Muse

Forgive me, Father, for I did sins.

Adelante, mijo.

The basics. Fornication twice. Theft once. Impure thoughts. Some. One of them I thought was pretty, uh, pretty deeply impure. And that's it for this week. Thank you.

I see, I see. Aren't you leaving something out?

Oh, gluttony. I wolfed down a lot of food unnecessarily. I wasn't even hungry.

For the next little while, it's going to be you and me together alone. I want you to lock the door and turn the phone off and really concentrate on what we're going to do.

The enormity of their flat brain, the enormity of their stupidity is just overwhelming.

If I were you, I wouldn't focus on what he's saying, but more the fact that he's saying something.

You know, these two are good. Very, very tough to do a morning show, this chit-chatty kind of thing. But these two have an intellect behind whatever it is they're doing.

Watch the party. Watch your body.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Monday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Just study it out, and you'll see. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host.

Apparently, I've never been on live television before.

Coming to you today, once again, from the River House studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia River, where, very excited, there are a lot of folks that have converged on the project today.

It's working! It's working!

I don't know how long ago I purchased this small 1930s cabin. Three years ago, two years ago? But in the two years, I don't think I've ever had this many people from different subcontractual entities all here working on things. It's very gratifying to have people putting up drywall and pouring concrete and getting various other mechanical and structural things done on certain walls. Like, it's great. I also am helping by going to Home Depot two times already this morning. There's a waste of time to do that. Because I'm bad at counting something called nail stops that I needed to quickly nail up before the drywall guys got to it. Anyway, enough about that. let's focus on this episode 3894 in a collector series let the fun begin you know how on this show we love to um promote top stories and then not actually get to them well that happened on friday and we still got those top stories we'll try to get to friday's top stories on today's program although i am a little distracted not just by all the construction and things like that but my cat, who I may have mentioned on the show once

or twice. Kittens! Inspired by kittens! It may be

Bubbles' birthday today?

My birthday today.

I cannot confirm or deny it, but I'm wondering what the appropriate celebration is. Oh, and I have a, um... Bubbles is so 2000 and late. My new animal obsession? A little guy named Buddy, who I'll tell you about coming up. First, though, we've got to say hi to this guy. The longest running co-bro of the show Maybe best known for his depictions Of the tall ships Let me see, how would I describe this guy You seem to me to be a pretty righteous hombre He certainly is, he's Andrew Walsh And he's joining me right now, good morning my friend

Good morning Luke, when you say birthday You mean the actual day of birth Of the cat named Bubbles Not the day that you brought Bubbles home Or do I have that wrong

I think it would be Maybe the day of the birth of Bubbles Here's what happened last night I was up here at the place and I got an email from the vet clinic where I take bubbles and it said happy birthday bubbles and so at some point when I filled out some form for her like you know to get some like her whatever to get fixed do they say that for cats or is that just like a dog thing fixed I think you ever heard fixed like oh we got the dog fixed

yeah yeah no I think that's universal Fixed. Yeah, I got the cat fixed.

It also applies to cats. I didn't know if maybe, you know, there's some other, I don't know, more standoffish name for a cat having that procedure done. But anyway, so whatever it is that Bubbles' birthday allegedly is, it's from one handwritten document that I received from the people who I got Bubbles from, right? So I'm going off of their memory of or record keeping.

on when bubbles was born i don't have like a certificate of life birth from the state of oregon or something you know i just have this note that the lady wrote me that said bubbles is a bengal cat and this is the day that she was born on but i don't remember what the day is and that paperwork is at my apartment in portland so i don't know and bubbles is home right now she's not here so i don't know if i'm going to come home to a very angry cat um who is just ticked because i'm i've i've forgotten her birthday also and in i would say not all seriousness but some seriousness do you and genevieve historically do you do anything for the birthdays of the cats

well no but like i'm i'm different than i was two years ago and i'm not even um

i'm not proud of you would celebrate bingo's birthday well that's the here and this is true

I honestly I mean it's not just because I we do have this cat who you know is is still under a year old and I love bingo to death my my sentimentality towards him though not to be maudlin I think has more to do with the fact that we lost Theo about a year before we got him and it's not like Theo died tragically in some sort of a you know like some sort of a he wasn't flying solo across the world and died in a fiery crash or anything like that. I mean, what a way to go. I know. What a cat.

That's 100% how I want to die.

What a cat. I mean, how did we never even talk about that?

Just the idea that that for you would be the most tragic death, that would be Valhalla for me. That's exactly how I want to go.

I know. What a weird... I apologize. You mentioned that you could... You just mean... I think you meant... I don't know what happened.

It wasn't a dramatic passing.

It wasn't like he died at eight.

It was a natural aging process.

We had a 21-year-old cat who we spent tons of wonderful times with until he got too old to stay on this mortal coil, and so he passed. I mean, that's the way these things work. But I do think, generally speaking, like I've always liked cats, and I don't want to sound like an unemotional jerk, but growing up in the country, cats were just a reality of life. Now, I had two cats. One ended up dying, so I ended up with one cat named Fred instead of a cute couple of siblings named Fred and Ethel, which made a lot more sense. Having cats, having kittens named Fred and Ethel makes so much more sense than having a kitten named Fred. But anywho, I ended up with this cat, Fred. You need the Ethel. Yeah, who was it? Could you have a Ricky without a Lucy, though? Yeah, I think Ricky's a great name for a cat. And also a Lucy? Yeah.

Could you have an Ethel?

Even an Ethel.

A standalone Fred is just upsetting, right? Something about Fred is just the problem for you. Okay.

I'm going to say something here that I don't think I should say on the show, but it's something that Genevieve and I talk about from time to time. no i'm gonna i i already regret saying this you know how there's that trope or that that construction of people saying hey if you want to know your adult filmmaking name take the name of your first pet and i think add the name of the road you grew up on yeah and for me mine would have been goldie 77th or see well the 77th doesn't make but goldie 77 i could sort of see that like

How about Goldie Aurora? Maybe you've got to go up. Actually, if you went down a block, it'd be Stone. So Goldie Stone. Now we're getting to it.

Now you're getting really... Fred Crocker.

Oh, yeah.

Awful.

Was that in...

No, that's terrible.

I think that's... You don't think, oh, Fred Crocker is not a convincing adult film.

No, I think it sounds like a predator. It's just so awful. Anyway, just having a... I guess you're right.

I guess it's not like, you know, it doesn't evoke... evoke it doesn't i guess when you said it sounded so made up that's why that's why i thought oh that would be a good adult film name but you're right it doesn't it's not like it's not like

dirk diggler or chest rockwell no the set the set goes silent when fred crocker shows up let's just

put it that way anyway somebody somebody activates a silent alarm because fred has been not just asked

but told not to come back to the set fred is no longer welcome in what's the area outside LA where all of the it's sans San Pornando Valley he's no longer welcome in the valley he can

no longer drive north of a certain point on the 405 or 110

I'm so far away by the way I have a little bit of a head cold you mentioned that you could hear it in my voice before the show so I think I'm a little bit sounds like you're working it out though

okay no good I'm glad it sounds okay no pun intended I don't want it to be in your head

I feel a little bit like I'm talking to you through a little bit of glass anyway um all of that is to say i loved my cat fred growing up he was an outdoor cat but he was a barn cat i couldn't have loved him more honestly but there was just something like again cats were just part of life in the country they came and they went i think i've told you before when we moved out of the country we just left fred behind because fred was

barn cat you know and i don't remember being that upset about it which is really weird i'm a very

sentimental guy i think well let me tell you out here where i am there are probably that i've just noticed five feral cats that just kind of chill in the neighborhood and run up and down and out of the woods and stuff and like they're just they got it worked out they're living their life and they're they're a breed apart from the kind of cosseted house cats that we have in the city That's part of why I'm nervous about turning bubbles loose If I were to have her out here You know, long term Because I don't know how she would do with those cats But those cats are wily They're fine They have all the field mice they can eat It's like, it's not a bad life for them, actually

And I just think I grew up in a situation Where you don't get super attached to them Because cats are cats And they're around And when you want another cat You just drive until you see one of those signs That they're literally, like, hammered to a post Outside of somebody's country home That says free kittens it wasn't until I was an adult that I living in cities I realized oh getting kittens is kind of a whole process and whatever but I think that even with Theo like my older cat who passed away about a year ago or whatever it's been now a year and a half I don't want to make it sound like I was cavalier towards him you know that I love that cat like we kept that cat alive for a long time maybe long after he didn't want to be anymore but like I love that cat but there was something maybe about him passing that has made me so much more sentimental towards our new kitten like i just think about being an and and bananas who we still have i think about their i think about not their you know look i think about their legacy a lot more um i just i do i it's hard for me thinking about their legacy andrew have you suggested putting tbtl in their estate plan i am i have not broached that yet i am thinking about that but when i look at them it's hard for me not to think about the life that they have in front of them a little bit and not to be macabre but also what that life is going to look like and when it's going to end and like I don't look at my kitten all the time and picture his dying days but there's a a reality of life and death that I think I attach to these cats now that maybe I didn't before all of that is to answer your question do we celebrate cats birthdays a year ago I would have been like do we celebrate our cats birthdays of course we do not celebrate our cats birthdays that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard now I'm kind of like hey Genevieve you know we brought bingo home um i will always remember the day we brought him home because it was also it will always be the anniversary of the 18 inning mariners astros game which ended their playoff their playoff um thank god you have that positive memory to sort of yeah bingo being the positive exactly negative nice yeah i brought him home when we watched 18 innings of baseball and that's the last game we watched together so i think that bingo is going to think that baseball is really short when he watches the first nine in a game especially with the new rules which we might just need to do a no point conversion on that at some point because i think i'm the only person in america who doesn't like the rule changes which is weird like oh no me too really because every baseball fan i hear everybody on the radio everybody who's educated everybody who's watched baseball their whole life i cannot for the life of me find one person who

dislikes the clock good i'm glad the search is over i was with you all the while why are

people why are we obsessed with taking something that we all agree that we enjoy and making it shorter they're shaving we're shaving time off the game we're shaving time off the game games won't be so long really are my ticket prices going to go down because i'm going to the ballpark and i want to be there for as long as friggin possible like why do we want to make it shorter i like the experience of baseball people who are like you can watch an entire kentucky derby race in the time of one of these pitchers throwing one pitch fine maybe you're more of a horse person watch that

sport i like baseball listen andrew i bought a horse it doesn't mean i think i'm better than everyone else but like i very quickly on the pitch count thing and for people that don't know or the pitch clock is actually what it should be called my bad for folks that don't follow this major league baseball is this year uh this season rolling out a new thing which is basically a countdown clock kind of like in basketball they have the 24 second shot clock things like that that's just gonna make it so the pitcher has to pitch a little faster and the batter has to get into the batter's box It is shortening the games. Everyone's happy about it. I would say this. I don't feel as strongly against it as you do, Andrew. But I also don't have a problem with the fact that a baseball game sometimes goes four hours. And to me, it's like, who are we trying to appeal to? Is the problem that there are not enough people? Right now, you're not getting the kids of America to put down their Nintendo Switch. I don't think that's even a thing people do anymore. Like, is it like you you just trying to trick more kids that are currently looking at TikTok into like loving baseball because what they had was two and a half hours of their life to dedicate to it, but not for like, I don't understand who the target demo is. And there's certainly in my mind. not hardcore baseball people we the hardcore baseball people we like it that this shit takes

too long yeah well that's the thing and that's what's really shocked me is i have i am relatively new to baseball by the standards of the people i've been and again i have listened to so many various podcasters and people like i've been listening to some really intelligent conversation about this as well as some you know just casual just am radio stuff and i listen to some people who i really respect who love the game and have loved the game for decades before i ever knew what baseball was um and they still say yeah the game has gotten out of hand now that is one thing that i wonder if it affects my perspective on this is these people describe these long drawn out games and these these these pitches where the the pitcher on the mound is just drawing it out yeah there are

some pictures i will admit there are some pictures who are just kind of little buttholes about it Like they'll just yeah, Robbie Ray is one of them. Right. They're just very there. The term in baseball is he's a deliberate worker. Like they really take their time between pitches and they kind of use it to psych out the hitter. And every time the hitter gets comfortable in the box, they wait too long. I don't really enjoy that aspect of it. But other than that, I don't really care.

Yeah, and for me, it's like I kind of – like when there's this pitcher who does that for the Cleveland Guardians, and I can't think of his name right now, but he drives me absolutely bananas. Slowpoke Jones? Yeah, it was old Slowpoke Jones. Another anti-vaxxer, by the way. It starts with a K.

No, that was No Poke Jones.

Hey, that was a really good – Where's my bell? That was a really – I got your bell over here. That was a really good spoof, Luke. Anyway, all of it is to say some of these conversations I'm hearing are from people who've liked baseball for so long that it's like they're talking about an era of baseball slowing down. That would have been the norm when I started watching baseball. But to them, it's been very extreme what they're seeing. And if they feel it's actually getting worse, they think that it's worse. And in a certain way, what I've been thinking about is I've been listening to these shows is it's like, oh, I came into baseball during a time that these guys all think are kind of a dark time for baseball, sort of, as far as some of these things are concerned.

Can we just I mean sorry but and also I really want to get back to cat birthdays if we can because I have some real questions about this but just to say one more thing on the sport thing maybe they're talking about this on sports radio maybe they're not but the whole issue is pitching is too specialized now or is very specialized maybe it's not too specialized when I was a kid it was very common for a pitcher the starting pitcher to go eight innings. sometimes they went a complete game you want to what's slowing down the game you get nine pitchers in every game because there's a guy comes in to throw one pitch because it's situational that's what slows the game down every time you bring a new guy in and he's got to warm up for five minutes that really adds up is it are they talking about that that's the issue i'm going to

send you this is not for the listeners anymore now i've just talked to my buddy oh it stopped being for the listeners a long time around 2012 when i joined the show um uh the one of the podcast i listen to is like some spinoff of the um of the lebitard show called the meadow larkers but it's not it's not mostly the usual people that it's hosted by a guy named um howard bryant

who you might know him i yeah he's an nb i think he was an nbc guy uh okay for a while yeah he's a

he's a good sports knower he's so great he's so intellectual he's so smart he's just like and he's also like he's got a kind of a wide appreciation of various sports he's also like a big tennis guy I think and he was talking I think Amin El-Hasson who's a basketball guy was on the show with him or something but either way like that's one that I listened to intently yesterday because it brought up all these things like he is both kind of for the speeding up of the game and this this idea of this um I can't remember the word he used for like just lining up a bunch of pitchers and um and and taking away the the competition of it's me versus you can't I pull this thing off versus we're just gonna we're gonna pull this picture and put another one in um and just like kind of talking about that like he was kind of struggling with it a little bit but i think it's called replacement

theory is that what it's called we will not be replacing this left-hander for a righty for this one situation that was kind of a dark joke but anyway anyway but my point is um i will send you

this this conversation because it's really kind of gotten in my craw along not in my craw but it's stuck in my brain and i've been tossing it around a lot along but again with a lot of hearing from a lot of people on npr on sports stations i kind of can't escape the conversation about the baseball rules i'm i'm glad to not escape it as people say um because i think it's really interesting but i'm i've been very surprised that i haven't heard from just any old baseball curmudgeon saying ah the game is supposed to be long that's the way we like it everybody seems to just agree that um it is ruining the game there are various things that are ruining the game the this idea of and i'm going to go one step deeper here but like you know pitchers only have so many opportunities to throw To first base now to check a runner Did you know that and like that Fundamentally changes the game

And I haven't heard anybody complain about, like, this is on top of the ghost runner rule. Like, it's been two years. I'm still solidly anti-ghost runner. There's going to be a generation of baseball fans who don't even know that there was a pre-ghost runner rule. We're talking about an extra innings. You automatically start with a player on base, which is just so bananas to me. It feels so fake. It feels so XFL to me. But I guess I just need to relax is my point.

I'm with you. I'm I'm pretty what I like about baseball is what I like about baseball are a lot of the things that probably a new fan would find annoying, like the fact that it takes forever. The fact that a lot of it is there's nothing going on. I don't know. Just the minutiae of it. I like all that stuff because it just gives me something to do for like four hours on a Saturday or Sunday. um but i you know i guess the argument also would be the long-term health of the sport is based on being able to attract new fans and even though and and if you don't do that then you know you're just not gonna you're not gonna be around forever and so things must evolve and change and and that's just what's happening but i'm with you i you know ghost runners for me that's that's for playing wiffle ball with micah and james demuth in their backyard because there was we didn't have enough people we had like three people maybe if we were lucky four it was a lot of ghost runners that's like the stuff of children i don't feel like it should be the stuff of major league baseball but if i can just quickly put a pin in this birthday conversation and this is it seems like i'm just joking but i'm not totally joking i would love to personally i would love to do a birthday thing for bubbles but i don't know what the hell that cat even likes other than chasing a feather on a string so do i do that do i just say this is your birthday present i'm going to do this for an hour with you like if you have a dog and it's their birthday what do you do you like maybe you barbecue them up a steak or something you do something that's very indulgent that they don't normally get to do and i mean if you're inclined to want to celebrate pet birthdays which again i don't have a problem with i think it's probably more for the humans than the pets but also like damn like rudy if i made rudy some kind of delicious treat that she wasn't normally allowed to have and and and told her it was her birthday and she got to wolf it down she'd be super happy so kind of a win-win i don't know what that would be for this cat bubbles is so mercurial to me like i just don't i don't even know how i would

celebrate her birthday in a way that would feel fun to her well that's the you know for me when we talk about my relationship with my cat and I just told you that really long hot dog story about you know my evolution of feeling towards my pets maybe I still don't think that like I'm going to be throwing a goddamn birthday party for a cat with a little kitty party hat or actually the more I say it let me see if I can get those online anywhere no um I like don't get it twisted I'm still like if I if I mark that occasion it's a hundred percent for me and Genevieve and maybe maybe it's different with dogs well a little bit though i wouldn't be i wouldn't be interested in going out and getting something for the cat i wouldn't be interested in setting aside time to have a fake and this is just me i'm not telling other people how to do it like that is not me but just to say oh today's that day and like to kind of market and maybe you know and maybe pick them up and give them a little scritch and a hug uh which i would do anyway but like sort of uh knowing it and and remarking upon it and saying hey vives it's a nice day but like beyond that Like, I am not into like, hey, we got to give you extra catnip today because it's your birthday. That's just not for me.

See, I think it's kind of fun as an idea for to like, OK, right now I'm here at this house. Like, I came up here kind of late last night because I had to get some things ready. So Bubz has been home. I've been monitoring her closely. You know, she's fed and she's got continuous water. She's got a self-cleaning litter box. Got the whole thing going on. And I'm going to go down there right after we're done recording this. But even so, I feel kind of bad. She's been be kind of alone for like, you know, 12 to 15 hours. And that's a lame day for her or lame night and morning for her. The idea that she would get to have a really fun day that she, of course, would have no understanding of why it's happening is kind of I don't. To me, it's like, you know, I really love that cat and I would like her to have a fun day. But I'm just trying to think of things that she demonstrates literally other than that feather. There is nothing that she demonstrates any consistent appreciation for in her life. She doesn't care about treats. It's kind of medium on catnip. It's weird. It's like I can't I just can't think of a thing where she'd be like, damn, I don't know why this is going so well today, but I'm into it. Whereas, like I said, with a dog, I could very much think of those things.

Yeah. And that's why I mean. I can't be of any help to you because I just don't. Yeah, I just can't think of anything either. And it doesn't really appeal to me. I'm sure the listeners will have ideas to celebrate your cat's birthday. Yeah. I mean, for me, though, it's just like marking any other day. That's just been kind of like Genevieve pointed out that over the weekend, it was like the one year anniversary of our closing on this house. And I think I'm just getting older and like we didn't do anything about it.

But that is that why you would not agree to celebrate the 15th anniversary of TBTL in January.

Oh, that's right. Well, it was on a Saturday. I think I'm first of all I believe I'm the one who texted you that weekend and said tomorrow is that I believe Chris Hayes was the one who texted both of us recently and yeah it was the first that I remember hearing did you tell me over a weekend and I completely I texted you I'm quite if I didn't say it to you in person I texted you in the days leading up to that anniversary yes okay I did whether we make did we even mention it on the show I don't think we mentioned it on the show I'm now I'm going to say this off the top of my head I can't remember if it's the 6th or the 8th but it was January 6th or 8th whichever one of

those uh eighth i believe my memory is we started this show on january 8th of 2008 yeah actually no january 5th of 2008 is what i think it was i don't think it was fifth hold on i have it marked on my calendar i'll tell you but uh i believe the year was 2008 that i think you're right about i know that kind of sounds familiar yeah um let me just uh we got to go to this break but let me just say quickly because at the beginning of the program i said that uh i'm i'm not only am i ignoring bubbles and probably skipping her birthday i'm over her because my new my new favorite pet is named buddy andrew and he is a dog who is here at the house with me uh one of the um sheetrock guys brought said hey would it be cool if i let my dog out and i was like yes cool buddy is a rescue buddy is part airdale part something else and is maybe the goodest boy i've ever seen he loves chasing a tennis ball i was i spent like the hour before we were taping just chucking the ball down this incredibly steep hill down to the like woods and he would run down and grab it and run all the way back up and then eventually i had to come inside to start getting ready for the show and he was just outside the door of the house like he had to put the ball down he was waiting for me and then if i would be in here for too long he would move the ball up the stairs one stair at a time so i'd look back out and it wouldn't be on the bottom stair and then like three more minutes would go by and the ball would be on the middle stair oh and then it'd be on the top stair like god damn it okay and then i would have to go out get the ball chuck the ball down the hill he is i'm i mean if if and when i'm living here all the time i don't really know how it would work with my schedule because i'm gone so much but i gotta i think i gotta get another dog at some point this is just ready made for for for a dog to run around and have fun on i've never been on this property with a dog before and i'll tell you what it was a glorious morning chucking that

tennis ball it's a glorious morning for the dog as well that's the beauty of that it brings

everybody it brings that dog was in freaking hog heaven it's so funny because as a human i'm like you couldn't pay me enough to walk down this steep like long ass grass muddy hill kind of thing down towards these woods that's the thing that was growing so high that my neighbor informed me it was a fire hazard during the summer called the tbtl voicemail line he he sure did by the way that neighbor has sponsored a local park he and his wife they're like the people who take care of it i was jogging on this path and i was like i got to this park and it was like maintained by and then it was my neighbors and i text him i was like i didn't know i was living next to a local celebrity and he goes i didn't either but it's so yeah you're right that this this dog buddy was just in his glory running up and down this hill like having so much fun i just need to correct

the record because a lot of people probably emailing in or getting ready to email in uh the anniversary of tbtl is the seventh maybe that's why you thought seven because it's i i was saying the eighth and seven is an uh an odd number and maybe that's why you thought it was the fifth but it was saturday the seventh is what i have on my calendar as the anniversary of tbtl and

that this past one well this one but we obviously didn't start on a saturday so that just how it

shook out this year exactly right yeah so they gotcha gotcha well you know um i when we turn 30

let's circle the calendar okay hey gorgle hey siri um will you put a note on the calendar in 30 years uh january 7th of 30 years from now and um remind us to celebrate our 30th

anniversary please wait no that would be our 45th you want it to be 15 years oh is that how math works yeah i think it's okay i was wondering why you were so excited about the 45th anniversary But I'm like, okay, no, that's cool It's a little zigging when other people zag I like that

Sure, oh, please, are you kidding me? Everyone else is celebrating their 30th anniversary as a podcast Nobody has the 45th anniversary circled on the calendar except us Okay, let's take a break And then when we come back We're going to thank you

some Dazzling Donors. We're going to finally clean up some top stories from last week and we're going to get into the emails and v-mails right here on TBTL.

We was hoping for some razzle-dazzle. Razzle-dazzle. That's right, man. Razzle-dazzle. On your mark. On your mark. Get set. Get set. Now ready. Ready. Go. Everybody razzle-dazzle. Everybody razzle-dazzle.

All right, let's thank some Dazzling Donors. These wonderful, generous, long-suffering baseball enthusiasts that's most did you know this Andrew most of our dazzling donors are people that just they're they'll tolerate all the other stuff what they really want to hear is a deep dive on pitch clocks the minutiae they say we want to hear more but not

don't do broad strokes don't bring us along dig in just jump headfirst into the minutiae of

baseball rules and ideally if Luke has only a minimal understanding of it that's even better Oh, you know who loves that? One Phyllis Fletcher That name sounds so familiar to me

Are you saying that right? This comes up every year It's Fletcher, right? Yeah, Phyllis Fletcher

We don't get a pronouncer with this one, huh? Ah, P. Fletch, we love you out there in Seattle, Washington Phyllis says, a year ago, I ordered you 46-year-old guys to get colonoscopies if you hadn't i'm beating you up all right well phyllis get ready to beat me up i have not done

that yet have you done that andrew no i got an email from um i assume it came through the the medical portal i assumed it was from my doctor maybe it was from phyllis i i can see phyllis

hacking into the my by the way that's how i refer to my back size the medical portal that's what i

need to get checked um telling me that i need to set that up which of course i do need to i know

I'm telling you, we need to make it a bit on the show This came up I think last time But we need to do like what Martin Short and Steve Martin do We need to basically plan our colonoscopies on the same day And then the night before we do a hangout We drink our little, whatever it is, colon blow And maybe we record the show or something And we make it into a fun party that we can look forward to

Seems like a very private time for me If we have to do it for the show, I will do it But it's not where my personal preferences take me I'll put it that way

I appreciate you, though, saying If we have to do it for the show, you'll do it That's actually I mean, work is work That represents Phyllis says, psych, I can't fight I can't menace you But maybe I can trick you By the way, did I tell you about the cool new colonoscopy rooms in Shoreline? This is a real How do I put this? This is a real sort of area of interest for our friend P. Fletch one of them is at goldies oh that okay now you've got me now i'm listening the other is in the lobby of the post office yes i will install and staff them to complete this trick this is not actually

a terrible idea i love it so the deal is i go into the post office one day to first of all i love the fact that my goldies is the post office i actually i'll stand by that i guess um and um i go in to check the tbtl po box and instead uh it's a bunch of people like ready to give me a colonoscopy won't i i would have had to prepare for this right fasting the night before do they hold me down and say you're going to be here for 24 hours they hit you with a blow dart oh makes sense you never see

it coming actually you just come in you're standing in line a couple of guys are catching up a lady is berating someone yes at the front and then you just feel a little almost like a a mosquito bite on your neck but it's actually a blow dart yep and then you're down and then you just wake up in your own bed honestly that's the thing honestly now that is the way to do it don't give me 24 hours to think about it i'm allowed to self anesthetize at gold right yeah so it's a kind of a different vibe for me yeah phyllis says i'm still the principal and founder of p1 editorial but i always forget what a great name that is so good if you're uh if you're a fan of the Arbitron terminology from our day But I also have a day job again I tried to get out of the whole job thing But they pulled me back in over at Wondery I don't know, does everybody know P. Fletch works for Wondery now Big fancy company Told you I was filming something down in LA And I looked across like Sunset Boulevard and there was Wondery I thought, man, places Really doing stuff I'm forever grateful to TBTL for teaching me And Gus, how much someone could love a podcast I listen to you every day And it is my privilege to dazzle you My current employer Unlike some people NPR, Fletch writes Will actually let me talk to you dummies So I hope to do that soon Anytime P, anytime Additional note from Phyllis Get your colonoscopies Dummies

We don't usually read the additional notes There's a field in the dazzling detail Or the dazzling

donor form where you can leave an additional note that isn't supposed to be read on the air but i figured maybe phyllis wanted that one read on the air you know what p fletch that is my commitment

to you and the listeners i'm going to do that this year but see the problem for me is then it's a scheduling this is not an excuse there's not a reason to not do it i'm going to do it it is a bit of a scheduling thing because my feeling is we need to we'll need to like pre-tape a show or something like can you wake up the next day from that and then just like jump right back into podcasting or do you need to be like oh spending some time like in or near a bathroom after that i don't understand i don't know exactly how intense the general and aesthetic kind of vibe is

like how long it takes to come back from that oh i think the next day we'd be fine well how about

the day of so we do the show in the morning well so i get the sense you get the procedure in the morning you spend the night before prepping like you said then you go get so maybe we prep and we

don't have to do this together we do the show not in the same room but we do the show on prep night might be hard to schedule two on the same exact day in different medical systems but we could

try if we book it out that's that's a good point well you go first and if you survive it okay that sounds good but i'm saying though we schedule like so there's the night of the prep and then the next day though are we doing two shows on prep day are we doing a regular show spending the night prepping get the procedure in the morning and then do a show after the procedure i think

it would make sense you wake up in the morning you do a normal show for that day then we start getting into now we're fasting or doing whatever and we record that night the night before we

pre-record the show for the next morning about how we're feeling of the colonoscopy to just like Get the procedure And then just like Recover from the procedure

And then the next day We're back on the horse Actually they say Don't ride a horse Don't ride a horse Right after a cold

For at least two weeks Okay Well thank you P. Fletch We love you And we appreciate the The encouragement It's It's It's good advice And it's advice That we're finally Going to take this year I'm not even kidding I'm not kidding Thank you P. Fletch Maestro

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

We've also got to thank Honey Hanson down there in Moab, Utah. Now, Honey has got some advice about erectile dysfunction, which is odd. Something else she wants us to look into. God, it's really a lot of kind of semi-invasive medical requests from the listeners this year, from the donors, rather.

I apologize, Honey. You deserve better as a dazzling donor. The spoof does not suit you I apologize On behalf of my colleague My co-host, my co-bro And the show

I was just trying to think of the front I was trying to think Wouldn't it be hilarious That urethra is not worse than ED In terms of over sharing One is inherently sexual in nature The other is just a Physical part of your body What I was thinking was wouldn't it be interesting if on this day both Dazzling Donors were encouraging us in the medical realm relating to kind of sensitive and private parts of our body. We've already covered the backside, and I was trying to think of the front side. And maybe because I watch a lot of news programming where most of the ads are for ED, that's where my brain went, and I'm sorry. You know what? I make no apologies. Have I told you that we're sponsored by Dr. Arakaki now, Andrew?

That's literally what the Stugat says all the time. I'm sorry. I'm not going to apologize. How about that?

How about that? Honey Hanson in Moab, Utah says, Thank goodness for my friends on the imaginary radio. It's a weird, wonderful, one-sided friendship, but I love you guys. See, Honey said it's weird, Andrew. I just delivered on that promise.

And getting weirder. And I would argue it's not one-sided, Honey. Thank you so much. You are a friend. You're a friend of the show. You're a friend to us. Thank you.

That's right. Thank you, Honey, for keeping this thing rolling here in year 15, we've just learned.

wouldn't be here without you hello and welcome to top story uh top story this

interesting piece in the new york times by michael levinson uh whiskey fungus fed by jack

daniels encrusts a tennessee town whiskey fungus is one of the best kinds of fungus one of the

worst kinds of whiskeys were those the ones that the oregon liquor control board was diverting for their own enjoyment yes whiskey crack kind of it's crazy uncle pappy's whiskey show title this is actually like as a homeowner and whiskey appreciator I didn't say aficionado, Andrew, because I am so not an aficionado of whiskey, but I do drink a lot of it. This brings together two things I'm interested in. Basically, there is this ethanol-fueled fungus that's known as whiskey fungus that has, I'm just reading from the New York Times now, has thrived for centuries around distilleries and bakeries. It's been the source of complaints from residents who live near Kentucky bourbon distilleries, Canadian whiskey makers, and Caribbean rum manufacturers. And now it's driving a wedge between some residents of Lincoln County, Tennessee and Jack Daniels, the famed distillery founded in 1866 in neighboring Moore County. So basically what's happened is Jack Daniels has built these warehouses known as barrel houses to age whiskey out in this like rural part of Tennessee. But what it does is the whiskey aging process really like basically puts this fungus on steroids, which covers everything. It covers like the outside of cars. It covers trees. It covers homes. They cite a resident named Christy Long, the owner of a local mansion Built in 1900 Which she operates as a venue For weddings and other events She sued the county in January Contending that barrel houses near her property Lack the proper permits Of course what she's trying to do Is kind of get an end run Around this aging process Which releases all this ethanol into the air Which then allows this fungus To grow on everything Other people who live around there Say that they're like pressure washing their houses And cars and even trees Every three months But it just doesn't help The stuff just grows right back

With bleach too That was one thing that really struck me about that I was like okay pressure washing that's not great But there's something about pressure washing with bleach I'm surprised that doesn't hurt more of the Plants and what have you outside

Now you might be Surprised Andrew to know that The folks from Jack Daniels are Well let's just say they say they're doing all they can and they're circumspect about the causes of the whiskey fungus. They said they're committed to protecting the environment and the safety and health of our employees and neighbors. Are you shocked to hear that's the statement from old Jack Daniels?

And isn't there another one? I don't have the article in front of me, but also they comply.

We comply with all local, state, and federal regulations regarding the design, construction, and permitting of our barrel houses.

Really? I always love those lines, too. Like, we are following all of the laws. And meanwhile, they are dumping millions of dollars into people on K Street so that they can change the laws. You know, it's just ridiculous. It's like we are following all the laws and regulations appropriate for our practice. Meanwhile, they're just handing just full on briefcases full of money to lobbyists to affect the law.

And some of the money is sticking out of the suitcase and briefcase. I mean, it's like they can barely close it over all the money. Yeah I mean this is just the biggest Bullshit job from the Jack Daniels people One of their spokespeople the director of Technical services and barrel Distribution says studies have shown The fungus is not hazardous to human health And does not damage property Well first of all I don't think anyone's claiming it's hazardous to Human health so that's a red herring And this person says could it be A nuisance yeah sure and it can Be easily remedied by having it washed off Really lady do you live next to one of these Things you know what I mean that's What annoys me is like again this is the homeowner in me speaking if there was something around here that was coating my house in a black fungus that i had to then pressure wash off with bleach every few months only to have it come back i would be ticked and anyone at jack daniels who acts like that's not a hassle it's just full of

s yeah oh it can be washed away it can be washed away now here's the funny part i'm looking at a

picture of a whiskey aging barrel house in kentucky it's in louisville and it looks amazing on a whiskey aging barrel house and it's exactly what you want to have on the barrel house like it's it screams whiskey is being aged here like people pay extra for this kind of patina in some circumstances just not on your house right exactly it's almost reminiscent of what

was that burning technique that you mentioned the other day yeah shaggy bond right to kind of yeah

it looks great on a place that's supposed to look like this it doesn't look so great on your house Also one of the The same spokesperson or whatever The official at Jack Daniels said Air filters which is one of the things that's proposed So that the You know the whiskey fumes Don't settle on people's homes And you know Expedite the fungus's growth Ms. Willis the person from Jack Daniels said Air filters could hurt the flavor That Jack Daniels whiskey acquires During the aging process This is crazy distillers refer poetically to the liquor that evaporates during that process as the angels share i've heard that before i guess i didn't read that i had never heard that till i read this i have heard that before but i also think that that is such bullshit like listen if you like jack daniels that's great i'm a big drinker of jim beam but i'm going to say the same thing about both of these like i mean it is like it is mass produced like you're just so far away from being some sort of craft beverage where where every little detail like come on and when i'm drinking when i'm drinking my Jim Beam which again I drink plenty of and I like it and like I'm not I'm not trying to win some sort of a whiskey tasting contest with I don't know how you win a whiskey tasting contest just move move on don't get stuck on that phrasing for me

it's just it's an honor just to be nominated it's

just like you're drinking sugar water like you could pour this into your hummingbird feeder Luke actually you should do that the hummingbirds would love it but it's just like you're drinking sugar water that makes you drunk like you're just not at that level of having to worry about the angels share that's such bullshit exactly this is not and i mean side note

and i say i add all the caveats that you do add andrew which is that i consume alcohol and probably too much alcohol but like it's let's not get cute about this let's think the angels share it's like screw that you're a massive corporation you're making a product and you're messing up the lives of the people in the neighborhood don't try to get all like don't quote freaking i don't know who who would be like don't quote hemingway or somebody who's who's waxed most rhapsodic about you know booze over the years like don't like don't try to treat this like it's some national treasure it's ethanol that's slowly poisoning those of us who have too much of an emotional hole in our life to not drink it don't pretend like it's something magical and like historically

significant and specifically for this brand i mean that's the thing too i mean you are the you are the the the diet coke of whiskey like i'm not right like if you are a independent it's like white claw being like we call that the angel's share right exactly right um here's one thing i learned this weekend that was not related to this article i don't think it came up actually while i was drinking jim beam uh coincidentally enough okay uh our friend kamar kev pointed out to me this weekend i don't know what put it on his radar but he's like i just realized this week that um jack daniels is not kentucky bourbon and of course this article mentions that this is in tennessee how many times have we seen that iconic label and maybe this is just like because i'm just dumb about these things probably a million people are like of course it's tennessee whiskey just look at that iconic label on jack daniels it always has said tennessee whiskey but it felt a little bit like that berenstain bears thing to me where i was like what do you mean no it always says kentucky bourbon he's like no it's tennessee whiskey and it turns out there is a slight difference in the process of those things what are we doing sorry that was me bringing up the

next story and the new york times this is the ad that the new york times plays for you to at the on the banner to basically sign up for their wordle thing no that's not the sound of wordle no it's not but it's the sound of fun thanks a lot boy new york times come on now i was booting up the story about ephemeral tattoos that were made to fade but are not fading fast enough yes both of our stories today from the new york times this one written by a callie holterman the temporary tattoo company that updated its product description after a customer complaint about persistent tattoos uh i'm looking at some of these examples in the new york times and they're they're not great i'm going to be honest with you um it starts with in may of 2021 claudia mangione got a tattoo of a match on her rib cage ephemeral the studio that tattooed her had just opened in the williamsburg neighborhood of brooklyn and its draw was a trademark tattoo ink that was advertised as made to fade nine to 15 months after application not so for mrs mangioni the crisp line drawing quote looks like a spatula now she said almost 22 months later i'm looking at a picture of it i can absolutely confirm it looks like a spatula it looks i mean i'm not trying to make fun but it looks so so bad on february 3rd jeff lou the chief executive of ephemeral emailed customers with an update of the company's explanation of how long the tattoos would last the email also introduced a quote regret nothing guarantee that offers refunds to customers who tattoos tattoos last longer than three years i don't know i should click on the link although i'm going to probably get another weird auto loading banner i'm the regret nothing okay now i'm at the ephemeral website the regret nothing guarantee is here it's here because we're committed to a few things our customers innovating the tattoo industry and the angel's share of each Tattoo. Wait, sorry. No, that's Jack.

Daniels here's our promise amazing made to fade tattoos with ink technology you can trust delivered by our experienced artists to create tattoo of your dreams um wow I'm reading this and I'm not seeing the part where they say we'll erase it for free or whatever uh fade variability okay here we go ephemeral ink was designed to fade in about 9 to 15 months as determined by both pre-launch case and clinical studies our tests included a diversity of participants It's controlled for da-da-da-da-da-da. I'm trying to, this is a long-ass letter. I'm just trying to find out. Okay, here we go. If your ephemeral tattoo lasts less than a year, we guarantee a complementary replacement tattoo. It doesn't sound like that's the problem. It doesn't sound like the tattoos are fading too quickly. It sounds like they're, oh, here we go. Maximum fade duration. While fade times vary, your ephemeral will 100% fade away. To minimize ambiguity, we promise your money back if your tattoo lasts longer than three years. Okay, there you go. So I guess they're saying, if your tattoo doesn't fade fast enough, it takes longer than three years, we'll also give you your money back. So I guess there's that.

I suppose. So now, does this hold any appeal to you, the idea of it, if it worked well?

No, because I wouldn't get it personally. I don't, I'm not that interested in the idea of having a tattoo. I mean, I have had a tattoo removed, but that was unforeseen circumstances of me getting divorced or as people know me, foreseen circumstances of me getting divorced, Andrew. And so I took a name off of my arm. But like generally, if I was going to go through the hassle of getting a tattoo, I would I'd probably want to have something permanent. Now, this reminds me, though, that like letter from the CEO, I guess ultimately what they're saying is, look, we'll fix this. If it doesn't last long enough, we'll give you a new one. And if it lasts too long, we'll give you your money back, which is reasonable. Can I update you on my back and forth with the folks at the place Imperfects where they sent me a jacket slash shirt that was way too big and then said, oh, yeah, they came out kind of too big. And then I said, well, aren't you going to pay for shipping? Can I give you the update? Because that was where we left things on Friday. And I got a few more emails and I got to tell you, they're kind of, I can't quite figure out what's going on with me and Lauren over there at that company. So the last thing that I sent them was a note that just said, basically, if it turns out that, hey, thanks for the quick response. One question. Since this sounds like a bit of a production error with the jackets coming out too large, wouldn't the shipping be covered? Thanks, L. And then I get an email that says, hey, no problem. keen to get things sorted for you like cool we're gonna get things sorted in a british sort of way but then i by the way these people are based in san diego so i don't even know where that came from although i do actually like that use of keen yeah me too it sounded like oh cool we got this handled right like yeah you're right you know what we we heard from people that these jackets were kind of larger than they were expecting therefore we'll cover the shipping that's what i'm expecting in the next paragraph and then this is where i was left a little bit less than totally satisfied the sizing is not a defect from our factory there is a production tolerance of a certain amount that we expect when products are being made by hand it's par for the course in the apparel industry um excuse me you just reached out to say a whole batch of them came out this way

It's not like one of them came out that way. If a batch of them came out that way, how are you using the made by hand argument? This is just like, oh, this is irritating.

It's so annoying. As noted above, some of our customers who have the Shepard shirt in a variety of colors and fabrics, we make 16 different Shepard shirt at the moment, have decided to size down in this specific Shepard shirt. Doesn't that sound like there was an issue where these things came out kind of too large?

Yeah. And again, like I'm irritated because they did something that I would like to applaud, which is that they admit it. They admit it. As we said a lot last week, but they said, hey, listen, we have an issue with your we have an issue with this thing. I'm reaching out to you kind of personally. It's like it's in some ways is really good customer service. And there's a bit of transparency here. But then they're all also they're saying, but we're not going to fix it because it's not our fault. And they're kind of like pushing back process. And it's kind of like, well, I mean, I don't know. this is where i would write a review this is where i would be like hey listen i appreciated the the one-on-one service but like clearly like this company you kind of can't trust what you're getting and they will admit that but then they're not going to help you when it comes time to make

the exchange and at each turn lauren is just really kind of making sure to not ever give in and it's not even about the shipping cost it's about who's right so i said you know the lauren person reached out and said yeah we had some people say these were a little large and I was like oh okay that makes sense because it was like a large but it was really big on me and then

And I'm like, okay, it sounds like it was kind of a production error. It's not a production error. That's within the production tolerance. It's like, okay. So then I said, then they asked, are you wanting to exchange the Shepard shirt for a smaller Shepard shirt or something else? By the way, all I'm going to get is store credit one way or the other. And I'm not even arguing that point. Because, like, it is what it is. I'm sure that's in the fine print. I don't want to battle over the money. I just, and they have a lot of cool things on their website. so I'll get something else so this person's asking are you gonna just get another one of these shirts well it turns out I also wasn't crazy about the collar on the shirt and other certain aspects of how it fit I just was like no no thanks so I said along with the sizing I'm not that wild about the collar and I said it's actually hard to know as the shirt is so large it's hard to get a sense of if I'd like it if it were just smaller so I'll probably just exchange it for store credit thanks L and here's the response hey Luke thanks for clarifying for a bit more insight into the shepherd shirt the product is designed to be an over shirt with intentionally dropped shoulders and a shorter sleeve in addition to these features the collar is a mix of a shaw and our take on a kimono it can be worn up or laying flat evened buttoned all the way up it's like no shit sherlock yeah no shirt are you telling me how to no shirt sherlock okay that's got to replace no poke jones that's a better no shirt Sherlock that's a better show title like are you really trying to tell me how like I didn't realize it was an over shirt what did I did I think it was a tuxedo shirt like I looked at the pictures of the much more attractive than me model I saw how they were wearing it I understood it's like a chore coat or an over shirt or however you want to describe it but like this is what I mean when I say to the person I'm not wild about the collar all they could just say is like yeah you know maybe it's not for everyone or you know different strokes for different folks but then this person needs to like clarify what the intentionality behind the caller was like I don't care what the backstory is if it's a mix of a Shaw and your take on a kimono like it's just not a thing that I love I'm already getting stuck with store credit like why are we still having this conversation this feels like a person that I would not do well with in real life because they would never relent on something

right um first of all you should reply um thank you for explaining that do you have any of those t-shirts that make it look like the bones are on the outside of my body um i uh here this you know what this has strong energy of this has strong energy of like a like kind of like a boutique style restaurant where the server comes up and asks you have you ever eaten with us before now I've eaten in some restaurants where the process is different maybe it's a place where it's a lot of emphasis on small plates but you might not realize that at first so they want to explain that to you or like the soup dumpling place that the food is going to come out and you know kind of staggered like something that is even slightly non-traditional that's fine you can explain to me how your restaurant works but 99% of the time it works like every other goddamn restaurant it's just like oh well we do things a little bit different here what we do is first we take your wine order then we bring you your wine and then you tell us what food you want off the menu and then we bring you that food like i know that i'm stealing this line from some stand-up comedian but it's like have you ever dined with us before no but i've dined before and like there's just something about the explaining about how this shirt works is like the equivalent of them wanting to talk about their process so much because they just but let me also

just continue the example like it's like then they're going like you order the um you know you order the macaroni and cheese and they bring it out and i mean not you andrew because you don't like that stuff but just one does yeah they bring it out and it's like way too salty and you go oh you know this is a little salty yeah yeah other people have been mentioning it's too salty yeah and then you go okay well can i um return it there well you can get restaurant credit because it's within the production variance of our mac and cheese and then you're like okay they're like do you just want like a smaller amount of it i'm like i don't want any amount of it i don't love it and they're like well it's based on an old family recipe that's right it's like it's like so much explaining about how like my opinion on this thing is sort of not valid or something now let me just end the story here or at least wrap the story up by saying on friday after the show i had printed out the receipt the whatever the shipping thing i took the jacket to the like ups store they said oh it's like two dollars for the envelope so i bought the envelope and then they just scanned the thing and then they said okay you're done i didn't have to pay for shipping

so they did cover shipping or that's gonna go on printed that out before i started any of this

conversation like i don't know what they're talking i think shipping was always covered that's the insane part andrew like i don't even know i it is the street i mean maybe they meant We won't pay four legs.

the box or something I don't know what they were saying they weren't paying for but it was exactly like after all of this it was exactly like every other experience I've had with this kind of stuff where you print out a shipping label you take it in and then they just send it back for you I mean

the only thing I can think of is maybe just see if you end up getting charged for using that shipping label that's the one thing but either way like I mean I hate to say it but I mean part of it is kind of the pain in the ass of everything as well I mean if they made it that easy for you

i mean i would have been way less i wouldn't have well we wouldn't have had all that great hashtag content but they were very clear saying we're not going to pay for return shipping but i'm thinking i don't know what they're referring to because they paid for the return shipping and again i printed that label out before i was even interacting with them so it isn't like they were relenting in some way i think that was always the deal maybe they just mean like i don't know they won't send someone to your house or like you've got to get your own box to send it back in i don't know what they were referring to but the good news is i will soon have 200 something dollars of credit at this place that's a you know slightly maddening place to deal with yeah i gotta say yeah that's that's a strange

twist at the end but um right i was as surprised as anyone else yeah okay maybe amend that uh

imaginary review that we were leaving no i'm not i'm gonna this is all the review that i need to leave for that for that company andrew it's right here right now here i go once again with the email

every week i hope that it's from a female oh man it's not from a female

all right the emails or v-mails yeah really quickly a shout out to the anonymous listener who sent us some bodies or I think the t-shirts say body by tubs subs t-shirts speaking of shirts somebody sent three of those in the mail I believe maybe one for me and veves and one for you Luke I am going to um I'm going to package up your shirt along with some holiday and valentine's cards that were uh uh directed directly towards you and I'm going to send them your way later on this afternoon By the way, I spent some time.

Well, actually, Andrew, you know what? I'll be in Seattle on Thursday. We're doing LiveWire at Town Hall if anybody wants to come. And then also I was thinking maybe of coming and doing, hey, news update. I was going to maybe come to your house on Friday and do the show. Is that okay?

On Friday? Yeah, that sounds great. Actually, that saves me a shipping label. So I can get the shirt then. I was going to say, because you have to send me a prepaid shipping label in order to send that to you.

We don't actually pay for return shipping of T-shirts.

I spent some time going through various Valentine's Day and also some holiday cards. I still had a really big pile of cards here from the listeners that have been sent over the past several months. And I'm sorry that I wasn't more speedy on it, but I was kind of playing darts and then I'd open a few cards. I play some more darts and I got to say a couple of things. First of all, some of your sentiments are so beautiful. Thank you so much for the kind words about what Luke and I do and what the show means to you. It was hard not to get emotional reading some of these. Also, our listeners have some of the best goddamn handwriting I've ever seen in my life. Not all of you. I've noticed that, too. Just going through the stuff that I've opened with you. Yes. Like, it's art. It's art. And I'm somebody who has relatively good handwriting. But, like, I am so, so impressed. I think we have a lot of probably, like, graphic designers and architects and those kinds of people who have their. very clear but calligraphers, scribes trappist monks exactly so anyway thank you for all of that thank you for the shirts I am going to play for you a voicemail now Luke from our friend Chris I was as I mentioned having drinks this weekend on Friday we got a text message that said hey I just left you a voicemail on the voicemail line you guys might want to listen to it and that means it could only be from one of two people the stew bot or msnbc's chris hayes this time it was from chris hayes i'll let him

take over from here hey guys how you doing uh it is your senior bidet correspondent calling in uh with i don't want to sharpshoot i would never sharpshoot of course we don't like sharpshooters but as senior bidet correspondent i have to note that i think in the intro to thursday's program Luke may have referred to going number two in the the new the new house up in the country in the bathroom that was cold as his daily constitutional. And I don't think that means what you think of me. I think I think a daily constitutional generally, my understanding is a means a walk, right? But it's possible I'm wrong on that, but just thought maybe we should get to the bottom of that. So maybe that's a good thing for one of us to look up. But me, as your senior bidet correspondent, since I am unpaid, I just decided to call the voicemail line.

Power out. Yeah, we got to get him on payroll.

Okay, a couple of things. Yes, you're absolutely right, Chris. That is generally, that's what, I mean, it means a walk. But I think when I was a kid, I either misunderstood that or somebody misused it and it just lodged in my brain. And now I'm sort of doing it as half a joke.

It's a common thing. This has come up on the show before. Yes, it has. Because you have said that, and I think we might have even been on opposite sides of it. I'm pretty sure this is my theory, and I'm pretty sure the Internet would back me up on this, that, yeah, traditionally speaking, a morning constitutional was a walk or even maybe a daily constitutional was a walk. But some but some hilarious person at some point started referring to their going to the bathroom as a daily constitutional as a sort of tongue in cheek way of referencing it. And now when you look it up, you'll get just as many results for like going to the bathroom as you as for the definition as you will going for a walk. I'm pretty sure that's my memory of our of our last dance down this road.

Now, on the subject, though, this is actually it's sort of, I guess, coincidental that Chris would leave that message as our unpaid, but still very senior bidet correspondent. Because just today, Andrew, I was up in the what was a garage, which is now going to be the future home of TBTL. And it's also going to have a bathroom in it, you know. And so one of the things, the guys who are going to be putting up the drywall are here, and they were in there, and we're kind of walking around. And, you know, when they put in the drywall, they also cut holes in the drywall for where the electrical outlets will be. And there's a very, there's a, you could say, semi-unusual electrical outlet at the base of where the toilet's going to go in the little bathroom. Just, I don't even know if I'm going to have a bidet in there, but I wanted to have the option. And a lot of them, the sort of more advanced, more involved ones actually need a power source. So while my dad and I were running the electrical, I was like, well, let's just, you know, we might as well have the option. And so one of the main dude doing the drywall was like, oh, is that going to be for a bidet? And I'm standing with like five, like, let's just say hardworking, kind of rough and tumble, like drywall dudes who I've literally just met two minutes ago. And I think you can appreciate this, Andrew. The energy between me and all of the working dudes that come out here occasionally is, let's just say, fraught. like I carry around so much just like awkwardness of like am I being enough of a like you know I don't know like first of all like for any of them to know that I'm in here like talking into a microphone for my job would I would sooner die than have that be public knowledge like there's just I just have a lot of weirdness around like dudes that are kind of like do jobs like drywall and then dudes like me that do jobs like this right and and so i it's very important to me that i like well let me just put it this way would you be surprised to know that the truck that dropped off all the drywall had many bumper stickers that were very very let's just say politically conservative andrew and and so i'm seeing that and i'm you know and i'm like again these are all good dudes i'm liking talking to them but it's like i'm very like insecure would be the word and also just like i just want to seem like i'm not some coastal elite out of touch whatever for a few reasons one because i'm just insecure and i want these folks to think i'm like a cool down ass guy two i feel like the chances of me not getting taken advantage of the the chances of of not getting taken advantage of are better if i come off as somebody who kind of knows what they're doing like as opposed to just like here's a blank check you know what i mean or i'll

be inside podcasting if you need me like uh and so anyway when the bidet comes up it doesn't argue not coastal elite and i looked at the guy straight in the eye andrew and i says to him i says to him my famous line that i think i stole from adam corolla but whatever i said if you got some peanut butter and a shag rug you wouldn't try to get it out with a paper towel and when i tell you that those guys laughed their asses off andrew that was the joke that maybe saved this entire construction project i don't know it was a great moment they would love adam carola they probably do it when i tell you andrew that that was the joke that broke the ice that got us all on the same page and we were off to the races my friend that's what happened today the bidet that saved the bidet that saved the bidet really is what it comes down to i mean they also i mean he saw that

and identified it immediately because bidets are very common now too i think it's from my dad

actually no here's how i think he knew about it there was a day where this guy came up to kind of scout the project and i had to be out of town but my dad was here doing some work and so my dad kind of showed him around and was and my dad's also very my dad doesn't know how to say the word bidet which is weird he calls it a bidet and i'm like dad i mean this is a man who calls it a latte but doesn't say bidet it's he contains multitudes walt does but i think walt probably explained to him that's going to be a bidet oh

that's interesting um i do think it's cool to be able to like kind of design your own place for small things like that like to say like my dad um when he and my stepmom moved into the place that they live now which is like a it's like a um well it doesn't matter it's a freestanding house it's some sort of condominium kind of arrangement it doesn't matter all of that is to say when they moved in it was an unfinished basement um but he wanted to turn it into like livable space which they've done he's now got an office down there and this great living space and a fireplace and tv and everything but the thing is he also it's you know had his own bathroom designed and installed or whatever you would call it built um and he was able to for all of his not all of but for whatever little quirky desire that he had he could just like design it into the bathroom like he has this old Bose receiver, like Bose, the audio brand that somehow worked with his then satellite radio. I can't remember all the details of it, but like he knew exactly what he wanted built so that these things could be installed so they could come through speakers that were built into the ceiling. And yet all of this was still protected from the moisture of a bathroom. And also and like just being able to like actually build around your needs. And that's exactly what you're doing. I don't have the brain for that kind of stuff. I don't think I have that that imagination or do I it turns out but no I think you do and then of course you like have been I mean I was thinking about that this morning too because like you're you're in this your brain you gave me a little zoom tour of your project as you're working on it up there now and like your brain is able to look at something and say okay remove that wall and turn this thing that was in the kitchen into a kitchen like I don't think my brain works in that way I think I'm very much limited to the walls that are around me sort of and of course You've been watching a lot of shows for your adult life where that is just kind of a common language that I don't really have interest in and other people doing it. So I guess it's just that kind of thing. But it is cool that you can just say, you know what, someday I might need a satellite receiver there or maybe like, oh, I can put in a USB plug there for my audio board or whatever it is. I guess I'm just blabbing. You're just customizing towards your personal needs and starting from a blank slate. And that's really cool.

that is i i do hope that that ends up you know playing out the way you're describing because yes we definitely in this garage it was a garage right but that's also i've realized that i just have this like script now because i've talked about this project so much to people and so now when people see me like my friends and stuff they always are like how's it going with the thing and i'm always like it's slow going like that's my response which is kind of like not fun but mostly i want to i once drunkenly told you and genevieve big party at my new house july 4th that was two july 4ths ago i believe so i think i'm like i'm now always in like people are always like i want to come by and see it and it's like you saw it on zoom it's still like a construction project it's not like a cool thing yet i think it will be cool if i get there but so i've got this whole like spiel now which is just like uh slow going like and i think part of that is because it is but also So these projects that I've done before, like Burbank Springs, and by done, I mean, did a lot of the demo, but also mostly paid, like at that time, my brother-in-law to do a lot of the work. Those were, it's actually much less ambitious to remodel a space that's already set up to be like a place you live in than to take something that was a garage and make it into a place that you could basically stay, like a studio apartment slash also a recording studio, et cetera. And that's the part that's just been really like kind of eye opening to me because there's just so much that I was watching these. I was sitting up there watching these videos last. I was literally sitting in the ADU watching videos of me and my dad doing parts of the project. And it's like first there was taking out all of the like weird ceiling and putting in these trusses. Then there was like drawing up where all of the plumbing is going to go. And then getting a jackhammer, first getting a concrete saw, renting one and cutting all of these channels in the floor, then getting a jackhammer and breaking up all these trenches, then burying all of the, it's just so much work. And if I think if I would have known how much work it was when I started, I wouldn't have done it. So I guess the good news is we're kind of in the home stretch here. And but man, I it's it's I guess my point is just this is also new territory for me, even though I have had some remodeling done on various houses, this whole the whole river. river house studio is it's a it's a breach even for me so you know i'm all i'm saying is that when i'm washing when i'm washing my medical portal uh after going to the bathroom manager after my morning constitutional when i'm washing my medical portal in that in that little bathroom

it better feel damn good because it has been a lot of work i'm really i have apologies to the find people at my chart dot net for not accepted not oh i thought you were apologizing to me for not laughing at that joke um i would i'd say you know these and i just cleaned up this basement bathroom of mine and again like it looks great by the way i'm excited like it's not customized like the way we're talking about it's still a very basic functioning bathroom but the fact that we were able to like kind of you know make it our own a little bit but you know the thing for me is I told you I just bought some, like, these kind of cheap assembled lockers online from, like, Overstock or something, and we assembled them and put them in there. I've never in my life had my clothes stored in the place where I get dressed. Like, my entire life, it's like, okay, I have all of my clothes in my bedroom, maybe, or as I got older, like, and you're in various apartments, like, I had some of my clothes hanging in a closet in my old studio. Some of my clothes were in drawers upstairs. I'd have to kind of assemble what I want and then get dressed in the bathroom, you know, whether it's partially or fully. And now like having like storage lockers in my own bathroom where I go in there, I don't have to like wake up in the morning and say, OK, go over here and grab your socks and T-shirt and come over here and then just like it's just such a small pleasure in life that every time. I mean, it's been a few weeks since or maybe a week since I've had those those shelves in there. It is so amazing. It's these small things in life that I'm just like, oh, my God, like it's it's such a pleasure to be able to just wake up bleary. I'd go in the bathroom and all of my clothes, everything I need is waiting for me in there. It's again, it's not like it's not some huge thing. But my God, is it notable?

You know, I'm not kidding when I say it never even like I've never gotten. I don't get dressed in the bathroom. Like, my move is get out of the shower, dry off, keep the towel around my waist, and then go to, and this has been the case.

Flaunt it.

Any, you know, anywhere I've lived, like, and I haven't, I don't think I've had many houses where the bathroom was connected to my bedroom, which I know is in style. I've never really been a huge fan of that. But anyway, that is so much more convenient, of course. Like, I hadn't really thought of that, but you're right. Like, yeah, you're getting out of the shower. You're drying off. Wouldn't that be the logical time to start clothing yourself? And I know there are people that have like some insanely fancy bathroom bedroom setups where you've got like a walk in closet and attaches to your bathroom. It's like a whole thing. But, yeah, that sounds really convenient. I should look into that because I've never done that.

But that actually makes a lot of sense, especially when you consider our setup here and our setup at our last place where like the bathroom was on a different floor than the bedroom. And so and again, in both cases, like sort of like unconventional, like my my drawers where I was where I was. I would keep my clothes were not like in the bedroom and they were not in the bathroom. They were like kind of tucked away somewhere in the basement. It's like it sort of felt like, OK, you get out of bed, you go to a different floor of the house. You got to collect all your belongings like it just kind of makes sense. I'm also more of a conservative person. I'm not walking around the house in the towel. But even with even at home when it's just you and the cats and Veeves. Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying that like I have strict, but like I tend to not really do that. It's just so nice to just get out of the shower, dry off. and yeah that actually does sound really convenient brush your teeth you can shave you know like even clean up my beard it's just like night it feels like a bit like a locker room you go in there you take care of your business you come out you're fresh as a daisy i just love it again it might not be for everybody but just a small thing like that where i actually got to say like hey listen we're going to be here for a while what would be my ideal and it's been ideal as they say that's great

yeah that has me realizing also there's no closet space in that adu like literally none like because that's the other thing sorry this is descending into just like boring construction talk but you were talking about customizing and that is true it up to a point in that i looked around the room and i thought okay where would the logical place for this be and this be and how would we do this and that so that was the customized portion but then there's the constraint of the fact that it was a flipping garage you know what i mean like a sort of standard like i guess two car garage if you had two small cars like so there's also a lot of limitation on the space because it's not like meant to be a home that somebody lives in maybe for you know their forever home it's kind of just like oh i can do tbtl from there i can look out at the river uh there could be a place where you could sleep and if you know you wanted to like airbnb it out or you had people over it's kind of a mother-in-law is the idea but there are things like yeah i just i literally just realized oh yeah no closet space that could be bad i'll have to work on that so Mm-hmm.

Do you have any extra lockers? Can you send me your overstock.com link for those lockers?

I think you might buy slightly more expensive ones. We bought the cheapest ones, which they're doing the job. But as I was assembling them, I was just like, can we ever just not get the cheapest of everything?

Overstock is definitely going to be just like, this might be on overstock for a reason. It's not called understock. It's not called we've sold so many of these. It's not called overbuilt. Let's put it that way. All right. Well, I think that that's probably a pretty good place to wrap it up here today. Plus, I need to go check on how it's going up there in the other room. So thank you, everyone, for listening on this Monday. We are going to be right back here tomorrow. Well, I don't know if I'll be right back here, but we'll be back on the imaginary radio with you for a Tuesday edition of the show. In the meantime, have a great Monday. Take care of yourselves. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

I should not have brought up baseball. I understand. My mistake. My mistake. You got to know your crowd.

Power out.