Muse

You know, everything is not an anecdote. You have to discriminate. You choose things that are funny or mildly amusing or interesting. You're a miracle. Your stories have none of that. They're not even amusing accidentally. It's like going on a date with a chatty Cathy doll. i expect you have a little string on your chest you know that i pull out and have to snap back except i wouldn't pull it out and snap it back you would and by the way you know when you're when you're telling these little stories here's a good idea have a point it makes it so much more interesting for the listener tbtl

i just feel like i'm excited and i feel relaxed and i'm ready to party

with the best of them and i'm gonna go down to the river that must be weird for you huh

kimmel's now the new king of late night and you're still doing a pod cart this is the single most evil thing i have ever experienced and i've seen a lot if we wanted to we could have our own

business no i agree if we really wanted to we could it's just that do we want to do that do we want to have a website and a blog and be like this is what we did today no it's too much work

yeah and too expensive all right hello good morning and welcome everyone to a tuesday edition of tbtl that's a tuna bro the show that just might be too beautiful to live my name is luke Burbank I am your host coming to you from the Riverhouse studio overlooking the mighty Columbia River where it is just an absolutely oh ma pa it's just beautiful it's just a beautiful day looking out on the river watching the maritime traffic and the various people recreating looking out on this um I'm calling it a prairie it's definitely on the small side to be considered a prairie, but it's a part of the yard where the grass is really long and there are all kinds of blackberries and things like that. A couple of, looks like maybe a madrona tree or two. And there's this large cat that I think lives in the grass, maybe. It's time for cat massage. And when I got here last night, this cat that I've actually been kind of afraid of, I think I described it on the show as being one of the largest non-Puma cats I've ever seen. Just came right over to me, and I said, hi, buddy. And then he just came over and rubbed his little face against my hands. I don't have Bubbles out here, by the way. She's with Becca last night. But I have a new cat friend out here, the world's largest feral cat. So I guess that's a good development. Things are going to go great, I think, here on episode 3730 in a collector's series. where we will let the fun begin, as we often do. Let the fun begin. Thank you, Tom Shane. We tried to get to this yesterday. It ran out of time. Then I wanted to wait until maybe Andrew had seen this show, but my sense is he's a hard no on it. So I will be the voice of criticism for Nathan Fielder's new HBO Max program, his new TV show.

I don't even own a television.

Called The Rehearsal, which is getting a lot of buzz and attention. and I've got thoughts. I've also got thoughts on this story from Eugene, Oregon where the general manager of the Eugene Emeralds got a prostate exam at a game while singing Take Me Out to the Ball Game.

Take me out to the ball game. Take me out to the crowd.

And as is often the case, we've got more questions than answers about this so we will pose those questions coming up. Plus, we'll talk to this guy, The longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. I think his potential is just unlimited. Mr. Unlimited. He just needs to tap into it, and maybe today will be the day. He is Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. I was having a thought right after that intro tape played today of Steve Martin. It's funny how the human brain works, my friend. And I just, as I do on most days, I was just kind of clicking through my audio library and looking for a random intro to play that I made a while back, but we hadn't used in a while. I don't know if you remember, Luke, but I have a spreadsheet that I created about a year ago. And that for techno geeks? Yeah, exactly. And I am a techno geek, and I like to make sure that we're not replaying the same stuff too often. Whatever. I land on that. I double-click on it. I hear Steve Martin. I think, oh, that's funny. I haven't played that in a while. I check the spreadsheet I'm right we haven't played it in a couple of years I slot it in it's not until we're actually rolling and I'm listening to it again that I realize it is so ridiculously relevant to something that Genevieve said to me last night that I wanted to raise with you and why not just raise it here on the show should we Luke Burbank and again this is Genevieve's idea should we make chatty Kathy dolls of you and me where you pull the string we literally had this conversation last night and then I randomly or supposedly randomly picked that tape for today i feel like my mind was working in mysterious ways but how about that for an idea how about

that that's got tb telethon thank you gift written all over it's johnny and bobo meet the sound

machine exactly but i mean maybe we have do we each get one phrase do we get like three stock phrases i don't know how those things work or i'm sure they're very expensive i think there's usually

a few I mean it's been forever do they even make any I mean do they make a version of that anymore for children like do children care about a doll that talks to them or is everything just a hologram now on TikTok I think they still have talking dolls I think I saw a commercial for one recently

but I don't think you pulled the string at least not the one I was thinking of or not the one I

was that seems very kind of analog but I love it and a lot of our listeners are roughly our age or you know of the age where they remember those dolls and my memory is it would be a kind of a rotating thing of maybe two or three phrases which i which if we can get you know if we can work this out from a technological end i think uh i think it'd be cool if we each had a few phrases because that'd be the fun of it you kind of be you know you'd pull the string and you maybe

wouldn't know which one you were going to get yeah and i mean i think the phrases are pretty obvious for me obviously you pull maybe one would be like hey i'm feeling confident today and you know maybe another one of my phrases would be like cool guy here and i don't know what the third one is but something probably along those lines i don't i'd probably be like i'm sorry i have a girlfriend but she's away for the weekend i don't know i don't know maybe even more suave maybe it's the doll slowly takes its wedding ring off i don't even have a wedding ring but the doll

takes it's also he puts on a wedding ring and then slyly takes it off

oh man i was scandalized what was the super sexy 90s video um who did uh en vogue giving him something he can feel do you remember that one they're performing to let him know yes his love is real in the video like they're performing on stage and they're very very beautiful and they're like wearing these dresses and um then there's these hot men in the audience and they're getting like kind of flustered as they watch this performance and one of them one of these handsome men you see him take off his wedding ring slip it really pocket yes it's stuck with me wow yes

that's uh i would put that in the uh top five d-bag moves yeah yes yes if we were if we were ranking if we were doing some kind of fantasy d-bags league i would i would draft that one in

the first round i think i think so as well anyway all right well as you know our next time you're

at a bar at a hotel bar just scan just look around and see how many guys have a weird depression like a weird indentation on their ring finger yes there's a good line from a silver juice song where

he says i have to ask you about that tan line on your ring finger it's a great line uh r.i.p david burman i know i know um but anyway the good news is luke um one of our p ones is of course our dear friend john who works at apm in the membership department so my guess is by the time we're done recording today he's already getting quotes on these this is an incredibly efficient way to have

a meeting about next year's thank you gifts we just talk about it on the show and then john hears it and then uh you know makes it happen because he's that kind of person that's great i'm gonna make something happen later today andrew i am gonna mow the lawn here and i have to say it's because you were mentioning how uh before you had your your party over the weekend that we're getting to that point where the lawn lawns are not growing so fast because it's not raining a lot and it's pretty warm and so things are dying and it's funny because when i got up here i was hoping the lawn had grown enough that i made sense for me to mow it which is so silly but that's how excited i am to have a riding mower so i was like very excited to see it's not like super long but it's just enough that it definitely would you know benefit from me mowing it because we're just still exactly as I left it, I would have been disappointed because there would be no reason for me to climb atop the Ryobi and get to it with the lawn.

Yeah, so how is it like a good, thick... What's happening with my lawn right now, it's kind of sun-drenched in these areas, so it's kind of browning up. It's a real bummer. But, obviously, the reason it's doing that is because we finally had nice days. When the lawn was nice, it was raining constantly. And it wasn't it wasn't conducive for hanging out outside. So I will take this. But I noticed yesterday that my lawn is doing this thing that is a real bummer, which is it needs mowing because it's just like the weeds that are poking through are kind of straggly. But it's going to be a very unsatisfying lawn mowing because it needs to be done because it looks like crap. But it's not going to be like that good, lush, green lawn mowing that one prefers. Right. You're just mowing the weeds.

There's definitely a time of year where you get to that point. this lawn is kind of interesting first of all there are like no weeds which is shocking to me because like this isn't the kind of it's not like you know pebble beach or something and that that's a golf course it's not like there was somebody carefully making you know pulling every dandelion but somehow there just are no dandelions in the lawn yeah but i know which is just are you in heaven did you um but it just doesn't have any dandelions for being again fairly wild and rural out here you just think that there'd be more of that but there isn't but it is most of the lawn is dead but there is uh there are parts of it that for whatever reason just little patches that are green still and those ones are growing and that's what i need to mow also you know i have a septic tank out here i've never uh owned a home or even lived in a home with a septic tank before and um i you know i grew up on a steady diet of irma bombeck books when i was a kid my mom would just my mom never missed the chance to pick up another irma bombeck book at a garage sale or uh you know um fill the bag or whatever and she famously had a book called the grass is always greener over the septic tank oh okay this is a humor so you've said this to me

a million times and i can i can never remember who irma bombeck how do you i mean how do you even

forget that this or wonder if this is humor with names like if life is a bowl of cherries why am i always in the pits uh-huh andrew this is yes it's not comedy it's humor this is comedy this is this is the important art of our time yes or whatever that drop is um so i'm looking at where roughly where the septic tank is and i'm happy to report that the grass looks exactly the same and that's good because the premise of the grass being greener over the septic tank would be that it's leaking human waste, right?

So you're happy that it's not greener. Yes, I'm happy that it is not greener.

I'm happy the grass is not greener over the septic tank because that means the human waste is staying contained in the septic tank where it should be. Now, what about your poo corner in the yard?

How's that looking? Oh, lush. Oh, I believe it. Just a tropical lush paradise. Don't mow over that.

i still so we could have poo corners i still have a little bit of uh residual i don't want to be glib here but so ptsd would be overstating it but that one house on my jog in portland where i smelled that smell yeah yeah yeah the smell is gone now it's been fine for weeks but every time i run past it i think is this going to be the day like it's so seared in my memory

oh that's so gross i don't know why i'm thinking of this right now it's a little bit dark and you won't like this story at all but speaking of mowing the lawn it is amazing how certain little moments just stick with you i remember mowing the lawn as a child luke burbank i was doing the i was using the push mower way back in our property somewhere and i remember when you say push do

you mean like a real like it's blades that you're pushing and that spins the blades or you mean it's because that's what i always i'm i'm not saying you're using the terminology wrong but when i was growing up push mower i always thought of that as being because i mowed lawns like i had a lawn mowing business and i used a freaking mower that was not motorized oh no this was motorized i'm

trying to think is there another name for what i use that is no i mean push mower not motorized usually i'm looking i'm not trying i'm that's not no but you might be right though i'm trying to just look it up now i think because otherwise non-riding but it was a lawnmower that that you wouldn't ride on yeah i'm looking here yeah push mower is the term but yeah this is a push mower that that you know took gas and oil and you push the prime button did i tell you i love my electric lawnmower i love my curvy electric lawnmower um that uses a battery but the one thing that i miss is pushing the little prime button you know when you have a lawnmower yeah so that little like rubber nipple yeah so if i made electric lawnmowers i would just put it there just to like let just like let us feel whole as we start the lawnmower just like a fake prime thing um but anyway i just remember it's so funny i remember where i was in our childhood yard when a um praying mantis praying mantis jumped in front of the lawnmower and i got it and i felt so terrible because those things are so big and you know what i mean like it doesn't feel like It's not like a small spider.

or whatever it's like yes they're not in they're almost not insect because yeah it's more like a

bird or something yeah and i remember you were just talking about mowing for some reason that like jumped in my head we were i was mowing not far from the area of the yard that me and my sister as very little kids would call the hills of ohio which were just a couple of mounds that i think were formed after some construction project or something but we would call them the the hills of ohio in our backyard um yeah poor little guy think about that's strong you know what that

evokes for me is that strong eternal sunshine of the spotless mind vibration remember when Jim Carrey is sort of getting back the memory or he hides in a memory that he had sort of blocked out of being a little kid and the other kids peer pressuring him to kill a bird

now that you say that vaguely yes of course I remember that him being under the kitchen table while his mom right aunt is talking but I did kind of forget about the bird thing

It sort of cuts to this thing where, like, the neighborhood kids are making him, basically pressuring him to, like, kill this little bird, and he feels so bad about it. And I don't know, that is just, I mean, that movie, just from front to back, is so great to me. But, like, that is, there's some kind of wistfulness about that, or melancholy around that, that it's just so identifiable.

Yeah. Okay, I'll do it. If you had gone on to a second thought, I wouldn't have to tell this sad story. Oh, no. No, you know, I don't want to tell the story. Never mind. Formulating second thought.

Say something funny and nice. Let's just keep going. Here's a thing I was wondering about today, Andrew, is I was logging into our system to talk to you. The system that every time I log into it, it's called IPDTL, and every time I log into it when I'm not at my place in Portland, it asks me, I have to go find an email from you that has the password to get into it, because it's a random string of numbers.

Oh, you're still using that bananas password that, like, was randomly generated in 2015.

I am still using that 10 years later, roughly. And every single time I log into the system, I have to go search and find that email from you, copy and then paste the random password into the thing, and then I click on this other button that says, remember me on this device? And I say, yes. And it never remembers me. And then I think about, like, our email system that we use for TVTL email. Uh, keep me logged in for 30 days or remember this or whatever it is. Don't ask me again. Yes. Yeah. Never. Always. Yes. Everything. By the way, my bank, every time now I log into my bank, it's like, remember me on this device for 30 days? Yes, please do. Never remembers me. Is this just utter BS? Are any of these things that we're clicking to say, can I please not do this so much next time? Do any of those get to the people who are in charge of making us not have to do it so much?

Well, I'll tell you this much. and this is where i sometimes no offense don't trust you totally with technology because i have this on a lot of devices and like my ipdtl always remembers me like i i've i never have to type in the password also i would recommend i know you'll never do this but it this is one of those things where if you took literally four minutes later today and just reset that to a password that you remember like just you know something that it's common in your brain you will never have to deal with this again but that's actually a very good point but and it's what but i mean i'm and i'm not even saying that to to throw stones because i mean there are so many things in our life right that we it's like what does jenny call it like learned i i can't remember what it's some sort of learned behavior where we're just constantly going out of our way in five seconds at a time exactly of a lifetime instead of just like taking care of something up front now and it makes your life easier and then when you finally do that thing you're just like why didn't i do this forever ago i will say everything like ipdtl remembers me new york times remembers me i mean unless i have to do something where my my cookies get cleared or something which maybe you have some bad setting on one of your browsers where it's clearing all of your cookies every time you close your browser actually that might be it anyway i'm not gonna it help you here go go talk to a genius lab but or a geek squad, whatever you choose. But I will say this. Can we go through how many steps it takes now to get into our GoDaddy email? Okay, can we do this in real time? I have it bookmarked. I have a tab in my Google Chrome with all of my TBTL-related business links in there, right? I have business links. So I'm a businessman with business links. So here I am. I'm clicking on the shortcut for TBTL mail. And now it's going to take me to please sign in. okay i'll sign in and remember it remembers my password uh it has a little check mark signed in please keep me signed into this device okay good yes now i hit sign in now it takes me to another page from microsoft that says yes stay signed in um this is the part that kills me do this to reduce the number of times you are asked to sign in

And you check this box, don't show this again, and you hit yes, it will not remember. And now it used to go to the email now, but now it goes to some MS office that says, good morning, which one of these apps would you like to use? And it's like the only app I ever use. Now I'll go to Outlook. I have to click 17 and a half, were you guys counting those, 17 and a half clicks just to get to the heart of a Tootsie Roll. It's ridiculous.

And also, whatever that sort of penultimate page is, I guess it says good morning and then quick access. Yeah, it's not quick. It is the most random bunch of stuff on here. Like, I guess it's just if anyone sends me an email and has an attachment. Yep, I got that too. That must be what happens. I have something called Muppet Thunderdome.

Oh, that was a, I think somebody submitted like a summer game that could involve us killing off the Muppets.

it was dark oh yikes uh talk about traumatic childhood memories i guess i mean the one thing i'll say is these are all fairly recent so i guess if you send me something with an attachment i mean that's kind of smart actually because it sort of shows up in this page before i get to my actual email but yeah why is it that this weird kind of microsoft level of logging in says click on this uh say yes to this so that you don't have to deal with this so much you can just get in more quickly throughout the month and you and I always say yes and it has no memory of that that's one of the things that had me wondering if because you're right I should just take two seconds change the and by the way at my regular studio setup back in Portland it remembers me on IPDTL it's only when I'm traveling on this computer that it forgets it every time but so you're right I could fix it by just making a password that I can remember and then just having that at my disposal But it does feel sort of a little bit pointless when IPDTL keeps asking me, do you want us to remember you on this machine? And I'm like, yes, I would love that. And it never remembers. Like, where is that going? And maybe, is that a cookie setting? I'm not sure. It just feels like they're just toying with us. It's like the prime nipple you want to put on an electric lawnmower, Andrew. They're just keeping us amused and entertained. But that's not going anywhere. That's not connecting with anything that is saving that information.

Yeah, especially that GoDaddy. I don't know. It's just kind of what happened. Well, again, giving the actual explanation of it is not interesting radio. But, yeah, GoDaddy did something where they partnered up with or they started implementing like the Microsoft Office, you know, I don't know, skin or whatever system. So that you stop saying nipple. I'll stop saying skin. Can we agree to that? How about that? No, I do not agree to that. Okay, I'll triple down. Anyway, and since then, it just adds all these other, like, layers of things, and it's like neither one of them are good systems. Like, I hate Microsoft products, and I hate GoDaddy customer-facing stuff, and then you combine those two things, and it is just a joy.

I did something today, Andrew, that, A, I should definitely not talk about on the show. Oh, good. And B, represents a pretty, I would say, fairly major step for me in terms of my work-life balance, if you will, or my, I don't know, just kind of how I move through the world. Maybe, how about, let's take a break, and then I will think about if I should actually talk about it on the show or not during the break. Okay. I either will, I mean, it's not that big of a, it's just basically, it's a radio thing that probably doesn't behoove me to talk about on our show, But also, who cares? I'll probably talk about it after the break.

Well, I'm looking forward to the break. I don't know about the listeners, what they're looking forward to. All right. We'll be back in a moment with more TVTL.

Thank you, baby.

All right. Let's thank our donors of the day. these wonderful generous folks are donating each month to tbtl and boy are they going to donate next year when they get these chatty chatty andy dolls going every time but these people are so nice they're donating even before we get a chatty andy doll going that's right um and it's how we're able to do the show i want to thank kate march in seattle thanks kate christopher hamlin is in Worcester, Massachusetts. I was talking, I forget where I was, but I was talking to, oh, no, it wasn't that guy. I was talking to somebody, and they said they were from Worcester. And what I wanted to say to them, and I didn't was, I know that that's spelled in a way that doesn't look like Worcester. That's such a weird thing to say. Right? They were just saying, I'm from Worcester. And I was like, yeah, you're from Worcester.

wanted them to know that i know that it's it looks weird on the page unless it's from unless they're from worcester ohio and if that's the case then it isn't it doesn't look weird on the

page it's filled can i say something else on the subject of cities i heard a person not that many people but a person was calling us in on the fact that we thought it was bow maryland but that's because there was a typo yes it didn't say bowie because and in fact what we said was i looked at that word and i was like that's looks like bow maryland but for some reason i think of bowie maryland and of course i think of boy maryland because that is a place and that is the place that listener was from but for whatever reason they the the eye was missing yes so yes i i received a

little bit of heat for that as well not heat but just people from that area who were frustrated like how do you not know that but like yeah it was spelled b-o-w-e so you know what that was that

that was um that was not on us for once now on the subject of worcester i think listener kevin sent us an email i only noticed because when we did that exercise of logging in right to our stupid go daddy god i hate that company so much um when we when we were logging in and i saw this weird page it's like good morning here's a bunch of random stuff i saw it's pronounced worcester and uh and and you actually got that file and can we play that in honor of a listener christopher

being from worcester yeah there's a tiny bit of background here kevin sent us an email and just said he's been following some tiktok account uh that talks about etymology a lot and he came across this drop so he isolated it for us take a listen to this of course i can pronounce this word for you. Are you ready? Worcester sherry.

There you go. Love it. Micro wave. I've said this before. In fact, when I was playing the woman who was Scottish singing a little bit of the Kate Bush running up that hill song, I am just a sucker for all things Scottish. And like my TikTok algorithm now has figured that out. So I get a lot of like Scottish content delivered to me. I feel like I would be very happy in Scotland because I could just sit in a cafe and just listen to everyone talk and it would entertain me for hours. They call it Scott Tent, by the way. Thanks, Christopher. Also, thanks to Lindsay Swanson. Not even a pity laugh. Not even a pity laugh. I'm trying to... You know what? I'm sorry, Andrew. I'm trying to stifle some kind of combination cough-sneeze. Oh, okay. Because while I absolutely love it out here, looking over this tiny prairie my allergies are on a leak and i think it's also because this home that i am in right now is half demolished oh i'm sure yeah there's so much construction dust yeah sure i woke up this morning just like i'm sleeping on an airbed upstairs as i like to do when i'm here and i was just sleeping everything was fine and then all of a sudden i just bolted upright and i was like my head feels like it's my head feels like it is encased in cement or something like everything is clogged and again i think some of it has to do with all the tall grass and i think a lot of it has to do with the dust in here do you want me to do the

rest of the daily donors while you just i'm good now but i wanted to explain to you why i didn't give you a pity it wasn't even that i mean can you repeat your joke no it was i mean the only laugh that would have deserved at all would have been a pity laugh just the type of thing just to keep the show going and to keep the awkwardness at bay but no I will not repeat it I regret saying it I think that my crutch of making portmanteaus and puns is getting a little bit tired to be honest with you but I would request this can we thank Lindsay the first again because I talked over her name and I feel bad about that

yes Lindsay Swanson and you're calling her Lindsay the first because we've got it's a double Lindsay

Tuesday that voice

it got more like us than i intended it to i was trying to go more like rock block or sure you know like classic rock station promotion but it got like us real fast and i apologize for that by the way i went back when we were speaking of the donors when uh we were thanking the donors a week ago or so a friend of mine alex meyer came up and on the list and i said i think i had somehow connected him up with Ira Glass the This American Life folks and they'd done a piece on him but because my brain is Swiss cheese at this point I couldn't actually remember and I went back and googled it and he absolutely was interviewed by Ira to start the show and it was fascinating, it's a really good listen by the way but and again I love Alex and I totally understand this being a high school thing but he was basically doing the Tom Likas show Oh because he was doing a fake radio show

Right he wanted doing a fake radio show but it's actually pretty good they play a clip of it like it's good it's pretty good radio he's got like a sidekick who's kind of off mic and like it's it's definitely a decent radio show for a high school kid doing it in their room but it was heavily inspired by tom likus because that was at the time that was the big talk show in seattle and i i mean i completely listened to it as did camaro kev you know we were all you know my personal um you know politics if you will or my way that i look at really everything in the world does not align with tom likus anymore but when you're like you know 18 years old or something and this guy's on the radio talking about flash friday oh my god you're like hell yeah i mean do you think you were you sort of attuned enough to not being a d-bag even at like 17 that that kind of a thing that kind of gross toxic masculine shock jock radio that you would have identified it for what it was when you were

like say 17 oh 17 yes 17 yes because i was 16 no hair up glasses off i am so much like no by the time i was 17 like i had a lot of friends who were like um who wouldn't wouldn't put up with that stuff and i think that i was probably more conservative than them at the time but and as i was trying to like kind of figure things out um and i thought maybe they were a little extreme and some of your social views and now of course like I couldn't agree with him more but I think I would have felt very self-conscious I also to be honest with you though and this is a more honest answer is I just can't relate to that I mean I guess there was some stern going on that I would like Howard Stern that I did dip into from time to time I feel like I was a bit younger though but the type of stuff that I listened to on the on the morning radio like our like kind of morning you know WMMS buzzard morning zoo it was like it was like the dirty jokes it was like they would tell like kind of like racy jokes race e jokes okay be very clear about that not racist jokes um you know that I can still remember but I won't tell here that we're just kind of like oh you know like they were they were like kind of sexually charged jokes but it wasn't like hey like like those things like even kevin and bean did like whatever their bikini september thing was like oh no i did yeah yeah i think he's i think our buddy bean is still kind of embarrassed about some of that stuff but um like i just didn't have wherever that was on the radio dial in cleveland it didn't come across my radar to be honest with you so maybe not i don't know how i

would have reacted i think what i liked about like is was not really the sort of it wasn't that i wanted to hear him uh you know ask a woman about her measurements over the radio and the same thing with stern i mean to this day but but even when like 20 years ago when i started listening to stern that stuff never interests me it's always the other things that are going on in the sort of um sort of built world of this program so like has had like dino was his like producer who he'd always talk to and there be you know there was all these like in jokes and terms and um audio drops that they would play and things like that i think that really was intriguing to me and never the like i don't care what the dimensions are of a woman who's calling into a radio show who i'll never meet like that's just that wasn't interesting to me then it remains not interesting to me now yeah but i am a sucker for a show that has a really same thing with like levitard like a show that has a million in jokes i was talking to our supervisor i was doing my employee review with our supervisor beth recently andrew not to brag and did she encourage us to include more of this type of content into the show she said more like us post-mort okay okay i was like so that's me doing this is actually me achieving one of my long-term goals at american public media uh he uh no she was said she was being very complimentary towards us which i really appreciate it of course and um she said but she did say you know i listen to the show and something about engaging with our audience or something some goal that apm has and i was like well that one i can give us a hundred on like growing the audience not so much there's a lot of other things that we didn't maybe hit out of the park but we are engaged with this audience and she said yeah and there's just so many really great inside jokes maybe too many there's something very diplomatic she actually had a really good idea which was maybe we do a show every so often or put out a show that's sort of like um almost like cliff's notes or an answer key or something that's i mean i think we've done versions of this in the distant past where we try to explain i mean we have a what the hell is tbtl but i mean literally like if we were just to go through the drops and go what's the story on this i mean that would end up being like a five hour show i guess you know what though i you know what i um that's something that genevieve and i do and we're not exactly sure where it comes from it's a little bit of um uh what's that martin short character jiminy glick jiminy glick it's a little speaking of bean it was a little bit like um when they used to make fun of bean on the kevin and bean show they would kind of go really high like that when he's thinking and so it is viz and i like we're just we can't even talk to other human beings in the same room anymore because we just slip into all of our little bits i love it yesterday i said you know what and she turned and at the same exact time we both said you know what anyway um have you ever thought of doing something watchable that is so good

that is so good I actually like your idea though what if we do that like and I'll just you know what's idea for the record I'm opening the door right now if you have because people will do this every now and then for like a hey dummies question but it's a little bit hard to answer some of these questions and hey dummies because we not might not be in our studio with our audio board let's open the door I'll handle this email me andrew at tbtl.net better start logging in now it's going to be two hours before you can get to your email by September I will have seen your email let's put something in the subject line like tbtl question let's just do that and that way I can sort them all out I like sorting things and then every now and then we just do a show so when you have questions about a big one that comes up a lot is why are you fascinated with tall ships Or why does Luke introduce you that way And I know a lot of our audience knows that But we do every now and then get a hop on And they've been listening for a few months And they're confused about that Or any other origins of drops Origins of jokes Send them to me TBTL questions Andrew at TBTL.net is the address And I will save those And every now and then Luke I love this idea We can just do a little show To answer all those inside joke questions Thanks Beth

That's good That'll be great Thank you Beth Perlman Our direct supervisor We appreciate it See, something good came out of my APM Goals, whatever, what is it, Performance Review? I don't even know what the thing was called. But anyway, I want to get back to thanking Lindsay's, Andrew. I came here to chew bubble gum and thank Lindsay's. Yes. And I'm all out of Tom Likas anecdotes. Lindsay Swanson is in Portland, Oregon. Indeed. I know where that is. It's just down the road from me. And then Lindsay Mvalo is in Carrollton, Texas. That's much further away from where I am right now. i just noticed something too andrew uh if i look across the river i can see a the train there are train tracks that go along the river that makes me happy because it means i can sit here i'm just all about staring man just love doing some good quality staring and i like it when there is something going on too you know what i mean like just like i'm watching a um tugboat just putter down the river and then in the further distance is just a a train going along over there in uh oregon uh and it just makes me very happy just like the support of both of the lindsays makes me happy yes as does the support of dana blaskovich of corvallis oregon what up dana dozens of you dozens go say hi to cheryl and the fam at some point uh and let us know if you've

seen our signs yes um i think that could be a whole show yes yeah so many emails in why are

you talking about signs in corvallis all the time well that'll be an episode and then rhoda ashley is also in portland wow heavy with the oregon uh donors thank you to all of our donors of the day thanks for making tbtl possible we absolutely could not do this uh without you hello and welcome to top story all right briefly the thing that i did andrew that probably i shouldn't get into on the show but i also i'm feeling kind of uh what's the word um empowered maybe less not empowered um i basically just told the various powers that be that i am not going to prpd oh in new orleans okay so you know august is a month that i historically like to try to have a couple of weeks off where i don't do tbtl i don't um i'm gonna start going into john goodman of what he doesn't do on shabbos i don't roll i don't uh drive i don't I love the surfer The mild surfer guy accent That for whatever reason he has In that movie It's so kind of like makes no sense for that character

I don't even I didn't really notice it here I heard it in Your voice right there let's listen to this scene This is probably Like this is Walter so it's probably just riddled With the bad words so apologies in advance Sorry my nieces are back from Europe

So they posted the next round for the tournament Donnie shut the

When do we play? Saturday. Saturday. Well, I have to reschedule. Walter, what am I going to tell Lebowski? I told that fuck down at the league office. Who's in charge of scheduling?

Walter. Burke, Walter.

I told that crowd a fucking thousand times I don't roll on Shabbos. Walter. They already posted it. Well, they can fucking unpost it. Who gives a shit?

Okay, did I tell you there might be some bad words? I'm going to keep going here.

Go back to Europe, Maddie and Mary, where you can't hear this.

Do you want me to keep going? Okay.

Yes, because the surfer part comes up when he's listing the things. Okay, I want to tee this up a little bit. When he's listing the things that he doesn't do on Shabbos, I get a little hint of almost kind of like surfer guy talk.

Okay, I bet you you're right. I heard it a little bit when he said dude at first. Of course, we associate the word dude with surfer talk, so that might have been the deal there. Let's take a listen.

Come on, dude. Eventually, she'll get tired of her little game and, you know, wander on back. How come you don't roll on Saturday, Walter? I'm Shomer Shabbos. What's that, Walter? Yeah, and in the meantime, what do I tell Lebowski? Saturday, Donnie, is Shabbos, the Jewish day of rust. That means I don't work. I don't drive a car. I don't fucking ride in a car. I don't handle money. I don't turn on the oven. Yeah. And I sure as shit don't fucking roll. Okay.

Yes, I did hear it there.

It goes up into a little nasally. Yeah. You're right.

You're right.

I was watching something on TikTok the other day, which will be a shock to all of you to hear. And it was one of the scenes from Lebowski, but this is a very cool thing. I'm sure it exists somewhere else and it just made its way on a TikTok, but it will be the scene and then the dialogue from the actual screenplay is scrolling below. And it's very interesting because they're not doing the dialogue verbatim. Okay, interesting. Like as written. Yeah. And then I saw it on There Will Be Blood, and they're doing it verbatim. And so that must come down to director. Like, the Coen brothers must be like, just get the gist of it. And Paul Thomas Anderson must be like, say it exactly as I wrote it.

Yeah, that scans.

Which I was kind of interested to see. Anyway, I like to not roll during August. I don't drive a car. I don't ride in a car. I just like to have, if at all possible, I like to have a couple of weeks where I don't have to do any of my various jobs. So that was my plan for August, to have a little break. I was looking forward to it. Actually, just do a bunch of work on this house.

That's where we'll be doing the summer games, which we're going to start recording tomorrow. Yes, indeedy. Do we need any more summer games? We got a lot. I need to go through. Today, my big project is to go through and map them all out and figure out. But we're looking pretty good.

Okay. So somehow, my August just ended up going sort of off the rails. in terms of not being the relaxing month that i was hoping it would be i'm going to north dakota for like next week i mean i know next week is not august but i just mean late summer okay next week i have to go to north dakota for like almost a week because it takes about a week to get to bismarck uh and uh and then i'm going to la two times for two different tv stories actually three stories i'm interviewing the guy who invented the chattering teeth toy he turns like 100 and he's still inventing toys um and i'm gonna go to a k-pop convention that's happening k-pop con down there and also i'm going to virginia because i'm doing wait wait don't tell me at wolf trap and then i was supposed to go right and i'm supposed to go to uh lake shalan uh for some shalanigans which i may or may not survive also i was supposed to go from virginia to new orleans for the prpd week and what happened was uh the distributor i think told livewire that they're paying like livewire is going to pay for my travel at which point some of the folks at livewire thought is this a good use of resources like if you know someone else is paying for it send them But it's like, oh, this is, you know, this is going to cost us three grand. Let's take a moment to think what the payoff is, what the ROI is on this. And so somebody made the mistake of sending me an email saying, before you book the travel, why don't we just make sure that the right people are going to be, we know basically that the people we're trying to talk to about getting live wire on more radio stations, et cetera, are going to be at the thing. and that was a critical error because that opened the door for me to say really maybe i don't need to be there and i have been going to this for years and i have just gone to it because i feel like well in a way like i work for some companies and if the companies tell me they want me to do something i have a certain obligation to do stuff because they're my employer and they pay me But there are also people in my line of work who do say no to things like they just say, I'm not going to make be able to make that. I don't want to go to that or I.

I can't go to that for whatever reason. I'm just not one of those people generally, hence me going to Bismarck next week. I just say yes to everything because I have this insecurity that all my jobs could go away tomorrow or if I say no ever, if I turn anything down, if I turn down a Sunday morning piece, if I turn down a radio appearance, if I turn down anything, then the phone will stop ringing. even though ironically all i want is the phone to stop ringing possibly forever so i just something was when that email came in saying we're gonna actually see if this makes sense like when there was a small crack of light of me not having to go then i had a complete mental shift which was i'm actually not going and so so because the other thing was and this is super boring but basically the parts that they need me for there aren't even until like Wednesday so I do wait wait on a Friday I'm going to hang out in DC for a couple of days with Becca and then I was going to fly to New Orleans on Sunday because that's when the conference starts so I was going to basically have like three days of not even needing to be there so do I fly back to Portland and then re-fly to New Orleans do I just go to New Orleans with nothing to do for three days like it was just the timing was weird and so I started by saying you know this is going to be kind of expensive for us and also i don't know if and it isn't like sometimes at these conferences live wire is the entertainment like we're literally the show that everyone's going to this isn't one of those things this was going to come down to me having a happy hour in the like lobby you know the bar at the hotel lobby like come by and hang out with live wire's luke burbank and have one and a half drinks you know uh after that it's on you We'll give everyone one and a half drink tickets One and a half drink tickets And it's like I just always say yes to all this stuff Because I'm afraid that if I say no Something bad will happen But I did not want to go To New Orleans Like that week And so I just sent an email This morning I thought we were going in the direction of this is not happening And then I got an email this morning That was like Because I had said oh also by the way I'm going to go there on Sunday I was going to go there on Sunday night which means I was going to have all this dead time so another reason why I probably shouldn't do it and then the email was well we could maybe just front load you and just put all the stuff in the earlier days and the and I was like that's not where I thought this was going yeah I wasn't starting I wasn't starting a negotiation and I wasn't saying could we move this right can we move the Wednesday stuff to Monday that wasn't what I was I thought we were all on the same page that this is probably not happening and so then i just sent another email that said basically and i was you know nice about it but i was like here's the thing this is me saying i'm gonna pass on this thank you though and the person that i was interfacing with was like i totally get it and uh i'll uh you know i'll let you i'll i'll tell them and we'll get it worked out and to tell like the the weight that

just came off of me of just having one week back of my August and I'll be doing this particular week you and I will be doing TBTL it's not even during the summer games but just the idea that I got a week of my life back to not be at a thing I don't really frankly want to go to yeah and that I can say no thanks to something and that the world doesn't stop rotating on its axis was very powerful experience and now you're never

doing a shit again right he's got a

taste of it right it start it starts off being a positive which is me having some um boundaries and then it just turns into reclusiveness the next thing you know you just turn into

the girl drink drunk that we were talking about the other day you're like the rest of your life is you just kind of going around with like some sort of fancy frozen cocktail in your hand like

the dude only get into it man this aggression will not stand and then by the way live wire gets canceled they're like yeah we were um yeah wnyc is like we were thinking about adding the show but then they didn't have a happy hour in the hilton lobby bar with luke burbank so we decided to pass on it and then historians are like and that began the slow descent of the live wire radio

program and luke burbank's broadcast career yeah the vh1 behind the podcast uh voice comes on right

exactly um all right uh what i wanted to actually talk about is this nathan fielder show the rehearsal which i just people are texting me about like friends of mine are going like have you seen this and people on tiktok are like meme-ifying nathan fielder and like there's a whole there's a certain kind of um uh i think sort of comedy fan who uh female comedy fan who tends to like there's a very meme-ified joke about basically nathan fielder just being like the sexiest guy on earth and these are not women who are making fun of nathan fielder they are saying basically like i would die for him like they're nerd chic sort of basically yeah this guy nathan fielder is beloved and probably beloved by a lot of our listeners i will say this i didn't watch i didn't

watch every episode of Nathan for you I remember thinking when I did watch it that it was pretty funny and I liked it we actually had Nathan on Livewire some years ago but this new show the rehearsal now I want to mention this is I'm the only way to talk about this is kind of for it to be a quote unquote spoiler so if you don't want this show spoiled for you I guess you know just we'll see you tomorrow but are you familiar at all with the premise of this

show only what you told me yesterday I've been missing this buzz Completely I haven't heard anybody else talk about Except for you yesterday but so why don't you Set it up against I'll just mangle it So the Idea is that Nathan

Fielder get First of all he puts an ad on Craigslist like A very vague ad that's something like do you have Regrets or whatever and then if somebody Answers it they and You know go through the various steps of Being brought into the TV show What he's looking for is somebody who Is has a conversation That they know they need to have with someone but they're dreading it and so the guy in the first episode is this dude who lied to his pub trivia team about having a master's degree because he just wanted to seem smarter which is that's

weird because the proof is in the pudding on that one anyway it's like either you're good at the

trivia you're not he's appears to be like really good at trivia he's like very into he loves pub trivia it's really his thing and so he replied to this ad and i mean i will give the show this it's clever the sort of reveal so it starts with Nate like Nathan Fielder comes over to this guy's apartment and he comes in and he kind of makes a little joke with the guy and it's kind of funny and then he's you know goes and he sits in the guy's living room and they're chatting and whatever and at some point he reveals to the guy that everything that he's been saying to him that Nathan Fielder's been saying to him has been rehearsed and that he had built he had a set built that was this guy's exact apartment and he hired an actor who looked similar to the guy to play the guy and then he Nathan Fielder rehearsed every possible scenario every way that the conversation could have gone and that's what he is proposing to do for this guy which is to like build like a you know a synecduty of this bar where he's going to tell his friend the one friend from trivia that he's most nervous to tell he's going to tell her that he doesn't actually have his master's degree and so what they do is they build a down to the like salt shaker perfect recreation of the bar where the guy is going to go and they hire an actor to play his friend and then they run all of these simulations of how the conversation

could go and so like maybe her getting mad her not caring her breaking down like whatever it's

all the different yes okay exactly and nathan fielder is like standing to the side he's got Like a laptop and he's got Like this weird almost like a baby Bjorn that the laptop is in Where he's like tracking everything And stopping them and there's all these decision trees That are like if she says this you say this And you know And then this is the other part that's Kind of entertaining Although one of my issues with the show Is there's a bunch of stuff that feels really shoehorned Into me because they just thought this would be a cool Bit so They try to basically create The feeling that or make the point that one of the things that could be a problem in this guy admitting to his friend that he doesn't have his master's degree one of the issues could be that he cares about trivia so much that if he's doing badly in the because he's gonna actually meet her at a trivia night if he's losing at trivia he may just stop telling her what he's supposed to tell her because he wants to focus on winning the trivia right oh okay if that makes any sense and again i feel like this Is kind of manufactured by the show In fact I feel like a lot of the stuff is sort of manufactured So they can do an intriguing bit So here's what they do They establish the idea That it is important somehow for this guy To know all the answers To the trivia for that night But he is not a cheater He's not someone who would just like Accept you know the answers in advance So Nathan Fielder goes He figures out who the pub trivia guy Is for that night and then he goes and he interviews the guy and he set like he pretends that he's from some like blog and that he's interviewing the guy about doing pub trivia but somehow in the course of that he gets all the answers he makes the guy read the questions and answers into the screen into the camera rather and so he now Nathan Fielder has the answers to this night's trivia

so what he does is also that doesn't that kind of strange credulity as well like a trivia pub master would have hundreds and hundreds of questions and it would change by night he doesn't have a set script that doesn't make sense

exactly and that was one of the things that kind of threw me I also just felt I felt bad when I started feeling bad watching the show was actually when the pub trivia guy shows up and the reason is because

lot of people that do pub trivia are people that are interested in being entertainers yeah maybe stand with comedians actors performers you know it's a it is a performance to host pub trivia and you can just see that this guy is so excited to be interviewed by this blog by or vlog or whatever it is that nathan fielder is pretending to be doing and when this guy is looking into the camera and delivering his like clues and questions and answers he's giving it his all in this way that's just like this guy really is really excited to be doing this and really kind of thinks this is a break yeah for him and it's just it felt that that was when i started to feel kind of not great about what was going on on the show because i just felt bad for that guy because it was clear that he was excited and he was being lied to you know and he had his hopes up on something and that was not what was really going i guess you could make the argument being on hbo is a much bigger deal than being on some vlog. But still, it just...

But you're kind of the butt of a joke. Nobody wants to be the butt of a joke.

Exactly, or at least just not in on the information. I mean, they weren't being cruel to him per se, but you could just see in his eyes that he was very excited to be doing this, and he was doing it under false pretenses. I didn't like that at all. But this is the thing they do with that information once they've gotten it. They then set up all these scenarios where Nathan Fielder and the trivia dude, the guy who's going to play trivia and admit that he doesn't have his master's degree, Are walking around New York And they've set it up So that like There's like a construction worker Who's like got a surveying thing And he's like And like Nathan Fielder is like Boy that's a pretty tall building And the construction worker goes Yeah but it's not the tallest building in the world That's the Kobar Towers in You know Dubai or whatever Like whatever the answer is So now he's sort of incepted Or he's injected the correct trivia answer Into the guy's brain So they're just going around New York, having these interactions with people and seeing things that are the answer that are basically trying to, without telling the guy, tell him the answers to the trivia, which is cheating. If you ask me, well, and so that that comes up later in the show. So then it's like, so now the guys, you know, now Nathan Fielder has given this guy all the answers and, and they've run all the simulations. And so then he does, you know, finally goes to the bar. It's full of actors who are working, you know, like as extras, basically. Oh, actually, sorry, when they're simulating, there's extra, but then they just go to the regular bar, which is just normal people having a trivia night in Brooklyn or whatever. And the guy starts talking to his friend and, you know, eventually he, you know, admits to the thing. The friend really doesn't care. Like she's completely not. Yeah. She's kind of on her phone actually half of the time. She's definitely not. This is not stopping her world from spinning that this guy didn't get his master's degree. She kind of doesn't care. And then it's also this thing where they're trying to create sort of an emotional. They're trying to say that there's just like a big emotional kind of moment impact of like, and then they start talking and they have the best conversation they've ever had, et cetera, et cetera. And so then we cut to Nathan Fielder is sitting with the guy and he's now has to admit to him that he lied to the guy by giving him the answers to trivia. and then we go from nathan fielder's pov as he's explaining um i actually set up this thing so

that you were getting all the answers can i interrupt you and ask a question so do we see the actual trivia game being played before this admission like this guy didn't doesn't at any point realize that he knows all these answers because he'd heard them all in the past 24 hours he did not appear to based on the footage that they sounds like such bullshit i mean it just sounds that's the thing it doesn't sound believable to me even putting aside like again i don't like anything that is that that thrives on cringe um so it wouldn't be for me anyway but it also just this just strains so much credulity like i can i'll watch something that is obviously fictional but i hate stuff that is supposed to have any bit of reality but just

clearly is not it feels massively manipulated to me now i read a review in new york magazine that was trying to say this is a meta commentary on reality television because if you watch the bachelor or real housewives it's similar in that they're just they they create these scenarios and put these people in them to get these certain things and then they edit it very carefully and they leave a lot of stuff out and it's this kind of it's reality but it's not because they're manipulating it i don't give this show that amount of credit like i don't think it's a meta commentary on reality tv i think they're trying to make something there i think they're manipulating the people in the show they're manipulating the viewers they're trying to create this thing that to me a lot of times felt very forced yeah as the viewer so it ends with nathan fielder is like admitting that he set this whole thing up you know with the answers and stuff and then the

we cut to we realize he's not telling the actual guy the trivia guy the guy who played the the trivia he's telling the actor who he hired to pretend to be the guy in other words he's running nathan fielder's now running a simulation on admitting to the dude that he had given him

that's kind of a funny reveal so the joke is kind of on us kind of like oh this whole time we've been watching the we've been watching him have this conversation we think it's a real conversation

but it's just that's kind of a funny joke and then he ends up when he has the real conversation with the real guy he ends up not telling him that he fed him the answers so that's kind of that's sort of you know where things end in episode one i mean i've kind of said i guess what i wanted to say about it which was it's i here's the thing that i did think was interesting the literally the construction like the actual building of the bar is freaking impressive like the production value of the show is pretty amazing but it just first of all it felt to me like it was premised on this idea that there are a lot of people out there who dread conversations and would like to be able to rehearse the conversation before having it, which isn't how I would probably try to, you know, sort of deal with a situation like that. Like, it feels like something specifically that Nathan Fielder has wanted to do or something. And he, you know, he presents himself as being kind of socially awkward and a person who doesn't do great in kind of interpersonal conversations. And so he's wanted to do this. And so I guess he's assuming other people also want to do it, which I, I don't know how many people want to do that. But then also just generally, it feels manipulative to the people that are in it, because they are just trying to do the right thing. Like they just like this poor guy, who the dude is going to admit that he didn't have his graduate degree. He just wants to like, you can just tell that he just wants to try to give Nathan Fielder the answer that he thinks Nathan Fielder is looking for. because he's like a random guy in new york who's like has all these tv cameras on him all of a sudden is like probably feeling kind of excited about it but it's it's sort of schrodinger's camera in that the fact that these cameras are on them is already just changing their interactions and how this guy is interacting with nathan fielder and it just the whole thing to me at least the

episode number one felt pretty forced um so i guess that's my review um i haven't seen it doesn't sound like it's for me i i am thinking now this is to the side of everything you're talking about now i was going to ask you like would you care if you found out that i lied about i don't even know going to college just say kent state you know like absolutely not you wouldn't although i would say that you and i have a different relation i mean you and i just talk and talk We can talk and not talk and talk for hours. And, like, I think that if I found out that you didn't actually graduate from the UW, I would be like, well, like, that would be a weird thing because it would be like, well, what else are you making up, right? But I'm trying to think of, like, other – because, like, so we have a strange relationship.

But honestly, wouldn't you – would you really be that surprised if I lied to you? Right, exactly. I feel like you could be like, hmm, that's possible that you just made that up.

But I'm, like, trying to – so I think that you and I are maybe the wrong people to ask this about because our relationship is both a personal and professional relationship based on the stories and memories we have and that we tell. So that would be maybe – but, like, I'm trying to think of, like, a – just, like, a friend. Like, let's just say my friend Celine, who I saw this weekend, right? Like, if I told her, hey, Celine, I didn't actually go to Kent – now, I understand that, like, it's a different scenario where it's not about – we have a relationship based on pub trivia and that's based on knowledge and so whatever. Like, that's kind of a random thing for me to say, but I'm just trying to figure out, like, what would be a lie for a friend that isn't like you and isn't Genevieve, but just like a good friend that is a lie from my past that would really shock them? I can't really – something that I fabricated. I can't imagine what it would be. Maybe if I didn't really have a podcast. I guess that would be a real – that would be a real bamboozle.

What a weird lie.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm the one person who does have a podcast but says I do. But yeah I just can't imagine caring that much Or contrarily if a friend said that to me You know what I mean I think it comes down to

I think if someone I think we can all identify with the idea of Wanting people to like us And so if the lie seems Like it's something like Yeah I went to grad school even though you didn't I think we can all identify with Oh that person was just trying They wanted to impress other people Or impress me And they said this thing And it wasn't true Like that – I also just couldn't possibly care less about if someone went to college or not at all. Like that just does not to me in any way predict anybody's intelligence. But like – so if it was about something like that, it wouldn't – the only like – if it were something that had to do with me and that person. So –

I don't know, just, like, if it had to do, or if it was, like, I can't think of a, well, I mean, I have one ex-friend who had a lot of lives, and I can think of many of them, and they were, they eventually kind of built up to a level of, I remember one time, this person, this is when I was in, like, college, maybe post-college, we were supposed to go play pickup basketball in Edmonds on, like, a Sunday. And he called me and said Oh, I just heard on the news that there's an accident And all the roads are closed So we can't go to basketball And what's so weird is I sort of bought that story I think I remember being like Oh, okay, weird, alright Well, I guess we won't go But now I just know, oh, he just didn't want to go to that day He was doing something else that seemed fun to him But he didn't want to tell me that So he said all the roads Like there's like 50 roads to get to Edmonds. Like there's no way that an accident would have cut an entire city off from, you know, getting there. But like Bane was there.

What led to that? Heath Ledger was walking around in a nurse's uniform, blowing up things. Am I making this part up? And it sounds like I must because I thought the punchline of this story was you worked on the radio as a traffic reporter. I think I must.

to i think that i i really think what it was was like i remember well here's what i remember about it i believe i was at red robin so there's a bunch of this story that is cloudy because it was a long time ago but also it's like i don't know how this all fits together these might be like three different events yeah i remember being with my friend seth brolight at this red robin and i remember calling this other person um on like a payphone because this was pre-cell phone era And talking to them Because I remember walking away from the payphone And walking back to the table And being like, I guess there was an accident And all the roads were closed And then sitting for a minute And reflecting on that possibility And being like, wait, that makes no sense And then calling Metro Traffic Where I also worked as a traffic reporter And going, is there an accident That has Edmonds completely cut off From civilization And the person saying, not that I'm seeing

yeah like you're a man with a face mask who says he was born in the dark just i just throwing this

out there right like that's that's my memory of how it all unfolded but like i guess my point in that is just if if somebody was if you had if you were telling me lies that were related to like our hanging out or i don't know just something that hit me personally as a person that could be an issue if it was if we didn't deal with it but if you were lying about like oh i um i saw pavement play at the you know at the whatever in akron in uh you know 1999 but you didn't i would i couldn't possibly care less that's actually i did see pavement wait where did i see pavement

um it wasn't in akron where did i see oh i think i saw pavement stories falling apart fast i did see them though it wasn't inaccurate though here i go once again with the email

every week i hope that it's from a female no man it's not from a female

all right emails or emails peabody's there was a club in cleveland called peabody's i don't think

that's where i saw him anyway i'm making i feel like i'm not a good music fan because i would i I saw Pavement live in Akron. No, in Seattle. And I was so excited because I love. What was the set list, bro? What was the set list? And they were so loose. Like, you know, like I'm sure real music heads were like, that's the cool part of seeing the live performance. You don't need them to play it like it's the CD, you know, like it's the compact disc. but it was so kind of all over the place for me that i kind of was a little underwhelmed i was i wanted it to sound more like the way and it's my same problem with the counting crows but for different reasons counting crows it's like they just don't do any of their songs the way they sound on the album because i think um adam duritz is over it kind of but this was just sounded like they were just like pavement they just seemed i don't want to say sloppy but they just they were just kind of loose i guess and and i was wanting it to sound more like the songs when i sing them

in my car as i'm driving around i um i i know i saw so i remember seeing them like in a club in cleveland and it was one of those perfect things where i didn't really know much about them um but my friend wanted me to go to the show this is very very similar to my um to my uh uh why am i blank on their name okay computer and the ben's um radio head very similar to my radio head experience which is like kind of perfect i was in college um and in both these cases a friend said hey these guys are coming here's a cassette tape I think you'll like them and for the pavement one I remember it was my friend Sarah who I

also madly in love with that always helped and she gave me a cassette tape that had the silver jews on one side which had which at that point was also a steve malkin's project um is this the second silver jews reference today or there's david burman reference earlier today on the show wow it's really happening um and uh and then i believe it was um crooked rain on on side a it was probably a 90 minute cassette you know or whatever and um and i listened to it like Just over and over and over By the way, your friend was also in love with you If she was making you mixed in No, she wasn't, she was in love with my friend Greg It was a thing But anywho, Greg was hot And a punk rocker But super cute and cool I love them both Are they together now? No, they are not So there's still a chance for you But me and Greg both went to her wedding To a BMX biker She's now divorced from him But this guy had Handel Grips named after Handel. Okay, so she's back on the market. Andrew, this is what I'm trying to say to you. I'm not exactly sure. I assume she doesn't listen to the show. But anyway, all I need to do is make the perfect mixtape. Anyway, I remember just being new to them and being in love with them. And the band I'm talking about now, not my friends. And then going to see them, like, right. It was so good. But I also remember, and you would have probably hated this. I was at some Pitchfork festival. I went to that maybe three years in a row or something in Chicago, and I remember just seeing Stephen Malkmus doing kind of a solo thing, but then he brought out, I believe, the drummer from Pavement, or some drummer who was a friend of his, and he just, like, did some loose stuff, like, just him, his guitar, and a drummer, and just, like, kind of messing around and doing a lot of audience work and playing songs, and it, you might have hated it, I don't know, I loved it, it was so goddamn cool, that would have been about the mid-2000s, so.

I think if I would have had less knowledge of Pavement and I just went and saw them playing, I think I would love it, love them. I think the problem for me was the music is so near and dear to my heart, and I just love to sing along to it. So to have the time signature slightly changed or him doing something kind of different. This is why I'm saying I'm not a good music fan, because I just wanted to be able to sing along and have the experience I was looking for. But I think if I would have seen them with less knowledge of what they were about, I would have totally loved it.

I literally have found it. It's on YouTube. Stephen Malcolm's Live 2007 Pitchfork Music Festival full show. And I recognize this because I had a photo pass for some of that. Somehow I scanned them. So for like the first four songs or maybe three songs of every set, you could all the photographers could go into the photo pit. And so I'm looking at this. I'm like, oh, yeah, I also remember this because I have photos of him in this pink shirt and these big sunglasses. So if anybody wants to see exactly what I was talking about, sure. It looks like this is just somebody in the crowd taping this. Yeah, actually, the sound, it actually sounds like some of that sound might be off the board. So the footage is from the crowd, but the sound might be good. I'll send that to you later. Can I please, for the love of bananas, read you the email that I promised you yesterday, Luke? This is from Julie, who says, I've never emailed or called in before except to do a Blur's Day message. Side note, I'm Team Andrew on Blur's Days, which is funny because I don't even know where I stand on Blur's Days anymore. What does that mean? Does that mean she doesn't like Blur's Days? I don't know. Because I have a reputation. I think I used to be a champion of Blur's Days, but then I became a not. I don't know where I am. I like them. I think it's a nice way for people to connect with us and each other. Julie says, I'm a couple of weeks behind. I was listening to the episode where you go to the transfer station to dump your brambles and you and Luke are talking about people who work there and what it would be like, etc. When I was in my late 20s, I had a contract job with the city of Milwaukee, Oregon. Do you know that city? I do.

I love Milwaukee, Oregon. It's where the original Pietro's pizza is. And sometimes when I'm really excited for a Seahawks game, I will drive to Milwaukee, Oregon and go to the OG Pietro's pizza and get a huge pizza. Oh, I don't think I know about this Pietro's Pizza. Have you talked about that?

It has an insane sign. Google Pietro's Pizza, Milwaukee, Oregon at some point. I will do that after I get done reading this. So anyway, so Julie has this job with the city of Milwaukee, Oregon to study trash. She wasn't trash, but she sat next to trash and she studied it. To study trash that was dumped at the transfer station. To be clear, this was a two-week study. I was not employed by the transfer station. I did this with my boyfriend. one of us took a picture of the contents that was dumped from the dump truck and then we both estimated and listed the contents i'll never forget this job and i have often said that everyone should work at a transfer station for at least a week so you can see all the junk that gets dumped a few examples one boats action

speed boats not broken apart either the whole boat in one piece this happened at least a half a dozen times she saw six full ass boats in two weeks wow right two okay uh i guess maybe actually somewhat trigger warning um hospital waste if it isn't disposed of properly the transfer manager has to call in someone to inspect this happened when we were there it was an arm i believe whoa wow all i can say is that's what i smelled on my run i know that is rough what if somebody was throwing out an arm yeah so okay three dumpsters filled with toys and furniture the theory was that these were torn from apartment complexes where people were moving all the time. I don't know why I said torn there. The word torn is not in that sentence. I just added it for pizazz. What did you add

yesterday? Something terrible. You added the word yesterday during an email?

I think it was from the Stanwood 10s. Yes, I don't know, but I think I failed. I just threw the word failed into a sentence that didn't have the word failed. What you failed to mention, I think I turned into. And then number four on Julie's list is tobacco chew. Once a woman drove her car in and had a trunk filled with chew, she had to physically open the boxes and throw all the chew in the pit so no one could pick it up i'm having trouble picturing that one do you follow that like we're talking about spittoons or what she or no probably not the just the saliva but actual chewed up chew she had to physically open boxes of chew and throw the chew in the pit so no one could pick it up that's i don't know what that means but that's

that part i don't get i'm guessing either this woman or someone she lived with had a major tobacco habit and the thing about chew is it's very ritualized i remember my days of writing on the uw daily and the fact that um hans rugamer would just spit into fill like super big gulp cups like everybody who has everybody who dips has a whole system for dealing with the various elements of dipping and probably this person or someone that they lived with would take the you know to after they'd you know gotten their fix take the stuff out from under their lip and put

it somewhere and it probably filled up these boxes and maybe and maybe she had to empty out the boxes so that it would just be like grunge that could be scooped up but maybe so that a worker wouldn't pick up one of these gross ass boxes and have it go i i don't know but anyway julie uh ends by saying also the manager was super nice and let us take an old schwinn that was dumped totally against the rules also another guy used to walk around with a playboy rolled up

in his back pocket power out wow i do think by the way that that is an interesting i always talk about everyone should have to work in the food service industry for like a year because it will just give you empathy for everyone working in the food service industry for the rest of your life that's an interesting one too everyone should have to work at a transfer station because i'm sure it would really change how we think about what we throw out sure just our our footprint as it were you know stuff like that that's it's a really interesting idea yeah this is a cool pietro sign thank you for sending it to me do you think an arm is that like compostable is that you wouldn't

put yeah you wouldn't put that in your your own compost bin i would guess oh that's no but like

do you throw that in the like i mean i guess it's probably it's a biohazard but like wait i thought you were just spoofing well i mean i was half spoofing but i was also wondering like i wonder what happened to the arm like i wondered they have to call yeah to call somebody right yeah i think

Julie said that they'd have to call inspectors or something to bring in, like, professionals. Because, yeah, I mean, medical waste like that, you can't just be messing around with that. That's dangerous. Yeah, that's disgusting. It says you have to call someone in to inspect. It says, ugh, gross. All right.

Well, that's gross, though it may be, Andrew. That's where we're going to wrap the show up. Because I, in about 10 minutes, have an inspector from the county coming over to tell me if I'm allowed to add an electrical panel to my garage. um well and what if they say no well i'm gonna go rogue then i guess no i don't know what i'm gonna do i'm just hoping it goes okay okay well good luck with that i mean yeah i'll report back tomorrow how the conversation goes hide your arms you know what i know right yeah yeah i'll put away all the medical waste keep that far out of sight and uh give you a full report tomorrow so all right thanks for listening everybody thanks for being part of tbtl um we will be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you until then have a great tuesday go mariners in the all-star game boy i thought julio really did us proud even though he didn't win he sure did us proud yesterday love that guy love it was so fun to see like ty france like gassing him up you know between like between rounds i was like ah i love this i don't think i realize what a beefy boy he is too ty i know i didn't even recognize him at first out of his like uniform i was like yeah who's that

thick boy. But what a good friend. He just had such good friend energy. I loved it. Love it. Love to see it. All right. Thanks, everyone. We'll see you tomorrow. Until then, please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Power out.