Muse

I used to be able to name every nut that there was, and that used to drive my mother crazy, because she used to say, Harlan Pepper, if you don't stop naming nuts, and the joke was, of course, that we lived in pine nuts, and I think that's what put it in my head at that point. So I'd go to sleep, she'd hear me in the other room, and she would just start yelling. I'd say peanut, hazelnut, cashew nut, macadamia nut. That was the one that was sent her into a... gone crazy. TBTL

You know, I would like to take this straw and stick it in your ear and extract everything you've ever thought or felt or seen or even dreamed about your profession. I gotta be honest with you, sir. The kind of work I do, I don't think it's as interesting as you think it is. My podcast is on life support. Hey, I need new listeners.

That was a joke. Humor is the tool of the interesting.

I was skeptical. It seemed too good to be true. I'm so glad I tried it.

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

I always be sneaky like how I get chocolate.

Coming to you from the frozen shores of Flathead Lake in Lakeside, Montana. Oh, Ma, Pa, it's just beautiful. I mean, it is as advertised out here in Montana right now. It's snowing. It's beautiful. It is extremely cold, though. I think it's like five degrees today or something. In a case gone cold, could a podcast bring the heat? But the natural beauty is just unparalleled. Now, here's the thing I didn't factor in on the subject of the natural beauty of this place. I have to go shoot a TV thing after this, and my rental car is parked behind this cabin at the bottom of a very steep hill, and I think it snowed about four inches last night. So we shall see if I can even get out of here. Anyway, that's not something you need to worry about as the listeners of TBTL. You need to focus on episode 3612 in a collector's series. Let the fun begin. Because that is where we've arrived on this Thursday. The football team, the pro football team in Washington, District of Columbia, has arrived at a new name for their football team that used to have a really racist name. Now they are the Commanders, and they've already got some real snazzy cheers.

We are Commanders.

Feel the electricity outside of the team headquarters when that announcement came out. Anyway, we'll talk about that. And also, Rudy Giuliani was a... You're a gross person. was the uh was a masked singer apparently from that ridiculous show i don't know why that show bothers me so much i mean it's probably fun we probably have listeners who love it but for some reason when i see those promos for all that all those trickeration shows on fox about singing but you don't know who's doing the singing etc well anyway it was rudy giuliani and two of the judges actually walked out because they were not happy about it being rudy giuliani uh so we'll get into that plus some blurs day on a thursday aka a blurs day we can't do any of that of course without the help of this young man the longest running cobro of the show may be best known for his depictions of the tall ships and his trademark catchphrase oh hell no he is andrew walsh and he's joining me right now from the roosevelt neighborhood of seattle washington good morning my friend

More of a, ah, hell yes and, not a, ah, hell no. There you go. But I love that positivity. Yeah, that's the energy I'm bringing today. I know, I knew, I know this is such a stupid way to start the show, but I just want to do a little public service announcement regarding my Twitter feed. I tweeted something late last night that has received almost zero likes and at least one bit of befuddlement. I got a note from a listener. I got somebody responded to the tweet. Pam says, I don't know what this is.

This means, but it only had two likes, so here's mine, which I really, I mean, I love that attitude. I really love that attitude. Thank you. I love the fact that people are seeing tweets by me, and they're saying, I don't know what this means, but you seem like an okay fella, so I'm going to give it a like. I mean, what more could a fella ask for? But what I wrote was, and I'm going to explain this, Luke. I mean, you can put, honestly, like, don't worry. Like, I'm not slipping into no point territory. Wow. Okay. Let's try that A third time We are not slipping Into No point Territory I had

I had some Territone Territone El Tagliati The other night At a Mexican Excuse me An Italian restaurant And it was delicious Some Territone

What I tweeted out was I just feel bad For all the Hugh Jackson fans Tonight And I want you to know That that is a tweet That I didn't expect To get a lot of likes But I do think That it officially Is an underrated tweet I actually stand by that in the cold glare of what's today? Thursday morning. Thursday. See, I'm doing great. I stand by that tweet. Here it is.

It's Terratoni Thursday.

In a 30-second nutshell, there's a lot of talk going on around the league because it sounds like certain coaches were at least offered money or indeed accepted money to throw football games, to lose football games on purpose, which would help their draft position later. There's a whole bunch about this going on right now. We don't have to get into it, but Hugh Jackson, former coach of the Cleveland Browns, got swept up into this. He was making noise. It sounds like this was offered to him, and potentially that he actually took money to lose games during the two seasons where the Browns only won one game out of 32 games. So I've been thinking about that. That's it. That's all we have to say about that. But I've been thinking about Hugh Jackson all day, And people yesterday kept asking me, well, how do you feel about that as a Browns fan? And the truth is, I don't know how I feel about it as a Browns fan. Like, the Browns, a few years ago, went two seasons and only won one game. It sucked then. It sucks now. The fact that Hugh Jackson might have thrown games or was told to throw games, I don't know that that – I just don't know that that affects me. Maybe I just – maybe it just can't hurt me anymore. I don't know. Maybe I'm still processing it. It doesn't matter. The point of my tweet is just for Pam and anyone else out there. I just don't think that Hugh Jackson has any fans. Like, that's the thing. Like, after all of my ruminating on it yesterday, I'm just like, the guy's a bozo one way or the other. He's either a terribly losing coach or he got paid to tank the team. Either way, I do not like him. I don't think anybody likes him. He's still coaching at the college level. I don't know if anybody on his team currently likes him. Like, there are, I believe, zero Hugh Jackson fans in the world, which is why I tweeted, I just feel bad for all the Hugh Jackson fans tonight.

You're right, though, that it's an interesting admission from him or allegation, I guess, which the Browns deny for what that's worth, because, yeah, he's either just really, really bad at coaching or is a schmuck who was willing to go along with a plan to try to lose games and hurt my friend Andrew's heart. Right Neither is a good Neither one is a good look For him

It is amazing And then also I think I think what also Got me to the point Where I was like This guy's just a bozo Is he gave Are you trying a new thing Where you call people bozos I'm trying an old thing Where I repeat Repeatedly call people bozo He gave an So he originally tweeted out Oh yeah They were offering me big money Or something like that And then he tried to backpedal it And I mean He is just such A wishy-washy guy And then he finally did an interview last night i'm looking for the quote here now i'll never find it on the fly but there was like somebody just like quoted him directly what he said in the television interview and it is the most gobbledygook like it makes pete carroll's sentences seem just like not just cogent but poetic like it is just a pair a block paragraph of gobbledygook he refuses to speak but he uses i mean listen i understand this is coming from me glass houses stone throwing etc but he here can i just yes i'm looking forward here i can't teams that win so they're asking him is this true or not were you offered money team teams that win are not just the youngest to lose games what's that where was he offered money to lose game right question teams that win are just not the youngest team not that the youngest teams can't win so i didn't understand the process i didn't understand what the plan was i asked for clarity because it did not talk about winning and losing until year three and four so that told you right there that something wasn't correct i still couldn't understand it but i had the team that i had actually that's not the quote i was looking for there's a much worse quote that actually makes a little bit of sense there so

it's still not great though but it's not a

Great answer to that question, yes. And again, I know I'm off my game today. I've stumbled and bumbled quite a bit in the past three minutes, so maybe I should back off my fire on Hugh Jackson. But, you know, it's not like I'm in broadcasting. Oh, wait, hold on.

Did somebody offer you money, Andrew, to throw the podcast?

To tank the show today? How's Montana?

We're trying to get a first-round draft pick next year. Yeah, we really are. Trying to see if we can draft Nora McInerney. Yeah, exactly. With a lottery pick. Montana is is really gorgeous, but but quite abandoned. I'm realizing that I think I'm the only person who's staying on this lake right now because it's so cold. And like I said, so snowy. I have legitimate concerns, Andrew, about if I'm going to be able to get out of here. I don't know why I parked the rental car at down by the cabin. I should have been smart and parked it up kind of on the road so that it would be safe. But it's pretty steep. And I don't know what's going to happen when I finish the show and go get in that car and try to drive up a snowy hill. Is it actively snowing? It's just sort of yes, but not like a huge amount. It's, you know, if it were rain, I would say it's just lightly drizzling, but it's not. It snows. It's just kind of very lightly snowing. It's not adding to the problem. The problem happened, you know, at 2 in the morning or something when it started. Actually, I witnessed part of the problem happening because there's a hot tub here at this Airbnb, and I went out in the hot tub last night, which is, boy, that's just, that's a certain kind of luxury. when you're it's like four degrees outside but you're in a like bubbling cauldron of a hot tub like and like your hair is freezing like literally like i had a helmet of hair uh from like the snow landing on me and then freezing in place but but i was warm and toasty in the tub anyway i should have noted that it was snowing on me which meant the car was becoming increasingly trapped i should have gotten out of the hot tub and went i also should have brought swim trunks andrew because I didn't have any, which means I got in the hot tub au naturel, and only later this morning did I think, do they have Nest cameras here? Did these poor, poor people who own this place have to see Luke in his birthday suit getting in and out of the hot tub?

I'm still thinking about the hill with the snow, so if it's not actively snowing right now— You don't want to focus more on my nude body? You have a sense of how much snow is on this hill. like how much like yeah did somebody plow it is it shovel do you not have to shovel it is it just a little bit of snow that does it go up over the tires what are we talking about it's probably

five inches okay of new snow and uh and it's you know the car is is is the the windshield is is pretty well covered i'm gonna have to go out and you know get that off of that that's not the biggest problem again it's just a question of can i get up that driveway and i'm not gonna know until I'm trying to do it.

So it's going to be a slippery issue is what I was trying to figure out. It's not going to be like, can your car physically drive over the snow? Is it buried up to the license plate? No, it's not like a snow drift.

It's not like just six feet of snow where I have to try to shovel a path to even get the car moving. It's an issue of slipperiness. And also, like I've mentioned, it's very steep, it's kind of windy, and it's narrow. So it's kind of a triple threat of things you don't want to be driving up. you know uh and also i feel like my snow driving abilities to the degree that i ever had them have atrophied because i haven't had to drive in the snow very much over the last few years so uh yeah it's going to be it's going to be um a roll of the dice and we'll all i guess we'll find out together tomorrow andrew um if i made it or not i also is this what being 45 is i am more and more concerned about my physical safety when i'm by myself places like this so i um there's a loft here uh you know which has a ladder going to it like a sleeping loft and i was climbing i was climbing up and down the ladder uh to do the hey dummies video this week and well first of all i was very out of breath after climbing up and down the ladder a couple of times which didn't feel great to me but i had the realization that if i were it's pretty high i'd say it's maybe 10 feet up this ladder if i were to fall and hurt myself i don't know like if anyone like no one would know how to find me like they i would be weeks or months until the next person who rents this airbnb comes and gets me uh you know or comes and gets the place that would be the next time they figured out that i was here injured and like i used to never have those kinds of thoughts and now i'm like can i be trusted to be alone in a place like this uh unsupervised sounds a little

bit like a movie it sounds like somewhere between maybe misery and the shining maybe yeah it's kind of a combo speaking of writing I don't know why I'm bringing this up but I think I've identified my new useless purchase that I'm probably going to make it's a typewriter it's a digital typewriter that doesn't connect to the internet I saw it on Instagram the other day they actually don't even like you have to get on a waiting list which is why I probably didn't just buy impulse buy it yesterday waiting for my luggage at the Kalispell airport but it's a so it's a very kind of cool design like it looks old school it looks like it's like a you know from the 80s or something but what it is is a it's a digital you can you can get um email on it i guess so it is it is connected in some way to the internet but that's all it can do you can't browse you can't do anything and like i guess you know you you get it and you bring it to a cabin like this and then you just spend the weekend writing uh you know your uh your next hit book does it have a little compartment where you can keep your light phone wow you know what

come on that was a good burn you did you know what you bought a light you did

i still get texts or it's not text i guess i get emails from that light phone company and it's just every time i get one i'm just like it's just a reminder of what a fool i am what did you used

to say when you were a kid capped or no cap or what did you wasn't there something no no we would

say well we yeah if you were making fun of someone you would say burn or roast oh we called it capping on people okay yeah i capped on you you really capped on me there dude i'm gonna put that in

the show description andrew capped on luke yeah sorry right as you're going out to do this so what does your day look like as far as are you going to be in a wedding today a proxy wedding

I am not going to. No, for two reasons. One, CBS actually shot it down for some reason. The standards and practices didn't want me. It's weird because I do so much participatory journalism for this TV show, but that was that was the participation they didn't want. And then the other reason is because I thought I don't if I were Becca, would I love watching my boyfriend pretend to marry somebody or whatever? And I would probably not. So out of a little bit of respect, I also I called the producer. I said, you know, and I never do this, you know, see me swimming in San Francisco Bay, which when I saw my mom last weekend, she said all of my relatives in Philadelphia saw the piece and they loved it. but they all said, he looks just like his granddad, Jack. And I was like, cool, cool, cool, cool. He was a bruiser, right?

Am I right about that?

I don't know if he was a bruiser. My biological father was apparently a real troublemaker. This is my mom's dad. This is my granddad. But I've never seen a picture of him when he was younger than 60. And he was a nice enough looking guy and everything, but I've seen pictures of him down the shore and everything. I mean, he has, like, the body of, like, a 65-year-old guy with a drinking problem, and I have the body of a 65-year-old guy with a drinking problem, apparently, because I think they meant it as a compliment. Like, he looks just like his granddad, but I was like, cool, I look just like, you know, a guy in his 60s who's had a few too many in his day. So that was not the compliment that it was intended to be. But anyway, I'm not going to take part in the wedding for both of those reasons. But I I'm like I said, I rarely turn down a chance to insert myself into one of these stories in a way that might be funny or interesting. But I legitimately was like, I mean, I've had enough actual weddings that have failed that I've been a part of that. I just there was I don't know why that was the one thing that felt strange to me to stand in and be a proxy. I mean, because really what you're doing is you're helping someone, you know, find love. Two people who love each other and are, you know, separated by geography, but they would like to be officially married. You're helping out in that process. It's actually a very nice thing. But for some reason, it just kind of felt weird to me. And so I called and said, I don't want to do it. And the producer said, CBS already said you can't do it.

Oh, well, there you go. Maybe also, and I'm only saying this because you already raised this joke. Are you going to tap on me again, Andrew? The person you were going to fill in for was like, ah, could we get someone else? Get someone with a better track record? This is not related to anything you're saying, but this is a random thought I had today. And I was wondering, it's not funny enough to be stand-up. It's not interesting enough to be a monologue. So I don't know what I'm going to do with it. I guess bore people on my podcast with it. But you said drinking problem, which I guess is the only reason it popped in my head. But mostly it's just because I'm really scattered today. But for some reason, I woke up today and it occurred to me almost every drug we take, you know, whether or not it's for recreation or somebody's misusing it for recreation or whatever, we can. Consume it in a way that we could also consume it responsibly. So here's what I mean by that. There are medicines that you inject, right, into one's arm or one's body. And, of course, there are drugs that people abuse and take recreationally that they inject. There are things that we drink. You might drink a medicine like Pepto-Bismol or what have you, right? And, of course, we drink alcohol. Pills can go both ways. The one thing is no doctor, as far as I know, ever prescribes anything that should be sniffed, right? Like we don't live in a world where you could walk into somebody's office and they could be doing rails and then you say, what are you doing? And they say, I'm just taking my medicine. Like there are no sniffable drugs that are taken responsibly. Am I right about that? I can't think of any.

and i wonder if it's i wonder if it's because the the physical effects of it put the drug aside whatever the drug is doing to you but also just like it's bad for your nasal passages or something like like it's just not unhealthy it's not a good delivery system which is why doctors don't you know prescribe you're right i mean you know obviously there are there are drugs that are that are applied intravenously so that's a thing but you're right i can't think of i don't think that there's ever the unless there's no such thing as like prescription afrin

right or like those you know that right there are remember the 80s no go ahead but you remember how

in the 80s i feel like you're always seeing ads on tv for afrin and for those like basically nasal sprays they're supposed to open up your nasal passages but then the whole thing was you can get addicted to them that was the big story then too and now i feel like you never see ads for that kind of stuff do they even sell those products anymore they do because we have some in our house

like on occasion if I am a little bit stuffed up honestly I think since the pandemic began we're all so careful and we're wearing masks and everything that I have fewer just like minor little colds or even just like indicators of a cold I feel like in the past I would go through a winter with a stuffy nose much just kind of on the reg right and so on occasion like we would keep that in our house and especially if i was going to bed and i had a bit of a snuffy nose i knew that meant i was going to snorting which is what i call snortown um and so i might uh so i might like take a couple of hits of that before going to bed which i think it kind of has a little bit of a speedy effect and maybe i'm making that up but um so yeah no they still make that but you are right that that destroys my little bit of non-funny non-funny stand-up slash uninteresting monologue because there is medicine that we sniff. I guess not powder, though. Now I'm really just trying to specify.

Are you asking me for permission to do cocaine, Andrew? What is going on?

No, I don't know what I'm doing. I honestly don't know what I'm doing today, Luke. That was just a thought I had. And then I'm like, maybe do I turn it into a movie plot? Is there some guy who's got a medicine that he sniffs, but he's the only one in the world, so everybody thinks he has a drug problem? I don't know, man. I'm just throwing ideas out there.

But the thing is, it's not prescription. so i think you're i think your your premise is is still i think sound that the doctor would never prescribe you that stuff and also you if you were using that it's in a bottle that's kind of designed you know to spray up your nose it's not a line of afrin there's still i think you're right that there's no medicinal kind of thing where they go here's how you take this you cut it up into lines you put it on top of the back of a toilet in a in the bathroom of a nightclub

and you enjoy it you chop it up you do you have a motley crew mirror okay you do have a motley crew mirror good you're gonna chop it up with that another related uh question is why do you think uh when i got my booster shot my vaccine booster shot why did they do that between my

toes any ideas there dark i know that is you know just because because we're just we're just having fun today andrew because we're just all over the map uh the subject of illicit drug use has me thinking about my my new favorite thing which is not illicit drug use but it's these it's your old favorite histories okay so mike judge right creator of beavis and butthead he has put together a series of kind of like oral histories of a bunch of different musicians it's called like tales from the tour bus and i have been watching these on tiktok chopped up into like two minute sections but he does one on um uh he does one on george jones he does one on um jerry lee lewis uh johnny paycheck i'm trying to think some of the others and they're so fascinating um so but it's animated kind of not really like beavis and butthead but maybe a little bit like king of the hill so it'll start with mike judge an animated version of mike judge so He's talking, it's really his voice, but now he's just been animated. In the exact setting that he was sitting in, like when they filmed him. You know what I mean? So it's like.

Like, they film all of these people, like, who, you know, these people that were in the, you know, they were the backing band for Jerry Lee Lewis or for George Jones or whatever. And they would, they, everyone, or the person who did their hair or whatever, all these different people are telling their stories about this person, but they're all animated. But it's all woven together in this really genius way. But what is just shocking to me is that any of these, particularly these country music legends, that any of them lived past the age of 28 because the amount of drugs that they were taking at all times is just, it's, it's Titanic. It's like, I don't know how any of them were alive. Like, basically, the deal was if you were playing country music in the 70s and 80s and you were in Nashville, you were doing every day like 30 different kinds of weird pills. You were drinking like a gallon of whiskey and you were snorting a mountain of cocaine. This was just the lifestyle of all of these. All of this. I think it was George. No, I think it was it might have been Jerry Lee Lewis. So Jerry Lee Lewis had this apartment. I think it was kind of like an office slash apartment in I'm my memory is hazy. I'm thinking maybe it was Memphis. But we had this he had this kind of like hangout spot where everybody would come and just do drugs. So they were doing according to the story, they were they were doing cocaine for like three straight days and everyone else is falling asleep because they're just like exhausted. They're wrung out. And I again, I hope this is I got the person right. It's either Jerry Lee Lewis or George Jones. But Jerry Lee Lewis is so mad at everyone that they're falling asleep because he just wants to keep hanging out and partying. He had a machine, a Nazi machine gun that he had bought from that. Never a good thing to own. I mean, I just.

Oh, he's just a fan of history. I'm sorry.

Just a fan of history. Yeah. I can't imagine there's a good there's a particularly good reason why you're interested in owning a machine gun that was once owned by the Nazis. That just never, it's just never a good idea. But anyway, he had this and he starts shooting up this apartment office hangout place to wake everyone up because he's mad. And next door to his office was a orthodontic, like a place that made dentures. And he shot up like $50,000 worth of dentures.

Good Lord, this is live ammunition.

yes he's just firing this machine gun into the ceiling and walls of this apartment because he's drugged out of his mind and he's mad that everyone has started falling asleep and in the process of doing that he has destroyed like tens of thousands of dollars of like custom dental implants that were being stored in the facility next door to him where they did that kind of stuff this is a

terrible way to wake up to like nobody's like nobody wakes up to that like you're starting to you know doze off or whatever is happening in this in this den of iniquity and then you wake up in that manner you're going to be like oh you're right let's party again like that just sounds awful it's like the most terrible feeling you could have well honestly i mean this is just

based on this mike judge history stuff this is where all of my knowledge comes but all of these people that he profiled just sound awful like they just sound unlikable i mean george jones was married to Tammy Wynette and he was really awful to her in a bunch of different ways physically emotionally etc I mean all of these maybe these of course this is the this is the reason that Mike Judge is picking these people because they led I guess you would say interesting lives but to a person they all just seem absolutely terrible like there are no stories in there of them like being unnecessarily nice to someone it's always a story of how they got out of their mind on drugs and then shot someone who is the place that's every story and yet these and yet these people are remembering them sort of finally yeah that was just jerry lee lewis for you really

that was jerry being jerry you know we have i mean really let jerry be jerry who was the person you mentioned you you were listing off names before and you mentioned somebody who i'd never heard of it wasn't eddie money obviously but it had johnny paycheck yeah who's johnny paycheck and does he know eddie money and can they get together and collaborate

Johnny Paycheck was I think he might have been From Ohio actually And he was a sort of The arc of all of these Particular artists was Waylon Jennings was another one Who's profiled on these Tales from the tour bus

Now isn't Waylon Jennings The guy who wrote the song That you like the cover of Where it's like All my friends are straight edge now Or whatever

God that would be a great song No that was No that was Hank Williams Jr. All my rowdy friends Have settled down But he mentions – so it's actually – this does kind of tie into that because all my rowdy friends have settled down. I guess it's sort of him – is Hank Williams Jr. kind of sort of noting that all of these guys who are just absolute maniacs have – kind of calmed down a little bit and he's name checking some of the people that i'm telling you about apparently like uh oh so johnny paycheck so johnny paycheck was a like a lot of these guys he was sort of a real clean cut like country music singer out of the style in the style of um i don't know who would have been popular in like the 50s and 60s but like there's always like an original picture of these artists and they have like they're wearing a suit and they have brill cream in their hair and they're like crooning and then you flash forward 20 years and they just have like a giant rat's nest of greasy hair a grown-out beard they're in like you know they're like wearing some hell's angels leather vest kind of deal which is what happened to johnny paycheck so he his big hit song was take this job and shove it that was kind of that was the song that made his career and it was kind of funny because i mean he also shot someone by the way he went into a bar well he he was in a hell's angels he was in a hell's angels a biker den what he really wanted to be was a hell's angels uh hell's angel i guess but and they sort of adopted him so he was hanging out with these hell's angels and he got word that there was going to be an fbi raid so he went in and took all of this cocaine and money out of this hell's angels den ahead of the police raid so now he has it in the back of his car and he's just doing massive amounts of cocaine and just driving around trying to find someone he ends up in ohio and he goes into a bar out of his mind and two of the guys at the bar like recognize me like oh cool you're johnny paycheck we like you and in his demented state he takes it as an insult and he shoots one of the guys in the side the guy didn't die um but he shot him in like the side of the head and then um and then ran out of the bar and ended up going to trial and he did jail time in fact it seemed like in being in jail was the best thing that ever happened to johnny paycheck i believe he might have died in jail um but certainly it was the only time he was really clean and sober for any sustained amount of time um the other thing that happened with Johnny Paycheck that was kind of funny was there was a um there was a strike at a mine and maybe in West Virginia or something and there was uh the the governor somebody from the mining company or whatever wanted to get Johnny Paycheck out there I don't know to like sort of support the idea of these people going back to work or whatever like I think he was called out there to try to break up this strike but he's johnny paycheck and his big song is take this job and shove it so he shows up with his guitar and sings take this job and shove it and the miners are freaking out they're loving it yeah like they should have gotten the country music artist whose most popular song was please

cooperate with management right right although it is i understand the confusion because his name is also johnny paycheck which sounds like a company man right i do you know i work i get my paycheck but then it's like take this job and shove it which is it are you getting a paycheck or are you

taking this job and shoving it i think he had his manager or somebody had suggested i mean his name he was was not born johnny paycheck but there was a boxer i think maybe of polish there was a boxer who maybe had a polish last name that was like patrick okay who would kind of who would sort of fight under the name paycheck and so that was where the idea came from for johnny paycheck and

what is this platform again this mike judge uh because it sounds like there's a lot of information

packed into these things they're really good and i've done an absolutely terrible job of redescribing them i mean what i would recommend is folks just go and find the source material i think they might be called tales from the tour bus oh yeah you said that okay but it starts with yes it starts with mike judge kind of laying out like you know why uh you know so and so was a really interesting character and then and then it just goes to all of these people who knew the person talking and again it's sort of animated but because of the weird fractured way that we now consume media i don't really know the name of the thing i've never watched it as it was designed to be watched on like the internet or a streaming service because all i do all day when i'm not working is look at tiktok to numb out my feelings and now i i'm following some guy called soul sauce on tiktok because he's cut up all these mike judge things and is releasing them like one and a half minutes at a time interesting such an annoying way for me to get this information because also So I know you use TikTok a little bit, but sometimes someone will have, let's say, like a thousand TikToks. One of them comes into your For You page just randomly. But then if you if let's say it's part one of a series, you have to go into that person's account and you have to scroll back like 900 videos and find the little tile that says just watched because that tells you, you know what I mean, where number one is. So this is an incredibly annoying process that I've been going through for the last three weeks to find out about Johnny Paycheck or George Jones.

I have figured out the origin of this, Luke, and I don't think you would guess it. It is Mike Judge Presents Tales from the Tour Bus. You're right about that. But it's a Cinemax production. It premiered in 2017, in the fall of 2017. It was Cinemax's only animated series. um and also uh It looks like this will be a treat for you. There is a Blaze Foley episode that will be. I know. Oh, did you already see that one?

No, I've been saving it. Now, so wait, Cinemax still exists.

Well, I don't know. Let me click on this. Yeah, it is, not it was, but it is an American premium cable network. So I don't know. You're right. What is Cinemax doing in the space where everybody's creating their own content now? What is Cinemax doing?

And that we can all, if we so choose, see plenty of nudity on the internet. Because we called it Skinemax when I was a kid. I feel like the big draw of Cinemax was that they had kind of like racy movies and stuff. I don't think I've heard anyone say, oh, I was watching that on Cinemax in like 10 years.

I am looking at things that is their original programming. It's not a long list. One of them is the Tales from the Tour Bus. And the only thing on here, and I think you watched this, is The Nick. That's the only thing I recognize. Didn't you watch The Nick? Yes. I loved The Nick. Wasn't it like Doctors meets Boardwalk Empire or something? Or am I wrong about that?

Yeah, kind of. No, no, no. It's basically a show about the—it's the Knickerbocker Hospital, I think, in New York City, kind of at the, I think, like, turn of the 1900s. And it's like the very early days of anesthetized surgery. And it's starring Clive Owen as this—speaking of rampant drug abuse, he's an opium-addicted surgeon. And so it's the story of this hospital and Clive Owen, and I thought it was really good. So I guess I have watched Cinemax in the last 10 years.

Yeah, and let's see, the Nick, that was 2014. That sounds about right. I remember you talking about that a while back. They have something called Banshee, Outcast, Quarry, Warrior, and Jet with two Ts. But it's a pretty limited list. But yeah, Cinemax is still going.

Well, I may have to sign up for a trial subscription or something so that I can watch that Blaze Foley one because I'm really excited about it. And I actually like to just go back and rewatch all of these just, like, without the constant interruption of every minute and a half having to, like, go find the next, you know, video in the series or whatever. All right. Let's take a quick break. And then when we come back, we will talk even more football. Well, not really, but we'll talk about the new name for the football team in Washington. And we'll do a couple of Blurs days because it is, in fact, a Thursday. So stick with us. This is TBTL. hey let's thank some donors of the day these wonderful generous people are making this episode possible wonderful generous people like thomas duncan in columbia south carolina Thank you, Thomas Also, Kurt Van Dyke Is in SeaTac, Washington Brad Baxendel Norfolk, Virginia Is where Brad is Watch your mouth I almost started I almost started For some reason My mind wanted to Sing Brad's last name Like Moon River I wanted to say Brad Baxendel My Huckleberry friend I don't know why my brain did that, Andrew. My brain is very broken today, like yours is.

I don't know what a huckleberry... I don't think your brain seems fine. I don't know what's going on with me. Something's broken between my brain and my mouth, I think. But I don't know what a huckleberry friend is, but I love that line, and it sounds like a very cozy relationship.

Yeah, is that even the line in Moon River? I've been singing that. If somebody said, sing Moon River, I would say oh isn't that the one that has my Huckleberry Friend but is that even really a line in that song? I am

I'm trying to google this you look up the lyrics but a Huckleberry Friend is something according to the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang published in 1997 here are the meanings of Huckleberry Friend number one number one is a minuscule amount? That doesn't make sense Number two, a fellow, a character, a boy, one's Huckleberry, the very person for the job. So if you would say, hey, I got a, hey, I'm looking for somebody. I need to replace all of the plumbing in this warehouse. I have a Huckleberry friend for you. That doesn't seem right.

Oh, nice. I'm glad. Well, I'm glad. I'm saying on ice because I'm on Quora.com.

And I am confirming that that is a line in Moon River. Oh, good. So that's good. My Huckleberry friend. Well, I like it. Let's be Huckleberry friends. Let's be Huckleberry friends with the donors. Brad, like you said. Yeah.

Yeah, Brad Baxendel.

Our Huckleberry friend.

Christy Elburn is in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And then Leah Farzin is in Juneau, Alaska. Oh, wow. What up, Leah? I bet you Leah knows how to drive in the snow.

Oh, certainly. And he gives some tips. Does the term Grand Rapids ever make you nervous? Does it seem like if you live there, there is a possibility of being swept down a river?

I feel like there's a lot of rapids in Michigan, but I don't know what river that is. Because you've got Big Rapids, Michigan, you've got Grand Rapids. They're talking about the rapids a lot there, but what is the river that's moving so rapidly? I'm not sure. And why can't it just slow down and just take a beat? Be more like a Moon River. Be more like a Huckleberry Friend. Listen, none of this is on Christy Elburn in Grand Rapids. It's certainly not on Leah Farzan up there in Juneau. And we can also confirm that it's not on Noriko Ikuta in Vancouver, Washington. Thank you, Noriko.

Yes, another trickster. Yeah, right.

Tricked you there. I've become very familiar with Vancouver, Washington, of course, because it's right on the border there of the Columbia River that's just on the other side of the river from Portland, Oregon. So maybe I'll bump into you sometime down on that nice new kind of waterfront area, Noriko, that they have there in Vancouver, Washington. Thank you so much to all of our donors of the day. Thanks for making TBTL possible. We would not be here without you. hello and welcome to top story all right the uh top story the washington football team has a new name they're the washington commanders um there's actually an interesting piece in the washington post talking about the lengths that the team went to to try to keep the name secret they may have actually trademark this team name through a some sort of uh a deal that the u.s has with europe called like the paris trade accord or something that allows you to register or trademark things in certain countries that don't have transparency so that nobody could like google did daniel snyder trademark a new you know name for his football team they did this under immense secrecy is my point, which is kind of interesting to me.

I met somebody who's on the, I believe specifically the digital marketing team, but the marketing team of the Washington football team this September. She was like, I can't remember if she was in the wedding party of the wedding I attended, or was the date of somebody in the wedding party. But anyway, we were talking to her about it, and yes, everything sounded very, and she was very tight. It was interesting. She liked talking about her job. She's a very interesting person, but also, obviously, with great power comes great responsibility she was you know very careful not to let anything slip that would um that would tilt the hand of the team but i thought what a what an absolute and she seemed like she really loved her job it seemed like it was a very tough job but what a fascinating what a fascinating place to be because she was a woman probably in her um i'm gonna say early 30s um has our kind of outlook on the world you know you think of the washington football team as being very problematic from especially from the from the owners down they had a racist name for a long time like they're not the most i'm gonna say not the most woke team in the famously woke nfl um but she said that like a lot of the people on her team were like her like young you know progressive

people who were working on this project huh well they they managed to keep it under wraps uh because I think the way they revealed it was they opened the team store and so people could go into the team store and see what the new name was on the jerseys that they were selling. Like people were like sleeping in line overnight to be the first people to go into the Washington Commanders team store somewhere in D.C. So they could find out what the name was. And of course, you had a guy outside who had already come up with this catchy chant for the Commanders. by the way the people behind him did not get the memo that he wants them to do the

state farm yeah is he just doing state farm yes and he cops to it in a minute here and there you have it ladies and gentlemen the washington commanders football team we've got a new slogan yeah we took it out

of farmers but the fact of the matter oh is it it's farmers oh farmers so it is i think i said i think i said state farm but yeah yeah uh yeah he admits that they he admits they stole it from farmers which i guess there's at least there's that we are commanders

boy it gets better every time i like this guy hey like i always this guy's actually yeah this

guy's actually um uh really charming although he's doing that influencer in the wild thing that i don't totally love so he's obviously like a super fan of the washington football team hence him being one of the people that's like been lined up overnight you know to get one of these new commanders jerseys and he's talking into his phone this whole time so he's like live streaming or he's recording a you know some sort of a video and yeah it's not i think that's You know, you and I both have a lot of, kind of. I mean, he does seem like a kind of a fun guy, though. I'm with him, but I just, I wish he was just not talking into his phone, because for some reason that annoys me, even though we do some version of that every single day on this show, basically.

Guys, from Rally Captain, you rep it hard, but don't rep it at all. This is where Rally Captain, and we are commanders. Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. Ha, ha, ha, I love it, guys. Take care.

I guess the guy's named Rally Captain. And that's like his, you know, his Washington football team sort of, you know, nickname or whatever. The thing is, I had kind of gotten used to Washington football team. And I think it was Doug Williams, who was a legendary quarterback for the team under its previous name. He won a Super Bowl for them. He was a part of the committee to come up with the new name. And he was saying the same thing, that originally he was just kind of into keeping it Washington football team.

Yeah.

Which has weirdly kind of has an OK ring to it. I think it's better than Commanders, honestly.

I think it's better than Commanders, but it's also not my team. And I feel like I liked having a team, like once I got used to it, just called the Washington football team. But I don't know if I would like it if it were my team. Like, I don't know if I'd like rooting for the Cleveland football team. In fact, I can tell you I don't like rooting for the Cleveland football team. See my Hugh Jackson tweet blowing up. It's got four likes. But you know what I mean? Like, would you like it?

I liked it even though you decided this was cap on Luke Thursday. I still gave you the like. That's friendship, my friend. Look it up on Quora.

What if it was called, I guess, Washington or the Seattle football team? Would you feel differently about it if it were your own team, I guess?

Yeah, you know, maybe Seattle. I'm trying to think if we were just constantly going, go Seattle football team. I guess it would be a little bit less fun. Yeah. Um, but, but they, they, they had this, um, this naming, like basically like a branding firm that helped them. So the same branding firm that came up with Washington football team, they hired them again to come up with commanders. Well, ultimately it ended up being commanders. And I just thought, can you imagine a more tedious series of meetings than when they got down to like, cause it was, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands of suggestions from fans and you know people associated with the organization and then they narrowed it down to you know like 50 and then down to 20 and just they did things like when they got down to the top five I think they made uniforms for all of the possible five names and they had people come in wearing the uniforms and they made them run around so they could see what the name looked like on a uniform in real life I guess you kind of got to do that that's

kind of interesting right I guess you have to think like what would this look like on the back of a jersey do they film something they have somebody run on a field and have a camera yeah that's i that part i find interesting and i feel like yeah i guess you should do that i mean this is hopefully the last time your team ever does this and this is a team that will be around you're hoping you know forever i don't know um so that process i find interesting i also think it's interesting that somehow and again like i'm not in that place where i want to dunk on other teams names kind of like the cleveland guardians like the commanders and guardians sound very similar

to me they both seem well they apparently consulted with the guardians yeah like there was a lot of conversation from the washington folks to the cleveland folks about like how to

handle this process and the guardians at least i like i like knowing that there is a backstory i didn't know that those uh you know that name is derived from like these kind of statues or whatever you would call them that are on this bridge that were called the guardians of cleveland I didn't know all of that. But like now when I think of the Guardians, because I read that background, like I can picture that like I picture the stone, you know, statue column things on the bridge. And I think, oh, OK, like it's attached to something. The name on its own doesn't seem great to me. Same with the commanders. It seems pretty milquetoast, but in a certain.

way and this is a magic trick right here somehow the commanders is less interesting than the washington football team which is like really something to wrap your head around like how did you come up with something less interesting than the washington football team i also just feel like

you you know washington dc is this amazing city that's just so so central to the history of this nation there's just so much stuff you could have gone with that would have been i don't know related to i know like government doesn't seem like a particularly sexy topic but like i i always thought that the the washington senators was a cool baseball name you know like they had there's so much they could also commander it's like it's adjacent to sort of governmental affairs but it's kind of not an actual title i mean i guess maybe in the military that somebody would be a commander but you know what i mean it's just i feel like there's so much cool stuff they could have done and commander you're right somehow commander is more boring than just calling them the washington

football team and i i would assume this would be true with almost any team even if it's a brand new team without the troubled history of the washington football team but um obviously they were doing this also from the most defensive of defensive crouches right like they were doing this scared so like if you do something that's too you know nodding towards the the the history of government in your area well then are you going to be turning off like real football fans who hate the government i don't know if you've heard luke but the government isn't the most popular thing these days oh it's been noted here in montana and sex rings and cabals and what have you that i've been reading about so it's like i could see them being like no no nothing government related you know and again i'm not trying to make this argument like you can't say anything these days all team names are going to be boring otherwise you're going to offend somebody i'm not making that argument but i believe people were saying that in the room also a lot of things were

trademarked yeah so they wanted to be red wolves okay that was trademarked they wanted to be or they were considering being dc fc district of columbia football club but that's there's a that's a f using fc is trademarked from a like an mlb or sorry mls team somewhere where they love to do that what would be really funny andrew is if somebody got their hands on the like four uniforms for the also-rans, and one of them was like the N-words, and then the, like they were just wildly

offensive. Just leaning into it. I also kind of like the also-rans. The absolute worst. Do you think that was ever on the list? The Washington also-rans?

I think that fans have felt like they're the also-rans. What about the running mates?

The Washington running mates?

Ooh, yeah. The filibusters?

Ooh, I kind of like the filibusters, although that doesn't sound like football to me. I don't know why. Filibusters, what does that sound like? Does that sound like baseball? It sounds like something that doesn't sound like football to me. I don't know. I kind of like the running mates. The Washington running mates. I could see that.

I mean, the thing is, I don't love Commander, but in four years, it will sound 100% natural to me when I hear Chris Berman screaming it during the fastest two minutes. I mean, that's just how life works. Anything that's new feels weird at the time when you hear about it, and you're like, well, that's never going to seem normal. And then over time, it becomes completely normalized. So it sounds strange to us. Even the Cleveland Guardian sounds super strange to me, but I'll get used to it and it'll just be a thing, you know, that seems normal in 10 years.

Now, here's something I'm working something out in my head here. And maybe maybe I'm wrong about this or on the wrong side of this. But let's start by talking about this, you know, Cleveland Indians slash Cleveland Guardians thing. I will hear people talking on, you know, some sports radio or one of my sports podcasts or whatever. And somebody will accidentally refer to them as the Indians still. But they'll say it in a way of, well, that's the year the Indians went to the World Series or something. And then somebody will correct them and say, you mean the Guardians? And I think in that case, no, they weren't the Guardians when they went to the World Series. They were the Indians. And while I agree that the Indians is a bad name for a baseball team, it's not an epithet. It's not a bad word to say. And I don't think that you would – it doesn't make sense to me to say that is the year the – maybe in the future it won't seem that weird. Like maybe in the future when everything is just the Guardians like 10 years from now, we'll all just get used to saying, yeah, that was the year the Guardians went to the World Series even though they were really the Indians then. I don't know. But it seems weird to me right now and inaccurate. Now, with the Washington football team, when I had my old radio show 10 years ago, I wouldn't say the name of that team. I called them the R-Words, right? I think you and I might have done that on this show, too. Like, so that is not a word I'm comfortable saying. So I would dance around. I'd say the R word or just say the Washington football team. And that's not inaccurate, though. You can you can communicate that without saying the saying the slur. But I.

I don't think it's accurate to say, you know, that's the year that, in this case, the commanders went to the Super Bowl because they weren't the commanders then.

Are we sure, by the way, that Indian isn't kind of. Oh, good point. The reason is because. No, it's a good point. Because it's so inaccurate. You're right. You know, I mean, it was named because of thinking that they were in India. No, that is a good point.

Yeah. Sorry. I just said it like five times. No. Well, no.

I mean, there's a motorcycle company.

Yeah.

There's a motorcycle company, you know, that's Indian motorcycles. And I mean, it's still used interchangeably by some people for Native American. But to me, it's always it's it's it's it's interesting, you know, that the term is still used because of just like how obviously wrong it is. Like, yeah, nobody was in India.

Yeah, you're right. I mean, it's definitely a term that's based on racism and, you know, a misunderstanding of the world and human beings, to put it politely. So you're right. You're right in that way. But even even if you just wanted to say then if you want it, if you wanted to avoid that word, but you did want to talk about something that the Cleveland baseball team did in the 90s. I still don't think calling them the Guardians is accurate there. I'm being right. But I think that's saying, oh, yeah, that's the year. You can just say Cleveland. Some people, you know, I know some of my friends who are who are fans of that team called them the tribe for a long time because they didn't want to say the Indians. And so which is also on the line. Yeah, it's not great, but it's it can be a more universal word, you know. So anyway, you can just say, oh, wasn't that the year 97? That was the year that the that Cleveland signed so and so there. You don't have to use the word if you don't want to use it. But I don't think saying 97 was the year the Guardian signed so and so is accurate.

I'm also realizing that as we're talking about this, one of my kind of favorite childhood movies, Major League, just how deeply racist some of that stuff was because, of course, they're not shying away from the Cleveland baseball team's name at the time. And they've got, if I remember right, people are in headdresses, non-native people are in headdresses and banging so-called war drums and things. I think it was really, it was not great. I wonder if I can still think fondly on the movie Major League because there's a lot of stuff in there that they would certainly not do today.

Yeah, and some of the – I think we talked about this recently. I said it's not voodoo, but some of that other voodoo stuff in there doesn't seem like –

Yeah, because it's the guy who played – who's the Allstate guy, right? Oh, yes. And the president on 24. Yes. Dennis Haster?

Dennis Haster? Am I doing this? No. Is it Dennis Haster? No.

No, Dennis Haster was the Speaker of the House from Illinois.

Oh, damn it.

later oh shit of course disgraced because of his sexual proclivities how close was i though

you were close i think it's dennis hey it's it's dennis h it is uh they keep on wanting giving me dean winters no that's the other guy that's that that's mayhem right but who's the other oh right oh it's dennis hayesbert okay you know what obviously i know who dennis has But I will say I was pretty close. For as often as I've been during the show, I'm taking that as a big W. Man, I nailed it. You can't do that. It's an Andrew W. Thursday. Exactly.

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

How would you feel, Luke, if we got an email from Spotify saying they're pulling this episode because we're using a Tim Heidecker song called The Right Way to Rock and the Wrong Way to Roll? Would you be almost delighted by that?

I think we've been joking around along these lines a lot this week because we've had some problems with Spotify grabbing like a handful of episodes, some of them from a long time ago, where some piece of software flagged some kind of music that we were playing. And but I also think it's the stylish thing to do. I saw Roxanne Gay just wrote a piece, I think, in the New York Times about why she's pulling her podcast from Spotify. I think if we're going to get canceled by Spotify or leave Spotify, this is really the time to do it. All the cool kids are now leaving Spotify.

No, just to show our solidarity with Neil Young and our disagreement with – Joni Mitchell. Yeah. Our disagreement with – With spreading misinformation about the vaccine, we are pulling seven episodes of TBTL from Spotify. And I think that's going to send a real message. Hey, before we get into Blursdays today, Luke, something that I should have mentioned at the top of the show that I promised our dear friend Cheryl in Corvallis that I would mention is the Valentine's card exchange is happening again, my friend. Now, of course, Valentine's Day is merely a couple of weeks away now. So if you want to, you know, swap some Valentine's cards with other tens, email tbtlvalentens, that's tbtlvalentens at gmail.com. If you've already been doing this and participating in it, you can put in, the word in, in the subject line. If you're new, write new. And if you have a change of address, write change in the subject line. If you don't remember all of that, just email tbtlvalentens at gmail.com, and Cheryl will take care of you. Cheryl, thank you so much for setting this up again. I know it's a lot of work coordinating these things, but I also know it brings a lot of joy to a lot of people, especially in February. You know, having a nice little ray of sunshine in your mailbox in February, I think, goes a long way. So thank you for setting it up.

I mean, I can relate to this now because we finally got this big mail dump of all these holiday cards that had been piling up at APM headquarters, and it made me so happy. It just really brightened up my whole week just going through these cards and seeing the really nice things that people wrote. So I'm a fan of this whole thing now because I've experienced it myself firsthand. And I'll just say it one more time.

tbtlvalentends at gmail.com is the email. Now, shall we do some Blur's Days, Luke? We got Debra here who says, could you please wish my lovely cousin a happy birthday this is andrew speaking now yes deborah we can now back to deborah we are birthday twins almost you know what i just occurred to me i don't have a name in here i don't know what deborah's cousin's name is but deborah says could you wish my lovely cousin a happy blursday we're birthday twins almost and if i have it correct she's celebrating a big one this year, sending her lots of love from her cousin in New Zealand. I love that TBTL keeps us connected.

Nice. So, like, that person will probably know, if you're related to a Debra who's in New Zealand, we're probably talking about you. Wait a second.

I'm all confused. I now know that person. We have two Blursdays, Luke, and they're Blursday-ing at each other here. Oh, my gosh. This is a reservoir dog situation where everybody's pointing their blurses at each other. Because I have this note here next from Carolyn who says, please wish my dear cousin Debra a happy birthday. She is a Wellington in New Zealand. I get it. So I was confused before. So these two people. Debra was sending her from New Zealand and Carolyn is sending this to New Zealand. Debra was blursing Carolyn. Carolyn is blursing Debra. Carolyn says, Debra is a Wellington in New Zealand, and we always shared our birthdays growing up. My birthday was yesterday, and it's a big one. Debra was right. 5-0. So happy Blur's Day to me as well. I hope all is well with my cousin on the other side of the world. The time difference makes it so that we get to have our birthdays on the same day as long as she's in New Zealand, and I'm up here in California. So look at that. That was cute. I did everything I could to ruin that, but I couldn't. It was just too special.

it is that was something that even we couldn't ruin and that speaks to how uh well that's cute that's that's nice although i have to say we have been having the the the blurs days went from being like 20 you know it'd be like a day where you tell me okay we got to make sure to leave like 20 minutes for this so we're just whittling it down to like basically a couple of people a week so i i i renew my question is it that the listeners have heard you're sometimes kidding on the square uh review of the blursday segment andrew and they've just stopped submitting them or is it that we don't have any listeners anymore or is it that um just we're hitting a time of the year when people aren't being born is it like i think it's that as much like i do i think it i think it's that i think nine months what's nine months before february you're gonna find out if that's the horny or the least horny month is that what you're i mean based on this anecdotal evidence I'm willing to declare whatever nine months before this is, is the least horny time for people because we've had a real drop.

That would be like May if I'm doing my math right. April or May. It seems like a very horny month to me. I mean, one of the most, I would almost say. I mean, you think of spring, you think of rabbits. You know, the rabbits get me going. Sorry, where were we talking?

about hi we were talking about ending the show i mean permanently i mean this is the last one i think i just did all right uh that's gonna do it for today thanks for listening everyone i am i'm not just trying to be entertaining andrew but i am really quite uh nervous about this trying to

get out of here yeah we'll go out there and start that car right now okay just like get the car as warm as possible from the inside and just like that's a satisfying thing it's not the best for the environment but just like let it run out there for a little bit and watch all the snow drop off of it and so at least you'll be starting from that position you want you know good sight lines and everything and then um and then you just got to take it i would just kind of take it slow i

think no you can't take it slow because you'll lose your momentum i've got to take it fast you

got to start slow no don't gun it you got to start slow to get some traction all right well i'll let

you know how it goes tomorrow uh thanks for listening everyone uh we will be back here tomorrow with more of this imaginary radio for you. Until then, have an absolutely wonderful Thursday, wherever you are. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all. THE END Power out.