Muse

Do you know what you get when you hire a Party Down catering team? At Party Down, we have a simple motto. It's your party. You deserve to enjoy it. But how are you going to enjoy the party if you're worried about whether the shrimp cocktail's been sitting out too long, or is there enough ice, or do the guests think the party is lame, or are they stealing stuff, or are they going through the medicine cabinet because they're nosy, or because they think they might find something that'll give them a rockin' buzz? I used to do that last thing. Not anymore. Clean and sober. um wow that that that is quite a motto tbtl this is stuff so funny by the way did the comic come up with this because some of this stuff like

i feel like i could see somebody doing their act you go ooh and ah when i jump in my car people treat me like this hall of fame la lakers center oh he's hilarious dog who is rick moranis Are you all right? No. No, I'm confused.

I want to be the bad boy of public radio, like Elvis Mitchell.

This party is going to be off of the hook.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Thursday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. The chances of you pooping your pants as an adult is never zero. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host.

Another feather in your map.

Coming to you from the Hollywood Broadcast Center, right here in Portland, Oregon, where yesterday apparently was the rainiest March 2nd in the history of Portland. Since they started measuring these things, it has never rained more in one day. That's what they said on Ask Jeeves, anyway. And yet today, I woke up to blue skies and some pretty nice weather. Oh, ma, pa, it's just beautiful. More encouragingly, cherry blossoms. I was out for my little jog and saw the first cherry blossoms of the year. And I'll tell you, it was absolutely giving me life. So I am just going to be high energy. I'm going to be positivity. I'm going to be yuming every yuck and yucking anyone who yucks someone's yum. I'm just going to keep it very upbeat here on episode 3632 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. Although I might have already violated that plan by playing that drop from Wheel of Fortune, where the folks spinning the wheel were having a really, really hard time getting another feather in your cap. We had a lot of fun playing that tape yesterday, and now I'm... Pat Sajak is online saying, people like me need to stop being so mean to the Wheel of Fortune contestants. So we'll update you on that story. Also, we are about to finally break into the radio game. We're getting medium play on three

independent radio stations in Central Europe.

As we record some of these Montana public radio liners, if you will, or station identifications, that's coming up later. I'm very nervous about that. I don't know if we'll have time for this, but speaking of getting radio play, the singer Dua Lipa is being sued for copyright infringement, I guess. Basically, they're saying that the song Levitating, which was like the number one song probably in the world for a while last year, was stolen from a Florida reggae band. And I've got the tape. And it's, well, these songs are not dissimilar. So if we have time today, we'll play that as well. We always, though, have time on Thursday for the Blur's Days. So we will do those. And we'll talk to this guy, the longest-running co-bro of the show. Two bros, bro-in-it-up. Maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships, he's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now from the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle, Washington.

Good morning, my friend. Good morning, Luke. Here's an email I got today from listener Peter in Port Townsend. Dear Andrew, the Susanna song you referenced on today's show, this was sent yesterday. And by the way, I did more than reference it. I sang it sweetly. I went out on a limb, Luke. I don't sing a lot on this show, but I sang it.

It's been four years since The Escape Room, so it was time for you to push yourself again.

Exactly. It was seven years since The Escape Room, but who's counting? That song you sang, Susanna, is actually Rosanna by Toto. The song is named...

But not about Rosanna Arquette, who was dating one of the band members. We've talked about this on the show in the past, Luke. I remember this. I know these facts now that Peter lays them in front of me. I really regret putting myself out there. I was wrong. My apologies to everybody who broke their listening devices while listening to me sing Rosanna, only using the words Susanna instead. That's on me, and I will never try again. And thank you for being polite about this, Peter. I'm very embarrassed right now.

I also have to apologize for my poor listening skills, Andrew, because as you were talking about that, clearly I was drifting off because I thought my recollection of that conversation was you said, well, you know, when I hear Oh, Susanna, it makes me think of the song Rosanna. And I thought you had made that distinction. I thought you were remembering in the moment that it was Rosanna, Rosanna, because, of course, that's what the song is called. But if I were listening more closely, I guess I would have pieced together that you were in that moment thinking that that song was called Susanna, Susanna.

Well, it also makes sense because that's why as a kid I thought it was Hosanna, Hosanna or Hosanna, because it's Rosanna, not Susanna. Also, this is going to be the difficult part, and I definitely should not be doing this at the top of the show. Because this is going to be really rough Do you remember I said Whenever I'm listening to that song Or more accurately when I have that song Rosanna Stuck in my head It slips into another song And then I sang that song and you said No you're thinking of the right song It's just a different part of the song I'm going to do it again I'm going to put myself out there Because what could possibly go wrong But I realize if I kept going And this makes no sense Luke I hope that it's relatable Just because everybody has some version of this But when I sing the song There's a line that then leads into another line That is from a different song From a completely different era I realized later Because I couldn't quite explain it to you on the show yesterday And I couldn't figure out where I went wrong But now I need to relax my brain I need to put myself here So the song goes Okay, let's get this right Rosanna, Rosanna, okay, the chorus But then there's the part where they sing Meet you all the way Meet you all the way First of all, I always sing it Take Me All The Way, which I think is kind of an amalgam of a different song. And then my brain starts singing Living in Disneyland, We. Now, I don't know if that's another song or if it is just nonsense. I feel like there was a 90s song that was something about living in Disneyland. I could be wrong about that. But for some reason, I sing that part of the song.

Sounds like a song Everclear would have written.

I sing this song that goes, Rosanna, Rosanna, take me all the way, living in Disneyland. Whee! And I don't, I mean, it's aphasia, right? It's not, I can't even claim, can I even claim that this is other songs influencing me? Or am I just off my damn rocker? I think I'm off my rocker.

Right. Take me to Disneyland.

There was a song. And then you say we wasn't I do I go we okay yeah so there was a band called Dada that had a song called Disneyland do you remember this at all I'm wondering I have it here I don't know if I should play much of it because we will be booted off of Spotify and nobody

will ever hear this episode do you think we're gonna get pulled just for how well we're singing Toto's song Rosanna is that gonna activate some kind of a red alert possibility this This is, oh yeah, I'm going to Disneyland. But that's not what I'm singing though. That is clearly not what I'm singing.

I did like this song. My gosh, I'm looking at this video. This video is like if a Gen Z-er were to make a parody video of the 90s. This is amazing. Just all the hallmarks here.

Do you know what, me and Becca is like one of our favorite, one of our favorite things to do is is uh ideally at some airbnb somewhere is to um get like not even have the trivial pursuit game like the board but just get like a bunch of like the questions yeah and then this just happened by happenstance one time when we were on a like a little getaway but now it's become the thing that we like look like saturday night 90s indie music and uh like uh 90s indie music and Jeopardy and some wine, or excuse me, Trivial Pursuit and some wine. It's so fun. And you've got to put a song in like that one or like Sex and Candy by Marcy Playground or like Dishwalla, Tell Me All Your Thoughts on God because I'd really like to meet her. You've just got to put in a certain kind of 90s song as your sort of sourdough starter because it then just delivers a string of songs like that one.

you just played where i like i my brain had completely and totally erased that information from itself for 20 years but now like that oh my gosh that was such a great nostalgia rush what

was this song that you just referenced it's already out of my head but i had swala it was

it dish walla the um tell me all your thoughts on god because i'd really like to meet her there was a lot of songs that were blowing people's minds about god being a woman what if god was one of us yeah you know like they were just a stranger on the bus uh that was so that was

counting blue cars was the name of the song by just while i'm looking it up now i for some reason i cannot disconnect my memory of that song with driving into the fiberglass factory that i worked at when i was in college um it was just that song was on constantly i mean it was almost like a virus like you could not escape that song and i didn't have strong feelings on it one way or the other other than that i was hearing it far far too much um and does isn't there a line in there like who's who's that sleeping in my bed is that part of that's marcy candy that's marcy playground

oh what is that who's that that's that's i want sex and candy oh that's what i thought we were singing what is the it's a dv a stairs in my direction mama this surely is a dream i'm sorry

That's the song I'm talking about. What is the Counting Blue Cars song, then?

That's Tell Me All Your Thoughts on God. Right, okay, okay. I'm sorry. I was thinking of Marcy Playground.

I was thinking of Marcy Playground. Sorry.

For the record with Dishwalla, for Dishwalla, no offense, but that song should just be called Tell Me All Your Thoughts on God because I really like to meet her. Like, it's one of those songs where the name Counting Blue Cars doesn't, no one thinks of that as the Counting Blue Cars song. Everyone thinks of it as the tell me all your thoughts on God Because I really like to meet her

Save it for your chapbook poet This is pop music we're talking about here

Alright So I made a bold prediction That I was going to keep it very positive today On the show because I saw some cherry blossoms And I feel like I've already gone I've already put on my conductor's hat And said choo choo let's fire up the negativity train And I'm feeling Particularly called in by one Pat Sajak who by the way did a little uh light googling on his politics uh definitely uh somebody who skews more to the right than i am not that i can tell a like he's no chuck woolery he's not on i don't think he's on parlor he's not i don't think he's like gone full kevin sorbo televisions oh god was that hercules that he played he was in one of those terrible uh sort of non-network superhero shows It was like the male version of Xena, Warrior Princess, but like our Dean Cain, it's just such a weird and troubling final act for so many actors and who kind of had a moment. And then that moment starts to and then, you know, that moment passes them by and it's time to transition to a new phase of life. But they get bitter about it and somehow it just turns into you can't say anything anymore. And then they start showing up on Fox News and then they start showing up on the one American network. And then they're Kevin Sorbo showing up at CPAC wearing a suit jacket that the inside of the suit jacket is just all of his tweets that have gotten him dunked on, printed out on the inner lining of his jacket.

Wow, that is a very sharp understanding of social media.

Yeah. I mean, I have to say it's, you know, it got even it generated yet additional content. But anyway, Pat Sajak has written some things for I think I want to say like Reason Magazine and he's listed as being a Republican. But I couldn't find anything that was like like my hope is that he is what I consider to be an old school conservative, somebody who is in favor of what they think of as lower taxes, et cetera. That's not the stuff I believe in But I feel like there's at least Like I feel like I could have a conversation with Mitt Romney I don't feel like I could have a conversation With Marjorie Taylor Greene

Well that's the thing And you know I said something to my friend Who I was visiting in Cleveland And we were just kind of talking about The politics of the region I think a little bit And you know she's In line with my outlook on the world But you know I just wanted to say Because I didn't want to come off as just being like this seattle bubble guy who can't listen to any reason of anybody who has a different worldview than me and i just sort of volunteered like not that everybody has to agree all the time or not that you can't have reasonable conversations about conservative ideals she said yeah but it just changed when when people stopped believing in facts and and that's what and i think that's what the difference is i mean if you can you can be a you can be a conservative you can be a republican you can be a conservative who doesn't identify with that party like whatever like it doesn't, I don't think that everybody has

to agree all the time I think that would be problematic but I do think there's a if you're a conservative and conservative means you're a January 6th Trumper well then I don't think we have a lot to talk about here and it does not seem that Pat Sajak is that although I think it's interesting that Pat Sajak has two different um Twitter feeds yeah when you told me about this I wanted to see what you were talking about like kind of during the intro so I just you know googled it Pat Sajak Twitter the first thing that popped up must have been his private account or like his not private but personal account yeah it's got a blue check mark but his um bio is game show host icon former sexagenarian which i think that's funny and then gated community activist preferred pronouns he him you guys which i mean i was just trying to kind of read into that a little bit is that like the preferred pronoun thing is that him dunking or is that him just kind of right lighthearted about it but i don't know what gated community activist means either does that I mean, he's, like, nosy. Is he making fun of himself there? Is he nosy and getting into people's business because he's in a gated community with a property owner association or a homeowner association?

I think he's playing off of community activist being somebody's Twitter bio that they're a community activist. This is the thing about Pat Sajak is that I think he's slightly in on the joke. So he's kind of making fun of himself saying, I'm a gated community activist. Like, I'm not really a community activist, but in my gated community, he's pointing out that he lives in a gated community. I also think he probably thinks that the world is too woke. Yeah, sure. I've never heard him say this. This is complete speculation on my part. And, like, he, him, you guys, you could read that a bunch of different ways. My guess would be he's not putting that in his bio because he wants to clarify what his pronouns are. Obviously. I mean, I think he's making a subtle. But, again, it's like none of these jokes are, like, none of them are so kind of, like, I don't know what. i can't i i'm glad that i can't think of a worse example but like there it seems like these jokes this is his bio of his personal twitter page is perfectly say jackian in that it's you kind of can't quite read you can't quite figure out what's going on it's kind of funny and clever it's probably if you if you sat down with him and had two martinis at flappers in burbank where i think he used to go sometimes between tapings of wheel of fortune you might hear some stuff that If you're like me or you, Andrew, you'd be like, oh, I wish I didn't hear that from Pat Sajak. But it's not fully evident in this bio, just like it's not fully evident when you see him on television what's fully going on.

He's got some pretty funny tweets back on February 23rd, which, as we all remember, is is my sister's birthday. He said, watch Naked and Afraid this weekend. First time I've ever watched the Andrew Griffith show that way. Interesting. that's pretty i mean it's not quite like it's you know it's a little bit clunky uh to get what the the punchline that he's uh going for there but i think it's pretty funny then he wrote wrote the most common street name in america is second first is third the world continues to spiral out of

control i kind of like this account right that's that's again i'm going to choose to believe that Pat Sajak, I mean, God, please don't, somebody, I mean, if it's, we have to, we have to believe in the objective facts of the world, as we just said, so if Pat Sajak is out there writing truly troubling things, let me know, I guess, but I sure hope that I don't get a bunch of emails tipping me off to, like, I just, I don't know, there's something genial about Pat Sajak to me that, again, I don't think we probably would agree on various things in the world, but it just, there's something about him that I still find to be sort of appealing, at least as a television host. And over at his Pat on Wheel, which, Andrew, as you mentioned, that's where you go for Pat Sajak's commentary specifically on Wheel of Fortune.

Right, his thoughts about Wheel of Fortune are not on his private feed where he, or his personal feed where he tweets things like, well, it happened again this morning. I stepped out of the shower and caught my wife dressing me with her eyes. Okay, I will close that tab now.

You take that joke right to the Catskills, and you perform it 10 times a week at both the early and late show at Kellerman's, and the folks are eating it up. I love that joke, actually. I do, too. It's a very good joke.

I'll stop interrupting. You were transitioning away from that. I just needed to squeeze it in.

Well, as long as you keep coming with jokes of that caliber, I'm 100% good with the interruptions. This is what Pat Sajak wrote yesterday on Twitter, and this was like right as we got off the air, and of course we had played the tape, if you missed yesterday's show, of these contestants. One contestant in particular whiffing, whiffing right out the window three times on a puzzle on Wheel of Fortune that was pretty much completely filled in. It was like another feather in your, and then it was blank, a blank, and eventually it was blank, a P.

Of course, the answer would be feather in your cap. This person just didn't know that. And so kept guessing feather in your lap, feather on your map. We were playing the tape and everybody was sending the tweet. And then Pat Sajak writes this tweet that then I see everyone retweeting. And I'm like, really, you dirty dogs. You were all laughing at this an hour ago. And now, now, now we're the, now you're going to be the empathy people. This is what Pat wrote. It always pains me when nice people come on our show to play a game and win some money and maybe fulfill a lifelong dream and are then subject to online ridicule when they make a mistake or something goes awry. And then he followed up with saying, I have fun with players and I tease them occasionally, but when things go wrong, I feel for them and I try to solve. That is one of my top five words I can't say.

Salve? Solve.

Well, how do you say, like when you put something on a wound, what are you putting on a wound?

Oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't reading a salve.

I say salve. Yeah, and I think you say it right. It's like that silent L, salve because it's got two salve has two letters that make no sense the l and the e like if you if you lost if you lost the l you'd be looking at the word save but if you but it should be like the problem is that e makes me want to say

sail or something else anyway why want yeah why not just sav let's simplify right

i try to salve the wounds on camera and off so yeah it was an oddly entertaining puzzle and it's okay to laugh at the situation but have a little heart after all you may be there one day and no one wants to be trending on Twitter first of all that's not true people love trending on Twitter

this is what's interesting I think that he's writing this from the heart and going through a lot of his other tweets and again he does seem like a guy of a certain age and a certain generation who maybe thinks that we're all you know maybe a little bit ridiculous with some of our wokeness or concern or listening to celebrities but he's always like kind of poking fun at it too like I say like he reminds me he reminds me of like kind of a fun uncle who you don't agree with everything on sort of you know um and so this this thread that he wrote out I don't think there's anything kind of cynical about it but the interesting thing that I can't get over and again I'm not making any accusations that this was faked or anything like that but this has got to be the most press that Wheel of Fortune has gotten in a long time especially with younger generations and Believe it or not, in this context, I even count us as younger generations at 45. But you know what I mean? Like, who do you think is the main audience of Wheel of Fortune? It's probably people older than us who are home with less responsibilities during the day, right? Even less responsibilities than me, if you can believe it. And so now you have people on Twitter talking about it. And nobody, well, I shouldn't say nobody. I mean, I'm sure all kinds of people said all kinds of terrible things on Twitter. That's why Twitter exists For terrible people to be terrible I think

And for me to tweet birthday photos of Randy the Roomba

And apparently that as well But like you know I guess I can only speak to our tone on this yesterday I think we enjoyed it exactly how the show Was supposed to be enjoyed I can't believe you didn't get it But of course with the knowledge that we're not on TV As we're watching it Can you imagine I mean I'd bumble up this stupid show every day Can you imagine how badly I'd bumble up a game show if I was a nervous contestant so I don't know I'm never judging but I also think that was fascinating TV yesterday and it got a lot of people talking and yeah what I saw and maybe it's

just because I tend to I'm mostly in the snowflake space on Twitter but everyone I saw tweeting and everything was just had like just enjoying it for its absurdity nobody was like let's find this person's address and like let's here's a picture of her LinkedIn page apparently Here's the LinkedIn page We should tell her work We should tell the insurance company she works at What she's really been up to This wasn't a doxing as far as I saw I didn't see anyone Really even noticing the specific Because it sort of was like It was sort of two of the players This one player was having a particularly hard time Then there was another player who got it wrong And then there was another player who just had bad luck And kept not getting the opportunity to solve it But I didn't see the internet even really like singling out This particular woman who was the one Who had the most incorrect guesses I just thought the internet was just generally like Oh my goodness, this is wild It didn't seem as It seemed much less mean-spirited Than many of the things that I see on the internet All the time

And I do wonder I mean, I just wonder what the I mean, this is just going back to kind of what I already said Only more questions than answers But I just wonder what the model is for, like, the people who are running Wheel of Fortune. Like, do they have a desire to go viral the way this clip went viral? Like, is that actually good for business? Or honestly, are they just operating in such a space that it doesn't even really matter anymore? Like, they just have this hardcore group of, you know.

know the the viewers that i kind of assumed and described before is it good for them are they think because i feel like jeopardy even though it was a debacle with the host change after alex trebek died it went from like kind of a you know like everybody just feeling really terribly about alex trebek's disease and him dying and just an outpouring of of love and support for for a real icon in him um to then the absolutely just terribly handled transition and you know search for new hosts but it really did seem to get people really engaged but it reminded me that people have always been engaged with jeopardy is i think what i'm getting at like younger people do like it's kind of a nerdy cred thing right i'm not saying i don't know what its numbers are like but you just that wheel of fortune doesn't have any of that cred it just seems right kind of soft and dusty

you know kind of like me you know because i'm bad at wheel of fortune because i've always been a a jeopardy person so like once the advent of the dvr came around i wasn't personally going to dvr wheel and again it's only because i'm bad at it if i were good at it i would watch it like that's the thing when i get an answer correct on jeopardy i feel a burst of serotonin or something i don't get that serotonin release very much when watching wheel because i'm just it's i'm bad so that's the reason that i that i i don't dvr it i'm not really that aware what goes on in that world it does feel a little remote to me whereas jeopardy feels like yeah there's just not a lot of conversation around wheel of fortune generally but i do feel like jeopardy like i tweeted out this silly tweet the other day of just a picture of alex trebek that i saw on someone's instagram page where he's like Carrying a Jeopardy tote bag And I just tweeted it out Because I just thought it was kind of a funny picture It had 4,000 likes

Just because And you didn't even comment It was just like people just love him

No I think I wrote rough week Figured this pic of Alex Trebek Utilizing a Jeopardy tote bag might help And then just a picture of Alex Trebek In like some Looks like he's somewhere in the Middle East And he's got a Jeopardy tote bag slung over his shoulder And that I don't know that might be the most popular tweet I've ever created in my life And that's because what happened Well one Ken Jen tweeted Something about it and then It got into the oh he retweeted you or

Something or he or he he responded In some way yeah okay yeah but

Like it got caught in some kind of jeopardy Jet stream yeah Just just to your point Andrew about Like the I feel like the Jeopardy community and I'm sure that there are certainly Wheel of Fortune fan Pages and I'm sure we have listeners that love Wheel and it's like the favorite part of the night sit down and watch their wheel of fortune but the culture around jeopardy feels different the way that it so many people if they've gotten on jeopardy it's their twitter you know picture i can think of three or four people that i see on twitter a lot that that's their picture um and the yeah just it just feels like it's a much more active as evidenced by this photo getting 4 000 likes or something it's it's a much more active space and and wheel of fortune doesn't seem to have that and so in certain way yeah this was a real boon to wheel of fortune probably although then the question is does that drive people to then start watching wheel of fortune like we all everyone's you know going gosh can't believe that they didn't know feather in your cap does that meaningfully cause people to then go watch wheel of fortune i don't know i feel like it might i

mean a little bit it kind of reminds me that it's out there and there's you know i love comfort shows everybody loves comfort shows and i could see somebody of my generation just thinking and And I guess, I mean, it's been on this whole time, so younger generations, too, possibly, might just get kind of a cozy feeling thinking about, like, sick days at home and turning on the TV. Now, I guess maybe— You're also—by the way, you know, Wheel of Fortune's on at, like, 7 o'clock at night. Oh, it is? Okay, well, I guess I'm wrong about that. But anyway, generally speaking, it seemed—I guess, and I could be totally wrong about all this. And by the way, I mean no disrespect to people who do love the show or the show itself. No shade. Because honestly, like, I'm not saying that what I'm going to say is accurate, but it just seems like there's a perception. It feels like, okay, Jeopardy is just relevant, right? I would say that Jeopardy is probably the most relevant classic-style game show right now, not getting into the weird gray space between, like, the game show and the performance shows and the reality TV shows, right? And then you have, like, kind of Price is Right, and that's almost got camp value, I feel like, at this point. You know, it's still hosted by Cleveland's favorite Drew Carey. Although, technically, Parma, I think. God, I was in Cleveland. Had to call a car. Now, I did learn later that it was freezing rain outside, so that probably is why there were not as many cars available. But the car that came to pick me up was coming all the way from...

parma which i know is not like that's not like a universal observation on my part it's just like i'm not used to calling a car that is coming from literally a different city let's just put it that

you call a car in seattle and it's down the street dropping someone off yeah yeah and you know but

you know it is what it is it's supply and demand and also the weather was atrocious when i called it i was inside and i didn't realize that um the driving conditions were pretty rough so a guy in a really big truck picked me up as a matter of fact but um uh anyway i would say that that uh wheel of fortune isn't it doesn't have the camp value oh and the third one i'd throw in there's like kind of price is right right like that's kind of oh no wait price is right i mentioned that's campy and then family feud is what i meant to say here that family feud has kind of carved out its own space with steve harvey and it's kind of become blue and it's definitely like more diverse and blacker and like that's just kind of like living in its own space in 2022 um and then just like wheel of fortune just hasn't changed it's just trucked along and that's why i said it's sort of you know sort of feels comforting but it also just does feel kind of a little dusty and i also just think the game is just for my taste not quite as interesting as any of the other ones even if i'm going to get mad at family feud because of the ridiculousness of it these days it's still kind of interesting to know that it's based on surveys like you're not looking for the right answer you're looking for the answer that all the other morons gave when they were

being surveyed i think that's kind of interesting how how bummed would you be to find out that they don't even do those surveys i'm not saying that that's the case you're right or they ask like four people and call it i just could see myself i'm like a family feud writer or i'm supposed to I'm the person that's supposed to be out there running Like some sort of You know gallop poll Of if people think Booties be stankin And like No no no name something that

Booties be

Stankin is number one I'm supposed to be number one answer Shakin Steve Harvey's looking at you like You just gave a real dumb answer But like You're the person that's supposed to be going out to a mall and asking like 100 people this but you just kind of you know you had too much to drink the night before and it's like you're just you're working from home and you just don't really feel like going out and actually doing the survey so you just make up the numbers because it's such an

unknowable thing anyway oh yeah i mean i however i would i would love to read that article about of course it would it would really methodology i'm already like feud yeah whenever whenever i watch that show i'm always like these are not quote unquote sir like i'm sure there's so much bullshit as far as what those answers are especially now that they really are just trying to make them kind of they want anything that'll make steve harvey's eyes go really wide and the

audience to go it's an entire show i love it i would it's good television it really works but yeah you're right it is an entire show that is constructed and designed to leave steve harvey apoplectic four times per episode and if that happens it's been a success sort of like with like maury or a show where if you know one of those kind of talk shows that would if they could get somebody you know one of the guests really riled up that would be like okay that was good tv for what we do it's like the more that steve harvey can't even believe this shit the better

the show's going yep exactly would you want to rank them like i guess jeopardy would be top for you because you actively watch that i don't actively watch any of these but if you were if you were just like i always associate watching um family feud with you and the gang when we were in um arizona like four or five years ago now yeah spring training doing tbtl for spring training and just hanging out in that airbnb and for some reason that's where we went on a binge and we're watching a lot of family feud that was a lot of fun and like situations like that like i think family feud might be my would it be my favorite of the bunch more than jeopardy maybe the thing is it does get really repetitive right like steve harvey schtick on episode number four or five you're just like all right come on we i need some sort of i need some sort of meat and vegetables

here when i was a kid it was unquestionably price is right like i like lived for watching the price is right in the summertime i just the everything about it the you know playing along seeing if it was going to be plinko like i had my favorite games that would come up like oh my it's going be Plinko yes yes Barker's beauties I it was just a fantasy land for me as a kid um so definitely that was like tops for me but then you know I now I would say probably Jeopardy just because yeah I like to play along with it and I mean you know we've been doing these riff tracks for uh the listeners like what would be really interesting would be a riff track where I play Jeopardy and you just hear how many questions I get wildly wrong because that's the thing every time I get one wrong, my brain just deletes it. But then when

i get it right i'm like yes so i at the end of it would be fascinating to just record myself trying to play an entire episode of jeopardy a play along with it and seeing how i do and then go back and actually score it i bet i would be negative a hundred thousand dollars i would be removed in

cuffs if you were from the studio that's one thing that the you you mentioned playing trivial pursuit without the board game just having the cards i love that move i love going to a restaurant where just have those on a table it's been a long time um i can't remember well maybe i was going to fridays i don't know luke i we have to move on i could just keep on reminiscing with you all day i just before the show i had i think msnbc or cnn on in the other room and uh while i was puttering in the kitchen and there was a commercial for applebee's that wanted that that made me want to be in an applebee's so bad like i wanted to be in some eating good in the neighborhood like some dumb town with you after a long day you know what it was i mean maybe i'm just an alcoholic they showed a photo of this like one of those tall ass beers one of the that you can like the type of beer bob the beer glass that i see either in applebee's commercials or at the airport bar i was at the other day and it just looked crisp and good and then they showed i think some onion rings then for some reason they showed a triptych of some cowboy dancing uh that didn't do a lot for me well i can tell you why what's going on well it was could you could we could you hear tick tocky yeah yeah you're could you hear the audio if so i wasn't paying attention there's a song that blew

up on tick tock it's a country song and it's like the chorus is and we fancy like applebee's on a date night yes and i was like right when that song hit tick tock i was like oh boy did they ever play this right because this is gonna be an applebee's commercial um i will say those commercials are very effective though they i'll tell you what andrew tbtl-a-thon 20 is coming up right what are we on now is it 20 good lord no uh i don't think the show hasn't existed for 20 years so that would be unlikely but it's it's some it's tbtl-a-thon something and uh you know we haven't finalized all the plans uh but i i have faith that you and i will find ourselves in an applebee's in late May, in some town somewhere, getting fancy like Applebee's on a date night. That is my promise to you, my co-bro.

I look forward to it. All right.

Let's take a quick break, and then when we come back, we will finally record these liners, these station IDs, whatever you call them, for Montana Public Radio. Stay with us. It's TBTL. hello and welcome to top story all right let's do this andrew um for folks that are just hearing about this um i was in montana for work a few weeks ago i was listening to the public radio network there montana public radio and i heard at the top of the hour um regular montanans just regular folks reading the list of all the different stations in the different cities um and i hadn't heard that particular presentation before you often hear the public radio host like here in portland on oregon uh on opb the host does this kind of litany of of stations and that's of course something that's required by the federal communications Corporation FCC What's the second C for

I don't think it's corporation Commission

Thank you corporation is too like corporate Whereas commission is much more governmental And so anyway I had commented upon this and I guess probably because Montana is not You know a huge state Word got back to Montana Public Radio and somebody there reached out To Andrew and said hey if you guys want to do One of those

feel free yeah and so the person who reached out by the way just shout out to sam who hosts the couple of children's shows i believe also i don't know i couldn't tell if he's actually a farmer when he's not on the radio but he referred to himself as as uh the farmer radio guy or i don't know if you just said that in your description of the show before we were in contact with these folks if you just said it sort of had had that vibe of you know maybe somebody's a farmer when they're before they run into the studio and do their show i the person that i the

first thing that first entranced me about montana public radio was the person who was doing an interview with somebody who was i think like um a satellite expert like somebody who's an expert in satellites and things that go into space and that person who's doing the interview who may have been this this person sam um mentioned something about back on the farm was talking about the farm a lot So I got it in my mind that this was somebody whose full-time profession was farmer, but who came into the local radio station and did interviews as a kind of avocation versus a vocation.

That's... You could be wrong about all that, but that was sort of my thought.

When Sam reached out to us via the TBTL website, he said, hey, it's the Farmer program host from Montana Public Radio. Do you guys want to do a station ID for us? And that's how it all started. And so I wasn't exactly sure what he was referring to because I didn't remember the conversation that quickly. I was probably playing Minecraft while you were talking, which is my favorite thing to do. Just kidding. No more Hex Empire? I've never done that. I do usually have Hex Empire up in the background.

I feel like I'm good with you playing Hex Empire. I think Minecraft might take too much of your focus, Andrew.

I would never do that. It doesn't even sound fun to me.

You're building a Horse Island again.

It does not sound fun to me. Yeah, Horse Island. Horse Island actually, well, I'll tell you about Horse Island some other time. It's not as bad as I thought. It's kind of working out.

So I've got this script now that you sent me. It says introduce yourself, and then that says optional. And then we're supposed to say some version of you're tuned to Montana Public Radio, or we can say this is Montana Public Radio. And then it says read all nine call letter lines in any order. tagging them with the mtpr.org line don't insert in between call letters and town names so did

you know that that's a very specific thing that i had i used to be um i used to be licensed as some sort of a low level radio engineer there's tiers of licensing and i took a class and that is something about these legal ids they have to be you can say whatever you want before them and after them but once you're doing the legal id you can't throw any other words in there you just have to say to use the first example here kufl libby 90.5 you can't insert any words between those words oh my gosh wait a second how is it i have two different i got two different lists wait you do how do you have two different lists are you in touch with sam directly i've got okay so what

the thing that you sent me there was two different and it's the same information but it's just in different order so we should decide we can start we can do the one that starts with libby i think

it's all the same info um yeah i'm looking at that too i didn't scroll down but but it would appear okay yeah they're they're in opposite order it looks like uh yeah okay i wonder why that is

i don't know but i think you know i think it's the same information and if we say it right this is one of the things they mentioned here are the notes andrew yeah i just the introduction is free form keeping in mind that these announcements have a long shelf life say anything you'd like as long as you include montana public radio this andrew is when i started to really get in my head about this because you know how it is you and i have both worked for a long time in public radio something like this could play for the next 10 years in montana so if we make some stupid joke that seems funny in the moment maybe about koala bears not meeting the qualifications um or uh like this joke that i saw on twitter that i was tempted to read to you um it's by somebody who goes by the name at ariel shading colombo is for people who sleep like honk but poirot is for people who sleep like snork that's true i know why is funny how does that

makes sense generally saw that new agatha christie by the way when i was in cleveland i was a little

jealous she said it paid off so like for instance if we start this with that joke i don't know if

that's going to hold up for 10 years probably i would guess that it won't i do yeah it is it's like you know keep it free form like they want us to herbie hancock this when we are probably more comfortable with the duke ellington i don't even know if that's a good analogy i i you know what

I think that's I think that's probably decent because I am. That's what free form. Those no two words strike more terror into my heart, Andrew, than free form.

And it's worse because it looks like it's one word according to their notes here. So and then it says we can rearrange the order of the nine transmitters, but we must recite all nine. It says practice out loud so that you can read these comfortably and briskly between the call letters and town names. Don't insert the word in. Yep. Cover that. Should we practice out loud for a while? How do you want to I've been thinking a little bit about this. Can we make a little so it says introduce yourself so we can introduce ourselves and let's just maybe, you know, of course. I always think self-deprecating just a touch of it. These folks don't know us. We could say, you know, hi, I'm Luke and I'm Andrew from the podcast TBTL. Don't worry. You haven't heard of it. You're listening to Montana Public Radio. Also, maybe we should say too beautiful to live, not TBTL because TBTL goes by too quickly and it sounds like a transmitter and nobody will remember those letters.

Oh, yeah. you're listening at tbtl in portland on 80 it does sound like a transmitter yeah i listen i almost think even that self-deprecation is going to wear thin upon the 7th i rarely say this andrew but i think this might be the case the rare case where us playing it about as straight as possible is the way to go i think

I think we should give him two versions. I think we give him one that's real. Because Sam has mentioned in a couple of emails to me, like, you know, have some fun here. We can really have some fun with it. That's the phrase that strikes the second most amount of fear in my heart. Have fun with it. Sam wrote, Andrew, if it works out, here's the script for the station ID. Have fun with your intro. Oh, God. He wants us to have fun. I hate having fun with the intro. It's too much pressure for you.

This happens to me. The other problem is, this is what my actual job is, which I'm very privileged to have, let me just tell you. But it's not infrequent that there's some kind of promo tape, or I should say promo copy that is written around maybe Livewire or something else. It will get forwarded to me, and it will say, this is the standard thing, but just have fun with it. And it's like, I don't know why, that's just like, I feel like for somebody whose job it is to basically talk off the top of their head, I'm so bad at talking off the top of my head, improv-ing, having fun with things. Well, here.

You know what? Hold on. Stop the show.

Should we use all of this as the intro?

Yeah, we just did it. Were you not reading? You were following the script I sent you. Stop the show. Wait, wait, wait. I'm not just trying to forestall this, Luke, but honestly, after everything we just said, why don't we let the listeners take a day to get at us with maybe a couple of, spoofs maybe you just short little spoofs that you might want to hear us say at the beginning of this id very short like that's the thing i don't want to i think you're right if anything is long and complicated it is going to wear real thin also keep in mind we are probably going to be one of i don't know a rotating cart of 100 of these things probably probably but i did hear an

ad on montana public radio soliciting more of these which tells me that that's like when i get on and go can please send me some music for your weekend selections by the way please send me some music for your weekend selections luke at tbtl.net it's like when they're soliciting for them it makes me think well maybe they are the the the larder is is getting a little bit empty

maybe and maybe they just want to keep things fresh i just sort of feel like this is the type of thing that i was involved with at public radio stations before i um you know was full-time podcasting um and i miss it like this was the level of this was the level of production that I liked to do little fun little things like this like getting you know person on the street tape you know we had talked about creating fun legal IDs I used to make some really really fun fundraiser like listener membership drive promos I used to love making those things so anyway I feel like this is a space I'm relatively comfortable in at least holding the microphone I don't know about talking into it but it seems like it could be fun here to let the listeners in on this a little bit especially if you're feeling somewhat hesitant I love that

idea because you know per usual on this uh on this podcast the best ideas we have really come from the listeners if we can just involve the listeners uh it'll get much better also i know that i've told this story thousands of times on the program but i mean what you're describing that kind of like trying to get funny like liners or station id things or whatever that was that was literally the first task I ever had in radio. I've told you that story, right? I don't know, but it's KCMU, which then became KEXP. I don't know if I know this particular story,

but I'm also thinking about how I said that was my, that was the level of radio I was comfortable with. So it's not surprising that this is the thing they have interns do. I was in high school

and I loved the station that's now known as KEXP, but then it was called KCMU and I just wanted to be a part of it and so i just like wrote them a letter probably by hand took it down there left my phone number like or i called the volunteer line or whatever i mean it was such a funky operation andrew i cannot overstate how just deeply college radio this place was at the time and it's like it's now such a sort of force in entertainment it's just my mind is so blown at all of the influence that kexp has considering it's considering that at one time in say 1992 a 16 year old luke burbank was able to jump in his honda civic and drive over to the uw communications building and and they said sure okay we'll have you here's the one of the things they wanted me to do i think was to alphabetize some cds that had come in and the other thing was to sit in a studio and think about people that would be funny to get them to say you're listening to kcmu and then call them and ask them if they would record it and i remember one that i worked on was the then mayor of seattle was named norm rice oh yeah and he was the nerdiest sounding

dude of all time and i got him wrong was he seattle's first black mayor or am i confusing

him with someone else i think he might have been okay um i i don't know i don't know that for a fact but i just remember he just was like very very stiff seeming at least in you know his public life and i remember thinking it would be funny if we had him do a liner for this completely wild radio station and it was like him going like and i got i called his office i got somehow got them to get him to do this um and he was like uh this is seattle mayor norm rice and when i want to hear killer bands like toys in babeland and or babes in toyland and whatever like just a couple of like really out there bands that like norm rice would never listen to i tune into listener powered kcmu 90.3 and i remember somehow getting him to record that and then putting it onto a cart and just feeling so accomplished as a teenager like i just was like this is the life for me and then of course i stopped going because i either it was because i got someone pregnant or just something else i had to go to my real job and then i kind of

flaked on kcmu but i do love what an institution kexp has become because now it's almost the opposite like the city hired them hired or or you know partnered with the station so that some of their popular djs were doing like mask announcements on public transport or i'm trying to think where i heard was it on buses or was it on trains i can't remember but hearing the kexp i love that um i don't know maybe i'm still feeling feels about going back to cleveland and seeing some of like the small things that are like local there not special things not nothing you'd go to cleveland specifically to get or to check out but once you're there you're like oh yeah this is just so cleveland you know like i i really really i think i appreciate especially as things get more and more global the kind of localness of places so it always gave even though they were like kind of corny as hell i kind of liked hearing the kexp people in the trains it reminded me yeah we're in

Seattle this is our city you know what I think is so funny is the ones at SeaTac because clearly and I actually I wouldn't be surprised to hear that that was somehow a partnership maybe with KEXP or with Sub Pop because there's a Sub Pop store Sub Pop the legendary kind of indie music label from Seattle they've got a whole store at SeaTac airport but it's great and I listen I want to say this with absolute and total peace and love but like they decided well seattle is a city that's known for its music so it would be interesting if instead of just having a kind of bland anonymous announcement to you know please make sure you keep your luggage where you can see it you know that kind of was playing perpetually over the pa system in an airport someone thought what would be cool is if we got like seattle musicians to do the announcements and so they did that but what's funny is you know it's not like like there just are only so many dave groles in the world of seattle music it actually drops off pretty fast to bands that i'm sure are really awesome but they're just not bands that people have necessarily heard of and so i'll just be walking through the airport and i'll be like hey this is doug from pinback remember to always keep your luggage are you making that up pinback there is really a guy from the band pinback i didn't

Oh, that was actually a band, okay.

It's a real band, and I think they're a great band, and people love them. None of this is a criticism of the musicians, but this is the kind of thing where very occasionally I will be approached to do something that's predicated on people knowing who I am, like that, where it's like, hey, it's Luke from Livewire or whatever, and it is the most cringe thing for me because I know that nobody knows who I am. It's not like, hey, it's George Clooney. make sure you keep your luggage where you could see it it's like i personally hate the imagining the scenario in which i'm trying to give someone kind of a friendly instruction about airport life and all they can think is who like that my particular brand of insecurity is very very very worried about that moment happening and i swear to god it's like 80 of these announcements that you hear at SeaTac are from very fine musicians who do not have massive name recognition at this point. And it always just kind of cracks me up as I'm running to my Alaska Airlines flight to hear like, hey, this is Terry from whatever, and some announcement, and I'm like, this is, you know. But again, it's quirky, and I actually like it about SeaTac, but I'm glad that no one said, we're trying to get some leading Portland radio hosts to do the announcements at PDX because my ego would be flattered that they approached me and I would want to do it, but I would also just be mortified if that were... I heard a promo for Livewire today on OPB and it mortified me.

It was just a generic promo?

No, it was an ad for... Hey, well, you know what? Let's not miss this opportunity to promote next week's Livewire Live. It's going to be at the Alberta Rose Theater March 10th. We're going to have... Jelani Memory will be there. He's an author. he's written some pretty incredible children's books that deal with like really real stuff racism things like that also uh we're gonna have music from patterson hood from the drive-by truckers and jamie loftus is gonna be there jamie loftus is a comedian who's just been putting out these like amazing deep dive podcasts her new one is called the ak cast which is about the cartoon kathy oh yeah you know the chocoholic um and just kind of like what it's meant to the culture so anyway that's happening next week and what i heard this morning on opb was them reading a promo for that and it was just like i was just in the house doing stuff and it was like coming up on thursday it's live wire with luke burbank and they read it and i just i felt it wasn't even your own voice oh i thought no it was someone just reading it and it just made me feel embarrassed like i don't know why i don't know what's broken inside me that that's i wasn't like cool they're promoting the radio show i work on i was just like oh god that's how cringe is it when they promote your radio show on OPB, man.

Yeah, that's terrible.

I don't know why that's what my emotional response is to stuff like that.

I'd hate it if anybody ever promoted TBT. I'll tell you that much. Hey, speaking of—

That's why assiduously avoid promoting it, Andrew, at various events you've been to.

That's why I really appreciate that, everything that you do to unpromote the show. I was thinking about just local things and airports, and because I was in SeaTac recently, Well, I guess I've given you a big hint by saying this is something at SeaTac. But I was having some thoughts as I was racing from one gate to another. No, maybe. No, no, this is SeaTac, so I was just coming home. But I saw something at SeaTac that made me think about it for the rest of the train ride home, which is I will be both sad when this thing goes away, but I also hate it so much. What is the thing at SeaTac that I will be sad when it goes away because it's just part of SeaTac now? But I think it is the most ridiculous, stupid thing in the world. Is it that art piece with the magician? That is exactly what it is. Magician. It's this whole mural that is I keep on seeing different parts of it. I tried to explain that to Becca the other day. I don't. How do you explain it?

I don't know. I do not. My artism is bigger than that. I have. Do you know, Andrew? I don't know how we should, somebody should Google this. I don't know how old that piece of work is. It, I can't remember a time in my conscious life of going to SeaTac airport, including like when I was, I didn't fly very much when I was a little kid, but certainly from like my late teens into my twenties, like going to Vegas with the crew and stuff. I can't remember a time when I didn't see that piece of artwork and I have never understood it. And I feel like they moved it and it got bigger.

I think they did, because I don't remember it being up so high before. I could be wrong. Yeah, they moved it. They definitely moved it. I thought it was in a different part. I'm glad you said that, because I thought it was in a different part of the airport as well. I could be wrong about that, but it definitely has been adjusted. But it's very long. It's like a mural. It's very long. So you'll be walking down this concourse, and maybe it's, I'm going to say the length of half a football field, maybe? Yeah, probably. And I think it's photography, so it's not a painted mural. And I think, Luke, it's one musician, but he's, like, posed in a bunch. What did I say? Musician. Oh, yeah, I did say musician.

There are a lot of musicians. I don't want them to think it's Daryl from Pinback.

It's one magician doing various acts. It might be two, but I think it's all the same guy. But with, like, the trick of photography, sometimes there's two of him in the same panel. and sometimes he's just posing sometimes he's doing some sort of a magic act or as i like to call it a music act apparently um and it's just like super corny it's all in a black background he's wearing like i think a a white shirt and a bow tie maybe even a tuxedo at times he's just like a magician right uh making himself disappear maybe sawing himself in half i could be wrong about that but it's just like but it's just so weird and corny and like i was actually even having this thought I'm like if I ever talk about this on the show again and like somebody knows the artist I would feel terrible like I don't want to make any artist feel bad like good for you person you got it like it's been in SeaTac my whole life but it just is visually it's visually stunning but not in the way you think it's visually stunning as in I'm stunned that they

went in this direction well I've got some details Andrew first of all the piece of art is called high wire it is a painting it is a painting that is so hyper realistic that it is often mistaken for photography this is from the port of seattle's website six magical facts about seattle's infamous

magician did you think it was a photo before this now i feel embarrassed yes i did i thought

it was a photo they had painted over so Thank you. I'm going to give some credit to the artist for very, very, very skillful painting to the degree that it looks like it's a photograph. So let's, you know, again, Andrew, I promised this was going to be a peace train today. Oh, yeah. And then Yusuf Islam called me and said, I've got, that's trademarked, my friend. And you got to call it something else. And so then I said, how about negativity train? Let's do that. It's 180 foot long mural. It shows different stages of a vaudeville performance through a sequence of 11 images depicting a magician and his assistant. At first glance, this may feel out of place in an airport, but there is more to this illusion than meets the eye. I'll also mention, Andrew, that the open of this piece, this kind of press release article from the Port of Seattle, says, whether you love it or hate it, one thing is for sure, everyone has an opinion on the mysterious eye wire painting at Seattle Airport And a different theory behind its meaning Nobody says that about Picasso Except Hannah Gadsby But that's a whole other conversation

Is that true? Is that what Hannah's hot takes?

Yeah, and I did a TV profile of Hannah Oh yeah, you did, I forgot And I think that that particular piece That she did was called Douglas And a big part of it was just basically What a terrible human Picasso was Which kind of doesn't shock me because I don't think there were very many men alive in that era that weren't terrible humans. So it's not shocking, but it's weird to go into a theater just having no prior thoughts about Picasso one way or the other and then leave the theater thinking, anyone who likes Picasso is a monster. Like, that's a really big transition to make in 1.5 hours of your life.

Yeah, right. I always like sort of Hemingway vibes from him, too. I don't know anything about him. But just kind of like, yeah, I mean, not just not just any man of that era, but any man who is being told constantly that he is better than other people. He is some sort of genius like that often will. And his relationship with women and how he depicted women.

I mean, go watch Douglas, which I think is a really powerful piece of theater and comedy, if you want to. Or I think Nanette was the first one. That was what really kind of put Hannah Gadsby on the map. And then Douglas was the follow up that was, again, very, very persuasive. So High Wire, the painting, Andrew, is a metaphor about air travel. Like most magic tricks, to uncover the true meaning behind High Wire, you'll have to dig a little deeper. The series of images illustrate a magician assistant. We've already kind of read that part. This is, I think, a statement from the artist. The painting talks about transportation in a quirky way. Oh, sorry, this is somebody else who's an art, you know, sort of art critic, I guess. The painting talks about transportation in a quirky way by depicting a magic trick. Someone is transported magically, and at the end of the trip, they are somewhere else. It's a fantastic or whimsical way to talk about transportation. Andrew, if you think I'm just saying this because I want to keep the people who love this piece of art at bay, I'm not. That one line has completely changed my relationship with this piece of art. Will I say it's my favorite thing I've ever seen? no does it suddenly make sense for me for it to be in an airport yes yeah yeah i mean isn't that

yeah an artist statement can go a long way right also i feel terrible by the way the artist i'm reading from the new york times here the artist died very early in 2006 after a motorcycle accident

at age 58 so that's really terrible yeah um the other thing that this art historian said was i I love that nobody micromanaged what his subject matter was. So basically, I can say this artist's name now. Now that they're not alive, I'm not going to hear it. His name is Michael Fahans. When the port commissioned Fahans in the early 1990s to create this work, he integrated the airport backdrop into the theme of the piece. The result is a mural about arrivals and departures that travelers can view while in transit. Fahans had full creative control of the piece. And then this is the part I like because I don't like, not that I think I'm some high-level artist, But I don't like anybody ever telling us what to do. And that includes you, Montana Public Radio.

Don't tell us to have fun. How dare you? I don't like anyone.

Don't tell us to freeform it. I love that nobody micromanaged what his subject matter was. Whoever was on the selection panel let him make his art the way he wanted to see his vision to fruition. Fahans was well-respected in the art community. And when he passed away in a motorcycle accident, his career was really blossoming. So, of course, that is a very sad thing. I got to say, I have since I've seen this piece of art in my life, I have always been like, why did they do that? And again, just the other day, Becca and I, when we were flying in from Montana, we had to change planes in Seattle before coming to Portland. And we walked by the new location of this.

thing and she goes what is that and i go i don't even get me started it's just like been in sea tech forever and i was like what it's like that being said now that i think about it as being a i guess a metaphor for the the magical experience that is getting into a a tube somewhere in seattle and emerging from that tube in new york it makes a lot of sense the next time somebody says that

to you you can say well obviously it's a metaphor for air travel i like to say well cosmic gumbo um he also did um he's got some very like kind of photorealistic works um in the federal courthouse that is here in seattle too according to the new york times and other public buildings so um and then it says one of his largest works outside the courthouse is high wire completed in 1993 oh wait i'm sorry outside of the courthouse i thought right that would be sorry this is what we're

talking about here right yeah how you wear um we were talking uh earlier about musicians in sea tack and it has me thinking about this dua lipa story which we can do i think pretty quickly i just want to play the tape for you and get your take on it so i know you're not super in the kind of like pop music space that's not a space you totally play in a ton these days right is that

would it be an accurate assessment pop music yeah like this stuff that you'd like whenever i turn on the car genevieve's listening to like had been listening to move in 92 and she's got the volume up too loud for this old man and i turn on the car and i get so that's my exposure to pop music about the 15 seconds it takes me before i turn it to kick c radio well that's music as cool today

as it was when it yeah it was first recorded i um i get all of my pop music by way of tiktok and what will happen is i'm just scrolling tiktok and then i the same song i just start hearing the same song over and over again like that we fancy like applebee's on a date night or whatever and then at some point if i if the song kind of worms its way into my brain i'll look up what it is and then i'll find out oh it's also the number one song in america that's why it's very popular on tiktok so this dua lipa song levitate uh levitating i have to say i found out about i found out about through tiktok it was it's very popular and it is a an absolute banger as far as I'm concerned. I love this song. I have now selected just a small fraction of the song, Andrew, because I am trying to not get us pulled from Spotify, even though we are actually doing this in a very journalistic way. Like, this completely falls in the parameters of things we're allowed to do, but let's not get bogged down on that.

Hold on one second. Let me just do this right. I'm grabbing my fedora here with a little press sign on it. So I'm securing it.

Do you have a little notepad and a pen?

Yes. Okay, I'm ready.

Do you have a camera with a flash bulb on it? Makes that sound. Could we get 10 of those flashbulbs going off as I leave the courthouse talking about Dua Lipa? Commissioner, commissioner. Okay. Why are we 1940s journalists? Anyway, as if people need to hear it, this is levitating the Dua Lipa song.

You want me? I want you, baby. My sugar boo. I'm levitating. The Milky Way. We're renegading. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I got you. Moonlight. You're my starlight. I need you. All right, so that's a little Dua Lipa.

By the way, Dua Lipa is Dua Lipa's real name. Guess what it is, Andrew? It's Albanian for love. She is an Albanian-British. By the way, knocking me right off of the top five most famous Albanians. It's really kind of bittersweet. It's good to know there's another Albanian out there in the game. It's bad news that I'm moving down the list. So that's the Dua Lipa sound. Now, Dua Lipa has been sued by a band out of Florida called Article Sound System. That's A-R-T-I-K-A-L Sound System, who wrote a song in 2017 called Live Your Life. Now, the Dua Lipa song came out in 2020. So this was written, the thing you're about to hear was written before the Dua Lipa song and was released. Now, take a listen to this.

What do you think, Andrew?

Yeah, very similar. Pretty similar. What year is this song?

This one's 2017. So just to remind everybody, this is the Dua Lipa. It's about to kick into the very recognizable part, or the part that the article sound system takes issue with.

Moonlight, you're my starlight I need you all night Come on, dance with me I'll never take you

And then here's the article sound system All day, all night

Friday till the sunrise Now don't see

I mean, it's the thing that always hangs me up about these stories, by the way, this so this this reggae band out of Florida is suing a Dua Lipa for, you know, like copyright infringement and a bunch of money. And, you know, they want basically want all the proceeds from the song from levitating. The thing I always get hung up on with these kinds of lawsuits is like, what was the if the allegation from the from the Florida reggae band is that do like somebody I'm guessing Dua Lipa didn't actually write this song levitating. I'm guessing that it was written by a songwriting team, maybe, or a songwriter. Although I should just look that up. I'm looking it up now. yeah but the the allegation is and i'm gonna i'm no criticism no shade no shade on on uh article sound system but i've been to their website and it appears to be a fairly boutique operation i'm just wondering how that song could have made its way into the hands of somebody who was then writing the song for dua lipa or dua lipa if she's writing the song Have you have you gotten to who actually wrote the song?

Yeah, I mean, this is where these types of pop music stories get a little bit complicated because you're right. It's not like, oh, Bob Dylan sat down with a guitar and penned his feelings. Right. It looks like the writing credits are given to Dua Lipa, Clarence Coffey Jr., who is part of a writing duo and production duo called Monsters and Strangers. Sarah Hudson who's another Pop singer songwriter And Kaz who is Stephen Why did I even try to say He's got the name Kaz Maybe I don't have to pronounce his last name A Canadian record producer And that's how these kind of

Often these kind of massive Pop smash songs are created It's like you hire some songwriting duo That's hot at the moment And then you know It's a very very structured process A lot of times And so I'm not surprised to hear there's a lot of names on this And then a lot of times the person who's actually the performer Will get songwriting credits That came up in a whole tiff between Damon Albarn The guy from Blur and Gorillaz and Taylor Swift Talking about music publishing and writing Because Damon Albarn made a very dismissive comment about Taylor Swift That she doesn't actually write her own music Which I think is pretty provably false Like you think someone else swooped in and wrote a song on Taylor Swift

behalf taking down jake gyllenhaal right give the scarf back just give the scarf back like i feel

like if if there's anybody there's anybody who clearly writes their own music it's taylor swift it is ripped from the headlines of her life but anyway um so this kind of thing of like the performer getting their name slapped on the publishing rights of the song as sort of a courtesy is a thing that happens but anyway i'm trying to understand i'm trying to imagine a scenario in which the this track from this band article sound system that this just somehow that off of a i mean again i'm not trying to be critical of this band in florida um but it seems like so unlikely to me that that this song which I don't think so many people have heard ended up in the hands of one of these producers who then was like that's exactly what we need to put into this Dua Lipa song is it possible that it's just the fact that there are only so many notes and chords and things but then I hear them back to back and I'm like damn they are similar

I don't know. What do you think, Andrew? Well, this is where I struggle because my kind of standard stance on these things is let the musicians play. I just sort of feel like music is always a has always been a tradition of kind of borrowing and being inspired by and changing. And that goes back to the roots of music and folk music and all those things. But then, I mean, I don't want to be completely naive about this either. Like, obviously, that's not how things are done today, necessarily. And it's huge business. And if somebody were to say to me, like, listen, like, you know, I mentioned this Clarence Coffey Jr. person who is part of Monsters and Strangers, an American production and songwriting team. If somebody like said, hey, watch this documentary about the way this shit works these days. And you have these, quote unquote, production teams going around, getting, quote unquote, inspiration from lesser known bands around the country and then coming back to their duo.

Alipas and whoever's and turning them into huge massive hits like if there actually is a conspiracy here or not even a conspiracy but a blurring of those lines of like well yeah but it's about inspiration and you know you believe in that right Andrew yeah but it's inspiration people who are just profiting by going around and quote-unquote being inspired as they know that they're out there fishing for inspiration so they can bring it back to a different musician and then release it under their name like if that is really something that's going on that's really troubling you know and so right several of the stories we've talked about almost seem to indicate some sort of version of that but i guess that's why i'll leave it up to the courts but generally speaking when these things are innocently done i side usually with the musician who has the similar work even if it came out later because i do believe that like that is how this works like there are there are a finite number of beats and and notes and what have you um i mean i was listening to something that came in over the transom yesterday that was completely atonal and i'm like yeah that's probably not ripped off of anybody but also i don't want to listen to it so what are you going to do

well right because even this article sound i don't know how far this goes but like i think this audio let's i don't know if i left enough of it in but after it gets through the part that's really recognizable let's see if i left enough in because it starts to sound like a song another song if you want to go and take a ride yeah a little bit hey must be the money god i am like a modern day girl talk did you just hear that mashup that was amazing greg but didn't that just take a guitar sound like the a must be the money guitar yeah who did that song i love that song right i i don't remember but it's like it's like no one's accusing um article sound system of ripping off whoever does a must be the money but you i mean if you just isolated that section of the song you could go you know oh is that nelly ride with me hey must be the money like there are only so many sounds that you can make you know in for the human ear and i i just what it would be one thing if the folks in florida were working like they were opening for dua lipa or something like because that's the thing that happens in comedy and that was all that was one of the things in fact god what a lifetime ago andrew that joe rogan's podcast was notable because it was the place where he called out carlos mencia do you remember no i don't i don't remember this at all carlos mencia who you know got was sort of had a moment there he had the show i think on comedy central called mind of mencia carlos mencia was known in the stand-up comedy community for stealing jokes this is ringing a bell now we talked about this we did we did and he i believe it was on Please tell me I'm not totally misremembering this I believe it was like Rogan either confronted him or had Someone on his show who finally called it out For what it was and it was a big Kerfuffle and it was And at that time before we knew something Called COVID existed it was kind of Like this is really cool that this the guy From news radio is willing to have These uncomfortable conversations with about Joke theft But But it's with something like that what you can do is like and there was again there was a sort of like a pretty clear like there was a version of whatever the joke was that carlos mencia had had stolen it was from somebody who had opened for him somewhere and you could like that you could go to a recording of that person telling the joke and it's a very specific kind of joke and then you could go to the evidence of carlos mencia doing it on stage in a way that was like oh he just ripped that off from his opening Act and no one was calling him out on it because He was very powerful in the world of comedy at the time

And that was why when it came up on Rogan It was like this whole thing It seems more difficult to prove this musical Kind of like chain of custody Because it's like how did that Song get into the hands of someone that was working With Dua Lipa or is it Just possible that they just wrote A song that happened to have a riff that sounded

The same and now I'm I'm so Embarrassed because I was so excited When I found this story it was Oh, I know what song it was. It was the Rum and Coca-Cola song that I always knew as an Andrew Sisters song. And it turns out that that song was literally stolen. Where was it stolen from? Was it Haiti? Not Haiti. I can't remember where. And it turns out it was the actor who played Buddy on the Dick Van Dyke show was also like a music producer or something. And he went, where did he go? He went to this. went to an island uh nation yeah he went to an island nation and he and heard that song the original and the whole reason it came up on the show is because we're talking about music from that nation and i can't remember what it was it wasn't haiti but whatever it was he just literally now this was a different time but he literally stole it he heard people who are native to that island doing this pop song and he brought it back to the united states gave it to the andrews sisters changed the lyrics a little bit i think um but mostly kept it the same they did their version of it, and they made a lot of money until somehow it was uncovered later that he literally stole it, and I think they sued.

I'm now just... I'm watching... I'm sorry that I was not giving you a good response on that. I've been watching a snake eat its own tail in real time. And by real time, I mean from years ago on the internet. Joe Rogan, a cancel culture critic, called out by Carlos Mencia for canceling

him. I just saw that. um i saw that headline as you were talking yeah it's ironic that a guy who is now saying you

shouldn't cancel anybody at least started the building of his podcast by canceling me according to mencia i don't think you keep using that word i do not think that means what you think yeah right exactly that's i mean i don't i think you and i are in pretty close agreement on this and we need to get to the blurs days so nobody really needs to hear me say this but like stealing jokes and then getting called out for it is not being canceled that's not what being canceled is like it's just being held accountable for doing something shitty right exactly which is

what everybody who first of all it was Trinidad by the way but yeah I mean that's my whole point with um with Tobago culture it's it's well it was Trinidad which makes sense always talk about Trinidad we never talk about Tobago but Trinidad is in the lyrics of that song as well and it was this artist who went by the name Lord Invader, who had that song in Trinidad, and maybe Tobago. I always thought that was Tobago. But I know you're right. I just mean looking at it, it looks like Tobago. Anyway, and it was Maury Amsterdam who went there and stole it. The guy who played Buddy. Do you remember hearing that name? And Maury Amsterdam. We talked about this. Yeah, I know. It's just astounding to me. Just astounding. I mean, that is not like, hey, we take inspiration from everywhere.

I mean, people are going out and stealing music. Right. Yeah. And I hear what you're saying on that, too, which is like there's kind of absorbing a sound or going and like hanging out in clubs and like hearing just kind of the sorts of sounds and noises people are making and then kind of going like, oh, I like that. I want to try to create something that evokes that And then there's literally just And unfortunately of course the music industry Is a long long history Of ripping off artists Primarily artists of color And women and artists who are women of color Whenever this comes up I bring up the you know Elvis Presley doing Hound Dog Which was originally done by Big Mama Thornton I don't know for a fact If Big Mama Thornton was Ripped off but I'm going to guess yes You know what I mean in terms of like I don't know how all of that worked in terms of what her compensation was, but the music industry is built on basically exploiting people who are marginalized and then giving that music over to someone who's more palatable to a mainstream audience and then making a bunch of money. So to that degree, I think it's good that they take these things seriously, but now they're coming for one of my Albanian sisters, and they've gone too far, Andrew.

I want to play something for you. I know that we're pushing back Blurzays quite a bit here, but I'm telling you, this is going to fascinate you. This is something I watched on YouTube quite a bit ago, and it is so fascinating. This is going to be a lot of tape, Luke, but I think it's going to be worth it. This is Paul Simon on The Dick Cavett Show back in the 60s explaining his process for writing Bridge Over Troubled Water. Now, this whole clip is about 10 minutes long, but I think I'm needle dropping it here to the point where Paul Simon picks up a guitar that is behind the couch. I think he even jokes about it like, oh, is that why this guitar is behind the couch? Something along those lines. and he explains his writing process and like for somebody who doesn't have a musical bone in his body like i just find this shit so fascinating and then also paul simon with his just like gentle way of explaining things as if he's always talking to children um like gather around children i'm going to tell you how i wrote this song take a listen it's a this may be an impossible

question but anybody who can really create something there's always a mystery of how does it happen i mean there was a moment in time when bridge over troubled water didn't exist at all and then there was another moment when it did or when it started god i loved it where does it come from what actually happens were you in the shower one day and some of the lyrics came to you or

no how does it i could tell you that could you take me a minute though do you have to

are you gonna break it go ahead i mean we're doing blurs days but we're gonna push them back by the way just this is a blurs day present to everyone honestly like i've never heard this tape before.

And I'm totally and completely, for the first time this episode, Andrew, I'm actually interested in what's going on.

I know, because it's somebody else's content. Also, if anybody does want to write me a letter, congratulate me on how perfectly I needle-dropped this at the beginning of this conversation. Yeah, you really did. It's Andrew at TVTail.net, because I amaze myself. Okay, back to the show.

We may break, but go ahead.

Oh, well.

No, we won't.

Let's see now.

You're looking for?

Yeah, I'm just looking for my guitar.

Oh, it's right here. We just happened to put it behind there.

I wasn't planning on doing this, but I'll show you how it actually started.

This guitar isn't even tuned. Like, things have changed so much.

So it started out with me singing a song, the beginning of the song I had. Now this part, that comes from a Bach piece. That comes from a Bach chorale. So that was in my mind. So that's how that part slipped in. Then, uh, when you're really feeling small, do-do-do-do, do-do-do, do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do. I was stuck there. That was all I had of that melody.

What makes you stuck?

Well, everywhere I went led me where I didn't want to be, so I was stuck.

That could be also a line in a Paul Simon song, everywhere is where I didn't want to be.

The best definition of being stuck I've heard in a long time. And then how do you, when you get a block like that, how do you break through it?

Well, as it happens at this time, I was listening to some music by a gospel group called the Swan Silvertones.

Can I just say, I've always thought that the, and when pain is all around, like the next section, I think that's the one he's referring to, it always sounded kind of gospel-y to me.

Oh, okay. You don't know that group, though, do you? Because I had never heard of it.

No, I don't think I know that group, but it's just funny. I've never heard this tape, but I've always had this kind of sense when listening to Bridge Over Troubled Water that that particular part of the song feels very gospel music to me.

I'm literally, this is the second time I've watched this, and again, it was at least a year ago, the first time I just happened to, somebody tweeted it out, and I watched it on my phone. But this almost gives me legit chills. This is almost emotional listening to this.

I was listening to some music by a gospel group called the Swan Silvertones, and I heard I kept playing it was the music that was in my mind most of the time and every time I'd come home I'd put that record on and I'd listen to it and I think that that must have subconsciously influenced me because I started to go to gospel changes Da-da-da-da and that's how that fell in and then there was this one song it was it was a very uptempo thing and the lead singer was phenomenal he's a tremendous lead singer in this group and uh he was uh scat singing and at one point he shouted out i'll be a bridge over deep water if you trust in my name. And I guess I stole it, actually.

That's what I've been leading you to. That man is in the wings now with the subpoena.

Is that not great, though? Goddamn, that's good. I know. Wow.

Chills.

This is how TV Chill works. Hours and hours of being lost in the wilderness. And then when you least expect it, You come over a rise and you see the oasis that you've been looking for right when you feel the most lost.

It's what you get to You get to something actually worthwhile I think also This to me Kind of represents how the system Should work like this is an ideal system Everyone is allowed to borrow from everyone Else as long as the borrowers Cite exactly who they're borrowing From like why can't someone Say god I heard this punk riff And I loved it I just thought it was so cool And so that's kind of what I was going for Here like How is you know what I mean like It's and part of probably why This is getting gonna get dangerously close To a like you know things Used to be better back in the olden days argument but It's like part of why Paul Simon Is probably comfortable giving all of the influences To the song is because and Dick Cavett's joke Is predicated on the idea that no one is going to sue Paul Simon right Over this over the creation of the song

There's enough inspirations Here that they all be they all came Together in his brain and in his Genius to create something that is wholly new you know sure I just guess I feels to me like you should be allowed to be inspired by

things like that shouldn't be a crime now I guess if you take lyrics word for word and and change and then change one thing or you take the complete structure of a song you know then I get you've stolen someone else's work I guess and then that's obviously not okay but this idea that you could say yeah i was really inspired by this blues performers or this punk sound or this bach piece or whatever like i feel like that's just kind of a better system than everyone suing everyone over how much of the beginning of this blurred line song sounds like a marvin gaye song you know instead like it seems like every people should be able to be inspired by other things i guess within reason as long as everyone is cool with saying yeah oh this is i was told i was listening to the Go-Go's a lot when I wrote this song and I was just kind of trying to really create sort of a Go-Go's vibe of like, you know, vacation. Like, I just love that whole sound. Like, you could say that without it being possible that you would be sued by the estate of Belinda Carlisle.

Nah, you can't play anything anymore. Show title? I haven't had my sound effect ready for that clunker.

There's a right way to rock and a wrong way to roll. You can't just listen to your song Just remember that life is number one You can be having so much fun Just remember that life is much fun You can be number one

Alright, let's do some Blur's Days here. Luke, I just emailed them to you. this moment. I forgot that I hadn't already done that. I was going to just try to guess. Okay, do one. You know what, Luke? Have fun with this one. Freeform it. Okay.

Kathleen says my daughter Alicia is turning 30. Alicia, you are the sweet... How am I doing so far? This... I am

blown away. This is astounding. Keep going. I want to hear if you actually nail this whole thing.

Okay, this takes a lot out of me, though, when the spirits work through... I want you to know that after I'm able to channel this one Blur's Day just by feeling the vibrations of the universe, I will then collapse onto the ground here in the studio, and Randy the Roomba will find me later by pumping. What happened, by the way, was I came home from my jog. There's still all these balloons strewn about my apartment from Addie's birthday, but they're kind of fun. Also, I popped three of them, and it sounded like gunfire, and I didn't want someone to call the management of the apartment building. I don't really know how to dispose of these balloons Because they're very loud when you pop them So I've just Had balloons kind of on the floor In the house and I kind of enjoy it Actually and so when I came Home today Randy was working away and Was basically vacuuming between the balloons And so I made a video And told the internet that it was Randy's birthday

Oh I see you made a reference to that Before I didn't know what you were talking about I was going to check out your Twitter stream But I was on Pat Sajak's many Twitter streams

I got to tell you, pretty solid spoof Anyway, I'm going to continue Completely guessing At a message from, I'm getting a K I'm getting a strong K

Kathleen

Kathleen says, my daughter Alicia Is turning 30 Alicia, you are the sweetest, most kind-hearted person I know Your wicked, dry sense of humor Always cracks everyone up Through all the ups and downs You have made my life a complete joy for 30 years. Aww. I love you so much, and I hope you have an amazing 30th birthday. Love your mom and biggest fan. No.

Let me ask you this, Luke, for real. So did you get that email that quickly, or did I forget that I'd already...

sent these to you i mean other than the fact that you you divined i got that obviously uh andrew i got that email from the universe wow well i mean obviously i got that i got that email from the

other side i crossed i completely crossed over found that email memorized it and then crossed

back over into this world um no the email just came through really fast i think good i'm actually trying to think what's the name of the movie um that we both just saw midnight shadows what we do in the midnights. But the guy who pretends to be a medium, how am I forgetting the name of it? Oh, Nightmare Alley.

Nightmare Alley.

Don't do the spook show.

Don't make it a spook show.

All right. Anyway, you did very good there, Luke. Hopefully you have gotten the email and you won't have to divine the next one.

I recently found a Chicago area businessman who wants me to try to reach his baby mama. So this will end well, I assume. Yeah, as it did in Nightmare Alley.

Hey, listen, I have, you're going to laugh at me, but I just lost a geek, and I just need somebody to fill in just for a couple of shows. I was born for it. Annette in Livonia, Michigan says, I'd like to wish my five, Peter, a happy ninth Blur's Day. Let the fun begin. I'm just using my thing. Did you even hear that? Let's see here. Peter is a smart, loving kid who is all about the hugs and chilling under the electric blanket while watching videos. That sounds amazing. Sadly, Peter is still not quite a 10. On days we pick up his older sister Dahlia from school, we are still listening to holiday tunes because, according to Pete, they are the best, which it's hard to argue with that. Happy Blur's Day, Pete. I find that absolutely charming. Hope you're having a great Blur's.

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

Nice.

Cindy says, happiest of Blur's days to Ithaca 10. Sheila, wishing you a year filled with bread pudding, perfect ski conditions, bear-free camping. I wish that. Yes. I wish that for everyone. Yes. And also with you. And many visits to Portland, Oregon to see your new grandson and perhaps a drink with our friend Luke. Oh, they also have a friend named Luke, huh? That's crazy. They know a different Luke that lives in Portland. Yeah, interesting. That's strange. You are a terrific friend and an awesome human. Love you, friendo. That's from Cindy to our friend Sheila.

You know how I would describe that Blursday message? Gorgeous. Oh, yeah. Nithaca is gorgeous. I drank eight beers yesterday. That was all I drank. I never lower my eyes to another mortal. that's one that will never be solved happy blurs day Sheila Peter says I'd like to use this opportunity to wish Katie my wonderful wife and the future mother of my child a wonderful happy blurs day and to nobody had sex hey hey hey hey

listen hey explain to me a different scenario actually there are different scenarios do you want me to explain them all or should we just move on with this blurs day spare no detail

and leave your hat on. God, I hate that song so much. The future mother of my child, a wonderful happy Blur's Day and to many, many decades of happy Blur's Days into the distant future. P.S., we're still working on the Puzzlin' Podcast and we'll update you as it gets closer to reality. I had forgotten about that, I will admit, but I believe Peter and the fam are working on a podcast about Puzzlin', the Puzzlin' Podcast. Maybe something for disposable media to acquire

Kevin Lynn Says I'd like to wish a happy 47th Blursday To my wife Beth We've had a heck of a rollercoaster ride The last two years I wonder why that is Kevin Lynn Everything's been smooth sailing for the rest of us

Get it together guys

I know Maybe you're the drama What is happening

We're really roasting our Blurses today.

Blurs days roasting on an open cast. All right. Sorry. Back to the script here. It's been a roller coaster ride the last two years, and now here we are replacing our entire grass yard because Utah will be in a drought again. The mud will be gone, and we will be able to sit outside again before the heat. what's great is that i would love it if kevin lynn and beth's roller coaster was just all yard related they'd never heard about the pandemic yeah they think january 6th was just a day in jan like all of the things that are troubling the rest of us kevin lynn was just like no i would just meant we were having a really hard time getting the sod to root those stumps. It's hard to get those stumps out. Brad says, Happy Blur's Day to my co-bro and wife, Rachel. Thank you for always having my back and consistently finding fun and interesting things for us to do as we build our life together in California. I'm so happy that you are getting back into community theater. In honor of your birthday, Andrew will now recite the following slam poem about the custom of feeding hooved animals by spraying wheat on the ground It is titled, Dear Mr. Precedent Gluten. Wow. Dear Mr. Precedent Gluten. Just kidding, Brad says. Dear, like the animal, Mr. Precedent Gluten. I wish I were your landscaper. Oh, if I were your landscaper, your lawns would be green.

I don't know if Brad's going to have Blur's Day privileges next year.

I think that is a good spook.

Hi, it's Brad, and I'm workshopping some wordplay. Chad in Minneapolis says, I had a moment of panic this morning when I realized that I had not yet sent in a Blur's Day wish for self-appointed TBTL drummer and my wife, Amy, on this, the actual day of her 52nd Blurs. We met Chad and Amy at the state fair.

We did, and also we, of course, Amy submitted the...

Yeah, for like the talent show?

Yep, the Drumdemic. Is it? Pandrumic, I think is what it was called. Yeah, and also, I just missed them. They came to town this last summer, and they got some drinks at Teddy's, but I was at a baseball game, so I couldn't meet up with them.

Baseball, that was fun. Yeah, I remember that. I existed. Mm-hmm. Kinda. Chad says, I don't have anything clever to say here. Just happy birthday. I love you. That's to Amy, not Luke and Andrew. Not that you aren't awesome. Well, Chad, can't it be for all of us? Spread it around, Chad. Love is not a zero-sum game. More love for Amy doesn't mean less love for us. How about love is not a zero-sum game is the title of your chapbook. Uh-huh. I don't have, let's see. Being stuck in the house together for two years has actually been pretty great, says Chase. That's nice. That's really cute. Wish I could say the same about Randy.

happy blurs day amy happy birthday to lindsey from your two bffs miranda and ivy we can't wait to have a bob seger celine dion dance party with you tonight to celebrate if any port i love the fact this is just a small aside here i was so ready just out of habit for that sentence to say to end with when we can finally get back together right how many how many blurs days have we read over the past two years can't wait to do so and so with you once we can get back together and it really I really just had a moment there where my heart warmed but not in the bad way that the doctor says is bad in a good way where I thought no they're doing this tonight they're having a Bob Seger and Celine Dion dance party tonight to celebrate the blurs of Lindsay and I love that Miranda and Ivy go on to say If any Portland 10s want to visit her at Tossie The jewelry store that she manages In Selwood, she'll be there today And most days, and would be stoked If you came by to say hello IRL We love you, Lindsay

I love Selwood Do you? Yeah, I take a lot of walks In Selwood, it's a very, very Cool, that's where they sell wood, right? Mm-hmm, yeah They used to But then some of the zoning laws But you can't sell wood anymore, Andrew. Just because my name is Woodstore doesn't mean I sell wood.

I don't even know what that is. I'll play it at the end of the show. After we say goodbye, I'll tag the show with it. It was just like a funny video I found online like a decade ago from some guy complaining that just because his name is Jeffrey Woodstore, it doesn't mean that he sells wood. And even though he has a website that says wood for sale, it doesn't mean that. I love it so much. I've looked it up, and I can't figure out what it's from.

Uh, from Jessica and your dog kiddos, Molly, Dum Dum, and Turd Ferguson. What is the love ballad of Turd Ferguson? Nope, sorry. A Blur's Day shout out to her awesome husband. The same guy who, when they were lovestruck teenagers, once drove up to Snoqualmie Pass and loaded snow into garbage bags in his car, drove back to Redmond, with his windows rolled down and the A.C. on high so he could build a snowman on my front porch. I still have the rocks from that snowman's smile. Oh, my gosh. What the awe? That's some Hallmark Channel-level shit.

That last sentence totally gets me. Now, I will say this.

Because I can't let anything go, I have to point out that Jessica did forget one key part of this Blur's Day, which is the name of the person we are celebrating. Having said that, do you think that there are many people out there right now who are wondering, is this one for me? Because that is very, very specific. I'm thinking that this is probably only one person in the world who's ever done this exact thing.

A lot of people in the world have done that, but only one of them also has a dog named Turd Ferguson. What is the love ballad of Turd Ferguson? Nope. Sorry.

Thankfully, Jessica included the pets in the message. Exactly. Well, happy Blur's Day, mystery man. Yes. Happy Blur's Day to everybody. And to all of the folks, yeah.

And that'll do it. I keep getting these emails from my credit card telling me that I have a higher credit limit. like if i want to remember when i used to only have the only amount of credit that i was was available to me was five hundred dollars yeah yeah yeah um that's changed i guess and now it's a lot more dollars and they keep trying to get me to raise my limit and that's bad though for your credit right because if you have a lot of potential credit that's open even if you're not using it it's like i always hear kind of mixed messages some people say well you should have you should you know have a credit card and put things on it and pay it off because you're building credit or whatever i mean i don't think i'm building credit at 45 i think it is what it is but i also heard somewhere that it's like bad too if they're offering you x amount but you don't really need it or use it don't like don't let them open it up to that limit yeah i've kind of i it's

all kind of a mystery to me and i also don't pay enough attention to it but i will say this i was proud you remember i had an issue um well exactly two years ago because it's at the beginning of the pandemic. One of the last things I did before everything shut down was I went to the bank and talked to somebody in person. And this person was the first person who I ever saw wearing a mask and constantly sanitizing. It was the same day that the news had just broken that the first cases of COVID-19 were found in Washington State, in the United States, and it happened to be in a nursing home outside of Seattle. And anyway, I remember that so distinctly. And the reason I had to go to the bank that day was because I had simply forgotten to pay my credit card, a card that I hardly ever used. I always used my debit card. I had a credit card. There were a few charges on it, and I just forgot it existed. It was not a lot of money, but I didn't pay it for months and months. Somehow missed the warnings, and eventually they turned off my card, which is terrible for credit. I couldn't get a card. I kept checking my credit and getting rejected, which was just hurting me more and more but all of that is to say luke i just had to get my credit check before we bought this house and uh having been maybe with my new credit card for about six months now i have built up some good credit i'm actually i'm not in the exceptional category but i'm in the seven i'm in the high 700s for credit ratings i don't know what yours are i hope i can say that i'm not putting myself at risk by talking about my credit rating on the well my mom's maiden name is yeah exactly credit rating credit credit no but um i don't know am i is it weird for me to

say that but i was very proud of my credit rating i have to say that i'm also at a point in my life where so the story on my credit has always been when i'm in a mode where i'm not married to someone my credit would get bad because i'm very bad about staying on top of certain things and then i would get married and then the person i was married to would be kind of like monitoring that and like you know making sure the bills were getting paid on time and then my credit would creep up to like a respectable rate and then i would go through a breakup and then it would plummet again but i i'm proud to say that age at age 45 i have finally managed to keep my credit going just fine all on my own like a big boy nice congratulations and i but then it's kind of like when like now that it's my credit is good i really like i this is you know this is not an ad for credit karma but like i do go to that website because you can just basically once you have an account you can just check your credit kind of anytime you want and i don't know if it's how i don't know how actually reflective it is because it's it's not like they're doing a super deep hard dive on your credit you're just kind of telling you hey what the latest is but it's very Satisfying when it like does the little Like dial thing and then it's green which Means you went up a little bit Excellent credit the game I will Look at everything yes just so Smart I I will Look at it sometimes for a pick-me-up But then sometimes it'll drop Like for no Like it'll drop because Of the dumbest reason like It'll just be like Somebody did I did a credit check For something or maybe like My credit card I added you know a thousand dollars of

purchases on it some weird thing and then just like for a week it'll have gone down and then i have a bad feeling but but generally it's in an okay range which again is really rare for me in when i'm responsible for my own finances for it to actually be up to all paid up is is a kind of you know i i heard a quite interesting podcast this morning it's from gimlet i listened to it by way of spotify but i was listening to it on my jog it's called crime show and it's the episode i listened to was about a guy who got a call boy this is a long show for no good reason although i love that paul simon tape paul simon tape literally justified the entire episode but it was an episode about a guy who basically got like a scam call over something called phantom debt the phantom debt scam which is if you've ever had like a payday loan even if you've paid it off or if you're just if somehow your name has ended up on a list of people who might be somewhat on the economic margins those lists will get sold to these groups that then start threatening the person they're saying they call like they're a collection agency and they say like you owe this seven hundred dollars and we're gonna call the police if you don't you start getting just like spammed and robocalled and people yelling at you and stuff and the debt may have been paid off it may have never even existed but the theory is that well if someone's on the margins there's a good likelihood that they do owe some people some amount of money and they're not going to be able to really remember what's what and you scare them enough and they'll just go find the money somehow it's just i mean it's pretty much the absolute worst most predatory thing you could do so they basically call this one dude and they they basically they mess with the wrong mfr and it just launches this guy on this like years long mission to take this whole operation down oh nice um and uh and i won't i won't tell you how it ends but i found it to be quite entertaining wait did you binge the entire series no it was each I my sense is each episode is a different oh okay gotcha so it was like you know it's called crime show and of course it's from oh you know who the like senior supervisor is Colin Campbell oh okay gotcha yeah I forgot that he works over there now he's a friend of ours yeah yeah so um no it's I I found it quite listenable I don't know why I decided to wrap the show up by recommending a different podcast yeah

Why did we get on this? Did I cut you off? You were the one who raised something about your credit card having a higher limit, but I don't know why you raised that, and I think I got you off track before you could finish your thought.

You know what? I'll remember it by tomorrow, or I won't. Isn't that good news either way? Yeah, I think either way it's going to be just fine. All right, that is going to do it for this episode of our show. Thank you for listening, everyone. We'll be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you, So please do join us for that. Until then, have a great Thursday. Take care of yourselves. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Do you need wood? If so, please stop calling me Larry Wood Store. My last name just happens to be Wood Store, but not every Mr. Baker is a baker, and not every Mr. Wood Store owns a wood store. All right, my phone number is 832-746-WOOD because it's easy to remember. Also, I do own the website, woodforsale.com, which lets you browse a great selection of wood. Add wood to your shopping cart, fill out a billing address, click checkout. But that was just a project for my web design class. I like wood. I love web design. Doesn't mean I own a wood store. Power out.