I want you to know Andrew that when you were just talking A minute ago I wasn't not responding because you weren't being Funny and delightful I had the mic Muted because of a Police officer that was So I look down this street called Cooch Street I can probably see like a mile Down Cooch and I will see A police officer or an ambulance at the far End of it and I know where they're going they're going to Go past this apartment and so I Then begin playing this game of trying to Kind of strategically mute the microphone so I didn't want you to think you were just hanging out in space There I was the lot I was

Lolling here people might also Forgot the word relish there for a second But that would be in people's imaginations I don't I don't know what they're talking about Our buddy Ruby you know Ruby long time 10 yeah of course Traffic reporter I believe that's right Yes, you guys have a lot in common as far as that career path goes. Ruby says, for whatever it's worth, and maybe it's something that's fixed in post-production. I wish I could take credit for that. I've almost never actually heard the ambulances outside Luke's apartment or Theo's caterwauling. I hate that it stresses the guys out. It's never been an issue with my own listening experience. There are six replies. I'm not going to read the six replies because I'm just going to take that. It could only go down from there. Right. Unless it's six people saying, we also can't ever hear the ambulances or the cats. Nope. Actually, everybody says it. Same here, same here, same here.

So basically what we're doing in classic TBTL fashion is we're dragging the show down over a thing that only we are aware of. Yeah. Exactly. Other things that the Mariners have asked of the state, they've asked...

asked that the mariner moose replace the olympic marmot as the state mammal oh that's good yeah

now are you down with that though because you don't you you kind of have you don't like the

moose right you're kind of i don't i i i'm not in love with uh the mariner moose i wish he was i wish he was um more silly like i wish it was more like um you know the philly fanatic or or gritty those are the kind of mascots i like i don't like mascots that are just a buff version of an animal yeah have you kind of what the mariner moose he like does push-ups when they used to i don't know if he does anymore but he used to drive like a four-wheeler around the stadium and stuff and do like wheelies and stuff um it's just not really my vibe um but i do think it'd be funny if like maybe for like insley could sign something that for one you know until the if the mariners as long as they continue on in the playoff hunt and the playoffs we're gonna make the moose the official um mammal of the state i feel like there's probably a pretty um it's not going to have a huge impact on life around here i mean don't tell the marmots because that's a real downgrade for them right they also want edgar martinez drive to be painted green they would like garlic fries to be served at every seattle restaurant and they would like the calculation of fun differential to be added to all k-12 curriculum that's pretty good have you seen the

moose wearing the mask now hey it's a mask i did i saw it last night or on thursday night kind of upsetting right like i get it yeah it's uncanny yeah i get it from a um you know from a public message perspective like i think it's good you know hey normalize masking whatever but because of the shape of the moose's face it's just like a it's just too loaded it's just like a loaded sack of moose face that i don't like were you trying to be quiet again no i was

just trying to be quiet so we can get that one in the clear i really need you know what i mean of you saying a loaded sack of moose face you know that sounds like something chevy chase would yell at the end of christmas vacation talking about his boss loaded sack of moose face but

you know what i mean right there's something about it i just because i i was you know watching

with great interest the game on thursday night and excuse me on wednesday night and i uh was like what the hell is going on with the moose so then i realized oh that's a mask again i'm with you it's good messaging it's the right thing but it's also um uh kind of it's odd it doesn't really work uh from a visual standpoint so anyway exciting weekend uh and then you've got your football i mean i've got my football team as well although i'm i'm managing my expectations there but you've got your cleveland browns and your seattle mariners both both playing meaningful games so

yeah you've got you must be amped yeah and again not to get into the sportsiness of it but yeah My Sunday will be interesting because if the Mariners do pull out some magic these next two days, like usually my Sundays are me trying to balance the Seahawks and the Browns. And this season, for some reason that I don't exactly know why, there's almost no kind of conflicts with those two teams. I believe there's one weekend where those two teams play at the same exact time. So I'll have to do my like media blackout while I record one and watch it later, et cetera, et cetera. luckily I only have to do that once this season but tomorrow or I'm sorry Sunday we could be looking at me watching a Browns game and then somehow simultaneously trying to watch a Seahawks game and a Mariners game depending on how that all times out so that'll be interesting exciting maybe it'll be my two screen experience I need to get more screens

they got rid of picture in picture at some point and I guess I actually was texting Camaro Kev about this I don't know a few weeks ago because there was something like that where there was there were two sporting events that I wanted to watch at the same time and I thought these you know these TVs have gotten more and more complex and have almost an innumerable number of functions but the thing they don't have that they used to have like your rich friends parents had it which was picture in picture where you could just see two things going on and I think it has to do something with the pixel quality to make these TVs as whiz bang as they are and to make it so that they can have these incredibly vivid pictures. There's something with that where if you're trying to make it two screens, it can't do it. Like it needs more pixels or something. That's what something on the internet said. I don't understand that stuff, but I texted Kevin. He was like, yeah, I don't really know the story on that. I've never heard Kevin not know the story on some television-related query.

I was shocked by that, too.

So, yeah, that'd be a perfect time for Picture in Picture.

I think Picture in Picture is a young man's game, though. So if I recall, like the last TV that we had that had picture and picture, picture and picture, was when I was like probably in high school. I don't think I ever had that as an adult, and I just don't know that I'd be able to follow a game on that tiny little screen that was parked in the bottom like right-hand corner of the screen. And unless you could make it big, could you do a split screen like halfsies? I don't know. I almost I think I would prefer and I wonder if this is part of it, too. Just like everybody's got a phone or a small laptop or a tablet or whatever. It's like just easier just to like call the game up on a different device.

But it is brain scrambling. I did that last week. I was watching the Browns game on my laptop because the NFL NFL dot com was streaming it for free. But I had a different game going on my large television. And I have to say, it sort of kind of decreased my pleasure for both experiences. It just was too much. It's like when you're in a sports bar and you're trying to watch your team's game, but the audio in the bar is somebody else's game. Probably the Patriots. You know, like whatever they've deemed to be the most interesting, the most popular game in that particular Buffalo Wild Wings. And that's also very disorienting. Yes, definitely. hey one other thing if any of our listeners have seen mitch hanniger's 100th home run ball could you please return it to him um i saw this article i sent it to the sports crew i didn't realize this but i think it was on like tuesday night mitch hanniger hit uh his 100th career home run and there's kind of a thing usually where i don't know who tracks all this stuff but if you're Like, you know, if a if a player gets like their first career home run, the the the the stadium staff somehow know to go find the person who caught it and basically offer them like an autographed bat or some other kind of piece of memorabilia from the player in question in exchange for the ball. And people always give the ball up. Well, maybe with some exception, if it was like, you know, the whatever Barry Bonds record breaking home run, that's probably worth millions of dollars or something. but anyway it's just kind of a it's a known thing well apparently there was so much pandemonium on that night and it was also a weird game there was like nobody there oh yeah right right no one remembered to track down his home run so mitch hanniger who like tweets never has been on twitter saying if anyone has my ball could you please dm me oh wow he's literally on twitter trying to get his home run ball back they have video of two guys that went running after it but it's unclear what happened afterwards and everybody wants now here's what my what i thought if anyone has any home run ball just tell mitch hanniger right it says 100th he there's no way for him to know the difference and then he can frame it and have it in his house um and feel like he has his home run ball right i mean shouldn't the mariners have orchestrated just like a child you know when a when a goldfish dies and you go get him another one just do that for mitch hanniger just go hey we found your ball here

it is buddy i got a ryan court foul tip that um he's more than happy to have that looks a lot like

a mitch hanniger 100th home it really does right yeah i mean if you want to if you want to get in mitch hanniger's good graces also you have to wonder how many like dead ends he got how many just like randos were sliding into his dms with with uh you know prop like proposals or i have your ball or whatever just because there's just something very charming though about or very humanizing about the fact that he wants this baseball and he's like on Twitter just asking

does anyone know where my baseball is I am really surprised that the Mariner staff let this slip through the cracks no joke because I think that I mean there this is a whole profession in and of itself and like there are I'm not smart enough to know it but I do think that they have pretty like complicated verification types of systems like from using probably the tape and various other things to suss out um you know what is what is a what is actually the ball or at least get close to feeling like you can be confident in that um but i i mean the they've been waiting for the one hundo you know what i mean like i'm very surprised it didn't catch him off guard it was like i think his third day in a row of hitting home runs or maybe that was the second of three or something and they knew they were approaching 100 like how did they not already have people all over just like waiting for that exact moment every time he had an at-bat I also in that article and

I don't want to be overly graphic but it explained why it was so emotional for this guy Mitch Hanegar to do this thing it's because he basically missed almost two seasons with a series of injuries and I always knew that he had been sort of hurt and was having surgeries but I was never clear on what had happened he had fouled a ball off of one of his testicles you're gonna love my nuts And he then had to have a surgery to fix that, but then in the process of rehabbing that, he had other things that went out of alignment, and so he ended up having to have like an abdominal surgery and I think a spinal surgery. He had a cascading series of medical mishaps, and that happens to a person at that level of athleticism, and very often it can kind of be the end of their career or the end of their promising career, or maybe they'll still be able to play, but they're not going to thrive. So for him to go through all of that, and he was talking after the game about a year and a half of pain and heartbreak and all of this stuff, then to come back and be really good this year. I mean, that's why he has all this emotion around.

that particular home run ball so you're right they should have been a little more on it I this is this story is and now we have officially gone too sporty and I apologize um but this story is not going to be great because I don't remember the exact players but a guy I think he was playing for the Cincinnati Reds a week or two ago he was a rookie he had his first career home run and what I do remember was the outfielder was someone that I don't like so that means that The outfielder either played for the Yankees or Red Sox. It was just someone who – so this home run goes over the outfielder's head. It goes into the stands, and the outfielder from the other team knows that this is this rookie's first home run. And he goes over to the fence, and he talks the fans into tossing the ball back to him. So then he can toss it in, and then I think he gets – he goes and autographs one of his bats and gives it to the person. So he basically brokered a deal to get the first home run ever for this rookie back from the crowd, which was so nice. And also, I don't know how that outfielder knew that information. It was Mookie Betts.

I looked it up. I didn't know that off the top of my head.

I don't not like Mookie Betts per se, but I just resent the fact that he's so good. And he's still a Red Sox, right? A Red Sox, right?

Let's see here. Dodgers. Oh, he's a Dodger. Yeah.

Which I used to kind of claim Dodgers when I lived in L.A., but, again, they are so well-funded that I just – I have a hard time rooting for them. But, yeah, and so anyway, I think I was not even remembering what Team Mookie Betts was on. I always want to be clear. I don't have a problem with Mookie Betts, but it was such a nice gesture. It honestly made me feel emotional watching the video of it.

Yeah, no, that's really, really cool. That's good. But also, a little warning, don't mention how well-funded the Dodgers are these days because all you will do is get flooded with Dodgers fans telling you how it's honest money and how they came about it through their farm system. It's exhausting. Have you been battling Dodger fans in the comments somewhere? No, it's all over. Now that I've said that, look for it. You'll just see it. Well, actually, please stop.

Listen, I mean, I used to live like a mile from Dodger Stadium. Some of my very best memories in living in L.A. were going to those games. And they weren't particularly great then. So it was just they were a scrappy team. And, you know, I loved going to those games. So I'm sort of speaking out of both sides of my mouth when I say that the Dodgers have a high payroll. But I think it's an arguable, right?

Yeah, it's a beautiful stadium. But, yeah, it's really, really.

It's a beautiful stadium with a beautiful back story. Yeah. How it was created. Okay. Yeah. wow somehow i found something worse than sports to start the show with i feel like i'm doing this

i feel like there's so much joy today in mariner land and for some reason and i'm not in a bad mood i don't feel cranky at all but i feel like there's been five times took the day off that's right cranky andy's gone um moved out but in the half hour that we've been talking address there have been and i mean this is an earnest apology to you to the listeners and to dodgers fans and I'm being serious here like I don't enter the into the production crew behind that terrible Mariners commercial like I don't understand on a day of joy why at least five times in a half hour I have I have personally steered this conversation into negative town. I apologize.

But Andrew you have done something though I think that negates all of that which is you uttered the phrase moose meat filled mask a loaded sack of moose face which will probably be yes the show title I'm guessing. Yes, so I think you've had some W's and some L's so far on this episode. All right, let's take a quick break, and then when we come back, we've got some donors to thank, and of course, the top stories, and some music for your weekend. So stay with us. All right, let's thank some donors of the day. These are the fine people making today's show possible with their financial support And in this first person's case with their audio contribution to the show Which has become a daily practice Of course that would be our friend Linda Doyle in Melbourne, Australia

Power out

That's right Linda has been powering in to the TBTL bank account with a donation every month And we really do appreciate it Thank you Linda I think Andrew What we have to do I'm guessing And I don't want to get cocky But I'm guessing That like Linda Is a pretty regular listener If for no other reason Than we play audio Of her every day On the show And what we might have to do Just to really get To drive hashtag engagement Is figure out how to play audio Of every single listener Yeah On every single day's episode Or their kids Or their kids Yeah Because I mean If there was a podcast That ended with my I mean, other than this one and also the other one I hope. called LiveWire? Yeah. There was a mythical third podcast like unrelated to us that just played audio of us in the podcast. We would listen to that, right? We would be intrigued.

Yes. Now, the thing is, do we need to mix it up more though? Like, you know, is Linda tired of the power out? Does she have some, you know, like, does she feel like we're almost clipping her wings by not giving her... Typecasting her. Exactly. Like more like she's like, I've played that role for quite some time now. Actually, she has played that role for quite some time. I think we started doing that In the first year of APM around then Which would have been 2015 Still feels like a new thing to me

We need to send Bill McMahon, radio consultant A box of chocolates or some Kind of Vermont Teddy bear Do they still make those? And just say, sir, you have no idea the impact That that one session had On our lives. I have a tattoo because of it

He's the one who Told us about the phrase power out As part of his presentation When you're telling a story on the radio, you should make sure you always have a power out. The funny thing was, was he had these little phrases like madmanning and power out and dazzling details. And each one of them had a trademark symbol behind it, which is why it stuck in our heads. We thought it was so funny. The irony is we have stolen it. Like, you can't tell him about this because we will be sued. Yes.

Everybody be cool. This is a robbery of trademarked terminology. terminology but it's just so funny because i remember watching this whole slideshow and this is back in the days where i believe these were actually slides like an overhead slide projector i don't even think this was digital at the time and i just remember being kind of so hard eye rolly about i mean i'm anybody who ever comes in and says hey here's how you can do your radio show better unless they're howard stern or ira glass or madeline baron or somebody whose work i like very much respect if it's anybody else i'm always like on the defensive and it's just so funny how much that i thought that session was just a bust and how it has really shaped the whole trajectory of this yes it really has really amazing eric head yarn swalling is in stockholm

hey doe look at uh we are international today yeah we are thank you eric for uh supporting us

from over there in Sweden. I watched this true crime documentary kind of series on Netflix about a crime that went down in Sweden. And I tried to watch it without the subtitles just to see how much Swedish I retained. Minimal. I had no idea what they were talking about. I had to put the subtitles right back on. But Eric, thank you so much for supporting the show from all the way over there in Sweden. And then this international tour, Andrew, doesn't end there we've also got abby vanderveer who's in amsterdam now do you want a dazzling

detail about abby yeah i do i mean are you allowed to use that term i'll do it quickly and then i'll power out abby is i don't know if the term is i should know this we had her on spotless she's like an art restorer but really like oh yeah i remember cleaner she cleans famous paintings there in amsterdam very i asked her how do you clean famous paintings she said very carefully It was a short interview

Abby, thank you very much For supporting the show Rachel Howard Till Is in Woodland, California USA USA We're back I wonder where Woodland, California Is My dad grew up for much of his life In Woodland Hills, California But I'm guessing Those are different places Rachel, get back to me on that If you know anything about Walter Burbank roaming Woodland, California I need that info. Brock Goodman is in San Diego, California, United States of America. These colors don't run. That's right. I don't know why Brock included that in his message, but he did.

Wait, we have messages now. Brock, this is another familiar name. I think Brock has more claim to TBTL than I do, listening a long, long time.

I think Brock is a dentist of some kind. Oh, really? And Brock, next year, if you want to do your donation and just free dental care for me, because our insurance is just real shite. Am I allowed to do that? Can I bilaterally create that deal, Andrew? Can I cut deals with the listeners to tell them to start providing goods and services to me directly instead of their TVTL donation?

What about in return, I will write a parody song called Like a Brock and I will write it and perform it. The Bob Seger.

It'll be an in-kind situation. This is so great. So you're going to write a song for listener Brock and then his payment for that will be giving me free dental care.

Right, which I guess means you're on the hook to me for something.

Well, I owe some taxes on that. It's probably taxable income. And then we've got Mary Simpson who's... Over there in Seattle, Washington, USA, the home of the Seattle Mariners, who we're all very excited for this weekend. Mary, thank you very much for supporting the show. We appreciate you. Appreciate all of our donors today. It's the only way we can do this thing. That is for sure. Hello, and welcome to Top Story.

Have you been hearing the scuttlebutt about Squid Game? No, I don't think so. when i saw this on the show sheet today it wasn't the first time i'd seen the the name squid game but i had to admit wait i don't even know what squid game is so i did a very cursory look at it before the show and it was not what i was expecting what were you expecting like uh my

octopus teacher like a documentary about right now how they teach us things i thought it was

gonna be i thought it was a sequel to marriage story where he marries a squid um no i don't know i thought maybe i mean squid games maybe i was thinking it was gonna be an animated you know like series or something exactly but um no it's so it's not a reality tv show right it's a show about an imaginary reality tv show or do i have that wrong well i'm only through episode one

and i did sort of fall asleep at the end of it but from what i could gather so it's it's this it's a you know originally from korea it's apparently like a real sleeper hit it may go on to be right it's the most popular thing on netflix right now and ted sarandos who's the ceo of of uh red of netflix was saying it might end up being the most popular thing that has ever aired on on netflix and that it's a total surprise it's basically uh the show is about this guy who is uh kind of a screw-up he's got a gambling problem uh he's got all this debt that he can't He's got this daughter who his ex is about to move to the U.S. with unless he can get enough money. Like I don't know if this is real or not because I don't know enough about like South Korean, you know, like paternity stuff. But the premise is if he can get out of debt and get proved to the court that he can support his daughter, then his ex is not legally allowed to take the daughter to the U.S. and so he is just kind of bumming around the horse track and just doing dumb dumb stuff for most of the first episode and he ends up totally broke these gangsters who he owes money to show up and they um they actually he's he has lost his money at that point already but they beat him up and he's just sitting waiting for the the the subway or the tube or whatever they call it in uh korea and this guy comes up to him with a briefcase and he basically has all this money in this briefcase and is like let's play a game for this money and if you win it's a hundred thousand of whatever the money is in korea um and if you lose i get to slap you across the face and so the guy's just in this train station playing this game and he's just getting the shit kicked out of him because he keeps losing but he also wins some of them and he gets the money so he ends up with a bunch of money at the end and the guy gives him a business card and says i forget what exactly he says to him but is just basically like there's more where this came from call me and the guy's initially like kind of not thinking about doing it but of course later he ends up calling the guy um well that phone number is a real phone number which is hilarious to me i mean it's not a real phone number like the producers of this film or this series like set up a you know a tip line where they own the phone number and you're going to call and you're going to hear some promotional material it's just a guy's phone number this guy is in his 40s he currently lives in uh jongji province um in korea do we have to say south korea or do we just say korea when we're talking about south korea and we say north korea when we're talking about north korea so when you say korea you it's implied that you're talking about south korea i am not the right person to ask but

but my guess is you just say Korea. You can say South Korea or Korea, and it means South Korea. Well, this is what's so confusing.

So this piece is in complex. A Korean man is receiving thousands of unowned calls after his phone number was featured on the Netflix hit Squid Game. Then next down, in the first episode of the South Korean series, a mysterious man gives a business card. They seem to kind of go back and forth between calling it Korea and calling it South Korea.

Can we listen to the beginning of a voicemail that we listened to the other day from somebody, a listener, who lived in Korea or South Korea for a while? I think for plus one person. Yeah. So let's see how she describes it.

Hey, friendos. Andrea here. Grew up in the Bay City of Port Townsend, but I also lived in South Korea.

She calls it Port Townsend. I mean, South Korea. Okay. I don't know. Okay, we're going South Korea.

I trust listener Andrea Implicitly So anyway that phone number is a real phone number And this guy has been getting 4,000 phone calls a day Since the series premiered 4,000 phone calls a day And it's mostly young people He said who want to take part In the Squid Games They're calling the number Now I haven't really gotten to the part Where the Squid Games have really begun I got it up to the point in the episode Where this dude calls the number this van shows up i'm not spoiling anything i don't think here but anyway he ends up at the place where the squid games are going to happen and that's about as far as i've gotten with it but apparently lots of people lots of young people are calling this guy's phone four thousand of them a day to sign up for the squid games also this is the part that's kind of odd south korea's national revolutionary party's honorary chief uh hugh kyung young has offered to acquire the phone number for about $85,000 US or 100 million won. I heard that the owner of the phone number showed on a business card in Squid Games is suffering a serious damage from prank calls, he wrote on a Facebook post. I would like to buy the number for 100 million won, which is, what's he going to do with it?

I'm looking this up here. Is there any chance this is actually John Oliver who is doing this? Well, you know what? The story will unfold for the next six episodes of TVTL. Hey, can I ask you some really basic questions because I'm a little bit behind on the story and a little bit confused. So is this an American remake of the show or is this a show that they're just now bringing it to the States but it's already been a huge hit in South Korea?

I don't know the back story about if it was a hit in South Korea, but it definitely has the appearance. It's subtitled. It's all shot in Korea, it would appear. So it seems like it was something that was made for the South Korean audience. And then they put it on Netflix And then it just took off People love it

That's what I was trying to figure out If it already existed Why is the flood coming now Because I guess it being on Netflix Has made it popular over there As well as over here Would you recommend Based on watching three quarters of an episode You know

I kept thinking This isn't quite as good as I was Or I kept thinking I don't understand why this is So popular But then I kept watching And I kind of want to know what happens when he gets it's very visually cool like uh i like i like the way it's shot it's a little broad like it's sort of like the gangsters who show up you know uh who corner him so he's won all this money at the racetrack and uh and he doesn't realize that he's actually been pickpocketed so he still thinks he has the money he gets chased by these gangsters who he owes money to and it's just like the gangsters are just so gangstery and he's in a bathroom and they're threatening him and like everyone is pretty archetypal in this so that kind of stuff it's This is not a subtle television show or nuanced. But again, I found myself like I'm going to go back and finish the episode and try to figure out what's really going on with the squid game. So I guess to that degree, I would say it's a success. I also just so rarely watch. I never see any of the Marvel movies. I don't see any DC. I don't I never see like, I don't know, Saw or what are the, you know, Hostel, whatever the big like very popular like horror franchise. Or I just am really and I'm not saying this like I'm I mean, we all know that I'm indie because I don't watch Ted Lasso, but I'm not trying to flex with this. But it's like I'm just totally out of step with unless it's like, you know, making a murderer or, you know, Joe Exotic or something. I am usually just out of step with whatever the large pop culture is really gaga over for like from film and television. So I think this is Probably one of those things Where I think the show is kind of watchable Interesting I don't know I couldn't explain to you why it might be the most popular show In the history of Netflix But people seem to really love it It's how I feel It's how I feel about BTS Like I think BTS seems fine to me I'm shocked that they're as popular As they are because I feel like We've had many boy bands over the Course of and BTS stands Please don't come at me I, you know, love that you love them. I'm not saying they're bad. I'm just surprised at the popularity of BTS, the worldwide phenomenon, because it looks like pretty standard boy band pop music that's being created, you know?

Yeah, well, that one's, I mean, that one is, that's funny that you should say that, because, I mean, yeah, I've never, I've never been the target audience for the boy bands, just, you know, like, just given my age and everything, and that tends to be gendered as well. like um so you know like i know that song that was a song of the summer competitor butter that's like on tv constant like yeah and i actually like it criminal undercover yeah i like it more than um than i whatever i like it more than some of the other pop songs right now so i I guess I get it to a degree. I'm trying to think, and this doesn't really carry the conversation forward, so my apologies. I'll just shut up after this for the rest of the show. But you were talking about this show, Squid Billy Games, being the most popular, potentially the most popular ever on Netflix, which, again, we have to trust Netflix on this because there's no transparency there. It's certainly good publicity for them.

They have a new show that might be the most popular show ever.

Because now I'm like, oh, should I watch this? It's like it's only upside for them to create this buzz. But what was the other show that they were doing this with about three years ago? And actually, this is one of those things where I'm putting you on the spot. So if you don't have it on the tip of your tongue, it doesn't really help the show. But I was Googling around while you were talking. But it was like a quiet place, but it wasn't a quiet place. I think it was a movie, but people had to be very, very quiet or very, very loud. Do you have any idea what I'm talking about? It was like one of these things on Netflix where they were saying, this is our most popular show ever. Oh yeah, Bird Box Bird Box, yes, everybody had to pretend to be a bird

Sandy B, yes, you had to watch it You had to be sitting either in a nest Or on, kind of perched on a branch Now I remember all that Yeah, Bird Box was a real phenomenon Because there was a There was a sort of I don't know if twist is the right way to put it But it was, you know, it was like This terrible phenomenon is happening Where people are dying Or I guess they're sort of having their brains taken over By this force and it's like if you look at this thing you die or you go crazy or whatever it was and so Sandy B and her crew have to like Sandy B has to go like blindfolded she has to find her way to safety because she has to make sure that if she doesn't accidentally look at the bad thing that's going to get her and so that was very memified Sandy Sandra Bullock in the boat blindfolded being scared it's like a lot of the movie is her being scared because she's blindfolded

I knew a boat was involved I was gonna say something like and somebody's floating on the water but i couldn't quite uh i couldn't quite get there yeah and you see why i confuse it with a quiet place right because it's like

it's similar only it's a different sense and were we in the pandemic yet when that happened i don't think we were i think so i think i lost an entire year by the way like have we how long have we been in the pandemic when the march two years this spring right right so it was two years ago that explains a lot I've been I'm not even kidding like because I keep thinking that it was last March when I was sitting in LA at Dan Tana's and the NBA season was canceled and Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson announced that they had it in like the same CNN package and I was like well this is real and then we canceled live wire the next day but that was two yeah marches ago so we're really this spring will be two years oh my yes absolutely because we marked that one year anniversary and

we got very nostalgic i was there was a piece oh man what is the publication it might have been in w i can't remember what the publication was but i scanned it yesterday i wanted there to be more there there but talking about this um concept of uh pandemic um i'm blanking on the word nostalgia plant pandemic nostalgia and how it kind of got interesting when it was talking about part because that might sound ridiculous to people right like oh come on nostalgia for the beginning of the pandemic but it was such a very specific moment in time that gave us feelings that we'd never had before like i remember very specifically walking out in the middle of roosevelt avenue a two-lane one-way road that i live on um and just like i could have just i could have put a a lawn chair out there and just like sat there all day and never gotten hit by a car like we forget like and and and even the toilet paper shortage and the and the the unknown of it like it's become more of a slog now and a battle and uh it's just interesting to think back at that time and this article was talking about that and also how younger people like if you're younger this is a bigger percentage of your life that has been kind of taken away for lack of a better word and also um there was an understanding at first like okay we'll do i'll make these tiktok recipes for a couple of weeks then i'll be back at work you know a lot of people didn't realize it was going to last so long and also thirdly this was the most interesting part of the article was that there was something almost like pre-nostalgia which really speaks to me this sounds like the type of thing that i i've been up to my whole life but because people knew and maybe even especially young people knew they were living through a very specific historical moment they felt and because we're living in the age of social media it was this idea of we must document everything because this will be something that we will look back on right and so it was like we were preparing for nostalgia More than maybe we usually would. It also, I mean, you have to obviously put out the caveat that millions of people have died. And in many cases, at least in the U.S., where there's vaccine available unnecessarily, probably, it's just been an awful thing. And so many people have lost loved ones. And so I don't want to whistle past that at all. But there was also this kind of bizarre feeling of it almost being like a snow day that went on for a year. sort of like no you no one you know if you were lucky enough to have the kind of job you could do from home it was like i guess i don't have to go anywhere and it was like you just kind of everything about normal life including in some cases the things about normal life that are stressful just sort of ground to a halt again i also want to mention it was very stressful for people who like had children that they were trying to teach from home i'm not trying to act like this was like a fun event but there was something about how radically life changed that had

this kind of weird quality to it that was i can almost feel nostalgic for like i was living in bellingham i was like everything was novel you know for i mean it was scary but then everything was novel like you said it's like oh we're all make we're all um baking bread now we're all cutting our hair on our own we're all you know it was kind of this new world that while scary and again i had it so lucky like it's so much privilege throughout but there was just something about it that was again i don't want to say nostalgic but i i do if i look back on that because of the privilege that i had of not being sick myself and not losing anyone and not trying to educate my kids from home and not losing my job so that's a real it's a real five-sided star of privilege um because of all of that there was something about it that was kind of i don't know there's i think back on those days and i don't think about them probably as negatively as a lot of

people do yeah or maybe as i should well i think that's that's what i think that's what you're hitting on there again and all those caveats being very very important because obviously other people even with like elderly people in their life who they it was a very very stressful time for some but you know by the way this article why are people nostalgic for early pandemic life was in the atlantic a few days ago and you know what the photo uh that is illustrating it is um a park in new york i don't know new york well enough to know what park this But those isolation circles drawn on the green grass where people were sitting inside the circles. Like I totally have I already forgot about those.

Right. Yeah. There was a lot of stuff that we were doing that I guess this is the thing I don't understand, though. And like, you know, we're 58 minutes into the show, so I don't need to launch on this rant to a bunch of listeners who are like minded. But I find it so pernicious the people who point to stuff like that. Oh, well, they used to make us, you know, mask outside. So so that's why I'm not taking the vaccine. It's like, yeah, nobody knew what was going on. Everybody was making their best guess. They were erring on the side of caution. There were lots of things that now, with the benefit of hindsight, we realize maybe we didn't have to do. We didn't have to disinfect our Wheaties after they were at the store. Like, but we didn't know at the time. And the fact that that we did those things does not mean that you shouldn't wear a mask when you're indoors now. yeah or get vaccinated yeah it's like it just that that argument makes me so mad when they're like well fauci's you know the guidelines from fauci they just keep changing it's just like all over the place it's like yeah it's like the guidelines for getting off the titanic probably kept changing yeah right it's water coming into the boat we're just like trying to figure this out on the fly i don't know why that particular bit of of of kind of screwed up logic bugs me but it really does all right we uh we never got to the Shakira story but honestly I don't think it's the end of the world because basically what happened was wild boars stole her purse and ran into the woods with it she got it back though which is actually impressive then she was on Instagram showing her purse off um uh and getting her son trying to get her son to vouch for her she was like and this is all in Spanish so I'm you know basing this on the translation but she's basically saying to her son like tell them this really happened a what remember when the wild boars attacked this person ran off into the woods with it and she's holding her purse up and it's all destroyed so that happened to Shakira but are you coming around on Shakira that's the only thing I care about I'm not anti-Shakira per se I mean it's you know again it's not really for me you know that music and I will never get over the line lucky that my breasts are small and humble so you don't confuse them with mountains that will never not be a funny line to me is is that Is that in the huge hit, Hips Don't Lie? Yeah, that's in the, yeah. I think that's in the forever, forever. And then also She-Wolf is a pretty kind of corny song to me. But, hey, people like it. That's cool.

I love, I didn't, I mean, we've had this conversation before. I knew there was a line in there. I didn't remember that's what it was. I knew that you never, that you didn't really care for the Hips Don't Lie song. I love the Hips Don't Lie song. I think I say this every time that was oh, maybe it's hips don't lie. I think it's hips don't lie where she says the lucky that my breasts.

Yeah, yeah, that that's that song got me into pop music. Like I did not listen to any modern pop music ever my whole life. Like until that. And there were two songs that did it. I was in New Hampshire. I remember these two songs were on the radio. And I think we were in the middle of a big project. And I remember running out to grab some food. And maybe Genevieve had been using the car. And so it was on the pop station. And Hips Don't Lie was huge. And also Rihanna's, not Umbrella, but the big hit before that that had the 80s pop band sample in it. What was Rihanna's first hit? I don't know. It had Radar Love. Remember it had Radar Love sampled in it? Rihanna, Radar Love.

All Rihanna songs, again, I'm generally positive towards them. I like them. But they're all kind of blend together in my mind.

I couldn't really tell you. Anyway, those two songs were on the radio at the time, and it just made me realize that maybe there's room for me in this pop music universe, because I fell in love with them.

Well, I'm glad she got her purse back, and I'm also proud of her, because I would not run after Wild Boars, who had my purse. No, absolutely. I would be like, that purse is gone. I'm Shakira. I'm buying a new purse. Yes, exactly. I wonder what was in that. Her cell phone apparently was in there. That was why she wanted to get it back. But, I mean, I would have just been absolutely hosed and just been kind of like, well, that's gone. I'm not going into the woods where the wild boars have my purse. No, not at all. I would cancel a couple of credit cards because boars are notorious spenders. Yes, they do. They will absolutely try to open up various accounts, mostly at places that sell rotten banana peels and stuff. So if you do get that kind of, if you get like a suspicious charge at like a place that's like watermelon rinds that don't have any of the red part left in them, the place that sells those, it's probably pigs. Exactly, yeah.

Probably wild boars. Nobody's going to fight that when you report it to the bank.

Did you pick a Shakira song for your music for your weekend?

No, and it's really embarrassing because I think most people would know that song that I'm talking about. and I'm looking at her songs here and for some reason I'm not coming across it and it's really going to drive me and everybody crazy.

You talk about your song and I'll figure this out so then you don't have to be...

I feel like that should be my music for your weekend because I have a song picked out. All right, I'll just play this song that I was going to play but geez Louise, what's wrong with me is the problem here. My brain feels broken but I will go with my original pick. Is it Tainted Love? Yes, it's not Radar Love. It's Tainted Love. It's Tainted Love, and it's SOS. Okay, you know what? I have a song that I was going to play, but because that was really embarrassing for me. I think it was very painful for the listeners. So I think that what we should do is we should just play.

I know this song now, too. You're totally right. And the Tainted Love, you're right, it's very prominent in it. Yes.

Is she not on Spotify? I know she is. Hold on.

why don't you do your song first i'm coming back with that song okay my song is uh by the zombies this is very like feels like a song maybe that you would pick andrew it's from 1968 yeah and i'll be honest i don't like i'm not crazy about the zombies a lot of like the music heads that i know they really love the zombies they're like kind of up there with um oh the kinks or other bands of that era that are just like considered to be very important bands i'm not wild for the zombies generally part of it is i don't like the name the zombies you know me i'm very sensitive about things that seem overly aggressive or murderous or whatever but i heard this song when i was in um san antonio i was just listening to a like a playlist and this song came on and i love this song so much are you familiar with this it's called this will be our year I don't know This is like just It's just it's a beautiful song It's got like pretty heavy vibes Of like the Beatles or something But it's just great the message is really beautiful And I'm into it so that's what I would like to Suggest In the hopes maybe this will be our year Collectively maybe we're turning some kind of corner Somewhere so this is my music for your week And the zombies this will be our year

I've been warm of your loves like the warmth from the sun And this will be our year, took a long time to come Don't let go of my hand now, the darkness is gone This will be our year, took a long time to come And I won't forget the way you helped me up when I was done And I won't forget the way you said Da-da-da-da

How about that?

That's nice. I've heard this somewhere before. Is it associated with a movie, do you think?

I don't remember that, but as it was playing, I was like, how is this not in a Wes Anderson film? Yeah, right? I mean, it just feels very much like, and maybe it is, and I just haven't seen that film. But, yeah, I really love that song. and it was unfamiliar to me until a couple weeks ago. So that's what I'm laying on listeners. Were you able to solve the riddle of RiRi?

Yeah, the problem, I was putting periods in there and Rihanna has no time for periods. It's just SOS, not S period, O period, S period. It's SOS.

They try to send you to the B.O.B. song, Airplanes and Shooting Stars. I like that sample. I kind of do too. I'm not mad at that song.

But the reason I don't like it though, So doesn't Eminem, isn't that the one with Eminem rapping on it, too, though? See, I don't like Eminem.

No, that's B.O.B., I think, rapping on it. But isn't Eminem on that, though? Isn't it the woman from Paramore? I feel like, you know. Why do we keep doing this? I feel like let's end the show on, let's try to destroy most of the phones and the listeners. I know. I thought that the rapper, I thought the rapper on that song was named B.O.B. It is. And the singer is the singer from Paramore.

Yes, it is B.O.B. You're definitely right about that. I thought that Eminem had a verse on that, but I think what I'm confusing with is Eminem might have borrowed that and wrapped over it at some point or something. Oh, sure, I could see that.

On Mom's Spaghetti.

So anyway, let's do this. This is a weird pick. I had something I was going to introduce to you by a band called Ducks Limited, which I think is a funny band name.

Very timely.

We will save that for next week. Yes, because I think that I probably did do a lot of damage by not being able to think of this song, And this is the song that got me into pop music way back in whenever this came out. Take a listen to this.

There's any questions or issues, cause every moment gone, you know I miss you. I'm the question, and you're, of course, the answer. Just hold me close, boy, cause I'm your tiny dancer. You make me shake and I'm never mistaken, but I can't control myself. Got me calling out for help. So ask me, someone help me. It's not healthy for me to feel that's who I know you are making this hard. How long do we go with this song?

I could just listen to the whole thing forever. Very catchy. Very catchy. And I had everything wrong about that. I just had everything wrong. What did it was I say? It was radar love. It was tainted love.

You were close. Sure. You were close. So that was before the Umbrella song. Andrew, we need you this weekend. Okay? And listen, as your supervisor, I need you to submit me a printed thing explaining why it is you're focusing on the Mariners and why it is you're going to be a little distracted.

Yes, you're right. That's why I got that all wrong. Yeah.

Yes. You took the Mariners directive very seriously to focus all of your energy on T-Mobile Park.

Could you tell that I just sneezed there, though? I got my sentence out and then I muted myself and I sneezed.

Yeah. So how about that? See, you would not have. You know what? You would not have done that earlier in the season. Your sneeze rate. my sneeze differential is just off it's just off the charts it's unbelievable and i think that's let i mean we we have to give that some of the credit for the success of tbtl early on you were sneezing and missing and now you're able to mute while you're sneezing because you don't you don't sneeze at every pitch anyway uh what do we got from the listener before i it's from Boy, I brutalized that joke. Listener Joseph is in the Bronx and says, Hi, friendos. I'm guessing you've gotten this a lot today since it's the convergence of two TBTL topics, Phoebe Bridgers and Bo Burnham's Inside. For the last few weeks, Bridgers has encored with Bo Burnham's song, That Funny Feeling. I know we talked about this at the time. Did you ever get a chance to actually watch the Bo Burnham comedy special?

No. No, it didn't seem like it was something for me, and I have – I was listening to Bean's podcast, right, Cup of Tina Chat, and he saw it, and he was like, yeah, it's fine.

But I don't know why I'm bringing this up and I shouldn't because people love that show. But like he was of the opinion that people think that Bo Burnham really lived this experience as opposed to just doing it as something that he shot as an art piece. Like it was actually reality TV where clearly, no, it was a project that he probably went home at the end of the day and then came back to his studio to continue this, which is fine. I mean, that's art, but I'm wondering, was some of the popularity there related to the fact that people thought he was actually – this was reality?

You know, that's a good question. I mean, I had the same sense, which was I thought he did a very, very good job of creating a feeling of sort of claustrophobia and being trapped in there without ever saying I live in here. I mean, he doesn't have – if I remember right, it's not like he doesn't show himself like going to sleep in this studio. I mean, I had the sense, yeah, he would just go out there every day and work on this thing. It feels very, very confessional, though. And I am, you know, I'm not somebody who goes in for, like, musical theater a ton or even musical comedy. But I have to say that, like, I thought it was really good. And I also thought he actually has a way of writing about some of these sort of ineffable things that happen in modern life, including this song that we're going to play, which is Phoebe Bridger's covering the song That Funny Feeling. Her version is very slowed down, but the Bo Burnham one is just kind of—I mean, it's sort of a song about the ennui of being alive in 2021 and how we all sort of have more—most of us, anyway, have more attention and more resources and more things going on, and yet a lot of us have lower levels of satisfaction, you know? And it's sort of like, how does that—why is that happening when we have more than we've ever had in a lot of ways? Anyway, so Joseph writes, this morning, Phoebe released the studio recording, even though it's from ostensibly a comedy special. I don't think this violates the no novelty songs unless your name is Al Yankovic rule, since it's more a wry description of pathological detachment from a world gone apocalyptic than a spoof. But it's got a couple dark giggles and a melody catchy enough to stay in your head through an autumn weekend. Most sincerely, listener Joseph in the Bronx. Also, the proceeds from the song are going to Texas Funds, which is pretty awesome. And I believe that is a group that's trying to work to bring back health care for women and women's ability in Texas to choose what to do with their own bodies. So a very worthy thing to be supporting. So anyway, we'll go out with that. It's Phoebe Bridgers covering a Bo Burnham song. And we will wish you all well. Thank you for being part of TBTL this week. We really appreciate it. We'll be back here on Monday. Boy, we're going to have a lot to report on just from if the Mariners are still playing baseball, if I live in Seattle again, who knows? Anyway, so we'll see you on Monday with all that. Until then, again, have a great weekend. Go Mariners. Go eat a bagel. Please, God, let's hope it's the water. And don't forget, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

To the thing that's just begun There it is again That funny feeling That funny feeling There it is again That funny feeling That funny feeling The surgeon general's pop-up shop Robert Iger's face Discount a T-agiprop Bugle's take on race Female Colonel Sanders Easy answer Civil War The whole world at your fingertips The ocean at your door The live-action Lion King The Pepsi Halftime Show Twenty thousand years of this Seven more to go

They say teachers don't impact for a year, but for a lifetime. Dave, do you have a moment? Uh, sure, Bill. Oh, no, not another breakdancing demonstration. Let's just listen to this together. All right.

The crack of the bat, the roar of the crowd. That's right, baseball's back. Hello, New York.

I'm Bill McNeil. Neil, join us opening day live from Yankee Stadium for all the action. The boys of summer in WNYX, a winning team.

I've been meaning to tell you, you did an excellent job, Bill. Thank you. No, no, you always come through, and it was a pleasure putting it together.

You're too kind. No, it's nothing at all. You're right, it is nothing. Considering that you took my promo, chopped it to shreds, and ruined it. No, I cut a couple of lines. I hardly think I ruined it. Uh-huh. Well, you ripped out its heart and shoved it down its throat. Then you put the whole thing through a meat grinder, then you cooked it up, ate it with a spoon, and barfed it back onto a cassette tape.

Come again?

You ripped out its heart, shoved it down its throat. Bill, I was just trying to do my job.

Oh.

I didn't realize your job entailed ripping out things hard, shoving it down the throat. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Power out.

You