Muse

What are you guys doing here? Emergency band meeting. I'm working. This is my work. You're not working, you're just holding a sign. Yeah, well, I got the job because we didn't have any gigs. How can I give you a gig if you've ever got this job? Yeah, but that's why I got the job, because there were no gigs. Well, I can't get you a gig if you're going to always go and do a job. Yeah, but that's... I needed the job because there were no gigs. Well, I've got you a gig, so what's with the job? Yeah, but that's it, that's the thing. I got the job because there were no gigs, man. It's a chicken-egg situation. What do you mean? What's he mean, chicken? Well, you know, what came first, the chicken or the egg? Oh, that's irrelevant, isn't it? Or the oddity. Stupid. The chicken, obviously. Well, where did the chicken come from? Well, it came from the... Ah. You see, the egg. You're the egg. You're a bad egg. T-B-T-L.

Guess what day it is. Guess what day it is.

It's Friday, Friday.

Gonna get down on Friday.

Everybody's looking forward to the weekend.

It's garbage. All I've been thinking about all week is garbage. I mean, I just can't stop thinking about it.

Allow me to introduce myself. Maybe you've heard of me. California Magazine just did a piece on me. With the exception of being misquoted several times, I thought it was a pretty good article.

I'm not trying to be disrespectful or anything, but I kind of feel like you're winging this and it's going bad.

stinky all right hello good morning welcome everyone to a friday edition of tbtl the show that just might be too beautiful to live brilliant millennial lousy satire and it's a big deal my name is luke burbank i am your host i can't believe you're still on the air coming to you from the hollywood broadcast center right here in portland oregon where we are going into the

labor day weekend and the weather is nice oh ma pa it's just beautiful the last gasp of summer

it's weird you know 46 years old haven't been in school in many many years and yet you still get that kind of school kid end of summer malaise i don't think that ever goes away we're gonna try to perk things up though here with episode 3763 in a collector series let the fun begin uh it turns out there is probably somebody out there who looks exactly like you who you are not related to it's called a doppelganger you face who are you facing and now uh they've been looking into the genetic component to that how much your dna controls looking like someone else even if you're not related to them and also what your microbiome says about your close relation or not so close relation to somebody who may be almost an exact twin of yours we'll talk about that also in canada on live television people keep eating insects accidentally apparently i've never been on live television before uh so we'll uh get into that plus some music for your weekend here on this Friday all with the help of this young man Longest running co-bro of the show may be best known For its pictures of the tall ships He's Andrew Walsh and he is joining me right now Hello my friend

Hey there I know we have some listeners out there Who think that the Moment that I faded the music out at the beginning of the show And you were still and you began talking It wasn't the smoothest transition I realize that if you go back and listen to the tape My apologies I was just Fumble fingered today

I didn't even hear that happening I just, you know, I'm in such a trance-like state As I deliver the opening three minutes of this program each day That I don't even notice those kinds of things Would you say that it Are you actually giving the intro Or does it just sort of flow through you? You know, you can't own an intro, Andrew You can just take care of it I consider myself a caretaker Yep, that's Of the first four minutes of the program each day And then I consider myself

a gopher who comes in and destroys it after you've tended it.

Speaking of, not gophers, but moles, Andrew, out at my house that I'm working on, I am not happy at all about the mole. In the house? No, in the yard, but they're like intense.

Want to add a few comments regarding your mole situation? Good job.

I'm not at that house every day. I just go out there when I'm, like, working on it or something, and there just are these massive, like, it's kind of, you know, it's more rural than where I am living in Portland, and everything seems to be bigger out there, including the mole situation.

Well, if any of those little critters get in the house, you have the perfect little hunter. That's going to be good for everybody except for you. Actually, and the moles. I saw, okay, I was. Wait, no. I was. It's only.

be good sorry can i retake that it's only going to be good for one individual and her name is

bubbles yes it'll be especially bad for the moles you know that um olive brought a mole into the house once i do think like snagged it out of the ground i'd never even seen a mole like irl i had seen the evidence yeah of of their existence with the mole hills but i'd never actually seen one she must have just like hovered over the mole's hole and then snatched it out of there which is just

like a shockingly effective bit of hunting and and moles are bigger see i remember this conversation now because i was like oh yeah they're just like little tiny mice like my cats used to grab them all the time and listeners wrote in to say no no andrew you're thinking of voles which are different which are smaller and easier to handle a mole is a bigger is a bigger unit right yeah it was weird

I mean, again, I'd never seen one. And they're just very odd little animals to have one just on the carpet in your TV.

And she had brought it in and I kind of like to play with it. We'd like to kind of torture it. Right. I think it had it was deceased. Oh, it was already gone. It had already passed at that point.

It had crossed the Rainbow Bridge. Now, you know, what's funny is I went into the basement. OK, of this this house that I'm working on the other day. And it's kind of a, it's a pretty, it's a pretty dank basement, you know what I mean? This house is from like the 1930s, and this is just kind of your typical unfinished kind of concrete floor. It smells a little bit musty, and whatever, I'm down there. Bubbles loves it, though, because she can go under the house, like it's very adventurous for her down there. And I look over at the door, and the basement door to the outside doesn't, there's like a little gap between where the bottom of the door is and the, whatever, the floor. And I saw a tiny mouse start to come into the basement And I saw it before the cat did And I was like hey Oh come on Bubbles Tom get at Jerry Or whatever I don't know which one is Tom and which one is Jerry Well Tom's the cat he's a Tomcat Oh Tomcat that's a good way to remember that I'll never forget that And Jerry has a boat The mouse has a little boat That's why his name is Jerry This always reminds me of when you're trying to remember names Like that Jen Flash Andrews the producer emeritus of this program had the most convoluted way of trying to remember which one is hall and which one is oats because one of them is taller right but i can't hall is tall

that's like oh so it does rhyme i thought it was like i thought it was counterintuitive or something

but she was like it had something to do with the number of letters in their names of like hall had four letters and oats was some i mean it was it was the hardest way to remember who's hall and who's oats when you have hall is tall right there for you yeah even that doesn't really help me

because i can i mean do they both have mustaches i mean that's i just picture a mustache i mean

like they're pretty different looking dudes so hall is uh has kind of blonde hair and he is much taller than oats who has a mustache and is a little darker complected and is much shorter if if the video for out of time out of touch is any reminder where i believe they're inside of a giant kick drum oh really that sounds terrible oh not good yeah not good at all but i do think it's actually the the second act of uh is it john hall is that his name uh has been kind of interesting because he does like he for a while and he was just doing this kind of cool web series where he just have people over to his backyard and they'd play music and seems to be really he seems to be

having quite the enjoyable uh dotage and oats uh sent a tweet out the other day that says join me on parlor so no i'm just joking i'm just kidding wow shots fired it's just like one of those things where you haven't thought about a celebrity for a while and so you see what they're up to you're like oh john tesch come follow i'm leaving twitter come follow me on parlor you're like uh i still hear the john tesch radio hour on my beloved kicksy although well we don't have time to get into what he's programming it's just not what's going on it's just not it's just not what it was It just used to be, like, really old oldies, and now it's, like, you know, a lot of stuff from the 70s, and I, well, Genevieve disagrees with me, I'm just like, I feel like there are a lot of radio stations out there that play music from the 70s, Veves disagrees, she feels like that is not a thing, but I just feel like it's much easier to find music from the 70s, and, like, I don't understand, like, you're an AM, I'm sorry, I'm just, this has been building up for a while, you're an AM radio station, I understand that playing music from the 50s is not probably the most profitable direction you can go in, but it's where you are right now, and at least you're carving out a niche, right? And I just sort of feel like, how can we become more competitive? I know. Try to take a bite of the apple of something that's already being served on the FM dial. Right. It's like –

If you play music that was recorded to be played on AM, at least you're not losing fidelity, right?

If it's not on a Victrola, I don't want it. No, it's just me. I'm just an old man yelling at clouds like my super old school radio station can't survive in 2022. Of course it can't. I realize that things have to change. I wish them all the best. But, like, I look at my, you know, AM 880 window cling here, and I, you know, it brings me a little bit of wistfulness, for lack of a better word.

I was, well, speaking of throwbacks, Andrew, can I just take a minute to give some free promotion to Les Schwab Tire Centers here? They're the ones who give out the meat. In the great Pacific Northwest. I don't know if they do the free beef anymore. I didn't see any signs for that. Of course, if you live in the Northwest in like Washington, Oregon or Idaho, you're probably well familiar with the Les Schwab tire service operation. And I think he must have been a rancher as well or something. There's like probably I bet to the story is he had like one store and like Pocatello or something. And he also had a head, a herd of cattle. And so as to promote to promote his tires or his business, he would give free beef away. And then it just became this big thing when I was growing up, free beef, which I always thought was very odd to get your beef from a tire center.

I would be thinking about tires the entire time I'd be eating my beef.

But like, so I think because of all the construction that I'm doing up at the house, there must just be some loose screws about because I've had not one, but two slow leaks that have been the result of me getting a screw stuck in my tire. and one was on the passenger the front passenger side and I went to a Les Schwab up in southern Washington and pulled in this was like a week ago I pulled in and it was like five they closed at six and it was like 5 30 and I thought there's just no way that they're gonna be able to fix this for me I'm just basically pulling up see if I can make an appointment for tomorrow and they're just like okay just give us your keys what's your phone number and I gave it to him and then like they just wheel it right into the shop and then literally five minutes later the kid comes back and goes oh yeah you just had a screw in there i pulled it out and it's fixed i was like oh you go oh there's no charge for that wow what so then i noticed yesterday that the rear tire on the passenger side is now losing air pretty rapidly and i'm thinking i just gotta i'm like we were talking about this a while ago on the show how sometimes you'll do something That takes five minutes every single day Instead of just taking an hour to fix it Or sometimes Ten minutes to fix it honestly So I was like I guess I'm just going to be Probably refill I'm going to be putting air in this tire for the next two years That's what I'm going to do Every two days I'm going to have to find A gas station with an air pump And then fill this thing up And as I was having that thought I looked over And there was a Les Schwab Like I'm driving down Broadway Street in Portland And there's a Les Schwab And I said okay This is my sign And I pull in to the Les Schwab And I just love It is like unchanged from my childhood Like the smell of the store It smells like rubber They have free popcorn They have copies of Les Schwab's memoir Which he wrote

Wait I want to What is it called Let me find it Is it I'm tired The Les Schwab story or tire me out let's see here really just keep on tapping into the same wordplay there i'm trying

to get back to um the actual i said a tweet out about this when then by the way the lesh schwab corporate account responded oh and they were they were very positive is it called rubber match the lesh schwab story that would be great um it is called sorry this is the slowest way of it's called it's called pride on performance oh damn okay sorry what was it less i my guess would be that i i don't want to dig too deep into what less schwab's politics were because i can't imagine it was progressive yeah right yeah dude like a rancher turned tire magnate from idaho uh but the book is called less schwab pride in performance uh what keep it going go ahead

oh that's a keep going what about less is more that's really good well they charge you less

because I pull in there yesterday and this time I'm like okay this is going to be a situation I'm watching the young person take the tire off of my car put it on that thing where you actually take the tire now off of the rim and I'm like okay this is going to set me back a little bit and again this whole process This takes about 15 minutes or so.

and then he puts it back on my car and then he just walks out and he goes uh mr burbank and i go yeah and he goes oh here you go i go what was it he goes a screw i got it out any charge he goes nope free again yeah i've gotten two holes in my tires repaired by these people i don't know how they're in business between the free beef the free popcorn and the free tire fixes i don't get the

business model but i love it i'll well not to be a turd in a punch bowl here but um did you check your change drawer your little wherever you keep your change in the car is that they are allowed to go through that are they grabbing that are they stealing that see that's that's how they make their money you you come in they're like oh yeah free service free service but then you go to like pay a parking meter or a toll in 1995 i guess when people were using coins to do those

things and you realize you've been had uh-huh yeah that's how they get you the thing is i feel like this these les schwabs now i've been in two of them i've been one here in portland one up by the house i'm working on and they they look and smell exactly the same as each other and also exactly like when i was probably 12 years old and would have to go in a les schwab with my dad they're totally unchanged by time and i love that yeah like it's the kind of place that has the like you have free coffee but it's like the little paper cup and it's like coffee of sort of questionable drinkability but it's just like they've not they haven't remodeled the stores they're not trying to like keep up with the times in any way shape or form it's just like a time capsule and it is so uh kind of welcoming and nostalgic the one thing that um probably has

changed although i could be wrong about this but i'll bet you when you went there as a kid they were small styrofoam cups probably even the kind that maybe even were a little bit ridged you know what i'm talking about the small size styrofoam cups i was i thought that had been banished from the world but on my road trip to denver when i was stopping at these truck stops you know just to get the biggest coffee possible just to kind of stay alert um i was surprised i was getting these big styrofoam cups of coffee it's still out there really you've got to go into

flyover country though yeah yeah definitely yeah anyway shout out to les schwab love the place and uh and they were very nice to me one other thing i wanted to uh tell you about it's just a funny thing that i saw on twitter it's a guy named ben uh kearns who goes on i think he's on twitter he goes by old old ben kernoby which is a pretty good handle and in honor of this lord of the rings prequel i guess two of the episodes drop tonight he uh said basically what would it sound like if you had matt berry now you were obsessed with matt berry right it's the guy that from what we do in the shadows and he's the rotten soldier guy this is this guy ben kearns doing uh gandalf's lines if they were delivered by matt berry a little late to be trimming the verge don't

you think samwise gamgey peregrim took you total ass next time save us all the trouble and throw yourself down there you little turd tell me when did sarum and the wise become sauron's bitch and abandon reason for total madness so that is really good that's what it would sound like

if they cast i'd be more likely to watch it i um was telling you before the show because you mentioned something about the prequels coming out today and i was like oh that makes sense like i it's one of those things where you know i think this is universal or i'm just like a just a lummox but like i uh it's one of those things where i think i'd probably seen five or six references to lord of the rings just like around the periphery of my social media and push notification life in the past day or two but never really connected any dots or gave it any more thought and then when you said something about the prequels I'm like oh that would be why Amazon was telling me to watch Lord of the Rings today because I didn't give it like thought at the front of my brain but the back of my brain as I dismissed it I was like okay I guess I could watch Lord of the Rings anytime Amazon like chill out the movie's like 20 years old yeah this

is called the Lord of the Rings the Rings of Power yeah and I mean my first thought was well the whole thing with these loader movies is that the special effects were obviously really incredible for their time and super time-consuming and expensive to make can you do that for television but then again it's amazon yeah they have more money than peter jackson right so i get and also you know with cgi and everything now it's it's like because to me it's like if you try to take something that's really epic and cinematic and then you try to make it on the cheap you can like you know you can kind of have a downgrade in the

quality but again it's amazon they have more money than god yeah they have more money than

the government um because they don't give money to the government um yeah and also like you look at i mean lord of the rings was i'm sorry lord of the rings um the game of thrones was that model as well right that was that huge high budget um you know fantasy so it can be done on the on the tv how did that end by the way did we like the ending of that i can't remember i think game of thrones or lord of the rings i think game of thrones they're all sitting in like a diner at the end right uh-huh and a foreigner or journey song is playing no i think they changed it up as

foreigner for this for this scenario yeah i mean i i'm i know i certainly know what my dad's gonna be bit torrenting tonight i'll give him my amazon prime login for this it's a special occasion let him know yeah i'm sure that he's pretty psyched on this um but there also are people we really If we were going to talk about this, we should have DFTB talk about it. Sure thing. He's the recognized world expert on it, literally took a college class about the whole Tolkien universe. But I'm just kind of breezing through this New York Times roundup of the different reviews, and one of the things they're saying is that this is not based on something that Tolkien created thinking this should be a movie or whatever. Let's see here. I'm trying to find this exact review. that somebody was basically saying they're kind of running out of the good Tolkien stuff. A scholar of Tolkien's works, Dr. Michael D.C. Drought, is wary of the trend to create franchises out of literary works, particularly, in this case, without the deceased author's knowledge or permission. If viewers are disappointed by the Amazon series, Drought predicts, it will be because it lacks the literary and moral depth of Tolkien's world. He asks, can a company as intent upon domination as Amazon really understand this perspective and adapt that morality to the screen, which is an interesting way to look at it. Basically, Amazon is Sauron. So can they make a thing? And I don't know if this is even based on, this must be, is this based on something that Tolkien wrote or is this just them basically kind of going

and doing their own thing? Well, your brother was on the show and he answered that question. And I mean, there's this is based on some sort of actual lore in the legit or whatever. Yeah, whatever it is. And again, like I'm is David still listening? Is he going to hear this? I'm actually maybe I'll bleep it all out because it makes me shudder to think that David will hear me talking about this. And my recollection of that conversation being so, so vague. I just remember him being very excited about seeing a tree in the trailer. I believe the tree had significance. I'm sorry, David. That's all I remembered. And I know that it was Groot. and there was a battle troll um no but anyway so yeah your brother was very excited because it was definitely rooted in canon whatever that canon is i'm not sure this is funny though i'm reading

james ponowozik who's the times tv critic uh writing about this his review he says in the early going the series does not reinvent the ring it does however add a few new filigrees it immediately conjures the visual spell of the movies more important it manages eventually and occasionally to create its own swashbuckling storytelling magic some of those magic sparks come in the form of a quote star man who travels to middle earth via a meteor and a nuanced portrayal portrayal of galadriel now this is the thing with all of the like the like the the universe of lord of the rings i mean there's all kinds of magic and powers why does a star man who traveled on

a meteor sound like bullshit to me is it the great kazoo when you said that i told i didn't even i didn't even remember who the great kazoo was until two days ago when you reminded me of the alien from the flintstones little green guy with the big helmet and now i picture what is he

a star traveler yeah a star man who travels to middle earth via a meteor i just that just they again we're talking about a universe that's not constrained by reality already yeah i don't know why a star man i know is weird to me why the idea of like scott bacula quantum leaping into it

seems hokey to me oh that would be a great episode of quantum leap he like leaps into frodo oh boy he he leaps into Schmeagel hey nice nice

Schmeagel or is it Schmeagel Schmeagel or Schmeagel reference there yeah thank you

I've been reading up on my Tolkien I actually haven't I'm surprised when my dad and I were working on the house I expected there to be more Tolkien talk

I would have encouraged it Thank you.

If I ever find myself kind of trapped in a room, it's very rare that I find myself trapped in a room with people anymore. But, you know, if you find yourself working on a project, I do like to plumb the depths of somebody's deep knowledge on a subject like that. You know what I mean? It doesn't even matter how much I'm into it. I just love hearing people talk about their passions.

I was really surprised. So we would work throughout the day and then we would end up sitting out in the yard at night kind of making a little, there's a little, that fire, that one of those solo stoves. And we'd be looking at the stars My dad knows a lot about Astronomy and about He's really obsessed with the James Webb Telescope Which was great because I got him to admit that the universe Is not 7,000 years old Was that a real thing? Oh, that's what I was taught in school That was what I was taught up until I Transferred schools my senior year That the universe is actually only You know, about 7,000 years old

Well, respectfully walk me through this And so did you guys have a conversation that he walked into it still kind of with that belief or maybe not at the forefront of his mind, but sort of a lingering belief? And during this conversation, you guys kind of worked it out and arrived at this sort of new conclusion for him? Or you realized in this conversation that over time your dad's views have changed?

I think his views have changed a little bit because the version of Christianity that I was raised in basically treats the Bible as a very literal thing. It's not a bunch of allegories. It's not kind of stories that have some sort of moral implication but are not literal. Like I grew up in a religious Tradition that said the earth was Literally created in seven days Well six days and then he rested on the seventh Which is why we watch football on Sundays But like You know and that it's again it's not It's not just kind of like a nice book with some Instructions for life that you can take some of it And leave some of it it's everything In there is it literally Happened people were literally raised from the Dead etc etc so if that and in the school that i went to taught the same thing i mean i've i've told this story many times but i i pretty much went into college ready to blow my teacher's minds over the the theory of evolution because my science teacher bill bame was would give us these little like it's so funny looking back on it how ridiculous this stuff is but like if the universe is actually as old as they say it is based on the amount of dust that settles on the moon when the astronauts land on the moon they would have fallen through 15 miles of moon dust so that was supposed to be like proof that the universe is only 7 000 years old because the the astronauts did not plummet through 15 miles of moon dust like stuff like that so anyway i was yeah so that's how i was raised this is like very literal stuff going on it's not like i said it's not allegory and so So getting my dad to, but my dad also really likes science and he, I mean, he's not an idiot. So he understands like all this stuff with the looking back 18 billion years in the universe's history with the infrared light and stuff. He buys all of that. So then I was like, well, then dad, that means right. The earth is not 7,000 years old. He's like, no, it's not 7,000 years old. But that was a big thing because that's the first I've ever heard him basically say that there's something that's biblical that might not be literal.

Yeah. did you not talk about centering myself in the story but did you run by him my theory that god was a exactly mediocre bowler not really good he wasn't ready for that we're just baby steps okay

that's baby steps i'm just smart i'm turning the water up on the uh on the frog slowly but surely we got him to admit that the universe is not 7 000 that was my project okay but when it thunders

god's bowling and he's okay he's okay he's moving the furniture wait i thought that's what i thought we decided that that's something else that's when it uh i can't remember sure all right let's take

a quick break and then when we come back we got these top stories to do including uh what's going on in canada where people keep eating insects accidentally on live tv i've got the tape and We'll play it for you. Coming up here on TBTL. We've got to thank some daily donors. I will tell you, though, Andrew, during the break, Hawk Squad, my sister Sarah popping in. Anyone watch the new Loader series on Amazon Prime yet? I heard it's awesome. Can't wait to watch tonight. So, yes, this will be a big deal within the Burbank family.

Did it just drop like hours ago or did it drop?

I think it's, I think it comes out tonight. Actually, I don't think it's even out yet. Gotcha. So I don't actually know how, I think I read that tonight it actually premieres, but nice. Anyway, it is on the radar. I look forward. Yeah, I'm legit. legit interested not in knowing what happens in the show but knowing your family especially your dad and your brother i legit want to know their reaction to it yeah i will uh i'll update you

tomorrow on what the reviews are within the family we've got to thank alexis keogh in alexandria virginia for being one of our donors of the day these are the fine wonderful generous people who are supporting tbtl each month with a donation and it's how we're able to do the show Kevin, Covey, and Sarah Spots are in Bellingham, Washington. What a town. What a town. Thanks, Kevin and Sarah. Steve Newman. What? A.K.A. the Stewbot.

Does this sound like a musical Stewbot? I was just texting with that guy this morning.

I was, too. What? I think he's in Chicago. He was walking by the Studebaker Theater where they do the wait-wait. Oh, nice. And he posed for a pic. Oh, nice. Thanks. Stu, appreciate you. I don't know if he'll hear this. This, of course, is the business model for our show, is people that we used to work with and our actual family members donating. Yeah.

The thing is, people who know us personally know how sad we really are in real life, and they realize they're like, we've got to support this little project for these guys. They don't have a lot going on.

That's true. Joe Fulcher is in Snohomish, Washington, one of our Snohomies. are we allowed to use that since ron and don don't really do a radio absolutely yes i would use it

even when they had a radio show in fact if they took me to court i would claim that i came up with

it i would just dig in who knew that those two would become vastly more wealthy from real estate than from radio i mean i guess if i if i say it out loud that's like yeah no doy but like you know you got an afternoon drive time show and and that's a pretty big deal in a in a city like seattle and then i you know i'm impressed at their second act of getting into real estate and

really running with it yeah yeah i know i don't i don't you know you have um a passion for for lack of a better word for real estate and you know looking at listings constantly and stuff i have a passion for flash which has got you in trouble in the past um i that's why i can't go to the ymca pool anymore that's why your picture is up at green lake um i anyway i uh yeah like that that would not be a career pivot that i can even relate to or that sounds attractive to me but the idea of a career pivot a successful career pivot is always interesting i think of very different scenario because he was much younger but our friend nick who I knew as a radio producer at Cairo, you know, that's how we became friends. He just decided at one point, you know what? This radio thing isn't for me anymore. I'm sick of being in the other room listening to Dory Monson. That's not his direct quote, but I think there's some of that in there. Working for the same radio station as some people that he fundamentally disagreed with, and he's like, you know what? I'm going to become a computer coder, and boom, he just did it, and now he's again. And my guess is, again, not to count other people's money, but my guess is things like computer coding. You think coders are making more than radio talk show producers or the commercial station? Exactly.

We've got to thank Julie Huffman as well, down there in Oxnard, California. Oh, I know Oxnard. It's the funniest part of the KCRW legal ID. Yeah, that's right. I was in Oxnard last year, and I went for a little jog along the beach there. It's just absolutely beautiful Did you see the tower? Did you see the repeater? I didn't But I'll look for it next time I'm there I'll also look for Julie Huffman Who's supporting the program Thanks Julie And then Hey Lloyd! This is not Pizza Lloyd though This is Lloyd Inouye Is in Seattle, Washington We would not be here without our daily donors

Hello and welcome to Top Story

This happened while we were doing the summer games But I still thought it was kind of interesting A news anchor For Global National In Canada Named Farah Nassar Swallowed a fly during a live Broadcast This is what I feel like this is your worst nightmare for some reason Andrew, I don't know why But like, I just think For some reason I thought this would really This would upset you if you were doing the show We were doing the show and a fly flew right into your mouth and you swallowed it.

It would be gross, but I will say that of the experiences in my life that, you know, that I'm most afraid of, this would not be it because it's happened to all of us in some manner, right? Like you're back, you know, I used to ride a motorcycle as a little kid or even riding your bike or maybe even jogging. You probably have sucked up bugs, you know, hopefully not as big as a fly, but, you know, it happens. It's gross. I mean, it's really gross if you think about where flies go, but, you know, it happens.

Yeah, here's what it sounded like.

Pakistan has never seen an unbroken cycle of monsoons quite like this. Eight weeks of nonstop torrential rain. A national emergency has been invoked, but the weather in Pakistan, the extreme weather, is alarming. Meet the Gretchen reports.

Waiting for that to happen was worse than hearing it happen. I was listening for her breath because I knew it was going to happen when she took an inhale of breath, and that was upsetting.

Well, the reason that it was kind of funny was because it also happened to Doug Ford, who is the Ontario premier. He's also the brother of that guy, Rob Ford. Remember him? Yes, I remember him. I was about to say, what, is everybody there named Ford? He's the brother of that dude, which, I mean, I have to say, like, I think about Canada as being kind of superior to the U.S. because they have better gun laws and they have, you know, national health care. and uh just canada just feels like the u.s if we got our shit together do you have that same kind

of sense is that kind of how you think yeah sometimes but are you gonna finish that thought by saying then you remember oh yeah no they have some real crackpots there who yeah oh yeah they

elected this guy rob ford who was literally a crackpot in that he was smoking crack yeah like i believe while in office he ended up passing away i think he ended up with an illness but like there was a period of time where you just had like a completely unhinged crack smoking mayor of a major canadian city and i i don't believe i forget how it ended for him but it was surprising but they didn't run him right out of office over that yeah i feel like it took some time

and you know i actually have a couple of pieces of tape that i grabbed of him back in the day like this was this was going down this news story about him doing drugs while being mayor was going down probably the time that you and i worked at cairo so i was much more um likely to pull news like pieces of news tape that may or may not work as drops now i never play these because i don't i again i haven't heard these in years and years because it's not funny you know what i mean like whenever i grab these i don't know what i was thinking but it's like i don't know that that story just has a lot of sadness to it but i actually if you don't mind i want to listen to these i have two short pieces of tape of of rob ford yes i have smoked crack cocaine probably in one of my drunken stupors oh that's right that because his answer to that was almost like he was saying well yeah i've smoked it but i was probably drunk off my ass which was

kind of a kind of a funny i have to say like and i'm not no part of me wants to moralize about what people do or don't do but i mean you know as do the listeners that i have been at times in my life intensely inebriated intensely inebriated never occurred to me to smoke crack never not even once not in my absolute drunkest moment like the idea that that's well yeah i i smoked a little crack because i was drunk like no you people put a pizza in the oven and forget about it because they're drunk right i don't feel like smoking crack is on that list here i just want to hear

what this other one is and again i i'm sorry this is just out of my own curiosity why i grabbed this

tape back in the day this is 17 seconds good evening everyone welcome to sun news and ford nation i'm mayor rob ford you've heard the late night comedians you've heard the critics you've heard about the pundits you've heard the criticism and the counselors now tonight i want you to

listen to me actually the back half of that is really good intro tape you've heard from everybody

else now i want you to hear from me i remember that tape so vividly because he says pundits pundits exactly i've always when i hear the word pundit i think pundit because of that rob ford tape by the way he was 46 when he passed away and it was that's my age andrew he did die

of complications i mean he was a you know like i think he lived a very unhealthy life right like i think he did die of complications that were related to his he he had cancer oh he did oh i'm sorry the guardian says okay my apologies i i thought it had something to do with but it was

crack related no all right let's not laugh anyway well i don't know i mean i think that again i'm i'm glad for the existence of rob ford because it makes me feel less self-conscious about how we compare to canada as a nation like if you if you put rob ford in office there's you know you can't get you can't you can't be too cocky is i guess my is my thought on that um i don't know the story with his brother my guess is his brother is not a person who smokes crack when drunk and seems to be i i don't know his politics but i think rob was the was the the rapscalian in the family anyway this is doug ford trying to give a speech outside when a bee flies

into his mouth it's coming from the health sector holy christ what was that oh my Great.

I'm good. He's down here buzzing around right now.

He's pointing to his stomach, by the way. It's actually a pretty good save that Doug Ford does here.

He has a lot of real save. Now, if that was in the clip, okay, this is going to be replayed over and over again. And that just made Colin DeMello's day. He's going to be laughing all the way back to the scene.

I had to Google who Colin DeMello is. He is a journalist in Canada I thought it was a Lord of the Rings thing The other thing that I saw yesterday that I thought was kind of interesting is this New York Times story about doppelgangers Did you happen to look at this? Yeah, I think I saw that maybe over the weekend or something So the headline, this is Kate Golombiewski writing in the New York Times Your doppelganger is out there and you probably share DNA with them there's this photographer in canada named francois brunel um and he basically i don't know actually how he found these people but he managed to find a bunch of people who have someone else who looks almost exactly like them but they're not related and then he took photos of them and put together this kind of like photo series they're beautiful um he said uh the picture series is titled i'm not a lookalike which is like a terrible name for it but whatever it's a cool project it was inspired by mr brunell's discovery of his own lookalike the english actor rowan atkinson aka mr bean

it isn't it didn't there was something there was something about that line you're reading from the article i don't have in front of me right now there's something about that article that line that i thought it says something like he was inspired after he discovered his own doppelganger i'm like what do you mean discovered like that guy is super famous it was such a it was an interesting way of putting that like was he just watching mr bean right on television he was like hey that guy looks exactly like me right anyway so so i did and the article actually the photos are beautiful because they're from the artist right they're those black and white photos um and the article kind of the article is kind of interesting when it kind of gets into the dna stuff but um i actually am more interested in the human side and the article doesn't get into that Like, does he, has he met Rowan Atkinson? Like, did he ever communicate with them? Did he ever propose doing a shoot with him? I'd like to hear more about that.

Also, is Rowan Atkinson a particularly homely person, or is it just that he's always mugging so hard as Mr. Bean? I don't know. Like, I don't know what a relaxed Rowan Atkinson looks like. Like, I've never seen him just, like, drinking a martini without, like, dunking his head in it.

Yeah. Yeah. And what was the and his other show was Black Adder, Black Adder. OK, thank you. I was going to say something about a hatter, I think. So good. Thanks. Does he make the same face in that? Like sucking his chin back into his neck or whatever he does as Mr. Bean?

Picturing him doing that makes me laugh. So I guess I got to give it to him on that. I've only seen one episode of Black Adder. It was so long ago. I remember thinking it was really funny, but being like a kid and kind of like because it's it's set in. it's like everyone's in wigs you know it's like set in whatever that period of history is

doesn't it and now i'm only thinking of this as you're saying this i'm not pretending like i know more about blackadder than i'm letting on because i don't think i've seen it or it was the type of thing that i think for a period in high school or college people were saying like you gotta see it you gotta see it and then i turned it on and it was not what i was expecting and it was not my kind of humor for that moment and i wasn't i wasn't set up properly for it and i remember just being like um no thank you rich kazarian like this is not for me um but i thought it i thought that that was one of those shows where each season takes place in a very different time period oh

that's totally possible maybe i just happened to watch the one that set in like you know the like french revolution era or whenever it was that people were wearing a lot of frilly blouses and and and wigs the other one the the two shows that like so i've talked about this a lot but it was like i remember going over to some of my friends houses when i was a kid and there were these very subtle signifiers of their parents being different than mine like one they had hardwood floors i've always liked hardwood floors we never we had this gross carpet my whole life growing up and i always wanted hardwood floors they would order thai food sometimes or they would be cooking and it would be like the smell would be unfamiliar to me because they were using some kind of like you know interesting seasoning or whatever and they would sometimes they would have like the new yorker and they also would watch they would be into black adder and red dwarf i just realized those are two

different things too yeah i'm wondering now if red dwarf is the one is that the one that changes but i'll tell you this our audience is gonna go this is we have some listeners who have built a

trebuchet to hoist their phone.

into the stratosphere right now i can hear people knocking it together putting the trebuchet together to just fling their phones into the sun because uh because yeah the fandom around blackadder and red dwarf is intense and so for the people who love those shows us just completely botching a 35 year old memory of them is going to be very frustrating i and and me a guy who's never even

seen them or watched like five minutes once and just said no it's not for me but um you know i am okay i at least think i'm right about this i thought that black adder took place in a bunch of different time periods including one season in the future i don't see it taking place in the future but each season did take place in a different historical time so i at least was right about that but i do think you're right that red dwarf that takes place that's a that's like a space show right okay good i was kind of and i thought that was very funny too when i watched

but those were both on i mean those are bbc shows i believe and so they would be on pbs yeah and so when i would go over to like my friend ben mcgow's house his parents would be like they were into that kind of stuff like because they were smart they probably listened to public radio and it seemed sophisticated exactly and we were more in my family watching high tops uh christian musical angels that come down and go to high school but that stuff uh that it made such an impression on me and it's it's funny how much i mean not so much the tv stuff but just like a craftsman home i remember you know because our house wasn't a craftsman our we had a rental and it was a kind of an odd i don't even know how you describe its architectural style but my friends who lived in craftsman houses they also kind of like that was a signifier of something and so i always wanted to have a house that was a craftsman that had like a big front porch it was all this stuff that was imprinting on me as a little kid of like this is what i want my life to be like and so much of my adult life is just trying to basically enact that for myself you know it's

funny so much of my adult life as i get older kind of and i i don't in all seriousness as much as i rag on myself about this i don't think it's actually to the degree of something that should be concerning but it's like as i get older my comfort isn't building a world around me that was aspirational for what i saw as a kid but more like what i actually was doing as a kid boy as i say it But like, I love my little rumpus room down here with a dartboard and, you know, just like listening to music and sometimes actually listening to records and stuff I might have even listened to back then and and just playing darts and just like that's something I would have done as a kid. You know, it's like I I feel like more and more I'm not saying I'm building my life around trying to be a child because I'm I mean, if Jen, I think Genevieve can hear me right now and she's probably rolling her eyes thinking you have totally recreated your life to be a child. But like I'm hoping that I still have maintained a little bit of maturity when necessary. But for my real like comfort zone, it's kind of like I'm drawn to things that give me a sort of cozy, nostalgic feeling.

And what I want to be is I don't know if you're familiar with the if you don't know the name of it, I'm sure you're familiar with the picture. But there's this thing called the Stall House. Right. It was one of the case study homes. And it's basically a big glass box. It's in Los Angeles And it's I mean I've I've talked about this A million times But like I think the most And this is probably wrong But if I picture My most relaxed I could be I'm in a suit I'm in the stall house I'm drinking a martini And I'm staring out Over the swimming pool At downtown Los Angeles

Oh yeah This is the one that So many movies Have been shot in there And I think Lebowski The Lebowski scene Was shot in there I think too Right Oh really What's the pornographer's name In Lebowski

Oh Jackie Treehorn

No that's I think that's a different place Oh okay but I've seen photos of this place

It's funny because I'm like that's the most Uncozy thing ever I want to be sitting In like an Eames yeah like a wood Molded Eames chair But I'm in a suit Yeah and I'm and I'm drinking a Martini and I'm just staring Out of this glass box at this City like nothing The sun is baking down on Me and the property that That somehow is my cozy place

Well you know what's funny is I'm describing almost two different things here because i see this and like this is this this brings me joy to see this and if i had a place that people were coming over to this is like my my taste what i think is nice and what i would want people to come over to see or if i was visiting somebody this type of style and architecture is what i love i don't like the idea of somebody coming over to a house that if it's my house and it it smells like last night's dinner and it's too cozy or it's too cramped. Vives and I have been talking. She wants to bring another piece of furniture into this one room that I think is beautiful. Oh, I was going to say another person into the relationship. Boy, you got... Slow down, Luke. I don't even know if you're at the top of that list, so just chill out for two seconds. I would say I'm not even in the top 100. But, um...

You know, like I like space. I don't like things to be crowded or whatever. But it's like when I'm alone, when I'm regressing to my own personal cozy place, I think it's like more recreating little moments of my childhood or something. Or surrounding myself like I don't like clutter. I really dislike clutter. But I do kind of like objects, especially objects that sort of transport me. You know what I mean? Which is why I like a Walkman or what have you.

So the thing about this stall house, if I remember right, is that it was not a super expensive house at the time. And I don't think it was built for some kind of, you know, like a mega wealthy person because, you know, this whole the case, the case study project was I think Art and Architecture magazine got a bunch of architects together and they said, we want you to basically put together some designs for homes that would be work for how people actually live. And they made this whole list of these case study homes and some of them got built and some of them didn't. But if I remember reading about this correctly, it was it was at the time not like, oh, we're going to build you the fanciest house in L.A. It was like, no, this is a relatively cheap piece of property and it has a cool view. And we're going to do this glass box kind of as an experiment. And I'm so I think that it might be like the grandkids that still own the house. I think the house is registered as a historic thing, but I think people just still live there, and it might even be people that are related to the original people. And those are the times, Andrew, when I really curse my legacy or lack thereof. Why didn't I have a grandfather who had Pierre Koenig build a glass box house in L.A.? Nobody in my family line ever had any money, had any possessions, other than my granddad's Swiss Army knife that I have. Like I can't I can't relate to people who and again, you know, God bless like I'm really trying to cut down on my class envy or my resentment around that stuff because being born without a lot of money is was was it was no more of a choice for me as it would be for somebody who was born into great financial circumstances. And like if I had a grandfather who wanted to leave me a cool thing, I would be stoked about it. So I'm not trying to judge anyone, but I just can't relate to the idea of like having like a I've been thinking about this a lot, like people that have a week, like a lake cabin in their family. Somebody at some point had to like buy or build a cabin and then people just get to go to it for generations. It's like such a great thing. And I'm like, why didn't anyone before me have that idea? Why am I the person that's going to have to figure out how to buy a lake cabin? I'm looking by the way you're right

Jackie Treehorn did not live here but a bunch of other films were filmed here weirdly I'm talking about the stall house right now by the way but weirdly not anything that that I think I've seen which is weird because I feel like I've seen this in so many movies the ones that are popping up in IMDB are 1999's Galaxy Quest yes I don't know if you're looking the same list Corinna Corinna that was what year was that that was 94 nurse betty uh was filmed they're like i was expecting more like you know james bond andrew oh where is

that it was featured i'm reading the wikipedia page it was featured uh on colombo so maybe that also i can totally picture yeah john stewart's character in the movie why do fools fall in love

oh in 1998 lived in that house um let's see here oh is the colombo episode was prescription murder no way this is what it looks like on that just i thought you were just making a joke am i right hold on i'm on wikipedia about a colombo episode that sounds like the most colombo thing that's ever colombo yeah i'm looking now at the wikipedia page and that was the episode that was their prescription which reminds me what was the um what was the dick van dyke show diagnosis oh yeah diagnosis murder yeah veves and i cannot say the name of that show without saying it in that way with that pause all right uh let's do a little music for

your weekend before we skedaddle i'm on this website for the stall house and they say save the stall house dear friends we need your urgent help this house is potentially at risk they they like the the city thinks that the uh hill that it's on is not stable enough so the city is trying

to make them take the house down oh wow that's a real thing in what year did you already say this what year was this actually born uh born built houses like this are not built luke they are

really no they're born into existence they come here on a meteor they're a star man yeah i don't know when it was built but anyway um i will um i will ignore that troubling news that they might tear down the stall house and focus instead on music for your weekend uh what would

you like to play um i told you i was texting with the student not to name drop but with the stew bot earlier today. Daily Donor, Steve Newman.

Exactly. We were trading some song recommendations and maybe next week I'll play the one that that he sent me. I'm going to play the one that I sent him first, though. I was unfamiliar with this artist. Their name is Alex Leahy. This came to me just via email this week via press release. And I was like, oh, I really like it. The song is Congratulations. You will not be surprised to know that I like this song. It just ticks all or checks all of my sort of 90s indie rock boxes, even though it is a brand new song. Take a listen to this called Congratulations.

Why do I still think about you all the time? Congratulations. So happy for your perfect life. There's something in my eye. I'm doing just fine without you. Without you. We were so young and immature And fucking dumb and insecure I guess I never really tried You're better off, I'm out of mind

I'm seeing now that Alex Leahy is an Australian musician. Of course she is, because I think whenever I hear a musician I like, I find out they're from Australia. But also, Alex Leahy had a song on our 2018 Song of the Summer contest, actually, a song called Every Day's the Weekend. So this is not the first time Alex Leahy has popped up in our conversations, but I really dig this song.

Yeah, that sounds good. That sounds like got some Pixies energy going on.

Yeah, I felt very Throwing Muses-ish. Yeah, no, I see that also, listener Jeremy suggested a song by Alex Leahy way back in like 2016. So, yeah, Alex Leahy's been around and kind of on our radar for a while, even though I was not giving that the respect that it was due.

Put some respect on Alex Leahy's name, Andrew, please. Great stuff, though. I dig that so much. Yeah, I want to play a Thelonious Monk song, actually, which I just came up on a playlist. I think maybe some Thelonious Monk that I heard at one time was a little maybe atonal for me or something. I think I've always kind of had, like, I've been intimidated by the music of Thelonious Monk. But this song, I'm Confessing That I Love You, is just beautiful and just kind of a nice, I don't know, summertime sound. I was reading up on him a little bit. He had, obviously, a very interesting life. This is according to Wikipedia. Monk's distinct look included suits, hats, and sunglasses. He also had an idiosyncratic habit during performances. While other musicians continued playing, Monk would stop, stand up, and dance for a few moments before returning to the piano. That's cool. Then I got into, like, his sort of towards the end of his life, and it sounds like he dealt with some mental health issues and things. But he was he sort of lived out his the sort of end of his life in Weehawken, New Jersey, with basically being taken care of by a friend named Panonica de Koningsvorter, who was basically a Rothschild. And she was this like incredibly wealthy, practically, she was the Baroness Kathleen Ann Panonica de Koningswater, but who's Rothschild by her maiden name was Rothschild. and she was just this like incredibly rich british like aristocrat who then gets divorced and moves to weehawken new jersey where she buys this huge house and just becomes like a crazy jazz fan and then it's just like driving all the jazz musicians to their gigs in her um she had some like huge fancy uh what would be a huge fancy car back then like a studebaker i don't know cars Maybe a Studebaker. No. She had some kind of fancy car that she would just drive people around to their gigs. And I just thought – and then she took care of Thelonious Monk. She, like, kind of, you know, in his declining years. I, like, thought, what an interesting plot development for that lady's life. Yeah, that's cool. Anyway, this is the song that I want to play. I'm confessing that I love you. Can we hear a little bit of that?

Thank you. Thank you.

Thelonious Monk was once quoted saying, the piano ain't got no wrong notes. When people were talking about his, because I guess he had, and I'm just learning this from Wikipedia, but he had a pretty distinct style and he was not for everyone and he would play things that sounded kind of jumbled up sometimes. But that was just his thing. I'm trying to think,

I'm sure this goes way, way back and I'm not trying to think, I'm trying to Google on the fly here. the origins of this song, like who wrote it or how far back it goes. I'm sure this is one of those standards, right? That this is just his version of it, maybe? I'm assuming a lot of jazz songs are like that, especially. It looks like this goes back to 1929, written by somebody named Chris Smith.

Oh, okay. One last thing, which now I can't find this on the sort of, and his Wikipedia page is even longer than mine, Andrew, if you can believe.

to say anything about growing up on the freedom ranch sorry um i forgot the name of your ranch

lighthouse ranch the lighthouse ranch uh there were these two i mean again it sounds like philomus monk was dealt with some mental health stuff but like he was once traveling i wish i wish i should have circled this but there there's an art there's a mention in here that he was touring with these two other musicians and for like a long time and maybe even like through europe and stuff and he never spoke to them the entire time like they he just he was not talkative and then later one of the musicians like asked him like you know did we do something to offend you or something and he said uh you're just too ugly to talk to what yeah that's rude that was his response could you imagine i mean that is a very different personality in the world than you and i have yeah certainly you sit in a room are you able to be in an elevator with someone and not say how's it going or or or anything like i i don't even think i can do that that feels like withholding

to me i know i know the feeling you're talking about elevators i'm okay with because i sort of feel like we have a understanding as a society in fact i if i if i'm sharing an elevator with somebody i tend to just look down at my feet i think or i'll lock on to something in the elevator and just stare at that so that i don't have to make eye contact yeah the idea that you could be

on a a tour um with somebody for like a year and that you would never here i'm going to read this bassist mckibben who had known monk for over 20 years and planned his final tour later said on that tour monk said about two words i mean literally maybe two words he didn't say good morning good night what time nothing why i don't know he sent word back after the tour over uh And he sent word back after the tour was over that the reason he couldn't communicate or play was that Art Blakey and I were so ugly.

That's why I decided not to talk to these guys. Art Blakey looked like. Now I know in movies when people just hang up the phone without saying goodbye. And I'm just like, that is not how people interact. I guess maybe some people do interact that way.

Maybe they're just doing their Thelonious Monk impression. Hey, the listener suggestion this week is from listener Steve. I believe this is the Steve who is out at Wolf Trap as well. Oh, nice. Hey, Steve, how's it going? Steve says, hey, guys. So I have a podcast about plants, and that often leads me on wild Internet searches for audio that is relevant to the plants in question. I discovered this song while searching for something related to sassafras. It's the four vagabonds. They were one of a number of groups who around the 1940s inspired by the mills brothers they made music with only a guitar and vocals it's charming af this song is called hoe cake hominy and sassafras tea by the four vagabonds and then steve says no need to mention it on the air but my podcast is called root bound okay we won't mention it then okay i think that's a good name for it is podcast root bound i agree so this is and i think i don't know if i deleted this part of the message there's another steve said there's another version of hoe cake and hominy and sassafras um but this is the one he wanted to play i'm just thinking like if you type hoe cake into the internet i don't know what you're going to get back um but that's how we're going to wrap the uh show up and wrap up our broadcast week with this song by the four vagabonds so thank you so much for listening everyone thanks for spending this time with us we're going to be back here on monday with more imaginary radio for you so please do join us for that until then have a great weekend take care of yourselves go mariners and please remember no mountain too tall and good luck to all

We're off on a southern frat kick Okay, harmony, it's that's a fresh tea A food, a root, a scooty with a vitamin B Okay, harmony, it's that's a fresh tea That's what's cooking for my baby and me Oh, cake, harmony, and sassafras tea A kiddle of fruity vittles from the griddle to me Oh, cake, harmony, and sassafras tea That's what's cooking for my baby and me I love jazz.

You love jazz?

Yes.

Name three key jazz musicians.

Miles Davis.

Number one, yeah.

Lance Armstrong.

The trumpet player, Lance Armstrong. Yes. Okay, and number three.

The Loneliest Monk.

The Loneliest Monk?

Yes.

Yeah?

Mm-hmm.

Because I've heard of a guy called Thelonious Monk. You're not thinking of him?

Yeah, yeah, that's what I said. That's what you said. Yeah, he's great.

No, sure, sure, sure.

He's great.

You clearly are a jazz aficionado. My apologies.

Power out.