Muse

Let me just ask you a couple other questions. Are you experiencing any dizziness? No. Any shortness of breath? No. Aches and pains anywhere else? No. Are you going to the bathroom a lot? I don't see how that's relevant, really. Am I going to the bathroom a lot? You're urinating a lot. What does that have to do with my ear? This is a standard medical question. I know, but I really don't think it's relevant how often I go to the bathroom. In all due respect, I think I'm the one to tell you if it's relevant or not, and it is. It's kind of private, and I really don't think... How is it private? I'm asking you about... How often I go to the bathroom is kind of a private thing. Yeah, but I'm not some stranger. We're not on a bus. I'm a doctor. I'm normal. Let's just say that. Three times a day, four times a day.

Do we have to get into a specific number? Do we have to get a number attached to it? Yeah, it's science. However often people are supposed to go, I go, unless I drink a lot of water. And, you know, sometimes I'll drink a lot of water, and I'll go a lot, which I have been doing lately so maybe lately i've been going more often than i normally would great and but it's good for you to drink water that's good that's that's all i wanted to hear okay that's a good

thing drinking water sure sure okay let's move on please how's your stool tbtl

your mouth might be saying hey we cool but your eyes are like no we not

nice to meet you no it's not it's all good so expect to feel several bone tremors and be perceived by all around you to be a disgrace this is about respect this is about

personal space this is about the violation to the end got it here's the long and short of it someone has been touching my karaoke machine let me put it in plain english i don't dance to Dido, dude. I know there was a lot of D's in there before you sat me in.

All right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Wednesday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. I was just calling about the too beautiful to be heard. I can't believe you're still on the air. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host, coming to you from the Hollywood Broadcast Center right here in Portland, Oregon, where I'm very excited, my friends, because even as we speak, somewhere out there in the greater Portland area, the world's most expensive litter box is out for delivery, according to the FedEx tracker.

Things are going to start happening to me now.

Very excited about this robotic self-cleaning litter box that I had to order like three months ago at great personal expense. But it is supposedly going to arrive today. So that's pretty exciting. It's also pretty exciting that we've made it to episode 3776 in a collector's series.

Let the fun begin.

Today I'm feeling good. Yesterday I was feeling not great. I had a series of unfortunate events befall me yesterday. And then I had, in the midst of all that, an interaction with some person over the phone. And I can't, I don't know if I was being rude or they were being rude.

I mean, that's so rude. I can't believe it. That's so damn rude.

So we'll work through that. Speaking of rude behavior, the COO of the Beyond Meat Company.

The Miami Meat Tent.

got into an incident after an Arkansas Razorback football game that just really teased it up for the late-night joke writers of America.

You've got to be kidding me.

We'll talk about that, too. Plus emails and V-mails. And this guy, the longest-running co-bro of the show, may be best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's one of those rarest of things in podcasting. He's a five-tool player. Those tools include...

Sticks, eyes, feet, and brains. Plus a zest for experiment

He is Andrew Walsh And he's joining me right now From Bend, Oregon of all places Good morning my friend

Good morning Luke It is all happening for me here in Bend today So, pardon me for that terrible inhale That I just put into the microphone I don't know if you heard that I didn't actually come down the line So don't let it get in your head Listeners, don't rewind You will hear what the doctors call a death rattle What I was about to say was It's not funny You know how we've been talking a lot about finding money on the show lately Listeners calling in with stories of finding money My desire to find a bag of money specifically You've been talking a lot about finding money on the show Well, me and the listeners And we have another voicemail about finding money later on in today's show Well, today, as you mentioned, I'm in Bend, Oregon Here hanging out with some friends Got to see Wilco last night, and this morning I wake up and I drive to one of the local coffee shops. I believe it's called Sisters.

coffee shop here in Bend or Sisters Brewing.

I don't know. Well, you're near, to get to Bend, at least if you're coming from Portland, I believe you go through Sisters, Oregon. Oh, interesting. So I wonder if it's related to that.

Maybe. Or it might be Sisters who own the coffee shop. I don't know. It's in this little Bend. It's Sisters Coffee Company. Let's see here. It's owned by three sisters. Anyway, I'm walking out with my Americano and the latte that I got for Genevieve. Yes, I did say it sounds like a latte. I can't help it. I'm annoying myself these days. And what do I see on the ground? I've got a cup of coffee in each hand. And what do I see on the ground but a bright, shiny quarter from this year, 2022. It's one of those state quarters for – no, it's not. Who's William Killer? No, it's not. Oh, I think this might be a tribute to a Native American leader. And it's Wilma, by the way. It's Wilma Mankiller, I think. Oh, yeah, Wilma Mankiller, of course. My apologies. What's the deal with Wilma Mankiller?

Wilma Mankiller was a noted American Indian, Native American chief, I believe.

Oh, I had no idea. That was an embarrassing moment for me. Also, I couldn't see. I had to take off my glasses to read that. And I've just turned a celebration into a blooper on my part.

But no, I will say we are getting to talk about I'm now I'm reading up Wilma Mankiller was recognized as the first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation.

Oh, nice. OK, well, here's what here's where I was going with all of this. So we've talked, I'm going to say, in the past couple of weeks.

Now, Wilma Maneater, that was a that was a song by Hall and Oates. Right, exactly.

Not their best word. I was thinking if we've talked about, let's add it up and say in the past week or so, we've talked about finding money. Between my desire to and stories about it and listeners calling in, maybe we've talked about finding money for about 10 minutes. And that led me to find 25 cents, right? So I'm thinking if we talk about almost nothing, exclusively talking about finding money on this show for the next several weeks, I could be up to finding $20 bills by the end of this whole thing. Now, will we be out of a job by then? And will that hurt me financially is another question. There's some back of the napkin math we need to do there.

The TBTL failure curve and the Andrew finding more money curve intersect at a certain point.

I think stories of people finding money are interesting, though. I'm getting the impression that you do not.

No, here's what I think is interesting. if you happen to be holding a severe error 2022 wilma mankiller quarter it's worth it's going for 99 on ebay right oh my goodness you may have found more than just a quarter what's the severe error what kind of what am i looking quite tell because it also says it's from an uncirculated set so okay the one that you have probably was in circulation that's how it ended up on the

ground in bend oregon well it does show wilma mankiller walking on the moon and it says first in flight could that be the error that might be the one is the uh is the moon upside down the moon is upside down and this is turning into a stamp for some reason which is strange um so anyway i'm i'm not rich but i'm getting there that's where i am i'm having a great morning over here but you

it sounds like had a terrible morning yesterday well i had a frustrating morning so we had uh because you and veves were going to be driving down to bend to see wilco which i want to hear more about that too by the way just how that show was becca took me to a wilco show uh during the pandemic when it was pretty touch and go you know very masked very tested all that and it was one of the most fun nights i've had in forever uh just those they put on such a show but anyway yesterday because we had pre-recorded the show i was like okay i got a million errands to run and this will be a day uh that i can just kind of get an early start and just get a lot done because I don't have to think about TBTL and I was excited to make some progress and I go downstairs to the parking garage and my car is dead, D-E-D. Like I guess I left the dome light on.

But cars, you have a new car.

I thought cars look out for us these days. Well, I think they look out for us a little too much because one of the things that a lot of the newer cars do is when you open the door of the car, the lights go on and then you close the door And then at some point, they sort of slowly fade off. And I think that that, unfortunately, has now caused me to become very lax about if, you know, the lights are on or not. Because they kind of always are on. And then every once in a while, maybe I was coming home from the airport Sunday night. And I think what happened was I had turned the interior lights on so that I could take a photo of the parking receipt from Portland Airport so that I could expense it to CBS television. Okay.

But then when I got out of the car, I forgot that I had turned the lights on, meaning that this time when they were on, they were not going to turn themselves off, which is, again, I think a little confusing. But that's my theory. Or I don't know, something else went wrong. All I know is got to the car and it just was just so dead that I couldn't even open the back hatch because that uses some kind of there's no key for it. Or if there is, I don't know where the key goes. it's always something that i just control with the fob and like think about these modern cars is they're very dependent on having electrical power at this point there's almost nothing analog on

them isn't that doesn't that give you a bad feeling like i'm our car too like we have a we have a car that i don't know that we can enter our car if the fob is dead like we talked about that maybe a while back because i was so proud that i figured out how to change the battery in it myself which is something a an eight-year-old could do but um i it's just that idea and the more not to steal your story or expand it too far but even just the idea of everything we pay for is with our phone if to get into a concert we have to have our phone like if you ever have a an issue booting up your phone or a charge issue or if it dies on you like you can be like locked out of your car locked out of your venue like I just it makes me nervous I like keys yeah I I hadn't

thought of it much but yesterday I was like boy this is inconvenient because I so one of the things was i didn't know if the car the very very nice maintenance guy in my building louise said hey i have i can bring my truck over to you but i just don't have jumper cables and i thought well maybe my car comes with jumper cables i've never had to fortunately i've never had to like get in that spare tire area yeah um but it's you know it's kind of in the back uh like this is a hatchback so you can get to it from inside the car i couldn't open the hatch and i had all this camping stuff in there still like tents and like it was the back of this car has been full for weeks ever since Addie and I went camping and so I had to climb in through the like passenger door driver sorry driver's door climb into the back of the car haul all this camping gear out it's also like a thousand degrees in this parking garage and there's no light so I'm using my cell phone as my as a headlamp I'm using the flashlight on my phone and I'm trying to get everything out of the back of the car so that i can then pull up that thing to see if there's jumper cables of course there

wasn't quick question once you cleared out that area back there would you be able to pop open that back door from the inside you know i didn't uh i didn't actually investigate that i don't

think i could actually um there was nothing obvious to that point but i didn't actually try so maybe i missed something but anyway it was just a huge hassle and i was also supposed to get my hair cut in 15 minutes and this is really where so that was uh that was frustrating that the car was dead and that i don't have triple a because it's a pretty new car i have you know if when i had my um old forerunner if i'm driving a beater then i triple a is my best friend but i figured you know this car is like a 20 21 or something it should be shouldn't have too many breakdowns so i'm just like what am i gonna do i had to take a lift to get a uh to get jumper cables at the O'Reilly's yeah because nobody in my building uh has jumper cables that's a whole other story which I can get into in a moment but basically here's what happens car's dead I'm supposed to be at my haircut appointment in like 15 minutes at Rudy's I call them first of all they put me on hold for easily six minutes which is fine everyone's busy supply chain issues staffing shortages whatever but when the guy comes back on he says can I help you and i said yeah i um i have an appointment to get my haircut in about 10 minutes but my car battery is dead and he's like oh man that sucks and i was like yeah and then just like a long pause from him now this is by the way i'll mention not a person at the store the way i don't know how it works in seattle but here in portland when you call a rudy's haircut place to make an appointment

you get like a central location oh no we i can call my direct shop i mean you might be able to

figure out how to call the shop because they do have phones there but when you call to make a a reservation it somehow sends you to this reservation line where the person is not physically there i know because one time i asked i was like uh you know do you have any more of those candles i like and he was like i don't know i'm not at the location i just do the whatever scheduling so he takes a long pause and he goes all right you know stuff happens so i will let you reschedule this this one time because the thing is andrew when you make a reservation online through their website it makes you put in your credit card number to make the reservation so they've got my card and he's like yeah i'll let you i'll let you reschedule this time but just so you know this is your one freebie and i'm like just mad because i'm sweating my car is dead and i don't feel like i need

to feel like this guy's doing me a favor over a hair reservation now here's the thing obviously doctor's offices dentist offices people who take reservations there's a reason and if you have an hour blocked out then somebody else can't use that hour and so i understand the principle but here's the thing andrew they accept walk-ins so i don't feel like it's the same as a dentist's office or doctor's office because dentists don't accept walk-ins as far as i'm aware like those are these industries where if you block out the hour no one else is going to ever use that hour meanwhile at any rudy's that's bustling people are just walking in all the time going can i get a haircut so it's not i don't think it's super detrimental to their business to first of all person who gets a haircut there every four weeks for years like one time needs to move an appointment like the the level of favor this guy made it sound like he was doing to me just in that moment of my life i was just

very very turned off by it i you know i'm gonna say something here which is um maybe a nuclear option which we don't need to jump to but i gotta say like in all due respect to rudy's which i love i have good experiences there i don't think rudy's is for you like you always are like you're i've never heard you just say hey i had a good experience at rudy's like you're well whether And I know that you're kind of putting this as a question, or you posted earlier in the show, like, you know, was I wrong? You know, is it a tone thing or whatever? And we can talk about that. But generally speaking, like, when you start racking this stuff up over the years from you not getting shampoos that you wanted or them charging you even though it was a shortcut or all these various things, it seems like it's making you unhappy. Like, maybe you should explore other options.

The problem is they're like the Amazon of haircuts. It's the convenience factor. They have the most places you can get your hair cut. If I were to find a local salon, first of all, I don't want to pay $100 to get my hair cut. My hair does not deserve $100 of hair care. If I were to call a smaller shop, like find a place I like going to and make an appointment, I feel like it would only increase my frustration because my schedule often changes. Sometimes recordings run long. It's hard for me to really commit to a hair situation. situation and rudy's is generally speaking the most they have a lot of openings and usually it's pretty flexible like you can that morning decide i'm going to get a haircut and find one of their stores that has availability so it's just a very convenient thing for me but this is the other issue if you go via the website and this is what i said to the guy and this is where i was probably kind of rude but i was just so mostly residual annoyance over my car situation because again i'm literally standing in the parking garage looking at my dead car thinking what is my next move what i the deal is if you go to their website and you make a reservation you have to use your card but if you call and make a reservation you don't have to use your card or at least there have been times that i haven't had to use a card or give them a card number just said hey can i go to the hawthorne store at three o'clock sure we'll schedule you for that thanks and i noted it because every time i put my card in i think boy if i don't make it to this are they going to charge me like i've had that thought and then i remember calling and them not taking my card and me thinking huh well that's a good system so what i said to the guy was i go well here's the thing after he was like i'm gonna let you do it this one time i was like okay but here's the thing when you go through the website which by the way is a bigger hassle than calling them it's just that i was making the appointment at eight in the morning and they don't have the phone lines up yet i go if you make the reservation online you have to use your card but if you call you can get a reservation without using your card and he goes well that's not true you have to use your card to make the reservation over the phone and i was like well i didn't even say this but i was thinking well i've done it a few times so i know it's possible but so then he was like well when do you want me to reschedule you for and i was like um well i don't know how long this car thing's going to take and i was like can i go just cancel it and he goes well if i cancel it then i'm going to have to charge you i'm just like okay dude i don't know 130 today and he was like okay and then he made the reservation for 130 and i ended up getting there for the haircut which by the way was a great experience the people at the rudy's i went to the person cutting my hair was awesome super friendly everything was great with that situation i just sorry to cut you off i just

want to say one thing that you might want to and i'm not googling around right now as we speak to it but like um there is a chance that when you're googling rudy's you see a main number and you're calling it but i think i might when i went because i i just happened to have to be on the phone with them a bunch last week because i rescheduled and then they rescheduled whatever it's a whole thing

i mentioned it on the show it's not interesting but either way when they rescheduled your one

time they get to reschedule because the power's out i um no i have a good relationship with them but i one thing that i do is i um you first of all i usually try to do it all via the website although i do i'm with you like the website is terrible the website is super

It's bad UX.

It is just, oh, just one of the worst websites ever. I tried to book through it because I was talking to them. I knew that they were like the shop I go to is a little bit short staffed, especially like kind of coming out of the pandemic. So like the people who were cutting hair, like actively cutting hair, would have to run and grab the phone. And I had seen that. I was like, oh, that's rough. So I try to do it as much over the over the Internet as possible. But I think that they've maybe gotten a little bit, you know, they've been able to staff that up now lately. Anyway, the last couple of weeks when I call, I just Googled the specific shop I'm going to, and I'm always able to reach them directly. And, like, even the people, like, sometimes I even know them, the ones who cut my hair. Like, they're picking up the phone. And that is a huge advantage. You said it might be different in Oregon, but it also might be just you're looking at the first number you see there. Just maybe try Googling. Because I find that once you're talking to folks at the shop, or at least my experience has been, like, they're pretty flexible and nice. I even told you, like, one time I went in, I'm like, oh, I don't even know if I really need much of a haircut. I kind of scheduled this to, you know, kind of too soon. And she's like, well, we won't charge you the whole thing. Like all the folks I work with seem to be pretty flexible.

I think you're right. And I think what has happened to me in the past is I either accidentally or intentionally have gotten just to the person that literally works at the shop. And they I don't know if it depends on the time of day you call or the particular number. Somehow there are two. I think there are two different things that can happen. And one of them is you go to some central processing number. And that is the less ideal one. Um, but if you just call the shop, that's probably when they've just said, okay, we have you down for three 30, come on by a much more casual experience than trying to go through the whole web thing. And the problem really for me was it started with even before the car was dead, I was on the phone with, and this is like extremely unrelatable. This is not super relatable. And also, I guess you would say a very first world ish problem, but I'm doing this remodeling project and I need to get a structural engineer. to help basically design out a certain part of the project where these sliding glass doors are going to go. And the sliding glass doors that I purchased that are a certain opening, a certain size, which I was told by my first contractor would totally fit, now may not fit. And I already bought them, and they just got delivered, and now I'm scrambling, trying to figure out if somebody can figure this out for me. And so it is really hard to find somebody who does who's a structural engineer who has availability because of the building boom that we're still in and basically i was on the phone with this person i'm trying to use this firm in up in the southern southwest part of washington where the house is and it has just been like pulling teeth dealing with this firm in this way where i'm just kind of like do you not are you not interested in making money like are you i mean the sign says you know design engineering so this is part of what you do by the way i should have known i walked into this place i had a meeting with them a few weeks ago and they literally have a wall that is almost exclusively live laugh love style

writing that are just framed yeah that real like scripty yes that kind of like font yes but i mean

a wall of it i'm talking like a red robin's worth a patty's eggs nest worth a patty's eggs nest worth of framed like live laugh lovey kind of things and i was like yeah this is the aesthetic i'm going for in my house deaf dolphin at leaf for sharks but i know this sorry this is super complicated i'm not describing it in a very clear way but basically i had to go meet with these folks to explain to them what the thing what i needed to have done and i have architectural plans that were already drawn up by a firm in portland and i brought them to these people and they just seemed kind of it was very weird they just seemed very not disinterested but almost suspicious of the thing and one of the things was to have the person come out and look at this it was going to cost me four hundred dollars and like just to come to drive literally five miles and look at it which seemed weird to me and the guy was like well you know why we do it is because uh sometimes we'll go out and look at it and then a person won't even hire us and i thought yeah that's kind of how business works sometimes you come out and look at a thing uh and then it turns out that that's just that's how you lost that one you take the l on that right but i didn't i was like fine i'll pay the four hundred dollars i need someone to come look at this And then I get an email from this person who's not even actually the structural engineer. They're a design person that works at this place. And she emails me back and says, actually, you know what? I don't even think that we need to come over. Just send me this one measurement. And then I can tell you, you know, what, how to do it. And so I was, I got that email and I realized that there was no way me just sending some measurements is going to give, it's a very funky deal in this house. The way it's built, it's built in 1930s. somebody needs to come out and look at it i'm willing to pay four hundred dollars for someone to come out and stand around i'm willing to pay almost the amount of a litter a robot litter box for someone to stand in the living room and get eyes on the whole situation so i call yesterday this is before the dead car before rudy's and i i'm on the phone with this person and she says well what are the measurements of that and i said of that room and i said well i don't know off the top of my head but i would like to hire you to come out and just look at the room so that you can tell me how we can do this i am trying to i didn't say this but i'm like trying to retain your services and she goes well what i was trying to tell you with the email was if you don't have 86 inches for an opening for this door we're not going to be able to do this it's not going to work and i said well is there a creative solution to this maybe we do this other thing and maybe we have a beam made that's a custom beam and then she goes i'm just going to stop you right there if you need a custom beam fabricated we are not the people for you and i was like it took this very weird tone of it was like i was asking her to run drugs for me or something like as opposed to asking her to use the engineering firm to engineer something for me that i would pay for

She she was it was like she was it was like I was asking her to build a secret some kind of soundproof torture room saw style torture room in the basement of the house like I was asking for some weird thing that they don't do like there's nothing weird about that I would like to say well the thing is Andrew it really comes down to wind shear and also distributing the load evenly on your saw style torture room but she literally had this suspicion in her voice like i was trying to pull one over when all i was trying to do was like pay them money to come use their expertise to tell me how to engineer something so all of that is to say that was that was before i got downstairs and found the car dead then i call rudy's and i'm having that kind of a moment then i have to walk back upstairs oh the elevator's broken in my building per always so i come upstairs to the lobby of my building and now i'm gonna go get a lift to o'reilly's to get jumper cables to try to get the car going can i ask a quick question

here just for so i can visualize and i i want to respect your privacy somewhat so let's not maybe mention what floor of this building you live i was nude is it were you nude how did you look

well i felt i realized my clothes were creating a lot of drag so i stripped down nude that's when

i saw the gator getting a lot of notes from people who are like that guy who went into the swamp was on something and something was up with that story but no i was going to say um when you say the elevator's out is that like yeah it's a few floors and it's an inconvenience or is this like a building where the elevator's out and that is like that scene in mad men where you're like kind of puking by the time you get to your apartment it is not terrible it's eight it's eight floors because

i it doesn't matter i live on the fifth floor and i my parking is p3 so it's it's eight floors which is not a big deal other than if you already ran five miles and you have to go up and down them three times which is sure what happened yesterday it's not it's it's it's not it's not not doable but it's in the midst of all of this when i'm already sweating from rooting around in the back of the car i was just like so i come through the lobby and the guy who is the kind of sort of newly established i guess sort of one of the main managers of the building he has a brusque way about him he's just one of those folks who's just kind of i don't know a little bit gruff like more gruff than i would think someone should be in this particular job and he's standing in the middle of the lobby and he's looking at an ipad and what i realized later was because the elevators are down he's probably freaking out because every time the elevators go down everybody yells at him right sure yeah so he's standing and and the question i was about to ask him was do you have jumper cables or does the leasing office maybe have jumper cables by the way not a bad thing for them to

have like no not at all that's a good idea i could see not thinking of it but if anybody requests it if i were running that i would be like oh that would be a good thing to have down here yeah you

got like a hundred cars or more that are parked in this garage how many you know how often is someone going to maybe need to to use the jumper cables so i emerge from the stairwell he's standing in the middle of the lobby and he just looks up at me he goes what and i was like uh i was really flabbergasted like i caught him in a moment where i just don't think he just it was like whatever tiny shred of like customer service this guy has on a good day had just completely evaporated in that moment he just looks up from his ipad and goes what i wouldn't talk to any

human being like that i wouldn't talk to the closest people in my life like that and i wouldn't talk to a stranger like that who just looks at how about a person who pays how about a person

who pays rent to live in your building every month uh rent that you're trying to jack by like six or seven hundred dollars now that my lease is up but that's another topic so i was really like i just i sort of stood there like and he goes do you need something and i go well i was going to ask you a question and he goes yeah and i go do you have jumper cables and he goes no that was it he just goes no and then i was like okay is there anybody in the office who might have them and he goes maybe so i'm like okay so i this is again before i really see this guy before this is like a kind of regular face around there he's probably been here for like a month and sometimes he's at the there's like a kind of lobby desk he'll sometimes be there um you know he so i i go to the office this other office and i ask and the person there who's very nice by the way she doesn't have jumper cables so okay fine so now i call the lift and i'm just sitting in the lobby and i'm just waiting for my lift and somebody this very nice woman who probably appears to be maybe in her 70s comes from the stairwell huffing and puffing and she goes is the elevator out and he goes

i didn't do it this guy i mean listen i know i wasn't the coolest kid on the playground but can we narc this guy out this is inappropriate behavior for any kind of customer service I didn't do it you live like you I didn't do it if that was the very very first thing I heard and he's saying that to an older woman like I could almost see it being like okay this guy has sort of a dry sense of humor like I didn't do it you know like and then yeah but like with the context you just gave me and like did you say that you said excuse me or whatever or did you just kind of stand there and try to wait for his attention it doesn't really matter either way him just looking at you and saying what is that is astoundingly rude that is astoundingly rude I'm writing this guy up. Send me the information of where you live. Because you can't, this guy, like, and then you say you go in the office and the other person treats you like a human being. I understand. Totally nice. We've dealt with people in the customer service realm who are dealing with stuff before. And you're also dealing with shit this morning, too. So you might have a shorter leash on your temperament. But what a weird way to put that. But you know what I mean? Like, generally speaking, I think, like, elevators are out. If you go up to somebody and they're, like, a little bit prosperous, like just say the words listen I'm really sorry I'm freaking out right now we have an issue you know you might be like okay well I'll go check with the office or something and even if the person is a little bit brusque but it you know explains their situation but to be that much of

an asshole is astounding to me I didn't do it I was just I was he had pressed my flabbergast button yeah so then I can tell though so I think what was happening was I mean the elevator goes down all the time and I and this is probably the bane of this guy's existence right because he has no control over it and when it happens he's immediately now under this pressure to try to fix a thing but he's not an elevator repair person so he's you know kind of helpless with this but then also is having to answer questions from people so I kind of I basically as I was waiting for the lift I sort of saw this whole arc of what happened which was I think I emerged from the stairwell at the moment that he was on his iPad trying to get someone out to fix it he was in a very emotional moment of just being stressed he said what to me he then said I didn't do it to this older lady but then like four minutes go by and I can see his kind of like internal whatever kind of stress levels start to drop a little bit and then he sort of it's almost like he warged out and now he's re-entering his body and I'm watching it happen because he looks up at me he goes did they did they have jumper cables in the office almost like like he literally like just left for a while and then came back yeah right right you were talking to just like his his husk of yes like his just absolutely just like he his whatever his soul was like we can't be here for this this is too stressful we'll see you later suckers i'm buying a hot air balloon and then his soul just like re-entered like when the stress level had dropped and then almost as if he just emerged from some state he was like did did did they have jumper cables in there and i was like no i'm going to get some now and he's like oh man sorry about that yeah that sucks it was like he became a normal person again it was the most odd thing because that's not sleep on the maybe either

do you think they have them in there maybe like what this guy was being like i know it was very unhelpful yeah and then to come back all right i will i'm going to delete this email i was writing a very strongly worded email here but um he's on my you know what he's on my watch list now if this

happens again i'm hitting send on this but i also want to say that for all my complaining about people that i felt maybe were maybe not giving me the world's greatest experience i the world is also full of great people because my lyft driver barbara was freaking awesome she like was just super friendly she was like i need to do this tricky thing where she's taking me to the o'reilly's but then i would still want to get a ride home from the o'reilly's yeah um but then you got to do this thing where you change i know you're a you're an e-line man yourself these are these these uber and liftways are now lost mr public transport but it's like i had to try to do this tricky thing where i basically like tricked the system into thinking i wanted her to take me back home but also have her still drive me to the O'Reilly so that another... fare wouldn't like jump in line and she was just like rolling with it and was just super friendly and then i'm explaining to her what's going on as we're driving back i'm like i'm trying to get back to my apartment before louise goes on his lunch break because he's my jump she's like i'll give you a jump no problem like she just couldn't have been nicer and so the lift driver gave you a jump or at least no because it turned out my guy louise was still there okay delaying his lunch break for me gives me a jump the car jumps right back to life everything is totally fine this is entire thing was like a 40 minute delay in my life and it was like i ran into a couple people that could have been more helpful and then i ran into two people that couldn't have been more yeah okay well that's it all sort of comes out in the wash yeah because that's the other thing i was

thinking too and you know oh a classic andrew walsh starts a sentence doesn't know exactly where it's gonna go but like i've just been having these sort of vague notions as you're talking about how we never know where we're meeting anybody uh sure in these situations and i mean that from both sides of this i mean from all sides of this as you are navigating this this morning like you're running into um elevator man uh that's one of my favorite stephen king novels the movie was not as good as the novel um no you run into elevator man and he's really rude but you're also kind of like okay well he's probably dealing with something maybe the elevators which is how he got his name um but then he's dealing with you and he doesn't realize that you've just had two really shitty customer service experiences so that's happening to you and this is how this is how you know what's the movie um not walking tall but the the one where um uh now i can't think of anybody's name you know the one where somebody has a mental break in the 90s and like pulls out a gun in a mcdonald's because uh oh oh falling down falling down when i say michael that's the opposite of falling down yeah michael douglas i think yeah exactly like it's just kind of like you don't know where when you when you're talking to somebody on the phone and they're doing their job at rudy's hq and you know maybe they don't love their job and they just got dressed down by somebody who is should not be dressing them down or whatever uh and meanwhile you just got dressed down by a company you're just like hey could i give you hundreds of dollars to uh for your services and they're just like why would you ask me that and like it's just kind of like i

They were neither living, laughing, or loving my idea.

Oh, that's right. I kind of forgot about the font.

To come out and give me some engineering help.

I kind of forgot. And you've moved on from them, right? As you describe that company to me, I'm definitely picturing that classic Farside cartoon that says how nature says do not touch. And you see a fish with spikes on it. And you see other dangerous looking animals. And then you see, I believe, a man with a machine gun and a rubber horse around his waist.

and i'm just i knew it i mean i knew it from the moment i walked in there but this is the problem i'm not to belabor that but but the issue right now with trying to get professional help in the construction and remodeling world is it's just so backed up and also where this house is is in like kind of you know pretty small town there's not a lot of if i hire somebody from portland it's going to be i have to try to get them all the way out to the house and you know everybody in Portland is backed up so the proximity was appealing of this place like it was in the local town and they're literally the only people in the local town that do this so I was kind of like overlooking a bunch of things where I was like oh my god this office in a million years I would never want this to be what my house looks like and I was I didn't do it because I'm growing as a person but when she sort of like shut me down it was very hard for me to not say hey just design tip don't have an entire wall of live laugh love framed shit in your supposedly high-end design build company because it's really very out of style and if anyone has a half a clue about design this is going to be a turnoff i didn't say that yeah i did not say that because i don't need to be mean that they're not the people for me i'm not the person for them it's okay but i like your larger point and i totally agree we just don't know what anyone what the previous 20 minutes of anyone's life has been up before the moment of interacting with them and who knows the elevator man might have been looking on his ipad and getting some very bad news about somebody in his family maybe it wasn't even related to the elevator he was definitely deep in thought with whatever was going on and i as a person who has very thin skin and i'm very aware of what i think the sort of quote-unquote customer service dynamic is like i'm i'm always aware of if i'm paying what i feel like the level of respect i should be getting is versus if someone's paying me you know like people microsoft can literally say anything they want to me anything they want why because they're paying me they are the customer and i'm like absolutely would it uh jump how high please you mean when you're doing gigs for them

not not as a exactly not as a user of microsoft products you're not speaking For new listeners Why is he Why does he have to jump When Microsoft tells him to

No I mean if somebody hires me I feel like I feel like I have Pretty thick skin generally because I'm like They are the customer And they are right But when I'm the customer I'm very sensitive about how I'm treated That being said it would be really good For me to remember you never know What someone's been going through

Yeah. And it is funny when you see somebody come around like that, too. And there might have been like you in the two minutes that you walk away and go into the offices. That fellow with the iPad might have actually thought like, oh, I was a little brusque. Like I've done that before. I mean, you know, I can't think of an example and it doesn't really matter. But I know that I've been in situations where I might like have like kind of a peaked reaction to something, probably customer service related. And listen, I've never gone ballistic on anybody. But for me, I have a very low threshold for for encounters or what's what I'm looking for when you're interaction. Well, interactions. But but anything, especially where their conflict is involved or potentially involved, you know. And and so on the occasion that I'll be polite, polite. But then, you know, I'll be like, God, how many times have I like kind of stomped away from something out of a convenience mart? because they don't have a Charleston shoe or whatever. I never went ballistic on anybody eating it for not having a Charleston shoe. But, like, I don't know. I definitely know that I've been in situations where I'm like, Jesus Christ, and then I just kind of walk away because I feel like somebody's been rude to me. But I also know that there have been times where if I have to show my face back in that place, I will be, you know, like maybe a little bit even nicer than I normally would be because I realize, like, ugh, I was out of line. They were out of line, but I was out of line, and I don't want to go through the world like that. It's just like it gives me a bad feeling.

Yeah, I think that's probably exactly what happened with Elevator Man. Was it just like an elevator, Andrew? His stress level went up, and then it came back down.

Oh, my God.

Although that would be a functioning elevator, which we don't have in this building. Oh, dude.

No, that's it. That's the story. That's the Stephen King story. This is the story of a man whose name is Elevator Man, and his mood is totally in direct connection. Based on what floor the elevator's on. And when it goes into the basement, he's a murderer.

Like, you have to stay away from it. Are we describing bipolar 2? When the elevator's at the top floor, he's in a manic phase. He's in a great mood, and he's a superhero. Almost too great of a mood, and then when the elevator goes to the basement, he's got problems. Only when the elevator is at lobby level are things actually okay for this guy.

Which is why the elevator is always broken, because somebody has been hip to this. And while you guys are all frustrated, the elevator's broken, there's somebody actually literally trying to save your life by breaking the elevator and keeping it on the lobby floor at all times.

You have actually described something that is probably a Stephen King short story, like really and truly.

Elevator man.

Well, we know what the show title is today, I think.

All right. You think I'm wasting my IP on a show title? No way, man.

It's all about the IP, Andrew. All right, let's take a quick break, and then when we come back, I have been having a not-interesting life in Portland, and you've been gallivanting all over a two-state area and going and seeing Wilco. I was going to say tri-state, and then I realized, no, it's just two states, actually.

I'm joining you from the bi-state area, yeah, exactly.

But we'll talk about that in a moment here on TVTL. All right, let's thank some Daily Donors who are making this show possible with their support. And we are so, so appreciative for their help in this endeavor. Talking about Luke Waters in Seattle, Washington. I feel like Luke Waters and I should be friends, doesn't it? Luke Burbank, Luke Waters. Luke Burbank, Luke Waters. I feel we both have the first name Luke. We both have bisyllabic last names. We both hail from Seattle in one way or another. I just feel connected to Luke Waters.

Or, contrarily, maybe the two of you should never be in a room together. Oh, right. Too close. Yeah, that's another Stephen King book. Yes.

The two guys with the same name, basically. But if they get together, you've got real problems. Well, thank you, Luke, for keeping this whole thing going. Also, thanks to Keith Brewster out there in Chardon, Ohio. Hey. That's Geauga County, right? Sounds right to me. uh i was out there once you know doing a tv story about surprise weddings and got to visit chardon ohio i think keith reached out at that time because i was doing a lot of chardon related content did not get a chance to visit samaski's pizza and that is a real regret oh

Yeah, in Valley City, sure, yeah.

That'd be a Medina curry. But I'll do that next time. Have a slice for me, Keith. Jamie Carpenter is in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. That is a mouthful. Murfreesboro is hard for someone like me to say. I've always loved that name. In fact, I definitely saw, I don't know how close to Murfreesboro I was when I was just in Tennessee. But when I was recently on Wait, Wait, I had to do one of those made-up stories. and I originally wrote it as having happened in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, but then just as the fictional town because I've always loved the name and then I thought, I'm going to mess that up if I'm trying to read that in front of a big crowd and on the radio with millions of listeners and then I just went with Tampa. Oh, it's easier to say, sure, yeah. I was like, don't make it harder on yourself, Burbs. Let's set this game on easy. Let's go with Tampa.

When I couldn't say R's, you know, I had two kind of predominant speech impediments as a young kid. I couldn't say S's at a lisp, and I couldn't say R's, which is why I told you last week I would have to go to these little speech classes, these one-on-one speech classes with an elderly lady named Mrs. Bean who would come and drag me out of class every so often. But anyway, I feel like she would make me say Murfreesboro over and over again to, like, really practice my R's.

Well, I have to say, Andrew, if you hadn't shared that information with us, I would never have known that you, you know, had any kind of speech stuff, you know, like trouble with R's or S's. So it worked. I would say credit to you and credit to Mrs. Bean.

I think what happens is it's now the content of what comes out of my mouth is so milderingly bad. That's still rough.

Nobody notices the speech. But your elocution is perfect.

That's good. It's always a tradeoff.

Garbage.

garbage garbages garbages is that a is that a thing is garbages a thing i was trying to involve

an s yeah oh i see s and r were the trouble sure so i was just trying to think of a you know one of the kind of a c she sells seashells type of situation rubber baby buggy bumpers uh morgane gilchrist scott is in middleton wisconsin what up morgane thank you hey it's our friend john pinkis in chicago illinois hey john thank you for sticking with us all these years every time john's name comes up on the list i have to mention that uh john dressed up for halloween like the guy from the twilight zone episode that we always reference okay yes yes the guy who had all the time in the world to read but he breaks his glasses yeah that's right the irony is that that night uh the the previous uh earlier in that day i had broken my face jogging in chicago and so i was out with the tens after we'd done a live wire actually and uh it was like i i looked like um somebody from mike tyson's punch out during between rounds and uh john was there anyway you fell jogging is that the story yeah okay yeah and smashed my face and then had to do the show had to do live wire on stage in this theater in chicago all kind of taped up and it was uh adding to my already like pretty low i would say low to high level of of uh insecurity just on a normal day with my face this wasn't helping but anyway all that is to say john has been supporting this program for a long time thanks john and then brie kempa is in lone tree colorado they should really get another tree i know trees are great guys i would just say you know take up a collection like get the other people in the town let's get two trees it could be uh two trees colorado i like that yeah although all of breeze money is going to support tbtl so actually you know what stick with one tree yeah yeah donate to us and

we'll plant a tree for every donation we get actually yes we will thank you to all of our

donors uh particularly these folks we thank today for keeping tbtl going we would not be here without you hello and welcome to top story you know i don't even want to talk about this beyond meat thing because first of all it's a little gruesome and second of all it doesn't really prove anything what happened was the guy who's the coo of the beyond meat company got into an altercation after a college football game and it was one of those things i'm totally speculating here but i would be unsurprised to hear that alcohol was involved it being college football and it was one of those things where he's trying to leave the parking garage and someone else he thinks cuts him off and then words are exchanged and then there's a brawl but what he did was he bit the other person and so the big joke is you know hey and the the the plant-based meat people they they're biting human beings i guess he's you know i guess he's not a

Above eating meat. Oh, by the way, hat tip to listener Brian who sent this in. I had seen the story, but Brian reminded me that this was out there. Now, the reason I think it's sort of BS is because I looked this guy up, and his last job before this, I think, was the same job at Tyson Food.

Yeah, he's just a packaged food executive.

Yeah, he's a packaged food. That's exactly what he is. His name is Douglas Ramsey. He doesn't sound like a very nice guy either, honestly, if the police account of this is to be believed. and yeah he's not it's not like he is it's not like they caught steve jobs using a dell buying

a dell computer yeah exactly it's like he's not eating people i'm the whole thing not the headline you said late night writers but even the headline on the story is like i don't have it in front of me but i saw it this morning something about like you know meatless exec goes carnivorous

Football fandom turns beyond meat exec carnivorous

It is a disgusting story People should not be fighting in this way You never know where somebody was Maybe somebody just bit your nose off When you're getting bad customer service from them But it's just like, I don't know That angle of it is really kind of hacky And also, it is just upsetting It's just upsetting

And not that it would even If this guy were an avowed vegetarian it still wouldn't really make this story make sense because the issue is not that he's, quote-unquote, eating flesh. It's that he got in a brawl. But he's not even an avowed vegetarian. He's some—sounds like just kind of a-hole good old boy from Arkansas who was just as happy to be selling chicken that are living in what I would say are pretty lousy circumstances. And now the new thing he's selling is just plant-based, like you said, packaged— he's just selling packaged foods. So it's not like this is part of his moral code of life or something that's now being violated in a Hippocratic way. Okay. I don't want to talk about that anymore. I want to talk about Bend, Oregon, my friend, and the fact that you went somewhere. You did a thing.

Then I left the house, yeah.

You left the house. You didn't just leave the house, you know, and head across town. I mean, it's a pretty long drive down to Bend to see Wilco. How was the trip down? How was the show?

It was really – yeah, it was really good. I was going to say, just kind of coincidentally, we mentioned I went to Pavement in Seattle on Saturday. And this is all just a coincidence. It's not like an effort on my part to see more music, although I've been enjoying myself. But, yeah, coincidentally, I'm seeing, like, three shows in, like, six days' time. So I'm going to see Petey, our old pal Petey USA. Oh, he's coming back through. He's coming back to Seattle. Yeah, this time at Numo's. So I'm going to go see him with some buds this coming week, too. And it is. And again, I'm not saying that like this is Andrew's autumn of music or whatever. It's just kind of a coincidence that these things have sort of that have sort of piled together. But, yeah, so the drive down here was really it was perfect. You know, it was a six hour drive, you know, or it's a six hour drive without stops from Seattle down to Bend. And so I probably did in six and a half or seven. And it's funny how how different it is driving six or seven hours by yourself versus with another person in the car, because Genevieve just farted the whole time. And it was really good. No, no, it's funny. Like, I told you that when I drove to Denver, I did that trip in three seven hour chunks. And by the time I was wrapping up each of those drives or, you know, each leg of that drive, I remember, you know, by myself thinking like this is like this is as far as I can go. I enjoyed the experience of doing a road trip by myself. It's a different beast. There's interestingly kind of more freedom there. You can stop as many times as you want, et cetera, et cetera. Again, not that Genevieve was telling me how many times we can stop. But everything is just kind of like, hey, what what food do you want? Where should we stop?

blah blah blah there's zero negotiation of any kind necessary when you're traveling and not that

there was any issues with negotiation here but it's just like you know you're by yourself just like anything could happen um and there's something kind of fun about that but by the time you get to the six or seven hour mark like i remember thinking like i need to get off the road now like i just like listen to all of the addictive podcasts i could listen to blasting music from the 90s or whatever but by hour seven you're like this is as far as i can go when you have another person in the car the time does go by quicker and so like i remember so by the the drive here was you know it was a long drive through the mountains there's some parts where you're you get a little vertigo as you're as you're kind of cresting this one uh the mountainous area um but uh it went by pretty quickly and uneventful and honestly the weather was perfect i i mentioned on the show the other day that our society is like more obsessed with the the coming autumn season than i've ever noticed before it's just like everybody is just like just really leaning into i can't wait for summer to be over and for fall to begin and here here's you know a gif of a

skeleton looking bored this is me waiting for fall or whatever like i'm not i'm not there but i gotta say taking this road trip it down to bend kind of a you know a little crunchier area as the weather is just beginning to like sort of turn a little bit driving through the mountains but still sunny like the weather's the weather was just perfect the drive down was great and we went to see wilco at this place that's an amphitheater i haven't seen an outdoor show i think since you and i did the thing festival in port townsend you know right before the pandemic um and i think we saw run dmc there but aside from that man i hadn't seen an outdoor show in years and years and years i gotta say this was like kind of a perfect venue it was originally called luke i just found this out the les schwab uh amphitheater which i love for yeah local i mean local connections free beef and of course free customer service to my friend lukels who went in there like twice in the past month and they just like helped you out and sent you on your way without taking any of your money uh so now it's called something else like somebody bought the naming right and it's like hayden ethereum yeah yes ethereum amphitheater uh here i took a quick picture as i walked in it's a hayden holmes amphitheater maybe that's a good company as Well, it doesn't seem like it's fun of a name to me, but it was good because it was it was, you know, me, I don't like anything too big or too small. And it was like really perfect. It was a nice outdoor space. The weather was nice. It is an amphitheater, so, you know, lots of people can attend, but it wasn't overwhelming. It wasn't the type of thing where you're just like way out in a field somewhere and you can almost make out a Tweety shape way up there, you know, and they're the perfect band for this kind of thing. Like some music is not, I feel like suited for outdoor festivals or what have you. I feel like Wilco is just like perfect for it. And the last thing I'll say about this, something I was thinking about a lot during the show is not only is Wilco perfect for that kind of atmosphere, but Wilco is perfect for a band to grow old gracefully. like they played it was the type of show where they I don't know tons I know like two and a half maybe records maybe like whatever two and a half three records of Wilco material one record which I love which is everybody's favorite right Yankee Foxtrot Hotel and um if I have those in the right order and so when I think it's Yankee Hotel yeah as I said that I heard it wrong but um I uh you know when they play those songs when they play Jesus etc you know my my heart beats a little bit faster and you love those songs but i also knew going in like they'll be playing songs off their new album which i haven't heard yet but i'll i will still like them even if i don't know them and maybe it won't get me jumping up and down but like you just know you're gonna like every song as they present it you know and also it's just like i love the b-52s right but the b-52s made a kind of music and a kind of musical experience that does not grow old gracefully i saw them a

couple of times in later years once in the 90s and once in the 2000s and it just the the live experience for me and I don't know if this sounds ageist just doesn't hold up as well or if you had some sort of metal rockers who were like still like singing about smoking in the boys room like 70 years after they left high school and you're just like yeah like that music just doesn't grow gracefully but like Wilco yes some of it is pretty countrified but also some of it is just like straight rock and roll with some some you know again kind of maybe crunchy roots but like it's the type of thing that when you when you look up at Jeff Tweedy and he's aged significantly over the course of our fandom it just seems natural and like that's the ticket that's what people that's what musicians need to go for I feel Tom Petty was a great example of that Bob Dylan obviously a good example of that but like it was just it's just you it was exactly what I expected it to be maybe even a little bit better because I like the venue so much that's a really good

description of I think why I love their music so much and I was saying how you know Becca got us tickets to a show here in Portland and certainly it helps that like I really really have loved Wilco over the years and so you know a lot of their songs although I mean they do put out so much stuff that probably the last three albums I I maybe only know a song off of each but still I have a lot of their music in my head and so it would just be like i just kept looking over at her from like behind my n95 mask just kind of yelling i can't believe they're playing this like yeah multiple times throughout the night oh my god really yes and i'm like fist pumping it was an embarrassing scene for really everyone involved enjoying music don't it's not embarrassing i know i just but i was like i was i was so psyched just every it felt like they put the playlist together for me or something and again it's just but but you're totally right it is it's music that was never its value 25 years ago was not that it was it wasn't kiss playing i want to rock and roll all night and party every day yeah it's music that is and and i just find jeff to be so utterly

charming um i love his his sort of banter between songs you know like he's just he just seems like such a i mean i've briefly interviewed him and he just is such a funny charming uh you know kind of down-to-earth fella uh who then and the other thing too that you're right about is when you hear a wilco song that you don't it's off an album you didn't really get into or you don't know it's still a pleasant experience like you know the wilco songs are just they're just friends you haven't met yet yeah right yeah if you haven't heard the particular song before there's never a point where you're just like oh my god please stop playing the new stuff which totally happens sometimes with bands that had like some some good you know albums and then they kind of you know i feel like maybe it's just because i'm you know a middle-aged ad type now but i feel like they have done a really good job of continuing to make music that feels like it's pretty good

to me it's pretty relevant at least to my life yeah um I probably knew it sounds like the the show well first of all you know their catalog way better than I do and also I don't know I don't know if they were touring on a new uh album when you saw them but they they do have a new album out now so they're leaning on some of that stuff and so maybe I knew I would say if I knew a third of the songs that would be pretty generous maybe maybe I knew a quarter of the songs but again I enjoyed it all um the one thing I don't know what like why does my brain have to like point out one thing that like wasn't as ideal but it's just a taste thing is there were two songs that got kind of jam bandy and they do that they have this electric and here's the thing i like i like big noisy crescendos and build-ups and i don't mind guitar solos necessarily and when when jeff is on lead guitar there were at least one notable time where it got kind of noodley but in that way where he's on lead guitar and and his guitar style is more of a kind of choppier a little bit noisier little edgier kind of riffing on it that that goes somewhere that um I I really enjoy it's almost like uh you know I don't I'm not super comfortable talking about music but almost like a Neil Young like I don't like guitar solos per se but it's like Neil Young is in charge of it I kind of like it because it just it just has an edge to it and and Jeff Tweedy is like that but they have the lead guitarist um who isn't him and i can't remember yeah nels klein exactly right and then when he takes over his guitar solos it's like it is incredible incredibly competent and if you like that kind of thing like you would love it but it's like it just seems like really really long noodley um like kind of jam bandy textbook guitar solo to me that doesn't really do a lot for me so there were two of those songs where i was kind of like oh oh okay we're still still okay still doing this okay oh okay i oh we're still doing okay and sometimes i wonder if the drummer just starts like playing louder like do they know exactly how many bars a solo is going to go on for sometimes the drummer just say okay we're going to cut this off now and just start playing

louder you know it's so funny that you would say that because the show that i went to with becca same exact experience like i know that there are people like who are really into guitar and they like live for that stuff but it's just not really for me the most interesting part of a wilco show and they'll just be that moment where it's like that the their guitar player who you can also tell everyone in the band really reveres yeah right which is the other kind of funny part super talented yeah i mean he's doing a really good job at what he's doing but it's like everyone's looking over at him like this guy is killing it and i'm thinking yeah let's just uh can we get back to ashes of uh american flag or whatever like could we like i don't it's just it's not really the kind of, it's a little Madeski Martin and Wood for me, basically.

Yeah, right. And the thing for me is like, I'm sure, you know, I'm sure Jeff Tweedy does totally appreciate and be the first one to say like, this guy is a guitar aficionado and I'm not at his level of, you know, precision or whatever. But I would hear and that's kind of maybe what I'm saying, I would rather listen to a sloppier, less precise guitar solo any day if it's coming from the heart and it's going somewhere and it's building something. But But, again, like you're saying, anybody who knows guitar probably really reveres this type of playing because it's competently really good. But it's just not my thing.

You know who I'm really excited about? My Domi and J.D. Beck jazz duo. Are they coming? They're coming around, man. They're going to be playing in Portland. And I presume they'll also be playing in Seattle.

I might look that up, too. You turned me on to them. I've only heard a little bit, but that shit would be great live.

Yeah, they're playing at a place in Portland called The Get Down that I've never even heard of. So I'm guessing it's not like a massive club, but it's also, yeah, I'm very, very excited. I'm getting tickets to it because I'm a fan of their stuff. Nice.

What is that? It's November 6th in Seattle.

Okay. Sorry, in Portland. I don't know when they're coming through Seattle.

I'll take a look, yeah.

Yeah. So anyway, well, you're sticking around. You're going to be doing the show from Bend tomorrow as well. So I assume you're going to be doing some hiking today or some kind of rock climbing, mountain climbing stuff?

I am. My friends are not really kind of into that kind of stuff. But, yeah, there's a Walmart in town that I'm going to be trying to scale the wall of it. No, you know, I'm going to – I'm going to – actually, I kind of realized I kind of got some more work to do today. So I think I need to find a somewhat interesting place to record a Hay Dummies video. And I was trying to think about that. Actually, I'll talk about this because I don't think my friends will listen to this. but it's one of those things where I'm kind of like you know I'm super shy about recording videos kind of anywhere in public or even around Genevieve I've talked about this in video in like the Hey Dummies videos and in the newsletter before I don't know if I've talked about it with you Luke but like when we started this show today Genevieve was you know in this apartment with me I'm sure she heard the first quarter of the show then for some reason she decided to leave and I have no I'm not at all uncomfortable with Genevieve listening to my side of tvtl or if you were here to hear both sides of tvtl but when it comes time for me to talk by myself into a camera i do not like people around i am deeply embarrassed by that and so i'm like okay here i am on the road i'm gonna do the hey dummies video i should find some kind of place i should find a bluff or something you know some rocks somewhere or something and do the video bend oregonish but where i am right now is not really conducive to that it's actually it's it's less kind of this particular neighborhood I'm in is more more little suburban than I was kind of expecting. But I don't want to ask my friends for advice on where to go because either they'll want to go somewhere with me, you know, and I'm like, no, that doesn't work. And I and also or yeah, I don't know what I'm afraid of, but I'm afraid of asking for input on this. I think that's maybe a problem with me in life. Sometimes it's like you want to I don't want input. I just want to I'll find a place and do this myself. And it literally might be in a McDonald's parking lot. Well, welcome to the video from Bend, Oregon. These are the famous golden arches.

There you go. You want to be like this influencer in the wild that I saw yesterday in downtown Portland. I was just driving around somewhere. This is when my car was once again functioning. And I come up to an intersection. I'm waiting at a red light. and i see this uh young woman maybe late teens early 20s she literally like pulls her car kind of into a loading zone spot jumps out she has a tripod in her hand with a phone on it uh-huh it's fully set up the tripod is extended um she puts it down kind of on the she crosses the street and she puts it down and she's dancing in front of this bakery and she's doing a total tiktok dance for like 20 seconds into the phone and then she comes over to the phone, hits stop, grabs the tripod and runs, gets back in her car. This is all while I'm waiting at the red light.

That's so funny. So she's got the gumption to do that in public, but also by the speed, it makes you think that she's also, she also doesn't want anybody to see her doing this.

Right, and she also, it was in front of this place called St. Honoré Bakery and I didn't know if that's a thing, if like she liked the name or the sign or if there's some kind of a challenge where you're supposed to do a dance in front of St. Honorary Bakery.

Yeah.

But all I could think, Andrew, when she got back in the car with a tripod and started driving was, dude, you need to double check that. Yeah, right.

Maybe she was in the car.

Did it record? Were you in time with the music? Like, I was, I mean, it's basically like what you would think if you ever saw me in the field recording, Andrew, without my headphones on. Does he even know if this is going on the tape? Right. I just wanted to be like, hey, just give it 10 seconds. just go back and see what you did because i bet you if it's not perfect you could just jump out and do it again like her car was gone i was like all right well grip it and rip it i guess okay uh how was the dance uh see i couldn't hear the music so i don't know it seemed fine i was really hoping that it would take longer because i was 100 going to videotape her being an influencer in the wild if the light would have changed um which really goes to the larger point that you and i have andrew which is it's deeply embarrassing to be seen videotaping yourself in

public at least for us but i do wonder if that's changing too i mean i mean there's so much i mean what is pop culture these days other than people dancing and by themselves or with one other friend in their socks uh and putting it online like you and me and i think most of our generation not all of our generation because a lot of people our age are also getting into it either with their kids or or or what have you yes win i'm talking about you um but assuming that's what you were referencing but you know no i mean i do know that people are getting into it but like me being a very i mean i know that i can't judge society by my own standards because i'm mentally unwell but like i'm so uptight elevator man somebody hit up somebody hit lobby um uh so anyway yes or like i'm so uptight about i think you're a bit uptight about it as well but i don't know if we really do represent what society is now is it embarrassing for a you know i don't know between the age of 16 and 25 year old to be seen in public recording

themselves i guess it depends on the person no i don't think that that's i don't think that person should feel embarrassed i think i should feel embarrassed when i'm doing my money don't jiggle

jiggle it folds having said that and this is not i shouldn't even sometimes i should just shut my mouth but like i i try not to be judgy about other people i really don't want to be that old man or it's kind of like hey everybody's looking down at their phones all the time and i'm making snap judgments based on people like crossing the street in front of me just like slowly with their nose literally in their phone like it is a look that i am kind of like i have to resist the desire just to say out loud to myself, kids these days, right? But I will say the cringiest thing I see, and I know it is super common. And I know that a lot of people in our audience maybe do some versions of this as well. So I'm not trying to be insulting. But I will say, especially when I was in LA, and I was going to 24 hour fitness there, which is, you know, not some special club at all, but you would see people like kind of setting up their phone. And then, you know, I still see this today, people will set up their phone and then do their exercises. I would say that I will never get that but I guess I do I guess you're making by making your exercising and your yoga public you're sort of help holding yourself accountable and also maybe inspiring other people in your community who were into these exercises I still I find that to be a little bit cringe but then also the people who are just and this was more in LA just posing for the camera like I would see people like set up a camera and then walk a couple of feet away and then just sort of pose in their athleisure wear or whatever about like this is what i look like done up at the gym and i'd be like wow

wow i'm seeing it's i think it's pretty generational i saw somebody i think wrote on like twitter that uh they were at a gym and somebody came in and uh you know it sounded like it was a a very sort of conventionally attractive uh younger woman uh who came in according to this person's account of things turned the treadmill on let it run for 15 minutes while on scrolling on their phone not on the treadmill and then took some pictures of themselves and then took a picture of the treadmill like after it had gone for a while and then just left the gym like by this person's account this was completely performative and not something where somebody was seeking actual exercise but just wanted to be able to send out the sort of you know

quote-unquote right image right yeah and again it's so and i i just don't want to be i mean it's really hard doing that by the way that was horrifying no i don't want to be the judgy person because first of all the people you first of all you said that this person whether or not she stepped on the treadmill herself she sounds like she's in much better shape than i am so like who am i to judge anybody who wants to do exercise and then tape it and share it because at least they're doing exercise which is something that i don't have uh going for me right now too much so So, you know, but it's like I have to actively sort of turn down. And also, again, you don't know somebody's deal. Like, was she doing some – I mean, I doubt it. But if you just want to give the most kind of generous version of that, was she doing some version of her hay dummies thing where she was going to compile this later? You know what I mean? For some sort of project. Probably not in this case. But you never know. You never know anyone's journey, Andrew. Yeah, exactly. Treadmill girl. She's coming.

Coming from Stephen King. from the mind that brought you Elevator Man.

If she steps on it and goes too fast, the world will catch fire. I don't know. I'm still working on Elevator Man.

Here I go once again with the email. Every week, I hope that it's from a female. No, man, it's not from a female.

All righty. Got an email or V-mail of interest before we get out of here? Yeah, let's do this.

This is another voicemail about Found Money. Listener Joanna has two stories about it.

Hey, Luke and Andrew. This is caller Joanna from Seattle, Washington. Just listening to the topic about found money or lost money. So I have a story of my own. One, two, I was a bar manager of a sports bar, and there was a big fight that broke up inside the bar. We got everybody out. We were cleaning. I found a lot of bills.

It was about, I think, about $200 in cash. I was the bar manager at the time. So what I did was I held on to it and waited to see if anybody would come looking for their money. They didn't. So after a week, I split it with everybody that worked with me that night just because I felt like, well, this is for us. We're having to deal with this craziness. That story is kind of interesting, I guess, but not really.

You know, I actually find the fight part to be interesting because a lot of these scenarios that we've been talking about, the folks don't know where the found money came from. And in this case, you have a pretty good idea. It was from one of these two knuckleheads who were fighting outside your bar.

Well, that's the thing that we can't know exactly who dropped the money, but I'm really hoping it was whoever was being the aggressor in the fight. Yeah, sure. Because that feels like some karmic retribution. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, you want to throw hands and ruin everyone's night? Well, sorry, there's a $200 tax for that.

Yeah, absolutely. And then, of course, Joanna, being a saint, says, okay, well, I'll split this with the rest of the people at the bar. And it sounds like if I got that right, Joanna was sort of in a management position there, too. So that is awesome. It doesn't sound like anybody saw her pick up this money. She could have pocketed it. She did not do that. Good on Joanna.

My next story, a few years later, I'm working downtown Seattle. and with my coworkers, and we're crossing a main busy street in downtown Seattle. I had the habit of looking on the ground when I crossed the street because I also have the tendency to be a little bit accident-prone.

I also have the tendency to be, I believe that must be directed towards me, the man who broke his fingers trying to catch a bus. But did save his camera. But did save the camera.

It's like the Hugh Grant movie, the man who fell down in front of a bus. down a hill, but went up to save his camera. Indubbly.

Do you consider yourself accident prone?

No, I have been fortunate in my life that I think I am generally, my equilibrium seems to be in pretty okay shape. But as I get older, Andrew, in fact, I was thinking about it this morning as I stepped into the shower. One of these days I'm going down in that shower.

You gotta get some grips in there, man.

Yeah, I don't have any grips in there, and there'll be a little, you know, residual soap from the day before or whatever, and I have to be extremely intentional and conscious when I step into that shower so as not to slip. Yeah, exactly. And slipping is taking up—potential slipping is taking up more and more room in my brain as I get older.

When one of us breaks our hip, it'll be a lot of content for the show. All right, let me continue. Yeah, we'll look forward to that. Yeah.

be a little bit accident prone and while I was looking down in one of the cracks I saw a crisp $20 bill so I immediately bent over picked it up and realized that there was more than a $20 bill in my hand it had multiples of 20s so I happened to be near the municipal court and I thought maybe someone was on their way to go pay for a ticket so I stood around to see if there was anyone looking for money, see if anybody came running out of the municipal court looking for cash, you know. And there was no one there. It was completely there. It was just me and my coworkers. And they told me, well, that's your money. You found it. You should keep it. A part of me felt a little bad because I thought, well, what if someone needed this to pay a ticket? So I did stand around a little bit trying to see if there was anyone that was frantically looking for cash besides your regular person who's experiencing homelessness, and even they were not around. So what I did with the money was I went back to the office, and I counted it, and it was $80.20, so four $20 bills. I was super crisp, and I told my coworkers I was there with about three or four other people. So I said, you know, let's just put this towards our lunch sometime next week.

The voicemail cuts off there because it kind of hit the three-minute limit. But that, I mean, Joanna's really making me look like a chump here. I mean, would I? I mean, in the instance where you find this money.

Would you buy me lunch with your bag of money that you find?

I mean, how much? I have one quarter here. I feel like, do I have to send you? Unless it's full of errors. Oh, that's right. Absolutely. So, yeah, I mean, if you find a bunch of money with your coworkers, I guess it's a good look to say, hey, to be magnanimous and say, hey, we should buy lunch together. That's a good move. Maybe I like to think that I would get there. Certainly.

I think you would. You're very generous. I want to say like you've we have been talking about personal finance a little bit more on the show lately than normal. But like going out with you and Genevieve is fun for a million reasons because you guys are delightful. But you also often pick up the tab, which I think.

think is the most admirable thing is that I think you do not waste money on yourself unduly but you're very generous with other people both you and Genevieve you know the first of all that's

nice to say but you know as you're saying that I'm thinking about is that like yeah like I feel like I would be I mean it's all the same money right it doesn't matter but I almost feel like for some reason there's something about finding money or winning money and it's like sitting there in front of you as cash that is harder for me to part with in theory I feel like than than just picking up the tab because you're putting it on your debit card, if that makes sense. Now, I still think like...

You subscribe to the theory, easy come, very difficult go.

Right.

Easy come, put it in the bank account, let it just become an idea, then pay it with plastic. It's kind of like... And like, there are certain things in our culture that we just know, right? Like, I don't think I've hit big on pull tabs in a long, long, long time, if ever. Like, what's the... I've never won even $100 at pull tabs. I don't think so it's always been less than that but I do know that first of all if you win at pull tabs or something along those lines you're with a group of friends you tip big to the bartender you buy the next round like those are things that you do I have no problem buying a round of drinks but I do think that maybe and I'm just sort of thinking this out here like there's something about like having cash in front of you that feels like it was just a godsend like somehow yeah that's weirdly that's harder for me because I have this weird fantasy about finding money What's with me?

Well, I think it's because to find the money would be so exciting for you. Like the money you have in your bank account, you worked for it. It's in there. Yeah. And again, you're just a friendly, generous person who's really happy to pick up a round or whatever. That's one kind of money to you. And then there's the like bag of cash that just represents something like such a cool event in your life that then having to share that probably feels different.

Yeah, maybe. And again, I think I do, but it is sort of a different vibe, sort of, because it feels like manna from heaven. It feels special in some way, like this quarter, which maybe I should start an account. How much Ethereum can I get for one quarter? It's a 2022 quarter.

Right now, I think each Bitcoin is one quarter. Oh, good. I'm going to buy myself a Bitcoin. I think you're kind of rich right now. Oh, you know what? Speaking of... This might be a Bitcoin. I know we've got to get out of here. You've got a McDonald's to film in front of. But speaking of court things Because Joanna said she thought maybe somebody was Taking that $80 to pay a fine or something I got a parking ticket in Salem The last time Becca and I were down there First of all, it was adorable Because a parking ticket in Salem, Oregon is $25 Oh my god We can't afford not to get a ticket I was like, exactly I was like, this is the cutest thing I've ever seen I mean, I was I wouldn't say I was tickled But I've never been less mad about a parking ticket I was like, aw, bless your heart, Salem. Well, of course, because I've been so unstressed about it, I guess I didn't pay it yet. I got the most stern letter from the city of Salem. Failure to appear. Notice of entry of judgment. Uh-oh. I have an FTA over this because I didn't mail in the money or send in a letter explaining it or ask for it. I didn't even ask for a hearing, but I guess they gave me a hearing and I didn't show up. um let's see here it says that uh i have been where's the uh you have been found guilty by default for failure to appear and a judgment has been entered against you it's uh 35 by the way now uh the judgment is for 35 on top of the 25 or they've added no it's total i think they upped it by ten dollars but it's very stern this letter i don't think i've ever had an fta i only know that terminology because when i used to be a traffic reporter we would listen to the police scanners all the time yeah and a lot of times when the police officers are reading back or the dispatcher is reading you know somebody has been detained and they're running through they'd constantly going ftas ftas like failures to appear then down at the bottom uh it says it's the judge the municipal judge after all this description of what i have to do with for the $35, or if I can't pay, what are my, you know, what are the resources available to me, et cetera. And it just says at the end, in all caps, Andrew, it is so ordered. And then it's signed by the judge. That's the equivalent of a gavel. I mean, all caps, it is so ordered, comma, judge's signature. I'm like, y'all, this went from, this went from, you know, the fifth floor to the basement really fast for me. Yeah, you better pay that shit.

Oh, cute. $25 ticket to failure to appear. It is so ordered. It is so ordered. I slipped into my Alex Jones. I've never heard. I don't think I've noticed the term FTA before, but I'm going to start using that a lot like amongst my friends because I am definitely an FTA. Hey, we're all going out tonight. Sorry, I'm an FTA. Failure to appear. You've got a lot of FTAs. Yeah, I really do. A lot of social FTAs. Oh, Social FTAs is also kind of a good show title. What do we like? That or Elevator Man as a show title? I think Elevator Man. Okay. That took up a lot of the space on the show today. It is so ordered. It is so ordered that we are at the end of today's episode. Thanks for listening, everyone. And, Andrew, thanks for checking in from Bend. I'm excited to see how the rest of your – or find out how the rest of your day goes on tomorrow's episode. Sounds good. I'll talk to you from Auburn Penn tomorrow. I want you to be in front of whatever the finest bakery is in Bend doing your TikTok dance. All right, everybody. We'll see you tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio. Until then, have a great Wednesday. Take care of yourselves, and please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all. See you later, suckers. I'm taking myself on a hot air balloon ride. Power out.