Muse

My name is Kurt Fossil, marketing director, Vango Energy Drinks. We saw the social media blitz you guys pulled off over the weekend, and it was gorgeous. We believe with our sponsorship, we can take your parties up a notch and get rich quick.

Oh, my God. Cool. That's the best way to get rich. Yeah, that's my favorite way to get rich. You guys, we can quit TAC and just, like, get wasted all the time. I'm in, sir.

Oh, my God. That's a dream come true. Yes, I'm going to mogulize my lifestyle. I'm going to be like, like, like, I can't think of a mogul. William Randolph Hearst. Paula Abdul. TBTL.

This is a show for dogs. About dogs. Starring one dog. And one dirty dog. This is genius. This is genius work.

I'd tell you to get this through your head, but you're a machine. So run this through your data processor. Get lost.

She's irrational. You should... You see what I'm talking about? Is it me? Am I wrong? Just let me talk. May I talk, please? I have something to say. May I say it? Yes, Mark. Okay, would you just let me finish?

Perhaps. Am I wrong? Wipe the potty. Wipe your body. This is the best moment of TBTL.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Thursday edition of TBTL. It's an audiophiles nightmare. The show that just might be too beautiful to live. My name is Luke Furbank. I am your host.

Carol, hold my calls.

Coming to you once again from Hillham, Tennessee, where I...

Oh, ma, pa, it's just beautiful.

I really love the front porch culture of this part of the world. It would seem that every single house, however grand or however humble, They've got a front porch, it's got a minimum of two rocking chairs on it, and as I was driving around yesterday, around 5, 6 p.m., almost every house I went by, I just had a couple of people sitting out on the porch, just taking it all in. can really get into that i was also there's a i don't know if it quite qualifies as a veranda here at this airbnb but there is a really great covered patio area where i was just out doing my show prep and listening to the crickets and looking over at the donkeys and deciding i live here now that's it i'm moving to hillham tennessee so please forward my mail if you can Here we are together at episode 3,722 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. And I will say this. The Food Lion grocery store in Livingston, Tennessee, not a hotbed for plant-based meat-like products, as I found out yesterday. But it led me, that sort of scarcity, if you will, of options led me to an amazing life hack that I think has probably changed my life and could change the lives of other people who like hot dogs but don't eat hot dogs.

What's courageous about eating a hot dog?

You know, hot dogs with meat in them anyway. So I want to talk about that. But also something happened after the Mariners game last night in the postgame interview that I found actually quite charming by way of or it was created by one Eugenio Suarez. I guess I'm saying that wrong, but that's all I've got. We'll play you some tape of Gino Suarez. Also some tape of my father, Walter Burbank, who's embracing his newfound celebrity status coming up. And because it's a Thursday, a.k.a. a Blur's Day, we'll do some Blur's Day shout-outs. And we'll talk to this guy, the longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. To say he is amped to be here today would be a gross understatement.

And here he is, having the time of his life.

He's Andrew Walsh, and he is joining me right now. Good morning, my friend. Good morning, Luke. This is exciting. I see here that I have received an email from Major League Baseball, Luke. And it says, baseball needs your input. They want to know what the fans are thinking. And they sent me a 9 to 11 minute survey. Do you think there's any chance that the first question is, do you believe strongly, somewhat, or not at all, that Major League Baseball disrespects its fans? any chance it's given.

That's the first question.

I'm hoping that that's the first question because I have a lot of crazy thoughts. Question number two.

Did it make you happy or something other than happy when we put the game on Apple TV?

Right. I have a lot of thoughts about the way MLB and MLB TV treats its paying fan base during a time where out of one corner of their mouth, they complain about not having enough fans. And then out of the other, they black out games for the people who pay for the app so they can't watch their own team so that other people can line their pockets on cable deals and then take it off of cable TV when Apple and YouTube come around and line their pockets even more. And Amazon. Don't forget Amazon over on the football side. Oh, that's football. Right. Well, this is from it would be question number two. Do you think the National Football League disrespect baseball? Where are you going with this survey? I almost wanted to, like, look at the first question on the air and take this with you. Well, I'll just do it. You sure? Let's just see what the first one is. It's not going to be this.

My guess is that it's going to be something like, are you excited or just super pumped about Albert Pujols' unexpected swan song?

I feel like they're not ready to ask the actual hard questions. I don't think this is, I don't think we're going to do the whole thing here, and I'm going to steer this away from being sports talk. I just want to keep it Cranky Media Talk. The first question, though, is what year were you born? That could be the name of our company.

We've been kicking around disposable media if we ever have to go solo, but Cranky Media is also.

Cranky Yandy Media? Yeah. Old men yell at cloud computing. What year were we born? Now, I'm a 76er. You're a 76er as well. Okay, good. So we'll split the difference and say 1976. So far, we're killing it. I'm going to give them my zip code. So this is just, they're getting your biographical information? This is not... So far. Okay. So, okay, what is your credit card number and your mom's maiden name? We'll use half of my credit card number and half of yours, since we're kind of splitting this down the middle. And let's split our mom's middle name, too. Are you enjoying... Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Are you enjoying the 2022 season more, less, or same as previous seasons? I mean, more, right? I mean, it's... My team's... I feel like that's such an...

i feel like that question is so imprecise though because you're enjoying it more because the mariners are better but yeah presuming like if you're a um anaheim angels fan and you get the

same survey i get i bet you're enjoying it less well they did take my uh zip code there i didn't say that on the air so they know what area i am you know they should sure so let's trust that oh okay now it's a wow an essay question no multiple choice why are you enjoying the 2022 season more than previous seasons because the mariners are looking good when i can watch them

on tv can you think we can guess rob manfred's direct email address that's the next question it's probably like rob.manfred at hotmail.com that's the commissioner of major league baseball for people who don't follow such things,

which means you probably have a life. Because the Mariners are looking good, dot, dot, dot, when I can watch them on TV, comma, which I should be able to do for every game, not just the games you allow. Well, you know, I feel like this is just going to bog down the show. We have more stuff to talk about than me taking with it. I've got hot dogs to talk about today, Andrew. Yeah, what's going on with your hot dogs?

That's usually your lane. so this airbnb that i'm in has a uh a barbecue grill although it's i've never actually used one of these grills before it's the kind that if you were to go to a picnic shelter at like a park in your city yeah it's that kind it's just kind of like a black open box with a grate on top of it is it clean it is clean everything about this airbnb is so meticulously cleaned i have to say It's cleaner than my house in Portland And so the grill was totally clean But I was I had to watch a YouTube video Because I thought Does this operate differently Because it's a different shape Because one side is totally open I mean I've only used I have at my house I'm working on I have a Weber That's a charcoal grill But I use a chimney now

Oh yeah

And it just works like a charm Yeah But this didn't have a chimney So the point is When I spied yesterday when i when i spied this grill and the little fire pit and the little kind of veranda area i immediately i i i developed one of my snapshot my postcard moments in my brain andrew and that was i'm going to be sitting out there i'm going to grill some stuff up i'm going to listen to the seattle mariners and i'm going to have a just a wonderful little evening here in Tennessee. And then when I was in the grocery store, I got a gif from our friend Durs of Carlos Santana, the musician jamming out, and that made me realize...

oh the game is like half over already the gift that keeps on gifting and it's like 4 p.m here in tennessee so i was like well okay change of plans although i didn't i just listened to my my tunes my music out there and still did my whole grill plan but i'm walking around the the store and i'm thinking well what can i so i got some veggies and stuff to grill up um but i i wanted something a little more substantial and i was like well maybe i'll just get a some kind of a veggie dog thing and i mean i just was telling becca the other day i think i'm swearing off veggie dogs because i just don't like them very much just very the the light life ones that we've talked about endlessly when we did our hot dog episode are kind of okay ish but none of them really actually scratch the itch of eating like a hot dog or a sausage or whatever they've all got some funkiness going on and so but i was like whatever maybe i'll give it another try so i walk over to the you know there is i mean when i tell you andrew there was in the frozen food section one sad little row of tiny shelves where the non-meat products were i mean it is the the uh you know plant-based meat trend has not hit rural tennessee yeah there's like two like emo teenagers

who are trying not to eat meat in this town, and that's the only shelf they can purchase anything off of.

It's me and those two kids, and they're wearing jeans that go down a little too far over their shoes, so the backs are just frayed to hell. Yeah, love that look. Love those kids. But anyway, so what they did have was some, like, Morningstar Farm breakfast sausage links. Oh, yeah. And I just thought In the words of our friend Camaro Kev Why don't I give this a day in court I also bought some Crinkle cut fries because you mentioned Them yesterday or you mentioned french fries When there was that weird McCain's whatever Legend McCain's french fries It had a weird construction I had like frozen french fries on the brain What I thought was okay look And I bought some corn And I got some cheese and crackers My point being, I was like, if the sausage situation doesn't work out, I have many other things that I can eat. So why don't we just try this out? And, Andrew, when I tell you that when I grilled these things up and then put them on a hot dog bun, I had to put, like, two on each bun because they're kind of small.

They're not like the size of a hot dog. Oh, my God. I was picturing four.

Maybe it was three. I think it was definitely not four. Because they're breakfast links, right? They're just like little guys. They're breakfast links. But I put however many, again, I think it might have been three, three of them on each bun. I had two setups, two buns. And then I just put ketchup, mustard on them. I didn't have sauerkraut because I didn't want to. I'm also trying to not buy a bunch of stuff. Then I'm going to have to just leave behind in Tennessee. but that was without a doubt the best most hot dog like bite i've ever had of something that doesn't have meat in it in a hot dog bun i'm never going back yeah that's great and also

let's see we have a bunch of morning star um this is different i've had the links before it's been it's been a while i like the morning star brand by the way we have some morning star uh veggie sausages that are uh little patties in our freezer i think these maybe got them at costco or something but that's something that we kind of keep around anyway as well and again we're meat eaters but it's just good like they're they're good little patties um i i actually think they do a good job and you're right like there's one thing that we learned when we did our hot dog show luke and well maybe we learned a couple of things we learned that francis lamb loves hot dogs more than i expected um and the other thing i learned is and even though your conservative uncle doesn't want to hear this hot dogs are a spectrum sausage is a spectrum there's no it's it's not binary you don't have sausage over here and hot dogs over here like what is like if you get like if you get higher and higher quality hot dogs or whatever they would call them in germany like they're just they're they're soft they're gonna get more and more sausagey right and and there's something

like this stuff was it was you know kind of crispy too because i had you know grilled it up cooked it pretty thoroughly and so it just had like a snap to it which i miss about all the other veggie dogs i've had it had a snap to it it was plenty salty oh i mean i'm not saying that this is health food i mean this is probably as bad as regular sausage if not worse because who knows what kind of engineering they're doing down there at morning star farms also was i up at four in the morning with a certain amount of intestinal distress sure but totally worth it yeah hundred 100%. God, I can't remember the last time I wasn't up at 4 in the morning with this little dress.

I really did have the thought I was like, OK, well, this is this is this is my punishment for eating six breakfast veggie sausage links. But I'm not even kidding you. Sometimes I gin stuff up for the show just to keep it entertaining. This is not one of those moments. I'm really psyched about this because I really do enjoy in the summertime and when baseball is happening, et cetera, having like something like a hot dog. And this is by far and away the closest to that experience that I have experienced. And so I feel like I've got a system now.

I'm not saying this out of snobbiness or trying to get into the ketchup debate. A lot of people think that ketchup is a very immature condiment and only children use it. You shouldn't put it on hot dogs. I don't, as has been discussed, I don't subscribe to any of that. I like ketchup. I put it on some of my hot dogs. I won't tell you which ones. But I probably wouldn't put ketchup on a sausage. That's the one thing I probably would have gone with. In fact, Luke, while you were having your sausage feast last night, I ate way too much kielbasa up in this, up in this zip code.

Now, was it your classic standing over the sink kind of move?

Well, I was sitting, it was late night sausages, the kind that my doctor recommends. So no, it was sitting, this move, my late night sausage move is this. So I heated up, actually, my first servings were probably at a normal hour. It was the repeats that I went for later, but I cooked up just like a Hilshire Farms, like kielbasa on my skillet, cast iron skillet, kind of cooked it as slow as possible so as to not blacken the edges too much, and then I cut it up, put it on hot dog buns, but you know what I did? The reason I bring this up is, well, because I'm just fantasizing about my favorite food here, but just put some yellow mustard on there. And then that stuff that you love that I you turn me on to it. I can never think of it's the pickled cabbage. You mean sauerkraut? Sauerkraut, sauerkraut, sauerkraut, bubbies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can never. Sometimes I cannot think of that word, but that was the perfect thing. Just like mustard, bubby sauerkraut, kielbasa on a hot dog bun. Wonderful.

yeah you know i yeah the the the the ketchup didn't seem to it certainly didn't seem to um lessen my enjoyment of it and uh and if i you know if i'm doing this at home now and i have all my provisions yeah i will throw a little bubbies on there next time or whatever but i'm feeling feeling very optimistic about about my about my hot dog like experience as the seattle mariners andrew continue uh to uh move towards the postseason and uh they won yesterday which was exciting and a eugenio suarez now that you said that neil says that's the wrong way to say his name i'm you've ruined that but i also don't feel i feel like saying gino is a little bit too um uh court sort of like familiar like i don't know the guy you know i don't have the

answer for it and somebody wrote in to explain it as well that just saying like that a should be more like eh and you should just be more like ooh and we're kind of turning into three very distinct syllables you and I uh a you henio but you know that's kind of how they say it on the radio and so I've heard it a thousand times that way and it's very hard for my tongue to kind of just say it in the more relaxed way you know a henio I don't know if that's getting closer or farther away but let's not get too much in our in our head about it let's do our best to respect

the man a three-run home run last night I believe actually it might have been a two-run home run not that it matters point is he was one of the game's heroes and he was being interviewed after the game on the radio by uh the journalist shannon dreyer and um i thought this was just kind of funny and i actually i told you about this before the show and you completely remembered this moment too i thought i was the only person who noticed this but she's asking him about the song anything you can do i can do better and it's obvious that gino suarez having grown up in the dominican republic did not hear that song but is does not want to stop the interview or be annoying or he's really being yes and here which i absolutely love take a listen i know you like your music do

you know the song anything you can do i can do better that's true yeah everything i do i just

gotta believe it and everything i do i do it for everybody and uh you know uh just be living and

do your best everything that i do i just do it for everybody man yeah and you love it she's what

she's getting at here is that julio rodriguez hits home runs and then suarez comes up afterwards and also hits home runs and she's and i gotta say like i like shannon actually i think she does a great job oh yeah um i'm a i'm a capital f fan um but it was a it was a bit tortured you know like he doesn't speak english as a first question it's reliant on him knowing that and listen i'm people have heard the show people are hearing the show right now i'm not someone who should criticize other people's

Broadcasting prowess I understand that I talk like a fool Most of the time but it was one of those Things where you have You know Two maybe three minutes with him After a game where he's hit another Home run like you're it's just You're relying a lot on him Knowing that song and where you're Going with it it's like if I You know sometimes in conversation You'll just say hey have you been watching this Show or this movie because you want to make a reference to it Something they said reminds you of it And then the person says no And then it's just like a Just absolute conversation killer Right? Like oh well if you had seen it Then I was going to say That they use this joke a lot on the show But you haven't seen it So don't worry about it And I just think it's an interesting move By Shannon To like kind of set up this question In this way Assuming that he does know the song So that she can tie it together With Julio's accomplishments It was a weird moment

But I love that Gino I just that's what That's what I'm doing now I'm just going with Gino. I love that Gino, and if I ever meet him and he doesn't want me to do that, then I'll go back to saying his name incorrectly. I just love that he also recognized in the moment that this is not the time to grind this interview to a halt and get a further explanation on what is the song. Anything you can do, I can do better. Yeah, no, I'm with you. He did exactly the right thing, which was to just keep it moving, keep it positive, and just be a mensch.

I was thinking the same exact thing. I was cleaning the – so I cleaned the inside of our car yesterday, just really power cleaned it, not using a pressure washer or anything like that. Just like we haven't cleaned the car in a while, and Genevieve has to give somebody a ride later. I'm like, oh, I don't want them to see the car kind of nasty. So I had Wednesday evening circled on my calendar for a while. Like this is the day that I need to clean the hell out of the inside of the car. I mean, I took the the extraction that, you know, like the little thing that we sometimes refer to as a steam cleaner, but it's not a steam cleaner at all. But a little extraction vacuum to get some stains out of the seats, just like really clean the heck of it. So I'm listening to the game and then I'm listening to the postgame interview. None of the information I just gave you helps this story. I just wanted you to picture me big black headphones on, right? Doing work, big black headphones on, sweating because it is a little hotter than I expected. And I'm listening to this interview And it's one of those things that I had no idea That you would be bringing this up And yes, of course Not until this morning did you mention I'm like, oh yeah, I have a million thoughts on that I was totally dissecting that in my head And I'm probably doing that all the time Throughout the day as I listen to Various live sports radio things But I love the idea that you and I

Are just like looking at the same moon I'm out here in Tennessee You're in Seattle but we're both going like, huh, that was an interesting moment. Yeah, Lukals Goes East is the name of our...

Show title? Maybe. But anyway, yeah, so I do think it was an interesting choice on her part, but then also, yeah, he's totally rolling with it, which I love that he's just like, yeah, okay, I'll just take this. He's just like, he doesn't say, huh, what? No, I don't. He just goes with it. Okay. But what he does is he then does slip into, you know, kind of baseball idioms, which is something that i don't usually like you know like we talk about we've been talking about russell wilson a lot and he would kind of just i kind of say cliche things a lot a lot of a lot of sports players do and that's the thing like they're really good at sports like they don't have to be really good at broadcasting and i and especially i would argue it is it is it's two

different parts of the brain probably oh yeah the the the wiring that allows somebody to just be incredible at a physical thing every once in a while someone's also got the wiring to just be incredibly verbally adept but that's not the case that's not typical you know it's same same exact

thing like if you have the wiring to throw a really hard four seam fastball your brain doesn't have the wiring to realize that you should get a fucking vaccination robbie ray you're saying that Maybe those aren't the best people to be, quote unquote, doing their own research. But anyway, I did have the same thoughts. I was like, he's slipping into some like he's, you know, back to Suarez, he's slipping into some cliches here. But God damn it, he's trying. And again, he's speaking English as a second language, you know, so I thought it was great.

I mean, we just talked about this. I can't remember if it was No Point or on the regular show, but it's like, imagine doing an interview in Spanish and then somebody's asking you a question about a song that is like a children's song for people in the country that you're being interviewed in and then you just still have the deftness to just and even if he did get a little into you know like you said kind of just baseball isms or whatever you know 110% give it our all kind of stuff even so just being able to do that that Let's see. seamlessly in a language that's not your first language after you also hit a two-run home run in a major league baseball game yeah i i give i give gino full marks um okay one other quick thing before we go to the break i hope it's okay that i bring this up andrew because uh i didn't actually get your permission but i thought this was really funny uh you have a friend of yours saw my dad

oh bees truck on the ferry yeah this is kent by the way he's a listener of tbtl uh and and i volunteer with him too on sundays and uh yeah he was a listener i don't know if he really listens anymore because i i think his commute shortened boy that nobody ever talks about how we suffered from the pandemic of people losing their commute time but yeah he must listen he must be caught up enough to to know what this to recognize this scene you're about to describe right which is uh

My dad's sign truck, which, you know, says the name of my dad's company, which is SignWorks. But it also, I think, notably has this pretty large bumper sticker that's a Lord of the Rings. I think my dad made it because he has all the equipment to make this kind of stuff. And it seems like larger than any standard bumper sticker I've ever seen. But it's got the Lord of the Rings characters, you know, the kind of main stars, the hobbits and Gandalf in them. And underneath it says, not all who wander are lost, which I, after I brought up the first time on the show, learned that that's actually, I think, a thing. That's like a that's a loader thing. And and this image is a loader thing as well.

It's the silhouettes of them all. It's a black black on white silhouette of of the entire troop kind of marching, I think, left to right or right to left. doesn't matter but um so i after you described this i did hear from other friends who said oh yeah i know that that image is a classic lord of the rings image but he might have taken like but your dad might have taken this image in these words and put them together but it's not a truly like he didn't he didn't come up with this concept right which i thought that he had just completely

like just made this you know kind of like invented this thing and and and so i learned that was probably not true i still think he actually probably physically manufactured the bumper sticker um again because he's got you know he can do that with his all his equipment and stuff but so then i took that picture and put it on hawk squad and said hey dad you're like getting famous and then everybody thought that was pretty cool and chiming in and then i just get a voice memo from my dad and it's just this where's my royalties i don't know if he totally knows how this works but he would like his royalties for being famous is that the first time we've heard

i've met your dad before but is that the first time we've heard your dad's voice on this show

no we've done a couple of things i believe in the past where it's been my mom and dad on the phone but as you might imagine i think that was much more um you know my mom was doing the bulk of the talking in those moments and it's been a long time it's it would have to be at least a few years uh since my dad's voice has ever actually aired on this program but yes this is walt b's response to his new found celebrity status where's my royalty and by the way that's just cut off i didn't cut that off accidentally that was the end of the file thing yeah no we got to figure out how

to get his royalties i'll write back to kent yeah i you know i wondered about that a little bit like it's an interesting thing because like if i was thinking hey we could use that as a show pick but it's interesting because it does it's like well it really lays out all of your dad's business there right like we've described the bumper sticker and the truck enough and the name of the and the name of the sign company and then now there's his phone number and then and his license plate although people are very protective about license plates online where like i just don't like are a lot of bad things happening where people are stealing people's light i'm sure somebody have some horror stories about like oh yeah i heard about this guy and you know i don't know georgia whose life was ruined because somebody got his license plate number but like

i'm not unclear to me and i think the listeners will probably fill us in on this but i'm with you andrew it's unclear to me what somebody could really do if they found out my license plate number yeah like i maybe there's something where they could like try to use it to um like get a replacement title sent to them or something i mean that to take that up with ron tonkin mazda in portland if they want to there's more information just leasing the car there's more

information for you but yeah but it also had his phone number on the back of that truck as well so

i was like well maybe i shouldn't spread this actually and this is now andrew this is the much more kind of pressing issue for me if that photo were to be more widespread and people could see the phone number for my dad's sign business if they were to call him and hire him to make a sign for them, he would have less time to help me work on the TBTL.

studio at my house and that can't happen because i need him i need him and that walter is where your royalties are exactly where's my royalty stolen by your son yes i'm paying him all right let's take a quick break and then uh we will come back and get into these top stories as well as the blurs days here on tbtl all right let's thank some daily donors who are making tbtl possible with their extreme generosity folks like sarah settlemeyer of carlisle pennsylvania thanks sarah lynn Stell is in Bainbridge, on Bainbridge Island, Washington. People very specifically say on around here. Do they do that everywhere? But I guess it makes sense. You say on Bainbridge. Well, it's funny because, yeah, I've, you know, growing up in the Northwest would always say, oh, yeah, they live on Bainbridge, right? That would be how you'd say it. But when I hear the, I think it's The Moth Radio Hour, or it's one of those shows. I think it's The Moth. At the end, there's like a summary by the guy who's kind of credited as the sort of creator of the show or of the radio version. Jay? And he always says, it's, who is it again? Jay Allison, maybe? It's Jay Allison. And he always says, I believe he says, I'm on, this is Jay Allison, and I'm, you know, something like on Martha's Vineyard. Yeah, he is on Martha's Vineyard. And that always sounds weird to me. I don't know why on Bainbridge Island is fine to me, but on Martha's Vineyard is like, huh? Yeah, that is interesting. Is Martha's Vineyard, I know you can take a bridge out there, but is it technically an island? I guess it is. It must be. Huh, that's funny, because I've been out there, you know, living in New England. And somebody always knows somebody who, you know, has some place or some family place on Martha's Vineyard. But, yeah, that is straight up an island as if anything else. I guess I forgive you, Jay Allison, because you're technically correct. Brett and Elizabeth Strouch are in Marietta, Georgia. They're on Marietta, Georgia. Thank you, Brett and Elizabeth. Sarah Sund is in Boise, Idaho. Would you look at that? Who put us up on our road trip. You know, our friend Broadcast Barry is opening a pizza. Oh, God. I hope I can say this. He's opening a pizza joint in Boise. I do know that I've been unsuccessfully brainstorming on names with him. I know. Me, too. And I've also been unsuccessful because that's all I'm going to say about it because I don't even know if we're allowed to mention it.

I'm just excited for the residents of Boise to know that that's on the horizon. And I know that he's kind of deciding on a name, and then he told me what he was considering. I thought it was a pretty good idea, but then I was trying to think. I just really want to name a pizza place and then be able to brag every time I drive by it in Boise that I was the one who came up with the name. Unfortunately, you have no good pizza ideas. Yeah, there's pizza just whiff out the window. Yeah, too small. Thank you, Sarah, for your support. And sorry, Barry, if I was not allowed to talk about that, we'll bleep all of this out, including. I am wondering, like, yeah, you just picked that up again. I'm like, OK, that's where the edit point will be. If Barry says we can't mention it already in case we can't use it. I really hope this is just all in. But in case we can't use it. Three, two, one. And look at that. Sarah Sunt in Boise, Idaho. Never heard of her. Who put us up as we were traveling through. Thank you, Sarah. Appreciate you. Also, Ann Taylor is in Washington, D.C. Long, long, long, long, long, long time listener. Back from the radio days, I believe. Thanks, Ann. And then Alice and Gabe Weimers and Claire are in Davidson, North Carolina. I'm closer to North Carolina than I thought. I was looking at the map, like where Tennessee is. And it's like I'm almost I mean, I can almost go visit Alice and Gabe, but I won't because that, you know. boundaries and yeah exactly so thank you though for supporting the show thank you to all of our donors for making today's tbtl possible hello and welcome to top story i've been kind of mentioning this for the last couple of days and so i should probably just uh finally get to it uh it's this dilemma that I'm in regarding a shirt that I ordered from, um,

by way of Instagram, this has started happening to me more and more. For a long time, I was afraid to order products on Instagram because I just thought they're never going to be as cool or as functional as they look on Instagram. Because I feel like the ads, and this is probably because it's, you know, based on things that I've clicked on or allowed to continue playing, I feel like the ads on Instagram for products, whether it's a piece of clothing or some piece of technology or whatever are the most compelling internet ads to me they are the ads that most cause me to think i should probably get that

yeah i could see i mean that it's a whole art in and of itself i've i've bought very few things in fact i felt like kind of this was kind of an old man move the only thing i have come close to buying off of instagram trying to think i you know what no i've purchased some t-shirts as well i I think I got a Browns, like an unofficial Browns T-shirt, I think, that I saw advertised there. But then also, I was going to say, I felt really old when I saw this, like, mini projector that you can plug into your computer easily and project. I saw it on Instagram, but then went and bought it off of Amazon. Like, I was like, I want to, you know, it just seemed like a more, like, familiar platform for me.

Well, I have recently been kind of dipping my toes into the buying of things on Instagram waters. And I will tell you this, pretty much exactly what I was worried about is what exactly has happened. I bought a pair of shoes from a company called Flux. So I really like these Adidas, these Rod Laver Adidas shoes that I used to wear. They're white, and I used to wear them often if I was on stage in a suit or whatever. You can't even buy them anymore, Andrew. Like, they're just, they don't exist, which is weird. I was getting them for, like, real, like, nobody cared about these shoes four years ago, and I could just buy them. they were like 45 dollars or something and i just buy bunches of them now they're just like gone so i'm looking for another shoe that's kind of similar and i saw these shoes from some company called flux i ordered them they were even though they were the size i normally wear these ones were kind of too small so now i've got to mail them back which means i've got it and they're super nice about it like the good thing about all of this stuff is they've usually got the return stuff really dialed in like all i have to do is take the shoes to like a fedex office thing with this qr code and then they just i don't even have to put them back in the box so whatever point is i also ordered this shirt and i don't exactly know why probably two glasses of wine in or something it just looked cool and rugged and um like something that might be good in the kind of winter time the ad was just very compelling i'm also being a little vague because i don't really want to like i don't want to tip the scales for or again this company because i actually i they seem like they're really great folks and so i don't want to sound like i'm being negative or whatever but basically i ordered this shirt that and also the model who was wearing it he was probably looked the way that i would hope i could ever look which is not going to come true but he just had an effortless ruggedness about him and this is like a a blue really durable shirt that's like for if you're out on a fishing boat or something or you're just kind of like a real a real rugged person who's putting a lot of wear and tear on the on this particular shirt something about it just spoke to me i bought it it came in the mail and i tried it on and it was like too burly to be a shirt that i would just wear like button up and wear around town like a collared shirt but not quite big enough to be a jacket like it just fell in this in-between range and it was not cheap by the way this shirt like based on how much i usually spend on a shirt and so i sent uh to the you know the whatever order form for this company i just sent them an email and this is what i said in my email i said hey there i received my shirt from your company and it's cool but not quite what i was expecting question mark what's the best way for me to go ahead and send it back thanks exclamation point l and i just figured i would get some kind of bot or something that would just say like here's how you like the flux shoe people i just got some kind

of auto response that sent me a qr code to just have the whole thing handled this response was from the founder and ceo of the company hey luke sorry to hear our shirt is not your jam no problem returning for a full refund send the shirt back to me at and then gives the address i will process the return and issue a full refund as soon as it arrives i hope you'll give us another shot to exceed your expectations in the future with gratitude comma and then the guy's first name like this is like a four i looked at their website this is like a four person operation

it's still probably in charge of the company you still that's still boilerplate in some way though I mean, you know, like I bet you it is. Yeah.

But also, I guess it was still – the effect it had on me, well, one, was to make me feel – not that this is what they were trying to do, but immediately feel super bad about returning this shirt. But also, it was very – if this is – by the way, there's a typo in it. Hey, Luke, sorry to hear our shirt is not U-Jam. Y-O-U, Jam. So either there's a typo in the boilerplate Or this guy literally was just Is really just responding to these things But I'm with you I'm sure that this is a fairly standard response That he sends out to people But the fact I do think it came from this guy Because I looked on their website And literally there's like There's four people that work at the company And one of them is a videographer And I don't think that person is Is like sending back You know The response My guess is that it's This is not unlike the TBTL of clothing And that there's a decent chance that that this guy literally just responds to these things and so then i was like oh man it's kind of a mom and pop and like am i being a jerk to send i mean i didn't i didn't wear the shirt out like they could resell it i mean i literally tried it on looked in the mirror and then was like i don't know um but then because i'm nuts i then started googling the ceo and then i got to his instagram page and then i realized that he lives in a really pretty i think he lives in a pretty nice house because there's these great shots of like the water from the home like it looks like the house looks out on on a beautiful body of water and also he's really into duck hunting and a lot of the photos are just of like all the ducks they got that actually kind of makes sense

And then the way you're describing this kind of rugged but stylish outdoor shirt that totally feels like that.

It's an outdoor brand. I didn't realize how it's sort of like, you know, there's that brand Filson that I really like. It's it's sort of Filson adjacent. It's like I think they're going for kind of sort of the same folks who who want to wear long lasting, durable kind of outdoorsy, rugged clothing. But I then finally decided I am going to send the shirt back in because I don't really agree with duck hunting. that's my that's my justification and also there were some photos of a road trip that he apparently took and he was driving a really nice car and i don't know if it was a rental but it looked like it might be like a bugatti or something and then i just thought it's gonna be okay if i have if this guy has to eat it on this 140 shirt i think that i like the way you're cagey before it was more

expensive than i would usually pay for well yeah and yeah no 104 is but uh well i planned on owning

it for the next hundred years yeah no no no yeah i'm glad that you did i mean it was ten dollars a year if i if i keep it for a hundred years were you buying it on layaway too that's an interesting plan you know what's funny about that by the way is layaway is totally back but well actually that's not true just trying to make everybody put everything on credit is totally back because you can't buy anything online anymore where they don't offer you some kind of payment plan i have bumped up against that too i never take it i don't i like no way i don't want to like pay interest on this you know cat toy that yeah hang on amazon or whatever but um but your feelings

on this seem uniquely luke like i i would not have any i would have no issue returning something that didn't that doesn't work for you i i will say though that the um the personal touch will work out in the long run for these folks you know whether or not he lives in a big fancy house or not um like i i was surprised you know remember my journey with the i've been wearing a lot of these um i mean for a long long time now i kind of tend to wear these like kind of western shirts sort of western snap snap pearl buttons snap up kind of thing i don't think i just started because for most of my adult life i was doing most of my shopping just at thrift stores not out of any i don't know i just never grew up i guess i just when i started doing my own shopping as a younger person it was at thrift stores and then i guess i never got the notice that you should probably just start buying new clothes at some point i mean don't get me wrong i'm not like i'm not like dressing up like some uh busker when i go to somebody's wedding by like buying second hand you know formal wear with vests or whatever i i just mean that like you know i buy new clothes when called for but generally speaking i just kind of never got in the habit of just like going to the store and buying new clothes or going online and doing it um and suddenly i realized oh all of my thrift store shirts are literally wearing out like it was sometime during the pandemic I never had to think about what I look like and then I was just like these things are becoming actually threadbare because I've had them for so long so I'm like well what is the brand of this one shirt that I liked and I looked in the at the collar and it said Eli Cattleman and I'm like yeah I've looked at this Eli Cattleman tag from the shirt that I've owned for 20 years you know a million times never really thought about it I wonder if they still exist Thank you. So I looked them up, and they do, and they had some new Western shirts. And I was like, can I buy new Western shirts? And so I did place an order for a couple, or maybe just one, and I really, really liked it. But then one of the snaps broke on it pretty quickly. And do you remember this? I wrote back to them. I'm just like, hey, I'm loving everything about this. I just am really bummed. I've had this shirt for maybe three weeks or a month, and the snap already broke. Is there any chance I could get another one? and somebody wrote back like yeah we're actually out of that particular style let me see what we have in the storeroom and then she started like sending me emails with just like she was grabbing shirts in my size hanging them on it was clearly in her office somewhere and she was just hanging them on the um filing cabinet she opened up the filing cabinet door a little bit or just hung it on the handle and took a photo and sent it to me like i promise you that lady was named janice well janice is the best i was like janice that's awesome thank you so much i'm like yes that is perfect and i mean that and then you know what i did i bought more shirts from him and i continue to do so like that that little moment of customer service and again it's seeming like i was talking to a human being who like went somewhere grabbed a shirt hung it in her office and sent me a photo

of it that really sold me i again i think that's probably part of what the people who like this show it's probably what they like about it is that you know we are you know we've obviously got our colleagues at apm who are incredibly helpful like our colleague john and annie and folks like that but like it's it feels like now now granted if you send an email to me it may or may not get to me i may or may not notice it or check it but like if they send an email to you andrew there's a pretty good chance you're going to respond like i think that there's something folks feel like oh we're not like at gimlet we're not in some you know we're not at uh wonderly in some gleaming skyscraper off of sunset in la like the accessibility of us and this show i hope anyway

is kind of appealing you just hung me out to try so hard i have so many long thoughtful emails from listeners in my box right now and i was like i want to retract my previous statement i know

Andrew, I try, but there is just not responsible. You are not any more responsible than I am to respond to people's emails. I'm sorry.

I know it's actually good to bring up. I've been better at that. I really try to return people's emails, especially like some people write really thoughtful ones about stuff we've talked about on the show. And like there's all kinds that I just keep on saying, OK, I'm going to sit down and do that. And they have been sort of piling up. So actually, I'm glad you said that, Luke. So if you're somebody who wrote an email in the past like month or so and you're like, boy, I would have really thought I would have gotten a response from Walsh on that. My apologies.

Now, we have just enough time to tackle one more kind of shortish story. Should it be the family that owns Patagonia giving it away, or should it be me going on an internet deep dive about if my rented Chevy Tahoe is designed to wobble at 80 miles an hour so that I can't speed in it?

Let's talk about that one tomorrow. I'm intrigued in that one, but let's do Patagonia only because I don't have much to say about it. I read the story or part of the story. I read the headline. I read the byline. I know that it was a story. Did you read that Skyrider over the Willamette? No, I did read the, you know, I got the main drift of the story, or gist of the story, but I, ooh, somebody should make a podcast. But I didn't have a lot of takes other than good on them. So what was your takeaway from this Patagonia story?

Well, I saw the headline, you know, this was a New York Times piece by David Gellis, Billionaire no more, Patagonia founder gives away the company. and because i am just so jealous and deeply suspicious of anybody who has anything like i was like okay he gave away the company but he's just filthy rich anyway and like who cares or whatever like i went into the story trying to find where he wasn't really giving away the company or where he was just giving away part of it or where he was just slicing off uh by the way the guy is named and i'm gonna i'm sure i'm going to totally screw this up but it's like yvonne chanard uh is i think the i know that's the name i don't know if that's how you pronounce it but it's the guy who founded patagonia i was just looking for a reason or for something that would indicate to me that this wasn't exactly what they were saying it was but it seems to totally be what they were saying it was yeah it seems like it which is kind of incredible i mean what's i'm paraphrasing here But basically what's happened is they've they've put the company into a sort of trust so that it will continue to donate. Well, they've created this thing, this this this sort of pool of money that's going to support organizations that are fighting climate change. And that's a big chunk of money.

And then the company itself, they've divested themselves completely of it and created this pretty complicated, like, 4-0-something-something. Like, it's not a, you know, it's like one of those 501c3 things, but, well, like, I've never seen before. It's a 501c4 holdfast collective is what it's called, and it allows them to make unlimited political contributions. um they basically created this thing to give away a bunch of money to to organizations that are fighting climate change and then the rest of the company they put into this other thing so that it will continue it can make money but they don't own it anymore and it will kick off money that will also go to fight climate change and what i thought was really interesting was this is irrevocable they can't get it back and they seem so happy about it this guy and his wife And also their two kids One of the things they considered was giving The company to their kids But the kids who are in their 40s said No, no, no, we don't want this We don't want to get any of the money from this And there was a line in here That I'm going to try to find It's a very long article I mean, one of the other things too, I'll just say as I'm scrolling through it Is I also just figured, well, whatever This guy has like, I'm sure he has like A crazy estate He has multiple crazy estates That he can always just live in And again, I don't know why I started negative on this. That's just because I'm a bad person. But then they mention in the article that he has a home in Jackson, Wyoming, which is described by the reporter as a very modest home. Let's see. Even today, he wears raggedy old clothes, drives a beat-up Subaru, and splits his time between modest homes in Ventura and Jackson, Wyoming. He does not own a computer or a cell phone. which i was just like wow okay this guy is really living the lifestyle uh this is another thing he says in the article uh i was in forbes magazine and i was listed as a billionaire which really really pissed me off he said i don't have a billion dollars in the bank i don't drive lexuses so he's like it it sounds like and this is kind of throughout the article well first of all he was just like a rock climber dude who lived in his car you know back in the whatever 70s and then founded this company but has never been comfortable with the fact that it's been as profitable as it is and that it's made him somebody who's on paper fabulously wealthy like it just really reads that he has assiduously avoided embracing that as his reality now this is which i think is pretty

interesting twist in the story because i didn't i didn't read this suspecting any um i didn't go into this with any kind of negative cynicism or whatever i just saw the story but now you've He pushed me to a negative hot take. Why? Let me ask you this. Even if he's not rich, putting the money part aside, if you are somebody who runs a business like this but doesn't own a computer or cell phone, I feel like you can say, oh, good for you. But really, you're probably just making other people's lives harder by being the no computer, no cell phone guy because people still need to communicate with you in the modern world.

Fair but I do think there's another thing they mentioned is that Patagonia has long been a very progressive place in terms of how it treats its employees in terms of days off and having a daycare at the headquarters and so probably on balance it's like yeah you can't get a hold of the former CEO but also they have daycare at the place and they're really like about trying to make the work life balance.

This is according to this article and former CEO, too. Of course, you know what? I'm sorry. I'm still picturing him with his hands in the operation in some way. Oh, no. If he's if he's retired, then he doesn't need to deal.

But he probably didn't have the computer or cell phone for the many years that he was,

in fact, in charge. And I said that mostly to I said that mostly just to kind of, I don't know, get a reaction. I think I don't I don't really want to make it too big of a deal of that. But there are people who leaving this guy aside who might like kind of say like, oh, yeah, I don't I don't have a cell phone or a computer. And I can still navigate this world It's like, yeah, because you're probably relying on a whole bunch of other people Who have computers and cell phones And making sure that they're printing shit out for you You're basically describing me

I'm just a low-level version of this Can you imagine you without a cell phone? Can you print out the entire Livewire script, please? Because I'm just worried about dealing with the computer I can't get into the Google Doc That's basically how I operate

Can you and I fax stuff to each other? because we both have these computers or these printers now. I inherited one. It was a great gift from somebody. And, like, of course, it's a printer, it's a scanner, and, of course, it's a fax. Oh, no, no, I don't have a landline. Do you have a landline? You don't have a landline either, do you? It would be funny to start faxing things to each other.

I don't know if the fax, because it's Wi-Fi enabled, I think it basically just would use the Wi-Fi to send the message. I don't think it needs a phone line anymore.

What if we start faxing? I would love that.

Okay.

Let's start doing that. When I'm back home, let's do some test faxes next week. I'm calling this show The Facts of Life. Ay. So this was the part of the article that also kind of jumped out at me. When they're writing about the kind of different ideas, basically this guy, Yves Chouinard, he didn't really, he just didn't want to own this company anymore. so he was like well we could sell it but then he was worried that the mission would change because again all this time they've been this company's been donating a lot of money to causes that are trying to fight climate change so then somebody was like we'll take it public but he didn't want to take it public either because he didn't want to be he didn't want the stock market involved in fact he says i don't respect the stock market at all he said once you're public you've lost control over the company and you have to maximize profits for the shareholders yeah then you become one of those irresponsible companies and i'm like hell yes my dude yeah like we live in this world where the assumption is that if a company is successful and is making any kind of money that it's only a matter of time before it goes public so that the people can make even more money on it but now it's going to always be driven by the maximizing profits it's why the towels at my hotel while they're trying to tell me that they're saving the whales it's because marriott is trying to maximize profits. And if they wash three fewer towels a day, profits go up. And so they're trying to trick me into thinking it's saving the whales. This profit, this need to always maximize profits is so corrosive, I think. This was the other thing. The other thing they considered was simply leaving the company to their children, Fletcher and Claire. But even that option didn't work because the children didn't want the company. It was more important to them that they were not seen as the financial beneficiaries, said one of the attorneys who helped handle this they felt very strongly about it i know it can sound flippant but they really embody this notion that every billionaire is a policy failure wow love it now that is a sentence love it love it right like i'm i'm i'm pretty capitalistic i'm definitely you know probably more hung up on trying to earn money etc than than than you are i think and then i should be like it's not a great look for me but i think i stand i think i agree with this notion that we don't we shouldn't have billionaires that's a policy failure like imagine you looked at an ant colony uh or like a you know an anthill and they're cutting leaves and they're carrying them on their backs like they do and all that and just like four ants had all the leaves and then there's three thousand other ants and they are sharing one leaf section between them you'd go what is wrong with these ants and like that's the world basically you know like billionaires

that's that's a policy failure yeah i don't want to get out over my skis here because i'm the least articulate person on these topics but i will say that it's interesting if you go back to earlier episodes of tbtl like a long time ago when anything i don't know just come up from time to time i always cringe thinking about it because i remember just always saying like i just believe in the free market and like because the way it was taught to me i did believe in the free market And I believe in market forces and I believe in competition and I believe in, you know, competition breeding excellence. And there's some truth to those aspects of it. But to just blatantly just to, like, say a blanket statement like, you know, I believe in the free market, like you're ignoring so many things. And the fact that power and money beget power and money and the people who are accumulating all this wealth. It's not just from competition and excellence and hard work. It's like once you have that power, then you use that power to not put back into society. Right. And that's how you have situations where Amazon will come into a city like ours and people say, oh, great jobs. Yeah. What they do. They attracted a bunch of, you know, very high level jobs for a very specific part of the population that has a certain type of education. And the people who don't have that education are getting poorer and poorer. And I mean, you just like, yeah, like on paper, the idea that somebody should be able to work hard and become a millionaire or even a billionaire. OK, great. That sounds like freedom. Right. But no, there's so much more involved in that. That is just like overlooked when you just look at it so simplistically, like I did for years and years.

Well, yeah. And I think I'm way more guilty of that than you are. I just really feel like a billion dollars is more money than somebody needs. like it that's why that that that way of describing it as a billionaire is a policy failure really struck me because it like it is a policy failure it just shouldn't be the case that someone can accumulate more money than they can ever spend in 10 lifetimes while there are so many people that are going without the most basic needs being met like that's just a fucked up ant colony to live in like you could how about this you could have 500 million dollars you could have half of a billion dollars you could have two russell wilson salaries um and they still will try to kick a 64 yard field very frustrating very strange i have like yeah like Like, it doesn't mean that, like, people can still be super wealthy, but it just seems like there is an amount of money that is ludicrous when you think about the suffering in the world. And I guess, you know, this is where arguments get murky because, like, I'm deciding a billion seems excessive, but half a billion seems fine. And that's just an arbitrary number I came up with in this moment, by the way, as I'm staring at these donkeys that I love now as well, more than life. But it just does seem like If the system allows one person Or a small group of people A few people, a family To have that amount of resources Something didn't work out Things were not being distributed In an equitable way

Yeah, and what you're saying is not Hey, we should come up with a number And say when you hit this number You can stop earning That's not how this works It's about the systems that are in place that allow people to have – that can accumulate more wealth than some nations. I mean it's not just like, hey, you've hit the ceiling. Now you've got to start giving us all your money. That's not what we're talking about here. But the good news is I did get an email here, a text message back from Broadcast Barry. It's okay to mention the pizza shop, so let's do this again.

Speaking of aspiring billionaires, speaking of the free market.

Right, exactly. That's a man who works, man.

But he shares the wealth by sending you and me free coffee, Andrew.

Actually, you know what? Like, not to embarrass him, but, like, Barry, like, let's see. Not to embarrass him. I think that you and I are making each other worse with these puns. It's addictive. But when you meet anybody who works at one of the broadcast coffee roasters, I've never met anybody who works at Temple, which is a partnership with him. But, like, the people who work for Broadcast talk about how wonderful it is to work for Barry and with Barry. And, like, that is the perfect example of a responsible company that is that, you know, like Barry, nothing is ever good enough for Barry. He and you are kind of similar in that way. Like, I think you're both very driven and motivated, and I respect the hell out of that for both of you. Whereas I'm just kind of like, eh, maybe I'll just play darts for the rest of my life in the basement, you know. But along with that Drive with him is also to do things Right and like I'm telling you If anybody is by a broadcast coffee Roasters and you go and you get a cup of coffee Ask them if they know Barry and they And the people who work there their face will Shine because people love Working for him there's that is a Responsible business owner

Yeah

Yeah send me more coffee

There's a right way to Rock and a wrong way to wrong you can't just listen to your soul just remember that life is number one you can't be having so much fun just remember that life is much fun you can't be not

okay i'm gonna do the blurs days today luke we have a handful of these things A quick apology, by the way. Boy, did we mess up last week, and I'll take the blame for this one. No, it's on me. That's 100% on me. We were pre-taping some shows last week, so we figured some Blursdays might not get to us in time since we were recording on a Wednesday. And then we said we'll make them up on Friday, but then we forgot, and we messed up the timeline. Well, and we pre-taped Friday, too.

We did that show about the elderly. That was last week's show. Exactly.

If you're hearing us talk about the elderly, you're too late. We're talking about gardening this week. So anyway, we have a couple of those Blursdays to mention. And if you want to send us a Blursday, send it to me via email. That's the singular way to get this done. Andrew at tbtl.net and just put Blursday in the subject line. Let's start with this from last week. This is one that sort of slipped through the cracks. Nick in Denver sent in this Blursday. Just wanted to wish the happiest of Blursdays to my best friend, wife, and seemingly lifelong 10, Mary. Oh, I thought those were three different people. No, it's Mary's. All of those things. Mary's about to have a combo deal birthday party and baby shower. Congrats, Mary and Nick. New Blur's Day girl coming in October. Baby cat, the mango and I are so proud of her, and I can't wait for us all to be together, sharing and observations with our best imaginary friends.

That's us, Nick.

Aw, cute. And then our pal Kayla in Stockton says, happy Blur's Day to my brother and soon to be first time dad, Anthony, who I'm convinced if I keep sharing all the clips of you guys talking about Christian and me, he'll eventually listen to the show and I'll finally have a real life 10 friend. Love you. And Christian says, happy birthday, Uncle Tony. Those guys are great.

Coming up in a little bit, I have to do a pretty hard pivot on this music, Luke. And I'm hoping that I can both read and handle the audio at the same time. What's the hard pivot? All will be revealed.

I love just riding shotgun on the show. I'm finally intrigued by what's happening for the first time in years.

Just keep your fingers on those sound effects. Dave says, greetings from humble Texas. Weirdly, some huge braggarts live there, Luke. Happy Blur's Day to Andrea, whose birthday is September 27th. She's a very loyal listener for whatever reason and much to my chagrin. She's a very loyal listener for whatever reason and much to my chagrin. Is there another sentence after that? No. Well, and then Dave says, and it would make her day to get a shout-out from you two chuckleheads. Thanks. I've got to say, I love the term chucklehead. I'll take that.

I do, too.

Yeah. I'm watching your show career.

Isn't that how, oh, he says knuckleheads. That's how Mike Wilbon, Michael Wilbon ends PTI. Pardon me. I just started watching that again. You love that show. God, that show. The format, right? I love it so much. Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon. And he always says, we'll see you next time, knuckleheads, which I just think is very endearing.

I'm embarrassing myself again because I can't think of her name, and we talk about her on the show all the time. And Jill Lepore, I think one of the first times I heard Chucklehead or the first time that like I remember hearing it, I think Jill was on maybe Ross and Burbank or maybe she was on KUOW or maybe both. But I think I met Jill Lepore, of course, you know, history writer and writes for the New Yorker. She was giving a talk at Town Hall and I was there for KUOW to record it. But earlier that day, I believe, I produced a segment with her on Ross and Burbank. Now, you and Dave Ross are two responsible. Well, Dave Ross is a responsible journalist. Yeah, let's be honest. But she told me that night that she was not sure what she was getting into going on commercial radio. And she said, I didn't want to be just a couple of chuckleheads or something like that. And I always remember Jill Lepore saying chuckleheads. And now it's my favorite word. Anyway, all of that is to say, happy Blur's Day, Andrea. And after that little diatribe I went on, I understand why it's today's chagrin that she listens to the show. Definitely earned it. I did. All right, just a couple more here. Kevin says, happy Blur's Day to my dear partner and wife. Jen is the single most important person in my life. She also works in community health, working tirelessly to make the world a better place. Happy birthday, my love. That was Kevin saying that to Jen, not me saying that to Jen. I can't wait to share this with you on our road trip to your most favorite place this Saturday. I cannot imagine a world without you. Happy Blur's Day, Jim. Thank you, my love. Let's see. I've got to let this kind of play here for a second. Get my audio ready for this pivot. Okay. Sarah says, wishing myself a happy 46th Blur's Day. Blur's Day. Shout out to Luke for his Blur's Day tweet to me. It's Luke's Tweet of the Week. Oh, yeah. Smooth, man. Nobody knew I was doing anything behind the scenes there. So, Luke, you apparently tweeted out, happy birthday. Now, please cover this cake with millions of microscopic droplets of your spit for me. Missed one. Lol. That was a random tweet, a joke that you sent out, but you sent it out on Sarah's actual Blur's Day. And Sarah says, I'm not sure if you do this for all your 46-year-old tens, but I'll take it.

You know, remember the part where I said I ate six Morningstar Farm veggie breakfast sausages, which links, which then sent me to the restroom early in the morning? Well, as I was pondering my life.

Don't ruin this for Sarah. Sarah's Blur's Day message. There's one word that's coming into Sarah's brain right now, and it's chagrin. Well, it definitely starts with the shh sound.

It occurred to me, and I don't know why this thought came into my brain at literal four in the morning, but it is a weird tradition to blow out the candles on a cake. If you think about what happens, what's really happening when you're blowing like that, You are certainly expelling a lot of very, very, very tiny droplets of liquid, like you're blowing air as well. But there's no way that it's not also sending out thousands of droplets of your spit. And not only is it that, but we as a culture are obsessed with every candle being blown out. so when you got a lot of

you know a lot of candles and then somebody's missing one it's like get the last few candles like can we just shellac this with more saliva especially a kids party think about the kids blowing on that it's an odd tradition and that and that we don't talk about it more and i'm not a germaphobe but i just i don't know why that had never occurred to me before i don't know why it came to me at four in the morning but i decided to tweet it out to very little fanfare except for the fact that it also happened to be on that listener's actual birthday so happy blurs day

Yep. Happy Blur's Day to everybody. And also, I do want involved. I do wonder if that cake thing might have. I bet you some I bet you some people have found like during the pandemic or coming out of the pandemic, people gathering again, but not being comfortable with the blowing on the cake.

Well, somebody tweeted at me that they go with – and I believe this person is a doctor, it would appear in their Twitter bio, said something like when they take their kids to birthday parties or when they have birthday parties for their kids, they just do cupcakes, which they said is vastly better for a bunch of reasons, which that totally makes sense. Like, get a cup, delicious cupcakes, and you put a candle in the cupcake for the birthday person, and then they blow it out so they can eat their own spit. That's great. That's a good system. Eat your own spit. Happy birthday. Show title.

All right. I think we did, I was going to say good work here today. I think we did work here today. Yes, we did.

That's for the courts to decide, Andrew, if it was good or not. But that's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening. We will be back here tomorrow with another edition of this here Imaginary Radio for you, so please do join us for that. Until then, have a great Thursday. Take care of yourselves. Go Mariners. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

i don't want to get into the hot dog versus sausage thing well i might have to we'll figure

it out i might have to you guide me hot dog story you guide me i don't try to i don't try to define where this hot dog story's going it's in the you know what it's in the hands of the hot dog muses now well we have our dry intro tape power out