Muse

Baby, have you ever wondered, wondered, whatever became of me? I'm living on imaginary radio. I'm living on that T-D-T-L.

T-B-T-L. This is the part where I'm supposed to do the whole intro thingy.

I just came here to hit dingers and have a good time. That's about it. This is a show for dogs, about dogs, starring one dog, and one dirty dog.

Expect to feel several bone tremors and be perceived by all around you to be a disgrace. The comedy factor speaks for itself. It's just painfully obvious. It's an unfulfilled prophecy. It just has to be played out.

Oh, this is fantastic. I've been waiting for this moment for months and it's finally here.

all right hello good morning and welcome everyone to a thursday edition of tbtl the show that just

might be too beautiful to live it does not bother me it's in fact i kind of like it because i know

there's somebody around my name is luke burbank i'm your host don't miss coming to you from the hollywood broadcast center right here in portland oregon uh where i was just reaching down to pick up bubbles the cat there is something about the soul of a cat came in i i think she's starting to understand what podcasting is because when i when i start my uh my intro to the show or my patter at the top of the program she usually wanders into this room and kind of stands by my foot um i'm amazed she hasn't figured out a way to get up onto this sit stand desk that i use because As I learned last night, she's gone airborne. Get on the magic carpet and ride. And everything is about to change in this apartment because of the fact that she can apparently fly. More on that coming up here on episode 3697 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. I saw a lot of homemade bumper sticker talk on the show of late. But I saw what appeared to be some kind of homemade lettering decal on a car here in Portland, and it was very confusing. This is so confusing, Ron. I want to get Andrew's take on what this person is actually trying to say with these two conflicting messages on their vehicle, because I don't think it means what they think it means.

You keep using the word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Also, it's a Thursday, a.k.a. a Blur's Day, so we'll do those.

It's my birthday today.

We'll do those Blur's Day messages, and we'll do all that with the help of this young man, the longest-running Cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. I don't want to be corny, but just reflecting back on last week and all of the technical stuff and content things and engaging with you, the tens of listeners, I don't think anything we did last week would have been possible without his hard work and dedication.

As there's a drive in a deep left field by Castellanos, it will be a home run. and so that'll make it a 4-0 ball game.

He is Andrew Walsh, and he is joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

God forbid you ever just say something nice without turning it into a bit. Did you see that coming? No, I didn't. I didn't know where you were going with that. I knew something was coming. I knew we couldn't have a real moment of vulnerability and appreciation on this show because we're Gen Xers, and we have to hide everything under layers and layers of sarcasm.

Well, I meant everything that I said about Castellanos and what the score was. No, I meant everything that I said leading up to that. I am a man of faith.

I wanted to say I mentioned this to you and Genevieve before the show individually. So I guess I'm saying it here for the third time for the benefit of the listeners. But like especially our Pacific Northwest listeners, did my prophecy come true? Did we, in the days and weeks leading up to the TBTL-a-thon, it was very rainy here. It was one of the most rainy, unpleasant springs in recorded history here in the Pacific Northwest, assuming that people don't like rain and would prefer to see more sunshine in the spring. And I said, you know what's going to happen? People like to get not dry or they like to be not wet, though. I used that opportunity to clear my throat. Thank you. Let me clear my throat. yeah and I said when we come back maybe we're going to bring summer with us because people are like hey are you going to the Mariners game I'm like I'm not going to any Mariners games until after the thon it's rainy it's until Robbie Ray learns how to pitch an entire outing I was going to make a joke to make you laugh but I won't I'll just keep going but anyway

Now, we've been back for three days. Each one of those days have been very sunny, very nice. I've mowed the lawn. It was the most satisfying feeling in the world. Ma, pa, beautiful. That was on Tuesday, on Wednesday, which was just yesterday. I got done with my work, and I had so much more work to do, so much writing to do for the Mad Libs project we're working on. But I said, I will do that at night. I'm going to go out and take advantage of this weather. And I had these wood piles in the backyard from our old fence that was torn down. And I needed to cut it up into some more stackable, easier-to-manage piles of wood that don't make us look like the Beverly Hillbillies here. And so I just spent yesterday, Luke, in my garage with a radio listening to the Mariners game sawing wood into little chunks so that I can burn it in my fire pit later on this summer. It was ideal. I'm looking out the window right now, and it's sunny outside. I'm starting to think when the Mariners come back into town.

As soon as you get that pickleball court in, that yard is going to be really pushing that. Really pushing that. Really pushing that. Wait, were you cutting up wood? Do you have a power saw, or were you using a traditional hand saw?

Genevieve says we have a power saw. I don't know where it is, and I don't know if I trust myself to use it by myself on a Wednesday. So I just had a hand saw, and I was just cutting up these. So this fencing material that we're mostly just burning, it's fine, by the way. Yes, it might have been treated forever ago. i just really do not want to get any emails from people saying i shouldn't be burning this wood it's fine it burns nicely uh it was a really old wooden fence and most of it you can just kind of kind of split in half by kicking it we've taken all the nails out of it but like most of it is like this thin wood that you can kind of kick and it'll kind of shatter into little chunks and nice kindling but there were some bigger posts and stuff some two by fours that were kind of connecting them all and those two by fours i don't know if you know this about me luke but i am not um trained in the martial arts so i can't just like karate kick these and uh break them in two so i'm like i'm just gonna cut these boards most of them cut them into three little chunks and we have one of those portable little fire pits that we roll out into our backyard these and i actually did that on tuesday um and that's what kind of get the bug in me because i had the yard all perfect and nice except for around these wood piles where things were just starting to like grass was growing up around it in a way that i didn't like and it was just like it was unseemly it was unkempt and as I said to you on stage on Friday I spent the day kempting it and now yeah and so yesterday my last thing was like you know what I want to make this wood stackable I want to sort it out I want to get the rest of the nails out of it I want to cut the boards up so you know what again I could have used this power saw that is somewhere it would have made me a little bit nervous but also I needed a little bit of exercise and it was not odious at all

I was going to say it's kind of a workout so do you do the move do you have a bench yeah we have a bench dump so you do the move where you you do you have A set of a vice A vice grip I do I meant to tell Genevieve this So you put the wood Into the vice grip And you tighten it up And then that's where you're How are you securing This wood while you're cutting

She got this Before we even moved in here She got this little Clampy clamp thing And it's not the old school Kind that I grew up with Where you have to like Kind of like Thread it through Kind of screw it on You know it's like It's very You just kind of squeeze it A few times Until it tightens up And then when you're ready To release it It's a quick release I remember Genevieve Got this thing She was so excited A few I don't know Months ago And I was like she's like I already have my clamp I'm just like why are you so excited about a clamp she's like it's going to change Everything I'm like okay whatever And then yesterday I'm out there and I'm just like Every time I'm tightening that thing it's as easy As can be and I'm like I need to write Genevieve A love note about her clamp

Well yes you should just anyways but I do Remember being a kid though and like the fun Of spinning Yeah closed the Set the vice grip that's like you know Screwed down onto your dad's

Workbench yep we had three different sizes Of them almost like measuring spoons I remember it very well. The smallest one was not super functional, but just cute as a button.

I've got one of those at the place that I bought that I'm working on. By the way, we're moving along. Here's the weird thing about that. I'm not trying to hijack your story. No, I'm done. But on the subject of home improving, of kempting the home, I don't want to kempt fate here, Andrew. But things are making some progress at this house in southern Washington. One of the things is I'm going to have a guy build a deck there. but the house is on a septic system because it's kind of out in the not the middle of nowhere but it's not like in a you know big city or anything and what the contractor wants to know where the septic system is and i just want to say this this morning was a great example of local government not maybe not working perfectly but also working really well so i called up the county where this house is because the contractor said the county will know they'll have some kind of an as-built layout of where the septic is so i call the county i get a human immediately and this is like the the basically the sort of switchboard for all the different county services very nice young woman she says oh i said i have this septic Okay. tank but i need to know where it actually is so we don't like poke a hole in it when we're building this deck and she says oh that's um environmental services or whatever she goes i'll transfer you so she transfers me a guy picks up on the first ring he's like hey and i go hi um you know i have this house and she goes what's the address and i give it to him he's immediately in the system and he goes okay um well we don't have any of those records like those records don't exist but this is the i have the number of the septic company that serviced this because when you buy a house with a septic tank the seller has to get it clean at least in the state of washington the seller has to empty the septic tank before they can which is kind of a good law i think yeah absolutely i like that you can't sell someone a house with the septic tank full and it's all saved in the blockchain

too so they can always well that's the thing too uh-huh seth green used to own this septic tank but

stinky ape i believe is the is the is the nft related to my septic but so the um the person at the county who was super helpful was like we don't have that but this these are the people that that that flushed it out so they might have it so it gives me that that number this is all happening in a matter of like this is three minutes of my life which is already a win you know what i mean like i'm not like forever on hold or getting like i don't know having to submit some notarized form so then i call the septic place they pick up right away super nice lady iris who's like okay what's the address and then i tell her she looks it up she can look it up in the county from where she is which was also kind of crazy and she goes okay um we uh we we were just we don't have the exact footprint but you know we were just the company that came and cleaned it out but let me send you a link to a video of your septic i was like huh she sends me a link to a youtube page where the guy who did the inspection or cleaned the septic at my house is just standing in the side yard going we're here at and he gives the address and then he kind of is showing like he's got the top popped off it he's just doing a little kind of update on like everything's functional it does need to be pumped out we're gonna do that here's where it is you need to send

me that video right now i need to use a clip of it for um the show pick unless you're worried that people will be able to identify anything no i don't think if i use a clip of it and don't link

to it sure sure i'll send it to you it has like four views and i think three of them are me now but it's so interesting that this is the kind of stuff that makes its way onto youtube yeah no

kidding i mean i guess they're just doing it to like kind of to i mean there there is kind of a record of it now like look this was supposed to be youtube and it's on their own website is that

right the the company's it's the guy who just happens to be the technician because now the side of my youtube page is other places he's been to look at septic that's amazing oh we see you

like septic tank videos from this may we recommend dude yeah it was like i just for some reason it

was it was surprising to me that i mean that that lives in a public space right oh it was really just kind of like huh okay but i sent that to the contractor and i was like is this sufficient he goes oh yeah this just this tells me what i need to know this all this whole thing took less than 10 minutes of my life and i didn't have to go i thought i was gonna have to drive because you know i'm about 35 40 minutes from where the house is i thought i was gonna have to go wait in a governmental office and go up to a counter somewhere probably try to talk through a like a small hole in a like a plexiglass situation. But no, it was all virtual. And I apparently, my septic tank is a hit on YouTube.

Oh, that, you know, that reminds me, I did something else yesterday that is actually, I think you'd be very interested in, Luke, because I went to the dump and I kind of got hollered at. These are two things that, Well, there's one thing I think you love and one thing you do not love. Right. But I do want to say to you something really quietly here. I am a little bit concerned during the last conversation I just had with you about this clamp. uh genevieve sent me a gif of the character clampy from futurama just clamping his clamps so i think she is listening to us so we should be a little bit careful about what we say here i don't appreciate the eaves dropping she also says that the power saw is right outside my office but either way i was home alone i don't know if i should be trusted with that anyway um yeah so another big part of this was we did have some big chunks of fence first of all we replaced some gates that were painted i'm not burning painted wood obviously and there's a lot of hardware on a couple of chunks of fence that i just want to deal with what is happening was that your

video yeah i was trying to send it to you but it just started auto firing does it say oh we see

you like videos of pieces of shit here's a johnny depp video sorry i had to get that off my chest sorry just that's my one reference to it um hey uh yeah sorry i'll send this to you but i was

gonna say if you want to bleep out uh i know you're we're talking about the dump and hollering But later, if you I was going to say, if we want to play this video, we can We just have to bleep out my address Oh, okay

But I'm more interested in You getting hollered at the dump

You know the dump and I think that you feel this too The dump is a place that can be kind of Intimidating to people like you and me Especially if we haven't been there before I feel like there's a sense of like The people who go there a lot already know their way around You have to kind of go through The first time I went to a dump This is years ago I think when we first moved back to Seattle I had to go and I think I was just trying to recycle A bunch of boxes or whatever But like you drive up There's something always very Star Wars-y about it and the people are kind of can be kind of gruff and if you don't know the process they might not be like super interested you're thinking kind of like moss eisley space yeah sure right or like yeah and so like i remember the first time i drove up to the dump this was in south seattle and i drive up with my little car just jammed full of you know recyclables or something and the person just like kind of you pull up to this little place where you have to stop on a um i don't know a scale that's like outside of their little booth or whatever and it's like it's there There are a million signs, and it's not entirely intuitive what you're supposed to be doing or when you drive up, and I'm trying not to break the rules. Anyway, I remember my first time just being like, these people could be a little bit nicer, but I felt like they were like trial by fire.

In Bellingham, actually, the people that were working in the little kind of office where you get weighed and stuff, and then they give you a card, were always so nice. Oh, I'm glad to hear that. It must just be a regional thing. but i mean it's a lot it's a real minefield for you because there's like this kind of you know this sort of garbage or refuse goes here appliances go there is this lawn stuff there's a lot of different places and i just find the whole thing i just always feel like is this actually okay that we're doing right yeah can i just throw all this shit on the ground and you're gonna just come scoop you're gonna just push it into a different pile using a a tractor of some kind like really this is the system okay but i always feel like i'm doing something wrong because i'm

just throwing shit on the ground yeah into this giant pit right where it looks like there's gonna be some sort of in this one it was like you go inside this building i love the pit by the way

i love the pit because the pit tells me this is where the stuff goes sometimes that's not a pit though at least the one in bellingham it was just a big kind of building and you just back your car up or truck and then you just throw the shit on the ground and then at some point later it gets

moved like i love the pit because that's like okay clearly where this stuff goes yeah and this pit was like mostly empty except for where the cars were backing up so you you drive you drive through the toll booth area they give you they gave me a little sticker so that from now on i don't have to give them my address or they didn't even ask for my address they just asked for my zip code to make sure that i'm a king county resident i could have lied about it they gave me a sticker and said here put that in your little window next time we know that you're an approved person who can use this dump um and so i'm like okay whatever i drive through then you drive into this building that's kind of like a huge i guess kind of garage kind of indoor outdoor thing it can be sealed up but anyway yeah there's a big pit that everybody just backs their cars up to and the pit is not like filled with junk it's just like around the edges where people are dumping old couches and stuff there's there's some piles here and there but it really gives you the impression of a place where like in the apocalypse when they bring back some sort of some sort of barbaric fighting right it

has a very gladiator kind of feel to it and you wasn't someone advocating was it was it our friend john sklaroff advocating for basically a blood sport akumite a a thunderdome type of thing to

settle the trivia disputes on the friday oh that does ring a bell yes all i can tell you is as i I had this big rolled-up piece of chain-link fence that had been removed from part of our property, too. And as I threw that into the pit, I just screamed, are you not entertained? So I don't know if anybody picked up on it. Actually, that's not even true. That was scrap metal. It had to go into a different bin. But anyway, everything else I just threw in the pit. I will say the guy at the little toll booth as I drove in, I said, I just have a bunch of garbage to throw in. And he said, actually, we can recycle styrofoam here. He saw that the top layer of my car was filled with a bunch of styrofoam from this refrigerator we just bought. I'm like, oh, you can recycle styrofoam? He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like, okay, great. So first stop, I go into the pit area. I remove just all the trash. I thought people were going to be like eagle eyeing me like, okay, are there any paint cans in there? Are there anything like, but no reason. You could really get rid of almost anything. Not that I'm encouraging people to have nefarious thoughts about what to get rid of at a dump, but you can get rid of anything at a dump.

That's what I'm saying. It's a very unsupervised environment. And that always kind of throws me off, too.

It felt good.

I'm not, as you know and listeners know, I'm not nearly the rule follower you are. But even I, I don't want to be throwing some toxic paint in the wrong place, etc. Like, I am trying to not actively harm Mother Earth any more than I am just by my very existence on this planet. But it just really does seem like there's...

Like you said, the types of folks you see at the dump are the people who work in the hauling and dumping and landscaping industry who were probably on their fourth trip to the dump that day. Then there's the disinterested guy sitting in some kind of earth mover. And then there's like the one guy in like a dirty Dayglo orange shirt smoking a cigarette who also works there. and then the noobs like you and i going like um where do i throw uh old laptops excuse me there's

some dirt on my loafers is the vibe i went in there with yes um because there was dirt on my loafers uh but anyway so i i first i stop in the pit area dirt off your loafers and by the way um i'd use the example of paint cans like i'm pretty sure like there's a place where you can put paint cans too i'm not suggesting people illegally dump i just thought there was going to be more people looking to make sure that we weren't illegally dumping stuff. But anyway, so I threw out my scrap and then I drive around. I follow the the red line takes you to the area where you throw the trash and then you follow the green and blue lines for compost and recycling or whatever. So I now have these big chunks of styrofoam left over from this refrigerator delivery. And I'm like, oh, this can be recycled now. But this was news to me that you can even recycle styrofoam. So I'm like, OK, so I'm driving around. And again, there are a lot of signs, but they're not super helpful to the newbie who feels nervous. And I'm kind of driving around the recycle area. I kind of do a loop-de-loop, and I see here's where you do cardboard. Here's where you have mixed recycling. And then there were a couple of more specific ones that I think were for toxic waste that didn't apply to me. So I'm like, well, I'm not seeing anything specifically for styrofoam. So it must just go in mixed. It must go in mixed recycling. and there's like this huge, huge blue kind of dumpster thing with a special slot that you can throw your stuff in. And so I park my car. And again, there's just no rules for parking your car. I just park my car haphazardly next to another car that's parked haphazardly. And I start taking out this styrofoam, big chunks of styrofoam. And as I start walking towards the mixed use thing, the mixed recycling bin, I think I hear somebody yell, yo and i do look around for a second because when somebody yells yo i assume they're yoing at me i don't know why but i'm looking around and i'm like oh there's no humans in sight anywhere except for the other customers and i i also see somebody driving around a little forklift right a little motor moving refrigerators and whatnot and i realize oh this is somebody

was that what it sounded like yeah and so i'm like oh this is somebody probably just yelling

at another this is probably two workers yelling at each other about the forklift or whatever and so i ignore it and i keep walking and i hear yo again far off and again i stop and i look and again i don't see any human being who's anywhere near me or looking at me or anything so i'm like andrew get out of your head these are two people talking to each other not you so then i carry my styrofoam and i throw it into the little slot of mixed recycling and then suddenly as i turn around suddenly magically there's an employee there as you describe him he's like kind of got a hard hat on and he's got a fluorescent vest and i have no idea where he's emerged from and he just says that's styrofoam dude no no he didn't say dude he said my man said my man that styrofoam that goes over there and he like kind of points to this area where there's like a separate little like i guess what would you call like the storage unit type of thing with a big bag in it that everybody's supposed to put their styrofoam in that was not obvious at all and i'm still thinking this is a magic man how did he appear out of nowhere to kind of um what's the word chastise me and call me my man for doing this like i don't know where i do find my man to

be kind of like i think that it was softened yes it was a dude would be worse yes we agree that dude would be the like well there are more crass things but like of the normal things you would say dude would be like pretty aggressive my man would be my man somewhere a little bit softer no

no i like i don't even know if anybody ever called me my man before and i kind of liked it doing i kind of think it's cool my man i know i actually did kind of like it and again when i say hollered I just don't in a situation like this I don't want any attention called to me I don't want to be hollered at I don't want to break the rules right and I'm just like I turn back to where I dump the stuff and I look at him and I just say oh I like I don't know what to say like I'm like oh I'm I'm sorry I thought it goes over here he's like no it goes over there and like the the funny thing about this is this man doesn't seem angry at me he doesn't even seem disappointed at me he just seems befuddled he's like how could you not know he's like how could you and i and i like apologize like three times and he doesn't really accept any of them He just sort of stares at me and he keeps staring at me and staring at the place where I put the styrofoam as if he's like, how would anybody think to do that? And then I swear I'm looking at him and he's thinking like, well, what am I going to do the rest of the day to day trying to get this bozo styrofoam out of the mixed recycling?

Like he was trying to solve a problem. This is exactly the dynamic between me and Ross Reynolds when he was the program director of KUOW. I played the wrong episode of Dick Castell's Radio Reader. Sure. and i remember sitting in his office and he was just like i don't understand how my man i don't understand how this could have happened and i was like well i was confused as to if it was the episode number or the pno number because it was a dat andrew and he just was like he was just perplexed he just kept going back to i just don't understand how this could have happened because i basically played like chapter 20 when it should have been chapter 7 and i spoiled everything everything leading up to chapter 20 but but the same dynamic not not anger just just trying to understand how somebody could have struggled with something that's so obvious and easy yes exactly

and again like i i felt bad and again i apologized three times and again i i would have in my ideal world he would have said hey man it's okay we're all trying to navigate this this big blue marble right it's been a really tough year for all of us he puts his arm around me and says don't give it another thought but just next time now you know and knowing is half the battle no it was just i felt legitimately bad i also felt legitimately embarrassed and you know then i threw the rest of my stuff in the right place and luke you can imagine it's weird it's like a um again it's kind of like a big storage unit where the styrofoam goes but they have this enormous oversized plastic garbage bag in there a bigger garbage bag than i've ever seen but it's completely clean because nothing's going in here except for other people's uh other people's styrofoam and now i'm just like reading every goddamn sign right like i'm standing there because i now i feel his eyes on me as i'm dropping the system yes and it says like it says please break up your styrofoam into nothing larger than two foot chunks i'm like chopping that stuff i'm a because it's it's all going in a bag right and you do want to break up stuff it drives me crazy if you go to recycle something and somebody hasn't cut down a box enough like the more you break it down otherwise you're just like throwing away air but anyway so i'm like breaking it down i feel like i don't even know where he is he's disappeared back into the mist but i assume that he's looking at me and so i'm like i'm just trying to do everything i'm like shaking the bag so that everything kind of settles in nicely suddenly like i'm like a custodian of of the of the styrofoam recycling i want to be just like the the goodest boy out there then i'm like now i've got to drive back through the toll booth area and pay right you get back on the scale and they see like you know the minimum fee for garbage uh disposal is 28 dollars so i'm i'm like yeah but do they have me flagged like did he radio in like this bozo was like throwing styrofoam in the wrong place and like i really wasn't sure if somebody was going to like charge me or say something when i pulled out uh luckily they did not it was a very very nice woman who rang me up and said have a nice day and that's it but i i do love going to the dump now that it's worth 28 bucks for me just to find stuff to throw away now is a very free

oh it's so so satisfying because you know a lot particularly home ownership but like a lot of living in a house and doing yard things and remodeling is just the accumulation of either just like construction debris or leftover styrofoam or just a whole variety of things and when you get the sort of project done but then you have all of the like stuff and then you drive all of that stuff to the dump and then it's out of your life and then you come back to your like you know finished project or whatever it is just getting unburdening oneself of all that

junk is so so kind of satisfying yeah we had a big pile in the garage that was accumulating more and more stuff against some of this fencing and an old hose that didn't have its hardware on it anymore just stuff that you know we accumulated uh as we moved into this place and kind of piled it up so like just having that that corner of the garage back and now i realize i don't know if we're going to start it this weekend or the final or the next weekend it's not the final weekend i don't know why i said that but um we do have a big project here to renovate my bathroom so i will have a big vanity and sink and stuff that i will have to go back to the dump you know the move that

i think i might be pulling at this house that i'm kind of working on is getting an actual container just like having them leave one in the driveway oh yeah that's that's real nice then have somebody come and just haul that thing away yeah that's we did that in bellingham yeah i think we filled up two or three of those boy that's really that's really where it's at you just you kind of just Like throwing stuff in there day and night I'm jealous like I was on my

jogged the other day and i jogged past someone's house in the irvington neighborhood of portland and they had one of those things in front of their house and it was clear there was construction workers just taking stuff out and it like gave me this weird pang of like that's gonna be so cool when that project's done like there's something about when you get to the level where you have to just like have them bring the dump to you yeah bring the dump you know shit's getting real we're not just repainting some stuff right we're doing a major project yeah yeah now that i know now that

I know the ropes there I guarantee you the next person if I go to the dump with anybody now I'm gonna be insufferable because now I'm gonna tell explain to them how everything works the best

thing though about going to the dump on a Saturday is what kind of shitty food are you gonna get

after you go to the dump oh wow nice that's because like that's sort of the topic of the of the hey dummies video that'll be in the newsletter on Friday because I did set up a tripod and i recorded the hey dummies video in the garage and i went on and on about the food that i had picked out for my project day because i always eat a very specific food on project day

oh i'll look forward to watching that yeah when when i was living down in more uh like a beacon hill the first house that that i had uh the closest dump was down in soto south of the baseball stadium and there was a place called buys that was a just like a drive-in like a very down market little burger drive-in kind of thing and it was a you know with a beautiful view of the seagulls landing atop all of the garbage at the dump um and addie and i it was just like our saturday tradition it'd be like i'd be piling a bunch of crap into the truck we had a jeep at the time and then drive it down she would help me we'd throw it all you know into the dump or whatever and then we'd go and get a burger it buys now what about your your hand washing situation in

this case you go in and use their their facilities probably not back from the dump i know but you

know i survived yes yeah i probably i if i'm being if i'm really thinking about it i bet you it never occurred to me to wash my hands after i'd be throwing away a bunch of crap now i wasn't making contact with any anybody else's garbage but regardless if you're just out in the world i mean this is becca's really good about this like she's like the queen of having sanitizer hand sanitizer around and of gently reminding me like if we go sit down to have a meal and we've been all over god's green earth she was she won't it's weird she would never say to me like you should go wash your hands but she might say like i'm gonna go wash my hands or something kind of subtle yeah it reminds me because i mean very much so if i've used the bathroom i'm a very very big hand washer and i reserve a lot of disdain for people that don't wash their hands i mean i want to follow people around yep with a bullhorn yeah with a sign amen i want to dress up like carl havoc and just follow someone around and just yell at them because there's just something i was in the airport the other day and totally happened like using the bathroom and then uh you know i'm walking towards the sinks and this guy a normal looking person whatever that means just like a person who if i saw them in the wild they would have no reason to suspect that they were just a big gross person but just comes comes right out of the stall and then just beelines it for the door and just goes out to touch a bunch of things in that airport and it's just like god you're a bad person

and i always put like a sense of pride on those people that is maybe not fair but i always feel like because it's looms so large in my head and it's always like a guy with a i assume a certain kind of machismo and it just like almost like that was this guy wasn't this guy looked like he walked

out of rei really that's why i was shocked he wasn't he didn't look like an anti-masker or yeah that's exactly the comparison i was gonna make he he was like he was like tall and and pretty slender he had a kind of a like a hiking backpack on and he was pulling a suitcase or rolling a suitcase and he looked he looked like someone who might listen to public radio um and and and run you know like triathlons or something i mean he just i don't know why i think his physicality matters but he just didn't seem like one of those guys that was spoiling for an argument around the second dimension sure right so anyway okay we should take a break but when we come back uh i do want to play you a little audio andrew of bubbles taking flight and also i want to talk about there's so much to talk about today i want to talk about this subaru and also the dilemma that i'm having regarding a haircut situation today um so we'll talk about all that when we return here on tbtl hello and welcome to top story andrew i'm sorry that so much of what i bring to the show now is related to this cat i know some of the listeners really love it there have to be a few that are just like please we get it but it's just my lived

Thank you.

experience right now and so it's very top of mind and as i mentioned on the show yesterday so much of what now is going on in this apartment is so many of my behaviors are now being modified because of the cat situation like doors that i have to close like i don't like the cat going in her litter box and then coming into my bedroom so there's a door that goes from my bedroom to the bathroom which has been open for the year that i've lived here and now it's always closed because I want her to have access to the litter box, but I don't want her to have access from the litter box easily into my bedroom and my bed or whatever.

So she's not blocked from coming into your bedroom, but you at least want her to walk around a little bit, walk it off her paws a little bit.

I would like her to take the long way. And also she is a lot of times blocked now because I will have both doors. I'm kind of making the bedroom a sort of cat-free zone. But it's just like the amount of sweeping. I've become a candle lighter all of a sudden because as much as I stay on top of the litter situation, and I'm in there, anytime I think she's used the litter box, I am cleaning it. I have this thing, the Litter Genie, which is actually a very ingenious device, and I would recommend. Are you familiar with this thing? Is this the thing that has the electric rakes that go across it? No, it is not part of the litter box. It's where you put their leavens. leavens so it's this it's basically like this kind of garbage can bag thing that seals itself shut so in other words it's not like there's a a can like you you pull this kind of trap door thing which allows the like clumps and poop and everything to go down into this holding bag and then you release the trap door and it closes off so it's very sealed and keeps all the really gross stuff very air sealed so he just kind of keeps the smell down so my point is i'm really trying to stay on top of this but even so you know it just there's a kind of a certain a little bit of an odor that will happen in there sometimes even just of the litter and stuff so i'm i have this candle that i light now in there like and i i sweep the bathroom like two times a day like there's just i can't uh i used to like when i would have some food i would oftentimes like watch the baseball game or watch chris hayes's show and i would get my little meal together and i would actually sit on the couch and have it on the coffee table um and watch tv because this is a pretty small apartment but now i can't do that because the cat will crawl on the food she will try to if i have a drink like i can't put i could not i can't put down a can of anything she'll come sniff it and try to lick it which then means i don't want to drink it because i think she's cute but i see where that tongue goes so it's like that whole um my whole way of eating has now changed like i can't sit and i have to sit at this kitchen bar thing which is kind of not as comfortable but it's the only way for me to actually just like get through a meal without

her like messing with me and she's she's indefatigable like she if you just kind of push her out of the way three times she's coming back fourth five and six it kind of depends on the mood

it depends on how wild she's feeling every once in a while she will be fatigable like i could push her off of something a few times and maybe she'll maybe she'll just kind of go hang out in the corner i have this like automated toy for her that kind of spins this feather around in a random pattern so i can like set that for her and she'll kind of get into it but it's just if she's feeling amped and i'm like grabbing her and moving her she thinks we're playing sure yeah so of course she's very interested in that so anyway last night i am sitting at this kitchen bar i'm i'm also in like a director's chair kind of thing because it's like a high it's just one of those kind of things where it's like a sink and um you know counter space and then on the other side of it is a high kind of bar that you could sit at and eat and i've got like three or four these high director's chairs that are pushed up against this bar and it's got to be like five feet from the edge of this couch that i have and i'm sitting there last night and i see that bubbles is like kind of prowling the couch trying to size up if she can jump to where i am which is really far and high

so like she wants to jump onto the counter you're eating on or one of the chairs or under your back

yeah she wants to be whatever she can get her claws into she wants to be where i am because i'm sitting up on this high chair she can't climb up on i'm eating this food that she's intrigued with but she can't get to it and she's just like she's just casing me she's on the couch and i am videotaping because i think it's funny because this is way too far for her to jump and um then she did it by the way in the background i was watching the norm mcdonald special on netflix Yeah, is that pretty good? Well, it's interesting. I mean, he's got some takes that wouldn't be our takes. Yeah. I feel like he really pushes the envelope on. He's sort of coyly. I think he's coyly being mildly trans. phobic even though he's not saying it yeah um if that makes any sense he's kind of just i mean he's norm mcdonald what i find interesting about the special is he uh he just taped it at his house like into like a laptop camera oh because he was about to go in for a proceed now we all know that he was battling cancer for many years he wasn't public about it and apparently he had a procedure scheduled and he was not sure you know if he was going to come out of it or what was going to happen and so he just like had them set up this camera and a couple lights and he's just sitting there with these big dopey headphones on like wait he doesn't even need headphones he's just talking into a microphone yeah but they're like huge headphones and like a like an re re 50 mic and and he's just like and like a boston celtics hat for some reason and he's just like doing he does like 40 minutes of stand-up huh interesting it's very interesting from a kind of just a media standpoint and then what i thought was interesting was then when it's done they they kind of then they cut to it's like a home theater and the people that have just been watching it are like molly shannon dave chapelle adam sandler david letterman david spade so they're all on a zoom situation or they're no they're in there they're in a room together like they're in a screening room like they've just watched the norm mcdonald thing and then they're talking about norm mcdonald

oh my gosh and and and they're talking about norm mcdonald with him still in the room it's not like something that's taped after oh i'm sorry i'm totally misunderstanding this he's passed at

this point and this is a screening oh okay he's passed they are just watching this thing that they've never seen before and then they're kind of talking about their impressions of it i see

for a second i thought you meant that he was taping all this in his own house and in his house he happened to have some of the most famous people in comedy no no that doesn't make any sense in it what you said totally makes sense so they're they're screening it they're seeing it for the first time after his passing that is that's one of the things like even even like the and again we don't have to get into it too much here i was a huge fan of norm mcdonald but i i did as a as a straight man in the 90s i didn't appreciate his like well clearly i'm not homophobic so therefore i can make homophobic jokes kind of approach you know what i mean like i don't like that and so that stuff would make me uncomfortable in the new one as well but then you also have the um added layers of just sadness i mean there is something about watching something especially if it's entertaining in a comedic sense after somebody has passed especially so soon after somebody has passed like that's just a that's a mind fluff for me as the viewer let alone for these folks these famous comedians who are dear friends of his that's a that's a lot man yeah well there's

this moment at the end again it's very just kind of feels free associated or free association of norm mcdonald like his phone rings at one point and he says i have to call i have to phone you back i'm taping a comedy special or like his dogs are barking like and then at the end he says something about his mom and again now with the knowledge that he was you know very sick he says something about his mom and he's setting it up as some kind of joke like that his mom just doesn't really like know how to tell a story very well or doesn't his mom has no irony but then he's talking Then he just kind of loses his train of thought And he goes Why was I talking about her? She's just such a good person I just love her so much And that's like kind of the end of the whole set Is him just saying he loves his mom Wow Which is I mean really With the sort of hindsight that we have I mean it's intense It's like he wanted to lay down For the record that he loves his mom Wow You know So it was Anyway I would recommend it as just a kind of an interesting And there are some things that did also Had me really laughing Yeah I would recommend it as an interesting thing, piece of media, but I would also mention that there are jokes in there that are not jokes I would make or jokes that I think are kind of, again, winking and nodding. What he does a few times is he basically wants to say something that's probably not how we really talk anymore, but then he says, like, but I would never say that. You can't say that or whatever. Yeah, he's kind of always done that. It's very Norm MacDonald-y. But anyway, so that's what's playing in the background If you're curious I've completely and totally gotten distracted from the So I'm like looking away Now I'm making this little video Because I just think it's funny that she is Not going to be able to actually get to where I am And then I look I pan the camera to my food And then all of a sudden Oh shit you did it all of a sudden she is in my lap she has jumped five feet and also gained like two feet of of altitude to just get onto my lap which means now i cannot sit in this chair and eat my food at this location anymore because she has figured out that she can make it from the couch to where i was and that's the furthest point where i could naturally and normally eat something in the house what am i going to go eat in my bedroom like i have to now with my laptop when i'm trying to work now is she landing on you using her claws too like to to or is she is it a gentle landing um this one was gentle but i but you know i would be unsurprised if she tries it again and if she's almost not clearing it yeah sure for her to throw the closet in this case you she didn't it wasn't painful it was just shocking because she covered so much distance but i mean legitimately it is now a

practical concern for me because i thought this was my safe space like i can eat here and she'll just have to kind of deal with it but now it's like nope she now nowhere is safe i believe as i wrote on twitter when i put this video up so that's um that's the latest thing about the engagement you're getting on social media i mean you can't put a price on that right it's thirsty like posting cute cat videos is is i mean very thirsty of me but again i'm also obsessed with this cat and also she does a lot of cute stuff so what am i going to do the the real question about what i'm going to do andrew is how am i going to deal with my haircut situation so i go to rudy's um here in portland and there is a rudy's that is super close to my apartment like it's like a three minute drive and I really like it um because it's convenient and the people are nice and they tend to have a lot of open appointments but the last two times that I have um gone there I have just by random uh random luck gotten this one guy who's cutting my hair who is so nice and he does a good job with the haircut he really you know goes the extra mile but andrew he talks so loud like it's a borderline yelling he's also a very voluble guy so like if i say a joke he's like you know i'll say a joke that's not even that funny and then he'll laugh like uproariously and then i can just tell that it's like his personality he's such a sweetheart but his personality is that when he's feeling excited his volume is just getting louder and louder and louder to where it's really like and we're in you know this is a whatever hair salon so there's like four other people getting like their haircut or permed and i start to feel personally responsible for how loud he's being so relatable yeah like i want to so it makes me go inward because i don't want i i'm thinking like i don't know how and again this guy is so nice and like and by the way also very bright like he makes a lot of kind of cultural references and things That are like stuff we would talk about on this show Like everything about this guy I like But this volume thing Like I start thinking about his co-workers Then I start feeling personally responsible If I launch us onto a topic that he's Particularly animated by

And like the co-workers know him Right like nobody thinks You're like even At fault is the wrong word but you're just Self-conscious about it I know that Feeling so well like I want to have when I'm in the chair Usually I will be having some sort of conversation with the person cutting my hair but like i don't i'm even in the back of my mind you don't want it too loud you want it to sort of feel like there's a bit of a sense of privacy there

even though we're not talking about private matters absolutely like i don't want whatever's happening with me conversationally hair wise etc i don't want any of that to be something that is disturbing the other people that are just trying to get their hair cut the other employees and i find myself just basically butt puckering the entire time he's cutting my hair I just want to say to him can we have this conversation at one quarter of this volume and I and I really kind of wonder also how it is that his colleagues who all seem to like him because again he's a I can't overstate this the guy is a total sweetheart loves everyone that he that works like he would if we solve the volume situation he'd be the ideal co-worker yeah so everyone I think his colleagues like him you know because he's a good dude but oh my god so today i'm trying to make an appointment to get my haircut and i got i'm going to a different rudy's ah yeah because i can't i can't get this guy again i can't handle it and you're just you're getting you said by the luck

of the draw you're getting him you're not like making your appointments with him no i'm not

selecting him but i'm also wondering how is it that i got the same person two times in a row

are people avoiding him well i am now and i shouldn't even put this in your head but this is where i get nervous about these conversations and this is the heart of tbtl so i'm not trying to chill it but like what if there's any chance that this person is also somewhat excited because it's portland and you're known in portland and is there any chance like i don't want this person to hear this conversation be well i mean honestly i don't i don't think so i think that would have

come up

OK, yeah, if it were the case. But you know what? I stand by everything that I'm saying. And if this is how if this is how the information gets passed, I guess it's how it gets passed, which is because you like him.

I mean, he's a good. Absolutely. Yeah.

Well, that's the thing. That's the irony of it. Like you and I have both had run ins with people cutting our hair. We've talked about on the show. I once had a person at a Rudy's in L.A. threatened to stop the haircut. Like and I can't remember what you do again. Nothing. You probably that was the weird part. i was gonna say as i said i really put that on you i assumed it was you this was so many years ago in fact there was not even a tb was there even a tbtl then i don't think so i think that i mean if i was living in la i thought well maybe i was visiting but like i don't even think tbtl existed but yeah i i think i've told the story before but i was getting my hair cut and i said something extremely banal we were literally just making small talk and the person cutting my hair just looked at me and said i can stop this haircut right now and it was it blindsided me so hard because you know you know me andrew and i'm a person who's capable of kind of putting my foot in my mouth or being overly whatever particularly if i've been having some drinks but i'm also just generally a person who can get through the world without starting an argument yeah you're a people pleaser certainly in those situations you don't want to make it awkward yeah in no universe would i have tried to say anything that would cause someone to threaten to stop the hair my point being that's not the dynamic here the dude's great on every level it's just it it's almost like yeah it's just it's really it makes me kind of makes me a little bummed because it's now i have to drive to a further away location and i have to get someone who you know may not do as good a job with the hair but i can't go through i can't go through it anymore it's too much and i don't even think i can be in that even i didn't if i didn't even get him i don't really think i can be in that store because if he's cutting someone else's hair it's just a lot have you been in that

situation where you've you've been in the room but you're not the one getting the haircut by him

yes and sometimes he'll sometimes he'd be like kind of working the front desk he's also just somebody who is in constant conversation with everyone yeah i can see that although when he was working the front desk i don't remember it being i don't remember it being quite as i mean the worst version of it for me is to be the person who's i'm and then i start getting quieter too yeah i'm like he'll be like got any and he also asked me the reason that i don't think that he's hyped because of my minor media status i don't think he makes any connection to that both of the time he's cut my hair he's gone he said got any awesome summer plans so i don't think he's tracking my comings and goings and what we discuss and don't discuss i think that's probably his kind of opener got any awesome summer plans but it'll be like got any awesome summer plans i'll just be like no i'm just gonna just gonna be probably just mostly working and i might get a week off or something maybe go to the library but um i'm thinking about um maybe doing a silence retreat i'm thinking about going to mount baldy and um taking a vow of silence for two weeks which i hear a lot of cool people are doing thinking about going to the quiet place have

you seen that movie you can't make any noise yeah also bird box for some reason not really

relevant here but yeah so like i really do like the louder he gets the quieter i get like i'm thinking between the two of us if the average volume is something that's more appropriate

it that'll that'll be good you know if we were working in radio right now we would have set off all the alarms because of the dead air remember when you're working in live radio if you if you had like a period of time where it wasn't picking up enough signal literal flashing lights would go off in the newsroom because they would think that it was dead air and they would try to alert the engineers we have other things to talk about so i guess i don't have to add any more bread crumbs to this meatloaf of a conversation but um i would say that i'm in a little uh not a it's not really a pickle but here's my update on my rudy situation for the first time in my life i've gone to the same um hair cutter the same barber for i'm gonna say like maybe four four if not five times now already i've attempted this before to have kind of a regular person i go to but for some reason or another it never like kind of um it just i never maintained that relationship um but this person uh cut my hair like in four or five times ago and then she said you know how about we start making your appointments before you leave it's good for her because she gets a regular customer and a regular kind of gig uh and it's good for me because I always do this thing where I'm waiting my hair's fine fine fine and then one day I wake up I'm just like I can't I can't live in this hair anymore it's terrible I'm balding and it's too long and I just feel awful and so like this has been good to stay on top of it and I like her okay she's a pretty cool she's a pretty cool cat we've had some interesting conversations um but after like the

fourth or fifth time like you know it's fine but there's no spark there anymore you know and now this last time thinking about a different hairdresser close your eyes and think of the Rudy's on Finney Ridge so I am so I'm getting my I go in to get my haircut right before the TB telethon a couple of weeks ago and you know I go in to have my appointment with this woman whose name I would tell you I just can't remember but I like her she's a cyclist we always talk about her like she gets everywhere in her bike and so I like talking to her about, about what it's like out there for a cyclist and bike safety and the various routes you can go in Seattle, that type of stuff. And, um, but I go in and of course we're still all wearing masks at Rudy's. And so the woman who goes to call me to the chair, I actually went up to her. I'm like, are you my usual person? I couldn't think of her name. I'm like, are you my usual person? Then you just had your, your hair is significantly different or are you a different person she's like oh i i don't know but it quickly became clear that this was not the person i've been going to and i said you know usually i'm with are you my mom you walked up to her in a store and tried to grab her hand i grabbed the hem of her skirt i hope that was okay um but uh she said oh oh you're usually with so and so but she's out she's visiting her family in florida i'm like oh that's right i i know that she has family in florida because we're best friends now And so this woman introduces herself She cycled there She started two weeks ago Riding for Sarasota Probably Raising some money for some good causes along the way And doing some hits at local TV stations Anyway, this other woman who cut my hair Did just as nice of a job And because she was new We had new things to talk about I don't even remember what they were But I remember then at the end Awesome summer plans At the end of this appointment I said, hey, you know I've been making my next appointment Can you book that for me? about seven or eight weeks out and she did and now I don't know and I guess there's a way for me to check my I probably got an email from them confirming my next appointment but in the back of my head I'm wondering did she book me with my other regular person or did she book me with her again have I switched horses midstream do I have another person who's going to be cutting my hair that I'm going to enter this hair cuttery relationship with and if so what's it going to be like when i walk in one day and i go to a different barber and my my old barber is there

looking at me it sounds like it's you're kind of hoping that it has been a switcheroo because again you know you have not run out of things to talk about with the new person and they did a fine

job on your hair yeah i guess if i i didn't even realize that until i started talking to you about this right now but maybe i am again in the most minimal way possible i'm totally fine to go back to my other person i just think it would be cool like what if i just had the same barber for a year i've never had that before and there's something cool about that but also like i said like oh well this was a new person there is something and i can always choose to just have it be a random person you know there's i can book an appointment and still keep it random but i just feel like it's good for everybody involved to maybe stick with one relationship but yeah i don't know i'll let you know that i'm catering out here so let's move on to more interesting stuff well i

don't know if this is more interesting but i want to get your take on this this window thing that someone made okay so this is on a subaru i don't know why that matters but i'm just letting you know so it's a hatchback it's got a very heavily tinted back window and on the driver's side okay and this is like they went to some kind of a like store where you can get basically custom lettering like that's you know a vinyl sticker because this is like this is definitely not some standard thing this is something that they made so it says on the driver's side of the back window it says if i'm passing you on the right you're in the wrong effing lane yeah i hear you brother right i know that's a pet peeve for you you do not enjoy um uh people you know driving although although shouldn't that be if i'm passing you oh yeah on the right you should always so they're

always pass on the far left lane yeah get over to the right i will say there is something astounding like on this road trip i just went on like especially on the highway everybody seems to know that rule really well and there's even signs in a lot of states like stay to the right unless you're passing like that's a fundamental thing like it just stops traffic otherwise there is something magical there's like a curtain you drive into washington state and all of a sudden like through the um through the pass and everything everything was just so like at one point we actually came to standstill traffic is because it was this long line where people in washington just don't they just don't abide by that they just pull their socks and their teeth is on as tight as they can and they just putter along in the left lane in a way that is just like astounding to me they have no it's just like why do you just why like why don't you just get over to the right why

must you back up traffic i don't get it it's weird i mean i i think you're i don't think you're incorrect with that assessment or at least as far as what the impact on traffic is and that's the and why there are lots of science.

reminding people to only you know only go into the left lane if they're passing someone for whatever reason that doesn't grind my gears i just don't think about it i'm also not a particularly fast driver um like i go five miles over the speed limit but i'm not for some reason that isn't one that that that gets me kind of hot although i know it does for a lot of people including obviously this person now here's where i'm trying to understand what they're saying so again as i've already stated on the left side of the vehicle window it says if i'm passing you on the right you're in the wrong effing lane exclamation point now on the passenger side of this subaru on the right side of this car there is a different different font by the way which i don't love i would like some consistency in these messages that they're putting out on the passenger side it says push hyphen pass or get off my ass push pass or what is push maybe push the gas pedal and get around me push hyphen pass or get off my ass now doesn't that sound like this person is driving in the left lane too slowly if someone is riding your ass wouldn't that indicate that you're either driving too slowly i mean i guess you could be in a

different lane you could be in the or this person could be in the right lane because maybe they're saying like listen i stay out of the passing lane unless i'm passing so therefore if you're riding my ass sorry for the language i've already used so much worse language in the show um if you're uh if you're on my ass and i'm in the right lane like pass me i see so this is this is part of a consistent worldview it could be everyone you get over well yeah because it sounds like they're

saying basically if i'm riding your ass get out of my way but then they also have a sign saying stop riding my ass which it just feels like you're it feels to me like they're they're chastising people for going too slow and therefore they would be riding that person's ass but they do not like having their ass ridden there's no way that makes it on marsupial gurgle but um like i guess you're right i guess this could be a consistent or a coherent worldview which is just basically like the left lane is for passing no one goes slow in the left lane and no one tailgate me in one of the other lanes because that's why we have a left lane you could just go over there and get ahead of me stop riding my ass it just it does seem weird though i'm with you though that it's a little confusing like right it feels like you're this person is both the tailgater and the tailgatee And they kind of don't like either experience, which gets to the larger thing, which is like, what's broken inside this person that they took the time to get these things made and then affix them to their car, which, side note, also would be kind of lost on you if you were the person going too slow in the far left lane because these are on the rear of the vehicle. I guess maybe if they went around you You could read it But it's like I don't really know who this messaging is for Because if this Subaru Is tooling along in the left lane And somebody is going too slow They're not they can't even see This signage yeah that's true

Unless you put it in the front of your car You need to put it on the front and then reverse it like they do with the ambulance Like an ambulance and then you get flashing lights And you paint your minivan red And white yeah

And then do something but like it just it feels also again i'll send you a picture of this this could actually be the show pick today potentially because we we don't have to show the um license plate number or anything but it's like

i have a picture of your cistern all picked out too that i've already uploaded into the system as well is it a sister no no i don't know the difference i think cistern is more for water oh and i made a poop joke before so it's not a poopy thing but well i mean this is the thing though this so you're talking about my septic oh septic not cistern i'm sorry so this is your septic and it is a poopy thing but so it's right this is this is a septic here's the thing the guy

has popped open the lid and what's under the lid i don't know if that's actually like is that because

i thought it was just mud and that's the picture i grabbed maybe i shouldn't use that is that

disgusting i don't know i don't know enough about i've never had a house with a septic before the guy seems unfazed in the video his narration is very kind of dispassionate but like if there's it's either wet wet mud or it's human feces i can't tell the difference i wasn't feces that i'm not well i don't know i wasn't there i wasn't there to smell it and the guy doesn't the guy's not vomiting in the video which i would work though yeah that's the this is andrew this was really the mental journey i went on when i watched the video for the first time because it's this big like it's a big like square lid thing that he's popped off that has grass growing on top of it and he's popped it out and he's i mean should i just play the video and

Can you just bleep out my address?

Yeah, that's fine. You know, maybe I... Okay, I'm going to delete this photo. Like, it was a perfect little... Because it looks like a little square in the ground that's satisfying in some ways. But now, I thought I was just looking at mud before. Now, not knowing what I'm looking at is making me sick. And also, we used a bumper sticker yesterday. Let's use a bumper sticker photo again today. So please send me that. Oh, you want to do that twice? I think it's funny. Yeah, maybe there will be some symmetry there. Because I just deleted this photo from the system. I don't want it to use it anymore. So, okay. Here we go. I'm in. It's the 30th of August, 2020.

So bleep all of that out, please.

Yep, I got that. He also said some nasty things there. Wow, the language. Deceptic overview video.

So right here off of the basement door is the tank. It's a one-compartment concrete septic tank. He said it's a one-compartment concrete septic tank. And he has popped up this concrete square, this probably two-by-three kind of rectangle. and then there's a pipe going into the tank you know and andrew i don't think that's i don't think that's number two it's gone because there's a there's a pipe that's going into the tank yeah

i saw that too but that's what the idea is in my head now the idea is in my head i think this is

groundwater slash rainwater that's gotten mud in it because sitting at normal operating level but it does need pumped at this time the drain field i have no drawing of it but it's going to be downhill downhill from i learned from one of the folks that this is gravid this uses gravity so they know that the drain field um which i think is where the tank is actually that's going to be downhill from where this guy has popped open a square of grass in my yard here somewhere probably in this area so don't drive on this with anything heavier than a lawn tractor because it

could do damage so there you go interesting well that's yeah you know you when you're doing your construction honestly you better remember that 10 views one of them is now mine or maybe two of them are now mine from grabbing that thing but you got to remember that if you have um pickup trucks or whatever driving on your lawn for your renovation you better yeah i don't think you could

get to this area with uh with anything bigger than a uh you know riding lawnmower but that is very good to know and again i i just was sort of pleasantly surprised at how paperless this for somebody who loves printing things out i was surprised at how paperless this whole process was of calling and then someone just sending me a link and then just watching it and then just sending it to the contractor and being like okay that's what i needed to know uh-huh like i was very satisfied with the process yeah it's nice when things work there's a right way to rock

and a wrong way to roll you can't just listen to your soul just remember that life is number one You can be having so much fun Just remember that life is much fun You can be nothing but one

Our boy Tim Heidecker dropped a new single, was it yesterday or today, with Kurt Weill, Luke. He's rounding up all the people that we love to get him. And I would, too, you know, to get them on his records. I got to say, I loved his first single that he released, like, last summer. Remember, I was obsessed with it. I can't think of the name of it. I want to like his other stuff so much, but it's very literal. Like, this song that he released today, The Sirens of Titan, which is based on a Vonnegut book. Like, it's all about, like, where he was growing up, sort of. Like, the world events going around growing up and where he was. He even has a line in there that I think you and I could find very relatable. Like, at the time, he was a punk kid, but he thought of himself as fiscally conservative. Like, you know, like, but the thing is, like, the songwriting isn't quite, it's just, it's more, it's very literal and stream of conscious and not, it doesn't, it didn't have the song writing and construction of that first song. I don't know why I'm blasting him. Well, I think he wrote, did he co-write that album or sections of that first album with Wiseblood? Wiseblood performed, I mean, again, I don't know, did they write it together? That was not my impression. But, yeah, he's grabbing all those folks like that and getting them on the records, which is really cool.

It's funny because we were walking – Beck and I were walking around in the Selwood neighborhood here in Portland, and we walked past the Aladdin Theater. And we were just kind of looking at all the people coming and Tim Heidecker's coming. But it's like totally this – the promotional poster is like him in like Decker mode. Oh, yeah. So it's like a flipped image. So the top part is him in Decker mode, and then the reverse mirror image hanging down on the bottom is him, like, normal, Tim Heidecker. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Becca just goes like, who the hell is that? And I was like, well, actually, that's this guy, Tim Heidecker, who I love, but this Decker character, like, is a little much. And I realized, like, if you're not kind of in the Tim and Eric world, you would see that and just be like, who is, what's happening? and, like, is it definitely...

Decker because here's the thing he really it's not fully Decker but you know who it is I can tell you what it is because I watched I was kind of obsessed with it so um during the pandemic he released a stand-up special just as himself Tim Heidecker stand was he wearing that leather jacket leather jacket and he's got almost a Tom Likessy quality but he's like he's a buffoon but he clearly like his jokes aren't funny it's like this performance piece that is really amazing like there's physical comedy because he's like he can't get them to turn off the music when he wants and he becomes just toxic immediately and like it's just so clear like he does this while both over the top it's also somehow a subtle takedown of the toxic masculinity of stand-up comedy that is just it's just the dude's a genius and so what he's done now is because I've been seeing this he's also been working on this these more serious music projects and so he's going around and he's doing these live shows where the first half is he's doing that comedy bit that stand-up comedy bit and the second half is he's performing his music which would explain

that poster that you saw right but it so that must be exactly what the show will be it's just on the subject of his music which we're actually listening to right now ironically yeah no this is not the stuff that he's releasing today right but i mean i'm with you that it's like the that character that the person of tim heidecker is so sort of veiled in performance that even when he's just being his normal self like on tiktok it feels like a bit because you never know when he is doing an impression of a certain kind of version of tim heidecker or when he's just being tim heidecker and so even with the music it's just hard to know because his entire comedy career is built on this just arch irony of a level that's you know i've never really seen before and so it's hard then to sometimes interact with his stuff just on a sort of like direct level without any irony in it because you just don't really know is this a joke is this serious you know like it's it adds a complication to just like listening to the music yeah

the stuff that he's releasing is serious and I don't think it's supposed to be necessarily parodies of anything and that's right I want to say the song that I was in love with that I played for you was called nothing and it was a very like straightforward kind of Americana song and it's interesting to follow him on Twitter because he's also just like this huge Beatles fan and like he's so ironic Right. Like you could see him having so taking so much issues with some of the annoying aspects of the Beatles, which there are some, you know, but like he will just unironically be tweeting out just like it's amazing how Paul McCartney could just take a simple idea and turn it into this amazing song without even thinking too much about it. And I know that he's saying that like completely earnestly, but couldn't you also see Tim Heidecker being the type of person who just hates Paul McCartney's bullshit in some ways? Oh, sure. You know, like anyway, interesting guy. Should we do some Blur's days? Why not? Power out. Here's a Blur's day. I got a Blur's day for you. This is from Karin in San Francisco, who says, happy Blur's day to my boyfriend, Brandt. You might remember him from when you aired his voicemail about his pet goldfish that survived numerous near-death experiences on the family farm. Now he's the proud owner of a very affectionate 13-year-old cat. So I do remember that we were getting a lot of emails and voicemails from folks sending in stories of goldfish that just would live forever. And apparently Brant is one of them. Happy Blur's Day, Brant.

Happy Blur's Day, Seve. we also want to wish a happy blurs day to emily of ohio from maxwell i'd like to wish a happy

tuesday i think is that a is that an inside joke or is that a typo did somebody write blurs day and the phone changed it to tuesday i get you that's exactly because it's hilarious to me

that we do these on thursdays it's tuesday there's a guy on tiktok whose whole thing is just celebrating when it's tuesday oh nice and he's like it's tuesday and the whole clip is just him saying it's Tuesday like a bunch of different ways and it just comes into my For You page

on Tuesdays. Well from now on I want Maxwell, whether this was a mistake or on purpose from now on I want Maxwell to wish Emily a happy Tuesday.

I'm trying to see if I can find this

kids Tuesday. Here I'll read this while you look for that. Maxwell goes on to say that Emily is a professional French horn player who listens to TBTL all the time. She has two lovely kids, my sister Julia and myself and a lovely husband named Chris. She's a fantastic mom and can even keep up with my Packers fan shenanigans. Well, if I had seen that, I wouldn't have read it at all. But, uh, now happy Blur's Day, Emily, from your great kiddo Maxwell. Here's this guy. It's Tuesday.

Hi! It's Tuesday. Tuesday. It's a Tuesday. Smells like Tuesday. It's Tuesday.

Tuesday. I love Tuesday And so do you.

That's why you're here.

So let me hear you say, whoop, whoop.

That sounds pretty good, Tuesday.

A Tuesday. So happy Tuesday to everyone.

So this is a little bit that he's been doing for a long time, and then that's a montage of his bit?

No, that's what it is. Every Tuesday, he records like 40 different scenes of him saying Tuesday in a weird voice in different backdrops, and then just like super cuts them together.

Well, it smells like a Tuesday.

It really does. Megan in St. Louis. Louis. Happy Blur's Day to Aaron in Westfield, Indiana. She is creative, funny, and has been a loyal friendo for over 20 years. Happy Tuesday.

Happy Blur's Day to Aaron. And Jennifer in St. Charles, Illinois, would like to wish a happy Blur's Day to myself, as I'll be turning another year older on Saturday. I don't believe any 10s know me well enough to know when my actual blurs day in, but I'm looking forward to what the next year brings for my 11 and I and our three pandemic rescue dogs. Wow. Adopting three dogs. Got some people not disappointed, but encouraging us, me and Genevieve, to stick with our dog plans instead of going with a second kid. It would be a nice narrative for the show, Andrew. Well, I'm not going to adopt a dog for a narrative.

Creating some hashtag content. You think I wanted to get bubbles?

I'm a content machine. I believe I proved that with Dump Mountain.

Mary says, I would like to wish a happy 40th Blur's Day to my husband. And 11, Nick. My wish for Nick is that he has an amazing summer full of sailing, piano sing-alongs, and backyard barbecues. before our first baby arrives in October. What? The storks are coming. Congratulations.

Congratulations. And happy birthday. That sounds nice too. I'm so glad that we brought summer, at least to the Pacific Northwest. Isn't that nice? As soon as the Mariners are going to be back in town, I'm going to go to a game. It's like I was holding off on everything. Because not just the TV telethon, but the rain and the everything. But now it's sunny. We're doing it. Who are you waiting?

What? But who, which, I guess Marco, like what picture can you even, what picture are you going to select? Oh, Gilbert.

I probably, I don't know that I would choose based on rotation, but I would certainly like to see a Logan Gilbert start, or even a George Kirby. You got to see George Kirby's debut, which was a solid debut.

If only I would have caught a Ryan Court baseball at that game. I'll let you play with mine. A moment in history.

It's weird. I have a lot of friends who want to go to the games with me Luke obviously I'm a very popular man With a lot of friends which is why I said that I want to Remind everybody but like the thing is like In my fantasy I just can't wait to go to a game By myself I'm such a Recluse but like There's something about going to a game by yourself To me that is the ultimate Freedom of summer is just saying You know what I'm done with my work now I'm going to a baseball Game and I'm not accountable to anybody There's no meeting at the seats There's no questioning if you need to get somebody a hot dog It's just you and the ball game.

I had a realization the other day that I think that I am like, I think that I am becoming a recluse who craves the company of people. That's an interesting, that's an interesting needle to thread. because the way that plays out is I think the reason that I like casinos and sometimes bars if I'm on the road or even if I'm in Portland where I'm just by myself, I'll go in and have a drink and play the video poker or whatever. It's because I don't know anyone in that place. I have no social obligation to anyone. I don't have to talk to anyone, but I'm around people. I think I like the experience of being around people, but nothing further than that. I don't I don't talk to I don't chat folks up I don't like again it's just like none of the social pressure of going out with your friends which by the way normal people enjoy and I enjoy that on occasion but I think I like sometimes being around people but not having any connection

to them or any responsibility of them amen that is exactly I mean when we moved to Seattle and of course I was very excited because it was like my first like city experience but I already had a pretty solid reputation 20 years running of being a bit reclusive are we really out of music already and not really liking to do things i mean that's even going back to to my college i mean that was a whole thing with my friends in college i would drive them nuts because they would leave me long voicemails on my answering machine knowing that i was holing up in my shitty little apartment and not coming out with them to see bands or whatever um i always like my alone time but i do like being kind of around people i like being around crowds and the And when we moved to Seattle, I mean, that's why I was so excited to live in Capitol Hill, that neighborhood where there was so much going on. And if I just wanted to run to get some noodles or a six pack or whatever, you would feel the vibrations of living in a very active part of town. But I didn't have any desire to actually go into like the unicorn or any of the bars that are going to be just packed to the pack to the ceiling full of young, beautiful people, you know.

Right. I think for me, it's this is an evolution in my personality and maybe not for the best, but like I was Mr. Social for, you know, 20 years of my adult life. And again, if, you know, if I lived in Seattle, I'd be at the Eagles. Like we had such a fun time at the Eagles. We saw Trout Mouth and everything. So it's not like I like that's a perfect scene for me is kind of like people I know really well and kind of like that doesn't stress me out. But I guess maybe just like in Portland, I don't – I know people I work with. I know Becca. But it's like I don't – there's just something about socializing in Portland that just feels a little bit stressful to me or like work in some way.

Well, it's got to be, first of all, your age, but also more and more of your work is social in nature in a way that it wasn't true. I think that's a big difference. It's eating. It's churning away at a certain kind of energy level you have in that part of your brain or your body. I think you're totally right. I don't know if that sounds woo-woo or not, but it is. I mean, that being around people and being kind of on. And that's the thing. Like, I am somebody who I just do the Blur's days, Walsh. But while we're on this topic, I will say, like, I'm not somebody I hope. And I think people would back me up on this. Like, when you're around me, I don't think it feels like, oh, Andrew's in a show. Genevieve and I will describe some people who are, like, kind of always in a show, you know. And sometimes that's good. Sometimes it's exhausting. But, like, oh, he's always on or she's always on. I don't think I come off that way. I certainly don't want to be in a show, and I always want to be, like, taking up as little attention as possible. But if I am talking with somebody, even if it's somebody I know really well, like, there is an energy that goes into maintaining one end of a conversation. And there's an energy in thinking, like, how am I coming off right now? And maybe part of that is unhealthy. But it definitely, like, being around people is not turning my brain off the way I can when I'm just at home alone, right? So if your work is taking you into these situations that you love, but is you being on stage, you maintaining conversations on stage, you talking to people who love your show after the show, like all of that is got to be draining.

Yeah, I think so. And again, yeah, far. I don't want to sound even remotely like woe is me, but definitely there is a and I know a lot of other performers, maybe not a lot, but I know a number of other performers who I've talked about this with. and they said oh yeah it's exact same feeling like there are a lot of people who will go and do is like a very public thing and then if they are someone who likes to have a drink or whatever they like to slide into a dive bar that where nobody was at the show like they don't want to go to the bar that's adjacent to the theater and continue the party or have people maybe come and recognize them or whatever they want to go somewhere where they can just you know sit at the end of the bar and maybe have a drink and just completely and totally disappear into the scenery yep um which i guess kind of makes logical sense it's just weird to realize that i'm becoming a little bit less social as i get older or your or your social energy is shifting too that's it probably so my social energy is shifting to wishing let's see harper harper a happy blurs day from katherine i'd like to send a very happy blurs day to a wonderful tent harper She was kind enough to friend me on Facebook, and I noticed it was her birthday this week. I hope you have a magical Blur's Day and a summer of fun, Harper. Everybody's feeling the summer. That's right.

Thanks to Andrew Walsh. You're welcome. And finally, Danielle says, happy 13th Blur's Day to our kind, smart, fabulous daughter, Chloe, from Mom, Dad, and your adoring brother, Dashiell. You make us all so proud and teach us something new about life, love, and the universe every day. No pressure, Chloe. Chloe has been listening, at least subconsciously, from the back seat for the last 13 years and has a love of podcasts from hanging out with our friends Luke and Andrew. That is the sweetest thing I've ever heard. Happy Blur's Day, Chloe, from your family and us, your extended family.

And I think I would just say from both of us here at TBTL, happy Tuesday. Happy Tuesday.

that goddamn thing i love that thing i saw somebody grumping out about on social media bring some joy into your life my friend what is more delightful than that than that um

that weird that hamster talking hamster yeah um we got good feedback from our friend televisions chris hayes he said that was really funny it and i think i said something like i believe you might be unique in that experience i think it was mostly grading on the listeners but oh is that true is that the takeaway from most people i know i don't know i felt like it was making us laugh you and i on that particular morning in denver but you know the thing that's making us laugh in the room is not always the strongest indicator of what someone's experiences as they're driving down the road with their children or living their life you know fair enough yeah no it is not I guess I would say it's not the most soothing sound in the world but you know it is words by doves which we yes it is that's how we're gonna wrap things up on this Thursday aka Tuesday thanks for listening everyone we are gonna be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you so please do join us for that till then have a great Thursday stay safe take care of yourselves and please remember no mountain too tall and good luck to all

Look, man, you know your stuff, but you're like a crazy volcano. You'd have to show me you can bring it down a notch. I'll bring it down a thousand notches if I have to! Power out.