Muse

We have an amazing relationship. We both have so much in common. We both love soup, and we love the outdoors. We love snow peas, and talking and not talking. We could not talk or talk forever, and still find things to not talk about.

TBTL

This thing turns out to be half as important as I figure it just might be I'd say that you're all in line for some important promotions and personal citations

when this thing's over with Let me take off my assistant skirt and put on my Barbara Streisand in the Prince of Tides ass masking therapist pantsuit

Do not put that on the imaginary radio show

Hey, I've learned a lesson here, but I hope you all have too, about the vitality of shared experience. We will all remember this moment for the rest of our lives. It was dramatic, it was visual. It was stupid. It was stupid, but it was also theater. Ooh, fancy.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Monday edition of TVTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. To that end, we'd like a moment of your time to talk to you about video interpolation my name is luke burbank i am your host i'll say what's up coming to you from the playa del rey section of the greater los angeles california area looking far across town from the west side where i am all the way to downtown los angeles I can see the Hollywood sign in the distance I have an odd day It was raining earlier this morning Now the sun is out We're getting some sort of rainbow effects in certain places

Somewhere over the rainbow There's another rainbow

And we are ready, my friends For episode 3,904 In a collector's series Let the fun begin We tried to talk about this on Friday and ran out of time, as you know, whenever a big band goes out on tour now, the tickets, if the band is sufficiently popular, the tickets immediately sell out, and suddenly you're trying to pay $1,000 or something to see, you know, The Cure, in this case, who were not happy with Ticketmaster and their systems that allow this kind of stuff to go on. And so The Cure, the band actually got Ticketmaster to refund some of those onerous service fees.

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

And speaking of Ticketmaster and big national tours, the Taylor Swift Eras Tour kicked off in Arizona over the weekend.

Your voice is like a combination of Fergie and Jesus.

There were so many Taylor Swift fans descending upon the greater Phoenix area that it actually changed the cultural makeup of the town. They were calling it Taylor Town And it has certainly changed the cultural makeup Of my TikTok viewing We will talk about that As well and Time permitting We'll bring you up to speed on how the TSA Officially defines Peanut butter Is it a liquid or a solid We will delve into that 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 um he's not jealous that i'm down here in southern california while he's up

in the pacific northwest it's just so frustrating i want to be in florida getting a tan on my back

or maybe he is i don't know he's andrew walsh and he's joining me right now good morning my friend

good morning luke are you mad at me disappointed maybe tired of my antics

Did I do or say something Either during the intro to the show Or in our time before the program That would indicate to you that I am feeling that way Because I'm really not Unless there's something I don't know

No, I'm glad it sounds like you didn't notice it But I really kind of Put you in a bad position with the drops today

Oh, we had a little copy echo

We had a little Tobias echo In our intros I, of course, had this guy

Let me take off my assistant skirt and put on my Barbra Streisand in the Prince of Tides ass-masking therapist pantsuit.

And then you had Tobias.

Somewhere over the rainbow, there's another rainbow.

I mean, can you have too much Tobias, though, in a given episode of TVTL?

That'll be my license plate. Too much, too much.

too biased don't try it in maine not at all would never would never hi luke happy monday

uh you're joining us from where and why california again so i was uh supposed to the original plan was that i was going to be filming uh a story last week down here in southern cal and uh about caskets and the casket industry and a company that's looking to as they say disrupt the casket industry it's actually a very interesting story i know i kind of referenced it briefly but and this is a oddly funereal place to take the show right up right out the gate but do you know about the

funeral act of like 1984 andrew are you familiar well yeah well i 1987 was when i started following

the funeral well that would have been the same one it's uh hopefully soon to be updated by the FTC but I think we're talking about the same one basically if if you are you know planning a funeral for yourself or or a loved one and you go to like a funeral home and you're talking to the folks there they're legally required to give you a price chart of what everything is supposed to cost and so that you can actually comparison shop it's a very weird industry right because it's the kind of thing where it's like the intersection of commerce and grief and with people who are you know making these choices around what sort of ceremony to have and whether to get a casket or not etc are usually in a moment of pretty intense grief as well so they're not like probably in the best state of mind to like you know to comparison shop and it's just a very opaque industry and then the other thing that the the funeral act specifies is that a funeral home legally has to allow you to buy your casket from somewhere else if you want to and they will as you might imagine are are usually unlikely to tell you that a little dazzling deet like when you go to the eye doctor

and but it's in the back of a glasses shop and like they really make it sound like you kind of got to buy the glasses you got your eyes examined you're like no i think i'm gonna just take this

script and go somewhere else thank you exactly it's it's very much like that and um there it turns out there there is there are two companies that make all of the caskets in america that are sold through funeral homes and you cannot buy those caskets directly from the company and the funeral home will not sell you a casket from somebody else they've got this whole kind of they got a whole system going for everybody and so anyway these few people that i was interviewing the kind of owners of a married couple and then a business partner they got this this casket company i did turn down tell me what you think about this andrew i did turn down the opportunity to record a like what we call a top of the show tease where i was in a casket because i thought it might come off as a little bit too jokey for a story that's not it's not overly serious but it's also not jokey yeah no i think that's the right was it your idea

and then you dismissed it or a producer suggested it was not my idea it was it was floated I think

it was offered by the people who I was interviewing as like hey if you think that would be an interesting visual like it's okay if Luke gets in one of the caskets and then the producer said hey you know if you want to get in one of the caskets you can and I'm almost always with these things like I guess why not you know maybe it'll work it's almost always better to have stuff than not have stuff then there is the other side kind of wrinkle that sometimes i don't want to shoot something that i know once it's on tape i can't i can't get that toothpaste back in the tube as we like to say on this program like once it's been filmed and it's now in some kind of sony ci media file in new york it's no longer 100 my call whereas if we just don't shoot it then there's no danger of it getting used there's no danger of me getting outvoted on using it kind of a thing So I've become a little self-protective in that way Now that if there's something that I think I don't really feel super great about this Let's not even have it on tape So then we don't even have to have a debate about it later

I think that's the right call Unless, and there's one caveat here And the fact that you're in Southern California Makes me think that this wouldn't even be an option The only way I would do it would be If you were in a casket On like the top of a hill in San Francisco While they're sort of loading the casket Maybe into a truck or something go wrong but there's like a lot of banana peels and ball bearings around as well and then somebody slips or the next thing you know you're shooting what if the coffin itself just the bottom of the coffin oh yeah well just a naked dude just rolled i didn't rig shit i didn't do shit i'll kill you wow we did not have our uh our uh compulsory i think you should leave yeah i was just going for It's like Benny Hill style, like sped up motion of you in a casket, like shooting down the hills of San Francisco and then accidentally hitting things that are ramps and then you flying through the air while Yakety Sax plays.

Yep, you were hearing yackety-sacks in your head. I get that. Sure, yep, yep. You want to know, can I tell you another reason that I didn't want to do it? I was, you know, when I do these shoots, I put this weird powder in my hair called Topic, so I look like a little less bald. And sometimes, I mean, I have a whole system. I apply a light dusting, and then I kind of shake my hair out. And ideally, I'm at a point where the little, they're like, it's like static-charged keratin is literally what it is. And static cling is what caused it to stick to your existing hairs and kind of make it look like you have more hairs. But there was a chance that if I were to lay back on a white satin pillow in the coffin, in the Cadillac of coffins that they have, then I would have maybe left behind a little residue of my special hair building fibers. And then that would have been, I would have felt bad because I mean, I'm sure that pillow by itself is like $300 or something.

I want to go back to something about caskets here And without being glib about it I don't want to be insulting to people either But this is a feeling that I've had since a pretty young age This is a weird thing to say But when I was younger, I feel like a kid I mean, like a pretty young child Maybe between the ages of 10 and 13 I feel like I was attending a lot of funerals For various, you know, family members who were elderly or what have you. And now in my life, I got to say, I mean, knock on wood, and I'm very fortunate to say that I have not had to be at a funeral in quite some time. But one thing that always struck me was that, and again, I'm sorry if this is insulting to anybody for whatever reason, but one thing that always struck me was that caskets are kind of really ugly, like at least the ones that I was always around. Maybe that just speaks to the taste of the people around me. i'm online now by the way my um forget about my ads in instagram going forward because i just typed casket shopping into google and so now i'm looking at these things but a lot of them like the modern casket look is a very ugly look i see one here that is kind of like a very simple like like a squared off wooden box with handles that seems to like it's like a pine casket that seems

Yes, that'll run you $7.99. You've been looking at those on Friday. Oh, yeah.

I've seen one for $8.99, so I guess I need to use the...

Are you looking at Titan caskets, or where are you looking?

I need to use the Crackiton. Is that what that app is?

Use the promo code TBTL for $100 off your pine casket.

Did you say Titan? Is that it? Because, yeah, I am looking at the Titan casket. That's the only one here that looks kind of visually appealing to me. The rest of them, again, this goes back to something I've been saying since I was a young person. And they kind of remind me of, like, gaudy Tupperware containers or something. And that is maybe why, from an early age, in all seriousness, I was like, no, no, no, miss me with the whole casket burial thing. That is not for me. You can cremate me. You can green funeral me, like, whatever. But I don't want to be, like, in one of these airtight, big, puffed-up SUV beds.

You don't want to be in the Canyon Arrow? Yeah. Do you know what I'm saying? Well, I don't think it's for me either. Although I will also say it's not something that I gave a lot of thought to as a young person. I also didn't attend a lot of – here's the thing. I know for me everything comes back to finances when I was a child. I grew up amongst really poor people and like not just my family but like people that went to our church, my parents' friends. No one had the money. If someone were to pass away, nobody had the money for like a frigging casket. Like, you know, it would be – I mean, are you ready to get really dark on a Monday? And I'm the one who started this whole topic But like I had a little brother who passed away When he was six weeks old My little brother Matthew And my parents were so poor That they had no money for the funeral So the funeral home donated a box Not even like a casket But some other just very small box That was appropriate in size For my little brother's remains Which was buried In a funeral Or in a cemetery on like Queen Anne with no gravestone for I don't know 20 years after my parents didn't have enough money for a gravestone finally they they got it together to get him a little grave marker and of course we all went up there and posed for a picture that's now framed in my parents living room where you have like I think I don't know if David was born yet but you have I think maybe it's like six or seven surviving Burbank kids all just sitting in a semicircle smiling broadly Around the newly minted gravestone Of their deceased sibling All of that is to say

What to do with your face in that photo Is a real conundrum

Well we're all smiling Which is a weird You know it's kind of an odd thing But what are we going to look dour I mean it's sort of like Yeah what is the proper facial pose for that but all of that is to say I don't think I have been to very many kind of traditional funerals where it's like you know a big casket like you're talking about and maybe an open casket and it's at a funeral home I just didn't grow up around in a community of people where anyone could even like afford that kind of stuff generally speaking so it was all a pretty low key affair I think when plus also I grew up around people who believed that those people were not really gone they were just on a different astral plane or whatever um so it's not something i give a ton of thought to i will tell you this when i was looking at all those caskets on friday and i was looking at like from the pine box one you're looking at all the way up to the like fanciest one i thought if i was going to do any of these which i wouldn't it would be the pine box a hundred percent yeah i just want i just i told addy she just needs to drag me out to a hill somewhere like you know far away from from civilization just i don't want anyone happening upon me and then just leave me there for the crows i want a sky burial a sky burial what about shooting you into space well that doesn't seem

less expensive than a casket no no i have a system i just i've been working on something luke yeah really that's what you've been doing with your free time i need a tribute um yeah no i just

want to go you're gonna be left in the woods somewhere and just dissolve that's i mean honestly

like yeah i mean we're just again i mean good morning good monday morning to y'all hey y'all i uh yeah like a zoo that's why i mean they you know call it a green funeral but again since before i think they were calling it that i was always like well is there an option where you can just sort of put me under a tree somewhere like you know we know that things dissolve right like this idea of having a um this idea of i guess there's the marker thing right There's, like, if you have family that's going to come, I guess there's that idea of people being able to come to your gravestone or whatever.

Yeah, I think that provides a lot of solace for people. It can provide solace for people to go visit a place that reminds them of the person and to kind of talk to the person. There's something, I think, something useful about that.

You do it for them, I guess. But also, I've lived my life in a very nontraditional way when it comes to family anyway. So, you know, I'm not leaving.

Let's be honest. No one's visiting. Yeah.

It's just calling what it is. But when I say I live my life in a nontraditional way, I mean, I am what they call an asshole who nobody would want to come, quote unquote, visit. But aside from that as well, I'm not leaving like a legacy of family or what have you. So, yeah, I've always had a very, like, I don't know, just like I don't I don't want to be in one of these in one of these, like, very kind of cushy, puffed up beds that then seals in this idea that, like, it just seems to me that you're like blocking out the process that needs to that needs to happen. You know what I mean? You're just like, why are we preserving this?

It's definitely not something that appeals to me personally, but I do think it's a generational thing. I think it's cultural. You know, it's it's there are there there are people, although it's it's interesting. My sense is, and I have some data for this, and I've got to get more as we're reporting the story, but I do think that there is a decline in the traditional funeral partially because of the expense. It's really, really expensive, and every single aspect of it is monetized. So it's not just like the casket. It's the urn next to it. And then this is a special flower pot we use. It's for, you know, every single thing has a monetary value associated with it, every part of the way. You know what I mean? And it just can be really, really hard for people to pay for. And so you have fewer and fewer people doing it, which means somebody's got to figure out how to change the business model a little bit. I was even able to, and this was the greatest part, I was even able to steal Becca's joke and insert it, which I have already deployed to you about, because they are called the Warby Parker of caskets. And I said, do you send people five caskets and let them try them on? And they laughed and said, no, I don't know if that'll be in the piece or not. But if anybody sees it on national television, just know I stole that joke.

Can you do a tiny little like disclaimer at the bottom of the screen, like in a car commercial?

I don't know. I think I'm kind of using up my my number, my breaking the fourth wall, because when I beatboxed the other day, I looked in the camera and apologized to Addy. Like, I feel like CBS is going to get fed up with the point where I do something and then address the camera and clarify something.

Oh, okay. Yeah, I didn't know about that.

Maybe, you know, probably get to do that once every five or six stories. So the long-winded point, as we should, of course, per always on this show, we should be going to a break, is I was supposed to be coming home on Saturday and then I got a text from the people, a different division of the show that I work for, said, would you like to or could you do an interview with the actor Juliette Lewis about the second season of Yellow Jackets that's coming out? And I was already down here and I thought, yeah, that would be interesting. story and you know so i'm basically like staying here in between the events because and i was really i don't know i now i feel like that was i don't know if that was kind of the right call or not like i could have just it seemed to me like flying home and then flying back down over the course of three days was kind of silly but on the other hand it's only like a two-hour flight

you know what i mean so i'm kind of but you were also but you were also in a weird situation where you weren't sure how to get to the airport in lax and there was that i got a ride with our producer thankfully oh okay so oh so this doesn't solve that i thought by saying staying in southern california longer it just changes the whole dynamic of what you needed a rental car for i was

able to escape from anaheim okay which is a lesser a really lesser light of a kurt russell film um escape from anaheim no i was able to get out of anaheim because i got a ride with our producer on the casket story who was also heading towards la and had successfully gotten himself a rental car so i got here to la i still don't have a car but it's fine i'm just hanging out and hoofing it and uh i mean i could rent a car here at lax if i wanted to but i just don't really need it very much down here um so all so yeah so i'm here kind of in this weird donut of like time between stories but it was like i just couldn't couldn't quite justify the hassle of going to the airport checking in getting on airplane flying home being home for like a day and a half and then getting going back to the airport getting on an airplane flying back down here it just seemed kind of like i was going to end up it was going to almost not be worth it but i still haven't i still haven't

fully decided if that was the right call or not yeah i think you did but i mean you and i treat these things differently but to have to spend that much time kind of going through an airport and and doing all that shit uh it seems easier just to stay there resign yourself to it and try to find some some corners of joy over the weekend which i ran out of clothes so that's that was the first

issue and this morning i had to take a lift to a laundromat where i could give them my clothes so they could wash them and get them back this afternoon so i have something to wear to interview

juliette lewis i would say this and you're not asking my advice on this and maybe rightfully so but i would not do the intro to the juliette lewis story in a casket either oh okay well

andrew you have obviously never worked in television before and you've just exposed yourself for the neophyte that you are i'm embarrassed that's exactly how i'm going to open it um so that's the story on why i'm down here did you have a good weekend did you have a

restful weekend uh yeah i did uh let's see here yeah it was kind of a it was kind of a strange weekend um but uh yes i did genevieve had a um had some folks over here on friday for her tv club which consists of a bunch of friends of mine as well but i am not really part of the tv club they like choose a tv show to watch and then they make food uh based on puns uh yeah they were doing perfect strangers years ago right well that i mean that's how it started was i had just met sean detori this is going back i mean god that tv club must be japan's number one mixer yeah must be like i had i you know i had known of sean i was a fan of sean for a long time from listening to tbtl but then i moved to seattle then eventually i'm working working at cairo radio and he's my colleague and i know a lot about him from listening to the show and i know he likes perfect strangers i'm like you should just come over sometime we should drink some beers and watch perfect strangers he's like yeah some other colleagues i think kind of jumped on and then they started like saying oh well i'll bring certain like i can't remember what the puns were but i'll bring food based on a pun about belky bar taco bars or whatever and wasn't he from like meat posts

so maybe like meatballs yeah meatballs from meat pose or something so that's how it all started

and then it was kind of like oh i thought sean was just coming over to watch perfect strangers and then it kind of became this thing which i then said this seems like a fun thing for all y'all but i i'm not like really kind of part of the the the the i don't i didn't want to be part of the monthly or uh you know bi-monthly churn of this thing or whatever um and so now i think it's still in existence it's sweet i'm not dunking on it it's just like not it's you know like sitting around like sitting around with a big group of people watching a show somewhat ironically isn't exactly it's just not my speed that's not me saying that people shouldn't enjoy that but it's just not my comfort zone but it's strange when it's in your own house and so you're not going to go to the

basement and play darts well well actually i was probably even watched in the basement so you're not going to go upstairs and play darts while everyone's in the basement watching the tv show

basically whatever they were all making like i knew that i wouldn't really be interested in it you know like people bring food over and then they maybe prep it you know finish preparing it here in our kitchen or whatever and I was like I don't know what people are making I know that I probably won't want to eat it also and again this sounds like a criticism of the club it's their club but generally speaking when everybody's making stuff based on puns it doesn't come together into a cohesive meal I don't think usually you know I mean that's why there are

any New York Times best-selling cookbooks that are just based on puns based on TV puns and so So I came so I had to run some errands like the people were coming. over here around seven and i had to run some errands i'm like oh while i'm out i'll pick up some beer uh and you know what i'll pick up a pizza too because i'm like i that way at least i'll have pizza so i went to pudge brothers pizza i got the biggest pizza they had and i figured i don't really want to participate in their food situation so i want pizza like i need something we didn't have any food in the house for me to eat so i'm like well i'll just pick up a pizza and i was like well i know even though there's no pun involved here i know if i bring a pizza Everybody's going to want to eat the pizza as well

Do you remember what the TV show was? Because I would like the challenge of trying to figure out How to wedge a pizza into the pun of the TV show

Oh, that's interesting I didn't even try Silver Spoons was the TV show that they were watching

Okay, Silver Spoons, right That's Ricky Schroeder Let's see here Was Alfonso Riviera in that too? He was, yeah The buddy on that show Okay

Alfonso Ribby Pizza, you did it Uh-huh, sure. You did it, oh my god.

It was kind of a Richie Rich play, I feel like it was like the live action Richie Rich in a way. He had a remote control door, he had a train in his house, I remember that. I'm really striking out, this is harder than I thought it would be.

You probably want to go to IMDb, look up some more of the actors, look up some more of the characters, I don't really know. Either way, apparently me bringing home this, I overheard my girlfriend saying to somebody that me bringing home a pizza was a little bit of a poke in the eye, I believe. I see.

Just because it was kind of like you were setting up a competitive food situation to the – like somebody made some kind of nightmare dish just because it worked within the context of the night. Like, oh, great, I'm eating lewd fisk because that one time when Ricky Schroeder references it on the show and then you're over there with a pizza that makes no sense

based on the joke of the night yeah and i mean it looked like you know none of the food being prepared looked like gross or or or super exotic or or whatever like somebody made like a big long i don't know why but somebody made like kind of a really big long like submarine sandwich with really good ingredients on some sort of fancy bread and cut it up and that's all fine and good but like i'm not going to get into that with like cheese on it or whatever and again like it just the point is i didn't i felt like i didn't have a lot of options like i there's a party at my house I'm not really a part of it, but they're my friends. I don't want to just go leave. And also, I was just I didn't also I didn't want to leave. I didn't feel like because sometimes when stuff is going on and Genevieve has a party here or a clothes swap party or something, you know, it's kind of best for all parties if I kind of vacate the house for a while. And sometimes that's great. And then other times this was like a Friday night. I'd gotten done with work. I didn't feel like going and hiding. Oh, also, whatever. one of the people who is here is leaving a good longtime friend of mine who's part of this club is leaving for the east coast and so i don't know when i'm going to see him again so i'm like well i want to be here but i don't want to be here so i'm like well here are my options i can just be hungry or or nibble on the again looking at the spread i don't know what i would have nibbled on um i could be hungry i could get a pizza and like close myself off in my office and not let other people eat it that seems really rude i can buy the biggest pizza they have and say i bought this pizza because i wanted to eat something and you guys are welcome to have some if you want by the way it was the first thing gone and people were like is there any more pizza that was my next

question like of course it was of course it was someone's eating like a spoonful of some again just they're like one tear as they're eating something by spoon because it's silver spoons but it's they're spooning up a helping of something that they that nobody wants and

that you're just over there with a pizza well i'll say this i will give credit to my friend kristin who made some um lemon bars which is one of my favorite desserts and she did leave some

behind for me which i've been now what was how was what does this because i'll tell you what i'll tell you who life didn't give lemons to andrew ricky schroeder no well that is true trying to

figure out what the pun was i'm looking for the um i'm looking for like there would be an email chain somewhere talking but i feel like i'm i feel like i'm i don't know we don't have to talk

about anymore i hear i hear in your voice and rightfully so you're not trying to go down this road but i also totally identify with how you were in a bit of a you were in a bit of a pickle there yeah wanting to be wanting to be part of it but not not wanting to be antisocial but also not wanting to be fully immersed in something and wanting to make sure there was something you could eat um so you were trying to split a few different hairs and and it sounds like you did but also maybe uh in a way that caused people to just have some envy that there was actually good

food there well i don't yeah i'm not exactly sure i genevieve i gave me kind of a look when i came in the door with a large pizza because i had not discussed it with her and then i overheard her saying to somebody else like i like it's kind of a poke in the eye i heard genevieve say that i've not talked to her about this since um but i was also like I, I, I...

I didn't know what really what my options are. Also, like when they were watching the show, like the basement was really kind of crowded, full of people. I didn't feel like sitting on the floor and like watching with everybody. And I'm not a basketball person, but my beloved Penn State Golden Flashes were in the NCAA tournament. So I'm like, well, maybe I'll watch a little bit of that. It would be kind of funny. They were an underdog. They did not end up advancing. But I thought maybe I would just like kind of be in my office, which is near the basement. But I can like kind of watch my game in here. I wasn't sure. I mean, I guess the club is pretty like is pretty dedicated to their tradition of like, OK, we all dish up at the same time and we all turn on the show at the same time. And then I heard like singing, like people were singing the theme song together. Like, yeah, that's not my that's not my scene. So I'm kind of glad I'm making this decision. But I do think that and I'll leave names out of this. But one of the main organizers of the party really likes things done in the very specific ways when she organizes them. and i think that probably i was not her favorite person that night because they were all doing their thing and uh she's not a sports person she probably heard the squeaking of basketball shoes while i was chomping on pizza in my office it was sort of a it was a strange night yet i also had some really good time catching up with folks who i hadn't seen in a while when when when things loosened up a little bit uh in the in the trajectory of the night so anyway it was sort of

social but sort of weird i could see that totally happening too it's like once once the the mandatory TV viewing has kind of been put to the side and it's just a hangout time, then I'm sure you're probably really enjoying catching up with friends

and things like that. Yes, exactly. And I have to say too

that what you're describing is not the kind of thing that I would ever probably personally organize but it's the kind of thing, we were just talking about this, one of our listeners, one of our dazzling donors was talking about friendship in adulthood, particularly male friendships, but just I think friendship in general and how hard it is to make friends and maintain friendships when you get to a certain age if you're not intentional about it and like even though that's not something that I probably would organize I'm actually really impressed with the intentionality around doing things with friends and the fact that that group still exists I agree that's impressive to me like I wish that I was better about that stuff because I'm a little bit of a lone wolf myself you know like I have a few close friendships but it's like I don't i don't tend to do things like i would never schedule a friend hangout for two months in advance and actually it's like when you schedule a haircut two months in advance i can't even understand how you can pull that off that's like me with social plans like i just and i wish i was better about that so you know i tip i tip my cap to those silver spoons enthusiasts who were all smelling that pizza wafting out of your office and just no i'm looking down at their food i

no they they all enjoyed their food they also enjoyed the pizza and i'm glad i brought home

the big one yeah golly andrew i am sorry total topic change and we really have to go to break but there is the guy riding down the street on a bicycle he's riding down um manchester boulevard here where i am in um on the west side and he's just doing a wheelie he's still doing he's been doing a wheelie for like five city

blocks no hands one of those wheelies arms down on the side wheelie I've seen I don't think that's a

thing is that a thing yes no he's got his hands on the handlebars he's got his hands are on the handlebars oh and he just put it down that was amazing that kid should be in the circus anyway I feel like that maybe would be kind of a bummer at the circus if you haven't paid a bunch of money can you give me that line again

can you give me that line again but put a cigar in your mouth That kid should be in the circus

Alright, this show should be taking a break We should have done it a long time ago So let's do it right now And we'll be back with more TBTL in just a moment

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

Hey, let's thank some dazzling donors These generous folks are supporting the show With a dazzling amount of dough each month folks like sarah woodruff who's in silver spring maryland sarah says i prioritize being a tbtl donor because of how listening to the podcast and being part of the community makes me feel in the past i've used this space to report on how the show has gotten me through really profound grief and to urge other tens to get back to a regular schedule of checkups especially as we emerge from the pandemics crisis stages tell you what uh this feels like is this just are we andrew are we just kind of aging along with our demo to where most of the dazzling donor messages are calls to action regarding get to the doctor get into the doc yeah i think so oh man and And it's good advice, Sarah. It absolutely is. Sarah says, this year I want to talk exercise. Now, before you say, couldn't we just go back to discussing maggots in trash cans, as I would really prefer that, hear me out. Our minds and our bodies feel better when we move. And curing global loneliness will be less effective if we just generally feel like slop. Exercise does not have to be complicated or expensive and does not require fancy clothes or equipment. Unless that's how you motivate yourself. And if it is, then that's between you and your personal finances. I thought she was going to say personal creator, but okay, finances. What can you do in 2023 to just move? I want as many of us as possible to make 20, making it to 2024 and as far beyond that as we can. Love y'all so very much.

That makes me want to go for a walk right now. I'm not even kidding.

All right, Sarah, you got it. I'm going for a jog in Playa del Rey after this recording and before Livewire. True story. Actually, part of why I like staying in this particular hotel is because I now have my little loop that I do that I enjoy, and the other folks out there who happen to be walkers or runners probably kind of know that usually you get into a habit with it, and it's nice when you know where you're going to be. So, you know, what I really don't like is when I'm jogging, but I'm also constantly like on high alert of like, is this a dead end street? Am I like am I going to end up on some weird road where there's no sidewalk? So I will take your advice, Sarah, and hopefully our other listeners whose bodies allow for it will will be able to, you know, get kind of some sort of movement going. Maestro.

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

We've also got to thank Aaron Zienert of Situate, Massachusetts.

Genevieve had a good friend who grew up in Situate.

This is, I think, the pronunciation, in case you're ever wondering how to say it. The pronunciation is like getting a kid to eat. Sit-chu-it. Massachusetts. That's a very handy little memory device.

It is. It's also a very, very beautiful part of the country.

situate massachusetts i can't say that i've ever been there although i'm going to be flying into boston in a couple of weeks and then driving up to maine where there's a beaver habitat so i may pass through situate i don't know do you know what part of massachusetts it's in i feel like

in now we've we have um gotten to the exhausted we've exhausted my knowledge but i feel like it's somewhere where you would not just be passing through it are you looking it up It feels like the type of place That you would be going There to end up there not pass

Right it's a destination It's not necessarily like a suburb of Boston Or something Not a bedroom community but rather a destination

Yeah because I thought it was right on the water It's right on Massachusetts Bay Like south of Boston But like you know it's a Coastal town

Would you say that you're now Now that you've looked at the map Andrew

You're aware of where Situate is situated I would say that, that's exactly the type of shit I would say in fact Yes, we got there

Aaron says, I don't have anything particularly Spectacular to say, just that I Appreciate you dummies bringing me disposable Content today And yesterday's news tomorrow Keep up, keeping on And to all the tens out there Remember, quote, your mind is a garden What thoughts you plant will grow So be mindful of what you plant power out that is a very interesting way i used to have a girlfriend many years ago when i was like in my in my whatever like late teens who would say your subconscious can't take a joke when i would say something negative about myself she would say your subconscious can't take a joke this is i think a maybe even more elegant way of saying that like what the thoughts that we think they're seeds that we're planting and they're going to grow into something in our minds let's try to plant nice seeds about ourselves let's try to let's try to be nice to ourselves

out there is what I take from that definitely I'm looking to see where the where that quote originally comes from I see that you know it is it is something that exists online people quoted a lot but I can't figure out where it actually oh here it is Benjamin Franklin no just joking no it's not Benjamin Franklin you officially reached

the end of your Benjamin Franklin quotes I heard one from Emily Dickinson the other day that i'm going to misquote here but i still thought it was it struck me as being kind of interesting and it's a thought that that i've had and that many people have expressed in different ways but i believe it says i believe the quote is something like forever is comprised of oh man how did i how why did i go into this why did i decide to try to do this without actually having the quote at the top of my mind it's basically like it's like he

Eternity is comprised of a bunch of todays. It's not that. It's just the idea that, like. Forever is composed of nows. The future is only an idea.

Forever is composed of nows. That's what I was trying to remember. Although this is a now that I really wish it wasn't happening.

Well, the thing is, and I want you to know, I didn't look it up. I just knew that off the top of my head. I mean, I have, well, I have most of Emily Dickinson's quotes.

Forever is composed of small moments where Luke hates himself, I believe. Wait, what did I just plant in the garden?

Stop planting those poison seeds It's no big deal

Now there's also this link That Aaron has linked It's some YouTube You may want to consider trying this With the professor or bingo So I don't know what this is

I want to make this clear We're rolling the dice here a little bit Of course we literally rolled dice For the last Dazzling Donor Messages we did on Friday But this is like an additional note Where the Dazzling Donor gets to send a message maybe to John and the folks at APM. Like, this stuff is not necessarily supposed to be read on the air. But Aaron's extra little note here is, Andrew, you may want to consider trying this with Professor and Bingo. Those are our cats for those who aren't in the know. But I don't know what this link goes to. So do you have the link there, and is it clickable? Yes, I'm actually watching. You're watching? Okay, I'm going to open it up.

Time to feed my babies.

oh this is oh this is awful i think they're scared of me oh god

oh god i is wearing a very uncanny uh sort of cat mask so imagine the the dad if we'll say that of the cats is wearing a mask where he sort of looks like a cat but in a not very convincing way and then it's freaking the cats out so he yeah he says time to feed my babies he's got a

whole like a crib like a kind of a human crib filled with cats i don't know how many are in there luke enough to fill a catamaran maybe five are in there and uh and then he looks at them and they all go freaking out and jumping out of the crib and screaming down the i would certainly with

professor i wouldn't even because professor's already a little on the skittish side i would say i would i would i would probably politely decline the the offer it is so hard for me not

to tell you about all these micro changes we've noticed in professor bananas yes she's our older Cat and the one who has basically been Relegated to like a tiny corner of the house Because the kitten is always harassing her Until she just gives up and sits In the same perch on the back of the couch But this weekend and again These are the types of things when you live with a cat For a long time and when you're with a partner And you're constantly obsessing over The smallest details of the cat's Lives you notice like Vives and I all weekend were noticing that like Bananas is getting a little bit bolder

In some cases well when I came over the other day Bananas was chilling in the kitchen I mean, for like two minutes, but that's longer than I'd seen her in a long time.

Yeah, she didn't just like streak out of there and go find a tiny hole when the TV club people were over here. And that was a decent crew. She was she wasn't like hanging out and getting pets or whatever. But she, again, wasn't like going to ground, as I like to say, like she was kind of hanging and then finding her own little places and kind of nosing around. around and then anyway there are a bunch of small little things and we feel like she might be getting a little bit brave is the wrong word although I do sing to her sometimes that I want to see her be brave oh man that's a banger it is that's another one that I always assume is Katy Perry but it's not that is not that's Sara Bareilles I believe oh okay gotcha um could it be a Katy Perry song though I got into a whole thing with Genevieve and then I posted I mean it

You mean, is it reasonable that you would think it was a Katy Perry song? Yes. Okay, good. Is it a Katy Perry song? No.

I'm so glad you used the word reasonable because there's some song, not Firework by Katy Perry, but there's some other song that I thought was a Katy Perry song a few weeks ago. And Vives was like, no, that's not Katy Perry. And she made it sound like it was unreasonable for me to think it was Katy Perry. So I made an Instagram poll about this. Is it unreasonable? Do you remember what the song was, though? I don't. The interesting thing about it was I was able to see how everybody voted. I thought it would be like a blind result, but instead I could see all of my contacts, who voted on my side and who voted on Genevieve's side, although I didn't reveal whose side was whose. And so now I can kind of make a mental note when somebody comes at me with something. I'll be like, well, you kind of voted on the wrong side of that poll, something I plan on using.

I'm trying to scroll back. Now, is it in your posts or in your stories?

It was a story situation. So that's why I disappeared. I'm not able to see that then because that goes away, right? Yeah. You know what? Let me let's move on and then I'll break in at some point and tell you what it was.

OK, well, let's just say thank you very much to Aaron and Sarah for supporting TBTL today. Hello and welcome to Top Story. The Cure is going out on tour this summer.

And the, you know, they were getting caught up in that same sort of Ticketmaster situation that every other big band has been getting caught up in lately. Although the thing that I wasn't seeing, I'm sure this may be happening as well, when like Taylor Swift's concert was announced and same with Bruce Springsteen, the tickets were like $1,000 or like $2,000 just for tickets to the show. it seems like with the cure it wasn't quite that it was just that the service fees were like more than the cost of the tickets so people were going online and saying like i bought 80 worth of cure tickets and i had to pay 90 in fees and so then robert smith the lead singer of the cure who i've i i think it's interesting and i think i've come back around to being like sort of respecting the fact that robert smith has stayed with his particular look for all these years andrew because i feel like it's it's sort of one kind of thing when you're like 20 and you're like an emerging kind of rock person but it's another when you're well let me put it this way i think it's pathetic that the people from kiss are still wearing kiss makeup but i don't think it's pathetic with robert smith but it's because i like robert smith and the cure more than i like

kiss yeah that's good i mean that's got it because you like their you you like the cure slash robert

smith's um right so i'll be like you know what you're you're you're going for it you got the lipstick on you've got the the hair that's teased out you've got the kind of white makeup on you're looking vaguely heath ledger the joker like that's your thing dude and you're sticking with it all these years you're not like retiring it because you're now kind of a you know an older gentleman you're like this is this is what robert smith is always going to look like when he's performing and again i think i saw the cure at coachella one year and i think i was a little surprised that he was still doing that but now i'm like i'm like you know what because now why because a i love the music of the cure and b i love that robert smith got on twitter and basically was like i'm equally sickened by these ridiculous service fees and what's interesting is i didn't hear anything like this going on with like taylor swift um but somehow i guess this worked with ticketmaster who agreed they're going to refund now here's the thing it's like between five dollars and ten dollars on these various transactions um so it's not like you know if you paid a hundred for tickets there and they're they charged you 80 of service fees they're refunding the 80 it's still kind of a small amount but it does at least represent some movement and they also said that going forward uh there's going to be sort of fewer service fees charged on these tickets i'm i don't really understand why it is that i mean there was a was it a house committee or something i mean there was like a there was congressional there was a congressional hearing on this on the the cost of these tickets for these various concerts recently i'm not sure how it is that the guy from the cure got them to knock some money off but bruce springsteen didn't and taylor swift didn't

like they weren't able to yeah i'd like to see some uh meaningful movement on this and generally speaking it sort of sounds like just like these fee structures i mean it's it's it's just impossibly unbearable when you're talking about what's going on with ticket master and not even getting into the whole like you you can't buy tickets when they go on sale then a half hour later they're all sold out but they're being sold on the same website for five times as much by secondary market but it's still the same website like it's so impossibly illegal and such a screw like I just yeah but the fees on everything I'd sort of feel like we're getting to a point where we're just starting as a society and just starting I think to really push back on fee culture like again like I know that we've done ads in the past for like delivery services and I do use them so it's not bullshit but like especially in a post-pandemic world I feel like I can I told you I picked up my ill-gotten pizza this weekend, and I actually picked it up in person, which is something I'm doing a little bit more of now, because I just got so used to my entire adult life. I never picked up pizzas. You have them delivered, and you tip the driver, and you tip them well. But now it's kind of like, well, you order on this app, and then there's this fee, and then there's the city fee that's supposed to make sure that everybody's getting paid right. But is that money going in the right place? Then there's the taxes. Then there's the tip. And there are so many fees tacked on that you're buying a $20 pizza and literally sometimes paying $45 for it or something like that. That's actually – What?

I mean, easily. I forget what I was ordering the other day. It was like a pretty – it was like a sandwich from Jimmy John's or something. Actually, that's not true because I would have ordered that probably directly through the Jimmy John's folks. But there was something where it was like I was just getting like some kind of lunch or something and it was $50. Yeah. And it was, I wasn't, you know, this was lunch for one. It wasn't a crazy amount of stuff. Yeah, I, for me, I do use DoorDash a ton. And, but the thing is the apartment building that I live in in Portland, the folks that are delivering the food can't actually, they're not, they don't have access to the, you know, upper floors of the building. So I have to go from the apartment down to the lobby. And for me, honestly, that's the journey.

Like, I need to just start going and getting my, and again, you know, we do sometimes ads for DoorDash, but whatever. This is, you know, we'll let the marketplace decide. I should go and just get the food, pick it up myself more often because I've already had to put on clothes and, like, seem semi-coherent and respectable to go into the lobby of my building. That's, you know, now I can just get in the car and drive to the place. Like, I've already done the hard work.

Yeah, I guess. I mean, for me then – but then you got to have your keys, have your wallet, keys, wallet, phone. Like there is something about just kind of paying up front and not having to like leave the lobby. I mean, but again, maybe –

If I'm in the lobby, if I'm in public view, I've already lost the battle of social isolation that I'm trying to win, i.e. stay socially isolated and not have to see or talk to anybody. Yeah. But the other thing too is I have a whole system now. I don't order pizza through those delivery apps. So if it's a place that makes pizza and doesn't do delivery, I'll go get it myself because if you are ordering from a pizza place, my theory is, like, and you order from their delivery people. So you call up the actual place and you put in an order and you say, I'd like it for delivery, please, if they're one that still has that kind of service. You're getting someone whose whole job is delivering pizza, and they've got that, like, warming bag, and they might only be taking a pizza to you. if you're using one of these other services those people could be doing a grocery run they could be stopping at a 7-Eleven and picking up Haagen-Dazs ice cream for somebody like there could be many things going on for that delivery person and your pizza is just one of those things which to me seems like you know increases the chances it's going to show up kind of and be a little cold or whatever so I have many systems for doing this stuff and I'll tell you what most of them cost me too much money at this point

It's funny. I wanted to. So twice in the past couple of months, I've ordered a pizza from Pudge Brothers Pizza, and I wanted to avoid having using the apps and getting the fee charges and everything. And so, I don't know, a month or two ago, I called them something I had not done in years. And I called them and placed an order and said, I'll come by and pick it up. And they seemed fine with that. But I also sort of felt guilty. Like here it was like a Friday night, busy pizza making time. They probably don't feel like manning the phones, personning the phones, you know, like I wasn't sure if I was doing like because because I am old. And so I'm like, well, I'll just go back to the old fashioned way of doing it. And I'm not sure if like I'm really putting a wrinkle in somebody's process. If I'm doing that, I should get clarity on that. What I did on Friday, I was I had to run some errands was parked in my car and thinking I want to go to Pudge Brothers. i opened up i think the doordash app and ordered it online for pickup and i think i avoided any fees that way but i thought like this probably fits it just seemed like it might be more respectful to the people who are running the business but i don't even know that for sure i just didn't want to be the old man making people pick up the phone have you sort of dialed it in with some local restaurants in your area and you know that like it's good for them too to do it this way i don't

know i always call if i'm ordering there's a thai place in my neighborhood that i love and i always call in like i guess i just am assuming that there's still at least enough of us olds out there that it's part of the because i just don't for as you know as integrated as all the online stuff is in our life and in fact it's probably in a way easier because there's a more direct permanent record of it like what you ordered as opposed to you called and talked to someone and maybe they wrote the notes down wrong there's something about talking to a human being and saying i would like this and this feels to me more reliable than using the online ordering form even though there's probably zero there's probably zero evidence for that or whatever i that's just sort of how i feel because i am soon to be andrew and wait for it 47 oh that's right that's that's a name right are you 46 now yeah i'm 46 so i'm gonna be 47 i had that i did that thing where i forgot how old i was the other day i think i was sort of hoping i was 45 still yeah it's those in between the fives and zero years where you can really lose track yeah now um the other thing that was going on that i mentioned at the top of the show related in a way to sort of ticket master was the taylor swift uh eras tour kicked off i believe i think this was the beginning of it was in arizona it was down in glendale arizona which is a suburb of phoenix it's like where they play the super bowl seemingly a lot and all i can tell you andrew was my over the weekend as i was uh relaxing by the swimming pool here at the hotel and just mindlessly spending my time on tiktok um pretty soon all i was seeing was footage from the taylor swift concerts and this was the real this was the um the kind of content i was getting it was basically like normal Fans of Taylor Swift, i.e. people who are not Particularly celebrities, just people who got tickets To the show, filming Celebrities Freaking out to Taylor Swift So it'd be like, oh, there's Emma Stone Freaking out to Taylor Swift There's Hayley Williams from the band Paramore Freaking out to Taylor Swift, there's Fill in the blank, so I just was seeing What I really know is that there were a lot of famous people Who were really losing Their shit over Taylor Swift That's what I know happened this weekend

Let me ask you this Do we know if Taylor Swift did the song This girl is on fire

Is that the song that you thought Reasonably could have been a Katy Perry song

That is the song that I thought It's reasonable to think is a Katy Perry song Now here's what I'm realizing now And I don't know if I knew this It is Alicia Keys It is Alicia Keys And I think that is why Because I'm just like I understand you saying that Like, you know I don't know The fact that I stated it, is it unreasonable to think that that song could be a Katy Perry song? It seems like, how could you say that's unreasonable? By the way, that poll ended up being like 75% of the people said it's not unreasonable to think that. 25% of the people thought, yes, that is unreasonable. But I'm like, unreasonable? And now here's what I'm realizing. It's because people like Alicia Keys has more general respect from people who love music. Right. Like Katy Perry, even like Katy Perry is sort of dismissed as it's like kind of a kind of a silly pop idol, whereas Alicia Keys has like stronger cred in as far as a musician and songwriter is concerned.

Huh. I mean, I know that Alicia Keys has a lot of cred as a performer and like plays piano really well. And like, you know, I know that Alicia Keys has Alicia Keys has cred. I don't think I would feel comfortable describing the feelings of the fans of Katy Perry, because my guess would be they would tell you that she is very much, very much a new musician that's and a performer that's on the level of an Alicia Keys. I do think that they have sort of also different different styles. I don't think you would see Alicia Keys necessarily dressed up like a Christmas cake with like sparks flying out of her brassiere, which is like that's what I'm talking about. pop yeah and they I think they present kind of differently in their performances that yeah and

I'm not afraid I'm not afraid to say it I mean I'll take the heat like I I like it because I'm comfortable because I like Katy Perry I've said before that like of the Super Bowls that I actually watched in the past couple of decades or whatever like Katy Perry is number one with a bullet for me like I I'm not a huge I don't listen to Katy Perry I'm not like driving around bopping out to her albums but like i i like her shit i don't know much by alicia keys but i'm guessing that the 25 of people who found it unreasonable to make that can to be confused about that point probably look down at katy perry as being very silly like you say with sparklers and pinwheels coming out of a boot bustier and like whatever else is going on whereas alicia keys is behind a piano like actually like you know and i'm not even i'm i'm just trying to guess what's going on in the mind of people who think that that is unreasonable here's another thing that i should mention i have no idea what else happens in the song this girl is on fire other than the part where she sings loudly this girl is on fire so i'm also probably not in the right the right person to be sticking this ground out because i don't know that song i think the the

first it opens with this girl is plugged into an electrical outlet that doesn't have a gfi oh that it's this girl's the cord is kind of frayed that seems dangerous uh-huh so setting it up i like this right yeah this girl is kind of this girl is leaning against some loose papers that are very dry and honestly could go up at any point and then you know by the end this girl is on

fire yeah i love the way it closes the loop that's what song about fire safety that's what Best practices.

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

All right, emails, v-mails, let's go to Hawaii. Let's please go to Hawaii. Actually, I mean, I say that, you know, Hawaii is a beautiful place full of wonderful, beautiful people. and Hawaiians are equally whatever they say about Australia. But I'm in Southern California. I'm looking out at palm trees. It's not crazy nice today, but it's still. My point is I don't have a right to be wistful about Hawaii when I'm also currently like four blocks from the beach in Southern California.

Yeah, and also, I mean, it's a little gray outside my window today, but, man, we had a beautiful weekend here. Vives and I got into sort of an outdoor project, a little renovation and a little... I'll tell you about it some other time. We can't get into that now.

Well, today's the first day of spring, too, right?

That's right. Today's the first day of spring, I believe. So, yeah, no, I'm happy to be here in beautiful Seattle. I want to, though, play for you this voicemail. Can you still hear me okay? I just had a weird pop-up on my computer. For some reason... I hear you just fine. FileZilla wants me to update this in the middle of the show. I'm not even using FileZilla. Calm down. You ever use FileZilla for anything, Luke? It is the app that asks you to... I mean, not in 20 years. I use it every day. To upload the show It's an FTP client

I know I just haven't used I mean I use Dropbox This is the part of the show where we just compare FTP stuff but like I haven't Listen takes a drag off of cigarette Filezilla That's a name I haven't heard in a while Like I haven't I used to use it you know all the time in radio But it has been forever since I've used that thing

It is amazing One of my most popular tweets ever was when I tweeted out One of these days Filezilla isn't going to ask me if I want to update, and I'm not going to know what to do with myself. It is astounding how FileZilla just needs updates constantly. It's probably security stuff. I don't know. All of that is to say we got a voicemail from listener Jack, who's in Honolulu. We must have been, I find this hard to believe, but we must have been at some point, Luke, on this show talking about awkward interactions with people. Doesn't sound like it. Maybe you brought it up. Doesn't sound like something I'd bring up. But anyway, Jack wanted to talk about that.

Hey, Luke. Hey, Andrew. This is listener Jack. in Honolulu, I was listening to your discussion about unnecessarily awkward social interactions, and I have a thing where if I call a store, and I'm trying to see do you have any of this thing left in stock, and they say, oh yeah, we have one of those left, or what time do you close, and they tell me, then if I later go into that store the same day, and the person asks me, oh hey, was that you on the line? My instinct, and what I often do is go, no? What are you accusing me of with that kind of attitude, you know? And I have no idea why I do it, I did it when I was a teenager, and I finally grew out of it, but I'm 34 now, and I still do it. No idea why, but that is one unnecessarily awkward social interaction I think will be with me forever. Anyway, power out.

Now, when I listened to this voicemail this morning, by the way, I am behind on voicemails. I think this was sent in like three weeks ago, and I heard it this morning. So if you're waiting for your voicemail to be played, give it time. Give it a few years. But I think I was really shocked where that went. And I thought Jack was going to say when I, you know, call into a store and have them hold something for me or whatever, then I go pick it up. Well, actually, that's a different scenario because it's obviously you in that case. I think that I'm more likely to mention, oh, I think I talked to you on the phone earlier. And then, like, there's no reason for me to do that. And then that leads to an awkward conversation. Like, why would I do that? But I feel like that's my kind of like I now have homeowner's insurance and I'm acting like my dad kind of vibe.

I agree with you that for me, it is oddly a pleasant experience to be associated with the previous phone call that I've made. I can't remember what it was, but this happened literally a week ago and I went in somewhere. I'd called to ask if they had a certain thing and they said that they did. And then I went and I got it and they said, oh, were you the person who called about that? and it feels to me like it's just putting a nice little bow on the interaction like for me it's like yes i was that person and look you did have it and now i am buying it i'm not just somebody who calls up stores and asks about things and then doesn't follow through i'm a man of my word

like a cock crow somewhere jack's like no i never called this place right i feel very validated by

being the person who had you know promises made promises kept exactly i was gonna come in i asked you if you had this thing and now look at me here i am i wasn't pranking you i wasn't asking you if you have prince albert in a can or if your refrigerator is running i was not wasting your time good shopkeeper i am now here buying the thing i said i was gonna buy you show up bowling

ellie you're like you really do have 12 pound balls that is amazing that is great you know i just made that quick reference to the progressive commercials you know you're becoming your parents when and i sort of felt like i was that i'm sort of doing that when i interact with a clerk in that way and it just occurred to me that the last time the thing i'm thinking of was me buying a book based on that joke i called a local bookstore used bookstore in town uh i think i know where this is going i believe i observed this tome yes so in those progressive commercials um there's a quick joke where there's you know a man in his i don't know 20s or 30s or whatever and he's reading a book about submarines and dr rick says to him who else reads books about submarines he's like my dad. And so the idea of reading books about submarines is something that old people do. Vives and I reference that all the time. So when Genevieve celebrated her 45th birthday last week or two weeks ago, I got her a book about submarines. And so I

And there was one that's a really good spoof. What is it called? Like Blind Man's Bluff or something like that was a book written like 25 years ago. But it seemed that I wanted to get her a book that was a joke. But also, if she wants to read it, it's actually pretty good. So it sort of sounds like this is the one to read. It's going to be a real page turner nonfiction book. And so anyway, I called the bookstore and it's in the university district. So I'm kind of like, you know, I always think I'm I always feel very old in the university district where young people live and work.

Why don't I just get a boba tea as cover and just carry that around? And everyone will be like, he must be young. He drinks boba tea. And then I'll be choking on it. He likes to possibly aspirate on tapioca.

Nothing younger than that guy who's rolling around on the sidewalk clutching his throat. But I called. He said, I got the book. I'm like, oh, that's great. I really thought I was going to have to order it from Amazon because I was cutting a little bit close. And I was so psyched that this great little used bookstore called Magnus Books. Is it Magnus? Yeah, Magnus Books had it I think it's Magus, right? Is it just Magus? I feel that's

And I think that's like a reference It's like M-A-G-U-S, right? Yeah, you're right

Magus But it sounds grosser that way What is it a reference to?

I don't know I assume something Greek I don't know why that word seems like it's some kind of I don't know It's clearly a reference to something literary that is over our heads

Yes, okay So anyway, it's Magus Thank you for correcting me on that Because I always call it Magnus and that's wrong

Well, it's unfortunate it's been magus since i was a kid or mad just i'm not sure how you pronounce it but of course maga is you know if you're hearing us just say it it's like you're gonna be like huh maga books what it's like magus thanks thanks for ruining thanks for ruining something else maga people

wait a second though magus if it's magus that changes everything and it's like related to magi

Oh, okay.

The priests, like a magi, magus. Well, that's interesting. Magus. Anyway, so I call magus books. They have it. I say to the young man on the phone, I'll be there in a little bit. I come down maybe an hour or two later, and I get the book, and he said, great timing. And I thought he meant, like, maybe something about reading about submarines, because I think it was like it's a Cold War thing. And I wasn't sure if he meant, like, with everything going on with Russia and Ukraine and the U.S., But he just meant good timing that I made it there so quickly. And we had a little we had a little moment. Then I then I made the mistake of going too far and explaining why I was buying this book as a quasi joke. And he feigned a little bit of interest, but I felt like I could have just like let it go at good timing.

Right. Because then also it's kind of like, hey, this thing that you sell, it's a joke to me. I mean, I know you were picking the book because what I do like about this is that you were still trying to find the most readable submarine. Submarine related book So it wasn't just Completely a sight gag That was immediately Going to get thrown out Or sent to goodwill You're like If I'm going to get a book About submarines This is one that might Also be good to read So

Yeah I spent some time On Goodreads Because I found some other ones That were much more modern Because again This book goes back to I believe the late 90s And I thought Well maybe that'll be Kind of dated But like You know When you go onto Goodreads Luke And this is like You know Like kind of This is You can read about how other readers enjoyed or didn't enjoy books and they'll rate them but they're not professional reviews they're just like user reviews of books um you get a lot of when you're looking up submarine books you get a lot of people saying this book was very complete um no detail was left out of this book at times though it was you know it fell under the weight a bit of its of its detail you You know what I mean? Like trying not to be rude because it's Goodreads, but also being like, you know, it's a bit of a slog. And so this was the one Blind Man's Bluff, the untold story of American submarine espionage.

The whole culture, the subculture of Goodreads and people who obviously love books. Why else would you be reviewing books on Goodreads? But but want to be accurate, but don't want to be like trolls is a fascinating subculture. Because sometimes I'll look up, you know, when we're having someone on Livewire and I've read their book, I'll look it up on Goodreads to see what the general consensus is. My feelings about it kind of square with what other folks are saying or whatever. And it is, it's just, it's a bunch of people who love books and they love that books are being written and they'll read books so they can post their reviews. But they also don't want to just be like negative because anyone reading any book or writing any book is a good thing in their minds. So the ways that they just kind of, like you said, sort of subtly indicate that there were some things about the book that they didn't love. And then they almost end it by saying, still thought it was a great book.

Still thought it was a great book.

Even though it's like, you know, they'll give you some kind of a little bit of like, well, one thing I wish I could have maybe had a little more of in this was this. But I still would recommend. Like, it's just such a it's such a generally.

positive community i kind of love it for that you know what you should do i think this is a very

good idea um when you invite these guests on live wire and you're on stage with them i should say these authors you should start start by asking do you know what your book is ranked or rated as on goodreads and they probably will not know and then you can reveal it to them and then figure

out how they feel about that rating i bet they will know you think so don't you think well it depend i mean i it would depend on how if they're insecure or secure so i guess really what we're asking are you an insecure person or not which is a good way to open it's a good low that's what i

like i like i like sort of sandbagging them anyway can i be your producer no but we do need a backup host oh okay i can do that do you have to know how to read um no but but you do have to have

someone who recently had a dream where they crushed it solo hosting tbtl well let me see

Let me check the Rolodex.

See if we got anybody. All right. That'll do her for today's episode of the show. But we are going to be right back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you. In the meantime, have yourself a great little Monday. Welcome to spring, everyone. We made it. Here we are. We'll see you tomorrow. Please remember, no mountain too tall.

And good luck to all.

I'm driving my kids to school right now, and we just got cut off, and my seven-year-old yelled at the car not to cut in line, and then she told me it was a very rude car, and then I remembered polite car, and then I laughed for about two minutes straight. Power out.

Power out.