Muse

Hey, Luke. Hey, Andrew. It's Stu. I'm just calling to give you this list of the 10 best Darrens in popular culture. Number one is Darren Sproles, a lot of running back. He was really good on my fantasy football team a couple years ago, so he's number one. Number two is Darren Dalton. He played for the Philadelphia Phillies and believed in astral travel and out-of-body experiences. Number three is Darren Robinson. He was one of the original Fat Boys, a rap group from the mid-1980s. Number four is Darren Stevens from the sitcom The Witched, the Dick York version. Number five is Darren Jesse. I believe he was the drummer in Ben Folds 5. Number six, Darren McGavin, the dad from Christmas Story. Number seven is Darren Stevens again from The Witched, the Dick Sargent version. Number eight is Darren Semple, who I went to high school with. Good guy. Number nine is Darren Aronofsky, who was the director of the movie Requiem for a Dream. And number 10 is Darren Hayes, the lead singer of the Australian pop-rock band Savage Garden. Anyway, those are the 10 best Darrens. Anyway, you guys have a good one. TBTL.

Guess what day it is. Guess what day it is. It's Friday.

Friday. Gotta get down on Friday.

Everybody's looking forward to the weekend. I don't read the newspaper. I don't watch news on television unless there's a cat involved. I've never been a person that had friends, and so my friends were two imaginary white cats.

Were you just using a synthesizer? Nope. So you mean to tell me that all of those sounds were coming from your body? Yup. I'm the president of rap music, and I need to work with you right away.

You know what, dude? We can make a lot of money on this. If you're making these out of thin air, I mean, there's no overhead. We're going to be rich.

Oh my god. One hundo a day, both of us, five hundo a week. That's rich. That's it.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Friday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

It's like someone punching your brain, but in a weirdly satisfying way. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host.

Ever since I was told that chrome is real, it tasted good.

Coming to you today from beautiful, albeit warm, Chicago, Illinois.

This is special. This is special.

Near the shores of Lake Michigan, right here in the loop of Chicago, bringing you episode 3768 in a collector's series. Let the fun begin. Where today there is, I guess you would say, sad news, certainly, for a lot of folks in England. The passing of the longest reigning monarch in that country's history, Queen Elizabeth II, has passed away.

Indeed, Queen.

Now, I wouldn't say that Andrew and I are royalty experts at all. But I have uncovered some audio tape that I think was kind of illuminating about at least a corner of Queen Elizabeth II's personality. when the cameras weren't rolling and when she wasn't in the public spotlight. So we'll play you some of that. We'll also tell you about squirrel splooting.

I don't know what those words mean.

And what you need to know if you see a squirrel splooting. Plus, time permitting, we will remind you all that Mount Rainier in Seattle is, in fact, not erupting.

I'm an ideas man, Michael. I think I've proved that with F*** Mountain.

Plus, some music for your weekend on this Friday. All with the help of this young man, longest running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. To me, he's really an innocent champion of honesty, which is why he's not here doing kind of ginned up stories on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Like, that's the reason I'm in Chicago. He is an innocent champion of honesty. And he's joining us right now. He's Andrew Walsh. Hello, my friend.

Luke, I don't know what you were saying about the squirrels there, but I just bleeped it all. I just figured let's just be on the safe side until you explain. Error on the side of caution. Exactly. Whatever you're talking about. Another beep. Man, you know we don't have a big beep budget here, man. Let's go easy on the language. I really don't know what that's talking about.

I was looking around for Splucha the Turtle audio. Oh, no, it doesn't exist. It only exists in our hearts and minds. And maybe we've said it once or twice, but it's probably still living on marsupial grill somewhere.

Oh, most certainly, yeah. Like us saying it. That's true. Do you want me to find some of that while we talk?

No, I'm here. That's all right. I actually, you know, I thought that this was a perfectly reasonable piece of audio.

I don't know what those words mean.

Yes. No, that's not Liz Lennon.

is it or Tina Fey no I believe that is Julia Louis-Dreyfus from Veep oh okay yeah and I could

hear it too the way that audio is kind of um it sounds almost documentary well let me play you

this Andrew I actually edited I edited that drop down there's actually a little more to it I'll play the whole thing and maybe this will solve not not cat rolling here legitimately there's more to it and maybe that will give us more indication I assumed it was Julia Louis-Dreyfus But I maybe I don't know.

I don't know what those words mean. Are you in the middle of some sort of aneurysm?

That's definitely like a thing she'd be saying to a staffer. Yes, most definitely. In fact, I think, you know, that reminds me of you sent me some tape a long time ago and you were not like a you were not like a veep devotee, right?

I am an aspiring veep devotee, Andrew. And all I can say is, much in the way I've heard you're an aspiring oatmeal devotee, more on that in a moment. Oh, yeah, we've got to get to the bottom of that. I have, I can't, I really can't think of a television program that when I have watched it, and I've probably watched it a total of one season, I cannot think of a show that I have derived more just pure, uncut joy and enjoyment from watching than Veep. And yet I have not like just sat down and powered through the whole series. And it's just such a good show. And it's so dense with jokes and withering burns. And it's a very, very big audio component of this program. So I don't know what's wrong with me that I haven't finished, you know, finish things up with Veep because I it's just complete joy when I'm watching it.

I'm looking through my folder full of audio drops here. And there are so many from Veep. And most of them I pulled because I have watched the entire series. In fact, it's kind of like my late night go to on my iPad. If it's if it's late and I'm having a little snack around midnight, like the doctor ordered. Maybe I'll just tell all my 46 year old guys, make it greasy. Anyway, I'll beep that to just burning through that budget. Anyway. So anyway, most of them I have grabbed from the from the crouch cream tape that, you know, I love so much. I mean, there's just so much tape from that show that I use. But you actually sent me this one, and I can't find the isolated version, so you might hear an accidental TBTL at the end of this one. You sent me this years and years ago. It must have been when you were watching the first season. And the only reason I'm playing it here is it sort of has the same energy as the drop, the long version of the drop you just played. Do you still have that handy? I do. Okay, play that again.

I don't know what those words mean. Are you in the middle of some sort of aneurysm?

Now, maybe that's probably a different scene, but it reminds me of this thing that you sent me a long time ago. What are you doing in here?

Getting away from the bad news. Just trying to realign myself. You know what I'd like? I'd like to be cryogenically suspended. Yeah.

And then be woken up in the future?

No, never wake up. Just stay suspended.

Are you drunk?

That's her chief of staff. He's, like, the one guy that she won't lash out at as much as I can remember it. I mean, maybe there's a scene or two.

And that guy, if I'm picturing him, he is sort of – he's a little bit like a Stephen Root-type character in that I feel like I've seen him in so many things. But I couldn't tell you his name, but he pops up in a lot of stuff.

Yeah, you know, that Stephen Root thing, I'm having a little trouble going with you on that. I mean, sort of built like him, kind of same age and kind of build and kind of often playing a rumpled kind of character. You're right about that. Although Stephen Root. Well, you know what? I was going to say Stephen Root often plays a sort of a stepped on character, but that's not true at all. He runs the gamut. He's like the big boss on news radio. Right. Yet he's also like the guy in the basement who cares about his stapler too much in office space.

Yeah, absolutely. And he's on Barry. Oh, God. That's on my list. I mean, he's, yeah, Milhouse Is Milhouse the name of that character? On Barry? I haven't seen it No, no, no, in Office Space Milton, sorry, Milton Okay, yeah, yeah And you're, yeah, that guy's really got some range on him And it's interesting too because I felt like for a long time Knowing that that guy was named Steven Root Was kind of like a It was a little like A bit of trivia that you could kind of like You know, trot out and impress people Oh, you know the guy, Milton from Office Space it's actually named steven root but he has become genuinely particularly through i think the rise of the show barry he is just a legitimately well-known and pretty famous actor whereas it was always kind of like that guy's so versatile but no one knows his name it's like no everybody

knows steven root's name at this point yeah and you but you're right though versatility is his claim to fame and that's really cool because somebody like that could really be typecast pretty quickly you know i would love i'm sure somebody this.

some cheeky bastard has already done this so me this cheeky bastard can't but i wonder if somebody has put in the time to make the argument that um so i'm just laughing at the fact that i'm i don't think i'm a cheeky bastard actually i don't think that i don't think those two words describe me very well i consider you more um an innocent champion of honesty yeah that's closer um but i wonder if somebody has tried put in the time to try to connect the universes of office space and news radio and somehow you know draw lines between those two characters existing in the same universe like is the steven i guess they have different names so a lot would have had to change for steven root to take some sort of journey where he's the head of a radio station in new york but he ends up in the basement of an office okay so you're going that direction it

isn't the story of milton burning down intertrode and then becoming the head of the radio station You're going the other way. He he falls on sort of harder times after the radio station and ends up in the basement.

Maybe I was being too literal with the timeline because that would be, you know, kind of based on his age, the way that would go. But I mean, also, once you're successful, you can have work done. You know, maybe he had some rejuvenation therapy or something.

Sure. Maybe he saw Dr. Arakaki, something I'm considering more every day.

As I weep during interviews, as we were talking about the other day, my tea is in the basement, baby. I was writing the description for yesterday's show, and I just said something like, Luke and Andrew discuss their ongoing attempts not to cry in public. That's becoming the description for more and more episodes.

Now, I want to preface this by saying it's a huge story in the world that Queen Elizabeth II has passed away. So we would be remiss if we didn't mention it on the program, but also, as I've already indicated, we are very poorly equipped for this conversation. We're not really royals watchers. And the other thing is it's a very complicated topic because the history of colonialism in the world, and particularly the monarchy, the British monarchy, is a very, to use a word I think we used yesterday, fraught one. So I don't want to – you even heard me in the intro kind of catch myself because on the one hand, of course, I think that a lot of people feel that Queen Elizabeth really dedicated her life to a form of public service. I mean she spent her entire life as essentially the – with no political power, she was essentially the figurehead of England, and that just means so much stuff that is not fun. There's the, you know, the nice parts about it. But a lot of it just probably is drudgery and tedium and lack of opportunities. You can't just do anything you want at any time. You've really got to live by this very kind of scripted existence. And so you can really look at that as service. I was reading an obit in The New Yorker a couple minutes ago, and they said she came from—I'm paraphrasing, I'm going to mess it up, but it was like she came from immense privilege and was part of a monarchy that did incredible damage, which I think is probably a fair way to sum it up. So I guess I'm just a little nervous talking about it. I don't want to go out too far on one side or the other of this because I just don't know enough about the topic.

Wait, wasn't that headline something like she was the, unless you're talking about a different one, but I saw one that was almost exactly the same until the end, like a product of immense privilege, but also gave great sacrifice or something? Or are you just talking about something?

And I believe, yeah, let's see here. It's the headline because the New Yorker just emailed us, I believe.

Yeah, I saw it.

Let's see. That's probably where you saw it as well. Well, now I'm in the – now I'm trying to scroll through the article on my phone on the fly, which will never end well. The point is I saw this piece of tape, Andrew, that started circulating today online when the news came out that the queen had passed away, which was somebody who was, I guess, part of her. He was like a royal police person, somebody who was basically security detail for the queen for many years. I don't know if you heard this tape or not. No. But it's kind of, you know, again, I'm just and I keep saying this because I just want to be so clear that this is a real kind of cultural blind spot for me. Just the like the monarchy and particularly the more recent British royals and all of that stuff. I just don't it's just not something that I spend very much time thinking about or researching. But I thought this was kind of charming. And it's a story that this police officer is telling about Queen Elizabeth. He and Queen Elizabeth are out on basically a hike. Right. and they bump into some american tourists who do not realize and this is when she was 80 so this is like 16 years ago she passed away at 96 and this is him telling sky news this story of her actually seeming to be pretty like kind of pretty funny and droll i'm gonna play you this tape okay let me know if the level's okay and normally on these picnic sites you meet nobody

but there was two hikers coming towards us and the queen would always stop and say hello and it was two americans on a walking holiday and it was clear from the moment that we first stopped they hadn't recognized the queen which is fine and the american gentleman was telling the queen where he came from where they were going to next and where they'd been to in britain and i could see it coming and sure enough he said her majesty and where do you live and she said well i live in london but i've got a holiday home just the other side of the hills this feels like a really a much

elevated version of when i'm low-keying the fact that like i have some of these kind of fun jobs that i have like oh what are you doing in chicago i'm out there for work what do you do well i work on a radio show oh what's it called it's this oh are you one of the you know behind the scenes folks no i'm i'm one of the people that's out there talking i'm always like i will totally admit that some part of me feels like boy aren't i exercising humility in this moment now that's about a point zero five on the scale of saying well i've got a country place out here that i've

been going sure yeah on holiday the queen of england and he said well how often have you been coming up here oh she said i've been coming up here ever since i was little girl so over 80 years and you could see the clogs thinking he said well if you've been coming up before 80 years you must have met the queen and as quick as a flash says well i haven't the dick you meet so regularly so the guy said to me you've met the queen what's she like and because i was with her a long time when i knew i could pull a leg i said oh she can be very cantankerous at times but she's got a lovely sense of humor by the way that's that feels i mean pretty

that's i mean i feel like that's going going out on somewhat of a limb when you're talking about

the queen of england yeah but i like it it really does speak to the fact that they have a bond where he he was comfortable enough to to do that he wasn't like it wasn't his first day on the job

she didn't faint at this at the in the the impertinence she didn't say off with his head

right exactly you know the next thing i knew this guy comes around put his arm around my shoulder and before i could see what was happening he gets his camera gives it to the queen and says can you take a picture of the two of us anyway we swapped places and i took a picture of them with the queen and we never let on and we waved goodbye and then a majesty said to me i'd love to be a fly on the wall when he shows us photographs to the friends in america and hopefully someone tells him

who i am i mean that's a pretty good bit to be able to stick with it and for for the crane to stick with it you know that's great right yeah i'm also surprised those americans had never seen the

naked gun because there's like a queen elizabeth like impersonator in those movies or at least in One of them, I remember her like getting like swung around from like a ceiling fan or some craziness goes on. That's like my first knowledge of her. Now, this is the thing, though. I didn't realize what I guess that that anecdote is now. I mean, even before she passed, my sense is that anecdote was pretty well known in England. It's really kind of made the rounds because it's so charming, kind of humanizing for her. And so there's I guess that that story is famous enough that there's a guy named Alistair Green who's kind of a comedian who has his own version of it, which I have here. I'm going to play for you. And as her personal protection officer, you see, I want to be clear, this is not the same guy, even though this is Alistair playing the character, right? Yeah, this is Alistair Green kind of being the guy who had this adventure with the queen.

and go for walks in the vicinity of her residence. And on one of these occasions, I recall that we bumped into a tourist, you see, who was holidaying, evidently, in the area, from America, Australia, or whatever. And it's terribly amusing. He said, I've heard the Queen lives around here. He stopped us, you see. He said, I've heard the Queen lives around here. Do you know anything about that? And I didn't say a word, and this is typical of Her Majesty's sense of humour. And she said, hmm, I've heard she lives here too. Never seen her. Hmm, wonder where she lives. I don't know. Don't know. Like that. And I was biting my lip, you see, because this is terribly funny. And the chap says, well, if you see her, just keep an eye out, because apparently she lives here. And, of course, at that point, I was doubling up. I was biting my lip, trying not to let on. And Her Majesty, and this is typical of the sort of woman she is, She said, are you f***ing stupid? Do you not reckon I'm the f***ing queen? Are you f***ing thick, you dumb f***ing...

I love it. That's where the tape ends. I was wondering if you stopped it. I love... He uncuts it on the C-U-NEXT-TIME word. Oh, I didn't even know that was in there.

That's not how you spell that word either, by the way. That would be C-Y-N-T, which is like a medieval spelling of the word that he's kind of joking about.

I'm pretty sure, isn't that going to be the next name of the stadium that the Seahawks play in? C-Y-N-T Stadium, sounds about right. Yes, exactly. That's great. They're doing...

They're creating opportunities at enterprise scale. I was confused by all of this. I could not tell where it was going because it was just like, you know, again, it's I was expecting when you first set that up to be more like a straightforward, like stand up bit like I hear in the States. But, of course, humor is a bit different there. But I kept on wondering, like, where is this going? It's just basically the same thing. OK, can I just this is not super important anymore. And the conversation has moved on But just to put a pin That's not what that means Just to close this chapter of our conversation I think the quote that you and I were both looking for Was Rebecca Mead writing in The New Yorker Elizabeth had a life made up of privilege and sacrifice And even those who resented the former Acknowledged the latter Is that the one that you saw?

That's exactly what I was trying to reference

Yeah I saw that floating around

So eloquently That I didn't remember any of it One thing that I didn't know In reading that New Yorker profile or i should say obituary but remembrance is that she so again it is dude i didn't it is so complicated this line of succession and and who who the people are and then also the titles that then they are conferred upon them or that they then take when they become it is it's not just kind of like okay you're the king you're the queen it's like you're also the you know the duke of cornwall the duchess of something and the mother of dragons yeah yeah the unburned yeah you like you can take there were some speculations you know we're recording this by the way on on thursday and i mentioned that because um i'm sure there'll be much more thoughtful uh remembrance and obituaries and and things like this that would have been available to us on friday but my plane ticket back home from chicago is in exactly the time when we should be recording the show i'm also mentioning it because on the episode that aired on thursday we said hey we're pre-recording this so if we missed your blurs day go ahead and send it in well no i was thinking about the math on

that it still works out because we are recording this right now on thursday but later in the day so anybody who was trying to get their blurs day in for yesterday's show should have just a tighter window anyway no not now we actually gave that for today we right now we have one more blursday to share later today but we gave them extra time this week well we gave additional time but i'm

saying if if you listened if you're hearing if you heard thursday's show and we said yeah because of the funky recording we're going to extend this to friday and you you thought well great i've got until 10 a.m on friday oh i see because chicago time to get in on this no you have you you have a limited you have you this is but maybe this is good andrew maybe this is incentivizing people to listen uh to the show right when it comes out right when it's just hot and fresh out of the oven like get it right away because there might be something that we promote that actually uh is going to become moot two hours later when we're recording the next day's version of the show but here is the thing that i i wasn't aware of was you know there is i don't know i do not know what this person's particular relationship to eventually to Queen Elizabeth II was but you know she became queen because her father was the king her father was not the next in line to become king but I'm going to guess his older brother okay presumably the person in line in front of him who became king for a hot minute abdicated the throne so he could marry this twice divorced American socialite named Wallace Simpson Yes. I mean, I'm talking to a man who watches the Windsors on his iPad. That's what it was called.

I was thinking today, I was going to even start the show today by saying, Luke, just because I watched a documentary about the royal family and watched most of the HBO series, The Crown, that wasn't HBO, the Netflix series, The Crown, do not ask me any questions about the royal family. It sounds like I'd be poised to answer some of the very general questions.

I had actually, until this moment, forgotten your Windsor's love, too. Yeah.

Yeah, my brain is so bad that I couldn't even remember. I was like, what was the name of that CNN documentary that I watched? And I thought it was called The Royal Family. But you just reminded me. I think it was called The Windsors. And I did watch that. And yeah, that abdication thing was a pretty big deal. And especially in the Netflix show, The Crown, because, of course, that really focused on the drama in the family and whatnot.

I mean, it seems like a pretty bold move for that time to fall so in love with someone. And again, listen, I say this as a I'm a I'm a divorced American, Andrew. I'm a twice divorced American. OK, so I this is my lived experience as well. But like to to walk away from the the the, you know, being the king of England because.

you are so intrigued by this twice divorced american socialite it's it's it either speaks to how alluring wallace simpson might have been as a partner or how much that particular guy and i don't remember his name edward hated being king i think it was edward um yes but also i mean aren't

we and again i we are not the guys to be having this conversation i feel like i'm walking on on thin ice here because i'm going to crash through um my ignorance here at any moment but um it also does speak to the fact that it's probably not fun to be the monarch you know the king or the queen and just getting away from the royal family aren't we seeing it again now with like harry and megan like they've you know yeah they've left they've come to the states like that seems to be like the constant tension in the modern royal family is that like no like actually it's kind of more fun to be a rich american than a than a royal but the only one but seems to me that the

ones who have kind of actually just hit the eject button are like we're gonna call him edward the wallace simpson feller and harry and megan i'm trying to think of other ones who have i mean you know princess diana because of divorce kind of i think moved into a different category but like i'm totally with you it seems like a terrible job to me like it seems really unfun and it would be so much better like you said to just you have a net have uh you know whoever it is spotify or some who paid megan and harry like a hundred million dollars yeah they did i think they finally actually delivered an episode but there was like a period of two years where they had done no episodes like i'm with you it seems like a way better deal to just kind of bolt on the whole situation but it actually seems to happen uh less than than maybe uh i would expect yeah

that's a good point too um i mean i just wonder how long this can go on you know and again i don't know much about it but it just seems like the modern world just seems like there's less and less um desire for this or or hunger for this type of like kind of um i mean what is it it's not even you know it's it's not a lot of power it's just kind of performance yeah or performative and so it doesn't seem like there's a huge appetite for that these days but then like you so i was reading um kind of an inter kind of scanning uh an article today i think from the bbc or the guardian that was talking about all the things the small things that have to change or maybe not so small but like the money flags oh you know like when the queen was would visit australia a certain flag would be raised and all the other like countries in the commonwealth and then i was like oh yeah australia too and some of their money is going to have to change and i'm like yeah why is australia still part of the commonwealth you know they're so in a certain way they're so proudly independent but they're not independent they kind of chose that at some point to i think remain you know keep that connection and it's just like it's so it seems so antiquated to me absolutely i guess

it's sort of the you know from colonialism which was absolutely brutal and just i mean some of the worst atrocities that have happened on this planet have been have been implemented under the idea of colonialism and then at some point it switched over to kind of like volunteer commonwealthism like hey if you would like to be a commonwealth like if you're like Canada or whatever you can or like I was reading I think it was Barbados so Barbados was sort of in that I mean Barbados was colonized and then eventually they were kind of just they were sort of you know a commonwealth of some kind she was still on the flags or the money and then they decided to um they decided they didn't want that anymore they wanted to be completely free and i guess charles this is some weird detail but charles the third now i guess that's the name he's going to use the new king of england right he was also the king of barbados at that point through some weird thing and he presided over the ceremony to basically be like i'm not trying to be king of you barbados like he went to the ceremony where they were like officially like gtf gtfo england and he was there and he was like yeah i'm cool not being the king of barbados anymore you please please uh and he actually said i read this this was cool it's all probably all in that rebecca mead piece maybe but like actually it seems like he has at least as far as what he said out loud he has stated it clearly the absolute horror that colonialism was and remains in a lot of ways

oh so he was acknowledging that at this barbados at this i believe at this event if i have it all

straight and it was like not mincing words it was like this is you know this is something i think he called it something like a stain that will never go away interesting for for for england And I was like, well.

least at least there's that but another quirky thing about this and again this is just from me kind of reading this weird practical article um about the flags like you know like there there are certain like even the mailboxes have to change because they say like e2 on them or something but these flags are really important to um to like the various i don't know traditions related to the the country and the commonwealth and because there's like australia i think they were saying Australia it might have been New Zealand has to raise yeah let's say it's Australia has to raise a certain flag when the queen is visiting because when the queen was in Australia she was not visiting as the queen of England she was visiting as the queen of Australia while she was like boots on the ground there and she did wear boots if I learned one thing from the crown yeah I mean

the fact that this is a a title that is passed down along extremely gendered lines I mean obviously it can go to a woman that's what we're talking about now but that ain't the first choice right uh it's like it would have you know if she had an older brother i presume it would have gone to the older brother first or something like i mean that's pretty much not how we talk about things in 2022 as far as who should be in charge um that part of it feels weird i mean and the fact that there's really very limited if any actual political or it's really just very very ceremonial and very much a figurehead thing and and i think you're right i think my guess would be that with every generation it becomes less of a thing as far as just like the public fact it's this kind of thing that only really exists if everyone kind of agrees that we're going to pretend it's a thing yes exactly fewer and fewer people pretending it's a thing means they just will revert to being a very very wealthy family that owns a shitload of land but maybe doesn't have to be on the mailboxes

Yeah. The national anthem has to be changed. You know, it's I guess there's a line in there. God save our gracious queen. But according to this thing, which is from The Guardian, actually says it may take time for large crowds to sing the new version with confidence.

So is it God save the king now? I guess so. Wow. Yeah, that's a really. Yeah, that's I'm really glad that you saw this article about the like just the things like that that have to be changed. Because that would never occur to me, because as much as I do feel like Donald Trump has been trying to turn this into some sort of bizarre monarchy or whatever dictatorship, theocracy here, it's still I'm sort of appreciative of how much America is not wired that way. Mostly, you know what I mean? Generally speaking, it's there's not somebody who's the supreme ruler of the land.

yeah do you think the sex pistols are rushing back to the studio to recut their version of

god save the queen which i believe i don't know that rather hung out i don't queen elizabeth than johnny rotten everything i've ever seen maybe not in the like you know early days but like everything that johnny rotten has done since 1980 what did he's p.i.d was this his follow-up band every time I see him I just he's just like he looks he looks like the most hungover version of Guy Fieri and I don't say that to be mean to Guy Fieri I feel like Guy Fieri has really had a major reputational resurgence of just like everybody just decided we love this guy even though he's kind of got a little bit of corny style but he just seems supposedly such a good dude to the people that like work for him and etc but like Johnny Rotten has just got like this bottle bleached hair and he's just always trying to be extreme but he's like as old as the queen now but he's just trying to be like blowing your mind in interviews and it's just so tedious it's

i thought he was the guy who went on to become like a college professor i think pil by the way is the band you're thinking oh public image limited but um i uh which i don't know much about i don't know anything by public image limited and i think i tried to get to them once like in an afternoon and then and then just kept going um and i'm not a huge sex pistols person obviously but i thought one of them i thought it was johnny rotten actually in his post-punk um career became like a college professor or something are you thinking of brian may from queen who's an actual astrophysicist no i'm not i don't know if i knew that i'm definitely thinking of a sex pistol but maybe i got the wrong sex pistol well sid's dead right yeah i don't again And I know a little about them, but he didn't make it. Did he make it out of the 80s? I don't think he's been. I know. I don't think so. I mean, this is all based on the documentary Sitted Nancy. And did you watch that? Like, I've never even watched that.

Like a million years ago. It's not a doc. It's like Gary Oldman. But I remember seeing part of it, you know, like in college or something. Yeah, that's a again. That's a. And by the way, shout out to our listeners in England. This must have been a really good episode so far. Yeah, I know. Where we talk about the queen and the sex pistols, two things that we know very little about.

And even though we encourage people to write in, sometimes don't. Yeah, no, you know what?

Wait till you get new stamps. I know that. get new mailboxes i don't need the mirror held up to me on this episode the the moment we hang up this um isdn line luke you and i uh i will immediately be racked with all kinds of insecurities and bad feelings about things that came out of my mouth today so um unless sometimes listeners do need to hold a mirror up to us just to see if we're breathing that you know what that is true if you want to email in after the segment just email in to see how my mental health is after Somebody mail us a mirror to the P.O. box That we could put it under our nostrils

And if it fogs up we're still here And if it does fog up Then we can use it for something else Okay so We should probably We should probably take this break And then we should come back I do actually want to know what's going on with you and Oatmeal And I do want to talk about squirrel splooting Which is not nearly as dirty as it sounds But is adorable But then is also sad A lot going on with squirrel splooting here on this Friday edition of TBTL. Stay with us. Hey, let's thank some daily donors who are making today's episode of the program possible with their generous support. People like our friend, Andrew, Angie Dominguez.

Angie, still with us, thank you

Out there in Austin, Texas Angie will forever be woven into our time in Marfa Our brief time in Marfa, Texas on our road trip Yep Still one of the most magical places in the world to me And a place I think about often And that is kind of, and I know Angie's not in Marfa anymore But that is like, that kind of lives in my mind as like You know, when it's, when I'm ready to I don't know when I'm ready to really slow Things down and really kind of walk away from You know all this job Stuff that has me I don't know Flying on airplanes and being around large Urban centers I feel like I could See myself ending up in Marfa Texas if It's still there in 20 years if it's still Inhabitable in 20 years you just want to be

Doing a radio show in that radio Station with the big window that faces

Main Street I listened to that Radio station on through my Sonos Because I saved it as a favorite at some point it's great marfa public radio and angie is great as well thanks angie we really appreciate you margaret k is in kenmore washington also magically enough not detailed on the itt technical college map even though oh yeah where they have bothell set up i think is a little bit too far east for real bothell it's it's kind of on the line because kenmore and bothell are very close to each other kenmore is where you and camaro and i went to the savage moose ones oh

right of course and of course there's kenmore lanes as well which would be yes you know that'd

be a great place for a meetup someday i saw hey speaking of meetups i don't know what the status is and again we're recording things all in various time frames here but uh saturday in portland there is this uh outdoor potluck hangout get together with some tens are throwing and i'm guessing There's probably still some signing up that can be done. I don't think it's totally full. So is that on the Facebook page or something?

Slack. Just jump on over. I saw some new people joining Slack just so they can kind of RSVP to this thing. The event itself is tomorrow, Saturday, the 10th, 12 to 4 p.m. at Brooklyn School Park in southeast Portland. Sarah and Cheryl seem to have been organizing this. And so if you are on Slack, just shout out. If somebody – Cheryl or Sarah will see that and mark you as in attendance. And you're still thinking about trying to make it yourself.

I'm planning on going, man. Nice. Yeah, that's my plan. Nice. So, yeah, I don't know if I can stay for the whole thing because we've got something else going on that day. But I will definitely – it's going to be warm, too. I might have to wear my sun bonnet or something. Are you going to do it? I'm getting to that age. I bought something at Home Depot that I believe they just call a boonie hat, which I sure hope isn't – we don't learn that's problematic in five years. It's just that big, giant circle.

Yeah, my neighbor across the street wears one of these all the time. It's like one of the – it's like a hat. It's kind of like a – some of these that I'm looking at here look a little bit like a Crocodile Dundee hat a little bit. It's got a chin strap on it. it covers your head and it's got a wide brim all the way around like if you were they're very

chopping brush they're very big on like when you watch hard knocks now or really any kind of college or pro football when they're playing in that part of the year where it's still like you know it's august you watch like seahawks mini camp you'll see everyone standing around on the sidelines all the like you know coaches in these boonie hats yeah i bought it kind of on an impulse i That would be great.

was actually wearing it as i was like mowing the lawn and stuff and i i was thinking maybe this is my new look maybe this hat is actually pretty dope and then becca came out to see the progress my dad and i were making and i said what do you think of my new hat and she's very supportive extremely supportive and she said well that's a certainly a look oh and i was like should i wear this to you should i wear this to the labor day get together in the field at your uh at your your family's property and she goes we i certainly are more than welcome to i don't know if that's totally your best look and then i was going into i forget what the store was but i oh i might have even been going into like les schwab i told you i've been making a lot of trips to les schwab

yeah it's your new favorite place have you paid for any service yet or they just keep on giving you everything for free why don't you go there and buy four tires and see if they charge you

i have actually i mean we're gonna get we're getting so and this is on me i'm the one that completely um kind of sidetracked us here i have you know why because i bought tires for the boat trailer that rich my neighbor and his friend jim are fixing for me and i bought the tires from lay schwab so out of three interactions with them one of them has cost me money so the axle is getting fixed the axle is going to be fixed wow yes we can talk more about that fingers crossed on that but um approaches anyway uh i don't know how we got all the way down that weird bird walk but um i did want to say thanks to margaret k in kenmore for supporting the program oh my boonie hat yeah uh not a great look on me i was walking into a store and i saw my reflection and suddenly i realized just how deeply silly i looked in it i'm still wearing it when i like am out doing yard work and stuff because it's very effective i'm just not wearing it as a fashion

choice i am yeah i don't know man good for you for having a little bit of pride i don't know why i should be arguing the other way but like you said that you saw it and it was like a bad look and i'm just like i'm so i recorded a hey dummies video this week and i was out in my garage i did it mostly in my garage just because somehow i'm really embarrassed you were trying to bite my rhyme because i did mine in the garage last week pardon me i just coughed into the microphone unprofessional can't cut that out because you were talking to um you know that's a good point No, I get so embarrassed about doing a Hay Dummies if Genevieve is an earshot. Like I can do this show with her in earshot, but then me just talking to myself into a camera, I get really embarrassed. So when she's working from home, I got to find some other place to do it. And so I went out to the garage and I closed myself into the garage, not realizing that it's really hard to open my garage door from the inside. So when I got done with the Hay Dummies and the temperature was getting pretty hot in the garage, And I went to open the door and realized that, like, I couldn't quite get the leverage to open the garage door from the inside. I thought I might have to call Genevieve on her cell phone and say, please be home and please come rescue me. And please don't take this as an opportunity to lock me in here, which she could have done. But anyway, I went back and I watched the I recorded the video and I realized that I looked just awful, like especially in the beginning part. I guess I don't realize how much I'm used to seeing myself in a hat. and I know I'm bald and I don't try to hide it it's not why I wear the hat I'm not like comb over guy or hat instead of comb over guy so I'm just like whatever I'm kind of a middle aged guy I am a middle aged guy I look how I look like I'm really not in my head too much about it but man watching the beginning of this video before I put on a hat which is part of the video I just like my god my hair is all over the place I've been wearing a hat all day I have these two moles on my head that are sticking I never realized how prominent those moles on my head are I look like a goddamn troll Did I re-record the video? Did I go in and brush my hair and re-record the video? Of course not Because this is who I am now

Well, listen, not to be outdone But the video from two weeks ago Where I'm in my garage By the way By the way, there was not a mouse It was a piece of paper I actually went back and watched it

And also, I started that thank you baby music again Thinking we were going to go back to thanking people we played the whole song we still haven't read another name in that video i thought there was

a mouse well it turned out i also remember i was talking about how i always have one zit that i'm not happy about yeah i had like i have like a it's not even a zit anymore it's basically where like i shaved and it kind of like i nicked myself it just became kind of like a un sort of an unsightly a wound on my face that so not only do i have that in the video but then you know there's like a thumb like i at some point was mugging for the camera and was like walking right up to the camera like extra close to it to just try to do something for comedic effect that's the thumbnail that our dear friend james who puts these together for us use so it's like the worst like the the worst moment of the video where i already look pretty uh pretty unattractive and unappealing and then it's like that's the freeze frame oh but more more critically there was not a mouse in the garage and I feel like that's what it was is like a little piece of plastic or like you know like a garbage bag or something and then the wind blew it and it started rolling and it kind of looked like a mouse but the reason I want to clear the record is because I don't want bubbles good name oh I feel like that was that's besmirching bubbles yeah because by the way besmirching bubbles is not a terrible show title literally reaching for my pen literally we have talked about the cat way too much of late so i'm trying to look sure but like the idea that she would be sitting there and a mouse would walk by and she wouldn't even notice it like i know she's not the sharpest knife in the drawer but she would have seen that so that's i was like what so i went back and watched the video and that was the first time i'd ever seen the video again and i was like jeez louise i gotta get some i gotta get some better lighting i get to

get some cover up or we've got to just stop doing hey dummies well i will say the most of the video You know, I'm not trying to get in your head about this, too. I did notice that I don't know how much James listens to the podcast, if at all. But James, who's our editor, just has such a good ear and eye as an editor for the things that we that we kind of find funny and spoof on or whatever. Like we're in such good hands with him. Like he just just capital G gets it. You know what I mean? And kind of gets our vibe. And it's been so great working with him. I was kind of surprised he used that as the thumbnail because I was like, wow, that like for most of the for most of the video, you look absolutely fine because you're sitting kind of far away from the camera. And, yeah, you have that blemish, but whatever. But like he took the one second. And I understand why from a visual perspective. It was funny. You're leaning into the camera or whatever. But I did think like, oh, wow. Yeah, that's not the most flattering image that could have been grabbed here. And I'll tell you what, Luke, I'm not too proud to say this before I start playing this. Thank you. music again uh i will sometimes not often but i will sometimes send him a note along with the video to say hey man when you make the screen image or like the screen cap that will represent this could you not use one of the um you know one of the shots where i'm holding the camera below my chin i think i did that a couple of weeks ago i'm like i have some very unflattering angles in this could you not use one of them i'm not too i'm not i'm not too proud to admit that i that never

occurred to me but i may that may become standard policy for now i'm gonna give i'm gonna forward a list of shots that i refuse to allow or we need to get a makeup can we get a makeup budget please yeah something's gonna have to change it's just i it's a recipe for disaster two rapidly deteriorating 46 year old men who are who are uh obligated to record a video of themselves every

week like nobody wants to see that i know it's rough uh well maybe christy landenfeld i don't

know in ann arbor michigan because she's the next donor that we want to thank obviously christy does support the program like financially but also just like somehow still buying what we're selling so i don't know thank you christy we do appreciate it sarah montero aburia is in greenville south

carolina i hung with sarah at the um brooklyn show we uh we i think we closed down a bar together

oh nice oh i think i dipped right before that bar was closed down i was out there for a long time and had such a great night and then i think i just hit some kind of wall and needed to uh needed to head on home but that was such a fun night sarah thank you weren't drinking

then too i think so like yeah i think that closing down a bar if i go back to any of the times when

I actually made good decisions, I think it tracks with when I wasn't drinking. Like, huh, why did Luke go home at 10? Oh, he wasn't hamboned. Benjamin Quick is in Marysville, Washington. Thanks, Ben.

Thanks not just for supporting the show, but Ben is also somebody who did a lot, a lot, a lot of archiving of TBTL, so you can find a lot of lost episodes or lost hours online at internet.archive. What is it? Internet Archive. What is the Internet Archive website? I don't know, but Internet Archive.

I don't know, but I didn't even know that existed until you were telling me about it and also talking about some of the listeners, particularly, like you mentioned, Ben, who were just assiduously archiving TBTL stuff and storing it in such a way or pointing the Internet to it in such a way that it can kind of live forever, which is amazing.

The website is archive.org, and you can find old TBTL episodes on there if for some reason you're having trouble finding it on our website. By the way, though, it did make me wonder, is there an internet.net? And I'm on the website now, and it seems to just be like somebody squatting on it. How much does it worth? I don't know. It's got to be worth a lot, right? Because wouldn't you think people are like, I want to go to the internet. Well, here's the internet.

I mean, it's no internet.com.

That's true. Should I go to internet.com? That does seem like it would be a smarter thing to check. I told you that because, you know, we had some I had to I had to hack into the

jungle that is go daddy and do some things with like the tbtl email stuff uh and i did just for some reason go daddy decided to inform me that they think i can sell tbtl.net for twelve hundred

dollars twelve oh five hundred yeah no that was twelve thousand i'd be out i would be that six

hundred between the two of us wait i don't have any claim to that twelve thousand dollars i'm in marfa right now i ripped the i hit the uh rip the parachute cord i'm out yeah but i was like How do you get that? How do you arrive at that number, GoDaddy? $1,200. $1,200 is a very weird number. It should either be like nothing or it should be more than that. It's odd. I don't know who wants to. I'm not selling. That's our lifeline to the listeners. Yeah, right. We'll be hanging on to that for as long as possible. Hey, thank you, Benjamin. I appreciate you. And then also Nancy Rahr is in Tacoma, Washington. Thank you, Nancy. Thanks to all of our donors for keeping TBTL going, making it so I don't have to sell tbtl.net for $1,200 to buy my boonie hats. Hello, and welcome to Top Story. All right, I'll try to be kind of quick with this, Andrew, because we ended up going a long, long time talking about Queen Elizabeth, but I did think that this was an interesting story because I think I have witnessed this out in the wild, something called squirrel spluting this was a piece in the san francisco chronicle by thomas smith pointing out that animal authorities in the bay area have been getting tons of calls from people who are worried about these squirrels that they see just lying on the ground like with as flat as they can be with their arms and legs totally outstretched Turns out this is a behavior that not just squirrels but a lot of animals do to try to cool down when it's super duper hot I had a feeling that's where you were going They're actually conducting their body heat into the ground which it provides them hopefully with a little bit of relief

I don't know how much you have on this squirrel story So I don't want to get as super far afield, especially if we're a little bit pressed for time. But that leads me to something that I've been legitimately wanting to talk to you about or, like, kind of ask you about. I realize that the Internet kind of goes through its various trends and social media goes through its various trends. And, you know, a lot of years, it's like at the end of the year, everybody's like, goodbye, 2000. What a terrible year. Like, I feel like there was a lot that's ramped up a lot lately in years. And then I don't know, just very various things that the Internet sort of like really hops on board. Right. And I could be wrong, but I think it is provable that this year on social media, people are more openly excited about the coming of fall than I ever remember. I mean, there's always some people in your life who really enjoy the fall season and that's their season or whatever. But I feel like every time I open up Instagram or Instagram stories or Twitter, it's like some sort of joke about, like, getting ready to, like, to get real cozy for fall, getting ready for Halloween. A lot of images of Billy Crystal all dressed up in his, how do you say it, Huegy sweater and socks from, I think that's, I don't know if that's Sleepless in Seattle. No, it's probably When Harry Met Sally. When Harry Met Sally. hugi yeah i always say that incorrectly um and just like all these people just like memes about it and people leaning into it and me getting ready for fall season and i know that the pumpkin spice thing has been kind of there for a long time whether people complaining about it or whatever but that's so basic um complaining of complaining there might have been a time when people say pumpkin spice is basic i would say complaining about pumpkin spice is way more basic but But no, people are just like so excited for fall in a way that I've never seen before. Now, part of that is just sort of trending. And so, you know, these things kind of have a way of propelling themselves. But I also wonder, like, is part of that what we're seeing with the climate is part of it? Like, yes, part of it. Also, that's my pandemic. People were really kind of accustomed to staying home in the pandemic. And even though we sort of complained about it, people are also kind of excited to go back to a season of of maybe being a little less social and and being snuggly indoors. But also combined with this idea that, like, it's just blazing outside all the time. We. Yeah. So many places in this country. You can't be outside in the summertime anymore.

I think that's exactly what it is. I think, you know, and, you know, pretty much growing up in the Northwest, it was always very like the summer was beautiful, but it always felt a little too short. And there was always kind of a sadness.

As as the warm weather would go away, because now we're going to get into the kind of gray, cloudy kind of, you know, northwest stuff. But even in well, certainly Portland is I mean, Portland is going to be 97 on Saturday. And and that's not that's nothing compared to what's happening in California. There's concern that the power grid may not make it through this weekend in California intact because of all of the strain on it because of the heat. I think you're right. I think there are so many places where fall represents a relief from what is, you know, a really kind of not livable situation or at least a very uncomfortable situation of just how hot it's getting. And I mean, the charts are this is why when I was talking about splooting, I said it's it's kind of it's not as sad as you'd think. It's not as gross as you would think. And it's very cute because a picture of one of these splooting squirrels is adorable. But it's also kind of sad because this is happening because it's 107 degrees in Oakland, you know, and these animals are not built for this because they've evolved along with, you know, what the weather has been. The temperatures have been. And so if they unfortunately, it seems like this is only going to be more the case as time goes on, because, you know, of course, and I'm not saying anything that our listeners don't already know from all the other more verified media sources on this. But it's like we're at the point now with with rising temperatures and melting ice and everything where it's just a question of how bad does it get? Does it get so bad that no one can live on this planet or does it just get so bad that a lot of people can't live on this planet? Like we could ever you know, we could do every single possible. We could unplug everything tomorrow and shut down every single, you know, carbon based motor or whatever. You know, we could we could stop everything bad we're doing tomorrow and we're still going to see the effects of this motion now. Yeah, that's just a very eerie feeling. And, you know, because it's like we've just I've always had such confidence in kind of ingenuity and science and felt like we'll figure it out. We always do. But it's like this thing is now just it's just taking it's it's now taking on a life of its own. I just read an article when I was flying to Chicago about sea level rise and how much of, and I don't, I'm not trying to on a Friday be super bummer, but it's like the amount of like Louisiana that they think will actually be now below what's called, I think it's like the tide point or something. In other words, below sea level, like, I mean, Louisiana is already, if you've been out there, a lot of it already is kind of below sea level, hence the levees. But it's like a whole other order of magnitude it will be when the sea level goes up by a foot. And same thing with Florida. And there's just so much that is just going to be affected. And we in the U.S. are actually still at the very, very tippy top of the privilege pyramid on this. I mean, where this is really hitting people is like in Pakistan, you know, where these.

i was listening to this interview last week on npr of these women that were in the part of pakistan that was so incredibly damaged by flooding and the reporter i actually thought this was in a way very very illuminating the reporter these women were very they were women who had not you know been allowed to attend school and were living in in very very very um uh humble circumstances let's say and the reporter asked them if they've ever been on an airplane and they just started laughing their asses off because and it's like of course these women have never been on an airplane the thing that i get on three times a month which is in a way part of the issue of why these women's lives are being absolutely destroyed you know like they are not these women are not creating the carbon footprint that is the problem that is destroying their lives it's so unfair it's so deeply unfair and i'm saying that as a person who just flew to chicago on an airplane sure i mean there's a lot of hypocrisy and i'm i'm in an air-conditioned hotel room right now it's like that we at the very top of the of the pyramid of the privilege are make are doing the damage at least a lot of us i'll just just talk about myself and the people that are way way way way way way further down as far as what their carbon output is are the people that are going to really bear the the the most dangerous part of it so all of that is to say if you see a squirrel splooting leave it alone it's fine don't pick it up it's just trying to cool down uh it'll be okay just give it just give it some room i also saw there's a photo with this san francisco chronicle piece that's of some like baby squirrels that someone brought in because it was just i mean it was beyond splutable you could not they could not cool themselves down through splooting and somebody's got all these baby squirrels and they're on ice packs and they're cooling down, and it's maybe the cutest phone I've ever seen in my life. What about today's show title being Stop or My Mom Will Splute? Sounds too filthy, huh? Maybe that's too filthy. with it you started the show trying to talk me down from saying sploot and now you're starting to really enjoy what the true joy and now that you know it's not dirty how about sploot first

ask questions later there's some there's something in there somewhere all right let's do a little

um music for your weekend before we get out of here on a friday episode um what song would you

like to suggest for the listeners you know luke i just had an idea this very moment so i had a song um cued up here actually that was something that um the stew bot and pip sent me uh last week um

just because they thought i would like i believe right here in chicago somewhere i believe that they are in school in i don't know what school i didn't know that oh nice that's why stew took

a picture the other day in front of the wait wait theater oh right oh that's so cool um anyway they sent me a song last week that I'm going to play for you next week but instead this week what I'm going to do is share this is still don't worry for fans of the StewBot this is still StewBot related because he sent me a Twitter thread today and I'm going to read the whole thing to you Luke if you don't mind I think we have time to do this it is a Twitter thread by somebody named Timothy Burke who's got a blue check mark but I don't know that name looks like oh it looks like he's He used to write for maybe Deadspin Yeah he's a Deadspin guy Okay so you know him Okay Cool well Timothy Burke I don't know if you saw this too Luke Wrote this whole thread The NFL season starts today And while I've renounced my Browns fandom Which I can relate to I do have something to share with you all A piece of Browns related content That remarkably appears to exist Nowhere else on the internet So I'm going to post it today But first a little bit of background You mind going along with me here Luke? I'm not going to let you answer that. Timothy Burke continues. My dad's family settled in the Cleveland area after emigrating from Macedonia. It was one of several Midwestern cities that settled millions of Slavic immigrants and in particular was home to many Slovenes who brought with them music and culture of their home country. Thus arose a unique tradition known as Cleveland style or Slovenian style polka, which combined folk tradition with American stylings borrowed from jazz and blues. It was best. Its best known practitioner was Frankie Yankovic, or maybe would you say Frankie Yankovic there? I don't know how Frankie Yankovic's dad, I believe. Right. That's what I was going to say. He's related to Weird Al. Right. I think that's his dad. I'm not sure. But but Timothy says here, if you ever watched Drew Carey, you've heard a lot of this music. Anyway, then the next best known Cleveland style polka artist at the time was Johnny Pecan. I may be saying that name incorrectly, P-E-C-O-N, who started in the 1940s as a Frankie Yankovic partner before joining with Lou Trebar. This is getting really into king of the tut-tut sound territory here, but they released dozens of albums through the 1970s. In 1963, he released a record. Included on it was a song called Brown's Polka, which was eventually also released on a compilation. And here is that song. I'm sort of skipping ahead here Timothy says, anyway, for the first time on the internet As far as I can tell, is Browns polka Happy start to the NFL season So even though both Timothy and I have rejected our Browns fandom Because of some terrible shit that the Browns have done How about we start this weekend The first weekend of the NFL season, Luke With some Browns polka Are you ready for this? I haven't heard it yet Are you worried you're going to be too pumped up?

yeah and I'm still yet to record wait wait that's going to be in a couple hours and I'm worried I'm going to come in so hot that they're going to just be like simmer down Stu

the good news is you'll be prepared for this topic when it comes up here everybody this is Johnny Pecan's Polka Souvenirs the song is Brown's Polka Thank you. Luke, did I ever tell you that when I was a kid, we would go over, like a very little kid, we'd go over.

to my grandma simsik's house or grandma clink clink as I'd call her at the time because I couldn't say simsik and on the weekends where we were allowed to stay with grandma clink clink she you know grandma's still alive she's 100 she's outlived with the queen now

man you're gonna live forever Andrew your grandmother

I think she lives a slightly healthier lifestyle than I have but she had a huge collection of polka records on 45 and we would go over there and me and my grandma and my sister would have polka dance parties and then my grandma would scratch our backs and it was oh my god that's adorable i love it and that music takes me right there the browns it's so interesting because

growing up in the northwest and really growing up with my only awareness of polka was like as a joke in either like a movie where somebody's playing a kind of antiquated style of music i feel like there's some john candy movie i don't know if it's uncle buck or one of those movies where it's like the joke is well actually isn't it in planes trains and automobiles i think they end up you

know i think it's uncle buck but it's confusing because it's almost like it could be planes trains and automobiles i think and i don't read wait no no no you're right you're right you're

right it's a polka i think like the polka guys like get them out of a jam because john candy befriends them something like that but like or like a weird owl you know weird owl was always playing polka but it was always kind of like a little bit as a joke like a polka tized version of you know some other kind of song so i always thought it was just kind of this like very quirky and funny music now i actually actually enjoy it now musically i'm not saying i listen to a lot of it but like when what you just played i was like oh this is i enjoy this not ironically but just as music but it's interesting for me to think of you growing up in a part of the country and with the kind of relatives where it was being played just as joyful music it wasn't like a bit yes it

you know what it was luke and i i think i verified it here but my brain actually got there i think you and i are thinking of home alone because there's a quick scene in an airport i feel like where john candy's character is a is a polka guy yeah and it's so reminiscent of planes trains and automobiles and i think you and i maybe we just watched that for a tbtl movie night right isn't

that right and it's like katherine o'hara yes has to like ride with the polka and they have like a great name like these satiny jackets because you know she can't vacation and left your child home

no oh this is the worst scene so he's already they're in the back of some truck and they're already driving katherine o'hara back for the final leg of their adventure to get back home where they've left somebody alone but i was looking for the airport scene where he actually explains who he is so my apologies for cutting you off with it's just funny because you know i

Usually I'm very ashamed when we mix things up, but I also feel like in this case, it's kind of on John Candy for being in so many movies where people can't get where they're going.

Yeah, right, right. Okay, here, can I play the airport scene now? Yes, please. I want to remember the names.

It's not the pen pals, but I always think of the Simpsons burning shirts with the scenes on.

Okay, so I don't want to play this whole thing, so I'm cutting in a little bit here. And Macaulay Culkin's mom What's his name in the movie? Kevin McAllister's mom is at the airport And she's apparently not getting a ticket I think, or maybe a bus She's not getting whatever she needs as far as transportation is concerned Ma'am, if there was anything at all I could do for you today

Do anything

I can get you a hotel room

What? Excuse me Can you excuse us for a second? Can I see you for a second, please? Excuse us No, for me Couldn't help, but hearing you got a little bit of a dilemma there. We got a crisis ourselves. Allow me to introduce myself. Gus Polinsky. How are you? Polka King of the Midwest. The Kenosha Kickers. No? That's okay. I thought you might have recognized it. Anyways, I had a few hits a few years ago. So that's why, you know, Polka, Polka, Polka, Polka, Polka, Polka. No? Twin Lakes Polka, Damavuji Polka, a.k.a. Kiss Me Polka, Polka Twist. These are songs.

Yeah.

I'm glad we found it. It's great. The Kenosha Kickers. That's great. I was hoping I just have been listening to a lot of like you know I'll start listening to a particular song and then I'll just have spot if I make it into a playlist and so there was this Towne Van Sant song that I wasn't particularly familiar with before that came up I guess it's actually kind of one of his sort of more well known ones it's called To Live Is To Fly but you know Towne Van Sant is somebody who I

I didn't know a whole lot about he wrote Poncho and Lefty, which then was popularized by Willie Nelson. But he was this kind of you might say somewhat tragic figure who just kind of like was apparently just an incredibly talented songwriter, but battled a lot of addiction and mental health issues. And this movie you want to talk about my low T this movie that I saw once called Blaze, which is directed by Ethan Hawke. And it's a biopic about a guy named Blaze Foley, who himself was kind of a tragic figure. He was buds with this dude, Townes Van Sant, and they're both depicted in this film really incredibly. So if you're curious about Townes Van Sant, he's sort of one of those people who made these songs that everybody else who could just keep their shit together a little bit more recorded and had hits with. And he's just cited by like every—I mean, you know, Steve Earle, Justin Townes Earle, who's also now passed, who is a big favorite of mine, And he was named for Towne Van Sant. Anyway, so this song, I just thought it was kind of a beautiful song, To Live Is To Fly. So can we hear a little Towne's Van Sant?

I won't say I love you, babe. I won't say I need you, babe. But I'm gonna get you, babe. And I will not do you wrong. Living's mostly wasting time And I waste my share of mine But it never feels too good So let's don't take too long For you're soft as glass And I'm a gentle man And we got the sky to talk about And the world to buy a palm Days up and down they come Like rain on a conga drum Forget most, remember some But don't turn none away Everything is not enough And nothing is too much to bear Where you've been is good and gone All you keep's to getting there Well, to live's to fly All low and high So shake the dust off of your wings And sleep out of your eyes

All right, there you go. Are we familiar with that song? No, it's really beautiful. I think I've just been in this really, like, I've been in that George Harrison, like, you know, kind of the particularly the more stripped down stuff like been really into this kind of 70s i don't know plaintive guitar and a guy kind of music i mean the thing that's wild is i'm sure that all of these people that i'm listening to were so much younger than i am now when they

recorded this music yeah they're kids yeah but we still see them kind of because they were that earlier generation and we were kids when they their music was already out we look at them as like um almost why not yeah but like wise too right because these some of these the lyrics and the poetry and these songs are so beautiful and then you're like oh my god like i'm you know i'm 45 i'm enjoying this but like neil young was a just to use another example i was watching some old neil young live things just him and his acoustic guitar and his harmonica right in front of a a smallish crowd on cbc tv or something i was watching a little bit ago and uh he's a kid i mean he's still like he's still got the soul of an 80 year old troll i feel like he was born 75 years

exactly yeah yeah i mean that line from towns van sand all you got is the getting there like oh yeah maybe and maybe it's just like all this kind of uh contemplative sort of lyrics they just hit me they'd be hitting different because i'm because i'm rounding the corner on you know that's not even true i done rounded the corner on the middle part of my life so it all just kind of i don't know it's i find a lot of it to be uh notable for whatever reason can i jump in and

just say there's a um because you you're a spotify user now right and yeah do you which i you know

as i wrote on twitter spotify and i seem to have wildly different definitions of what downloaded means oh right when you're i'll be like on a plane and i don't have wi-fi on my phone and i'll go to the things that i've downloaded and none of them are playable and i'm like really um i am now

blanking on the next i had a recommendation for you because you know spotify you can just listen to albums or what have you like uh as the artists release them in most cases but of course you can also use it uh to create a radio station for like you know just use the algorithm yeah to take a song and then and then

have the algorithm build a song around it and john lennon has a song um not oh yoko but there's another song from that era where he's specifically referencing yoko in it and i'm blanking on the name of the song you know it it's very it's the one where he says cookie in the middle of it and that kind of annoys you a little bit but the rest of the song is beautiful i made that into a radio station on spotify or whatever you call it i don't think they call them radio stations i turned that into an algorithm on spotify while i was grilling with genevieve the other day and my god it hit perfectly and it's the kind of music that you're talking about here luke okay uh it had some more music by that guy whose name i forgot who sounds exactly like paul mccartney but is oh my god

andrew i was listening to at my house i was listening to some spotify situation and a song came on and i was like oh my god how do i not know about this beatles song right you think i did

Yeah, I screen capped it. And who do you think it was? It was your dude. I've got him right here. It was Emmett Rhodes. Emmett Rhodes. Yes, somebody made for me. Yes, that was the song I played. I think that song is great. It might have been the ballad of John and Yoko. I can't remember what it was. But if you make it if you make an algorithm out of one of a John Lennon song of that era, you're going to get some Jim Croce in there. You're gonna get some Emmett Rhodes. You're gonna get some stuff that is like it feels like home. But for me, I hadn't heard of a lot of it before. It's great.

You know what I also screen capped to revisit later, which is I'm sure something you actually know all about, because it seems like it would kind of be in your wheelhouse. But that album that the Monkees made, Head. Oh, no, I think I've heard of that. Like that's from back in the day, right? That's not the new one. No, it's from back in the day. But I think that the story on it was, you know, obviously they were a completely created band of a bunch of actors who could play a little music and they had all those hits, Daydream, Believer, et cetera, et cetera. And then at some point they wanted to, and I think this was maybe largely driven by the guy Peter Tork, but they basically wanted to do their own music. And they wrote, they, the monkeys, the people that were portraying the monkeys actually wrote this album, Head. It's actually, maybe I'll play it next week It's way more interesting And kind of, you know I think that most people That are sort of music snobs Will say that it was actually a pretty good album That was, I think, sort of a bit of a flop At the time, because it wasn't You know, what's another A Monkees song, Last Train to Clarksville Or something

But it's actually pretty good musically Which I loved Last Train to Clarksville And also I think Neil Diamond wrote some of those earlier ones for them Which I love those But, yeah, when Michael Nesmith died, which was, I think, in the past year or so, I saw a lot of outpouring from people whose musical taste I like and respect. And I was like, oh, I didn't realize that the Monkees, like, this really hit some music lovers in a way that I didn't appreciate. And I always meant to, like, kind of go back. So it sounds like that's the album.

Can we just do, like, a quick, can we just do a bonus track really fast? Because it'll be annoying to wait a whole week. I'm not even saying this is the greatest song of all time. In fact, I like it at the beginning Then it kind of goes off for me a little bit But I just was like, oh, who is this? Let me screen cap And I was like, this is the Monkees So the song is As We Go Along And this is off of Head by the Monkees And again, I just think the backstory That this was them being like We actually can write our own songs Is kind of interesting

Oh, I'm sorry, you want me to play it from this end Oh, sorry I could have played it from here No, you know, because you were introducing it I was just I know, of course That would make so much more sense I'm just I'm so used to just completely abdicating no no that's good I'm calling it up music to you I'm calling it up here so I've got I've got the album up here can you remind me which song this is as we go along there it is the one that I heard that I would not have suspected was the monkeys I love the idea that you and I would have just sat there forever in silence waiting for the other person to play this song here we go

guitar solo

I can tell by your face That you're looking to find a place To settle your

All right, before we get in trouble with Spotify, it's very nuanced for a band that I just think of as being the people that are running after the police are running after them around the desk in fast motion and then they're running after the police for some reason or they're like cartwheeling down a sand dune like that's kind of what i think of as the monkeys as being and i was like ah it's actually it's actually kind of a beautiful little song it is

really nice yeah that's right up my alley i'd love to find that on vinyl that'd be perfect to play in my little dart gallery here by the way the john lennon song will come early only because i was um fumbling around there and driving every beatles fan crazy the song i was thinking of was hold on by john lennon make yourself a playlist i don't know if i know that song i know you talk

about that cookie thing but i don't know if that's one of the ones i feel like you use this

as music for your weekend once no here listen a little bit this is up your alley yeah yeah

hold on john John, hold on, it's gonna be all right You're gonna win the fight Hold on, you'll go, you'll go, hold on, it's gonna be all right

I love that song. This album. I mean, it's very possible that I heard that song for the first time a little while ago and suggest it for Music for Your Weekend, but that's not one of the ones that's really at the top of my mind, but God, it's so good. How is that guy just like... That album. How is he making so many good songs, some of which I don't even know about?

I can't even get into it here, but I have such emotional memories of that album. That was my... It's called just John Lennon, Plastic Ono Band, and I remember getting it and thinking like... And this is at the time when I was like, I don't know about this Yoko Ono. I just knew of the stereotypes of Yoko Ono or whatever, And I was a relatively young Beatles fan Maybe in 8th grade or something But my friend told me this is the album to get And it is just, it's such an emotional record And it starts with a pretty A very emotional song about his mom Called Mother I don't know how he came up with that name And then it goes into Hold On And then just looking at this playlist Takes me back And this is the first album I think I ever had That has the F word on it In the song Working Class Hero And I was not expecting that I grew up in a very strict house when it came to, like, swears in the musics, you know? And I remember playing this pretty loud. And there was no F-words and she loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Am I wrong? I thought this had working class here. Yeah, it does. And I remember listening to this, you know, pretty loud in my room, and then, like, racing. I'm just being astounded that a Beatle just used the F-word. I just couldn't believe it. And you're listening to it on a cassette, presumably? I guess so, yeah, because, you know, part of me thought that I had it on vinyl, but that's not right. I must have had it on cassette, because it would have been way before I ever had a CD player in my life, several years before that, yeah.

Well, the listener's suggestion is from our friend, listener Chris, who's in Kirkland, where they make the jeans, and he says, Hey dudes, Lydia Ramsey is an American artist based out of Seattle who's releasing a new album.

Americana, by the way. He wrote in to correct that, yeah.

And you know what? I fixed it in my little... I saw you did. And then I misread it She's an American Americana artist Andrew Who is releasing a new album The first single is out and it gets into a good Oh, did you realize by the way That listener Chris corrected that In a subsequent email

Yeah, that's what I was saying I didn't even notice the mistake until the subsequent email He said, not American, Americana artist

It's funny that I would take the time On my flight to go into the show sheet Add the A to American and then while reading it just say not and fail to say americana when i saw on the show sheet that

you were going to be reading that i went to make sure that you had it as americana because i was

like oh good good producer eyes the first single is out and it gets into a good groove i said groove he says groove with pedal steel guitar and hammond organ it's hard to beat that i agree with that chris the video is also a nice homage to the pacific northwest and i'm not her pr guy but she is doing an album release party october 1st at the triple door in seattle if any tens are interested any excuse get out to the triple door as far as i'm concerned is a good one so uh that's how we're going to wrap the week up here this lydia ramsey song i actually don't know if i know the title to

it the first single i'm clicking on it here and the name of the song is come home with me i'll be playing this off of YouTube. All right, it's Lydia Ramsey.

Here on TBTL Thanks everyone for hanging out with us this week We'll be back here on Monday with more imaginary radio for you Until then, have an absolutely great weekend Take care of yourselves Splute if you have to Whatever you gotta do to stay cool And we'll see you Monday Until then, please remember, no mountain too tall And good luck to all

The touch of your hand reminded me I'm not alone Say you'll come home with me I'll take you down the alley with the ivy on the wall Say you'll come home with me I'll take you over bridges you've been dreaming about Say you'll come back for me If I ever fall too far behind for you to see Say you'll be there for me And I'll be the one asking you home every night Do you want to sing the Friday song? Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday Power out Thank you.