Muse

What is my perfect crime? I break into Tiffany's at midnight. Do I go for the vault? No, I go for the chandelier. It's priceless. As I'm taking it down, a woman catches me. She tells me to stop. It's her father's business. She's Tiffany. I say no. We make love all night. In the morning, the cops come and I escape in one of their uniforms. I tell her to meet me in Mexico, but I go to Canada. I don't trust her. Besides, I like the cold. 30 years later I get a postcard I have a son and he's the chief of police This is where the story gets interesting I tell Tiffany to meet me in Paris By the Trocadero She's been waiting for me all these years She's never taken another lover I don't care, I don't show up, I go to Berlin That's where I stash the chandelier

TBTL

Are you alright? No No, I'm confused Nothing makes sense to me anymore. This face is not my face.

If my consonants sound weird, it's because I have imbibed liquor.

Can you say apple?

Apple.

Can you say banana?

Apple.

Hooray for you! Stay patient, people. Stay patient. This is going to be worth it, I promise. Maybe not. Maybe not.

But it's worth it to me. All right, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Thursday edition of TBTL, a show that just might be too beautiful to live.

I'm jamming to this. This is the beat. This is the shit.

My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host.

Oh, yeah.

Coming to you from the Hollywood Broadcast Center right here in Portland, Oregon, where we are looking at a kind of drizzly Thursday here. Didn't know you like to get wet, though. I guess it's going to dry out over the weekend and get really hot again. Maybe this is the new weather for the Northwest. And, you know, there's obviously a lot to be concerned about in terms of, well, living on this planet going forward. I could take 80 degrees. I could handle 80 degrees being the default setting all year long. Again, for the one or two years left in the planet's existence. I don't know how many episodes that would get us to if we're only on this big blue marble for another couple of years. But I know today we're at episode 3782 in a collector's series. Let the fun begin. Sad news. Coolio has passed away.

I'm the president of rap music, and I need to work with you right away.

And I didn't realize this about Coolio But he got into it at one point With Weird Al Yankovic I guess he was unhappy at Weird Al's Parody of Gangster's Paradise Which of course is Amish Paradise But then the way that Coolio eventually came around on that topic Was actually really touching And sort of really warmed my heart yesterday So we will look back a little bit at the life and times of Coolio

julio also are gifts over lol laugh out loud omg oh my god wtf why the face or cringe as people say

and are we going to call them gifts or jifs for this conversation and is it cringe that i don't actually remember uh if it's i think it's a jif pretty sure it's jif like the peanut butter but i don't feel comfortable saying that um there is a uh a biography that is released this week of anthony bourdain it is unauthorized because it details uh his last uh his sort of last few months um on earth when he was really struggling it would appear and his family and people like me who just really liked the guy are kind of wondering like do we have to have this too do we really do we really need to like hear about the stuff that anthony bourdain was dealing with at the end is Is that necessary? I don't know. I actually haven't made up my mind on it. Maybe Andrew will have some thoughts. Oh, also, it's Thursday, a.k.a. Blur's Day, so we'll do the Blur's Day. Speaking of secrets, I'll tell you what, this guy's got a few.

I have a new family. I have a new home.

He's also the longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. I got a note from listener Glenn this morning that wants to add another data point. So the data that you're collecting, Glenn says, I have a brush hog guy in upstate New York named Jerry. Wow. He is selling the business, however, but I'm encouraging him to sell to another Jerry to make things easier. This, of course, in reference to your theory that all brush hog guys and all boaters in the Ballard Marina are named.

jerry well it's actually an it's an it's a well-established law of thermodynamics it's called the conservation of jerry's uh-huh if one jerry sells a brush hogging business another jerry must acquire a brush hogging business so the total number of jerry's brush hogging remains constant right i have it written down here on this dry erase board like a formula um i could send you a picture of it later i would i would appreciate that yeah it comes down to the coefficient i mean

And do you think that there are any brush hog guys who aren't named Jerry? And if so, do they do they have imposter syndrome? Because they should. I'm going to be the guy who goes around putting imposter syndrome into other people.

That really had a moment, imposter syndrome. And I feel like it's kind of I don't think people have stopped having it, but I feel like we've stopped talking about it.

Yeah, I feel like a lot of people kind of realize that, yeah, this is this is the dynamic here. I think I think a lot of women felt that way as well, especially kind of like, hey, I'm not really I'm not really supposed to be here with, you know, at this table, whatever this table is in this case. I know I've suffered from it a lot in my life. Wait, I mean, I think it was a clever title.

I think it was a clever title for an ineffable feeling that a lot of us have. Yeah. And I think also a lot of people who, in what you might call an ironic twist, have actually, you know, had the good fortune to achieve some stuff in our life or kind of work our way into some interesting rooms and places and experiences. And those are the people, ironically, who also feel maybe like they've just been kind of pulling one over on everyone. so I think it was a it was a kind of a concise way to describe a feeling that a lot of us have which is like oh I've hoodwinked everyone this could all go away at any moment because I don't really I'm not really as smart as everybody else or as talented or as whatever and as soon as that fact is discovered then I'm going to they're going to take my key card and I'm going to be

you know escorted out yeah and for me I think it's tied into my and maybe this is universal maybe not but it's tied into my kind of dislike of somebody who comes into the room too confident you know and again i'm sort of thinking about the workplace here but almost anybody right like and also that's part of my thing too like you know i'm a deeply unconfident person in all walks of life i'm getting better at darts but still i couldn't compete so aside from that i don't

don't this would be such an incredible development for the show if you started to develop your self-confidence and basically went through a personal transformation that started with being good at dark it's just like i become like that that bowler who says who am i am or whatever

after he gets who do you think you are i am that's what it is like that becomes my personality just kind of rageful confidence especially in the dark gallery well you know if this were the

movie version of your life what we need to do is get into what i call a one-way hypnotism type situation uh-huh which is you're hypnotized but then the person who did the hypnotizing dies or moves out of town so you never get unhypnotized oh that's what happens in office space that is what happens in office space yeah and we totally forgot that it has that mysticism that kicks all we've talked about this before yes i think you've reminded me of that that's the weirdest thing about that movie is that plot point no one even talks about it because everyone's talking about red staplers and sure um you know michael bolton and and the printer being kicked yeah and all of the uh like i'm gonna need you to come in for the week getting lumbered and stuff flare all of that there's so many kind of memorable moments from that movie that we forget that it was the therapist or whatever he is has a heart attack i believe is that what happens and so he can't get unhypnotized I believe he keels over, and Ron Livingston is never un-hypnotized.

You know, that could also be a bonking on the head situation. Absolutely. I feel like that's often a plot point.

I just think the hypnotism seems less likely to cause a traumatic brain injury. That's true. You're looking out for me. I appreciate that. Yeah. Well, like many people, it's kind of sad to see that Coolio passed away yesterday. He was, I believe, 59, far too young. And I mean, I would say this about the music of Coolio. I both love Coolio's music and also would not necessarily personally categorize it in, I think, the most important rap music or sort of groundbreaking rap music. It kind of exists in this liminal state of a certain kind of music for me where, like, if you put Gangster's Paradise on at karaoke, I'm going to be into it or any number of other hits from him. But I don't think of it in the same way that I think of Like diggable planets Or tribe or something Or one of these groups that I think of as being Like Creators

a whole new style of that kind of music for me. That being said, we loved Coolio back in the day on this show because of his cooking show that he had. Yeah, right, yeah. Which generated such amazing drops

as... As clean as your mama's forehead. That was him,

I believe, saying that something he was using was as clean as somebody's forehead, somebody's mama's forehead.

Clean as your mama's forehead.

This was him working with spinach.

Just like I could feel these spinaches. That's why I said spinnages. And I can tell that they clean as your mouth. Oh, there we go. Oh, it's the longer version.

Love to get the context for that. That was, that's, by the way, that is owed, owing to my terrible naming convention of audio drops in iTunes, Andrew. You would never make that mistake because you would have it all detailed as to what was in the tape, but not me. Anyway, this was a thing that I did not know about Coolio until he passed, which was he, I guess, was not happy. about weird al making a parody of gangster's paradise were you aware of that beef at the time

you know you said that at the top of the show and um i'm trying to remember i remember somebody reportedly being upset with weird al yankovic but i don't oh by the way i misspoke and said that frankie yankovic is related to weird al yankovic in a prior episode of tbtl uh that is untrue and it upset some listeners to hear me throw such slander around um just because they both have the same last name and play the accordion and play polka music and have an affinity for polka music does not mean that they're related um but anyway um i feel like i was somebody else other than coolio that i'm thinking of but like maybe this happens a lot i mean i don't know

i was always struck you know when you sort of hear an interview with weird al or whatever about how he described it as you know mostly people being very excited when he was doing a parody of their songs so this was uh on twitter i saw this a guy named dan ozzy or dan ozzy who i think is a musical journalist he said i got to interview coolio one time and you bet i asked him if he was over his beef with weird al and so this is an excerpt from this uh this piece by this guy dan uh when when i asked people what i should ask coolio the most common question i got the thing most people seem to want to know was do you still have beef with weird al and this is coolio's response andrew i'm gonna use a swear here because coolio did no coolio fuck no man i let that go so long ago let me say this i apologized to weird al a long time ago and i was wrong y'all remember that everybody out there who reads this shit real men and real people should be able to admit when they're wrong and i was wrong bro come on who the fuck am i bro he did parodies of michael jackson He did parodies of all kinds of people And I took offense to it because I was being Cocky and shit and being stupid And I was wrong and I should have embraced that shit And went with it I listened to it a couple of Years after that and it's actually funny as shit It's one of those things where I made a Wrong call and nobody stopped me That's one thing I'm still upset about my management At the time somebody should have stopped me from Making that statement because it was dumb And I think it hurt me a little bit it made Me seem stupid That is about as honest A response to something where you know you maybe said or did something and then later regret it i guess and then it was very very heartwarming because right after i saw this tweet i see a tweet from al yankovic and it's a picture of him and coolio hugging oh and it's like r.i.p coolio and it was actually very affecting to me and you know coolio sold a lot of albums and was a very very beloved you know musical figure in this world but there's something about him just being capable of saying yeah i probably shouldn't have been so mad at weird al over that i don't know why that of all things endears him to me so much but it really did do we know what the

statement was i mean you can sort of tell from context he just didn't think it was a we he just didn't think it was a cool thing for somebody to make a parody of a song that he takes seriously but we don't know more details on what his original reaction was no i didn't um i could

probably look it up on the fly what exactly he said but um but yeah i mean i'm just assuming it was he was you probably made a statement you know saying he wasn't a fan yeah i also i'll be totally honest with you i've never understood well i understand it because there's a law that i guess covers parody which is probably a good idea but it is wild to me that you have like pharrell and robin thick getting sued over blurred lines but it's perfectly acceptable for weird al to take everyone else's music change the lyrics and then make millions of dollars on it like i don't begrudge weird al that because i i love weird al but i do think it's kind of funny that you're allowed to do it as long as you just say it's a parody i do think i mean obviously there is a

But I am pretty sure...

i'm looking this up now i'm on weirdl.com i am pretty sure that weird al gets permission from at least the record labels i don't think he's just taking a flyer on these things and putting them out there um let's see here i'm on weirdl.com boy r.i.p coolio as i turn this conversation into a weird al conversation but it says al does al does get permission from the original writers of the songs that he parodies while the law supports his ability to parody without permission he feels it's important to maintain the relationship that he's built with artists and writers over the years plus l wants to make sure he gets his songwriter credit as a writer of new lyrics as well as his rightful share of the royalties oh and it's very transparent so it's unclear to me then if he want if if he if he feels it's important to get not just permission from the record labels uh who own the rights but also the the songwriters i'm not

exactly that would make me think that culio did not write gangsters paradise that or at least Because it would appear that he initially was not jazzed on the idea, so who knows what the story there is.

But it really is, like, it's one of those things where, well, we're talking about somebody passing, so it is a serious thing. But man, like, 59 years old, you know, and it's, I think, you know, I think I'm quoting TMZ, but I think that it was a heart attack, right? And it's just like, it's so...

Have they updated that? I mean, the story was that he was visiting a friend and that he went to use the bathroom and then didn't come out and they found him deceased. But I've also read that there was zero evidence of drug use or drug paraphernalia found near him or around him. And so it's a it was still pretty mysterious and that they were going to like the coroner was going to eventually release a cause of death.

That's interesting. Yesterday, around the time that the news broke, a lot of people like Rolling Stone wasn't saying cause of death officially. And that's why you got to be a little bit careful with TMZ. But I'm pretty sure TMZ's first report said everything you said didn't even mention a lack of drug paraphernalia. Just said went to use the restroom and had a heart attack or a cardiac event or something. But again, that's I guess it's unsubstantiated. And I don't want to, you know, it's just really sad. Assuming that that is the case. It's just like a lot of black men die early because of heart. What is the word I'm looking for? Disease. Disease. Thank you. How do you come up with these words? luke and it's just like he's just like 59 years old and i don't know just kind of it really struck me yesterday as as you know i'm solidly in middle age now you just realize how young 59 is and such a beautiful person too like in all seriousness everything you hear about him yeah and that's

i mean if we can just take a moment to recenter ourselves in the story andrew um i have just noticed that generally as i read obituaries of people as i age and there would have been a time in my life where i would not have realized how young 59 is like i would when i was 20 if somebody passed away and they were 59 to me it just felt like well i mean somebody's advancing through life and then they reach the end of their life now i'm like dag that's like about 10 years for me that's like about 10 years away at a year or two but like it really i'm really really really noticing when people pass away uh you know before like 80 or something it's that's all that stuff

feels like it's just right down the road for us yeah and i don't yeah i don't know that i was thinking about it like hey hey when's my when's my moment for this but i don't know this one about when my moment is i'm just like when can i when can i take over this empire um you know

fidelity keeps asking me to update my beneficiary list on my 401k so i just want to let you know that um it's not you so do not try to hasten my demise you would stand you do not stand to

benefit from it you know i made genevieve my beneficiary way too early like i think i wigged her out a little bit in our relationship like and i you know me like or maybe you don't know this about me like when i met genevieve it's funny like most of my life i just wanted a girlfriend right reminds me of that tape we played the other day from slow learners but like it's true like i didn't i didn't you know i i was not i didn't have a lot of romance in my life generally speaking there were a few people that I dated very very briefly in college um and when I met Genevieve I remember being kind of kind of in a lot of heartache over a prior relationship and I remember specifically being like I'm not going to get like super involved like when I move out to New Hampshire like I'm just the opposite of what I was expecting you to say no yeah I remember just being like Genevieve was the first person who I met who I knew I liked but I remember driving because I'd already met her before I moved to New Hampshire she lived in Boston at the time and I was driving out to new hampshire and me and my dad were talking and he said oh yeah and you you had met that woman right and i'm like yeah i'm like but you know we're gonna have a date we already had a date set up me and genevieve for when i arrived in new hampshire um but i was like but i'm not really interested in getting into a relationship right now like this is my first salaried professional job i'm taking i have a lot of responsibility i just feel like i need to be studying all the time i'm just like you were

fighting him off he doesn't even look like the kind of boy who has to fight him off yes he does

it is just so funny that the one time that i was like no i don't i'm not gonna i'm not gonna get involved here of course now it's 21 years and counting right starting with that that date where genevieve made um made vegan ravioli for me in my apartment we sat on boxes and ate it and watched tom petty videos boy do i know how to woo him right that's really that's a really sweet

story can i ask you a question that you're under no obligation to answer if it puts you in an awkward spot uh-huh i'm also leaving a pause in case you need to cut this out i have a theory about your uh love life in like college and early adulthood which is i would guess that there were people who actually kind of were interested in you because you're just like such a fun person to be around you give yourself a lot of crap but you are it's i'm always having fun when you and i hanging out and you're a sweet person and I have a feeling that there were girls who had crushes on you but your own maybe lack of confidence or concern that you were misreading the signals caused uh those those things to go unexplored and then this is that's not even the awkward part of this do you think that your the way that your relationship unfolded with Genevieve was because Genevieve is a an assertive person who when she is interested in something she doesn't uh you know mess around and so basically was Genevieve responsible for you kind of not talking yourself out of this being a thing somehow okay a couple of things first of all you're the first

part of that you're kind of right like I crushed hard on some girls in high school and maybe they weren't specifically interested in me maybe because I was crushing too hard but I would later find out like you know somebody would say I just remember being at a party in my early 20s like reconnecting with some some high school friends and one of them who's just like so so cool and just and said to my friend paul i think well we all had a crush on andrew at some point or something like that i'm just like what what did what did you say where's the time machine what but even that wouldn't have really helped because i'm just intensely shy and so like the the the inability to create any kind of romantic scenario whatever that would be age appropriately like is just beyond me and would still be beyond me if I weren't with Genevieve um right now in fact if I if I were dating it would just be it would just I just can't approach people in that way it's it's it's part of my part of my fabric um having said that the second part of your question we should have Genevieve here and have a real lover's brawl about this. Well, I should stop saying lover's brawl because I was so Genevieve and I met and hit it off before I knew I was going to be moving to New Hampshire, okay? But I was out there in Boston visiting my friend Paul, who keeps coming up on the show. He's my high school friend and he was dating a woman with three roommates and Genevieve was one of those housemates and we went over to his girlfriend's house for dinner one night and I met Genevieve and we hit it off right away and I stayed in

That was the last time you've been out of the house.

That's the last time I really scored. That was great. Yeah. But anyway, so that was so I was in Boston for a full week. So Genevieve, I hung out a lot. And so and we had sparks. But the thing is, I remember and this is the fight. This is the fight. We haven't had this argument in a long time. Yes. By the way, this Valentine's Day The TBTL lovers brawl

We're going to have it at the Burned out husk of Tubbs Hot Tubs In Wallingford, or I should say Roosevelt All are invited

Anyway I remember being in the back seat Of a car with Genevieve Not making out, guys, get your head out of the gutter We were driving somewhere, we had some friends in the front seat We were going somewhere, and I remember Like, making a move and Holding Genevieve's hand in the backseat of the car and i remember i that i was the one who made that move and genevieve insists that she was the one who made that move more to the point later like months later when i moved to new hampshire and after our date and i remember asking her specifically if she wants to be boyfriend girlfriend she claims that she asked me and and i'm like no no no because i know i said the phrase do you want to be boyfriend girlfriend and has a 20 year old adult man and she claims both of those things she claims to be the person who initiated both of those things and that's not how I remember it because they were such huge moments in my life to be able to be so bold

I mean you know I love Genevieve and feel very simpatico with her in pretty much all ways but I want to side with you on this only because yeah that sounds like a very bold move from you one that would be quite burned in your brain because of its adapt

now what you really need is that relationship um instant replay from those geico ads the woman in

that commercial is the best actor i've ever seen in my life i mean the woman with the hat i've only seen one of these commercials sleeping bags exactly so for i've told so many people about this commercial for those who haven't seen it i figured you'd have a crush on that person by the way not only i mean not only i mean yeah she is attractive but like beyond that like the way she delivers the line at the end so this this young couple is going camping somewhere they both accuse each other of forgetting the sleeping bags essentially you said you were going to bring them no you said you were going to bring them and then I believe it's the fellow who says well I'm going to use my my replay flag or whatever challenge my challenge flag so he pulls out a literal red flag like on NFL NFL games throws on the ground and then you cut to some officiating crew has brought out the actual sideline TV where they're watching the replay Which is so clever But she delivered I don't know if you can dial it up while I talk Luke Oh sure I can We don't see the replay We don't see the flashback We just see her reaction as she slowly takes her headphones off Just like an official would do on the sidelines And just says My favorite part is when you said Of course I wouldn't forget the sleeping bags And she just delivers it In this just cutting way I mean with the smallest grin Because you know it's the most delicious moment of her life it is so great did you find it i've got it and i just already want to apologize

to the listeners about two critical errors that i made these are progressive ads okay and this makes so much more sense because the geico ads i think are pretty basic like the geico ads are like what if we did a play on words words like you know we've got a clog problem but it's people are clogging which again i think that maybe the first couple of those geico ads were they kind

of had a charm to them but now they've just run out of yes they did ideas the ants one was the was the best was the last best one i would say now this is progressive which makes more sense

because the progressive ads i think continue to be amazing john ham being obsessed with flow who has no time for him is just an amazing plot twist so this is i just want to say this is progressive so props to them and whoever their high paid ad agency is the other thing is it's

not sleeping bags it's life jackets because they've brought kayaks okay gotcha now one quick warning on this i was telling somebody about this ad when we were watching the seahawks game on sunday and then it came on the tv but it was a shorter version with a different little joke at the end it wasn't as good as long as you have the 30 second one though it should this is the 44 second one oh that'll have a little tag more wild lines that'll have a little tag at the end for internet users telling you to check out geico.com for more almost like you host a podcast about

commercials and spend a lot of time grabbing the audio from these things in this space yeah here we go thank you by the way for all of your contributions in the non-audio space I really appreciate that about you it was a good meeting today

hey sweetie I'm not seeing the life jackets well you said you packed them no you packed them

no you packed them

you said I won't forget to pack the life jackets I'm sorry I have to challenge that well you do have one left

so this what really happened replay is brought to you by progressive one thing no one would challenge protecting your home and auto with progressive you know my favorite part was when you said obviously i won't forget to bring the life jackets that is a really good line i mean

well delivered it's a great line and she just really nails it it's just so so cold and again

delicious for her like to be there's another one that's pretty cute too where it's like a son and his father uh-huh and the spider have you seen that one no is it challenge flag related it's challenge flag oh no basically it's like the dad is trying to catch a spider and uh he's caught a spider under like a little glass thing and the son is like um it's okay that you screamed catching the spider I'm also afraid of spiders and then the dad's like I did not scream and then they throw the challenge flag and then of course the dad did totally scream when he was catching the

spider I told Genevieve when we saw this commercial the first thing I said to her was I hope that this is like a series because even even if it was just other romantic couple or you know couples and romantic partnerships or whatever like you could just have different people's reactions be very

different you know what i mean it's a rich it's a very fertile premise yes because um because of yeah i mean we we all have moments where we remember something way different than someone else and if you could just snap your finger and go back to that by the way my guess is that i'm i'm running about 80 to 90 wrong on those things but it doesn't diminish my confidence that i'm right well that's what worries me i very much passed on to my daughter uh-huh um which is

both of us and this is when i started to realize this in my own life was when when addy if addy is is misremembering something or shooting from the hip not only does it not diminish her confidence what you're saying it might increase her confidence and i'm the same way like the more dogmatic i'm being about something the greater the chances are that i have it totally wrong well so how many

stories on this show have i told from my past that i'm insistent about but it turns out that especially as I'm getting older and older, as we've established, I'm kind of conflating stories. I told you this story about seeing Pavement the other day, and I realized my seeing Pavement story is very similar to my seeing Radiohead for the first time story, and I think the thing is I'm conflating them a little bit. Like, I think that somebody gave me a copy of The Benz, like, literally weeks before The Benz tour, and I saw Radiohead for the first time, and that's my favorite record, and, like, very special. Such a good album. Yeah, very, very special memory for me. But then years, I thought that was almost the exact same story for seeing Pavement, but somebody, actually listeners and friends, after I talked about that on the show, were sending me playlists for like the Cleveland Pavement show, one in 95 and one in 97. And I'm now realizing, oh, I must have been at the 97 show for Bright in the Corners because I was too young in 95, which means I probably was already pretty well into Pavement by the time they came around. I was sort of conflating those two things. It was still an amazing show. And I still remember the woman who gave me the cassette that had Pavement on one side and Silver Jews on the other. But it wasn't like just weeks before the concert, as I mentioned. Like, again, nobody cares about this shit. But I just realized that that, well, we're talking about my confidence. Like, Vives and I, especially when we were younger in our relationship, used to fight about that origin story so much. And now I just have so little confidence in my brain that maybe, I mean, I don't know. And also I'm exhausted. Like, who cares? We're together.

I think it's cute, actually, because the fact that you're both vying for the title of I Liked You More. I know that's not exactly what's being said. That's true, yeah. But I was so intrigued by you that I proactively attempted to make sure this was happening. It's a nice thing as opposed to, boy, I was over him, and then he wormed his way.

He just kept sticking around like a grape stain in a carpet that won't go away.

Like trichinosis off of some undercooked pork. He lodged in my muscle system.

Right, exactly. Oh, speaking of, well, let's go back to that. But I will say that so that Vives and I, we kept it like it was amazing that I said, oh, I don't want a relationship. But then immediately after our first kind of official date, once I moved there, I was like, hey, do you want to be boyfriend, girlfriend? Or maybe she was pretty sure I said that. But so real chill there, Walsh. Right. And then but then the thing is, time goes on. And I was just so casual with things. And it was really it was really less of a statement about me trying to lock Genevieve into too mature of a relationship and more about me just generally being lazy. But I remember having to fill out a bunch of paperwork for insurance shit, you know, early on in my job, which was also early on in my relationship with Genevieve. And I was filling it out. And she was there. I'm like, I'm just going to make you the benefactor. She's like, no. And I'm like, it doesn't matter. I'm not going to die or whatever. You know what I mean? I'm like, I'm filling this stuff out. I'm 21, 22 years old. like it's like who am I my parent I don't have any I don't have anything to leave you know what I mean like what am I gonna do leave my clipboard to my parents like don't worry about it I just

kind of did leave your parents the stuff largely harvested from your dad and stepmom's house right

exactly hey guess what you know that old shitty couch it's yours again um so anyway I didn't I I did it sort of as a goof but I did do it I wrote down Genevieve's name and uh yeah I remember her kind of being like a little bit eye rolly about that and i it would be interesting actually to hear her memory of that too because that might have been a bit of a misstep that might have felt like hey you know we're young we're having fun but i don't want to be officially written down

in charge of your state yeah but now we have a will together so there you go can i just quickly on the subject of the album the bends by radiohead can i give my and i'll just spend two minutes on each one of these my the Ben's Radiohead stories that I've told many times on the show but I think it's been a while so I think we're due so the first thing was I did not like the song creep when it came out because I just I don't know why I didn't like I'm a creep I'm a loser what the hell am I doing here it just sounded negative to me but I do remember seeing Radiohead play on the Tonight Show I believe in the Jay Leno era certainly wouldn't have been the Johnny Carson era and i remember hearing this song they're playing it probably on the end or whatever the alternative radio station at that time was and i'm kind of not a fan but then i remember seeing radiohead is playing on the tonight show but i was about as far as i went with it and then

my high school girlfriend and i and her friends uh boyfriend girlfriend couple were driving up to british columbia to stay at like a they didn't even have airbnb in those days but like some kind of a houseboat that we rented and we're driving up and he has a cd of the bends and he's playing it the whole drive up and i'm like man this is good i actually really like this and then we get to uh bc and we go to the house but at some point we end up in vancouver we're walking around it's like a saturday and it's just shut down we're in the downtown corridor of vancouver and there's just nobody there because all of the business people are home there's one little shitty like pizza store open and we go in and i turn around i'm in line and it's tom york from radiohead standing behind me and i go are you the guy from radiohead and he goes yeah and i was like we were just listening to you on the way up here which is probably not crazy he probably hears that a lot if he's like near the venue where radiohead is playing and people are like camping out and getting ready their fans i was just the person who'd only been listening to the cd that day had only begun to even give a shit about them then my other tom york story is we were doing tbtl in los angeles like i didn't live in la anymore we were just doing i think a live show down there and i was at intelligentsia coffee in silver lake and i turn around and tom york is standing behind me in line i thought that's a lot of tom york run-ins for someone who's not actively trying to

do this now i'm going to say something here that is totally uninteresting but just in case anybody i don't know if you were implying this or not but just to avoid an email the the song creep isn't on the bed on pablo honey exactly yeah just i don't think that you were saying that but it just sort

of i just i don't know why i want the only reason that i bring up the the the um the fact that they were playing creep was because that's the only way i knew what tom york looked sure yeah of course Because I saw him on the night show and I thought, this is a pretty goofy looking dude. A little soccer looking guy. And then I'm in the pizza place and I'm like, that's the kind of goofy guy looks like he's from Ice Age 2 or something. There's like some kind of a small mammal in Ice Age 2 that kind of looks like Tom Morgan.

I've never seen Ice. I need to see Ice Age 1 first.

Yeah. You'll definitely be confused if you see Ice Age 2 first. So anyway. I do want to say. I'm also excited that I got trichinosis right. That is, in fact, a foodborne disease caused by microscopic parasites. Often the meat comes from wild games such as bear or pork products.

And also, I do want to say, so I've been just bopping around here. I did see both Radiohead and Pavement at the same venue. I had that part right, the Odeon. Odeon? God, I've been out of Cleveland for a long time. It would maybe be comparable to the Showbox, maybe. Oh, wow. That's very small. A relatively small club, right? And my Radiohead facts really line up well, too, because it looks like they came there in April of 1996, and that would have been – that makes a lot of sense for where I would have been in my college life at that point. So I'm just glad that I'm not totally wrong about – and I remember my friend Scott Woodling gave me the cassette tape that had Pablo Honey on one side and the Benz on the other, and I heavily favored the Benz, heavily.

my other the ben's story is just the one of i'm not even kidding one of like the probably 20 happiest moments in my life involved listening to the ben's and it was in such a kind of otherwise uninteresting moment that i just think this is the power of music and the power of having a job you hate intersecting so when my first job in radio job job where i got like a salary was uh producing conservative talk radio in seattle and we would do this show i worked for this guy named peter weisbach who was terrifying and we would do the show um during the legislative session we were doing the show from the um little press office on the capital of the state you know grounds in olympia washington and i would spend all week staying at this place i believe called the carriage house down there and just being every i would get up every morning with like i think this might remind you of when you worked in LA Andrew and you just kind of wake up with a pit in your stomach kind of every day uh that was how this job made me feel and it would be so I just go all week dealing with this but then I remember on this one particular Friday it was like we're finally done I'm gonna go get to go home I'm gonna get to see Addy I'm driving back to Seattle and it's just raining I have this very shitty Honda Accord that like the defrost never really properly works so you kind of have to like roll the window down for the defrost to happen but then the rain's coming and anyway i pull through the arby's and lacy and i just get a big montana and just slather it in arby's sauce and i'm just sitting in traffic going north listening to the bends munching on my big montana and just so happy to be out of that situation for the next two days

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I can imagine that. Although it's funny, though, I feel like Tom York in Arby's. I just feel like he Tom York feels like a guy who would actively dislike Arby's.

Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. I mean, I'm not saying any of this is consistent, but it's funny because it's not like it's not like, oh, I got to go on the stage with the Flaming Lips. Oh, that was pretty memorable for me. It's not like anything that should have given me as much of a good feeling as it did. i think this was mostly massive relief for being away from this thing that was just you know slowly killing me for two days you know just being like i get i get away from this now and i got my tunes on and i'm in my car i'm like and i'm eating this thing that's very delicious to me like that all coming together was a very a very memorable i mean so memorable that i've mentioned it many more times

than it really weren't i don't know if i remember that one no i love that feeling i can still remember the sunday afternoon bleeding into evening in los angeles the first sunday where i didn't have to wake up and go do my kcrw job anymore that must have been hank suddenly just felt like it was like my i i had my life back it was my life again so anyway we should go to a break

i'm realizing it's getting late oh yes of course it is getting late and you've got places to be and people to see so let's do that quick break and then back with more tbtl in a moment all right let's thank some of our daily donors who are making today's episode possible with their generous financial support

wonderful people like josh laster of caldwell new joisy wow i didn't know you did a new jersey

voice yeah i've been working on that for a while um also uh i think it's maybe michelle went in puyallup washington i missed the fair again this year i know i did too and i missed the oregon state fair i did zero the minnesota state fair i got zero state fairs in this year yeah

mark it on your calendar late september is the time i always say once again i didn't go to the fair for no reason other than my own lack of get up and go-ness maybe next year we can do some kind

of a i don't know we'll make it a thing we'll go i mean i really do love those things and i don't know why i don't go to more of them yeah uh karen earl is in seattle washington i don't know if karen went to the evergreen state fair or not this year or washington state fair sorry yeah when they changed the name from puyallup fair i just it all became very confusing for me thanks karen thanks to Emily Feikt, also of Seattle, Washington. And then we're dealing with a real Carrie Deutsch situation out there in Bellevue. That is the generosity of Carrie. Thank you. It's a very nice way. Yeah, situation. See, Andrew,

we're dealing with a Carrie Deutsch situation.

No, we're dealing with an amount of generosity that we don't know how to process. No, that is true, though. That is true. From Carrie. Thank you. And then it's our pal, Nate Holtman. Hey, Nate. Down in Tacoma, Washington. Nate, thank you for the support. Thanks to all of our donors today for making TBTL possible. We just, well, we wouldn't, Andrew just got done with a work meeting that confirmed we wouldn't be here without you. Thank you very much.

Hello and welcome to Top Story.

All right. I know we don't have a ton of time today, Andrew. We've still got the blurs days as well. So let's just talk about GIFs. Maybe we can get into Bourdain tomorrow because I do think it's an interesting story really about how much information we really need on a person's life. But in the meantime, this was a piece from The Guardian written by Alex Hearn that you sent to me, Andrew, and I actually think it is very interesting. Caught me off guard. Yeah, the headline is GIFs are cringe. How Giffy's multi-million dollar business fell out of fashion.

where have we landed on gif or jif i say gif i mean i think the original inventor of the of the technology says it's officially jif yeah but i just go with what i'm gonna say gif i just

i feel like such an imposter i say gif i feel like i'm in a syndrome when i say jif okay so everyone i'm sorry i'm gonna i'm going to say gif and just we have to deal with that um so the the The story starts off talking about how – I didn't realize this, but basically Meta, a.k.a. Facebook, is trying to acquire Giphy. But there is a regulator in the United Kingdom, the competition regulator, that basically tries to stop monopolies. And so this deal, which is a $400 million deal U.S., is being stopped by the people. People in the UK who try to make sure that you don't get monopolies in certain industries. By the way, the idea of a gift monopoly is like, you know how much I had to pay to get this gift of Stanley from the office looking apoplectic because they got the market corner.

There's nowhere else to go for people who don't know. I mean, I think most people know, but Giphy isn't just like Giphy is not like the technology behind gifts, but Giphy is a website where you can easily create these gifts and then often where a lot of these gifts that are stored. So if you're looking for something quickly, you go there and you grab the gift, you put it into your phone, you send it to your friends and they like you even more.

The funny part is or the interesting part is that Giphy is trying to justify the sale to Meta like they would like to. They're trying to sell. They're trying to tell this committee that, first of all, the only place that will buy them is Facebook, is Meta. And that also their business is failing because no one sends gifts anymore.

They're arguing that this deal should go through Because their business is in such dire straits, essentially

And that nobody else will buy them except for Meta Giphy's valuation is down by $200 million from its peak in 2016 More importantly, its core offerings show signs of going out of fashion Quote, there are indications of an overall decline in GIF use The company says in its filing Due to a general waning of user and content partner interests in GIFs um they have fallen out of fashion as a content form with younger users in particular describing gifs as quote for boomers and cringe this is what gif is saying giphy is saying about their own product yeah is that young people are saying it's for boomers and is cringe what a world yeah like i mean obviously they're just throwing anything they can against the wall to try to get this deal through because the sense is and i mean meta the people that are you know running that thing are no dummies so they must still think that there's some kind of profit to be made in giphy maybe it's just making money off of the boomers or something because they're still willing to throw down 400 million dollars for this and you get the feeling that the giphy people are like don't mess this up for us uk regulators just can we get this off our hands

please yeah that's interesting i also giphy is also a website that you log into not just i mean you don't have to log into it if you just want to grab somebody else's gif but luke as somebody who has uploaded many gifs for and you make a lot of them yeah and a lot of that does have to do with like tbtl newsletter stuff so like i have an account on giphy so i mean this could even be the value here might not have to do with the product itself for meta but also just you know again in their attempt to get every single person on the globe's contact information and personal

information this was the last 400 people they didn't have exactly i mean it does seem like It seems like they're willing to pay a million dollars per person to get that info. I also thought the history of of gifts was pretty interesting, as Alex Hearn is writing about in this piece, because so basically like gifts came around, you know, before, you know, our phones were basically mini computers and they were kind of an early way of of of expressing yourself and being funny online, which I guess had sort of died out. And then it kind of came back around In the 2010s Along with the growth of Tumblr So Tumblr really like revived Gifts as almost kind of like an ironic Funny thing to do at that time

I also think that the early Gifts Like when you think about the earliest Gifts That were like kind of easy to use They weren't what we think of today Like a clip from The Office like you said of Stanley Rolling his eyes they were little Like hand drawn You know the types of things where you go on somebody's myspace page and it'd be like a star you know a star made in ms paint that would flash at you you know right and those were the early days and then i think in the in the resurgence of them because everybody had more bandwidth both on their phones and computers you could start actually making animated gifs out of scenes from tv shows and movies so the gifs sort of at some

point yeah when they got better and like you said we had more bandwidth they came roaring back at its peak of cultural impact making posting and curating gifts could easily have become a full time job the best creators were known for the speed with which they could clip out shareable moments from tv shows or live events as they aired as well as their ability to massage the format to keep the frame rate high and the file size low this is where giphy comes along because they're basically like you said just creating this big kind of repository of ready-to-go gifts so if i just want to like say something on hawk squad but i don't want to have to go actually make my own gif i can just say like you know i can put a term into the search engine and find a bunch of things uh that are ready to go and grab them and drag them in i didn't realize this though part of the issue is that gifs don't really work particularly well on mobile or they don't work as well Technical changes compounded the problem.

The same reason why the GIF died the first time around hasn't gone away. The technology produces large files with poor image quality. Even as sites such as Twitter and Facebook built in support for posting GIFs, they also changed them, turned them into video files to more efficiently display them on mobile devices. That meant that users could not simply download a GIF they saw and save it for later, which further flattened the selection available.

I'm a little confused about that because I use them mostly on mobile. Every now and then, somebody will send you one, and then if you download it, it's like a weird MP4 or some version of that. But I don't know. Yeah, sometimes you try to download a GIF and send it to somebody, and it'll say, this file is too big. But for the most part, I use GIFs like 90% of the time on mobile. So you're still using GIFs? Yeah. Is that embarrassing? Because that's kind of what they're saying. They're saying the young generations just think that it's such an old person move to use a GIF. I have to be honest with you.

i have i was thinking about as i was reading this article how often do i see gifts it's pretty rare now now let me just say this really for the tbtl newsletter i actually really like the gifts that you put in there and i did not feel cringe or like we're using a kind of outdated joke idea like i think they're i actually find them to be fun and they're usually a clever little reference to something that's in the newsletter so i like them but as far as like even think about like our fun-loving criminals chain we don't well that's not true i guess we send that gif of carlos santana around a lot andy's move yeah but like so maybe i'm seeing them more than i remember but i don't i i guess until i read this i hadn't realized that it has dropped off pretty substantially in my life from being a thing that used to be happening all the time to being the thing that happens sort of less frequently emojis have really replaced gifs in a lot of like not just what i'm sending but even when i'm seeing from from my friends and stuff here's what blows my mind

about this article um and this is like a different kind of cultural divide so you have younger generations saying oh yeah that's so that's cringy you know using these gifts and at the bottom of this article from the guardian it lists the top gifts uh 2021's top gifts is worth noting um and like you mentioned board stanley from the office i've seen that around but like i would have never i mean i guess that one makes sense the other one is tired tom from tom and jerry i

that's number two i had to lord stanley is number one just so people know yeah and i had to look up

like tired tom it's like tom from tom and jerry literally taping his eyelids open shocked liam from the great british bake-off i have no idea what that is sad pikachu is in that number four I think I can picture that, but I guess my point is, like, for all of the GIF spaces that I play in, I kind of, like, I haven't seen a lot of these, and I think it speaks to maybe an older generation or maybe just a different, I shouldn't say that, maybe a different demographic, what they're throwing around in their text chains.

well that's the thing if the thrust of this article is that it's only boomers and millennials that are using gifts anymore these gifts belie that a little bit to me not the tom and jerry that would be only people in their 100s are using gifts anymore like was steamboat willie taken

like okay they have the weekend performing at the super bowl here that's the only one that i see that like okay yeah that's a gift that i see a lot for like confusion because you see the weekend Like running through a maze of mirrors

What about number six Peppa Pig saying Feliz cumple From the Spanish language version of Peppa Pig That feels very much like something People in their 20s and teens are doing

I don't even know If you're being sarcastic when you say that

I'm being very serious I'm saying that's not something that would ever occur to me To send to you as a joke

I don't know what Peppa Pig is That's why I wasn't sure if you were joking

Oh Peppa Pig is a It's a kids animated Like show I think I'm not sure what streaming platform it's on But it is like if we have any Listeners that have kids of a certain age You can't get away from Peppa Pig Oh okay It's just like a kind of animation phenomenon

Is that their promotional material You can't get away from Peppa Pig From executive producer Jordan Peele I was about to make that I was gonna make that exact show Every scary thing now Every psychological thriller is basically

From the mind of Jordan Peele and Hollywood power Player Wynne Rosenfeld No I mean this list is interesting To me because it doesn't feel If all of it was the office Which they point out in this article is from The gif itself is from whatever 20 years ago or something Maybe not 20 a 15 year old episode Of the office but if all of These were like if it was like stuff That felt more culturally relevant to you and I, just in terms of our age range, that would support the theory that it's only people our age and older who are sending gifts around. But I look at this list and it's a bunch of stuff that I would never even think of. of sending because like sad Pikachu from Pokemon that just also feels like a more youthful thing to do than would occur to me to me it'd be like I'm gonna send you know a gif of of what's his name from modern family the oh my goodness his first name is the real person his name tie something or other in fact I used a drop of him today maybe that's why he's coming to mind what's it do remember what his name is on the show i know no i definitely wouldn't know on the show laugh out loud omg oh my god wtf why the face phil dunphy i had to look phil dunphy thank you i didn't watch that i would be i'd be sending a a gif of phil dunphy being silly or something that's like what

would occur to me to send not peppa pig in spanish there's a right way to rock and a wrong way to It was the best of times.

It was the blurs of times. Let's do some Blursdays. We got Talia here who says, I want to wish a very happy Blursday to my five who is turning one. Yeah, I'll give everybody a second to do the math on that. She has listened to TBTL for literally her whole life, and she likes the thank you baby and razzle-dazzle parts the best. She does a little dance whenever those songs play. Happy first birthday, Pasadena. You are the light of my life, and you actually make it too beautiful to live. Oh, my goodness. Wait, the baby is named Pasadena? That is a great name for a kid. That is a good name. I've always loved that word, Pasadena. It just makes my brain happy to hear it. I never thought of it being a person's name, but man. It's beautiful. That is a really good idea. Although, if I ever had a kid, I don't know, could they be named Pasadena Burbank? I feel like that's too many suburbs of Los Angeles. That's a good point. Plus, you'd call them Past the Donuts all the time. Didn't you come up with that? I think my friend Cotter, a.k.a. the colonel, who lived in Pasadena, called it that. I think he was being slightly ironic. And you were the one who thought it was a thing that everybody said because your friend said it. Do I have that right? I think I thought he made it up and it was actually a thing people were saying. Or maybe you thought I made it up when you heard me say it. I don't know. I think one of us, somebody in my life, possibly me, thought that that was a common joke to make. but it turns out it was just something that one person said one time Lori and Muckle Tio says I'd like to wish the happiest of Blur's days to Sarah of Magpie Mouse Studios she is such a talented artist and I've enjoyed meeting her and chatting with her via Instagram occasionally Sarah you're the best please enjoy your month long trucktober celebration Andrew we're knocking on the door how did we play zero trucktober audio oh because it's not October, yeah. I literally just worked out and thought we were at the end of October, Andrew. Well, you just gained a month, my friend. I did. Boy, that's exhilarating. What are you going to do with all your extra time? I don't know. Probably learn Spanish or something. Travel so I can finally watch Peppa Pig in her native language. Got this here from our pal Marissa in Maryland. My adorable little Avi, my sweet rainbow unicorn Hufflepuff. This week is your sixth I can't say that word Why would you send this in Marissa This week is your sixth Blurs Day Can you believe it Mommy and Daddy and Leo all love you That is adorable Happy Blurs Avi Maria who is a Minnesotan Says I want to wish My great nephew Henry A happy Second birthday That's a great name too I love that Now, here's the question.

Is this Maria's great-nephew, as in that's the family lineage, or is she saying Henry is great? No, I think great-nephew. Yeah, okay. I mean, I could be wrong about that, but yeah, if Henry is two years old. Okay. I mean, because just the way it's written, it could also just be like, I want to wish my super-great-nephew. Yeah, maybe I'm wrong about that. I took it to mean lineage, but I could be wrong. Let me tell you a little bit more about Henry. He's a curious, sweet little boy who's obsessed with tractors. And as long as Luke keeps talking about his tractor shenanigans, I'm certain I can turn Henry into a five. Okay, Maria, this is good feedback. This is the exact kind of feedback we need. More tractor talk for me to bring Henry into the fold. I'd also like to wish...

myself a happy blurs. Today is my actual blurs day. Hey, it's a golden

blurs day. Happy birthday, Maria. Happy blurs day to Maria and Henry. Jesse says, Hello, friends. Would you be so kind as to wish my darling wife, Alexis, a very happy birthday? She's 10 out of, I guess maybe that's, she's a 10 out of 10, 10. Cheers. Nice. All right, I will. i will i will consider it and i will be so kind as to wish alexis a happy blurs day

all right that is the blurs days for today and that brings us to the end of today's show andrew you've got to go do are you doing that um seattle now show yeah i'm gonna record a taping of that but it's for tomorrow when will that be released so that'll be tomorrow morning's

seattle now podcast from kuow but i hesitate to promote it because we haven't recorded it yet and And I have a tendency to be very embarrassed after doing those things. Although the last one went okay. So, oh, it'll be me and our pal Eula doing it.

Oh, yeah. Eula Bonneau? Yeah.

So check it out. Sweet. All right.

Well, you have fun with that. We'll all be listening tomorrow. And, hey, I know you got to go, but how about them Seattle Mariners?

I actually won a game yesterday, so that's exciting. And how do you take one from the Rangers? Okay, come on. No, no, no, no, no, no, nope. I'm very happy. I'm a happy man. I'm a very happy man. The magic number is three, as I indicated with a De La Soul song in the text chain yesterday. All right.

So have a great Thursday, everyone. Take care of yourselves. Go Mariners. Please. And we will see you tomorrow. Until then, please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Dude, you are the best. You're awesome, dude. You are God's gift to the airwaves. You're the man. Keep doing what you're doing. Power out.