Muse

Uh, they said, you know what, we need to have a third interview with you because the notes from the social worker is that you seem anxious, high-strung, and eccentric. Yeah, that's what I do. That's the cornerstone. It's the business plan. TBTL! I feel like that pizza.

Oh, this is the best pizza in a cup ever. This guy's unbelievable. He ran the old cup of pizza guy out of business. People come from all over to get this.

Well, I just wanted to say a friendly hello in an unfriendly way. Hello.

It's the story of a man with a brothel of a home in a pool filled with human excrement.

Would you say that to Tom Petty? You wouldn't say that to Tom Petty, would you?

When you get there, this is what you will see on the screen. And there's a little arrow over there. You press it, and congratulations, you're listening to a podcast.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Thursday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Spock, sabotage the system. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. Dolphin at Lee. Coming to you from the Hollywood Broadcast Center right here in Portland, Oregon. A kind of gray, somewhat chilly January day. We've got a great program in store for you. I can feel it. I know because both of the stories that we're going to discuss here on episode 3862 in a collector series.

Let the fun begin.

We were trying to talk about them yesterday. and I've had even more time now to marinate and really just reflect on these top stories and I think they're just gonna just change your life I don't want to oversell it but I'm saying your life will probably be different after listening to the next hour or so of podcasting I mean by definition your life will be different anyway it would be different if you didn't listen to the show your life is always going to be different an hour from now because there's been one more hour of stuff right But maybe it's going to be different for the better. Okay, I've already over-explained this. The point is we want to talk about pizza boxes.

It's cheesy, it's delicious, and kids go nuts for it.

And also, the AI program that can write a perfect Nick Cave song.

Does this sound like our musical robot?

Nick Cave of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds is not super stoked about that. Also, I just found out that there's an actor that is in two things that I've watched, and they're very different characters. Now, that's interesting. I don't know if you're familiar with how acting works, but a lot of times these actors, they'll be one kind of way in one thing, and then they'll be in a different thing. And they'll be, like, in a totally different character. So, I told you, it's going to be a great hour. Also, it's the Blur's Days, because it's a Thursday. so we'll do those as well and we'll talk to this young man the longest running cobro of the show may be best known for his depictions of the tall ships we've prayed a special braid a braid called andrew walsh and he's joining me right now good morning my friend good morning luke i was just

thinking like in the last i don't know 60 seconds as you were getting ready to introduce me that's how i that's how i described the intro well the show begins with an audio montage then luke talks for three minutes trying to figure out how to introduce me then when he realizes how to introduce me he wraps up his commentary and introduces me please welcome god's one and only voice of comedy andrew walsh on this end by the way that was completely in sync and wonderful audio i was gonna say though i actually i have i am starting the show today with like too many things i want to ask you about or tell you about but none of them rising to the level that i'm confident that any of them are that great but like they're things i legit want to talk about you know what i mean like it's just like as as human beings these are things i want to talk about with you as a i guess As entertainment content? As entertainers, as producers, as programmers.

I'm not sure that it's the right move. Any of these topics. As our dear friend, I believe Don O'Neill once said, you know, you get to the universal through the specific. So if you are interested in asking me these questions, I feel like there will be something universal and entertaining about my answers.

Okay, well, let me start. Okay, a couple of things. Or we can cut it all out. Or we'll call it, as Don O'Neill once said, cut it all out. Oh, hey, by the way, speaking of cutting it all out. And we're off and running. Good, yes.

I'm sorry. I just want to, can I mention something and I don't.

want it to feel like i am being in any way critical what a horrible way to set this up what a horrible way to set this up my choices or choices of people in general a choice that you

made that i was i was five percent just surprised by i hate this what okay that audio that we played at the top of the show yeah uh which i sent you last night i was on tiktok as is my oh you liked the end i the main part that resonated with me can i play it again i've got it here i'll play the full and this is like i i don't want to start down a road of of of second guessing you because you and i andrew there's no one i've ever met or that's grammatically incorrect i've never met someone who i am more simpatico with when it comes to radio choices yeah radio choices audio where to end something what is funny like we are like so and it'll be it'll be actually shocking sometimes because I'll have a thought about something and then without even prompting it you'll just go oh you know what I was thinking we should do this or that and I'd be like that's exactly what I was thinking did we just become best friends so this that was Maria Bamford at the top of the show it was from a stand-up comedy whatever special of hers we love Maria Bamford and I'll just play if I can the full thing

but we need to have a third interview with you because the notes from the social worker is that you seem anxious, high-strung, and eccentric. Yeah, that's what I do. That's the cornerstone. It's the business plan. And then they found out in the meantime, they said, oh, we found out I was a comedian. They said, oh, it's fine. We get it. Okay, we get it. You know, would you perform for our benefit? oh i see dirty monkey not okay but dirty monkey dance

that made me laugh because i think i have on occasion in my life felt that same way not that i suffer from mental illness as maria bamford has been very public about but that sometimes the things about me that are annoying are too annoying for people like i.e. potential employers and sometimes it's exactly what they want and that's sort of like

dirty monkey no good dirty monkey dance i feel i'd like it's not surprising to me that that resonates with you and also i think like the drop dirty monkey dance like at the end there like i've isolated that for future use as well but like for some reason as intro tape and i'm not saying i'm right here because sometimes when you send me something you're like hey use this or don't like you know it might be good it might not second set of ears thing but every now and then we'll have conversations like well i think we should maybe cut it here and like you said we're always in agreement but sometimes you know we come to these things differently and i don't think there's a right answer or a wrong answer but my thought process on this one because i even thought i'm like i wonder if i wonder if luke would make the same decision to cut it where i cut it but it sort of felt it already felt very random like the fact that he's starting in the middle of an um and is setting up i'm assuming this is a job interview but i'm not even 100 sure of that i kind of know that more from her backstory i haven't heard the context around this though and it just seemed like two separate ideas and honestly going back to don o'neill although maybe turning out in his head wow it sort of felt like the first part was like was relatable sort of to everybody and captured the vibe of our show where the second part was very specifically about a stand-up comedian's experience and there were just like two different things and it seemed a little confusing it seemed a little confusing to throw the whole thing at the front of our show that was my decision i think

i think that there's i think there's wisdom in what you are saying um and i think you probably made the right call i think it's just this is totally a difference in like lived experience and how we just perceive ourselves i just feel like i'm a dirty monkey who sometimes is so you're right it's not relatable to like the average tbtl listener who hasn't felt like a dirty monkey that someone is saying they should dance um but it was highly relatable to me and so that was why i kind of latched onto that um but now we've you know what it's like a top chef thing when they're like we're gonna do we're gonna do salmon two ways and then you've you know like we just got to do that audio two ways so we heard the we heard the intro tape the way you put it or put it together we heard the full thing and now we also now dirty monkey dance is part of the canon so we can play it at a different time everybody wins this while we're here while we're on this topic of the

decisions that we make in intros and i don't know this i i have a feeling this might be somewhat interesting to some of our listeners who've listened to the show over and over and things sound you know like we have our patterns and our patterns and whatever and you think like you know well they just grab a bunch of tape and they put it in there but when you and i are doing sound checks like you grab your drops that you'll you'll drop in while you're Thank you. talking right kind of live for lack of a better word and you and i do a sound test on all of those so you do kind of a sketchy a sketch version of your intro before we get rolling so i can hear all those drops and how they match your voice and sometimes you'll be like oh you know this one drop i realize it kind of doesn't go right coming after that other drop and and it's like you have these sort of unsaid rules that make sense in your brain nobody would be able to identify them except for maybe me like i can sometimes be like the only person and not even always so like you you might

If I got one call from prison, it would be to you. And then it would just be to say, which drop should I play next?

Which drop should I play from prison?

It would be a weird use of my one call.

I'm Captain Crunch. Terrible Captain Crunch impression from me. But that is the drop you should play there. But anyway, so you have these little kind of unsaid rules. You'll be like, oh, you know, I just played one that's kind of the same. Literally, like, you like to keep them kind of short during your intro. And so, like, if you play a long one, you don't want to play another long one in a row.

Or two people yelling in a row.

Yes, yes, exactly.

Or like just, yeah, they're completely idiosyncratic and made up by my brain. But there is a weird set of rules to what those drops will sound like.

And when I was throwing today's intro together, which I had to do kind of quicker than usual because I kind of started it right before you're going to dial me up. And so I was like, oh, don't over don't overthink this little montage at the top of the show today. But I'm only thinking of this because you kind of raised it like these decisions that we make, and we're not really thinking about them at the forefront of our mind. But I'm remembering when I was grabbing some tape that might be good for the montage after the Bamford tape, I grabbed what you heard in the intro, which was it's the story of a man. What is it from Last Man Standing?

It's the story of a man with a brothel of a home and a pool full of human excrement.

Yes, exactly. i said last man standing that's not what that's from is from the was last man on earth last man

on earth yeah exactly if if that had been in the tim allen show last man standing maybe the woke

mob would have canceled him yeah exactly um but then i also had this drop which can i find it here uh um it's it's it's the journey the god is it ted koppel that i have saying something like it's a journey to god only knows where here that's i love it or hate it it appears to be another

irreversible step along mankind's journey toward god only knows what so i did that's ted koppel

yeah so i did a bad job of imitating both of these drops i'm referencing but i was about to put them back to back and i was like no no they're the same like i don't have a name for whatever this drop style does in a montage coming in like maybe as the second drop but like they both describe something you know there's something about it's the story of a man and it's a journey to god only knows what like they right they serve the same purpose and i can't explain what it is

but you know what exactly what you're talking about these seemingly random pieces of audio actually serve some sort of purpose in the order that they're in and what they're saying you like you could use either one of those you don't probably need both of them yeah and you also always end the montage with something that feels like we're teeing this up now like it's something that is saying this is a thing that is about to happen and now we're tuning into it like and however that's exactly happening in the drop there's always a kind of like and here we go sort of momentum to the final little piece of audio that plays before i start talking and i can kind of i can tell if it's one i've never heard before i'm like okay this is the one because now you got to get ready to talk yeah this is now me talking time because the drop that I just heard is definitely one of the ones Andrew would pick to to to indicate that now it's time

for the show to really begin and I don't think I always did that either I think if you were to go back like when I first started making these in 2012 or 13 or whenever I started doing these I think you would hear a lot more awkwardness like I remember at one point being like why am I ending this montage with like an insult like what a terrible way to set you up to start talking you And so you're right. Instead, we try to find things that's like, boom, you have a podcast, or I'm putting my headphones on. I'm ready. Let's go, or something along those lines. So anyway. Well, now that we've gotten that out of the way.

I'm awake now. I'm glad that our friendship survived my old query. Wild criticism? I wasn't even a criticism. You son of a... It was more of a question than a criticism. It was more of a comment than a question than a criticism. Okay, what were the questions that you wanted to ask me that may or may not... I mean, I don't know if they're going to be more entertaining than what I just had us do.

I know. Well, you know, some people charge for their masterclasses. We just offered a masterclass in podcast intro production.

But if you don't unsubscribe, we will automatically bill your card.

Yeah, right. I was billing you while I was talking, in fact. I also have a TED Talk on that. But, okay, this is, I don't want to. start by getting you defensive but I got a lot of emails that I found very interesting as somebody who's interested and as I believe you are as well in in marketing trends that Reader's Digest advertisement sort of an insert advertisement that was that I I got in my latest edition of of Reader's Digest and it's one of those things that it's kind of like a flyer that's tucked in there with the magazine and it almost has a it almost has a magazine feel to it itself um it began with it was for these tomato grow boxes and it said my neighbors laughed but when they saw my tomatoes they wanted one of their own or something along those lines that's a um that's a paraphrase but anyway i got several emails and um notes from listeners saying that's kind of a a marketing insider not joke so much but a reference that goes back to some guy named john caples if i'm saying that right it could be coples but i doubt it john caples uh he's known as a pioneer of of direct marketing advertising and one of the most famous ones was they laughed when i sat down at the piano but when i started to play and then it goes into this like art you know quote-unquote article this is from 1928 by the way wow is it for some kind

of learn how to play the piano yes I believe

so it says that and I'm reading here from something called campaign live.com the long copy tells the story of Jack who delivers a flawless performance of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata at a musical evening stunning his friends who thought he couldn't play a note I think I'd read somewhere that this was oh here 1925 not 1928 but apparently when you're kind of writing copy in this way that was potentially a bit of a copywriter's knowing nod to this thing that kind of comes back almost like almost like a hip-hop artist like remixing something you know what i mean that gets used in

this in this way throughout the years well i haven't seen the the the emails or the the d-mails that were sent to you about that but here's what here's my question would it be i or i guess here's here's more of a comment than a question than a email i haven't seen andrew but like it seems to me that it must work as a as a as a a kind of a position statement right like people you know might doubt this but guess what it really works or whatever so my guess would be that it it pops up a lot because it's effective more than it's a reference back to like it's a where's the beef reference because if i'm paying good money to have my tomato boxes uh in like an ad for them inserted into every reader's digest going out to america do you think there'd be any upside to making a sly knowing reference if it's lost on people or wouldn't it wouldn't their goal be to

sell the tomato boxes i don't understand why it's an either or though it's i think it's like the wall i almost said a walsh helm scream it's like the wilhelm scream it serves both purposes you know it's getting the point across that somebody is screaming in a movie but also if you know you

know i guess i'm just wondering who the well obviously some of our listeners and obviously not me i'm wondering who the uh who that audience is who gets the wink and the nod only just because it's it's a tomato box in reader's digest as opposed to i could definitely see like apple or iphone or um some company that's trying to be hip like doing something where they say like think small in their ad which of course was the famous i think um i'm pausing because i need to say the name of this car right volkswagen no you said remember the think small campaign you just

said you just said it slowly wrong it's it's not volkswagen it's volt oh no no you did say it right sorry volkswagen sorry you said it right either way my joke was funny but it was funny i kind of

wish i would have said it slowly right that would have been so much funnier if dirty monkey would have said it wrong after that say it wrong your wife's new nickname is dirty monkey dirty monkey anyway um that is it that's an interesting um that is an interesting reference that i didn't get the kind of idea of that ad you read which is like they laughed at me the only other thing i would say and i know this sounds defensive but only because it is no i think the piano example makes a little more sense because like if you and i were somewhere let's say you and i were at a restaurant and they had a piano and i went and sat down at the piano you might be like uh what are you doing because there's no you there's no history of me knowing how to play the piano so that i actually think is a is a is a likely scenario the thing that also sent me the other day when i saw your instagram post about the tomato box was the how unlikely it was to me that the neighbors would be laughing about that or doubting the tomato box or whatever that felt like such a stretch to me whereas the piano

example I kind of could see that because or if you sat down at a piano somewhere and you were about to start playing I would certainly I don't know if I would laugh but I'd be like what is

going on with my friend Andrew yeah no I think that well obviously and that's why I sort of feel like it for the record I knew you were going to dismiss all of this but I do think like for real like I almost brought this up yesterday I'm like he's not going to buy it but like and and I'm not even saying that I'm a hundred percent like that I can prove to you that the person who wrote this did this as as an homage to that thing but i like to think so because it then it's kind of like it does catch your attention it is funny like it is funny in that way and for whatever it's worth and now this is just you know several people were emailing me saying oh this is an old advertising adage and then one person sent me a video now this is you know anybody can have a youtube channel i'm not saying this guy is necessarily an expert but somebody named jonathan coates who has just under a thousand uh youtube subscribers so he's no he's no dr uh kirk honda i don't want to overplay this guy's credentials you are it's not just our listeners who are doing it because he wrote i'm not going to play because it's like a whole 15 minute somewhat low energy video tutorial about copywriting but apparently this guy is a copywriter who has his own youtube thing and he's saying today i'm going to give a detailed overview i'm reading from the description of this thing I will be giving a detailed overview of the very profitable insert from Growbox, who used a proven template from a few legendary ads, but most notably the original and most famous. They laughed when I sat down at the piano, but when I started to play ad. And then it goes into this whole comparison of how readers to how this has been a very successful campaign for Reader's Digest and that that it is a bit of an homage. And then it gives a little background. And again, it's a 15 minute video. But it's not just that people were identifying the piano thing, but some people were literally, like, online linking these two ads and kind of analyzing it.

Okay. You know what? You have convinced me. No joke. Like, that is enough to convince me that this was more knowing than – or more of a specific callback to that than I was thinking it probably was. So congratulations. So congratulations. You've defeated me. I'm right. No, I just – I did think it was interesting. No, I really do believe you, though. I mean, that's compelling to me, actually, that people are online saying that.

I mean, and also what, like, no joke, like, what is the possibility that you and I would just be, like, we want to talk about this, like, freaking random insert that I thought was funny and posted to Instagram because I thought it was, I mean, remember, I thought it was ridiculous, which is why I posted it to Instagram in the first place. why are your neighbors laughing at your grow box you know then we talk about on our podcast and then we get several notes from several listeners saying that is a that is an homage to some copywriting great of the 1920s like i just cannot believe that that is the path that we've taken

today i um i am i started out excited to uh reveal something to you andrew and then i realized I don't know if you're very familiar with one part of this reveal that I want to

Oh yeah, this is the actor thing?

This is the actor

Yeah, I'm excited about this

Are you familiar with the actor named Hannah Waddingham? She is very well known for playing the owner of the soccer team in Ted Lasso

I never watched Ted Lasso Am I allowed to Google and see her face? Or will that ruin the thing? Probably not It might give it away, I don't know

So the first time that I saw Hannah Waddingham, at least that I was aware of, was as this very sort of, you could say, vivacious, conventionally very attractive. I mean, her character, I think on Ted Lasso, which I've only watched like five, six episodes, the show starts with she was sort of a trophy wife and her very, very wealthy, very philandering husband owned this soccer team. And they go through this divorce Because he's been cheating And she gets the soccer team Is she kind of a real housewife-y kind of vibe

In this character?

Sort of, although, I mean, she And I want to just say, because people love this show She also, her character is actually interesting And rich in texture And not just like, she's not playing It's not like a, sorry, but it's not like a Jennifer Coolidge character or something But the first time you see Hannah Waddingham On screen, it's like she's, again presenting as a very conventionally attractive, like vivacious, blonde, kind of beautiful woman. And anyway, here's a little bit of her talking to Jason Sudeikis, a.k.a. Ted Lasso.

I have something I need to tell you.

I'm all ears.

Right, I'm not going to beat around the bush. I'm just going to get straight to the point. No f***ing around because that's just annoying and definitely no procrastinating. that's a good word isn't it procrastinating pro procrastinating yeah i wonder what the etymology of that word is obviously pro good but crest crest i have no idea hey why don't we look it up have you got a dictionary not on me

are you doing okay that is great intro tape that is the perfect rhythm of intro tape oh can we slap

some dirty monkey on the end of it yeah okay i'll forward you that that actually is that you're right that actually is decent uh intro tape so that's what i knew of hannah waddingham uh was that she plays the owner of this team and of course she goes on a whole journey her character does along with everybody else on Ted Lasso. To be honest with you, I was trying to find a good clip of her in playing this, the character of, I think the character's named Rebecca Welton. But it made me kind of want to reinvestigate Ted Lasso because I only watched like four episodes or something and it was operating under the weight of huge expectations for me. But in watching some of the clips, I was like, this is actually pretty entertaining. I'm starting to get what all the hype was about. Now, the other problem is there is a thriving industry of just putting Ted Lasso clips up on YouTube, but putting music underneath them, like scoring them or just cutting out the original, taking a popular song and putting it underneath things like making effectively a music video out of like a one direction song with clips of Ted Lasso. Yeah, I've seen stuff like that. It was so difficult for me to just and I also probably have Ted Lasso on whatever service that is but i just didn't feel like dealing with that so i was trying to just like grab some on youtube and i just kept ending up on like a savage garden truly madly deeply while like a guy's kicking a ball in the goal i was like no it's not what i want but anyway so that's what i thought i knew of hannah waddingham and then i realized she was in something else andrew would you hazard a guess i don't you're not going to get this because you don't really know who the person is that i'm

talking about but but i'd like to play along i really wish this was somebody i knew who it was So let me ask you this. Are you certain that I know what the second project is? Am I aware of it, and have I seen it?

You have seen it.

Okay, interesting. We know this. Is it a... I don't know how many questions I get. Let's say 20 at least. Animal, mineral, or vegetable. Is it a TV show that I'm guessing? Yes, it's prestige television. It's prestige TV, which could also include HBO, which famously is not TV. That's a good point. But I'm going to take that as a scripted serial show. Oh, it is HBO. Okay, so it's not TV. I see what you're trying to do there. You don't want me to win. Okay, so HBO, it's a show. She has got a British accent. So I am going to say, oh, my God. Well, no, because I know that actor's name. I'm trying to think. I'm just going to say, is it Game of Thrones? Is she somebody in Game of Thrones? It is Game of Thrones.

Andrew, I love your deductive reasoning on this.

Okay, well, now let's see. I know that we were obsessed with that show, and now I can't even remember anybody's names. We know that Daenerys is Lena Headey, right, or something? It's not Lena Headey. Yeah, so it can't be Lena Headey. That's Cersei, by the way. Cersei, Cersei, right. Who did I say, Daenerys? Ah, I get them all confused. All right.

Well, this is not Lena Headey, for the record. It's also not the Khaleesi.

Yeah, obviously, because you've given us her name, Hannah. Now, I could have guessed the Khaleesi there. is it okay this is as far as i'm gonna get is it oh okay how about this is it what is her name the eldest daughter of uh ned starks no okay no it is not a start i could almost said i don't think i could name that aria right you've got sansa sansa good job yes not sansa okay i'm out then but i got really damn close and i'm proud i'm so impressed i loved how you used the the

british accent to kind of narrow it down so again this is only interesting if you got to this information the way i did which is you turned on ted lasso and you saw this character uh rebecca welton who's uh again a very fabulous looking uh woman who's you know brassy and all of these things and then you realize she's also the person who did this

shame shame shame shame

she was septa unela she's the person walking behind Cersei ringing the bell and saying shame

which is interesting because in my head I picture this as an elderly woman

well because they were those kind of odd like almost like a nun's habit but like more severe yeah yeah i'm gonna look up this and i would explain why i never recognized her because it was i mean you're seeing her face when she's you know playing septa unela but it's so it looks so different because of the way that it's framed because of the costume and it just like the difference between that person you heard talking about procrastinate I don't know. And then the person who's just ringing the shame bell behind Cersei.

Yeah, it's a good role to get to if you're going to ring the shame bell. I'm trying to find this. Oh, there she is. Okay, yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, so she is not portrayed as elderly at all. There are other people. You know, I think like in my head, that type of character, this is a weird thing to say, like sort of fills the role of the woman who yells boo during the wedding of a princess bride, you know? Oh, sure. Sort of like very severe, boo, boo. She hates love, Luke. Yeah, I mean, she hates love. I'm trying to procrastinate here. I feel like you're looking for, okay, there we go.

Boo! Boo!

Shame. I have a lot of things that have boo in them, by the way. Also this. In your face.

That's the squeak. Well, do you have boo-erns? Do I have boo-erns? I used to have a shirt that said, I was saying Boo Werns.

I love that. That's got to be top 10 Simpsons references for me. It's Hans Molman, right? I believe it's Hans Molman, man, star of the show, unspoken. Very, very, I think, underappreciated Simpsons.

Boo!

Are you saying Boo or Boo Werns?

Boo!

I was saying Boo Werns. Oh, you know what? I think that's from the Springfield Film Festival episode, which I think was like one of my favorites growing up. And I think it loomed large for you, too. That was the one that you have. It stinks from that episode. Like a lot.

Oh, because it was a crossover with the critic.

Oh, that's true. It stinks was in every episode of the critic. You're right. So maybe that's not.

But that was the one where that character shows up.

Yes, and it's one where Homer says something like, well, Barney's film had heart, but football to the groin had a football to the groin, which was one of the films, man gets hit by football in the groin.

i i had a like a simpsons moment in the grocery store the other day and this was again where if i still had twitter it would have been one of my silly tweets i send out that nobody needs but you know like um tom hanks is in some new movie called a man named auto yeah i keep seeing the commercial

but with the he's like a driver's ed teacher or something maybe i actually don't know old man he's like as genevieve said he's kind of becoming the walter matthew of our day now totally at least in

that movie and i'm walking i'm like in the checkout line and it's like something i don't know what like um people magazine or something but it's like the whole magazine cover it doesn't even have i feel like it or maybe it was entertainment weekly but it's just all tom hanks's face and it just says a man named otto and i wanted to take a picture and tweet and if you don't if your brain doesn't immediately say and i like to get blotto when you look at this like we're not going to really get along like you cannot say a man named auto and not here and i love to get blotto to the

the two simpsons episodes that loomed largest in my youth i would say would be the critic episode crossover that we're just talking about and then the homer palooza episode because it had like sonic youth in it it had the smashing pumpkins in it um and there are several quotes uh oh it had um It had somebody ordered a Philharmonic, possibly while high Cypress Hill. I'm looking in your direction like that is something I often say.

Isn't that the one where Homer is taking a cannonball to the stomach?

Yes, exactly. And also the reason I bring it up now is because I believe Bart and Lisa are walking through the festival and they sniff the air and they say, what is that? It smells like Otto's jacket.

by the way dude i saw a story we gotta take a break but i saw a story uh the other day that was about how because they've legalized cannabis in new york state now how everybody in new york is complaining about the smell of weed and i was like i'm gonna send this to andrew and then it was in the new york post and it was a terrible story it was like one dude they found who obviously just wanted to be in the new york post and he was saying something like you know like um can't they get blazed somewhere else i i basically saw myself in this guy and i hated myself so i didn't

you know i don't think or i didn't mean to push back on that i mean i know that that's been a huge complaint in seattle too like ever since marijuana was legalized here um that you would often see letters to the editor or or whatever like actual articles just about like hey listen tourists are getting off because like tourists would be like getting off their um what do you call them the cruise ships whatever like in the in the real tourist area of downtown seattle by the waterfront and like people really concerned about like the first thing they smell is the weed in the air and like i don't want to be totally dismissive of that for me it just doesn't bother me like other things do and but for me that one doesn't bother me but i in.

understand how i understand how it could i mean it's not clean air right i think it's just a

totally a personal preference thing and because it's it's not a smell that i like love all and what had happened i don't need to we need to relitigate it all but what had happened is i just had the experience of walking through my lobby of the apartment building multiple times and just getting a kind of a hit of that and thinking how i know no one's actually lighting up in here so it's just must be on people's persons if they're having enough of it and then i got to las vegas and i went to sit on this balcony i was all excited to look at the bellagio fountains and i was you know sort of smelling a lot of that going on whatever was on my mind but again really my takeaway is i don't want to be like that guy in the new york post he sounds like he really sucks like i went from being like oh checkmate andrew to reading the article to being like checkmate luke so anyway okay uh let's take a quick break and then we'll be back with these top stories and some blurs day messages coming up on tbtl hey let's thank some uh donors of the day so i just heard like a weird noise andrew outside of the studio and then the cat went running over there to look out the door hmm so i don't know if someone's here to ask me about the cladding on my apartment or what i'm just something maybe

going on outside of my building i'm just glad that this time the sound was not a um just a fistful of static directly in your ears from my computer which sometimes just for no reason as it did this morning glitches out and just sends the world's loudest most ear damaging sound right down the line to luke all i hear is oh and i look over and i just see that my needles are in the red on ipdtl just like slammed to the top i'm like i have i'm not doing that i don't know where it's coming from

it's good it keeps me on my toes although it is it's sort of like um you know it's sort of pavlovian in the in the worst way it just has me occasionally ducking yeah right like did you ever

know what's gonna happen did you ever work in a radio station where you go to put the headphones on in a studio and they shock you yes yes that happened at new hampshire public radio i i use the same exact kind of headphones now it's not a problem in my home studios but there was so much

static electricity in that radio station there's nothing worse than getting shocked like into your ear canal extremely unpleasant i'll tell you what's extremely pleasant to know that people like elizabeth macklewreath in springville new york springville excuse me um uh i was also spraying the cat with water to get her off of just to keep her cool like at a yeah yeah at homerpalooza Exactly. Elizabeth, a.k.a. Bette, right? This is our friend Bette out there.

Yeah, Bette was like the kind of somewhat sleeper star of our... Remember when we used to do those holiday radio shows from time to time? We did one for Valentine's Day, and Bette phoned in one of the most romantic stories I'd ever heard in my life. I believe we also got to see some kind of Lego situation at Bette's house when we were

doing those Zooms. So yeah, we've been knowing Bette for a long time. Thank you so much for supporting us. Thanks also to Juan Lopez of Seattle, Washington. Hey, Juan. Thank you. Whitney Brown is in San Marcos, California. South of Cheese? North of Cheese? I don't know. Hold on. San Marcos, California. I'm trying to think. Well, 10 reasons to live in San Marcos, California. It's by Escondido. Does that help? It's by Legoland. So that would be down there. That's south of Cheese. That's down in Escondido and all that would be down near, let's see, Oceanside. Andrew, remember we went to Oceanside?

Oh, right. Okay, yeah. So we're by Oceanside. Yep, but not too far away from Carlsbad, just off the coast there. Nice. Beautiful. Thank you, Whitney.

Thank you, Whitney. For supporting us. Then, oh, this is north of Cheese.

Oh, yeah, another place we stopped on that same trip.

Cheryl and Julian Cherchik. It's our friend Cheryl in Corvallis And the wonderful Julian also in Corvallis Where we once did the show From their driveway

Do you know that one time I mentioned Cheryl In a newsletter For some reason I was probably tearing her down I like to use the newsletter I like to weaponize it against people I love

I wanted to talk to you about that at some point

It's a weird thing that I have I was mentioning Cheryl And in the newsletter I referred to her Cheryl in Corvallis It's a brand man And at the time, the person who was editing the newsletter, who was an important, very smart editor at American Public Media but was less familiar with the TBTL universe, changed it to Cheryl in Corvallis, Oregon, comma. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's Cheryl in Corvallis. People can figure it out. Yes. Thank you, Cheryl. julian in corvallis comma oregon where our signs may or may not have been stolen um also shandor witcher is in philadelphia pa nice the 215 thanks shandor shandor's been uh supporting the program for a long time you don't forget a name like shandor either yeah that's a that's a unique one and one that we're very appreciative of and for thanks shandor thanks also to ken fulton in seattle washington nice um distribution of folks got springville new york we got juan in seattle we've got san marcos checking in corvallis philadelphia we could have used a little bit more

in this the the middle of the country a little bit there but yeah i think we'd do better no oh

you're putting on the listeners okay okay yeah well this is my version of the newsletter where i like to run the right like to run down the people who are giving us their hard-earned money to keep doing the show so all right thanks uh to our donors today for making tbtl possible couldn't do this without you hello and welcome to top story uh top story this article in the atlantic by um sahil desai um talking about how bad the pizza box is like the you know delivery pizza box is for pizza now we started to talk about this yesterday and we didn't get to it fully andrew but you mentioned that you started to check out a little bit uh at the beginning of the article because what sahil is is is sort of saying is that um they've gotten one of those um fancy uh pizza ovens an uni coda um which you can get for your home and then um this writer has now gotten really good at making artisanal pizza at home and now because they can do that they've sort of stopped ordering pizza and having it delivered and on the occasion that they do have pizza that's brought that way they very very much notice how bad regular pizza is when it gets to

you in that delivery box yeah and by the way and i i stopped reading because just because the person clearly likes a different kind of pizza than i do because they're saying like you know when i can i have now gotten to a point where i'm so good at making i think he's first of all i think it's a he i'm not sure if i'm right about that sorry if i've misgendered um but i think they have a uh i think they have a wood-burning stove or something like that outside they're making i

think wood-burning pizzas right well that's what i said that uni koda 12-inch gas-powered outdoor

pizza you set that up so it is gas-powered but anyway um just kind of saying like i can i can look without even tasting and i can tell you if your crust is fluffy or this or that i'm like that's not really for me like i think you won't be surprised to hear this a lot of the pizza that i like is kind of fast foodie pizza like i loved that chicago deep dish pizza that we had when we actually went to a deep dish pizza place a few months ago but um i'm also pretty okay with kind of a standard pizza that comes in the box and i know that it's not going to be something that is going to be maybe celebrated worldwide but like i don't need to write home about my pizza i kind of don't it's fine but i kind of don't love fancy pizza with like a really thin crust with the

little flame marks on it you know it's funny because it really depends on my mood because i'm with you i mean i read this whole article and i thought you know this person definitely makes some good points and it is kind of interesting that this is a technology that hasn't really improved since it was invented in michigan in the 1960s by the first the guy who founded dominoes but on the other hand i kind of like you know i definitely there are days that i am really in the mood for like a round table pizza that i have delivered and all of the things that sahil describes in this article have happened to the pizza and i'm okay with that like but then there's other times where like there's a place here called um ken's ken's artisanal pizza and it's a great restaurant and they do the whole wood fire thing and sometimes that's just a delicious bite of pizza for me as well. In fact, now I have half of mine to go to Ken's later tonight. That's what I'm thinking about any pizza now. There's no way that us reading this article was going to end in us not both getting pizza for dinner tonight. This is from the piece. Sahil writes, The basic issue is this. A fresh pizza spews steam as it cools down. A box traps that moisture, suspending the pie in its own personal sauna. After just five minutes, The pie's edges become flaccid and chewy. Sauce seeps into the crust, making it soggy. All the while, your pizza is quickly losing heat. After 15 minutes, the cheese has congealed. Sorry, I'm trying to read this and also hold my water bottle so that the cat doesn't jump at the thing again. She's now gone to the garbage can approach. She tried the other one, and now she's... Oh, to leap on it, you mean? Yes. Okay. She'll go... She's like a running back. She was trying to run up the gut. She got stuck. Now she's trying to bounce it outside She's trying to get to the edge I know, as long as we have gap integrity I think it's going to be fine Anyway Sauce seeps into the crust, making it soggy All the while, your pizza is quickly losing heat After 15 minutes, the cheese has congealed Into dollops of rubber And after 45 minutes, your pizza deteriorates Into something else entirely It's funny, because the guy who's quoted here Anthony Falco It'll be chewy and dry at the same time Says Anthony Falco, a pizza consultant I know Anthony Falco, Andrew, because he was in my pizza expo story I did years ago in Vegas.

Yeah, shout out to Lloyd.

He taught me about something called tip sag, which is what you don't want, I mean, in life and also with your pizza. So that's basically the idea is that if you're a purist or if you really want your pizza to feel like it was just made, the problem with the pizza boxes that pretty much everyone uses is that the pizza is giving off all this steam, which is then sort of trapped in that thing, which is kind of turning it into a sauna, which is making the pizza kind of not ideal to some people. Now, here I thought was interesting. I've mentioned this a few times now. The modern pizza box was invented in 1966 by the owner of a small Michigan pizza chain called Domino's who hired a local packaging company to construct a box out of corrugated cardboard that would better withstand takeout and delivery. Before that, if you got a pizza delivered, it would come in something like a cake box. and uh or even this is crazy um at lombardi's in new york city perhaps the country's first pizzeria lore has it that lukewarm pies were rolled up with twine and reheated on factory furnaces for uh famished laborers so they would roll the pizza up like a i don't know like a baguette or something tie it up with twine and then heat it up on the furnace in the factory

they were working at that sounds kind of delicious it does sort of so like wrap like rolling it up like uh so all the ingredients are in the inside you've made almost like a i don't like a like a roll like a sleeping bag with it and then you heat it up on the outside

interesting yeah okay now i wouldn't want anything else i read the jungle i wouldn't want anything else about that job whatever was happening in that factory in new york at that time not for me did you really read the jungle by the way what's that did you really read the jungle I did because it was assigned reading Because I have not

That's one that you're always supposed to read And I never actually read the jungle

Isn't his name Jurgis Yerkson He works on the kill floor of some factory in Chicago

I mean I know the broad strokes That name sort of rings a bell But again I haven't read it

Only because it was assigned in high school Not because I do any kind of You know Self growth or enrichment through reading On my own time Although Andrew I am making my way through the Paris Review I'm very proud of that I started getting the Paris Review delivered And I've been trying to go to bed earlier And trying to do this thing where I read at night Before I go to bed As opposed to looking at TikTok And I'm starting to get what the hype is about It's nice to end the night with a little reading

Yeah, this takes us in the wrong direction But who was our friend Who worked on the Paris Review podcast Which then stopped production Was it Rico? Yeah, it was not Rico It was Brendan Francis Noonan. Sorry, I feel bad for naming the wrong person there, the wrong partner. But that showed that it would seem like it was probably a short-lived podcast, but it was really good. You ever check that out? So I just keep the archives on my phone sometimes just to put it on because a lot of them are kind of timeless. You can just kind of put it on and go on this little audio adventure. Anyway, I'm sorry.

Go ahead. I just wanted to make sure everyone knew that I was working my way slowly through it. One edition of the Paris Review I've been wearing the hat for years And I felt like it was time to step it up And actually do the reading So Going back to the I'm trying to find Why didn't I circle it in this article But I was trying to find this part about basically The, here we go Part of why We're still using these pizza boxes The kind that, again, if we go with the premise That the pizza is not quite as fresh and crispy And delicious as it could be which i know you and i probably don't fully agree with that premise but let's just for the sake of what they're saying in the article we'll go with that it's because of a couple of things basically it's super cheap and most people don't want to pay more for their pizza in order to have because they have invented technology that's actually an improvement on this um there's a a company uh called vent it uh that has uh invented a box that actually like sort of lets the steam out apple has uh actually like patented a special box that also uh is made out of foam and it sort of keeps the pizza like perfect and they they basically uh

patented this so they can use it in cupertino for delivering pizza within apple and so in in what the because i was sitting here puzzling like well how do you solve a problem like soggy pizza pizza um like you need to keep the heat in because you don't want it to be cold but i guess you need to keep the heat in but not the steam so is that what this technology is trying to do like somehow

release the steam while keeping the heat yeah um last year the german uh brand peas cycle debuted the tupperware of pizza containers a reusable vessel studded with ventilation holes on its side apple has patented its own round pizza box exclusively for famished cupertino office workers and perhaps the most ingenious container i found is from an indian company called vent it the box takes the normal corrugated vessel and thins out part of the cardboard at the top and bottom creating venting channels that at least according to vent its own research achieve something miraculous reducing steam inside the box by an additional 25 while also maintaining the pizza's temperature but as is pointed out later in the article customers um don't why would pizzerias fork up more money for something that immediately lands in the trash the problem is that everybody expects this box and nobody's too offended by it says an industry analyst there hasn't been enough push for something different in other words most people aren't complaining about the status of their pizza when it arrives in that box now that box by the way uh is part of this conglom or this like short list of companies that make it five companies control 70 percent of the cardboard market in the u.s a level of consolidation that is rampant across the american economy independent pizzerias are everywhere but the pizza chains still dominate takeout and delivery dominoes alone accounts for nearly 40 percent of pizza delivery in the united states on par with all regional chains and mom and pops combined so dominoes is the like uh you know 800 pound gorilla and they have no plans to change their box so therefore everyone else is gonna have to to just kind of keep going with what the standard operating practice is which is these kind of corrugated cardboard boxes that we've always had that are again allegedly not great

for the job i just went on a little mental journey because i was thinking like if these boxes start to change which they might and maybe they should you know over the course of you know yeah i don't know the next 25 years or something and then i you know maybe they even change slowly so that you don't even kind of realize how how different the boxes are and then i can see myself as an as an older man 25 30 years from now do i have that in me sure uh and i'm watching tv and i see one of these classic pizza boxes i know that i will start salivating like there is something that is another thing that is a part of this which is i almost like listen i know that people talk about how pizza is i mean it's almost fetishized and how how good it is you know the expression like even bad pizza's like sex even when it's bad it's good or whatever like all of that challenge that notion by the way not for pizza uh no the pizza's always good no no in both but um i was gonna say like just to pile on even more and at least my relationship with pizza that i think people will probably agree with like you know i know that part of my brand for better for worse is like how i love hot dogs and i really do love hot dogs i love eating hot dogs i probably eat more than the average American. Right. So probably don't have 30 years in me. But when I see a hot dog depicted in pop culture, I don't have the same like the same like almost physical reaction. I was gonna say maybe Pavlovian reaction to wanting a hot dog. But pizza, Luke, I swear to God, you can show me a cartoon from the 1990s of a teenage mutant ninja turtle cracking open a white takeout box of pizza and pulling a soggy piece out and holding it over its green head and taking a

bite i mean you're forgetting the most important part of that procedure my friend what do they do they say cowabunga katana blade oh right sure yeah okay sorry that's the only way to eat that's how

i do it but like honestly like that cartoon depiction of yes i'm with you turtles eating fake pizza with a big giant pepperoni on it yes will make me think oh maybe i should get a pizza sometimes i get a pizza and i even think i'm gonna eat this like a ninja turtle like i i'm not even joking about that like there is something does not allow you to have a katana blade though so and i'm just beating it up with a nunchuck and it's just a mess anyway like i uh there's just something of a pizza that i wonder if that's to bring this all back to the box there is also just going to be sort of this Pavlovian response to the classic pizza box I think

yeah I guess here's the thing I was i'm with you i've already said it like nine different ways i am personally kind of as long as the pizza is not like a frozen congealed rock of cheese like if the person throws it in that insulated bag you know if the delivery person has it in that insulated bag or whatever i'm sort of okay with the with the you know standard pizza box delivery situation that being said it's a little interesting that with all of the competitive advantage that uh we're always looking for in you know in sort of america in terms of business and stuff that really this is something that got invented in the 1960s and there's been almost no meaningful improvement on just because you would think that there would be some pizza company that would be like our deal is going to be like we have a different kind of box and it's better and that's how we're going to like sell people because there's a million pizza places and what do you do to differentiate your company i'm just surprised that more people haven't tried that as their difference make you know that's really interesting

this whole time i've been thinking oh it's going to be like these these fancy pizza places that really think that their pizza needs special care uh or it's going to be like these these you know kind of um these businesses that are in high wealthy areas like the tech industry and they're going to deliver and it's going to be kind of a a tech sector thing but really you're right like i wasn't thinking like just even as a gimmick just even as like a a revisiting of the mcdonald's hot side hot cold side cold gimmick you know like how is one of the big chains not whether or not it's even effective to the way that this article describes right exactly just to advertise on it

you're right well like i know dominoes like i've seen ads in years past where they're trying to basically tell you that like their delivery car is a rolling oven and that it's you know like the car itself has got some built-in thing although i've never seen that in practice and i particularly when i lived in bellingham i became a power user of dominoes to the point where i was obsessed with the dominoes tracker which we've learned is not a real thing um and also every time i was ordering probably like two dominoes pizzas a week in bellingham and yet i refused to become part of their rewards club because i felt like that said something about me not ordering two dominoes pizzas a week that would have you as a member sorry um but yeah exactly groucho um but uh but i i never saw that in practice like when i was living in bellingham and getting all those dominoes i never had a rolling oven show up it was always just a kid named brandon um and uh you know with his with his insulated bag i will say this i do have strong feelings about who i order my delivery pizza from and by that i mean because you know i use doordash a lot although less lately since i've been gone on my health kick i've been kind of i've been trying to cook at home a little bit but i use doordash a lot and you can order pizza through doordash but i try to never do that because the doordash delivery person is not a pizza delivery person they are a food delivery person and it's possible that they would pick up your pizza they'd have three other things that are dropping off on the way to you and they may or may not have one of those you know insulated bags like i i only get my pizza delivered by trained pizza delivery people possibly named brandon because i feel like this is all they do all day long this is their area of expertise i know they have the insulated bag and it's likely that they're going to come directly to my house unless they're on some big loop and even if they are like with different deliveries i feel like they have a system and i don't like a hard-working doordash person that's just side hustling and kind of running around grabbing food and delivering it and stuff i don't feel like they're going to have all of the resources to get my pizza to me in the best case scenario you know one thought i

did have before and it's a little different because they weren't introducing a new technology but we're getting a little bit near uh noid territory here you know you know what i mean like that that was a huge thing and that was dominoes right yeah avoid the noid right and this idea that well and i guess we've seen that you know that kind of campaign focus will rear its head from time to time but like back in the 80s the noid was a character that tried to destroy your pizza in transit and so we do things to protect your pizza and then years later and i can't remember if this was dominoes or not but i think it was the whole pizza insurance campaign i hated that that was so stupid you remember that yes i do it was like somebody walking to their

house and then slipping and then throwing their pizza up in the air it's like do we don't need

like like i mean the fact that i'm along for the ride with the noid but you lost me with pizza insurance i think really says that that is not a believable idea okay well then on the subject of

of pizza commercials how do you feel we may not get to nick cave today i just want to manage

people's expectations um i also want to let you know that my main recorder i know you could tell i was distracted before my main recorder filled up and so we are now just on a backup recording now and so nothing can happen to my computer i'm so scared luke i do not like recording without two things recording at the same time so let's just hope that everything goes okay with my computer that it doesn't crash and that the show will be good forever in the

words of spiritualized you are now floating in space exactly i'm trying just out there man to get another backup rolling okay go ahead how do you feel about um these commercials probably for dominoes because they are the the dominant uh company in the space as we learned where they're offering you a tip as the customer for being your own delivery driver i.e going to the

place and getting it i have seen that and well first of all i think the ads are a little bit confused because they're trying to advertise this idea of like you we're going to give you a tip because you've come to pick it up yourself but then they're also like the the commercials like say you're a pickup hero and then like the people literally turn into like superheroes with capes I'm kind of like why don't you just focus on one of these narratives like that you've earned a tip why don't you turn this person into like a it's dominoes let's just say like put them like in an instead of putting them in a cape put them in a dominoes uniform or something like it just sort of seems like mixed messaging in the commercials I've seen and also like I feel like I've seen something else like that too it's almost like the equivalent of saying that like aren't there companies that'll sell you a mattress but they'll like we'll pay the tax on it or whatever maybe a car or something like that it's just a way of it's just a way of reimagining the money you're

spending right well of course uh but what i think is what i think is funny or not funny but what obviously what's going on with dominoes is they don't have enough drivers oh yeah yeah that's you know staffing supply chain whatnot uh cost of you know if they could get if dominoes could get a system going where everyone just drove up to the dominoes and got their pizza themselves it would be way better for them right like and so what they're trying to do is kind of put some lipstick on the pig that is this reality by and i actually don't think that's really interesting yeah i don't think it's a terrible way to present it right like we're going to give you a tip like i actually don't even think it's a bad commercial but it's just funny because all i'm i feel like i'm just looking at the i'm looking at the like support skeleton behind what this ad is trying to do yeah and what it's trying to do is fix for a problem they're having yeah that's really

interesting in fact it'll be interesting to see to again look back at the the very various commercial pitches of 2022 and 2023 in the future and we'll like really be able to recognize these

trends of wow the economy was weird right exactly like they were trying to trick us into picking up our own stuff yeah like i don't even i mean i would say it's it's not it for some now here's what's interesting too is it doesn't really bother me because it's like hey whatever like you know domino's probably doesn't have enough drivers they're trying to figure out a way to incentivize people to go in and get the pizza themselves it doesn't bother me the self-checkout really bothers me it the self-checkoutification of grocery stores really bothers me and i don't know why one of those things bothers me and the other doesn't because they're both basically attempts to make more money right uh or to lose less money or to whatever they're both trying to do the same thing and one of them annoys me and one of them doesn't yeah and then we don't have

to take in that direction it's just funny like i just love self-checkout and i'm kind of surprised you don't like i feel like i pack my bags better i feel like nobody has to look at what i'm buying because I buy some freaky shit. No, but it's the Aldi's. My only concern is, and I think I've mentioned this to you on the show before, like I don't want to be rude about it, of course. That's part of my brand too. I want to eat hot dogs and I don't want to be rude. But like I don't want to go with too full of a cart. And so sometimes I'm like, I think that I have a cart that's so full it would be rude if I went into the self-checkout lane because I'd probably be there forever. And I think there's sort of an implied, like let's keep the speedy kind of thing at the grocery store but yeah no i if given the choice

i'll always take self-checkout i feel like invariably some like an alarm goes off like that says i'm doing it wrong and then i have to wait for someone who's usually very harried to come over with that little like card that they scan onto the thing that then allows me to continue buying my wet wipes you know and like that's the part of it that frustrates me is it just never goes smoothly it feels like and there's also just the fact that like the grocery stores they're they've obviously tried to it's sort of like the you know clear at the at the airport or the tsa thing where it's like they're both the um source of and then the solution to the problem they have fewer human checkers so therefore the lines have a human check you out are ridiculously long which then

means you end up going to the self-checkout but then the self-checkout if i have a lot of things it is going to take me easily as long if not longer than when i have a human do it because every two minutes it's saying like put the item in the bagging area and i'm like it's in what do you want from me it's in the bagging area it's so sensitive because they're so worried about people stealing things i told you the fred meyer by me has this crazy video system now where it's like i'm staring at myself and then it's showing like a super mo slow motion of what i just scanned through so that if i'm trying to steal something the person can come over and see that i'm stealing it's like they set up a system which is rife for theft or ripe maybe it's ripe for theft and when i steal something it's rife with theft they set up a system that's really ripe for people to abuse it and then they set up all these other systems to try to stop you from abusing it which then delay the whole process this is my take on it i'm i'm sure you're in the majority of people who find it

faster and i wonder if i am to deal with i don't know i wonder if i am because i'm also weirdly nerdy about it like about packing my own bags like even if i am and i don't think this is normal human behavior at all but like even if i am in a line where there's a cashier and a bagger i try to as politely as possible wave the bagger off it's sometimes i feel bad about that but i'm just like you're not gonna do it right like i know what i'm doing here they'll never put the beer in the bag I'm like, I need the beer in the bag because I used to have to park on the street and I didn't want to like or they'll leave the paper towels out because they'll think these are too big to put in the bag. I'm like, yeah, but I don't know, especially back in the day. I'm like, I don't have a garage. I'm not like driving home and pulling into a garage that's attached to a house and I can just make several trips like everything goes in the bags. We can make this work, people.

I don't think I've had a bagger since the pandemic. Like, that's another thing. You talk about staffing shortages like that's that. I cannot remember the last time that I went through a grocery store line, and there was a person, and typically usually like a younger person, there was somebody whose only job was to put the groceries in the bag. It's now exclusively the person who's checking me out is also bagging. Don't you feel like that's also been kind of a trend?

You know, it's just like my experiences are just very specific to grocery stores. Like the one that I was going to for years in Roosevelt, the Safeway, they always have a bagger and a cashier. And they also have several they have several lines of of people. And they have just expanded. They added a few more self checkouts. But again, I'm going to start shopping there. Yeah. And it's not bad. You know, you used to kind of beat up on Safeway and you said they always seem bombed out. And I was like, oh, mine doesn't seem bombed out. And I've been in a few Safeways since that actually do seem kind of bombed out. And I don't know. Maybe my expectations are low. But the one in Roosevelt always served me really well, and it seemed like he was really friendly people and pretty well-staffed and everything. But then the Fred Meyer here in the Greenwood area is a totally different thing. Like it's banks and banks and banks of self-checkout and, of course, no baggers and one or two kind of more what you're describing. You know what the hack is there, Luke? I'm telling this to you. I don't necessarily need this for myself, but for the listeners who are at a Fred Meyer, and they're only picking up a couple of things and maybe a six-pack of beer or something, you can just do all of your checkout at the special little line that they have in the booze section. I think they all have this. I could be wrong about this. But, like, they're a little bit worried about, I don't know, theft or what have you. So the Fred Meyers I've been to have a special little area that's sort of, like, walled off with shelves of beer and liquor or whatever. And it's kind of like its own little store within a store. And if you only have a few other things, they'll be like, hey, do you just want me to check you out for everything here? And you're like, yes, ma'am. Wow.

I didn't I I don't think I mean, yeah, things are pretty locked up. Well, in Oregon, you cannot buy hard alcohol in the grocery store.

Oh, you're still on that system. Yeah. That's the same thing here in Washington up until like a decade ago. It's been great for my liver.

Yeah, sure. If you consider wine better for my liver than than rot gut whiskey. But I didn't realize that That could be a little quick hack To get yourself out of there I just like will just hold the six pack Very casually and walk out of the store with it Like you know And just dare them I dare you to videotape this and put this on TikTok That's why they have the cameras

Because you're just walking away with the beer

They call them the Luke Burbank memorial camera system So I guess I'm part of the problem

Listen to your soul. Just remember that life is number one. You can be having so much fun. Just remember that life is much fun. You can be not number one.

One of the things that I was going to maybe mention at the top of the show, that we don't have to get into detail about.

here, Luke, today, but I'll give you an update tomorrow, is when the show's over today, I'm going to grab some of my favorite cleaning products from my house here and head over to the Eagles, our airy number one in Lake City, where we spend many an evening. I'm going to go scrub that upstairs area where the karaoke is and the pool tables. I'm going to bring my little extraction vacuum cleaner to see if we can take care of some of those stains that make it look like somebody was murdered and dragged down the stairs right as you enter the airy i don't think i can get those stains out i don't even think folex is up to that task but i just i want to see i just want to see what i can do to clean that place up a little

bit today i'm so i'm intrigued to hear uh how it turned out tomorrow now is this because veeves is now running karaoke there that your family unit is taking a little more interest in in the sort of facilities or is this just a thing about being a part of the area that everybody does

on a rotational basis no it's not it's it's not quite as specific as all of that generally speaking people volunteer for all kinds of roles at the area from time to time there are the people like me who mostly just go there and support the area by drinking too much and tipping huge and you know just trying to just do everything we can to keep the area healthy one shot of jim beam at a time right don't forget about pulling tabs and pulling tabs of course um but that while other people will come in and maybe make special food from time to time or serve food or do that and i don't usually volunteer to do stuff um the upstairs area that i'm describing it has been i looked at the floor the other day and i caught it in a certain light i'm like man that needs mopping i should really probably offer to do that since i am i am somebody who kind of enjoys cleaning and then coincidentally an email went out saying hey we're looking for somebody who can maybe like that we can maybe hire like twice a month to do some regular cleaning around here and i said listen i i don't i i don't have the time to do that job that's not me but until you until you get that person in place i'm happy to like maybe just do a once over over there and also like i say there been a couple of stains that i've just been like can i do anything can i mitigate these stains a little bit you know that you know the stain i'm talking about right on the stairs you come in

And I have a – with you saying that, I feel like I can picture it, but that also might just be like the Mandela effect.

Okay.

Well, it's good to know that it doesn't stand out to you. And I don't spend nearly as much time there as y'all do from not living in Seattle, although I do need to go to that initiation soon. Oh, right, right. Our friend Katie is like – I don't know what the term is, but she's like tagging me in Instagram. Oh, really? In Instagram posts about like – it's got a photograph from the magazine saying, do you know someone who's joined but hasn't done their initiation?

Oh, I didn't know that passive-aggressiveness. I love it. Actually, you know what? I'm sorry, though. You asked me why am I doing this. And, you know, the reason I'm doing this is because there was a meeting at the Eagles recently saying, hey, you know, Luke Burbank is soon going to become a member. We're waiting for him to go through initiation. We should really spruce this place up for him. Like, he's kind of a big deal down at the Cracker Factory. Yeah.

I kind of suspected that's what was going on. It would seem cocky if I framed it that way. But that was my sense, was they're like, okay, the Eagles' area number one ship has finally come in. Live Wire's Luke Burbank will soon become a member, and we need to sort of put our best foot forward with him.

They referred you as TBTL's Luke Burbank, which is why it's such an important thing. I guess they didn't see my Wikipedia page.

All right, that's fine.

Hey, Blur's Day. Yeah, let's do some Blur's Days, actually. Should we do some listener Blursdays here? You had some personal news, I believe, on the... Personal news, sure. On the Blursday front. I mean, this is a Blursday segment, so we call all the Blursdays news. Uh-huh.

Got lots of news. No, I wanted to say a happy Blursday to my darling girlfriend, Becca, who is having a birthday this weekend. And we will be celebrating for the next few days. It's one of those big birthdays. I don't know if she wants me to say, fine, she's 20. it's one of that it's the big 2-0 no we're going to be having

it's funny you're trying to be complimentary but you take too much you take too many years off and it becomes real creepy

you gotta find maybe more of a middle ground there I think anyway happy blurs day

yeah and from me too I was going to do something Luke at the beginning of the blurs day segment where I was going to try to get in there and wish Becca a happy blurs day before you but I actually thought like that might be one of those jokes that maybe teases a little bit too hard as we like to say but sincerely happy birthday black happy birthday blecca is how i have it in my notes here also title yes she gets a whole show named after what could you get a better

membership has its privileges andrew right she has to put up with me on the daily then uh

You know, she gets mentioned first in the Blur's Days, and Happy Blur's Day Blecka is the show title.

Wait a second.

You're also on The Daily? You're on so many shows.

That's actually how I like to be identified as the Eagles. The Daily's Luke Burbank.

Sarah in Portland says, ahoy, hoy, and happiest of birthdays to my TBTL bestie, Cassandra, on Vancouver Island. Luke will allow it. When I saw the on, I almost changed it to in. Then I was like, oh, on Vancouver Island. I will allow it. It's crazy to think we haven't seen each other Since the TBTL cruise in Seattle I'm looking forward to heading north In March and grabbing dinner at Rebar With you, thanks always for being willing To eat vegetarian food with me Love, Sarah Are you familiar with this Rebar? Has somebody already snagged the Rebar name From the club of yesteryear?

So the Rebar that we Did a show in, that was the Terminus of our 24 Hour Vaniversary programming

that ended at the rebar that rebar is no more that i don't know if it's if it's i don't think it's anymore right now and it's certainly like as of a year ago was announced that they were closing down which was a real bummer because it's a real community space uh there are a lot of drag shows there and it was like you know been there for a long long time but it was one of those places in seattle that every time you'd visit it you would just see more and more like big huge like kind of corporate buildings around it like they built a huge mayor maybe marriott moved in And I'm not sure, but like it really became this tiny, tiny little oasis in this sort of steel and glass girdered area. And so I think that I think that finally the the lease ran out, even though I think the owner was trying to fight for them for a long time.

I'm messing up some of that. Yeah, I'm at their website. It says we are currently closed due to covid-19. But then also they have a lot of shows listed, upcoming shows, January 21st. Oh, OK. But I don't know if that's from before the pandemic or whatever. You know what I mean? Like January of 2021 or something. It doesn't say what year it is. And, you know, I'm just hoping that this isn't the first that this Blur's Day listener is hearing of this.

Yes. Well, I'm guessing that this rebar that they're going to is a vegetarian or a vegan place, right? So I was guessing it was something different.

I googled Rebar Seattle. That's the only one I got. You know, they could. Oh, yeah. Vegetarian. There's that great corned beef place around the corner.

Oh, right. Yeah. Which I've never been to. I always thought it was closed. I always thought it was a front. By the way, Google Maps has it listed as permanently closed.

One of these days, if you're looking for a lunchtime adventure, I would recommend that place. And that's I think a lot of their business. Again, this is going back years when I used to live there and eat that kind of stuff. But it's a lot of lunchtime business.

that is probably why every time I saw it we were probably going to karaoke later at night at SBK or something like that I do think that Rebar is closed unfortunately

Market House Meats is the name of that place by the way

all I'm saying is happy Blursday to Cassandra on Vancouver Island from Sarah and your pals at TBTL I like to drop bad news into Blursdays what's wrong with me And Jennifer says, I want to wish a happy 11th Blur's Day to my amazing five, Violet. Her dad, sister, and I are so lucky to have a smart, funny, creative, and thoughtful kid. Keep being you, Vi. You're a special one. Love from mom, dad, and Vivian. I love that name. That's my niece's name as well. It's absolutely beautiful. I'm getting too old to do this show. I have, for some reason, as I'm reading off of my screen right now, I have floaties in front of my eyes, Luke, that literally just blocked out the sentence I was reading, which is why I stumbled. How often does that happen? I don't think this happens a lot. I can't remember it ever happening. I'm not often reading a script. That's called visual snow. I did not like that feeling of me not being able to read for a moment. It's not quite like that. It's like the floaty kinds that kind of float around your eyes.

Can you navigate over to your web browser and send me the Blur's Days and I can read them?

No, it's fine. It just makes me wonder, like, what's going on with me. But we only have one more Blur's Day here, and this is a good one. This is from Maggie in Delaware, who says, Today is the actual Blur's Day of my BFF, Linder. She of the amazing bedhead who welcomed me into the Stens community with open arms, who offered real-life comfort during a tough time for me, and who also offered pretend radio drops to make me giggle. There are some that just shine a little brighter, and she is one of those beautiful people. Happy Blur's Day, Linder, from us and, of course, from Maggie in Delaware. And there you have it. A successful Blur's Day.

segment where i go blind about halfway through it and i also uh tell people bad news about their

favorite seattle haunts just i hope well done well no no that's not bad news well it's not great news but it's it's better to hear it from us than to learn it on the streets no that is that can you imagine those listeners like showing up for their get together and then finding that the place is closed yeah you know they can make other plans now which is good i'm a little i hope you're not You don't have a migraine coming on because I've had that. You know, I'm very fortunate that I used to get – I got a few migraines when I was in high school, and that is – I'm sure our listeners can attest. That is very unfortunately something that if you suffer from, it tends to be something that's always kind of out there on the horizon potentially. I'm one of the few people I know who's like had migraines, and then they just kind of stopped. But I remember the first sign would be my peripheral vision would start to tunnel. Yeah.

Yeah, wasn't that like this is I had some issues with my retinas. I had to have some they weren't like separated, but whatever. I had to have some laser surgery on my eyes like, I don't know, 15, 20 years ago or something. And I think that they said one of the one of the symptoms of whatever was going on with me is you might see more floaties. So I'm just hoping that there's not more laser surgery in my future. By the way, there is a rebar modern food place up in Victoria, and I'm wondering if that's where they're going.

That sounds like a place that would have a good vegetarian selection, and it's in British Columbia, so I bet you that's what they were talking about. Yeah, I'm hoping that that is the case. All right. Oh, crap, Andrew. What's wrong? They just closed, too. everything we say closes every every uh yeah exactly every single place that's referenced on the show that listeners are excited for we're just the place to tell you that that safeway closed sorry uh my father's place closed sorry listener chad who works there in there yeah oh man we gotta go andrew and we've also i said this yesterday we gotta go to that bowling alley Yeah. One of these days, too, I want to read you some of these pull tab words of wisdom and also little facts. Notice I didn't say factoids because we know that factoid is actually something that's true.

I can't remember who it is. We have some listener who's left multiple angry voicemails who says that we learned from Reader's Digest that factoid means not a small fact but a fake, a made-up fact. And we have some listener who insists that that is not the case and that we need to stop professing that, which makes me kind of want to double down on it.

I hope that listener's right because I love using factoid in the way that we've always used it, which is a true thing that's kind of a little toied of a fact.

I certainly think that and this is maybe what this listener's argument is, although it's been a long time, so I don't know. But even if Reader's Digest is right that that was the origin of the word, that's certainly not how it's used anymore, and therefore language evolves. When you say factoid, most people think that this is a small, fun little fact that is true. So I think you're right to use it, and I give you permission to use it, and I'll stop trolling this listener.

But I can't, until I get confirmation, I cannot knowingly use factoid in the incorrect fashion, even though it's, you know, at this point it's moved over into meaning whatever we think it means.

Let's, can you plan on tomorrow sharing some of that wisdom from the pull tabs, pull tab wisdom? Yep, I've got it right.

Pull tab wisdom. That sounds like a show Chuck Norris would have been in, pull tab justice.

And I'll bring my Reader's Digest in here and I'll see if there's anything good in there. that is probably untrue that I can share with you.

We're finally going to reach that younger demo. That's our show for tomorrow. That's our show for tomorrow. Yes, I'm into it. All right. Thanks, everyone. Until we see you tomorrow, have a great Thursday. Take care of yourselves, and please remember the mountain too tall. And good luck to all. Look, it's annoyed. Avoid the annoyed. He ruins pizzas. Power out.