Muse

So let's fire up the Batman-mobile, go to a taco stand, and eat some feelings, okay? Okay, I just, I think it's Bat-mobile. Batman-mobile.

Nope.

Bat-mobile. That's what I said, Batman-mobile. You're putting the man, there's no man, it's just Bat-mobile. Bat-man-mobile. Bat-mobile. Drop the man. Batman-mobile. Bat-mobile. Bat-mobile. T-B-T-L!

hey somebody has run out on the field some goofball in a hat and a red shirt now he takes off the shirt he's running down the middle by the 50 he's at the 30 he's bare-chested and banging his chest now he runs the opposite way he runs at the 50 he runs at the 40 the guy is drunk but there he goes so look why don't you download my blog it's free of course we do appreciate donations i'm the king of the castle and you're the dirty rascal crash into me crash

into me i believe it was benjamin franklin who said you have reached the end of your free trial membership at benjamin franklin quotes.com what a wise man what's on the agenda my friend

well hello good morning and welcome everyone to a tuesday edition of tbtl the show that just might be too beautiful to live. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host.

Brother, who are you? What are you doing?

Coming to you once again from midtown Manhattan in New York City. New York City. Where it was, like, I think it was the low to mid-70s on Sunday. In fact, it was setting records here in the greater New York area for the warmest day on that particular date in November ever. And now it's two days later, and it is actually going to snow in some parts of New York.

Snow, snow, and more snow.

It was very cold this morning, getting out there into Central Park and doing a little jogging. Although I will tell you, I have now, I've gazed upon maybe the most hardcore New Yorkers that there are, and they are called the people running in Central Park at like 6.30 a.m. They are not messing around. I have never been passed by more people while out on a jog than the 6.30 a.m. New York jogging community. Not to mention the cyclists. Who is out in a peloton in matching jerseys at 630 a.m. on a Tuesday morning whizzing around Central Park like I could not believe how active it was out there. Anyway, that's been part of my day. I also was doing a television recording earlier today about the change in the status of cannabis here in the state of New York. They've made it legal. They're trying to figure out who should get the first licenses. And I was doing a TV interview, and I ran into, well, I should really say our sound guy, Bo, ran into, I would say, the most New York of situations. in fact a situation that feels like it probably would have only unfolded in new york and we'll talk about that coming up uh here on episode 38 15 let the fun begin in a collector series um also i want to talk about the story of a guy in the uk who found out that he'd had a bit of an earbud lodged in his inner ear for five years not only does that sound kind of disgusting to me it sounds unhealthy it also sounds very relieving when they pull that bad boy out so we'll get into that. Also, in more of my New York adventures, I mentioned on the show yesterday that I've been trying to consume less street cart food here in New York. Welcome to Food News Today. It is so delicious, but it is so not agreeing with my gutty works. So yesterday, I made a point to not eat New York City street food, and I was partially successful. We'll talk about that, plus emails and v-mails, and this guy, the longest-running Cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He is Andrew. By Brendan. Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Hey, good morning, Luke. I realized this morning, or maybe it was yesterday afternoon, that there was something that, I don't know if it happened to me, but something sort of happened this weekend that I was excited to tell you about on Monday's episode of TBTL, but then Monday morning came around, And I totally forgot about it So I'm going to tell you about it now When I say something happened This is just about me watching TV Which actually Actually, per our conversation yesterday, I don't watch a lot of TV, and I'm trying to watch more TV with my girlfriend. That's how low I've – that's how much I've lowered my goals in life is to watch more TV. But this weekend was a successful TV-watching weekend. We watched some of the new White Lotuses I told you about. And when we were done watching White Lotus or something, I think this was Friday night, Veves and I decided to fire up Crackle I've talked about Crackle on the show before It's like a free internet channel And it's like really got our kind of stuff A lot of stuff that had probably very cheap IP You know like that Just stuff from old networks

Would you say it's television as cool today as it used to be?

It's kind of like that It's like a lot of You know like when Veves and I want to watch one of our like kind of 70s or 80s Like kind of crime cozies like a Columbo-esque thing. Well, one of them... Oh, okay, quick. I'm going somewhere with this, but a quick aside, something else I want to tell you about. We discovered a show that was new to us that apparently was pretty highly regarded in its day. It ran for four seasons, and it was called Police Woman, starring Angie Dickinson. I know. Right? Like, it just sounds like, hey, what's it about? It's about a police woman. Apparently, like, it was kind of a big deal in its day. I looked it up on Wikipedia later. I didn't realize that only lasted four seasons, but she's like, it was gritty, man. She's like an undercover cop and they deal with some gritty ass crimes. We watched one episode. But what I was going to tell you about this is the best part of the show. Well, I think the fashion is the best part of the show. It's amazing. The second best part of the show is the bar that Angie Dickinson's character. She's a sergeant. Her first name is like Pepper. Her nickname is Pepper, but they don't call her Sergeant Pepper all the time. It's a little distracting. But anyway, the place where she and her, like, I don't know, for police station is on Abbey Road. Well, it is very like it is. I think the show started in 1974 and ran until 79 sort of. So it is like there's a lot of kind of hippie design in the 1974 pilot that we watched, you know, like the dresses. Again, the fashion is just like amazing. But I'm glad you started at the beginning, though, with the pilot, because otherwise it's like, who's the police woman?

What's her motivation?

which one um but you know where they hang out her and her like colleagues um at police lady the police lady no i mean her most i think she's the only woman in this little you know in this little troop of officers these undercover cops um but they hang out luke in a chinese restaurant bar that has and they have a little booth in the back that they hang out in like almost like their own little room and for some reason there's popcorn on the table and it is my happy place Like, from now on, if I'm trying to sleep, I'm just going to close my eyes and pretend I'm in the back room of that Chinese restaurant bar in 1974 with Angie Dickinson and her crew.

Yesterday, you were tinkling glass, tinkling ice in a glass. And that was sending me to think about how nice it would be to be sitting at one of the many fine drinking establishments in New York. Now you've got me on a mission to find the most fun bar in a Chinese restaurant here in New York. A place that's famously not known for having much Chinese cuisine, but I feel like I would be able to track some down, even though my big plan, I have a long day of filming tomorrow, and I was like, if there's one night where I keep it very chill in New York City and just stay in the room and watch Hallmark movies, because that's what the TV story is about, I was like, it's got to be Tuesday night, and now all I want to do is be a police lady in a Chinese bar. A police woman.

Excuse me. The police lady was a woman. I'm going to see if I can find that scene and take a screen cap and make it today. It's not a big deal. It's just like you see the bar behind them. They're sitting around a table. It's like a 70s show, so I feel like one guy is probably standing with a-

Do you know what city it's set in?

Yeah, it's L.A. So it's very like, again, like, well, that leads me to the bigger point I want to tell you about. Now, one of our favorite shows of this era, we just discovered Police Woman. And I want to go back into that into that world soon. But one of our favorite shows, like we talk about Columbo because it's so iconic. But like, honestly, my favorite kind of crime cozy again, to use that word, is the Rockford Files, like is completely unironically. I mean, it is just such a good show. And James Garner's Rockford is just great. I love the opening. We used to spoof it on the show where people, it always has a new voicemail message from somebody who's irritated by him, like some dry cleaning company because he hasn't picked up his shirts in too long or something like that. Anyway, it's an wait. Am I a police detective?

Am I a private eye? Because I've got a place in Portland that I had to take out my. tuxedo pants like as in make them wider and i have not picked up my tuxedo and i get so many voicemails from them come get your tuxedo rockford i mean you've left a vehicle at a place i believe for they've stopped calling me now they've declared me a lost cause the fact that you're

like if they give you a grief just like say hey listen i leave trucks around town hey you know

what could you just would you could you take my tuxedo over to burnside auto repair and just

leave it in the orange truck put it in the bed of the truck um so anyway so we're watching an episode of the rockford files and i don't know how familiar you are with watching these kinds of shows but i think back in the day when they they were airing on network television they would show like kind of a trailer for the episode you were about to watch probably right before the commercial break right so um and when you watch them on demand now they always begin with these little trailers it's kind of interesting it's almost kind of like a spoiler they're they're showing you the scenes for the upcoming show you're about to watch and we're in Genevieve I think just picked one by random it was like season six or something and in the in the little flashes flash forwards of of the episode we're about to see it we realize the plot involves um well it's in Jersey by the way again Rockford is an LA show but for some reason this episode takes place in jersey and it involves a couple of like mobsters who are trying to make a name for themselves like really really low level thieves or crooks who are trying to get made by the mob right but they're

jersey crooks and while we're while we're go to a cannabis cooking event and kind of stand around

they get there too early while we're watching this and we're watching kind of the credits i say to these hey i don't know if you know this but this is actually the episode that inspired the sopranos and like you know ha ha not that funny of a joke luke the credits roll on written and directed by david chase and lukels mgoogles i am looking at an article right now from slate magazine july 28th 2014 the 1979 rockford files episode that inspired the sopranos written by will mckinley in slate in 2014 it turns out and these and i thought it was weird that it doesn't take place in la and rockford is hardly in this episode it really revolves around these two kind of punks and and their attempts to get involved with the mob and it's kind of a complicated plot we don't have to get into it because i probably can't even really get into all the details very accurately but it turns out this was this episode was supposed to be a backdoor pilot for a spinoff You know, they would do that sometimes. They would like kind of write an episode into one of these shows in the 70s and 80s to kind of kick the wheels and see if there's a spinoff opportunity here. And David Chase, who'd also written one other Rockford Files, I think, before involving some Jersey guys portrayed by the same actors, was actually writing this as a possible spinoff. And apparently this had some seeds in his thinking. And apparently I'm trying to scan this article as we talk. But apparently he did sort of revisit this episode in thinking about The Sopranos.

Like that is fascinating. Now I really, really, really want to watch this episode of The Rockford Files.

The only problem is, as a true Rockford lover myself, it's not a very good Rockford Files episode. Like it's fine for the historical purposes that I'm saying. But like Rockford is good when there's a lot of Rockford in it. And it's an L.A. and he's an annoying private eye who's sort of irritating people like this doesn't have those. This doesn't feel as much like a Rockford Files. I mean, it's OK, but it's not a very well written thing. But I just couldn't believe that just the most offhanded dad joke to Genevieve. Right. Well, you know, this inspired The Sopranos and Luke.

It literally did. God, I would be high on that for weeks. I know. I mean, that is so satisfying.

satisfying that's why i kept thinking like can't wait for tbtl on monday some people dread work on

mondays and i'm like oh i can't wait so i can tell not if you've had a major w like that i mean

just watch it to the office early enough watching crackle how do you guys find stuff to talk about well we watch a lot of crackle and then report back to each other uh i'm really looking forward

to crackling up just gonna can't wait to crackle up um now the other thing that i my takeaway from that is if you've got an idea and you believe in it enough don't let the world tell you it's not a good idea because it sounds like david chase was trying to make the sopranos happen in one form or another for many many years right like he thought mobsters in new jersey and by the way i feel like that was really the the killer app that was the differentiator for the sopranos because everything else, I mean, most other things, I'm sure there are some exceptions, but if you think about mobster stuff, it's always New York City, right?

at least a lot of it like was i mean was the godfather set in jersey i mean maybe it was i'm really not an aficionado on that on those plots no i'm pretty sure i mean i don't know if parts

of it do and it takes i mean some parts of it take place in italy and florida but um yeah i think uh i think um that you know it's more of a new york story like and that's and that's just when i was

growing up it was like if there was ever a mobster movie about the mafia it was always in like little italy in in new york and so i feel like david chase probably figured out that actually it turns out most of the goombas are living in new jersey at this point because it's you know really expensive to live in manhattan and you can get a lot more uh space and etc so he he identified some sort of trend there but it sounds like he was trying to make it happen with that episode um he didn't he also wasn't before he got to the sopranos wasn't he writing episodes of nypd blue oh maybe if so i didn't or one of those shows one of those like kind of i guess you would consider i don't know we didn't have the term prestige television really at that point because there wasn't shows like the sopranos but i'd be curious to go back and see how many times david chase tried to make jersey gangsters a thing like other episodes of nypd blue where sipowitz has to go like thwart two jersey gangsters who've done something wrong like it sounds like he was just banging that drum for a long time and then all the uh various kind of elements came together to make The Sopranos and then it was of course the show we all know and love

I told Genevieve I always call it the angels of Newark or it's the many saints of Newark I said this would only be better if that was the name of this episode the many saints of Newark it doesn't look like he wrote for he wrote for the Rockford Files I'll Fly Away Northern Exposure and he created a series called Almost Grown wait he did Northern he wrote on Northern Exposure I mean I'm sure some episodes just like he wrote a couple of episodes for Rockford

Yeah. That's like, I mean, I loved that show. And now I want to figure out what episodes. Was it the Northern Exposure where two Jersey gangsters come to Sicily, Alaska?

It really stands out. You know, I was crediting this article as being in Slate, but actually I found it first on some blog. I figured the blog had actually reprinted the Slate article, but I'm wrong about that. The Slate article says this originally appeared at a blog called Cinematically Insane. But I want to read to you the very first graph from it or a couple of graphs here. A gang from Newark's south side is hiding Vinnie Martin's body in a restaurant freezer. Tony's mad because Anthony Jr. got caught pranking another mobster and a boss who's trying to reform gets his mansion sprayed with bullets. Remember that episode of The Sopranos? If you do, your memory is playing tricks on you because those things happen in a 1979 episode of The Rockford Files written by David Chase.

And wait, are the characters named Tony and AJ?

A couple of – well, I don't think he calls him AJ, but there is a couple of, like, side characters in this that are – it's not one of these two main characters, but, yeah.

It would be hilarious to me if David Chase also was committed to the specific names of the characters. Like, over the years, they're all just named Carmella and Furio. Furio. That would almost – that would indicate a lack of creativity, really, more so than a commitment to your premise. it's like okay let's get some new names in the mix wow that's incredible that's uh that's very um again i would just i can't believe how satisfying that must have been for you at the

end of that episode you know what's really satisfying is well it's actually the opening credits so i kind of it was a reveal sort of quickly but um i uh i appreciate how satisfying it's very satisfying that you get a kick out of this as well because i wasn't sure like this is one of those things where it's like maybe you just had to be there but i was like so excited to call

the shot i mean you know me you've been around me one of my great joys is making wildly unsubstantiated claims about things and they're most they are they are mostly wrong i mean the majority of the time so when it's like my sports betting although i'll tell you what the commanders

on the road treated me right last night oh i didn't watch that i do know that i'm still barely hanging on to my first place lead in my fantasy division though after that game i had a feeling

that last night was just it just had all the markings of an upset because you had the washington commanders coming in who had taylor heineke as their quarterback who is a fill-in for carson who's hurt and they're on the road against the undefeated philadelphia eagles and it was like i was like everything in this game indicates the eagles should cruise easily which is why i'm going to bet the commanders because i just feel like nfl football is weird and uh it was in fact weird and the commanders won but anyway my point is i am almost always wrong about stuff and i but it doesn't deter me from saying it with confidence and i mean i know you were joking Hey, this is what the Sopranos is based on. But I'm the kind of person that would literally see it and go like, I wonder if this is what the Sopranos was based on or even worse. Hey, did you know this is what the joke as a statement of fact. And so if if I were to make one of my wild claims and then it were to turn out to be the case, that would just be like water in the desert for me because I am so often wrong.

And it was so like I was, you know, kind of doing air high fives around the room just when I saw the title and the credits, you know, David Chase's name. But when this morning when I logged on to, like, kind of get some of my facts straight on this and I just type in David Chase episode of Rockford Files. For some reason, I can't keep the name the Rockford Files in my head very well. I can't keep a lot of things in my head very well.

But and then I saw the article that actually J. Edgar Hoover kept dossiers on the characters from a league of their own who played for the Rockford Peaches. That's a simple way. The Rockford Files. Easy peasy. Bob's your uncle.

Speaking of the just really quickly, a little thing here about how my struggles with the NFL continue. Genevieve and I walked into a bar to watch the Seahawks game with our friends a few weeks ago. And I think it was, yeah, it must have been the Commanders versus the Packers. And like before the Seahawks game started, I'm just sort of staring at the TV, probably just like kind of half paying attention. And Genevieve said, who are you rooting for, Aaron Rodgers or Daniel Snyder? And I was just like, we should just leave. We should just, let's go read a book.

Yeah. That is a pretty accurate and yet bleak way to think that. Yeah, right. To frame it. Ugh. Well, I have been, as I've been talking about incessantly, I've been here in New York for the last, I don't know, going on like a week or something now because I've been doing a bunch of TV stuff and a couple of things. One, I was complaining yesterday – well, I don't know if complaining is the right word. I was sort of – I was – what's the word that I'm looking for? I was wishing that I had not eaten as much street cart food in New York as I have been eating because it was giving me some tum-tum troubles. And so even though I did get confirmation from a New York, lifelong New York resident, one television's own Chris Hayes, who said to me today via text, there's absolutely nothing better than New York City street cart food. So I felt like I had some confirmation that even though I'm making questionable decisions, I'm doing it in the service of something that is quite unique and delicious. So last night I was getting hungry And I literally, Andrew, was thinking about your advice Which was, hey, you're only in New York Every, I don't know, once or twice a year YOLO Just go down there and get the What's normally chicken over rice I've been having them Hold the chicken, which isn't just Because I'm trying to not eat so much meat It's also because I feel like if something can go sideways With this, it might be the poultry You know, like the rice Feels okay to me, the veggies, although that's kind of also can be dicey but um anyway i get i get in the elevator i'm like um you know i'm like a cartoon character that's on like a cartoon of ascent i'm like i'm going downstairs to get some of this street food that i've sworn off because i just i want to have some more and i get to the front of the um hotel and to the left is the cart i can see it and to the right is a ray's original famous pizza which is one of the funniest things because every pizza place i feel like in new york that just does a normal slice is called something's original famous like they're just hoping that some tourists walking by is like oh this is the place um so instead of going left i went right and i went to ray's original famous and i walk in there and um i'm looking at the slices and a lot of them had a lot of like sausage or the kind of sliced flat meatballs that you like andrew um and but then there was one that looked really good to me uh which was the it just had some veggies on it and it had jalapenos which i love jalapenos but of course i ended up getting that slice well two of them let's be honest and then eating them in my room and then just you know

ending right back up on the toilet yeah you could just eat them on the toilet honestly i mean i

might as well have just had it i might as well had the rice it was i mean absolutely no difference in my in my bathroom experience i mean it was and it was the jalapenos 100 like i don't know why i decided to order the thing that would also reliably lead to some stomach trouble but this is what i found to be quite odd andrew so i believe it was yesterday on the show i'm talking to you about this kind of street food right and i specifically mentioned chicken over rice and then i'm looking at tiktok later and this is literally a tiktok i don't follow this person that comes up in my for you algorithm say what you want about new york city but i still think

there's nothing better than sitting in the freezing cold where your hands you can't even squeeze them because they're so cold eating a hot plate of chicken over rice smelling the trash on

the sidewalk there is something beautiful about it um excuse me did my phone hear me say those words and then present me with a tick tock of that where did we land on that as far as our phones listening in i thought they weren't but i cannot see a universe in which that randomly comes up in my phone the same day i'm saying the word over and over again well i think we landed

that tick tock would never do anything dubious it's a solid company with a solid track record of respecting coming from a famously open society right so don't worry about that i mean listen people insist that you know they have these coincidences all the time our listeners are super angry about an article that we discussed on the show that went into all these details of saying like listen it seems like your phone is quote-unquote listening to you it's not but listen take these journeys the algorithm is so complex and it involves the networks that you're using And but it's not like there's a listening device in it, according to this article that was written by somebody in the industry. And it was very, very technical. I'm sorry. I can't remember all the details, including who wrote it. But it's a very technical explanation about, like, imagine, go, you visit your parents. They're looking for a toothbrush. You use their network. You come home like you say the word toothbrush or something and you think the thing it was way more complicated than that. But it laid out this very complicated story of like how these information sharing networks kind of mesh together so it can seem like the thing is actually listening to you. But a lot of people did not accept that explanation. Our listeners did not accept that explanation.

I mean, yeah, I mean, I think it's probably more what you just described, that there's some kind of information, there's a sort of relay or transfer of information that has to do with my phone is on the Wi-Fi here at this hotel, and now I don't know if I need to be friends with the person or in contact with the person. You'd think you'd need to have something more shared than just you're staying at the same hotel and you're on the public Wi-Fi, but who knows? It must just be something where there's enough people in this area Googling, is chicken over rice safe to eat or something? And so it's just I'm in the chicken over rice district. And so it's getting into my phone because of those factors more so than it heard me say it to you over this thing because the phone is sitting right next to me right now and therefore started trying to deliver me TikTok content on the subject.

I mean, I tend to believe that. And again, I'm not I'm not an expert on these things. But if you think if one thinks that their phone is actually, quote unquote, listening to them, like actually has a microphone that has a device like what does that look like? Like what what does so it's listening and it's going where it's not recording on your phone, right? There's not enough data there. So you think that there might be not you. I'm just saying one thinks that there's an app that is literally listening. And then how is that information spreading to Instagram and then TikTok as well? Or is it those apps specifically? And if so, is there a place where just every phone that has Instagram on it is recording and sending real-time information about words that are being said around the phone and every single phone the millions of phones and it's all going somewhere and it's being processed by a computer so it can then spit out ads and um and you know content related to what it heard i just don't that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me based on what we know how

computers function and there's also a lot of i think just that effect of like when you start driving a certain kind of car you notice that car everywhere and you never thought about that car before you bought one i think there's we're so bombarded with information i was bombarded with probably and however many tiktoks one tends to watch in an hour right i was bombarded with that many of them and all but one we're not about chicken over rice right but of course i'm going to notice the one about the weird thing that i happen to mention the specific terminology of but all the other ones and that's just kind of how our brains tend to i think interpret and scan information is like not a thing i said not a thing i said not a thing i said not a thing

i said now it's fun for me when i see it work the way it's supposed to the other day i was scrolling through

through instagram and i saw um an ad for like uh kind of a little rack thing that kind of accordions out and you can set it in your sink and it can help you kind of organize your sponges and your washing utensils or whatever and it was a small little thing and it's true that like in in our basement sink down here i have this weird system where i could okay so i have a little um sponge wand, the kind that you fill the wand up with soap, right? Yes, I love those. That's what I always used to use, and now I'm back to using them again. And so downstairs in the basement I will always hook that on the edge of the sink, but it always slips off the edge of the sink and it clunks down into the sink at some point and sometimes leaks soap. So I have this little rubber stopper that I sort of try to balance it on, but then sometimes the rubber stopper gets slippery, so I have to wash that off. And I realize I've been doing this for months now, and not really thinking about my frustration with it, just dealing with my frustration with it without like really thinking how should I solve this and then boom I'm served up an ad uh which is unsurprising I host a podcast about cleaning I like cleaning stuff you know uh that is for this little device and the device doesn't look perfect for me but I'm like oh that's close though so I did what I rarely rarely do which is I hit the shop now button and I didn't buy anything I just wanted to look at the products but then luke for a week and i loved it it actually like i legitimately liked it the at least a week i was getting all these ads that were like okay you didn't want that one but we have a whole bunch of other things like from different companies selling similar products like the algorithm was just like we're gonna get you to buy one of these things at some point what about this really crazy rack that goes over the sink and you can dry your plates in it i was like that's too much uh voltron like just slow down but uh yeah and so like and i still haven't bought one but it's like it's actually kind of informing me so when i do eventually buy one i'll kind of

know what my options are just kind of casually i do really i really do think about that when because i i click on a i click on more instagram ads than any other digital ads that are delivered to me right um except uh except the incredibly weird and sometimes racist or gendered t-shirt ads that for some reason the washington post allows to pop up next to stories about like families grieving the loss of a loved one are they still like reading the very go hard things those it's that's not what they're called it doesn't even have i don't know what the name of it is but they are it's the worst kind of digital i don't by the way click on this that's the nature of this humorous anecdote but like they're the worst ads ever because they it's like it's something that's matching text with these incredibly generic but also somehow terrible looking t-shirts so it'd be something that looks like maybe could be an affliction shirt remember that when that was real yeah kind of like a sort of slightly muscly but dad bodish torso that's got like a kind of just i don't know lousy looking t-shirt on it but then the text will be like i don't know how to act my age i've never been this old before and that would be like that would be a very tame one a lot of them are like like one was like no oblo and then it was like the f word and then a word that we would never use for somebody who was sort of developmentally disabled and the thing is these t-shirts i'm just reading for i'm reading the washington post which i pay for and i'm reading often i mean look that's not a light not necessarily a newspaper known for its light fare i'm reading some story about a family that's dealing with some tragedy i'll have to look over and see and again it's it's one of those like graphic design is my passion kind of nightmares yeah where it's like it's also just the worst layout it's the worst messaging on the worst shirt at the worst time and i cannot believe that the post doesn't have a mechanism you know they don't pick those ads obviously they are selling and i'm at the washington post.com i also want to point that out it's like i'm at their website or their url so to me that feels like my My daughter would actually know way more about how this works than I do. She works in this kind of digital marketing. But to me, it's like if you are thewashingtonpost.com, I know that this real estate gets sold and resold and resold and resold, but you should somehow have some kind of breaks on the system so I don't have to see no oblo, da-da-da-da-da, next to some – I mean, I should never have to see that. That's really offensive, yeah. it's super offensive like deeply racist offensive uh ableist whatever i mean every checks every box also terrible layout just offensive aesthetically um and the idea that the washington post and this just came up the not that one but the one i don't know how to act my

age i've never been this old before that's just the one i remember there's like five of these shirts haunting the side banner of the washington post you know it's funny i'm I

I was like, boy, I never see ads on the Washington Post. Like, what is it? Why are you seeing these? And I remember, oh, because I have this AdGuard ad blocker on. And the only reason I downloaded this AdGuard ad blocker, that's the brand. I don't know if I'm paying for this or if I paid for this at some point, but I did it honestly for professional reasons because it takes care of the pre-roll ads on a YouTube video. And, of course, on this show, but especially after these messages, I'm constantly playing YouTube videos during the podcast, And I can't, like, stop and wait for a 30-second pre-roll to end. So I guess my ad blocker, I just turned it off. And then suddenly, yeah, I'm seeing ads. I'm not seeing the offensive ones you're talking about on The Washington Post. Oh, I just randomly clicked on this headline, Inside Carrie Lake's War Room, where Republicans are grappling with defeat. Let's use that one as an example. And I'm just seeing, like, ads for, like, Cricket Wireless and some ACLU ads and stuff.

uh the thing about those ad blockers because i've also downloaded them at times i don't understand how you're able to then just live your life as a netizen because i every place i try to go they like white it out and they're like we see that you're using an ad blocker would you like to be able to see any of this content or do you want to continue being somebody who cares about your privacy and then i have to like unclick it or they won't let me i don't know how you how

you're able to just like look at most of the normal website i get that sometimes washington post for some reason is not giving me that because and again we're subscribers to the post so i don't know if maybe that's well i assume you are as well but um first i think a lot of websites do that but not all websites and maybe the ones that i go to i've already just turned you know the ad blocker remembers the ad blocker remembers so you know if you turn it off for some newspaper website and then you go back there the next day it's still going to be off you know so it hasn't become a huge issue for me although there was some training early on when you'd get on a new website be like hey can you turn off your ad blocker and i'm always like yeah yeah i'm only i only use that

for a youtube thing i promise i'm a podcaster um well other than those t-shirt ads which i click on all the time uh the one the ads that i tend to be most responsive to are on instagram but now what i really try to do is before i click shop now because i you know i still don't buy most of the time i'm not actually buying anything i just want to see what that what the new york times called the only alarm clock you'll ever need or whatever i want to i look at it and i think am i okay with this being the main kind of product that i see for the next month of my life because i know once you hit that shop now button you are you're committed you are pot committed as we say in poker and so i will not i will not even explore anything unless i'm willing to live in that world for like a decent amount of time going forward yeah do you remember we ran a couple of

experiments a while back when this topic came up about whether or not our phones are listening to us one thing that i did was for some reason i was in some elite group of people that their instagram did not serve us ads i don't know why but i remember that i was very jealous for years and years i just started getting ads maybe two years ago or something and i was like wow now i get what people are complaining about this is a lot of ads and so i wanted to really control that experience And so I would only like I would click on any nice watch ad. I was like, I like looking at nice watches. So like, you know, not that super blinged out watches, but just kind of classic, simple, nice designy watches. So I was like, well, that's those are ads that I don't mind looking at. Just nice photos of nice watches. But you remember the other thing we did? I think we spent like a month just saying certain words around our phone to see if we deserved ads. And I picked crossbows because I was like, there's nothing in my world. Genevieve isn't shopping for crossbows. I'm not writing crossbows and anything like I made sure to keep like all of my other Internet usage clean of crossbow. I just said that word around my phone a lot. I think we'd even have like fake conversations, wouldn't we? Or would come in my office and be like, hey, Andrew, have you found the crossbow you're looking for yet? You big hunter. I think I added that last part to sex it up a little bit. But anyway, my phone never took the bait on that.

i love the idea i don't want to get too personal but of like you and genevieve's role playing is just trying to trick the phone into ordering a crossbow like hey tonight let's see if it'll order us a rutabaga yeah if it'll start giving us rutabaga ads uh okay let's uh take a quick break and then when we come back i want to talk about this uh story of the guy with the thing stuck in his ear for like five years and also speaking of our uh one's ears this is i've already hyped this way more than it should be, but we did, I had it, it was an interesting experience today trying to film this thing that I was filming just because of what were basically four or five different sonic intrusions that I was like, huh, this is funny, this is all happening on the same day. So we'll talk about that, plus some emails and emails. Coming up here on TBTL.

All right, let's thank some of our daily donors who are keeping TBTL in business with their financial support, which we're so appreciative for. Thank Nicole and Hudson Hawkins of Jacksonville, Florida. Thank you, Nicole and Hudson. Thanks also to Cindy Wilcox Who's in Aurora, New York I'm noticing something, Andrew I'm getting a lot of ads right now For chicken over rice No, we're well represented In this part of the world From today's donors You mean, is it good distribution around? Well, I mean, it's a lot of Tri-state area Stuff happening Oh, I see, looking ahead here, yeah Yeah, so we've got, of course, Cindy Who's in Aurora, New York I'm not actually sure where that is, but it's in the state of New York. And then Gabrielle Hung is in New London, Connecticut. Okay. Which, I mean, Connecticut, that's just right around the corner from where I am right now. And then Sarah Norper-Bajulian is in New York, New York, also known as New York City. So we've got Aurora, New York New London, Connecticut And then New York, New York And then the next one Thank you again I'll remind, I'll just remind Sarah If you see something, say something If you see me out in the world You must identify yourself There's a pretty good chance It's a small town There can't be that many Chinese restaurants That I'll be at later Probably going to run into each other So thanks also to Annette Masterson of Peoria, Arizona. Keeping the trend going. Do you know who I think? Let's see if I have this. Oh, man. Do I have the right? I think Annette Masterson might be married to one Wayne Masterson. I was wondering.

I got a few comments regarding your role situation.

I believe this is the same group of Mastersons who are the parents of my good friend, Lauren Masterson, one-time LiveWire staffer. So thank you, Annette, and thanks, Wayne.

I wanted to add a few comments regarding your role situation.

Thank you to all the Mastersons, wherever you may be, for your financial support. I can't even imagine Annette even knows this is still happening. She used to listen. This is what Lauren would tell me. She used to listen to our show while jump roping. Oh, really? Annette did. That was Annette's. And one time, Lauren tried to make a cell phone video of this happening in Peoria, Arizona, to send it to me, to just kind of point out how the show was—the purpose the show was serving in Annette's life. So thank you very much. We really do appreciate you. And then where would we be without Barbara DeVere of Grass Valley, California? Wow. That's evocative. I feel like that grass watered. I feel like a grass valley in California has me a little nervous. Yeah, unless it's like weed. Welcome to Grass Valley, dude. Yeah, man. You know me. I'm Mr. Weed now. I know. I know. I'm worried about you. In fact, today's interview I was doing, thank you, by the way, to all of our donors today for making the show possible. We would very, very much not be here without you. Hello and welcome to Top Story. I was doing an interview today with a guy, a really interesting fellow actually, his name is Kos Marte, and he was somebody – so the plan here in the state of New York as far as – they legalized cannabis recreationally, and then it was decided that the first 150 licenses to do it, to sell it, were going to go to people who had been negatively impacted by previous cannabis laws. law nice um as in the drug war and so to to basically be on that list you needed to be someone who either been incarcerated or you needed to be if i have this right also you there were certain neighborhoods that you could have grown up in um or at least spend a significant amount of time in where those neighborhoods had just generationally they were affected by the fact that people typically black and brown people were being incarcerated and so you had you know people missing from the family structure and then uh just the sort of cascading effects of all of that so it strikes me as an extremely smart way and and honestly an attempt at fairness uh if you if you if you basically destroyed a community over bullshit marijuana laws try to give that community as much help in the in in sort of benefiting from the the new way to do this um and so actually this guy uh coast was a very interesting fellow because when he So he went to jail a few different times or prison, I should say, but he ended up doing a pretty big hitch. He was sentenced to seven years. And during his time in there, the doctor told him that he was very unhealthy at high cholesterol levels and that he he needed to start exercising more and eating better. And he got really into exercise in in jail and he just kind of developed all of these like workouts using his own body weight and stuff. And then he managed to really get in shape.

And now he has a gym called in the Lower East Side. It's called Conbod, like as in convict body. Like actually employing some of those devices that he came up with. He built the workout based on being in jail. And the employees, he's got, I think, 20 people that work for him there. They're all previously incarcerated folks. So that's not even what the story is about. The story is that he's also one of the people trying to get one of these early. because his his jail time was all related to him selling marijuana um and you know before it was legal here and so we went to this gym and it's it's actually pretty hilarious because like when you go from the lobby area into the gym it's a cell door that you like it's like the it's like the jail in like uh the Andy Griffith show or something you know what I mean like the one where the town drunk is like drying out once again oh that's old Henry he'll sleep it off um you go you open one of those to get into where the workout happens uh we filmed some folks doing the workout and everything but so we're in this like jail workout center and um uh coast shows up and he's like a very affable really interesting guy but he's got a small dog with him named um what was the name of the dog i forget the dog's name it was like a hilarious name it's like a little kind a potentially barky dog and he has his uh 11 month old daughter with him who is maybe the most adorable human being i if you go to my twitter feed andrew if twitter still exists i don't know if it does i haven't checked in an hour you will see a picture i put up of me holding this baby on my lap at the shoot um and uh just marveling at the unreal cuteness of this baby so now mind you we're going to sit down and do a tv interview that's going to take like one to two hours and what we have on hand is a small barky dog and an 11 month old baby and they're both just like in the room where we're trying to do this filming and uh then we realize that you know what is i start hearing all this creaking of people walking above us and uh the guy goes oh yeah that's because there's um an exercise studio above that uses pole dancing as their form of working out and so of course they start blasting their music that we're trying to work we're trying to wait till a quiet song comes on and now i don't know what was i forget what was going on on the ground floor but it was some bass heavy type event there's like every 30 seconds there's like uh some kind of a police situation going on on the street outside of us so between the cops outside the baby and the dog the whatever bass they're playing at the juice

shop below us and the pole dancing um i don't even know can we do we we don't say stripper

anymore do we i don't oh you're talking about the pole i'm not sure what you call it it was

Kind of like exotic dancing, but for exercise, I think. Or maybe just a school for that. I think you learn on the job if you're doing that. That's the sense I get. But anyway, I was just having this. We would record for like four seconds and then either something would get loud on the iPad the baby was looking at. or the dog would go or the music that the exotic dancers were listening to would it would be too loud of a song or a helicopter would fly over the building it was i was like how how and why does anyone ever try to do something like this in good old new york new york city it was totally insane trying to actually do it i really was like this is not a place where you can do television interviews without the interruption of the wider world in fact you should just be able to run a crawl at the bottom of the screen that says yeah that's right it's beyonce why because they're learning how to pole dance upstairs you should be able to just footnote that then you can just get through the interview without

eight million interruptions yeah just i mean you know you're talking about you're joking or i guess referencing the fact that you know new york the city that doesn't sleep you mentioned that yesterday on the show um which is a little bit to the side of what we're talking about here but i was going to mention you know that was one thing that really surprised me about los angeles if we can take it back to the world of police women is that um los angeles is a city that definitely sleeps like i was really surprised about that when i lived there it was like kind of the opposite i felt like and you know me i'm not some somebody who's searching out the nightlife and clearly you can find nightlife in los angeles but generally speaking maybe because it's such a driving town i was surprised that then you know like it just seems like generally speaking it was not like a an up all night kind of city at all like 10 30 things started to really seem like you could feel the city kind of settling in for the evening

does that i think you're right and i do think probably the driving i think the driving has also i think where you and i when we both lived there at our respective moments probably where we went and what we were doing also impacted our perception of that um uh but yeah it's definitely this place is active and i know that's not like a news flash to anyone but then we walked over to where this guy is hoping if he gets one of these um uh you know licenses because he doesn't even know they announce on like monday who gets the licenses if he gets one of them he's already got the place picked out where he wants to actually put his dispensary and that was a whole other situation because now we're just like standing on the sidewalk in the lower east side trying to film and i actually kind of give it up to new yorkers on this you could not find a group of people who were less deterred by three cameras a sound guy and a producer asking people to please not walk through the shot yeah it was come and again kind of credit to those folks so they're just trying to live their life it's like they should have to like do a bunch of weird stuff because we're trying to do what we're doing but it was just like i had to admire the complete lack of fucks that was being given at all times by everybody just blasting right through this nine feet of sidewalk we were hoping for 10 minutes to do this one thing wait you're saying

to me i think i understand you're saying that folks actually pretty much did kind of um make way for you or kind of observe the boundary oh you're saying oh i misunderstood i thought you were saying that like they're so used to shit being filmed on sidewalks or whatever that that's just like kind of like no they're so used to not caring oh right that makes more what anyone is

doing ever like you could and that is like a very just to i think to exist in this city you have to develop a certain kind of like bubble around yourself of just like i am totally unfazed by anything that could be happening around me at any time whether it's someone trying to sell me Louis Vuitton purse of questionable origin, whether it's the guy on the e-bike who's delivering food but who's going 80 miles an hour down this sidewalk or whatever, you just become impervious to everything that is not you. And you just are on your way to wherever you're going. You're probably on your phone talking to someone, and you're just getting there, and Nothing's going to stop you, which, again, is really a survival skill that you develop here. But you really see it. It really comes to light when you're thinking, can we can I ask one question without six people just walking right through the shot and also talking as loud as possible on their cell phone?

Well, you know, this is something that I think about a lot. I don't know if you know this. I consider myself obviously I live in Seattle now, but I consider myself sort of like a New Yorker because I stayed there for 48 hours or maybe it was at 36 hours when you and I did a did one show in Brooklyn. oh yeah and it was fun no i really did enjoy that one of the few times you didn't break down on a bridge when you were here yeah exactly i'm gonna say it's one of the few times you didn't break

down and cry before a live show no i heard you i heard you through the door i heard you sobbing

yeah it was just it was quiet that was that was regular nighttime sobbing that wasn't the the nervous sobbing i usually do backstage um no but i mean obviously i've spent hardly any time at all in in new york city and it's weird because growing up in the country like all i wanted was to grow up to be an adult living in new york city like to me that was the dream i mean just being smashed by a million commuters on the sidewalk like the beginning of tootsie just i was just like that's that's the life for me and i've not only have i never lived in new york city like and i'm pretty sure that window has closed um I've hardly spent any time there visiting just a couple of weird coincidences have have led me there the only time that I was sort of there kind of on purpose was for that that live show that you and I did a couple of years ago now actually yeah a few years ago now um all of that is to say I mean I can't even talk about it without sounding so corny especially to people who live there but like I loved the energy I I was reminded why I wanted It was exactly like that part of town. was exactly the energy that I wanted it to be. And you and I, as we were in a pretty long, I think, cab ride from the airport to our hotel, remember, like, we passed somebody that was, quote-unquote, towing a motorcycle, but it was just, like, dragging it behind, scraping the motorcycle.

I believe that the motorcycle was 100% in contact with the street.

Isn't that right? But on its side. On its side, right? And one thing that I noticed was, I mean, we joke around, like, hey, I'm walking here. like but it really is that energy like a car almost ran me over on the sidewalk when i was walking home from lunch one day like because and i was outside of like some repair shop and they were moving cars around and they were just like this guy is gonna move or we're gonna hit them and i guess i moved and so like but the funny thing is is like how much i would apply this to both of us although much more me but like how much of this show is me complaining about like petty things about like oh somebody parked their car quasi illegally in a grocery store parking lot or blocked a bike lane or or got too close to me as I was crossing the street you know or just all of my petty complaints and it's like how can I be a person who has all of those petty complaints living here in Seattle yet when I'm in New York and I see like this is just the way of life here I appreciate that too and believe it or not I feel like if I were there I could lean into it it's just like seattle isn't new york and it's sort of like you know the one thing is i feel like the blocking bike lanes like that i feel kind of strongly about because especially here in seattle like i just think that we need protections for cyclists because it's better if more people cycle than ride bikes and it pisses me off when people block the the bike lane having said that when we moved out of our apartment the movers had nowhere to park and they blocked the bike lane for about an hour and a half with their big moving truck and i felt so bad i tried to not be outside at all during that time but but it's like sometimes if i see somebody doing something stupid on the street or blocking a right of way or doing something and i i get this weird like um is marm marmish a word or like a um like a like i want to like um wag my finger i get finger waggy at people like well you shouldn't be doing that that's not a right away i think i loved seeing people do this in new york like i fucking loved it like why can't i look at you already talking like hey i'm swearing here like why show title hey i'm hey i'm swearing here like why can't i bring more of that energy to my life if i liked it in that part of the world you know i bet you

it's it's whatever your baseline is in the place that you live so i bet you if you moved to new york you would like your your sort of your your floor for um people just like improvising doing what they had to do getting over etc it would just raise it would rise yeah you just be used to more of it and so less of it would bother you there would still be the stuff that bothered you that was like above and beyond yeah but like also if you moved i'm just going to keep going with the very current andy griffith references is it griffin or griffith is handy griffith so so far

good and it wasn't it like what was the name of the drunk who was always in there it was like otis right am i right no that was his dog let me look this up that's well that sounds familiar

you could live in mayberry and also then you would be annoyed you're the the the floor would be way lower as far as people acting up i mean and by acting up i just mean doing the things you have to do when you live in a very very um populated hectic city which means a lot of just kind of like skirting the rules or parking where you're not supposed to park or setting this up in a place it's not supposed to be it's just there's more of that in new york city than there is in seattle there's more of it in seattle than there is in mayberry and wherever you are i think if it's a person like you and andrew you get used to what the to what the kind of general vibe is and then and then you just kind of go with it i actually for how much i i really love this city i don't think i did super great with that but for me it wasn't the somebody is parking their their moving truck in what is the dedicated bike lane for me it was my personal level of hassle that there's so much more hassle in my life than there used to be and then i want there to be like i i've told the story many times but i think when i kind of like new york sort of broke me was i was living out here to do that the radio show but i was uh really missing my daughter and i was really kind of not super happy with the way that they wanted the show to go and i came out of um a bed bath and beyond and i had bought all this stuff like it was like a sunday and i had just stocked up on things i needed and i just realized it's like a hundred degrees 100 humidity i'm carrying all this shit i'm in manhattan i have to get to brooklyn the subway is going to be hotter the the subway platform is hotter than app.

outside which makes no sense because it's subterranean but it just is no cab is going to take me to brooklyn because they get mad if you ask them to take you to brooklyn and also it's going to be like sixty dollars like and i just thought this is no way for me to live but it's because i just don't like i don't like being personally uncomfortable at all and i think living in new york is a lot of being uncomfortable i think you'd do better with the being uncomfortable part i do better with the like yeah you parked your piano moving thing in this hospital loading zone but whatever you know a guy's gotta eat let him move his piano you know that's my people

sometimes say you know how do you want to go you know like how do you want to die what's ideal i want to i want to be crunched under a piano in new york city somebody's moving a piano it falls out of a window and it and it crumples me like a cartoon is that too much to ask no but you know

I mean, I've studied this. This is what you're—and this is, by the way, this is really what a way to go. The piano crashes on you, but then the piano sort of collapses around you, and then your last act on this planet is to open your mouth, and the piano keys are your teeth. And then you turn into an angel with a harp, and you fly up to heaven.

And I float up to heaven. But meanwhile, there you are floating with your nose on the scent of chicken on rice right by me.

No, there I am. There I am looking out the window like, what happened to my piano I dropped?

You're moving a safe.

What are the chances that I will directly lead to your physical death?

I would say 50-50. 50-50. And that's only because I'm really good with boundaries. I was right. The town drunk was named Otis on the Andy Griffith show. I did watch quite a bit of this. And Otis, Otis Campbell is his name, has a much larger Wikipedia page than I would have expected. I want to share some of this with you before we wrap this up. Let's see here. So he was the fictional, quote, town drunk. It says that he appeared a lot between 1960 and 67, but stopped appearing towards the end of the series because of concerns raised by sponsors over the portrayal of excessive drinking. Now, here's I had no idea of this. Otis works as a glue dipper in a furniture factory Monday through Friday and drinks all weekend. After a binge, Otis will usually lock himself in the town jail until he's sober. He has a key to the front door of the courthouse, and the cell keys are hung on a nail near the cells, presumably to accommodate Otis. The lack of crime in Mayberry and the laid-back attitude of the sheriff's department easily accommodate Otis's drinking habit.

now i think the bigger issue is he's dipping glue at a glue factory yeah right could that have anything to do with his impairment what we didn't realize was otis has one bud light on friday and he is rolling blackout until monday morning do we think it's the alcohol

or that incredibly unsafe job anyone give otis a respirator exactly i remember um i think i Didn't we used to joke about this on the show when I was very new on TBTL, like kind of how I always find myself there was a time in my life where I always find myself like kind of wanting to be promoted at a work situation. And it made sense when I was in my industry of public radio. Right. But I remember being in college and I worked at this fiberglass factory and one of the jobs was to run the glue machine. And it really was like kind of out of a movie. It was like a conveyor belt and like things would come down. and i'm trying to remember i had to glue a like a wooden dowel rod into a like a a fiberglass plastic hollow pole i think they were for snow shovels or something like that and i remember one day my my boss betty like said okay you can run the glue machine today and i was just like i was on top of the world like i was as happy as a college student could be being told that he can

run the glue machine at the fiberglass factory okay andrew i have some news for you today only if you're up for it you can taste test the paint thinner what no way yes you're the designated paint thinner huffer you guys are until carl comes back that's gonna be your job andy what happened to otis we don't talk about otis yeah that's um that's interesting i didn't i mean i didn't watch that show as much as you did but i also had that like if you ask me what are this what's the takeaway from the andy griffin show griffith that's right you know that i have a like a real problem with that i can't remember if it's peter griffin that's great family guy yeah he's

griffin kathy mentioned the other day on the show she's a griffin kathy now you are in my head if

only i had done an actual interview with her at her actual house where i then wrote a script where I said her name about 100 times.

I'm not kidding you. I have a, is it Melanie? Is it Melanie? Melanie Griffith for sure. Kathy Griffin.

Melanie Griffith, Kathy Griffin.

Can we just, it's like with the, it's like with the, um, the Kirstens or the, it's like with the Kirsties and the, and the Christie's and the, can we get everyone who's either a Griffin or Griffith to just pick a name and then they can all have the same one? Cause I cannot personally track who's a Griffin or Griffith.

Well, I mean, put it on the ballot.

Here I go once again with the email. Every week, I hope that it's from a female. Oh, man, it's not from a female.

All right. Any emails or V-mails that are of interest?

Yes, a couple of things here. I wanted to read to you this story about the secret bathroom key. I sort of teed that up yesterday.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to hear about that.

However, we got an email this morning from a listener. Let me see here. Sorry, I'm actually going through my actual email here from listener Glenn. I thought this was very interesting. On yesterday's show, we were talking about the Raisin Cane restaurant. Is it Raisin Cane or Raising Cane? Is there a G on there? It's Raisin Griffin. It's Griffin Cane. It's Raisin Cane restaurant. And what was the name of the community? It was Hobart. Yeah, Hobart Crossing. Crossings of Hobart was the yes, Hobart, Indiana. And the name of this little development is the Crossings of Hobart. And the Raisin Cane franchisee was going to build a Raisin Cane there. But then it turns out that because of some earlier agreement in the development, McDonald's held the exclusive right to sell boneless chicken products. And that's how it was presented in the article that you and I read. But listen to this I think this is a really good theory by Glenn He starts by Quoting the same story in the Northwest Indiana Times This is a quote from the story McDonald's has a quote exclusive right to sell Rotisserie chicken and other Prepared chicken and chicken products For on or off premises Consumption That's part of a lease negotiated between The previous developers or whatever And they held on to that Right. Well, Glenn says, because of the mention of rotisserie chicken in the article, I think the agreement had something to do with a Boston chicken location. So I didn't realize this, but Boston Market was originally called Boston Chicken. And for a period of time, McDonald's bought Boston Chicken. And I looked into this and then they called it Boston Market. Originally, they were going to just buy it for the for the real estate and open McDonald's there. But then they're like, oh, this business still has some life in it. So McDonald's just owned Boston Market for a while and ran them. This chicken still got some feathers on it? This chicken still got some feathers on it. So that makes a lot of sense because you and I were like, why would McDonald's specifically go after chicken? Like it's not their number one product. But if McDonald's had a Boston Market in that location, they didn't want somebody else coming in with their rotisserie chicken or competing chicken product.

Right. That makes so much more sense because – and in fact, I honestly think – and peace and love to the reporter who wrote about that, which unfortunately I don't have their name in front of me. But I honestly think probably mentioning where the closest McDonald's was was slightly distracting from the piece because I don't think it was that – like a McDonald's that's eight-tenths of a mile away that's doing this battle. It's literally just the company just probably has this kind of hold, you know, this reservation, if you will, they've paid for whatever you want to call it, this right, this inalienable right to life, liberty and the exclusive sale of rotisserie chicken. But, like, it's probably not associated with whatever the closest McDonald's restaurant is. It's probably associated with the company bought that right for that location in case they wanted to open some kind of chicken concern, like maybe the Boston Market one or something like it.

Or there was originally a Boston Market there. That's Glenn's assumption.

God, I would kill for a – do they have any Boston Markets here in Manhattan?

Yeah, you go to New York to go to the Olive Garden in Boston Market. All right. I'm going to read you this email that we got from listener Kelly a few weeks ago, I think. But Kelly says, I'm listening to the show where you guys are talking about where to find a good bathroom and knowing good bathrooms around town in case you find yourself an emergency. I need to tell you about my secret key. I work in a building downtown and the bathroom on our floor is shared with several suites, one of which has Kelly mentioned the town, the city.

I don't think so.

I don't. But now I have to visit every American city

Looking for this bathroom

And I will So anyway, let's see Our bathroom on our floor is shared with several suites One of which has patients in and out So it's often

very busy i had a co-worker who kept a key to the bathroom on the floor below us years ago when ours was out of order she just never gave it back and didn't tell anyone when she left the company she handed the key over to me and no one knows i have it i use it sparingly like if our bathroom is full or if i want extra privacy but for the most part i stay on my own floor every time i go downstairs to use the secret bathroom that none of my co-workers can walk into i feel like i'm committing a heist and it's fantastic we're moving in a few months and i plan to pass the key off to another woman on our floor if i can do so without being super awkward i don't know anyone except for saying hi in the halls and running into people in the bathroom um so what do you think of that like she's now looking to hand i'm saying she i think kelly is a woman um looking to hand off the key to another person but doesn't doesn't have that kind of relationship

but want to keep this going first of all i mean this is intense lord of the rings overtones like you have this special thing that more or less renders you invisible and that comes with incredible power and if more people knew about it they would covet it and you can't let them know about but you also can't let it change you as a person like this is a big big deal also it's also I mean, you just approach anybody on the on this floor, Kelly, and you just say you look like you have irritable bowel syndrome. Hey, you look like a person who just does huge mud pies. I have a gift for you.

Oh, that's disgusting. Oh, God.

That's what I think you should. I know.

I know. But the people who don't know that show who are listening are going to be appalled. You said something. I don't even want to say it again.

The worst would be the allegations of joke theft. I am not trying to pass it off as my own joke. That's what they call it on. I think you should leave.

People are still just shuddering and shocked over, and I'm not going to say what you said the other day. This is like a week ago or more. You had mentioned, I think, your cat playing with Becca's cat and how they'll start grooming each other. and you uh mentioned using um let's say street slang for the act of of cleaning one cat's cleaning the other cat's nether regions i don't know if you recall that and people are like does luke know he just said that i'm like yes i think that luke knows i think he knows they're like does luke know what he what that means it's like yes literally you cut that kind of stuff out

we have an understanding i just let it fly and then you just go back you go through and And make it so we don't get fired from our job. I thought that was the division of labor we had established.

Here, actually, let me read one more part here. This is from Kelly. This is a different graph. This is still Kelly. And you know what? I'm sorry. Belltown. So Kelly's here in Seattle. You asked me that, and I thought it was cut off the email. So it is Belltown.

Kelly, would you consider giving me the key? I'm in Seattle occasionally. This could really get me out of a couple of jams.

And Kelly says, while I'm here, I want to let you know that I'm starting to understand your two shower a day ways. I used to think it was such a hassle to get out and dry and all of that, but I have changed. I already had short hair, but I buzzed it all off this summer for the first time after kind of wanting to forever. And finally, I don't give an F. Why am I editing her when I've said fuck twice on the show? I love it. I look super cute. I look like a little monkey, but I did not realize how much my aversion to taking a quick shower. What were you calling? Bored apes? funky monkey um i didn't like a monkey monkey i didn't realize how much not wanting to take a shower in the morning had to do with my hair now that it doesn't drip on me and i don't have to style it i'm just hopping in the shower baby also it just feels better to have water hit your head without so much hair up there if there are any other women out there who have considered it but never done a buzz cut i'm encouraging them to do it i really didn't realize how much energy i was putting into my hair and not having to deal with it is amazing i think that's really cool i can

absolutely um uh kind of imagine that like that would be such a such a game changer in a person's life yeah if if one's hair represents i mean honestly as far as people who have relatively short hair i would say mine is on the higher maintenance because there's so many powders and creams and pills involved so maybe i kind of can identify a little bit like if i just like a lot of my planning like for instance today when i'm doing the the reason that i had to be jogging at 6 30 in the morning was because there needed to be enough time for me to stop sweating so that then when i uh after i take a shower because i will continue to sweat after my shower easy ladies i'm taken and um i have to time it so that i've stopped sweating so that i can put this like powder in the topic in my

So my hair looks like a little bit more thick and luxurious, but it's a lot of planning. And that's another reason why I don't do usually double shower day, because if I've done that whole thing, I don't want to like take a shower and then have to redo that situation. So, again, I can't quite identify with somebody having much longer hair, but I do I can see how liberating it would be to not have one's hair be a calculation about how many times you shower. I think my bigger calculation would be I only own, like, four towels, and just because when I moved to Portland, I just went to probably Bed Bath & Beyond and got, like, four towels, which seemed like plenty. I have hand towels and wash rags and stuff, but, like, the kind of towel you dry off with, I think I have, like, four of them. And the problem is I would say after two times Maybe it's just the kind that I bought I can only use them like two times Before they start to get right on the edge Of being a little bit mildewy or something So I've got to wash them So that's, you know I'm going through those pretty fast as it is And if I were to double up on my showers I'd need to do an entire load of towels Like every two days

You should get more towels though Because it's a real, I mean listen In this economy? It's not great for the environment To be doing this many loads of laundry That's the only reason I sort of like hesitate to to encourage that behavior. But since we moved in here and my bathroom is in the basement, I'm in a similar situation as you like I just don't have a window I can open in the bathroom to kind of keep thing like, you know, it's got a decent exhaust fan in there, but it's just going to trap moisture more than, you know, an upstairs bathroom with a window. So I use a towel maybe once or well, definitely more than once, but maybe twice, maybe three times before, like you say, kind of gets on the edge of I don't know if I want to use this anymore i hang it in this very special way across the shower rod to try to get as much air into it so it dries nicely but like once it even begins to suggest a bit of a mildewy smell like i'm just and i just have plenty of towels i'm just constantly washing towels i also kind of like doing laundry it's very calming to fold the towels and and this is like we we don't have you

neither you or i have young kids although i might steal that kid that was sitting on my lap earlier today for that shoot but like i think our listeners who have who have kids uh can really identify with this but it applies really to anyone when you get that load of laundry that's just all towels oh yeah what a w yeah i mean that's a that's a three minutes if that as opposed to like 85 different tiny socks that need to be matched up right right partners like yeah all all towel

laundry is really kind of where it's at yeah definitely remember during the pandemic when i is ironing um cloth napkins a lot that was really i was watching remember i was watching a documentary

about the royal family and cnn plus the windsor's and your i feel like you were that was really in your remains of the day phase like you were trying to become a sort of like slightly reserved butler in the anthony hopkins model like just like watching the royals and quietly ironing napkins and stuffing your feelings down yeah it was a real interesting phase for you it was like that tv

show downstairs downstairs that was so famous yep anyway absolutely all right uh let's go ahead and

uh call that a day here for this tuesday edition of the program sorry we didn't talk about here's look well listen i can't promote it a third time the dude got a thing stuck in his ear i don't know how for five years he was losing he thought he was losing his hearing for five years he was like i think i'm losing my hearing in this year his wife was really upset because she kept this sounds like a setup for a joke but legitimately she was like i think he's losing his hearing keep talking to him in this ear he can't hear me i feel like if i were him i would have thought well what happened five years ago oh i know i put those earplugs in on an airplane when i was flying to australia and then when i pulled them out one of them seemed to be missing the tip and this is an

earbud right not an earplug this is like it's an earplug so you know i thought it was an earplug

bud okay they're calling it in the article a bud but it just means and you and i have talked about this andrew that little weird tip that especially dampens the sound but for me it's too much

sound blockage in my ear that little kind of oh so it started okay i see so it was something that

transferred sound it wasn't air bud or something no it never did oh okay just imagine an earplug for like being on an airplane if someone likes to wear those but a special little piece of rubber at the end that's supposed to especially block up the canal oh okay that thing popped off was stuck in there encrusted with earwax so he couldn't ever see it or get at it and then finally five years later he goes to um like an ear nose and throat doctor who can kind of see it in there and he has these special tweezers and pulls it out and the guy said it was immediate relief and all of his hearing came back perfectly wow and what i would say to that is almost worth it right almost worth

it it's like the opposite of star trek 3 i wonder if that's what they call it

in the medical journals.

Uh-huh. We've got a reverse. Hey, Bonnie, can I get you in here? We've got a reverse Star Trek 3 here. We take things out of people's ears. We call this the pleasantness of Khan. Is that Star Trek 3?

I think I might have actually given it. I don't know if it's 3 or 2. I guess the right one.

That's where, like, a thing goes in someone's ear.

Yeah, it was really horrifying to me as a kid. I remember we were eating pizza, and we're like, okay, well, watch the Star Trek movie. It was kind of our Friday night tradition. My parents would set up little TV tables. We'd get pizza from a place called Denny's. We're already out of the closing music, I think. Oh, no, we got some more. That's fine.

People can hum it along in their mind. They know.

And me and my sister would sit at these little, I mean, that really tells you how I got the personality I have, right? We weren't sitting on the couch eating pizza. My parents would set up little TV tables and chairs for me and my sister to sit in front of the TV and watch a movie while we ate our pizza. And then we're like, oh, Star Trek, that sounds fun. And then it got to the scene where they put earwigs in a helmet and then put the helmet on a guy so that those things crawled into his ear canals. And I remember it was the only time I said, I can't. You have to stop the movie. I think I got very, I think I got physically shaken.

I'm a little surprised your parents who were, you know, pretty careful with your viewing. I'm surprised that they didn't think that was maybe slightly over the line.

I think they were just like Star Trek. You know, Star Trek seems safe enough. And then suddenly we're just watching the scene. And I think I started crying.

I was 18.

But that would have, honestly, Andrew, no shade. I would have been deeply, deeply injured by that scene, too, as a kid. It shook me.

And we were eating.

All right, we're running out of music here. All right, thanks, everyone. We'll see you tomorrow. Until then, have a great Tuesday. Take care of yourselves, and please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Hey, Andrew, it's Alex at Happiness is Puppies. My manager said you've got either buy a dog or stop coming in. See you soon, buddy. Remember, that dogological clock, it's ticking.

Hey, Burbank. This is Hank Dutt from the Kronos Quartet. We've heard you've been talking a little smack, and I'm just calling you to tell you to watch your back. We have some friends, some real tough friends from Mali, so you just want to watch your back, okay?

Hi, this is Nick calling from the Twitter verification department. I'm looking to talk to Mr. Luke Burbank. I don't care how many Daytime Emmys you did win. Cease and Desist still means cease and desist.

Thank you. Power out.