Muse

if you've got a problem that you can't solve if you're known for your drawings of ships that are tall if you've got gripes if you've got dreams if you've got something to say then call the tbtl voicemail line today just dial 206-414-8285 that's 206-414-8285 the voicemail's ready to record you And it's so easy to call Burbank and Waltz in the base of T.

T-B-T-L. He's the handsome devil that came down from heaven to make some great songs and a dance forever.

You don't say much for him, but when you do, it's to the point and I salute you for it. Pants on the ground, pants on the ground, looking like a fool with your pants on the ground, with the gold in your mouth, hat turned sideways, pan hit the ground, call yourself a cool cat, looking like a fool, walking downtown with your pants on the ground, giddy up. This is the real thing. This is the necessary art of our time. This needs respect. So let's keep the drinks full, let's keep the appetizers circulating, but let's not get in anybody's face.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Wednesday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. My name is Luke Burbank, I am your host.

Is it too early, good fish sandwich?

Coming to you once again from the offices of Walsh, Walsh & Dormat in the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. Looking around for that cat, Theodore Murray.

Time for cat massage.

He's apparently gone to some other part of the property, but I assume he'll wander back in here when he hears the quality broadcasting that we're going to be doing on episode 3,536 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. Lots to talk about on today's show, including an interesting article in Vox about what the actual business model is of those spirit Halloween pop-up stores.

Halloween is that magical day of the year when a child is told their grandmother's a demon who's been feeding them rat casserole with a crunchy garnish of their own scabs those spirit Halloween stores are so strange to me

because they are particularly if you're a kid or someone who loves Halloween they're about as fun of a place as you could go to because they've got costumes and fake blood and all of that but they also are usually in the like bombed out shell of a Babies R Us Which is itself very kind of not particularly exciting When you just see that like temporary Spirit Halloween banner go up And what, you know, used to be a circuit city or something It doesn't fill one with a sense that everything's going okay in the world So we'll try to figure out what the business model of that whole thing is Also, if you've listened to the show regularly over the last year you've heard me complaining about all the ambulances that drive by my place in Portland, where I'm usually doing the show from, and it's obviously quite frustrating for me.

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

I'm even more frustrated now, having read this New York Times article, about how dangerous it is when emergency vehicles use their lights and their siren. Also, the change in the timing As far as when somebody gets to the hospital or ER When the ambulance has its lights and sirens going Is shockingly minuscule So we'll dig into that And also, on the subject of sounds that are beautiful and pleasant to the ear Andrew Walsh, my friend Had a college radio show I heard about that thing on the AM radio This is episode 3536 It's number whatever That he and I have done together And this is the first I've heard of his college radio program So I want to ask about that And you know what? It's as if this was set up by Divine Providence Because the longest running Cobra of the show Maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships is sitting right here, right across from me at this table. Yesterday's show got a little racy. We were talking about people using, guys using a warm bath to bathe a certain part of their body, which would then allow them to, I guess, use a male contraceptive. And he just, he would like to keep things a little cleaner today, and he's very clear about that.

I don't want any more bull**** at any time during the day from anyone. That includes me.

He's Andrew Walsh. He's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend. Good morning.

I have so much I need to talk to you about Something just happened in the last like 90 seconds

I saw you doing some sort of Kind of last minute What appeared to be mission critical Keystrokes on the work computer that we used The one that was sent here from Minnesota

I just had a radically good Or potentially radically bad idea About something we can do on the show today That I think you'll be into But in trying to execute this plan, I just ran into an issue which I think we need to solve. Do you remember a couple of weeks ago? Before I tell you the radically good or possibly radically bad idea, do you remember a couple of weeks ago you were trying to hack into your own mainframe for some reason because somebody had sent you some documents to the wrong address? And for whatever reason, you had changed the phone number associated with our Gmail account.

I had changed – I think I had changed the password maybe.

No, you changed the password because I was getting all these notifications. So you know how sometimes you – when you log into Gmail or Google or whatever, and we use Google for our phone voicemail system, it does two-step authentication. Authentication? Yeah. I'm a professional. Look it up in the book. Yeah. So just now I was trying to log into the voicemail system here, and I have your login and the original password you set up, but now it wants to verify that it's me, but now it doesn't come to my phone anymore. The little codes come to your phone. So I need you to tell me what the verification code is. I'm texting it to you now, and then I'm going to tell you where this is all going, but we also need to change this, though. Yeah.

Yeah. G hyphen. Yeah. One seven six one six one four nine. That's long. All right. We need to

change that, though, because I got locked out of checking the voicemails. Do you would our bosses

consider that to be good? Would that be best to check your phone practices? Thank you for your willingness to practice. Good judgment. No, you can't do it without you. The fact that I just read

our login well it's that's a randomized number it'll change again in 60 seconds anyway so that's fine so wait did i now it says to check your phone is it like um so what happened was you

want to do something but in order to use the system that we use that's google related for this particular thing it's now trying to well this is also authenticate yeah and it's just a

problem in the long term that um if i'm ever using a different computer and i need to check the tbtl voicemail line that i can't get into it anymore because it routes it to your your personal phone number for the authentication see how i can say that word but okay we'll figure this out i'm

not seeing really let me uh let me try this again can i just mention quickly that and so for uh live wire for the radio show that i work on uh we use a lot of google docs because you know i mean i get that it's it's just easier for everyone but i have never that i can think of on any given week of doing livewire successfully logged into and been able to edit all of the google docs well

they keep sending the google docs to the tbtl account but because i keep getting them in the gmail that so we have a gmail but half the time it works this is what i'm saying so that my

frustration with the system of google docs at large is depending on the day depending on how the computer is feeling sometimes i get a link that says here's the doc for this particular thing this interview this whatever i click on it there i am i can edit it it's great it knows who i am about 50 of the time that i do the exact same procedure and this one says you don't have permission to edit it or we need to verify that you're so and so and it's using one of my like eight different gmail burner accounts that i just have created over the years for the purposes of spam control or whatever i wish it was a little bit more i wish it was more consistent this google

doc situation now did you notice the other day that i had forwarded you something no from because i think that and i don't know if this is a mistake on the producer's ends or if this is the way you're you guys are doing it but i keep on getting uh scripts sent into the gmail account that we have

So just editing out and doing a little light editorial work on them when possible for them to you.

But yeah, your situation is all junked up. And now you've kind of junked up my situation. It says to Slunk Jeep, it says that you should check your phone. I'm looking at my send a notification to your phone. By the way, I hope you follow the steps there and you're not getting any kind of notification to your phone.

No.

Are we just locked out? Because here was my grand idea, by the way.

Because I want the idea to just be us sending this Google code around. I would like that to have been the bit.

Yeah. Well, here was my grand idea, by the way. While you were doing the intro, I noticed that we got a...

a call come into our voicemail line now i didn't have it open on my phone so somebody just left us a voicemail but the other day we said wouldn't it be fun if we could just pick up those calls yeah and we're here in person now so there's no technical reason why you and i couldn't talk to callers but i need to get into our uh you know google voice system here and i've been burbanked you've pulled me i had a system set up where if anybody if i ever needed to get into the voicemail line it would send the text message to my phone which i know how to use and i would never had problems getting in but a few weeks ago you you you knocked me out of the system and made

your own personal phone and i couldn't do it from this computer right because then there'd be the

people wouldn't be able to hear us no it's got to be this guy over here but also this is kind of a long-term problem you can't get into the system no it's saying that it says that check your phone Google has sent a notification to confirm it's you. I got the first one. Why did I get the first one? I know the first time you gave me a code number, but now it's like trying to verify it again.

And this is this is what I'm frustrating. This is what I'm saying, though, is I what I hear what you're saying. And you're not wrong. I slunk jeep this. Uh-huh. What do you think of those commercials, by the way?

Oh, I love them. I did a whole episode of After These Messages based on that campaign last week. And the director who directed them has made a bunch of other amazing, like, kind of narrative, cinematic, surreal, dark humor commercials. I cannot believe that a company like Mattress Firm has my favorite ad campaign right now.

I think they're art. I think they're really good. I also wonder, do you think that Liev Schreiber has ever smiled? I mean in his life. I'm talking off camera. I'll bet you when he smiles.

I'll bet you. The world lights up. Yes, I'll bet you. I'll bet you that I'll bet you if he smiles at you it feels good I right because that he is

the most taciturn dude I have ever uh-huh I mean he looks good with that beard he does he does it's a good look and again when they have him saying slunk jeep what I haven't maybe I certainly haven't studied those commercials as closely as you have but it's so what's great about it is it's so nonsensical and it's so off-brand for Liev Schreiber, who's like this stentorin kind of voice of authority in everything that

he does. You know, it's weird because I know of him, and I know the face, I know the name, but I had to have Genevieve kind of explain to me, like, the context of why I know who he is, because I haven't I don't think that I've really experienced any of his projects. Like, he's not one of the succession guys, right? Oh, no, no, he was Donovan, Ryan Donovan, or not Ray Donovan. Ryan Donovan, excuse me. It's, like, such a worse show. No offense to Ryan's out there.

Ryan Donovan is about a surfer who has to go to Harvard.

Surf's up, guys. That's funny. I just get, like, Ryan Donovan as a guy who's just, like, kind of, I don't know, chilling and working IT or whatever.

Well, you know, I wish I'm desperately searching around on this computer that I have with me here at your house, Andrew, and I don't have any of these drops. But you know what else Leif Shriver is? He's the voice of hard knocks. Oh, right. There's no whining in football, but each fall, football comes to wine country.

How many times are you going to have to tell me this? You've told me this a hundred times. I never remember.

And that's where really, like, I didn't watch Ray Donovan, but just his unbelievably unironic kind of very serious voiceover for Hart Knox is really how I think of him a lot.

Yes, yes. But I do think that if folks haven't seen them, just go online. Like, I actually think it's worth watching. Go online and just Google, like, junk sleep commercial. It's a Mattress Firm campaign that just seems so much more arty and sophisticated than anything else going on at Mattress Firm.

I find Mattress Firm to be a very odd name for that company as well.

That's what I said to Veeves. She thinks it's great because, like, you can get a firm mattress. But not everyone likes a firm mattress.

That's right.

That's exactly what I said.

If you ever need a new host for After These Messages, please call me.

No, I just need you here so we can gang up and be right together. And then also it's just like, but then, okay, so it's a plan word in two ways, right? Okay, yes, some people like their mattresses firm, so that's one option here. But then also, though, what is the other plan where it's like, welcome to the mattress firm. Like, what is the firm? It's like a bunch of people in suits.

You're going to show up in a conference room, and they're going to be like talking about mattresses.

And you're carrying briefcases, but the briefcases are huge because each one holds one mattress. Actually, that would be kind of a good commercial. Like, if they leaned into the name.

Now that's like if Michelle Gondry.

Yes. If they leaned into the name mattress firm so that it actually – so the whole, like, campaign was kind of about, like, here we act like lawyers, but we're actually selling you mattresses. That would be something. Instead, it's just weird.

Well, I mean, that feels like a name that they didn't think through. but then again I feel like mattress like well there was one for many years sleep train that was the acquired by mattress firm right around sucking up all these and that was i think that was uh sunny kobe cook uh who was a local we've talked about her on the show before people who grew up in the northwest will remember sunny kobe cook was i think i think her mattress was she sleep train as well or was her company absorbed by sleep train sleep train also strikes me as a very odd name for a mattress

company i used to say that all the time because we used to have sleep train commercials on cairo radio when i worked there and it's like yeah what because they had a like a choo choo sound at the end it's like talk about disturbing your slumber like i can understand if thieves and i talked about all of this i think last week like i can understand like maybe there's something relaxing about being like on a um on a train on a sleeper car and like going to sleep to the sound of i could sort of see that but the way it was branded was like sleep train chunk and you're It's like, that does not make me want to go to sleep. That sounds like something that would wake me up and disturb my slumber.

Sonny Kobe Cook's business was Sleep Country USA. Oh, I remember Sleep Country. Which also... It's the best of the three. But it's still weird. Sleep Country USA. Don't you feel like, I mean, if you want to have a mattress, if you want to sell mattresses, how about like, this is bad, but I've had all of two seconds to think about it. How about like, the Restful Mattress Company?

The slumber world.

Yeah. How about just something that's like it just seems like it's not that hard to name your company in such a way that people get the sense that when they come in and they buy a mattress, they'll be happy with the mattress and they'll be able to sleep better. Better sleep mattress company.

I feel like Slumber World would actually be my version of an amusement park.

I feel like also a Daniel Klaus graphic novel. Maybe that's Ghost World. Yeah, is that the Ghost World guy? Slumber World. Okay, listen.

So now I realize what I'm going to try to do, I don't think I can do this on the show while we talk because I need to go in to – I still have access to this account on another computer, and I need to go in and make myself the account holder again.

I will sit with it after we're done recording this. By the way, this is the Wednesday edition of the show. You're hearing this on Wednesday. I think it's the 20th of October. But we're recording it the day before, and that's because I will be in New York as you're all hearing this, And I'm doing an actually a profile of the the actor Cal Penn, who people know from all kinds of different things. He has a book out. So as this is hitting the Internet, I am, I think, sitting literally with Cal Penn in his high school in New Jersey, his former high school, talking about his life and career.

He's getting his GED. That's actually what. Well, that was the reveal, Andrew. Right. Well, I saved memory some time.

We've really blown our big news we're going to make. But anyway, I'm off doing that, and so we're here. We're recording two shows on this Tuesday, and I feel like you're maybe a little bit annoyed that I junk-sleeped our voicemail account. But what I think you're really mad about, or maybe 5% annoyed at me today, is how much stuff I've been printing out on your computer. Oh, no. Are you serious?

It was funny. You were printing out like a book over there, but I don't care.

that printer you know you said it's you said it's six cents per sheet I said 25 cents way to work

the refs I uh no no no everything with that printer has just is gravy like that was just given to me I know along with the ink and the paper like that's all free you're not but you

I think your default setting still is is not to print things and as has been well documented on the show my default setting is to print everything it's like a it's like a quirk with me that like if it's possible to have the thing in printed form for what i consider to be quick scanning uh that's what i go for no i just think from a radio standpoint that does make sense to me when you like i don't know when it was a year ago whatever the at some point when you got this printer and you got it set up because i used to give you crap over the years for not having a

printer then you got one i'll admit i mean i'll come around i'll admit that i like having it

there i don't but i think you just don't use it very much and i think you forget that my computer because my computer is printed from this printer now it remembers it yeah when i come in i don't even like ask hey what's the thing i'm just we're just sitting here together kind of quietly you're getting the audio dialed in i'm getting some last minute then all of a sudden you hear the printer go off and if you've forgotten for eight months that i like raw dogging your printer i i like it

that's not what you're doing to my printer for the record um and no actually i like it it feels professional to me because every now and then genevieve will be upstairs uh you know working on something and then all of a sudden the printer in my office will just come alive and start printing something out it makes me feel like i'm in a workplace again i know i well i had the same

feeling okay i'm glad because you were like you made a joke where you said when i started printing you i can't believe you still have the printer oh i was just and then a minute later you said it's 25 cents a sheet oh i was just i was here's the problem i was not kidding on the square i don't know how to put your printer on two-sided that's the problem that's why these

are novelistic you know what i think that printer for as cool as that printer is as slick as it is as i like to say and the fact that it can you know it's a printer and a scanner and a copy machine it's all these things i think i could fax on it although i'm not entirely sure why i would want to do that but um uh it doesn't do double-sided uh automatically i think i have to take it out like take out the tray and then put it back in this is your phone now talking to my computer

well that those beep beeps okay it's done now um yeah you know what i think that the the double sided printing is one of those things that we just don't even think about but that's a real technological feat yeah because of what has to happen how's it how's it what's how's it flipping yeah printing one side then pulling it back in somehow doing something and printing the other side i mean that's not that's not nothing so yeah okay i'm glad to hear that you're not mad

about uh no i'm mad that this something is going on with your phone you've plugged in your phone into my computer to charge it and it might my computer keeps saying device ready i think it's done now it's trying to leave it in there i think it's done now it's trying to install your apple device onto this computer but yeah you've locked me out of the voicemails that we're gonna have to sit down with that i am legit annoyed at because i had a system and like you're no offense but like

you for years i didn't even mean to do that that's the crazy part i had actually even i think i

talked to you about it the i think you did this on a weekend and maybe i reached out to you or something but i got all these because i have everything coming into my phone as well including the tbtl account and i uh sometimes i just get trying to use the phone that is so apt i'm trying to use the computer phone uh just the other day actually twice in the past couple of days your producer has sent you scripts to the tbtl voicemail account which i forwarded them i think um and then uh but the one thing was at least i had control over that like i you know again like it was associated with my phone number and my email then the other day i get these notifications that say the phone number and email associated with your google account has changed if this wasn't you you know do something and so i'm like that's luke and i think i texted you and you're like yeah yeah i'm trying to you were trying to take a was that involving a training for your other company maybe or something anyway you had to you you would change all the settings and you know that's i was like oh yeah that's fine i don't see how that could you know become a problem but here we are and i see how it could become a problem and you've sucked me and like you and i are complete opposites in this way right i'm like i'm annoyingly needle nosed and like very specific and i have all kinds of docs and logins and like i just i got i keep my shit together right and then you just come in like a hurricane right and you drag me down like hurricanes always drag people

down part of i mean and part of what's especially bad about my system is and this is a real chaos this is chaos well it was fun for the mariners it's just a chaos ball was fun for the mariners

it's not fun for your co-workers i guess whirling dervish of passwords because here's what happens

when i hit a wall i just start a new gmail account because i don't want to like i don't know how to get into the old one and so that's the other that's that's the other part of this whole thing that's extra complicated is instead of fixing the problem in the moment and figuring out why can't I get into this Gmail account, let's say I'm trying to sign up for something and it wants me to use that or whatever, I will do whatever the fastest thing is. And that usually for me is just, I'll just start a new account. I wish you would.

Start a new account. Leave this one alone. Get me back. I don't want to go into details about what this account is. I did take it away from you. It was one that you set up years and years ago.

But but now I've I've somehow rested it back from you unintentionally. Yeah. Well, after we're done recording today, I promise before I get on that plane for New York, before I get on that big old bird in the sky, I will make sure that I have left you with with all of the info you need and that you are. I don't want to control the voicemail, as you know, I want as little to do with this show as possible.

I think I can figure this out myself because one of my computers here is still logged into that voicemail account. So I think I can go in and change the settings and arrest control back from you without your help. You might get some notifications saying some things change. But that doesn't solve my problem of right now. I was going to say, let me just log into the voicemail line and keep it open on this computer. And if somebody happens to ring in randomly, we can pick it up.

Let's take a quick break. Let's see if we can fix it during the break.

Let's do it. Okay, you're a problem solver. Calm down, Walsh. Is that what you're saying? I heard a lot of calm down, Walsh.

No, no, no, no, no, not at all. I feel bad that I let my chaos email. You got dragged into my chaos email.

Oh, here it is. I found it. Recovery phone number. I'm taking this back, baby. All right. And then what? Are we going to tweet out that people can call us? We could do that. Oh, I was just going to say, like, let's just passively keep it open and see if somebody calls in to leave a voicemail. But that that poor person like this one. It's one kind of expectation and a level of psyching yourself up to call and be like, hey, I'm leaving a voicemail for these two jabronis. Right. Another for the jabronis to answer. But I'm not saying we shouldn't.

You know me. I like chaos. OK, well, maybe we could also maybe tweet it out and say that, you know, the phone lines are open.

Yeah. All right. We'll figure it out during the break and I'll be back with more TV. detail in just a moment all right let's thank some donors of the day who are making this episode possible with their financial support each month people like carolyn archer in cambridge massachusetts thank you carolyn i've been there not to brag cambridge cambridge yeah that's fancy town over there i mean it's not that it's fancy it's that it's the home of so much um so so many amazing uh you know universities and things like that i i'm i mean i know it's

just cliche to say this but like honestly exactly this time of year like early to mid fall is it Early to mid-fall. Let's see. When was Schubert dipping out? Walking around Harvard and bopping into the bookstores around there. I mean, it is unprecedented.

It's really amazing, the foliage over there. And I don't even know from being there. I know from seeing it in photos. I was very excited. As this is hitting the internet, as I've already mentioned, I'm in New York City. And I was like, ah, late October in New York. It's just going to be purposefully crisp. It's a little bit cold, but I'm staying near Central Park. The leaves are going to be changing color. It's going to be 77 this week.

It's going to be 77 degrees. Oh, man, everything's fine. Everything's fine. What are people worried about?

Like, did I, you know, I brought my Speedo, thankfully.

Oh, that's good. Yeah, you always got that.

Absolutely. Colleen Arnold is in Hayward, California. Thank you, Colleen, for the support. Kelly Carson checking in from Orlando, Florida.

Now, weirdly, it's nice and crisp and cool there today. Orlando, it's 33 degrees. Yes, exactly.

It's 120 degrees in Nome, Alaska, and it's 12 degrees in Orlando. You know what? Were it to get that cold in Orlando, which it probably won't today, it could snow. The only other time it's ever snowed in Orlando is during the movie Ernest Saves Christmas.

Really? See, I have not gone back and watched that in quite some time, although that was a repeat viewing for me at one point in my life.

Remember, he teams up with this guy who says he's Santa, and everybody thinks the guy's a little daft. And then it really is Santa. And there's a Christmas miracle where it snows in Orlando, which it hasn't done in many, many years.

Well, right now I'm picturing Kelly in Orlando, and she's got one of those big kind of hand-thrown mugs, right? She's got both of her hands wrapped around it. She's got cocoa in it. He's got cocoa and a little bit of steam.

What do you think the actual temperature in Orlando is right now? Right now, I'm going to say— Let's do a little bet, and I mean for money.

Okay, how about—five bucks. Ooh, is that enough? I don't know if I have five bucks on me. You're a big spender over there. Yeah. All right, I will say—

I didn't do so great this weekend with my Seahawks bets.

I'm going to say it's 82 degrees. Ooh, that's a great guess. Oh, that is true. I got to go first. That kind of boxed you out, didn't it?

No, no, no, I think that's a good pick. Like, I'm going to go, I'm going to take the under. I'm going to say 79 degrees.

Okay, Orlando, temperature. That's one of those words where I have to pronounce the extra syllable in there when I'm typing it. Temperature. Oh! It's 81 degrees. Yes.

Well, you went over, so I get both showcases.

Well, do I get to spin the big wheel or not?

Leah Chiarelli and Chad Kent in Shoreline, Washington. Thank you for the support. I say this each time Leah's name comes up, but Leah and I went to kindergarten together. I might have even been preschool, actually, I think. And they're at Howler Lake Christian Preschool. And that's how we get most of the listeners. People I went to preschool with. I appreciate that. Including Leah. Thanks, Leah. And thanks, Chad, as well. David McKenzie is in Portland, Oregon. And then Carolyn Rose is in Truckee, California. Oh, I like that. Yeah. Is that the place where they have all the trucks? Ah, it's Truckee. Yeah. It's truck-ish. Yeah. I'm sure there's a truck-ish Nevada. No doubt. All right. Thanks so much to all of our donors of the day. Thanks for making TVTL possible. We would not be here without you.

hello and welcome to top story all right during the uh ad break we i believe andrew you were able to get the phone system working you were able to regain control of the tbtl voicemail line slash

call in line i mean so long term i feel great as i've said rested control from you again things are the universe is back in order i'm thinking about changing the password so you can't even as well you should no but you do need because like you're still for some reason because it's a gmail account like sometimes you get restaurant like reservations and stuff there so i don't want to totally lock

you out that seems a little bit cruel but i will i don't know i don't even know how to get into that

email account anymore but you do because about two weeks ago you got into it and you changed

everything okay maybe i guess anyway the question is the question is should we should we tweet out we tweet out the phone number and tell people to give us a call so for the rest of of this episode um we can uh you know we can we can take calls it'll really i mean i'm happy to do it it'll

really change the dynamic of the show as we have it planned but um i think that's fine um just kind of on a whim so just i could tweet this on the tbtl account right now okay how about i start yes start with that we're recording an episode okay i like how this is going tbtl nice right now and we just opened the phone yes uh exclamation point seemed like too much i'm backing up i'm changing that uh to a period yeah let's not come on too strong uh does anybody know the phone number

Yes, 206.

We started the show with the jingle today, did we not?

206.

414-8285. That's TBTL.

Yeah. All right. And then if you tweet that, then I will see it because I follow the TBTL account, and then I will try to signal AMP it. Okay. And we'll see if we can get a call.

Now, my concern here is, though, you tweeting this from your personal account. Now, people who've been trying to get a hold of you for non-TBTL-related things are probably just going to see this as a way to get to you. First of all, we'll probably get a call from Maggie wanting to know where her voicemail is.

I recorded it for her.

Nice! Yeah.

And I played a drop in it and everything. Oh, fantastic. All right.

Well, then we'll get a call from Maggie thanking you.

You hit it out of the park for that one. For the outgoing voicemail. Really, the reason you don't want me to signal amp this is because then pretty soon the TBTL voicemail line is just going to be full of bill collectors. Like I've surfaced It's like in one of my Crime shows that I watch Where like a person is on the lam And like they just for years and years They're living under an assumed identity And then one day they just make a mistake They just like they pop their head up somewhere Did you see I know I want to talk about Your radio show your college radio show Well that didn't take long

Oh that's also not coming through my system correctly Alright I'm going to have to hang up on this person I'm going to do a little bit of I'm listening And I can't talk, but I need to do a little bit of fussing here, technologically speaking. But go ahead. I think we're okay.

All right. This is just more for the people hearing this podcast later. I don't even care if you're listening, Andrew. There was a crazy story out of L.A. where I think it was the FBI was showing this very grainy photo from behind home plate from like seven years ago during the National League. the like the NLDS or whatever it was and what it was was this guy who had who had embezzled like a hundred million dollars and was supposed to show up for Creedman convicted and he was like I think he was in Florida or somewhere he was supposed to show up for court or to to be to actually be taken into custody he'd already been sentenced 20 years or something and he didn't show up to to be taken into custody they still haven't found him but his cousin was watching a Dodgers game yes and they make a documentary about this no that is a different that was a guy who was actually found uh he would they figured out he didn't do the crime because he was at dodger

stadium okay yeah so that was it off so this guy's cousin is watching this guy's cousin is

watching tv and he sees during the al whatever the nls whatever series it was it might not even been the playoffs it was just a dodgers game and he sees this guy sitting behind home plate he's Like, that's my cousin. Now, clearly, this was not the kind of family where you try to, you know, cover up for your fugitive relatives. This guy called the FBI immediately. Clearly didn't like the dude. Called the FBI. And so then the FBI went to try to figure out who was in that seat. And the Dodgers were very helpful. The Dodgers could figure out for that game, here's who the ticket was sold to, season ticket holder. But the ticket had changed hands so many times. Somebody had sold it. Somebody had, you know, scalped it, been given away

on whatever they couldn't create a chain of custody or a chain of who had the ticket and so they were uh so they were down to just taking this very blurry photo and publicizing it all over the country to say does anybody know who this guy is is this the guy we've been looking for and the cousin this was like a new york post story or something the cousin's like he thinks he can get away with anything this is so him he stole all this money and now he's just like look at me i'm

going to a dodgers game look at me i'm going to and then the news the other day was that they

finally found the guy and it's not him oh no somebody knew who the guy in the photo was and it's just like a mild-mannered dude from like you know we're a venture and the pissed off cousin was just like just thought he landed just was so convinced that he got like the the fbi and everybody else to like to to give i mean i guess you gotta you gotta hunt down these leads all

right all right so i think we've had a caller on the line for the past 90 seconds or so okay Ahoy, ahoy.

Hi.

Hey, who's this?

Hello. This is Kira from Chico.

Hi, Kira. How's it going in Chico?

It's pretty good. The weather has finally turned.

Meaning it's a little bit less hot than it was.

Yeah.

Luke now owes me $5 because we just had a bet on who could guess the temperature in Orlando, and I was one degree off.

What do you think the temperature in Orlando is right now?

Oh, gosh. And don't look it up on your phone. No, I'm using my phone. I'm not smart enough to do both. 77.

That's a great guess. I went with 79. I was a little low. Andrew went with 82. He was a little high. It turns out it's 81 right now in Orlando.

So weirdly, we both owe you $10, Kira.

Is that why you called in to find out the temperature in Orlando?

Yes. um so no my husband my husband shoved his phone in my face and said the lines are open

I love it so the story on this real quickly is that you know Andrew and I are usually in separate locations and that creates a technical barrier for us taking phone calls but as it happens uh on this episode of the show I'm at Andrew's house and Andrew had the brainstorm literally as we were starting the episode, that we could actually take calls. And so he got it all fixed, and here we are talking to you. Is there anything specific you wanted to discuss with us or questions you had or counseling you need?

Oh, geez. I always need counseling. Just wanted to say hi. I, like, walked in the door. I was eagle-thoaring up the hill.

Whoa.

You live right by a park, Bidwell Park here in Chico, and there's this nice trail that just is basically straight uphill so I power up and ran back down on my lunch break and now I'm talking to you guys

don't answer that so do you work from home right now?

yes

do you mind me asking what sort of work do you do?

I'm currently working for a mattress company but I'm an artist

wait till you listen to so this what we're recording right now with you is wednesday's episode but tuesday's episode which just hit the internet which you couldn't have even heard because you were busy running up a hill like a kate bush song yesterday's show like half of yesterday's show was about mattress companies no that was today well wasn't that today because as this is airing on the internet do you work for mattress firm no do you work for

mattress soft no do you work for mattress just right no sleep country sleep country ussr

no okay i'm out of guesses um and so then i work for yeah you don't you don't have to tell us

don't get yourself in trouble lord knows we are imperiling our actual employment with this show enough it's a miracle we're here so we're not trying to drag any of the listeners down with us so basically what happened was you were out on your exercise your husband knows that you're a fan of the program and saw andrew's tweet and uh and said well this let's you know let's jump on

this opportunity let me ask you a question what's your garbage situation there like you guys have curbside pickup do you have a dumpster what are you using so we're in an apartment complex we have

a dumpster but we so last year christmas trees there's a whole system for disposing of christmas trees properly but up until like three weeks ago there was just a christmas tree in the dumpster been area that almost made it that almost made it to this Christmas I know we were going to decorate it this year you know because it would have fit in the dumpster like I don't know who finally took it but they could have just stuck it in the dumpster but no it was behind the dumpster for

like nine months oh I see you know what I'm sorry this is a fake Christmas tree this is not an organic christmas

christmas christmas christmas christmas

christmas christmas

it was real it was like disintegrating but yeah what do you think remember that listener called

in and she had the tree that was growing into the neighbor's yard but we had two calls that were like this this one or two emails this one was the neighbor cut the tree kind of haphazardly and then put the stuff in the listener's like yard waste where did you come down on that one judge uh kira that would piss me off i would not be okay with that i think i think because because of my experience with that holly tree at my house where they told me i have the i'm allowed to cut down their truth like i'm allowed to pay someone to cut down their tree i i'm i side with the listener because the listener probably donates to the show i bet the neighbor doesn't But I but but I think I'm a little bit more sympathetic to the angry neighbor only because I've had the experience of someone else's tree growing into my world and then having the responsibility to deal with it.

What bothers me is that he he used their bins like I don't care what kind of job he does on his side of the tree, but use your own bin. Like if you're going to ask your neighbors to maintain the tree, the part of the tree that's on there, that's in your side of the fence, then they obviously are going to use their bins. And so if you're going to do it, use your own bin.

Right. That's definitely a passive aggressive move. That's him letting the listener know that he doesn't appreciate how their tree is growing. All right. Well, listen, Kira, did you have anything else, Andrew, you needed to ask? No, no, that's good. Chico or the garbage situation there?

No, but good on you for getting your eagle soaring in.

Yeah. Well, thank you for calling in. We appreciate you, and good eagle-eyeing by your husband as well.

Yes, indeed. Okay.

Thanks, Kira. Talk to you soon.

I love this.

And by talk to you soon, I mean in maybe a year when we have these phones up.

Well, we've got to remember when you're over here, we can do this. Yes. If we like it. I very much like it. I love it. Okay.

While we're waiting for our next call Will you tell me during The Tuesday episode of the show You just casually mentioned we were playing An REM song at the end of the show and you just Casually mentioned that you thought That maybe it was the first Song that you ever played On your college radio show That you had this like overnight college radio show And I presumably at Kent State I don't know how this is the first I'm Hearing about it I feel like it's

Not but I mean maybe it's never come Up on the show before we have another caller I want the caller to know i see you you're on the line you can just listen for a while because um this is this is even without calls coming in this is a complicated um story to tell and also um just because it seems like there's a bunch of boring ins and outs so i'll try to keep it quick but um when i was you know new at kent state i mean a freshman i think my first semester i didn't know that radio was going to be my career path but i did hear that there was a campus radio station and it seemed fun to me and what happened was I was seeing a girl at the time not trying to brag here she was the first I mean she was like the first I don't even know if I would say girlfriend I don't know if I were to if I don't even know her last name but if you were to find her somewhere and ask her were you Andrew Walsh's girlfriend she'd probably say no but she was the first girl I ever kissed and we were hanging out a lot and her name was Becca I think wasn't Becky I think it was Becca and I should remember that that's the first girl I ever kissed and I can't remember I think it was Becca but we both applied to get a show on this radio station and I was rejected but she got her radio show it's very complicated but and I can't remember I think maybe she her application was accepted and maybe they even partnered her up with somebody else who immediately quit and so basically what happened was i think she did the first show with her original partner the other person dropped out immediately because the time slot was 4 a.m to 7 a.m on i believe wednesday night going into thursday morning which is that's prime time

exactly right we're getting medium play thursday mornings on the kent state station and i mean i

remember saying this a lot on the time at the time probably like on the show that like i mean what an astoundingly bad time slot like literally it is the worst i mean there's a lot of other bad ones but this one is like even if you stay up late as a college student you're probably hitting the hay by 4 a.m but even if you're an early riser 4 a.m if you if it were commercial radio

you know you could make the argument that 6 to 7 a.m is drive time and you might catch people commuting but that's not probably typically who is listening to this station no and so um what happened was what about people that are getting the fear yes that's who it is exactly a little too much of something they can't sleep yeah they're exhausted and then they're

starting to become paranoid. Now, here are some more complicating factors. So when I say it was a radio show and radio station, it technically was WKSR. But by this point, I don't believe they had a broadcast signal. In fact, the more I think about it, it was just some guys who put me in a room with a fake microphone. Hold this newspaper. We're going to take a picture of you. This is going back, but you'll probably remember this. Do you remember when you were on campus, there was like a closed circuit sort of tv station and there would be like a community bulletin board it'd just be like three really bright colors like white red and yellow and it just flash through these like janky uh slides and be like hey you know this potluck is happening with whatever student group or whatever well the soundtrack to that was wksr so if you wanted to listen to wksr you probably had to turn on your tv on campus somewhere and again so i was just getting like a lot of fans and this is how i first became famous yeah and um what happened was becca rebecca she ended up quitting after a couple of shows because again it's not like it's not prime

time it's not fun it was like it's fun as an idea yeah then there's the like week four yeah of it being three in the morning and you have to go to this place and talk into this microphone and so

basically it just became my show and when i say i mean i remember smoking a lot of weed in the

record den like people see that would have freaked me out because i would have been so nervous about

going on air oh that is true like now i would never do that it doesn't even seem fun to me it actually seems terrible to me like honestly like and i have never done that professionally i've never gone on tbtl i mean except for every now and then when you and i are having like drinks together or something as part of a bit but like um the idea of doing it stoned doing anything real Stone sounds terrible to me but again it was like 4am no literally nobody Was listening I remember begging for phone Calls not unlike me begging for phone calls

Today we have calls we're just not answering

Exactly I'm begging Your forgiveness for not picking up But I the only Call I remember getting was Playing the Record is still right over there in that crate The return of the Jedi Story disc and I Know I like that it's just like it's A record it's an LP where it tells the story of Return of the Jedi with like, it's got a voice over that's not from the movie, but then it's got the sound effects from the movie and little bits of

dialogue and stuff. So you played this as a song

basically. I played it because you would need to play something like that if you wanted to go outside to smoke cigarettes because you couldn't, I didn't mind smoking a little bit of weed in the record then, that was just going to get absorbed but if I wanted to go outside to smoke a cigarette which you had to be very, very careful because you didn't have keys to the music and speech building, so you'd have to go out and make sure that like you wedge the door open smoke a cigarette and so i put on i remember the return of the jedi not even soundtrack see this is so great and i went outside the music and speech building or mucus and spit as we called it and i would smoke a heater and then i would run back up like the three flights or whatever and then like put on the next thing and i remember i came in one time and the phone light was flashing and i was so excited because you know this is like a class it's tiny but it's a classic looking little uh little uh student radio station right so they have the flashing light and i like pick it up and it's just like some guys like what are you playing and i'm like oh it's it's uh return the jedi you want to go on the air no no come on go on the air with me no i just wanted to know

what you were playing that's as close as i love this i if you've told this story i've completely and totally blanked it out but i like were you nervous i mean you keep saying no one was listening but i let me just put it this way if i were in your shoes if i'm luke burbank freshman at the university washington there's something similar and it's just going throughout the campus and i know that or it's just going on a tv channel that's way high up in the cable you know whatever it's in the dorms though or whatever i would have been i would have been a so wanting to do it and be so terrified like so nervous like the idea that you were kind of like able to just be like yeah you know no one's hearing this um and not feel nervous did you feel nervous weird to square

that with me too because i'm way more uptight than you in most circumstances right yeah and so but i you know i'm not proud of it i think i have a cassette tape of wksr somewhere i probably should find that huh i think i have that in the other room i should probably play that i think the thing is though it's really embarrassing because i wasn't taking it seriously at all it's gonna make you feel bad let's not play it i'll i'll find it and i'll i'll find some parts and i'll play for you because it does seem like good tbtl content but it all ties back to that rem song because i was crushing so hard on Rebecca and then she left the show and I think I played that for some reason in tribute to her and I can't remember if she was from Rockville or if it was just our song I think our song was actually um the Cranberries doing the Carpenters cover there were birds in the air but I never saw oh wow winging or whatever.

whatever i didn't it's not the lyric but i wish it was close i would love it there were birds in the air but i never saw them winging that was my first like song that i had with some like romantic song that we shared that's the the first romantic song i ever had was with me and my friend ben folk but it was his song with his girlfriend but i was so jealous it was right here waiting for you by richard mark that's awful and he i remember him calling in is the daytime it was summer we at his house and him calling in a dedication to his girlfriend and they played it on like you know whatever k hit or something did she hear it i don't remember i mean she wasn't there physically with us it was like some girl from his school we went to different schools and i remember just being like god if someday i could ever have a girlfriend and if i could dedicate right here waiting for you yeah to her it's that's just gonna be everything yeah you know i was just dying to have that kind of experience and i hadn't yet at that point um i would i'm gonna call into a portland

radio station and request that for a Becca from Luke.

That's going to be extra confusing because now I'm dating a Becca.

I know. I know. That's why it wasn't until I was saying this exact joke that I realized, oh, wait, this is especially confusing because you're dating a Becca right now. Yeah.

Well, that that sounds like such a fun college experience to do that. I mean, it sounds very.

I wish I had taken it a little bit more seriously.

It sounds very pump up the volume to me. And see, I could never both the I guess the good and the bad of how my little radio career evolved was I actually never really got to do that because I was a work study student at KUOW that was even though it was in a funky room at the UW communicate, they took it pretty seriously at that point because it was, you know, it was already pretty popular, I guess. So I didn't ever get to do kind of pirate radio like the first time I ever got on. It was a kind of legit station, which also might be part of how I internalized this nervousness about it. Because I never had a chance to do something where it was, like I said, 20 people listening. You know what's kind of funny is we haven't played it yet, but Tom Sharpling from The Best Show on WFMU, now it's an independent thing, he came out to Portland last week and I interviewed him for LiveWire. And part of his book is talking about how he was on the community college he went to in New Jersey. He was on their radio station. That was the equivalent of that. How are we doing? Good so far. What was that? I don't know. That was just something. What's that plugged into? Should I unplug this phone? You think that could be better?

The pot was your computer, so I don't know what just happened.

Oh, you know what? My headphone cord must have bumped. We've come a long way since those humble days of WKSR. No, but Sharpling was saying that he used to be on the radio station at his community college that was only broadcast within the college, and particularly in the student union building, like in the cafeteria and sometimes somebody would come down and just change the station so the person broadcasting would be broadcasting they'd go from broadcasting to 20 disinterested people to broadcasting to no one and it would be like days that would be switched over to like something else so for days people would be going into this room doing their shows right getting their music ready getting their rap down and then they would do their whole show they'd be like oh man and for days on end it wasn't going anywhere that's like a tree falls in the forest yeah like

did those radio shows actually happen especially if you weren't like some early episodes of tv yeah you probably wish they were right right well i've had a caller here on hold for 11 minutes

yeah let's see let's see hi who's this hi guys it's the joker it's it's marissa and marilyn

and i've been listening for 11 minutes and i have a lot of notes

what are you our program director hi yes absolutely hi marissa how's it going

It is. It's great. I'm so happy to talk to you guys. I feel like I inceptioned this into happening because when I took the APM survey yesterday, they're like, what would you like to see improved about TPTL? I was like, more listeners get to call in and talk to the boys.

Awesome. Wow, you really did.

I did. So the line from the song from Music Man absolutely is, never saw them winging. That is the correct line.

Is it really? Not singing.

Yes, it is. I mean, the line changes in between verses, but that's one of them.

But can I ask a quick question? Okay, so I was wrong about that, but I do like that turn of phrase. Was it also a Carpenter's song? Yeah.

It was originally from the Music Man.

And then the Carpenters covered it, and then the Cranberries covered the Carpenters?

The Beatles also covered it. Oh, yeah.

Right, right, right. You know what I heard on the radio the other day on Kixi Radio was the Candyman can.

because oh yeah they're playing knocking knock into boots by candy man no i turned it on right

during the part where they say you could even eat the plate and i've always thought why would you want to though well if it was candy i guess it was made of chocolate i i also was a

college radio dj really what station you guys been talking about uh wbrs 100.1 fm in waltham uh brandeis and that was the that was the college radio station and much like andrew my my first slot was the undesirable like when you were new to the station they gave you the worst slot which for us was 6 to 8 a.m like there was a little bit of cred that went with getting the 2 to 6 a.m because that was when the FCC didn't care what you played. So you could play anything with any profanity or any language at all, but then 6 a.m., the FCC starts caring again. So 6 to 8 a.m. was our children's music show, and that's what I did.

Oh, wow. So did you know anything? I mean, it was just like all roughy?

You know, I was like 19 at the time, so I wasn't that far off from my children's music phase. Gotcha. I played, like, cartoon movie soundtracks, like Muppet soundtracks. Like, I had fun. It's just, like, I didn't like having to wake up that early.

Was it your idea to program it that direction, or did you inherit the slot, which was traditionally kids' music? And if so, then why was a college doing two hours of kids' music in the morning? It doesn't seem like the demo.

So, I mean, it was more a station for Walsam than it was for Brandeis.

Oh, wow, wow.

Yeah, so, like, there was, like, actually a super popular, like, I think, like, a Blues Roots show or something that was done by someone from Waltham that ran for, like, 30 years or something. And one of the staff at our college did a, like, a women's music show that was also, like, pretty well-known in the community. so like there was a block schedule that was like you know different programming slots at different times that had been like handed down since time immemorial and um it was like you're you're fresh meat you get the 6 to 8 a.m children's show like and you're gonna like it or you're not gonna be a dj but i did it and it was one of my favorite extracurriculars in college did the show have a

name was it like called like oh god you know the magic cucumber that was a that was a really bad

what's that i don't remember but i know that all of my playlists are still online on spinatron did you guys ever use spinatron no no was that one of the was that a decepticon i know i was an autobot um like we were mandated every single thing we played on air we had to log in spinatron including the public service announcements that we had to play i think that's like a law or something because it was like a i don't know but we had to play public service announcements and um like various things and we had to log every single thing we did into spinatron so i like a year or so ago like in quarantine like what's going on what is my life I just like go back to like what was I doing 15 years ago literally 15 years ago it's still there

on Spinatron so it's not so it's not actually air checks of you talking it's just the lists of

what you played on any particular day yeah the audio is long gone I don't think it was ever recorded but like what I exactly all the songs I played and I'm going through I'm like oh yeah

I remember this I remember this show I'm on their schedule right now this is WBRS right It doesn't You know I'm on their schedule and it doesn't It looks like there's a bunch of like free blocks It does not look like there's a 6 to 8 a.m. Slot anymore the schedule Basically begins at 8 a.m. And on most days it's blank except for On Tuesdays you can listen to Know Your Rights Hosted by Shuki Wright It's Know Your Rights spelled like her last name W-R-I-G-H-T-S Or their last name

So it sounds like there's still a chance If you want to get back into the radio game That's what we're saying

And move several hundred miles away, yeah.

You could probably do it remotely now, although the fun of working at a station like that would be going into the station, I think, probably.

We had such a big vinyl collection. I'm gesturing as though you can see me. We had such a big vinyl collection, and they taught me how to use a record, which was like, it was harmful to the souls of the people who were training me because they were just older enough than me than they had grown up on vinyl. Right. And I was just young enough that I hadn't. And so they hand me a record, and I look at it and I say, is there data on both sides of this? It was really making them feel old.

Data.

Oh, my God.

I'm mad at you for saying that.

Can I mention that I'm obsessed with Spinatron now. I'm at the Spinatron website, and this is what it's doing. Recent spins. Every two seconds, it's just telling you Angel Olsen, High and Wild, just got played at KSPC. Mississippi Queen by Mountain just got played at KDHX. Like every time somebody spins a track And they're entering it into this system It's just populating on this website It's like sometimes it'll be like five of them per second It's really

I'm on it too They don't have MMS unfortunately in Cleveland

I think it's how the college stations

justify getting free CDs sent to them by promoters to prove we are playing this stuff.

So Spinatron, you know, I was looking for a major market station, so Spinatron is really a college thing specifically.

I suspect that it is. We had block shows where you were required to play the new music that had come in. That was the only thing you were allowed to play.

Rainy Dog just played. That's the UW station.

Oh.

University of Washington, student-powered radio. Right now, it's a show called Heartbreak Hotel, and they just played a song that just showed up in Spinatron. This, Marissa, is blowing my mind.

I'm so glad that you are enjoying something I can give to you.

I love this.

Did you guys give me companionship every day?

Well, do you remember getting those CDs at the station that they'd always have a notch out of the spine of the CD so that you couldn't, I guess, go sell it maybe?

I don't think that we did that.

Oh, I have so many of those because I would buy them at used record stores. The whole point was you weren't supposed to be able to resell them if they had that notch, but I would go to the record exchange in Lakewood, Ohio and just walk out with so many notched CDs on a Wednesday.

All right, Marissa, any other comments or questions before we kind of wrap things up here? We're getting towards the end of today's episode.

i just need to give uh shout outs uh to my five leo oh you untied him from the tree yeah i untied him from the tree he's doing great he's he's back in person school and he's so much happier oh good they by the way they love the sound machine uh a shout out to my five avi who just had you know you gave him his blurs day a few weeks ago and a shout out to our msnbc zaddy chris hayes he gets enough shout outs yeah just from us all right all right hey thanks marissa for calling in thanks i love you guys all right we love you too how fun was that so fun i know we

need to have a call-in show i know plus then i could do even less prep i think there's one to

the listeners because they always have interesting things to say i think there's one piece of equipment that i need in order to make this work when you are in uh portland so i will i'm going to set up some meetings, Luke. I'm going to set up some meetings with some high-up

tech people. Who might be Vikings.

That's why I said high up. He's very tall. Yeah, he is. He's at the

prow of the ship. He's way up there. He's got that helmet with horns. Exactly. No, that was really fun. We should, if there's a way to do that on a more regular basis, I would be totally down with it.

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.

Once again we got to like hardly any of the top stories But we got to the ones that were interesting Your radio show and talking to the listeners

Yes that was a lot of fun man I'm looking forward to doing that Again let's see here I have a little piece of tape to play for you from a listener here Luke Do you remember a couple of days ago on the show I was flexing those strong improv muscles that I'm so famous for And I was, you know, just on the fly imitating somebody talking to their Amazon Echo.

And I said, wait, can I see if I can remember? It was like, Alexa, tell me about that bean recipe. What's that cabbage recipe? Not even give me a cabbage recipe, but Alexa, what's that cabbage recipe? Now, can I just mention, if you and I ever do have an improv troupe, can we call it What's That Cabbage Recipe? Because that sounds absolutely like an improv group that you would go see at the Student Union Building.

You turn off WKSR.

My friend's in this thing. It's What's That Cabbage Recipe. Some of us are going down. It's a Friday night.

Anyway, I got this note from Keith, who's in Chardon, Ohio. And Keith says, I just had to stop listening to the show. And that's it. That was the email, which it really made me sad to get those on a regular basis. I just had to stop listening to the show to see what answer Alexa would have for your improvised query. The answer may surprise you. It gave me a chuckle. But then here, this is interesting. Keith says, apologies for the low volume and creepy whispering. It was late and I didn't want to disturb the house. So as you'll hear, Luke, Keith is whispering to his Amazon device. But did you know that the Amazon device, if you whisper to it, will whisper back? That I did not know that. Keith says, plus, I recently found out that Alexa has a whisper mode. Now, I don't know. You know, I'm kind of assuming something here. I thought that Alexa whispered back because Keith whispered to the device. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he had set the device to whisper back. But this audio is definitely kind of.

a little bit a little bit creepy take a listen to this alexa what's that cabbage recipe

finding some cabbage recipes okay for cabbage i recommend sauteed cabbage from food network 25 minutes to make what would you like start recipe send to phone add to list or hear next

recipe that's what are they having an affair i know it definitely that is some real who that's

like some state farm who you're on the phone with i think yeah i think we just moved a lot of product for lonely people who are like oh i didn't know alexa could do that did you think that they had

to re-record all of the alexa i mean it's an it's a it's a it's it's ai or what do you want to call it it's it's it's like um not oh sorry about i started the music over doesn't matter we're good now but um i guess the thing is it's like was alexa's voice ever a real person did they have a real person say make all the sounds that and now a computer arranges those words and sounds to give us answers or is it a computer program that can just create every sound

it says the voice of alexa the virtual assistant developed by amazon is provided by nina roll a colorado-based voiceover artist according to a new book now that's from 2021 so that's this year um but i wonder if at this point so i'm just like obviously just giving you the top google result i'm wondering if at this point though they are doing what you said like it's based on her voice but um they're just like kind of recreating it with technology at this point because she said a lot of words but it's not just like you can't just have a collection of all the words in the english language right because it'll get super choppy yeah it'll sound weird if it is i mean they actually do a really good job with inflection right yeah it just feels like but the but the

question that i have is i mean this seems like it would be a full-time job like literally like a 20 hour a day job constantly because there are so i mean this is probably this is something that they've cleverly figured out that it seems like there's an infinite number of things she might have to say but really it's probably a i'm sorry i didn't get that and then uh try this but like Oh, the New York Times cabbage recipe that she's telling listener Keith about. Yeah. Like, so this woman, Nina Roll, at some point had to say, I would try this New York Times sautéed cabbage recipe. Like, she had to read those words in case listener Keith whispered that.

Well, the thing about this, and again, I'm just sort of like, you know, kind of scanning this article and talking at the same time. But it looks like, so Amazon will not confirm nor deny. They won't talk about it at all, which is a very Amazon-y thing. So apparently it is this woman's word. And so and she wrote about it in the book. But what this article on The Verge is doing here is they're saying, well, take a listen to some of her other voice work and you tell us if this is her. So this is a commercial for something called Cherry Creek North, which is a outdoor retail store in Denver.

Come to Cherry Creek North this winter. Denver's premier outdoor retail destination.

Sounds like her.

where you can experience the unexpected treasures of the season, including the season itself.

You know the voice better than I do because you actually have one of these devices.

Technology was supposed to make things simpler. Your interests connect you to other people, and the Internet was supposed to make building these relationships easier. But when we go online, it's not like real life.

Yeah, I bet you it's her. And here's why. I'm now reading. I'm on the same Verge article. So I've done voiceover work for Amazon, and I can tell you this. They're extremely tight lipped about things like there was a code name that I think I might have mentioned this. There was like a you have to sign a million NDAs and also like you walk into the recording studio and there's literally a sign that someone's printed out. That's like project. Literally, this was called Project Hot Dog. I think it's been it's been 10 years. I can say they were. I promise you I wasn't selling hot dogs. It was called Project Hot Dog. That's how like serious they are about this. And so when I first I thought that this woman was claiming to be the voice of Alexa, which I was like, well, if she's claiming the voice of Alexa, she's definitely asking to lose the gig because Amazon would not be cool with that. But now I'm reading actually what it is, is she has not claimed it. This person writing this piece or somebody wanted to try to figure out who was the voice of Alexa. And so they went around all these different websites and places where people put up VO samples and basically just found it. And when she was reached by The Verge, she said she's not allowed to talk about it.

Oh, I apologize. Again, I was reading on the fly. I thought that it said it comes from somebody else's upcoming book, not the voiceover artist.

And the fact that she says she's not allowed to talk to them, that makes me think it's really her.

Because if it wasn't her, she would just say no. She would say no. Because she wouldn't be under any obligation.

But also what she would 100% not do if she wanted to keep the gig would be talk about it.

To the media when Amazon is not talking about it, like she would be so fired, it wouldn't even be funny.

So there you go. But it still doesn't answer the question. My guess is, though, she might have done a lot of work at the beginning. But at this point, like you said, they must have an A.I. type of device that takes her voice and turns it because they have pretty sophisticated versions of that that you and I can even use. You know, every now and then, if I'm doing something goofy with audio, you go to just type in text to speech and you can find a pretty good converter online.

Yeah, there's got to be – I mean, because they could not have had her say every version of every possible response. It must have just been – I mean, that must have been an arduous – And then a whispered version. And then a whispered. That's where this whole thing started, a whispered version. Which, again, what is it about a human voice when it's whispered that suddenly just feels so intimate? I know, right? Like it just goes from this robot to this, like, somebody that really gets you. I think Alexa really gets me. I've met someone, Andrew. It's Alexa when she whispers.

You know, I still haven't seen the movie Her. Her. Oh, my gosh. I want to see that really bad. It's good. I obviously don't want to see that really bad because it's been 10 years. But I remember when it came out and I was in L.A. and I thought, oh, that sounds like a great movie. And then for some reason I just never saw it.

I happened to see it. I really liked it. I think it's very well done. Joaquin Phoenix is amazing, as is Scarlett Johansson. I think I've told this story a bunch of times on the show. But I believe in the promotion for Her. Scarlett Johansson happened to be The not my job guest on wait wait And she was on the telephone So we were wearing headphones and I went From watching the movie and thinking boy I get how this guy falls in love With this character I went from that To then having that person Talking in my ear the other thing too I think that's notable about that is I do not Think Scarlett Johansson was the first voice of Her I think we've talked about this before I think it might have been Samantha Mortimer the actor It was someone else did the entire Movie and then they Just didn't really feel like it was working and they Went back and recast it and it was Scarlett Johansson

I got the song wrong I was looking for the song to go out With Luke it wasn't till there Was you it was a long to be close

To yeah that's why that's why I was because because that's the Carpenter why do birds yes

That's why you were confused there and I didn't even Realize why you were confused there that you were But yes yes yes no I totally messed that up It was They Longed to Be Close to You. There's a similar vibe in those two songs, though, right? Don't they both involve birds?

Well, yeah. One was Winging. Yeah, right. That's the Music Man one. And the Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near? See, I got my bird songs confused. Just like me, they long to be close to you.

I hope that Becca or maybe Rebecca isn't listening right now. I am actually curious about that.

She's listening to WKSR.

I wonder if that still exists

It was Samantha Morton I think I said Mortimer Samantha Morton was the original voice On that movie And it ended up being Scarlett Johansson

Do you know that there is nobody in my life That I can think of

Who you like more than me

Who I like More than you That I could even find out Who this girl I'm talking about is I don't know her last name I don't know her last name, and I don't have any friends still from that era. And then my brain is really bad at – I mean, well, it's bad at remembering a lot of things. You and the listeners know that. But, like, remembering kind of people from the past. Like, if I didn't stay in touch with you, I hate to say it, but, like, you know, some people definitely stand out. But, like, a lot of people – I met a lot of people in college, you know, and I'm just trying to remember if there's any friends that I'm still in contact with now or who I can even remember who would have known this girl. I'm thinking it was Rebecca, and it kind of bums me out, man. This was my first romantic dalliance.

I wonder if, like, I mean, were there logs? Were they keeping logs at WKSR, and are those logs still somewhere? What year would it be? Because, I mean, she would have had a shift at some point. Because remember, wasn't that a big part of those early days of radio was signing the log? There was so much that was just so not fun about that job. Because it was all this FCC stuff, and you've got to fill out this thing. You've got to play the emergency broadcast test and all this. Like, somewhere in all of that paperwork, there is the name of your first kiss.

Yeah, somewhere out there. That's the song. That was our song. That was it. Five hole goes east.

I wrote down, what's that cabbage recipe as a possible show title? Okay, that sounds good.

I also wrote down a whirling dervish of passwords. That's pretty good, too. I'd potentially go with that.

All right. All right. What are you thinking for music to go out?

Oh, I was going to go out with The Carpenters. Perfect. But the Carpenters version, I thought Unless you want the Cranberries version

No, no, let's do this one Alright, thanks for listening everybody We'll be back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio I'll be checking in from Manhattan With lots of, I'm sure, stories of my travels So we'll see you then

then have a great Wednesday stay safe take care of each other and please remember no mountain too tall and good luck to all to be close to you why do stars fall down from the sky every time you walk by

Just like me They long to be close to you On the day that you were born The angels got together And decided to create a dream come true So they sprinkled moon dust in your hair And golden starlight in your eyes of blue That is why all the girls go to town Follow you all around

Just like me

The number you have reached is 100.7 WMMS All other radio stations are not in service at this time Please make a note of it

Power out