Muse

If you've got a problem that you can't solve, if you're known for your drawings of ships that are tall, if you've got gripes, if you've got dreams, if you've got something to say, then call the TVTO voicemail line today. Just dial 206-414-8285. That's 206-414-8285. The voicemail's ready to record you And it's so easy To call Burbank and Walt In the basic T

TBTL

He's the handsome devil That came down from heaven To make some great songs And a dance And dance forever You don't say much for him But when you do it's to the point And I salute you for it

Listen, I'm not one of those college types it's going to talk your ear off. I bought a balloon, and it doesn't mean I think I'm better

than everybody else. This is the real thing. This is the necessary art of our time. This needs respect. So let's keep the drinks full, let's keep the appetizers circulating, but let's not get in

anybody's face. All right, hello, good morning, and welcome everybody to a Wednesday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. It's the story of a man with a brothel

of a home in a pool filled with human excrement my name is luke burbank i am your host i'm just

too fly today coming to you from the hollywood broadcast center right here in portland oregon

i feel like a bird story over these haters you feel me though and we've arrived my friends

at episode 3,881 in a collector's series let the fun begin they said we couldn't do it they said we couldn't make 3,881 of these. And I guess technically we haven't yet. We've made 3,880. We're about two minutes and ten seconds into this one. But assuming that this goes all the way, that we finish this and this makes it to the Internet, we've done this 3,881 times. And that, my friends, is incredible. There's also an incredible statistic related to the frequency with which cars crash into 7-Eleven stores. No crash. And actually just crash into stores in general. There is an association called the Storefront Safety Council that tracks these things, and we're going to talk about that. Also, we've got some Sky Jinx Wu. Sky Jinx Wu. The Internet is trying to decide. If a guy who was on JetBlue, where they have live television, apparently they have live television on JetBlue, which, by the way, I think every airline should have. Everyone on a JetBlue flight on Sunday, and I've seen the photos, everyone on this aeroplane was watching the Super Bowl, except one guy. And someone took a picture of it And now we're trying to decide if he is A hero or a zero So we'll talk about that Oh and yesterday of course Was Valentine's Day And I have now come up with a new law That I think Should be the law of the land When it comes to a thing you're not allowed to do

It's literally illegal

On Valentine's Day So we'll get into that Plus emails and v-mails And this guy, the longest-running co-bro of the show, may be best known for his depictions of the tall ships. Hey, where's the freaking Gabagool? That's how he starts every morning when we're doing our soundcheck, asking me, inquiring as to the whereabouts of the Gabagool. He is Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend. And you still won't answer me, will ya? I just like to keep it interesting. I like to preserve a certain amount of mystery, Andrew. 3,881 episodes into this journey that we're on together.

I'm like a hog snuffling around looking for truffles, only it's salty meat that's on my mind. Hey, I have something I'd like to clear up here at the beginning of the show. I didn't ever think I'd have to make this correction slash apology. I don't know if it's an apology, but just to be very clear.

Are you going to tell me that that piece of audio is not from The Last Man on Earth?

It's actually from What We Do in the Shadows, one of Kristen Scholl's newer projects. Makes sense. No, I would like to say this to my friend who gently reached out to me to make sure that I'm okay. To the person who left a voicemail on the voicemail line yesterday, I want to make it clear, no, I don't love Jenny McCarthy. I was talking really quickly on Monday's show. I was rat-a-tat-tat-ing at one point I said

Hey, listen, I love Jenny McCarthy as much as the next guy. And I'm getting these concerned voicemails from listeners like, you know that she's not really on the right side of the vaccination thing? I'm like, yeah, that's the first thing I think of when I think of Jenny McCarthy. I meant Melissa McCarthy. I'm just a doofus. I mean, the fact that I got one of her names right is actually kind of a victory for me.

I heard you say that, and it did not hit my ears wrong, which means we're in this together, my guy. Because we were talking about Super Bowl commercials, and you were saying that a lot of the commercials were kind of lost on you or didn't just sort of capture your interest. And you were trying to refer to Melissa McCarthy, and you said, I like Jenny McCarthy as much as the next person. And I heard you say that, and no part of it hit my ear wrong. I'm just saying, Andrew, we're going down together, my friend.

I'm sorry. I'm doing it again. The Melissa McCarthy commercial was for Booking.com. I think it would be Donnie Wahlberg. One of those songs in marriage to Jenny McCarthy, by the way. Is that true? Donnie is? Yes.

Donnie. Well, depending on your take on New Kids on the Block, you could call him a lesser Wahlberg or maybe a greater Wahlberg than Mark.

But he's the only Wahlberg. You confused me there for a second. He's the only Wahlberg in New Kids on the Block, right?

Correct.

Okay. Yeah.

But not the only Wahlberg on the planet. Not the only Wahlberg on the planet. Right. But he is the only Wahlberg who is married to Jenny, don't call me Melissa McCarthy. It's funny. And that's the fact that that's her name means I really shouldn't have messed that up. Honestly, I mean, that's kind of on you.

That's borderline misogyny.

What's going on in your apartment building? Oh, man, Andrew. I alluded to this yesterday on the show. So I live in this apartment building a lot of the time here in Portland that I guess, you know, they certainly would like to frame themselves as a quote unquote luxury apartment building. I would say it's it's north of a hovel and south of luxury. OK, this particular building managed by Gray Star Property Management, which, by the way, ever since you told me about Gray Star and that they're the management company.

Now I hear that name all over the place, usually in articles talking about bad practices. Yes, exactly. I'm not even joking. Like, oh, yeah, they are the biggest in the country, the biggest management company in the country. And they are not loved.

Why would you even name your company Gray Star?

I think it was a compromise. I think they wanted to go for Black Star, and somebody was like, sir, that's just slightly too evil.

They wanted to go with swastika? Yeah, right. Someone called dibs on it? Yeah, it's just like whatever your aspirations are for your company, and nobody starts out their company thinking, you know what we should really do is corner the market on apartment managing and then make everyone's experience slightly less good. What should we call it? Dark Star. Like who you start out with positive aspirations and you still go with gray star as your was dwarf planet taken.

Anyway, good.

So I live in this building and they are, you know, they like I was mentioning to you on the show recently. They've put up a lot of paintings and photographs of musicians heavy on the boomer sort of style of music, i.e. style of music appreciated by many boomers a lot of Jimi Hendrix a lot of you know rolling stones and that sort of thing the other thing they have in this building in the lobby is a coffee machine that you can just go up to any time when it's working which is actually most of the time I want to be fair I will say this the maintenance staff in this building the maintenance folks are amazing I would appoint them the guy is named Juan and I don't know the woman's name but I would appoint them the bosses of Greystar. If only Greystar property management could be run more the way that the sort of custodial and other physical plant things are at this building thanks to Juan and this other gal we'd be in a much better place. I love them. What if Juan's last name is

Grey and the woman's name is Star and they're like doing this undercover boss thing?

Oh my gosh. Well then I've been had. Because I will tell you what, I couldn't like them more and I couldn't like Graystar less. And if they're one in the same, I've really got to I've got to really work on my radar, on my my my ability to read people. So we've got this coffee machine in the building and it's you know, you can get any sort of coffee I think you want from there. I tend to just go with like a standard drip coffee situation. But, you know, it's got a touch screen. It's pretty fancy.

Does it use pods or you don't know what's going on inside there? You're just pushing. And I don't ask. Yeah. OK, gotcha.

I don't want to know what's going on. Yeah, it's some kind of series of like sacks of different kinds of flavoring. And I do think it actually uses real coffee beans. I don't ever go with the milk product because I can't tell if it's refrigerated or not in there.

or if it's some kind of shelf-stable. I don't ever get cream. You could have cream in the coffee. You can do, as my dad would call it, a latte. You can do a cappuccino. You can do things that have sort of a dairy element, but I don't really want to mess with that. But I do think it's kind of a nice thing, and sometimes maybe I'll run out of coffee that's been mailed to us by our dear friend Barry at Broadcast Coffee, or the coffee pot is dirty. Things can happen. Life comes at you fast, Andrew, And sometimes I will make myself a little cup of coffee from down there, from the machine. I think it's a nice perk, a nice benefit of living in this place. Perk. Coffee. Oh, yeah. Thank you. I thought that was a Percocet reference.

No, but I'm waiting for that part of the conversation, so I can just say perk again. Keep the conversation going.

So what I've noticed, though, is I've gotten into the elevator a couple of times fairly early in the morning, Like, you know, 7.30, 8, whatever And there is a couple that lives on my floor Man and woman Who drag themselves out of bed Put on the minimum amount of covering over their pajamas I.e. a bathrobe Stumble their way to the elevator With their mugs in hand Go down to the lobby And make themselves a cup of coffee every morning seven days a week 365 how many days we have in the year it depends i think and what i've noticed okay that's fine i guess that's their life choice but what i've also noticed is now it's become a thing i came out of the gym the other morning and i remembered i didn't have any coffee upstairs and i was i was on a bit of a timeline uh uh sort of a schedule and i was i thought oh well this is great i'm out of coffee but we have this nice coffee machine It's something that I'm paying for, even if I'm not using it. So I'll grab a cup of coffee. And there were, sitting around, we have these high kind of bar tables, too, that are in that general area. There were, Andrew, no less than six people in their flipping pajamas, sitting around with their mugs, waiting to get their coffee from the coffee machine.

Wait, why are they waiting? Who are they waiting for? you can only make one cup at a time okay so is it this couple that is holding up the line

it's them and apparently other people who have now glommed on to this trend in my building of every morning in your pajamas going down to the lobby and making yourself a cup of coffee getting in line and making yourself a cup of coffee which to me does not feel like the esprit decor of that coffee machine i think of it as a thing where you might get some coffee now and then you get some coffee when maybe you don't have any in your place or it's in the afternoon you want a little pick-me-up you grab a cup of coffee now and then you don't every day in your bathrobe take the elevator downstairs and get in line and jam up the coffee machine access for everybody because you're too cheap to get a goddamn mr coffee

i told you yesterday on the show that i i was trying to predict what the predicament here would be and i would probably go along with you but i'm still confused having you asked you not to go along with me just is it just to prove me what okay so the concern is so okay i was actually

mentioned this to you before the show i really want to tell you something i said yesterday that i'm not gonna come off looking good no because on this ring i thought like i was i thought like

if people are what's the word dot my dawdling dawdling is that the right word i was gonna say that then it sounded weird um if people are like monkeying around and sometimes you even complain if you're in a coffee line and people are getting too complicated of coffees in front of you like from a barista and i can't go along with that i mean people are paying for a service they can

take advantage of it but you famously love uh your 12 and a half pumps of vanilla pumpkin spice but i

don't like it in coffee i just like it to go right straight into your mouth well all over my face really like kind of zoolander style um but um i'm a little confused as to what so nobody's doing anything wrong here they're just using the coffee machine but like they're not like standing around and jawing and talking they're just going getting their cup of coffee what does it take like a

minute to make a cup of coffee yeah but if you have six people it's six minutes and now i have to wait six minutes to get my coffee which i take i get two of them a month i just feel like this is not supposed to be where you literally get every cup of coffee you consume in your life in this apartment building that's my that's my my emotional reaction to this i'm not saying it's logical we're all paying for it we should take advantage of it lord knows gray star management doesn't cut us many breaks so on that sort of from that perspective yes everybody should get over as much as they can on the management of this apartment.

building on the other hand i just wanted my coffee and i feel like it is weird for people to use this as their primary source of coffee in their life it just seems like and i can't think of a good analogy and i really can't even defend myself other than to say six people milling about more or less undressed well not undressed but just looking very slovenly with their mugs after i came from the gym andrew have i mentioned i've been getting up early and working out after it just it seems somehow to be not in the spirit of what this coffee machine is supposed

to be about to me i want so badly just to find a single thread of anything i can get traction on

on this story but like i don't get traction on people are traction on not liking me it's free

it's just yeah no it's free i mean again if people are i'm even trying to figure out i would still probably defend this but if even if you were applying your argument of a but they're going in i want a quick 30 second cup but other people are making this fancy latte that takes two and a half minutes like i still would say probably that's still their prerogative i would say but at least i would understand but you're just like there's a thing that is provided to us and people are using

it yeah but i just don't think what if let me put it this way let me can i let me put it this way if everyone in the building got their morning coffee from this machine nobody would be able to get their coffee a it would run out of coffee very fast b the line would be an hour there's a reason this only works if everyone doesn't treat it as their exclusive morning coffee option but

then there will be there will be a breaking point that i mean the same way so you just mentioned um again that you had gone to the gym you know the the the um apartment building has a little gym that you've described and it sounds like you're usually in there alone and so you i could be wrong about this but it sounds like you don't really have to worry about somebody who's not in there the pajama posse but then like if it got to a point and anybody who's gone to a gym whether it's a small gym attached to a hotel or an apartment or even your your 24-hour fitness you go to a certain time of day and it might be more crowded and maybe sometimes you can't even get on a machine and if that were happening let's say in your apartment building around 7 a.m and then there was like a backup because there's only two treadmills or whatever um you would start to adjust your routine you'd be like well i go down at seven but somebody's always on the treadmill so i guess i gotta go down at six from now on and if more and more people are doing that eventually it will be like liquid people will just find other options they'll stop going and or they'll try to never saw you as an invisible hand guy get up earlier and earlier it's you mister the market

will decide here's the thing a treadmill does not fit conveniently upon the countertop of your kitchen like the only option for using a treadmill in this building because you're probably not even allowed to have them in your apartment is to go to the place where they keep the tread oh yeah a lot

of people you are not the type of person who would put an exercise bike or or a treadmill in in your probably in your main living area but tons of people do that genevieve just got a little tiny exercise bike that actually folds up and goes in the closet but then comes out so that she can get exercise during the winter this is like a new like a lot of people have indoor sure

but you live in a home with multiple floors i think there's a limited number of treadmills in the apartments of this building and my point is just it is much more normal and easy to have a coffee maker in your house that you use to make the coffee that you drink then to have a treadmill I know what you're saying

That makes lattes

Maybe not lattes Now in fairness maybe not lattes But listen I know that I don't have a leg to stand on With this I understand that it's there for people to use And people using it Is not a crime Or not even something that should annoy me I will admit as well There's something about the people not taking the time To just get at least somewhat dressed And this is you know again i know that in this day and age we don't talk about how people dress or what clothing choices people make generally because everyone is allowed to board every airplane dressed head to toe in minion sleepwear and no one's allowed to say that that lowers the quality of life for the rest of us but and i can tell that you're cool with it no i love it that's how i dress that's how i fly i just love i love it's like why do you have a pillow we're flying to seattle you're not a 23 minute flight you don't need to have a pillow with you and pajamas no i and i'm not

busting your chops here i'm serious i love what you just did you are not on the record saying that you look down on these folks who wear head-to-toe pajama sleepwear if somebody interpreted it that way in this day and age i'm just asking questions to do it and we're not allowed to say I'm not saying anything, but we're not allowed to.

questions about people's no there is something about people wandering the lobby of the apartment building with with like the most minimum amount of effort put into their general presentation that doesn't exactly make me feel like life is going great for all of us and i'm sorry like that's just and i will say this andrew you are actually a little bit more formal than i am because I have certainly done this show with you in sweats or maybe in my exercise gear or something else. I know that you always get dressed. Even during the height of the pandemic, it was like you put on your jeans and you put on your button-up shirt and you go to work. So I think you're a person who would not probably see going to the store in your sleepwear, right?

No, no, I wouldn't do that. In fact, I have a confession to make. I tell you that I always wear full outfit. I don't even like doing this show in just a T-shirt. I've got my button-down shirt or my snap-down shirt on right now, pair of jeans, belt, everything. Those pearl snaps. I will admit to you that I'm wearing my slip-on Dock Sider-style Tonight shoes right now. They're not lace-ups. So if I sound a little off my game or a little bit overly casual today, my apologies you dress for the job that you want um from the ankles down oh my god can you hear me sorry something just happened to my lungs that was not a good sound to put in there you had real shoes on right now you wouldn't have had that happen but no you're right like but listen i'm really i'm really messed up though too right i mean that's the ongoing joke of the show and for people who don't know like when we talk about tonight pants because we got a voicemail from somebody who just realized recently that when I talk about my tonight pants I'm not talking about sweatpants I am talking about I am talking about the more comfortable pants that I put on at the end of the day when I'm getting done with the last task of my day and I'm like time to slip into something more comfortable I am putting on something I call my tonight pants they are not loose fitting necessarily they are not shorts they are not sweatpants they are not exercise size pants they are an old pair of dockers that i stopped wearing out about five years ago that are probably a couple of sizes too big but still it's like in the back of my head if i have to flee my home at least i'm not in minions pajama pants now that's me there's anything wrong with of course not but that's what i'm saying but like that's me like i tell you that i don't like to go to houses that are like shoes off houses i feel uncomfortable in that it feels too casual to me but again i am the outlier there and i will admit that and you are right there's definitely a a casualization of outerwear that we have seen in our lifetime i mean you and i you know as gen xers grew up in the era of of seinfeld where a big running joke or a big iconic joke on that show was like whether or not you can go out in sweatpants right like you're basically wearing pajamas outside i don't remember the structure of that joke but i think it was a touch point and that probably got in my head i grew up wearing doc martens basically to bed every night like like but again i'm an extreme

weirdo about this you know in case they declared war in the middle of the night and you need to march to the front lines you had the proper boots on in case they declared punk rock in the middle

of the night um no but like so that was like kind of my somewhat generation but i think i was weird even within my peers but um and yeah so when when i saw you know society bend towards a lot of people wearing like what looks like sleepwear and crocs or whatever like that is definitely not for me but but you also you're right like and maybe part of me has to turn off my gen x reaction to not be judgy but at this point i'm also i mean you could judge me for so many lifestyle choices that I make at age 46 that like I'm just like you know not gonna I'm not gonna start pointing fingers at other people and what they're presenting I mean some of the people who I might see at the grocery store shuffling around with Crocs and and uh minion style pajama pants might like be running very successful businesses or might be closing the what's the account that you and your Jacobson account might be closing the Jacobson yeah like honestly like you know And so I got to just kind of remember, like, listen, I'm not the one who's like kind of who should tell other people how to live their life because I ain't exactly doing it right.

Well, listen, I agree with you. I think that you have a good take on it, which is you hold yourself personally to a fairly high standard, but you also give everyone else a break. That's the right way to be in the world. I'm just not that way. um like i feel like and you're absolutely right somebody wearing comfortable clothing is not an indicator of like their success quote-unquote success in the world or anything about them as a person but to me i feel like my general sense of my sense of how i feel in the world is lowered or how how okay i feel in the world is lowered when i am out in the world surrounded by people who could not be motivated to even put on jeans and i'm sorry and people obviously are dealing with you know mental health issues physical limitations all these things and all of those caveats being you know sort of asterisked like i'm not talking about somebody who that's the only clothes they have or somebody who for whatever reason this is a necessary thing for them i'm just and again everybody should wear whatever they want at any time but i'm just reporting my experience is when we all when when a large percentage of the population just decided to just wear their bathrobes down to the lobby of my building it feels like idiocracy to me it just feels like we're not evolving in the right direction as a species that's just how i feel and it's judgy and probably and certainly wrong of me but i just would like those people to get

a coffee okay yeah actually coming back to the coffee thing for a second too and by the way for whatever it's worth like yeah like you say your position on that is is hard to maybe kind of defend and come off as as judgy a little bit i appreciate you being honest about it though like in all seriousness and then i have another point i would like to make but in all seriousness like you and i are imperfect people right and i would rather have us be honest and ugly sometimes on the show than just say the thing that we know is the right thing to say you know what i mean and

i mean for thank you for that i really mean in the in these scenarios because i don't think that

you and i have like dark like true darkness or dark feelings in our heart i would prefer that We'd be our authentic selves. And if every now and then that means we're going to get the slings and arrows of people who say, hey, you're being a judgy Gen Xer. Obviously, don't do that to me, people. I'm the good one. He's the asshole. But anyway. He is the cute one. I was going to say, though, this doesn't really match your point here. But I'm just imagining a scenario where you get one of those emails from Darkstar that you hate that has like a smiley emoji at the top or whatever. But it says, because of excessive use of the coffee machine, we are now allowing every household one cup of coffee per week. And you can now use this card to access your cup of coffee. That would be – you would go ballistic.

Absolutely. And that is the hypocrisy of what I'm – Or if they sent out an email that said, hey, we've had some complaints about attire in the lobby, and we just would ask everyone to please put on some normal clothes, put on some awake time clothes when you go to the lobby. I would be also, as you would say, Andrew, rip shit about that. There's no winning with me on this, right? Like if if if there were to be any formalization of what I'm talking about, like limiting how much coffee somebody could get or telling people how to dress in the public spaces of this building, I would be furious about that, too. So I'm so aware of how kind of judgy and hypocritical and not cool I'm being with this. But I'm just – again, it's because – well, I mean I'm not making it any better. I was going to say just because like I go to the lobby a lot for – I door dash a lot of food, way more than I should for my health and for the carbon footprint and for my bank account. But I do that a lot. And the thing about this building is The food delivery folks They can't use the elevator Because you need like a fob So you really have to go Talk about your last mile problem Andrew It's like honestly it makes no sense To do DoorDash if you live in this building Because the greatest distance in the world Is between my apartment door And the front door of the apartment building Lobby that's the journey If I'm leaving this like Sanctum that I'm Is that a word? Sanctum? like that if i'm leaving this little nest that is my apartment to go down to the lobby i might as well just get in my car and drive to you know the sandwich shop or wherever i'm ordering from because that's the hard part like it's and you know what the hard part is for me putting on clothes because i might be in sweats and uh or you know like you know what i still wear do you have these remember when we flew to australia and we were definitely not in first class but they knew we were like getting a hookup from Qantas and they brought us those pajamas that were meant for people in first class like we got the pajamas of the first class people but just not the seats yeah I'm wearing

them do you ever wear those pajamas no um I don't wear pajamas but I uh gave them to Genevieve and

she still wears them they are so comfy like when I was sick last week I wore those pajamas for like four straight days and it was just like they're the coziest things but if i have to go downstairs to get some you know pick up some food from doordash or whatever uh i am putting on my like my my my jeans and some shoes and like a sweatshirt you do do that

to go to the lobby okay that's what i absolutely yeah i would too you know me i'd dress up like janet jackson when she's wearing that military walsh if you're nasty that's right like i would I'd have shirts buttoned up to my Adam's apple.

And then, and this is an interesting flourish, you would rip your bustier off and you would have a pierced nipple, but only you would get in trouble for this, not Justin Timberlake.

Only I would get in trouble, and I wouldn't be the one doing it, exactly. I was thinking of the, I realized when I said that, she has a lot of different eras and a lot of different looks. I was talking specifically about, I guess, Rhythm Nation era Janet Jackson, just to be very clear, yeah.

You'd have a hat on, it'd be like, have a really very structured, very tall brim with like a sheet of metal on it i believe i feel like that was the the hats they were wearing in the rhythm nation video anyway i i am i'll stop talking about this now because i'm certainly not endearing myself to many of the listeners because again i want to say that officially my standpoint my stance is people should be comfortable and people should do what they want i really do believe that i just would like them to do a little better i would just people should be able to do what they want as long as it doesn't annoy me at 7.30 in the morning when I'm just trying to get a cup of joe. I truly believe that

people should do what I want. That's all

I'm saying. You know what else I want people to do, Andrew? Not close a jewelry store early on Valentine's Day. God, it's Hot Take

Wednesday. I forgot. You know, when I came down to the studio today, I forgot. I forgot that it's Hot Take Wednesday. Did you see some smoke

rising off of IPDTL?

I thought there was a new pope, but no, it turns out it's hot.

And he's here to clean house.

There's a new pope in town. Yeah.

I had a little hot date with Becca last night for Valentine's Day. We went to a really great place called Bamboo Sushi. It was delicious. Free plug for them. And I had gotten a couple of little, you know, gifts. But I wanted to try to see if I could get one more little thing that I just thought would be a nice little touch. And there's actually a very small kind of woman-owned, I guess you would say, sort of artisanal jewelry place here in Portland that I love. I've been there probably five, ten times and have gotten gifts for various people in my life there. I really like this place. and uh yesterday i thought well let me just see if they've got some kind of nice little bobble that i could pick up last minute and add to the the gifts and uh now thankfully that's what the level that we were dealing with in other words they i had some other stuff i was more or less good on this i just thought this would be nice to have a little extra if this would have been the case where i didn't have any gifts and this is where i was going to get my gift it would have been pretty bad because i look at the website and the place is open until five o'clock at this point it's like 3 30 in the afternoon and i head on over to the shop and by the time i get there let's say it's about four and i walk it's in this kind of building that has a number of other different businesses in it and i go around to the the entrance which is kind of a bit of a walk to get two and i go down the hallway and i get there and it's just closed and it's four in the afternoon and the door the sign on the door says you know monday through friday nine to five and i looked over and there was somebody who worked at a different business who was standing in the hall and i said you just can't close a jewelry shop early unannounced on valentine's day and the lady laughed and was like yeah she just left i just thought like i mean what's an analysis what's what is a what's a comparison to this like a closing a uh i don't know a christmas tree lot early on christmas eve or something like this seems like it is the day for this thing if there is a day that you want to not close an hour early for no reason it would be valentine's day

yeah i mean it's funny it's not it's not a clean it's not a clean comparison but as you were saying it i was sort of thinking this is kind of my frustrations with the the the christmas holidays writ large is that people you know that like for a holiday that i don't personally care all that much about people are just closing shit early and it's kind of like yeah we're all doing this thing it's like all right like so i get frustrated with that too i understand what you're saying though you're saying that like well this this particular service is even more in demand at that point

I get it. I mean, maybe they just sold their last jewelry. We have a donut shop near our house. When they sell their last donut, they close for the day. Maybe that's what happens. Now, that makes sense because you have no more donuts.

I looked in the window. They still had some baubles in there. They still had some stuff they could have sold. And I will also say this. Obviously, we live in a very different world than the world that we lived in four years ago, right? Or however long ago the pandemic started. Like so much has changed about our lives. And one of the big changes that we have sort of discussed a lot on this program is just staffing places and the challenges of that sort of thing. And and also I just felt like because of the pandemic, there were so many different rules and lockdowns and soft openings and hard closings, which, by the way, would be the name of my second book. soft openings and hard closings the luke burbank story um like i feel like we've entered an era where one can never be sure if a business is going to be open when you go to it even if the hours that are listed online tell you that it should be open and i you know i guess mostly i'm annoyed at myself because i should have called ahead but i thought to myself they're open till five it's valentine's day it's a jewelry place there is no way this is the day that they're randomly closing early and in fact it was but i should have just called and then i would have

known i mean maybe that person because they're in the in the business of love it's an important day to them so they had to get out of there early so they give a now you have a frenemy In the bauble business Should have gone to Tom Shane

I wonder what the location is Here in Portland I don't listen to enough commercial radio To hear the Shaneco ads But famously This was not a thing in Ohio When you were growing up You guys didn't have Tom Shane out there

I don't think so But my media consumption was very different But yeah I did not think of Tom Shane Until I moved to Seattle

Because as I've noticed Talking to people and also sometimes being in other cities It's always like When I grew up in Seattle it was Now you have a friend in the diamond business Corner of 4th and Stewart Across from whatever They always give you the specific address At the end of the ad and wherever you grew up If it was a place where they had Shane Co You've got your own specific Address reference I wonder what the Portland folks Grew up with I wonder where the Shane Company is around here

That's a good call and I don't think they do that anymore on the ads because i hear those ads a lot now there must be so many of them they'd probably

just give out the at the web address or whatever now the other uh because what i really want to establish today is that i'm a good boyfriend andrew i had another this actually was a this was a good outcome but i had some i ordered some flowers yes not all heroes wear capes uh but i called up this flower place in downtown seattle i had downtown portland i i sent back some flowers at her work and it was interesting because their website it was clear i talked to the guy on the phone was really nice and i was trying to describe to him which is hard because i'm like i don't know terminology and i don't even know exactly what i wanted but what i knew was i didn't want anything from the website of this place because what they had was clearly i think some kind of like it must be a mass-produced floral website that if you have a flower shop but you don't really want to manage your own website like take your own photos and do the pricing and have the drop down menu there must be some kind of like thing that you can just like buy one time or lease does that make any sense like it's a small floral shop in downtown portland but when you click on their website it gives you this like sort of almost like 1-800 flowers style yeah i know that or f what is it ftd yeah they have these partnerships i remember even in new

hampshire like you'd go to like i know the flower shop and it's like this authentic little flower shop but their website yeah they must partner up with some sort of a national national company or something that helps maybe funnel certain types of arrangements to them or something yes maybe

and also just like it just is a thing that you can click on and say i want a dozen roses and then they give you a dozen roses and it's just a an easy way for this to get managed for them as opposed to them running their own website but man it was terrible it was just all like you know teddy bears holding like a satin rose with like a one dew drop on it kind of stuff and this was the only place at the again because i'm a planner andrew that's why i'm showing up at the jewelry store one hour before they close on valentine's and two days previous to that calling the floral place but this was the only place i could get that would still deliver and what i was trying To say to the guy on the phone was Please make sure that it doesn't look like Anything that I see you advertising

Do you say wait you said that

No I was trying to

transmit that i was trying to say it without saying i was like holy shit no no he was a really

good guy jimmy loved him but like i called him and i was like are you still able to deliver on valentine's he goes well probably not but you know we appreciate the business we'll make it work nice and i go cool man thank you goes yeah well we'll probably do some swearing when i hang up the phone but you don't have to hear that like he was like a really cool guy for for uh you know

that's it jimmy's your flower guy like from now on oh you honey jimmy is your flower guy okay like you have to reward like oh for an anniversary for anything yeah okay yes 100 because also by the way

the flowers turned out great but what i was trying to tell jimmy was so um it's valentine's so you know some flowers that are kind of in the theme of valentine's but but but not so valentine's i was like something earthier like i was trying to so there's a really cool flower and plant store here in portland called solarby and it's actually my sister liz's uh friend sarah owns it and it is like you know the kind of like the how hip obviously plants are now and also like floral arrangements but ones that are very like um intentional and let's just say not from 1-800 flowers like it's a big thing these days in places like seattle and portland and solarby is this very cool store that just has amazing arrangements and you know like they just get it everything they put together is is so cool and again i'll just use this term earthy it's the opposite of you know uh just kind of some mass-produced overly dyed pink floral arrangement but solo b wasn't delivering anymore because they have to hand forge each one of these things it's like five people work there so that's how i ended up on this other place and with jimmy but man i love jimmy and jimmy jimmy nailed it but i did find myself in this awkward moment where i was trying to tell jimmy that i wanted them to just not do what they're normally doing if this website is any reflection on their work but he totally got it and in fact this is another cool thing i was like just get creative with and he was like oh our floral arrangers will love hearing that oh

that's nice oh because sometimes i could i could see that going the other way too just kind of like hey listen this is last minute don't just tell me to get creative like just tell me what

you want you know i could sort of see that he had the opposite take and they but they got the flowers there on time that was the other thing i was worried about was that they'd you know there was going to be so backlogged that they would get there at like six o'clock at night and kind of miss the effect there was um a bouquet so there's a front desk in the lobby of my apartment building and it's no longer staffed because gray star doesn't want to overpay for uh you know the folks that manage the building so there used to be a person there like monday through friday During most normal business hours And they could answer questions and help and route things That position has been eliminated And so there was just a bouquet of flowers Sitting there for like the last three days And I was tempted to just figure out Whose apartment they went to And just take them to that apartment And like leave them in front of the door Because somebody sent somebody flowers And they were just withering Like literally wilting away In the lobby of the building I thought you were going to say I was thinking about just taking those And giving them to Becca Well that's what I ended up doing But anyway Alright that's about 43 minutes of your life you'll never get back In which I established that I am in fact An amazing boyfriend

The good news is you've generated a lot of emails and voicemails For us the next few days I can hear Bernie Warming up his word processor in Berlin I got a nice note from Bernie last night He said he really appreciated Our gentle handling Of the situation yesterday but we should understand if he's not writing in anytime soon that's fair you know what make room

for other people to embarrass themselves bernie that's fine all right quick break and then we'll

be back with more tbtl in a moment on your mark on your mark get set get set now ready ready go

everybody rattle dattle let's thank some dazzling donors these wonderful generous supportive folks are dazzling us with their donation of dough. And as a thanks for folks that are able to provide this level of support, we sort of turn the floor over to them for a few minutes, and we read whatever it is that they've submitted. And today we want to start by thanking our dear friend, J-Dog Jonathan Hauser. Jonathan Hauser, pronounced J-Dog, is what the web intake says. How did you come up with that nickname again? I just have, Andrew, it's like sometimes I get into a flow Because his name's Jonathan

And I'm noticing now that Jonathan begins with J Is that what the J references

That's definitely where it started Okay That was the jumping off point But then dog, that just came to me

How many animals did you go Like J-bird Actually no J-bird is my

is my brother-in-law's nickname.

That's a good thing.

I know a jaybird. Nice. You know a jaybird and a jaydog. I do. We've got most of the Animal Kingdom covered. Jonathan is in White Center, Washington, U.S. of A, and says, I just want to take this time to remind my fellow tens to support local businesses, especially community restaurants. A little plug for my favorite restaurant in White Center, El Catrin. This family-owned restaurant delivers Mexican fare, Oftentimes adapting a menu Based on the availability of fresh ingredients They're also wonderful people Power out Now I'm getting Mexican food For dinner That sounds so good to me right now Shout out to Jonathan And also to the folks Do you think I'm saying that right? El Catrin

Let me look closely El Catrin Well you know what What do we know about the Spanish language If there's no accent, and I'm not seeing an accent here, it's on the second-to-last syllable. Is that correct? Is that a rule?

Whoa, look at you. Did you take Spanish at Wolf High? I did.

I took a little bit in high school, and I think maybe a little bit in college. But I don't know how to say a little bit in college in Spanish, so I didn't take enough of it.

Un poco. Un poco.

Poquito. Un poquito. I don't know. El Katrin. Maestro. On your mark. On your mark. Get set. Get set. I was trying to figure out how to say maestro in Spanish.

I think you nailed it. We've also got to thank Catherine Bradford, who's over there in Spokane, Washington, in the Inland Empire. Thank you, Catherine. Catherine says, I've been listening to Luke, Andrew, and Jen banter their hearts away as I fall asleep at night for the past 10 years. I set my sleep timer for 30 minutes and to know right where to pick up when I get ready in the morning. Thanks, Catherine.

That's smart.

A lot of people listen to the show to fall asleep, which I've chosen to take as a compliment. I think people feel safe. They know that no one's going to shame them for wearing their Minions pajamas in public and that it puts them in a state of rest so they can fall asleep. But I also like the fact that Catherine, then it sounds like, listens the next day.

Yeah, I know.

This is not purely melatonin. This is not the melatonin equivalent of podcasting. I know. I kind of like this. Yeah, I'm into it. Like many other 10s, I've built TBTL into the fabric of my life. Luke and Andrew were with me in the highest times of my life. My ex-husband and I exited our wedding ceremony to Ben Lee's Catch My Disease. That's a pretty good walkout song. And also in the hospital when I was laboring with both of our children, Owen and Logan. Shout out to Owen and Logan. And for the last two and a half years, the most challenging time in my life, they've kept me from hearing the silence in my home when my littles stay with their dad a couple of evenings each week. I'm overwhelmed with emotion and gratitude as I reflect on the impact of the consistency and reliability of two people I am quite distant to and have been my sense of belonging, not to overstate things, of course. Aw, Catherine, thank you for saying that. That really means a lot to us, and I'm glad that this show can kind of be there for you on those nights when you're feeling a little bit lonely. Catherine also says, I'm a pretty awesome realtor over here in eastern Washington, so anyone looking to buy or sell or know someone who is, please hit me up. It's Catherine, and that's with a Y, by the way, k-a-t-h-r-y-n dot bradford 4 that's the number 4 at gmail.com katherine.bradford the number 4 at gmail.com katherine do you represent the Loon Lake area of Spokane because if you see a cabin out there that's under I don't know a thousand dollars

I will buy it katherine no he's not allowed to buy any more houses katherine i'm gonna drive you have to finish the house you already bought well i it has to be under a thousand

that's the amount of money i have currently is one thousand dollars i think the chances of me getting a cabin on loon lake for a thousand dollars are pretty low yeah but i'm just saying if you see one pop up catherine you know let a guy know that's what i'm saying you know i officially decided that i am just i'm just gonna let that truck go by the way speaking of things that i acquired stupidly like i re i was driving past it the other day here in portland so this

is the orange truck it's a 1980s era truck maybe 1970s era truck that you bought somewhat on a whim it was not somewhat fully in working condition but you loved the look of it and you were going to use it maybe at your new place you took it to a garage they wanted you to come out and take a look at something with them.

before they started working on it, right? Well, actually, what happened was they got it running. So it wouldn't start. I bought it from a guy. I got it real cheap because he couldn't get it started. And I had it towed to actually he used his ex-wife's AAA account to get it towed for free to the garage. And then they figured out that it was just a loose wire. So they got it started. And I was like, oh, jackpot. And then he said, well, it runs rough. The guys, Bobo and Little Devil Who run this auto place Were really something These two brothers are really I think one of them was like It's the yellow truck I mean this thing couldn't be more orange And then the other guy was like Yellow They're just like those kind of guys Who are just yelling to each other And misunderstanding each other constantly I love it This is their form of communication The one guy also His nose literally ran Down onto the receipt That he was giving me

There was a drip of snot

Drip, my friend How about unbroken stream of mucus It was I think I maybe told you about this back when it happened It was really upsetting

I feel like I'd remember that disgusting detail

Not to be confused with the dazzling

This is your receipt Then he hands it to you

So I owed them like a couple hundred bucks For fixing the wiring And so So I went in and settled up for that So like I don't owe them any money like for for labor you know for services rendered but then uh eventually he called me and said something to the effect of it runs we got it running but it runs really rough and i said well could you then make it make it run less rough yeah like i don't could i pay you to do that and he said i don't want and this is actually i really respect the guy for this he was like i don't want you to put any more money into this until you hear it which made me think that it's like got a blown you know gasket or something like something very kind of catastrophic because he wouldn't even accept my money to do more work on it until i came out and observed with my own ears and eyes how jacked up this truck was which i've still to this day never been in its presence when it's running right because it was not running when i bought it they got it going when i wasn't

there and i haven't been back but what i realized a year ago that this all started i'm gonna say if not more maybe two and i just can't believe and you said you passed it the other day it's just sitting in there i can't believe that they just because a lot of companies will like start charging you it's a great by the day or whatever like just to store a vehicle like that but this

is what i realized andrew and this this is the beauty of this whole thing i'm nowhere on the paperwork for this truck no because when i got it from the guy he like gave me the title but i never filed any of that shit like because i you know i just hadn't gotten around to it and then like no one can trace the truck back to me unless one of these podcast listeners rats me out everybody be cool so like they get a free truck i don't have to deal with it anymore i'm out 1400 dollars which is you know not nothing but i mean what's but you're not gonna write you're not gonna call

them and be like hey you know i just take the truck leave the cannoli you're just gonna just let it at some point they're just going to decide that you're not coming back yeah i don't know how

that part's going to play out i kind of am leaning towards just leaving the cannoli just just kind of be i mean it's actually a curiosity now like will that truck stay i mean how long can that truck stay there i mean first of all they have a lot of space they have a very large parking area for this you know garage so it's not displacing anything which is part of why i didn't feel super bad in the first place because and also it is kind of an arresting thing like it's sitting right there it's it's in a primo position in fact some of the listeners have visited the truck yeah we've

gotten some photos from listeners as they've passed the truck they've taken snapshots of it

i believe the truck was named clementine by a previous owner um so i just can kind of see a world where it's like real the last of us vibes there's like four people still living in portland and we're trying to escape a fungal outbreak and we're just like you know we're we're living underground and everything is covered in vines and and everything life as we know it has ended and that truck is still just sitting in that lot just moldering yeah so you're gonna i mean i guess

the thing is yeah how would they respond if you said hey listen i don't want that truck anymore they would say well then you got to take it because there'd probably be some i don't know are there liability issues do you think there's any world in which you said hey you can have the truck that they would say yeah that's great we'll take it i sort of assume they would because there's

got to be some amount of like there's got to be some amount of um you know uh what would you call it salvage value to it i mean it's metal it does allegedly run it's got some seats it's got that bitchin' like skull

thing on the gear shift i feel like they could part it out for some money probably or all they have to do is of course what is your preference is it this one or is it the rockin one is it the

is it the the heavy metal rockin cars for kids the that's probably the worst one i want to see What is this that I have here? Oh, wow.

206-414-TBTL.

People were trying to sing the TBTL voicemail line to the tune of that. It didn't really work.

Anyway, thank you to J-Dog and Catherine. Yes! I think that's the takeaway from this whole long, meandering story from me. Hello, and welcome to Top Story. Wow, I thought yesterday we were late getting to top stories But here we are, 57 minutes in

57, yeah, we were at like 48 last Yesterday, last day Why don't we call it last day? Laster day

I just saw this right before we Were dialing up today, Andrew So it was kind of a last minute addition to the Show sheet, but The internet is Going crazy about a guy who was on a JetBlue flight The photo is really interesting Somebody has taken, I don't know if you've seen the picture

Yeah, the photo's good

It's like the kind of thing where the back of each seat On the airplane has a television mounted in it I will say this, I love this About JetBlue, and I don't understand Why more airlines don't do this Live television Apparently, like live television On the plane makes it feel like You're not Flying for something, now it's one thing to watch A movie or watch White Lotus As I've done, I mean that's all kind of intriguing and entertaining but there is something for my brain Andrew about watching live television while flying that makes it feel like I'm not trapped as trapped like if I'm watching a game that's unfolding in real time

I'm like I'd be watching this game anyway well sports I think if you're into the sports it's a great way to make time pass quickly like if you're at the gym or something and there's a baseball or football game on even if you don't care about it that much but especially if it's a team that you

follow i it makes the time just zip on by right and but even for other programming there's something about being in the sky but still being connected to the real-time events on the ground that i don't know why it makes the time move more quickly and feel different for me than watching pre-loaded programming and i don't know why that is but anyway jet blue has that and everybody of course on Sunday who was on this flight was watching the Super Bowl it is a sea of television screens that are all in the Super Bowl except one guy and he is watching the movie Hitch the Will Smith vehicle known as Hitch where I believe he trains a hapless Kevin James from

King of Queens to be a little cooler I'm an idiot I thought this was the Hitchcock the Hitchcock Biopic that came out Around I thought it was around The same time I so this is Okay I don't oh yeah so Hitch is like the fake superhero movie

So no that's like That's a different that's a Different Will Smith movie okay that Is called I it's not I don't think it's called Hitch because I think Hitch is where Will Smith is like a Cool guy who like uncool guys Hire to help him to help Them be more cool oh I see this is a

2005 movie i thought it was a 2015 movie because i when i saw the story i was like oh hitch and i

looked it up really quickly like hancock or something the movie where he's kind of like a

drunk superhero yeah you're right so he's in both like sleeping on a bench or something will will smith star in like star in another like will smith vehicle i don't think so you mean

because of the slap i mean yeah i don't think so man i mean i don't know listen uh i also thought there would never be comedy again after 9-11 so i mean that seriously like remember right like post 9-11 where there was the real question of like can anything be funny anymore or irony i remember they said irony is dead so like it you know i'm i'm sure that i'm being short-sighted when i say this but i can say as of 2023 like there's some movie i think it's called like emancipation that will smith is in um that's being advertised on one of the streaming platforms i just happened to kind of see it as i was passing and my guess is that it's a movie that was in either filmed before the slap or certainly was well along the way of pre-production and all i could see and this is a period piece. I assume it's related.

to the you know enslaved people in this country um and all i could see was will smith slapping chris rock like i just i couldn't see this historical figure that he's portraying maybe that's just me maybe that will recede but i i'm trying to imagine a wills a will smith movie where he is the star of the film and most people's thought is like isn't that a guy who assaulted someone during the oscars right like i just don't know if we'll get past that i mean there are

there are other things we thought at one point and again the the time has changed and so we look at the the scandalous events differently um but paul rubens ends up working again but not really to the degree that he was as peewee herman um you know before he was caught in in flagrante that's not how you say that i can never say that one right yeah i know just stick with the words i need flag goat i know what you're talking about but anyway yeah so like it's just like how will we view it later especially as will smith get you know becomes i don't know a lot of changes in 10

years you know sure sure i i do think i agree with you that that you know i think people we tend to have fairly short memories about certain things um and then of course paul rubens was never at the level that will smith is and he remains not at that level so i don't know if that's a little bit different i also would just say to the people who want to arrest someone for having at themselves in an adult movie theater my question would be what the hell do you think we're doing here like like what i've always found that to be a very very weird a very weird um uh law or a weird thing i mean it happened to fred willard r.i.p where he was busted for doing something like that at a place called gold diggers which i used to drive by gold diggers it was on santa monica in la right kind of where i think where like it crosses the 101 and i used to see gold diggers and think who in the hell would ever go in that place like even by the standards of sort of like adult video stores or whatever it just looked really really on the margins and it turns out fred willard is the person who would go there in like 2015 or something too like when there's a lot of real ron albertson move if you to be honest with you yeah i was at the character and yeah from waiting for government but anyway i i've never understood uh i've never understood building a place that is designed for a certain kind of sexual gratification and then arresting people for achieving that gratification in the place that's built purely for that endeavor but But anyway, putting that aside, I – yeah, right now it seems to me like it would be really hard for me to watch a Will Smith, a new produced Will Smith movie and get lost in the film and not kind of have a lot of mental baggage around like how's Will Smith doing.

Even if he plays a date doctor who helps teach men how to woo women? Hitch 2. that apparently it was the yeah i don't know i as you were describing it i was looking up so i don't know how close you got to that being the the plot i described it almost perfectly i cool

guy i didn't know he was a date doctor yeah he's a date i know there's a there's a scene from the trailer where he is showing kevin james aka the king of queens how to do like a dance move and wait for it andrew it doesn't come natural to kevin james but is it funny though and watching him well that's the thing and that's a lot of times it's like okay well he's not great at dancing so what it's like no but that's where that's that achieves the comedic effect in the scene is like hitch is good at dancing but but but kevin james is bad at dancing that's funny they come from different backgrounds too they sure do so one guy on this flight one person i actually don't know the gender of the person one person on this flight although they're being described actually i'm looking at this they're being described as an individual so maybe yeah I don't think we actually know what the gender of this person is. But what we know is one person on this plane was watching Hitch, which is just a real flex. This is from somebody on Twitter. The one dude watching Hitch on this plane should be jailed, a menace to society. But other people were saying, somebody on Barstool Sports, they were calling him a tryhard. They said this isn't a guy who simply Wanted to watch Hitch last night I'd imagine this person Had seen the 2005 film at some point This guy wanted to send a message He wants everyone on that plane to know He views himself as a Superior being because he would never Possibly engage in an activity As lowly as watching the Super Bowl I disagree with that take by the way

It's the worst take of all time

If you're trying to show off you'd be watching Downton Abbey Brad.

No one's ever shown off by watching the movie Hitch.

Yeah, and nobody cares. I don't think that that person is kind of like, oh, I'm really going to show all these sports hands. As another person pointed out, I mean, again, the picture is really stunning because somebody held their camera just over the seat in front of them. So you get kind of a good view of all the seats from wherever they are in the cabin all the way to the front. And it's just like laptop after laptop after laptop on a darkened plane, just all of them glowing with the Super Bowl. And there's just one that somebody identified. Well, they're not laptops, though, right? Are they not? You know, I don't have it in front of me right now. Are they dropped out?

They're the mounted. Oh, they're the mounted kind. They're the mounted TV in the back of the person in front of the seat.

Oh, OK. Gotcha. So that's right, because you said, of course, it's live streaming. So most people wouldn't have the ability to do that. Although I did one time live stream an NFL game illegally using the on-board Wi-Fi. It worked? I was going to meet you for a work event. I want to say this might have been our last trip to Minnesota to the headquarters there of APM. So this would have been like January 2020. I feel like that's the trip because it was football season. I knew it was a Browns-Ravens game. I want to say the Ravens won. And I remember, like, having my laptop open. And, you know, the Wi-Fi in airplanes can be very sketchy, especially for streaming stuff. But I was able to find one of those, like, illegal streams, and I was able to get it working okay. I think I had to refresh it a few times. And I remember, like, being really in the catbird seat because my team was winning. The game was on. I was passing the time. And, yeah, I remember doing that one time. But, yeah, sorry, I misdescribed this photo. But I'm with you. Like this person, like, listen, I remember back, I don't know if it was on Facebook or Twitter, but when I was more on those platforms, I'm talking about years ago, I remember being very irritated on Superbowl Sundays. I remember being flooded with messages, you know, just like public messages from people being like, Oh, I hate Twitter on football Sundays, like blah, blah. And like trying to counter program or complain. And I always thought that was a little like, well, on Oscar night, when everybody's tweeting about the oscars i don't go on twitter and talk about how i'm sick of people tweeting about the oscars i just don't tweet or i don't look at twitter you know not liking the super bowl is also not a person exactly and just like also just like i i don't know what to tell you like i'm sorry that you're irritated that people are tweeting about what they like on a day that every whatever i was the guy who was complaining about christmas earlier today so whatever but um anyway i think those people who are like took the heat off of my minions comment though so i appreciate that those people who are like actively and but like i think this is just a person who doesn't didn't care that much about the football game and then also as somebody pointed out and i think this is where i started my rambling this person could watch both because everybody had the football

game on around them exactly and that was also pointed out apparently online which was yeah like this person is uh getting the best of both worlds to be fair this is what somebody wrote on reddit to be fair all he has to do is look at the screen beside him and he can watch both hitch and the super bowl right perfect right that's galaxy brain that's three-dimensional chess like why would you limit yourself to the super bowl when you could be watching hitch and the super bowl right um and uh somebody said also how dare anyone not like your favorite hobby so that was somebody roasting someone else who was being you know shitty to this person who was watching uh hitch

this is also just an example of like you know the expression this could have been an email like this could have been a photo like it is a photo i realize that but like it's also one of those things it's like a photo goes viral it stands on its own it's a funny little image that you can scroll and look at and be like ha isn't that something and then keep moving on but because everything is a content machine i guess us included so maybe i should be careful throwing the stone through my glass window at another glass house but um it's just sort of like whatever publication this was whatever publication this was was trying to make like the internet is mad at this stranger on a plane and it's like all it's a collection of like bullshit that people wrote while bored

on twitter about a funny yeah that is true that is true like it it's definitely and i even probably sort of misdescribed it as like the internet really is not going off about this they found

like three tweets yeah i mean but it's interesting i'm glad we talked about it i think it's interesting but like a bar stool going off and this guy should be jailed it's like oh the person who wrote this person should be jailed i think that was the original poster so like that's just sort of a joke you know what i mean hey i'm gonna i'm gonna act extreme here like whatever but then everybody kind of piling on and being like this is a look at me louis who wants to show that they're better

than everybody else like i don't think that's the case ridiculous take if the movie wasn't hitch i could maybe get on board with that if they were watching like yo-yo ma live at carnegie hall or something like that. That might be a statement, but you're not watching Hitch to show off. I'm sorry. Now, speaking of writers, there's somebody named Macy Lacow, who's a staff writer at a website called The American Genius. And they were one of the places that was writing about this $91 million settlement to a guy who was hit by a car that crashed into a 7-Eleven. By the way the headline Of this article is Well first thing about Macy LaCow is Macy LaCow's bio is Macy LaCow is a passionate writer Herbal educator and dog enthusiast She spends most of her time Overthinking and watering her tiny tomatoes I just feel like if you're Writing for what is allegedly a journalistic Type of deal I don't know if I'd start With herbal educator and that's like You know herbs have a place In our society and I'm sure we have listeners who swear by them and are naturopaths and all that. I don't know if I'd put herbal educator at the top of my bio as a staff writer for The American Genius, but they also get something wrong, which is 7-Eleven paid $91 million to driver who crashed into store. That's not what happened. They paid $91 million or they've been ordered to pay $91 million to a guy who was hit by someone while he was standing in front of a 7-Eleven. The driver in Bensonville, Illinois hit the gas instead of the brakes and pinned the guy against the store the guy unfortunately lost his legs and uh he's now um the 7-eleven has been ordered to pay him 91 million dollars what's kind of surprising about this whole story is that over a 15-year period according to the law firm that that represents this guy 6,253 vehicles crashed into 7-eleven stores in the u.s that is one per day one time a day someone crashes into a 7-Eleven with their car and if you think about it like of course they do because we're distracted some folks might you know be elderly or whatnot and you're so close to the front of that store like if you're part I go to there's a 7-Eleven in my neighborhood that I actually kind of go to a lot now weirdly I have like a surprising amount of the products in my apartment are 7-Eleven branded really yeah because what will happen is I'm coming back from the gym And like it started with I needed half and half Because I don't go I don't go to the coffee machine in my lobby Like some kind of chaser every day So I needed half and half And it was like 7 in the morning And I just popped into the 7-Eleven And then one time I needed those like floss picks That I like The like pre-strung dental floss thing And I bought some 7-Eleven brand ones They're actually pretty good So I'm just slowly building up this collection of 7-Eleven shit Do not go to that 7-Eleven

for your paper towel needs though oh yeah paper towels i've ever gotten yeah like it was like seven dollars for one roll of barely functioning paper towels but all of that is to say i park in front of the 7-eleven pretty frequently and it is kind of unique in that it's got a lot of storefront and you always are parking very close to it and if you were to just hit the wrong pedal while you were distracted or whatever you would go right into the 7-eleven which is why the jury or the judge whoever it was that ruled in this case found that this 7-11 should have had what are called bollards which are those basically posts which can stop a car from crashing in to the store this happens a lot at a lot of stores that are like this i didn't realize it was happening once a day

at 7-11 yeah i do wonder what percentage of these are people who thought they put their car in reverse you know like starting from a um starting from a stopped position like that that would be

the most logical thing right you're trying to reverse you hit the gas to go backwards but in fact you're in drive and you then go forward this is another thing that i thought was interesting from this article um there are uh of course people crashing into stores accidentally but then there are uh nine percent of those crashes were order called ram raids where a person crashes into a building on purpose yeah in an effort to rob them one location in oregon has been hit 13 times yeah I hear about somebody has somebody has has a ram ram rated the same. I don't know if it's a 7-Eleven or just another kind of store, but let's just call it a 7-Eleven. Somebody has ram ram rated the same 7-Eleven 13 times. I'm sorry.

Yes.

I'd get some bollards. Yeah. Get some bollards on a budget.

Show title? Yeah. We'll make that the show title. Yeah. Yeah, I know like a lot of a lot of weed stores around here have to have that, of course, because they're only I mean, you know, because they can't use the banks. They're a cash only business. I guess I'll delete here. The invisible hand of the coffee machine. What do you say? Ballards on a budget. Ballards on a budget. Anyway. Yeah, that's a bummer. I was reading a story about some mom and pop store that that in Seattle that that's happened to several times like that.

Just what do you think you would do? This isn't a...

a ram a ram raid or whatever but like you know you see these clips online and i think they're unfortunately i think that they are amplified by people that have a very kind of next door and fox newsy mentality yeah which is that everyone is shoplifting all the time although in truth there is an elevated amount of shoplifting that's going on did you read that article i sent you by the way i did i did i actually i i i thought it was good but i also thought the headline was a little um hyperbolic for me which because if i remember right it said something like you know shoplifting is up and we're all benefiting from it and the argument was if you've bought anything from like a third market on amazon you're probably buying a stolen good and i'm like i've never done

that so i'm not benefiting you know what i think and i had talked to some friends about this and my friends who like like um i don't want to use anybody's names here but women who buy makeup online have been like oh yeah i've gotten some really and it's kind of a thing like oh yeah i've gotten some really cheap eyeliners that's usually really expensive and that was in that article that

that's a big yeah thing that people boost and then kind of exactly this article i'm sorry that i'm

not giving you the the name of the publication or the i i god i feel like it was one of those new new york magazine yeah one of their like kind of sub sites or whatever um there was a pretty interesting article about how basically fencing is going on online now like people in they were using the example of New York City just like kind of the reason why everything is locked down in your CVS and it's a little bit annoying and I am definitely somebody who thinks that like sort of like people's feelings of of crime and danger in cities is has been kind of magnified by certain interests I think that that is a real concern as we talk about these things but they were describing that like people will just go in just scoop a whole shelf full of cosmetics into a bag and then take it to this really shady dealer who would then turn turn it over and sell this stuff online it was just like this huge operation um it was a pretty intriguing i thought they told the story pretty well because i saw the headline i was like uh-oh get ready for some like exaggerated scare tactic shit here but i thought it was a pretty interesting story yeah i did too i thought it

was well written um i guess my question to you was if you were in like a mom and pop like a little let's say neighborhood store that you like to go to and you kind of maybe see the same people that are working behind the register again maybe folks who didn't uh who came to this country from somewhere else and somebody just came in and just like loaded up their bag with stuff and tried to

walk out would you would any part of you try to intervene yeah i've narked before not even in a mom and pop store i've knocked on somebody who i saw just like filling their bag full of like um tall boy beers or something at the what was the it was like it's a chain and maybe that just makes me a narc but like i don't know you can't do that like i uh this was that what was it was at the girl at the drugstore near my bartell bartell drugs um and i went there used to be a

a local i think they got acquired by like cvs but sure i can yeah i think they were acquired

recently but like by drug mart or some sort of like midwest chain anyway um it wasn't drug mart rite aid i want to say anyway yeah i mean i saw this person doing it and i i can't remember like the circumstances but they were just like they were just like a person probably in their early 20s with a backpack and like i'm not trying to like get people who are really struggling and trouble but i just this just seemed like a kind of a punk kid who was just like in there just like scooping up a bunch of booze and throwing it in his backpack so when i checked out i just said sort of quietly to the person behind the counter i just said hey there's somebody like scooping a bunch of beer into a bag back there and they're just like okay thanks and you know i think that they they maybe went and checked it out or whatever i don't know what really happened i hope i didn't get anybody hurt or anything but like i don't know i don't know what do you feel about that was that i mean i don't know i don't know why i did it but i was just like well that's

wrong yeah i don't think that that's i don't listen i don't think that makes you a quote unquote narc i mean there's an argument since you're mr free market today um like there's an argument also that i mean and this is like a i'd say a slightly exaggerated uh idea or whatever but like that person stealing that alcohol also they're not stealing diapers they're not stealing um you know something pretend like milk for their child that's kind of their thing stealing food is a little bit if you're stealing somebody was stealing milk i bet you wouldn't report them um or actually i don't know what you do what i was going to say is that person stealing that stuff from that bartels does in some way drive up the cost for everyone of buying those things in a very roundabout way and in a minuscule in that one event a minuscule amount that you couldn't even measure but if everyone is stealing all the time from cvs it is making it more expensive to buy things at cvs so i don't think that you're being a narc for reporting them i was thinking

more like if somebody just like was walking out with stump with something like let's just say it's like a mom and pop place and you kind of know i don't know why i'm constructing this like you know hypothetical but like you know them and then somebody just walks in and they just like kind of like grab an armful of whatever and just walk out with impunity i feel like i would probably intervene because i don't know why because i have uh bad impulse control or something but actually I will say this, and again, we've already said that a lot of this stuff I think is kind of overblown. I think it plays into a certain sometimes racist narrative and just kind of like – I don't think that America is going to be undone by somebody stealing a TV from Best Buy. That being said, it does kind of rub me wrong when I see folks just grabbing things and walking out of a store with impunity. like that does kind of it sits it sits with it does not sit well with me because it feels like

a real violation of the social code yeah and i'm trying to remember more about this person and it was just like one of those it was a moment where and listen i shouldn't be the maybe the person making these decisions but like you you you sort of summarize the situation quickly i didn't overthink it i just said somebody's scooping that stuff up but if it looked like there were certain like it wasn't i know that for sure that it wasn't was not a person of color i know for sure that it didn't look like somebody was stealing something to survive it just struck and i could be totally wrong about well nobody's stealing like sparks to survive well like you don't know where i'm at with my drinking but like and i could be totally wrong i'm not saying i'm the right person to do this and we might have some people who are saying hey listen don't be a narc you don't know somebody's journey and might have other people saying what the fuck are you talking about like somebody's stealing you didn't do anything wrong by by letting the management know um but like there are different situations in which like i wouldn't i would not in most circumstances call the police on a black person because like i think that when black people get sucked up into that system they are not given the same fair shake that everybody else is and sometimes they die like you know what

i mean so you if it was a person of color stealing the the alcohol you probably would not i certainly wouldn't tell a cop i certainly wouldn't tell a cop you would have told the front the the front

counter person and then there's no way for you i don't i don't know i don't but i think i might i think i would think more i think i would think twice about it like and again i don't remember exactly what was going on in this situation but for some reason i felt like yeah this person just seemed like a punk you know and like am i the right person to say like i'm gonna tell on you because you're a punk and i'm not gonna tell on you because i've deemed you not a punk you're stealing for survival like i don't know what the hell is i just saw it i was in a mood and i was like this person is just like scooping up product into their bag and it just looked like i think i

would have said the same thing and it just was shitty i i think i would have done the exact same thing what i know i wouldn't have done was just gone about with my transaction and just walked out like everything was hunky-dory because again they're you know this society kind of only works as long as we all more or less agree to try to abide by some like because we could all just Andrew we could all just get coffee in our pajamas every morning if we want to live in just a lawless society no like it's there's something about somebody just actively stealing something as a non-essential as alcohol from a place that I think for most of us would be like well we can't do that guys I'm sorry like we're we're not doing that or at the very least we're going to report this to the people in charge now the real question i wonder what that person working at the store did if anything because that's that's where i don't know if i could get there where you have employees now and i understand why this would be the case at certain places who are like i'm not a i'm not going to get injured over this it's not my yeah exactly and i'm not like this happens a lot and it's again it's not my property and i'm not going to i'm not going to throw my body in front of a shopping cart that's got a bunch of stuff in it it's not worth it i don't know if i could ever get there maybe if i worked at a place like that over time i would end up there you know what i mean mentally just being like whatever i feel like it would still just strike me as so kind of like a violation of the rules that i would i would be the person who was like hey you can't do that but

i don't know yeah i don't know and i do know that like the people at the store like there there was the person that i told and keep in mind i went to the store almost every day it was like the little it was a it's a drugstore but it was like my little convenience store right and it's practically across the street from where i lived and so i knew i didn't know them by name but like i kind of knew all the people there who were working the registers i knew the really like friendly person who was always like we had a bit of a banter i think this this woman um who i told who was um you know being the cashier that day um i i knew

Thank you.

her and so i just said hey somebody's doing she kind of told her colleague and they put eyes on it so i think there was some sort of action plan again you got to be careful as the people running that store none of those people if it's at all a dangerous situation there's no reason for anybody to put their safety on the line for a you know a can of whatever i said sparks before does that even exist anymore like that wasn't there like i don't know energy drink booze drink there was Something along those lines

I used to get them along with Newman and JD From the 7-Eleven Everything goes back to 7-Eleven today The 7-Eleven that's very close to that Eagles We used to go to that 7-Eleven And get Sparks

You talking about my pretzel shop? I'm sorry, I used the wrong name 7-Eleven, pretzels and more

Here I go once again With the email Every week I hope that it's from a female No man, it's not from a female

all right email or vmail my friend yeah i got two quickies here but i got to play them both

first of all i have a question for you every now and then we get well it's going to start as a comment every now and then we will get a voicemail from somebody who is just like laughing at something that we said on the show and good lord do i love that um i'm sure i will spend the rest of today if not the rest of the week fretting over my conversation about what my role should be when i see somebody shoplifting that was uncomfortable anyway i like it when people laugh at our jokes but in this voicemail somebody called to laugh but i can't quite tell what they're laughing about and it's something we made some joke i believe on monday's show something about like something relationship or i'm in a relationship with something take a listen to this and tell me

if you remember what this is referencing i'm sorry i had a relationship

Oh, with a sandwich.

All right.

Oh, a relationship with a sandwich. Were we talking about tubs or something?

We were talking about the different relationships you've had with different sandwiches.

Oh, that we even made the show that. Yes. Okay.

And I think I was making fun of the idea that, like, you know, people might talk about their romantic relationships. Sure. Yeah. You were talking a great detail about your various sandwich relationships.

relationship now you did ask me if we were doing anything me and Genevieve for Valentine's Day yesterday which we did not but I of course I sent cards to all of the sandwiches in my life I want to make I want to make that clear right now okay thank I'm so glad you knew that because I was kind of bugging me this morning okay uh now I want to play a quick voicemail for you from our friend Ryan in Washington DC this kind of blows my mind this is in reference to one of my favorite little grocery store slash delis in santa monica called bob's market hey friendos it's ryan in dc um

so listening to i think it's today that's a thursday uh famous sandwiches and the ones that didn't love andrew back wow a lot of sandwich talk um so check this out the world gets smaller and smaller because uh andrew was talking about bob's market in santa monica uh not to brag dude not to name drop but here we go bob is my grandfather uh so i will tell him that you've enjoyed his deli sandwiches and anything else you want me to tell him uh i guess i'll have to ask you but anyway uh that was just a really weird trip for me because i talk to my grandfather every week and i like to tell him that my favorite podcast uh mentioned his store and of course we're all counting on that big tbtl bump so of course now everyone who goes to santa monica will know that that's true and uh true story my grandfather is uh he's there like 90 of the time working you know some part of the store and always just doing his family there like uh customer service type stuff so and he's had that store for a long time so he will be overjoyed to know that uh he's going to get that tbtl bump all right that's it power out yeah when we were talking about the market the

other day on the show i went to the website maybe for the first time and there was a there was a picture of bob um and there was a really nice little testament about like opening the store for the community years and you know like decades ago and how it's still part of the community and just seems like such a great store and i love their sandwiches and it was my little happy place in santa monica when i take a lunch break to go there and it turns out it's ryan's grandpa the

whole time it was ryan's grandpa he comes from the bob's market portion yeah exactly well i mean

And the fact that Ryan's last name is Market really should have tipped me off.

Yeah, that should have actually been kind of an initial indication of that.

Wow, that's really cool. I love that. So now the next time I'm in Santa Monica or Los Angeles, I will definitely try to make a trek out there, and I'll even see if Bob is working.

Unfortunately for Ryan, he can't use the phrase, Bob's your uncle, but he can use the phrase, Bob's your grandpa. Bob's my grandpa. Bob's my grandpa. Bob's my grandpa. There you go. All right, then.

I think that's probably enough TBTL for today. Yeah, certainly. We did 92 minutes of show. Wow, two long shows in a row. Easily 10 minutes of that was listenable. So that's good. That's a decent batting average for us. Speaking of batting average, first day of spring training, baby. Hey, hey. Very exciting.

When do the games begin? Usually like mid-March, is that right? The spring training game? Probably, yeah.

I guess they probably have like a week or two of just like practice, and then they'll probably do like an intra-squad game. And then it starts, my friend I'm very excited about that Look out, Padres That's going to do it for today's show We'll be back here tomorrow With more imaginary radio for you Until then, have a great Wednesday Go Mariners And please remember, no mountain too tall And good luck to all

then maybe our friendship isn't worth a damn maybe we should call it quits right now you just tell me where to sign bud right on my sandwich after you kiss it power out