Muse

May I help you? Oh, hey, Rach, now bear with me. I have to order for everyone. Okay, I'll have one soy-largy, one teeny-tiny, one teeny-tiny-tiny unleaded, one plain Jane, extra yum, what the hell, make it a double yum. A baby Joey, a midnight with a full moon, hold the pumpkin, a medium coffee. I need a heavy D and a travel mug, please. Two crazy Ivans, a soren's eye. Also, I need a damn and an iced damn. A sneaky Pete, a double drip with a snip of whip, and a frap cap heavy on the... Oh, and I forgot to order my own coffee. Can I get a Taye Diggs, which is black and extra strong and smooth, but also very sweet?

TBTL!

That was really, really, really terrible, but everyone does that kind of stuff sometimes. It happens, like, once. Or twice. Or three times in every life. Or twice. I mean one, or once.

I gotta hand it to you, kiddo. You came in here like a house on fire, barnstorming, you made your points. Good schmuckus on you.

Listen up, ladies. I get it. It is very hard not to get seduced by these two. And yeah, I'm gonna say it. These two, super good looking, super hot guys.

Well, I guess I just have my first taste of the filthy side of this business.

all right hello good morning and welcome everyone to a thursday edition of tbtl the show that just might be too beautiful to live it's your lucky day you just found a usb flash drive in the parking lot my name is luke burbank i'm your host hello everyone coming to you once again from beautiful los angeles california california got sunshine looking out over um i guess it's Well, Loyola Marymount University, and then in the distance, maybe Century City. I was in a lift yesterday going by what was Nakatomi Plaza, and I stared at it, and I reflected upon what an excellent movie Die Hard is. Anyway, we've got an excellent episode for you, episode 3,742 in a collector's series.

Let the fun begin.

Coming at you on this Thursday. Now, this podcast has been around for, well, as I just mentioned, 3,741 episodes. It's a long-running show and in certain ways very successful. But we have not yet figured out a way to get our guests to pay $50,000 for the honor of being on the program. We are living in the midst of a podcast boom. But apparently that is something other podcasts are doing. We've entered the era of pay-to-play podcasting, and I've got to figure out what our angle is, because that cash could get us out of a couple of jams. Also, I was loud wrong in the words of The Lebitard Show. I was loud wrong yesterday.

I made a huge mistake.

I'm going to correct the record on something. And because it's a Thursday, a.k.a. Blur's Day, we'll do the Blur's Days. All of that with the help of this handsome young stranger, the longest-running cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's slippery, man. I call him the praying mantis. I call him Andrew Walsh, and he's joining us right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. You know, I'm a little bit tardy in something here, something that I should have celebrated earlier in the week. We are living in what I call the perfect, what do I call it, the perfectly numbered week. Okay, here's the deal. You just exposed me. I don't actually have a name for it. But we're living in one of those weeks that I find special. Do you know why? Do you know what I'm getting at here? I'm looking at the show sheet.

Today, as we record this, it's August 4th.

Yeah, and what day of the week is it? It's a Thursday. Right, so what was the day of the week on Monday? The 1st? Yeah, see, that's what I like I like a nice, tidy Monday is number one Tuesday is number two Wednesday is the third, the way God intended

It was three-card poker You'd have a straight

Yeah One, two, three, four, five How long does this go on, I guess The weekend kind of breaks it up But then Monday is the eighth, right? And then Monday is the eighth, and then nothing counts anymore There's nothing to do for until the next It's just chaos ball at that point when it becomes the eighth. Then there's just nothing to talk about at the top of podcasts. But I do, you know, I'm sorry that I can't remember who it was, but one time I got an email from a listener, and it was during one of these weeks. And we hadn't mentioned it on the show, but she was like, hey, I know that these are special weeks for you, and they're special weeks for me, too. And I was like, yes. A listener knew this about you. There are dozens of us. Yeah. There's just something so tidy about that. rolling into a month with Monday the 1st, that's great. So anyway, I'm glad I said

to, like, kind of just give a little, you know, give a little shout-out to the week, I guess.

Shout-out to that, a little nod. Speaking of calendar talk, you know, I have that big dry erase calendar that I fill in literally all the days of the year every year on. It's my favorite thing about you. I thought it would have been my beautiful brown eyes. That's third personality. Which I guess are hazel, actually. I've told this story many times on the show, but I was about 23 or 24 before I learned what my actual eye color was. Because my mom had always said, you've got that brown hair and those brown eyes. And I was like, okay. And then at some point, probably somebody who I was dating was like, your eyes are actually hazel. They're not brown. And I had never looked at them. I had just been going off of what my mom told me. So is hazel? All right. Is hazel a kind of brown, though? It's a greenish brown. Okay, you know what? It's a greenish brown. Maybe, yeah, my mom was not completely wrong. It's not like I had blue eyes and she was saying they were brown.

Yeah, I typed in hazel eyes into Google, and I'm getting blue eyes, brown eyes, and then the brown, greenish eyes. But Google, you're off on this one, buddy. Some of these are straight up blue. Hazel eyes sounds like it could have been a Patrick Swayze song in the 80s, by the way.

Or a Pat Benatar song, potentially. Oh, I've got confirmation on that, by the way, from my sister, Hannah. She was listening to the show yesterday along with my nieces, Maddie and Mary. So, by the way, we're going back to PG content. Nice. Okay, no swears. No more swears and no more talking about the cat scratching my junk because my nieces are back from Europe and they're hearing the show again.

Do you realize that by saying this, you might not realize this, though, by saying that you have brought it up, though, do you realize that? See? Hannah could you rewind the podcast

Please right now and I'm gonna Do it again minus mentioning my junk Okay good that's gonna work Hannah texted me yesterday the girls and I were listening to TBTL Yesterday when we were driving and I remember You carving love is a Battlefield on your dresser When you said you used a knife to carve it I spoke out loud love is a battlefield Right along with you Hey so that's some good Independent confirmation that I'm not misremembering Which Pat Benatar lyric

I etched into that dresser well let me ask you this do you because now I have some more information on this uh that comes from outside your family weirdly enough do you know why you wrote those lyrics because you mentioned yesterday on the show that you're not a big fan of that song or it gave you kind of a funny feeling but um I got a listener here who says she heard the story back in 2008 or no 2009 on the radio show and you gave an explanation for why you carved that lyric

This is amazing. I have fully, at this point, subcontracted out my memory to the listeners. To the Borg. This is an interesting approach to life. You host a show for so long that you've told every story you have. Then you forget the details of the story, but the listeners remember the other times you've told the story and can fill in the gaps. That's right. I have no idea what my story was as to why I scratched that into the dresser, but what is this listener saying I said?

So this is from listener Jennifer, who says she's been going back to the beginning of the show and listening from the very, very earliest days in order. And this was from early April of 2009. The TBTL crew is preparing for Thunderdome, Luke, eating on $3 a day for a week, creating costumes and sparring.

We used to have some real bits on this show.

Thunderdome setting. Hey, I had the calendar thing. Somehow I can't read this

I need to remember to introduce you on tomorrow's show As the guy who had the calendar thing

Somehow, Jennifer writes The conversation turns to Luke Recounting being an 8 year old And carving love is a battlefield Into the dresser Jen finds Luke to be deeply intense As an 8 year old But Luke explains that it was inspired by his innocent sounding admiration of his female babysitter who loved pat benatar yes that rings

a bell if i had my bell here in la i would ring it that is exactly what it was my her i had this babysitter who was objectively bad at her job she uh was on like a dance team at nathan hale high school like not i don't think cheer but something else and they did a dance routine to love as a battlefield okay and she was like showing like she was kind of um i guess demonstrating if you will this is sounding more uh maddie and mary stop listening this is sounding more here. erotic than I made it to. Well, you were eight years old.

Right. So she was, I remember her doing some kind of dance to Love is a Battlefield, so that must have been where it went into my brain. The reason I say she was an objectively bad babysitter was the other moves that she pulled were, one time she made a huge batch of cookies, but she used salt instead of sugar. Oof. But like, you know, and then made me promise I wouldn't tell my parents that she had like, you know, used all this flour and eggs and whatnot. And then had to

throw it all away, I assume. And then had to throw

it all the way yeah although i could see that being a thing that comes back on instagram if you're not salting your cookies yeah right yeah this salt hack made my cookies my my kids my kids can't stop eating these salt hacked cookies anyway um and then of course i immediately told my parents when they got home i feel like her name was like dia or something uh dia made of like 50 cookies but she used salt instead of sugar um and then the other thing she did one time she had her boyfriend come over and then not locked me but sent me to my room so she could you know canoodle and um i this this was the first house that we ever had in seattle it was a rental i say that like we had a lot of homes we owned every house i lived in was a rental but this was in northgate and my room had a window that opened onto the roof and so in my socks for again i wasn't locked the door was not locked i could have just opened my bedroom door and walked downstairs but you were told and when we're kids we do it we're told but my this was what my sort of solution to the problem was i opened the window of my room got out on the roof walked across the roof in my socks which are now soaking because it's seattle and it's raining or it's wet climbed off the roof onto the top of a fence jumped down walked through the back patio through a sliding glass door and then re-entered

the living room like aha and did you aha did you like kind of like you jumped out and you were like aha you can't keep me down or aha i caught you canoodling aha you can't keep me down okay got

the fact that i had climbed out the window across the roof onto a fence none of that was relevant i could have just walked down the stairs and had the same aha moment like it was completely

unnecessary that i went out the window aha my door works like yeah that is weird childhood logic because i said before like oh we're kids we do it we're told but that's not entirely true because you're not doing what you're told but you're kind of like well i know that i'm not allowed out of the room so i have to sneak out of the room right but then you don't sneak out of your room and then go live your life for an hour or two you're like look at me right back because i had nowhere to go would you say that did you say that the ceiling couldn't hold you

is that what you said as you jumped i did and macklemore owes me some money by the way um you know what's so funny is i just remember this specific tactile sensation of wet socks on my feet do you have any memories like that from childhood where like it's just so vivid because of something

kind of sensory like that i do i know exactly what you're talking about it in the in the moment here I don't know that I can give you an exact story.

Like there was some moss on the roof. I remember stepping out on the roof and not realizing it was going to be wet for some reason. And then there was like moss and the moss was like a sponge. It was holding a lot of water. And then the feeling of that water going from the moss on the roof into my socks and into my feet. And for some reason, that tactile memory is extremely vivid.

This story gets it's not about anybody doing anything bad to me, by the way. But this next story gets I've got another one about being poor We can go to our strengths Andrew it's okay I feel like I've told you this on the show Recently but Maybe I was telling somebody else I don't know but For our Birthdays me and Lenny Samoski and our respective Dads would often find a reason to go To downtown Cleveland at some sort of event At the Cleveland Municipal Stadium either a Soccer game we had the Cleveland force back in the day beautiful logo with green and yellow by the way i absolutely love the cleveland force colors um sometimes we would see uh like monster truck shows there um that that type of event right and our birthdays uh were november 26 and 27 so i think that would have been like the the soccer season so anyway assuming that i'm getting any of that right but i do know that it was a bit of a tradition and so me and my dad and the two lenny samaskis it was a senior junior situation which i really was jealous of um would you know park somewhere and then walk i don't know however you wanted to be a bob walsh you wanted to be i wanted to be a junior i it was less about the name bob or robert but it was more about just like to me i just wanted to be a classic american boy and there was nothing more classic in american than being called i mean you did have a barbecue you

attachment named after yeah no he tried to make it up for me to me later by naming a barbecue called the andy man um but anyway so uh i remember we parked at this you know probably in some parking garage i have no idea how far away it probably was not that far but you're a little kid things seem further than they are at this time in our lives we kids were experimenting with the scientific principle that if you rub your fingers on a wall for a little bit they will come away hot feeling do you remember that like maybe you're walking down the the hallway in school and you rub your your four fingertips of one hand along maybe a brick wall and you and your friends see how long you can do it and then you pull it away and it's like oh it's hot from the friction friction um i remember saying oh i'm gonna i'm gonna really get myself good on this one lenny and so tomorrow could you introduce me as the guy who really was excited to get himself good in front of Lenny. The guy who got himself hot in front of Lenny Samovsky Jr.

I'm writing that down. I had the guy who had the calendar thing, but I think got himself hot in front of Lenny Samovsky Jr. is better. God, I swear. I hope Lenny never hears

this. So anyway, I remember just saying, I'm just going to keep my fingers on the wall as long as I could. And I think I just did it from building to building to building. I don't remember. It might have just been a city block But in my head it was like a mile I don't know And then when I removed my hand It was hot And I'd burned my fingertips off As if I was about to commit a crime And I remember Is that why they've never caught you? Yes, I remember being in the backseat of the car And being like, oh, this is a real thing Like, I've burnt my fingertips off And it hurt But I mean, it hurt, it sucked But, you know, I don't think I was like i don't think i was out of my head upset about it or anything but i remember my dad being almost like put off i could be a little bit wrong about this detail but here's the saddest part of this story is i think my mom was mad at my dad when we came home and she saw that i again had done this to my body my body i think that she maybe took it out of my dad as bad parenting or something which it clearly wasn't his fault bob and lenny were up front talking andy and lenny were you know walking behind them and uh i did this thing and stop it you have children listening to the show um not anymore but uh yeah so i just i kind of remember that so that's kind of a tactile

memory of my youth i i'm i'm already regretting where i'm about to go with this which is the last thing i want to do is get involved with trying to analyze your parents marriage yeah but i did a divorce by the way not i don't think spoiler yeah i um i have i've personally experienced i'll put it this way i have experienced being in a relationship when it's not and i don't know what phase of their relationship they were in at this moment but i have been in relationships where anything that happens causes resentment between the two people sure of course you know and it's like it's weird because like a good relationship can sustain anything and a relationship that's not great can't handle anything at all yeah like so much stuff that shouldn't be a fight and again i'm not this is not even about your parents yeah my lived experience where yeah you just like anything seems like how did you let that happen or why did you everything feels like catastrophic and like the other person actively did something yeah and everything everything seems to fit into

a pattern sort of like right this again you know yeah and i reflect back on disagreements that i've

had with you know previous partners and i'm just like uh i just think oh man now that i'm you know i have a lot of hindsight i'm just like oh that wasn't a thing that worth arguing about or that wasn't a thing that that person was actively doing right we just were in a bad spot and everything felt like you said part of a pattern or something yeah exactly i've talked about this a lot on like

spotless the cleaning podcast i do with hannah and uh not your sister hannah but um a different there are a lot of hannahs luke although i believe hannah is a listener yeah hannah's written in before um but um yeah you know like on the occasion and this is not anything from from like recent times but like on the occasion that I find myself like oh okay guess I'll just do all the dishes again and it's kind of like well we have established a pattern in our relationship where yeah I kind of am the guy who does the dishes and Genevieve is the person who does all kinds of other things you know what I mean and so like it's not really that big of a problem but if for some reason on someday i'm kind of like well guess i'm just the dishwashing man well it's probably because i'm pissed off about something you're not even pissed off but just like somewhat irritated about something else and maybe even irritated about something outside of the relationship as well you know what i mean it's just kind of like it's not these little things or even sometimes big things they're not they're not actually about the things themselves when i uh woke up this

morning at the hotel i had a little um like pad of paper that was near my bed and it just said

Thank you.

bologna talk on it oh yeah and i couldn't bologna talk with no samasky it just said this two words bologna talk and i stared at it for about two minutes trying to remember what that was a reference to and then it came to me you told me yesterday at the end of the show that you've been eating a lot of bologna lately and so i had made a note to myself to bring it up today what is going on with you and bologna well i have been eating just too much bologna

That is the truth. And I can tell you kind of how it happened in a minute. But honestly, is this more interesting than what you were allowed wrong about?

Oh, that will take four seconds.

Okay.

Yesterday we were talking. I'm down here in L.A. I'm doing a TV story. I was supposed to be doing two stories. One about this young artist who makes art out of Rubik's Cubes. And the other about the guy who invented the chattering teeth toy.

Oh, okay.

And the guy who invented, you know, like the wind-up teeth. Yeah, I know.

I used to have some. Yeah, sure.

A guy invented those, as opposed to them coming together by, I guess, forces of nature. Sure. Me saying a guy invented that is a very weird statement. It wasn't like there was a tornado at the end. Nature had manufactured chattering teeth.

It was a mistake. It was actually a mistake in the lab. It was a byproduct, actually. But people liked it, so they kept making it.

They were trying to motorize someone's dentures so that they didn't have to work so hard to chew on things. No, the guy who invented that, and he has something like 800 toy patents. He's a very interesting fellow. He, unfortunately, has COVID and is in the hospital now. Oh, no. Yeah, we're not doing that shoot, but hopefully we'll get to see him again. Hopefully we'll have a speedy recovery, and we'll get to actually interview him at some point.

He's not the Joker, is he?

Not yet, but we'll see how it goes at Arkham.

I've got to say, when I picture the man who invented the chattering teeth, I don't not picture the Joker.

Um, so, uh, yesterday we were talking on the show about the thing that I am filming down here, which is this, uh, young woman named Daniela who makes, um, portraits and, and, and sort of photorealistic is not the right way to describe it, but basically she recreates photos and images from Rubik's cubes and I did a fair amount of research on her. I read some articles about her I went to her website I was under the impression Somehow this missed me The most interesting part of the Creative process for this young woman Which is She solves these Rubik's Cubes Into the patterns that then she can use To make the art

Oh, because I asked you why you need to solve it I see, because she's not using the individual stickers Or the individual little squares That's what I thought the whole time

Because I didn't realize the art was three-dimensional Because I'd only looked at it online So what looks like a a one dimensional, you know, picture of, you know, Marilyn Monroe or whomever is actually made up of a bunch of solved Rubik's cubes.

I yeah, because I'm not fully solved either, but solved to the pattern that she needs. Right. I'm looking at a bunch of photos now. So there might be part of somebody's face that is like three yellow cubes and two red ones and one white one for shadowing. I'm looking at these now. It's pretty impressive. Are these all full-size cubes?

There are three sizes of cubes that she uses, Andrew. Full-size ones, and then there's a medium-size and a mini one, and she can get more detail with the miniature ones, as you might imagine. It's very impressive what she's doing, and the other thing I had said yesterday was I was going to have to tamp down my major class envy and the chip on my shoulder I have about people who've done well for themselves because I saw the address where I was going and I immediately identified it as being in a very tony part of Beverly Hills. And it was, but I will tell you this, this was the most lovely family I've ever met. They have five kids. They certainly have done well for themselves in the resources department, but were just the most charming, sweet people. And their kids were all like awesome and just totally pleasant and made eye contact. And they've turned their whole living room into her studio um so and everybody helps out it was very very sweet to see the interactions between the siblings because we're here you know we're filming this young woman and she has a twin sister and all these other siblings and they were all so helpful to her like they were like picking up pictures and you know these art pieces made and moving them around and all the super excited to see her being interviewed like it just was an extremely loving tight-knit family which was really great to see and it kind of, it sort of didn't go the way I was expecting it to go because I saw the address and I was just kind of like, okay this is going to be one kind of situation and it was in fact totally different so I was specifically wrong about the Rubik's Cubes and I literally got into my second question with her and she looked at me like I was crazy because I was like Thank you.

well, how did you even get the idea to break apart a Rubik's Cube? And she looked at me, her head cocked like the dog looking at the Victrola. Like, do you understand that I have to solve like 10,000 Rubik's Cubes to make this shit happen?

Right, right. I hesitate to bring this up because I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but we were talking about how your pickleball story, you kind of got scooped. You did that story for CBS. It's been sitting on the shelves. Parade magazine. And Parade magazine. And like the poor man's parade magazine. I believe the New Yorker did something about it as well Yes It would appear

I'm going to email David Remnick I've heard your magazine is the poor man's parade

Just describe it that way At your next dinner party The Milken Community School Newspaper The Roar Has scooped you on this one Creating art one Rubik's Cube At a time and they seem to understand the concept Of what she was doing here too By the way that also blew my mind Dardashti

That blew my mind That Michael Milken has a school The disgraced financier Oh is that the connection

I didn't know that connection I just see that when you type it in It says a private Jewish school in Los Angeles And it looks again pretty tony

Now there's a Milken foundation So Michael Milken made a crap load of money But I think he was also like a junk bond guy or something I remember in the 80s Knowing about two white collar criminals One was named Ivan Boski And one was named Michael Milken And I didn't understand anything about what they were doing or what was going on, but I just knew they were like – Dan Rather was talking about them on the evening news. And so I think Michael Milken did his time. He still had a crap load of money when he got out of jail. That's how white-collar crime seems to work, by the way. You rob a bodega. You don't get out of jail and you still are a millionaire. Right. But somehow when you do a financial crime, you tend to still be rich when it's all over. Right. And so he had this foundation, and I think they are in charge of – like they started the school or whatever. But the funny thing is when I was over at these folks' house, one of the kids was on her iPad, and I noticed – I was talking to her about it. She was scrolling through school uniforms for the Milken school. And it's not like a Catholic school uniform where it's a plaid skirt or something. You have to wear something that says Milken to school So they have a merch A t-shirt, they have a puffer jacket So it's like they have a whole merch website Where they just sell kind of regular stuff A polo, a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, a puffer jacket But it says Milken on it And everybody has to be wearing something that says Milken

At least one thing that says Milken And it can't be bootleg, I take it They're selling these things Oh, yeah.

The puffer jacket was $80, I believe. And I just thought it was so funny because, you know, when I was – I went to a private school when I was growing up, and we had to – we didn't have a uniform, but we had to wear a collared shirt. Was that the deal for you at Ignatius or Walsh? Ignatius was –

But you didn't wear a blazer. No blazer, but a dress shirt, tie, dress shoes, and dress pants.

Yeah, we had to wear a collared shirt if you were a boy or identified as a boy. and then the girls had to wear a skirt and it had to go to the knee. That was the dress code at Jesus Creek. And, you know, I don't know. I think it's probably a little bit weird and necessary to make kids wear a uniform, although I do find it kind of charming. Like if I'm in New York and I just see like a gaggle of kids that are in their, you know, uniforms, kind of like walking down the street, getting out of school. It's kind of a cool look. But I just find it hilarious that there's – I guess my point is that when we were in school, The uniform the idea was for the kids to look Sort of quote unquote dignified And this milk in school uniform is none of those It's like you could probably get board shorts as long as they say Like it doesn't solve For the issue of like do these kids look Like you know they're ready for Studious behavior or they look kind of like You know like whatever Something the cat dragged in this is just They look like something the cat dragged in but the cat Bought something at the milk in website

Yeah they probably don't they I mean I'm guessing that this is a pretty elite school So they probably don't look like something they cat dragged in, but they just look like they, you know, are, well, they're reinforcing the brand at all times, which is important. Right, that's the funniest part. And selling merch.

And again, the fact that the name is a guy who was financially disgraced in the 80s. Yeah, I guess. Like, that's what I'll always think of when I hear the name Mike Milken. I guess Junk Bonds, that was his deal?

Did you already say that? I was just looking it up here.

I said, yeah, I think I did. But again, I don't even know how that works exactly. Me neither. God, don't make no Junk Bonds. That's all I know.

Where's my belt? Where's my bell? There it is.

If I ever have young kids, I will be sending them to Ivan Boski Academy. They'll be Boski Bros. Big Bronx Boski Bros. All right. We had a good ending, and then I ruined it by trying to... riff and uh that was a mistake okay let's take a quick break oh we haven't even talked about baloney i thought i got out of that i thought i wiggled out of that like a serpent i mean like a killer spider you're very slippery everybody knows slippery man he's uh he's i call him the praying mantis all right let's take a break and i i want to hear about this baloney situation when we get back here on tbtl hey let's thank some donors of the day these are the wonderful generous people who unlike podcast guests who we are about to hear about who are paying fifty thousand dollars in appearance these are just listeners to the show and they're paying it only in the hundreds of to get to listen to this yeah and uh it's an amazing business model that only works because of people like meredith gibbons in gross point woods michigan now i'm looking this up so gross point woods is a community just outside of gross point i assume i that would be my guess i assume that there is a point is that lake michigan huh is it a given that michigan is it's actually it looks like it's not on a Great Lake or it looks like it's fed by Lake Erie but it's a little or not a little it's a huge inland lake called Lake St. Clair but that's not a Great Lake I don't think that's one of the Great Lakes can you name the Great Lakes? I don't think I can anymore see it's okay that you can't because you didn't grow up in a Great Lakes community but I mean I grew up on one of the Great Lakes so obviously why am I doing this There are seven, right? Or are there five? Or are there nine? There's Alito? Wait, no. Hold on. I cannot believe that Trump held up the nomination of Lake Superior. Okay, there's another one. They stole one. Yeah. Lake Superior. Lake Superior, Lake Erie, Lake Michigan. So those are three. That's pretty much what I got. Lake Canada. And yeah, lake that one. Wait, hold on. Let me just lake the other one. I feel like if I were laying in bed without the pressure on me, I would be able to probably name more than just those. But I'm really embarrassed. I could only get through the three there. So let's see. What are they? Superior, Michigan, Huron. Huron. That's the one I always forget. Erie. That's in Ontario. Ontario. Oh, Ontario. That one is.

Huron and Ontario are in Canada, right? They don't even. Do they make any contact with U.S. soil? Let's see. Well, you're asking a lot of questions, bub. I'll figure that out in a second. Because that makes me. I think Huron and Ontario, I forget because they're not in the U.S. And as an American narcissist, I only think about the things that relate to this country. So anyway, Meredith, we really appreciate you. I don't think you're right about that, though. Oh, really? I can't, let's see, Lake Huron. I would be shocked if Lake Ontario comes into the United States. Wouldn't you have heard about that? I mean, well, that's why I think we need to build a border. Yeah, Lake Ontario is borders. So I think all of these lakes split between the U.S. and Canada. I could be wrong about that. But Lake Ontario, Rochester, New York is on Lake Ontario. Is that part of America? Rochester, New York? I believe so, yeah. Rochester, New York is on Lake Ontario, yeah. Okay. Shout out to our listeners in Rochester. Sorry I didn't know that you make contact. But wait, what about Lake Huron? Lake Huron splits between Michigan and Canada. So the border there is almost more a north-south border. Does that make sense? It runs up and down is what I should say. I stand corrected. I've been loud wrong about not one but two things in the course of the last two shows. Mostly I want to say thanks to Ross Smith. and Samantha Sager in Dedham, Massachusetts, which I think is adjacent to Lake Huron. I think so. Yeah, it was born of Lake Huron, then moved. There's a singer named Lord Huron that I kind of like now, by the way. I almost called it Lord Huron instead of Lake Huron. Shira Fidele is in Eugene, Oregon. No lakes. Eugene, Oregon on major display recently because the World Track and Field Championships were in Eugene. Oh. And it was kind of cool, actually, that the I'm a you know, I went to the University of Washington. There's only one college that I actively dislike, and that's the University of Oregon, except Rebecca and everyone in her family went to the University of Oregon. Yeah. And our big, you know, Oregon boosters and track aficionados. But I have to – the field there, I think it's called Hayworth Field, is really freaking cool because, of course, University of Oregon is like Steve Prefontaine and Nike and all that stuff. It's really kind of track town USA, and it was kind of fun to be in – I was in Texas actually going to Mike's memorial, and all the TVs in the bar had like Eugene, Oregon on them as people were doing track and field stuff. It was kind of cool.

um are you is there going to be a situation because i can't remember what there are two schools that just left the pack 12 right but as of right now UCLA and USC and right now that does not affect the the Huskies the University of Washington and the Ducks right so they will still have uh I guess a game or two this this coming football season and will that create a tension in the relationship if you all get together to watch the game well it does to the

The fact that last year when we were dating and there was the thought to actually go up to Seattle to watch the Ducks and the Huskies play, I said, I don't want to be a part of that because the Ducks are going to whoop us and I'm going to be just sitting in the stands full of bad feelings around these people who I love. And so I politely declined. But did the rest of the gang go? It ended up not happening, but it was like the only time I've hard passed on a sporting event. Sure. So it looms that large for me, I guess. And the whole Pac-12 going back to the Pac-10 thing is, we haven't even really gotten into it on the show, but that's really, I mean, that's cataclysmic for Oregon and Washington and the other, I mean, I still consider the Huskies to be an elite school in the Pac-10, although in terms of like our football performance, that's not been the case for a long time, or really even, you know, a lot, that's not true. We have some sports that are really elite. Our softball team is super good and some of our soccer is really good. But the football is the one I tend to focus on and we are just really, really lousy. And also just now the problem – and I want to thank Shira for getting us into this conversation about Pac-12, the shrinking of the Pac-12. But yeah, I mean there's this crazy promo that's playing on Sirius Satellite and it's not, you want baseball? Oh, the doggies got you covered. It's a different one where it is – it's a show – because, you know, when I listen to the Mariners game on Sirius, it just plays promos for other sports things on Sirius. And one of them is some kind of college sports show, and it's them interviewing the commissioner of the Pac-12. and the guy is literally saying like we're all on the same team and we're all rowing like as far as all the schools we're all rowing in the same direction and we're stronger than ever as a conference he's obviously saying all of this before the news broke that ucla and usc are like deuces we're heading to the um uh the big 10 or i guess now the big 12 and that is completely and totally made it so that if all the other schools that are trying to be considered for like you know the national championship and strength of schedule and stuff are just completely pwned now yeah yeah

and that guy was kind of reviled during his entire tenure right the head of the pack 12 for like the tv deals all i hear is i've never heard anybody say anything good about that guy but i don't

really understand these conferences at all so all i know is the as long as i've known about the pack was the pack eight when i was a little kid then it became the pack 10 and the pack 12 the commissioner of the conference has always been the most reviled person in the local college sports yeah like no one ever likes the person who has that job but this seems like they did a particularly bad job of managing it in that i mean i guess it wasn't up to them but there was basically a big meeting where all of the like athletic directors of all of the schools got together and said we're in this together and then low-key usc and ucla were like we're actually gonna go um uh hey i just want to tell you kids let's sit down i want to tell you daddy has a new friend yeah you're gonna be her name is Sharon you're gonna be seeing a lot of her right we still love you very much but yeah they just completely I mean you know it's all about money and uh I think it's the reality is that the Huskies the UW football program will probably never I can't imagine a universe in which they play for a national championship in my lifetime which is fine you know I guess I can just move on but I grew up they were so good and it was so much fun to have this like amazingly good football program to see them not good and now in a conference that like i saw some article that was like well they got to add san diego state it's like that's not

helping yeah and also that it's a change not the issue it's also a changing um it's just a kind of changing environment because of the new rules about you know athletes and right personal endorsement personal endorsement name and license name and likeness yeah so um yeah so with that i don't know that the husky football is ever going to be in a position to compete in that type of atmosphere with all the right yeah it just comes down to i mean part of it is do you want is Are you running a university or are you running a football promotional situation? And the schools that have decided we exist for a football team to happen, and I'm not saying anything about if you got your degree from Texas or University of Texas or whatever. I'm not saying that the people that are within the institution are not taking it seriously. There are really good schools that have good football teams. But it just does seem like the teams in the Pac-10 now, most of them, the ones that are left, are just like, okay, we're going to have football teams, but it's not going to be our raison d'etre. And if you're talking about LSU or Texas or Mississippi or any of those SEC schools, it's literally almost the reason the university exists. And yeah, I kind of am OK with us not trying to compete. But of course, that's also me just trying to justify the fact that my college football boys are never going to be good again.

Yeah, I mean, it could. Yeah. And I don't know enough about this, but it could be if you see a cultural shift there within the universities that aren't basically football teams with universities attached, that could end up being good for those students and the athletes and other sports at those schools as well.

Well, yes, except for the fact that depending on the school, football generates a ton of the revenue. As I was saying that. As it was coming out of my mouth. But not everywhere. You know, I mean, it depends. Like, I think that that's a little bit overstated sometimes as a justification for, like, prioritizing football above other sports, you know, particularly women's sports. Yeah. I don't think it's always the case. Because, I mean, those football programs are also super expensive. It's also kind of messed up that the highest paid state employee in every state is a football coach. Exactly, yeah. Of their university. Like, that's not a great priority set. But anyway, all of this is to say, Shira, thanks for checking in from Eugene. Also, Andrew Kugelman, what do you got in Dallas, Texas? You've got some love for TBTL. You're supporting the show. Thank you, Andrew. Also, thanks to Chris Rupp in Seattle, Washington. And then another Chris. It's a back-to-back Chris Wednesday. That doesn't really rhyme or chime. It's a Chris block. No, that's good. See, where's my bell when I need it? Chris Stremlau is in Kirkland, Washington. So thank you so much to all of our donors of the day We absolutely could not do this show Without your help Hello and welcome to Top Story We're 50 minutes into the show It's time for Top Stories Including Andrew's baloney obsession I was like will he remember Or will we just move on to actual Top Stories You have tried to, you have created It's like we're playing Spy Hunter right now And you've deployed every single tactic from your vehicle to try to get me off the road to baloney town i threw you've dropped oil slick smoke pack 12 talk a fair amount of lenny samoski jr conversation i'm not um boy

if lenny ever heard this it must be so weird just to hear his full name just like out there right um uh i love you lenny anyway uh i i guess i hesitate here only because i don't know that i have a lot to say on this maybe you just have some follow-up questions like i maybe i should just go into reddit and be like i've been eating a lot of bologna recently ask me anything um i grew up eating a lot of bologna we're a heavy heavy bologna invested is this like oscar meyer though like what is no like from the deli i never buy any lunch meat that is like pre-packaged i always buy lunch meat from like from the deli so they slice it for me and then package it up

So it's like that big – you know what's so funny? I don't think I even really thought that that was an option. I don't – even in my meat-eating days, I wasn't – I didn't eat a lot of bologna sandwiches. I didn't grow up with it. It didn't even occur to me that like that big tube of meat at the deli can be sliced down into slice. So you get – what did you think happened to it? I don't know. I just looked at it. I never processed it. If I think of bologna, I think of the Oscar Mayer, you know, disc that's in like a, you know, a refrigerated section of the store. That's how that's where I think bologna comes from, even though I've stared at like Hellman's or whatever. Now, that's more of a mustard and mayonnaise thing. Right. What's the boar's head? Maybe I've stared at like the bologna in the case, but I just never made the connection that that is how it starts out.

And then you get someone to slice it. Yeah. Boy, it is funny how. So yeah, we really could just talk about, I mean, bologna is just a gateway conversation to talk about all kinds of meats and deli culture. But yeah, for some reason, again, this probably has to do with kind of the way I grew up and like my family liked to go as much as possible to markets to get meat. I mean, listen, most of the lunch meat we ate growing up was from the grocery store, but the deli, the deli counter. But like, you know, growing up in Cleveland, like the ultimate would be like when grandpa would go to the West Side Market. know if you know about the west side market it's not an open air market it's actually because of the weather in cleveland it's actually in this huge huge old building and it's been you know around forever it's on an island in lake huron and it's a lot of like um you know a lot of eastern european like meats and foods and cheeses and you know all that kind of stuff and you go to the west side market i don't know i don't know how much it's changed now i think it's really hit on some hard times but like that's where you would get the good sausages and you know the real butchers and everything but um so growing up we leaned more towards that as much as possible so like we were never the type of family that would just like get a package of bologna off of like you know that's pre-packaged and there's something about that that even the only pre-packaged lunch meat i will get is dry salami every now and then i'll grab one of those like little packages of dry salami because in the paper bag well that's good um but there's kind of lesser ones too that are in the kind of in these plastic sheets that you can buy um but like there's something about like i always just think that like i don't know uh lunch meat that's pre-packaged like that i just always feel like it's got it's gonna have some slime or some meat water in there or something that kind of turns my stomach i don't even know if i'm right about that but anyway growing up we ate a lot of bologna i thought it was interesting yesterday when i mentioned this that you said you you equate bologna with childhood which i guess that makes sense but i don't know why why Why would children enjoy bologna more than adults?

Because kids had bologna sandwiches at school. Yeah. And that was the only – again, because it's so funny how much of your childhood is dictated by what your parents did or did not like. Yeah. Like my parents were just not – like they didn't grow up with it or maybe my mom had bologna and it was gross or something. So then we just never had bologna. But I would see kids at school that would have, you know, Wonder Bread, mustard, and like, you know, that kind of disc of Oscar Mayer bologna on there. So that was why I think of it as a childhood thing.

And I think you're right. And I don't question that. I just wonder, like, why as adults do we not eat bologna, but it's more of a kid's thing? I'm not sure. I mean, what is bologna but like a flat cold hot dog, right? Yeah. I mean, and I love eating some hot dogs.

Is it more flavored, though? Does it have a little bit more kind of seasoning?

I'll bet you if you were in like Germany or something, you got like a real good bologna or however you would pronounce it. I'm sure that it would. But the stuff I'm getting is pretty plain tasting. You know, it's from the deli and it's fine. But it's also very inexpensive compared to like the other stuff. Usually we are just a turkey family. We always keep like kind of deli turkey in the fridge, usually honey roasted deli turkey. But I was standing there waiting for them to slice up my turkey. I don't know. Maybe this is since we moved. Because I know that it's like I'm at my new grocery store, Fred Meyer now, the Greenwood one. You like that one? We've talked about this. It's a good Fred Meyer.

That loomed very large in my childhood. And that was the Fred Meyer that didn't have groceries when I was a kid. And so to this day, a Fred Meyer with groceries seems super weird to me. That's so weird. And that was also a Fred Meyer where I lost $10 once. Maybe it was $5. And it was my allowance or something, and I had it in my hand, and I must have put it down. And I wandered that store for what felt like days, just bereft. Because also there was a McDonald's near it, which that McDonald's is now some other thing. But I remember my whole plan was go to the Fred Meyer with my friends and walk around, and then also go to the McDonald's and get some fast food. Yeah. And then I didn't have my $5, and then I was so devastated. So that will be – Fred Meyer will live in infamy in my mind.

I will keep an eye out. It's so funny, though, because now it's almost all a grocery store. I think all the homeware stuff is mostly downstairs. And there's $5 everywhere on the floor if you just look down. Well, the floor is actually a pattern of $5 bills that they've just made. So if you lose a $5 bill there, it's impossible to find it. But, yeah, so I don't know if it was because I was in a new grocery store, what it was, but I'm sitting there waiting for my turkey, and I look at the bologna, and it's like $8.99 a pound or $7.99 a pound. I'm like, you know what? You know what? I haven't had bologna since I was a child, I think. And so I'm like, let me get in on this. So I said to him, I said to the guy, I says, hey, could you give me a half pound of that bologna? And, you know, there was no issue there. Nobody gave me any kind of look. They didn't ask for ID. It all seemed really normal. There was no waiting period. There was no waiting period that they brought up anyway. So I took it home.

I can see a universe in which it's harder to get baloney than an AR-15. Oh, absolutely. There's probably an example of that somewhere. They are allowed to ask you for ID if you're purchasing meats, but they're not allowed to ask you for ID if you're purchasing a death.

machine that is that is probably true um but anyway yeah so i brought it home and i ate some i was like oh that's good you know like i'm glad that i i did that that kind of took me back a little bit i had a couple of pieces rolled up um and then i had a sandwich or two and uh and i really liked it and then i don't know man it's just like i fall into these patterns and then like next time i'm there i'm like could i have three quarters of a pound i'm not even joking working your way the last time i went i think i ordered um i think i ordered a half i think i got a half pound of the bologna and a pound of the turkey and so he sliced up the turkey first and then he said and that's a pound of bologna right and i didn't correct him i'm just like yeah let it ride let it ride we'll do that so i came home with a pound of bologna that i've been eating and it's just like suddenly i'm just like why suddenly i'm a bologna man again now the question on everyone's

mind is when you're doing this lunch meat stuff if you're like say you're putting it in a sandwich do you do the extra step of i don't think this is the term for it but i'm going to say clover leafing it kind of you know folding it in half and then folding another one in half and then placing them so that the folds are touching and then folding the next one in half and the next one half but rotating it so you're kind of creating this nest do you do that do you go to that because when i was a a big turkey lunch meat eater i would always do that i feel like it really improved the

sandwich experience this is something i meant to talk to you about actually because it occurred to me that this might be decent tbtl content i finally we're getting there something was pointed out to me by genevieve the other day because she kind of caught me doing something that i don't that i guess i've been doing for a while but i didn't really think about it or examine it too much but i make sandwiches now in a weird way and i think it has to do with my proclivity to eating these sandwiches while standing over the counter listening to sports radio on my old fashioned am radio right um like i just often don't sit when i'm eating these sandwiches and i'm just sort of making them and and it's just sort of like a it's almost like a grazing kind of situation where it's like oh hello mr pickle jar okay i'll grab one of these eat one put one down on the plate or the cutting board often in these situations i'm just eating off of a wooden cutting board um and what i realize i'm doing is i don't make a full sandwich and cut it in half anymore i tend to make two halves of a sandwich what yeah so you cut a piece of bread isn't it yeah and maybe it's because i've never heard of such a thing maybe it's because at one point i thought i wasn't going to eat a whole sandwich but then i always end up doing it anyway but now i just do it and i gotta say i kind of like it better like i like taking a piece of bread out of the bag i cut the piece of bread in half and then i build a little half sandwich out of that So I'm folding the bologna or the turkey or whatever in half to fit the bread perfectly, and then I'm throwing lettuce on top of that. And if I have one, maybe a slice of tomato, and then I'm putting some mustard on there. The type of mustard depends on the meat. And then I have a little half a sandwich that I built on its own, and then often I will do that again. So I end up eating a whole sandwich, but I eat it as two halves of a sandwich that were built independently. And again, this is something that I wasn't really noticing I was doing until Genevieve came up to me. This is just a few weeks ago when she was like, how do you make a sandwich? And then I kind of looked down and suddenly I was like, oh, yeah, like the scales fell from my eyes. And I was like, how do I make a sandwich? How long have I been doing this? But I actually like it now that I've examined it.

It makes plenty of sense. Sometimes half of a sandwich is enough. you're cutting the you know you're just cutting a piece of bread like it actually is very logical but it actually but it appears to be the the to come from the mind of a deranged person yeah i mean it definitely even though it actually makes sense yeah like if you feel like if you caught

the babysitter making a sandwich this way you'd fire him right like there's something wrong with

that person lousy babysitter i had probably was making half sandwiches day and night and using

sugar instead of salt or something or maybe it's like something like uh in blade runner again to like try to figure out who's one of the um what do they call them the the derogatory term is skin job but are they they're not clone are they clones is that what they well you know i don't think i've ever even seen that movie oh it's really good anyway yeah like to figure out like kind of who's right who's a real human and who isn't it's just like how do you set them up with a sandwich station and see what they do yeah exactly so anyway that's my baloney journey i'm a little self-conscious about it because i don't know like i do feel like there's a baloney stigma um and so of course i mean people aren't over while i'm eating the bologna i don't live stream it but i don't know

there is something that i i do sort of feel like there are some tens that would love to watch that

i do sort of feel like i need to stop doing that but i don't know why i feel that way i feel ashamed

don't you know what i mean listen none of this is going to sink in because our own weird patterns and the way that our brain is mean to us is it's it's um pretty uh advice proof right but like you give yourself such a hard time about food that i've noticed and you're always just being pretty normal like you i've never seen you order like a you know joey chestnut amount of he's a competitive eater for those who aren't up on the competitive eating scene like you i don't ever see you ordering a ridiculous amount of food i just don't i don't know you to be um you know somebody who has is ever consuming a weird amount of food but you often report that like oh i had too much lunch or even the standing over the sink and eating to me feels like maybe it's related to like some kind of a thing but i just want to tell you you are very much in the normal range of of food consumption and all of that except the sandwiches that is weird but that you should examine that definitely you actually

You have somebody look at your head, yeah. You should see a doctor. Yeah, so anyway, yeah, but I don't know, baloney. Baloney is a stigma, I feel like. Baloney has a first name. It's A-N-D-R-E-W.

Baloney has a first name. It's S-T-I-G-M-A.

Yes, exactly. So that's my baloney journey. I'll let you know as it progresses.

There's a right way to rock and a wrong way to roll. You can't just listen to your soul. Just remember that life is number one You can be having so much fun Just remember that life is much fun You can be not number one

All right, you ready to blurs? I was so ready. That was not rhetorical. That was so not rhetorical. I was so ready that I had the mic muted

Okay

Are you ready to Blurz? Here is a Blurz Day message That I have a little guilt feeling about Because this came in In a very timely nature For it to be read During last week's Blurz Day messages But unfortunately we recorded Thursday's show On a Wednesday last week We pre-recorded it So in fact I didn't have this in time And that's on me It's not on Tierra, and it's certainly— Well, that's on me.

Well, certainly. Because we had to double up because of my travel schedule, so I want to personally apologize to everyone involved. Involved.

Well, this is for Jordan, the daughter of our dear friend Tierra in Baltimore. Tierra says, Jordan, I couldn't get Stormy to say happy birthday to you, so I decided to get these two dummies to say it. Wait a minute. Mm-hmm. That's us. Stormy is their cat, by the way. Like, Stormy is the cutest gray cat in the world. I thought Stormy was a different, more popular podcast. It probably is. Let's see here. Tierra says, it's not like the time I took you to a Beyonce concert for your birthday, but it'll do. Love your mommy, Tierra. So just kind of like, hey, we're not doing that this year, but never forget. Never forget that I took you to Beyonce.

I think that Sierra is citing two things that would be better than the Blur's Day message. A talking cat and a Beyoncé concert. And a Beyoncé concert. A Beyoncé concert. Beyoncé. Jackie says, happiest of Blur's Day. By the way, happy Blur's Day, Jordan. Yeah. We're happy to be your number three. Absolutely. More than honored to be the third best thing that could be happening to you a week after your birthday. Absolutely.

I like your birthday sash, by the way. She had a birthday sash that said birthday princess. It was adorable.

Yes, go ahead. Jackie says, happiest of blurs to Tracy, my awesome real-life imaginary friendo. Looking forward to getting to see you in real life next week. Sorry, Luke. Please read it as it's written.

IRL next week? You pronounced Y-A as U, and clearly it is ya. Oh. Looking forward to... Now, I can't say forward.

Get into it, ya. Happiest of blurs to Tracy. My awesome real-life imaginary friend-o. Looking forward to getting to see ya in IRL next week.

Yeah. Okay. Sorry to give you notes, but I think it's important. Actually, though, I'm going to give Jackie a note here. In IRL, the I is for in, right? So you can just say, see ya, IRL.

I saw that, but in honor of Jackie's message to Tracy, I chose to not point that out. God, I am the worst.

Tracy, who just received a Blurs, would like to offer one back to Jackie, their birthday twins. Happy birthday to my friend and birthday twin, Jackie. You were so welcoming when we met. I love your Facebook posts, your awesome roller skates, and your cool pets.

Look forward to seeing you at Teddy's soon next week. I miss Teddy's.

I haven't been there in a minute. So really, moving has completely changed your pattern in terms of, I mean, obviously it was walking distance from your old place, but you haven't been back.

I've been back a couple of times, but yeah, I mean, it used to be right around the corner from me, so I would stop in a few times a week, even if it was for a short little stint to say hey to the boys. But now, you know, like I walk about a mile to the train and then Teddy's is right on the train stop. So, you know, I do it from time to time. But it's been weeks now. Also, just I've been doing so much at home, you know, like just like stuff to do. It's summertime. Baloney sandwiches. Baloney sandwiches.

It takes a lot of time when you make them one half of the sandwich at a time. Exactly. Yeah. Rachel says, happy Blur's Day to my husband, Ivan. This past year has been a whirlwind. And if someone had told me on your last Blur's Day that we'd be where we are today, about to become homeowners for the first time, and in Amsterdam, of all places, I wouldn't have believed them. Thank you for being the best partner. I hope to celebrate many more European birthdays with you. Wow.

That's great. I love these guys.

Rachel and Ivan taking the plunge in the Amsterdam housing market.

Yeah, I wonder what the market's like. Congratulations. I used to work with Rachel at KUOW, by the way. I think you pay in marijuana. Yes, the houses are built in hash. Weed, man. That's how they talk in Amsterdam. Andrew in Columbia, Maryland says, To John in Portland, Oregon, have a Barry Buka Blurs Day from your buddy Andrew. I'll visit again someday, I promise.

Happy Blurs Day, John. Catherine says, Happy Blurs Day to me. I'm turning 36 on Friday. I want to give a thank you and a shout out To the TENS community for all the joy I always look forward to the summer games Thank you Catherine That makes one of you There are one of us One of us These summer games are going to be fun though I'm not just saying that

No they are the most like regular TBTL That we've ever accomplished

And many of them went longer than I wanted them to Which makes it a lot like TBTL As we enter hour two of this particular recording today I'm not surrounded by my clocks So I feel completely not aware of what the timing of this is. But I do think we've been going for a minute. We're a couple of minutes into the second hour now. Let's see. Continuing with Catherine's message, who's blursing herself. Oh, I'm sorry. I said that that way, Catherine. I didn't mean that. I always look forward to the summer games. Forward promo. Since the 10s always come up with the cleverest stuff for y'all to quiz each other about. Again, totally happened this time again, Catherine. So thank you and happy Blurs Day to you.

David says, I'd like to wish my 11 Eileen a happy Blur's Day on her actual day of blurs. She's a terrific partner, a sometimes willing TBTL participant, coming to several live events, and a great owner of our new dog. Cute. Loralee? Is that how you say it? Lorelei. Lorelei. Happy Blur's Day. That's a good name for a dog. What are the origins? Have you heard that name before? Lorelei? Gilmore Girls. One of the characters is named Lorelei. Interesting. Anyway, happy Blur's Day with love from David and Freddie.

Happy Blur's Day to Megan from Hess. Now, Hess wrote a quite amazing story about the origin of their friendship, but it was epically long. So Andrew trimmed it down.

Yeah, I just I sizzled it down to the key component here, which is appreciating Megan.

That's right. Hess says, I appreciate Megan being a friend, especially a 10 friend. I never thought a, quote, stranger who I've only known through the 10s community could be so kind and loving. Aw. That's really sweet. Also, I'm glad that neither of you were human trafficked.

That was part of Hess's long message we had. Exactly. It was a really, really nice story. Hess, I hope you shared that with Megan. I'm sorry we didn't have time for the whole thing here. We've got to talk about baloney. Hess, we've got things to do. And finally August says I'm writing this on my mom's account Because I don't have my own email address Anyway Happy birthday to my mom This is her 43rd Birthday It actually says 43rd birthday I'm just pointing it out Because I think it's cute Not because I'm negging August This is her 43rd birthday I just wanted to say happy birthday to Madeline For turning 43 Happy birthday my mom is amazing and she beat cancer and she's a great mom and i wish the best to her from august that's really sweet it was worth hacking your mom's account for that happy blurs day madeline

and there you go so we never got to the um people paying to be on podcasts which maybe i know the

The plan for tomorrow's episode is that we are going to delve into TBTL history a little bit or do some explaining, right?

You had mentioned, or maybe we came up with this idea together or something, but at some point during the show a couple of weeks ago, we said maybe people should just email in their questions about TBTL because we forget. We think we're talking to the same 10 people every single day who've hung on every single word and inside joke, but of course that's not true. there are plenty of listeners we have who tune in and tune out and drop out and drop in and i don't remember exactly how it goes we can talk to the numbers people about that but there are people who are just like they have questions like why do you say this when you introduce andrew or what does it mean when you say this so um we said hey email in with your tbtl questions and by the way you can email me andrew at tbtl.net and put tbtl questions in the subject line and um i've been getting a few of those and so we're going to do a little roundup i haven't opened them by the way See, I have a bunch of emails with TBTL questions in the subject line, and we'll open them and try to answer them the best we can. The problem here is, Luke, and I'm realizing this, we should have a real TBTL historian on, because even the stuff that would be like, you know, since you and I have been doing it, our brains are so bad that actually a lot of listeners remember some of this better than we do.

As evidenced by earlier in the show, when the listener was remembering why I etched Love is a Battlefield into my dresser. Exactly, right. Something that I had completely forgotten. And so, yeah, tomorrow is going to be a very frustrating episode of the show where we try to use our Swiss cheese brains to explain the origins of things, etc. But but we hope you'll join us nonetheless. Yeah. In the meantime, thank you all for being part of TBTL. Thanks for listening. We will be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you. Until then, have a great Thursday. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Please, I hate to say this about anyone, but that man is full of bologna. Bologna. You're right. He's so vile we should use the crude Americanization of the word. He's full of baloney.

Power out.