Muse

So, get this. Belinda is saying she has fibromyalgia yet again, which means that I have to cover the Houston Conference.

That is so awesome, babe.

It can happen anytime. Oh my God. You're not even listening to me. Here at Listen Alert, our trained operators are standing by, waiting to respond to your calls to hear how things turned out. We're prepared with such phrases as, Are you kidding me? Or, uh-huh? Or, she's the worst. Sounds like you handle that perfectly.

Listen alert, this is Jeff. Tell me everything. Don't leave out your feelings.

I'm on my third day of green juice, but since I'm having a salad tonight, I think it's okay.

You should have a podcast.

All this is covered by a low, low price of $100,000 a month. So it was like my grandma's house, but at the same time, it was not totally my grandma's house? But, but, but, but, but, we will not listen to your dreams. We are not saints.

TBTL. how can they say this about me i don't believe it i show them i record everything i don't understand why you need me to like you so much i don't need you to like me it would be fun if you like me because then i could prove to myself that my parents were wrong to never support me because i now earn the admiration of a surrogate authority figure thus proving i have intrinsic worth but it's not like it's a big deal or anything jeez great story bojack you should put that in a

podcast so i can unsubscribe if you think i'm tired today wait till you see me tomorrow gentlemen

let's broaden our minds all right hello good morning and welcome everyone to a monday edition of tbtl the show it just might be too beautiful to live two bros bro hit it up my name is luke burbank i'm your host you want showmanship you got it coming to you from the hollywood Broadcast Center here in Portland, Oregon We're looking at a gorgeous Monday

Oh ma, pa It's just beautiful

Maybe too gorgeous In that, check the weather app Yesterday it got to I believe 100 degrees And today, okay You know what, today we are looking To top out at 92 degrees

Mmm mmm mmm, I'm flying In hot for that hottie

It'd be a considerable Drop in temperature from yesterday, which was which was really really steamy now i know there are other parts of the country uh where 99 degrees or 100 degrees would be a walk in the park but uh out here out here in the pnw that that felt warm so today will be actually uh probably more tolerable i don't know if this episode is going to be tolerable i do know it's number 3714 in a collector series let the fun begin the uh seattle mariners and anaheim angels and i say anaheim because it matters the mariners and angels had a wrestling match yesterday and a baseball game broke out this is a simple game it was all kinds of shenanigans where uh there was a brawl that went on for like 10 minutes people were throwing sunflower seeds and gum and the combustion becomes an explosion and it eventuated in something that absolutely no one saw coming a seattle mariners fan presumably in seattle this game was played i believe in los angeles or excuse me anaheim god they've gotten to me too this game was played in anaheim but a mariners fan sent one of the mariners a pizza had it delivered to the stadium and sometimes you gotta stop and smell the pizza i'll tell you how that whole thing turned out also usb drives in the news it's your lucky day you just found a usb flash drive in the parking lot I can make you this guarantee as the co-bro of this podcast. If USB drives make it into the news, it will make it into TBTL. That is the TBTL guarantee. We're going to talk about all that, plus emails and V-mails, with the help of this handsome young stranger, the longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's joining me right now from a basement studio. You want to do a make-believe radio show in a room somewhere. I'm telling you, there's no money in that.

He is Andrew Walsh. Good morning, my friend. Good morning, Luke. I have some regrets about that intro that we played at the beginning of the show. Not huge regrets, but small regrets. I made it a long time ago. That was intro number 222, by the way. We are, I think our latest intro. The deuce is our wild. I believe our last intro we played, like a newly produced one, was number 830. So that's a pretty old intro, relatively speaking. And I thought the BoJack Horseman joke was good Except it went on too long Do you know what I'm talking about? Were you listening? It was just kind of like, you know He made this whole thing about getting validation That he didn't get from his parents It was over the top It was funny But then the follow-up of You should have a podcast So I can unsubscribe That seemed like a joke Out of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie Or something It just seemed so corny see i assumed that was why you'd actually included that tape maybe at the time because it said podcast but that's another thing i don't like about it like just because you say podcast

like there's something almost like too on the nose about that now in 2022 but when you made that back in 1922 yes yes podcasts were newer than they were and it was a funnier joke and probably both of our brains were just like literally if a podcast got mentioned in pop culture we were on it Because that was a more rare occurrence And now I'm with you There is a certain kind of humor Where it's like The punchline is just podcast You have to listen to my podcast Or you should do a podcast Now feels lazy to me Because everyone does have a podcast Everyone's always telling people to listen to podcasts A lot of podcasts are unlistenable This is one of them And it's a pretty lazy form of humor In my opinion now But it wasn't when you made the intro package

That's true, I just wish it had ended Because, again, the BoJack part isn't the worst. And just somebody going on a tear like that has a good rhythm to it. But that took me back, dude. Hearing the BoJack voice.

Yeah, well, because now I didn't actually watch BoJack Horseman when it was first being released and everybody was talking about it. We even had Will Arnett on a wait, wait, don't tell me. And I basically promoting BoJack. And I had still at that point never watched the show. And then the pandemic hit. And then I was just a depressed man Drinking too much Living in a home with a swimming pool On a hill And there was something about BoJack Horseman That seemed to resonate And I got way down Way down the BoJack Horseman Rabbit Hole? Mm-hmm Horsehole? There's a rabbit in Horsehole sounds like something That they're doing at the clubs in Berlin

Well, I thought it sort of sounds like A summer game That is like a combination Of just like horseshoes and Cornhole or something, you know, somebody's come. We have a friend whose brother, you might know about this. I think I can just use names here. Kamero Kev. He's a well-known figure on TVT. Kamero Kev. Let's see here. You guys used to go clubbing. You taught him how to karaoke by flipping. Club Kevin. Sure, yes. I remember when we used to go clubbing. Yes. You inspired him to do karaoke by dancing on a chair in front of the football players. By the way, you're saying that with a certain amount of derision.

I'm just teasing. I checked in with him on that story after telling it on the show to see how I did, and he said mostly correct.

Yeah, I think he told me the same thing.

Which was more than I expected, honestly, because I really was. I felt kind of sheepish about that story because I think the way it came off was me saying I had somehow, like Charles S. Dutton's character in Rudy helps inspire a young Rudy Rudevich to play exactly one play for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. i didn't want to cast myself as the charles dutton uh character that inspired kevin to become a karaoke master which he is by the way um but i did remember that seeming to be the order of events so i was relieved to hear that it was roughly following the the arc of of what happened yeah i

feel like he even told me later that you gave him a caller that you guys talked about that and that he agreed um uh that that he you got most of those beats right anyway he's got a brother he's actually got a couple of brothers but we don't have to get into it but either way they grew up in lake stevens and they have a different version of a game that isn't cornhole do you know about this it's like it is similar to cornhole where it's a board and it's got six holes in it but you throw some sort of large washers into the holes and i don't know if there's a name for this game or not but apparently they are making a custom game for me and genevieve for our fun times and i kind of didn't realize this was going on i remember hearing great with the pickleball about it well the thing is it's probably going to take up genevieve bought horseshoes too i don't know where we're going to

set up a game of horseshoes what is that quote from that's uh from arrested development the musical act not the tv show from uh oh one of their one of their hit songs a game of horseshoes a game of horseshoes oh i don't know boy i've really been real stressed down and out i think it's uh i can't remember i sometimes conflate everyday people and mr wendell both certified

bangers by the way mr wendell there's a message in there too there's a message and seeing the humanity around us um i guess it's just called called washer toss although i swear i had a i heard a better name for that uh when it was being explained like steven's not known for its creative naming of games i'm just looking online i typed in large washer summer game and it does appear in some people's pinterest boards uh as a three-hole washer toss or something along the lines of that but anyway i guess that's coming our way genevieve is very excited we're gonna be throwing a little summer party nope hold on genevieve is throwing a little summer party i will help um these are not my parties people always ask why is that a big why do you call them Genevieve's parties you live there you're throwing them together and you also participate is the other thing I participate and frankly I do a lot of the of the work and 100% of the cleanup um but the thing is and this is I don't know why this is important to me but if I were if I were not in a relationship with Genevieve or if I were in a relationship with Genevieve and she had no interest in throwing a party we would not be throwing a party I'm not saying that um i'm gonna be at this party uh begrudgingly or rudely but i've seen you with definitely not be my it's not my party because i wouldn't throw a party but you're okay but you're

a delight at these parties like you said i sound like a delight right now you take care of what you take care of a lot of the of the details of the setup of the breakdown you're cooking hot dogs you're playing b52s on a cd player like you're in it and you're you're very fun at these things so i i just want to make sure the listeners understand that you're not moping around at these it would be a look um yeah no but but anyway yeah so we have that covering your ears like

oh christ yes that is me um hey can i tell you a quick uh i think i can make this quick i tell you a quick story of what i did this weekend uh regarding this um this home of ours as you know luke we have um a hedge what is it a it's like a box hedge i can't think of the elder it's not elderwood i can't think of what it's called but we have this big box edge all the way i wonder if

you're thinking of box elder because of i wonder the song or just because that is a thing oh it's laurel that's what's made of laurel did you know i it looks like yanni to me um anyway the head should have gotten a better laugh i was pretty proud of that joke

The hedge is large all the way around the house But in the back back back of the house Is where it's really tall And in fact if you go on Genevieve's Instagram feed Right now Luke you can see a photo Of me post work day Now I've got a lot more work to do

I'm going to put down my laser pointer By the way my laser pointer is my hex The laser pointer is to me As hex empire is to you

Oh that's right you're playing with your cat right now

As we're chatting I'm kind of aimlessly Laser pointering around the room so that the cat will run around and get some of her ya-ya's out. Let me go. I'm on Instagram. Speaking of, let me open up Hex Empire 2 because that'll make the show better. Genevieve, yes, good reminder. Okay, good. I don't really understand. Here's what I don't understand. I am on Instagram. I follow Genevieve. I'm looking at some other people, our friend John Sklaroff, our friend Katie Beck. I'm seeing other people that when they post something, it's at the top of my Instagram page and it has a circle around it which indicates I haven't looked at it yet.

no the circle means they have a story you know there are two different ways you can post right i can't believe we're doing this but you can have you can post something to your grid or this is real this is new news to me so that only means a story if there's a circle around it it means you click on it and then you get you can scroll through their temporary stories which will disappear after 24 hours other things are just posted to the grid they're permanent photos that's mostly the space i play in but if you go to genevieve's grid well you have just pressed my

flabbergast button Andrew because I did not understand I really didn't understand why it was I would sometimes see things and not see other things and that's because if it's a story or not

okay I'm looking at this photo look at you right so those hedges if you zoom in on me and let's just say I'm 6'1 I used to be 6'2 I don't know what's happening it's aging but either way I'm don't make your height I think you're still a solid thank you I'm 6'1 and a half um you can see those hedges just the regular hedges are probably another what three or four feet three feet taller than me definitely say at least that yeah so that's a really tall hedge those are that's where it's biggest in our house because they're kind of the the the least kempt there as i like to say and these and i have just started trying to maintain these uh hedges a bit we have a relatively small but i believe it was free hedge trimmer that genevieve got off of ebay like the moment we bought this house she went on not ebay i'm sorry craigslist yeah um and so anyway we've been genevieve cut back a little bit in our front yard just sort of get a sense of what this is like i was doing a little bit of cleanup and on on sunday uh nope on saturday morning i woke up and i said i'm just going to take care of that one corner of the yard that is facing outward back hedges um and the you know the neighbors can see it and it's just like really growing out it doesn't have any kind of square shape to it anymore it's a little bit wild and it's just a small small little chunk i get the ladder i get the trimmers and i trim it off but as these things usually go once i start i don't know where to stop i'm like i'm not going to do the whole the whole hedge that is facing this back alleyway that very few people i don't feel like you could even do the top with the no i need a bigger ladder we're gonna we're renting a ladder this week and probably a bigger hedge trimmer so that i the hedge itself i should mention is probably especially back there

about six feet wide i want to say as well it's really wide yeah it's really wide and it's very it offers a lot of privacy and sound um you know kind of sound dampening which can we get a hey dummies video andrew where you stand with your back to the hedge and then slowly back yourself into it you know that's kind of what i was doing this weekend only i was going forward into it so listen to this so i want a homer simpson gif but starring you that's all i thought about all weekend So I did one side of the hedges, and I'm like, okay, I'll just continue to do this back alleyway anyway, and it doesn't need to be done, but it'll just be done. I already have the extension cord out here and everything, blah, blah. So I start cutting it, but as I'm trimming up the hedges, I'm getting more and more frustrated because as I step back to look at it, it's becoming more apparent that our hedges, our – what are they? Laurel hedges. Yanni hedges. our yanni hedges are overwhelmed what are you laughing at oh that's such a good joke

i'm laughing at you laughing see that's how you respond to a laurel versus yanni i'm legitimately laughing that's what's so messed up i just want to keep doing that can we just do the next half hour of us laughing back and forth why don't we just convert the show into laugh therapy if we figure we've been trying for years to get this show to be popular it never is but Like the space that we have yet to play in is just 45 minutes of laugh therapy each day.

Not trying to make other people laugh anymore.

No, no, no. Just alternating different forms of laughter. I'm sorry.

Okay, so here's where my frustration lies. So as we've established, this hedge is probably, if I'm six, it's at least nine feet tall, right? Maybe ten in places. But as I'm stepping back to look at the work, it's frustrating because obviously the top does need to be trimmed down. But more importantly, the top is really shaggy because there's all kinds of kind of invasive plants growing up, up and through it. And what do I learn those invasive plants are? But blackberry brambles. I see a pile of them in this photo, Andrew. Luke, these things were like trees. So what I learned was as I'm trimming back the hedges, and I learned this kind of on the backside, kind of on the outside of our property part of the hedges, that, oh, if I stick my head through here, not unlike Homer Simpson, if I stick my head into these bushes, I can sort of get back here a little bit and I can see, oh, these are like 15 foot blackberry trees that are down in the dirt of the hedges growing probably for years, although probably doesn't also take that long for these things to mature in this climate, just straight up through our hedges and all the way through. So I decide I'm going to start cutting these things at the base and at least kill them that way. But then I start doing that. Then I grab a pair of gloves. I'm like, maybe I can pull these things out from the hedges.

I eat stickers all the time, Luke!

Oh, that scared me.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

Now, that sounds menacing. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Anyway, so... Easy joker. Luke, so then I start going, as you might say, ham on this project. I had no intention of spending my Saturday doing this, but the next thing you know, you should see my arms right now. It looks like I went to war. I was wearing short sleeves. I should not have done that.

But at least it was a cool, it was probably in the 50s, so it was a nice cool overcast day for this type of work.

At least it was 85 degrees. I am crawling into the hedge on both sides of our property now and just grabbing onto these things. And the hard part is not even getting in there and cutting them, but then pulling them out. They refuse. And again, I'm basically like pulling the bottom of this thing, trying to suck it down through the hedges. But it's already grown up through the hedges and blossomed up there. and i'm trying to just pull these things i am put it was now again this is a low bar for me i understand but i think this was the most difficult physical labor i have done potentially in my adult life i mean pulling these things down but also refusing well refusing to lose like the seattle mariners um i'm just like putting my whole body into pulling these things down and when they absolutely won't come then i'll kind of climb up a little bit and try cutting them at some spots and pull them down and once you get one of these things to come all the way out and you're just pulling like a 15 foot blackberry bramble out of your hedge like that is a very satisfying feeling but even after all of that work on saturday i went out there to admire my work yesterday and i'm looking at it i'm like there's still so much to do there's still so many of these blackberries and i think i'm going to do it today i'm going to wait for the mercury to get up to about 85 i i have to though i know there's a solution now and i want of course the problem is you should be cutting them all the way down at the ground and then people have already been sending me from genevieve's post people are already sending me all kinds of updates on like hey what you need to do is put some poison or some uh herbicide that is some people are sending me like um organic herbicide that won't suggestions i should say people are sending me suggestions for organic herbicide that will kill the blackberries if I rub it on the stump. after i cut it down um but i just don't have that right now and right now i'm just going brute force i gotta get these things out of there before the party i don't want everybody coming over here

and laughing for genevieve's party during genevieve's party you're really getting that you're really getting the fuzzy end of this lollipop genevieve's party featuring andrew rooting around in the hedge pulling blackberries all during the most intense heat so far of the summer in the northwest you should really get double billing on this party andrew i want this

to be called andrew and andrew's blackberry party featuring genevieve well my my idea that i ran past genevieve at one point is what if we turned this into some sort of a game for our guests like maybe we give out presents for the biggest blackberry bramble that you pull out genevieve felt like that she felt like um washer cornhole might be a better idea though uh you always got

to wash your cornhole andrew i mean honestly particularly having people over um uh see what my response to that to the realization of what was going on with that hedge would be i would there would be basically two possible responses from me one would be fine this is just a hedge that also has blackberries and i'm going to flat top this thing or hire someone to come and trim the top of this and they're just going to trim the blackberries and they're going to trim the laurel and that's just going to be how this these two things are just going to live in symbiosis now probably the problem with that is the blackberry grows at a different rate than the

laurel I think it'll choke it out eventually you think it'll choke it I don't know if it'll choke it out either way I don't know I'll walk that back can I walk that back yes you can walking that one back backing slowly into the hedge I don't know if it'll actually choke it out but it'll overwhelm it because it's growing faster and like which I think you just said like it is just it it's just taking over maybe is a better way of putting it see because i would have assumed

this could just be a world where and i'm i'm sure that i'm wrong about this but there could just be a world where again it's like uh the the blackberry lives in the hedge and you trim the whole thing and some of what you're trimming is hedge and some of what you're trimming is blackberry mostly what i would be trying to do would be come up with a theory that didn't involve me crawling around in that hedge trying to wrench out blackberry blackberry uh brambles or bushes or whatever you call them then my second take would be to find out how much it would cost me to have somebody come do that which i bet you would be a lot i have at the the place that i that i'm kind of trying to do this project on um it has a an obscene amount of gravel driveway for some reason it's like it's i think this is like an acre and a half or something uh the house is very small for being on that amount of land and for some reason the guy who owned it before me what he really liked doing was terracing massive parking areas with and then putting gravel over them which is all fine and good it means if i ever decide to um host a wedding there or something there will be ample parking but that gravel is really uh susceptible to weeds like very thick i don't even know we're not talking dandelion here we're talking about some other kind of very robust weed just growing up and like i basically wasn't at the house for a couple of weeks and then i come back and it goes from being totally fine looking to just small trees now growing everywhere yep yep and i was like that looks like a lot of work to pull all of that i don't know what is i talked to some landscaping folks and i was thinking maybe i'll just pay somebody to get all of this stuff out of here because i i hated doing that kind of work as a kid i know you did as well andrew but the difference between you and me is i have not now developed some sort of love for that kind of puttering i still hate that kind of i mean it's

rough i it's funny but it's almost and this is where and i try to be careful with the language around this because again like i'm not like diagnosed with ocd which i know is a serious thing that that a lot of people do have but like i have some sort of tendencies that like once these things grip me it's like i'm almost i'm in a fugue state almost i'm not even joking like i uh it has to be these conversations began with me and veves looking at it and sort of bemoaning it and being like oh i guess we're gonna have to get somebody out here to like trim the top of that thing and at least make it look better and yeah that probably won't happen before the party also keep in mind i now have just from trimming the the hedges alone forget about the blackberry brambles i have so much yard waste that i need to start packing up into those brown yard waste bags neither taking to the dump or putting out uh on the curb on wednesday so i have so much work to do but even now like having taken a day off from doing that job i woke up this morning and thought okay when i'm done with tbtl today i can get back out there like i just i need to um i don't know man i just i we we planned on just having somebody trim it back exactly like you said but then once i kind of poked my head in there and sort of accidentally saw what was going on it was like literally pulling at a thread because i was cleaning up one part of the yard i saw that these blackberry brambles were growing out so i started pulling them from the top and then i said well you should get them from the bottom then all of a sudden i realized wait maybe this is the solution for all of these then i started hunting for them you stick your head back there it is like narnia you stick your head into those hedges it's an entirely different world there are so many tennis balls um in our hedges from people who had dogs any turkish delight in there yeah i haven't yet but i mean there is a lion that reminds me a lot of a of a certain carpenter um but anyway yeah it's it's amazing and then once you're in there you're like oh i can get these things so i don't know i i'm probably not doing this the smartest way especially since i'm not like taking the extra effort to then put the put the herbicide down or whatever because it's just gonna be another problem but i do feel like if i can at least remember that this is happening in there and maybe next summer go in there again before it gets this bad we can we can at least mitigate it

yeah i mean you're doing you're you're doing the right you're doing the proper thing here and you will be happy later um sorry about the noise by the way the cat has now discovered well the cat has discovered a new favorite thing which is you know how on my days when i do my jog uh i then get to give myself an a red x on my big giant calendar that's on the wall here and i use an expo marker for that and that expo marker is um it's got velcro on it and it's attached to a little square

it's excuse me it has hook and loop technology andrew that's important it's a hook and loop

fastener system and it's sitting there the pen is is velcroed to uh the calendar so i can know where it is when i need to use it and the cat just discovered that and decided that what she wanted to do is jump on the printer that's on top of the drink works box then jump on the garbage can and then jump up and literally hang from the velcro which it turns out is not load bearing so then she collapsed onto the floor that's what that whole noise so is your whole calendar pulled down now no but if i hadn't grabbed her and untangled her from it it would have been yeah she was literally her claws her talons were caught her hooks were caught in the loop technology andrew well the goodness is it works it it definitely works and so that's what i was dealing with there she's also just she is really really learning now about every like she can read my movements if i'm going to go close a door if i'm going to go into some part of the apartment that i don't like her to go to she anticipates me now and gets there first really like she's she has nothing to do all day except study my movements and so she's really like savvy about like because for instance now i don't let her in the bathroom when i'm showering because she kept

getting in the shower with me yeah and by the way you know you talked about this the other day but like the water doesn't bother her no i mean she's not like she's not actively how do i put this she's

not like in the stream of the water but she's in the bathtub and she's sometimes what she'll do is she'll get in between the shower curtain and the wall of the bathtub yep so she's in the shower with me but she does have effectively a raincoat on uh-huh um but i actually like i think i even have some tape here because i sent it to becca let me find this is this is not going to really pay off but this is me in the shower again i grabbed my i had my phone nearby because i was like she's going to do this i'm going to document this and i'm just showering and the cat is just fully in the shower with me does this really seem like the place for you to be does this really seem like a good spot for you uh she did not have an answer to that i can say her silence speaks volumes yes now that being said andrew i would die for this cat like this cat and i are bonding so hard and having so much fun together saturday morning when you were just beginning your sisyphean task of dealing with the blackberries i was still in bed probably playing the world's most fun game of hide and seek slash what i now call pillow smash so i don't let her sleep in the bed with me but if it's like a saturday morning i'll and i'm just kind of lazing about i'll let her jump up there and like i'll take the other pillow the one i don't use and like smash her with it and then she you know she loves that and she climbs her way out like we have a great time together me and this cat it's the only time it's really a challenge is when i'm trying to do this show so that i can't really like pay attention to her that's when she gets a little wacky but i don't want the listeners to think that this is like uh i'm regretting the decision to uh you know take this cat into my life or or that she's she's she's actually like i am every single day i am more into having this cat than the day before yeah no it sounds like

Just slowly taking a pillow and just smothering her face. I mean, you're making it very clear. I mean, you guys are really bonding. Yeah, exactly.

I guess when I say it that way, Andrew, I don't know what came over me. I just couldn't stop. I had to lower the pillow over Bubbles' entire body. She's back, by the way, and she is going to make another pass. at the velcro situation okay we'll see how this says she just the other thing too is so she is obsessed with this laser pointer which is great but not only is she obsessed with the laser i'm gonna take well there she went she just did a literal hang in there kitty and hang in there what she's obsessed with is the is the marker watch i'm gonna get a picture of this and maybe it can be the show pick today because she will go back for this thing now that she's interested in it but like she's not only obsessed with the laser pointer with the laser that comes out of it she's obsessed with the physical laser pointer because she has figured out that that is the thing i use to make the shiny light that she likes so she'll go get when she wants me to do the laser pointer she will go get the physical laser pointer get it in her mouth bring it over to me like let's do this that's what i'm talking about dog with a leash it's a slippers it's it's wild like she and then if i won't she'll just play with the laser pointer like she'll bat it around she'll chase it across the room she's like if i can't get the laser light going at least i'll have the

physical object that creates the laser you know where this is going by the end she'll figure out how to use the laser pointer you will be the one chasing the red dot that's where i want to see this go i feel like that is a workout that i could conceivably um oh god that sounds like a yes that sounds like a trendy bullshit like thing that the new york times will write about at some point after it catches on in the blogosphere right like some sort of like exercise by chasing the like you are the cat like catter size or something like that where you go to a studio and there's all and it's like there's you know the one thing where you chase the red dot around there's another one where you get on a big wheel like uh bubbles is treadmill uh i can totally see that being a thing

i am i'm as i'm talking to andrew i'm it's weird i now want her to do she's thankfully she seems to have changed her mind i actually wanted her to do the full-on jumping on the velcro thing because i wanted you to i wanted to get a good picture of it but um yeah she i will there will be a point where i will tell you oh i've joined something called red dot theory and we it's 140 a month and we go to a dank basement and we just chase laser pointers around all day yeah um okay get off the fax machine buddy i will put you know what let's do this i wanted to tell you about my weekend because i had a very fun weekend of lounging i realized something andrew and people have said this for years about various things that are expensive and difficult to maintain but i've realized really what you want to do is it's not even that you want to own a swimming pool you want to date someone whose brother and sister-in-law just bought a house with a swimming pool that's the move and that was what happened to me this weekend maybe uh we'll talk about that after the break a little bit and the mariners because i think that this mariner story actually transcends sports it's just kind of funny and weird um but i'm gonna put the cat in the other room so she stops basically as the third host of the show because nobody asked for that so quick break here on tbtl then back with more hello and welcome to top story all right well now the top story sounder makes this sound far too formal for what i'm about to say which is just i had a lovely sunday swimming here in uh the greater portland area it was like uh i think it almost got to 100 if it didn't get actually to 100 yesterday and um it was like uh becca's brother and his wife uh bought this really cool mid-century house that they're remodeling and as i didn't know what was going on in the 1950s that everybody was just like we should have swimming pools but i love it and it's it's odd because that's a trend that really died off i mean there's the odd house that's built in the 80s and 90s or 2000s with a swimming pool probably some of it depends on region too you know if you're down in palm springs or dallas it might be kind of different but it's weird to me that even in the northwest in the 1950s it was somehow the american dream to have a swimming pool at your house

i wonder if there's if that's partially regional as well though do you feel like that's more of a

west coast thing um well good question i i haven't i haven't uh like looked at you know i haven't tried to buy a house in ohio or something and so maybe less so but what i can say about the Northwest and even LA is that again there's like mega mansions that have swimming pools that's a different category but putting that aside it seems like the period of time when people who were building what were basically normal family homes were most likely to have that normal family home include a swimming pool was the 1950s era for some reason which is it's called mid-century architecture because it was the middle of that century but anyway I'm sure a fan and I'm sure a fan of being able to go over to someone's house and jump in their swimming pool when it's a hundred degrees out although I did have to do some real mental work Andrew about just cavorting shirtless around people some of whom I know well some of whom I know less well I know that's not your favorite part of swim parties of pool parties I'm somewhere north of you in terms of of bravery and south of um i don't know somebody who likes their physical body so i was like having fun but i was having to psych myself up a few times and just be like what if you just pretend like nobody cares what you look like with your shirt off because by the way nobody does but like i was like trying to turn my brain and i was trying to trick myself into just not having this constant thought of like i need to go put a shirt on i need to go put a shirt on right now because it was like i was swimming and i was lounging by the pool and i was like i need to stop being so concerned with the angle that i'm sitting at at all times it's like this is this is cutting into my fun um i need to just like i need to just somehow almost trick myself into thinking and yet i mean i'll be honest with you and this didn't happen as much yesterday but it's happened to me at other times like when we go to lake chelan with the guys we'll go out on this boat races boat and then we'll like the beginning it's like i'm kind of like i don't really like taking my shirt off in public but then after enough alcohol i forget that i'm shirtless and i'm completely unfazed i was like why can't i get there without booze why can't i trick my brain into getting to that destination uh without the help of uh you know uh liquid poison but anyway the overall aside from my internal battles it was a really really fun sunday oh yeah that sounds nice i

remember i was at a wedding one time this is going back um quite some time probably maybe 10 years ago at the very least um and we were in new hampshire and um some friends of ours got married and it was a very nice beautiful wedding and um the the i guess you would say reception or party was uh it's some sort of outdoor cabiny area very very nice you know what i mean and decked out but it was on a lake and some sort of a large cabin on a lake somewhere and at some point people decided to go swimming now i i think a lot of this party was actually going to be spending the night in this cabin or at various cabins in the area we were not doing that so visa and i did not bring any changes of clothes and we did not know that swimming was going to be a thing which is fine with me anyway as you know um but at one point people start jumping in the water and a friend of mine who i'm not going to use his name for obvious reasons but um a guy who i appreciate a great deal he's probably about um you know between five and ten years older than me and not in any kind of great shape at all like my my shape or possibly um maybe even kind of heavier and and lumpier in his own way but he was one of the first people to just like you know just put on his trunks and go running into the water and just started having a great time this is not a real kooky guy by the way he's just a normal person who likes fun and i think about him all the time because like he didn't hesitate and first of all he's a man he's married you know like like he's not there i can't explain it like does being married matter like if you were not where you are

not there as a single person who is hoping maybe to meet somebody and to have them have some slight

sexual attraction to you based on your physique like if you think of if you think of pool parties And like my nightmare pool parties that I went to a couple of times as a kid because I was forced to for some reason or or felt like it was the most expedient way to get through school or whatever. It would make even more sense for me to be a very timid, overweight kid at these parties and also all of the shame of of puberty and and girls being there who I probably have a crush on all of them, frankly. um but um and and you know that makes more sense but then you're like okay but now you're like you know i'm 45 years old i'm um there i'm not i'm not i'm not looking for people to find me attractive necessarily i really don't care i just you know i don't want to embarrass myself as much as possible but generally speaking like i just don't know what is in me what is broken in me that can't just have what my friend has which is it does he didn't seem to take two seconds to can to be concerned about what he might look like he just wanted to have fun with everybody i that

was kind of that was what was going through my mind also it wasn't like there wasn't 200 people at this thing it was people generally that i know my girlfriend was there her family again there's no there's no reason why my brain should be sending me so many negative messages about this thing um but it was and i was just like it was kind of it was a little frustrating to me that i but again i i overall i had a really fun time but i just wish i could wish i could because the other thing we talk about this all the time on the show is throughout my life really well i would say after like the age of 25 up until the age of 25 i just happened to have a metabolism that was just like a furnace and it never occurred to me if anything i i was sometimes maybe a little embarrassed about being too skinny or something but i was never i just had no thought about no negative thoughts about my body. and then my metabolism slowed down I started to you know become slide towards middle age and at every almost every point in my adult life I have not liked the way that I looked and then I see a picture from 10 years ago and I think what was I freaking worried about and I know that in 10 years I will see a picture of me now and I'll be like what was I so in my head about like I understand that intellectually but emotionally it's a totally different thing speaking of emotions Andrew motions really ran hot yesterday between the Seattle Mariners and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim I was not watching this game because I was at the pool party hating my body um but I heard about it and then I went back and watched all of it were you experiencing any part of this

game in real time yes so the brawl um happened early on in the game which was I believe it was the top of the second inning and I was uh in my kitchen kind of prepping for my volunteer work making some coffee making some lemonade and uh and i had the game on my on my little ipad thingy and i was you know paying attention but mostly just listening to it and then i heard all hell break out and i ended up being late to my volunteer gig because i kind of didn't realize how much i was getting sucked into this 18 minute game stoppage that started with a bench clearing brawl And it also included a whole thing, a giant crate of sunflower seeds being thrown for some reason into the into, I guess, the third base line. It was it was I think it was the most violent and maybe. Yeah, I guess it was the most violent and intense brawl that I can remember seeing the Mariners involved in.

The baseball is such a weird game because there are there are all these kind of unspoken rules. And we've been kind of talking about this a lot in the last few months because we both watch a lot of these baseball games. And so it's on our minds. But one of the weird things about the dance of baseball is, like, it's not unusual for people, for the benches to clear. So the teams get mad at each other over something, and then both benches empty, and then the players are all standing on the field. But that's usually where it ends. You don't usually have both benches clear and then people actually throwing punches. Yeah. yeah that's that's the line and it's all it's part of this kind of almost kabuki theater of baseball where you have everyone knows their roles the managers know what they can yell and not yell sometimes if a manager wants to inspire their team they'll intentionally get kicked out of the game by going up you know to the ump and saying whatever it is they know will get them tossed it's if you are a hitter and a ball something is called a strike and you don't think it's called a strike but you like look at the umpire for too long you'll get tossed or If you flip your bat after a home run, the next guy that comes up from your team might get hit by a pitch because the other team took offense to how you flipped your bat. Like, there's just so much weird culture around retribution, and you did this to me. So what had happened apparently was on Saturday night's game, the Angels have this guy named Mike Trout, who's phenomenal, arguably the best player in baseball. And I guess that the Mariners in the ninth inning, I also wasn't watching this game in real time. I was kind of looking at it on the MLB game day app, meaning I wasn't like listening to someone talking about. I was just looking at graphics that were representing basically what happened. And I guess the Mariners pitcher threw a pitch that was close to the head of the hitter, Mike Trout. And Mike Trout was perturbed about that. And I think he said something after the game to the effect of if you if you're going to pitch inside, that's fine. Pitch inside. But you need to have better control. control don't pitch it at my head which actually to me seems like a reasonable piece of feedback

but it was an act i mean i think everybody agrees that that was an unintentional thing he lost control for a second i mean i've been listening to this so i'm just parodying what i've heard on the radio all weekend but like the and i even heard them talking about this on saturday before any of this happened during saturday's game the you know mike trout's weak spot is up and in and yeah that's you know you gotta that's where if that's where you gotta pitch him if you're hoping to strike him out hey by the way but that also be my weak spot yeah that would also be my weak spot be anybody throw that ball up and in i retire on the spot right no absolutely some people though can crush them when they're up in the zone right but him that like that's his cold spot for whatever reason but that's also a dangerous place to lose control but that is what happened it was late in the game as eric swanson the pitcher lost control the ball it was scary it went it went very close to trout's head he ducks out of the way you don't want to see that like nobody wants to see that But it was a mistake. I would like to remind you as well that their pitcher, I believe a reliever, although it might have been a tired starter, hit Justin Upton, one of our players in the head last time these two teams faced off here in Seattle. I mean, he got nailed in the head, right in the side of the helmet.

on the ground for did you were you watching that live by any chance yeah i don't know if you remember that but yeah he was on the ground for a long time i thought that it was maybe a second

at bat since returning to baseball so the mariners win the game on on saturday night but i guess the i guess the the the angels were not going to let this um uh this aggression stand so they do this weird move which is they start on sunday they the pitching the starting pitcher for them is not a person who usually starts in fact i don't think this person had ever started before this pitcher by the name of wance like pants i believe that was how you pronounce yeah it was

weird i would have said once right but they kept saying wance so this guy wance is a relief pitcher

who they put in which is sus because that seems very much like a move of you're putting someone in who it's fine with you if they get thrown out of the game yeah why would you why would you as the angels manager start somebody who's not one of your starting pitchers in a game other than because it felt to you like it wouldn't be the end of the world if they threw four pitches and got tossed out of the game so sure enough they come in this guy throws a pitch like i think behind the head of julio rodriguez one of the mariners only good players right now and a kid A 21-year-old kid. And so then it's – so there's a warning issued. It's just weird because everyone going into the game kind of knows there's some hurt feelings. And this is where it's almost like more like pro wrestling than baseball because there's like the Angels' feelings are hurt because you threw a pitch too close to Mike Trout, which again, you know, fine. That's how they feel. But then it's like everyone's just waiting to see like what's this pitcher guy going to do and then like throws a pitch behind the head of one of our best hitters. that's not an accident um that's sending a message then we get to the second inning and that's when uh this guy hits one of our other hitters a dude named jesse winker and this is when all hell breaks loose he basically starts winker storms the angels dugout the the both benches clear there's real legit i mean i don't know if it's so much punching as just kind of like manhandling like i've watched the clip a few times i didn't see anyone land a clean blow it's

Just kind of more like almost a rugby scrum. I mean, Winker was the one, Jesse Winker, our player, was the one who went barreling towards their dugout as their benches cleared. And it does look like he took a decent hit, like a decent punch. He took a decent punch to the head as he was sort of storming there. And then after that, it became a real melee. But it was. It was like, I've seen this happen so many times where it's just kind of like, it's just for show, right? It's kind of kayfabe. Is that right? K-Fab K-Fab You're right, K-Fab But this time, you could just tell There was realness to this This was just like fury Yes, and one of the ways you know

That Jesse Winker Well, I read one write-up of it that said The fact that the brawl started And then it simmered down And then they started to separate And then it started again And then they started to separate And then it started again Is an indication that this was not K-Fab As you said, Andrew People were really mad then you also know that Jesse Winker was was really pretty emotional in that he gets kicked out of the game and as he's walking towards the dugout he's getting booed by some Angels fans and he just fully throws up the double bird at that yeah I love that oh god I love that so much that was the only thing that that Jesse Winker actually apologized for in the post game he said the only thing I'm going to apologize for was flipping the fans off that's it as fans they're spending their hard-earned money to come and watch us play and they didn't deserve that so I apologize

to the fans especially the women and children women and children women cannot take a bird the

way a man can i know exactly um and then lance was also kind of interesting he was like trying to make it sound like this was not because of him being instructed by his manager to go in there and throw at the mariners i was pretty amped up for my first start the first one got away from me it was sweaty i was sweating first day first day game i've pitched in the majors and that's that second one to winker was a cut fastball inside and i just yanked it that's all i've got to say um i need any apologize to the women and children uh i what i thought was kind of funny was and our our boy stew hipped me to this on twitter a seattle mariners fan then sent jesse winker a pizza to the stadium in anaheim yeah this is

amazing i saw it because um stew i think just texted us the the twitter thread so i haven't read the write-ups about this but i sort of just like went back and untangled it but um a fan here in seattle like you said found some is it is it called mountain mike's pizza in anaheim and she's like we're getting jesse because winker gets tossed out of the game so now he's you know in the clubhouse somewhere um and so she's like we're gonna

Thank you.

send him a pizza and so you know the way to make this happen is by putting it on social media and hoping that you can catch the attention of like the mariner social media people or what have you she orders a pizza and has it delivered via i want to say doordash yep doordash sponsor doordash that's right one time one time maybe again if we're nice to them once in future and um and she finds a dasher i don't know if you have the story in front of you luke i'm doing this from memory but I do. What's the Dasher's name? I don't know if it really matters. I don't know what Dasher's name is. But she orders a pizza, and the Dasher is supposed to take it to whatever the field is called there, Anaheim. It's like on Gene Autry Way because it's like Anaheim, right? And she's just texting with him, and she's sharing with us the world, all of her direct messages with this Dasher, saying like, hey, when you get there, just take it to any of the windows, whichever one is the most convenient. Because, I mean, you're asking a lot of somebody who's, like, you know, a Dasher who's not making tons of money anyway and has to, like, now go to a stadium situation. So she's like, just drop it off at whatever gate is closest and then let me know which one it is. I believe the Dasher drops it off at, like, gate six or something like that. And now she starts tweeting at the Mariners and at the Mariners' social media people saying, we have a pizza at gate six for Jesse Winker. He's in the clubhouse. Can you please get it to him? And eventually this makes its way onto the radio, right?

Maybe. You know, you have a little more info on this than I do because I was reading the – I've been looking at this person named Sophie on Twitter. I followed the whole thread on her feed, and I'm reading this ESPN article about it. But they didn't mention that – so the Mariners radio broadcasters got involved at some point. That seems like a real Gary Hill Jr. kind of assignment.

You know what? I think it was Erin. I think it was Erin Goldsmith, of course. So, you know, again, she's very she's being very smart about this. Like the only way to actually make this happen to get a rant. Right. You just imagine you're a ticket taker or a security person at gate six with a pizza like in the fourth or fifth inning. It's like, get out of here, you know, whatever. And also she's trying to make sure that this Dasher gets the love that the Dasher deserves and the financial support from us, the fan base. So she's doing this thing where she's asking the Dasher. First of all, you got to she keeps calling him king. She's like, King, you got to give me your Venmo. I want to share this with the world. They just mentioned you on the radio. And by the way, the Dasher's name was Simran Jeet. Simran. And so Simran King, who will always be known to be as King, ends up getting a lot of love because he does deliver the pizza. Somehow through, again, the fact that she was making this sort of public, the pizza did make its way to the clubhouse where an ousted Jesse Winker received the pizza. And I'm guessing maybe at the possibly at the nudging of Mariner social media, he reaches out to her directly via via Twitter. But private message DMs her and just says, hey, I got the pizza. Thank you. This really means a lot. Exclamation point. And then she was sharing all of these screen caps. It was a I mean, I got to say it was delightful. You know what I mean? Like sometimes it really was. Things are this one I found really delightful. I cannot believe it worked. And I am so psyched Like this Dasher is beside himself I don't know if you saw this But do you have the language in front of you?

Well, what I have is I'm looking at the thread again And it's like she basically She got Simranjeet's Venmo And then she posted that That's got almost 2,000 likes now And it's just the QR code So anybody who wants to Venmo him Can now on this QR code

I was thinking about throwing in five bucks Why not?

Why not, right? Not the worst five bucks you'll spend today That's for darn sure. She says, Simranjeet the legend. This is from Sophie on Twitter. Simranjeet the legend. Thank you all. I am crying right now for what you've done for him. Like, I guess just people, this is what Simranjeet says to Sophie in this text chain. This is good. Sophie, I'm speechless right now. My wife and myself are so happy with all you did for us. I feel so blessed. Thank you very much. It sounds like people really rallied for Simranjeet and really threw some money his way, which is incredible. But what a what a great outcome from kind of a, you know, not great moment. And even Winker apologized for it. It's like the one side of this is you got grown men beefing at each other and throwing up double birds at the audience. And on the other side, you've got this sweet, seemingly sweet person, Simran Jeet, who's just like having a really cool day in terms of something amazing happening to them.

And just imagine that you're a dasher and you get this order and it's supposed to be delivered to a stadium like literally you, Luke. I mean, what would you do? you would throw the pizza away right like i mean was there any well no i could see you maybe actually

no i would be into the adventure yeah i could see you being into the adventure but you know why it's because i'm not a professional door dasher if if you were just like hey luke take this pizza from mountain mikes to the stadium i'd be like that sounds like a fun thing but if i was on the ninth hour of my shift You

of driving food around to people and trying to figure out what apartment number i was taking it to and if they had a dog or not you know i would probably not be about that bullshit right exactly

he even said at one point and he was just so sweet the whole time he's like hey he's texting sophie is it sophie or sophia uh sophie is the twitter handle for what that's where he's texting her and right now she's just a customer right so in the doordash app he's just texting her saying hey i'm sorry i'm running a little bit late it's just really hard to find parking around here i'm like yeah oh you think you're delivering a pizza to the anaheim stadium i love that in one of these

as you said sophie the person who ordered the pizza is just screen capping and then tweeting all of the like doordash information in terms of like the map you can follow the car you know shows a little icon and she's like he's there at mariners hashtag where i root which is that's only funny if you are like an obsessed Mariner fan like Andrew and I are because the TV network that they play the Mariners on that the Mariners also by the way own talk about vertical integration it's called where it's called Root Sports like R-O-O-T and so they have this segment called where I root so if you're watching the baseball game you can take a picture of yourself in the stands or maybe you're in Alaska or maybe you're on a jet plane or wherever you are you take a picture and you put it on social media and you use this hashtag where I root and then they show like four or five of these pictures when they're coming back from a break i andrew it would be my greatest media accomplishment

if i could ever freaking get on where i root well i mean i've only used the hashtag where i root probably three or four times in my life and not in recent years but and it's always been sarcastic it's always been one like the mariners are just like you know just tanking again or just stranding every man who even looks at a base and then you're just kind of like you just tweet a photo of a toilet right like a bombed out toilet you're just like hashtag where i root for some reason those never make the broadcast i don't know why i'm trying to crack that nut angie i was what am

i doing wrong i was trying for some years when i was living in bellingham i was trying to shamelessly like leverage rudy and olive into i i i like legitimately wanted to get on where i root

just to try to make you guys laugh oh yeah you posted that photo of me with my freshly broken finger in the clinic remember yes i was racing home to watch the game and i fell i i'm i like

i i both think of it as kind of a joke but i also think it would be so funny and awesome to get on where i root and i feel like i'm a i'm a person who works professionally in the media in fact the guy who is often handling the where i root stuff is named tom glasgow yeah who is one of the greatest most gentle most kind people i've ever met in my life i've told the story i've told the story a hundred times but like when i worked at bumpy's frozen yogurt tom glasgow came in he was a local sportscaster i asked him if i could be his intern he said yes that's him yes he would let me go to the tv station on friday on saturdays and just like basically hang out with him i was like in high school i wasn't even a like a car i wasn't getting college credit this was purely Just a hassle for him that he tolerated Because he's a really nice person So I feel like If Glass If I could just let Glass go know That I'm trying to where I root Maybe but I also don't think he makes a decision I bet you there's a producer But I will tell you this All joking aside I really can't Crack the algorithm of why they pick the things They pick Like it doesn't seem to be just oh you're at the Stadium or oh you're just in a far away place Or oh you just have a cute kid It's hard for me I can't figure out what it is That causes them to pick certain photos Because I feel like if I could Then I could reproduce one of those photos And get on there

It feels like if there's a little story behind it I do feel like families

That's why I thought your finger was going to really

But I feel like a family Maybe like a family vacationing somewhere I mean they love it if you're overseas Like oh look at these fans Where do they root? They root in Germany They love that stuff I think you just got to have a family Luke just like you know like Andrew Love makes a family I

consider you and Bubbles and Randy the Roomba my family and a picture all of the fun loving

criminals remember we during quarantine before they were letting people into the stands they were doing this thing in most ballparks where you could submit photos of yourself for a certain amount of money and basically buy virtual tickets and they would take these cardboard cutouts or whatever they were and put your put your likeness in the stands and it started off with me making fun of it and then I think you kind of got me actually jazzed about the idea of maybe trying to get all the fun-loving criminals in the stands our photos but then I and if you'll recall I sent out I sent out a call I said hey guys you know food.

If you want to make this happen, send me photos and money and we can make it happen. And as soon as I brought up money, nobody was interested. Was it prohibitively expensive? I don't think so. I mean, it wasn't nothing, you know, but I remember at one point, like sending out an angry text being like, I can't believe that they're charging this much money for me not to go to a game. I do remember being pissed about that. But I have a lot of hang ups about the way the Mariners spend the money that we give them and the way that Major League Baseball, generally speaking, does block so much access to the product uh for paying fans you know like my my main gripe is like i'm essentially a paying um you know i i subscribe to mlb tv which gives you access to every major league baseball game right and i don't actually pay for it out of pocket it comes free with my t-mobile account but it's still the essentially like i i am a subscriber to mlb tv oh the only thing is you can't watch the teams in your market it's blacked out because of these like root sports deals or whatever and it's like oh great thanks i can watch every single game except for the one that i'm interested in it's just like it's amazing how mlb treats its fans you also weren't you also

traveling somewhere and then the mariners were playing the team in that area which meant it blacked you out because you were in that home team's blacked out when i was in la when i was

in la i couldn't watch it if the mariners were playing anaheim or the dodgers i couldn't watch

it yeah they do really have a pretty um and i remember seeing somebody else talking about like somebody wanted to watch the mariners but they were in vegas and mlb had decided that like that extended to like the los angeles market because there's not a baseball team there just some just some real real bs so anyway well that was one good thing that came out of i don't really know who like who's right or who's wrong on this and of course my because i'm a seattle fan i am going to think that it's just kind of funny that jesse winker is throwing up double birds and and you know maybe throwing haymakers because it's my guy doing it so i will admit to that sort of um you know implicit bias in the case but i am just i'm really glad that it ended up with a a nice door dash driver having a super awesome sunday that's a pretty good outcome yeah i agree

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 just look up irony andrew in the dictionary and you'll see the fact that i started the show by saying if there is a story about usb drives that are lost you will hear

about it on tbtl just not today you didn't say when you'll hear about that's exactly right you gotta listen for the fine print everyone that's right um all right i'm going to play a voicemail for you here luke and then i'm gonna be a complete no fun nick after the voicemail So that's something to look forward to. Right. This is a voicemail from listener Dan, and it was inspired by a conversation we were having the other day. You will probably remember what prompted this conversation, but we're talking about security details. Oh, it was Russell Wilson. In fact, Mike or Dan might even mention this in the voicemail. You were talking about seeing Russell Wilson with the security detail was kind of interesting because he's bigger than everybody in the security detail. Right.

Not taller, but certainly more athletic Because Russell Wilson is more athletic than most people on planet Earth

Right, exactly And it's kind of like, well, who guards the Guardians, right? So anyway, well, wait, he doesn't play for the Cleveland Guardians I just confused, thanks Okay, so here's Dan's take on this

Hey guys, it's Ian Tacoma I was listening to Luke's story about Russell Wilson And how Russell was much bigger than his bodyguard And you guys were pondering Dwayne The Rock Johnson I didn't, preface for saying I didn't see The Rock But I was in Hawaii when they were filming the new Jumanji with him and Kevin Hart. And I was in, I think it's called the Waimea Valley, where they film, like, a bunch of these tropical scenes. And we're there. We're having a drink or walking around or something. And we see this very giant man in a khaki jumpsuit, like the one that he's wearing in the previous. It turns out it was Dwayne The Rock Johnson's stunt double. and that man was surrounded by five bodyguards and was easily a foot taller than any of them. So it just kind of goes to show that maybe bodyguards are for show or to be the bad guy in that situation. But yeah, definitely Dwayne the Rock Johnson's stunt double, maybe Dwayne himself, definitely dwarfs the size of his own bodyguards.

Thanks, guys. Now, I will agree that that is an interesting sight to see, right, When you have when you have people who are guarding somebody who it seems like is bigger and potentially tougher or more athletic. But I do think that, like, that doesn't mean that the bodyguards are just for show, though. Right. Like, I would feel I would feel bad saying that to a bodyguard because it's a it's a different skill set. Right. And just because somebody is.

large doesn't necessarily mean that they have the skills to protect themselves also that's not their job in the moment like if they're there to do stunts or to act or to play football like they shouldn't have to worry about covering their own back if you know if a maniac ran up to them

exactly check this out bodyguard you're fired um yeah it's about situational awareness and even if you're even if you're duane the rock johnson you can't be looking in all directions at all times And protecting yourself But I'm trying to understand Was the listener saying That the stunt double Also had the bodyguards So as to draw people away From the real Dwayne Johnson

Oh I don't You know I just assume That everybody has bodyguards I don't know But I didn't think that they Oh is that what the implication is there I didn't think so But maybe That's what I was interpreting But I could be wrong about that Maybe I missed the point there Sorry Dano Because although I could see a world

If you look if you look a lot like Dwayne so much so like Dwayne the Rock Johnson that you can be his stunt double and you go out in public how many people are now mobbing you just confused as to who you are and you have to keep explaining no I'm not that guy you might need bodyguards just because of the misunderstanding around who you are yeah speaking of stunt doubles remember I was mentioning that Brad Pitt GQ profile that um pointed out the many similarities between you and Brad Pitt Including face blindness And square jaw Another thing that I found Really kind of interesting In the article was he is In this movie I think it's Called like bullet train or something And I believe The movie is directed By a guy who was for Many years Brad Pitt's stunt Double Which is a really interesting career Transition that the person I didn't feel like they gave it quite enough attention like how do you go from being a guy who you know looks like Brad Pitt enough at least physically and is sort of trained enough that you can do things that are too dangerous for Brad Pitt to do to go from that to you're the person wearing the headphones saying action yeah that's a really interesting career arc

now Genevieve has a theory we've seen that trailer several times it was um showing I don't know for Whatever movies we see in the theater That movie trailer was playing before it a lot Maybe there are not as many movies As there used to be as well So we're seeing the same ones a lot But Genevieve has a theory that That movie started with the name And then worked backwards Like how is there not a movie called Bullet Train That's a perfect name for a cheeky Like action comedy Well Because of the Japanese Bullet Train Or just because it's got the name Bullet A bullet train is a thing that we all know But then it has a double meaning and bullets. Obviously, action is like bullet train. OK, yeah, yeah. I love the idea. We got to make a movie called Bullet Train. OK, we'll put it on a train. And I think actually the plot of this one, though, isn't the plot of this one that people don't have guns?

See, I know nothing about the film other than it's directed by somebody who was Brad Pitt's stunt double. Although now that I'm on this guy's Wikipedia page, his name is David Leach. He, along with working as Brad Pitt's stunt double, he also worked for Jean-Claude Van Damme, by the way. he moved into directing and he directed the film atomic blonde deadpool 2 at fast and furious presents hobson shaw so obviously uh this person has now directed a number of very big budget films and um you know knows what they're doing i just as a person who i all for so much of my early part of my working life i had one job but i always sort of wanted to have a different job like within the same place like i was the person answering the phones at kuow but i wanted to be the person talking into the microphone or at npr i was the person booking the guests but i wanted to be the person interviewing the guests or whatever i that's kind of my personality and i feel like i've been very fortunate that people have sort of let me move around you know in those worlds because a lot of times it's kind of like if you're the person who's perceived to be doing one thing it can be hard to break out of that role or at least to people if people file you away as oh that's the intern they have a hard time being like oh that's also the person who's going to be hosting the show in five years or whatever um but this is a much so to the degree that i'm proud of myself that i was able to get into these jobs that i was always kind of eyeing this is a way bigger come up you're the guy getting punched in the face in the fight club instead of brad pitt and then one day you're freaking directing brad pitt in a multi-million dollar film that is a pretty big

that's a pretty intense transition yeah you're right it's not like just the it's not the pathway from actor to director or you know there's something so physical about the stunt double role that you don't you know think of that person as making that leap my guess is also that this person david leach had a lot going on. I mean, he's listed as filmmaker, actor, stunt performer, stunt coordinator. So, I mean, he probably was doing a whole bunch of things, and I don't want to make it sound like he didn't know what he was doing. He obviously does. I just think that I've just never heard of something like that, where you are both capable of pretending to be Brad Pitt in a scene and capable of managing this insane process that is one of these giant films. I can't even imagine what that job feels like on a day-to-day basis. like to be the director of one of these you know 100 or 200 million dollar films it seems so unfun to me sounds so exhausting it just one scene would just kill me because there are just so many different entities involved i mean what you hear a lot of people who are directors say is that at that level it really is uh you're just managing people right because you have a you have a director of photography you you know you have someone who's who's really looking at camera angles you have like you're sort of just like the captain of this insanely large ship that just burned that just lights money on fire every day and you have to just try to make sure that the ship is moving in the direction it's supposed to go before all the money is burned up yeah you

know speaking of um directing because again like just just working on these tiny little like 24 and 48 hour films that my friend would make like there was so there's so much physical work involved and just like setting up and striking a scene and everything and i just like ever since that experience i'm just like oh my god and those were again just tiny little tiny little weekend projects like i'm just like oh my god this does not seem fun to me whenever i think about somebody directing or i'll follow some directors on instagram and i'll see them like in the middle of their work day and i'm just like oh god love you like so many people just think oh it's fun i can just like make movies and it's just like oh my god that is such back-breaking work and it reminds me of a text message you were talking about um bright eyes uh in the show you went to last week luke our friend cat solen texted me this weekend and said um did you guys know that i made bright eyes's first two music videos which is something that i think i did know but i had forgotten about so um we can talk to cat about how tough it is by the way i do want to say i responded to her by saying oh my god yes we know cat you're a big famous director is that

Now, that's got to be just coming from what? A place of insecurity for you that your career as a stop motion animation director of Tierra Whack videos never came together?

It's coming together. What do you mean? I'm just in a different phase of my career right now. It's just getting started. Are you kidding? No, no. That is – I mean, Kat is the most wonderful person in the world.

It's always weird when we have – and this happens a lot. And it's in a variety of disciplines, whether the person is a dentist or they make music or they're a film director or they're whatever. It's it's it's really strange when people who are so vastly more accomplished than us in whatever their chosen field is. Yeah. Choose to engage with this content. Yeah. I always find it mildly shocking.

Yeah, exactly. And then and then if I think about it too hard, I get really, really embarrassed about all the things I say on the show. Like that is like it is like if I think too hard about some of the people I know in our audience, like I understand that we are doing this show for for, you know, a handful of people. Right. For for. But if I start thinking about individuals, I mean, whether it's somebody that we've met at a live show or friends of ours, if I think about them listening to the show, it almost makes it impossible to do the show. So maybe we should end it there.

I think that's a really good place to end it because because then I'm never I have to. I also have to go host Livewire, Andrew, and yet you're not nervous to talk to me, even though I'm also the host of a moderately successful public radio variety show. Well, I don't picture you. You seem completely unfazed.

When we do this show, I don't picture you. I just picture you as one of the tens, just as a big group, as a matter of fact. I would like a little bit of nervousness. Okay. I'll try to be more nervous tomorrow.

That should make the show good. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. That's going to do it for today's episode. thank you so much for spending this time with us we're going to be back here tomorrow with more of this imaginary radio for you so we'll see you then until then have a great Monday take care of yourselves stay cool stay hydrated if you're in one of these places that's real warm these days and please remember no mountain too tall and good luck to all you guys think i'm some kind of wimp but i'm not i am tough and i'm strong and i love to splash around in chilly water power out