Muse

Wow, what's this?

This is the North Pole. No, it's not. Yes, it is. No, it's not. Yes, it is. No, it isn't. Yes, it is. No, it isn't. Yes, it is. No, it's not. Where's the snow? Why are you smiling like that? I just like to smile. Smiling's my favorite. Make work your favorite. That's your favorite, okay? Okay. Work is your new favorite. Fine. It's time for the announcement. Okay, people. Well, tomorrow morning, 10 a.m., Santa's coming to town. Santa! Oh, my God! Santa here?

I know him. I know him.

T-B-T-M. Guess what day it is. Guess what day it is.

It's Friday. Friday. Got to get down on Friday. Everybody's looking forward to the weekend.

There's a crazy rumor going around that you folks like milk and cookies.

Ah, fragili. It must be Italian.

Well, I think that says fragile.

Listen, please, please, please. If anybody doesn't know the difference between a valance and a jabot, I really need you to leave. Where do you think you're going?

Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no, we're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. Put my headphones on. And here we go. I'm so excited.

Well, all right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everybody, to a Friday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. They suddenly realized I was talking to them. My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host.

Your voice is like a combination of Fergie and Jesus.

Coming to you today from the sauna of sound at Andrew's house. This is special. This is special. Yes, I made it up here on this Friday while there is snow and ice, and it was quite an adventure. I'm not kidding.

Oh, and the adventure begins again.

But I was able to navigate it thanks to my special driving skills.

I'm an excellent driver.

To bring you episode 3,843 in a collector's series. Let the fun begin. And we on this Friday are going to play a round of what is in the box.

A cat is an angel that poops in a box

I don't know if we have any cats Or angels in any of these boxes But we have a lot of mail here We've got multiple boxes We've got tons of envelopes And we don't know what's in them And we're going to open as many as we can The past is history The future is a mystery We'll do that coming up here on the program Plus some music for your weekend on this Friday And we're going to talk to this guy The longest running co-bro of the show Maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships He's sort of an expert at driving in the snow

Go that way, really fast If something gets in your way, turn

He is Andrew Welsh and he's joining me right now Good morning my friend Good morning Luke, how you doing? You survived Here I am, face to face, a couple of cobros

I told you, you said right as we were getting settled in here You said, oh man, I'm really glad I made it here And I'm like, yeah, you live here now, welcome

It's very possible that I do live here at your home, your home with Genevieve and the professor and Bingo, by the way. I mean, Bingo, I can't even with the Bingo. Just just again, shots fired at Bubbles. Bubbles needs to up her cuteness game. It is in my mind. And Bingo is winning again. Yes. So I got up very early in early by my standards in Seattle to drive up here today. Because I've got a lot of stuff I've got to get ready for tomorrow For my holiday festivities with my daughter And I just felt like it'd be fun for us to do the show in person together And there's a possibility we may do some hanging out tonight as a social group Although that seems to also be

Everything is in question right now

Everything is in question because of this weather But I got up this morning And I got out in Portland And there was, around my neighborhood and getting to I-5, there was, I want to say, probably like six to eight inches of snow on the streets. But it was that kind of snow that's powdery enough that you can drive in it sort of, you know, basically fine. It's not, it wasn't super duper slippery.

And just so I can picture this, I mean, you live in kind of an urban part of the city, right? Yes. So a lot of cars have already been driving on it. Not so much at 6.30 a.m. So you were creating the first track?

I was not the first tracks, but it wasn't a thing where there was like bare, you know, dry pavement that had been kind of grooved, grooved from all the cars. I was I was one of the first waves of people out driving in this, but it was fine. I would. And then I got on to I.

And that was when I started to really question the wisdom of this plan Because as I was driving through Portland I kind of live, not in South Portland But a little further to the south of town So I had to drive through most of Portland on I-5 Just give us your address And I was noticing that there was also about 6 to 8 inches of snow on I-5 And because it was I-5, people had been driving in it, but I couldn't see the pavement at all. Yeah. Like, and what I was really. Was it coming down at this point? No, it's doing something worse. Snow would have been fine. It was sleeting. It was just a mist of water that was just enough that I had to run my windshield wipers constantly. Because if I let it build up and freeze, then there would be a sheet of ice on my windshield that I wouldn't be able to see through. So I'm blasting the defrost. I'm sweating already because I'm blasting the defrost. I'm trying to keep the windshield at a temperature that does not allow a thin film of water to turn into ice because then I'm really screwed. So I'm like, and I got my car worked on or I got my car serviced yesterday and they refilled my washer fluid. And I think I burned through all of it before I was out of Portland.

Yeah, I was going to say because also then you're on the highway, even if there's not a lot of traffic, Like you're getting like that accumulation of grit and grime from the street. And then if it's not the perfect level of moisture on your screen and so then it starts streaking and drying and that just drives me bananas.

I've spoken like a Midwesterner, I think, because this is not a weather situation we get in Seattle a lot. But I think, you know, you're describing it perfectly. So I'm like driving and I'm realizing like I really can't exceed like 35 miles per hour. And I'm thinking this is going to double, if not triple the drive time of getting up to Andrew's house. And so then I'm just like, but I'm already on the road and I'm like, also, I'm kind of low on gas. And as I was explaining to you before we started rolling, I now have been starting to get my gas from this casino that's in southern Washington because they have a huge gas station and I have all these points. So I get free gas from them. So like now it's become this thing where I'm trying to constantly organize my driving around. I want to be at like almost on E when I'm somewhere near this casino so I can like fill my tank with free gas.

If those gas, if those what do you call the what do you call the things that deliver the gas, the gas pumps? If the gas pumps don't have triple cherries on. Yes, exactly. I just realized I tried to make a joke. I couldn't think of the word gas pump or what do you call the jackpot slot machine? I mean, I couldn't think of either one of the things, which is my sign that I'm done. No, I, in fact, like I'm, I should be as much as I slept yesterday and last night, I should be like on top of my game. I guess I have no more excuses. Anyway, go ahead. I'm glad I added that, that bonus content.

Well, no, but I mean, but the thing, I mean, it is funny because I don't know how much is on this card sometimes. And when I say free, I mean, what cost for this one precious wildlife of mine that I've spent enough of it in the casino that they're giving me free gas it's like they're they're refunding a percentage of my time energy and money that's wasted away in this otherwise questionable environment but anyway literally part of my mind was well i need to at least get up to the casino to get my free gas and then when i get there i will assess and that's on the way anyway right it's on the way up to seattle it's probably 45 minutes north of where i live in Portland but right off the highway right off the highway super convenient and I thought I will get there I will get my free gas and then I will assess what am I doing from here and I had noticed that as I was going as I was getting into southern Washington it was a little less snowy like there was a little bit less snow on the ground and so I got my gas again I just was filled with some kind of what's a less shame some sort of excitement that i was like oh i just got 80 of gas for free on my momentum card or whatever and you're also when you're like hey i'll assess once i'm there

you're kind of like maybe i just spend the entire holiday weekend at the casino when i say my life

the thought occurred to me andrew if we didn't have to do this recording i would have probably like if it were saturday and if also stuff involving you know my daughter and christmas I have to say it's a high priority for me, but it's one of the few priorities that would completely – would cause me to not actually be tempted because I'm gassing up and I'm looking over this, which is, by the way, somehow fully operational in the midst of this storm. Oh, side note. They should run the government. Dude, all of the roads – I'm telling you as soon as I got off the exit to go to the gas station, the roads perfectly. groomed i saw two different snow plows circling like looking for snow to move because they had so perfectly grouped they were like nothing will stand in the way of people coming and losing their money at this place yeah so i'm gassing up and i'm looking over there and i'm like huh you know

but of course i didn't actually i do have a question related to that um in case you did have to stay there or a or a regular hotel or even if you made it up to seattle and checked into your hotel which i realize it's early but whatever and you couldn't have made it here to my house did you bring a backup kit so that you could have recorded and hooked up for that

exact reason yeah that's one of my fallback plans as i was noticing boy this is snowier than i thought i never felt when i was driving up here it never felt um like i was in danger like it was unsafe for me to be driving it was just slow going because of the amount of snow and then also because of a lot of other people driving really slow now listen i'm glad they were being prudent but there are people going 15 miles per hour on i-5 and it's kind of like maybe this is not the day for you to be on i-5 like going 60 would be excessive and dangerous but going 15 is also kind of dangerous in a way you know you're just like hazards on going 15 in the middle lane of i-5 is maybe presents its own sort of issue but so i i decide i've got an i've got a dose of excitement because I've gotten my free gasoline, also got a free coffee. I got $0.09 off of the coffee because of my momentum points, Andrew, not to brag.

So now have you broken even for your lifetime?

The $0.09 was the last. I was $0.09 short. Uh-huh, nice. And it put me over the top. So I get back in the car. I get my Howard Stern episode. That's like, you know, the thing they do with that show is sometimes an episode can be like three, four hours. So I was like, I got my little audio dialed up. I've got my coffee. Is it a new Stern?

I thought he would have taken a break like a month ago getting ready for the holidays and then we'll come back two years later.

He did. Oh, I actually have a story on that as well. This is I was a little behind. I had like three or four episodes that I'm trying to catch up to you from exactly. But so I'm in the car and I'm like, you know what? Let's just go for this. Worst case scenario. if it's if it's just taking forever i can stop in olympia and get a hotel room you know at a cheapo place and like just do the show from there it'll be funny content i was considering calling you and saying or like texting you and saying like if maybe we wanted to have me do the first half of the show on speakerphone in the car i was just trying to get kind of creative with how we could solve for this um but the most surprising thing happened as i continued further north as I got to around, like, Kelso, Washington. There was just no snow on the road. It just went bare and wet, but not frozen, like little puddles of water, but basically, like, no more snow on the road.

It didn't snow here last night up in Seattle. Now, we have our own issues, which we'll get to in a moment because things are really, really icy up here, but we had a lot of snow earlier in the week while you were saying it was, like, 40 degrees down in Portland, but now it hasn't snowed here in two days.

So I'm like feeling like wow Oh this is a great development I have you know there's no more Snow on the road I can make up some time so I'm Cruising up to Seattle by the way I went past two different speed Traps two cops set up doing speed Traps and my initial thought was Come on guys today Of all days but then I thought actually you know what that's probably good Like if you are day four

Were they just there ready to respond to An issue you know not that I'm Some cop apologist but it might not have been a Speed trap more of a like well oh, we're going to have a lot of issues. We have to park these along the side of the road.

I hadn't considered it that way. It's very possible that's what they were doing. They were very much in that position, like on and on ramp, kind of looking down. But in both cases, I think I was going slightly over the speed limit, and they didn't pull off. So that actually supports your point. But I also thought, you know, it's probably not a day we need people doing 80 out here. So if that's controlling the speed, it's probably not the worst thing. Then from basically from that point until I got to south center, it was mostly just wet a little bit of snow it was intermittent but again never an amount that seemed like oh gosh this is this is dangerous for me driving and i felt fine i was just mostly wanting to get to your house so i get you know off the freeway i'm coming up here and when i tell you andrew that the first time i've encountered anything today that made me truly freaked out It was your actual street I turned onto your street Which you don't have to be on for very long You're on my street for one block Off of a main road I took a deep breath I turned off the main road And I eased down onto your street And I just looked at it And it's a very gentle There's a little bit of a decline off of the big arterial And then it flattens out And you're absolutely right It's not very far, it's a block But it's just ice It's just a sheet of ice

I have never been on an ice skating rink that has better lubrication than your street. It is two or three solid inches of clear ice that is frozen. Like you could have like Apollo Ono should be out here doing short track. And there's not even any snow on top of because the snow is what helps you with having some grip, obviously. And I was like, also, there's a lot of cars parked on your street. and I was like okay Luke be the ball see the ball be the ball don't crash into any of these cars I had a vision of getting all the way up here from Portland like a few a couple hundred miles and then just deep trunking the car on your street right like 80 feet from your house in fact I almost I almost crash into your hedge yeah you know what I'm just thinking now and I wish I had

like kind of communicated this with you I wasn't really thinking about your experience coming into our street but like you probably we have like these really wide shoulders where people park by nosing into spots which is great it's very efficient you can fit a lot more cars on our street that way but you should have just probably parallel parked and like or or we even have a

driveway around the corner i should have parked i should have just parked you know at probably a few blocks away and hoofed it yeah maybe but that's okay i'm this is actually this is this

is gonna be okay i made i didn't have any side street around here we're getting text messages from all of our friends like any side street that isn't a major artillery no arterial arterial or major artillery we'll see if society falls apart i hope you have some artillery we're gonna need it to defend this castle it sounds like like in fact when we take a break here i'm gonna quickly run upstairs again and check like we have a little one of those tiny little traffic circles outside of our house and when i ran upstairs right before we started recording i already saw potentially one car abandoned in the traffic circle and one car that was just like kind of outside of our house with some people with like a wheeled luggage trying to get into some car and i'm not sure

what those people's story is but i wonder if it was a ride share i wonder waiting for some people that are going somewhere to try to do holiday travel today that's what i wonder but if i don't

be bleak i can't believe a ride share is even coming on the street it's so i know right well

it's because okay so i was entering seattle i was on i-5 i was right kind of by like south lake union and the freeway i-5 is perfectly fine i mean bare wet not even frozen i'm and i'm listening to kuow and they're announcing that all bus service in seattle is suspended until 2 p.m this afternoon um because of the icy roads and i remember thinking at that moment come on everybody let's just let's buck up it's fine like i'm i'm on the road it's fine but i had no idea these side streets so as i was making my way down i could feel myself losing control of the car i mean i was going very slowly but i was losing control of the car i coasted to a barely controlled stop right behind your car like kind of perpendicular to it and then i just eased myself into the parking spot next to your car and as i parked i thought it could be days before i can get back at it because i have to back up back onto the frozen street now here's the thing though yeah i

wish you had just pulled right you could have just parallel parking i know and i didn't either but now that i think about it if you had just like blocked our gate and this means nothing to the listeners but instead of parking properly like this even for me this is a day where you don't have to worry about being polite you know what i mean you could have just like pulled straight in parallel park and then pulled straight out later i'm a but i'm bummed about oh don't don't be bummed because this is no i'm bummed because i don't want you living here well i asked earlier how

much bourbon do you have i am going to get a chance andrew probably to test out my snow socks and those are not just some stock some snocks that i have that i like for the snow it's contagious those are did you get them at the major artillery store i did they're almost sold out of snow snocks um they are this crazy looking contraption that you fit over your tires i got them at lay schwab oh yeah thank you for the list to the listeners who recommended that apparently the kind of car that i have you don't want to put chains or cables on it i was told because if the chain flies off it could take out your braking system which raises the question is that a good way to

have the braking system set up yeah but but chains yeah i just don't what what percentage of cars of that model are sold to people who might need to put chains on them or cables you know what i mean

you can do the old school chain thing or you can do cables but apparently both of those are a bad idea so there is this thing that's like it's fabric and it has these plastic treads that are going that are sewn into the fabric and you slide those over your tire your wheel and then you pull forward a little bit and you finish Covering the wheels You're not supposed to exceed 25 miles per hour The lady, when I bought these at Les Schwab I had to go to a specific one that wasn't sold out yesterday In Portland The spiel I got from the lady Was amazing She was like, do not exceed First of all, go over there right now And I want you to scan the QR code And I want you to watch the video She was, you don't have to watch it right now, but I want to watch you scan the QR code So you know how to put these on your car I was like, okay Which I kind of appreciated I went over I scanned it and then she was like You cannot drive over 25 miles an hour On these things if you are going to A hotel do not leave them on your car overnight You take them you hang them Over the The shower curtain rod like you would your Clothes you let them dry just give me the

Whole talk about tell her you're going to a hotel what a Weird specific thing to say no I know She was like what if you're going home and you're parking In your driveway why is she obsessed with she was giving

Me every eventuality that might Happen regard I guess the idea is You don't leave the snow socks on the car Overnight you dry them in your bathroom Which seemed you know Like that's a more of a Commitment to this utilitarian thing Than I'd really expected but anyway I haven't put them on the car they're in The car and I'm thinking I'm probably Going to have to put them on my car to get out of here But we'll get to see if they work maybe we can make a hey dummies

Video for next week oh that's interesting yeah

So I guess the plan is all content my guy

Yeah yeah we'll see We'll see what that's like and like you mentioned you're nosed in to our hedges. I'm picturing us maybe trying to have to give the car a little bit of a push, but if that doesn't work out then you have old Uncle Andy pinned between the front bumper of your car and the hedges. That's where I live.

No, I don't want to do that. It'll be like Captain's Courageous at the end when Spencer Tracy has basically been taken down by a series of cables and he's sort of, the cables are basically, you know, pulling his body in half. But he's still, because the cable, he's still alive and he's giving all this he's like talking to freddie bartholomew's character and he's like being encouraging and telling this kid everything's going to be okay even though he knows that he's stoved in that's going to be you later wow but i want you to give me some inspirational advice me that's what i'm saying yeah i see you being very heroic in that and then when i pull the car away then it's it's kind of curtains for you they call me the spencer tracy of crying

is that a show title i never understood why but now i think i understand or i'm at least

getting closer to it well that's a long involved way of me saying i'm very happy to be here i just need to i can't live here because i have to run many errands in seattle today to get all

this christmas stuff handled yeah i mean in all seriousness and i'm not like trying i mean listen we have you know we were talking earlier this week a couple of times that we're all excited genevieve was going to have her kj karaoke debut with the eagles tonight and you were talking about all this running around all these errands you have to do around town which it depends on where and i'm not i'm not asking but like it depends on capital hill a noted flat oh yeah that's rough yeah i mean the thing is there are going to be major streets there that are going to be well taken care of but they're also like if you're going to little shops and stuff that are on side streets they might not even be showing up for work today like you said if all of the bus service was canceled i had heard last night that the seattle city bus service was going to be like greatly reduced by more than 50 percent then you rolled in here today saying that it's actually canceled until two o'clock that's what i heard on the that's what they said on the am radio that's a that's a severe thing so yeah like the i have huge question marks about how the rest of today

goes for any of us but this is the thing i'm also looking right now it's 29 degrees but it says it's going to get up to 40 today that's what we need rain so i am thinking and then tomorrow's supposed to get up to 48 so i'm thinking that this is the we're in the worst of it right now and that even by tonight if we get up to 40 degrees that should melt a lot of this and i've got my snow socks i'm sorry my snow snocks so i'm i'm still feeling optimistic but this is the thing that i would be into for tonight if we have to like if the eagles because you know the folks that opened like unlock the eagles live kind of far away so yeah it may not be possible to get there does

genevieve have a key uh genevieve doesn't have a key and also like it's not it might not be and again i'm not trying to be negative i'm just thinking this through there's a chance that like it would be worth them opening it if we're what if i promise to really put into that bar if they know it's you you and me and our liver is coming there maybe if they realize it might be sold out

but i was gonna say what we could do that would be really fun because we're in an area here i I mean, I'm staying downtown, but like generally this this this friend group is in a kind of a triangle of we could pick a place that is, you know, walking distance and everybody could kind of walk. We could kind of get all trapped in the same little watering hole somewhere, you know, find something that's open. Yeah, we can walk to. Yeah. And just hang out and have kind of a fun. You've talked about those kind of nights in Boston where it's like it's not exactly.

what you planned and the mobility is limited but you know you just have a a nice winter time walk to get to something which again is much safer than even being in a car being operated by a

lift driver or whatever you know i'm already thinking of one that maybe i shouldn't say it because all don't say it'll come out all the tens will come out on this night to just hang out with us doing karaoke that's a real concern of mine but yeah no i can think of places that would be

i think it'll be fun no matter what i just have to get this i gotta get this christmas thing handled because it's kind of a it's a semi elaborate plot which also involves kinkos so that ended in o's but i have to like once that's all done and like handled and i have everything because i also i don't know what tomorrow holds i guess i do have tomorrow is saturday but if tomorrow the weather is better there is a chance i could do some last minute stuff tomorrow but i don't want to leave it i don't want to leave it to literally the last day

yeah so yeah i have very little do i just have like one thing that i need to wrap but i need to get a box for it and i'm just kind of like i don't even know how i'm going to get a box you know what i mean i'm like i don't know i'll go to some you know how old i am we had um multiple boxes in here from the listeners actually that's a really good point can you repurpose one of these boxes here's how old i was about to say usually i would just go to a hallmark store and get a box do they have those anymore i remember growing up i would go to a hallmark store they still have those like literally gift shops just like suburban gift shops where you'd get wrapping paper cards and just bric-a-brac that maybe you could give to your step-aunt for Christmas or whatever. Yet I haven't seen one of those in forever.

Maybe I'm just living in the wrong place. I know there's one in Silverdale because it's next to the Safeway that we always go to during the holidays. And no, I think the Hallmark actual card store is still a thing.

Interesting. Well, maybe I'll go there.

It's sort of probably like CBS Sunday Morning in that the demo that likes it is aging, but they're keeping it in business. You know what I mean like CBS Sunday morning has killer ratings on television But I think that's to some degree a function of the fact that we We deal with the demo that still watches television

I also think there's a younger demo that's coming up that watched it I don't want to say ironically but maybe somewhat knowingly Ritualistically because their parents watched it And now it's kind of cozy for them and yeah

Maybe yeah I feel like the Hallmark store The Venn diagram overlap of people who use the Hallmark store and who watched my Hallmark piece on CBS Sunday morning is a pretty thorough circle. Yeah, that air or that about to air? It aired. Oh, nice. It aired, yeah. In fact, not to brag, but not only Holly Robbins and Pete, but Lacey Chabert both shared it in their stories on Instagram, Andrew. Wow, I don't know who those people are, but that's awesome. I'm quickly rebuilding my... Who are those people with? Well, Lacey Chabert is kind of known as the queen of the Hallmark holiday movie. Oh, okay. She was in the TV show Party of Five. She was also Do you remember Mean Girls? Oh she's the one that you interviewed right?

Yes I interviewed She got a little tetchy with the PR people near the end

Yes not so much with her but the PR people But she was also in Mean Girls She was the character who kept trying to make Fetch a thing

Okay I remember that

And so that was kind of She also was the first season of Family Guy She was the voice of Meg They switched out Megs? I think her work schedule Did not allow for doing it a second season And then, I don't think anyone knew what a big hit that was going to be Yeah, no kidding And then it became Mila Kunis

Mila Kunis You know, I have a little bit of I don't want to upset you We got enough stuff going on But one thing that I realized last night I don't have the patience to be upset today, Andrew

I've dealt with a lot already

But Genevieve was out last night With some revelers And I took advantage of that time I was puttering around here I did a bunch of laundry I folded the clothes It was a really nice, cozy night But as I dialed up an episode of The Whistler From the 1940s, my old radio show I was looking ahead to see if there were any holiday related ones Because I'm going in order I'm starting in 1942 and just going through And it's kind of interesting because one of them even said We're switching from Saturdays to Sundays And then the next episode I heard was on Sunday Anyway, I skipped ahead to like 1944 They swapped out The Whistler the whistler of the early days is like a really I'm the whistler like a really creepy weird pervy voice like that and then the guy who comes along and goes hold the O and then the guy who I heard in like the 40s is much more of a raid not quite like but it's clearly it's not as creepy and weird so I have that looking to look forward to

I wonder if that was because there was some feedback from you know Colgate or something Yeah right Oh yeah what is the I can't remember the sponsor Signal Gasoline I wonder if Signal Gasoline Wanted it less creepy Because they wanted Or if the person Who was doing the Whistler You know Retired or Went to war Went to war

Went to war, right? Can you imagine being like somewhere in Europe fighting along some guy that is the Whistler?

That would be, you're in a foxhole with the Whistler? That would be kind of upsetting.

Oh, and yes, for everybody wondering, garbage service has simply been canceled for me. Well, I'll tell you what. Can you even imagine? But the problem is I'm going on vacation for next garbage pickup, which means I'm canceling the vacation because, obviously, I can't go three weeks. Yes, of course. Priorities. Yeah. I can stay here. No kidding, dude, because I appreciate it. Oh, that's why my new roomie will take care of that.

I just turned into the Whistler. I'm just living in your house, like, peeping the garbage trucks. I'm telling you, man, my default setting for most things in life is it's not as big of a deal as people are telling you. Yeah. Whether it's putting your phone in airplane mode or something. There's a there's a comedian that I really like on. Well, I like him in real life, but I think his name is Bo Johnson. Very funny. He's from the Northwest. And I started following him on TikTok.

Not Bo Burnham. No, no, this rings it. No, I know it's not Bo Burnham, but I'm wondering if you told me about this person before. Maybe sent me something.

He's from the Northwest. I saw him once at the I was one of the judges for the lake, whatever it was, Seattle comedy competition some years ago and up in Bellingham I went to the Mount Baker Theater and was helping judge one of these things anyway this guy I think his name is Bo Johnson he is really droll and really funny I would recommend him but he if I've got his name right he was telling this joke about being on the airplane and he said that they were on the tarmac and there was something going on with the plane it was just taking they were doing something where they were just sitting there not flying and so he was bored and they were there for like an hour so he said he got his cell phone out he started kind of looking some stuff up and the person next to him said hey you need to have your phone in airplane mode and he said well right but we're just sitting here once we take off i'll put it in airplane mode and the guy said i would really feel more comfortable if you had it in airplane mode and he said i'll um i'll put my phone in airplane mode when they put this airplane in airplane mode which is a pretty good joke um But anyway, I tend to think the point of that was whether it's your phone being in airplane mode, whether it's like, you know, we're canceling bus or whatever it is. I always just think everyone's being a little bit extra overly careful with stuff. I no longer think that about what's going on in Seattle today. Having driven one block on your street. That was truly terrifying.

In fact, yeah. When we take a break here, I'm going to just quickly, really quickly run upstairs and I just want to see what's going to go with you because I'm pretty sure that there is a red small red snowball at those people. Some small red pickup truck, I think, might have just abandoned their truck in the traffic circle.

Well, our friends, I mean, I don't think that we're talking out of school, but, like, Camaro and Anita were sending pictures to the text chain. I'm not on that, apparently, because I don't live in Seattle.

It's the Wordle group, that's why.

But of just, like, cars that are just being abandoned in front of their house on their street because of the impassibility of all of this.

Yeah, I know. Also, this was a funny little exchange on this thread. I hope it's okay to share this, but Anita said, our mailbox was frozen shut for three days. Kevin pried it open with a screwdriver to get his Van Damme Blu-rays out. It was a tough week for him, to which Kevin responded, they're Don the Dragon Wilson Blu-rays.

Not to be confused with Don, not to be confused with Kick Puncher, as I was telling you from Community, yes. Don the Demon Wilson, he's this guy.

Kick Puncher, starring Don the Demon Donaldson as a cyborg cop whose punches have the power of kicks. I love that. Don the Demon Donaldson.

All right, let's take a quick break, and then, Andrew, honestly, this is a preposterous amount of mail that we have received at the TBTL PO box.

It is bananas, yes.

I mean, I feel very—you did your impression of a little miracle on 34th Street when you were dumping out all of these Christmas cards and boxes.

I literally dumped out a whole stack of Christmas cards out of a bag. Isn't that how it works in that movie?

It is. It proves that Santa is real because all of these children believe in him. It proves, Andrew, that we're real. Yeah, I know. Because all of these listeners believe in us and have mailed us mail. So we're going to open that coming up here on TBTL.

Thank you, baby.

All right, let's thank our daily donors. These wonderful folks are keeping TBTL going with their generous financial support each month. This is what keeps me in snow snocks. If I couldn't afford snow snocks at Les Schwab, I would live here now. And I think over time that would wear on you and Genevieve and probably mostly on Bingo because I would be constantly harassing him. Might be good for the show, though. I mean, a lock in like a year solid where. We're all here together. We've threatened to do that as a TBTL-a-thon, haven't we? Like, lock ourselves in somewhere for 24 hours. Yes, we have. Let's not rule that out. Yeah.

In a water tower somewhere. I know. Well, I wanted us to be on a billboard. Yeah, I think I can do that. Because I always forget that you are not stoked about heights.

Yeah. And that is, it's more than not, it's more than not snoked. It's, I, it is, the older I get, the more just absolutely terrified I am. It is a rough situation when you put me on a roof somewhere these days.

Well, we would never do that to you because Dusty Snyder of Campbellsville, Kentucky, made a caveat with this donation. Dusty said, I will donate to the show, but only if you never put Andrew on a billboard. Thanks for having my back, Dusty. Good looking out. Also, thanks to Kurt Van Dyke of SeaTac, Washington. Kurt, hope you're doing all right today. I mean, this kind of goes out to everybody on this list. Christy Elburn, especially, who's in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I have a feeling that for as, however cold and icy it seems out here, I mean, I don't think we've got anything on the Midwest right now.

Yeah, I heard that that is. My parents are preparing for a long time without power, potentially, because they have the perfect combination today, supposedly, of rain, freezing rain, low temperatures, and really high winds. Apparently the governor has been on the TV saying, lock it down, people. Well, I don't know.

Mike DeWine says lock it down. You lock it down. Hey, you know what? I give him credit. He did lock it down a couple of years ago, too. Thanks, Christy. I hope you're doing okay out there in Grand Rapids. Also, Leah Farzan is in Juneau, Alaska. Oh, now they have it easy. Notably balmy place. Yeah, yeah. Must be nice, Leah. Must be real nice up there in Juneau. Actually, I wonder about that. Like because a place like Alaska is so at this point set up for for for massive amounts of snow because it's just the reality in the winter. It's like I wonder if there is if there's an amount that could like like when this kind of stuff happens, if it actually has any kind of negative effect on folks like Leah in Juneau or if it's just like, no, this is just called another day. We have, you know, all of our roofs are a frames to shed the snow. We all drive four wheel drive vehicles We you know we've got this figured out

Basically yeah and again it's like It's these weird things it's not just snow It's these weird ice storms or whatever we're Living through right now frozen rain Which is the problem I just want to give you an update It is 12 degrees Fahrenheit Right now in Anchorage Alaska Okay a balmy 12 degrees

What's the temperature in Grand Rapids Michigan

Let me check that out do we have any more

People to thank we do we have Michelle Zeitler who's in Arlington Massachusetts where I would assume it's also not super duper warm. Grand Rapids, we have a whopping seven degrees. Seven degrees. What about Arlington, Massachusetts, where Michelle is? We're just doing... And by the way, whoever has the lowest temperature wins.

Yeah, let's see here.

If you have the lowest temperature, your steak is free.

It's 51 in Arlington, Massachusetts.

Oh my God, Michelle, you need to donate again.

51. That does not seem right. What a weird... It was snowing in Hawaii earlier this week. Did you see that? I didn't. Well, good timing, right? Aren't you going to Hawaii at some point? Everything just seems perfect with the world.

What's the temperature? Can you check the temperature in Palm Springs today?

Palm Springs. Oh, it says it's closed. Interesting.

I went to Palm Springs, and it was closed.

It's 70 degrees in Palm Springs. Okay.

Phew. Sheesh. Palm Springs is frozen over. I'm going to be one sad feller because the whole point of going down there is to try to get a little bit of warmth. Anyway, thank you, Michelle, and then thanks, of course, to Tracy Ling, who's in Linwood, Washington, which I assume is pretty close in temperature to what we're dealing with here. I'm guessing as well, yeah. Hopefully, Tracy, you live on a street that isn't just covered in three inches of frozen dog snot, because it is. Should we give these folks a quick update on what you and I just saw? Oh, my gosh, yes. During the Mountain Dew Baja Blast break? That's what we're calling it now, legally.

Oh, my God.

I haven't even heard that commercial, but it sounds like it was not really. We had some kind of Mountain Dew commercial playing that we sort of didn't approve.

Apparently it still is. Oh, no. No, it's perfect for TBTL. And not only is it a pre-roll that begins at the beginning of the show, but it's a Mountain Dew, not World of War. What's the first person shooter game? Oh, no. Is it Fortnite? No, no, no. Fortnite is not really shooter. Call of Duty. It's a Mountain Dew Call of Duty 2 promo that's beginning TBTL these days. Mountain Dewdy? Yeah. Dewdy. Yeah.

Wow. Sorry about that. We're getting that work done, y'all. We're trying. But anyway, during our Call of Duty break, you and I went outside to look at this truck situation, and it was more intense than I was expecting. You said you saw a red truck that was sort of just stopped. Potentially abandoned. And I was thinking.

thinking, well, maybe it was just somebody picking someone up or whatever, but no, no, no, it is very abandoned. That person was in the small little red truck.

You said it was a V-Dub truck?

It's like a Volkswagen. If you can picture, like, there was a period of time where you could get, like, a Volkswagen, there's that word again, Volkswagen Rabbit. And then they made a truck that kind of had the nose of a Volkswagen Rabbit. This would have been probably late 80s. That's what this truck was.

Is that definitely what it is? It looked like a little Toyota to me, but I don't really know cars that well. Oh, it's definitely a Volkswagen. It is definitely a Volkswagen.

But I don't know what that truck is called, but just imagine the front end looks kind of reminiscent of a Volkswagen Rabbit. And it's not just like- I should just say it's a Toyota so I don't have to keep messing up the word Volkswagen.

It's a Toyota. Toyota. But yeah, no, you pointed out that, oh, that thing isn't just parked abandoned in the street. This person was clearly driving down this sheet of ice that is just slightly kind of downhill outside my house and they must not have been able to stop. So they just drove their truck up onto the small roundabout traffic circle and onto the traffic circle and kind of crashed into this yellow sign that clearly went like this caution sign that went skittering, which is now kind of an hour kind of an hour front yard. And the truck is just like up on the traffic Circle completely abandoned and you And I could not we could barely walk Out there we tried to take some photos and it's like It's literally like being on an ice rink like it's not

An exaggeration I'm being serious when I Say I'm kind of shocked one Of us didn't just eat yeah shit Out there because the sidewalk Is also your sidewalk is Is really slick yeah and Then going around where my car is Is really slick and then being on the street like you And I basically took three Combined we took six chances We shouldn't have taken it But I got a photo of a truck By the way this is the truck That I was thinking of And that is out there There was a story about it The funky little Volkswagen pickup Everyone forgot about

Funky little truck

Is that your friend What do they say in that one We have our own friends Anyway thanks to all of our donors Today for making TBTL possible Well, we could not be here without you.

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 what's in the box, Brad Pitt yelling that seems so dark on a holiday episode.

We've talked about this before. Because I've never seen the movie Seven I don't have any I have no association for that So it just sounds like Brad Pitt being Brad Pitt It's cheese in the box and I hate cheese Which is why it's so dark to me

It's cottage cheese It's holiday cheese So we have I mean A veritable mountain Of holiday cards in front of us I don't know if we want to open any of those Randomly and read them We also have a whole bunch of packages here Can I just tell you So yesterday- Nice package, Andrew. Thank you. I was running out to pick up some pho for lunch, some takeout, soup to go. And Genevieve said, oh, are you going to check your TBTL PO box while you're out? Are you going to pho tic-tac? I actually wasn't. I was going to a new place that we go to that is my new, like, not just for where we live, but potentially the best pho that I've had in Seattle, which is called Lotus Pond, which is just on Aurora up here. It's really good. and I think maybe slightly more authentic and a bit of a broader menu, but anyway I don't know what made Genevieve say, hey, you're going to check your PO box but I was like, eh, I don't really feel like doing it, I was like, well, maybe it would be good for the show I'm like, alright, I'll drive the extra few blocks or mile or whatever it is I get to the post office yesterday our PO box is practically overflowing and then inside the PO box are not one, but two of the keys that lead to other big storage containers. Which is so fun, right? Which is fun. So then I'm going around with these keys looking for the right locker to open up to pull out these packages, and I'm really glad because if I hadn't checked it today, I heard somebody from the post office or somebody who used to work at the post office said, you better be a good steward of your P.O. box because if you let that thing kind of fill up, they will know and they will flag you.

Dude, that's what's going on at my apartment building right now? Every single day there's a new email from Gray Star Management saying, please, for the love of God, get your – because everyone's ordering either getting delivered because it's a present or ordering to give away as a present, all manner of thing. And the area where you're supposed to get your mail and the Amazon stuff is just massive. And I just thought all they need to do is send an email that says.

Hey, anything you find, you keep down there.

Yeah, right. I feel like that would clear it out really fast. I'll take care of it right away. So where should we begin? There's no way we'll get through all of this. We probably won't even get through all the packages.

Can we start with this box?

Yeah, so you've got a box next to you. I'm going to describe it. So it's a, you know. Not heavy, heavy, but, you know. It's about smaller than a shoe box. I don't know if it does. You should have maybe a blade over there to open that up. Here's my box. I do.

It's a brown cardboard box. It's from somebody in Lexington, Kentucky. It's from Dana in Lexington, Kentucky.

Well, you open that. I'm going to reach over and grab one of these other boxes. I want to point out that one of these boxes, the person who sent it actually took a photo of Brad Pitt from the movie Seven and cut it out. And it says, what's in the box, and taped it to the outside of the box. I saw that. What do you have over there?

I have, I'm just getting into this from Dana, but first of all, there is a handwritten note, and it says L and A. Thank you, Dana, because I feel like just because Andrew does all of the work for this segment and maintains the P.O. box, people forget that I also work here. No, it's good. That's why I'm glad that you're here for this, too. Should I just go ahead and read Dana's letter? Yeah, just make sure there are no swears. Hey, dummies. I thought I'd join the legion of tens who've sent presents to ye olde P.O. box. Here's the new P.O. box. This is all caps. What's in the box from Dana? So actually, I'm not going to read the rest of the letter right now because it describes the stuff that's in here, but I'd rather just describe it to myself, Andrew. First of all, two yellow donkeys that are kind of like a stress toy. that says big-ass fans on them. Are you familiar with the Big-Ass Fan Company? No, totally. They make big-ass fans. They make enormous fans that you hang from your ceiling. They're very designy and cool.

Oh, interesting. We need new fans. The fans we inherited with this house are not exactly the most designy.

They're very cool and designy, the big-ass fans. Dana says that they're sending this because of all the donkey talk that I was doing while I was in Tennessee. Remember when I was staying at that Airbnb with those donkeys?

That was a while back. I thought it was because, well, now I'm a big-ass fan of Dana. How about that? Yeah, you are.

Dana says, I've also included a pair of Tentucky socks for each of you and a variety of stickers to adorn your cars, laptops, fridges, what have you. So will those socks fit on your car tires? We'll see. They better because I've only got two snow snocks. I could use a couple for the back. This is some great wrapping paper from Dana. It says, Meowy Christmas. It's got cats on it. That's the energy of the show that Dana is matching successfully with that. So I'm opening this up. And look at this. This is actually pretty funny. Whoa. Okay. Socks. Thank you. Southern socks, they're called. Rock out with your socks out. These socks are from Kentucky, and they don't care who knows it. Oh, and they're matching, Andrew, so we don't have to fight over these. Oh, nice. We each get one pair. And then this is kind of great, too. Dana has included two packets of licorice. Licorice? Oh, nice. Actual licorice.

Actual licorice. I could actually eat some of this licorice. I'm kind of getting hungry. Is licorice, do you consider that a breakfast food?

Yeah, if you start early enough, I guess. Thank you, Dana. That's very nice of you. I honestly may need these socks later if I do get trapped here, because Lord knows I'm not wearing Andrew's funky socks.

Oh, this box that I have here The one that actually has a meme of Brad Pitt Saying what's in the box

Which I feel like, honestly If you get somebody working for the Postal Service Who's familiar with the movie

Yes, and they see that Does that flag it? Does that put it on some other list? Yeah, and the fact that it's sort of drippy So this is from listener Ryan This box that I'm holding here Now, he signs it though This is Ryan in Arlington, Washington but it's signed shitbox Ryan and that is because Ryan is a truck driver who told us a story or like a long voicemail or email years ago about how he was a truck driver is long hauling somewhere and had to use a literal cardboard box that was in the back of his truck as a toilet one time along the side of the road I remember that story vividly story yeah I think it may

have even been like on Snoqualmie Pass, which is, I believe, close to that.

Yeah, it better be. So the note here from it, and I haven't, I've not gone through this yet, but it says, Andrew, you may think this is just a box with a roll of toilet paper, a garbage bag, and a couple of trucks in it, but oh no, this is a genuine shitbox. Oh no. This is not the original shitbox. Okay. That's an

extremely important clarification.

This is a luxury model.

Everything wouldn't fit in the USPS medium flat rate box. So instead, I'm putting a grocery bag in a medium flat rate box to poo in. You get the luxury model, which is a garbage bag in a bigger box and a nice roll of toilet paper. If you don't remember, the episode is 3206 and the story starts at the one hour and 23 minute mark. That's where everybody wants to go back to relive that. So the truck is for you. One is for Luke. One truck is for me. One is for Luke. And there are only four of these in existence. Oh, these trucks are rare trucks. Whoa. So I will tell you this. I would, you know, I'm not going to ever poop in a box. What I will carry in the back of my truck is a gun with one bullet in it.

I'm not going to poop in a box again today. That's my commitment. Oh, this is sweet. Oh, wow.

Oh, Ryan is the same Ryan who has a very elaborate train set and has created these garbage trucks with my visage on it. And it says Walsh Waste Management, dude, garbage trucks. That is amazing.

So cool. Like, remember, we we we gave out those little garbage, you know, Walsh Waste Management garbage cans as a thank you during one of the thons. Yep. This is like the next level. This is an actual garbage truck with your picture on it peeping out of a garbage can on the side of it. Now, this I'm going to tell you, Andrew, this is a company that would come pick up your garbage even in the snow. and ice, okay? This is a reliable

garbage company. So that's why Ryan says there's only four of these trucks in existence. Oh, wow. He has one in his train set, and another one went to Erica. Did you look at the back? It says keeping the world spotless for you. Oh, no, I didn't. That is amazing. Gosh, the attention to detail. Can you quickly look up on eBay what I could get for that? Yeah. Or is that not in the holiday spirit? It's more of an Etsy thing, but

that's incredible.

Wow. Thank you. That's amazing. Thank you for that ryan um do you want to uh share something over there i do i'm gonna keep going i'm gonna

keep going with the boxes let's try to clear these out because i don't know if some of these things are perishable this one is uh from um uh well it's it's interesting i don't know maybe it'll say inside it's from something called universal yums of roseland new jersey and it's addressed to you, Andrew, at our P.O. Box. It's a Universal Yum situation. I'm thinking that a listener decided to send... Maybe order something? Something from something called Universal Yums. Whoa! Let's see. Someone thinks you deserve a treat courtesy of Universal Yums. Now, here's the thing. Okay, okay, here we go. It's... Whoa! This is from Leanna in New York City. Leanna. Leanna says, Luke and Andrew, you're probably thinking, whoa, what is this super cool box? Well, it's a universal yums box. Every month we ship boxes packed with mouthwatering snacks and candles from a different country, meaning you and your taste buds are about to embark on a delicious adventure around the world. Wondering what awesome person with exceptional tasting gifts sent you this? Find out below. And this is from Leanna who says, hey, guys, enjoy some fun snacks. Maybe taste test for holiday shows or not. Maybe hoard for yourselves. Hopefully, there's minimal cheese. Power out listener Leanna in New York City. So it's like kind of a variety box of various holiday treats. This is kind of awesome. Okay. I think it must tell us what country. This is a whole thing. This could be a winter game, Andrew. We hadn't already recorded all of them. There's a yum score for all of this. This box has a bunch of prepackaged snacks. There's salted egg yolk flavored popcorn. Egg yolk popcorn, interesting. Yeah, from a company called Pop Smile, which, okay. Then there's some potato chips that are sparkling wine-flavored potato chips from a company called Taurus. There is some truffle popcorn.

Oh, we've got to give this to Anita, by the way. Oh, yeah, Anita's our big popcorn loving friend. Maybe tonight. I mean, I love popcorn. I've never been embarrassed to mention popcorn in front of somebody because I'm like, oh, I love popcorn. And then Anita started asking me to rank the various popcorns around the city. I'm like, oh, sorry, I'm not in that deep.

I'm going to go crazy on this spicy mustard-flavored potato chips from a company called Hobsovie.

Is this a white elephant? Czech Republic. Is this where I'm supposed to kind of jump in and say, hmm, where'd those potato chips go? Honestly, let's see. Is there a lottery ticket in there?

our friendship is finally torn apart. This is really cool, though. This would be, again, what I think is that, thank you so much, Leanna. What's very cool about this is this whole... other scorecard they give you with stickers and stuff where you basically sit around and taste these things and then rank them for all these different... Nice. On all these different metrics. This really seems like the perfect thing if you're having some people over, maybe you have a couple of drinks, and then you break out this box and then you just start eating champagne-flavored potato chips and then ranking them. Nice, nice. That's exciting. Thank you. That's a really, really sweet gift. Yeah, go ahead, Luke. Can I try? I'm going to try it. Please, yeah. I'm going to try some of these. Now, should we save the egg yolk popcorn for Anita tonight? Yeah, that sounds like a nice. Maybe we can pay it as long as it's Leanna, right? As long as Leanna doesn't mind that we pay it forward a little bit. Well, I'm going to open these spicy mustard potato chips, okay? Here's what I'm going to do. I got a tube in the mail. I'm telling you, man, we got all kinds of stuff. We got a tube, like a poster tube. Good. That's the mustard one? So good, dude. Take a taste. Nah, I'm good. Thank you. You don't want a spicy mustard flavor potato chip? All right, for right now, yeah. I don't want us both eating at the same time. I might not be able to maintain. I'm already not quite on my game today, if you listen to the first 10 minutes of the show. You know what will get you right? Yeah. Spicy mustard potato chip. I don't have any water in here either. I left my water bottle in the other room. These are what Billy Corgan eats. I got a tube here, like a poster tube. And it says on the outside, in a way, and very nice handwriting, by the way, that I like, and written in a spiral around the tube. Hey, buddy, thought maybe you'd like this. Hope you're having a wonderful rainy season up there from Drew in Portland, a 10. So that's nice. So, Drew, don't try to make it up here. The streets are very icy. I know from experience, Drew. Hope you're dealing with the snow okay. And so I've opened this up, and inside here is a – look at this. It's a neighborhood map of Seattle that is, like, very kind of arty. It shows all the neighborhoods in the kind of perfect circles and ovals. I love this. You'll finally be able to know what is and isn't north of you. Yeah, exactly. Apparently, you think everything's north of you or everything's south of you? Do I think that? Well, you said yesterday on the show or the other day on the show, we were talking about spatial location. Oh, yes. And you were saying how you kind of tend to think that things are, you know, I think we were talking. Specifically, cities that aren't Seattle, I always think that they're north of me. For some reason Yeah not in Seattle But like anything Like what we were talking about The Tacoma Narrows Bridge Which goes over to Gig Harbor Gig Harbor For some reason I always pictured Gig Harbor Being north of me Not south of me Now you'll be able At least with the neighborhood This is a really cool thing Thank you Now I wonder I don't know where that came from I really want to have More of those potato chips But I feel like it's going to Tick off our listeners That don't But your voice is already Sounding better though Despite all my rage I am still just a

How'd that sound That sounded good Thank you That's all you need Thank you very much Drew in Portland Hope you're staying safe and warm You're going to open some Oh there's one more box Oh yeah you have a big box over there I have a small box over here I'm going to tell you I know what's in this box Because Garrison told me he was sending it I'm going to open it on the air Luke there's more food in this box And Garrison thank you for thinking of me You know what's in here Is my favorite flavor I hope it's okay that I spoil this Of Fritos Garrison was somewhere And he saw the return But you will eat those of the return of the barbecue-flavored Fritos. And so we have two snack bags, which this will last me all week because I like to preserve my treats. Oh, God, I love barbecue Fritos. Have you ever had one? I have not. Do you want to try one, or does it not sound appealing to you? No, I would love to chase a mustard potato chip with a barbecue Frito. Give that a taste. I really like... Now, you're not a huge flavor blast person, so this might be a little flavor blast. I'm not, but I want a bite of this. Okay, hold on. Let me see. Now, I will tell you, I've got to clear my palate with some coffee. Do you need more coffee? Because we have a thermos of coffee. I'm good. I just wanted to have something in between the mustard potato chips from Liana and the barbecue Fritos from Garrison. Yeah, thank you, Garrison. Thanks, Garrison. You know, I think so. I didn't even look. I've been waiting for this package from Garrison for days. Yeah, Garrison, who's in Chapel Hill, North Carolina These chips came from the East Coast, Luke From the Mid-Atlantic God, that's good I'm also very hungry today Yes I really do You know, when I was in that The casino gas station Getting my coffee They had a whole fresh thing of JoJo's They'd just put out Are those like those cakey potato wedges? Yeah And I was like You know, it was like 7 in the morning I was like, it's a little early for me in JoJo's But I was I'm surprised you like JoJo's I do I do well you know It's like a fried delicious potato Thing does a Jojo Necessarily mean that it's kind of got that Battered like I like Battered stuff I mean I Don't think well somebody might be

able to clarify i don't think of them as being overly battered it's it's more just like you've cut a potato up into wedges and you've deep fried it and put a bunch of salt on it and flavoring um but i think seeing those jojos and not getting them driving up here has me famished because i'm

like these barbecued fritos are incredible i love those things yeah i when you look up jojo you uh you land on a page for an american singer named jojo so that's interesting too um here jojo potatoes um yeah i see and they they can be seasoned yeah i see varying degrees of seasoned i for me if i'm going to eat a jojo i need it to be very seasoned on the outside because they are so kind of thick and cakey i like uh i like a slimmer potato of a french fried potato if you will um garrison thank you for that appreciate it garrison can i um wait do i have to give you

back these no no yeah and then you have one i've got one here yes and uh again it's one of these ones where, on the outside, it is from a company in Woodbridge, Illinois, called Ink Cards. I'm going to find out here

on the inside. And I think that specifically had both of our names on it, too. It did. Good. It did. Thank you. I feel very included and seen. Oh, and here's a little, here's a card. Wow, a hand drawn card for just you, Luke, from Carmel. It says Happy Christmas from a Muckle 10. Nice. We thanked Carmel on the show recently for being a donor. I'm still not 100% sure that I am saying their name right, but that's a beautiful illustrator.

Oh, that's really cute. Yeah. Love this. Thank you very much. Now, just happy holidays. Got some dogs on it. This is a Christmas card from our dear friend, Ryan. So what it is, is it's a... Ryan in D.C.? That's right. It's a container of peppermint bark from the Hampton Popcorn Company. Nice. And then a really cute card of Ryan and Rachel and Sir Pico. Here's what Ryan says. Luke and Andrew, wishing you a season filled with love, joy, and cheer. Thanks for being some of the best imaginary friendos on the planet with your daily banter and randomness. We had an awesome time seeing Wait Wait at the Wolf Trap, and Rachel even gave it top billing over Steve Martin and Martin Short Rachel. Whoa. Let's not get crazy. I think a ten hood might be in her future. Andrew, happy belated birthday. I love being a 10. A scrub jockey and a member of the Ad Council. Look forward to your hilarious crafted newsletters. No Mountain Too Tall power out from our friend Ryan in D.C. and also Rachel and Sir Pico. Thanks, Ryan. That's really sweet. Appreciate that. That's so kind of you. You know, I had a whole plan for today, Andrew, which was after I got the, like, ran the errands I was supposed to run, I was going to go check into my hotel. Then I was going to probably try to hit the treadmill. I'm not even kidding. Because I've been really indulging in holiday food, and it's been cold. I haven't been getting out for as much running as I would feel better about. And we're going to be out tonight and probably having a few drinks. But I feel like all of this delicious stuff that's being sent to us that I'm now just consuming on the air, it's really sapping my willpower. Or something like the way my brain works is as soon as I eat a few mustard-flavored potato chips and barbecued Fritos, I'm like, what am I? Why would I even get on the treadmill today? It's like, it's over. This is a lost day. A different kind of person would say, well, you could enjoy those, and then you could be on the treadmill, and then you could eliminate those calorically from your experience. But that's not how my brain works.

This is really sweet. We got a note here. And, again, we can't open all of these. We have literally probably. Do you think we have 100 cards there? A lot. 50 to 75. A lot to vary. We got a note here from Danielle that says this is to both of us and it's a very cute little car that's in the shape of a mug of cocoa with some whipped cream on top and it says, hi friends, wishing you both an amazing holiday season. Thanks for all the great entertainment every day and bringing a smile to all of our days from Danielle. And there are these custom made, I believe these are stickers although I could be wrong about that, custom made little TBTL stickers or doohickeys. One of them says hay dummies on it cute a couple of them say hey dummies so these are stickers or maybe i can yeah i think they're stickers if not i'll use tape i can stick them to my skateboard and when i get a

skateboard um that's really sweet thank you thank you i've got uh one here from doesn't say exactly on the return address but it's a christmas card from sarah in the bay city now the problem with me naming everywhere the bay city is i'm not totally clear on which bay city it is uh but sarah says to the two best imaginary cobros anybody could ask for um i hope your holiday season is filled with 360 spins and slam dunk pointers thanks for the podcast in my ear holes brings me so much joy love sarah in the bay city ah sarah thank you so much actually i think sarah might be in in idaho oh oh yeah the bay city well actually i'm i'm What the... Try to figure out this card Without giving away too much of Sarah's personal details First of all, look at the stamp Oh, it's a Halloween stamp But I mean where it was processed Oh, okay, yeah, yeah It says Salt Lake City Return address looks like it says Montpelier Montpelier

Idaho, though

I didn't know that was a place

Or maybe that's a VT But it looks like an ID to us I don't think so I'll look that up But speaking of the Bay City, did you hear that Salt Bay was back in the news after the World Cup because he was making an ass of himself down on the pitch or the field, apparently? Now, I listen to the Dan Lebitard show, which has a couple of people who are very, very much football. Mike is very football obsessed, right? Yes, and this guy Chris Whittingham, even more so, who's very proper and everything should be respected and the World Cup trophy should be very much respected. And apparently Salt Bay somehow got himself down on the field and was like trying to either touching or trying to touch the trying to touch the cup. And it apparently really flipped some people out because you have literally former players in the stands watching their team win. Yeah. And they're not allowed. But somehow Salt Bay is out there making an ass of himself. Like because you pour salt. Yeah.

Doing a funny thing with your arm. Yeah. You're like cutting the line to be up there. Yeah. I saw him, I saw some of those photos that were basically like Elon Musk, Jared Kushner, and Salt Bae are there. Oh, God, yeah. Like, what a dynamic trio.

All right. Should I read one more card here? I don't know how long you want to go or how long we can go. I'll go for a while. I got a lot of chips here. Got a nice homemade card, an arty card that says TBTL on it from Hillary who says, hey, guys, I'm a relatively new 10. I assume that's 10 years or so. I'm a relatively new tenant, and I wanted to say hi and happy TBTL-a-days. I'm an artist from Portland, Oregon. Wait a minute. And I love wrapping up my work days with you two, who I feel like are friends. Thank you so much for all the fun. Love, Hillary.

And it's cute because, Hillary, you can see the TBTL on the other side of the cart is hand-made and hand-glued.

Yeah, and this is a real piece of art. And so, again, I ask you, what do you think the resale value of this is? Or do I have to wait for Hillary to become even more famous?

We've got to get her to sign it, but we've got to come up with it. Yeah, well, I got the signature down here. Okay, we need it on the front, though, probably, just based on some of the stuff I've seen. Sure, sure. Now, Andrew, we got matching cards from Elena Flores, who's down in L.A. Yeah, great. So mine is addressed to Lukles Magookles, so I think it means Elena likes me more.

Mine is to Andrew Walsh. That's okay. Elena is in the biz down there. Oh, Hollyweird? Hollyweird, yeah. Yeah, I follow Elena on Instagram. Whoa, this is cool. Oh, a TBTL ornament. Oh, wow. Yes. This is beautiful. This is amazing. I one time misdescribed, and then Elena sent me a long email explaining it. Now, that was two years ago, and I'm going to get it wrong again. But Elena is a, I'm going to say like a wardrobe coordinator, but I think that's the wrong title, and I apologize for getting it wrong again. Costume designer? Yeah, a designer. But definitely a designer, yeah. And so that's why it's really interesting to follow Elena.

I've got this note from Elena In terms of career I've had two feature length films I costume design released this year The first Righteous Thieves Has hit the festival circuit Will most likely be available on a streaming network Sometime in 2023 And the second is called 1660 Vine It's a movie musical that was filmed Back in June and July This is a Oh my god look at this And there's all these pictures of Elena Thank you Elena No, we really appreciate this. This is really sweet of you.

And congratulations on everything, too. Yeah. You know, I'm following these people from afar, obviously, but it looks like Elena has had a real banner year, and so that's really awesome.

And also had a surgery this year, a vision-correcting surgery that was, Elena says, 25 years in the making. So hope that that has turned out exactly as you were hoping. Just so you know, Elena, Andrew is hanging the TBTL ornament that you made here in the Sauna of Sound, and it looks great. We are really building up quite the collection of TBTL ornaments thanks to these very creative and talented listeners of this show.

Yeah, we're going to have to start to have a two-tree family where we have one that is for TBTL.

I'm going to have to come up with a creative solution because I do that other kind of tree that I don't really hang ornaments on. Yeah. But excuse me, mustard potato chips coming back on me. But I could definitely create some kind of other thing that I put up in my house at Christmas time that just is where I hang all of the ornaments and TBTL related things that folks have sent in. You want to knock out a couple of more before we try to dig my car out of?

That's going to be a thing situation. And let's see here. I got we have matching cards here from Sarah says, happy holidays. My favorite podcast co-bros. It says meowy Christmas and a furry new year. And we each got one of those. Thank you very much, Sarah. I'm trying to think where Sarah coming at us from. No. Oh, yeah. There's a return address. I'm going to read the entire address here. Oh, New York City. Get a card. Ha.

That's the second person checking in from New York City. Meanwhile, I was in New York City two times, and I didn't run into any of these people. Well, you ran into 110 there, I believe, right? I did, although that 10 doesn't even live there. It was just visiting. We got a really nice card from listener Sarah, who says, Ahoy, ahoy, Luke and Andrew. I'm a relatively new listener since 2011 or so. I thank you for this podcast. Seriously, I love the sense of humanity and community I get from TBTL. Okay, enough sincerity. I wish you both a new year of tacos for dinner, productive puttering, and kittens. Heart's listener, Sarah, who says, P.S., Baytown, where I currently live, has a giant Buc-ee's. Hit me up for your beaver nugget needs. Do you know about the beaver nuggets? I do not. That's not just a thing you can get on Aurora, Andrew, at the various locales. That is this, it's sort of Buc-ee's version of, I guess, caramel corn to be, but it's not, it's not popcorn. It's like, you know, corn pops, the cereal. I do. I don't think I've had it, but I. You can picture it. They're these little puffed pieces of corn. If you took corn pops and you coated it in some very kind of addictive, sweet covering of like caramel. I don't know what something like caramel corn. That's what beaver nuggets are. And it's I think from having been there and doing I think done a story, it might be the most popular thing that Bucky's. You know, they're like the biggest gas stations. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They've got, like, I mean, it's, like, as big as a Costco, and the Beaver Nuggets are probably their best seller. Really? Meats up. Meats up. Yeah, what is it?

Fresh brisket on the board. Who, there is somebody famous who is in a 90s era pops commercial, corn pops commercial. I want to say it's not Aaron Paul. That's the wrong name. Who's the guy who is in Breaking Bad? Aaron Paul. Aaron Paul, I believe there's a famous commercial of him before he was the Aaron Paul that we know today, saying, I gotta have my pops.

Have you ever seen Aaron Paul when he got on The Price is Right and he was losing his mind?

Oh, yes, I forgot about that. And again, before famous, right?

He's not famous, and he said at the time that I think he was very, very kind of financially insecure, let's say. And so getting to be on that show and winning some stuff was, like, huge for him. Wow. But it's just so interesting to see somebody like that and to think the way that our perception shifts around someone from when they're not famous, they're just a person on The Price is Right, to like now they've been on this show, Breaking Bad, and it's so great and whatever. Like, it was just an interesting little kind of snapshot of his life before all that other stuff happened. Yeah, yeah. All right. Let's each do one more card. Okay, and then do we do music for your weekend? Yes, we do. Okay. and by the way I just want to say thank you so much to everyone who sent us stuff a box or a card or a postcard or whatever it might be it is so incredibly nice and when we're done here we will open the rest of these and read all of them so there's just and this is a very I guess you could say privileged problem for us to have but there are actually more things than we can open here without this show taking about four to five hours so thank you thank you thank you so much if you sent us something We will open it and we will look at it And we will appreciate you So just know that is happening Thank you

Let's see here Do you want me to open this one This is from listener Brandon Who's I recognize this name Been writing it for a long time In Milton, Washington Come on Luke Have a great holiday What you do is so important No mountain too tall Oh look And it's a Marry everything As in M-E-R-R-Y It's not advice to say Get married to everything Luke I thought I might want to Somebody gave me that advice years ago. Make that very clear. It's been financially really good. It's got our faces on it. Oh, my gosh. That's very, very cute. It's got kind of the old TBTL logo with our faces with holly all around it and pine cones. It's very sweet. Thank you. Thanks for being part of the show for so long, Brandon.

I actually have two more. We've got this one from listener Kelly who says to Luke and Andrew, peace and love, peace and love. Wishing you all the best from TBTL friend Kelly H. And then I grabbed this other one at random That's addressed to Andrew Walsh Care of TBTL

Do you want me to open it?

Well I already opened it And I realized why it was only addressed To Andrew Walsh of TBTL Because I think I might be slightly dead to this person

Let's see here It says all you need is pug Happy Christmas With love

Baxter's. This is from Bean and Donna. Bean and Donna Baxter. I've been very neglectful of our WhatsApp chats, and I think that I'm being punished by Bean by not being mentioned in the holiday card.

Oh, this is really sweet. You know what? There's a picture of the queen and her pug on the back. You know what? I was wondering if Bean... First of all, the fact that Bean knows our P.O. box means he's been kind of listening to the show, which I really appreciate. And I had an intrusive thought about Bean the other day. And I thought, I wonder if he didn't love some of our chat around the queen passing away well apparently he was not mad because he sent you he said or donna sent you or the pug yeah it looks like they both put a note on here that's really sweet thank you thank you so much someday i'll be friends with them again and there

might be another one in that pile somewhere i think i'm i think i'm on the naughty list for that anyway thank you again so much um everybody uh who sent us a card that's just like the sweetest thing and just another reminder uh for us that we are so lucky to get to do this we do not deserve we do not deserve this level of kindness from you all the listeners so thanks we love you and appreciate you all right a little music for your weekend andrew before we uh i'm not even kidding i may need your help with the snow yeah i think you are gonna need that um let's see here i don't

have a holiday related uh well i do so why don't we either go with you first and i i have a nice i'm gonna go last how about i go last well because i don't have a holiday related song you know let's Just skip me today, if you don't mind, because I sort of feel like after all of this, I, I, you know, I didn't have a I haven't been listening to a lot of holiday music. I've been mostly listening to The Whistler, which I'm happy to play an episode of The Whistler for you here. But they're about a half hour long. And after doing all of this, I sort of feel like my indie rock doesn't really probably fit here today. So let's just stick with the holiday songs that you and the listeners have picked out.

All right. I actually don't know if the song from the listener is a holiday song. I don't think it is. Oh, okay. So how about we play that one next, and then we'll kind of wrap things up. I do have a Christmas or a holiday-related song that I would love to play. Maybe we can go out with that if that's okay. So we'll go with Steve's one? We will go with Steve's one here. Steve's one. Let me jump to... I have it here if you want. I've been banned from your printer now since you moved homes, and so I don't have my little handy... I don't think so. I think that thing is just a little bit weird. Here's what Steve says. Of all the things TBTL has given me, learning about steady holiday, From an Instagram ad that Andrew saw, this was on TBTL episode 3318, has got to be right near the top. Their latest single comes out next Monday. I think that that would be like maybe this Monday. I think it's like one or two Mondays ago. But they recorded a live acoustic version ahead of the official release, and it's absolutely amazing. I've had it on repeat for over an hour today. I know that move, Steve. So Steve wants to play a song called The Balance by Steady Holiday. Now, do you remember suggesting Steady Holiday back in the day?

You know, it's funny that Steve mentioned the Instagram ad because that that is what I always think of first that. Yes, I do remember there was a song called Tangerine that I was like literally flipping through Instagram. And there was something that was like a clip of the video. And it was just like visually stunning because of the colors that were used. You know, I love big, blocky, bright colors. And and so I hit play on it. I'm like, I love this song. And then I started listening to some Steady Holiday. And now but I was I've lost the thread on them. So this is really interesting. So this is a YouTube video, and it looks like Steady Holiday, which is two people here, at least in this incarnation, playing an electric guitar, an acoustic guitar. It looks like outside of a house somewhere as maybe chickens and dogs wander around them outside. It's called The Balance.

Time didn't matter A lifetime ago I took for granted What I didn't know Things like time You can't stop it It goes one way It's a lot to manage time. When you have it, take a moment. Gotta learn the balance. Love was a train wreck a lifetime ago.

Yeah, this is really beautiful. I'm looking forward to hearing the in-studio version, Although this is charming as hell to see their little dog out there with them and these chickens wandering around pecking while they're performing. This is really, really cool. We've got to do your. Remember you used to do the, you did like front porch music sessions in your own house?

Oh, yeah. That was fun. That was fun, yeah. We should try to figure out a way to get back to some version of that at some point. I was driving last Saturday in Portland, Andrew. I was driving home from a Christmas party, and I was listening to Sound Opinions. I haven't heard that in forever. I still love that. Jim Cott and Jim DeRogatis. Yeah. Actually, is that true? Was it Sound Opinions? I think it was Sound Opinions. But it was one of those shows And they were having somebody on who comes on every year To just recommend Christmas songs That may not be on folks' radar And this person Suggested a song that I Had heard before but I guess I had just Forgotten about it in fact who knows if I brought this up On the show before or not but there is A song by Prince called Another Lonely Christmas are you familiar with this? I don't think so not off the top of my head This was the B-side to I Would Die For You In 1984 so imagine this Like, you go out and you buy maybe the ca-single of I Would Die For You, and the flip side is a Christmas song, which is, or at least a song by Prince that mentions Christmas, right?

That makes sense. Or probably, you know, releasing it around the holidays. Like, I kind of, that harkens back to a, that gives me a very warm feeling. I remember I had a friend who worked in a cassette store at the mall, and I remember buying ca-singles from there and, yeah, tying it into the season as well.

Apparently, Prince was actually kind of a Christmas fan. Somebody was saying he enjoyed having a studio decorated with Christmas lights, but he wasn't really into like traditional Christmas songs. Like there's not a version of him doing like Santa Claus is coming to town, all princified or whatever. Anyway, in 1984, he performed Another Lonely Christmas at a concert on December 24th. He played a matinee show at the Civic Center in St. Paul, Minnesota. Okay, so he came in from Chanhassen, where he lived, where Paisley Park was. And as he comes back from this concert that he played in the daytime on Christmas Eve day, right, he was greeted by protesters who were upset that Prince had been performing his sexually charged music on what they considered a religious holiday, the day before Christmas. And this person that was with him said, we did an early show that day, Christmas Eve, because Prince wanted to be respectful of people's desire to spend Christmas Eve with their family. So they played a matinee show so everyone could go have Christmas. They get back to Paisley Park, and people are holding signs up that say, Prince of Peace, not Prince of Porn.

Oh, you dirty birdie prince.

So the next day, or the next concert he played was December 26th, and it was at the St. Paul Civic Center. And that night, he actually performed. So I slightly misspoke before. The Christmas Eve concert, he did not play this song. The only time he ever played this song live Another Lonely Christmas Was December 26th At the St. Paul Civic Center And somebody who knew him By the way he played this after playing Baby I'm a Star And before he played Purple Rain And somebody said This was kind of Prince's mental and emotional state On this December 26th Because he liked Christmas He was playing this concert And then he comes back to Paisley Park And people are calling him the Prince of Porn And he's just feeling kind of dejected And emotionally separated from maybe the Christmas vibe So anyway, this song is so good I don't know if you could even call it a Christmas song But it is a song by Prince And I have now been listening to it incessantly for the last week

Also, there must be a pornographer out there Who calls himself the Prince of Porn Like, how does that person feel? Like, hey, I've worked hard to earn this name The Prince of Porn Now you're giving it to this musician Who's already accepting heaps of praise for his music

Exactly, spare some for the rest of us Exactly So that is how we're going to wrap up today's show Is Another Lonely Christmas by Prince That'll bring us to the end of this broadcast week Thank you so much for listening Thanks for being part of TBTL Enjoy the Winter Games We'll see you very very soon Like how about Monday for more Imaginary Radio Until then have a great weekend Stay safe Put those snow snocks on And please remember no mountain too tall And good luck to all

You are the only one I can. Remember the time we swam naked in your father's pool? Boy, he was upset that night. Boy, was it ever coming. Remember that night we played with Keaton for money? Did you rob me blind? Remember how you used to scream so loud Cause you hated that number nine Hey, I saw your sister skating on the lake This afternoon Good heaven, how she is She's so tall But oh Your father's children Oh, your father's children, baby You are the finest of them all

You are brighter than another star And I am happy

It's like Christmas, except happy

Power out

Thank you.