Muse

hi uh welcome to quilting with will uh my name is will grello and i'd like to introduce lynette lynette taught me how to quilt a long time ago and i thank her for it all the time in ways that she doesn't even realize sometimes tmi wip more like it Too much info One man's too much information Is another man's too little information T-L-I And one other man's J-E-I Just enough information

T-B-T-L Can we talk one ten to another?

I'm an eleven, but continue

Oh, oh, look who decided to come in tardy You know, don't think it's okay To just roll in here at a hundred kilometers per hour Like you're Joel Otto at the Calgary Flames

What, you think I'm dressed to talk? I'm dressed to party hardy like an MC Scat Cat.

It's a meme-ish thing. I actually couldn't think of the word meme for a second. I could only think of the word dank, weird.

I feel like we're just in that tired mode where you're delirious and you're laughing at silly things. My door's always open, except when it's closed. But you can open it when it's closed.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Tuesday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

This song goes out to all the coffee lovers of the world.

My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host.

Aloha means hello and goodbye.

Coming to you once again from the beautiful island of Oahu, here in the South Pacific on what is looking like it's going to be a very, very beautiful Tuesday here in the tropics. I mean, are there any other kinds of Tuesdays out here, right? It's all about attitudes and latitudes, my friends. Just a cheeseburger in paradise here. And someone who's very excited to get into episode 3650 in a collector's series. Let the fun begin. So I'm here in Hawaii and things are going pretty well.

I'm sorry, I'm tan. I like to be tan. It just feels good.

Meanwhile, back in the 503 where I actually live, things appear to just be just falling into complete catastrophe at my apartment building.

This is a disaster. I mean, this is something that should not happen.

I'm just getting emails on the regular from the people that manage the apartment building that I live in about all manner of misbehavior. The police have been called. People have been lighting things on fire. A lot going on back in Portland. I don't know. I may have to just stay here where it's, you know, no one's lighting anything on fire. So we will probably talk about that also. Will Smith has officially apologized to Chris Rock for slapping him at the Oscars.

I'm sorry.

It was kind of an interesting apology, actually. I feel like it had some high points and it had some kind of, I'm sorry, you felt bad points. So we will parse those out. Also, pickleball is balling out. Beautiful purple balls. Pickleball has been named the official sport of the state of Washington. It was invented out there on old Bainbridge Island. And Jay Inslee, the governor of Washington Went out to the pickleball Where the I think it might have been literally where they invented pickleball Like standing on this old Badminton or tennis court or whatever they were using And declared pickleball to be the next I believe he said something like In America we have the right to life, liberty And pickleball or something So we'll talk about the fastest growing sport in America Which is, as I've been mentioning Pickleball Beautiful purple balls Plus, we'll do some emails and V-mails, and we'll talk to this guy, the longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's just here to give JTMI, just too much information. He is Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now from the Sweet Cream District of Seattle, Washington. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. I have, I thought I was losing my marbles yesterday. I'm sitting here at my desk And I just kind of can't get comfortable You know Obviously new studio here We talked in great detail yesterday About how the setup is slightly different But that's not what I'm talking about here I just am sitting here doing my work And I just keep on I just feel like I can't get my chair At the right level, right? It's one of those office chairs that has a little But it's a very simple one It's not one of those really complicated office chairs with a bunch of levers.

and whatnot it's just got one lever right up and down it's not one of those college office chairs it's gonna talk your ear off exactly it's a it's a pretty basic system here and you know it's like at the hydraulic thing so if you're down a little bit too low you lift yourself up a little bit push the button and the chair pops up and then you sit back down on it's a comfortable chair i've had it for maybe a year or two now but yesterday i just keep adjusting it and it just doesn't seem right doesn't seem right around 3 30 in the afternoon i realized why the damn thing is leaking on me or something it keeps on going i it was like some sort of a torture it kept it especially because i didn't know exactly what the problem was so then i i realized okay the problem is this chair is broken or at least malfunctioning but then somehow i think it might have even got worse once I realized what was happening, because then, like, I'm sitting on it, and I'm like, wait, am I sinking? Am I not sinking? Wait, am I stable here? Wait, oh, and then every now and then you shift a little bit, and it goes straight down, like, fast, instead of doing it slowly. So now I'm just sitting on a regular hardback chair. I am looking up this office model online to see if anybody has a fix for this kind of thing. It doesn't seem like the type of thing that is fixable, though, right? Like, once a hydraulic thing on a somewhat – what do we call this kind of furniture, Luke? Somebody coined a term that we really liked. It kind of looks nice, but it's not that expensive.

I thought that Genevieve came up with a term for that.

No, I think that she borrowed it from somebody else. It's like pho something. I can't remember. It doesn't really matter. But you know what I'm talking about, right? It kind of maybe looks like a chair, maybe from the 60s or 70s, but really it's just like from Wayfair or something along those lines.

And all that stuff, it looks pretty good, but it's not usually built to last. A lot of times when you buy something that is pretty expensive from a sort of high-end place, really the difference is that it's whatever that's called, the hydraulic system, the thing that allows you to set the height you want to be at and stay there. It's like stuff like that where they probably sweat the details more if you bought that chair from Design Within Reach or something like Wayfair.

It doesn't seem fixable, though, right? I'm sort of in this mode now where I'm sort of like anything's fixable around the house. Well, everything's broken around the house. That's why it better be fixable.

I used to have an old, funky Jeep. I think it might have been a Cherokee back in the day. And the hydraulic arm on the back, like it was kind of a, what do you want to, not a hatchback, but you know what I mean? It had like a door in back that you could lift up. and there was these two kind of gas, hydraulic, you know, things that were supposed to make it easier to move the door, you know, the gate up and down and also keep the gate up. And those things just failed all the time. In fact, every time I see someone driving a Cherokee of that era, if they stop at, like, the Home Depot and open the back, they have to do what I did, which is prop it open with a broom handle.

Uh-huh, right, right.

So that's the number one way that Jeep Cherokee owners, Circa 1996 or something Fix that problem Maybe you just get a broom handle And just put it under your chair And you're just going to do that

Well that's like an art to you right You're the master of setting up studios Using like sticks and strings And balancing things precariously I'm teaching a master class on it You and Steve Martin teaching the banjo What did you have propped up with a stick Was it a computer or what did you It was a shelf

at the old, what was it, Burbank Studios. When it was in the basement, it was Debajo, right? I forget what we were calling the room in Mount Baker at the Seattle house where I was recording from, but I had kind of hastily put a shelf up and had placed the computer that was actually kind of recording the show, the computer that was running GarageBand, and was very critical to the show happening. i.e. if that shelf would have collapsed which it did one time like i believe maybe during the show right before the show if the shelf were to collapse and the computer were to fall off the shelf there might be no recording of the show but what about all your backups that you must have had running uh ha ha ha i hear your sarcasm all the way here in oahu um i'm you know i may i'm trying to remember i don't know if i had a backup or not i may have had something going but the problem was I had not put this shelf up in the most effective manner, and so at some point it did collapse, but again, I believe it was like two minutes before the show started, and we used to do the show live at noon. That was a big part of it. Like, it went live, and we streamed it. That's, of course, the Stens, that kind of nickname for some of the fans or people that are on Facebook, that was the people that would go on Stickam and watch the show. Again, ironically, the program we used was called Stick Am, and also there was a stick holding up the shelf where the show was being recorded. But because it was – this all happened right before I had to start the show, I just grabbed, like, a stick from somewhere and propped up the shelf and then left that there for, like, a year as the system, I believe.

That is the trap, and that's something I'm thinking about a lot as we're unpacking these boxes. We're in the, like, somewhat frustrating part where, you know, we were so relieved to have all of our belongings moved over this weekend. And now we're, you know, we don't have an apartment across town where some tools are. You know, just everything is here. Everything we own is here, which is great. Hashtag blessed, right? But now we're in that phase where even though we're moving into a place with more space, like, there's always that panicky phase where you're just like, we have too much shit. Like, we moved all this stuff, but we're too cramped. Like, it just doesn't seem like there's going to be room enough for everything. And one of the things that we tend to do is we'll say, OK, I'm just going to put this thing here temporarily. Like, I'm going to put this old shoebox full of photos here temporarily, but it's not going to stay there. That looks ugly. I don't want people staring at that when they come over to be on TBTL with us. I don't want Michelle Obama to see that ugly shoebox when she's a guest on TBTL. Are we still working on that, by the way? Where are we on that? Yes. OK, good. But anyway, but then you become very close. But then you become blind to it, right? And then it just becomes your living space. You're like oh yeah gee I set that shoebox There that ugly ass shoebox there Five years ago and I just Set it there temporarily and then it just blended Into the surroundings and now I don't see It anymore and then Michelle Obama former first lady For those who don't know comes to be on my Podcast and She says I don't know if I want to be on this podcast Anymore because you're the type of podcaster who just has Ugly shoeboxes it's literally a Sketcher shoebox I'm staring at right now from Probably about 1999 by the way Anyway that that's the thing and so you put that stick there and then you just sort of like well it worked and then your brain just went

on to solve more immediate issues yes exactly and you're at a critical point with your house which is you can set everything up you know sort of correctly you're at you're at the you're at the sort of you know origin point of this stuff but if you set it up wrong and then it become you become visually blind to it it will just be that way although maybe not so much for you i mean you're pretty organized you're a pretty neat and tidy person and i also think like you're not i you're not the kind of person who will just have clutter uh you know and boxes unopened for for like years because you like to putter so you i mean for you i my guess is it's enjoyable to sort of work your way through these boxes and then take things out and then decide where they're gonna go and then kind of set it up like that's i assume that's a sort of enjoyable experience for you on some level

oh yeah definitely definitely i mean but it's like kind of a combination but like right now everything is so chaotic that it's almost like you don't how can I explain this like we have bigger fish to fry but like last night I was exhausted and it was like nine o'clock and I'm like you know what I'm just gonna do the fun stuff I'm gonna unpack my my boxes of cassette tapes and put them away in alphabetical order right while I listen to a podcast um and I'm looking around and there are more immediate things that need to be done like these aren't the biggest boxes to get out of the way you know like these can and also their cassette tapes you know they're not like i don't

gotta have those ready in case on the show i need you to um play butthole surfers right exactly i don't i don't need immediate in the bees right after brian adams summer of 69 i would love it if your cassette collection was brian adams butthole surfers yes exactly i was gonna go with

past masters volume 2 which was a cassette i was looking at yesterday a beatles compilation just like past masters volume two am i gonna listen to past masters volume two on cassette anytime soon yes i am that's why this box needs to be unpacked right now um so anyway yeah i i like doing that but i can also sort of rat hole on the thing and the easy things first that are less important having said that in my defense somewhat i will find that even if you just start pulling at a thread a little bit like and say okay i'm just gonna do this easy stuff i'm gonna put these cassette tapes away eventually everything everything does snowball you start putting those boxes away but then you realize wait i need um i don't know maybe i need box cutters to open up these boxes and you're like oh that's in this other box over here so then you open up that other box i don't know how you get in that other box because you're looking for box cutters just go with me on this you drop it from like a high window of an apartment building like opening a safe or a piano let me back up i need box cutters so the box cutters are in this box so i grab the box i crawl up to the roof of my house i throw it off the roof onto the deck it crashes open you get the box cutters then you have to put all of those things away too you see what i'm saying right like you just like kind of like you start pulling in a thread and then even though you're really only focusing on the cassettes you really do end up putting other things away or kind of the the mode I'm in now is like

even though I'm not putting them away, I can sort of start just putting them, I can start collecting them in groups in a corner somewhere. I think TBTL-related tchotchkes is a big one for me because I had several different places where things were kind of tucked away in my old apartment. I had one place where I would keep old TBTL thank you gifts like lunch boxes and dolls and whatnot. not there was another place where i have like one leftover tbtl trophy remember we made those tbtl trophies for um the people who participated and won the uh the the listener contest what did we call that thing how could i not remember the tbtl listener challenge i don't know yeah the listener challenge or whatever we had one extra trophy made just in case i'm an i'm a one extra kind of guy and that's why i always have backup recordings rolling so that was in another place so okay now i can throw that wherever i end up putting this stuff i'll put it all together this time so i just have one corner that is collecting all kinds of tbtl related stuff that is not uh an immediate need and it looks really ugly right now but i just got to trust that just keep throwing stuff in that corner and eventually it'll find a home and it'll all find a home together i'm

crambling luke what's going on in portland um well nothing good at my apartment building i'll tell you that yeah so when i moved into that place uh i think the story on that apartment building was that they were trying to sell it as condos and for some reason they couldn't so they converted it to rentals which is just surprising because all you hear about in places like portland and seattle is that there's a a housing shortage in terms of how much you know housing is available everything you know every house or condo or whatever seems to sell the first day it's put on the market so i don't know how this company was bad at selling condominiums in portland but that that was the story that i had heard and and so when i moved in there were not that many people living in the building and they were offering all these really incredible incentives like months and months of free rent or pro you know prorating your rent effectively just lowering the rent to get people in the door well it seems like that worked because a lot more people have gotten in the door i think when i moved in maybe there was half the place was full and now i think it's about 100 full and every day andrew it seems i i get an email from the management trying to tell people to stop doing wild shit in the apartment building uh somebody Apparently lit something on fire And threw it down the elevator shaft Recently which they wanted to remind People is not okay How

Not that I want to turn this into the podcast that instructs People how to light things on fire and then throw them Down elevator shafts that's not a Space we want to play in but how Does one do that like I don't Even have you ever had access to an

Elevator shaft No I mean Is it John McClane Is this a diehard situation Is he in the vents? Is he in the HVAC? What's going on? Dear residents, over the last few days, we've noticed that someone has continually tampered with and or destroyed building property. In order to properly address the situation, I want to remind you that such acts are in violation of your lease. And they go on in this other email to mention that somebody, let me see if I can find that one. Yeah, somebody basically, somebody started a fire in the parking garage and then someone threw something down the elevator shaft that meant one of the elevators was out of commission. Then you've got just the people who live here getting mad at each other in the community section. Somebody named Julian said, hey, folks, I'm just here to call out my six-floor neighbor who thought cramming a giant furniture box into the trash rooms was acceptable. If you need help breaking a box down and placing it in the proper location, ask someone. I'd appreciate your quick attention in cleaning this up. Peace. Now, that peace at the end feels a little... Then somebody else jumps on unrelated. If anyone heard or saw an altercation in the lobby around 10 or 1030 last night, could you please come to the back office tomorrow to report what you saw and heard to the police like people are fighting in the lobby? Apparently. Then today, pet etiquette reminders. We're reaching out today regarding concerns expressed to staff about how pet owners can better assist maintaining the community. We continually receive concerned feedback about pet owners, neglectful actions when it comes to following our pet policies. And then just go on to basically say people are like not leashing their pets. So the pets are running a moak in the building. People are letting their pets go to the bathroom in the elevator or just anywhere they want. Like it's just it's just complete chaos back there at the apartment building.

Now, just remind me of this. For a while, a narrative on the show was people were throwing. I might be confusing my stories here, but people. You're confusing my apartment building.

No, your old apartment building is what I started to say is where people were throwing dog poop in the garbage cans. Is that the one that you wanted to create a project around where listeners were creating signs for you that were supposed to look like they were official management signs saying, please don't throw dog waste in these indoor garbage cans? But that's not a problem anymore. You just moved. So that's not it. So that's one way to solve these problems. Are you interested in moving again?

Well, whether it's where I live or just relationships, I just, you know, rolling stone, a rolling burbs gathers no moss, Andrew. So I just keep it moving. Keep it moving. It is just interesting, though, to see that with more people living in this building now, there's just more friction. There are more people that are mad at each other. There was someone that was leaving their muddy boots when it was really the rainy season. They would wear these boots outside. these boots would get all muddy and then they would leave them outside of their door but the thing is this is the hallway that we all have to walk through and my my immediate neighbor the one with the security camera wrote this like impassioned note on the on the whatever you want to call it the apartment's kind of like website thing saying more or less this aggression will not stand like you are you're you're acting like a bunch of children and you're not treating this apartment building with the uh with the sort of respect that it deserves we have people just leaving their muddy boots out in the hall and i was like i know exactly who he's talking about because i have to step over those boots every day and i also kind of don't like it that those muddy boots are just in what is the general area by the way i just an update on my neighbors who have the security camera that weirds me out because i feel like it sends them a push notification anytime i enter or leave my apartment which is way down at the end of the hall so it's just my little apartment door and their little apartment door um i either either me one night maybe slightly drunkenly flipping the bird to that camera either they didn't see it or they saw it and they are doing everything in their power now to be my friend because every time that i come out and i happen bump into them they are so cordial and like oh it's so nice to see you and like there's definitely they're not letting on if they if they noted the middle finger and it did not do anything outwardly to harm the relationship they even got they got a puppy andrew it is a doberman a pure bread doberman and it is the cutest one of the cutest dogs i've ever i didn't know if rudy was going to hear this i had to kind of moderate that one of the cutest dogs i've ever seen in my life and so you know we've kind of we talk about the dog now they're very apologetic oh sorry about the dog bark I've never heard the dog bark actually but for folks who are wondering what the status was what the what was going on with me and those neighbors everything seems to be fine so again either they didn't notice the middle finger or they or it had the desired effect which

was basically a shot across the bow saying back off yeah yeah if they really didn't see it well then that would be good it means they're not checking their notifications every time what you need is could you this probably doesn't work you make yourself a little sign with like a sharpie and you hold it up to the camera one day when you're coming or going and it just says let me know if you see this and then you'll know for sure whether or not they're kind of monitoring

your comings and goings i could just say help i'm trapped under something heavy the refrigerator fell on me which would raise the question how i got the sign out there but that's the point is i could put a like an emergency note out there and then if they respond yes somebody means they're

monitoring me some moron is throwing boxes off his roof to get to box cutters and it landed on me please help by the way i feel vindicated here um this chair that i that is apparently broken um i'm looking at reviews of it it is a wayfair chair i was texting genevieve i said hey let me do you know because she bought it i'm like do you have any records on what the actual make and model of this is so she found it there are like 270 reviews or something but one review about 40 down says chair drops down over time looks nice but annoying that's from kevin in yorkton heights is it yorktown or yorkton yorktown heights new york gave it two stars because it falls down over time and i feel like yep that's i mean you know what there's a option for me to click helpful

i just made that comment helpful nice are you um considering sending the chair back i mean that's

impossible right it's too old in fact i'm i i don't maybe genevieve knows when um we bought this i it's not you know i've had it for way too long to say that like this is just like it came and it started malfunctioning immediately you know what i mean there's also the economics of

when we have things sent through the mail like that. Like, let's say the chair was $100. It probably costs more than $100. to get it back to wherever it came from you know i've noticed that like with amazon and i know amazon is a very fraught topic but like this has happened to becca a few times she'll buy something through amazon and then it won't really work for her and then she'll go to send it back and they're like ah just keep it oh yeah i've heard people saying that yep yep i'm just ordering things left and right hoping i ordered oh what was it um uh there i have oh phooey i i bought something recently and i did use amazon don't don't uh sue me sue me for what but i'm trying to remember what it was it was something kind of expensive and i decided that i did not want it and i was going to send it back but i was half hoping that they were just going to be like ah keep it but no they were very much like this is the qr code take it to the whole foods yeah we need this back yeah like i'm

gonna buy hey amazon could you please send me your most expensive bitcoin and then you get it And you're just like, eh, Amazon, this expensive Bitcoin doesn't work for me, but I can just keep it, right? Money back? And they say, no, send that Bitcoin back. I'm kind of really in the cryptocurrency right now, Luke. Sorry if that was over your head.

I'm trying to figure out what this was. Let's see. Oh, you know what? It was a Vitamix. Oh. It was this blender that I bought for Addy for her birthday, but she had already bought herself one. And those things are not particularly cheap. I mean, this is the thing, and you and Veeves do not have children, so this is probably not something you've given a ton of thought to, but our listeners out there who are parents have probably noticed this. It's weird when you realize your kids are just sort of mini versions of you in a way because Addie and I do the exact same thing, which is if we want something, we just usually acquire it. like if you know if it's financially feasible like everyone i've ever been in a relationship with is like you're the most impossible person to buy a gift for because they'll hear me say something oh it would be nice to have a vitamix and then they think oh note to self maybe i can get luca vitamix for christmas and then two days later i just have a vitamix that i just went and bought so addy like a week before her birthday had said oh yeah i've been thinking about getting a Vitamix. It's kind of pricey, but it'd be really cool to have. Literally, like, three days before her birthday. And I was like, perfect. I'm getting this Vitamix. Got it. And then when she opened it, she was like, I actually bought one one day ago.

That was an interesting imitation. Yeah, that's how she talks. Yeah, it was almost like she was on the line with me for a second. You know, I do think that should be a rule for everybody, for real. Like, don't buy yourself, especially if you've been talking to loved ones about quasi-big purchases For your birthday. Yes, at least a week. I would even say two weeks before your birthday or Christmas, don't buy anything that is kind of a higher-end item and something that people know you want, right? Like, if you want to buy yourself a new – well, whatever. They're small daily items. But, like, a good example for me is I always got my eye on a new vacuum cleaner of some sort, right? Like, Genevieve a couple of years ago knew I really wanted a cordless Dyson. So, you know, I was pricing them out. But I knew not to get myself a cordless Dyson because – and I was right. There was one waiting under the birthday tree for me. And just – so Genevieve's birthday was earlier this month and for years now. In fact, I think Genevieve might have even hopped on a microphone on TBTL to argue this with me at one point. I can't recall. But Genevieve wanted one of those like kind of – I guess it's not even fair to call it an air fryer because it's like a bunch of different things. It's one of those food ninja things. You know what I'm talking about? Have you messed around with those at all?

I've seen Sofia Vergara hawking them on television. The ninja. She's always hawking some ninja food something.

Oh, yeah. I think you've mentioned that before. So this probably has come up. So anyway, Genevieve has wanted one of these things. We've been talking about it for years. And I always said, like, I don't like the looks of it. It's like a pretty big piece of appliance to put in your kitchen. And that doesn't it didn't go with our vibe in our old kitchen at all. And, you know, I kept calling it a unitasker. And Genevieve says it's the opposite of a unitasker. It does. It cooks food all the different ways you can do everything with it, which apparently you can. And that's great. But we're going back and forth and back and forth. But when we realized, hey, we're getting a house in March and Genevieve's birthday is at the beginning of March. I'm like, this is perfect. I will get Genevieve the food ninja. It'll be not just a gift that she will enjoy, but it'll also be like me backing down from something in a way, which is the ultimate gift, which is the ultimate anyone who's been in a relationship and especially to Genevieve. I mean, especially to Genevieve. The biggest gift I could ever give her is just say I was wrong. You were right. In fact, you know, Jessica Valenti, she's like an author and a feminist thinker and

I follow her. She's a good Twitter follow. And she tweeted something that really stuck in my stuck in my head. She said, my husband just told me that saying you're right is my love language. And I feel so seen. And I'm just like, yeah, that's Genevieve to like that's Genevieve's love language saying you were right. Add a I was wrong on top. And it's just the chef's kiss. But anyway. Sure. So a couple a while back, like I think it was about a month before Genevieve's birthday or several weeks. I started plans to get Genevieve a food ninja but I wanted to keep it at my friend's house first of all my friends belong to Costco and I didn't and Genevieve wanted the Costco one because it was a good price point or something and they've been geeking out about it for a long time so Genevieve's birthday is coming up I say to them hey can you help me get this thing from Costco because I'm not a member and also can I store it at your house until Genevieve's birthday so I can surprise her with it and they're like yes and they were super super helpful with this whole thing And then one day Oh, I know So we're still living in the old apartment And we have the keys to this house now Genevieve's been coming over here To do some work or whatever And the only thing I can think of is I will go to my friend's house I will wrap this giant box This Food Ninja Which took an entire roll of wrapping paper, by the way And then I didn't want to bring it back to the apartment So I brought it to the new house And I set it in the middle of the living room With a note on it that said Definitely not for Genevieve And then the next day And I knew it was going to work out this way It was imperfect But the next day I was talking to you Probably doing my job TBTL And Genevieve came to this house to do some work And she saw the box and she texted me And she said thank you She didn't know what was in it at that point I figured she must have guessed what it was Like here's this big box in your new house You've been talking about this food ninja forever Like everything just seemed perfect later that day she decides today's the day we become a costco family so she goes to costco she signs up to become a member she's texting me hey we're members of costco now is you know is there anything that you want this is so much fun she's buying paper towels whatever and then and i'm just thinking like sampling i don't i still haven't been there i've still never set foot in a Costco I'm looking forward to it but I don't even know what goes on over

there but anyway it's a wonderland I mean I really have to tell you like I'm not a Costco member either but it is a fun place to go in my experience yeah I'm looking forward to checking

out in fact I have a voicemail I'm going to play later in the show that is related to Costco this will all fit together nicely but anyway I'm sitting here thinking Genevieve don't buy the food ninja just don't like just read the room it's literally at this point it's literally the day before her birthday right there's a big box in her new home like don't please don't buy the food ninja and then the story maybe maybe this isn't the best power out long story short she sends me a text message from costco that says hey buddy i'm here at costco looking at the food ninja and it's at that great sale price and i'm thinking about buying it but i'm suddenly realizing this box is about the same size as that wrapped box sitting in the living room not to ruin the fun but is there any chance there's a food ninja in there and I was like yeah there's a food ninja in there some I thought it was going to be like the best gift ever but it was sort of ended up being just a fait accompli I don't know if that's the right phrase there

but it was a little anticlimactic it was just so

anticlimactic because she was like oh I'm going to buy this thing oh is that what the box is and like maybe after like buying a house getting a food ninja isn't that exciting I don't know but the whole thing was sort it sort of felt a little bit ruined although it's her birthday so it's not about me but i was just kind of like couldn't you have just couldn't you have just opened the box and been surprised and have a good time instead of what's in the box what's in the box luckily it

was just a food ninja this this time if it's any consolation i once proposed this would have been the first time that i proposed uh marriage to someone because my first ex-wife was about to go on our joint bank account to figure out how much money we had lost in vegas not just lost but like spent we went to las vegas i had this ring that i had bought with using our like a shared like credit card or something because i had no money and i was carrying it around las vegas the whole weekend trying to find the right time to propose it was never really the right time we go we fly all the way back to seattle and she's like goes down to the basement to basically like Figure out what our financial deal is After we've been in Las Vegas And eating and drinking And having a hotel or whatever And I realize That she's gonna see The charge for the ring Yeah And I This is in the days of dial-up I literally hear the one going From the basement And I'm like shit And I run to my bag where the ring is in a gym sock, which is what I had it in, and I run downstairs and I propose because she's about to see on the Bank of America thing that I spent $1,500 at this jeweler near our house. So you want to talk about the ultimate anticlimactic way to do something that should be a pretty big part of someone's life. There you go.

I am going to say something to you that sounds rude on the face of it, but I think you'll go with me on this. But I'm kind of surprised by that story because, Luke, I love you to death, but you seem like a secret bank account kind of guy to me. Only in my later years. Oh, yeah. It sort of seems like you would always have some money. Yeah. It seems like you would always have an account that you could dip into without prying eyes.

I in these days back in those days Andrew I did not have any kind of other other bank accounts other sources of income I was you know a pretty I was a pretty what was the term I'm looking for I didn't make a lot of money producing conservative talk radio so I think I mean so I think that it was like I literally needed to use this credit card that we were both on because the only way that I could get my hands on fifteen hundred dollars of liquid cash right right right and then you know years later and in subsequent relationships i would at times you know have little little rainy day funds stashed here or there which of course always made those relationships better there's nothing people like

more than secret bank accounts in a relationship in my experience i actually do think there for gifts alone i think there's uh an argument for everybody you know if you're if you're in a relationship and if you want to do this i think there is an argument to be made to have that thing just like your little account that um that uh only you can sort of see and again it's for reasons at for the very least for this and i also don't think there's anything wrong with maybe having a little account to say hey listen i'd you know whatever it's just it's like my it's my little account and i get to play with this money however i want i used to i used to have that and Genevieve knew it wasn't like a secret, but you know, I had a, I had an account that was like just my account, but it kind of went away a couple of years ago when Genevieve and I first sat down with a financial planner named John, um, and started kind of getting all of our finances in order. Cause I think I've mentioned this on the show before, like I've worked at a bunch of different public radio stations and everyone has a different retirement system. And so I was like dragging around all these, like, you know, not even grand sums of money, but just a whole bunch of, you know ticky tacky retirement accounts and stuff and we just wanted to get everything under the under the same umbrella but in doing so it also meant that we were kind of inputting all of our you know financial information into one kind of central system that both Genevieve could see and it turns out our um our uh advisor can also see like the details of some of these things as well including just like individual credit card charges which is kind of weird and he's a great guy and i'm not you know buying weird things i don't think he's like going in there every day to see like hey what are genevieve and andrew buying but like during certain phases he was like kind of looking putting things in order and so he would sort of see an account and and maybe see what was itemized in there and all of this is leading to i don't think i told you this but um a while back genevieve got a text from john at work that said what what is touch tunes and why Why are there so many line items for Touch Tunes? And so Genevieve had to explain our... That's the massage parlor you get to, right? Genevieve had to explain our Funionaire lifestyle, and that Touch Tunes is just a digital jukebox at the Eagles. And sometimes you think $15 is going to do it for an evening, but it turns out it won't. And so you're going to need to make several purchases.

He was asking because he wanted to know what category this gets filed under. Not because his job is to sort of gently nudge you away from certain purchases?

I don't think it was either one of those. I think he was just putting things in order and maybe inputting a new account. The account that I have TouchTunes attached to is like this checking account that I don't put much money in, but it was one of those accounts where it's like, hey, if I want to buy Genevieve a gift, I'll maybe use that account. There's just not much money in there, but it was just like a little checking account I had. And and I guess I still have. And so I think he was just maybe moving things over and doing some input. I don't think it was at all passive aggressive or advisory. I think it was real. I think it was just real curiosity because I do think that I don't know how to put this. I think that he sort of gets a kick out of our lifestyle, Genevieve and I, a couple of middle-aged people who have done a pretty good job of saving through our lives and not being. extravagant but also we don't have kids so that's a huge part of it and so you know as we coined a while back that the term funionaires we're not rich people but because we don't have a lot of responsibility we can you know spend $30 on touch tunes if we want to you know and so I think that he was just a little bit amused by the situation I think he was especially amused by the answer once he found out I can't remember exactly what he said when Genevieve told him but I think it was I think he was, I don't know, somehow pleasantly surprised to hear that TouchTunes is a digital jukebox that you can use with your phone.

Because I can imagine myself going to a financial advisor and saying, okay, here's what my goals are. I would like to have this sort of amount of money saved or these investments, et cetera, and kind of making an agreement that they were going to kind of help coach me up on that and have a little accountability maybe. And then the first time they're like, what's this charge? I'd be like, out of here with that. yeah right what are you what are you one of my many exes i could see myself wanting to be held accountable but then be extremely resistant the first time they were trying to actually do the thing i had asked them to to help me with i have i assume that that's the deal with almost any kind

of like life coach or fitness trainer or any like you know i've never had any of those as you can tell from my life gestures to world around him gestures to body but you know what I mean like you're basically hiring somebody to be your best friend your worst enemy right like yeah that must be like a huge psychological part of those jobs which must make it very difficult like hey I'm the person here who's gonna give you tough love and tell you like you got to get up and and I don't know do do your exercise or what have you I would want the Carl Weathers character from

Arrested Development Was this thing He was always Wanted free food Wasn't that one Of the recurring Yeah

Oh he was

Always making a soup I thought you were

Just meant like He just kind of You liked his Laid back style I think he was An acting coach Right And so yeah And he always He was I think the joke Was that he was Broke as a joke And that was Like he made a He would say Something like Yeah save that Throw some bones in there You got yourself A stew going Like I think That was like He was always He was always hungry And always cutting corners I think

i wrote a tweet we gotta we gotta go to break we're getting very very far into the show for our first break yeah but um i uh somebody i saw a picture of michael dukakis which uh of like a recent picture and you know he's certainly older than i remember him when he ran for president but he looks you know hale and hearty and all that and i was reminded of that thing where he loves turkey carcasses yeah yeah he collects them and people send them he makes soup and then he had to ask people to stop right and i this is a picture of him like on probably the tea in boston i assume and he's got it like a bag and i think i wrote on twitter like you know that i'm gonna use a bad word here i said you know this motherfucker's got a turkey carcass in that bag or something and i just was like the people who know what i'm talking about will think this is funny potentially but then i also got nervous that like do people if you if you don't know that backstory on michael Dukakis, it just looks like I've completely lost my mind out here in Hawaii. A, I'm calling him an MF-er for no reason. I know, that's bold. I'm talking about turkey. Every once in a while, Andrew, I just, you know, I like to keep it spicy. It's a space that I'm capable of playing in. So did you

end up keeping the tweet up, or did you not actually

tweet it up? It's there currently. Well, it got some here, the problem is it got some hashtag engagement. Not a lot, but it got enough that now I'm probably stuck with it. And And the other thing is once you see that other people have liked it, then it tells the people that don't know what I'm talking about that I'm probably talking about something that other people understand. I'm not just a lunatic.

I'm looking at it. First of all, that's a great photo. I actually think it's a good tweet. But you got Luke. Don't forget. You aren't supposed to be talking about your tweets earlier in the week because later on on Friday. What if that's your best tweet of the week? Somebody made a jingle, Luke. Do you want to hear it or do we have to wait until Friday?

Let's wait until Friday.

Okay, yeah, I'm scrolling through. It was our friend Ryan in the D.C. area. He immediately, like the show was posted like maybe an hour, and he has a nice, simple little jingle that I want to play for you on Friday for Tweet of the Week. That's exciting.

I'm looking forward to that. All right, let's take a break because we need to, and then when we come back we will analyze Will Smith's apology because that's what the world needs, us weighing in on if his apology was in fact appropriate or not yeah we will provide that service coming back after this break we was hoping for some razzle dazzle razzle dazzle

that's right man razzle dazzle on your mark on your mark get set get set now ready ready go

everybody razzle dazzle let's thank some dazzling donors these are the folks who are dazzling us

of dough each month it's a big part of us being able to do this for our jobs five days a week for us to have you know ninja money and uh in my case um trying to think well vitamix money but then i actually sent it back so that was kind of sort of netted out at zero yeah i shouldn't get us off

topic of the dazzling donors but so what did you end up getting adelaide then i got i got her a um

a different kitchen appliance, a KitchenAid mixer that she also wanted. One of those big, heavy ones. Yeah, big, heavy one with the bowl, you know, and that whole thing. But then it was the wrong color, so she wanted a white one. I got her this blue one. I think it all turned out okay in the end. She and I have entered a phase where every present I buy her is the wrong present. Not that she's rude about it, but I've really lost my mojo. I had some mojo for a while of buying her things that she was super excited about. and the last three or four things i've gotten her she's been like oh i love this this is so cool i would maybe be a little better if it was in this color or size or actually what i could really use is a so it's like well there's a gift receipt in there honey so um i'm hoping to get my mojo back at some point you know who never lost their mojo laura gherkin of toledo ohio our first dazzling donor today i've been a friendo for about seven years that makes for some reason when i read that it sounds like we're a sobriety program are you a friendo how long have you been a friend i just got my seven-year coin are you a friendo of luke uh-huh uh i've been a friendo for about seven years now and you dummies and the rest of the stens community have been super important in my life the last two years right at the start of the pandemic i began going through some pretty major Your life changes and was pretty lost. It may sound silly, but having TBTL as a constant helped because I knew I would laugh at least once a day. Thanks for being there for me every day, even when you don't know it. Cheers from listener Laura. Thank you, Laura. Laura, I am sorry that you were going through a hard time, and I am really honored to know that in some small way, TBTL kind of was, you know, a little ray of pleasant sunshine in your day. Also, one laugh

I feel like we get off at least three It's one long laugh That lasts about 90 minutes Sometimes two hours Depending if we make it to the river

I was going to say, I feel like we get off Three decent spoofs Per show, on average

How many have we done? Where are we today? Can we knock off early? Today's zero, but yesterday we did seven So we're kind of

We're fine right now

But we better get it together Yeah, certainly, because you don't want to be, you know, paying the piper on Thursday, you know, trying to catch up with your quota.

Also, the vig on that, too, is rough. Pretty soon, you're just making jokes just to pay the interest. You're not paying down any of the principal.

Oh, I don't have a bell. Damn it. Where's my bell? I do. That was your joke.

Okay, we got our one laugh for the day.

There we go. Okay, so eight total, seven yesterday, one today. Bring this to eight total, averaging out to four jokes that worked over each of the episodes so far this week. So there you go, Laura. You're welcome. And thank you. You're welcome. Maestro?

On your mark. On your mark. Get set. Get set. Now ready. Ready. Go. Everybody rattle, sattle.

Everybody rattle, sattle. We also would like to thank Ashley Wilson in Richardson, Texas. i don't know if i've if i've been through richardson texas i don't know exactly where that is i'm gonna look it up but i know i know ashley's there which makes it one of my favorite places in america ashley says i want to give a shout out to the tens and the community they've built i'm constantly amazed by their creativity compassion and kindness hi friendos to those i've met and the ones i haven't uh that actually accepted my facebook friend requests i am of the opinion, Andrew, that really the only good thing happening on Facebook is the Stens page and the way that the TBTL listeners have been able to connect via that. I don't know if there's much else worthwhile on Facebook, but at least that

is something to me. Yes, I have heard people who are on that page say that exact thing, that the only reason they're on Facebook is to have the friendship and the community with the other listeners. Also, I hear there's some pretty interesting takes about the election on Facebook, too. So maybe two good things about Facebook.

Right. Yeah. OK. So, yes. Information about her emails. But the emails and the Hillary for prison and various art centered around that concept.

There's also and then the Stens and some information about Hunter Biden. There's some good information about Hunter Biden on Facebook as well. Oh, you mean you mean don't noted noted.

bio warfare investor hunter biden hunter biden whose business concerns include bio bio weapon labs in ukraine that was definitely what hunter biden was doing when he wasn't doing code and shacking up with with gals and driving expensive cars what he was really into was bio weapons labs in ukraine we've all learned from our uncles i'm sorry ashley america's uncles this this is i'm back to ashley's message which is a message of love light and hope not the dark place that you and i just went andrew actually says this little imaginary radio show cannot not exist it's been my companion since i started listening in 2013 oh nelly so we're coming up on uh coming up on the 10-year anniversary would you call that a decade what is deck a deca

decade that means five deca means five plus six i believe when you wrote i forget it was it must

have been i think it was the show description of that day had me laughing or maybe it was like a tweet that you sent out because you know i like that you're doing that now where you tweet out the episode oh yeah and you'll write a little quick description yeah i believe it was the description that you tweeted out for the episode where we were just hopelessly hopelessly lost into the question of deca and all you know those whatever i've already forgotten what the exact specific terminology for that is but like the way that you described what we were talking about had me lulling wherever it was i was i was laughing so hard at that you know i wrote about

that in the newsletter but more recently i think you might be conflating i could be wrong not to not to um smell my own jokes here but um more recently i think it was gross i know really gross somehow that's even grosser um i think it was last week where we had a really painful conversation about cilia cilium silica oh you know what and so i tweeted that i'm looking at it so when i tweeted out the show i said luke and i expertly explained the difference between cilia psyllium silica and silicon on today's show it's a fun conversation that is as informative as it is relaxing for the listener that's exactly that was exactly what i was thinking get ready for a few laughs and some great information people were already pre-breaking their phones just

you know what andrew that's the vertical integration we need on this show we got to start selling phones have we talked about this before that's a really good idea why don't we I mean, we get people to break their phones because we're so annoying, and then we sell them the replacement.

If we sell them rubber phones, then bounce.

This is a billion-dollar idea.

Wait, no, that's no good, because if we sell them unbreakable phones, then, no, no, we need repeat customers here, just like my Wayfair chair.

It's planned obsolescence. Yes. And we've got to sell phones. They've got to be flip phones so that you can do that thing where you snap it in half at the kind of hinge. Yeah, it's like a burner. Because it's like really breaking an iPhone is kind of hard probably, but like we sell them phones that are very easily snapped. We also sell those hats that you punch through when your horse comes in or or when Tyler wins the election. We sell all manner of thing that then gets destroyed that we then can resell to the people.

I think that was sort of in our very, very first fundraiser TV telethon with American public media. I think that was sort of the idea, the original idea. I think it shifted. But behind the dolls, the little Luke and Andrew, tiny plush dolls, was that like when you got frustrated with us? Well, yeah. And then we realized that that's not really – that's not how we talk about things. But like the idea of like – Is that true?

Is that like a cultural appropriation or – because didn't somebody reach out to us and explain? Didn't somebody call us in on that and say that we don't – that's not really the right terminology anymore or something?

Yeah, I mean, I remember, I think we were like, oh, what if we had, like, voodoo dolls? And I even remember at the time being like, I don't know exactly why or how, but that doesn't sound right to me. And then in the meeting, it was, you know, somebody with APM, like the person we were working with, who I can't remember who it was at the time. Somebody great. Like, honestly, everybody we've worked with in that department has been great. But she was like, you know, we were just talking about it. Like, that doesn't sound right. And I'm like, yeah, that does not sound right. Not voodoo dolls. But so that's how we ended up having the cute little plush dolls. But I do think we still tried to market it as when you get frustrated with us, you can flick us in the head.

I don't think Ashley Wilson's ever done that because it's clear that Ashley loves us and the show. She says that she's been listening since 2013. She said, and I've gone back and listened to every period, single period, episode, period. What's your favorite? I bring chocolates when I fly. I have played pizza roulette with my friends and my 11 no longer asks why I'm laughing out loud with my ear.

buds in not today baby face not today hashtag episode 2289 is often quoted in our house finally thanks to lynn fam uh thanks to lynn fam i can listen to joel from chicago sing my beard is a face hider whenever i damn well please should we hear it's getting a lot of

shout outs in these dazzling donor messages i know people are just going to start donating Directly to marsupial gurgle And just bypassing THT But then Lynn will just donate it back here It's the circle of life Exactly and I'll donate it to on the media Do we want to hear a little bit of that My beard is a face hider song This is from listener Joel Which I think we just said Let me just play a little bit here This is like basically

I wake up in the morning And I roll out of bed I consider Shaving But there's too much face on my head Cause my beard is a face hider My beard hides my face My beard is a face hider My beard hides my face

Did he establish the original message? Is it on the record that he is doing a Ben Gibbard impression there?

I was about to ask you that. I can't remember. So it all started with me talking about how I have a beard on my face to hide how large my face is. And I coined the term, my beard is a face hider. I can't remember if you said on the show that sounds like a Ben Gibbard song or if Joel just made that song in the style of Death Cab for Cutie. I'm not sure exactly, but definitely, I mean, what else could it be, right? It's spot on.

It's very, very, very convincing. Good job, Joel. And good job to Ashley Wilson and also Laura Gherkin for being our dazzling donors today. Thank you so much. We would not be here without you.

Hello and welcome to Top Story.

Our top story today, Will Smith released an apology yesterday, apologizing to Chris Rock. By the way, I read by way of CBS News, if CBS News can be believed, Andrew, that ticket sales for Chris Rock's upcoming tour have skyrocketed. That makes sense. not that i mean of course i i don't think there's any universe in which this was something that chris rock was trying to invite or was hoping would happen but i you know i guess if that's a slight silver lining i mean he certainly his q score has gone up as if it needed to but he is was very has been very top of mind probably other than will smith the other person who we've been thinking about the most collectively i wonder how it feels to be vladimir zelensky i wonder if he heard about this like he's over there in ukraine like in his like in his green like military style t-shirt just going like i need more javelin missiles we need more help nato get in here and they're like you know what no one's paying attention to ukraine right now because uh two rich guys got in a fight during an award ceremony in the u.s luke not to be like um not to sound

pious or something but like i swear to god i had that thought on sunday night because because there was news coming out about him he he had just i think um you know kind of addressed the public i think right around the same time zelinski did and and um and was really kind of calling out western nations for not doing enough and kind of gave another really impassioned speech and it was and i was like my timeline was basically news reports about that and then everything else was the oscars related stuff and i really was thinking like like i was following them both but it i don't know all i can say is it kind of did give me a bad feeling and i thought i had that exact thought like what must that look like while people are literally just fighting to save their homes from an invading force like it's it is right not to say that like but i i'm honestly not making the argument here that like oh we can't talk about anything else because there's a war going on i mean that's not that's not practical either and we we are a and also like i truly do believe you know when people say like it's not you're not making the world a better place by constantly worrying all the time from your home in seattle or portland or cleveland or wherever you are because there's nothing you can really do about it it's good to be an informed citizen of the world and of the country but you also can't say like hey i'm not allowed to be uh watching tv right now unless it's related to the war because that's just that's not good for anybody's mental health. But while this was all going down, I really did have that thought just like, what must this look like from afar? Yeah.

I mean, in the in terms of the human tragedy that's going on in Europe, you know, this kind of this kind of very public moment that happened over here between two, again, fabulously wealthy people who were not getting along for whatever reason does definitely sort of pale in comparison in terms of overall importance. That being said, I am still fairly obsessed with this story because it's just, as I said yesterday, just so shocking on so many levels. Will Smith released an apology, I think by way of Instagram, where he said, violence in all of its forms is poisonous and destructive. My behavior at last night's Academy Awards was unacceptable and inexcusable. So I thought that was good because, you know, I mean, that just was he's just laying it out there. He's just saying it was inexcusable. But then he goes, jokes at my expense are part of the job. But a joke about Jada's medical condition was too much for me to bear, and I reacted emotionally. That feels to me a little bit like he's saying, you know, I can take it if you want to make fun of me, but you made fun of my wife, and then that just, I had no choice but to go up and slap you. Now, the thing about the situation with Jada Pinkett Smith and this alopecia, I guess, you know, condition that she has been dealing with, obviously that is unfortunate for her and something that i don't think anybody thinks would be in good taste to make fun of somebody who's dealing with any kind of a medical situation um i found the coverage of how well known this this was that that jada pinkett smith had had been dealing with alopecia there were so many stories that i saw that were all like her well known battle with alopecia i said this yesterday on the show i was like well what we do know is that chris rock didn't know about that i i would be shocked if chris rock was sitting backstage and he had just gotten done reading a write-up about uh jada pinkett smith's well-known battle with alopecia and then he went out and decided to make a gi jane joke i just think it's very unlikely that that's what was going on and i was trying to figure out how well known was this and all i can find is that you know jada pinkett smith has this youtube show called red table talk which i know over the years has had some real high profile guests and that's one of the places that she and will smith and their children have worked a lot of stuff out i know that there are a lot of people that watch that stuff or listen to it or whatever it is but that seemed to be the only place that i could find where she had ever mentioned it so it means if you were not watching red table talk if you were not as i am not a daily or weekly viewer of that thing it wasn't super public her battle with this thing which i guess i'm just like what annoys me is the way that the like sort of entertainment media has just taken this her well-known battle with and then because someone wrote it on at people magazine then when another kind of you know sort of not particularly well researched entertainment blog writes about this they then just go with her well-known battle with

and then it just becomes just becomes what everyone's saying but it's like is it that well-known has anyone sourced it back to where it was really being discussed it turns out it it'd be like well that's not a good example because we have so few listeners i would say It'd be like if we talked about something on TBTL and then we were like, they're well-known, they're well-known issues with buying presents that their loved ones have also already bought. Like, I just don't think that would be that well-known if we only discussed it here. And so I don't know why I'm obsessed with that point, but I just don't think it was that well-known.

Yeah, actually, I got a couple of things to say here. First of all, I actually want to respond directly to what you just said, but I do want to say also, like, it's I don't think there's ever been a story in pop culture that has ground me down and made me sick of it so quickly as this, because I experienced this on Sunday night in the way that I described yesterday. I wasn't watching it live. I saw it happen on Twitter kind of in real time or the news break in real time. So I watched it. I watched the unedited version. And I, you know, basically on the show said it was really upsetting. I just it was just an upsetting thing for me to watch. Right. And kind of had that reaction to it. And we talked about it a little bit. And then but I wasn't even that well versed in it. Well, that's kind of my brand. Right. Not being too well versed in the topics we talk about. Like I hadn't heard the actual joke that led up to it. I just heard it described. And I was and I didn't actually hear or see Will Smith's acceptance speech slash apology. But I had, again, read like the important quotes. And then you and I get on the show and we talk about it. And then I had to I was working on some other things. I had to do another podcast. So I just wasn't that was not related to any of this. So whatever. I just kind of in my little hole down here. And then I finally kind of emerge around five o'clock yesterday. And I start like kind of paying a little bit more attention to like social media. And I just realized that, like, everybody was angry at everybody else yesterday. Like, I've just – and I know that's kind of where we are in society right now. But, like, maybe it was –

just my timelines but like all i heard were people saying i'm the only one who's right here or everybody else is wrong about this and it wasn't like there was one opinion there were just a million different opinions and the the big one being and this is kind of where i this like i kind of dipped into this so late in the game that it was like i was already at the cycle where it was like nobody's allowed to talk about this anymore and like and especially white people which i understand that there is a racial element to this i'm not trying to totally dismiss that But like all of a sudden I open up my timelines and it's just all just like and I understand why because it was upsetting and there's a lot and there's all kinds of different cultural stuff going on here and different people have different takes. It almost like really kind of sunk me. I was like, oh, God, like this is just like I don't know. I was feeling really down yesterday. then I started like nobody really and we got a couple of messages from people who maybe didn't love some of the things nothing nothing bad like nobody was like really targeting us too bad or saying that we were way out of line or anything like that but just generally speaking just across the culture it was I was immediately just kind of exhausted by all of all of the fighting going on and all the people basically telling everybody else to shut up that I kind of I brought me down Then I turned on one hour of the Levitard show. I saw they had Jemele Hill on. And I was like, I'll bet you Jemele Hill is talking about this. And that was, like, so refreshing. Jemele Hill is a journalist. She's a black woman. And she was just – she had just such a refreshing take about it. She said, the first thing I did was I laughed. And then she, like, kind of ticked through all the various takes that people are having and how she's trying to kind of contextualize it herself because she's going to write a think piece about it. But she also wasn't – but she also wasn't, like, traumatized by this or whatever. It was just, like – it was just nice to hear her talk about it. And I felt a little bit better. All of that is to say, I just want to get that off my chest because I was feeling blue last night about all of this. But all of that is to say one thing that a lot of people are writing into us about that we didn't mention that is being mentioned everywhere else in the media is that Chris Rock did just produce and release a documentary about the cultural impacts of hair and the importance of black women's hair. And I think maybe I don't even know if I don't think his documentary focused just on women either. And so you there is an argument to say that, like, maybe we're past the point in society where when you're hosting or presenting at a major award ceremony, you don't make any jokes that are based on somebody's appearance. Actually, I would get behind that. Like, I don't that. You know, I'm not an I'm not an edgy comic. You might even say I'm not a comic. But like, I basically try not to comment on anybody's appearance, including our former president, by the way. I was always like, there's so much to say about that guy. I'm not even getting into how he looks. That's not even here nor there for me. And it almost diminishes other more important arguments. So I'm actually I'm actually like kind of on board with that. And I think there's a good argument to say, man, woman, whatever. Like, maybe we just don't have to be making jokes about people's appearance and we can avoid this altogether.

Although I will say I am with you that I had no idea about struggles with alopecia at all. Not that I'm very plugged into these kinds of conversations. Right.

Right. I think I think that you're right, that it's a good policy to just for when we're making jokes to just leave out the physical stuff because it almost never ends well with that. And also I find it so interesting because, again, it's such a lame joke. G.I. Jane, too, is such a it's it's not even it's it's not even like half of the people watching had to go. like what is a gi jane like you had to be old enough to have remembered that demi moore was in a film where she played a a marine recruit you know like it was again it sounded like the kind of joke we would make on this show by which i mean a lame joke also bad yeah it was not part of chris rock's routine in rehearsal so he definitely ad-libbed it that was the thing so um so that i don't know if that matters or is interesting but it was it struck me as something that just came into his head as he was walking out on stage but again it's a pretty lame joke so the fact that that's the thing that started all of this a joke that wasn't even particularly good it's just another weird element to this i mean if it was like a perfectly crafted and like speaking truth to power but but it was very edgy joke that might be one thing but it was just literally a dumb thing that came through chris rock's head as he was surveying the room as he walked out which again just sort of makes this thing even even weirder I know what you mean Andrew like as far as being I'm talking about how fascinated I am with this but I'm also like you kind of exhausted by it and you're right scrolling through Twitter and just seeing so many people weighing in on it and weighing in on it in a way that says this is how you're supposed to think about this and this is who should be talking about it and this who shouldn't be talking about it and if you said this you were wrong and people screen capping everyone else's tweets and being like of all the bad takes this is

the worst take and then it's like someone else's like i saw that somebody had in the very early moments after it had said well here's what i think will smith should have done he should have taken the microphone away from chris rock gently and then taken a moment to talk about alopecia and educate people which i don't think that was realistically going to happen but i also didn't think it was the worst i don't know i just have no opinion on that tweet well then someone who i follow screencaps and was like of all of the worst takes this is the worst take and then everyone's debating if that's the word if the take that said he should have educated people on alopecia is that the worst take or not then someone else is like no your take on if that's the worst take is the worst take exactly i mean it just it just becomes very uh kind of mobius snake is that is it a

mobius snake no i think it's a mobius strip mobius strip i think let me double check that i'm often wrong what is the snake snake eating its tail in a mobius but then mobius strip i think there's a

inflated them is a mobius strip also something that just kind of goes around in a circular and

never ends i'm gonna try to i'm gonna try to um take a stab at this mobius strip is the thing that's like if you took a piece of construction paper and you just like took a strip of it and you know kind of taped it like you were making a little crown for your head that's just like a ring that you made right but a mobius strip is kind of like that only it's like it's almost like an optical illusion where it's like it's twisted you know and so it's a continually looping thing but it's also got that like twist in it can you picture that yes that's the movie

now i've googled it it was named for a guy named mobius august ferdinand mobius and why is it why

is it important though as i'm describing this i'm like what is it like is it fundamental to now i'm Asking you, I don't expect you to know since you were asking me, but I'm trying to figure out, like, does it have to be made out of construction paper is the real question.

I don't think so. It's a surface that can be formed by attaching the ends of a strip of paper together with a half twist. As a mathematical object, it was discovered by Johann Benedict Listing and August Ferdinand Mobius in 1858. Mobius strip can be constructed in many forms. I'm trying to figure out, let's see. Actually, hold on one second here, Luke.

I'm tweeting out today's show Luke and Andrew have an informative And relaxing conversation

Will you include the link to where they can Buy new cell phones Will you include the link to our Amazon page where we are also selling Cell phones

Here I go once again With the email every week I hope that it's from a female Oh man it's not from a female

Oh we never got to talk About pickleball maybe tomorrow

Oh, yeah. Actually, I want to read into that a little bit because I heard it was something that was bouncing around. Ooh, bouncing around the legislature. Do pickleballs bounce? They bounce, right? We can talk about it tomorrow.

They bounce, but not as energetically as a tennis ball, which is part of what is kind of fun about pickleball is between the paddle and the ball both being a little more dead. It's kind of it's a little bit, I would say, easier to play. I mean, there are people that are really good at pickleball, and it's probably not easy to play against them, but it's a little bit more doable and accessible than, say, tennis, where if you hit the ball wrong, it's just like sprung. It's like out of the tennis court. This is something that's got a little more room for error because of the fact that it's like a wiffle ball and a paddle.

It sounds like the comparison might be a little bit like squash versus racquetball, right? Racquetball is more bouncy and squash is a dead ball.

Yes, but probably squash players will tell you that there's a ton of strategy and skill to squash And that ball being dead makes it harder at certain times Whereas with, you know what, I don't know We'll talk about it tomorrow

Squash is the only racket sport I've ever played I have a little bit of experience there But yes, in fact I was just putting, I was looking Yesterday I was wandering around my basement You get to a point in unpacking where you just find yourself wandering around the house with a bag containing three squash balls, one still in the box from 2004, and just wandering around saying, where do I put this? Where do I put this? Like, I just had lost all brain cells. I'm not even joking. But anyway, yeah, we'll talk about that tomorrow. I've never played pickleball, but I know we have a big fan of pickleball in our listening audience. We met her during our show-and-tell Zoom sessions a couple of years ago.

And I used to live in the pickleball district of Bellingham. Well, actually, we were just staying there. But, yeah, Carrie and I were staying with a friend who, within a block of her house, were two pickleball courts, like across the street from each other, in basically normal residential kind of yards, which was interesting.

Can you do me two favors? Can you? because I know I know that you're operating a road rig over there. Could you turn down the music a little bit? I think it's maybe a little bit loud over top of us or underneath us. And my second request is can you make the sound that you made a second ago when you were describing a tennis ball bouncing? Sproing. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. Thank you. Can I play a voicemail for you related to Costco? Please. All right. This is from listener Erica. Now, she's not calling in because she heard us talking about Costco earlier in this episode. That's not how the space time continuum works. This is actually related to that conversation we had a couple of weeks ago about like the, I guess, ethics around free stuff that you find maybe on the side of the road with a sign on it that says free. Like, can you claim dibs on something? We had a listener who saw a hutch that she really wanted, but some other person had put a note on it that said, I am taking this free hutch. Please leave it here and left her phone number on it. And so we were talking about that quite a bit. And that reminded Erica of Costco shopping.

Hey, friends. I was listening to the episode where you all are talking about finding free things on the side of the road. But I would like to talk about when you find the last thing at Costco. Because, you know, Costco, when it's the last thing, they may not be getting that back ever. So this has happened twice to me. Once with a saddle stool, and I literally sat on it and called my husband, who was across the store, to get a cart big enough. And I waited on that saddle stool, and people were passing me by. And, nope, they didn't get the saddle stool. The second thing...

That's a little bit hard to hear on this whole Bluetooth situation. I think she's saying a saddle stool? Is that what you heard as well? Yeah, that's what it sounded like to me. Okay, cool, yeah. So she wanted this stool as the last one, so she's just sitting on it waiting for her husband, and then a similar thing happened later.

It was a wooden, like, rocking chair, and I was hugely pregnant. Nothing was comfortable, but that chair was comfortable, and it was the last one. So I sat in that and actually let him shut up, and then he came back and got me in the rocking chair. So last time I called, I forgot to say my name. So this is Erica from Arlington. And I hope you all are having a great day. And keep on signing the free stuff. Bye.

Thanks, Erica. You know, that's something that we learned the hard way. I didn't realize that that was Costco's whole thing. Genevieve was all excited. She found some new cat food there on her inaugural voyage through Costco. And it was like these small cans of cat food that had like real like it seemed like real fish in it. It was like not processed at all, but it was like, you know, suitable for cats. And it was really good. And we're giving it to Professor Bananas. And then Genevieve went back to Costco to get some more. And she's like, oh, apparently the thing is they have what they have in the moment and they do not have that stuff anymore. I didn't realize. See, I'm learning about the culture, Luke. Yeah, you are.

It's going to be a whole new world for you. Sorry, by the way, about the background noise. It was so cold in this room that I have opened the sliding door out to the balcony so as to warm things up in here because I was starting to – actually, my teeth were chattering. I have the AC on too much. Oh, okay. Anyway, that's why it sounds a little different here. Yeah, this is a real new phase in your life, Andrew. As a Costco family now, you can enjoy the world of the Costco hot dog, the Costco pizza, and also just the culture there. Now, I do think that it's kind of a bad idea to offer things like pet food. I mean, I know Costco's not legally obligated to continue to sell the same kind of pet food, but anyone who's had a pet knows that if you get a pet on a kind of food that works for them, that's a whole thing. Like, oh, yeah, it agrees with them, and maybe it helps them keep their weight down or whatever, gives them energy. And then when you switch that up, it can be a whole thing. It's like, you know, they might again, they might be sick, they might throw up, they might not like it. So to offer a kind of food and then just be like, we don't have it anymore. That seems like that's kind of a bad idea.

Does that scan with what you know of Costco, though, as far as like small items like that? Because it sounds like, you know, from from Erica's voicemail, like, OK, larger items like specific chairs, maybe grills, maybe other appliance kinds of things. Maybe they come and go and they don't come back. But is that true? Like, is there a chance that they just happen to be out of this cat food when Genevieve went back? Or is that what you know about Costco as well? Like things like, you know, even paper towel brands or whatever household items, they can just kind of come and go. And it's sort of random based on supply.

You know, Andrew, other than you, I know the least about Costco of probably anybody. This is not a good partnership based on talking about Costco because I have probably been to Costco five times in my life. And, in fact, I've never had my own Costco car.

I think we're using Carrie's parents' Costco card to occasionally go there. But I have never needed that many blueberry muffins. I've never needed a flat of blueberry muffins in my life. Sorry, Hawaii Five-0 out here. It's really what a theater for the ears. Man, something's really up out there. Anyway I have never I just haven't ever needed Things in the large enough quantity To justify having a Costco membership And so I don't know I don't know how to answer that question Because I'm sure somebody out there who's got kids And like Costco they go to Costco every week And they've got all their systems I'm sure somebody knows the answer to it But I am just not that somebody

I just had an idea I'm going to do this And I'm going to report back tomorrow Okay this is going to be the narrative arc Across two shows here This is how If anybody wants to know how you podcast This is how you create a moderately successful podcast. I'm going to go to Costco today. You said Costco hot dog. I am so hungry right now. And what I'm going to do is I am going to wrap up here. I'm going to get the show posted. And then I'm going to go to Costco for the very, very first time. Now, you know, I feel like my first time at Costco, I should go with Genevieve. I feel like it should be a couple's experience, especially since she went by herself the first time. She could be kind of my guide. But I kind of like that. So there's like a kitchen area in a Costco, like an Ikea. I can sit down and eat Costco food like right now if I head over there. All right, I'm doing it.

Yeah, and you don't even have to go through – the thing that's cool is you don't have to like go through the checkout line or anything like that. You could walk directly into the Costco and then instead of going right to where all the stuff is, you could go left to where all the food is. And they've got like – I mean they've got those pizzas that we generously provided to the listeners at the boat show. And by generously I mean used their money They paid for the tickets to buy the pizza Because we were legally obligated

We found out the day before Because we were serving booze And we had to serve food

They have the famous hot dog They have I think something called a chicken bake Which I used to really kind of like Back when I ate that sort of stuff Which is like a hot pocket But like a better hot pocket But it's got chicken in it and some other stuff They got a whole bunch of things My understanding and we've talked about this in years past on the show is that i think all of that food is a loss leader for them um they also sell rotisserie chickens i don't think there but in another part of costco they sell rotisserie chickens that are so cheap it's like under five dollars for a rotisserie chicken um which also is a loss leader for them um but yeah people really love the like costco pre-prepared food that you can buy like after you're done shopping there are people and i totally get this by the way for whom The highlight of their Saturday is The shopping is done I'm sitting I'm eating my Costco hot dog I'm blissed out And I Again I 100% get that Because that's That's the kind of stuff that I do as well Just with In you know Different places But I get that So anyway yeah I'm excited for you to go have a Costco hot dog My friend

I'm going to do it I feel like Let's see If I get over there by like 2 o'clock On a Tuesday afternoon That must be like a That must be a good time to go Right It won't be super crowded You just mentioned like going on a Saturday That sounds overwhelming to me Yeah I guess you wouldn't know

See previous comments.

But I feel like 2 o'clock on a Tuesday is a good time to go to Costco.

You'll probably see my parents there. Drinking lattes, right? Drinking lattes. For a while, of course, they were going to Ikea because they could get lunch at Ikea for like under $2. Am I confusing?

Is that where they got the lattes?

I can't remember. They go back and forth. They eat at Ikea sometimes and they eat at Costco sometimes. Anyway. You know what, Andrew? I have to pee so bad I had to pee before we started the show Have you ever done that? I was like It'll be fine and then about Halfway through the show I realized No this is a situation but I didn't want to stop I didn't want to pause things I just powered through Am I a hero? That's not for me to decide But I am someone who is about to pee They're running shorts Andrew So maybe this is a good time for us to wrap the show up

I did that yesterday with Spotless if I can forward promote or not forward promote just promote another podcast here not for any of the content but if if you're a discerning listener notice how i start talking faster and faster and faster throughout the show it's because i was in the exact position you were in today luke where i started off thinking like i should probably go before the show but i don't want to make hannah wait so uh let's just uh let's just do this and then by the end of the show i'm like talking a mile a minute i realized Because I just had to go to the bathroom So okay

I remember my days of being a radio producer And I mean that's the kind of job When you're doing the live You know five days a week live radio Leading up to the show You're just extremely focused Because you just got to get all this stuff done Because that you know It's going to be time to do the show Whether you're ready or not And I just remember like

having days where i was like why am i so anxious right now and i just realized oh it's because i haven't peed all day because i have to go i have to go to i have to go number one and i've been holding it in because i've been trying to book uh you know like jeff duchin the whatever medical director for king county all day and i haven't taken a moment to go use the restroom and then i go pee and then i'm like you know what i feel great now i don't have a care in the world suddenly the world seems so much more manageable. Yes, exactly. Why was I just having massive anxiety? Well, it was because my bladder was full of urine. Alright, I'm going to go relieve my anxiety right now, but I'm going to thank you all for listening to this episode of the show. We're going to be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you. Are you laughing?

That's our new, you know, we have just a minute Ron for one bodily function. That's our new code word for having to pee. I'm going to go release some anxiety.

Yeah, and I am going to. So that brings us to the end of today's show. We'll see you tomorrow with more of this imaginary radio. Until then, have a great Tuesday. Stay safe, take care of yourselves, and please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

I'd be on the bathroom pee-peeing, and he'd be standing right there pee-peeing. It was hilarious, and we were both pee-peeing at the same time. It's fun. Power out.