Muse

Hi, I'm Troy McClure. You may remember me from such nature films as Earwigs, Eww, The Revenge of Abe Lincoln, The Erotic Adventures of Hercules, The Wackiest Covered Wagon in the West, Alice's Adventures Through the Windshield Glass, They Came to Burgle Carnegie Hall, Two Minus Three Equals Negative Fun, Man Versus Nature, The Road to Victory, Designated Drivers, The Life-Saving Nerds, The Decapitation of Larry Ledfoot, Dial M for Murderousness, Alice Doesn't Live Anymore, The Boat Jacking of Super Ship 79, Smoke Yourself Thin, Firecrackers, The Silent Killer, P is for Psycho, Lead Paint, Delicious But Deadly, Calling All Quakers, Son of Sanford and Son, and Here Comes the Metric System, TBTL!

do i wish our fans were a little more hip yes do i wish they were a tad more on top of their hygiene absolutely do they have a confused look in their eyes like a dog that's heard a strange

sound yeah that's a that's a no from me dog uh we're gonna kick you in the teeth all right and when you punch us back we're gonna smile at you and when you knock us down we're gonna get up and on the way up we're gonna bite a kneecap off all right and we're gonna stand up and then it's gonna to take two more shots to knock us down all right and on the way up we're going to take your other kneecap and we're going to get up and then it's going to take three shots to get us down i know you think you can think your way out of this with your thinkiness but don't think too much

you know i just came here to hit dingers and have a good time all right hello good morning and

welcome everyone to a thursday edition of tbtl the show that just might be too beautiful to live

I heard about that thing on the AM radio.

My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host.

I'll say, what's up, dog?

Coming to you from the edge of Central Park in beautiful New York City.

New York City!

On a gorgeous October day. I did not expect it to be bordering on 80 degrees when I came out east for this little trip. But I have to say, it's wonderful. I thought New York in the fall and the spring was the best time, but I think New York in the fall when it's 78 degrees is actually peak New York. This is peak TBTL, episode 3537 in a collector series.

Let the fun begin.

It's literally going to be the best episode that we've ever done. Why do I say that? I don't know. I'm just sort of, I'm trying to speak it into existence. I do feel good, though, about this episode. I feel like we're going to really do some good work here, including telling you about those pop-up Halloween stores. We're going to give you the— Can you verify? Can you give me some 411? It's kind of an interesting story on these spirit Halloween things that we all see all over the place. Also, one of the things I have noticed about New York is, boy, I thought that my apartment in Portland was loud with the ambulances driving by. Too loud and too specific. It's got nothing on Manhattan, baby. But there's an interesting story out about the actual efficacy of blasting those lights and also those ambulance whales. Does that actually help people get to the hospital faster and safer? The answer may surprise you. So we'll talk about that. Plus, it's a Thursday, a.k.a. a Blur's Day. Blur's Day today. We'll do the Blur's Day messages. Do all that with the help of this guy, the longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He might have tacos for dinner tonight. He's not quite sure yet. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now from the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. I don't know why I'm going to do this to you, but out of curiosity, and I know the answer is going to be no, do you have any idea what song we used to close out yesterday's episode of tbtl now keep in mind listener dear listener luke and i pre-recorded yesterday's show on tuesday and today is thursday so even if this was just a 24 hour question i think this would be difficult let's be honest

if it was a 24 minute question i wouldn't be able to tell you do you remember do you remember what What tape we used to open today's show? Yes, Troy McClure. Troy McClure, okay. So start small. Small bites. I'm working back in my mind. If this were a film, a plane is flying backwards now from Newark Airport back to Seattle. Is it going backwards and erasing the little dots? Yes, that's exactly what it's doing. And now I'm backing into a lift, and it's driving backwards up the wrong side of I-5. going to the roosevelt neighborhood of seattle washington scary i'm going up your steps and i'm leaving the gate open because you were

getting a delivery thank you and then i'm don't tell everybody that though it's locked now okay

yes it's like fort knox over there it's just i mean hold on i need you to put me into a hypnotic state okay i need to access this memory this is a this is a buried memory um can i can i get a hint

i look i don't know i'm gonna find out now because now i'm gonna load the show this was a real question you're just asking the reason i'm asking is there was something kind of interesting to No, you just literally don't remember. I mean, it's boring as hell. I actually have some other boring things I wanted to talk to you about. But I, you know, I take a note every day with what song we close out with because then it makes its way to the newsletter. And I'm looking at my notes from this week, and there's a blank spot where there should be a song. Now, I now have yesterday's show open here. I could just play it. Can we just play it from here? Oh, are you playing it from the website? That's good. That gives us another hit, doesn't it? I was just going to play it from my hard drive. Well, I remember it was not the cranberries, though, right? Because that was Monday's show. We're talking about me buying cranberry juice, which led to that. I'm trying to play it here, a whirling dervish of passwords. Yes, right. Okay, that's good.

And I'm playing here at the 115 mark.

It appears our website is broken. Is it doing that thing where it just spins and spins? Gosh, I am not doing a good job of podcasting today.

Could you talk to one of our 30 to 40 managers about why it is that the show does not play, by the way? Oh, I should hold off on that. I'm going to not say what I was about to say, Andrew, because there's no reason to borrow trouble. I am not able to play it from the website, so we're no closer to remembering. Okay. Maybe the listeners know.

I mean, I can play this here. I know. I do have – by the way, listeners, we had fun taking a couple of calls yesterday. I do have an email in to our dear friend Eric the Viking Stromstad to see if he can.

Well, I just talked to on a speakerphone in his car with his entire family listening in, which was not embarrassing.

That was not about the taking phone calls. That was just to see if you could get your rig working in New York, right?

Yeah, I was having a little technical times, and I called him, and he's like, you're on speakerphone with my family. And I was like, hello, Stromstads. And then just a chorus of adorable voices. Oh, that's so cute. Hey there, in a very Minnesota-like way.

They should have all said, hi, Mr. Burbank. Yeah. Anyway, but I do have an email in to him when he's back from vacation. We're going to try to sit down and see if there's a technical solution so that Luke and I can take phone calls on the reg, even when we're recording in separate cities and states. So let's see. I know we did Cranberries, and I think we did Don't Go Back to Rockville. Oh, gosh. Oh, that's what it was. That's another thing I've got to talk to you about. No, that was the day before, I believe, which led to the question of my – Did we go out with a do-go-back-to-rock-ville? Do-go. Okay, let's just listen to the end of yesterday's show here.

Oh, right. Oh, right. I remember this. Yes, the Carpenters.

There was a little confusion around the song. Right. What did that just remind me of, though? Oh, did you see my text yesterday that I did find?

Yes, I have that on my show sheet. Oh, you did? Sorry, I didn't see it. No, no, I put it on my – I keep a separate show sheet, Andrew, that you're not aware of so that I can, like, whiz smokers at you. Yeah, yeah. And on my special Luke's Private Reserve show sheet, 12-year age. It's aged in oak barrels. It's all coming out of the same sheet. I wrote down, ask Andrew if that air check, if we can play that air check on the show. So you found a cassette of your college radio show. Do you have the technology to even play a cassette tape these days?

Not right now. I mean, I do, but I'm not set up to play that tape for you randomly right now on the show. Have you listened to the tape? No, no, because here's the deal. So so we were talking a little bit earlier this week about the fact that I had like a radio show, not not my not my kind of work study program with WKSU, but an actual like college radio show that aired from 4 a.m. to 7 a.m. on Wednesday mornings in the mid 90s at Kent State on WKSR. and I thought I think I have one like air check cassette tape of that experience and so I went to my cassette briefcase and I did find it and it's in I mean this isn't I guess I shouldn't be surprised this is very much the type of stuff I used to do and I guess still do which is it is meticulously labeled and it turns out and here's the thing it wouldn't have been a normal show it looks like my friend Tony who is my friend from grade school must have been visiting me that week at college and so he did the radio show with me and i have like a detailed list of what our banter is topic wise in between what songs we're playing looks like a lot of doors in classic rock um but

i what if it was you trying to remember the song you'd ended the previous show with i wouldn't that actually would

probably probably be better i gotta be honest with you and the listeners i think that there's a potential that that could be some really interesting tbtl material but i also am not ready to do that i'm not ready to listen to that even um privately right now i'm not joking like i'm um that's fair it's really bad i mean it will be really bad i haven't heard that tape probably since i recorded it and oh this was a weird quinky dink we were having that conversation on the exact what was it 26th anniversary to the date that that thing was recorded it was october

19th 1995 right what was the other thing that happened like that we were talking about something and it was the like 35th anniversary of that thing the other day i forget what it was but We've been having some weird coincidences coming up ever since I got the vaccine. There have been a lot of weird coincidences.

Hey, you're just asking questions. You're just asking questions, right?

That's right. Me and Joe Rogan.

I think I did my math wrong on that, but it was October 19th, 1995, whatever anniversary that was. I was blown away that we were having that conversation on the very day. That is weird. And then, of course, I meticulously, in my tiny little handwriting and my little printing on a graph paper, I had written out exactly everything that happens on that show. But, like, I'm not even ready for me to sit down and listen to that, let alone share it with the world. And, of course, I'm not going to do it. Eventually, I will do it. Let's face it. With a little help from my friend Jim Beam, I'm sure I will sit down some evening and brace myself and digitize that tape. And then I can probably pull things from it that maybe I feel like is maybe I can share with you and the listeners in a way that won't absolutely destroy me. But that is not the type of thing that I'm ready to go random on because I just think it's going to be really bad, not even funny bad, but just really, really bad. I respect that.

I know that you are somebody who tends to ruminate, and I think you feel sort of a deep sense of embarrassment sometimes around things that I don't necessarily think you should feel embarrassment around, but I just know that's how your brain works. So I don't want to create – I mean you notice that I have generally stopped playing intro tape of you that is you because you said it didn't make you feel super great. So it's like I don't want to throw any gas on that fire of self-loathing. So I totally understand if you don't want to play it.

I think it's a little, and you do have a little bit of this, too. There are certain things on the show, maybe not to the extreme that I'm describing this, how much I don't want to listen to it, but that, like, you know, even going back, playing the first episode of TBTL kind of makes you uncomfortable. Oh, mortifying. Remember, somebody sent in that tape of you actually giving the unreasonable, being reasonable in unreasonable times that somebody, like, somebody's husband bootlegged it 15 years ago?

Which is so crazy that there was a recording of it. It did not feel good. Yeah. That felt bad for totally different reasons because I was essentially lying to this group of bankers. I was just doing like a really hacky stand-up. But also I had forgotten that I had – whatever it was, these scenarios that I had created so as to do these jokes were not real, at least some of them. And that, for whatever reason, makes me feel really cringe. Also, the performance is not good. But just the fact that I was lying and I was trying to – that was just – that was the act of a desperate man.

Andrew. Well, you weren't, if I recall correctly, I thought you were just sort of exaggerating

stories about your dad. No, I made some joke about my dad. I think I said my dad was an engineer,

which is not even true. Oh, that is, yeah, that's not an exaggeration. God, dude, my heart, I'm getting an extra heartbeat just talking about this. It's not the coffee. It is the stress. Oh, it's not the water. Anyway, I did find the cassette tape, which gave me some feelings, but you know what it's like? It's, I know I've talked on this show, I think, quite a bit. I probably have talked about it on all my shows quite a bit, but you know that I, like, threw away those notebooks that I was like keeping in my college days like with poetry and short stories and doodles and all these things that I did possibly while high and like I carried them around for years and years because you know they were they were like journals and you're not supposed to throw that stuff away and I felt bad you know at the idea of throwing it away and then I threw them away and I just felt so good and then I found this tape yesterday and it sort of felt like having one of those again like oh I should just destroy this so that it doesn't get in the wrong hands do not destroy the tape i'm not

saying you have to play it on the show but please don't do not throw it into mount doom okay okay sounds good and i didn't want to tell you this out of the gate andrew because i didn't want to get in your head but i do think we have some extra ears on the show today because for whatever reason over the last 24 hours i've been having to explain what tbtl is to so many people here in New York that I feel like including the Lyft driver who took me down to shout out to Kevin who took me down to the CBS studios today where I had to record some commentaries then I had to explain to everybody at the studio including my bosses.

at CBS, what TBTL is. Last night, I ventured out to Brooklyn to hang out with our friend, Chris Hayes, and also Bobby Allen. Bobby Allen, by the way, the guy who wrote that amazing piece from the Elizabeth Holmes trial, about her sort of future father-in-law trying to pretend that he had no association with the case. That was a good story, but it was also, we even noted how

well written it was and how it unfolded. That's interesting. Yeah. So that

guy I got to meet up with, and It was just – we ended up chatting with some other folks there later on. It just feels like I've been trying to explain TBTL to so many people, which speaking of things that fill me with self-loathing, the idea now that all those people are listening and that this is the show that I'm turning in is – it's not giving me a great feeling, but that's just life I guess.

Well, you know what? Let's settle down and talk about that for a second if we might because I don't know if you'll even recall this because I'm often self-deprecating, right? And not like falsely self-deprecating.

Like when I'm insecure, I'm being honest. It's not false modesty. It's real humiliation.

That sounds like a slogan or a tagline. It's not false modesty. It's true humiliation. Welcome to Andy's world. But, you know, sometimes I'll tell you when I think I've had a stinker of a show and you'll often say, huh, I didn't really notice it. And I think we're always judging our experiences on TBTL through our own experiences anyway, obviously, right? Like we could do the same show. You and I, you could think it was great because for whatever reason you were on fire and it felt good to you. And I felt like I was stumbling and bumbling around. But about, I don't know, what, three weeks ago, I had like the worst one of those in a long time for me, from my experience. And I remember even telling you like, I told you later, I'm like, hey, I cut this big chunk out and I did this and I made this joke here and I cut it out. I just like – when I'm making kind of somewhat significant edits on the show, I like you to know. I don't know why. I mean maybe in case we refer back to it or maybe it's just because I'm Catholic and it feels cleansing to tell you. But I had that –

It is weird that we have to sit in those side-by-side rooms with that screen between us when you tell me about the edits.

Yeah, and I always say, dear Luke, it's been 24 hours since my last edit. But I – and, you know, one of the – I mean there might have been a bunch of reasons why I was terrible that day or at least I felt terrible that day. But a big one was – and I don't want to say this to discourage such promotion, but it was the day after Chris Hayes mentioned the name of our podcast on his cable news show. And my guess is, even though I don't think I was, like, thinking about it the whole time, I think that this idea that we might have new listeners from, you know, just all walks of life and across the country checking out what this thing is. And I'm pretty convinced that a big part of my performance that day, what I thought to be a terrible performance, was probably because of that. And also, maybe also because of my aforementioned friend Jim Beam, who I might have been hanging out with the night before. I don't recall, frankly. But, no, there could have been a whole bunch of factors going into it. But then I was thinking about it, and I'm like, wait a second. If you are checking out a podcast, like these people that you met last night, they might have woken up this morning and just hit play on the one that already existed. Like it's always the day before that is actually the show that the new listeners potentially might hear.

And we shouldn't be in our head on those. And the beauty of it is we don't even know that we're doing that show when we're doing it. By which I mean we don't know that that's the show where there may be some extra attention. So we're doing that kind of – you were like Rousseau's Noble Savage. We are just growing up in the wilderness without any kind of impact of thinking, oh, my God, is this going to be a show that extra people listen to? And then later it becomes that, but we don't know at the time, which is beautiful.

Which is probably better, which is weird because you mentioned our many bosses before. I wonder if our bosses would agree with this concept that you and I, we think this show is better when we aren't trying, which is essentially what we're kind of arguing here, right? Is it what we're arguing?

Maybe I'm misconstruing that. Well, trying but not striving. How about that? Like trying, like putting a good show together.

Welcome to Andy's world.

There's so many taglines. we're trying but we're not like putting pressure on ourselves or thinking god you gotta we're not like gill in the simpsons trying to close the deal don't mess this up yeah right that's the that's the thing that that that usually you know kind of dooms us but the other thing that's just so crazy about doing this show five days a week for all the hours that we do it is and i've said this before it's like all that we really need for the listeners is for them to have One moment of joy Per episode I was listening to The Howard Stern show yesterday When I was driving around It was a very I felt very New York I felt like I was in the movie Private parts Because I had to get up Super early And rent a car and drive out to New Jersey And I'm just driving through like Manhattan gridlock And I'm listening to the live East Coast feed of the Howard Stern Show Which I don't usually Hear because of the time difference in the West Yeah and the fact that it's live That's appealing to me It was so exciting I was literally I was very really kind of geeked up about it I was like god this is so New York I just need to grab a copy of like the New York Post And some coffee in one of those You know New York City paper coffee cups And I would have really been living the dream. But I was listening to it. And it's like the show is fine. It is what it is. And I know people there are varying opinions on Howard Stern. But they had this. I mean, this is to nieces of mine who may be listening or other people sensitive ears. This is a little crass. But they they had this bit they did where they had two of their producers. These guys, one guy named Sal, one guy named Richard. And they kind of like collaborate on a lot of prank phone calls and things like that. They were always doing stunts, many of them involving their genitals, and they were trying to do a thing where they peed to the music of Blue Danube. So, you know, da-da-da-da-da, and it was like pee-pee, pee-pee, da-da-da-da-da, but they were at their homes because they're all doing the show remotely, and they had these buckets that they had miked so you would get maximum sound of them trying to pee into these buckets in time with the music.

Okay, I know this is crass, but this is more difficult than it even sounds because by the time it hits the bucket, you've got to be predicting when that happens, right? Because by the time the P hits gravity and then makes itself all the way down to the bucket, that's like, what, a second or two later?

I was having the exact same question. It was like, who's playing the source audio and what's the delay? Yeah, right. So what ended up happening was one guy, Richard, was amazing, hit it out of the park, was on the money each time with his little offering, as it were. The other guy, Sal, got bladder shy and couldn't do it. And it was the funniest thing I've ever heard, to hear everyone on the staff furious at him for not being able to pee on command to Blue Danube. And I was, I mean, I was.

That's not going to help. You're bladder shy Now everybody's mad at you

And he was so disappointed in himself It was just I was driving down the New Jersey Turnpike laughing My ass off and the thought I had was If you scripted this bit Or you put this bit together You would think the best outcome is that they totally Nail it but the way better Outcome was that Sal couldn't pee on command And I guess my thought was That's a good thing for me to remember I mean we don't do bits that are that elaborate We really don't do bits at all We do this one bit where we try to remember What song we ended the show with the other day But famously But you know what I mean I was thinking to myself this is so delightful And I mean I was even thinking about for Livewire For basically just about any of these media jobs that I do That I am I so much want to control everything And I want everything to go well Another great example of that is We had on Livewire We had Reese Darby the guy who plays Murray on Flight of the Conchords, we had him on and he was a maniac he was just running around the stage, he got up on a stool and was crowing like an eagle I don't think eagles really crow how do you describe the sound that an eagle makes?

Scream, it's a scream

Screaming like an eagle? You'd think I would have thought of that considering there's like 8 million things that are called the screaming eagles they I and I was just I was so sort of discombobulated by the experience and I felt so bad about it and I was so embarrassed. I felt like I wasn't I wasn't running things. I wasn't managing things. That is the the moment of live where that I've heard about from more people who are at that show as being the most delightful part, the most delightful 10 minutes of the show they've ever been to. One of the takeaways is Reese Darby is very funny and entertaining. The other takeaway for me was I am not a good judge of how this shit is going. and much like a Howard Stern I mean Howard's a pretty good broadcaster so he probably assessed in the moment where the funny was and started to go there but I guess my thought was for you and I in the diminished degree to which we do that kind of stuff we should give ourselves a break because sometimes the things that we think didn't pay off or the stories that didn't go anywhere etc that could be for whatever reason the moment that kind of just sparks joy in a listener's brain and if we can do that once per episode I'm not saying we've done that yet but we still have a good 45 minutes to like do that and if i think about it that way i feel less pressure

yeah that is a good thing to remember and i kind of have similar thoughts as i listen to my beloved dan lebitard show you know it's like i listen to so much of that it's a glut and sometimes i have i have

thoughts about that show in the same way listeners are probably maybe you know throwing their phones listening to us i'll be like why didn't you end it there i literally had this thought yesterday they'll do this thing where um they they'll just like you know kind of stop the tape or edit the tape later so that the the whatever hour you're listening to just ends on on a good note and i'm on a funny note like somebody in the in the peanut gallery of producers just yells one good joke and you can just end it right there and like yesterday they just blew it like they had the perfect ending joke but then they let it roll for like 15 more seconds and just kind of petered out I'm just like you why did you not end on Chris's joke what are you doing but I also mostly remember the joy and there's so much that I just tune out like when they're talking about basketball I don't know who a lot of these basketball fellas are and so like I don't know what they're talking about But then eventually, like you say, they'll kind of land on something funny and Levitard is good at steering the conversation there or kind of stopping the conversation there and like lingering in that moment when things get awkward. And then you kind of mentally perk up again without even really noticing it. And that's what I remember. And also, I will just say, as you were describing that, like, I mean, let's just stop and appreciate this job, which we often do in a lot of ways. But, like, I have a job where people will somewhat regularly email me or contact me in some way and just say, hey, I heard you say that on the show. That was an underappreciated joke. Or I had to pull over laughing. Like, I just saw one yesterday. Somebody said that, you know, Andrew, like, kind of subtly said it. Keep sending it. Just send them to me, andrew at tbtl.net. And, like, what a – I mean, what a blessing. Honestly, like I just cannot believe that I have a job where not only like do I enjoy doing this and, you know, all everything that goes along with the job. But then then as the emails roll in and again, I'm not saying that I'm bombarded with people who are saying, Andrew, you're hilarious or something. But I just have a job where people will stop to let me know that I made them laugh. And like that is that's really something. I never thought I'd have that.

Yeah, that is really a lucky thing that this has sort of happened for us. Another I wouldn't say lucky thing, Andrew, because what is luck is the intersection of what perseverance and perspiration. I don't know. I read that rabbit's feet or something. It's not luck. It's you, my friend. A few weeks ago, I don't know if you remember this, but you did a little Googling while the show was starting because I was complaining about the fact I think I was in Texas and I had to keep clearing my throat because I was on the road. I had my beloved little mute button so that I could, you know, make it so my mic wasn't on conveniently. And you looked something up, and I went ahead and bought that. And let me tell you, my friend, it is a beautiful thing. Or I should say, it...

Jalapeno! Jalapeno! Jalapeno!

I have this cough button, Andrew. I'm just going to now... Now I'm turning it back on. I feel like king in the castle. This was the number one hard thing about doing the show on the road was not having a way to mute my microphone because it turns out I clear my throat a lot. And this is enhanced or exacerbated by the fact that when I'm at my normal place, I have one of these buttons. And so I have this sort of nervous habit of constantly muting my microphone. And so when I go on the road and I can't do that or when I couldn't do that, it really did affect my state of mind. And now that I have this thing, this mic switch, I just feel like I am ready to really just host the shit out of this show. I just cleared my throat after I said that. You didn't even hear it.

Yes, I did. I should have told you that is not working, by the way. We can hear it. This whole time you've been clearing your throat directly. You heard all the things I was muttering. Oh, my God. I mean, some of the stuff. Very good. God, why does he do this? What a language that you use. Rough. I was muted for that part. Yeah, no, I didn't hear any of that. Oh, I was going to say, I don't think I ever fully realized, you know, I used to kind of make fun of my dad, like to his face and also probably on the show about like his tendency to like clear his throat as he calls it, sling blading. And by the way, do you also call it sling blading, right? I'm not – or you're not getting that from my dad. Yeah, but I think that was from Carrie, I believe. Oh, really?

I have to say that I was, after I would go to Taco Time and have some of their delicious, what they call ranch dressing, which is not ranch dressing, some other thing. After I would have that, because I have some kind of weird thing where if I eat creamy stuff, I have to clear my throat for like a good two hours. I need, really what I need is a cough button for life. Like I need to be able to just constantly hit the button that I just hit and mute myself in real life because I'm always clearing my throat. But anyway, I would do that a lot in the car and Carrie would sometimes say, easy sling blade.

I feel like my dad...

says that too, although maybe my dad just has other Sling Blade jokes. I know my dad does an

imitation of Sling Blade. Well, your dad, whenever I talk to him, he says he doesn't reckon he has no reason to kill nobody. So that definitely checks out.

My dad definitely does an imitation of the Sling Blade character. He likes the french fries.

What if your dad's french fried potatoes? What if your dad's impression was of Billy Bob Thornton roasting the host of Q, Gian Gomeschi? You wouldn't say that to Tom Petty, would you? Hey, Dad, do your Billy Bob Thornton impression. You wouldn't say that to Tom Petty, would you?

Okay, all of that is to say I never quite realized until like this past year how much the throat clearing phlegm thing comes with middle age or comes on in middle age. Because I've been clearing my throat more than ever in the past couple of years, I've noticed. You have to have this portable mute button now. And, of course, again, I know I keep on just talking about the other podcasts I listen to, but, like, it was always an ongoing joke that this guy, this Dugatz on that show, always had a phlegmy throat. And he's also kind of a smoker, which I think adds to it as well. But, like, I'm just hearing it more and more, like, with some of the older characters on that show, even Levitard himself will, like, sometimes just power through. But the young guys on that show, I never hear them. I never hear them clearing their throats or kind of getting to that point where you can tell you're trying to clear your throat without actually making that sound. But you're just trying to power through and talk through it. I hope it's okay to say this, but I hear our buddy Bean, Bean Baxter on his podcast, Cup of Tea in a Chat. I hear him struggling with it a little bit more than I've ever noticed before. And I've been listening to him for a really long time. So either there is something in the air or it turns out, oh, yeah, you just get to a certain age and this is what happens.

Yeah, I don't like it. It's not the most attractive quality. No, it's it's I haven't gotten to the point where I clear my throat around Becca yet. Does she know you do it, though? I go into another room to clear my throat to preserve the mystery of the relationship. All right. Let's take a quick break and we're going to come back. We're going to thank some donors of the day, the folks who make it possible that this is our job and who helped me afford this fine Rolls MS-111 mic switch. And we're going to do the top stories and some Blur's Days coming up here on TBTL. speaking of the donors of the day let's thank some including jason shelley right here in new york new york city get a jason shelley he's out in brooklyn thank you jason for supporting the program justin wells is in norco california i've never heard of norco wells wells wells how about louise bradbury up there in edmonton alberta i'm trying to think of what my what's my edmonton like point of reference i don't know if i have one actually well we need to establish one we've never done a show outside the oilers Oh, is that true? Are they still the Oilers? If we did a show, I don't know why in the world I would want to volunteer us for this. If we did a show in Canada, I would be tempted to go to Wayne, Alberta, where the Wayne, Alberta Tavern is. Where, when I was in that Molson beer commercial, we stopped there. Oh, yeah. Because it was sort of like a, you know, it's the kind of place that location scouts love because it just looks really authentic. But the funny part was So we went in there with all this gear And this was a very elaborate shoot This was in the days of film as well So it was like very equipment heavy And there's just these two old Curmudgeonly like oil roustabouts There's a lot of oil work up there Or there used to be And they were sitting in the back And I just thought they were going to be pretty dazzled by us But they were like We liked being in the Tom Cochran video better Because that's also where Life is a Highway video was shot By Tom Cochran Also part of the movie Shanghai West With Owen Wilson And Jackie Chan was shot there It turns out like every major production in Canada Has been to this place Because it just reads as like a Kind of like the bar that Pee Wee Herman goes into And does the tequila dance on the table It sort of has that vibe

So you want to do TBTL from there?

Yeah from there But again it's like why do I want to go back I was nervous enough to go to the place we went in Laramah The Pink Panther in Laramah

That stressed me out enough We couldn't get listeners to Laramah We could get listeners to Alberta, though.

Yeah, we could get Louise Bradbury to come on over. I mean, Edmonton. Come on, Louise.

Louise, why would you not come to our live show that we just came up with?

How about, oh, look at this. Cassandra Caswell is in Victoria, British Columbia. We are just, we are dominating the Canadian listening space today. So we got two people that are going to come to this event. Nice. Cassandra and Louise. Now, Dave Nakagawara is on the fence, but he's in Port Townsend.

He might have seen us when we did our Port Townsend show at the theme festival, maybe.

I mean, here's what Dave could do. The Victoria Clipper steams right past Port Townsend. I know this because I used to live out there and I used to watch the Victoria Clipper every day. Does it stop or just steams by? No, it doesn't. That's the tough part. And it's a catamaran, so it goes really fast. So, Dave, you're going to need to get out in the water. You're going to need to get on the Victoria Clipper somehow and get up to British Columbia, where everyone is hanging out now. And then Heather Rude is in Bothell, Washington, and that's not that far from Port Townsend. So you can head over, you and Dave, get on the Victoria Clipper, come on up to B.C.

You hang on to Dave's ankles. He's going to grab the boat. You're going to swim out there. He's going to grab the boat, the catamaran. I love that word. And then and you hang on to him And we'll just have like kind of a chain of listeners Dragged behind this boat

I think I told this story On the show Not that long ago but you know my dad Painted the signs for the Victoria Clipper I didn't know that And so We had this I do think I have told this part of the story which is we were supposed to Go on a family camping trip One summer and we were all excited about it And the day we were supposed to go the fire department came to my dad's sign shop and told him that he was not storing his cans of paint properly like there are rules around that and they have to be stored in a certain sort of fire proof storage situation and um and and and so my dad being my i mean if it was me i would have just been like whatever we're going camping but my dad being a very much a rule follower he was like well this is i must remedy this right now i must build these these cabinets to certain specifications so that they are fire safe so I can store the paint in them, which meant our camping trip was off. We were devastated. But my mom, this is where my mom is so great. We were all super sad, and my mom was like, hey, Walter, didn't you do some signs for the Victoria Clipper? Didn't they say they were going to give you some free tickets? And my dad was like, yeah. And my mom calls them up and talks them out of, I mean, with my family, I guess it would have been nine free tickets. At that time, it was maybe seven free tickets. Probably Sam and Dave weren't born yet. And so my mom, like, finagled these tickets on the Victoria Clipper and then finagled some cheap hotel in Victoria. And basically the trip changed in length. It was shorter. But we got to go to Victoria, which was so much better than camping.

Huh. I don't think I – man, if you've told that story before, I think I warged out of it. That is a nice story. Also, quick side note. I never heard – I mean, obviously I know your brothers. But I never kind of – Sam and Dave. That's obviously a famous music duo. The soul group. They're not named after that, right?

I don't think so. My mom and dad are not big soul heads. Although my brother Sam does just a killer cover of I Wish It Would Rain. I don't know if I know that song. That soul song. Yeah, we had a family karaoke night. It was very funny. This was many years ago when I still lived in Seattle. And I don't think I even knew Sam could sing. And he just got up there and did I Wish It Would Rain. I think that's The Temptations maybe. I'm looking at it now.

It says The Temptations. I say we go out with that.

Yeah, man. And then tomorrow we play the end of the show to remember what we went out with.

Anyway. To welcome our new listeners.

I don't know what the point of that story was other than the Victoria Clippers very fast. And I did get a little seasick on it. But still, worth checking out, particularly if it will get more of our listeners to Canada where we're officially having a live show at the Wayne, Alberta Tavern. Again, thank you to all of our donors of the day. Thanks for making TBTL possible. Hello and welcome to Top Story. I thought this was kind of an interesting story in Vox by Gabby Del Valle, explaining basically how spirit Halloween stores work. Because I just find them to be so interesting. I said this the other day when we didn't get to the topic, but I find them to be both very fun to be inside. You and I have gone to a spirit Halloween store together once.

Yeah, we did. What were we looking for? Well, we were recording our special Halloween spooktacular for the radio, and APM distributed that to local public radio stations. I don't think that part of the show ended up in the broadcast, though. I just don't think we got enough good tape, right? Didn't we? And you and I, man, we are loathe to throw away tape. Like, anything is content. We use every part of the interview. Exactly. but I don't think we got anything out of that did we? And you did buy you bought a Saved by the Bell inspired hat I believe. Which I still wear by the way based on high i saw a um some promo for a show i don't know if it's on netflix or where it is but it's it's some sort of like high school um i think it's sort of like a horror tv show that's set at a high school but the first thing they flash is the sign of the high school it's bayside and i thought pick a new fictional high school one of the more well-known fictional high schools of the last 20 years is bayside high from saved by the bell like you can come up with elmwood you can Come up with Centennial I don't know something else you went with Bayside Like you you know this is a dumb question

But there's no chance that this is one Of those like more mature reboots Of something you know how they did that with Like the Archie Andrews Universe and what have you and Sabrina The Teenage Witch you know what

I'm not comfortable saying no because I'm usually wrong when I say that when I'm dismissive Of things like that but I didn't get that sense But maybe it is maybe there's a horror version of Saved by the Bell called Slayed by the Bell. And maybe that's what I was seeing. If so, I retract my comments. Anyway, I find these spirit stores to be kind of fascinating because they just, again, they're both intriguing and depressing because they're always going up. They're always hermit crabbing in some kind of space that basically was something else, and then they went out of business. They're sort of the ultimate, like, you know, so many regular traditional brick-and-mortar stores are really hurt by the Internet. And it turns out Halloween costumes are pretty internet-proof because people like – talking to somebody in this article who looks at this stuff said people like discovery. People like going into a spirit Halloween store and wandering around. Like they don't know what they're going to get when they go in. Whereas when you're on the internet, you typically are sort of going for a specific purpose. I'm going to get this costume. I'm going to be Dwight Schrute from The Office or whatever.

I was that one year. Oh. Because I looked, I mean, I don't look like him, I think, anymore, even as we both age. But what's his name? Rainn Wilson, not Bing Rames. But, yeah, I used to look remarkably like him when I was freshly shaved and whatnot. And so I dressed up. It was a very easy Halloween costume, too. I just basically wore clothes in the style that I would usually wear only a little bit nerdier and a little bit tighter.

So if you wanted to be Dwight Schrute Although you're right That's the bad example by me Because most people have the makings for a Dwight Schrute outfit in their house But let's say you wanted something more elaborate You go online, you're looking around for it And then you find it People like to go to these spirit Halloween stores Because they don't know what they're going to get They just like to wander Also, it was started by a guy in California Back in the 80s He had a clothing store Called like Spirit Women's Decor He was in the Castro Valley in California And what he noticed was that Around Halloween time there was a costume shop Like across the parking lot from him And there would be a line around the store Of people going in to buy costumes And no one was coming into his Spirit women's decor shop And so he was like screw this So the next year he got wigs and stuff And he started calling himself Spirit Halloween And then people came there He sold $100,000 worth of Halloween stuff In like a month and uh and and so he just basically decided to drop the spirit that's why the name is spirit it's not named like oh i'm a spirit it was just literally called spirit like apparel although it is perfect yes it works out uh and so um he eventually just got out of the apparel thing and got full time into doing these pop-up halloween stores he sold the business at some point um but there's you know thousands and thousands of them it's also i guess so they they they all close down on november 1st every spirit halloween in america closes november 1st which i also found weirdly interesting and the one of the the the biggest part of the spirit halloween experience and they employ thousands and thousands of people is finding the stores for next year so basically november 1st they all close november 2nd this team of people starts looking around for bombed out cvs's to put the next year's spirit halloween store in and the other thing they got to do is and this guy apparently is still in charge of it he sold the company but he still runs it it's this dude from california who's trying to figure out what the hot halloween costume will be like a month before halloween so he's like trying to figure out which movie is popular which memes are are winning the meme wars and he's it's just this guy basically he's probably got some people helping him now but he has to sort of bet on halloween costumes he has to try to he's like me with my seahawk prop bets which by the way have not been going great lately turns out when you bet something that's like a 70 to 1 there's a reason why we were getting 70 to 1 on it but anyway i'm gonna lay some paper on the browns tonight if i can oh you're just gonna look at

what the prop bets are and pick and choose or do you have a plan here I don't know. I've got to see what the line is. I've got to do a little research later today. But anyway, I think that's also kind of fascinating. I mean, this goes on with a lot of businesses, I guess, where you have to kind of like buy stuff before you're actually selling it. You have to sort of anticipate. I mean, this is what a supply chain is, I guess, effectively. But the idea that this dude is like trying to decide if, you know, I don't know, fill in the blank, whatever's popular in the culture right now, if that's going to be the thing this Halloween. Or if it's going to be something else And if you invest too much in Ant-Man And it ends up being a year that everybody wants to be Thanos You know, it's like you bet wrong

I'm trying to think And I don't know if this article got into it as an aside at all But I'm trying to think what would most likely be The most popular costume this year As we inch ever closer to Halloween Now, of course, there was a Halloween last year They don't cancel holidays But I don't think, you know we were still deeper into the pandemic then yeah and so i was being discouraged it was yeah it's huge news this year that fauci said kids can go trick-or-treating oh see i didn't see that but for the for the like let's say the more like adult or like young adult uh outfits the college parties or whatnot what do you think are i mean they're going to be pandemic related right is it going to be the molecule like the um you know the coronavirus yeah covid19 i feel like that was last

year because a lot of college students were still based on what i see on tiktok yeah i feel like a lot of people were still just going out and doing their thing so do you think generally the pandemic

related things like a roll of toilet paper would have been last year we're not going to be seeing

that as much this year yeah i think that i feel like last year was probably peak we're dressing up as something that's very uh pandemic related i actually recorded a couple of commentaries today for cbs and one of them was basically me outing myself as being somebody who works from bed a lot and um uh and they they said we might not air this till january so i had written it kind of like current status like hey you know more people are vaccinated and some signs of normalcy are coming back and they were like can you write it for january so i wrote it as if normal life is resuming oh and it felt very dicey to me it does seem dicey and of course i was like they could have

you recut it i i suppose but like yeah that seems i was like wow i mean it makes sense and if it ends

up not making if it ends up you know not working they'll just not air it but i was like i'm writing this like i was trying to imagine january i think what's january gonna be like like i mean the one thing is the vaccine mandates are working so we are getting i mean like vaccine you know levels of vaccination are going up because of mandates and because of, you know, some people who are on the fence are getting off the fence. I mean, there is, despite the protests and the crazy behaviors that get a lot of attention, broadly speaking, it's working. We are having more vaccinated Americans. So it seems, and, you know, and in most places, COVID is down, you know, even the Delta variant. So I feel confident that by January, things are going to feel pretty different but it was still just weird to put myself in that future mindset where we're all going back to work and my big joke is i'll come back to work if i can bring my bed etc etc you

know there's been something on my mind for the past 24 hours which i don't even know that i need to go back to this topic now it's you know kind of serious topic but there's just one thing that i i want to mention maybe bring up a coda for our conversation on the washington state football coach rolovich what's his name mike todd rolovich that's how he pronounces it todd is that is it anyway um you look it up it doesn't really matter all i wanted to say was you and i had this conversation about um how strange it seemed or maybe i'll just say it seems strange to me that this person was going to give up. Nick!

Nick! Roll of itch!

Nick!

How strange it seemed that he was just gonna kind of roll over and lose his job because he wasn't gonna get vaccinated, yet he also wasn't grandstanding about the vaccination. He kind of was. He was making national news because he was the only college coach who wouldn't go to media day because he refused to get vaccinated. He was making big headlines, But he wasn't like he wasn't he wasn't saying a lot about it. He wasn't grandstanding about this is my body or I think this is government reach or anything. He just was trying not to address it. Well, and you and I just thought that was notable and weird and interesting. I won't trash talk. I won't be out there blowhard. Of course, it's because he's suing. Like, of course, it's because he's suing. My question is, who is representing him?

The Evergreen Freedom Foundation? Some?

like you know Larry Clayman's judicial watch like these are these are ridiculous like right wing outfits that are you know that are often bringing lawsuits that don't go anywhere like I thought that was so funny I was like wow you have a lawyer who is very bad at reading the law because it seems extremely clear that they could

fire him for cause well it'll just I think it'll be interesting and I don't know anything about this so I might be completely wrong in saying this but I mean And I wonder if this will be, you know, somebody can take up this lawsuit and not only could he potentially get a payout, but also it could maybe put like those religious exemptions under more scrutiny and potentially say that, like, you know, because he did apply for a religious exemption, which was denied. But I almost wonder if it could if this lawsuit could actually impact these vaccination laws, potentially, if it went his way. Are you saying you think there's no way it would break his way?

Well, that's sound of slight exaberation. Let me mute my mic and remember how to host a podcast. We have new listeners, Luke. What are you doing? They've left long ago, thankfully. We're in minute 52 of this. But that sound of exasperation for me was remembering who's on the Supreme Court. Yeah. Because I was like, yeah, this seems like this case has no merit. And then I was like, yeah, but if you kick it up to the Supreme Court, particularly when it comes to religious exemptions, I mean, this court is just crazy for it. Yes. I mean, they were like, you know, like early on in this, they were they were basically, if I remember right, you know, they were burning the candle at both ends so that they could protect in air quotes people's rights to, you know, not do this and that based on. I think it was that churches wanted to meet churches, wanted to not have to abide by the rules around how many people could gather. and this court you know met at one in the morning to make sure that that these churches and i think some synagogues could you know still get a thousand people in a room together but then when it comes to other things like the uh abortion law in texas they're just like oh you know what monday's not good for us amy coney barrett's just like you know this is just this week is crazy yeah how about we just not like when they don't like you know when when basically avoiding or ignoring the issue benefits their purposes i.e. leaves a piece of you know a law or a ruling in place that they like they have no time for it but if it's something that they want to be active on they're extremely active i guess my point being you never know they could be ruling on rolovich ruling or rolling they could be rolling on rolovich and um well i i'm sorry who knows what they would say i'm sorry

that i brought the conversation here i mean sort of i mean i don't know um but i i am just kind of curious when you saw that news headline yesterday did you have the same personal feeling i did which was like oh doy yes why didn't i see that or were you legit just no surprised or what were you what

was your reaction well uh i was uh i was my first thought was um this guy's not gonna go this is not gonna go anywhere like i was like who advised him is he representing himself is this you know is this uh what is that uh pro se like uh because i just thought there's like it's pretty clear that they could fire him for cause i thought so my first thought wasn't oh of course that's what he's going to do my first thought was like this guy's an idiot he's just going to burn up a bunch of money or you know some lawyer probably took it on contingent or it's a law you know organization that is spoiling for this fight but my thought was like oh this isn't going to go anywhere this guy's a moron but you you could be right i mean if he's if he's if he's trying to go via the religious exemption that could get tricky and then again if it gets to the u.s supreme court all bets are off yeah i might just be wrong about that i think there i have an app now always bet on black robes that's what i have a sotomayor to uh hit a home run and get eight total bases i have sotomayor getting more total bases than shohei otani tonight and i think that could really get me out of a couple of jams um this other uh article that i saw the other day that i wanted to tell you about a little bit because i'm always complaining on the show about ambulances driving by my house in portland uh this is a new york times piece from christopher melly sirens loud ineffective and risky experts say uh they did this study uh about you know here's the thing when you see an ambulance and i'm not trying to i want to make sure i'm clear i know we have like listener ben out in somewhere east out here who's a firefighter and we've got other listeners who are emts and i'm not trying to drag people who are emts that's extremely hard and i would say gruesome work and uh i really appreciate that people do that and uh you know so i don't want to sound like i know what that world is like but i don't like ambulance sounds And I was surprised to see in this study that basically when ambulances blast their sirens. and their lights, it shaves 42 seconds off of the average time of getting to the call. And then when they did another study in Salt Lake City, where they had what they call hot calls versus cold calls, hot calls is the lights are on, the sirens are going, cold calls is they're just driving it. The difference in the timing of hot and cold calls in terms of getting to the hospital was 26 seconds. So in other words, all of that noise, all of that disruption of our of our lives, the rest of us, it adds up to 26 seconds. And, you know, when you see an ambulance, you sort of assume the person in the ambulance is unfortunately maybe in cardiac arrest. There's something happening that is just literally 26 seconds counts. But but this article points out that most things that people have been taken to the hospital for are not that. This guy who studies this says

And doesn't like these sirens and thinks it's not a great idea Because it's also, by the way, bad for the hearing Of the people driving the ambulance It's stressful for the people in the ambulance They found that the people who were being transported Are more afraid when the sirens are on And everything, it feels to them Like they're in a more precarious position This guy said, killing nuns and children at crosswalks Because you are running lights and sirens On a mouse bite Doesn't make any sense On a mouse bite? Oh, a mouse bite of time No, I think he means like someone got bitten by a mouse They call an ambulance In other words, not all Ambulance responses, not all issues that people Are in an ambulance are created equal And the actual time that you gain By blasting Those lights and those sirens Is pretty minimal

In other words, you could do it one out of every Ten times I didn't read this And so I don't know why I would just say To you that I'm dubious over an article that was reported researched and that you actually read and i have done none of that um but i just i would like to know number one if they're saying that um i think the first stat you gave was it takes 45 seconds off it shaves 45 seconds off on average one of the studies found

it was like 45 and the other the one in salt lake city found was like 26 well i would like to know

what the average ambulance transportation time is so in other words is the average trip about 10 minutes you know like i i don't know you know how right 26 seconds relative to 10 exactly 26 seconds relative to an hour and there's just something that i just find that i just find it so hard to believe just gut checking just like based on my experience of when i see ambulances racing. Like if I were to drive to downtown Seattle right now, but I didn't have to obey any traffic light situation, then I would get there sooner. Now, I know that there's often they have to slow down to go through traffic. So maybe, you know, you're blaring your siren and flashing your lights, but it doesn't mean that you can just drive at 90 miles per hour because you're still slowing down for those intersections. You're still weaving in between cars depending on the situation because you know nobody knew that an ambulance was going to come so everybody's trying to pull over but it's not always well that's another big part of the problem

what's that go ahead there are tons of accidents associated with ambulances a study of ambulance crashes by the national highway traffic safety administration estimated that an average of 4 500 accidents occur annually resulting in an average of 33 deaths and injuries to 2 600 people per year so the ambulances i'm not trying to be anti-ambulance by the way again it's a thankless job and if i hurt myself i would call the ambulance and i would be grateful that they came

be such a weird stance that's my next cbs commentary i'm anti-hospitals hospitals have

had it too good for too long yeah no but like i the reason that this that this story jumped out at me is because well first of all i just have like ed i have an extra sensitive response which is funny because i'm also losing my hearing like i am legitimately going to get a hearing test yeah i realized i was on a walk with becca the other day and i had to say what like we're just outside walking and i had to say what like four times um so that's not good but ironically messing with you yeah he's like just just mouthing words but actually not saying anything exactly very we have fun but i uh despite the fact that my hearing is actually not great i I'm very sensitive to loud noises. Somebody bombed down 7th Avenue by where I'm staying on a motorcycle yesterday. I was coming back from my jog, and it was just one of those, like, real kind of loud. It wasn't a Harley. It was more like, you know, a newer kind of motorcycle model.

Oh, is that housekeeping?

We've got housekeeping.

Do you need to take a moment?

Can you come back later?

Hey, I just used my mic mute. Oh! but i wanted to hear you you cut us out you cut the listening audience out i wanted to hear the irony is the irony is that because of the pandemic all of the i don't know maybe on tomorrow show i want to talk to you about this hotel too i got really baited and switched basically the hotel that i usually stay at in new york it changed its name and then they put a new hotel where the old hotel was and then they bought a different hotel on the same street and started calling it the same name as the old hotel so i show up at the place i usually

go and it was closed on sunday night but it's a different management company and a different building or it's the same management just moved moved their location it is different management

and different location but the same name so it has nothing to do with it it's not even like hey

we've moved but you enjoy our service and our style it would be like if you tried to go to

teddy's but the teddy's was in that starbucks that i go to yeah and it's not and it's being

run by totally different people yeah that would be different but but the other funny part is

because it's the pandemic they're not doing housekeeping you have to request housekeeping which as you and i have talked about on the show the great luxury of staying in a hotel is coming back and having your bed all nice and made everybody loves that i came back yesterday after a very long day of work and the bed was not made nothing had been touched because you have to

personally request it i thought that you didn't care about that as much i thought that was me

i thought you didn't mind i don't care about as much as you do but i do like it i don't like to go like four days without it happening but the funny part is i didn't request it so i don't know what the rules are because housekeeping just knocked on my door um without me asking hey can you come take care of the room so i don't know today the day you're checking out i wonder if they just want you out of there no i don't i don't actually uh leave till saturday oh oh wow you have a whole wow you're like you're new york luke that's right i'm uh i'm here in the large apple and i'm loving it jerry um i uh i was just gonna say it's it's this guy was heading down 7th avenue on this motorcycle and it was so loud and so aggressive and i just was like if i could have you know i don't know thrown a stake at him like uncle rico in napoleon dynamite i would have i was so mad at the sound my point is i don't like loud aggressive sounds and i think i i especially like i i'm overly sensitive to them and so if i hear a study that says maybe they don't have to blast the ambulance stuff so much i am i am because of my own personal hang-ups i'm inclined towards wanting to go with that information the other thing that i thought was kind of interesting is people can't hear ambulance sirens anymore because our cars are so soundproofed they write in this article our cars are so much better at insulating us from sound outside that we don't hear they did a study and people basically if they had their radio on in their car or if they were on their cell phone they could not hear the ambulance until it got very close to them which is why they now have these things called growlers on ambulances which are a low frequency rumble that cuts through modern soundproofing in cars so they've got all these ambulances now have something called a growler on them that they can activate because it actually like you feel it in your chest basically and you know to get over because you couldn't hear the high frequency stuff because your car

is so well insulated this reminds me of the time i caught my grandma in a lie this is a weird place to take this story did she say her dad was an engineer she did i said great granddaddy i don't even know who my great grandpa would be on that side anyway um i have this is so stupid i regret bringing this up but i just have this weird memory as a kid my grandma was this is grandma walsh um she uh she's not a jokester right my grandfather her husband was the type of guy who would like be talking to you in a serious voice and then start just like slipping in lies to kind of see if you're paying attention or whatever kind of the way i guess maybe i i have a little bit of that too like sometimes i'll just say something to you in a way that i'm setting it up like i'm being yeah sincere but it's actually hey hey that's just one of those classic andrew spoofs anyway i probably get that from my grandfather who would do that my grandma not not that type of personality she was like kind of your quintessential little old lady right and um one time she was talking she was telling me and my uh sister about like some cat or i can't remember if they had a cat or a neighbor had a cat and she was telling a true story about this cat that actually literally got stuck up in a tree and then she said that they called the fire department and we're like they did not actually call the fire department she's like they did and they came here with their big red truck and they were ringing the bell and me and my sister looked at each other like ringing the bell what is it 1939 they have sirens now they don't have a bell on those trucks and then grandma got this big grin and she was just joking she was just she was just doing one of those classic walsh spoofs anyway sorry that i interrupted today do they all get out of the

fire truck with that like like basically i don't even know what you call it it's like a trampoline but they're holding it yes yeah exactly right and also you call that what's the name for that

thing i don't i don't know yeah it's not it's i mean sometimes do they have something that is basically a trampoline i mean nowadays it's like they probably have more inflatable ones right

It looked like that when I was a kid, but it was always the cartoon, the fire truck pulls up, sirens wailing. You know, by the way, that in the early days of, like, before we had sirens, Dalmatians in, like, places like New York, this is why, like, the Dalmatian is associated with fire departments. They would have Dalmatians in front of the fire truck barking. What? To, like, indicate that it was an emergency. That was the origin of the siren. Isn't that crazy? That's pre-Bell. Yeah. Back when they I don't know Do you have to whip the dogs How did you get the dogs To bark on command But it's in this article It's in this article That they would have Dalmatians would be running In front of the fire truck To let everyone know That the fire truck Was going somewhere To you know Deal with the fire

Well I'm glad My lying grandma Didn't know about that Should have messed up The story even worse Grandma Can I use your mute button You weren't muted When you said that I was going to say Can I use your mute button I have some more choice words For Grandma Walsh

There's a right way to rock Get a wrong way to roll You can't just listen to your soul Just remember that life is number one You can be having so much fun Just remember that life is much fun You can be nothing but one

Well, this is a first, but I am going to give a little trigger warning on the Blur's Days, Luke. It's not super serious, but there is something coming up that I found to be pretty gross that will be in the second Blur's Day message that we read. Would you like me to read that one, then? Doesn't matter to me. I just wanted to, sure, yeah, I'll read this first one, and you read the second one, But it's gross, but it's also interesting.

I know you have sensitive ears, though. I do. You want me to mute my microphone while I'm reading the second one? I can't.

Yes, please do. You need a switch that's like a mute button, but it still patches through to the listeners. You're just muting. It just goes around you. It just goes around me, exactly. All right, let's kick things off with an innocent one here. Megan in Horseheads. Hey, that place is gorgeous. Yeah, it is. I would like to wish my sister and fellow 10, Carrie, in Columbus, Indiana, a very happy 40th Blur's Day. Uh-oh. Watch out for those. You're going to be clearing your throat like crazy pretty soon, Carrie. Not until 45, though. Yeah, that's true. This is honestly like 40 did not. I didn't feel that old at 40, but I feel old at 45. Yeah, I feel it a little bit more, too. I'm knocking on the door 45 myself here. I've got a lot of white in my beard now. Now, if I don't trim back my beard and it starts growing long, the tips are getting white. Anyway, this isn't about me and my decrepit aging body. This is about Carrie in Columbus, Indiana, and her aging decrepit body. Sorry, Carrie. You're beautiful. Megan says, I had a blast celebrating with Carrie, cousins, and friends in Charleston, South Carolina last weekend. So happy Blur's Day to Carrie. Sorry, I was so rude.

Mike says, I just realized it's going to be my great friend Schaefer's birthday. I love him. He is amazing and inspiring in every possible way There's a pic of him and me in the woods of Arkansas And I am clearly dipping Copenhagen I never got into dipping Me neither, never tried it I tried it once and it made me violently ill I like fell into some bushes Sean Kellogg's older brother, Chad Kellogg Who ended up being an incredible mountain runner He had like the world record for speed running a bunch of mountains Sadly he passed away He gave me a big plug of dip I put it in my lip And then just immediately got vertigo

Yeah, even me I loved experimenting with tobacco products I bought all kinds of cigarettes In my youth As youth should not do But yeah, that never seemed appealing to me Maybe because I'd heard so many stories of people saying Oh yeah, the first time I tried it I just vomited And be like, well then how about I just skip that part You know the part where you vomited

It seems like a high bar to entry Let's make a product that's fiberglass That is not great for you And by the way, Mike Enjoy your dip Look, we all have our habits Oh yeah, I'm not trying to be judgy I'm just saying it's not Well, I am But then I'm also trying to be not judgy by saying Live your life, Mike But it's a weird thing to think that they got this product off the ground Okay, here it is We put some fiberglass in it so it'll actually make micro incisions in your lips It'll get into your bloodstream It's pretty addictive, it's also not great for you Oh, and also, the best part, you vomit the first time you try it. That's not nearly the grossest part of this message from Mike. He says also, he's talking here about Schaefer, he once took a small taste of my pee when I came to visit him in Austin. I bet he thought I forgot about that, but I didn't.

I don't think that's the kind of thing you'd forget about.

No. I'll never even, I wasn't even there, and I'll never forget about it. Right? Like, I feel like we should just cancel the Blurs days if that's how people are going to treat it. I don't know. What the hell happened? I mean, it's like one of those things where it's like, I want to know the backstory here, except I actively don't want to know the backstory here, if that makes any sense.

I put me down as actively wanting to know. I need to know, was it an accident? Was it a dare? I need to know how this came about. You know what? Mike, just email me directly. Luke at tbtl.net. And then Luke will use his special button and he'll tell the listeners.

Yes, exactly. And Andrew will never hear it. Summer says, I would like to wish Lloyd a happy Blur's Day. Hey, Lloyd. He's the only 10 I know IRL and the number one TBTL hot pizza news correspondent. Based on my own exhaustive, non-existent research. Thank you, Lloyd, for always being the first to check in and say, Hey, I hope you had a great birthday.

I'll tell you what. Over the years, we have, I mean, not only did I go to Las Vegas and do a story about a pizza convention at Lloyd's Prompting, but there are a surprising number of pizza-related stories that are relevant to our interest. Lloyd is sending in a lot of stories. You can tell he reads a lot of industry mags about things in the pizza industry. And again, it generates a lot of content for the show. So thank you, Lloyd, and happy birthday.

Hey, guess what I subscribe to now as of, like, an hour and a half ago? What? Harper's. You jealous? Ooh, I am jealous. A friend of mine. Oh, I love the Harper's Index. I know. That's the first thing I read online. Actually, a friend of the show, Barbara Bogave, who I guess I've had her on the show before when you've been out. Have you met her? You don't really know her, do you?

I met her years ago when she was co-hosting Weekend America.

with our friend Radke? Yes, of course. That makes sense. Anyway, she's one of my favorite people. I know nobody like her. And we started emailing out of the blue yesterday, and she included an article that she had read in Harper's Magazine. It was not even an article. It was a bit of oral history that was included in a book, and it was excerpted in Harper's Magazine from 1989. And she sent it to me, and she said, this is me and my husband. It's one of our favorite things. We model our relationship on this couple that's being interviewed about their experience going through the Dust Bowl. They're just like a couple of characters. It's a delight. And I'm like, oh, maybe I could kind of download the original PDF of this from the website. I see you can do it here, but you have to subscribe first. I'm like, God, I miss Harper's so much. I used to just pick one up randomly while, like, wandering around Harvard Square or whatever back in the day when I was living in New Hampshire. Sure. One of my favorite experiences. I actually wanted a Harper's during the pandemic. So I went to Bulldog News on the Ave here, like one of the only places where you could get like a magazine like that in this town, like just like a big newspaper and magazine store. And they're out of the they're now just a coffee shop like that. The pandemic kind of broke them like that was that was a tough business model anyway, I'm sure, in this day and age anyway. So I've been thinking about Harper's. I go online. Luke, you can't afford not to subscribe. It's like $23 a year, and you get archives that go back like 100 years. Like, it's – Wow. Yes, it's amazing. So anyway, support TVTL and subscribe to it.

I think Harper's is the magazine that looks like it's going to be the most boring, that is the most interesting.

Yeah, I love it. It's great. And so this is for print and digital and archives, $23. Anyway, what were we doing?

We were reading a Blur's Day message from Jen, who says, I would like to give a belated Blur's Day shout-out to Amanda in Cedro Woolley. Amanda has been working hard at getting her new oyster farm, Salty Sea Seafood, off the ground. So I hope she got a night off to swap out her muddy boots with some high heels. I will refrain from the shellfish-related humor here. I assume that has to do with being amorous. Maybe, I was just thinking puns

I don't know I was thinking, you know, oysters are supposed to be a turn-on It's supposed to be an aphrodisiac Maybe I will say that if you're withholding oyster-related jokes You're kind of being shellfish

No! That's You just did it You just sparked a moment of joy for the listeners God, if you made it 75 minutes into this today You get it You get what the show is about That was so good I don't even like wordplay, and that was good. Dude, that was a legitimate lol from me. Terrible. Jen says, I will refrain from the shellfish-related humor here and just say, happy birthday, Amanda. See, I will say, these Blurs days, even the gross pee one. this is we're kind of reaching the platonic ideal of blurs days aren't we like we're now like they are short little messages that give us little glimpse into the the dazzling details of either people's lives or experiences or little moments right they drink each other's pee they grow oysters right like i love like i think that is this is a very evocative i don't know why i feel the need to break this down but it's just a that's like a very evocative blurs day i i you You know, I can picture Amanda in her muddy boots, like, working in an oyster farm. I have a whole mental image of that. Happy Blur's Day, Amanda. And great message, Jen. Thank you. How about this last one? Kate and Finney says, happy 10th birthday to my adventure buddy, Hendrick. I remember Hendrick. I can't imagine my life without you. Here's to our next kayak outing, camping trip, hike through the wilderness, train ride, and dare I dream. Plane trip to a foreign shore once we get you that ding-dang vaccine. But first, surprise! I got us tickets to the very first home opener of the Seattle Kraken on Saturday, and I can't wait to cheer them on with you! I think that's a Blur's Day first right there. A special announcement, a surprise announcement for Hendrick.

Congratulations. Happy birthday, Hendrick. Yes. Congratulations to Kate and Hendrick going and see the Kraken. Go Kraken. That's amazing. I love it. I think we need to also have more, yeah, we need to have more, I've talked about the Muckluck Telegram sometimes, which was like a radio thing in Alaska where people, you know, before the internet would be able to just communicate with each other. You'd sort of go on there and say, hey, I'm going to be coming up to Juno, so look for me in a week or whatever. It was just like a way to sort of transmit information across this very big open space. this is we need to turn this into the Muckluck Telegraph we need more people announcing that they're taking their kids to Kraken games or that their friends are oyster growers or even the pea thing this is great I love getting useful information woven into the

Blur's Day messages. Speaking of useful information thank you to listener Tony in Minneapolis who I haven't been able to actually catch the show yet but he knows how much we love those kind of old timey that still exist the AM radio shows where people call in and just try to swap stuff or sell their stuff and i got a note from tony saying this morning i started playing around with the that radio garden app i love that app that's it shows you the globe and you spin it around and it'll just land on a random station in the country i love that app um my small hometown of lacrosse wisconsin uh station wizm 1410 i came across one of those shows and i love it the host dan was wondering when a guy named diamond dave Was going to be calling in I don't know They don't know each other in real life Just from the show So anyway I've been trying to look It's called Dan's Deals I want to listen to Dan's Deals In La Crosse, Wisconsin this weekend

Those guys I was talking about At the beginning of the show Sal and Richard The Stern Show producers They call these There's a bunch of versions of that show One of them is called Tradio Yeah right And I think it's one called Swap and Shop You know there's a lot of these towns will have these local like Saturday morning radio shows and they will just call in and prank these guys and they will these guys will get so mad it's kind of not cool because these guys you know they just just kind of dudes that want to have a radio show or be on the radio on the weekends but the ones that are really fun are there are all these right wing nut job internet based shows now you know where somebody wants to have a talk show um but they you know they're not they're not even able to get on conservative talk radio So they're just doing these sort of hate, hateful type shows on the Internet. And these guys, Sal and Richard, will call into those shows and those shows always take the calls because they have no callers. Yeah, they will prank them. And it is just delightful.

Absolutely delightful to hear these conservative like wingnut radio hosts getting roasted. Speaking of delightful, I know we got to wrap up and you have housekeeping knocking on the door. But I just did a very quick Google and now Wall Street is Google. I found a full four-hour video and audio version on Facebook of Dan's deals. And we have a fellow, I assume it's Dan, and he's sitting alone in a radio studio, classic-looking radio board, Luke, the kind that you and I have used a million times with, like, the beige radio board with the vertical sliders and whatever, the exact board that you're picturing. and he is just taking calls. Let's just listen to a little bit of this. This is from June of 2020.

Still connect in person. Email info at Midwest Family Entertainment.

Okay, we're in a commercial break here. He's putting on his headphones. Here we go. Got a few things out of there. Got rid of a snowblower here too a couple of weeks ago.

I always think snowblower.

But I still got this old. old lawn boy mower it's uh it's an oldie and it looks like it's in really good shape but it hasn't been run for quite a few years i just would like to get rid of it along with i think there's another mower in there too that probably just needs a few wheels these are this is a push mower and then there's this old riding lawn mower that the wheel fell off and we used to use it but i think the engine's probably still good maybe you can make a go-kart out of it that was going to be kind of my project but i'm not i don't know should we say mechanically inclined i guess so to put something like that together is beyond my scope of work so that's not going to happen so dan's just trying

to sell his own stuff here maybe give away his own stuff yeah that's the part that i'm confused by like i assumed he would be brokering deals between callers and other callers this might just be where Dan unloads his shit, like Baker Mayfield outside of the stadium in Cleveland. 413. Thank you.

507-724-2413.

That's right.

Yeah, so Chris, I just have a quick question for you though, too. I know when I did listen a couple of weeks ago, Wendy had a bunch of tomato plants for sale. Have you guys sold out of those? This is the most Midwest thing I've

ever heard. I love this so much.

Oh, a guy came up from Hoka and took them all. He took them all?

God damn it, Luke. I am going to listen to this whole thing this weekend. I'm not joking you. I'm not kidding you. I love this so much.

James Beeb and Dan's Deals from 40 years ago.

Oh, man. That was from this summer or last summer. That was from June of 2020. All right. We should probably wrap things up, though, right? I have too many show titles, but they're all just okay. Trying, not striving, or not false modesty, just true humiliation. Oh, Slayed by the Bell. I'll probably go with Slayed by the Bell. Yeah, Slayed by the Bell. Okay, there you go. And I wish it would rain by the Temptations. We'll sing us out.

All right. Thanks for listening, everybody. We're going to be back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio for you. So please do join us for that. Until then, have a great Thursday. Go Browns. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Sunshine, blue skies. Please go away, a girl that found another and gone away. With her went my future, my life is filled with gloom. So day after day, I stay locked up in my room. I know to you, it might sound strange, but I wish it would rain. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Cause so badly I wanna go outside But everyone knows that a man ain't supposed to cry Listen, I gotta cry Cause crying eases the pain, oh yeah People just hurt, I feel inside Words could never explain I just wish it would rain Oh, let it rain Rain, rain, rain Oh, let it rain

Oh, yeah

Being miserable and treating other people like dirt is every New Yorker's God-given right Power out Let's go.