Muse

We have a witness go on record saying that they saw you in the White House parking lot with Mr. Egan, Ms. Brookheimer and Senator Pierce. That's correct. I ran into them by chance because I was merely getting something from my car. What were you getting? I was getting some medicine. What kind of medicine? It's knee medicine. Knee medicine. Yeah, knee medicine. I have problems with my left knee. It hurts when I crouch. What was the name of the medicine? I want to say it's called Crouch Cream. But that's not right. It's a white tube with a red label. I'm sure an intern could research this. It has a silhouette of a horse on it. And I don't know why the horse is on there. I guess horses probably have good knees, so, but I think it's called Kneezy, Kneezy Cream. I don't think that's it. TBTN. He hates these cans. Stay away from the cans. This is genius. This is genius work. Just because you like laying around your house in your underpants doesn't mean the United States of America has to see it.

Is there, and I'm just guessing here, some kind of medication that you maybe need a lot of and have taken none of, or maybe too much of today? I stand corrected. This is compelling radio. Alright, hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Thursday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. It's like my heart is trying to hug my brain. My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host. You know, you gotta eat that microphone. Coming to you from the Hollywood Broadcast Center right here in Portland, Oregon. Got a muggy Thursday morning. It's cloudy, but it's still pretty warm out there. I feel warm and I'm levitating. It was not the humidity, though, that was bedeviling me during my jog this morning. It was the swarms and clouds of gnats. Get out of here, you flies. I was under the impression we have an unspoken agreement with the tiny, short, life cycle gnats and flies and creatures of the air like that. Those kinds of insects. The afternoon. That's your time, gnats. We all know as the sun is going down, as we enter the gloaming, there will be clouds of gnats in the summertime. And I went on a jog yesterday afternoon and I probably ate about, I don't know, six to seven hundred calories worth of gnats. But that was their time. I understood it. I was treading on their territory. This morning, this is supposed to be the human times. Gnats, take a memo, please. Oh, speaking of taking a memo. Let the fun begin. We are here at episode 3722 in a collector's series. I guess I was... I've made a huge mistake. I was saying the wrong show number since we got back from the 4th of July holiday. So apologies for that. I am just as God made me, people, and that is a person who's terrible at counting. A person who's terrible at simply adding one number to a larger number each day. Increasing the number by one five days a week. It's one of the main parts of this job, and yet it's one of the parts that I fail at so regularly. I mean, they say, listen, in the tech world, they say fail fast, you know, fail often so that you can learn from that. I've got the failing part down. I don't have the learning part figured out. I did learn something, though, about the movie Minions Rise of Gru. So who needs a movie? Well, one, it was the most popular movie. It had the biggest Fourth of July weekend release, I believe, of any film ever, which is mind-boggling, because there have been some pretty big films. Fourth of July weekend, obviously, is traditionally when you roll out some pretty big movies,

but I guess Minions Rise Up Crew has beaten them all. But there are some folks who call themselves Gentle Minions Who are showing up en masse to screenings of Minions These are young people in suits Who are catching the vibe very hard for Minions And are actually being banned from some movie theaters So there are movie theaters saying If you are a person of a certain age and you're wearing a suit And you show up to see Minions You are not allowed into the theater So we'll talk about. Forget about the rise of Gru. Let's talk about the rise of Gentle Minions. Also, three Oregon cities are vying for the title of world's smallest park. Is this a thing people care about?

No.

I didn't even know that was a thing until like two weeks ago. And then it went from Becca pointing it out to me to finding out that there are two other cities in Portland that are champing at the bit. trying to get the title of world's smallest park it's an oregon thing i guess i don't know we'll talk about it uh and we'll do some uh blurs days because it is a thursday when we do that that kind of thing we'll do all that with the help of this guy the longest running co-bro of the show may be best known for his depictions of the tall ships he's not just the co-bro of the show though i consider him a true and trusted friendo call it friendo he's andrew walsh and he is joining me right now good morning my friend good morning luke it's interesting when you when

you introduced me with that drop can't can't shake this feeling that something really bad is about to happen to me but maybe you just better guess right on this coin dude don't put the coin in your pocket with your other change that's a special coin i just happened to watch no country for old men recently so that's why that's didn't you watch it on your road trip

either to or from denver in one of the hotel rooms yes just looking for a little pick me up you know how sometimes you're uh well you know you were dealing with a lot of anxiety on that trip as was well documented so to take the edge off you decided to watch what are the most menacing

on-screen performances in the history of cinema it really is it's a beautiful film though that's what is sometimes forgotten or maybe sometimes forgotten by me maybe i'm the only one who forgets that that it is an incredibly ominous incredibly violent and especially with the threat of violence um but it's also so beautiful i can't even think of an example of other films that make sometimes even literal gore look absolutely stunning on this screen. It's an amazing film.

If you're going to have to, I mean, particularly in this moment in our country's existence, I really want to stay far away from in any way glamorizing violence towards people. But I will say that if I'm going to see a movie that depicts that, I'd much rather see it directed by the Coen brothers than by the guy who made saw you know like i mean whatever peace and love people people can like different things but it's like the violence is depicted in like that film no country from and like you said it's it's it's intense but there's an artfulness to it that is that's notable as opposed to just trying to outgross whatever you know the previous film did in terms of just sheer gore which is kind of what i feel like happens with those i always call them torture porn film

Yeah. Yeah. No, this is not like that. There's this is actually as far as storytelling is concerned. Also, this kind of defies or goes against a lot of kind of norms. It's actually a very interesting way of telling a story as well. I won't spoil it for people who haven't seen the movie. I'll give it one more week and then I'm going to spoil no country for old men. You know, well, they're going in wondering if, in fact, there will be a country for old men.

yeah well well didn't we find out recently that there's no music in the film oh i think you

mentioned that to me and i don't think i realized that while i was watching and i think you want to

talk about that taking a chance as a filmmaker yeah i think the internet told us that recently

did i tell you and by the way we got to get into some important matters here i want to say i'm not coming to you today as my usual just like goofy podcast sidekick co-host self i'm actually a journalist today or i will be donning my journalist hat in a little bit it's got it's a fedora with a little card in it that says press um so that'll be coming up in just a moment because i did some actual um shoe leather reporting yesterday enterprise journalism i believe exactly is

exactly what was happening yesterday you were texting me and i was it was making me excited

for today's show and hungry exactly all the money from in the dark is now going into my investigative series so everybody who's bummed out about that news from american public media fear not i am also i i'm on the beat now um it really does it really does shift the responsibility

for doing serious do you know how to do you know about any wrongfully convicted sandwiches andrew now that we're now that we are apparently doing all the journalism for american public media well

i definitely put a sandwich to death yesterday i don't know if that counts or not all right that's getting dark let's move off of that but i wanted to say just one thing about no country for old men in my head I always grouped it together with another movie and I didn't like the other movie as much and I think that I kind of confused them both and so I remember not really being super into either one of them uh and the other movie film it was yes because I'm blanking on the name of it but you know which one I'm talking about there will be blood there will

be blood they have similar names and genevieve confirmed for me they came out dang near the same time and they were both by directors whom i love but they're both directors who sometimes will do big bright poppy movies the other one is pt anderson of course and and uh the coen brothers but also but both of these movies were very kind of um not just ominous but somewhat what's the word i'm looking for very heavy menacing menacing heavy movies that are ponderous i think ponderous is the word I'm looking for.

And both set in the sort of wide open spaces of like Texas and maybe Oklahoma. I don't know exactly where There Will Be Blood is taking place, but they both are just these, it's clear that the Coen brothers and P.T. Anderson both fell in love with the idea of shooting a film that really takes advantage of wide open spaces.

Yeah, and because I kind of tangled them, I got to say now, I have not gone back and watched There Will Be Blood. I saw it in the theater and remember, maybe we've had this conversation, so maybe I should fast forward through this. But, like, I remember being sort of disappointed in myself for not liking There Will Be Blood Better, just sort of feeling like, I guess I don't get it. I don't know. It just seemed very plodding and scenery chewy. And the whole, like, I drink your milkshake scene did absolutely nothing for me, other than the fact that it made me fantasize about having my own bowling alley.

You've been on the record as not liking it when people drink other people's milkshakes. I drink your milkshake.

That scene did leave me with a feeling of, I want my own mini bowling alley. That was what I was going to say there. I mean, that is definitely, so it moved me in that way, but that was my big takeaway.

Well, because everything turned out great for Paul Dano in the bowling alley.

Right. Why is everything going dark on this Thursday, Andrew? But I will say that I could go back and rewatch that one, but I think because I grouped them together in my mind, I didn't give enough Credit I think to I mean I knew No Country for Old Men I knew I liked it better but I think it Also confused me a little bit the ending is A little oblique and And you know maybe I didn't quite get it But like on a rewatch hold the O Yeah oblique and Oblique you're right but god On second watch that movie is just Amazing and suddenly it rocketed Up I'm talking about No Country here it rock

Sorry I thought you meant the end of There Will Be Blood which also has a sort of I would say oblique and bleak Both of them are kind of rough At the end

But yeah so that movie really rocketed up my list Of Coen Brothers movies I won't do the whole list here Because I don't have it but yeah I think

Well the thing I mean part of how It lodged itself in the pop culture of this show With just that drop which you're right It's funny because Call It Friendo Happens right before some real bad stuff In the movie and yet we've played this drop Countless times and it's never offered in a kind of ominous sense it's because of course uh somebody who i was engaged to vanessa used to call people friendo like way before that movie and i thought it was kind of funny and so we just like i when when um you know javier bardem's character says friendo in that movie i remember just being like whoa did they somebody rip that off from from my girlfriend um and so it all i always had a positive connotation in my mind because of its previous life before that movie But, yes, you're right. It is intense.

Yeah. I didn't – you know, I don't think I realized that that was a Vanessa thing originally. I always thought of it as a TBTL thing because, boy, that put its imprint on us because every email I send out begins, hey, friendos. I always think of our TBTL 10s as our friendos. But anyway, can I put on –

Well, I'm just – I want to let the listeners know when it's time to donate, just make the right decision, friendos. It's a little light menacing of the listeners.

Oh, there's a theme already for our next TV telethon. Call it a friend-o. So I'm going to put this hat on here. Not your worst impression. I'm going to put this hat on because I bought it especially for this segment.

Doffing is putting it on or taking it off. I get that one kind of.

Oh, I don't know. That's a really good question because if you doff your cap at something, it doesn't mean you kind of tip it.

That's kind of what I think. To doff your cat is to raise your hat in acknowledgement of or in deference to another. So, Andrew, I'm going to doff my cap to you putting on your journalism hat.

Well, I secure mine. Mine has little ear hooks so that it'll stay securely on my head. That was something that I added to the hat. This hat is like the Stanley Cup. That was an aftermarket. Yeah, this hat is like the Stanley Cup. It's actually, it's about 100 years old. It gets passed from journalist to journalist.

Well, the thing is, it gets rough in that journalism scrum outside of City Hall, Andrew, where it's you, it's the photographers who have the, you know, cameras that they use as gunpowder or some crazy shit. You've got the mayor, the police commissioner doesn't want to take any more questions. It's an active situation, and you have to strap your hat down.

It is. It is. So yesterday on the show, we talked in great length. In fact, this is kind of journalism. This is also a bit of a mea culpa, I will say, for my bad journalism yesterday.

Is that one of the new names of the sandwiches that you can order? The bad journalist? No, the mea culpa. Oh, the mayo culpa. Oh, shit. That's a show. Now we're getting down to it. I'm writing it down, okay?

Mayo culpa. Actually, this really is a mayo culpa. So the headlines that rocked our world the past couple of days were Subway changes its menu and Subway announced 12 new sandwiches and sort of a regrouping of those sandwiches and in some ways just a rebranding of the sandwiches. The meatball marinara sub is now going to be called the boss. And in the improvement, I would say it's going to start having mozzarella cheese on it instead of just like whatever they were using before, which didn't fit. But my concern with all of this was as I read the article, it seemed like they were emphasizing these new non-customized sandwiches, these new pre not pre-made, but sort of the idea of these sandwiches were that you're not building your own this time. I mean, the sandwiches come with the ingredients that they suggest. And I'm sure if you wanted to swap things out, you could. But the point is, it's not the whole build your own sandwich shop that I grew to love because of my weird taste in sandwiches and the customizability of it all. And so I was bemoaning that on the show yesterday, saying that I may not go to Subway that much anymore if I can't build my own. I don't want these prearranged sandwiches. is it's a as you know luke it's it treads on me that treads on my freedom so yes and you're a fan

of people don't treading on you exactly so and and i will say too that i you know in all truthfulness for you it is a big deal for you the it looms fairly large in your mind the question of is there going to be food there that i can eat i know that it's something that comes into your mind if you're going over to a um a dinner party or a get together or a potluck or anything else like that or even a restaurant you haven't been to before because you have pretty hard boundaries around what you will and won't eat and so i know that it is a concern for you yeah and i don't want

mayonnaise on my sandwiches and i don't want um you know cheese on my sandwiches etc they do did i tell you this though this is funny they do one of their sandwiches uh i can't remember which number it is but um it's like a pita pocket so it doesn't have like traditional bread and it's called don't bread on me so it's right you get the mayo culpa or the don't bread on me um anyway so after we got done talking about this yesterday i was looking for a little picture to illustrate our show and i couldn't think of anything so i went to the the subway website to the online menu and i took a picture of the sandwich that i used to order in the build your own sandwich style which was an italian bmt that comes with like i think pepperoni salami and ham maybe and then you choose the toppings right um and so that's the sandwich i usually order and in taking the screen grab of that sandwich yesterday there's something broke in my brain and i thought well

i wondered i need to go to subway and get this as we were talking i was like this is sending andrew to subway today probably because that just seems to be what happens if we get stuck on any particular food topic for for more than five minutes yeah in fact i i thought it wouldn't

happen because i was sort of po'd if i can use that course language um at subway but then i then i'm looking at this picture of the sandwich as i'm posting the show and it's almost like simpsons-esque sort of talking to me just saying hey andrew or maybe bob's burgers-esque talking to me um genevieve says i'm kind of the perfect combination of bob from bob's burgers and monk well hold on let me change that she doesn't say i'm the perfect combination there's nothing perfect about that combination but my personality like a hot dog you include parts of both of those

entities right kind of ground up and then repurposed into some kind of uh casing right

right exactly what is bob burgers what is his last name uh bob i don't know belcher belcher belcher oh but the belchers of course i think i tweeted one time that i'm a bob belcher with a monk rising or something anyway that's a good tweet i uh so anyway the sandwich is talking to me right that's where we are in this story so i'm like okay fine i'll go to subway and then i'm thinking to myself you know what these these menu changes are going to be taking place any day now i assume they'll be rolling through the country almost like those videos of elaborate dominoes setups where you push one in front and then it slowly fans out like across the floor i'm picturing the menus at subways changing like that across the country hopefully starting on the east coast and taking time to get to the west coast well

And you you posited yesterday that probably the last subway that was going to get the memo was sketchy subway in your neighborhood on 125th.

Right. And so so anyway, I'm like, you know, I'll go I'll go have maybe what will be my final subway moment. By the way, what I decided to do yesterday, because I was also the conversation we had just had about my sketchy subway was kind of looming large in my mind. And I thought, you know what? I'm going to find a different subway to go to. So I drove over to a better subway that is outside of a theater. It's in like the what's the mall that's the Northgate Mall area, right? The Thornton Place area. And here's my first Mayo Culpa. I said that of all fast food restaurants, eating inside or dining in at a subway is one of the sadder experiences. And I think I don't know if you said sadder. I just think you said you were less likely to do it than other places. Maybe I thought of it as just being the most uncomfortable and just kind of the most sketchy. Like often there will be like, you know, two little booths with, as you said, like the hardest seats in the world in there. But, you know, I think I just it depends on which subway you go to. Just like anything. You know what? Yeah.

Part of it, I think, is the conditioning of how they're presenting us the finished product because the sandwich is wrapped. It's in that plastic bag. The bag has like handles kind of built into it. they are handing this to you and it's sort of like uh you know when someone wants you to leave the party and they're like um leaving so soon as they're handing you your coat yeah right like when you get that thing from subway like there's no i mean i guess maybe for here is an option but i don't remember ever being asked here or to go the assumption is this is to go and when they hand it to you all wrapped up and ready it's like it doesn't feel like you're gonna go sit down it's not on a tray where you're gonna go sit down and like enjoy your sandwich you're psychologically already kind of leaving i think when they give it to you yeah and there was one kind of in the um

kind of in the u not the u district but kind of um outside of university village um where i used to live and that was you know that's not a that's not a nasty part of town but again it was one of those really small subways with i think again like two booths if that um and i just always think of it as a very transitionary sort of place but it always depends on where you go because i go to this subway yesterday that's like you know outside the movie theater and they have high tops they have low top tables they have booths there's a whole bunch of places to sit and it didn't give me the bad feeling at all it was actually nice in there um also they've gotten rid of the plastic at least in this one they've gotten rid of the plastic bag as you describe it the the tubular bag they gave me like kind of a nice um brown paper bag for the sandwiches i got one for veves too um and i i don't know if they're stepping up their game but okay so now we got to get into this new menu situation though right so i walk in thinking okay i'm just gonna i'm gonna be one of the last soldiers to get the old build your own style sandwich and i go in and immediately i see all the new signs the new menu is there there's the boss sandwich is staring me down all like and there's signs all over the place advertising the new menu they're really psyched about the new menu and a big component of this that we didn't hit on yesterday is and I don't know why this is that big of a deal but like they correspond to numbers now and they really want you to know that you can just say the number you don't have to say the boss you can just say number six which is you know a common thing in a lot of restaurants you know kind of luncheonette style restaurants but I don't know why that's such a selling point i do think it has to do with again labor at the subway and keeping things moving faster and a customer just coming in and saying number six and then the person slapping it together really quickly without having to say okay toasted not toasted vegetables what

vegetables sauce etc i was thinking about this yesterday after the show because yes andrew i ruminate on the program even after we're done recording it i usually go to my corner of the apartment where i sit in quiet contemplation and i play the whole show back in my head and i think how can i do this better tomorrow and as i was in that process yesterday i was thinking this has to be an efficiency thing there had to have been there's some company and this would be the really interesting reporting on this story i mean aside from what you did which is the most interesting reporting because you went and lived it you embedded yourself in this i mean this was some real george plimpton paper lion shit going on which i admire but another interesting angle would be how much did they pay whatever efficiency company came in and ran a study that said if people can just say number six and your employees don't have to spend so much time going pickles no pickles peppers not like you just said they clearly did some math and they were like this is an efficiency issue and this will sell x number we will either be able to sell More sandwiches at lunch during the rush.

or we'll be able to hire fewer employees or we'll be able to eventually buy our ingredients in a more smart way because we'll figure out very quickly what's selling and not selling and we don't want to overspend on you know banana peppers that just nobody takes you know what i mean like this is an interesting efficiency story as much as anything yeah in our defense or in my defense

we did glance off of that yesterday we didn't go into all that detail but we did mention that it probably does ease up on the labor of doing it if the sandwiches are more like kind of pre ready not again i keep on wanting to say pre-made not pre-made but pre-scheduled or pre-planned in

this way where you don't have to go fewer decision points because that's the whole issue is every person ordering each sandwich that a person is ordering creates an not an infinite but a massively huge series of possible outcomes yes and i will say that's probably dragging the whole system down

oh that's also what we like about the system and i will say yesterday it was a bit of a cluster at this um nicer subway i was at the fella who was the main sandwich artist was a really nice guy and i tried to chat him up and i tried to make him feel like you know no pressure from me here but boy was he super slow at putting together the sandwiches yesterday um but again i'm but i just did that thing where it's like hey listen I'm not back there having to make the sandwiches I'm lucky that I can take a long lunch break and like just be here and again like he was doing his best but like he had to go back into the back a couple of times I think he was just here's my guess I think that is probably a family run business and he's either new there or just filling in because he just didn't have the urgency and then every now and then a guy would come out from the kitchen and just slap together some sandwiches really really fast and kind of like these people were passing other people in line I think that either he's new or it's not like something that he's maybe invested in doing again nice guy but he's got the impression that he's not a real subway employee can you imagine having the

confidence to work in a service industry particularly food service and to just go at your own pace regardless of how long the line i think about that i because a big part of my whole

thing is showing urgency to a degree where it's actually even I think it's been bad for me at times but I remember like half joking when I was a young producer you know station-based producer in a public radio station just like always carry a clipboard and always walk fast like that was what I would tell interns like just look like you're busy like it's that whole thing of somebody slowly walking in front of your car at a crosswalk while they're looking at their phone or just showing a little bit of urgency even if it only is makes a difference of one second you kind of want to kill one person and applaud the other right just like show some urgency show

some some regard for the people around you i'm i almost have a sort of begrudging respect for somebody who can be sitting there because you know like obviously at this point i i'm not pursuing a career as a sandwich artist and it seems unlikely that that will be how my you know the last you know the back nine of my career works out although you never know but i can tell you that if right now you marched me over to a subway and there was a line of people because it was lunch i would be flying i wouldn't even know what i was doing but i would because i i people eight people looking at me needing something from me immediately releases every stress hormone in my body yeah i don't understand somebody who could just like methodically be unfazed by those people it's just wild to me again i almost have to respect it exactly i had

almost i had such similar thoughts while i was um getting my sandwich yesterday and i just again did everything to to because i i was wondering i was ordering two sandwiches which made me feel guilty because the line was really getting along behind me and i was worried that the second i said i need two sandwiches that the mob behind me would would just take out mob justice but um uh but he was

like he was subway has revamped their revamped menu after a mob descended on a man in a subway

in seattle we're changing we're changing mob boss to just the boss that's how they ended up with that sandwich um no but anyway so he was he was really nice and i even asked him i'm like do you think the new menu is is bringing more people in and he said he said no he thinks it's just because it's after the long weekend and people are just sort of like easing back into their usual daily grind. And for some reason, Wednesday was a big subway day. He did say, although the menu items are easier to make because we don't have to ask all these questions. He did say that. So I'm standing in line and you might be wondering, well, Andrew, what did you order off this new menu? Did you stamp out? Part of me was almost wondering, like, if I walk in here and they have the new menu and I can't build your own, am I even going to get one of these sandwiches? And also, why do they put cottage cheese on all of the subs now?

Yes, exactly. They call it the black. I'm looking at the menu, and I'm kind of deciding, well, which of these sandwiches is closest to what I want, and how much can I customize it? And I'm looking at something. Oh, I wish I had. Do you have the menu, the new menu in front of you? I was looking at something that was like, it had meat in the name, and so it was like mega meaty or something. It wasn't that. That's a transformer. But anyway. Subway, we also have the meats.

Yeah, I wish you that. I'm going to their website right now.

I took a photo, too. So anyway, I was thinking about getting that and saying, okay, I want that. No cheese. Replace the this with the that. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But then the person in front of me or maybe a couple of people in front of me, I hear them order something off the old menu. Just something very basic. And I can't remember exactly what it was. And I look and I move my head.

Are you thinking of the Philly, the outlaw, the monster? Ba-choo! I was looking at the... The bella mozza. The boss. The Mexicali. supreme meats i was looking at the number four supreme no how i missed out on the actual names

of these sandwiches yesterday they're ridiculous the outlaw i'm the outlaw no i was good supreme meats is the worst name of any of these but that's what i was looking at um i was like okay i don't want the parmesan vinaigrette i don't want the provolone cheese i'll take i guess everything else anyway but i hear somebody order something off the old menu and luke like it was a movie i suddenly moved my head a little bit so I could wrap it around a pillar that was like right in front of me that I stand next to and I saw to the left of all of these other new menu items was the old build your own menu and suddenly I looked around and there were all these advertisements for the new 12 irresistible sub series all around me but then it said everywhere as well you can also still build your own in the classic style so all of my worrying all of my fretting all of my insistence that subway was making the wrong move was totally based on something i was inferring from an article that didn't say it explicitly they never said we're getting rid of the build your own model they're just pushing this new model but they still have the old model now if this is very successful who knows maybe the build your own goes away my guess is people will stick with the build your own more than not based on my experience in line i heard a lot of people ordering old sandwiches well not old sandwiches but you know moldy sandwiches i pray to the old sandwiches and the new yeah of these actually did they nod to any vegetarian in any of these

they must have at least i'm reading on thrillist the full subway series lineup i'm i guess in the clubs there's probably because the other three the cheesesteaks the italianos the chicken and the clubs well the first three by definition have meat in them so i guess in the club you could find me into clubs and yeah probably ordering a veggie one in the clubs i can't find i will tell you this much like the other day i was talking about sushi and saying that like vegetarian sushi is surprisingly similar to regular sushi in my my experience and i don't have the most refined palate but it doesn't there's not a big drop off for me in terms of my experience i will say a veggie sandwich from subway because i am the opposite of you andrew in that i love cheese on there so i get all of the veggies that they'll give me um i get you know a bunch of cheese and then like i like mayo and and the dijon mustard if i ever take a bite of a like veggie sandwich from subway that's all set up the way that i want it to be it does not taste very different than if i was getting a turkey sandwich with all that stuff on it because i just like all of the it's everything else on the sandwich that's what appeals to me so but it is interesting it's clear that they are not trying to push a more veggie forward model here because all of the cat the philly the outlaw the monster again the supreme meats that one sounds like it has meat in it the bella mozza the boss the mexicali the great garlic the champ the all-american club the

subway club and the turkey cali club i heard you getting choked up just saying the champ Isn't that one of your saddest things?

What you heard was my brain trying to make a go-on gift joke. I was just like, okay, enough, Luke. Just let the people have one day of enjoying the show. I totally think of the movie The Champ when I said that.

I am really shocked, you know, with all of the fast food restaurants offering meatless burgers now, or most of them, or some of them. And just an emphasis on that and the fact that Subway is well-positioned to offer a vegetarian sandwich. And they even whether or not you would go for it, Luke, they do have like tofu patties that I've heard other people are into. I don't know if it's tofu, but it is like a I've had that before.

It's like veggie loaf.

Oh, OK.

It almost it almost looks like a like a McDonald's hash brown, except it's it's not it's it's vegetable matter that has been turned into a sort. of a patty of sorts kind of an oval patty and it's not terrible but i mean to me it's unnecessary because all the other stuff but yeah you're right like in an in a world where more and more people are are are eating you know less meat maybe um you'd think that the subway would be in a good position to make that one of their differentiators like hey if you don't eat meat we're an awesome

place for you to come yeah or just even like we we've created 12 custom sandwiches now like make one of them just one of them vegetarian by the way they do none of them are they have a tandoori tofu sandwich but it's only available in india but it looks pretty good actually i could get down with that big um so anyway so that's what i learned you can still build your own i did built my own um and it had too much how i built it how i built it i i will say the guy was putting the i was using the end of the honey mustard like he was like kind of squeezing it out and but i don't like a lot of mustard on my sandwich um in fact it's too messy with too much mustard and so he squeezes what he can out of that bottle and then and then i say hey don't worry about it that's good for me i'm fine he's like no no i gotta go and back and replace this anyway so he goes in the back slowly comes back with a fresh thing of mustard but then continues to put it on my sandwich and continues to layer it on my sandwich and i'm sitting there watching and Being like, I almost wanted to say, okay, stop, stop, stop. Eventually he did. And I will say every bite of the sandwich, I had to wash my face afterwards. It was way too much mustard.

Well, that's the only thing we obviously should get to a break. But the thought that I had about dining in Subway versus dining out is depending on the sandwich you order, Subway could be argued to be some of the messiest food you might try to eat, like, say, in the car or even just on a park bench. Like, it's stuffed with stuff. It's got a bunch of lettuce in it, potentially, or the like the I can't believe I'm just going to call it the boss now. Well, what are you going to do? The meatball sandwich. Like, I mean, that's a that's a mess waiting to happen. You'd think that Subway would be a place where everyone wants to eat in there so that they can, like, go back to work without wearing their their meatball sandwich on their dress shirt or whatever. But I don't know it isn't.

I don't know if this is still true, but Subway, one of the downsides of Subway always for me was it was one of the only restaurants like this that didn't have a napkin dispenser. They would always give you two or three napkins with your sandwich and put it in the bag. And again, depending on how much mustard or sauce or whatever they're putting on, they're like, you're going to need more than that. But I remember, like, I mean, going back as far as I can remember, like, you couldn't just, like, grab a grip of napkins, which, again, I'm sure was, you know, probably a cost—I don't want to say cost-cutting, but we'll just say cost-cutting measure.

yes definitely and i am like you i there is just absolutely i'm trying to remember where i was recently where i got something i ordered something and it was some kind of a sandwich type of deal and he was like every bite was just a total disaster of sauce going everywhere on my face and i hate that feeling like i cannot take a follow-up bite if the initial bite has left something on or even makes me think it's left something on my face like i have to like take a bite wipe it down yeah take a bite wipe it down and like for some reason this place was not um handing out many napkins either and i was just like i it was it was panic inducing for me that's how much i don't like that feel yep hey uh before we go to break a quick announcement we would love your submissions for the tbtl summer games that's right we are going to be playing some summer games as is our tradition uh i think coming up in august uh we're going to record those shows though in advance and we would love your suggestions uh you know extra points maybe for tbtl related things or summer something thematic is always fun but any like a game that me and andrew can play and am i at liberty to mention this andrew that we are going to try to integrate some listener

participation this time around yeah i want to be careful not to um over promise and under deliver here but you and i need to figure out the dates we're actually recording these and then once we get that nailed down i will see if there's a way to actually get some of our listeners to participate in these quizzes with us whether it's something that you like a quiz that you give to me and luke or something that we challenge you on or vice versa so if we can get the scheduling to work out in advance it's something i would love to do but it's all all the more reason um why you should submit these things sooner rather than later and I want to say too like in the past some people have created custom quizzes for us that have been I mean all different degrees of elaborateness right and those are awesome but also we've had a lot of fun with just some stuff that people have found online

that remind them of us, that remind them of us. But, you know, you see some personality quiz online. I mean, you and I figured out what characters in the, or what schools we belong to in the Harry Potter world. That one really stuck with me. It was fun to do. Yeah. I was the one that Genevieve said, well, no surprise, right? Like, and I didn't know, I didn't know why I was insulted by, oh, she's one time said to me, no offense, but you're clearly a duffel dorn or whatever it is and i was like i don't know what that means but obviously it's offensive like if you had to say no offense but anyway i don't know yeah i can't

remember if you were a hufflepuff or a griffin door but that was fun and it made a lasting

impression on both of us i think i was a dorian gray no i don't know um anyway yeah so whatever whatever like i'd rather have more submissions than not enough so don't feel like overwhelmed I'm like well I need to sit down and write a 15 Question quiz that's related to TBTL We'll take anything that is just fun That can get us talking and laughing

Exactly a jumping off point For us to you know put together A good half hour to 90 minutes of content

Yes exactly

We go into each summer game episode being okay we got to keep this one tight And then you know an hour later But anyway yeah so please send in those Submissions ideas you have And we'll get those kind of scheduled and worked out and then we'll be able to have a little time off, or at least I will and you all will be able to have some entertaining content, so hit us up on that Can it be time again, Andrew already? Indeedly do To start thanking our daily donors. It feels like we just TBTL-a-thoned it up in Denver, but here we are.

Yeah, these are the folks who stepped up.

And we want to thank them, and we really appreciate them making TBTL possible. Thank you today to Lindsay Llewellyn of Westfield, Indiana, as well as Joyce Robertson of Seattle, Washington. Hey, Ann Richardson is in Edmond, Oklahoma. Thank you, Ann. And then Megan Coughlin checking in from Seattle, Washington. Heather Trapp is in Red Lodge, Montana and is supporting the program. And then Camion Geyer is in Belfair, Washington. I think I'm going to be driving through Belfair later today, Andrew. Where is that? On my way up to the small maritime village of Port Townsend. Is that a river community? No, it's an Olympic Peninsula community. Oh, okay. it's not too far from where my parents live in Silverdale, but I'm going to be shooting up the Olympic Peninsula, going to Port Townsend where I'm doing an event tonight, helping out the Jefferson County Land Trust, and then I'll be doing the show tomorrow from Port Townsend. I think the first time I have done the show from Port Townsend, like since I lived there maybe? From like an Airbnb or something? Just from a hotel room. From a hotel room, okay, gotcha, yeah. I was tempted, though, to go up to my old office, although there's, like, somebody obviously has rented it, and did I tell you this? I had hidden a key in the building, and one time I went back to the post office building in Port Townsend, where I did the show for a few years, a couple years, and I, the key was still where I had hidden it, and I went and I put it in the door, and I turned it, and it turned, and I was like, oh, God, then I just, and then I, that was it. Then I just took the key out. I was like, wow, I can't believe that still would have worked. And then what did you do with the key? Did you swallow it? I went and re-hit it. I might need it tomorrow.

Yeah, good point. All right.

Well, talk to you then or from jail. Anyway, yeah. Thanks to all of our daily donors. Thanks for supporting TBTL. We could not be here without you. Sincerely. Hello and welcome to Top Story. All right. Top story, the rise of gentle minions. We were talking very briefly yesterday, or at least you made a mention. Well, I guess you called it the rise of Groot, which was kind of awesome and kind of very on brand for us because we stay right on point with what's going on in pop culture. And anyway, we did kind of mention this minions, the rise of Gru, which I guess is just doing gangbusters business. According to CNN, they said the Despicable Me franchise story of Gru and his henchmen had the biggest opening ever over the July 4th holiday. So that would have to mean it's the biggest. grossing movie in which on one level makes sense well i bet if you adjusted for inflation you might get a different number like i'm sure because a movie ticket is 15 now that it generated more money total i'm just like guessing but i bet i'm right like independence day right those movies were famous blockbusters but the movie ticket was six dollars so now if you have a movie ticket that's sixteen dollars um you know you you might generate more money i would be interested to see if adjusted for you know inflation if it was the biggest opening ever but obviously it's very popular i think minions is so fascinating it's not really like it's not my scene but i do kind of love the meme of memification of minions addie hipped me to this some number of years ago and we used to just send each other minions all the time i've literally never seen a minions movie but can I just say one thing here

and I'm sorry to interrupt the flow on that point but you might have been realizing this and I was missing the point but for others who might have been missing the point it's the largest opening for specifically the July 4th holiday weekend not the biggest opening of all time for a film I'm sorry I misunderstood that I thought we were saying that this was blowing Avatar out of the water and Avengers and all those famous movies that were the biggest opening ever it was just on the july 4th holiday weekend sorry about that that was my that was what i'm taking

away from that line yes um but i think part of why minions are so popular is because it basically works on like two levels for people there's the level of just being a kid and thinking the minions are funny because they're these little you know yellow things that run around and uh get into trouble and the comedy is very accessible for just about anybody but then there's also like the people again like addy and i who just think the idea of a minion is funny like not even from watching the movie but just from sending each other minions like the meme memification of it and the fact that that works for a whole other generation of people is kind of genius really so like this there there is a trend called gentle minions which are according to cnn young people who film themselves dressing in formal wear and flooding unsuspecting movie theaters to see the latest Minions movie. The hashtag Gentle Minions has over 22 million views and counting on TikTok right now.

Yeah, and I think also this also goes to the popularity too. I think these are, I was watching a lot of videos of this the other day. I was kind of turned off by it. We can talk about that more in a little bit. But all the videos I saw, and maybe it was just these particular ones, But they were like they were these big groups of they were all like high school aged boys who were dressing up in suits, whatever formal wear they have, because I guess grew dresses like in a suit. And they were all parading into the theater, like with their hands all like kind of put together and fingertips touching and in the point the way grew does it. And it was almost like kind of culty. They'll get big groups of them. They'll all come into a theater and then they act really rowdy in the theater and just like scream and yell. And the accusation for the people who are there with their little kids is that they're ruining the time for the kids who are there to watch the movie. But what I was going to say before I got into all that detail was, I think this is also really working because it's still appealing to the age bracket for which it's made, like the younger kids. But you also have this group of adolescents who are just now getting to an age where they're old enough to start to feel nostalgia. Like, I remember feeling nostalgia for the first time around that age. And so now the minions and grew and everything is such a big part of their upbringing. But now they're a little bit older and sort of they're sort of like into it. But there's a quasi irony there as well in their embrace of it. And so it's like it's really hitting on a lot of different. And like you said, too, they're good movies. So just straight up adults like them as well.

Yeah, I think you're exactly right. Like it's it's I know and I can't imagine that the people who make Minions could have figured that this was how it was going to work out. But you're right. It's like basically from age, you know, three to, I don't know, 23. Everyone in that range of 20 years has a reason to be potentially interested in these films. And then the parents who take them, although when I started to realize Minions was a thing was when I started noticing people on the strip in Las Vegas were dressing as Minions. like that kind of you know times square has it and um hollywood california down by the chinese theater has it uh and the las vegas strip didn't have it when i was young and going to vegas but it started at some point which are people dressed as whatever um spider-man uh various characters and then

They will come up and try to get you to take a picture with them, and then they will try to hit you up for a tip. And one year, I remember being in Vegas, and I don't think I even knew what a minion was, but I was like, why are, like, half of these characters these yellow fire hydrant-looking things? But that was the sort of, like, indicator to me that this minions thing was really here to stay. They also have a song, apparently, that the gentle minions like to put in their videos on TikTok, which, I don't know, have you heard this? It's Rich Minion by Yeats. I don't think so, no.

Peace.

That is a little Rich Minion by Yeet. Has there ever been a more 2022 series of words spoken by a person than you're listening to Rich Minion by Yeet on our podcast that the gentle minions that the gentle minions like to put into their tick tock videos? Yeah, I'm with you. Like, so there's this guy that I don't follow him on tick tock, but he's so ubiquitous. He's actually a YouTuber. His name is Mr. Beast. and it's it's really not for you andrew it would be my guess and it's not really for me but he'll do these things like he bought a million dollars of lotto tickets of scratch tickets and then just had this warehouse and just had everybody who's part of his crew scratch them off to see if they won back their million dollars or not he makes so much money on youtube that he can just do these ridiculous stunts often giving away like hundreds of thousands of dollars or he made this like vending machine game that people could come do and you could win a tesla and it's like it's it's amazing because the sums of money that he's spending on these projects and giving away are vast but then they generate more than that money i think this might well i'm sure there's a lot of

people doing stuff kind of like this but there was i thought you and i had talked about it but I now realize Genevieve and I stumbled on something when we were recording after these messages a while back where is this the same person who will like will give somebody like million a million or millions of dollars to do something like quasi dangerous like jump in the ocean where they know there are sharks like that was one thing I watched it's possible

I haven't seen that one but I did see one that he did where like they basically set up this kind of like isolation room and one of the people that's part of his i guess crew was living in this isolation room and and was getting paid like ten thousand dollars a day to stay in there but every day they took one item out so it was like he had his guitar and he had a picture of his girlfriend and he had a foosball table and a bed and he had all this stuff and it was like every day they would like come in and be like great you made it another day uh that's ten thousand more dollars now what are we taking out of here i didn't watch the whole thing honestly it took too long and was kind of boring but what i what i saw the part the first ever i saw gentle minions was mr beast completely taking over a theater now what i will give this guy credit for though is that they rented out the movie theater and that's where i'm going with this like if you want to rent out a theater and then you know or like buy every ticket to a show and then turn into a gentle minions party a la the rocky horror picture show kind of from our era that seems totally innocent and harmless to me i'm with you though like apparently the only a movie theater in guernsey in the british isles had to cancel screenings of minions after a horde of gentle minions vandalized the theater and led some children at the screenings to leave in tears the managers told the bbc like obviously that's a bad outcome and uh you know if i was a parent And I was taking my little kid just to see Minions And then a flash mob showed up That would bum me out as well Yeah I did at least appreciate that this Mr. Beast guy Had the presence of mind to reserve the entire movie theater So that it wasn't like ruining someone else's day

Yeah By the way, the video I was talking about Would you swim with sharks for $100,000 So not even a million Is that that guy? That is Mr. Beast, yeah Do you know he has

I was on DoorDash somewhere I think I was traveling is that the philly version of door dash yeah it is it's only available in um delaware county oh yeah you can go over to door dash um and i was it was late at night i might have had one to five drinks i don't know but i was trying to find if there was somewhere i could get some food delivered i was like in the hotel and there's like mr beast burgers which is clearly a ghost kitchen Yeah.

you know about ghost kitchens right yeah yeah so this guy mr beast whoever this is has so developed his brand again i gotta sort of i must doff my cap on some level to him andrew because like i mean what the hell does that guy have to do with a burger i would potentially eat or in my case a mess of fries but like the fact that he's got his name it's like he is just so well known amongst particularly a certain generation that if they're going on door dash They might be more likely to order from Mr. Beast, who it's just a trailer somewhere where someone's microwaving a burger and sending it out through DoorDash.

I didn't realize Mr. Beast was such a big deal until I saw him in the Hollywood Walk of Fame. People dressed up like him. Uh-huh. That was the time of your first. And they were Mr. Beasts. Yeah. I was like, why are there so many of these bearded white guys? Wait, no, that's the same question people ask about our podcast. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So I'm with you. I just sort of feel like the thing about it is like I feel like, again, the videos that I was watching, they all seem like they were they all seem like like high school boys that I would have gone to school with and not even like the kids I would have disliked. Maybe I would have thought it was hilarious at the time. But what they're doing is they're going into these theaters and then their argument is what we're just enjoying the movie. Now, they do start apparently throwing bananas. So that's not that is breaking the rules. But the other thing they're doing is like is I watched quite a few videos of this is like they'll all like they'll take over a huge block of seats. And then the second the first like credit, you know, like the production company logo will come on. They all just start screaming and they're so excited. And like they're sort of like faking emotion. I'm not saying that they don't really have. I mean, first of all, it's just so much hormones bouncing around. Right. But they're also going to say like, what? We're just here to enjoy the movie and we're getting a kick out of it. Whereas other kind of reboots and stuff elicit those emotions and people getting so excited, like when Star Wars went away for decades and then came back and then theaters erupting in applause when the iconic music began and you see the scroll, the scrolling letters or the scrolling text to go across the screen. like i understand that but these people are saying hey that's all we're doing too except they're like jumping up and down and screaming and yelling and clearly like kind of putting this thing on because they know what they're doing is they're being obnoxious within the rules and that was kind of the vibe that i got from it you know what they're gonna have to do andrew they're gonna

have to record a new nicole kidman pre-roll somehow hot break feels good in a place like this That just says, like, gentle minions are not welcome here. Please do not act overly hyped for minions. I guess that's my Nicole Kidman accent now. Oh, okay.

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't be having so much fun. Just remember that life is much fun You can be nothing but one

All right, it is time for the Blur's Day. We have many a Blur's Day to celebrate today, but this first one is special because it's not just a Blur's Day, but it's also a dazzling donor message, speaking of the generous people who make TBTL possible. Well, for some reason, because we're having technical times, we missed a dazzling donor message from our friends, the Stanwood Tens. Oh, no. Dave, Carrie, and Gwynne. They always send in a really fun dazzling donor message with jokes and riddles, I think, usually thematic. And somehow that got lost in the system. That is on us. Oh, no. When I say us, I mean the mothership. So our apologies for that. But Carrie wrote in, she wanted to offer up a little Blur's Day message for Dave, but also to say, this is a wonderful, caring community that keeps us subscribed year after year. Plus, the rest of the world is a dumpster fire, and your talk of kittens, blackberries, and garbage anxiety keeps us grounded. You told me I talk about the cat too much. I've never said that. In fact, I was leaning into cat talk yesterday and adding my own boring-ass stories. But actually, hey, I want to say, by the way, you recorded a video yesterday for this Friday's newsletter. I hope it's OK for me to spoil this. You are in the car and you have brought a kitten with you. I believe it to be Bubbles, the cat. It is adorable. I don't know what you're driving about it. No, no, you're parked. But I'm watching this part. I want to be. Yeah, the whole time. You might have been talking about shit. I kept it. I don't know. I know.

I realized that midway through the video that nothing I was saying was registering because I was inadvertently also just capturing.

The way the cat just explores the space inside of my Mazda Yeah, it is so, so cute So sign up for the newsletter That'll be going out on Friday You can do that at tbtail.net But anyway, Carrie and the Stand With Tens say Thank you for all that you do Please send some love out to all the teacher tens out there Let them know that while this year was difficult Next year is bound to be better Happy summer to everybody Also, Carrie says Please tell Dave that I promise not to forget his Blur's Day next year and that I think he's a rock star. Dave is an awesome dad to Gwen, a dynamic teacher to his students, and an all-around great guy. Did I say the name wrong? Well, I think it's Gwenny, right? Gwenny? Oh, okay, sorry.

Or Gwen maybe these days because it's Guinevere. I believe the long version is.

I see. But Carrie says Dave deserves the world or at least a shout-out from TBTL. No mountain too tall. And good luck to all. And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, your first combined Blur's Day slash dazzling donor. High bridge.

Yes. Thank you guys so much. Shout out to the Stanwood Tens. Y'all are the best. Christian in Stockton says, good morning, Mom. Hey, I think this is the kid who we played charades with. Indeedly do. who did a was something that the audio drop that Christian had to act out involved cats. And

yeah, he used bubbles. He used a prop of actual bubbles. Yes. Very smart. Yeah, very smart.

Some kind of acting out a cat. Christian says, good morning, Mom. I want to say happy birthday to you and that I love you and I miss you and I'll be back soon. Love you 3000, Mommy. And also remember that you are turning 31 and not 32. It's a good thing to remember, the actual birthday that you're arriving at. Absolutely. Wait a sec. But we actually, do we have the name of the mom in question?

I believe it would be Kayla. Okay, Kayla. Yeah, Kayla and Christian in Stockton. Yeah, Kayla's the best. Maya says, happy 40th birthday to my BFF Erica. She sports a jumpsuit like no other. A true artist, a tender heart, a wild woman, a lover of dogs. A person I'm blessed to share lols with. I will never see hot pink and bright red without thinking Erica's Colors. That's also a sandwich, I believe, at Subway. Erica's Colors. A friend you can literally ask anything. An amazing auntie to my baby Gary. Lordy, lordy, Erica's 40. Hit the post, yeah.

That's really great. Great read, Andrew. But also, Maya, you have a baby named Gary? That's a great name for a baby. Love it. I'm so ready for Gary to be back as a baby name. Yeah. Uh-huh. I'm with you. It's a good call. Sarah says, happy Blur's Day to Lauren. Can't wait to explore Portland with you this summer. Grateful we ended up in the same town again. Have a great day, neighbor. Okay, this is funny. I have seen Lauren at some Livewire events of late, and I believe Lauren and Sarah are architect-ten friends.

Indeedly do. They were both Seattle friends who are now they've taken to the Portland side, Luke. I guess I got a very cool let you carry the mantle of Arca.

I'm just again, I will just Sarah and Lauren. I will I will repeat my statement now that you live in Portland, where I also live. If you see me out somewhere, you have to identify yourselves right away because I cannot be held responsible for what state of mind I might be in, depending on what time of night it is. if you were at the bar, my father's place. That's right. Don't go to my father's place. That's Luke's place. It's a safe space. That's my podcaster's place

where he likes to go and act ridiculous. Andrew in Columbia, Maryland says, Happy Blursey to Rachel in Pittsburgh, TBTL's celebrity therapist, the one whose husband got locked in the bathroom when they were dating. You're the best there is. That's from Andrew.

So, Andrew, you were right. It's an Andrew W. Thursday. Remember we were recounting that story, and you had it right, which was that the husband, the person, as they were just dating, the guy got stuck in the bathroom. And I had it somehow twisted around that it was actually Rachel, maybe. Well, the good news is we'll forget it again, or next time I'll get it wrong.

So there you go.

All right. Happy Blur's Day, Rachel. Sarah, a different Sarah, I presume, says, wishing a happy fifth birthday to my five, Ryan. Ryan, your dad, Arlo, and I love you so much, and we hope you have the best birthday ever. And then, if you can play the What's Up Dog drop from the TV Chill sound machine, that would be extra awesome. He plays that thing in the car all the time. I'll say, what's up, dog?

I got it, right here. Oh, there it is. It's hidden over at Genevieve's side. desk all right happy blurs day ryan yeah happy blurs day ryan give you a hearty what's up dog

to you what's up susan and ruby want to wish a happiest of blurs days to jesse a most excellent 10 thoughtful and kind jesse embodies the tbtl ideal or tbtl deal of curing global loneliness I'm doing great. Wishing you health, joy, and love. I'm talking too fast.

Hey, Susan, I don't know if it was you or Ruby who wrote this, but if you put the words TBTL ideal, and then I guess global loneliness is kind of on us. Yeah, we kind of. Because we were the ones that coined that phrase, but those are words that when they're adjacent to each other are difficult to say.

I'm also talking too quickly. This coffee is kicking in. Let me do this one more time. Jesse embodies the TBTL ideal of curing global loneliness. Wishing you health, joy, and love, friendo. It was still hard. Even slow. That was hard. Nicky in Worcester. Now that's, Worcester is not Worcester. I believe this is going to be pronounced, let's see, this is probably Worcester, Ohio, right? Yeah. And do we say. Because it's spelled Worcester. Yeah.

Not spelled Worcester. Worcester. So I'm thinking, because I know there's a Worcester out there as well. Yeah. So Nicky is, I believe, in Worcester, wherever that is. happy blurs day to my great friend and tbtl progeny caitlin in eagle idaho i hope you have a wonderful wine filled day miss you lots and i hope we can go on an adventure soon now just

keep this uh this uh roll in here because right back at you it looks like we have birthday twins here caitlin in eagle idaho says i'd like to send a blurs day oh wow okay sorry not just a blurs day wish so caitlin is already winning this i'd like to send blurs day wishes galore to my pal Dr. Nikki in Worcester, Ohio. She's so smart. Oh, mystery solved. No, I knew that, yeah. Ohio Light Opera. I didn't know that. Yeah. She's so smart, kind, and patient, and I can't wait to see her this winter on a much-needed vacation when we will taste Sweetberry Wine.

I feel like this is going to be a wine-forward event. I feel that way, too. Because Nikki, in her message, wishes Caitlin a wine-filled day, and then Caitlin's like, hold my shard. Yeah. Because we're going to taste sweet berry wine when we're together. There is a major focus on wine in this hangout. Well, happy Blur's Day to both of y'all. Olivia says, happy Blur's Day to Lee. He's my first successful TBTL conversion. Wow, Olivia. Impressive. So you know there's something special about him. Lee will be listening to this while he bakes hundreds of bagels in the middle of the night. He's a professional. Look it up in the book. Wow. Lee is fun and kind and thoughtful and a great addition to the TENS community. Lee, welcome. Welcome to the fam. Yeah. And I'm also very curious about the bagel creation. I know I say that word wrong. That's one of the few things that people in the Northwest have a kind of noted issue with. Bagel, bagel, beagle, bagel, boogle. But I am very fascinated with the process of making a bagel.

Yeah, you did that right.

um and uh yeah thanks uh thanks for uh wishing a happy birthday to lee olivia and lee send us some bagels why don't you yeah now i'm gonna be eating bagels for lunch now you're gonna be

ordering the bagel boss at subway bagel boss annie in seattle says happy blursday to megan t we've been friends since high school and somehow independently started listening to tbtl many moons ago. See, you're good friends. You have the same taste and great radio. I'm not sure when she'll hear this since she is time banditing, but I hope she has a fabulous blurs. Husky football and Red Robin forever.

Gosh. That describes everything that was meaningful to like a 16-year-old Luke Burbank. Now you notice I used the age 16 because my daughter wasn't born yet. But let's be honest, even after my daughter was born, Red Robin and Husky football was

everything to me there was one year in there when your child took precedent it was a great year for her um luke we're not going to do it here but at some point on air or off i feel like we should hear your thoughts on this whole pack 12 thing yeah i mean maybe i don't know if tomorrow seems

like a weird day for it but i mean i definitely have i have some thoughts because really you know if you grew up in the northwest and if you were a u-dub fan obviously like u-dub football in particular but a lot of the u-dub sports u-dub softball has been amazing over the years just um occasionally basketball our basketball teams will really bring it it's a really sad time to contemplate the end end of life as we know it in the in the pack now 10 again when i grew up it was the pack 10 and now it's going back to be in the pack 10 for a moment and i assume there will be other defectors but yeah that's a kind of a it's a a bummer that's a very bitter it's not even bittersweet

it's just bitter for me it's a bummer yeah that's a bummer yeah let's talk about it at some point

because i think we have enough listeners in the northwest for whom this would be relevant that it might sort of transcend just being purely a sports thing i like to think so yeah and we can

explain a little bit more um maybe when we get to that segment maggie says today july 7th it's my actual 54th birthday i am grateful to celebrate with you my carpool buddies i love it thanks

maggie happy blurs day maggie lars says happy blurs day to jen oh formerly uber jen now making Jen, who's turning 40. And unlike my previous Blur's Day email, I am sending this one before her birthday. I take this as a sign that I have bettered myself during the pandemic. Absolutely, Lars. Jen is a pretty special and I dare say it, radical lady. I imagine her awesomeness will only increase now that she has punched 40 in its face. I feel like I am in close contact with our friend making Jen because I follow her on TikTok. But I forget I don't follow that many people and I forget that I'm following Jen and then I'm always mildly starstruck because I never post anything on TikTok. 99% of what I see are just gentle minions, Mr. Beast, and then Jen will pop up and I'll be like, oh my god! It's like I'm seeing a celebrity. I'm very excited. And you are! Happy Blur's Day, Jen. Happy Blur's Day, Jen.

Rachel in Maine says, I want to wish myself a happy 37th Blur's Day. I'm a family doctor, an abortion provider in a rural conservative area, and I've been feeling overwhelmed by a lot. The opioid epidemic, a chemical contamination in our area, anti-abortion sentiment, and the anxiety and depression that so many people are facing due to the state of the world right now. A Blur's Day shout out from my favorite co-bros would definitely brighten my week. Well, I hope so, Rachel. This is it. This is your shout out. Hang in there. And thanks for doing the good work.

Consider yourself shouted out, Rachel. Happy Blur's Day, and again, thank you for everything that you're doing, and we'll be thinking about you, because it definitely sounds like an incredibly challenging situation. I mean, it's obviously mind-bending for everyone, but then for people that are on the front lines of this and people who are persons who might have children or be capable of having children, it just gets even more intense. So we're thinking of you, Rachel. Indeed. And then Allie says, happy Blur's Day to Jamie in Mississippi. She's the coolest. Three cheers for Jamie. Now, Andrew, this is the Allie I'm thinking of. It is. This, of course, is the Allie who got second place in the contest of getting people to listen to a pilot episode of TVTL. Of course, Jamie was the winner of that contest. I just did air quotes on winner, Andrew, because what it earned her was the right to host us and a bunch of people in her lovely home in Mississippi. But it's nice to see that Allie is shouting out Jamie. It's nice to see that those two continue to be good friends, despite the fact that, you know, they took one in two in that competition. Exactly. Exactly. I think once Allie actually saw how annoying we were and how many resources of Jamie's that we were kind of taking up, she was very happy that she got second place in the contest.

Yeah, exactly. She dodged a blurs it. Major blurs it. Mayo Culpa Mayo Culpa indeed

That will be the show title today That is a solid, solid show title I didn't get to talk about this World's smallest park But I do I do actually think this is kind of an entertaining topic There's something going on here in Oregon Where everyone is trying to establish They have the world's smallest park Which is so bizarre to me Maybe we'll talk about that tomorrow Where I will be joining y'all from Port Townsend So that'll be exciting that's going to bring us to the end of today's episode thanks for listening thanks for hanging out with us uh we will be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio until then have a great thursday take care of yourselves go mariners huh look who's look who's one all right okay good point that's fair no you know what i recognize i respect that shush i think that was i i think that was the proper response we'll see you tomorrow until then please remember no mountain too tall And good luck to all. You're the only one with the capacity. for such tenacity and audacity. But more than anything, I admire your veracity.

Power out.