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You see, drinking is really a matter of algebraic ratios. How drunk you get is dependent on how much alcohol you consume in relation to your total body weight. You see my point? It's not that you had a lot to drink, it's just you're too skinny. TBTL!

What we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, uh, an eating machine. It's really a miracle of evolution.

Am I cool, kids? No. Good, I'm glad. And that's what makes me cool. Not caring, right? No. Well, how the hell do you be cool?

We're the number one show in hospitals and on sinking riverboat casinos.

But don't you see that this is all mouth? This is mouth.

Sup, guys? Heard the new rap CD? Yo, I don't know what I dig more. Hip-hop, crunk, or serving my country.

TV, TV out.

Woo!

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Thursday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Okay, let's do it. My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host. Hey, where's the freaking gabagoo? Coming to you from the Hollywood Broadcast Center right here in Portland, Oregon, where yesterday I was playing audio drops like this. Oh, Ma, Pa, it's just beautiful. Because it was a beautiful blue sky day. As I said, not a cloud in sight. And then today, I woke up with snow everywhere.

What do you got here, a thunder hurricane going on? A thunder blizzard hurricane.

So weird weather patterns happening here in the PNW, and of course, much weirder things happening globally. These are the days when doing a daily podcast about meaningless things feels more complicated than usual because there are huge international developments going on, of course, involving Russia invading Ukraine and wild threats being launched by Vladimir Putin. we've got listeners in Europe there's questions about you know what the sort of implications are for NATO and the US boy Twitter was a mess last night with speculation about just all kinds of worst case scenarios so that's happening in real time on this Thursday but I mean is this the show people are turning to for that kind of content probably not there are other places for that and they're good at it generally speaking so you know also people might be hearing this in four months and do our particular feelings this morning matter four months from now and yet also we live in the real world and so to elide the news of the day to pretend like we're not seeing military action in europe not seen since like world war ii Which is a bad precedent to go back to In terms of things Over there Like to just not talk about that is also kind of weird So I don't know We're just going to try to get through it together Here on episode 3627 In a collector's series Let the fun begin We'll handle it by doing what we usually do Which is talking about a weird video on YouTube That I saw

Weird

This Norwegian television show That may have we've now learned tricked a number of celebrities a just wildly diverse group of celebrities into lip-syncing and in some cases actually singing along to the song let it be by the beatles lots was made out of the gal gadot um celebrity fest that was a bunch of celebs singing Imagine at the beginning of the pandemic. But that video, trust me, my friends, has nothing, nothing on this video that we're going to play today. We referenced it a bit earlier on the show this week, but now we're finally going to get to it and it's going to be worth the wait. Interestingly enough, a linchpin in the whole story is David Faustino, a.k.a. Bud Bundy from Married with Children. Not the person that I saw being a linchpin in a story today on this Thursday when we may be entering a global war did not think it would come down to Bud Bundy but you know life's funny that way right uh also it's a Thursday aka a blurs day so you know we gotta do some blurses I got some I've got two very near and dear to me blurses uh in my own family who are today is their actual birthday this is interesting last week it was my daughter Addie's actual birthday on thursday and this week it's some my family members so we will do that coming up with the help of this young man, longest running cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He is once again checking in from his ancestral homeland of Cleveland, Ohio.

They're very expensive freshwater clams from the Cuyahoga River. He's Andrew Walsh and he's

joining me right now from the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning. I'm not really in the Roosevelt neighborhood. I know that you caught that a

second too late that that is what we call muscle memory that is muscle memory i understand my muscle

memory is to stumble around and forget words so i'd still take yours over mine don't don't sweat

it too much boy talk about talk about autopilot i literally described you as being in cleveland in your ancestral home of cleveland ohio and then i play this audio very expensive freshwater clams from the cuyahoga river and then i say you're joining me right now from the roosevelt neighborhood Now, if and when you ever do move out of the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, Andrew, how many shows, how many weeks will it take me to stop saying that just out of, again, just muscle memory and brain pathway? You're not allowed to move is what it comes down to.

My guess is you'll get it right the first two days because it'll be novel and fun. And then I'll have underlined it on my script. Right. And then once we kind of settle back into a new routine, that's where I believe the muscle memory will kick in again. Although I don't remember it being a huge problem when I moved out of the Wallingford neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. But my memory isn't perfect. I mean, it's near perfect. I mean, I was going to say I have something I really want to tell you about. Somebody has reached out to us, Luke, here for a potential public radio partnership that I think you'll be interested in. I want to share with you and the listeners. I would love to grow the brand. This is not an act. This is truly something that I have not told you about off air. I'm going to tell you about it on air. But before we get into that, I mean, no joke, I do have five minutes of tape that I pulled this morning of you and me talking about Old Dirty Bastard trying out for the Mr. Ed reboot. We talked about it on June 1st of 2016. No, no. Yeah, this was 2016. Just like we talked about yesterday on the show, you had claimed that we had never had that conversation before. We had almost the exact same conversation going to the detail of gathering information from the WFMU blog. So I just want to do the victory dance on that one. I was very right yesterday. You know what? we had talked about it in fact i said on the show yesterday gracious of you i know it's incredibly

ungracious because let me just explain to the listeners the chain of events yesterday and how this could have been a beautiful story of everybody being okay and instead you choose violence on this thursday morning when there's already too much global violence andrew so yesterday we're talking about this odb thing the kind of probably apocryphal audio of him supposedly trying out for a reboot of Mr. Ed I had no memory of it I was shocked by that that that we had talked about something that would have seemed to have lodged in my brain somewhere then we get a text from our friend P Fletch our friend Phyllis Fletcher who says you know we talked about this on an episode of TBTL when Luke was on vacation so it was you and Phyllis and that was a beautiful glorious thing because it went what it meant was you were right that it had been discussed on the show but i wasn't crazy because i wasn't on the episode where it was discussed that's where we should have left it that was a great outcome but no you have to come back i'm at this concert with my daughter andrew where you interrupt the concert by clarifying that in fact no there was a different episode where we did talk about it and i was involved and what i did was therefore you were

right i actually didn't even text you during the concert i texted the drummer of the war on drugs who stopped the show he was busy and made not it was a long to tell everybody i was right

not he was a long drum-filled night for that guy at the moda center at the theater in the clouds but see the thing is answered this is why this i feel like it's so ungracious you were right under either scenario you were right that it was discussed on the show so you don't get more you're not more right i'm just more wrong by the clarification and that's why i feel like this

is unfair this is where you are again uh wrong because i am more right i mean what i am the most proud of is in our conversation yesterday i said not only have we talked about this on the show but we talked about it twice on the show and i believe one time was in my wallingford apartment and another time was or in my wallingford studio because i remembered i just sometimes i just i just have a weird vague vision of where i was when we talked about some things now the reason i'm crowd here.

is because I'm wrong so often. But in this case, here I was right. I said, Luke, we've talked about it twice. Once, I remember I was in Wallingford and we talked about it. Once in my newer studio in Roosevelt. And then the record does firmly show that I was absolutely right on both of those points. Now, again, I will cede the point that I was somewhat wrong about the Roosevelt thing because, as I say, you were not part of that conversation. That was between me and Phyllis, so that is fair. That gets you off the hook. But, like, are you not slightly – you're talking to a guy who gets so much shit wrong. Are you not even slightly impressed that I got those two details right? That not only have we talked about it twice on the show, but that the eras in which we talked about it I nailed? That doesn't impress you much?

Well, again, you have roomesthesia, so you're Brad Pitt. That doesn't impress me much. No, you have some people they like see, you know, numbers in colors or whatever you you can remember a conversation based on the room you were in.

And sometimes I can remember things that I have not been a part of, but that I've listened to. Like and again, I'm not saying I can. I don't have. Obviously, I don't have a memory where I remember everything. But there are just certain bits of conversations that even if I'm listening to a podcast and I can maybe remember, oh, yeah, I was walking around Green Lake and I was just getting to that little footbridge when I heard the Levitard gang talking about this. Again, it's not everything. It's just certain things stick in my brain and I was just proud. I'm not trying to dunk on you. I'm just trying to celebrate me. You may not be

trying to, but you are. And you know what? This aggression will not stand. Next time I'm right, if it ever happens, which again, that's a pretty large question mark, but if I ever am right on the show again and you're wrong just saying be prepared my friend because i am going to lead the

show with it can i quickly pivot here to more happy news and less controversial news um which is this uh you were in montana somewhat recently that's not the good news that's the lead up to it but you were in montana what two weeks ago maybe does that sound about right yeah yeah you're in montana and you came on tbtl and you talked about how much you were loving montana public radio and the kind of some of the offbeat programming you were hearing there and that not everything was like kind of coming from that you know extremely polished public radio kind of modern tradition but it seemed like you were hearing from people uh did you describe somebody even as like it sounded like a a farmer or somebody was hosting a show do i have that wrong no you're uh well wow

okay yeah you you were probably right about that what room was i what room was i in when we were talking about this um yeah so when I first landed over there and I was driving out to the Airbnb there was a show that I was convinced I was listening to a like a low power FM station because the show was so folksy and so and I say this with absolute love kind of unpolished in a really great way and it was a guy who I believe probably that person's job was as a farmer most of the time but he was hosting this show he was talking to a an astronomer i think or someone who is a sort of nasa expert about space stuff and at one point he said and they were having a very low key conversation but but very pleasant and he said okay i gotta play a song because i gotta catch my breath and um oh can i throw a very quick one minute update into this whole situation andrew or not even into the situation but on the subject of public radio and the pawnee thought for your thoughts show i had the occasion to interview amy poller recently that tv story will be on cbs sunday morning this weekend and before we got started in earnest i asked her if a thought for your thoughts was based on michael silverblatt on kcrw and she said it absolutely was oh yeah was there any ever any doubt it's a direct well i mean i don't know well she i mean it maybe but i didn't have confirmation on that and so good well then no that is good so i uh so i had heard this montana radio station and it was so kind of folksy that i didn't realize it's you know for a large portion of montana mtpr it is the it's the public radio station of choice and that also does play like morning edition all things considered things like that crab rangoon and things of that

nature uh so yeah i was loving it when i was in montana yeah and so i got a note from somebody at mtpr a digital editor there named josh who wrote to say i appreciated hearing luke talk about his experience with mtpr one small clarification here the 4 p.m show he was talking about is a children's program one of the longest running children's show in the country and then all things considered It starts after that from 5 to 7 p.m. So I was like, oh, that's really cool. So I wrote back to Josh. Things were reaching out.

Always glad to meet more public radio colleagues. Can I throw one thing in, too? That is really interesting information because now I feel a little bit bad that I was a little critical of the thing that I was hearing at a different point on a different day. Like I got done with a TV shoot. I got in my rental car. And I think I remember describing this song as being really not for me and sounding almost like for children. And that would make sense if it was on a children's show. I didn't realize that there would be a children's show running at four in the afternoon on a Thursday or whatever. So that makes a lot more sense. So I'm sorry if I sounded overly harsh about that kids show. That's, I guess, when you play those kinds of songs.

Yeah. And apparently one of the longest running children's shows in the country now. So I got that note from Josh and I was like, hey, it's really cool to hear from you. You know, anything, Luke, that sort of bolsters our reputation as public radio colleagues makes me feel good. Just remembering that we are part of this public radio family is good and that I'm not just a guy who, in this particular moment, is literally podcasting from my parents' basement. I mean, let's just talk about – I didn't even really think about it in those terms until this very moment. But, like, I'm living a stereotype here.

You want to do a make-believe radio show in a room somewhere.

I'm telling you there's no money in that. Right. So anyway, then I, today, I heard from Josh at MTPR, I think, yesterday or the day before. Then today, we get an email via the official, like, kind of TBTL email form that you can find on the website. If you don't know our address, it's andrew at tbtl.net or luke at tbtl.net. There's also, like, a button you can click on the website, and then you fill out a form, and you can send in a message. And we got a note from Sam, I'm going to pronounce it Mano, might be Mano, Sam Mano, who introduced himself as the farmer host from MTPR. He is host and producer of The Children's Corner and The P. Green Boat. And he said, hey, it's the farmer program host from Montana Public Radio. Do you guys want to do a station ID for us? I could send you the call numbers and letters.

Andrew.

Luke, it's all happening. I deferred at first. I said, listen, I need to check with Luke just to make sure there's no conflict with his other radio show. I will be honest here. I only said that because I felt like I shouldn't commit on your behalf without, I mean, I cannot imagine that there would be any conflict with LiveWire. I just felt like before I give anybody a 100 percent confirmation from you, you know, I want to check in with you. It seems like the polite and professional thing to do. But of course we would do this. Right. In fact, I would say let's record those liners on TBTL at some point and send them into Sam and he can choose which one he wants.

I love that so much. I assumed you had to be a Montanan for that, because, again, that was what's so charming for people that didn't catch that episode. One of the things they do on that radio network, I'll say, is they have folks in different parts of the listening area record the list of different repeaters and little kind of transmitters around the state. You know, that's legally something that has to happen at the top of the hour. And I just thought it was such a nice touch. It really made me feel like I was getting to hear a bit of the flavor of Montana and their real folks. the key for us andrew if we do this is we can't come off as overly professional which has been a problem for us over the years we are such broadcast professionals as evidenced by this program that it's gonna sound we can't blow in there sound like scott shannon no we need to

dirty it up like a major league baseball right like we that's the problem with you and me you and i are like we're we're brand new baseballs off the assembly line we're too we're too shiny we're too polished we need to like kind of we need to put some of that proverbial river dirt on our uh delivery here so that it fits the vibe well yeah we just need to folks it up

folksy it up that's because that was what i found so great about those liners was not that they were recorded by broadcast professionals but they were recorded by real people and that was that's what i enjoyed about it so we we can do it but we've got to figure out a way to do it in such a way that it doesn't sound somehow tonally off from the other stuff they're doing on mtpr should we do it via phone oh that's an interesting idea and also how do we have to explain who we are because again the other ones that the ones that i remember you know somebody i believe had an art gallery or maybe a pottery studio i think that they um were mentioning not in a sort of like advertorial way but just kind of like i almost need to listen to a few more. This is also, Andrew, something that I take very seriously. Can you get Sam to send us a few examples? Yeah, I love the way we're like, hey, we can't go in being too polished here. Can you send us as much research as possible so we can go into the sounding not too polished? Well, I just want it to sound like everything else.

I don't want it to be this weird thing where two guys with, like, professional studio microphones are like, coming at you, it's TBTL, and you're listening in Kalispell at... Because that's my voice I use for promo.

Oh, I thought that was your invitation to me. Sam wrote back to me after I kind of deferred a little bit. I'm like, this is awesome, yeah, I'm sure, but I'm just going to check with Luke, make sure there's no conflicts with his other show which i'm admitting to you and i admitted to sam in a follow-up email was like kind of kind of like a quarter bullshit i just again just needed to just needed to buy a little time so i could run this by you but sam wrote back and said you know is the other radio show you're talking about weight way because just so you know bill curtis has done this for us before and uh you know if it works out you could you can plug your passion project maybe we could find a fun way a humorous way to play on too beautiful to live or something like that so it sounds like to answer your question yes we can somehow maybe you know i maybe a little plug for tbtl but then also just so you know we're coming in there after bill

curtis i'm sure he was pretty polished yeah if there's one thing old curtis's it is polished and what i'm realizing andrew i'm looking at the programming lineup i don't think livewire is on mtpr so i'm gonna have to um use my time you can use your time for whatever i'm gonna have to use

my time to promote live oh that's bullshit man all you do is promote you always promote live wire and tbtl how often do you promote tbtl and live wire never never i can never people can never know about yes exactly you went on stage the other night with amy sedaris and you're like hi i'm luke i'm a host of live wire and i think you maybe even mentioned wait wait don't tell me i'm sitting in the audience like huh i feel like you work on another project too that could maybe use a tiny

bumping audience but god forbid that doesn't look like anything yeah exactly just looks like a place where my friend just does victory laps around me because he has roomesthesia i'm like your little

i'm like your little secret ogre of a child that you won't let out of the basement not you the show sorry you're part of yeah right right right isn't there an episode of the simpsons It's like one of those early-ish treehouse of horrors where we find out that the Simpsons have a secret monster of a baby that they've kept hidden in the attic for, I don't know, eight years. And then the big reveal, spoiler alert, by the way, for a 1996 episode of The Simpsons, it turns out that really they accidentally locked up the good kid and Bart was really the monster and they've been letting him run around the whole time. Does it ring any bells? I don't remember that, but I don't dare cross you now that you're on this hot street. Yeah, I know, of just being right and too smooth at my job. Yeah.

All right, let's take a break, and then when we come back, we'll talk about this Let It Be song, and also, if people care, I can do a little debrief on seeing the War on Drugs last night play here in Portland. It was a really fun evening, so we'll do all that coming up in a moment right here on Live Wire. I hate you. Hello, and welcome to Top Story. You know, the top story in the world today, Andrew, is what's going on in Europe. And you heard me at the top of the show, maybe, if you were listening. You may have been getting some other things prepared, like talking about how right you were about the ODB tape.

You didn't want to hear that tape, right? the five minutes of me being right we'll just skip no i i right to the war i believe it exists

i don't need i don't need i will concede i will concede this one that i was wrong and you were right but as you heard at the top of the show and i was actually talking about this with addy because she's still here we went to this concert last night and i was i was getting my coffee and i said yeah this is like one of those weird days to do a show like this because all i'm hearing about as I'm listening to Morning Edition and I'm looking at the papers is this global thing that's going on. And to not mention it or to not get into it feels, I don't know, somehow disrespectful to the listeners because it's a huge scary thing. But then also it's like, this is not the place that people necessarily turn to for geopolitical analysis. And I don't really have any geopolitical analysis to offer. But it feels weird to me to be like, there's this silly celebrity version of Let It Be from seven years ago.

that where they're being weird yeah well actually i do want to talk about it i think that's way more than seven years right isn't that thing like 20 or 30 i'm dying to find out actually what this thing is you sent it to me and i didn't do the background on it but no uh not to avoid the topic uh that you're bringing up yeah i know it's weird and scary and like here's the best way huh i hadn't thought about talking about this on the show and so i don't know this is a thought that i had that is sort of Thank you.

half formed, and I don't know if I can articulate it. But we talked on the show yesterday about the fact that I'm here in Cleveland, and yesterday was my sister's birthday. And so we had a bunch of family come over, a bunch of aunts and uncles came over yesterday. It was a really, really good time. And my Aunt Louise hung around kind of late. We were actually just hanging out around the kitchen table, me, my dad and stepmom, and Aunt Louise just kind of cutting it up until about midnight actually felt like uh just real party people staying up that late late and it was a little bit before midnight here east coast time when the news broke that the invasion uh was actually indeed happening and we had a lot of a lot of hints that this was happening over the course of the past uh couple of weeks if not months um anyway the thought that i had that i'm trying to articulate here was i hope this sounds so weird but i hope i don't remember this that well in other words i hope this isn't such a world-changing event that i will think back at that moment where i was having this nice time with my family and this news broke i hope this is another you know the thing is just even by saying that of course i always will but my thought was i hope this isn't so huge that i will look back on it and at some of the other like um you know dates in history infamous dates in history you know what i have that thought with sometimes

variants of covid i'm not even kidding like because i what i remember is so many what i remember is like when i heard about something called delta or when we were it was thanksgiving time and we were all at my parents house and i think it was like maybe post burbank family fun run or something and addy just came walking out with her phone and said there's something called omicron that they're worried about like you remember where you are because every time you hear about a variant that ends up being an issue it sets everything back so there's this new it's like what is it ba2 that they've talked about now and so far they think anyway in the u.s because there's so much immunity now because of people having had the virus and other people being vaccinated and boosted that it is not going to cause another surge but it may it may cause things to flatten out less quickly or whatever like but just i was reading about that the other day and i remember thinking god i hope this is something that doesn't go in that file for me of like i remember the moment when i heard about this thing that would go on to change the next two years of

my life it's funny i don't have that with the variants i felt like for me for whatever reason And I can't remember the actual moments that I heard about them because it sort of seemed like, well, you know, I heard about this thing. I think it was Delta. It was a Delta that we first started seeing cases in South Africa or was that Omicron? I can't remember. But it was one of those things where I would start to hear about the Delta might have started in India.

And it was actually interesting because it was initially being called, you know, they were describing it regionally. And the scientists got in and said, we were not going to describe these things based on the region where we think it came from. we're going to call them you know these greek um letters i guess that's what delta is and i was actually proud that everybody got on board with it at least all the people i know pretty soon just became delta and you forgot that it had potentially and i might be wrong on that if it was india wherever it was from we decided we're not going to like regionally shame something because that's just where it got discovered um it's not even necessarily where it started maybe they just did a better testing job like south africa has a great testing system and so they caught omicron fairly early, but it doesn't mean it started in South Africa.

Yeah, I do remember like the day before or the day the world was changing at the very beginning. I should say the day America was changing at the beginning of the lockdowns here in the United States, because I remember I went to get a haircut at Rudy's. It was also around the time that I realized I hadn't paid. I just accidentally hadn't paid a credit card bill. It wasn't an especially expensive credit card bill, but I just had I used my credit card so infrequently, but I had like a couple of hundred dollars on there or something, and I had forgotten to pay it. And around this time, I suddenly realized, oh, they shut off my credit card. And because they had to shut off a credit card, I had such bad credit that they wouldn't let me sign up for another one. I was like, you're my bank. Look at all the money I have in savings. Let me get a new credit card. They're like, no, that's not how this works, sir, please. But I remember going to the bank that day, got a haircut, and that would be the last haircut for a long time. And then I went across the street to the bank. And of course, this is like the day that The news is breaking that they found that the COVID virus had appeared in a nursing home here in Washington State, or there in Washington State, I should say, since I'm in Cleveland now. But I'm driving, listening to the news both nationally and locally, because it was a story that was both local and national, and I go across the bank to see if they can help me.

get a credit card again and the woman in the bank was wearing a mask and she kept um i walk into her little office and she she kept uh using hand sanitizer things that we things that would become very very common um really starting even the next day but i remember thinking like wow you're really taking this hard like i remember like kind of being surprised at how um i thought she was just being a little bit i don't want to say extra because i wasn't judging but i was just But I was noticing. I'm like, wow, I guess you're really worried about this. And it turns out she was right to and that we would all be worried about it. So I remember that day very well, or at least kind of those snapshots of that day. And it's hard to say where we are now. But, I mean, again, she's like, I mean, I can't remember what you said at the beginning of the show, but something about, like, potentially a world conflict or something. And, my God, I hope this does not become a world conflict, obviously.

Yeah. Yeah. Just, you know, just so everyone knows, we understand that things are scary right now and there's stuff going on over there. And if you're one of our listeners that's in Europe, hopefully you are safe and you are able to manage what would be obviously a lot of anxiety and stress and trauma around all this stuff. So that being said, I what I didn't do today, Andrew, and I'm proud of this, is I did not try to make a connection between a global war and the band, the war on drugs, because that would be that would be. Very poor taste. I did go see that concert last night with Addie. And it was interesting because I I'm probably forgetting something and someone's going to remind me of of something that contradicts us. But I don't I can't remember being in something like this, like a big concert with tons of people in a long time. And it was interesting to be in the Moda Center and watching the show and seeing just kind of the different behaviors. like most of the people didn't have masks on but then some people did and but interestingly the people with their masks on seemed like they were sort of the outliers and it didn't take very long before it just felt like you know kind of normal life again the show was was really fun although my so my sisters Liz and Sarah were there and they had general admission tickets so they were down kind of on the floor Addie and I had um seats Addie got me these this ticket as a Christmas present And she knows I'm old now. And so she was like, this guy probably wants to sit for a lot of this. And as you've pointed out, the average length of a war on drugs song is about 12 minutes. So I was very, very happy to be sitting. But it kind of there was one energy up where we were sitting, which was like, this is nice. We're enjoying this. This is pleasant. We like this music. And then we met up with Liz and Sarah after the show. And they were just amped. They were like, that was one of the best shows we've ever seen. They were like, the energy down on the floor was so great. and i was like boy i probably should have been down there i think that's probably where it was

really happening but anyway it was a fun night um but the one thing you said you were inviting people to say maybe you had i think and i could be wrong on this didn't you go to a wilco concert in the past a year or so or was that pre-pandemic um nope the wilco concert was during the pandemic

but i guess the difference was everybody and you're right i mean that was analogous to this So I guess I have been to something kind of like this, although that was in a smaller theater and everybody was masked like and they were enforcing it. And it was like it felt it felt like we were in a pandemic watching a show that night, the Wilco night, this night that I was at last night felt like there was not a pandemic. If that makes. Yeah, I know what you mean. But yeah, you're right. I guess I have been to I have been to a show previous to this during the pandemic. But this and of course, I've been doing these, you know, a bunch of these things where I'm on stage and stuff, too, of late. But I don't know. It was just it was just an interesting it was an interesting experience last night and a very fun show. I could tell that it I don't want to say bothered, but you know how like you and I, when we're doing TBTL, if there's something that at the beginning of the show. We before the show starts, if we're both thinking like, don't talk about this, then it just starts coming out in all these weird ways. Like to go back to The Simpsons, like when Homer is very rageful, but he's trying to not express it. He gets these bumps in his neck that are just like the rage trying to come out. That's like us with any topic that we decide we're not going to bring up. I could tell the lead singer of The War on Drugs, it was very in his head that they were playing on what is normally a basketball court. And I don't know if it's just because like, you know, they're a band that started out playing in clubs or something. and like i couldn't i i could i was writing a whole backstory in my mind about about his complicated feelings on it maybe he kind of felt like have we really become that band that just plays like arenas now because he came out he was like let's get the kiss cam going which is like a big thing they do at basketball games and then at some point he was talking between songs and someone said like play a song and he was like jeez what you think because i'm on a basket

court i got to play 48 straight minutes and then he introduced he introduced one of the band members as philadelphia 76ers season ticket holder he introduced another one as he'll be on this court again as an assistant coach like the all of his banter was about the fact that they were technically in a facility that normally has basketball going on which i took to mean it was looming large in his mind for one reason or another can i ask you this is a really dumb

question but i laughed at that joke because i assume that the joke there is that do basketball games last exactly 48 minutes that's a weird time for a basketball game uh you know what i don't you

think i would know that um what what are quarters i literally you know i was at a college and by the

way this is not with all of my posturing before and joking around about being right like i i know luke nothing about basketball really so then that's the nba is because isn't basketball one of those sports where the the rules are well maybe significant is too strong of a word but different for for um college and the professionals because i was at a college game the other day and i wasn't sure if it was going to be marked in quarters or periods and then i think i was wrong i think it was just first half second half is that how they're divided up for college but That's different from the NBA, right?

Yeah, college basketball is two halves. NBA is four quarters. The college three-point line is closer than the NBA three-point line. I think you get more fouls in the NBA before you foul out. So yeah, there are some variations in the rules ever so slightly. 48 minutes is a weird time for a sporting event. The other thing you don't realize about a real basketball court is, like an NBA court is it is so long like that's what's kind of funny is that there's so many basketball courts in America and so many gyms that have them and and there's like there probably are some standards but I feel like they're lightly enforced because like usually if you go play like I played pickup basketball with Chris Hayes in New York a few years ago and it was a pretty rough night for me because I played very badly and I wanted to impress him and it was not impressive but we were just playing on a court at some kind of community center and there was however far it is but then flash forward to i forget why there was some reason i was playing on an nba length court at a different time and it is almost like it feels like it's twice as long like running up and down at two times and you are spent do you so do you

think tonight on speaking of chris hayes do you think that he's gonna be probably leading with a 25 year old video of people singing an old beatles song or what by the way 2011 is not 25 years ago Really? That's from 2011?

Well, that's what the YouTube...

Yeah, let's get into this because it seemed like, wow, it seemed like the people in this, it seemed like this was digging back into the 90s.

Well, this is the thing. This is when it was posted on YouTube. I guess I don't know when it actually necessarily happened. So you might be, again, this is Andrew W. Thursday, so maybe you're racking up the Ws even as we speak. I saw this earlier this week, and I can't actually remember how it came into my consciousness, but it immediately blew my consciousness up, and I started sending it to everyone that I know. My sister Hannah posted it in Hawk Squad this morning for some reason, and now my whole family is commenting on it. this was a promotion for a norwegian tv show that is called was called golden times and i guess the premise of the show is they would just interview lots of you know stars and people who had been in you know famous for things that had happened a while ago i think hence the name golden times it was kind of like an oldies tv interview show because one of the things that i've been learning It was happening at the time in norway was they would play a lot of old american shows like melrose place or What you know things that had aired and maybe were over in america were now playing in norway And so this was a show that would kind of dive back in And interview a lot of these people who were sort of maybe more relevant in norway at this point than they were in the states And this is a promotion for a season of this show that was coming up And on YouTube, it's listed as Most Random Celebs Ever Sing Let It Be. It's got 298,000 views. Now, it starts with Roger Moore, okay, a.k.a. James Bond, kind of just, well, you'll hear what he's doing. He's quoting the lyrics.

Myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom. Let it be.

now he's in a suit he's standing uh in front of or on what looks like a beach but it's obvious that he was standing on just a like a a green screen stage somewhere uh and they've Superimposed this beach behind him It's Shatner-esque

His performance there, if you don't mind me interjecting

That was, that was More in tune than Bill Shatner, but yes Spoken wordy, like William likes to do So what's going on here Now is obviously John Lennon's Voice, but it's being lip-synced over Paul, I think Hughie, okay, Paul you just won't stop winning today

I just want to prevent it's better for me than the listeners

so Huey Lewis is lip syncing over Paul McCartney again they're still on the beach and next to him is a very serious looking Jason Alexander from Seinfeld they are speaking words of wisdom

let it be

And the camera pans away from them now to Rikki Lake. Now, I think this is Rikki Lake's real voice. And this is one of the true odd parts of this video. It does not seem that it's consistent as to if people are lip syncing or singing. So some of the celebs wanted to really sing the song and some of them just wanted to lip sync. So we're going now into Rikki Lake using her real voice. Next up, Josie Bissett from Melrose Place. Now it's somebody named Alberto Tomba, who I believe it's I don't speak Norwegian, but it says alpinist. I think there was a guy named Alberto Tomba who was a skier, like a ski racer. So I'm thinking this might be the same person, possibly. Somebody named John Nettles, who I don't know. Cuts to Corbin Bernson from L.A. Law and also Major League. He was the shortstop, I believe, in Major League.

I need to look up because I know that name. Genevieve, I think, was a big L.A. Law person, but I wasn't. And I think when I see his face, I'm going to recognize him.

Well, again, you'll recognize him from Major League as well. I used to love Corbin Bernson. I thought he was such a cool dude. Andrew? The next person up standing on the beach is none other than possible 45 millionaire George Wendt.

Right. That's what you mentioned when you sent it to me. You said about what? How far in? You said at some point during this video. 59 seconds. He will see something that is very related to what we talked about on TBTL yesterday, I think, because we had been Wendt-ing it up. By the way, the name of that show title, if I can just take another little lap here, is I was very proud of our show title the other day. I think it was From When It Came. Is that? Or was it Went in Rome or something? I don't know. Anyway, go ahead.

I like that. So the song goes on. I just thought it was weird that there was a George Wendt sighting after we've spent so much time talking about somebody who's not extremely in the public eye these days anyway. Then there's somebody named Paul McKenna, who's a hypnotizer, presumably. Now, we then get a Philip Michael Thomas sighting. Was that that guy's name? Who is that? He is the guy from Miami Vice who also is the inventor of the idea of the EGOT. Oh, really? Because, yeah, he was Tubbs on Miami Vice, and he's, I think, now more famous for coming up with this idea of winning an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony.

Because has he won one, or is he an EGOT winner, or he just came up with the idea of it?

I believe he came up with the, I don't remember Philip Michael Thomas winning an Academy Award. Uh-huh. I think he might have, like, an E. I think he might have gotten an Emmy or something Or a Tony And he said, I'm going for the EGOT

He got an E, but he's not an EGOT That's the difference right there Yes, precisely

So you've got him showing up Steve Guttenberg Which is interesting because Well, again, this is where It's going to get annoying because I don't speak Norwegian And so I don't exactly know what these subtitles Or these titles they've given the people For Steve Guttenberg from you know like three men and a little baby and uh lots and lots of films actually by the way steve gutenberg looks great i think i used to use steve gutenberg as a bit of a punch line kind of like because you had like tom sellick and ted danson and and other folks uh who were kind of sort of um what would you call them well they were in films with steve gutenberg and it seemed like there was people whose careers kind of flourished and then steve gutenberg it was kind of one of those whatever happened to him but i'll tell you what every time i see steve gutenberg in something it looks like he's living his best life he looks healthy he's looking he's looking uh you know like he's keeping in shape etc now here's the thing they list him as being mahoney i politics colon what do you think that means Mahoney I politics colon you know what is that what are what are they saying

about Steve Gutenberg two things I don't talk about on this show is religion and politics Conan you know that Luke I don't know is he in politics or something I don't know what to do with that I was hoping that you might be um uh let's see since I'm so since I'm so smart today No, I was hoping you'd be typing it into Google. Oh, I see.

And seeing if you could get the, let's see, you get the translation. I don't know. I'm trying to punch it into Google right now, but it's not helping me. It's trying to go from Welsh to English, which is not what we're trying to do. Anyway, Steve Guttenberg's in the video. katarina vitt the noted ice skater who's actually kind of been in the culture lately because uh she's a commentator for some of the ice skating broadcast during the olympics and there was this very intense moment where this young russian figure skater who had been the source of some controversy because she had tested positive for a banned substance and she was every they let her skate and everyone thought she was just going to win by a million points and she fell multiple times and it was kind of a pretty it was a pretty intense moment and a really sad moment for her and and it was just so lonely and katarina vitt was crying i believe while watching this and commenting on it because she could sort of relate having been a top figure skater herself then we go from

katerina vitt to tanya harding whoa and that do you understand you at least understand why i

thought this was the 90s right um i i mean and who knows maybe it was um tanya harding is wearing a brown camouflage long sleeve t-shirt that says can you see me now and she is listed as Tanya Harding Kuntzloper i Trobel now I don't know what T-R-O-B-B-E-L is in Norwegian, do you think it's trouble is it possible they're saying she's an ice skater who got in trouble, is that her title troublemaker ice skater Tanya Harding I don't think so then we get a really interesting sighting Glenn Close there's been a certain level of celebrity represented in this video thus far Andrew and we'll just say we've taken a major step up in terms of Hollywood A-listers it goes from Corbin Bernstein and ice skater troublemaker Tonya Harding to Glenn Close

you know what I'm realizing by the way I think you are right about the timing on this you are obsessed with when this video came out Well, it is – I mean, well, do you not think that it's interesting? I mean, you sent me this – you don't think that when this came out is interesting given all of the people that you're talking about. The people you are describing, their heyday was obviously the 1990s. And so that's why this is – and also the production value is just so janky and bizarre. But the most journalistic kind of outlet that I see that wrote this up was back in December of 2010 and so around the time this hit YouTube. because I just wasn't sure, like, had this been around since the 90s and then it resurfaced and somebody digitized it. But apparently the whole point of the show, and I think this is really relevant, is the show, as it's described here in The Hollywood Reporter, is a sort of Where Are They Now series. And it's called Golden Times or Gilntider, currently airing on Norway's number one network, TV2. And again, this is an article from late in 2010 that I'm reading here. So at least that makes sense to me as I'm watching like James Bonds of years past and Seinfeld and Tanya Harding and Glenn Close. You're like, well, how is this 2011?

And now it starts to click. The Glenn Close one is the one that throws me, though, because I feel like the where are they now really applies to every person that you said. Yeah. Except her. And maybe I've just like maybe I've just overestimated the career of Glenn Close. But she seems like and maybe it's just that in my mind, I sort of think of Glenn Close and like Meryl Streep as the same, which they're not. And Meryl Streep is like, you know, in like five Oscar nominated movies every year. And maybe Glenn Close has kind of taken a step back from the limelight. But I'll tell you the next.

who comes up on here is a i would say probably a fairly uh fairly often referred to as or asked the question of where are they now is bud bundy david faustino who comes up in this article about this whole thing also in the hollywood reporter he explains why i'm just gonna let this run for underneath too because me stopping at every second we're making like very slow progress on this video, Andrew. Oh, we got an Alfonso Ribeiro. Nice. Carlton Fresh Prince sighting.

I know where he is now. He's in insurance commercials.

And hosting America's Funniest Home Videos.

Yeah, right.

Yeah. We got a Pam Anderson sighting. Oh, wow.

Pam Anderson's really, you know, kind of in headlines now because of the Pam and Tommy show. I don't know if you watched any of that. Genevieve had that on. She was really enjoying it.

uh leslie nielsen showing up mickey rourke whoa um although but here's a kind of a trick that they did i'll talk about david faustino in a minute a trick that they did for this uh is when they couldn't get somebody to actually stand in front of a green screen and sing along with let it be what they did was they had the hosts of this show this norwegian tv show it's like three people and They're in these like red sweatshirts and they're like sitting on a beach, which is, I guess, a reference to this sort of beach that they put everybody on this, you know, green screen beach. And they're flipping through like a photo album. And so like they don't actually have Pamela Anderson. Like she's not singing to the camera. It's just video of her. They don't have Mickey Rourke, who's listed as Mickey Rourke from nine and a half weeks. They just have film like footage of him. So what they can do is they can just look through this photo book and then show these people. But they didn't actually get these people to come Be part of the project If that makes any sense Raising the question Being mean to people Being mean to Mickey Rourke Is not a personality But I'm curious what Mickey Rourke had going on That did not allow him to be a part of this production You know what I mean It doesn't seem like he was working So consistently that he couldn't have done this I would think Glenn Close Would have a harder time fitting this into her schedule Than say Mickey Rourke Which brings me back to the Bud Bundy thing. David Faustino is, I think, one of the only people in this video who went on the record talking about how it all actually happened. He explained to The Hollywood Reporter that he was basically on a red carpet somewhere, you know, for some event. This was the quote from him. It was just one of those things that happened on the red carpet at some event where a camera crew nabbed random, extremely gullible celebrities, apparently like myself, and asked them for an interview, he tells The Hollywood Reporter. Faustino adds that the singing portion was presented at the end. They were like, we're putting this video together and it's for charity. And he says, at least I remember I thought I was doing something good for somebody. So at least in his case, sounds like they sort of approached people and then said, can you like lip sync along to let it be or sing it, I guess. And it's for charity. And he is doing it.

Faustino is doing the lip syncing. It's not just a clip of him like answering a question or something in the obscure the mouth.

No, I think he is singing along. He's lip syncing, I should say. I'm sorry. He knows what's going on. He's not giving him the Mickey Rourke treatment where it's just a random video of him. He is, he's lip syncing, but he told The Hollywood Reporter that he was under the impression this was something for charity. I see. But what I really love, oh, okay, let me finish reading this because there's actually more, a little more detail here. Faustino admits it was his own singing voice used in the video, which according to TV2's website, that's the network in Norway that put this show together. The video took nearly three months to edit. as for whether his participation was obtained under false pretenses, says Faustino. And I'm going to say a swear here because this is what David Faustino says. Oh, well, live and learn. Fuck it. Let it be. That was David Faustino's official comment to The Hollywood Reporter, which is kind of great to me for some reason. Like, I love that he doesn't really care that much. And I love that he refers to himself as a gullible celebrity. He actually comes off as fairly likable in this interview to me anyway. Now I literally want to know, where is he now?

What is he working on?

Well, Andrew, can I point you towards a show called Golden Year? So now we're just kind of in a breakdown. Philip Michael Hall is pretending he's playing air guitar on the beach. Then we get to Cheryl Lee, who played Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks.

Indeed.

Andrew, I have not watched Twin Peaks. I know it's about the murder of someone named Laura Palmer. Is she also an active participant in the film? or the TV show, are there lots of flashbacks to her?

What they did... When she was alive? What they did was you would see her a lot as a... This is dark, but you would see her as a corpse. from time to time you would see some flashbacks kind of not not like flashbacks so much as you would see like there's a in the story in the plot there is a video cassette that the investigators have that show her and a friend kind of you know having fun and stuff so you can see her but I think they realized we're not using Cheryl Lee enough so what they did was in real like kind of almost like I think making fun of soap opera fashion they decided to introduce a new character in the first season about halfway through, which was Laura Palmer's, wait for it, identical cousin. Identical cousin, that's pretty clever. Was Donna Reed a show about identical cousins or something? Maybe I'm making that up, but for real.

Cousins, identical cousins.

So they brought her in as the actor because they wanted to use her more, I think, but she actually plays Laura Palmer's living cousin.

That's pretty high concept, actually. I've got to give it to them. Then you get a sighting from, it's pretty good singing from Larry Drake, who played Benny on L.A. Law. Again, L.A. Law heads out there. There's a lot to look for in this video between Corbin Bernson and Larry Drake. This is a big one for me that I immediately sent to Camaro Kev and our friend Algar, Dolph Lundgren. Dolph Lundgren makes an appearance. Now, Dolph Lundgren is a very interesting one to me, too, because it'd be easy to sort of where are they now, him, because he was Ivan Drago in the Rocky movies. He was also He-Man in the live-action He-Man that I saw in a theater, Andrew, that I thought was a really good film at the time.

Dude, I think I saw that in Brunswick Theater as well and here in Brunswick, Ohio.

Yeah, I was very intrigued by this film. The thing about Dolph Lundgren is he has, like, three PhDs. He has, like, gone on to be this, like, incredibly scholarly person who does not look a minute older than when he was in the He-Man movie also, which is quite interesting. But it's sort of like if he is on, if Dolph Lundgren is on this, where are they now? I mean, the answer is doing pretty well, it would appear. Dolphinately. Dolphinately for sharks. Malcolm Jamal Warner pops up from Cosby. Now they're all just kind of on the beach vibing. I will say this too, like Jason Alexander, God bless. I think this guy is very, very fortunate that a character called George Costanza was created for television audiences because he is not particularly good at dancing. Now, it's kind of not his fault Because who knows what who knows where he was when he was doing like what they were playing for him. You know what I mean? What his actual physical scenario was. But the way they've edited together, it's I mean, Elaine has nothing on Jason Alexander in terms of not being a great dancer in this video.

Because I know that he I mean, he was famous even before Seinfeld. Right. For his I mean, I don't know if he was famous, but he is well regarded for his work on the stage. Right. And I believe he's got a great singing voice. but maybe that doesn't translate to being a complete song and dance man. I know he was in a McDonald's commercial. Indeed he was. It was hot on one side, cold on the other commercial, yeah.

And I don't know anything about his career pre-Seinfeld, but I would not be surprised to know that he was a song and dance man and was really good on the stage. They're not doing him any favors in the way they cut this whole thing together, I'll tell you that much. Then we get a Judd Nelson reference, who is just listed as being from Breakfast Club. So maybe there is there no word for breakfast in Norwegian or club. Why is why is Tonya Harding a Troubler something something and Judd Nelson just gets straight up breakfast club?

Probably because it's a, you know, proper noun. Like one is describing using their words what she does, whereas they're actually saying the name of the title of his show or his movie.

I guess so. now we're just getting into somebody from Falcon Crest named Anna Alicia is having like a sing off with Malcolm Jamal Warner like it's clear that a lot of the people who got into this they got they were into it to a much larger degree than David Faustino was because he Bud Bundy because he was just like kind of lip syncing for or singing I guess for a moment some of these people might have had like an all afternoon session somewhere doing this because they're like singing the entire song they're vibing they're playing like pretend instruments like they got they there was a lot of footage of them in related to this whole thing it definitely has the vibe of like one of those

charity songs right from the 80s i guess yeah and then andrew at the 323 mark

peter falk aka colombo please don't lip sync wave and sing oh nope he's

just waving and in fact it's it it who knows if the footage of Peter Falk was actually filmed for this like if they just got if they just got him on a like a red carpet somewhere waving you can't I mean they have chroma keyed him into the beach scene so it looks like but but Peter Falk was definitely not nobody asked him or at least successfully got him to lip sync along to a Beatles song he's just there he's just waving but I will say it's fairly dignified by the standards of this video Peter Falk comes off as pretty dignified and we should also mention like

see uh oh I see okay so I thought Peter Falk would have been um had passed away long before this but that's not so so I thought maybe they were just using footage of him from when he was still alive but he actually died around this time so but he was also near the end of his life as we've said before on this show like he his mental state declined rapidly and frighteningly near the end

as well oh uh we've got kelly mcgillis from top gun uh cheryl and fenn also from uh my second love okay good uh from uh from twin peaks again rick schroeder listed as being gutten gang gutten gen and the champ the champ at least the champ the go on get the ultimate go on get i really it's a bummer that rick schroeder has turned out to be a maga chud and an anti-masker because i will tell you that performance in the champ is to this day one of the most emotionally powerful moments from any film that i can that i can remember uh this is also funny then somebody named bud spencer pops up and he's just listed as spaghetti western filmer spaghetti western filmer bud spencer and

that they don't translate those words um either to just keep it together as spaghetti western a genre that cannot cannot be translated they're they're still bringing in some new characters

including andrew at this point now it's just a huge group of these people superimposed together onto this beach and we see freddy krueger from a nightmare on elm street aka robert england is there singing along you know my had that on your bingo card connection to him right we shared

an accountant for a while or a cpa for for a while oh and you were living in la when i was living in la i remember i had my taxes were a mess luke burbank and i was sitting there while they're trying to untangle them they they on elm street they were and i was sitting in this little office uh and somebody was like looking at my returns that i had filed myself the year before they're like oh we have to untangle all this and i'm bored as hell there's nothing i can do while they're tip tapping away at their keyboard so i start looking at the files that They're kind of like on the little table next to their desk. I don't know if they were incoming or outgoing, but I saw that name and it rang a bell. I can't say that I knew exactly what he was known for, but I think I secretly Googled it on my phone. I was like, oh, Freddy Krueger. Wow. Nice. I'm keeping good company here.

That's I'm sure that we talked about this. I'm sure I said this same thing when this came up the last time, but my accountant in LA was the same had the same vibe going where he wanted a headshot from me because I was just I was a radio producer at the time I didn't even have headshots but he had like he was like you know he was in Glendale his name was Jamie something or other and he loved being the accountant to people who had who worked in the film and television industry and none of them were very famous like I don't remember any of them really being anyone I'd even heard of but when he saw that I did radio, he for years would bug me to bring in a headshot. I wonder if that's a whole type of accountant

out there. Well, this person wasn't bragging, but I was just being snooping. There was just a folder sitting there. There were no headshots.

Oh, that's terrible. There was just a manila folder

sitting there. Maybe I saw one of those rolling filing cabinet things so I could see the tabs and I just saw that name. I took the name off of a manila folder.

So you've just basically outed Freddy Krueger as having an accountant and paying taxes.

Yeah, exactly.

Do you think that the sweater is a write-off because it's for work purposes?

Well, I've got to say, I mean, I kind of almost didn't give it its due there, but I mean, I kind of love the idea now of a commercial with Freddy Krueger, who's just glum, and he's like, my taxes are a nightmare, and then it's like a commercial for the CPA.

Kathleen Turner shows up again Although she's kind of Some of these videos where they're not singing along You just don't quite know where they got the tape from If the people were in on it Somebody named Harpo Who's a movie star presumably in Europe More Faustino Then a bunch of people from shows that I don't recognize are probably European shows, something called It's All About the Money, something called Close to Heaven. Fab from Milli Vanilli pops in. There's a certain irony to that, right? That they have the guy from Milli Vanilli lip syncing to something when that was what really kind of destroyed their career.

And does he actually lip sync? This isn't just a wave or he doesn't Peter Falk it?

He's lip syncing. Nice. He's lip syncing. He's singing the words. Or he's really singing them, but he's clear on what he's there to do, right? He wasn't just filmed like a Sasquatch in the woods and then cut into this video. And then here's another one, another interesting one. Dee Snider from Twisted Sister pops in towards the end of this video. You know, there was also an issue, I guess, with, I don't know if it was after the David Faustino thing or something, But this TV show Had to basically Like kind of Respond Oh right said Fred I'm too sexy Those are identical cousins Those two guys I guess this TV show had to actually Respond to some criticism That they had tricked Celebrities into being in this video And or didn't have The rights to the music I didn't see the thing about the music The Norwegian television channel Behind the Let It Be Viral video sensation Says none of the singing celebrities appearing on the clip Were coerced or fooled into giving Their karaoke version of the Beatles Classic The video which has become an online hit Features Glenn Close, Kathleen Turner, Judd Nelson Jason Alexander, etc, etc A TV2 spokesman told the Hollywood Reporter All the celebrities in the videos were happy To be a part of it, the performances were not Acquired under false premises um uh tv2 said they cleared the rights to the song for norway beforehand and have not uh been contacted by representatives for the beatles or paul mccartney since the video went viral so i guess the thing was actually kind of contra like you know tiny bit controversial uh we only have 56 seconds left don't worry your long national nightmare is almost over daryl hannah from roxanne just like puts a peace sign up again that one looks like she didn't really know she was in the video cotton-eyed joe oh wow i guess the song i guess the band is called rednecks andrew

are now that you say that i remember like has anybody invest that song could have only been created for psyops purposes right like there's no chance that like honestly has anybody looked into that is that not a is there a podcast that is currently investigating that there's all there's only one reason why rednecks would exist to sing the song cotton-eyed joe and it was probably to either torture somebody or to get somebody to talk they were playing it to try to get noriega or to leave your compound you're right that's what it is yes well it's i guess it's a

it's a traditional country folk song cotton eye joe and then what rednecks with an x did was like basically did the techno version i see yeah right yeah of course uh the song has been around since It's like the Civil War.

Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, that makes sense.

I'm also, like, I'm 100% sure that if we delve into the lyrics of the original Cotton Eye Joe, it's probably racist.

Is there any way it's not? Oh, what was the song? Why would I even say this? I was listening to a song. Oh, you know how sometimes you'll see that online? This was kind of a trend a few years back. Name something that seems racist, even though it might not be. I was thinking the song Oh Susanna That seems like a song I don't think that song is racist But it seems racist I don't know Maybe that's just my bias Against the South

Oh Susanna Oh don't you cry for me I'll be coming round the mountain With the banjo on my knee That's the song

Yeah and you understand I want to make it very clear I'm going to restate this to the audience I am not claiming that that song Has any negative origins I am just saying that If you were playing the game Name something that seems racist but probably isn't, that might be my contribution to the world.

Anything from that era, you know, just if you delve into it too much. Lou Ferrigno shows up, which now I know how to say the Hulk in Norwegian. It's Hulken, Andrew. It's Hulken. That's how you do that. And we are now way towards the end. Oh, the singer from the band Berlin of Take My Breath Away fame. again one of the things about this video which i just encourage everyone just to go watch it just have your mind fully unicorn exploded but the naming conventions of the first of all they definitely cut this on like an like a mac or an apple the font they're using is from like the early i used i used to use this on videos that i would make sometime on my like death. desktop apple computer and i forget what it was even called but it was sort of like that one that it almost looked like wali it was like a white base and then a kind of an almost like a lamp arm and then a flat screen right that was the style of apple computer that i had that had some kind of video edit very early video editing software on it which i used to use and this was always the font that they offered you if you had to put a title on something and i find it interesting that this that it appears that they cut this on a pretty like like a consumer computer as opposed to some kind of like fancy or they're just using the font that was available at the

time to everybody oh a mere 10 years later you could probably do a better version on your phone

oh i bet but the thing i was going to say is so berlin i'm in europe i mean i'm sure that the band berlin in europe from take my breath away and what and other things is probably huge i mean that's one of the things that happens is there will be bands that they they're they're bands that are based in europe and they have like one song that makes its way over to the u.s and that's kind of like okay they had a song they had a hit but if you ever travel in europe you'll realize that a lot of these bands have these like extremely popular careers over there where there's like 20 songs we don't even know about that are like number one hits i'm surprised that they didn't give the name of the person this woman who's actually the singer from berlin they just call her berlin and then they put take my breath away under it like i would think they would put her name and that she's from the band berlin but what do you think a rednecks deep track is like like a deep cut man i am wondering again this is where we really need this is where we really need the oral history of that song what other let's see what the band rednecks let's see what they are up to oh my god andrew but where are they now swedish whoa rednecks is a swedish musical group so that's their take on americana so that's so cotton eyed joe the part the the version that that we've all been subjected to in over the course of the last whatever 20 years where did you come from where did you go that version that super sped up crazy version is from a Swedish band that just grabbed an old American folk song and

sped it up I'm looking at a photo of them I don't know if this is new or old or what although it is their main photo on Spotify and they look like they look like they are interpreting American culture through the lens of kid rock

are you looking at the picture from

wikipedia uh no but i can get there i don't know if it's the same one or not one of these guys

looks remarkably like kid rock there the photo on wikipedia and it's from 2020 is is quite something i mean it's just straight up cosplay of what somebody in sweden might think a certain kind of there's a almost a steampunk element meets i mean visually and aesthetically it is just all over the map and the idea of these seven swedes dressed up like this playing cotton eyed

joe is just it's so bizarre that it delights me yeah and it's also not the worst interpretation of american culture either oh no what's wrong no are you saying oh no that i'm taking shots at

america no they have stage names andrew the members of rednecks have stage names and i'm going to read them to you right now all right they are known as cash one is known as jiggy mcclanahan one is known as spades one is known as pickles one is known as mo lester the limp boo one is known as bone duster crock and the last one is known as pervis the paler gator And this photo of them is from the recording of a video for their song called Nowhere in Idaho. What is happening with this band, with Jiggy McClanahan, Pickles, and the crew? Is this an art project? Is this Banksy?

Which one of these people is Banksy?

I mean, honestly, is Banksy behind this? I cannot believe that this has been going on, and I'm only now really learning about it. I've heard the song Cotton Eye Joe. I had no idea this was what was behind it.

How much are you willing to pay for rednecks at auction, Luke? That's what I want to know. What do you mean? Just as far as like a Banksy, like all those Banksy tricks things that they were selling at auction. Like, hey, get a painting that will shred in front of your eyes. Right.

A redneck CD that will shred itself. Right. Or no, just the band itself. Just like, I'm an art collector, so I'm going to buy this European band that is interpreting American culture in an artsy way.

God. They have, sorry, we just have to keep doing this because I can't believe this. These are, the current members are Ace Ratclaw, whose real name is Tor Penton, Spades, which we mentioned. That's Jan Blumentroth Purvis the Paler Gator is Christian Sterba Dagger is Anders Sonberg Oh, Jana Gorisic is Jiggy McClanahan Former members, past Members include Dakota Whippy Let's see, Joe Cag Rattler Billy Ray BB Stiff, and of course Not to be confused with Bone Duster Croc Which is Bjorn Scheffler You used to have someone called The original Bone Duster Croc And that was Jason Holler And Jerry Mathers as the beaver This is what's so great Andrew About getting to do this show with you Is that you never know the day When we're going to start out Talking about international affairs And then try to talk about This really silly video But then really the takeaway From today's episode will be the band Rednecks out of Sweden and their ridiculous stage names. And I love that that's where we landed.

Do you think that Chris Hayes will lead tonight's show all in with Chris Hayes with a conversation about or with Rednecks?

I believe Chris might be on vacation this week, but if and when he's back on the air, this is a challenge, Chris, to work either the words Cotton Eye Joe or Rednecks with an X into one of your scripts.

And if you can't do it, we're going to talk to Joy Reid.

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 one.

What do you say, Luke? You ready to do some Blur's days? I was born ready. You were blorn ready. I was Bjorn ready.

Bjorn ready is one of the members of Rednecks who goes by the name Cockrattler.

you can email me andrew at tbtl.net if you want your blurs day read on the show matt says i'd like to wish a happy blurs day to my 11 linda and my 5 evan we got a jump start on pandemic life when we had to cancel evan's birthday party before the shelter in place rules even began i'm sorry uh we've been through a lot over the past 700 plus days let's hope this year's birthday is that all it's been yeah right oh it feels like 702 So let's hope that this year's birthdays kick off a new post-pandemic-ish era of expansiveness, adventure, and in Evan's words, discovery. I love it. Happy Blur's Day, Linda and Evan.

Tierra in Baltimore says, my birthday was this Wednesday, February 23rd. That is all. Hashtag Tierra from Baltimore.

Hashtag Tierra from Baltimore. That was yesterday. That was also my sister's Blur's Day. Happy Blur's Day to both of them. Although, wait, I'm not trying to steal Tierra's sunshine here. Happy Blur's Day, Tierra.

I just like that it's—I like Tierra starting a hashtag.

I know. Hashtag Tierra from Baltimore. I love it. It's great. I need a hashtag. This one from Monzi, who says—oh, by the way, in Las Vegas, Monzi is, Hello, my birthday is today. Will you mention me on the show? What do you think, Luke? I don't know.

It's too early to know if Monzi is going to get the mention or not.

I'll do it. I'll mention it. Happy Blur's Day, Monzie. Hope all is well there in Sin City.

Jesse says, please don't call it Sin City. It's weird that Jesse started their Blur's Day message by saying, please don't call it Sin City. I don't know how Jesse knew that.

Yeah, you're right.

Jesse says, I am wishing Nana a very pleasant... What? 101st Blur's Day. She is younger than Band-Aids, which were invented in 1920. and older than penicillin, which was invented in 1928, and became the world's best nana through patience and diligence, outlasting all competitors. Maybe one day Andrew's grandma will live up to nana's example, but until then, nana reigns supreme.

all my love to Nana. Wow, 100. I have never felt more like Willard Scott on this show.

I know, I was trying to conjure that name. Yes, right, Willard Scott. Yeah, my grandma will be turning a mere 100 in a couple of weeks here, but that's a spring chicken compared to Nana.

You know what happened last night at the concert that we went to? We had this very spunky, interesting, I guess what would you call the folks that kind of usher I guess kind of like you know you show them your ticket and they tell you where you're going etc her name was Maggie and she was just sauntering around making conversation with all the different folks seated in her kind of area and she would you know shine this flashlight for people trying to go down the stairs in the dark I mean it was dark in this theater once the show started because there was a whole light show Maggie casually drops at some point that she's 90 Andrew and she's working at the Moda Center and she has this stick with a little rubber tip on the end of it and she goes this is my cane, I got it at Dollar General, it's better than a real cane and she was just like trucking around in the dark on cement with this thing she got from Dollar General at age 90 and she was very annoyed because the show was supposed to start at 8 and it started at 8.30 she goes, in all of my years, I've never seen anything start this late. What, in all of your years?

Especially, I mean, I don't know how many years she spent in this particular industry, but you would think that rock and rollers often start late, no?

I wonder if, like, because it's the Modus Center and there are various rules and maybe union rules and, like, it's frowned upon to start late. Like, it's not like you're going to some rock club where it's more typical. I don't know. But she and then she was going up to people going, like, I hope to God there's not an encore. I've been there. I was like, we all know you want to get out of here, Maggie. We get it. But I just couldn't believe that at 90 she was doing this job. And again, I mean, it was dark. Those stairs are steep and cement. I was kind of like, you know, I was impressed and slightly worried. How did you get so much information from Maggie? Well, I'm going to be honest with you. Maggie volunteered it. And then she also, after she kind of just explained all this stuff to us, goes, I got to tell you, I have diarrhea of the mouth. and then Addie and I looked at each other like well we're glad that ended with up the mouse but even if it didn't we you know hey at 90 you get to do whatever you get to do whatever you want

did she put that dramatic pause in there specifically to kind of get ya or were you just trying to get us

I was getting you oh okay gotcha I didn't get got

but I didn't get EGOT I just got got nor did Philip how long did you like she's walking you to the seat and then did she kind of hang out at your seat

for a while She was standing near our seat I mean we had seated ourselves But she just kind of sauntered over And then I've never heard this band And I said I go well do you like Bruce Springsteen And she goes I like Bruce Springsteen And I go there's kind of echoes of that And boy was there Andrew There was a point where Because they had a guy on saxophone And there was a point where like You know it was just kind of the band The song was going along And then a guy just comes like blowing out with a saxophone Real Clarence Carter style like the East Street band vibrations were very very strong but yeah I saw a headline in the

stranger I think it was the stranger yeah that makes sense because I think maybe the the maybe it was here in Cleveland maybe it was like the Cleveland scene but I saw some alt weekly newspapers headline of the review was basically like the boss is strong in this one or something

and it was a review of their concert and it's not it's not even a diss like I enjoyed it very much But it's like you can really, really see the kind of musical influences kind of going on, you know, with the band. And, you know, like I said, I enjoyed it. But there's just like the point where this giant saxophone comes blaring out. I was like, this is straight out of the out of the 80s. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is happy Blur's Day, Nana.

That's right. And also happy Blur's Day to Trevor. No, no, Trevor, you wait your turn. Trevor says happy Blur's Day to Heather in Gilbert, Arizona. The love of my life, my best friend, my wife Here's to letting go of things that bring no joy And making it all about love Thank you for bringing me into the TBTL family You made me an 11, but you've always been a perfect 10 to me How sweet is that? That's from Trevor to Heather in Gilbert, Arizona

Very cute Andrew, son of Bruce, says My father's birthday is soon so I must write this email is this Bruce down in the south somewhere Athens Alabama yes I believe it's Athens Alabama this year was yet another year filled with movies and some of them have been absolutely terrible but something important this year was when he told me about the fried mac

and cheese fiasco with Sean the best cook anyway this will be too long if I keep typing like always power snout and power rar from Andrew wishing his dad Bruce one time known as Bruce and Lake Stevens I believe I am not 100% sure on this I'm not even 10% sure on it but I have this kind of nagging feeling that Bruce might have coined the term 10 like it might have been an email from listener Bruce That said something like I'm one of your loyal tens of listeners After we had sort of said it on the show But it hadn't been like It hadn't been codified in that way It hadn't become a way The listeners were referring to themselves And you know I mean Bruce also By his own telling Conceived a child with his lovely wife After the TBTL prom So our friend Bruce Has been a big big part of this show For many years So happy Blur's Day friend And Andrew Happy Blur's Day to my dear Mudder Susan Burbank And to my sister Hannah Nelson They have the same birthday and that birthday is Today and I would play some audio drops Of my mom but I'm also playing the Blur's Day music here and I can only do one thing at a time On this computer but I say happy birthday ma And also happy birthday to my sister Hannah Who is an absolute Gem a great mom an awesome educator out there in Shelton, Washington and just one of my favorite people on earth. So love you both and happy Blur's Day to both of you.

How much time do we have left on this file? We could just let it play out.

Two minutes, 22 seconds. Why not?

I want me to appear in front of a green-screened beach and lip-sync it and kind of groove away to it.

Yeah, but I'd like you to actually sing the song. Oh, okay.

We won't use lip sync here. We won't use singing it. There's a right way to rock. I started too high. Started too high, and it's all too high. All right, Luke. Is that, is that, did we do our job today?

That's the show. I mean, technically. Well, once this hits the internet, we'll have technically done our job. All right. Hey, thanks to everyone for listening today. We are going to be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you. So please do join us for that, a Friday edition of the program. Until then, have a great Thursday. Again, stay safe if you're overseas or if you're just wherever you are feeling stressed. Hope that you're able to engage with some coping strategies because it's a very stressful time to be hanging out on this planet Earth. But we're all in it together. So as we learned from that let it be lip sync, we've got to just let it be. As Columbo famously waved one time, let it be. All right. Thanks, everyone. We'll see you tomorrow. Until then, please remember, no mountain too tall.

And good luck to all. I guess we're going out with this. Yeah, man.

Special announcement. Did you purchase or receive by gift before November 27, 1990, a Milli Vanilli recording, a ticket to a concert at which Milli Vanilli performed, or Milli Vanilli merchandise? If so, listen carefully to this important message about a pending mili-vanili lawsuit that may affect your rights.

Power out.