Muse

So how did you two love rats meet?

Oh, it's a fun story. I was working on this project tearing down a condemned bar called the Desert Rash. I went in to meet with the contractors, and Diana is sitting at the bar drinking a seven and seven and seven.

Seven shots of Seagram Seven in Seven Minutes. It's Diana's morning drink.

Oh, that's right. It was very early in the morning. Well, this little spitfire finds out it's me who's closing down the bar. Next thing I know, she's got a knife to my face. i would have been scared if she hadn't been the most gorgeous thing i've ever seen in my life so how do you and eleanor become friends well let's just say that we lived in the same neighborhood oh what a fun way to say a normal thing right thank you so much for letting us rap don't hesitate feel free to clap what's your question

How much milk do I have to drink to be big enough to be quarterback?

Drink as much milk as your little belly can hold.

Wait, what? So what was the exact question? Don't worry about it. I'll move on. It's all fine.

Be cool, get out there, and don't forget to be yourselves.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Wednesday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Here we go again. My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host. It's a kind of magic. Coming to you from the Hollywood Broadcast Center right here in Portland, Oregon. Not only have we had a very wet April, I hear it's also been one of the colder Aprils in the Northwest. And today, kind of, I don't know, in between. Hasn't made up its mind yet. I made up my mind we're going to have an excellent episode of the show today. It's episode 3671 in a collector's series.

Let the fun begin.

I made a silly joke on Twitter yesterday. Jokes are really difficult, I must say. and found myself, I guess, sort of in the crosshairs of Elon Musk heads.

I think this guy's sense of humor never developed past junior high school.

It actually started with a tweet that I sent out two days ago featuring a picture of Elon Musk when it became official. He was buying Twitter, and it was very interesting to see who that brings out. If you say something critical of Elon Musk, who comes for you? So we'll probably talk about that. Also, there's this trucker convoy that's been tooling around the United States.

Trucks, trucks, and trucktober.

And it's just going spectacularly bad for them. It was literally a major disaster. Everywhere they go, they encounter a problem more ridiculous than the one before it. So we will talk about that. And the Johnny Depp Amber Heard defamation case has been captivating the nation. It's obviously a very serious topic because of the allegations that have been made. With all respect to that, I will tell you that Johnny Depp said something the other day as part of his official testimony that I cannot stop muttering to myself under my breath. He said something that has radically changed the way that I think about the English language. And I want to play you that tape coming up as well. Plus emails and V-mails, and this guy, the longest running co-bro of the show, may be best known for his depictions of the tall ships He's got hair, he's got chutzpah, and broad-based knowledge He is Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now from the Sweet Cream District of Seattle, Washington Good morning, my friend

Luke, you know, good morning, do you know how, I'm excited You know how you often try to remind me that sometimes while we're doing the show, we will feel like we are creating maybe bad content, or maybe I will start beating myself up for fumbling about and just thinking, oh, I wish I could cut all this out, but I can't. And you tell me, listen, to the listeners, it's often not that bad. Sometimes it's even the best stuff. Yeah. Listen to this. i have received at least five different emails and text messages from people thanking me today for the segment we did yesterday talking about akron ohio do you remember i spent like 25 minutes trying to remember the word polymer exactly because it used to be the rubber capital of the world or maybe it still is because guess what was a clue in today's new york times crossword Puzzle, my friend. Whoa! Rubber capital of the world. I am getting so many

accolades from listeners for helping them with that. Akron-lades. Akron. For a second, I thought I did pronounce it wrong, but you are just punching it up. I love it. I am. So anyway, I'm very, I mean, that was such, that was so terrible. I'm Googling around, I'm like half reading Wikipedia articles, half paying attention to you, trying to get to the word polymer, making no sense, but it actually provided a public service. See, you

never know, Andrew. You never know.

No, that's why I'm not going to try to create good content at all on the show anymore. I'm just I'm just going to fumble about I'm totally I really do show.

I try to remind myself and I know I say this on the show fairly frequently, but I try to remind myself that folks will hopefully take one thing away from an episode that was funny or relatable or enjoyable for them. And if we can do that even one time, I think it will generally create a positive association. And I say this because that's my experience as a listener to shows. I don't expect a show to hit me over the head with whatever comedy or revelations or insights literally moment by moment. But if I get one kind of positive thing, and again, this is when I was a radio listener as well, like, you know, to commercial talk radio and stuff. I would listen to Loveline all the time. I thought Loveline was the greatest radio show ever created. Well, of course, now the whole Adam Carolla situation has sort of been unfortunate. But probably Adam would say one really funny thing in a two-hour episode. But that was all I needed. So I try to remind myself of that so that I don't just completely just spiral into a rabbit hole of self-loathing.

And as much of this style of content that one listens to, at least for me, Like, I'm thinking, like, you know, I went through a big Kevin and Bean phase when they were still on the radio on K-Rock, but I was in L.A., but I think I was listening to it as a podcast. None of that really matters, but it's, you know, it's chatty, kind of like what we do with some segments here and there and what have you. I'm thinking of this because you mentioned Carolla, and he had, like, kind of a recur—I mean, he, of course, is part of that Kevin and Bean universe anyway, But even in those latter days He had a segment where I think he would recap Maybe One of the reality dating shows I want to say Is Love Island a thing or is that the fake thing I can't keep track of all that stuff But even though I can't remember the show I remember exactly where I was in the 24 hour fitness On Wilshire Listening to him and Kevin and Bean Recapping Milf Island Or whatever it is And I just know where I was when I was listening to that I remember enjoying it I remember being on the treadmill or the elliptical thing, looking out the window with a big smile on my face. And it's like, yeah, I'm sure they're possibly in that show. If I asked Bean, he'd be like, oh, you like that show? Well, that's my imitation of Bean. Hey, kid.

Radio Hall of Fame member Gene Bean Baxter, ladies and gentlemen. That's what he sounds like.

This is tape of Bean Baxter on his new show, Cappatina Chat. Hey, kid, don't get in this business. That's my imitation of Bean. Sounds exactly like him. He's so grizzled. He's so grizzled. People don't realize how grizzled that man is. How much does he smoke? Like two packs a day? It's amazing. Just amazing. Easily.

Yeah. Speaking of things that generated one interesting piece of content, I will be honest with you. The Johnny Depp Amber Heard thing has generated a lot of fascinating content. Whether or not we should be looking at it is another question. you know whether or not it's I guess appropriate for us who have no relationship with them or or this topic to to be following it is I guess a fair question but I'm not going to lie there have been some text messages between the two of them that have been publicized that just like kind of are an insight into I guess the sort of deep weirdness of Johnny Depp but there is a piece of tape that i heard the other day andrew that i can't get over and it's johnny depp describing a moment i'm guessing you have not followed this at all no in fact i wanted to jump in here and say this

um and maybe maybe you don't maybe you don't want to give me the the broad view of this story but this is one of those stories that started to sneak into my timeline a little bit and i didn't pay a lot of attention to it because i thought it might have just been a one-day story and not something that i had to follow the details of but now it's ongoing and i have missed the broad view of this story i mean i know i know you know i i knew that there were allegations going way back and so i and now this is a defamation trial right i understand the very very broad like uh perspective on it but it's one of those stories that now everybody is talking about but i don't have an on-ramp onto and i wasn't sure if you if you wanted to provide that or if maybe i could happily give you just like a dicey one minute setup on what happened please do Because usually I go to Vox for this stuff But Vox, like if I miss the day one story I'll go back to Vox and they'll give me the setup But I don't think Vox is doing explainers on this trial so amber heard uh and johnny depp were married and um amber heard as after the relationship ended she wrote an op-ed piece in the washington post where she identified herself as a victim of domestic abuse and she did not name johnny depp but everyone knew who she was referring to because they had been married and so johnny depp has now sued amber heard for defamation saying that that article um that piece in the washington post damaged his career it caused disney to cancel their plans for like another one of those pirates of the caribbean films etc so he's suing her for i think 50 million dollars and then she's counter suing him for some amount of money um basically saying that he's defaming her by claiming that none of this happened and so again it's a weird story because that the actual the thing that precipitated allegedly precipitated the article in the washington post is a very dark topic it has to do with domestic violence and and and threats of violence and like a lot of really kind of again dark stuff we don't usually talk about on this show but what's been fascinating is johnny depp wanted it publicized for some reason like he wanted the trial carried live i believe amber heard's uh legal team was trying to have this be a closed court but johnny depp was arguing for it to be open and i think it's because he sees this as his chance to possibly salvage his reputation and career like he clearly feels that these allegations are untrue and that if he can just tell everyone in a very public space and this is just streaming everywhere now that uh he didn't do this he thinks that i think he thinks he can do some reputational repair it's a very open question as if that's what's happening or not

That's kind of my big question is I remember when that piece came out and there was the talk of allegations and domestic violence. And, you know, I just have always and maybe to his point, I mean, ever since then, I've just been like, oh, what a disgusting person. And when I see his just dumbass cologne commercial on TV, how are those still running? Oh, my God. And also just like, how were they ever made? like it's just so another bean baxter impression i mean they're just so bad and so cringy but but also i'm just like you know i've just disliked him for quite some time now going from not really having an opinion of him to basically disliking him so when i see these um these images coming out of this trial where he's there is somebody described him looking like a strip club dj or a strip club announcer or something with his um with his whole style these days and kind of looking like a sleazeball i assumed that the narrative was just like johnny depp sleazeball on the stand but it sounds like it's actually more complicated than that we're seeing a maybe more nuance on both

sides of the relationship is that a fair way of putting it well it really depends on where you're reading the sort of takes on the trial because okay there are some very bizarre things happening one is that on tiktok there are just all of these johnny depp stands many of whom are actually women who are convinced that this is a setup by Amber Heard, and they are just endlessly dissecting, they're cherry-picking tiny bits of information here and there or a piece of, you know, cell phone tape or a text to try to, what's the word, exculpate? Is that a word?

I know the word you're thinking of. I can't help, though. Sorry.

They're trying to prove that this is all a frame job on Johnny Depp. so that's a weird that's just i don't i mean i wasn't there i don't know what really went on it sounds like two people who were both dealing with um some emotional disturbance and drug and alcohol problems and it sounds like it was a really toxic mess but it's if depending on where you're reading some people think that this is really proving that johnny depp is is innocent other people more in the mainstream are saying this was a kind of a big disaster for him because he's he's been on the stand you know being cross-examined by amber heard's lawyers for days on end and if you put any of us on the stand under cross-examination uh for for a long period of time and the lawyer's entire point is to try to pull out unflattering details about your life and how you treated someone i don't think anybody would want to go through that but johnny depp seemed like he was especially cruel i mean he said some very very violent things about amber heard in text that's come up he also just is a weirdo in how in how he texts like even when they weren't fighting like he would text just these nonsensical i mean again he was probably drunk i mean that's my guess uh because they're just it was like basically just these very weird bizarre gibberish texts that he would send and kind of had this whole parallel language that he would use but this is the thing andrew johnny depp is definitely trying to be

Okay.

very proper he's trying to come off as very like not unhinged in this trial and so what he ends up doing is sometimes making up a word or using a word uh to try to you know describe something that's gross but in a non-gross way so that he seems like he really has it together ergo couldn't have done the things that amber heard alleges and this is an example of that uh there is a there was a point where johnny depp alleges that amber heard um went to the bathroom in his bed like as a way of getting back at him i remember that accusation that goes back a ways too i believe and amber heard says no it was our dogs by the way andrew the dog the same dogs the same dogs that almost got them kicked out of australia right those are some very important uh those dogs are very important to the plot of the life of johnny depp and amber heard so amber heard says i didn't do that it was the dogs johnny depp argues the dogs are small they're york they're teacup yorkies they could not have created the bowel movement that was in the bed this was definitely something that amber heard did to get even with me but as he's trying to describe it in court he utters

She was on the phone with Io Tillett Wright, and they were making a wonderful point of just how funny it was that I thought that some human being had actually dropped a grumpy, pardon the term, onto the bed. And they were yucking it up They were laughing about the whole thing

A grumpy I know He's slipping into a British accent at the end He's from Kentucky by the way But at the end I swear I heard him No your ears are not deceiving you He's sort of From an accent standpoint He's kind of all over the map Some people think it's part Keith Richards Is he on something now?

I guess you can't answer that question

And I guess we are a broadcast organization. The subject of his drug use has come up in this. And he has said that he is no longer addicted to drugs. He was, by his own description, addicted to opioids for a while. But I just think calling that a grumpy. Yeah, well, yeah, sorry to bury the grumpy there. That is, is that a thing? Has anyone ever said that? Has that has that word ever been uttered related to a number two before Johnny Depp just did that? I've never heard of it.

Or did he has he called it that throughout his life at times or like was he making it up on the spot? Here's so here's a broader question. And I'm sorry, I keep on moving the topic off of the specific grumpy that we should be focusing on. But I think this this kind of ties in like he's the one who wanted to make a big show of this. That's a key thing that I did not realize until you just told me that he wanted the streaming everywhere. He wants this to be a spectacle. So is he it sounds like he's really performing up there because I kind of kept on seeing things on some social media. I don't know what it was where it was like him, like coyly waiting for somebody to object to everything he said. Somebody must have been interrupting him a lot with objections. So as he was talking, he has this. I guess here's what I'm getting at. He has a smirkiness about him, it seems like whenever I see something coming from him, his time on the stand. and so is all all of that part of this even dropping the grumpy is he like is he kind of he knows he's being kind of cute and he's going to make us all laugh by by saying that he is

definitely trying to perform up there and a lot of people have commented on the fact that he's acting

and he's not doing a convincing job oh hey he should be in the cologne commercial you know um

And that, yeah, I think he went into this thinking, I will be charming, everybody will love me, and they will realize I just couldn't have done these terrible things. And then I'll get my career back and everything will be as it was. I think that must have been his strategy going in. Again, it doesn't appear to be working. And yeah, he's definitely, he's got this very halting way of speaking. Like he's being extra careful with every word he's measuring it. And a lot of the stuff, a lot of what's what these attorneys are reading out loud are like deeply embarrassing things or things that are extremely sexual in nature, you know, of communications that they had like it's their life just turned inside out in the sort of bad times and some of the good times. And like, again, I just I cannot for the life of me understand why you would want this out in the public, like just from an embarrassment factor, unless he just. feels he's already been so embarrassed by the allegations that this could be the thing that saves his reputation. But I mean, it's so a lot of times an attorney will be reading some text and it's again, very graphic, like maybe describing some kind of sexual thing between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. And then the attorney will be like, did I read that correctly? And then Johnny Depp will kind of wryly go, yes, you did. He did an excellent job. And then that's my Brad Garrett impression. Everybody loves Raymond.

Actually, it didn't sound like it the first time, but you did a pretty good job the second time when you're actually leading into it. Yeah.

And I would say I'm going to get that Jimmy's John.

God, I love those commercials. Those commercials are so freaking good. Aside from the obvious serious allegations, I would say the second most disturbing thing about all of this is the goddamn microphone placement.

Yes.

God, I hate that sound. That's not.

I apologize.

That's straight from the courtroom. Like get a windscreen. yeah get a windscreen like you're a performer know how to use a microphone although i know that you don't really use microphones like that uh on the silver screen um but uh good grief get a cory schreppel on that or somebody to clean up that audio all use a cory schreppel in our life

yeah yeah you know you gotta eat that microphone i will tell you andrew that i am forever i mean i haven't done as many obviously with the pandemic my sort of schedule of doing like mc gigs and And public events has dropped way off But they always Those lecterns Always have that mic That's built in That's like a wand mic that you can kind of adjust And move around And I hate those things So much because in order for it To really capture my voice The sound person has to really ride the levels And turn it way up and so then I find myself Instinctively hunching over To talk into it Which then is too loud and the sound people are like Like, don't lean down into the microphone. But I'm like, yeah, but you're not making it loud enough. I can hear it in the room. That's why I like to have a, if possible, a cordless microphone that I can move as close to my mouth as I need to. Those things are the bane of my existence, whether I'm using one or hearing Johnny Depp misuse one.

Yeah, yeah. And just that I'm trying to think, you know, who did it artfully or like recreated that awful P-popping sound as a way of kind of shining a light on it? is Paul Thomas Anderson in, is it Magnolia, with the Tom Cruise character who's being a really toxic. Oh, TJ Mackey? Yeah, the real toxic guy who's giving the seminars to men about how to be real men, but he's got one of those hands-free headset microphones on, and he's wearing it on his face. Usually in a movie, you would just clean that up, right? But they specifically give it that crunchy, pee-poppy sound to really put you in the room. that is i didn't notice that but that's so artful i think i'm right about that and i would go back and play a clip for you of it but it is so inappropriate for this show oh yeah we were i mean you know i thought that some human being had actually dropped a um grumpy pardon the term

see like yeah it's so i am calling it a grumpy for the rest of my life i mean i really am i just it kind of perfectly it's it's such a weird thing because that's not a word that should accurately describe going number two but it's for some reason it evokes exactly what the

what the situation is it goes against everything in the toilet training manual i feel like like you don't want you know it's like it's the opposite of everybody poops which is just like hey let's de-stigmatize this let's not make a big deal of it but then you know you label it as a grumpy and it certainly there's not a positive connotation there i would say but it's not fully

shameful like you didn't call it a dirty yeah you know like it's it's some it's like not yet it's not as um sort of poop positive as everybody poops but it's also not positive it's not poop positive but it's also not it's not it's not shaming it necessarily calling it a grumpy no

No, I mean, but it's, I mean, it's probably not cheerful. There was a, I should let just like Genevieve tell the story because I don't even know if it translates here. But just for the sake of, you know, getting us to the break so that we can sell some roofing services. Genevieve, when she was a little kid, I think she went to one of the, she went to some sort of theme park. I don't know which one it was. And she met Barney Rubble, or I guess I should say somebody dressed up in the Barney Rubble, you know, outfit at this theme park. And apparently she had a flip out and just started yelling at him, dirty, dirty, dirty, which I think about a lot. That is such an interesting response.

It's not uncommon for children to be afraid of. of, you know, those kinds of characters because, you know, you're a little kid and you just kind of don't know what's going on in the world and sometimes, you know, a big Disney-type character or whatever might approach you at a theme park and it's scary. But thinking that they were unclean, that is a unique response. But they probably are unclean. Oh, sure. Like, can you think of anybody in the history of pop culture who has dirtier feet than Barney Rubble or Fred Flintstone? Nope, I can't. Dirtiest feet in pop culture? Dirty! a hundred dirty i really stand by genevieve's take on it that was a good take all those years ago i think it really holds up yeah all right let's take a quick break and then speaking of good takes andrew i want to tell you what's going on with me versus elon musk's folks i mean and by folks i just mean weird incels that are mad that i made a mild joke about their guy uh so we'll talk about that coming up here on tbtl 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

hey let's thank some dazzling donors these are the wonderful sweet generous donors who are dazzling us with the dough they donate each month wonderful amazing people like our friend Barbara West in San Jose, a.k.a. San Jose Barbie. That's right. I thought that that's how she actually, I thought that was her preferred nomenclature. But I think she said she just went by San Jose Barbie because there was another Barbara in the Stens community back in the day. So I don't know if she prefers that or not. But I hope it's okay. I always think of her as San Jose Barbie. I think it's a great name. It's a good name for a listener of a podcast, I feel like. Absolutely. Well, Barbara, thank you for the donation. I feel like I have to relate to Barbara differently than San Jose Barbie. San Jose Barbie, you're just like, Woo, girl, thank you! And then I do not want to hear that ever. I do not ever want to hear that come back at me. But for Barbara, you say, Ah, Barbara West. Thank you. Thank you so much. Barbara, have you considered leaving TBTL in your will? Oh my god, we went right to estate planning. Holy shit. Thank you, Barbara, who says, Outside of my husband and my immediate family I don't have any relationships in my life That have lasted as long as my relationship with TBTL And even after 10 plus years The magic is still there I love you guys And I'm so glad that you all are still around Providing A plus content Five days a week I like turtles Now I gotta say something here I don't know if Barbara really wanted the I like turtles to be included But after when you fill out your dazzling donor form there's an area where you can you know put exactly what you want luke and i to read or luke to read um and then there's like other comments that you want apm to know like any other final thoughts they're not necessarily for air but that was barbara's contribution to just let the people at apm know that i like turtles so i wanted to include it in this message because i found it delightful absolutely i like turtles so thank you barbara yeah for real we appreciate you you've been riding with this and literally because barbara's a cyclist um you've been riding with this show for evs and i know uh barbara's a teacher as well and her students love her and she's making the world a better place so thanks barbara we really

appreciate you maestro on your mark on your mark get set get set now ready ready go

remix dj burbank we the best our second dazzling donor we want to thank today is burley mcintyre in seattle washington burley says ahoy hoy i've been a listener since the cairo days it's interesting to me andrew how many folks have been listening since the radio days you know like that's amazing i felt like we had no listeners well i mean that was what the ratings told us but i guess we had a few because folks like burley were listening back then and here here we are all these years later yes that's right um and in fact one thing when people say the cairo days um i one thing i've realized in life is sometimes people think you're talking about a place in egypt like cairo doesn't even mean much to people who don't listen right to the radio here in seattle yeah cairo radio days then they just think we had a radio show in egypt yeah exactly which i did for a brief period of time yes you did uh burley says andrew may not recall but i once stumbled upon him in the wallingford neighborhood of seattle washington while my kids were at a nearby tutoring session really i wasn't stalking although the look on andrew's face suggested he was thinking otherwise i truly enjoy were you what were you what was going through i remember because i met it was actually right on my street i believe um maybe even was i taking out the trash i don't know if i don't know if that was the case but i think it was outside my house i just remember

I remember Burley was carrying, like, kind of a life-size doll thing with a printout of my face, kind of taped to the doll's head, sort of. But casually, but not in a stalking thing. But it was very casual. I did not think it was a stalking thing at all. It seemed very casual. And he said, and he kind of, when we ran into each other, he kind of started sweating a lot, you know, like, really profusely, like the unhealthy kind of sweat.

But not in a nervous way.

Not in a nervous way. Just a very unhealthy kind of sweat sort of thing. And I saw him sort of hide, like, something that looked, like, kind of sharp in his pocket. And we said a quick hello. And then he said, yeah, I got some kids in the area I got to pick up. I got to go drop a dumpy. And then, I don't know, we say goodbye. So sorry, Burley. Is this the last time he gives? I sure hope not. Did I just kill the golden goose? I'm so sorry. That's not what happened.

I was a TVTL listener until April 27th of 2022.

No, no. It was very sweet, actually, meeting Burley. And I do actually remember meeting him, too. And it was very nice. I know you're not a stalker.

I mean, I usually say this when the topic comes up, but it's very flattering for us that there are people who listen to the show and who may actually, on the very rare occasion, see us out in the world. And so if you see us and you want to come say hi, that would be great. That's actually a very, again, a very nice thing. And it's helpful because if we're, like, at a bar or something, we need to know that there are people there from the podcast before we make some decisions about how wild things are going to get. It's like being a cop. You have to tell us if you're a TBTL listener. You see us in public. You have to identify yourself immediately so that we can, let's be honest, probably go to a different bar where we can embarrass ourselves amongst complete strangers.

But I will say, especially if we are with anybody who looks like they might be our boss or even friends, I think it's all the more important to come up and say hello just so you can impress the folks around us. They love that.

I feel like that happened with us and our old friend El Ropo, Steve Nelson, right? Yeah.

What were the circumstances? It was our very first year. We were wrapping up our very first year at American Public Media. Actually, it might not have even been a full fiscal, whatever. It was review season is my point. And Steve Nelson, who worked out of the broadcast center in St. Paul, Minnesota, happened to be in Seattle. It might have even been, Luke, he might have been coming to Seattle to join us at the TBTL baseball game and also give us our performance review. So the day before the baseball game or something, we met at this coffee shop, Top Pot Donuts, I believe.

Yes, I remember it was at Top Pot.

And we were upstairs, and we had our review, and it's kind of awkward. Reviews are awkward. I'm awkward, whatever. Steve, everything went really well. Steve was too scared of the listeners to give us any feedback on the show, which is great. And then just as the three of us are leaving the donut shop and saying our goodbyes, somebody came up and said, are you Andrew Walsh, and who's your friend? No, that's not exactly how it went. It was somebody recognized you, and then you introduced me. But it was definitely a TBTL listener, and our boss was right there. It was so perfect.

yeah so that was perfect whoever that was thank you you're probably a big part of why we even still work at this place yes i think we were hanging by a thread in those early days poor

steve i know look what he hath wrought i know although like poor steve's successors look what They have inherited.

Steve left a real grumpy behind for all of the various management types that have come through. We really are the grumpy of APF.

I am the one who grumps.

Burley says, I truly enjoy the hundreds of hours of oversharing. tbtl is weirdly in a good way like having two best friends but in the most asymmetric relationship possible i don't i have nothing to plug here's hoping you two bros can keep burrowing it up for years to come power out burly well burly thank you so much for the support uh financially thanks for you know just being part of this whole thing uh for all these years and sticking with us uh through through thin and thin we really appreciate you we wouldn't be here without you hello and welcome to top story so on the day when it was announced officially that elon musk was going to purchase twitter i like everyone else andrew who's on twitter a lot felt it was my it was my my solemn duty to immediately go to the platform of twitter to say something important about the fact that elon musk was taking over twitter because you need to fill that space

because it was a vacuum.

Exactly. Nobody thought to go on Twitter and comment on the idea that Elon Musk had bought Twitter. I saw this photo of Elon Musk that just, for some reason, just seems to typify the elements of this guy that I find to be a bit odious. I'm guessing he's probably, you know, he moved to Austin officially at some point. And he's wearing a cowboy hat and aviators, and he has a T-shirt on that has the state of Texas on it. And I don't know if this was like at a rollout of his, like, new Tesla truck, or I don't know what the thing was. But he just, there's a, you want to talk about smugness. There's just a look on this guy's face that doesn't feel to me like it's going to be great for Twitter. And I just wrote, I mean, what could possibly go not wrong? And then just this photo of Elon Musk. And it was a pretty innocuous tweet. I think what must have happened, I'm thinking maybe Kai Rizdahl retweeted it. Again, with the Kai causing trouble on Twitter. Because all of a sudden, the comments were like people being mad at me. well first of all somebody found a picture of me like a pr picture of me that was like when i was standing in like it was a magazine article and this is back in the days when magazines had a budget for like a photo shoot and it's they they built a fake bathroom on this photo you know photo stage and this is a photo that's widely circulated within the tbtl world it's me standing on a scale this is back when we used to weigh ourselves every day and i'm holding a microphone And I'm in like some shorts and socks It looks like maybe I just got up And there's an on-air light in this bathroom I have to say it's actually kind of a cool picture I'm not taking any of the credit for it But I actually think it's kind of a clever It was a clever idea I remember this photo, yeah Very well So I thought somebody was I just assumed when I saw that it was a 10 Who was just being funny But no, it was somebody who basically doesn't like me Like they don't follow me And there I went and looked at their feed And they wrote They included a picture of me looking silly And they said I was thinking the exact same thing Which is I think meant to sort of roast me Somebody else said

But you're posing I mean I know this is the obvious I don't have to defend you But I mean just the The misunderstanding of the difference Between these two photos Like one you are purposely posing In a very silly vulnerable place The other one is him doing a talk somewhere Where he thinks he looks really cool in Texas I just want to make that very clear Exactly It's kind of frustrating when people kind of miss the point

The reason I think Kai was involved Is because somebody responded and said They added me and Kai Rizdahl So I'm guessing that Kai interacted with the tweet in some way Which, you know, Kai has a much Well, first of all, he's vastly more well-known than I am And has a lot of Twitter followers Which means just a lot of people Who are probably all over the political spectrum And so when He signal amps something A bunch of people that I don't normally deal with Like all of a sudden show up So one guy said maybe Hunter Biden will be Convicted and the story won't be covered up So that the big guy can win an election I think that means That they think Twitter has been Suppressing some news about Hunter Biden or something Somebody wrote If you don't like Let's see If you hate Twitter, bang out, Luke Burbank. I think that's like Britishism for just leave. Like if I don't like Twitter, leave. But the thing that really surprised me was yesterday when I kind of also wrote this silly thing that was, you know, so many people have been basically doing this comparison of how much money Elon Musk paid for Twitter versus what he could have done with that money. and like you know all these important you know social projects and infrastructure and all the stuff that you could do with 44 million dollars instead of buying twitter oh i saw this this was

funny did i give it a like here i'll look for it now give it a like i i wrote i forgot that that's

this was your tweet this was a funny tweet i wrote for 44 billion dollars elon musk could have given every american one billion dollars why is no one talking about this i love it such a dumb tweet

It's a good, wait, you know, what's shocking to me is how many people. Hold on, Luke, I got to put on the brakes. It's Luke's Tweet of the Week. Oh, yeah.

It's our new daily segment, Luke's Tweet of the Week.

Tweet of the Week as a daily segment.

Yes. It is really interesting, the number of people who think that, i think that 44 billion dollars would give every american a billion dollars the number of people who say check your math or this guy jumped in uh i wrote why you know why is no one talking about this and this guy wrote i would rather make my money not be given it like the premise like as in he could get his billion dollars as every american would be would be entitled to from Elon Musk, but he doesn't want it. because he would like to make his money and not have it handed to him by Elon Musk. And then just people, a dude I used to work with in the traffic reporting industry, a guy named Andrew Greenstein, goes, there are many more than 44 people in the U.S., Luke. The population of the U.S. is currently just south of 330 million. So divvying up $44 billion to every man, woman, and child would yield about $130 per person.

And then I think your joke is that there are 44 people in the United States. Not I mean, again, I know that's obvious. It's just you got to turn off comments, man. It is so free.

Oh, I'm loving it because I responded to Andrew. That's not what my sources are telling me. I'm just like I'm just basically everyone. This guy said something. Joseph Josephus Wagamuffin said, check your math. And I said, I checked it. There are 44 Americans. i'm just i'm just doubling down yeah this silly joke but it's it is a bit shocking to me that somebody could read that and think that that i am sort of with it's in a serious way putting forward the argument that every american could get one billion dollars from elon musk for the 44 billion dollars like it's it's quite something to see somebody read that and think boy this guy's

math is way off i'm going to tell you something that i've been withholding for quite some time now but i'm not going to say how long because i want to give no clues about this at all i didn't i didn't even want to i didn't ever really ever want to mention this but i just guess i can't keep my damn mouth shut but i actually leaked this to two friends the other day um i have a secret Twitter account where I tweet stupid ass shit all the time and I have zero followers so it doesn't matter and I can make my little jokes kind of in a vacuum and I don't have to worry about people being like that doesn't make any sense it's just an outlet for me to tweet things into the void that are weird and ridiculous and I don't need to hear people tell me like josephus wagamuffins i promise you i'm not josephus wagamuffins although i'm interested in hearing more about that but like no there's something like i don't know about this because i have literally told nobody this except the other day something happened where and i think i was wrong i was a little tipsy i honestly i was not drunk i was like with a couple of friends and i had maybe like two beers on an empty stomach or something and i looked down at my phone i don't know if you're like this like my phone's in my pocket we're hanging out for a couple of hours and then you know you pull out your phone and it's almost overwhelming with all the push notifications and like i don't know i maybe i could be like genitive and just ignore all push notifications and also miss a lot of emails um but like i'm more obsessed with like clearing them all out and so i pull my phone out of my pocket after a couple of hours of not looking at it i'm just like oh my god all this stuff and it looks like my mom again this twitter account i'm talking But has zero followers I guess that's the one clue I'll give So just do a search of every Twitter account That has zero followers And suddenly it looked like My mom somehow found my secret Not that she found it But that some algorithm Connected us or something Because it looked like suddenly I was getting a follow On the secret account from my mom And I would like to make Your mom is on Twitter? Yeah but she's I mean I think she just has a presence there She's not like active You know she's not josephus wagamuffins i don't think she uses it much um and i but i think like when i used to have a radio show and various things like she would kind of maybe follow my radio show stuff but that goes back a ways but anyway i i went to the account and actually i still have zero followers so it must have been a it must have been a i don't know what it was but i swear for a second i saw something that said you know uh you know that must have been following racing and i was like what and i was like you algorithms you how did you find me um but so that's by the way that's the reason why i told these two people i was having beers with about like my secret account and i realize every time i say that it sounds gross it sounds like i'm a creep like i'm tweeting creepy things or interacting with porn stars or something which is what there's a period where i feel like a lot of people had secret accounts to do that i swear it is not like that everything is

on the up and up it's just like sometimes i make stupid jokes on my own twitter timeline but then there are the really stupid jokes that i just want to throw out there and um and i just do it privately in this little account that makes me that the only purpose of it is it makes me smile i'm really not using twitter right now i i'm i'm guessing that even off air obviously you're not going to give it out i will never tell anybody what it is so well who i guess that raises the

question who would ever see this i mean just like even strangers well i am following some people

And I will sometimes like people's things So I'm hoping that at some point Somebody might follow me back Maybe, but just on the merits of, hey, this is a weird, this is funny. You know what I mean? That's what I would like to see. What would happen if I didn't have this podcast or something? What if I just started a Twitter feed?

That is fascinating. Well, have fun with that. Of course, I am dying to know what the account is, but maybe when we're in Denver, if you fall asleep on the couch with your phone out, I log into your account. I cut off my thumb to get my thumbprint. To figure out what the account is. But, you know, the other thing, though, speaking of followers, I legitimately, I mean, this isn't a big deal, but I lost like 100 followers over this, too. I don't think over anything I tweeted. I think there's a sort of a measurable exodus of Twitter by a lot of people.

I saw on the show sheet that you'd lost. You said you lost like 100 followers or something. I thought it was about this tweet. But also, how did you notice that? Because I actually mean that as more flattery because your follower numbers are so big that it's like – I just looked at it. It's like 15.6. You're not in the hundreds. You're in the 15,000. So therefore, just seeing 100 go away, you don't get notifications on that. And like how do you know?

Just because it used to be 15.7 and then – and I mean I am such a niche. i'm such a boutique twitterer like compared to people that actually have a lot of followers like basically what they what they're seeing and there was an article about this was like so barack obama i think has the most followers on twitter and he lost 300 000 and katie perry also has a ton of followers and she lost a couple hundred thousand and then marjorie taylor green andrew gained followers ben shapiro gained followers this is a like a leading indicator of what's going down which is a lot of people who have morals are saying sayonara to this platform and a lot of people who uh i think are rooting for the wrong team are like well maybe this is a place for me they're probably coming over from parlor because they're like well elon's in charge now so we can you know we can go hang out there again it's just so interesting it's like but you have

parlor you wanted a little space that was safe for for you because you felt unsafe on twitter for some reason um because of the woke mob because of the woke mob right but so you created the space but now you have your space why do you need to it's so it's so you know trump is supposedly on

the record as saying he will not come back to twitter yeah if he were to be invited i saw which is i mean dear god don't throw us in that briar patch do not throw us like let's let's hope that he sticks with that um although i would be shocked because he's never actually stuck with anything Ever in his life Based on whatever his feeling is In a particular moment I'm sure if they invited him He would come back in a second Because nothing is happening over at Parler But anyway Yeah so that's kind of the latest With that speaking though Of the MAGA movement Andrew This brought me such delight today I don't know if you had a chance To read this piece In the San Francisco Chronicle Written by Katie Dowd I feel like we might have done Another Katie Dowd piece recently I think she's doing good stuff Over there at the Cron okay inept people's convoy chased out of bay area by egg throwing kids have you did you get a chance to look at this no no i did not oh good good i'm excited to tell you about it for the first time so you know obviously there is that canadian trucker convoy thing yeah that was like against the mask mandate and other things and they really screwed a lot of stuff up up there for canadians and then there's been sort of these american versions where these convoys have decided they're going to go around and and annoy people um the problem is that the mask mandate has pretty much been relaxed everywhere in america at this point exactly so there's nothing

it was happening on their big weekend i mean that was the irony like the the big weekend which was like what like wasn't that didn't this convoy kind of like it had its big weekend where it came all the way to dc wasn't that like five weeks ago or something like that and it was actually the same time that the the mask mandate essentially kind of went away yeah is my timeline wrong

yeah no your timeline is right and that's like i mean that's one of the major problems with this protest is the thing they're protesting isn't isn't even in happening anymore um the trucker convoy which aimed to emulate the disruptive canadian protests against covet 19 restrictions has failed spectacularly at every turn during a few weeks of driving around washington dc the convoy was held up by a single cyclist i saw this video by the way somebody on their bike just got in front of the first truck and then just rode so slowly around dc oh my god just to troll them um they were held up by a single cyclist some convoy members said they were having difficulty finding places for bathroom breaks and as a result were forced to urinate in their pants

oh my god hey you really own Owning the libs. Pissing my pants to own the libs.

I had to drop a grumpy. Leaving a grumpy in my Kirkland brand jeans to own the libs. At one point, Andrew, these truckers who were peeing their pants wanted to make a citizen's arrest of Muriel Bowser, who is the mayor of D.C., because they felt like she was conspiring to make it so that they couldn't get any bathrooms. Oh, man. so they're driving around dc peeing their pants and getting held up by a cyclist and they're just kind of aimless right because they just don't they just don't have again they just don't have a purpose now so they're they end up driving across the country out to california on friday afternoon a small convoy of semi-trucks pickup trucks and minivans and others drove to democratic assembly member buffy wick's east bay home to protest her support of an abortion rights bill As they honked and used bullhorns in a quiet residential neighborhood, neighbors gathered to heckle them right back, yelling at the truckers to get off their street. Livestream posted by convoy participants show police arriving to protect Wicks' home, which eventually prompted the group to move on. It was here the convoy members made their mistake, driving onto busy one-lane College Avenue on the Berkeley-Oakland border. There, slowed by the usual Friday afternoon traffic, they were sitting ducks outside a Safeway. A large group of kids armed with eggs purchased at the grocery store began pelting the convoy.

Oh, God, love them.

We're fighting for your freedoms, too, one convoy participant said, as eggs flew amid shouts of get the fuck out of here by the gathering crowd.

It's like out of a book. I wouldn't believe it if it were in a book.

A few ill-advised convoy drivers had their windows rolled down, resulting in egg splatter on the inside of their vehicles. passerbys watched in confusion and amusement with some adults stopping to cheer on the kids one live streamer for the convoy begrudgingly conceded victory to the bay area youth well it's convenient because there's a safe way right there that sells eggs he said on the live stream

i mean it's just it's i mean the reason it's so funny to me is just it's fucking berkeley like i mean this would be funny anyway but if it's like kent state or whatever i don't you know It's just like, where do the truckers get stuck? Right outside Berkeley so they can get egg-throwed at them.

Just sitting in traffic next to a place where they sell eggs with berserkly youth, radically Nancy Pelosi-activated radical trans Berkeley youth. And then I love the idea of the grown-ups kind of joining in. Yeah. Oh, man. So then they decide they're going to go over To Nancy Pelosi's house To plant American flags in her yard The people's convoy made it to San Francisco To try to go to Nancy Pelosi's residence But the planned activity of placing flags in the yard fell apart Due to the group failing to come to a consensus On which home actually belonged to Nancy Pelosi So they're arguing about which house was her house And they couldn't come to a consensus So then they just decided to go home Because some of them wanted to have dinner

Supper I think it was supper Suggestion was made about shutting down

The Golden Gate Bridge The idea was shot down because of concerns About making it back in time for dinner But they put a pin in it for a later date

I know this is a more serious conversation And we're having fun here At other people's expense But I mean the flag thing Is like it really underscores How like yeah you know it's the american flag pelosi should be like oh yeah i i like america i'm currently serving my country like the american flag should not be like hey we're pranking you by putting the american flag in your yard it's just so weird how that's become like i know a symbol for the right i mean again i know that's not fun to talk about but like how is that a prank that's like oh thanks yeah i love this country i know we all live here i've been we all live here and i have dedicated my life to the service of this country it's my flag i know it's like the idea that that would

be a like trolling now to like to put basically what they consider to be their flag in nancy pelosi's yard and just i mean the very fact that in this day and age if you see a big old truck it's driving down the road it's got a big american flag flying behind it you know exactly what that person's politics yeah yeah it's and it's really frustrating to me to be serious because yeah i you know i love that flag and i love what this country in the idealized version can be or should be and like the idea that that that it's just the property or whatever the possession of one side of this argument is really really frustrating like were i to fly like this house that i bought in washington state has a flagpole and as do the neighbors and luckily there's no don't tread on flying out there although this is in you know the rural part of the state so there's a lot of that out there but i was going back and forth i was like what flag could i fly here that would just tick everybody off the absolute most because i mean i wouldn't want to fly an american flag because it would probably signal to them now some i mean i don't know an american flag on a flagpole at your house might be the last place where you could do that without it seeming like a hugely overt political statement don't you think yeah i mean i think if you wanted

to i think you you you should in fact i almost wonder if this is less unique than if something can be less unique which it can't unique can't be at varying degrees but um if it's not as what's what's a word that kind of means unique but isn't as absolutist if this is um not unprecedented maybe because wasn't there something in the 60s about the hippies kind of like them reclaiming the flag like in a way and draping themselves in the flag and the flag really becoming a symbol of like counterculture. Yeah, and their idea of freedom, you know, what you would call like the far left at that point.

I guess if you're wearing it, like if you go to a show like that, I just think of like Woodstock and like hippies like literally wearing a flag. Yeah. We knew what, we knew those people were not there to support Richard Nixon. Right. Or whoever was, you know, the man at that point in time. So yeah, maybe we could do something like that where it's like you're using it in such a totally non-traditional way that it's clear that you're i mean i also think it's kind of funny because when i grew up you know we literally in school had to learn about proper care for the flag did you ever do that in class

yeah absolutely i mean that's why i still when i'll see somebody who's like you know giving all of the all of like you pass somebody's house that has all the symbols of being you know pretty far right trumpy blue lives matter flags and american flags but it's like it's like out in the rain And you're just like, dude, that's not what you're supposed to do.

You're not supposed to fly it after night unless it's illuminated. You're not supposed to leave it out in the rain. Probably having a Punisher flag is probably not in keeping with the way that you're supposed to not alter it to a certain degree. When you're done with a flag, you're supposed to burn it, right? Or fold it, like tri-corner fold it and put it in an incinerator. I remember our custodian, Mr. Steele, at Daniel Bagley Elementary School, it was his job to put up and take down the flag every day and he would do it with this great amount of respect and like you know like all of the rules around like what part of it you can touch and don't let it touch the ground and all this stuff i think it's ironic when these guys are just absolutely destroying the shit out of some flag that they're towing you know on the they've got on the back of their truck and it's just completely tattered at some point like it's just you have completely destroyed this flag because you are so afraid of trans bathrooms what like what is the logic and you're just out here destroying a flag for that right so bizarre

to me and we're just i'm not we i'm i keep taking this in weird uh directions but like it's kind of easy to forget about the flags on cars phenomenon right after 9-11 and and also i think entering Like, I think that lasted a couple of years because I think it included like kind of the quote unquote war on terror. Right. Like everybody like for a while there, it was almost like, no, I don't know, man. It was signaling, though. I was going to try to draw a comparison to maybe some the way some people use masks or or or obstinately don't use masks back when the mandates were in full effect. But, like, the idea of, like, not having a flag on your car almost stood out more. Do you remember that? Do you feel like I'm exaggerating that?

I don't think you're exaggerating it. My pause was I was trying to remember if I – because I will admit I got – you know, I wish I would have been more discerning about, like, the – you know, what was going to go on in Iraq or the rush to war and how unrelated that was really to what was going on with 9-11. I think you know like everyone I was so shocked and horrified by what happened on 9-11 that you know this idea that we got to get the people who did it I think I sort of I just I wasn't as um I didn't push back on that idea as hard as I wish I would have in retrospect I don't think I ever got to the point of having a flag on my car but if there was a time when I would have had it it

would have probably been then you're right and also keep in mind I was in New Hampshire too so that probably that's also you know it might have been even a greater phenomenon there you know with a pretty conservative base and you know uh new hampshire proudly like first in the nation primary status and rightfully so i mean they've been saying that for ever i mean new hampshire's always been fighting fighting back to keep its place or moving further and further earlier on the calendar but they are the the person the very problematic person who's been the champion of that the secretary of state gardner um finally just stepped down after i think like 800 your

years in that position um it was actually the old man in the mountain was yeah yeah what's that guy

called bill gardner um the old man of the mountain what is that you know famous craggy peak that looks like an old man yeah the old man of the mountain yeah but it's fell down though i did it oh yeah i did reporting on that it was one of the few things i actually did reporting on because it was breaking news and heard a lot of um heard a lot of uh middle-aged white guys crying into the microphone saying i haven't felt this way since my father died whoa yeah true quote so you were living in new hampshire when this happened yep i was working on uh i believe i was the morning edition producer for new hampshire public radio at the time but this happened on the weekend so i um and i i can't remember what happened i'm i'm not a reporter i was never a reporter at this time you know i was producing the show and stacking newscasts for the mornings but this happened i remember i was driving up from boston when the news broke and for some reason like yeah somebody whatever the the governor was supposed to give a talk somewhere so they sent me they said go to the station grab a microphone it was governor benson at the time i believe that guy that guy craig benson anyway um how's that for good do you need more context on that i just said that guy and shook my head somebody that nobody remembers but anyway it was a real piece of work man he was one of those outsiders he was a non-politician who came in and was going to change everything by having standing meetings so that you wouldn't waste time because government's too inefficient but anyway uh somebody was like well he's you know he's got some press events somewhere go and uh see if you can get him to comment on this but when i arrived he had already like he was already in a helicopter literally in a helicopter flying around the scene where the um old men of the mountain fell so i think i interviewed like congressman bradley instead who and everybody was kind of saying the same things i haven't felt this way since my father died did it just happen kind of naturally i think so i mean actually what didn't happen naturally was that it stayed there for so long like that thing had so much epoxy in it by the end like there was a crew i mean it was a natural outcropping but like there there was so much into preserving it and here's the thing and boy i'm i'm probably pissing off our new hampshire listeners well let's see ann i think ann rides with me on this stuff i could be wrong i don't know who else would Danny uh anyway sorry New Hampshire listeners but like there was something about it like you hear about the old man of the mountain it's like the symbol on all of the interstate signs it's the symbol on the um quarter it's the symbol on the license plates it's like the old man of the mountain is such an icon for New Hampshire and so when people are like you gotta go see it it's astounding it's amazing it's in like one of those passes I can't remember which pass it's in in the mountains and you go and you drive there there's a little pull off and like i just remember being like what where where they're like squint just squint like oh that that little thing now it wasn't a little thing but just like it looked because of the perspective of where you pulled over to see it it was so far away i was like oh i thought it was gonna be like this

magnificent almost like um i don't know kind of natural carving or something but it was like a Mount Rushmore or something of nature. But no, it was pretty far away. And it's just like they put so much pride in this thing.

I don't mean to be disrespectful. That's so interesting. I'm now reading up on it. This is actually a very interesting story. If you go to the Wikipedia page, there's this composite photo of what it looks like now. But then superimposed over is what it used to look like. So you can just kind of have a sense of both what is the case now and what used to be the case. It also sounds like, like everything in this country, that there was actually, you know, some indigenous connection to this as well. The Abenaki people call it the stone face, and it was a symbol within their culture. Also, it was a symbol to the Mohawk people who were from around there. And, yeah, I mean, it looks to me, again, no disrespect, but it looks like a transformer.

Like a transformer of John Kerry, sort of. I think it does look like you can tell all my references are like so 2003 John Kerry was very much on my mind back then I think um whatever year this was he he had just been in the in the primary or whatever but he did have it did have some strong Kerry vibes definitely 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

all righty emails or emails yeah yeah you know what by the way yeah go ahead i don't want to

drive the curriculum i'll do it do it because i have a you go ahead our friend listener lee

uh is uh the head of the i'm i'm stalling because i'm also trying to get to my tbtl email okay i can also grab this and send it to you this is a great email good call

yeah so yesterday we were talking about i was i was taking on two of america's most treasured institutions the fawns holding up a fish by the way now i get every single henry winkler tweet because i interacted with a tweet of his however briefly so all i see are henry winklers now um i was talking about fishing and i was also talking about uh an experience i had here in portland where a couple of cyclists were using uh availing themselves of this crosswalk technology where if you were a pedestrian you can hit a button and uh you know it flashes a light so the car stops so you can walk across the street but in this case these people were cycling so what they were effectively doing to my mind was they were behaving like pedestrians even though they were on bikes and what i've always been told is you got to treat a bike like it's a car like you have to give it respect and not try to drive around them and all that stuff to me i always feels like if you're gonna if the rule is that we're gonna treat bikes with respect and like they belong on the roads with us then they should also not like jaywalk essentially or like you know i don't let i don't personally love the idea of a bike being a bike when you want it to be but then also being something else like going up on the sidewalk or or just running a red light because Why not? Anyway, our friend Lee is actually the what is he? The president of the Cascade Cycling Cascade Bike Association.

Yeah, I forgot about that. He starts his email by saying as the person that leads the nation's largest bike club of 10,000 members and happens to be based in Seattle. Let me answer some of your questions. So a CNN plus of cyclists. that's your so how many ducks do you think around that problem about a cnn plus

so lee so lee like literally is in charge of the cascade uh cycle club so he really knows this stuff and he uh so he just like went down the list because we posed a bunch of questions too about those like you know sort of e-bikes and and if e-bikes belong in the same category as traditional human powered cycles etc and if if people that are riding the kind of what we think of as a traditional bike if they get annoyed when someone's got those like a motorized bike got those big wheels lee says okay um all cyclists are people who bike but not all people who bike consider themselves cyclists bike lanes and paths are built for people who bike so they can get where they need to go on a simple safe and connected network of infrastructure e-bikes are bikes there three classes of e-bikes class one two one and two have assist up to 20 miles per hour and are allowed on most bike paths in the nation class three with assist up to 28 miles per hour are restricted from using some bike paths depending on the laws of your city and state okay so uh that answers that question bikes using crosswalks in most cities bikes are allowed to use sidewalks and by extension crosswalks sorry luke andrew thank you for speaking up that people who ride bikes should use the part of the road that makes them feel uh and keeps makes them feel and keeps them safe well okay i mean i the problem lee with that to me is i feel like the how do i mean i don't want to i'm not trying to dig in dig in on this but this this idea that what people on bikes should do is whatever makes them feel safe that feels to me like it's a little bit of a broad interpretation does that mean ride up on the sidewalk because you feel safer there because what about the people that are walking on the sidewalk like i you know what i mean like i get the i get the crosswalk thing that's fine i'll take the l on that like that you know cyclists can use crosswalks and can can use whatever that thing was they were using on broadway here but that that statement

to me i'm wondering what that looks like in the real world you know as a pedestrian i have some opinions about bikes you know like zipping past people on crowded sidewalks it doesn't happen all that often but when it does i find it inappropriate but generally speaking if we're kind of talking about um bikes i truly and i'm not i'm not just trying to pander to you lee i just truly do believe that people who are trying to anything we can do to get our city to have less cars and more more people using transportation like bikes and foot and even maybe occasional scooters or what have you i think is better and so i you know i will again i don't i don't like the idea of people just zipping but i just don't think it's that common that people are racing down city sidewalks

in seattle and portland on their bikes yeah i mean i will say this as well a very very big part of my stress as a driver now and this is okay i mean i said this yesterday but like this just comes with the territory is the moments where the protected bike lane maybe ends or i i really really really do not want to, obviously. come in contact with anybody who's on a bike when i'm driving my car and it makes me pretty nervous actually like i because there's so many people riding bikes in portland it is i i'm i'm extremely concerned about you know taking a right and and and you know crossing one of those protected bike lanes and somebody being in that bike lane like i'll check i will check like four times yeah me too yeah i'm looking at it there's no one there and my brain says okay you can take it right and then i just double check again yeah because the bikes can come fast they can come yeah and they're you know so um i you know i don't know what my point of that statement is other than it is a complicated thing to have big super heavy metal things that we're driving and then people that are on bikes and have that all kind of coexisting relatively peacefully in the streets i think portland does a pretty good job of it and like i said i haven't run into any like stereotypically aggressive cyclists here in portland yet but i'm also super careful like i really don't give anyone a reason to be mad at me or at least i try not to yeah yeah no me too i mean

it's funny because i i take the same approach but it doesn't it doesn't irritate me at all i'm just kind of like be super careful i think i've told the same story a million times about how i was taking a right and on my old street and there was a bike lane to my right and i'm always super careful before you take a right and if i see that a cyclist is coming i just did this the other day As a matter of fact, having to take a right like that, like if I see that a cyclist is like a little bit behind me, but I put on my flash or I put it on like way in advance and I'll even kind of just like kind of wave. I'll take my right hand and I don't know if the cyclist can see it or not, but I'll kind of just like wave being like, I see you coming down really fast. Like I see you and I'm not going to make this turn because I've just seen too many dumbass drivers who have their head up their ass taking that turn, not being careful. Worst ways to drive. It's terrible. It's against the law, I think. And just like So many times a cyclist has to like Slam on their brakes or something And it's like I just don't think it should be on them I think we're the ones driving the huge chunks of metal

Microtransit Lee continues These are the stand up And sit down scooters These are allowed on some bike paths In most cities where they are deployed They are geofenced from using some Paths like you can't use it on the river walk In San Antonio which as somebody who was on the river walk in san antonio not that long ago that's a good idea because it's like extremely crowded with people just walking and if you had scooters on there it would be a nightmare um however people should uh really wear a helmet when they're using um these uh scooters uh things can get out of hand very quickly riding these i've had that happen by the way andrew when i was living in the other part of town and i kind of got into using those like you know i thought it was lime or bird or whatever i kind of got into those scooters for a minute yeah and i was cruising down burnside and i it was like unfolding in slow motion i was coming i don't know if i ever told you this i was coming off the burnside bridge so i'm on the i'm on like basically on the side of the road on this scooter but i'm going downhill so i'm going pretty fast and i just see a giant oil slick on the street like like something out of like spy hunter yeah and i can't avoid it because it's coming too quickly and i i'm hitting the brakes but i don't want to skid out and sure as shit as soon as i hit this giant oil slick i just lay that scooter down and i was i mean i'm old at least i feel old and i was going very fast like and i it's amazing i wasn't more hurt i just think i had like a sore hip and maybe some road rash but i'll tell you what i did i walked that scooter right over to the sidewalk and turned it off yeah and just walked to where i was going because i was like okay and i haven't been on one of those things since well that's

i told you this like i it's really weird like i um i when i was visiting other cities that had those i loved those things i was zipping around saint paul in those things probably actually after meeting some co-workers for drinks and probably i shouldn't been but i felt so comfortable on those things i was not intimidated by them at all and then totally unrelated to scooters i was you know running to catch a bus and i fell and broke my finger and it's like the most vulnerable i ever felt and i and then the scooters came to seattle during the time that my finger was in like a splint and i was like well i'm not going to use them on my fingers like still this vulnerable but like now i'm out you know my finger's as fine as it's ever going to be it doesn't it's not a problem but i've never gotten on one of those scooters now because now i just know that's like oh i'm vulnerable like just generally speaking i'm a 45 year old guy like which is not that old Like, my dad's out there on his e-bike, like, cutting it up across, going on these long rides around Cleveland and whatnot, and it's like, you know, my life is not over. I need to just, like, I need to just get on the scooter again, Luke. Of course, now I'm in a part of town where, like, there really aren't scooters, or if they are, they just, like, they look like they've given me hepatitis C, so, like, I'm just, like, avoiding. them i mean there is some real real scooter damage going down in portland like particularly on my jogs around the river that river is mostly scooters at this point yes you know like it's like huh you know uh what do we have here a city we call it bridge town because the series of bridges going over a waterway where drunk people can take possession of these scooters they're just like so many scooters that are just like like half buried in the muck at about two feet of water in the willamette and then someone pulls them out and then they're just like someone took them apart seeing if there's copper in there i mean there's some real beat to shit scooters in this town i'll

tell you yeah it's amazing that that the um that that's still part of the business model though right that they just said the companies that run these things just have to say well that's part of the business and we we have to just absorb those costs but it's still worthwhile for us to do this

i know it is it's i don't know though i mean do you think are any of those are any of those things actually making money yet or is it one of those things where they're all of their investment is in good question getting the you know people used to using them and then at some point they'll turn a corner on profitability i was i know we talked way too much about twitter the last few days but i didn't even it didn't even occur to me until the other day twitter loses money right now still Like Twitter is operating at a loss because it's relatively niche compared to like Facebook. And I guess they just haven't really figured out, you know, I mean, it's it's it's sort of become important in the discourse because when someone says something on Twitter, particularly if they're like famous, it drives a whole conversation. But they still haven't figured out how to actually monetize it to where it's profitable. So Musk is paying forty four billion dollars for something that's not even profitable.

it is amazing that and i i i'm trying to think maybe you said this on the show or i saw somebody tweet this or something but like yeah maybe i'm just repeating something that you said but it is amazing that like this guy who would go down in the history books as the guy who made the electric car somewhat mainstream and reinvigorated the space race a private space race but but space exploration in a way like that's hero shit man yes like if he were a different person like yeah if he were not just like also a troll and a wackadoo like it's just amazing like you could

have such a good reputation i saw somewhere because you know he's south african his dad owned like a an emerald mine i think i mean he comes from an immense privilege and i saw on twitter somewhere where somebody said i don't really i don't i don't need to get on here and make fun of elon musk because of the time that it was uh i think it was iggy azalea called him apartheid eddie and somebody said and i just felt like the conversation was over at that i don't know his politics related to apartheid and maybe that's unfair like saying that every person who was white from south africa was you know in favor of that but Like, I was like, that is a pretty savage burn. It is. And you're absolutely right, though. You're absolutely right. Like, if he, all he has to do is not be a troll. And he's, like, he's Henry Ford and Buzz Aldrin. Right. All rolled into one. Like, all you have to do is not go on the Joe Rogan show and smoke a blunt and say a bunch of dipshit stuff. Like, all you have to do, let your accomplishments stand for themselves. Because you've radically changed this planet, you know?

And also, it's funny to use Ford, a radical anti-Semite, like handing out the elders of Zion, like totally wrong side of things.

And I just used his name in a positive sense.

Yes. And we're all just driving Fords and saluting the flag on Super Bowl Sunday.

Like it's being a literal, you know, anti-Semite has not damaged his reputation enough that I even remembered that when I said his name. Yeah. That's the bar for Elon Musk.

Yeah. I mean and also maybe maybe it's more maybe that's more to the point though maybe that's like a happy accident in this conversation because like yeah these these barons are terrible often yeah it's I mean it is it seems unusual that somebody who whose brain is able to think as creatively as one needs to or at least as to be as they like to say a disruptor like the same kind of brain that's capable

of that of somebody being a jeff bezos of somebody being an elon musk of somebody being a a bill gates or whatever it's rare that that same brain chemistry also then has you just also a normal chill person yeah you know like you're you're probably not going to revolutionize how humans live on planet earth if you're also a chill person yeah i mean then you yeah exactly

then you get in some real ayn rand shit there and the whole superman theory right i don't you know I have never read the family.

mountainhead or atlas shrugged i remember in college having a moment right where because i don't i don't think i even really understood the underlying politics of it i remember somebody saying like it was their favorite book and i was you know in the mode of trying to learn about things and i think i picked up one of them was like this is so boring i completely never got

through it um they are long and boring i remember i read the first half of atlas shrugged and i liked it and then the second half just got kind of bogged down in the the idealism and and you know whatever her broader message was you know what i didn't realize is i always associated the superman theory with rand but it was actually um niches and i guess most people know that but but she bought into it and that was kind of the whole thing that these these these um i used the word barons before but would you say that the leaders of industry the titans of industry or whatever that like yeah you have to you have to give people and i'm probably not even right about this this is just how I thought I remembered it from college that it's like oh yeah well you know there are people there are men especially who are going to do exceptional things and so therefore they are exceptional people and they don't have to be held to the same standards and rules that the rest of us do I mean that's probably wrong in a lot of ways and Lee can write in and tell me all the ways I'm wrong about that which I welcome by the way because I'm I feel embarrassed now that I wrote I brought this up and now I can't bring it back down. But that's how I always saw that.

Yeah, I I'm thinking, I mean, would we probably say that Bill Gates is the least sort of seems like the I mean, I wouldn't say the guy's relatable per se, but he seems to be generally a force for good with the Gates Foundation and, you know, all this, all the work that that place does.

I guess maybe he would be like sort of the who a person who has had that kind of immense influence on our world but also seems like it hasn't completely corrupted their brain yeah I mean he had some personal issues of course and that came out of a divorce and maybe maybe not acting totally appropriate about around people who who work for him which is a which is a which is a kind of a dicey area but generally speaking I mean what he's done with his what with his billions and billions of dollars is is very different than you know he he didn't put on a cowboy hat and launch himself into almost space bill gates could give every american one

billion dollars and still be the third wealthiest man on planet earth and nobody is talking about

all right i liked that tweet by the way i went back and i liked your thank you i appreciate i saw that you do know that there's more than 44 people in the u.s though right

That's not what I'm hearing, Andrew. Okay. And I've run the numbers backwards and forwards.

All right, I'll look it up. Okay, I'll Google it.

All right, everyone. Thanks for listening today. We are going to be back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio. Hey, by the way, if you're hearing this and you live in Eugene, Oregon, or near there, we're going to be doing Live Wire Friday night at the Holt Center in Eugene. It's going to be a really fun show. Catherine Schultz is going to be there. She's that New Yorker writer who wrote the piece about the earthquake that's going to take everyone down. She's actually much more fun than you would think, based on that article.

No, I mean, you're talking about the one that came out, like, I don't know, 2015 or so. Yeah, that was an amazing, amazing article, yeah.

Yeah, and Laura Veers is going to be playing music, and Sasha LaPointe will be there. We've got comedy from Sean Patton. So if you're looking for something to do on Friday night and you're in Oregon, come on down to Eugene, where we'll be doing Livewire. In the meantime, thanks for listening today. We'll be back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio. Until then, have a great Wednesday. Take care of yourselves. And please remember, I'm Mountain Too Tall.

And good luck to all.

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