Muse

Excuse me. Hi. You're Casey Kasem. You're unbelievable. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. No, no, no. Seriously, I'm telling you. You blow me away. Why, it's really nice of you to say that. No, no, no. I'm telling you what you do. It's really amazing. It's fabulous. Yes, well, can we give you... No, no, no. I'm telling you. I'm telling you what you do. I really get it. I get what's going on with you. It's amazing. Really. Great stuff. Yes. No, no, no. Really. Tell me a favor. Say, coming in this week at number one, it's Lionel Richie. It's stuck on you. I really don't think I can do that. No, no, no. Come on, do it. Seriously, do it. Come on, do it. Coming in at number one this week is Lionel Richie was stuck on you. That's great. All right, through Shaggy from Scooby-Doo. TBTL!

So, maybe this isn't exactly the most polished radio broadcast you've ever heard.

It's not that bad, honestly. It is, but it's not.

I swear, every time this guy talks, all I hear is a turkey goblin. Huh. Me.

from the street. Sounds like a fun treat. I'm a poet and didn't even know I was rhyming those

words. That's not how it works. That's not how any of this works. All right. Hello. Good morning

and welcome everyone to a Monday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

The vibes will be the illest, and the jams, gnar-a-dick.

My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host. Yeah, oh yeah, buddy. Coming to you from the Hollywood Broadcast Center right here in Portland, Oregon, where the rain is moving in. Didn't know you like to get wet, though. Looking like it's going to be a not-dry Monday here as we arrive together at episode 3664 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. Oh, this is fun on a Monday. We've got a big announcement, everyone.

Attention, everybody, madames and Miss Woz.

We're going to be talking about the plan for the upcoming TBTL-a-thon 13. That's right. We are just a little over a month away from this year's big week of celebrating TBTL and having lots of fun and also, side note, trying to keep this whole thing going financially. So we're going to talk about the plan for that in just a few minutes. Also, we've got show news, and then I have a little bit of personal news. I've got lots of news. Don't worry. It's okay. I feel like the last few times I've mentioned I have personal news in the show, it's been something intense. This is not intense. This is just something that happened over the weekend that I thought was kind of fun, that I'm excited about. Then things that people are not excited about, if your name is Andrew, having your birthday celebrated at work.

My birthday today.

A Kentucky jury has awarded someone nearly half a million dollars because his work insisted on celebrating his birthday when he asked them not to. Legal scholars are calling this the Andrew Walsh precedent. And by legal scholars, I mean me. And I mean no legal scholars. Hey, speaking of Andrew Walsh, guess who he is? He's the longest-running Cobra of the show. He may be best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He lives his life by one simple motto

Life's a potty, wipe your body

Sometimes up to twice a day He's joining us right now from the Sweet Cream District of Seattle, Washington Good morning, my friend

Good morning, Luke Couple of caveats here I know we have some big announcements to get to today I do not want to, I don't know, forestall that If I'm using forestall correctly But

I think you are

I do have I really want your opinion on something But I don't want this to turn into, like, local hot take radio. But I legit had been thinking about you. And I want your opinion. I want your, as they say, hot take on this, if it is at all hot. Especially as somebody who grew up here in Seattle and grew up a Mariner's fan here in Seattle and buys into tradition. I want you to know, by the way, that I keep my takes.

And this is, I think, the difference maker. When I'm bringing my takes around, I keep them in one of those insulated bags. I got it from a short, short stint I did with DoorDash. And that just means that when I get to your house or apartment and I pull the take out, it's still warm because I've kept it in that. A lot of people don't do that. A lot of people just throw it in the passenger seat of the car and drive their takes around. I strive to keep them hot as I'm bringing them to your house.

I put a little plastic doohickey in the middle of my takes so that they don't get smashed.

Oh, like a doll table.

It looks like a little doll's table. Yeah, exactly. And also sometimes what I do is I have a styrofoam little container where it keeps hot stuff hot and cold stuff cold. Because sometimes, I don't know if you know this, sometimes I have cold takes as well. I've been known to roll those out from time to time. In fact, today may be a good example of that. Let me get to my point. Did you know?

Oh, and do you know you have a prediction?

I have a prediction. I just saw one line somewhere, and I was shocked, and I thought, this can't be the case. I believe I saw a mention on Twitter about this.

That is where it is being discussed. I could not find one news article about this, which surprises me, assuming we're talking about the same thing.

Is it really true that at the Seattle Mariners baseball games, they have now stopped going from take me out to the ballgame into Louie Louie? by the Kingsmen?

Well, there's one more detail on top of that. Let me just tell you what I know and what I don't know and what I think I know and what I think I don't know. Okay, did you follow that Rumsfeldian logic? Okay, so I was not at any of the games for the Mariners' first homestand this weekend, but I was following them and following them on Twitter as well. And it seemed that on opening night, there was a, I'm going to call them celebrity, in the house, if you will. And it was one Macklemore, the Macklemore, Macklemore, the rapper. And so apparently instead of playing Louie Louie after the seven or during the seventh inning stretch, as has been the tradition for, I think, forever, they my lifetime, certainly. Yeah, they played a Macklemore song and some people thought, oh, this isn't right, but maybe they're just celebrating him because he's in the house but then i think as the weekend went on they continued to do that even after he had left the house and so um there is now we don't know if this was an experiment if this was an actual change so it's not just to me people are focusing on the loss of louis louis which i'll be honest and this is where my takes just get slightly warmer i don't care about that too much i'm not a huge fan of that song i think i know there's a local connection i think it's fine i know there's a local connection to it and i know it's a tradition it's fine but i would not get up in arms about them changing that to something good uh or something equally as good or whatever i didn't mean that as a slam i just mean that if but macklemore as i say it or macklemore as maybe it's supposed to be said Like, are you kidding me? And this is where I do not want to yuck other people's yums. If you like the stylings of Macklemore, enjoy it. Have fun. But to me, there's something so, well, to use a football analogy, swing and a miss about this. because you're messing around with a lot of tradition that people feel strongly about, and your decision is just to say, well, we need something that is more up-to-date. Grunge is pretty old now, too, so let's just check our notes here. What was the last musician to have a top-ten single? I guess it was Macklemore, somebody that society has mostly kind of forgotten about. Like, I hear he's a good guy. God love him. But, like, you can't replace a tradition with something so goddamn corny and milquetoast. Like, it just seems so Seattle just to be, like, to put so much local pride into something that is so, so deeply mediocre at best.

I understand how they would have arrived at, by the way, I'm emailing our friend Greg Green at the Mariners as we speak to try to get confirmation on this. I doubt that this is where the Mariners as a franchise are going to decide to break that news. but uh regardless or i could call rebecca hale who is the long time one of the long time pr folks she's retiring today she has nothing to lose andrew literally today literally today because i heard on one of the broadcasts they were saying monday is her last day after many many years with the team and she was someone who was quite kind to us over the years as well she might be the person to go to because she might just blow the lid off the whole thing

do you think that she just wanted to see the opening home stand it seems like a strange probably retire but maybe it's like hey one more opening home stand each row throws out the first

pitch i want to be in my i want to i would guess that was exactly what it was because it sounds like it was a quite celebratory weekend down there at the ballpark but uh anyway i can understand if you're going to drop so for for folks that aren't from the northwest or haven't been to a mariners game the deal has been since i was a wee lad that they of course play take me out to the ball game At the seventh inning stretch Per I think almost every baseball team But then it would always And you know so you the crowd Everybody sings along Old ball game And then you hear Do do do do do do do do do And it just goes into Louie Louie That's just always been the thing Do I think Louie Louie is a good song No Hold on let me open this bag It's so hot Andrew it's burning my hand My take is so hot No, I don't think Louie Louie is a good song person se but what it is is a tradition and if you are someone who's gone to thousands of mariners games in your life it's just part of the sonic architecture of the experience and like many things that are traditional like that it doesn't even matter to me if it was a good song to start with it now is the song and there's some kind of pleasure that washes over me when i am at a mariner's game be it in the kingdom be it in what was called safeco field or what was called t-mobile park or did it have another name after safeco and before t-mobile i don't think so severance park um anyway that's because it was a deep severance joke because the the company they work for is called lumen but anyway i there's just something about being in the stands at a mariner's game when the first few notes of louis louis kick in that just tells me i'm home and so changing i mean changing that first of all is to me kind of a bold move and i don't let me put it this way to the degree that major league baseball and maybe the mariners although this weekend was an example was not an example because they sold a lot of tickets but over the last 10 15 seasons the mariners have not had hugely great attendance because their teams have often been kind of lousy on the field i can't think that the issues with putting butts in seats was that people were like i would go to that game but i hate it when i hear louie louie after the seventh inning stretch so the idea of refreshing it or updating it so as to make this a more fun experience for the fans i mean i don't know i guess things change at some point all of that being said andrew i'm not surprised they went with macklemore because what else are you going to go with what are you going to go with a different song from the 50s you're going

to go with a song by heart but how in the world i mean honestly heart i i actually think heart potentially would be better because at least I understand you don't want to go back too far the whole point is you're updating it but you can't just flip back your notebook to the last person because it's just so how long do you think this is going to last if this is indeed a change that it is it's like permanently like the idea is it's just I don't even know what Macklemore song it is going forward maybe it's the one where he talks about his white privilege that would be awesome but did you remember that slow earnest song yeah I hope God I hope that was the song they used well But like Heart at least has some staying power Like there's no way you went into this saying like This is our new Louie Louie Macklemore is going to be like our new Kingsman That is we're going to play this going forward for the next 30 years Like there's just no way that is going to last for 30 years

I think you greatly underestimate the popularity of Macklemore Within the Seattle musical community And I will say this I am generally like most of the Macklemore songs I hear Are just totally fine by me i did think thrift shop was kind of a banger i remember living in la and hearing that song and just being blown away because you know ben macklemore was just i mean very much a local kid who would remember we had him on talking about his mariner song he wrote we had him on ross and burbank i don't remember and maybe maybe vague maybe maybe that was after your time he had one he lived around the corner from the radio station i've told this story many times but he drove this old volvo which would lose one tire was losing air and every morning when i would drive in i would note how much air one of the time this one tire had lost and uh and he was just i mean a very like very accessible gettable dude and and seemed like generally a sweet guy and i i stand by that and i think you know the muse a lot of that music is not necessarily for me but people love it in seattle and i'm sure the thought from the mariners if this is and again i've I'm trying to fire this email off Although again I'd be really shocked if If I get a response right away But I feel like if you're trying to pick a song That's Or something that's iconic in Seattle And that people are going to groove to Macklemore makes as much sense as anybody else And maybe more sense than Some of the other options from Seattle So it's just It's very much not your music So I think it's maybe hard for you To like fully understand And I bet you in that stadium, other than the old crust, old crust punks like me, I bet you the vast majority of people were just vibing with that song and were very stoked about it. And, you know, and we'll be maybe listening to it for years to come.

Well, I mean, to say like, it's not like this isn't my type of music. I mean, it's hip hop. I like plenty of hip hop. And I actually think that, like, if they actually just played like Ryan. I mean, this is me just maybe digging in the details here. Like, yeah, I like his hits because I like the beats that are behind them. I think the rapping is actually and again, I know he's a very nice guy and that's fine. I don't, you know, I guess I'm blowing the chances of having Macklemore on TBTL, which I apologize for.

I'll just I'll do it on a day. you're not here that's that's fine but like and i understand that he is a very nice person with a nice story and i i really like those songs because they have amazing hooks and i think that ryan lewis is a tremendous producer i don't think that macklemore is that great of a rapper i don't think that without ryan lewis's production that those are popular songs i don't think it's actually on macklemore's merits and that's maybe what bothers me is it just it does seem like and new hampshire was kind of like this as well seattle chooses um well maybe it doesn't choose but it's kind of like seattle will just latch on to something because it's local not necessarily because it makes sense and to me it's like everywhere does that yeah i mean you're probably right but we're but then we have to play the hand we're dealt right and i feel like seattle actually has like i mean you go back you have jimmy hendrix you have ben gibbard you have like all kind you You know, and then, of course, the whole grunge thing. But with the exception of the grunge era, maybe part of the issue, too, is Seattle has never really created a sound. You know, you got Baby Got Back. I was at a bingo night on Friday, on Saturday night. And, you know, so, of course, they were, like, pumping up the crowd with Baby Got Back. Because why? It's local. And it's just kind of like there isn't a – I don't know. It just seems like – it always just sort of seems like weak tea to me, to be honest with you. Like trying to trying to grab onto these things because they're local. You're right. Everybody does it. But I think maybe other places have things that work better.

Well, everyone does it to the degree of every the smaller that a town is or the smaller the place is, the more they do it. So, for instance, if you're in New York or L.A., there is less pressure to embrace someone because they wrote a song about New York or because they're from New York, because there's a lot of people, you know, that would fit that description. if we're talking about a smaller town like seattle which i mean sales not dinky or anything you know what i mean there's more of a likelihood that you're going to the smaller the places the more that you have to obsess over the like the breakout acts that come from your area um but again i just feel like i this is i think to me that the the the truly wild part of this is that they're they're actually pulled the trigger on replace if they did on replacing louis louis because for people my age that's and who have been going to the games forever that is it's like singing you know sweet caroline at fenway and i don't know how far back that tradition goes but i know at this point that's a really big deal for people that go to those games it's so clearly the decision that was made was we there's a bunch of people that are under the age of 30 that are at these games that don't have any long kind of personal history with louis louis happening and it's a song from the 50s or whatever that's a not you know something that would be burning up the radio charts right now at some point we need to otherwise i mean i guess because if you don't change it at some point it's a hundred years from now and it'd be as if you were just playing an old scratchy edison recording going like you know i don't know like at some point the i think we did we even talk about this we did one time you were trying we were trying to think of a

different song that was a replacement right yeah because i'm not i i don't remember if we took it in that direction but i remember like kind of being on the record saying hey i i'm you know louis louis is fine but i'm also fine if i never hear that song again i think it's got an interesting history it's got that it's got that mess up in the middle of it that they just left in which i think is is funny and good like i don't have anything against that song i've just heard it a lot and i've always said yeah replace it i think that the i think that the um sweet caroline example is absolutely perfect like that is something that is a rich tradition it has as far as i know neil diamond has nothing to do with boston it's not like right you know he's a new york guy in fact i don't know if i don't do boston and new york ever play each other um it's just like somehow like that just worked for them and that's why i sort of feel like seattle just having to be like well it has to be local that's number one it has to be local i'm just like i wouldn't start there i would just say it has to resonate and just by somebody's like zip code growing up or area code growing up i i just think that people right overestimate the value of that

when trying to figure out a new tradition or a song that's just maybe not even from a seattleite but feels deeply seattle like this is what i would go with

hey baby i hear the blues are calling toss salads and scrambled eggs mercy how perfect is it a bit confused yeah maybe but i got your pegs but i don't know what to do with those tossed salads and scrambled eggs they're calling again is that really kelsey grammar did i think it is yeah and how great is it that we had a player named frazier who got like what six rbi on friday and who i was telling you we need to definitely

cut i have okay we could i don't want to get uh too into sports talk because Of course, we tend to want to do that, and then I tend to want to just spend the rest of the show dissecting batting averages. But I will just say this, Andrew. It is really official. I have the ability to change the future when it comes to Seattle Mariners players because all I have to do is grumble to you privately about how much one of them is sucking, and then they will immediately go on a tear. i was the two players i was the most upset with coming out of well the three players i was the most upset with coming out of the chicago series were mitch hanniger um jared kalanick and adam frazier who all had like pretty bad series and then they all just proceeded actually might have even the hanniger might have even hit a home run in a chicago game like after i had like besmirched him to you and the group so uh out there hey if anybody needs me to change the future for them Just give me a topic, and I'll say something about it, and then we can know the opposite will happen.

Yeah, and that's why I'm always – I believed in our boy Durs' power of negativity during Seahawks seasons. Eventually, that just wore off, and the Seahawks just became straight-up frustrating. But, like, I sort of feel like Durs – Oh, you wear the mask long enough, as we've been saying a lot recently. Durs would just –

You wear the face mask long enough, and eventually –

I think that we should put Durs in the Seahawks Hall of Fame. I think we should retire his flannel shirt because, like, I feel like he has powered more Seahawks wins with his negativity about the team. And then they'll just, like, turn around the second he's like, it's over. End of an era. I'm like, it's 2013. So anyway, yeah, no, I that's why our text changes are so much different. We talked about this briefly off air, like during the football season, you're like you're extremely optimistic, which I see that as well, too. i i'm i'm weirdly optimistic and pessimistic at various times i can go really kind of hot or cold um but uh but i also don't mind like i i like the pessimism sometimes too um but like during football season you're just like no we got to keep the nose up on this like but then during baseball season you're just like i am going to keep the nose down i'm gonna murder every single

man i'm gonna hunt them down and kill here's the thing here's the thing this doesn't make any sense but somewhere in the back of my brain this is the difference there's only 17 football games each one is massively important it's like a relatively small sample size and so somehow in my brain well first of all every football game felt winnable when we had russell wilson like we could somehow do it and also it seemed i don't know why i can't this is not logical but my brain says we have to be positive for the seahawks because there aren't that many of these events and we have to just try to see how we might pull it off baseball season is long there's 162 games there's so many like somebody somebody could be batting really badly for a month and figure it out and then end up this you know having an effective season etc there's something and I can't I can't put it into words but there's something about the difference in how the season works that in my mind what I'm saying Adam Frazier just doesn't or I'm saying like even you know somebody like j-rod who i love that kid being out there but i'm like a lot of times rodriguez doesn't look like he is really like he just looks like he's someone hasn't played a lot of major league baseball and me pointing that out doesn't feel as destructive and i'm putting that in air quotes as der's saying russell wilson will never be the same again like one quarter into a game i don't know why i can't explain it but in my mind one of those things is possibly damaging to our chances and the other is just normal venting and i'm i'm the first to admit there's no consistency

in these theories let me ask you a question it's funny that i lost track of this where did russell wilson end up going because he's not with the seahawks anymore is he he is i don't let me

i gotta go to espn you know what i'm gonna go to espn.com and i'm gonna check up on it while we do this break and then we come back uh well we'll announce where russell wilson is and we'll make some other important tbtl announcements in a moment stay with us 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 who are making today's episode possible with their donation of dough each month. It's a significant contribution to what we're trying to do. Let me just say that. I've got to start by thanking Jack Eckert in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Jack says, just a shout out to that unknown woman in a bookstore 50 years ago who told me that reading was like traveling without money and then encouraged me to pick up The Hobbit. Things just haven't been the same since. Wow.

It's like a 16-word story or whatever it is. Yeah.

Yeah, it's so compelling. You want to know more, but the beauty of the story is in its simplicity.

That's just, I mean, so first I thought this was going to be somebody that maybe Jack was married to. You know, maybe that's how he met his partner or something. It sounds like he doesn't even, he calls him an unknown person. Just someone in a bookstore said something that to some degree changed the course of his life.

Traveling, I'm sorry, reading is like traveling without money. and traveling is like reading with money i've always said reading is like traveling without pants wait huh be careful where you're doing it it's all about the journey uh yeah no i love that story i love that that stuck with him i'm trying to think too i don't think i don't know that i have anything in my life i actually probably do i just can't think of it in the moment but like little little turns of phrase or little bits of advice that you pick up from time to time it just sort of sticks with you and you carry it around i mean it sounds like this shaped jack it also sounds like it might have gotten jack really into the loader verse which is we explain why jack is

a big fan of tvtl obviously i mean this is also something that's probably more voluminous than it needs to be um there are all kinds of weird niche characters that uh you know have involved

backstories that i've created i just meant because we know so much about lord of the rings and we're you know it's interesting to hear us talk about that universe we also have a samarillian

i even say that right i think so i don't know we also have a one sam rao sam why who was the guy there was a guy who was the head of the olympics the ioc i think his name was juan samarao oh i don't know anyway oh what i really want to say is jack thank you and man i wish that there was a way well i don't know why this is my instinct andrew that it's like this is a cool story from jack and it's just a cool story that it's it is what it is but i'm also my brain goes to like wouldn't it be cool if we could find that person who gave jack that advice and just kind of say to them hey this changed the course of my life but i mean it doesn't have to be that either we don't have to always you know put a bow on things also my guess would be if jack were able to reconnect with this

person she would have no memory of having yes or it might be something that she says a lot no no now we're making it not special no no i don't think that that makes i i mean maybe if i did make it that way i but i didn't say that making it feel that way like there might be somebody who kind of had maybe that's kind of a guiding principle for her and she thinks about it when she's in bookstores and she maybe mentions that to people from time to time it does to me that doesn't make it less special the fact i think it would even be even more special to her to know that you know at least one person you throw out a lot of seeds right and then you see what is going to take root i think that's in the bible maybe it's in the hobbit i

can't remember but um it's in first bilbo chapter three but anyway i think it would mean i i still

think it would be special to know that that really you know took root with someone absolutely well

jack to the degree that that conversation 50 years ago in a bookstore helped shape the person you became in such that you became a tbtl dazzling donor yeah we thank you and we thank that unknown woman who may or may not have been a ghost maestro that was always like in the christian circles that i grew up in not ghost but angel i mean that was there was lots of versions of stories of like a child coming to someone's door on a rainy night and knocking and saying please my you know my dad's in a car crash he's down the street and then they go get the guy and he's hurt and you know it's like your daughter came and then it's like my daughter died four years ago yes a lot of those stories circulating in the christian community that i came up in

also i think a plot in a lot of john saul novels that i read as a young man could be wrong i wonder

if that kind of supernatural conversation is what kind of i don't want to say ruined me but what made it why i am now so so so um i'm such a disbeliever of all things sort of quote unquote supernatural i don't believe in ghosts i don't believe in astrology i don't believe in you know channeling people from the other side i just don't believe in anything supernatural it's just personally that's just my personal belief by the way it was it was sort of cute yesterday remember i talked about my dad whenever we get together as a family we have dinner he likes to kind of slide a prayer in because that's still important to him and my mom but he's always trying to do it diplomatically because he knows that we're all kind of in different places with what our particular sort of faith stuff is and so yesterday it's like easter and the hawk squad is popping off happy easter everyone sent around little pictures and then my dad just slides in a he is risen it was like and he did it at like two and i was like that guy was waiting all day like he You want to do it at 9 a.m.

I mean, that guy is probably up at like 5.30 a.m. drinking a black coffee in the kitchen on a Sunday. Hardcore dad style. But like, you know, at 5 a.m. he would have sent a he is risen. But he didn't want it to be like the first thing on the chain. So we should have waited till other things were percolating.

Waiting all day for an Easter night. Except in this case, the night is at 2 p.m., which that is when night comes on Easter, I think.

He wrote, he is risen, exclamation point. And then I like couldn't resist. I'd respond. I mean, I thought, again, I find that my dad has a faith life that matters to him. I think that's great for him and my mom. I really do. And, like, I appreciate that they have that for themselves, but they're not trying to constantly proselytize to me and my siblings any longer. It seems like everything is at kind of a good point. But even so, I have to always kind of give him a little grief. So he wrote, he has risen. And I go, Dad, I've been up for hours.

Did he lull? Did he give you an emoji?

He didn't, but this is what happened. And so then I was, like, texting with my sister Sarah, and I was like, do you think that hurt dad's feelings when I made that joke? She was like, no, it was probably fine. So then I had to write, like, JK, JK, happy Easter, everyone. And then my sister Hannah wrote in a thing, and she was like, what movie is this from? Don't you know I've had diarrhea since Easter's? Which is a famous saying in my family. That's from the movie Nacho Libre. And so then I attached a photo of Nacho Libre, and then my dad said, good job, Luke, which I think was about me getting the trivia question right.

Ah, I see. Okay.

But it was a subtle – this is the way that, like, family dynamics play out. It was, like, a subtle way of us all letting each other know that everything is okay. My dad did a thing that was genuine to him. I did a little joke, but I didn't mean for it to be joking too hard. And then he was like – you know what I mean? Yeah, and then he had to signal to you that you're okay.

Or that you as you two are okay in a relationship. I don't think this is where I should take the conversation today. We don't have to talk about religion the day after Easter. But there is there is to me as somebody who is not religious at all right now, but grew up in a, you know, very Catholic family and was an altar boy and all those things like Easter does seem like only a religious holiday to me. Like, and maybe this is partially due to my relationship with Genevieve as well. I would probably skip out on a lot of Christmas traditions, too, if Genevieve weren't so into, you know, the kind of cultural, the cultural version of Christmas. She's not religious either, obviously. But for us, like, we don't and we also don't have kids. Maybe it would be different if we had kids and there was just like, hey, you know, we need to dye eggs together or something. But, like, for me, there is – so I guess I'm just saying, like, when your father texts that out, like, that makes a lot of sense to me. As somebody who's not religious right now, I actually think that it is – I don't know. I can't explain it. It's hard for me to understand celebrating the holiday without celebrating the religion behind the holiday, whereas I've been able to make that leap with Christmas easier.

Uh-huh. Did that make sense? I can see that. Yeah, because like you said, Christmas is a whole thing that we have all bought in on culturally. You go to the store now in mid-July, and you start seeing the stuff, and there's just so much tradition around it. I mean, I guess the Easter bunny is Santa for Easter, but there's just more culturally going on around Christmas than just the virgin birth of a child, whereas Easter is very much about you know Jesus like you know rising from the dead or whatever we grew up in a version of Easter where it was 100% he has risen and 0% eggs we weren't even allowed to do egg hunts which was kind of because that's like some other tradition what happened well my childhood was always like hey here's the fun part of this holiday let's go ahead and Let's miss ourselves with that. Christmas, presents, who needs them? Let's talk about the virgin birth. Easter, nobody wants that chocolate and eggs. Let's just have an Easter cantata that's four hours long at Gospel Outreach, led by the Darlene Stevenson, where it's just this like epically long Easter song fest.

Now, what about the kind of dark days leading up to, We're just really digging into, I guess, Christianity and Catholicism now.

Andrew, this is exactly what dazzling donor Jennifer Gregerson asked for.

But out of curiosity, was it more of a Catholic thing that there was a lot of emphasis on the Good Friday and everything that leads up to Easter Sunday in your family as well? No, there was much less of that. Good Friday was huge, and we'd go to Mass, and I was an altar boy, and the Stations of the Cross and all of that.

No, we were just, we cut right to the stone was rolled away. Gotcha. It was sort of like, you know, he's born at Christmastime. Well, that was another issue my parents had was supposedly like that, you know, December was probably not when this historical figure of Christ was actually born. So that was another reason why they were a little bit down on Christmas. But the idea was, yeah, he was born, did some stuff. And then by April, we're ready to talk about the stone being rolled away. Although, as somebody wrote online somewhere, you know, if I was the person guarding the tomb and then I just, like, fell asleep and all of a sudden the stone was rolled away and dude was gone, I'm tendering my resignation right then and right there. Like, you had one job. Yeah, well, you're getting fired, more likely. A hundred percent. You're guarding this tomb. Now it's like you don't know where he is. The stone was rolled away. Did you do a classic cartoon jailer move where you fell asleep with the ring of skeleton keys around your belt? What did that snore sound like? Don't even tempt me to go back to that. Let's say thanks to Jennifer Gregerson of Muckleteo, Washington, our friend, notable local politician in the area, friend of all, especially those who celebrate TBTL. a happy tbtl monday to those who celebrate andrew from jennifer gregerson uh jennifer says the uk band the divine comedy is really just their lead singer someone named neil hannon and a series of different bandmates over the years i'm a sucker for lyrics and uh this song often hit me his songs often hit me at a poignant time in my life i've been a fan since college in 1996 um this brand new song uh is a good one as you know i wasn't re-elected as mayor of muckle teo this year A good memory from last December Is listening Do you think that the TBTL Did they run any smear ads Against Jennifer Gregerson Based on her TBTL

I have a feeling that is Fandom do you think Did that hurt I have a feeling we were the boulder That brought her campaign down Which I guess we owe an apology to Jennifer Jennifer Gregerson says she cares about

Muckle T But listen to this podcast That she's been supporting for years

Where they make jokes It was about Easter. Really, Mayor Gregerson? I want to say the song that Jennifer has talked about here is called The Best Mistakes, by the way.

Okay, The Best Mistakes by the Divine Comedy, a.k.a. Neil Hannon. A good memory from last December is listening to this in one earbud on one of my last bike rides home from City Hall, reflecting on my campaign loss and life change. As he writes, I don't regret a single day they were the best mistakes I've ever made. I did my time on the merry-go-round. This does sound like being the mayor of a medium-sized city in Seattle. I did my time on the merry-go-round, and if I had to choose between then and now, I'd choose now. So I'm always a bit cheesy and just can't say no to a literal interpretation. Maybe another 10 experiencing a setback or change can appreciate this sentiment. Keep on fighting global loneliness. And hi to Jackson and Muckle Teo. Hey, our buddy Jackson. Christina and Everett and Mayor Nigel in Kenmore. God, if only Jennifer could have won re-election We would have really had a significant portion North of Seattle locked down As sort of a TBTL voting block I don't know what we want them to vote for But having the mayor of Mukilteo and Kenmore On our team would have really been something

Yeah, the dazzling donor platform Is what we would call it

Hey, but all joking aside, Jennifer I'm sorry that you were not re-elected as mayor And I do think that this is actually a really good message Like when you go through something that is disappointing or feels like a setback and you sort of wonder to yourself, if I could have done things differently or made different decisions and then just had a kind of a different life, would I have done that? Or would I choose to be right here where I am with the disappointments and setbacks, but with also all of the good stuff that came with an experience? This could be about a relationship or a job or just about anything. I think that's actually a really good message for folks if they're going through something that feels like a setback.

Yeah, absolutely.

Is the plan to go out with that song, Andrew? Or are we just going to play it right now? Or what do you want to do?

Oh, we haven't really been playing music, so I don't know. Okay, well, maybe.

Or just, basically, we're just quoting it here?

I think so, yeah, because we had, and now I'm sort of. Would you like to sing it for us? I would, only because I know a lot of people wanted to. How do you think the tune goes? A lot of people wanted to submit songs, and so we said we can't really do that. So I don't want to kind of make an extension.

Wow, another L for Jennifer.

Sorry, Jennifer, yeah.

Would you like to sing what we think the song sounds like? I've never heard the song

I'm going to do it in my best imitation of Macklemore

You mean Macklemore? No, I'm not I'm not going to do that Let's see The Divine Comedy What do I think The Divine Comedy sounds like? Well, they're British Yeah They're from the UK They're from the 90s I'm going to think that they sound kind of like the Afghan Whigs Okay Although now I can't think of an Afghan Whigs song um let's see i mean i'm assuming there's a lot of oys start with oi oi oi i sing and you say oi i don't regret a single day they were the best mistakes i've ever made oi i did my time on the merry-go-round and if i had to choose between then and now god damn it you know what i'm um

andrew that's where you oi no this is where i write a check to jennifer to send her her dazzling donor money back my apologies i'd choose now oi

hello and welcome to top story i kind of went more like pogues there or something i don't know critically andrew though i committed yes no it's true look into it yeah well i never

You committed to an idea that you had that I never signed off on. Yeah, I committed to my ideas, too.

You have to commit to even the worst ideas that I have. That's part of the rule. Hey, it's time for a big announcement. This year's TBTL-a-thon, TBTL-a-thon 13, Let the Fun Begin, will be happening in Denver, Colorado. Yeah, baby.

Everything he ever not gets me. Even when I know it's coming. Oh, man, I am excited about this.

May 23rd through 27th, Andrew and I are going to Denver, Colorado to raise money for TBTL, hang out with listeners and get Russell Wilson to come back to the Seahawks I've been waiting for this moment for months and it's finally here that's right we are going to be broadcasting from Denver live streaming the show every morning from our special undisclosed location in the shadow of Blucifer and so we're going to be live streaming the show meaning you can watch it live you can also call in And then each night, Monday through Thursday, we're going to be having TBTL game night. So this will be a little bit like when we did the show and tell. We're going to break it up into time zones. And we're going to have folks, basically, you can zoom in and participate in some kind of fun game event with other tens and us. and then on friday night we're going to have an actual in-person meetup in denver to play some pub trivia with any and all of you that would like to come out and hang out with us for that event we are still locking down the location but friday night may 27th in denver you us some trivia questions a couple of drinks it's going to be really really fun and really good to get together with as many folks as want to come out and feel safe since what I mean we haven't done anything like this since the boat show maybe on this scale

I think we might have done the not that it matters but we might have done the TBTL picnic after the boat show which was kind of kind of more like this more of a chill gathering in a seattle park i feel like that came after after the boat show

in the spring and then we did but it's been it's been a while like we we haven't done anything like

this since the pandemic right yeah no certainly certainly yeah and i'm really looking forward to this i mean i um i i you know you and i i guess we'll be hosting this trivia location tbd if you

own a bar by the way hit me up um i have someone who owns a bar or fun place in denver where we can

have this get together on friday night yeah or a megaphone too because are we doing um the trivia through megaphones is that how i haven't been to pub trivia in a long time uh we are using megaphones but i'm gonna set yours on just police siren okay wait what if we just use the old-fashioned kind of megaphones that aren't actually amplified they're just like uh-huh big like a old time yell squad would have used at you know at stake exactly that's what i want to do 52 that's what i want to do trivia with so yeah so uh some details to work out here but i am excited about this

so first of all the denver dossier finally finally bore some fruit i've been looking at the denver

dossier by the way um that listener i believe rachel made for us right i'm not yeah mistaken

although i believe i was crediting the wrong person for the denver dossier for some period of time and then they corrected the record yeah it was really rachel who did the work exactly i

think we might have been giving credit to robin but I think it was actually Rachel in Denver who created and I'm looking it up now going back years now 2018 maybe Rachel created the Denver dossier saying all the reasons we should come to Denver and I still have that in one of my emails and I was looking at it first of all I am still just delighted by the layout of this thing I'm trying to figure out a way Rachel if you're still listening if you're still a listener we got to figure out a way to publicize that broader it was created on some sort of website that I can't download it off of but like I love I love the format of it it is absolutely great and I want to check off some of the things to do in Denver things to do in Denver when you're 10 I'm gonna um I think the very first Chipotle is there I think that's on the Denver dossier there are some watering holes that are that come highly recommended uh I believe Blucifer might even make an appearance on it we have to I mean I I'm laughing at the idea of actually broadcasting in the shadow of Blucifer like literally um but we definitely have to check out blucifer do you have yeah i mean can you see it from anywhere but the um but the airport i wonder i don't think so i mean the as i often

say the denver airport is about an hour from the denver airport yeah i mean that is out there and that is in some very very very kind of spare land like i think it's just the airport and blucifer yeah which if you don't know is this terrifying giant blue bronco like stallion that's rearing up on its hind legs and is blue a very sort of notable blue color that is what blucifer is what do you think the chances are that we will run into russell wilson or sierra and be able to

talk some sense into him andrew you know i did tell i leaked this to one friend luke over the weekend i hope that's okay wanting to know what our what our plan is and i said we are going to denver and the very very very first question was are you going to get russell wilson back so i think that is top of mind for a lot of people you want to talk about a sort of lord

of the rings-esque quest i mean this is us this is this is our bilbo and sam wise moment we're gonna throw this super bowl ring who's frodo who was the which one did uh elijah wood play

Frodo yeah Bilbo's the older guy but also played by like somebody famous like Martin

yes Martin Lawrence

that's right how could I forget

who can forget when he looked over at Frodo and said damn Gina it was an iconic moment for that film franchise who am I thinking of who played Bilbo Ian Holmes

no Martin Freeman that's right

oh well then who was the one who did Ian Holmes play the old version of one of them oh my god please don't let what's happening right now dissuade you from tuning in May 23rd through 27th for the TBTL on 13 let the fun begin let me just mention to you what the sort of thinking is behind this year's um events we're calling it let the fun begin because we figured 13 years into it we should we should finally let some fun begin on the show also it's you know for the last two years we have just been collectively in this extremely strange version of our lives with the pandemic and things like that where it's just i know a lot of us have been carrying around a ton of anxiety and feeling unsafe and just like our lives have been really radically changed without saying that things are quote unquote normal again because maybe we're never going back to what we think of as normal it does feel to me as i stand here today in portland oregon like we're seeing some we're seeing some green shoots of of life coming back and it felt like this might be a year where we can kind of have some fun again on this thon and we also know that when we did in 2020 when we went to that undisclosed location in washington state and did these kind of live uh virtual events what we heard from you all the tens of listeners was like that was a really fun chance to get to interact with the other tens in real time to call into the show to you know kind of show us some cool stuff in your house or whatever like that was really popular with folks so we wanted to kind of bring that back this year so that everybody anywhere with an internet connection can can talk to us but then we also wanted to have some kind of an in-person component because you know that's also something that's coming back online that's a weird choice of words that's something that's happening again uh for a lot of us let's bring our friendship back online yeah that's right we're trying to just blend together kind of a virtual experience for folks that aren't anywhere near colorado and then an actual in-person meetup if you're in colorado or one of the uh nearby states or you can make it in come uh come see us on friday night yeah absolutely and there'll be and again

if and if you are in denver and you're uncomfortable coming to a trivia night you can still join us during the game nights, Monday through Thursday. And by the way, the most important part of this whole...

thing is that you and i were both right ian holm of course played um played bilbo baggins in the in the lord of the rings trilogy and then martin freeman played him in the hobbit which of course

is technically a prequel oh okay well because he's younger it's a pre it's a andrew and luke

yeah w monday yeah you both got the win on that but no yeah i am i am very excited about this denver thing also i just haven't been to denver in a long time i'm trying to remember the last

time that i was there maybe was you know what i was there briefly i was doing a tv story that never aired about this animal sanctuary that's outside of denver so i was there for all of like 10 hours or something but i haven't really been to denver denver probably since i was in college when i visited uh we were i was driving a car um from seattle to grand junction colorado we were like a friend of ours my friend ben and i our mutual friend somebody named amanda had bought a car in seattle but needed it to go to colorado but was already in colorado so we road tripped out there and then we went to um denver and we went to elitch's which was this big theme park outside of denver and it was a i mean denver is an extremely cool place somewhere that we certainly haven't done any live events yet and some a place that um at least a handful of people have been trying to get us out to for a long time so this seemed like the best plan for this year and i do think it's going to be really fun i can't emphasize that enough we got these game nights that we're going to do we're going to do this trivia night we're going to be just having as much fun as we can kind of celebrating the tens and the tbtl community and um just you know feeling very hopeful about the future for the show and our listeners and this dang planet

andrew yeah i can't wait to see everybody those those um zooms we did a couple of years ago were really special and i i hope this is okay with you luke i'm going to let people in to the little conversation we were having before the show because oh and the adventure begins again I'm already getting a lot of kind of anxiety about some aspects of this specifically I know specifically the technological side of things because I think you mentioned we're going to be doing these shows in the morning but we're also going to be streaming them live on YouTube so people can listen to TBTL live we're still going to set the exact time more on that soon but it'll be kind of mid-morning in the denver time zone um whatever that is there's mountains there right um and uh people will be able to interact with the show take we'll take calls again and people can um can communicate with each other via youtube while we're doing these live broadcast monday through friday um but i'm already like how am i gonna get all this equipment there when you and i did this the last time at an undisclosed location it was drivable right and i was able just to load up a car full of equipment and then genevieve dropped me off like dropping off a kid at camp with all of his gear um the analogy broke down there somewhere because i don't think kids bring radio gear did you bring all your podcasting gear to summer camp i did for each camp out on uh god damn what island was that in lake erie anyway um mackinac puddin bay it wasn't puddin bay anyway puddin bay is where i went anyway um all of that is to say i I am now very nervous about getting all this stuff on an airplane and, like, trusting. And, again, this isn't me taking a swipe at the airlines either. Like, I think my bags have only been lost once, and it was kind of our fault coming back from Australia. We did something kind of wrong. We were confused about it. But I'm not somebody who's been, like, a victim of, like, missing baggage at airports a lot, but it's always been a paranoia of mine. And, like, the idea of showing up in Denver and just, like, the one out of 1,000 chance that my equipment isn't there with me is just, like, giving me some pretty heavy agita. So now I'm trying to figure out, does it make sense for me to be an advanced team and, like, just drive out there? I literally woke up. I'm not even joking. I woke up this morning kind of groggy, kind of feeling the Mondays, and then immediately got that pang of just, like, oh, God.

What are we? How?

So much to do. and then I and I immediately opened up my phone and I googled how long is the drive from Seattle to Denver and it's like 21 hours I think between 20 and 21 hours I'm like Lou can fly out there I could either take our car or rent a car and just drive and it's like it's nuts it doesn't make sense but it's like maybe there's even a better chance that something bad happens to the equipment in my clumsy hands but it's just like I mean no I don't want to take the situation I don't want to take my eyes off of it like i just feel like i want to handcuff a suitcase to my wrist and just like make sure all that stuff gets to denver so i don't know we got to figure all that out too and maybe we'll end up flying i i don't know but i'm i'm i'm i'm sort of tempted to take

the drive and i don't you know i don't know if i can drive with you or if because of whatever

my schedule is i'll need to just head straight there by way of aeroplane but i do like this idea of you solo road tripping with kind of like that one time when i lost my id in upstate new york and then just drove across the country in a rental car yeah only to learn somewhere near like um madison wisconsin that i could have just gotten on the plane actually like even without id but i

yeah the more i think i yeah we we need to talk we'll see we'll figure it out everybody but um I can hear the gears turning

You want to drive

I just don't really like flying that much anyway With this equipment And if I could just carve out the time The important thing is that I just do it in a way That I'm still able to do TBTL with you on Friday Also, by the way, the Friday So as Luke mentioned, this is all going to kick off On Monday the 23rd But the Friday before that We're going to have another special guest on the show I won't tell you who it is But you might be able to figure it out Somebody who hasn't made an appearance on the show in some time but has traditionally helped us launch TBT elephants in the past. And she will be joining us to tell us or tell you guys what the special thank you gifts are this year, which we've been spending this weekend cooking up.

Of which, yeah, we have been working with our friend John at APM and also Emily to get these thank you gifts worked out this year. And I think that we have some really, really cool stuff in the offing. Although I feel like this is maybe you're always doing more work behind the scenes than I am, Andrew. actually that's a given but i feel like we're really these i hope that people like these things because there's a certain there's a fair amount of lift for us at least with one of them yeah it

feels it doesn't feel outsized to me it feels like kind of the maybe this is always the amount

of work you do i was like wow really we're having about one particular thank you gift we've had now you and i have had a meeting where we had to brainstorm some stuff we've been talking to john and emily about it like i've still got a lot of work to do from my end to hold up one half of the project like you know but i think it's going to be great i think everyone's going to love it and um i think uh you know i think it's going to be a really fun week when we finally after all these years and it's lucky 13 as they always say you know lucky tbtl a-thon 13 so yeah uh please uh tune in that week uh again may 23rd through 27th uh tune in give us a call uh if you're near denver you can get there we are going to be doing a get together it's not going to be a live show Just for the record It's going to be a trivia night Although who knows Maybe if it goes well Andrew will record it And play it as a show At some point But it's not going to be A live broadcast It's just going to be Us doing pub trivia With anybody who wants to come out And do some trivia with us

And if you happen to be Driving from Seattle To Denver Around the 20th 21st or something Hit me up Maybe I could Just hitch a ride with you

A lot of the friendships on the TBTL Facebook page, on the Sten's Facebook page, Andrew, are built around people giving each other rides. You'll get somebody, we'll 100% volunteer to drive you to Denver.

And I'll buy you Arby's along the way. We'll stop at every Arby's along the way. We'll write a book about it.

Wait, now I'm jealous.

Can you get a big Montana in Colorado? I don't know.

Can you transport a big Montana across state lines or is that a felony? I think the real question Hey Andrew I also have some news I Am now the proud Almost owner Of a kitten Of a small cat

I saw on the show sheet Something cat related I wasn't sure if this was a definitive Thing what's going on

Well I have been stalking The Oregon Humane Society website for uh cats for kittens particularly and uh i have been so i've been putting in applications and unfortunately every single cat on the humane society website that's under the age of four is pretty much and i don't say unfortunately for them it's great for them yeah it's very very very hard it turns out to manage to get to the front of the line to adopt a younger cat and let me just say i know that there's some real sort of like heroism if you will in adopting an older pet because often those are the kind of pets that you know um they need a lot of love and sometimes they're not the the first animal that someone's going for when they go to a like a humane society website or something like that but i just kept striking out over there so then i went i decided to go over to craigslist which is i'll tell you that craigslist pets website or pets thing is it's interesting it's hit or miss it's some people who like they're you know their puppy had a litter or their cat you know had kittens and then there's some people that are selling cockroaches oh which was surprising I think maybe you feed those to lizards or something. So glad you didn't say cats. I was like, you are not qualified. Some people are like, I have this habit trail for a chinchilla, gently used. Like, there's a lot of weird stuff going on over there. But I ended up finding this very nice family in Happy Valley, Oregon, whose cat had kittens. And I got in touch with them. and I went over and met up with them and checked out their kittens and I decided I'm going to go ahead and adopt this little kitten that I've already named Bubbles. Now, Bubbles is still going to live with Bubbles' mom for a little while longer just so she can keep nursing and getting all of the important parental influence that a cat needs. So I think it's going to be another couple of weeks before I actually take full possession of her. But I went over and I held her and she was adorably cute and uh you know and we we agreed that i'm gonna go ahead and um i'm gonna go ahead and raise bubbles now the thing is if i sound are you gonna send me a photo i do send it

to you can we use it as a show pic or is it too soon sure i um i know that there are going to be

some listeners andrew who are down on me because i did not go through the humane society website and I what I would say to that is I wanted to get a kitten because I would really like bond with this animal and I feel like for me being with this animal for the young part of its life would be really nice to get to experience that and as a bonding exercise not that you can't bond to an older pet but I've never had first of all I've never had a pet by myself hopefully this goes okay I've always been like I've always lived you know in a home environment with someone else when we acquire a pet and so that's kind of you know something new for me i know olive was a kitten when we got her up in bellingham but that was a whole like inside outside cat situation where she just basically kind of did her thing it wasn't like we had to try to train her to use the litter box she could just go outside if she wanted like that felt like a very low impact cat experience i feel like this is going to be a pretty high impact cat experience because Bubbles is going to be a kitten going to be living here in this apartment with me it's going to be like a big focus of my attention so I kind of wanted to have that experience of getting to have a cat from a very young age and I just could not manage to successfully get on the list to even go see any of the younger cats at the Humane Society so I ended up having to go this other route but please don't at me don't get mad at me because I didn't go through the Humane Society I really would have if it would have been possible for me.

Well, listen, Bananas, Professor Bananas, our cat was a Craigslist cat or is a Craigslist cat or will be a Craigslist cat if she doesn't start behaving. She doesn't start acting right. No, and we couldn't love her more. And honestly, this is a weird thing for me to bring up now because you're talking about the beginning of life and a tiny little kitten. But Vives and I have been talking kind of off and on for a while now about someday maybe we'll buy a house And if we do that, maybe we'll get a dog. And so now we have a house. And so the conversation of a dog is coming up a little bit more and more. And, you know, I'm I'm like, let's just take it slow. We just got this place like I'm not in a rush to get a dog right now. But, you know, eventually we still think we're going to get one. And these and I have been talking about like whether or not we want to get an older dog really for ourselves more because, you know, I worry that I would I wouldn't be a good dog trainer. And I don't know. It takes a lot of patience. And I don't know if I'd be good at that or not. And there are some advantages to getting an older dog, including the fact that older dogs sometimes need a place to live. You know, they're not as easily adopted sometimes. But all of that is to say, going through the process of losing our cat, who we had for 21 years, which is a really good run. It does make me appreciate every moment that I have with our living cat, Professor Bananas. And looking at her and knowing that she's already 11. And I always thought of her as our little kitten, right? Because compared to Theo, she was. And being like, wow, she's a senior cat now. And it's just like I start thinking, like, boy, if I ever get another cat, I want to get a cat or a dog or a pet. It's like you want as much time with them as possible. I mean, I think that that's really fair. Like, this was the first time I lost a pet. And I was just like, wow, like, it's really hard. Like, I grew up in a country where, this is going to sound kind of cruel maybe, but cats were just kind of more of a part of life. They kind of came and went, and we had cats that we loved, but they were outdoor cats, and it was just different. And, like, honestly, when we moved out of our Valley City house, we left the cats because the cats were barn cats and the cats were outdoor cats. We weren't going to bring them with us to the suburbs. And that was it. I don't even remember being. super upset about it which is weird because i really loved fred um but i don't even really remember that that well and so i think that i've maybe maybe undervalued uh you know maybe i undervalued cats and maybe my whole life or something because when theo when we said goodbye to him it was so tough that it's really made me rethink like every moment that one has with a pet so i'm babbling now but all that is to say i think i can appreciate you wanting to grow up with this cat or have this cat grow up with you or both you're still a young man i've got so many years

of maturation in front of me andrew ask anyone who's been in a relationship with me i have plenty of emotionally i'm a 12 year old a lot of growing but yeah i just i was i was really looking forward to the experience of having you know and i i truthfully like i i really love dogs you know rudy is still rudy is still very much alive and you know i see rudy on facetime and things like that i you know obviously really love that dog and think about her a lot but like i would love to get a dog i don't think that that's reasonable living in this apartment i see so many people i mean everybody gets to make their own decisions for their life but like so many people in my building have dogs and i just think it's such such a hassle to either the dog seems to me like either the dog suffers or the human suffers because either the dog doesn't get to go out enough or the human is just spending so much of their day waiting for the elevator to go downstairs to walk around outside in a one block radius of the apartment building to like let their dog go to the bathroom so that's just not the life that i want to have while i'm living here but i did really want to have i really miss having an animal in my life and i really love rudy and i really love olive and just like hanging out with them it was emotionally really like kind of enriching for me i don't need to explain to people the value of having a pet but anyway i i wanted to have that part of the experience too where yeah this is this cat is young and then they get to grow up and i get to see that and i get to kind of you know pal around with them for like you said as long as possible so anyway the big announcement is bubbles burbank coming to an apartment near you in a few weeks and i have a feeling is going to become a fairly major topic of conversation like if you don't like kitten talk i don't know if this is going to be the show for you for the next few months because probably she's going to be hanging out in here with me while i'm doing i mean i don't know what what her i don't know what her sort of vibe is going to be in the apartment right but my guess would be she'll want to come in and out and see what's what's good in here see what dad does for a living so you know the funny thing is you said

you got you you met bubbles at happy valley or that's where bubbles was in happy valley that's where yeah that's where her current family lives and do you know that we and this is such a book and do you know that we got a professor bananas on depression mountain

here i go once again with the email every week i hope that it's from a female

no man it's not from a female critically andrew me becoming a uh a cat a cat parent cat daddy me getting this cat has now necessitated my greatest joy in life which is buying stuff and I mean I went to PetSmart and just got a few little things that I'll need but long term boy they have made some real advances in all of this crazy like self cleaning litter box stuff and things like that I mean they're like SpaceX has nothing on the latest and greatest in the self cleaning litter box world

well I know that you had talked about this on TBTL a long time ago and you even bought a special device to try to train your cat at the time to go to the bathroom in the toilet but we have uh some friends Camaro Kev and his wife Anita were um over here the other day and we were talking to him and they were they had been house sitting somebody with a cat and Luke like no joke there was no litter box all they had to do was go over there feed the cat and flush the toilet that the cat uses like the cat and Anita said hey do you want to see a video I'm like no I don't want to see a video of a cat going in the bathroom and she's like that is bananas that you don't want to see this she couldn't believe that i didn't want to see a video of a cat going to the bathroom on a toilet which i understand but i just didn't need that in my life in that particular moment but um i might do that yeah i mean it's i don't know the litter quitter that was the thing that i

had except van thought it was the surprising to me because van felt like if we could have trained her cat pagoda to use the toilet she felt like that was somehow disrespectful to the cat and i I thought it was the most respectful, the most refined thing Pagoda could have done would be to learn how to use a human toilet.

Well, I guess the argument is you're not meeting the cat where the cat is. You're trying to make things easier on you by training the cat to be a human, I guess, is what that argument is.

Fair, but I also think, I mean, the system, I got Pagoda to go, because, you know, you put this tray on the ground. You get...

them so that they're going in this tray and then you put the tray up so that it's filling the toilet seat and bowl and then they're still just going in the tray and then you slowly are removing more of the tray fits together and you're removing more and more parts of it until eventually they're just using the toilet and they don't even realize it yeah yeah and they don't they don't kick any

project for me and bubbles could be a project uh bubbles pretty soon i'll be housebroken yeah exactly and then yet meanwhile you're still shitting in a box and nobody can figure out

exactly why just so the FBI can't read my thoughts Andrew I have two voicemails I have two voicemails

I'd like to play for you the first one actually coming off of my terrible joke at the end of the last segment let's no offense to this listener but let's take a listen to this terrible joke

hey guys I was listening to your talk today about things that were thinkable and unthinkable

and it reminded me of one of my favorite jokes now we had a show last week called and then the thinkable happened, because I can't remember what we're talking about, but it was extremely predictable. Yeah, it was not unthinkable, it was very thinkable.

So here we go. What can think the unthinkable? That's right, what can think the unthinkable?

I like that repetition, I'm learning for when we host trivia, you've got to give people time, you repeat the question slowly, you want to take a stab at this, Luke? This is some real Bilbo Baggins-level riddling, Martin Freeman. Okay, I'm going to continue here.

Are you ready for the answer?

Mm-hmm. Thank you.

An iceberg. An iceberg. Now, in light of your discussion about Gilbert Gottfried today, I understand if 110 years is too soon to make a joke about the Titanic, so if I'm canceled, I'm canceled. Okay, bye.

Because it was the unsinkable. So what can... I do feel like the joke is missing something about a lisp or something. Because it's basically, you know, an iceberg sunk the unsinkable. And so what can think the unthinkable?

Think the unthinkable. The unthinkable Titanic is a problem.

You know what I bet you I didn't hear? I'll bet you the caller said an iceberg. And we weren't able to tell over the phone. Got it. Okay, now that would make you... That would make, because it took me a second, you know, when I heard this before, I didn't even realize, because I was like, there's a missing lisp joke or something, and as somebody who has a lisp, I can make that joke, yeah. What can think the unthinkable in Eithberg? Okay, there you go. I actually like it better than I did when I first, ooh, my bell's in a weird place. Okay. Anyway, enough joke time, because that went over like... All right, enough of this merriment. That went over like a Led Zeppelin. Okay, let's listen to this. In that it completely redefined rock music in the 70s. That's right. I've been listening while I was packing up and moving and then unpacking. That's kind of the two ends of moving. I've been dipping back into some Led Zeppelin. I never thought I would. I thought I'd absorbed all the Led Zeppelin that I needed in 8th through 10th grade. And I was very into them. But I was like, I don't need to revisit that. It's just like society is so flooded with the Zep. You know what I mean? I mean, stations are constantly getting getting the lead out or, as I like to say, getting the Zepp out.

But but that's more Zeppo Marks.

That's more Zepp cleaning products. I love to clean. But anyway, yeah, I was listening to some of their because I always liked like the first five albums, five or six records. And then I kind of slept on the latter part of their discography. And I was listening to some Presence, some in through the outdoor. Anyway, let's move on. Let's just move on. We were talking about Seattle's so-called superheroes that were banding about town back in the 2010 era, I'm going to say. We got this voicemail from listener Max.

Hey, fellas. This is Max from Seattle calling in. And I was listening to your recent shows talking about Phoenix Jones and wanted to share an anecdote. When I first moved to Seattle, I used to work at a coffee shop in the University District. And one day I was coming to work and got a voicemail from our coffee shop's PR person, I guess we had hired one. And they said, hey, if any superheroes come into the cafe, they get free coffee on us. So I was a bit confused. And when I got to work, sure enough, checked the barista log and saw a note from our PR person saying, hey, if any superheroes come into the coffee shop, they get free coffee on the house. Without much context, a few hours into my shift, in walked Phoenix Jones and an assortment of other people wearing bedsheet capes and DIY costumes that were very much...

um i guess diy is the only way i can think to put it but uh we gave them free coffee and chatted them up a little bit and then you know they went upstairs and i was very confused but a little bit curious and um sure enough a few hours later after they'd been upstairs for a bit we get somebody coming down uh reporting that there is a taser going off upstairs and so we had to escort the superheroes back out of the cafe because one of them was showing off their taser in our public cafe. So that was the last that we were sponsoring free coffee for the Phoenix Jones superhero crew, but it was a memorable night. And then a few hours or a few days later, saw them on SNL as a subject of a weekend update sketch. And Phoenix Jones has therefore lived in infamy in my mind. um funny that he's coming up again now but uh kind of fitting kind of a full circle moment anyways thanks for the show um don't have a power out so i'll just say the words power up bye

um well done um yeah there's something about the idea like

in fairness what do you expect taser boy to do that's his whole character taser boy he tases

people i mean that is that's the problem right there too right like when when you have a weapon that you're excited about you want to show it off you know tasers guns anything like that

when you have a hammer every problem looks like a nail exactly like you're trying to stir your

coffee with a taser sir please that's not what that's casually trying to force situations where you might need to tase someone yeah exactly so that just seems so oh so unsurprising that story

it's very on brand for that whole movement again you know i think generally the folks that were into that were coming at it with good intentions and stuff but it you know it just it turns out that um the the reason that like superheroes are so intriguing to us is because they don't exist on this planet and if you're trying to be a superhero you are bound by the physical laws of earth and being a human and so that's when you end up having like a taser or some bear spray or something where it's like because at some unless you just become like i mean the whole part of the phoenix jones thing was that he was like an aspiring mma dude so i think he sort of felt like he had like physical fighting abilities that were themselves almost a superpower but for everybody like i would have showed up i would have been like i don't even know what mine would have i would have been called boring man and i would have bored people i would have bored criminals out of their ways with my with my talking i guess mine would be somehow trash related

you know it really is it's one of those things where like yeah maybe some of these folks were coming at i mean maybe their intentions were good but it's so but it's so obviously just about them and something they want to do when everybody knows like if you really want to make an impact in your community and you know prevent crime or whatever you it's less fun but you do what the rest of us do you go to nextdoor.com and report poor people that you see in your neighborhood

exactly andrew and i think that's a good place to end the show perfect um all right uh i do think actually we're going to wrap things up today i've got some cat toilet training systems to go look at over at petco andrew so i've got a full day ahead of me um thank you everyone for listening again i don't know what the point of repeating this is like If you're hearing what I'm saying right now, you were hearing the show 20 minutes ago, but the big announcement, the TV telethon 13, Let the Fun Begin, is going down in Denver, May 23rd through 27th. If you know where Russell Wilson has been hanging out in Denver, I mean, honestly, we know where it is, the children's ward of the hospital. If we're serious about this project, Andrew, that's where we need to go as well.

Did he let that slip? Did that leak out that he's been helping children in hospitals?

Let's see.

Unlimited.

I think we will be able to find... Whoa, easy.

A lot of stuff going on there. A lot of stuff.

In case you wonder what the Doogie Howser theme sounds like with Russell Wilson saying unlimited over it, we were able to solve that mystery.

And a little words by doves.

We'll be back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio for you. Please do join us for that. Until then, have a great Monday. Take care of yourselves. Stay safe. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

I'll leave you guys with this.

One doll plus one doll equals toodle. Power out.