Muse

Hi! Oh my god, how's your first red carpet?

I can't believe they put you all the way out here for this. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Nice to meet you. I'm Chase Dream's manager. Yeah, no, we met last week. We had a full meal together. Oh, gay brother and girl sister, right? Oh, you guys aren't getting married, are you? Because that would be bad optics for this guy right here. Although, love is love is love is love, as Linda Manuel once said. It's Lin-Manuel Miranda. Lin-Manuel? Who's Linda Manuel, then? And why do I represent her? She's buying, right?

Because I will be ordering a bowl of soup as an appetizer, not a cup.

Chuck, I know people say I'll fill up, but you have no idea how my body processes soup. I love pickles. My heritage, I love a pickle.

It's embarrassing and it's gross, but at least it's kind of funny.

There you have it. A practical example of modern communication. How'd it go?

Well, he's going to acknowledge me on Instagram, so I guess you could say it was one of the best conversations of my entire life.

You know, it's just living truthfully in imaginary circumstances.

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

All right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Thursday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

Anyway, it's about that time.

My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. Welcome to the internet. Coming to you once again from high above the banks of the mighty Columbia River at the Riverhouse Studio, where it was very chilly when I got out here this morning. I stayed in Portland last night, but got up real early this morning and headed up this way to the state of Washington. And when I got here, I was sort of getting some things ready. We've got some guys here doing some work again today. spraying insulation foam up in actually the what was the garage and what will soon be the actual home of tbtl and uh i forgot to turn on there's like as i've mentioned many times there's kind of limited functional heat in this house right now and so i have these little plug-in heaters in some places and i forgot to turn the one in the one on that was in the bathroom for me a bathroom

It was just a library with a cold seat.

I had to go in there like about 20 minutes ago. My little pre-show constitutional. And it was unpleasant, let me tell you. It was like I had to psych myself up to even make contact with that toilet seat. Because it is cold out here. But I'm going to push through that and I'm going to focus on the task at hand. Which is to bring you all episode 3,892 in a collector's series.

Let the fun begin.

There's a fairly interesting story involving the kidnapping of Lady Gaga's dogs and then the reward that she offered for bringing those dogs back.

I'll say, what's up, dog?

And the statement that she apparently made, or her people made, her team, that these dogs, they wanted them returned, no questions asked, And if you return the dogs, they would give you, I think it's like half a million dollars or something.

That cash could really get me out of a couple of jams.

Lady Gaga is now being sued by a woman who brought the dogs back for not paying the ransom or the reward, I guess. Now, the issue is the woman who brought the dogs back was an accomplice to the dog nappers. And yet the message did say no questions asked. Are the questions that are off limits, do they also include, hey, did you help the dog nappers nap the dogs? We'll talk about that. Plus, it's a Thursday, a.k.a. Blur's Day. So we'll do some Blur's Day messages, and we'll talk to this guy, the longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships.

Oh, my God. He unmuted.

He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. I got an email from a real jokester this morning. Someone named Steve wrote in to say, Hey, Andrew, I'm the owner of the Ford that had the message left on the windshield from yesterday's show. Just kidding. I'm a longtime listener, and I send an email in every half decade or so when I can't help myself. Now, I am going to pause there for a moment, because I'm trying to even put myself in the place I was when I first read that. I don't think I fell for it for a moment because you left your email address and contact information on that car. I didn't. It would be strange that I would be getting the email from the person who drove the Ford. But Steve here, listener Steve, does have a...

theory on what might have been under that windshield. But Luke, can you remind us what we saw outside your window yesterday? I was staring out the window of my apartment

and I thought I saw a car with a parking ticket on it, which was odd because the car was legally parked. I could see it was in a space that was marked for parking. And so then I had a theory that maybe it was the folks that live in the house in front where the car was parked in front of because they seem a little tetchy about their parking situation on that street. then while we were doing the show a guy in a white truck pulled up kind of parked very haphazardly in front of the vehicle jumped out and went and checked on whatever the thing was that was under the windshield and uh and then drove off and so we were wondering what all this was during a break i ran downstairs to see what was on the car and it was two things It was a note that said, I hit your car the other day. Please get in touch with me. And then a Ziploc bag that had something marked evidence in it that was a sealed envelope. And so then by the end of the show, we had decided we had the bright idea for me to type up a note saying I wasn't involved in the accident. I didn't actually say that in the note. Maybe I should have. I just basically saying, hi, I'm a neighborhood snoop and I'm curious what's going on with this. Here's my email. Also, I have a podcast. Thanks. And you sent me a video of you delivering that as proof. Sorry, there's some of the worst footage of all time. What happened was as I was getting closer to the car, some people started looking at me and I kind of freaked out and I forgot that I was making a phone video for you.

Everybody's making a video these days, though. I saw a young woman walking down the street in the Ravenna neighborhood of Seattle, Washington yesterday, just totally like making some video. And I'm like, you know what? That empowers me the next time I want to make a hey dummies video or some such outside.

I wasn't embarrassed about making the video. I was embarrassed about approaching a car that now had a growing library, a little free library of various papers and things. And that was the wildest part, Andrew. So I want to hear the listener's theory, and then I'm going to give you a couple of more details that I figured out when I went up there to put my note on. But throughout the rest of the day, as I was working away from my workstation there, I was just looking down, and there was now a ridiculous amount of paperwork under the windshield wiper of this smallish car. You had, again, the evidence folder, we'll call it for lack of a better word. You had the note, and then you had my note. There was two different plastic bags going on.

it was a whole situation and right now as you look out the window the car is well i'm in a

different state oh right i assume right this morning no you know i left it was pretty dark this morning when i left so i didn't get eyes on it as of yesterday at around 5 or 6 p.m i think it was still there it hadn't moved i did not look out and observe it to having have been moved and it throughout the afternoon had all of the crapola on it some of which i was responsible for that's The last the last up. And I've checked my email now because I put my TBTL email address on there.

Yeah.

No one has emailed me about the vehicle. I have no updates for you.

Sadly, I love picturing the vehicle. It's just like it's just going to start collecting all kinds of stuff now, almost like a magnet that's out of control. Like there's going to be half of a Christmas tree sticking out from under the windshield.

Or to use a kind of nautical example, if you've got, you know, like, let's say anything on your boat that is down in the water for too long will start to get all kinds of little like sea life on it. And like, you know, if you're just like, let's say you have a lake and you have you leave the motor in the water. If you were to go out there after a few months, it would just have a massive amount of like milfoil growing off of it. And anything that can attach to it will. It was like that car is going to become that. It's going to be covered in all manner of weirdness that's just floating by and now sticking to it.

It's going to go back to nature. Now, when Steve in Bellevue sent in this theory, I was excited for a moment. But now I'm remembering some of the details of that envelope that says the word evidence on it and big, nice handwriting, I would say, capital letters. But Steve said, I have a theory about what's in that evidence envelope. envelope since luke said the car didn't have a front license plate maybe the envelope contains the front plate and it was knocked off when the quote-unquote honest citizen grazed the car and they put the they put the plate in the envelope and then wrote evidence on it but you know what i think i even noted because i was kind of surprised when you sent me the photo of that envelope yesterday i saw that it was a business sized envelope it wasn't a big standard letter Yeah, and that's not big enough for a license plate, is it?

No. No.

And the other thing, I've got a theory.

So I didn't actually get to check what the show pick was yesterday. Did we end up using the evidence envelope as the show pick? Yeah, like the original. I did not use the.

photo of the note you left instead i just left the photo as you found that was less interesting

i think you made the right call there but like i um i got a couple of more little bits of information about this as the day went on first thing is when i went out to put my note on the car i noticed something andrew which was the note that described someone backing into the car and saying please call me this is my info that note was not in the ziploc bag that had the thing that said evidence yeah right yeah making me wonder if these things were some previously on cereal if these things were like different events if this car that already had for some reason an envelope that said evidence that was sealed and in ziploc bag if that was totally unrelated to the handwritten note that was not in the bag that said hi i'm sorry i bumped into your car here's how you get a hold of me the other thing Andrew was later in the day I saw the exact same white truck parked in the parking area of the apartment building across the street from the red car making me think that person it had big cans of paint in the trunk like this person was or maybe it was even some other kind of I don't know insult like whatever it had big industrial stuff going on and it made me think this is the person who does the maintenance on this apartment building this person works at this apartment building and they drive this white truck and that they must have backed into that red car while working on that apartment building but did they have any relationship to the the thing that said evidence maybe not maybe you mentioned

that um there's a couple that lives in this house where this happened and they are always keeping an eye out on the street could have been a third party that watched let's just say it was this truck but watched somebody hit this car and leave a note but then the people who were not involved but lived nearby and had eyes on the situation said i am a witness here and maybe this person will reach out to me i'm gonna put maybe here's the here's the thing that i'm getting caught up on though is the envelope looks like it's thick like there's a bunch of stuff in there you pointed that out yesterday almost like if you got a bunch of text documents or something right and so like it's the it's the digital age Luke I don't know if you know that but like the internet really changed everything and so nowadays you wouldn't put like a bunch of photos of the damage in an envelope you would just put like maybe one sheet of paper that says hey I saw what happened email me at this email address or click here for some photos of what happened i don't understand why there's so much in that envelope that makes it a thick boy and also the envelope

has the logo of a property management company down the street so it looks to me like it was like it was you know something that somebody just had on their desk or in their office they grabbed an envelope from the company they work at whereas the people who who live you know in the house where this accident happened also the other thing that makes it weird i still can't see any evidence of an accident having happened the car seemed totally fine like there was no visible damage i don't really know i don't know why the person felt the need to leave a note but anyway the person whoever put the evidence envelope out there they were using an envelope from a local business so that's kind of curious to me like it makes me think that the that the envelope in the would be would be connected but why why would the person place an evidence envelope in a ziploc bag but not put the note stating their phone number and saying get in touch with me why would that

not be in the in the ziploc bag could it be murder i just have always wanted to say that I am with you, though, that that's why it's not called I am. I am with you that I'm leaning heavily towards the two party theory. Now I'm feeling I'm three party theory. If I include you as one of the parties who's leaving notes underneath this car. You also mentioned now I'm getting like you mentioned that the van or the I'm sorry, the truck that we think might have been involved in this is parked across the street with paint in the back. Like, what if the car is like blue when you get home? like what if they what if they're covering oh dude there somebody's gonna come back and like

well this can't be my car line from the missing what me and my dad were watching from the bbc oh it's like there's a vw van that's i'm just gonna say vw because then i don't have to worry if i'm saying volkswagen right can i have v yeah there's a v-dub van that's involved in a disappearance of someone and then one of the you know a big reveal is you see this van you see a van later on that you think is totally unrelated but then they sort of you know

notice that it's been freshly repainted a different color you saying vw reminded me of a small irritation i have and it is a very minor irritation which is why it's perfect for me to bring up on the show and hopefully spin at least 45 minutes of content out of it um there is a local um commercial that runs a radio commercial on the am dial i don't even remember what it's for i'm assuming it's for like roofing or slab jacking or some sort of like repair business i

don't know but they say something along the lines of i heard about that thing on the am radio the

best in the pnw and i gotta say luke it kind of irritates me because i understand if you're writing something out pnw is much easier and quicker to write than pacific northwest i'm fine with that and it's even become you know like kind of a symbol the pn you can just you can get a sweatshirt that says pnw on it right but when you're saying it out loud you're saving zero time And it's so much more awkward to say PNW than Pacific Northwest. It is the exact same amount of syllables. If you add a syllable to the word amount, though, it becomes even more, as I just did. So maybe I should.

Let's do a test. OK, this is going to be great because we're on probably like a 1.5 second delay. On the count of three, I want you to say Pacific Northwest and I'm going to say PNW. We're going to try to we're going to see if which one takes longer. Now, the problem is we're not going to be saying it at the same time. So I'm going to start early. I'm going to start. So I'm going to start on two, and I want you to start on three because this is being recorded at your home. Does that make sense? Does that logic make any sense? Because I'm behind you, so I need to actually stagger it or I need to adjust so that I'm going a little before feels natural so that these two things will happen at the same time.

Let's give the audience a sense of what the delay is before we do this. I'm going to say three, two, one, go. I'm going to try to do it. I'm going to try to do it. I'll do it a little bit slower and more deliberate than that, but I'll try to be accurate there. And you say go with me, okay? We're going to do this. Here's about the rhythm here. Three, so I'm going to really try, because sometimes people like, sorry, no, quick aside. I used to have to do something like this for recording content onto radio carts back in the day, like these cassette tape things. And the reporters would be like Three, two, one Reporting from the Statehouse News Bureau And I'm like, what is the point of doing the countdown If you're going to then leave a huge space Between the three and you going Like it all has to be The countdown has to be consistent Between the three and then the first word

I would say I'm a big If I were to do a countdown Which isn't really the thing anymore But certainly was for a lot of my life I was always worried that if I went like Alright, in 3, 2, and 1, we're joining you from outside If I didn't leave enough space Between 1 and when I started Talking, that it would be harder For someone to edit, it would also be Possible that someone wouldn't realize That there was like a countdown on the top Because maybe they're just like looking at the Wave file or I would always leave a big pause thinking I was being helpful You're saying from the producer side That was not helpful

Well, for that particular thing, and it doesn't matter anymore because things are digital but back in the day the 321 was a real countdown of when to hit the red record button the green so i'm taping something from a live feed that's being sent like a live behind the scenes feed that's being sent at a very precise hour from the state house news bureau they're sending out all of their stories and packages and everything to all of the radio stations around the state that are taking their content and there's a bunch of people like me all around the state with their finger over a cart machine ready to hit record and if you go in three two one I'm going to be ready to hit go on that same rhythm but you have to maintain the rhythm if you go three two one and leave an extra space in there then I have extra space at the front of my cart it has so that's what I see that so I'm going to just try my whole point of this And, again, I was joking when I said I would turn this into 45 minutes of content, but here we are. We're halfway there. Oh, my God. What are we doing? All right. So I'm going to try three, two. I'm going to go a little bit slower, but I'm going to try to be consistent. And then you hit.

And I'm going to say go. You're going to say go. When I'm hearing one, do I say go or do I go right after I hear one?

Just to give a sense of what the delay we're working on, I'm going to say three, two, one, go. You join me for the go at the time that you hear it that it sounds right to you. So here we go. All right. Here we go. Stand by. All right. Three, two, one. They said I have very fast internet here. Is that true? Wow, that is fast. Luke, what am I about to say? What am I about to say?

What am I about to say? Oh, my God. Did you have a sports book? Okay.

Okay. Sorry. All right. Okay. Not for real this time.

Okay. Three, two, one, go. Go. Okay. Almost a whole beat there. Not a second, but maybe like a half a second. Not like a half of a second? Yeah, maybe like a half a second or something. Okay.

So now what I need you to do is count down three, two, one, and then you're going to say, do you want to say Pacific Northwest or PNW? I'm going to say Pacific Northwest. Okay. Okay, I will say PNW, and I'm going to try to start half a beat early, okay? Okay.

Here we go, and I'm going to count it down. Okay. So instead of go, I'm saying everything's the same, except instead of go, I'm saying Pacific Northwest, and you're going to try to jump in slightly early. Okay, here we go. Yes. Three, two, one, Pacific Northwest. You're supposed to say PNW. I forgot I was supposed to say PNW. Okay, do it again. I really thought you were going to play the Lake Charmagargargargar drop there. I thought of it, but I don't have it on my end. I really wanted to prank you with that. Okay, here we go. Oh, that would have been actually pretty good. Okay, here we go.

Okay, sorry, I'm saying PNW. Got it, got it, got it. Hey, by the way, how did that, even though I said the wrong word, which is pretty sad because I only had to remember, there was only two options, but how was the timing on that?

I don't remember.

Okay, I was just wondering if I had caught up to you or not. Okay, here we go. PNW. Okay.

Three, two, one, Pacific Northwest. Actually, Pacific Northwest did seem slightly longer, if I'm the one who's kind of judging here. But here's the deal. We could have, I mean, aside from the timing thing, which was very entertaining for all the listeners, I think, you can just count the syllables, Pacific Northwest, that's five, P-N-W, that's five. It's five syllables either way, like scientifically. Maybe you save a half a second time-wise, but the thing is, like, I don't think they did it that way. And it's just more awkward to say though. The letter W is an awkward thing. Pacific Northwest sounds nice. It evokes something. PNW is both sterile and an awkward way to put copy on the air. I feel strongly about this.

I think you're right. You know, it's actually funny that this, of all things, has come up today because I was working on the script for Live Wire. Tonight we're doing Live Wire at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland. Look forward to seeing some of you there. And the musical guest Somebody named Stephanie Ann Johnson I was asking them Or I was planning on asking them Because I believe they're from Seattle But I was going to say Dude you grew up in the Pacific Northwest But I wrote it PNW on the script But I would never say Are you from the PNW That would feel like we're trying to make Fetch a thing Why did we decide suddenly We're going to have to rebrand it Like I would I would write that for myself as a reminder, but I would say it as Pacific Northwest.

Do you think there's any chance that the person who is reading the copy, do you think that the person who wrote the copy in this radio commercial I'm talking about? Do you think somebody wrote PNW just thinking, well, they'll know it means Pacific Northwest. And the person just read PNW because they were just like a voice for hire.

Yes. Like when I was doing that ad for something on our show and it was supposed to be like, oh, the frame, pro. Yeah. Use the skylight. Yeah. Use the promo code live because, like, we're called Too Beautiful to Live. But something because it's, like, the last word in the name of the show, I didn't put it. If they said beautiful, well, first of all, there's only one way to pronounce it. But, like, I had completely forgotten that that's related to our show.

So you said live. You said use promo code live.

First round of ads, I was like, use the promo code live.

Which I heard when I was editing. And I'm like, I think it's supposed to be live. But, you know, who cares? Like, it doesn't really matter. And so I just let it go. And then I think I asked you about it later. And you're like, oh, yeah, it just didn't click for me in the moment, which I have a million of those.

I'll write it and we'll do it live.

No shame there. But then I think we even got a note from television's Chris Hayes that said something like that's funny that it's live, not live. And then you're like, oh, yeah, I heard it wrong. Anyway, I just want to defend you again. It's one of those moments where I think that's very whatever. We're reading this copy. Like sometimes things don't click. But also you also work on another show that has live in it. You work in one show that says has live in the title and another that has live in the title. I think that makes it even easier to confuse. No. Do you ever have a promo code on Livewire?

No, we don't. But I will tell you this. There are a lot of similarities between Livewire and TBTL in certain respects, including fundraising. And truthfully, I think that probably the Livewire folks, we've kind of adopted some of the things that have worked for TBTL in terms of thanking people on air. And so we have like for one of the podcast of Livewire, I record something each week that thanks, you know, mentions a couple of folks by name who have been donating to the show, to that show. And I will say something like, so thank you so much for keeping Livewire going. And I. cannot believe i don't say tbtl more or vice versa i can't believe what i'm doing we're reading the dazzling donors here or anybody else donors of the day that i don't say well thank you so much i mean i know i've done it like once in a while but i'm actually surprised it doesn't happen like three times a week because like it's not unusual for me to be like standing in that room in my apartment like spending two hours of my day talking to you and saying tbtl tbtl tbtl and then which is how i summon you by the way from your crypt every morning don't look in the mirror and say it three times every morning three times that it it frees you for two hours to come do the show

before the hounds of hell pull you back that's why your bathroom was ice cold this morning because

i was haunting it yes um but uh and then and then in the same day uh i will uh be you know talking to the folks at live wire and doing live wire and there are so many times where my brain is not really paying attention to which thing we're recording at the moment i'm talking into the same microphone i'm saying a lot of stuff that's similar again really in the sort of fundraising uh kind of department and i'm not this sounds like a humble brag it's not i'm genuinely surprised i don't do it more i think i might have uh our friend lynn fam will definitely know the answer to this but i think there has been maybe like one time where i was on stage doing live wire and i called it tbtl and my guess would be that most of the people in the audience just it went right past them because i thought i was having an aphasia or something like they probably don't really know what that is but i do think that's like happened one it's kind of embarrassing for me so i try to keep it to a minimum but again i'm a little surprised doesn't happen more i mean the more

you say too beautiful to live on stage during live wire tapings i'm all for that the more you

do it the better as far as i'm concerned i think you i this comes up from time to time you know live wire is obviously a popular radio program and we're very uh happy and blessed and appreciative that people come out and see the show but you know old tbtl kind of punches above its weight when we're trying to activate people we're doing a live wire thing somewhere and we really want to get people to come to it whether it's like we did that show in phoenix or other such places it is not unusual for the live wire people andrew to be like hey would you mind to throw a little that tbtl weight behind this which i'm proud of i think we should both be very proud of that these tbtl tens of listeners they show up show or they're unlike unlike everyone in my

family including me these are people who show up absolutely yeah it's not it's it's not so much the power of numbers but it's it's just the the power of love luke that's what it is with our yes it's

a curious thing you should write a song make a one man rich uh-huh go another man sing i'm writing this down i mean this is amazing work change your heart to a little white dove that's the feeling that's the power of love don't take money don't take fame don't need no credit card to ride this train but is is the line uh power of love is a curious thing makes one man weep oh it's probably weep and sing right that would be the that would be the juxtaposition i think i've always been singing it in my mind makes a one man rich and another man sing but that's not a very interesting story that's a story of one guy who got rich and another guy who's just singing we need to have

more of a of a variation in the experience you're so good at lyrics i would have never been able to pull that i'm looking for it now um let's see here well i loved i've been that i that's off

of sport i think figured he was in sport but he wasn't in sport um and i just loved loved that Actually no you know what I think that's for the That's we talked about this a while ago That was for the like back to the future

Soundtrack yes yes I think this Came up recently yeah and Huey Lewis

Was at that point So successful Huey Lewis in the news they were so popular As a band that when the People from back to the future approached Him for back to the future one and Said would you write a song for our movie he said Yeah but I'm not gonna write a song about Time travel so if you want To use power of love you can Which is not really like the theme Of Back to the Future isn't the power Of love And yet he had that kind of Leverage now interestingly enough I don't know if he lost His leverage by the time it was Back to the Future 2 Or if he just Loved making that sweet sweet Moolah but he definitely wrote A song called Back in Time Which is very much about

Time travel I cannot say that Without singing a back in time I don't think I sing it well but that is a title. It's definitely an interpretation of it. Certainly. So what do you think the first verse is again of The Power of Love? I think it is, and I don't

have this in front of me, but I think it's Power of Love is a curious thing. Yes. I would have said makes one man rich and another man sing, but I'm betting it makes one man weep and another man sing. Very close. It's actually make a one man weep, make another man sing. that's an interpretation of the lyrics change your heart to a little white dove change a hawk to a little of course why would your heart turn into a dove duh right although changing change does i mean really a love can change species i mean that seems dubious at best change a neoconservative into for me is it weird that when i hear hawk i just think like paul uh who was the who wolfowitz like i think of like that's an early book i think like neo-conservative bush hawkish kind of like political advisors who sent us into iraq etc anyway going with that change change a hawk to a little white dove more than a feeling that's the power of love i mean that's you can just see you can see the work there it's you know huey lewis is definitely like you know how when you take a math test they'd be like show your work you can see huey lewis's work there he wanted to get to the word love he needed to because the song is called power of love and so he he figured out that like dove rhymes with love it's not because it doesn't really work with the song like you said it's a certain you know transmogrification of avian species it really doesn't fit into the song but it's just how many words rhyme with love you know i feel like that's where he got change a hawk to a little white dove change a big push to a little nice shove yep that would also work where's my bell probably pita has thoughts on this like please stop describing the changing of hawks to doves i love that i make that voice even though i generally agree with pita on these things but even i think they're nerds okay love is what compared to diamonds and it is is this in the song or yeah next verse okay okay um wait i would have never know of it get in the don't take money don't take fame right don't need no credit card to ride this now you've skipped right to the chorus unless i'm looking at some bunk lyric sheet here um which i could be like sometimes these things are bunk um but you had your heart to a little change a hawk to a little white dove more than a feeling that's the power of love and then what's can you just give me like part of the next line to see if my brain can kick yeah so the tougher than diamonds Oh, Tougher Than Diamonds, something like steel. Rich like cream. Oh, okay. Well, way off. Tougher Than Diamonds, Rich Like Cream. This, by the way, is how my lovemaking has been described. Tougher Than Diamonds, Rich Like Cream. Oh, man. This is a lost stanza for me. I don't know. What's the next one? I do wonder, like, what if this is, like, it literally is a lost stanza. Stronger and harder than a bad girl's dream.

Oh, stronger and hotter than a bad girl's dream. I think he's kind of jaunty with that part, so maybe I never really fully picked it up. And is there more before we get to the chorus? Make a bad one good. Oh, yeah. Make a good one something. Make a wrong one right. Make a bad one good and a wrong one right? Yeah. I wouldn't call that untortured in terms of its construction. Power of love. Make a bad one good, make a wrong one right. A power of love A power of love will keep you home at night Indeed it will my friend Indeed it will Again Huey That's the thing He wanted to get to It will keep you home at night So he then goes back And he like introduces this very weird Almost double negative kind of Make a bad one good Make a wrong one right You can just see that he He has an outcome that he's looking to get to And he doesn't care who gets hurt on the way there And In terms of writing And the fact that the outcome is It's going to keep you home at night Doesn't sound as special I mean, I like it. I'm into that. I love staying home. Well, that's the idea there, of course, is that you've fallen in love, and now you're leaving behind your nightclubbing ways, and you're staying at home. Then we get to the chorus, don't take money, don't take fame, don't need no credit card to ride this train. It's something, and it's something, and it might just save your life. Yeah, but there's three things. It's strong. It's strong. Ding. And it's sudden. Ding. And sudden, okay. It's also how my lovemaking has never been described. And it's cruel sometimes. See, to me, this is how it's described when I go to the bathroom. It's strong and it sucks. Exactly. It is cruel sometimes. But it might just save your life. That's the power of poop. For me, a bathroom is just a library with a cold seat. Okay. I just said the power of poop. And it might just save your life. I've got to get out of this. That's a really... Okay, so I've been criticizing Huey for obviously wanting to rhyme on a certain word. That part doesn't even rhyme, right? it's just those are very intense concepts yeah it's strong it's sudden it's cruel sometimes but it might just save your life that's the power of love in three two one go they say that only love is better yeah but you don't care you know what to do i'm singing this so wrong what to do and also

Also, I did a key change, which like nobody asked.

So you skipped ahead a bit here, but I thought you were doing a different song because I have a confession.

It was doing a very bad version of the later part of the song, The Power of Love.

I don't know if you could hear it in my voice, but when we first started, when we first got to the point where I realized I need to look up these lyrics and see what you're talking about, I was panicking for a while and I couldn't find it. And I realized I think there's another song called The Power of Love that maybe by Celine Dion or something. Oh, yeah. And I was looking at the wrong lyrics. I'm just like, where is he getting this from? And then I, so I, you know, like you could tell me anything is in this song and I would believe you. But you did skip another chorus. So another verse. First time you feel it, it might make you sad. The next time you feel it, Luke, it might make you what? It might make you mad. Coincidentally, those words rhyme as well. But you'll be glad, baby, when you found that's the power of love. That's the power that makes the world go around. Exactly. that is the power. And the next line is

because I'm your lady and you are my man whenever you reach for me I'll do all that I can

I am you. Okay let's not let's not push me. Is that your Celine impression? I think it started that was that was a quickly aborted Celine Dion impression I don't know what's going on with me today maybe I've been drinking. If you haven't touched anything in their life let them touch those things for once but I think we should probably. Oh by the way I meant to give you a heads up on something, Luke, off air, but I'll tell you now, I accidentally edited out the Dazzling Donors from yesterday's show. Oh, great. I was hoping you would. I have to thank Jake again.

How many days before I can just do it from memory?

That'd be kind of great. No, we got some fresh Dazzlers today.

Nice. Alright, let's do that. Let's take a quick break, and then we will be back with more Livewire in just a moment. I hate you.

On your mark. On your mark. Get set. Get set. Now ready. Ready. Go. Everybody rattle, dattle

Let's thank some dazzling donors These are the wonderful, generous, supportive folks Who are donating some dough each month to the program And as I say across so many platforms and programs It's really how we're able to do the show That is a true story Don't let the Carvana ads fool you We are a rounding error on Tig Notaro's backside When it comes to downloads

We are getting

We are getting We are getting to have this job Only because of the support of folks like Amy Lake In Eugene, Oregon Where I just was not that long ago At the Holt Center Amy says we're actually a 210 Home now I have successfully converted my wife From an 11 to a 10

I love to hear that That is the you know what that's the power of love make that that rhyme huey except in our case it do take

money it do take fame we do take credit credit card to ride this train we certainly oh man we'll take bitcoin we do need a working credit card to ride this train um amy says it only took 10 to 12 years god amy god bless you for your um stick-to-itiveness could you imagine like just listening to tbtl and telling your spouse about it or having them overhear it like in the car in the house or whatever for for over a decade and then finally they crack under the pressure just the other day she was telling someone about something our friend andrew said that's me smiley face that's you oh hey y'all said my name fun fact our laundry room is fully decked out with TBTL swag from the poster of the Podpets to the Walsh Waste Management trash can. Keep doing what you're doing. We love the show. Signed, Amy and Heidi and Eugene.

Aw. That's amazing.

Thank you. Well, you know, we're going to be back at the Holt Center doing Livewire in, I don't know when, six months or something. I don't want to invite myself over to Amy and Heidi's house, but I would love to see this TBTL swag room.

Yeah, or you could send a photo in. That would be another way. That would be probably a less creepy way of doing it, maybe.

Me not barging into someone's home, maybe? Yep. It's probably another way to do it. Yeah, send us a picture, Amy, if you get a chance. Or Heidi, now that you're a listener. Yeah, hi, Heidi. Thanks to both of you. We appreciate you, and thank you so much for your donations. Maestro?

On your mark. On your mark. Get set. Get set. Now ready. Ready. Go.

Everybody rattle, rattle.

We've also got to thank Abigail Adriani in Chicago, Illinois. Now I'm going out on a limb with that because where we have a field you can fill in when you're filling out your dazzling donor form that asks for the pronouncer. And the response, I believe, from me from Abigail is, nope, exclamation. Yeah, no, no pronouncer, no, none given, none received. Yes. I'm going with Adriani. Yeah, I think you're right there. Or maybe Adriani. Probably Adriani. I think Adriani. In Chicago, hiya friendos. I'm going to use this time to do something wildly uncomfortable for me, and that is self-promotion. So here goes. After years of helping friends and family create beautiful, bespoke living spaces, I am so excited to announce I'm launching my own company, Abigail Ray Interiors. you can visit me at abigailrayinteriors.com I'm just going to spell this Abigail is A-B-I-G-A-L and Ray is R-A-Y abigailrayinteriors.com to see my interior design projects and all the pretty stuff I've created I'm taking new clients and no project is too small or mountain is too tall wait no project is too small nor is geography an issue I'm Chicago based but I'm open to travel plus zooms Please check out my site or my socials I'm an Abigail Ray interiors And reach out if you'd like my help Bringing joy and beauty to your space You'll be hearing from me soon Abigail As I am again In a bombed out husk of a home right now That someday I hope to turn into Somewhere that's really livable I'm in the market for some interior design Help actually

I am having a minor freak out Over here Luke Because here's what's going through my head right now and I think it's probably too late. I mean, we're live, right? I am wondering...

Well, until you delete this later today.

Yeah, well, that's true, too. I'll probably just end up accidentally deleting these. But I'm wondering if Abigail didn't want to pronounce her because she wanted us to identify her as Abigail Ray. I'm looking at, like, all of these social sites that she's mentioning and the name of her company. It all seems to be Abigail Ray. And I'm wondering if this is a...

Doing business as.

Yeah I'm wondering if this is a bookkeeping issue Like maybe it came in as Adriani And maybe she said nope You wouldn't need a pronouncer to say Ray I'm not sure

Can you just bleep it out every time I said Andrea's last name Or the name that was on the form Could you do that so that it just sounds Like her last name is just the F word or something Or the name Oh man I'm looking at Abigail's Instagram page This is certifiably great Oh man look at this I need to figure out what she's Sorry, you have no idea, Andrew. Well, you do have an idea because you've known me for a while. You have no idea how much time I can lose just like peeping on interior design ideas and choices. And I'm at Abigail's Instagram page, which is Abigail Ray Interiors. That's the Instagram feed as well. And I'm just like, I immediately want to end the show and just sit here scoping this stuff because it looks great. I want to get some tips and tricks and some ideas for how she got this one wall to look like this. Anyway, everybody go check it out, please. Hello and welcome to Top Story. All right, this is actually a fairly interesting story to me because it kind of comes down to the question of when you offer a reward, no questions asked, how ironclad is the no questions part? A woman is suing Lady Gaga For not paying her The reward that was offered For the return of Lady Gaga's stolen dogs I don't know if you remember this story When it happened It's actually a pretty traumatic story Somebody who works for Lady Gaga Was out walking these French bulldogs Somewhere in Los Angeles And a car pulls over And they try to dog nap the dogs Because French bulldogs are like Crazy expensive and have a big resale value. And this is a real thing that's going on. You know, if you can steal two or three French bulldogs, you've got yourself some real valuable property there. And the person walking Lady Gaga's dogs did not want to release the dogs, probably thought, is dog napping a real thing? And unfortunately, this person was shot while trying to defend Lady Gaga's dogs. Thankfully, that person has recovered from the gunshot. But anyway, this was like a big kind of weird sort of traumatizing story that opened my eyes to the world of French bulldog dog napping and all of these things. In part of this whole thing, Lady Gaga posted a request for the dogs to an offer, I guess you would say, for the dogs to be returned, said no questions asked. And it was five hundred thousand dollars. Well, the person who returned the dogs or at least told them where the dogs were was someone named Jennifer McBride. her connection to the robbery was unclear when she walked into the la police station with the dogs okay now we know that part of it asking about the money lady gaga had offered on social media she told officers she had found the dogs tied to a pole in the days after the dog napping as the investigation continued authorities figured out the mcbride was actually

in a relationship with the father of one of the two men accused of stealing Lady Gaga's pets. So she was dating the dad of one of the alleged, I keep saying dognappers. Nobody says that anymore except me, I think. It's certainly not in this piece, by the way. I'm not sure. I sent you this article. I saw it in the Seattle Times, but I'm thinking it was probably from some other news service. I don't have the name of the person who wrote it.

Oh, here, I can help you out there. I think if I have in front of me, this is Salvador Hernandez writing for it looks like probably the L.A. Times. I just got a pop up that's blocking it. Yeah, it was originally the L.A. Times.

So the McBride's lawsuit against Lady Gaga states that she never intended to honor their unilateral offer to pay the reward money of five hundred thousand dollars. The lawsuit also argues that McBride was questioned about her role despite representations that the reward would be paid for the return of the dog with no questions asked. The truth is that Lady Gaga intended to have its agents and or law enforcement ask questions of McBride regarding the circumstances surrounding McBride's return of the French Bulldogs. The suit states the lawsuit does not mention the arrest and conviction of McBride, who is sentenced to two years of probation. According to the suit McBride has suffered pain and suffering Mental anguish and loss of enjoyment of life As a result of not being paid the reward money McBride is still on probation for the whole thing But is asking for not just a half mil Now asking for 1.5 million dollars in damages Now this seems like a story kind of ready made for talk radio Because it'd be like the How ludicrous is this that the person who I mean, I don't think there's any allegation that she went out and did the kidnapping, the dog napping, but she knew where the dogs were. It was happening in the household that she lived in. She could have, you know, from the very moment the dogs went missing, she could have called someone and been like, come get the dogs. Instead, she figured out there was money in it for her and then brought them in and then kind of misrepresented her relationship with the people where the dogs had been stolen. So all that just seems ridiculous. On the other hand, if you're Lady Gaga and you're super duper rich and your beloved dogs are missing, by the way, their names are Gustav and Koji. If Gustav and Koji are missing and the 500,000 goes to the bad people who did it but gets your dogs back safely, don't you think Lady Gaga would take that deal?

Yeah, I actually am taking that side of this. And I got to be honest with you. I have not read this. So everything I know, I know because how you just laid it out. So maybe as I talk, there will be some questions that arise or maybe I'm mistaken about some stuff. But I could see if you clearly lay out and you can prove that this was a plot and the person who wants the reward or is trying to get the reward was actually involved in perpetrating this crime. I'm sure there are some legal standards that say Even though we said here's the reward No questions asked I'm sure there's a loophole that says You know in whatever Whatever codes and laws are out there That says

Some kind of like son of Sam rule

I'm sure that there's something like that But even still Okay we'll just put that aside for a second But when you want something back And by the way I think about I think about my cats getting outside all the time now I used to be like so cavalier with cats. I'd be like, whatever, cats get outside. They'll be fine. I love my little new kitten so much that I have bad fantasies about him getting outside and then some stranger meeting him and falling in love with him and taking him to live. I seriously had this conversation with Genevieve. I said, we have a new issue with this cute cat. If this one gets out and somebody finds him, they'll just keep him. What were you going to say, by the way?

Well, just a quick note. I just wanted to clarify. Becca told me to clarify with you that Bubbles is, in fact, a girl cat.

oh i did i say he in uh you misgendered my cat on instagram yeah yeah i mean with a name like bubbles though i mean why are you naming your cat such a man wow now we're gatekeeping on cat names okay boomer sorry about that um okay what i was gonna say was because all of it is to say like i understand to a degree i mean the pain that anybody would feel if their beloved pets were in this position and i understand why you would say yes here's a reward and no questions asked like i want my the number one priority is to get my pets back and then if somebody says well listen like i'm not involved in this crime i have nothing that let's just say this is in my social circle right let's say and i hate to do this to him because i like him he's a good man he would never do this but let's just say that lady gaga's dogs were missing and i happen to know that camaro kev stole them i have nothing to do with that theft um i do know that

He stole them, and I feel bad about it, but I'm like, well, Kamara Kev's my friend. I'm not going to turn him in, but, man, this is really shitty. What a terrible thing to do, but, you know, again, I don't want Kamara Kev to go to prison, but then there's this thing that says, no questions asked. Return my dogs. You get a little reward, and I get my dogs back. I'm not going to ask any questions. Now, me, somebody who's not involved in this crime at all says, you know what? I'm going to do this. No questions asked. Kevin will go free. the dogs will get back to their owner and i'll get a payout from a very rich person now i'm not trying to make it sound like i'm the hero in this case but there is an incentive for me to turn evidence and and get these dogs i mean it's kind of a win all the way around unfortunately it's also a win for some bad people like camaro kev i can't believe you did that kevin um but generally speaking that's why you put it in there you want to incentivize people to basically turn in their friends and then if you just say oh just kidding you knew these people who perpetrated this then like then you're just hurting the next person down the line who wants to get something back and they say no questions asked because that you can't just say oh just kidding at the last minute

right no the reason that you put no questions asked into the the offer is you're trying to get the people who are near the people who did it to come in or even maybe the people who actually did it you're not saying no questions asked and thinking that some like kindly grandmother will just find the dogs Koji and Gustav wandering down the street in Hollywood and bring them in you can ask her as many questions as you want she is not related to the issue like you know what I mean like you say no questions asked because you're assuming that there might be some questions to be asked and you're saying we're not going to get into it we don't need you don't need to tell us anything about how you got these dogs you just need to bring them here safely I mean that's the

premise of the offer yeah terrible crime i don't want anybody to misinterpret this conversation as me saying that that these folks um should be getting off scot-free or whatever um and that it's the perfect crime and no no this is really traumatic i truly i truly believe that and understand that this is a very traumatic thing families or i'm sorry pets are part of your family um and so you know it's a shitty thing to go through um but just getting really focused in hyper focused in on this idea of no questions asked so we can resolve this you have to have faith in that and that's how you get people to turn in friends and family like that's the deal

now i do think that the other 1.5 million is a little excessive i agree and like and that feels to me like this her lawyers are making a calculated um sort of gambit here which is we'll try to come at lady gaga for two million and lady gaga's lawyers will tell her that it's going to cost it's going to cost 400 000 to litigate this even if you're even if you win so just kick this lady 100 grand and it's cheaper i have been in much lower stakes financial stakes versions of this where i've been like talking to a lawyer about things and the person was the lawyer was like yeah you could argue this particular point but it would cost you more to argue it than it would to settle for half of what the thing is that they're asking and it's a very frustrating calculation to make a very frustrating calculation does the word galling come to mind it does among other words that we can't print on the radio but um so i my guess is that this is this the lawyers think that like if we come at lady gaga for a large amount her her lawyers will just say we just we we're going to settle this for an undisclosed amount of money to just make it go away or we're going to be dealing with it now the thing about lady gaga is who by the way i'm a huge fan of lady gaga's got pretty deep pockets and she's also not a pushover and so i guess there is the chance that she could say she's so mad about the kidnapping of her dogs reasonably right And also, yes, the shooting of her assistant. Yeah. You know, this is a very traumatic event for real. And I don't want it to sound like we're trying to make light of it. But like maybe Lady Gaga says, no, you know what? I have the money to actually fight this. I'm not going to just settle because it's easier and cheaper. I will spend the money to litigate this so that this kind of thing doesn't go on. As far as the extra money goes again, I think it's kind of it's messed up. but i do sort of think that like the no questions asked part really does mean that even if you were related to the people who did it and like you said unless you could prove that this was all a plot to get the money in the first place if this woman colluded with her like you know boyfriend's kids to go do this thing all with the long-term intention of getting the money for the dogs that would be one thing that would just be a crime right that would just be like a you know and and that would invalidate anything. But if you are a

person who just i my guess would be that they didn't the people who are accused of kidnapping the dogs i highly doubt they ran it by well they didn't even know it was lady gaga's dogs that's the other thing so there's like no chance there's almost no chance that they were like bending the ear of their dad's girlfriend going like hey we're gonna go kidnap lady gaga's dogs and then you can get the money is that a good idea and she's like yes i mean this is one of those bizarre things where they just snatched two dogs up off the street and they happened to belong to this famous person. And everything else kind of unfolded from there. So my guess is this woman did figure, you know, she wasn't in on the plan early, but then she figured out, oh, there's some money there. And then the reward offer worked exactly as designed. She brought the dogs in and asked and requested there would be no follow-up questions, please.

Yeah, and for me, I guess I just keep on leaning on the idea of like you're setting a precedent here in that idea of like we if we want to encourage people to do the right thing even if it's painful because it's going to hurt the people that you love because the people that you love perpetrated a crime then you have to have some faith in this idea that no questions asked me no questions asked and it doesn't sound like probably wrap it up because i'm just repeating myself here but it doesn't sound like the people who are the is it people are persons who are doing time for this is it one or i think it's two two both the people are doing it um doing the time um it doesn't sound like they were convicted based on any kind of testimony or evidence brought by the woman who recovered and brought the dogs back i think that might be a somewhat complicating factor it doesn't mention it in this article there's also a uh there's

a previous one about uh when they were actually like out looking for the people who did it they had suspects the u.s marshals office uh was out looking for uh these two people james howard jackson uh and um somebody else who's listed later in the piece anyway i don't know i don't know if um like uh this woman's testimony was like critical to the case or not uh so i can't answer that i'm

gonna i'm gonna assume not in this case too because that can sort of complicates our our um scenario

anyway i am yeah i don't like for people that were doing bad things to prosper from that at all but i also think andrew you know if we threaten the sanctity of the no questions asked

statement where are we as a society that's right i um i tell you every day before the show no questions asked i'm a little groggy today luke no questions asked oh my god he i made it

There's a right way to rock And a wrong way to roll You can just 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 number one

All right, let's do some Blur's Days. Got a lot of Blur's Days today, including a couple that I think we missed last week because I think we recorded Blur's Days.

Yeah, this is like from a bygone era. We're recording the Thursday episode of the show on Thursday. Look at us. So people have actually had enough time to get their Blur's Day messages in.

Look it up in the book. So we're going to go through these. Also, if you want me to read a Blur's Day on the air or Luke, but you don't get to choose. We are the deciders. Email me, andrew at tvtl.net, and put Blur's Day in the subject line. Or tell your loved ones, if you're the recipient, that's what they should do. Andrew at tvtl.net. Or make your loved ones listen to the show for 12 years until they become fans, and then they'll just know. And then eventually they'll get it. And just a sentence or two. I had to cut these down today because there are so many of them, and some of them are really long. So hopefully I'm not cutting the parts you really wanted, but just a sentence or two. Like what Steph did here. Steph says, happy 32nd Blur's Day to my boyfriend, Ian. You're the most thoughtful, patient, and loving person I know. Thank you for always being my biggest supporter, my adventure partner, and the best pet dad to our dog and three cats. I'm so lucky to have you by my side. Here's to your best year yet and many more to come. Happy Blur's Day, Ian.

Cute. By the way, sorry, Andrew. I had to turn the heat back on here because it is freezing. So I'm hoping that the soulful sounds of Tim Heidecker slapping the bass will mostly drown out the fan that's going on behind me. But it is like I was going to turn into like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining. And I can't do that to Rob in Denver, who wants to wish a happiest of second birthdays to the tiny Tacoma triplets, Eli, June, and Lily. Come on. Beautiful.

Eli, Lily.

That's a company right I know I was just noticing that That is a company I'm sure I'm not the first person To comment on that So I will strike it From the record

I like that though Eli and June is a beautiful name As is Lily I'm guessing also You know they're born in kind of It's not quite spring But it's almost Yeah We're almost there It seems appropriate They're amazing kiddos Who bring tons of joy And fatigue To all the people In their lives Their parents Bobby and Lizzie Are truly the best Kind of people Please send this whole Basketball team my love from that's a really good point rob they could that family could feel the basketball team

i'm not even joking is that is that how many people are on the court per team five really

huh i would have guessed seven you got your uh you got your point guard you got your two guard you got a couple of power forwards and then you got your center let me ask you this i know

nothing about basketball literally i don't know what any of those positions would do right so let me ask you this if i were to play basketball which is like of all of the sports i think i'd be the

worst i'd be a power forward power forward would be because you're tall um so the the point guard is the person who brings the ball up the floor they do the primary dribbling they distribute the ball that's often left well in the olden days that would be for someone who was kind of smaller and quick but now i mean the nba it's wild you'll have like six eight point guards like you know really tall people and same for the WNBA where people who are just like really tall but also still really good at dribbling which seems no fair to me so that's point guard and then the center is that is going to be the tallest person on your team because they're going to be mostly in the paint which is kind of that area that's near the rim they're going to be trying to block shots they're going to be trying to put in kind of close range shots and then power forward is someone that's a little tall to be a guard but not quite tall enough to be the center And that's where I see you having the most impact, Andrew, power forward, powering through.

It's embarrassing. I don't even know the name of this term. But who is the who's the player who tucks the ball up under their shirt and pretends they're pregnant and then saunters down towards the basket and then surprisingly lemon.

That's the metal lark lemon.

OK, gotcha. That's what I want. That's what I want to do.

That's the part where I whistle sweet Georgia Brown over the soulful stylings of Tim Heidecker.

How about this from Jen with two N's. Jen says, Corey, our life has not slowed down since you entered it, and we love you for the energy you bring. Happy ninth birthday, m'lady sugar baby. Love your Auntie Jen. That is cute. Happy Blur's Day.

Christian says, I want to wish my five Henry a happy 12th Blur's Day. You're the smartest person I know, and I love you, even though you're sometimes grumpy when I want to listen to TBTL.

Okay, Henry.

I hear. Henry? I mean, I believe, what do they say? A dilemma. Well, not a dilemma. A contradiction cannot obtain. Is that the way they say it in philosophy? I hear a contradiction here Because how could the smartest person you know Also not want to listen to TBTL

Yeah, that doesn't make sense I have a little message here directly to Henry Henry, are you listening? Henry, I'm talking directly to you Henry, smile Come on, smile, Henry You're trying not to smile, but you can't Actually, Henry, I'm siding with you

Stop listening to the show

Yeah, you're smiling I got him, I know I got him I used to do that to my sister all the time She'd be mad at me, she'd be grumpy But I'd be like, well, don't smile No, there's no way you're going to smile They always crack, Luke How can you not smile? Me.

Well, it takes fewer muscles to smile than to frown, Andrew. That's what I always say. Can't understand why your sister didn't love you being like, hey, smile. We haven't talked in 12 years.

Got this from Henry. Now, this is not the same Henry, right? Because we got this note that says, happy birthday to the world's best grandma, Sheila. Can't wait to see you soon. Love, Henry.

Wow. And also that would indicate that this Henry Enjoys TBTL and is using TBTL As a way to reach out To their grandma Sheila

Yeah and I'm assuming that this is the same Sheila here Because we got a happy blurs To our dear friend Sheila from your Ithaca Fellow Ithaca 10 Cindy I hope you have a delightful birthday With egregious amounts Of your favorite bread pudding Several glasses of not too oaky vino And a book so fantastic You just can't put it down

Good reading Andrew I would have said several glasses of not-too-okay vino. Oh. That's a really important, and you're right, not-too-okie. Yeah. Like, you know, maybe that's not something Sheila doesn't like her vino-too-okie. I dig that. But I would have misread that on the fly, so really good attention to detail. Thank you. Appreciate that. I think you've already made it a great birthday for Sheila. I have. Sophia says, wow, my friends just pointed out that I turned 32 on 3-2.

March 2nd, so it's a double golden blurs day for me, so I thought I'd write in to say happy birthday, y'all old so-and-so, love yourself a little, sign Sophia, that is a good message, love yourself a little, Sophia, I always get confused, so a golden birthday means when you turn the age of the date, right, so my, I'm November 27th, so my golden blurs day would have been I guess when I turned 27, right?

Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. Wait, no, it's the day of the month, right? Right. So what is your birthday? May 8th. So I guess mine came kind of early.

Yeah, yours came way too early. What a waste. Not you, by the way. I just feel bad for you that you didn't get to celebrate your Golden Blur's Day knowingly. Got this from Dawn, who says, I'd like to extend a very happy Blur's Day to my longtime friend, Jen. Now, again, this is Jen with two N's. We might have a lot of people, like, kind of, what's that reservoir dog thing where everybody's pointing Blur's Days at each other? No matter what, Jen. Okay, dark reference, but okay. I think it's my go-to.

That movie ends with everyone falling in love, right?

Yeah, they're all pointing happy birthday balloons at each other.

And then they just have a group wedding, and I think they live happily ever after.

Oh, Mr. Pink. No matter what Jen has going on in her own life, she's always, always there for her friends and family. She is truly one of a kind, and I want to wish her all the very best things for the upcoming year. Happy Blur's Day, Jen.

Chad in Minneapolis says, I'd like to wish a happy blurs to my wife, TBTL progeny and TBTL drummer Amy. She's smart, talented, and will make a distractingly attractive minister's wife when I finish seminary. Her presence in my life for more than 33 years is a gift. Aw, that's great I gotta be honest though Amy and Chad, we get it Can we tone it down with the veiled Sexy references We got a message from Amy about Chad a while ago Talking about how sexy he was Okay, you're making the rest of us look bad

Jeez My glasses are steaming Annette in Livonia, Michigan Do you think I said that right?

I know it well Oh, really? Yes I have told this story before, but many years ago when the Seahawks were in their first Super Bowl and they were playing in Detroit, I was staying in Livonia, which is pretty far out of town. But that's all of the hotels were booked. And I made it my point because I make good decisions to just go to the same sports bar called Stables in Livonia, Michigan. I was there for like a week or more. So I was there, like, many nights, and I made many friends and got a little too tuned up the night before the Super Bowl.

You ever look to see if that place still exists, Stables in Livonia? I bet you last time this came up, I Googled it. I bet you it's there. It was bustling. Yep, yep. Looks like it's still there. Nice font. Curse of the, I guess. You're wondering what I'm doing. I'm looking for my other tab. I have too many tabs open, and I was looking something up. Okay, here it is. Annette in Livonia, Michigan says, I'd like to wish my five Peter a happy 10th birthday. We had to postpone his party this year because he fractured his elbow running around the pickleball. Oh, that'll happen. I'm sorry about that, Peter. Peter's cast will hopefully be off in a few weeks and he'll be ready to party. Sorry about that injury, Peter. But, you know, you'll bounce back.

I'll give you a little pro tip there, Peter. Don't take the cast off yourself. As I did With my cast that I had from A broken arm from football And I also have a feeling That if Annette is Plugged in enough parent to be emailing in a Blur's Day message, Annette will also be plugged in enough To remember that like, hey didn't the kid Used to have a cast on their arm and they don't

Yeah, you and Genevieve You know Genevieve took her own braces off

That's okay, now that makes my Little cast story Sound like child's play Like that's I can't I mean what I've told the story too many times but the thing with the cast was it was just itching right it was still kind of it was like you know September it was still warm and I kept itching it and itching it and then pulling the cotton out and then it became loose and I pulled it off so it kind of was one of these things where it just the opportunity presented itself but taking off your own braces like that's makes me. I mean, that's like a reverse marathon, man. That's like some like there's that's the that's the stuff that like horror films are based around, which is unlicensed dental operations.

Do you think I could make it to Livonia by this afternoon? I'm looking at the menu here and I'm trying to choose what I what I want. And I'm looking at the beef sliders. You know, I really like sliders, Luke. I know we're supposed to be doing Blur's days.

out of music but um i like small sandwiches i realize as i was making my sandwiches the other day because i once i talked about this on tbtl i'm now very conscious of the fact that when i make myself a sandwich now just on like plain white bread or whatever i cut the bread into halves first and i make two little sandwiches and i think that instead of making one sandwich and then cutting it in half and i think it's a better way like the more i think about it i'm i think it's a stronger way to make two halves of a sandwich if you're constructing them each as individual sandwiches but also i think i just like sliders there's some and i'm making little like lunch meat sliders for myself when i do it that way i think you would have done great in like

british society because they were really into that they were having a lot of like small like sandwiches they would cut the crust off like if you read any like you know oscar wild stuff they're enjoying cucumber sandwiches it's like i think i think that what you like is that you're not you're not committing to like a huge sandwich you're committing to like three tiny sandwiches That add up to one huge sandwich And I'm with that There's also a convenience factor You can handle them more easily Stuff like that Now I'm getting hungry I'm so hungry I'm thinking about going to stables Yeah I think you can make it The problem is like My dad eats a lot of junk food And so when he and I are working on stuff Up here at the house He's not here right now He's back home But I try to keep him I try to keep him happy and placated by buying lots of stuff that I don't really keep in my apartment usually, like potato chips. It's weird. My dad weighs less than I do. He's my height. He weighs less than I do. He has never exercised intentionally one day in his life nor has he ever for one second thought what is the calorie or carbs count on this thing that I'm consuming? He's also biologically not related to me so That would explain some of the differences in our body types But he just eats whatever he wants And so because I know that he's going to have A big old sandwich at lunch With potato chips I'm always buying stuff like that up here But now that's all He's gone All I have in this house Is a brand new bag Of unopened Lay's potato chips Not ridged chips, Andrew But just the regular kind

That's what I wanted to know You're talking By the way, I just want to say We do have one more Blur's Day to get to We will get to you, Angela Sorry, Angela We haven't forgotten about you But, I mean, I don't know how much you feel comfortable talking about this. If it's too private. Also, your dad might be listening. But I would love to know more about this junk food. So plain Lay's potato chips, full family.

Well, now, the thing of that is he's not – I don't think he – the thing about my dad, and I've just been realizing this more and more as he and I spend time here, is I don't think I have ever met in my life a more go-with-the-flow person. Like, it is incredible.

Well, me probably, me and him.

Other than you Like I could So the way that it's just this odd thing That's developed you know where When my dad comes out I am you know I'm Paying him I've hired him to do this And I have taken on the Role of like the Chief cook and bottle Washer no I'm like I do all the Cooking and food preparation when we're here I don't Know why it's broken down this way I'm not particularly Good at it but it's just been the deal So we knock off at you know five or six and my dad will come in here he'll get on the phone with my mom he'll be in this little room I'm in right now and I will start to preparing the meal which is never anything elaborate it's always like a bag of salad some you know some vegetables cut up some salad dressing and then something that's either a frozen pizza maybe grilled cheese sandwiches or pasta something very simple and then I play my jazz music and I make the food and I bring it out and we have dinner It's this ritual we have It's really fun But if I were to tell my dad On a given night Oh we're just having like I have like 20 tortilla chips And like two slices of American cheese How's that for dinner And they're not even going to be combined He'd go yeah that's fine That's great And he would just eat that He would eat like 10 of the tortilla chips One slice of cheese And he would be totally unperturbed by that Like that would just He will eat whatever you put in front I mean he's the guy who brought Danimals one time Which is like a yogurt drink for children Oh gosh because it was woohooed my mother got a deal on danimals somewhere and then my dad was like my if i would have just said hey dad can you have your danimals for dinner he'd been like yeah fine like he just i'm so um i'm so admiring of this quality because i could not be more the opposite so when it comes to the junk food he's got little things he likes but it's not he my mom and dad do not shop they're not loyal to any brand or any even flavor genre of food yeah i mean he's loyal to a genre which is he likes junk food he likes cookies and things but my parents don't ever go get the same thing twice because it's just like whatever is on sale i think they may even go to kind of a like senior center or they get free food sometimes or something like my they're just so not picky it's just like whatever they have so for instance um one time he brought down nutty

buddies which he really liked those are good they really are i have that right like two in a pack right these are like the yeah and they're like peanut butter and chocolate yeah yeah good so i

I don't think I'd ever had one before. Then we went to the Walmart to get some things, some groceries, and then they had Nutty Buddies. And it was hilarious. I'm pushing a shopping cart. This was, you know, there's a point at which you start sort of like caretaking for your parents. It was like the roles reversed so hard. I'm pushing the shopping cart. I'm getting like a bag of salad. I'm getting vegetables. And my dad is like running back going, they have Nutty Buddies.

and i'm like all right one pack walter dad we're going to the store you can bring one toy to play

with in the car one all he cares about is junk food he would just and then he's always got like some kind of weird like you know like a um like a like a cheese cracker thing but it's already it's pre-made yeah you know those things are like with peanut butter like a rectangle sometimes peanut butter sometimes just like that weird fake cheese that you probably wouldn't like And they're always like They're like individually sealed But you buy a bunch of them I forget what they're called But they're terrible Like they're just They're not good And also you better have Like a gallon of If you're doing the peanut butter one You better have a gallon of milk Standing by To help You know Slake your now Completely peanut butter Encrusted Blow hole But He's just always eating Some random shit Or a cookie Like his lunch I mean he'll sometimes Make a sandwich As I mentioned But a lot of times If he's busy Like if he doesn't want to take time for a lunch break I'll just come in and just be like Oh he just had two peanut butter cookies That was his lunch or something So to answer your question It's not anything specific ever It's just he wants He just generally gravitates towards things that are sweet Oh the ice cream That's the biggie So I'm like driving up here the other day And he was already here And I was like what do you need for groceries He's like oh I think there's some cheese from last time we were here I was like dad that was like three weeks ago This is probably bad throw it out he's like oh it's probably okay there's some salad it might be a little brown i was like he's like we can probably eat it i was like no no no i'll get he goes well uh we are getting a little low on ice cream i gotta keep this guy supplied with so much ice cream it's not even funny in the middle of winter in a house without insulation doesn't matter man he is like if like if there's not a pint of ice cream in the freezer that's like ready to go it's like we it's like me with my booze juice if i don't have a little if i don't got a little uh of the strong stuff around i get start to get a little itchy that's my dad with ice cream just like what he's checking the supply he's monitoring it if we don't have it he's thinking about it all day so make sure we get some there's always got to be ice cream in the freezer for him maybe you don't even eat it but

just knowing it's there is important that's it that's that's part of the whole deal that's what

calms him down is knowing that it's there yeah the haagen but also he's like again i know he likes haagen-dazs he and my mom think that that's like it's a pretty fancy ice cream i guess by their standards and really by anybody's standards but so he doesn't ever they don't ever buy themselves haagen-dazs that's too rich for their blood but i'm like it's my dad whatever you know and so he'll be like uh i'll like what kind of flavor i'll be like vanilla i'll go well like haagen-dazs oh no no not haagen-dazs that's that's that's too fancy and then i'll bring home haagen-dazs he's like so psyched he probably knows i'm gonna buy haagen-dazs the whole time he's playing you playing a long

game he's like no no no bring back any ice cream you want no questions asked as long as it rhymes with Dawes. Angela in Ohio says, please wish a very happy 49th Thursday to Chris. He is the best husband, father, and friend. After 32 years together, I continue to love you more each day. Here's to at least another three decades of fun. I almost got a little choked up reading that.

I wonder what Chris's whole junk food

sitch is. Yeah, Chris, what's your favorite chip? Hey, Luke, you know what I... So that was all the Blur's Days. Thank you. Happy birthday to Chris, to everybody. Happy Blur's Days to the Blur's Day givers.

Chris's Blur's Day message was a long, long digression about my dad's eating habits.

You know what has been one of the most satisfying snacking, I guess, I don't know, events of my life. And it's not about me eating a snack. It's about a snack that I talked about loving so much on this show that they recently brought back from the grave. I'm talking about barbecue-flavored Fritos. It's not often – well, maybe that's not true. I don't think of myself as somebody who really kind of fetishizes snack foods. I have so many friends who are all into, like, various – flavors of chips and because i have because i'm kind of a picky eater and have very pedestrian tastes i don't go for any kind of doritos i don't want cool ranch i don't want the original i don't go for any of those cheese flavored things it knocks a whole hot ranch hot ranch cool ranch none of it hot country cool country um i uh there's a whole you know flavor spectrum that i don't even mess with so i don't really get into those arguments you know like there will be things on the wordle chain just about like arguments about what flavor blasting this or that is the best and you know that's just not a space that i usually play in but on this show i talked about my love of original barbecue flavored fritos they were replaced a while back with these spiral things that were honey barbecue and not the right shape and then they eventually killed my beloved barbecue fritos in their original form and then they brought them back about i don't know like a couple of months ago we talked about on the show i somebody sent them in i believe garrison sent us a couple of packs you tried them uh when you were here on the air with me they're pretty good you like them but here's the thing since then i've been buying them at the store maybe it's because i'm scared they're going to go away again or something i buy them whenever i'm like you know go i think i brought some to the the super bowl party i went to i had some over here the other day when i had some friends over and as people try them i'm not even pushing them anymore i'm not even like oh you got to try this thing it's great people are just trying them they're like oh damn dog that's how all my friends talk they're pretty cool they're like oh damn dog these are really good i've never had these before i'm like am i'm like am i right or am i right about these

barbecue fritos they're so good they really are and uh i can i can attest see the reason that i started talking about this was because as we're sitting here it's around lunchtime we're talking about different kinds of foods and delicious things and i know and i don't want to i don't want to get weird around food and i certainly don't want to get weird i don't want the listeners to feel like they they should they should or should not eat in any fashion that feels right to them But I feel like if I open It's a brand new bag of Lay's It's in this kitchen It's like the Telltale Lay's I can just hear the heart beating Of these potato chips in the other room And I'm going to finish here I'm going to go back out to the ADU I'm going to check on how the foam Insulation project is going And if I open those chips And I decide I'm going to have three of them I will just kill the entire bag Because I don't have good self-control Right now the bag is closed it's sealed the chips will be good in two weeks when my dad and i are back here if i open them and i have three i'm not going to stop at three and then it's also going to be like well these the bags you know it's not going to they're not going to be good in three weeks i might as well just have more of them and then i'm just going to be walking around for the next two hours with a full-on like regular size bag of chips not like the kind you have at lunch just in one hand and just munching them and i don't feel like i'm going to love that for myself yeah so i need you to I need everyone to get together right now we need to form the prayer chain Andrew after we hang up I need you to call J-Dog and then J-Dog will call whoever else is on the prayer chain and I want you guys to pray strength over me I want you to pray self-control I want you to pray remembering that a lot of my clothes currently are not fitting correctly including a suit I have to wear for live wire tonight have I ever told you about the prayer chain by the way I it rings a bell I don't

know if you've told me about it or if it's just something that I kind of heard about growing up I feel like there were various kind of telephone chains in the 80s before the Internet.

It was a big one in my childhood because the church had the prayer chain and you were assigned to call someone and who like was kind of down the line from you on the prayer chain and pray with them about whatever the topic was. Somebody was having health problems, somebody. And so you'd get it on the prayer chain. So the prayer and it was typically run by the women of the church. So it would be like some buddy would call my mom And then they would be praying And then my mom's job would be to call the next person And then they would pray on it And then you just end up with like 40 prayers About your, you know, whatever Unemployment status or something

What we should do now What would maybe work more than thoughts and prayers Is talking about healthy food Because like I'm so hungry right now That I was going to say What we should do is stop talking about Fritos and Lays And just talking about Because honestly like didn't i get into a fight with maybe not a fight but it wasn't jen on the show one time like i don't know a couple of years ago and she was making the argument that nobody likes salads that some people eat salads because it's the right thing to do but nobody likes them and i was like no like jen i know that like i'm not in shape or whatever but like when i make a salad myself like i really like it when i get in a into a good set because i if i choose a dressing that i like i usually like this kind of asian sesame style dressing and then if i'm making it myself i put maybe put a hard boiled egg on there cut up into slices or whatever like I can really tuck into and I know I mean you're putting in some protein there and I know that dressing isn't great for you but I actually don't like a lot of dressing anyway so like I really enjoy eating a salad I don't eat them enough but

But, like, maybe we just talk about cucumbers more and we'll get done with the show and we'll go eat cucumbers. I have two cucumbers in the fridge right now. You know what?

You're making me hungry for a salad. I'm not kidding. I agree with you. I think it's a very – in fact, if I have been just, I don't know, traveling a lot or, like, I feel like even when we got back from Australia, I personally was just eating bowls of French fries everywhere we went.

Because you were kind of new to not eating meat, and there were very few options driving through the Outback that were meatless.

But after something like that, or just, I don't know, I really crave a salad sometimes. Yeah, of course, it's flavorful and enjoyable. If Jen said that, I would definitely have to disagree with that. But it also worked, what you said. Now I'm kind of craving a salad. Good. Do you have the macons? Don't talk about anything else. Can you do it? Don't mention anything else before the end of the show. Nope, salad, salad, salad. What kind of lettuce do you choose? Don't even mention mountains, because then I'll be craving a mountain. Oh, you know what I've been on? I've been on a big butter lettuce kick lately.

Oh, gosh, wow, yeah. Do you like that butter lettuce? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, is butter lettuce the one that comes that it's, like, kind of still – no, I think I'm getting confused.

Well, that is – yeah, there's a version of it where it's got the, like, root ball on the bottom of it.

Yeah, because I buy that when I make these – sometimes I make these little – it's actually – it's an imitation recipe from some chain restaurant, and they're, like, kind of sweet chicken lettuce wraps. I've never even been to the restaurant that it's a knockoff of. What's a famous – Probably like P.F. Chang's or something. P.F. Chang's. I literally make a P.F. Chang's lettuce wrap with that stuff. I've never even set foot in a P.F. Chang's before. But, yeah, that stuff is great.

I used to go – I was really into arugula for a long time, and so I would just buy an entire bag of arugula. But that's, like, too much arugula.

It is.

Also, same with spinach. I don't mind a spinach salad, but, like, I'll either get the, like, spring greens. Yes, that's a move.

That's good.

Which has a good combo of things. Or I'll just go straight up butter lettuce Because butter lettuce is something very Yeah it's like a treat But it's good in a salad and I assume has some roughage Obviously like iceberg lettuce is going to be Which there are certain things Where you have to have iceberg lettuce Even though it has no nutritional quality at all It's just water that's being held together By the cells in the lettuce You're just drinking water which is fine But there are certain things for which Only iceberg lettuce will do in my opinion But not salads

What we've been eating lately probably leans more towards iceberg it's not iceberg but it's romaine and especially if you're getting the hearts of romaine there's a lot of good but yeah i mean i like to i don't like to get just the hearts because it's too much of just like the the white and like what you know like you kind of say almost solidified water stuff i like the stuff that has a lot of green on it too like the green leafy stuff because you combine it and it's the it's the right texture for a salad so that's what we've been going with anyway are we still in salad i really don't mind is kale

you know kale gets a bad rap but like if you know you rub it if you rub it down with some olive oil or you saute it in a certain way or you like you know do the stuff to it i think kale is

quite delicious actually i don't eat a lot of kale i can't say it's kind of bitter right am i right

about the well if you so i think that the process is i've never done it before but i've dated and been married to people who've who've worked with the product and i think it's like you rub it down with olive oil in some way or you rub it down with something that actually really cuts the bitterness it can be really yummy and it's very very very healthy i mean it's you can kind of tell the reason iceberg lettuce goes down easy is because there's nothing to it kale is like the opposite end of the spectrum it's like quite hearty but i like it and like in a caesar like a kale caesar

salad or something do you know that i didn't even eat dressing growing up because i thought it was gross and it turns out i was having much healthier salads because of that yeah i would eat them plain and then i got to a certain age when i became more sophisticated around maybe eight years old and i realized um i would tell the uh the the server to please bring me a lemon wedge and i would wow and I would put a that is

extremely grown up of you I'm sure that that's a diet somewhere the lemon wedge diet you order a lemon wedge with everything instead of whatever like you really want give me a burger but hold the burger and a side of lemon wedge I

would like an ice cream sundae hold the sundae give me a lemon wedge instead

thank you all right well want to get out of here that's yeah we probably should I've got still a little more work to do on that old Livewire production for tonight. Hopefully, like you said, I'll see some of you down there. In the meantime, and for the rest of you, have a great Thursday wherever you are. Hope the weather is treating you all right. We'll be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you. Until then, take care of yourselves, and please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all. all the flavors of ice cream in the world wouldn't take the place of friends power out