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Call in the voice now Line at TBTL 206-414-8285 Power out TBTL Brother, who are you?

What are you doing? I'm with the news, dude Today, I am making this studio A no-embarrassment zone

You seem like a real, real down-to-earth dude

Implicitly You can absolutely, implicitly trust me.

I'm going to bring 110% to the table on a daily basis. So one thing I would do is like this.

Okay, that's great. I love you. Oh my God, with your cheekbones and your guitar playing, and it's all very, very attractive and very, very talented. Sweetie, have a good show. What you do is so important.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a tuesday edition of tbtl the show just might be too beautiful to live the

vibes will be the illest and the jams not ridiculous my name is luke burbank i'm your

host i don't know who that is and i don't care to find out coming to you once again from the hollywood broadcast center right here in portland oregon bring it back home baby bring it back home where it feels real nice to be back home and broadcasting to all of you on a just absolutely gorgeous Tuesday.

Oh, Ma, Pa, it's just beautiful.

Hanging out here with Bubbles, the cat who is doing a stereotypical cat thing, which is she is lounging in a sunbeam.

Kittens, inspired by kittens.

It's like we get it. We get it, cats. What are you going to do? Hate lasagna next? Wait, love lasagna, hate Mondays. It's been a long time since I read Garfield. Let's just focus on today's episode, which is episode 3695 in a collector's series.

Let the fun begin.

Although it does kind of, it raises an interesting question. What would the tone of Garfield be if he loved Mondays? If he just was like, just got up at 6 a.m. to just greet the day and also could not stand lasagna? It would be a very different comic strip. Anyway, if you remember, last week we were in Denver doing TB Cellathon 13, and we were staying in an Airbnb, which was great, worked really well for our needs. Calm down, Kat. You remember last week when I was gone? I know, she still will not let me forget that I've abandoned her for about, I don't know, 50% of her life that she's lived with me has been not living with me. Anyway, I was debating sending a note to the Airbnb landlord, a nice note, just saying, hey, maybe don't lead with all the things we're not supposed to do at the Airbnb. Girl, don't do it. It's not worth it. And Andrew pointed out that it's probably not really something that's worth doing since the, you know, we're not going to stay there again and whatever. But then, of course, you know, I did it went ahead and sent him a note and he's responded via the Airbnb app. So we will talk about that. Andrew's trip home was eventful. I got a call from him over the weekend after a situation unfolded. So we'll hear about that. And if time permits, Castellanos strikes again. He was the guy who hit a home run when Tom Brenneman was weakly apologizing for a horrible gay slur that he said into a hot mic. Well, this player Castellanos hit a home run. Well, Castellanos has done it again. He has a real flair for the somber, and we will get into that again if we have time. I have a feeling we're going to spend a lot of time, though, talking to this young man, the longest-running Cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He is Andrew Walsh, and he is joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. Sorry for my delay there. I'm literally making a Garfield meme here where it's a picture of Garfield, and he's saying, you got this, because it's kind of like the opposite of what we expect from this sarcastic cat, right? Yeah, it's sort of like, basically, Garfield got a Ziggy transplant. Yeah, well, Ziggy's very contemplative, though, right? He's trying to figure it all out. He is, but he's still much more positive than Fargild. Ziggy's always... looking at a rainbow going thanks world exactly hey i have garfield is always looking at normal

going i would kill you if it weren't a federal crime this is not normal is one of my favorite tbtl show titles of all time um i told you welcome back my friend thank you you too i we have so much to talk about our adventures our trip a recap etc but i gotta say my mind is so blown right now about something that has nothing to do with tbtl or the tbtl-a-thon just just one of those things i I mean, maybe it's almost like the Mandela effect, but I'm not setting you up for a spoof here. This is seriously something that my mind is grappling with right now, and I'm not saying this to be like flip or disrespectful to this person or his family, but in all seriousness, I just found out that Wallace Shawn is still alive, and it is blowing my mind, because I feel like, it's not like just the sense I had that he was an actor who passed too quickly i this is of course the fellow who says inconceivable on the princess bride and i just received a voicemail from a listener listener ryan in dc who was talking about how he recently downloaded the thank you gift that we supplied um you and me and genevieve doing an audio commentary for the princess bride and he was sharing the story about how he's uh been waiting to hear back from wallace sean's people waiting for an autograph that he requested among some other things and i was waiting i'm listening to his voicemail and i'm thinking wallace sean oh sweet sweet ryan in dc like wallace sean died and like this is not like again a notion i had this was

this was your master plan you you wanted to start the show reflecting on the fact that wallace sean

is not dead a thing only you thought it's not that it's just like oh i kind of thought he passed away luke i swear i mean i am out of my brain right now i thought we talked about it on tbtl i thought we played clips from um my dinner with andre i whoa so you had an entire like we eulogized him for years now when somebody mentions wallace sean i get a little sad because i think of him as somebody who passed too soon and i can't figure out if i was thinking of somebody else but it is so and again i'm not saying this to be disrespectful about like the memory of somebody who's still alive this is good news to me and i'm not i'm not this is not a bit my brain is so god damn scrambled right now because i i for years i've been touched with a bit of sadness upon hearing his name because i thought he was gone too soon that's like basically like a um i feel happy

yeah no i am a sort of like a weird i don't think i've ever heard of this particular emotion which is the the joy that you feel when someone you thought had passed in fact has is is alive and presumably doing just fine and i don't mean in the case of like you know someone's lost at sea and you've given up on them and then they float up to you know the philippines or something on a you know piece of driftwood that's one category but this is a whole other category which is you've just been walking around feeling a little bit of sadness at the passing of wallace sean a passing that has not happened although let's be honest andrew and no offense to you i don't think he

makes for the rest of the week oh god don't even don't even i mean you i mean you realize how hard you just jinx that no don't oh my god don't even don't even joke around about that i mean it's it's

not i it's a part of partly a joke but also partly like oh god i believe we have a bit of a track record on this show more me than you of i think jinxing some things so i'm reverse jinxing it right now and wallace sean is going to live to be 178 he's got another hundred years in front of him

i'm going to send him this garfield meme i just made that says you got this and it's got a picture of Garfield next to it. For real, though, I'm a little bit out of it. That is going to be a show pick today, right? Please tell me that. Can we use Garfield? I need you to draw. You want me to draw Farguild? You need to draw Farguild, yeah, because I don't think we have the rights to use this Garfield image. But maybe, you know.

Thank God I've been practicing my Farguild for years. I know.

Are you drawing it as we speak?

Are you doing this? No, I don't have. Actually, I do have plenty of paper, but I am focused, Andrew. I am laser focused on today's program. I'm weirdly amped about doing the show today. which, I mean, I guess it's sad to say that some days I'm less amped, but I don't know. I'm just bursting with energy. I think coming down to a lower altitude has – boy, I went on a jog today, and I felt like I could run forever. I think that's just the effect of not being 5,000 feet up in the air.

Yeah, definitely. We have – I mean, I'm feeling really good too. I did catch – remember when I was – it was actually the night of the event. I believe that was Friday night. All right.

I failed so much.

This is definitely my next tattoo.

You got this. I just texted that to Luke. Remember Saturday, or I guess Friday night, after our adventures at Local 46, we did trivia night. You were out gallivanting. I was back at the Airbnb. Some gallivanting happened, certainly. Went to Crowbar with some 10s. Had a really fun time. And I remember going to bed that night and having kind of a burning sensation in my sinuses that was kind of intense. And I was like, oh, my God, please don't be sick. Like I just, you know, especially in this day and age, if you end up coming down with COVID and you just hosted a super spreader event, that doesn't look great. And I was like, oh, my God, please don't let me be having symptoms of COVID right now. Right. As we just ended an event where I was getting in close with people and taking photos and everything, because you are one of those people who on paper, or at least as far as you know, you haven't had it.

You've never tested positive. And it feels like it's the folks who were sort of somehow dodging this for two plus years that are all getting it now, basically.

Right. And like there are even times because I'm kind of a paranoid guy and it seems like everybody had it. And Genevieve had it at one point. I was like, remember one time I told you, I was like, I was in Hawaii one day and I had a little bit of a sniffle and maybe that was it. But I had also been up until like 4 a.m. drinking the night before. And it was kind of like, well, I was probably just hung over and a little bit draggled. I believe in the words of Wallace Shawn conceivable right exactly but in my back of my head I have found it so unbelievable that I haven't caught it that I figured that maybe I had mild symptoms and ignored them but here's what I learned on this on this trip so when I dropped you off at the airport on Saturday morning I definitely had I still had some like I don't know it just I felt an uncomfortableness in my sinuses that was not overwhelming but also not great feeling right and I dropped you off and I was like okay and then I'm just trying to kind of push through it kind of mind over matter it and then as my drive goes on it's pretty clear that i've got a cold or something like my whole face kind of clogs up i'm going through the mountains this is interesting i'm going through the mountains my ears are clogging up in a way that i've never had before luke i was like the um i'm not joking i was like the uh the uh michael jordan tear meme my eyes were just i i don't know if it's i've never had you were the michael jordan of driving a kia soul i was until i wasn't um but uh yeah my head was so clogged up at one point the next day i got out to like get a uh i had to gas up my tank and get a mcgriddle and my i love how quick you went from a non mcgriddle consumer to a power user of that product road trips baby but like i got out of the car at one point my head was so clogged up i felt like i was kind of um like in a movie or something i felt outside of my body i could barely hear what

people were saying were you like that i mean i know you probably hadn't taken medicine yet but we we refer to this a lot that whatever that animated commercial was where someone's head turns into a balloon and takes off like that i tell you what i don't know what that product is

but that image has really stuck in my head and i want to tell everybody who was at the event or was just concerned about this i did so i'm kind of bouncing all over the place i dropped you off at the airport on Saturday uh like morning around 11 o'clock and I hit the road and I drove for seven hours and it got kind of my my cold got worse and worse throughout that time um which you know a cold is a cold it's not that big of a deal but in my head I'm like well this must be COVID because first of all I haven't really had and I'm now realizing I haven't gotten sick in three or two years two plus years or whatever it is because we've been first we isolated and we didn't leave our houses and then we wore masks everywhere and like I just didn't catch anything I did when I rolled into i guess that wyoming town evanston and i got my little uh i got my room key to a little motel just like a holiday inn or something i still wearing my coat i rushed in and i took a covid test because i'm like i know i have it but i guess i gotta just like confirm it and because it was kind of a bummer like i'm i'm driving this these seven hours and i'm kind of scared to go into places i'm just getting gas at the pump and you know like trying to not go into places except to like use the restroom and dodge everybody um and but i get to the hotel and i took it and i'm like oh no i mean it's very clear i do not have covet i just have a cold something that i used to get all the time i just forgot what it's like to be a little sick and again it wasn't devastating and then once i knew it wasn't coveted and it was just a cold i'm like

i can deal with just the psychological relief from that you're like okay in the words of far guild you got this like famous you're like i'll be i'll be fine exactly and so because just yeah i took a covet test on um saturday no on sunday as well were you feeling a little bit under the

weather yes we probably had a bit of the same gunk probably i think so and i went over to becca's

house and we were on our way out to my sister's place for a big family get-together and i was just kind of my voice was a little shot and you know just not feeling super great and uh took a and I was also negative. So I just want to mention for anybody who, you know, visited us at the kissing booth on Friday night,

at local 46 um we're good clean bill of health for both me and andrew exactly um yeah it's amazing that apm let us get away with that kissing booth thing well after all the keeler stuff when i told you they okayed it what i meant was i forgot to run it by them right okay gotcha so we'll we'll see how that all pans out and concur anyway um yeah so i was very psyched speaking of which can

you learn concur really quick and then teach me please because i have a buttload of expenses not from the thon actually i have one expense from the thon which is the airbnb i put that on my corporate card but the thing is cbs the irig and the irig and the irig that's right which is not just a vibration that you get in the caribbean it's a device that we were using to broadcast with but um uh but no it's because cbs now also uses concur and i uh it's ugly in there man i've got a lot of expenses so just um uh let me know when we can do a breakout session you and i and

you can walk me through how to do it i have so many concur expenses because every time i filled up the car i can gas um the other actually concur concur is going to play a role in a story that we're going to tell here because as you mentioned i had to give you a call yes on let's see saturday was the day i was driving when the cold got worse and worse but then i show up in evanston sunday

you called me because i was still at becca's i was fresh off of my passing my covid test and i saw andrew walsh's calling and i thought oh no old tom york and his karma police yeah have shown up for my friend andrew because of course last week we talked about how we pulled a bit of a fast one on enterprise to get you switched into a larger more spacious car and then uh you and others speculated that that might portend bad things for your trip home because we had been a less than

honest to get you the better car yeah but I did tell you that like I texted you well we talked about this a little bit on on the show that posted yesterday as I was dropping you off at the airport I was telling you how much I loved the new car the new the new Kia Soul that I was driving home and also I mean driving a car and again people are like a Kia Soul is not a big car but to me like compared to that other toy that I bought this thing was so spacious and solid feeling and safe And it occurred to me, like in all seriousness, we alluded to this last week on the show, but when when you and I first met up in Denver, I was having a bit of a kind of a just a general kind of panic attack kind of thing. And it just was like kind of out of my mind with anxiety. And I think I realize now a big part of that really was internalizing my trip in this tiny car through the mountains and thinking about the trip home. And I think that that was a big part of it. And I haven't driven a lot of cars, so I guess I kind of didn't realize just how on edge I was. But like there was almost a feeling and I don't know if anybody's ever said this about a Kia Soul before, but I had almost a feeling of euphoria getting on the road, dropping you off at the airport and being like, it's me in this car for the next 21 hours on the road to, you know, to overnights on the road. And like I felt so confident and comfortable in this Kia Soul, like especially compared to the Mitsubishi Mirage that I drove up there.

I had my my little onboard computer, you know, and you could see the route you were driving on the screen as opposed to having to look down to the cup holder, which seems pretty dangerous when you're crossing the mountains.

Exactly. The wind wasn't blowing the car every which way. It was just a solid, very comfortable ride. I had all kinds of media is listening to rotating between podcasts and audio books and music. And even Saturday, a bit with my even with my cold, I had that road feeling trip that I always kind of long for and had a little bit when I was in high school. This idea of just like me and the open road and I feel safe and I can do whatever I want and I can sing it to the top of my lungs and just do it. I don't know. There was just a sense of freedom and adventure as I was hitting the road on Saturday. And then I kind of got sicker. And then when I got to Evanston and I found out that I didn't actually have covid, that was a huge relief. So I just stayed in and watched the Mariners game and ate ramen noodles and watched the Mariners just absolutely dominate.

Just take the wheels off the Astros, which was great. I was texting you about my ill-advised sports bets, which were actually working out that night. You were, in a matter of hours, you were going to find out that Wallace Shawn wasn't dead. I mean, everything was coming up Milhouse.

And then so Sunday I wake up in Evanston, Wyoming, and I hit the road again, and I'm feeling a little bit better. My cold has already like it's already peaked. So I'm feeling a little bit better in that way. I've got a good attitude for a goddamn change and I'm driving along and I'm going to say it's about midday. Maybe I've been on the road for four hours or something. And all of a sudden. I hear the loudest crack that I've ever heard driving 80, 85 miles an hour on one of those highways that has a really high speed limit. And I was behind two cars passing.

a semi i don't know which one of these vehicles threw up the stone that hit my windshield right in front of me right above the um the windshield wiper blade right in front of me and listen i want to be clear here i've been in cars when stones have hit the windshield and you get a little nick and then over time it kind of spreads into a crack this thing bam it was about the size of a dime i I want to say it just shattered it. I mean, not shattered it, but it immediately created a spider web of about three different cracks, right? And it was the hardest hit that I've ever seen a windshield get like right in front of my eyes. And it's right above the windshield wiper right in front of me.

And thank God, by the way, that windshield held. I mean, I'm always kind of shocked that that technology is generally speaking as sort of durable as it is. Because, I mean, think about a rock. you're going 80 the rocks going whatever it's going and like thank goodness it wasn't a larger rock that that could have you know literally shattered the windshield and and endangered you or i'm just like that's just a scary thing to have happen particularly when it's right where you're basically your head is it wasn't over on the passenger side yeah and that was the thing

too i'm actually glad to hear you say that because obviously you know i was so anxious i realized driving to denver that i didn't want to let a little rock in the windshield ruin my trip back right like i didn't want to go on another like uh another anxiety trip and so i'm telling myself like listen this happens we'll figure it out there's some sort of insurance going on with this car i don't know exactly what it is we can get into that in a second because it's going to play a role but um and i'm also like listen this is safe enough like i i've never i've been alive for 45 years i've never heard of anybody saying yes and i didn't take care of that crack in my windshield and eventually the entire thing collapsed in on me and that's why i have a bloody face now like as i'm looking at this crack in the windshield which started in the in the

like in the graveyard here lies andrew walsh right did not swap rental cars out when there was a

crack in the windshield of the kia soul and ironically wallace sean is putting flowers on my grave and the greatest twist of all time um but i am like trying to talk myself into the fact that like this is going to be fine this is going to hold for another like 500 or 700 miles whatever i had left um and i'm watching so i told you like it created immediately it created like this whole i took some photos it's almost impossible to take a good photo of a broken glass of windshield because of the way like the camera won't focus on whatever the glass but um i'm watching this one crack the kind of the main track that is if you can picture this this this this uh dime size little chatter right above right in front of my nose but right above the windshield wiper the one crack is starting to go up towards the center top of the windshield it's like it's creating this crack that's going right towards the rear view mirror okay can you kind of picture that and then there's a smaller crack that's going up the exact opposite way so it's creating a v in front of me right and then there's one that's going down even further down into the underneath the windshield wiper blade and the one that's heading the one that's heading north uh towards the the the mirror um in the center of the windshield is the one that's moving the fastest but it's just like it's you know it's not moving too fast I drive for a couple more hours I pull over to get some gas and uh coffee and then when I get back there was something about stopping I don't know what it was I get in the car after getting gas I'm like wow that thing seems like it just moved quite a bit since I was stopped and I even I'm like yeah but it's safe like if I touch the windshield with my nail I'm sure I won't even feel that crack on the inside it's probably just on the outside that turned out to be false I just like touch it very gently with my nail and I can feel okay this window is cracked like all the way through and I don't know if that aggravated it or not because then like two minutes later as I'm taking a left-hand turn out of the gas station that I was just parked at all of a sudden this thing has grown about six inches I'm just like What the hell just happened? And then I get on the highway and now I'm like literally, Luke, watching it grow in front of me. I'm like kind of using like where my eyesight hits the hood of the car in front of me and like where the crack is in relation to that. And I'm like, this thing is moving so fast.

This is like if Edgar Allan Poe were working today, it's a version of the telltale heart. Not that you've done anything wrong, but that you have this very visual kind of physical representation of what is probably now you're growing anxiety. Yes. Slightly ruining your holiday row. Oh, oh, oh trip that you were going to take. And now you're just watching it grow and feeling your dread grow as it's happening.

Yes. And I'm trying really not to let it ruin my time because, again, I'm saying, like, listen, oh, was it that? No, this is this is the first day it happened. Right. So I'm, you know, I'm thinking. like listen you're safe like these cars are built so safe these days like rocks at the windshield all the time like you're not going to this isn't going to implode on you and when you get to the rental car thing you rented this through work like there was this weird thing that when i when i rented this car i didn't just rent it through normal means and then put it on my company credit card i actually rented it through concur and uh i'm glad i did that but i kind of didn't know all the ins and outs of it but by renting it through our company's official concur system i think it was officially a corporate rental and i think certain things go along with that because when i was renting the car like kind of signing the paperwork the person who was handling my paperwork didn't give the hard sell on extra insurance like they usually do when vives and i rent a car they're always like do you want the extra insurance like no our insurance will cover it and they say i don't know like blah blah blah and you have to say no like three times and then they let you pass this time there was none of that the woman just handed the paperwork over and said yeah i got initial here here and here to um to sign off on waiving the the extra insurance didn't even ask me about it and i could tell that it had something to do with the fact that this was a corporate rental and this had something to do with the agreement that apm just has a standing agreement with enterprise right so anyway as i'm driving i've got two anxieties right like is this a dangerous situation and i keep telling myself you're going to be fine and then the other thing is what's going to happen when i go to return this car a car that i didn't even really rent i rented a mirage and i'm coming back with a cracked kia and what is the conversation going to be like and i keep telling myself it's going to be fine is what it's going to be like and in fact when you remember this denver trip years and years from now somebody might even have to remind you oh yeah and remember how your windshield wiper cracked or your windshield at least andrew though you didn't

have endless hours sitting right cogitating at least you didn't have minimal other distractions to keep your brain from chewing on this anxiety and it was true like because i felt a little

embarrassed about like kind of unloading on both you and veeves about all my anxieties like kind of driving to denver i didn't want to let this ruin my time and again i was thinking about how much fun i had been having in the car before that before that rock hit my windshield right and um and like i just wasn't in the mood for that anymore like a grimness just sort of took over or maybe not a grimness but a sort of like a uh we will a grim determination is maybe what i'm looking for here just like all right let's just get through this now like let's just stay on the road let's stay positive let's listen to this dark podcast about the um susan powell disappearance case that is 18 hours long yeah you know the only problem here is a big fat brain

that misses eating all them big fat problems nice i've never heard that one before i don't think

rick and morty baby yeah um so anyway i'm really telling myself don't freak out and in many ways i'm not freaking out but it did take some of the fun freedom of a road trip out of it right and so

I felt so bad for you like when I hung up I said to Becca I was like This is definitely going to kind of change The vibe Of the trip for you because of just I didn't realize how like the Crack was growing I just thought kind of thinking About what the return situation was going to be Would be something that could potentially kind of Stress you out a bit yeah

And I but again and I was almost wondering if You were like why did that why that guy call me Like what am I supposed to do about this I thought maybe That was not my thought I just didn't know Also, I think I just needed to talk to somebody. You know what I mean? I've just been on the road for hours. Well, it's reasonable.

You're only on that highway because you're driving the gear home that we use to do our job. So as your colleague, I think I was probably the first person you should have called because it was a workplace event.

I just kind of figured, like, you've rented so many cars. The chance of a pebble hitting a windshield is actually quite likely if you consider how many miles you've been on rental cars.

listeners at the event on friday andrew who regaled me kate and maddie with a story of how this had happened to their rental car on the way to the event just hours earlier and that was kind

of i was thinking about them the whole way home too exactly because i was just like oh my god and anyway i get to um i don't even know how much i want to get into this i i ended up stopping in baker city um oregon for my next stopover and this is now after probably four or five hours of driving with the crack in the windshield and i gotta say like i am somebody who can definitely roll with and you know this luke we even joke around about it like i don't need fancy digs especially on a road trip like i'm fine with very very basic stuff as long as it's relatively you are in the words of

dave ross somewhat of an ad hedonist in those moments like i think you some part of you i wouldn't say you enjoy more spartan accommodations but i do think it makes you feel like you're being smart with the company money which is a good thing um and uh you know so i know you are not somebody who is easily put off by your accommodations it depends on what the situation

is i mean certainly for a work trip like this i'm just like yeah that's fine if i'm on vacation somewhere and like i have a pretty you know and we're we're you know we're paying our own money to go on vacation and have like some sort of a 10 days in paradise or whatever and if the room sucks like that will get in my head but like and something like this is like i'm going to be sleeping here for about six hours and then hitting the road again i don't care but i gotta say baker city like and maybe it was like the stress of driving with that cracked windshield and then like i knew that i needed to get into baker city at a decent hour so i could produce the tbtl show that was going to be posting on monday and i need to get that done before hitting the road on monday morning um and i was just like i just need to get to the hotel that i booked earlier today which was supposed to be a quality a quality in just sit down at the little hotel desk do my tbtl audio mixing go to bed early and hit the road early the next day i roll into baker city which is a place where veves and i stopped on our last road trip together um and when we stopped on that road trip we stayed at a at a uh motel six and no no offense to your buddy tom bodette but But it was like, did they fail to leave the light on for you? You needed to turn the lights off. Actually, you know what? We'll turn the lights off for you. They should have. That was probably one. It wasn't like dirty. It wasn't necessarily dirty or grimy, but it was probably the most uncomfortable hotel room. Again, this is last January on our road trip, me and Vee. And I knew that we were trying to save money on that. It was a very, very quick stopover. But, like, the place had, like, fluorescent lights in the ceiling that you couldn't really dim. The lighting was terrible. I think it had, like, some sort of, like, if it had carpeting at all, it was, like, some sort of corporate, like, hard carpeting that you would have in, like, a conference center or something. Like, it was, like, the most unwarm, unaccommodating hotel room. It was also, you know, still kind of in the heart of the pandemic. And the guy was not wearing a mask who gave us our key card and refused to give us a second card. We'll leave the mask off for you. Ugh, the whole thing was pretty bad. And I forgot that that was Baker City. Well, this time. Oh, wait.

So this is your second pass through old Baker City.

I didn't realize that. Yeah, I kind of didn't realize that. So now here we are. I'm coming home from this Denver trip. I'm going through Baker City again. And I booked a hotel that morning. I was in this mode. So I woke up in Evanston and I looked for the best looking hotel in Baker City. And I said, can I book a hotel room for the night? And Luke, you would have been proud of me. i booked the most expensive hotel room i could find in baker city which was like 130 the other ones were like so inexpensive that i worried about my safety if that makes sense like for real like they did not look like good options so i'm like you know 130 is fine for me to pay for a nice for a decent hotel room and i showed up at this place that first of all was supposed to be quality Inn and it was supposed to be a it called itself like a conference center that had a hotel or I'm sorry a restaurant and lounge attached to it and I was like huh like that's kind of funny all the other places around here are like $75 and they're clearly motels and God knows what's happened in them and this place actually has a restaurant like I kept my expectations in check but I'm like hey this might be okay and I can go and I can make a cocktail and get my work done on TBT all this night i roll into baker city luke this place is like it's like first of all there's no sign that says quality in anywhere there's no sign actually that announces its name anywhere you can no longer

refer to this in as quality and you can no longer tell people about our fried pickles exactly there

was a sign that was in the shape of a quality and sign that was painted over oh my god i've seen

that there is there is a um uh a um a hotel like that in the portland area near the airport and i forget which brand it is but it starts with an r it's not radisson it's something else that i can't think of the top of my head but it's the same thing clearly it's not that hotel anymore but they went to the trouble of climbing up to the sign and i think this is probably the corporate and blacking out the letters that used to say what this hotel was because like they don't want corporate does not want anyone misinterpreting this as something that is still associated with

their brand well it turns out this has been bought by another brand that i'll tell you about in a second but i'm driving around it's this collection of buildings that you can't i could not figure out where the front desk was i couldn't figure out where the restaurant was and it did say like this is the such and such conference center here but like i don't know like the sign just looks like it hasn't been changed since like 1987 sunridge in that's exactly it exactly the internet says is permanently closed does it you did you get it closed on your way out maybe well i was confused when i was booking the place because on the map it looked like a best western and quality in we're sharing some of the same property well i finally find the entrance to this place and it's kind of again i don't want to be snobby about it it's not the worst place in the world but like it's a little bit bleak and i go in and and the woman i said is this the quality and she's like well it's the best western now it's like we've recently changed hands i'm like oh okay and i look around. There's like one little piece of paper or something that says Best Western, but there's really no signage saying anything around here. I'm like, OK. And she's like booking my room. She's like, you want first floor, second floor. And I don't know why this matters. I'm kind of like, well, this is like a motel. Right. And I'm thinking like if it's a motel, I'll just take the second floor. But if it's a hotel where you take an elevator, maybe I'll take a higher floor. I don't know. And she's like, well. And she like looks at me for a long time. She's like, I guess we're like a resort. So we're not really a hotel or a motel. like you do drive up but then you do have to enter a hallway to get to your room and i'm like okay we're over complicating this just give me a ground floor like whatever and she's like okay and she pulls out a map and she says you're in this building over here so i have to kind of drive around the building and enter this place and again i'm just kind of getting vibes sort of like you got in australia and that one place we stayed and not cuber pedy but the other place we stayed that was like not the most welcoming place in the world springs yeah it might have been alice springs i'm just kind of like there might be people who are maybe kind of living here it's kind of unclear to me what's going on but i get my room i walk into the hallway it's just kind of all dingy the room itself is not terrible but it's not up to best western standards you know what i mean it doesn't

have like a well as gem state fisherman put it on the google reviews this could be a five-star review easy but the one thing that made it a three was the amount of animal droppings all over and

the throw up in the walkways oh god i didn't see anything that grim jesus christ so the my room itself was not terrible but it didn't have like the nice little like here's a little desk and and you know here's a little modern there was like a table in the corner and a little thing where i could plug my electronics into it and it didn't seem the room itself did not seem dirty so i mean i was very thankful for that it was it was actually it was more inviting than that hotel six that your buddy tom budette turned me on to a couple of years ago so i was kind of happy for that but then like i go to get ice right i want to make myself some i bought a bottle of vodka and some orange juice because I was under the weather so this is how you're supposed to treat yourself right so I'm like I'm just gonna make myself some I'm gonna make myself some screwdrivers and do my tbtl work so I go and I go outside I'm following science to the ice machine I finally find a little room that has like an ice machine in it but I can see through the window that there's a sign on the ice machine that says out of order and there's some teenager just hanging out in the room staring at me and I have no idea why and so I'm like okay that ice machine is not for me so then i just go wandering through this maze of buildings that it feels like one of those girls that menaced us at the alleged dive bar no this was a this was a young man who was just like kind of looking at me trying to figure out why i was staring at him why as i tried to figure out why he was leaning up against an ice machine by himself that set out of order so then i go through it almost reminded me of like if you're reading sort of like a john saul book which is a weird reference about like some resort that at one point when the sun was shining and when this place was new and there was a pool in the center of this place that was like kind of the centerpiece and then everything sort of spirals out from that like this was created at one point to be kind of nice dining nice conference center pool in the center but it all felt abandoned and old and weird and haunted and so then i go i find myself out at building five and there's an ice machine in there that doesn't have an out of order sign on it but the ice machine itself is out of order and it's from like 1972 and like three ice cubes dropped into my bucket and then it stopped and I was like I don't want those ice cubes um so I threw that bag away then I'm just wandering around and I find myself back in the lobby and I'm like your ice machines don't work I found two of them the young women who work there kind of point me they're like you got to go through here then you go through this building and then you'll find a working you have to pass a troll that will ask you three questions and then you'll find a ice machine in building one at this place i'm like okay and i didn't look at them super charitable they were trying to do their best but i was just at my wits end at this point i still have a cold i'm now like just looking for some ice so i can sit down and try to pretend i'm in a good mood and do this do this work i have to do and i'm making this way too long but i'm just like kind of starting to spiral a little bit here i find the ice machine it's crappy but it works i bring it back to my bring it back to my room and then

what was the other thing too i eventually do my work at this place place and then i go to turn on the television and everything seems to work on the television except there's no actual signal it's got dish tv in there but as i flip through it'll say like channel three nascar racing channel four how i met your mother whatever so like clearly i'm getting the signal from dish but

is not actually young sheldon starring wallace sean by the way he's on young sheldon just fyi he is not no he really is no yes really i'm telling you i mean has the internet ever lied

to us no and facebook hasn't certainly so anyway it was just one of those things where i kept telling myself like this is just a road trip stop like i'm fine with stuff like this usually i don't need a lot of accommodations i am on a We'll be back.

road trip i'm just staying here for a little bit i just want to get home but i and sometimes i find adventure sort of in staying in places like this but i could not find my smile luke i just was at the end you didn't got this i did as garfield as farfield famously said you didn't got this and i was just like i just need to go to sleep as soon as possible and wake up as soon as possible and just put as many miles between this place and me which is what i eventually did i i did my tv tail work i googled how dangerous is it to drive with a crack in your windshield and even windshield replacement places were like try not to do it too long but mostly these things are built for safety you're basically fine that helped a great deal though young woman who came to fix my tv she did come into my room i'm like i have a cold i tested myself i don't have uh covid also i always feel weird when a when a hotel employee has to come into my room because it's me too and so like i came in and I so paranoid about that yeah like stand in the hallway I just don't want them to feel any sense of nervousness especially with like and by the way like nobody and not until I got to Washington State did I see anybody wearing a mask again which is fine like I don't wear a mask most places either but I was so self-conscious because I had a cold she's not wearing a mask she's coming into my room so I'm like kind of giving her a lot of space and saying by the way I have a cold I tested I'm not she's like oh don't worry about it oh whatever she ends of like unplugging something and plugging it back in and the TV works again that's around I'm gonna say eight o'clock at night the next morning I wake up none of this was I was even planning on talking about the next morning I wake up at 5 a.m. and I look at the ceiling I'm like maybe I can go back to sleep and I'm like why would I want to like just get out of bed and get back also keep in mind supposedly I'm supposed to return my car at noon at the rental place in Seattle and I had resigned myself to turning it in like four or five hours late but I'm like actually if I hit the road at 5 30 or 6 I can get this thing back to Seattle on time like that would be one thing not to worry about again not that it was a huge worry but it's I was just like I just want to be done with this shit now I go to check out and get a receipt the same young woman is working at five in the morning and I'm like man you're still here like you've been here did you have to work the overnight too and she's like yeah i've been here since four o'clock uh yesterday afternoon i'm not getting off until six in the morning or so however whatever her hours were i said that works out to 16 hours she's like yeah then i then then i get a little break and then they want me back here at six o'clock tonight i'm like i i'm like is that legal she's like honestly i don't think it is but i don't really know what to do about it and she was so nice about it she's like also i got a little bit sick but don't worry i don't think it was from your cold i think it was something i ate when i snuck the same person who fixed your tv yeah exactly i'm just like that gave me some perspective too i'm just like yeah i'm leaving this place and this woman is working illegal hours to keep it going and she was very pleasant to me in all of my interactions

her helping me find the ice machine fixing my tv in this haunted old resort that was so weird um and i'll tell you what i got in the car like 5 36 in the morning i started heading to seattle i listened to seven and a half hours of intense details of the susan powell disappearance case that made me feel even more anxious but i returned that car at 12 30 luke and i pull into the enterprise place and this woman is going around my car inspecting it and she immediately sees the crack of course which has now gone all the way from the bottom of the windshield right in front of my face all the way up to the um you didn't try to lean on the windshield kind of jauntily i go like what's that like a high school senior leaning up against his locker covering it up it's a broken ice machine menacing you by the way the the big crack went all the way across the windshield at this point the smaller crack is now probably maybe about a foot a foot and a half not making it all the way to the other edge but creating a full v in front of me so i'm like if if the 75 mile an hour winds that i'm creating by driving on this highway create too pressure this glass is just going to collapse right into my nose but i'm trying to push that push those thoughts away i roll into enterprise and she doesn't she walks around the car she takes out a white um grease pen again luke makes a big circle on the windshield and kind of looks at me i'm like yeah we had a windshield issue and she and she's like yep and then kind of goes around then she writes on the on the um rear passenger window like you know windshield or whatever and i'm just kind of waiting for to take her lead and she just turns to me and she says do you know what happened to the windshield and she had a very thick accent so and i had some trouble understanding her but i i said yeah you know rock hit the windshield she said when today and i just said yeah today you know technically it was the day before but i was just like i'll follow her lead she wants me to say today so i just said today she said today and i said yeah today she said where were you if i On the 5, 405, I'm like, honestly, I don't remember. She said, the 5. I'm like, okay, it happened today on the 5. And then she has her little machine, and she prints out a receipt, and she hands it to me. I'm like, is there anything I need to do about this? She's like, no, you're covered. And then she explained some things to me that I couldn't understand, but she just kept pointing down to the receipt saying, look, look, you're covered. And it was just a receipt for the original amount that I rented the car for, Luke. There was no issue with me swapping out cars. There was no issue with me wrecking this car. There was no issue with me returning at a half hour late. It was just like she was like almost congratulating me that I didn't have to worry about anything. And I honestly, Luke, all of this is to say, did you give her some money just to be safe? I did. Well, I gave her my number. Can I cut you a personal check for $500? I gave her my number. I said, hey, I do live in Seattle. So if you ever want to grab dinner sometime. But I got to say, Luke, I don't think this would have worked out this way if I hadn't booked it through Concur,

which was not a given when I sat down to rent this car originally I think I was on Travelocity and I was just going to like book a car maybe maybe I was on the enterprise website and I was just going to book it with my credit card you know the company credit card but I think because I booked this through Concur it was a corporate rental and there's all kinds of things just built in with APM corporate and enterprise and whatever they have and so whatever insurance situation they have like I thought if at the very least I was gonna have to like talk to like I don't know somebody at 8 p.m. starting with probably our friend Rachel and saying, hey, I need to file a claim and this and that and this and have to, like, explain to – there's no explaining anything. It's just, like, all taken care of. It literally could not have been easier. And I was just, like – I was ready for them to seize my assets. I don't even know exactly what that means, but I was prepared for that. So, like, there's your lesson right there, Luke. Do everything through Concur.

Yeah, I bet you that that was part of it. I also wonder if because you booked it on our corporate credit card, I know that like usually the card itself confers a certain amount of, you know, special insurance and whatnot. I know that at least with the Amex that I used to have for CBS. So I think but but again, it certainly didn't hurt that you went through, particularly if there would have been a problem and you had rented it on your own. But now you're trying to just get reimbursed or whatever. and you were kind of out in the wind, I'm sure that would have been a much messier situation. I wish that you could have somehow known your future because it would have made everything that was going on with the hotel, it would have made it all so much less bad for you.

Literally what I was thinking. And again, and I want to say, this was not a terrible road trip and it was not. And again, I kept thinking in the car, I'm like, I would rather be driving this Kia Soul with a cracked windshield than driving the Mitsubishi Mirage without a cracked windshield right now like I had to drive through some weather not terrible snowy weather but like some frozen rain stuff that was kind of slushy and coming down that like I would have been so much more filled with anxiety if I was driving that original car so I called you when we talked on the phone on Sunday I thanked you again like you swap you lying through your goddamn teeth and getting me a better car was really worth it for me also i mean of course this is not how the multiverse works

this isn't even a multiverse thing but basically like if you would have still been in the mirage you would not have been at that exact point in time when that rock came but i can promise you that if a rock hit that mirage it's immediately exploding the whole car just explodes i mean you've totaled you have totaled the car at that point i mean it just it blows up like something

from like a mission impossible film or contrarily hear me out because the car was merely a mirage the rock actually just goes through it where the car is too small like the idea of a car that small actually meeting a rock that small is almost nil like nothing can hit that car you'd have that's

a really good point it's like smashing two atoms together exactly so put the car in the large hadron collider yes exactly what i was thinking that whole thing but anyway so it worked out well like

i don't know i i didn't mean to go into all that detail of the hotel stay and everything but like it just was sort of like i think as much as i kept telling myself like hey this is a road trip and like there was just such a huge mood difference as i look back on it and i'm talking to you about it now luke such a huge mood difference from where i was almost even with my head cold feeling euphoria kind of hitting the road and blasting music and having fun in my Kia soul until the moment that rock hit my windshield like 24 hours later and just being like okay I just got to get

off this fucking road you know what I mean yeah now I don't want to sound again I really appreciate you doing because like I was you know hanging out at my sister's house eating carrot cake that Becca made while you were still just like road warrioring it along and so I really appreciate you spending three extra days on this project that I wasn't. So I definitely don't want to sound like I'm trying to give you life advice. But do you think that this could be instructive for you next time you find yourself feeling kind of anxious about something like remembering that when you rolled into Enterprise, it was no big deal or like is this the kind of thing you might be able to interrupt in your brain thinking about how like, well, you know, it'll work itself out or that one time when I got the car back to the Enterprise, it wasn't what I was fearing it would be.

Well, I would like to point out again that like, I think maybe as I'm telling the story, I'm getting into too many details. My mindset on the way home was not how I felt when I ran into you in Denver. I was not having a freak out about all this. I was telling myself everything that we're telling ourselves now that like, whatever it is, is like, I'll probably have to sign some extra paperwork. I'll probably have to write a note to Rachel at 8pm and say, hey, I got this insurance thing and she'll be helpful. Like, I again, I kind of even knew that, like I like I said before, that like I was like, there's a chance I won't even remember the cracked windshield at some point. You know what I mean? Like, I know that none of this is life changing. And I know that, like, you know, in so many ways, I'm still lucky. I'm like looking at people who are broken down at the side of the road. And I'm thinking like, man, see, I'm not them. And I never had any fear that I was going to break down either because this car seems so solid. So I wasn't in as terrible of a place as I make it sound. I think that that hotel, that staying over in Baker City, though, that was one of those things where just like one thing after another after another just started to depress me. It wasn't even anxiety at that point. It was just like, OK, all I need is a simple ice machine and a desk to do my work at. And it was like, well, it's more of a table than a desk. Yeah. And it's like there's no ice. OK, then I finally done with my work. I just want to watch Rick and Morty. Oh, the TV doesn't work. OK, so now I have to decide, do I want somebody to come to my room to fix it? It was just like it was one of those things where it's just like it just took the fun out of it. Whereas, yeah, intellectually, I knew everything was going to be fine. And I wasn't like I wasn't totally tripping about it, but it was just a mood shift between like. Yes. And here's the other thing, too. This was kind of a I shouldn't say a dream come true to me, but I've always wanted to take a road trip by myself. Like I've never done a road trip by myself before. um you know i when i was a kid i did ever tell you this there was a um professor who was looking for a student i think after my freshman year or sophomore year to drive her car she had i was in kent ohio and she had some car that she needed to get to her daughter on the west coast and she was looking for a volunteer to drive her car from ohio to the west coast or something like that and i was so excited about this idea and my parents were less excited about the idea um but i think i I think everything was set to go, but then the professors, for some reason, pulled out at the last minute, and my parents were really relieved, and I was disappointed, and I never had that opportunity. Just like me and my music on the road, my rules, I can stop for coffee and gas and to pee whenever I want to, like all those things, and there was a lot of cool stuff like that on this road trip. I was just a little bit bummed that I had this issue with the windshield that sort of kind of took some of the fun away from it, but I also knew it the whole time. you know what else would be bad if the car was broken down at the side of the road this is still so much better than that it just wasn't quite as ideal as it was for those first 24 hours on the road um how are you feeling now by the way like the cold did the vodka work i think so i don't

know how i sound i'm a little bit stuffed up but i uh i mean this was also one of the fastest colds to pass through my body usually like the first day is my sinuses then it moves to my lungs and then I usually have a lingering cough for several days, which would not be great in this environment. But I had like one day of coughing on the road yesterday, and now that seems to be out of my system too, so I'm pretty lucky. Well, that's good.

On the subject of lodging, Andrew, we should take a break because we're a bit into the show. But a fascinating story to me anyway. But I just want to sort of close the loop on my interaction with our Airbnb host. Yes, I'm anxious about that. I basically, on Saturday, when you and I parted ways, I had decided I wasn't going to get into it, because, like, why? And then, of course, I got on the airplane, I may have had a glass of wine, and I started reconsidering things. So, anyway, I want to tell you about that when we come back from this short break 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.

Hey, we've got a couple more dazzling donors to thank. This is from pre-TB Telethon. These are some wonderful people who were supporting us over the course of the last year with their dazzling donation of dough, and we want to thank them for that. We want to thank Andrew John out there in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Andrew says, I apologize to the APM staff for another late submission. We've really got these listeners trained, Andrew Yes They are doing They are apologizing for not doing their homework related to the money that they're donating to the show. The very generous sums of money that they are donating to keep the show going. To make up for the lateness, I promise relative brevity. In actuality, I don't have a lot to say as my teaching and clinical work made this a very busy year. If I remember right, Andrew is a psychology professor. Oh, yeah. Right. Right. Right. Yes. Some kind of thing like that. And I believe we had some terrible rolling joke that he was a MAGA guy or something. which he's not although you never know um there was also the time uh i needed to devote to answering difficult questions from the january 6th committee based entirely on luke and andrew's spectacularly misleading but nonetheless compelling assertion that i am an ardent trump supporter okay so there you go i promise you andrew i did not pre-read that no i mean it

just sort of seemed like it's more i i don't know if what's the word that i don't know how to pronounce well apparently pronounce is one of them what's the word i don't know how to pronounce

i think you're pronouncing that wrong that's my favorite way to say that word it's so much more fun i wish that it weren't i wish the irony weren't so thick with that because it's more fun to say pronounce but it would be wrong but is the word i'm looking for

obfuscate i say it wrong obfuscate obfuscate i feel like this is more obfuscation sort of what

What I know is I saw somebody who looks eerily similar to Andrew John carrying a lectern. Yes, exactly. He's grainy. He's in the back. He's in the far back of the picture, and he's carrying Nancy Pelosi's laptop. Yes, and there's some face paint, I believe, going on, too. That's all I know, yeah. Even having to pay associated attorney's fees, I could not stop donating to a broadcast that made every listener's day better, sometimes on an order of magnitude. Thanks, Luke and Andrew, for the experience you create. And thank you, listeners, for the gracious and kind community that you are. Good luck to all and power out. Andrew, thank you once again for your support. I thank you also for taking it in stride. Our bizarre joke maligning you, which is totally, wildly inappropriate. And we know that you are absolute salt of the earth and very much on the right side of history. Not just because you're a TBTL donor, but because you're an awesome person. Thank you, Andrew. We appreciate you very much. And it doesn't mean that we're not going to testify against you if this eventually comes up in court. But we do appreciate you. Maestro.

On your mark. On your mark. Get set. Get set. Now ready. Ready. Go.

We've also got to thank Rich Eagles. Hell of a name, Rich. Hell of a name. First up, thanks to the boys for continuing to keep me smiling five days a week since about episode 1300 dag that's a lot of episodes i don't know how many years that is but that's roughly half the life of the show in fact that's more than half of the life of the show i think um second shout out to that 10 i saw in the wild for the first time this year when i posted a selfie on discord with a tbtl mug in the shot and she posted one with an even more og tbtl mug hilarity and wonderful conversations ensue oh nice i wonder who that person is finally i don't understand discord i hear about it a lot i know that young people and cool people like rich and um heather is that the name of the person that uh oh i guess he didn't say the person's name that's strange that i assume this person was named heather you got heather vibes well i think i was looking at the word hilarity and it just put the h into my brain But anyway, I hear cool people talking about Discord, but I never – I don't know. That world is impenetrable to me.

Wasn't Andrea Seabrook telling us we need to get on Discord when she was on talking about her?

Probably when she came on to talk about getting – receiving the wrath of one Bill Shatner. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, finally, last year when I asked people to donate to the wonderful charities at AmigosOfCostaRica.org, there were tens that came out and did so even getting their instagram feed to feature a quote left by one saying no mountain too tall i encourage everyone to donate there again so many wonderful groups down there to support ranging from pet rescue to leatherback turtles to injured monkeys oh man i don't want to think about injured monkeys andrew was having i was flying high on this tuesday but now i know i'm flying low anyway um amigos of costa rica.org is the organization that rich is recommending so if uh if folks are so inclined they want to head over there and do some donating it sounds like they do some really amazing work um rich says also now that denver is done next tb telephone in costa rica job done i mean you already know where secrets is true yeah in costa rica andrew I mean, it's no best Western in Baker City, Oregon, but maybe that's where we could stay.

Well, you remember I had this dream. I don't know why, because when I was visiting Costa Rica for a vacation a few years back, somebody was talking about, I don't remember how this idea got in my head, but I had this idea of riding a motorcycle all the way from Seattle to Costa Rica. I mean, based on the stress levels I was just describing on a car drive from Seattle to Denver, It sounds like I'm well appointed for this for this trip. But for some reason in my head, I've always had this. Not always, but the past few years, I've had this fantasy of just like real motorcycle diary. Exactly right. Can you imagine the first like little bit of like rain or mist I have to drive through? I'm just like, call it off. I need a new car. Luke, go get me a Kia.

I you know, I don't necessarily think that's true, but I'll tell you this. That is the one area you and your motorbikes and your motorcycles. that is one area where you are way more brave about that than i am i you could not pay me enough to get on a motorcycle and get on a major freeway and start driving like that just feels so exposed to me like i think you know i went i had a fun scooter ride the other day in denver but it was because i was in a basically like car free area i've never had more appreciation for bike lanes and also just like dedicated you know areas where like had i been in the street a bunch i would have been super worried the whole time like that is somewhere i have a very high anxiety is to be driving a motorcycle or some kind of wheeled thing where i'm not protected and some car just like

mindlessly hitting me well it sounds like we've made up our mind next tb telethon you and i are taking lime scooters from seattle all the way down to costa rica and hoping we don't incur too many charges if we drop the scooter cycle diaries yeah I get to be who are the

two there's a couple of handsome fellows in that right isn't that basically the motorcycle diaries is that this is it like a Che Guevara story I think so like Simone Bolivar and Che Guevara like motorcycling around and it's it's that one it's those two real handsome fellers and I I'm forgetting their names right now but I think that might be the plot of

that movie yeah I think it's Che Guevara I didn't know who the other guy was I I don't know if that's even true, but in practice, it's probably not.

I'm looking it up now. Why am I trying to be, why am I trying to know things on this Tuesday, Andrew? It's a bad idea. I want to apologize to our dazzling donors today for me trying to know things. I want to apologize to Rich Eagles and also Andrew John.

What was the name of the, what was the name of the other person other than Shade that you mentioned?

I don't know. I thought maybe it was Simone Bolivar.

No, it's Alberto Granado, but I only know that because I'm looking it up. Who are the actors? The actors are, let's see here. It's not making it super easy on me. Let me look here. This is terrible. Gael Garcia Bernal. Yes, dreamy. See, I don't know these folks. And Rodrigo de la Serna.

If you know Gael Garcia Bernal, he's been in a bunch of things. I believe he's in a fair number of Almodovar films. Oh, okay, interesting. He's just handsomeness incarnate. But anyway, hey, thanks to our donors of the day for making our dazzling donors. Yes, excuse me, excuse him. Wah. Thank you for making the show possible. Pardon.

Hello and welcome to Top Story. Oh, yeah, baby. We're way over the river. Yes, we are. That's on me. I did not mean to ramble so much. This is one of those shows I'm a little embarrassed about.

Oh, Andrew. I thought that story was I think the story was interesting and relatable I think everyone can relate to that feeling And the good news is I don't have a I don't need a sort of Huge amount of time to talk about this But I did send a message To the Owner of the house that we were staying If by some chance you missed last week's shows The whole deal was It was a totally nice place But they just had a million rules And it was kind of the primary thing and it left me with a little bit of a bad feeling, even though the overall experience was great. Everything worked. The place was nice. And so I wanted to reach out to the guy and try to be helpful. So this is the note that I sent to him on Saturday. Hey, Owen. Well, his name's Owen, by the way. The place was lovely, and everything worked great. We had a really nice week. One small bit of constructive feedback. There are so many notes, including literally the first page of the binder, where you are telling people what not to do. Don't open drawers. Don't eat your food. Use coasters. Take off your shoes for the rug. Of course, we didn't do any of those things, but the overall effect was one of feeling like we were somehow intruding versus just staying in this nice place that we were paying money for. Again, I only mention this because you strike me as a good dude, so maybe you don't realize that so much info on what is prohibited is sending a message you might not be intending. We left the place exactly as we found it, and again, I had a lovely time. You've got a great home. Cheers. How do you feel? Okay. about that tone um i think the tone is good the tone is good i still i guess i sort of i wonder what you want out of this i guess you want to increase the experience so i don't have to file for it and concur i want a full refund my corporate account you just basically wanted to get it off your chest really right because we're not going to be renting it again and i don't think that you're doing this for the benefit of future renters i mean yes i think if i'm being totally

honest i just wanted to get it off my chest because you're right there's no other logical explanation i don't care about the future renters that's on them they've got to figure out life for themselves yeah i i maybe two percent of it was because i don't think this guy is a jerk at all like he was very nice and helpful when i asked him questions so i that's why i really did feel like this was a situation where he like where he just didn't really realize how it was coming off so then andrew i was on red they left he left me on red for like four days oh you wrote this on

friday then or maybe not four days saturday but days sunday monday tuesday he responded this morning wow i am really on the edge of my seat about this and well i'd say move back to the kind of

middle of my comfy part of your seat because the response was let's see i have a drum roll here somewhere thanks for the message luke this used to cater to large groups we often got big groups of bachelor and bachelorette parties so i think with our shift in brand and clientele we can shift the messaging with it thanks for the feedback oh there you go yeah right yeah and then he gave me a five-star rating on my review and then i gave him a five-star rating wow okay peace is possible

yeah no it's true yeah i guess i didn't um i guess i didn't give them enough uh enough credit that's nice so actually there may you actually are kind of being the change you want to see in the world because it sounds like they probably will take this to heart a little bit yeah and

i love i mean this guy seems like he's a very sort of dynamic um you know thought leader in the space of whatever it is he does um and so i i you know he just took i think he took it in the it was intended and was kind of like maybe the the branding can shift it raises some questions for me like were they not living there when they were hosting bachelorette parties maybe not i wonder i wonder if they bought this place that place and they were just but then again the rules wouldn't have been so strict because it wouldn't have been like you can't go in you can't rate our booze or you can't go in our closet if they weren't living there there would have been no reason for those rules so i guess at some point they were hosting bachelorette parties in their home which

by the way that sounds like a nightmare right well that like that goes back to you and i were talking on the show that we posted yesterday which was us going through the binder and doing a checklist now i'm going to be honest with you here luke for a second i did a little bit of tightening a little bit of editing of our conversation as we were going through the binder on saturday um it was probably just my own insecurities i felt like need to clear any of that i felt like some of the some of the conversation we had kind of didn't end up lending itself to necessarily entertaining um uh like listeners and so like i kind of tightened it up a little bit under you know you and i always say the content we created didn't lend itself to entertaining the listeners yeah i just sort of felt that and i think i might have cut out the part where we talked about the pool table i'm not sure but there was a rule in there that said like don't move the pool table and i no i think i left that in but maybe i left my boring reaction out which was like well i could see some like if you were having a big party in here and some drunken people deciding hey i'm gonna move the pool table i do think i cut out my reaction to that but that's what i said now i'm entering it into this show because it wasn't entertaining the first time it'll be better now but actually him saying that does sort of lend credence to that idea that people were maybe animals in this house previously you know and maybe even doing stupid shit

yeah your theory was was probably absolutely right again it raises the question who would rent out their lovely home knowingly to a bachelor or bachelorette party maybe it was unknowingly maybe it was like i mean and you also said this and i don't know if this got cut out either but like you said this these these rules read like some people who've been sort of burned and and i mean you think you were very right about that because obviously because one of the other things they were really big on was like no extra people like you had to tell them how many people you know were going to be there and it sounds like probably in the past someone rented it acting like it was just going to be them and then suddenly they threw the party from animal house right and blutarski showed up and uh is that the guy's name is that i don't remember i think i saw that once i never really liked that movie like everybody else does yeah you know what's interesting about that movie really is more the the movie that i watched a while ago starring will forte as the one of the co-creators of the national lampoon that movie is Thank you. I think the guy, I'm not going to guess at the guy's name. I've already committed one Simone Bolivar faux pas today on the show. But basically, it's the story of one of the co-founders of the National Lampoon, which they had worked at the Harvard Lampoon and then graduated and thought, let's just do this, but not Harvard specific. Let's just make this a national thing. And that was, and then so Animal House, I believe, was the first movie that they ever tried to make under the National Lampoon umbrella. And it was sort of a question mark if it was going to be successful. And it was, of course, extremely successful Yes, iconic But not a movie that I find particularly entertaining I'm going to say something And this is Albanian on Albanian criticism I don't find John Belushi very funny Like, I mean, I thought Samurai Taylor was funny when I was a kid Because I didn't understand how racist it was The idea that somebody would put a fly You know, fix the fly on your pants with a sword Seemed funny because it would be near your junk But like, and you know, peace and love to people who just like love the Blues Brothers or whatever. But I just have never, when I watch things like that have John Belushi in them, I don't fully get what the hype was all about. How do you feel about Wallace Shawn? R.I.P. I know. Taken so young.

I don't know how I feel about Belushi. You're right. Like that type of humor, like I'm never in the mood to watch any of the movies that you just mentioned, right? Like, and I guess when I was young, like those samurai skits on snl i loved them but it was also because like i sort of felt like i was watching something that i maybe shouldn't be watching which ironically you shouldn't have right and it wasn't even that it was just kind of like well like i wasn't allowed to watch the new snl stuff because my parents were very strict but like they loved some of the classic stuff so we would get like the best of steve martin right and you would have all these skits from like this sketches or skits from the 60s or i'm sorry from the 70s and early 80s and um like to me it was like oh my god i knew my fam i knew my dad loved this stuff and then i was finally feeling like i was allowed to watch it so it was all wrapped up and all that and it is sophomoric humor that's the thing and maybe at the time it seemed um kind of very kind of progressive in a certain way and the fact that it was live on network television it must have always had that cold like i don't want to sit here and say that like it's not funny because there's so much wrapped up in the context Of when people were watching it And there was a time when I watched it Like you and I felt like Almost like you were discovering something But now you're right I have no desire to watch any of that stuff

I will say that Dan Aykroyd As the slimy Toy manufacturer The bag of glass One of their new products is bag of glass That kind of holds up For me I think That's a funny concept And, you know, again, to people who love the OG SNL, it's like, I don't want to yuck anyone's yum. I just, you know, have grown up, like, you just hear the stories of John Belushi, and it's like, and I mean, I even interviewed his brother, Jim Belushi, for a TV story. His brother was super nice, and I'm sure John Belushi was a, you know, flawed, but in his own way, kind of lovely human being, or whatever. But I just, and he was very talented. I mean, he could sing. He was sort of, for being a person who was sort of of large carriage. Not unlike Chris Farley, he was described as being really light on his feet. He was very athletic. He could just do a lot of stuff. But I just haven't seen a lot of things where I was just cracking up at John Belushi, somebody who is revered as one of probably the top 15 or 20 all-time comedians in recent American history.

So I'm going to play something for you that I've been looking for for years. When we think about this era of SNL, there was a skit that I found so, so funny as probably maybe even a teenager or something. And this was not what I don't remember why or how I ended up having it on a VHS tape or if I think I used to just like roll on Comedy Central for hours and hours and then edit it down to stuff I liked. But there's a skit that I remember where it was like Steve Martin and Bill Murray. And they're on the set of SNL. this is when like the set was like that brick wall background and like an old fuel pump or whatever right but like there's no pretense about where they are they're just on the set of SNL like on the stage or whatever and they're both kind of dressed goofily right like kind of like tourists I guess with like Hawaiian shirts and long shorts or whatever and they just stand in front of the camera and stare at something that you never know what it is right they're just staring at the camera saying what the hell is that thing do you remember this skit at all did you ever see this now this to me was like more avant-garde and funny now i'm gonna hit play on this so again this is the 19 i guess probably maybe 1980 79 era uh take a listen to this and let's just see if it holds up because this is one if this doesn't hold up it's gonna really bum me out so steve martin just walked out on stage he's like looking at the camera Okay.

All confused.

What the hell is that?

This is not going to be funny.

What the hell is that? What's that dang thing doing here? How did that get here? What the hell is that?

No, he's just out there by himself right now. There's no Bill Murray, as I remember.

What the hell is that? How did that dang deal get here? Hey, come over here and look at this deal.

Okay, now Bill Murray's going to come out.

Hmm.

What the hell is that?

Oh, he looks just like his Carl Spackler voice. And he's dressed just like Carl Spackler.

What the hell is that? Hey, you kid, get away from there. I would not mess with that thing. Don't put your lips on it.

That's kind of funny.

What the hell is this?

Well, get a photo of me with it anyway. And he hands Carl Spackler the camera.

Be careful with that thing.

Blocks off camera.

Oh, I know what that is. Well, what the hell is it?

what the hell is that team anyway then it goes on for about another 30 seconds like for me like that lives so large in my mind viz and i will so often just say to each other well get a picture of me with it anyway that's a funny line that's a good line but like even this doesn't it just seems so is transgressive the right word it just seemed like what they're just staring at the camera for two and a half minutes saying what the hell is that thing but even watching it now and trying To convince somebody else who didn't see it when they Were 16 years old that that right funny it's kind of Hard to convince well you know what's funny

Is that that's sort of kind of the Proto version of The the Will Ferrell sketch Where he's barbecuing and he's yelling At the kids get down off the shed oh No I've never seen that is that basically the kind of The same thing you don't really see you never see the kids But the joke is and it's I mean It's pretty funny and Maybe again you're right there's so much context around This like in 20 years probably people will maybe go oh i'll be like will ferrell was the genius of comedy on snl people like it doesn't really work for me um but like will ferrell would be barbecuing and he'd be like kind of going okay i need to get down off the shed buddy go ahead and come on down off the shed and then he's gets he's getting more and more mad uh-huh and then he's just like screaming he's like losing his mind about getting down off the shed but you never see the kids you never see the shed is it a recurring because i have one here that's got um david keckner in it if i'm saying his name correctly yeah yeah um uh you know let me play i i yeah this was kind of a recurring sketch if i

remember oh it was okay so this one might not be the original and this goes on for quite some time so it's just like uh will ferrell keckner um two other actors who i don't recognize here uh mariel hemingway and um and uh i don't know but it looks like this is from oh this is from 1995 this is pretty classic too and they're all just standing around a grill like kind of talking having a good time i'm cutting in about a minute and a half into this i mean it let's get off the shed

can i get you a glass of chardonnay oh yeah that sounds like sherry o terry great well you just make yourselves comfortable and i'll be right back okay or nancy walls you know you and susan

should really join us for a round of golf sometime oh you know what we're just nuts about the game

we'd love to but i gotta warn you susan's a scratch golfer well you know i've been playing

forever. Actually, this is a cute story. We met on a golf course in Scotland when we were... Get off the shed! How about

next Sunday? Pebblebrook? 12 o'clock tee-off time? What do you say?

Legit makes me laugh. Sounds good.

Yeah, maybe we can get John and Sally out for the game.

Oh boy, I don't know about John. I mean, he's a great guy and everything. But as far as golf go, well, let's just say he spent a little too much money on those clubs of his. Get off the damn shed!

i just bought a brand new sorry but will ferrell just makes me laugh

1995 luke yeah i wonder i feel man i don't know i was gonna say i wonder if that was in his audition tape for snl but i don't know if it was but you know famously will ferrell's audition for snl one of his characters was just he was being a cat playing with a crumpled up piece of paper no i don't think i knew that which uh i don't think i thought it was that funny when i heard about it or saw it but now that i have this cat and i watch it do that like of all the money that i've spent on entertainment for this kitten the thing she's the most obsessed with is a receipt yes from ace hardware that i crumpled up on day one she was here just because it was nearby she loves that receipt ball she carries it around she plays fetch with it she legit which is kind of fun like i

can sit on the couch she'll bring the thing over she'll jump on the couch and drop it then i throw

it down the hall and then she chases it and brings it oh that's great oh by the way yeah no she's genevieve set up your cat tp in our house i don't know oh son of a gun back update for the listeners

after we ended yesterday's episode the recording of i started to think of i had like five hours in denver airport to wait i started thinking about carrying that tp around with me for five hours in the airport and i uh basically allowed not allowed that's the wrong word i allowed myself to ask andrew if he could in fact drive it home and he did it's i didn't mind doing that and i'm

planning on shipping it to you but now you know i understand like it is a handsome um piece of cat furniture as far as cat furniture is concerned because i'm not usually a big fan of cat furniture um but uh bananas uh she only genevieve put a couple of treats in there she went in to get the treats always kept at least one rear paw outside of it she's a very nervous cat she doesn't like to feel trapped um so i i don't know that she's really taking to it so we'll probably take

it apart if she loved it if yeah if if bananas loved it then i would just say and again matt i hope it's okay listener matt who gave it to me that i'm re-gifting it but like if she's hesitant about it then i will take it off your hands but if she was like that was her happy place then you Well, I slept in it last night. It's pretty comfortable.

What was your anxiety level? It was like a womb.

Here I go once again with the email. Every week, I hope that it's from a female. Oh, man, it's not from a female.

All right.

Let's do an email or V-mail before we get out of here. All right, let's listen to this voicemail. This seems like a lifetime ago, but a couple of weeks ago when Phyllis, our pal Phyllis Fletcher, was on the show. We were talking about anesthesia. I have trouble saying that word. And how sometimes when you're coming out of a surgery or something, you're worried about what you're saying while you're still on the drugs.

I am legitimately worried about that. Like if I were to, because we were talking about colonoscopies. And I would really like to, I would like to be left alone until I've fully regained my mind. Because I don't know what's in the back of there. And when I'm coming out off of the whatever propofol or whatever they give you, I don't trust myself.

I told you that when I was under for my little finger surgery, apparently I was just very apologetic and polite. So that made me feel better about things. I told you I was worried because I had a lyric from a rap song going through my head and I didn't want to say that. Oh, my God. Are you serious? No, that was when I had my tongue surgery. That's what I was. I was very paranoid when they put me under. It's like I remember all you can listen to is Peter, Paul and Mary. Right.

leading up or something incredibly incredibly benign musically so that all you'll have is is like you know donovan does donovan uh have any questionable lyrics juniper um so anyway we got

this voicemail from somebody who is intentionally remaining anonymous out of embarrassment hi guys

um i'm calling in anonymous today because i am so embarrassed about what i'm about to tell you i'm listening to you and phyllis talk about uh weird things that she said or other people said when they came out under the anesthesia i guess and i had a procedure done and i came out and the doctor kept trying to talk to me and I was like so groggy I could not understand I could not understand what he was saying and so I kept saying like oh they just need to wake me up and I called my husband over and I was like you need to make me angry say something sexist say something racist and then I just yelled at everyone around me to say something that would make me angry and i even called over the anesthesiologist i was like now this guy we know this guy's got some stuff tell me something that's gonna make me mad i know you got some uh i know you're gonna say something that's gonna be offensive offend me and um to this day when i think about it i just get an overwhelming amount of shame um i don't know

if that even deserves a power out i don't even know if this deserves a power out amazing i mean

that's so weird because she didn't the listener didn't say something racist but was trying to get someone else to and then basically accused someone of being like a secret racist like you

probably got some dirt yeah come here buddy you got you're gonna say something that'll finally make me mad that's an amazing voice god is there anything i feel like well uh severance by the way

Andrew, I would like you to check that show out, but one of the things that comes up a lot is, you know, because

The characters have had this procedure done where they don't remember when they're at work, they don't remember anything about their life outside of work. And when they're outside of work, they don't remember anything about their life inside the building where they work. And so the big part of the plot is trying to get a message from one side to the other, trying to tell your out, they're called your outie, trying to tell your outside version of yourself that shit is not cool in the building. But you, of course, forget it when you leave the building. I need to do that. If I ever have to have another surgery or I'm under general, I need to send a message across to high me coming out to not get the people in the room to say racist things.

Isn't there isn't there a mailbox where you can leave a letter to your future self? Isn't that Sandy B? Am I thinking of a Sandy B movie where there's a magic mailbox where you can communicate through the through like the time warp through a mailbox? Is this ring about you at all?

No.

Is that like the mailbox? Maybe it's speed three. You've got mailbox? You've got mailbox. Possible show title. I'm going to play for you just one more quick voicemail here, only because sometimes people are like, hey, is TBTL a success? Is it not a success? And I would say, like, we just had a very successful TBTL-a-thon. Thank you to everybody who donated, honestly. Thank you. I don't have any, like, specific updates, but it sounds like things generally went well, and it sounds like the folks at 8 p.m. are generally happy. I honestly, I guess we'll get an update about that.

We'll find out when you try to post the show today. If you can still log in, I guess you'll still have this job.

Exactly. When I go to submit my receipts from the road trip, we'll see what happens. But the question also is, are we influencers? You know, like, can we actually move people to buy things? Like, for example, sometimes on the show, if you and I are talking about a specific, I don't know, item on the McDonald's menu or even Tubbs, the local sandwich shop I love, like it'll inspire people to go get that sandwich either at Tubbs or their local version of it. But I would say, after getting this voicemail this morning from Holly, we are definitely influencers.

Hi, this is Holly in Alexandria, and I wanted to call to share what an influence Andrew is, specifically. I had been on the fence about thinking about buying a house and all that good stuff, but how can possibly one person afford a house in this market? But when I heard Andrew do it, I was like, you know what? Realtor, we're buying a house. So I've now bought a house, gone into, I'm tired of the mobile debt, but I get a house like Andrew, which is awesome. Thank you. And my mom thought it was just because I was having a midlife crisis, but no, no, it's because I'm influenced by my favorite long-time podcast.

Power out. So for everybody who's ever gone out and got like a French dip after we've talked about a French dip for a while or gotten a shamrock shake after we've talked about it for a while, just be glad you didn't buy a goddamn house.

This is a $500,000 French dip.

because I now feel so much responsibility for Holly's journey with this house. Please let it be a solid purchase, please, because I cannot live with the consequences otherwise. That's amazing.

I mean, that is, you want to talk about influencing. Right? Like, you know, you've got these folks on Instagram and whatever, they're getting people to buy a certain kind of eyeliner. Yeah. Get back to me when you can get people to buy houses, okay? Put that in our deck.

Yeah. Somebody tell Annie at APM that we should start advertising houses on the show.

I believe you're telling her right now. Does Annie make it this far into the show? I don't know. Well, we're going to find out together. We will get an email. We get our weekly email from Annie about various products that we may be advertising or not. And we'll find out with that email if she got this far in the show. Maybe tomorrow I can play you this Castellanos tape because it's very, very funny for me.

Oh, yeah. That's good.

Any excuse to revisit Tom Brenneman's just absolutely terrible apology and then the fact that Castellanos did this again, it's really amazing.

Also, I don't know if you know about this, but it could be an excuse for us to chat a bit about the Castellanos' family's attempts to stop people from repeating this joke. Do you know about this? No. This happened a while back. It is – well, it's interesting. I'll tell you about it tomorrow.

Okay, great. Well, there's something to look forward to on tomorrow's show. So thanks for listening, everyone. We really appreciate you. Again, thanks for making this TV telethon another success. And thanks to everybody who came out to Local 46 in Denver. You are just wonderful people, and we love you and appreciate you. All right. We'll be back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio. Until then, have a great Tuesday. Take care of yourselves, and please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

I will punch you in the face if you don't get off the shed. Now get off the shed. Get off the shed. Get off the damn shed. Power out.