Muse

Dear Andrew and Luke, this is Stephanie from Brooklyn calling in with my cover letter. I read that 85% of jobs are never advertised, so I thought I needed to be proactive about my interest in joining the TBTL legal team. There's been a lot of legal talk on the show recently, and finance and economics has been a strong theme. I work as an economist, and my job is providing expert witness support for litigation in finance. I work with academic affiliates who are professors at top schools, and I've also been a testifying expert myself, I can support all the Dannys in the TBTL legal department by estimating damages, preparing statistical analyses, and even suggesting quantitative graphics that would make excellent trial demonstrators. I look forward to meeting to discuss this opportunity further, and I thank you for your consideration. Sincerely, Stephanie. P.S. I understand I will need to change my name to Danny if I have the opportunity to join the tbtl legal team and i am fully prepared to do so tbtl

guess what day it is guess what day it is it's friday friday gotta get down on friday everybody's looking forward to the weekend stop stop the tape that is not true and we are not area what is this guy trying to do is this supposed to be what bozo's thinking or saying what guy it's bozo bozo did it bozo did what bozo did the dub he's doing the dub bozo is not a guy wait what so what was the exact question i i don't worry about it i'll move on it's all fine

all right hello good morning and welcome everyone to a friday edition of tbtl the show that it just might be too beautiful to live.

Is it too early to get a fish sandwich?

My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. As Jay would say, he's got flow. Coming to you once again from beautiful Chicago, Illinois, just off the banks of Lake Michigan, which looked absolutely gorgeous this morning. Got out for a quick little jog. I think it might be a little bit warmer than usual here. It was just the sun was shining. The water was calm.

Why don't you purify yourself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka?

Just couldn't have a better start to a Friday here in the windy city. And things are only getting better from here because we've arrived at episode 3573 in a collector's series. Let the fun begin. And I know we're off to a hot start because I got the episode number right today. We did so much kind of creative recording this week With night shows and crossover episodes And you just had to know If you were a regular TBTL consumer That I was not going to be able To keep the episode numbers straight through all that And sure enough I wasn't I gave the wrong episode number yesterday I apologize We've got it figured out And we are ready to go here on this Friday And get to some of the top stories that we did not get to yesterday, including the lake town in Sweden that would like to be known for more than just also being the same name as a toilet brush from Ikea.

Oh, hey, y'all said my name.

I was tempted to say something there, but I've been chastised very harshly over giving away things from the wait, wait, don't tell me verse before the show actually airs on Saturdays and Sundays around the country. So the reason I'm here, I was doing, wait, wait, don't tell me last night. I'm not saying anything. I'm not giving anything away, I don't think, other than to say the IKEA story did not come up, and I was kind of expecting it to. It seemed ready-made for that program. It did not happen. It's all the information I'm giving you, so don't holler at me, people who don't like me spoiling things on that show. So the prime minister of Finland is apologizing for partying late at night and leaving her cell phone at her office, which I assume is also the like, I don't know. What do you call it in Finland? The place where the president works? The ice house? That's a brutal joke. I'm trying to think of the White House. What's the Finnish version of the White House? Anyway, she was out till four in the morning having a wild time and had been near someone who might have had COVID or at least tested positive for COVID. I'm an activist and house party enthusiast. We'll check in on that story too. And then what has been going on in Saudi Arabia where there is a camel beauty contest that is a huge thing. There are millions and millions of dollars.

in prize money, to be one for bringing the most beautiful camel there. How about, like, pranking an animal? But the problem is some of these people have been shooting their camels up with Botox, doing other weird things to them to get them to have a particular kind of droopy lip and other things that are considered to be the sort of platonic beauty standard of cameldom. And so they've been disqualifying camels and disqualifying their owners, and it's a whole thing, which we'll get into as well. Plus some music for your weekend, because it's a Friday. All of that with the help of this handsome young stranger from New Hampshire. He's baby-stepping. He's doing the work. He's the longest-running co-bro of the show. Maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He has one question and one question only on this Friday morning.

Hey, where's the freaking...

He is Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now from the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. Good morning, my friend. Hey, good morning, Luke. How you doing? I am doing so well. I just had such a fun time last night getting to be in person and on stage for Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, seeing everybody. Becca's out here, got to meet the Wait, Wait folks and hang out. And it's a beautiful morning here in Chicago. As I mentioned, I have a giant hot cup of coffee from our favorite coffee shop, Andrew, where you always get me the almond milk so nicely. So, yeah, I couldn't. Are they still spinning Fleetwood Mac on the vinyl turntable there? Not. I went in yesterday morning. Becca grabbed the coffee today. But yesterday I grabbed the coffee and I did not notice the turntable. I didn't notice it was operating. Certainly they weren't playing Fleetwood Mac But maybe later I'll ask them to do that So I can perfectly recreate the moment That we had together Because I do think that was I'd always liked the album Rumors But I don't think I realized how good it was Until I heard it like 30 times Over the course of the three days we were here

Yeah there's like two songs on there That are not huge hits Is it weird to you that I know Your dinner plans for this evening?

I knew that was going to happen. I just don't know how to turn it off. I actually went – I did that on the airplane on Wednesday night. I realized Beck and I are going to be here in Chicago. Maybe it would be fun to go somewhere and get a little bit of – get some dinner, go somewhere kind of cool or memorable here in Chicago. And as I sort of worried would be the case because it's the holidays and it's a Friday, pretty much everything was booked. And so I did find a reservation at – I won't mention – let's not mention the specific restaurant. I won't say the time. I wouldn't imagine that anyone is going to come out. Yeah, I won't say the time or the place. But as I hit on like resi or whatever thing they kind of direct you to, I knew it was going to the email account that also feeds the TVTL thing. And I just – I went in to try to change it to just start sending it to my other account, and it wouldn't let me do it. Google was being challenging. I was also in the air, so the whole Wi-Fi thing is dodgy. But I was like, yeah, this is going to hit Andrew's awareness.

As long as you know, that's the thing. Because it always feels a little bit like I'm spying on you because, you know, I have all these accounts come into my phone. So when you made this, I think this was a couple – like you said, it was a couple of nights ago or whatever. And I was sitting – I think I was sitting at Teddy's with Genevieve, if you can believe it. And it came in. I'm like, oh, that's where Luke's having dinner on a Friday night. And, you know, but as long as you know that I don't feel creepy about it, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, I just don't want things coming through here that I shouldn't see.

Well, I actually I said I was going to be coy about it, but there's no reason for me to be ashamed. We're having dinner at the Lovers Package near O'Hare. Yeah, no, I had the fact that it's done apologizing to you, Andrew. Have you? Oh, my gosh. There's a lot of things there. A veggie lasagna Lovers Package. It was like worst edible underwear flavors. Where does veggie lasagna rank on the list?

OK, I'm going to tell you a story that looms large. It's in our in our family lore here. I need to I need to strip as many as I sort of need to whisper it. So I was working. I'm not going to say which radio station I was working at, but I was working at a radio station. And there was one of those kind of birthday celebrations for a colleague in the conference room at this radio station. OK. And this is during the era. I don't know if people are still doing this. I have not gone to many workplace birthday parties in the past several years or decade. But this was during that era when you could really get all kinds of customized cakes like you could get a photo, you know, take a photo of something. And just like they create some sort of weird skin, you know, like some sort of edible skin thing that you can put on the top of the cake. And it's like, hey, look, you know what you can do with that now?

You can go to the Guinness factory and they will print your face and whoever you're with on the foam of the pint of Guinness.

Oh, I see. I'm good.

Yeah, me too. I didn't. I don't I don't see myself using that service. But, I mean, that's just as an update on where the edible printing technology has landed.

And so we're all kind of crammed in this conference room. People are standing around, and, you know, I remember whose birthday it was, I think. And whoever, you know, sorry, we'll talk in a second. I'm a little bit spacey today. I got that vax yesterday. I feel great. I mean, I don't feel bad, but I feel so spacey. And you know me, I struggle with talking on the radio as it is. But whoever produced this birthday party, you know, decided to get one of those cakes with a special picture on it. And we had a colleague who was a very awkward man. I would describe him as he kind of, he was just an awkward man in conversations or whatever. He was socially awkward and he was big. He was a bigger guy. So he kind of loomed, sort of, if that's the right word. And we're standing around. I'll never forget. It was me and my two colleagues, him being one. And we're doing that thing where you're standing and you're eating cake out of a little plate on your hand. And my one colleague mentions the weird sort of texture of this layer of the cake that has the photo on it. And the looming guy just says, yeah, it's like edible panties. Whoa! And this man is, you know. Was it Kevin from The Office? Kind of vibes like that. And, like, this is a man who, and again, like, everybody has their private life. I'm not trying to be mean here. But you don't. He was a man who was, you know, a bit older than us. You know, he wasn't kind of part of our hangout crew, you know. Like, I was really close friends with some people at this radio station. And you just, I'd never heard him. He's not somebody who was going around saying inappropriate things. That was not his MO at all. And I don't think that he was meaning to be inappropriate there And I just I'd never even heard him make a joke before I just don't know where it came from It was the weirdest thing And Veeves and I are still trying to piece it together All these years later It was uncomfortable

I am I will forever And again Shout out to my nieces who are listening But I will never Oh no no no no I'm the one that brought it up I'm the one that spilled the tea on the fact that we're having dinner at Lover's Package. I'm the one who brought edible underwear into the conversation. But that was one of those things that as a kid, you were, through film and television, I think, led to believe that that was the height of eroticism. like i i didn't at the time i was like i don't understand why that would be something that people would want but i was like that's probably because i'm a kid and i don't eat the underwear and now i'm an adult in fact i'm you know i'm approaching senior citizen status and i still don't understand what the eroticism around that is and i feel like i don't know if anyone ever even actually integrated that into their uh you know their their private lives i think it was it was a gimmick that got into the water supply and then would be in in and also probably the kind of like very low budget low brow films that i was seeking out at a certain age in the hopes that there would be nudity it just it took up a lot of bandwidth in my brain as a kid for something that i have never seen in real life or wanted to use or heard

of anyone using well and again in a desperate attempt to get off of this topic or at least broaden it out so that we can move on I think I've said before that I have this sort of theory I guess that it's the things that we remember best from our childhood are the things that sort of confused us a little bit right because it would lodge in our brain and we tried to figure it out often around stuff like this the stuff that adults understand supposedly and we don't right and that just that phrase you'll understand when you're older is like such a mind F right because you're like well what is it like what at what age at what age will i understand this thing you know and then sometimes you never get to that age but it will live with you forever like there's a scene i think i've said this before and it's not my story to tell but there's a scene in dirty rotten scoundrels where there's just like sort of implied perversions sort of and genevieve says

And she saw that movie in her, you know, in a theater with her parents whenever it came out.

Thank you.

And she was on the young side. And, you know, I think what it is, I think it's just something involving somebody putting on a rubber glove and looking lascivious or something. And she apparently laughed at it because she's a kid and it was just a goofy look. Right. And I guess she laughed at it. And one of her parents said, I think maybe her dad said, do you know why that's funny? And then she had to admit She's like no I guess there's something here that I don't get At first she just thought it was funny because it was goofy And it was weird and it was Steve Martin And he's bigger than life and rubber gloves are funny But then when somebody said well do you know why that's funny Then it just lived in her brain forever To the point where I know this story When I met her 20 years later Right

Yeah there's so much of that when you're a kid That's I think we might overuse this now But sort of comedy adjacent Like it's said It's said in a way or presented in a way That is clearly meant to be humorous But it may not even be that coherent As a comedic thought Because I know the scene you're talking about And it's just kind of Steve Martin being weird And then a mention of a glove And it's all these things that Kind of taken together just mean something's going on But it's not very It's not a specific Joke And maybe that's the comedy of it It's sort of buzzing around the edges of this weirdness We're not allowed to say that anything Andrew I don't know if you've heard Everything that everyone does all the time is okay You're not allowed to ever Oh no are you going on a you can't say anything Is this the preamble to you can't say anything anymore No but I just caught myself Saying like I got myself saying That the point of the Steve Martin bit is that he's being odd But then I realized if I say that he's If I say that the point of that is that he's being odd Then someone could take it to mean That I think I'm I'm defining their behavior as odd if they do whatever it is Steve Martin is sort of indicating he might do in that film. And I'm not here to judge anyone, Andrew.

Well, he purposely pees his pants at the dinner table. I think we can categorize that as odd. That could be a thing. I'm happy to just go on and say that is odd social behavior given the norms. I think there are still social norms.

Okay. I agree with you on that. I know it sounded like I was I was going into sort of like, you know, oh, here come the PC police for me. But I really did have that moment of realizing, like, there's so much stuff that we used to just kind of be like it was a given that you could say, well, that's that's that's weird. And now we don't say that's weird anymore. And I think in I think taken in in its totality or the overall effect of that is a very good thing that we just don't make people feel bad about stuff the way we used to about a whole variety of things, sexual or non. But I caught myself in a moment just having the weight or the realization of how differently we talk about things now than, say, 10 years ago.

Yeah.

It kind of occurred to me in that moment, if that makes any sense.

Being dismissive or what have you. I have a huge left turn here because now I'm looking at these emails. We just have all these random spammy emails in that account that also has your reservation in it. And I was just deleting them while you were talking. And I saw – I don't know if this is because you signed up for something back in the day. But I saw we got some email from some Puget Sound basketball association that this is going way back to play in that. Yeah. And I just made me think, you know, for a while there, not all that long ago, maybe earlier this year, late last year, you were you were very basketball forward going to various gyms and everything. Have you been has that sort of taken? I mean, you've been busy. You've been moving and doing all kinds of stuff. I'm not trying to guilt you, but it's out of curiosity. Any movement on that?

What happened? Well, two things happened. One, the mask mandate came back. Oh, yeah. And it was really stressful to me to be in the gym without my mask. It was stifling to me to be exercising, for me, that vigorously and have a mask on. So then I would not have a mask on, but then I would be constantly worried someone else was going to come in the gym. So it kind of – it wasn't super – it became kind of stressful. Also, I really did start to feel the effects of jumping like a thousand times over the course of an hour. And then I sort of – but what was good about it was that it got me back in the habit of exercising that I had gotten a little bit haphazard about. And so what I did after that was then I started running again and I have been, I'm happy to say, pretty regular with the running. And so it kind of worked. Now, I also put my account on hold at the 24-Hour Fitness, and I think it's actually about to reactivate.

I didn't know you could do that. So I'll probably put it on hold. I should have done that. I mean, I've been a 24-Hour Fitness member for well over a decade now, but there are periods where I don't use it much, especially during the pandemic. Now, they automatically put it on hold during a big chunk of the pandemic when they were closed.

But I didn't realize that if I'm in a phase where I'm not going much that I can put it on hold without having to like restart it and pay all the startup fees again.

I think I paused it for like three months. I think it's just turning. I'm probably going to get a bill any day now because I think it turned back on in December. But I think what I'll probably do, maybe this winter, if it starts to get bitterly cold in Portland and running is just not an option for some reason, I'll probably revisit it. But what I'm hoping is that everyone gets vaccinated and boosted, and then it's safe to relax the mask mandate in gyms, and then I will go back to doing that a couple of days a week because I was really having fun with it. I was really enjoying my little basketball game that I made up for myself in my head. But that Puget Sound and whatever basketball thing, that was a league that I was in with The Mummy. I think our friend Seth Brolight was in it. It was a few of us that had kind of played together in high school. And so this would have been, I think, in my mid-20s when I probably was still, you know, relatively sort of able to run around on a basketball court and affect some sort of outcome with the shooting and the dribbling. And so, yeah, I think it was some of our high school some of our high school pals got together and played in some league. But then there was I almost want to say we had Jen Jen's husband, Jason Andrews, I think might have played like one game for us. and I think he scored 80 points. Might have been our only game we won. Jason played college basketball. He played at Hillsdale in Michigan. And he is like, the difference between people who played college basketball and who were just sort of pretty competent in high school is a real, it's a really huge step. And you get somebody like Jason Andrews on the court with a bunch of folks who just kind of played high school ball, and you're like, oh, one of these things is not like the other. But anyway, I guess I'm glad to hear that league is still going, and that I still am receiving messages from them. I'll forward it to you if I get another one. Please do. Here's the much more important than my former basketball glory is your current status as a boosted American, which you got the booster yesterday, and you just said you're feeling spacey. What was, okay, I also, can I just say this? I saw the picture that you posted on Twitter. I completely understand why you felt emotional. I felt a little emotional looking at it.

Do we want to start there? Where do we start with this this part of the? Sure. Yeah. And again, I don't mean to turn this into a huge a huge story. I just did want to mention that I am a little spacey. So I guess a little extra patience with me today, which is probably asking a lot. But yeah, I woke up this morning feeling, you know, because everybody was saying like you're going to be like, you know, you could be in rough shape the next day after the booster shot. I don't feel like sick I don't think like I feel I definitely feel spacey like I said to you the other day after getting my second shot it almost felt like I was on some mild drug almost like my body feels a little vibrating I'm not even joking do you have any idea what I'm talking about like that like I don't feel like I don't have any kind of like fluish symptoms other than my body just sort of is buzzy do you ever get that I don't know if I've had exactly what you're describing so I I'll take your word for yeah and I also think it's going to come off as a little bit of exhaustion I probably didn't get quite as much sleep as I probably should have so I have a meeting today at 1 30 and my plan and I got up kind of early today so my plan is uh to get I did a lot of kind of pre-work yesterday so that I wouldn't have a you know kind of a heavy workload this afternoon so I'm really looking forward to getting to like that two o'clock point today yes where I'm just gonna like I have nothing between like two o'clock and seven o'clock and so I'm just like looking forward to going upstairs and just like hitting the hay, as my dad would say. But so I feel basically fine. But yeah, that picture that you're referring to, you know, my experience of getting the shot was significantly different than getting our first two shots, where, as I described yesterday on the show, Vives and I went to like the Lumen Sports Event Center, like down in the stadium district here. And, you know, that had a sort of apocalyptic vibe to it. Like it was handled amazingly well. It wasn't like apocalyptic in the way I was so impressed with the people who I guess the county put on that that mass vaccination site. But the idea of just like shuffling in line to a mass vaccination site and walking into a room where hundreds upon hundreds of desks are set up where people are just shuffling off to them and they're getting a shot in the arm. That was weird. Yesterday's was a little bit more normal. It was at the University of Washington Medical Center, which is right there near the university. So no oh one thing So I have a mask I have these masks that I really like But they're not specifically medical masks You know they're definitely not the canine No it's not canine that's a dog right There's the N9

And a Jim Belushi film Yeah that was

Where's that dog now? What are the K masks? K95. K95, sorry, yeah. And then there's a K94 I found out, I'm not kidding, that somebody was wearing at the shoot that I was on, and I didn't know that was a, there was like there's one step down or something.

Yeah, maybe they were just like, well, I'm trying to think of things that happened in 1994 that were probably a little bit better than 1995.

I was going to go more with the, when I was a kid, we were so poor, We could only afford K-94 masks.

What year did you graduate high school? 94? Yeah, 94. Were there like bad rhyming little – because like 95, like I graduated in 95, and I just feel like I was the generation of like staying alive in 95, which doesn't really make a lot of sense, but it rhymes.

Yeah, we had something around that around, you know, 94. I know we used to do this chant, like, you know, you'd be at an assembly and school spirit would break out and the different, you know, classes would kind of chant out their year. So we'd be like, nine, four, nine, four or something. I was just trying to fit in. I was, you know, I transferred as a senior. I didn't know anyone. It was bad. I told you I one time for spirit day was pajama day, ran out onto the floor and my very sensitive part of my body literally flew out of my pajamas I was wearing. That's a that's a tough way to break in your senior year at a new school. Everybody could see your edible underwear. It was I believe it was it was so much chaos. And I I just I sort of grabbed the whole situation. I grabbed these baggy pajamas So many of my problems in high school And I know we haven't talked about this picture yet So many of my problems in high school As I think about it Went back to my love of boxers Boxer underwear for some reason Which if they're a little too big for you As the ones probably were That I ordered from Pennies From the catalog They provide zero support Containment Because there's a fly on the boxers That does not button At least the ones I had So just – it was as if there was nothing – I wasn't wearing anything down there even though I was. And so the combination of that and then these weird giant pajama bottoms I was wearing because that was the – the theme of the day was like pajama day or something. It was just a disaster in the making. But anyway, we would chant 9-4, Andrew, is the answer to that question.

It's a question. So the photo that you're referring to that I took yesterday was – so, okay. So yesterday's experience was different because, like I said, it was in a medical center. Oh, the one thing I was going to say was I was wearing my mask, my usual mask, which is a real – it covers my face. I get them from Target. It's like Goodfellas brand or something like that. Oh, yeah. That's the Target brand. Yeah, and you got to say, you talking to me. You got to, like, do this whole thing. Oh, I'm funny, and you got to, like, yell. What, I'm a mask? Yeah, exactly. Like, how do I protect you? It's a whole thing. You know, so you've been there. But what I like about it is it really covers my face Like a big chunk of my face Which is good because the more of my Chins that you cover the better But also I need something that goes high up on my face So I can put my glasses on top of The mask which prevents A lot of the fogging issues that you have Anyway I have a system right and I've got I don't know a handful of these masks And I but Genevieve's Wearing her K95 or whatever I just have this one on so when we go in Somebody I think checks our vax cards maybe or had to check something as we came through um like at the door almost like a hospital bouncer kind of fella and then he sees my mask he says oh and i see him grabbing a and he's opening a new box of like hospital style those thin medical masks and i'm like oh hell i really hate those things i'm like oh hell he's gonna make me put one of those on and he gives it to me he's like put this on please i said okay sure you know he's nice but luke i put it on and it reeked my friend it smelled like mildew and bo it was i was gagged i was i mean i think i'm a little bit overly sensitive to smell but i was i could not believe that i couldn't wear my own mask i was a little put off on that and that the mask that they gave me fresh out of a brand new box that i watched him take the cellophane off of reeked and i'm just like standing in this line while Veves and I are ready to check in and I'm kind of like being a baby about it and Genevieve's like here I think I have a medical mask in my bag that I haven't used yet that I just kind of carry around as a backup and she gave me that and it was much better but that was just a weird thing I almost went at the end I was like I'm going to just tell him that those masks are handing out reek I don't know if they would have done anything about it I wasn't going to you know I was just going to let him know for other people but he was you know when we were leaving he was working with somebody else I didn't want to be like interrupting the line and saying hey man your masks suck That's an odd situation though Because you know it's not bo so what it is is some chemical reaction because there's no way that that mask fresh out of the packaging has body odor on it or whatever it smelled like and i'm not saying it didn't smell like those things but those are just a chemical reaction of something else bad going on something or not even bad but just the chemical of the mask meaning the chemical of the

cellophane or where it was stored or something i think something was stored somewhere i mean there you know keep in mind that we went from a country that doesn't wear masks to suddenly just mass producing these things is like our number one product so like you know god knows where these things are coming from where they're sitting on on floors before they get wrapped up or whatever i mean and it kind of doesn't matter it's not like i know nobody wore it in their armpit but it was a

bad smell it was sure i'm not saying well right but i'm saying i have i guess what i'm trying to say is i have a different reaction to i i'm not saying i don't know how i would have responded to it because i haven't smelled what you're describing i don't think i would enjoy it but some part of my brain would be less disgusted by it knowing that it wasn't the thing it actually smelled like if i was looking for if i forgot my mask and someone was fishing through their glove compartment they're like this one's brand new but it was like loose and i put it on and i thought that what i was smelling was actually body odor i would totally be like gagging i would i think i would in that situation take some weird comfort in the fact that this is a chemical reaction or whatever i guess or it was being stored in a 24-hour fitness yeah people were

working out right next to it oh it was rough it was it really made me gag yeah i mean it's like for me like this smell and i also i do have a pretty active gag reflex which is kind of sucks actually but um you know it's like you could you could make a candle i guess that smells like just like rich stinky dog poo and you're gonna stick that in my face for a half hour and i've got to wear that you know candle around my nose for a half hour i don't care i mean i guess you're right it is better than the alternative but it's not like it's an enjoyable experience i wish you

would have saved the mask because now i'm dying to smell it like that sketch is that kids in the

hall or was that snl i think whereas like that or in living color i think i think it's kids in the hall it's like no no i think snl i think like that the family that like everything stinks so bad like but they make each other brother but they're so compelled to smell gone bad and then everyone's

trying it and then it's like this stair loose and then everyone's stepping on the stair falling I kind of want to smell the mask now, Andrew. You threw it out, right?

Oh, I threw that away as soon as I left that building. Did Veve smell it? No, she did not smell it.

But anyway. I would have smelled it if I were with you. I would have been like, let me get a sniff.

Oh, so anyway, so we go through. It's fine. Actually, the shot itself, Luke, you know, sometimes people say I didn't feel it at all. Other people said, you know, it kind of hurt when I got it. Like, out of all three shots, like, I literally didn't even feel it. It was a right getting so good. Yeah, maybe that technology. Yeah, yeah, because yeah, I feel like other I feel like I had other needles. I kind of snapped. I don't know what they were doing, but almost I kind of snapped into my skin or something in a way. Maybe I'm making that up. But either way, whatever this person did, it didn't hurt at all. In fact, I had a we in my five minutes sitting with this woman. We had quite a few laughs. So that was pretty good. We're really yucking it up. She told me that she was born. she asked me where I was from and I told her and then I said where are you from you from around here she said yeah I was actually born in this hospital and I said my god have you ever left do you know that there's outside you're allowed to leave I'm sure she's heard it a million times but we had a good laugh we were talking about how younger generations wouldn't understand resume paper because they gave me a nice little card holder for my vax cards now but before that I just put them in an envelope and wrote V-A-X on it and I took pictures of it and I stored it in my desk drawer here and that's what I brought and she gave me the new the new pocket for him and I said oh yeah but that's my good envelope and I said you know that envelope came from that came from one of those boxes we used to have to buy when we were applying for jobs like kids don't know this and when I say kids I mean 35 year olds don't know this that like you would get when you were applying for jobs you would go and you get a nice box of paper and envelopes and stationary and like you would type out your resume or print out your resume on the stuff and you'd even print out the envelopes I think and you would send it and it was like your good paper your good stock your good envelopes and like now of course it's just like you know LinkedIn I guess I don't know what the who's all so anyway we're just talking about that having a good time and then you have you're supposed to go sit after you get your shot for a few minutes and the big difference aside from being in a medical center this time is also So there were kids here and there have been kids here because when I got my first shots, you know, the drug, the vaccine wasn't approved for kids yet. And so the walls are covered. You can tell they go out of their way to make kids feel feel OK. And so the walls are covered with like, I guess, coloring book pages or printouts. And there's like three different printouts. One's like a robot. One's a.

couple dancing and one's like a cherry with lips or something like that or an apple with lips and you could see all the kids colored it their own different ways but then one precocious child flipped over one of these pieces of paper and drew a picture of a little girl with blonde hair and big green eyes standing outside under the sun on a green lawn and it just little girls just saying in a speech bubble it will be okay and god it choked me up man it really didn't even saying it now describing it because to me like this is a kid who then you know then uses her i was screened on saturday sticker to to you know hang it up and you know i'm kind of picturing that and it's like i'm looking at that as just such a bigger statement than probably what this kid was i think this kid was just like trying to say like hey the shot's not going to hurt that bad right like it's going to be okay the shot's going to be okay but i'm just thinking we're in we're you know we're well into year two going into year three of a global pandemic i just feel emotionally overwrought and i just see this little girl saying it will be okay and it's like man i know you can associate

with that uh yeah and the drawing there's just something uh about the the the particular drawing too that just it's it's a really cute drawing and it's just kind of like you you very much uh i'm going back and forth between empathy and sympathy because i recently learned the difference and I keep forgetting it in fact we were literally talking about it Becca and I on our jog this morning and I've already forgotten but you can just identify with this character this drawing and then the sentiment and the fact that it's in a clinic where you're getting a shot and where children are now having to get shots and your mask is reeks of human vomit it's just a lot

and again it was one of those things where I saw this thing that said I thought of you actually I thought of your joy tattoo and like how the you know i can't you have a story about that or maybe i'm thinking about that thing that you didn't you have a sign on the wall that actually said it'll be okay or something

along those lines yeah that was from uh somebody who was printing a lot of our tbtl posters and materials i believe the company was called rowboat and he was in columbia city and um had one of the things that he made uh was this this kind of frame thing that said everything's going to be okay and I had that on my wall and you know yeah it was kind of a just a little reminder that things are going to be okay or at least when I feel anxious things you know try to tell myself that

yeah and again I know that this this kid was probably what if I find out it was just like a 47 year old guy who just drew this and stuck it up there um but no the the kid who was that would be I assume drew this god can we do a podcast about that what if it's what is my old lurking But anyway Yeah it was one of those things where They were drawing something very specific But then of course me being Me it just felt like such a bigger Statement than what I think It's intended purpose was and so Anyway I'm glad I snapped a photo of it

No I thought it was really nice and also you're I think most importantly you got A lot of hashtag engagement Did I yeah I did I saw that you Liked it this morning for sure

Come on you know the exact number I have no idea, but I consider a lot of engagement being over 100, and I think I've got like two tweets that got over 100, so I don't know.

I think it was like at 78 when I liked it.

Okay, yeah, we got 84 there, so that's good.

There you go, and once people hear this and smash that like button, you're going to go north of 100, my friend. You've gone viral once again.

Now I'm looking at my other tweets. Now I'm going to turn into a real Luke Burbank here. Don't take that the wrong way. Wait, wait a minute. I mean being very charming and entertaining on the podcast a while back a few weeks ago. I guess this was early November. I don't know if you saw this or not, but I was actually in your old neighborhood down on Rainier, a little bit south of your old Mount Baker neighborhood. And there's a T-Mobile store. Did you happen to see this photo? There's a T-Mobile store where. Oh, I love that picture you took. You saw this. There's clearly like at some point they removed the T-Mobile sign and then replaced it with another very similar but different T-Mobile sign. So you can see the old T-Mobile behind it all like kind of ratty like a sign that's gone and then a new pink T-Mobile sign over top of it. I'm not describing it very well, but I said this. I bet this T-Mobile store used to be a T-Mobile store.

I'm laughing at my own jokes here. Sorry. Blame the vax. That's good. That's it. That is one of the side effects that no one talks about is laughing at your own tweets.

You're smelling your own farts and laughing at your own tweets. Here's what I got. Before we started the show, I decided that I would come up with some possible show titles in advance. So I got Booster in the Hen House, The Vax of Life, or Vax It Through the Gift Shop. So I don't know if any of those.

Oh, man. Those are.

It would work, but just trying to get ahead of the game today. Yeah, work smarter, not harder. That's what I said. All right. Well, we've gone 40 minutes, and we haven't gotten to these top stories. So let's do that. Listen, I had a tight 26 on edible underwear, so you have nothing to apologize for, my friend. Oh, we've got to get a loose 46. Quick break, and then we will be back, and we'll get through the rest of this and get into the weekend, my friends, in just a moment here on TBTL. Thank you, baby. All right, let's thank some donors of the day who are making today's episode possible with their support. Folks like Holly Snap in Kirkland, Washington. James Kim, who is a podcaster and who made a podcast called Moonface, which won a ton of awards and was quite beloved. I saw him on Twitter the other day saying he wants to do a podcast about Costco called Kirkland, or Welcome to Kirkland or something. And I thought, boy, I would listen to that. A Costco podcast, there's a lot to be said about that.

I don't think I've ever been inside of a Costco. Genevieve has been a couple of times because our good friend Broadcast Berry and Genevieve went and bought all those Costco pizzas for our TBTL Live at Sea show. Yeah, for the boat show. But I think that might have been Genevieve's first experience in a Costco. That is amazing. We're not members, but we're renters, so we don't have a lot of storage space. I'm not the type of guy who wants to buy a 50-pack of paper towels or whatever. I'm just going to the store every day and kind of replenishing supplies, or at least that's my – I'm no longer going to the store every day, but that was my vibe for a while, you know.

I mean, I think what's probably interesting about Costco is the way that it really drives behaviors now, or at least drives... Take something that maybe a small number of people were enjoying, and then they kind of, like, figure out a way to sell more of it at a lower price, and then it becomes hugely popular or becomes the number one thing of that category. I believe Costco might be the biggest bookseller in America now. Is one of the things that's surprising They're very like I mean maybe Amazon but like behind Amazon Or something it's like Costco Which you wouldn't so it's like what books is Costco Choosing and who's in charge of that at Costco And is it all Tom Clancy It's mostly Tom Clancy I think Yeah Anyway Holly thank you for checking in from Kirkland Thanks to Kelly Blower In Whitehall Michigan I wonder if Kelly is Related to Mike Blowers I guess Kelly's missing an S Well maybe she had to drop the S

Below Too much She's her own person

Timothy Petrick Is in Kamloops British Columbia Nice This is the part of the year Where I mention The Junior Hockey League That had a team from Kamloops That's how I knew there was a place called Kamloops as a kid it sounded very fantastical to me it was Kamloops it was Medicine Hat it was Yellowknife these were all places in Canada that had junior hockey teams that would come down and play the Seattle Thunderbirds and here's something that will

just kill the conversation what is the song that Kamloops always reminds me of there was some there was some land of the loops that's the one that you know but there was another one

No, no, is it Hand on the Torch? Is it Us Three? Yes, it's Us Three. Trip Fantasia?

Yes, it's Us Three, and they have something loops, right? Cantaloupe, yes. Cantaloupe from the album Hand on the Torch. Thank you, by the way, for getting me here. And this was a public radio theme song for, I think, On Point, right? Yes, it was.

Wasn't it for the Connection or something? I think it was On Point out of WBUR in Boston.

All right.

This is our donor music now. This was the height of coolness at some point for a certain kind of person. And then you'd have a public radio show using this. It was like, okay, you know, this ain't your grandma's public radio. We're playing us three. Yeah, there's no flutes in this. Actually, there's probably some flutes in this. Tristan Foley is in Somerville, Massachusetts. Tristan may have been listening to whatever Massachusetts-based public radio show was using this as their theme song. Thank you, Tristan. We've also got Riley Gifford and Jenna Jardine in Puyallup, Washington. Our buds. Thank you so much. And then AJ.

Adrian Haskell is up there in Bellingham, Washington. That sounds familiar to me.

I think there was an ice hockey team in Bellingham, wasn't there?

That's why it rings a bell. Thanks, Adrian. Hey, thank you to all of our donors of the day for supporting TBTL. We would absolutely not be able to do this without you, so thank you. hello and welcome to top story i really wanted to say the funky funky part with the song but it's gonna be out of time i was gonna be like a second behind so i didn't do it uh the prime minister of finland uh has apologized for partying at a club until 4 a.m after having been exposed to somebody who had covid now in her defense um her name is a sana marin uh in her defense she the rule in finland is apparently is that if you are if you're double vaxxed and you are you find out that you were in potential contact with somebody who had covid you do not have to self-isolate because the thought is the vax will keep you from contracting the thing which i don't know i'm not you know this may be shocking to the listeners i'm not an epidemiologist or a medical doctor but it sounds on the surface like that's not a terribly irresponsible rule right yeah no

that sounds like a good rule i think i mean i don't have a hot take on the story at all i don't even have a i don't even have a room temperature take on the story but you know i guess the the idea is you're leading a country the the bar is a little bit higher for you right and also the fact that like she was getting um messages from staff saying actually you need to quarantine but she had left her work phone at home because she was in as you say the club yes which i find kind of

charming actually i mean this prime minister is 36 years old when she was elected uh she became The youngest head of state Of a sort of major country I guess in the world And I find it kind of Relatable that She was told That she was not required to isolate Because she's vaccinated Then she went to the club With her husband and some friends And then they sent a follow up text That said no you are supposed to isolate But that went to a work phone that she didn't bring To the club with her that she left um at home and this reminds me of like me oversleeping my cal pen interview where i'm just like you know i wake up and i look at the clock and i realize i was supposed to be standing in front of the met 45 minutes ago or whatever it was it makes me feel uh it makes me feel more okay about myself that the actual prime minister of a country had a gaffe sort of like this like did not have the phone she was supposed to have also it's finland and i mean i've been to finland it's a cool country and it's it would appear from the outsider for my brief visit to be a very functional country but it's also i just wonder if it's like if being the prime minister of finland is a little different than being the president of the united states like if it's a

little bit more of a chill environment obviously it's got to be i mean if i have any kind of takeaway or question about this it's just like it's interesting how the and again a president is different than a prime minister but it's just amazing that you can just go dark you know like brown brown's game and seahawks are playing at the same time media blackout for this prime minister so i can so that the seahawks game isn't spoiled that's how i'd live my life but like there's no way for the president of the united states whoever it is to go dark you know i mean there's always going to be somebody like if they're if they're dancing at a club at three in the morning um there will be somebody outside the door and that person will get the message that there's something going on you know what I mean no matter where you are no matter what time of day or night whether you're at home sleeping or out on the streets like there's you're always and even if you say listen I want to put my work phone down you can maybe give yourself the feeling of freedom for a night but you know that people always have a way to get in touch with you because anything can happen around the globe at any moment that you need to be a part of but apparently in Finland when you're prime minister you can just like leave your work Blackberry at home and just like unplug for a little bit that's kind of interesting yeah right she was out at a

club called butchers whose website boasts of being inspired by new york's meat packing district the website also said it's a different but beautiful sit it features different but beautiful sitting areas yeah what does that mean i don't know she was out yeah she was out at butchers she has apologized for the whole thing i don't think it's less bad than Thank you.

What apparently – what appears to have happened to the UK last Christmas, which was that there was a Christmas party at 10 Downing Street. I was hoping secretly that when I was trying to speculate and wonder aloud about what the – where the president of Finland lives. Like do you think they – what I was calling it the Ice House. I was trying to think what the White House of Finland would be. Right, right, right. I was hoping maybe you had Googled that, but it sounds like you probably.

It's called the Finland Empire.

That's where it's located. That's all I know. So anyway, yeah, so that's where it was left. I'm just joking. At 10 Downing Street, which, of course, is where the prime minister of England lives, there was a Christmas party, they think. And the reason that this is of note is because at that time in England, the lockdown was so extreme. So this would have been last year that they were actually there were, you know, police or bobbies or whatever sort of breaking into people who were throwing illegal Christmas parties in their homes and and arresting people or giving them tickets or breaking up illegal Christmas parties. And the allegation is that while that was happening, Boris Johnson and others were partying inside of 10 Downing Street. They were having a Christmas party The exact thing they were having broken up At many other places And that is not sitting right with the British folks

Yeah I would guess Of course it's Boris Johnson I'm sure he took all the proper precautions And I'm sure it was all very safe How tall do you think he is by the way?

Boris Johnson That's a great question

It just happens to be in front of me right now This is a stat that I didn't know It's one of the main things that I tend to Google

Really? Yeah I'm always just curious about people's height for some reason. You know, and it's not just men. It's men and women. I'll see a photo of someone. They'll be in a film, and I'll just be kind of curious. I don't know. I want a sense of how much maybe room they're taking up in the actual IRL. Boris Johnson, he seems, of course, being the prime minister, probably adds a sense of someone's maybe physical stature and size. He seems like he might be like 6'2", but how tall is he really?

He's actually 5'9". It seems short, but the thing is, I'm not obsessed with height. I don't think about it too much. I was just like, I was 6'2 for like most of my life, and then at least officially, and I can't tell if my early doctor, like my doctors when I was in high school and college got it wrong, or if I'm just, you know, shrinking rapidly, but I'm, I think just six now, so I've lost two inches. Two inches? Yeah, it seems like a lot, right? Something's not right here.

I bet you that the, I think you're probably 6'1 still. You still seem taller than me And I think I topped out at 6'1 Almost 6'1 And now I think I'm down to like 6 feet or something Well I could definitely take you I mean that's the important thing Well that's it Listen we've been through this so many times on the show We don't need to waste more time with it But the first time you really punch someone You will punch them into space And I hope it's not me But the chances are good that it will be

I see more of a wrestling match I don't know if you know this But fights are one on the ground Luke So I see sort of like, you know, what I need to do is... Will you take me into the ground and pound? I need to get you into a headlock. I think that's my best move here. If I can get you into a headlock, because I'm picturing you being the more angry one in this fight as well. Oh, I don't think so. No, my whole theory...

No, no, no. My theory is that because you are so often sort of sublimating your anger... I'm not sure I understand. Easy watch. Whoa. Why did my watch just think...

Your watch is very uncomfortable with this conversation.

My theory is – no, my whole theory is – see, I am constantly venting my anger. I don't have that much in me because I just kind of – it goes out in all kinds of directions. You, I think, are more careful with other people's feelings and you try to be very measured at times and not just be reactive. And also you don't fight people on a regular basis. And that's what I'm saying. And I don't either, thankfully, anymore. But that's why I'm saying when it happens If it happens it's going to be 40 plus years of build up And that's going to be a really And you're also you have really big hands You're a pretty big guy So I would say though This is a weird list to start developing But I think the listeners will agree Of the people who you're most likely to punch If it were to come to it I would say I'm at the top of the list

No it's some stranger Who parked their SUV in a bike lane

I guess I'm just thinking well yeah but i mean the amount of contact that we have moves me to the top of the list like that stranger maybe the idea of a stranger maybe you're more likely to punch a stranger whoever that stranger might be but as far as people in your life i feel like you and i have because of you know because of how often we come in contact

Because of how annoying I am and because of my propensity towards escalating things sometimes, I just feel like I have to be at the top of the list.

I'm really trying to give this, you know, it's proper thoughtfulness here. What are we even talking about? But I that doesn't seem right to me, but I can't come up with a better one.

I'm happy because I'm actually happy to know that.

Because, like, I have seen you quite a bit the past couple of months because your travels have brought you through Seattle. So we've been doing some projects together. We've been doing TBTL together and then going out for a drink or two afterwards. But not – first of all, I haven't really been going out late, just generally speaking, these days. I feel like I see – you know, in order for us to really get into a physical altercation, we'd probably have to be in the same state, which, you know, we live in different states. But yet, on the other hand, it's like, well, then who? Who do I see the most? I guess I see Camaro Kev probably the most these days at the Eagles or whatever. But, I mean, he and I, can you imagine us fighting? We would just both kind of lay down and probably spoon, just kind of take a nap. Like, neither one of us are big.

Well, he's another one, too, though. Camaro, he's a sleeper cell because he's done all of that kickboxing and stuff. Yeah, well, that's the thing. He doesn't choose to, like, get into it with people. But if he were to, he and I almost had it out once. And I will say this Like I am very I'm very impulsive And I'm also very like If I'm in that moment And I'm triggered I'm not thinking logically But even in that state Some part of the back of my brain Was like I don't know if this is really Something I want to get into

The man who has belonged To a kickboxing gym For as long as we've known him It's like they invented it You don't think that's the guy to get in But it is funny though You say that But like yeah He's obviously the most He must I've never seen him fight But he must be the most skilled fighter In my friend group because I only have one friend who goes to a kickboxing gym every week and studies under some, like, you know, he studies under some guy who's been in kickboxing movies.

Matt Hume, sure, for the MMA heads out there, Matt Hume, sure.

So anyway, but yet Kevin is also, like you say, just one of the sweetest people I know too, so it's really hard for me to picture him getting triggered to a point where he'd have to fight out of any kind of anger or defense. It's not how he tries to solve things, which I admire about him. Anyway, maybe it's you. I don't know. Maybe I'll put you in a headlock someday, Luke. Let's make it happen. I don't want that. Let's make it happen. Let's be the change. Let's be the headlocks we want to see in the world.

I feel like you would pop my head off like some kind of a bobblehead, like a cheaply made bobblehead toy. I would definitely lose in that fight, which is why I am going to work to make sure it never happens. Let's see if we can get just kind of power through these top stories so they don't linger over the weekend and then turn bad and then smell like that mask you had to put on it, your booster shot keeping things in scandinavia um so various towns and locations in sweden have embarked on a let's be honest it's a bit of an ad campaign but it's the the premise is they want to take their names back from ikea or it's not even take their names back they're not asking ikea to stop using the name of their town for various ikea products but they just want to try to make it known that their town is more than just a, you know, bookshelf or something that we in America might identify with an Ikea product. The main town that seems to be driving this is called Bolman, which is actually a lake in the Smolland region of Sweden. I want to apologize to our listeners in Sweden for what is about to happen to your language. I say this as a person who, again studied Swedish in college only very briefly and with only the tiniest bit of actual attention paid but anyway Bollman is this beautiful lake apparently but it's also a toilet brush that you can buy at Ikea and there's just a they've created a website called Discover the Originals and they've 21 popular Ikea products which are then matched to their namesakes to the places that exist in Sweden that are the actual name of these things. Let me just give you a quick little quizzical here, Andrew. There is something called a Kallax at Ikea, which the real thing is it's a village in Swedish Lapland, which I think has got to be north. Lapland, I feel like reindeer are from Lapland, right? I don't know. I don't know that I've heard of it. You've never heard of Lapland? I don't think so. I think of that Laplanders are a very hardy people Who live in the snow And I think they eat reindeer Or ride reindeer or something So the Calyx What do you think the Calyx is at an Ikea Can you spell that for me please K-A-L-L-A-X Calyx What is a Calyx

I'm going to say a Calyx is a body pillow Oh, Oh, that's a great guess. It's just a storage shelf. Yeah, okay. I'm going to go down the list here really fast because I don't – I feel like there are some hits at Ikea that are – by hits I mean like they're a product that is sold so widely that you start to kind of remember the name of it because your friend has it and you bought it and then you've got to buy a replacement. But honestly, if I'm looking at this list –

You know what is a very common one is like the – Like we have one of these, like the cube shelves that you can put, you can either put them up and down or along this floor and you can put like a TV on top of it if you have it in the short format.

Yeah, I don't know if that's on this list, but there's like the Joles, which is a forest in the Varmland region, but it's also a pendant lamp at Ikea. There's the Hemsio, which is a village in the Bleking region, but it's also a candle. There's the Tofton, which Ikea sells as a trash can. I was wondering.

I was going to guess Candle for one of these, but I didn't know.

Oh, shoot. Yeah. I'm sorry. How about the Voxnen, which is a river with waterfalls and rapids in the Halsengland region. But Ikea sells the Voxnen as a what? As a line of dishware. Shower shelf. That's not what I said. Yeah. Okay. I wonder how they decided on this stuff. And also, imagine the U.S. or imagine a U.S. company opening a store in Sweden that just had a shower curtain and it was called the Cleveland. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. And I'm not saying it's bad or it's wrong or I don't have a take on it. But it's just interesting that it seems like a lot of a lot of these products, they just named them for Swedish places there. I guess it just was easier than than coming up with something more clever and abstract.

Yeah. And I mean, the funny thing is, is like and maybe I just demonstrated this as well. Like, I don't know, like this. Listen, it's you know, they're just leaning into this. Like you said, it's an advertising campaign for them and a way of, you know, going viral and getting people to talk about it. But, like, does anybody out there really know the names of their IKEA products? Like, I'm looking at two IKEA products in my office right here. I got some CD shelves because I'm young, and I got this set of drawers with some shelves on top of it. I don't know what they're called. I mean, I almost wonder. It just feels like more of a – it seems more of a spoof to me that everybody sort of buys into that has less truth to it. But maybe I'm just an incurious person.

yeah i i mean it's been a long-running joke this idea that you know the names are wacky and uh we've done bits on uh on on livewire where it's like ikea furniture or and i for you know ikea name or whatever uh and now i forget what how the thing even worked i seem to remember it being pretty fun and maybe with star wars character or ikea furniture oh yeah that rings a bell yeah But for all of that, yeah, for all the talk around it, I'll be honest with you. I also, it all just kind of goes in one ear and out the other. I certainly don't. I can't walk. Actually, there is something called a hemness. What is a hemness? Let's see. I don't know. Okay, I'm going to Google this.

You know this is something that you just feel like it's been talked about or it's come up in your own life.

I think I had one. I feel like hemness is a, yes, hemness. It's like a cabinet type of thing with drawers. What do you call that? Like a dresser. Okay, yeah. Hemness is a dresser. So there you go. I can name one IKEA product by name. But the rest of it does just kind of sort of become a blur of things. I do – you have been to an IKEA though, right? I have certainly, yes, a couple of times. But you've been to an IKEA. Yep, yep. And what is your relationship with it? Do you like to buy stuff from there or do you feel like it's too mass produced and you'd rather get some one-offs?

Well, I mean, it really, I don't want to sound like a snob about this, but like, I mean, it really filled the need at a certain time in your life, right? For us as kind of young adults coming up and you, you know, like I came into adulthood dragging some of my childhood furniture along with me, you know, even from apartment to apartment, like kind of losing things little by little with each move and replacing it with something that maybe speaks more to where you are at that time. And Ikea is a big part of that process because as a young adult, you don't have tons of discretionary money, but you still want something that maybe has a little bit of a simple style to it. Everybody knows why we like Ikea stuff. But then you do get to a point where like now I'm 45 and like I mentioned, you know, I got a couple of Ikea things in here. But like now most of our Ikea stuff has been replaced more by and, you know, me, Luke, I'm lucky because Genevieve will like, you know, she's got a good eye for these things and she will find and renovate furniture, you know.

Yeah, with the help of Rodin. With the help of Rodin.

road and so like we have a really nice table out in the other room I can't remember I mean she gets the I think she got it from the side of the road or maybe bought it very very inexpensively off of like you know eBay or something like that Craigslist and then she'll refinish stuff and so yeah I'm a little bit spoiled now I don't I don't think I'd go and buy a lot of new Ikea furniture but the stuff that I'm looking at in my office right now we did buy on our return trip to Seattle so I was buying it as of you know six years ago I cannot believe we have been back in seattle that long wow six years five or six i think i think the trick

with ikea furniture for me anyway is there are some staples that there are some things like they actually have pretty good kitchen cabinets and things like you can buy some ikea stuff that you can then integrate into your and i'm not trying to sound overly like everyone's everyone's at a different level of their kind of um how do i put it everyone's on a different part of the journey with how much they care about the furniture and their place they live right yeah and um you know so i don't want to make anyone feel uh bad if they have a ton of ikea furniture or whatever i have found that there is some stuff you can get from ikea that's very practical and works well and just like you can kind of put it in your house without your house feeling like an ikea because that was definitely what i did early on the first time i went to ikea i was like i cannot believe how cool this stuff is and it's reasonably affordable it seemed to me and i just bought I would just walk into a like a little room that they'd set up and I would go, well, my credit card allow me to get all of the things in this room. And then I would if I had that much room on my card and then I would just like set it up and then I would go to my friend's houses. And you start to see we all kind of have the same stuff because we all kind of went to Ikea and we all kind of fell in love with it. And so I've backed off of that a bit. But there's a lot of stuff there that's very practical that you can get and integrate and also hack. there are all these websites for buying ikea furniture and then kind of actually redoing it a little bit making some changes to it so that it it actually doesn't really look as much like ikea furniture or it's you kind of made it seem a bit fancier than it than it you know might otherwise seem so i'm good with it dress what i'm not good with andrew you wanted to say something

no no i was just i was just like kind of giving you like a an amen there i said you dress it up a little bit i was just like kind of supporting the conversation and in a way that definitely would not interrupt the conversation or create any kind of awkwardness on the show you my friend

are a very good co-bro and are also often dealing with uh my garbled voice coming down the line from wherever i'm at on my uh on my journey two seconds on a two-second delay so you'll get no grief from me on um on your amen on your amen preach uh taking a second to hit my ears here in chicago what i was saying though is what i am not cool with is what is going on in saudi arabia at the king abdulaziz camel festival where there is about 66 million dollars in prize money at stake for who has the most beautiful camel andrew um this is it turns out a very big deal There's a club called the Camel Club That runs this whole thing This camel festival People come in apparently from Sort of all over the world 33,000 camel owners From as far away as the United States, Russia And France participate in this thing It's the largest camel festival In the world Which that part doesn't shock me If there's a larger camel festival I would be surprised to hear that information It lasts 40 days. They expect about 100,000 tourists to come through. This happens in Riyadh, or I guess it actually happens a little bit northeast of Riyadh. But this year, 27 camels and their owners have been disqualified because of illegal body modifications. Sixteen teams were ejected for ejected for injecting their camels with Botox. Jesus. Other ones would put rubber bands. This is where it actually gets. This starts off as kind of a weird story, like who's putting Botox in camels? And then because of me and my animal stuff, then I just get sad because it's like they're also like got in trouble for tying rubber bands around parts of the camels. I don't know which parts. I don't say in the story. But then so that blood would sort of pool up and it would cause – and I don't know what body parts it is exactly. But then they would take the rubber bands off right before they show the camel so that certain parts of the camel's body were like more swollen and looking more the way that they have set up as the ideal of the camel's look. The key attributes to a camel, and this part checks out just based on cartoons, this is what you want in your camel.

Andrew if you're ever showing your camel but please don't use Botox or rubber bands don't cheat do it clean okay do it the right way every way the key attributes include long droopy lips a big nose and a shapely hump that's what you're looking for in a camel

I don't want to make too light of this actually I'm with you on this it's kind of an upsetting story but I am I want to make like a Seinfeld camel crossover meme I want like a camel like looking at the camera with like two humps and and it says they're real and they're fabulous or whatever the line is do you remember that line from no from Seinfeld there's an episode of Seinfeld where you know like often there will be like some plot on an episode that totally revolves around like Jerry's you know maybe troubled relationship with a woman that he's recently started dating and in this one is like whether or not they're all obsessed with whether or not his girlfriend's breasts are real or augmented right um and so there's like she's at the same she goes to the same gym or sauna as elaine so it's a whole thing i think oh i see so elaine is doing a little yeah and then and then um there's some accidental touching between those two which doesn't go over well so anyway um yeah so that's anyway that's my hilarious meme Again, just thank you so much for inviting me to do this show with you, Luke.

I have to say that I'm kind of happy that they're taking this seriously at this camel festival that I didn't know existed until like one and a half days ago. So here's what they did. They used advanced technology to uncover tampering with the camels. um the they they brought the camels into a special area and their heads necks and torsos were scanned with x-ray and 3d ultrasonic or ultrasound machines then they took samples for genetic analysis and other tests so uh i i'm i will say this like and this is gonna i need to be careful that i don't get into being culturally insensitive or sort of i don't know just being dismissive of an entire part of the world but honestly if you said to me they're having a camel festival in saudi arabia and some of the people are cheating i wouldn't imagine right away that the saudi officials were going to do everything they could to get to the bottom of it yeah you know it just seems like a place where there is sort of different cultural mores there's a lot of stuff that goes on from a human rights perspective that i think we in the west find really objectionable there's a lot going on i wouldn't think that they'd be actually this on

the case you almost wish they were on other cases as oh sure you know i can't think of any off the top of my head but that just sort of seems like that amount of scrutiny could also be applied to maybe other situations as well that'd be cool absolutely that's a good point as well yeah like

maybe you know yeah how about let's see how the humans who are working uh you know and and keeping This very affluent lifestyle For many people there going Let's see how those folks are doing But I was surprised I was surprised to hear that they're taking it seriously But I guess kind of happy And you know again Now you know Andrew If you ever find yourself in a Camel show You won't be showing up completely blind You'll know long droopy lips A big nose and shapely hump That's what you're going for

There's some real honey boo boo vibes here I'm trying to come up with like a dollar make me holler like in Paris and like a camel make me bammel. I got nothing. I got this, though.

And by the way, they're real and they're spectacular.

They're real and they're spectacular is the famous line.

A camel make me bammel. That could be a show title. I know you already have your you preloaded some show titles, but I think a camel make me bammel is decent. All right. How about a little music for your weekend before we hit the weekend? how uh what have you been listening to what have you selected this week you know it's funny i think

i've mentioned this a lot the past i don't know several weeks that i've been listening to this record quite a bit um the diggable planets second record called blowout comb i was a big fan of their first record that was more the the more commercial you know successful record with um uh rebirth of slick and everything that people are familiar with the album blowout comb was a little bit more experimental with like some longer songs and, you know, implementing a lot of like kind of real instruments into the hip hop. It's a really hard song. It's a really hard album to kind of excerpt as like a kind of standalone music for your weekend thing, especially the song that I want to play, which is the second track on it. It's called Black Ego. I've come to this record pretty late. I think I I think I bought it in college, but didn't it just, you know, because it wasn't quite as poppy and it didn't have those pop elements to it. I think it took me a long time to get into it, but this is, I'm going to play a little, I'm going to cut into the song a little bit, it's called Black Ego, the second song on here, and I just got to give you maybe a little sample of the groove.

and just know like this is the type of record and this is what I've been doing a lot lately is like you just can put it on and just listen to it on repeat like kind of over and over and over again and just sort of sink into a groove so here you go this is Black Ego by Diggable Planets

to get up the right and remain south. Hell yeah, yeah.

You know, this is the last concert I saw before everything shut down.

Diggable Planets were playing at the Neptune, and Veeves and I just happened to be having some pizza around the corner. I'm like, should we just do this? It was a very un-Andrew move. I'm like, should we just pull the trigger and go see them? How was the show? It was good. It was good. You know, the acoustics where we were wasn't great. And we were – it was very hot. It was kind of a – you know how sometimes I'm scared to leave my house because I think it's going to be, like, kind of uncomfortable out there for me? I don't like crowds or what have you. I will say that while it was really great to see them, I'm glad I saw them, it was one of those things where it was kind of my worst-case scenario. It was kind of very crowded and jostly, and I was standing for two hours before the show began. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. And there was something about the mix where we were standing downstairs where it just didn't sound very good. Like, you could just tell. And so eventually by – maybe we watched two-thirds of it down there. Then I said, let's just go see if it's better up in the balcony. And the mix was so much better in the balcony. But anyway, I'm really glad we saw them. By the way, me speaking of last shows I saw, I wanted to plug something. One of our TBTL listeners and, you know, somebody who's been – actually, this is – I'm talking about listener Kelly here who helped set up the – and maybe even it was her idea to set up the TENS Helping TENS website. Well, maybe some TENS can help this TENS because she is part of something called the North Corner Chamber Orchestra here in Seattle. And she invited me to go see their last performance A couple of months ago And they have another performance this weekend Which me and Genevieve are going to go to too So if you want to support Listener Kelly Who's done a lot to support the community here I think you'll really, really enjoy it I know there are performances on Saturday and Sunday So I meant to plug that earlier in the week

The song that I would like to suggest Is a song that I actually learned about from Becca by Carla Bruni. Now, Carla Bruni, that name might sound familiar because she was the first lady of France for a while, I believe. But before that, she's a model and a singer and has this song. The song is called, and I'm going to just absolutely butcher the pronunciation, so I'm going to just play it off of the internet and see if this pronouncer...

Quelqu'un m'a dit.

The song is called

Quelqu'un m'a dit

Which means someone told me Translated to someone told me Now I'll spell it for you Andrew Because I don't know if you'll be able to find it Starts with a Q Yep I got it And has some what look to be random apostrophes to me Like I almost thought that was a I didn't even look like French to me You know like Looks like something out of Dune Yes or something like maybe a First Nations language like you know from it just it looks like words I've never seen before but it means someone someone told me and it is a beautiful song that I actually really love and listen to a lot now but I just thought the listeners might enjoy it. This is Carla Bruni with the song called

Quelqu'un m'a dit

So take a listen

We'll be right back.

On dit que tu m'aimes, mais encore serait-ce possible alors ? On dit que le destin se moque bien de nous, qu'il ne nous donne rien et qu'il nous promet tout Il paraît que le bonheur est à portée de main, alors on tend la main et on se retrouve fous Pourtant quelqu'un m'a dit que tu m'aimais encore. Quelqu'un qui m'a dit que tu m'aimais encore. Serait-ce possible alors? Serait-ce possible alors?

So there you go, little Carla Bruni. Get you in the mood for, I don't know, something romantical this weekend.

Or just, oh man, I'm just thinking about my nap. I think you should listen to that as you begin your nap

That'll put you in a really good state of mind I don't want to be critical of our beautiful fine country But I would say that's got to be the best song Probably the best song ever recorded by somebody Who is the first person, you would say I mean, I guess first lady I mean, has Jill Biden dropped anything? Has Dr. Jill Biden dropped anything close to that

I was going to make a joke I was going to say you mean Dr. Biden The doctor was a woman Right I don't know I mean there might have been a time Early on in our country's history Where you had We don't know what Martha Washington

Was like maybe she was Just jamming out broadside ballads That people were vibing to

We just don't know Maybe there's some harpsichord action In a drawing room somewhere

I assume that's exactly what was going down Our listener suggestion this week comes from Listener Teresa said Subject line Christmas music for your weekend Howdy I never thought I'd add another Christmas song To my holiday favorites list But I heard this one the other day While at Ross dress for less No less And I fell in love instantly The groove The doo-wop vibe The lyrics love it all And the song is Blame It On Christmas It's by Shea Diamond and Bebe Rexha I gotta tell you Andrew I was playing this a little bit earlier In the hotel room here And I am very much with listener Teresa on this This is a legitimately good song And it's also It sounds good It's Christmassy But it's got a vibe Also the message is funny They're basically saying Look I'm being a weirdo right now But you gotta blame it on Christmas You cannot hold me accountable For my bizarre behavior right now Because this Christmas is making me crazy in the head

I think unless I have this wrong It looks like this is kind of the lead track Or one of the lead tracks off of a movie soundtrack A Hulu original film called Happiest Season Which I feel like there's a whole

I don't know anything about Happiest Season I'm looking at a photo of it, it's like two candy canes firming a heart There's a whole world of these Hallmark Channel Christmas movies That they're making all year round And that people just love to watch around the holidays Their Lifetime does them as well One of the panelists here on Wait Wait last night Was Christella Alonso, the comedian and writer Who had the show Christella on ABC And she wrote a, I think it's a Lifetime movie That's sort of a Christmas movie starring Mario Lopez That comes out today And she was telling us last night The funniest things about how these movies get made So her and Mario Lopez are friends And then he just was like If you write a movie I'll be in it So she wrote this movie But what happened was the people from the network Who liked the movie they needed to Christmas it up They had to do what's called a Christmas pass So they go through the movie And they go like Okay this person is talking to this person Can she be holding hot chocolate when she does this So it's more Christmassy Or like they're baking together Can they be baking Christmas cookies And they literally go through and just add Christmas stuff To scenes that didn't previously have it So that when you watch it you feel very Christmas-ed out That's really interesting Right

Because it is true you're watching those movies really for a vibe anyway

At least certainly I am Totally I'm sure we have listeners that are really into them I could actually see myself getting into them Just being like okay It's after Thanksgiving It's time to start putting the Christmas movies On 2-4-7 And just getting real cozy As it were I don't know if Happiest Season is one of those movies But it sort of looks like it from the imaging Anyway, so this song though Is actually legit very good So Teresa, thank you for sending it in

in. It's how we're going to wrap up this week of shows. Thanks everyone for hanging out with us. Thanks for being part of TBTL. I'll be back on Monday with more Imaginary Radio for you. Until then have a great weekend. Stay safe. Go Mariners. Go Seahawks. Go Browns. And yeah, we'll see you on Monday. Please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Blame it on Christmas Why am I out of control

Oh, give me forgiveness For what's about to unfold Cause I just can't keep my groove While I'm tired in all of this you

Blame it on, blame it on Christmas While I'm acting a fool Oh, blame it on sound, not on me Blame it on snowfall, not on me Blame it on eggnog, not on me Blame it on dektar, not on me Blame it on DJ, not on me Blame it on tinsing, not on me Blame it on frosting, not on me Blame it on flavor, not on me Blame it on dasher and dancer and purser and vixen and common and Cuban and doner and bliss and don't worry about Rudolph cause he never listens And don't get me started on you Blame it on Christmas Why am I better fool? And by the way, they're real and they're spectacular

Power out