Muse

Here he comes. Here comes John Wayne. I'm not gonna cry about my pa. I'm gonna build an airport. Put my name on it. Why, Michael? So you can fly away from your feelings. You can keep them bottled up, but they will come out, Michael. Sometimes in the most unexpected... Hey, where the f*** are my hard-boiled eggs? T-B-T-L

i know i come on strong all right i radiate power i can't help them the employees at trader joe's

heaven sent they are saints they were made in a lab the manners and when they say how are you

i act i'm like i'm not well and they're like we have biscottis trees they're all around us but who gives a shit uh 56 pounds of beef that corresponds to i don't know what five or six

year old kid what podcast are you talking about all right hello good morning and welcome everyone to a monday edition of tvtl the show that just might be too beautiful to live it's just two men

celebrating each other's strength my name is luke burbank i am your host i feel good today I feel good today

Very happy to be coming to you once again from the Nest Broadcast Center high in the sky above Portland, Oregon where at this very moment it's actually stopped raining but I can still tell by the various flags and banners and things on top of buildings that the wind is still really whipping We have had quite the weather weekend here in the West

Man, it is nasty out there.

Folks in California dealing with stuff, up in Seattle, all kinds of wind and power outages this weekend. Things were very, very nasty for good parts of yesterday here in Oregon. Hope everybody is doing okay. It's actually the perfect day, though, for me to be inside enjoying a cup of decaffeinated tea. Tastes like soot and hot water. I'm hooked. Really ready to go on and take on the day, everybody. Here for episode 3,539 in a collector's series. Let the fun begin. Of course, the real indicator as to if we are going to collectively have an amazing Monday or a not-so-great Monday is, is it a Bones or No Bones Day? Good morning, everyone, and welcome back to yet another round of No Bones. We will explain to you what that guy is talking about. if you are one of the few people who is not yet hip to the saga of Noodles the Pug and Bones vs. No Bones days. Also, when I was back in New York on Friday night, I went out for a lovely dinner with some friends, but I had a couple of interesting celebrity sightings.

Wait a minute! Who are you?

Some of them, one of them in person, IRL, and then some through a weird virtual experience that I'll tell you about coming up here in a few moments. We've also got emails and V-mails today, per usual. And we've got this guy, the longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. Speaking of celebrities, yes, of course, co-broing a podcast, that conveys a certain amount of celebrity status. But that's not why he's doing it.

I don't do this for the clout. I don't do this for the fame

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

Good morning, Luke I saw two, count them Not one, but two Movies on their opening weekend This weekend

Do not tell me you saw the new Timothee Chalamet film

I saw both of the new Timothee Chalamet films, that's right

I'm just trying to figure out a funny way to tweet about Dune But say, do not There's a whole thing going around People talking about Dune your mom There's a lot of Twitter chatter That's using the word Dune But incorrectly I feel like there's still some meat on those bones

Well I'll be honest with you And this is not a spoiler I promise Genevieve did turn to me at one point The worm is bad Dune and said to me Well there are a lot of Dunes in this I was like yeah you're right There are a lot of Dunes And by the way I loved the movie I didn't know I didn't know that I was walking into a cinematic event that people were waiting for I hadn't really been following the Dune news the do's and so you know I just went in because my friends wanted to go I'm like yeah sure let's go see this

Dune you're getting a Dell wait

Dune hey yeah you're getting a movie so anyway I went in it was so good I loved Dune

And then also saw the new Wes Anderson French Dispatch movie.

You really did see two Chalamet vehicles this weekend.

Yeah. No, I mean, did you hear about the Chalamet Act of 2021? We talked about this on Friday, didn't we? Like, every movie that is showing or is being promoted has to have Timothee Chalamet in it. Like, there's the House of Gucci I see has him. Like, everything I— Wonka. Wonka. Like, he's in every movie this year. But also, you know, pleasing to see on the screen. So I guess I have no problem with it.

I'm actually very excited to see the French Dispatch. Becca and I are going on Wednesday night to see it. That's the first avail that I have. But I am, like, very excited for that film. And I will totally see Dune as well. Like, for somebody who has actually not read the Frank Herbert book, nor really sat through much of the David Lynch version of the film from the 80s, And I'm very pro-Dune, considering I have not actually consumed any of the relevant material. But it seems like the kind of thing I'd be intrigued by with the spice and the box that hurts your hand when you put it in it. These are the things that I feel like I've heard about Dune. These are the rumors about Dune. And now this is, I mean, everything I'm reading is that this is like an incredibly interesting idea for a film that's now been expertly made into a film.

Well, and again, I want to be so careful about spoilers here, but.

I mean, what can you spoil from a book from the 1980s?

I will say that what's in that box, it turns out, is just peeled grapes.

Like, it's not real eyeballs at all.

It's just.

What about the part where Timothee Chalamet, they put a warm wash rag in his hand when he falls asleep early?

Yeah, and then the marker on his face. It's a sleepover film. A lot of people don't know that, but it's a sleepover film. It's funny. It's a lot of laughs. I think you'll enjoy it. I mean, it's really weird to compare. There's no reason why in any universe why one would compare the French Dispatch to Dune, right? Other than the fact that they happen to come out on the same weekend. They're both Timothee Chalamet vehicles in a way. And I happen to see them both within two days of each other. And, you know, in all seriousness, I don't I don't want to take away anybody's experience. But it's amazing how, like, the Wes Anderson, I love, like, you know, visually speaking, it is so amazing to watch. If you like Wes Anderson, it's amazing. But, like, it is also funny how it doesn't, you know, it feels like it doesn't make you feel the way other movies make you feel. It's like some of his films do. Like, I think that Royal Tenenbaums for me, I feel like that one has a lot of, that packs a big emotional punch. This one, you know, by the very nature of its latter-day Wes Anderson, I shouldn't say that, maybe it's middle period Wes Anderson, we have no idea, but, you know, he's well into his career and his vibe and his style, and the nature of this story being a bunch of little stories within, like, it's like, as I think Genevieve said, it's like seeing a really amazing dollhouse, and it's like, yeah, it is. It's like it is so damn cool, you know, but somewhat lacking. And I think it even I think the movie even in one scene that I won't talk about here, I think just a little bit of dialogue makes me think that Wes Anderson actually addresses the fact or is kind of acknowledging the fact that he keeps emotion, at least in this film, he keeps emotion kind of at arm's length a little bit. Right. Like it doesn't. And again, there's no reason to compare that to Dune as if I'm saying Dune is some like the romantic moving, you know, the emotional movie of the year. But it is they are so different, but both so lovely in their own ways.

You know, I'm trying to find in this this piece in The New York Times about I was talking about on the show last week where they interviewed a bunch of the actors in The French Dispatch and also kind of just talked about Wes Anderson's process. And I can't quite find the line, but there was a line that described the film in exact, like very succinctly, kind of exactly what you're saying, which was like, and this person, this person really liked the film, but they, I forget, I wanted to find the exact word because it was like so precise that basically, if you watch a Wes Anderson film, at least it sounds like the French dispatch. And you're right. There are other I feel like as his career has gone on, it's become less and less like the characters are that the intent is not for these to be people that you emotionally identify with or who feel like extremely real. They're almost like little caricatures. They're little oddballs that are all doing their oddball things. And it's visually interesting. And when two kids are dancing on a beach in Moonrise Kingdom, it's a cool shot and the right song gets picked. but it's not a movie where there's a huge amount of sort of an emotional I don't know, an emotional component whereas I do feel like definitely you're right, Royal Tenenbaums, I felt like in Rushmore as well, you know, there's some emotional stuff in there too but he seems to have really

Mr. Fox, too. People forget about that one. I think Fantastic Mr. Fox is one of his more emotional movies.

Yes, I am very, very excited to see that film. How about What Do You Doon Here? What Do You Doon Here? How about What Do You Doon Here? What Do You Doon Here?

As a tweet, as a show title, what are we pitching?

As a lifestyle. As a lifestyle. What Do You Doon Here? I just feel like that's the closest I've come to a joke Based on the name Dune I didn't see Timothee Chalamet in Brooklyn on Friday, Andrew But I felt like I was getting pretty close So I was out to dinner with our buddies Robert Smith and Mike Peska And Mike's lovely wife, Michelle Who, if you remember, we had Mike and Michelle on TVTL Talking about their engagement Where he hired a rat A person in a rat costume to bring the ring over

I was going to ask, did the rat join you for dinner? Is that just like an ongoing relationship now?

The rat is not part of their life anymore. Okay, I see. That's a reference to that David Lynch thing that I sent you, which I don't know if you had a chance to read it or not.

Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. Right, right. The Woody Woodpecker stuffed animals.

Excuse me. That is the wildest story. It's just like a photo of these Woody Woodpecker stuffed animals that apparently used to be in David Lynch's office in the 80s. And he said he rescued them from the side of the road in Santa Fe or something. Somewhere in the southeast, he was driving down the highway. He saw someone was selling stuffed Woody Woodpeckers. He bought all of them. He named them. Became, by his description, very good friends with them, very close with these stuffed animals. And then he says in very David Lynch fashion The differences in their personalities begin to emerge They're no longer part of my life Yes Like he's not on speaking terms with the woody woodpeckers

And it's unclear where these woodpeckers are now

Or what the personalities were That caused David Lynch to realize he needed to cut ties Anyway, we went out to dinner And we went to this kind of hip place in Brooklyn I didn't pick it Peska picked it, I think but uh we we went there and while we were sitting around having our nice little dinner i noticed that sitting kind of adjacent to us or kind of i guess you could say kitty corner across the room at this table first i noticed a a woman who i know for a fact is an actor and i know for a fact she's in something that i watched recently where she plays the teenage daughter and i can't andrew for the life of me place if it's a film or prestige television but it was just absolutely killing me but then what i noticed is she was sitting with the guy steve from stranger things the kind of um i don't know if i watched season two but in season one he's like you know older kind of like guy who seems like he's a jerk but then he sort of saves himself in the you know towards the end not to spoil anything but is this how maddie is finding out about this scene

this site for the first time?

Matty, I need you to turn the podcast off because I'm going to do some Stranger Things spoilers. So I saw Steve from Stranger Things. Now, here's what's funny. And I texted Matty about this, by the way, this weekend. The last time I saw this dude, I was in L.A. I was at Dan Tana's, and he was sitting near me, and I took a picture of him to send to Matty and Mary because they love Stranger Things. I never do that kind of stuff. I mean, that's very humiliating for me. But I was like, this is it will it will make Maddie and Mary happy enough that it's worth it for me to embarrass myself and go take a picture of a famous guy as he's eating his, you know, spaghetti or something at Dan Tannis. So how weird that I took a picture of him in Los Angeles and then flash forward a couple of years and I'm in a random spot in Brooklyn and there is that guy sitting in the corner. So, of course, I had to take another picture. But this time I tried to do it in the sneaky way where I pretended I was taking a picture of myself. and then but most of the frame was him in the background and then uh when the flash went off my phone mike looked at me and said that was so unsubtle your flash went off for real or are you just well i don't know i don't know how to control these things i mean the phone i was probably on auto i mean it very much went off but the idea was it was supposed to look like i'm taking a picture of myself which i was i'm in the picture i can send you the picture yeah um i can get you a

toe yeah i uh but i mean i when you first started saying um you know i did the thing where it looks like i'm taking a selfie of myself i would assume that famous people are used to that move too to

the degree i know i think you're right because after that the that table uh kind of they sort of wrapped things up relatively quickly after that and i swear i could have just been i could have been now overly paranoid but i think he kind of shot me a dirty look as he left or at least shot me a look of like are those people going to follow us like i thought i was being kind of sly but i think you and pesca are exactly right i think it was not as subtle as i thought it was And also, that is a move that a lot of people pull when they are in the, you know, in a restaurant with legitimate celebrities that they want to take a picture of.

Out of just curiosity. To go back to one thing that you said before, is there any chance that – you said that you saw a younger actor at a table that reminded you she played maybe somebody's daughter. Any chance you're thinking of White Lotus?

No.

That has some teens in it.

No, no. I know who you're talking about, Steve Zahn's daughter and then her friend. I would have remembered them. Okay. No, it's really been – honestly, Andrew, it has been – maybe she's in Stranger Things. I should double-check. I don't know if this cast of Stranger Things is hanging. You know what? It might actually be the older sister from Stranger Things. Let me Google the older sister from Stranger Things. Is that a search term?

Older sister from Stranger Things?

That would make me very happy, by the way, if... Let's see here. Yeah, that's her. Her name is Natalia Dyer. Okay, great. That's exactly who it was. We got there. So this is great. By the way, Steve and the sister from Stranger Things apparently hang out in Brooklyn. That's very – that makes me happy. That's very charming. That's cool. Anyway, so that happened. I thought it was a weird coincidence that I've been in two places on the opposite ends of the country where that guy has been. And in both cases, I've annoyed him with my photo tape.

And you did – so remind me. I know you just buzzed through this quickly. So you did actually ask last time because I didn't remember that part. I didn't ask either time. That was another creep shot. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't like how you deploy the term creep around a lot of things I like. those facebook glasses i want to get all those creeper glasses you call my you call my unique

photographic style creeper shots wait that is right if you had those glasses you could that's

what i'm trying to say yeah anyway so i i said at the top of the show i had a celebrity run in irl a brick and mortar celebrity and then also a much stranger one which i'm actually not sure how you're going to feel about this after i describe it to you um so when it's time for the bill the uh server brings it out brings out one of those portable card reading devices you know i'm talking about yeah yeah where they where they take your card at the table they don't take your card back to some you know central location and process it they just it happens right there at your table with a little handheld device what this person did though that i hadn't ever seen before is just left the device at our table and walked away never to be seen again like usually they stand there and they kind of monitor it well i now know why they stand there and monitor this thing andrew i can't wait to move in a week by the way is i was going to ask you what the timeline is on that not that the sirens bother me dftb is going to help me uh uh carry the big stuff on friday over to the new apartment and i mean we're carrying it i'm not renting a truck i'm not a rockefeller so we're just going to walk it about two miles okay good um he'll run it he's he's up the workout um although i i i realized that like i guess i'll be away from the ambulance noise but i'm sure there'll be a new set of noise hassles that i can't anticipate um yeah here comes uh one of amr's finest just cruising down cooch uh boy that sounds like an adult film uh and uh they're taking a turn here on grand and they will soon be uh sonically not as present in our lives anyway so usually they like take your card and they put it in the thing and then they hand they sort of show you that little handheld device and you you put in the tip and everything this guy just walked away so okay i put my card in and all of a sudden the screen which was that was showing me the bill and everything the screen just goes blank and then it's just showing me an icon i think it might have been for the company square i think this is probably a device you know that it's made by that company that does all the chip reading stuff so i'm sitting there i'm like everyone's like uh what's going on i'm like i don't know this thing like is rebooting or something so it boots back up and it's no longer on my bill it's just on a bunch of different random financial statistics information data models so first i'm like well maybe we can just find our bill and we're scrolling through and then we realize no we're just we're inside the i mean the quarterback is toast andrew we have hacked into the mainframe of this restaurant's nerve center of course my friend robert who's like a genius and also a business professor now and just honestly generally nosy he takes it away from me and he just immediately like you know how little kids this is actually like my my nephew abe is this way with devices like he'll go hey can i borrow your phone or like he wants to wear my apple watch and he will have somehow gotten into some part of it that i didn't even know existed he's reset everything but not in a kind of random way like he's just mashing

buttons like his brain maybe just because he's younger and he's been around more like technology but anyway there are people who just like they can pick up a device and immediately sort of understand how it all works well that was robert with this little thing because he's immediately in we're looking at all of the sales for the restaurant we're looking at how much did they make on hamburgers this month what are their who are their leading salespeople like who are their leading you know, uh, servers who, how much are they spending on wine a year? How much did they make last year total as a restaurant? How much have they made this year? By the way, last year during the real height of the shutdowns, 200,000 this year on track for 1.5 million. How, how long did you guys have this thing? This is fascinating. It was, well, first of all, again, Robert was working fast. This was like a caper where he had to like download the information to the thumb drive before the security guard who we distracted, uh, figures it out. Although I want to be very clear, no information was downloaded. Nothing was done with any of the information. He did realize that there was a point where we might have been able to actually send ourselves money from this thing, which, of course, we did not. But so we were sitting there just kind of first. Again, it was just an interesting study of the of the sort of behind the scenes financials of a successful restaurant. And like, what are they you know, who has the biggest what was the most expensive check? Someone had seven spent seven thousand dollars like that week at the restaurant. And we're like, that must have been maybe a reception dinner or something, a rehearsal dinner. Like, because no one, I mean, you just like, the place was not like that expensive. It wasn't where you get like a $6,000 bottle of wine or something. So we're going through all this. At some point, when we're looking for my bill, we realize what this has in it is an alphabetical listing of everyone who's ever come into this restaurant and paid with a card.

Have you had this thing for like five minutes at this point?

I would say at this point, we've had it for five and a half minutes. okay yeah all right um but we are obsessed and because the new game becomes what famous people from brooklyn have eaten here and what have they eaten and so then then we start thinking well who okay we're we were in uh cobble hill that's the only other detail i'll give up lest people show up at this codoba and just start running wild with their machinery um so uh we're like just typing in names trying to think of famous or infamous people who live in the greater brooklyn area who might have come into this restaurant and so we'll type in a name it'll be like uh you know what about uh um michelle williams famed actor michelle williams because there's like she lives somewhere around here and then we're like robert would type in michelle williams no hit but then it'd be like uh maggie gyllenhaal and then it comes up maggie gyllenhaal we're like success we celebrate we high five we can see you know what maggie gyllenhaal had to eat i don't think i don't think there's i hope anyway i don't we didn't look far enough to figure out if there was any like more personal data in there other than just the famous person's name and then what they had eaten which i found endlessly fascinating for some reason or so it was like put in another name and then we just like uh nope uh and then we put in like oh norah jones and we got a hit it was norah jones and we could see what she had eaten so we sat there i think we were we had this thing for like 45 minutes just trying to figure out what famous people

had come in there and what they had eaten all right there's so much to talk about here but um just to start with the practical boring tedious stuff um so this person dropped this off at your table because you were getting ready to leave right you were ready to pay your bill and i assume that this is a busy hip brooklyn restaurant they probably need to clear table space did you just sort of get forgotten how did how did a server go from dropping off your your check to suddenly forgetting that you're there while you're while you're hacking into

the mainframe for 45 minutes well i don't want to i guess because i haven't given the name i won't be casting uh you know too many aspersions here but i felt i got there a little later than everyone else because everybody else lives in brooklyn and i was coming in from manhattan during the time i was there i found the service to be let's just say laissez-faire it was a fairly hands-off situation clearly like it was a staff that nobody by the way everybody seemed perfectly polite but they were i i don't know why i have to like attach this to age because that's not fair because there are lots of people who are in their you know early mid-20s who are super on it but i would say this was a hip restaurant that was staffed by hip people who did not appear to be overly concerned about getting back to the table asap like you know which was actually i'm not even kidding and this really says more about my complicated relationship with alcohol than anything but it was like i ended up having i think i had like one martini the whole night which was great for me i got such a good night's sleep it was beautiful um versus four because they never came around you know what i mean like they came by at i was sitting there for probably 20 minutes before anybody showed up at the table then i ordered some food and i ordered a martini and then i'm not even kidding it felt like it was another 20 or 30 minutes before a busser came by to grab the the dishes but that's not a person you can put an order in with and then by the time they came around again we're all kind of wrapping it up and i was like okay so in a way it was helpful to me that the service to me seemed just kind of and again when they were there they were perfectly nice but there just wasn't we're also in a world i think even in new york city where you

You

don't have enough people to staff restaurants and this place was pretty hopping when i showed up so it could have also been a function of the servers were just really stretched thin okay so

you're the server the service is a little thin so that's how you end up with this thing for 45

minutes they're not trying to push you out the door no one checks on us and we're yelling maggie jillenhall at the top of our lungs and high-fiving at what point and we're holding this thing which is illuminated i'm i was also kind of surprised that nobody came over and said could we please have back our the uh keys to our kingdom can we please like you want to talk about finding a thumb drive a usb drive in the parking lot yeah no kidding at any point did you kind of hold it and

say uh sam ziggy says you're gonna leap again it's sort of right that device dude that's actually kind of what it looked like it was very ziggy s okay so i really really want to get to the kind of you know i think we should talk about the moral uh the moral quandary or the ethics around this But before we get into that, like, let's just figure out what actually happened. So after 45 minutes, you've been hacking into the mainframe. You've been reading these things. How does this all wrap up?

Well, so this, like, the hip waiter comes over, and first of all, he's holding, there's four of us, and he's holding four what look like limoncellos or something, like little kind of after dinner drinks that are, I don't know why. I did this, like, looked yellow. It reminded me of Limoncello, which, by the way, I do not like. I just want to be on the record in case the listeners were wondering on this Monday morning. That's what they're going to be writing in about after this. Sure. Uh-huh. So I was like, this guy comes over, and he goes, he says something to the effect of, well, I can tell by the fact that you're still holding that thing or something. And I thought what he was going to say was that you've been looking at our personal data. Yeah, right. Our personal information. But, no, he said something like, I can tell you're probably settled up by now. And that was when I said, no, actually, this thing is, like, malfunctioning on us. And then Robert very quickly and deftly said, yeah, we were trying to find our bill in here. And then the guy looks and goes, well, that's not your bill because then it was on the screen where it showed, like, a $7,000 tab. Sure.

That's kind of where they caught you. The $7,000 one. Okay.

We played it off. We weren't in the, like, looking up celebrity mode anymore. We were like – and also it's like I felt to some degree like this was on them. like they handed like they handed us the thing and walked away for 45 minutes and then came like no one checked on us in that time no like just it seemed to me like even if they got mad at us i could have said well you know first of all we're idiots and second of all you left us with ziggy it's kind of about you dude so anyway uh so then i thought oh this is like one of those restaurants where they also if you you know if things slow down and you've been a nice table and and they like you or whatever they bring you over some little after dinner you know here's a nice little after dinner uh is it aperitif after dinner that's a digestif right it helps you digest before you eat i think digestif is after so like like i thought oh this is nice he brought us over a little digestif but no he didn't i was just going to some other table he happened to be holding it yeah but anyway uh so then he then i got a little scared though because he said oh man i hope that i hope that it ended up because my card was in this thing when it glitched out yeah and he was like yeah i hope it paid your bill and i was like yeah me too and then i started thinking oh my god like this is like one of those things where it because we were punching and my card was in the thing the whole time stupidly i was like what if we just paid all of these celebrities bills or what if that we paid that seven thousand dollar tab like i don't know my card has been sitting in there and i'm gonna be on the phone with amex trying to explain why i have like a thirty thousand dollar tab but they're gonna be like you went to a strip club didn't you and now you're trying to get out of it so uh i i haven't actually looked at my statement but i you're

probably fine he just found your bill and you just settled up like i actually don't know what

he did because he was just standing there holding ziggy i couldn't see it anymore he punched a few buttons and eventually got around to what was our bill and and we paid it and we were on our way but it was a i again maybe it was the one martini it was a surprisingly fun endeavor playing famous person who ate here roulette but I guess my question to you is is do you feel like that was inappropriate of us this is really interesting and I'm almost like I'm

more clenching because I wonder how much the audience judges us in a situation like this but like making it very clear that you took no you know you didn't take advantage of anybody in any way other than being nosy like I am a fan of nosiness when it's given to you in this manner you know I mean I'm going really far afield here okay but knowing that Robert Smith was a financial journalist for so long and the fact that this thing just sort of landed on his lap and within minutes he can kind of combine his skills as somebody who Thank you. who just knows how to interpret data quickly, who can kind of hack into the mainframe, like you say, from a technical standpoint, and the fact that he can then kind of see this and understand it quickly, like that's what made him good at his job. And that's why I, and I, now I'm going really far afield here, but I just remember at one point I was on a search committee for a reporter job and there was an internal candidate who happened to be a friend of mine who was applying for the job. And, you know, there's a few of us in the room asking questions And one of the questions we were asking all the candidates is, like, where do you get your news leads from? And, you know, everybody else, all the other candidates, I remember mentioning certain publications or what they read and whatever. And this person's first response was eavesdropping. I eavesdrop like crazy. And I just thought, like, that's such a good journalistic answer. That's a very good answer. You're just keeping your – and she's a great journalist. And so there's something about this idea that when the world drops you something like this, again, if you cross the line into thievery, stealing, then I think that's wrong. I think there might be some people potentially listening who would say, well, our privacy and our information right now is at a premium. And so just because you're not stealing something with dollar signs on it doesn't mean that that isn't stealing in a way. I guess that's something to consider as we talk about this. Like, I love this, number one, as a kid who loved going to media ethics classes in college. It should be noted, by the way, even though I'm winding myself all up here, this was not a journalistic endeavor at all. This was purely for fun. But I will also admit that if I was at this table, I would not say we should stop doing this. This is wrong. I would say this is really interesting and it's fascinating and let's be nosy. Like, I don't know, man. And I would have all I can say is I'm not saying that I'm right, but I am saying that I would if I had the wherewithal, I would have done the same thing. I, you know, I went through a phase in college where I was like, if I pass a door and the door knob opens, well, then I think I'm allowed to go in there. And that led to me and my date at the time walking into somebody's apartment that I thought was an art space until I scared the hell out of a guy who lived there who was in his underwear brushing his teeth. I don't know if I ever told you that story. I lied in the moment I just said we're looking for Tim I made up the name That was a good cover He didn't believe it but he just chased us out of there

And I'm actually quite embarrassed about that And of course I stopped doing it But I don't know this idea of just like Curiosity and saying Well if the universe opens a door Or unlocks a door Aren't I allowed to push it open a little bit I don't know

I think my justification for this was A. We didn't go out looking for it b we had no nefarious intent in terms of yeah like finding out anything other than is a famous brooklynite like where i was like let's see if liev shriver eats here you know like other than finding out if a famous brooklynite had just physically been in there that was it and then

He ordered slump jeep for some reason.

He ordered wine from wine country. Like, I felt like we didn't go looking for this. It kind of fell into our lap. We were not, we had no intention of doing anything with any of the information. And we were not, like I said, not trying to, you know, write down someone's, you know, address or, I don't know, email address if it were in there. Here's the other thing. I'm now in there. i am now in there because i paid with a card yeah and so if i put myself in the place of that celeb and i think and this of course would never happen but if someone were to go to this restaurant and someone were to hand them ziggy and ziggy were to short out and the waiters were to ignore them for 45 minutes and they were to be sitting with robert smith and they were able to get into that thing and they were like famous people who have eaten here and they put my name in and my name came up and they're like luke burbank's eating here i would not be i would not feel taken advantage by that as the person who they were searching for you'd be psyched if they were searching for you i mean let's be honest very psyched maybe that's the difference between me non-celebrity and the people we were looking for legitimate celebrities but i i don't know i mean i yeah i think that you know we may get a few a few angry emails from you know the gyllenhaals and the joneses of the world but i think our our our intent was was pretty was fairly innocent we were just entertaining ourselves with a game of of who's famous from around here who might have come in here and uh and anyway so that was that was how i spent my friday night yeah that's

interesting well again i i would be interested in hearing i think that we will probably hear from some people who are maybe slightly aghast by aghast by this but i think that a lot of people will admit if they were sitting at this table like the exact scenario that you're talking about like it's you and peskin smith or whatever and um and this starts happening i don't think most people are walking

away from the table or throwing a huge protest up you know really wrapped up in the moment

here is what i probably should have done though after it was all settled up and we were about to walk out so there's a minimal chance of getting in trouble what i should have said was hey by the way that little machine if it like if it resets if it reboots it has all of the information of your restaurant literally all of it in there so you should probably not leave it with the customers you should probably just kind of and i'm sure that that's the standard practice is probably to

keep that thing in your hands for that exact reason yeah i guess so i mean i i am shocked for real like i guess i know nothing about technology i am shocked that that little device would have access to those kinds of records with that kind of detail you would think okay maybe you would see like the the credit card numbers like the last four digits of credit card numbers with a bunch of asterisks is like at most i would think maybe because i just think i don't know it's a credit card machine not like an actual like kind of um uh what's what i'm looking like remote control unit for their entire database so honestly though lord knows we didn't put a password in yeah that company needs to that company really needs to protect their data more i mean i don't even know why why would i bring this up again but i told my mortifying story about picking up a gun that i didn't realize was a gun because it's on the on the set of a movie we were making and it It was on the prop table and how, you know, embarrassed I was. I picked that thing up and and pulled the trigger, even though it wasn't loaded. And I didn't realize later that it was a real gun. And, you know, I expected a lot of people to write in and kind of be upset with me for not taking that situation more seriously in the moment. But a lot of people were like, why was that gun out like that? That and of course, that's the question. I don't mean to throw my friend under the bus here. And now I regret saying his name because he is generally speaking a very, very responsible man. he is um and and this was a you know an oversight on his part but of course like this is the sort of equivalent of that right like they should not have left that at your table it's a different i don't know if that's right a fair comparison to compare a gun to because like otherwise i'd have

no way of knowing that the their best seller their hamburger sandwich their worst seller hamburger turkey sandwich is a utica thing huh they call it a hamburger sandwich it's a real Mitt Romney. Yeah, right? Real Mitt Romney situation there. Anyway. All right. We should take a quick break, and then when we come back, we've got some top stories to do, plus some emails and V-mails. So don't go anywhere. This right here, this is TBTL.

Thank you, baby.

Hey, let's thank some donors of the day. These are the people Making today's episode possible With their monthly donations People like Max McDaniel In Seattle, Washington Thank you Max Greg DeVore is out there on Vashon Washington I told my My Vashon story from many years ago Like I was like Actually it was when I went to that kindergarten Where I had the teacher who Made us cut out the UPC codes on our yogurt because of some kind of medical condition uh i had a kid in that class named jeremy he was my little buddy and he lived on vashon and so i went i got to stay uh with them uh overnight or something but the only way for me to get from their house on vashon to the ferry because it's an island you got to take the ferry was to ride on the back of his dad's motorcycle oh wow his dad was a bus driver for metro so he would take this motorcycle because i think the key with the motorcycle is you can always get on the ferry with a motorcycle it doesn't matter how packed it is so there's no chance of missing it and then you know because if you commuting with a car on the ferry day in and day out can create some challenges so anyway i was so afraid to ride on the back of this guy's motorcycle because i was just like i don't know even at age whatever that is seven what's what's kindergarten five i was like i think even at age five i was like this seems like a bad idea like i i still think it's a bad idea peace and love to our motorcycle enthusiasts out there when i see somebody riding on the back of a motorcycle i am shocked like driving a ride driving a motorcycle out on the freeway going really fast that would feel stressful to me but at least i'd be operating the motorcycle to be the person whose main source of safety is how tightly can you hug the other person's midsection Just shocks me that people agree to that I would never as an adult do that And even as a 5 year old I was like This is going to really suck And it did I remember on the road And I mean he didn't have I don't remember what kind of motorcycle it was I just remember clinging to Jeremy's dad As we're on this motorcycle Going to the ferry terminal so I can get home I don't know if he took me on the road much. I'm going to guess no. But, of course, I grew up in more of a slightly more, I was going to say dirt baggy. I meant dirt bikey, but maybe dirt baggy a little bit, family. And some of my fondest memories, now, it's very different because this is more of a dirt bike, like, out, like, either in our backyard or out in Arizona on these, like, motorcycle trips. But, you know, my dad would drive this dirt bike with his cousin, who was, like, my uncle, and it was, like, a whole weekend or a whole week vacation or whatever. And there are all these photos of me. They outfitted my legs with these, like, cardboard shields so that I wouldn't get burnt by the exhaust as I was hanging, as, you know, as my legs would hang on the motorcycle.

I want to see these photos. Oh, there are photos. I will try to find some. I don't know if they're in my possession or not. But, like, now it's a very different circumstance, too, because this is my dad. It's not my friend's dad. But, like, in a certain way, that feeling, like, I can still feel that I just have such a – I hadn't thought of this in years and years and years. But you describing that visceral feeling of, like, me just hanging on to my dad as tight as possible, my face, like, buried into his back, right, feeling the thrill of it. I liked it, but feeling the thrill of it, but also feeling, you know, probably protected because it was my own dad and like kind of smelling. I can almost smell like the combination of dirt in the back of his flannel and the smell of the motorcycle exhaust or whatever. That's a very visceral memory that you just triggered in me.

Yeah, I can totally. I think if I were if it were my dad, if it were Walt B. and we were off road, I think I would think it was really fun. I think it was, you know, I think you're absolutely right. It was almost just having to be in really close proximity to someone else's dad who I didn't even know.

Yeah, that's a very intimate thing. Like, no joke. That's an incredibly intimate position.

It wasn't like my—this wasn't like my—even like Peter Williams, who later would be like my dearest childhood friend. And so I knew his dad, Randall, so well. It was almost kind of like a second dad to me in a way. This was like a kid I knew from school, kind of, and then his dad who I maybe had like literally never met. I also think it's interesting that I talk a lot about, and much to my mom's chagrin, I talk about how life was really different in the 80s for me. I'll say this. I think we've maybe, to some degree, gotten a little overprotective of children. That being said, I wouldn't send my five-year-old on the back of a motorcycle with a complete stranger. I'd be like, well, how are we getting Luke back to the ferry? Oh, we'll throw him on the back of Jim Sr.'s motorcycle. Oh, that sounds good. Helmet? No, we don't need one of those. like okay well we better hope this five-year-old can hang on tight right it really is i am kind of

surprised at that age five is so young i'm kind of surprised that you weren't in front of him that because little little kids you can kind of prop in front of you between like your torso and the

handlebars anyway i mean in the current version of life you can't even ride in the front seat till you're like 15 you know i know i mean i see like 12 year olds with like car seats in the airport their parents are carrying these car seats for when they get to their destination this was not only not a car seat yeah no helmet yeah this is just hang on to a dude on the back of a motorcycle anyway uh greg uh if you see jeremy's dad out there on the highways and byways give him the high sign for me out there on vashon and give him a white make definitely i mean he got me there safely he was probably a very nice mellow safe guy i don't know i mean that's how childhood memories work i just remember being terrified meg and garrett is in philadelphia Pennsylvania Megan thank you for supporting our program Kara Greenwald is in Seattle Washington hey Kara then Daniel Griffin just right down the road in a different part of Seattle Washington I assume

we assume

and then Randy Grover is in definitely in a different part of Seattle Washington known as Bellevue Washington Randy thank you so much for supporting TBTL thanks to all of our donors for making the show possible we really do

appreciate you we would not be here without you hello and welcome to top story um i'm guessing

andrew that until i sent you this article today you had not spent much time considering whether it was a bones or no bones day i still have not i am unfamiliar with the story i have not clicked on it i thought it might be um malware i had started seeing on tiktok a while ago people put the craziest hashtags on tiktok um and i think i may have talked about this before like there'll be a video and it's just somebody dancing or being funny in some way and then at the bottom of the screen there will be like 10 hashtags and the hashtags will be like i i don't know if it's contest they're trying to win or you know like i don't know exactly why it is that people will put because let's just say if you were doing a dance um if you're doing a breakdance in a in a tiktok video maybe you'd put a hashtag out breakdance so that other people who wanted to see more breakdancing videos if they clicked on that hashtag it would bring them to more things that are like but these ones will be like someone's breakdancing then the hashtag will be breakdance and the next one will be noodles and this will be no bones and the next one will be walmart glow up challenge the next one will be what are you doing here like a lot of them will be related to corporations or movies and i think what it is maybe is that those corporations either there's a chance you can win a contest if you're putting like because a lot of times it'll literally be like walmart or something which is so strange because the dance has nothing to do with it i feel like sometimes they it might be because they're either trying to grab people who are they're trying to latch themselves onto a more popular thing with it with the hashtag or at some contest they might win but anyway yeah i had been seeing noodles and no bones and bones day for a long time i didn't know what it was well thank you uh new york times for illuminating me um jesus jimenez wrote this piece about this guy named jonathan graziano who is the owner of a 13 year old pug named noodle and he started doing this thing with noodle because noodle is very old where he would go in the morning and he would very lovingly take noodle who was in noodle was in their dog bed and he would sort of prop noodle up so noodle was now in a standing position on the dog bed and some days noodle stays standing that's a bones day that means things are going to go great Other days noodle just lies down Like he just doesn't even want to stand He's been sleeping for 12 hours he still doesn't even want to stand Those are no bones days Those are days to be a little bit more Careful to be a little bit more Circumspect because it's a no bones day

Is it like no bones because he just kind of turns into A puddle like a cute little pug

Just like a little ball of jello With no bones and that's why he refuses To stand up even though he's Been sleeping all night Millions and millions and millions of people are now checking this account every morning to find out if they're having a Bones or a No Bones Day. I want to play you a little bit. This is from today, Andrew. This is Monday, October 25th. This is the official reveal as to if we are going to have a Bones or a No Bones Day.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome back to yet another round of No Bones, the game where we find out if my 13-year-old pug woke up with bones. And as a result, we'll find out what kind of day we're going to have. Now, we're at Grandma's house. He's comfortable here. He's got a brand-new bed. It's raining out. We've got a fire going. I don't know where this is going to go.

So he's now stood noodle up, and we're going to see if noodle stays upright or if noodle goes no bones on it.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. It's a bones day, you guys. I can't believe it. I thought for sure we were set up for a no bones day. But noodle surprises us all, and we must make something of our days. So make sure to treat yourself today. Go. Oh, my gosh. Go have Greek food by a river. What a thrill that is. Go do it. Get the couch you've always wanted. I love this specificity. Get a slip cover for the couch, but buy the couch. And you know what? Call someone and tell them you love them. Even if you don't, you don't have to, like, love them, love them, but, like, call them and, you know, just, like, say something nice. Treat yourself.

Oh, that's sweet. That's, of course, the charm of it is this guy, Jonathan Graziano, and his little daily affirmations that he gives everyone and daily kind of encouragement.

Go have Greek food down by the river. I love that.

I don't believe – yeah, eat some Greek food down by the river. I don't believe in astrology. I don't believe, like, when people say, like, oh, my gosh, Mercury's in retrograde, or I'm just being such a Gemini right now. I don't give any sort of credence to any of that. But I am now a strong believer in a Bones or No Bones Day.

So today is a Bones Day, and your favorite National Football League team will be playing. So is that good? Is that good for the Seattle Seahawks, that it's a Bones Day?

I mean, the question is, who's getting the Bones? Is New Orleans getting the Bones? Is Seattle getting the Bones? I mean, this is almost like when you're praying for a sporting event. Like, I mean, raising the question, does God have a favorite? Yeah. Is God more into one team winning than the other?

Or is it like more if you get more prayers on one side, you know, maybe? Is that why the SEC is so good? Because you have more people praying down there?

I would say it's definitely, I assume that there are more prayers being, just based on if you look at a map of where people still go to church on Sundays, I would say the SEC is probably getting more prayer in its direction. um but uh yeah no i i'm gonna start following this account on tiktok i i love this guy um you um you sort of mentioned before the break you were referencing our conversation on friday about the the tragic events that happened uh with the the film that alec baldwin was shooting and the the director of photography who who died um And I heard a piece on NPR this morning. Actually, I saw some I saw rumblings about this over the weekend on Twitter. And then I heard a full piece on NPR this morning from right here. I'm not going to spill my tea. It was Joe Hernandez reporting for NPR talking about the calls to ban real guns from movie sets. One of the tweets that I saw this weekend was – and I'm just going to – I don't know this to be a fact, but I saw it, and I'm – let's just go – let's just assume that this person is correct. They said that all of the guns in Mare of Easttown, all of the gunfire was computer-generated. So they did not have real working guns on Mare of Easttown. They had whatever, fake guns that are literally incapable of ever shooting a bullet. And then later they just go in and they computer, they add the sound effect and probably like a muzzle flare or whatever from a computer standpoint. And what the person wrote on Twitter was, sure, you can probably tell, but who cares? We're talking about people's lives. What I thought was, sure, can't tell. I watched Mare of Easttown. I was quite riveted. I don't remember. I mean, actually, I do remember the extremely, not to spoil it, but an extremely intense scene where Mare and her partner show up at the you watch that, right?

No, I didn't. Genevieve watched it. I did not.

Oh, well, they there's a very, very, very dramatic and traumatic scene where Kate Winslet's character and her partner basically show up at the the quote unquote bad guy's house. And I feel comfortable calling this guy a bad guy because he was a serial killer. And there they exchange a lot of gunfire. And I watched that scene on the absolute edge of my seat. And at no time did I realize they were using computer generated animated, you know, gunshot sounds and like I said, muzzle flare or whatever you call that. So I guess my thought after after reading that on Twitter and then looking at this Joe Hernandez piece today, I just started thinking. do you really need operable guns on a movie set like ever i know this kind of thing is very rare but like they're in in the 2021 there has to be a technology where you can have a a pretend gun that cannot shoot that is incapable of shooting anything and you can point it at someone you can go pew pew pew and then somebody can make it seem like it's a real gun right i mean don't you think we're at that point from a special effects

standpoint? Yeah, I mean, you want to make sure the actors aren't saying the themselves, because then you'll have to digitally alter their lives as well. Do you know that I think it was the latest group of Star Wars films that they made, they didn't even use real lightsabers. They just created that effect in post as well. Yeah, because of these exact reasons. Unbelievable. Yeah, no, I'm 100% with you, putting my glib jokes aside. Of course, I don't know what goes into these things, and I certainly don't understand as well why, even if you needed a realistic-looking gun that made some sort of realistic sound, I still don't understand why it has to be so realistic that it still has to have the capability or it still has to have the byproduct of shooting something out of the muzzle. So that just in 2021, really, that's not something that can be solved. Now, I mean, these instances are obviously and thankfully few and far between, but they are tragic and they are fatal when they happen. And so why wouldn't you? This reminds me, this is a little bit off topic, Luke, but I just maybe I'm just still buzzing. I just love, you know, one part of going to see these movies this weekend that also sort of tickled me, It may be partially just feeling like back, you know, crawling back into normal times and be able to see movies again. But also, like, we can just take the train everywhere now. Like having this little train station in our neighborhood is just like it's just so damn cool. It really makes Seattle feel so much different to me. It almost gives me a feeling of like back when, you know, was spending a lot of time in Boston and be like, I don't know what neighborhood you want to go to because we can hop on a train and be in a different neighborhood in a matter of moments. And like so kind of being out and about and taking the train to various movie theaters around the city and just like hearing little bits of conversation. One of my favorite things is to pass by somebody and hear like three words but know exactly what they're talking about. Like the reason I'm thinking of this sadly is because I heard somebody say, you know, like I can't remember where I was. I think in the train station, I'm just walking by somebody and two men are talking and you just hear the one guy say, well, you know, Brandon Lee. and i'm just like all i heard i don't know if you could hear that but you know you hear the word brandon lee i'm like i know what these two are talking about and that kept happening with various kind of news stories around like and and i think about like throughout the the pandemic um going on walks outside and maybe like zipping around somebody on green lake as i'm speed walking and hearing one person say like well uh my cousin in ohio says that they Peace.

get it i'm like okay vaccine uh you know what i mean like you could always you just know you you know the zeitgeist a tiny bit and you can hear three words and you know and it also reminds you that we're all having the same conversations around the city and around around the country and then you know with a pandemic around the world i wonder if my i know exactly what you're

talking about and and i um what i have to do particularly really only when i've had like a few adult beverages is stifle sometimes the urge to then involve myself in those conversations there's like i go i walk up to the bar or i'm sitting at a table because i travel so much for work and that means solo travel i find myself often sitting at a table and and um eating you know a little dinner by myself or sitting at the bar and having a little dinner by myself and if i'm just sitting there and i haven't had a glass of wine or two i have really no interest in getting involved in conversations with people i don't know but you you throw 1.5 glasses of wine on that and all of a sudden so i was i i was having dinner when i was in new york by myself the only spot that i was at the bar at this place called um quality italian which is a really misleading name not because the food's not quality the food's actually really great it sounds like that sounds like the place where the italian restaurants buy their bulk tomato

sauce literally well i wasn't gonna say bulk tomato sauce but if you didn't say it i was going to say it sounds like a place where they go to get their restaurant supplies you're absolutely

right i went there too it's such a strange name for a place that's actually really high end and the food is amazing like it was very anyway so because like i was like googling italian restaurants near me and then i got to that place and then i thought well this can't be good this has got to be one of those hole in the wall just like real lousy kind of you know italian restaurants that just because i mean why would they call it quality italian well anyway it is quality italian i go to

a place called smart and fettuccine that's not that great of a joke but it was just for you

that was i got it i got exactly i picked up what you were putting down but anyway i'm sitting there at the bar and i'm having a little dinner and uh and i'm you know it's kind of close quarters and then there's this couple that sort of sidles up next to me they're older than than than me they're probably in their late 60s, early 70s. And the woman is trying to order a Topo Chico. And they're like, we don't have Topo Chico. And she's like, yeah, you can't get Topo Chico anywhere. And I say to her, it's got to be the supply chain or something. And in just saying that, I opened a door. That was this couple who, my guess is that we had very different politics because they were of a certain age and of a certain income bracket where my sense was they saw the world as the makers and the takers. The people like them, and I'll just mention if this matters, they're a well-heeled white couple probably in their 70s, like I said, and who own multiple homes, which they were telling me about. They seem to be more so the wife than the husband. The husband actually seemed like he was kind of open to conversation. The wife seemed pretty close off to it They seem like they were the kind of folks Who thought Well there are the people like us Who have worked hard And earned everything we've gotten And then there's everybody else Who's just trying to mooch off the system And I decided apparently at that moment That it was my job to try to very subtly And in a, I don't know, nuanced way Bring them around to the right way Of looking at the entire world, Andrew

At some point during the conversation This happened or pretty early on When you were even engaging on the supply chain thing Or did the supply chain thing lead to a conversation

They asked where do you live And I said Portland And then they went into the response That everybody who watches Fox News goes into About Portland which is like oh my god I heard Portland Just a hell hole right now And what I said was Other than the ambulances

Which happened to be going by right now

I was like well everything Tucker Carlson Says about the ambulances is actually true I can't I can't dispute that. But no, I said something like I said, you know, I go, let me put it this way. I think that there are a lot of people that have a lot invested in saying places like Portland are unlivable, like from the perspective of Fox News and the right wing media and a sort of anti urbanism and on some level of probably a dollop of racism. I didn't mention that in the opening comments to these people. But then it just kind of went from there, you know, and it was like them again. The husband was actually pretty like the husband was like fair, pretty thoughtful. And I kind of we were having a real conversation. I was listening to what he said. He was what I said. The wife, less so. She was just like if I would say something that she interpreted to be me being critical of her, she would get pretty worked up for whatever reason. So anyway At some point I found myself As I was about to leave saying

Well, I'm saying basically like trying to explain late stage capitalism to them in a loud bar as I'm trying to leave. Just basically look, we cannot we cannot continue on a path where a very small number of the people in the world and in this country have most of the resources. The things that we see in the world that are not ideal are largely the result of that exact thing. And that will balance itself out one way or another. Basically, it was what I was talking to these people about. My point in that, Andrew, is never engage. Just never engage. Let people try to order their Topo Chico in peace. It wasn't a terrible conversation. It wasn't like the worst of that conversation could have gone. But it just I felt afterwards like I don't think I changed any minds in that conversation.

Right, right. To go back to the original, like leaving all the kind of the politics and not seeing eye to eye thing out of it for now. Like, going back to what originally sparked this was you saying, like, sometimes having that overwhelming urge to jump into a conversation. Like, I am a – by the way, this is kind of an – I was about to say I am a shy person, and I've been doing a lot of thinking about this lately after a conversation with a friend. Now I'm on two tangents. Sorry. Let me tell this one story quickly. I was having dinner. Me and Genevieve were having dinner with our friend and his, at the time, relatively new girlfriend, or at least we were meeting her for the first time. and this is, I don't know, a few months ago, and it was great. It was a wonderful dinner in Ballard. And then after the dinner a couple of days later or something that he mentioned that his girlfriend's kind of quiet and shy, and I said, wait, is she quiet or is she shy? Because I suddenly had this realization that I am shy, but I am not quiet. Like, I think that people use them somewhat interchangeably.

You say the shy part loud.

Exactly. Oh, I was thinking, could you tweet out damned if you doon and damned if you doon't? Okay, that's good. No, that's your tweet. That's your truth. Anyway, and I've been thinking about that a lot lately, that I think there are some people who are quiet and shy, but I also think there are people who are quiet and not shy, who are confident and quiet and could hold a conversation but maybe just choose not to. And then there are people like me. I am actually incredibly shy, but I don't come off as shy because we think of shy as being quiet. But my shyness and my awkwardness comes off in a way of me wanting to fill all the fill all the silence with my words. Right. So anyway, I've been thinking about that lately.

What were you going to say? I totally know that feeling. I don't I don't know if I'm shy, but I also know that. I mean, like I say on the show a lot, I dread the part of the airplane trip where you have to give a verbal confirmation that you're willing to perform the duties of the exit route. I dread that. I dread my voice being heard aloud in an airplane. I do not understand these people that are, you know, throwing fits about the mask and are being carried off of planes. Forget whatever your wrong take on science is the embarrassment of the people on the airplane looking at you. There are times when I desperately need to recharge the battery on my laptop, or I should say charge it, because I'm working on the plane, and the battery is low. But I realize that I will have to go into the aisle, and I will have to open that overhead thing, and I will have to rummage around in my backpack and get the thing. And I realize I will then become the thing that 20 people are looking at. And that experience is enough that I'm like, well, that's enough work for this flight.

Yet you're also the person who will start the Seahawks chant on the airplane, right? Just, see! You know me. And you just wait for it, and then you realize, oh, I'm in Cleveland, and I'm just saying the word C.

I just – so I don't know if I'm – I don't know. Is that shyness? Because I don't – other than – here's the time when I want people paying attention to me. I have just gotten off. I'm at the Mann Center in Philadelphia. There's 12,000 people there. We're doing Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. I said a joke that for whatever reason was funny to the audience, and everyone laughs. that the moment when the laughter is happening that three seconds i would like the attention everything else i would rather not have any attention on me it's like in other words when it works and when you're getting that really strong feedback of like approval that i obviously like the feeling of i think most people do but everything else that goes into that the being in front of people or the calling attention to myself again believe it or not i don't like really enjoy any of that so but i don't know if that means i'm shy or i just have performed too much in my life and i'm all performed out i'm not really sure i think those are performative things but i think

that and i don't and i do not want to diagnose you as shy or not shy because i don't think that that's that's my role and i don't know what goes inside the hearts of men um what goes on inside the hearts of men but um you know i think when i think of shyness and in these examples i'm thinking of it's less about moments where it might be my voice alone in front of a bunch of people whether that's on an airplane or.

on a stage somewhere but more like how do i in my life what is it like every time i've entered a room at a party you know like i mean i enter rooms mentally apologizing and trying to just trying desperately to blend into the the wallpaper in a way that like and and it's not that i don't like people and there's a time when i thought i didn't like people i don't think that's it um i think that i don't know for whatever reason my entire life i have just been you know very socially anxious and i think that that is what i mean when i say shy like i'm not i'm not usually the person who's going to necessarily start a conversation except as you say there are these moments where it's almost like illogical it will grab you to bring it back around to this like especially if it's like something that you think it's like i don't know maybe somewhat obscure or given like kind of where you are in the moment like if i just happen to you know if i happen to be in the grocery store and somebody is talking about like lee rinaldo like you know like the guitarist for sonic youth or something i might be like you know i might be interested in that conversation or or this desire if you're sitting at the teddies and you hear two people talking about something that is in my wheelhouse or in my interest and i'm surprised and i want or like here's a perfect example i say i'm shy yet i saw a guy wearing a um browns hoodie uh in the concession line when we were going to see dune on friday night and the whole time i was like waiting to get my popcorn i'm trying i'm looking over hoping he's still at the soda fountain because i want to go talk about the browns with him which i did by the way like i didn't have to like but you know if i'm in cleveland and i see somebody in a browns hoodie i don't feel a desire to go up and say hey you like the browns too because we're in cleveland but when it's friday night And we're going to see Dune because it's, you know, damned if you do. And I see some. Yeah, that's what I said. I went up to him. I'm like, you're a Browns fan. What are you doing here? But anyway, so I did. I went up to him. I'm like, hey, you know, you're a Browns fan. You from Cleveland or what have you. And and so anyway, so that is not the behavior of a shy person. So I don't know.

Well, I mean, everybody is allowed to be a combination of things. Right. Like you're probably not shy all the time, but for me it's also – now it's sad that Topo Chico rose to this level, but if someone is talking about something that I have a specific experience with, that's what it's very hard for me to stifle it because the desire to throw in my two cents. And really honestly what it is is probably some version of Luke explaining or being like, I know about this topic, so I would like to be a part of this conversation. so like even this woman saying Topo Chico I'm thinking of well like the first time I had Topo Chico I was in Austin I thought it was so good then when I was not drinking I was like buying Topo Chico in the mail at an extremely exorbitant price because they didn't sell it in stores and then people started emailing me telling me the stores that did have it including by the way Andrew Smart and Final Smart and Fettuccine Smart and Fettuccine and then like when I would see Topo Chico places feeling like how weird is it that I feel like an emotional connection to a sparkling water just because because of my experience with it and now i think of topo chico as being still somehow my little secret the band that i was listening to before everyone else and now whenever anyone brings it up i want to say i saw them at the crocodile with four other people right the crocodile cafe for people not from seattle

not actually a crocodile yeah yeah what is it about that and like i say like it can grab you and you just want to and you want to either say like hey i know about that thing or sometimes it's a hey we both share this thing in common you're talking about something something somewhat obscure or again just obscure for the situation you know again the browns not obscure they're they're kind of well known as a football team uh but in this moment like here we are a couple of browns fans in seattle let's celebrate that what are you doing here here i go once again with the

Email. Every week, I hope that it's from a female. No, man. It's not from a female.

All right. Email or V-mail before we... Oh, I have the song we have to go out with. Oh, good. What? Can we go out with Ask by the Smiths? Sure. Shyness is nice. Shyness can stop you from doing all the things in life you want to. Like we've talked a lot about shyness in the last 20 minutes. It's called Ask? The song is called Ask. I bet you when you hear it, you'll go, I recognize that. I'm actually shocked you didn't become a Smith's head.

Yeah, I had some friends who were deep into the Smiths. And, you know, I had a friend who kind of got me partially into the Cure a little bit. I thought I wasn't really into the Cure, and then he would make me these mixtapes that I really enjoyed. But I still never, I still don't think I ever had like a, like I never had like a Cure record that I knew from beginning to end. Yeah, interesting kind of blind spots for me. I'm going to play a voicemail here for you from Listener Kelly.

Hey, fellas. This is Listener Kelly.

And, Andrew, I just had to call after your bagging and grocery store talk. I take so much pride in how I pass my cart because I'm very careful. Like, I have some bags that are insulated, so I make sure to put all of my refrigerated stuff together and all of my freezer stuff together. And then I make sure to put the heavy things first because you want those on the bottom of the reusable bags. And then the chips and the bread are always left because they're on the top in the cart. So you have to kind of maneuver. You have to move them because you don't want those to go first on the conveyor belt. So you have to be really thoughtful, right? So the other thing is when I'm at Costco, oh, my goodness, it's like a puzzle. I want those UPC codes facing up because then the stuff that's left in the cart, The person just has to take the little gun and go boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, because they don't have to move stuff. And I'll tell you what, when I get recognized by one of the cashiers and they say, look at you, you know how to put together a Costco cart, the pride I feel is kind of ridiculous. But when I'm recognized, it just makes my whole day have a good day.

Yeah, I feel that. I can totally identify with that. Yep, I've gotten some compliments from the cashiers before about my grocery bagging skills. I mean, what else do I need in life?

I think it's so interesting for Listener Kelly how the process starts really in the store. It's like greatness really in any endeavor, Andrew. You see the person on the field catching the pass or up on a plie in the ballet or what have you, and you just think that's amazing. But it started years before. It started with the preparation. It starts in the aisles of the grocery store, actually putting the items into the grocery cart in a very specific way and with the UPC labels up and with a flow, right? With an idea of like, okay, now I'm going to put these onto the conveyor and I need them to go onto the conveyor in the reverse order. Or I should say they need to go onto the conveyor in the order I want them to go into my reusable bags.

Oh, absolutely.

So heavy stuff like – so this is – you're at this level too.

Oh, God, yeah. Yeah, in fact, I think I alluded to it the other day. I mean, well, as far as the flow of the grocery store, Genevieve and I now use a digital grocery list that we share. But, like, everything that you add to it will be put into a category, and then I can adjust how those categories show up on the list. So in other words, I have been spending the past year like perfecting this list app so that when you add something, it will end up in the exact right place so that as I'm going through the store, I'm checking things off from top to bottom. Does that make sense? Like it's not like oranges are in the middle of the list and cucumbers are at the top, even though they're both in produce. Like everything is going to be grouped together based on the flow of my particular Safeway. If I go to another store, I'm aft. It's just the truth of the matter.

But then when you get to the conveyor belt, when you're checking out, if you're not doing self-checkout, are you putting – are you taking the items out of your grocery – out of the grocery cart and putting them down based on where you want them to go into the bag?

Oh, God, yeah, and I think that that's what – I think I mentioned that, and that's what Kelly was responding to because, like, I think I said that, like, cat food, believe it or not, even though they're individual cat food cans, those go at the front of the belt because I will stack them. And instead of stacking them high like towers in the bag, I will line the bottom of the bags, maybe, like, two cat food cans high in the bottom of the bag, and then you can put, like, the white claw on top of that, which is a big, heavy thing. But then if I have like some paper towels, that has to go in a special big bag. But I put that up front because if I put it near the back, there won't be room for the paper towels by the time it gets to me. Yeah, no, it's a yeah, absolutely. In fact, it's one of my favorite parts of grocery shopping is unloading the grocery cart in the in the order that makes sense to me.

Wow, that is impressive. That is very impressive. That is not – I'm trying to think of if there's any analog in my life to that where I sort of am that detail-oriented. I can't think of one.

Well, I think of – hearing me rattle this – maybe you won't agree with this analogy, but it's a little bit like how you talk about the way you structure your days, especially if you're going to go for a run. But you have to be presentable. And so like everything sort of – you will wake up and think like, okay, I know that these are the things I need to accomplish from being presentable here to doing some exercises. at some point so your day can be very regimented and then if something goes wrong like if my yes if my cat food ends up at the end of the the wrong place on the uh conveyor belt then that's gonna like gonna throw me for a loop in that moment like i feel like if things happen out of

order for you in that way it can throw you for dude my whole day got completely got messed up today when when we dialed up you're like how you doing i was like i'm good i'm having one of those days it's over this

So you're exactly right. I have my whole day planned as far as when I did my job before the show. I got to get a haircut later because tomorrow I'm going to be in Seattle. I'm going to be in Redmond doing some work for Microsoft. So I need to have my hair kind of in order. And I have a whole down to the 15 minute increment schedule today. And then I got this email from CBS. I had recorded some commentaries when I was in New York last week. and for one of them where I'm talking about kind of like the fact that I basically work from bed a lot like when it's not me and you on this microphone if I'm just like writing or brainstorming or returning emails my default setting is to want to go sit on my bed so I got this email from the producer saying actually it's the editor who's slightly different the editor saying I'm assigned to these commentaries I also did one about Thanksgiving I'm assigned to these commentaries this week so if you can get me all of the photos and stuff today that would be great Well, what that means is I have to, after my haircut, take another shower and get presentable again so that I can then take selfies of me standing at a standing desk and me typing in bed so they can use it on television. But that was not the plan. I was not – that was not in the 15-minute increments that I was going to have to get presentable again for a photo that will be on national television potentially. So it's really, really thrown my day for a loop. Yeah.

So, yeah. Would you agree with that analogy?

It's a real tuna cans after the Lay's Potato Chips situation, Andrew.

So the analogy holds up in your estimation.

No, very much so. No, I think that's a perfect analogy. Good. All right. Well, listen, on that note, should we go ahead and wrap things up for the day?

Yeah, that sounds good. I have the song Ask right here. I'm going to play this to play out. And I guess we'll call it What You Doin' Here. I'm happy with that as a show title.

What are you doing here? Now it sounds Scottish. All right. Thanks for listening, everybody. We'll be back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio for you. Until then, have a great Monday. Stay safe. Please go Seahawks. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Shyness is nice and shyness can stop you from doing all the things in life you'd like to. So if there's something you'd like to try, if there's something you'd like to try, Ask me, I won't say, no, how could I? Kourness is nice and kourness can stop you From saying all the things in life you'd like to So if there's something you'd like to try If there's something you'd like to try Ask me, I won't say, no, how could I? I'm spending warm summer days in dogs Writing frightening birds To a booktube girl in Luxembourg Did you find the files? I don't even know what they look like. What do they look like? They're in the computer. They're in the computer?

I got it.

You gotta figure it out.

Roger. In the computer

It's so simple Power out