Muse

Well, who do we have here?

Carla Tuesday, WDUR, The Durr. Reverend Richard, is it true that you'll be representing yourself?

Carla, let me tell you a little story. I was walking on the beach with the Lord, and there were two sets of footprints in the sand. And then there were three sets of footprints, and I said, who's that? And the Lord said, it's Dale Earnhardt. He's a big fan of yours. My client won't be answering any more of your questions. Stay in school, kids. at first he's silly and then he's magical and quite wonderful and you just don't know how to

react except you're entranced so we're gonna play a little game called cursed or not cursed you sound like you might be a little bit jealous babe no and i i know a little something about being jealous because people have been jealous of me my entire life i have no idea what you just

said but i feel totally transformed in a few hours you're going to be smarter than anyone you've ever

met all right hello good morning and welcome everyone to a monday edition of tbtl the show that just might be too beautiful to live sounds expensive my name is luke burbank i am your host you've garbage your last ghoul coming to you from the hollywood broadcast center right here in portland oregon where it is a rainy day you know you like to get wet though well let me just clarify because if you listen to friday's little show lit i.e the sort of short show that we did on friday being that it was a holiday i was talking about how i was really worried about getting sick and um because i was going to be working up in seattle today tomorrow and wednesday as this airs and now you're saying wait he's at the hollywood broadcast center in portland oregon How is this possible? Well, it's because we're recording this also on Friday. So I don't know if I'm doing okay as you're hearing this. It is as much a mystery to me right now as the person recording the show as it is to you, the person right now listening to episode 3,824 in a collector series.

Let the fun begin.

Doesn't help that, you know, I'm just going to hold on a second. close the laptop that i had going on the side that was showing the world cup match between england and the united states because if recording this show uh you know two days in advance with me still battling some sort of a cold whilst worrying about if the united states men's national team will prevail in the 93rd minute i.e. the fourth minute of stoppage time my small brain cannot keep all of those things at once and so i'm i'm shutting it down on the soccer front and i'm starting it up on the tbtl front because today we've got a big show because we have some stories it's a beautiful story i love your story about cats there is something about the soul of a cat specifically Andrew's cat, but also the cat daycare that I'm now running here in Portland, Oregon. We'll talk about that also. Calm down, dude. Speaking of the cat, she's found a roll of scotch tape and is finding a way to make it very noisy in here, which is something I don't think I could even do if you asked me to, but she just has a sense for these things. Anyway, a doctor in California just saved not one but two lives during a marathon. is this real life pretty wild story from the half moon bay marathon in california so we'll get into that and oh we'll play a little round of what's in the box with this young man the longest running cobro of the show maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships he is doing this and i want to be very clear despite what you've seen on the internet and read on various message boards he is doing this for the right reasons do this for the clout i don't do this for the fame he is andrew walsh and he is joining me right now good

morning my friend good morning i'm glad that you just abandoned the the kayfabe if you will at the top of the show so we don't have to pretend like this is monday because i i want to tell you about something that i just did that i'm not proud of keep in mind we are recording this the day after thanksgiving we i woke up late if you'll recall from friday's episode i raced to the studio We did the show, which was a solid 45 minutes, I'd like to point out. Yeah, I know.

When I called it a show lit, I realized, no, it was 15 minutes shorter than the average run time of the program.

Yeah. And then you and I, you know, we kind of stopped for a while. I took some time to upload the show to the Internet. And then I had about eight minutes between finishing my task and knowing that you and I were going to dial up to record this show. and i went upstairs and i was just going to get myself a little bit of tea because i'm out of coffee anyway uh i'm not out of i have a lot of of coffee but the pot is empty right now so anyway i go up i just think i'm gonna grab some tea but i open the refrigerator because i'm like i'm a little hungry i see all the thanksgiving leftovers obviously now it's like down to seven minutes i don't have time to get into like making a real post-thanksgiving meal i just pull out one of the containers of leftover stuffing and i just stood over the sink and power ate so much stuffing and it is now swelling inside me as we speak i ate it so quickly nothing else no other protein other than the protein that's in the stuffing which is mostly bread i was like a bird eating rice after a wedding and now i'm in trouble like i just stuffed my face full of stuffing and i i don't know what's gonna happen if you hear a loud popping sound, that might be me exploding during the show. Do not drink any water, Andrew. That's my one piece of advice. What about bubbly water? I have some Pixie Stix. No, no. I have some Pop Rocks and some bubbly

water here. Alka-Seltzer. Yeah. And some... I mean, the thing is if you... I mean, you're really... With the bubble water, you're really rolling the dice because it's either going to... You're either going to explode like something from a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory type of deal. Or I saw somebody tweet this is a long time ago by the way i'm still not back on twitter um and it's amazing how much less of my brain it's taking up i mean even compared to earlier this uh i'd say last week but somebody wrote there was like they were describing it was like the kind of conversation you have as you're driving home after like a dinner party with your significant other and it was i'm gonna totally botch this but it was basically like a like a husband and wife driving home from the chocolate factory being like and somehow they're reflecting on the fact that like four or five children were just straight up killed and it's a quiet in the car and then one of them just kind of goes it's a pretty weird factory right like just pointing out the just how dark a really dark charlie in the chocolate factory is if you think about it like it's everyone has funny names augustus gloop and violet beau regard but it's like i'm just saying if you if you drink the seltzer you may find yourself in a violet beau regard type situation yeah but if you survive it it will then effervesce out a lot of uh yeah that's true a lot of air and other things like you might feel better but you're gonna have to you're gonna have to survive the the part where the the seltzer is

also expanding your stomach yeah it depends it depends on whether my pressure release valve is is fully functioning which is something i think i told you on the show before i i only know what that is because when I was young one time my dad was fixing something maybe um maybe replacing a hot water heater or it was something in our basement I don't know what he was doing but I would be his quote-unquote helper I would just like hand him tools as he needed them and I remember him saying oh yeah this thing is the pressure release valve and I you know said what's that or whatever and he's like well you know how sometimes you eat too many beans and you have too much pressure and you have your own personal pressure release valve and Luke it was the first time i heard my dad make a fart joke like we were a house where we did not joke about that kind of stuff we didn't say the f word in this case the f word meant fart like i could not believe i was like i am a man today i today i am a man because my dad just alluded to farting and calling it a pressure release valve i couldn't believe it my dad doesn't have any cute like jokes for it he just

Working with him At some point in the day There would be a noise and he would say Excuse me, that was the move And by the way, continues to this day I'm 46 years old, we've been working on this house And the same exact thing Excuse me And then it's just like, okay There was no clever Stepped on a duck Or better out than in Or whatever it is Was that the only Was the pressure release valve, was that your dad's go-to Did he have any other sweet fart-based humor?

This memory I have was not a recurring joke of childhood. It was one joke that he made one time. I remember sitting on the basement stairs.

The word was F-A-R-T.

Where the hot water heater was. He was probably crawling underneath it or something. We were just working on this thing, and he just made this joke once. I mean, since then, he and I have made some jokes about gas, I'm sure. I don't know exactly, but that's why that stands out to me. I think it was just like I was just so shocked that my dad would go there he went there Luke

oh my god did he go there he went there I can't believe he went there like all right there when we were recording Friday's program you mentioned to me that um something was going on with the cats in your house and you really needed to tell me about it but we sort of ran out of time on the Friday show so here we are what is exactly happening with these felines with bingo and

the professor so here's the deal and i appreciate everybody's patience with this story i'm gonna try

not to race through it. I'm going to give you the background, some of which you already know, but I'm going to restate it. I'm being serious here. I think it might be slightly, what do you say, a big climb for a short...

I would say a long climb for a short slide.

Yeah, it's going to be kind of like that. But this... Something that happened to me this morning, which again, Friday after Thanksgiving. Yeah. Posting on a Monday.

Stuffing day.

Stuffing day.

I mean, the irony that you were stuffing yourself with a food that's actually called stuffing is kind of... It's...

I'm just realizing that right now, by the way. I'm a Turk Andrewan. Hmm? No, don't even give me that sympathy chortle. But anyway, I am being serious that I realize that this might not be a huge payout, but it is big to me. So I stayed up super late last night, as we discussed, on Thanksgiving and cleaned the house and everything, then stayed up until about 2.30 with Genevieve and our pal watching old YouTube reruns of David Letterman segments. And then went to bed And then, I don't know I'm going to say around Six in the morning, the cats started Waking me and Genevieve up, that's when they started To tell us that they wanted to Have breakfast, which is usually the thing And we'll put them off until 6.30 or 7 Then one of us will get up, feed the cats It's a little bit of an ordeal because there's two of them Now and we kind of got to make sure that they don't Eat each other's food, they're different food Believe it or not, I'm a complete cat And banana, it did sound like cat did you edit i did i stopped it before you stopped before you finished then see what i'm doing here good um so anyway that's kind of an ordeal and then you know we go back to bed and then there's usually a period where it takes me a while to fall back asleep because i don't want to be waking up at six o'clock what am i some sort of a productive member of society no um so bingo who is our new kitten and is a usually a very snuggly cat has been kind of getting bigger and and showing way more energy he's not as snuggly as he was when we first brought him home i mean he's still a snuggle bug i mean he was sleeping on our guest's lap uh during thanksgiving not the meal um i mean he's still a sweet sweetie but like he's just a little bit he's so much more rambunctious now right and um at one point after genevieve fed the cats i'm trying to fall back asleep he's up on the headboard i think i mentioned this on friday's show and he jumps way down on me and he like kind of nicks my my head a bit and like i i know this sounds like i'm taking it too personally but I think he knew what he was doing maybe this was right before we fed him anyway because he was trying to kind of get my attention bananas will kind of jump up on the bed and like kind of nose me a little bit and then jump down like that's her way and she'll do it increasingly to get us to get up and finally feed them in the morning right now here's a little bit of background that I'm afraid I need to repeat about our relationship with our cats bananas was a cat who loved our old cat Theo before he died they just snuggled all the time and bananas was a sweetie we could pet her but she would get so excited from us petting her that she would then run over and start licking theo and then snuggle with him like she just didn't snuggle with us that much

after theo died man's world almost exactly yes off on that one after theo died almost exactly a

year ago things started to change with her where she became much much more snuggly with me and genevieve and it meant the world to us right like we all miss theo and also having um having this cat that missed her friend and and then now showing us the affection that we always wanted from her like she will she would come in and sleep on us and she's she doesn't like to spoon the way Thea would like to spoon but like she sleeps she's a cautious cat still but she would come in the bedroom in the morning she would perch up on top of us if I'm laying on my back she'd sit on my chest but if we're laying on our side which I think she preferred she'd like to sit on our hip she would sometimes just like sit on my hip for an hour then move over to Genevieve's we like to sleep in and we just loved it and it meant the world to us that she seemed like a happy cat we had some concerns on bringing a new kitten into the home because we didn't want to ruin that right um but when we picked out bingo we picked out a cat that we thought was really snuggly and that she would get along with really well and maybe we'd capture some of that that snuggly magic that we used to have between our our old cat and and bananas it has not been that way we we have been concerned lately that we've been making bananas life a complete hellscape. Like she is anytime she tries to relax, bingo comes and attacks her in a playful way, but she doesn't seem to understand that it's playful and she's not standing up for herself. She's twice the size of the kitten, but she's just being bullied by him constantly. And since we brought him into the house, she has not felt comfortable enough to snuggle with us. Like if she, if she gets on the bed with us even for a second bingo will come screaming up the bed and like jump on her and like kind of basically kick her off he's only doing it because he likes her and wants to play with her but it's driving her bananas and she's well her name is bananas so to speak she's super she's super anxious and it's been bothering genevieve even more she's been thinking about like have we ruined banana's life which was really really something we were trying to avoid and it's been a bummer it's been a bit of a struggle whatever it's been a month or a month and a half maybe since we brought bingo home um all of that is to say after this morning's kind of irritation with bingo going after bananas and um and jumping on my head and him just kind of annoying everybody there were a few times where bananas tried to jump up on the bed and snuggle with me for a second and then bingo would kick her off again and even that was progress that she was even trying it but we think that maybe she's been lonely in the basement because we've had company over whatever all of that is to say this morning i woke up late as you'll recall i woke up and i looked at my watch and it was none of us will forget that andrew 9 45 in the morning shockingly disrespectful to your co-worker what's disrespectful is how long the story is but here's the end of it i wake up at 9 45 and i'm I'm like, oh, my God, I'm so late. But then I realize I look down. I'm sleeping on my side. Bananas is on top of my hip, totally asleep.

And who is spooning with me but bingo? I was a cat sandwich. We were all snuggling together. We're all snuggling together. They were right next to each other. She was on me where she likes to be. He was snuggled kind of in my crevasse. You know what I mean? But he was like kind of my little spoon or whatever. And they're right next to each other. And I had to, unfortunately, because I had to work for old man Burbank, I had to kick them off the bed for a change. But down at the glue factory. I know that was a long, boring story that I just tried to power through because I didn't want it to go on forever. But like that, I cannot tell you how huge that was for me this morning. I totally understand that. It was huge. We've been so worried about bananas. And, you know, as Genevieve always says, these things are not a straight line. I'm sure one step forward, two steps back from time to time. But man, we got it for a moment. We had it that I mean, I was so dead asleep that I woke up and both of the cats were totally asleep on top of me or next to me.

And it was the best. Now, six months ago, if you told me that story, I would have probably been I wouldn't have really understood the gravity of the situation and also would have been maybe less intrigued. But I'm very much here for that story because, of course, of me now getting a cat. And because in this very moment, I have two cats here. And the dynamic is very similar to the one you're describing. And I'm imagining if, because I've got Bubbles, obviously, who's a Bengal and is now maybe nine months old or something. She is huge, by the way, like comparatively. like two weeks at this point in a cat's development that like size difference from when i dropped her off at becca's and went to new york and when i got her i brought her home from thanksgiving basically she'd been down in salem is wild but um so she's very big and a little scary now i mean she's we worked it back out right like when i got up the first morning that she was back here i was like this is a large jungle cat yeah if this cat turns on me this could be not good like she's she's very intimidated as she gets bigger she's a little bit more intimidated because her markings and her just general like level of like you know i don't know what sort of just energy but i've also got holly here which is becca's cat and and holly is a an adorable a pleasantly plump adorable tuxedo cat so black with the little kind of white markings and holly Holly is probably a lot like a professor in that when it's just Holly and Becca over at Becca's place. Holly comes, you know, hangs out with her and climbs up on the bed and has all these, you know, is out and about and social. If I'm over there, Holly is pretty much hiding the whole time. And if Bubbles is over there, what's happening is Holly, who is also twice Bubbles size, is walking around and just being cyberbullied to within an inch of her life the entire time by this tiny little cat.

I was cyberbullied within an inch of my life last night.

And you can never quite tell, though, if she's sort of enjoying it because at least it's activity. And sometimes she'll kind of like be lying in the middle of the kitchen floor while Bubbles is jumping on her. And you're thinking, well, she could go get under the couch if she didn't want this to happen. But she doesn't seem to be. She's hissing, but she's also not leaving. It's like you're trying to diagnose the dynamic of like how much of this is like pretend I hate this, but I really like it. How much of this is I actually hate it. and i'm just imagining if if they both were going to live in this apartment permanently and they were like it was ruining like right now do you know where holly is she's in what i call club holly which is the she is she's been here now for like almost 24 hours that's not true she's been here since like last night but she's been here a while and she just i opened a closet door in this room And she, of course, in.

immediately went to the furthest back reaches of that closet and then she was like underneath all this stuff like my basketball gear and this step ladder and i was like this looks really uncomfortable for you so i went in there and i like i just kind of straightened things up and just i wanted her to have more room and i wanted to put a little blanket down just so she was she's gonna cower in the closet for the next two days i was just hoping she could be comfortable doing it but me just creating that much daylight she was like okay this is no longer a safe yeah this is not like a safe space for me so then i i uh opened the closet that is where the washer the uh what uh what do you call them stacked washer and dryer are you know so one side of the closet is the washer and the dryer and then the other side it's just kind of random shit of mine same thing she goes in there and she's like lying on like a hammer and like she's like underneath a rain boot of mine lying on a hammer i was like this cannot be the most comfortable thing for you So I created Club Holly, and what I did was I brought her cat carrier in there, and I unzipped it so she can be inside it but not trapped, and I put food and water for her and a different litter box so she never has to come out of the closet for the next two days if she doesn't want to so she can just be comfortable and have all the things that she needs in there because that seems to be really what she's looking. The times when she's been out in the open, she's just been skulking from under the couch to the next thing that seems like she's protected. Anyway, all I'm saying is I can't imagine a lifetime of that, which is what it sounds like you and Vives were worried was your reality. And so then when you see that they're just going to chill together or at least they now know it's possible, that is huge. I want to honor and recognize what a big development in your in your family structure that is.

Yeah, I mean, it's essentially the first time Bananas, I mean, again, Bananas' favorite thing in the world before we brought Bingo home, before we bring Bringo home, was to lay on the bed with us. That was our special family time. By the way, Dr. Steve Ruhle would absolutely call him Bringo.

Who's the cat named Bringo?

And so, you know, it's not, it just seemed like, you know, she's eating, she's healthy, she's whatever, but she just doesn't seem happy, right? And there are some moments where her and Bingo. How do you gauge, is my question. how do you gauge well i mean you know a cat for 12 years you know like when they she's always on high ground like anytime she tries to relax you see him attack her so then she freaks out and then she has to go find like she's now always if she's trying to sleep like on the tops of couches hoping that he won't i mean it's just you can just tell she's stressed out you know um but i did have one idea for you though for the for the place where holly's staying like holly yeah i'll take a picture of her it could be the show sheet today that'd be great yeah um but um take a stick just like any stick you find outdoors or whatever and put it in there with her and that can be club holly's wood pretty bad pretty bad pretty bad oh i do i think we both i think we see have that different perspectives on that joke i feel like that was the best thing i've ever contributed to tbtl but um yeah no it's i know it's long and boring and hopefully well it's only boring

to our listeners who hate us talking about our cats which is the majority no but let me paint

it this way it meant the world to me it filled me with a kind of joy that i haven't had in a while and again i'm not saying that now everything you needed a w andrew yes exactly you needed an andrew w monday it's an andrew m monday um and if you turn that m upside down you get w and that stands for win and it just i mean again i'm not saying they're gonna be best friends forever or that they're going to like you know start a lemonade stand together today but i don't know god i would buy some lemonade would you i would not imagine so dirty how much lemon two cats

wearing sunglasses sitting at a small card table i mean honestly i think you might need to try to train them on how to do that because that could really be a side hustle for your family i mean

if i'm making the lemonade then maybe i trust it but if i'm leaving up to them to make the lemonade i'm not putting that anywhere near my face i have one question one quick follow-up

question on a couple of things one do you know where the fudge is made we've around i'm fairly clear on the milk and also the lemonade but there i mean we still we still have questions as to the fudge production um i was no i have a real question third no go ahead sorry i have an actual real question which is um and this is extremely boring and um we'll take this which i think was actually interesting story that you told um and and a moderately interesting tag to the story that i told and then make it very boring and very specific but like why is it why do the cats need to eat different kind of food and why do you not just free feed them why do you not put enough food out that they can just kind of eat whenever they want well i'm just gonna give myself

time to give you all the details on this one and let you just regret the question okay i worry

actually

sometimes that we have created a monster uh that is now a multi-generational monster but let me start for the different kinds of food we do have certain kitten food that i believe is like more high calorie um and also bananas is actually a senior cat now we should probably be feeding her senior food as well which i think is a different i don't know the science behind it and maybe some of it is marketing but i the vets a lot of cottage cheese and like peaches yeah kind of institutional like a lot of werthers um yeah no but you know like i do think that the stuff that bingo the kitten is eating is is really packed with like protein and extra calories and stuff and we don't want that for bananas who's a bigger cat and i'm this is something that i've sort of inherited from genevieve i always just left cat food out for my cats and i always had one cat that was the max number of cats I had as indoor cats. So it was just never a big deal. We just left the food out all the time. If the cat got a little pudgy, who doesn't love a pudgy cat? Genevieve was always really watching Theo, our old cat's weight, because he would just eat forever. And so she really got us in the habit of like feeding him a specific amount of food. Then we bring bananas into the mix. Again, this is over a decade ago. And I think that by the very nature of not free feeding theo we couldn't free feed her because then he would just eat all the food and get really fat so i think what we might have done with bananas is created another cat who sees food potentially as scarcity or something and gobbles it we ended up with two cats who were super food motivated and would just gobble the food as fast as possible and it always saddened me i'd pet him and i'd say guys slow down like there there's plenty there's plenty to go around just please slow down and I think we sort of created bananas to be a super food motivated eat all the food you can as fast as you can cat and now that we have bingo in the house we can't just leave food out we have this dry food but I have when I when I go to give bingo a snack during the day I have to make sure that bananas is closed out of the basement for a little bit and then pick it up right away I can't just leave it there because bananas will just come down and gobble it all up and sometimes she'll literally eat herself sick because she she wants the food and then later on And she'll realize, and hey, I do this, too. Her tummy will say, hey, remember you were, for some reason, eating a pickle along with spoonfuls of jelly?

Well, let's not forget that we started this episode while you're talking about horfing down stuff. Exactly. So, you know, the cat ball didn't, the hairball didn't fall far from the tree, my friend.

Exactly. So I think that by trying to regulate our older cats eating, we are probably creating new kittens who are only eating at certain times a day and then kind of get protective of their food. I'm hoping that Bingo doesn't become a total food monster, but that is the reason why.

This is another reason. I mean, there's a few reasons why I don't think I can get a second cat. One, I'm barely – I'm not really here enough to take care of cat numero uno, truthfully, as of late anyway. I actually feel legitimate guilt around that. like when i picked her up uh when i was driving her home from thanksgiving and she was in her cat carrier and she was uh meowing like a banshee out of hell and then i put my hand against the mesh to kind of be like hey it's me and then she just bit the living shit out of my thumb and drew blood through the mesh andrew that was when i uh texted becca and said i'm donating bubbles to a science experiment tomorrow so forget the glue factory yeah fully like i don't i don't need this cat in my life anymore but no i i legitimately feel like i'm a bad cat owner because right after i got her i started traveling extensively and i aim to um change that a little bit if i can because i don't i don't like not seeing her for weeks on end but anyway another reason i guess uh that i don't think it would be good for me to get because sometimes i think and the listeners have even suggested like get another cat so she has someone to play with that would be fun for her but if i had this if the feeding situation got complex the way you're describing if it was a thing where suddenly this cat was waking me up at seven because it was time to eat because i couldn't just put food out for her i would definitely donate her to science i don't need that in my life like what i like about because you know with rudy that was a whole situation too because rudy the dog that i used to have with carrie um who's still by the way doing great got an update recently rudy is uh still as uh as excited and food obsessed as ever but um with rudy was a thing where you couldn't just leave food out at all so that was a situation where every morning there was a under the door of the bedroom because it was time to go give this dog uh her 1.4 cups of food which she would inhale, inhale. So I know what that's like. I do really enjoy that about having this cat, that there's... no waking me up in the morning for food situations and so uh i um i guess i'm grateful for that i

didn't even realize that was a thing with cats yeah and i don't know if we're you know if i were raising these cats myself i maybe would just leave food out and just sort of let nature take its course i don't really know i do sort of feel though like genevieve listen theo was not necessarily the healthiest cat but he he lived to be over 21 years old so yeah i gotta give genevieve some credit for kind of holding the line on some of these things and so you know that that's the dynamic we have growing up of course we grew up like as a kid we just had barn cats that were just outdoor cats anyway so you just always had food outside and they could also hunt and do whatever so uh this is a stricter thing than than what i would would have done in the past but it's also been reality for 20 years i i want to go back quickly to your situation um and then we should probably take a break especially for those who don't like cat talk but um so i did want to know about your dynamic with bubbles so you just said that bubbles bit you through the thing do you do do you think that really was because you weren't as familiar as you would have been three weeks ago um or do you think that that's just sort of a coincidence um and and the cat is getting bigger and maybe more even doesn't know her own strength but also like once you got home like did bubbles seem to interact with you the way she would have or was she a little

bit more like aloof or what have you she was a she hadn't been here in so long that i think she was still just kind of she was re familiarizing herself with everything so she was just kind of like running around the apartment like looking oh i remember this oh okay this is where i go to the bathroom this is where the food is all right but i will say this this morning again we're recording this on friday uh i got up we did our little ritual which is like uh she jumps up on i open the door she jumps up on the bed i throw an earplug for her for about 20 minutes and then um and then she was and then i pick her up and i play banjo on her stomach which by the way is healing nicely you know she got spayed oh yeah that's all fine now in fact her fur is even growing back and and then uh when while while you were enjoying um your day two of your thanksgiving meal i was sitting on the couch watching the world cup and throwing the ear plug for her from there and then when she would get too close to me picking her up and snuggling her and doing all of my things that annoy her and she was totally with it everything immediately like this morning went back to our normal life together she's just bigger like so that's the thing i'm glad to see that she is still kind of the like generally cuddly like wants to have fun cat that i've always known because if she suddenly had also had a personality shift like if she just decided like it's sort of that moment when you realize you could beat your dad up or you could possibly beat up your dad which is like a in a person's mind particularly i think in a in a in a boy's mind now i don't know if you didn't grow up in the same kind of household maybe you didn't consider beating up bob walsh ever but i certainly

i mean i guess i've seen people say that in movies but that is not something that i've ever really i thought about beating up your dad but not could i take my dad well the funny part is

old me could beat up high school you but current day but but high school you could have beaten up my dad and it's very strange how you imagine me and your dad ever fighting right exactly the two the two people least likely to ever ever throw hands because you're both good decent kind people but um i didn't ever it didn't ever get to that with me and my dad but like where we didn't have that moment where it was like you know settle down old man and you know i'm 17 years old and we're standing in the in the i'm trying to think of the cinematic version of this you know like it would happen in like the outsiders or something um but uh no i never got to that but i do remember thinking at some point like could i take this guy and the other thing about dads in my experience is that even when you as the kid could physically take them they still have some weird advantage it's just like being a veteran i don't mean of a war i mean just being around longer like there's probably about five years where you could beat your dad up but he would still win the fight because he's just older and more wily than you and then there's a point where you're you know you are now you know bigger and stronger and whatever point is i'm glad that bubbles has not done that math because she could really terrorize me if she decided to but she right now it's just sleeping in a little curled up like a cinnamon roll right under the desk which is when i do this show with you her favorite thing to do um is she sort of hangs out for a while she takes it all in and then she ends up in this corner of the room that's right under this desk and she just curls up in a ball and not unlike rudy who eventually learned what good luck to all meant you're right she would just be hearing one half of the conversation for like an hour when i lived in bellingham and i would say and she would sleep out sometimes you would sleep in the room sometimes you'd sleep out in the hallway and when she would hear me say uh and please remember you know and i'd say my part of the end of the show she would perk up because she was like oh okay he's done with whatever that bullshit is bubbles is starting to get to that mode so she You'll be right back.

sleep as long as I am talking to you but if a significant period of time goes by without me making any sounds she figures out that I'm done with whatever this is and she comes out to come find me and figure out like hey what are we doing next

mm-hmm come find me sorry I can't hear those words without saying it in the voice of the woman that was at the end of the dating app commercial do you remember that no I feel like it was in my head so much I must have brought it up it wasn't it was oh my gosh i swear i must have talked to you about it because there was something that it was so there's was it binge was it humble i think i'm mixing those up no i don't think it was hinge

and bumble although i would go on one called humble just where you knew everybody was just

like normal not trying to show off that would here i'm gonna type in come find me dating app commercial because i don't know if it bothered other people i feel like i oh here it is here Let me just play this here.

Hi, I'm Courtney. I've been single for a long time because I'm always traveling. Looking for a real relationship. I love meeting new people, diving in different cultures. I'm not a game player. I like nice guys. So if you're out there, come find me. Check out Match.

There it was. Come find me. I can't ever say the words come find me without saying it in. I'm going to play it one more time.

So if you're out there, come find me. Come find me.

Let's make that a drop on the show. i like that actually now listen i don't want to besmirch this um uh this this person in the ad who i'm guessing is probably an actor who's just hired for it uh maybe but um i i would be pretty surprised to find that anybody was looking for a game player and didn't like travel i mean you andrew you would not like travel you'd probably be the first person in the history of that's not true you don't not like travel i don't want to i don't want to paint you with that brush but i do feel like there are the like the five things that i are on all these dating apps usually and it seems like it's like people really love travel right like i would imagine a lot of people are listing like you know traveling is one of their favorite things which makes sense it's a fun thing to do um i would imagine a lot of people are saying i'm not here to play any games which also just seems like a given right like is anyone there to say unless they're talking like birds actually or monopoly or something which are games now that would also be a funny ad for yourself you're like all i want to do is play games and then you list the game birds actually settlers of katan which

i want to learn how to play ladders i don't know how to play settlers seems like something i'd be into i honestly like i you know i like to go on vacations from time to time that are relaxing but i have no idea what it would be like to be on a dating platform i don't think that even if i were single in this day and age that i would be on a dating platform because i don't i was never the type of person who's like outwardly seeking to go on dates you know what i mean either it sort of happened for me or it wouldn't but all of that is to say if i if i did find myself in a position where maybe it's me 20 years ago and i'm single and i'm using the modern apps or whatever i think you're right i actually if i saw somebody who was on there and they were just like they really emphasized travel i probably would keep i probably would probably swipe whatever way you swipe when you don't want to necessarily um get involved with somebody because like if somebody is really motivated by travel like we would be a very bad match because i'm i'm fine not traveling i'm fine traveling sometimes but i'm also very fine not traveling if that was somebody's major

motivation that would probably not work out now i i know that this is going to cause you to feel so flustered and cringy but i just want to tell you something and i i say this really mostly as a message to genevieve which is do you know andrew that i have had more than one conversation with with women that i know of various you know kind of levels of closeness and just kind of casual friendship etc i have talked to more than one woman who has said that you are very crush worthy and that and because you are you're very uh you always you will often say on this show like If somehow you and Genevieve were not to be together, you would just basically take a monastic life.

I would take a Minecraft bribe. Bride is what I meant to say. I would also take a Minecraft bribe.

You would build the bribe in Minecraft, and you're always like, I would never – I'm just like, I don't want to get out there. I don't want to – and I don't think – based on what limited amount of information I have about how those apps work, I don't know if that would be the space for you for all the reasons that you've already laid out. But I think you would have a line of people who are interested in being part of the Andrew Walsh experience. And I know this because it's been mentioned to me without prompting a few times. Now, don't let it go to your head, but I'm just saying mention it to Genevieve next time she's being a lot. I literally just unbuttoned one more button on my button down shirt.

That's too much. No, they're snaps. Why are you holding a fish? I'm also wearing a T-shirt underneath. Wait, why am I holding a fish?

I think that's like it. Isn't that also the knock or the joke is that like, oh, every guy is always holding a fish in one of those profiles because it like it sort of shows outdoorsyness or something. That's a that would be a that would be the deal breaker of all deal breakers for me. Well, no, holding any dead animal. Any dead holding any dead animal would be a deal breaker for me. You know, we have listeners who love to fish. I'm not trying to be such a square. but if i were scrolling that thing and somebody was holding up a dead animal that would just be like those are not we're not that's not going to be the vibe i'm going for when you said holding

a fish i didn't know exactly what you were talking about and i still just picturing myself here where i am right now in my studio and i was just picturing myself holding a goldfish for some reason i was like oh my gosh that would be a move on the dating site right like come back when we

come back from the break can i on the subject of goldfish can i tell you about carrot the goldfish

Yes as long as we don't have any audio drops Of anybody related to this show saying Anything about Goldfish

Until you just said that I actually Forgotten that we did have that audio I also just want to say very quickly One you don't have to respond to this There's nothing to be said But when I was watching the World Cup earlier today Because again we're recording this on Friday I noted that the coach of the England national team has I think the most British name I've ever heard His name is

gareth southwick is that i mean other than like lord nigel underbottom i mean that is like coach

for southwick is what you meant right gareth southwick i mean damn really leaning into into the englishness of that whole thing okay uh let's uh do this quick break and then i do i will tell you about carrot the goldfish which is kind of mind-blowing and uh if we have time to we'll talk about this doctor saving lives during a marathon. This just falls into the category of like, what are the frigging chances? And then really, time permitting, we'll play a quick round of What's in the Box. So stay with us here on TBTL. Hey, let's thank some of our daily donors who are keeping TBTL rolling with their much appreciated financial support. I'd like to thank Gareth Southwick in North Umberton. We'd like to thank Catherine Urbati in Brooklyn, New York. So many Brooklyns lately. I feel like Friday's show ended on a Brooklyn, and today is starting on a Brooklyn.

Do you think that we gained a heck of a lot of Brooklyn listeners when we did a Brooklyn show right before the pandemic?

is that what's going on i think so because after that show was over i just wandered the streets of brooklyn stopping anybody i could find and saying have you heard the good news oh good how did that work out for you not great actually um spent the night in the brooklyn police station but which is way less fun than on the show nobody was singing backstreet boys just none of the fun and frivolity

i was led to believe happened at brooklyn nine nine it's funny when we were in brooklyn i was approached by somebody right um somebody who was a listener or somebody no no somebody who wanted us to but it wasn't the gospel it was like um was it a hasidic jewish person or something somebody came up and was like um and you said that that was kind of common in that neighborhood and i was unfamiliar with what they were they they asked me well you tell the details i don't remember what

the question was i think that it must have been and i could be wrong about this apologies to our Jewish listeners who love it when I try to speculate on these things, but I think it might have had to do with Sukkot, which is a particular Jewish festival that I think it might be Sukkot or it's something else where the deal is, during this period of time, if you are observant, you need to either get Jews who are not as observant to come do this thing. Judaism is not a religion that works on the idea of conversion right if you're either jewish or you're not it's not the kind of thing where jews are out trying to get gentiles to become jews generally which is an interesting thing which is how it's different than like evangelical christianity right yeah so i don't think that the idea is to find someone who's not a jew and try to get them to convert i think the idea is to find somebody who is a jew but who's not doing things in the most observant way and get them to come like it's basically that's part of that holiday or part of that

observation or observance rather i think you're right that this person that's why i was a little bit i was having trouble remembering it and why i asked if you were jewish i think yeah it was yeah it was some version of that or something and it was like it was it was asking me yeah you're right that that That's what it was, because I'm more used to the, like you say, have you heard the good news, like more of a conversion thing where this person approached me as if we were brethren. And and I was kind of confused. And then I think we went to lunch and you explained it or something.

But again, I could be wrong on what particular holiday or observance is related to that. But that actually, you know what I was just about to say to you, that's happened to me in New York. But I don't know if it has, Andrew, which is interesting.

Oh, it's part of my crushability, Luke.

Well, that's what I'm saying. What's wrong with me? How is it that I couldn't be possibly a lapsed Orthodox Jew? I mean, give me a little credit. I also lived very briefly in Prospect Heights, which was a very, very, very, a lot of Orthodox Jews, a lot of Hasidic Jews in there. And I was often one of the few people walking around who wasn't part of one of those kind of segments of Judaism. Never asked. Never asked even once.

Because you're just walking around looking like the fighting Irish guy. Is that the problem? Is I got the fists going backwards? Yeah.

I've got a pipe. I'm wearing that top hat. Yeah, you know, that is a sort of an indication that I might not be. Although I always make the joke. In fact, I'm sure I made it in New York when talking to some folks that I do consider myself to be Jewish. I feel a very strong connection to a lot of my very good friends happen to be folks who are Jewish and I've always really enjoyed the company of people who identify as being Jewish and I have a lot of respect for a lot of elements of Judaism like there's a lot of emphasis put on sort of inquiry and knowledge and also just kind of really interesting debate and things like that I really appreciate that part of Judaism and feel like I got to have a little like, you know, with being Albanian, I did this research. And by that, I mean, I looked at the Wikipedia page and there was a period of time where Albania had a lot of Jews in it. But then they were they were oppressed, as they so often are often just by rappers I used to like. And and there were a lot of Jews in Albania who stopped identifying publicly and openly as being Jewish because it was dangerous for them. And then they had kids and those kids had kids. And at some point in the chain, no one remembered that they were Jewish. And so there are people living in Albania who are ethnically, you could say, Jewish or related to people who are Jewish, but they don't identify that way. And this is my grand theory. I'm the descendant of one of those people, hence being Jewish, hence meaning that guy should have been asking me, not you, to come be better at being a Jew.

I'd love to tell you that it's not a competition, but it is. And I'm winning. You really are. Also, thank you, Catherine.

Yeah, and thanks to Mike Wolfe, who's up there in Bellingham, Washington. You know, one of the players on the English national team's last name is Bellingham. I'm not kidding you. They're going to say it's from Bellingham. No, but it was named Bellingham. He was subbing out of the match, and I thought, man, I would have been kind of low-key rooting for that person if I'd known their last name was Bellingham. And then replaced by somebody named Bothell. That guy never subs out of the game.

Yeah, for a lifetime.

He's in there for a lifetime. Thank you, Mike, for checking in from the Bay City. Also, thanks to Johnny Kim, who's in Honolulu, Hawaii. Look at that. Ooh, la la. How close are we going to get to the holidays before you and I start talking about our holidays plans?

I'm not sure, yeah, because I think I'm going to be in the Honolulu area.

Well, I was being vague in case you didn't want to actually throw that down. Yeah, I think— I'm going to be in Palm Springs for a week. You're going to Palm Springs? I didn't even know that. um i basically what happened was i really wanted to go somewhere that was a little bit warm but i do not have it in me to fly to hawaii also it's you know not the cheapest thing these days but i didn't have it in me to fly to hawaii or like uh some part of mexico or even like tulum somewhere where it's legitimately pretty warm this time of year i didn't have the energy to fly closer to the equator than palm springs what i'm trying to say palm springs is like 65 in in um january you know it's not like it's uh uh it's it's not tropical but it will be warmer and hopefully more sunny than portland is it warm enough to swim well i've got a whole i mean we've got we've got many days between now and when i go but let me just tell you i had i had my first it it it resolved peacefully But I had what I was worried was going to become a tense conversation with the person who owns the Airbnb regarding can you swim in 65-degree weather.

Oh, okay. All right. Okay. I think I can maybe see the outlines of this conversation, but let's save it for another day.

Yeah, but, I mean, again, as we draw closer to the Winter Games, I'm sure it will come up again. It was interesting. It was something I had never – the short story is I said is the pool heat. And they said, it can be for an extra cost after I'd already signed up for the thing. And I thought, oh, I didn't see the outlines. OK, that's an add on for the pool to not be a block of ice. The pool that is prominently featured in all the Airbnb photos, the pool that was the appeal of coming down there, the pool that has a heater. But it's extra to heat it. I was like, OK, but anyway, I will complain about that in more detail coming up. What I really want to say is thank you, Johnny Kim, for supporting our program from Honolulu, Hawaii. You may see Andrew and Veeves out there. Oh, I've got so many recommendations for you. Not that you don't already have a local.

No, I've never been to that part of Hawaii before.

You've got somebody there on the inside who knows the place like the back of their hand. So that will be helpful. But I did weirdly go there twice in like a month. And so I'll give you some recs as well. Also, I'll say thanks to Rachel Marchetti, who's in Fair Oaks, Pennsylvania.

Let me ask you a question about that. Do you remember that Rachel pronounces it Marchetti, or are you assuming? Because I would have gone with Marchetti, and I'm just curious.

You know, it might be Marchetti. I was just in a flow state there. No problem.

I just wanted to get the other pronunciation out there just in case.

What is the ruling on this? Are we bringing back the pronunciation key, the box, the something? What's in the box?

We have the pronunciations for the dazzling donors because the system allows it better. But I guess because so many of these folks have been donating for so long and they're already in the system, apparently it is. A lot of things with APM is our system doesn't do that across the board. And unfortunately, we're kind of running into our system doesn't do that with this.

Well, Rachel Marchetti or Marchetti, we thank you so much for supporting the program from out there in Fair Oaks, Pennsylvania. We also thank Mike Barney, who's in Sacramento, California. You know, that's a state capital. Oh, the Queen City? It is. Yeah. Okay, great. Thank you, Mike. And then also thanks to Sarah Gordon. And actually, Andrew. Oh, the Queen City. Cincinnati, Ohio is literally known as the Queen City. Okay, now let's look up why. And you don't believe in a God.

um okay because yesterday i was trying to look up i i had a theory because you got god you got a friend and that friend is you when we lived in new hampshire manchester new hampshire was called the queen city and i was told that manchester was called the queen city because it was larger than the capital which is conquered and so i always thought that that was a generic thing if you're if your city is larger than the state capital you're the the queen city that would make sense but as we talked about it yesterday we started thinking about other state capitals and like i think it's more common for a state capital not to be the biggest city i think that's probably more rare so let me type in why is cincinnati the queen city and see if in this particular case by 1820 cincinnati locals had begun calling it the queen city and the queen of the west in conversation and local writing in reference to the culture arts and civilization the city offered in the midst of the wildness of the emerging west nothing to do with size no but

Listen, Andrew, I'm looking at another entry here. Manchester, New Hampshire, referred to as the Queen City due to it being larger than the New Hampshire's capital, Concord. But that is specific to New Hampshire. So named. Let me see. I'm going to look on the Queen City. I've got a list here of the Queen Cities of North America. Are you ready for this? Bangor, Maine. No explanation.

Okay.

okay buffalo new york so called as it was once the largest city along the great lakes charlotte north carolina because it was named for charlotte of mecklenburg strelitz i didn't realize that mecklenburg because mecklenburg is a name of a town in the south i didn't realize mecklenburg was part of the whole british situation cincinnati ohio no explanation Well, I gave it to you. Cumberland, Maryland, historically, for being at one time, the second largest city in Maryland. Okay. Denver, Colorado, this we talked about a while ago, often referred to as the Queen City of the Plains. Dickinson, North Dakota, no explanation. Allentown, Pennsylvania, no explanation. Manchester, New Hampshire, see previous comments. Meridian, Mississippi, so named either because it was an important stop on the Queen and Crescent Rail line or because a quote gypsy queen kelly mythsell is buried there regina saskatchewan canada because regina is latin for queen wow okay that i did not know like a regent that makes sense i guess golly i always just thought it was they were one letter off from a really racy name for their town turns out there's a whole other reason seattle washington andrew oh so named in 1869 by real estate

state developers who herald it as the future queen city of the pacific and then wrapping up the i've

never heard that i i like to say i've lived in seattle now for a while you've spent your life here or in the region like i've talked about it a lot at the edmunds arby's

springfield missouri toronto ontario canada victoria british columbia named after queen victoria and then burlington vermont now i don't know if this wikipedia entry is to be believed or not but it kind of seems like and maybe why we're having so much confusion andrew is because it's not one thing like at all what you are totally right about manchester right like that's why it's called that but like denver being called the the queen city of the plains it's it's sort of like just saying isn't this a cool place in a particular area like if that seattle thing is true I agree with you. I've never heard of that. But an attempt, it seems like it can also just be something where you're trying to say our city is really, you know, quite notable in this region or whatever.

That seems to be the case for Burlington here. Of course, you know, it's a New England city, so it's super old and it just has to do with them establishing themselves as they were a burgeoning city or colony or whatever. And so they said that they they wanted to be the queen city. So it had nothing to do. But at least I was right about the New Hampshire part of it.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you were pretty much on target with that whole thing. Sure. So all of that is a very, very entertaining way to say thank you very much to Sarah Gordon. And to all of our – hey, come on. And to all of our donors today, thanks for keeping TBTL in business. The Queen Podcast. hello and welcome to top story okay very quickly because uh we're actually getting fairly late in the game here i just wanted to tell you about carrot the goldfish have you seen

photos of carrot the goldfish i don't think so i i see every now and then things pop up of giant giant goldfish but i don't know is this new or is this been this is new this is like as of last

week uh a uh a british angler who was actually fishing in france oh champagne right yes have you ever seen anything like it carrot the goldfish is 67 and a half pounds they think carrot is the largest goldfish in the world i mean how do you know these things but i mean it's kind of wild because her color is brilliantly the color of a goldfish which by the way is not gold it's more

orange why are we not calling these orange fish well probably because they glitter when they're i mean you're looking at an extreme example of a goldfish but if you'll recall i was holding a goldfish in my hand earlier in the show as i filled up my dating profile and i my guess is because well first of all these things are rarely literal but also like probably because they kind of when you're looking at them in a koi pond or whatever they probably sparkle like gold no maybe so but

So this fish, Carrot, is in the Blue Water Lakes region of the Champagne District of France. And apparently people have been trying to catch Carrot for the longest time because they knew that she was this massive. I mean, she's actually like a cross between, I forget what the two kind of fish is. It's a carp and something else.

Well, all goldfish are carps, right? Like that's what I was going to say because I thought a goldfish is just a small kind of carp. Is that a generic term? Do we know?

But I also feel like if you had a goldfish living in a bowl, I know what you mean. And we maybe even talked about this before. Like, I guess if you release a goldfish into a lake and it survives, it will get bigger. Does it grow to the size of the container it's in? In other words, the goldfish that we have, you know, you might have at your kid's class stay the size they are because the bowl they're in does not allow them to get bigger.

That was my kind of understanding, but I'm just trying to figure this out. But, yeah, I always had this inkling that, like, yeah, a goldfish can get really big if it's given enough room to grow. And I'm looking this up. So carp is like a generic term for a various species of oily freshwater fish.

Right. Well, this one, carrot, is listed as a hybrid of a leather carp and a koi carp. Okay. So technically a goldfish. But I think I'm just going to go out on a limb and say some genetically a little bit different than the thing that's swimming around in a bowl, you know, in on the shelf in your kid's bedroom or something potentially. But here was the thing when I saw this and I saw this wild ass fish and this guy holding this wild ass fish. I was, of course, very sad because to refer back to what we were talking about, I was like, OK, so great job. Now you just killed the world's largest goldfish. But then I read on in the piece, and in fact, after the photo, he...

released carrot back into the lake where carrot will continue to live and presumably grow until caught again i don't love it for carrot that every five or ten years somebody puts a hook through her face and drags her out of the water and she's sitting there gasping for breath and they take

a picture but i am glad she's being put back in the lake do you know if she was caught using a net or a i don't know about that okay because that would make me feel better about it yeah i would

be surprised i think the way you catch one is you sprinkle that little food right on the surface of the lake and you just wait for you wait for jaws you wait for a leviathan to come up to the surface

and just start munching on it's such a trope isn't it in that new fletch movie the very very beginning scene you see john ham's character what's his name again oh yeah fletch uh and he's like in you don't know anything that's going on you just see him sort of coming home to a an apartment or a home or something and the first thing she does now did they play i remember the chevy chase

movies having kind of like um not quite the beverly hills cop soundtrack but a soundtrack of sorts right no it was by the same guy i believe oh that was oh so it was the same guy

it was um herbie hancock no um hold on fletch soundtrack um composer i i'm he's got a funny

I'm sorry, were you saying that the person who did the soundtrack for Beverly Hills Cop did the soundtrack for Fletch, or were you saying the person that old Fletch did new Fletch?

Nope, Beverly Hills and original Fletch were both Harold Faltermeyer projects, I believe.

Okay. You know, I used to always confuse Rocket by Herbie Hancock with the Axel Foley theme. Oh, okay, yeah. So that's why I think I thought Herbie Hancock did the Fletch. So it was the same person. Now, was this updated Fletch with Jon Hamm? Did it have some allusion to that?

I don't think it did. I'm going to play for you a little bit of the original Fletch song here, though, because why not? Oh, yeah. Yeah, right. I think the 80s were an interesting time. Well, for a lot of reasons, war on drugs, et cetera. I think it's an interesting time for these movies that were like, is it a comedy or is it an action movie? You know what I mean? And like Beverly Hills Cop is not that funny. It's way more action than laughs.

Yeah, that's a good point. But what you know, what stuck with me? Hmm. The laughs. Somebody put a banana in the tailpipe.

Right.

Like, honestly, the like things that Eddie Murphy said that seemed funny to me. And even the like Bronson Pinchot being the kind of like weirdo, you know. Art. I think the art. Art guy or whatever. I forget. Like, if you would have asked me as a kid, I would have said, oh, Beverly Hills Cop is one of the most funny movies that's ever been made. But you're right. It's an action movie. It's this detective from Detroit trying to break up some, you know, some bad stuff happening in Beverly Hills. Now, can I do this just to scratch my own itch here? This is a little bit of Rocket.

Yeah, I can see that.

Doesn't it kind of have a same?

Oh, yeah. okay let that keep going oh wow wait yeah that's exactly like beverly hills cop i think you're right i think i conflated those two i probably heard this song a bunch and thought it was beverly hills cop theme i i did up until three minutes ago when i said it was herbie hancock here here's the beverly hills cop because i was playing fletch before right okay now play rocket yes

we did it we did it we created the world's worst mashup

this is better than I thought it was going to be alright I'll back it off but honestly there are worse songs that you play over top of each other

considering we're in two different cities playing this crap off of YouTube um anyway uh oh let's see you know what i'll tell you this here's the whole story the doctor thing we don't need to belabor it but it is it is fairly wild to me this cardiologist was running a marathon recently his name is steve loam and he was running the monterey bay half marathon this was i think i said half moon bay recently but it was it's not it's the monterey bay half marathon And he is like, I don't know, five minutes into the race or something. He saw the first runner, a 67-year-old named Greg Gonzalez of Vancouver, Washington, by the way, collapse about 30 feet in front of him around the third mile of the race. So we'll just say this is 30 minutes in if you're doing 10-minute miles. And this cardiologist assessed that it wasn't just a simple fainting spell.

or a trip. So he goes up to the guy, and he starts doing chest compressions, and he tells someone to call 911. They call 911. All of a sudden, paramedics show up. They have a defibrillator. They defibrillate this guy, Greg Gonzalez, and they bring him back to life. And he says all he remembers is running and then being in the back of an ambulance. But they think he's going to be fine. He's actually sore from the CPR because they had to do the chest compressions really hard. but he's fine he's he's alive he's doing well he's back to being okay so this guy Steve Loam is like all right well that was weird let me finish the race he runs the rest of the half marathon as he's crossing the finish line of the half marathon he looks up ahead and sees a different guy somebody named Michael Heileman of San Anselmo California collapse right on the other side of the finish line he goes up and starts doing chest compression on the guy and then they call the paramedics i assume different paramedics they defib this guy and bring him back to life

and he's fine how crazy is that that answers the question how to be a thanksgiving hero

forget about this he was wearing a superman apron while he did it this wasn't a turkey

trap on you hey wait hold on you had some thanksgiving running plans too but did those fall out the window when you weren't coming to this part of yeah i went for a run but it was

just a solo it was a little solo trek for me and you know in a certain way i i was i was very sad that i didn't get to be with my immediate family for thanksgiving but i was relieved because i think this was going to be the year do you ever wonder like could i beat up my uncle um this was gonna be the year when my nephew jack who now runs cross-country over there in white salmon washington where he lives okay um uh he runs cross-country and i had a feeling he was gonna smoke me this year yeah yeah like i i usually i've been winning the last few years well david hasn't been involved and so if david runs in it i'm i'm dead meat but if it's me and the younger kids who are all just more fit than me just as a resting state because their bodies are still like their brains are still growing their bodies are still like creating new cells whereas my body is dying and shrinking and becoming less effective but i run more than they do so i'm able to win because i have better cardio that was not going to be the case this year jack lee brooks was going to just absolutely decimate so i get one more year of telling myself that i'm probably faster than my nephew until next year when we get back together and do the burbank family fun run and he just smokes me did you end up eating turkey i had like four bites of turkey um because i just i didn't well a i was just curious right like i wanted to have some turkey because i haven't had it in a long time i also because it was someone else's house and they go to great lengths with the cooking all the cooking done by becca by the way she said that's not true her mom did the turkey but becca does everything else phenomenal cook i didn't want to roll up with a tube of turkey-like substance that i needed to then can we um can i use one of these ovens for four hours while i cook this tube of fake turkey meat up so um it was the i want to say it's the second or third thanksgiving where i've been like i'm going to totally eat turkey and then i don't because i just eat a shitload of mashed potatoes and rolls in this particular case i did have a little taste of turkey it was fine i mean it was well done as turkey goes it was correctly done it didn't do a lot for me i was kind of not really like i was way more into the mashed potatoes and the rolls and the rolls per per my typical thing so it was it was kind of useful because i was like i haven't i don't think i had turkey you know for i don't know five or six years or something and i don't need it for another five or six years like it really was not it was it wasn't like i'm glad i didn't have a bite and go like oh my heavenly father what have i been missing that would be bad because then i would be thinking about it as it was i was like yeah you know what i'm good with my I'm good with my mashed potatoes and my tube of turkey like substance you know what a similar

thing is I mean this is a stretch to say similar but um oh we got to take another break I'll just say this quickly um you know Genevieve stopped eating pork a long time ago and you know there's rare exceptions to her rules too like if she's a din Tai Fung or some special thing she'll have a little bit of pork here and there but for the most part for years and years now Genevieve has not eaten pork and because of that when we uh have like breakfast link sausages in the house they are these like chicken sausages they're exactly like breakfast links you know they're just chicken sausage and um they're not as easy to find but she gets them at trader joe's and they're pretty good and so we just have those on the occasion that we're going to cook those up um and the other day genevieve was gone for something and i knew i was gonna oh i think is that super early um seahawks game and i was making whatever i was making food and genevieve He was out watching the game with some other bros, and...

I was like, oh, they didn't have any turkey. Did I say chicken? I think it's chicken sausage at the store. So I just bought some of the old school pork stuff, and I cooked it up for myself. And holy shit, like I don't – I think maybe I remember transitioning to the chicken stuff and thinking like, oh, yeah, maybe it's not quite as flavorful, but it's still pretty good. But I've been eating the chicken stuff for so long now that the pork sausages were almost too much. And you know me. I love sausage. It was so salty. it was so unbelievably salty and i just realized like my taste just changed and it's like i don't know that's such a small thing but it's a nice thing to remember how adaptable we are if like one of the next time i go to the doctor the doctor's gonna tell me i have to change literally everything which is probably why i've avoided going to the doctor which is really a great healthy place to be as a an aging middle-aged man but um it's nice to know how we can adapt and then if you even go back to something and you're just kind of like oh i actually don't like that thing that i thought i could never give up by the way meant you can mention to veeves or

i could just text her um that there is a place down here in portland called dough zone and they do shaolong bao they do chicken shaolong oh nice nice along with uh you know the regular like pork stuff but if you're ever down here yeah we should try that you have some of that and then she does not have to face the i haven't had it but i i assume it tastes really good to me it seems like the the sauce or whatever you want to call it that kind of like dip you make is really that's the that's the big the big draw when it comes to that kind of stuff and it just seems to me like um you know uh if uh i would like it if i would i really want i really would like din taifung to get on the case of making a vegetarian one it's very doable at this point it's probably they wouldn't sell very many so it's not worth it for them yeah maybe i wonder if it what would

you put in in there for vegetarian would you find some sort of protein or would it well i mean

whatever the fake i mean there are fake pork that you know those like morningstar farm sausage links are pretty convincing like there's stuff out there that's so that's what i meant like yeah i wasn't

sure if you're thinking actual like some sort of vegetable substance or some sort of a quote-unquote

fake meat or actually you know what i hadn't thought that through yeah yeah for me not a mushroom because that's the problem they have one it's not a shaolong bao it's just a vegetarian dumpling but it's all mushroom it's like my least favorite thing on earth but no that's a good question, though. Honestly, what I would like is for somebody to come up with the umami of what that pork, you know, kurabada pork Xiaolongbao tastes like. The umami of that, but just put some vegetables in there, but it still tastes like that. Because I don't care about the eating of the meatball in there. I care about all the juices and the flavor and then dipping it in the stuff. I feel like it's doable. It's probably just not worth it for them to figure it out and then make a bunch of them if I'm the only one who's

going to eat that yeah right right right this is my box this is my box i never travel without my box oh what's in the box in the first drawer i keep my magic stones oh what's in the box licorice licorice black sweet licorice black sweet licorice have some that's right luke that intro

could only mean one thing we've lost our goddamn minds it also means can i um can i ruin that

intro for you for a minute sure what are you gonna do there's this thing on tiktok where somebody says like i'll ruin a song for you and they'll play a song and then they'll just show a photo of a person who all of a sudden it starts sounding like that's the person who's singing like you never notice that it sounds like their voice but then once you have the visual you're like oh my god like for instance they play like mr bright side by the killers coming out of my cage and then they show a picture of jerry seinfeld okay it sounds exactly like jerry seinfeld is singing the killers mr bright side okay let me guess can i listen to this one

more time please do please do this is my box this is my box i never travel without my box Oh, what's in the box? In the first floor, I keep my magic stones. Oh, what's in the box? Licorice! Licorice!

Blood sweet licorice! Blood sweet licorice!

Ah, dang, I can't picture it. I was wondering if it was maybe somebody from Game of Thrones.

Can you... Let's see, I'm going to just do this really fast here. I'm going to get this queued up so the levels are decent. Now, can you just play the very beginning? Play the first, like, five seconds and then pause it.

This is my box. This is my box. I never travel without my box

How about this?

I'm afraid I just blew myself

Okay, not a good example Like I wish I would have gotten a better Tobias drop But now just listen to that again And imagine it is David Cross

This is my box This is my box I never travel without my box Doesn't it totally seem like it could be David Cross? In the first draw I love that

Good call

Oh, Luke, I did not know where you're going with that. And I'll be honest with you. My faith. What do they say in Star Wars?

You had a lack of faith that was disturbing to me if I would have known about it.

I had a disturbing lack of faith in where you're going with that. Possible show title. Okay. I'm sorry.

Please back to what's in the box.

So here's what we're going to do. A while back, some folks sent us some packages that I have not had a chance to open because we were running out of time last time we did this what's in the box segment. But since then, I've gotten another box here that I actually pre-promoted on last week's show. And I said, we're going to do this segment. This is from New Hampshire. And I'm really intrigued by the sound of this. So here's what I'm going to do. We don't have time to do. A box of cornflakes? Oh, I'm hoping. This is a box about six. It's like almost a six-inch cube box. Not quite cube that's making this sound from Anne, New Hampshire. I don't have time to open everything here. But I also don't want the folks who kindly sent stuff in to us to be waiting forever for us to open it. So if it's okay with everybody, I'm going to open up this box right now. And then I'm going to open up some of this other stuff in the Hey Dummies video this week, which will be coming out in the TBTL newsletter. So if you haven't signed up for the TBTL newsletter yet, you have plenty of time. Just go to tbtl.net and click on the link that you see there for that task. So that's how we're going to handle what's in the box today. I'm going to open this this as I mentioned is from New Hampshire it's from Anne in New Hampshire now Anne Luke I don't know how often you correspond with Anne but Anne is somebody yeah seriously throughout the show I've responded up to 10 times to a disturbing level here yes your non-lack of

correspondence is disturbing is actually asked that I stop figuring out how to get around the block she blocks me and then I get around it and then we correspond more now Anne lives in New

hampshire and so maybe that's the connection so she you know maybe i see an email come in occasionally from new hampshire and so we've been corresponding for years now um but i don't think i've ever received i don't think i've ever met and i don't think i've ever received anything in the mail from and before there's so i still don't know what's in here but i've opened the card and there's a card inside the box and it's got a very cute artistic depiction of a of an owl who is wearing glasses i think you would like this a lot luke and it says um andrew this is not a birthday gift although i do hope you enjoy your day i should mention that what is today is the 28th as we hey andrew how was your birthday i will tell you from now i will tell you in the future but yeah uh my birthday technically was yesterday the 27th although i haven't gotten there yeah um i saw these at the grocery store and thought you might like them enjoy peace and i see i love that ann always signs her emails to me with the word peace but since this is a handwritten note luke she gave me the peace symbol which is the beauty of the what's in the box segment if you ask me absolutely so i really love oh and you know what it's when you feel seen luke uh-oh it's when you feel seen that's what makes a gift a gift it is a perfect movie theater style box of Reese's Pieces. Oh, nice. This makes my GD day. Thank you so much, Anne. I'm not even joking. That chokes me up a little bit. Thank you, Anne. That makes me... You listen. You listen and you hear... Are you going to...

How do you think you're going to consume these? Are you going to bring them in your pocket when you're taking the bus somewhere later to have a little, you know, I don't know, a little treat for yourself? Are you going to... Will they be, like, during Andrew times later tonight with the headphones and the lebitard? Like, where do you see these Reese's Pieces fitting into your schedule?

Well, because this is the classic style box, it's going to be a little bit hard to do. Like, it's going to be hard to crack into this because I love this box so much. I love the design of this box so much. But I think what I'm going to do is, do you remember you were over here a couple of days ago or maybe a week ago now? And I showed you I have this, like, mason jar. It's a mason jar with a sort of beveled.

Yeah, you had gummy bears in it, I believe.

They put gummy bears in there, and it kind of made this prism-y kind of look with the gummy bears. I love putting gummy bears in a little mason jar and putting the lid on them. I will probably do that for these Reese's Pieces, and I will keep them in a little mason jar, and I will go in, and I will brighten my day a few times until they're all gone.

A little pick-me-up. A little pick-me-up. You're posting the show. It's kind of like, you know, it's a little lull in your day or whatever. You're looking for just a treat, and just like, you know, five or ten Reese's Pieces

could do the trick either that or i'll just get really high and drink them like water all right let me just open up one more thing out of the box and then here i just got one little card that i'll read here this is from um it looks like uh maybe listener con i'm trying to read that from the uh return address here um oh it looks like it's karen i'm sorry about that uh luke and andrew the past few years have been um difficult for everyone this past year was the Here we go.

hardest of my life and uh had a lot of um issues i you know i'm reading this cold so i'm not sure if this was for public or if it was just a note for us so i'm just going to skip to this part and say tbtl has served me every day i get a little dose of joy in a moment to feel hopeful about the future you have no idea how much you mean to us tens please keep doing the podcast forever love you guys uh karen formerly of seattle and karen i'm sorry i'm just kind of skipping over the more personal stuff in here because i'm not 100 sure that you wanted me to share that on the air but

thank you very very very much that means a lot yeah thank you karen and thank you um you know it's funny because we have this such a uh surprising relationship with our listeners even all these years later where uh somebody like karen takes the time to write a letter or a note or a card and send it to the po box to tell us thank you for what you're doing or the other listener who sends the re and who sends the Reese's pieces like we are getting so much more from the listeners not just financially although that is a big part of it but just kind of like in terms of like sweet notes and energy and feedback and like all of this stuff and yet a lot of that is listeners saying to us hey thanks for doing the show and yet i feel this sounds corny it sounds like who rescued who which is probably who rescued whom i don't know someone will email us about it one of our less nice listeners will really writing another note that would be great you know Karen that's fair you get to write one you get to write one kind of pedantic note for every one really sweet note like you just wrote and I hope you're doing better sorry

yeah and I'm actually kind of reading this now and yet again not to share Karen's story in case this was more meant for us to read silently but you know Karen's really been through it so stick you know hang in there buddy thank you for reaching out and

you got this you got this yes indeed all right that's what's in the box for now but more unboxing will be happening on the hey dummies video this week so do tune in for that in the meantime that does it for this wednesday edition of the show sorry go ahead it's still it remains a mystery if i even made it to seattle or not i guess we'll find out soon i know how are

you feeling two shows now in on this friday as we recorded this i feel you know what honestly i feel

okay yeah i really do i just i'm having the i ended the friday show with saying the same thing which is i'm i'm checking in with my body much more than i do normally so when i feel something that's funky it's kind of like and something happening or is it just that i don't check in with my body 35 times a minute the way i am right now so i think i'm gonna be fine i do think that zinc the the xycam was probably a good idea i'm actually due to have another bit of it and I think I'm going to be okay. I certainly don't feel like I'm getting any worse as of today.

I'm going to check in with my body in a little bit here, too.

Yeah, you bet. Thanks for listening, everybody. We'll be back here tomorrow with more. I'm very rarely at a loss for words on this show. You just heard it. We'll see you tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio. Until then, have a great Monday. Take care of yourselves, and please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all. I hope you're not taking that aluminum box seriously.

Power out.