Muse

For he's a jolly good fellow, and nobody can, but I can, nobody can, I'll get this, okay, but I can, I'm gonna look up those lyrics, you got it, alright, that was good. t b t l

guess what day it is guess what day it is it's friday friday gotta get down on friday everybody's looking forward to the weekend you're here to make friends making friends is the name of this show but if what you want is superman the only way you can get him is illegally from a modern-day pirate.

Sometimes people say that my head is too big for my body, and then I say, compared to what?

Look, man, you know your stuff, but you're like a crazy volcano. You'd have to show me you can bring it down a notch. I'll bring it down a thousand notches if I have to!

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

Two bros, bro-in-a-da!

My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host.

You want showmanship? You got it!

Coming to you today from the absolutely beautiful Skamania Lodge.

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

In Stevenson, Washington, looking out on the mighty Columbia River and the Columbia Gorge. It is really, really spectacular out here. Now, I will mention, driving out here to Skamania yesterday, I unintentionally Involve myself In a real adventure Oh, and the adventure begins again One that taught me A life lesson I will never forget So we will talk about that And many other things here on episode 3798 In a collector series Let the fun begin Oh, James Corden, we've been talking about him all week Because he was apparently rude To some servers at a restaurant The restaurant banned him He apologized. The restaurant unbanned him. And he just so happened to be doing a sit-down interview with the New York Times this week for an unrelated project. And the reporter from the New York Times asked him about all of his internet notoriety of late. And he was deeply offended at the question. How dare you people even say that? So we will bring you the latest on James Corden's reputationally bad week. Also, speaking of ruining folks reputations, Hans Niemann, the chess player who's been accused by various outlets and people of cheating at chess, including possibly smuggling some kind of vibratory device inside his own body, therefore helping him win at chess. He is now suing a bunch of people for something like $90 million. So, you got my money? We'll look into the latest on that. Plus, we'll do some music for your weekend on this Friday. And we'll chat with this young man, the longest-running cobro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He is Andrew...

Ziggle Zagat. Let's get back at it.

Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning. I knew you loved ska as a music and a lifestyle, but you're in Ska-mania right now? I am. I'm in Ska-mania. I'm at the Ska-mania Lodge. Wow. That is dedication to the music.

I drove a motor scooter up here with like 75 mirrors on it for some reason. I've got my rude boy jacket. My two-tone shoes. I'm very much embracing the Ska lifestyle.

You are rude. I've never heard of this place before. Ska-mania?

Ska-mania. It's a county that we're in right now. My guess would be that it is Native American in its origins. It's just on the Washington State side of the Columbia River. So it's like 40 minutes outside of Portland.

Okay.

And it's this big, beautiful conference center that's kind of looking out on the Columbia River and the gorge and all of this. Becca has a work thing out here, kind of like a retreat for the folks that she works for. And they were allowed to bring a plus one. So I am the plus one. Ooh, you lucked out. You made the cut. You made the cut. I did. I was actually, it's very fun. I love being a plus one. I also love being a co-host on the radio. I don't like being the host. I don't like being the primary force in anything. I would like to be more of a plus one in life.

Well, we should just do a show when you're busy sometime where I'm the main host and you can just ride shotgun. I feel like we did that once before and it went like.

I would love that. Okay.

I really know you do a great job at hosting it's certainly not that you're not able to do that it's just how this thing is shaking out over the years but I never knew how good I had it when I was Dave Ross's sidekick on Ross and Burbank that was the life or like when I'm doing wait wait and I am just like I might not even be the fourth banana on that show and there's only three people on stage JK but like I just yeah I'm I like being a plus one it's a fun it's a fun vibe there's no pressure free drinks. It was great, but let me tell you. Yeah, what happened on the way there? Dude, it was quite something. So to get out here from Portland, you drive on this actually very beautiful stretch of a freeway called I-84, and you're heading, I'm terrible with directions, but my sense is that you're kind of heading north and east out of Portland, and then at some point you meet up with the columbia river and you're driving parallel to the columbia river which is just gorgeous and there's these really amazing rock formations to your right these cliffs and stuff and then to the left is the water it's a it's a really really lovely drive and then you cross over this thing called the bridge of the gods which is uh sounds like a verner herzog film yeah sounds a little hard to live up to honestly you know i'll be honest with you it delivers i

mean bridge of the gods is is overstating it slightly but it's too much i would not want to be a bridge named that you know what i mean i'd want to be named like a bridge that'll get you there like that would be like what i would prefer at best what i will say though is it gives you at

least 70 of the experience that you're promised which is pretty high that's pretty high because it promises a lot because you're crossing the columbia there's just the again the the geography and the topography is just amazing these these amazing cliffs and there's all these um to the left of the bridge of the gods are all of these fishing platforms which the local native americans uh generationally for many many generations have used these fishing platforms for a style of fishing in the columbia river that's been passed down from their ancestors where you stand on these platforms with like a long pole uh and i don't know if you spear the fish or if you just fish off of the dock but they're just like these really cool uh you know connection to a a an earlier way of life on this river anyway i'm driving on i-84 and i get a call from a new york number it is one of the producers i'm working with for a cbs project and so i put them on speakerphone i'm chatting with them i'm driving on i-84 now i will admit i'm probably zoning out a little bit the way you do if you're on a phone conversation but driving you know can i ask you this you're

just to be clear here you're in the car by yourself uh with this phone on speaker okay

correct so i'm just driving we're chatting about some logistics and then i say goodbye and then we hang up and i again i want to admit i want to admit that i was probably not fully which is why they say even if you're using all the hands-free technology that many of our cars have it's still a bit dangerous to talk on the phone while you're driving because just mentally you sometimes go somewhere else and i guess i did that a little bit all i know is that i'm driving along i'm in the left lane this is like a two-lane freeway highway thing and this i want to say like a chevy malibu probably like a 2014 chevy malibu kind of nondescript gray sedan goes past me they pass me on the right and i just noticed that the person i can't see anything about the driver but i just like what i can see is that the person flips up a middle finger at me because you're you

must be driving too if they're passing on the right well then you should probably be in the

right is what that middle finger means right i i couldn't even the other thing andrew was i i couldn't even piece it together in that moment why they were mad at me i just realized they thought i did something stupid now i thought i was driving pretty fast uh in the in the left lane like i was in the left lane because i had been passing people who were going more slowly on the right so but yeah i mean maybe that's what it was we'll have more on that in a moment but anyway so i just see a middle finger go up and my thought is just like huh i guess that person's having a bad day like i'm i am sort of proud of myself that i'm not someone who's overly given to road rage for whatever reason it's just like the driving space is not something that gets me super irked most of the time and i'm pretty i think i i have a pretty easy time just kind of going like well okay that person flipped me off whatever so that was kind of what went through my mind initially was like all right well whatever going on for them have fun but then what happens is it's like two miles later and i realize i'm now right behind this car that flipped me off and we're now going we're getting off the freeway at the same exit and now i realize oh we're both driving across the bridge of the gods now this

car is kind of in front of you at this point in front of tailing you okay good not tailing me in

front of me and I have to admit because of this coincidence of our paths sort of crossing again now I'm kind of thinking like huh I wonder what this person's deal is like I wonder why they flipped me off and by the way we got to the same place where you know like was I delaying them did they think I was I don't know I just because I've got sort of time now and I'm just staring at the back of this person's car I'm thinking about this more than I would have if we wouldn't have gotten off at the same exit if he would have just continued on and i would have not seen him again it would have probably never occurred to me again but now i've got like five minutes of driving up onto this bridge it's a toll bridge so you've got to stop and pay the the toll although this person who had flipped me off they clearly drive this bridge all the time because they um didn't have to give money it was like their license plate has some kind of a thing on it so you just get scanned right so i didn't even get a chance to see i was just like i wonder can i get any care can i get any character details on this person who flipped me off but i couldn't because they didn't even have to like roll down the window and hand money to the toll person so they go through they're driving on the bridge i pay the toll person i give them the three bucks and i'm still driving and now i'm still behind them i'm on the bridge and we get to a point we've just gotten off the bridge and we were now in washington state territory okay and this person is going to take a left and i am going to take a right to go to the skamania lodge our paths are now diverging right and i don't know what comes over me andrew this is really not like me but when i pull up even with the car for some reason i just casually throw the like saddest middle finger kind of halfway up as i'm taking a right like an afterthought middle finger so are you sticking i'm curious how this

person might see this if they're in front of you are you kind of it's through the windshield they're to the side of me now oh i see they're taking a left i'm taking a right we are now our

cars are exactly parallel or next to each other which is how this again if he would have just gone left faster i wouldn't have even done it there was something about i didn't roll my window down i literally like leaned my middle finger against the driver's side window like at the base of the window like that's why i say it was the saddest middle finger of all of all time it wasn't like i rolled down the window and threw up an angry bird it was was i didn't even really want to do it i just felt somehow like i owed him a middle finger because he it was like plus one middle finger for him and i wanted to bring it to even middle fingers or something so at this point

you guys are parallel so are you have you looked over and gotten that sort of sense of who this person is and did you look did you make eye any kind of eye contact no when giving the middle finger or is it are your eyes looking the other way and the bird is going the other way exactly

i am looking to the right i'm literally in the act of taking a right and for reasons that i don't Understand something involuntarily In me felt like I needed To at least settle the score In it so as to throw Up again I can't overstate this The world's saddest middle finger So I did that

Yeah so I'm really good I just if you don't Mind and I don't want you to race through this either so I'm Going to guess where this goes from now So then you just each Go your own separate ways and that's

The end of the story yes I

Learned something I have a sense for these Things I should host TBTL

i learned something andrew which is that's a sad middle finger and that's the end and that was the lesson that's the moment of reflection so i yes ira so so i take my right and this guy's already now heading the other direction and i look in my rearview mirror and the guy pulls the most illegal and aggressive u-turn you have ever seen and i am like i think he may have noticed the world's saddest middle finger and i'm like god dang it this is not i'm not trying to get into this right now like i almost was hoping that he hadn't i mean before i saw him do a u-turn i literally like was hoping he didn't even see it because i just wanted to sort of cosmically and karmically settle the score but not legitimately have it out if that makes any sense uh-huh the

The classic karmic bird, yes. Possible show title. that sounds like a sandwich you could have gotten at roxy's deli when they were still open you get the karmic bird they give you a shot of whiskey they slap you and anyway so right away i'm like god dang it i have now this is a situation now you also have to remember i'm going to this very posh resort where becca and like 40 of her co-workers are So I now am in a mode of like There is a couple of things that I'm not happy about One, I'm not happy that I am going to Probably have to have it out with this person Who I have still not seen Like, I don't know if you know If you remember the movie Duel Steven Spielberg's first directorial I think it was his directorial debut I believe you're right An amazingly tense movie, by the way Because you can never see The person who's driving the truck That is menacing Dennis Weaver But um I just realized like I don't want to like First of all I don't really want to have a physical Fight just generally Number two I don't want to have it in front of a posh hotel Where Becca and her co-workers might be Currently mingling in like the Check-in area So and the other thing that's Weird is the guy is not Doing a thing where he's like up on my bumper Which sometimes people Will do in road ragey situations if they get mad in fact sadly i've done that i love how this is going to be a story that i started by saying i don't get road ragey and then i'll probably refer to four or five times when i got overly mad about people's driving but he's not tailing me he's not like he's not like right on my bumper he's like hanging back which was actually way more menacing he's like 10 car i mean there are no cars between us but he's like he would be 10 car lengths back like a shark or something like i'm just like what is this guy thinking so i'm i'm driving and i realized that like this place that i've been to this place skamania lodge before and i'm like it's up a like very you go up this windy narrow road that's very sort of like remote to get to the place so i'm like should i just drive into town like i know like where the grocery store is in town i know where the police station is like should i just drive into somewhere more public and then just like see how this plays out but also i was running a little late for the dinner so i was like i also i was just balancing all these different options none of which felt particularly great in the situation so i try to do a move where i don't put my blinker on before i take a left up the windy road like thinking i'm gonna like lose him or something which is silly because we're the only

cars it also sort of indicate for sure if this is a following situation i mean clearly it is you've seen the u-turn but like you know if you make a last minute turn without using your blinker and then they do the same thing then clearly you're yes you know in a situation yeah yeah so i do that

i don't do the blinker i i take a left up this thing and of course sure enough here comes that malibu and i'm just like then i'm starting to think you know there are unfortunately there are people who are armed in our society these days who you know because of our you know are are triggered in a way by something like a middle finger I mean people die in road rage incidents all the time and I'm like I don't want to go worst case scenario but I'm just kind of like this is really unsettling because there's no way this just ends with a friendly wave from the other guy like all right you know what we'll call it even like that's not how this is going to end um and so i'm winding up the road i'm trying to decide where do i park so i pull right in front of the lodge in the kind of loading area because i'm like this is good because there are people around this should hopefully keep this thing relatively um tame as an as an event but i'm still really unsure like what is this guy's end game how is this going to play out i park uh i noticed that he parks kind of a few cars back and i'm just like again i just am i'm at this point pretty tense because i just i don't know what's going to happen so i get out of my car and i guess my plan is to say look dude you flip me off i flipped you off we'll call it even or something i think that was the the argument i was going to try to make i get out of my car i look the door opens and the guy gets out of the car and andrew when i tell you this is not an exaggeration he is like six nine 380 pounds like he's one of the tallest people i've seen not on an nfl football field in my life and largest like a mountain of a man like if this is cinematic like in the movie this is the guy that you don't want to see getting out of the car like it is the the worst possible case scenario.

Yeah, you're probably going to have your does this end? I know where this goes. Let me guess. Okay. Does he like the mountain in Game of Thrones? Just squish your skull?

he could have Andrew if he had chosen to this guy was enormous like I cannot overstate this and he just is coming right at me and it's clear that he and also by the way because he's enormous his arms are very long so even when he's like four feet away from me he can reach me and I'm just like and you're out of your car now I'm standing we're both just standing in the roadway in front of the skamania lodge and he comes over he's got like a dirty white t-shirt on and like sweats and flip-flops like he doesn't he's not really dressed for a fight but i don't think that's gonna hold him back at one point he untucked his shirt from his like sweat pants and i thought he was like reaching in his like waist i was like oh no honestly this guy did not this guy did not need a gun to harm me his massive boulders of hands would have been just fine so like this now goes from being kind of like how am I gonna de-escalate this or how am I gonna like maybe win this fight if I have to to like how fast I mean I how fast can I run from this guy and he's like it's also weird because there's like two parking valets that are there except they're like high schoolers who i could fit in my pocket so like they're not really at least they're witnesses but they're not really like you know gonna be able to intervene i mean this is like gulliver versus the lilliputians like everybody in that parking area could have tagged had teamed up on this guy including me and we would have barely made a dent in his experience of him like in a movie i mean like i'm talking small plane flying towards king kong like so i put my hands up like in a total like and you know me i'm a fairly aggressive person in these situations this was a real first for me where i was like 100 not trying to do anything right like now i'm not trying to flex i am like i am if i could have been lying on the ground exposing my belly as you like to say i probably would have so he's walking towards me and he's he's uh i go why did you flip me off and he goes because you almost killed me and he goes you're going 85 in a 70 so i guess he thought that i was driving too fast which was weird i'm wondering if he was in i wonder if what happened And again, this is this is why it's bad, I guess, to be on your phone. All I can guess is maybe I came up really fast on his, you know, behind him, like he's going like the speed limit or something in the left lane. And then I come up really fast and then he gets over and then I pass him. In fact, you know what? Now that I'm saying this out loud and I'm kind of rewinding into my brain, I do remember I do remember this.

i was behind him and he got over to the right lane and i think it just irked him that i was

driving as fast as i was so it was opposite of what i said he was the putterer if this is true if your memory serves you right here and i know by the way i mean i know that feeling you're talking about even when you're you're not doing anything illegal like there are times where i'm on a road trip and i'm just looking down or or stealing glances down at the map you know on the dashboard or choosing a song again totally totally legal stuff not using my handheld device but like your brain does go somewhere else and sometimes you can be like hey where was I a second ago I'm driving a you know however many ton machine at 70 miles an hour but in this case so it sounds like you were actually zipping along in the passing lane and and he had to get over to let you by which is actually the polite thing to do usually people who are puttering around in the passing lane don't their whole problem is they don't notice the people behind them and they

cause traffic jams right now it's funny that you know because I've been thinking about this for the last however 15 hours like I immediately told Becca when I got here and stuff but it's only as I'm talking to you that I am like it's like the piece it's like memento or something like the pieces of what happened are kind of re-animating in my brain the memory of what it was and now I can kind of I can visualize his car and me being in the left lane and then being behind him but I didn't think getting overly close the other thing that i'll say is my car has um this very like adaptive cruise control that i love that i'm addicted to because you can just set it and you can set the car lengths of like basically it will not let you get close to a car that's in front of you and out of habit now anytime i'm on the freeway i'm using it because if i am ever distracted if i am looking down on my phone or anything it takes away the possibility of rear-ending someone because it won't let you get that close. to a car and so i it's kind of my default setting now the problem is if i have a rental car or some other car that doesn't have it i'm kind of screwed now like i'm slowly like subcontracting out my ability to drive right because it's more and more automated in my car so i think that he i think what happened was he was offended that i was driving fast behind him he got over i continued to drive in the left lane he stewed in it he got mad he he zoomed up on the to the right of me and flipped me off that's what must have happened and of course he i guess felt sufficiently um like he had gotten his revenge on me with that middle finger and was ready to just take a left eventually and go on his merry way until i threw up that bird and then that just lit a fire in this dude and so he as he's coming over to me i go why did you flip me off and he goes because you almost killed me you're going 85 and a 70 and i said really oh i'm and i actually this was a real thing now maybe this was just the my fear hormones or something but like i said oh really i'm actually sorry if i did that and i was legitimately feeling that way like i couldn't in that moment remember what had set him off but it's like if i had done something that had actually made him actually scared i would be like oh i'm sorry i didn't i really didn't mean to do that i like legitimately and genuinely apologized as he's in as he's getting closer to me um he did not accept that apology andrew he was um swearing at me a lot and uh and then he was saying yeah well at least i back it up at least i back it up if i flip someone off i back it up um meaning i will fight you and

he is now standing like a foot from me and are people watching now you mentioned there are valets

like as a scene being caused it's not a full-on scene because you have the valet and then you have there's like a zipline course here and you have one of the guys that works for the zipline course watching so uh so that was it there was an audience of two and okay so i go um i i so he's says you almost killed me and i said look dude whatever i did it wasn't on purpose and he's just clearly just really angry and he's he sort of wants to start punching me but he also is somewhere in the back of his mind he's like this has got to be a bad idea there's a lot of people around you know like this is and you're not giving him what he wants he wants you to also

react so that a fight can be started but if you're being you know whatever happened before if you're being reasonable in this moment it is a d you know you are trying to de-escalate that's a good

point i do think that was sort of happening i didn't even realize it in the moment but yeah you're right if i had been one smidge aggressive like he wanted to punch my lights out and i will tell you this i have said this on the show many times i think usually back in the days when i was more of a scrapper obviously often my opening salvo would be a headbutt because people never expect a headbutt headbutt coming and it usually kind of incapacitates them for a minute i would have had to get a step ladder to headbutt this dude like he was i'm not exaggerating a foot taller than me like and i'm like 6'1 i have never been in a confrontation with someone where i had to crane my neck in this fashion to even just look at the dude it was surreal and so then i go so then he's just very mad and i go look dude you win okay you win now that is i don't know the last time that i said that in one of these confrontations because i'm also very triggered and i'm also like feeling insecure and threatened and so i have to be the alpha typically right like i've once yelled at a guy you bleed for me in the parking lot of the mantron gate i am not usually the guy that's literally like waving the white flag to this degree i was like you win dude like just basically leave me alone and he uh and he goes no i don't win because you almost killed me like every time he's now he's starting to walk he's he's like realize i don't want to fight him or i'm not gonna fight him and he's starting to walk back towards his car but he keeps trying to come up with a reason to come back over and beat me up so like when i say you win which i thought was me being very beta he stops and he's like angry that i said he won so then he takes like two more steps back towards me and then like what i realized eventually is just like saying nothing is the right approach at this point because if i don't say anything it's like i'm dealing with like a wild animal or something and like if i'm quiet then he doesn't have anything to react to And then he gets closer to his car. But if I say something, it's like re-engaging the conversation. And he stops and takes steps back towards me. It's just like it was really something.

So he finally gets back in his car and, like, starts it up. And I'm still, like, getting my luggage out of my car because I'm staying in this resort, right?

So you're actually parking here. I thought you were just parking at the outskirts, take care of this situation out of sight of most people, and then drive to a place where you'll actually park and go into the resort. But no, like, you're planning on leaving your car where it is right now.

Well, here's what I don't want to do. I'm in front of the resort. I'm, like, where you drop your car off with the valet. the parking area the parking area is more remote and i'm not trying to be in the parking area with conan the barbarian okay sure yeah yeah um so so i'm like you know if they want to give me a ticket fine i'll just i'm leaving my car here for the moment i'm just getting my stuff out i'm gonna go into the hotel i just really want this thing to i will tell you this too now i've already stated how absolutely beta i was in the situation which is all true i i will tell you this if i wasn't in a suit about to go to a nice dinner at my girlfriend's work i would have been less beta i don't think i would have fought the guy but really what i didn't want to do is walk into this thing with like a bloody nose or like all roughed up that's how i was picturing this story

ending before when you started as that was a fact oh no is this gonna end with you staggering in

with like a ripped shirt no but that was honestly like i didn't think that i was going to die from fighting this guy although to be honest with you he was big enough that he could have just probably killed me with his bare hands it wasn't even that i was like it wasn't that i was i would say 50 of my calculation was i can't walk into this nice event with a torn shirt and like a black eye and a bloody nose like it's not a good thing for the relationship no it's going to be embarrassing for her it's going to make me look like a complete weirdo so a big part of me trying to de-escalate was really trying to just like i just wanted to go into the hotel in one piece and get on with the night i didn't want to i didn't want to like stagger in and have everyone gasp and be like get this man some ice like i just didn't want it to be that kind of a scene so that added to me really not wanting to engage with this guy um it's like my level of embarrassment is almost in fact I'm probably more more of an embarrassed person than a frightened person you know like my fear of getting beat up by him was was you know that was a four but my embarrassment about walking into this event looking like shit was like a seven so anyway he drives past me now and I'm just kind of standing by my car and this is the thing that i thought was kind of interesting his car had at least evidence of three different fender benders on it it was a gray car it had red paint on it it had some white paint there were dents and i was like oh this guy like you ever see someone whose car is just like has been clearly in a number of skirmishes and you think huh what's the through line i don't know this car the person driving this car as he sort of slowly drives past me i just get a whole story about this guy's life which was like he's clearly been in a number of fender benders in this vehicle he's somebody who followed me for 20 miles because of a middle finger and was ready to fight me in a parking lot like this is i now listen i should not the lesson i learned was i should not have flipped the guy off it was so not worth it so not worth it and so dumb of me but also i was like oh this is this guy's whole deal like he is a very triggered driver and he's also doesn't appear to be a great driver at that because his car's got some battle scars on it and so i don't know that was an interesting view into what i think this guy's backstory is whatever i can't imagine this is the first time that he's gotten into it with someone over a driving situation and as i'm like walking uh to the um into the the lodge or whatever the zipline guy who's probably my age or something he's like um are you all right and i was like yeah i go boy i go is that not the worst case scenario when you get into it with someone he starts laughing goes yeah dude you were gonna be so screwed he was like unless you know karate you

were he goes i 100 if i were you would not have tried to fight that guy yeah the valet comes over and he's the same thing he's like yeah holy shit man he's like you had no chance but the valet you

said is kind of an under oh you know you said yeah the valet is like 16 oh he is okay yeah yeah

totally like a high schooler and he's like yeah you had no chance i was like yeah no that was

Thanks for the input I thought you were going to say He drives by and you couldn't help yourself And you give him the middle finger one more time Oh my god dude And you're podcasting from the netherworld today

That's why the line is a little That's why there's a delay on the line Andrew heaven yeah because as you referenced on the show the other day you're in the waiting room in beetlejuice with a uh that's exactly right there's an entire yeah there's a football team that died

in a bus accident next to me oh my god yeah no it was it was it was pretty intense but anyway the zipline guy goes he goes i go yeah i go i don't know what that guy's problem was and the zipline guy goes well it's kind of a lesson for you too about flipping people off and i had to admit he

had a point so i mean so he how long did this i guess i'm just having a little bit of problem like kind of picturing this this final encounter like how long did it last how loud is this guy talking clearly then like the zipline guy was able to pick up on the thread that some middle fingers were

thrown right i will it felt like a lifetime andrew it was probably it was probably two and a half

minutes right that is a long time though for a confrontation like that two and a half minutes

is a long time i mean uh it the reason i think the zipline guy knew that the middle fingers were in play was because when i got out of the car i said why did you flip me off and then he said his thing about you almost killed me and then i think i still tried to make my my case of like we'll call it even i think i said something like look we both flipped each other off let's get over it or something so that was how the info got to the zipline guy but i thought it was kind of funny that he again i can't tell how old anyone is anymore like this guy looked he seemed like he's older than me but i bet he's not like i think i just don't realize how old i am so i see what seems like a middle-aged guy like he had a sort of a adult presence you know what i mean like he was like kind of slightly daddish which by the way was also a little bit comforting that oh there's another adult that's not tommy the valet that's watching this so like i don't know if he's gonna be able to do anything about it but it's like this isn't happening in total isolation or whatever yeah but yeah i thought it was funny that he he took a moment to mention that maybe this would be a time for me to reflect on who i flip off yeah and i mean honestly though like it is a good like

because you know and i don't want to retell stories here but you know i've had road rage issues in the past it is a triggering thing for me in a way that it isn't for you and we've talked pretty um deeply about that like i'm a pretty i i'm i wouldn't say i'm an easygoing guy good lord i shudder to think that genevieve overheard me even suggest that um but like i'm not somebody who is a confrontational guy certainly but then there have been times in my life where suddenly like something happens to me in the car where somebody cuts me off or whatever and suddenly like i just need blood right and um and yeah i told you a story going back to to high school where I was tailgating some guy for a while and then eventually he followed me off the highway and then I couldn't get away because I tried to... Right, you're like in a gas station parking lot. Yeah, and I tried to just... I was like, I'll just follow him to the parking... I'll just follow him off the highway and then I'll turn around in that parking lot. But then something happened where he had the advantage. He got behind me and then I couldn't turn out into traffic. And so he got out of his car and came up to my window and I just pretended like I was lost. I just... I did not acknowledge anything. I just said... And again, I'm like, what's... I don't think I got my license until I was 17. I was like 17 or 18. And I just said, and I was heading to my house in Medina. And I just said, do you know where Medina is? And he just looked so confused by my beta-ness that he was just like, you just worthless piece of shit. But anyway, so I should have said to this guy, do you know where Skawmania is? Do you know where Medina is? But so that was my thing. So, I mean, I definitely understand the psychology there. And in fact, like I would usually be the one maybe who's maybe dealing with more rage issues, something that I do think about. And also, I don't think I'm as much like that anymore. I don't I just I do think much more about the dangers of of driving a car and like maybe just because we're driving around bicycles so much in this city. And the fact that I'm I'm trying to be more of a pedestrian than a driver these days anyway, that I think I do realize, like, my God, one one second of not paying attention on the highway and a life could change like that, you know. And so I try to keep that in mind. But sometimes, though, we're humans and we can forget that. And so it's good to maybe maybe remember these stories and be like, hey, somebody cut you off. Who gives a shit? Just go to the picnic or whatever you're going to, you know. Absolutely.

Like, for me, the takeaway was there's no upside to being vulgar to people on the road. You know what I mean? Like, also, I wasn't even mad. Like, that was the weird part. It's like, it reminds me of when I punched this guy named Tim Mosby in high school because I had seen John Wayne do a move in a movie where he, like, is, like, squaring up with a guy and then he basically pretends. ends to like walk away but then he turns around and punches the guy and I literally just thought huh I wonder if that move would work and then you know a few days later I find myself in kind of a standoff with a kid as class is starting and I wasn't even mad I just was like testing the testing out the move like I wasn't even mad at this guy I was just felt sort of like well he flipped me off and now I'll throw him a sad finger and then we'll be on our way like it wasn't even like it just it was it was such a bizarre thing for me to do and the other thing that the last two things i'll say and then we can uh we can move on but one is uh i'm actually really glad that he was so enormous because if he would have been my size i probably would have fought him like if i would have thought i could take him i would have certainly been much much less conciliatory sure like like if and lord knows if he's smaller than me then i'm taking no shit from this guy right like and it was like which would be terrible like this the fact that this didn't end in physical violence is a is a good thing and part of why it didn't end in physical violence is because i had zero chance like yeah right so i'm kind of relieved i'm glad i'm glad that it was immediately clear to me that there was no upside to trying to fight him because it caused me to just go full beta and it caused the situation to again be de-escalated the other thing i was thinking was i am so glad that i am not a person who carries a firearm because i was facing a person who physically was so much more massive than me and was angry and i felt i felt very powerless in the situation a situation of my own creation by the way if i would have had like if i'm one of those people with a gun on their hip i'm probably pulling it because i want to feel powerful i don't want to feel the way i'm feeling when this guy who's way bigger than me is is you know threatening me in a way because i didn't have a gun i had to use my wits by wits i mean i had to lay on

the ground and cry i had to assume the fetal position i mean it was major andre the giant

versus dread pirate robert or whatever wesley i mean that would have been the just if you want to picture the physical dynamic and also if you want to picture me as carrie ells from the princess right i welcome you to do that it's not the worst for me but like seriously like this is how people get shot over nothing because if i had a gun on me and this guy's making me feel this way i don't want to feel this way anymore i want him to feel scared because i'm feeling scared or whatever it is i'm feeling diminished by this experience i'm pulling the gun off of my hip and pointing it at him am i pulling the trigger hopefully not but like for that to even be in play is so effed up like i'm just really i'm really glad that i didn't have access to something like that in that moment because i would have probably availed myself of it well i mean you're

also not the type of person to get a gun right i mean like that's not even well that's what i mean

been tempted by before right no no i mean i have no interest i've never owned a gun i will never own a gun it's not it's not like something that realistically could have happened but i guess what i'm saying is if somehow in some multiverse some other part of the multiverse i'm somebody who's packing heat and i get into this confrontation and the guy is clearly way way way stronger than me and i want i don't i don't want to feel weak in front of him well what can i do to even the score well i can point this weapon at him like right and people do that all the time all across the country and people are getting shot over nothing because of a dynamic like this where a gun is in play yeah so it was just it was a very uh it like it was a good lesson for me to not flip people off for no reason because you never know they might be a former starting offensive lineman from the

Los Angeles Chargers you'll never flip anybody off again even if it's the equivalent of Russell Wilson sadly saying let's ride as he walks away from a podium no I know I've learned my lesson

I think my flipping people off days and again I'm just saying the same thing over and over again but the worst part of it was my heart wasn't even in it in the first place like it'd be one thing if He cut me off and I was all raged out. And then I'm like, it's like it was almost academic. This like middle finger. It was like I just felt like, well, the opportunity has presented itself. We are now even with each other. So this person might be able to actually see this finger. And this is convenient because I'm going right and they're going left. So this will be the parting shot. I'll get the last word. Right. And then he'll have to think about maybe he'll think twice before he gives someone a middle finger on I-84.

going forward yeah yeah he learned his lesson oh man let me ask you one more question we should

we should um like you said i don't want to you you've powered out i don't want to uh force you to whimper the power back in yeah but um do you think now in retrospect that whole thing of like kind of following you off the highway or getting on no no you were behind him right when you got off the highway together so there is no indication that like because i was almost wondering thinking back to that that you know event i just told you about from the late 90s right um or mid 90s anyway um i was uh thinking like is there a chance that this guy was still going to show you kind of a lesson by putting the the fear in you for a little bit but then you were going to take a right he was going to take a left and he was going to get back on the highway and go back to wherever he was actually going to but that can't be right because you followed him off the highway

no yeah i think he was just going home yeah he was just because again we we anyone who's driven this road that i'm talking about in in southern southern washington state literally like you get off of the bridge and you hit another little highway and to the right is stevenson washington which is technically where i'm at and to the left is i don't know whatever is to the left dude was going left and had turned and was going down the road like he was he was at that point good with things and then when i flipped him off he then he had to continue his left turn but he basically did his left turn and then immediately pulled a massively illegal u-turn in the middle of the road you see that you know me flipping oh boy that was not a good feeling in my rearview mirror yeah yeah anyway so i'm glad you're alive i'm glad that you didn't get mountained it was that's again that's a good comparison i would say he was roughly as big as that dude oh my goodness all right well um so so i hope i hope everyone can learn from my ways and don't go don't go chasing waterfalls and don't go around flipping off people in chevy malibus with a lot of paint damage to the side because that may not be the person you want to mess with okay shit you're

just wrapping up two more things first of all the fact that it was a malibu is just like i just feel like a malibu the name malibu invokes like chill vibes i just think you can't be that aggro in a malibu you've got to get something with sharper edges um second thing that i i guess i did want to ask is so i mean luckily you're coming into this situation and telling becca this as like as far as becca's concerned like it was a close call it's a story i'm sure she's concerned for you but it didn't affect her and her workplace or or or whatever like i really do think no matter who we're talking about here anybody in a relationship if you're if you have a bit of a reputation for for getting into fights and then you show up like at you know at your partner's work thing and you got into a fight on the way there it's just a terrible terrible look and really bad for any relationship um but as you tell this story to becca respecting her privacy as much as possible like how did she respond to all of this uh she was i mean i was telling it

in a way playing it for comedy because it was i was hyping up the fact as i mentioned to you that like this it's like a scene in a movie where a very large individual gets out of a relatively small car oh one other thing i'll add to this if this is one of those lifted trucks with a let's go brandon flag i'm not doing it i'm not flipping them off yeah yeah it's like this is a sedan it's low to the ground i have no sense of the human being who's i didn't even know the gender really of the person in the car like i had very limited information but it was like cinematic in that you had an i mean the only thing could have been if he was driving like a yugo or something or like a a mini cooper would have been the only better visual in terms of massive human being getting out of tiny car right so i'm telling becca this and i'm like and i'm like this is the last guy you want to see getting out of the car and she's she's just kind of like eyes wide and laughing and um you know it didn't as far as i could tell it didn't seem like also i've never been in a fight with anyone during our dating time and i've also never had a confrontation in public with someone while with her so good yeah it's not as loaded a topic as it would be for people i've been in previous relationships with where it was like yeah they had to kind of witness shit so i don't think it's my guess would be that it's not it's not as big of a red flag for her and i was sitting there you know unharmed and having not been in a fight having just had kind of an argument with a guy so it was i don't think it i don't think it was now had i walked into the event all jacked up from the fight yeah i bet you that would that would be flaggy that would be some red flags so yeah

but this wasn't an existing point of contention and i guess i guess that is what i'm revealing there is that I am thinking about some of your previous relationships and I know that that was a point of contention You know, you were just talking the other day, you were talking about a confrontation you had at 13 Coins that I didn't know about. And, you know, again, those things are and I'm not even putting judgment on anybody in this case. I mean, but those things, yeah, they can be trying. So I'm glad to know that this isn't an aspect of your current relationship. That's good.

Yet. Unless a person, unless a person who is my size or smaller. well remember uh-huh what what what the hell happened when we were in pike place someone stole your cab and then i started screaming at him like a maniac or something it was it must have been man

this is that long ago that it was an actual cab huh it wasn't a because there's no stealing

someone's uber or lyft you know those are those are like right those are scheduled for a specific

phone right yeah that's so funny because it was you know when it was do you remember there was a i'm thinking of this because i just came across a photo of it uh somewhere do you remember there was some thing that you and i were doing for tbtl like some project or something this goes way back and then the day ends with you me and phyllis recording a tbtl at some little bar at the pink

doors market yeah why yeah what were we doing i know that was a long time we ate at the pink we're now had we that wasn't when we did a comic-con thing was it i don't think so it was

just like you and i had one thing to do then we met up with phyllis and we said why don't we the three of us record a show together and i believe there's like a photo of like me holding a microphone unless phyllis is holding it and like the three of us kind of cutting it up recording a podcast of tbtl in like the corner of this restaurant where there are no other patrons whatever we were doing there and phyllis might hear this and actually fill in the details because phyllis remembers things um turns out right that's one benefit of not poisoning your brain for 25 years um but anyway it was leaving then that area at the end of a long productive day i think and i was getting ready to leave and yeah some tourist kind of i think i was flagging a cab and then some tourists took it no it's the opposite i ended up in the cab because i remember they almost took it from me or something and i got in the car but then as the car's driving away i realized like you're kind of like yelling at some people or something right i think i ended up getting the cab but it angered you that maybe somebody tried to get it because i just have a vague memory of of you yelling at people uh maybe i'm wrong about that maybe they did take it and you yelled as they

drove away i don't know when addy writes her memoir it's going to be called i have a vague memory of my dad yelling at people no what happened was what happened was it was like a busy time it was like 5 p.m you were trying to get home there were not enough cabs one came down and you flagged it and you walked and got in the cab and shut the door and there was this other person who thought that they were going to get in the cab and they said something mean to you thinking that you stole their cab but i could tell that you had no idea they even existed in the world like first of all i know you you would never try to steal someone's cab um you're not just not wired that way it was you you did not realize that that these people were standing 12 feet away and were they were also thinking they were going to get the cab so it was this guy saying something jerkish to you and then me in my mind being like i know my friend andrew and the furthest thing from what he would ever do would be to like cut in line in front of someone or try to take something that belonged to somebody else even a cab and so i then proceeded to get into it with this random guy who had said something mean to you as you're just turning into taillights in the distance okay so i

didn't actually see what went down but that was a quick interaction and also it sounds like i probably was accidentally in in the wrong there that's something that i don't think i ever i don't

think so i think it was no i think it was a 50 50 in fact it may not have been to like i don't i don't think that you stole someone else's cab i think it was like let's say maybe a coin toss as far as who had hailed it or who was closer to it or whatever the rules are but again it was this guy saying something mean to you as you were and you were a little confused as you were getting the cab i remember saying something to you and you kind of because you hadn't intentionally stolen this guy's cab being kind of like huh and then just getting in the car and shutting the door and then me coming in with the righteous indignation on behalf of you because and I I mean the thing is I 100% would steal someone's cab like that is my personality if they were but you never would and I was so yes and I was just like so mad at this person impugning your character because I knew that's not what you were doing that I then had it out with him i have a vague memory i think at that point maybe carrie had met up with us i think so yeah i think

carrie and maybe maybe addy as well actually and So I was, I remember, yeah, I remember just like having it out with this guy in a super aggressive fashion and, you know, Carrie being probably, you know, not loving that this was a semi-regular part of our time out in the world. So there you go.

So that actually, you know, it's funny. I always thought that you wanted to get into it with that person, but you didn't. But it sounds like when I was gone, you actually had some sort of protracted situation with this person on my behalf. I mean, I think I'm falling in love with you.

oh i do i mean i'll tell you what i get pretty mad if i think i'm being insulted but i get extremely mad if i feel like my friends you know or addy obviously that thing at 13 coins was over addy or whatever like i uh yeah i was very offended on your behalf i but anyway um enough stories about me raging out in the world let's talk about an hour into the show and we haven't

taking the first break yet.

Oh, my God. I don't have my clock in front of me. Yeah, we're almost, we started at 10.18 local time, so we are pretty close

to an hour of this. Oh, lordy, lordy. All right. We should probably do that break.

All right, okay. So we should take that break and then come back and then we'll maybe do these top stories or maybe in between now and then I'll have another run-in with someone that we can talk about. Yeah. Maybe housekeeping or something. All right, back in a moment with more TVTL. hey let's thank some daily donors for keeping the program going with their generous financial support each month folks like carl norambuena out there in issaquah washington i think i might follow Carl on Twitter somehow I get a lot of things on my Twitter that are they're basically things that I'm seeing because Carl liked them

oh interesting so it's not even like Carl sending you stuff it's just that algorithm I think I have all that stuff turned off on mine because I just I hate the I just I kind of hate the Twitter algorithm so I just strip it down so I just see whatever's latest but I know what you're talking about there are times when it'll reset on me and all of a sudden I'm just seeing all these tweets because somebody in my network liked something i find that irritating no offense to carl i'm sure carl's liking good stuff but you know i just like to control my own journey

that's right well listen carl there's a lot of responsibility on your shoulders to keep liking interesting things about the mariners you have because i'm seeing it um i felt extremely seen on Sunday I was driving I was driving down to Becca's family thing and I was listening to the second half of the Seahawks game and somehow Twitter came up and Steve Rabel goes can I get fewer tweets about those t-shirts that go hard please

did you hear that that was a those t-shirts that go hard really was somebody who had like sort of hacked the mainframe and like taking yeah like super

astro turfed us but it's still happening i just not as bad but i'm still getting it i never there was just something about steve steve rabel yeah see a long time seahawks announcer saying i don't want any more tweets about those t-shirts please and then dave wyman laughing i

was into it that's great i love anyway those guys i do too carl we're into you supporting the show

and being a listener thank you also melissa mann is in lidditz lidditz pennsylvania

Melissa, another person that I recognize from social media I don't know where, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram But I know Melissa's been a long time

My face, you face, I don't know, ask somebody who does that

Exactly

Matt Estrada is in Tacoma, Washington Thanks Matt Thank you Matt Suzanne Olson is in Renton, Washington Nice Thank you Suzanne and then uh david webster is in dunwoody georgia the most georgia name possible for a community right yeah dunwoody yeah dunwoody that seems deeply georgian to me and then kyle clark is in berkeley california kyle thank you that's done when i think of berkeley this is this is not a

nice thing to say but um i was writing something for the newsletter in fact um i have a mystery that I need some help with that is in this week's newsletter. So if you haven't signed up yet, sign up today to get that newsletter. But I was looking at, it's related to this, I was looking at the top internet trends of 2011. It's related. And one of them was the casual orange-spraying cop from Berkeley. Remember the protests? I think they were connected to the... Um,

the uh what were what were the wall street protests called um occupy occupy well wasn't the occupy that kind of spread across the country right and i believe that there were protests at berkeley and you had the cop with the pepper spray who was just casually walking down a line of um of i believe like ziplined students who were on the ground just casually spraying tear gas in their face it's a terrible thing um but then the internet sort of like kind of jujitsu meme a fight and made him the the villain that he is yeah yeah so anyway thanks kyle my

point with all that is thank you kyle i wonder if kyle uh got interested in the show when he heard that i once drank from the scummy fountain on the campus of cal berkeley oh yeah using something called a life straw was that a gates foundation thing um they may have um thrown some money towards it but yeah it's a it's actually a very cool product it it's a filtration it's like a i mean it's a big straw like you wouldn't order one with your milkshake at the diner but it's it's this tube and you can drink it it sterilizes water so you can drink otherwise not drinkable water through it and it'll be clean by the time it gets to you and to prove this i got like there's this fountain where you know people just like throw i don't know coins and it doesn't get cleaned enough and i mean it's just visually very green and kind of fetid and i on camera dipped the straw in there and drank from that fountain to prove that the life straw then andrew they didn't even put it in the piece and i'm gonna tell you what i remember there was some post script to that that was the first i believe that was the first reported piece i did for sunday morning i.e like they send out a producer and a camera crew and everything i was very green and very much trying to not make waves i can tell you this 2022 luke burbank if i drank out of that goddamn fountain it's getting in the story i don't care if i have to personally call jane

poly it's happening and the experience was not bad right did it just taste like no not at all

yeah yeah it tasted a little almost like chlorinated or something because of whatever chemicals you know it deploys to neutralize stuff but yeah the product is called life straw and i have to say i'm still here after drinking from that fountain so anyway that's the story about berkeley that i wanted to tell for kyle clark today and for all of our donors thank you so much for supporting tbtl we would not be here without you hello and welcome to top story all right we obviously don't have a ton of time for top stories because i wasted so much of our time with my tale of road raging but i did think this was kind of interesting james corden sat down with dave itzkoff from the new york times um to promote this new netflix series that he's in i think it's called mammals um i really like dave itzkoff he's a good speaking of twitter follows he's a good twitter follow and he writes like lots of profiles and kind of pop culture pieces for the new york times and he had this he mentions that basically like a month ago or something uh he had this interview booked with james corden for to promote this netflix show and so he sits down in a restaurant with james corden and uh it was it's interesting because it just sounds like james corden was being absolutely petulant and annoying in the interview i don't know if you had a chance

to like i have not had a chance to to read this but i'm highly interested in this so they meet at

this place um called uh the mark restaurant it's in manhattan and he's sitting there with james cordon and this is according to dave itzkoff's reporting um he goes uh i'm sitting in there on manhattan's upper east side when cordon overhears another patron at a nearby table curtly rebuking a waiter about the meal she had ordered the eggs it seemed were not to her liking cordon shot a conspiratorial glance across his own table to a New York Times reporter I think it's so funny how the New York Times always has to do that this is an article written by a person named Dave Itzkoff but then he has to write in that third person like we know it was you Dave you're the only New York Times reporter at the table he looked across to a New York Times reporter he was dining with and he quietly said happens every day It's happening in 55,000 restaurants as we speak. It's always about eggs.

So this is interesting. So he broaches the topic of his misbehavior. And that went viral about him sending back eggs because they had a little bit of egg white in there. And they were supposed to be just yolks or maybe vice versa.

That. Yes, he had his wife ordered an all egg yolk omelet. Yeah. So in case you missed the first round on this, the very quick version is the guy who owns Balthazar, which is a popular restaurant in New York, wrote on Instagram earlier this week that he was banning James Corden because James Corden had been really rude to his staff. And so then all these other people started trading stories about James Corden's rudeness. And then by the end of that day, this guy at Balthazar had let James Corden back in, like unbanned him because apparently he had apologized. But the sort of the genie was out of the bottle at that point in terms of people comparing notes about about James Corden's rude behavior. And, yes, one of the incidents had been him sending an omelet back a couple of times and then berating the staff because it wasn't – when they brought it back, instead of bringing a salad, they brought home fries. It was, like, so dumb. But anyway.

So in this case, though, it doesn't sound like it's a cough or, I'm sorry, a New York Times reporter has brought up the scandal yet. It's actually – the topic is broached by Corden himself when he overhears somebody at another table saying back eggs.

more on that in a moment because sorry because but davis cough i'm sorry a new york times reporter starts with the eggs anecdote because it's the most i guess you would say ironic and compelling thing i don't know if that happened as they sat down or if that happened i don't know when in the conversation that happened from a timeline standpoint right but this is the thing so james cordon says this happens every day uh more archly he added can you imagine now if we just blasted her on twitter would that be fair this is my point it's insane so james cordon's contention here is that this woman who's being rude to the waiter if someone were to call her out on twitter over being rude to the waiter that would be insane there would be no reason in which we would call someone out for being rude which to me indicates a real lack of remorse on his part like I mean maybe that person should get blown up on Twitter I think if you're rude to a waiter for no reason and there's some public shaming involved I think that's okay I think that's an okay way for things to work themselves out James Corden tends to think that's insane yeah I um well I'm interested in

hearing where this goes because he's clearly I mean when I saw this on the show sheet today and again i didn't have time to read the feature but like i was like okay how is this gonna go because if you're trying to convince the there's this thing like when you're when you're a crotchety or a defensive person and you're trying to prove to the world that you you're you're actually not that way and if you get like a little itchy in the interview like that's a that's worse like you're proving the point of everybody that you're like kind of defensive and and whatever i i'm thinking about something i can't even yeah i don't think i want to give the example but speaking of the newsletter yesterday i was messing around with some various titles for it and um the one that's going to come out later today and i did something i was trying to come up with a pun and i did something um using parentheses i'll put i'll put it that way i i was using parentheses in this what would be the subject line of the of the um newsletter in a way that i realized oh my god if i do that that looks really bad that is the type of thing that you need that's why you need a second set of eyes on these things right like it could have been sending a very wrong message for you yes and so i woke up and it's kind of funny because i told viz i'm like that is why we have editors right just because you could mean something totally innocently for a pun but potentially send something else in the world that you truly truly didn't mean to send out there what a weird cryptic way for me to bring this up but either way i woke up today with sort of having a fantasy of what if I had sent that out what if I hadn't caught that and there was a backlash I think people would believe me when I would just be like oh my god I am so sorry I totally missed how that was coming off obviously I didn't mean that I was trying to make a pun because I have a reputation first of all and then secondly because I would be so goddamn sincere of saying how I missed that you know like there wouldn't be a question of like well I don't know what else is in this guy's past Or or am I being like, well, listen, hey, I made a mistake in a newsletter subject line. Do you really think that I should be being tweeted about for that? You know, right. So sorry to turn this totally about me immediately. But like when somebody like James Corden, who I already kind of get a little bit of a weird feeling about, and then the Internet is dredging up all these stories, some of which may be true, some of which may be exaggerations about him being a difficult person. but then sitting

down in an interview with the new york times and being difficult is a bad bad look my friend

i know i'm sure his like you know media team is just like pulling their hair out it seems to be and i'll read you some more from this david scoff piece but it seems to be that the tension in the conversation is that james corden does not want to act like anything has been amiss for him during the week um on thursday morning after a long interview in which cordon variously said that the debate about him was not worth acknowledging and that he was likely to address it in monday's broadcast of the late late show he defiantly declared that he did not want credit for going ahead with what could have been and often was an awkward conversation i haven't done anything wrong on any level he said so why would i ever cancel this i was there i get it i feel so zen about the whole thing because i think it's so silly i just think it's beneath all of us it's beneath you and it's certainly beneath your publication oh my god what it so it's like yeah so it's like dave itzkoff probably said hey thanks for doing this knowing that like this guy's been kind of you know in the hot seat this week and cordon's thing is like why wouldn't i do it why wouldn't Because this is, I mean, you know, why, of course I'm doing it. Why would I not be doing it? You know, it's like, dude, get over yourself. What a little turd.

Yeah, absolutely. And also like doing that. I mean, it's like working the refs if I'm using that right, right? Like, well, obviously this is below you and your publication. Like, oh, so yeah. Oh, because you don't want me talking about it. Anybody can say that about anything they don't want to talk about. And honestly, when you are a personality, I mean, he is a entertainer, but he's a personality. and so therefore I do it's not even like he's a not that this would be okay but if your main thing is being a football player but you don't really like the public spotlight you just want to go out there and play football every day and so you're known for not you know talking much or um or you know inviting media that you don't want but then something goes around about you're also rude to waiters or whatever and you don't want to kind of talk about that because you just want to do a sports interview like i sort of you could maybe sort of at least broach that argument but the whole thing about cordon is is he is a personality he makes his money based on what his person i just paused because i was trying to figure out if i said gordon or cordon um yeah you're living in my brain um i uh i think i said cordon that time but uh yes it's like he he makes his money based on who his personality is and if his personality is a little rotten fair game for for a profile

in the new york times absolutely likability is the main thing that he needs to have in his job and so if he's less than likable it is extremely germane i think to the conversation let me read you a little bit more from this piece so i can get you more worked up because it left me pretty annoyed as well at thursday's breakfast cordon did not give his own account of what had happened in these incidents or discuss whether he had apologized at first he parried any discussion of mcnally mcnally's the guy that owns balthazar he parried any discussion of mcnally's posts or the reaction to them asked if he was feeling all right cordon cagely said about what what do you mean so that's again this is so he's sitting down to lunch with the guy from the new york times and then governor says how you feeling he goes about what what do you mean it's just like i'll say it again what a little turd out there um this is the other thing that just made me just so annoyed i mean he he just keeps talking about how uh he added as he said several times in the conversation that it feels quote like such a silly little thing to talk about it's like well kind of but you you've kind of been one of the main people trending on the internet about how unlikable you are when your you know likability is what you supposedly do so it's not that silly of a thing uh this was the other thing uh cordon said that any online criticism of him likely reflects the awareness and opinions of a small part of the overall population quote uh should we not all be a little grown up about this he said i promise you ask around this restaurant they don't know about this maybe 15 of people i've been here i've been walking around new york not one person's come up to me we're dealing in two worlds he added if i lived on twitter hillary clinton is the president of the united states and jeremy corbyn won by a landslide excuse me what is the counterfactual

hillary twitter that he's talking about does he think that a bunch of people are on twitter acting like hillary won the what what is that even what is he talking about what a little turd

out there i wish he would have got out of that malibu i would have really given him what for

everybody at that event is lucky that james corden wasn't driving that malibu um yeah that is uh that absolutely ridiculous he's so defensive he's so unlikable oh i know what i was gonna say i was just pausing there as i was trying to think you know whenever the topic of cordon comes up on the show and long before this i just mean that like because i often said like yeah his entertainment isn't for me but we haven't gone on long expanded dunks on his personality but we have um at least you know at least one listener paul in in england i feel like i've heard from other british listeners too who are just like we don't like him either just so you know like he is like i know yeah so

whatever for whatever that's worth this dave itzkoff piece goes you can tell that dave itzkoff was pretty put off by the interaction i think because his piece goes on to cite a lot of stuff in james corden's own words where he basically admits to being um kind of a brat you know like he's i guess he's written a memoir he's written about his life and he and he i guess i will give corden credit for this much he himself has admitted to the fact that he at times has been really unlikable and there was some story where he was like accepting an award he was the co-creator and star of a show called Gavin and Stacey in the UK that I have no awareness of but I guess it was a hit and they were winning some award but he used his time accepting the award to complain that they hadn't been nominated in a different category like just stuff like that so Dave Itzkoff goes on to point out a whole bunch of other pretty sounds pretty verifiable stories of this guy James Corden just being kind of unpleasant and there's nothing about this interview that is exculpatory around James Corden's behavior in my opinion like he seems like he's he basically seems to think that everyone is rude to waiters all the time and that the big problem is the internet not liking that

kind of behavior yeah right yeah geez just like what about your personality can't just say like oh he just sounds so pompous he sounds so pompous now this is a big w for you though Andrew because

again you didn't like him when when none of us even knew that he was kind of rude to people you because the carpool karaoke stuff was just so performative for you like you've you've been not loving this guy way before it was cool so i mean this really validates a lot of your feeling

i should just let that ride but yeah i mean my whole thing was i i didn't get it it wasn't like aaron rogers where i got a sense of him being an a-hole um that's why i didn't like aaron rogers And I think that that has proven to be true for me, the Corden stuff, even if he was a really good guy, it's just like that type of entertainment was just very not for me. I just the stuff that a lot of people liked. And I think and again, I want to say this. I believe that I am on the outside here, especially probably for most of our listeners. So I'm not trying to say that, like, oh, if you like carpool karaoke, you're not cool. I think that you're in the vast majority of people, for whatever reason, I didn't like it for a bunch of reasons of the types of things that I like. I found it to be a little bit cringy. So that was my thing. I just sort of I didn't like the fact that some days you would just wake up and you couldn't avoid everybody retweeting carpool karaoke like but I don't think I ever got a sense I didn't know enough about him to get a sense that he's kind of a he's like again this just sounds very pompous and off-putting to me I wonder now he is leaving his position at the late late show unrelated to this like he announced that a while ago and so he's you know transitioning

He was an actor before. And like I said, he had that show in in England and stuff. And so I guess he's going back to being an actor probably or whatever he's going to do. I do wonder, though, if this will eventually I wonder if this will affect at all the trajectory of his career, because, again, like there are so many talented actors that can do play a role and play a job or do a job that if you have one of them, who's just kind of now becoming known for being kind of a jerk, like I wonder if that'll hurt him in casting or in getting gigs or whatever or just in his like the box office performance of things he works on. I wonder if this will have any effect on that because it's like it's tough enough to have us make a successful movie or TV show or whatever and if one of the actors or if the person who's making it is just their rep becomes, oh, that person's a jerk. if they're not like a generational talent like a George Clooney or a Julia Roberts or something if they're just a James Corden can they can they like can they will that have an impact on them I mean who knows I guess we'll see

yeah for some reason I sort of feel that like it would be worse if he was going from if he was going in the opposite direction again not to to what do we say we don't say beat a dead horse anymore do we have a pita feed a fed horse not to feed a fed horse here but like being a talk show host you are it is all about your personality being an actor you can hide behind roles you know unless you're a jerk to everybody on set and people don't want to work with you i think it would affect the the product less or at least the public reception to the product, unless the stories got really, really out of hand. I actually think it's better to be able to be like, hey, he's a really good performer. I heard he's difficult to work with. Okay, whatever. But I really liked him as whatever, the undersea god in, I don't know why I'm putting that. Do you think he'd play a good undersea god, by the way? In what, like a Little Mermaid reboot or something? I was thinking maybe an action film. Oh, one of those Marvel type of deals? Who is the god of the sea? that must be I'm pushing us on Poseidon shouldn't go Poseidon yes I tend to think of that as more

of like I know that Aquaman isn't king of the sea but isn't like Jason Momoa Aquaman he is yes I

haven't seen any of those it's really like when like when Marvel wrapped up its um you know its main storyline I'm not somebody who's deep deep into Marvel you know into the Marvel verse but I I really started watching everything that was sort of playing into the storyline leading up to the two last movies. And ever since they kind of closed the book on that chapter, I do not care about any of these Marvel movies I see coming out. So the Thanos stuff? The Thanos stuff, really, they kind of closed that chapter. And now I love Black Panther, but the new Wakanda movie, there's not even a part of me that is thinking I'll probably go see that. If I had a friend who really wanted to see it or if Genevieve was into it, I would see it. But it's amazing how like it's not even a conversation in our house about seeing these movies because it's just like they did they did such a good job leading up to something that really all of the all of the movies afterwards seem like an afterthought.

So did they you'd think I would know this because I did a story about a guy who wrote a book called All the Marvels, but his book was really about reading all of the Marvel comics, which is like hundreds of hundreds of thousands of pages. so at the end of is it Avengers Endgame or something when like there's a point where Thanos kills like half of the human population right yes

they disappear

does that kill a bunch of the heroes does that mean like the Hulk is dead or something or like Thor is dead or whatever

it does affect about half of the heroes but then of course there are multiverses that are introduced and then some of the TV shows handled that plot line well, too. Remember, those Disney-produced Marvel shows were good, too. So first of all, I'm not smart enough to explain it all, but also I don't want to, you know, whatever, get into spoilers. And also, it's not even about spoilers. It's just that I don't really remember these things well, and it gets very complicated. But yeah, that snap thing affects a lot of the characters. But there does become, you know, some real resolution to the story. and then after that like there are all these like I really I mean the fact that Chadwick Boseman isn't with us anymore um also probably I mean yeah that's a bummer he was around I would definitely be seeing the new Black Panther movie and maybe I know the more I talk about it I liked some of those secondary characters in Wakanda so maybe I will see that one but that's the exception like a lot of um a lot of the Marvel movies I see them I'm just like why would I why would I get

back into that world now would you watch a marvel movie starring me about a mild-mannered driver who has to fight thanos in the parking lot of an upscale resort i mean honestly i picture this

whole story that you told earlier it's really hard for me not to picture it somewhat exaggerated um as far as like kind of your character and like what you're driving and i picture it as like a 90s movie sort of you're like Mr. Hot Shot Executive and you're driving okay you're

driving by Ben Stiller

less sorry you're not as famous as Ben Stiller you're being played by played

by him because I feel like he's really good at being an an asshole exec who's out of touch and and is kind of you know cruising down the road on his cell phone in his convertible wreaking havoc and not

even realizing it yeah i could sort of see that although i think i'm thinking of um maybe almost like and maybe i'm thinking of the opening of defending your life um who's that who's that i'm an albert brooks you're more of an albert brooks maybe like you're kind of like making you're making deals you're on the speaker phone or you got a blue maybe you got a bluetooth in your ear and you're like yeah yeah bye bye bye sell sell yeah whatever no i want that on my desk by the by the end of the day or whatever and you're just kind of not paying attention that's what that's what business people say right those things yeah i sell i go bye bye sell sell i want that at my desk by the end of the day and um you're tapping on the little dashboard thing and you're you're kind of zooming around cars and you kind of don't realize that you've irked the largest man in the world who's driving a somewhat small car but then he folds himself out of it and then that is i don't know where the movie goes from there but that sets every

in motion if it's defending your life he punches your lights out literally and you end up in the in I guess some sort of after world where you will how does that movie go I know I've told that movie an emoji before is my greatest artistic accomplishment was I told the plot of defending your life an emoji and I tweeted it out it got like three likes but I used to reread it all the time to make myself happy but yeah good I don't think I've even seen that movie I just know Albert brooks is in it as genevieve once described it to me before i had seen it myself i remember she said you know it's a good movie like if you ever find yourself like kind of on a business trip where you're staying in like kind of a not so great hotel or whatever and it's on like i would definitely watch it i was like that is such a specific recommendation for the type of movie

that it is but also she's right all right let's do a little music for your weekend before we head on out. Andrew, what song would you like to play for the folks? I'm going to play

a song that was sent to me by a listener. I don't know the listener's name. It looked like the email came from somebody named John, but it was signed with the letter M. So I don't know who to credit here. But I threw it on that autumn mixtape that I was telling you about last week, which I closed up last night. I put all the songs in order. It's a 16-song little playlist that I put on Spotify. If you're looking for it, I tweeted it out under... Do you know what my Twitter handle is i think it's andrew underscore walsh i think um it's i'm i gotta say man i love this 16 song playlist i made it is one of my favorite like i've been listening to it over and over and over again and a listener m sent in this song which i thought fit it really well the name of the band is the big moon i was unfamiliar with them and the name of the song is trouble take a listen to this.

I was on the other side, life was pouring down through the trees I didn't know what was about to hit me now It looks so tight in the light of day In the light of day In the light of day

In the light of day Trouble don't last forever

I love it, man. The dream of the 90s is alive in this playlist, I'll tell you that much.

That's got some strong Florence plus the Machine vibes as well.

Oh, does it? Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, I never got into Florence and the Machine that much. I know Genevieve was a fan of theirs.

Yeah, I like that. The song that I would like to suggest is by a band called Sylvie. And Sylvie is out of Saskatchewan, Canada. Addie sent me this album. It's self-titled. I believe the album is called Sylvie. The band is called Sylvie. And Addie said this is the album of the fall for her. and i will tell you this is a new release but if you when you hear the song further down the road this is featuring marina allen i could see how you would think and this goes for the whole album you would think that this was recorded in like cold water canyon outside like in the outskirts of la in 1973 the whole album just feels a little bit carol king a little bit uh graham parsons It just feels like it's recorded in a totally different era, which is funny to me to see that vibe come back now, you know, like these people making this music are very hip and cool and and young, but they're making music that sounds exactly like it was recorded in the kind of mamas and papas era or something. Yeah. Like, although this isn't going to sound like a mamas and papas song, but I do. This album, Sylvie, is really good. And maybe we can hear a little bit of further down the road.

Honey When that morning comes You'll be gone Traveling down That highway again Searching for your song And so we must park To face that open space alone But I know if we give it time Our love will find its way home Further down the road

If I just played you this song and was like, Oh, this is a Judy Collins song that you've never heard?

Yeah, or Carole King, yeah, absolutely.

Total, or like The Carpenters.

Yeah, yeah, it sounds, yeah. They're trying to recreate the sound of that time, too, in the studio. Yeah, even the production on it. Very warm, yeah. That kind of reminds me, in fact, another thing I've been listening to a lot lately is, and again, there might be something in the air for the type of musicians that we like, But Lucy Dacus released a song Or a version of It's Too Late by Carole King That I've been listening to a lot lately So again, I think you're right It's really good I think that, yeah, there's a taste for that Yeah, for sure

It's Too Late by Carole King One of my mom's favorite songs to sing As a response to something that's happening My mom does this a lot

Snapping her fingers a little bit Like, well, it's too late, baby

Well, right, because she would Sometimes when she would want us to shut up she would sing silence is golden or like if we were trying to do something and it like the time had passed she would sing and she still will it's too late baby it's too late like she has this whole list of song lyrics that she uses as part of conversation a very passive i mean to use carol

king's words against somebody in that way it's a very passive aggressive move i gotta say no offense

to your mom you know the thing is my mom is my mom is the least passive-aggressive person i know she's aggressive she is passive-aggressive hold the passive she would have never backed down maybe that maybe it's not she would have never backed down from that humunculus in the parking lot of the skamania lodge um our listener suggestion comes from listener brie who um wrote a very long message but i think it's pretty charming brie writes i'm a relatively new 10 i I just started listening in my 20s about seven or eight years ago. I'm embarrassed to admit the first couple of months I may have skipped past over the Music for Your Weekend. Aside from a few bands I enjoyed from my parents' CDs like The Beatles and Queen, I lacked any particular passion for modern music. This is partly because of my addiction to NPR, which started when I began having random intense midnight panic attacks in middle school. While the content was without a doubt over my head, there was nothing like public radio to comfort and distract me. In fact, it's probably my days of Car Talk and Science Friday that lead me to my love of podcasts. I can really identify with that, actually. Like, you know, when I was a kid, I was very, very—I probably was having anxiety, but we didn't use that word back then. i would lie in bed and i would feel very very worried that the rapture was going to happen or that i was going to overhear my parents having sex oh and so i would blast talk radio on my little clock radio really loud like so that it would drown out any other noises and it was very soothing for me and i'm like brie i had no idea what they were talking about it'd be like bruce williams on talk net talking about like roth iras like seven but i just yeah uh i just really enjoyed the it was something comforting about hearing people talk so brie i i very much identify with you on that anyway brie says present day i am so thankful for you both and the tens for introducing me to my music appreciation and passion while i may have missed out on great music in its heyday i have to say i feel kind of lucky to get to experience decades of so much epic music for the first time now in my 30s i remember thinking back to my first experience loving the beatles and george harrison's all thing must pass and feeling kind of sad i would never get that feeling of discovering them for the first time again tbtl has given me that opportunity for so many great bands and i'm loving it giving this backstory i never thought i would write you with song to suggest. It's a song that caught my ear during the end credits of an Insecure episode. It's just a very relaxed, happy song, and I assume everyone probably knew this song.

already when the artist was nominated a couple of years ago for a song of the summer for a different song i was shocked that he seemed to be an unfamiliar name factor in my tendency for procrastination and here i am two years later with my recommendation so this is the song that brie in columbia south carolina wants to nominate it's far rock away by the performer kamau so um

i remember that's a song yeah that was i think it kamau might have had a song in the last time we did the song of the summer contest because i think um your brother david was sort of producing that and handling that and i was unfamiliar i think he had a song called like um i don't know i want to say mango but i don't think that's right i think it was some sort of other fruit but anyway yeah so i vaguely do remember that i'm looking forward to hearing this i definitely don't

know this song yeah no i want to tell you something andrew this song sounds like it's going to sound to you like the connection went down or like your spotify is skipping okay that's not what's happening there's a kind of unusual pause that is repeated throughout the song so i just want to give you a heads up that it's not you it's the song okay but the song totally slaps so okay brie uh thank you so much for sending this song in and that's how we're gonna wrap up today's show and wrap up our broadcast week and say thanks to everyone for listening thanks for spending this time with us we will be back here on monday with more imaginary radio till then have a great weekend And stay safe. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

I go my own way.

you go your own way i hope we can make a way these kind of things fade away i got my own way you got your own way they seem to be far away rather than rock away wasn't even fighting on the day-to-day wasn't even tired so just take a break wasn't on the menu but was on the plate

good afternoon and welcome to judgment city you've just had quite a little journey so for now relax and enjoy the ride power out